Classic Fiction

by Hal Clement

  “It is possible that I am less well acquainted with your language than I had believed,” were his words. “Do I understand that you have left two children unsupervised in a ship in space?”

  “Not exactly children, sir,” protested Flanagan. “The human girl is old enough to have a good deal of sense, and your own son is hardly a child; he’s as big as you.”

  “We attain our full physical growth within a year of birth,” snapped the Drommian. “My son is four years old, about the social equivalent of a human being of seven. I was under the impression that human beings were a fairly admirable race, but to give responsibility to an individual as stupid as you appear to be suggests a set of social standards so low as to be indistinguishable from savagery. If anything happens to my boy—” He stopped; Flanagan’s face had disappeared from the screen, and he must have missed the last couple of sentences of Aminadabarlee’s castigation; but the Drommian was not through. He turned to Raeker, whose face had gone even paler than usual, and resumed, “It makes me sick to think that at times I have left my son in charge of human caretakers during my years on Earth. I had assumed your race to be civilized. If this piece of stupidity achieves its most likely result, Earth will pay the full price; not a human-driven ship will land again on any planet of the galaxy that values Drommian feelings—the story of your idiocy will cross the light-years, and no human ship will live to enter Drommian skies. Mankind will have the richly earned contempt of every civilized race in—” He was cut off, but not by words. A rending crash sounded from the speaker, and a number of loose objects visible on the screen jerked abruptly toward a near wall. They struck it loudly and rebounded, but without obeying the laws of reflection. They all bounced the same way—in the direction which Raeker recognized with a sinking feeling as that of the tender’s air lock. A book flew past the pickup area in the same direction, and struck a metal instrument traveling more slowly.

  But this collision went unheard. No more sound came from the speaker; the tender was silent, with the silence of airlessness.

  III

  Nick Chopper stood in the doorway of his hut and thought furiously. Behind him the seven other survivors of the raid lay in various stages of disrepair. Nick himself was not entirely unscathed, but he was still able to walk—and, if necessary, fight, he told himself grimly. All of the others except Jim and Nancy would be out of useful action for several days at least.

  He supposed that Fagin had been right in yielding to Swift as he had; at least, the savage had kept his word about letting Nick collect and care for his wounded friends. Every time Nick thought of the attack, however, or even of Swift, he felt like resuming the war. It would have given him intense pleasure to remove Swift’s scales one by one and use them to shingle a hut in full view of their owner.

  He was not merely brooding, however; he was really thinking. For the first time in a good many years, he was questioning seriously a decision of Fagin’s. It seemed ridiculous to suppose that the Teacher could get help; he hadn’t been able to fight away from the cave village without Swift’s people during the attack, and if he had any powers Nick didn’t know about that was certainly the time to use. them. Getting away at night didn’t count; he’d be tracked and caught first thing in the morning.

  But wait a minute. What could the cave dwellers actually do to Fagin? The hard, white stuff the teacher was covered with—or made out of, for all Nick knew—might be proof against knives and spears; the point had never occurred to Nick or any of his friends. Maybe that was why Fagin was being so meek now, when his people could be hurt; maybe he planned to act more constructively when he was alone.

  It would be nice to be able to talk it over with the teacher without Swift’s interference. Of course, the chief couldn’t eavesdrop very effectively, since he couldn’t understand English, but he would know that a conference was going on, and would be in a pretty good position to block any activity planned therein. If it were practical to get Swift out of hearing—but if that were possible, the whole thing would be solved anyway. The meat of the problem was the fact that Swift couldn’t be handled.

  Of course, it was night, and therefore raining. The invaders were being protected by the village fires, at the moment; however, Nick reflected, no one was protecting the fires themselves. He glanced upward at the thirty- to fifty-foot raindrops drifting endlessly out of the black sky, following one of them down to a point perhaps three hundred yards above his head. There it vanished, fading out in ghostly fashion as it encountered the updraft from the village fires. It was not the drops straight overhead which were troublesome—not to Fagin’s village.

  Another, larger drop beyond the glowing protective double ring accomplished more. It settled to the ground fifty yards beyond one of the outer fires. The ground had been cooled enough by its predecessors to let it remain liquid, so for a short time it was visible as it drifted toward the blaze under the impulse of the fires’ own convection currents. Then radiated heat made it fade out; but Nick knew it was still there. It had been crystal clear, free of suspended oxygen bubbles; it was now pure steam, equally free of combustion’s prime necessity. Nick would have nodded in satisfaction, had his head been capable of free movement, when the fire in the path of the invisible cloud suddenly began to cool and within a few seconds faded from visibility.

  If any of the attackers noticed the incident, they certainly did nothing. None of them moved, and the fire remained out. Five seconds later Nick had his plan worked out.

  He emerged fully from the hut and walked over to the main fuel magazine. Here he loaded himself with as much as he could carry, and took it back to the building where the wounded were lying. None of the raiders stopped or questioned him; none had spoken to him since the truce had been concluded. Inside the hut, he quickly built and lighted a fire. When it had come to an even glow he lighted a torch from it and walked back to the woodpile. Casually he stuck the cold end of the torch into the pile, as though to illuminate his work; then he made several more trips carrying fuel to the hut, leaving the torch where he had placed it. Eventually the building could hold no more wood, so he ceased his labor.

  But he left the torch.

  Tenebran wood glows punklike; it does not flame. It took some time for the stick to burn down to its base, and still longer before the increase in brilliancy of the region around the village showed that the main stack had properly caught. Even then, there was no reaction from the invaders. These had gathered into a tight group surrounding the robot, which had remained in its usual position at the center of the village.

  By this time, more than half of the peripheral fires were out, most of them in the outer ring. One or two of the inner ring had also been smothered, and Nick began to get an impression of uneasiness from the clustered cave dwellers. When the last of the outer fires died, a mutter began to grow from their ranks, and Nick chuckled to himself. Swift just might have a little trouble handling his men as their protection from the rain vanished, and no caves were available. If the muttering continued, the chief would certainly have to take some action; and all he could do, as far as Nick would see, would be to ask Nick himself for help. That should put quite a dent in his authority.

  But Nick had underestimated the big fellow. From the vicinity of the robot his voice suddenly rapped out in a series of orders; and obediently a dozen of his men ran from the outskirts of the group toward one of the fires which was still burning. There, to Nick’s disgust, they seized sticks from the small woodpile at its side, lighted their ends, carried the torches to the dead fires, and rekindled these without the slightest difficulty. Evidently the cave dwellers didn’t sleep all night in their holes; someone had watched his fire-technique long enough to get at least some of the idea. If they also knew about replenishing—they did. More wood was being put on all the fires. Nick noted with satisfaction, however, that it was far too much wood; he wouldn’t have to wait too long before the small woodpiles beside each fire were exhausted. The cave dwellers seemed to have taken the now f
iercely glowing main pile as another bonfire; Swift was going to have to do some fast thinking when the reserves disappeared.

  This he proved able to do. It was fortunate that Nick had been able to keep awake, for Swift’s men did not announce their coming. They simply came.

  They were unarmed, rather to Nick’s surprise, but they approached the hut door without hesitation, almost as though they expected him to stand aside for them. When he did not, they stopped, the foremost half a spear’s length away. He may have intended to say something, but Nick spoke first.

  “What do you want? My friends are all wounded, and can’t help you. There is no room in the hut. Go to the others, if you want shelter.”

  “Swift sent us for wood.” It was a calm statement, with no “or else” concealed in it, as far as Nick could tell by the tone.

  “I have only enough to keep my own fire going for the night. You will have to use the other piles.”

  “They are used up.”

  “That isn’t my fault. You know that wood burns up in a fire; you shouldn’t have put so much on.”

  “You didn’t tell us that. Swift says that you should therefore give us your own wood, which we saw you taking, and tell us how much to use.”

  It was evident that the chief had seen through at least part of Nick’s scheme, but there was nothing to do now but carry it through.

  “As I said, I have only enough for this fire,” he said. “I shall not give it up; I need it for myself and my friends.”

  Very much to his surprise, the fellow retreated without further words. Apparently he had gone as far as his orders extended, and was going back for more. Initiative did not flourish under Swift’s rule.

  Nick watched the group as it rejoined the main crowd and began to push its way through to the chief. Then he turned and nudged Jim.

  “Better get up, you and Nancy,” he whispered. “Swift can’t let this go. I’ll fight as well as I can; you keep me in ammunition.”

  “What do you mean?” Nancy’s thoughts were less swift than usual.

  “I can’t fight them with axes; they’d be through in two minutes. I’m tired and slow. I’m going to use torches—remember what it feels like to be burned? They don’t; I warned them about it when I was at their village, and they were always very careful, so none of them has any real experience. They’re going to get it now!”

  The other two were on their feet by this time. “All right,” agreed Jim. “We’ll light torches and pass them to you whenever you call. Are you going to poke with the things, or throw them? I never thought of fighting that way.”

  “Neither did I, until now. I’ll try poking first, so give me long ones. If I decide to throw, I’ll call for really short ones—we don’t want them throwing the things back to us, and they will if there’s a spot where they can get a grip. They’re not too stupid for that—not by a long day’s journey.”

  Jim and Nancy gestured agreement and understanding, and turned to the piles of firewood that almost covered the floor. The fire was burning quite close to the doorway; Nick took his stand once more in the opening, and the other two on either side of the blaze, where they could hand torches to him as rapidly as he might need. Everything was ready when the party returned to the hut.

  It was a little larger this time; Swift himself had joined it. They approached to within half a dozen yards, and spoke briefly and to the point.

  “If you don’t let us in to get the wood, my knives will take care of you. You have seen what I mean.”

  “I have seen,” acknowledged Nick. “That’s why I want nothing to do with you. If you come any closer, it is at your own risk.”

  He had never before seen Swift hesitant or uncertain, but for just a moment now the chief seemed to be running over the implications of Nick’s words. Then he was himself again.

  “Very well,” he said, and swept forward with four spears couched along his forearms.

  Nick’s battle plan had to be scrapped at the beginning; the spears were longer than his torches. He did succeed in striking their points aside before they touched him, but he could not reach Swift even with the spears out of the way. His hatred of the chief seized his judgment for an instant, and he hurled both his left-hand torches at the giant’s crest.

  Swift ducked, barely in time. Those behind him were in a close-packed wedge whose central members were unable to dodge quickly enough, and howls of pain arose in several voices as the torches struck and scattered burning coals in all directions. The chief ducked backward to just beyond spear’s length, resuming his attack stance.

  “Half circle!” he snapped. The warriors obeyed with speed and precision, forming a thin line centered on Nick. “Now all at once—get him!” The semicircle contracted and the spear points came toward the door.

  Nick was not too alarmed. None of the attackers was in a position to deliver the upward thrust which would get under scales; stone points were more likely to push him back than to penetrate. If he were pushed back against anything solid, of course, it would be a different story; the real danger at the moment, though, was that several of the fighters would get within knife range at once, and so occupy him that a spearsman could get close enough for long enough to strike from below. For just an instant he hesitated, wondering whether he should throw or strike; then he made up his mind.

  “Short ones!” he ordered to the helpers behind him.

  Nancy already had several foot-long sticks with their ends in the fire; she had them in his hands instantly, and was lighting others. For perhaps ten seconds Nick did his best to emulate a machine gun. More than half his projectiles missed, but a good many didn’t; and after the first three or four seconds another factor complicated the fight. Still burning torches and fragments of glowing wood were being more and more thickly scattered before the doorway, and the attackers were getting involved with these. Feet were even more sensitive to the fire than were scales, and the effect was distracting, to put it mildly.

  Swift, to do him justice, stayed with his men and fought as hard as any; but at length even he had had enough and withdrew a few yards, limping slightly. Nick laughed aloud as he went.

  “Better get your own firewood, Swift, my friend! Of course, you won’t find any within an hour’s walk of the village; we’ve used it up long ago. Even if you know where the best places to get it are, you won’t be able to get there and back through the rain. You needn’t worry, though; we’ll take care of you when you go to sleep. I wouldn’t want anything to eat you, friend Swift!”

  It was almost funny to watch Swift’s fury. His hands tightened on the spear shafts, and he rose to full height on his walking legs, shaking all over with rage. For several seconds it seemed an even bet whether he would hurl the spears or charge the door across the scattered coals. Nick was perfectly ready for either, but was hoping for the latter; the mental picture of Swift with burned feet was a very attractive one.

  But the chief did neither. In the midst of his fury he suddenly relaxed, and the spear points dropped as though he had forgotten them for a moment. Then he shifted the weapons backward until he was holding them near their centers of gravity, in “carry” position, and turned away from the hut. Then, seemingly as an afterthought, he turned back and spoke to Nick.

  “Thanks, Chopper. I didn’t expect that much help. I’d better say good-by, now; and so had you—to your teacher.”

  “But—you can’t travel at night.”

  “Why not? You did.”

  “But how about Fagin? How do you know he can?”

  “You told me he could do anything you could. You also said he’d agreed to do what we said. If he forgets that, or changes his mind, we can thank you for showing us what to do. Do you suppose he’ll like the touch of fire any better than we do?” Swift chuckled and strode swiftly back to the main group, bawling orders as he went. Nick began shouting at least as loudly.

  “Fagin! Did you hear that? Fagin! Teacher!” In his anxiety he forgot the time it always took the teacher to answ
er, and drowned the robot out for a moment. Then its answer became audible.

  “What’s the matter, Nick?” It was not possible to tell from the voice that Raeker was not at the other end; Nick’s people had been given a general idea of the “teacher” situation, but not all the details, and they thought inevitably of the robot as an individual. This was virtually the first time it had made any difference; the man on watch knew the general picture, of course, having been briefed by Raeker when the latter had gone off duty, but he had not actually been present during Swift’s initial attack or the subsequent truce. Consequently, Nick’s words did not mean all they might have to him.

  “Swift is going to start back for the caves right away; he says he’ll use fire on you if you don’t go with him. Can you stand that?”

  There was a little more than the usual hesitation. No one had ever measured the temperature of a Tenebran fire, and the man on watch was not enough of a physicist to hazard a guess from its radiation output. The main consideration in his mind was the cost of the robot.

  “No,” he answered. “I’ll go along with him.”

  “What shall we do?”

  Raeker’s order for the villagers to stay put was one thing he had not mentioned to his relief; he had expected to be back on duty long before the start of the journey. The relief did the best he could under the circumstances.

  “Use your own judgment. They won’t hurt me; I’ll get in touch with you again later.”

  “All right.” Nick carefully refrained from reminding the teacher of his earlier command; he liked the new one much better. He watched in silence as the invaders, under Swift’s orders, collected what torches they could from the nearly spent fires. Then they clustered around the teacher, leaving an opening in the crowd on the side they wished him to go. It was all done without words, but the meaning was plain enough. The robot swung around on its treads and headed south, the cave dwellers swarming after it.