Space Gypsies

by Murray Leinster

  He stood up and picked up the bulky but very light objects he and Karen had made together.

  “The only bad feature,” he said thoughtfully, “is that even if we trap them, it may not do us a bit of good.”

  He went out of the exit-port, carrying the dummies.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  He made his way again to the dead area, having a great deal of trouble with his burden of stuffed figures. Trees tried to block the way. Brushwood plucked at the clumsy bodies which nearby were so unconvincing. There was one time when a vine entangled a dragging stuffed leg, and he had to put down the whole burden to clear it. Again he found himself surrounded on three sides by tree trunks too close to let him through. He had to retrace his steps and find a more open way.

  He reached the killed circle. He went into it, dodging tree trunks and with his unwieldy burden scraped at by the brittle sticks which once had been underbrush. Presently he tripped, and looked down to see what he’d tripped on. It was a fine wire coated with transparent plastic like all the metal objects of the slug-ship culture’s making. It had undoubtedly communicated with a relay, which some hours earlier would have flashed a killer-field to murder him and re-kill anything within its range. Now the killer-field generating outfit was smashed, and an essential part of it lay useless in the Marintha’s engine room.

  But the trip-wire was information Howell needed. It told him where the foremost member of a rescue party, marching toward a booby trap that had lured them here, would have released pure death upon himself and all living things nearby as a reward for his altruism.

  So Howell put down, here, the dummy representing himself. It would be plainly visible from the sky. He went back and placed the others as if while following him they had all been killed. It was an admirable picture of what would have appeared if the Marintha had been a rescue ship lured to this place by the message-beam—as the Marintha had been—and if all its ship’s company had gone unsuspectingly to their fate.

  Having accomplished this errand, Howell was more than doubtful of its usefulness. He went doggedly back to the still-living jungle he’d left. He was fully aware, now, of the mischances that could turn any stratagem into futility. But it suddenly occurred to him that he and the others of the Marintha Were practically inviting catastrophe. He was suddenly appalled by the idea of Karen being left alone in the yacht. There were adventure tape-dramas—mostly historical or period pieces—in which people did experience danger and face disaster. But they were make-believe. And for believability most of them were laid in earlier times when humanity was not—as it now believed it was—plu-perfectly safe.

  The four of them, Howell reflected angrily, were like children who’d never been really frightened. They pretended delicious terror for the fun of it. When they encountered really alarming things, they tended to react like children who do not like the way a game is going. They tried to stop playing. That was certainly the case with Breen, and probably with Ketch. They were now looking over the rubble remainders of a long-shattered city. For the time being, they’d stopped playing at flight from a slug-shaped enemy spaceship.

  Howell hurried back toward the yacht. Just past the edge of the dead area he passed the spot where he’d put the three small skeletons under a decorous cover of green-stuff. He’d had nothing then with which to dig a grave, and he had nothing now. But he wouldn’t have stopped anyway because he began to think of shocking omissions in their reactions to real danger. Karen was alone in the ship, right now. They hadn’t monitored the all-wave receiver. Howell had computed the position and course and hence the time of arrival of the slug-ship on its way here now. It shouldn’t arrive for some time yet; but it could have driven again, planning to use power for deceleration on arrival. It could turn up any instant! And Karen would be alone, because he’d been out setting up a scenic effect, and Breen and Ketch were out botanizing!

  He was almost running when he caught the first glimpses of the yacht between tree trunks. At a hundred yards he shouted. He heard the clanking of the metal dogs that held the port shut and sealed it. The port cracked open, and. Karen peered fearfully out. An infinite relief and gratitude showed on her face, but she was terrified.

  She couldn’t speak when he vaulted up to the then fully opened port. She clung to him. She’d been crying. She was still frightened.

  “What’s happened?” he demanded fiercely.

  It was singular that he held her close, and this was the first time they’d ever acted other than decorously, but it was not the occasion for romantic speeches. He kissed her and repeated as fiercely as before, “What’s happened? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a—whine in the sky,” she said shakily. “The—the receiver picked it up. I heard it! It’s like—what you said was a slug-ship…”

  She didn’t try to release herself. He asked grimly, “How long ago?”

  “N-not long. Maybe five minutes…”

  “Then we’ve some time. If it was landing, it’d be down now. It’s making one orbit to slow down. A low orbit could take around ninety minutes. We’ve got to get Ketch and your father.”

  He kissed her and moved toward the control room. He came back and kissed her again. He vanished. Karen put her hand to her throat. She’d been frightened. But Howell had held her close and kissed her, and now her fears were dissipated. The reason for them was in no wise diminished, but nevertheless her eyes shone a little. And it could have been said that any two people of suitable age, thrown together as they had been these past three months, would either dislike each other excessively or care for each other a great deal. Karen would have denied it. She was quite sure that if she and Howell had never known each other, and their eyes had met on a crowded street, they’d have known what she was now sure of.

  Howell threw the switch of the yacht’s outside siren. Space-liners were not equipped with such gadgets as sirens, but yachts found them desirable. Landing as yachtsmen did on worlds only other yachtsmen frequented, there was need of an audible signal to guide exploring parties and hunters back to the little ships that went everywhere with no thought of danger.

  The yacht’s siren went “Whiro-o-o!” It would be hearable for miles. Howell came back. He put his arms around Karen again.

  “That’ll fetch them,” he said confidently. He kissed her and said, “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.”

  She said unevenly, “I’ve—been wanting you to.”

  “We won’t tell them for now.”

  “No… not for now…”

  It was insanity, of course. The Marintha was crippled and unarmed, and there was a slug-ship descending for a landing somewhere partway around this world. And slug-ships shot on sight at vessels like the Marintha. They made booby traps to murder humans, and there could be no doubt that the landing slug-ship would make the space-yacht a target for monstrous blaster-bolts of which one had already crippled her past repair.

  The state of things offered no excuse for hope, unless it was that three-quarters of a mile away there were four dummies made from clothing of the Marintha’s crew. They lay, those dummies, in a blasted area in which nothing grew. If the slug-ship should notice them—which was doubtful—it might assume that all those who travelled in the Marintha had been killed and the yacht needn’t be destroyed before examination. But if it didn’t act on that assumption…

  The siren wailed again. The sound would carry over the jungles of an unnamed planet, over hills and hollows, beating upon mountain-flanks and reflected from precipices. Breen and Ketch would hear it and assuredly hasten back. But in the meantime, Karen felt the magnificent uplift of spirit which comes to a girl when she becomes admittedly the most important thing in a chosen man’s life.

  They talked pure romantic nonsense, which was doubly foolish because there were things urgently needing to be done. But none of the things that needed to be done were really possible; therefore it would have been quadruply foolish to put aside their sudden and urgent rejoicing in eac
h other’s existence. It would last, it seemed, for only a very short time, but that was all the more reason to rejoice while it was still possible.

  The siren wailed again. Its monstrous quaverings went up and down the scale, and flying things launched themselves from jungle treetops and dashed crazily about, and doubtless there were small walking or crawling things that crouched down in their holes and listened to it fearfully, But Howell and Karen hardly noticed it.

  They were looking at each other as if they’d never seen each other quite completely before, when Ketch shouted from a little distance away. Then Karen smiled ruefully and drew away from Howell as he released her, and they greeted Ketch and Karen’s father as they came to the port of the yacht.

  “We found a rubble-heap,” said Ketch, with a look of shrewdness on his face. “And something else.”

  Breen puffed up into the yacht.

  “Bad luck!” he grunted. “Very bad luck! There were holes there! Somebody or something dug those holes! Lately!”

  Howell nodded unemotionally. Ketch and Breen were agitated by some discovery they’d made. He had now to make them resolute and ready to face what the revelation of a slug-ship’s approach meant. It was, in substance, that they were almost certainly about to be killed. If they reacted as he believed they should—And if they didn’t—He said, “I’ve something to tell you—”

  “They were humans,” said Ketch. “They—”

  “No doubt about it!” puffed Breen. “No doubt at all! They dug holes down to deposits of metal in the rubble. There was rust left behind. They’d found machinery, maybe. Rusted past recognition, but they can smelt it down, no doubt. Their ships—”

  “We found where their ships had grounded,” interposed Ketch. “Brushwood crushed flat. They’d landed, and they’d stayed a while, digging in the rubble-heaps.”

  “Must’ve had metal detectors,” said Breen, still partly out of breath. “To tell where the metal was. That’d make them—human. They couldn’t be anything else!”

  “They could,” said Howell coldly. “They could be slug-ship beings like those in the one that’s orbiting now, to come down next time around.”

  “But they have to be humans! They’re gone now, but—” Then Breen stopped short. “What’s that you say?”

  “There’s a slug-ship in orbit,” said Howell. “Karen heard its whine. Considering the booby trap and the Marintha plainly visible from the sky, where do you think they’ll turn up?”

  There was silence. Then Ketch said almost with zest, “We’ve got to get away fast! Take what we can carry and hide until we can make contact with the humans here. They’re bound to go away again!”

  “After studying the Marintha,” said Howell savagely, “and learning that there’s another human race than the one they know and set traps for! After possibly guessing that this other human race was wiped out and now has built up again from survivors of the rubble-heap cities after they were smashed thousands of years ago!”

  “What—” Ketch’s mouth dropped open.

  “And after very probably learning,” continued Howell, still savagely, “that they can do another massacre now, because they’ll have traditions if they haven’t records of smashing the civilization of the rubble-heap men! And they’ll know where to find it. Surely! Do we have to go and hide so they can do that all over again?”

  Breen asked querulously, “What else can we do?”

  Then Howell told them what else they could do. Their response was almost unbelievable. They were civilized men, citified men, generations removed from any real danger of sudden death. But they were not generations removed from drama-tapes, in which they’d experienced vicariously all sorts of thrills and splendid adventures. Watching them, they developed a fine confidence that they’d survive unharmed all the dangers and dramatic twists of the plot. Now they found themselves cast in roles of a highly dramatic type. Howell’s instructions sounded like stage directions. Breen obediently took one of Ketch’s sporting rifles. Ketch hesitated. He spoke to Karen—but Karen had received Howell’s orders as if there could be no possible other course of action. She, herself, picked out a light rifle with which she’d made good scores at targets. The Marintha’s company, save for Howell, prepared for an essentially hopeless battle as if for amateur theatricals.

  Only Howell’s grimness was real. He’d handled the three small skeletons which appeared to be those of children. He did not look upon coming events as adventures in which nothing lethal or final could happen to the human participants. He could envision Karen killed: Karen the victim of such a blaster-bolt as had disabled the Marintha; Karen wounded, injured, dying. He didn’t envision himself as killed; nobody can really do that. But even generations of total safety hadn’t erased the instinct of man to face lions or slug-ships in defence of a girl he cares for.

  So Howell was the one member of the Marintha’s crew who knew bloodthirstiness in anticipation of the slug-ship’s landing. He couldn’t imagine what sort of beings manned—or creatured—a slug-ship, but already he hated them with a violence that harked back to the ancient days when men carried stone hammers and spears to kill with.

  Breen and Ketch had only enthusiasm to urge them on, but with an infinite amount of luck it might not matter. It could be that long-buried instincts would reappear when the fighting began. Target-shooting was a standard sport and on most worlds a man was expected to make a good score at the flip-targets as in much older days a man was expected to play a good hand of bridge. Living targets might help.

  “How about the radar?” asked Ketch briskly. “We want to be warned when they come.”

  “No!” said Howell angrily. “This is to be an ambush! The Marintha has to seem dead to make it one. They could pick up a radar-pulse!”

  “An ambush! ” Breen said zestfully. “Yes! I’ve seen them on drama-tapes. And we’re to lie in ambush!”

  Howell pointed out one of the Marintha’s view-ports. If the slug-ship landed on this side, here was a good bit of cover. That spot would have a good field of fire. This other would be good concealment from which to shoot.

  “Try not to spoil the skins! ” said Ketch.

  Howell didn’t protest the confusion of a hunter’s thinking with that of a man fighting for considerably more than his own life.

  “Now, over on this side—”

  There was a whining noise from the control room. The all-wave receiver had picked up the drive of a slug-ship. Howell’s jaws clamped tightly. He was assuming that the slug-ship creatures thought like men, though they might have very different motives.

  But intelligence that arrived at space-drives like those of men, and booby traps such as men have been known to set for each other, and weapons like those of men—the huge blaster-bolt that had hit the Marintha was simply an oversized ball-lightning missile—if the slug-creatures paralleled human achievements, they must think like humans, though they need not feel like them at all.

  The whine of the distant space-drive stopped. It cut in again. Off once more. Howell could tell what the unseen space-vessel was doing. It was decelerating, of course, to come down and view the Marintha from nearby for its destruction, or whatever alternative the slug-creatures had in mind. If the eyes of the slug-creatures were no better than men’s, or their telescopes not more useful, it would want to arrive over the Marintha moderately low down. If it suspected powerful weapons of human ships, it would tend to stay high. In any case it would not land before it had in some fashion tested out those supposed weapons. If the four dummies in the dead space were seen and accepted as corpses, the testing might not be elaborate. But the Marintha had to lie perfectly still as if all its crew were dead or destroyed. And it might be destroyed anyhow.

  There came a mooing, bleating, howling sound from the all-wave receiver. It was beast-like, animal; it formed no words. It sounded like a monster bellowing defiance.

  “That’s a challenge,” said Ketch brightly.

  “We don’t answer it,” said Howell curtly.r />
  The unthinkably dismal sound came again. Karen’s features showed fear. But she looked quickly at Howell, and her uneasiness disappeared.

  There came words from the unseen ship overhead. They were spoken in a clear soprano voice. There were consonants and vowels. It seemed to Howell that he recognized some of the sounds that the booby trap bait-beam had repeated so often. They would be words that happened to occur both in the planetary broadcast and this other mocking, derisive challenge.

  This was mockery and it was derision. Howell ground his teeth. He was convinced now that the slug-ship overhead was the same that had challenged the space-yacht in the first place ,with a beastly sound like these last. It had trailed the Marintha in its overdrive escape from the encounter. It had followed the overdrive change-of-course to this system. Its breakout point, here, happened to be farther from the green planet than the Marintha’s, so it had arrived there on solar-system drive much later. But now it was overhead and the Marintha was grounded below, and a ship cannot go into overdrive in atmosphere. It will vaporize itself. So the slug-ship aloft could mock the Marintha. And it did.

  “I think,” said Howell detachedly, “that things depend now on whether or not they saw or see the dummies I set out.”

  Breen and Ketch now seemed to feel the high excitement of men participating in the high adventure of a drama-tape. Howell couldn’t believe that they were desperate like himself, but he needed to keep them in this frame of mind since it was the best he could hope for. When action began they might panic and flee, or they might react as most men have always done when they found their backs against a wall.

  More bestial sounds. The soprano voice again.

  Breen said, “Too bad the diggers at the rubble-heap city went away! They’d have fought with us.”

  “They’re humans,” said Ketch. He listened to the sounds from emptiness. “No doubt about it. Not like whoever’s making that racket.”