* * * * *
He had it in his hand when the door opened again and the skipper cameback into the saloon. He said prosaically, ”Shall I call in thescientist guys to listen, or the persuader guys to work on her?”
”Neither. I've made another gadget,” Lon said from a dry throat. ”Itwill kill you. It'll kill everybody on the ship--from here. You'regoing to put us back down on the planet below.”
The skipper did not look at the gadget, but at Lon's face. Then hecalled. The four men of the crew and the two uneasy scientists came in.
”We got to persuade,” the skipper said sardonically. ”He just told mehe's made a new gadget that'll kill us all.”
He moved unhurriedly toward Lon. Lon knew that his bluff was no good.If the thing had actually been a weapon, he'd have been confident andassured. He didn't feel that way, but he raised the thing menacingly asthe skipper approached.
The skipper took it away, laughing.
”We'll tie him in a chair an' get to work on her. When he's readyto talk, we'll stop.” He looked at the object in his hands. It wasridiculous to look at. It was as absurd as the device that extractedpower from matter stresses, and the machine that converted one kindof vegetation into another, and the apparatus--partly barn roof--thathad short-circuited the ionosphere of Cetis Gamma Two to the planet'ssolid surface. It looked very foolish indeed.
The skipper was amused.
”Look out, you fellas,” he said humorously. ”It's gonna kill you!”
He crooked his finger and the knifeblade made a contact. He swept itin mock menace about the saloon. The four crew-members and the twoscientists went stiff. He gaped at them, then turned the device tostare at it incredulously. He came within its range.
He stiffened. Off-balance, he fell on the device, breaking its gimcrackfastenings and the contact which transmitted nothing that Lon Simpsoncould imagine coming out of it. The others fell, one by one, withpeculiarly solid impacts.
Their flesh was incredibly hard. It was as solid, in fact, as so muchmahogany.
* * * * *
Nodalictha said warmly, ”You're a darling, Rhadampsicus! It wasoutrageous of those nasty creatures to intend to harm my pets! I'm gladyou attended to them!”
”And I'm glad you're pleased, my dear,” Rhadampsicus said pleasantly.”Now shall we set out for home?”
Nodalictha looked about the cosy landscape of the ninth planet ofCetis Gamma. There were jagged peaks of frozen air, and mountain rangesof water, solidified ten thousand aeons ago. There were frost-treesof nitrogen, the elaborate crystal formations of argon, and here awide sweep of oxygen crystal sward, with tiny peeping wild crystals ofdeep-blue cyanogen seeming to grow more thickly by the brook of liquidhydrogen. And there was their bower; primitive, but the scene of a truehoneymoon idyll.
”I almost hate to go home, Rhadampsicus,” Nodalictha said. ”We've beenso happy here. Will you remember it for always?”
”Naturally,” said Rhadampsicus. ”I'm glad you've been happy.”
Nodalictha snuggled up to him and twined eye stalks with him.
”Darling,” she said softly, ”you've been wonderful, and I've beenspoiled, and you've let me be. But I'm going to be a very dutiful wifefrom now on, Rhadampsicus. Only it has been fun, having you be so niceto me!”
”It's been fun for me, too,” replied Rhadampsicus gallantly.
Nodalictha took a last glance around, and each of her sixteen eyesglowed sentimentally. Then she scanned the far-distant spaceship in theshadow of the second planet from the now subsiding sun.
”My pets,” she said tenderly. ”But--Rhadampsicus, what are they doing?”
”They've discovered that the crew of their vehicle--they call it aspace yacht--aren't dead, that they're only in suspended animation. Andthey've decided in some uneasiness that they'd better take them back toEarth to be revived.”
”How nice! I knew they were sweet little creatures!”
Rhadampsicus hesitated a moment.
”From the male's mind I gather something else. Since the crew of thisspace yacht was incapacitated, and they were--ah--not employed onit, he and your female will bring it safely to port, and, I gatherthat they have a claim to great reward. Ah--it is something theycall 'salvage.' He plans to use it to secure other rewards he calls'patents' and they expect to live happily ever after.”
”And,” cried Nodalictha gleefully, ”from the female's mind I know thatshe is very proud of him, because she doesn't know that you designedall the instruments he made, darling. She's speaking to him now,telling him she loves him very dearly.”
Then Nodalictha blushed a little, because in a faraway space yachtCathy had kissed Lon Simpson. The process seemed highly indecorous toNodalictha, so recently a bride.
”Yes,” said Rhadampsicus, drily. ”He is returning the compliment. It isquaint to think of such small creatures--Ha! Nodalictha, you should bepleased again. He is telling her that they will be married when theyreach Earth, and that she shall have a white dress and a veil and atrain. But I am afraid we cannot follow to witness the ceremony.”
Their tentacles linked and their positron blasts mingling, the two ofthem soared up from the surface of the ninth planet of Cetis Gamma.They swept away, headed for their home at the extreme outer tip of themost far-flung arm of the spiral outposts of the Galaxy.
”But still,” said Nodalictha, as they swept through emptiness at aspeed unimaginable to humans, ”they're wonderfully cute.”
”Yes, darling,” Rhadampsicus agreed, unwilling to start an argument sosoon after the wedding. ”But not as cute as you.”
* * * * *
On the space yacht, Lon Simpson tried to use his genius to invent a wayto get his handcuffs and leg-irons off. He failed completely.
Cathy had to get the keys out of the skipper's pocket and unlock themfor him.
The Sentimentalists Page 7
