The Undecided
Astounding Science Fiction – April 1949
(1949)*
Eric Frank Russell
illustrated by Cartier

They'd never succeeded in trapping an Earth-ship before; now they had one they found it distinctly hard to handle. And, worst of all, the intelligences of Earth were incomprehensible!

-
	Peter the Pilot made his crash landing with skill deserving of all the huzzahs he did not get. It is no small feat to dump a four-hundred tonner after a flying brick has loused up the antigrav and left nothing dependable but the pipes.

	The way he used those tubes verged on the superhuman. They roared and thrust and braked and flared and balanced so that ultimately the vessel hit with no more than a mildly unpleasant thump that added nothing to the damage. For the time being the ship and its eight-man crew were safe. Or, to be more precise, its crew of seven men and one woman were safe—if there is any safety in an unknown and possibly hostile world.

	While the others telepathed their congratulations which modestly he shrugged off, Peter the Pilot remained in his seat, locked in the control cabin, and studied what was visible of this strange planet. The armorglass window mirrored a ghostly reflection of his blue, thoughtful eyes which were set in a face queerly suggestive of youth preserved to great age. Even his hair showed the silky whiteness of the very old, yet somehow remained lush and strong. Making no attempt to get out, he sat there and thought because it was his duty to think. Subconsciously he was aware that three of his crew already had left the vessel and that the others were retaining mental contact with them.

	They were eight Terrans temporarily marooned far off the beaten tracks. He wasn't unduly worried about that because the ship was repairable and they had enough fuel for return. Moreover, the fact that three had gone out showed that this world could be endured. It would permit life; a point already suggested by its superficial resemblance to Terra as seen through the armorglass. No, the worry was not an immediate one. So far, so good. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. The trouble which most encouraged him to ponder was that repairs take time, a long time, and menacing complications not present today can arrive tomorrow or next week.

	The prospective threat he had in mind was that other life-form of shape and powers unknown. They had ships, slow, cumbersome, too short-ranged to overlap the Terran sphere of influence, but still ships. Manifestly they had intelligence of a high order.

	For twelve centuries this other-form had chased in fruitless pursuit of every Terran vessel straying within their range and had enjoyed the doubtful pleasure of seeing each one's rapidly diminishing rear end. It is galling to have one's curiosity repeatedly stimulated and left unsatisfied, even more galling to know that the interest is not reciprocated. Peter the Pilot had no notion of what bizarre form this other-life might take but he was willing to gamble that they had no teeth—having ground them away long ago.

	Now there was excellent chance of a snoopover and much expressing of resentment if the ship remained pinned by its pants, for misfortune had dumped it right in the other's bailiwick. Not even a Sirian Wotzit, he decided, would resist a sitting duck. Hitching his shoulders fatalistically, he opened his mind to the mental voices of his crew.

	Rippy the Ranger was saying, "Found a stream. The water is drinkable."

	"You found it?" harshed Sammy the Sharpeye. "How do you discover something to which you've been directed like a small child?"

	"I went the way you told me and I found it," came back Rippy. ''Does that satisfy you? Why don't you trim your nails and take a pill?"

	Peter sent out a call, "What do you see, Sammy?"

	"Trees and trees and trees. You sure picked a hideout—if it will do you any good." Silence, followed by, "I can also see a strange, repulsive, nightmarish shape lurking by the stream. It is guzzling the water because there's no charge. Now it is scowling horribly and—"

	"Leave Rippy alone," ordered Peter. "Where's Kim?"

	"Don't know," admitted Sammy the Sharpeye indifferently. "He got out fast and vanished some place. You'll hear Hector swearing pretty soon."

	"Oh, no you won't," interjected Hector the Hasher, his mental impulses strong because of his nearness within the ship. "I had ten locks on the galley, see? I've made landings before, and with a load of gutsies at that!"

	"Kim!" called Peter.

	Silence.

	"When will that guy learn to keep his mind open and respond," Peter complained.

	"When he's hungry," offered Hector morbidly.

	A new tone chipped in, hooting with irritation. "Let ... me ... sleep, willya? I gotta catch up ... somehow!"

	"Nilda the Nightwatcher," sighed Hector. "Nilda the Nuisance I call her. What makes her that way?" He paused, then his thought-form boosted with sudden outrage. "Clobo, take your mitt outa that can! By the—"

	Peter cut them off while he writhed out of his seat, had a closer look through the armorglass. He was surveying a tiny portion of a world which itself was small part of an alien system and a corresponding fragment of the great unknown. As a representative of a nearby empire firmly founded upon swiftness and sureness of personal decision, he stood ready with the rest to face decisively whatever might befall. Apprehension was not within him, nor the elements of fear. There was only estimation, calculation, and preparedness to decide.

	After one million years of Terran growth and mutual acceptance of the consequences of growth, nobody thought of themselves as peculiarly undecided.

-

	Sector Marshal Bvandt slurged in caterpillarish manner across the floor and vibrated his extensibles and closed two of the eight eyes around his serrated crown and did all the other things necessary to demonstrate an appropriate mixture of joy, satisfaction and triumph.

	"One is down." He smacked his lips. "At last. After all these years."

	"One what?" inquired Commander Vteish.

	"A mystery ship. A sample of those ultra-fast cylinders we've never been able to catch."

	"No?" Vteish was astounded.

	"Yes! It had an accident, or something went bust. The message has just come in but does not give details of what forced it to land. Zwilther was following it in the CX66, and losing distance as usual, when he saw it go off-curve. It chopped around a bit, still at high clip, then made for Lanta."

	"Lanta," echoed Commander Vteish. "Why, that is in our sector."

	"A most remarkable coincidence," observed Bvandt sarcastically, "seeing that any emergency message is automatically directed to the marshal in charge of the sector it concerns."

	"Of course, of course," agreed Vteish hurriedly. "I overlooked that much in the excitement of the moment." Dutifully he slurged, vibrated and performed the eye-shutting to remind his superior that they were two hearts beating as one. "Now what?"

	"Lanta is sparsely settled. Its people are simple scrabblers in the dirt. I have sent an order warning them not to interfere with this alien cylinder, to keep clear of it. We cannot permit a gang of hicks to handle a case of this magnitude. Too much depends upon it and such an opportunity may never occur again. Our best brains are needed to make the most of it."

	"Definitely." indorsed Vteish. "Undoubtedly."

	"Therefore I am going to deal with them myself," announced Bvandt.

	"Ah!" said Vteish, carefully using his speaking-mouth. He had two mouths, one on each side. The penultimate insult was to make eating motions with the speaking-mouth. The ultimate—to make garbled speech-noises with the eating-mouth. For a moment he had been sorely tempted.

	"And you are coming with me," Bvandt went on. "Also Captain Gordd and Captain Hixl. We'll take two ships. We'd take fifty if they were immediately available, but they aren't. However, these two are of our latest and most powerful pattern."

	"Couldn't some of the other vessels be summoned?"

	"They have been called already, but it will take them some time to reach Lanta. We cannot wait for them, we dare not wait. At any time this alien contraption may be away faster than zip. We have got to deal with it before it becomes too late."

	"Yes, marshal," admitted Vteish.

	"What luck! What a gift!" If Bvandt had possessed hands, he would have smacked them together with the acme of delight. So he jiggled his extensibles in the nearest equivalent. "Now is our chance to get the measure of this other-life while leaving it ignorant concerning ourselves. After preliminary study of them we will test their defenses by a light attack. Finally, we'll seize their vessel, dig out the secret of its speed and maneuverability. All that knowledge, my dear commander, will give us our biggest boost in twenty lifetimes."

	"A boost in one lifetime is enough for me," said Vteish with unashamed cynicism. "I was peculiarly disinterested before I was hatched and expect to be strangely indifferent after I'm burned." He humped toward the coolness of the wall, leaned against it and mused. "Do you suppose that this other-life might be ... might be ... like us?"

	"I see no reason why not," declared Bvandt, after some thought. "We are by far the highest form in the known cosmos, therefore any other high form must be similar."

	"The logic of that is not evident." Vteish drew a crude sketch on the wall. "They might be like this, for example."

	"Don't be stupid. Why should they resemble anything so fantastic"?"

	"Why not?"

	Bvandt said severely: "You are too fond of those dream-plays at the festivals. You have leanings toward mental extravagance. Your brain spends half its time conjuring crazy visions for lack of anything better to do." His rearward pair of eyes examined the time-meter on the wall. "Your cure is at hand—you can get busy right now. The ships will be ready within the hour and I shall tolerate no delay on anyone's part. See that you are packed and on board in good time."

	"Yes, marshal. Most certainly, marshal," promised Vteish, again carefully using his speaking-mouth.

-

	From the eastward rise over which the trees marched in solid ranks the Terran vessel could be seen as if lying in a hollow. Slight gain in altitude added considerably to the angle of view.

	Like a big, fat slug, Bvandt stuck sucker-footed to the bole of a tree while he applied a powerful monocular to one eye and closed the others. The field of vision did not shift or tremble, for under the monocular his extensibles were braced together and formed a fulcrum much steadier than Terran hands.

	Adjusting his instrument's focus, Bvandt got a clear, sharp view of Peter the Pilot sitting on the bottom rung of his vessel's landing ladder and smoking a pipe. He almost fell from the tree.

	"By the egg that held me!" Detaching his optic from the eyepiece, he bugged the others, stared around. "Do you see this thing?"

	"Yes," said Vteish calmly. "It has only two legs, longer and skinnier than ours. Only two eyes. Its upper limbs bend always in the same places as if they are hard-cored and jointed."

	"I see it, too," put in Captain Gordd, who was high on an adjacent tree. He spoke with a kind of incredulous hush. "It resembles nothing on any of our twenty-four planets."

	"The question is," said Bvandt, "how many more of these creatures are inside that ship."

	Gordd pondered it, guessed: "Any number between ten and twenty. Possibly thirty, though I doubt it."

	Having another long, careful look, Bvandt pocketed his monocular, inched down the trunk, gained the ground. "Hurry up with that pictograph."

	One of the men descended from his vantage point, did things to the boxlike instrument he was carrying, eventually produced from it a large photo of Peter complete with pipe.

	"Well, we've a record of how they look," grunted Bvandt, studying the picture closely. "I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen for myself. Fancy thousands of things like this!"

	"Millions," corrected Vteish, joining him.

	"Yes, millions, all like this." He handed back the photograph, saying: "Prepare copies tor transmission to all sector headquarters." Then to Vteish, "Now we'll find out what they've got." He called a nearby trooper. "Get as near as you can and shoot."

	"To kill?" asked the trooper.

	"To kill," Bvandt confirmed.

	"It that necessary?" Vteish chipped in, greatly daring.

	"It is essential that we have a demonstration of their strongest, most desperate reaction," Bvandt said stiffly. He eyed the trooper. "Well, why do you wait? You have your orders!"

	The other shuffled off between the trees and into the undergrowth toward the alien ship. The sound of his passage ceased as he dropped to a cautious creep. Beneath the trees the rest waited for the shot and the resulting uproar. Twelve were high in the trees ready to observe and record the other-life's methods of defense.

-

	Sitting mild-eyed and sucking his pipe, Peter the Pilot listened, listened, not with his ears but with his mind. Sammy the Sharpeye's tones were coming to him coolly, without emotion.

	"They are in the trees a mile to your front. I've been near enough to make certain that they're still there. Boy, what a gang of slooperoos! They sloop and slurp this way and that. They've eight eyes apiece, all on top, but swiveling independently. They've refused to see me so often that I wonder if I'm getting transparent."

	"Not with what you're full of!" cracked Rippy's thought-form.

	"Shut up!" ordered Peter. "This is a poor time for cross-talk."

	"The trees are the trouble," went on Sammy. "They hide too much. Clobo ought to be able to tell you more than I can."

	"So at last it is admitted that Clobo has his uses," interjected that worthy. "Clobo comes into his own—during his bedtime. No sleep for the wicked!" He managed to put over a deep mental sigh. "And tomorrow all will be forgotten."

	"What do you see, Clobo?" asked Peter, projecting sympathy.

	"They are conferring with ugly mouth-noises. It is evident that they are in no way telepathic."

	"If they were they'd have overheard us long ago," Sammy pointed out.

	"They appear to have reached some sort of decision and have sent away one who bears an object suspiciously like a weapon," Clobo went on. "This one is edging cautiously toward the ship. Now he sinks low and creeps. I have a strange feeling."

	"Of what?" demanded Sammy.

	"That he does not desire to blow kisses."

	"Ho-hum," said Peter, knocking the dottle from his pipe. "I do not think it wise to take action myself until I know for certain whether or not his intentions are honorable."

	"If you ask me, I wouldn't trust him with Hector's can-opener," opined Clobo,

	"Listen who's talking!" invited Hector.

	"Now he has paused by a suitable gap and is pointing his weapon forward. If I could see into his alien mind, I'd find it bloated with mayhem. He is about to fire at you, I think. Rippy is hidden in the grass ten yards to his front."

	"I shall now reveal myself," announced Rippy.

	"Mind you don't get a slug in your bean," warned Peter. He screwed up his eyes as he tried to spot Rippy amid the vegetation more than half a mile away. Nothing could be seen ; the growths were too thick.

	Clobo's impulses now became a rapid series of high-pitched mental squeaks as he chattered at top pace like an excited commentator at a champ contest. One got the impression that he was jigging up and down as he broadcast.

	"Rippy gets to his feet and stares this guy straight in the pan. The sniper lets out a startled hiss and drops his weapon. Rippy doesn't move. The other recovers. Keeping all eight eyes and the whole of his attention on Rippy, he feels for his gun, finds it, picks it up. What's the use of having eyes all around if you don't use them? He's just leveled the gun as Kim arrives from where he isn't looking and jumps on his back. Whoo! Socko! Kim is tearing off lumps and giving them to the frogs. The other has rolled onto his back, making noises with both mouths and waving his legs in all directions. Kim is now extracting his plumbing and draping it tastefully over the bushes. There's a funny sort of blue goo all—"

	Closing his mind, Peter opened his ears. There were faint threshing sounds mingled with queer, unidentifiable noises deep in the far vegetation. He eyed the sky as if searching for something now at too great an altitude to be seen. Pulling out his tobacco pouch, he refilled his pipe, tamped it down, sucked it unlit.

	"... leaving only a rank and unappetizing mess," finished Clobo, worn out.

	''Soup's ready," announced Hector, unimaginatively choosing the worst of moments.

-

	The three troopers sneaked back with their eyes wary on all sides and especially to the rear. Two told their story while the third worked at his box and gave the resulting pictograph to Bvandt.

	"Torn to pieces?" said Bvandt incredulously. They made nervous assent. He stared at the pictograph as it was placed in his gripping extensibles. He was appalled. "By the great, red, incubating sun!"

	"Let me see." Vteish had a look-over the other's ropey limb. His first, second and third stomachs turned over one by one. "Sliced apart with a thousand knives!"

	"They must have been lying in ambush," decided Bvandt, not bothering to wonder how the ambushers had known where to place themselves. "Several of them. They attacked with the utmost ferocity. He never had a chance even to use his weapon." He turned to the silent troopers. "That reminds me—where is his gun? Did you retrieve it?"

	"It was not there. It had gone."

	"So!" Bvandt became bitter. "Now they have a gun. One of our guns."

	"Only a common handgun," soothed Vteish. "We have others bigger and better. They don't know about those."

	"What do we know?" Bvandt snapped. "Nothing—except that they have knives."

	"Super-fast ships and ordinary knives," Vteish commented thoughtfully. "The two items just don't go together. They seem incongruous to me."

	"To eternal blackness with the incongruity!" swore Bvandt. "Their sharp blades have proved superior to our guns. They have made a kill while we have not. I cannot tolerate that!"

	"What do you suggest?"

	"We'll try again in the dark." Bvandt slurged to and fro, his voice irritable. "I do not expect to catch them asleep—if they do sleep—for they will keep watches now they know we're around. But if by any chance they are less accustomed to darkness it will give us some slight—"

	He stopped as metallic clangings sounded from the distant ship and one of his treetop observers called urgently. Mounting the bole, he used his spyglass.

	Something had emerged from the Terran vessel. It was a bright, new and entirely strange shape bearing no resemblance to the two-legged creature previously observed.

	This one was rhomboidal in side-view and shone beneath the sun. It possessed no legs and appeared to move upon rotating but unseeable bands, or perhaps on hidden rollers. Many limbs projected from it at the oddest angles, some multiple-jointed, some tentacular. Trailing behind it a long, thick cable which ran back into the ship, this weird object trundled partway toward the tail end bearing in two of its limbs a large, curved metal plate.

	While Bvandt watched pop-eyed, the newcomer turned its back on far-off observers, held the curved plate to the ship, applied something to one edge. An intense and flickering light bloomed at the end of its extended limb and crawled slowly up the plate's side.

	"Welding!" offered Vteish unnecessarily.

	Bvandt scowled, glanced higher up his tree, said to the pictograph operator above him, "Are you recording this?"

	"Yes."

	"Make several records while you're at it." He looked downward upon half a dozen fidgeting troopers. "You six go a quarter circle round while remaining within gun-range of that vessel. Keep together. Don't separate no matter what happens. Find a good aiming-stand no nearer than you can help and give that legless nightmare a volley. See that you hit it—I'll flay the one who misses!"

	They moved off obediently but without eagerness. Bvandt went a little higher up the tree, squatted in a crotch, kept his glass centered upon the shining alien which continued to concentrate upon its task as if it had not an enemy in the whole of creation. Vteish, Gordd and Hixl all had their monoculars aimed at it. The pictograph operator maintained it in his screen.

	Slowly, uneasily, the troopers crawled round, their senses alert, jumpy, yet unconscious of other eyes watching, other minds talking.

	To the waiting Bvandt the execution squad seemed to take an interminable time. He was toying with the morbid notion that already they had met a silent but terrible end when the hard cracks of six guns made him jerk in his seat. The brief swish of the missiles could be heard distinctly, and even louder were the fierce clunks with which they struck their target.

	The brilliant welding light snuffed out. Its shining operator slid three feet noseward, stood still. Tense seconds went by. Then calmly he applied his limb to the opposite seam, the light spurted afresh and the weld-line crept upward.

	There was a word so rarely used that some had never heard it in a lifetime. Bvandt not only employed it, but distorted it with his eating-mouth. Vteish was shocked, Gordd astounded, Hixl filed it for further reference.

	Then while they watched, the two-legged, two-eyed thing appeared. It came out of the ship, pipe in mouth, a tiny gadget in its hand. The most that their monoculars could determine was that the strange instrument had a hand-grip topped by a small platform on which a little tube of pencillike proportions pointed upward at a high angle. The two-legger squeezed the handle, the tiny tube spat fire, sprang from its platform and speeded into invisibility. A thin arc of vapor hung high to mark its passage.

	Enough silence followed to make this performance seem pointless. It ended with a gigantic thunderclap and a distinct quiver in the ground. Over to the right, where the hidden squad lay low, a great tree sprang five or six hundred feet into the air with a ton of earth still sticking to its roots. Other trees leaned sidewise and toppled as if to provide room for it to fall back.

	Of the six troopers there was not even a bluish smear.

-

	Climbing tiredly onto his bunk, Peter the Pilot wound the chronometer set in the wall, looked through the tiny three-inch port at the darkness outside, lay back and closed his eyes. Something weightily nonchalant and stone-deaf trundled noisily through the ship", made many clatterings and clinkings.

	Hector's thought-form came through with a touch of exasperation. "Good as he may be, I maintain there's plenty of room for improvement. Why can't he be telepathic? If they'd found some way to make him telepathic, I could put over some choice remarks about juggling hardware in our sleeping hours."

	"Anyone who can respond to anxiety about mechanical matters, and jump to the job, is a marvel in my opinion," offered Peter. "Be thankful that he's got a one-track mind and sleeps only when there is nothing to do."

	"That's just when I want to sleep," complained Hector. "When a lot of bellies aren't hanging around me rumbling for chow." A raucous rattle like that of a pneumatic hammer came from near the tail, and Hector yelped: "Get a load of that! Aren't I entitled to some shut-eye?"

	"I don't remember you screaming about my rights when I was fooling around in my bedtime," Clobo's mind put in,

	"Bedtime!" scoffed Hector. "Any guy who says daytime is bedtime is too daffy to have any rights."

	"The trouble with this ship," interjected Sammy, "is too many incurable yaps. My patience is running out fast. Pretty soon I'm going to give up all pursuit of sweet dreams and go around cutting myself a few throats."

	"Bah!" said Hector feebly.

	Clank-whirr! Nobody took further notice. Closing his eyes again, Peter drifted slowly away. As usual, his astral body beat it back to Terra where—on an average of once a week—it roamed its dream-town and-—perhaps once a month—canoodled its dream-blonde.

	This proved to be one of the times when the said blonde was among those present. She was facing him across a table, looking bright-eyed at him over a vase of flowers, when suddenly her conversation made a switch.

	"But, dear, if we buy this planetoid just for ourselves, you'll have to leave the service because it doesn't make sense for you to run off and—" She paused, then said sharply, "Peter, you are dreaming! Wake up!"

	He sat up wide awake, still feeling the shock of it.

	"All right, Dozey," came the mental impulses of Nilda the Nightwatcher. "Fun's a-coming!"

	"I'll say!" indorsed Clobo with relish.

	"What do you see, Nilda?"

	"A big gun. They've brought it from one of their ships and are now hauling it up the other side of the rise. Beckon it will take them about an hour to reach the crest."

	"Do you think it might be powerful enough to damage our plates?"

	"For all I can tell it might be able to splash us over the landscape. It is no toy. It takes about sixty of them to drag it along. The trees are impeding them more than somewhat." She was quiet for a time, gave several little indistinguishable mutterings, then finished : "You're the official think-box. What do you want me to do about this?"

	"If you gave me the precise range and angle with reference to this ship, I could donate a hoister," he mused. "But that would tell them something about our heavy armament. The light stuff doesn't matter. I'd rather not use the heavy if it can be avoided. Besides, it might shake us to pieces while we're grounded."

	"So what?" invited Nilda.

	"So I'll leave you a medium disrupter at the bottom of the ladder. You can plant it where it will be most disconcerting."

	"All right." agreed Nilda with lack of emotion strange in a female.

	Clobo promptly screamed : "Give me time to get clear, you bug-eyed assassin ! I'm right in the trees and almost over them!"

	"Are you calling me bug-eyed?" demanded Nilda. "Why, you spook-faced runt, I've half a mind—"

	"That's just it—you've half a mind," said Clobo. "Lemme out before it does me damage."

	"Give him time to duck out," ordered Peter. "I'll check whether any of the others are roaming around in the dark." Grabbing his torch, he entered the passage, went from cubicle to cubicle. The remainder of his crew were there, all asleep but Rippy who was stirring in semiwakefulness. Dodging the rhomboidal object which trundled busily along the passage, he reached the armory, selected a small one-pound disruptor, placed it at the bottom of the ladder. Then he returned to his bunk, broadcast, "All set, Nilda," closed his eyes and tried to get back to the blonde.

	Sleep refused to come. He found himself listening for Nilda coming to pick up the bomb though he knew he would not hear her. Although the three-inch port was on the blind side of the ship with respect to the distant gun, he felt impelled to glance through it every now and again. There were no more comments from Nilda or Clobo, and the others were deep in their slumbers. Silence lay over the outer world; there were no noises inside the ship apart from a steady hum and occasional clinks at its rear end.

	After half an hour the trees facing the port lit up briefly in vivid crimson. The entire vessel gave a jolt. A terrible roar followed. The crew came awake with language more fluent than seemly.

	"That was tricky," remarked Nilda. "I had to move faster than the drop."

	Four mental voices chorused sardonically: "Or you'd have ruined your make-up."

	"Yes," agreed Nilda calmly. "Someone has to look decent."

	Hector alone had the ability to make the answering noise telepathically.

-

	Gloomily posing by the edge of the crater, and secretly impressed by its size as seen in the light of the new day, Sector Marshal Bvandt said to a land-force captain, "O.K., what's your story?"

	"We stood guard in a ring, two body-lengths apart, all through the night. The whole of the ground between us remained under such close observation that nothing could possibly have slipped through unseen."

	"So it appears," commented Bvandt nastily. He scuffed some dirt with three of his feet, watched it slide down the great hole.

	"Nothing passed," insisted the captain. "We had constant watch on every inch of ground around the ring. We maintained that watch unbroken even after the explosion and right up to dawn."

	"Yet this disaster occurred behind you. You were between it and the ship. Something must have caused it—some thing!"

	"I cannot explain it. I can only say that no alien passed through the ring of guards." He was very positive about it.

	"Humph!" Openly dissatisfied,

	Bvandt turned his attention to a wounded trooper waiting nearby. "Well?"

	"They had got the gun and its ammunition-trailer this far." Four of his eight eyes bent to stare into the crater. "I was following at short distance. All was dark and quiet. There was nothing unusual that I could see or hear, no noise, no warning. Then all of a sudden this happened." He used a shaky extensible to point at the hole. "I was lifted off my feet and flung against a tree."

	"Nobody knows anything," spat Bvandt, kicking more dirt. "A gun, a trailer, two captains and sixty men go to blazes in one midnight blast—and nobody knows anything." He scowled at the land-force captain. "Did the alien vessel remain silent, undisturbed, all through this?"

	"No." The captain fidgeted.

	"Come on then, you fool, speak the rest! I am able to understand speech!"

	"Immediately after darkness had fallen we heard the vessel's door open and close as if something had emerged, but there were no noises on the ladder, and in the darkness we could see nothing—if anything did come out. In any case, no attempt was made to penetrate our ring or even to approach it. Then toward midnight, and shortly before the explosion, the door opened and shut again. There were faint sounds up and down the ladder as if what was making them had come out and gone in almost without pause."

	"That," declared Bvandt with much ire, "is too revealing for words. It tells me practically everything I wish to know."

	"I am glad of that," assured the captain, stupidly pleased.

	"Get out of my sight!" Bvandt waved furious extensibles at him.

	"We have scanners," remarked Vteish thoughtfully. "We have apparatus that can scan mechanically by night and day. What a pity we don't utilize it here."

	"You are not ahead of me." Bvandt snapped. "You are several days behind. I considered the matter en route. Scanning equipment cannot be extracted from the ships, neither can it be operated without power supplied by the ships, neither can we bring the ships any nearer than they are."

-

	"I seem to have heard of self-contained transportables," ventured Vteish, glancing at him. "Small ones with their own generators."

	"You talk like an imbecile. Firstly, I cannot produce by magic a transportable we do not, possess. A couple of sets are being brought by ships not due for many days. It is beyond even my power to accelerate them."

	"Of course."

	"Secondly," he continued testily, "I doubt the usefulness of these scanners when they do arrive. Whatever can blow up a big gun obviously can blow up a transportable viewer.

	Thirdly, it is evident that this alien cylinder has some sort of unimaginable scanning apparatus superior to ours."

	"In what way?"

	"In what way?" echoed Bvandt, pointing all his eyes in dire appeal to the indifferent skies. "He asks me, 'In what way?' See here, Commander Vteish, we are upon the slope of a rise. The enemy vessel is over the other side. We cannot see it from here. It is out of sight because we are unable to view it through some thousands of tons of intervening dirt. Xo scanner we possess, no scanner we can conceive is capable of seeing straight through a hill." He nudged the other in emphasis—"Apparently they can see through a hill. How else could they know of the gun and strike at its precise position?"

	"Possibly they have a contraption which employs sky-reflection in a manner similar to our electrocommunicators," suggested "Vteish, striving to look profound. "In which case hills and mountains would be no obstacles."

	"Hunk! Kaniiwiif! You are back in your dream-plays! Even if hills and mountains could be visually surmounted there would be nothing to see but treetops. How is it possible to devise anything so selective that it can dissolve the concealing foliage to reveal what is beneath?"

	"I would not venture to argue the possibility," said Vteish. "I am content only to point." He pointed to the crater. "There is the incontrovertible evidence that despite every technical difficulty they can see and do see, through hills or through foliage, by night as well as day."

	"That's what I've been telling you all along," exploded Bvandt. "You have argued right around in a circle. Do you talk for the pleasure of your own voice?"

	He was still fuming when a courier arrived, handed him a message-cylinder which he unscrewed impatiently. Extracting the missive, he read it aloud.

	"Have received your pictograph of biped other-life. Good work!" Crumpling the paper, he tossed it into the crater. "Headquarters calls it good work. For lack of their support it has been mighty bad work so far."

	"There is another," said the courier, offering a second cylinder.

	Bvandt grabbed it, read, "Have now received pictograph of skew-shaped, multi-limbed, legless other-life, and cannot reconcile this with record previously delivered. What is relationship? Clarify without delay." He glared at the courier who edged away self-consciously. "Clarify without delay. Do they think I am omnipotent?"

	"I am only the courier," reminded the other.

	A pictograph operator arrived before Bvandt could find another avenue for expression. He had his box in one bunch of extensibles; several glossy sheets in another. His expression was slightly befuddled.

	"Well?" demanded Bvandt, glowering at him.

	The operator gabbled nervously: "Last night we set boxes in trees on the order of Captain Hixl. They had black flashes and snare-lines attached. As expected, we got several records of tree-lizards." He held out the sheets. "We also got these. We might have got more if some boxes had not been destroyed by this explosion."

	Snatching the sheets, Bvandt gave them the eight-eyed stare. Both his mouths worked around and his body humped with shock.

-

	Three of the sheets showed different aspects of the same fantastic thing. It was sitting on a branch as if out to enjoy the air. It bore a perfunctory resemblance to the two-legged pipe-smoking creature first observed, for it had two legs, two jointed arms and somewhat similar form. But it was far smaller and, moreover, possessed a single tentacle which was curled around the branch on which it sat. Its tiny, impish face held a pair of tremendous eyes which stared from the picture like twin moons.

	"By space!" swore Vteish, breathing close. "What an object!"

	His breath jerked out in a sharp hiss as Bvandt shuffled the sheets to show the others. These depicted another, differently shaped but equally nightmarish thing also on a branch. It had a pair of three-fingered hands in lieu of legs, and no visible arms, tentacles or extensibles. Apart from the hands which gripped the branch it appeared limbless. Its body made one smooth curve on each side and the outlines of it were peculiarly fuzzy.

	What got them most was the face, the awful face. Flat-topped, with demoniac horns at the sides, it had a great, menacing nose jutting between a couple of huge, glowing eyes still larger than those of the thing on the other sheets. Even in picture form those enormous optics fascinated them with the hypnotic quality of their cold, haughty, all-observing stare.

	"Now we have four forms," mourned Bvandt, unable to tear his gaze away from those immense eyes. "You can see what is going to happen. I will transmit these to headquarters. In due time they will send acknowledgement." His voice changed to a mocking imitation of the stiff, officious tones beloved of bureaucrats. "Have received your pictographs of two more other-life forms. Reply without delay stating which of these is the master-type and define the relationship of the others."

	"I do not know what answer can be given," Vteish confessed.

	"No answer can be given—yet." Bvandt made an irritated gesture in the general direction of the alien vessel. "In the name of the eternal cosmos, why can't they make up their minds what shape and form they're going to take? In the name of the red sun, blue sun or any other sun, why can't they decide on one particular identity and stick to that?"

	"Possibly their nature does not permit a decision," theorized Vteish after exercising his mind. "It is thinkable by me that they are all of the same type but, under some alien compulsion with which we are not familiar, are impelled to change shape from time to time. They may be creatures who can't help altering at certain moments, in response to certain impulses."

	"Anything is thinkable by you," scoffed Bvandt, "Sometimes I wonder why you don't leave the service and become a constructor of dream-plays." He stared again at the great eyes of Clobo, the greater ones of Nilda. "We must solve this problem forthwith."

	"How?"

	"We have two choices. For one, we can make an assault in full strength from every direction, using every trooper and the ship's crews."

	"That may cost us many lives," Vteish pointed out. "And if we fail there will be no replacements for at least four days. It will take us that long to conscript a force of local settlers: longer if we wait for the other ships."

	"I have considered that," said Bvandt. "1 prefer the alternative plan, though it is risky. We can take up a ship and use its armament to wreck the alien vessel or, at least, damage it sufficiently to ground it for keeps."

	"By space!" exclaimed Vteish. "I wouldn't care to try that! The minimum velocity at which a ship is controllable means that you'd have to shoot in less than one-hundredth the blink of an eye. And hit the target. And fire while in a dive. And pull out in time to avoid plunging into the earth."

	"I know, I know."

	"Low level bombardment by spaceships is not possible because of the tremendous speeds involved."

	"Many an impossibility has been achieved in a pinch," declared Bvandt.

	Vteish said: "An ordinary air machine would be better."

	"I agree. The idea is excellent, my dear commander. I congratulate you upon it. Please bring me an air machine."

	"Perhaps the settlers—?"

	"There are no air machines anywhere in the vicinity, none owned by any of the dirt-scrabblers. Do you expect all the amenities of civilization on this outpost world?" He sniffed his contempt. "There will not be one solitary air machine available until the main fleet arrives—and that will be several weeks behind the first comers." He sniffed again. "We must make do with what we've got precisely as these aliens are making do with what they've got. We'll bring a ship into action and hope for the best. When that fails, if it fails, I'll consider risking an assault and take a chance on losses."

	"How about flying a bomb-carrying kite with an automatic release?" asked Vteish, picturing himself among the casualties to come.

	Bvandt responded generously: "I will give the bomb if you will provide the kite and the necessary mechanism and clear away ten thousand infernal trees." Glancing upward, he added in different tones, "It has just occurred to me—what outlandish thing may be sitting up there now, hidden by the leaves, listening to us, glaring at us goggle-eyed?"

	"Eh?" Startled, Vteish followed his gaze. So did several troopers. With a coldness upon them they ignored the many sky-gaps and Studied the silent trees.

	Their mistake lay in not looking higher, much higher.

-

	Sammy the Sharpeye's mind cut through the ether saying: "One of their vessels is warming its main propulsors."

	"I guessed it," answered Peter. "I can hear the dull roar of them from here." He paused while he thought it over. "Are there any of these eight-footed uglies hanging around me?"

	"A ring of watchers," came Rippy's thought-form. "They're keeping at good distance, up in the trees, as if they're sort of nervous."

	"Do you think they saw you boys go out?"

	"A jump from a hole straight into deep brush doesn't tell much. You see something, you know it's something, but you don't know what. So you stick to the trees and say your prayers. Anyway, they've not seen me since. Kim neither." Rippy sounded contemptuous.

	"Kim!" called Peter.

	No reply.

	"What's the matter with Kim?"

	''He's laconic," said Rippy. "Aren't you, Kim?"

	"Speechless," corrected Hector, "with snitched food."

	"There are times," snarled a menacing thought-form, heard for the first time in days, "when I am tempted to change my diet." Then, more sharply, "There's a dope on the ground, Rippy! Crawling toward you, dragging a box. Do you want him, or shall I take him?"

	"This one's on me," said Rippy.

	Sammy chipped in again with: "They are now closing all vents and trimming ship for a take-off, leaving troops on the ground. The bow armament turrets are projected. Looks like they've a notion to blow off somebody's britches."

	"I'll check," said Peter calmly. Going to the control cabin, he switched the space-radio, sent out a call, listened. He repeated several times without result. "No Terran in this sector," he told Sammy. "So that means there's nobody to shoot up but us. Heck, that's going to be a chancy business with a spaceship, even one so slow as theirs are."

	"Reckon they're going to risk it, all the same," replied Sammy. "I'm nicely set to copy Nilda's tactics, but a one-pounder won't get me much. These ships need something more."

	"We'll give them more," decided Peter. "Get me the range and bearings."

	Knowing that this would take Sammy a minute or two, he used the interval to broadcast a wordless but definite anxiety, an aching concern about a mechanical matter. The thing now listed by the pictographs as superior life-form number two promptly dropped what it was doing, clanked and buzzed along the passage, helped him load a robot bomb and slide it out upon its launching-rack. That done, the noisy one returned to his task.

	"Relative to your longitudinal axis, I make it forty-seven degrees leftward, exit side," Sammy informed. "Range: slightly over six miles—say six point two."

	"I hate to do this because it tells too much," observed Peter. "So long as we remain in this jam we can't stop them learning something, but I don't feel like giving them more information than is necessary."

	"You've about two minutes in which to relent, think up something better and bring it into action," Sammy commented. "The propulsors are reddening. They'll be boosting pretty soon."

	"Ah, well, this is going to hurt them more than it hurts me." Shrugging resignedly, he tripped the trigger.

	Twin rockets blasted, forced the winged projectile up to two thousand feet before their castings fell away. The intermittent jet-engine took over and the bomb speeded high above the treetops. Steadily it hammered into the distance with a noise like that of an asthmatic motorcycle.

	Sitting on the empty launching rack, Peter swung his legs idly to and fro while his finger rested on the key of the little transmitter standing nearby. The staccato noise of the jet had now died away in the distance. Even the trees seemed to be waiting, waiting.

-

	"Now!" rasped Sammy.

	Peter pressed the key, held it down. Resulting sound took a long time to come; when it did arrive it was muffled by mileage and trees to no more than a dull thump. Later, a thin, dark column of smoke snaked out of the landscape partway to the horizon.

	"That," Sammy was saying, with grim satisfaction, "is what I call a number one big-time smiffelpitzer! Bang on the button! I could feel it even from here."

	Nilda's tones hooted irritably:

	"Aren't you guys ever going to let me sleep?"

	"Shut up!" ordered Sammy. "They were lying nose to tail about four hundred yards apart. The one which was warming up lost most of what it was warming. Nobody has come out of it, either. Maybe you've laid them for keeps."

	"What of the other vessel?" Peter prompted.

	"That's without a chunk of its bow. It could be repaired—in a month or two."

	"It can't take off?"

	"Definitely not," assured Sammy.

	"Sle-e-eep!" wailed Clobo. "Ain't me and Nilda allowed any?"

	"No more than I get when you two gabble all through the night," Sammy retorted.

	"Lay off!" ordered Peter. "Let 'em have some peace and quiet for a while. Don't call me unless it's urgent."

	He listened now. Sammy and the others remained obediently silent. With typical consideration he decided against winding in the launching rack, a process much lacking in slumbersome music. He felt a bit anxious about leaving it extended, for perforce the exit-trap had to remain open. But no matter.

	Superior life-form number two responded to his momentary thought by clanking uproariously along the passage and winding in the rack. He did it right under Peter's nose, with great gusto, the maximum of noise, and complete indifference to the resulting flood of telepathic insults.

	And that was that!

-

	The most pungent portions of Sector Marshal Bvandt's speech were uttered with his eating-mouth. Moreover, he garbled the words and made simultaneous eating motions with his speaking-mouth. His whole performance set a new low in uninhibited vulgarity but was excusable on grounds of sheer exasperation.

	Having reached the end of his impressively extensive vocabulary, which included a description of the aliens as a cosmically misbegotten shower of  nifts, he snarled at Vteish, "Now count 'em."

	Vteish went around adding them up, came back, said: "One ship's crew intact, plus three survivors from the other. Also five land-force captains and four hundred twenty-six troopers."

	"So!" said Bvandt. "So!" He jiggled his extensibles, humped himself and fumed. "So!"

	"So what?" inquired Vteish, blundering badly.

	That started Bvandt off again. He went a second time through his long list of choice vituperations, this time taking care to emphasize their especial application to supporting officers in general and one dream-play addict named Vteish in particular.

	"Yes," agreed Vteish, when he had finished. He looked abashed.

	"Now," continued Bvandt, gaining control of himself with an effort, "I have noticed one peculiar feature of the enemy's tactics." He fixed three cold, contemptuous eyes on Vteish while the other five watched the trees. "I do not suppose that you have observed it."

	"To what feature do you refer?"

	"The enemy keeps to a one-blow technique." Bvandt carried on to explain it further. "There was one blow at our sniper, one at our six marksmen, one at the gun, one at these ships. Each succeeded because it was perfectly aimed and timed—but each was only one blow devised to suit a specific occasion. They have not yet demonstrated their ability to deliver two blows simultaneously, or three, or six." He stared meaningly at the other. "Perhaps because they are not able to."

	"Ah!" said Vteish.

	"Being alien, they have alien minds," Bvandt went on. "It is remotely possible that they lack the ability to concentrate on more than one thing at one time. A confrontation with several simultaneous threats might prove too much for them."

	"Might," said Vteish dubiously.

	"Do you hold the view that we should withdraw—and accept the consequences back at headquarters?" demanded Bvandt, quick to seize upon his skepticism.

	"Oh, no, not at all," Vteish denied hurriedly.

	"Then be good enough to display a visible measure of cooperation and enthusiasm. Remember that you are an officer. As such, you must set an inspiring example." He shifted his feet to strike an attitude more important. "As I do!"

	"Yes."

	"All right! For a start you can supervise the salvaging of the side-guns. Get them out of the ships, attach their ammunition-trailers and position them in a semicircle barely within range of the alien vessel."

	"A semicircle?"

	"Of course, you idiot! If we place them in a complete circle, we'll have them firing upon each other."

	"What," persisted Vteish, "when the alien ship—which is the center of the circle—is barely within range?"

	"I take no risk of range estimates and overshooting," Bvandt shouted. "We may have casualties enough." He gave himself time to cool down before he added: "The important thing is to spread the guns immediately they are out, and to keep them spread while making the approach. See that they are hauled to their stands while widely dispersed; they cannot then be put out of action with one selective blow." Glowering at the other, he snapped, "Get going!"

	"Very well."

-

	Bvandt turned to Captain Hixl. "You will remain here with the surviving crew. Take your orders from Commander Vteish and see that the crew digs out those guns in double-quick time." Then to Gordd. "You will command the land-force captains and their troops. Deploy them and make careful approach to the alien ship. Keep no closer together than is necessary to maintain contact. Select and guard a semicircle of sites for the guns which Vteish will bring. Hold them until he arrives. Beat off any attacks as best you can, and be careful to watch the trees." He got eight times an eyeful of the nearest tall growths before he repeated, "Watch the trees!"

	"As you order." And with an air of ill-concealed foreboding, Gordd departed with his small army. Bvandt roamed irritably around, watching the trees and ignoring the sky-gaps. Now and again he chivvied the crew as they sweated and strained to get out the guns.

	One by one the heavy weapons were extracted, and lugged among the trees. There were twelve altogether. Bvandt would much have preferred to use the still larger and heavier bow-rifles, but these were fixtures impossible to remove without dockyard facilities. He had to be content with the two batteries of mobile side-guns.

	The job completed as dusk began to fall. Nothing untoward happened—except the death of Gordd.

	A trooper brought the news. Encouraged by the aliens' seeming indifference, Gordd had attempted to get nearer their ship. He had crept cautiously forward, covered by two nervous troopers. He had been attacked in the deep brush by something swift and black and manifestly spawned of a ferocious world. The assailant had made violent, non-speech noises as it took Gordd apart.

	"And what of the troopers covering him?" asked Bvandt, stabbing the messenger with his eight-eyed glare. "What did they do—sit around and chew leaves?"

	"The black thing darted out too suddenly to permit a shot," explained the trooper. "It was upon Captain Gordd in a flash, became mixed up with him. Before the escort could intervene to separate them, they also were attacked."

	"By what?"

	"Another and different creature. It had a few points of resemblance to the black one but was not the same. It was more slender, more agile, and yellow-colored with curious markings. Its face was blunter, more terrible. It made no noises, and fought with an awful silence." He permitted himself a reminiscent shudder. "This yellow horror was faster moving than the black one, much faster. Indeed, it made motions so confusingly swift that the escort was ripped to pieces under our very eyes, and even the pictograph operators did not succeed in making a clear record of it."

	"These creatures, the black one and the yellow one, did not correspond with other aliens already recorded?"

	"No."

	"Then that makes six types," observed Bvandt. He spoke to Vteish as the latter came up. "We have now discovered two more alien shapes. They've just slaughtered Gordd." He flourished his extensibles irefully. "How many more forms do they take? In the name of a thousand blue comets, why can't they make up their minds?"

-

	Vteish pondered it before he suggested: "Might not their kind of life be shapeless?"

	"What do you mean by that?"

	"Now and again we hatch malformations," Vteish pointed out. "Some examples have been weird in the extreme, so much so that we have destroyed them on sight. But they were weird only in our estimation, not in their own! If malformations occurred frequently enough, they would become the norm. Infinite variety would be accepted as the natural course of events. The process would be self-sustaining, variations breeding further variations. No parents could forecast the shape and form of their offspring or expect those offspring to resemble themselves."

	" Kaminnif!" snapped Bvandt. "We have other forms of life on our own worlds, tree lizards and water reptiles and insects. I can stretch my imagination far enough to conceive some nonexistent life-form able to progress through the air without engines, perhaps an ultralight form with tremendously enlarged fins of a fish. But I just cannot accept the notion of different forms mating to produce other and more different forms, haphazardly, without law or order."

	"Then how do you explain their great variety?" challenged Vteish. "So far, we have found no two alike."

	"There is only one solution—they represent the inhabitants of several worlds. Each shape is the master-type of its own planet."

	"If that were true it would mean that we're opposed not by one world but by an empire," protested Vteish.

	"Why not? We have an empire. We cover twenty-four worlds. I see no reason why this mob of repulsive nifts should be confined to one. We do not know whether this vessel is small or large by their standards. If small, what do they call a big one? How many more outlandish shapes might be on that? How many worlds do they control—a thousand?"

	"Not a thousand, surely!" said Vteish, finding this too much.

	"We don't know." He slurged again, discontent rivaling anger. "We don't know anything of real importance. We have suffered losses and gained nothing worthy of the sacrifice. What makes their vessels so fast? How far through the cosmos do they spread? What is their power relative to ours? How many other strange entities have they got and what form do they take?" He made a spitting sound. "We are as ignorant as at the start."

	"But we'll soon find out," Vteish promised.

	"We better had! It will go ill with us if we fail. Are those guns positioned yet?"

	"Almost."

	"Then why do you hang around here? Go to them. Hustle them along. See that they open fire immediately they're ready. Maintain the bombardment until you are satisfied that the target is grounded forever—but don't wreck it completely. We want to learn things from it, valuable things."

	"I will go at once." Suiting the action to the word, Vteish hastened between the trees.

	Bvandt stared officiously at the trooper who had brought the news of Gordd. "Well, have you taken root like a vegetable? Or has someone granted you leave of absence?"

	"No." Sullenly the trooper made off in the wake of Vteish.

	Already it was dark. A few stars shone in the sky-gaps. The trees rustled in the cool night air. Something floated low over the trees, obscuring the stars in its passage and drifting silently on. It was like a wide-eyed ghost. Bvandt failed to notice it.

	Humping across to the least damaged ship, Bvandt squatted within the shelter of its main port and waited for the fireworks. Hixl joined him. Together they brooded and waited—and watched the half-visible trees.

	In due time the guns thundered raggedly. The whistle of their shells could be heard through the dark. Nearby trees quivered in response to the bursts. There was a long pause, then a setond uproarious barrage. Shells screamed toward their mutual aiming point. The blasts caused a bright crimson flickering in the distance.

	With much satisfaction, Bvandt said: "I guess that settles that!"

	Hixl said nothing.

-

	The penetrating thought-form of Sammy the Sharpeye came through with, "Their newest stunt is to extract their side-shooting mediums and drag 'em into the woods. They don't appear to be bothering with the bow heavies."

	"Bringing them thisaways?" Peter asked. He was in the control cabin, rubbing his chin and listening, listening.

	"Yes, of course."

	"How many?"

	"Ten so far. Wait a bit." He was quiet for a while, then said: "Plus two more. That's twelve. We should have mailed them another hoister."

	"It's too late now," observed Peter. He grabbed the sides of his pilot-seat and hung on as the whole vessel suddenly floated a few feet upward and came down with a wallop. "Youps!"

	"What's that for?" demanded Sammy.

	"Results. We soared a yard."

	"About time too," contributed Rippy's mind. "I get pretty sick of dumps like—" He broke off for a moment, returned excitedly. "Jeepers! Here's one of them practically crawling into my mouth. There are two more on his tail, holding handguns, and somewhat jumpy. How about it, Kim?"

	"I'll take the two," Kim replied.

	"Cxreedy!" defined Rippy. "All right, here goes!"

	Both went silent, and Sammy came in again saying, "That pair of landbound lugs get fed too much. They don't know what to do with their surplus zip."

	"Boys will be boys," Peter reminded. "What do you see now?"

	"The guns have been dragged away, with plenty of ammo. I get occasional glimpses of them through the trees and they're spread over a couple of miles. The light is getting lousy—reckon it's time Nilda took over."

	"Coming right now," Nilda chipped in.

	"Three slurpers have lost interest," announced Rippy suddenly. "P faugh ! What a mess they make." Pause. "Nice work, Kim."

	Kim did not reply.

	The boat floated again, remained poised ten feet from the ground. A shrill shriek like that of a whirling grinder-wheel came from the rear. It ceased abruptly. Someone started bouncing ball bearings on a pile of empty cans. The vessel remained steady at its new elevation.

	"We are now in a state of suspense," Peter informed all and sundry.

	"I know it," retorted Hector. "I've four full pans, two double boilers, one percolator and one pressure cooker all waiting for the drop."

	The ship promptly dropped, not too hard, but hard enough.

	Hector bawled: "There, what did I tellya?"

	Leaving the control cabin, Peter went along the passage, had a look in the antigrav chamber. All within was quiet and peaceful. There was no sign of the rhomboidal object.

	Hopefully, he tried the fourth cubical along the passage, shoved open its door, had a glance through. Superior life-form number two was standing impassively in a corner, his various limbs folded or retracted, his air that of one patiently prepared to wait the crack of doom.

	"Mechano has finished!" Peter transmitted the news like a mental yelp. He did a little dance. "Back in the ship, all of you. Make it snappy!"

	Clobo complained, "Just as I was going out. Oh, well—"

-

	Regaining the control cabin, Peter fastened himself into the pilot-seat, fingered the familiar gadgets, stared anxiously through the armorglass and into the pall of darkness. He was not unduly worried about the hidden guns. He had the choice of six effective methods of dealing with those now that they were no longer shielded over the rise of land, the simplest being to cause a gentle but not soothing vibration in the molecules of their ammunition. The result would be drastic. He could arrange it right now if necessary, but was not sure of the necessity. Peter's tendency was to slaughter only in minimum terms suitable to the circumstances.

	At the moment his only anxiety was for the missing members of the crew, and since they were strictly nonmechanical the noisiest nift reposed in his cabin and refused to do anything about the woe.

	"Rippy in," suddenly reported that worthy.

	"Sammy in," followed right after the other.

	"They're ranging and aiming the guns but haven't yet loaded," informed Nilda, blandly ignoring the order to return. "We'll just about make it."

	"Kim!" called Peter urgently. Bending forward in his seat, he stared hard into the dark. Nothing could be seen other than a faint haze of starlight over distant trees.

	"Coming!" answered a harsh tone presently. Then, half a minute later, "Kim in."

	"Now they've loaded!" screeched Nilda from somewhere far off in the gloom. "Take her up! Leave the lock open for me!"

	Automatically, Peter shifted the antigrav control. The ship did a sharp, sickening rise to five hundred feet, hung there. An instant later great throbs of fire spurted in a half-circle from the trees. Unseen things whined shrilly through the night. A dozen gouts of crimson sprang from the ground immediately beneath.

	"Nilda!"

	"Keep your hair on—I'm coming."

	He lifted two hundred feet higher, waited, fingers ready at the controls, eyes gazing expectantly through the armorglass. He did not see her approach, but shortly she said: "Nilda in."

	More fire spurted below. The closer sound of the missiles and spread of resultant bursts showed that the hidden guns had been elevated. With a brief, "Tsk-tsk!" he gave the antigravs full play. An hour later he cut them off, switched in the rockets. The world shrank behind.

	The advance guard of four oncoming alien vessels sighted him half a million miles out, re-angled in pursuit. He did not bother to change course. Shifting the propulsor controls to the end notch, he watched the others gradually slide off his side-screen, reappear on his tail-screen and slowly diminish. By the time they had shrunk to barely discernible dots they had given up and turned back.

	Setting a new course, he locked the automatic pilot onto it, checked its operation, unstrapped from his seat, stretched and yawned.

	Hector's thought-form complained: "I've told you ten times that chow's ready. Dontcha want any?"

	"Yes, sir! Give me a minute."

	He watched the autopilot a little while before he left the cabin. There was laughter-impulses coming from the combined galley and messroom toward the tail. It was an easy guess that Clobo was putting on one of his ever-popular acts, probably his famous impression of Fleet Admiral Dickson going pop-eyed over his food. A good guy, Clobo, whose value lay mostly in his ability to entertain, to beat off space-boredom and maintain morale.

	The same old wonder came to Peter as he closed the control cabin door, the marvel of a million long, long years, the frequently recurring realization that the hugeness of space is matched by the immensity of time.

	For all had passed through the many eons. Some had leaped ahead, some lagged behind. But several of the laggers had put on last-moment spurts—because of late functioning of natural laws—and the impact upon their various kinds of the one kind called Man.

	Until they had breasted the tape together.

	For the hundredth or two-hundredth time he paused on his way to the galley and studied the inscribed plate set in the wall. It read:

-

Patrol Boat 
Letitia Reed

(Presented to the Associated
Species by Waldo Reed)

Crew	Kind	
Peter the Pilot	Terraman	
Sammy the Sharpeye	White-crested Eagle	
Hector the Hasher	Venusape	
Rippy the Ranger	Terradog	
Kim the Killer	Hunting Cheetah	
Mechano the Mender	Automaton	
Clobo the Clown	Spectral Tarsier	
Nilda the Nightwatcher	Great Horned Owl	

-

	Grinning, Peter carefully left his mind wide open while he thought to himself, "Boy, what a bunch of bums we've got!" Then just as carefully he closed his mind while he added, "But I'd sooner lose my legs than any one of 'em!"

	"For the eleventh time, you bum—" howled Hector.

	"Coming!" He took his eyes off the plate and hurried to chow.

The End