“Tell me what the plan is,” said Lysander at last. It was his first venture into adult guile.
Chapter 22
Three thousand years is a lot of history. Three thousand years ago on Earth history had barely begun. Civilization was a collection of tiny principalities in the Fertile Crescent, and neither China nor Ancient Greece had been invented yet. The three-thousand-year history of the Hakh’hli is just as long and just as cloudy in its origins. The Hakh’hli know that before that time their remote ancestors lived on one or another of a consortium of planets—four of them, in three separate stellar systems—and deployed immense powers. Powers enough to launch a dozen ships like their own, to scour the Galaxy for new homes for the Hakh’hli race. That was their Golden Age, they know. What they also know is that the history of the three thousand years since the ship first began to swim the spaces between the stars has been not golden at all; it is a history of monotonous voyages and fruitless investigations. It is, to be more exact, a history of three thousand long, uninterrupted years of failure.
The flight back to the lander site was in no slow, comfortable blimp. They were in a hurry. Their plane was a high-energy supersonic jet, and it crossed the North American continent, twelve miles up, in an hour and forty minutes. It was not a pleasant trip. The acceleration as they took off and climbed was enough to push even Sandy back in his seat, and the other human passengers were immobilized until the jet leveled off.
Even then there was not much light conversation. Marguery Darp was lost in her own thoughts. Lysander, sitting by one of the tiny windows, spent most of his time gazing out at what could be seen of country sliding past below.
Hamilton Boyle had donned his InterSec uniform for the job, leather boots, holstered pistol, cap, and all. It was as though he needed to be reassured of his official position. When they were flying almost level he turned to Lysander and demanded harshly, “Do you know what you’re supposed to do?”
Lysander turned back from the window. “How could I not?” he asked. “You’ve told me over and over. My job is to get the Hakh’hli out of the landing craft. You apprehend them. Then I turn it over to you.”
“To the human race, Sandy,” Boyle corrected.
“What you didn’t tell me,” Sandy said, “was what you’re going to do with the lander after you get it.”
“We’ll study it, man! We have to find out what kind of technology we’re up against.”
Sandy nodded as though he had expected that answer. He wasn’t signaling acceptance of what Boyle had said, only that he hadn’t expected to be told the truth. He pursed his lips, gazing innocently at Hamilton Boyle. “You know,” he said, “a suspicious person might think you had a different reason. You might be thinking of using the lander to ram the Hakh’hli ship.”
The expression on Boyle’s face told him all he had to know. When Sandy turned to look at Marguery Darp her own expression was dismal. “Oh, hell,” she said. “We might as well start trusting each other, Ham! Sandy, you’re almost right. InterSec has half a dozen fusion warheads hidden away, just in case. Once you turn the lander over to us, Ham wants to put one of them in it and take off. But not to ram it, Sandy! Not unless we really have to.”
“No? Then what?” he asked politely.
“Just threaten it, Sandy! That’s all. They’ll have to surrender; the big ship’s a sitting duck up there, with its drive motors off.”
“I see,” Lysander said noncommitally, and stopped there.
Boyle gave him ten seconds, and then demanded, “What’s the matter? Don’t you think it would work?”
Lysander thought it over carefully. “I never heard of a Hakh’hli surrendering,” he said, “but I guess there’s a first time for everything. As you say, they wouldn’t have much choice, would they? Also,” he went on, struck by a thought, “you probably don’t have to bother with putting a bomb on the lander. Just crashing into the ship would do it, if you rammed it in the drive-systems area. Imagine strange matter splashing around the ship! Of course, whoever piloted the lander would die, too.”
“Do you suppose that would be a problem? There are always human beings who are willing to die for patriotic reasons.”
“So I have been told,” Lysander agreed. “Only—”
“Only what?” Boyle demanded harshly.
Sandy shrugged. “Only I don’t see what your next step is going to be. What are you going to do with the Hakh’hli after they all surrender?”
“We’ll take them prisoner!”
“Yes, I see that much. Then what?”
“Then it’s up to the civil authorities,” Boyle snapped. “Don’t worry about it, Lysander! We’re not going to shoot them. There are rules about the treatment of prisoners of war.”
“Yes, you put them in concentration camps,” Lysander nodded. “How long do you keep them there?”
“As long as necessary,” Boyle said through his teeth.
Sandy mulled that over for a minute. “There’s one other possibility you haven’t mentioned,” he pointed out. “You could just tell them they had to go visit some other star. Would I be correct if I thought you had considered that and decided it wouldn’t work?”
“You would,” Boyle said shortly, but Marguery spoke up, ignoring his angry look.
“They can’t, Sandy,” she told him. “Remember, we said they were desperate. Their drive systems are beginning to wear out. Polly told us that; something about radiation-induced weaknesses in the support structure. She says it’s beginning to get serious. The supports might hold up for a few hundred years yet, or they might go in ten.”
“So they’re stuck here,” Boyle added.
“I see,” Lysander said, nodding. And then he said, “Poor bastards. Well. Is there anything else we need to talk about right now?”
“Only to make sure you know what you’re supposed to do—”
“I do know, Boyle. You think there’ll only be two of the party in the landing craft itself?”
“Usually there are two. They take turns. Two come out and talk to us, two stay in the ship.” Boyle hesitated. “At least,” he said, “I hope so. There’s one little problem.”
“Something else you haven’t told me?” Lysander inquired politely.
“Something I’m telling you now,” Boyle said sharply. “They’ve been out of communication with the interstellar ship for about ten hours now. Interference.”
“What do you mean, interference?”
“We’ve got a high-altitude blimp up there, broadcasting jamming signals,” Boyle explained. “They can’t talk to the ship; the ship can’t talk to them. Don’t give me that kind of look, Lysander! We had to do it. We didn’t want them stirring up trouble when they couldn’t get an answer from Hippolyta or you. It’s possible that they’ll be so concerned about that that they’ll all be in the ship, but probably they’ll take it to be some natural thing, like sunspot effects.”
“You hope,” said Lysander. “Well, it can’t be very comfortable for them in there, so maybe they’ll get out when they can anyway.” He thought for a moment, then added, “I can do what you want me to, I think, although it would be easier if I went in by myself.”
“No. It’s going to be the way I say. Marguery goes with you.”
Sandy shrugged. “And you’ll take them prisoner as they come out?”
“Of course.”
“All right,” said Sandy. “Then there’s just one thing left. I’ll need one of those.” He pointed to the gun at Boyle’s belt.
Boyle raised an eyebrow in surprise. “For what? You said yourself you couldn’t threaten a Hakh’hli.”
Sandy gave him a pleasant smile. “You can kill one,” he said. “And now I’d appreciate it if you’d get me a pencil and paper. And don’t talk to me for a while, please. I think I’d like to write a poem.”
They couldn’t see the little settlement that had grown up around the lander as the jet came down; in that heat-drenched, almost windowless jet they had nothing useful to see out of. Only the pilot had any real visibility.
Peering past the pilot’s head, Lysander caught a glimpse of cloud, sky, mountain, cloud again; and then the aircraft was bouncing along a runway, the jets screaming louder than ever as the reversed thrust slowed them down. The deceleration threw Sandy against his straps.
Then they stopped rolling.
Lysander unbuckled quickly and reached to open the hatch, but Boyle put a hand on his shoulder. “You asked for this,” he said, offering the gun from his holster.
Lysander turned the flat, heavy thing over in his hand, wonderingly. It was so small and so sinister. “This could kill a person?”
“You mean could it kill a Hakh’hli? It could kill an elephant, Sandy. It’s got a shaped charge in the load.”