She was silent for a moment, panting. Then she called over the distant thunder of the engines, “Would you really have shot me?” He didn’t answer. He just smiled at her over his shoulder. She tried a different tack. “What if I have to go to the bathroom?”
“There is no bathroom on a Hakh’hli landing vessel,” he told her. “In the cabinet behind you and to the right are waste sacks and sponge materials that can be used for that purpose, if absolutely necessary. But for now I think—ow,” he cried, as the lander made a sudden sidewise thrust. He rubbed a bruised shoulder. “We must’ve just dodged a big one! That means we’re getting into the garbage orbit, so hold tight!”
It took more than an hour to dodge and bounce their way through the garbage belt. They were continuously on drive, keeping both of them anchored to their seats. Because they were using the north polar sector of the sky the density of dangerous objects were markedly lower than anywhere else over the Earth. It was still hazardous enough, and definitely a bumpy ride. From time to time alarming noises made Marguery bite her lip, as some microartifact too tiny to dodge splatted against the foil shield and its instant plasma cone clanged against the hull. Some of the clangs were scarily loud . . . but none were followed by the blue-light pressure alarm on the board, or by the hiss of escaping gas.
The little ship’s evasive action threw them about mercilessly. By the time they were clear of the worst of the damage even Lysander was nursing bruises, and Marguery was grunting with pain. Lysander calculated the vectors for converting their circumpolar orbit into the equatorial one of the interstellar ship and applied corrections. “I’m reducing thrust,” he called, squinting with interest at a familiar face that was silently shouting on the pilot’s screen. “You can go relieve yourself now if you need to.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Marguery snarled. “Who’s that looking at us?”
Lysander studied the face. “It’s ChinTekki-tho. He isn’t looking at us, though. At least, he can’t see us, because I’m not transmitting yet. He looks angry, doesn’t he?”
“What a surprise!” she snapped. “What are you going to do now?”
Lysander leaned back against the kneeling-seat, rubbing his bruises. “I’ll answer him pretty soon,” he told her.
“Then what, damn it?”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “Then,” he said, “I’m going to do what I want to do. That’ll be a novelty, won’t it? I haven’t had much practice at that. First I did what the Hakh’hli wanted me to do for most of my life. Then I did what you wanted me to do. So this is a new experience, and there’s a good chance I’ll screw up. But we’re going to try it anyway.”
“Damn you, Lysander!” she began, and then, in a different tone, she said, “Please, Lysander. What are your plans?”
“Why,” he said reasonably, “the first thing I have to do is to set course for the Hakh’hli ship. That means there will be a lot of velocity changes, so I’ll have to be careful about that; we don’t have big fuel reserves. No,” he corrected himself, shaking his head, “that’s not the first thing. The first thing is to find the ship.” And, as she started to speak, he finished politely, “Dear Marguery, please shut up. I have to concentrate.”
It took a lot of concentration. It took painstaking searching of the three-hour equatorial orbit before Lysander caught his first glimpse of the interstellar ship. He fumbled with the magnification until he got the Hakh’hli ship large in the screen, then worked the course calculators.
Then he sighed and applied a gentle torque, then a small thrust. “It could be worse,” he observed. “We should be able to reach it in about six hours. Oh, look, Marguery! They’re coming along quite well with that big dish.”
“Great,” Marguery snapped.
“I’d like to ask ChinTekki-tho when they expect to be able to detect signals,” Lysander said cheerfully.
“Go ahead and do it, why don’t you? He sure looks like he wants to talk to you.”
Lysander hesitated, then reluctantly switched over to transmission mode. “Hello, ChinTekki-tho,” he said pleasantly, turning on the sound for the picture. “How are you?”
ChinTekki-tho thundered furiously in Hakh’hli.
“John William Washington, why are you doing this thing and not some proper thing? It is that twelfth-day for sleep now! You delay my rest! Your Major Seniors instruct you to cease this conduct which is improper and not as directed!”
“Speak English,” Lysander ordered. “I want Marguery to hear everything we say.”
ChinTekki-tho twitched his thumbs in furious objection. “But that is unwise and not prudent, Lysander! This Marguery Darp is not only Earth human who will hear!”
“I said, in English!”
“Oh, very well,” said ChinTekki-tho, angrily giving in. “Then tell me! Why are you doing this? Where is your gratitude to the Hakh’hli who gave you life? We saved you!”
Lysander shook his head firmly. “I don’t think I owe you anything for that. You didn’t do it for me. You did it for yourselves, and besides you lied to me about it.”
“Lysander! You are endangering serious plans of Major Seniors for all our progeny. Think of seventy-three million eggs unhatched!”
“I am thinking,” Lysander said harshly, “of seventy-three million Hakh’hli invading the continent of Africa, ChinTekki.”
He deliberately left off the “tho” of respect. The teacher winced, but only said, “What are you talking about?”
“That you are invading the Earth!”
“No, no,” ChinTekki-tho cried. “We are not ‘invading’ the Earth. Why do you use that word?”
“Then what do you call what you are going to do in Africa?”
ChinTekki-tho glanced nervously about, as though looking for some Earth-human eye turned in his direction. He licked his lips and said, “We do no harm in Africa. Africa has plenty of room. No Earth humans are using it.”
“But it’s their Earth. It’s their planet. Shouldn’t you ask them first?”
“Lysander, you speak without thought. What is the use of asking them if we can live there until we know if it is possible for us to live there? No, Lysander! It is not your place to question the decisions of the Major Seniors now! Rather you should explain why it is that you attacked four of your cohort-mates and, without authorization, stole that landing vessel.”
“Oh?” Lysander said, interested. “How did you know that, ChinTekki-tho?”
“How do you think I know it?” the teacher said bitterly. “They’ve been telling us about it for the last hour! As soon as your cohort-mates recovered from your foul attack they demanded that the Earth humans transmit for them. They are speaking to me even now, along with some of the humans. They, too, want you to go back!”
Lysander blinked in surprise; he hadn’t expected them to react so quickly. “Why don’t they talk to me direct?”
“Because you do not have any receiver for Earth transmissions, foolish Lysander!” ChinTekki-tho roared. “Do you not believe me? Here, wait. I will allow you to see for yourself.”
He leaned past the camera to give swift orders in Hakh’hli. In a moment the screen split in two horizontally. On top was the furious face of ChinTekki-tho. Below him were a whole group of people—Boyle and a couple of other humans, and with them Demetrius and Tanya, looking just as enraged. They looked different in other ways, too. Hamilton Boyle seemed to have had his hair cropped short since they saw him last; moreover, he was wearing a burn dressing on one side of his face. Demetrius was bandaged, too, and looked even more resentfully furious. He shouted accusingly: “You endangered our lives, Lysander! If this Earth human had not managed to pull me out of the exhaust before you applied full power I would have died unnecessarily early!”
“I’m sorry you both got scorched,” Lysander said politely. “I see you all survived, though.”
“No thanks to you,” Hamilton Boyle grated. “Come back at once!”
“Sorry,” Lysander said. “I don’t have the fuel. Or the desire, either.”
“Then come simply and peacefully to the ship, Lysander,” ChinTekki-tho pleaded. “We will accept you without harm!”
“The hell you will!” Boyle shouted. “You just want Lieutenant Darp for a hostage!”
“Hakh’hli do not take ‘hostages,’ ” ChinTekki-tho roared. “It is you who now have four of our people held captive! We are not war-loving, violent creatures like Earth humans!”
“We are neither war loving nor violent!” Boyle began, and Lysander took a hand in the conversation.
“Boyle,” he said, “have you told ChinTekki-tho what you peace-loving, gentle people did to Polly?”
That stopped Boyle. He hesitated, glancing at the Hakh’hli beside him, before he muttered, “She is quite all right.”
“No,” Lysander corrected him, “she isn’t. You don’t know how much harm you’ve done, Boyle.”
On the other screen ChinTekki-tho thundered, “If you Earth creatures have dared to harm a Hakh‘hli—”