away, meeting Sandra in the corridor. “Okay, chick, take ’em away. We’ll cover you.
Luck, girl.”
And in the control room, to Sawtelle, “Needle-beam cover, please; set for minimum
aperture and lethal blast. But no firing, Captain Sawtelle, until I give the order.”
The Perseus was surrounded by hundreds of natives. They were all adult, all naked
and about equally divided as to sex. They were friendly; most enthusiastically so.
“Jarve!” Sandra squealed. “They’re telepathic. Very strongly so! I never imagined-I
never felt anything like it!”.
“Any rough stuff?” Hilton demanded.
“Oh, no. Just the opposite. They simply love us . . . in a way that’s simply
indescribable. I don’t like this telepathy business . . . not clear . . . foggy, diffuse . . , this
woman is sure I’m her long-lost great-great-a-hundred-times grandmother or
something-You! Slow down. Take it easy! They want us all to come out here and live
with . . . no, not with them, but each of us alone in a whole house with them to wait on
us! But first, they all want to come aboard . . .”
“What?” Hilton yelped. “But are you sure they’re friendly?” “Positive, chief.”
“How about you, Alex?”
“We’re all sure, Jarve. No question about it.” “Bring two of them aboard. A man and a
woman.”
“You won’t bring any!” Sawtelle thundered. “Hilton, I bad enough of your stupid,
starry-eyed, ivory-domed blundering long ago, but this utterly idiotic brainstorm of letting
enemy aliens aboard us ends all civilian command. Call your people back aboard or I
will bring them in by force!”
“Very well, sir. Sandy, tell the natives that a slight delay has become necessary and
bring your party aboard.”
The Navy officers smiled-or grinned-gloatingly; while the scientists stared at their
director with expressions ranging from surprise to disappointment and disgust. Hilton’s
face remained set, expressionless, until Sandra and her party had arrived.
“Captain Sawtelle,” he said then, “I thought that you and I bad settled in private the
question of who is in command of Project Theta Orionis at destination. We will now
settle it in public. Your opinion of me is now on record, witnessed by your officers and
by my staff. My opinion of you, which is now being similarly recorded and witnessed, is
that you are a hidebound, mentally ossified Navy mule; mentally and psychologically
unfit to have any voice in any such mission as this. You will now agree, on this
recording and before these witnesses, to obey my orders unquestioningly or I will now
unload all Bureau of Science personnel and equipment onto this planet and send you
and the Perseus back to Terra with the doubly-sealed record of this episode posted to
the Advisory Board. Take your choice.”
Eyes locked, and under Hilton’s uncompromising stare Sawtelle weakened. He
fidgeted; tried three timesunsuccessfully-to blare defiance. Then, “Very well, sir,” he
said, and saluted.
“Thank you, sir,” Hilton said, then turned to his staff. “Okay, Sandy, go ahead.”
Outside the control room door, “Thank God you don’t play poker, Jarve!” Karns
gasped. “We’d all owe you all the pay we’ll ever get!”
“You think it was the bluff, yes?” de Vaux asked. “Me, I think no. Name of a name of a
name! I was wondering with unease what life would be like on this so-alien planet!”
“You didn’t need to wonder, Tiny,” Hilton assured him. “It was in the bag. He’s
incapable of abandonment.”
Beverly Bell, the van der Moen twins and Temple Bells all stared at Hilton in awe; and
Sandra felt much the same way. “But suppose he had called you?” Sandra demanded.
“Speculating on the impossible is unprofitable,” he said. “Oh, you’re the most
exasperating thing!” Sandra stamped a foot. “Don’t you-ever-answer a question
intelligibly?”
“When the question is meaningless, chick, I can’t.”
At the lock Temple Bells, who had been hanging back, cocked an eyebrow at Hilton
and he made his way to her side. “What was it you started to say back there, boss?”
“Oh, yes. That we should see each other oftener.”
“That’s what I was hoping you were going to say.” She put her hand under his elbow
and pressed his arm lightly, fleetingly, against her side. “That would be indubitably the
fondest thing I could be of.”
He laughed and gave her arm a friendly squeeze. Then he studied her again, the most
baffling member of his staff. About five feet six. Lithe, hard, trained down fine-as a
tennis champion, she would be. Stacked-how she was stacked! Not as beautiful as
Sandra or Teddy . . . but with an ungodly lot of something that neither of them had . . .
nor any other woman he had ever known.
“Yes, I am a little difficult to classify,” she said quietly, almost reading his mind.
“That’s the understatement of the year! But I’m making some progress.”
“Such as?” This was an open challenge. “Except possibly Teddy, the best brain
aboard.” “That isn’t true, but go ahead.”
“You’re a powerhouse. A tightly organized, thoroughly integrated, smoothly functioning,
beautifully camouflaged Juggernaut. A reasonable facsimile of an irresistible force.”
“My God, Jarvis!” That had gone deep.
“Let me finish my analysis. You aren’t head of your department because you don’t want
to be. You fooled the top psychs of the Board. You’ve been running ninety per cent
submerged because you can work better that way and there’s no gloryhound blood in
you.”
She stared at him, licking her lips. “I knew your mind was a razor, but I didn’t know it
was a diamond drill, too. That seals your doom, boss, unless . . . no, you can’t possibly
know why I’m here.”
“Why, of course I do.”
“You just think you do. You see, I’ve been in love with you ever since, as a gangling,
bony, knobby-kneed kid. I listened to your first doctorate disputation. Ever since then,
my purpose in life has been to !and you.”
Chapter 3
“But listen!” he exclaimed. “I can’t, even if I want . . .”
“Of course you can’t.” Pure deviltry danced in her eyes. “You’re the Director. It wouldn’t
be proper. But it’s Standard Operating Procedure for simple, innocent, unsophisticated
little country girls like me to go completely overboard for the boss.”
“But you can’t-you mustn’t!” he protested in panic. Temple Bells was getting plenty of
revenge for the shocks be had give her. “I can’t? Watch me!” She grinned up at him,
her eyes still dancing. “Every chance I get, I’m going to hug your arm like I did a minute
ago. And you’ll take hold of my forearm, like you did! That can be taken, you see, as
either: One, a reluctant acceptance of a mildly distasteful but not quite actionable
situation, or: Two, a blocking move to keep me from climbing up you like a squirrel!”
“Confound it, Temple, you can’t be serious!”
“Can’t I?” She laughed gleefully. “Especially with half a dozen of those other cats
watching? Just wait and see, boss!” Sandra and her two guests came aboard. The
natives looked around; the man at the various human men, the women at each of the
human women. The women remained beside Sandra; the man took his place at Hilton’s
left, looking up-he was a couple of inches shorter than Hilton’s six feet one-with an air of
. . . of expectancy!
“Why this arrangement, Sandy?” Hilton asked.
“Because we’re tops. It’s your move, Jarve. What’s first?” “Uranexite. Come along,
Sport. I’ll ca!! you that until . . “taro,” the native said, in a deep resonant bass voice. He
hit himself a blow on the head that would have floored any two ordinary men. “Sora,” he
announced, striking the alien woman a similar blow.
“taro and Sora, I would like to have you look at our uranexite, with the idea of refueling
our ship. Come with me, please?”
Both nodded and followed him. In the engine-room he pointed at the engines, then to
the lead-blocked labyrinth leading to the fuel holds. “taro, do you understand ‘hot’?
Radioactive?”
Laro nodded-and started to open the heavy lead door! “Hey!” Hilton yelped. “That’s
hot!.’ He seized Laro’s arm to pull him away-and got the shock of his life. Laro weighed
at least five hundred pounds! And the guy still looked human! Laro nodded again and
gave himself a terrific thump on the chest. Then he glanced at Sora, who stepped away
from Sandra. He then went into the hold and came out with two fuel pellets in his hand,
one of which he tossed to Sora. That is, the motion looked like a toss, but the pellet
traveled like a bullet. Sora caught it unconcernedly and both natives flipped the pellets
into their mouths. There was a half minute of rockcrusher crunching; then both natives
opened their mouths. The pellets had been pulverized and swallowed.
Hilton’s voice rang out. “Poynter! How can these people be non-radioactive after eating
a whole fuel pellet apiece?” Poynter tested both natives again. “Cold,” he reported.