Part 2

A few seconds later the native came pounding desperately through the alley into the clearing. "Hold him!" yelled the scout. Stuart sprang to his feet with a leveled rifle and confronted the astounded humanoid, who collided with a tree and stopped. Nestor came dodging out through the nets to cover the prisoner with another gun. The brilliant red manlike creature, obviously understanding the weapons, still tried to edge away from the squalling roars of the hell-cats not far behind on the prairie.

The twin sixty-millimeter guns in the nose burst out with a clatter. The noise of the exploding projectiles was deafening. Clumps of dirt and scrub flew high into the air. Then Nestor's blast-rifle roared once, sharply.

Abruptly there was silence. The Azuran had obviously discovered the ship behind the camouflage; he stared at it, blinked, and stared again, as though in disbelief. Stuart began taking pictures of him. "No more cats," came Gordon's voice. "They were bunched up and Nestor got 'em all. Ah, I notice our new friend has seen through the camouflage net."

The native's reaction was sudden, unexpected. He shuddered and slumped to the ground, a picture of dejection. His tentacles were limp. Nothing would induce him to communicate. At length Stuart offered water; the native suddenly arose, as if in a hopeless rage, knocked the canteen aside, and kicked the linguist's injured leg. Then the red being sank to the ground again.

"Damn!" growled Stuart through clenched teeth. He rubbed his leg. "I suppose he thinks we're the Invaders, coming back to ravage his people again. Either he never saw the Invaders himself, or we happen to resemble them. Or maybe the terror of the invasion was so great that a serious semantic confusion exists, labelling all strangers as Bad. Well, at any rate, I'll have to go through some semantic analysis to establish any rapport at all." Meditating on the problem, he sent Nestor back to the ship for drawing materials, and bent over to retrieve the canteen. The native immediately knocked him flat and fled into the woods.

Rogers started after the Azuran, unslinging his gun, but Gordon spoke up from the airlock, where he had been about to climb down to the ground. "Dan! Get out of those woods, you half-wit! Let him go; you can't possibly catch him. Anyway, we may be able to see where he goes, if he breaks out into open country again. White, will you keep an eye on the edge of the woods from up there? Be ready to man the 'scope. I'll be right up."

Nestor sat down beside the linguist a few minutes later and held out a cup of fragrant coffee. "Here, Mr. Stuart. I figured you guys could use breakfast better than drawing materials right now. Feel okay?"

Stuart sipped and nodded gratefully. "Mmm. Yes, fine, thanks."

The plump little flight engineer handed him a sandwich. "You're due for relief about now anyway. The boss and I will be out here, and White and Brettner inside. You and Rogers can sleep a while."

The linguist leaned back against a tree and lit a cigarette. "Has the native showed up again?" he asked his microphone.

White answered. "Yeah. He high-tailed it across the prairie and disappeared among the coral rocks. Chief says for you to come in, Stuart; he wants to know what you found out."

* * * * *

Stuart picked up his rifle, canteen, camera, and cup. He wondered vaguely, as he trudged wearily over to the ship, how he had gotten so tired. Then he realized that, like the others, he had gotten only five hours' sleep in the past two nights. Procyon was yellow-white and hot on his back, even through the netting, as he clambered up the fin rungs. He felt sleepy.

In the captain's crowded little cabin he dropped into a chair and yawned. Gordon stretched, scratching lazily, and grinned at him. "Bored, on your first day ashore?"

The linguist smiled ruefully. "Tired, yes, but hardly bored. I don't mind admitting the first few hours have been rather disappointing. We had a native right here, I stood face to face with him, and we even saved his life ... well, no use yowling about it. I presume he's gone off to warn the others now. Our element of surprise, as you fellows say, is lost." He brushed the hair out of his eyes. "What shall we do about it, Gordon?"

The leader drummed on the desk a while. "I dunno. This sort of situation was never covered in Patrol courses. Maybe the General Staff studies this stuff, but I was just a line officer, like the other guys. If you remember, we figured we'd sort of make up our operations plan as we went along. You probably know as much about it as we do, from all your reading. Nothing predictable about any of this; we just have to react to whatever develops. What would you suggest?"

"Um. Well, I've a half-formed scheme for--er, seizing the bull by the horns. The natives are certain to react immediately, either by attacking us or by disappearing again. I feel that we should assume the initiative as soon as possible, without waiting for them to maneuver one of their weapons within range of us."

"How do we assume the initiative?"

"Yes, exactly--how?" The semanticist shook his head. "I'll have to sleep on it at least a little while, Gordon. Right now I feel unable to think. But somehow we have to convey to the Azurans the knowledge that we are friendly. We'll have to find some way of representing the idea to them."

"Drop leaflets," suggested Gordon, wryly. "Or put up one of those billboards they used to have all over a hundred years ago. Everybody in the universe must have become accustomed to some kind of advertising by now!" He laughed heartily. "Okay, Stuart. Go fall into your bunk. Let's hope you wake up with a good idea!"

The thoughtful little language expert got up to leave. "Billboard. Billboard ... there may be something in that, even if you were joking."

His musings were broken off by the alarm bell and the intercom's squawk. "All hands! Battle stations! Chief, three natives just popped up from a hole in the ground about two hundred meters away. Strong radar indication."

As Stuart ran down to his post at the airlock, he heard Gordon's calm voice from the intercom. "All right, Brettner. Keep them covered, but don't fire."

At the lock, the linguist remembered to punch the personnel buttons as the men climbed in, out of breath and swearing. He pushed the stud beside his own name last and shut the lock as the "All Aboard" shone green.

Gordon spoke again, apparently to someone in the control room with him. "They've evidently lugged a disrupter or something along a tunnel. Seem to have a couple of big beasts of burden carrying a gadget ... looks like one of those old pack howitzers. Let's wait 'till they get it nearly assembled, so we can get an idea of--hup! Let's GO!"

* * * * *

Stuart had forgotten to buckle his safety straps. He just had time to grab a stanchion when the violent acceleration tripled his weight and nearly threw him to the floor. No more than a heartbeat later, there was a muffled boom from outside the ship, and a section of blazing tree went rocketing past the glassite window.

After a few seconds' acceleration he felt the ship take on a horizontal component. The pressure eased off. He got up from his hands and knees and adjusted the periscope controls until he got a view of the ground. There was a group of burning trees several kilometers below, sliding rapidly to the east. Several times the scenery shifted rapidly as the ship zigzagged.

As he swung the 'scope, Stuart was thunderstruck to discover a hole blasted in the edge of a fin, not four meters away from where he stood. Shreds of charred camouflage netting fluttered in tangled strings.

On the intercom, White's voice broke the tense silence. "Gimme that again, slowly, somebody. What happened, anyway?"

Gordon answered. "That must have been a tunnel they came out of, right at the edge of the woods. Maybe they use it to get home if hell-cats happen to catch them out on the prairie. That fellow we caught today was probably heading for it, hoping to lose the cats in the woods first."

After a moment, he added, "Anyway, they showed up with a heavy weapon and nearly got us. Patrol guessed wrong about its portability, and I guessed wrong about its operation."

Stuart commented, "Good thing someone happened to be on duty in the turret, and we were able to take off on such short notice."

"_Happened!_" barked the captain. "Mr. Stuart, that's the first rule of _any_ ship landing on territory listed as 'unsafe', and it 'happens' to be Rules Seven through Sixteen of the Patrol Regulations!"

Brettner eased the linguist's embarrassment by changing the subject a little. "Did you all see the colossal helpers they had carrying that weapon? Must be what the traders called heffalumps ... I thought the pictures were fakes. Those critters practically did the shooting themselves, and they were talking to the natives! This is some planet--everybody talks to everybody except us!"

Gordon spoke again. "White, I want you to rig up a mosaic alarm with controls in the turret, Number One Lock, and control room ... before tonight, if possible. Jury-rig it, just so it goes off when anything larger than a mossback moves near the ship. Get as much range as you can."

"That means dismantling the space-probe and comparator, boss. Not enough spare checkerboards to scan three hundred and sixty degrees with a decent vertical coverage. And for stereo-perception, so the thing can discriminate between a nearby leaf and a far-away heffalump--"

"All right, do the best you can. Can you hook it up with an infra-red snooper for night work? I don't believe the natives can see infra-red ... I hope. Procyon's a little farther toward the blue than Sol is."

"I'll see what I can do. Can't get very good resolution with the electro-optical stuff we have for infra-red. We had to weed out four tons, you know, and the Hollmann scanners are three and a half parsecs back, in our shop."

Stuart noticed that the ship's course had steadied. A look through the 'scope showed the recently-abandoned clearing now swinging under the stern again, far below. He was about to take a picture of it when Gordon called him.

"Stuart, will you go to the drive room and give Nestor a hand? He's scanning the area with microwave, and I want you to use the stern-view telescope. Those characters may have decided to go back to their base without using the tunnel; maybe we can keep out of sight and get a good fix on where they hole up."

* * * * *

The linguist retracted the periscope and saw to it that the guard plates slid over the outer lens. Then he dodged through the radiation trap into the darkened drive room. He was wondering how to strap himself into the seat without taking off all his photographic gear, when Nestor, peering into the radar screen, snapped his fingers.

"Got a blip, Gordon," said the engineer with suppressed excitement. "One metallic object about the size of a foot-locker, maybe a little bigger. Boy, do those rocks show up! Must be nearly all metal."

In a moment the leader answered. "I believe I see something. Awkward angle, though, on this turret telescope. How about you, Stuart?"

"No, frankly, I--"

Gordon cut in. "What magnification are you using?"

"Let me see ... all I can get--sixty-four diameters."

"Too much; cut it down to twelve. Center your 'scope. Now look at the cross-hair grids. Find the lower part of F-7; you should see something around there."

"More likely F-6 from here," put in Nestor. "That's where my indication is."

"Oh, yes! I see them. Three natives and two ... my goodness, those heffalumps _are_ big! Almost as big as elephants!"

Gordon answered, "Yes, and apparently considerably more useful. Well, keep a sharp watch on the group. Let me know where they go, and be sure you mark the spot on a large-scale sketch or photo. I've got to send off a report to Patrol; we're keeping them posted on every development."

"Like a bomb-defusing squad," said Nestor hollowly. "The next crew will take up where we left off, see?"

The ship, swinging slowly ahead of the little raiding party, came to a stop about six kilometers above and slightly beyond the coral rocks.

White spoke over the intercom. "I don't think they'll see us here. We're in the sun. But keep yourselves strapped in, gang; we're going to move in a hurry if they point that thing at us. You guys below let me know if they do anything suspicious. I can't see too much on the control room screens."

In the drive room, the power hummed softly. Relays clicked occasionally as the minutes passed. The creatures on the ground entered a faint trail winding among the hills of bright coral rock. Now and then one of the heffalumps stopped and adjusted the load on his back, using the middle two of his six limbs. Nestor nudged the language expert's arm.

"Looks like they're getting close to home. Better get set to take some pictures."

Stuart nodded, having already picked up a plate magazine, and loaded the camera box on the side of the telescope. He adjusted the controls from time to time with nervous delicacy, occasionally tapping the shutter button. Suddenly he switched to higher magnification, exclaiming, "There they go! Into that cave!" He took three pictures in rapid succession at different magnifications. He also banged his nose hard on the eyepiece, and wondered some hours later how it came to be so tender.

* * * * *

There was a clatter of feet on the steel ladder. Gordon came running over to him, an unfinished report in one hand and a half-eaten hamburger in the other. "Lessee," he demanded.

The linguist showed him. Only the cave mouth could be seen now, black in the hot sunlight. It was halfway up a hill of dense coral, and was protected from the front by another hill.

The chief took a bite of hamburger and grinned at Stuart. "This is a bit of luck," he said happily through the mouthful. "We wouldn't have found that hideout in ten years if they hadn't taken a potshot at us!"

Nestor exhaled cigarette smoke, looking cynical. "Swell. What do we do now? Wave a hankie at them?"

Gordon's expression became less cheerful. "We don't know yet. Things have moved a little fast. But whatever we do, we'll have to get it done fast. You guys might as well know now what came in a little while ago on the radio." He drew a deep breath. "An Invader base has been discovered--within striking distance of this area. It's a jolt, of course, but at least we've finally discovered a base of theirs. Earth Central says either we close this deal in four days or the planet will have to be taken over the hard way."

Stuart shook his head sadly, thinking of the already-ruined cities below. "Our little firm had better live up to its name," he said.

Gordon nodded. "A task force is already on the way."

Brettner had come cat-footed down the ladder. "There's one way to hustle things up," he growled, patting his hip holster. "I wish you'd let me blister their stern-plates a little. Little old Frontier Lawyer here would teach 'em some manners right now!"

Stuart repressed a shudder.

The captain strode over and confronted the scout with a frown. "That's what we're here to avoid, Mr. Brettner, and you know it. Our weapons are purely for defense, and there'd be hell raised if we harmed any natives. If we got out of here alive, we'd lose our million credits and all our expenses, as well as being tried for unauthorized warlike acts." He sounded hoarse with fatigue and irritation. "Get over any belligerent ideas you may have. That goes for all of you--at least on this trip."

He looked sternly at the group a moment, then nodded toward the ladder. "Let's go have a conference. Nestor, will you stay here and keep a sharp eye on that hideout?"

The chubby engineer leaned back in the seat, swung the eyepiece over into a comfortable position, and sighed. "Yeah, all right. Somebody better bring me some food before long, though. I'm dying."

IV

Up in the "conference room", the men gathered about Gordon at the controls. He checked the autopilot and sat drumming his fingers on the desk. Finally he looked squarely at the language expert. "Mr. Stuart ... it seems fairly obvious now that the outcome of this entire expedition depends almost solely on you. You're the one who knows how to convey ideas, probably as well as any human being alive, according to the information we got before we asked you to join us. All the rest of us can do is run this ship and make like space-fighters."

He raised a hand at Stuart's beginning protest, and went on. "Let me finish my little speech. You're trained for this sort of thing, even if you do lack non-Terrestrial experience. You figured out the elements of the Alpha Centauri II and IV languages from nothing but sound movies, a few years back. Now, what I'm getting at is this: you tell us what has to be done, and we'll try to figure out a way to do it. We're starting from scratch, of course; that meteor, by a million-to-one chance, ruined all our previous plans."

Stuart pulled at his ear a moment. "Well, all those plans were designed to give me at least the minimum amount of observation I'd need to prepare a friendly message. Now, while my stock of Azuran symbols is still zero, we've gained some information. It's too bad we lost the horses and bloodhounds, for the combination can't be beaten when it's a matter of finding someone in hiding. However, we do know where at least three natives are. And personally, I don't regret it a bit that I'll not make use of those hasty riding lessons."

He paused, and White spoke up. "Even if we do know where some of them are, I don't see how we can use Plan One. How can we set up hidden microphones and telicons, when the ruddy natives live in a cave?"

Brettner, looking disgusted, added, "Even when we catch one of the critters by dumb luck, he won't talk. Trained not to. And that tears up the second plan."

The captain nodded. "And our third scheme ... to watch and wait, using long-range equipment, and play for the breaks. That sure seemed like a flexible plan. But of course it was blown all over the Milky Way along with our food. Anyway, the news from Patrol makes speed essential."

There was glum silence for a while. Then Rogers offered, "There must be some way we can use our knowledge of where at least three of them are hiding--even if the place is defended with a natural barricade and a souped-up pack howitzer."

After a thoughtful moment, the little language expert cleared his throat hesitantly. "Er--I should like to suggest something...." They all looked at him, making him feel rather self-conscious, but he went on. "You said something about an old-fashioned billboard, Gordon, that got me thinking. I have a good many pictures of the expedition and our activities--" he reddened, remembering the frequent ribbings about his photographic activity "--and I can make a few sketches for the rest of it. You see, I was thinking we could sneak down there at night and leave a series of pictures where the natives would find them in the morning."

He was talking rapidly now, full of steam, pacing back and forth. "The pictures would show that we are _not_ the Invaders, that we are friendly--I took pictures of Rogers helping the monkey-rats, for instance--and then we could have a couple of pictures of Terrestrials and Azurans exchanging gifts." He stopped, embarrassed, wondering whether his scheme sounded naive to these practical men. "It--it's been tried before with considerable success ... in some cases."

Gordon thought it over a while, rubbing the stubble on his cheeks. "Might work," he mused aloud. "What about setting up an automatic-sequence gimmick of some kind, controlled from here while we watch their reaction with a telescope? We could turn the pages, see? ... or should we just tack up a string of pictures along the path?"

Rogers sat forward. "Machine might be better, if we can rig it up soon enough. Separate pictures might get blown away or something, for all we know, or some kind of critter might destroy 'em."

* * * * *

Stuart stopped pacing and squinted at the ceiling. "Yes, I like the machine. We could include a little pickup unit so I could record and analyze their comments, knowing just what they were looking at. That would really help a lot." He snapped his fingers, struck with inspiration. "What about ending the little show with a real surprise? A gift that would really demonstrate our good intentions?"

What did he consider a suitable gift?

"A blast-rifle!" he answered boldly.

"What the devil!" exclaimed Gordon. The others indicated various degrees of consternation. They stared at Stuart as if he had suggested turning pirate. But he showed a firmness that was new to them--and to himself.

"Nothing else will do the trick as simply and surely," he insisted. "In the first place, their most desperate need, as they see it right now, is probably an efficient but simple weapon of some sort, capable of being enlarged into a heavy defensive piece of great range. I understand our blast-rifle is such a weapon. I believe they live in absolute terror of another attack, and they apparently have little or no technology left with which to prepare for such an attack. Hence their going underground."

He paused to let the point sink in. "And in the second place, it seems reasonable to believe they would understand our good intentions from such a gift. Surely they will see that no one planning an aggressive move is going to arm his intended victims first! Their behavior certainly indicates that they are accustomed to direct action, rather than to Machiavellian subtleties of plot and counter-plot."

Nestor stuck out a skeptical lower lip. "How will they know we're making a gesture that means anything? I mean, they still might figure the gun is just a little toy in our league, and that we're not running any risk at all by giving it to them."

Stuart hesitated before replying. He nodded in appreciation of intelligent analysis. "That's a difficult point which will have to be worked out later ... possibly on the spot. First of all, we shall have to establish contact. It will also be necessary to show them we have a defensive screen, too--which they would doubtless be overjoyed to have--and that we are willing to turn it off and trust them. It will be a delicate and intriguing problem in psycho-logic."

Rogers shook his head and laughed a little. "It sounds as cockeyed as 'Uncle Willie' Ulo's stories about Sinus V. But, so help me, I believe it'd work!" All at once his expression changed, and he looked hard at the expert. "One thing, though, mister. I know I wouldn't care for the job! Who's going to be the guinea-pig and go down for the first little chat with them?"

Stuart smiled thinly. "Who will bell the cat, eh? Another fair question. Well, I shall set up the apparatus, and of course I intend to try out its effect, too. I shall confront the natives myself after they have received our picture message and the gun."

The others protested, but there was a stubborn set to his jaw. "After all," he explained later to Gordon, "while you fellows have been acquiring glamor, so to speak, I've been leading a rather dull life. I intend to have at least one little fling at dangerous living. Besides, I'm the only really expendable man in the crew ... the rest of you are necessary to the operation of the _Special Agent_. And anyway, I'm only here because I know something about communicating ideas. This is part of my job, if anything is."