CHAPTER XIV

Pink woke from a sweating nightmare. He rolled over and his bandaged ribs creaked with a twinge. He had slept nearly a round of the clock; the other ships must be nearing the asteroids. He got up and dressed quickly, wondering who was watching Circe now, holding the revolver on her, praying that if she should change form, the old-fashioned gun would paralyze her as it had the giant.

The giant. He had to check on that devil immediately. He called his quarters on the intercom, and Lieutenant Daley's image waved at him reassuringly. The monstrous entity had not moved; its eyes still gleamed with malevolence.

"Your hours are numbered on one hand," said Pinkham to himself. "How many fingers on that mitt, I wonder?"

And even yet he did not believe the thing had been bluffing.

He ate a brisk breakfast in the mess hall, then stalked off to his own room, trying to analyze what he now knew of the giants' nature; but Circe's face intruded in his mind. He was in love with her. If she were an alien, then he was in love with the remarkable illusion she had created, of beauty and something more: of a deep integrity of soul that shone in her eyes and touched every word she uttered. And if that _were_ an illusion, then he was a cynic and quite likely a positive misanthrope from this day forward.

"Get a slug of coffee," he told Daley. "Then hare back and we'll have some brandy. It looks like a busy day." Daley went out, giving him the Colt as he left.

Sparks reported the _Cottabus_ and _Diogenes_ had joined their routes and would be alongside within half an hour. Pink sat down and looked at Circe, asleep on the couch. He switched his gaze after a while to the enemy, who watched him steadily. It said, "A favor, Captain."

"No," he told it.

"Only a sip, a drop of brandy to wet these cold lips!"

"Cold lips, cold heart: old proverb." For the first time in his life, Pinkham wanted to torture someone. "You bastard," he said grimly, "you murdered eleven men, eleven good officers, and spoiled Kinkare's face for him. And you want a drink of brandy."

"Rubbing alcohol, then. Only a touch on my mouth. Drop it in my eye if you wish," said the thing pitifully.

"No--hey, wait a second. You told me your breed doesn't eat or drink. You don't need any outside element. Why the alcohol?"

It heaved what was possibly a sigh. "I can absorb certain portions of the carbon atoms of _al-kuhl_," it said. "It is the greatest pleasure known to my race. And, save for the paltry drops of gin in that bottle yesterday, I have not--let us say 'tasted'--it for some hundreds of years!"

"_Al-kuhl?_" repeated Pinkham.

"The Arabic slips easily from my tongue after all those years," said the thing, half to itself.

Arabic! "You weren't lying," said Pink, "when you told us you came from Earth, then."

"I was not lying. Give me some alcohol, Captain."

"No. How do I know it won't revive you?"

"My word on it."

Pink gave the hardest and briefest bark of laughter ever heard on the spaceways. It became silent. Finally he leaned forward to stare at it. "Your eyes have faded," he said. "By God, I think you aren't paralyzed. I think you're dying!"

After another silence it said, "Yes. I am dying."

"I couldn't be happier," said Pinkham viciously. "I even hope it's painful."

"It is not. The only pain came with the passage through my molecules of the l--" it halted abruptly.

"Ah," said Pink, hefting the Colt. "Of the lead. It had to be that, of course; but thanks for reassuring me. Your tribe's allergic to lead in a rather high degree."

* * * * *

The flames leaped in its eyes. "I haven't told you anything so valuable," it said, with a kind of weak bravado. "There are too many of us, too few of you, and not enough lead in this whole system to conquer us. You have found the secret, but you'll never carry it back to Earth. My people shall go there instead, when they have sucked the methods from your broken body."

"When will you die?" he asked it. In spite of his hatred, humanity was rising in him. It was beaten and he was too much of a man to crow for long.

"I hear remorse in your tone," said the alien. "For the love of God, then, give me some alcohol."

He remembered the headless corpse of Wright. He said, "No."

Perhaps a quarter of an hour passed. It began to talk to itself in a monotone, a sort of feverish delirium.

"I never thought of it, at least not often, for I steered my mind away from it; but once a decade or every thirty years I would remember, perhaps one of us would say, 'Oh, to have a flagon of palm wine,' and then the agony of desire would wrack me until I must fight my body and tear it proton from proton so that I hurt badly and the remembrance would leave me. _Al-kuhl, al-kuhl!_ Why in all the universe must there be this one combination of stupid elements which drags every fleck of yearning from me like water wrung from a cloth? My race needs nothing, nothing--we long for nothing--we are the only self-sufficient beings in creation--why do we remember the _al-kuhl?_"

"Like a _keef_-smoker," said Pinkham quietly. "You don't long for anything else." After a little he added, "And you fear nothing save lead."

"True," said the being distractedly. "If it were not for lead and alcohol we would be perfect gods."

"Who are you?" Pink asked, conscious that his throat was constricted with excitement. "When did you leave Earth? Why don't I recognize you, out of history? What are you called?"

He had tried too hard. The alien rolled its dimmed eyes at him. "I wish I could smile now," it said through motionless lips. "Ah, if I could only smile knowingly! You will die today with that curiosity unslaked."

He was balefully angry at that; he leaped to his feet, thrusting out the revolver. "If I throw another slug into you, it just might hurt some more," he roared.

"I would rather die in pain than see your questions answered. I know well that curiosity is the worst torment to an Englishman."

"I'm not English," said Pink.

"It's all the same. I might as well have said 'human.'"

Pink recalled that he had the Colt, and so could take a few chances. "I'll trade you. One drop of brandy for each answer."

It considered. Then, without budging, it gave the effect of a shrug. "Why not? You'll be dead soon."

"You're so sure," said Pink.

"Look at your scanner."

There was something in the words that sent Pink racing. He was only just in time to see the finish of all his new-born hopes.

The _Cottabus_ and _Diogenes_ were approaching at a slowing pace; the _Elephant's Child_ had deactivated her drive to wait for them. Whether the captains of the sister ships saw them or not, Pink could not tell; but a number of the space giants, so reduced in size as to be mere blots on the screen, hovered in the area.

As the ships gradually lost speed, a giant appeared atop each, growing rapidly from eight feet to a thousand, till they straddled the great ships like riders on Shetland ponies.

The thing on the floor chuckled. "We are much more comfortable at that size, you see, Captain. We don't like to cramp our molecular structure into these puny dimensions. We can get into bottles--but we prefer to expand as you see." Then it laughed. "Yes, there is one of us on your own flagship at this instant, where he has been waiting, compressed, till the others caught their seats. Your ships are captured as surely as in a net. You cannot dislodge them, as you know. You must carry them to Earth so, or capitulate and let them inside."

There was no scrap of fear that he would carry these devils to Earth, naturally. But for the moment, Pink could see no sure way to escape the doom that now lay over him and all his men. They would have to remain in this asteroid belt ... perhaps forever.