CHAPTER XVI

He said to the alien, "Where's your home planetoid?"

"Why?" it asked, mockery still in its weak voice.

"I'm capitulating. I want to make a deal with your people."

It said, "Ah, the human has sense after all. Our home is the largest of the asteroids, as you call them. The one you said at supper last night had a diameter of 440 miles. We call it Oasis--and a poor one it is, when we remember Earth."

Jerry said, astounded, "_What?_" His narrow face worked with surprise.

"Shut up, Jerry." Pink still had things to find out. "Can you tell your race, telepathically, what we're doing? I don't want them to lose patience and tear up the hull. We have a very angry gent atop us."

"It's the girl," snarled Jerry, before the alien could answer. "She's got you fooled like a--like a--good Lord, Pink, are you so crazy about her you can't see she's been waiting to put this idea in your head all this time?"

"Jerry," he said through his teeth, "shut your damn mouth. I'm captain of the _Elephant's Child_."

Jerry was aiming the Colt at him; accidentally, Pink hoped. Then the O. O. said, "If I have to blow out your guts to save us, Pink, I will." His tortured features writhed with pain. "Oh, hell, boy, wake up!"

"Give me one more minute, before you fly off the handle and make an ass of yourself--and a mess of me." Pink had to have that minute. It was so vital he couldn't save himself from the angered Jerry with the one phrase that would explain everything. "Jerry, one lousy minute."

"Just tell me you don't mean it about giving in."

He couldn't. My God, he couldn't. There was too much of a chance that this brute on the floor was telepathic with its own kind. "I have to do it, Jerry," he said.

"Then I have to tie you up till you're sane," said Jerry. "First, though, I've got to make sure about this girl." The muzzle of the gun traveled toward Circe, steadily, remorselessly.

Pink had no alternative; the lives of all his men hung in that teetering balance. He jerked his right hand, and the tiny gambler's gun, the antique Derringer he had hidden up his sleeve for emergencies, slid down into his palm. Instinctively his forefinger caught the trigger and with sorrow and determination he shot Jerry high in the chest, below the clavicle and a safe distance from the lung. Jerry staggered back, a look of amazement spreading over his face; he fired the Colt wildly, putting a slug into the floor. Then he sat down, making hurt, uncomprehending noises. Circe took the gun from his hand.

Pink heard a babble from the intercom. He grasped that some of his officers must have seen the occurrence. He still hadn't much more than a minute.

"Circe," he snapped, "turn off that intercom and then lock the door." To the giant he said, "Well, can you tell your friends?"

"I would have doubted you, had you not eliminated your objecting officer," it told him. "Now I will say that I cannot communicate with my race through thought transference; but if you head for Oasis, you will be safe."

Pink breathed a little easier. He snatched down a bottle of whisky and twisted off the cap. There was another fact he must learn. He knelt and presented the bottle to the inert lips. "Have a slug," he said.

"You are sensible," said the being with satisfaction. "Pour it into my mouth or my eye; I can absorb it through any orifice." Pink poured rapidly. The liquor ran down over the yellow hide.

"No, no," gurgled the monster. "Slowly! I absorb it far more slowly than you do--"

* * * * *

Pink stood up. He took a drink from the bottle and handed it to Circe. His face was radiant with success. "Toast the last slim chance, honey," he said, voice cracking with relief. "We just found out what we needed to know." He retrieved the bottle after she had downed a gulp, gave it to the dazed Jerry. "Cheer up, boy," he said. "You didn't get your pink skin plugged for nothing. Now listen." Rapidly he outlined Circe's plot, then the additions he had concocted. "See why I had to do it?" he asked finally.

"Yeah. Yes, I see." Jerry blinked. "Would you spray a little sulfaheal on this hole, Pink? It hurts.... Okay, I give in. I'm with you. It's a mad notion, but I sure can't better it. I'm with you." He looked at Circe, who was already busy with sulfaspray and bandages. "But can we trust this wench, Captain? She could be a wonderful decoy for 'em."

"She's in the clear, Jerry; if we hadn't been so blasted rattled we'd have realized it long ago. There was a test she could have passed in two seconds that would have eliminated all this fat-headed suspicion."

"What?"

"Holy Holmendis, boy--_lead_! If she were alien, the touch of lead would have crisped her up with pain and paralysis." Pink opened the door then, and the first tide of officers coming to Jerry's rescue were halted at sight of Circe tending his wound. Pink said to Jerry, and to them all, "While I was standing in the hall, I took a cartridge out of this Derringer, and rubbed the lead across the back of her neck. She never winced. That vouches for her, doesn't it?"

Jerry said, "It does. Heaven forgive us for a pack of drooling imbeciles! It does indeed."

Circe stood up. She came to Pink and stared him in the face. "So that was it," she said quietly. "You were testing me. And I thought it was a caress. Oh, you--" Then she hauled off and smacked Captain John Pinkham square in the left eye.

It hurt like sin, but Pink could hardly blame her. So he apologized, without words. He took her in his arms and kissed her soundly.

And Circe kissed him back.