Skeleton Crew

I'll split seventy-thirty. Standard salvor's fee. Couldn't do any better than that, hey? You—' The burn suddenly tilted beneath them. Quite noticeably tilted. A horn somewhere inside the trader began to blat with muffled regularity. The communicator on the captain's dashboard went off again.

'There!' Shapiro screamed. 'There, do you see what you're up against? You want to talk about contraband now? WE HAVE GOT TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!'

'Shut up, handsome, or I'll have one of these guys sedate you,' the captain said. His voice was serene but his eyes had changed. He thumbed the communicator.

'Cap, I got ten degrees of tilt and we're getting more. The elevator's going down, but it's going on an angle. We've still got time, but not much. The ship's going to fall over.'

'The struts will hold her.'

'No, sir. Begging the captain's pardon, they won't.'

'Start firing sequences, Gomez.'

'Thank you, sir.' The relief in Gomez's voice was unmistakable.

Dud and the android were coming back down the flank of the dune. Rand wasn't with them. The andy fell further and further behind. And now a strange thing happened. The andy fell over on its face. The captain frowned. It did not fall as an andy is supposed to fall—which is to say, like a human being, more or less. It was as if someone had pushed over a mannequin in a department store. It fell over like that. Thump, and a little tan cloud of sand puffed up from around it.

Dud went back and knelt by it. The andy's legs were still moving as if it dreamed, in the 1.5 million Freon- cooled micro-circuits that made up its mind, that it still walked. But the leg movements were slow and cracking. They stopped. Smoke began to come out of its pores and its tentacles shivered in the sand. It was gruesomely like watching a human die. A deep grinding came from inside it: Graaaagggg!

'Full of sand,' Shapiro whispered. 'It's got Beach Boys religion.' The captain glanced at him impatiently. 'Don't be ridiculous, man. That thing could walk through a sandstorm and not get a grain inside it.'

'Not on this world.' The burn settled again. The trader was now clearly canted. There was a low groan as the struts took more weight.

'Leave it!' the captain bawled at Dud. 'Leave it, leave it! Gee-yat! Come-me-for-Cry!' Dud came, leaving the andy to walk face-down in the sand.

'What a balls-up,' the captain muttered.

He and Dud engaged in a conversation spoken entirely in a rapid pidgin dialect which Shapiro was able to follow to some degree. Dud told the captain that Rand had refused to come.

The andy had tried to grab Rand, but with no force. Even then it was moving jerkily, and strange grating sounds were coming from inside it. Also, it had begun to recite a combination of galactic strip-mining coordinates and a catalogue of the captain's folk-music tapes. Dud himself had then closed with Rand. They had struggled briefly. The captain told Dud that if Dud had allowed a man who had been standing three days in the hot sun to get the better of him, that maybe he ought to get another First.

Dud's face darkened with embarrassment, but his grave, concerned look never faltered.

He slowly turned his head, revealing four deep furrows in his cheek. They were welling slowly.

'Him-gat big indies,' Dud said. 'Strong-far-Cry. Himgat for umby.'

'Umby-him far-Cry?' The captain was looking at Dud sternly.

Dud nodded. 'Umby. Beyat-shel. Umby-for-Cry.' Shapiro had been frowning, conning his tired, frightened mind for that word. Now it came. Umby. It meant crazy. He's strong, for Christ's sake. Strong because he's crazy. He's got big ways, big force. Because he's crazy.

Big ways... or maybe it meant big waves. He wasn't sure. Either way it came to the same.

Umby.

The ground shifted underneath them again, and sand blew across Shapiro's boots.

From behind them came the hollow ka-thud, ka-thud, kathud of the breather-tubes opening. Shapiro thought it one of the loveliest sounds he had ever heard in his life.

The captain sat deep in thought, a weird centaur whose lower half was treads and plates instead of horse. Then he looked up and thumbed the communicator.

'Gomez, send Excellent Montoya down here with a tranquilizer gun.'

'Acknowledged.' The captain looked at Shapiro. 'Now, on top of everything else, I've lost an android worth your salary for the next ten years. I'm pissed off. I mean to have your buddy.'

'Captain.' Shapiro could not help licking his lips. He knew this was a very ill-chosen thing to do. He did not want to appear mad, hysterical, or craven, and the captain had apparently decided he was all three. Licking his lips like that would only add to the impression... but he simply couldn't help himself. 'Captain, I cannot impress on you too strongly the need to get off this world as soon as poss—'

'Can it, dronehead,' the captain said, not unkindly.

A thin scream rose from the top of the nearest dune.

'Don't touch me! Don't come near me! Leave me alone! All of you!'

'Big indies gat umby,' Dud said gravely.

' 'Ma-him, yeah-mon,' the captain returned, and then turned to Shapiro. 'He really