Heavy Planet

their best not to pay for what they get.”

“Will any of them assume we are spies?” Barlennan asked pleasantly. “There is that risk, naturally, though few have secrets worth stealing. Actually they will probably try to steal yours, if they know you have any. I should not advise your discussing the matter of flying while there.”

“We did not plan to,” Barlennan assured him, with glee that he managed to conceal. “We thank you for the advice and information.” He gave the order to hoist the anchor, and for the first time Reejaaren noticed the canoe, now trailing once more at the end of its towrope and loaded with food. “I should have noticed that before,” the interpreter said. “I would never have doubted your story of coming from the south. How did you get that from the natives?” In the answer to this question Barlennan made his first serious mistake in dealing with the islander. “Oh, we brought that with us; we frequently use them for carrying extra supplies. You will notice that its shape makes it easy to tow.” He had picked up his elementary notions of streamlining from Lackland not too long after acquiring the canoe. “Oh, you developed that craft in your country too?” the interpreter asked curiously. “That is interesting; I had never seen one in the south. May I examine it, or do you not have time? We have never bothered to use them ourselves.” Barlennan hesitated, suspecting this last statement to be a maneuver of the precise sort he himself had been employing; but he saw no harm in complying, since Reejaaren could learn nothing more from a close examination than he could from where he was. After all, it was the canoe’s shape that was important, and anyone could see that. He allowed the Bree to drift closer inshore, pulled the canoe to him with the towrope, and gave it a push toward the waiting islander. Reejaaren plunged into the bay and swam out to the little vessel when it ran aground, in a few inches of liquid. The front part of his body arched upward to look into the canoe; powerful pincer-tipped arms poked at the sides. These were of ordinary wood, and yielded springily to the pressure; and as they did so the islander gave a hoot of alarm that brought the four gliders in the air swinging toward the Bree and the shore forces up to full alertness. “Spies!” he shrieked. “Bring your ship aground at once, Bartennan — if that is your real name. You are a good liar, but you have lied yourself into prison this time!”

14: THE TROUBLE WITH HOLLOW BOATS

Barlennan had been told at various times during his formative years that he was someday pretty sure to talk himself into more trouble than he could talk himself out of. At various later times during his career this prediction had come alarmingly close to fulfillment, and each time he had resolved to be more careful in the future with his tongue. He felt the same way now, together with an injured feeling arising from the fact that he did not yet know just what he had said that had betrayed his mendacity to the islander. He did not have time to theorize over it, either; something in the line of action was called for, the quicker the better. Reejaaren had already howled orders to the glider crews to pin the Bree to the bottom if she made a move toward the open sea, and the catapults on shore were launching more of the machines to reinforce those already aloft. The wind was coming from the sea at a sufficient angle to be lifted as it struck the far wall of the fiord, so the flyers could remain aloft as long as necessary. Barlennan had learned from the Earthmen that they probably could not climb very high — high enough for effective missile dropping — under the thrust of the updrafts from ocean waves; but he was a long way from the open sea where they would have to depend on such currents. He had already had a chance to observe their accuracy, and dismissed at once any idea of trusting to his dodging ability to save his ship. As so frequently happened, the action was performed by a crew member while he was debating the best course. Dondragmer snatched up the crossbow that had been given them by Reejaaren, nocked a bolt, and cocked the weapon with a speed that showed he could not have been completely absorbed in his hoist project at all times. Swinging the weapon shoreward, he rested it on its single support leg and covered the interpreter with the point. “Hold on, Reejaaren; you’re moving in the wrong direction.” The islander stopped on his way out of the bay, liquid dripping from his long body, and doubled his front half back toward the ship to see what the mate meant. He saw clearly enough, but seemed for a moment undecided about the proper course of action. “If you want to assume I’ll probably miss because I’ve never handled one of these things, go right ahead. I’d like to find out myself. If you don’t start coming this way in an awfully short time, though, it will be just as though you had tried to escape. Move!” The last word was issued in a barking roar that removed much of the interpreter’s indecision. He apparently was not quite sure of the mate’s incompetence; he continued the doubling movement, re-entered the bay, and swam out to the Bree. If he thought of concealing himself by submerging during the process, he evidently lacked the courage to try it. As he well knew, the methane was only a few inches deep even at the ship’s location, and would hardly protect him from a bolt hurled with force enough to penetrate three inches of wood after a forty-yard trajectory under seven gravities. He did not think of it in those terms, of course, but he knew very well what those projectiles could do. He clambered aboard, shaking with rage and fear together. “Do you think this will save you?” he asked. “You have simply made things worse for yourselves. The gliders will drop in any event if you try to move, whether I am aboard or not.”

“You will order them not to.”

“They will obey no order I give while I am obviously in your power; you should know that if you have any sort of fighting force.”

“I’ve never had much to do with soldiers,” Barlennan replied. He had recovered the initiative, as he usually did once things had started in a definite direction. “However, I’ll believe you for the time being. We’ll just have to hold you here until some understanding is reached concerning this nonsense about our going ashore — unless we can take care of those gliders of yours in the meantime. It’s a pity we didn’t bring some more modern armament into this backward area.”

“You can stop that nonsense now,” returned the captive. “You have nothing more than the rest of the savages of the south. I’ll admit you fooled us for a time, but you betrayed yourself a moment ago.”

“And what did I say that made you think I’d been lying?”

“I see no reason to tell you. The fact that you don’t yet know just proves my point. It would have been better for you if you hadn’t fooled us so completely; then we’d have been more careful with secret information, and you wouldn’t have learned enough to make your disposal necessary.”

“And if you hadn’t made that last remark, you might have talked us into surrendering,” cut in Dondragmer, “though I admit it’s not likely. Captain, I’ll bet that what you slipped up on was what I’ve been telling you all along. It’s too late to do anything about that now, though. The question is how to get rid of these pesky gliders; I don’t see any surface craft to worry about, and the folks on shore have only the crossbows from the gliders that were on the ground. I imagine they’ll leave things to the aircraft for the time being.” He shifted to English. “Do you remember anything we heard from the Flyers that would help us get rid of these pesky machines?? Barlennan mentioned their probable altitude limitations over open sea, but neither could see how that helped at the moment. “We might use the crossbow on them.” Barlennan made the suggestion in his own language, and Reejaaren sneered openly. Krendoranic, the munitions officer of the Bree, who like the rest of the crew had been listening eagerly, was less contemptuous. “Let’s do that,” he cut in sharply. “There’s been something I’ve wanted to try ever since we were at that river village.”

“What?”

“I don’t think you’d want me to talk about it with our friend listening. We’ll show him instead, if you are willing.” Barlennan hesitated a moment, then gave consent. Barlennan looked a trifle worried as Krendoranic opened one of the flame lockers, but the officer knew what he was doing. He removed a small bundle already wrapped in lightproof material, thus giving evidence of at least some of his occupation during the nights since they had left the village of the river-dwellers. The bundle was roughly spherical, and evidently designed to be thrown by arm-power; like everyone else, Krendoranic had been greatly impressed by the possibilities of this new art of throwing. Now he was extending his idea even further, however. He took the bundle and lashed it firmly to one of the crossbow bolts, wrapping a layer of fabric around bundle and shaft and tying it at either end as securely as possible. Then he placed the bolt in the weapon. He had, as a matter of duty, familiarized himself with the device during the brief trip downstream and the reassembly of the Bree, and had no doubt about his ability to hit a sitting target at a reasonable distance; he was somewhat less sure about moving objects, but at least the gliders could only turn rapidly if they banked sharply, and that would give him warning. At his order, one of the sailors who formed part of his flamethrower crew moved up beside him with the igniting device, and waited.