The upright, metal-encased figure, like some artificial chitinous reflex entity, said, “I am the next step.” It lifted a hand weapon and aimed it at Joan. “This does not stun,” it said in faultless but overly- precise English. “You are my prisoner, Terran. As is he.” It gestured with a manual extremity toward the inert figure lying before Joan. “Most especially he.” The slotted eyes glowed and projected a beam of illumination, assisting it in making its visual scan which would be transmitted to Gany military operation GHQ. The scan, already, was being relayed; she heard the hum.
Bending over Percy she snatched the hand gun from his belt; within the mass of metal confronting her dwelt a creech and she meant to kill the thing or be killed by it. At pointblank range she fired.
The bullet, ringingly, bounced off the creech’s polished armor. Harmlessly. The thing did not even appear to notice; it continued with its scan of Percy’s features.
Joan Hiashi emptied the gun futilely at the towering hulk before her, then threw the weapon at it. And then stood helpless, waiting, the still-inert Percy X in a tumbled, dead-doll heap before her.
VI
Marshal Koli’S private secretary crept toward him, stood on tip-tail and delivered a confidential message. “Sir, there is a person named Mekkis, a Ganymedian, who claims to be the civilian administrator who is to relieve you.”
Time, evidently, had run out—and sooner than he had expected. But perhaps with a little adroit stalling he could gain a few extra hours enough to complete Operation Cat Droppings. Koli slid his way across the office, opened the door to the waiting room—using the low-placed tongue switch that responded to no tongue but his— and surveyed his replacement.
Outside reposed a gray, somber-looking compatriot, a man of obvious and durable ability; much older, in fact, than the Marshal himself. He reposed well: with dignity, and did not bother to notice the existence of the spools of FUN-E tapes available for the visitor; nor did he gaze at the several attractive, well-groomed secretaries at work. Beside him lay a thick briefcase with leather neck strap for carrying. And outdoors in the well-lit courtyard waited a team of flyers, their wings rising and falling rhythmically in a semi-doze.
Well-trained, Koli reflected. Their master is a good one; they don’t flap about causing a disturbance. Clearly a high genetic breed. Undoubtedly costing their owner a fortune. Therefore this indubitably was Koli’s civilian replacement. “Mr. Mekkis?” Marshal Koli inquired.
The head whipped; the tongue protruded, licking the air with intensity as the wide-set eyes flamed, a dismal and perplexing glance, as if Mekkis did not quite see him, saw instead beyond—and yet not spa- cially. It was, he realized, as if this man possessed the capacity to imagine one’s entire life-track, one’s full destiny; perhaps, he decided, age had something to do with it. Wisdom, he thought. There is wisdom, not sheer knowledge as on the memory spools of a computer, lying behind these green, faceted eyes. He felt uncomfortable.
“Do you intend to take possession of the desk immediately?” Koli inquired. He thought once more of Percy X’s rich, thick, virgin-fur pelt; it had now faded to the dimensions of a dream.
“Frankly,” Mekkis said, “I’d like to get the transfer of authority over right now, so I can get some rest. I didn’t sleep well on the ship.”
“Come into my office,” Koli said, leading the way. “A dish of authentic Spanish sherry.” As one of his batmen poured the two saucers full he explained, “From Puerto Santa Maria, Spain. A nina—light golden and medium dry.” He added, between laps, “I consume it at room temperature, but it can also—”
“Your hospitality,” Mekkis said after a few polite laps at the dish of sherry, “is singular. Now, as to the transfer of authority.”
“There are the fighter planes.”
Mekkis, astonished, said, “My briefing didn’t mention any fighter planes.”
“Well, they’re not real fighter planes: they’re models, you see. World War One.”
“What is ‘World War One’?” Mekkis asked. Slithering to a long low polished wood table, Marshal Koli said, “These are of a rare twentieth century plastic, injection productions which reproduced details so minutely as to be beyond compare.” As he bade an attendant to pick up a model he said, “Unfortunately, the knowledge of how to manufacture this plastic has died out. Allow me to trace the development of fighter aircraft during the First World War.” He flicked his tongue at the first model, held up to Mekkis for inspection by the assistant. “This was first true fighter, the Fokker Eindekker. One wing, you see?” He showed the wing, with its supporting struts.
“Hmm,” Mekkis said, in a neutral tone; he had been trying for a telepathic scan of the Marshal but a scramble pattern blocked the view. Nothing could be made out except a vague jumble of airplane images. Maybe, Mekkis thought, it’s not a scramble pattern; maybe that’s how he really thinks.
“The Allies had nothing to match the Fokker Eindekker I, II or III until December of 1915.”
“How,” Mekkis asked, “do they arrive at dates here?”
“It is based on the birth of Jesus Christ, the Sole Begotten Son of God.”
“The way you talk,” Mekkis said dryly, “one would think you’d gone native. Do you believe in this God business?”
Marshal Koli drew himself up to half-height, wove back and forth with dignity and said, “Sir, for the last two years living here on Terra I have been an Anglo-Catholic. I take communion once a month.” Mekkis quickly turned the conversation back to the relatively safe topic of model airplanes. New converts to these native mystery cults could sometimes wax quite fanatical. “What’s this plane here?” he asked, closing his jaws over the tail-section of a biplane.
Marshal Koli shut his eyes and said, “Would you allow my trained assistant to handle the items of this rare, even unique, collection, sir? By wousling them you cause me great mental anguish.”
“My pardons, of course.” Mekkis set the biplane down carefully, and there was not a toothmark on it.
The Marshal launched out on the subject of World War One aircraft once again, and half an hour passed before Mekkis managed to break into the flow long enough to reintroduce the topic of transfer of authority.
“Enough Marshal; I would like to take command of this bale—”
“Wait,” Koli touched a wall-stud and a section of the wall rolled aside—revealing further rows of scale model planes. “This section of my collection is devoted to the famous planes between the First and Second War. Let us intially consider the Ford Trimotor.”
The attendant, as he showed the Ford Tri-motor to Mekkis, said reverently, “He also has a complete collection of World War Two planes.”
“I—am overwhelmed,” Mekkis managed to say. Matter-of-factly, Koli continued, “I cannot of
course transfer these incredibly valuable models to Ganymede; they would be smashed beyond repair—you know the slipshod way in which our homeostatic unmanned cargo carries land.” He eyed Mekkis. “I am therefore leaving my collection, all of it, even that of the World War One fighters, to you.’’ “But,” Mekkis protested, “suppose I break one of the planes?”
“You will not,” the Marshal said quietly. And that, evidently, was that. There the subject ended.
Telepathically, Mekkis all at once detected some sort of confusion outside. “The creeches have captured someone,” he said. “Better have them bring him in.”
Koli grew pale. The beautiful pelt was now so near, yet still out of reach. “Surely it would be better to wait until—”
“If this is how you habitually act I’ll take authority as of now. Officially I have been in charge here since my arrival.” He sensed that Koli did not wish him to know of the disturbance outside. And for that reason he insisted on knowing.
“Very well,” Koli muttered.
Mekkis had lifted out a model of a 1911 pusher- type biplane when Marshal Koli returned from his errand, breathing erratically. With him appeared a Terran, a dark one, almost black. A Neeg.
“Administrator,” Koli said sharply, “in an operation put into motion by myself before you arrived to relieve me of my desk as supreme authority in the bale of Tennessee I achieved this final, all-out coup, an ensnarement
