He leaned forward, and started working the man’s arms slowly up and down. He knelt in the soft mud, a murk of depth and shadow looming behind him, a grim anticipation in his stare.
Suddenly the man on the riverbank stirred, groaned and opened his eyes. “Hey, cut that out!” he grunted. “What in blazes are you trying to do, you devil? Wrench my arms from their sockets?”
“Good morning to you, Commander!” Langford said, chuckling.
“Langford!” Commander Gurney’s eyes began to shine, as though lit by fires from unfathomable depths of space. A convulsive shudder shook him. Digging his fists into the mud, he sat up straight.
“You stole my ship!” he rasped, staring at Langford accusingly. “What made you think I couldn’t trace my own cruiser? You can’t rip out infra-radiant alarm installations unless you know where to look. Didn’t you know I’d follow you in a fast auxiliary cruiser and get here ahead of you?”
“I was afraid you might, sir!” Langford smiled ruefully. “But it was a chance I had to take.”
Gurney’s eyes narrowed. “Your ship was sending out more automatic alarm rays than a chunk of radium. My men had orders to close in the instant you brought her down.”
“Just where are your men now, sir?” Langford asked.
Something happened to Gurney’s face. His features twitched and the strained intensity of his stare increased so sharply he seemed to be staring right through Langford into space.
“Those devilish things attacked us!” he muttered. “Exactly as that little statue did! There were dozens of them, ten feet tall, and they kept coming. We blasted, but the charges went right through them; they lifted my lads up in their devilish preying arms and dumped them in the river!”
Sweat gleamed on Gurney’s brow. “It was ghastly, Langford. In the river—like pieces of dead timber. The current carried them downstream. I was helpless. I—I kept blasting, but I couldn’t save them!”
“How did you save yourself?” Langford asked.
Gurney passed a dripping hand over his brow. “I was struggling with one of them when everything went blank. That’s all I remember.”
Langford stood up. “I don’t understand it. Why did that creature go away and leave you with your face submerged? Why didn’t it make sure you’d drift downstream too?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Langford!” Gurney jerked a tremulous hand toward the wall of foliage on the opposite bank. “Why don’t you swim over to their ship and ask them? You’ll find the ship in a clearing about three hundred yards from the bank. They’ve cleared a path to it.”
“That’s just what I intend to do!” Langford said.
Joan paled and moved swiftly to his side, her eyes wide with alarm. “Ralph! You’re not going alone—”
Langford nodded. “I’m a pretty good swimmer,” he said.
Joan stared at him. “But why?”
“It’s a little hard to explain,” Langford said. “You’ve got a picture in your mind of something pretty horrible happening to me. Somehow I feel that everything about that picture is wrong. I’ve got to cross that stream, darling; I’d be a pretty poor specimen of a man if I turned back now, when we’re so close to the answer.”
Joan said nothing. She would have argued and pleaded, but she knew that it would have been of no use.
Five minutes later Langford was stripping on the riverbank. He slipped into the water quietly, and struck out with powerful, even strokes. On the opposite bank he turned an instant to flick a wet strand from his forehead, and wave to his wife. Then he struck off into the forest.
He was a hundred feet from the bank, walking with his shoulders squared, when something bright and incredible swirled up from the forest floor directly in his path.
“For your forbearance, your kindliness, thank you, Langford!” a voice said.
It was not a spoken voice. It was still and small and remote, and it seemed to come from deep inside Langford’s head. Langford stopped advancing; he stood utterly rigid, his temples pounding, his eyes riveted on a darting shape of flame.
“Don’t be alarmed, Langford,” the voice said. “I’m not a shape of flame. But I can wrap myself in blinding flame so that the human eye cannot see me as I am.”
“Who are you?” Langford heard himself asking.
“A traveler blown from his course by ill cosmic winds!” the voice said. “A lone and bewildered stranger from a universe so remote its light has not yet reached you. A genuinely frightened stranger and—a telepath, Langford.”
The voice paused, then went on. “I made you come to me just now. A promise of medals could not have done it, but I got inside your mind, and drew you to me. Medals, rewards, promotions; you prize them, don’t you? What a pity that I cannot stay until your tunic gleams with ribbons.”
Another pause. Then the voice said: “It is difficult to get the intimate feel of your language. You must forgive me if my speech seems a little strained.”
“Your speech. You—”
“You’re not afraid of me, Langford? No, you mustn’t be; you are the kindest of men. How can I convince you that I am—you have a phrase for it—letting down my hair? I shall leave you soon, my friend. I have repaired my ship, and I must try to return to my own people. But before I go I will tell you the truth.”
Another pause while the brightness pulsed. “You could have destroyed my ship when we met in the Asteroid Belt with a single blast; but you refused to do so. And I, not knowing you as I do now, tried to frighten you. There are so many worlds where intelligent life is cold and merciless that I was prepared for any emergency. I am rather proud of that little multiplying creature I shot out into the void. It was a child’s
