“Fitzhugh Parr,” called back Varina Pemberton, “you must not.”
“Oh, must I not?” he taunted her. “Who’s so free with her orders? I’ve got a gun myself this time. Better keep your distance.”
The others stopped at the warning, but the girl came forward. “You wouldn’t shoot a woman,” she announced confidently. “Listen to me.”
Parr looked back to where Ruba was fumbling the ship into more definite action. “Go on and talk,” he bade her. “I give you one minute.”
“You’ve got to give up this foolish idea,” she said earnestly. “It can’t succeed—even if you take off.”
“No if about it. We’re doing wonders. Make your goodbyes short. I wish you joy of this asteroid, ma’am.”
“Suppose you do get away,” she conceded. “Suppose, though it’s a small, crowded ship, you reach Earth and land safely. What then?”
“I’ll blow the lid off this dirty Martian Joke,” he told her. “Exhibit these poor devils, to show what the Martians do to Terrestrials they convict. And then—”
“Yes, and then!” she cut in passionately. “Don’t you see, Parr? Relations between Mars and Earth are at breaking point now. They have been for long. The Martians are technically within their rights when they dump us here, but you’ll be a pirate, a thief, a fugitive from justice. You can cause a break, perhaps war. And for what?”
“For getting away, for giving freedom to my only friends on this asteroid,” said Parr.
“Freedom?” she repeated. “You think they can be free on Earth? Can they face their wives or mothers as they are now—no longer men?”
“Boss,” said Ling suddenly and brokenly, “she tell true. No. I won’t go home.”
It was like cold water, that sudden rush of ghastly truth upon Parr. The girl was right. His victory would be the saddest of defeats. He looked around him at the beast-men who had placed themselves under his control—what would happen to them on Earth? Prison? Asylum? Zoo? …
“Varina Pemberton,” he called, “I think you win.”
The hairy ones crowded around him, sensing a change in plan. He spoke quickly:
“It’s all off, boys. Get out, one at a time, and rush away for cover. Nobody will hurt you—and we’ll be no worse off than we were.” He raised his voice again: “If I clear out, will we be left alone?”
“You must give back that armor,” she told him. “The Martians insist.”
“It’s a deal.” He stripped the stuff from him and threw it across the floor to lie beside the bound prisoners. “I’m trusting you, Varina Pemberton!” he shouted. “We’re getting out.”
They departed at his orders, all of them. Ling and Izak went last, dropping the stolen guns they had held so unhandily. Parr waited for all of them to be gone, then he himself left the ship.
At once bullets began to whicker around him. He dodged behind the ship, then ran crookedly for cover. By great good luck, he was not hit. His beast-men hurried to him among the bushes.
“Huh, boss?” they asked anxiously. “Ship no good? What we do?”
He looked over his shoulder. Somewhere in the night enemies hunted for him. The beast-folk were beneath contempt, would be left alone. Only he had shown himself too dangerous to be allowed life.
“Goodbye, boys,” he said, with real regret. “I’m not much of a boss if I bring bullets among you. Get back home, and let me haul out by myself. I mean it,” he said sternly, as they hesitated. “On your way, and don’t get close to me again—death’s catching!”
They tramped away into the gloom, with querulous backward looks. Parr took a lonely trail in an opposite direction. After a moment he paused, tingling with suspense. Heavy feet were following him.
“Who’s coming?” he challenged, and ducked to avoid a possible shot. None came. The heavy tread came nearer.
“Boss!” It was Ling.
“I told you to go away,” reminded Parr gruffly.
“I not go,” Ling retorted. “You no make me.”
“Ling, you were boss before I came. Now that I’m gone from you—”
“You not gone from me. You my boss. Those others, they maybe pick new boss.”
“Ling, you fool!” Parr put out a hand in the night, and grabbed a mighty shaggy arm. “I’ll be hunted—maybe killed—”
“Huh!” grunted Ling. “They hunt us, maybe they get killed.” He turned and spat over his shoulder, in contempt for all marauding Martians and their vassal Earth folk. “You, me—we stay together, boss.”
“Come on, then,” said Parr. “Ling, you’re all right.”
“Good talk!” said Ling.
They went to the other side of the little spinning world, and there nobody bothered them. Time and space were relative, as once Einstein remarked to illustrate a rather different situation; anyway, the village under Varina Pemberton numbered only eight men—Parr and Ling could avoid that many easily on a world with nearly nine hundred square miles of brush, rock and gully.
In a grove among grapevines they built a shelter, and there dwelt for many weeks. Ling wore well as a sole friend and partner. Looking at the big, devoted fellow, Parr did not feel so revolted as at their first glimpse of each other. Ling had seemed so hairy, so misshapen, like a troll out of Gothic legends. But now … he was only big and burly, and not so hairy as Parr had once supposed. As for his face, all tusk and jaw and no brow, where had Parr gotten such an idea of it? Homely it was, brutal it wasn’t. …
“I get it,” mused Parr. “I’m beginning to degenerate. I’m falling into the beast-man class, closer to Ling’s type. Like can’t disgust like. Oh, well, why bother about what I can’t help?”
He felt resigned to his fate. But then he thought of another—Varina Pemberton, the girl who might have been a pleasant companion in happier, easier circumstances. She had banished him, threatened him, wheedled him out of victory. She, too, would be slipping back to the beast. Her body would warp, her skin grow hairy, her teeth lengthen and sharpen—Ugh! That, at least, revolted
