Almost simultaneously with the explosion came the clangor of the alarm bell at the main airlock, signifying someone wanted in. A moment later, Observer First Class Snollgren was on the wire, excitedly jabbering something incoherent.
Harskin switched on the all-ship communicator and yelled, “Stop! Whoa! Halt!”
There was silence. He said, “Clyde, see what’s going on at the airlock. Snollgren, slow down and tell me what you just saw.”
“It was the Rigelian ship, sir!” the observer said. “It just left. That was the noise we heard.”
“You sure of that?”
“Double positive. It took off in one hell of a hurry and I caught it on a tangent bound out of here.”
“Okay. Clyde, what’s at the airlock?”
“It’s Lloyd, sir. He’s back, and he’s got a Rigelian prisoner with him.”
“Prisoner? What the — all right, have them both come up here.”
Radioman Klaristenfeld was next on the line. He said, “Sir, report coming in from the base on Fasolt. They confirm blast-off of a ship from Fafnir. They thought it might be us.”
“Tell the idiots it isn’t,” Harskin snapped. “And tell them to watch out for the Rigelian ship. It’s probably on its way back to Fasolt.”
The door-annunciator chimed. Harskin pressed admit and Lloyd entered, preceded at blaster-point by a very angry-looking Rigelian.
“Where’d you find him?” Harskin asked.
“Mousing around near the ship,” Lloyd said. The thin spaceman was pale and tense-looking. “I was patrolling the area as you suggested when I heard the explosion. I looked up and saw the Rigelian ship overhead and heading outward. And then this guy came crashing out of the underbrush and started cursing a blue streak in Rigelian. He didn’t even see me until I had the blaster pointing in his face.”
Harskin glanced at the Rigelian. “What’s your name and rank, Rigelian?”
“Three Ninety-Seven Indomitable,” the alien said. He was a formidably burly seven-footer, covered with stiff, coarse black hair and wearing a light-yellow leather harness. His eyes glinted coldly. He looked angry. “Espionage man first order,” he said.
“That explains what you were doing near our ship, then, Three Ninety-Seven Indomitable,” Harskin said. “What can you tell me about this quick blast-off?”
“Not a thing. The first I knew of it was when it happened. They marooned me! They left me here!” The alien slipped from Galactic into a Rigelian tongue and growled what must have been some highly picturesque profanity.
“They just left you?” Harskin repeated in amazement. “Something must have made them decide to clear out of here in an awful hurry, then.” He turned to Lloyd. “Convey the prisoner to the brig and see that he’s put there to stay. Then pick two men and start combing the countryside for Archer. I want to know what made the Rigelians get out of here so fast they didn’t have time to pick up their own spy.”
As it developed, very little countryside combing was necessary to locate Archer. Harskin’s spy returned to the Peccable about three quarters of an hour later, extremely winded after his long cross-country trot.
It took him five minutes to calm down enough to deliver his report.
“I tracked the Rigelians back to their ship,” he said. “They were all gathered around it, and I waited in the underbrush. After a while they proceeded to the gnorph village, and I followed them.”
“Any attempt at counterespionage?” Harskin asked.
“Yes, sir.” Archer grinned uncomfortably. “I killed him.”
Harskin nodded. “Go on.”
“They reached the village. I stayed about thirty yards behind them and switched on my converter so I could hear what they were saying.”
“Bad, but unavoidable,” Harskin said. “They might have had a man at the ship tracing the energy flow. I guess they didn’t, though. What happened to the village?”
“They introduced themselves, and gave the usual line — the same thing we said, about peace and friendship and stuff. Then they started handing out gifts. Captain Fourteen Deathless said this was to cement Rigel’s friendship with Fafhir — only he didn’t call it Famir, naturally.
“They handed mirrors all around, and little forcewave generators, and all sorts of trinkets and gadgets. The gnorphs took each one and stacked it in a heap off to one side. The Rigelians kept handing out more and more, and the stack kept growing. Then, finally, Fourteen Deathless said he felt the gifts had been sufficient. He started to explain the nature of the treaty. And one of the gnorphs stepped out and pointed to the stack of gifts. ‘Are you quite finished delivering things?’ he asked, in a very stuffy tone. The Rigelian looked flustered and said more gifts would be forthcoming after the treaty was signed. And that blew the roof off.”
“How do you mean?”
“It happened so fast I’m not sure. But suddenly all the gnorphs started waving their spears and looking menacing, and then someone threw a spear at a Rigelian. That started it. The Rigelians had some handguns with them, but they were so close they hardly had a chance to use them. It was a real massacre. About half the Rigelians escaped, including Captain Deathless. I hid in the underbrush till it was all over. Then I came back here.”
Harskin looked at Sociologist Yang. “Well? What do you make of it?”
“Obviously a greedy sort of culture,” the sociologist remarked. “The Rigelians made the mistake of being too stingy. I suggest we wait till morning and go to that village ourselves, and shoot the works. With the Rigelians gone we’ve got a clear field, and if we’re liberal enough the planet will be ours.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” Harskin said broodingly. “That Rigelian was no bigger a fool than I am. When we go to that village, we’ll go well armed.”
The gnorph village was a cluster of thatched huts set in a wide semicircle over some extremely marshy swampland. Both Antares and the blue companion were in the sky when the Earthmen arrived; Fasolt was making its daily occultation of the giant sun.
Harskin had taken six of his men with him: Yang, Leefman, Archer, Mawley, Ramos, and Carver. Six more remained at the ship, seeing to it that the Peccable was primed for a quick getaway, if necessary.
The gifts of the Rigelians lay in a scattered heap in the center of the village, smashed and battered. Nearby lay half a dozen mutilated Rigelian bodies. Harskin shuddered despite himself; these gnorphs were cold-blooded in more than the literal biological sense!
A group of them filtered out of their huts and confronted the approaching Earthmen. In the mingled blue- and-red light of the two suns — one huge and dim, the other small and dim — the blank, scaly faces looked strange and menacing, the bone-hooded sockets cold and ugly.
“What do you want here, strangers?”
“We have come to thank you,” Mawley said, “for killing our enemies, the fur-men.” He had been instructed to stress the distinction between the group of Rigelians and the Earth-men. “The fur-men were here last night, bearing niggling gifts. They are our enemies. We of Earth offer you peace and goodwill.”
The gnorphs stared squarely at the tense little party of Earthmen. Each of the seven Terrans carried a powerful blaster set for wide-beam stunning, highly efficient if not particularly deadly as a close-range weapon. In the event of a battle, the Earthmen would at least be ready.
“What is it you want here?” the gnorph leader asked with thinly concealed impatience.
“We wish to sign a treaty between your world and ours,” said Mawley. “A bond of eternal friendship, of loyalty and fellowship between worlds.”
Somewhere in the distance an unseen beast emitted a rumbling reptilian honk — quite spoiling the effect, Harskin thought.
“Friendship? Fellowship?” the gnorph repeated, indicating by a quivering shake of his wattles that these were difficult concepts for him to grasp.
“Yes,” said Mawley. “And as signs of our friendship we bring you gifts — not piddling trinkets such as our enemies foisted on you last night, but gifts of incomparable richness, gifts which will be just part of the bounty to fall upon you if you will sign with us.”
At a signal from Harskin, they began unloading the gifts they had brought with them: miniaturized cameras, game-detectors, dozens of other treasures calculated to impress the gnorphs.
