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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23636-h.zip b/23636-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e667366 --- /dev/null +++ b/23636-h.zip diff --git a/23636-h/23636-h.htm b/23636-h/23636-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..22d13e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/23636-h/23636-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2181 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Matter Of Importance, by Murray Leinster. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's A Matter of Importance, by William Fitzgerald Jenkins + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Matter of Importance + +Author: William Fitzgerald Jenkins + +Release Date: November 26, 2007 [EBook #23636] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MATTER OF IMPORTANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<h1>A MATTER OF IMPORTANCE</h1> + +<h2>BY MURRAY LEINSTER</h2> + +<h4>Illustrated by Bernklau</h4> + +<h4>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science +Fiction September 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</h4> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/illus1.jpg"><img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The importance of a matter is almost entirely a matter of your +attitude. And whether you call something "a riot" or "a war" ... +well, there is a difference, but what is it?</i></p></div> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Nobody ever saw the message-torp. It wasn't to be expected. It came in +on a course that extended backward to somewhere near the Rift—where +there used to be Huks—and for a very, very long way it had traveled as +only message-torps do travel. It hopped half a light-year in overdrive, +and came back to normality long enough for its photocells to inspect the +star-filled universe all about. Then it hopped another half light-year, +and so on. For a long, long time it traveled in this jerky fashion.</p> + +<p>Eventually, moving as it did in the straightest of straight lines, its +photocells reported that it neared a star which had achieved +first-magnitude brightness. It paused a little longer than usual while +its action-circuits shifted. Then it swung to aim for the bright star, +which was the sol-type sun Varenga. The torp sped toward it on a new +schedule. Its overdrive hops dropped to light-month length. Its pauses +in normality were longer. They lasted almost the fiftieth of a second.</p> + +<p>When Varenga had reached a suitably greater brightness in the +message-torp's estimation, it paused long enough to blast out its +recorded message. It had been designed for this purpose and no other. +Its overdrive hops shortened to one light-hour of distance covered. +Regularly, its transmitter flung out a repetition of what it had been +sent so far to say. In time it arrived within the limits of the Varenga +system. Its hops diminished to light-minutes of distance only. It ceased +to correct its course. It hurtled through the orbits of all the planets, +uttering silently screamed duplicates of the broadcasts now left behind, +to arrive later.</p> + +<p>It did not fall into the sun, of course. The odds were infinitely +against such a happening. It pounded past the sun, shrieking its news, +and hurtled on out to the illimitable emptiness beyond. It was still +squealing when it went out of human knowledge forever.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The state of things was routine. Sergeant Madden had the traffic desk +that morning. He would reach retirement age in two more years, and it +was a nagging reminder that he grew old. He didn't like it. There was +another matter. His son Timmy had a girl, and she was on the way to +Varenga IV on the <i>Cerberus</i>, and when she arrived Timmy would become a +married man. Sergeant Madden contemplated this prospect. By the time his +retirement came up, in the ordinary course of events he could very well +be a grandfather. He was unable to imagine it. He rumbled to himself.</p> + +<p>The telefax hummed and ejected a sheet of paper on top of other sheets +in the desk's "In" cubicle. Sergeant Madden glanced absently at it. It +was an operations-report sheet, to be referred to if necessary, but +otherwise simply to be filed at the end of the day.</p> + +<p>A voice crackled overhead.</p> + +<p>"<i>Attention Traffic</i>," said the voice. "<i>The following report has been +received and verified as off-planet. Message follows.</i>" That voice +ceased and was replaced by another, which wavered and wabbled from the +electron-spurts normal to solar systems and which make for auroras on +planets. "<i>Mayday mayday mayday</i>," said the second voice. "<i>Call for +help. Call for help. Ship</i> Cerberus <i>major breakdown overdrive heading +Procyron III for refuge. Help urgently needed.</i>" There was a pause. +"<i>Mayday mayday mayday. Call for help—</i>"</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden's face went blank. Timmy's girl was on the <i>Cerberus</i>. +Then he growled and riffled swiftly through the operations-report sheets +that had come in since his tour of duty began. He found the one he +looked for. Yes. Patrolman Timothy Madden was now in overdrive in squad +ship 740, delivering the monthly precinct report to Headquarters. He +would be back in eight days. Maybe a trifle less, with his girl due to +arrive on the <i>Cerberus</i> in nine and him to be married in ten. But—</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden swore. As a prospective bridegroom, Timmy's place was on +this call for help to the <i>Cerberus</i>. But he wasn't available. It was in +his line, because it was specifically a traffic job. The cops handled +traffic, naturally, as they handled sanitary-code enforcement and +delinks and mercantile offenses and murderers and swindlers and missing +persons. Everything was dumped on the cops. They'd even handled the Huks +in time gone by—which in still earlier times would have been called a +space war and put down in all the history books. It was routine for the +cops to handle the disabled or partly disabled <i>Cerberus</i>.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Sergeant Madden pushed a button marked "<i>Traffic Emergency</i>" and held it +down until it lighted.</p> + +<p>"You got that <i>Cerberus</i> report?" he demanded of the air about him.</p> + +<p>"Just," said a voice overhead.</p> + +<p>"What've you got on hand?" demanded Sergeant Madden.</p> + +<p>"The <i>Aldeb</i>'s here," said the voice. "There's a minor overhaul going +on, but we can get her going in six hours. She's slow, but you know +her."</p> + +<p>"Hm-m-m. Yeah," said Sergeant Madden. He added vexedly: "My son Timmy's +girl is on board the <i>Cerberus</i>. He'll be wild he wasn't here. I'm going +to take the ready squad ship and go on out. Passengers always fret when +there's trouble and no cop around. Too bad Timmy's off on assignment."</p> + +<p>"Yeah," said the Traffic Emergency voice. "Too bad. But we'll get the +<i>Aldeb</i> off in six hours."</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden pushed another button. It lighted.</p> + +<p>"Madden," he rumbled. "Desk. The <i>Cerberus</i>' had a breakdown. She's +limpin' over to Procyron III for refuge to wait for help. The <i>Aldeb</i>'ll +do the job on her, but I'm going to ride the squad ship out and make up +the report. Who's next on call-duty?"</p> + +<p>"Willis," said a crisp voice. "Squad ship 390. He's up for next call. +Playing squint-eye in the squad room now."</p> + +<p>"Pull him loose," Sergeant Madden ordered, "and send somebody to take +the desk. Tell Willis I'll be on the tarmac in five minutes."</p> + +<p>"Check," said the crisp voice.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden lifted his thumb. All this was standard operational +procedure. A man had the desk. An emergency call came in. That man took +it and somebody else took the desk. Eminently fair. No favoritism; no +throwing weight around; no glory-grabbing. Not that there was much glory +in being a cop. But as long as a man was a cop, he was good. Sergeant +Madden reflected with satisfaction that even if he was getting on to +retirement age, he was still a cop.</p> + +<p>He made two more calls. One was to Records for the customary full +information on the <i>Cerberus</i> and on the Procyron system. The other was +to the flat where Timmy lived with him. It was going to be lonely when +Timmy got married and had a home of his own. Sergeant Madden dialed for +message-recording and gruffly left word for Timmy. He, Timmy's father, +was going on ahead to make the report on the <i>Cerberus</i>. Timmy wasn't to +worry. The ship might be a few days late, but Timmy'd better make the +most of them. He'd be married a long time!</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden got up, grunting, from his chair. Somebody came in to +take over the desk. Sergeant Madden nodded and waved his hand. He went +out and took the slide-stair down to the tarmac where squad ship 390 +waited in standard police readiness. Patrolman Willis arrived at the +stubby little craft seconds after the sergeant.</p> + +<p>"Procyron III," said Sergeant Madden, rumbling. "I figure three days. +You told your wife?"</p> + +<p>"I called," said Patrolman Willis resignedly.</p> + +<p>They climbed into the squad ship. Police ships, naturally, had their +special drive, which could lift them off without rocket aid and gave +them plenty of speed, but filled up the hull with so much machinery that +it was only practical for such ships. Commercial craft were satisfied +with low-power drives, which meant that spaceport facilities lifted them +to space and pulled them down again. They carried rockets for emergency +landing, but the main thing was that they had a profitable pay load. +Squad ships didn't carry anything but two men and their equipment.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden dogged the door shut. The ship fell up toward the sky. +The heavens became that blackness-studded-with-jewels which is space. A +great yellow sun flared astern. A half-bright, half-dark globe lay +below-the planet Varenga IV, on which the precinct police station for +this part of the galaxy had its location.</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis, frowning with care, established the squad ship's +direction, while Sergeant Madden observed without seeming to do so. +Presently Patrolman Willis pushed a button. The squad ship went into +overdrive.</p> + +<p>It was perfectly commonplace in all its aspects.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The galaxy went about its business. Stars shone, and planets moved +around them, and double stars circled each other like waltzing couples. +There were also comets and meteors and calcium-clouds and high-energy +free nuclei, all of which acted as was appropriate for them. On some +millions of planets winds blew and various organisms practiced +photosynthesis. Waves ran across seas. Clouds formed and poured down +rain. On the relatively small number of worlds so far inhabited by +humans, people went about their business with no thought for such things +or anything not immediately affecting their lives. And the cops went +about their business.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden dozed most of the first day of overdrive travel. He had +nothing urgent to do, as yet. This was only a routine trip. The +<i>Cerberus</i> had had a breakdown in her overdrive. Commercial ships' +drives being what they were, it meant that on her emergency drive she +could only limp along at maybe eight or ten lights. Which meant years to +port, with neither food nor air for the journey. But it was not even +conceivable to rendezvous with a rescue ship in the emptiness between +stars. So the <i>Cerberus</i> had sent a message-torp and was crawling to a +refuge-planet, more or less surveyed a hundred years before. There she +would land by emergency rockets, because her drive couldn't take the +strain. Once aground, the <i>Cerberus</i> should wait for help. There was +nothing else to be done. But everything was nicely in hand. The squad +ship headed briskly for the planet Procyron III, and Sergeant Madden +would take the data for a proper, official, emergency-call traffic +report on the incident, and in time the <i>Aldeb</i> would turn up and make +emergency repairs and see the <i>Cerberus</i> out to space again and headed +for port once more.</p> + +<p>This was absolutely all that there was to anticipate. Traffic handled +such events as a matter of course. So Sergeant Madden dozed during most +of the first day of overdrive. He reflected somnolently when awake that +it was fitting for Timmy's father to be on the job when Timmy's girl was +in difficulty, since Timmy was off somewhere else.</p> + +<p>On the second day he conversed more or less with Patrolman Willis. +Willis was a young cop, almost as young as Timmy. He took himself very +seriously. When Sergeant Madden reached for the briefing-data, he found +it disturbed. Willis had read up on the kind of ship the <i>Cerberus</i> was, +and on the characteristics of Procyron III as recorded a century before. +The <i>Cerberus</i> was a semi-freighter, Candless type. Procyron III was a +water-planet with less than ten per cent of land. Which was unfortunate, +because its average temperature and orbit made it highly suitable for +human occupation. Had the ten per cent of solid ground been in one +piece, it would doubtless have been colonized. But the ground was an +archipelago.</p> + +<p>"Hm-m-m," said Sergeant Madden, after reading. "The survey recommends +this northern island for emergency landing. Eh?"</p> + +<p>Willis nodded. "Huks used to use it. Not the island. The planet."</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden yawned. It seemed pathetic to him that young cops like +Willis and even Timmy referred so often to Huks. There weren't any, any +more. Being a cop meant carrying out purely routine tasks, nowadays. +They were important tasks, of course. Without the cops, there couldn't +be any civilization. But Willis and Timmy didn't think of it that way. +Not yet. To them being a cop was still a matter of glamour rather than +routine. They probably even regretted the absence of Huks. But when a +man reached Sergeant Madden's age, glamour didn't matter. He had to +remember that his job was worth doing, in itself.</p> + +<p>"Yeah," said Sergeant Madden. "There was quite a time with those Huks."</p> + +<p>"Did you ... did you ever see a Huk, sir?" asked Willis.</p> + +<p>"Before my time," said Sergeant Madden. "But I've talked to men who +worked on the case."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It did not occur to him that the Huks would hardly have been called a +"case" by anybody but a cop. When human colonies spread through this +sector, they encountered an alien civilization. By old-time standards, +it was quite a culture. The Huks had a good technology, they had +spaceships, and they were just beginning to expand, themselves, from +their own home planet or planets. If they'd had a few more centuries of +development, they might have been a menace to humanity. But the humans +got started first.</p> + +<p>There being no longer any armies or navies when the Huks were +discovered, the matter of intelligent nonhumans was a matter for the +cops. So the police matter-of-factly tried to incorporate the Huk +culture into the human. They explained the rules by which human +civilization worked. They painstakingly tried to arrange a sub-precinct +station on the largest Huk home planet, with Huk cops in charge. They +made it clear that they had nothing to do with politics and were simply +concerned with protecting civilized people from those in their midst who +didn't want to be civilized.</p> + +<p>The Huks wouldn't have it. They bristled, proudly. They were defiant. +They considered themselves not only as good as humans—the cops didn't +care what they thought—but they insisted on acting as if they were +better.</p> + +<p>They reacted, in fact, as humans would have done if just at the +beginning of their conquest of the stars, they'd run into an expanding, +farther-advanced race which tried to tell them what they had to do. The +Huks fought.</p> + +<p>"They fought pretty good," said Sergeant Madden tolerantly. "Not +killer-fashion—like delinks. The Force had to give 'em the choice of +joining up or getting out. Took years to get 'em out. Had to use all the +off-duty men from six precincts to handle the last riot."</p> + +<p>The conflict he called a riot would have been termed a space battle by a +navy or an army. But the cops operated within a strictly police frame of +reference, which was the reverse of military. They weren't trying to +subjugate the Huks, but to make them behave. In consequence, their +tactics were unfathomable to the Huks—who thought in military terms. +Squadrons of police ships which would have seemed ridiculous to a +fighting-force commander threw the Huks off-balance, kept them +off-balance, did a scrupulous minimum of damage to them, and thereby +kept out of every trap the Huks set for them. In the end the cops +supervised and assisted at the embittered, rebellious emigration of a +race. The Huks took off for the far side of the galaxy. They'd neither +been conquered nor exterminated. But Sergeant Madden thought of the +decisive fracas as a riot rather than a battle.</p> + +<p>"Yeah," he repeated. "They acted a lot like delinks."</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis spoke with some heat about delinks, who are the bane of +all police forces everywhere. They practice adolescent behavior even +after they grow up—but they never grow up. It is delinks who put +stink-bombs in public places and write threatening letters and give +warnings of bombs about to go off—and sometimes set them—and stuff +dirt into cold rocket-nozzles and sometimes kill people and go +incontinently hysterical because they didn't mean to. Delinks do most of +the damaging things that have no sense to them. There is no cop who has +not wanted to kill some grinning, half-scared, half-defiant delink who +hasn't yet realized that he's destroyed half a million credits' worth of +property or crippled somebody for life—for no reason at all.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden listened to the denunciation of all the delink tribe. +Then he yawned again.</p> + +<p>"I know!" he said. "I don't like 'em either. But we got 'em. We always +will have 'em. Like old age."</p> + +<p>Then he made computations with a stubby pencil and asked reflectively:</p> + +<p>"When're you coming out of overdrive?"</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis told him. Sergeant Madden nodded.</p> + +<p>"I'll take another nap," he observed. "We'll be there a good twenty-two +hours before the <i>Aldeb</i>."</p> + +<p>The little squad ship went on at an improbable multiple of the speed of +light. After all, this was a perfectly normal performance. Just an +ordinary bit of business for the cops.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Sergeant Madden belched when the squad ship came out of overdrive. He +watched with seeming indifference while Patrolman Willis took a spectro +on the star ahead and to the left, and painstakingly compared the +reading with the ancient survey-data on the Procyron system. It had to +match, of course, unless there'd been extraordinarily bad astrogation.</p> + +<p>Willis put the spectroscope away, estimated for himself, and then +checked with the dial that indicated the brightness of the still +point-sized star. He said:</p> + +<p>"Four light-weeks, I make it."</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden nodded. A superior officer should never do anything +useful, so long as a subordinate isn't making a serious mistake. That is +the way subordinates are trained to become superiors, in time. Patrolman +Willis set a time-switch and pushed the overdrive button. The squad ship +hopped, and abruptly the local sun had a perceptible disk. Willis made +the usual tests for direction of rotation, to get the ecliptic plane. He +began to search for planets. As he found them, he checked with the +reference data. All this was tedious. Sergeant Madden grunted:</p> + +<p>"That'll be it," he said, and pointed. "Water world. It's the color of +ocean. Try it."</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis threw on the telescope screen. The image of the distant +planet leaped into view. It was Procyron III. The spiral cloud-arms of a +considerable storm showed in the southern hemisphere, but in the north +there was a group or specks which would be the planet's only solid +ground—the archipelago reported by the century-old survey. The +<i>Cerberus</i> should have been the first ship to land there in a hundred +years, and the squad ship should be the second.</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis got the squad ship competently over to the planet, a +diameter out. He juggled to position over the archipelago. Sergeant +Madden turned on the space phone. Nothing. He frowned. A grounded ship +awaiting help should transmit a beam signal to guide its rescuer. But +nothing came up from the ground.</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis looked at him uncertainly. Sergeant Madden rumbled and +swung the telescope below. The surface of the planet appeared—deep +water, practically black beneath a surface reflection of daytime sky. +The image shifted—a patch of barren rocks. The sergeant glanced at the +survey picture, shifted the telescope, and found the northern-most +island. He swelled the picture. He could see the white of monstrous surf +breaking on the windward shore—waves that had gathered height going all +around the planet. He traced the shoreline. There was a bay up at the +top.</p> + +<p>He centered the shoreline of the bay and put on maximum magnification. +Then he pointed a stubby forefinger. A singular, perfectly straight +streak of black appeared, beginning a little distance inland from the +bay and running up into what appeared to be higher ground. The streak +ended not far from a serpentine arm of the sea which almost cut the +island in half.</p> + +<p>"That'll be it," said Sergeant Madden, rumbling. "The <i>Cerberus</i> had to +land on her rockets. She had some ground speed. She burned a ten-mile +streak on the ground, coming down." He growled. "Commercial skippers! +Should've matched velocity aloft! Take her down."</p> + +<p>The squad ship drove for ground.</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis steadied the ship no more than a few thousand feet +high, above the streak of scorched ground and ashes.</p> + +<p>"It was heading inland, all right," rumbled Sergeant Madden. "Lucky! If +it'd been heading the other way, it could've gone out and landed in the +sea. That would ha' been a mess! But where is it?"</p> + +<p>The squad ship descended farther. It followed the lane of carbonized +soil. That marking narrowed—the <i>Cerberus</i> had plainly been descending. +Then the streak came to an end. It pinched out to nothing. The +<i>Cerberus</i> should have been at its end.</p> + +<p>It wasn't. There was no ship down on Procyron III.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The matter ceased to be routine. If the liner's drive conked out where +Procyron III was the nearest refuge planet, it should have landed here +at least six days ago. Some ship had landed here recently.</p> + +<p>"Set down," grunted Sergeant Madden.</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis obeyed. The squad ship came to rest in a minor valley, +a few hundred yards from the end of the rocket-blast trail. Sergeant +Madden got out. Patrolman Willis followed him. This was a duly surveyed +and recommended refuge planet. There was no need to check the air or +take precautions against inimical animal or vegetable life. The planet +was safe.</p> + +<p>They clambered over small rocky obstacles until they came to the end of +the scorched line. They surveyed the state of things in silence.</p> + +<p>A ship had landed here recently. Its blue-white rocket flames had melted +gulleys in the soil, turned it to slag, and then flung silky, gossamer +threads of slag-wool over the rocks nearby.</p> + +<p>At the end of the melted-away hollows, twin slag-lined holes went down +deep into the ground. They were take-off holes. Rockets had burned them +deeply as they gathered force to lift the ship away again.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden scrambled to the edge of the nearest blast-well. He put +his hand on the now-solidified, glassy slag. It wasn't warm, but it +wasn't cold. The glass-lined hole a rocket leaves takes a long time to +cool down.</p> + +<p>"She landed here, all right," he grunted. "But she took off again before +the torp arrived to tell us about it."</p> + +<p>Willis protested:</p> + +<p>"But, sergeant! She only had one set of rockets! She couldn't have taken +off again! She didn't have the rockets to do it with!"</p> + +<p>"I know she couldn't," growled the sergeant. "But she did."</p> + +<p>The <i>Cerberus</i>, once landed, should have waited here. It was not only a +police regulation; it was common sense. When a ship broke down in space, +the exclusive hope for that ship's company lay in a refuge planet for +ships in that traffic lane. Even lifeboats could ordinarily reach some +refuge planet, for picking up later. They couldn't possibly be located +otherwise. With three dimensions in which to be missed, and light-years +of distance in which to miss them—no ship or boat had ever been found +as much as a light-week out in space. No ship with a crippled drive +could possibly be helped unless it got to a specified refuge world where +it could be found. No ship which had reached a refuge planet could +conceivably want to leave it.</p> + +<p>There was also the fact that no ship which had made such a landing would +have extra rockets with which to take off for departure.</p> + +<p>The <i>Cerberus</i> had landed. Timmy's girl was on it. It had taken off +again. It was either an impossible mass suicide or something worse. It +certainly wasn't routine.</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis asked hesitantly:</p> + +<p>"D'you think, sergeant, it could be Huks sneaked back—?"</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden did not answer. He went back to the squad ship and armed +himself. Patrolman Willis followed suit. The sergeant boobied the squad +ship so no unauthorized person could make use of it, and so it would +disable itself if anyone with expert knowledge tried. Therefore, nobody +with expert knowledge would try.</p> + +<p>The two cops began a painstaking quest for police-type evidence to tell +them what had happened, and how and why the <i>Cerberus</i> was missing, +after a clumsy but safe landing on Procyron III and when all sanity +demanded that it stay there, and when it was starkly impossible for it +to leave.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Sergeant Madden and Patrolman Willis were, self-evidently, the only +human beings on a planet some nine thousand miles in diameter. It was +easy to compute that the nearest other humans would be at least some +thousands of thousands of millions of miles away—so far away that +distance had no meaning. This planet was something over nine-tenth +rolling sea, but there were a few tens of thousands of square miles of +solid ground in the one archipelago that broke the ocean's surface. It +was such loneliness as very few people ever experience. But they did not +notice it. They were busy.</p> + +<p>They went over the ground immediately about the landing place. Rocket +flame had splashed it, both at the <i>Cerberus'</i> landing and at the +impossible take-off. There was nothing within a hundred yards not burned +to a crisp. They searched outside that area. Sergeant Madden rumbled to +his companion:</p> + +<p>"Where'd the other ship land?"</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis blinked at him.</p> + +<p>"There had to be another ship!" said Sergeant Madden irritably. "To +bring the extra rockets. The other ship had to've brought 'em. And it +had to have rockets of its own. There's no spaceport here!"</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis blinked again. Then he saw. The <i>Cerberus</i> carried one +set of emergency-landing rockets, for use in a descent on a refuge +planet if the need arose. The need had arisen and the <i>Cerberus</i> had +used them. Then, from somewhere, another set of rockets had been +produced for it to use in leaving. Those other rockets must have come on +another ship. But it was a trifle more complicated than that. The +<i>Cerberus</i> had carried one set of rockets and used them. One. It had +been supplied with another set from somewhere. Two. They must have been +brought by a ship which also used a set of rockets to land by. That made +three. Then the other ship must have had a fourth set for its own +take-off, or it would be grounded forever on Procyron III.</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis frowned.</p> + +<p>"We looked pretty carefully from aloft," he said uncomfortably. "If +there'd been another burned-off landing place, we'd have seen it."</p> + +<p>"I know," rumbled Sergeant Madden. "And we didn't. But there must've +been another ship aground when the <i>Cerberus</i> came in. Where was it? It +prob'ly knew the <i>Cerberus</i> was landing to wait for help. How? If +somebody was coming to help the <i>Cerberus</i> it would be bound to spot the +other ship, and it didn't want to be spotted. Why? Anyhow, it must've +taken the <i>Cerberus</i> and sent it off, and then taken off itself, leaving +nothing sensible for us to think. 'Sounds like delinks." Then he +growled. "Only it's not. There'd have to be too many men. Delinks don't +work together more'n two or three. Too jealous of showin' off. But where +was that other ship, and what was it doin' here?"</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis hesitated, and then said:</p> + +<p>"There used to be pirates, sergeant."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh," said the sergeant. "You had it right the first time, most +likely. Not delinks. Not pirates. You said Huks." He looked around, +estimatingly. "The rockets had to be brought here from somewhere else +where they'd been landed. I'm betting the tracks were covered pretty +careful. But rockets are heavy. Manhandlin' them, whoever was doin' it +would take the easiest way. Hm-m-m. There's water close by over yonder. +Sort of a sound in there—too narrow to be a bay. Let's have a look. And +the slopes are easiest that way, too."</p> + +<p>He led off to the eastward. He thought of Timmy's girl. He'd never seen +her, but Timmy was going to marry her. She was on the <i>Cerberus</i>. It was +the job of the cops to take care of whatever dilemma that ship might be +in. As of here and now, it was Sergeant Madden's job. But besides that, +he thought of the way Timmy would feel if anything happened to the girl +he meant to marry. As Timmy's father, the sergeant had to do something. +He wanted to do it fast. But it had to be done the right way.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The route he chose was rocky, but it was nearly the only practicable +route away from the burned-dead landing place. He climbed toward what on +this planet was the east. There were pinnacles and small precipices. +There were small, fleshy-leaved bushes growing out of such tiny +collections of soil as had formed in cracks and crevices in the rock.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden noted that one such bush was wilted. He stopped. He bent +over and carefully felt of the stones about it. A small rock came out. +The bush had been out of the ground before. It had carefully been +replaced. By someone.</p> + +<p>"The rockets came this way," said the sergeant, with finality. "Hauled +over this pass to the <i>Cerberus</i>. Somebody must've knocked this bush +loose while workin' at getting 'em along. So he replanted it. Only not +good enough. It wilted."</p> + +<p>"Who did it?" demanded Patrolman Willis.</p> + +<p>"Who we want to know about," growled Sergeant Madden. "Maybe Huks. Come +on!"</p> + +<p>He scrambled ahead. He wheezed as he climbed and descended. After half a +mile, Patrolman Willis said abruptly:</p> + +<p>"You figure they all left, before anybody tried to find 'em?"</p> + +<p>The sergeant grunted affirmatively. A quarter mile still farther, the +rocky ground fell away. There was the gleam of water below them. Rocky +cliffs enclosed an arm of the sea that came deep into the land, here. In +the cliffs rock-strata tilted insanely. There were red and yellow and +black layers—mostly yellow and black. They showed in startlingly clear +contrast.</p> + +<p>"Right!" said Sergeant Madden in morose satisfaction. "I thought there +might've been a boat. But this's it!"</p> + +<p>He went down a steep descent to the very edge of the sound—it was even +more like a fjord—where the waters of the ocean came in among the +island's hills. On the far side, a little cascade leaped and bubbled +down to join the sea.</p> + +<p>"You go that way," commanded Sergeant Madden, "and I'll go this. We've +got two things to look for—a shallow place in the water coming right up +to shore. And look for signs of traffic from the cliffs to the water. By +the color of those rocks, we'd ought to find both."</p> + +<p>He lumbered away along the water's edge. There were no creatures which +sang or chirped. The only sounds were wind and the lapping of waves +against the shore. It was very, very lonely.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/illus2.jpg"><img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + + +<p>Half a mile from the point of his first descent, the sergeant found a +shoal. It was a flat space of shallow water—discoverable by the color +of the bottom. The water was not over four feet deep. It was a +remarkably level shoal place.</p> + +<p>He whistled on his fingers. When Patrolman Willis reached him, he +pointed to the cliffs directly across the beach from the shallow water. +Lurid yellow tints stained the cliff walls. Odd masses of fallen stone +dotted the cliff foot. At one place they were piled high. That pile +looked quite natural—except that it was at the very center of the shore +line next the shoal.</p> + +<p>"This rock's yellow," said Sergeant Madden, rumbling a little. "It's +mineral. If we had a Geiger, it'd be raising hell, here. There's a mine +in there. Uranium. If a ship came down on rockets, an' landed in that +shoal place yonder ... why ... it wouldn't leave a burned spot comin' +down or takin' off, either. Y'see?"</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis said: "Look here, sergeant—"</p> + +<p>"I'm in command here," growled Sergeant Madden. "Huks didn't booby trap. +Proud as hell, and touchy as all get-out, but not killers. Not crazy +killers, anyhow. You go get up yonder. Up where we started down. Then go +on away. Back to the squad ship. If I don't come along, anyhow you'll +know what's what when the <i>Aldeb</i> comes."</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis expostulated. Sergeant Madden was firm. In the end, +Patrolman Willis went away. And Sergeant Madden sat at ease and rested +until he had time enough to get back to the squad ship. It was true that +the Huks didn't booby trap. They hadn't had the practice, anyhow, eighty +years ago. But this was a very important matter. Maybe they considered +it so important that they'd changed their policy concerning this.</p> + +<p>Wheezing a little, Sergeant Madden pulled away large stones and small +ones. An opening appeared behind them. He grunted and continued his +labor. Nothing happened. The mouth of a mine shaft appeared, going +horizontally into the cliff.</p> + +<p>Puffing from his exertions, Sergeant Madden went in. It was necessary if +he were to make a routine examination.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The <i>Aldeb</i> came in a full day later. It descended, following the space +beacon the squad ship sent up from its resting place. The <i>Aldeb</i> was +not an impressive sight, of course. It was a medium-sized police salvage +ship. It had a crew of fifteen, and it was powerfully engined, and it +contained a respectable amount of engineering experience and ability, +plus some spare parts and, much more important, the tools with which to +make others. It came down in a highly matter-of-fact fashion, and +Sergeant Madden and Patrolman Willis went over to it to explain the +situation.</p> + +<p>"The <i>Cerberus</i> came in on rockets," rumbled the sergeant, in the +salvage ship's skipper's cabin. "She landed. We found signs that some of +her people came out an' strolled around lookin' for souvenirs and such. +I make a guess that there was a minin' man among them, but it's only a +guess. Anyhow somebody went over to where there's some parti-colored +cliffs, where the sea comes away inland. And when they got to that +place ... why ... there was a ship there. Then."</p> + +<p>He paused, frowning.</p> + +<p>"It would've been standing on an artificial shoal place, about thirty +yards from a shaft that was the mouth of a mine. Uranium. And there's +been a lot of uranium taken outta there! It was hauled right outta the +mine shaft across the beach to the ship that was waitin'. And there's +fresh work in that mine, but not a tool or a scrap of paper to tell who +was workin' it. It must've been cleaned up like that every time a ship +left after loadin' up. Humans wouldn't've done it. They wouldn't care. +Huks would. There's not supposed to be any of them left in these parts, +but I'm guessing the mine was dug by Huks, and the <i>Cerberus</i> was taken +away by them because the humans on the <i>Cerberus</i> found out there was +Huks around."</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis said: "The sergeant took a chance on the mine being +booby-trapped and went in, after sending me out of range."</p> + +<p>The sergeant scowled at him and went on.</p> + +<p>"How it happened don't matter. Maybe somebody spotted the ship from the +<i>Cerberus</i> as it was comin' down. Maybe anything. But whoever run the +mine found out somebody knew they were there, so they rushed the +<i>Cerberus</i>—there prob'ly wasn't even a stun-pistol on board to fight +with—and they put new rockets on her."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The skipper of the salvage ship <i>Aldeb</i> nodded wisely.</p> + +<p>"A ship comin' to load up minerals where there wasn't any spaceport," he +observed, "would have a set of rockets to land on, empty, and a double +set to take off on, loaded. Yeah."</p> + +<p>"They must've figured," said Sergeant Madden, "that we just couldn't +make any sense out of what we found. And if we hadn't turned up that +mine, maybe never would. But anyhow they sent the <i>Cerberus</i> off and +covered everything up and went off to stay, themselves, until we gave up +and went home."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said the skipper of the <i>Aldeb</i>, "where they took the +<i>Cerberus</i>? That's my job!"</p> + +<p>"Not far," grunted Sergeant Madden. "They had to be taking the +<i>Cerberus</i> somewhere. If they just wanted to wipe it out, after they +rushed it, they coulda just set off its fuel like it'd happened in a bad +landing. And that landing was bad! If there'd been a fuel-explosion +crater at the end of that burnt line on the ground, nobody'd ever've +looked further. But there wasn't. So there's a place they're takin' the +<i>Cerberus</i> to. But it's got a brokedown drive. It can only hobble along. +They can't try to get but so far! What's the nearest sol-type star?"</p> + +<p>The <i>Aldeb</i>'s skipper pushed a button and the Precinct Atlas came out of +its slot. The skipper punched keys and the atlas clicked and whirred. +Then its screen lighted. It showed a report on a solar system that had +been fully surveyed.</p> + +<p>"Uh-uh," grunted the sergeant. "A survey woulda showed up if a planet +was Huk-occupied. What's next nearest?"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Again the atlas whirred and clicked. A single line of type appeared. It +said, "<i>Sirene, 1432. Unsurveyed.</i>" The galactic co-ordinates followed. +That was all.</p> + +<p>"This looks likely!" said the sergeant. "Unsurveyed, and off the ship +lanes. It ain't between any place and any other. It could go a thousand +years and never be landed on. It's got planets."</p> + +<p>It was highly logical. According to Krishnamurti's Law, any sol-type sun +was bound to have planets of such-and-such relative sizes in orbits of +such-and-such relative distances.</p> + +<p>"Willis and me," said the sergeant, "we'll go over and see if there's +Huks there and if they've got the <i>Cerberus</i>. You better get this stuff +on a message-torp ready to send off if you have to. Are you going to +come over to this—Sirene 1432?"</p> + +<p>The skipper of the <i>Aldeb</i> shrugged.</p> + +<p>"Might as well. Why go home and have to come back again? There could be +a lot of Huks there."</p> + +<p>"Yeah," admitted Sergeant Madden. "I'd guess a whole planet full of 'em +that laid low when the rest were scrapping with the Force. The others +lost and went clean across the galaxy. These characters stayed close. +I'm guessing. But they hid their mine, here. They could've been stewing +in their own juice these past eighty years, getting set to put up a hell +of a scrap when somebody found 'em. We'll be the ones to do it."</p> + +<p>He stood up and shook himself.</p> + +<p>"It's not far," he repeated. "Our boat's just fast enough we ought to +get there a couple of days after the <i>Cerberus</i> sets down. You'd ought +to be five-six hours behind us." He considered. "Meet you north pole +farthest planet out this side of the sun. Right?"</p> + +<p>"I'll look for you there," said the skipper of the <i>Aldeb</i>.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden and Patrolman Willis went out of the salvage ship and +trudged to the squad ship. They climbed in.</p> + +<p>"You got the co-ordinates?" asked the sergeant.</p> + +<p>"I copied them off the atlas," said Willis.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden settled himself comfortably.</p> + +<p>"We'll go over," he grumbled, "and see what makes these Huks tick. They +raised a lot of hell, eighty years ago. It took all the off-duty men +from six precincts to handle the last riot. The Huks had got together +and built themselves a fightin' fleet then, though. It's not likely +there's more than one planetful of them where we're going. I thought +they'd all been moved out."</p> + +<p>He shook his head vexedly.</p> + +<p>"No need for 'em to have to go, except they wouldn't play along with +humans. Acted like delinks, they did. Only proud. Y'don't get mad +fighting 'em. So I heard, anyway. If they only had sense you could get +along with them."</p> + +<p>He dogged the door shut. Patrolman Willis pushed a button. The squad +ship fell toward the sky.</p> + +<p>Very matter-of-factly.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>On the way over, in overdrive, Sergeant Madden again dozed a great deal +of the time. Sergeants do not fraternize extensively with mere +patrolmen, even on assignments. Especially not very senior sergeants +only two years from retirement. Patrolman Willis met with the sergeant's +approval, to be sure. Timmy was undoubtedly more competent as a cop, but +Timmy would have been in a highly emotional state with his girl on the +<i>Cerberus</i> and that ship in the hands of the Huks.</p> + +<p>Between naps, the sergeant somnolently went over what he knew about the +alien race. He'd heard that their thumbs were on the outside of their +hands. Intelligent nonhumans would have to have hands, and with some +equivalent of opposable thumbs, if their intelligence was to be of any +use to them. They pretty well had to be bipeds, too, and if they weren't +warm-blooded they couldn't have the oxygen-supply that highgrade brain +cells require.</p> + +<p>There were even certain necessary psychological facts. They had to be +capable of learning and of passing on what they'd learned, or they'd +never have gotten past an instinctual social system. To pass on acquired +knowledge, they had to have family units in which teaching was done to +the young—at least at the beginning. Schools might have been invented +later. Most of all, their minds had to work logically to cope with a +logically constructed universe. In fact, they had to be very much like +humans, in almost all significant respects, in order to build up a +civilization and develop sciences and splendidly to invade space just a +few centuries before humans found them.</p> + +<p><i>But</i>, said Sergeant Madden to himself, <i>I bet they've still got armies +and navies!</i></p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis looked at him inquiringly, but the sergeant scowled at +his own thoughts. Yet the idea was very likely. When Huks first +encountered humans, they bristled with suspicion. They were definitely +on the defensive when they learned that humans had been in space +longer—much longer—than they had, and already occupied planets in +almost fifteen per cent of the galaxy.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden found his mind obscurely switching to the matter of +delinks—those characters who act like adolescents, not only while they +are kids, but after. They were the permanent major annoyance of the +cops, because what they did didn't make sense. Learned books explained +why people went delink, of course. Mostly it was that they were madly +ambitious to be significant, to matter in some fashion, and didn't have +the ability to matter in the only ways they could understand. They +wanted to drive themselves to eminence, and frantically snatched at +chances to make themselves nuisances because they couldn't wait to be +important any other way.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden blinked slowly to himself. When humans first took to +space a lot of them were after glamour, which is the seeming of +importance. His son Timmy was on the cops because he thought it +glamorous. Patrolman Willis was probably the same way. Glamour is the +offer of importance. An offer of importance is glamour.</p> + +<p>The sergeant grunted to himself. A possible course of action came into +his mind. He and Patrolman Willis were on the way to the solar system +Sirene 1432, where Krishnamurti's Law said there ought to be something +very close to a terran-type planet in either the third or fourth orbit +out from the sun. That planet would be inhabited by Huks, who were very +much like humans. They knew of the defeat and forced emigration of their +fellow-Huks in other solar systems. They'd hidden from humans—and it +must have outraged their pride. So they must be ready to put up a +desperate and fanatical fight if they were ever discovered.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A squad ship with two cops in it, and a dumpy salvage ship with fifteen +more, did not make an impressive force to try to deal with a planetary +population which bitterly hated humans. But the cops did not plan +conquest. They were neither a fighting rescue expedition nor a punitive +one. They were simply cops on assignment to get the semi-freighter +<i>Cerberus</i> back in shape to travel on her lawful occasions among the +stars, and to see that she and her passengers and crew got to the +destination for which they'd started. The cop's purpose was essentially +routine. And the Huks couldn't possibly imagine it.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden settled some things in his mind and dozed off again.</p> + +<p>When the squad ship came out of overdrive and he was awakened by the +unpleasantness of breakout, he yawned. He looked on without comment as +Patrolman Willis matter-of-factly performed the tricky task of +determining the ecliptic while a solar system's sun was little more than +a first-magnitude star. It was wholly improbable that anything like Huk +patrol ships would be out so far. It was even more improbable that any +kind of detection devices would be in operation. Any approaching ship +could travel several times as fast as any signal.</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis searched painstakingly. He found a planet which was a +mere frozen lump of matter in vastness. It was white from a layer of +frozen gases piled upon its more solid core. He made observations.</p> + +<p>"I can find it again, sir, to meet the <i>Aldeb</i>. Orders, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Orders?" demanded Sergeant Madden. "What? Oh. Head in toward the sun. +The Huks'll be on Planet Three or Four, most likely. And that's where +they'll have the <i>Cerberus</i>."</p> + +<p>The squad ship continued sunward while Patrolman Willis continued his +observations. A star-picture along the ecliptic. An hour's run on +interplanetary drive—no overdrive field in use. Another picture. The +two prints had only to be compared with a blinker for planets to stick +out like sore thumbs, as contrasted with stars that showed no parallax. +Sirene I—the innermost planet—was plainly close to a transit. II was +away on the far side of its orbit. III was also on the far side. IV was +in quadrature. There was the usual gap where V should have been. VI—it +didn't matter. They'd passed VIII a little while since, a ball of stone +with a frigid gas-ice covering.</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis worked painstakingly with amplifiers on what oddments +could be picked up in space.</p> + +<p>"It's Four, sir," he reported unnecessarily, because the sergeant had +watched as he worked. "They've got detectors out. I could just barely +pick up the pulses. But by the time they've been reflected back they'll +be away below thermal noise-volume. I don't think even multiples could +pick 'em out. I'm saying, sir, that I don't think they can detect us at +this distance."</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden grunted.</p> + +<p>"D'you think we came this far not to be noticed?" he asked. But he was +not peevish. Rather, he seemed more thoroughly awake than he'd been +since the squad ship left the Precinct substation back on Varenga IV. He +rubbed his hands a little and stood up. "Hold it a minute, Willis."</p> + +<p>He went back to the auxiliary-equipment locker. He returned to his seat +beside Patrolman Willis. He opened the breech of the ejector-tube beside +his chair.</p> + +<p>"You've had street-fighting training," he said almost affably, "at the +Police Academy. And siege-of-criminals courses too, eh?" He did not wait +for an answer. "It's historic," he observed, "that since time began +cops've been stickin' out hats for crooks to shoot at, and that +crooks've been shooting, thinking there were heads in 'em."</p> + +<p>He put a small object in the ejector tube, poked it to proper seating, +and settled himself comfortably, again.</p> + +<p>"Can you make it to about a quarter-million miles of Four," he asked +cheerfully, "in one hop?"</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis set up the hop-timer. Sergeant Madden was pleased that +he aimed the squad ship not exactly at the minute disk which was Planet +IV of this system. It was prudence against the possibility of an error +in the reading of distance.</p> + +<p>"Ever use a marker, Willis?"</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis said: "No, sir."</p> + +<p>Before he'd finished saying it the squad ship had hopped into overdrive +and out again.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Sergeant Madden approved of the job. His son Timmy couldn't have done +better. Here was Planet IV before them, a little off to one side, as was +proper. They had run no risk of hitting in overdrive.</p> + +<p>The distance was just about a quarter-million miles, if Krishnamurti's +Law predicting the size and distance of planets in a sol-type system was +reliable. The world was green and had icecaps. There should always be, +in a system of this kind, at least one oxygen-planet with a +nearly-terran-normal range of temperature. That usually meant green +plants and an ocean or two. There wasn't quite as much sea as usual, on +this planet, and therefore there were some extensive yellow areas that +must be desert. But it was a good, habitable world. Anybody whose home +it was would defend it fiercely.</p> + +<p>"Hm-m-m," said Sergeant Madden. He took the ejector-tube lanyard in his +hand. He computed mentally. About a quarter-million miles, say. A second +and a half to alarm, down below. Five seconds more to verification. +Another five to believe it. Not less than twenty altogether to report +and get authority to fire. The Huks were a fighting race and presumably +organized, so they'd have a chain of command and decisions would be made +at the top. Army stuff, or navy. Not like the cops, where everybody knew +both the immediate and final purposes of any operation in progress, and +could act without waiting for orders.</p> + +<p>It should be not less than thirty seconds before a firing key made +contact down below. As a matter of history, years ago the Huks had used +eighty-gravity rockets with tracking-heads and bust-bombs on them. These +Huks would hardly be behind the others in equipment. And back then, too, +Huks kept their rocket missiles out in orbit where they could flare into +eighty-gee acceleration without wasting time getting out to where an +enemy was. In their struggle against the cops two generations ago the +Huks had had to learn that fighting wasn't all drama and heroics. The +cops had taken the glamour out when they won. So the Huks wouldn't waste +time making fine gestures now. The squad ship had appeared off their +planet. It had not transmitted a code identification-signal the instant +it came out of overdrive. The Huks were hiding from the cops, so they'd +shoot.</p> + +<p>"Hop on past," commanded Sergeant Madden, "the instant I jerk the +ejector lanyard. Don't fool around. Over the pole will do."</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis set the hop-timer. Twenty seconds. Twenty-two. Three. +Four.</p> + +<p>"Hop!" said Sergeant Madden. As he spoke, he jerked the lanyard.</p> + +<p>Before the syllable was finished, Patrolman Willis pressed hard on the +overdrive button. There came the always-nauseating sensation of going +into overdrive combined with the even more unpleasant sensation of +coming out of it. The squad ship was somewhere else.</p> + +<p>A vast, curving whiteness hung catercornered in the sky. It was the +planet's icecap, upside down. Patrolman Willis had possibly cut it a +trifle too fine.</p> + +<p>"Right," said the sergeant comfortably. "Now swing about to go back and +meet the <i>Aldeb</i>. But wait."</p> + +<p>The stars and the monstrous white bowl reeled in their positions as the +ship turned. Sergeant Madden felt that he could spare seconds, here. He +ignored the polar regions of Sirene IV, hanging upside down to rearward +from the squad ship. Even a planetary alarm wouldn't get polar-area +observers set to fire in much less than forty seconds, and there'd have +to be some lag in response to instrument reports. It wouldn't be as if +trouble had been anticipated at just this time.</p> + +<p>The squad ship steadied. Sergeant Madden looked with pleasurable +anticipation back to where the ship had come out of overdrive and +lingered for twenty-four seconds. Willis had moved the squad ship from +that position, but the sergeant had left a substitute. The small object +he'd dropped from the ejector tube now swelled and writhed and +struggled. In pure emptiness, a shape of metal foil inflated itself. It +was surprisingly large—almost the size of the squad ship. But in +emptiness the fraction of a cubic inch of normal-pressure gas would +inflate a foil bag against no resistance at all. This flimsy shape even +jerked into motion. Released gas poured out its back. There was no +resistance to acceleration save mass, which was negligible.</p> + +<p>A sudden swirling cloud of vapor appeared where the squad ship's +substitute went mindlessly on its way. The vapor rushed toward the +space-marker.</p> + +<p>A star appeared. It was a strictly temporary star, but even from a +quarter-million-mile distance it was incredibly bright. It was a bomb, +blasting a metal-foil flimsy which the electronic brain of a +missile-rocket could only perceive as an unidentified and hence enemy +object. Bomb and rocket and flimsy metal foil turned together to +radioactive metal vapor.</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden knew professional admiration.</p> + +<p>"Thirty-four seconds!" he said approvingly.</p> + +<p>The Huks could not have expected the appearance of an enemy just here +and now. It was the first such appearance in all the planet's history. +They certainly looked for no consequences of the seizure of the +<i>Cerberus</i>, carefully managed as that had been. So to detonate a bomb +against an unexpected inimical object within thirty-four seconds after +its appearance was very good work indeed.</p> + +<p>"Hm-m-m," said Sergeant Madden, "we've nothing more to do right now, +Willis. We'll go back to that hunk of ice you spotted comin' in, and +wait for the <i>Aldeb</i>."</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis obediently set the hop-timer and swung the squad ship +to a proper aiming. He pressed the overdrive button.</p> + +<p>His manner, like that of Sergeant Madden, was the manner of someone +conducting a perfectly routine operation.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"If my son Timmy were with me on this job," said Sergeant Madden, "I'd +point out the inner meaning of the way we're going about handling it."</p> + +<p>He reposed in his bucket-seat in the squad ship, which at that moment +lay aground not quite right-side-up close to the north pole of Sirene +VIII. The local sun was not in view. The squad ship's ports opened upon +the incredible brilliance of the galaxy as seen out of atmosphere. There +was no atmosphere here. It was all frozen. But there was a horizon, and +the light of the stars showed the miniature jungle of gas crystals. +Frozen gases—frozen to gas-ice—they were feathery. They were lacy. +They were infinitely delicate. They were frost in three dimensions.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Patrolman Willis.</p> + +<p>"The <i>Aldeb</i>'s due soon," said Sergeant Madden, "so I'll make it short. +The whole thing is that we are cops, and the Huks are soldiers. Which +means that they're after feeling important—after glamour. Every one of +'em figures it's necessary to be important. He craves it."</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis listened. He had a proximity detector out, which would +pick up any radiation caused by the cutting of magnetic lines of force +by any object. It made very tiny whining noises from time to time. If +anything from a Huk missile rocket to the salvage ship <i>Aldeb</i> +approached, however, the sound would be distinctive.</p> + +<p>"Now that," said Sergeant Madden, "is the same thing that makes delinks. +A delink tries to matter in the world he lives in. It's a small world, +with only him and his close pals in it. So he struts before his pals. He +don't realize that anybody but him and his pals are human. See?"</p> + +<p>"I know!" said Patrolman Willis with an edge to his voice. "Last month a +couple of delinks set a ground-truck running downhill, and jumped off +it, and—"</p> + +<p>"True," said Sergeant Madden. He rumbled for a moment. "A soldier lives +in a bigger world he tries to matter in. He's protectin' that world and +being admired for it. In old, old days his world was maybe a day's march +across. Later it got to be continents. They tried to make it planets, +but it didn't work. But there've got to be enemies to protect a world +against, or a soldier isn't important. He's got no glamour. Y'see?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Willis.</p> + +<p>"Then there's us cops," said Sergeant Madden wryly. "Mostly we join up +for the glamour. We think it's important to be a cop. But presently we +find we ain't admired. Then there's no more glamour—but we're still +important. A cop matters because he protects people against other people +that want to do things to 'em. Against characters that want to get +important by hurtin' 'em. Being a cop means you matter against all the +delinks and crooks an' fools and murderers who'd pull down civilization +in a minute if they could, just so they could be important because they +did it. But there's no glamour! We're not admired! We just do our job. +And if I sound sentimental, I mean it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Willis.</p> + +<p>"There's a big picture in the big hall in Police Headquarters on Valdez +III," said the sergeant. "It's the story of the cops from the early days +when they wore helmets, and the days when they rode bicycles, and when +they drove ground-cars. There's not only cops, but civilians, in every +one of the panels, Willis. And if you look careful, you'll see that +there's one civilian in every panel that's thumbin' his nose at a cop."</p> + +<p>"I've noticed," said Willis.</p> + +<p>"Remember it," said Sergeant Madden. "It bears on what we've got to do +to handle these Huks. Soldiers couldn't do what we've got to. They'd +fight, to be admired. We can't. It'd spoil our job. We've got to +persuade 'em to behave themselves."</p> + +<p>Then he frowned, as if he were dissatisfied with what he'd said. He +shook his head and made an impatient gesture.</p> + +<p>"No good," he said vexedly. "You can't say it. Hm-m-m ... I'll nap a +while until the <i>Aldeb</i> gets here."</p> + +<p>He settled back to doze.</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis regarded him with an odd expression. They were aground +on Sirene VIII, on which no human ship had ever landed before them, and +they had stirred up a hornet's nest on Sirene IV, which had orbital +eighty-gee rocket missiles in orbit around it with bust bomb heads and +all the other advantages of civilization. The <i>Aldeb</i> was on the way +with a fifteen-man crew. And seventeen men, altogether, must pit +themselves against an embattled planet with all its population ready and +perhaps eager for war. Their errand was to secure the release of human +prisoners and the surrender of a seized spaceship from a proud and +desperate race.</p> + +<p>It did not look promising. Sergeant Madden did not look like the kind of +genius who could carry it through. Dozing, with his chin tilted forward +on his chest, he looked hopelessly commonplace.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The skipper of the <i>Aldeb</i> came over to the squad ship, because Sergeant +Madden loathed spacesuits and there was no air on Sirene VIII. Patrolman +Willis watched as the skipper came wading through the lacy, breast-high +gas-frost. It seemed a pity for such infinitely delicate and beautiful +objects to be broken and crushed.</p> + +<p>The sergeant unlocked the lock-door and spoke into a microphone when he +heard the skipper stamping on the steel lock-flooring.</p> + +<p>"Brush yourself off," commanded the sergeant, "and sweep the stuff +outside. Part of its methane and there's some ammonia in those +crystals."</p> + +<p>There was a suitable pause. The outer door closed. The lock filled with +air, and gas-crystal fragments turned to reeking vapor as they warmed. +The skipper bled them out and refilled the lock. Then he came inside. He +opened his face plate.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"There's Huks here," Sergeant Madden told him, "their hair in a braid +and all set to go. They popped off a marker I stuck out for them to +shoot at in thirty-four seconds by the clock. Bright boys, these Huks! +They don't wait to ask questions. When they see something, they shoot at +it."</p> + +<p>The skipper tilted back his helmet and said beseechingly:</p> + +<p>"Scratch my head, will you?"</p> + +<p>When Patrolman Willis reached out his hand, the skipper revolved his +head under it until the itchy place was scratched. Most men itch +instantly they are unable to scratch. The skipper's space gloves were +sprouting whiskers of moisture-frost now.</p> + +<p>"Thanks," he said gratefully. "What are you going to do, sergeant?"</p> + +<p>"Open communication with 'em," said the sergeant, heavily.</p> + +<p>The skipper waited. Opening communication with someone who shoots on +detector-contact may be difficult.</p> + +<p>"I figure," rumbled the sergeant, "they're a lot like delinks. A cop can +figure how they think, but they can't figure how a cop thinks."</p> + +<p>"Such as?" asked the skipper.</p> + +<p>"They can't understand anybody not tryin' to be important," said +Sergeant Madden. "It baffles 'em."</p> + +<p>"What's that got to do with the people on the <i>Cerberus</i>?" demanded the +skipper. "It's our job to get them and the <i>Cerberus</i> back on the way to +port!"</p> + +<p>"I know!" conceded Sergeant Madden, "and the girl my son Timmy's going +to marry is one of them. But I don't think we'll have much trouble. Have +you got any multipoly plastic on the <i>Aldeb</i>?"</p> + +<p>The skipper nodded, blankly. Multipoly plastic is a substance as +anomalous as its name. It is a multiple polymer of something-or-other +which stretches very accommodatingly to a surprising expanse, and then +suddenly stops stretching. When it stops, it has a high and obstinate +tensile strength. All ships carry it for temporary repairs, because it +will seal off anything. A one-mill thickness will hold fifteen pounds +pressure. Ships have been known to come down for landing with bubbles of +multipoly glistening out of holes in their hulls. A salvage ship, +especially, would carry an ample supply. A minor convenience in its use +is the fact that a detonator-cap set off at any part of it starts a wave +of disintegration which is too slow to be an explosion and cleans up the +mess made in its application.</p> + +<p>"Naturally I've got it," said the skipper. "What do you want with it?"</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden told him. Painfully. Painstakingly.</p> + +<p>"The tough part," said the skipper, "is making 'em go out an ejector +tube. But I've got fourteen good men. Give me two hours for the first +batch. We'll make up the second while you're placing them."</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden nodded.</p> + +<p>The skipper went into the lock and closed the door behind him. After a +moment Patrolman Willis saw him wading through the incredibly delicate +and fragile gas-ice crystals. Then the <i>Aldeb</i>'s lock swallowed him.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The odd thing about the Huk business was the minute scale of the things +that happened, compared to the background in which they took place. The +squad ship, for example, lifted off Sirene VIII for the second time. +She'd been out once and come back for the second batch of multipoly +objects. Sirene VIII was not a giant planet, by any means, but it was a +respectable six thousand miles in diameter. The squad ship's sixty feet +of length was a mote so minute by comparison that no comparison was +possible.</p> + +<p>She headed in toward the sun. She winked out of existence into +overdrive. She headed toward Sirene IV, in quadrature, where missile +rockets floated in orbit awaiting the coming of any enemy. The distance +to be traveled was roughly one and a half light-hours—some twelve +astronomical units of ninety-three million miles each.</p> + +<p>The squad ship covered that distance in a negligible length of time. It +popped into normality about two hundred thousand miles out from the Huk +home-world. It seemed insolently to remain there. In a matter of seconds +it appeared at another place—a hundred fifty thousand miles out, but +off to one side. It seemed arrogantly to remain there, too—in a second +place at the same time. Then it appeared, with the arbitrary effect a +ship does give when coming out of overdrive, at a third place a hundred +seventy-five thousand miles from the planet. At a fourth place barely +eighty thousand miles short of collision with the Huk world. At a fifth +place. A sixth. Each time it appeared, it seemed to remain in plain, +challenging, insolent view, without ceasing to exist at the spots where +it had appeared previously. In much less than a minute, the seeming of a +sizable squadron of small human ships had popped out of emptiness and +lay off the Huk home world at distances ranging from eighty thousand +miles to three times as much.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, light flashed intolerably in emptiness. It was in contact with +one of the seeming squad ships, which ceased to be. But immediately two +more ships appeared at widely different spots. A second flash—giant and +terrible nearby—a pin point of light among the stars. Another +ostensible human ship vanished in atomic flame—but still another +appeared magically from nowhere. A third and then a fourth flash. Three +more within successive seconds.</p> + +<p>Squad ships continued to appear as if by necromancy, and space near the +planet was streaked by flarings of white vapor as eighty-gee rockets +hurled themselves to destruction against the invading objects. As each +bomb went off, its light was brighter than the sun. But each was a mere +flicker in enormousness. They flashed, and flashed—Each was a bomb +turning forty kilograms of matter into pure, raw, raging destruction. +Each was devastation sufficient to destroy the greatest city the galaxy +ever knew.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/illus3.jpg"><img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>But in that appalling emptiness they were mere scintillations. In the +background of a solar system's vastness they made all the doings of men +and Huks alike seem ludicrous.</p> + +<p>For a long time—perhaps five minutes, perhaps ten—the flashings which +were the most terrible of all weapons continued. Each flash destroyed +something which, in scale, was less than a dust mote. But more motes +appeared, and more and more and more.</p> + +<p>And presently the flashes grew infrequent. The threads of vapor which +led to each grew longer. In a little while they came from halfway around +the planet. Then squad ships appeared even there. And immediately pin +points of intolerable brilliance destroyed them—yet never as fast as +they appeared.</p> + +<p>Finally there came ten seconds in which no atomic flame ravened in +emptiness. One more glitter. Fifteen seconds. Twenty. Thirty seconds +without a flashing of atomic explosive—</p> + +<p>The surviving objects which appeared to be squad ships hung in space. +They moved without plan. They swam through space without destination. +Presently the most unobservant of watches must have perceived that their +movement was random. That they were not driven. That they had no +purpose. That they were not squad ships but targets—and not even robot +targets—set out for the missile rockets of the Huk planet to expend +themselves on.</p> + +<p>The missile rockets had expended themselves.</p> + +<p>So Sergeant Madden opened communication with the Huks.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"These Huks," observed Sergeant Madden as the squad ship descended to +the Huk planet's surface, "they must've had a share in the scrapping +eighty years ago. They've got everything the old-time Huks had. They've +even got recordings of human talk from civilian human prisoners of years +gone by. And they kept somebody able to talk it—for when they fought +with us!"</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis did not answer. He had a strange expression on his +face. At the moment they were already within the Huk home-planet's +atmosphere. From time to time a heavily accented voice gave curt +instructions. It was a Huk voice, telling Patrolman Willis how to guide +the squad ship to ground where—under truce—Sergeant Madden might hold +conference with Huk authorities.</p> + +<p>"<i>Hold the course</i>," said the voice. "<i>That is r-right. Do as you are.</i>"</p> + +<p>The horizon had ceased to be curved minutes ago. Now the ground rose +gradually. The ground was green. Large green growths clustered off to +one side of the flat area where the ship was to alight. They were the +equivalent of trees on this planet. Undoubtedly there were equivalents +of grass and shrubs, and seed-bearing and root-propagating vegetation, +and Huks would make use of some seeds and roots for food. Because in +order to have a civilization one has to have a larger food-supply than +can be provided by even the thriftiest of grazing animals. But the Huks +or their ancestors would need to have been flesh-eaters also, for brains +to be useful in hunting and therefore for mental activity to be +recognized as useful. A vegetarian community can maintain a +civilization, but it has to start off on meat.</p> + +<p>A clump of ground-cars waited for the squad ship's landing. The ship +touched, delicately. Sergeant Madden rumbled and got out of his chair. +Patrolman Willis looked at him uneasily.</p> + +<p>"Huh!" said Sergeant Madden. "Of course you can come. You want them to +think we're bluffing? No. Nothing to fight with. The Huks think our +fleet's set to do the fighting."</p> + +<p>He undogged the exit door and went out through the small vestibule which +was also the ship's air lock. Patrolman Willis joined him out-of-doors. +The air was fresh. The sky was blue. Clouds floated in the sky, and +growing things gave off a not-unpleasant odor, and a breeze blew +uncertainly. But such things happen on appropriate planets in most +sol-type solar systems.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/illus4.jpg"><img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Huks came toward them. Stiffly. Defiantly. The most conspicuous +difference between Huks and humans was of degree. Huks grew hair all +over their heads, instead of only parts of it. But they wore garments, +and some of the garments were identical and impressive, so they could be +guessed to be uniforms.</p> + +<p>"How-do," said the voice that had guided the ship down. "We are r-ready +to listen to your message."</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden said heavily:</p> + +<p>"We humans believe you Huks have got a good fleet. We believe you've got +a good army. We know you've got good rockets and a fighting force that's +worth a lot to us. We want to make a treaty for you to take over and +defend as much territory as you're able to, against some characters +heading this way from the Coalsack region."</p> + +<p>Silence. The interpreter translated, and the Huks muttered astonishedly +among themselves. The interpreter received instructions.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean others of our r-race?" he demanded haughtily. "Members of +our own r-race who r-return to r-recover their home worlds from humans?"</p> + +<p>"Hell, no!" said Sergeant Madden dourly. "If you can get in contact with +them and bring them back, they can have their former planets back and +more besides—if they'll defend 'em. We're stretched thin. We didn't +come here to fight your fleet. We came to ask it to join us."</p> + +<p>More mutterings. The interpreter faced about.</p> + +<p>"This surpr-rises us," he said darkly. "We know of no danger in the +direction you speak of. Per-rhaps we would wish to make fr-riends with +that danger instead of you!"</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden snorted.</p> + +<p>"You're welcome!" Then he said sardonically: "If you're able to reach us +after you try, the offer stands. Join us, and you'll give your own +commands and make your own decisions. We'll co-operate with you. But you +won't make friends with the characters I'm talking about! Not hardly!"</p> + +<p>More hurried discussions still. The interpreter, defiantly: "And if we +r-refuse to join you?"</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden shrugged.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. You'll fight on your own, anyhow. So will we. If we joined up +we could both fight better. I came to try to arrange so we'd both be +stronger. We need you. You need us."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>There was a pause. Patrolman Willis swallowed. At five-million-mile +intervals, in a circle fifty million miles across with the Huk world as +its center, objects floated in space. Patrolman Willis knew about them, +because he and Sergeant Madden had put them there immediately after the +missile rockets ceased to explode. He knew what they were, and his spine +crawled at the thought of what would happen if the Huks found out. But +the distant objects were at the limit of certain range for detection +devices. The planet's instruments could just barely pick them up. They +subtended so small a fraction of a thousandth of a second of arc that no +information could be had about them.</p> + +<p>But they acted like a monstrous space fleet, ready to pour down +war-headed missiles in such numbers as to smother the planet in atomic +flame. Patrolman Willis could not imagine admitting that such a supposed +fleet needed another fleet to help it. A military man, bluffing as +Sergeant Madden bluffed, would not have dared offer any terms less +onerous than abject surrender. But Sergeant Madden was a cop. It was not +his purpose to make anybody surrender. His job was, ultimately, to make +them behave.</p> + +<p>The Huks conferred. The conference was lengthy. The interpreter turned +to Sergeant Madden and spoke with vast dignity and caginess:</p> + +<p>"When do you r-require an answer?"</p> + +<p>"We don't," grunted Sergeant Madden. "When you make up your minds, send +a ship to Varenga III. We'll give you the information we've got. That's +whether you fight with us or independent. You'll fight, once you meet +these characters! We don't worry about that! Just ... we can do better +together." Then he said: "Have you got the co-ordinates for Varenga? I +don't know what you call it in your language."</p> + +<p>"We have them," said the interpreter, still suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"Right!" said Sergeant Madden. "That's all. We came here to tell you +this. Let us know when you make up your minds. Now we'll go back."</p> + +<p>He turned as if to trudge back to the squad ship. And this, of course, +was the moment when the difference between a military and a cop mind was +greatest. A military man, with the defenses of the planet smashed—or +exhausted—and an apparent overwhelming force behind him, would have +tried to get the <i>Cerberus</i> and its company turned over to him either by +implied or explicit threats. Sergeant Madden did not mention them. But +he had made it necessary for the Huks to do something.</p> + +<p>They'd been shocked to numbness by the discovery that humans knew of +their presence on Sirene IV. They'd been made aghast by the brisk and +competent nullification of their eighty-gee rocket defenses. They'd been +appalled by the appearance of a space fleet which—if it had been a +space fleet—could have blasted the planet to a cinder. And then they +were bewildered that the humans asked no submission—not even promises +from them.</p> + +<p>There was only one conclusion to be drawn. It was that if the humans +were willing to be friendly, it would be a good idea to agree. Another +idea followed. A grand gesture by Huks would be an even better idea.</p> + +<p>"Wait!" said the interpreter. He turned. A momentary further discussion +among the Huks. The interpreter turned back.</p> + +<p>"There is a ship here," he said uneasily. "It is a human ship. There are +humans in it. The ship is disabled."</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden affected surprise.</p> + +<p>"Yeah? How come?"</p> + +<p>"It ar-rived two days ago," said the interpreter. Then he plunged. "We +br-rought it. We have a mine on what you call Pr-rocyron Three. The +human ship landed, because it was disabled. It discovered our ship and +our mine there. We wished to keep the mine secret. Because the humans +had found out our secret, we br-rought them here. And the ship. It is +disabled."</p> + +<p>"Hm-m-m," said Sergeant Madden. "I'll send a repair-boat down to fix +whatever's the matter with it. Of course you won't mind." He turned +away, and turned back. "One of the solar systems we'd like you to take +over and defend," he observed, "is Procyron. I haven't a list of the +others, but when your ship comes over to Varenga it'll be ready. Talk +our repair-boat down, will you? We'll appreciate anything you can do to +help get the ship back out in space with its passengers, but our +repair-boat can manage."</p> + +<p>He waved his hand negligently and went back to the squad ship. He got +in. Patrolman Willis followed him.</p> + +<p>"Take her up," said Sergeant Madden.</p> + +<p>The squad ship fell toward the sky. Sergeant Madden said satisfiedly:</p> + +<p>"That went off pretty good. From now on it's just routine."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>There was a bubble in emptiness. It was a large bubble, as such things +go. It was nearly a thousand feet in diameter, and it was made of +multipoly plastic which is nearly as anomalous as its name. The bubble +contained almost an ounce of helium. It had a three-inch small box at +one point on its surface. It floated some twenty-five million miles from +the Huk planet, and five million miles from another bubble which was its +identical twin. It could reflect detector-pulses. In so doing it +impersonated a giant fighting ship.</p> + +<p>Something like an hour after the squad ship rose from Sirene IV, a +detonator-cap exploded in the three-inch box. It tore the box to atoms +and initiated a wave of disintegration in the plastic of the bubble. The +helium bubble-content escaped and was lost. The plastic itself turned to +gas and disappeared.</p> + +<p>The bubble had been capable of exactly two actions. It could reflect +detector-pulses. In doing so, it had impersonated a giant fighting ship, +member of an irresistible fleet. It could also destroy itself. In so +doing, it impersonated a giant fighting ship—one of a fleet—going into +overdrive.</p> + +<p>In rapid succession, all the bubbles which were members of a +non-existent fighting fleet winked out of existence about Sirene IV. +There were a great many of them, and no trace of any remained.</p> + +<p>The last was long gone when a small salvage ship descended to the Huk +home planet. A heavily accented voice talked it down.</p> + +<p>The salvage ship landed amid evidences of cordiality. The Huks were +extremely co-operative. They even supplied materials for the repair job +on the <i>Cerberus</i>, including landing rockets to be used in case of need. +But they weren't needed for take-off. The <i>Cerberus</i> had been landed at +a Huk spaceport, which obligingly lifted it out to space again when its +drive had been replaced.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>And the squad ship sped through emptiness at a not easily believable +multiple of the speed of light. Sergeant Madden dozed, while Patrolman +Willis performed such actions as were necessary for the progress of the +ship. They were very few. But Patrolman Willis thought feverishly.</p> + +<p>After a long time Sergeant Madden waked, and blinked, and looked +benignly at Patrolman Willis.</p> + +<p>"You'll be back with your wife soon, Willis," he said encouragingly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir." Then the patrolman said explosively: "Sergeant! There's +nothing coming from the Coalsack way! There's nothing for the Huks to +fight!"</p> + +<p>"True, at the moment," admitted Sergeant Madden, "but something could +come. Not likely—But you see, Willis, the Huks have had armed forces +for a long time. They've glamour. They're not ready to cut down and have +only cops, like us humans. It wouldn't be reasonable to tell 'em the +truth—that there's no need for their fighting men. They'd make a need! +So they'll stand guard happily against some kind of monstrosities we'll +have Special Cases invent for them. They'll stand guard zestful for +years and years! Didn't they do the same against us? But now they're +proud that even we humans, that they were scared of, ask them to help +us. So presently they'll send some Huks over to go through the Police +Academy, and then presently there'll be a sub-precinct station over +there, with Huks in charge, and ... why ... that'll be that."</p> + +<p>"But they want planets—"</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden shrugged.</p> + +<p>"There's plenty, Willis. The guess is six thousand million planets fit +for humans in this galaxy. And by the time we've used them up, +somebody'll have worked out a drive to take us to the next galaxy to +start all over. There's no need to worry about that! And for +immediate—does it occur to you how many men are going to start getting +rich because there's a brand-new planet that's got a lot of things we +humans would like to have, and wants to buy a lot of things the Huks +haven't got?"</p> + +<p>Patrolman Willis subsided. But presently he said:</p> + +<p>"Sergeant ... what'd you have done if they hadn't told you about the +<i>Cerberus</i>?"</p> + +<p>Sergeant Madden snorted.</p> + +<p>"It's unthinkable! We waltzed in there, and told them a tale, and showed +every sign of walkin' right out again without askin' them a thing. They +couldn't even tell us to go to hell, because it looked like we didn't +care what they said. It was insupportable, Willis! Characters that make +trouble, Willis, do it to feel important. And we'd left them without a +thing to tell us that was important enough to mention—unless they told +us about the <i>Cerberus</i>. We had 'em baffled. They needed to say +something, and that was the only thing they could say!"</p> + +<p>He yawned.</p> + +<p>"The <i>Aldeb</i> reports everybody on the <i>Cerberus</i> safe and sound, only +frightened, and the skipper said Timmy's girl was less scared than most. +I'm pleased. Timmy's getting married, and I wouldn't want my +grandchildren to have a scary mother!"</p> + +<p>He looked at the squad ship's instruments. There was a long way yet to +travel.</p> + +<p>"A-h-h-h! It's a dull business this, overdrive," he said somnolently. +"And it's amazing how much a man can sleep when everything's in hand, +and there's nothing ahead but a wedding and a few things like that. Just +routine, Willis. Just routine!"</p> + +<p>He settled himself more comfortably as the squad ship went on home.</p> + +<p>THE END</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Matter of Importance, by +William Fitzgerald Jenkins + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MATTER OF IMPORTANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 23636-h.htm or 23636-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/6/3/23636/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Matter of Importance + +Author: William Fitzgerald Jenkins + +Release Date: November 26, 2007 [EBook #23636] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MATTER OF IMPORTANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + A MATTER OF IMPORTANCE + + BY MURRAY LEINSTER + + Illustrated by Bernklau + +[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science +Fiction September 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + + + + _The importance of a matter is almost entirely a matter of your + attitude. And whether you call something "a riot" or "a war" ... + well, there is a difference, but what is it?_ + + +Nobody ever saw the message-torp. It wasn't to be expected. It came in +on a course that extended backward to somewhere near the Rift--where +there used to be Huks--and for a very, very long way it had traveled as +only message-torps do travel. It hopped half a light-year in overdrive, +and came back to normality long enough for its photocells to inspect the +star-filled universe all about. Then it hopped another half light-year, +and so on. For a long, long time it traveled in this jerky fashion. + +Eventually, moving as it did in the straightest of straight lines, its +photocells reported that it neared a star which had achieved +first-magnitude brightness. It paused a little longer than usual while +its action-circuits shifted. Then it swung to aim for the bright star, +which was the sol-type sun Varenga. The torp sped toward it on a new +schedule. Its overdrive hops dropped to light-month length. Its pauses +in normality were longer. They lasted almost the fiftieth of a second. + +When Varenga had reached a suitably greater brightness in the +message-torp's estimation, it paused long enough to blast out its +recorded message. It had been designed for this purpose and no other. +Its overdrive hops shortened to one light-hour of distance covered. +Regularly, its transmitter flung out a repetition of what it had been +sent so far to say. In time it arrived within the limits of the Varenga +system. Its hops diminished to light-minutes of distance only. It ceased +to correct its course. It hurtled through the orbits of all the planets, +uttering silently screamed duplicates of the broadcasts now left behind, +to arrive later. + +It did not fall into the sun, of course. The odds were infinitely +against such a happening. It pounded past the sun, shrieking its news, +and hurtled on out to the illimitable emptiness beyond. It was still +squealing when it went out of human knowledge forever. + + * * * * * + +The state of things was routine. Sergeant Madden had the traffic desk +that morning. He would reach retirement age in two more years, and it +was a nagging reminder that he grew old. He didn't like it. There was +another matter. His son Timmy had a girl, and she was on the way to +Varenga IV on the _Cerberus_, and when she arrived Timmy would become a +married man. Sergeant Madden contemplated this prospect. By the time his +retirement came up, in the ordinary course of events he could very well +be a grandfather. He was unable to imagine it. He rumbled to himself. + +The telefax hummed and ejected a sheet of paper on top of other sheets +in the desk's "In" cubicle. Sergeant Madden glanced absently at it. It +was an operations-report sheet, to be referred to if necessary, but +otherwise simply to be filed at the end of the day. + +A voice crackled overhead. + +"_Attention Traffic_," said the voice. "_The following report has been +received and verified as off-planet. Message follows._" That voice +ceased and was replaced by another, which wavered and wabbled from the +electron-spurts normal to solar systems and which make for auroras on +planets. "_Mayday mayday mayday_," said the second voice. "_Call for +help. Call for help. Ship_ Cerberus _major breakdown overdrive heading +Procyron III for refuge. Help urgently needed._" There was a pause. +"_Mayday mayday mayday. Call for help--_" + +Sergeant Madden's face went blank. Timmy's girl was on the _Cerberus_. +Then he growled and riffled swiftly through the operations-report sheets +that had come in since his tour of duty began. He found the one he +looked for. Yes. Patrolman Timothy Madden was now in overdrive in squad +ship 740, delivering the monthly precinct report to Headquarters. He +would be back in eight days. Maybe a trifle less, with his girl due to +arrive on the _Cerberus_ in nine and him to be married in ten. But-- + +Sergeant Madden swore. As a prospective bridegroom, Timmy's place was on +this call for help to the _Cerberus_. But he wasn't available. It was in +his line, because it was specifically a traffic job. The cops handled +traffic, naturally, as they handled sanitary-code enforcement and +delinks and mercantile offenses and murderers and swindlers and missing +persons. Everything was dumped on the cops. They'd even handled the Huks +in time gone by--which in still earlier times would have been called a +space war and put down in all the history books. It was routine for the +cops to handle the disabled or partly disabled _Cerberus_. + + * * * * * + +Sergeant Madden pushed a button marked "_Traffic Emergency_" and held it +down until it lighted. + +"You got that _Cerberus_ report?" he demanded of the air about him. + +"Just," said a voice overhead. + +"What've you got on hand?" demanded Sergeant Madden. + +"The _Aldeb_'s here," said the voice. "There's a minor overhaul going +on, but we can get her going in six hours. She's slow, but you know +her." + +"Hm-m-m. Yeah," said Sergeant Madden. He added vexedly: "My son Timmy's +girl is on board the _Cerberus_. He'll be wild he wasn't here. I'm going +to take the ready squad ship and go on out. Passengers always fret when +there's trouble and no cop around. Too bad Timmy's off on assignment." + +"Yeah," said the Traffic Emergency voice. "Too bad. But we'll get the +_Aldeb_ off in six hours." + +Sergeant Madden pushed another button. It lighted. + +"Madden," he rumbled. "Desk. The _Cerberus_' had a breakdown. She's +limpin' over to Procyron III for refuge to wait for help. The _Aldeb_'ll +do the job on her, but I'm going to ride the squad ship out and make up +the report. Who's next on call-duty?" + +"Willis," said a crisp voice. "Squad ship 390. He's up for next call. +Playing squint-eye in the squad room now." + +"Pull him loose," Sergeant Madden ordered, "and send somebody to take +the desk. Tell Willis I'll be on the tarmac in five minutes." + +"Check," said the crisp voice. + +Sergeant Madden lifted his thumb. All this was standard operational +procedure. A man had the desk. An emergency call came in. That man took +it and somebody else took the desk. Eminently fair. No favoritism; no +throwing weight around; no glory-grabbing. Not that there was much glory +in being a cop. But as long as a man was a cop, he was good. Sergeant +Madden reflected with satisfaction that even if he was getting on to +retirement age, he was still a cop. + +He made two more calls. One was to Records for the customary full +information on the _Cerberus_ and on the Procyron system. The other was +to the flat where Timmy lived with him. It was going to be lonely when +Timmy got married and had a home of his own. Sergeant Madden dialed for +message-recording and gruffly left word for Timmy. He, Timmy's father, +was going on ahead to make the report on the _Cerberus_. Timmy wasn't to +worry. The ship might be a few days late, but Timmy'd better make the +most of them. He'd be married a long time! + +Sergeant Madden got up, grunting, from his chair. Somebody came in to +take over the desk. Sergeant Madden nodded and waved his hand. He went +out and took the slide-stair down to the tarmac where squad ship 390 +waited in standard police readiness. Patrolman Willis arrived at the +stubby little craft seconds after the sergeant. + +"Procyron III," said Sergeant Madden, rumbling. "I figure three days. +You told your wife?" + +"I called," said Patrolman Willis resignedly. + +They climbed into the squad ship. Police ships, naturally, had their +special drive, which could lift them off without rocket aid and gave +them plenty of speed, but filled up the hull with so much machinery that +it was only practical for such ships. Commercial craft were satisfied +with low-power drives, which meant that spaceport facilities lifted them +to space and pulled them down again. They carried rockets for emergency +landing, but the main thing was that they had a profitable pay load. +Squad ships didn't carry anything but two men and their equipment. + +Sergeant Madden dogged the door shut. The ship fell up toward the sky. +The heavens became that blackness-studded-with-jewels which is space. A +great yellow sun flared astern. A half-bright, half-dark globe lay +below-the planet Varenga IV, on which the precinct police station for +this part of the galaxy had its location. + +Patrolman Willis, frowning with care, established the squad ship's +direction, while Sergeant Madden observed without seeming to do so. +Presently Patrolman Willis pushed a button. The squad ship went into +overdrive. + +It was perfectly commonplace in all its aspects. + + * * * * * + +The galaxy went about its business. Stars shone, and planets moved +around them, and double stars circled each other like waltzing couples. +There were also comets and meteors and calcium-clouds and high-energy +free nuclei, all of which acted as was appropriate for them. On some +millions of planets winds blew and various organisms practiced +photosynthesis. Waves ran across seas. Clouds formed and poured down +rain. On the relatively small number of worlds so far inhabited by +humans, people went about their business with no thought for such things +or anything not immediately affecting their lives. And the cops went +about their business. + +Sergeant Madden dozed most of the first day of overdrive travel. He had +nothing urgent to do, as yet. This was only a routine trip. The +_Cerberus_ had had a breakdown in her overdrive. Commercial ships' +drives being what they were, it meant that on her emergency drive she +could only limp along at maybe eight or ten lights. Which meant years to +port, with neither food nor air for the journey. But it was not even +conceivable to rendezvous with a rescue ship in the emptiness between +stars. So the _Cerberus_ had sent a message-torp and was crawling to a +refuge-planet, more or less surveyed a hundred years before. There she +would land by emergency rockets, because her drive couldn't take the +strain. Once aground, the _Cerberus_ should wait for help. There was +nothing else to be done. But everything was nicely in hand. The squad +ship headed briskly for the planet Procyron III, and Sergeant Madden +would take the data for a proper, official, emergency-call traffic +report on the incident, and in time the _Aldeb_ would turn up and make +emergency repairs and see the _Cerberus_ out to space again and headed +for port once more. + +This was absolutely all that there was to anticipate. Traffic handled +such events as a matter of course. So Sergeant Madden dozed during most +of the first day of overdrive. He reflected somnolently when awake that +it was fitting for Timmy's father to be on the job when Timmy's girl was +in difficulty, since Timmy was off somewhere else. + +On the second day he conversed more or less with Patrolman Willis. +Willis was a young cop, almost as young as Timmy. He took himself very +seriously. When Sergeant Madden reached for the briefing-data, he found +it disturbed. Willis had read up on the kind of ship the _Cerberus_ was, +and on the characteristics of Procyron III as recorded a century before. +The _Cerberus_ was a semi-freighter, Candless type. Procyron III was a +water-planet with less than ten per cent of land. Which was unfortunate, +because its average temperature and orbit made it highly suitable for +human occupation. Had the ten per cent of solid ground been in one +piece, it would doubtless have been colonized. But the ground was an +archipelago. + +"Hm-m-m," said Sergeant Madden, after reading. "The survey recommends +this northern island for emergency landing. Eh?" + +Willis nodded. "Huks used to use it. Not the island. The planet." + +Sergeant Madden yawned. It seemed pathetic to him that young cops like +Willis and even Timmy referred so often to Huks. There weren't any, any +more. Being a cop meant carrying out purely routine tasks, nowadays. +They were important tasks, of course. Without the cops, there couldn't +be any civilization. But Willis and Timmy didn't think of it that way. +Not yet. To them being a cop was still a matter of glamour rather than +routine. They probably even regretted the absence of Huks. But when a +man reached Sergeant Madden's age, glamour didn't matter. He had to +remember that his job was worth doing, in itself. + +"Yeah," said Sergeant Madden. "There was quite a time with those Huks." + +"Did you ... did you ever see a Huk, sir?" asked Willis. + +"Before my time," said Sergeant Madden. "But I've talked to men who +worked on the case." + + * * * * * + +It did not occur to him that the Huks would hardly have been called a +"case" by anybody but a cop. When human colonies spread through this +sector, they encountered an alien civilization. By old-time standards, +it was quite a culture. The Huks had a good technology, they had +spaceships, and they were just beginning to expand, themselves, from +their own home planet or planets. If they'd had a few more centuries of +development, they might have been a menace to humanity. But the humans +got started first. + +There being no longer any armies or navies when the Huks were +discovered, the matter of intelligent nonhumans was a matter for the +cops. So the police matter-of-factly tried to incorporate the Huk +culture into the human. They explained the rules by which human +civilization worked. They painstakingly tried to arrange a sub-precinct +station on the largest Huk home planet, with Huk cops in charge. They +made it clear that they had nothing to do with politics and were simply +concerned with protecting civilized people from those in their midst who +didn't want to be civilized. + +The Huks wouldn't have it. They bristled, proudly. They were defiant. +They considered themselves not only as good as humans--the cops didn't +care what they thought--but they insisted on acting as if they were +better. + +They reacted, in fact, as humans would have done if just at the +beginning of their conquest of the stars, they'd run into an expanding, +farther-advanced race which tried to tell them what they had to do. The +Huks fought. + +"They fought pretty good," said Sergeant Madden tolerantly. "Not +killer-fashion--like delinks. The Force had to give 'em the choice of +joining up or getting out. Took years to get 'em out. Had to use all the +off-duty men from six precincts to handle the last riot." + +The conflict he called a riot would have been termed a space battle by a +navy or an army. But the cops operated within a strictly police frame of +reference, which was the reverse of military. They weren't trying to +subjugate the Huks, but to make them behave. In consequence, their +tactics were unfathomable to the Huks--who thought in military terms. +Squadrons of police ships which would have seemed ridiculous to a +fighting-force commander threw the Huks off-balance, kept them +off-balance, did a scrupulous minimum of damage to them, and thereby +kept out of every trap the Huks set for them. In the end the cops +supervised and assisted at the embittered, rebellious emigration of a +race. The Huks took off for the far side of the galaxy. They'd neither +been conquered nor exterminated. But Sergeant Madden thought of the +decisive fracas as a riot rather than a battle. + +"Yeah," he repeated. "They acted a lot like delinks." + +Patrolman Willis spoke with some heat about delinks, who are the bane of +all police forces everywhere. They practice adolescent behavior even +after they grow up--but they never grow up. It is delinks who put +stink-bombs in public places and write threatening letters and give +warnings of bombs about to go off--and sometimes set them--and stuff +dirt into cold rocket-nozzles and sometimes kill people and go +incontinently hysterical because they didn't mean to. Delinks do most of +the damaging things that have no sense to them. There is no cop who has +not wanted to kill some grinning, half-scared, half-defiant delink who +hasn't yet realized that he's destroyed half a million credits' worth of +property or crippled somebody for life--for no reason at all. + +Sergeant Madden listened to the denunciation of all the delink tribe. +Then he yawned again. + +"I know!" he said. "I don't like 'em either. But we got 'em. We always +will have 'em. Like old age." + +Then he made computations with a stubby pencil and asked reflectively: + +"When're you coming out of overdrive?" + +Patrolman Willis told him. Sergeant Madden nodded. + +"I'll take another nap," he observed. "We'll be there a good twenty-two +hours before the _Aldeb_." + +The little squad ship went on at an improbable multiple of the speed of +light. After all, this was a perfectly normal performance. Just an +ordinary bit of business for the cops. + + * * * * * + +Sergeant Madden belched when the squad ship came out of overdrive. He +watched with seeming indifference while Patrolman Willis took a spectro +on the star ahead and to the left, and painstakingly compared the +reading with the ancient survey-data on the Procyron system. It had to +match, of course, unless there'd been extraordinarily bad astrogation. + +Willis put the spectroscope away, estimated for himself, and then +checked with the dial that indicated the brightness of the still +point-sized star. He said: + +"Four light-weeks, I make it." + +Sergeant Madden nodded. A superior officer should never do anything +useful, so long as a subordinate isn't making a serious mistake. That is +the way subordinates are trained to become superiors, in time. Patrolman +Willis set a time-switch and pushed the overdrive button. The squad ship +hopped, and abruptly the local sun had a perceptible disk. Willis made +the usual tests for direction of rotation, to get the ecliptic plane. He +began to search for planets. As he found them, he checked with the +reference data. All this was tedious. Sergeant Madden grunted: + +"That'll be it," he said, and pointed. "Water world. It's the color of +ocean. Try it." + +Patrolman Willis threw on the telescope screen. The image of the distant +planet leaped into view. It was Procyron III. The spiral cloud-arms of a +considerable storm showed in the southern hemisphere, but in the north +there was a group or specks which would be the planet's only solid +ground--the archipelago reported by the century-old survey. The +_Cerberus_ should have been the first ship to land there in a hundred +years, and the squad ship should be the second. + +Patrolman Willis got the squad ship competently over to the planet, a +diameter out. He juggled to position over the archipelago. Sergeant +Madden turned on the space phone. Nothing. He frowned. A grounded ship +awaiting help should transmit a beam signal to guide its rescuer. But +nothing came up from the ground. + +Patrolman Willis looked at him uncertainly. Sergeant Madden rumbled and +swung the telescope below. The surface of the planet appeared--deep +water, practically black beneath a surface reflection of daytime sky. +The image shifted--a patch of barren rocks. The sergeant glanced at the +survey picture, shifted the telescope, and found the northern-most +island. He swelled the picture. He could see the white of monstrous surf +breaking on the windward shore--waves that had gathered height going all +around the planet. He traced the shoreline. There was a bay up at the +top. + +He centered the shoreline of the bay and put on maximum magnification. +Then he pointed a stubby forefinger. A singular, perfectly straight +streak of black appeared, beginning a little distance inland from the +bay and running up into what appeared to be higher ground. The streak +ended not far from a serpentine arm of the sea which almost cut the +island in half. + +"That'll be it," said Sergeant Madden, rumbling. "The _Cerberus_ had to +land on her rockets. She had some ground speed. She burned a ten-mile +streak on the ground, coming down." He growled. "Commercial skippers! +Should've matched velocity aloft! Take her down." + +The squad ship drove for ground. + +Patrolman Willis steadied the ship no more than a few thousand feet +high, above the streak of scorched ground and ashes. + +"It was heading inland, all right," rumbled Sergeant Madden. "Lucky! If +it'd been heading the other way, it could've gone out and landed in the +sea. That would ha' been a mess! But where is it?" + +The squad ship descended farther. It followed the lane of carbonized +soil. That marking narrowed--the _Cerberus_ had plainly been descending. +Then the streak came to an end. It pinched out to nothing. The +_Cerberus_ should have been at its end. + +It wasn't. There was no ship down on Procyron III. + + * * * * * + +The matter ceased to be routine. If the liner's drive conked out where +Procyron III was the nearest refuge planet, it should have landed here +at least six days ago. Some ship had landed here recently. + +"Set down," grunted Sergeant Madden. + +Patrolman Willis obeyed. The squad ship came to rest in a minor valley, +a few hundred yards from the end of the rocket-blast trail. Sergeant +Madden got out. Patrolman Willis followed him. This was a duly surveyed +and recommended refuge planet. There was no need to check the air or +take precautions against inimical animal or vegetable life. The planet +was safe. + +They clambered over small rocky obstacles until they came to the end of +the scorched line. They surveyed the state of things in silence. + +A ship had landed here recently. Its blue-white rocket flames had melted +gulleys in the soil, turned it to slag, and then flung silky, gossamer +threads of slag-wool over the rocks nearby. + +At the end of the melted-away hollows, twin slag-lined holes went down +deep into the ground. They were take-off holes. Rockets had burned them +deeply as they gathered force to lift the ship away again. + +Sergeant Madden scrambled to the edge of the nearest blast-well. He put +his hand on the now-solidified, glassy slag. It wasn't warm, but it +wasn't cold. The glass-lined hole a rocket leaves takes a long time to +cool down. + +"She landed here, all right," he grunted. "But she took off again before +the torp arrived to tell us about it." + +Willis protested: + +"But, sergeant! She only had one set of rockets! She couldn't have taken +off again! She didn't have the rockets to do it with!" + +"I know she couldn't," growled the sergeant. "But she did." + +The _Cerberus_, once landed, should have waited here. It was not only a +police regulation; it was common sense. When a ship broke down in space, +the exclusive hope for that ship's company lay in a refuge planet for +ships in that traffic lane. Even lifeboats could ordinarily reach some +refuge planet, for picking up later. They couldn't possibly be located +otherwise. With three dimensions in which to be missed, and light-years +of distance in which to miss them--no ship or boat had ever been found +as much as a light-week out in space. No ship with a crippled drive +could possibly be helped unless it got to a specified refuge world where +it could be found. No ship which had reached a refuge planet could +conceivably want to leave it. + +There was also the fact that no ship which had made such a landing would +have extra rockets with which to take off for departure. + +The _Cerberus_ had landed. Timmy's girl was on it. It had taken off +again. It was either an impossible mass suicide or something worse. It +certainly wasn't routine. + +Patrolman Willis asked hesitantly: + +"D'you think, sergeant, it could be Huks sneaked back--?" + +Sergeant Madden did not answer. He went back to the squad ship and armed +himself. Patrolman Willis followed suit. The sergeant boobied the squad +ship so no unauthorized person could make use of it, and so it would +disable itself if anyone with expert knowledge tried. Therefore, nobody +with expert knowledge would try. + +The two cops began a painstaking quest for police-type evidence to tell +them what had happened, and how and why the _Cerberus_ was missing, +after a clumsy but safe landing on Procyron III and when all sanity +demanded that it stay there, and when it was starkly impossible for it +to leave. + + * * * * * + +Sergeant Madden and Patrolman Willis were, self-evidently, the only +human beings on a planet some nine thousand miles in diameter. It was +easy to compute that the nearest other humans would be at least some +thousands of thousands of millions of miles away--so far away that +distance had no meaning. This planet was something over nine-tenth +rolling sea, but there were a few tens of thousands of square miles of +solid ground in the one archipelago that broke the ocean's surface. It +was such loneliness as very few people ever experience. But they did not +notice it. They were busy. + +They went over the ground immediately about the landing place. Rocket +flame had splashed it, both at the _Cerberus'_ landing and at the +impossible take-off. There was nothing within a hundred yards not burned +to a crisp. They searched outside that area. Sergeant Madden rumbled to +his companion: + +"Where'd the other ship land?" + +Patrolman Willis blinked at him. + +"There had to be another ship!" said Sergeant Madden irritably. "To +bring the extra rockets. The other ship had to've brought 'em. And it +had to have rockets of its own. There's no spaceport here!" + +Patrolman Willis blinked again. Then he saw. The _Cerberus_ carried one +set of emergency-landing rockets, for use in a descent on a refuge +planet if the need arose. The need had arisen and the _Cerberus_ had +used them. Then, from somewhere, another set of rockets had been +produced for it to use in leaving. Those other rockets must have come on +another ship. But it was a trifle more complicated than that. The +_Cerberus_ had carried one set of rockets and used them. One. It had +been supplied with another set from somewhere. Two. They must have been +brought by a ship which also used a set of rockets to land by. That made +three. Then the other ship must have had a fourth set for its own +take-off, or it would be grounded forever on Procyron III. + +Patrolman Willis frowned. + +"We looked pretty carefully from aloft," he said uncomfortably. "If +there'd been another burned-off landing place, we'd have seen it." + +"I know," rumbled Sergeant Madden. "And we didn't. But there must've +been another ship aground when the _Cerberus_ came in. Where was it? It +prob'ly knew the _Cerberus_ was landing to wait for help. How? If +somebody was coming to help the _Cerberus_ it would be bound to spot the +other ship, and it didn't want to be spotted. Why? Anyhow, it must've +taken the _Cerberus_ and sent it off, and then taken off itself, leaving +nothing sensible for us to think. 'Sounds like delinks." Then he +growled. "Only it's not. There'd have to be too many men. Delinks don't +work together more'n two or three. Too jealous of showin' off. But where +was that other ship, and what was it doin' here?" + +Patrolman Willis hesitated, and then said: + +"There used to be pirates, sergeant." + +"Uh-huh," said the sergeant. "You had it right the first time, most +likely. Not delinks. Not pirates. You said Huks." He looked around, +estimatingly. "The rockets had to be brought here from somewhere else +where they'd been landed. I'm betting the tracks were covered pretty +careful. But rockets are heavy. Manhandlin' them, whoever was doin' it +would take the easiest way. Hm-m-m. There's water close by over yonder. +Sort of a sound in there--too narrow to be a bay. Let's have a look. And +the slopes are easiest that way, too." + +He led off to the eastward. He thought of Timmy's girl. He'd never seen +her, but Timmy was going to marry her. She was on the _Cerberus_. It was +the job of the cops to take care of whatever dilemma that ship might be +in. As of here and now, it was Sergeant Madden's job. But besides that, +he thought of the way Timmy would feel if anything happened to the girl +he meant to marry. As Timmy's father, the sergeant had to do something. +He wanted to do it fast. But it had to be done the right way. + + * * * * * + +The route he chose was rocky, but it was nearly the only practicable +route away from the burned-dead landing place. He climbed toward what on +this planet was the east. There were pinnacles and small precipices. +There were small, fleshy-leaved bushes growing out of such tiny +collections of soil as had formed in cracks and crevices in the rock. + +Sergeant Madden noted that one such bush was wilted. He stopped. He bent +over and carefully felt of the stones about it. A small rock came out. +The bush had been out of the ground before. It had carefully been +replaced. By someone. + +"The rockets came this way," said the sergeant, with finality. "Hauled +over this pass to the _Cerberus_. Somebody must've knocked this bush +loose while workin' at getting 'em along. So he replanted it. Only not +good enough. It wilted." + +"Who did it?" demanded Patrolman Willis. + +"Who we want to know about," growled Sergeant Madden. "Maybe Huks. Come +on!" + +He scrambled ahead. He wheezed as he climbed and descended. After half a +mile, Patrolman Willis said abruptly: + +"You figure they all left, before anybody tried to find 'em?" + +The sergeant grunted affirmatively. A quarter mile still farther, the +rocky ground fell away. There was the gleam of water below them. Rocky +cliffs enclosed an arm of the sea that came deep into the land, here. In +the cliffs rock-strata tilted insanely. There were red and yellow and +black layers--mostly yellow and black. They showed in startlingly clear +contrast. + +"Right!" said Sergeant Madden in morose satisfaction. "I thought there +might've been a boat. But this's it!" + +He went down a steep descent to the very edge of the sound--it was even +more like a fjord--where the waters of the ocean came in among the +island's hills. On the far side, a little cascade leaped and bubbled +down to join the sea. + +"You go that way," commanded Sergeant Madden, "and I'll go this. We've +got two things to look for--a shallow place in the water coming right up +to shore. And look for signs of traffic from the cliffs to the water. By +the color of those rocks, we'd ought to find both." + +He lumbered away along the water's edge. There were no creatures which +sang or chirped. The only sounds were wind and the lapping of waves +against the shore. It was very, very lonely. + +Half a mile from the point of his first descent, the sergeant found a +shoal. It was a flat space of shallow water--discoverable by the color +of the bottom. The water was not over four feet deep. It was a +remarkably level shoal place. + +He whistled on his fingers. When Patrolman Willis reached him, he +pointed to the cliffs directly across the beach from the shallow water. +Lurid yellow tints stained the cliff walls. Odd masses of fallen stone +dotted the cliff foot. At one place they were piled high. That pile +looked quite natural--except that it was at the very center of the shore +line next the shoal. + +"This rock's yellow," said Sergeant Madden, rumbling a little. "It's +mineral. If we had a Geiger, it'd be raising hell, here. There's a mine +in there. Uranium. If a ship came down on rockets, an' landed in that +shoal place yonder ... why ... it wouldn't leave a burned spot comin' +down or takin' off, either. Y'see?" + +Patrolman Willis said: "Look here, sergeant--" + +"I'm in command here," growled Sergeant Madden. "Huks didn't booby trap. +Proud as hell, and touchy as all get-out, but not killers. Not crazy +killers, anyhow. You go get up yonder. Up where we started down. Then go +on away. Back to the squad ship. If I don't come along, anyhow you'll +know what's what when the _Aldeb_ comes." + +Patrolman Willis expostulated. Sergeant Madden was firm. In the end, +Patrolman Willis went away. And Sergeant Madden sat at ease and rested +until he had time enough to get back to the squad ship. It was true that +the Huks didn't booby trap. They hadn't had the practice, anyhow, eighty +years ago. But this was a very important matter. Maybe they considered +it so important that they'd changed their policy concerning this. + +Wheezing a little, Sergeant Madden pulled away large stones and small +ones. An opening appeared behind them. He grunted and continued his +labor. Nothing happened. The mouth of a mine shaft appeared, going +horizontally into the cliff. + +Puffing from his exertions, Sergeant Madden went in. It was necessary if +he were to make a routine examination. + + * * * * * + +The _Aldeb_ came in a full day later. It descended, following the space +beacon the squad ship sent up from its resting place. The _Aldeb_ was +not an impressive sight, of course. It was a medium-sized police salvage +ship. It had a crew of fifteen, and it was powerfully engined, and it +contained a respectable amount of engineering experience and ability, +plus some spare parts and, much more important, the tools with which to +make others. It came down in a highly matter-of-fact fashion, and +Sergeant Madden and Patrolman Willis went over to it to explain the +situation. + +"The _Cerberus_ came in on rockets," rumbled the sergeant, in the +salvage ship's skipper's cabin. "She landed. We found signs that some of +her people came out an' strolled around lookin' for souvenirs and such. +I make a guess that there was a minin' man among them, but it's only a +guess. Anyhow somebody went over to where there's some parti-colored +cliffs, where the sea comes away inland. And when they got to that +place ... why ... there was a ship there. Then." + +He paused, frowning. + +"It would've been standing on an artificial shoal place, about thirty +yards from a shaft that was the mouth of a mine. Uranium. And there's +been a lot of uranium taken outta there! It was hauled right outta the +mine shaft across the beach to the ship that was waitin'. And there's +fresh work in that mine, but not a tool or a scrap of paper to tell who +was workin' it. It must've been cleaned up like that every time a ship +left after loadin' up. Humans wouldn't've done it. They wouldn't care. +Huks would. There's not supposed to be any of them left in these parts, +but I'm guessing the mine was dug by Huks, and the _Cerberus_ was taken +away by them because the humans on the _Cerberus_ found out there was +Huks around." + +Patrolman Willis said: "The sergeant took a chance on the mine being +booby-trapped and went in, after sending me out of range." + +The sergeant scowled at him and went on. + +"How it happened don't matter. Maybe somebody spotted the ship from the +_Cerberus_ as it was comin' down. Maybe anything. But whoever run the +mine found out somebody knew they were there, so they rushed the +_Cerberus_--there prob'ly wasn't even a stun-pistol on board to fight +with--and they put new rockets on her." + + * * * * * + +The skipper of the salvage ship _Aldeb_ nodded wisely. + +"A ship comin' to load up minerals where there wasn't any spaceport," he +observed, "would have a set of rockets to land on, empty, and a double +set to take off on, loaded. Yeah." + +"They must've figured," said Sergeant Madden, "that we just couldn't +make any sense out of what we found. And if we hadn't turned up that +mine, maybe never would. But anyhow they sent the _Cerberus_ off and +covered everything up and went off to stay, themselves, until we gave up +and went home." + +"I wonder," said the skipper of the _Aldeb_, "where they took the +_Cerberus_? That's my job!" + +"Not far," grunted Sergeant Madden. "They had to be taking the +_Cerberus_ somewhere. If they just wanted to wipe it out, after they +rushed it, they coulda just set off its fuel like it'd happened in a bad +landing. And that landing was bad! If there'd been a fuel-explosion +crater at the end of that burnt line on the ground, nobody'd ever've +looked further. But there wasn't. So there's a place they're takin' the +_Cerberus_ to. But it's got a brokedown drive. It can only hobble along. +They can't try to get but so far! What's the nearest sol-type star?" + +The _Aldeb_'s skipper pushed a button and the Precinct Atlas came out of +its slot. The skipper punched keys and the atlas clicked and whirred. +Then its screen lighted. It showed a report on a solar system that had +been fully surveyed. + +"Uh-uh," grunted the sergeant. "A survey woulda showed up if a planet +was Huk-occupied. What's next nearest?" + + * * * * * + +Again the atlas whirred and clicked. A single line of type appeared. It +said, "_Sirene, 1432. Unsurveyed._" The galactic co-ordinates followed. +That was all. + +"This looks likely!" said the sergeant. "Unsurveyed, and off the ship +lanes. It ain't between any place and any other. It could go a thousand +years and never be landed on. It's got planets." + +It was highly logical. According to Krishnamurti's Law, any sol-type sun +was bound to have planets of such-and-such relative sizes in orbits of +such-and-such relative distances. + +"Willis and me," said the sergeant, "we'll go over and see if there's +Huks there and if they've got the _Cerberus_. You better get this stuff +on a message-torp ready to send off if you have to. Are you going to +come over to this--Sirene 1432?" + +The skipper of the _Aldeb_ shrugged. + +"Might as well. Why go home and have to come back again? There could be +a lot of Huks there." + +"Yeah," admitted Sergeant Madden. "I'd guess a whole planet full of 'em +that laid low when the rest were scrapping with the Force. The others +lost and went clean across the galaxy. These characters stayed close. +I'm guessing. But they hid their mine, here. They could've been stewing +in their own juice these past eighty years, getting set to put up a hell +of a scrap when somebody found 'em. We'll be the ones to do it." + +He stood up and shook himself. + +"It's not far," he repeated. "Our boat's just fast enough we ought to +get there a couple of days after the _Cerberus_ sets down. You'd ought +to be five-six hours behind us." He considered. "Meet you north pole +farthest planet out this side of the sun. Right?" + +"I'll look for you there," said the skipper of the _Aldeb_. + +Sergeant Madden and Patrolman Willis went out of the salvage ship and +trudged to the squad ship. They climbed in. + +"You got the co-ordinates?" asked the sergeant. + +"I copied them off the atlas," said Willis. + +Sergeant Madden settled himself comfortably. + +"We'll go over," he grumbled, "and see what makes these Huks tick. They +raised a lot of hell, eighty years ago. It took all the off-duty men +from six precincts to handle the last riot. The Huks had got together +and built themselves a fightin' fleet then, though. It's not likely +there's more than one planetful of them where we're going. I thought +they'd all been moved out." + +He shook his head vexedly. + +"No need for 'em to have to go, except they wouldn't play along with +humans. Acted like delinks, they did. Only proud. Y'don't get mad +fighting 'em. So I heard, anyway. If they only had sense you could get +along with them." + +He dogged the door shut. Patrolman Willis pushed a button. The squad +ship fell toward the sky. + +Very matter-of-factly. + + * * * * * + +On the way over, in overdrive, Sergeant Madden again dozed a great deal +of the time. Sergeants do not fraternize extensively with mere +patrolmen, even on assignments. Especially not very senior sergeants +only two years from retirement. Patrolman Willis met with the sergeant's +approval, to be sure. Timmy was undoubtedly more competent as a cop, but +Timmy would have been in a highly emotional state with his girl on the +_Cerberus_ and that ship in the hands of the Huks. + +Between naps, the sergeant somnolently went over what he knew about the +alien race. He'd heard that their thumbs were on the outside of their +hands. Intelligent nonhumans would have to have hands, and with some +equivalent of opposable thumbs, if their intelligence was to be of any +use to them. They pretty well had to be bipeds, too, and if they weren't +warm-blooded they couldn't have the oxygen-supply that highgrade brain +cells require. + +There were even certain necessary psychological facts. They had to be +capable of learning and of passing on what they'd learned, or they'd +never have gotten past an instinctual social system. To pass on acquired +knowledge, they had to have family units in which teaching was done to +the young--at least at the beginning. Schools might have been invented +later. Most of all, their minds had to work logically to cope with a +logically constructed universe. In fact, they had to be very much like +humans, in almost all significant respects, in order to build up a +civilization and develop sciences and splendidly to invade space just a +few centuries before humans found them. + +_But_, said Sergeant Madden to himself, _I bet they've still got armies +and navies!_ + +Patrolman Willis looked at him inquiringly, but the sergeant scowled at +his own thoughts. Yet the idea was very likely. When Huks first +encountered humans, they bristled with suspicion. They were definitely +on the defensive when they learned that humans had been in space +longer--much longer--than they had, and already occupied planets in +almost fifteen per cent of the galaxy. + +Sergeant Madden found his mind obscurely switching to the matter of +delinks--those characters who act like adolescents, not only while they +are kids, but after. They were the permanent major annoyance of the +cops, because what they did didn't make sense. Learned books explained +why people went delink, of course. Mostly it was that they were madly +ambitious to be significant, to matter in some fashion, and didn't have +the ability to matter in the only ways they could understand. They +wanted to drive themselves to eminence, and frantically snatched at +chances to make themselves nuisances because they couldn't wait to be +important any other way. + +Sergeant Madden blinked slowly to himself. When humans first took to +space a lot of them were after glamour, which is the seeming of +importance. His son Timmy was on the cops because he thought it +glamorous. Patrolman Willis was probably the same way. Glamour is the +offer of importance. An offer of importance is glamour. + +The sergeant grunted to himself. A possible course of action came into +his mind. He and Patrolman Willis were on the way to the solar system +Sirene 1432, where Krishnamurti's Law said there ought to be something +very close to a terran-type planet in either the third or fourth orbit +out from the sun. That planet would be inhabited by Huks, who were very +much like humans. They knew of the defeat and forced emigration of their +fellow-Huks in other solar systems. They'd hidden from humans--and it +must have outraged their pride. So they must be ready to put up a +desperate and fanatical fight if they were ever discovered. + + * * * * * + +A squad ship with two cops in it, and a dumpy salvage ship with fifteen +more, did not make an impressive force to try to deal with a planetary +population which bitterly hated humans. But the cops did not plan +conquest. They were neither a fighting rescue expedition nor a punitive +one. They were simply cops on assignment to get the semi-freighter +_Cerberus_ back in shape to travel on her lawful occasions among the +stars, and to see that she and her passengers and crew got to the +destination for which they'd started. The cop's purpose was essentially +routine. And the Huks couldn't possibly imagine it. + +Sergeant Madden settled some things in his mind and dozed off again. + +When the squad ship came out of overdrive and he was awakened by the +unpleasantness of breakout, he yawned. He looked on without comment as +Patrolman Willis matter-of-factly performed the tricky task of +determining the ecliptic while a solar system's sun was little more than +a first-magnitude star. It was wholly improbable that anything like Huk +patrol ships would be out so far. It was even more improbable that any +kind of detection devices would be in operation. Any approaching ship +could travel several times as fast as any signal. + +Patrolman Willis searched painstakingly. He found a planet which was a +mere frozen lump of matter in vastness. It was white from a layer of +frozen gases piled upon its more solid core. He made observations. + +"I can find it again, sir, to meet the _Aldeb_. Orders, sir?" + +"Orders?" demanded Sergeant Madden. "What? Oh. Head in toward the sun. +The Huks'll be on Planet Three or Four, most likely. And that's where +they'll have the _Cerberus_." + +The squad ship continued sunward while Patrolman Willis continued his +observations. A star-picture along the ecliptic. An hour's run on +interplanetary drive--no overdrive field in use. Another picture. The +two prints had only to be compared with a blinker for planets to stick +out like sore thumbs, as contrasted with stars that showed no parallax. +Sirene I--the innermost planet--was plainly close to a transit. II was +away on the far side of its orbit. III was also on the far side. IV was +in quadrature. There was the usual gap where V should have been. VI--it +didn't matter. They'd passed VIII a little while since, a ball of stone +with a frigid gas-ice covering. + +Patrolman Willis worked painstakingly with amplifiers on what oddments +could be picked up in space. + +"It's Four, sir," he reported unnecessarily, because the sergeant had +watched as he worked. "They've got detectors out. I could just barely +pick up the pulses. But by the time they've been reflected back they'll +be away below thermal noise-volume. I don't think even multiples could +pick 'em out. I'm saying, sir, that I don't think they can detect us at +this distance." + +Sergeant Madden grunted. + +"D'you think we came this far not to be noticed?" he asked. But he was +not peevish. Rather, he seemed more thoroughly awake than he'd been +since the squad ship left the Precinct substation back on Varenga IV. He +rubbed his hands a little and stood up. "Hold it a minute, Willis." + +He went back to the auxiliary-equipment locker. He returned to his seat +beside Patrolman Willis. He opened the breech of the ejector-tube beside +his chair. + +"You've had street-fighting training," he said almost affably, "at the +Police Academy. And siege-of-criminals courses too, eh?" He did not wait +for an answer. "It's historic," he observed, "that since time began +cops've been stickin' out hats for crooks to shoot at, and that +crooks've been shooting, thinking there were heads in 'em." + +He put a small object in the ejector tube, poked it to proper seating, +and settled himself comfortably, again. + +"Can you make it to about a quarter-million miles of Four," he asked +cheerfully, "in one hop?" + +Patrolman Willis set up the hop-timer. Sergeant Madden was pleased that +he aimed the squad ship not exactly at the minute disk which was Planet +IV of this system. It was prudence against the possibility of an error +in the reading of distance. + +"Ever use a marker, Willis?" + +Patrolman Willis said: "No, sir." + +Before he'd finished saying it the squad ship had hopped into overdrive +and out again. + + * * * * * + +Sergeant Madden approved of the job. His son Timmy couldn't have done +better. Here was Planet IV before them, a little off to one side, as was +proper. They had run no risk of hitting in overdrive. + +The distance was just about a quarter-million miles, if Krishnamurti's +Law predicting the size and distance of planets in a sol-type system was +reliable. The world was green and had icecaps. There should always be, +in a system of this kind, at least one oxygen-planet with a +nearly-terran-normal range of temperature. That usually meant green +plants and an ocean or two. There wasn't quite as much sea as usual, on +this planet, and therefore there were some extensive yellow areas that +must be desert. But it was a good, habitable world. Anybody whose home +it was would defend it fiercely. + +"Hm-m-m," said Sergeant Madden. He took the ejector-tube lanyard in his +hand. He computed mentally. About a quarter-million miles, say. A second +and a half to alarm, down below. Five seconds more to verification. +Another five to believe it. Not less than twenty altogether to report +and get authority to fire. The Huks were a fighting race and presumably +organized, so they'd have a chain of command and decisions would be made +at the top. Army stuff, or navy. Not like the cops, where everybody knew +both the immediate and final purposes of any operation in progress, and +could act without waiting for orders. + +It should be not less than thirty seconds before a firing key made +contact down below. As a matter of history, years ago the Huks had used +eighty-gravity rockets with tracking-heads and bust-bombs on them. These +Huks would hardly be behind the others in equipment. And back then, too, +Huks kept their rocket missiles out in orbit where they could flare into +eighty-gee acceleration without wasting time getting out to where an +enemy was. In their struggle against the cops two generations ago the +Huks had had to learn that fighting wasn't all drama and heroics. The +cops had taken the glamour out when they won. So the Huks wouldn't waste +time making fine gestures now. The squad ship had appeared off their +planet. It had not transmitted a code identification-signal the instant +it came out of overdrive. The Huks were hiding from the cops, so they'd +shoot. + +"Hop on past," commanded Sergeant Madden, "the instant I jerk the +ejector lanyard. Don't fool around. Over the pole will do." + +Patrolman Willis set the hop-timer. Twenty seconds. Twenty-two. Three. +Four. + +"Hop!" said Sergeant Madden. As he spoke, he jerked the lanyard. + +Before the syllable was finished, Patrolman Willis pressed hard on the +overdrive button. There came the always-nauseating sensation of going +into overdrive combined with the even more unpleasant sensation of +coming out of it. The squad ship was somewhere else. + +A vast, curving whiteness hung catercornered in the sky. It was the +planet's icecap, upside down. Patrolman Willis had possibly cut it a +trifle too fine. + +"Right," said the sergeant comfortably. "Now swing about to go back and +meet the _Aldeb_. But wait." + +The stars and the monstrous white bowl reeled in their positions as the +ship turned. Sergeant Madden felt that he could spare seconds, here. He +ignored the polar regions of Sirene IV, hanging upside down to rearward +from the squad ship. Even a planetary alarm wouldn't get polar-area +observers set to fire in much less than forty seconds, and there'd have +to be some lag in response to instrument reports. It wouldn't be as if +trouble had been anticipated at just this time. + +The squad ship steadied. Sergeant Madden looked with pleasurable +anticipation back to where the ship had come out of overdrive and +lingered for twenty-four seconds. Willis had moved the squad ship from +that position, but the sergeant had left a substitute. The small object +he'd dropped from the ejector tube now swelled and writhed and +struggled. In pure emptiness, a shape of metal foil inflated itself. It +was surprisingly large--almost the size of the squad ship. But in +emptiness the fraction of a cubic inch of normal-pressure gas would +inflate a foil bag against no resistance at all. This flimsy shape even +jerked into motion. Released gas poured out its back. There was no +resistance to acceleration save mass, which was negligible. + +A sudden swirling cloud of vapor appeared where the squad ship's +substitute went mindlessly on its way. The vapor rushed toward the +space-marker. + +A star appeared. It was a strictly temporary star, but even from a +quarter-million-mile distance it was incredibly bright. It was a bomb, +blasting a metal-foil flimsy which the electronic brain of a +missile-rocket could only perceive as an unidentified and hence enemy +object. Bomb and rocket and flimsy metal foil turned together to +radioactive metal vapor. + +Sergeant Madden knew professional admiration. + +"Thirty-four seconds!" he said approvingly. + +The Huks could not have expected the appearance of an enemy just here +and now. It was the first such appearance in all the planet's history. +They certainly looked for no consequences of the seizure of the +_Cerberus_, carefully managed as that had been. So to detonate a bomb +against an unexpected inimical object within thirty-four seconds after +its appearance was very good work indeed. + +"Hm-m-m," said Sergeant Madden, "we've nothing more to do right now, +Willis. We'll go back to that hunk of ice you spotted comin' in, and +wait for the _Aldeb_." + +Patrolman Willis obediently set the hop-timer and swung the squad ship +to a proper aiming. He pressed the overdrive button. + +His manner, like that of Sergeant Madden, was the manner of someone +conducting a perfectly routine operation. + + * * * * * + +"If my son Timmy were with me on this job," said Sergeant Madden, "I'd +point out the inner meaning of the way we're going about handling it." + +He reposed in his bucket-seat in the squad ship, which at that moment +lay aground not quite right-side-up close to the north pole of Sirene +VIII. The local sun was not in view. The squad ship's ports opened upon +the incredible brilliance of the galaxy as seen out of atmosphere. There +was no atmosphere here. It was all frozen. But there was a horizon, and +the light of the stars showed the miniature jungle of gas crystals. +Frozen gases--frozen to gas-ice--they were feathery. They were lacy. +They were infinitely delicate. They were frost in three dimensions. + +"Yes, sir," said Patrolman Willis. + +"The _Aldeb_'s due soon," said Sergeant Madden, "so I'll make it short. +The whole thing is that we are cops, and the Huks are soldiers. Which +means that they're after feeling important--after glamour. Every one of +'em figures it's necessary to be important. He craves it." + +Patrolman Willis listened. He had a proximity detector out, which would +pick up any radiation caused by the cutting of magnetic lines of force +by any object. It made very tiny whining noises from time to time. If +anything from a Huk missile rocket to the salvage ship _Aldeb_ +approached, however, the sound would be distinctive. + +"Now that," said Sergeant Madden, "is the same thing that makes delinks. +A delink tries to matter in the world he lives in. It's a small world, +with only him and his close pals in it. So he struts before his pals. He +don't realize that anybody but him and his pals are human. See?" + +"I know!" said Patrolman Willis with an edge to his voice. "Last month a +couple of delinks set a ground-truck running downhill, and jumped off +it, and--" + +"True," said Sergeant Madden. He rumbled for a moment. "A soldier lives +in a bigger world he tries to matter in. He's protectin' that world and +being admired for it. In old, old days his world was maybe a day's march +across. Later it got to be continents. They tried to make it planets, +but it didn't work. But there've got to be enemies to protect a world +against, or a soldier isn't important. He's got no glamour. Y'see?" + +"Yes, sir," said Willis. + +"Then there's us cops," said Sergeant Madden wryly. "Mostly we join up +for the glamour. We think it's important to be a cop. But presently we +find we ain't admired. Then there's no more glamour--but we're still +important. A cop matters because he protects people against other people +that want to do things to 'em. Against characters that want to get +important by hurtin' 'em. Being a cop means you matter against all the +delinks and crooks an' fools and murderers who'd pull down civilization +in a minute if they could, just so they could be important because they +did it. But there's no glamour! We're not admired! We just do our job. +And if I sound sentimental, I mean it." + +"Yes, sir," said Willis. + +"There's a big picture in the big hall in Police Headquarters on Valdez +III," said the sergeant. "It's the story of the cops from the early days +when they wore helmets, and the days when they rode bicycles, and when +they drove ground-cars. There's not only cops, but civilians, in every +one of the panels, Willis. And if you look careful, you'll see that +there's one civilian in every panel that's thumbin' his nose at a cop." + +"I've noticed," said Willis. + +"Remember it," said Sergeant Madden. "It bears on what we've got to do +to handle these Huks. Soldiers couldn't do what we've got to. They'd +fight, to be admired. We can't. It'd spoil our job. We've got to +persuade 'em to behave themselves." + +Then he frowned, as if he were dissatisfied with what he'd said. He +shook his head and made an impatient gesture. + +"No good," he said vexedly. "You can't say it. Hm-m-m ... I'll nap a +while until the _Aldeb_ gets here." + +He settled back to doze. + +Patrolman Willis regarded him with an odd expression. They were aground +on Sirene VIII, on which no human ship had ever landed before them, and +they had stirred up a hornet's nest on Sirene IV, which had orbital +eighty-gee rocket missiles in orbit around it with bust bomb heads and +all the other advantages of civilization. The _Aldeb_ was on the way +with a fifteen-man crew. And seventeen men, altogether, must pit +themselves against an embattled planet with all its population ready and +perhaps eager for war. Their errand was to secure the release of human +prisoners and the surrender of a seized spaceship from a proud and +desperate race. + +It did not look promising. Sergeant Madden did not look like the kind of +genius who could carry it through. Dozing, with his chin tilted forward +on his chest, he looked hopelessly commonplace. + + * * * * * + +The skipper of the _Aldeb_ came over to the squad ship, because Sergeant +Madden loathed spacesuits and there was no air on Sirene VIII. Patrolman +Willis watched as the skipper came wading through the lacy, breast-high +gas-frost. It seemed a pity for such infinitely delicate and beautiful +objects to be broken and crushed. + +The sergeant unlocked the lock-door and spoke into a microphone when he +heard the skipper stamping on the steel lock-flooring. + +"Brush yourself off," commanded the sergeant, "and sweep the stuff +outside. Part of its methane and there's some ammonia in those +crystals." + +There was a suitable pause. The outer door closed. The lock filled with +air, and gas-crystal fragments turned to reeking vapor as they warmed. +The skipper bled them out and refilled the lock. Then he came inside. He +opened his face plate. + +"Well?" + +"There's Huks here," Sergeant Madden told him, "their hair in a braid +and all set to go. They popped off a marker I stuck out for them to +shoot at in thirty-four seconds by the clock. Bright boys, these Huks! +They don't wait to ask questions. When they see something, they shoot at +it." + +The skipper tilted back his helmet and said beseechingly: + +"Scratch my head, will you?" + +When Patrolman Willis reached out his hand, the skipper revolved his +head under it until the itchy place was scratched. Most men itch +instantly they are unable to scratch. The skipper's space gloves were +sprouting whiskers of moisture-frost now. + +"Thanks," he said gratefully. "What are you going to do, sergeant?" + +"Open communication with 'em," said the sergeant, heavily. + +The skipper waited. Opening communication with someone who shoots on +detector-contact may be difficult. + +"I figure," rumbled the sergeant, "they're a lot like delinks. A cop can +figure how they think, but they can't figure how a cop thinks." + +"Such as?" asked the skipper. + +"They can't understand anybody not tryin' to be important," said +Sergeant Madden. "It baffles 'em." + +"What's that got to do with the people on the _Cerberus_?" demanded the +skipper. "It's our job to get them and the _Cerberus_ back on the way to +port!" + +"I know!" conceded Sergeant Madden, "and the girl my son Timmy's going +to marry is one of them. But I don't think we'll have much trouble. Have +you got any multipoly plastic on the _Aldeb_?" + +The skipper nodded, blankly. Multipoly plastic is a substance as +anomalous as its name. It is a multiple polymer of something-or-other +which stretches very accommodatingly to a surprising expanse, and then +suddenly stops stretching. When it stops, it has a high and obstinate +tensile strength. All ships carry it for temporary repairs, because it +will seal off anything. A one-mill thickness will hold fifteen pounds +pressure. Ships have been known to come down for landing with bubbles of +multipoly glistening out of holes in their hulls. A salvage ship, +especially, would carry an ample supply. A minor convenience in its use +is the fact that a detonator-cap set off at any part of it starts a wave +of disintegration which is too slow to be an explosion and cleans up the +mess made in its application. + +"Naturally I've got it," said the skipper. "What do you want with it?" + +Sergeant Madden told him. Painfully. Painstakingly. + +"The tough part," said the skipper, "is making 'em go out an ejector +tube. But I've got fourteen good men. Give me two hours for the first +batch. We'll make up the second while you're placing them." + +Sergeant Madden nodded. + +The skipper went into the lock and closed the door behind him. After a +moment Patrolman Willis saw him wading through the incredibly delicate +and fragile gas-ice crystals. Then the _Aldeb_'s lock swallowed him. + + * * * * * + +The odd thing about the Huk business was the minute scale of the things +that happened, compared to the background in which they took place. The +squad ship, for example, lifted off Sirene VIII for the second time. +She'd been out once and come back for the second batch of multipoly +objects. Sirene VIII was not a giant planet, by any means, but it was a +respectable six thousand miles in diameter. The squad ship's sixty feet +of length was a mote so minute by comparison that no comparison was +possible. + +She headed in toward the sun. She winked out of existence into +overdrive. She headed toward Sirene IV, in quadrature, where missile +rockets floated in orbit awaiting the coming of any enemy. The distance +to be traveled was roughly one and a half light-hours--some twelve +astronomical units of ninety-three million miles each. + +The squad ship covered that distance in a negligible length of time. It +popped into normality about two hundred thousand miles out from the Huk +home-world. It seemed insolently to remain there. In a matter of seconds +it appeared at another place--a hundred fifty thousand miles out, but +off to one side. It seemed arrogantly to remain there, too--in a second +place at the same time. Then it appeared, with the arbitrary effect a +ship does give when coming out of overdrive, at a third place a hundred +seventy-five thousand miles from the planet. At a fourth place barely +eighty thousand miles short of collision with the Huk world. At a fifth +place. A sixth. Each time it appeared, it seemed to remain in plain, +challenging, insolent view, without ceasing to exist at the spots where +it had appeared previously. In much less than a minute, the seeming of a +sizable squadron of small human ships had popped out of emptiness and +lay off the Huk home world at distances ranging from eighty thousand +miles to three times as much. + +Suddenly, light flashed intolerably in emptiness. It was in contact with +one of the seeming squad ships, which ceased to be. But immediately two +more ships appeared at widely different spots. A second flash--giant and +terrible nearby--a pin point of light among the stars. Another +ostensible human ship vanished in atomic flame--but still another +appeared magically from nowhere. A third and then a fourth flash. Three +more within successive seconds. + +Squad ships continued to appear as if by necromancy, and space near the +planet was streaked by flarings of white vapor as eighty-gee rockets +hurled themselves to destruction against the invading objects. As each +bomb went off, its light was brighter than the sun. But each was a mere +flicker in enormousness. They flashed, and flashed--Each was a bomb +turning forty kilograms of matter into pure, raw, raging destruction. +Each was devastation sufficient to destroy the greatest city the galaxy +ever knew. + +But in that appalling emptiness they were mere scintillations. In the +background of a solar system's vastness they made all the doings of men +and Huks alike seem ludicrous. + +For a long time--perhaps five minutes, perhaps ten--the flashings which +were the most terrible of all weapons continued. Each flash destroyed +something which, in scale, was less than a dust mote. But more motes +appeared, and more and more and more. + +And presently the flashes grew infrequent. The threads of vapor which +led to each grew longer. In a little while they came from halfway around +the planet. Then squad ships appeared even there. And immediately pin +points of intolerable brilliance destroyed them--yet never as fast as +they appeared. + +Finally there came ten seconds in which no atomic flame ravened in +emptiness. One more glitter. Fifteen seconds. Twenty. Thirty seconds +without a flashing of atomic explosive-- + +The surviving objects which appeared to be squad ships hung in space. +They moved without plan. They swam through space without destination. +Presently the most unobservant of watches must have perceived that their +movement was random. That they were not driven. That they had no +purpose. That they were not squad ships but targets--and not even robot +targets--set out for the missile rockets of the Huk planet to expend +themselves on. + +The missile rockets had expended themselves. + +So Sergeant Madden opened communication with the Huks. + + * * * * * + +"These Huks," observed Sergeant Madden as the squad ship descended to +the Huk planet's surface, "they must've had a share in the scrapping +eighty years ago. They've got everything the old-time Huks had. They've +even got recordings of human talk from civilian human prisoners of years +gone by. And they kept somebody able to talk it--for when they fought +with us!" + +Patrolman Willis did not answer. He had a strange expression on his +face. At the moment they were already within the Huk home-planet's +atmosphere. From time to time a heavily accented voice gave curt +instructions. It was a Huk voice, telling Patrolman Willis how to guide +the squad ship to ground where--under truce--Sergeant Madden might hold +conference with Huk authorities. + +"_Hold the course_," said the voice. "_That is r-right. Do as you are._" + +The horizon had ceased to be curved minutes ago. Now the ground rose +gradually. The ground was green. Large green growths clustered off to +one side of the flat area where the ship was to alight. They were the +equivalent of trees on this planet. Undoubtedly there were equivalents +of grass and shrubs, and seed-bearing and root-propagating vegetation, +and Huks would make use of some seeds and roots for food. Because in +order to have a civilization one has to have a larger food-supply than +can be provided by even the thriftiest of grazing animals. But the Huks +or their ancestors would need to have been flesh-eaters also, for brains +to be useful in hunting and therefore for mental activity to be +recognized as useful. A vegetarian community can maintain a +civilization, but it has to start off on meat. + +A clump of ground-cars waited for the squad ship's landing. The ship +touched, delicately. Sergeant Madden rumbled and got out of his chair. +Patrolman Willis looked at him uneasily. + +"Huh!" said Sergeant Madden. "Of course you can come. You want them to +think we're bluffing? No. Nothing to fight with. The Huks think our +fleet's set to do the fighting." + +He undogged the exit door and went out through the small vestibule which +was also the ship's air lock. Patrolman Willis joined him out-of-doors. +The air was fresh. The sky was blue. Clouds floated in the sky, and +growing things gave off a not-unpleasant odor, and a breeze blew +uncertainly. But such things happen on appropriate planets in most +sol-type solar systems. + +Huks came toward them. Stiffly. Defiantly. The most conspicuous +difference between Huks and humans was of degree. Huks grew hair all +over their heads, instead of only parts of it. But they wore garments, +and some of the garments were identical and impressive, so they could be +guessed to be uniforms. + +"How-do," said the voice that had guided the ship down. "We are r-ready +to listen to your message." + +Sergeant Madden said heavily: + +"We humans believe you Huks have got a good fleet. We believe you've got +a good army. We know you've got good rockets and a fighting force that's +worth a lot to us. We want to make a treaty for you to take over and +defend as much territory as you're able to, against some characters +heading this way from the Coalsack region." + +Silence. The interpreter translated, and the Huks muttered astonishedly +among themselves. The interpreter received instructions. + +"Do you mean others of our r-race?" he demanded haughtily. "Members of +our own r-race who r-return to r-recover their home worlds from humans?" + +"Hell, no!" said Sergeant Madden dourly. "If you can get in contact with +them and bring them back, they can have their former planets back and +more besides--if they'll defend 'em. We're stretched thin. We didn't +come here to fight your fleet. We came to ask it to join us." + +More mutterings. The interpreter faced about. + +"This surpr-rises us," he said darkly. "We know of no danger in the +direction you speak of. Per-rhaps we would wish to make fr-riends with +that danger instead of you!" + +Sergeant Madden snorted. + +"You're welcome!" Then he said sardonically: "If you're able to reach us +after you try, the offer stands. Join us, and you'll give your own +commands and make your own decisions. We'll co-operate with you. But you +won't make friends with the characters I'm talking about! Not hardly!" + +More hurried discussions still. The interpreter, defiantly: "And if we +r-refuse to join you?" + +Sergeant Madden shrugged. + +"Nothing. You'll fight on your own, anyhow. So will we. If we joined up +we could both fight better. I came to try to arrange so we'd both be +stronger. We need you. You need us." + + * * * * * + +There was a pause. Patrolman Willis swallowed. At five-million-mile +intervals, in a circle fifty million miles across with the Huk world as +its center, objects floated in space. Patrolman Willis knew about them, +because he and Sergeant Madden had put them there immediately after the +missile rockets ceased to explode. He knew what they were, and his spine +crawled at the thought of what would happen if the Huks found out. But +the distant objects were at the limit of certain range for detection +devices. The planet's instruments could just barely pick them up. They +subtended so small a fraction of a thousandth of a second of arc that no +information could be had about them. + +But they acted like a monstrous space fleet, ready to pour down +war-headed missiles in such numbers as to smother the planet in atomic +flame. Patrolman Willis could not imagine admitting that such a supposed +fleet needed another fleet to help it. A military man, bluffing as +Sergeant Madden bluffed, would not have dared offer any terms less +onerous than abject surrender. But Sergeant Madden was a cop. It was not +his purpose to make anybody surrender. His job was, ultimately, to make +them behave. + +The Huks conferred. The conference was lengthy. The interpreter turned +to Sergeant Madden and spoke with vast dignity and caginess: + +"When do you r-require an answer?" + +"We don't," grunted Sergeant Madden. "When you make up your minds, send +a ship to Varenga III. We'll give you the information we've got. That's +whether you fight with us or independent. You'll fight, once you meet +these characters! We don't worry about that! Just ... we can do better +together." Then he said: "Have you got the co-ordinates for Varenga? I +don't know what you call it in your language." + +"We have them," said the interpreter, still suspiciously. + +"Right!" said Sergeant Madden. "That's all. We came here to tell you +this. Let us know when you make up your minds. Now we'll go back." + +He turned as if to trudge back to the squad ship. And this, of course, +was the moment when the difference between a military and a cop mind was +greatest. A military man, with the defenses of the planet smashed--or +exhausted--and an apparent overwhelming force behind him, would have +tried to get the _Cerberus_ and its company turned over to him either by +implied or explicit threats. Sergeant Madden did not mention them. But +he had made it necessary for the Huks to do something. + +They'd been shocked to numbness by the discovery that humans knew of +their presence on Sirene IV. They'd been made aghast by the brisk and +competent nullification of their eighty-gee rocket defenses. They'd been +appalled by the appearance of a space fleet which--if it had been a +space fleet--could have blasted the planet to a cinder. And then they +were bewildered that the humans asked no submission--not even promises +from them. + +There was only one conclusion to be drawn. It was that if the humans +were willing to be friendly, it would be a good idea to agree. Another +idea followed. A grand gesture by Huks would be an even better idea. + +"Wait!" said the interpreter. He turned. A momentary further discussion +among the Huks. The interpreter turned back. + +"There is a ship here," he said uneasily. "It is a human ship. There are +humans in it. The ship is disabled." + +Sergeant Madden affected surprise. + +"Yeah? How come?" + +"It ar-rived two days ago," said the interpreter. Then he plunged. "We +br-rought it. We have a mine on what you call Pr-rocyron Three. The +human ship landed, because it was disabled. It discovered our ship and +our mine there. We wished to keep the mine secret. Because the humans +had found out our secret, we br-rought them here. And the ship. It is +disabled." + +"Hm-m-m," said Sergeant Madden. "I'll send a repair-boat down to fix +whatever's the matter with it. Of course you won't mind." He turned +away, and turned back. "One of the solar systems we'd like you to take +over and defend," he observed, "is Procyron. I haven't a list of the +others, but when your ship comes over to Varenga it'll be ready. Talk +our repair-boat down, will you? We'll appreciate anything you can do to +help get the ship back out in space with its passengers, but our +repair-boat can manage." + +He waved his hand negligently and went back to the squad ship. He got +in. Patrolman Willis followed him. + +"Take her up," said Sergeant Madden. + +The squad ship fell toward the sky. Sergeant Madden said satisfiedly: + +"That went off pretty good. From now on it's just routine." + + * * * * * + +There was a bubble in emptiness. It was a large bubble, as such things +go. It was nearly a thousand feet in diameter, and it was made of +multipoly plastic which is nearly as anomalous as its name. The bubble +contained almost an ounce of helium. It had a three-inch small box at +one point on its surface. It floated some twenty-five million miles from +the Huk planet, and five million miles from another bubble which was its +identical twin. It could reflect detector-pulses. In so doing it +impersonated a giant fighting ship. + +Something like an hour after the squad ship rose from Sirene IV, a +detonator-cap exploded in the three-inch box. It tore the box to atoms +and initiated a wave of disintegration in the plastic of the bubble. The +helium bubble-content escaped and was lost. The plastic itself turned to +gas and disappeared. + +The bubble had been capable of exactly two actions. It could reflect +detector-pulses. In doing so, it had impersonated a giant fighting ship, +member of an irresistible fleet. It could also destroy itself. In so +doing, it impersonated a giant fighting ship--one of a fleet--going into +overdrive. + +In rapid succession, all the bubbles which were members of a +non-existent fighting fleet winked out of existence about Sirene IV. +There were a great many of them, and no trace of any remained. + +The last was long gone when a small salvage ship descended to the Huk +home planet. A heavily accented voice talked it down. + +The salvage ship landed amid evidences of cordiality. The Huks were +extremely co-operative. They even supplied materials for the repair job +on the _Cerberus_, including landing rockets to be used in case of need. +But they weren't needed for take-off. The _Cerberus_ had been landed at +a Huk spaceport, which obligingly lifted it out to space again when its +drive had been replaced. + + * * * * * + +And the squad ship sped through emptiness at a not easily believable +multiple of the speed of light. Sergeant Madden dozed, while Patrolman +Willis performed such actions as were necessary for the progress of the +ship. They were very few. But Patrolman Willis thought feverishly. + +After a long time Sergeant Madden waked, and blinked, and looked +benignly at Patrolman Willis. + +"You'll be back with your wife soon, Willis," he said encouragingly. + +"Yes, sir." Then the patrolman said explosively: "Sergeant! There's +nothing coming from the Coalsack way! There's nothing for the Huks to +fight!" + +"True, at the moment," admitted Sergeant Madden, "but something could +come. Not likely--But you see, Willis, the Huks have had armed forces +for a long time. They've glamour. They're not ready to cut down and have +only cops, like us humans. It wouldn't be reasonable to tell 'em the +truth--that there's no need for their fighting men. They'd make a need! +So they'll stand guard happily against some kind of monstrosities we'll +have Special Cases invent for them. They'll stand guard zestful for +years and years! Didn't they do the same against us? But now they're +proud that even we humans, that they were scared of, ask them to help +us. So presently they'll send some Huks over to go through the Police +Academy, and then presently there'll be a sub-precinct station over +there, with Huks in charge, and ... why ... that'll be that." + +"But they want planets--" + +Sergeant Madden shrugged. + +"There's plenty, Willis. The guess is six thousand million planets fit +for humans in this galaxy. And by the time we've used them up, +somebody'll have worked out a drive to take us to the next galaxy to +start all over. There's no need to worry about that! And for +immediate--does it occur to you how many men are going to start getting +rich because there's a brand-new planet that's got a lot of things we +humans would like to have, and wants to buy a lot of things the Huks +haven't got?" + +Patrolman Willis subsided. But presently he said: + +"Sergeant ... what'd you have done if they hadn't told you about the +_Cerberus_?" + +Sergeant Madden snorted. + +"It's unthinkable! We waltzed in there, and told them a tale, and showed +every sign of walkin' right out again without askin' them a thing. They +couldn't even tell us to go to hell, because it looked like we didn't +care what they said. It was insupportable, Willis! Characters that make +trouble, Willis, do it to feel important. And we'd left them without a +thing to tell us that was important enough to mention--unless they told +us about the _Cerberus_. We had 'em baffled. They needed to say +something, and that was the only thing they could say!" + +He yawned. + +"The _Aldeb_ reports everybody on the _Cerberus_ safe and sound, only +frightened, and the skipper said Timmy's girl was less scared than most. +I'm pleased. Timmy's getting married, and I wouldn't want my +grandchildren to have a scary mother!" + +He looked at the squad ship's instruments. There was a long way yet to +travel. + +"A-h-h-h! It's a dull business this, overdrive," he said somnolently. +"And it's amazing how much a man can sleep when everything's in hand, +and there's nothing ahead but a wedding and a few things like that. Just +routine, Willis. Just routine!" + +He settled himself more comfortably as the squad ship went on home. + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Matter of Importance, by +William Fitzgerald Jenkins + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MATTER OF IMPORTANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 23636.txt or 23636.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/6/3/23636/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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