He saw how the forty men grew taut. Howard moistened his lips, O’Banion crossed himself, Wright whispered something to Rogers, Yule in his loneliness on the fringe clamped fists together till the knuckles stood white. ‘Calm down, there,’ Donnan said. ‘We don’t want to give the show away yet. Maybe no one here savvies English or can read a human expression, but they aren’t fools.’

  Goldspring wheeled forward the detector, haywired ugliness on a lab cart. The biggest chunk of luck so far in this caper, Donnan thought, had been Koshcha’s agreement to let them have one model here in their living-quarters to tinker with when Goldspring and his assistants were not actually in the base workshop. To be sure, the human request was reasonable. In the present state of the art, an interferometric detector was not a standardized jigsaw puzzle but a cranky monster made to work by cut and try. So the more time Goldspring had to fool around with such gadgets, the sooner he would get at least one of the lot functioning. This was the more true as the detectors being built here were much scaled up from the one he had used aboard the Hrunna.

  As for the rest of the men, especially those not qualified to help in the workshop, they also benefited. Without something like this, to think about and discuss, they might have gone stir crazy. No hazard was involved to the Kandemirians, no fantasy about the prisoners turning a micro-ultra—filtmeter into a Von Krockmeier hyperspace lever and escaping. Koshcha’s physics team knew precisely what each electronic component was and for what mathematical reason it was there. No Earthling touched any equipment until Goldspring’s lectures had convinced some very sharp minds that his theory was sound and his circuit diagrams valid. Furthermore, the prison suite was bugged.

  Nevertheless, Koshcha might well have refused Donnan’s request for parts to build a detector in the living-quarters. If so, Donnan’s plan for crashing out would not have been completely invalidated, but the escape of the entire human crew would have been impossible.

  Not that it looked very probable yet.

  Goldspring’s face glistened with sweat. ‘Ready to go, then … I think,’ he said. The few trained men who were supposed to accompany him into space today gathered close around, apart from the rest. Donnan joined their circle. His grin at them was the merest rictus. His own mouth was dry and he couldn’t smell their sweat, he stank so much himself. His awareness thrummed.

  But he functioned with an efficiency that a distant part of him admired. The technicians around the cart shielded it from the telecom eye. Goldspring unbolted a cover on the awkward machine. Donnan plunged his hands into its guts. A minute later he nodded and stepped back. Goldspring returned the cover. Ramri joined Donnan, taking the man’s arm and standing close to hide the bulge under the coat.

  ‘Do you truly believe we shall succeed?’ the Monwaingi fluted in English.

  ‘Ask me again in an hour,’ Donnan said. Idiotically, since they had discussed this often before: ‘You sure you can operate such a boat, now? I mean, not just that it’s built for another species than yours, but the whole layout’ll be new. The manuals will be in a foreign language. Even the instruments, the meters—Kandemirian numbers are based on twelve, aren’t they?—I mean—’

  ‘I believe we can do it,’ Ramri said gently. ‘Spaceships from similar planets do not differ that much from each other. They cannot. As for navigation tables and the like, I do have some familiarity with the Erzhuat language.’ His feathers rose, so that blueness rippled along them. ‘Carl-my-friend, you must not be frightened. This is a moment for glory.’

  ‘Tell me that, too, later on.’ Donnan tried to laugh. He failed.

  ‘No, can you not understand? Had there been no such hope as this, I would have ended my own life weeks ago. So nothing can be lost today. In all the years I spent on Earth as an agent of the Tanthai traders, I never grasped why the onset of hope should terrify you humans more than despair does.’

  ‘Well, we, uh, we just aren’t Monwaingi, I reckon.’

  ‘No. Which is best. What a splendid facet of reality was darkened when Earth came to an end! I do not think there can ever have been a nobler concept than your own country’s constitutional law. And chess, and Beethoven’s last quartets, and’—Ramri squeezed the arm he held. ‘No, forgive me, my friend, your facet is not gone. It shall shine again … on New Earth.’

  They said no more. A thick stillness descended on the room.

  After some fraction of eternity, the main door opened. Four soldiers glided in and posted themselves, two on either side, guns covering the men. Koshcha and half a dozen associates followed. The chief physicist gestured imperiously. ‘Come along, you,’ he snapped in Uru. ‘Goldspring’s party. The rest get back there.’

  Donnan and Ramri advanced. The Kandemirians seemed endlessly tall. They’ve only got thirteen or fourteen inches on you, Donnan told himself under the noise in his head. That don’t signify. The hell it doesn’t. Longest fourteen inches I ever looked up. He cleared his throat. ‘I’d like to come too,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’d like to take our full complement along.’

  ‘What nonsense is this?’ Koshcha stiffened.

  Donnan came near enough to buttonhole the scientist, if a buttonhole had been there. ‘We’re all technically trained,’ he argued. ‘We’re used to working as a team. We’ve all fiddled around with the detector you let us build in here, talked about it, made suggestions. You’d find our whole bunch useful.’

  ‘Crammed in a laboratory flitter with my own personnel?’ Koshcha scoffed. ‘Don’t be a clown, Donnan.’

  ‘But damn it, we’re going off our trolleys in here. The agreement was we’d switch sides and work for your planet. Well, we’ve done so. We’ve produced several detectors in your workshops and one in here. Their ground tests have been satisfactory. So when are you going to start treating us like allies instead of prisoners?’

  ‘Later, I tell you, no arrangements—’

  Donnan pulled the gun from beneath his coat and jammed it into Koshcha’s belly. ‘Not a move!’ he said in a near whisper. ‘Don’t so much as twitch a tendril. Anybody.’

  The unhuman eyes grew black with pupil dilation. One soldier tried to swing his rifle around from its inward aim. Ramri kicked; three talons struck with bone-breaking force. The weapon clattered down as the soldier doubled in anguish.

  Donnan could only hope that his men, crowding near, screened this tableau from the telecom eye with their backs—and that the Kandemirians in the warden’s office were too confident, by now, to watch the spy screen continuously. ‘Drop your guns or Koshcha dies,’ he said.

  Like most nomadic units, this one was organized by clans; the technicians and their bodyguards were blood relatives. And the leader of the group was also a senior Zhanbulak. Furthermore, Donnan had plainly thumbed his rifle to continuous-fire explosive. Before he could be shot, he would have chewed up several Kandemirians. The three soldiers who still covered his men with their own guns might have threatened to shoot them. But the soldiers were too shaken. Donnan heard their rifles fall. ‘About face,’ he commanded. ‘To the hangar … march!’

  The Kandemirians stumbled out of the door, looking stunned, and down a long, bare, coldly lit corridor. Donnan paced them at the rear, his gun in the crook of an arm. His crew surged after.

  Koshcha’s mind must be churning below that red ruff. How, had the Terrestrials got a weapon? By what treachery, through what rebellious Loho or (oh, unthinkable!) what bribed clansman? Maybe in another minute or two someone would guess the answer. But that would be too late. Four men behind Donnan had guns now, dropped by the guards.

  Four real guns.

  Hand-make a new type of device. Complicate your problem by building it on a larger scale than before. Your circuits will remain essentially the same, and understandable. Your captors will issue you precisely those conductors, resistors, amplifiers and other components that you can prove you need. But who pays attention to the chassis? It is only a framework, supporting and enclosing the instrument’s vitals. You may have to adjust this or that electronic part to compensate for its properties, but not by much. The chassis is negligible.

  So if anyone asks why you are turning out a slim hollow cylinder on lathe and drill beam, explain casually that it is to strengthen the frame and hold a sheaf of wires. If your angle braces have odd shapes, this must be dictated by the geometry of the layout. If a hole in the cabinet, accidentally burnt through, is repaired by bolting a scrap of metal over it, who will notice the outline of that scrap? And so on and so on.

  Come the moment of untruth, you quickly remove those certain parts from the chassis, fit them together, and have quite a good imitation of a cyclic rifle.

  If the scheme had failed, Donnan wasn’t sure what he would have done. Probably have yielded completely and let Kandemir have his soul. As matters had developed, though, he was committed. If his plan went up the spout now, his best bet was to try and get himself killed.

  Fair enough, he thought.

  They started down a ramp. Two non-coms going the other way saluted. They couldn’t hide their surprise at the human crowd in the officers’ wake. ‘Let ’em have it, boys,’ Donnan said. ‘Quiet, though.’

  A gun burped. The non-coms fell like big, loose-jointed puppets. Their blood was darker red than a man’s. Donnan wondered momentarily if they had wives and kids at home.

  ‘No, you murderer!’ Koshcha stopped, half turning around. Donnan jerked the fake gun at him.

  ‘March!’

  They hustled on. There was little occasion, especially today, for anyone to use the flitter hangar. But on arrival—

  Two sentries outside the gate slanted their rifles forwards.

  ‘Halt! By what authority—’ A blast from behind Donnan smashed them to fragments, smeared across the steel panels.

  A Kandemirian prisoner roared, wheeled, and sprang at him. He gave the fellow his gun butt in the mouth. The Kandemirian went to one knee, reached forward and caught Donnan’s ankle. They rolled over, grappling for the throat. Rifles coughed above them. An alarm began to whistle.

  ‘The door’s locked!’ Ramri shouted. ‘Here, give me a weapon, I shall try to blast the lock.’

  The Kandemirian’s smashed mouth grinned hatred at Donnan. The giant had got on top of him, twelve fingers around the windpipe. Donnan felt his brain spin towards blackness. He set his own wrists between the enemy’s and heaved outwards with all the force in his shoulders. The black nails left bloody tracks as they were pulled free. Donnan slugged below the chest. Nothing happened. The Kandemirians didn’t keep a solar plexus there. He climbed to a sitting position by means of the clansman’s tunic. The unfairly long arms warded him off. Thumbs sought his eyeballs. He ducked his head and pummelled the enemy’s back.

  Ramri left the sprung door in a single jump. One kick by a spurred foot opened the Kandemirian’s rib cage. Donnan crawled from beneath. The alarm skirled over his heart-beats and his gulps for air.

  ‘Hurry!’ Howard shouted. ‘I hear ’em coming!’

  The men poured through, into the cavernous hangar. Rank upon rank of small spacecraft gleamed almost as far as you could see. One was aimed roofwards in its cradle. The airlock stood open. A fight ramped around there, as the humans attacked its crew.

  ‘I must have a few moments aboard to study the controls,’ Ramri said to Donnan, who lurched along on Goldspring’s arms. ‘I know that one alone can manage a flitter in an emergency, but I am not certain how, in this case.’

  ‘We’ll oblige you,’ Lieutenant Howard said. He called out orders. A good man, Donnan thought remotely; a damn good second-rank officer. His trouble had been trying to be skipper. Well, I’m not showing up any too brilliantly in that post either, am I?

  A flying wedge of humans formed behind Howard. He had a gun. The rest had mass and desperation. They charged over the gang ramp and through the lock. The Kandemirians gave way—no choice—and tried to follow. The remaining Terrestrials fell on them afresh. Bullets raved.

  ‘Let’s get you aboard also, captain,’ Goldspring said. ‘Get everybody aboard. We haven’t much time.’

  ‘Haven’t any time,’ said Yule. ‘Here comes the garrison.’

  A few giants loomed at the sagging door. Slugs hailed around them. One fell, the other two ran from sight. ‘They’ll be back,’ Donnan mumbled. ‘And there are more entrances than this. We need a few men to hunker down—the boats and cradles’ll provide cover—and stand ’em off till we can lift. Gimme a gun, somebody. Volunteers?’

  ‘Here,’ said Yule. A curious, peaceful look descended on his face. He snatched away the rifle which O’Banion had handed Donnan.

  ‘Gimme that,’ Donnan choked.

  ‘Get him aboard, Mr. Goldspring,’ Yule ordered. ‘He’ll be needed later on.’

  Donnan clung to the physicist, too dizzy and beaten to protest. Goldspring regarded Yule for a second or two. ‘Whoever stays behind will probably be killed,’ he said slowly.

  Yule spat. ‘I know. So what? Not that I’m any goddam hero. But I’m a man.’

  ‘I’ll design a weapon in your name,’ Goldspring said. ‘I thought of several while we were here.’

  ‘Good.’ Yule shoved him towards the lock. Three other men joined the rearguard. They posted themselves wherever they could find shelter. Presently they were alone, except for the dead.

  Then, from several directions, the Kandemirians poured in. Explosions echoed under the roof. Thermite blazed and ate. Goldspring risked his life to appear in the airlock and wave: We can go now.

  ‘You know damn well my squad ’ud never make it,’ Yule shouted at him. ‘Shut that door, you idiot, and let us get back to work!’ He wasn’t sure if Goldspring could hear through the racket or see through the smoke and reek. But after a few seconds the lock closed. The flitter sprang from its cradle. Automatic doors opened above. Rain poured in, blindingly, for the moment that the flitter needed to depart.

  — ‘We are safe,’ Ramri sighed.

  ‘From everything but missiles and half the Grand Fleet, trying to head us off before we make an interference fringe,’ Donnan said grimly.

  ‘What can they do but annihilate us?’

  ‘Uh … yes. I see what you mean. Safe.’

  Ramri peered into the viewscreen. Lightning had given way to the stars. ‘My friend,’ he said, and hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’ Donnan asked.

  ‘I think—’ The troubled voice faded. ‘I think we had best change course again.’ The Monwaingi touched controls. They were depending on random vectors to elude pursuit. After all, space was big and the Kandemirian defences had been designed to halt things that moved planetwards, not starwards.

  ‘That isn’t what you were getting at,’ Donnan said.

  ‘No.’ Decision came. Ramri straightened until his profile jutted across the constellations. ‘Carl-my-friend, I offer apology. But many years have passed since I saw my own people. I am the only one here who can read enough Erzhuat to pilot this vessel. I shall take us to Katkinu.’

  ‘Shucks, pal,’ Donnan said. ‘I expected that. Go right ahead.’ His tone roughened. ‘I’d like a few words with your leaders anyway.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  A nation, to be successful, should change its tactics every ten years.

  —Napoleon

  For a moment, when his gaze happened to dwell on the horizon, Donnan thought he was home again. Snowpeaks afloat in serene blue, purple masses and distances that shaded into a thousand greens as the valley floor rolled nearer, the light of a yellow sun and the way cloud shadows raced across the world, wind blustering in sky and trees, woke him from a nightmare in which Earth had become a cinder. He thought confusedly that he was a boy, footloose in the Appalachians; he had slept in a hayloft and this dawn the farmer’s daughter kissed him goodbye at the mail-box, which was overgrown with morning glory … A night that stung descended on his eyes.

  Ramri glanced at him, once, and then concentrated on steering the ground-runner. After his years on Earth and in space, the avian found it a little disconcerting to ride on the chair-like humps of a twenty-foot, eight-legged mammaloid and control it by touching spots that were nerve endings. Such vehicles had been obsolescent on Katkinu even when he left. The paragrav boats that flitted overhead were more to Tanthai liking. But today he and Donnan were bound from his home to the Resident, who was of the Laothaung Society. Paying a formal call on a high official from that culture, and arriving in dead machinery, would have been an insult.

  After a while, Donnan mastered himself. He fumbled with his pipe. The devil take tobacco rationing … just now … especially since Ramri assured him that the creation of an almost identical leaf would be simple for any genetic engineer on any Monwaingi planet. When he had it lit, he paid close attention to nearby details. Katkinu was not Earth, absolutely not, and he’d better fix that squarely in his head.

  Even to the naked eye, the similarities of grass and foliage and flowers were superficial. Bio-chemical analysis showed how violently those life forms differed from himself. He had needed anti-allergen shots before he could even leave the space flitter and step on Katkinuan soil. The odours blown down the wind were spicy, mostly pleasant, but like nothing he had ever known at home. Along this road (paved, if that was the word, with a thick mossy growth, intensely green) walked blue parrot-faced creatures carrying odd-shaped tools and bundles. Houses, widely scattered, each surrounded by trees and a brilliant garden, were themselves vegetable; giant growths shaped like barrel cacti, whose hollow interiors formed rooms of nacreous beauty. A grain-field was being cultivated by shambling octopids, mutated and bred for one purpose—like the thing on which he rode.

  Yeh, he thought, I get the idea. These people aren’t human. Even Ramri, who sings Mozart themes and has Justice Holmes for a hero—Ramri, about the most simático guy I ever met—he’s not human. He came back to his wife and kids after eight years or whatever it was, and he might simply have stepped around the corner for a beer.