Keith Laumer

“ Kramer was right. They were as human as I. Human corpses, stripped, packed together, frozen. I pulled back the lightly frosted covering, and studied the glazed white bodies.
Kramer called suddenly from the door. “You found your colonists, Captain. Now that your curiosity is satisfied, we can go back where we belong. Out here man is a tame variety of cattle. We’re lucky they didn’t know we were the same variety, or we’d be in their food lockers now ourselves. Now let’s get started back. The men won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” ”

“ I said.
“That load of fresh meat your star-born pals gave us consists of about six families of human beings; men, women, and children.” Kramer was talking for the crowd now, shouting. “Those last should be pretty tender when you ration out our ounce a week, Captain.”
The men milled, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, as I thrust through to the cargo lock. The door stood ajar and wisps of white vapor curled out into the passage.
I stepped through the door. It was bitter cold in the lock. Near the outer hatch the bulky cannister, rimed with white frost, lay in a pool of melting ice. ”

“ I shuffled backwards towards the cross corridor. I barely made it. Two men on a shuttle cart whirled around the corner a hundred feet aft. I lurched into my shelter in a hail of needler fire. One of the tiny slugs stung through my calf and ricocheted down the passage.
I called to the two I had raced; “Tell your boys if they ever want to open that door, just see the Captain.”
I hesitated, considering whether or not to make a general statement.
“What the hell,” I decided. “They all know there’s a mutiny now. It won’t hurt to get in a little life-insurance.” ”

“ I reached the top of the duct and pushed against the slot cover. It swung out easily. I could see the end of the chart table, and beyond, the dead radar screen. I reached through and heaved myself partly out. I nearly fainted at the stab from my ribs as my weight went on my chest. My head sang. The light from below suddenly went out. I heard a muffled clank; then a hum began, echoing up the duct.
“She’s closed and started cyclin’ the air out, Cap’n,” Thomas said calmly. “We got about half a minute.” ”

“ I was fighting for the success of the mission and for my life, with no one to look to for help; they were each one of a mob, none eager to be a target, each willing to let the other man take the risk. ”

“ Of course today everybody knows all about the Mancji hive intelligence, and their evolutionary history. But we were pretty startled to find that the only wreckage consisted of the Mancji themselves, each two-ton slug in his own hard chitin shell. Of course, a lot of the cells were ruptured by the explosions, but most of them had simply disassociated from the hive mass as it broke up. So there was no ship; just a cluster of cells like a giant bee hive, and mixed up among the slugs, the damnedest collection of loot you can imagine. ”

“ I looked up at him. “Kramer,” [39] I said in a clear, not too loud voice, “you’re on watch. I don’t want to find you hanging around the wardroom making light chit-chat until you’re properly relieved from duty.” I went back to my near-coffee and the farmland. A river was in view now, and beyond it distant mountains.
Kramer was furious. “Joyce has relieved me, Captain,” he said, controlling his voice with an effort. “I felt I’d better take this matter up with you as soon as possible, since it affects the health of every man aboard.” He was trying to keep cool, in command of himself. ”

“ Kramer looked up, with a nasty grin. “I don’t know what kind of talking oysters you’re trafficking with, but I’d laugh like hell if they vaporized your precious tub as soon as they’re through with you.” He walked out.
Mannion called in again from ComSection. “Here’s their last, Captain,” he said. “They say [49] we’re lucky they had a good supply of this protein aboard. It’s one of their most amusing foods. It’s a creature they discovered in the wild state and it’s very rare. The wild ones have died out, and only their domesticated herds exist.” ”

“ I call on all loyal members of the Armed Forces to resist the mutineers [54] actively, and to support their Commander. Your ship is in action against an armed enemy. I assure you this mutiny will fail, and those who took part in it will be treated as traitors to their Service, their homes, and their own families who now rely on them.
“We are accelerating at two and one-half gravities, locked on a collision course with the Mancji ship. The mutineers cannot enter the Bridge, Power, Control, or Missiles Sections since only I have the combination. Thus they’re doomed to failure. ”

“ Each time the centering operation was more delicate. The image grew until it filled a quarter of the screen. We stared at it in fascination.
It showed up in stark silhouette, in the electronic “light” of the radar scope. Two perfect discs, joined by a fine filament. As we watched, their relative positions slowly shifted, one moving across, half occluding the other.
As the image drifted, Miller worked with infinite care at his console to hold it on center, in sharp focus.
“Wish you’d give me an orbit on this thing, Joyce,” he said, “so I could lock onto it.” ”

“ It was astonishing how this threat to our safety cleared the air. The men went about their duties more cheerfully than they had for months, and Kramer was conspicuous by his subdued air. The emergency had reestablished at least for the time the normal discipline; the men still relied on the Captain in trouble.
Damage control crews worked steadily for the next seventy-two hours, replacing wiring, welding, and testing. Power Section jockeyed endlessly, correcting air motions. ”

“ Another of their little jokes.
“I suppose if you’re already overwrought and eager to quit, and you’ve been badly scared by the size of an alien ship, it’s pretty understandable that the sight of human bodies, along with the story that they’re just a convenient food supply, might seem pretty convincing. But I was already pretty dubious about the genuineness of our pals, and when I saw those bodies it was pretty plain that we were hot on the trail of Omega Colony. There was no other place humans could have come from out there. We had to find out the location from the Mancji.” ”

“ That means losing ground at an increasing rate to the obscenity crawling over our planet. That same potential applied to direct offensive measures may yet turn the balance in our favor. Against this, the possibility of a scouting party stumbling over the remains of a colony the location of which is almost completely problematical, and which by analogy with all of the earlier colonial attempts has at best managed to survive as a marginal foothold, is so fantastically remote as to be inconsiderable. ”

“ I said. “It looks as though our first contact with an alien race has been successfully completed. He is now at a distance of three hundred and moving off fast. Our screens are blown, but there’s no real damage. And we have a supply of fresh food aboard; now let’s get back to business. That colony can’t be far off.”
That may have been rushing it some, but if the food supply we’d gotten was a dud, we were finished anyway.
We watched the direct-view screen till the ship was lost; then followed on radar.
“It’s moving right along, Captain,” Joyce said, “accelerating at about two gee’s.” ”

“ I plunged ahead, as I saw Kramer take a breath and wrinkle his brow, about to make his pitch.
“The men need a change, a break in the monotony,” I said. [34] “I’ve been considering a number of possibilities.” I fixed my eyes on Fine as I talked. He sat stiffly on the edge of my bunk. Already he was regretting his boldness in presuming to rumple the Captain’s bed.
“It might be a good bit of drill to set up a few live missile runs on random targets,” I said. “There’s also the possibility of setting up a small arms range and qualifying all hands.” I switched my eyes to Kramer. ”

“ Mannion said. “They want a battery charge.”
“They seem to have power to burn,” I said. “Why don’t they generate their own juice? Ask them; and find out where they learned Interlingua.”
Mannion sent again; the reply was slow in coming back. Finally we got it:
THE MANCJI DO NOT EMPLOY MASSIVE GENERATION-PIECE WHERE ACCUMULATOR-PIECE IS SUFFICIENT. THIS SIMPLE TRADE SPEECH IS OF OLD KNOWLEDGE. WE SELECT IT FROM SYMBOLS WE ARE PLEASED TO SENSE EMPATTERNED ON YOUR HULL.
That made some sort of sense, but I was intrigued by the reference to Interlingua as a trade language. ”

“ My best move was to beat him to the punch by making a general announcement, giving the facts in the best possible light. That might take some of the sting out of anything Kramer said later.
I gave it to them, short and to the point. “Men, we’ve just suffered a serious loss. All the fresh frozen stores are gone. That doesn’t mean we’ll be going on short rations; there are plenty of concentrates and vitamins aboard. But it does mean we’re going to be suffering from deficiencies in our diet.
“We didn’t come out here on a pleasure cruise; we’re on a mission that leaves no room for failure. ”

“ As to the location of the Omega World, our plan is based on the fact that the selection was not made at random. Our scout will proceed along the Omega course line as known to us from the observations which were carried on for almost three years after its departure. We propose to continue on that line, carrying out systematic observation of each potential sun in turn. As we detect planets, we will alter course only as necessary to satisfy ourselves as to the possibility of suitability of the planet. ”

“ I said. “As long as we have a man aboard still able to move. Teeth or no teeth.”
“Deficiency disease is no joke, Captain,” Kramer said. “You can get all the symptoms of leprosy, cancer and syphilis just by skipping a few necessary elements in your diet. And we’re missing most of them.”
“Giving me your opinions is one thing, Kramer,” I said. “Mutiny is another.”
Clay stood beside the main screen, wide-eyed. I couldn’t send Kramer down under his guard. “Let’s go, Kramer,” I said. “I’m locking you up myself.”
We rode down in the lift. ”

“ Joyce stood there with two of the crew chiefs, needler in hand. Fine and Taylor were not in sight.
I pushed Kramer out of my way and walked up to Joyce.
“Hand me that weapon, Junior, butt first,” I said. I looked him in the eye with all the glare I had. He stepped back a pace.
“Why don’t you jump him,” he called to the crowd.
The wall annunciator hummed and spoke.
“Captain Greylorn, please report to the bridge. Unidentified body on main scope.”
Every man stopped in his tracks, listening. The annunciator continued. “Looks like it’s decelerating, Captain.” ”

“ I called Kramer and told him to meet the incoming crew and open and inspect the cargo. If it was the same as the sample, I thought, we had made a terrific trade. Discipline would recover if the men felt we still had our luck.
Then Mannion called again. “Captain,” he said excitedly, “I think there may be trouble coming. Will you come down, sir?”
“I’ll go to the bridge, Mannion,” I said. “Keep talking.”
I tuned my speaker down low and listened to Mannion as I ran for the lift.
“They tell us to watch for a little display of Mancji power. They ran out some kind of antenna. ”

“ When Thomas told me the nature of the damage to our radar and communications systems, that was another hint. Their big display of Mancji power was just a blast of radiation right across the communication spectrum; it burned tubes and blew fuses; nothing else. We were back in operation an hour after our attack.
“The evidence was there to see, but there’s something about [68] giant size that gets people rattled. Size alone doesn’t mean a thing. ”

“ I saw the red dot of our power lead move away, then a yellow point glowed on the side of the vast iodine-colored wall looming across the screen.
Nothing else emerged from the alien ship. The red pilot drifted across the face of the sphere. Mannion reported six [48] thousand feet of cable out before the pilot disappeared abruptly.
“Captain,” Mannion reported, “they’re drawing power.”
“O.K.,” I said. “Let them have a sample, then shut down.”
I waited, watching carefully, until Mannion reported the cannister inside.
“Kramer,” I said. “Run me a fast check on the samples in that container.” ”

“ We can safely assume that Omega will not have bypassed any likely target. If we should have more than one prospect under consideration at any time, we shall examine them in turn. If the Omega World has developed successfully, ample evidence should be discernible at a distance.”
Klayle muttered “Madness,” and subsided. The angular member on his left spoke gently, “Mr. Greylorn, why, if this colonial venture has met with the success you assume, has its government not reestablished contact with the mother world during the last two centuries?” ”

“ Clay appeared out of the fog with his damage control crew. “Sir,” he said, “it’s punctured inner and outer shells in two places, and fragments have riddled the whole sector. There are at least three men dead, and two hurt.”
“Taylor,” I called, “let’s have another damage control crew back here on the triple. Get the medics back here, too.” Clay and his men put on masks and moved off. I borrowed one from a man standing by and followed. The large exit puncture was in the forward cargo lock. The room was sealed off, limiting the air loss. ”

“ Mannion said. “They say it will take a few hours to prepare the cargo. They want us to be amused.”
I didn’t like the delay, but it would take us about 10 hours to deliver the juice to them at the trickle rate they wanted. Since the sample was O.K., I was assuming the rest would be too. We settled down to wait.
I left Clay in charge on the bridge and made a tour of the ship. The meeting with the alien had apparently driven the mood of mutiny into the background. The men were quiet and busy. I went to my cabin and slept for a few hours. ”