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"How did you explain it to your people that you couldn't be happy in the mud? Or are you a career man?" "I guess so. I never thought about doing anything else," Bart said slowly, Ringg's story had touched him; he had never realized quite so fully how much alike the two races were, how human the Lhari problems and dreams could seem. Why, of course, the Lhari aren't all spacemen.
Bart was stretched taut all the time, listening for the small codelike buzzers and ticks that warned him of filled tanks, leads in need of servicing, answers ready. Ringg's metal-fatigues testing kit was a bewildering muddle of boxes, meters, rods and earphones, each buzzing and clicking its characteristic warning.
"He would have understood," Bart said, unable to keep emotion out of his voice, "but he's dead now. He died, not long ago." Ringg's eyes were bright with sympathy. "While you were off on the drift? Bad luck," he said gently. He was silent, and when he spoke again it was in a very different tone.
Lightning flashed around them in sudden glare. They ducked their heads and ran. "Get in under the lee of the cliffs. We couldn't possibly make it back to the Swift " Ringg's voice broke off in a cry of pain; he slumped forward, pitched to his knees, then slid down and lay still. "What's the matter?"
You're going to accuse everybody on the Swiftwing, all the way from me to Vorongil, before you can admit a mistake, aren't you? If you want somebody to blame, look in a mirror!" "Listen, you!" Ringg's pent-up rage exploded. He seized Bart by the shoulder and Bart moved to throw him off, so that Ringg's outthrust claws raked only his forearm.
So someone forgot the panel, or damaged the panel by mistake no, not another word," he commanded, as Ringg's crest came proudly up. "I don't care who did what! Any more of this, and the one who does it can try his claws on the captain of the Swiftwing!" He looked ugly and dangerous. "I thought better of you both. Get below, you squalling kittens! Let me not see your faces again before we land!"
Meta gasped and ran to unlock the door, stood back as the medic and the Second Officer came in, staggering under Ringg's weight. Carefully, they put him into a bunk. The medic straightened, shaking his crest. "Did you get that wrist taken care of, Bartol?" Meta stepped between Bart and the officer, reaching for a roll of bandage. "I'm working on it now, rieko mori," she said.
We usually try to get him out before Vorongil officially takes notice. Of course, he sort of keeps his back turned," Ringg said, and they laughed together as they turned back to the drive room. Bart found himself thinking, Ringg's a good kid, before he pulled himself up, in sudden shock. He had lived through warp-drive!
In pure reflex he felt his own claws flick out; they clinched, closed, scuffled, and he felt his claws rake flesh; half incredulous, saw the thin red line of blood welling from Ringg's cheek. Then Rugel's arms were flung restrainingly around him, and the Second Officer was wrestling with a furious, struggling Ringg.
Crouching, trying to duck his head between his shoulders, Bart got his arms under Ringg's armpits and half-carried, half-dragged him under the lee of the cliffs. He slipped and slid on the thickening layer of ice underfoot, lost his footing, and came down, hard, one arm twisted between himself and the cliff. He cried out in pain, uncontrollably, and let Ringg slip from his grasp.
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