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Updated: May 12, 2025
Lablet got out of the flitter and walked to the edge of the roof, leaning against the parapet to focus his vision glasses on what lay below. After a moment Raf followed his example. Silence and desolation, windows like the eye pits in bone-picked skulls. There were even some small patches of vegetation rooted and growing in pockets erosion had carved in the walls.
The pilot had a suspicion that none of the other three, Lablet included, was in any great hurry to push through contact with unknown aliens. It was a case of dancing along on shore before having to plunge into the chill of autumn sea waves. Terrans had explored their own solar system, and they had speculated learnedly for generations on the problem of intelligent alien life.
Now that he was obliged to consider the point, did he have any friends let alone a close one among the crew of the RS 10? Certainly he did not claim Wonstead who had shared his quarters he honestly did not care if he never saw him again. The officers, the experts such as Lablet quickly face and character of each swept through his mind and was as swiftly discarded.
They're holed up here, and they need help or the barbarians will finish them off. They talked a lot about that." Lablet pulled the ear plugs from his ears. In the lamplight there was an excited expression on his face. "You were entirely right, Captain! They were offering us a bargain there at the last! They are offering us the accumulated scientific knowledge of this world!" "What?"
Those in the cabin studied the plate with awe as the information filtered through the crew. Lablet, their xenobiologist, sat with his fingers rigid on the lower bar of the visa plate, so intent that nothing could break his vigil, while the rest speculated wildly. Had they really seen cities?
But there was no reproof in his words. As a spacer pilot he knew that Raf had only done what duty demanded. "We're to remain here for the night." "Where's Lablet?" Soriki wanted to know. "He's staying with Yussoz, the alien commander. He thinks he has the language problem about solved." "Good enough." Soriki pulled out his bed roll. "We're out of touch with the ship "
Raf saw that the others had already dragged out their blanket rolls and were spreading them in the shelter of the flitter while Soriki busied himself at the com, sending back a message to the RS 10. "... should not be too difficult to establish a common speech form," Lablet was saying as Raf climbed into the flitter to tug loose his own roll. "Color and pitch both seem to carry meaning.
"As if they were about due to be jumped " "They told us that this was territory now held by their enemies," Lablet reminded him. "And who are these mysterious enemies?" the captain wanted to know. "Those animals back on that island?"
At the same time, another part of his mind, as he walked to the edge of the roof and looked out at the buildings he knew were occupied by the aliens, was busy examining the scene as if he intended to crawl about on roof tops on a second scouting expedition. Finally the rest decided that Lablet and Hobart were to try to establish contact with the aliens once more.
Should he air his suspicions, that the captive was not of the same race as his captors either? But what proof had he beyond a growing conviction that he could not substantiate? "A rebel, a thief " Lablet was ready to dismiss it as immaterial. "Naturally they would be upset if they were having trouble with one of their own men.
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