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He called Baird and the others Plumie-lovers and vermin-worshipers. He shouted foulnesses at them. But he did not attack. When, still shouting, he went away, Baird said apologetically to the Plumie: "He's a xenophobe. He has a pathological hatred of strangers even of strangeness. We have him on board because " Then he stopped. The Plumie wouldn't understand, of course.
They were new-launched; logy: clumsy: not the streaking, flashing death-and-destruction they would become with thirty more seconds of acceleration. So the Plumie ship dodged them with a skill and daring past belief. With an incredible agility it got inside them, nearer to the Niccola than they.
Baird got other images of the Plumie ship into sharp focus. So near, the scanners required adjustment for precision. "Take a look at this!" he said wryly. She looked. The view was of the Plumie as welded fast to the Niccola. The welding was itself an extraordinary result of the Plumie's battle-tactics.
But Baird regarded his radar screens. Microwaves penetrated the mist of rapidly ionizing gases. "Radar to navigation!" he said sharply. "The Plumie ship is still approaching, dancing as before!" The skipper said with enormous calm: "Any other Plumie ships, Mr. Baird?" Diane interposed. "No sign anywhere. I've been watching. This seems to be the only ship within radar range."
Then the sun returned, floating sedately above the valley, and Baird could see his enemy. He saw, too, that the Plumie air lock was now open and that a small, erect, and somehow jaunty figure in golden space armor stood in the opening and watched gravely as the two men fought. Taine cursed, panting with hysterical hate.
We can't work on each other's planets, but we can do fine business in each other's minerals and chemicals from those planets. I've got a feeling, sir, that the Plumie cairns are location-notices; markers set up over ore deposits they can find but can't hope to work, yet they claim against the day when their scientists find a way to make them worth owning.
The Plumie stepped confidently out into the topsy-turvy corridors of the Niccola. He was about the size of a ten-year-old human boy, and features which were definitely not grotesque showed through the clear plastic of his helmet. His pressure suit was, engineering-wise, a very clean job. His whole appearance was prepossessing.
Baird said desperately that he'd fought against it, because he believed it a booby trap to kill the Plumies so men could take their ship and fill it with air and cut it free, and then make a landing somewhere. "Damned foolishness!" rumbled the skipper. "Their ship'd begin to crumble with our air in it! If it held to a landing " Then he considered the object he'd accepted from the Plumie.
The gas-giant planet outward from the sun was a perceptible disk instead of a diffuse glow. The oxygen-planet to sunward showed again as a lighted crescent. Presently Baird, in a human spacesuit, accompanied the Plumie into the Niccola's air lock and out to emptiness. His magnetic-soled shoes clung to the Niccola's cobalt-steel skin.
But his eyes took on a curious look. It was almost as if, looking at Baird, they twinkled. Baird took him back to the skipper. "He's got the picture, sir," he reported. The Plumie pulled out his sketch plate. He drew on it. He offered it. The skipper said heavily: "You guessed right, Mr. Baird. He suggests that someone from this ship go on board the Plumie vessel.
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