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Updated: June 22, 2025
From the radar room he watched the Plumie place an object in the air lock and withdraw. He watched from a scanner inside the ship as someone brought in what the Plumie had left. An electronics man bustled forward. He looked it over quickly. It was complex, but his examination suddenly seemed satisfying to him. But a grayish vapor developed and he sniffed and wrinkled his nose.
He heard a metallic rapping through the fabric of his space armor. Then sunlight glittered, and the valley filled with a fierce glare, and a man in a human spacesuit stood on the Niccola's plating, opposite the Plumie air lock. He held a bulky object under his arm. With his other gauntlet he rapped again. "You fool!" shouted Baird. "Stop that! We couldn't use their ship, anyhow!"
They simply wouldn't seem meaningful at all. But before he could ask permission to attempt to make talk in a more sophisticated fashion, voices exclaimed all over the ship. They came blurringly to the loud-speakers. "Look at that!" "What's he do " "Spinning like " From every place where there was a vision-plate on the Niccola, men watched the Plumie ship and babbled.
"We've time to settle with it, then," said the skipper. "Mr. Taine, the Plumie ship is still approaching." Baird found himself hating the Plumies. It was not only that humankind was showing up rather badly, at the moment. It was that the Plumie ship had refused contact and forced a fight.
Ten seconds later the Doppler measurement became possible. It said the Plumie plunged toward the Niccola at miles per second. In half a minute it was tens of miles per second. There was no re-transmission of signals. The Plumie ship had found itself discovered. Apparently it considered itself attacked. It flung itself into a headlong dash for the Niccola. Time passed interminable time.
You were picked for your job because you were a xenophobe. It helps in your proper functioning. But this Plumie is here under a flag of truce " "Flag of truce!" snarled Taine. "It's vermin! It's not human! I'll " "If you move one inch nearer him," said Baird gently, "just one inch " The skipper's voice bellowed through the general call speakers all over the ship: "Mr. Taine!
It repeated the positioning of dots which were stray meteoric matter in the space between worlds in this system. What had been a spot the Plumie ship was now a line of dots. Baird pressed the button. "Radar reporting!" he said curtly. "The Plumie ship is heading for us. I'll have relative velocity in ten seconds." He heard the skipper swear.
When they meet other men, they'll be cagey because they'll remember Taine. But they'll know they can make friends, because we did them a favor when we'd nothing to gain by it. I can offer no reward. But I ask for volunteers to go outside and cut the Plumie ship loose, so the Plumies can go home in safety instead of on into the sun with us!" He glared, and cut off the image.
The radar showed two tiny specks speeding through space toward the weaving, shifting speck which was the Plumie. Outside, in emptiness, there was a filmy haze. It was the rocket-fumes and explosive gases spreading with incredible speed. It was thin as gossamer. The Plumie ship undoubtedly spotted the rockets, but it did not try to turn them.
Baird explained, his teeth chattering. "Hah!" grunted the skipper. "Taine was a mistake. He shouldn't ever have left ground. When a man's potty in one fashion, there'll be cracks in him all over. What's this?" The Plumie in the golden armor very soberly offered the skipper the object Taine had meant to introduce into the Plumie's ship.
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