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Updated: June 22, 2025
He struck Taine's legs a glancing blow, and the cobalt steel held his armor fast, but Taine careened and bounced against the round bronze wall of the Plumie, and bounced again. Then he screamed, because he went floating slowly out to emptiness, his arms and legs jerking spasmodically, while he shrieked ... The Plumie in the air lock stepped out. He trailed a cord behind him.
He flung himself at Baird, and Baird toppled because he'd put one foot past the welded boundary between the Niccola's cobalt steel and the Plumie ship's bronze. One foot held to nothing. And that was a ghastly sensation, because if Taine only rugged his other foot free and heaved why then Baird would go floating away from the rotating, now-twinned ships, floating farther and farther away forever.
It was that if the Niccola were destroyed the Plumie would carry news of the existence of humanity and of the tactics which worked to defeat them. The Plumies could prepare an irresistible fleet. Humanity could be doomed. But he overheard himself saying bitterly: "I wish I'd known this was coming, Diane. I ... wouldn't have resolved to be strictly official, only, until we got back to base."
Tell the skipper I've an idea that it's a part of their civilization maybe it's a necessary part of any civilization! Tell him I guess that there may be necessarily parallel evolution of attitudes, among rational races, as there are parallel evolutions of eyes and legs and wings and fins among all animals everywhere! If I'm right, somebody from this ship will be invited to tour the Plumie!
They died when they headed reluctantly back to the Niccola and detonated two miles from their parent ship. The skipper's voice came: "Mr. Taine! After your next salvo I shall head for the Plumie at full drive, to cut down the distance and the time they have to work in. Be ready!" The rocket tubes went crump-crump again, with a fifth of a second interval.
"We want this on record," he growled, staring about. Diane's voice said capably from a speaker somewhere nearby: "Sir, there's a scanner for inspection of objects brought aboard. Hold the plate flat and I'll have a photograph right!" The skipper said curtly to the Plumie: "You've drawn our two ships linked as they are. What have you to say about it?" He handed back the plate.
A Plumie in a pressure suit just came out of their air lock. It's carrying a parcel toward our air lock." Taine snarled instantly: "They'll sneak something in the Niccola to blast it, and then cut free and go away!" The skipper said very grimly: "Mr. Taine, credit me with minimum brains! There is no way the Plumies can take this ship without an atomic bomb exploding to destroy both ships.
There were more of those inadequate noises as rockets went out every tube on the starboard side emptied itself in a series of savage grunts and the Niccola's magnetronic drive roared at full flux density. The two ships were less than a mile apart when the Niccola let go her full double broadside of missiles. And then it seemed that the Plumie ship was doomed.
When he spoke, very clear and quite high sounds soprano sounds came from a small speaker-unit at his shoulder. "For us to talk," said the skipper heavily, "is pure nonsense. But I take it you've something to say." The Plumie gazed about with an air of lively curiosity. Then he drew out a flat pad with a white surface and sketched swiftly. He offered it to the Niccola's skipper.
It was faintly blurred with the fading lines of past gyrations, but the golden ship was much nearer the Niccola than it had been. "Radar reporting," said Baird sickishly. "Mr. Taine is correct. The Plumie ship did approach us while it danced." Taine's voice snarled: "Reload even numbers with chemical-explosive war heads. Then remove atomics from odd numbers and replace with chemicals.
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