Space Gypsies by Murray Leinster Page B

aren’t just an exploring party or even an expedition gathering up rubble-heap remains. It’s something all its own.”
    The drive-whine was loud now. Howell pointed to a screen.
    “There’s our friend. Low down. Barely above the trees.”
    The bow vision-screen showed a moving shape. It was not of any design ever built by members of the human race now spreading out from Earth. It was utterly alien. It looked very nearly like a giant slug, even to twin horns at its forward parts, resembling the eye-stalks of those gastropoda. It seemed to be made of metal, but again the metal had been covered with something else. It could be guessed that there was a coating of plastic like that on the plates of the booby trap globe and the lethal units of the trap itself.
    It checked its forward motion. Its drive-whine was loud and rasping. It came forward again. It changed course to circle the grounded space-yacht at a very considerable distance. It passed not far from the booby trap globe and almost over the dead area. The whining was loud indeed.
    “We haven’t shot at them,” said Howell deliberately, “because we’ve nothing to shoot a ship with. But they’re pretty well convinced, now, that we’re dead. If they saw the dummies—and they should have—they ought to be quite sure.”
    Karen interposed to explain the matter of the dummies, over the sound of the slug-ship’s drive. Ketch and Breen had known nothing about them. They’d been at the rubble-heap city when Howell climbed through treetops, and the dummies were made after that. Karen’s voice was quite steady. And this, like Howell’s more histrionic behaviour, reinforced the atmosphere of a drama-tape adventure tale.
    Breen and Ketch could have been simply despairing, but instead they felt—though precariously—anticipation of action of disaster. Howell staged a scene of before-battle discussion. He didn’t believe his plan would succeed, but he couldn’t imagine not trying it. He expected to be killed. Worse, he expected Karen to be killed, too. But for Breen and Ketch and Karen—it was wise to pretend calm confidence.
    The slug-ship apparently did see the dummies. Apparently it did not detect that they were fakes. Now it came directly to the Marintha and its drive-whine rose to a scream coming from the all-wave speaker. It came to a stop only hundreds of yards from the grounded, tilted, space-yacht, barely above treetop level, and the protuberances that looked like the eye-stalks of a slug pointed at the yacht as if at a target. The flexible stalks held weapons. Undoubtedly they were ready to fling the incandescent, giant, ball-lightning bolts at the slightest sign of movement on the Marintha .
    There was stillness. There was no sign but the high-pitched scream which Howell turned down for comfort’s sake. Then, very gradually, the slug-ship settled to the ground. It vanished behind the trees whose thrust-aside branches and displaced trunks told of their destruction by the landing ship.
    The drive-whine stopped. The slug-ship was aground. Howell led the way to the opposite side of the Marintha . The slug-ship might have outside microphones, so he opened the farther port with care to avoid noise. Then he stopped and went back to make sure that if he didn’t open the log-tape instrument itself, all the records of the ship’s journey to here from Earth would be destroyed. He didn’t believe there was real value in the precaution,but he could do no less than take it.
    The four of them slipped out and to the ground. Howell had briefed them as if giving stage-directions. Ketch and Breen went around the Marintha ’s stern, to make use of cover for the ambush Howell planned. Howell and Karen moved cautiously around the bow, If they were sighted, every shred of hope would vanish instantly. Therefore he had told the others to place themselves close to the yacht. The blasted-out craters might expose targets moving toward it. They should be in position well before