Footfall

“After they got going they changed something. It made a violet glow behind the ship. Arvid, the point is that they threw it away when they got here. It was used to cross interstellar space, and they dropped it. They let it fall back toward the stars. They’re serious. They’ve got no plans to go home.”

“I was more interested in watching our captors. So. They dropped it to save weight, of course, but… well. As if your ancestors had burned the Mayflower. Yes, they came to stay.” Arvid’s eyes went to the trapdoor in the ceiling, which once again was closed against them. “Did you notice anything else worthy of comment?”

Wes pounded a fist on his knee, twice. “They were at Saturn when the Voyagers went by. They spent years there. We might have noticed something if Saturn wasn’t so weird. We’d have had fifteen years warning!”

“It is difficult to put the mushroom cloud back iato the steel casing.”

“At least we know this is the mother ship. This is all they’ve got.”

“They did not exceed lightspeed?”

“They didn’t even come very close.” Wes had been watching for the effect of relativity; stars blue-shifted ahead and reddened aft. It hadn’t happened.

“Good. They cannot expect help. But they must be desperate. Where can they go if we defeat them?”

“They’ll have to land sometime. They must expect to beat us on the ground. They’re crazy.”

Arvid saw no reason to answer. Dawson was not of his nation. But any cosmonaut knew that from a military standpoint the command of space was priceless. The Soviet Union , which had always expected to rule the world, had held that position until three days ago.

“Yeah. Well. They didn’t show much of the inside of the ship. They showed only the last leg of their approach to Earth. They showed the mother ship being refueled, but they didn’t show where the fuel came from. So maybe they scooped methane snow off a moon and refined deuterium and tritium out of it. But why didn’t they show that? They’re hiding something.”

“Of course.”

“Something specific.”

“Of course.”

The trapdoor swung open.

The platform descended into a wary silence. Takpusseh was quite alone. His right eye was covered with soft white cloth. Another patch covered his nostril. He carried his branched trunk

at an odd angle. A second fi’ followed him down. The soldiers remained above.

The Breakers faced the humans alone.

The captives looked harmless enough. They were clustered in a corner, frightened, wary. The black one was on his back and trying to roll over. He seemed to be just becoming aware of the aliens.

Raztupisp-minz told them, “Move away from the dark one.”

The humans discussed it. Instant obedience would have been reassuring, but in fact they seemed to be interpreting for each other. Then they moved away. The black one protested and tried to move in the same direction, Then his eyes fixed on Raztupispminz. He breathed as if the chamber had lost its air, his eyes and mouth opened improbably wide, as Raztupisp-minz walked toward him.

Raztupisp-minz set his foot solidly on the black man’s chest.

He lifted it and backed away. “You,” he said, and his digits indicated the crippled one. “Come.”

The humans discussed it heatedly. Then Nikolai pulled himself across the floor on his hands.

Dawson had moved, without permission. He knelt by the black man with his bony digits on the man’s throat. He spoke to the others, in English. “Dead.”

Tnkpusseh let it pass rather than interrupt the ceremony.

“Roll,” Raztupisp-minz said, and he rotated his digits in a circle. Nikolai didn’t appear to understand. Raztupisp-minz forcibly rolled the man onto his back, set his foot on the man’s chest, and stepped away. He pointed to another. “You.”

One by one the Soviets submitted to the foot on the chest until only Dawson was left, Then, as they had discussed, Raztupispminz stepped aside and Takpusseh came forward.

The man stood balanced, forelegs slightly bent, hands open, palms outward, It came to Takpusseh that Dawson expected to die.

It wouldn’t bother Takpusseh that much if he did. He swung his digits with nearly his full strength. Dawson ducked under it, fast, and lunged forward. Takpusseh caught him on the backswing and flung him spinning across the cell and against a wall. As the man started to topple. Takpusseh was there, catching him and rolling him on his back. The man blinked, opened his eyes and mouth wide. Frozen in fear? Takpusseh raised his foot over Dawson’s chest.

I was almost the last to be thawed awake. Some of the sleepers were brain-damaged. They fought, or they didn’t respond at all. Most accepted the change.

It was Breaker-One Raztupisp-minz who accepted their formal surrender. My grandson, though older than I, discounting the eights of years slept. This was nothing new to him.