Foreigner

He punched in his wife’s office number, before the news could go out. He said it the way Pardino had said it, just, “Joy, Ian’s in a little trouble, don’t panic, but they’ve got a contact down there and Ian’s met it.”

“ A contact,” Joy said, on the other end of the line.

“What do you mean, they’ve got a contact? Is he all right? Pat? Is he all right?”

“So far he’s fine,” Patton said. “We can hear him, he’s got his radio open, I’ve got him on the other channel. Turn on your B.”

“ I’ve got it,” Joy said, “ I’ve got it.”

“— a little out of breath,” Ian was saying, and coughed. “ My legs are wobbly. I’m not acclimated down here. I’d say we’re a couple klicks from the base, don’t know how to judge it. There’s like trees around here, kind of soft-trunked, big flat leaves, there’s like a lot of moss, there’s got to be water near here, I’d think, it’s all soft-leaved stuff…”

God, Patton thought, the boy was still observing, still was sending back his damn botany notes, but it was the native he wanted to know about.

He heard the creature talking again, he heard Joy ask, “ Is that one of them?” and he muttered, “So far there’s just one of them. Walked right through the perimeter alarm and accosted Ian. Ian ordered the rescue party back. He apparently wasn’t feeling threatened.”

“ Sir,” his secretary’s voice broke in, on override. “ Vordict’s calling in, says it’s urgent, about your son, sir.”

The Guild hadheard. The Guild was going to raise bloody hell about the situation and play hard politics with the electorate. He wasn’t ready for this. He had a son in trouble down there and Vordict, damn him, wanted to make an issue of what they all sensibly knew had been inevitable from the hour they reached this star, all to read him might-have-beens.

“ He wants to keep moving,” Ian’s faint voice said. “ He wants us to walk again. I’m cold, I’m out of breath, excuse the shakes.…”

“Put him on,” he told his secretary, regarding Vordict, and told Joy, “It’s Vordict. I’ve got to talk to him. Ian can’t hear us. But whatever he’s found down there, it’s not hostile, it’s all right…”

Ian gasped, a short, small intake of breath, and Patton’s heart froze.

Ian said, long-distance, “ I lost my balance, is all. It’s all right, it’s all right, don’t anybody do anything stupid.”

Patton wished the Guild would take that to heart.

“ Patton,” came the voice from the other channel. “ Patton, you’ve forced this, this is on your head, it’s your son in danger, and you knew damned well there was a settlement close to the base. I have the documents. I have the witness. You knew before you made the drop there, tell me otherwise, and be advised I intend to take this before the council.”

VI

«^»

There was no offer of resistance, no threat, no weapon, and thus far the luck had been with the effort. Perhaps the moon-man sensed so and made no resistance to his kidnapping. Or perhaps malicious chance was running otherwise and everything only seemed this easy.

Manadgi did not reckon himself a superstitious man, nor a gullible one, or he tried not to be. Anything that proceeded this easily with so much force available to the other side, he greatly distrusted.

But the moon-man, at least a head shorter than he, seemed a fragile creature, easily out of breath, quickly winded on the mildest climb. The creature’s pale complexion turned paler still, and at times it staggered, but it never ceased to try to walk with him.

It might be he had put it in fear of its life. It might be it was simply the disposition of moon-folk to be acquiescent, for reasons such folk understood, but he could not persuade himself to trust that chance, no more than he could entirely persuade himself that the clockwork machines were harmless to intruders.