The Star Fox

Sickly: Wouldn’t be much use. The hope was to create a situation that Earth could take advantage of. If Earth refuses the chance and disowns us, we can only be troublemakers to Alerion, until at last we’re cornered and killed. I’ll never see Lisa again. It was as if once more he could feel a small body pressed against him in farewell. They’ll tell her, the whole rest of her life, her father was a criminal.

But maybe, maybe even a pirate could accomplish something. There was Drake of the Golden Hind—He sailed in another day, when men weren’t afraid.

The inner door opened. He moved on into his yacht; which was now an auxiliary for the starship, and opened his helmet.

Endre Vadász had the bridge. The minstrel’s thin dark face was turned outward, staring through the viewport as the other vessel neared in a gravitron-distorted shimmer of light. When Heim’s boots rang on the deck, he didn’t look around, but said tonelessly, “I have ordered the crew into battle gear, and brought your own rifle from your cabin.”

“Good man.” Heim took the weapon in the crook of an arm. There was assurance in that weight and solidity and beautiful deadly shape. It was a .30-caliber Browning cyclic, able to send forty rounds a minute through any atmosphere or none, the pride of his collection. Vadász, also in a collapsed airsuit with faceplate unlocked, had settled for a laser pistol.

“I am not certain,” the Hungarian remarked, “What six men can do if they try to storm us. Yonder ship can easily hold five times as many.”

“We can stand ’em off till the boys arrive from Fox,” Heim said, “and they total almost a hundred. Assuming the Lodge doesn’t stop the fight.”

“Oh, that I doubt,” Vadász murmured with a slight smile. “We aren’t likely to damage their nice spaceport, and from everything I hear, they have no rules against bloodshed.” He pointed to several winged shapes, wheeling black against the clouds over the western end of Orling Island. “They’ll come enjoy the spectacle.”

Heim directed the radioman to get in touch with Fox. It would take a while. The beam must go through a ground station and a couple of relay satellites. Wong was in orbit to interpret between human and native workers, while Sparks’s command of the language was slight And the newcomer would be down in another minute.

I’m borrowing trouble, Heim tried to believe. Yet why would any Terrestrial come here, except in connection with me?

To trade? Yes, yes, an occasional merchant does call, from Earth or Naqsa or one of the other spacefaring worlds. That’s why the weaponmakers of Staurn will accept my Federation credits. But surely not while the Aleriona trouble is so near explosion.

Beside him, Vadász was softly whistling. “The Blue Danube,” now of all times? Well, maybe he wanted to remember, while he still could …

The least quiver ran through ground and hull and Heim’s bones as the stranger touched jacks to concrete. Her shadow fell engulfingly over Connie Girl. Through the intercom he heard a few oaths from his men, Sparks’s mumble at the transmitter, the snore of a nuclear engine on Stand-by. A ventilator gusted air across his cheeks, which were sweating.

When Koumanoudes clumped in, Heim spun about with a jerkiness that revealed to him how tense he was. “So?” the captain barked. “Did you get any information?”

The Greek looked relieved. “I think we can free-fall, sir. According to Galveth, they want to stay awhile, look around, and ask questions. A xenological expedition, in other words.”

“To this planet?” Heim scoffed.

“Well, after all, we are in Hydrus,” Vadász pointed out.

“The trouble is going on in the Phoenix. Quite some distance from here.”

“No further from The Eith than Alpha Eridani, Heim said, “where we had our biggest skirmish with the Aleriona. And that was many years ago. They’re prowling through this whole sector. Besides, it takes time to organize an expedition. Why didn’t we hear of it on Earth?”

“We were rather occupied,” Vadász said dryly. He went, to the radiophone. “Shall I try to call them?”

“What? … Oh, yes. Of course.” Heim swore at himself for forgetting so simple an act.