Eric Russell: Panic Button

“I made muck-face at him,” said Yaksid indignantly, “but I don’t think he saw me. I was going too fast.”

“There was only this one house ia the valley?”

“Yes.”

“A very small house?”

“Yes.”

“How small?”

“It could be described as little better than a stone hut.”

“And only one Terran came out?”

“That’s right. If any more were inside, they didn’t bother to show themselves.”

“There couldn’t have been many within if the dump was almost a hut,” Lagasta suggested.

“Correct. Six at the most.”

“Did you see a ship or a scout boat lying nearby?”

“No, not a sign of one. There was just this house and nothing more,” said Yaksid.

“What did you do next?”

“I decided that this lonely building must be an outpost belonging to a Terran encampment somewhere in the vicinity. So I made a close search of the district. I circled wider and wider until I’d examined an area covering twenty horizons. I found nothing.”

“You’re quite certain of that?”

“I’m positive. I went plenty low enough to detect a camp half-buried or well camouflaged. I couldn’t find even the smell of a Terran.”

Lagasta stared at him in silence a while and then said, “There is something wrong about this. A Terran garrison could not cram itself into one hut.”

“That’s what I think,” Yaksid agreed.

“And since it cannot be within the building it must be some place else.”

“Correct. But there was no sign of it anywhere within the area I covered. Perhaps one of the other scout boats passed over it and failed to see it.”

“If it did, the pilot must have been stone-blind or asleep at his controls.”

Kaznitz interjected, “That wouldn’t surprise me. We landed short of sleep and the pilots haven’t been given a chance to catch up. You can’t expect them to be in full possession of their wits when they’re mentally whirly.”

“It was necessary to make a check with the minimum of delay,” said Lagasta defensively.

“That’s news to me.”

“What d’you mean?”

“You gave me clearly to understand that the check was a waste of time, patience and fuel.”

“I said nothing of the sort.”

Havarre chipped in with, “What was said or not said is entirely beside the point. The point is that we have to deal with the situation as it exists. We have landed in expectation of claiming a planet. Yaksid has since found Terrans. Therefore the Terrans were here first. What are we going to do about it?”

“There is no problem to be solved,” said Kaznitz before Lagasta had time to answer. “We have been given orders simple enough for a fool to understand. If we arrive first, we claim the planet, sit tight and invite any later Terrans to take a high dive onto solid rock. If the Terrans arrive first, we admit their claim without argument, shoot back into space and waste no time beating them to the next planet.”

“Where is the next one?” inquired Lagasta with mock pleasantness. “And how long is it going to take us to find it? Inhabitable worlds don’t cluster like ripe fruit, do they?”

“Certainly not. But what alternative do you suggest?”

“I think we’d do well to discover this missing garrison and estimate its strength.”

“That would make sense if we were at war or permitted to start a war,” said Kaznitz. “We are not permitted. We are under strict instructions to avoid a clash.”

“I should think so, too,” contributed Havarre. “Before we enter a war we must know exactly what we’re fighting.”

“There is nothing to stop us gathering useful information,” Lagasta insisted.

“It’s impossible for us to collect military data worth the effort of writing it down,” Kaznitz gave back. “For the obvious reason that it will be years out of date by the time we get back home.”

“So you think we should surrender a hard-earned world for the sake of one crummy Terran in a vermin-infested hut?”

“You know quite well there must be more of them somewhere around.”

“I don’t know it. I know only what I’ve been told. And I’ve been told that Yaksid has found one Terran in a hut. Nobody has seen a trace of any others. We should make further and closer search for others and satisfy ourselves that they really are here.”

“Why?”

“It’s possible that these others don’t exist.”

“Possible but highly improbable,” Kaznitz opined. “I can’t see Terran explorers contenting themselves with placing one man on a world.”

“Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps he placed himself. The lone survivor of a space disaster who managed to get here in a lifeboat. What would be the worth of a Terran claim in those circumstances? We could easily remove every trace of the man and the hut and deny all knowledge of either. It couldn’t be called a clash. One Terran just wouldn’t get the chance to clash with a crew six hundred strong.”

“That may be, but—”

“If we make more systematic search and find other Terrans in garrison strength, that will settle the matter and we’ll take off. But if it proves that there are no others—” He let his voice tail off to add significance, finished, “All that stands between us and a world is one hunk of alien meat.”

Kaznitz thought it over. “I dislike giving up a new planet fully as much as you do. But I’d dislike it even more if we were saddled with the blame for starting something that can’t be finished. I think we’d like death and love it rather than endure the prolonged pain.”

“Blame cannot be laid without someone to do the blaming,” said Lagasta, “and a dead Terran positively refuses to talk. You worry too much. If you had nothing else with which to occupy your mind you’d grieve over the shape of your feet.” He turned to Havarre. “You’ve had little enough to say. Have you no opinion about this?”

Immediately leery, Havarre replied, “If we stay put while we look around, I think we should be careful.”

“Have you any reason to suppose that I intend to be rash?”

“No, no, not at all.”

“Then why the advice?”

“You asked my opinion and I gave it. I don’t trust these Terrans.”

“Who does?” said Lagasta, He made a gesture indicative of ending the subject. “All right. We’ll allow the pilots a good, long sleep. After their brains have been thoroughly rested we’ll send them out again. Our next step will depend upon whether more Terrans have been found and, if so, whether they have been discovered in strength.”

“What do you mean by strength?” Kaznitz asked.

“Any number in possession of a ship or a long-range transmitter. Or any number too large for us to remove without leaving evidence of it.”

“Have it your own way,” said Kaznitz.

“I intend to,” Lagasta assured.

The first boat returned with the same news as before, namely, no Terrans, no sign that a Terran had ever been within a million miles of the planet. Eight more boats came back at varying intervals and made identical reports vouching for a total lack of Terrans in their respective sectors. One pilot added that he became so convinced that Yaksid must have suffered a delusion that on his return he had gone out of his way to cut through that worthy’s sector. Yes, he had seen the stone house with his own two eyes. No, he had not observed any sign of life around the place.

Yaksid appeared last.

“I went straight to the house and circled it as before. Again a Terran came out and watched me. He also waved to me.”