Robert Silverberg: Castaways of Space

The lifeship sat on its tail in a little clearing. It had landed well. McDermott looked at it. The lifeships were hardly bigger than bathtubs—rocket-equipped bathtubs. They were big enough for two people, three if they were willing to crowd together, and they were capable of coming down through a planetary atmosphere and making a safe landing. That was all. They could not be used for taking off again, but they would get their occupants safely down.

McDermott stood by the lifeship a moment, looking around. The grass was pretty well trampled here; a good sign of a village in the neighborhood. Most likely Hassolt and the girl were in the village.

He started to walk again. In ten minutes the village appeared, a nest of randomly-arranged huts on high stilts, circling loosely around the banks of a jungle stream. Advancing cautiously, McDermott saw a few of the natives, slim catlike humanoid creatures whose bodies were covered with a soft yellow fur. He made sure his blastgun was where he could reach it, and activated his verbal translator.

He stepped forward into the village.

Two or three of the natives edged out from their huts and came to meet him, padding silently over the beaten-down grass. There was no fear in their gleaming blue eyes, only curiosity.

McDermott started to say, “I’m looking for a couple of my people who crashlanded here.”

Then he stopped.

An Earthman was coming out of the biggest and most magnificent hut in the village. He was grinning. He was a tall man, though not as tall as McDermott was, and his face was very thin, with hard angling cheekbones. He was wearing lustrous robes made from the hide of some jungle animal, thick, handsome robes. On his head he wore a kind of crown made from ivory.

“Are you Blaine Hassolt?” McDermott demanded.

The other nodded with easy familiarity. He spoke in a pleasant drawling voice. “I’m Hassolt, yes. And you’ve come to get me and bring me back?”

McDermott nodded.

Hassolt laughed. “How thoughtful of you!”

McDermott said, scowling, “I don’t give a damn if you rot here or not, Hassolt. I’m here to get the girl. You can come back and stand trial or you can stay here in the jungle.”

One of Hassolt’s eyebrows rose quizzically. “I take it you’re a Corpsman?”

“You take it right.”

“Ah. How nice. There was a time when I was actually praying that we were being followed by a Corpsman—that was the time when the controls blanked out, and I had to crashland. I was very worried then. I was afraid we’d be cast away forever on some dangerous planet.”

“You like it this hot?” McDermott asked.

“I don’t mind. I live a good life here,” Hassolt stretched lazily. “The natives seem to have made me their king, Lieutenant. I rather like the idea.”

McDermott’s eyes widened. “And how about the girl—Nancy Hollis?”

“She’s here too,” Hassolt said. “Would you like to see her?”

“Where is she?”

Instead of answering Hassolt turned and whistled at the big hut. “Nancy! Nancy, come out here a moment! We’ve got a visitor.”

A moment passed; then, a girl appeared from the hut. She, too, wore robes and a crown; underneath the robes her body was bare, oddly pale, and she made ineffectual attempts to conceal herself as she saw McDermott. She was about nineteen or so, pretty in a pale sort of way, with short-cropped brown hair and an appealing face.

“I’m Lieutenant McDermott of the Corps, Miss Hollis,” McDermott said. “We put a spy-vector on Hassolt’s ship and traced you here. I’ve come to take you back.”

“Oh, have you?,” Hassolt said before the girl could speak. “You haven’t consulted me in this matter. You realize you propose to rob this tribe of its beloved queen.”

McDermott’s scowl tightened. He gestured with the blastgun and raised it to firing level. “I have a ship about three miles from here,” he said. “Suppose you start walking now. In an hour or two we can be there, and in a day and a half we’ll all be back safe and sound on Albireo XII.”

“I don’t want to be rescued,” Hassolt said deliberately. “I like it here.”

“What you like doesn’t matter. Miss Hollis, this man forcibly abducted you, didn’t he?”

She nodded.

“Okay,” McDermott said. He nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the ship. “Let’s go, Hassolt.”

“Put the gun down, McDermott,” Hassolt said quietly.

“Don’t make trouble or I’ll gun you down right now,” McDermott snapped. “I’m more interested in rescuing Miss Hollis than I am in dragging you back to court.”

“Miss Hollis will stay right here. So will I. Put the gun down. McDermott, there are four natives standing in a ring, thirty feet behind you, and each one is holding a blowdart pipe. All I have to do is lift my hand and you’ll be riddled with darts. It’s a quick death, but it isn’t a nice one.”

McDermott’s broad back began to itch. Sweat rolled in rivers down his face. He cautiously glanced around to his left.

Hassolt was right. Four slim catlike beings stood in a semicircle behind him, blowpipe poised at lips. McDermott paused a moment, sweating, and then let his gun drop to the ground.

“Kick it toward me,” Hassolt ordered.

McDermott shoved it with his foot toward the other. Hassolt hastily scooped it up, stowed it in his sash, and gestured to the aliens. Two of them slipped up behind McDermott and relieved him of his machete. He was now unarmed. He felt like an idiot.

Hassolt grinned and said, “Make yourself at home and keep out of trouble, McDermott. And remember that my bodyguards will be watching you all the time.”

He turned and walked away, heading back toward the hut.

McDermott stared after him; finally he muttered a brief curse and looked at the girl.

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” she said.

“It’s not your fault, Miss. It’s mine. My fault for joining the Corps and my fault for taking this assignment and my fault for not shooting Hassolt the second I saw him.”

“It would have done no good. The natives would have killed you immediately.”

He looked around at the village. Two or three natives skulked in the distance, ready to transfix him with darts if he showed any sign of trouble.

He said, “How did all this happen? I mean, Hassolt being king and everything?”

She shrugged. “I hardly know. I met him one afternoon at the Terran Club and he bought me a couple of drinks—I thought he was interesting, you know. So we went for a drive in his car, and next thing I knew he was forcing me aboard a ship and blasting off.”

McDermott looked at her. “With what purpose in mind?”

“Ransom,” she said. “He told me all about it as soon as we were in space. He was heading for the Aldebaran system, where he’d cable my father for money. If Dad came through, he was going to turn me over to the authorities and vanish. If Dad refused to pay, he’d—take me with him as his mistress. But we were only a little distance from Albireo when I grabbed control of the ship and tried to head it back. I didn’t succeed.”

“But you did foul up the controls so thoroughly that Hassolt had to abandon his original idea and crashland the ship here?”

“Yes. We came down in the lifeship and the natives found us. Hassolt had a translator with him, and it turned out they wanted us to be their king and queen, or something like that. So we’ve been king and queen for the past few days. The natives do everything Hassolt says.”

“Do they obey you, too?”

“Sometimes. But I’m definitely second-fiddle to him.”

McDermott chewed at his lip and wished he had brought his remaining bottle of rum along. It was a nasty position. Far from being anxious to be rescued, Hassolt was probably delighted to live on Breckmyer IV. He wasn’t willing to leave, and he wasn’t willing to let Nancy Hollis go either. Nor was he going to let McDermott escape alive and possibly bring a stronger Corps force to rescue the girl.