Lester del Rey - The Mysterious Planet

Yet here we are, enemies, getting ready to start the greatest war either of us has seen. What are we going to do about it?”

“Fight, I’m afraid,” Bob’s father said bitterly. “At least, everything we’ve tried to bring peace has made war that much closer. And this isn’t going to help much.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning your holding me.” Griffith paused to think, then shook his head. “I’m not important, of course. But I’ve come to be considered the leading voice for peace. Now I take off to hold trace talks—and I’m either killed or captured. It will make peace seem completely impossible to the Federation.”

“And we send a messenger ship alone over your Outpost, and it’s fired on.” Faskin nodded slowly. “That makes you look like a race determined to have war. All misunderstandings, of course. But can I be sure? Or are you sure? Commander, if I freed all prisoners and you, would it prevent this war?”

“Probably not.”

“Besides now we’d have to hold the three boys. Simon Jakes, for example, managed to obtain some of our secret documents with plans for weapons.” Bob grunted as Faskin confirmed his suspicions, but the president didn’t seem to notice. “We’ve substituted false papers since then—but if he has a good memory, he already knows too much. He may no longer need the documents.”

There was no answer that any of them could see. It was the most peculiar war that Bob could imagine. Nobody wanted it. But fear was driving them on. The Thulians couldn’t risk having their secrets stolen. For one thing, the Federation was far ahead of them in methods of production and in manpower. Given a few years of peace, Thule might find itself actually inferior in strength, instead of ahead of the Federation.

And the Federation already had reasons to feel that Thule could not be trusted. From their view, Thule had started the war. The business of trying to take a place around their sun was itself almost an act of war to most people. If Thule made any normal gestures of peace now they would only be taken as tricks to gain time while they revived the rest of their people.

Yet Bob was sure now that Thule was more like Earth than its mere outward appearance.

There was less difference between the race of Thule and the original inhabitants of Earth than there had been between various Earth cultures in times past.

Perhaps, at the first meeting of the two, things could have been settled. But then there had been no way to reach a full understanding, and mistakes had been inevitable. Now those mistakes had grown and multiplied.

For the first time, he saw no chance of peace, no matter what was done.

A sudden shout out in the corridor interrupted their dark thoughts. The guards threw the door open and looked out. Now the shouts increased.

Juan Roman came running into the room. His face was stretched tight with the strain of running, and he was gasping for breath, crying hoarsely. The clothes had been partly torn off him.

He stopped beside Bob, and his mouth worked as he tried to force coherent words out.

“Simon—escaping. He…”

He couldn’t finish it.

JUAN DROPPED ONTO A CHAIR, and someone from the back of the room came up with a glass of some dark fluid. The boy gulped it down. He took one deep breath, and nodded.

“Simon’s escaping in his ship,” he gasped. “I tried to stop him. He knocked me out. He…”

Faskin shook his head. “He’ll be stopped! He can’t get the ship free, and if he does, he can’t get away from Thule. The fool!”

“No!” Juan stood up now, facing the president. “No! He’s kidnaped Emo. Using him for a hostage!”

The room was suddenly bedlam. There was a stunned silence that lasted less than a second, then a wild shouting as the Thulians milled toward Juan. Faskin had turned as nearly white as his orange skin would permit. But he was the first to recover and start trying to get order, banging a wand against a coiled copper strip.

Bob had gasped with the others. “It means war at once,” he shouted to his father. “They’d forgive bombing the planet quicker.”

Proof of this was already coming. In the days Bob had been on Thule, he had never heard an outright expression of hatred toward the Federation, and he had believed that the Thulians had gotten over all personal violence. But now they were shouting like a pack of savages, a few crying for death to all men from the Federation.

The guards were better trained, though. They were moving in to protect the three in front of the president.

Bob suddenly touched Juan on the shoulder, and turned. He leaped toward the bank of machinery on the wall and began running along it. Some of the crowd that had begun to come in from other offices must have been confused by his Thulian clothes, for they drew back.

He was almost to the door when the loud-speaker on the ceiling broke into sound, in the voice of the president. “Stop! Robert Griffith, stop! Men, stop him!”

But the sound had confused them for just long enough. Bob found the door and was through it, bowling over two people who were just dashing up. He sped down the hall, and was surprised to find Juan behind him. A quick glance back showed guards pouring out of the big doors, with drawn guns.

There was no time to take the escalator. Bob blessed the Thulian who had installed a brass handrail beside it, and was on that and sliding downward before the guns went off. He landed hard, with Juan coming down against his back. That knocked the breath out of him but he had already grasped the next rail.

Thulian clothes were a nuisance. They offered no protection to his legs. But he hardly felt the burn as he slid down the third rail. He was getting the knack of it now, and blessing the times he had slid down the banister when he was a kid.

Bob threw out an arm to catch Juan at the bottom of the last railing, and then pulled the younger boy around a corner. “Have we got a chance to stop Jakes?” he asked.

Juan blinked and shook his head. Then he nodded quickly. “You want… Yes, maybe. We must stop him!”

Bob nodded, and leaped forward as he heard the pursuing guards coming down the escalator, adding their own speed to that of the machine. He glanced at the street and saw a man opening the door of one of the cars parked there. With a single bound, he was across the sidewalk and throwing the man out of his way. Surprise worked in his favor. The man stumbled and fell. Then Bob was inside at the driver’s seat, Juan yanking the door shut.

He’d seen how the cars worked, though he had never driven one. The power seemed to be electric, needing no starter. He pulled the steering bar back, twisting it a little. The car leaped to life and tore away from the sidewalk. It almost ran into the opposite one, but Bob yanked it back. For two blocks, he weaved about while the car gained speed; but it was enough like driving a car on Mars so as not to cause too much trouble. He got the hang of it almost at once, and settled down to making speed.

Juan reached forward and found a button. A high whistle came from the car. “Maybe this will clear the way for us,” he choked out. He was having his second reaction from the physical exertion, but was getting control of himself.

Bob nodded. The whistle did help. But it also told him that the sound he had heard before was pursuit by the guards, and from the extra volume of their whistles, they probably had bigger and faster cars.

In a way, he had an advantage. Thule wasn’t geared to violence, and would be more confused than in a Federation world, where crime was still fairly common. But it also meant that he probably couldn’t count on the Thulians finding and stopping Jakes in time.