Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

“And to think you, the woman I had asked to make my wife, did this to me.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Stet,” Tarb said without looking up from the paper. “I wasn’t going to accept you, anyway.”

“Good for you, Tarb,” Drosmig approved.

“You’re going back to Fizbus on the next liner—do you hear me?” Stet raged.

She smiled sunnily. “Oh, but I’m not, Stet. I’m going to stay right here on Earth. I like it. You might say the spiritual aura got me.”

He snorted. “How can you possibly stay? You don’t have an independent income and this is an expensive planet. Besides, I won’t let you stay on Earth. I have considerable influence, you know!”

“Poor Stet.” She smiled at him again. “I’m afraid the Fizbian press—the Fizbian consul even—are pretty small pullets beside the Solar Press Syndicate. You see, I came in this morning only to resign.”

He stared at her.

“Yesterday,” she informed him, “I was offered another position—as feature writer for the SP. I hadn’t decided whether or not to accept when I reported back last evening, but you made up my mind for me, so I called them this morning and took the job. My work will be to explain Fizbians to Terrans and Terrans to Fizbians—as I wanted to do for the Times, Stet, only you wouldn’t let me.”

“It’s no use saying anything to you about loyalty, I suppose?”

“None whatsoever,” she said. “I owe the Times no loyalty and I’m doing what I do out of loyalty to Fizbus… plus, of course, a much higher salary.”

“I’m glad for you, Tarb,” Drosmig said sincerely.

“Be glad for yourself, Senbot, because Stet will have to let you conduct the column your way from now on. Either it’ll supplement my work in the Terrestrial papers or he’ll look like a fool. And you do hate looking like a fool, don’t you, Stet?”

He didn’t answer.

“Better give up, Stet.” She turned to Drosmig. “Well, good-by, Senbot—or, rather, so long. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again. Good-by, Stet. No hard feelings, I hope?”

He neither moved nor spoke.

“Well… good-by, then,” she said.

The door closed. Stet stared after her. The forgotten umbrella dripped forlornly in the corner.

Those crazy, sloppy, frog-like Narakans… all thumbs and six-inch skulls… relics of the Suzi swamps. Until four-fisted Lt. Terrence O’Mara moved among them—lethal, dangerous, with a steady purpose flaming in his volcanic eyes.

Terrence O’Mara lay flat on his back trying to keep his big body as still as possible. Despite the fact that he was stripped to his regulation shorts, a large pool of sweat had formed on the cot underneath him. The only movement he permitted himself was an occasional pursing of his lips as he dragged on a cigarette and sent a swirl of smoke upward through the heavy humid air. Then he would just lie there watching as the smoke crept up to mingle with the large drops of water that were forming on the concrete of the command post.

“Damn! Damn Naraka, anyway! Outpost of civilization! Who’d want the blasted place except the Rumi?”

At the words, Terrence moved his head just a fraction of an inch and his eyes only a little farther to look across the room to where Bill Fielding was twisting and turning on his cot. All he could see of the other man was the wet outline of his body under a once white sheet and a hand that every so often reached into a bucket of water on the floor and then replaced a soaking T-shirt over a red head.

“You’ll feel it less if you lie still,” Terrence said, distressed at the necessity for talking.

“Feel it less! My God, listen to the man! What difference does it make if you lie still or move around or even run around in the suns like a bloody Greenback? Dust Bin will get you one way or another… and if it doesn’t, the Rumi will.”

The visible hand lifted the T-shirt and began to pop salt tablets into an open mouth like they were so many peppermints.

“I wonder where Norton is. Out reviewing the troops?”

“Reviewing, my eye. He’s up at Government House sitting in that cool living room drinking one of Mrs. Wilson’s icy drinks and admiring Mrs. Wilson’s shapely legs. From a discreet distance, of course. Being temporary Commanding Officer of even Dust Bin has its privileges!”

There was a rattle of drums and the blare of one or two off-key instruments from outside.

“Then why,” asked Terrence, “are those poor beggars marching up and down in this blasted heat?”

“The Greenbacks? They love it! It would take more than a little heat to get under those inch-thick skins of theirs. They like to play soldier when it’s a hundred and thirty under water.”

There were a few more straggling notes and then the semblance of a march began.

“Listen to that, will you?” Fielding moaned, “They can’t even keep time with a drum! They can’t march, they can’t shoot, they can’t break down a Banning; they’re all thumbs and six-inch thick skulls. ‘Train local forces to take over’! Bah! Did those desk jockeys back in New Chicago ever see a Greenback? Did they ever try to teach a Narakan to fix a bayonet to the proper end of a rifle or to fire a blaster in the right direction?”

Terrence was lighting another cigarette with as little exertion as possible. “Yes, but they keep trying. Ten hours a day. You don’t have to drive those boys. They want to learn. Listen to O’Shaughnessy barking out orders.”

“Sergeant Major O’Shaughnessy of the First Narakan Rifles!” Fielding murmured sarcastically. “A year ago he was squatting in a mud cocoon at the bottom of Suzi swamp with the rest of the frogs. Now he’s got a good Irish name and he’s strutting around like a Martian Field Marshal.”

“I thought the names might give them a sense of self respect. Besides we couldn’t pronounce theirs and I was tired of hearing Norris yell ‘Hey, greenboy!’ at them.”

“Well, they picked the right guy when they made you Training Officer. You and those damn frogs get along like you came from the same county!”

“They aren’t any great shakes for brains but you can’t take anything away from me boys for willingness.”

“Willingness! Hooray! They’re willing, so what? So is a Suzi Swamp lizard. What’ll it get them? A week after they pull the Terran forces out, the Rumi will gobble up the lot of them. Maybe they’ll gobble them and us before we pull out. Who could fight in this place? Who’d want to fight? I say, to hell with Naraka! It’s so near to hell already with those two blasted suns blazing sixteen hours a day. Let the Rumi have the stinking planet! Let them have the whole Centaurian System!”

“Speaking of pulling out, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dust Bin wasn’t the next place we let go of….”

Fielding raised himself on one elbow, “No kidding? Where did you hear that?” His sunburned and blistered face was alight with excitement.

“Well, you know how it’s been. When we first came here twenty years back, we drove the Rumi out of all this country and more or less took their cat feet off the Narakan’s backs but now that so much of the Earth garrison has been pulled all the way back into the Solar System, the Rumi are acting up again. So much so that the dope I got is that we may be pulling everything back into the Little Texas peninsula to wait for reinforcements and it will take four years for those to come out from Mars.”

“Great! Great! But…. Ah, it’s too good to be true. Can’t you just picture Fielding and O’Mara parading down Dobi street in New Chicago with their first lieutenant bars on their collars? Say, you don’t suppose that’s why the Sun Maid is sticking around out here, do you? Imagine, free transportation! A two hour trip to New Chi!”