Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

“So that’s how it works,” Pete Ganley said. “Quite a weapon, against them. It wouldn’t work on a human being, of course.” She was staring at him dreamy-eyed. He laughed. “Silly, I bet you haven’t understood a word I said.”

“I have too.”

“Liar.” He locked the automatic pilot on the copter and held out his arms. “Come here, you.”

“Oh, Petey….”

Who cared about the weapon? He was right, even if she wouldn’t admit it. She hadn’t even listened, hardly. She hadn’t understood.

And neither had Riuku.

Riuku waited until she’d fallen soundly asleep that night before he tried contacting Nagor. He’d learned nothing useful. He’d picked up nothing in her mind except more thoughts of Pete, and gee, maybe someday they’d get married, if he only had guts enough to tell Susan where to get off….

But she was asleep at last. Riuku was free enough of her thoughts to break contact, partially of course, since if he broke it completely he wouldn’t be able to get back through the Shielding. It was hard enough to reach out through it. He sent a painful probing feeler out into space, to the spot where Nagor and the others waited for his report.

“Nagor….”

“Riuku? Is that you?”

“Yes. I’ve got a contact. A girl. But I haven’t learned anything yet that can help us.”

“Louder, Riuku. I can hardly hear you….”

Alice Hendricks stirred in her sleep. The dream images slipped through her subconscious, almost waking her, beating against Riuku.

Pete, baby, you shouldn’t be like that….

Riuku cursed the bisexual species in their own language.

“Riuku!” Nagor’s call was harsh, urgent. “You’ve got to find out. We haven’t much time. We lost three more ships today, and there wasn’t a sign of danger. No Earthman nearby, no force fields, nothing. You’ve got to find out why.” Those ships just disappeared.

Riuku forced his way up through the erotic dreams of Alice Hendricks. “I know a little,” he said. “They damp their thought waves somehow, and keep us from spotting the Corcoran field.”

“Corcoran field? What’s that?”

“I don’t know.” Alice’s thoughts washed over him, pulling him back into complete integration, away from Nagor, into a medley of heroic Petes with gleaming eyes and clutching hands and good little Alices pushing them away—for the moment.

“But surely you can find out through the girl,” Nagor insisted from far away, almost out of phase altogether.

“No, Pete!” Alice Hendricks said aloud.

“Riuku, you’re the only one of us with any possible sort of contact. You’ve got to find out, if we’re to stay here at all.”

“Well,” Alice Hendricks thought, “maybe….”

Riuku cursed her again, in the lingua franca of a dozen systems. Nagor’s voice faded. Riuku switched back to English.

Saturday. Into the plant at 3:58. Jean’s diamond again…. Wish it would choke her; she’s got a horsey enough face for it to. Where’s old Liverlips? Don’t see him around. Might as well go to the restroom for a while….

That’s it, Riuku thought. Get her over past the machine shop, over by that Restricted Area. There must be something there we can go on….

“Hello, Tommy,” Alice Hendricks said. “How’s the love life?”

“It could be better if someone I know would, uh, cooperate….”

She looked past him, toward the corner where the big panels were with all the dials and the meters and the chart that was almost like the kind they drew pictures of earthquakes on. What was it for, anyway? And why couldn’t anyone go over to it except those longhairs? High voltage her foot….

“What’re you looking at, Alice?” Tommy said.

“Oh, that.” She pointed. “Wonder what it’s for? It doesn’t look like much of anything, really.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve got something better to look at.”

“Oh, you!”

Compared to Pete, he didn’t have anything, not anything at all.

… Pete. Gee, he must have got home awful late last night. Wonder what Susan said to him. Why does he keep taking her lip, anyway?

Riuku waited. He prodded. He understood the Restricted Area as she understood it—which was not at all. He found out some things about the 731 plugs—that a lot of them were real crummy ones the fool day shift girls had set up wrong, and besides she’d rather solder on the 717’s any day. He got her talking about the weapon again, and he found out what the other girls thought about it.

Nothing.

Except where else could you get twelve-fifty an hour soldering?

She was stretched out on the couch in the restroom lobby taking a short nap—on company time, old Liverlips being tied up with the new girls down at the other end of the line—when Riuku finally managed to call Nagor again.

“Have you found out anything, Riuku?”

“Not yet.”

Silence. Then: “We’ve lost another ship. Maybe you’d better turn her loose and come on back. It looks as if we’ll have to run for it, after all.”

Defeat. The long, interstellar search for another race, a race less technologically advanced than this one, and all because of a stupid Earth female.

“Not yet, Nagor,” he said. “Her boy friend knows. I’ll find out. I’ll make her listen to him.”

“Well,” Nagor said doubtfully. “All right. But hurry. We haven’t much time at all.”

“I’ll hurry,” Riuku promised. “I’ll be back with you tonight.”

That night after work Pete Ganley was waiting outside the gate again. Alice spotted his copter right away, even though he had the lights turned way down.

“Gee, Pete, I didn’t think….”

“Get in. Quick.”

“What’s the matter?” She climbed in beside him. He didn’t answer until the copter had lifted itself into the air, away from the factory landing lots and the bright overhead lights and the home-bound workers.

“It’s Susan, who else,” he said grimly. “She was really sounding off today. She kept saying she had a lot of evidence and I’d better be careful. And, well, I sure didn’t want you turning up at the bar tonight of all nights.”

He didn’t sound like Pete.

“Why?” Alice said. “Are you afraid she’ll divorce you?”

“Oh, Alice, you’re as bad as—look, baby, don’t you see? It would be awful for you. All the publicity, the things she’d call you, maybe even in the papers….”

He was staring straight ahead, his hands locked about the controls. He was sort of—well, distant. Not her Petey any more. Someone else’s Pete. Susan’s Pete….

“I think we should be more careful,” he said.

Riuku twisted his way through her thoughts, tried to push them down…. Does he love me, he’s got to love me, sure he does, he just doesn’t want me to get hurt….

And far away, almost completely out of phase, Nagor’s call. “Riuku, another ship’s gone. You’d better come back. Bring what you’ve learned so far and we can withdraw from the system and maybe piece it together….”

“In a little while. Just a little while.” Stop thinking about Susan, you biological schizo. Change the subject. You’ll never get anything out of that man by having hysterics….

“I suppose,” Alice cried bitterly, “you’ve been leading me on all the time. You don’t love me. You’d rather have her!”

“That’s not so. Hell, baby….”

He’s angry. He’s not even going to kiss me. I’m just cutting my own throat when I act like that….

“Okay, Pete. I’m sorry. I know it’s tough on you. Let’s have a drink, okay? Still got some in the glove compartment?”

“Huh? Oh, sure.”

She poured two drinks, neat, and he swallowed his with one impatient gulp. She poured him another.