Fredric Brown - The Second Fredric Brown Megapack

“I sat there and suddenly got plenty worried, because neither of us had more than another hour’s oxygen left in our suits. If they didn’t know that, and didn’t give us any chance to communicate with them and tell them, we were gone goslings in another hour. So I started to hammer on the door. Anna was hammering, too. I couldn’t hear through my helmet, of course, but I could feel the vibration of it any time I stopped hammering on my door.”

“Then, after maybe half an hour, my door opened and I almost fell out through it. One of the extra-terrestrials motioned me back with a weapon. Another made motions that looked as though he meant I should take off my helmet. I didn’t get it at first, and then I looked at something he pointed at and saw one of our oxygen tanks with the handle turned. Also a big pile of our other supplies, food and water and stuff. Anyway, they had known that we needed oxygen—and although they didn’t need it themselves, they apparently knew how to fix things for us. So they just used our supplies to build an atmosphere in their ship.”

“I took off my helmet and tried to talk to them, but one of them took a long pointed rod and poked me back into my cell. I couldn’t risk grabbing at the rod, because another one still had that dangerous-looking weapon pointed at me. So the door slammed on me again. I took off the rest of my spacesuit because it was plenty hot in there, and then I thought about Anna because she started hammering again.”

“I wanted to let her know it would be all right for her to get out of her spacesuit, that we had an atmosphere again. So I started hammering on the wall between our cells—in Morse. She got it after a while. She signaled back a query, so, when I knew she was getting me, I told her what the score was and she took off her helmet. After that we could talk. If we talked fairly loudly, our voices carried through the wall from one cell to the other.”

“They didn’t mind your talking to one another?”

“They didn’t pay any attention to us all the time they held us prisoners, except to feed us from our own supplies. Didn’t ask us a question; apparently they figured we didn’t know anything they wanted to know and didn’t know already about human beings. They didn’t even study us. I have a hunch they intended to take us back as specimens; there’s no other explanation I can think of.”

“We couldn’t keep accurate track of time, but by the number of times we ate and slept, we had some idea. The first few days—” Carmody laughed shortly— “had their funny side. These creatures obviously knew we needed liquid, but they couldn’t distinguish between water and whisky for the purpose. We had nothing but whisky to drink for the first two or maybe three days. We got higher than kites. We got to singing in our cells and I learned a lot of Russian songs. Been more fun, though, if we could have got some close harmony, if you know what I mean.”

The ambassador permitted himself a smile. “I can guess what you mean, Captain. Please continue.”

“Then we started getting water instead of whisky and sobered up. And started wondering how we could escape. I began to study the mechanism of the lock on my door. It wasn’t like our locks, but I began to figure some things about it and finally—I thought then that we’d been there about ten days—I got hold of a tool to use on it. They’d taken our spacesuits and left us nothing but our clothes, and they’d checked those over for metal we could make into tools.”

“But we got our food out of cans, although they took the empty cans afterward. This particular time, though, there was a little sliver of metal along the opening of the can, and I worried it off and saved it. I’d been, meanwhile, watching and listening and studying their habits. They slept, all at the same time, at regular intervals. It seemed to me like about five hours at a time, with about fifteen-hour intervals in between. If I’m right on that estimate, they probably come from a planet somewhere with about a twenty-hour period of rotation.”

“Anyway, I waited till their next sleep period and started working on the lock with that sliver of metal. It took me at least two or three hours, but I got it open. And once outside my cell, in the main room of the ship, I found that Anna’s door opened easily from the outside and I let her out.”

“We considered trying to turn the tables by finding a weapon to use on them, but none was in sight. They looked so skinny and light, despite being seven feet tall, that I decided to go after them with my bare hands. I would have, except that I couldn’t get the door to the front part of the ship open. It was a different type of lock entirely and I couldn’t even guess how to work it. And it was in the front part of the ship that they slept. The control room must have been up there, too.”

“Luckily our spacesuits were in the big room. And by then we knew it might be getting dangerously near the end of their sleeping period, so we got into our spacesuits quick and I found it was easy to open the outer door. It made some noise—and so did the whoosh of air going out—but it didn’t waken them, apparently.”

“As soon as the door opened, we saw we had a lot less time than we’d thought. The Sun was going down over the crater’s far ringwall—we were still in Hell Crater—and it was going to be dark in an hour or so. We worked like beavers getting our rockets refueled and jacked up on their tail fins for the takeoff. Anna got off first and then I did. And that’s all. Maybe we should have stayed and tried to take them after they came out from their sleeping period, but we figured it was more important to get the news back to Earth.”

President Saunderson nodded slowly. “You were right, Captain. Right in deciding that, and in everything else you did. We know what to do now. Do we not, Ambassador Kravich?”

“We do. We join forces. We make one space station—and quickly—and get to the Moon and fortify it, jointly. We pool all scientific knowledge and develop full-scale space travel, new weapons. We do everything we can to get ready for them when and if they come back.”

The President looked grim. “Obviously they went back for further orders or reinforcements. If we only knew how long we had—it may be only weeks or it may be decades. We don’t know whether they come from the Solar System—or another galaxy. Nor how fast they travel. But whenever they get back, we’ll be as ready for them as we possibly can. Mr. Ambassador, you have power to—?”

“Full power, Mr. President. Anything up to and including a complete merger of both our nations under a joint government. That probably won’t be necessary, though, as long as our interests are now completely in common. Exchange of scientific information and military data has already started, from our side. Some of our top scientists and generals are flying here now, with orders to cooperate fully. All restrictions have been lowered.” He smiled, “And all our propaganda has gone into a very sudden reverse gear. It’s not even going to be a cold peace. Since we’re going to be allies against the unknown, we might as well try to like one another.”

“Right,” said the President. He turned suddenly to Carmody. “Captain, we owe you just about anything you want. Name it.”

It caught Carmody off guard. Maybe if he’d had more time to think, he’d have asked for something different. Or, more likely, from what he learned later, he wouldn’t have. He said, “All I want right now is to forget Hell Crater and get back to my regular job so I can forget it quicker.”

Saunderson smiled. “Granted. If you think of anything else later, ask for it. I can see why you’re a bit mixed up right now. And you’re probably right. Return to routine may be the best thing for you.”