James White - The Escape Orbit

They reached the Nelson farm just before noon, finding that it comprised a fair-sized log house and a larger but more crudely constructed building for storage purposes, both of them being enclosed by a stockade which sagged badly in two places. A large tree served as the main support and a ladder led up to a platform covered by a skin awning. The platform was above the thirty-foot level, a refuge for the Nelsons should a battler succeed in breaching the stockade.

Warren had hoped to stay overnight at the farm, and the Nelsons had insisted on him doing so, saying that they could easily accommodate his people between the house and the barn. Despite their offer of hospitality Warren could see that they did not want him there. Mrs. Nelson seemed very ill at ease and when he talked to her husband, sounding him on the possibility of his contributing a few hours work a week to the Committee and testing his arguments generally, he found that he was not getting through to the man at all.

The reason, or to be more accurate, the three reasons, were quite obvious. He mentioned them to Fielding as soon as they were alone together.

“Three children,” he said in a strained voice. “Between six months and seven years. I wasn’t prepared for this.”

Fielding was silent for a moment, then she said, “The Committee keeps records of all arriving prisoners, but they are the only new arrivals which concern them. I did expect something like this, although I would say that three is above the average. You must remember that the dangers of pregnancy are aggravated here—the lack of proper medical facilities and the battler menace to name only two…”

“The medical facilities are pretty good, ma’am, considering,” Briggs broke in defensively at that point. Warren had not realized the guide was within earshot. Briggs went on, “There are some very good ex-medicos on the Committee. And among the Civilians, too, of course, but their doctors don’t have the same local know-how. Our people, under Hutton, have conducted systematic research into the medical properties of the local flora, and a couple of them have died carrying it out. But these people feel awkward about sending for one of our men at a confinement. They know what we think of bringing kids into a prison world, that an officer who has kids is not likely to take the risk of escaping, or dying, or maybe bringing down Bug reprisals.”

“That,” said Warren with great feeling, “was what I was thinking.”

“Sorry to butt in like this, sir,” Briggs went on, “but I wanted to ask permission for our men to repair this stockade…”

According to Briggs the farm stockade was in such a state of disrepair that a baby battler could push it over, and as fixing it was a job called for the concerted efforts of upwards of six men, Nelson was probably waiting until some of his neighbors could come to help with the job. All the indications were that the Committee party would not be staying the night, so Briggs suggested that they do something before they left which would leave a good impression. Besides, if his men fixed the stockade it was the unwritten law that Mrs. Nelson would give them dinner and supplies for the journey, and while the farm bread would not remain edible as long as Committee biscuit, for the time it did remain fresh it made the biscuit taste like sawdust.

As he gave the necessary permission Warren thought that words had failed him here and that a nice good deed might salvage something from the situation. He knew that the Nelsons would not mind feeding his hungry mob—Civilian cooking was one of the chief weapons used to convert Committeemen—and he resolved that his good deed should have no other strings attached. He would not even mention the Escape again, and for a while he would be very chary of talking about his ideas to non-Committee people.

He was going to have to change his approach, Warren told himself grimly, and develop a whole new set of arguments.

To Fielding he said thoughtfully, “Mrs. Nelson was Senior Warp Engineer on a battleship—she must have more degrees than she knows what to do with—and her husband, a relative moron, commanded a destroyer. It seems a great shame to me that two such brilliant people should be stuck here for the rest of their lives. It’s a criminal waste of brains!”

“Yes, sir,” said Fielding.

“Did you see those hand-made books lying around?” Warren went on. “Full of simple sketches and short words in block capitals. They’re accepting it, and beginning to think of teaching their children. I think they’ve given me some useful ideas…”

“About founding a dynasty, sir?” said Fielding.

Irritated suddenly, Warren wondered why all psychologists seemed to have one-track minds, the track becoming a deep and well-worn gully where female psychologists were concerned. They had not been that sort of ideas, and he suspected that Fielding knew it as well as he did, but perversely he refrained from telling her about them. Like his arguments, they need to be worked into better shape. Because it had become very plain to Warren that the main obstacle to the success of the Escape was not, as he had hitherto thought, the Bug guardship…

Muffled by the thick log walls, but still plainly audible, the Nelson baby began to cry.

If it looked like anything else at all, Warren thought it was an elephant—a large low-slung elephant with six legs and two trunks which were each more than twenty feet long. Below the point where the trunk joined the massive head a wide, loose mouth gaped open to display three concentric rows of shark-like teeth, and above the trunk its two tiny eyes were almost hidden by protective ridges of bone and muscle. Between the eyes a flat, triangular horn, razor-edged fore and aft, came to a sharp point, and anything which had been caught by the trunks and was either too large or not quite dead was impaled on the horn while the trunks tore it into pieces of a more manageable size. Because it had no natural enemies and was too big and awkward to profit from camouflage, its hide was a blotchy horror of black and green and livid yellow.

“I … It is our policy, sir,” Briggs was saying as the beast’s heavy tentacles flailed bad-temperedly at the base of their tree, “to avoid battle with them if at all possible. Only if a party is caught in the open or if they have been retained by some farmer to kill the battler will we fight. So your people don’t have to feel ashamed at being treed by a full-grown bull like this one. Killing battlers is a very specialized job…”

The rest of what he said was lost as the battler sent its twenty-foot tentacles questing among the lower branches of their tree. It found a thick branch, its tentacles curled around it and tightened, and the tree creaked deafeningly as the battler began lifting its forepart off the ground. But Warren did not have to have the technique of battler-killing explained to him. He had done considerable reading on the subject.

The only quick way to kill one of them was to cause serious damage to its brain. But this tiny organ was very well protected at every point by an inches-thick skull and the tremendous bands of muscles serving the jaw and tentacles.

The single vulnerable spot was the roof of the mouth, and a cross-bow bolt or spear driven vertically upwards for a distance of two or three inches brought instant death.

But maneuvering a battler into a position where this thrust could be delivered was a combined operation calling for great skill, a steady aim and even steadier nerves. It had been found that a superficial wound close to but not in the eye caused the battler’s tentacles to roll back tightly and the jaw to drop open. This was a purely reflex action lasting for not more than a second, and it was during this period that the hunter had to evade the wildly kicking forelegs and inflect the wound. At the same time precautions had to be taken against accidently blinding the creature, because if that happened the battler became so maddened that it was no longer possible to kill it quickly and it could devastate the surrounding countryside for days before it finally died. The mouth was the only weak spot and the hunter had to get there the first time, because he would not get a second chance.