Homegoing

Chapter 22

Three thousand years is a lot of history. Three thousand years ago on Earth history had barely begun. Civilization was a collection of tiny principalities in the Fertile Crescent, and neither China nor Ancient Greece had been invented yet. The three-thousand-year history of the Hakh’hli is just as long and just as cloudy in its origins. The Hakh’hli know that before that time their remote ancestors lived on one or another of a consortium of planets—four of them, in three separate stellar systems—and deployed immense powers. Powers enough to launch a dozen ships like their own, to scour the Galaxy for new homes for the Hakh’hli race. That was their Golden Age, they know. What they also know is that the history of the three thousand years since the ship first began to swim the spaces between the stars has been not golden at all; it is a history of monotonous voyages and fruitless investigations. It is, to be more exact, a history of three thousand long, uninterrupted years of failure.

The flight back to the lander site was in no slow, comfortable blimp. They were in a hurry. Their plane was a high-energy supersonic jet, and it crossed the North American continent, twelve miles up, in an hour and forty minutes. It was not a pleasant trip. The acceleration as they took off and climbed was enough to push even Sandy back in his seat, and the other human passengers were immobilized until the jet leveled off.

Even then there was not much light conversation. Marguery Darp was lost in her own thoughts. Lysander, sitting by one of the tiny windows, spent most of his time gazing out at what could be seen of country sliding past below.

Hamilton Boyle had donned his InterSec uniform for the job, leather boots, holstered pistol, cap, and all. It was as though he needed to be reassured of his official position. When they were flying almost level he turned to Lysander and demanded harshly, “Do you know what you’re supposed to do?”

Lysander turned back from the window. “How could I not?” he asked. “You’ve told me over and over. My job is to get the Hakh’hli out of the landing craft. You apprehend them. Then I turn it over to you.”

“To the human race, Sandy,” Boyle corrected.

“What you didn’t tell me,” Sandy said, “was what you’re going to do with the lander after you get it.”

“We’ll study it, man! We have to find out what kind of technology we’re up against.”

Sandy nodded as though he had expected that answer. He wasn’t signaling acceptance of what Boyle had said, only that he hadn’t expected to be told the truth. He pursed his lips, gazing innocently at Hamilton Boyle. “You know,” he said, “a suspicious person might think you had a different reason. You might be thinking of using the lander to ram the Hakh’hli ship.”

The expression on Boyle’s face told him all he had to know. When Sandy turned to look at Marguery Darp her own expression was dismal. “Oh, hell,” she said. “We might as well start trusting each other, Ham! Sandy, you’re almost right. InterSec has half a dozen fusion warheads hidden away, just in case. Once you turn the lander over to us, Ham wants to put one of them in it and take off. But not to ram it, Sandy! Not unless we really have to.”

“No? Then what?” he asked politely.

“Just threaten it, Sandy! That’s all. They’ll have to surrender; the big ship’s a sitting duck up there, with its drive motors off.”

“I see,” Lysander said noncommitally, and stopped there.

Boyle gave him ten seconds, and then demanded, “What’s the matter? Don’t you think it would work?”

Lysander thought it over carefully. “I never heard of a Hakh’hli surrendering,” he said, “but I guess there’s a first time for everything. As you say, they wouldn’t have much choice, would they? Also,” he went on, struck by a thought, “you probably don’t have to bother with putting a bomb on the lander. Just crashing into the ship would do it, if you rammed it in the drive-systems area. Imagine strange matter splashing around the ship! Of course, whoever piloted the lander would die, too.”

“Do you suppose that would be a problem? There are always human beings who are willing to die for patriotic reasons.”

“So I have been told,” Lysander agreed. “Only—”

“Only what?” Boyle demanded harshly.

Sandy shrugged. “Only I don’t see what your next step is going to be. What are you going to do with the Hakh’hli after they all surrender?”

“We’ll take them prisoner!”

“Yes, I see that much. Then what?”

“Then it’s up to the civil authorities,” Boyle snapped. “Don’t worry about it, Lysander! We’re not going to shoot them. There are rules about the treatment of prisoners of war.”

“Yes, you put them in concentration camps,” Lysander nodded. “How long do you keep them there?”

“As long as necessary,” Boyle said through his teeth.

Sandy mulled that over for a minute. “There’s one other possibility you haven’t mentioned,” he pointed out. “You could just tell them they had to go visit some other star. Would I be correct if I thought you had considered that and decided it wouldn’t work?”

“You would,” Boyle said shortly, but Marguery spoke up, ignoring his angry look.

“They can’t, Sandy,” she told him. “Remember, we said they were desperate. Their drive systems are beginning to wear out. Polly told us that; something about radiation-induced weaknesses in the support structure. She says it’s beginning to get serious. The supports might hold up for a few hundred years yet, or they might go in ten.”

“So they’re stuck here,” Boyle added.

“I see,” Lysander said, nodding. And then he said, “Poor bastards. Well. Is there anything else we need to talk about right now?”

“Only to make sure you know what you’re supposed to do—”

“I do know, Boyle. You think there’ll only be two of the party in the landing craft itself?”

“Usually there are two. They take turns. Two come out and talk to us, two stay in the ship.” Boyle hesitated. “At least,” he said, “I hope so. There’s one little problem.”

“Something else you haven’t told me?” Lysander inquired politely.

“Something I’m telling you now,” Boyle said sharply. “They’ve been out of communication with the interstellar ship for about ten hours now. Interference.”

“What do you mean, interference?”

“We’ve got a high-altitude blimp up there, broadcasting jamming signals,” Boyle explained. “They can’t talk to the ship; the ship can’t talk to them. Don’t give me that kind of look, Lysander! We had to do it. We didn’t want them stirring up trouble when they couldn’t get an answer from Hippolyta or you. It’s possible that they’ll be so concerned about that that they’ll all be in the ship, but probably they’ll take it to be some natural thing, like sunspot effects.”

“You hope,” said Lysander. “Well, it can’t be very comfortable for them in there, so maybe they’ll get out when they can anyway.” He thought for a moment, then added, “I can do what you want me to, I think, although it would be easier if I went in by myself.”

“No. It’s going to be the way I say. Marguery goes with you.”

Sandy shrugged. “And you’ll take them prisoner as they come out?”

“Of course.”

“All right,” said Sandy. “Then there’s just one thing left. I’ll need one of those.” He pointed to the gun at Boyle’s belt.

Boyle raised an eyebrow in surprise. “For what? You said yourself you couldn’t threaten a Hakh’hli.”

Sandy gave him a pleasant smile. “You can kill one,” he said. “And now I’d appreciate it if you’d get me a pencil and paper. And don’t talk to me for a while, please. I think I’d like to write a poem.”

They couldn’t see the little settlement that had grown up around the lander as the jet came down; in that heat-drenched, almost windowless jet they had nothing useful to see out of. Only the pilot had any real visibility.

Peering past the pilot’s head, Lysander caught a glimpse of cloud, sky, mountain, cloud again; and then the aircraft was bouncing along a runway, the jets screaming louder than ever as the reversed thrust slowed them down. The deceleration threw Sandy against his straps.

Then they stopped rolling.

Lysander unbuckled quickly and reached to open the hatch, but Boyle put a hand on his shoulder. “You asked for this,” he said, offering the gun from his holster.

Lysander turned the flat, heavy thing over in his hand, wonderingly. It was so small and so sinister. “This could kill a person?”

“You mean could it kill a Hakh’hli? It could kill an elephant, Sandy. It’s got a shaped charge in the load.”

“Show me how to use it,” said Sandy. Grudgingly Boyle led him around the far side of the ship, toward the open runway. Sandy got only a glimpse of the lander, fully erected, with its brightly colored shrapnel shroud already in place. More than anything else the lander looked like a praying mantis gift-wrapped for Christmas.

It didn’t take long for Boyle to explain safety, sights, and trigger to Sandy. Warned, he braced his arm when he fired it for the first time. Even so the recoil was a surprise. It wasn’t noisy, though. The sound of firing was only a sharp thwuck, rather than the violent explosion he had imagined, but it made a second, louder sound when the charge struck what it was aimed at (or anyway, where it happened to go by courtesy of his inexpert marksmanship). It blew craters a foot deep in the runway as it hit.

Lysander shook his head, turning to Boyle. “That’s no good. I could blow the lander up if I hit the wrong place.”

Boyle said, “Well, I suppose we could give you solid rounds instead of the h.e., but I don’t know if they would kill a Hakh’hli.”

“They won’t know that,” Lysander said. “Give me the rounds.”

Even a dedicated Hakh’hli would not spend days and weeks in the lander if he could help it; it was too cramped, too bare, too uncomfortable—certainly too boring. The humans had obligingly airlifted a sort of cabin in. It was smaller than the common room the cohort had shared back on the big ship. But then, Sandy thought somberly, the cohort was a lot smaller now, too. He saw Bottom peering out of the lander hatch, just above the rodded stick they used for a ladder. Sandy waved to him but didn’t speak. He walked to the door of the Hakh’hli dorm and stood there, looking in.

Tanya and Helena were huddled over a television set. Fortunately it wasn’t in communications mode; they were simply watching the bland Earth networks, long since censored of any news that might disturb the Hakh’hli. Tanya turned to look at Sandy with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ll show you,” he said in Hakh’hli, putting a finger to his lips.

“Show us what? And what was that noise we heard a little while ago?” Helena grumbled.

Sandy said secretively, “I don’t know. Something the Earth humans were doing, I guess. Don’t waste time.” He peered out the door. “Follow me, and don’t attract attention. All of you. You too, Tanya. Don’t even use the communicator, just come on.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He went out of the cabin, conspicuously nonchalant as he walked toward the tail of the rocket. It cast a long shadow in the hot, late summer day; and he could see by the shadows beside him that the two Hakh’hli were following him.

Marguery was standing at the tail of the rocket, gazing upward as instructed. Tanya stopped short beside Sandy. “Why have you brought the Earth-female here?” she demanded, licking her tongue out suspiciously.

Sandy said easily, “Look and see.” He pointed to a perfectly featureless point on the shroud, and said, “There.”

“There what?” Helena grumbled.

Tanya grunted in annoyance, stretched as high as she could on her long, thick legs, and said peevishly, “I don’t see any—”

That was as far as she got. She toppled forward on her face even before Sandy heard the thwick of the gas gun. Helena managed to whirl long enough to catch sight of Boyle’s sharpshooters, but not in time to do herself any good. It was a fast-acting anesthetic. Both she and Helena were unconscious a moment later.

Sandy signaled to the gunners, crouched at the side of the ship, to take them away and then nodded toward the climbing stick. “Come on then, if you have to,” he ordered Marguery.

As they climbed toward the hatch Bottom popped his head out of the door again, staring curiously but without suspicion at Sandy. Then he caught sight of Marguery coming up behind him. In Hakh’hli Bottom called, “Why are you bringing Earth-female aboard?”

“Tanya asked me same question,” Sandy replied, already at the door level. “Get out of my way, will you?” He pushed Bottom aside. When Marguery was safely inside, he said, “You can hear for yourself. Listen!” he commanded.

Demetrius appeared behind Bottom just as Boyle’s people, hiding under the landing craft, started the tape Boyle had provided. From outside came the recorded pleading, broken voice, sobbing in Hakh’hli, “Please! Please help me!” over and over.

“That’s Polly’s voice!” Demmy shouted, leaping toward the door. “Come on, Bottom, let’s see what’s wrong!”

Marguery leaned out the door. “They’re down,” she reported. “They got them both with the sleep darts. Well, Sandy, I guess we’ve done what we had to—”

“Get out of the way of the door,” he ordered.

“What? What do you mean?” She blinked at him. Then, as he toggled the hatch switch and the door slid shut, she jumped away. “Sandy, what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m strapping myself into this seat,” he said calmly. “You can take the one over there.”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t,” he said logically, “you’ll get hurt when we take off.” He turned on the preheater, knowing that almost at once the first faint wisps of hot gas would begin to come out of the thrust jets. He moved uneasily in the pilot seat, hoping the crush wouldn’t be too bad in the acceleration when they took off. The seat had fit Polly perfectly. It was, of course, big enough for two or three like him.

It couldn’t be helped.

He touched the ignitor and opened the fuel throttle the smallest crack he could manage. He heard the hoarse white-noise hiss of the escaping flame, but the ship didn’t even shudder at that low setting. He didn’t expect it to. He only wanted to warn Boyle and the others that the main jets would be on in a moment, and hoped they would have the sense to get out of the way—and would drag the anesthetized Hakh’hli out of the way—before he applied power.

“Sandy! Turn that off!” Marguery shouted.

He said, “I told you to strap yourself in.”

“Stop it! Do you think I’m going to let you do this? I won’t permit it!”

He balanced the flat, heavy gun across his knee. It was pointing in her general direction, and his hand was on the trigger, the safety off.

“You can’t help it,” he pointed out.

She stared at him in horror. “Would you shoot me, then?” she gasped.

He said, “Not seriously. Only in your pretty, pretty leg, if I had to. Just to keep you from coming at me. But I’m not a very good shot, Marguery, and I might easily miss.”