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another system. It might have been sent to... observe... the progress of
Stylaster's plan. The
Cicindel has been in the system for some time. It has not come to
Iniomi. But it has landed once. On Pallant."
"Now there's a thing," I said. "The Gallacellans have their little games to
play as well."
It dawned on me then how unfair it was of me to expect Ecdyon to know all
things
Gallacellan. Did I have encyclopaedic knowledge of human affairs? True, I
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could give a quick rundown of who was liable to play what dirty trick on who
within the foreseeable future, but I was certainly not privy to the inside
information only to the rumours and the speculations. What would I tell an
alien who asked about Caradoc's precise plans for furthering its commercial
stranglehold on known space? What could
I tell him? And Ecdyon, despite his association with Stylaster, was less
likely to be in a position of omniscience than I, with my proximity to
Charlot. I wanted to apologise to him, but I couldn't see how to do it without
a lengthy explanation of why I was sorry. And the ladder was in position.
There was no time.
I never did get to give Ecdyon that apology.
It didn't prove to be difficult to get into the
Varsovien.
Any child could have done it. The airlock was vast it accommodated all four of
us easily. Personally, I
wasn't happy about all four of us boarding her. I would much rather Eve and
perhaps Ecdyon too had stayed in the maiden. But Maslax reckoned to need them
both Ecdyon to help me sort out what was what, and Eve to hold as the hostage
I
would least like to see shot to pieces. We all came up the ladder, and we all
entered the ship.
Beyond the lock there was a cylindrical chamber which appeared to have no
other door save the lock itself. On the wall was a panel with a whole sequence
of buttons. I say "wall" although the room was oriented at right angles to the
natural direction of gravity obviously the cylinder was supposed to be stood
on end with a single circular wall. But the ship was laid on its side. We had
to crouch down and crane our necks sideways to inspect the writing beside the
buttons.
"What does it say?" I asked Ecdyon then, with sudden doubt: "You can read,
can't you?"
"I can read," he said. "This is an elevator shaft. One of the buttons is
labelled
'control level.' Shall I press it?"
"Go ahead," said Maslax.
Ecdyon pressed one of the buttons. Nothing happened.
"It's all switched off," said Eve.
"Is there an activator button?" I asked the Gallacellan.
"This one here is marked only with a symbol," he said. "I do not understand
the symbol. Shall I press it?"
"Might as well," I said. "If it isn't the activator it won't have any effect,
will it?"
Ecdyon pressed the button, and we fell.
For once, I'd been thinking just half an instant ahead of my actions. Even as
I told
Ecdyon to press the button I was realising that when the elevator was
activated the artificial grav-field would come into play. Then down would very
rapidly become sideways, and we would all end up in a heap on the tail-end of
the cylindrical chamber.
As we fell, I was all ready to grab Maslax's gun and blast a hole in his left
arm just below the elbow. It would have to be a real trick-shot, but with the
wind to help me I
thought I could pull it off. But I failed. Even as Maslax fell, his hand
clutched more tightly around the gun. He hadn't taken his finger away from the
stud. It went off.
I was already reaching for him, but in the split second while his hand
convulsed, the wind realised what was happening, and I snatched my hand away.
The beam barely touched the gauntlet of my suit, and didn't do any real
damage.
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Ecdyon was not so lucky. He intercepted the beam with his upper torso.
Maslax relaxed his grip almost instantly, and the beam cut out. The suit gave
the Gallacellan a lot of protection, and it no doubt saved his life, but he
was literally writhing in pain on the floor. His flailing limbs caught me in
the midriff and threw me backward, robbing me of all the thin hope I retained
of being able to disarm Maslax in the confusion. Eve was already crumpled up
against the wall.
Maslax was the first to his feet. He was almost screaming.
"You should have warned me," he whined, and the note of hysteria was starkly
clear in his voice. "That was your fault. I didn't mean to shoot him. I
didn't!"
I knelt over Ecdyon, trying to get some idea of the damage. The wound on his
flesh was blue-black, but so far as I could see there was little leakage of
blood (I pre-
sumed Gallacellans had blood). He stopped writhing within the minute, and
sounds came out of his hind mouth. He was trying to talk, but nothing was
getting through except clicks and whistles, as though he couldn't make up his
mind whether to groan in Gallacellan or in English.
Eventually in a matter of minutes he quieted. I peered through the visor of
his suit, and I saw him deliberately blink his eyes.
"He's alive," said Maslax, still with the high-pitched tone in his voice. "I
didn't kill him."
"Are you sure you have the guts to murder twenty-five million people at one
stroke?" I asked him sourly, as Eve knelt to help me get Ecdyon to his feet.
Ecdyon tried to say something. It came out garbled, but English.
"Say again," I said to him, gently.
"I said: the air is .. ." He didn't manage to finish. But I nodded to signal
that I
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