The Devils Asteroid | Page 9

you! The ship's mine, and I'm going to take off at dawn."
The three discomfited hands tramped away again. Inside the control room, Parr spoke to his shaggy followers, who grinned and twinkled like so many gnomes doing mischief.
"They won't dare rush us," he said, "but two of you--Ling and Izak--stay at the door with those guns. Dead sure you can still use 'em?... You, Ruba, come here to the controls. You say you once flew space-craft."
Ruba's broad, coarse hand ruffled the bushy hair that grew on his almost browless head. "Once," he agreed dolefully. "Now I--many thing I don't remember." His face, flat-nosed and blubber-lipped, grew bleak and plaintive as he gazed upon instruments he once had mastered.
"You'll remember," Parr assured him vehemently. "I never flew anything but a short-shot pleasure cruiser, but I'm beginning to dope things out. We'll help each other, Ruba. Don't you want to get away from here, go home?"
"Home!" breathed Ruba, and the ears of the others--pointed, some of those ears, and all of them hairy--pricked up visibly at that word.
"Well, there you are," Parr said encouragingly. "Sweat your brains, lad. We've got until dawn. Then away we go."
"You will never manage," slurred the skipper from the corner where the Martian captives, bound securely, sprawled under custody of a beast-man with a lever bar for a club. "Thesse animalss have not mental powerr--"
"Shut up, or I'll let that guard tap you," Parr warned him. "They had mental power enough to fool you all over the shop. Come on, Ruba. Isn't this the rocket gauge? Please remember how it operates!"
The capture of the ship had been easy, so easy. The guard had been well kept only until the skipper and his party had gone out of sight toward the human village. Nobody ever expected trouble from beast-men, and the watch on board had not dreamed of a rush until they were down and secure. But this--the rationalization of intricate space-machinery--was by contrast a doleful obstacle. "Please remember," Parr pleaded with Ruba again.
And so for hours. And at last, prodded and cajoled and bullied, the degenerated intelligence of Ruba had partially responded. His clumsy paws, once so skilful, coaxed the mechanism into life. The blasts emitted preliminary belches. The whole fabric of the ship quivered, like a sleeper slowly wakening.
"Can you get her nose up, Ruba?" Parr found himself able to inquire at last.
"Huh, boss," spoke Ling from his watch at the door. "Come. I see white thing."
Parr hurried across to look.
The white thing was a tattered shirt, held aloft on a stick. From the direction of the village came several figures, Martian and Terrestrial. Parr recognized the bearer of the flag of truce--it was Varina Pemberton. With her walked the three Martian hands whom he had warned off, their tentacles lifted to ask for parley, their weapons sheathed at their belts. Sadau was there, and Shanklin.
"Ready, guns," Parr warned Ling and Izak. "Stand clear of us, out there!" he yelled. "We're going to take off."
"Fitzhugh Parr," called back Varina Pemberton, "you must not."
"Oh, must I not?" he taunted her. "Who's so free with her orders? I've got a gun myself this time. Better keep your distance."
The others stopped at the warning, but the girl came forward. "You wouldn't shoot a woman," she announced confidently. "Listen to me."
Parr looked back to where Ruba was fumbling the ship into more definite action. "Go on and talk," he bade her. "I give you one minute."
"You've got to give up this foolish idea," she said earnestly. "It can't succeed--even if you take off."
"No if about it. We're doing wonders. Make your goodbyes short. I wish you joy of this asteroid, ma'am."
"Suppose you do get away," she conceded. "Suppose, though it's a small, crowded ship, you reach Earth and land safely. What then?"
"I'll blow the lid off this dirty Martian Joke," he told her. "Exhibit these poor devils, to show what the Martians do to Terrestrials they convict. And then--"
"Yes, and then!" she cut in passionately. "Don't you see, Parr? Relations between Mars and Earth are at breaking point now. They have been for long. The Martians are technically within their rights when they dump us here, but you'll be a pirate, a thief, a fugitive from justice. You can cause a break, perhaps war. And for what?"
"For getting away, for giving freedom to my only friends on this asteroid," said Parr.
"Freedom?" she repeated. "You think they can be free on Earth? Can they face their wives or mothers as they are now--no longer men?"
"Boss," said Ling suddenly and brokenly, "she tell true. No. I won't go home."
It was like cold water, that sudden rush of ghastly truth upon Parr. The girl was right. His victory would be the saddest of defeats. He looked around him at the beast-men who had