“It’s a civil speech,” Tyne commented, when he heard it And other civil speeches followed, each revealing at least one awkward fact about the Rosk visit.

  To begin with, these facts almost passed unnoticed among the general run of humanity.

  After the first wave of shock had passed round Earth, a tide of optimism followed. The real difficulties inherent in the situation only emerged later. Rosks were heroes; most people managed successfully to hide their disappointment at the lack of bug eyes and tentacles in the visitors. Nor did they worry when Tawdell Co Barr revealed that the Roskian political system was a dictatorship under the supreme Ap II Dowl.

  Civility, in fact—an uneasy civility on Earth’s part—was the order of the day. The big ship circled Earth inside the lunar orbit, a handful of Rosks came down and fraternized, speaking either to the councillors of the U.N.C. or over tri-dee to the multitude; or they visited some of the cities of Earth.

  In return for this hospitality, they presented men with microfilm books about natural and social life on Alpha Cen-tauri II, as well as specimens of their literature and art, and preserved samples of their flora. But no* Earthman was allowed to enter their ship. Scientists, politicians, celebrities, newsmen, all were politely refused admittance, and provided with acceptable explanations.

  “Our ship is as inviting as a charnel house,” Co Barr admitted, gravely. “Many of our people died on the journey here. Many are dying now, from dietary or sunlight deficiencies, or from mental illnesses brought about by lifelong incarceration. For we have been exiled for two exhausting generations in the night of space. We can go no further. All we ask, all we beg of you, in your mercy, is a place in which we may rest and recover from our ordeal.”

  A place…But what place? At first it seemed an almost impossible question; the U.N.C. convened practically without a break for weeks on end. For the first time in centuries, all nations were united—in a determination not to allow the Rosks onto their territory.

  In the end, two decisions emerged. First, that the Rosks should be granted an Earth base. Second, where it should be.

  Both answers were inevitable. Even Tyne, from his back seat in the debate, saw them coming. In the human attitude to the Rosks lay both fear and envy; even if mercy should permit it, it was impossible to demand of the Rosks that they leave the solar system again. Such a move might provoke them to defiance of man. They might in desperation fight for the land they required. And what weapons they might possess was unknown; indeed, what gifts their science might yield upon more intimate acquaintance was a matter for general speculation.

  As for the site of the base, it had to be in an equatorial region. Earth’s equatorial belt was about as warm as Alpha ITs temperate zone. A site in the middle of Africa might be too inconvenient; a small island might prove too self-contained. The increasingly mighty nation of Brazil would tolerate no Rosks near her borders. After many squawkings, orations, protests and uses of veto an area of eighty square miles just south of Padang in Sumatra was finally ceded as a Rosk base.

  “For this small gift our gratitude is immeasurable,” Ap II Dowl, making one of his rare personal visits, said. There were many who considered his choice of adjective unfortunate—or deliberate.

  So the Rosks landed on Earth in their massive ship. It soon became clear that they never intended to leave again; they had had enough of space.

  Earth was unwilling to play permanent host. The Rosks, multiplying behind a perimeter they had rapidly fortified, represented a threat no less ominous for being unformulated. Yet how to evict them? It seemed to Earth’s statesmen that the only possible line of action was to nag the Rosks into leaving.

  Unfortunately, the more they scratched the sore, the more it itched.

  Nation after nation sent its representatives into Sumatra, to see what could be seen, and to pick up any Roskian secrets, if possible. In the big U.N.C. council chambers in Padang, Man and Rosk haggled and talked, demanded and conceded, bluffed and argued. The situation was at once funny and tragic. That old hope of profiting other than materially by the contact of two races was quite lost to view.

  Except on diplomatic errands, Earthmen were not allowed into Rosk base, Rosks were not allowed outside it—yet in practice spies on both sides infringed these laws. Padang became full of spies: nation spying against nation, race against race. The situation became more complex still when, in an attempt to ingratiate themselves, the U.N.C. ceded the small Lunar Area 101 to the visitors, to allow them to test out their four interplanetary ships.

  “This move touches my heart,” Tawdell Co Barr declared. “We came as strangers; you welcome us as friends. Together, Rosk and man will build a new and lasting civilization.”

  By this time, such fair words rang hollow.

  Whether Tawdell meant it or not, the hopes he expressed were the hopes of many men, everywhere. Unfortunately, this was Tawdell’s last public speech! He disappeared into the Rosk base and was not heard of again. It was believed in diplomatic circles that the yellow-haired Rosk had been too friendly towards man for his overlords’ liking. Ap II Dowl’s dictatorship, which had been formed in the harsh environs of the ship, now took the reins. His henchmen sat at the council tables, and relations between the two sides slowly deteriorated.

  The spy patrol in which Murray, Allan and Tyne served was only one instance of that deterioration.

  II

  Something like a lemon. No, a melon. No, it was stretching; a cucumber. No, it was bending; a banana. No, curling; a slice of melon. No, a melon again. Or was it—it was all distorted—was it a face? It rippled, solidified. It took on a firm jaw and eyes staring fixedly down. It became Murray Mumford’s face, seen through a haze of weakness.

  “Oh,” groaned Tyne. He was in a bunk which still rippled at the edges, staring up at Murray.

  “How is it?” Murray asked. “Feeling better?”

  “Drink of water,” Tyne said.

  He gulped it down when it was brought His head cleared, he remembered the incident at 101, the numbing blow on his spacesuit “Where are we, Murray?” he asked.

  “One hour out from Lunar, unpursued, heading back home,” Murray told him. “I was too quick for the Rosks. I thought you were never coming round. How do you feel?”

  “This is the best part of me,” Tyne said ironically, raising his gloved left hand. Beneath the glove were substitute steel fingers and palm; his real hand had been amputated after an air crash several years ago.

  “I don’t think there’s much more wrong with you,” Murray said, “apart from a few bruises. The Rosks fired on us. A bullet hit your suit glancingly on the shoulder; luckily no joints split, and shock absorbers took most of the blow. How do you do it—magic rabbit’s foot?”

  “How did I get here? Didn’t I black out?”

  “You blacked out all right, went down like a felled ox. I part-dragged, part-carried you here,” Murray said. “Fortunately, as you went down I managed to shoot out the second Rosk searchlight.”

  “Thanks, Murray,” Tyne said, and only then, with a rush of guilt, remembered his friend. “Where’s Allan?”

  Murray turned away, drawing his thick brows together as if in pain. “I’m afraid Allan didn’t make it,” he said quietly. “How do you mean, didn’t make it?”

  Swinging back to the bunk, as though he had suddenly found the words he wanted, Murray said, “Look, Tyne, this may be difficult for you to take. Things got out of hand back there. It was a nasty spot—you know that. When you went down, I grabbed you and got you over one shoulder. Allan shouted out to me to run for it and leave you there. It must have been a moment of panic, I suppose. He wanted to leave you for the Rosk. I told him to cover my retreat, and the next thing I knew, he was waving his gun in my face, telling me he’d shoot me if I did not drop you!”

  “Allan!” Tyne protested. “Allan said that?”

  “Have you ever panicked?” Murray asked. “There are situations where your moorings break loose, and you don’t know what you are saying or doing. When I saw Allan’s gun in my face, and felt the Rosks coming up behind, I—I lost control of what I was doing, too.”

  He turned his head again, his big body tense in a way Tyne had never seen it before. The man on the bunk felt his mouth go dry as he asked, “What did you do, Murray?”

  Space slid by outside, sly, snakey, cold as time at a crisis, ignoring Murray as he said, “I shot Allan. Right in the stomach.”

  Tyne was bound down on his bunk. He could only wave his steel fist and his flesh fist, impotently.

  ’There was nothing else to do,” Murray said savagely, clutching one of the waving wrists. “Listen to me, Tyne, should I have left you there, out cold? We weren’t supposed to be in Area 101—we had no legal right. Would you rather have come to with a group of killer Rosks round you? I did the only thing I could. Allan Cunliffe mutinied; as captain, I dealt with it on the spot. There’s no more to it than that.”

  “But I know Allan,” Tyne yelled. “How could he—he wouldn’t—he’s not the sort—”

  “We none of us know each other,” Murray shouted back. His face was dark, suffused with a feverish look of excitement. “We don’t even know ourselves. In a moment of crisis, something takes over from us—our id, or something. That’s what happened to Allan. NoW shut up, and think things over till you see I did the only possible thing.”

  He strode forward into the cabin, slamming the door behind him, leaving Tyne alone.

  Tyne lay where he was, churning the whole thing over in his brain. He could believe neither that his friend was dead, nor that he had lost control of himself. Yet he could not do other than believe; after all, a submerged rivalry for promotion had always existed between Allan and Murray; perhaps in those frightening seconds in the dark, it had come to a head.

  Once before they landed, Murray returned to the crew room, to look in at Tyne. His manner was still tense.

  “How are you feeling now?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to see you,” Tyne said grimly. “I’ll see you at the court of inquiry. Till then, keep out of my way.”

  His face setting into harsh lines, Murray came across to the bunk and put his hands over Tyne’s throat.

  “Watch what you’re saying and who you’re saying it to,” he said. “I’ve told you the facts. I don’t like them any better than you do. If Allan had not suddenly turned coward, he’d be here with us now.”

  Tyne brought his steel left hand over, clasping the other’s wrist, squeezing, squeezing. Letting out a gasp of pain, Murray pulled his arm away; a bracelet of red flesh encircled it. He allowed Tyne one look of malice, then went back and shut himself in the cabin. It was the last Tyne would see of him for a surprisingly long while.

  When they landed, Tyne lay patiently for a time, then bellowed for Murray to come and release him. Webbed straps, fastening under the bunk, ensured that he could not release himself. No answer came to his shouts. After twenty minutes, the rear air lock opened, and two Sumatran medical orderlies entered with a stretcher.

  From them, Tyne gathered that he was back at Patrol H.Q. Murray had phoned straight through to the hospital, telling them to collect him from the scout for examination.

  “I’ll come round for examination later,” Tyne said, testily. “Right now, I have to report to the Commander.”

  “Don’t worry; the Commander has already been informed about the state of your health,” one of the orderlies said.

  Despite Tyne’s protests, the man was adamant. From his replies, it seemed as if Murray had cast some doubts on Tyne’s sanity. So Tyne was carted to the military hospital on a stretcher.

  Procedure there was no more rapid than in any other hospital. It took the doctors a long while to decide that Tyne Leslie was sane but savage, bruised but sound. In between the examinations were periods of waiting. All this, Tyne thought angrily, smoking his way through a packet of mescahales, was Murray’s doing: the scout captain had fixed this so that Tyne’s report was delayed. Well, he would fix Murray. Murray was going to be in trouble.

  After two hours, buttoning up his uniform, he hurried over to Squadron Office. There a surprise awaited him. Murray had not reported in from his mission. Murray had not been seen. Suspicion and curiosity brewing in his mind, Tyne hurried over to the billets where the squadron lived. Nobody there had seen Murray either; his room was empty, none of his kit disturbed. Over his bed, a pretty half-caste girl stared saucily, blankly, from her photograph. Written in babyish letters across it were the words “Love from Mina.”

  The sun was gathering its full, mid-morning glory about it. Ignoring it, Tyne ran to the main gate to question the traffic cop on duty under his concrete umbrella. Yes, Captain Mumford had left in a staff car just after breakfast, heading for town.

  “Thanks,” Tyne said. He thumbed a lift into town himself, riding the five miles of dust and sunshine in grim impatience.

  He knew he should have reported in properly before leaving camp; above all he should have reported Allan’s death. But in an obscure way he felt time to be vital. Murray had inexplicably disappeared; it would be easier to find him while the trail was hot. The time was 10.50.

  Padang’was one of the most interesting cities on Earth. To every layer of its life, the nearness of the Rosk base gave an agreeable frisson of excitement. The feeling that something gigantic might happen any day hovered over its hot, scented streets. It was an international city. Among the native Indonesians and Chinese moved U.N.C. delegates from all over the Earth, or their wives, mistresses or followers. Street vendors hawked national emblems of every conceivable kind, from rising suns to leeks. It was also an inter-system city, the first on Earth, for Roskian U.N.C. delegates, prominently displaying their lapel permits, strolled through the city or sat at restaurants. It was, above all, a boom city. Along the gay Tida App, skyscrapers rose. Among the palms, the shanties, the picturesque two-storey streets: solid blocks of flats rising. Above the crows: fifty different flags drooping in the heat.

  After the politicians came the business men; after the business men, the underworld. By winking through your hotel window, you could buy yourself a lawyer, a woman or a long float, face down, in the sewers.

  Dropped in the centre of town, outside the post office, Tyne slipped through the great undercover market, and headed up Bukit Besar. He entered the Merdeka Hotel. It seemed to him the obvious first place to look for Murray. The Merdeka had been the nearest equivalent to home for Allan, Tyne and Murray. They had grown to love its efficient service, its poor food, its constant bustle.

  The place was full now, mainly with the sort of minor diplomatic staff Tyne had once been; nervous, cheery men downing their whiskies and keeping out of the sun—and waiting, waiting and watching. Pushing through the hall, Tyne went round the back, to the back stairs.

  He thought he saw Amir at the end of the passage, looking round and then dodging out of sight. But that could not be. Amir, the brightest boy on the staff, would have no reason to hide in that way; he had become almost a personal friend of theirs.

  Climbing the back stairs, fishing his key out of his pocket as he went, Tyne reached Room Six. This was the room Allan, Murray and Tyne shared. Had shared…Unlocking the door, he went in.

  The immense influx of foreigners had caused a housing shortage in Padang. Hotel rooms were impossible to find; only by paying through the nose for this one all the time did they enjoy the privilege of using it at weekends.

  A hurricane had hit Room Six.

  Tyne whistled. All their kit, their civilian clothes, everything, had been flung into the middle of the floor. Someone had searched the place, thoroughly, in a hurry. Who? Why?

  “I don’t like it,” Tyne said aloud. He went and shouted over the banisters for service.

  As he waited, he stood in the middle of the room, thinking. He was involved in a mystery. Something odd had happened on the moon—he had not heard the truth about that, he felt sure. Now something odd had happened here. Why had Murray deserted? Where had he gone? A numbing suspicion that he had murdered Allan overtook Tyne. But why?

  He went back onto the landing and shouted for service again.

  Hatred for Murray filled him. It reached back, embracing Murray-in-the-past. The big man’s easy manner now seemed no longer likeable, but the sign of a boundless superiority. His ready, cheerful smile became false, the arbitrary grimace of a murderer. Yet supposing he had killed Allan…he could so easily have told Tyne that the Rosks had shot him—Tyne, after all, was unconscious when it happened. Nothing was sure. Rather, one thing was sure: Tyne wanted to get hold of Murray and wring the truth out of him.

  He went out onto the landing to bellow for service again, and nearly bumped into a little maid.

  “Where’s Amir?” Tyne asked.

  “Amir has a day off today.”

  “What? First time I’ve ever known him have a day off.”

  “Amir is not so well today. Has a bad head and takes medicine. What I can get for you?”

  Suddenly, he wanted nobody to see into the room. He felt weak, tired, hungry; this was his first man hunt.

  “Will you bring me some breakfast, please?”

  “Breakfast is long finish, sir.”

  “Make it lunch then, anything.”

  Going back into the room, he locked the door on the inside. He started methodically tidying the muddle on the floor. It hurt to fold up Allan’s belongings, knowing he would not want them again. Some of Murray’s civilian clothes were missing, but a uniform was here. So.

  Lunch came promptly, a denationalized dish of chopped sausages, cabbage and rice, followed by tasteless plankton jelly. A big new plankton plant down the coast at Semapang provided more and more food for the island; as yet, its products were more nourishing than appetizing.

 

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