“Keep firing, Greer,” Straut snapped, almost with a feeling of triumph. The thing was impervious to artillery; now who was going to say it was no threat?
“How about the mortars, sir?” Greer said. “We can drop a few rounds right inside it.”
“All right, try that before the lid drops.”
And what we’ll try next, I don’t know, he thought.
*
The mortar fired with a muffled thud. Straut watched tensely. Five seconds later, the object erupted in a gout of pale pink debris. The lid rocked, pinkish fluid running down its opalescent surface. A second burst, and a third. A great fragment of the menacing claw hung from the branch of a tree a hundred feet from the ship.
Straut grabbed up the phone. “Cease fire!”
Lieberman stared in horror at the carnage.
The telephone rang. Straut picked it up.
“General Straut,” he said. His voice was firm. He had put an end to the threat.
“Straut, we’ve broken the message,” General Margrave said excitedly. “It’s the damnedest thing I ever....”
Straut wanted to interrupt, announce his victory, but Margrave was droning on.
“... strange sort of reasoning, but there was a certain analogy. In any event, I’m assured the translation is accurate. Here’s how it reads in English....”
Straut listened. Then he carefully placed the receiver back on the hook.
Lieberman stared at him.
“What did it say?”
Straut cleared his throat. He turned and looked at Lieberman for a long moment before answering.
“It said, ‘Please take good care of my little girl.’”
The Chasers
By Daniel F. Galouye
Civilizations must make sense somehow. But was this one the gaudy, impossible exception?
*
As the dust drifted clear of the ship’s landing skids, at least two things became obvious:
One—although they had missed the city (if that’s what it was) by miles, they had nevertheless managed to slam down near one of the numerous rural estates.
Two—the landscape would be crawling with Zaortian Fuzzy Tails for a long while to come. They were still pouring out of hatches sprung open by the crunching impact.
Kent Cassidy untangled himself from the control column and plucked one of the Fuzzy Tails from his neck. The creature scampered around until it found the ruptured hatch, then scurried through to join the squealing zoological exodus.
“There goes ten thousand credits’ worth of cargo,” groaned Gene Mason. His stout form was slumped in dejection before the view port.
Cassidy sniffed the refreshing air that was drifting into the ship. “Any idea where we are?”
“After the directional stabilizer blew, we made three blind jumps, all in the direction of Galactic Center. We could be anywhere between Zaort Seven and the Far Rim.”
“Hey, look,” said Cassidy.
From the hatchway, the sumptuous estate sprawled nearby, its many gabled manor closed off behind a high wire fence. Cassidy squinted, but failed to recognize the bold, flowing architectural style.
A small, bent figure clung to the wire netting of the fence. He was shouting at the ship, but his excited words were no match for the decompression hisses of the auxiliary drive.
“Humanoid?” Mason suggested.
“Human, I’d say.” Cassidy gestured toward the gear locker. “Better break out the translator.”
In baggy trousers and sagging blouse, the man raced back and forth behind the fence—the picture of frustrated anger. However, large, doleful eyes, complemented by a bald head and huge, pendulous ear lobes, belied his furious actions.
Presently the squeals of the Fuzzy Tails trailed off in the distance and the auxiliary drive quieted with a final sigh. And now the native’s shouts rang out distinct and loud:
“Quick! From here get you! Shoo! Scram! Or out there I’ll come and apart tear you!”
“It’s English!” Mason exclaimed.
“Of a sort. Archaic, but understandable. And not at all friendly.”
Mason scratched his blunt chin. “Guess we’re not too far off the beaten star paths, eh?”
Cassidy could find no grounds for challenging this observation as they started down the ladder—not until he looked overhead and saw three suns shining in the same sky. As far as he knew, there were no settled trinary systems.
Beyond the fence the native, a wisp of a man was still fuming. “The hell away from here get! You I’m warning—no closer come!”
Mason displayed a half frown. “He’s sure a sour cuss.”
“You stay with the ship,” said Cassidy. “I’ll see what’s fouling his tubes.”
*
Before Cassidy reached the fence, his pet Fuzzy Tail came scampering from behind a bush. It clambered up his trousers and wrapped itself around his neck. This encouraged the speculation that perhaps the shipment of Tails could be bartered for repairs to the stabilizer—if there was a local space technology, and if they could corral the animals.
The native grew even more frenzied now as Cassidy drew up before him.
“Trespasser! Back get! My property this be! Scram! You I’ll kill!”
The Fuzzy Tail uncoiled itself from around Cassidy’s neck. Perching on his shoulder, it fussed back at the native in chirping, excited tones. It not only acted at times as though it owned Cassidy, but it also exercised a personal responsibility for his welfare.
“Quiet!” Cassidy snapped out.
It caught both the Fuzzy Tail and the old man by surprise. The animal bounded for cover while the native rocked back on his heels.
“Be you not just a—little bit afraid?” His eyebrows mounted the wrinkled expanse of his forehead.
The nearby hedge rustled and parted to let through a dark-haired girl whose tanned skin suggested accustomed exposure to the multiple sunlight. Wearing a belted tunic that lacked inches of reaching her knees, she confronted the old man calmly.
“It’s all about what, Papa?” she asked, with a trace of an amused smile.
“Trespassers! On our property, Riva! The alarm sound! Scat! To the woods take! Or a dead duck you be!”
“Now, Papa,” she chided. Then, through the fence, “Him you musn’t mind. It’s only his duty he’s attending to.”
From the distance, Cassidy had suspected the man was of Terran descent. Now, with Riva in the picture, he was certain this world was stocked either by intent or accident with true humans.
“We’re from Terra,” he said.
She frowned. “Ter-ra?”
“Earth. The original world—”
Incomprehension flooded her even features. But her confusion was only temporary. “Let’s play.”
It