hope you’re wrong.”
“I’ll see they pick you up when the shootin’s over—one way or another.”
The hatch clanked shut. A moment later there was a jar as the skiff dropped away, followed by heavy buffeting in the backwash from the departing mail boat. Retief watched the tiny screen, hands on the manual controls. He was dropping rapidly: forty miles, thirty-nine….
A crimson blip showed on the screen, moving out.
Retief felt sweat pop out on his forehead. The red blip meant heavy radiation from a warhead. Somebody was playing around with an outlawed but by no means unheard of fission weapon. But maybe it was just on a high trajectory and had no connection with the skiff….
Retief altered course to the south. The blip followed.
He checked instrument readings, gripped the controls, watching. This was going to be tricky. The missile bored closer. At five miles Retief threw the light skiff into maximum acceleration, straight toward the oncoming bomb. Crushed back in the padded seat, he watched the screen, correcting course minutely. The proximity fuse should be set for no more than 1000 yards.
At a combined speed of two miles per second, the skiff flashed past the missile, and Retief was slammed violently against the restraining harness in the concussion of the explosion…a mile astern, and harmless.
Then the planetary surface was rushing up with frightening speed. Retief shook his head, kicked in the emergency retro-drive. Points of light arced up from the planet face below. If they were ordinary chemical warheads the skiff’s meteor screens should handle them. The screen flashed brilliant white, then went dark. The skiff flipped on its back. Smoke filled the tiny compartment. There was a series of shocks, a final bone-shaking concussion, then stillness, broken by the ping of hot metal contracting.
* * * *
Coughing, Retief disengaged himself from the shock-webbing. He beat out sparks in his lap, groped underfoot for the hatch and wrenched it open. A wave of hot jungle air struck him. He lowered himself to a bed of shattered foliage, got to his feet…and dropped flat as a bullet whined past his ear.
He lay listening. Stealthy movements were audible from the left.
He inched his way to the shelter of a broad-boled dwarf tree. Somewhere a song lizard burbled. Whining insects circled, scented alien life, buzzed off. There was another rustle of foliage from the underbrush five yards away. A bush quivered, then a low bough dipped.
Retief edged back around the trunk, eased down behind a fallen log. A stocky man in grimy leather shirt and shorts appeared, moving cautiously, a pistol in his hand.
As he passed, Retief rose, leaped the log and tackled him.
They went down together. The stranger gave one short yell, then struggled in silence. Retief flipped him onto his back, raised a fist—
“Hey!” the settler yelled. “You’re as human as I am!”
“Maybe I’ll look better after a shave,” said Retief. “What’s the idea of shooting at me?”
“Lemme up. My name’s Potter. Sorry ’bout that. I figured it was a Flap-jack boat; looks just like ’em. I took a shot when I saw something move. Didn’t know it was a Terrestrial. Who are you? What you doin’ here? We’re pretty close to the edge of the oases. That’s Flap-jack country over there.” He waved a hand toward the north, where the desert lay.
“I’m glad you’re a poor shot. That missile was too close for comfort.”
“Missile, eh? Must be Flap-jack artillery. We got nothing like that.”
“I heard there was a full-fledged war brewing,” said Retief. “I didn’t expect—”
“Good!” Potter said. “We figured a few of you boys from Ivory would be joining up when you heard. You are from Ivory?”
“Yes. I’m—”
“Hey, you must be Lemuel’s cousin. Good night! I pretty near made a bad mistake. Lemuel’s a tough man to explain something to.”
“I’m—”
“Keep your head down. These damn Flap-jacks have got some wicked hand weapons. Come on….” He moved off silently on all fours. Retief followed. They crossed two hundred yards of rough country before Potter got to his feet, took out a soggy bandana and mopped his face.
“You move good for a city man. I thought you folks on Ivory just sat under those domes and read dials. But I guess bein’ Lemuel’s cousin you was raised different.”
“As a matter of fact—”
“Have to get you some real clothes, though. Those city duds don’t stand up on ’Dobe.”
Retief looked down at the charred, torn and sweat-soaked powder-blue blazer and slacks.
“This outfit seemed pretty rough-and-ready back home,” he said. “But I guess leather has its points.”
“Let’s get on back to camp. We’ll just about make it by sundown. And, look. Don’t say anything to Lemuel about me thinking you were a Flap-jack.”
“I won’t, but—”
Potter was on his way, loping off up a gentle slope. Retief pulled off the sodden blazer, dropped it over a bush, added his string tie and followed Potter.
II
“We’re damn glad you’re here, mister,” said a fat man with two revolvers belted across his paunch. “We can use every hand. We’re in bad shape. We ran into the Flap-jacks three months ago and we haven’t made a smart move since. First, we thought they were a native form we hadn’t run into before. Fact is, one of the boys shot one, thinkin’ it was fair game. I guess that was the start of it.” He stirred the fire, added a stick.
“And then a bunch of ’em hit Swazey’s farm here,” Potter said. “Killed two of his cattle, and pulled back.”
“I figure they thought the cows were people,” said Swazey. “They were out for revenge.”
“How could anybody think a cow was folks?” another man put in. “They don’t look nothin’ like—”
“Don’t be so dumb, Bert,” said Swazey. “They’d never seen Terries before. They know better now.”
Bert chuckled. “Sure do. We showed ’em the next time, didn’t we, Potter? Got four.”
“They walked right up to my place a couple days after the first time,” Swazey said. “We were ready for ’em. Peppered ’em good. They cut and run.”
“Flopped, you mean. Ugliest lookin’ critters you ever saw. Look just like a old piece of dirty blanket humpin’ around.”
“It’s been goin’ on this way ever since. They raid and then we raid. But lately they’ve been bringing some big stuff into it. They’ve got some kind of pint-sized airships and automatic rifles. We’ve lost four men now and a dozen more in the freezer, waiting for the med ship. We can’t afford it. The colony’s got less than three hundred able-bodied men.”
“But we’re hanging onto our farms,” said Potter. “All these oases are old sea-beds—a mile deep, solid topsoil. And there’s a couple of hundred others we haven’t touched yet. The Flap-jacks won’t get ’em while there’s a man alive.”
“The whole system needs the food we can raise,” Bert said. “These farms we’re trying to start won’t be enough but they’ll help.”
“We been yellin’ for help to the CDT, over on Ivory,” said Potter. “But you know these Embassy stooges.”
“We heard they were sending some kind of bureaucrat in here to tell us to get out and give the oases to the Flap-jacks,” said Swazey. He tightened his mouth. “We’re waitin’ for him….”
“Meanwhile