Meet Me at Infinity by James Tiptree Jr. Read Free Book Online Page B

let us up.”
    Sylla was coding frantically, his crest fur ridged. The cargo lock changed.
    “If this is another—” Quent rasped. He released the lever and began to web up one-handedly, laser ready.
    Imray’s hand smacked down and several invisible mountains fell on them as the Rosenkrantz careened off-planet.
    “Back side moon, Syll,” Imray wheezed.
    “All right. What goes?”
    “Drakes,” said Pomeroy.
    “You trying to go on with this?”
    Svensk was scrambling out of the shaft, headed for his console. He brushed against Quent’s laser. On the screens the moon was ballooning up. They rushed across the terminator into darkness.
    “Drakes is real, son,” Imray told him. “Catch ship on dirt—we finish. Is maybe judgment on us. Boys, they smell us?”
    “I rather think they may not.” Svensk’s clack seemed to have been replaced by a cultivated Gal Fed accent. “Morgan sensed them just below the horizon and our emissions should have decayed by the time they get around.”
    Frowning, Quent watched Imray braking to stability over the dark craters of the moon whose lighted side had guided his ground search.
    “They’re coming around,” said Pomeroy. “Listen.”
    A confused cawing filled the bridge. Quent made out the word kavrot in coarse Galactic. A kavrot was a repulsive small flying reptile that infested dirty freighters.
    “Talking about us,” Pomeroy grinned. His goatee no longer waggled. “Kavrots, that’s us. Doesn’t sound like they know we’re here, though.” He cut the voder.
    “Braking emissions,” said Svensk. “It appears they’re going down.”
    Quent pushed up and moved in behind the lizard, laser in hand. Svensk did not look up,
    “If this is another gig—” He studied the displays. Nobody paid attention.
    “Captain?” Sylla’s fist was up.
    Imray grunted and the Rosenkrantz began to glide silently on her docking impellors down toward the sunlit peaks at the moon’s eastern horizon. Sylla’s paw beckoned Imray left, pushed right, dipping, banking as the mountains rose around them. His fist chopped down, Imray cut the power and they floated under a peak outlined in crystal fires. They were just shielded from the field on the planet below.
    “Last pass coming up,” said Svensk. “Splendid. They’ve blown up the field antennae. That eliminates our trace. Sitting down, now.”
    “From which one deduces?” asked Sylla.
    “From which one deduces that they either do not know we are here or do not care or have some other plan. Possibly a trap?”
    “First one best,” said Imray.
    “They’re going to send out a party.” Pomeroy patched in and they heard the harsh voices now augmented by clangings.
    Quent stowed the lasers by his console. “Are they Human?”
    Imray nodded gloomily. “Is a judgment, boys. They going to mess up.”
    “Eating the natives?”
    “Maybe better so,” Imray growled. “No—we don’t know exact what they do. They come here once only, burn two farms, go quick. Why they come back?”
    “You will recall my hypothesis at the time,” said Svensk.
    “Heheh!” Sylla made a frying sound.
    “Yes. Crude but effective.” Svensk nodded. “The adobe shells should make excellent hearths and the heat developed would be adequate to refine out most of the metals.”
    Pomeroy caught Quent’s look.
    “You saw the metal in their houses? All woven in, even on their clothes. Every house is loaded, accumulation of centuries. Haven’t a cat’s use for it—purely religious. They pick it up on ritual collecting trips. Spicules, nuggets, it’s all scattered around in grains in alluvial rubble. You couldn’t mine it. Point is, there’s tantalite, osmiridium, maybe some palladium. Big price around here. When we found those farms burned, Svensk noticed they’d been at the ashes. Metal was gone. He figured they’d come back for more, burn the town out. And the damnfool Sops run in when they’re scared.” He grimaced, not comically.
    “Why