Fear that man Read Free Page A

where-by all rights-we should never even be able to imagine each other’s existence!”
        “I guess you’re angry about the collision,” Sam began, “and-”
        The big man allowed his mouth to drop to his ankles and bounce back to a more respectable level just below the chin. “You guess I’m angry about the collision! You guess I” He turned to Hurkos. “He guesses I’m angry about the collision,” he repeated as if the stupidity of the remark was the most glaring understatement ever pronounced and had to be shared and discussed to be believed.
        “I-” Sam began once more.
        “Of course I’m angry about the collision! Damn furious is what I am! You hyperspaced without checking to see if there was another ship in hyperspace within the danger limit. Your field locked in mine and jolted us out into Real Space. What would have happened if our ships had struck instead of just our fields?”
        “That’s rather unlikely,” Hurkos said. “After all, the fields are five miles in diameter, but the ships are far, far smaller than that. The odds against our ships striking in so vast a galaxy-”
        “A moron spewing logic!” the big stranger shouted. “A real, honest moron shouting scientific gobbleygook at me like it really meant something to him! This is amazing.” He slapped one hammy hand against his forehead in a snow of amazement.
        “If you’ll just listen a moment…” Sam sighed, seeing the big man’s lips open for comment even before he had said three words.
        “Listen? I’m all ears. I’m just all ears for your excuse! Some excuse that could possibly explain your imbecilic reactions, and-”
        “Wait a minute!” Hurkos shouted gleefully. “I know you!”
        The stranger stopped talking abruptly.
        “Mikos. You’re Mikos, the poet. Gnossos Mikos!”
        The rage was swept away in the wash of a wide grin, and the grin became a flush of embarrassment. The huge fist dropped away from the forehead and became a hand again-a hand that was abruptly stuck out to Hurkos as a sign of friendliness. “And I haven’t had the pleasure,” the giant said politely.
        Hurkos took the hand, shook it vigorously.
        For one short moment, Sam felt as if he were going to collapse. Fear of the colossus had been the only thing holding him up, a fear whose vibrant force coursed through his quivering legs and straightened him with its current. Now, the fear gone, he wanted nothing so much as to fold up his legs, tuck them under his belly, and fall onto his face. Somehow, he held himself erect.
        “My name is Hurkos. First and last. I’m a nobody, but I read your poetry. I love it. Especially “The Savagery of Old.”
        “That was a damn grizzly one though,” Gnossos said, beaming.
        “Spill the blood across the savage face;
        Raise the ax, the bow, the gun, the mace-”
        Gnossos finished the quatrain:
        “Scream the scream that breaks apart the chest.
        Killing is the thing you know best.”
        The grin on the poet’s face was even wider.
        “All the world’s a stage for plundering…” Hurkos began the next stanza.
        “Hmmph!” Sam manged to cough without being too conspicuous.
        “Oh! Mr. Mikos, this is-”
        “Gnossos,” the poet interrupted. “Call me Gnossos.”
        Hurkos was more than pleased with the offer of a first name basis. “Gnossos, this is a recently-made friend of mine. Sam, meet Gnossos Mikos, the empire’s most famous and most literate poet.”
        The giant hand came forth, engulfed Sam’s own in a warm, dry embrace that almost crushed every bone up to his wrist. “Glad to meet you, Sam!” He seemed to mean it. “Now what malfunction of your vessel caused this recent unpleasantry?”
        “I-”
        “Perhaps I can help you repair it.”
        Later, after the poet had heard the story of the missing trade names, the amnesia, the memory blank, the strange