Space Gypsies Read Free Page A

even milliseconds longer, the yacht would have been a total wreck in space. Even now the engine room was not a place in which it was safe to move about. Ketch got out into the corridor and seemed to shake himself.
    “A very tight moment,” he said wryly. “And I don’t mean only what we ran away from. I include what we ran away with —this damage! I hope I can patch things up!”
    Howell said shortly, “We’d better set the Marintha down somewhere before we try that. What worries me is that they made beast-noises at us, and we didn’t answer. So then they made a human noise, and we answered, and instantly they shot at us. The human voice was a test, a shibboleth, a trap, to see if we were people. And we were, so they tried to kill us. Evidently they don’t like people. But that means there are people here! And if this is typical of space-encounters, why the people are as likely to shoot on sight as whoever or whatever is in the ship we saw!”
    Karen said incredulously, “People? Here?”
    “And fighting people,” Howell told her. “That slug-shaped ship had a weapon to fight with. They must have something—the people we were supposed to be—to fight back with. This is a very nasty mess!”
    “But if there are people here, and if we can get in touch with them,” said Karen hopefully, “they might help us fix the drive that’s damaged. Or maybe we can help them somehow…”
    “Unfortunately,” said Howell, “our friends of a little while ago are tricky. They proved it. If we came upon people here, they might think we were another trick.” Then he said impatiently, “Just see what you can find out about the damage, Ketch, without taking any chances. I’d like to get well away from where we were shot at, then break out, pick a Sol-type sun and run for it, and get to ground on an Earth-type planet and, if possible, under cover while we make what repairs we can. Maybe I sound scared. I am. We’ve believed there was no other intelligent race in the galaxy. Now we know there’s at least one and probably two. It isn’t good!”
    “Very true,” said Ketch sardonically. “We know there’s at least one other race, because it challenged us. And we know it’s civilized because it tried to kill us!”
    He brushed soot and insulator particles off his clothing.
    “I’ll look in the door here and see what I can find out about the damage while risking nothing.”
    Howell went back to the engine room. He stared at the unregistering instruments and the blank dark vision-screens. He set his lips angrily. This was a private yacht, and they’d used it as such. The people on the Marintha had essayed a very long journey, in the mood of people going on a picnic. People on a picnic do not expect to find themselves in an ambush. They don’t expect to encounter people or creatures who will instantly try to murder them. It isn’t timorous to be appalled when such things happen. It isn’t disgraceful to want to get out of the ambush instead of fighting through it—especially with a girl to think of. It is completely natural to be disturbed by the discovery that one’s murder has been attempted—and may be attempted again. And when one has no weapons at all to discourage would-be murderers with, it produces a queasy feeling.
    The Marintha drove on at the unbelievable speed of a ship in overdrive. There was no faintest indication in the feel of the ship that it moved at all. It felt as solid and as stable as if it were aground on a normal-gravity planet. It was as completely isolated from the cosmos outside its overdrive field as if it were buried in the heart of a mountain.
    But this was a very bad fix. Howell wished bitterly that Karen were safe at home. But then it occurred to him that she wouldn’t be safe, even back home on Earth. For centuries, humankind had believed that no other, inimical race could exist to represent a danger. But if that was wrong, if the slug-ship was the product of a race and a