One thing annoyed, or puzzled me. I kept throwing data from TV and
Radar into Feed-back and asking about population, life forms, land
denizens. All Brain One came up with was Insufficient Data. All right.
It would be just another routine landing on another distant planet.
Then I heard the noise behind me and turned. Combatman stood in the
doorway, his skin still bluish from the freeze, his eyes just clearing
and working into focus.
I looked him over while he stood there, somewhat surprised--if one can
ever be surprised at what his race did. He was hung with enough weapons
to stop a division of Homonorms and I wondered, as I always did, at the
origin of his race. His type always came drifting down from somewhere
north, back home, and all our radar and planes had never found their
homeland. None of them ever talked with humans except to nose in on our
expeditions or break up our wars. This one was quite a specimen, maybe
six feet, about 180 pounds, with the quiet and arrogant strength of his
race. He took a deep breath, still leaning on the door frame.
"Get me some whiskey," his voice was hoarse from disuse and the
Time-Warp, "and get it now."
"Now, see here," I began, "I'm Computerman and in charge of this ship
and...."
* * * * *
I didn't finish. With the quiet sureness of a jungle cat he had crossed
the room, taken a handful of my tunic and lifted me from the chair--in
spite of the fact that gravity was nearly normal now because of the
landing jets. His voice was almost velvety.
"Perhaps you didn't hear me. I will repeat once more." He paused while
I considered striking him and then, sensibly, changed my mind. "Get me
some whiskey." Then he dropped me back into the chair.
I'm not Computerman for nothing, so I computed the situation in maybe
a thousandth of a second. No one could push me around, so to prevent
being pushed around I got him his whiskey. He knocked off about a half
pint at a swallow and in a few minutes his skin lost its bluish tinge.
He was awake, and his quick eyes swept the gauges and the TV-Radar
image.
"When do we land?" He made no attempt to be courteous.
I checked Brain One's tape, somewhat rattled. "Twenty-one minutes, four
seconds," I started, resisting a strange impulse to say 'sir', "Near
water, fresh, altitude under one mile from...."
"That's all," he said. "Thanks." He left the room like a cat, crouching
slightly as he went through the door, leaping through and backing
against the wall, but fast, once he cleared. His weapons, all of them,
were so skillfully hung that he didn't make a sound. Somehow, I enjoyed
watching the play of those muscles and felt rather glad to have him
along, rough as he was. Outlying planets often have warlike combat
organizations of their own, and Combatmen have saved many expeditions
like this. Something in their nature, or training--or both--seems to
make them invincible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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