Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: Illustrated by SCATTERGOOD]
By
ROBERT
SHECKLEY
WARRIOR
RACE
_Destroying the spirit of the enemy is the
goal of war and the aliens had the best way!_
They never did discover whose fault it was. Fannia pointed out that if
Donnaught had had the brains of an ox, as well as the build, he would
have remembered to check the tanks. Donnaught, although twice as big as
him, wasn't quite as fast with an insult. He intimated, after a little
thought, that Fannia's nose might have obstructed his reading of the
fuel gauge.
This still left them twenty light-years from Thetis, with a cupful of
transformer fuel in the emergency tank.
"All right," Fannia said presently. "What's done is done. We can squeeze
about three light-years out of the fuel before we're back on atomics.
Hand me _The Galactic Pilot_--unless you forgot that, too."
Donnaught dragged the bulky microfilm volume out of its locker, and they
explored its pages.
_The Galactic Pilot_ told them they were in a sparse, seldom-visited
section of space, which they already knew. The nearest planetary system
was Hatterfield; no intelligent life there. Sersus had a native
population, but no refueling facilities. The same with Illed, Hung and
Porderai.
"Ah-ha!" Fannia said. "Read that, Donnaught. If you can read, that is."
"Cascella," Donnaught read, slowly and clearly, following the line with
a thick forefinger. "Type M sun. Three planets, intelligent (AA3C)
human-type life on second. Oxygen-breathers. Non-mechanical. Religious.
Friendly. Unique social structure, described in Galactic Survey Report
33877242. Population estimate: stable at three billion. Basic Cascellan
vocabulary taped under Cas33b2. Scheduled for resurvey 2375 A.D. Cache
of transformer fuel left, beam coordinate 8741 kgl. Physical descript:
Unocc. flatland."
"Transformer fuel, boy!" Fannia said gleefully. "I believe we will get
to Thetis, after all." He punched the new direction on the ship's tape.
"If that fuel's still there."
"Should we read up on the unique social structure?" Donnaught asked,
still poring over _The Galactic Pilot_.
"Certainly," Fannia said. "Just step over to the main galactic base on
Earth and buy me a copy."
"I forgot," Donnaught admitted slowly.
"Let me see," Fannia said, dragging out the ship's language library,
"Cascellan, Cascellan ... Here it is. Be good while I learn the
language." He set the tape in the hypnophone and switched it on.
"Another useless tongue in my overstuffed head," he murmured, and then
the hypnophone took over.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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