Part 11 (2/2)
”Is there anything else you want to know?”
Tallis frowned a little, as though he were trying to think of something, but then he closed his eyes and relaxed. ”No, Sepastian.
Nothing. Do whatever it is you have to do.”
”Tallis,” MacMaine said. Tallis didn't open his eyes, and MacMaine was very glad of that. ”Tallis, I want you to know that, in all my life, you were the only friend I ever had.”
The bright green eyes remained closed. ”That may be so. Yes, Sepastian, I honestly think you believe that.”
”I do,” said MacMaine, and shot him carefully through the head.
_The End_
--_and Epilogue._
”Hold it!” The voice bellowed thunderingly from the loud-speakers of the six Earth s.h.i.+ps that had boxed in the derelict. ”Hold it! _Don't bomb that s.h.i.+p!_ I'll personally have the head of any man who damages that s.h.i.+p!”
In five of the s.h.i.+ps, the commanders simply held off the bombardment that would have vaporized the derelict. In the sixth, Major Thornton, the Group Commander, snapped off the microphone. His voice was shaky as he said: ”That was close! Another second, and we'd have lost that s.h.i.+p forever.”
Captain Verenski's Oriental features had a half-startled, half-puzzled look. ”I don't get it. You grabbed that mike control as if you'd been bitten. I know that she's only a derelict. After that burst of fifty-gee acceleration for fifteen minutes, there couldn't be anyone left alive on her. But there must have been a reason for using atomic rockets instead of their antiacceleration fields. What makes you think she's not dangerous?”
”I didn't say she wasn't dangerous,” the major snapped. ”She may be.
Probably is. But we're going to capture her if we can. Look!” He pointed at the image of the s.h.i.+p in the screen.
She wasn't spinning now, or looping end-over-end. After fifteen minutes of high acceleration, her atomic rockets had cut out, and now she moved serenely at constant velocity, looking as dead as a battered tin can.
”I don't see anything,” Captain Verenski said.
”The Kerothic symbols on the side. Palatal unvoiced sibilant, rounded----”
”I don't read Kerothic, major,” said the captain. ”I----” Then he blinked and said, ”_Shudos!_”
”That's it. The _Shudos_ of Keroth. The flags.h.i.+p of the Kerothi Fleet.”
The look in the major's eyes was the same look of hatred that had come into the captain's.
”Even if its armament is still functioning, we have to take the chance,”
Major Thornton said. ”Even if they're all dead, we have to try to get The Butcher's body.” He picked up the microphone again.
”Attention, Group. Listen carefully and don't get itchy trigger fingers.
That s.h.i.+p is the _Shudos_. The Butcher's s.h.i.+p. It's a ten-man s.h.i.+p, and the most she could have aboard would be thirty, even if they jammed her full to the hull. I don't know of any way that anyone could be alive on her after fifteen minutes at fifty gees of atomic drive, but remember that they don't have any idea of how our counteraction generators damp out spatial distortion either. Remember what Dr. Pendric said: 'No man is superior to any other in _all_ ways. Every man is superior to every other in _some_ way.' We may have the counteraction generator, but they may have something else that we don't know about. So stay alert.
”I am going to take a landing-party aboard. There's a reward out for The Butcher, and that reward will be split proportionately among us.
It's big enough for us all to enjoy it, and we'll probably get citations if we bring him in.
”I want ten men from each s.h.i.+p. I'm not asking for volunteers; I want each s.h.i.+p commander to pick the ten men he thinks will be least likely to lose their heads in an emergency. I don't want anyone to panic and shoot when he should be thinking. I don't want anyone who had any relatives on Houston's World. Sorry, but I can't allow vengeance yet.
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