A MATTER OF IMPORTANCE BY MURRAY LEINSTER Illustrated by Bernklau [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction September 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the U. S. Copyright on this publication was renewed. ] _The importance of a matter is almost entirely a matter of your attitude. And whether you call something "a riot" or "a war" . .. Well, there is a difference, but what is it?_ Nobody ever saw the message-torp. It wasn't to be expected. It came inon a course that extended backward to somewhere near the Rift--wherethere used to be Huks--and for a very, very long way it had traveled asonly message-torps do travel. It hopped half a light-year in overdrive, and came back to normality long enough for its photocells to inspect thestar-filled universe all about. Then it hopped another half light-year, and so on. For a long, long time it traveled in this jerky fashion. Eventually, moving as it did in the straightest of straight lines, itsphotocells reported that it neared a star which had achievedfirst-magnitude brightness. It paused a little longer than usual whileits action-circuits shifted. Then it swung to aim for the bright star, which was the sol-type sun Varenga. The torp sped toward it on a newschedule. Its overdrive hops dropped to light-month length. Its pausesin normality were longer. They lasted almost the fiftieth of a second. When Varenga had reached a suitably greater brightness in themessage-torp's estimation, it paused long enough to blast out itsrecorded message. It had been designed for this purpose and no other. Its overdrive hops shortened to one light-hour of distance covered. Regularly, its transmitter flung out a repetition of what it had beensent so far to say. In time it arrived within the limits of the Varengasystem. Its hops diminished to light-minutes of distance only. It ceasedto correct its course. It hurtled through the orbits of all the planets, uttering silently screamed duplicates of the broadcasts now left behind, to arrive later. It did not fall into the sun, of course. The odds were infinitelyagainst such a happening. It pounded past the sun, shrieking its news, and hurtled on out to the illimitable emptiness beyond. It was stillsquealing when it went out of human knowledge forever. * * * * * The state of things was routine. Sergeant Madden had the traffic deskthat morning. He would reach retirement age in two more years, and itwas a nagging reminder that he grew old. He didn't like it. There wasanother matter. His son Timmy had a girl, and she was on the way toVarenga IV on the _Cerberus_, and when she arrived Timmy would become amarried man. Sergeant Madden contemplated this prospect. By the time hisretirement came up, in the ordinary course of events he could very wellbe a grandfather. He was unable to imagine it. He rumbled to himself. The telefax hummed and ejected a sheet of paper on top of other sheetsin the desk's "In" cubicle. Sergeant Madden glanced absently at it. Itwas an operations-report sheet, to be referred to if necessary, butotherwise simply to be filed at the end of the day. A voice crackled overhead. "_Attention Traffic_, " said the voice. "_The following report has beenreceived and verified as off-planet. Message follows. _" That voiceceased and was replaced by another, which wavered and wabbled from theelectron-spurts normal to solar systems and which make for auroras onplanets. "_Mayday mayday mayday_, " said the second voice. "_Call forhelp. Call for help. Ship_ Cerberus _major breakdown overdrive headingProcyron III for refuge. Help urgently needed. _" There was a pause. "_Mayday mayday mayday. Call for help--_" Sergeant Madden's face went blank. Timmy's girl was on the _Cerberus_. Then he growled and riffled swiftly through the operations-report sheetsthat had come in since his tour of duty began. He found the one helooked for. Yes. Patrolman Timothy Madden was now in overdrive in squadship 740, delivering the monthly precinct report to Headquarters. Hewould be back in eight days. Maybe a trifle less, with his girl due toarrive on the _Cerberus_ in nine and him to be married in ten. But-- Sergeant Madden swore. As a prospective bridegroom, Timmy's place was onthis call for help to the _Cerberus_. But he wasn't available. It was inhis line, because it was specifically a traffic job. The cops handledtraffic, naturally, as they handled sanitary-code enforcement anddelinks and mercantile offenses and murderers and swindlers and missingpersons. Everything was dumped on the cops. They'd even handled the Huksin time gone by--which in still earlier times would have been called aspace war and put down in all the history books. It was routine for thecops to handle the disabled or partly disabled _Cerberus_. * * * * * Sergeant Madden pushed a button marked "_Traffic Emergency_" and held itdown until it lighted. "You got that _Cerberus_ report?" he demanded of the air about him. "Just, " said a voice overhead. "What've you got on hand?" demanded Sergeant Madden. "The _Aldeb_'s here, " said the voice. "There's a minor overhaul goingon, but we can get her going in six hours. She's slow, but you knowher. " "Hm-m-m. Yeah, " said Sergeant Madden. He added vexedly: "My son Timmy'sgirl is on board the _Cerberus_. He'll be wild he wasn't here. I'm goingto take the ready squad ship and go on out. Passengers always fret whenthere's trouble and no cop around. Too bad Timmy's off on assignment. " "Yeah, " said the Traffic Emergency voice. "Too bad. But we'll get the_Aldeb_ off in six hours. " Sergeant Madden pushed another button. It lighted. "Madden, " he rumbled. "Desk. The _Cerberus_' had a breakdown. She'slimpin' over to Procyron III for refuge to wait for help. The _Aldeb_'lldo the job on her, but I'm going to ride the squad ship out and make upthe report. Who's next on call-duty?" "Willis, " said a crisp voice. "Squad ship 390. He's up for next call. Playing squint-eye in the squad room now. " "Pull him loose, " Sergeant Madden ordered, "and send somebody to takethe desk. Tell Willis I'll be on the tarmac in five minutes. " "Check, " said the crisp voice. Sergeant Madden lifted his thumb. All this was standard operationalprocedure. A man had the desk. An emergency call came in. That man tookit and somebody else took the desk. Eminently fair. No favoritism; nothrowing weight around; no glory-grabbing. Not that there was much gloryin being a cop. But as long as a man was a cop, he was good. SergeantMadden reflected with satisfaction that even if he was getting on toretirement age, he was still a cop. He made two more calls. One was to Records for the customary fullinformation on the _Cerberus_ and on the Procyron system. The other wasto the flat where Timmy lived with him. It was going to be lonely whenTimmy got married and had a home of his own. Sergeant Madden dialed formessage-recording and gruffly left word for Timmy. He, Timmy's father, was going on ahead to make the report on the _Cerberus_. Timmy wasn't toworry. The ship might be a few days late, but Timmy'd better make themost of them. He'd be married a long time! Sergeant Madden got up, grunting, from his chair. Somebody came in totake over the desk. Sergeant Madden nodded and waved his hand. He wentout and took the slide-stair down to the tarmac where squad ship 390waited in standard police readiness. Patrolman Willis arrived at thestubby little craft seconds after the sergeant. "Procyron III, " said Sergeant Madden, rumbling. "I figure three days. You told your wife?" "I called, " said Patrolman Willis resignedly. They climbed into the squad ship. Police ships, naturally, had theirspecial drive, which could lift them off without rocket aid and gavethem plenty of speed, but filled up the hull with so much machinery thatit was only practical for such ships. Commercial craft were satisfiedwith low-power drives, which meant that spaceport facilities lifted themto space and pulled them down again. They carried rockets for emergencylanding, but the main thing was that they had a profitable pay load. Squad ships didn't carry anything but two men and their equipment. Sergeant Madden dogged the door shut. The ship fell up toward the sky. The heavens became that blackness-studded-with-jewels which is space. Agreat yellow sun flared astern. A half-bright, half-dark globe laybelow-the planet Varenga IV, on which the precinct police station forthis part of the galaxy had its location. Patrolman Willis, frowning with care, established the squad ship'sdirection, while Sergeant Madden observed without seeming to do so. Presently Patrolman Willis pushed a button. The squad ship went intooverdrive. It was perfectly commonplace in all its aspects. * * * * * The galaxy went about its business. Stars shone, and planets movedaround them, and double stars circled each other like waltzing couples. There were also comets and meteors and calcium-clouds and high-energyfree nuclei, all of which acted as was appropriate for them. On somemillions of planets winds blew and various organisms practicedphotosynthesis. Waves ran across seas. Clouds formed and poured downrain. On the relatively small number of worlds so far inhabited byhumans, people went about their business with no thought for such thingsor anything not immediately affecting their lives. And the cops wentabout their business. Sergeant Madden dozed most of the first day of overdrive travel. He hadnothing urgent to do, as yet. This was only a routine trip. The_Cerberus_ had had a breakdown in her overdrive. Commercial ships'drives being what they were, it meant that on her emergency drive shecould only limp along at maybe eight or ten lights. Which meant years toport, with neither food nor air for the journey. But it was not evenconceivable to rendezvous with a rescue ship in the emptiness betweenstars. So the _Cerberus_ had sent a message-torp and was crawling to arefuge-planet, more or less surveyed a hundred years before. There shewould land by emergency rockets, because her drive couldn't take thestrain. Once aground, the _Cerberus_ should wait for help. There wasnothing else to be done. But everything was nicely in hand. The squadship headed briskly for the planet Procyron III, and Sergeant Maddenwould take the data for a proper, official, emergency-call trafficreport on the incident, and in time the _Aldeb_ would turn up and makeemergency repairs and see the _Cerberus_ out to space again and headedfor port once more. This was absolutely all that there was to anticipate. Traffic handledsuch events as a matter of course. So Sergeant Madden dozed during mostof the first day of overdrive. He reflected somnolently when awake thatit was fitting for Timmy's father to be on the job when Timmy's girl wasin difficulty, since Timmy was off somewhere else. On the second day he conversed more or less with Patrolman Willis. Willis was a young cop, almost as young as Timmy. He took himself veryseriously. When Sergeant Madden reached for the briefing-data, he foundit disturbed. Willis had read up on the kind of ship the _Cerberus_ was, and on the characteristics of Procyron III as recorded a century before. The _Cerberus_ was a semi-freighter, Candless type. Procyron III was awater-planet with less than ten per cent of land. Which was unfortunate, because its average temperature and orbit made it highly suitable forhuman occupation. Had the ten per cent of solid ground been in onepiece, it would doubtless have been colonized. But the ground was anarchipelago. "Hm-m-m, " said Sergeant Madden, after reading. "The survey recommendsthis northern island for emergency landing. Eh?" Willis nodded. "Huks used to use it. Not the island. The planet. " Sergeant Madden yawned. It seemed pathetic to him that young cops likeWillis and even Timmy referred so often to Huks. There weren't any, anymore. Being a cop meant carrying out purely routine tasks, nowadays. They were important tasks, of course. Without the cops, there couldn'tbe any civilization. But Willis and Timmy didn't think of it that way. Not yet. To them being a cop was still a matter of glamour rather thanroutine. They probably even regretted the absence of Huks. But when aman reached Sergeant Madden's age, glamour didn't matter. He had toremember that his job was worth doing, in itself. "Yeah, " said Sergeant Madden. "There was quite a time with those Huks. " "Did you . .. Did you ever see a Huk, sir?" asked Willis. "Before my time, " said Sergeant Madden. "But I've talked to men whoworked on the case. " * * * * * It did not occur to him that the Huks would hardly have been called a"case" by anybody but a cop. When human colonies spread through thissector, they encountered an alien civilization. By old-time standards, it was quite a culture. The Huks had a good technology, they hadspaceships, and they were just beginning to expand, themselves, fromtheir own home planet or planets. If they'd had a few more centuries ofdevelopment, they might have been a menace to humanity. But the humansgot started first. There being no longer any armies or navies when the Huks werediscovered, the matter of intelligent nonhumans was a matter for thecops. So the police matter-of-factly tried to incorporate the Hukculture into the human. They explained the rules by which humancivilization worked. They painstakingly tried to arrange a sub-precinctstation on the largest Huk home planet, with Huk cops in charge. Theymade it clear that they had nothing to do with politics and were simplyconcerned with protecting civilized people from those in their midst whodidn't want to be civilized. The Huks wouldn't have it. They bristled, proudly. They were defiant. They considered themselves not only as good as humans--the cops didn'tcare what they thought--but they insisted on acting as if they werebetter. They reacted, in fact, as humans would have done if just at thebeginning of their conquest of the stars, they'd run into an expanding, farther-advanced race which tried to tell them what they had to do. TheHuks fought. "They fought pretty good, " said Sergeant Madden tolerantly. "Notkiller-fashion--like delinks. The Force had to give 'em the choice ofjoining up or getting out. Took years to get 'em out. Had to use all theoff-duty men from six precincts to handle the last riot. " The conflict he called a riot would have been termed a space battle by anavy or an army. But the cops operated within a strictly police frame ofreference, which was the reverse of military. They weren't trying tosubjugate the Huks, but to make them behave. In consequence, theirtactics were unfathomable to the Huks--who thought in military terms. Squadrons of police ships which would have seemed ridiculous to afighting-force commander threw the Huks off-balance, kept themoff-balance, did a scrupulous minimum of damage to them, and therebykept out of every trap the Huks set for them. In the end the copssupervised and assisted at the embittered, rebellious emigration of arace. The Huks took off for the far side of the galaxy. They'd neitherbeen conquered nor exterminated. But Sergeant Madden thought of thedecisive fracas as a riot rather than a battle. "Yeah, " he repeated. "They acted a lot like delinks. " Patrolman Willis spoke with some heat about delinks, who are the bane ofall police forces everywhere. They practice adolescent behavior evenafter they grow up--but they never grow up. It is delinks who putstink-bombs in public places and write threatening letters and givewarnings of bombs about to go off--and sometimes set them--and stuffdirt into cold rocket-nozzles and sometimes kill people and goincontinently hysterical because they didn't mean to. Delinks do most ofthe damaging things that have no sense to them. There is no cop who hasnot wanted to kill some grinning, half-scared, half-defiant delink whohasn't yet realized that he's destroyed half a million credits' worth ofproperty or crippled somebody for life--for no reason at all. Sergeant Madden listened to the denunciation of all the delink tribe. Then he yawned again. "I know!" he said. "I don't like 'em either. But we got 'em. We alwayswill have 'em. Like old age. " Then he made computations with a stubby pencil and asked reflectively: "When're you coming out of overdrive?" Patrolman Willis told him. Sergeant Madden nodded. "I'll take another nap, " he observed. "We'll be there a good twenty-twohours before the _Aldeb_. " The little squad ship went on at an improbable multiple of the speed oflight. After all, this was a perfectly normal performance. Just anordinary bit of business for the cops. * * * * * Sergeant Madden belched when the squad ship came out of overdrive. Hewatched with seeming indifference while Patrolman Willis took a spectroon the star ahead and to the left, and painstakingly compared thereading with the ancient survey-data on the Procyron system. It had tomatch, of course, unless there'd been extraordinarily bad astrogation. Willis put the spectroscope away, estimated for himself, and thenchecked with the dial that indicated the brightness of the stillpoint-sized star. He said: "Four light-weeks, I make it. " Sergeant Madden nodded. A superior officer should never do anythinguseful, so long as a subordinate isn't making a serious mistake. That isthe way subordinates are trained to become superiors, in time. PatrolmanWillis set a time-switch and pushed the overdrive button. The squad shiphopped, and abruptly the local sun had a perceptible disk. Willis madethe usual tests for direction of rotation, to get the ecliptic plane. Hebegan to search for planets. As he found them, he checked with thereference data. All this was tedious. Sergeant Madden grunted: "That'll be it, " he said, and pointed. "Water world. It's the color ofocean. Try it. " Patrolman Willis threw on the telescope screen. The image of the distantplanet leaped into view. It was Procyron III. The spiral cloud-arms of aconsiderable storm showed in the southern hemisphere, but in the norththere was a group or specks which would be the planet's only solidground--the archipelago reported by the century-old survey. The_Cerberus_ should have been the first ship to land there in a hundredyears, and the squad ship should be the second. Patrolman Willis got the squad ship competently over to the planet, adiameter out. He juggled to position over the archipelago. SergeantMadden turned on the space phone. Nothing. He frowned. A grounded shipawaiting help should transmit a beam signal to guide its rescuer. Butnothing came up from the ground. Patrolman Willis looked at him uncertainly. Sergeant Madden rumbled andswung the telescope below. The surface of the planet appeared--deepwater, practically black beneath a surface reflection of daytime sky. The image shifted--a patch of barren rocks. The sergeant glanced at thesurvey picture, shifted the telescope, and found the northern-mostisland. He swelled the picture. He could see the white of monstrous surfbreaking on the windward shore--waves that had gathered height going allaround the planet. He traced the shoreline. There was a bay up at thetop. He centered the shoreline of the bay and put on maximum magnification. Then he pointed a stubby forefinger. A singular, perfectly straightstreak of black appeared, beginning a little distance inland from thebay and running up into what appeared to be higher ground. The streakended not far from a serpentine arm of the sea which almost cut theisland in half. "That'll be it, " said Sergeant Madden, rumbling. "The _Cerberus_ had toland on her rockets. She had some ground speed. She burned a ten-milestreak on the ground, coming down. " He growled. "Commercial skippers!Should've matched velocity aloft! Take her down. " The squad ship drove for ground. Patrolman Willis steadied the ship no more than a few thousand feethigh, above the streak of scorched ground and ashes. "It was heading inland, all right, " rumbled Sergeant Madden. "Lucky! Ifit'd been heading the other way, it could've gone out and landed in thesea. That would ha' been a mess! But where is it?" The squad ship descended farther. It followed the lane of carbonizedsoil. That marking narrowed--the _Cerberus_ had plainly been descending. Then the streak came to an end. It pinched out to nothing. The_Cerberus_ should have been at its end. It wasn't. There was no ship down on Procyron III. * * * * * The matter ceased to be routine. If the liner's drive conked out whereProcyron III was the nearest refuge planet, it should have landed hereat least six days ago. Some ship had landed here recently. "Set down, " grunted Sergeant Madden. Patrolman Willis obeyed. The squad ship came to rest in a minor valley, a few hundred yards from the end of the rocket-blast trail. SergeantMadden got out. Patrolman Willis followed him. This was a duly surveyedand recommended refuge planet. There was no need to check the air ortake precautions against inimical animal or vegetable life. The planetwas safe. They clambered over small rocky obstacles until they came to the end ofthe scorched line. They surveyed the state of things in silence. A ship had landed here recently. Its blue-white rocket flames had meltedgulleys in the soil, turned it to slag, and then flung silky, gossamerthreads of slag-wool over the rocks nearby. At the end of the melted-away hollows, twin slag-lined holes went downdeep into the ground. They were take-off holes. Rockets had burned themdeeply as they gathered force to lift the ship away again. Sergeant Madden scrambled to the edge of the nearest blast-well. He puthis hand on the now-solidified, glassy slag. It wasn't warm, but itwasn't cold. The glass-lined hole a rocket leaves takes a long time tocool down. "She landed here, all right, " he grunted. "But she took off again beforethe torp arrived to tell us about it. " Willis protested: "But, sergeant! She only had one set of rockets! She couldn't have takenoff again! She didn't have the rockets to do it with!" "I know she couldn't, " growled the sergeant. "But she did. " The _Cerberus_, once landed, should have waited here. It was not only apolice regulation; it was common sense. When a ship broke down in space, the exclusive hope for that ship's company lay in a refuge planet forships in that traffic lane. Even lifeboats could ordinarily reach somerefuge planet, for picking up later. They couldn't possibly be locatedotherwise. With three dimensions in which to be missed, and light-yearsof distance in which to miss them--no ship or boat had ever been foundas much as a light-week out in space. No ship with a crippled drivecould possibly be helped unless it got to a specified refuge world whereit could be found. No ship which had reached a refuge planet couldconceivably want to leave it. There was also the fact that no ship which had made such a landing wouldhave extra rockets with which to take off for departure. The _Cerberus_ had landed. Timmy's girl was on it. It had taken offagain. It was either an impossible mass suicide or something worse. Itcertainly wasn't routine. Patrolman Willis asked hesitantly: "D'you think, sergeant, it could be Huks sneaked back--?" Sergeant Madden did not answer. He went back to the squad ship and armedhimself. Patrolman Willis followed suit. The sergeant boobied the squadship so no unauthorized person could make use of it, and so it woulddisable itself if anyone with expert knowledge tried. Therefore, nobodywith expert knowledge would try. The two cops began a painstaking quest for police-type evidence to tellthem what had happened, and how and why the _Cerberus_ was missing, after a clumsy but safe landing on Procyron III and when all sanitydemanded that it stay there, and when it was starkly impossible for itto leave. * * * * * Sergeant Madden and Patrolman Willis were, self-evidently, the onlyhuman beings on a planet some nine thousand miles in diameter. It waseasy to compute that the nearest other humans would be at least somethousands of thousands of millions of miles away--so far away thatdistance had no meaning. This planet was something over nine-tenthrolling sea, but there were a few tens of thousands of square miles ofsolid ground in the one archipelago that broke the ocean's surface. Itwas such loneliness as very few people ever experience. But they did notnotice it. They were busy. They went over the ground immediately about the landing place. Rocketflame had splashed it, both at the _Cerberus'_ landing and at theimpossible take-off. There was nothing within a hundred yards not burnedto a crisp. They searched outside that area. Sergeant Madden rumbled tohis companion: "Where'd the other ship land?" Patrolman Willis blinked at him. "There had to be another ship!" said Sergeant Madden irritably. "Tobring the extra rockets. The other ship had to've brought 'em. And ithad to have rockets of its own. There's no spaceport here!" Patrolman Willis blinked again. Then he saw. The _Cerberus_ carried oneset of emergency-landing rockets, for use in a descent on a refugeplanet if the need arose. The need had arisen and the _Cerberus_ hadused them. Then, from somewhere, another set of rockets had beenproduced for it to use in leaving. Those other rockets must have come onanother ship. But it was a trifle more complicated than that. The_Cerberus_ had carried one set of rockets and used them. One. It hadbeen supplied with another set from somewhere. Two. They must have beenbrought by a ship which also used a set of rockets to land by. That madethree. Then the other ship must have had a fourth set for its owntake-off, or it would be grounded forever on Procyron III. Patrolman Willis frowned. "We looked pretty carefully from aloft, " he said uncomfortably. "Ifthere'd been another burned-off landing place, we'd have seen it. " "I know, " rumbled Sergeant Madden. "And we didn't. But there must'vebeen another ship aground when the _Cerberus_ came in. Where was it? Itprob'ly knew the _Cerberus_ was landing to wait for help. How? Ifsomebody was coming to help the _Cerberus_ it would be bound to spot theother ship, and it didn't want to be spotted. Why? Anyhow, it must'vetaken the _Cerberus_ and sent it off, and then taken off itself, leavingnothing sensible for us to think. 'Sounds like delinks. " Then hegrowled. "Only it's not. There'd have to be too many men. Delinks don'twork together more'n two or three. Too jealous of showin' off. But wherewas that other ship, and what was it doin' here?" Patrolman Willis hesitated, and then said: "There used to be pirates, sergeant. " "Uh-huh, " said the sergeant. "You had it right the first time, mostlikely. Not delinks. Not pirates. You said Huks. " He looked around, estimatingly. "The rockets had to be brought here from somewhere elsewhere they'd been landed. I'm betting the tracks were covered prettycareful. But rockets are heavy. Manhandlin' them, whoever was doin' itwould take the easiest way. Hm-m-m. There's water close by over yonder. Sort of a sound in there--too narrow to be a bay. Let's have a look. Andthe slopes are easiest that way, too. " He led off to the eastward. He thought of Timmy's girl. He'd never seenher, but Timmy was going to marry her. She was on the _Cerberus_. It wasthe job of the cops to take care of whatever dilemma that ship might bein. As of here and now, it was Sergeant Madden's job. But besides that, he thought of the way Timmy would feel if anything happened to the girlhe meant to marry. As Timmy's father, the sergeant had to do something. He wanted to do it fast. But it had to be done the right way. * * * * * The route he chose was rocky, but it was nearly the only practicableroute away from the burned-dead landing place. He climbed toward what onthis planet was the east. There were pinnacles and small precipices. There were small, fleshy-leaved bushes growing out of such tinycollections of soil as had formed in cracks and crevices in the rock. Sergeant Madden noted that one such bush was wilted. He stopped. He bentover and carefully felt of the stones about it. A small rock came out. The bush had been out of the ground before. It had carefully beenreplaced. By someone. "The rockets came this way, " said the sergeant, with finality. "Hauledover this pass to the _Cerberus_. Somebody must've knocked this bushloose while workin' at getting 'em along. So he replanted it. Only notgood enough. It wilted. " "Who did it?" demanded Patrolman Willis. "Who we want to know about, " growled Sergeant Madden. "Maybe Huks. Comeon!" He scrambled ahead. He wheezed as he climbed and descended. After half amile, Patrolman Willis said abruptly: "You figure they all left, before anybody tried to find 'em?" The sergeant grunted affirmatively. A quarter mile still farther, therocky ground fell away. There was the gleam of water below them. Rockycliffs enclosed an arm of the sea that came deep into the land, here. Inthe cliffs rock-strata tilted insanely. There were red and yellow andblack layers--mostly yellow and black. They showed in startlingly clearcontrast. "Right!" said Sergeant Madden in morose satisfaction. "I thought theremight've been a boat. But this's it!" He went down a steep descent to the very edge of the sound--it was evenmore like a fjord--where the waters of the ocean came in among theisland's hills. On the far side, a little cascade leaped and bubbleddown to join the sea. "You go that way, " commanded Sergeant Madden, "and I'll go this. We'vegot two things to look for--a shallow place in the water coming right upto shore. And look for signs of traffic from the cliffs to the water. Bythe color of those rocks, we'd ought to find both. " He lumbered away along the water's edge. There were no creatures whichsang or chirped. The only sounds were wind and the lapping of wavesagainst the shore. It was very, very lonely. Half a mile from the point of his first descent, the sergeant found ashoal. It was a flat space of shallow water--discoverable by the colorof the bottom. The water was not over four feet deep. It was aremarkably level shoal place. He whistled on his fingers. When Patrolman Willis reached him, hepointed to the cliffs directly across the beach from the shallow water. Lurid yellow tints stained the cliff walls. Odd masses of fallen stonedotted the cliff foot. At one place they were piled high. That pilelooked quite natural--except that it was at the very center of the shoreline next the shoal. "This rock's yellow, " said Sergeant Madden, rumbling a little. "It'smineral. If we had a Geiger, it'd be raising hell, here. There's a minein there. Uranium. If a ship came down on rockets, an' landed in thatshoal place yonder . .. Why . .. It wouldn't leave a burned spot comin'down or takin' off, either. Y'see?" Patrolman Willis said: "Look here, sergeant--" "I'm in command here, " growled Sergeant Madden. "Huks didn't booby trap. Proud as hell, and touchy as all get-out, but not killers. Not crazykillers, anyhow. You go get up yonder. Up where we started down. Then goon away. Back to the squad ship. If I don't come along, anyhow you'llknow what's what when the _Aldeb_ comes. " Patrolman Willis expostulated. Sergeant Madden was firm. In the end, Patrolman Willis went away. And Sergeant Madden sat at ease and resteduntil he had time enough to get back to the squad ship. It was true thatthe Huks didn't booby trap. They hadn't had the practice, anyhow, eightyyears ago. But this was a very important matter. Maybe they consideredit so important that they'd changed their policy concerning this. Wheezing a little, Sergeant Madden pulled away large stones and smallones. An opening appeared behind them. He grunted and continued hislabor. Nothing happened. The mouth of a mine shaft appeared, goinghorizontally into the cliff. Puffing from his exertions, Sergeant Madden went in. It was necessary ifhe were to make a routine examination. * * * * * The _Aldeb_ came in a full day later. It descended, following the spacebeacon the squad ship sent up from its resting place. The _Aldeb_ wasnot an impressive sight, of course. It was a medium-sized police salvageship. It had a crew of fifteen, and it was powerfully engined, and itcontained a respectable amount of engineering experience and ability, plus some spare parts and, much more important, the tools with which tomake others. It came down in a highly matter-of-fact fashion, andSergeant Madden and Patrolman Willis went over to it to explain thesituation. "The _Cerberus_ came in on rockets, " rumbled the sergeant, in thesalvage ship's skipper's cabin. "She landed. We found signs that some ofher people came out an' strolled around lookin' for souvenirs and such. I make a guess that there was a minin' man among them, but it's only aguess. Anyhow somebody went over to where there's some parti-coloredcliffs, where the sea comes away inland. And when they got to thatplace . .. Why . .. There was a ship there. Then. " He paused, frowning. "It would've been standing on an artificial shoal place, about thirtyyards from a shaft that was the mouth of a mine. Uranium. And there'sbeen a lot of uranium taken outta there! It was hauled right outta themine shaft across the beach to the ship that was waitin'. And there'sfresh work in that mine, but not a tool or a scrap of paper to tell whowas workin' it. It must've been cleaned up like that every time a shipleft after loadin' up. Humans wouldn't've done it. They wouldn't care. Huks would. There's not supposed to be any of them left in these parts, but I'm guessing the mine was dug by Huks, and the _Cerberus_ was takenaway by them because the humans on the _Cerberus_ found out there wasHuks around. " Patrolman Willis said: "The sergeant took a chance on the mine beingbooby-trapped and went in, after sending me out of range. " The sergeant scowled at him and went on. "How it happened don't matter. Maybe somebody spotted the ship from the_Cerberus_ as it was comin' down. Maybe anything. But whoever run themine found out somebody knew they were there, so they rushed the_Cerberus_--there prob'ly wasn't even a stun-pistol on board to fightwith--and they put new rockets on her. " * * * * * The skipper of the salvage ship _Aldeb_ nodded wisely. "A ship comin' to load up minerals where there wasn't any spaceport, " heobserved, "would have a set of rockets to land on, empty, and a doubleset to take off on, loaded. Yeah. " "They must've figured, " said Sergeant Madden, "that we just couldn'tmake any sense out of what we found. And if we hadn't turned up thatmine, maybe never would. But anyhow they sent the _Cerberus_ off andcovered everything up and went off to stay, themselves, until we gave upand went home. " "I wonder, " said the skipper of the _Aldeb_, "where they took the_Cerberus_? That's my job!" "Not far, " grunted Sergeant Madden. "They had to be taking the_Cerberus_ somewhere. If they just wanted to wipe it out, after theyrushed it, they coulda just set off its fuel like it'd happened in a badlanding. And that landing was bad! If there'd been a fuel-explosioncrater at the end of that burnt line on the ground, nobody'd ever'velooked further. But there wasn't. So there's a place they're takin' the_Cerberus_ to. But it's got a brokedown drive. It can only hobble along. They can't try to get but so far! What's the nearest sol-type star?" The _Aldeb_'s skipper pushed a button and the Precinct Atlas came out ofits slot. The skipper punched keys and the atlas clicked and whirred. Then its screen lighted. It showed a report on a solar system that hadbeen fully surveyed. "Uh-uh, " grunted the sergeant. "A survey woulda showed up if a planetwas Huk-occupied. What's next nearest?" * * * * * Again the atlas whirred and clicked. A single line of type appeared. Itsaid, "_Sirene, 1432. Unsurveyed. _" The galactic co-ordinates followed. That was all. "This looks likely!" said the sergeant. "Unsurveyed, and off the shiplanes. It ain't between any place and any other. It could go a thousandyears and never be landed on. It's got planets. " It was highly logical. According to Krishnamurti's Law, any sol-type sunwas bound to have planets of such-and-such relative sizes in orbits ofsuch-and-such relative distances. "Willis and me, " said the sergeant, "we'll go over and see if there'sHuks there and if they've got the _Cerberus_. You better get this stuffon a message-torp ready to send off if you have to. Are you going tocome over to this--Sirene 1432?" The skipper of the _Aldeb_ shrugged. "Might as well. Why go home and have to come back again? There could bea lot of Huks there. " "Yeah, " admitted Sergeant Madden. "I'd guess a whole planet full of 'emthat laid low when the rest were scrapping with the Force. The otherslost and went clean across the galaxy. These characters stayed close. I'm guessing. But they hid their mine, here. They could've been stewingin their own juice these past eighty years, getting set to put up a hellof a scrap when somebody found 'em. We'll be the ones to do it. " He stood up and shook himself. "It's not far, " he repeated. "Our boat's just fast enough we ought toget there a couple of days after the _Cerberus_ sets down. You'd oughtto be five-six hours behind us. " He considered. "Meet you north polefarthest planet out this side of the sun. Right?" "I'll look for you there, " said the skipper of the _Aldeb_. Sergeant Madden and Patrolman Willis went out of the salvage ship andtrudged to the squad ship. They climbed in. "You got the co-ordinates?" asked the sergeant. "I copied them off the atlas, " said Willis. Sergeant Madden settled himself comfortably. "We'll go over, " he grumbled, "and see what makes these Huks tick. Theyraised a lot of hell, eighty years ago. It took all the off-duty menfrom six precincts to handle the last riot. The Huks had got togetherand built themselves a fightin' fleet then, though. It's not likelythere's more than one planetful of them where we're going. I thoughtthey'd all been moved out. " He shook his head vexedly. "No need for 'em to have to go, except they wouldn't play along withhumans. Acted like delinks, they did. Only proud. Y'don't get madfighting 'em. So I heard, anyway. If they only had sense you could getalong with them. " He dogged the door shut. Patrolman Willis pushed a button. The squadship fell toward the sky. Very matter-of-factly. * * * * * On the way over, in overdrive, Sergeant Madden again dozed a great dealof the time. Sergeants do not fraternize extensively with merepatrolmen, even on assignments. Especially not very senior sergeantsonly two years from retirement. Patrolman Willis met with the sergeant'sapproval, to be sure. Timmy was undoubtedly more competent as a cop, butTimmy would have been in a highly emotional state with his girl on the_Cerberus_ and that ship in the hands of the Huks. Between naps, the sergeant somnolently went over what he knew about thealien race. He'd heard that their thumbs were on the outside of theirhands. Intelligent nonhumans would have to have hands, and with someequivalent of opposable thumbs, if their intelligence was to be of anyuse to them. They pretty well had to be bipeds, too, and if they weren'twarm-blooded they couldn't have the oxygen-supply that highgrade braincells require. There were even certain necessary psychological facts. They had to becapable of learning and of passing on what they'd learned, or they'dnever have gotten past an instinctual social system. To pass on acquiredknowledge, they had to have family units in which teaching was done tothe young--at least at the beginning. Schools might have been inventedlater. Most of all, their minds had to work logically to cope with alogically constructed universe. In fact, they had to be very much likehumans, in almost all significant respects, in order to build up acivilization and develop sciences and splendidly to invade space just afew centuries before humans found them. _But_, said Sergeant Madden to himself, _I bet they've still got armiesand navies!_ Patrolman Willis looked at him inquiringly, but the sergeant scowled athis own thoughts. Yet the idea was very likely. When Huks firstencountered humans, they bristled with suspicion. They were definitelyon the defensive when they learned that humans had been in spacelonger--much longer--than they had, and already occupied planets inalmost fifteen per cent of the galaxy. Sergeant Madden found his mind obscurely switching to the matter ofdelinks--those characters who act like adolescents, not only while theyare kids, but after. They were the permanent major annoyance of thecops, because what they did didn't make sense. Learned books explainedwhy people went delink, of course. Mostly it was that they were madlyambitious to be significant, to matter in some fashion, and didn't havethe ability to matter in the only ways they could understand. Theywanted to drive themselves to eminence, and frantically snatched atchances to make themselves nuisances because they couldn't wait to beimportant any other way. Sergeant Madden blinked slowly to himself. When humans first took tospace a lot of them were after glamour, which is the seeming ofimportance. His son Timmy was on the cops because he thought itglamorous. Patrolman Willis was probably the same way. Glamour is theoffer of importance. An offer of importance is glamour. The sergeant grunted to himself. A possible course of action came intohis mind. He and Patrolman Willis were on the way to the solar systemSirene 1432, where Krishnamurti's Law said there ought to be somethingvery close to a terran-type planet in either the third or fourth orbitout from the sun. That planet would be inhabited by Huks, who were verymuch like humans. They knew of the defeat and forced emigration of theirfellow-Huks in other solar systems. They'd hidden from humans--and itmust have outraged their pride. So they must be ready to put up adesperate and fanatical fight if they were ever discovered. * * * * * A squad ship with two cops in it, and a dumpy salvage ship with fifteenmore, did not make an impressive force to try to deal with a planetarypopulation which bitterly hated humans. But the cops did not planconquest. They were neither a fighting rescue expedition nor a punitiveone. They were simply cops on assignment to get the semi-freighter_Cerberus_ back in shape to travel on her lawful occasions among thestars, and to see that she and her passengers and crew got to thedestination for which they'd started. The cop's purpose was essentiallyroutine. And the Huks couldn't possibly imagine it. Sergeant Madden settled some things in his mind and dozed off again. When the squad ship came out of overdrive and he was awakened by theunpleasantness of breakout, he yawned. He looked on without comment asPatrolman Willis matter-of-factly performed the tricky task ofdetermining the ecliptic while a solar system's sun was little more thana first-magnitude star. It was wholly improbable that anything like Hukpatrol ships would be out so far. It was even more improbable that anykind of detection devices would be in operation. Any approaching shipcould travel several times as fast as any signal. Patrolman Willis searched painstakingly. He found a planet which was amere frozen lump of matter in vastness. It was white from a layer offrozen gases piled upon its more solid core. He made observations. "I can find it again, sir, to meet the _Aldeb_. Orders, sir?" "Orders?" demanded Sergeant Madden. "What? Oh. Head in toward the sun. The Huks'll be on Planet Three or Four, most likely. And that's wherethey'll have the _Cerberus_. " The squad ship continued sunward while Patrolman Willis continued hisobservations. A star-picture along the ecliptic. An hour's run oninterplanetary drive--no overdrive field in use. Another picture. Thetwo prints had only to be compared with a blinker for planets to stickout like sore thumbs, as contrasted with stars that showed no parallax. Sirene I--the innermost planet--was plainly close to a transit. II wasaway on the far side of its orbit. III was also on the far side. IV wasin quadrature. There was the usual gap where V should have been. VI--itdidn't matter. They'd passed VIII a little while since, a ball of stonewith a frigid gas-ice covering. Patrolman Willis worked painstakingly with amplifiers on what oddmentscould be picked up in space. "It's Four, sir, " he reported unnecessarily, because the sergeant hadwatched as he worked. "They've got detectors out. I could just barelypick up the pulses. But by the time they've been reflected back they'llbe away below thermal noise-volume. I don't think even multiples couldpick 'em out. I'm saying, sir, that I don't think they can detect us atthis distance. " Sergeant Madden grunted. "D'you think we came this far not to be noticed?" he asked. But he wasnot peevish. Rather, he seemed more thoroughly awake than he'd beensince the squad ship left the Precinct substation back on Varenga IV. Herubbed his hands a little and stood up. "Hold it a minute, Willis. " He went back to the auxiliary-equipment locker. He returned to his seatbeside Patrolman Willis. He opened the breech of the ejector-tube besidehis chair. "You've had street-fighting training, " he said almost affably, "at thePolice Academy. And siege-of-criminals courses too, eh?" He did not waitfor an answer. "It's historic, " he observed, "that since time begancops've been stickin' out hats for crooks to shoot at, and thatcrooks've been shooting, thinking there were heads in 'em. " He put a small object in the ejector tube, poked it to proper seating, and settled himself comfortably, again. "Can you make it to about a quarter-million miles of Four, " he askedcheerfully, "in one hop?" Patrolman Willis set up the hop-timer. Sergeant Madden was pleased thathe aimed the squad ship not exactly at the minute disk which was PlanetIV of this system. It was prudence against the possibility of an errorin the reading of distance. "Ever use a marker, Willis?" Patrolman Willis said: "No, sir. " Before he'd finished saying it the squad ship had hopped into overdriveand out again. * * * * * Sergeant Madden approved of the job. His son Timmy couldn't have donebetter. Here was Planet IV before them, a little off to one side, as wasproper. They had run no risk of hitting in overdrive. The distance was just about a quarter-million miles, if Krishnamurti'sLaw predicting the size and distance of planets in a sol-type system wasreliable. The world was green and had icecaps. There should always be, in a system of this kind, at least one oxygen-planet with anearly-terran-normal range of temperature. That usually meant greenplants and an ocean or two. There wasn't quite as much sea as usual, onthis planet, and therefore there were some extensive yellow areas thatmust be desert. But it was a good, habitable world. Anybody whose homeit was would defend it fiercely. "Hm-m-m, " said Sergeant Madden. He took the ejector-tube lanyard in hishand. He computed mentally. About a quarter-million miles, say. A secondand a half to alarm, down below. Five seconds more to verification. Another five to believe it. Not less than twenty altogether to reportand get authority to fire. The Huks were a fighting race and presumablyorganized, so they'd have a chain of command and decisions would be madeat the top. Army stuff, or navy. Not like the cops, where everybody knewboth the immediate and final purposes of any operation in progress, andcould act without waiting for orders. It should be not less than thirty seconds before a firing key madecontact down below. As a matter of history, years ago the Huks had usedeighty-gravity rockets with tracking-heads and bust-bombs on them. TheseHuks would hardly be behind the others in equipment. And back then, too, Huks kept their rocket missiles out in orbit where they could flare intoeighty-gee acceleration without wasting time getting out to where anenemy was. In their struggle against the cops two generations ago theHuks had had to learn that fighting wasn't all drama and heroics. Thecops had taken the glamour out when they won. So the Huks wouldn't wastetime making fine gestures now. The squad ship had appeared off theirplanet. It had not transmitted a code identification-signal the instantit came out of overdrive. The Huks were hiding from the cops, so they'dshoot. "Hop on past, " commanded Sergeant Madden, "the instant I jerk theejector lanyard. Don't fool around. Over the pole will do. " Patrolman Willis set the hop-timer. Twenty seconds. Twenty-two. Three. Four. "Hop!" said Sergeant Madden. As he spoke, he jerked the lanyard. Before the syllable was finished, Patrolman Willis pressed hard on theoverdrive button. There came the always-nauseating sensation of goinginto overdrive combined with the even more unpleasant sensation ofcoming out of it. The squad ship was somewhere else. A vast, curving whiteness hung catercornered in the sky. It was theplanet's icecap, upside down. Patrolman Willis had possibly cut it atrifle too fine. "Right, " said the sergeant comfortably. "Now swing about to go back andmeet the _Aldeb_. But wait. " The stars and the monstrous white bowl reeled in their positions as theship turned. Sergeant Madden felt that he could spare seconds, here. Heignored the polar regions of Sirene IV, hanging upside down to rearwardfrom the squad ship. Even a planetary alarm wouldn't get polar-areaobservers set to fire in much less than forty seconds, and there'd haveto be some lag in response to instrument reports. It wouldn't be as iftrouble had been anticipated at just this time. The squad ship steadied. Sergeant Madden looked with pleasurableanticipation back to where the ship had come out of overdrive andlingered for twenty-four seconds. Willis had moved the squad ship fromthat position, but the sergeant had left a substitute. The small objecthe'd dropped from the ejector tube now swelled and writhed andstruggled. In pure emptiness, a shape of metal foil inflated itself. Itwas surprisingly large--almost the size of the squad ship. But inemptiness the fraction of a cubic inch of normal-pressure gas wouldinflate a foil bag against no resistance at all. This flimsy shape evenjerked into motion. Released gas poured out its back. There was noresistance to acceleration save mass, which was negligible. A sudden swirling cloud of vapor appeared where the squad ship'ssubstitute went mindlessly on its way. The vapor rushed toward thespace-marker. A star appeared. It was a strictly temporary star, but even from aquarter-million-mile distance it was incredibly bright. It was a bomb, blasting a metal-foil flimsy which the electronic brain of amissile-rocket could only perceive as an unidentified and hence enemyobject. Bomb and rocket and flimsy metal foil turned together toradioactive metal vapor. Sergeant Madden knew professional admiration. "Thirty-four seconds!" he said approvingly. The Huks could not have expected the appearance of an enemy just hereand now. It was the first such appearance in all the planet's history. They certainly looked for no consequences of the seizure of the_Cerberus_, carefully managed as that had been. So to detonate a bombagainst an unexpected inimical object within thirty-four seconds afterits appearance was very good work indeed. "Hm-m-m, " said Sergeant Madden, "we've nothing more to do right now, Willis. We'll go back to that hunk of ice you spotted comin' in, andwait for the _Aldeb_. " Patrolman Willis obediently set the hop-timer and swung the squad shipto a proper aiming. He pressed the overdrive button. His manner, like that of Sergeant Madden, was the manner of someoneconducting a perfectly routine operation. * * * * * "If my son Timmy were with me on this job, " said Sergeant Madden, "I'dpoint out the inner meaning of the way we're going about handling it. " He reposed in his bucket-seat in the squad ship, which at that momentlay aground not quite right-side-up close to the north pole of SireneVIII. The local sun was not in view. The squad ship's ports opened uponthe incredible brilliance of the galaxy as seen out of atmosphere. Therewas no atmosphere here. It was all frozen. But there was a horizon, andthe light of the stars showed the miniature jungle of gas crystals. Frozen gases--frozen to gas-ice--they were feathery. They were lacy. They were infinitely delicate. They were frost in three dimensions. "Yes, sir, " said Patrolman Willis. "The _Aldeb_'s due soon, " said Sergeant Madden, "so I'll make it short. The whole thing is that we are cops, and the Huks are soldiers. Whichmeans that they're after feeling important--after glamour. Every one of'em figures it's necessary to be important. He craves it. " Patrolman Willis listened. He had a proximity detector out, which wouldpick up any radiation caused by the cutting of magnetic lines of forceby any object. It made very tiny whining noises from time to time. Ifanything from a Huk missile rocket to the salvage ship _Aldeb_approached, however, the sound would be distinctive. "Now that, " said Sergeant Madden, "is the same thing that makes delinks. A delink tries to matter in the world he lives in. It's a small world, with only him and his close pals in it. So he struts before his pals. Hedon't realize that anybody but him and his pals are human. See?" "I know!" said Patrolman Willis with an edge to his voice. "Last month acouple of delinks set a ground-truck running downhill, and jumped offit, and--" "True, " said Sergeant Madden. He rumbled for a moment. "A soldier livesin a bigger world he tries to matter in. He's protectin' that world andbeing admired for it. In old, old days his world was maybe a day's marchacross. Later it got to be continents. They tried to make it planets, but it didn't work. But there've got to be enemies to protect a worldagainst, or a soldier isn't important. He's got no glamour. Y'see?" "Yes, sir, " said Willis. "Then there's us cops, " said Sergeant Madden wryly. "Mostly we join upfor the glamour. We think it's important to be a cop. But presently wefind we ain't admired. Then there's no more glamour--but we're stillimportant. A cop matters because he protects people against other peoplethat want to do things to 'em. Against characters that want to getimportant by hurtin' 'em. Being a cop means you matter against all thedelinks and crooks an' fools and murderers who'd pull down civilizationin a minute if they could, just so they could be important because theydid it. But there's no glamour! We're not admired! We just do our job. And if I sound sentimental, I mean it. " "Yes, sir, " said Willis. "There's a big picture in the big hall in Police Headquarters on ValdezIII, " said the sergeant. "It's the story of the cops from the early dayswhen they wore helmets, and the days when they rode bicycles, and whenthey drove ground-cars. There's not only cops, but civilians, in everyone of the panels, Willis. And if you look careful, you'll see thatthere's one civilian in every panel that's thumbin' his nose at a cop. " "I've noticed, " said Willis. "Remember it, " said Sergeant Madden. "It bears on what we've got to doto handle these Huks. Soldiers couldn't do what we've got to. They'dfight, to be admired. We can't. It'd spoil our job. We've got topersuade 'em to behave themselves. " Then he frowned, as if he were dissatisfied with what he'd said. Heshook his head and made an impatient gesture. "No good, " he said vexedly. "You can't say it. Hm-m-m . .. I'll nap awhile until the _Aldeb_ gets here. " He settled back to doze. Patrolman Willis regarded him with an odd expression. They were agroundon Sirene VIII, on which no human ship had ever landed before them, andthey had stirred up a hornet's nest on Sirene IV, which had orbitaleighty-gee rocket missiles in orbit around it with bust bomb heads andall the other advantages of civilization. The _Aldeb_ was on the waywith a fifteen-man crew. And seventeen men, altogether, must pitthemselves against an embattled planet with all its population ready andperhaps eager for war. Their errand was to secure the release of humanprisoners and the surrender of a seized spaceship from a proud anddesperate race. It did not look promising. Sergeant Madden did not look like the kind ofgenius who could carry it through. Dozing, with his chin tilted forwardon his chest, he looked hopelessly commonplace. * * * * * The skipper of the _Aldeb_ came over to the squad ship, because SergeantMadden loathed spacesuits and there was no air on Sirene VIII. PatrolmanWillis watched as the skipper came wading through the lacy, breast-highgas-frost. It seemed a pity for such infinitely delicate and beautifulobjects to be broken and crushed. The sergeant unlocked the lock-door and spoke into a microphone when heheard the skipper stamping on the steel lock-flooring. "Brush yourself off, " commanded the sergeant, "and sweep the stuffoutside. Part of its methane and there's some ammonia in thosecrystals. " There was a suitable pause. The outer door closed. The lock filled withair, and gas-crystal fragments turned to reeking vapor as they warmed. The skipper bled them out and refilled the lock. Then he came inside. Heopened his face plate. "Well?" "There's Huks here, " Sergeant Madden told him, "their hair in a braidand all set to go. They popped off a marker I stuck out for them toshoot at in thirty-four seconds by the clock. Bright boys, these Huks!They don't wait to ask questions. When they see something, they shoot atit. " The skipper tilted back his helmet and said beseechingly: "Scratch my head, will you?" When Patrolman Willis reached out his hand, the skipper revolved hishead under it until the itchy place was scratched. Most men itchinstantly they are unable to scratch. The skipper's space gloves weresprouting whiskers of moisture-frost now. "Thanks, " he said gratefully. "What are you going to do, sergeant?" "Open communication with 'em, " said the sergeant, heavily. The skipper waited. Opening communication with someone who shoots ondetector-contact may be difficult. "I figure, " rumbled the sergeant, "they're a lot like delinks. A cop canfigure how they think, but they can't figure how a cop thinks. " "Such as?" asked the skipper. "They can't understand anybody not tryin' to be important, " saidSergeant Madden. "It baffles 'em. " "What's that got to do with the people on the _Cerberus_?" demanded theskipper. "It's our job to get them and the _Cerberus_ back on the way toport!" "I know!" conceded Sergeant Madden, "and the girl my son Timmy's goingto marry is one of them. But I don't think we'll have much trouble. Haveyou got any multipoly plastic on the _Aldeb_?" The skipper nodded, blankly. Multipoly plastic is a substance asanomalous as its name. It is a multiple polymer of something-or-otherwhich stretches very accommodatingly to a surprising expanse, and thensuddenly stops stretching. When it stops, it has a high and obstinatetensile strength. All ships carry it for temporary repairs, because itwill seal off anything. A one-mill thickness will hold fifteen poundspressure. Ships have been known to come down for landing with bubbles ofmultipoly glistening out of holes in their hulls. A salvage ship, especially, would carry an ample supply. A minor convenience in its useis the fact that a detonator-cap set off at any part of it starts a waveof disintegration which is too slow to be an explosion and cleans up themess made in its application. "Naturally I've got it, " said the skipper. "What do you want with it?" Sergeant Madden told him. Painfully. Painstakingly. "The tough part, " said the skipper, "is making 'em go out an ejectortube. But I've got fourteen good men. Give me two hours for the firstbatch. We'll make up the second while you're placing them. " Sergeant Madden nodded. The skipper went into the lock and closed the door behind him. After amoment Patrolman Willis saw him wading through the incredibly delicateand fragile gas-ice crystals. Then the _Aldeb_'s lock swallowed him. * * * * * The odd thing about the Huk business was the minute scale of the thingsthat happened, compared to the background in which they took place. Thesquad ship, for example, lifted off Sirene VIII for the second time. She'd been out once and come back for the second batch of multipolyobjects. Sirene VIII was not a giant planet, by any means, but it was arespectable six thousand miles in diameter. The squad ship's sixty feetof length was a mote so minute by comparison that no comparison waspossible. She headed in toward the sun. She winked out of existence intooverdrive. She headed toward Sirene IV, in quadrature, where missilerockets floated in orbit awaiting the coming of any enemy. The distanceto be traveled was roughly one and a half light-hours--some twelveastronomical units of ninety-three million miles each. The squad ship covered that distance in a negligible length of time. Itpopped into normality about two hundred thousand miles out from the Hukhome-world. It seemed insolently to remain there. In a matter of secondsit appeared at another place--a hundred fifty thousand miles out, butoff to one side. It seemed arrogantly to remain there, too--in a secondplace at the same time. Then it appeared, with the arbitrary effect aship does give when coming out of overdrive, at a third place a hundredseventy-five thousand miles from the planet. At a fourth place barelyeighty thousand miles short of collision with the Huk world. At a fifthplace. A sixth. Each time it appeared, it seemed to remain in plain, challenging, insolent view, without ceasing to exist at the spots whereit had appeared previously. In much less than a minute, the seeming of asizable squadron of small human ships had popped out of emptiness andlay off the Huk home world at distances ranging from eighty thousandmiles to three times as much. Suddenly, light flashed intolerably in emptiness. It was in contact withone of the seeming squad ships, which ceased to be. But immediately twomore ships appeared at widely different spots. A second flash--giant andterrible nearby--a pin point of light among the stars. Anotherostensible human ship vanished in atomic flame--but still anotherappeared magically from nowhere. A third and then a fourth flash. Threemore within successive seconds. Squad ships continued to appear as if by necromancy, and space near theplanet was streaked by flarings of white vapor as eighty-gee rocketshurled themselves to destruction against the invading objects. As eachbomb went off, its light was brighter than the sun. But each was a mereflicker in enormousness. They flashed, and flashed--Each was a bombturning forty kilograms of matter into pure, raw, raging destruction. Each was devastation sufficient to destroy the greatest city the galaxyever knew. But in that appalling emptiness they were mere scintillations. In thebackground of a solar system's vastness they made all the doings of menand Huks alike seem ludicrous. For a long time--perhaps five minutes, perhaps ten--the flashings whichwere the most terrible of all weapons continued. Each flash destroyedsomething which, in scale, was less than a dust mote. But more motesappeared, and more and more and more. And presently the flashes grew infrequent. The threads of vapor whichled to each grew longer. In a little while they came from halfway aroundthe planet. Then squad ships appeared even there. And immediately pinpoints of intolerable brilliance destroyed them--yet never as fast asthey appeared. Finally there came ten seconds in which no atomic flame ravened inemptiness. One more glitter. Fifteen seconds. Twenty. Thirty secondswithout a flashing of atomic explosive-- The surviving objects which appeared to be squad ships hung in space. They moved without plan. They swam through space without destination. Presently the most unobservant of watches must have perceived that theirmovement was random. That they were not driven. That they had nopurpose. That they were not squad ships but targets--and not even robottargets--set out for the missile rockets of the Huk planet to expendthemselves on. The missile rockets had expended themselves. So Sergeant Madden opened communication with the Huks. * * * * * "These Huks, " observed Sergeant Madden as the squad ship descended tothe Huk planet's surface, "they must've had a share in the scrappingeighty years ago. They've got everything the old-time Huks had. They'veeven got recordings of human talk from civilian human prisoners of yearsgone by. And they kept somebody able to talk it--for when they foughtwith us!" Patrolman Willis did not answer. He had a strange expression on hisface. At the moment they were already within the Huk home-planet'satmosphere. From time to time a heavily accented voice gave curtinstructions. It was a Huk voice, telling Patrolman Willis how to guidethe squad ship to ground where--under truce--Sergeant Madden might holdconference with Huk authorities. "_Hold the course_, " said the voice. "_That is r-right. Do as you are. _" The horizon had ceased to be curved minutes ago. Now the ground rosegradually. The ground was green. Large green growths clustered off toone side of the flat area where the ship was to alight. They were theequivalent of trees on this planet. Undoubtedly there were equivalentsof grass and shrubs, and seed-bearing and root-propagating vegetation, and Huks would make use of some seeds and roots for food. Because inorder to have a civilization one has to have a larger food-supply thancan be provided by even the thriftiest of grazing animals. But the Huksor their ancestors would need to have been flesh-eaters also, for brainsto be useful in hunting and therefore for mental activity to berecognized as useful. A vegetarian community can maintain acivilization, but it has to start off on meat. A clump of ground-cars waited for the squad ship's landing. The shiptouched, delicately. Sergeant Madden rumbled and got out of his chair. Patrolman Willis looked at him uneasily. "Huh!" said Sergeant Madden. "Of course you can come. You want them tothink we're bluffing? No. Nothing to fight with. The Huks think ourfleet's set to do the fighting. " He undogged the exit door and went out through the small vestibule whichwas also the ship's air lock. Patrolman Willis joined him out-of-doors. The air was fresh. The sky was blue. Clouds floated in the sky, andgrowing things gave off a not-unpleasant odor, and a breeze blewuncertainly. But such things happen on appropriate planets in mostsol-type solar systems. Huks came toward them. Stiffly. Defiantly. The most conspicuousdifference between Huks and humans was of degree. Huks grew hair allover their heads, instead of only parts of it. But they wore garments, and some of the garments were identical and impressive, so they could beguessed to be uniforms. "How-do, " said the voice that had guided the ship down. "We are r-readyto listen to your message. " Sergeant Madden said heavily: "We humans believe you Huks have got a good fleet. We believe you've gota good army. We know you've got good rockets and a fighting force that'sworth a lot to us. We want to make a treaty for you to take over anddefend as much territory as you're able to, against some charactersheading this way from the Coalsack region. " Silence. The interpreter translated, and the Huks muttered astonishedlyamong themselves. The interpreter received instructions. "Do you mean others of our r-race?" he demanded haughtily. "Members ofour own r-race who r-return to r-recover their home worlds from humans?" "Hell, no!" said Sergeant Madden dourly. "If you can get in contact withthem and bring them back, they can have their former planets back andmore besides--if they'll defend 'em. We're stretched thin. We didn'tcome here to fight your fleet. We came to ask it to join us. " More mutterings. The interpreter faced about. "This surpr-rises us, " he said darkly. "We know of no danger in thedirection you speak of. Per-rhaps we would wish to make fr-riends withthat danger instead of you!" Sergeant Madden snorted. "You're welcome!" Then he said sardonically: "If you're able to reach usafter you try, the offer stands. Join us, and you'll give your owncommands and make your own decisions. We'll co-operate with you. But youwon't make friends with the characters I'm talking about! Not hardly!" More hurried discussions still. The interpreter, defiantly: "And if wer-refuse to join you?" Sergeant Madden shrugged. "Nothing. You'll fight on your own, anyhow. So will we. If we joined upwe could both fight better. I came to try to arrange so we'd both bestronger. We need you. You need us. " * * * * * There was a pause. Patrolman Willis swallowed. At five-million-mileintervals, in a circle fifty million miles across with the Huk world asits center, objects floated in space. Patrolman Willis knew about them, because he and Sergeant Madden had put them there immediately after themissile rockets ceased to explode. He knew what they were, and his spinecrawled at the thought of what would happen if the Huks found out. Butthe distant objects were at the limit of certain range for detectiondevices. The planet's instruments could just barely pick them up. Theysubtended so small a fraction of a thousandth of a second of arc that noinformation could be had about them. But they acted like a monstrous space fleet, ready to pour downwar-headed missiles in such numbers as to smother the planet in atomicflame. Patrolman Willis could not imagine admitting that such a supposedfleet needed another fleet to help it. A military man, bluffing asSergeant Madden bluffed, would not have dared offer any terms lessonerous than abject surrender. But Sergeant Madden was a cop. It was nothis purpose to make anybody surrender. His job was, ultimately, to makethem behave. The Huks conferred. The conference was lengthy. The interpreter turnedto Sergeant Madden and spoke with vast dignity and caginess: "When do you r-require an answer?" "We don't, " grunted Sergeant Madden. "When you make up your minds, senda ship to Varenga III. We'll give you the information we've got. That'swhether you fight with us or independent. You'll fight, once you meetthese characters! We don't worry about that! Just . .. We can do bettertogether. " Then he said: "Have you got the co-ordinates for Varenga? Idon't know what you call it in your language. " "We have them, " said the interpreter, still suspiciously. "Right!" said Sergeant Madden. "That's all. We came here to tell youthis. Let us know when you make up your minds. Now we'll go back. " He turned as if to trudge back to the squad ship. And this, of course, was the moment when the difference between a military and a cop mind wasgreatest. A military man, with the defenses of the planet smashed--orexhausted--and an apparent overwhelming force behind him, would havetried to get the _Cerberus_ and its company turned over to him either byimplied or explicit threats. Sergeant Madden did not mention them. Buthe had made it necessary for the Huks to do something. They'd been shocked to numbness by the discovery that humans knew oftheir presence on Sirene IV. They'd been made aghast by the brisk andcompetent nullification of their eighty-gee rocket defenses. They'd beenappalled by the appearance of a space fleet which--if it had been aspace fleet--could have blasted the planet to a cinder. And then theywere bewildered that the humans asked no submission--not even promisesfrom them. There was only one conclusion to be drawn. It was that if the humanswere willing to be friendly, it would be a good idea to agree. Anotheridea followed. A grand gesture by Huks would be an even better idea. "Wait!" said the interpreter. He turned. A momentary further discussionamong the Huks. The interpreter turned back. "There is a ship here, " he said uneasily. "It is a human ship. There arehumans in it. The ship is disabled. " Sergeant Madden affected surprise. "Yeah? How come?" "It ar-rived two days ago, " said the interpreter. Then he plunged. "Webr-rought it. We have a mine on what you call Pr-rocyron Three. Thehuman ship landed, because it was disabled. It discovered our ship andour mine there. We wished to keep the mine secret. Because the humanshad found out our secret, we br-rought them here. And the ship. It isdisabled. " "Hm-m-m, " said Sergeant Madden. "I'll send a repair-boat down to fixwhatever's the matter with it. Of course you won't mind. " He turnedaway, and turned back. "One of the solar systems we'd like you to takeover and defend, " he observed, "is Procyron. I haven't a list of theothers, but when your ship comes over to Varenga it'll be ready. Talkour repair-boat down, will you? We'll appreciate anything you can do tohelp get the ship back out in space with its passengers, but ourrepair-boat can manage. " He waved his hand negligently and went back to the squad ship. He gotin. Patrolman Willis followed him. "Take her up, " said Sergeant Madden. The squad ship fell toward the sky. Sergeant Madden said satisfiedly: "That went off pretty good. From now on it's just routine. " * * * * * There was a bubble in emptiness. It was a large bubble, as such thingsgo. It was nearly a thousand feet in diameter, and it was made ofmultipoly plastic which is nearly as anomalous as its name. The bubblecontained almost an ounce of helium. It had a three-inch small box atone point on its surface. It floated some twenty-five million miles fromthe Huk planet, and five million miles from another bubble which was itsidentical twin. It could reflect detector-pulses. In so doing itimpersonated a giant fighting ship. Something like an hour after the squad ship rose from Sirene IV, adetonator-cap exploded in the three-inch box. It tore the box to atomsand initiated a wave of disintegration in the plastic of the bubble. Thehelium bubble-content escaped and was lost. The plastic itself turned togas and disappeared. The bubble had been capable of exactly two actions. It could reflectdetector-pulses. In doing so, it had impersonated a giant fighting ship, member of an irresistible fleet. It could also destroy itself. In sodoing, it impersonated a giant fighting ship--one of a fleet--going intooverdrive. In rapid succession, all the bubbles which were members of anon-existent fighting fleet winked out of existence about Sirene IV. There were a great many of them, and no trace of any remained. The last was long gone when a small salvage ship descended to the Hukhome planet. A heavily accented voice talked it down. The salvage ship landed amid evidences of cordiality. The Huks wereextremely co-operative. They even supplied materials for the repair jobon the _Cerberus_, including landing rockets to be used in case of need. But they weren't needed for take-off. The _Cerberus_ had been landed ata Huk spaceport, which obligingly lifted it out to space again when itsdrive had been replaced. * * * * * And the squad ship sped through emptiness at a not easily believablemultiple of the speed of light. Sergeant Madden dozed, while PatrolmanWillis performed such actions as were necessary for the progress of theship. They were very few. But Patrolman Willis thought feverishly. After a long time Sergeant Madden waked, and blinked, and lookedbenignly at Patrolman Willis. "You'll be back with your wife soon, Willis, " he said encouragingly. "Yes, sir. " Then the patrolman said explosively: "Sergeant! There'snothing coming from the Coalsack way! There's nothing for the Huks tofight!" "True, at the moment, " admitted Sergeant Madden, "but something couldcome. Not likely--But you see, Willis, the Huks have had armed forcesfor a long time. They've glamour. They're not ready to cut down and haveonly cops, like us humans. It wouldn't be reasonable to tell 'em thetruth--that there's no need for their fighting men. They'd make a need!So they'll stand guard happily against some kind of monstrosities we'llhave Special Cases invent for them. They'll stand guard zestful foryears and years! Didn't they do the same against us? But now they'reproud that even we humans, that they were scared of, ask them to helpus. So presently they'll send some Huks over to go through the PoliceAcademy, and then presently there'll be a sub-precinct station overthere, with Huks in charge, and . .. Why . .. That'll be that. " "But they want planets--" Sergeant Madden shrugged. "There's plenty, Willis. The guess is six thousand million planets fitfor humans in this galaxy. And by the time we've used them up, somebody'll have worked out a drive to take us to the next galaxy tostart all over. There's no need to worry about that! And forimmediate--does it occur to you how many men are going to start gettingrich because there's a brand-new planet that's got a lot of things wehumans would like to have, and wants to buy a lot of things the Hukshaven't got?" Patrolman Willis subsided. But presently he said: "Sergeant . .. What'd you have done if they hadn't told you about the_Cerberus_?" Sergeant Madden snorted. "It's unthinkable! We waltzed in there, and told them a tale, and showedevery sign of walkin' right out again without askin' them a thing. Theycouldn't even tell us to go to hell, because it looked like we didn'tcare what they said. It was insupportable, Willis! Characters that maketrouble, Willis, do it to feel important. And we'd left them without athing to tell us that was important enough to mention--unless they toldus about the _Cerberus_. We had 'em baffled. They needed to saysomething, and that was the only thing they could say!" He yawned. "The _Aldeb_ reports everybody on the _Cerberus_ safe and sound, onlyfrightened, and the skipper said Timmy's girl was less scared than most. I'm pleased. Timmy's getting married, and I wouldn't want mygrandchildren to have a scary mother!" He looked at the squad ship's instruments. There was a long way yet totravel. "A-h-h-h! It's a dull business this, overdrive, " he said somnolently. "And it's amazing how much a man can sleep when everything's in hand, and there's nothing ahead but a wedding and a few things like that. Justroutine, Willis. Just routine!" He settled himself more comfortably as the squad ship went on home. THE END