Part 5 (1/2)

The dawn came up nice and quiet. Blackness turned gray and then a pearl pink--and there she was: a hundred yards from us, of some gleaming metal resembling aluminum, twenty feet high and covering about as much ground as a caretaker's cottage. It resembled nothing more than a soup plate turned bottom up to dry.

A tall, semi-circular opening showed black in one side, with a sloping metallic ramp reaching from it to the ground. Two robots guarded the entrance, stiff and towering and without movement, the early light glistening along their jointed bodies.

In sharp contrast to this scene from the distant future was the anachronistic spectacle of six Indians, in war paint, fringed buckskin and stripped to the waist, squatting around a small cooking fire near the s.h.i.+p. Within easy reach of each was a long bow and a quiver of arrows.

Nothing about them gave me a certain clue as to which Indian family they belonged to. The single feather in each scalp lock was pure white with a vivid red tip. Two of them wore the black paint of untried warriors, and all were gnawing on strips of meat grilled over the fire.

Wetzel, placid and silent, leaned on his rifle and calmly stuffed a cheek with a twist of black tobacco. ”Reckon they be a little hard to talk to?” he asked in a soft voice.

I shrugged. ”Only one way I know of to find out.”

”Thet fancy pistol you got could kill 'em all afore they get them bows unlimbered.”

”Are you suggesting I shoot them down without warning?”

It was his turn to shrug. ”They be Indians.”

The complete lack of feeling in his tone infuriated me. ”You cold-blooded b.a.s.t.a.r.d! I happen to be a good part Indian myself.”

He eyed me without expression but with a chill glitter to his eyes.

”Aye. I ain't forgettin' thet,” he said, and spat.

I took a slow breath and waited until I could trust my voice. ”I'm going out there,” I said quietly. ”Cover me with your gun. But don't use it _unless_ it's the only thing left to do. I don't want that trigger pulled until the last possible second. They may grab me, they may even knock me around a little. That I can take. But don't try to interfere until there's no other way out. Is that clear?”

”Aye.”

I turned away from him. All I had to do now was step out from behind that tree and walk across the open ground. Each of my feet suddenly weighed a ton. Two steps into that clearing and the funeral could be Monday. Instinctively my hand crawled toward the .38 automatic hidden in my coveralls. It never got that far. Suicide was so final.

Wetzel's firm young mouth held an almost invisible sneer. Deliberately I took out a cigarette, lighted it with an airy gesture and a match, dragged deeply on it twice and threw it away. I said, ”Lay off that gun like I told you,” and walked slowly out into the clearing.

It got a rise out of them, all right. They were on their feet, arrows notched, before I had traveled three feet. I never even hesitated.

Once I had gone this far, the bluff had to be carried all the way out.

I kept my spine stiff, my head erect, my hands conspicuously empty at my sides. If my nerves were jumping I was the only one who knew about it.

It caught them just a shade off-balance, which was all I had hoped for. The one-sidedness of six drawn bows against one unimpressive and unarmed man eventually registered and the flint tips wavered, then turned aside.

The tallest of the braves--a lean number the color of an old penny--tossed his bow aside and deliberately stepped squarely in my path. There was an insolent arrogance in every line of his body--a body that topped my six feet a full three inches.

I said, ”Hi-yo, Silver,” and put my hip into his naked belly and grabbed his arm and threw him over my shoulder. He hit face first two yards away and plowed up a furrow of gra.s.s, flopped around a little, then lay still.

n.o.body else moved, except me. I started for the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p again, not hurrying and not crawling, head still up, spine still stiff, eyes straight ahead. Feet slithered in the gra.s.s behind me and the sound made the skin between my shoulder blades twitch like an aching tooth.

Every instinct that had anything to do with self-preservation was fighting to make me turn around.

That was when the robots moved. They seemed to come alive at the same instant, metal clanged on metal as they strode stiffly down the ramp to meet me. Violence hung over them as it hangs over a Patton tank.

Every step toward them was like pulling my foot out of quicksand. Only twelve kinds of a cretin would have gone on when faced with anything like this. I went on. I couldn't do anything else. Once you show an Indian a molecule of cowardice, you're twelve lines on the obituary page.