Title: The Conquistadors Come
Author: Counselman, Mary Elizabeth
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Conquistadors Come" ***


                        The Conquistadors Come

                          by M. E. COUNSELMAN

               _The handsome, fair-haired Conquistadors
               were welcomed by the S'zetnurs with open
                arms--the grasping, grotesque arms of a
                   lost race of beauty-worshippers._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                     Planet Stories November 1951.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


The Conquistadors were tall men, tall and bronzed by many suns, and
splendid as they strode down the gangplank in a seemingly endless
procession. They were fair-haired, with flashing black eyes like
polished onyx, and their straight profiles might have been copied
from the faces of the silver coins that jingled in their pockets.
In the steamy-hot atmosphere of the new-found planet, S'zetnu, they
stripped to the waist almost at once, and their muscles rippled in the
blue-green sunlight....

At the edge of the pallid forest surrounding the clear spot where
the great rocket had landed, many eyes were watching their advent.
Wondering eyes, wistful and excited eyes ... but eyes that peered and
squinted, rheumy with disease and almost blind.

The Conquistadors, after the manner of their ancient ancestors, knelt
down in a ring, hands folded, heads bowed. One of them--the tallest,
the most splendid--stood in the center of the circle and lifted both
arms to the sky. His lips moved, and lovely rolling sounds issued from
them....

The watchers in the forest gasped, looking at one another in silent
wonder. Two centuries ago, their kind had lost the power of speech; and
for a half century their deformed ears had been able to hear only the
loudest of sounds--the screech of a giant beetle stalking them through
the swampland, the crash of thunder, the rumble of a waterfall ... the
sound of this great rocket-ship roaring down upon them out of nowhere.
Now, holding little seashells to their ears to amplify the voice of the
Tall One, they began to jump up and down ecstatically, like children
promised a treat. They nodded. They hugged one another with their short
deformed arms, bumping their foreheads together in the ancient gesture
of happiness and good will.

The Conquistadors stood up. The leader raised his hand--and suddenly,
from all their open mouths, came beautiful noises that made the
listeners in the forest shiver with pleasure. It was a strange thing,
a magic thing! Cocking their hideous little heads this way and that,
and holding the shells to their ears, they began to sway in cadence,
mesmerized with delight; for not even their Elders could remember
_singing_.

The lovely sounds ended. Then the Leader, the tall splendid one with
the pleasant expression, held up his hand again and spoke, pointing
first at one group of men, then at another, who nodded and drifted away
from the ring toward the task he had set for them. The watchers in the
forest nudged one another, pointing with their stumps of hands and
conversing (in the only way that was left to them) with the expressions
that flitted across their horribly disfigured faces. _Hands!_ they
commented excitedly. _With fingers! And feet, gracefully arched feet,
with five toes on each! Oh, were not the strangers beautiful--were they
not perfect?_

However--the watchers frowned--they did not seem to be too intelligent.
Now, with evident excitement, one of them came running to the tall
leader with a handful of pebbles. Others gathered about the two of
them, yelling and pounding one another on the back as they examined the
small stones--which, the watchers knew, were completely worthless. No
one, not even these strong healthy newcomers, could eat a _stone_.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Rob! Yah-hoo!..." Harris, first astrogator, was yelling at his
long-time buddy, the pilot and captain of the space-freighter Eroica.
"Look at this stuff! Just look at it! Solaranium vein a foot thick ...
damn planet's loaded with it! _We did it! We finally did it...._"

"Well, don't burn out your jet!" Rob Cantrell chuckled, calm and
laconic in the face of this near miracle. He squinted at one
mica-bright stone, tossing it up and catching it with a grin of quiet
triumph. "Yep ... journey's end. If our rations hold out, we can mine
and refine enough pure sola to start every factory on Terra booming
again inside six months. I ... _Good Lord!_" He broke off, hand arcing
to the blaster on his hip. "What's _that_ thing? _Heads up!_" he
shouted a warning to the busy men about him. "_General alert!... we've
got visitors!_"

It was a S'zetnur child who had ventured out of hiding, drawn by
curiosity--and by the tantalizing smell that issued from a pot of stew
one of the cooks was stirring. Now, as the tiny gargoyle-figure crawled
out into the clearing from the shelter of those white-leafed trees,
everyone turned to stare--the mechanics, unloading their diggers and
refining filters; the freight crew, setting up the tents around the
big rocket; the biochemists, busily testing the flora for edibility or
possible toxicity; the ethnologists, searching for some clue to the
language and customs of the people of this planet.

Cantrell, his hand dropping slowly from his gun-butt, walked slowly
forward toward the crawling child. It squinted up at him with milky
blue eyes that could scarcely make out the outline of his tall figure.
But, at his approach, it cowered back; started to scuttle for cover.
Cantrell reached down gently and picked it up, shuddering at the little
face so close to his own. Moonstone eyes. Gargoyle mouth with crumbling
teeth. Round scabrous head that was almost hairless. Stumps of feet and
hands that had no fingers, no toes. The child squirmed frantically in
his embrace, uttering a small shrill whistle that seemed to be the only
sound it could make.

"God, it's _human_, isn't it?" Harris, standing beside him, muttered in
pity and revulsion. "Put it down, Rob! It's ... diseased!"

More of the men from Terra crowded closer, peering at the struggling
child. Then one of the chemists shouted, pointing. Cantrell whirled,
hand moving again toward his gun.

Another of the creatures was creeping out of the forest. A
woman--probably the child's mother. She limped forward, whistling
soothingly to the child, but utterly terrified herself from the look on
her bloated, twisted features. A few feet away from Cantrell, she threw
her hands over her face and flung herself prone before him; head in
the grass, she crawled toward him, reached his feet, and lay tense as
though expecting a blow....

"Poor slob! God, I've seen beggars on Terra who weren't as...." Captain
Rob Cantrell knelt slowly and set the child on its deformed feet. It
toppled over at once, unable to stand, and the mother snatched it to
her flat breast. She began to crawl again, dragging the child and
backing away with her face still thrust into the spongy ground.

"Poor ugly _slob_ ... thinks we're going to hurt her, doesn't she?"

On impulse, Cantrell strode forward, took her arm gently, and lifted
her to her feet. She swayed, clinging to the child. Casting about for
some gesture of friendship, he suddenly unstrapped the spacewatch from
his left wrist and, smiling, buckled it about the woman's scrawny
handless arm. She stared at it dumbly, milk-blue eyes darting from
the jeweled band to Cantrell's face for a moment. Then, with a little
bleating sound, she threw herself at his feet again, trembling with
terror. She lay there, clutching her baby and sobbing uncontrollably.

"Well, I'll be a--!" Cantrell glanced helplessly at Harris, "What d'you
make of _that_?"

"Doesn't understand about presents," the astrogator guessed. "Must mean
something special on this planet.... _Hey! Here come some more!_"

       *       *       *       *       *

He pointed toward the pale forest, from which a wary group of perhaps
fourteen S'zetnurs, men and women, had emerged fearfully. Their
hands--if they could be called hands--were flung up, like the woman's
to cover their faces--if they could be called faces. And when they
reached a distance of five yards from the silent group of Earthmen, all
threw themselves down flat, their heads burrowing into the spiky grass.

"Don't get it," Rob Cantrell drawled, hands on hips, legs spread apart
as he stood regarding this strange welcome. "Look; all of them are
deformed. Inbreeding, do you suppose? Or some kind of plague?..."

"Sir, I believe it's a matter of vitamin deficiency," one of the
biochemists spoke up from the group of Earthmen behind Harris. "I've
been testing a few specimens under the micro. These white leaves--and
look at that grass! It's the sunlight, I think. Not a bit of nutriment
in the soil. Another thing," he pointed out shrewdly; "has anybody seen
any animal-life yet? Ask me, I don't think there _is_ any! These poor
critters are just _starving_ to death! Malnutrition. Years and years of
it...."

Cantrell scowled, his lips pursed; he said slowly, "You know, Jim, I
believe you're right.... Well, _hell_!" He gestured impatiently to one
of the cooks who had wandered over to join the curious group. "Break
out some solid chow for these ... people. On the double!"

"Yes _sir_!"

Grinning with the sheer pleasure of filling a need, several of the crew
followed the cook. They came back with folding plates and collapsible
cups, filled to the brim with succulent stew made of dehydrated
vegetables and pressed beef. These, a bit squeamishly, they put into
the clumsy grasp of the little dwarfed S'zetnurs; laughing, they
watched how they snatched it, turning their backs to their benefactors
as they wolfed down the warm food....

The laughter died. For almost instantly three, then a dozen of the
dwarfish creatures were doubled up with nausea and stomach-cramp.
Others, gagging at the first bite, dropped their platters of food. Then
all threw themselves down before the men from Terra, groveling in the
grass at their feet as though begging for mercy....

"Lord, we're _stupid_!" Cantrell sighed. "Of _course_ they can't take
our rich food! Probably been living on herbs and stuff for Lord knows
how long...." He moved pityingly toward one groaning dwarf, writhing on
the sward and hugging his stomach. "Hey, you medics! Give me hand--"

He knelt, trying to roll the sufferer over on his back and slip a
gastrotab between the writhing lips. But, with a look of terrified
pleading, the little S'zetnur covered his face and flopped over
again, hiding his warped features in a clump of pale weeds. With his
fingerless hands he groped along the ground, found Cantrell's foot, and
drew himself up to it, wriggling in worm-like obeisance--

Then, before the Earth pilot could move, a swollen tongue crept out and
caressed his bare toes under the plastic sandal-strap.

Cantrell's reaction was instinctive. His foot came up, in sheer disgust
that any man should lick another's foot like a mongrel-dog. Cursing, he
kicked the little S'zetnur square in the mouth.

And, the next instant, hated himself.

       *       *       *       *       *

Blood, a thin watery trickle, ran from a corner of the gargoyle mouth;
but the S'zetnur made no move to escape. He merely lay where he was,
dumbly, holding up one arm. Opaque eyes peered warily up through the
weeds.

"Ah ... to hell with it!" the pilot burst out, furious with himself. He
started to kneel and apologize; saw the futility of it, and turned away
abruptly, striding toward the long silver ship. "Get these screwballs
out of the way!" he snapped, irritable in his shame. "We've got work to
do! We'll have to refine this sola on a night-and-day shift! No rest
for anybody ... and twenty shocks to any of you jet-monkeys I catch
trying to go over the hill! You got that?"

"Yes _sir_!"

"Yes-sir, Cap'n!"

"Yousa! I hears you talkin'!" This from Harris, who had strolled after
him, checking over his charts carefully for the return flight.

Cantrell glared at him. "And that goes for you, too--Romeo!" he
growled. "No fraternizing with the natives!"

"_Fraternize!_ With _those_ women?" Harris shuddered, thumbs in the
studded belt of his spacesuit. "Listen, I'd have to be drunker'n I've
ever been on Mars or Venus!" He broke off, looking at his friend with
faint reproach. "You shouldn't have kicked that poor slob, though.
Section 382-XV: _No overt act of violence unless to repell attack_ ...
you read your Handbook lately, chum?"

Cantrell grunted, struck one fist into his other palm sheepishly. "I
know it. I didn't mean to. But--licking my foot! But I'll make it up to
him. Some way...."

"Sure!" Harris's eyes softened. Throwing an arm around Cantrell's
shoulders, he locked step with him as they walked up the gangplank.
"Easy enough. If it's a vitamin deficiency, like Jim says, why--it'll
be a cinch for us to help these poor joes! We can ship chemicals from
Terra, every return-trip. Teach 'em to grow food by hydro-vat methods.
We could make a new world for them!"

The pilot nodded eagerly, his pleasant, alert face full of plans for
those pitifully stunted creatures, now melting back into the pale
jungle in obedience to the crewmen shooing them from the vicinity of
dangerous--and valuable--machinery.

Cantrell grinned. "We can try vitamin therapy right away," he said
happily. "Take, say, ten of the kids and feed them a test-diet for the
forty days we're here, loading up sola. May take years of treatment to
get them looking like _people_ again, but--we can sure try!"

They glanced back over their shoulders in unison, two splendid young
giants from another solar system, their eyes warm and bright with a
thing called "brotherly love"--which it had taken their own small
planet many centuries to learn. Together they disappeared into the
rocket ship.

Watching them from the white-leafed forest, the little people of
S'zetnur turned away sadly, in shame and patient resignation. In a
small clearing beyond sight of the bustling rocket-camp, they held
council, communicating with sharp whistles and facial expressions.

Then--according to the ancient law which the Elders still
recalled--they dragged forth the woman who wore The Mark on her wrist,
the gleaming Band of Rejection which the Tall Leader of the beautiful
ones had placed there with his own hand. The woman did not cry out
when they bound her, and buried her, still breathing, beside a huge
flowering tree--tossing the baby in with her, according to custom.

The man Rob Cantrell had kicked in the mouth, likewise, was made ready
for the honor bestowed on him ... and allowed to touch the _Icon_, as
was his right....

       *       *       *       *       *

The blue-green sun sank slowly, and the night-shift of the Earthmen's
work-camp took over, mining and refining solaranium ore, working
swiftly and efficiently against time.

Cantrell and Harris slept on identical cots in a central tent, waking
now and then to listen to the night-noises of this strange new
planet. S'zetnu?... It was only a designation, not a name; a term in
inter-stellar Esperanto, meaning "Seventh-from-the-Sun." Tomorrow,
Cantrell thought sleepily, they would find out what the dwarfish
inhabitants called their little world. It must have a name for they
must once have had some sort of language. There were signs, the
ethnologists reported, that they had once been a civilized people.

The pilot blew a smoke-ring at the damp ceiling of the tent, thinking
and making plans.

"Harris?" he called softly. "You awake?"

"Uh-huh. Too damned hot to sleep! Worse than Venus. It isn't the--"

"--heat; it's the humidity!" Cantrell grinned in the darkness. "Yeah,
yeah. Well, you can stand it for forty days. Say!" He sat up abruptly,
snapping his fingers on sudden thought. "If we could hire a couple of
those little S'zetnurs to locate sola veins for us, we could cut down
the time ... put the Geiger crew on one of the spare refiners! Hire
me one tomorrow, will you? A couple, I mean--two of the _older_ ones,
with rudimentary fingers and toes. They should know their way around
better.... Cripes! You can see how their race has deteriorated, each
generation a little bit worse than the one before ... the poor devils!"

"Yeah." Harris plucked Cantrell's cigarette-glow from the darkness to
take a drag. "But we're going to fix all that for them! Vital food, in
return for vital solaranium.... Why, it's a natural for trade-relations
between S'zetnu and Terra!" He blew out smoke, returned the cigarette.
"El Presidente's sure to give each of us a citation--with bonus! I can
just see my old lady spending it now. On a Martian vurna-fur coat!
She's been whining for one ever since...."

Cantrell chuckled drowsily, then sighed. "I wish I hadn't kicked
that little guy. Feel like a heel. Wish I hadn't given that woman my
spacewatch, too, in a loose moment! What time is it?"

"88-zero, shiptime," the astrogator murmured. "Go to sleep, will ya?...
I wish I was back on Tee with my baby tonight...."

Silence fell. Outside, the refiners chugged rhythmically, melting away
the solaranium from the crude ore wheeled in by the miners. At a little
distance from the camp, the Geiger experts were moving their counters
over the ground, seeking the highly-fissionable ore. The sola shortage
had shut down the industries of Terra for five years now, and sent
many a rocket-ship out into space, searching, searching ... until now,
at last, the search was ended on a tiny planet Z-north of the System.
Close! Near enough to organize a freight-lane!

But in the forest, the pallid forest beyond the camp, a gargoyle-woman
lay buried, clinging to her deformed half-idiot baby who had died with
her. Cantrell's spacewatch glinted on her stumpy wrist; mute testimony
that she must be _eliminated_, according to the ancient law that the
Elders remembered. It was strangely unfair--for there were others, many
others in the tribe, who were far more hideous than she! Mitka, who had
only a hole for a nose, and Jura, whose ears were unformed knobs on
either side of her head ... but that, of course, was for the Beautiful
Ones to judge. Their word had always been the Law....

       *       *       *       *       *

Around noon the next day, Harris reported glumly to the central tent.
Cantrell, hard at work on a sheaf of forms, glanced up, his eyes
preoccupied.

"Harris? Did you get those guides?"

Harris spread his hands. "No can find! I've had men out combing the
forest all day. Can't find a sign of those little pixies! They've just
vanished!"

Cantrell grinned. "Well, they're back again ... look; what do you think
_that_ is? A mirage?" He jerked a nod at a dwarfish figure coming
across the clearing, trailing a long train of lush tropical flowers
that had been woven into a sort of cape. A garland of the same flowers
perched askew atop the scabrous gargoyle-head. The man limped proudly,
presenting himself before Cantrell with a little bow.

"Well!" The pilot's eyebrows went up. "Who's he, the chief?" Then he
saw the man's swollen lips. "Say ... this is the poor jerk I _kicked_!"
His face softened, and he pointed to a folding chair beside his
cluttered desk. "Sit down, buster. You're hired--if I can only explain
your job to you!"

Instead, quivering, the stunted S'zetnur covered his face and threw
himself down on his face.

Harris sighed. "Here we go again!" He knelt and pulled the malformed
dwarf to his feet and shoved him into a chair.

"Now," Cantrell groaned, "comes the tough part. How can I say in
sign-lingo that we want him to locate sola veins for us? Well--here
goes!"

He held up a piece of ore, pointing and gesturing. The dwarf eyed it,
bewildered, milky-blue eyes darting from Harris to Cantrell and back
again. Cantrell pointed to the earth--

Instantly the little S'zetnur threw himself flat on the ground again,
quivering. He began to sob, holding up one stumpy arm.

"Oh, _hell_!" The spaceship's captain gave up, looking helplessly at
his astrogator. "Harris? Can you--"

Harris pulled the S'zetnur to his feet again; shoved him into the
chair; explained with patient gestures about _digging_, about _the
ore_, about _the ship_. The man's eyes, like glowing moonstones,
followed his every motion eagerly, as a stupid child's might. He took
the pebble in his hand obediently, went out to the ship, dug a small
hole in the shadow of the great rocket, and buried the piece of ore.
Then he looked up at Cantrell, towering over him in exasperation.
Harris mopped his forehead.

"I give up!" he laughed. "It's ... it's as though there was a _glass
wall_ between us! We can see each other, and hear each other. But I
can't make him _understand_. Damned if I understand him, either!"

Rob Cantrell rubbed his jaw, caressing his stubble of blond beard.

"If we only knew what's going on in that funny little head," he
muttered. "What do they _want_? Everybody wants something. If we could
just figure out what these S'zetnurs are after--besides centuries of
decent diet, which they obviously need--we could--"

He glared at the twisted little S'zetnur, decked with flowers that made
his hideous deformity even more noticeable. The man cringed at his
expression, covering his face and peeping through his short arms. Then,
emboldened, catching one of the pilot's hands between his own stumps,
he examined it admiringly, tracing each finger with his gaze. Cantrell
scowled and jerked his hand away impatiently.

The S'zetnur covered his face and threw himself flat on the ground.
Cantrell cursed and mopped his streaming forehead and neck.

"I don't get it," Harris said, scratching his head. "I just don't get
it ... hey! Maybe if we take him out to that valley a mile from camp,
we can put over the idea of his locating more sola for us. When he sees
our men mining the stuff--"

"Sound idea," Cantrell grunted. "Come on!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Supporting the stumbling dwarf between them, the two Earthmen strode
across the camp and down the long hill toward the distant sound of the
pick-and-shovel crew. Two small a. g. barges sailed past them on their
way down, loaded with ore and manned by a single sweat-streaked miner,
headed for the nearest refinery.

As they neared the valley, where last night the Geiger crew had located
a rich streak of solaranium, the pilot and the astrogator noticed that
their small captive was growing very nervous. Stumbling along between
them as fast as his stumpy feet could walk, he glanced first at Harris,
then at Cantrell, his expressive features working with agitation.

When they reached a small ravine, its cliff-like walls pitted with
many small caves, the little dwarf began to bleat and squirm in their
grasp like a hysterical child being dragged to the dentist. Over his
flower-decked head, the two Earthmen looked at each other, and shrugged.

"_Now_ what?" Cantrell drawled. "This valley taboo or something, you
suppose?"

"Beats me!"

Harris stopped, pulling the little S'zetnur around and pointing to a
broad streak of sola inside the mouth of one cave. He made digging
motions. He pointed to himself and Cantrell, beaming and nodding.

"Rock," he labored. "Nicee rockee! Find for us?... Oh hell!" He laughed
at his own absurd pidgin-English, then resorted to gestures again. He
pointed to the cave, to the little dwarf, to Cantrell--

The S'zetnur shook his head violently, clapping both stunted hands
over his face. An agonized bleat issued from his twisted larynx, and
he threw himself flat before Cantrell, groveling and holding up one
arm--then, as the captain took an idle step toward the cave, he flung
his tiny malformed body before the entrance, shaking his head and
beating himself in the face with his fingerless hands.

Cantrell looked at Harris, who scratched his head, grinning.

"Beats me!" he repeated helplessly. "Guess they don't _want_ us to have
the sola--!" his eyes hardened slowly. "Yeah--maybe that's it! Maybe
they're--" He stiffened, glancing nervously toward the white jangle
that pressed closely about them on all sides. "_Maybe they're arming
right now--planning an attack--_"

Rob Cantrell's pleasant face changed. Eyes narrowed, mouth tight, he
let his gaze flicker over the working men who were under his command,
dependent on his judgment for their safety. His gaze returned to the
small S'zetnur, feebly trying to block the entrance to that natural
hole in the cliff's side. Or ... _was_ it a natural hole? Cantrell's
keen eyes became observant, noting worn places in the rock--

"There's something in this cave," Harris grunted. "Something this
little monkey doesn't want us to see ... a secret weapon, maybe?
Sa-ay!" His pleasant face hardened, like Cantrell's. "Maybe these
cookies aren't as dumb and helpless as they look! Maybe they've got
something that could wipe out our whole expedition!"

Cantrell nodded and strode forward, jerking the bleating dwarf aside
with one sweep of his muscular arm. The cave was not deep; and,
Cantrell noted with tensed nerves, there were fresh flower-petals on
the floor of the small opening. Petals like those on the flower-wreath
of this fantastically decorated little S'zetnur.

The captain groped inside. Harris stepped forward, shoving the dwarf
away as he flung himself at Cantrell again like a furious kitten.
There was, the Earthmen both saw at once, something inside. A kind of
box, crudely made of white wood, as though a clumsy child had put it
together. There was no lock, Cantrell raised the lid--

Inside, dry and crumbling, was a small doll made of brown clay. Harris
and Cantrell stared at it, amazed at its perfection of modeling. It
was, or seemed to be, a very good image of an Earthman. Certainly,
it was not intended to portray one of the stunted little S'zetnurs,
for the legs and feet were perfect, the hands beautifully formed, the
facial details fine and delicate--though there was about the thing,
Cantrell noted, an odd expression of cruelty and arrogance--

"Well! What d'ya know?" he snapped. "A graven image! The aborigines on
Terra used to make these images of an enemy--just before slipping him a
poison-dart in the back! Juju ... and they made sure it worked!"

He whirled on the little S'zetnur, who was whistling shrilly now,
jumping up and down in agitated protest.

At that moment, one of the diggers shouted a warning. Cantrell turned,
to see beyond the handful of workers in the valley a small army of
S'zetnurs advancing on them from the jungle-edge. Backs to the cliff
wall, Harris and Cantrell snatched out their blasters. The captain
yelled, warning the unarmed workers to make a dash for the camp:

"_General alert! Prepare for attack!_"

       *       *       *       *       *

Then the dwarfs were upon them, armed rather pathetically with clubs
strapped to their fingerless hands. Advancing in a rough semi-circle
upon Cantrell and Harris, and completely ignoring the half-dozen
workers who dashed past them, the little S'zetnurs closed in. Lips
tight, eyes narrowed, the Earthmen waited until they were within ten
feet--

Then, methodically, they let go with their blasters, searing the
attackers from left to right.

Screaming, they went down, half-charred bodies and burning hair. One
little creature, luckier or bolder than the rest, struck a blow that
numbed Harris's left arm. Cantrell blazed away at him. He fell, an
unrecognizable mass of ashes.

The men from Terra pressed against the cliff wall, panting, their eyes
raking the pale jungle for the next wave of attackers.

"How d'you like these babies?" Cantrell snarled. "Planning to jump us
all the time--And we were feeling sorry for them!"

They waited, tensed for the next attack. In the distance they could
hear the siren on the spaceship, calling a general alert. Calling in
the Geiger crews, and the diggers, and the ethnologists. _Natives
hostile, natives hostile!_ the signal was screaming--

Cantrell turned his head briefly--and stiffened as he saw the small
S'zetnur decked in flowers. He was still alive, crouched just inside
the cave, clutching the mud doll and whimpering softly. The captain
glared at him, hard-eyed.

"Ambassador, huh?" He smiled without mirth. "To keep us from being
suspicious of this juju-attack, until it was too late!" He jerked his
head at Harris. "Blast him! He's a spy, isn't he? Been all over the
camp. Knows just where everything's located--"

The astrogator peered at the huddled creature nursing the doll. He
raised his gun, then swallowed hard. "Rob--I can't do it! Cold like
this, I mean ... can't we take him prisoner? A hostage?"

Cantrell glanced at him, then at the pitiful figure in the cave.

"Don't be a damned fool!" he snapped. "If he gets away and brings
reinforcements, none of us'll get off this apple alive! You lost your
guts or something?"

Harris scuffed his toe, looking down. "No-o.... It's just that....
Well, hell!" his gruff voice cracked. "He's so ... _helpless_!"

"Helpless, my eye!" Rob Cantrell growled. "There may be thousands of
these joes, closing in on us right now from that jungle! _Millions!_
All right, I'm in command," he said quietly. "Make a run for the camp.
I ... I'll do it...."

His buddy tossed him a grateful look, born of their long-time
friendship. With another look at the silent wall of forest, he sprinted
in the direction of the camp. Once he paused, wincing, as the blare of
a ray-gun sounded behind him. Then Cantrell caught up with him, his
eyes pained, his lips white.

"Poor slob!" he muttered through clenched teeth as he ran. "Poor ugly
little slob.... He kept shielding that damn doll with his body!"

They burst into the clearing, where the lieutenants were already
rounding up those of the ship's crew who were trained to fight. Others,
the workmen and the experts, were piling into the ship for safety. The
siren kept up its woman-like screaming: _Hostile natives, hostile!_

Cantrell and Harris stopped in the center of the clearing, to view
the ordered shambles with sick eyes. They glanced at each other, and
shrugged.

"All right!" the captain's clear voice rang out. "Prepare to take off!
Repeating: Prepare to take off! Abandon all equipment not vital to
crew. Repeating...."

The men from Terra were efficient men, quick, intelligent, and
well-organized under the pilot and astrogator who commanded their
expedition. In exactly 8-3 kilos, shiptime, men and machinery were
loaded aboard the big silver rocket. Fire belched from her twin jets.
She took the atmosphere of the planet designated as S'zetnur like a
pale streak of flame. In another kilo, she was bulleting into free
flight.

Cantrell, the pilot, fixed her automatic on "Sol-Terra," then strolled
back to the chart room, where Harris was rechecking their line of
flight. He sat down on the plastine desk, lighting a cigarette. Harris
took it from him, inhaled a deep drag, and handed it back. They looked
at each other, smiling wryly.

"Well ..." Rob Cantrell sighed. "There goes that presidential citation
you were yapping about--with bonus. We'll be lucky if we keep our
rating!"

"Oh, it won't be that bad," Harris predicted cheerfully. "I mean,
nobody could expect us to form a trade-alliance with a bunch of
hot-heads like that! Graven images! Tricked-up spies!" He spat
disgustedly. "And all because we wanted one shipload of lousy sola!..."

Cantrell nodded bitterly. "And we could have done so much for them in
return. A new world, I think you said!..." He emitted a short laugh,
edged with cynicism. "Well ... Terra-Government can't afford to ship
from a hostile planet. Too damn expensive. We'll just have to equip
another expedition and start looking again...."

Harris nodded absently, his eyes thoughtful. "Uh-huh.... But if we
could only have understood those little monkeys! Maybe they didn't mind
our taking the sola. Maybe it was something else.... Rob," he blurted,
"one of the junior ethnologists has a theory; did you hear? He...."

"Junior ethnologists have always got a theory!" the captain snorted.
"Lack of experience!"

"Yeah, but ..." Harris pursued. "This kid says he thinks those little
S'zetnurs were a cult of beauty-worshippers. You know? Like they used
to have on Venus? Eugenic mating--killing off the imperfect ones. He
says they just don't understand about nutrition; that's why it's so
tragic that they're all deformed and diseased now. None of them are
beauties any more, and they don't know why. But when they saw us...."

"Nuts!" said Cantrell rudely.

"Yeah, but.... The doll. Maybe it was an image of the way _they_ used
to be. A sort of pattern for them to remember.... And you know how that
poor joe kept ... _looking_ at us? The one all tricked-up in flowers?
This ethno thinks they sent him to be mated with one of our women...."

"Good God!" the pilot laughed.

"... and that poor slob of a woman, who acted so upset when you
strapped your spacewatch around her wrist. The kid thinks you marked
her for death, and...."

"Oh, go soak your head! And that junior ethnologist's, too!" Cantrell
chuckled. "I understood those babies, all right! They're just a bunch
of greedy, ignorant morons, who were determined not to let a shipful of
strangers cart off any of their lousy little planet! You and your ...
glass wall!"

He punched Harris on the shoulder in affectionate scorn. The astrogator
grinned feebly; then with more assurance, because Cantrell was his
friend and he trusted his judgment.

"Yeah ..." he said. "Yeah, Rob; I guess you're right...."





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Conquistadors Come" ***

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