Footfall

“Make war, yes,” Takpusseh said, as if relieved to be understood.

Wes barely felt a large hand closing on his arm, above the elbow. “What can you take, move to fithp world?” What could they possibly hope to steal? They’d dropped too much of their craft; they’d be lucky to return home themselves!

“Earth is world for chtaptisk fithp,” Takpusseh said.

Warriors had come at Takpusseh’s bellow. The humans were gone now. Fathisteh-tulk helped Takpusseh to his feet. “Are you injured?”

“My pride hurts worse than my eye-and s

“They don’t know when to fight and they don’t know how to surrender,” the Herdmaster’s Advisor said. “One would think that would be good news for the invasion, but I wonder.”

“ Dawson is mad,” Breaker-One Raztupisp-minz said. “His behavior tells us nothing. Must we keep him?”

“He is a puzzle that needs cracking. He speaks English as his native language, and we will need that too until the others know the speech of the fithp a srupk or two better.”

“They must surrender, at once, formally,” Raztupisp-minz stated. “We should have taught them how, and much earlier, so that they can teach future prisoners.”

The memory flashed in Takpusseh’s mind; it hurt worse than his eye. Takpusseh realized why he had delayed this crucial step. “Of course you’re right, Breaker-One. I want to visit the medical section. I’ll meet you afterward, above the restraining cell.”

It hurt to breathe, but he had to breathe. Hands were on him, probing a stabbing agony in his ribs. Wes gasped and fought to open his eyes. Red mist… gradually clearing… the shapes around him resolved into human faces…

“What happened?”

“You attacked the teacher, Takpusseh. I tried to stop you.” Dmitri said. “Do you remember?”

Seeing red… but his mind must have been working well on some level. He hadn’t just swung a fist. He’d lunged forward and reached between the branches of Takpusseh’s trunk, closed his fingers hard in Takpusseh’s nostril, and pulled back savagely to keep himself moving. The teacher screamed; his digits had whipped around Wes’s rib cage. With his ribs collapsing and the air sighing out of him, Wes Dawson reached along the trunk and slid his thumb under Takpusseh’s thick right eyelid-was he flying?-and did his damnedest to twist it off. He didn’t remember any more.

“Why did you do it?”

“They never had the least intention of negotiating anything,” he said. “They came to take the Earth away from us.”

Dmitri Grushin took Dawson’s chin in his hand and twisted it to put them eye to eye. “Do not attack them again. You would kill us all for nothing. For nothing.”

They were quiet for some time. Then Arvid and Dmitri began to talk. Wes, with too little Russian, quickly lost track. He was more interested in the pictures in his own mind.

Presently he asked, “Did you notice? They threw away half their ship.”

“Yes,” Arvid said. “The external fuel tank, and the massive looking ring.”

“I think it was a modified Bussard ramjet.”

“Explain.”

“It’s a way of reaching the stars. Fusion drive, but you get your fuel by scooping up interstellar hydrogen.”

Arvid dismissed that. “Certainly nobody has ever built a Bussard ramjet. How would you recognize one?’

“After they got going they changed something. It made a violet glow behind the ship. Arvid, the point is that they threw it away when they got here. It was used to cross interstellar space, and they dropped it. They let it fall back toward the stars. They’re serious. They’ve got no plans to go home.”

“I was more interested in watching our captors. So. They dropped it to save weight, of course, but… well. As if your ancestors had burned the Mayflower. Yes, they came to stay.” Arvid’s eyes went to the trapdoor in the ceiling, which once again was closed against them. “Did you notice anything else worthy of comment?”

Wes pounded a fist on his knee, twice. “They were at Saturn when the Voyagers went by. They spent years there. We might have noticed something if Saturn wasn’t so weird. We’d have had fifteen years warning!”

“It is difficult to put the mushroom cloud back iato the steel casing.”

“At least we know this is the mother ship. This is all they’ve got.”

“They did not exceed lightspeed?”

“They didn’t even come very close.” Wes had been watching for the effect of relativity; stars blue-shifted ahead and reddened aft. It hadn’t happened.

“Good. They ca

“They’ll have to land sometime. They must expect to beat us on the ground. They’re crazy.”

Arvid saw no reason to answer. Dawson was not of his nation. But any cosmonaut knew that from a military standpoint the command of space was priceless. The Soviet Union , which had always expected to rule the world, had held that position until three days ago.

“Yeah. Well. They didn’t show much of the inside of the ship. They showed only the last leg of their approach to Earth. They showed the mother ship being refueled, but they didn’t show where the fuel came from. So maybe they scooped methane snow off a moon and refined deuterium and tritium out of it. But why didn’t they show that? They’re hiding something.”

“Of course.”

“Something specific.”

“Of course.”

The trapdoor swung open.

The platform descended into a wary silence. Takpusseh was quite alone. His right eye was covered with soft white cloth. Another patch covered his nostril. He carried his branched trunk

at an odd angle. A second fi’ followed him down. The soldiers remained above.

The Breakers faced the humans alone.

The captives looked harmless enough. They were clustered in a corner, frightened, wary. The black one was on his back and trying to roll over. He seemed to be just becoming aware of the aliens.

Raztupisp-minz told them, “Move away from the dark one.”

The humans discussed it. Instant obedience would have been reassuring, but in fact they seemed to be interpreting for each other. Then they moved away. The black one protested and tried to move in the same direction, Then his eyes fixed on Raztupispminz. He breathed as if the chamber had lost its air, his eyes and mouth opened improbably wide, as Raztupisp-minz walked toward him.

Raztupisp-minz set his foot solidly on the black man’s chest.

He lifted it and backed away. “You,” he said, and his digits indicated the crippled one. “Come.”

The humans discussed it heatedly. Then Nikolai pulled himself across the floor on his hands.

Dawson had moved, without permission. He knelt by the black man with his bony digits on the man’s throat. He spoke to the others, in English. “Dead.”

Tnkpusseh let it pass rather than interrupt the ceremony.

“Roll,” Raztupisp-minz said, and he rotated his digits in a circle. Nikolai didn’t appear to understand. Raztupisp-minz forcibly rolled the man onto his back, set his foot on the man’s chest, and stepped away. He pointed to another. “You.”

One by one the Soviets submitted to the foot on the chest until only Dawson was left, Then, as they had discussed, Raztupispminz stepped aside and Takpusseh came forward.

The man stood balanced, forelegs slightly bent, hands open, palms outward, It came to Takpusseh that Dawson expected to die.

It wouldn’t bother Takpusseh that much if he did. He swung his digits with nearly his full strength. Dawson ducked under it, fast, and lunged forward. Takpusseh caught him on the backswing and flung him spi