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inoffensive and with no bluster in me and probably not appearing quite right in the head. And I
have this brown robe and I don't wear shoes, but sandals. . ."
"Those babies down there," I told him, "don't know a thing about brown robes or sandals. And they
could care less if you were bright or stupid. If they feel like killing someone. . ."
"But you can't know that," said Sara. "They might be friendly people."
"Do they look friendly to you?"
"No, I guess they don't," she said, "although you can't tell just by looking at them. But Tuck may
have something going for him. Maybe they don't know about brown robes and sandals, but maybe
they could sense a simple soul. They might see right off he isn't dangerous but is filled with kindly
thoughts."
And I was thinking all the time she was saying this that she must have someone else in mind, for it
couldn't be our Tuck.
"I'm the one to go, by God," I said. "So let's just cut out this jabbering and I'll go on down there.
They'd mop up the place with Tuck."
"I don't suppose they would with you," she said. "You're damned right they wouldn't. I know how
to handle. . ."
"Captain," said Tuck, "why don't you ever listen to reason? You just go popping off. You got to be
the big shot. Consider just two things. What I said I meant. They might not clobber me because I'm
a different kind of man than you are. There wouldn't be the satisfaction of taking off on me there'd
be in taking off on you. There isn't too much fun in killing or in beating up someone who is pitiful
and weak and if I only put my mind to it, I can look awful pitiful and weak. And the other thing is
this-you're needed more than I am. If something happened to me it wouldn't make much difference,
but it would make a lot of difference to this expedition if you went down there and got yourself
knocked off."
I stared at him, aghast that he had had the guts to say what he'd just said. "You mean all this
foolishness?" I asked.
"Of course I do," 'he said. "What did you think, that I was just grandstanding? Did you think I
thought you wouldn't let me go and no matter what I said, I wouldn't have to go, that I would be
safe?"
I didn't answer him, but he was right. That was exactly what I'd thought.
"Whoever goes," said Sara, "will have to ride Old Paint. The kind of things they are, they'd have
more respect for you if you were riding Paint. And another thing, Paint could get you out of there if
the situation started going bad."
"Mike," honked Hoot, "the holy one speaks vivid sort of sense."
"It's all damn foolishness," I told them. "I'm the one who is supposed to take the risks. I'm being
paid for it."
"Mike," said Sara, sharply, "stop being infantile. Someone has to go down there-I might even be the
one. There are three of us, not counting Hoot, and we can't send him down there. It must be one of
us. So let's just marshal all the angles. . ."
"But it's not just going down to face them," I protested. "We also have to bargain for the brain case.
Tuck would get it all screwed up."
We crouched, glaring at one another.
"Toss a coin," I growled. "Would you settle for a toss?"
"A coin only has two sides," said Sara.
"That's enough," I said. "You're out of this. It's either Tuck or I."
"No coin," said Tuck. "I'm the one who's going." Sara looked at me. "I think we should let him go,"
she said. "He wants to. He is willing. He will do all right."
"The bargaining?" I asked.
"We want the robot's brain case," said Tuck. "We'll give almost anything for it if we have to give it
and. . ."
"Up to and including the rifle," said Sara.
I blew up at her. "Not the rifle! We may need that rifle badly. It's the only thing we have."
"We need the brain case, too," said Sara. "Without it we are sunk. And we may not need the rifle.
Since we've been here I have fired it once and even that once was a senseless piece of business.
"There were the men back in the gully."
She shrugged. "They had weapons. How much good did the weapons do them?"
"All I can do," said Tuck, "is to find if they have the case and if they'd be willing to let loose of it.
The actual bargaining will come later. We can all take part in it."
"All right," I said.
Let him go ahead and make a mess of it. If he did maybe we could give up this silly hunt for
Lawrence Arlen Knight and try to figure out how to get off this planet. Although I had only the
most foggy of ideas how to go about it.
I walked over to Paint and unloaded him, piling the water tins to the side of the trail and draping
Roscoe's limp metal body over them.
"All right, sport," I said to Tuck.
He walked over and got into the saddle. He looked down at me and held down his hand. I took it
and there was more strength in those long, lean fingers than I had thought there'd be.
"Good luck," I said to him, and then Paint went galloping over the hilltop, heading down the trail.
We peeked over the hilltop, watching. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]