could have sworn I saw something,” Jensen said. “Maybe I was wrong.... Anyhow, we’ll fumigate our clothes before we enter the ship proper. No sense taking any chance of bringing back some kind of Martian bug.”
The men removed their clothing and boots and stuffed them into the chute. They searched the bare steel room carefully.
“Nothing here,” Jensen said at last. “OK, let’s go inside.”
Once inside the ship, they sealed off the lock and fumigated it. The Quedak, who had crept inside earlier through the partially opened pressure door, listened to the distant hiss of gas. After a while he heard the jets begin to fire.
The Quedak retreated to the dark rear of the ship. He found a metal shelf and attached himself to the underside of it near the wall. After a while he felt the ship tremble.
The Quedak clung to the shelf during the long, slow flight through space. He had forgotten what spaceships were like, but now memory revived briefly. He felt blazing heat and freezing cold. Adjusting to the temperature changes drained his small store of vitality, and the Quedak began to wonder if he was going to die.
He refused to die. Not while there was still a possibility of accomplishing the Quedak mission.
In time he felt the harsh pull of gravity, and felt the main jets firing again. The ship was coming down to its planet.
After a routine landing, Captain Jensen and his men were taken to Medic Checkpoint, where they were thumped, probed and tested for any sign of disease.
Their spaceship was lowered to a flatcar and taken past rows of moonships and ICBMs to Decontamination Stage One. Here the sealed outer hull was washed down with powerful cleansing sprays. By evening, the ship was taken to Decontamination Stage Two.
A team of two inspectors equipped with bulky tanks and hoses undogged the hatch and entered, shutting the hatch behind them.
They began at the bow, methodically spraying as they moved toward the rear. Everything seemed in order; no animals or plants, no trace of mold such as the first Luna expedition had brought back.
“Do you really think this is necessary?” the assistant inspector asked. He had already requested a transfer to Flight Control.
“Sure it is,” the senior inspector said. “Can’t tell what these ships might bring in.”
“I suppose so,” the assistant said. “Still, a Martian whoosis wouldn’t even be able to live on Earth. Would it?”
“How should I know?” the senior inspector said. “I’m no botanist. Maybe they don’t know, either.”
“Seems like a waste of—hey!”
“What is it?” the senior inspector asked.
“I thought I saw something,” the assistant said. “Looked a little like a palmetto bug. Over by that shelf.”
The senior inspector adjusted his respirator more snugly over his face and motioned to his assistant to do the same. He advanced slowly toward the shelf, unfastening a second nozzle from the pressure tank on his back. He turned it on, and a cloud of greenish gas sprayed out.
“There,” the senior inspector said. “That should take care of your bug.” He knelt down and looked under the shelf. “Nothing here.”
“It was probably a shadow,” the assistant said.
Together they sprayed the entire interior of the ship, paying particular attention to the small box of Martian artifacts. They left the gas-filled ship and dogged the hatch again.
“Now what?” the assistant asked.
“Now we leave the ship sealed for three days,” the senior inspector said. “Then we inspect again. You find me the animal that’ll live through that.”
The Quedak, who had been clinging to the underside of the assistant’s shoe between the heel and the sole, released his hold. He watched the shadowy biped figures move away, talking in their deep, rumbling, indecipherable voices. He felt tired and unutterably lonely.
But buoying him up was the thought of the Quedak mission. Only that was important. The first part of the mission was accomplished. He had landed safely on an inhabited planet. Now he needed food and drink. Then he had to have rest, a great deal of rest to restore his dormant faculties. After that he would be ready to give this world what it so obviously needed—the cooperation possible only through the Quedak mind.
He crept slowly down the shadowy yard, past the deserted hulls of spaceships. He came to a wire fence and sensed the high-voltage electricity running through it. Gauging his distance carefully, the Quedak jumped safely through one of the openings in the mesh.
This was a very different section. From here the Quedak could smell water and food. He moved hastily forward, then stopped.
He sensed the presence of a man. And something else. Something much more menacing.
“Who’s there?” the watchman called out. He waited, his revolver in one hand, his flashlight in the other. Thieves had broken into the yards last week; they had stolen three cases of computer parts bound for Rio. Tonight he was ready for them.
He walked forward, an old, keen-eyed man holding his revolver in a rock-steady fist. The beam of his flashlight probed among the cargoes. The yellow light flickered along a great pile of precision machine tools for South Africa, past a water-extraction plant for Jordan and a pile of mixed goods for Rabaul.
“You better come out,” the watchman shouted. His flashlight probed at sacks of rice for Shanghai and power saws for Burma. Then the beam of light stopped abruptly.
“I’ll be damned,” the watchman said. Then he laughed. A huge and red-eyed rat was glaring into the beam of his flashlight. It had something in its jaws, something that looked like an unusually large cockroach.
“Good eating,” the watchman said. He holstered his revolver and continued his patrol.
A large black animal had seized the Quedak, and he felt heavy jaws close over his back. He tried to fight; but, blinded by a sudden beam of yellow light, he was betrayed by total and enervating confusion.
The yellow light went off. The black beast bit down hard on the Quedak’s armored back. The Quedak mustered his remaining strength, and, uncoiling his long, scorpion-jointed tail, lashed out.
He missed, but the black beast released him hastily. They circled each other, the Quedak hoisting his tail for a second blow, the beast unwilling to turn loose this prey.
The Quedak waited for his chance. Elation filled him. This pugnacious animal could be the first, the first on this planet to experience the Quedak mission. From this humble creature a start could be made....
The beast sprang and its white teeth clicked together viciously. The Quedak moved out of the way and its barb-headed tail flashed out, fastening itself in the beast’s back. The Quedak held on grimly while the beast leaped and squirmed. Setting his feet, the Quedak concentrated on the all-important task of pumping a tiny white crystal down the length of his tail and under the beast’s skin.
But this most
