They were barely able to get out of the ship. Their skins were blistered and their shoes burned through. There was no time to gimmick the controls.
They retreated to the woods and waited.
"Perhaps he's dead," Agee said hopefully.
They saw a small figure emerge from Endeavor I. The alien was moving slowly, but he was moving.
They watched. "Suppose," Victor said, "he's made a weapon of some kind. Suppose he comes after us."
"Suppose you shut up," Barnett said.
The alien walked directly to his own ship. He went inside and shut the locks.
"All right," Barnett said, standing up. "We'd better blast off in a hurry. Agee, you take the controls. I'll connect the piles. Victor, you secure the locks. Let's go!"
They sprinted across the plain and, in a matter of seconds, had reached the open airlock of Endeavor I.
Even if he had wanted to hurry, Kalen didn't have the necessary strength to pilot his ship. But he knew that he was safe, once inside. No alien was going to walk through those sealed ports.
He found a spare air tank in the rear and opened it. His ship filled with rich, life-giving yellow air. For long minutes, Kalen just breathed it.
Then he lugged three of the biggest kerla nuts he could find to the galley and let the Cracker open them.
After eating, he felt much better. He let the Changer take off his outer hide. The second layer was dead, too, and the Changer cut that off him, but stopped at the third, living layer.
He was almost as good as new when he slipped into the pilot's room.
It was apparent to him now that the aliens had been temporarily insane. There was no other way to explain why they had come back and returned his ship.
Therefore, he would find their authorities and report the location of the planet. They could be found and cured, once and for all.
Kalen felt very happy. He had not deviated from the Mabogian ethic, and that was the important thing. He could so easily have left the thetnite bomb in their ship, all set and timed. He could have wrecked their engines. And there had been a temptation.
But he had not. He had done nothing at all.
All he had done was construct a few minimum essentials for the preservation of life.
Kalen activated his controls and found that everything was in perfect working order. The acceleration fluid poured in as he turned on the piles.
Victor reached the airlock first and dashed in. Instantly, he was hurled back.
"What happened?" Barnett asked.
"Something hit me," Victor said.
Cautiously, they looked inside.
It was a very neat death trap. Wires from the storage batteries had been hooked in series and rigged across the port.
If Victor had been touching the side of the ship, he would have been electrocuted instantly.
They shorted out the system and entered the ship.
It was a mess. Everything movable had been ripped up and strewn around. There was a bent steel bar in a corner. Their high-potency acid had been spilled over the deck and had eaten through in several places. The Endeavor's old hull was holed.
"I never thought he'd gimmick us!" Agee said.
They explored further. Toward the rear was another booby trap. The cargo hold door had been cunningly rigged to the small starter motor. If anyone touched it, the door would be slammed against the wall. A man caught between would be crushed.
There were other hookups that gave no hint of their purpose.
"Can we fix it?" Barnett asked.
Agee shrugged his shoulders. "Most of our tools are still on board Endeavor II. I suppose we can get her patched up inside of a year. But even then, I don't know if the hull will hold."
They walked outside. The alien ship blasted off.
"What a monster!" Barnett said, looking at the acid-eaten hull of his ship.
"You can never tell what an alien will do," Agee answered.
"The only good alien is a dead alien," Victor said.
Endeavor I was now as incomprehensible and dangerous as Endeavor II.
And Endeavor II was gone.
Something For Nothing
But had he heard a voice? He couldn’t be sure. Reconstructing it a moment later, Joe Collins knew he had been lying on his bed, too tired even to take his waterlogged shoes off the blanket. He had been staring at the network of cracks in the muddy yellow ceiling, watching water drip slowly and mournfully through. It must have happened then. Collins caught a glimpse of metal beside his bed. He sat up. There was a machine on the floor, where no machine had been. In that first moment of surprise, Collins thought he heard a very distant voice say, “There! That does it!” He couldn’t be sure of the voice. But the machine was undeniably there. Collins knelt to examine it. The machine was about three feet square and it was humming softly. The crackle-grey surface was featureless, except for a red button in one corner and a brass plate in the centre. The plate said, CLASS-A UTILIZER, SERIES AA-1256432. And underneath, WARNING! THIS MACHINE SHOULD BE USED ONLY BY CLASS-A RATINGS! That was all. There were no knobs, dials, switches or any of the other attachments Collins associated with machines. Just the brass plate, the red button and the hum.
“Where did you come from?” Collins asked. The Class-A Utilizer continued to hum. He hadn’t really expected an answer. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he stared thoughtfully at the Utilizer. The question now was — what to do with it? He touched the red button warily, aware of his lack of experience with machines that fell from nowhere. When he turned it on, would the floor open up? Would little green men drop from the ceiling? But he had slightly less than nothing to lose. He pressed the button lightly. Nothing happened. “All right — do something,” Collins said, feeling definitely let down. The Utilizer only continued to hum softly. Well, he could always pawn it. Honest Charlie would give him at least a dollar for the metal. He tried to lift the Utilizer. It wouldn’t lift. He tried again, exerting all his strength, and succeeded in raising one corner an inch from the floor. He released it and sat down on the bed, breathing heavily.
“You should have sent a couple of men to help me,” Collins told the Utilizer. Immediately, the hum grew louder and the machine started to vibrate. Collins watched, but still nothing happened. On a hunch, he reached out and stabbed the red button. Immediately, two bulky men appeared, dressed in rough work-clothes. They looked at the Utilizer appraisingly. One of them said, “Thank God, it’s the small model. The big ones is brutes to get a grip on.”
The other man said, “It beats the marble quarry, don’t it?” They looked at Collins, who stared back. Finally the first man said, “Okay, Mac, we ain’t got all day. Where you want it?”
“Who are you?” Collins managed to croak.
“The moving men. Do we look like the Vanizaggi Sisters?”
“But where do you come from?” Collins asked. “And why?”
“We come from the Powha Minnile Movers, Incorporated,” the man said. “And we came because you wanted movers, that’s why. Now, where you want it?”
“Go away,” Collins said. “I’ll call for you later.” The moving men shrugged their shoulders and vanished. For several minutes, Collins stared at the spot where they had been. Then he stared at the Class-A Utilizer, which was humming softly again. Utilizer? He could give it a better name.
A Wishing Machine. Collins was not particularly shocked. When the miraculous occurs, only dull, workaday mentalities are unable to accept it. Collins was certainly not one of those. He had an excellent background for acceptance. Most of his life had been spent wishing, hoping, praying that something marvellous would happen to him. In high school, he had dreamed of waking up some morning with an ability to know his homework without the tedious necessity of studying it. In the army, he had wished for some witch or jinn to change his orders, putting him in charge of the day room, instead of forcing him to do close order drill like everyone else. Out of the army, Collins had avoided work, for which he was psychologically unsuited. He had drifted around, hoping that some fabulously wealthy person would be induced to change his will, leaving him Everything. He had never really expected anything to happen. But he was prepared when it did.