Free News From Elsewhere by Edmuind Cooper Page B

we’re going to find out.”
    At that moment they heard sounds down below indicating that Alsdorf and Chirico had returned with the tractor. Duluth went down to meet them. A few moments later, Alsdorf hurried up the companion ladder. There was a curious, strained look on his face.
    “Mike, what is your opinion of witchcraft?” he asked abruptly.
    Lukas raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t any. You’d better tell me the worst.”
    The German slumped onto a bench. His gaze fell on the newly opened bottle of whiskey. He reached for it and took a deep draught—straight from the bottle. Lukas was intrigued. This was the first time he had ever seen Alsdorf lose his smooth sangfroid.
    “Palladium and platinum deposits,” said Alsdorf, coughing a little. “They’ve completely disappeared.”
    “What!”
    The geophysicist nodded emphatically. “Not a trace. They might never have existed. Nothing disturbed, no sign of interference. But not a trace of nuggets, ore, or any damn thing. . . . Acres and acres of it, Mike, and the whole lot wiped clean out of existence.” The shock to his scientific soul was such that he seemed about to burst into tears.
    Lukas stared at him. “But the thing is impossible. You’re sure—”
    Alsdorf slammed the bottle down. “Don’t ask me if I’m sure it’s the right place. Tony and I nearly went crazy making sure. How could it happen, Mike? It’s impossible!”
    “It was impossible, you mean.” Lukas stood up. “It looks as if this is our big day, doesn’t it?” He gazed through the observation panel at the darkening sky over the forest line and began to tell Alsdorf about Masumo’s visit.
    By the time he had finished, the geophysicist had regained control of himself. “Tonight,” he said somberly, “we will make our plans. Tomorrow we will take the tractor and pay these hominids a visit—with machine pistols, grenades, and gas bombs.” He laughed mirthlessly. “The experiment will be conducted under scientific conditions. We will see if they are—vulnerable.”
    “Are you proposing to blast them to glory?” demanded Lukas quietly. “Because if so, you can think again. This is their planet, not ours.”
    Alsdorf gave him a sour grin. “Still the adolescent idealist, Mike. . . . Why don’t you grow up?”
    “Don’t worry, I am,” retorted Lukas. “Meanwhile, don’t think I’m going to let you intimidate a bunch of defenseless savages.”
    “I get the impression that they are not so defenseless or so ignorant as we thought,” remarked Alsdorf pleasantly. “And while I have no intention of being dramatic, I’m damn well going to find out what’s happened to our platinum.”
    “Our   platinum?” Lukas stared at him.
    “Ours by right of conquest,” amended Alsdorf dryly. “We have the superior culture, the superior tools, and the superior weapons.”
    Lukas suddenly laughed. “But we aren’t telepaths, and we can’t do vanishing tricks with large platinum deposits. Don’t get overconfident, Kurt.”
    Chirico came up the companion ladder, preceded by a loud blast of invective.
    “Those lousy stinking aboriginals! Those sons of a venereal ape! Hi, Mike. I hear you’ve been having fun, too. What beats me is how they could possibly—”
    Duluth, who had followed him, said calmly, “I have a theory.” The three men turned and stared at him.
    Duluth helped himself to a cigarette and lit it. “Yeah,” he said with an air of profundity, “they do it with mirrors.”
    After the evening meal a formal conference was held on the navigation deck. Alsdorf opened it by proposing to make a lightning swoop on the village to capture Masumo, with the logical aim of holding him as a hostage and finding out what he knew. Lukas, as captain of the ship, and therefore the person responsible for the safety of the expedition, promptly vetoed the proposal.
    “Are you suggesting, Mike, that we do nothing, that we just hang around waiting to see