Free The Earth Gods Are Coming by Kenneth Bulmer Page B

accommodation aboard a well-found sailing ship. They had transferred all their scanty belongings to their new home and the control room section had been sunk.
    Belita had been buried with the fullest honors they could contrive at sea.
    Despite the welcome fact that Gerda was a navy-qualified philologist and thus better fitted to decipher the alien language, they had all, within a fortnight, been able to speak it and rub along with rapidly increasing fluency. That had confirmed Inglis' suspicion that the spaceship flier had sent down more than a mere mental hypnosis with that damned great blaring voice. None of the Terrans seemed the same. There was a heightened frenzy about them that had sprung back as soon as they had recovered from that macabre dance.
    Now, looking back, all of them, including Inglis, felt that to have been a supreme moment in their lives. Linda and Sammy openly bemoaned the fact that the dancing ecstasy had not fallen on the aliens again. The two were' often seen on the deck, surrounded by leaping and cavorting sailors. These people called themselves Pogosan, which meant "Thinkers of the Sea."
    The cabin door curtains were lifted, tinkling on their rings, and Gerda and M'Banga entered. They both looked fit and the color in her cheeks gave a lustre and sparkle to Gerda's blue eyes. They both wore ribands of emerald green.
    "Look at old scarlet banner," Gerda said lightly. "A real first class noble." She used the word in English; the Pogosan translation of noble was "he of the rich, fat, broad, thick and heavy tail." Alien methods of rank nomination were apt to be more logical than speakable, and the Pogosan system was so strictly built upon a class system that the Terrans had had no option but to fall in with their hosts' customs.
    "Is everyone ready?" Inglis asked, ignoring Gerda's banter.
    "Ready, skipper," M'Banga said. "Sammy and Linda are beside themselves with excitement. This promises to be a big day. A big day," he finished, vaguely.
    "Where's Toni?"
    "Sulking because she has to wear yellow, and thus cannot stand with us at the ceremony."
    "You know," Inglis said, fingering his scarlet cloth. "We might perhaps have stood out that we were all nobles."
    "The damage was done the moment you began taking command again, Roy. The Pogosan are quick, intelligent people and they saw how the youngsters jumped when you spoke."
    "And," added Gerda, pulling her green headcloth more securely, hiding her hair, "it may be unfeeling and callous to say so; but I'll say it just the same. You, M'Banga, Ranee and I are more fitted ..." She paused, looked at Inglis and away, quickly. "We carry a heavier responsibility for spreading the Word."
    She was quite sincere. M'Banga nodded solemnly in agreement.
    Inglis said, "That is true. Sammy and Linda are full of enthusiasm, but I mistrust their staying power. Toni is very young and Anton, too, is inexperienced." He smiled round on them. "We do bear a heavy responsibility. We have to put all our energy into spreading the Word. It will be a joyous task."
    "Hear, hear," said Gerda and M'Banga, together.
    A communion of spirit possessed them so that for that moment they felt very close, knit in the service of a dedicated crusade.
    A high Pogosan voice shrilled out on the deck. A trumpet blared, the shell giving the sound a thick, textured tone. Inglis gave a final fussy twitch to the scarlet riband encircling his right thigh. The scarlet shoulder patch secured over and under his left armpit seemed to stay in position well enough, but the movement of the muscles of his legs was always dislodging the thigh patch so that it slipped down. Most embarrassing. He'd tried stitching it to his shorts, but the Pogosan had objected. Color patches, they justly said, were not a part of clothing and to join them to articles of dress was tantamount to less majesty.
    The conch whooped again.
    "The city must be joining fenders with the strangers," M'Banga said. "Perhaps we ought to be