Read Ebook: Remember me Kama! by Kubilius Walter Giunta John Illustrator

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Ebook has 109 lines and 6131 words, and 3 pages

"The peace is ended among the Kamae," he told them.

"Is it nation against nation?"

"No. They have not developed as far as that. Isolated tribes have attacked others, wiping them out. One by one the advanced cities that have schools and teachers are being laid low by wandering bands. I saw some of the ruins--"

He broke off and, as if seeing them again in his mind, said, "Old and young. Burnt out bodies buried in snow drifts. No prisoners. Savage war."

"Barbarians!" Jina said.

"Teachers of barbarians!" Cobber said, looking at the men under his command. "They were shown how they might pillage one another in order to bring catalytic to us for trade. Who else would teach them?

"I left explicit orders," he said angrily, walking back and forth among them, "to give only machinery and gas-proof metals in exchange for their catalytics. I said there was to be no interference with the private life of the Kamae. Why was I disobeyed?" he demanded. "Who told you to change the trade agreements that I had prepared?"

When no answer came he looked at his assistant officer.

"You, Jina. Who handled the trade accounts with the Kamae?"

"Wilson, sir."

Cobber swore, brushed past his men and made his way to the private quarters of Fogarth Wilson. Several of the men moved as if to stop him, but none dared. In the event of a quarrel between the man who ran the ship and the man who owned it, it was best to stay neutral.

Wilson was yawning lazily as Cobber walked in.

"Hello, Cobber," he greeted casually. "I was afraid your Kamae friends might have kept you. What did you find out?"

Cobber's voice shook. "You broke the trade agreement!"

Wilson looked up at him, and saw the anger in his eyes. He got up from his bed and walked across the narrow room and stood next to the older man.

"Did you see the store room?" he demanded. "It's one third full. One third full after two weeks of trade! We were here six months and got only a quarter ton of catalytic for the power machines of Earth. In one day I purchased more than you could buy in a month!"

"But at what a price, you fool!"

"Price? Yes! I sold oxygen!" Wilson laughed. "What did you offer them, Cobber? Books and machinery! Books for a savage king and machinery for fools! I gave them what they wanted--pure oxygen!"

Cobber prayed for the strength of a man twenty years his junior. But his weak and old hands would prove of little value against the youthful strength of Wilson.

"Oxygen! In an atmosphere of carbon disulphide and methane you sell them tanks of oxygen!"

"Yes."

"You know what you sell the Kamae?" Cobber asked, gripping him by the shoulders. "Death! A single spark--one rock striking another, a simple stroke--and that oxygen becomes a bursting, fuming flame! In this atmosphere it is worse than the most powerful dynamite. Whole villages have been wiped out. Entire cities have been burned to the ground by your oxygen. You showed them how to use it. You made flame-throwers. You showed them how to kill one another to bring you more catalytics for more weapons!"

"Why not?" Wilson demanded. "I sell them what they want--weapons of war. In selling it I've made enough to outfit a new ship and a new captain."

Cobber looked again at the man he hated. Unlike other sons of the rich who hired ships and captains to squire them in their adventurous tours of other planets, Wilson was not soft. A sensuous line about his lips hid their cruelty. Years of breeding and care, without the knowledge of poverty and the crushing weight of mature responsibility, had given him a smooth powerful body and a quick agile mind that was more callous and hard than the palms of old Cobber's hands.

Wilson owned not only the ship, but Cobber's soul as well. There were debts to be paid back at home. It was so with every man in the crew. Each would suffer if Wilson failed to come back safe and sound. Cobber knew this and Wilson knew it as well. Wilson was the master here--not Cobber.

"I spoke with the Great Kama today," Cobber said, remembering his friend.

"Yes. And what did the Messy One have to say?"

"The learned men of the villages, the educated ones, want revenge for the breaking of our trading treaties. They will attack us. They will break off all relations with Earthmen forever unless--"

"Unless what?"

"Unless I surrender you to them."

There was the beginning of a smile on Wilson's lips. It stayed there grimly as he watched indecision, hesitation and conflicting emotions battle in Cobber's eyes.

"You wouldn't dare!" he whispered softly. "In fact," he added, smiling as the thought gave him reassurance, "in fact, you couldn't!" He tried to smile again, but this time found little weakness in Cobber's eyes.

"The whole future of Kama's contact with the Earth depends upon me now," Cobber told him, stepping back a foot and then drawing his ancient revolver from his hip pocket.

Wilson looked at the gun calmly. "You're a fool, Cobber--a doddering old fool!" he said. "If you had done your work as captain without interfering with me I could have made you a rich man."

As he talked he gestured with his hand. With a swift, sudden movement he slapped the gun from Cobber's grip, grasped the old man by his neck and turned quickly, flinging Cobber against the wall. There was a dull thud as Cobber collapsed in a crumpled heap.

Wilson switched on the call board. "Attention! All ond we took the road thato my quarters immediately. Wilson speaking. That is all."

Turning it off he came back again to the slowly rising Cobber.

"You're finished," he said. "Finished!"

The men drifted in one by one. When all had assembled, facing Wilson and Cobber, the younger man spoke.

"In view of the critical situation now facing us and the imminence of an attack by the savage Kamae, I have deemed it advisable to make some changes in the commanding personnel of my ship. With due respect for his splendid accomplishments in the past, I now relieve Cobber of his duties as commanding captain of this ship. He will henceforth function as second assistant navigator. Commanding Captain Jina, you will carry on."

Cobber ripped off the single star that emblazoned his sleeve and gave it to Jina. He walked past the stunned officers and men, past them all, into the corridor, down the steps and to the airlock.

The raging storm above had died. At times a lonely star peered through crimson clouds and then, as if frightened at the sight, disappeared from view. White flakes, so reminiscent of snow on Earth, settled softly upon the planet. From time to time he would brush the windows of his tankbox and peer out to watch for the approach of his friend.

He saw him, a white globule-like mass, slithering over the rolling hill and coming towards him. He raised one of the arms of the car in recognition. Instantly a gray finger extended from the bulbous mass in answer.

The strange being was standing beside the tankbox that enclosed Cobber. No message came from its brain as it waited for the thoughts to form in Cobber's mind.

There was a long pause and then the Great Kama answered his own questions.

Cobber wanted to shout, "I am your friend, believe me!" but he knew that the Great Kama could not look upon him as one single individual apart from his men. He was a symbol, the embodiment of the best that a different people could offer. If Cobber had failed him--Cobber, the wisest--then friendship between the planets was doomed forever.

Cobber could not answer. Powerless, impotent, he could not fulfill the demand for just revenge that Kama had asked. A thousand plans pursued their way through his mind. A thousand solutions leapt up, offering themselves. He could have killed Wilson and shown them the body. But it would have meant death for all them in the courts of Earth.

What was the alternative? In his mind he could see the story. The spaceship would return home with a cargo full of catalytic and the story of ignorant beings willing to mine the metal for tanks of oxygen. Cheap, easy to manufacture oxygen in exchange for power! Other ships would come and other men like Wilson, greedy men, powerful men, men with lust in their hearts.

Kama's people, scarcely on the first rung of civilization's ladder, would be thrust back into the darkness. Tribal warfare, spurred on and encouraged by Earthmen, would deplete the planet. A new culture, just born, would die. Was this a fair price for the greed markets of Earth?

Slowly he rode back to the spaceship. The storm was over. The crew of the ship were clearing the ammonia drifts away in preparation for the blasting.

The airlock was open. Cobber rode to it and turned around, guns facing his men.

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