THE COURSE OF LOGIC
BY LESTER DEL REY
They made one little mistake—very
natural—and disastrous!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The male silth plodded forward wearily at sixty miles an hour, pausingonly long enough to uproot and wolf down one of the rare scrub treesdirectly in its path. Its three hundred tons of massive body shookthe ground as the great hind legs thumped along, and every cell of itached with hunger. It was warm blooded, despite its vaguely reptilianappearance. Only meat could satisfy its need for energy. But the greatherds lay a thousand miles to the north of this barren land.
Inside the silth, the two-pound network of converted nerve cells thatwas Arnek brooded darkly in self-pity and resentment against theinflexible female logic of his mate. Ptarra had won her point, as shealways did; now she might at least have shown some consideration forhim and his silth!
"Arnek!" The call came sharply on one of the guard frequencies of themental spectrum. "Arnek, stop lagging and get up here!"
He could feel his nerve body tense from horn tip to tail root, but hestifled his response and quickened his pace. Ahead, the trail left byPtarra's legs led through a gully and up a rise to the lip of a small,stony basin. The four hundred tons of Ptarra's female silth squattedbelow the edge and the great head was half hidden as it peered downwardaround a boulder.
"Quiet!" Ptarra ordered sharply. Then, as Arnek switched from athudding run to a smooth, creeping approach, the mental impulse tookon a note of triumph. "Look down there and then tell me I don't know aship trail from a meteor!"
The bowl was bright in the glare of the orange sunlight, but at firstArnek saw nothing. Then, as his gaze swept back toward the nearersection, he blinked his great eyes, only half believing what theyregistered.
It was a small thing, hardly taller than Arnek's silth—maybe not evenas tall. But it was too regular and obviously artificial, a pointedcylinder, to be a meteorite. Between two of the base fins there seemedto be an opening, with a miniature ramp leading down to the ground. Itlooked like a delicately precise model of a spaceship from the dawn oftime.
It was obviously too small to be more than a message carrier. Yet, ashe looked more closely, he could see motion. Two tiny creatures, notmore than six feet in height, were scurrying around near the base.Bright patches of fur or decoration covered them, and they seemed tomove on two of their four limbs.
Arnek shivered down the length of his nerves with an ancient distastefor crawling things. "Let's go back," he suggested uneasily. "There'snothing here for us, and I'm hungry."
"Don't be silly," Ptarra answered, and the old female superioritywas strong in the thought. "Of course it's too small for us; I knewthat when I saw the landing trail yesterday evening. It must be aninstrument probe, with test animals. If it has telemetering equipment,though—"
Arnek tested the three spectra uneasily. At this distance, even a tightbeam should be detectable. But he could feel nothing. There was onlythe steady wash of inertia-gravitic wavules, the electromagnetic noisefrom the sun and the growing, contemptuous mental leakage from Ptarra.Then he squirmed in embarrassment as his eyes detected the cracked baseof the little ship.
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