Captive of the Centaurianess by Poul Anderson Page A

specifications?"
    "Uh—uh—" Ray stared at the jungle of apparatus and gulped. He'd had no time to keep systematic notes, and he lacked the Martian's photographic memory. By Einstein, he'd built the damned thing but he had no proper idea whatsoever of how!
    "You couldn't have done it without me," he argued.
    "Nor could an ancient farmer on Eart habe done witout his mules. Did he consider paying tem a salary on tat account?"
    "But . . . you've already got more money than you know what to do with, you bloated capitalist. I happen to know you invested both your Nobel Prizes in mortgages and then foreclosed."
    "And why not? Genius is neber properly rewarded unless it rewards itself. Speaking of tat, I habe had no fresh tobacco for an obscene stretch of days. Take us to te nearest cigar store."
    "Yes," Dyann said with unwonted timidity, "it might be a good idea if ve tested vether this enyine vorks, no?"
    "All right!" Ray shouted in fury. "Sit down. Secure yourselves." He did likewise in the pilot's chair. His fingers moved across the breadboarded control panel of the star drive. "Here goes nothing."
    "Nothin," said Dyann after a silence, "is correct."
    "Judas on a stick," Ray groaned. "What's the matter now?" He unharnessed and went to stare at the layout. Meters registered, indicators glowed, electrorotors hummed, exactly as they were supposed to; but the boat sat stolidly where she was.
    "I told you not to use tose approximations." Urushkidan said.
    Ray began to fiddle with settings. "I might have known this," he muttered bitterly. "I'll bet the first piece of flint that the first ape-man chipped didn't work right either."
    Urushkidan shredded a piece of paper into the bowl of his pipe, to see if he could smoke it.
    " Iukh-ia-ua! " Dyann called. "Is that a rocket flare?"
    "Oh, no!" Ray hastened forward and stared. Against the night sky arced a long trail of flame. And another, and another—
    "They've found us," he choked.
    "Well," said Dyann, not uncheerfully, "ve tried hard, and ve vill go down fightin, and that vill get us admission to the Hall of Skulls." She reached out her arms. "Have ve got time first to make love?"
    Urushkidan stroked his nose musingly. "Tallantyre," he said, "I habe an idea tat te trouble lies in te square-wabe generator. If we doubled te boltage across it—"
    High in dusky heaven, the Jovian craft braked with a fury of jet-fires, swung about, and started their descent. Beneath them, vegetation crumbled to ash and ice exploded into vapor. An earthquake shudder grew and grew.
    The boat's comset chimed. She was being signalled. Numbly, Ray switched on the transceiver. The lean hard features of Colonel Roshevsky-Feldkamp sprang into the screen.
    "Uh . . . hello," Ray said.
    "You will surrender yourselves immediately," the Jovian told him.
    "We will? I mean ... if we do, can we have safe conduct back to Earth?"
    "Certainly not. But perhaps you will be allowed to live."
    "About tat square-wabe generator—" Urushkidan saw that Ray wasn't listening, sighed, unstrapped himself, and crawled aft.
    The first of the newcomer craft sizzled to a landing. She was long and dark; guns reached from turrets like serpent heads. In the screen, Roshevsky-Feldkamp's image thrust forward till Ray had an idiotic desire to punch it. "You will surrender without resistance," the colonel said. "If not, you will suffer corporal punishment after your capture. Prolonged corporal punishment."
    "Urushkidan vill die before he gives up," Dyann vowed.
    "I will do noting of te sort," said the Martian. He had come to the machine he wanted. Experimentally, he twisted a knob.
    The boat lifted off the ground.
    "Well, well," Urushkidan murmured. "My intuition was correct."
    "Stop!" Roshevsky-Feldkamp roared. "You must not do that!"
    The boat rose higher. His lips tightened. "Missile them," he ordered.
    Ray scrambled back to the pilot's seat, flung himself down, and slammed the main drive switch hard over.
    He felt no acceleration. Instead,