Space Gypsies by Murray Leinster

of chlorine in the air. Some tendril of yellowish gas had floated near him for an instant. It went away, diluting itself with the normal atmosphere of this particular world.
    “It’s been arranged,” said Howell, not quite steadily, “for us to go on living for a while. I don’t know how long. Watch out for any of the beasts that may still be alive. I’ve something to listen to. Karen?”
    She followed him with a curiously docile air. They went in the yacht and Howell carefully disconnected the device that would have destroyed the log-tape by which the Marintha ’s route from Earth to here might have been deduced. Turning off the destructor was an expression of unexpected hope. Karen watched him, her expression strange.
    He put his arms around her.
    “I was—scared!” he said shakenly. “You could have been killed, Karen! You could have been killed!”
    She kissed him.
    “But I wasn’t. Neither were you. So—maybe we’ll live happily ever after, after all!”
    Then the all-wave receiver gave out a bleating, mooing noise. It was dismal. It was purely animal. And yet somehow it was inquiring. Howell tensed. It came again.
    “That’s the other slug-ship,” he said coldly, “the consort of the one out there.” He waved a hand in the direction of the recent battle. “It could start blasting us from space, and we couldn’t do a thing. But I suspect it has orders—and now they won’t believe we’re unarmed. I think it will go home and say somebody killed its partner. And all its friends will come boiling out to resent our unmannerly behaviour. But it’s calling to make sure that its partner truly doesn’t answer its calls.”
    The mooing sound came once more. It was insistent. The noise was somehow abhorrent. It had no human quality at all. It was the inarticulate cry of an animal. It was bestial. Yet the creatures who used such sounds for communication built spaceships and ship-weapons of extreme effectiveness in space. Luckily, they weren’t equally deadly aground.
    “No-o-o,” said Howell. “I don’t think it’ll come to see what’s happened to its friend. The humans around here must have put up some good fights if slug-ships travel only in pairs with one hanging back to carry home news of what happened to the other.”
    There was a call from outside. Breen, beaming, spoke zestfully as he climbed into the yacht with Ketch close behind him.
    “That was quite an adventure, Howell! I’ve watched such things on tape, but I never expected a share in one!”
    He obviously didn’t really recognize how close he’d come to being killed. Ketch said nothing. His expression was strange. There had been opinions stated among psychologists back home that the conditioned habits and viewpoints of modern civilized men didn’t mean that primitive behaviour-patterns were destroyed. They were only repressed to different degrees in different people. Howell reflected fleetingly that Ketch had had other but equally primitive impulses during the shooting. Now he wasn’t exuberant, like Breen. He looked watchful. Satisfied. Given experience, he might come to look competent. But insofar as he became adapted to action of the kind just past, he’d become less content with life on a civilized planet.
    “It was an adventure, all right,” said Howell, “but it isn’t over yet. How many of the beasts did you see?”
    Ketch still said nothing. He turned his eyes to Breen. Breen said, “Six—seven. No—eight of them altogether. And we killed them all!” he said exultantly. “I didn’t know I was as good a shot as that!”
    Ketch spoke for the first time. “You weren’t. All of us hit the one that was trying to open the exit-port. It practically disintegrated. I got two more and one after their ship blew up. I think Karen got one…”
    “We’ll have to make sure,” said Howell. “I came in to find out—”
    The dismal bellowing came from the all-wave receiver yet again. Now, oddly, Howell suddenly realized