The Last Starfighter by Alan Dean Foster Page A

uniformed support officer. The chant was taken up by the others, including the pilots. The force of it shook Enduran. He’d been warned, and the tranquilizers they’d pumped into his system helped him to remain calm, but the feeling of raw violence that now overwhelmed the chamber was terribly unsettling to anyone who regarded himself as a civilized creature.
    And he’d been chosen to deliver this presentation because he’d tested out emotionally more resilient than his colleagues. The fury of the fighter’s response to the speech would surely have caused poor Masurv of Cann’our, next in line to make the presentation, to faint on the dais.
    They were on their feet now, circulating through the briefing room like a living storm, pilots and navs and technicians and engineers, all selected for defects in their emotional makeup. Defects which made them pariahs on their home worlds but heroes of the battle to come. They pounded each other enthusiastically with hands or tentacle tips, slapped backs or carpaces as they strove to bolster each other’s spirits. Fighting spirits, Enduran told himself. We have not progressed far enough.
    Which was lucky for everyone else.
    Alex was on his feet with everyone else, stumbling through the crowd and trying not to get trampled in the excitement. His course wasn’t planned and he was just trying to reach the far wall without tripping over any chairs or Bodati tentacles. In a few moments he found himself nearly in the clear, on the opposite side of the chamber.
    Where a familiar figure was moving easily through the mob, its attention fixed on a handful of glittering crystalline shapes.
    Alex started shoving his way through the remaining crowd, ignoring occasional outcries and not even caring if he offended some belligerent Bodati. The figure he was heading toward was joined by a uniformed alien. Together they headed for an open doorway.
    “Centauri, Centauri, wait!”
    His recruiter/kidnapper didn’t hear him. Or maybe he did and was hurrying out of the room. Alex was clear of the press of alien bodies then. Their cheers and whistles echoed in his ears as he plunged down a short hall and out into the main hangar.
    It was filled with noisy equipment being operated by the usual assortment of strange creatures, some of whom were more outre in appearance than the machines they worked with. There was no sign of Centauri, though he thought he saw a half-familiar shape vanishing around a far corner.
    He ran, waving and yelling, and not looking where he was going. Fortunately, the alien he ran into was no Bodati.

5
    It was quite humanoid, though completely hairless. The rounded skull and the face with its deep-set yellowish eyes was covered by a thick orange-yellow crust that reminded Alex of desert ponds months after scorching heat had caused them to dry and crack. He was tall (the “he” another sexual presumption on Alex’s part which turned out to be correct) and, thankfully, devoid of tentacles.
    “I’m sorry,” Alex apologized. There was no sign of Centauri now, and no way of knowing which way he’d gone.
    “This is a restricted area, off limits to . . .” The alien stopped in mid-sentence, examining Alex more closely as they both knelt to recover Alex’s clothes and the small handful of components the tall being had been carrying.
    “I don’t recognize your species,” he said.
    “Human.” Alex stared at a six-inch-long something that filled his hand. It looked like a cross between an oversized ballpoint pen and an electric toothbrush. He suspected it was neither, and handed it over.
    “From Earth,” he added.
    “Earth what?”
    “Just Earth. We like to keep things simple.”
    I don’t believe I’m having this conversation , he told himself. I don’t believe a bit of it .
    “That’s a uniform.” The alien gestured with a thick-skinned hand at Alex’s bundle of clothing.
    “Yeah.” Alex gathered it up. As he rearranged it in his arms, the alien caught sight of