The Next Time We Die by Robert Moore Williams

Author:Robert Moore Williams [Williams, Robert Moore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Short Stories
Publisher: Feedbooks
Published: 1957-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

He looked quickly at her. The girl's eyes were filled with tears. "I didn't really mean to do it," she blubbered.

"Cut out that damned caterwauling!" he ordered. "This is war. The fact that just you and me, and some wild Martian Indians, are involved in this war doesn't make it any less deadly. If we don't get them, they'll get us." He held up his bandaged hand. "Do you think the tribesman who did that was after my fingers? He wasn't! What he wanted was my head!"

"All right, all right, I understand this intellectually, it's just that my emotions got involved."

"Get them uninvolved," he said. "How could you see that Martian when I couldn't?"

"Better ability to differentiate colors, probably," the girl answered. "Women can usually see colors better than men. That was the way I picked him out."

"Do some more differentiating between colors," he invited, waving her back to the sight of the Rangeley. "Maybe, by Harry, we'll get out of here alive after all!" Hope surged in his voice. "If we do—"

"If we do, then what?" the girl asked.

He shook his head. "If we do get out, I couldn't tell you anyhow. There's no point in talking. But in case we don't get out, I want you to know that you're a mighty nice kid."

"Well—thanks." Her eyes were deep blue again, like the skies of Earth. She moved toward him.

"Hey, what did you do that for?"

"Just an impulse. I always kiss men who tell me I'm a nice kid."

"Nice kid, nice kid, nice kid," McLean said.

"You're too eager." The blush on her cheeks was visible through the sand. Hastily she applied her eye to the sight of the Rangeley. McLean sighed. He had never had a girl. It seemed to him that fate was playing him a cruel joke to try to give him one under these conditions, in a hole in the sand with wild Martian tribesmen surrounding him. He mentally estimated the distance to the desert buggy, considered their chances of making this trip and arriving alive. He was shaking his head at his own estimate when the Rangeley burped again.

"I missed!" the girl said. "Oh! Here he comes!"

McLean shoved her away from the sight. The Martian was moving toward them, fast. Instead of a gun, he had a spear.

"You didn't miss," the roustabout said. "You hit him but you only wounded him. This is his death charge!"

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