"You said we have weapons."
"Not enough to hold out indefinitely."
"Sir," Corporal Drein intervened, "there's an old, enemy vehicle in the prison building. We used it sometimes for field inspections."
"Let's look it over."
Captain Tchassen had seen the instructional films which were made immediately after the occupation. He could identify the sedan—an inefficient, petroleum-burning machine, typical of a primitive people who had just reached the threshhold of the Power Age. The original beauty of design had long since disappeared. Only one window and the windshield were unbroken; the body paint was peeling away in spreading patches of rust; the pneumatic tires were in shreds and the vehicle moved noisily on bent, metal rims.
They fueled the car with gasoline confiscated long ago and stored in drums in the prison warehouse; Corporal Drein volunteered to do the driving. In the officers' cottages they found weapons—a portable heat beam, half a dozen dispersal rays, and a box of recharge cartridges. In terms of Tchassen's technology such weapons were minor sidearms, but they were superior to anything yet produced by the Earth people. Tchassen was sure he had the power to beat off any attack.
The survivors were handicapped in only one respect: all the food on the post had been destroyed with the commissary. However, Tchassen did not consider that a serious problem. He was sure they could reach the coast by the following morning.
Shortly before three o'clock—nearly two hours after the supply robot crashed—the survivors left the station. They headed west on a highway unused since the conquest. Tchassen and Tynia sat together in back. The Captain kept all the weapons. Briggan's warning couldn't be ignored; one of the other three might be an Earthman. Unless they faced an actual emergency, Tchassen did not intend to let any of the others carry arms.
The sedan lumbered over cracked and crumbling asphalt. The tireless rims made a nerve-wracking din that prevented all conversation. Tchassen was unused to any sort of surface transportation. The civilized galaxy had outgrown it centuries ago; the flight beam, safe and inexpensive, was universally used. With equal ease the beam could move a one-man runabout or a cargo freighter over any distance—a few feet or the light years gapping between planets. Twice Tchassen revised his estimate of the sedan's speed. At this rate, it would be twenty-four hours or more before they reached the coast. That made their shortage of food far more significant.