When the Spoilers Came

by Robert Moore Williams

Roy Larkin apparently had expected them to cringe, to fawn, to beg. When they did nothing, he seemed confused. Wonderingly he stared at them. His gaze came to the face of his father. On his features the confusion grew. His eyes came down to the Kell gun. Something was happening inside of him, what it was no man except he knew or could know. As he seemed to realize he still held the gun, a look of horror appeared on his face. He dropped the weapon. It clattered on the stone floor, the only sound in that vast silence.

Then there was another sound, a sound that resembled the cry of a child gulping a single word—"Daddy." Roy Larkin was saying that single word and he was moving toward his father.

"I've been so terribly wrong," Roy Larkin whispered. "For so many years I've been wrong. I wanted to tell you, but I never could, until now."

Boyd Larkin folded his son into his arms. The hard, bitter driving man that he had known this morning was somehow gone. The man who was in his arms and clutching his shoulders and burying his head against his chest was somehow a little boy who had been lost, bewildered, and alone, and who was no longer lost, who in this moment was growing to the stature of manhood.

Larkin patted the shoulders of this man-boy. His eyes were moist and there was a choke in his throat. Here was something that he had wanted desperately for so many years. Now he had it. His son, his son!

In him somewhere was a feeling not of triumph but of vast achievement. He looked over his son's shoulders at Malovar. The Martian's face was glowing as if he too was tasting this feeling of vast achievement. In this moment Malovar no longer looked like a tribal god demanding vengeance. Malovar looked like a very gentle and kindly old Martian.

"Mine eyes have seen wonders this day," Malovar spoke. "I think at the next time of the testing all of you will be safe from me."

"Do you mean that?" Larkin whispered.

"Of course. I never make careless statements." He made a gesture toward the elder who held his metal staff.

Around him Larkin was aware that the other humans were being freed from the force envelopes that held them powerless. There were clattering sounds, the noises of weapons being dropped from hands that no longer chose to use them.