Lucifer Comet (2464 CE)

by Ian Wallace

  “And that, Mr. Chancellor, is about as far as anthropology can go in this area. Perhaps my colleague Manya Pore will have some comments.”

  The chancellor twisted around: “Manya Pore?”

  Asserted Pore, whose voice was jerky and somewhat high-pitched: “Mr. Chancellor, my comments have to be sketchy and uncertain, pending detailed sessions with these guests. I have no idea where their planet Erth may be; they have not even described their star. As you know, we have explored by ship or by probe not only the entire Narfar constellation, excluding one of its stars which is for now impossibly distant, but also neighboring stars as far away as” (number and unit incomprehensible), “and we have encountered no planet having life of the human or even the mammalian order of intelligence—indeed, only a few planets have even simple life-forms.

  “My preliminary hypothesis would be the following. These people are spies from some other nation on Dora, and that would explain why they pre-knew our conditions. I will not name the nation, but you know the one I have in mind. This nation has built a star-ship of entirely new design, and with it they intended to destroy Medzok City, planning thereafter to destroy our other cities and take command of our nation. The ploy of sending scientists as spies is an old one. Unfortunately for them, there was a miscalculation as they came in upon us, and they got themselves snagged by the summit of that building. They are disguising their purpose and origin by pretending to have come here from some fictitious planet—”

  During the increasingly agitated tirade, with its unastronomical chop-logic about spies aboard a ship meant to destroy, the other eleven Erthlings were leaning toward Methuen signaling demands that he interrupt. Shrugging them off, the captain studiously listened. When Pore reached the words “fictitious planet”, the chancellor interrupted smoothly: “Excuse me, Manya Pore, but our time is limited, and I do think we have your message.”

  He turned to Methuen: “Captain, we thank you for the time of your colleagues and yourself. Please return now to your ship; and if our guards accompany you there, please believe that this is only for your own protection. We will deliberate this, and you will hear from us.” He stood. “Again, thank you.”

  The armed spiders were waiting.

  Nobody had mentioned time-paradox. Methuen would have bet that such a notion had never crossed the minds of these Medzok people. Instead, surely these people were convinced (and were they wrong?) that during untold millennia they had driven themselves upward and onward until now they were masters of their planet and commanders of the highest technology ever known.

  These people and their nervoi were ready to conquer new worlds; not as villains, no, it was simply their manifest destiny.

  And into their alert-readiness had now blundered Methuen and his Erthlings: Methuen, inadvertent agent for actualizing his own prevoyant dreams. By accident, he had met his own appointment in Samara.

  39

  Still Day One Twenty-Four

  They half-expected to find a superspider crouching in every compartment of the ship. Instead, when they boarded, no spiders at all were in evidence. Greeting them, the duty lieutenant reported: “The filthy things know their place, they asked for privacy, we put them all in the storage space but we weren’t allowed to bar the hatch.” Zorbin told him curt: “Watch your opinions, Lieutenant. They read minds—can you do that?”

  Hard-faced, Methuen directed the lieutenant to summon all officers to the ward-room immediately; and he led his task force there. When the complement was complete, the captain personally locked both doors and activated the scrambler shield, remarking as he went to his seat: “Let us hope that it scrambles also brain-waves—”

  He paused; raucous music was penetrating the room through the closed main door: rekamatic guitars and a wild male chorus in acid-hard beat. The lieutenant whom Zorbin had reproved spoke up: “Sir, I’ve organized a crew jam session out there, it ought to scramble anything we say for any mental eavesdropping. Is it satisfactory, or—”

  “Well done,” Methuen acknowledged. He proceeded with self-contained urgency. “Also it was well done today by you scientists; and I am confident that my officers would likewise have done well had they been present at the conference.

  “Now. Our situation is extremely precarious. These people have space capability; and I suspect that if we should try to take off, they could blast us out of space. Their servants, the nervoi spiders, are aboard ship, tracking every move of every person aboard by extra-sensory means; one false move by us, and they could come boiling out of there.

  “What I am about to say is addressed to all of you, but I have Dr. Sari particularly in mind. Under no circumstances may any of us mention the five-forty-six gradient. Once again: we must not, repeat not, mention or even indirectly refer to the gradient. Need I explain why?” No response; a few head-negations, one from Sari. He pressed: “I urge; if any of you does not understand why we may not mention the gradient, please confess your ignorance; my responding explanation may enlighten somebody else who won’t admit ignorance.”

  That drew some chuckles. A smiling lieutenant said, “Captain, I’m awful dumb; please explain.” Heartened, Seal chipped in: “I’m that dumb too. Who else is that dumb? Raise your hands.” Seven hands uncertainly went up; and Chu murmured, “We have now defeated pluralistic ignorance in the only possible way.”

  Sari’s hand had not gone up. Methuen challenged her: “Dr. Sari, can you explain?”

  Said Sita: “If these people learn about the gradient’s existence, they can find it; with it, they can determine where our Erth is located, and they can save energy reaching Erth.” She added small: “You think we are facing that sort of menace?”

  “Frankly, I don’t know,” Methuen admitted, “but I want to find out before we reveal too much. We did have a warning from Quarfar.” (He omitted mention of his private warnings.)

  “I anticipate that an early ploy on their part will be to learn where Erth is located; and, Dr. Sari, I expect that you will be the main target of such inquiry, after myself and Zor-bin perhaps. If I am asked about this, I plan to raise technical difficulties involving translation of systems and coordinates; I don’t know how long this can be spun out, but I would hope that anyone so questioned would follow that general line.”

  Ombasa cleared his throat and suggested with difficulty, “Might there be torture? Perhaps even psychoprobing?”

  “There might. The outcome would have to be left to the physical and moral strength of each subject.”

  Long dismal silence, into which Methuen injected: “But I may be sizing up the situation altogether wrong. If these people are creative, they may turn out to be the greatest friends we have ever met. There will necessarily be a period of mutual distrust and probing, after which we will see on both sides.”

  “That astrophysicist Pore,” Sari commented, “is a paranoid ass.”

  ‘This the chancellor recognized, I’m sure. But on the other hand, the chancellor may be considering that even a paranoid may recognize real enemies. Or, the chancellor may be seeing real opportunities.”

  Liana Green grated: “I hate those damned spiders!” Peranza backed her with a shudder.

  “Cheer up,” Olga commented; “they may prove to be the nicest people here.”

  Hoek remarked: “As you might expect, I don’t hate the spiders, quite the contrary. How often does a zoologist meetup with a man-sized tarantula who can communicate with the zoologist? The opportunities, Captain! Anatomical study in large scale, probing of behavioral motives … Ombasa, how can a spider-brain become so complex?”

  “I have no idea,” Ombasa rumbled, “and I wish I had one.

  Captain, do you suppose an interview could be arranged with at least one specimen?”

  “I’ll check it with their officers,” Methuen promised. “But please bear in mind that they are remarkably advanced spiders called nervoi. The singular is nervo. It may pay us to use this label. Anything else before we adjourn for now?”

  Sari mut
tered, “Maybe—”

  “Dr. Sari?”

  She looked at the captain directly. “Maybe we should erase the five-forty-six gradient.”

  “Do you know how to do that, Doctor?”

  She looked down, giving her head a little shake. “Not exactly, but something about it is bugging me. I know this much: we would have to retrace the gradient to Erth, doing something to it along the way; but I don’t know what that something is, I want to think about it.”

  “Do that,” said Methuen gently. “If it will help you to think, please imagine that we will really be able to return to Erth, by that path or any other.”

  Methuen and Zorbin, passing among the outside crew-dis-tractors, went aft to the storage area and belled the hatch. They were soprano-welcomed from within: “Come in, Captain, Commander.” Entering, they found two nervoi in the van to greet them, and the one more in the van wore a voder; probably two dozen others lurked behind in congestion, some roosting on stowage. The two greeters were presumably Commander Varji’s officers whom they had met at the top of the airlift; they bore no rank insignia or any other distinguishing marks; presumably other nervoi knew their ranks intuitively, but he wondered how their human masters made such discriminations.

  Methuen said through his translator, “Sir—or is it madam?”

  The lead nervo returned, “All of us here are female. Our males do only one kind of work. I am Lieutenant Milji.”

  “Very well, Lieutenant Milji. At least two of our scientists, a zoologist and a psychobiologist, are intensely interested in spiders generally and in you Dorian nervoi particularly. With full respect, madam, I wonder whether one of your group could be detailed or would volunteer to meet with these scientists.”

  “While your scientists are studying our volunteer, can she study your scientists?”

  “She would be doing that anyhow, wouldn’t she?”

  “Of course. Please excuse us a moment or two.” The spider-officers went into deep abstraction.

  They came alert, and in his mind Methuen heard the Milji voice: Forgive me if I minds peak, Captain, Commander; what I must convey is too private for the voder. Yes, I will deliver a volunteer from among this crew to your scientists for study; but there is more. I am to extend to you an unprecedented invitation for this afternoon; and after the occasion, one of two who are highest among spiders will visit you privately. Is this feasible?

  “Lieutenant, I do not how to mindspeak—”

  Speak aloud, then; we will catch the mind-drift; it is how we have been hearing you anyway.

  “As to the volunteer for study and the later private visit by one of two, a wholehearted yes. As for the unprecedented invitation, I’m sure you want to tell me about it before I answer.”

  In two hours there will be a signal international event which is private to nervoi, humans are always excluded. I have been given authority to invite you and Commander Zor’• bin and Dr. Sari to witness this event.

  The thing about a mindspeak is that you feel the emotive overtones. Stirred, Methuen hesitantly responded: “I comprehend the honor, madam, without necessarily understanding it, unless it is because we are not Dorian humans.”

  That is indeed part of it. Of course, we will have to have your word that even the fact of the visit will be kept totally confidential, even from your scientists.

  “But why Dr. Sari? She is an astrophysicist, whereas the scientists most interested in you Dorian nervoi are a zoologist and a psychobiologist and probably also an anthropologist—”

  I will explain, sir. We invite the commander and yourself because I am given to understand that, for reasons unknown to me, you two have especially good reasons for interest. We invite Dr. Sari because one of your party should be female, and she is the only woman aboard your ship who has absolutely no negative feelings about nervoi or any other spiders, other than a natural wariness.

  If it was some sort of trap, it was a devious one. Methuen personally was willing to risk walking into it; but he ought to leave his second-in-command aboard ship, and he said so, feeling Zorbin’s disappointment as he said it.

  The response seemed almost eager, yet not in a threatening way. We see your point, and we concur. How about Dr. Sari?

  “She must speak for herself.”

  She will have to be present if you are to be present, to take the curse off your maleness, if you will excuse me sir, in the eyes of the rank and file.

  Methuen smiled. “I understand perfectly—but she must say.”

  Behind him, Sari: “Forgive me for eavesdropping. My answer is yes, with my respectful thanks.”

  40

  Still Day One Twenty-Four

  A small nervo-driven skimmer (predictably having eight jets, six for lift and two for thrust) awaited them at the foot of the airshaft. Nervoi vehicles had a way of appearing from nowhere on immediate call, Methuen reflected as he followed Sari aboard; perhaps their drivers were mind-alerted by developing situations and were halfway there when summoned. Two seats rose out of the bare floor for the two humans; Lieutenant Milji and a crew-nervo, who had followed the humans aboard, stood on the floor. The driver in a forward cubicle, a booth like the head of a spider-body, was comfortably body-slung in netting. She used all eight jets to manipulate controls all around her; semi-surrounding her was a transparent windshield, so that she never needed to move her head for side vision.

  At a speed of perhaps a hundred kph, the skimmer sped them across the enormous spaceport to a broad, squat, blue dome at the edge nearest the city. Bivalve doors at ground-level parted to receive the skimmer, which entered and was parked at one segment of the circular interior. The entire dome seemed to be dark-blue glassoid, conferring submarine illumination upon the interior: other skimmers of diversified sizes were parked elsewhere, seemingly at random; while they watched, a skimmer rose out of the floor and another vanished into the floor. Milji was telling the humans: We pause here to adapt our eyes in the direction of darkness when we go in, and toward light when we come out. The nervo-city is underground, and it is larger than Medzok City; but you won’t be able to see much of it… Here we go.

  The skimmer dropped beneath the floor; through its transparent roof they could see a rectangle of dome-blue diminishing above them; then the skimmer darted forward, rushing at indeterminate speed through absolute darkness. Or was it absolute? As their eyes adapted, a hint of pervasive blue lumen was emerging, barely penetrating their optic thresholds; the body of the driver was now descriable as a vague black silhouette, and beyond her into uncertain distance a seeming of a horizontal tube hurtled toward and past them.

  Sari said conversationally: “I’m remembering that many Erth-spiders are burrowers and nocturnal hunters. I imagine the driver can see perfectly; at this velocity, it’s a reassuring thought.”

  To us, Milji remarked, the tube is as clear as daylight. That faint blue glow is a flourescent fungus-growth; primitively we did not need it, but at these high speeds it is useful to us; we are traveling double our speed on the surface … We’re stowing, we’re nearly there.

  When they stepped down from the skimmer, they seemed in the spectral blue-dark to be in a fairly high hall made grotesquely irregular by black shapishness. Milji directed: Captain, please climb onto my back and grip my body tight with arms and legs, but do not touch my head. Doctor, do the same with my aide. We have a spiral ramp to mount. Both humans obeyed, and the up-run was rapid and dizzying.

  At ramp-top, they paused on an erthen platform in front of what may have been a portal. Please dismount, Milji instructed; they did so. Milji stood on all eight before the portal, her forelegs not elevated; she was probably in the act of bowing. Their minds entertained small static; there was interspider communication in progress, beyond the grasp of a human mind.

  Milji turned to the humans. You are in the presence of Narsua Number 6261. She is our queen. She will receive you. Enter, stand erect, hear her greeting, respond; then await what she may say or do.

  Their eye-a
daptation had advanced to a level where they could clearly make out a black spider silhouette squatting on some kind of raised place, but they could distinguish no details.

  Methuen, standing at attention with Sari equally erect beside him, felt compelled by the noble antiquity of Narsua. He tried to convey his admiration in waves of mental overtones for his words of courtesy.

  The queen-spider’s response was upsetting. Leaping from her perch, she came down upon Sari, bearing Sari to the ground with fangs at her throat.

  Sari did not struggle. Taut, Methuen asserted: “Madam, if you kill her, I will tear your head from your body while your nervoi are killing me. But I think your intent is not that. I think you are testing us.”

  Tableau.

  Departing Sari, Narsua returned to her high place and squatted watching. Sari arose and composed herself.

  The humans waited.

  Into their minds came the Narsua comment. 1 am aware that when I attacked, neither of you received it as a bestial attack; you took it as a testing by a respected equal. You commented on my antiquity: I as an individual dm twenty-nine years old, and that is indeed ancient for a single nervo. As the collectivity of our species, / am more than fifty thousand years old since we attained self-awareness under the first Medzok. But as the persona of our worldwide species, I am young, for we are species-young. We thank you two for coming to see my death.

  It was wheels within wheels, and Sari stared at Methuen, but the captain gazed directly at the queen. “Madam, we understand very little; we would like to understand more.”

  The spider shadow appeared to be shuddering, and there was melancholy in her thought-wave. Tonight you will indeed know more, and Narsua will be your teacher. For me, regrettably it is almost time for my individual termination; and so individually I must bid you farewell, for this while, or forever.