Young Star Travelers

by Isaac Asimov

  Unless one could guess where he had gone. Jordan thought he had guessed.

  Ellen prowled restlessly about. What would Ricky have done? Nothing had been taken from his room; had he set out without any equipment at all?

  She went to the kitchen. Barney was muddling around among his cupboards, in a very bad mood. He had wanted to go with the search parties and had been turned down.

  “Barney,” said Ellen quickly, “did Ricky take any food?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to check, Miss. There’s some biscuits gone, I think. He could have taken them, or it could have been anyone this afternoon. And I think one of the big canteens has gone, but I suppose a search party took it.”

  “They didn’t,” said Ellen sharply. “There are always plenty of streams, apart from the pools in the leaves. They only took small water bottles.”

  “One of the big canteens has gone,” repeated Barney obstinately. “And one of the water bottles isn’t, if you take my meaning—Ricky did not take one of those, I mean, I’ve accounted for them. The canteen I can’t account for. But Ricky wouldn’t lumber himself up with that,” he added morosely. “He couldn’t carry it if it was more than half full, and he knows about the streams as well as anybody. No, I reckon someone pinched it for a collecting tin or something. That’s how it goes in this place, and now we can see what comes of it. You can’t keep a proper check on anything—”

  But Dr. Scott had gone.

  She waited, fuming, until the party which had gone west came back.

  “Yes, we looked over the Rift all right,” said the leader morosely. “Hell, Ellen, the whole place is a heat-trap. With the haze and flickers visibility is about twenty yards. Even from the air you wouldn’t see anything, unless maybe when the shadows get longer and before they get too long. Jordan wouldn’t see anything if he did fly over it now. Besides, why should the kid have gone into that oven?”

  Ellen turned away. Why should Ricky have gone that way? But why should he have taken a big canteen, unless he was going to cross a waterless area? If he had taken it, of course. But there were plenty of containers in the stores for scientific work.

  Ricky had been interested in the Rift, certainly. He had been asking questions about it yesterday—one of the few times lately he had shown interest in anything at all.

  But visibility in the Rift was bad now. When the shadows were longer—

  Jordan called over the radio. He had been flying up and down the river and the adjacent forest for the last hour and a half. Ricky had been gone about four hours.

  There were three hours of daylight left.

  Two hours later the situation was unchanged. To the parties in the forest night would make little difference; they were using lights already. Jordan proposed to stay in the air—one or other of the moons would be in the sky most of the night. There was about one hour of daylight left.

  Ellen Scott listened to his report, and those of the search parties. Then she went briskly to the place where the one remaining heliflier was parked. She found another member of the expedition contemplating it gloomily.

  “Come away from there, Phil,” she said severely.

  “Oh, hell, Ellen, there’s a seventy-five per cent chance the thing’s all right. Woodman said he’d fixed up a rough plane, didn’t he?” The man turned away nevertheless. “What in Space did Jordan want to bring that kid here for?”

  Ten minutes later he shot out of his cabin, where he had been dispiritedly collecting together the makings of a drink, in time to see the heliflier rise gently into the air and disappear toward the west.

  * * *

  Although the shadows were beginning to lengthen, the Rift was like a furnace. The water in the canteen was hot. Ricky and Big Sword sat in the slightly cooler earth on the north of a boulder and contemplated the forest lying away to the left—not the forest they knew, but the strange trees of the farther side.

  Big Sword’s goggle eyes did not register emotion, but Ricky could feel the stir of curiosity in him. Big Sword was already reaching out to new streams, new treetops, new bare places that would be warm in the sun. For himself Ricky could only think about the two miles remaining to be walked.

  He had hopelessly underestimated the time it would take him to pick his way through eight miles of boulders, too hot for the hand, walking on sliding shingle; he had managed less than two miles an hour. But now he had to get on. He stirred himself, got Big Sword perched again on his shoulder and restrapped the canteen, lighter now but still a burden.

  He had gone perhaps a dozen strides when the shadow of the heliflier came up behind and settled over his head.

  Ricky started to run. There was no sense to it, and Big Sword disliked the effects, but he ran just the same, with the water sloshing about his back. The shadow of the flier slid forward a hundred yards and it began to come down over a comparatively level place. Ricky swerved sideways. He heard a shout echo among the boulders, but the echo of combined relief and exasperation in his mind rang louder.

  “Ricky! Stop and talk! Whatever it is, I’ll help. There’s no sense in running. If I get in touch with your father there’ll be another flier and several people here in twenty minutes. Stop! Listen to me, will you, you—”

  The shouts echoed on for a moment, but the thought had stopped.

  Dr. Scott came whirling up through hot red mists to find herself lying beside a fire. A very hot fire, in a stone fireplace. It didn’t make sense. Warm water was being sloshed across her face and there was a murmur of voices—two of them.

  “She hit her head. That’s all. She fainted. She’ll come round in a minute. Then you’ll hear her. It isn’t sleep, no—not exactly. What’s the matter? Why don’t you—”

  The second voice was no more than a vague murmur of curiosity; it was beginning to sound irritated as well.

  Ellen remembered that she had been running among a lot of boulders and had twisted her foot. No doubt she had hit her head when she fell; certainly it ached. But what had she been doing that for?

  She opened her eyes.

  Ricky’s anxious face hung directly above her and he was pouring water from his cupped hand on to her forehead. Beside him was—

  Ellen winced and shut her eyes.

  “Dr. Scott. Please!” Ricky sounded worried. “Are you hurt?”

  “Delirious, I think,” said Ellen faintly. She opened her eyes again. “Where did it go?”

  Ricky’s face was a study in doubt and other emotions. Ellen put a hand to the aching spot on the back of her head and began very cautiously to sit up.

  “Come on, Ricky,” she said firmly. “Who were you talking to?”

  “Aloud?” said Ricky, in tones of surprise. “Oh, so that’s why he couldn’t hear.”

  Ellen shut her eyes again. “I’m the one with concussion, not you,” she pointed out. “Who couldn’t hear?”

  “Well, his name's Big Sword,” said Ricky doubtfully. “More or less, that is. He says he’s coming back, anyway.”

  Ellen opened her eyes once more. They focused on the region of Ricky’s right ear. Laid gently over it was a skinny black hand with four long, many-jointed fingers. A slender arm stole into view, attached to what might have been a medium-sized potato that had happened to grow black. On top of this was perched a head about the size of a large egg. The greater part of this was occupied by two large light-gray eyes with slit pupils and dully shining surfaces. They goggled at her solemnly.

  Once again she was aware of a vague murmur of curiosity, not divisible into words.

  Ellen drew a deep breath. “Ricky, this . . . this friend of yours. Why did you bring him here?”

  Ricky studied her face earnestly. “It was my idea, not his, Dr. Scott. I wanted to get to the forest over there. To the other side of the Rift.”

  “But why?”

  Ricky shook his head.

  “It wasn’t that at all. It was my idea, I tell you, not Big Sword’s. He didn’t . . . didn’t hypnotize me. He wouldn’t have done i
t to Barney except that he couldn’t think of anything else to do. And I’ve absolutely got to get there now!”

  Ellen sat up and stared at him. “All right, Ricky. Listen, you tell me the reason. If it’s a good one . . . well, I must let your father know you’re safe. But I won’t tell him where you are. I’ll fly you to the forest, and then back. How about that?”

  Ricky breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes,” he said. “Is Doc J. very worried?”

  “Worried? Listen, make it quick. I’m going to call him in ten minutes, whatever. What are you doing here?”

  Ricky sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. “The idea began with the jellyfish, really,” he said. “The male jellyfish in the lake.”

  The heliflier had completed the fifth sweep down the river to the sea; back up the river to the rapids, where many rafts of floating vegetation broke up and reformed, making Jordan’s heart jump as he hovered above them; on up the river to the point he had fixed as farthest east. It was no good to fly over the forest; he had found that he could not pick up the search parties when he knew they were directly below him. The river was his only hope.

  Nearly time to make another report. His hand was on the button of the radio when the speaker came suddenly to life.

  “Calling all search parties. John Jordan please answer. Can you hear?”

  Jordan’s voice came out as a harsh croak. “I hear. Is he—”

  “Ricky’s safe. He’s with me now. Turn everyone home. But—listen. He had a good reason for going off as he did. He had something to do and it’s not finished. So I’m not going to tell you where we are.”

  Jordan shouted something incoherent, but her voice overrode him.

  “It’s important, John. I don’t know if it will come off, but he must have a chance to try. You can probably find out where we are, but—don’t come. Do you understand?”

  “Ellen, is he really all right? And are you?”

  “Sure I’m all right. We’re going to remain all right. We’ll be back some time next morning. Oh, and Ricky says”—her voice broke off for a moment—“Ricky says he is very sorry to have worried you, honestly he is, but it was urgent, and will you please not do anything to damage that Tree.” There was a moment’s silence. “John? You haven’t done something to it already?”

  “I haven’t, no.”

  “Don’t let anyone touch it. Good night, John. Sleep well.”

  “Ellen—”

  The speaker clicked and was silent.

  The helifliers were designed for sleeping in, in an emergency, but they were not air-conditioned. Ellen felt the compress on her head, which had long ceased to be cold, and envied bitterly Ricky’s ability to sleep under these conditions. A faint gleam of light from button-sized surfaces a couple of yards off showed that Big Sword was still sitting and watching as he had been doing ever since they lay down. Ellen wished bitterly that she had had the sense to lie beside the refrigerator so that she could get more cold water without having to lift her aching head.

  The gray buttons moved. She felt small, strong fingers tugging gently at the compress. She lifted the compress off her head and felt it go. There was a sound of faint movement and the click of the refrigerator door, with a momentary blast of lovely cold air. A few minutes later the compress, beautifully cold now, was poked carefully back under her head. She felt the thistledown touch of skinny fingers against her cheek.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, and then, remembering, she repeated it inside her head, “Thank you, Big Sword.”

  They had flown at dawn and the heliflier sat among the boulders at the foot of the cliff. Ellen and Ricky sat beside it, shivering a little in the morning cold, and waited.

  Ellen looked at Ricky’s intent face. He could not hear strange members of the People distinctly, she had gathered, but he could usually detect their presence.

  “What does it feel like?” she asked abruptly.

  “Hearing thoughts?” Ricky considered. “It feels like thinking. You can’t really tell other thoughts from your own—unless they’ve been specially directed. That’s what made it all so very difficult.”

  “I see,” Ellen sighed. What on Earth, or of it, could Ricky’s future be? True telepaths would not fit in Earth’s scheme of things.

  “I used to pick up thoughts all the time,” Ricky went on. “I didn’t know that until I found out how to shut them off. It was a sort of fuzzy background to my thinking. Do you know, I think all real good thinkers must be people with no telepathy, or else they learn to shut it right off. Now I can do that I think much clearer.”

  “So you don’t overhear thoughts accidentally now?” Ellen felt encouraged.

  “No, I don’t. I only get directed thoughts. I’m not going to overhear anyone ever again, it’s just a nuisance.”

  “Stick to that. I don’t think uncontrolled telepathy is much good to a human being.”

  “It isn’t. I tell you what, I think there are two ways of evolving communication, telepathy and communication between senses, and people who are good at the one aren’t good at the other. I’ll never be a real good communicator like the People, my mind doesn’t work the right way. But I’ll be good enough to be useful for research. I’m going to—” Ricky broke off, seized his companion’s arm and pointed.

  Ellen looked up at the cliff. It was about thirty feet high, here, with only a couple of six-inch ledges to break the sheer drop. Black foliage overhung it in places.

  “There!” whispered Ricky. Slowly there came into view a black head the size of an egg—a black head in which eyes shone gray.

  “Is he coming back?” whispered Ellen. “Has he given up, then?”

  There was a faint rustling among the leaves. Ricky’s grip tightened painfully on her arm.

  A second black head appeared beside the first.

  “You see,” said Ricky anxiously, “I didn’t really think you’d go and destroy the Tree straight off, but I couldn’t be sure. And everyone was angry with me about one thing or another and I didn’t know if they’d listen.”

  “Speaking for myself,” said Woodman, “there were one or two moments when if I’d had a blaster handy the Tree would have been done for there and then.”

  “So you were just taking out insurance,” said Jordan.

  “Yes, because if we found other Trees the species would continue anyway. Big Sword and I meant to ask you to help about that, later—the Journey, I mean— only then I thought we’d better try that straight away in case I was stopped later. I thought if I could show people, it was better than telling them.”

  “Isn’t Big Sword coming?” said another of the party. The whole of the expedition, including even Barney, was seated around a square table raised on trestles in the center of the clearing. Ricky nodded.

  “As soon as we’re ready,” he said. “Now, if you like. But he says if too many people think at him at once it may hurt, so he wants you to be ready to start talking if I give the signal.”

  “What about?” said Cartwright.

  “Anything. Anything at all. Shall I call him?”

  There was half a minute’s expectant silence. Then lightly as a grasshopper Big Sword flew over Ellen’s head and landed with a slight bounce in the center of the table.

  There was a simultaneous forward movement of heads as everybody bent to look at him, and he sat up and goggled out of pale bulging eyes. Then—

  Most of them felt the sharp protest of discomfort before Ricky waved his hand. Nobody had really thought out what to say and there was a moment of silence, then somebody began to talk about the weather, the statistician began on the multiplication table, Jordan found himself muttering, “ ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves . . .”—after a minute or so only Ricky was still silent.

  “He says he’ll go to one person after another, but the rest keep talking,” reported Ricky presently. “You can ask him to do things if you like.”

  Solemnly Big Sword went round the table, sitting for a few moments in front of each perso
n, snapping out his membranes, revolving to present his back view, and then going on.

  “That’s him!” said Barney as Big Sword came to a halt in front of him. “But how did he sting me?”

  The spindly hand whipped to Big Sword’s flat thigh and flashed back holding a flat gray spike two and a half inches long. He held it out and Barney fingered the point in a gingerly fashion.

  “That’s the sword, is it?” murmured Woodman. “Do they secrete it, Ricky?”

  “I think so, but I haven’t asked him.”

  Woodman breathed out a long sigh.

  “This,” he said, “is the answer to a biologist’s prayer.”

  Big Sword bounced suddenly back into the middle of the table. “He’s tired,” said Ricky. “He says he’ll send someone else another day.” Ricky yawned uncontrollably as Big Sword took a flying leap off the table and hopped across the clearing. He had had a hard day the day before and a very early start this morning and a lot of excitement since.

  “Can we just have the story straight?” said the statistician suddenly. “The biological story, I mean. You people may have been able to follow it through all the interruptions, but I didn’t. I gathered that Ricky had discovered the female of the species, but that’s all. How did they get lost?”

  “I’ll tell it,” said Jordan, looking at Ricky, who was nodding sleepily, “and Ricky can correct me. Big Sword’s People are the active and intelligent offspring of an organism which to all intents and purposes is a large tree. They are produced by an asexual budding process inside pods. When they are a year or so old they are seized by the urge to migrate across the Rift. They never knew why, and probably none of them ever got across. It occurred to Ricky that alternation of generations usually turns out to have sex at the bottom of it. Big Sword’s People couldn’t reproduce themselves—they simply hatched from the Tree. So Ricky thought that there might be another Tree on the other side of the Rift which produced females. And when I very foolishly considered destroying the Tree because of Woodman’s experience, he thought he had to go and find them straight off, so that at least the species would survive. And I’m glad to say he was quite right—they were there.”