Priam's Lens

by Chalker, Jack L

  They didn’t have a lot of those, either.

  He felt human enough to be worried about standing a watch with a still truculent Socolov, and wondered what the hell they might do to pass the time.

  He made his way over to her, his eyes finally clearing and adjusting to the darkness. At least the moon Achilles, half-full, was up; not a lot of help, but it was better than before. He could see that she, too, had been given a stimulant to drink, as well as Father Chicanis’s rifle. He was a bit better armed; he had Mogutu’s submachine gun. He didn’t like either crude and noisy weapon, but at least with his you only had to aim in the general direction of something to hit it.

  She heard him, but said nothing. He decided that the ice had to be broken, lest one or both of them fall over exhausted. “How are you feeling?” he asked in a barely audible whisper.

  “Like I was at the bottom of an elevator shaft when the car crashed down on top of me,” she responded in a little louder tone, sounding less than friendly. “I guess I’m not like the macho men of the military, who don’t need sleep or armor or food or anything.”

  “Come on over here, away from the others,” he invited. “Just to talk without having them be as miserable as we are. If nothing else, we should get this guard business sorted out before we have reason to shoot somebody or something.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, so she followed him perhaps ten meters from the sleepers, a bit inside the grove. The insect noises were still pretty loud, but either they’d died down some or the interlopers were getting accustomed to them.

  “Sit down,” he suggested, trying to sound as friendly and nonthreatening as possible. “We don’t have to be uncomfortable yet. If we take turns, at least we won’t wear ourselves out early. That thunderstorm took a lot out of us.”

  She did sink down, back against a tree, but said nothing.

  “You take a pain pill with a stim?” he asked her.

  “I took the stim. Maybe you’re right on the pain. I used to go fifteen kilometers with a full pack in the workout rooms, but this is already more tiring.”

  “Gravity does it.”

  “There was gravity on the ship.”

  “True,” he agreed, “but it’s a standardized gravity, just eighty percent of one universal gee unit. That’s been found to be the most comfortable with the least complications for long, cramped voyages. Air pressure is a stock one point seven five kilometers, humidity’s forty percent, air is just exactly so, and it’s always that way. Your body gets used to it. Now, suddenly, we’re on a world that’s at least one standard gee pressure at sea level, with the air extra-dense from eighty to ninety percent or more humidity and a temperature that’s hotter than we’ve been in in quite some time, even this late at night. We’re all feeling it. Even N’Gana is feeling it, probably more than any of us. He’s at least ten years older than any of us.”

  “He looks pretty spry to me. So do the rest of you.”

  “It was said long ago, in ancient times, by some ancient soldier maybe just back from walking half a world and fighting the whole way, that the trick wasn’t not to feel pain, exhaustion, and all the other ailments. The trick was not to show it, particularly to those below you in rank. I think maybe Mogutu’s probably in the best shape of any of us, and I can tell by how he reacted and how he’s moving that he’s feeling it, too.”

  “Then—we’re never going to make it! If it’s this bad now...”

  “We’ll make it. It won’t get much easier, but, after a while, it won’t seem to get any worse, either. If we have the willpower to stick out the walk all the way, then by the time we really need to be in top trim, we will be. At least, that’s the theory. Who knows what’s in this brush that might be out to get us?”

  “I thought there weren’t any large animals left.”

  “There aren’t, or so the good father assures us. But something out here is dangerous—bet on it. Maybe even our own people. And don’t put down plants or insects, either. Some of them can be real killers.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she responded sourly. “You’ve given me a lot more confidence.”

  “Listen, the biggest threat I can think of right now, assuming nobody knows we’re here, is accidents. Stepping off a ledge, even just off a little path that could twist or break an ankle or snap a ligament. Those more than anything get you.”

  “What happens if that does happen? If one of us can’t walk or something?”

  “If it can’t be repaired and they can’t keep up, they’ll be left in place with as much provisions and care as we can manage. It’s like the colonel said—no matter how much we suffer, we’re doing this for whole worlds of people. Men, women, children, even furry snakes with tentacles.” He looked around in the darkness. “Speaking of which, I think it’s time one of us made the rounds. I’ll do it first—I have the experience in this. I’m just going to walk completely around the camp at maybe ten, fifteen meters out—a slow circle from here to here around them.”

  “What are you looking for?” she asked him.

  “Anything unusual. I know that sounds idiotic since we’re on an alien planet, but it’s the best I can do. Always trust your senses and your instincts. If something feels odd or wrong, it probably is. You’re picking up something on a subconscious level, but it’s a survival trait handed down from our ancient ape ancestors no matter what Chicanis says. Just stay here and don’t go to sleep. Just watch and listen, that’s all. I’ll be back shortly, so don’t get so nervous you shoot a hole in me, okay?”

  “I—I don’t think I could if I tried,” she answered, but she understood what he meant.

  It was an eerie walk, through territory not scouted by daylight first, but he tried to keep the circle manageable, listen and smell as much as look, and to not get himself lost in the portion that was in the grass.

  Insects were occasionally biting any skin he had exposed. No worry about alien microorganisms; there had never been one ever discovered that could infect a human, and vice versa. More dangerous in a situation like this were good old-fashioned human viruses and bacteria inevitably imported with the colonists from the first. Those had been known to mutate wildly and evolve in all sorts of bizarre directions in alien environments, and there was no way to inoculate or even breed people to withstand things you hadn’t been able to get samples of for a hundred years.

  When he came back around and headed toward her once more, his only impression of the area was that it stank. There was the smell of rotten dead vegetable matter and a kind of excrement-like swamp odor that seemed to permeate the grassland. It hadn’t gotten any better.

  “It’s just me,” he called in a loud whisper. “No problems.”

  “What’s the password?” she responded in a similar whisper.

  He stopped short. “Password? We didn’t say anything about a password!”

  “That’s the right password,” she responded, sounding a lot friendlier. “Come on in.”

  He went back to the tree and saw that she was standing now. “I started to nod off,” she told him. “I had to stand up.”

  He understood, but cautioned, “Better stay off your feet while you can in any case. You’ll be on them long enough come daylight.”

  “I’m also itching like mad,” she told him. “I don’t know what it is. Either some of these little biters got into my clothes or something else is happening.”

  “I’ve got the itches myself,” he said. “I started feeling it when I woke up, but it might have been before. I wonder what material this stuff’s made of?”

  “Huh? I dunno. It seems tough and weatherproof enough.”

  “It’s designed to be,” he said, “but who knows what the conditions are here now?” He sank down on the ground.

  “Huh? There were people here in big cities and bigger farms and factories and such for a couple hundred years. I’d say that Father Chicanis would know if there were any funny things like that.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of Helena before the Fall. Thi
s is still tropical and still lush, but it’s not the same place Chicanis left. It’s been modified by the Titans. You kind of wonder about that rain. I didn’t itch like this the past two days, only since getting soaked.”

  “Me neither,” she agreed.

  “You’re the anthropologist. What do you think the survivors will be like if we run into them?”

  “Basic, I would expect,” she replied. “Still, it’s only been a few generations. In another century they will be that much more disconnected, and after that even more, until the old days are myths and gods and devils not understood by humans and there will be a total acceptance of a low-tech existence. At this level, though, if they’ve kept together as cohesive groups, they still should have a clear idea of who they are and where they came from. They’re probably living half off the land and half off remaining stocks of food and goods in ruins below. Beyond being mere refugees, but still gathering whatever is needed and clinging to the old ways as much as possible.”

  “I wonder,” he responded.

  “If you think it’s different, why ask me?”

  He stood and walked to the edge of the trees to where he had a clear view of the sky. “Come here, if you can, and look up. Just look. Don’t concentrate, don’t focus, just relax and gaze.”

  She was curious enough to come over to him and do as he said. At first she saw nothing but bright stars and planets and the half-illuminated Achilles, and she was just about to give it up as some kind of bad joke and go back and sit down when something came into view. At first it was only slight, and faint, and not really there. She tried focusing on it but it seemed to be almost hiding from her. Still, it was strange enough to persevere, and, in a few minutes of not fighting it or chasing it with her eyes, she managed to see it.

  A really thin, wispy series of lines, almost like a grid, far up in the sky. Too faint to really get a handle on, but definitely there.

  “I see it!” she exclaimed. “But what am I seeing?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been measured on Occupied worlds before, and signatures taken, but I had no idea until I made the rounds there that it was something you could see, at least from the ground. I think it’s how they keep watch over things. Some kind of energy beams that create a grid and which can somehow be used to monitor relatively small areas of the planet, or at least the continent. I don’t remember it on the island, so it might well be just here. I don’t think they care much about the rest of the place, only where they can grow their weird giant flowers.”

  “You mean they might be able to see us?”

  “Possible, but I doubt it. I even doubt if they could tell us from the survivors that they surely know are here. It explains why nobody builds campfires or cooking fires, though. They might give off enough of a heat signature to be picked up. Probably bring out the equivalent of the Titan Fire Department. Can’t have any grass or forest fires ruining their precious plants. But if everything they do is toward growing those things, and so far all we know about them suggests that it is, then that kind of system can also be used to maintain everything environmentally to make them prosper and keep the surrounding local vegetation in check as well. Ever have a garden?”

  “No. Like most folks I’m a city person.”

  “Well, you often have to fertilize it and water it and spray it for bugs and other threats and do all sorts of things to make sure it grows right. Thunderheads reach many kilometers into the sky, far beyond local weather levels. Right through that, whatever it is. What better way to mix what they want and spray it all over the place than via the storms? Notice that the bugs definitely are fewer. Sure, it’s only trillions, not gazillions, but there’s some effect after the rain.”

  “What are you suggesting? That they mix some chemicals in the rain and that’s why we’re itching?”

  “Maybe. Maybe they make what they need as it passes through that grid, and they can localize things as well. Think about rust. Just take something that’s mostly iron and add water. Add a little salt and you kill a lot of vegetation. Clearly they didn’t do that, but I wonder what they did do?”

  It was not a cheerful thought.

  In the light of morning, there didn’t seem to be much out of whack, though, and both for the time quickly forgot the worries.

  Socolov still didn’t want to talk about what was eating at her, but she had at least warmed to the rest, particularly Harker, and things seemed to be getting into a normal routine. The discovery that the rain came like that every night at just about the same time, though, made for a threatened mutiny until N’Gana agreed to rotate the guard slots so that, at least two out of three times, everybody could get a straight sleep with only the second watch suffering.

  Still, about five days and, by the small pedometer on N’Gana’s ankle about sixty-five kilometers toward their goal, it began to be clear that something was going very wrong with their supplies.

  It had been happening gradually enough that they’d been able to dismiss as expected the things that either didn’t work or didn’t hold up, but now, after almost a week on the planet’s surface, the damage was becoming impossible to avoid.

  It had started with the increasing reactions they all had to something that caused large-scale rashes and itching over even the covered parts of their bodies. At first it seemed like some kind of allergic reaction, although Father Chicanis insisted that he had known nothing like this in the past. Now, though, it was becoming clear from the fabrics that were slowly but definitely coming apart that something was almost literally eating the best materials modern chemistry could produce, and it was this reaction that was causing the fierce rashes.

  The clothing, not to mention the sleeping bags, packs, and more, was almost literally decomposing.

  “At this level we’re gonna be naked and without any supplies in two days,” Mogutu commented.

  Harker nodded. Even some of the containers were showing signs of dissolving, like salt blocks under running water. You couldn’t see it happening, but it clearly was nonetheless.

  “I don’t think it’s in the air,” Harker commented. “I think the damage is being done by that rain. It started a reaction that eventually ran its course at this point. But it’s going to rain again, bet on it, every night just after sunset, and there’s not much shelter we can take against it.”

  “Never mind the theorizing,” N’Gana responded. “The real question is, what didn’t get at least a little of the treatment? Our boots have lost their gloss but mine, at least, seem to be holding up.” So saying, he bent down to fix the upper part of the laces, and the laces came apart in his hands as if they were a hundred years old. “Then again,” he muttered, “maybe they’re just a little tougher stuff.”

  “The gun works and barrels look fine, but the stocks are having a hard time of it,” Mogutu noted. “My watch still works. Looks fine, in fact. But you can see some early dissolution in the band, same as on the others.”

  “My communion set is unharmed,” Father Chicanis noted. “And I have cloths used in some rites that got soaked, yet they don’t seem to be any worse for wear.” Harker got it. “Real cloth, Father?”

  “Yes, cotton and wool, I think.”

  “And the communion set. That box is real wood?”

  “Why come to think of it, yes it is! Bless my soul! Whatever it is likes all natural things but doesn’t like things made by people.”

  “Makes sense,” N’Gana noted. “The watches, gun barrels and the like are metal. So are the bullets, so they’ve come through. This is just great! One week here and we’re facing becoming defenseless prisoners of the elements! What’s worse, we now don’t know if there is anything left underground. This—this stuff has had ninety years to seep down as far as it can get!”

  It was Kat Socolov who disagreed now. “If you think I like the idea of parading around all you men stark naked, you’re wrong,” she told them. “Still, I would bet that this stuff doesn’t go down far into the soil, and it probably dissipates shortly if it does
n’t act. Think about it! The Dutchman’s man got to an old security backup station that had to be much closer to the surface than where we’re going! And something kept enough humans alive here to register on satellite scans even though we know they scoured the whole land area before readjusting and replanting. No, if that signal got out, then what we want is still there. Besides, the message said it was. We’re just gonna have to depend more on brawn for protection, that’s all. Now we’ll see how you guys do with only your muscles, huh?”

  N’Gana sighed. “Well, then, that’s the way it is. We’ll have to find some fig leaves, looks like, and see what is sturdy enough to make a pack or two for some vital supplies. Maybe there will be some plants whose leaves will be strong enough. We have to retain what we can for a while, even though we know it’s going to run out.” He looked at the melted packs and ripped clothing. “Damn! You’d think the damned Dutchman would have at least mentioned this effect!”

  “You’ve got a point,” Father Chicanis told him. “If this were common or usual on Occupied worlds, I think he would have told us. I think that it is probably what trapped his man here. He didn’t expect to wind up naked and defenseless. He was caught just like us. That’s why he couldn’t get out! I do wish that he’d mentioned this in his reports, but, well, maybe this is something local. Something in Helena’s makeup, either original or from our reworking, interacts with whatever they use. It doesn’t seem to bother them or their stuff, so why should they care? Or even notice?”

  They did what they could. A few rifles still seemed whole and tested out okay, probably because they’d been in the bottom of one box, with a wooden partition on top of them, and the reaction hadn’t reached them yet. It would eventually unless they could figure out some way to protect the weapons, but at least they had one more day to consider. They also had a good breakfast, since many of the containers were not much longer for this world, either.