There was not a man present who had not seen that form before--the long, protruding lower face broadening into the elongated skull. . . the massive torsos and the incredible six-fingered hand with two thumbs. . . Danchekker himself had constructed the first eight-feet-tall, full-scale model of that same form, not long after Jupiter Four had sent back details of its finds. Everybody had seen the artist's impressions of what the shapes that had contained those skeletons must have looked like.
The artists had done a fine job . . . as everybody could now see.
The aliens were Ganymeans!
Chapter Five
The evidence amassed to that time indicated that the Ganymean presence in the Solar System had ceased some twenty-five million years in the past. Their home planet no longer existed, except as an ice ball beyond Neptune and the debris that constituted the Asteroid Belt, and had not for fifty thousand years. So how could Ganymeans appear on the screen in the egg? The first possibility to flash through Hunt's mind was that they were looking at an ancient recording that had been triggered when the egg was entered. This idea was quickly dispelled. Behind the three Ganymeans, they could see a large display screen not unlike the main display on J5's bridge; it held a view of Jupiter Five , seen from the angle at which the large alien ship was lying. The Ganymeans were out there, now, inside that ship. . . just five miles away. Then things began happening inside the egg that left no time for more philosophic speculation as to the meaning of it all.
Nobody could be sure what the changes of expression on the alien faces meant, but the general impression was that they were every bit as astonished as the Earthmen. The Ganymeans began gesticulating, and at the same time meaningless speech issued from the audio grille. There was no air inside the egg to carry sound. Evidently the Ganymeans had been monitoring the transmissions from the reception party and were now using the same frequencies and modulation.
The picture of the aliens focused on the middle one of the trio. Then an alien voice spoke again, pronouncing just two syllables. It said something that sounded like "Gar-ruth." The figure on the screen inclined its head slightly, in a way that unmistakably conveyed a combination of politeness and dignity rarely seen on Earth. "Gar-ruth," the alien voice repeated. Then again, "Garuth." A similar process took place to introduce the other two, at which point the view widened out to embrace all three. They remained unmoving, staring from the screen, as if waiting for something.
Catching on quickly, Storrel moved to stand directly in front of the screen. "Stor-rel. Storrel." Then, on impulse, he added:
"Good afternoon." He admitted later that it sounded stupid, but claimed that his brain hadn't been thinking too coherently at the time. The view on the egg's screen changed momentarily to show Storrel looking back at himself.
"Storrel," the alien voice stated. The pronunciation was perfect. A number of those watching had believed at the time that it was Storrel himself who had spoken.
Miralski and Oberman were introduced in turn, an exercise in shuffling and clambering that was not helped by the restricted confines of the cabin. Then a series of pictures was flashed on the screen, to each of which Storrel replied with an English noun:
Ganymean, Earthman, spaceship, star, arm, leg, hand, foot. That went on for a few minutes. Evidently the Ganymeans were accepting the onus of doing all the learning; it soon became apparent why--whoever was doing the talking showed an ability to absorb and remember information with astonishing speed. He never asked for a repeat of a definition and he never forgot a detail. His mistakes were frequent to begin with but once corrected they never recurred. The voice did not synchronize with the mouths of the three visible Ganymeans; presumably the speaker was one of the others aboard the alien ship who must have been monitoring the proceedings.
A small screen alongside the egg's main display suddenly presented a diagram: a small circle adorned with a wreath of radial spikes, and around it a set of nine concentric circles.
"What the hell's this?" Storrel's voice murmured.
Shannon's brow creased into a frown. He looked inquiringly at the faces around him.
"Solar System," Hunt suggested. Shannon passed the information on to Storrel, who advised the Ganymean. The picture switched to that of just an empty circle.
"Who is this?" the Ganymean voice asked.
"Correction," Storrel said, employing the convention that had already been adopted. "What is this?"
"Where'who'? Where'what'?"
"'Who' for Ganymeans and Earthmen."
"Ganymeans and Earthmen--collective?"
"People."
"Ganymeans and Earthmen people?"
"Ganymeans and Earthmen are people."
"Ganymeans and Earthmen are people."
"Correct."
"'What' for not-people?"
"Correct."
"Not-people--general?"
"Things."
"'Who' for people;'what' for things?"
"Correct."
"What is this?"
"A circle."
A dot then appeared in the middle of the circle.
"What is this?" the voice inquired.
"The center."
"'The' for one;'a' for many?"
"'The' when one;'a' when many."
The diagram of the Solar System reappeared as before, but with the symbol at the center flashing on and off.
"What is this?"
"The Sun."
"A star?"
"Correct."
Storrel proceeded to name the planets as their respective symbols were flashed in turn. The dialogue was still slow and clumsy but it was improving. During the exchange that followed, the Ganymeans managed to convey their bewilderment at the absence of any planet between Mars and Jupiter, a task that proved to be not too difficult since the Earthmen had been expecting it. It took a long time to get the message across that Minerva had been destroyed, and that all that remained of it was some rubble and Pluto, the latter already named and the source, understandably, of further mystery to the aliens.
When, after repeated questioning and double-checking, the Ganymeans at last accepted that they had not misunderstood, their mood became very quiet and subdued. Despite the fact that none of the gestures and facial expressions were familiar to them, the Earthmen watching were overcome by the sense of utter despair and infinite sadness apparent on the alien ship. They could feel the anguish that was written into every movement of those long, now somehow sorrowful, Ganymean faces, as if their very bones were being touched by a wail that came from the beginning of time.
It took a while for the aliens to become communicative again. The Earthmen, noting that the Ganymean expectations had been based on a knowledge of the Solar System that belonged to the distant past, concluded that they must after all, as had been suspected for some time, have migrated to another star. Very probably then, their sudden reappearance represented a sentimental journey to the place where their kind had originated millions of years before and which none of them had ever seen except, perhaps, as carefully preserved records that had been handed down for longer than could be remembered. Small wonder they were dismayed at what they had come so far to find.
But when the Earthmen introduced the notion that the Ganymeans had journeyed from another star, and sought an indication of its position, they were greeted with what appeared to be a firm denial. The aliens seemed to be trying to tell them that their journey had begun long ago from Minerva itself, which of course was ridiculous. By this time, however, Storrel had got himself into a hopeless grammatical tangle and the whole subject was dismissed as the result of a short-term communications problem. No doubt it would be resolved later, when the linguistic skills of the interpreter had improved.
The Ganymean interpreter had spotted the implied connection between "Earth" and "Earthmen," and returned to the subject to obtain confirmation that the beings he was talking to had indeed come from the third planet from the Sun. The Ganymeans visible on the screen appeared very agitated when
informed that this was correct, and they went off into a lengthy exchange of remarks among themselves which were not audible on radio. Why that revelation should cause such a reaction was not explained. The question was not asked.
The aliens concluded by indicating that they had been voyaging for a great length of time and had endured much illness and many deaths among their numbers. They were short of supplies, their equipment was in poor condition with much of it unserviceable, and they were all suffering from total physical, mental, emotional and spiritual exhaustion. They gave the impression that only the thought of returning to their home had given them the will to carry on against impossible difficulties; now that hope had been shattered, they were at their end.
Leaving Storrel to continue talking to the aliens, Shannon moved away from the screen and beckoned some of the others, including the two scientists, to gather round for a short, impromptu conference.
"I'm going to send a party across to their ship," he informed them in a lowered voice. "They need help over there and I guess we're the only ones around here that can give it. I'll recall Storrel from the bay and have him lead it; he seems to be getting along fine with them." Then he glanced at Hayter. "Captain, make ready a bus for immediate flight. Detail ten men to go with Storrel, including at least three officers. I'd like everybody in the party to be assembled for a briefing in the lock antechamber to whichever bus can leave soonest, let's say. . . thirty minutes from now. Everyone to be fully supplied, of course."
"Right away," Hayter acknowledged.
"Any other points from anybody?" Shannon asked the assembly.
"Do you want sidearms issued," one of the officers inquired.
"No. Anything else?"
"Just one thing." The speaker was Hunt. "A request. I'd like to go too." Shannon looked at him and hesitated, as if the question, had taken him by surprise. "I was sent here specifically to investigate the Ganymeans. That's my official assignment. What better way could there be of helping me do it?"
"Well, I really don't know." Shannon screwed up his face and scratched the back of his head as he sought for possible objections. "There's no reason why not, I suppose. Yeah--I guess that'd be okay." He turned to Danchekker. "How about you, Professor?"
Danchekker held up his hands in protest. "You are most kind to offer, but thank you, no. I'm afraid I've already had quite enough excitement for one day. And besides that, it has taken me more than a year to feel safe inside this contraption. What an alien one must be like, I dread to think."
Hayter grinned and shook his head, but said nothing.
"Fine then." Shannon cast his gaze around one more time to invite further comments. "That's it. Let's get back to our man out front." He walked back to the screen and drew toward him the microphone that connected him with Storrel. "How's it going down there, Gordon?"
"Okay. I'm teaching them to count."
"Good. But get one of the others to take over, would you? We're sending you out on a little trip. Captain Hayter will provide the details in a second. You're going to be an ambassador for Earth."
"What do they pay one of those?"
"Give us time, Gordon. We're still working on the matter." Shannon smiled. It was the first time he had felt relaxed for what seemed like a very long while.
Chapter Six
The bus--a small personnel carrier normally used for ferrying passengers between satellites or orbiting spacecraft--was drawing near to the Ganymean ship. From where he was sitting, squeezed between the bulky shapes of two other spacesuited figures on one of the benches that ran along the sides of the cabin, Hunt could see the ship closing in toward them on the small viewscreen set into the end wall.
From close range, the impression of age and wear was even more vivid than it had been previously. The patterns of discoloration covering the ship from nose to tail, not fully resolved from J5 even under quite high magnification, were now distinct and in places suggested camouflage patterns reminiscent of movies. The outer skin was peppered irregularly with round holes of various sizes, none of them very large, each of which was surrounded by a raised rim of rounded grayish metal and looked like a miniature Lunar crater; it was as if the ship had been bombarded by thousands of tiny particles moving at enormous speed--sufficient to puncture the skin and dissipate enough energy to melt the surrounding material. Either the ship had traveled an enormous distance, Hunt told himself, or there were conditions outside the Solar System that UNSA had yet to encounter.
A rectangular aperture, easily large enough to admit the bus, had opened in the side of the Shapieron , as they now knew the Ganymean ship to be called. A soft orange glow illuminated the inside and a white beacon flashed near the center of one of the longer sides.
As the bus turned gently to home in on it, the pilot's voice came over the intercom. "Hold on to your seats back there. We're going in without any docking radar so it's gonna have to be a purely visual approach. Leave all helmets in their racks until after touchdown."
With its maneuvering jets nudging delicately, the bus inched its way through the opening. Inside the bay a bulbous craft with a blue-black sheen was secured against the inner bulkhead, taking up most of the available space. Two large and sturdy-looking platforms, constructed perpendicular to the main axis of the ship, projected into the volume that remained; a pair of silver eggs lay side by side on one of them but the other was clear except for a beacon that had been positioned well over to one side to allow ample unobstructed landing space. The bus lined itself up, moved in to hover ten feet or so above the platform, eased itself gingerly downward and came to rest.
Hunt knew immediately that there was something strange about the situation but it took him a few seconds to realize just what it was. There were puzzled expressions on a couple of the faces around him too.
The seat was pressing up against him. He was experiencing an approximately normal weight, but he had seen no evidence of any mechanism whereby such an effect could have been achieved. Jupiter Five had sections that simulated normal gravity by means of continual rotation, although some parts of the ship were designated zero-G areas for special purposes. Instruments that needed to be trained on fixed objects, for example the camera that had been holding the Shapieron for the previous few hours, were mounted on projecting booms which could be counterrotated to compensate--similar in principle to ground-based astronomic telescopes. But the view of the Ganymean ship presented on the screens back at J5 had given no suggestion that the vessel, or any part of it, was rotating. Furthermore, as the bus had positioned itself for its final approach into the landing bay, thus maintaining a fixed position relative to the door, the background stars had been stationary; this meant that the pilot had not been obliged to synchronize his approach run with any rotational motion of his target. Thus, the sensation of weight could only mean that the Ganymeans were employing some revolutionary technology to produce an artificial gravity effect. Intriguing.
The pilot spoke again to confirm this conclusion.
"Well, I guess I'm having one of my lucky days. We made it." The slow Southern drawl was a godsend. "Some of you people have probably noticed the gravity. Don't ask me how they do it but it sure ain't centrifugal. The outer hatch has closed and we're reading a pressure buildup outside, so it looks like they're turning on the air or whatever they use. I'll tell you if you need helmets or not when we've done some tests. Won't take more'n a minute. We still have contact with J5 here. Guess our friends are picking up our transmissions and relaying them on. J5 says the emergency status has been relaxed and communications have been resumed with other locations. Message from J4 reads: Tell'em we waved as they went past. "
The air was breathable--almost normal. Hunt had expected as much; the ship's atmosphere would probably resemble that of Minerva, and terrestrial life had flourished there. The figures in the cabin stayed outwardly calm, but here and there fidgeting and last-minute fiddling with pieces of equipment betrayed the rising air of impatience and expectancy.
The hon
or of placing the first human foot on an alien spacecraft was to be Storrel's. He rose from his seat near the rear of the cabin and waited for the inner door of the lock to swing aside; then he moved through into the chamber and peered through the transparent port of the outer door.
After a short wait he reported his findings to the rest of the party. "A door is opening in the wall at the edge of the platform we're on. There are guys standing inside it--the big guys. They're coming out. . . one, two, three. . . five of them. Now they're coming across . . ." Heads in the cabin turned instinctively toward the wall screen, but it was showing another part of the structure.
"Can't get a scanner on them," the pilot said, as if reading their thoughts. "It's a blind spot. You're in command now, sir." Storrel continued looking out of the port but said nothing further for a while. Then he turned back to face the cabin and took a deep breath.
"Okay, this is it. No change from plan; play it as briefed. Open her up, pilot."
The outer door of the bus slid into its recess and a short metal stairway unfolded onto the platform. Storrel moved forward to stand framed in the entrance for a second, then disappeared slowly outside. The UNSA officer who was to be second, already waiting at the inner door, followed him while, farther back in the cabin, Hunt took his place in the slowly shuffling line.
Hunt's impression as he emerged was one of a vastness of space that had not been apparent from inside the bus; it was like walking suddenly out of a side chapel and into the nave of a cathedral.
Not that he found himself surrounded by a large unused area--this was, after all, a spacecraft--but beyond the tail assembly of the Shapieron's daughter ship, now seen as a sweeping, metaffic, geometrical sculpture above their heads, the perspective lines of the docking bay's interior converged in the distance to add true proportion to the astronautic wonder in which they were now standing.
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