Its clean, graceful lines of black metal were broken at scores of points where sections of the hull had been removed to gain access or to remove selected parts of the internal machinery. In some places the ship resembled the skeleton of a whale stranded on a beach, just a series of curving ribs soaring toward the cavern roof, to mark where whole sections of the ship had been stripped down. Latticeworks of girders and metal tubing adorned its sides in irregular and untidy clusters, in some places extending fully from floor to roof, supporting a confusion of catwalks, ladders, platforms, ramps, rigs, and winches wreathed intermittently in bewildering tangles of hydraulic and pneumatic feed tubes, ventilator pipes and electrical supply lines.
Scores of figures labored all across the panorama: up on the scaffolding by the hull, down among the maze of stacked parts and fittings that littered the floor, high on the walkways clinging to the rough-hewn walls of ice and standing on the top of the hull itself. In one place a gantry was swinging clear a portion of the outer skin; in another, the sporadic flashing of an oxyacetylene torch lit up the interior of an exposed compartment; further along, a small group of engineers was evidently in conference, making frequent gestures at information being presented on a large, portable view-screen. The site was a bustle of steady, deliberate, earnest activity.
The Earthmen waited in silence while the Ganymeans took in the scene.
Eventually Jassilane said, "It's quite a size . . . certainly as large as we expected. The general design is definitely a few steps ahead of anything that was flying when we left Minerva. ZORAC, what do you make of it?"
"Toroidal sections protruding from the large cutaway portion three hundred feet along from where you're standing are almost certainly differential resonance stress inductors to confine focus of the beam point for the main drive," ZORAC answered. "The large assembly on the floor immediately below you, with the two Earthmen standing in front of and underneath it is unfamiliar, but suggests an advanced design of an aft compensating reactor. If so, propulsion was probably by means of standard stress-wave propagation. If I am correct, there should be a forward compensating reactor in the ship too. The Earthmen at Main have shown me diagrams of a device that looks like one, but to be sure we should make a point of looking inside the nose end to check it firsthand. I would also like an opportunity to view the primary energy-convertor section and its layout."
"Mmm . . . it could be worse," Jassilane murmured absently.
"What was that all about, Rog?" Hunt asked him. The Giant half turned and raised an arm toward the ship.
"ZORAC has confirmed my own first impressions," he said. "Although that ship was built some time after the Shapieron , the basic design doesn't seem to have altered too much."
"There's a good chance it might help you get yours fixed then, huh?" Mills chimed in.
"Hopefully," Jassilane agreed.
"We'd need to see it close-up to be sure," Shilohin cautioned. Hunt turned to face the rest of the party and spread his arms with palms upturned. "Well, let's go on down and do just that," he said.
They moved away from the viewing window and threaded their way through and between the equipment racks and consoles of the control room to a door on the opposite side to descend to the lower floor. After the door had closed behind the last of the party, one of the duty operators at the consoles half turned to one of his colleagues.
"See Ed, I told ya," he remarked cheerfully. "They didn't eat anybody."
Ed frowned dubiously from his seat a few feet away.
"Maybe they're just not hungry today," he muttered.
On the floor of the cavern, immediately below the window, the mixed group of Ganymeans and Earthmen emerged through an airlock and began making their way across the steel-mesh flooring and through the maze of assorted engineering toward the ship.
"It's quite warm," Shilohin commented to Hunt as they walked. "And yet there's no sign of melting on the walls. How come?"
"The air-circulation system's been carefully designed," he informed her. "The warmer air is confined down here in the working area and screened off from the ice by curtains of cold air blowing upward all round the sides to extractors up in the roof. The way the walls are shaped to blend into the roof produces the right flow pattern. The system works quite well."
"Ingenious," she murmured.
"What about the explosion risk from dissolved gases being released from the ice?" another Ganymean asked. "I'd have thought there'd be a hazard there."
"When the excavations were first started it was a problem," Hunt answered. "That was when most of the melting was being done. Everybody had to work in suits down here then. They were using an argon atmosphere for exactly the reason you just mentioned. Now that the ventilation's been improved there's not really a big risk anymore so we can be a bit more comfortable. The cold-air curtains help a lot too; they keep the rate of gas-escape down pretty well to zero and what little there is gets swept away upward. The chances of a bang down here are probably less than the base up top getting clobbered by a stray meteorite."
"Well, here we are," Mills announced from the front. They were standing at the foot of a broad, shallow metal ramp that rose from the floor and disappeared through a mass of cabling up into a large aperture cut in the hull. Above them, the bulging contour of the ship's side soared in a monstrous curve that swept over and out of sight toward the roof. Suddenly they were like mice staring up at the underside of a garden roller.
"Let's go in then," Hunt said.
For the next two hours they walked every inch of the labyrinth of footways and catwalks that had been built inside the craft, which had come to rest on its side and offered few horizontal surfaces of its own upon which it was possible to move easily. The Giants followed the cable-runs and the ducting with eyes that obviously knew what they were looking for. Every now and then they stopped to dismantle an item of particular interest with sure and practiced fingers or to trace the connections to a device or component. They absorbed every detail of the plans supplied by UNSA scientists, which showed as much as the Earthmen could deduce of the vessel's design and structure.
After a long dialogue with ZORAC to analyze the results of these observations, Jassilane announced, "We are optimistic. The chances of restoring the Shapieron to a fully functional condition seem good. We'd like to conduct a far more detailed study of certain parts of this ship, however--one that would involve more of our technical experts from Main. Could you accommodate a small group of our people here for, say, two or three weeks?" He addressed these last words to Mills. The commander shrugged and opened his hands.
"Whatever you want. Consider it done," he replied.
Within an hour of the party's return to the surface for a meal, another UNSA transporter was on its way north from Main bringing more Ganymeans and the necessary tools and instruments from the Shapieron.
Later on, they went to the biological laboratories section of the base and admired Danchekker's indoor garden. They confirmed that the plants he had cultivated were familiar to them and represented types that were widespread in the equatorial regions of the Minerva they had known. At the professor's insistence they accepted some cuttings to be taken back to the Shapieron and grown there as mementoes of their home. The gesture seemed to affect them deeply.
Danchekker then led the party down into a large storage room excavated out of the solid ice below the biological labs. They emerged into a spacious, well-lit area, the walls of which were lined with shelving that carried a miscellany of supplies and instruments; there were rows of closed storage cupboards all painted a uniform green, unrecognizable machines draped in dustcovers, and in places stacks of unopened packing cases reaching almost to the ceiling. But the sight that immediately captured every eye was that of the beast towering before them about twenty feet from the doorway.
It stood over eighteen feet high at the shoulder on four tree-trunk-like legs, its massive body tapering at the front into a long sturdy neck to carry its relatively small but ruggedly
formed head high and well forward. Its skin was grayish and appeared rough and leathery, twisting into deep, heavy wrinkles that girded the base of its neck and the underside of its head below its short, erect ears. Over two enormous flared nostrils and a yawning parrot-beak-like mouth, the eyes were wide and staring. They were accentuated by thick folds of skin above, and directed straight down to stare at the door.
"This is one of my favorites," Danchekker informed them breezily as he walked forward at the head of the party to pat the beast fondly on the front of one of its massive forelegs.
"Baluchitherium--a late-Oligocene to early-Miocene Asian ancestor of modern rhinoceroses. In this species the front feet have already lost their fourth toe and adopted a three-toed structure similar to the hind feet--a trend which had become well pronounced in the Oligocene. Also, the strengthening of the upper-jaw structure here is quite developed, although this particular breed did not evolve into a true horned variety, as you can see. Another interesting point is the teeth, which--" Danchekker stopped speaking abruptly as he turned to face his audience and realized that only the Earthmen had followed him into the room to stand around the specimen he was describing. The Ganymeans had come to a standstill in a close huddle just inside the door, where they stood staring speechless up at the towering shape of Baluchitherium. Their eyes were opened wide as if frozen in disbelief. They were not exactly cowering at the sight, but the expressions on their faces and their tense stances signaled uncertainty and apprehension.
"Is something the matter?" Danchekker asked, puzzled. There was no response. "It's quite harmless, I assure you," he went on, making his voice reassuring. "And very, very dead. . . one of the samples preserved in the large canisters that were found in the ship. It's been very dead for at least twenty-five million years."
The Ganymeans slowly returned to life. Still silent and somehow subdued, they began moving cautiously toward the spot where the Earthmen were standing in a loose semicircle. For a long time they gazed at the immense creature, absorbing every detail in awed fascination.
"ZORAC," Hunt muttered quietly into his throat mike. The rest of the Earthmen were watching the Ganymeans silently, waiting for some signal to resume their dialogue and not sure yet what exactly it was that was affecting their guests so strongly.
"Yes, Vic?" the machine answered in his ear.
"What's the problem?"
"The Ganymeans have not seen an animal comparable to Baluchitherium before. It is a new and unexpected experience."
"Does it come as a surprise to you too?" Hunt asked.
"No. I recognize it as being very similar to other early terrestrial species recorded in my archives. The information came from Ganymean expeditions to Earth that took place before the time of the Shapieron's departure from Minerva. None of the Ganymeans with you at Pithead has ever been to Earth, however."
"But surely they must know something about what those expeditions found," Hunt insisted. "The reports must have been published."
"True," ZORAC agreed. "But it's one thing to read a report about animals like that, and another to come face to face with one suddenly, especially when you're not expecting it. I suppose that if I were an organic intelligence that had evolved from a survival-dominated organic evolutionary system, and possessed all the conditioned emotional responses that implies, I'd be a bit shocked too."
Before Hunt could reply, one of the Ganymeans--Shilohin--finally spoke up.
"So . . . that is an example of an animal of Earth," she said. Her voice was low and hesitant, as if she were having difficulty articulating the words.
"It's incredible!" Jassilane breathed, still keeping his eyes fixed on the huge beast. "Was that thing really alive once. . .
"What's that? " Another Ganymean was pointing beyond Baluchitherium to a smaller but more ferocious-looking animal posed with one paw raised and lips curled back to reveal a set of fearsome, pointed teeth. The other Ganymeans followed his finger and gasped.
"Cynodictis ," Danchekker answered with a shrug. "A curious mixture of feline and canine characteristics from which both our modem cat and dog families eventually emerged. The one next to it is Mesohippus , ancestor of all modem horses. If you look carefully you can see. . ." He stopped in midsentence and seemed to switch his line of thought abruptly. "But why do these things seem so strange to you? Surely you have seen animals before. There were animals on Minerva, weren't there?"
Hunt observed intently. The reactions that he had witnessed seemed odd from a race so advanced and which, until then, had seemed so rational in everything they said and did.
Shilohin took it upon herself to answer. "Yes . . . there were animals. . ." She began looking from side to side at her companions as if seeking support in a difficult situation. "But they were different. . ." she ended, vaguely. Danchekker seemed intrigued.
"Different," he repeated. "How interesting. In what way do you mean? Weren't there any as big as this for instance?"
Shilohin's anxiety seemed to increase. She was showing the same inexplicable reluctance to discuss Oligocene Earth as on earlier occasions. Hunt sensed a crisis approaching and saw that Danchekker, in his enthusiasm, was not getting the message. He turned away from the rest of the party. "ZORAC, give me a private channel to Chris Danchekker," he said in a lowered voice.
"You've got it," ZORAC responded a second later, sounding almost relieved.
"Chris," Hunt whispered. "This is Vic." He observed a sudden change in Danchekker's expression and went on. "They don't want to talk about it. Maybe they're still nervous about our links with the Lunarians or something--I don't know but something's bugging them. Wrap up and let's get out of here."
Danchekker caught Hunt's eye, blinked uncomprehendingly for a second, then nodded and abruptly changed the subject. "Anyway, I'm sure all that can wait until we are in more comfortable surroundings. Why don't we go back upstairs. There are some more experiments being conducted in the labs that I think might interest you."
The group began shuffling back toward the door. Behind them, Hunt and Danchekker exchanged mystified glances.
"What was the meaning of all that, may I ask?" the professor inquired.
"Search me," Hunt replied. "Come on or we'll get left behind."
Many hundreds of millions of miles from Pithead, the news of the meeting with an intelligent alien race broke over an astounded world. As recordings of the first face-to-face contact aboard the Shapieron and the arrival of the aliens at Ganymede Main Base were replayed across the world's viewscreens, a wave of wonder and excitement swept around the planet, exceeding even that which had greeted the discoveries of Charlie and the first Ganymean spaceship. Some of the reactions were admirable, some deplorable, some just comical--but all of them predictable.
At a high, official level, Frederick James McClusky, senior United States delegate to the extraordinary session that had been called by the United Nations, sat back in his chair and stared around the packed circular auditorium while Charles Winters, the UK representative from US Europe, delivered the final words of his forty-five-minute address:
"In summary it is our contention that the location at which the first landing is to be effected should obviously be selected from within the boundaries of the British Isles. The English language is now established as the standard means of communication for social, business, scientffic, and political dialogue between all the races, peoples and nations of Earth. It has come to symbolize the dissolution of the barriers that once divided us, and the establishment of a new order of harmony, trust and mutual cooperation across the surface of the globe. And so it is particularly appropriate that the English tongue should have been the vehicle by which the first words between our alien friends and ourselves were exchanged. Might I also remind you that at present, the speech of the British Isles is the only human language that has been assimilated by the Ganymean machine. What then, gentlemen, could be more fitting than that the first Ganymean to set foot upon our planet should do so on the soil where that lan
guage originated?"
Winters concluded with a final appealing look around the auditorium and sat down among a mixed murmuring of lowered voices and rustling of papers. McClusky jotted a few notes on his pad and cast an eye over the collection that he had already made.
In a rare show of agreement, the governments of Earth had released a joint statement declaring that the homeless wanderers from the past would be welcome to settle there if they so wished. The present meeting was called after the public announcement had been released, and had degenerated into a heated wrangle in camera over which nation should enjoy the prestige of receiving the aliens first.
Initially, McClusky, following his brief from the Presidential Advisory Committee and the State Department in Washington, had made first claim by drawing attention to the predominantly American flavor of the UNSA operations being staged around Jupiter. The Americans had found them, he had said in effect, and the Americans therefore had a right to keep them. The Soviets had taken two hours to say that since their nation occupied a larger portion of the Earth's land surface than any other, it represented the majority of the planet and that was what counted. China had countered by pointing out that she represented more people than any other nation and therefore, making an expedient appeal to democratic principles, China offered a more meaningful interpretation of "majority." Israel had taken the view that it had more in common with homeless minority groups and that considerations of such kind would more accurately reflect the true nature of the situation. Iraq had lodged a claim on the grounds of its being the site of the oldest known nation, and one of the African republics on the grounds of its being the youngest.
By then McClusky was getting fed up with the whole business. Irritated he threw his pen down onto his pad and stabbed a finger at the button that caused his request light to come on. A few minutes later an indicator on his panel informed him that the Chairman had acknowledged the request. McClusky leaned to his microphone. "The Ganymeans haven't even said they want to come to Earth yet, let alone settle here. Wouldn't it be a good idea to ask them about it first before we spend more time on all this?"
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