The conversation flowed on. But Ricky, his head resting on the table, was already asleep.
Jordan stood at the edge of the Rift and looked over the embryo river-valley that Tiven had designed. Seedlings had been planted along the channel, in earth transported for that purpose, and were already taking hold. The revolving sun-cutters designed to protect them at this stage and to stop excessive evaporation gave the whole thing a mechanical air at present, but they would be done within a year or two; they were designed to go to dust then, so that even if the expedition had to leave they would not be left. There are places for poorly built things!
Two of the People shot down the cliff a little to one side and disappeared into the shade along the channel.
“Are they off on the Journey?” said Ellen Scott.
“I don’t think so. They go singly, as a rule. No, I think…look there!”
There were four People now at the end of the line of saplings. Two were presumably the ones who had passed a few minutes before; the other two were linked hand in hand and bore across their shoulders a kind of yoke with a long pod dangling from it. The two from the near side of the Forest had taken the hands of the newcomers and were helping them up the cliff.
“This is the result of your soil report, I think,” said Jordan. “Woodman says that one reason for the lack of germination on the other side is the exhaustion of the few pockets of suitable soil. I wonder whether it was the necessity of finding the right soil, as well as of looking after the seedling, that led them to develop intelligence?” The two newcomers had reached the top of the cliff. They seemed hardly to notice the helpers, nor did the latter seem to expect it. The burdened couple moved slowly along, pausing every now and then to investigate the soil. They stopped close to Ellen’s feet and prodded carefully.
“Not here, little sillies!” she murmured. “Farther in.”
Jordan smiled. “They’ve got plenty of time. One couple planted their pod just under one of Branding’s tripods; trying not to step on them drove him nearly crazy. He had to move the whole lot in the end. It takes them weeks sometimes to find a spot that suits them.”
“Continuing the species,” said Ellen thoughtfully. “I always thought it sounded rather impersonal.”
Jordan nodded. “The sort of thing you can take or leave,” he agreed. “I used to think that you could either explore space or you could…well, continue the species is as good a way of putting it as any. Not both.”
“I use to think that, too.”
“Once it was true. Things have changed, even in the last few years. More and more people are organizing their lives to spend the greater part of them away from Earth. Soon there’s going to be a new generation whose home isn’t on Earth at all. Children who haven’t been to Terrestrial schools, or played in Terrestrial playrooms, or watched the Terrestrial stereos, or—”
“Suffered the benefits of an advanced civilization?”
“Exactly. How do you feel about it, Ellen? Or…that’s a shirker’s question. Ellen Scott, will you marry me?”
“So as to propagate the species?”
“Blast the species! Will you marry me?”
“What about Ricky?”
“Ricky,” said Jordan, “has been careful to let me know that he thinks it would be a very suitable match.”
“The devil he has! I thought—”
“No telepathy involved. If everyone else knows I love you, why shouldn’t he? Ellen—did I say please, before? Ellen, please, will you marry me?”
There was a silence. Depression settled on Jordan. He had no right to feel so sure of himself. Ellen was ten years younger and had a career to think of. He had made a mess of one marriage already and had a half-grown son. He had taken friendliness for something else and jumped in with both feet much too soon. He had made a fool of himself—probably.
“Well?” he said at last.
Ellen looked up and grinned.
“I was just making sure. I’m not quite certain I could take being married to a telepath—which you are not, my dear. Absolutely not. Of course I’m going to.”
Ricky, with Big Sword on his shoulder, was strolling along a path in the sun. He saw his father and Dr. Scott return to the camp arm in arm, and nodded with satisfaction. About time, too. Now perhaps Doc. J. would stop mooning around and get on with his work for a change. He’d had Ricky and Woodman’s last report on the biology of the People for two weeks without making the slightest attempt to read it, and it was full of interesting things.
Just for a moment, Ricky wondered what it was like to get all wrapped up in one individual like that. No doubt he’d find out in time. It would have to be somebody interested in real things, of course—not an Earth-bound person like poor Cora.
Meanwhile he was just fourteen and free of the Universe, and he was going to have fun.
Big Sword, from his perch on Ricky’s shoulder, noticed the couple with the pod. He saw that this one was fertile, all right—the shoot was beginning to form inside it. One of them was an old friend from this side of the Rift, but it was no good trying to talk to him—his mind would be shut. The whole process of taking the Journey, finding a mate and taking care of one’s seedling was still a mystery to Big Sword in the sense that he could not imagine what it felt like. Just now he was not very interested. He had nearly a year in which to find out things, especially things about the Big People who, now they were domesticated, had turned out to be so useful, and he was going to enjoy that and not speculate about the Journey, and what it felt like to take it.
Because, eventually, the call would come to him, too, and he would set off up the new little stream to the other side of the Rift where the trees of the Strangers grew. And then he would know.
Our part in the Grand Survey had taken us out beyond the great suns Alpha and Beta Crucis. From Earth we would have been in the constellation Lupus. But Earth was 278 light-years remote, Sol itself long dwindled to invisibility, and stars drew strange pictures across the dark.
After three years we were weary and had suffered losses. Oh, the wonder wasn’t gone. How could it ever go—from world after world after world? But we had seen so many, and of those we had walked on, some were beautiful and some were terrible and most were both (even as Earth is) and none were alike and all were mysterious. They blurred together in our minds.
It was still a heart-speeding thing to find another sentient race, actually more than to find another planet colonizable by man. Now Ali Hamid had perished of a poisonous bite a year back, and Manuel Gonsalves had not yet recovered from the skull fracture inflicted by the club of an excited being at our last stop. This made Vaughn Webner our chief xenologist, from whom was to issue trouble.
Not that he, or any of us, wanted it. You learn to gang warily, in a universe not especially designed for you, or you die; there is no third choice. We approached this latest star because every G-type dwarf beckoned us. But we did not establish orbit around its most terrestroid attendant until neutrino analysis had verified that nobody in the system had developed atomic energy. And we exhausted every potentiality of our instruments before we sent down our first robot probe.
The sun was a G9, golden in hue, luminosity half of Sol’s. The world which interested us was close enough in to get about the same irradiation as Earth. It was smaller, surface gravity 0.75, with a thinner and drier atmosphere. However, that air was perfectly breathable by humans, and bodies of water existed which could be called modest oceans. The globe was very lovely where it turned against star-crowded night, blue, tawny, rusty-brown, white-clouded. Two little moons skipped in escort.
Biological samples proved that its life was chemically similar to ours. None of the microorganisms we cultured posed any threat that normal precautions and medications could not handle. Pictures taken at low altitude and on the ground showed woods, lakes, wide plains rolling toward mountains. We were afire to set foot there.
But the natives—
You must remember how new the hyperdrive
is, and how immense the cosmos. The organizers of the Grand Survey were too wise to believe that the few neighbor systems we’d learned something about gave knowledge adequate for devising doctrine. Our service had one law, which was its proud motto: “We come as friends.” Otherwise each crew was free to work out its own procedures. After five years the survivors would meet and compare experiences.
For us aboard the Olga, Captain Gray had decided that, whenever possible, sophonts should not be disturbed by preliminary sightings of our machines. We would try to set the probes in uninhabited regions. When we ourselves landed, we would come openly. After all, the shape of a body counts for much less than the shape of the mind within. Thus went our belief.
Naturally, we took in every datum we could from orbit and upper-atmospheric overflights. While not extremely informative under such conditions, our pictures did reveal a few small towns on two continents—clusters of buildings, at least, lacking defensive walls or regular streets—hard by primitive mines. They seemed insignificant against immense and almost unpopulated landscapes. We guessed we could identify a variety of cultures, from Stone Age through Iron. Yet invariably, aside from those petty communities, settlements consisted of one or a few houses standing alone. We found none less than ten kilometers apart; most were more isolated.
“Carnivores, I expect,” Webner said. “The primitive economies are hunting-fishing-gathering, the advanced economies pastoral. Large areas which look cultivated are probably just to provide fodder; they don’t have the layout of proper farms.” He tugged his chin. “I confess to being puzzled as to how the civilized—well, let’s say the ‘metallurgic’ people, at this stage—how they manage it. You need trade, communication, quick exchange of ideas, for that level of technology. And if I read the pictures aright, roads are virtually nonexistent, a few dirt tracks between towns and mines, or to the occasional dock for barges or ships—Confound it, water transportation is insufficient.”
“Pack animals, maybe?” I suggested.
“Too slow,” he said. “You don’t get progressive cultures when months must pass before the few individuals capable of originality can hear from each other. The chances are they never will.”
For a moment the pedantry dropped from his manner. “Well,” he said, “we’ll see,” which is the grandest sentence that any language can own.
We always made initial contact with three, the minimum who could do the job, lest we lose them. This time they were Webner, xenologist; Aram Turekian, pilot; and Yukiko Sachansky, gunner. It was Gray’s idea to give women that last assignment. He felt they were better than men at watching and waiting, less likely to open fire in doubtful situations.
The site chosen was in the metallurgic domain, though not a town. Why complicate matters unnecessarily? It was on a rugged upland, thick forest for many kilometers around. Northward the mountainside rose steeply until, above timberline, its crags were crowned by a glacier. Southward it toppled to a great plateau, open country where herds grazed on a reddish analogue of grass or shrubs. Maybe they were domesticated, maybe not. In either case, probably the dwellers did a lot of hunting.
“Would that account for their being so scattered?” Yukiko wondered. “A big range needed to support each individual?”
“Then they must have a strong territoriality,” Webner said. “Stand sharp by the guns.”
We were not forbidden to defend ourselves from attack, whether or not blunders of ours had provoked it. Nevertheless the girl winced. Turekian glanced over his shoulder and saw. That, and Webner’s tone, made him flush. “Blow down, Vaughn,” he growled.
Webner’s long, gaunt frame stiffened in his seat. Light gleamed off the scalp under his thin hair as he thrust his head toward the pilot. “What did you say?”
“Stay in your own shop and run it, if you can.”
“Mind your manners. This may be my first time in charge, but I can—”
“On the ground. We’re aloft yet.”
“Please.” Yukiko reached from her turret and laid a hand on either man’s shoulder. “Please don’t quarrel…when we’re about to meet a whole new history.”
They couldn’t refuse her wish. Tool-burdened coverall or no, she remained in her Eurasian petiteness the most desired woman aboard the Olga; and still the rest of the girls liked her. Gonsalves’ word for her was simptico.
The men only quieted on the surface. They were an ill-assorted pair, not enemies—you don’t sign on a person who’ll allow himself hatred—but unfriends. Webner was the academic type, professor of Xenology at the University of Oceania. In youth he’d done excellent field work, especially in the trade-route cultures of Cynthia, and he’d been satisfactory under his superiors. At heart, though, he was a theorist, whom middle age had made dogmatic.
Turekian was the opposite: young, burly, black-bearded, boisterous and roisterous, born in a sealtent on Mars to a life of banging around the available universe. If half his brags were true, he was mankind’s boldest adventurer, toughest fighter, and mightiest lover; but I’d found to my profit that he wasn’t the poker player he claimed. Withal he was able, affable, helpful, popular—which may have kindled envy in poor self-chilled Webner.
“Okay, sure,” Turekian laughed. “For you, Yu.” He tossed a kiss in her direction.
Webner unbent less easily. “What did you mean by running my own shop if I can?” he demanded.
“Nothing, nothing,” the girl almost begged.
“Ah, a bit more than nothing,” Turekian said. “A tiny bit. I just wish you were less convinced your science has the last word on all the possibilities. Things I’ve seen—”
“I’ve heard your song before,” Webner scoffed. “In a jungle on some exotic world you met animals with wheels.”
“Never said that. Hm-m-m…make a good yarn, wouldn’t it?”
“No. Because it’s an absurdity. Simply ask yourself how nourishment would pass from the axle bone to the cells of the disc. In like manner—”
“Yeh, yeh. Quiet, now, please. I’ve got to conn us down.”
The target waxed fast in the bow screen. A booming of air came faint through the hull plates and vibration shivered flesh. Turekian hated dawdling. Besides, a slow descent might give the autochthons time to become hysterical, with perhaps tragic consequences.
Peering, the humans saw a house on the rim of a canyon at whose bottom a river rushed gray-green. The structure was stone, massive and tile-roofed. Three more buildings joined to define a flagged courtyard. Those were of timber, long and low, topped by blossoming sod. A corral outside the quadrangle held four-footed beasts, and nearby stood a row of what Turekian, pointing, called overgrown birdhouses. A meadow surrounded the ensemble. Elsewhere the woods crowded close.
There was abundant bird or, rather, ornithoid life, flocks strewn across the sky. A pair of especially large creatures hovered above the steading. They veered as the boat descended.
Abruptly, wings exploded from the house. Out of its windows flyers came, a score or better, all sizes from tiny ones which clung to adult backs, up to those which dwarfed the huge extinct condors of Earth. In a gleam of bronze feathers, a storm of wingbeats which pounded through the hull, they rose, and fled, and were lost among the treetops.
The humans landed in a place gone empty.
Hands near sidearms, Webner and Turekian trod forth, looked about, let the planet enter them.
You always undergo that shock of first encounter. Not only does space separate the newfound world from yours; time does, five billion years at least. Often you need minutes before you can truly see the shapes around, they are that alien. Before, the eye has registered them but not the brain.
This was more like home. Yet the strangenesses were uncountable.
Weight: three-fourths of what the ship maintained. An ease, a bounciness in the stride…and a subtle kinesthetic adjustment required, sensory more than muscular.
Air: like Earth’s at about two kilometers’ altitude. (Gravity gradient being less, the de
nsity dropoff above sea level went slower.) Crystalline vision, cool flow and murmur of breezes, soughing in the branches and river clangorous down in the canyon. Every odor different, no hint of sun-baked resin or duff, instead a medley of smokinesses and pungencies.
Light: warm gold, making colors richer and shadows deeper than you were really evolved for; a midmorning sun which displayed almost half again the apparent diameter of Earth’s, in a sky which was deep blue and had only thin streaks of cloud.
Life: wild flocks, wheeling and crying high overhead; lowings and cacklings from the corral; rufous carpet underfoot, springy, suggestive more of moss than grass though not very much of either, starred with exquisite flowers; trees whose leaves were green (from silvery to murky), whose bark (if it was bark) might be black or gray or brown or white, whose forms were little more odd to you than were pine or gingko if you came from oak and beech country, but which were no trees of anywhere on Earth. A swarm of midgelike entomoids went by, and a big coppery-winged “moth” leisurely feeding on them.
Scenery: superb. Above the forest, peaks shouldered into heaven, the glacier shimmered blue. To the right, canyon walls plunged roseate, ocher-banded, and cragged. But your attention was directed ahead.
The house was of astonishing size. “A Sinking castle,” Turekian exclaimed. An approximate twenty-meter cube, it rose sheer to the peaked roof, built from well-dressed blocks of granite. Windows indicated six stories. They were large openings, equipped with wooden shutters and wrought-iron balconies. The sole door, on ground level, was ponderous. Horns, skulls, and sculptured weapons of the chase—knife, spear, shortsword, blowgun, bow and arrow—ornamented the facade.
Aliens from Analog Page 29
