Three Worlds to Conquer

by Poul Anderson

  Surprised, a trifle embarrassed, he returned her look. She was a big blonde girl, too strong-featured to be pretty but with one of those figures that can knock out both a man’s eyes if the owner sticks to her diet. He had found her competent and likeable. He could even stomach her politics, since she had by instinct the nearly forgotten art of not equating dissent with treason. She also had a sense of humor, and didn’t mind working peculiar hours, and—until the revolution came to split loyalties apart—had been more heartily in the town’s social activities than his own bookish self. But that was about the extent of his knowledge concerning her, before today.

  “I guess so,” he mumbled, and turned the handwheel to undog the outer door. “Now don’t stew about that ship. Everything’s going to be okay. Uh, would you stow my gear for me, please, and buzz my wife that I’ll be hung up at JoCom for a while? I’ve got to call Theor. God only knows what’s wrong.”

  II

  He settled himself before a microphone tuned to the band reserved for Jovian communications.

  “Theor, this is Mark,” he said—neither in English or in Nyarran, for neither race could form all the sounds of the other, but in that language of croaks, grunts, clicks and whistles which had been hammered out during two decades. Like every human attempt at a Jovian word his voicing of the name was a crude approximation. “Can you hear me?”

  His sentences departed as a series of electronic waves. Some distance from Aurora, a radio transmitter picked them up and sent them out on a beam automatically aimed at whichever of the three relay satellites in equilateral orbit around Jupiter was handiest. On arrival, recoded into pulses, the words became instructions to a highly specialized accelerator. Bombarded nuclei fluoresced with gamma rays, which struck certain crystals, isotopically pure, bathed in liquid helium, each atom oriented by the grip of electric and magnetic fields. Their own nuclei took up the energy, surged for wild picoseconds, and regained peace at the cost of emitting a neutrino burst.

  Invisible, impalpable, chargeless and virtually massless, that cone expanded toward Jupiter at just less than the speed of light. By the time it got there, it was wider than the equator. A million miles beyond, it had scattered to inherent undetectability. But it survived long enough. The tightest, hardest-driven maser beam could hardly have gotten past the storms of charge and synchrotron radiation where atomic debris surged in the king planet’s enormous magnetic field; then punched through an atmosphere churned by thunderstorms often larger than the Earth, an air packed down by two and a half terrestrial gravities until the pressure at the bottom exceeded the pressure in the Mindanao Deep. It could never have pierced a manylayered globe whose ice and metal and solid hydrogen amounted to two million billion billion tons. But so ghostly was that neutrino wind, so vast were the empty spaces it found not only between the atoms but within each single atom, that it swept through almost as if the obstacles did not exist.

  Almost: not quite. Somewhere on the Jovian surface, a minute percentage of the particles entered another crystal.

  The latter was not identical with the transmitter crystals in the satellite; but its nuclei underwent a swift reversal of those processes which had given birth to the beam. They were extremely special isotopes, continually excited by a radionuclide to so high a pitch of instability that a mere few neutrinos would make them jump back to a lower energy state, giving up quanta as they did. Nature provided such neutrinos, of course, but not so abundantly—because resonance was also required—that the background noise was intolerably high. The quanta came out in bursts corresponding to the pulse code of the beam. A solid-state device, drawing its own power from the built-in radioactivity, amplified the signal, mapped it onto an alternating potential, and made a little piezoelectric sheet vibrate. The receiver, a thick four-inch disk spoke with the voice of Mark Fraser.

  Some of the finest minds the human race ever brought forth had spent a generation making it possible.

  “Theor! Are you there, boy?”

  He should be, damn it. He carries the gadget around with him constantly these days.

  Unless he’s dead. Fraser took a worn briar pipe from a pocket and began to fill it from his pouch. Never mind if he used up his tobacco ration before the next shipment came. His hands shook.

  In a darkness that human eyes would have found absolute, another hand moved. A button was pressed. A voice said gladly, “Is that you!”

  Crystals vibrated, electrons leaped, and some of the energy from the disintegrating isotope became a radio signal of extremely great wavelength.

  In this unearthly environment—matter forced into strange allotropes by pressure, chill and its own composition—the wave was conducted over the ground. It was feeble indeed, but an artificial thing, with hardly any natural competition. Its effective range was therefore on the order of a thousand miles.

  Well before it had gone that far, it activated another neutrino generator. Again, this was a device which was not, could not possibly be like its counterpart in orbit. Besides the fundamental differences required by

  Jovian conditions, it was a broadcaster, not a beamcaster; for though the moons eternally turn the same hemisphere to their primary, Jupiter rotates in five minutes less than ten hours. Thus the pulses which arrived at the relay satellite were far weaker than those which had left it. But the humans had detectors more sensitive and amplifiers more powerful than anything they had been able to land on the surface. The radio beam was modulated and flashed to Aurora.

  “Is that you!”

  Fraser’s pipe dropped from his fingers. It fell so slowly that he scooped it up before it hit the floor. “Yes,” he stammered idiotically. “I, I, I hope I didn’t disturb you.”

  In the seven seconds that must pass between Q and A, he mastered his nerves. What are you getting so worked up about, you gnatwit? Okay, so Theor’s a nice chap in his unhuman fashion; and if his enemies swamp him it’ll put a crimp in our projects—but still, how can anything on that planet make any serious difference to me or mine? Jupiter’s more alien than Hell itself.

  “No,” Theor said. “I should have dimmed my consciousness long ago. Night is now where I am. But with so much future to plague me, I cannot. Well that you called no later, mind-brother. The race and Reevedom stand in high need of your help.”

  “Couldn’t you get help from, uh, my colleagues?”

  Fraser felt more than a little touched. You couldn’t work together for almost a decade, as Theor and he had done, with an objective which amounted simply to understanding each other, and not build up a sense of comradeship. He had admitted to himself quite some time past that this creature of cold and gloom and poison chemistry was closer to him than most humans.

  “I strove to convey the wish, and surely they desired to comprehend. But always our discourse flowed about and turned in on itself.”

  Fraser grunted with astonishment. “Do they have so poor a savvy at this end? I hadn’t realized.”

  Wait a bit, though. He’d never kept close track of how the Jupiter-study teams were doing. Ten years back, while helping improve the transceiver system, he’d gotten so interested that he began to spend his spare time talking the crude pidgin, which was the best they had then, at any Jovian willing to reply. Before long, he was holding regular bull sessions with Theor, who’d gotten just as bugs on the subject. The chief of the language research group in Aurora was happy to let Fraser do so. Every man-hour was valuable, especially when the engineer and the prince made more progress in developing a mutual code than anyone else had done. That, no doubt, was because of sheer persistence rather than innate talent. Over the years, they subconsciously picked up clues to the nuances of each other’s personalities. Their recorded conversations swelled the data files.

  “Nor I. My demi-father Elkor, as well as numerous philosophers, have had much exchange with your staff in the past. Yet neither they nor I could thrust comprehension across, in this matter of our present necessity.”

  “Um-m, I think I see why. It
hadn’t occurred to me before, but every other man who knows common-language is a scientific specialist, asking questions about those few particular aspects of your world that interest him most. So their effective vocabularies are still pretty narrow. Language involves more than words. There has to be some rapport as well—a feeling for how the other guy thinks. And Jovian and human minds do differ. You and I, we just rambled in our conversations As a result, we’ve developed a much greater fluency than anyone else on either world.”

  Old Ike Silverstein would never have gotten so over-specialized. JoCom was the child of his dream, his begging and bullying megabucks by the thousands from a reluctant government, his nursing the teams through heartbreaking years of R & D in areas of physics that didn’t exist before him, until the first instruments were successfully softlanded on Jupiter. They were crude small things, their maser telemetry so distorted by interference that little could be read. Silverstein flogged his crew into designing better ones. And when those sent back data to prove there was intelligent life on the planet, he worked himself to literal death in birthing the communication project.

  “Your thoughts are well built, Mark, and I believe they support a truth. But our inwardnesses may not fare abroad this night. Time is thin before the Ulunt-Khazul arrive.”

  “What’s happened? The last I heard, you’d sent an army against the invaders.”

  Joe Dahlbeck, who replaced Silverstein, would have understood Theor too—and probably outlined a winning strategy for him as well.

  He was necessarily a universalist. Engineers could only design scanners, receivers, transmitters that would continue to function after the murderous Jovian atmosphere had corroded their vehicles away; and money could only provide so many machines that eventually one must land near a Jovian settlement. After that, it was up to genius——the kind of genius that can start with arithmetic sums in beeps and end with a verbal language.

  True, the Nyarrans included some sharp intellects, who’d worked hard also, once they got the idea. But Dahlbeck had been the semanticist who finally saw enough of the basic structure of the Nyarran glossa that he could know how to go about developing an Esperanto for the two races . . . Seven years ago, his gannycat veered out of control and went down a cliff on Mount Schirra. Now a routineer was in charge of the linguistics team.

  Though it would probably have deteriorated anyway, after the Olympia project started. So much glamor attracted all the most original-minded young men. Fraser even caught himself in occasional daydreams about riding that ship.

  “Yes,” Theor said. “We thought this was only another barbarian incursion, and dispatched the border guard to rout them. Instead, they cut our people to fragments on the shore. Survivors relate that their host is immense, and not even of our race. Two different breeds of thinking animal have met.”

  Fraser whistled. Then: “Well, I suppose that figures. On a world as big as yours, with travel as hard, you might well get more than one intelligent species.”

  And how could men dare land the Olympia at Nyarr, if that city, the sole part of Jupiter about which they had anything like exact knowledge, was ruined and overrun?

  Oh, they could go ahead and take a chance; or they could pick another area arbitrarily; but the enterprise was hazardous at best. To multiply risks was sheer foolishness. So the ship stood completed and idle.

  “No matter that,” Theor said. “Apparently they crossed the western ocean by way of the Floating Islands. Our own traders keep an outpost there, or did. If the Ulunt-Khazul captured that, they could have learned our language and much about our country from the people there. No doubt they have also secretly scouted our shores. Now after the battle we sent envoys to ask for discussions, more in the hope of probing out information about them than because we fear to fight. However, I confess to fearing the outcome if we do fight. They agreed, and their representatives will arrive in the city two days hence.”

  “That’s only about twenty hours. No wonder you were getting frantic. But what can I do to help?” Silence hummed while the neutrinos leaped back and forth. Fraser’s gaze flickered around the cluttered room. It felt suddenly stifling.

  “You know with what awe your machine that spoke was received by us,” Theor said. “In fact, to some degree it changed the nature of the Reeveship, back toward the ancient function of conductor in magical rites; for of course my kin-tree was the most active in dealing with the thing and groping toward a language. You will recall that we took the image-maker you sent us a third of a year ago—” that would be four Earth-years, Fraser reminded himself—“to a special shelter near the House of Council. This shelter has become known as Iden Yoth, the House of the Oracle, and many believe that prophecies are uttered there. Yet we are not a fanciful people in Nyarr city or across the plains of Medalon. Barbarians should be more prone than us to visionary interpretations.”

  “Ah . . . yes! I see. You want me to—”

  The intercom blared: “Your attention, please. This is an announcement from Administrative Headquarters, Bob Richards speaking. Admiral Swayne, commanding the battleship out there, just called to ask if we could send a large liberty party inside. Naturally that’s fine by us. So if you want to entertain any of those boys, now’s the time to make ready. Over.”

  A shaky grin lifted one corner of Fraser’s mouth. So much for Lory’s fears.

  “What was that?” asked Theor anxiously.

  “Nothing important,” Fraser said. “Let’s get back to your affairs. I agree, the sight of me might well scare the hypothetical pants off any Jovian who wasn’t prepared for the shock. I suppose you want me to give the barbarians a suitably gruesome warning of what’ll happen if they don’t leave your territory.”

  There was a clatter from the adjacent laboratory. No doubt the fellows were shutting up shop for die rest of this watch period, so they could go out and greet the spacemen. Fraser paid no heed.

  “You engulf my thoughts,” said Theor. “I have an intuition that this may swing the balance. Ulunt-Khazul must know that there are lands to the north, less rich than Medalon but more easily taken. If they are brought to fear supernatural vengeance, as well as seeing how great a host we can muster against them, they should rationally decide against invading us.”

  “Um-m, I’m not sure how their minds work. Even you don’t always make sense to me, and here we’ve got another culture. Another species, in fact. Still, I’ll do my best. Only how? Your enemies don’t understand the mutual language, and I can’t speak Nyarran.”

  No man could. Perhaps nobody would ever be able to. The problem went much deeper than differences in vocal organs. Dahlbeck had established that Nyarran was not one but three interrelated systems, each with a different set of underlying premises: as if a human should mingle English, Chinese and Hopi. And all those hidden assumptions about the nature of the universe were abstracted from a racial experience totally foreign to man’s.

  “I know. But I can recite the speech for you, here and now, and you can record it, and send it back with your image upon the day.”

  “Excellent! I’ll have to know what it means, so I can make appropriate gestures as it raves on. Do you have a script prepared?” Fraser lit his pipe and blew cheerful clouds. Things seemed to be looking up everywhere, on Jupiter as well as Earth and Ganymede.

  “I have a tentative structure. But I would like to discuss the whole with you. I am sure you can make many suggestions of value. Besides, your cast of thought and phrase will lend a strange flavor that should add to the impressiveness.”

  “Great! I can show films too, if you think that’s a good idea. Let’s get to work.”

  They finished more than an hour later. Fraser was surprised to notice the time. Hope Eve hasn’t gotten too irritated with me. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll stand by here, at your conference time. When you want me to start transmitting, call. That should sound like an invocation or something to your guests.” He paused, awkward again. “I do hope this works, Theor.”

&
nbsp; “Your mind-nearness brightens existence. Farewell, friend.”

  There was a click. Fraser sat for a minute feeling oddly alone. Then he shook himself, rose, and walked toward the hall door.

  It was flung open in his face. Pat Mahoney exploded through. His fea-

  tures were stretched into a Gorgon mask.

  “Mark! Get out of here! They’re arresting everybody who can operate anything!”

  “What?” Fraser gaped at him.

  “Those bastards from the ship! Their goddam liberty party pulled guns and they’re taking over. For the old government!”

  III

  “Without instruments, no man could have seen morning on Jupiter.

  At the bottom of that monstrous atmospheric ocean—mostly hydrogen, much helium, a few percentage points of methane, ammonia vapor and other gases—the only visible illumination on land was from the frequent great lightning flashes. Then cloud banks might stand forth in miles-high red and tawny precipices, until blackness clamped down again. But Theor’s two eyes, golden in hue and thrice the diameter of a man’s, saw by infrared as well as the longest red wave lengths. To him, a brightness climbed swiftly out of the night mists that still rolled across Medalon, tinting them in a thousand rich shades, spreading across the vast, roiling arch of the sky. He felt wind in his face, sharp and cold; the chemosensor antennae flanking his mouth quivered as they drank organic odors blown off the plains.

  He wished he could merge himself again with the year, sink back in the work and the rites which were his to lead, as heir apparent to the Reeveship. His mind continued to worry those problems he had been dealing with until this last possible minute. The druga species were undergoing their regular metamorphosis from vegetable to animal, and the ranchers who kept such herds had a thousand attendances to dance on them. This meant that other tasks must be neglected. Which meant that wind, rain, hail, lightning, quake, flood, geyser, firespout, stonecrush could wreak havoc unless certain precautions were taken. Those it was Theor’s job to direct.