by Hal Clement
There was one obvious possibility. It might be riding a machine designed to protect it, as he was himself—which would imply that life was not native to this world. If that were the case, locating the creature or creatures should be easy. However, in such circumstances it would have to be assumed that the population was very small, since furnishing machines for all of a large population was a manifest impossibility. It would be unwise too—even if such a thing were possible.
A more fantastic idea was that, while the life of this world might have a carbon composition like his own, its metallic parts were of more inert substances—perhaps of the platinum-group metals. The agent knew no reason why these should not serve as well as calcium, in a nervous system. He might have thought of aluminum, had he been familiar with its behavior in an oxygen-water environment.
Then, there was the notion that a ship of his own race might be down and crippled—the most fantastic of all. No such ship would be this far out in the galaxy, and it was hard to imagine a mishap which would leave the operator alive and safe from the environment, while crippling his communication facilities to the point where nothing but crude whistles came through.
Furthermore, there had been too many points of origin for the beams that had touched him. It might prove a difficult nut to crack.
In fact, it was simply impossible to decide whether one of these hypotheses, or something which had not yet occurred to him would prove closest to the truth. For the time being, there was nothing to do but search. Naturally, it did not take long for the more or less rhythmic impulses originating only a few miles away to catch his attention.
They were seismic, of course, since he was doing all his listening through the rock—but it quickly became evident that they were originating at the very boundary between lithosphere and atmosphere. Almost as quickly, he realized that the sources were moving.
This latter fact complicated the analysis rather seriously. It took the agent some time to conclude that sets of more or less solid objects, apparently always in pairs, were striking the lithosphere from outside. Sometimes there were relatively long periods of regular, repeated thuds, as one or more of the pairs did its hammering and such periods were always accompanied by motion of the point at which the blows were occurring.
At other times, the hammering was irregular, both in frequency and energy, and usually, though not always, these sequences radiated from a relatively fixed broadcasting point. There seemed to be six basic units producing the impulses. Well, he was making progress, at any rate. Systematic thought could be a joy in itself!
Quite evidently, if this disturbance were caused by local life, that life must be civilized to the point where it could design and build machines. Furthermore, six machines, machines so close together, really did call for thought. It suggested something about the population density of the planet.
On the worlds the agent knew, scarcely one individual in a thousand manned a machine capable of moving him about. To equip the rest similarly would not only be the height of folly. It would be impossible, because enough material could never be obtained, still more because very few of them were temperamentally suited to physical activity. Even if this race had equipped, say, one in a hundred of its members, the finding of such a number congregated in one spot implied either a tremendous population density or—could it be that they were looking for him?
He had never stopped to think what a two-dimensional search would be like. But these machines, he was beginning to think, must be confined to surface-travel—perhaps sub-surface as well—and their operators were assuming that he was on or near the surface of the lithosphere.
The agent cast his memory back over the paths these things had been following, and decided that they might indeed be explained on the assumption they were seeking something and had a very restricted range of sensory perception. He dwelt for an instant on the last assumption, finding it unpleasant.
The radar beams, then, must have been used to track him. He had felt no such impulses, since digging in, although a portion of his hull remained exposed. But his attention had been so completely taken up with his work that he might not have noticed. He began to listen more carefully for electromagnetic radiation, and heard it immediately. On the instant, any doubts that might have remained concerning the intelligence of this race were disposed of.
There was a single source, which seemed to accompany only one of the machines, though the agent found it a little harder to locate precisely than the seismic sources. Apparently radio waves were being reflected from surfaces not in his mental picture of this part of the planet, thus confusing slightly his attempts at orientation. He was disturbed by the seeming fact that only one of these operators talked—and wondered why there had been no answer.
That problem was quickly solved, however. More careful listening disclosed a response coming from a fixed point some distance away. The agent did not attempt to make a seismic check on the environs of this source of radiation, since there was already enough to occupy his attention.
Still, why should only one of these machines, or its driver, be engaged in long-range conversation? Surely the others, if they were fit to be trusted to drive such devices, must occasionally have ideas of their own. It did not occur to him that the impulses might not represent speech—their pattern complexity was too great for anything else, though their tone was rather monotonous—quite literally. The frequency was constant and only the amplitude was modulated.
One possibility, of course, was that there was only one operator present, who was reporting to or discussing matters with his more distant fellow while he controlled all six of the nearby machines. In that case, however, the impulses he was using to control the subsidiary vehicles should be detectable, and nothing of the sort had reached the agent’s senses.
Could it be that the orders were transmitted by metallic connections instead of radiation? They would have to be flexible, of course, since the relative positions of the machines were constantly changing! Yes, that could be it!
IV
Candace Parsons prepared dinner that night in the larger tent, over the fireless cooker. Because, for all of her native independence of spirit, she enjoyed being a woman and Hal’s wife, and because she found herself not yet able, either intellectually or emotionally, to accept what had happened to them during the day, she concentrated on preparing the best meal possible under the circumstances.
While Hal and Truck continued to work the radio, under the trailer tarpaulin, she opened a couple of cans of chili, reinforced their contents with extra powder and placed on the stove a panful of the nourishing Mexican dish. She got a pot of coffee smoking, fried a dozen quarter-inch thick slices of bacon, and stirred the heated chili. Then she carried out to the men large, steaming platefuls of the rib-sticking food. They looked, she thought, as damp as she felt.
Returning with the coffee, she found the plates barely touched and told them, “You’d better eat hearty, characters. Heaven only knows when I’ll cook another mess in this downpour.”
Hal looked at her sheepishly, turned away from the transmitter and picked up his plate. “Sorry, baby,” he said. “But, whatever this is all about, we seem to be it. We’ve had about everybody but the President on the air, asking us what in hell is going on.”
“Let me take over for a while,” she urged.
Truck, temporarily deserting his chore at the crank-battery to consume his victuals in what appeared to be three immense mouthfuls, said, “I’m afraid, memsahib, that this is going to be an all-night beat.”
It turned out to be just that, since a baffled, excited, curious and somewhat frightened world refused to leave them alone. Increasingly, it became apparent that no other observer, human or electronic, had spotted further passage of the mysterious flying object which Truck called “the Greatest Whatisit.” Thus, until the rain let up and the ceiling lifted, the Parsons Expedition was definitely roped down, and committed.
And the rain, as Candace had foreseen, did not let up.
That, in itself, was one of the most unusual elements in the situation. According to all reports, the storm that had engulfed them extended over no more than a few square miles, centering upon the valley, and its surrounding territory.
The circumstance caused Truck to suggest, “Well, a limited storm area ought to simplify things. All they’ll have to do now is locate the center of the cloud region. The center will be it—granted our Whatisit is seeding the clouds around here with malicious intent.”
“How could it seed clouds that didn’t even exist until after it came down?” queried Candace.
“So it made its own clouds,” Truck suggested breezily. “Take it or leave it.”
Candace and Hal Parsons exchanged a puzzled look. It was Parsons who got to his feet. They were sitting, Turkish fashion, on the ground beneath the larger tent’s shelter and Parsons arose quickly to say, “Never mind the battery for a moment, Truck. Where’s that Geiger counter of yours?”
“You mean to say you’re gonna hunt uranium now?” Truck asked good-humoredly, as he complied.
“Not exactly,” said Hal Parsons, a trifle grimly. “Okay, Truck—thanks.” Neither he nor Candace felt up to putting into words the way they felt about the fear that gripped them. Any object capable of emitting radiations which could create such a furious local storm might well be capable of emitting radiations deadly to all human life within its radius. Both had visions of the Japanese fishermen who, in 1955, were caught in a radioactive fallout hundreds of miles from the Eniwetok atomic testing grounds.
Candace carried the electric lantern as Hal made his way about fifty feet downhill, into the saddle of the pass where they were encamped. She heard the ominous click-click-click of the counter, as her husband turned it on, and caught the strange, tense look on his features—a look sharpened by rainwater and the lantern’s bright beam. She had an odd, shafting thought that this was not her husband at all, but a stranger. Quickly she closed mental lock and key on the idea, lest it be a prelude to panic.
He said, “It’s high, but that might be caused by any number of reasons.”
Candace nodded, and he took a few more strides. Then he bent low over a large puddle, formed in a hollow of the ground, and held the counter directly over it. The speed of the clicking increased by a clearly audible margin. After a moment, he stood up, and turned the instrument off.
“We’re okay,” he said. “The rain is radioactive, all right. But, unless we hang around here for a month or two, it’s not likely to cause any permanent damage.”
“It can’t damage my permanent,” she replied. “I haven’t had one in six months, and the coil came out in a week.” The moment she had spoken, she felt like an idiot for making such a remark at such a time. On the other hand, she thought, this might be a moment when idiocy could really serve a purpose.
Hal said gently, “Shut up, baby,” and then they walked back to the camp in silence, their minds full of oddly-parallel thoughts, hopes and fears. Increasingly, via radio and their own evidence, it was becoming clear that the Whatisit had elected to come to earth nearby, and probably knew exactly what it was doing.
“You know,” said Hal, after lighting a damp cigarette, “if our friend had such a thought in mind, he couldn’t have figured out a better way to stay clear of observation. Locating him on foot, in this rain, is going to be next to impossible. And the authorities outside the area won’t find it easy to get in here. Our trail is washed out by this time. In fact, for all we know, the valley behind us will be flooded by morning. They can’t observe from the air, because of the clouds—and the ceiling is so low I don’t believe a helicopter could make a landing anywhere near here.”
“Maybe he does want to,” said Candace, relighting her cigarette thoughtfully.
“But that suggests . . .” Hal looked at her oddly.
“It suggests intelligence, all right,” his wife said quickly. “And so did the swift, sure way he steered a path around this mountain yesterday. The big question now is—what kind of intelligence?”
“You’re giving me the creeps,” said Hal. He looked at her in the light of the electric lantern and smiled. But there was no mirth in his smile and when her hand crept toward his along the moist ground, he gripped it almost eagerly.
Truck MacLaurie stood over them. “If you two lovebirds are interested,” he said, “I just got word they’re sending a plane over in five minutes, to try to drop a flare through the clouds. They’ll want to know if we can see it—and where.”
The Parsons’ scrambled to their feet and waited, by the radio, as the minutes ticked by. An eternity seemed to pass before they actually heard the distant drone of the plane. It grew rapidly louder and, all at once, appeared to be almost directly overhead. The receiver crackled, and Hal Parsons took over.
“You’re coming in,” he told them. “Parson here, Over.”
“Roger dodger, Professor,” came the buoyant voice of the airman overhead. “We’re dropping a flare in five seconds. You should see her in twenty-six, when she blossoms. If you spot any little green men, let us know.”
“Fire away,” said Parsons. He frowned and added tersely: “And stop clowning.”
“Roger dodger,” was the reply, and Parsons wished, briefly, that the over-carefree birdman had to take the brunt on the ground with them. Then he recalled Candace’s inane remark about her permanent, and it occurred to him that some people found such flipness an antidote to unendurable tension. He waited . . .
The flare burst, no more than half a mile away, its brilliance muted by the heavy mist and rainfall. Of the valley itself, it revealed almost nothing. Then, slowly, it burned out, leaving the darkness darker than before.
Parsons reported it, not too exactly under the circumstances, and the pilot said, “Well, that tells us exactly what we knew before. Stay with it, Professor.”
Curiously, Parsons thought, he sounded discouraged.
Morning dawned, grey and soggy. But even so, the three on the mountain pass were lifted up in spirit by the renewal of light. The rain continued, without letup, and patches of mist clung to the slopes above and below them—and as far as their vision could penetrate.
They breakfasted on fresh coffee and the warmed-up remnants of the meal they had been unable to finish the night before.
“I never thought I’d have a miniature lake to wash dishes in,” said Candace, dipping the plates in a puddle of fresh rainwater, and wiping them dry with a towel. “I’ve always had to scrub plates with sand on trips like this.”
“Yeah,” said Truck MacLaurie, “and radioactive rainwater, at that.”
“Shut up, Truck,” Hal Parsons said sharply, wishing he had held his tongue. It occurred to Mm, for the first time in his life, that people who can face grim reality and joke about it are, perhaps, far better realists than those who regard it so seriously that even talk of it disturbs them. What was troubling him was not the fact that the rain was mildly radioactive. It was the possibility that the great Whatisit might be emanating radiations of an alien nature, and more deadly to humans than anything the Geiger counter could pick up. Ignoring Candace’s silent reproof, he walked slowly to the jeep.
Even though the slope into the valley was not steep, getting down the western side of the pass proved a far more difficult task than hauling the jeep up the east side had been. The reason, of course, was the unremitting rain, which was turning the poorly fastened dirt-and-sand hillside surface into treacherous, slippery rivers of silt and mud.
On this part of the trip Truck rose to heroic effort. Almost at the valley floor the little vehicle unexpectedly side-slipped into a freshly made brook, causing its rear wheels to stick and the trailer to fall over on its side. In a matter of seconds, the big football player had leapt from the rear seat of the jeep into the shin-deep muck, and was heaving at the trailer, with his neckcords swelling.
Before Hal or Candace could reach him he had unlocked the coupler and was hauling an upright trailer out of the water by main strength.
/>
“The tarp held tight,” he said cheerfully, not even panting. With his hair plastered over his forehead and his clothes clinging to him in the wet, he looked as if he had just stepped out of a shower with his clothes on. He added smilingly: “Get behind that wheel, Doc, while I push.”
It took their combined efforts, but they finally got the jeep clear of the water and back on reasonably firm soil. Candace returned to the shelter of the jeep-top, while Hal and Truck recoupled the trailer.
Feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself for his previous sharpness, Hal said, “Truck, I’m sorry if I’ve been riding roughshod over you, but this whole business has me on edge. I mean, with Candace, and—” He let it hang.
Truck laid a massive, damp hand on Hal’s already soaked shoulder and said with a grin, “Doc, don’t worry about me. I’ve been chewed out by so many coaches giving me hell in the locker room that I don’t mind a little ribbing from a guy I respect.”
For some reason, the atmosphere lightened, though the rain continued to fall—and, curiously, the going grew easier from then on. Twenty minutes later, they had reached the floor of the valley, which extended almost level into the mist that blocked the mountains on the further side.
“Well,” said Truck from the rear seat, as Hal slowly brought the jeep to a halt, “now that we’re here, what do we do?”
The Parsons exchanged a look. Until then, reaching the valley had loomed as so large a problem in front of them that they had not considered the next move.
Candace laughed and said, “I’d pause at this point to powder my face if it would do any good in the dampness—if I had any powder handy.”
To his considerable surprise, Hal found himself paraphrasing a long-forgotten and very ribald old Negro ditty which by rights should have remained buried in the rather scant excesses of his youth. He said, “It’s right here for us, and if we don’t find it, why it ain’t no fault of its.”
