The Space Opera Megapack: 20 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Tales

by John W. Campbell

  “If we get back to Tellus,” Belle corrected, sweetly.

  “Until we get back to Tellus there will be no Gunthering aboard this ship.…”

  “What?” Belle broke in again. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “There will be little if any lepping, and nothing else at all. At the table, if we want sugar, we will reach for it or have it passed. We will pick up things, such as cigarettes, with our fingers. We will carry lighters and use them. When we go from place to place, we will walk. Is that clear?”

  “You seem to be talking English,” Belle sneered, “but the words don’t make sense.”

  “I didn’t think you were that stupid.” Eyes locked and held. Then Garlock grinned savagely. “Okay. You tell her, Lola, in words of as few syllables as possible.”

  “Why, to get used to it, of course,” Lola explained, while Belle glared at Garlock in frustrated anger. “So as not to reveal anything we don’t have to.”

  “Thank you, Miss Montandon, you may go to the head of the class. All monosyllables except two. That should make it clear, even to Miss Bellamy.”

  “You…you beast!” Belle drove a tight-beamed thought. “I was never so insulted in my life!”

  “You asked for it. Keep on asking for it and you’ll keep on getting it.” Then, aloud, to all three, “In emergencies, of course, anything goes. We will now proceed with business.” He paused, then went on, bitingly, “If possible.”

  “One minute, please!” Belle snapped. “Just why, Captain Garlock, are you insisting on oral communication, when lepping is so much faster and better? It’s stupid—reactionary. Don’t you ever lep?”

  “With Jim, on business, yes; with women, no more than I have to. What I think is nobody’s business but mine.”

  “What a way to run a ship! Or a project!”

  “Running this project is my business, not yours; and if there’s any one thing in the entire universe it does not need, it’s a female exhibitionist. Besides your obvious qualifications to be one of the Eves in case of Ultimate Contingency.…” he broke off and stared at her, his contemptuous gaze traveling slowly, dissectingly, from her toes to the topmost wave of her hair-do.

  “Forty-two, twenty, forty?” he sneered.

  “You flatter me.” Her glare was an almost tangible force; her voice was controlled fury.

  “Thirty-nine, twenty-two, thirty-five. Five seven. One thirty-five. If any of it’s any of your business, which it isn’t. You should be discussing brains and ability, not vital statistics.”

  “Brains? You? No, I’ll take that back. As a Prime, you have got a brain—one that really works. What do you think you’re good for on this project? What can you do?”

  “I can do anything any man ever born can do, and do it better!”

  “Okay. Compute a Gunther field that will put us two hundred thousand feet directly above the peak of that mountain.”

  “That isn’t fair—not that I expected fairness from you—and you know it. That doesn’t take either brains or ability.…”

  “Oh, no?”

  “No. Merely highly specialized training that you know I haven’t had. Give me a five-tape course on it and I’ll come closer than either you or James; for a hundred credits a shot.”

  “I’ll do just that. Something you are supposed to know, then. How would you go about making first contact?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t do it the way you would—by knocking down the first native I saw, putting my foot on his face, and yelling ‘Bow down, you stupid, ignorant beasts, and worship me, the Supreme God of the Macrocosmic Universe’!”

  “Try again, Belle, that one missed me by.…”

  “Hold it, both of you!” James broke in. “What the hell are you trying to prove? How about cutting out this cat-and-dog act and getting some work done?”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Garlock admitted, holding his temper by a visible effort. “Sorry, Jim. Belle, what were you briefed for?”

  “To understudy you.” She, too, fought her temper down. “To learn everything about Project Gunther. I have a whole box of tapes in my room, including advanced Gunther math and first-contact techniques. I’m to study them during all my on-watch time unless you assign other duties.”

  “No matter what your duties may be, you’ll have to have time to study. If you don’t find what you want in your own tapes—and you probably won’t, since Ferber and his Miss Foster ran the selections—use our library. It’s good—designed to carry on our civilization. Miss Montandon? No, that’s silly, the way we’re fixed. Lola?”

  “I’m to learn how to be Doctor James’.…”

  “Jim, please, Lola,” James said. “And call him Clee.”

  “I’d like that.” She smiled winningly. “And my friends call me ‘Brownie’.”

  “I see why they would. It fits like a coat of lacquer.”

  It did. Her hair was a dark, lustrous brown, as were her eyebrows. Her eyes were brown. Her skin, too—her dark red playsuit left little to the imagination—was a rich and even brown. Originally fairly dark, it had been tanned to a more-than-fashionable depth of color by naked sun-bathing and by practically-naked outdoor sports. A couple of inches shorter than the green-haired girl, she too had a figure to make any sculptor drool.

  “I’m to be Dr. Jim’s assistant. I have a thousand tapes, more or less, to study, too. It’ll be quite a while, I’m afraid, before I can be of much use, but I’ll do the best I can.”

  “If we had hit Alpha Centauri that arrangement would have been good, but as we are, it isn’t.” Garlock frowned in thought, his heavy black eyebrows almost meeting above his finely-chiseled aquiline nose. “Since neither Jim nor I need an assistant any more than we need tails, it was designed to give you girls something to do. But out here, lost, there’s work for a dozen trained specialists and there are only four of us. So we shouldn’t duplicate effort. Right? You first, Belle.”

  “Are you asking me or telling me?” she asked. “And that’s a fair question. Don’t read anything into it that isn’t there. With your attitude, I want information.”

  “I am asking you,” he replied, carefully. “For your information, when I know what should be done, I give orders. When I don’t know, as now, I ask advice. If I like it, I follow it. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough. We’re apt to need any number of specialists.”

  “Lola?”

  “Of course we shouldn’t duplicate. What shall I study?”

  “That’s what we must figure out. We can’t do it exactly, of course; all we can do now is to set up a rough scheme. Jim’s job is the only one that’s definite. He’ll have to work full time on nebular configurations. If we hit inhabited planets he’ll have to add their star-charts to his own. That leaves three of us to do all the other work of a survey. Ideally, we would cover all the factors that would be of use in getting us back to Tellus, but since we don’t know what those factors are.… Found out anything yet, Jim?”

  “A little. Tellus-type planet, apparently strictly so. Oceans and continents. Lots of inhabitants—farms, villages, all sizes of cities. Not close enough to say definitely, but inhabitants seem to be humanoid, if not human.”

  “Hold her here. Besides astronomy, which is all yours, what do we need most?”

  “We should have enough to classify planets and inhabitants, so as to chart a space-trend if there is any. I’d say the most important ones would be geology, stratigraphy, paleontology, oceanography, xenology, anthropology, ethnology, vertebrate biology, botany, and at least some ecology.”

  “That’s about the list I was afraid of. But there are only three of us. The fields you mention number much more.”

  “Each of you will have to be a lot of specialists in one, then. I’d say the best split would be planetology, xenology, and anthropology—each, of course, stretched all out of shape to cover dozens of related and non-related specialties.”

  “Good enough. Xenology, of course, is mine. Contacts, liaison, politics, correlat
ion, and so on, as well as studying the non-human life forms—including as many lower animals and plants as possible. I’ll make a stab at it. Now, Belle, since you’re a Prime and Lola’s an Operator, you get the next toughest job. Planetography.”

  “Why not?” Belle smiled and began to act as one of the party. “All I know about it is a hazy idea of what the word means, but I’ll start studying as soon as we get squared away.”

  “Thanks. That leaves anthropology to you, Lola. Besides, that’s your line, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Sociological Anthropology. I have my M.S. in it, and am—was, I mean—working for my Ph.D. But as Jim said, it isn’t only the one specialty. You want me, I take it, to cover humanoid races, too?”

  “Check. You and Jim both, then, will know what you’re doing, while Belle and I are trying to play ours by ear.”

  “Where do we draw the line between humanoid and non-human?”

  “In case of doubt we’ll confer. That covers it as much as we can, I think. Take us down, Jim—and be on your toes to take evasive action fast.”

  The ship dropped rapidly toward an airport just outside a fairly large city. Fifty thousand—forty thousand—thirty thousand feet.

  “Calling strange spaceship—you must be a spaceship, in spite of your tremendous, hitherto-considered-impossible mass—” a thought impinged on all four Tellurian minds, “do you read me?”

  “I read you clearly. This is the Tellurian spaceship Pleiades, Captain Garlock commanding, asking permission to land and information as to landing conventions.” He did not have to tell James to stop the ship; James had already done so.

  “I was about to ask you to hold position; I thank you for having done so. Hold for inspection and type-test, please. We will not blast unless you fire first. A few minutes, please.”

  A group of twelve jet fighters took off practically vertically upward and climbed with fantastic speed. They leveled off a thousand feet below the Pleiades and made a flying circle. Up and into the ring thus formed there lumbered a large, clumsy-looking helicopter.

  “We have no record of any planet named ‘Tellus’; nor of any such ship as yours. Of such incredible mass and with no visible or detectable means of support or of propulsion. Not from this part of the galaxy, certainly…could it be that intergalactic travel is actually possible? But excuse me, Captain Garlock, none of that is any of my business; which is to determine whether or not you four Tellurian human beings are compatible with, and thus acceptable to, our humanity of Hodell…but you do not seem to have a standard televideo testing-box aboard.”

  “No, sir; only our own tri-di and teevee.”

  “You must be examined by means of a standard box. I will rise to your level and teleport one across to you. It is self-powered and fully automatic.”

  “You needn’t rise, sir. Just toss the box out of your ’copter into the air. We’ll take it from there.” Then, to James, “Take it, Jim.”

  “Oh? You can lift large masses against much gravity?” The alien was all attention. “I have not known that such power existed. I will observe with keen interest.”

  “I have it,” James said. “Here it is.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Garlock said to the alien. Then, to Lola: “You’ve been reading these—these Hodellians?”

  “The officer in the helicopter and those in the fighters, yes. Most of them are Gunther Firsts.”

  “Good girl. The set’s coming to life—watch it.”

  The likeness of the alien being became clear upon the alien screen; visible from the waist up. While humanoid, the creature was very far indeed from being human. He—at least, it had masculine rudimentary nipples—had double shoulders and four arms. His skin was a vividly intense cobalt blue. His ears were black, long, and highly dirigible. His eyes, a flaming red in color, were large and vertically-slitted, like a cat’s. He had no hair at all. His nose was large and Roman; his jaw was square, almost jutting; his bright-yellow teeth were clean and sharp.

  After a minute of study the alien said: “Although your vessel is so entirely alien that nothing even remotely like it is on record, you four are completely human and, if of compatible type, acceptable. Are there any other living beings aboard with you?”

  “Excepting micro-organisms, none.”

  “Such life is of no importance. Approach, please, one of you, and grasp with a hand the projecting metal knob.”

  With a little trepidation, Garlock did so. He felt no unusual sensation at the contact.

  “All four of you are compatible and we accept you. This finding is surprising in the extreme, as you are the first human beings of record who grade higher than what you call Gunther Two…or Gunther Second?”

  “Either one; the terms are interchangeable.”

  “You have minds of tremendous development and power; definitely superior even to my own. However, there is no doubt that physically you are perfectly compatible with our humanity. Your blood will be of great benefit to it. You may land. Goodbye.”

  “Wait, please. How about landing conventions? And visiting restrictions and so on? And may we keep this box? We will be glad to trade you something for it, if we have anything you would like to have?”

  “Ah, I should have realized that your customs would be widely different from ours. Since you have been examined and accepted, there are no restrictions. You will not act against humanity’s good. Land where you please, go where you please, do what you please as long as you please. Take up permanent residence or leave as soon as you please. Marry if you like, or simply breed—your unions with this planet’s humanity will be fertile. Keep the box without payment. As Guardians of Humanity we Arpalones do whatever small favors we can. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Abundantly so. Thank you, sir.”

  “Now I really must go. Goodbye.”

  Garlock glanced into his plate. The jets had disappeared, the helicopter was falling rapidly away. He wiped his brow.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.

  When his amazement subsided he turned to the business at hand. “Lola, do you check me that this planet is named Hodell, that it is populated by creatures exactly like us? Arpalones?”

  “Exactly, except they aren’t ‘creatures’. They are humanoids, and very fine people.”

  “You’d think so, of course…correction accepted. Well, let’s take advantage of their extraordinarily hospitable invitation and go down. Cut the rope, Jim.”

  The airport was very large, and was divided into several sections, each of which was equipped with runways and/or other landing facilities to suit one class of craft—propellor jobs, jets, or helicopters. There were even a few structures that looked like rocket pits.

  “Where are you going to sit down, Jim? With the ’copters or over by the blast-pits?”

  “With the ’copters, I think. Since I can place her to within a couple of inches. I’ll put her squarely into that far corner, where she’ll be out of everybody’s way.”

  “No concrete out there,” Garlock said. “But the ground seems good and solid.”

  “We’d better not land on concrete,” James grinned. “Unless it’s terrific stuff we’d smash it. On bare ground, the worst we can do is sink in a foot or so, and that won’t hurt anything.”

  “Check. A few tons to the square foot, is all. Shall we strap down and hang onto our teeth?”

  “Who do you think you’re kidding, boss? Even though I’ve got to do this on manual, I won’t tip over a half-piece standing on edge.”

  James stopped talking, pulled out his scanner, stuck his face into it. The immense starship settled downward toward the selected corner. There was no noise, no blast, no flame, no slightest visible or detectable sign of whatever force it was that was braking the thousands of tons of the vessel’s mass in its miles-long, almost-vertical plunge to ground.

  When the Pleiades struck ground the impact was scarcely to be felt. When she came to rest, after settling into the ground her allotted “foot or so,” there was n
o jar at all.

  “Atmosphere, temperature, and so on, approximately Earth-normal,” Garlock said. “Just as our friend said it would be.”

  James scanned the city and the field. “Our visit is kicking up a lot of excitement. Shall we go out?”

  “Not yet!” Belle exclaimed. “I want to see how the women are dressed, first.”

  “So do I,” Lola added, “and some other things besides.”

  Both women—Lola through her Operator’s scanner; Belle by manipulating the ship’s tremendous Operator Field by the sheer power of her Prime Operator’s mind—stared eagerly at the crowd of people now beginning to stream across the field.

  “As an anthropologist,” Lola announced, “I’m not only surprised. I am shocked, annoyed, and disgruntled. Why, they’re exactly like white Tellurian human beings!”

  “But look at their clothes!” Belle insisted. “They’re wearing anything and everything, from bikinis to coveralls!”

  “Yes, but notice.” This was the anthropological scientist speaking now. “Breasts and loins, covered. Faces, uncovered. Heads and feet and hands, either bare or covered. Ditto for legs up to there, backs, arms, necks and shoulders down to here, and torsos clear down to there. We’ll not violate any conventions by going out as we are. Not even you, Belle. You first, Chief. Yours the high honor of setting first foot—the biggest foot we’ve got, too—on alien soil.”

  “To hell with that. We’ll go out together.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lola went on. “There’s a funny-looking automobile just coming through the gate. The Press. Three men and two women. Two cameras, one walkie-talkie, and two microphones. The photog in the purple shirt is really a sharpie at lepping. Class Three, at least—possibly a Two.”

  “How about screens down enough to lep, boss?” Belle suggested. “Faster. We may need it.”

  “Check. I’m too busy to record, anyway—I’ll log this stuff up tonight,” and thoughts flew.

  “Check me, Jim,” Garlock flashed. “Telepathy, very good. On Gunther, the guy was right—no signs at all of any First activity, and very few Seconds.”