The Best of Hal Clement

by Hal Clement

  Boss was not accustomed to getting out of anyone’s way, least of all in the case of his own underlings. His temper, normally short enough, came dangerously near the boiling point; the wave of thought that poured from his mind to that of the weary flier was vitriolic.

  “All right, make it good. Why do I have to dodge out of the path of every idiotic spacehand who comes tearing back here as though the planet was full of devils? Why? What’s the rush, anyway? This is the first time I ever saw you in a hurry, except when I told you to hop!”

  “But you told me this time, Boss,” was the plaintive answer. “You said that the moment that creature you were after turned into the path leading here, I was to get word to you. It’s on the way now.”

  “That’s different. Get out of sight. Tell Second to make sure everybody’s in his quarters, and that all the doors along the central hall are locked. Turn out all lights, except for one at each end of the hall. No one is to be visible from that hallway, and no other part of the ship is to be accessible from it. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  “Clear out, then. That’s the way you wanted things, isn’t it, Talker?”

  The being addressed, who had heard the preceding dialogue with more amusement than respect, was watching from the inner door of the airlock. Like the blustering commander and the obsequious crew member, he supported his body almost horizontally on four slender legs. Another pair of appendages terminated in prehensile organs as efficient as human hands, and a double pair of silvery-gray, membranous wings were folded along the sides of his streamlined, insectile body.

  He could best be described to an Earthman as a giant hawk moth, the resemblance being heightened by the broad, feathery antennae projecting some eighteen inches from a point above his eyes. Those appendages alone differentiated him from the others of his kind; those of the captain and crew were a bare eight inches in length, narrower, and less mobile.

  His eyes were the most human characteristics—more accurately, the only ones—that he possessed. Two disks of topaz, more than three inches across, they lent a strangely sagacious expression to the grotesque countenance.

  “You have understood well, Commander,” radiated Talker, “even though you seem unable to realize the necessity for this action. The creature must see enough of the ship to arouse his curiosity; at the same time he must gain no inkling of our presence.”

  “Why not?” asked Boss. “It seems to me that we could learn to communicate much more quickly if we capture him. You say he must be allowed to come and go as he pleases for many days, and must remain under the impression that this ship is deserted. I know you’ve been trained to communication all your life, but—”

  “But nothing! That one fact should make it evident that I know more than you can hope to understand about the problem we’re facing. Come up to the control room—that native will arrive shortly, and that’s the only place from which we can watch him without being seen ourselves.”

  Talker led the way forward along the dimly lit main corridor, into which the inner door of the airlock opened directly. At its end, a low doorway opened, and a spiral ramp led to the control deck, half a level higher. Here the two paused. Metal grillwork, its interstices filled with glass, formed the rear wall of the room and afforded a view the whole length of the corridor. Talker extinguished the control-room lights, and settled himself at this vantage point.

  His name was no indication of his temperament. The narrator, in fact, must accept full blame for the former. Had it been merely a question of translating from one vocal language to another, it would have been possible to set down a jumble of vowels and consonants, the more unpronounceable the better, and claim that the English alphabet provided no means of coming closer to the true pronunciation. Unfortunately, these beings were able to sense directly the minute electrical disturbances that accompany nerve currents; they conversed by broadcasting reproductions of the appropriate sensory impressions. The “language,” if it could be so called, might be thought of as possessing the elements of a vocal tongue—nouns, verbs, and modifiers; interjections were replaced by the appropriate emotions, but most of the conversation was reproduced visual imagery.

  Obviously, personal names were nonexistent; but the knowledge of identity was in no way impaired. An individual was thought of with respect to his position, temporary or permanent, in the group, or by his personal characteristics. The names used are attempts to show this fact.

  No name would suit the arrogant, peppery commander of the vessel, other than the one we have used; but the cognomen “Talker” merits further explanation.

  The rulers of his home planet had many of Boss’ characteristics. They were the outcome of ages of government similar to the feudal systems of Earth’s Middle Ages. Ranks corresponding to kings, lords, and dukes existed; warfare was almost continuous. Talker belonged to a class having almost exactly the same duties as medieval heralds; he had been trained from infancy in the traditions, obligations, and special abilities of that class. He was one of a clique which, within itself, formed an international fraternity almost as powerful as any of the governments. Their indispensability protected them; they formed, in addition, probably the most intelligent group in the world. The rulers, and through them, the other inhabitants, looked up to them, and perhaps even feared them a little. The enormously developed faculty of communication implied an unparalleled ability to catch and decipher the mental radiations of others; the development of that power was the “herald’s” chief exercise. These last facts should suffice to explain the power of the group, as well as the origin of Talker’s name.

  * * *

  Once comfortably settled, Talker again addressed the captain.

  “I can’t blame you too much for failure to understand the need for this procedure. You lack the training, as you have said; and in addition, there is a condition present whose very possibility never before occurred to me. Tell me, Boss, could you imagine someone—one of your engineers, let us say—acting quite normally, and yet radiating impulses that meant absolutely nothing to you?”

  “None of them knows enough to think anything I couldn’t understand,” was the incredulous answer. “If one of them did, I’d lock him up for examination.”

  “Exactly. You can’t imagine a perfectly sane mind giving off anything but clear thoughts. But what are the thoughts, the waves, that you hear?”

  “I hear what he’s thinking.”

  “You don’t. Your antennae pick up waves which are generated by the chemical processes going on in his brain. Through long practice, you have learned to interpret those waves in terms of the original thoughts; but what thought actually is, neither you nor I nor anyone else knows. We have ‘thought’ in the same fashion all our lives; one brain radiates just like another. But this creature, with whom we have to communicate, is a member of another race; the same thoughts in his mind produce different radiations—the very structure of his brain is, quite likely, different from ours. That is why I was so long finding him; I could not disentangle his radiations from the nerve waves of the other relatively unintelligent life forms around here, until I actually saw him performing actions that proved unquestionably that he does possess a reasoning brain. Even then, it was some time before I realized just what was wrong—it was so new and different.”

  “Then what can you do? What good will those observations do us!” asked Boss, almost tremulously. “I don’t get it entirely, but you seem to. If you can’t talk to him, how can we get the stuff we need? And if we don’t get it, please tell me how we dare show our faces again within five light-years of home!”

  “I am far from sure of just how much can be done,” replied the other. “It will be necessary to determine, if possible, the relation between what this creature thinks and what he radiates; I don’t think it will be easy. These observations are for the purpose of getting a start in that direction.

  “As to the other questions, they are entirely your business. You command this ship; and t
his is the first time I ever saw you want to talk to someone before you helped yourself to his belongings. If you find yourself unable to do so, we can go back, anyway—if labor is scarce, we might get off with a life sentence in the King’s mines on the big moon.”

  “If they still belong to the King by then. I think I’d rather die here, or in space.”

  “At least, there would be no trouble in getting hold of arsenic,” said Talker dryly. “Those mines produce more of that stuff than anything else. If there is any at all on this planet, we have no time to waste on a probably fruitless search; we must get it from the natives, if they know what it is and have any.”

  “And to find out if they have any, we must talk to them,” answered Boss. “I wish us luck, Talker. Go to it.”

  * * *

  The astroplane rested in a small arroyo not much wider than its own hull. The banks of this gully rose nearly to the control-room ports, and from where he lay, Talker could see the gap which marked the point where the trail across the main valley emerged from among the trees. Down that trail the native must come; he had been seen coming through the gap in the hills that bounded the valley on the south side, and no other trail led to the pass in the northern boundary, which was marked by even higher and far steeper cliffs. There seemed little in the valley itself to attract an intelligent being, except animals of various species; and the Talker knew that the camp on the other side of the southern hills was well supplied with food, so that the native would probably not be hunting. Would he be superstitiously afraid of the ship, or intelligently curious enough to examine it more closely?

  The question was not long in being answered. Talker sensed the nearness of the creature some time before it became visible; the herald judged, correctly, that it had seen the vessel first and was approaching cautiously, under cover. For several minutes, nothing happened; then the man walked boldly to the edge of the bank and stood there, carefully examining the long metal hull.

  Both aliens had seen him before, but only at a considerable distance. Talker’s chief surprise at the human form was that a being should support a mass about four times his own, against the relatively enormous gravity of Earth, on but two legs—though the legs, it is true, resembled tree trunks when compared to the stalklike limbs of the visitors.

  The man held a rifle in one hand. The watchers recognized it as a weapon of some sort, but were unable to make out its details even in the midmorning sunlight that shone upon the native. They waited, even Boss maintaining an unaccustomed silence, while the newcomer took in the details of the forty-meter, cigar-shaped spaceship. He noticed that there were ports—round windows along the sides; these were covered, except for some near the bow, with metal shutters. The exposed windows contained round panes of glass or quartz; the room or rooms within were dark, however, and he could see nothing through them.

  A little more than a quarter of the vessel’s length back from the nose, was a larger port, evidently an entrance. It was elliptical, and about five feet high and twice as wide. It was half open, giving a curiously deserted appearance to the ship.

  Talker and Boss could see the indecision in the man’s attitude, although his thought waves, which the former could perceive clearly, were completely indecipherable. The doubt manifested itself in restless motion; the man paced toward the stern of the ship, passing out of the watchers’ sight, and reappeared a few minutes later on the opposite bank of the gully. He crossed once more, under the curve of the ship’s nose, but this time did not climb the bank. Instead, he disappeared sternward again, evidently having made up his mind.

  Talker was sure he knew the decision that had been reached; for a moment he was jubilant, but an instant later he came as close to cursing himself as anyone can without benefit of language. The being quite evidently could not fly; the port was ten feet above its head and fifteen feet from the bank. Even if the man wished to, how could he enter?

  Climbing, for obvious reasons, did not occur to Talker; he had never in his life had to climb, except in buildings too cramped for flying. He caught a glimpse of the man disappearing among the trees, and toyed with the idea of moving to some other part of the planet and trying again.

  He did not crystallize this thought sufficiently to mention it to Boss; before he could do so, his attention was caught by something in motion. The man slowly reappeared, dragging a hardwood sapling pole nearly twenty feet in length. He tossed this down the bank, and scrambled after it; then he picked up one end and dragged the pole out of sight along the hull.

  Talker realized the plan, and gained new respect for the strength, to him almost inconceivable, that lay in those blocky arms and legs. He heard and correctly interpreted the scraping sound as the pole was laid against the lower sill of the airlock; and moments later, an indicator on the control panel showed that the outer door had been swung a little wider, to admit a pair of human shoulders.

  Both aliens glued their eyes to the grillwork, looking down the dimly lighted length of corridor to the place where the inner lock door swung wide open, partly blocking further vision. The hinge was to the rear, fortunately; the man would not be hidden from them by the door, if and when he stepped into the hallway.

  Boss grew impatient as moments slipped uneventfully by; once he shifted his position, only to freeze motionless again at a warning flicker of radiation from Talker. He thought the latter had seen something, but another minute rolled by before the shadow dimming the light that came through the lock moved enough to show that the man had really entered.

  An instant later he had stepped into view. He moved soundlessly, and carried his weapon in a manner that showed it was certainly something more than a club. He was evidently ill at ease; his cramped position accounted largely for that fact—the ceiling of the corridor was barely five feet above the floor. The owners of the ship, with their nearly horizontal carriage, needed little head room.

  The man’s first action was to peer behind the inner door, rifle held ready. He saw at once that, except for himself, the corridor was empty; but numerous low doors were visible along its full length, with larger portals at each end, and one directly opposite him. The one by which he had entered was the only one open; that immediately facing led, he judged, to a similar airlock on the port side of the ship.

  For a minute or two he listened. Then he partly closed the inner door of the lock, so as to allow an unimpeded view the full length of the hall, and walked cautiously forward. Once he raised his hand as though to pound on one of the doors, but evidently thought better of it. Two or three times he looked quickly behind him, turning his head to do so, much to Boss’ astonishment. Talker had already deduced from the location of the eyes that the head must be mobile.

  The light, set in the ceiling near the front end of the hall, was made the subject of a careful examination. The man looked back along the corridor, noting the row of similar, unlighted bulbs at equal intervals along the ceiling, and the single other lighted one at the far end. Talker was unable to tell from his attitude whether they were something utterly new or completely familiar to him.

  Caution had by now succumbed entirely to curiosity. Several doors, including that which led to the control room, were tried. In accordance with Boss’ orders, all were locked. For a few moments the man’s face stared through the grillwork not two feet from his observers; but the control room was in complete darkness, Talker having closed the shutters the instant he was sure the man had entered the lock. The reflection of the ceiling lamp from the glass filling helped to conceal them from the tiny human eyes, and the man turned away without realizing the nearness of the two.

  He wandered down to the far end of the hallway, trying a door here and there. None yielded to his efforts, and eventually he swung open the airlock door and passed out. Talker hastily opened the control-room shutters, in case the being had noticed their previous condition, and saw him disappear in the direction from which he had come. Evidently whatever plans he had formed for the day had been given up.

 
* * *

  “Did you get anything?” asked Boss eagerly, as the tension relaxed. He watched impatiently as Talker walked to the control desk, opened a drawer, and helped himself to a tablet of accelerine before answering.

  “As much as I expected,” he replied finally. “I was able to isolate the radiations of his optical section, when he first looked at the single light at this end—that was why I arranged it that way. Concentrating on those emanations, I think I know the patterns corresponding to some of the more simple combinations of straight lines and circles—the impressions he got while examining the corridor and doors. It is still difficult, because he is highly intelligent and continuously radiates an extremely complex and continually changing pattern which must represent not only the integration of his various sensory impressions, but the thought symbols of abstract ideas; I don’t see how I can master those. I think all we can hope to do is to learn his visual pattern, and try to broadcast to him pictures that will explain what we want. That will take long enough, I fear.”

  “It better not take too long,” remarked Boss. “We can breathe the air and eat the food of this planet, tough as the latter is. But we will live under this gravity just as long as the accelerine holds out, which won’t be too many weeks.”

  “You can synthesize accelerine out of those plants with the straight needlelike leaves,” answered Talker. “Doc told me this morning; that was some of his product that I just ate. Accelerine won’t be enough, however. It speeds up our metabolism, makes us eat like power furnaces, and gives us enough muscular strength to stand up and walk, or even fly; but if we keep taking it too long, it’s an even bet whether we die young of old age, or get so accustomed to it that it becomes useless. Also, it’s dangerous in another way—you were telling me that two of the fighters have broken legs, from landing too hard or trying to stand up too quickly. Our muscles can stand the gravity, helped by the dope, but our skeletons can’t.”

  “Can’t you ever deliver a little good news, without mixing it so thoroughly with bad that I feel worse than ever?” asked Boss. He stalked aft to the engine room, and relieved his feelings by promising a couple of unfortunate workers the dirty job of replacing the main attractor bar in the power converter, the next time the flood of incoming radiation from space riddled it into uselessness.