He was awakened by the irritating buzzing of the telephone at the head of his bunk. This, by itself, gave slight cause for alarm—usually, if all was clear, the officer of the watch would come down from the bridge to call the master in person. Before answering the phone, Lessing switched on his bunkside reading lamp and looked at the clock on his cabin bulkhead. The time was 0335. Something, thought the captain, is wrong. To have been within range of the light at this time we should have had to have done twelve knots—and this underpowered tub never did twelve even downhill with a following wind …
The instrument buzzed again.
Lessing lifted the handset from its rest, barked into the receiver, "Yes?"
"Second officer here, Captain. There's a big aircraft just come down in the sea, about five miles ahead of us—"
"I'll be right up," said Lessing as he swung his long legs out of his bunk, his feet searching for his slippers. He pulled his dressing gown on, lit the inevitable cigarette, and hurried up to the bridge.
He found the second officer out in the starboard wing, staring through his binoculars at a pulsing luminosity on the dark horizon. It could have been the loom of a shore light, a lighthouse, but the period was too irregular. It could have been the glare of the bright working lights of a fishing vessel, dipping at intervals as the craft lifted and fell in the swell. It was nothing to get excited about.
"Is that it, Mr. Garwood?" asked Lessing.
The second officer started. Then, "Yes, sir," he replied. "That's it. Big, it was, and all lit up. There seemed to be jets or rockets working—but I don't think it was an airplane. It looked … wrong, somehow—"
"There are so many experimental aircraft these days," said the captain, "to say nothing of the artificial satellites that everybody seems to be throwing about—" Then, half to himself, "I wonder what the salvage on one of those things would be?"
"Plenty, I should imagine," said the second mate.
"I'd imagine the same," said Lessing. "You'd better notify the engine room, Mr. Garwood. The mate'll be up in a few minutes so he can see about clearing a boat away."
"So you're going to take it in tow, sir?" asked the second officer.
"Not so fast!" laughed Lessing. "We don't even know what the thing is yet. Come to that—I don't even know if it is any sort of aircraft. Those lights out there could be … anything."
"You can ask the lookout," said Garwood huffily, "or the man at the wheel."
"I prefer not to doubt the word of my officers," replied the captain stiffly. "But whether or not we tow the thing depends largely upon what it is." He stared ahead. Bright lights were becoming visible now instead of the diffused glare. "And that," he added, "we shall soon find out."
He left the bridge and went down to his cabin, putting on a uniform over a heavy woollen jersey. He returned to the bridge. The ship had come alive during his brief absence. Shadowy forms were at work on the boat deck, electric torches were flashing, and there was the sound of low-voiced orders and replies, the thud and clatter as equipment not needed in the boat was passed out and stowed well clear of the winch.
The chief officer clattered up the ladder from the boat deck to the starboard cab of the bridge.
"I'll take it you'll be sending away the Fleming boat, sir?"
"Yes, Mr. Kennedy. It'll be the handiest, especially in this swell. There'll be no catching of crabs when there are no oars out." He pointed ahead to the bright lights that lay on the heaving surface of the sea. "What do you make of it?"
Kennedy lifted the ship's binoculars from their box, put them to his eyes. "I don't know," he said slowly. "It's an odd-looking brute, whatever it is. All those vanes and wings or whatever they are. It's like no aircraft that I've ever seen."
"It could be American," said the second mate.
"Or Russian," said Kennedy. "I suppose it is manned—"
"Sparks has been trying to raise it on all the frequencies he can muster," said the second mate, "but there's no reply."
"Perhaps," ventured the third officer diffidently, "it's a flying saucer—"
"All the way from Alpha Centauri or Rigil Kentaurus," laughed the mate, pointing to where Cross and Centaur hung in the dark sky directly over the mystery of gleaming lights and shining metal. "Perhaps we can ask 'em which of the two names for their home sun they prefer. I'm an Alpha Centauri man myself—"
"But it could be," insisted the third mate.
Lessing listened, faintly amused. He neither believed nor disbelieved in flying saucers but thought that they were things that he would prefer not to see—they carried with them a greater aura of disreputability than did sea serpents. But this thing ahead, this affair of lights and metallic surfaces that they were rapidly closing in on, wasn't a flying saucer. It couldn't be. Only cranks saw the things, and then in circumstances remarkable for a paucity of reliable witnesses.
He said, "There's no wind. I'll keep the thing on my starboard side. Who's going away in the boat? You, Mr. Kennedy? Good. Take a torch with you—you might save time by flashing back to us what you find." To Garwood he said, "Put her on standby."
"Standby, sir."
The jangling of the engine room telegraph was startlingly loud.
"Stop her. Full astern."
Lessing looked down from the window of the starboard cab, saw the creamy turbulence created by the reversed screw creep slowly from aft until it was abreast of the bridge.
"Stop her. Switch on the floodlights."
Kennedy ran down to the boat deck. The starboard boat was already turned out. Six men were sitting at the handles of the Fleming gear, a seventh sitting in the bows. The mate caught hold of a lifeline, swung himself from the boat deck into the stern sheets.
"Lower away!" he shouted.
"Lower away, sir," replied the man at the winch. It was, the captain noted, big Tom Green, the bos'n. Tom Green, who was a pure-blooded Polynesian and proud of it. Good officers are not rare—good bos'ns are rare and precious. Tom Green was a good bos'n.
He lifted the brake. The wire falls whispered from the drum of the winch, through and around the lead blocks. They hummed softly through the purchase blocks, and the boat dropped swiftly from sight. Lessing went again to the starboard cab window, saw the boat hit the water, saw the blocks unhooked and pulled up and clear by the light lines bent to them.
"Give way!" came Kennedy's order. The men at the handles swayed back and forth in the untidy rhythm unavoidable with a Fleming boat; the hand-driven propeller began to spin. The boat pulled slowly away from the ship. Lessing called the bos'n up to the bridge.
"Tom," he said, "I suppose the chief officer's told you what all this is about."
"Yes, Captain. We are ready for all eventualities. The reel of the after towing wire works freely, and we have a good supply of shackles and wire snotters."
Lessing looked at the big dark face that hung over his own and wondered, as he had often wondered, what this man was doing as bos'n of an Australian coaster. Fo'c's'le—and saloon—rumor had it that he had been educated at Oxford, that he was the son of a chief. Certain it was that he spoke impeccable—although pedantic—English and possessed in no mean degree the power of command.
"Tom," said Lessing, "what do you make of it?"
A white grin split the dark face. "It is like no aircraft that I have ever seen, sir, either in actuality or in photographs. It's too big for a satellite—as you know, they are only little balls or cylinders, at the largest big enough to house only a small dog—"
"Well?"
"It happened to us," said the bos'n. "It happened to us. Your ancestral navigators found our islands by chance, putting in to replenish their supplies. Sooner or later it had to happen to you."
"What do you mean, Tom?" asked Lessing.
"What I said, Captain. That it's happening to you."
"Rubbish," said Lessing, after a long pause. "That thing's just some experimental aircraft that's come to grief."
"Is it?" asked the bos'n.
> "The chief officer's flashing us!" shouted the second. He came out to the wing of the bridge, carrying the Aldis lamp.
Lessing looked to the enigmatic bulk of the thing in the water and saw a little light, feeble in comparison with the glaring illumination that was streaming from the aircraft—if it was an aircraft—making a succession of short and long flashes. The beam of the Aldis stabbed out into the darkness.
"'Returning with passenger,'" read Lessing. He said, "So the thing is manned—"
"Of course," said the bos'n. "Your ships were manned, weren't they?"
"You'd better get down to the boat deck, Tom," said Lessing.
He picked up his glasses, watched the tiny shape of the lifeboat detach itself from the floating enigma. He watched it as it crept across the water. As it pulled alongside, he could see that there was another figure sitting in the stern with Kennedy. In the glare of the boat floodlights he saw that it was wearing a uniform of some kind—an overall suit of silvery gray with what could have been marks of rank gleaming on the shoulders. He saw Kennedy's bowman catch the painter and make it fast. He saw the gray-clad man coming up the pilot ladder with what was almost, but not quite, the ease of long practice. He saw the chief officer following him.
After a short lapse of time, they were on the bridge.
"Captain," said Kennedy, "this is Malvar Korring vis Korring, chief officer of the Starlady. Mr. Korring, this is Captain Lessing, master of the Woollabra."
Automatically, Lessing put out his hand. The stranger grasped it, said in a voice that was metallic and expressionless, "I hope, sir, that this first meeting of our two races proves auspicious."
"Kennedy," demanded Lessing, "what sort of hoax is this?"
"Sir," replied the chief officer, "this is no hoax. I'm quite convinced that these men are from Space."
"Come down to my room," said Lessing. "Both of you."
In his cabin, with the bright deck-head lights switched on, Lessing studied the man from the … the spaceship. The stranger sat on the settee, almost insolently at ease. His body, beneath his tightly fitting uniform, seemed human enough, as did his lean, deeply tanned face. The eyes, however, were a disconcerting golden color, and there was a faint tinge of green to his fair hair, which was worn far too long for the exacting standards of any earthly service. His voice came not from his mouth but from a small square box that was strapped around his waist.
"We developed a leak in our water tanks," the stranger was saying. "It was necessary for us to replenish our supplies. This planet was the handiest to our trajectory. We had no idea that it was inhabited."
"You know that this is salt water," said Lessing, rather stupidly.
"We know. The minerals dissolved in the water will be very useful to us."
"I can't believe this," said Lessing, getting up out of his armchair. "It must be a hoax."
"I was inside their ship, sir," said Kennedy. "I didn't see much—but I saw enough to convince me that she was never built on Earth. She's a cargo vessel, like ourselves, and she's on a voyage from some planet around the Southern Cross—it may be one of the planets revolving around Acrux—to somewhere in the Great Bear."
"That's what they told you," said Lessing.
"That's what I told him, Captain," said the spaceman. "And it's true."
"I should report this," said Lessing. "It's my duty to report this. But they'll think I'm mad if I do."
"We'll back you up," said the chief officer.
"Then they'll think that you're mad too."
"Perhaps," suggested Korring, "I could leave proof with you."
From one pocket of his clothing he produced a slim tube, metallic, the size of a pencil. "This," he said, "is a torch—similar to the one that Mr. Kennedy is carrying but rather more efficient. Leave it in bright sunlight for one … hour, I think is the word. Or leave it in artificial light such as this for double the period, and it will burn continuously, if so desired, for all of the night." He handed the torch to Lessing, produced from another pocket a packet of little brown cylinders. "You put this end in your mouth," he said, "and inhale sharply. The other end starts to smolder. You suck in the smoke. It is most refreshing—"
"We smoke too," said Lessing. "Which reminds me—I'm not being a very good host." He produced whisky, and glasses, and opened the cigarette box on his desk. "You do drink, I suppose? This is one of our alcoholic liquors. You might like to try it."
"Thank you," said the spaceman.
Lessing splashed whisky into each of the three glasses. He passed the cigarettes around, struck a match to light them.
"The most interesting thing you have," he said, "is that box you talk through. What is it?"
"A psionic translator. It picks up my thoughts and converts them into your speech. It picks up your thoughts, as you speak, and converts them into my language. A simple device …" He drew on his cigarette, sipped his drink. "You know, you people are quite far advanced. This liquor of yours. These smoking tubes. And those little wooden sticks that burst into flame when you rub them against the box … I know that I am being very primitive, but I wonder if we could barter? This electric torch of mine and a packet of my smoking tubes for, say, a bottle of this subtly flavored alcohol and a packet of your smoking tubes?"
"It'd be a fair trade," said Lessing. And it'll be proof, he thought. Proof I must have. I can't swear the whole ship to silence. "It'll be a fair trade—"
The box at Korring's belt squawked then uttered a few syllables in an unknown language.
"They want me back," said the spaceman. "We must be on our way."
A few minutes later, when he was ferried back to the spaceship, he was carrying a carton of cigarettes, a packet of matches, and a bottle of whisky. A few minutes later still Lessing stood on his bridge and watched the alien vessel take off. There was no flare of rockets, no noise, no bother. There was a flickering luminosity under the vast hull as she lifted up and clear of the water, that was all. She rose slowly at first, then with increasing speed. For a short time she was a waning star among the stars, and then she was gone.
Lessing said to the mate, "We have to make a report on this—but what shall we say?"
"The truth," replied Kennedy. "But we shall never live it down."
It was, Lessing was to realize, very fortunate that he had made the trade with the alien spaceman. Had it not been for that highly efficient—and absolutely mysterious—torch, he and his crew would have been branded as picturesque liars. They were so regarded at first. Pressmen are justifiably skeptical of flying-saucer stories. Eventually—after it was obvious that Woollabra's entire crew had either suffered a mass hallucination or actually seen something out of the ordinary—the Navy condescended to take an interest in the case. Lessing had returned on board from a rather stormy interview with the company's branch manager and local marine superintendent when he found a young, keen lieutenant commander waiting for him.
"About this flying saucer, Captain," said the two and a half ringer.
"It was not a flying saucer," said Lessing. "It was more like a flying pineapple or flying porcupine. There were all sorts of vanes sticking out at odd angles."
"And you say you really saw the thing? I've been talking to your chief officer, and he tried to convince me that he was actually aboard it."
"He was," said Lessing. "And furthermore, one of the officers from the thing was aboard here." He unlocked the door of the cabin, motioned the naval officer to a seat. "Furthermore, he was sitting where you were sitting."
"Was he human?"
"He looked human."
"What language did he talk?"
"I don't know. He was wearing a little box on his belt that he said was a psionic translator, whatever that might be."
"And so you talked, you say. I suppose he told you that the people of Mars or Venus or Jupiter were watching us, and that if we didn't stop making atomic bombs it'd be just too bad, and all the rest of it."
Lessing flushed. "I've read those silly boo
ks too," he said, "and I believe them as little as you do. This spaceship of ours was an interstellar cargo vessel, and she made an emergency landing in the Bass Strait to take on water, her tanks having sprung a leak. We were, it seems, the nearest handy planet. The crew of the spaceship were as surprised to see us as we were to see them—they thought that this world was uninhabited. Anyhow, they took their water and they pushed off to continue their voyage." Lessing opened a drawer of his desk and pulled the key to his safe from under an untidy layer of papers. He got up from his chair, went to his safe, and opened it. He took out the packet of alien cigars, the torch. "I've been waiting," he said, "for the chance to show this evidence to somebody official for a long time. These are cigars—of a sort. They're self-igniting—"
"There was a self-igniting cigarette on the market a few years ago," said the lieutenant commander. "It never caught on."
"All right," said Lessing. "Then what's this script on the packet? Is it Greek, or Arabic, or what? Take one of the cigars and smell it. Does it smell like any tobacco you've ever come across?"
"No," admitted the naval officer.
"Then there's this torch. I don't know how it works. You have to leave it out in bright sunlight for an hour, and it will burn all night. No, there's no way of opening it. I've tried."
"Do you mind if I take these with me?"
"I'd like a receipt."
"You shall have one. Oh, one more thing. Would you mind not saying another word about this to the press?"
"Would you mind," replied Lessing, "telling the press to lay off my crew and myself?"
It is axiomatic that the tide runs sluggishly in official channels. The press had long forgotten Captain Lessing's flying saucer when he received a letter from the company's head office. This informed him that he was to be relieved of his command and that after handing over his ship he was to proceed to Canberra, there to be interviewed by sundry highly placed gentlemen. Like most Australians, Lessing had a distrust of politicians, maintaining that they came in only two varieties, bad and worse. He did not look forward to his trip to the nation's capital city.
Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 Page 21
