“Nova,” they said in quick unison.
Riggs cut the motor and backed the film up, running it through one frame at a time. “There it is,” he said. “First photographically detectable one hundred and four days after that observatory was serviced.” He started the projector again, and the two watched the image of the nova grow rapidly, then fade with astounding suddenness.
“Umph,” Hawley grunted. “That was a quickie. How long did it last?”
Riggs was reading the date on the frame. “Four hundred and twenty terrestrial days between appearance and disappearance, photographically, but it was really quicker than that. It had sunk to the twentieth magnitude in two hundred days, more or less. Sort of looks like Hunter’s hypothesis might be correct, doesn’t it?”
Hawley shook his head slowly as the rest of the reel ran through the projector without event. “I don’t know. I’m not up on nova theory. I stick fairly close to home with navigational theory. That’s my chief interest.” He switched on the lights in the tiny projection room. “I suppose I’ll be teaching twelve months in the year pretty soon,” he observed, not looking at Riggs.
The copilot jumped a little. That was dangerous talk. He said nothing, playing safe.
“What d’ya think about that?” Hawley demanded, his black eyes snapping at Riggs.
“Why, I don’t know, sir,” he replied. “If you like teaching that well, I’m sure it’s the thing to do.”
“Don’t play dumb, Riggs,” Hawley snapped. “You know what I’m talking about. They may take my space rating away.”
Again the copilot kept a reserved silence.
“Well,” the commander demanded, “don’t you think they will?”
Riggs shook his head and swallowed before answering. “I couldn’t say, sir. I thought that was all up to the examiner. I see no reason—” he started to say, then cut it off.
Hawley smiled nastily at him. “You aren’t kidding me, Riggs,” he said. “I know you’re the examiner here. What you report will decide what the board of examiners does. Isn’t that right?”
Riggs said nothing.
“Oh, all right, I know you can’t say anything, but you don’t fool me a minute. Conklin is about as subtle as a crutch. He picked you because I gave you the highest marks in theory. That doddering old walrus.” He laughed a little bitterly. “Well, I suppose it had to come sometime. I had visions of keeping that rating till I was forty. I’d only have to pass four more,” he said, almost pleading.
Riggs still made no comment, packing the film into its cans.
“I can’t understand what went wrong with that landing,” the older man said. “I must have been thinking about something else. After all, I never had a bit of trouble with all those angle shots on Rigel II.” He looked inquiringly at Riggs, but the copilot gave him no encouragement.
“All right, all right,” Hawley said wearily, “be a good little soldier.” He walked to the door, leaving Riggs standing by the projector. “But don’t you try to kid me,” Hawley said, hand on the knob. “I know you’ve been laying for me ever since we started this patrol. You’re still hot about the way I treated you in class, aren’t you? Sure you are, you ungrateful pup!” He yanked the door open and stepped through it before Riggs could deny the accusation.
Riggs stood beside the projector, automatically disconnecting the leads, half glad that he hadn’t had a chance to deny Hawley’s charge of carrying a grudge. He wasn’t quite sure that it wasn’t true, after all. He still didn’t know what he should do about his report as examiner. Hawley had undoubtedly badly botched a landing. He had become confused, what was worse, and given up. But on the other side was the fact that he had successfully completed several extremely difficult approaches prior to his poor one, and made several good routine landings after it. It was a problem.
~ * ~
Back an Earth, with the Little Falls patrol completed without further incident or further conversation with Hawley, Riggs had two days to complete his report before the meeting of the board of examiners. He went before the board, finally, with very mixed emotions, and very uncertain of his decision.
The three members of the tribunal sat in solemn dignity at a long table at one end of the chamber. Hawley had arrived before Riggs, and he showed no surprise when his copilot entered. Riggs tried to compose himself, mentally dreading the moment he would have to stand up, now a mere second lieutenant, and hold typewritten sheets of paper in his hand as he read his report. He cursed his trembling fingers, knowing they would reveal themselves in the fluttering of his papers as he tried to read.
Major General Conklin, officiating for the board, cleared his throat and rumbled, “Lieutenant Riggs, please take the floor.”
Riggs stood up, leaning against the edge of the table to conceal his shaking knees. “Yes, sir,” he said, trying to mask the quaver in his voice. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Major Hawley’s superior smile.
Commander Conklin growled again, “As examiner aboard the Little Falls, will you please give your report on any members of the crew who were up for their space ratings?”
Riggs saluted wordlessly and steeled himself to begin. “Besides myself there was only one other pilot aboard the Little Falls, sir,” he said, “and that was Major Hawley. Major Hawley demonstrated to my satisfaction his complete understanding of all the details of piloting a rocketship and his excellent theoretical knowledge of the piloting of the same.”
He could hear a sigh of expelled breaths as every man present noted his slight emphasis of the word theoretical. Dictaphones hummed softly as his words were recorded.
“However,” Riggs continued, “Major Hawley, in spite of performing what amounted to feats of piloting ability, became badly confused on one landing, so confused, in fact, that he turned the controls over to me. Subsequently he landed five times perfectly. Gentlemen,” he said, “I am unable to account for Major Hawley’s sudden lapse. Considerations of his advanced age, as far as piloting goes, make it seem likely that he might be expected to experience difficulty, progressively more difficulty as he gets older. However, his ability to handle the ship with no apparent effort on all other occasions, and the fact that he did not seem to lose confidence in himself after his unsuccessful approach, seem to indicate further examination by this board.
“I feel morally certain that Major Hawley’s lapse was due to some temporary physiological difficulty which passed unnoticed by him and which is either very unlikely to recur, or can be simply corrected. Therefore, instead of recommending that Major Hawley show cause why he should not be deprived of his rating, as might seem indicated, I recommend that he be given a complete physical and psychological examination by the board, and that if nothing is found wrong, his rating be extended another year.”
Riggs sat down, feeling a little better about his report. It had gone off rather well, he thought, and he was sure he was right. Hawley wasn’t through yet. Maybe next year, or the year after, but not this year.
Commander Conklin made no comment on Riggs’s report other than to send an orderly to pick up the typed sheets. He “harrumphed” again and slowly said, “Major Hawley, your report, please.”
This was a complete surprise to Riggs. He had expected at the most that Hawley would be given a chance to defend himself against any detrimental evidence presented by Riggs, but a report from his former commander was unexpected.
The small man stood up, very straight and martial in appearance, his black eyes snapping, his face otherwise expressionless. “I report that the board’s original ideas with regard to Lieutenant Riggs were completely justified. Besides showing great native ability as a pilot, he has shown great tact in handling a delicate situation, and a levelheadedness that compels me to recommend him for the promotion you gentlemen had in mind.” He sat down, likewise not giving his erstwhile companion a glance.
Riggs, overjoyed at Hawley’s report, felt that his cup was running over. He expected Conklin to mumble an acceptance of the reports, b
ut to his great surprise the commander suddenly called his name again. Riggs stood up.
“In view of certain extenuating circumstances known to the board,” Conklin began, almost self-consciously, “we find it necessary to reject your report in the form it now stands. Major Hawley is hereby certified for a space rating for one year without further examination. Meeting adjourned.”
Bo Riggs got stiffly to his feet, the bottom of his stomach apparently somewhere near his knees as he struggled to walk out with an unconcerned air. Hawley got up, too, and walked out at his side.
As they reached the corridor, but before the examiners had begun to file out, Hawley tapped his junior on the shoulder. “Look here, Riggs,” he said, smiling a genuine smile at last. “You’ve got most of the makings of a good officer. There’s only one thing you’ll have to combat.”
“Yes, sir,” Riggs said wretchedly, knowing nothing else to say in his confusion.
“Yes, sir,” mimicked Hawley. “The trouble with you, Riggs,” he went on, “is that you’re too damned naive. I’m almost insulted to think that you believed I really botched that landing that badly. Don’t you know a put-up job when you see one?”
He grinned evilly and walked away, while the incipient Captain Riggs alternately knifed him mentally in the back and blessed the day he was born.
<
~ * ~
Katherine MacLean
CONTAGION
One of the major hazards man will have to face on strange worlds, particularly where the planetary ecology seems to be such that he could live there without spacesuit and oxygen tank, will be the native viruses, bacteria, fungi, and other unknown and probably poisonous micros-elements that he will encounter. Even on Earth, the introduction of a new disease producer such as the syphilis microorganism into a society theretofore free of it has nearly eliminated whole populations unprepared for it by the development of bodily immunities or adequate prophylactic or preventive measures.
This story sets forth the strangest of all “diseases” ever described in science fiction, a disease to which the Earthian explorers are automatically susceptible. It is a thoroughly upsetting concept.
~ * ~
IT WAS like an Earth forest in the fall, but it was not fall. The forest leaves were green and copper and purple and fiery red, and a wind sent patches of bright greenish sunlight dancing among the leaf shadows.
The hunt party of the Explorer filed along the narrow trail, guns ready, walking carefully, listening to the distant, half-familiar cries of strange birds.
A faint crackle of static in their earphones indicated that a gun had been fired.
“Got anything?” asked June Walton. The helmet intercom carried her voice to the ears of the others without breaking the stillness of the forest.
“Took a shot at something,” explained George Barton’s cheerful voice in her earphones. She rounded a bend of the trail and came upon Barton standing peering up into the trees, his gun still raised. “It looked like a duck.”
“This isn’t Central Park,” said Hal Barton, his brother, coming into sight. His green spacesuit struck an incongruous note against the bronze and red forest. “They won’t all look like ducks,” he said soberly.
“Maybe some will look like dragons. Don’t get eaten by a dragon, June,” came Max’s voice quietly into her earphones. “Not while I still love you.” He came out of the trees carrying the blood-sample kit, and touched her glove with his, the grin on his ugly beloved face barely visible in the mingled light and shade. A patch of sunlight struck a greenish glint from his fish-bowl helmet.
They walked on. A quarter of a mile back, the spaceship Explorer towered over the forest like a tapering skyscraper, and the people of the ship looked out of the viewplates at fresh winds and sunlight and clouds, and they longed to be outside.
But the likeness to Earth was danger, and the cool wind might be death, for if the animals were like Earth animals, their diseases might be like Earth diseases, alike enough to be contagious, different enough to be impossible to treat. There was warning enough in the past. Colonies had vanished, and traveled spaceways drifted with the corpses of ships which had touched on some plague planet.
The people of the ship waited while their doctors, in airtight space-suits, hunted animals to test them for contagion.
The four medicos, for June Walton was also a doctor, filed through the alien, homelike forest, walking softly, watching for motion among the copper and purple shadows.
They saw it suddenly, a lighter moving copper patch among the darker browns. Reflex action swung June’s gun into line, and behind her someone’s gun went off with a faint crackle of static and made a hole in the leaves beside the specimen. Then for a while no one moved.
This one looked like a man, a magnificently muscled, leanly graceful, humanlike animal. Even in its calloused bare feet it was a head taller than any of them. Red-haired, hawk-faced, and darkly tanned, it stood breathing heavily, looking at them without expression. At its side hung a sheath knife, and a crossbow was slung across one wide shoulder.
They lowered their guns.
“It needs a shave,” Max said reasonably in their earphones, and he reached up to his helmet and flipped the switch that let his voice be heard. “Something we could do for you, Mac?”
The friendly drawl was the first voice that had broken the forest sounds. June smiled suddenly. He was right. The strict logic of evolution did not demand beards; therefore a nonhuman would not be wearing a three-day growth of red stubble.
Still panting, the tall figure licked dry lips and spoke. “Welcome to Minos. The mayor sends greetings from Alexandria.”
“English?” gasped June.
“We were afraid you would take off again before I could bring word to you. . . . It’s three hundred miles. . . . We saw your scout plane pass twice, but we couldn’t attract its attention.”
June looked in stunned silence at the stranger leaning against the tree. Thirty-six light-years—thirty-six times six trillion miles of monotonous space travel—to be told that the planet was already settled! “We didn’t know there was a colony here,” she said. “It is not on the map.”
“We were afraid of that,” the tall bronze man answered soberly. “We have been here three generations and yet no traders have come.”
Max shifted the kit strap on his shoulder and offered a hand. “My name is Max Stark, M.D. This is June Walton, M.D., Hal Barton, M.D., and George Barton, Hal’s brother, also M.D.”
“Patrick Mead is the name,” smiled the man, shaking hands casually. “Just a hunter and bridge carpenter myself. Never met any medicos before.”
The grip was effortless, but even through her airproofed glove June could feel that the fingers that touched hers were as hard as padded steel.
“What—what is the population of Minos?” she asked.
He looked down at her curiously for a moment before answering. “Only one hundred and fifty.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, this isn’t a city planet yet. There’s room for a few more people.” He shook hands with the Bartons quickly. “That is—you are people, aren’t you?” he asked startlingly.
“Why not?” said Max with a poise that June admired.
“Well, you are all so—so—” Patrick Mead’s eyes roamed across the faces of the group. “So varied.”
They could find no meaning in that, and stood puzzled.
“I mean,” Patrick Mead said into the silence, “all these—interesting different hair colors and face shapes and so forth—” He made a vague wave with one hand as if he had run out of words or was anxious not to insult them.
“Joke?” Max asked, bewildered.
June laid a hand on his arm. “No harm meant,” she said to him over the intercom. “We’re just as much of a shock to him as he is to us.”
She addressed a question on outside sound to the tall colonist. “What should a person look like, Mr. Mead?”
He indicated her with a smile. “Like you.”
<
br /> June stepped closer and stood looking up at him, considering her own description. She was tall and tanned, like him; had a few freckles, like him; and wavy red hair, like his. She ignored the brightly humorous blue eyes.
“In other words,” she said, “everyone on the planet looks like you and me?”
Patrick Mead took another look at their four faces and began to grin. “Like me, I guess. But I hadn’t thought of it before. I did not think that people could have different-colored hair or that noses could fit so many ways onto faces. I was judging by my own appearance, but I suppose any fool can walk on his hands and say the world is upside down!” He laughed and sobered. “But then why wear spacesuits? The air is breathable.”
Possible Worlds of Science Fiction Page 34
