Travelers of Space - [Adventures in Science Fiction 03]

by Edited by Martin Greenburg

  “I would still like to know if the ventilator intake is on this roof,” remarked Little as they walked on. “It must be somewhere, and the wall we saw was perfectly smooth. There doesn’t seem to be anything out in the middle of this place, so if it’s anywhere, it must be hiding in the shadow of the parapet. Can you see any irregularities near the edges?”

  “No,” said Magill after straining his eyes in every direction, “I can’t. But we’re half a mile from two of the walls, and might easily miss such a thing at a much shorter distance. If it’s here, one of the men will find it sooner or later. Why do you worry about it, if you want us to use out­door air directly?”

  “I thought it might be a useful item of knowledge,” replied Little. “I succeeded in smuggling up my three remaining cylinders of geletane, dis­guised as part of the stove. I don’t suppose there’s enough to put the whole garrison out—but still, it would be nice to know their ventilating sys­tem.”

  “Good job, doctor. After we eat we’ll find out what else, if anything, the boys succeeded in bringing up, and more or less take inventory. Then perhaps we can arrange some plan for getting out of here. I wish we knew what has become of the Gomeisa; I don’t suppose we could manage the controls on that ship outside.” Magill made this remark with such per­fect seriousness that Little was forced to grin.

  “You may be a little optimistic, Keys. Remember the Vegans, who are far from stupid creatures, have been here for some time and have failed to get to first base to date.”

  “They are handicapped physically, Doc. They can’t live for long out­side without supplementary ultraviolet sources, and they have to plan with that in mind. Furthermore, this gravity is nearly twice that of Vega Five, and they can’t move at any rate better than a crawl.”

  Little was forced to admit the justice of this argument, but remained, in Magill’s opinion, pessimistic. He had developed a healthy respect for their captors, along with a slight comprehension of their motives. The trouble was, the Vegan’s description of the way the pentapods seemed to guess the purpose of a device before it was completed did not tie in very well with his theory concerning those motives. More thought was indi­cated. He indulged in it while Magill steered him back to the prison and dinner.

  ~ * ~

  The meal was good. There was no reason why it shouldn’t be, of course, since the cook had all the usual supplies and equipment; but Little was slightly surprised to find himself enjoying dinner while in durance vile as much as if he were on his own ship. It didn’t seem natural. They ate in the hallway, squatted in a circle in front of the kitchen door. The Vegans, whose quarters were directly opposite, watched from their door­ways. They also commented from time to time, but were very seldom answered, since both hands are required to speak Vegan. They would probably have felt slighted if one of them—not the one who had acted as interpreter—had not understood some English. He got about two words in every five, and succeeded in keeping his race in the conversation.

  The meal concluded, the meeting of the ways and means committee, which consisted of all human beings and Vegans in the neighborhood, was immediately called to order. The presence of nonmembers, though resented, was perforce permitted, and discussion began under the watch­ful eyes of eight or ten pentapods. Little, rather than Magill, presided.

  “The first thing we need to know,” he said, “is everything possible about our five-sided friends. The Vegans have been with them longer, and probably know more than we; but owing to the relative slowness of their speech, we will save their contribution until last. You who under­stand English may translate the substance of our discussion to your fel­lows if you wish, but we will hold a second meeting afterward and go over everything in your own language. First, then, will anyone who succeeded in smuggling any weapons or probable-contraband tools up here please report? Keep your hands in your pockets and your eyes on me while you do so; there is a high order of probability that our friends are very good at interpreting gestures—even human gestures.”

  A man directly across the circle from Little raised a hand. The doctor nodded to him.

  “When we were loading food, before we made that break, I dropped my testing kit into my pack first of all. I didn’t try to cover it up and I concentrated on boxed articles of food afterward to make it look natural.” The speaker was one of Goldthwaite’s assistants, a tall fellow with the in­signia of a technician’s mate. Little knew him fairly well. He had been born on Earth but showed plainly a background of several generations on the colony-planet Regulus Six—big bones, dark skin, quick reactions. “Good work, Dennis. What is in the kit?”

  “Pliers, volt-ammeter, about sixty feet of assorted sizes of silver wire, two-thousand-line grating, midget atomic wire-welder, six plano-convex lenses of various focal lengths, support rod and two mirrors to go with them, and a small stroboscope.”

  “Item, one portable laboratory,” remarked Little. “Congratulations. Leo, I suppose you have outdone your brother?”

  Leo Dennis, the twin brother of the first speaker, shook his head. “Just an old-fashioned manual razor. I’ll start accepting offers tomorrow.” Little smiled and fingered his chin.

  “You’re too late, unless someone brought scissors to start with. Safety razors weren’t built to cope with a ten-day growth, more or less. Never mind, we may find a use for it—it’s a cutting tool, anyway. Next?”

  ~ * ~

  There was a pause, with everybody looking expectantly at his neigh­bor. Evidently the total had been reached. Little spoke again. “Did anybody try to smuggle something and fail?”

  “I tried to salvage Goldy’s liquor, and had it taken from me,” an­swered another man. “I guess they’re firmly convinced it’s lethal. I wish them luck in analyzing the stuff—we never could.”

  “How far did you get before they took it from you?”

  “They let me pick up the bottles that were lying around, and put them in the case; half a dozen of them watched me while I did that. But when I started to carry the case toward the gate—of course, that was some job, as Goldy found out—they all walked up and just took it away. They didn’t get violent or anything like that.”

  “Then it wasn’t really a case of detected smuggling; you made no ef­fort to mask your real intentions. Is that right?”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t quite see how anyone could hide either that case or the bottles; I was just sort of hoping against hope.”

  Little nodded and called for more contributions. A gunner responded.

  “I found a couple of cases of grenades and stuck several into my pock­ets. The next thing I knew, one of the starfish was holding my arms, and another taking them out again. He handled them as though he knew what they were.”

  “I suppose you checked the safeties before you pocketed the bombs?”

  “Of course, sir,”

  Little nodded wearily. “Of course. And that was enough for our admittedly astute friends. I admit it’s usually a very good idea to obey regulations, but there are exceptions to every rule. I think the present circumstances constitute an exception to most of them. Any others?”

  Apparently no one else had seen anything he coveted sufficiently to attempt to sneak out of the piles. The doctor didn’t care particularly; he believed he had enough data from that source, and an idea was rapidly growing. Unfortunately, the primary principle of that idea required him to learn even more, though not about his captors. Possibly the Vegans could supply the information, but Little was not prepared to bet on it.

  Magill closed the discussion by mentioning the anesthetic which Little had made available, and requesting an early communication of all ideas. The men withdrew into smaller groups, talking in low tones among them­selves, and gradually drifted through the doors to their rooms, or out onto the roof. Magill followed to take a small group down again for the sleep­ing bags.

  ~ * ~

  Little remained with the Vegans. He had a good deal to ask them, and material which could be covered in an hour
of verbal conversation would probably take three or four hours of arm-waving. He sat just out­side the fan of intense light from one of the doorways, and the creatures formed a semicircle just inside—the door was wide enough for the four of them, since it had been constructed to admit the pentapods. The doc­tor opened the conversation.

  “How long have you been here?” was his first question. It was an­swered by the individual who had acted as interpreter.

  “Since our arrival there have passed about two hundred of the days of this planet. We are not sure just how long they are, but we believe they are about thirty of your hours. We have no idea of the length of time that elapsed between our capture and our arrival at this place, however. We were driving a small private ship on a sightseeing trip to a world which had recently been reported near the galactic center by one of our official exploring vessels, and were near its reported position when we were taken. They simply engulfed us—moved up and dragged our ship into a cargo lock with magnets. We were on their ship a long time before they put us off here and left again, and we were not allowed to obtain any of our belongings except food and ultraviolet lamps until we arrived; so we don’t know how long the trip lasted. One of us”—the Vegan indicated the in­dividual—”got up courage enough to venture onto the roof one night and saw what he thinks was the Galaxy; so we believe this world lies in the Cloud. You will be able to tell better for yourselves—you can stand the dark longer than we, and your eyes are better at locating faint de­tails.”

  “You may be right. We were heading toward the Cloud when we were taken,” answered Little. “How freely have you been permitted to move about this fort?”

  “We may go almost anywhere above ground level,” was the answer. “Some of these watchers”—a supple antenna gestured toward the ever-present guards—”are always with us, and they prevent us from taking the elevators any lower. Then there are a few rooms on the upper levels which are always sealed, and two or three which are open but whose thresholds we are not permitted to cross.”

  “How do they prevent your entering?”

  “They simply get in front of us, and push us back if we persist. They have never used violence on us. They never need to; we are in no position to dispute their wishes. There is no comparison between them and us physically, and we are very much out of our natural environment.”

  “Have you been able to deduce the nature or purpose of the rooms from which you are barred?”

  “We assume that they are control rooms, communication offices, or chart rooms. One of them contains several devices which look like ordi­nary television screens. Whether they are for long-range use or are merely part of a local system, of course we cannot tell.” Little pondered for sev­eral moments before speaking again.

  “You mentioned constructing several devices to aid in escape, only to have them taken away from you just before they were completed. Could you give me more details on just what happened? What were you doing, and at what stage were you interrupted? How did you expect to get away from the planet?”

  “We did not expect to get away. We just wanted to make them go, so we could take over the fort. When we disconnected their tube lights to put in our own, he”—indicating the creature beside him—”managed to retain a sample of the tube. On its walls were absorbed layers of several gases, but neon was the chief component. We had smuggled in the neu­trino converters and stabilizers from our ship”—and Keys said these fel­lows were helpless, thought Little—”and it occurred to us that we might set up a neon-oxygen reaction which would flood the place with ultra­violet. We had already noticed that they could not stand it any better than you. The half life of the process would have been of the order of twelve hours, which should have driven them out for a period of time ample for our purpose. A neutrino jet of very moderate power, correctly tuned, could easily have catalyzed such a reaction in every light tube in the place. We had built the projector, disguising it as another ultraviolet lamp, and were connecting the converter when about fifty of the guards dived in, took the whole thing away, and ran out before the lamps we already had going could hurt them.”

  ~ * ~

  Little heroically forbore to ask the creatures why they had not smug­gled in their ship while they were about it and flown away. The Vegans wouldn’t have appreciated the humor.

  “I believe I understand the purpose of the actions of these creatures,” he said. “But some of their characteristics still puzzle me. Their team­work is perfect, better than that of well-trained human fighters, but if my idea is correct their technical knowledge is inferior to ours. I have already mentioned to my captain their apparent lack of conceit—that is also based on my guess as to their motives in capturing us. One thing, however, I do not understand at all. How do they communicate? I have always been reluctant to fall back on the ‘explanation’ of telepathy; there are reasons which make me doubt that it can ever be a satisfactory substitute for a language.”

  The Vegans looked at him for a moment, astonishment reflected in the tenseness of their antennae.

  “You do not see how they talk?” signaled one at length. “That is the first and only thing we have been able to appreciate in their entire makeup.”

  Little leaned forward. “Explain, please,” he waved tensely. “That may be the most important thing any of us has yet ascertained.”

  The Vegans explained at length. Great length. The recital was stretched out by Little’s frequent questions, and once or twice delayed by his im­perfect comprehension of the Vegan language. The sun was low in the west when the conversation ended, but the doctor had at last what he believed to be a complete mental picture of the habits, thoughts, and nature of the pentapods, and he had more than the glimmerings of a plan which might set the human and Vegan prisoners free once more. He hoped.

  He left his nonhuman allies, and sought out Magill. He found him at the western corner of the roof, examining the landscape visible beyond the tail of the spaceship. A couple of pentapods were on hand, as usual. Leo Dennis was making himself useful, sketching the western skyline on a pad he carried, with the apparent intention of marking the sunset point. Magill had evidently decided that an assistant navigator should be able to get his own location on a planet’s surface as well as in space. Dennis was slightly handicapped by a total lack of instruments, but was doing his best. Little approached the quartermaster.

  “Has anything new turned up, Keys?”

  The officer shook his head without turning. “The men are all over the roof, to see if there are any ventilator intakes or anything else. One of them pointed out that the lack of superstructure suggested that the roof might be used as a landing place for atmosphere craft, and found some blast marks to back up the idea. No one else has made any worth-while reports. If there are any aircraft, though, I’d like to know where they stow them.”

  “It might help, though I hope we won’t be driven to using them. I suppose the boys have their eyes open for large, probably level-set trap­doors in the roof. But what I wanted to find out was: with whom am I sharing a room?”

  “Don’t recall, offhand,” replied Magill. “It doesn’t matter greatly. If there is anyone in particular you want—or don’t want—to be with, you’re at liberty to trade with someone. I told the boys that.”

  “Thanks. I want to spend some time with the Dennis boys, without making it too obvious. I suppose they’re already together. By the way, seeing I’m still a medical officer, has anyone reported sick? The air is just a shade on the thin side, and we’ve been breathing it long enough for effects to show, if there are going to be any.”

  Magill shook his head negatively, and Little strolled over to Leo, who had completed his sketch and was trying to mark the position of the sun at five-minute intervals. He was wearing one of the few watches possessed by the party. He was perfectly willing to have his erstwhile roommate replaced by the doctor, especially when Little promised work to be done. He agreed to speak to his brother and to Cauley, who had originally been a
ssigned to their room.

  “Tell Arthur to bring his pack, with the kit he sneaked along,” added the doctor. “We will probably have use for it.” Leo nodded, grinning, and resumed his attempts to fix the position of an object, much too bright to view directly, which had an angular breadth on the order of half a de­gree. He didn’t appear discouraged yet.

  ~ * ~

  Little wandered off across the roof, occasionally meeting and speak­ing to one of the men. Morale seemed to be good, he noted with relief. He had always considered that to be part of the business of a medical officer, since it was, after all, directly reflected in the health of the men.

  A motion in the direction of the setting sun caught his eye. He turned to face it and saw a narrow, dazzling crescent low in the western sky, a crescent that rose and grew broader as he watched. The planet had a sat­ellite, like Mars, so close that its period of revolution was less than one of its own days. Little wondered if a body so close to the planet might not prove useful. He filed the thought away for future reference.

  The sun set as he watched, and he realized he had been right about the thinness of the air. Darkness shut down almost at once. The moon sprang into brilliance—brilliance that was deceptive, for details on the landscape were almost impossible to make out. Stars, scattered at ran­dom over the sky, began to appear; and as the last traces of daylight faded away, there became visible, at first hazily and then clear and definite, the ghostly shape of the Galaxy. Its sprawling spiral arms stretched across a quarter of the sky, the bulk of the system inclined some thirty degrees from the edge-on position—just enough to show off the tracing of the great lanes of dust that divided the arms.