The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

by Vernor Vinge

  “That’s right. People. On the Palmer Peninsula. The Antarctic Continent is inhabited. Why, finding humans in Europe couldn’t be any more fantastic—”

  “Mire, Señor Profesor. I’m vaguely aware of the importance of what you say.” There was that smile again. “But the Vigilancia—”

  Diego tried again. “We simply have to land and investigate the light. Just consider the scientific importance of it all—” The anthropologist had said the wrong thing.

  Delgado’s cynical indifference dropped away and his young, experienced face became fierce. “Scientific import! If those slimy Australian friends of yours wanted to, they could give us all the scientific knowledge ever known. Instead they have their sympathizers”—he jabbed a finger at Ribera—“run all about the South World doing ‘research’ that’s been done ten times as well more than two centuries ago. The pigs don’t even use the knowledge for their own gain.” This last was the greatest condemnation Delgado could offer.

  Ribera had difficulty restraining a bitter reply, but one mistake this evening was more than enough. He could understand though not approve Delgado’s bitterness against a nation which had been wise (or lucky) enough not to burn its libraries during the riots following the North World War. The Australians have the knowledge, all right, thought Ribera, but they also have the wisdom to know that some fundamental changes must be made in human society before this knowledge can be reintroduced, or else we’ll wind up with a South World War and no more human race. This was a point Delgado and many others refused to accept. “But really, Señor Capitán, we are doing original research. Ocean currents and populations change over the years. Our data are often quite different from those we know were gathered before. This light Juarez saw tonight is the strongest evidence of all that things are different.” And for Diego Ribera, it was especially important. As an anthropologist he had had nothing to do during the voyage except be seasick. A thousand times during the trip he had asked himself why he had been the one to organize the ecologists and oceanographers and get them on the ship; now he knew. If he could just convince this bigoted sailor…

  Delgado appeared relaxed again. “And too, Señor Profesor, you must remember that you ‘scientists’ are really superfluous on this expedition. You were lucky to get aboard at all.”

  That was true. El Presidente Imperial was even more hostile to scientists of the Melbourne School than Delgado was. Ribera didn’t like to think of all the boot-licking and chicanery that had been necessary to get his people on the expedition. The anthropologist’s reply to the other’s last comment started out respectfully, almost humbly. “Yes, I know you are doing something truly important here.” He paused. To hell with it, he thought, suddenly sick of his own ingratiating manner. This fool won ’t listen to logic or flattery. Ribera’s tone changed. “Yeah, I know you are doing something truly important here. Somewhere up in Buenos Aires the Chief Astrologer to el Presidente Imperial looked at his crystal ball or whatever and said to Alfredo IV in sepulchral tones: ‘Señor Presidente, the stars have spoken. All the secrets of joy and wealth lie on the floating Isle of Coney. Send your men southward to find it.’ And so you, the Vigilancia NdP, and half the mental cripples in Sudamérica are wandering around the coast of Antarctica looking for Coney Island,” Ribera ran out of breath and satire at the same time. He knew his long-caged temper had just ruined all his plans and perhaps put his life in danger.

  Delgado’s face seemed frozen. His eyes flickered over Ribera’s shoulder and looked at a mirror strategically placed in the space between the door frame and the top of the cabin’s door. Then he looked back at the anthropologist. “If I weren’t such a reasonable man you would be orca meat before morning.” Then he smiled, a sincere friendly grin. “Besides, you’re right. Those fools in Buenos Aires aren’t fit to rule a pigsty, much less the Sudamérican Empire. Alfredo I was a man, a superman. Before the war-diseases had died out, he had united an entire continent under one fist, a continent that no one had been able to unite with jet planes and automatic weapons. But his heirs, especially the one that’s in now, are superstitious tramps…Frankly, that’s why I can’t land on the coast. The Imperial Astrologer, that fellow Jones y Urrutia, would claim when we returned to Buenos Aires that I had catered to you Australian sympathizers and el Presidente would believe him and I would probably end up with a one-way ticket to the Northern Hemisphere.”

  Ribera was silent for a second, trying to accept Delgado’s sudden friendliness. Finally he ventured, “I would’ve thought you’d like the astrologers; you seem to dislike us scientists enough.”

  “You’re using labels, Ribera. I feel nothing toward labels. It is success that wins my affection, and failure my hate. There may have been some time in the past when a group calling themselves astrologers could produce results. I don’t know, and the matter doesn’t interest me, for I live in the present. In our time the men working in the name of astrology are incapable of producing results, are conscious frauds. But don’t be smug; your own people have produced damn few results. And if it should ever come that the astrologers are successful, I will take up their arts without hesitation and denounce you and your Scientific Method as superstition—for that is what it would be in the face of a more successful method.”

  The ultimate pragmatist, thought Ribera. At least there is one form of persuasion that will work. “I see what you mean, Señor Capitán. And as to success: there is one way that you could land with impunity, A lot can happen over the centuries.” He continued half-slyly, “What was once a floating island might become grounded on the shore of the continent. If the astrologers could be convinced of the idea…” He let the sentence hang.

  Delgado considered, but not for long, “Say! That is an idea. And I personally would like to find out what kind of creature would prefer this icebox over the rest of the South World.

  “Very well. I’ll try it. Now get out. I’m going to have to make this look like it’s all the astrologers’ idea, and you are likely to puncture the illusion if you’re around when I talk to them.”

  Ribera lurched from his chair, caught off balance by the swaying of the deck and the abruptness of his dismissal. Without a doubt, Delgado was the most unusual Sudamérican officer Ribera had ever met.

  “Muchísimas gracias, Señor Capitán.” He turned and walked unsteadily out the door, past the storm light by the entrance, and into the wind-filled darkness of the short Antarctic night.

  THE ASTROLOGERS DID indeed like the idea. At two-thirty in the morning (just after sunrise) the Vigilancia, Nave del Presidente, changed course and tacked toward the area of coast where the light had been. Before the sun had been up six hours, the landing boats were over the side and heading for the coast.

  In his eagerness, Diego Ribera y Rodrigues had scrambled aboard the first boat to be launched, not noticing that the Imperial Astrologers had used their favored status on the expedition to commandeer the lead craft. It was a clear day, but the wind made the water choppy and frigid saltwater was splattered over the men in the boat. The tiny vessel rose and fell, rose and fell, with a monotony that promised to make Ribera sick.

  “Ah, so you are finally taking an interest in our Quest,” a reedy voice interrupted his thoughts. Ribera turned to face the speaker, and recognized one Juan Jones y Urrutia, Subassistant to the Chief Astrologer to el Presidente Imperial. No doubt the vapid young mystic actually believed the tales of Coney Island, or else he would have managed to stay up in Buenos Aires with the rest of the hedonists in Alfredo’s court. Beside the astrologer sat Capitán Delgado. The good captain must have done some tremendous persuading, for Jones seemed to regard the whole idea of visiting the coast as his own conception.

  Ribera endeavored to smile. “Why yes, uh—”

  Jones pressed on. “Tell me; would you have ever suspected life here, you who don’t bother to consult the True Fundamentals?”

  Ribera groaned. He noticed Delgado smiling at his discomfort. If the boat went through one more rise-fa
ll, Ribera thought he’d scream; it did and he didn’t.

  “I guess we couldn’t have guessed it, no.” Ribera edged to the side of the boat, cursing himself for having been so eager to get on the first boat.

  His eyes roamed the horizon—anything to get away from the vacuous, smug expression on Jones’ face. The coast was gray, bleak, covered with large boulders. The breakers smashing into it seemed faintly yellow or red where they weren’t while foam—probably coloring from the algae and diatoms in the water; the ecology boys would know.

  “Smoke ahead!” The shout came thinly through the air from the second boat. Ribera squinted and examined the coast minutely. There! Barely recognizable as smoke, the wind-distorted haze rose from some point hidden by the low coastal hills. What if it turned out to be some sluggishly active volcano? That depressing thought had not occurred to him before. The geologists would have fun, but it would be a bust as far as he was concerned…In any case, they would know which it was in a few minutes.

  Capitán Delgado appraised the situation, then spoke several curt commands to the oarsmen. The crew’s cadence shifted, and the boat turned ninety degrees to move parallel to the shore and breakers five hundred meters off. The trailing boats imitated the lead craft’s maneuver.

  Soon the coast bent sharply inward, revealing a long, narrow inlet. The night before, the Vigilancia must have been directly in line with the channel in order for Juarez to see the light. The three boats moved up the narrow channel. Soon the wind died. All that could be heard of it was a chill whistle as it tore at the hills which bordered the channel. The waves were much gentler now and the icy water no longer splashed into the boats, though the men’s parkas were already caked with salt. Earlier the water had seemed faintly yellow; now it appeared orange and even red, especially farther up the inlet. The brilliant bacterial contamination contrasted sharply with the dull hills, hills that bore no trace of vegetation. In the place of plant life, uniformly gray boulders of all sizes covered the landscape. Nowhere was there snow; that would come with the winter, still five months in the future. But to Ribera this “summer” landscape was many times harsher than the bleakest winter scene in Sudamérica. Red water, gray hills. The only things that seemed even faintly normal were the brilliant blue sky, and the sun, which cast long shadows into the drowned valley; a sun that seemed always at the point of setting even though it had barely risen.

  Ribera’s attention wandered up the channel. He forgot the sea sickness, the bloody water, the dead land. He could see them; not an ambiguous glow in the night, but people! He could see their huts, apparently made of stone and hides, and partly dug into the ground. He could see what appeared to be leather-hulled boats or kayaks along with a larger, white boat (now what could that be?), lying on the ground before the little village. He could see people! Not the expressions on their faces nor the exact manner of their clothing, but he could sec them and that was enough for the instant. Here was something truly new; something the long dead scholars of Oxford, Cambridge, and UCLA had never learned, could never have learned. Here was something that mankind was seeing for the first and not the second or third or fourth time around!

  What brought these people here? Ribera asked himself. From the few books on polar cultures that he had read at the University of Melbourne, he knew that generally populations are forced into the polar regions by competing peoples. What were the forces behind this migration? Who were these people?

  The boats swept swiftly forward on the quiet water. Soon Ribera fell the hull of his craft scrape bottom. He and Delgado jumped into the red water and helped the oarsmen drag the boat onto the beach. Ribera waited impatiently for the two other boats, which carried the scientists, to arrive. In the meantime, he concentrated his attention on the natives, trying to understand every detail of their lives at once.

  None of the aborigines moved; none ran; none attacked. They stood where they had been when he had first seen them. They did not scowl or wave weapons, but Ribera was distinctly aware that they were not friendly. No smiles, no welcome grimness. They seemed a proud people. The adults were tall, their faces so grimy, tanned, and withered that the anthropologist could only guess at their race. From the set of their lips, he knew that most of them lacked teeth. The natives’ children peeped around the legs of their mothers, women who seemed old enough to be great-grandmothers. If they had been Sudaméricans, he would have estimated their average age as sixty or seventy, but he knew that it couldn’t be more than twenty or twenty-five.

  From the pattern of fatty tissues in their faces, Ribera thought he could detect evidence of cold adaptation; maybe they were Eskimos, though it would have been physically impossible for that race to migrate from one pole to the other while the North World War raged. Both their parkas and the kayaks appeared to be made of seal hide. But the parkas were ill-designed and much bulkier than the Eskimo outfits he had seen in pictures. And the harpoons they held were much less ingenious than the designs he remembered. If these people were of the supposedly extinct Eskimo race, they were an extraordinarily primitive branch of it. Besides, they were much too hairy to be full-blooded Indians or Eskimos.

  With half his mind, he noticed the astrologers glance at the village and dismiss it. They were after the Isle of Coney, not some smelly aborigines. Ribera smiled bitterly; he wondered what Jones’ reaction would be if the astrologer ever learned that Coney had been an amusement park. Many legends had grown up after the North World War and the one about Coney Island was one of the weirdest. Jones led his men up one of the nearer hills, evidently to get a better view of the area. Capitán Delgado hastily dispatched twelve crewmen to accompany the mystics. The good sailor obviously recognized what a position he would be in if any of the astrologers were lost.

  Ribera’s mind returned to the puzzle: Where were these people from? How had they gotten here? Perhaps that was the best angle on the problem: People don’t just sprout from the ground. The pitiful kayaks—they weren’t true kayaks; they didn’t enclose the lower body of the user—could hardly transport a person ten kilometers over open water. What about that large white craft, farther up the beach? It seemed a much sturdier vessel than the hide and bone “kayaks.” He looked at it more closely—the white craft might even be made of fiberglass, a pre-War construction material. Maybe he should get a closer look at it.

  A shout attracted Ribera’s attention; he turned. The second landing craft, bearing the majority of the scientists, had grounded on the rocky beach. He ran down the beach to the men piling out of the boat, and gave them the gist of his conclusions. Having explained the situation, Ribera selected Enrique Cardona and Ari Juarez, both ecologists, to accompany him in a parley with the natives. The three men approached the largest group of natives, who watched them stonily. The Sudaméricans stopped several paces before the silent tribesmen. Ribera raised his hands in a gesture of peace. “My friends, may we look at your beautiful boat yonder? We will not harm it.” There was no response, though Ribera thought he sensed a greater tenseness among the natives. He tried again, making the request in Portuguese, then in English. Cardona attempted the question in Zulunder, as did Juarez in broken French. Still no acknowledgment, but the harpoons seemed to quiver, and there was an all but imperceptible motion of hands toward bone knives.

  “Well, to hell with them,” Cardona snapped finally. “C’mon, Diego, let’s have a look at it.” The short-tempered ecologist turned and began walking toward the mysterious while boat. This time there was no mistaken hostility. The harpoons were raised and the knives drawn.

  “Wait, Enrique,” Ribera said urgently. Cardona stopped. Ribera was sure that if the ecologist had taken one more step he would have been spitted. “Wait,” Diego Ribera y Rodrigues continued. “We have plenty of time. Besides, it would be madness to push the issue.” He indicated the natives’ weapons.

  Cardona noticed the weapons. “All right. We’ll humor them for now.” He seemed to regard the harpoons as an embarrassment rather than a threat. The three me
n retreated from the confrontation. Ribera noticed that Delgado’s men had their pistols half drawn. The expedition had narrowly avoided a bloodbath.

  The scientists would have to content themselves with a peripheral inspection of the village. In one way this was more pleasant than direct examination, for the ground about the huts was littered with filth. In a century or so this area would have the beginnings of a soil. After ten minutes or so the adult males of the tribe resumed their work mending the kayaks. Apparently they were preparing for a seal-hunting expedition; the area around the village had been hunted free of the seals and seabirds that populated most other parts of the coast.

  If only we could communicate with them, thought Ribera. The aborigines themselves probably knew (at least by legend) what their origins were. As it was, Ribera had to investigate by the most indirect means. In his mind he summed up the facts he knew: The natives were of an indeterminate race; they were hairy, and yet they seemed to have some of the physiological cold-weather adaptations of the extinct Eskimos. The natives were primitive in every physical sense. Their equipment and techniques were far inferior to the ingenious inventions of the Eskimos. And the natives spoke no currently popular language. One other thing: the fire they kept alive at the center of the village was an impractical affair, and probably served a religious purpose only. Those were the facts; now, who the hell were these people? The problem was so puzzling that for the moment he forgot the dreamlike madness of the gray landscape and the “setting” noonday sun.

  A half hour and more passed. The geologists were mildly ecstatic about the area, but for Ribera the situation was becoming increasingly exasperating. He didn’t dare approach the villagers or the white boat, yet these were the things he most wanted to do. Perhaps this impatience made him especially sensitive, for he was the first of the scientists to hear the clatter of rolling stones and the sound of voices over the shrill wind.