Code Of The Lifemaker

by Hogan, James

  dragon-servants existed as he stood staring without moving. For he was seeing

  his world for the first time as it looked from beyond the sky.

  It was a sphere.

  And behind it, scattered across distances he had no way of estimating, were more

  shining worlds than he knew even how to count.

  17

  DAVE CROOKES PRESSED A KEY ON A CONSOLE IN THE ORION'S Digital Systems and Image

  Processing Laboratory, and sat back to watch as the sequence began replaying

  again on the screen in front of him. It showed one of the Taloids in the view

  recorded twenty-four hours previously watching a Terran figure make a series of

  gestures, and then turning its head to look directly at another Taloid standing

  a few feet behind. A moment later the second Taloid's head jerked round to look

  quickly at the first Taloid and then at the Terran.

  "There!" Leon Keyhoe, one of the mission's signals specialists, said from where

  he was standing behind Crookes' chair. Crookes touched another key to freeze the

  image. Keyhoe looked over his shoulder at two other engineers seated at

  instrumentation panels to one side. "The one in the brown helmet has to be

  saying something at that point right there. Check the scan one more time."

  "Still no change," one of the engineers replied, nipping a series of switches

  and taking in the data displays in front of him. "There's nothing from VLF and

  LF, right through to EHF in the millimeter band ... No correlation on Fourier."

  "Positive correlation reconfirmed on acoustic," the other engineer reported.

  "Short duration ultrasonic pulse bursts, averaging around, ah . . . one hundred

  ten thousand per second, duration twenty to forty-eight microseconds. Repetition

  frequency is variable and consistent with modulation at up to thirty-seven

  kilocycles. Sample profile being analyzed on screen three."

  Keyhoe sighed and shook his head. "Well, it seems to be definite," he agreed.

  "The Taloids communicate via exchanges of high-frequency sound pulses. There's

  no indication of any use of radio at all. It's surprising—I was certain that

  those transmission centers down on the surface would turn out to be long-range

  relay stations or something like that." Readings obtained from the Orion had

  confirmed the Dauphin orbiter's findings that several points on the surface of

  Titan emitted radio signals intermittently and irregularly. Probes sent below

  the aerosol layer had revealed the sources to lie near some of the heavily

  built-up centers from which the surrounding industrialization and mechanization

  appeared to have spread. The patterns of signal activity had correlated with

  nothing observed on the surface so far.

  Joe Fellburg, who was wedged on a stool between Dave Crookes' console and a

  bulkhead member, rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a second or two. "Do you buy

  this idea that Anna Voolink came up with about alien factories?" he asked,

  looking up at Keyhoe.

  "Well, we've got to agree it's a possibility, Joe," Keyhoe said. "Why?"

  Anna Voolink was a Dutch NASO scientist who had been involved several years

  before in a study of a proposal to set up a self-replicating manufacturing

  facility on Mercury for supplying Earth with materials and industrial products.

  She had speculated that Titan's machine biosphere might have originated from a

  similar scheme set up by an alien civilization, possibly millions of years

  previously, which had somehow mutated and started to evolve. What had caused the

  system to mutate, why the aliens should have chosen Titan, and what had happened

  to them since were questions that nobody had ventured to answer even

  tentatively.

  Fellburg leaned forward to prop an elbow against the side of the console and

  gestured vaguely at the screens. "It occurred to me that if everything down

  there did evolve from some superadvanced version of what NASO was talking about

  setting up on Mercury, then maybe radio could have been the primary method of

  communication in the early days. But if the aliens were any kind of engineers at

  all, you'd expect them to have provided some kind of backup, right?" He looked

  from Keyhoe to Crookes. Crookes pinched his nose, thought for a second, and

  nodded.

  "Makes sense, I guess," Keyhoe agreed.

  Fellburg spread his hands. "So couldn't the answer be that the primary system

  went out of use—maybe because of a mutation error or something like that—and the

  secondary became the standard? What we're picking up from those centers could be

  just a remnant of something that doesn't serve any purpose any more—coming from

  a few places where it hasn't quite died out yet."

  "Mmm . . . it's an interesting thought," Keyhoe said.

  "I wonder if the Taloids would still be capable of receiving anything," Crookes

  murmured after thinking the suggestion over for a second or two.

  "I suppose that would depend on where their blueprint information comes from . .

  . their 'genetics,' " Keyhoe said.

  Fellburg rubbed his chin again. "Well, if it's not functionally relevant

  anymore, and if their evolution is driven selectively the same as ours is, I

  guess there wouldn't be any strong selection working either one way or the

  other. So probably some of them can receive radio and some of them can't. Some

  sensitive ones might still be produced."

  Dave Crookes smiled to himself. "If that's true, I wonder what all our radio

  traffic over the last few weeks might have been doing to them," he said.

  "What's your background, Joe?" Crookes inquired casually an hour later in the

  transit capsule that he and Fellburg were sharing on their way back to Globe II.

  "How d'you mean?" Fellburg asked.

  "Your technical background ... I mean, it's pretty obvious you know something

  about electronics and pulse techniques."

  "Why?"

  "Oh . . . just curious, I guess."

  "Well, Michigan Tech—master's. Six years in industry, mainly computer physics

  with IBM. Ten years army, finishing up as a technical specialist with

  intelligence. Good enough?"

  The capsule passed a window section of the tube, giving a momentary view of the

  outside of the Orion and of Titan hanging in the background, partly obscuring

  the magnificent spectacle of Saturn and its rings. Crookes eyed Fellburg

  uncertainly for a few seconds. "Can I ask you something personal?" he said at

  last.

  "Sure. If I think it's none of your goddam business, I'll say so, okay?"

  Crookes hesitated, then said, "Why are you mixed up with this Zambendorf thing?"

  "Why not?"

  Crookes frowned uncomfortably. Obviously he'd come about as close to being

  direct as he was prepared to. "Well, it's ... I mean, isn't it a kind of a

  wasteful way to use that kind of talent?"

  "Is it? Do you know what I'd be getting paid now if I'd gone back into industry

  after I quit the army?"

  "Is that all that matters?" Crookes asked.

  Fellburg thrust out his chin. "No, but it's a good measure of how society values

  its resources. I've already had enough Brownie badges to stitch on my shirt

  instead of anything that's worth something."

  Crookes shook his head. "But when the product is worthless . . ."

  "Th
e market decides what a product is worth—through demand, which fixes the

  price," Fellburg said. "If plastic imitations are selling high today because

  people are too dumb to tell the difference, who's doing the wasting—me, who

  accepts the going rate, or the guy who's out on the street in front of his

  store, giving the real thing away?"

  When Fellburg arrived back at the team's day cabin, Thelma and Drew West were as

  he had left them, hunched in front of the display console, following

  developments down on the surface; Clarissa Eidstadt was sitting at a comer

  table, editing a wad of scripts. "What've you been up to?" Thelma asked as he

  came in.

  "Over in the electronics section with Dave Crookes and a few of the guys,

  playing back the Taloid shots," Fellburg replied. "Things are getting

  interesting. It doesn't look as if they use radio to talk after all. They use

  high-frequency sound pulses. The engineers have started computer-processing the

  patterns already. Oh, and did you know they're not so poker-faced after all?"

  "The engineers?" West said, without looking away from the screen.

  "The Taloids, turkey."

  "How come?"

  "They have facial expressions—surface heat patterns that change like crazy all

  the time they're talking. Crookes' people have been taping a whole library of

  them in IR."

  "Say, how about that," Thelma said.

  "And how long will it be before anyone manages to decode anything from

  pulse-code patterns collected in the databank?" West asked. He waved an arm at

  the screen. "Karl and Otto are doing a much better job their own way. They've

  practically swapped life stories with the Taloids already." Fellburg followed

  his gaze toward the screen.

  Down on the surface a second lander had appeared in the pool of light alongside

  the first, and the surrounding area was dotted with the lights of ground

  vehicles and EV-suited figures exploring and poking around in the general

  vicinity. The first lander's cargo bay had been depressurized and left unheated

  with its loading doors open to Titan's atmosphere to serve as a shelter for the

  Taloids. Zambendorf, having snatched a few hours rest inside the ship a short

  while previously, was now back outside and talking to the Taloids again in his

  self-appointed role as Earth's ambassador—which the Taloids seemed to have

  endorsed by responding to him more readily and freely than to anybody else.

  Scrawled in white on the hull of the surface lander in the background, and

  extending back for yard after yard in what looked like a mess of graffiti toward

  the ship's stern, was a jumble of shapes and symbols, arrows and lines, and

  dozens of whimsical Taloids interspersed with bulbous, domeheaded

  representations of spacesuited Terrans. The primary communications medium used

  in the historic moment of first contact between civilizations from two different

  worlds had turned out to be chalk and blackboard, and the ship had offered the

  handiest writing surface available.

  "I got Herman Thoring to okay a news flash to Earth to the effect that Karl

  initiated communications with the aliens," Clarissa said without looking up.

  Fellburg laughed and moved closer to take in the view on the screen. "So, what's

  the latest down there?" he asked.

  West turned a knob to lower the voice of the NASO officer who was listening in

  on the local surface frequencies and keeping up a commentary from inside the

  lander. "See the Taloid who's waving at Karl now —the one in the red

  cloak—that's Galileo. He's curious about nearly everything. The one with him is

  Sir Lancelot. He seems to be the head guy of the bunch."

  "Okay," Fellburg said.

  "The Taloids have some hand-drawn maps that our people managed to match up with

  reconnaissance pictures—so now we know where the Taloids are heading," West

  said. "It's a pretty big city in the mechanized area on the other side of the

  desert. It looks as if they're on their way to the palace or whatever of the

  king who runs that whole area. It seems that Lancelot and the others work for

  the king, but we're not sure yet exactly how Galileo fits in."

  "You don't get three guesses," Thelma said to Fellburg.

  "Huh?"

  "Karl's called the king Arthur."

  Fellburg groaned.

  "What else did you expect?" West asked. "Anyhow, the bunch that the army wiped

  out was from some country over the mountains that's at war with Arthur for some

  reason, or something like that. But if these Taloids we've ended up talking to

  are Arthur's knights or whatever, then maybe we've gotten ourselves an

  introduction."

  "So what are our people aiming at—a landing somewhere near that city you

  mentioned if Arthur agrees to it?" Fellburg asked.

  West nodded. "You've got it."

  "How long would we need to wait before Lancelot and his guys get there? Do we

  know that?"

  "Nobody's figured out how they reckon time yet." West nodded toward the screen.

  "But if Karl gets his way, it won't matter too much anyway. He's trying to sell

  the Taloids on the idea of letting us airlift them the rest of the way. And you

  know something, Joe, I've got a feeling they just might buy the idea."

  18

  A LOW ROAR SOUNDED DISTANTLY FROM BEHIND JUST AS THE riders reached the crest of

  the saddle at the valley head, beyond which the land dropped again toward the

  river that marked the Carthogian border. They stopped and looked back to watch

  as the sky-dragon that had carried them high over the world rose, slowly at

  first, with violet heat-wind streaming from its underside, and then turned its

  head upward as it gained speed and soared higher to shrink rapidly to a pinpoint

  and eventually vanish. Dornvald had needed all of his powers of argument to talk

  the rest of the outlaws into allowing themselves to be flown the remaining

  distance to Carthogia in one of the Skybeings' dragons. Accepting a roof as

  shelter out in the desert was one thing, but being enclosed on all sides as if

  in a trap was another. And after watching the Skybeings entering and emerging

  from their dragon furnaces unscathed, how could one be sure they appreciated the

  limits that the mere steel and titanium casings of robeings could withstand?

  "Those are strange dragon-tamers indeed, who reduce the King's soldiers to scrap

  in a trice, and then request Kleippur's pleasure," Geynor said as the riders

  resumed moving. "If they wish to meet with Kleippur, why do they not simply fly

  to the city of Menassim and command him forth? It seems to me they hold a

  considerable advantage in persuasiveness, which would assure a rapid reversal of

  any inclination he might choose toward recalcitrance."

  "It appears to be their desire to give opportunity for the citizens of Menassim

  to be forewarned," Dornvald replied.

  Geynor shook his head in amazement. "From such unassailable strength they speak,

  yet they would invite our agreement? Is this not true nobility of spirit?

  Horazzorgio could have spared himself his not inconsiderable inconvenience by

  attending more to his manners and yielding less to his impetuousness, it seems."

  "And yet, who knows what subtleties and unsuspected protocols might c
onstitute

  the chivalry code of Skybeings?" Dornvald asked. "Did their request in fact

  confer the freedom of answer that might be supposed, or was it no more than a

  command couched in such form merely through rules of foreign custom which we

  know not?"

  Geynor pondered the question for a while, and eventually answered, "If the

  latter, then our refusal might have been construed as no less ill-mannered than

  the assault by the King's soldiers. As penalty for such error of judgment, we

  could have found ourselves strewn across the desert in like fashion."

  "Aha!" Dornvald exclaimed. "Now, at last, I think you see my reasoning, for your

  words echo my own conclusion."

  "Let us hope that Kleippur is compelled by the same logic," Geynor said.

  "You need have no fear," Dornvald assured him.

  Beside them, Thirg was unusually quiet. It was significant, he thought, that the

  outlaws were referring to the mysterious domeheaded visitors as Skybeings now,

  which seemed to indicate that they, like Thirg, no longer thought of them as

  servants. The Domeheads didn't act like servants. They seemed to come and go,

  and act freely. The two dragons, by contrast, had just sat docilely throughout

  the negotiations in the desert, and after a while had given the impression of

  serving no other function than of being bearers of the Domeheads and the strange

  creatures that carried them around like living chariots and attended their every

  need. Presumably, therefore, flying creatures existed in the world beyond the

  sky that the Domeheads were from, and the Domeheads had learned to tame them

  just as robeings had learned to tame steeds, power generators, load-lifters, and

  foodmaking machines. But what form of being was it that was not a machine yet

  was attended by machines, and at whose bidding magic creatures saw through

  mountains, reported distant events, and destroyed without hesitation any who

  aroused their masters' displeasure? Thirg brooded over the question and said

  little as the band descended into the valleyhead beyond the saddle and crossed

  the slopes below to pick up a track leading in the direction of the river.

  Lower down, the slopes leveled out into flat banks covered by pipe-fronded

  chemical processing towers, storage tanks, and picturesque groves of