Treasure of Tau Ceti

by John Rickham

  “Oblige me,” said Carson quietly. “I can only lay the phenomena before you, I can’t make you add it up the way I do. I see it this way. Dr. Gallint was regarded as eccentric by his own colleagues. He was sick. He didn’t have much time. But, in spite of all that, he did try to find that pack again. And he did manage a highly accurate translation of that speech. That’s one picture. Next, I’m pretty sure no one except us knows anything about that island. That was the key item on the wire, and Swilly didn’t know it. Third, there is the constant need to avoid laying a trail. So far we have blazed a false one, Fiona in the name of science, Noble as an advance agent for business. So far we are still in the picture. I know you don’t buy the idea of a master-crook very easily, but I do. I know that kind. I’m quite happy to let him trail us all the way to Outpost One, and beyond into the hot-belt, because that fits our ostensible pattern, and will give him even more reason to doubt Swilly. A man in doubt stops to think. He goes slowly. I’m gambling on that. I don’t intend to hang around Iooking for Uhumeelee any longer than is necessary. I have my eye on that island. We’ll get there. But I don’t want to lead anyone else there, if I can help it. Because, just for one thing, it is roughly ten miles by fifteen in extent, which is over a hundred square miles to search, with no other clues at all. That could take half a lifetime! So if there are any further clues at all, we can’t afford to pass up the chance of getting them. All right? Now, let’s Organize ourselves some transport.”

  As we strolled off, it occurred to me that the map had not shown any roads, and I mentioned it to Carson, who was as puzzled as I about it, until we came to a store which supplied what we were looking for. The brisk young woman who came to attend to us saw nothing strange in our request for a substantially roomy vehicle of some kind that would take us wherever we wanted to go. Apparently it was not unusual for small parties to take off at random and just wander anywhere.

  “The interior,” she said, putting up a large map for us on a screen, “is virtually trackless. There is an enormous variety of scene, mountains, semi-jungle, great plains, rivers and lakes—no dangerous wild life—and an even climate. It gets cooler as you go north, so you can pick your own temperature. You can go anywhere you like, do what you like for as long as you like, and come back to civilization when you’re ready for it. You can even pick the kind of civilization you fancy, as the coastal cities are all different in one way or another, but all pleasant and easy going.” She was obviously proud of her country, and with good reason. I could see where it would appeal enormously to people suffering from the crowded regimentation of Earth. If they could afford it, of course.

  She produced for our approval a sleek and capacious car she called a Roamer, an air-cushion model that could go anywhere and do anything short of climbing straight up a wall. She showed us all the gadgets: the radio, for use in emergency only—”to keep the airwaves clean and free”; the homing gyro-compass and map link; the auto-chef that would process into edibility anything we might shoot, and the weapons to do the shooting. There were self-erecting sleeping-out units should we want to forsake the vehicle by night, and a waste-disposal unit that she lingered on with emphasis.

  “All wastes, please,” she told us. “Do not throw anything away. We are very strongly anti-litter. On the next block you will find equipment stores, and they will tell you the same thing about clothing and personal gear. Put it in the disposal. Do not throw it out. To encourage this we make a pro rata payment for the accumulation in the unit, on an evaluation by analysis. This is a clean country and we want it to stay that way.”

  She quoted us a price, finally, that made me blink a little, as we had previously agreed that I would pick up the tab at this stage. But even that was softened. “We have branch stores in all major cities,” she explained, “so you are not obliged to return the goods here, but can trade them in anywhere, repayment according to mileage. Have a good trip!”

  The clothing stores came next, on Fiona’s insistence. “I am not standing these binders,” she declared, “one moment longer. I’m melting!”

  Carson and I had our needs settled very quickly, but naturally it took a lot longer for her to choose what she wanted, and this gave us time to ask a few questions of the sales staff.

  “All women,” Carson remarked to the dark-eyed Latin lovely who had served us and was only too willing to talk. “Have we struck a peculiar part of town, or is this common?”

  “It is the common thing,” she told us, in a delightfully Spanish-flavored English. “To go off and live in the wilds, it seems to have appeal for men, but a woman prefers to stay closer to a town. So almost all services are staffed by women. Also, the salaries are so high, and the expenses so small—for food, clothing”—she gestured casually at the negligible blue-and-gold skirt she wore, which was little more than a waist strap to support pouches—”and there is no need to spend anything much—so that a girl can work here for about three years and save enough to be independent. And have a wonderful vacation at the same time.”

  I liked Shangri-La better, the more I learned about it, and we spent a very pleasant half hour or so talking to our informant, until Fiona was ready. I failed to see what had taken her so long, because she appeared in a quite simple and brief white-net wraparound loincloth affair, and ankle-high transparent boots, an outfit that seemed hardly worth the time. Minutes later we were on our way, with our castoff clothing safely put away and the feeling of having, by that act, finally broken with Earth ways. The sight of Salutation dropping away behind us helped the feeling. Ahead the land rose in great slow-rolling hills, thick with green and crested here and there with strange trees, all wrong-angle branches and puff-ball leaves.

  “Handles well,” Carson approved, the breeze whipping his voice away, “and responsive, but this rainbow atmosphere can make a fool of your distance vision if you’re not careful.”

  “What’s the cause of it?”

  “Something to do with upper-atmosphere ionization and the humidity. It will grow more intense as we go, because we’re angling south. You’d better take over for a while, Noble, just to get the feel of it. And then you, Fiona.”

  We slowed and I took his place at the wheel, while he explained a point or two. The autopilot was set for Outpost One, and, as there were no roads at all, steering as such was no problem. The only thing the driver had to do was compensate from time to time, by overriding, when the terrain called for it. For instance, as Carson explained, if the direction lay such that it would take us along the slope of a steep hill, the driver could override and go down, then tack back, which would be better than running for miles at a forty degree cant. He went on to propose that I would drive for four hours, then Fiona for another four. He must have seen the set of her chin.

  “It’s a drill,” he declared. “We are not on a holiday jaunt. It will be dusky by the time you’ve done your four, Fiona, and then I’ll take over. I reckon my night vision is a shade better than either of yours.”

  “And what are you going to do until then?”

  “Sleep!” he said, moving back into the rear.

  “We are going to drive all night?”

  “We are. I have my instincts, and they are telling me not to waste any time. If we maintain a steady fifty-five we should strike Outpost One by daybreak or just after.”

  Only a few minutes later, Fiona came to sit by my side as I drove. She looked annoyed. “He’s asleep already,” she said.

  “A handy trick, if you can do it.”

  “You’re as bad as he is,” she snapped. Then, after a long silence, she said, in a totally different voice, “Did you mean what you said, back there, about ornamentation, and me?”

  “I usually do say what I mean,” I told her. “It saves time, and it’s easier than inventing conventional responses. So far as you’re concerned, you’ve no need to add anything to your basic equipment.”

  “But a girl likes dressing up!”

  “Ask yourself why. Isn’t it because she needs so
mething to boost her self-confidence? Do you need that?”

  “Hardly!” she retorted, then grinned. “On that line of thinking, we should all go around nude all the time.”

  “Except when some kind of protective clothing is absolutely necessary, why not? You asked me, a long way back, what my attitude was toward women, and I told you I didn’t have one. There’s part of the reason. Because they just can’t be satisfied to be just themselves. They have to gild it up with paint, or drapery, or something!”

  “I don’t!” she began, then hesitated. “Yes, I suppose I do, at that. You’re a surprise packet, you know,” and she punched me affectionately on the arm. “Frankly, what with your aristocratic looks and plummy voice, I had you down as a handicap. My apologies.”

  “Makes us even,” I told her. “I had never thought that a girl could fit into anything like this. What experience I’ve had with pretty girls is that they need pandering to and waiting on.

  “Oh, well,” she giggled, “I don’t mind if you’re polite and hold the door open for me and things like that.”

  We lapsed into a companionable silence. Driving was no effort at all and gave me plenty of opportunity to study the country. It would have made first class farmland, on a small tenant-farming basis. Maybe there would be a market for home-grown produce? Surely there was no need to import that class of material over space? It was an intriguing thought, but soon Tau Ceti’s red disc began to lower in the sky and Fiona nudged me.

  “My turn,” she said. “You go and sleep. I’ll be all right. I’m stopping at midnight anyway, for a meal.”

  “The orders were to go straight on.”

  “I’m stopping when I feel like it. You go and sleep!”

  There was no point in arguing with that tone, so I went. The mix of fresh air and the gentle motion, plus being cooped up in a ship for a week, I was fast asleep on the cushion opposite of Carson within seconds of closing my eyes, and the next thing I was conscious of was Carson’s voice.

  “What are we stopped for?”

  As I sat up drowsily in the dark I heard her retort, “I’ve done my four, there’s four hundred miles on the counter, and I’m hungry. What more reason do you want?” The cabin lights flared up and I blinked, then squirmed around to see Carson quite still for a moment, staring at her. Then he shrugged.

  “All right, we’ll take fifteen minutes. Go and play with the auto-chef. I’ll take the wheel.”

  “No funny business now, like driving off.”

  “That’s all right. I need to check up on the charts and gauges anyway.

  She passed me, with her chin up and eyes gleaming, and went on into the chef-nook at the rear of the cabin. I caught Carson’s delicate jerk of the head and went forward to join him at the wheel, putting out my hand to switch on the light. He took my wrist, gently but firmly.

  “Don’t,” he said, very quietly. “You’ll see why in a minute.” There was enough starlight for him to manage, and most of the instruments were self-lit with fluors anyway. Outside it was a beautiful night. We rested in a gentle gorge that aimed precisely where we were going. The rainbow effect had vanished with the sun and the night air was crystal clear.

  “But it’s still damned warm,” I complained, and he chuckled.

  “That’s a minor worry, right now, as Her Highness is about to find out. On another point, tell me, you’ve led a totally different life from mine, but surely you’ve known that itching uneasiness you get when things run too smoothly?”

  “Smooth? I’ve been beaten twice, vibrated into a coma and cooped up in a prison cell- by another name for a whole week. Now I’m being slow-boiled, and you call it smooth?”

  “Hah! If that’s the worst we have coming to us, we’ll—” I lost the rest of it as Fiona shredded the quiet with a full-lunged screech that made my skin erupt in goose bumps. I was half-turned and headed for the cabin when he grabbed my arm again.

  “Fast reactions are fine, sometimes,” he muttered, and there came another yell from the back, “but it also helps to see just what you are getting into. Take a look.”

  Through the narrow doorway I could see into the rear cabin, into the glare, into a snowflake chaos of flying insects of all shapes and sizes. The air was thick with them, and in the center was Fiona, flailing and swatting helplessly at the things. A fantastic sight, because from wings and bodies came a million glitters of rainbow reflection, sparking from the overhead glare. They were all over her body and thick in her hair. There was no real danger, only nuisance. And there was nothing I could do. Except—I spun to him.

  “Put that light out!”

  “Of course!” he said, doing it. “And then what?”

  “Get moving. Hold it.” I turned back and shouted to her, “Grab hold of something and then keep still. We’re starting up. The breeze will flush them out.” On went the headlights, the engines boomed, and we went down that gorge as if hellhounds were at our heels, for about ten minutes. Then we halted again, and he switched the rear canopy out of its housing until we heard it click home.

  “Go give her a hand,” he said, “she’ll need it. You know where the medikit is? See you get all the bites, or she’ll have other stiff places besides her neck, come morning. These bugs raise bumps, believe me. I’ve had some!”

  He put on the rear cabin lights again and I went through. She was furious, hut sane enough to stay still while I prowled the cabin, and then all around her, just to make sure. With the canopy in place, the automatic ventilation system had cut in and the space was shiveringly cool, so the few winged pests that remained were torpid enough for me to be able to pick them up and ditch them in the outlet. There were three in her hair and one stuck to the small of her back, and I could see scores of tiny white spots where poison had penetrated.

  “That seems to be the lot,” I said. “Now just stay still while I get the medikit.” It was in a cabinet by the auto-chef.

  “I don’t need your help!” she snapped.

  “Don’t be any more of a fool than you can help.” I took the box to the table and broke it open. “If you don’t get those bites treated fast you’ll swell out in bumps all over the place, besides itching like mad.” The anti-bite stuff was a tube of garishly purple jelly and she glared as I squeezed some out onto tissue and approached her.

  “I don’t seem to have much choice, do I? Itch and swell, or be marked with that filthy stuff, Why don’t you laugh outright?”

  “Because I’m not amused.” I got close enough to see the white pustules on her face, and made the first gentle dabs. “You sat up and begged for this, you know. There was nothing to stop us eating on the move!”

  ‘We’ll reach Outpost One early tomorrow. I’m supposed to use my influence on the scientific staff there. And I shall look like some fugitive from a nightmare with this purple stuff all over me!”

  “Very well.” I put one final dab on her throat then tossed the tube and swab back in the box. “Go on and itch. I hope you enjoy it,” and I turned away to go forward to the driving cabin. She called me just as I was ducking into the passage, and I turned again. She made a helpless gesture.

  “I’m sorry. Please come and finish what you were doing.” I went back and started again, working my way down her slim back. “Am I really a fool?” she asked, in a small voice, as I crouched to operate on her long legs.

  “Perhaps not,” I said. “It was a mistake that I would have made, if I had been in your place.”

  “I didn’t mean that. Wouldn’t you feel—embarrassed—if you were all daubed with hideous purple blotches?”

  “A bit, yes! But not enough to worry about. Damn it, who cares how you look? It’s what you do and what you are that matters, isn’t it?” I moved around to her front, straightening up to look at her face, and saw that she was blinking back tears as hard as she could go. It wasn’t hard to see why. All over her skin there were nasty white blisters ringed with angry red, and where her arms were raised just a little from her sides, her fists were tight cl
enched. “I’ll be as quick as I can,” I promised, and smeared the purple stuff on liberally all over. “Does it help?”

  She nodded without saying anything, and stood quite still until I had finished and straightened up again. “All right now?”

  “Lovely, thank you. I am a fool. No, please let me say it. Ever since I can remember I have been fighting this silly notion that because I’m a girl I have to be treated differently, that I can’t do anything a man can do.”

  “I’ll subscribe to that,” I said. “Apart from sheer physical strength, a girl has brain, skill, talent, nerve, initiative—all the same potentials—if she wants to use them. You seem to have used yours very well.”

  “I’ve tried. But you’ve just shown me, after all this time, that I have been kidding myself, too. I’ve been taking it for granted that men are dazzled by my looks, until it has grown to be habit. I expect it. But you don’t dazzle at all. I thought perhaps you were against women in general, but it’s not that either. I didn’t mind peeling down to the minimum because I know I can stand it, and even that didn’t make any impression on you. Now you tell me ‘Who cares how you look, it’s what you are that matters!’—and, all at once, I could see myself as I really am!”

  “A shirt and slacks,” I suggested, “and a touch of makeup, and no one will ever know the difference.”

  “That will do for the peasants”—she managed a smile— “but nothing will ever make any difference between us, from now on.” and she held out her hand to grip mine. The gesture was undermined as Carson sent a shout back to us.

  “How’s the grub coming along?”

  “Five minutes!” she shouted back at him and squeezed my hand, wrinkling her nose in a grin. “We lesser mortals keep getting side-tracked, don’t we? Come and give me a hand.”

  Ten minutes later we were all crowded amicably together up front with our food; watching the dark night ahead of us dividing before our headlights, only to close again after our passage.