by Anthology
On the emergency signal it took less than three minutes to clear through eleven light-years to E.H.Q.—and then sixteen minutes for the operator at base to find Bill Hayes.
"Sector Chief Hayes here," the voice said at last through the speaker.
"Gray here, on the Eden matter," Cal answered. "Any other E's available?"
"Hm-m," Hayes answered. "Wong has picked up on a problem in the Pleiades sector, and left this morning. Malinkoff has given out word not to disturb him if the whole universe falls apart. That leaves McGinnis, who, I believe, is spending his time working on the defense against the injunction by Gunderson. An example of the way petty restrictions can bring a fine mind down to trivial problems. But he said call him if you need him."
"Please," Cal said. "And you might stay on while I talk to him, if you're not busy."
"Sure, E Gray, sure," Hayes answered. "I'm flashing the operator to locate McGinnis. Seen anything of the police ship, yet? I understand one is following to observe what you do."
"I'm sure it will be a big help," Cal said drily. "Not that it matters, so long as it doesn't get in the way."
McGinnis came on at that point.
"I'm not yelling for help, yet," Cal told him. "But here's what it is like at this end." He sketched in the details, and heard a sharp gasp at the other end from Hayes.
"Now I'd like to stay on this problem," he concluded his brief summary. "But somewhere there's fifty colonists in trouble because this whole thing is out of focus. I'm not a full E, and maybe their lives are more important than my ambition to do a solo job. Certainly more important. Then, trivial as it is, we'd be playing right into Gunderson's hands if we've sent out a boy to do a man's job."
"Dismiss the Gunderson side of it," McGinnis said drily. "It's inconsequential to the main issue. As for that, I don't know any more than you do. There's never been anything like this. Colonists have been wiped out on other planets, sure; but what happened left traces. This one is an oddball, and I'd say you're as well equipped to handle it as anybody else."
"I don't—I don't understand this at all," Hayes said in a worried voice.
"Who does?" Cal asked. "I'd say set up for continuous communication. I'll leave it wide open here, so that everything we say will come through. Then, if anything should happen to us, you'll have the record up to that point."
"It's the only thing we can do," Hayes agreed.
"If you think I should come out there to stand by, I'll do it," McGinnis said. But the tone of his voice said he hoped Cal would shoulder the full responsibility, not weaken out of a chance at a real solo.
"I'm not crying uncle, yet," Cal said. "But I may have to take you up on the offer. I hope not."
"But do you know anything is wrong?" Hayes asked incredulously. He was having the same trouble facing the reality as the ship's crew.
"If you were flying to Los Angeles and found only desert where the city is supposed to be, you might assume something was wrong," Cal answered drily. "But I don't know what it is. Do you have a recorder set up, so I can begin trying to find out?"
"Yes, yes, E Gray," Hayes said hurriedly. He was suddenly conscious that he had been interrupting an E conversation, not once but several times. "Pardon the intrusions. It was just that …"
"I understand," Cal reassured him.
When Cal stood up from the communicator, the eyes of the crew were on him. Overhearing his conversation with Earth had sobered them, made reality come closer.
"You think it might be a mirage?" Tom asked. "Some freak air current reflecting from another island and superimposing over this one?" Then he answered himself. "No. I guess it isn't. There aren't enough discrepancies."
"Let's pan down to the ground with the scanner," Cal said. "Take it slow over the area where the village is supposed to be."
Glad to be doing something with his hands, Lynwood twisted the controls to take them instantly, in magnification, to a distance slightly above the tops of the trees. The automatic pilot caused the ship to drift with the rotation of the planet, keeping them in fixed relative position.
They scanned the ground rod by rod. There were expanses of heavy tree and bush growth that they could not penetrate. Some of these trees grew where the pictures showed cleared fields, buildings, truck gardens, cattle pastures.
"Those big trees didn't grow up in a month, since the last colonist report," Louie said positively. He still clung to his belief that it was all a hoax.
Cal made no comment. He was intent on the scanner screen. There were heavy foliage spots, but there were also bare areas covered by a soft, springy turf and patches of wild flowers. But there was no sign of man or his works. There was not so much as a board, the glint of a nail, not a furrow, not even the scar of a campfire. And no indication that there had ever been.
In the sandy patches along the banks of the small meandering river, there was not even a footprint.
They swept the scanner down the valley.
"Wait a minute," Cal said. "There are some cows and horses." He held the scanner fixed while they studied the animals. In two small herds, the animals grazed contentedly near a patch of woods.
"We're in the right time slot, then," Tom said, with an attempt to pick up the spirit of treating it lightly. "They've been here. Else the cows and horses wouldn't be."
"Funny thing about those horses," Frank commented in a puzzled voice. "I grew up on a farm. Those are work horses, but field horses always have harness marks on them where the hair gets rubbed off or the skin gets calloused. If they used these horses for work, there ought to be collar and hames rubs on their necks. There ought to be worn streaks left by the traces on their sides. There isn't. Far as the evidence shows, they might have been wild all their lives."
"Whatever happened didn't seem to hurt them any," Cal agreed.
He swept the scanner on down the valley to the sandy shore of the sea. They were close enough to pick up the brown streaks of beached seaweed. A flock of shore birds were busy running up the sand away from the gentle, beaching waves, then following the water line back down to dig their beaks into the soft, wet sand for food. The birds showed no alarm, no sign of lurking presence near them.
Cal brought the scanner back up the valley and over to one of the ridges bordering it. High on the crest of the ridge, the undergrowth was less luxuriant than down in the valley.
And it was here they caught their first glimpse of a human being.
He was hunkered down behind some rocks at the crest, peering over them at the valley below. From the shape of his shoulders and back, the set of his head, they knew it to be a man. As far as they could tell, he had no clothes on. Apparently they had caught him at the moment of his arrival at the crest.
They watched him turn his head as he looked quickly, then searchingly, up and down the valley. They watched his hand come up to shade his eyes against the light from Ceti as he attempted to see into the dark patches of foliage where the village ought to be.
What he saw, or did not see, seemed to stun him. He squatted, as frozen as a statue for long moments. Then, on hands and knees, they saw him back away from the crest. Now they saw he did not wear even so much as a breechclout. When the height of the ridge concealed him from the other side, he sprang to his feet and began to run, zigzagging in the manner of an obstacle racer to avoid the bushes.
"Looks like they've decided to make a nudist colony of it," Lynwood commented.
"And faked the pictures so nasty-minded old Earth people wouldn't come out to break it up," Louie persisted.
"Then why should he be so scared?" Frank asked.
"Notice that patch of bare dirt he's crossing?" Cal asked. "See the little spurts of dust when he puts his feet down? Now look behind him."
The three crewmen leaned closer to look over his shoulder at the scanning screen. Cal adjusted it minutely, to get a sharp focus on the ground.
"No footprints!" Lynwood exclaimed. "He doesn't leave any footprints!"
The three of them look
ed at Cal, wide-eyed. Cal didn't like what he saw in Louie's eyes. The habitual irritation and annoyance with life's little petty tricks was gone.
The look had been replaced with fear, and something more.
11
The naked man, running frantically down the side of the slope, disappeared momentarily under some taller growth, came out the other side of it still running. He leaped over a small ravine, stumbled, recovered himself, and disappeared again beneath a larger growth of trees. Below him, on his side of the ridge, there lay another valley with its own stream.
They caught one more fleeting glimpse, a mere flash of sunlight on tan skin. He was still heading downward in the direction of the stream. It was their last sight of him. They watched for a while longer, but he did not reappear under the green canopy of forest.
"Just a guess," Cal said. He spoke matter-of-factly in the hope the casualness would wash the fear and awe from Louie's eyes. "That's probably one of the dissident men who broke away from the main colony and set up housekeeping in this adjacent valley. Apparently the same things have happened to him as happened to the main colony, whatever it was.
"I'd guess it came as pretty much of a shock and he's just now worked up courage to scout the main valley. From that I'd say whatever happened wasn't very long ago, not more than a week. Just a guess."
None of the crew answered him. It was obviously not the case of a voyeur spying on others—not with the kind of excitement the running man had shown. Running away—that is.
"Let's drop down into the atmosphere," Cal suggested. "I'd assume it is breathable from the fact we've seen earth animals and a human being. Still we'd better make tests."
"Yeah," Louie said unexpectedly. "If the man isn't making any footprints maybe he isn't breathing, either." He tried to make it a joke, to fight his fear with self-derision. He didn't succeed. Nobody laughed. He swallowed hard and studied the charts again for no apparent reason.
Cal glanced quickly from Tom to Frank. A look at Norton's face showed him Frank wasn't very far behind Louie in the progress of shock. Perhaps, as with himself, it was Lynwood's sense of responsibility for his crew that was helping the pilot to maintain a better control. But there was a white line around Lynwood's mouth, running up the line of his jaw. Caused by clenching his teeth too tightly? Clenched, to keep them from chattering?
However experienced a man became, however dependable the reactions, one never knew how to predict reaction in the face of the completely unknown. Yet Cal knew that even if he asked any of the men if they feared to take him down it would be an insult never forgotten. It was their job to take an E where he wanted to go. It wouldn't be the first time they had gambled their lives on the judgment of an E.
"Oh-oh," Tom exclaimed. "We have company." He pointed to an indicator on the panel.
They swept the space around them with the scanner, and hovering off to one side they picked up another ship. They watched it for a while, as it hovered there. It made no move to come closer, no move to communicate with them.
"From its markings," Tom said at last, "I think that's a special investigation ship from the attorney general's office. Wonder what they're doing here?"
"To make first-hand observation of my failure," Cal said shortly. "Let's get on with our work."
Perhaps it helped the crew to realize they were not alone, that whatever might happen to them would not only be heard on the E.H.Q. channel back to Earth, but would also be seen by these special observers. Perhaps it bucked them up a little to know that they were being watched, that faltering uncertainty would be noted and scorned. Perhaps it was the mechanical routine of air sampling and testing as they lowered the ship by degrees.
Norton grew more relaxed, more sure of himself. Lynwood handled the ship on manual control with ease, almost with flourish. But Louie's hands, gripping the edges of the chart table, still showed bloodless white at the knuckles. Perhaps because there was nothing for him to do at the moment, he alone wasn't snapping out of it.
The tests showed normal atmosphere. It checked exactly with the readings for this altitude established by the surveying scientists. To complete the record, Cal repeated them aloud each time so the open communicator would carry the information back to Earth where, by now, not only McGinnis and Hayes would be listening, but probably a group of scientists as well. Perhaps their hands, too, gripped the edges of tables, showed bloodless at the knuckles?
To wait, helplessly, eleven light-years away might create more tenseness than being right on the scene. Yet no voice came through the ship's speaker, either from Earth or from the observer's ship.
Perhaps McGinnis, forgetting his eighty years, wished now he were at Eden instead of Cal. Perhaps, mindful of his years, he didn't. He made no comment.
Tom dropped the ship lower and lower, each time pausing for an air sample. Each time they scanned the valley where the village of Appletree should be. There was no change. Now the unlikely idea of a superimposed mirage was dispelled. The disappearance of the colony was no trick of vision. The ship hovered, at the last, not more than fifty feet from the ground.
"Let's set her down, Tom," Cal said quietly.
Tom shrugged, as if that were the only thing left to do.
"You're the E," he said. His glance at Louie showed he was placing the responsibility not so much to avoid consequences for himself, nor so much to assure they were willing to follow an E's orders without question, as to remind Louie that there was, after all, an E with them. And if he were willing to face this unknown, they could hardly do less themselves.
But Louie's eyes were fixed in unblinking stare upon the ground below them. He was frozen and unheeding.
The actual landing was so flawless that Cal, involuntarily, glanced out of the port to confirm that they were no longer hovering.
"Might as well open up," he said. "Nothing has happened to us, so far."
Norton pushed a button. The exit hatch slipped open and the ramp unfolded and slid down to touch ground. Cal, flanked by Tom and Frank, looked through the opening into the woods beyond.
And while they looked, a man came from behind the screening protection of some shrubbery. He was followed by two other men. All of them were completely naked.
"You three stay inside the ship until I signal you to come out," Cal instructed. "If anything unusual happens to me, stand off from the planet until help can come from Earth. Don't be foolish and try to help me."
"You're the E," Tom repeated. When a man is outside his own knowledge, heroics might do more harm than good.
Cal stepped through the exit and walked slowly down the ramp.
The three colonists seemed in no panic. They walked toward him, also slowly, obviously in attempt at dignified control. Yet their faces were breaking into broad grins of relief and welcome.
Cal stepped off the ramp, took a step toward them, then it happened.
He heard breathless grunts of surprise and pain behind him. He whirled around. The three crewmen were lying awkwardly on the ground. There was no ship. The three crewmen were completely naked.
Cal felt the stirring of a breeze, and looked down quickly at his own body. He also was nude.
He turned back to face the colonists. They had stopped in front of him. Their joyous grins had been replaced by grimaces of despair.
Behind him the crewmen were in the act of getting to their feet. A quick glance showed Cal none was hurt. Louie looked around, dazed and uncomprehending. There was not so much as a bent blade of grass to show where the ship's weight had pressed. Louie sank down suddenly on the ground and buried his face in his hands.
Tom and Frank stood over him, in the way a man would try to shield some wounded portion of his own body, instinctively.
A fact obvious to all of them was that their own communication with Earth had been shut off. In this daylight they could not see the observer ship hovering out in space, but its occupants had no doubt seen them, seen what had happened. It, no doubt, was telling Earth what it had seen—th
e attorney general's office, at any rate. Doubtful that it was including E.H.Q. in its report. Problematical that the attorney general would tell E.H.Q. what had happened.
Cal hoped the observers would have enough sense not to try to land.
12
A second shock, powerfully magnified, hit him then. Because he was personally involved?
For what seemed an interminable time, Cal's mind ceased to function rationally, and like an animal suddenly faced with the unknown he froze, shrank within himself, stood motionless. Yet far down within his mind, there was still detached observation, as if a part of him were removed from all this, still in the role of disinterested observer.
The crew behind him was likewise frozen in tableau. And the colonists in front of him. A balance in number, with himself in between, a still picture from a modernist ballet.
Or a charade. Guess what this is!
He felt laughter bubbling to his lips, recognized it for the beginning of hysteria, and the impulse was washed away.
With that portion of detached curiosity he watched his mind functioning, darting frantically here and there for rational explanation, and momentarily taking refuge in irrationality. It was all being done with trick photography! Such a sudden transition could take place in a motion picture, a transition from reality into a dream sequence lying discarded on the cutting-room floor.
Reversion to the primitive, accounting for the phenomena by devising a mind more powerful than his own. The childhood view of the omnipotent parent, reality's disillusionment, the parent substitute, the creation of a god in his parent's image without the weakness of his parent, so that he might go on in perpetual irresponsibility since he could now place responsibility outside himself.
Or this was a fairy story in which he lived. This was the spell of enchantment. This was magic. And at the first concept of magic, the first lesson of E sharpened into focus once more.
"Anything is magic if you don't understand how it happens, and science if you do."
In that odd, detached portion of his mind he deliberately used the statement as a foundation. Upon it he reconstructed the science of E. The universe and all in it is logical, logical at least to man because he is part of that universe, of its essence. There can be nothing in the universe that is wrong, or out of place, except and only as the limited interpretation of man who sees a force in terms of a threat to the ascendancy of himself-and-his at the center of things. This is the sole basis of morality, and prevents man's appreciation of total reality.
