Men Against the Stars - [Adventures in Science Fiction 01]

by Edited By Martin Grrenburg

  ~ * ~

  The answer was slow and hesitant.

  “I can’t be sure—naturally. I have already given you my feelings on the matter, but I cannot answer for everyone. I will test my coworkers here, as I suppose you want me to, bearing your warnings carefully in mind. Will that be satisfactory?”

  “That will be excellent. I can’t find the words to thank you, but I’ll try to give any help in my power if you have undesirable reactions. I admit I have worried a good deal about the outcome of this meeting; one can never be sure of having chosen the right person for the first advances.”

  Deg nodded.

  “I understand why you wanted privacy as much as possible for our conversations. You chose a good place to land on this world; we are about as isolated a group as you could have found, except perhaps for the stations in the far interior of this continent. The cities are mostly located in the larger islands of the equatorial zone—I suppose you observed that, before landing. If I may ask, how did you find this station? It is not particularly easy to mark from the air, according to my experience.”

  “It was found by accident, on a photograph,” replied Vickers. “We decided that, if it were not deserted, it should prove a good place to start operations. We were not sure of its purpose; I still don’t know what you do here, but it had the desired isolation, and the presence of someone with authority seemed probable. Are you in very close touch with any of the cities?”

  “We have to be. This is a weather station, and is tied into a tight communication network linking all the observatories on this continent with one of the cities. The constant flow of reports is received there, and integrated into a master weather map of the continent; and an intercity net further combines these maps into a world map in one of the largest population centers. The information and world forecasts are there made available to any who have need of them—including the original stations; we require the total picture for long-range local forecasting. All the exact sciences have a similar network for co-ordination and exchange of information.”

  “That sounds efficient,” remarked Vickers. “We have similar organization on and between the worlds of the Union. There is a great deal of written information on such matters in my ship; I shall be glad to translate for you, any time you care to come aboard. The more you understand about our civilization, the better.”

  “I shall take advantage of that offer presently,” returned Deg. “At the moment, I fear I have ignored my duties too long. There will be several hours’ observation records in my office, and one of the computing machines has been behaving suspiciously. If it goes out altogether it may be more than our technician can handle, and I’d hate the thought of doing much of that computation manually. Would you care to visit my office? I can show you something of the station on the way, and you can return the favor when I visit your ship.”

  ~ * ~

  Vickers had been hoping for such an offer. He had not wanted to make the suggestion himself, but up to now he had acquired very little idea of the state of technical advancement of these people. A look at any sort of laboratory would give him a good idea of their science in general, for no field of knowledge progresses far without corresponding development in the others. He gladly accepted Serrnak’s offer.

  They had been walking as they conversed, toward the point where the giant breakers flung themselves against the stone rampart of the lowest terrace. Now the meteorologist turned back toward the hill, the Earthman following. Parked against the face of the cliff was Deg’s car, a four-wheeled vehicle with enormous balloon tires. Its owner vaulted easily over the side into the driver’s seat; Vickers clambered in more slowly, hampered by the sixty pounds that Heklas gravity added to his normal weight.

  Deg set the car in motion, picking his way between rockfalls. Vickers constantly expected to see the tires cut through by the sharp-edged fragments of slate littering the way, but the tough treads remained intact; and presently the stones disappeared, as the mountain was left behind. After a quarter of an hour, Deg was able to turn inland, and a little later there began to be signs of a narrow road, which led in a rather steep climb back toward the hill. Here they were able to put on more speed, although Deg was bothered part of the time by the sun shining in his eyes. Vickers was able to look directly at the hazy, mottled crimson disk without much discomfort.

  About a quarter of the way up, the road skirted a small pocket in the hillside, covering perhaps a quarter of an acre. It was covered with regular rows of purplish vegetation, and a small, low-roofed stone building stood between it and the road. Deg stopped the car and entered the building, indicating that Vickers should wait. The Earthman heard conversation through the open door, but was unable to distinguish any words. The Heklan emerged after a moment, and the ride continued. Vickers had seen several of the little gardens on the way down the mountain, but Deg did not offer to explain them on either trip.

  The rest of the drive was uneventful, and the car presently emerged from the road—now almost a tunnel—onto a nearly flat space two or three hundred yards across, beyond which the hill rose sharply to its real summit two hundred feet above. At the base of this final peak, an opening fifty yards across and half as high led into the hill; and from the opening, and equally wide, a paved, level strip ran across the flat space to its very edge. Vickers had assumed this to be a landing runway for aircraft; and the silvery hull of his own little ship lay now to one side of it.

  The car drove straight on into the cavern, through it, and into a smaller chamber beyond, in which a number of the vehicles were parked. Leaving the vehicle here, the men proceeded through two narrow hallways. Along both sides of the second were a number of doors; Deg opened one of these, to reveal an elevator, into which he motioned the Earthman. It was similar to the terrestrial elevator, controlled by the passenger. Vickers counted the buttons, trying to get some idea of the extent of the station. There were forty-five of them, indicating that there were at least that many levels to the observatory.

  ~ * ~

  Deg touched one of the highest buttons with the horny tip of a finger, and they were carried smoothly upwards. Vickers could not tell the number of levels they passed, but the ride was comparatively short. They emerged directly into a large room, which Deg described as the local integration and prediction laboratory.

  It was about one hundred feet square. Its most prominent feature was a set of six five-foot globes, spaced equally along one wall, and representing the first maps Vickers had seen of Hekla. Each was covered with a complicated network of lines and symbols; the Earthman assumed that these were the equivalents of the isobars, fronts, cloud symbols and other data with which meteorologists habitually decorate their work. They meant little to Vickers. He was able to tell, from his recollection of the planet’s surface as viewed from space, that the deep purple areas represented water, while land was white. The globes were evidently of some translucent material like frosted glass, and were lighted from within.

  At the base of each globe was a desk, at which an operator sat. Some were working small computing machines; others were busy with the incomprehensible diagrams and graphs of their profession. On the rest of the floor space were a number of larger computers, some manned and active, others deserted. Across the room from the globes four more of the machines, far larger and more complex than their fellows, were set at the four sides of a large table whose top was a map, evidently of the region centering about the observatory, set up and lighted in similar fashion to the world maps. The operators of these calculators were grouped about the keyboard nearest to Vickers and Deg; and with a word of apology, the Heklan stepped over to them, to listen to their conversation.

  Vickers waited for him, gazing around at the ordered efficiency represented in the activity of the laboratory. It pleased him; everything he saw bespoke a high culture, considerable progress in the physical sciences, mechanical skill, and an apparent tendency toward international co-operation—a smoothly working planet-wide weather system coul
d scarcely be maintained in the face of strained international relationships. He also noted an apparent lack of metal; it was used only where necessary, as in electric conductors. Wood and synthetics were used almost entirely.

  He was not too surprised; he had known of the low density of the planet before leaving the big interstellar flyer which had brought him and his smaller ship to the neighborhood of R Coronae. Hekla had nearly twice the diameter of Earth, but its surface gravity was only forty percent higher. The forty percent, he reflected, was plenty; his legs were aching perpetually, and he had been getting—and needing—twelve hours’ sleep out of twenty-four. Hekla’s thirty-two-hour day complicated his schedule; day or night, he had to sleep after twelve or fourteen hours of activity. The Heklans, even when the proportionate length of their day was considered, got along with unbelievably little rest; Deg, Vickers had learned, counted on four to five hours of sleep, which he got as soon after sunset as his work permitted.

  ~ * ~

  Vickers’ reflections were interrupted by Serrnak’s return.

  “I am very sorry,” the Heklan said, “but I cannot show you more of our station at the moment. The main integrator is definitely making mistakes, and I shall have to help carry out alternate procedure with the smaller machines until the technical section can correct the trouble. I shall send someone to show you the way back to your ship, unless you wish to do something else until I can rejoin you.”

  “I will return to the ship, for a while at least,” replied Vickers. “I can find my own way, if you will tell me the level at which I should stop the elevator. I saw no means of telling the number of the floor from which we started.

  “The flight ramp and road exit are on the thirtieth level,” Deg informed him. “The control buttons in the cage are in order. I regret being so abrupt, but there is nothing else to be done. I will come to your ship when I am again free.”

  Vickers nodded, touched Serrnak’s hand in the standard Heklan gesture of farewell, and entered the elevator. It was lit by a source which would have reminded the Earthman of an old carbon filament bulb, if he had ever seen such a thing, but the reddish glow was sufficient to enable him to count off thirty buttons. He pressed the thirtieth, and felt the cage sink slowly downwards. The ride, as before, was brief, and the door opened automatically at its termination.

  He stepped into the corridor, turned right—and stopped short. The hallway should have extended for twenty yards and been crossed by another at that point. Instead, only a few paces from the elevator it opened directly into a room almost as large as the integration laboratory above. Electrical equipment, as unfamiliar as any other scientific apparatus to Vickers, crowded the floor; and among the installations sat or stood fully a score of Heklans, all apparently busily occupied. Vickers stood gazing into the chamber for several moments, until one of the workers chanced to glance up. His big eyes blinked once; then he took a pair of earphones from his head, rose from his seat, and approached the Earthman.

  “Your ship is out on the landing ramp, which is on the thirtieth level,” he said. “Can I help you in locating it?”

  “I thought I had reached the thirtieth level,” replied Vickers. “Serrnak Deg told me that the elevator buttons were in order, and I certainly pressed the thirtieth.” The Heklan looked steadily at him for several seconds, and blinked once more. Then he nodded his head violently.

  “I think I see what must have happened,” he said. “You counted upward from the bottom of the panel. You are now on the sixteenth of the forty-five levels. The station was dug downwards from the top of the mountain, and it was natural to number in that direction. Do your people normally number from the ground up?”

  “Yes, we do, on buildings above ground level; but if I had stopped to recall that this place is underground I should at least have asked Deg whether you counted up or down. It is a silly error on my part. Now that I am here, however, do you mind my seeing your department? I will try to keep out of the way of any activity.”

  The big eyes blinked again, as their owner hesitated. Vickers decided that the expression on the grotesque face denoted discomfort.

  “I dislike to appear discourteous,” the answer finally came, “but the trouble in the computing department has thrown a heavy load on us. We are all extremely busy, so that I can neither guide you around our section myself, nor provide another to do so. Some of the equipment is too dangerous to permit your examining it unattended. I am extremely sorry, but there is nothing I can do to grant your request. Do you think you can find the way back to your ship from here? If not, I can show you to the landing stage.”

  He started to move toward the elevator before Vickers could answer him; but the Earthman declined the offer of guidance. The Heklan pointed out the proper button—they were labeled in Heklan characters, but the numbers happened not to stand out very clearly to blue-sensitive eyes—and returned to the chamber of electrical devices, leaving an elevator with a decidedly thoughtful occupant.

  ~ * ~

  Vickers retraced his original way from the ship without further misadventure, passed through the air lock, still pondering. Until the time he had left Serrnak in his laboratory, everything had appeared to be proceeding favorably. The meteorologist had evidently been convinced of his sincerity—Vickers chalked up another point in favor of the policy of sticking to the truth as much as possible; but the technician on the sixteenth level had been patently anxious to get rid of him. The creature had said the entire force was too busy to show him around the department, and in the same breath had offered to guide him back to the spaceship. A personal dislike, or actual physical repugnance to a member of an alien race might be responsible, of course; but the apparently genuine effort at courtesy suggested some other cause.

  Vickers settled down in a well padded chair—his ship was a converted lifeboat, and he had personally fitted it with items of luxury seldom found on such a craft—and gave his mind to the problem. In the first place, no Heklan except Serrnak Deg had had opportunity to become acquainted with him; during the three months in which he had learned the language of this race, Vickers had confined his attention to that one individual, and had caught no more than fleeting glimpses of the other inhabitants of the station. It seemed, therefore, that the Heklan on the sixteenth level either had formed an instantaneous dislike of the Earthman, had acquired one from Deg, or had been ordered by the same individual not to permit Vickers to examine that level. The first possibility the man had already dismissed as unlikely; and the other two posed the same question—to wit, what had he done or said to arouse the Heklan’s suspicion or dislike? Deg must be a fine actor, if Vickers’ opinion of his own ability to judge the expression of the Heklan face was not overrated; for no suggestion of any emotion save friendly interest had been apparent to the man in Serrnak’s attitude.

  The conversation of the last hour or two was the most probable source of trouble. Vickers reviewed his words, with the aid of a nearly eidetic memory. He had, in the first place, adhered strictly to the truth in describing the Federation and its method of establishing contact with “new” races. He had described himself as an agent of the Federation, which was his only serious departure from scrupulous verity; but the lie should not have been obvious to Deg. He had answered the Heklan’s questions plausibly—and truthfully, as he recalled. He had known more than one Federation ambassador, and knew their usual troubles.

  It was at this point that a recollection of the nature of Deg’s questions suddenly stood out in Vickers’ mind. There had been only one of importance, though he had asked it more than once, and in a variety of ways. The Heklan had been unable to understand why membership in or dealings with the Federation had been refused by some races; and—had he been entirely unmoved by Vickers’ speech, “A certain suspicion of strangers is natural”? A moment later he had said that “naturally” he could not answer for the attitude of the rest of his people; had the inflection of his voice as he uttered that word denoted sarcasm, or some other emotion—or
was Vickers’ imagination adding to the picture painted by memory?

  The man had not learned so much as he had meant to of the living conditions on Hekla. If the population were small and conditions hard, an instinct of co-operation rather than competition might be dominant; such cases were not unknown. If this were true of Hekia, Deg and his people would not be merely reluctant to have dealings with outsiders; they would be terrified at the mere thought, after the impression the meteorologist must have gained from what Vickers had considered “natural.”

  The theory made Vickers extremely uncomfortable, but long cogitation produced no other. He berated himself for giving so much information without obtaining any in return; but there was no use reviving a dead issue. He determined to return to the observatory, both to check his theory and to obtain some of the missing information. He arose, opened the air lock, and walked across the small plateau toward the great entry way.

  ~ * ~

  Twenty minutes later, a very thoughtful man, he was sitting in his control room. He had met four Heklans inside the entrance; they had been extremely polite; but he had not reached the elevator. Something was decidedly wrong. He had learned nothing new or helpful on the second trip, but it seemed pretty certain that action was required.