Eden (11 page)

The Doctor and the Chemist, on the floor, could see nothing. There were long panels under them, like the staves of a boat. Another shrill clang, and they could feel themselves moving. Almost immediately the panels on which they were lying became transparent, and they could see the plain below them, as though they were sailing over it in a balloon. There was a great noise around them. The Captain talked feverishly with the Engineer, both forced to assume unnatural and extremely tiring positions near the finlike object in the front of the gondola, which held the controls. Every few minutes one of them would spell the other, and that exchange required the Physicist and Cyberneticist to lie on top of the two men at the bottom.

"How does it work?" the Chemist asked the Engineer, who had inserted both hands into the deep openings in the fin and was keeping the craft on a straight course. They were moving rapidly, along a groove. In the gondola there was no sense of gyration—it was as if they were floating.

"I have no idea," groaned the Engineer. "A bad cramp—you take it now!" As he slid over and the Captain squeezed in, the disk shook, jumped off its groove, braked violently, and began making a sharp turn. The Captain put his hands into the control mechanism and a moment later steered the gigantic top out of its turn and back onto the groove. They sped along faster now.

"Why does it travel so slowly outside the groove?" asked the Chemist. He was propped against the Engineer's shoulders to keep his balance; between his outspread legs lay the Doctor.

"I told you, I have no idea," said the Engineer, massaging his wrists, which bore welts from the steering. "It may have something to do with a gyroscope. Who knows?"

They passed a second chain of hills. The terrain below appeared familiar—they had crossed it before, on foot. Around them was the barely visible outline of their disk. The groove suddenly changed direction: to return to the ship, they would have to leave it. Their speed fell to less than fifteen miles an hour.

"These craft are practically useless outside the grooves—we'll have to remember that!" the Engineer shouted over the noise.

"Take over!" cried the Captain.

This time the switch went smoothly. Then they were ascending a steep slope at little more than a walk. The Engineer found the canyon with the clay walls. When they reached the lung-trees, he got a cramp.

"Take it!"

As he pulled out his hands, the Captain rushed to replace him. The disk tilted and came dangerously close to the precipice. At that point there was a sharp crack; the rim of the whirring craft had hit a treetop. Broken branches flew, and the gondola crashed sideways with a hellish din. An uprooted tree swept the sky with its crown, and thousands of blister-leaves exploded with a hiss over the craft, as a landslide half-buried it. A cloud of white seeds filled the air; then there was silence. The gondola, dented, was embedded in the cliff.

"Crew?" said the Captain, shaking his head to clear it. His ears rang.

"One," groaned the Engineer, on the floor.

"Two," came the Physicist's weak voice.

"Three," said the Chemist, holding his bloody mouth.

"Four," said the Cyberneticist.

"Fi … ve." The Doctor was under everyone else, at the very bottom of the gondola.

They all laughed.

They were covered with a layer of fluffy, tickling seeds that had found their way inside through the apertures at the top of the gondola. The Engineer banged on the wall of the craft to make the door open. The others, whoever had the room to, pushed against the concave surface. The hull shuddered, a faint cracking could be heard, but the gondola would not open.

"Try again," said the Doctor in a muffled voice. He was unable to move. "I'm getting tired of this. Oof, hey, don't step on me!"

Although the situation was hardly amusing, they laughed, and together pulled a comb-shaped frame off the front and used it like a battering ram against the ceiling. The ceiling bent, became covered with pits, but would not open.

"Enough is enough," growled the Doctor, and tried to get up. At that moment the bottom gave way, and everyone spilled out, rolling down the steep twenty-foot slope to the floor of the canyon.

"Anyone hurt?" asked the Captain, the first to get to his feet. He was covered with clay.

"No, but you're bleeding! Let me have a look," said the Doctor.

Indeed, the Captain had a deep cut on his head. The Doctor bandaged it as best as he could. The others were only bruised, but the Chemist spit blood—he had bitten his lip. They set out for the ship, without even glancing at the shattered craft.

The sun was touching the horizon when they reached the knoll. The ship cast a long shadow across the sands of the plain. Before they entered, they searched the vicinity thoroughly, but found no traces of any visitor in their absence. The pile was working perfectly. The cleaning robot had managed to clear the halls and the library before becoming hopelessly stuck in the thick layer of broken plastic and glass that covered the laboratory.

After supper, which they wolfed down, the Doctor had to sew up the Captain's wound, because it wouldn't stop bleeding. Meanwhile the Chemist analyzed the water samples from the brook and pronounced it drinkable, though it contained a lot of iron, which spoiled the taste.

"It's time to have a council of war," said the Captain. They were sitting on air cushions in the library, the Captain in the middle, his white bandage like a hat.

"What do we know?" he began. "Well, we know that the planet is inhabited by intelligent beings, which the Engineer calls 'doublers.' The name doesn't fit the thing that… But it doesn't matter. We've come across various artifacts of the doubler civilization. First, an automated factory that we concluded was abandoned and gone haywire—I'm not so sure of that now. Second, mirrorlike domes on the hilltops, of unknown function. Third, masts that emit some kind of energy—we don't know their function, either. Fourth, the flying disks, one of which we captured after an attack, operated, and crashed. Fifth, we saw their city, though from too great a distance to make out any detail. Sixth, the attack that I mentioned, in which a doubler set upon us an animal that was specially designed to throw a small fireball, which it seemed to operate or control until we killed it. Finally—seventh—we witnessed the covering of a burial ditch filled with dead inhabitants of the planet. That's all—as far as I can remember. Correct me if I've made a mistake or left anything out."

"That's pretty much it," said the Doctor. "Except for what happened the day before yesterday, in the ship…"

"True. And you were right—the creature
was
naked. Perhaps it was trying to escape, and in its panic crawled into the first opening at hand, which happened to be the tunnel leading to our ship."

"A tempting hypothesis, but risky," said the Doctor. "Being human, we make associations and interpretations that are human, we apply human laws, arrange facts into patterns brought from Earth. I am absolutely certain that we all thought the same thing this morning: that we had come upon the grave of victims of violence, of murder. But we don't really know…"

"You don't believe that," objected the Engineer.

"It's not a question of what I believe. Eden is not the place for our beliefs. The hypothesis, for example, about the doubler 'siccing' its electric dog on us…"

"What do you mean, a hypothesis? That's what happened," the Chemist and the Engineer said, almost together.

"You're wrong. We have no idea why it attacked us. We might resemble some local cockroaches here, or game… But we saw it as an act of aggression, associating it with what we had just found, a thing that made such an impact on us that we lost our ability to think calmly."

"And if we had kept calm and not fired immediately, it would have been
our
ashes stamped and scattered," muttered the Engineer angrily.

The Captain said nothing, moving his eyes from one man to the other.

"We did what we had to do," replied the Doctor, "but it is very likely that there was a misunderstanding. On both sides… You think we've fitted in all the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle? The factory supposedly abandoned several hundred years ago—what about that? Where does the factory fit in?"

There was silence.

"The Doctor's right," said the Captain. "We still know too little. The only advantage we seem to have is that they know nothing of us, since none of their roads—grooves—run near here. But we can hardly count on that ignorance continuing. Whatever we decide must take that into account."

"At present we are virtually defenseless in this wreck," said the Engineer. "All one would have to do is block up the tunnel to suffocate us like mice. We must act quickly, because at any moment we could be discovered, and although the hypothesis of doubler aggression may be only my 'human association,' I am incapable of reasoning in any other way. I propose we begin repairing all the units and engines—immediately."

"And how long will that repair take?" asked the Doctor. The Engineer hesitated. "You see?" the Doctor said wearily. "Why should we delude ourselves? They'll discover us before we finish. I'm no expert, but I know it will take weeks and weeks…"

"Unfortunately that's true," the Captain agreed. "And we'll have to replenish our water supply. And get rid of the contaminated water that's flooded the lower level. Nor do we know if all the damage is repairable."

"Another expedition will be necessary," said the Engineer. "And more than one. They can be made at night. However, some of us—two or three—should stay near the ship. But why are we the only ones talking?" he asked, turning to the three other men, who had been silent so far.

"We ought to work as hard as possible on the ship, but study the doubler civilization, too," the Physicist said slowly. "The two activities will interfere with each other. The number of unknowns is so great that no strategy will be of much help. One thing alone is certain: whatever course of action we choose, we face tremendous risk."

"I think I see what you're all saying," said the Doctor in the same low, weary voice. "You want to make further expeditions, inasmuch as we now have the ability to deliver powerful blows—atomic blows. In self-defense, of course. Since this will mean taking on the whole planet, count me out, gentlemen. I have no desire to participate in what will be a Pyrrhic victory, Pyrrhic even if they don't have atomic energy … which I wouldn't bet on. What kind of engine runs the disks?"

"I don't know," said the Engineer, "but it isn't atomic. I'm almost certain."

"That 'almost' might cost us dearly." The Doctor leaned back, closed his eyes, and rested his head on a fallen bookcase, as if he had no further intention of speaking.

"Squaring the circle," muttered the Cyberneticist.

"And if we try to … communicate?" the Chemist asked.

The Doctor sat up straight, looked at him, and said, "Thank you. I was beginning to think nobody would say that!"

"But to attempt communication means to put ourselves at their mercy!" exclaimed the Cyberneticist, getting to his feet.

"Why?" the Doctor asked coldly. "We can arm ourselves first, even with atomic throwers. But we don't sneak up on their towns and factories at night."

"All right… So how do you envisage an attempt at communication?"

"Yes, tell us," said the Captain.

"I admit we shouldn't try it just now," replied the Doctor. "The more equipment we're able to repair on the ship, the better, naturally. We should arm ourselves, too, though it doesn't have to be with atomic throwers… Then some of us will stay by the ship, and some—three, let's say—will approach the city. Two, approaching, will stop short and watch, while the third attempts to communicate with the inhabitants…"

"You have it all figured out. You even know who will be the one to enter the city," the Engineer said grimly.

"Yes, I do."

"Well, I'm not going to stand by while you try to commit suicide!" The Engineer jumped to his feet and towered over the Doctor, who did not even look up. They had never seen the Engineer so agitated. "If we all survived the crash and emerged from the grave that this ship became—if after taking the incalculable risk of exploring this planet as if it were a place for walking tours—it wasn't so that now, with this damned, stupid drivel…" He became choked with anger. "I know that song. Mankind's mission! Peace and good will to the stars! You're a fool! Don't tell me that no one tried to kill us today! That we didn't see a mass grave!"

The Doctor lifted his head. "Yes, they tried to kill us. And yes, it's very likely that those dead were murdered." Everyone could see the effort it took him to remain calm. "But we must go to the city."

"After what we did?" asked the Captain.

The Doctor winced. "True," he said. "The corpse we burned … yes. Do what you think is best. You decide. I'll go along." And he got up and left, stepping over the horizontal door frame. The others waited, as though expecting him to change his mind and come back.

"You shouldn't have lost your temper," the Captain said quietly to the Engineer.

"You know perfectly well…" began the Engineer, but after looking him in the eyes he said, "I shouldn't have."

"The Doctor's right about one thing," said the Captain, adjusting his bandage, which had been slipping down. "What we found to the north of us doesn't fit with what we saw to the east. We're about as far from the city as from the factory—I'd say fifteen or twenty miles as the crow flies."

"More," said the Physicist.

"Maybe. Now, I would doubt that within that radius there are any such structures to the south or west. Because that would mean we had landed in the center of a kind of island "desert" some forty miles in diameter within an urban area. Which would be too much of a coincidence, too improbable. Do you agree?"

"Yes," said the Engineer, looking at the floor.

The Chemist, nodding, said, "We should have talked like this at the beginning."

"I share the Doctor's misgivings," the Captain went on. "But his proposal is naïve, unsuitable, under the circumstances. The rules for contact with an alien civilization do not cover the situation in which we now find ourselves: of defenseless castaways living in a wreck buried in the ground. Obviously we must repair the damage to the ship, but at the same time there is an information race—between them and us. So far, we are ahead. We destroyed the being that attacked us. Why it attacked us, we don't know. Maybe we do resemble one of their enemies. We'll have to ascertain that, too, if we can. Since the ship will not be operable in the near future, we must be ready for anything. The civilization around us is clearly developed. What I did, therefore—what we did—will only slightly delay their discovery of us. So our main effort now must be to arm ourselves."