News From Elsewhere (9 page)

He was still puzzling the situation out when Duluth returned from his trip in the monowheel. The engineer found Lukas on the mess deck, looking—as Duluth remarked—like a pile of ectoplasm left over from a phony seance.

“What’s eating you, Mike? Somebody been making nasty faces through the window?”

Lukas pulled himself together and gave a laconic account of Masumo’s visit. Duluth pursed his lips and let out a long, low whistle.

“I had a feeling those simple-minded characters were too good to be true,” he said slowly. “I got something else for us to think about as well. In case you haven’t noticed it, they never talk to each other. They make plenty of gibberish for our benefit, but they don’t use it among themselves. I looked in at shantytown to say hello on my way back this afternoon. I was there a couple of hours, maybe. There was plenty of noise, all right—and all of it directed at me. ... I thought there was something mighty fishy, but it didn’t dawn on me what it was until I was heading back to the ship.”

Lukas sat up suddenly. “Joe, you’ve hit it! These 
creatures have been taking us—for a ride. They’re natural telepaths.”

Duluth shrugged. “If they’re so goddam clever, why do they look like a gorilla’s next of kin? Why do they live the way they do?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

At that moment they heard sounds down below indicating that Alsdorf and Chirico had returned with the tractor. Duluth went down to meet them. A few moments later, Alsdorf hurried up the companion ladder. There was a curious, strained look on his face.

“Mike, what is your opinion of witchcraft?” he asked abruptly.

Lukas raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t any. You’d better tell me the worst.”

The German slumped onto a bench. His gaze fell on the newly opened bottle of whiskey. He reached for it and took a deep draught—straight from the bottle. Lukas was intrigued. This was the first time he had ever seen Alsdorf lose his smooth sangfroid.

“Palladium and platinum deposits,” said Alsdorf, coughing a little. “They’ve completely disappeared.”

“What!”

The geophysicist nodded emphatically. “Not a trace. They might never have existed. Nothing disturbed, no sign of interference. But not a trace of nuggets, ore, or any damn thing. . . . Acres and acres of it, Mike, and the whole lot wiped clean out of existence.” The shock to his scientific soul was such that he seemed about to burst into tears.

Lukas stared at him. “But the thing is impossible. You’re sure—”

Alsdorf slammed the bottle down. “Don’t ask me if I’m sure it’s the right place. Tony and I nearly went crazy making sure. How could it happen, Mike? It’s impossible!”

“It was impossible, you mean.” Lukas stood up. “It looks as if this is our big day, doesn’t it?” He gazed through the observation panel at the darkening sky over the forest line and began to tell Alsdorf about Masumo’s visit.

By the time he had finished, the geophysicist had regained control of himself. “Tonight,” he said somberly, “we will make our plans. Tomorrow we will take the tractor and pay these hominids a visit—with machine pistols, grenades, and gas bombs.” He laughed mirthlessly. “The experiment will be conducted under scientific conditions. We will see if they are—vulnerable.”

“Are you proposing to blast them to glory?” demanded Lukas quietly. “Because if so, you can think again. This is their planet, not ours.”

Alsdorf gave him a sour grin. “Still the adolescent idealist, Mike. . . . Why don’t you grow up?”

“Don’t worry, I am,” retorted Lukas. “Meanwhile, don’t think I’m going to let you intimidate a bunch of defenseless savages.”

“I get the impression that they are not so defenseless or so ignorant as we thought,” remarked Alsdorf pleasantly. “And while I have no intention of being dramatic, I’m damn well going to find out what’s happened to our platinum.”

“Our
 
platinum?” Lukas stared at him.

“Ours by right of conquest,” amended Alsdorf dryly. “We have the superior culture, the superior tools, and the superior weapons.”

Lukas suddenly laughed. “But we aren’t telepaths, and we can’t do vanishing tricks with large platinum deposits. Don’t get overconfident, Kurt.”

Chirico came up the companion ladder, preceded by a loud blast of invective.

“Those lousy stinking aboriginals! Those sons of a venereal ape! Hi, Mike. I hear you’ve been having fun, too. What beats me is how they could possibly—”

Duluth, who had followed him, said calmly, “I have a theory.” The three men turned and stared at him.

Duluth helped himself to a cigarette and lit it. “Yeah,” he said with an air of profundity, “they do it with mirrors.”

After the evening meal a formal conference was held on the navigation deck. Alsdorf opened it by proposing to make a lightning swoop on the village to capture Masumo, with the logical aim of holding him as a hostage and finding out what he knew. Lukas, as captain of the ship, and therefore the person responsible for the safety of the expedition, promptly vetoed the proposal.

“Are you suggesting, Mike, that we do nothing, that we just hang around waiting to see what happens next?” Alsdorf was scathing.

“Keep your shirt on. Leaving aside the ethics of the thing, I’m merely pointing out that we can’t afford to start anything unless we’re sure we can finish it. If Masumo is a telepath, we’d be fools to have him in the ship. It’s possible he would be able to report back on every move we made.”

“Unfortunately,” said Chirico with a wry smile, “Mike happens to be right. We do not know how these—these primitive poltergeists operate. . . . But hell, we have to do 
something,
 
don’t we?”

“Why not get out of here and touch down somewhere else?” asked Duluth lazily. “Anything for a quiet life.”

Alsdorf withered him with a glance. “And lose the finest platinum deposits we’re ever likely to see?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” drawled Duluth, “but haven’t we already lost ’em?”

Glancing quickly from face to face, Lukas could see that the expedition’s morale had reached a crucial phase. While he personally would have gladly accepted Duluth’s suggestion, for some reason that he could not yet fully understand, he realized that it was psychologically unsound. For the first time in history a space crew had come up against a quasi-human culture—one that was both beyond and below its terrestrial equivalent—and they could not, with self-respect, ignore its challenge. To do so would be to admit that their own sense of superiority was hollow. And Lukas was dimly aware that if human beings were to realize that they could be beaten by a different kind of creature, with a different concept of power, it would be as big a shock as the original discovery that Earth was not the fixed center of the universe.

He looked at the faces of his companions and offered the compromise he had decided upon at the beginning.

“Kurt would like to get tough with the hominids,” he said slowly, “but we agree that we’re not in a position to get tough. Joe suggests pulling up anchor and trying elsewhere. But that is no good, either. Sooner or later this kind of problem will occur again. We have to try and tackle it here. ... I suggest that, tomorrow, three of us— with defensive arms, if it makes you feel better—take the

tractor and pay them a visit. The aim being to try to find a peaceful solution. One thing we do know: the hominids will understand what we are getting at—if they want to understand. If they don’t feel like cooperating over the platinum, well, we’ll have to think again. . . . But this is their territory, and we can’t afford to create a situation that might jeopardize the next space crew to get here.” Chirico made up his mind immediately. “That’s the best idea yet, Mike. If the hominids really are mindreaders, they’ll know we aren’t out for trouble, and they might be willing to meet us. . . . What do you say, Kurt?”

The geophysicist shrugged. “I think they will laugh at us. But I’m willing to try diplomacy—once.”

“It could be interesting,” remarked Duluth. “I’m for it—providing I’m not elected to stay behind and guard the ship. If they can knock off the platinum deposits, they might take it into their nuts to have a crack at vanishing the
 
Poincare
.”

“That’s my responsibility,” said Lukas. “You three had better get some sleep while I take the first watch.”

It was late afternoon before the expedition started. Lukas had suggested the delay in case the hominids themselves chose to make a visit. But though a constant watch had been kept on the forest line, no movement had been observed; and it looked as if the hominids were content to rest on their achievements so far.

Alsdorf’s defensive armament consisted of two machine pistols and a box of gas bombs. He stowed himself, the gas bombs, and one machine pistol in the tractor’s observation turret, while Duluth took the other machine pistol below and sat with Chirico, who was the driver.

Lukas came down the ladder to see them off. He exchanged a few last-minute words with Alsdorf, who had decided to ride with the turret hatch open—in case quick action was needed.

“How is the adrenalin, Kurt?”

The geophysicist gave him a thin smile. “I’m not trigger-happy, if that’s what you mean.”

Lukas grinned. “If they start throwing telepathy at you, don’t waste time with the sleep bombs. Get the hell out of there.”

“We’ll see.”

Lukas went to the driver’s compartment. “I’ll call you on the transceiver in fifteen minutes, Joe. Don’t let them pull any rabbits out of your hat.”

Duluth laughed. “Maybe we’ll use a little magic ourselves.”

Chirico waved and switched on the engine. Presently the tractor was lumbering purposefully toward the forest in a dead straight line.

Lukas went back to the navigation deck and settled down to wait and watch. He lit a cigarette and made himself comfortable in the astrodome, thus commanding the view on all sides. There was nothing to be seen. Eventually he realized it was time for the radio check. He climbed down the short ladder and switched the transceiver on.

“Ship to tractor, ship to tractor. Have you made contact yet?”

“Tractor to ship.” Lukas recognized Duluth’s voice. “Tractor to ship. We hit shantytown a couple of minutes ago. Kurt is raising his blood pressure trying to make Masumo understand what he’s talking about. The old son of an ape is playing stupid. Looks as if he’s enjoying it, too. Any developments your end?”

“Dead quiet. I hope it stays that way. ... I’ll leave this set on receive; then you can call me any time.”

“O.K., Mike. This is the picture so far. The old boy wanted to take Kurt into one of those adobe shacks—a bit bigger than the rest. It looks like some kind of council chamber. But Kurt wasn’t having any. So he and Masumo are standing just in front of the tractor. The louder Kurt shouts, the more the old boy seems to like it. At the moment he’s calmly drawing patterns in the sand with a pointed stick. You know, they look like star maps. . . . Jesus, they are star maps! Mike, can you believe this—he’s plotted our course for a Solar deceleration! Now Kurt has really lost his temper. Any moment now he’ll start tossing something. . . . Hey, Kurt! For Chrissake—”

Suddenly Duluth’s voice was cut off. Lukas felt the sweat forming on his forehead. He immediately threw the switch to transmit.

“Ship to tractor! Joe! What’s happened? Are you receiving me?”

There was no background noise—nothing.

Lukas stared dully at the transceiver, trying to work out all possibilities. Mechanical failure was possible, but least likely. Somebody or something had blasted the transmission.

Minutes went by, and nothing happened. Lukas hauled himself up into the astrodome and gazed intently on all sides. The landscape was as empty as ever. He went down and tried the transceiver again, but his calls were unanswered. He tried to decide what to do. But all the plans he devised were blocked by the basic fact that he must not leave the ship unguarded. That would be the final stupidity. Again he tried the transceiver, and again there was no response. He could only wait and hope.

Meanwhile the sun moved slowly down the yellowish sky until it hung over the forest. Mechanically, Lukas swung himself up into the astrodome for the twentieth time and looked around. Then he saw something moving and grabbed the telescope.

He couldn’t believe his eyes. The tractor was halfway across the sand belt, heading straight for the
 
Henri Poincare.
 
Sitting crosslegged in front of its turret, rocking gently with the tractor’s motion and looking like a somnolent toad, was Masumo.

Lukas jumped down from the dome. He knew simultaneously that everything had gone wrong and yet, that somehow it was all right.

Then he heard a voice speak softly in his ear:
 
“Be not afraid, man of the sky-machine. I come in peace.”

Against all reason—even against his will—Lukas laid down the machine pistol he had just picked up, and felt the tension drain out of him. The words had acted on him not as a command but as a compulsion. Calmly he went down the companion ladder and out of the space ship. He stood on the still warm sand, watching the tractor draw near.

It pulled up smoothly, and at the same time Masumo stood up, jumped lightly from the turret, and raised his hand in the customary greeting. On his face was a fixed, bland smile.