The Ship Who Won (9 page)

it back to the field where more folded groundsheets were

piled.

"But if they live in the cave, over there," Keff said, in

surprise, "why are they leaving the food over here?"

"Maybe the roots need to dry out a litde before they can

be stored, so they won't rot," Carialle said. "Or maybe they

stink. You find out for yourself when we make contact.

Here, visitor, eat roots. Good!"

"No, thanks," Keff said.

The six-legged draft animal waited placidly while the

young female attached a new sheet to its harness. The

beast bore a passing resemblance to a Terran shire horse,

except for the six legs and a double dip of its spine over the

extra set of shoulder-hips. Under layers of brown dust, its

coat was thick and plushy: good protection against the cold

wind. Some of the garments and tool pouches worn by the

aborigines were undoubtedly manufactured out of such

hide. Keff gazed curiously at the creature's feet. Not at all

hooflike: each had three stubby toes with blunt claws and a

thick sole that looked as tough as stone. The pack beast

walked with the same patient gait whether the travois

behind it was fully loaded or not.

"Strong," Keff said. "I bet one of those six-legged

packs-hmm, six-packs!-could haul you uphill."

Carialle snorted. "I'd like to see it try."

Team leaders called out orders with hand signals, directing workers to new rows. The workers chattered among

themselves, shouting cheerfully while they stripped roots

and banged them on the ground to loosen some of the

clinging soil. Carialle could almost hear Xeno gibbering

with joy when they saw the hedrons she was recording for

them.

"Funny," Keff said, after a while. "I feel as if I should

understand what they're saying. The pace of their conversation is similar to Standard. There's cadence, but

measured, not too fast, and it's not inflected like, say, Old

Terran Asian."

A thickly furred mother called to her child, playing in a

depression of the dusty earth with a handful of other naked

tykes. It ignored her and went on with its game, a serious

matter of the placement of pebbles. The mother called

again, her voice on a rising note of annoyance. When the

child turned to look, she repeated her command, punctuating her words with a spiraling gesture other right hand.

The child, eyes wide with alarm, stood up at once and ran

over. After getting a smack on the bottom for disobedience, the child listened to instructions, then ran away, past

the cave entrance and around the rise of the hill.

"Verrrry interesting," Keff said. "She didn't say anything different, but that child certainly paid attention when

she made that hand gesture. Somewhere along the line

they've evolved a somatic element in their language."

"Or the other way around," Carialle suggested, focusing

on the gesture and replaying it in extreme close-up. "How

do you know the hand signals didn't come first?"

"I'd have to make a study on it," Keff said seriously, "but

I'd speculate because common, everyday symbols are handled with verbal phrases, the hand signals probably came

later. I wonder why it evolved that way?"

"Could a percentage of them be partially hearing-impaired or deaf?"

"Not when they have such marked cadence and rhythm

in their speech," Keff replied. "I doubt this level of agricul-turalist would evolve lipreading. Hmm. I could compare it

to the Saxon/Norman juxtaposition on Old Earth. Maybe

they've been conquered by another tribe who primarily

use sign language for communication. Or it might be the

signs come from their religious life, and mama was telling

baby that God would be unhappy if he didn't snap to it."

"Ugh. Invisible blackmail."

Keff patted the remote IT unit propped almost underneath his chin. "I want to talk to some of these people and

see how long it takes my unit to translate. I'm dying to see

what similarities there are between their language structure and Standards." He started to gather himself up to

stand.

"Not so fast," Carialle said, her voice ringing in his

mastoid-bone implant. He winced. "When something

seems too good to be true, it probably is. I think we need

to do more observation."

"Cari, we've watched half a dozen of these groups

already. They're all alike, even to the size of the flower gardens. When am I going to get to talk to one of them?"

The brains voice hinted of uneasiness. 'There's something, well, odd and seedy about this place. Have you

noticed how old all these artifacts are?"

Keff shrugged. "Usable tools passed down from generation to generation. Not uncommon in a developing

civilization."

"I think its just the opposite. Look at that!"

Coming toward the work party in the field were two

furry humanoid males. Between them on a makeshift

woven net of rough cords, they carefully bore a hemispherical, shieldlike object full of sloshing liquid. They

were led by the excited child who had been sent off by his

mother. He shouted triumphantly to the teams of workers

who set down their tools and rubbed the dust out of their

fur as they came over for a drink. Patiently, each waited his

or her turn to use the crude wooden dippers, then went

immediately back to the fields.

"Water break," Keff observed, propping his chin on his

palm. "Interesting bucket."

"It looks more like a microwave raydome to me, Keff,"

Carialle said. "Whaddayou know! They're using the

remains of a piece of advanced technical equipment to

haul water."

"By Saint George and Saint Vidicon, you're right! It

does look like a raydome. So the civilizations not evolving,

but in the last stages of decline," Keff said, thoughtfully,

tapping his cheek with his fingertips. "I wonder if they had

a war, eons ago, and the opposing forces blew themselves

out of civilization. Its so horribly cold and dry here that we

could very well be seeing the survivors of a comet strike."

Carialle ran through her photo maps of the planet taken

from space. "No ruins of cities above ground. No signatures of decaying radiation that I saw, except for those

sourceless power surges-and by the way, I just felt

another one. Could they be from the planet's magnetic disturbance? There are heavy electromagnetic bursts

throughout the fabric of the planet, and they don't seem to

be coming from anywhere. I suppose they could be natural

but - it's certainly puzzling. Possibly there was a Pyrrhic

victory and both sides declined past survival point so that

they ended up back in the Stone Age. Dawn of Furry

Mankind, second day."

"Now that you've mention it, I do recognize some of the

pieces they made their tools out of," Keff said. He watched

an adolescent female guiding two six-packs in a tandem

yoke pulling a plow over part of the field that had been

harvested. 'Tours is probably the best explanation, unless

they're a hard-line back-to-nature sect doing this on purpose, and I doubt that very much. But that plowshare looks

more to me like part ofashutdecraft fin. Especially if their

bucket has a ninety-seven-point resemblance to a raydome. Sad. A viable culture reduced to noble primitives

with only vestiges of their civilization."

'That's what we'll call them, then," Carialle said,

promptly. "Noble Primitives."

"Seconded. The motion is carried."

Another young female and her docile six-pack dragged a

full load of roots toward the stone square. Keff shifted to

watch her.

"Hey, the last load of roots is gone! I didn't see anyone

move it."

"We weren't paying attention," Carialle said. 'The

grounds uneven. There might be a root cellar near that

square, with another crew of workers. If you walk over the

ground nearby I could do a sounding and find it. If it's

unheated that would explain why its not as easy to pick out

as their living quarters."

Keff heard a whirring noise behind him and shifted as

silently as he could. "Am I well enough camouflaged?"

"Don't worry, Keff," Carialle said in his ear. "It's just

another globe-frog."

"Damn. I hope they don't see me."

Beside the six-packs, one of the few examples of animal life on RNJ were small green amphibioids that

meandered over the rocky plains, probably from scarce

water source to water source, in clear globular cases full

of water. Outside their shells they'd be about a foot long,

with delicate limbs and big, flat paws that drove the

spheres across dry land. Keff had dubbed them "globe-frogs." The leader was followed by two more.

Globe-frogs were curious as cats, and all of them

seemed fascinated by Keff.

"Poor things, like living tumbleweeds," Carialle said,

sympathetically.

'The intelligent life isn't much better off," Keff said. "It's

dry as dust around here."

'Terrible when sentient beings are reduced to mere survival," Carialle agreed.

"Oops," Keff said, in resignation. 'They see me. Here

they come. Damn it, woman, stop laughing."

"It's your animal magnetism," Carialle said, amused.

The frogs rolled nearer, spreading out into a line; perhaps to get a look at all sides of him, or perhaps as a safety

precaution. If he suddenly sprang and attacked, he could

only get one. The rumble of their cases on the ground

sounded like thunder to him.

"Shoo," Keff said, trying to wave them off before the

field workers came over to investigate. He glanced at the

workers. Luckily, none were paying attention to the frogs.

"Cari, where s the nearest water supply?"

"Back where the raydomeful came from. About two

kilometers north northeast."

"Go that way," Keff said, pointing, with his hand bent up

close to his body. "Water. You don't want me. Vamoose.

Scram." He flicked his fingers. "Go! Please."

The frogs fixed him with their bulbous black eyes and

halted their globes about a meter away from him. One of

them opened its small mouth to reveal short, sharp teeth

and a pale, blue-green tongue. With frantic gestures, Keff

beseeched them to move off. The frogs exchanged glances

and rolled away, amazingly in the direction he had indicated. A small child playing in a nearby shallow ditch

shrieked with delight when it saw the frogs passing and ran

after them. The frogs paddled faster, but the tot caught up,

and fetched one of the globes a kick that propelled it over

the crest of the hill. The others hastily followed, avoiding

their gleeful pursuer. The light rumbling died away.

"Whew!" Keff said. Those frogs nearly blew my cover.

I'd better reveal myself now before someone discovers me

by accident."

"Not yet! We don't have enough data to prove the Noble

Primitives are nonhostile."

'That's a chance we always take, lady fair. Or why else

are we here?"

"Look, we know the villagers we've observed do not

leave their sites. I haven't been able to tell an inhabitant of

one village from the inhabitant of any other. And you sure

don't look like any Noble Primitive. I really don't like risking your being attacked. I'm four kilometers away from

you so I can't pull your softshell behind out of trouble, you

know. My servos would take hours to get to your position."

Keff flexed his muscles and wished he could take a good

stretch first. "If I approach them peacefully, they should at

least give me a hearing."

"And when you explain that you're from off-planet? Are

they ready for an advanced civilization like ours?"

'They have a right to our advantages, to our help in getting themselves back on their feet. Look how wretchedly

they live. Think of the raydome, and the other stuff we've

seen. They once had a high-tech civilization. Central

Worlds can help them. It's our duty to give them a chance

to improve their miserable lot, bring them back to this cen-tury. They were once our equals. They deserve a chance to

be so again, Carialle."

'Thou hast a heart as well as a brain, sir knight. Okay."

Before they had settled how to make the approach,

shouting broke out on the work site. Keff glanced up. Two

big males were standing nose to nose exchanging insults.

One male whipped a knife made of a shard of blued metal

out of his tool bag; another relic that had been worn to a

mere streak from sharpening. The male he was facing

retreated and picked up a digging tool with a ground-down

end. Yelling, the knife-wielder lunged in at him, knife over

his head. The children scattered in every direction,

screaming. Before the pikeman could bring up his

weapon, the first male had drawn blood. Two crew leaders

rushed up to try to pull them apart. The wounded male,

red blood turning dark brown as it mixed with the dust in

his body-fur, snarled over the peacemaker's head at his foe.

With a roar, he shook himself loose.

"I think you missed your chance for a peaceful

approach, Keff."

"Um," Keff said. "He who spies and runs away lives to

chat another day."

While the combatants circled each other, ringed by a