Writers of the Future, Volume 29 (8 page)

I heard the rockslide and hurried toward Lester. He emerged from a cloud of dust. “I'm all right, but the entrance is covered.”

“The alternate entrance is also.”

Lester and I sat down and used our sensors to determine how much rock was blocking the opening. It looked like a good five meters. “Can't blast our way out,” I said. “We'd either fry or bring the cave down. Time for some spelunking.”

We made our way farther into the cave. It opened to a large chamber. The floor was covered with neat, six-meter wide piles of rocks. I examined one. “Burial.”

“Too bad they don't put these outside. We could have declared them intelligent without getting stuck in this cave.”

“We're not done for yet, kid.”

Several openings led off the chamber. I told Lester to stay as quiet as possible. Then I sampled the sounds from each opening. We headed down one where I heard water and felt airflow. The tunnel sloped downward, ending in an underground stream. I pulled up a topo map on my helmet display. “Looks like there's a lake close by. It has a stream coming out, but no inflow.”

“Spring fed,” Lester said.

“Right. I'm betting this is the source of the spring.”

Lester took a long look at the churning water. “You're betting our lives on that hunch.”

“Got a better plan?”

Lester thought for a while. Flowing water isn't something you find much of in a mine. “No.” His voice was resigned.

“Let's go for a swim. Keep your helmet light on. Don't get hung up on any rocks. If this works, we'll be out; if not, we'll have a hell of a time getting back here.”

I jumped in. It was a good-sized stream with a strong current. I like a good thrill ride: getting pushed down a rock tube trying to avoid obstructions definitely qualifies. Lester wasn't having as good a time. He bounced off a couple of rocks and started tumbling. I slowed myself. “Grab my feet.” Lester grabbed one and nearly set me tumbling. “Straighten your body.” He did and grabbed my other foot. I headed into the current. The extra drag made it easier to avoid hazards. “Close your eyes. I'll steer.”

After a couple of minutes, the water stilled. I saw light coming from above. “Open your eyes and make for the surface.”

I had scouted the area by the time Lester finally dragged himself on shore. He sat on the bank panting. The pool formed one end of a steep-walled, narrow canyon. A stream lined with trees flowed out of the pool.

“We're in a box canyon,” I said. “I'm detecting some of the creatures in our path. If we try to climb out, we'll be sitting ducks if they have any kind of weapons. The only way out is to follow the stream. We should head out as fast as we can. Don't want them bringing in reinforcements.” I got Lester to his feet.

The place was a defensive nightmare. A group of the creatures moved onto a ledge after we had passed and began throwing stones at us from behind. They used their tentacles like slings; they put a lot of power behind those stones. One struck me in the shoulder. My suit held, but my shoulder broke. Lester fired once at the edge of the ledge. The creatures scurried into the underbrush. Then Lester blew the ledge off.

I switched on the auto-doc in my suit. It deadened my pain without putting me to sleep. “Nicely done. We're safe and none of them are dead.”

Lester checked my suit's internal sensor readings on his helmet display. “How are you?”

I transferred my gun to my free hand. “Injured. Immobilize my arm.” Lester pulled a bandage from his medkit and strapped my arm to my waist. “Let's go.”

We traveled as fast as the terrain and my arm would allow. At a bend in the stream, Lester peeked around. The aliens greeted him with a volley of rocks. We spotted a number of the creatures hiding behind trees. One of them was making forays—taunting us. It had a wicked arm. Lester's helmet got hit, but held. He tried shooting at the trees, but the creatures wouldn't give up ground. Finally, Lester turned the gun to a high setting and waited. When the brave one came out, he blew it to bits. The others scattered. We ran the rest of the way to the ship without interference.

When we were in space, Lester patched up my shoulder as best he could. He didn't say a word. “Thanks for taking care of me, Lester.”

“Just doing my duty, sir.”

“Call me Aidan. We're partners.” I sat down beside him. “I feel too formal calling you by your last name. What's your first name?”

Lester didn't say anything for a long time. “Aloysius.”

“Damn! I've shot people for smaller insults than that.”

“The name is part of the reason I started lifting weights. I had to be big to deal with the teasing.”

“Ok, I'll call you Lester. So what's bugging you?”

“I killed an intelligent, self-aware creature.”

“And saved two. Probably more than two, 'cause I wasn't going down without a fight.”

Lester looked kind of pitiful. “Why are we doing this?”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “You're not the first one to ask that question. Here's another fact they don't tell you about in the Academy: you know there are other highly developed species in the galaxy.”

“Sure. They teach that.”

“Right, but what they don't teach is that some of them have developed faster-than-light drives. The Scouts only tell you if you happen to encounter one of their leftover probes. Turns out that all of those civilizations eventually came to the conclusion that it's either too expensive to terraform a dead world or that life on better than 90% of the non-dead ones will kill you, so they settled down and made the best of their home planet. Humans, on the other hand, have an itch to move, and that logic hasn't dampened. Before the Scouts, people could explore wherever they wanted. They brought back horrible plagues and accidentally killed off intelligent life on some of the planets they explored. So the Planetary Council created the Scouts. We're supposed to make sure humanity doesn't destroy other intelligent creatures or pick up something nasty enough to kill us off. We do the job all neat and proper and businesslike.”

“Doesn't sound very heroic.”

“You watched too many space operas.”

“I grew up on a mining colony. We lived in the tunnels once they finished mining them. We were a bunch of troglodytes. There was one dome on the surface at the spaceport. I went up there once to look out the window—you couldn't see anything but blowing sand. What else was there to do but watch space operas?”

“There's girls.”

“They only hook up with guys who have a sure way out.”

I tried to shrug and regretted it. “Sorry to be the one to disillusion you.”

“Guess it needed to be done.” He sat awhile. “Ever think of running?”

“Wouldn't do any good. The contract we signed is recognized on every world in the Planetary Council. Once they issued a warrant, I'd have no place to go. My credit chit would be canceled, and I'd be stuck. I could try living in the wild, but that would only last until all my spare parts ran out of juice. You might last longer, but what kind of a life would it be? Finish your twenty-five and you're set.”

Lester gave a dry laugh. “They use hope to trap us.”

“That's about the size of it.”

We turned in our report. The planet was put off limits.

He helped me through rehab. We ran more simulations. And we waited. More than half of this job is waiting. The closer you get to the magic twenty-five, the harder the waiting becomes. The upcoming mission would be twenty for me.

We had to wait close to three months. To fill in the quiet moments, I taught Lester how to play bridge. We got to where we sometimes won a game against Miyuki and her bridge partner who happened to be my planetary Scout partner. Their images at the table seemed so real I'd sometimes forget myself and reach out to her.

O
ur next world was cold. The oceans had abundant life, but the landmasses were dead, covered with ice. The discovery ship reported that its undersea probe had been attacked. That's the kind of news that gives you a real good feeling as you land on a strange planet. We were to find out if the attack indicated intelligence.

Scans from space showed that the planet had once been warmer. Remains of abundant terrestrial plant life existed under the glaciers. A surprisingly low level of carbon dioxide had decreased the planetary greenhouse effect. The question of why that level was still low remained unanswered.

To get close to the water, we landed on an ice shelf at the edge of a landmass. The shelf was large, old and stable. The weight of our ship didn't bother it. We pulled out the ship's undersea probe and dragged it on skids to the shore. This is one of those weird rules that only a bureaucratic organization like the Scouts could come up with: you can land a starship on a planet, but when you're outside the ship you're supposed to minimize the use of advanced technology. Never mind that you're in a full-isolation suit and the thing on the skids is a highly advanced probe unit; you have to drag it.

Lester walked gingerly on the ice in spite of the cleats on his boots.

I tried not to laugh. “What's wrong? Haven't you walked on ice before?”

“I lived in a cave until I went to the Academy. The Academy is on the equator. The only ice I've seen up close has been in a glass. I suppose you're an expert?”

“I grew up on a planet that had seasons. The lake by our house froze over most winters.”

“Why didn't they have climate control?”

“It was a little podunk farming planet—couldn't afford it. I spent every winter skating on that lake. Froze my silly butt off. Used to love it.”

We trudged on. The ice boomed and cracked. Lester kept looking around. “Are we too heavy? Is this going to crack?”

“No. I could walk all the way across the lake on my home world when the ice wasn't a third as thick as this.”

“How big was the lake?”

“Couple of kilometers.”

“Nobody fell through?”

“Every few years someone would. We'd find them in the spring.”

“So why didn't you fall through?”

“Because, my boy, the deity looks out for people like me.”

Lester sighed. “I know I'm going to regret asking this, but, why?”

“Because people like me are endlessly amusing. I've decided that's the entire purpose of creation—to amuse the deity. You, unfortunately, won't last nearly as long as me, because you are dull.”

“I'll grant you that.”

We reached a ledge and tossed the probe into the water. It took off, looking for life in the deep ocean. While we waited, we used the short-range sensors in our suits to explore the area under the ice. A cluster of plankton swam beneath our feet. As Lester moved away from me, the cluster divided and half followed him. I checked the area between us and the density of sea life was much lower. We took a little jog around the shelf and the plankton followed.

As the probe reached the ocean floor, we tuned into its transmissions with our helmet displays. It had moved to an area rich in plants and animals that surrounded a series of thermal vents. The sea floor was covered with iridescent shelled creatures, blood-red tubeworms, animals that resembled plants, and small scurrying things that ducked under the sand as light from the probe struck them. The sea teemed with swimming creatures in various shapes and sizes. The probe moved slowly, careful not to disturb the native life. It reported a cloud of plankton hovering around it. Larger animals kept their distance. We decided to see what the animals' reaction would be to a more aggressive approach, and ordered the probe to pick up one of the slow, shelled creatures on the sea floor. It picked the creature up gently and turned it over to view its underside.

All hell broke loose. Every creature in the surrounding ocean converged on the probe. The creature was snatched from the probe's grasp. Claws, tentacles and teeth grabbed the probe's arms and pulled it toward a thermal vent. The animals took turns holding the probe so that none of them was cooked. The probe tried unsuccessfully to free itself without injuring the animals. Its internal temperature rose dangerously high. I finally ordered it to do an internal self-destruct. The probe melted its guts so that nothing useful could be learned from them.

The incident spooked us. We headed back to the ship. Partway there, the ship told us that a large bubble of superheated water was headed for the ice floe. Lester took off running like a man possessed. Seems he'd figured out how to use his cleats.

We had barely entered the ship when the bubble hit. Ice shattered. The ship sank. A cloud of plankton engulfed it.

I yelled an order and the ship shot us into space with maximum antigrav.

We orbited the planet and reviewed the ship's sensor data. The bubble of superheated water was unnatural. A group of plankton had formed a container to trap the water and carried it to the surface. The process had killed millions of them.

“It all looks intelligent,” Lester said, “but where does the intelligence originate?”

“There's no indication of a single source,” I said. “Look at the distribution of life. There are clumps of larger life forms with streams of plankton connecting them. I think the ocean life is one distributed intelligence.”

“That's capable of defending itself,” Lester finished.

“Right. And that may explain the extinct terrestrial life: if something on the surface threatened the undersea life, they may have adjusted the environment so that it was hostile to the threat.”

“So how do we classify it?” Lester asked.

“We don't. We leave that to the eggheads. Our job is to report it.”