Lucifer Comet (2464 CE)

by Ian Wallace

  “Not understand,” Medzok protested, “but okay because you lead us—yes?”

  “I lead you—no,” she asserted. “Cheers, Medzok, Narsua. Good luck—”

  Not waiting to fire her tail-gun, Narsua leaped and clung and fanged the neck-back of Dorita.

  35

  Day Thirty-Six

  By sunset on the first day all the smaller spiders were dead, either having expired on the slope and rolled and lodged frozen in crannies, or having made it down-crater to fairly level ice before their terminal shriveling.

  The big Narsua-type spiders were hardier. They suffered dangerously, but they could see that their masters and mistresses and their human young were suffering at least as badly. Probably the Narsua breed saved itself, for that day anyhow, by their self-awakening body-heating efforts to hurry the humans down. They downshot web-rope after web-rope a hundred or more meters at a time; they showed the humans how to rub snow on their hands to keep those hands from sticking to the ropes, allowing the humans to swing or slide themselves down rather than having to ride on enfeebled spider backs. It was a hand-lacerating business, although the sticky spider-goo on the ropes when clutched by wet hands formed a lubricant to reduce slide-friction. Humans male and female and their young tumbled off ropes and killed themselves bouncing down the rocks; and it happened to a number of spiders*

  Two-thirds of the way down, with the sun as enfeebled as the trekkers, Medzok and Narsua and the double burden she carried bumbled into a col and discovered that the surrounding walls of rock and snow were sheltering them from the wind. Narsua issued a call to her sisters: Bring the humans here! In col-center, Medzok required his chilled limbs to group a few sticks of his wood-burden and operate a fire-stick with recalcitrant hands having three frozen fingers. Wood was added as humans struggled in; they discovered a new property of snow; that fire turned it to water which wanted to flood the fire as it sank; luckily, Medzok had picked a place where only a few inches of snow covered bedrock, and the sputtering fire survived. People and spiders huddled round the fire; the col-walls concentrated heat inward; melted snow obligingly trickled away from the bedrock center; some of the women, once they were warm enough to think and act, got little pots off their backs and collected the water for drinking. The blessing of the col had rescued them from vainly trying Medzok’s ill-conceived plan to build an overnight hut with the scant wood they carried; had all of them survived with their burdens, what they carried would not nearly have done it—and only half had survived with their burdens.

  Women began to produce bread from their pouches, sharing it first with the surviving children and then with men and then with spiders—who rejected it and went hungry. Today there had been no time for the spiders to hunt each other; tonight there was no energy; when other hunting-meat would eventually be found, there would be no more inclination, except at ritual times when the queen must be challenged.

  Medzok began lethargically to count human noses, doing it by finger-fives on one hand and then by fives of fives on the other. He seemed to have remaining nineteen male adults, a few more than twenty-five female adults, a few more than twenty-five children and infants who seemed to be mostly girls. (Once twenty-five was reached, both hands were used up and that ended counting.) He sighed heavily: they numbered few more than half the ones he had led away from the village. He didn’t think to count spiders, nor did these count themselves; but the big spiders were certainly decimated, and the smallers ones were not there any more.

  Medzok went into full lethargy, warming himself, slowly masticating a bread morsel.

  A young man muttered, “Better we went back down into crater when Narsua killed Dorita.”

  Aroused a little, Medzok answered, ‘Too late for that Crater cold now, got cold when Dorita open sky. All trees in crater dead, ice coming into it. We have to keep moving toward midday sun—or die on ice.”

  Another youth strongly asserted: “Medzok right. Not our way to quit. We keep on moving toward sun. If we die on ice, we die on ice trying/”

  Amid scattered sounds of feeble agreement, Medzok turned to Narsua: “Why you bite Dorita?”

  She going to leave us, go back to Narfar, not lead us. That make her not human. I bite.

  “Then why you not eat her? Why you bring her?”

  I not kill her. I think maybe we use her.

  Medzok gazed at Narsua’s two temporarily discarded burdens: her huge egg sac, and the web-mummified inert Dorita-body. He sighed. He started to say something….

  He interrupted himself. “I got thing coming into me. I confused. Wait now—” He appeared to be in some sort of physical-mental turmoil; feeling it, Narsua was tempted to shrivel.

  At length Medzok struggled to bring out the following: “Something to eat, around here. Something to make us warm. I not know what. Something to hunt—not spiders. I all confused—”

  Medzok gazed with concentration into nowhere; his entire body was trembling.. ..

  “Men. Take long sticks. Make sharp at one end. Go hunting. Find moving thing to eat, not spider, kill with stick; put stick inside thing, it die. Spiders hunt other moving things, do same with web-cords and biting. Not human, not tabu. I show you when I see and know what.”

  Narsua demanded: Maybe that help us eat—but how that make humans warm?

  Don’t know yet. Something about skin. We see tomorrow. Men, go sharpen long sticks. We see tomorrow.”

  Acquiescing without knowing why, to her sisters Narsua said: Medzok say important thing, I feel this for sure. To~ morrow, hunting time all day. You catch and kill anything moving, not human or spider, bring to all of us, Medtok say who get what. And another thing. You keep eyes out for egg sacs, big spiders, little spiders, any egg sacs. You see one. you pick it up and bring it in. Tomorrow night we share the load. That way we live even if we all die.

  Part Six

  THE FINAL TIME-PARADOX?

  Days One Hundred Twenty-Three

  through One Hundred Twenty-Five

  36

  Days One Hundred Twenty-Three to

  One Twenty-Four

  At the late-night end of their ninety-eighth day on Dora, Methuen bedded with a bunk-mate: his professional satisfaction. Their expedition had been a stunning success—astonishingly, successful even for Olga, by reason of the time-paradox. The scientists had spent the day stowing all the equipment which they would take back to Erth. Some equipment deep-planted in bedrock by Peranza or in polar ice by Green or in animals or plants by Hoek, Farouki, or Ombasa, and some orbited off Dora and off Saiph by Sari, would remain here flaking data which could be picked up by a later expedition. (No point in sending telemetry which wouldn’t reach Erth for twenty-one centuries.) Tomorrow would be a day of relaxed festivities with the natives; on their hundredth day here, the party and crew would sleep it off aboard ship and depart for Erth late in the afternoon.

  Best of all for Methuen: his apparently prevoyant dreams had been negated. Nothing discoverable on Dora could mount any kind of attack on Erth, sophisticated or otherwise. And Sari had established that no other Saiph-planet bore life. If 546 meant anything, it meant Saiph; if Saiph offered no threat, the dreams were nothing. Methuen had. tested to the extent of sending a message to Erth along the gradient, requesting immediate reply; nothing had been received; either that intuition had been mere brainwork, or else he didn’t know how to use it.

  A prolonged after-dinner conference had established the professional delight of everyone. This didn’t mean that they had learned everything there was to know about Dora and its sun; they would need time on Erth to digest and publish their hundred-day findings; whereafter, in due course, there could be a more leisurely expedition, possibly including some diplomats. Their rapport with Narfar and the natives was superb; tomorrow’s festivities would take place in and around the palace and would involve the whole city. Narfar had even reacted well to the suggestion of inter-world trade, once he in his one-city insular world had semi-grasped the idea. Remembering Erth, he
had proposed quite seriously: “Women, maybe—some of yours for some of ours. Okay to do, can’t have babies, we too different.” Methuen had glided past the proposal.

  There had been no more time-paradoxes. The captain concluded that Dorita may have shot her trouble-wad, fifty thousand years ago, when she had revitalized Narfar City. Yielding to pressures from his stricture-discontented task force, Methuen two months ago had terminated the curfew and allowed all crewmembers except those on skeleton watch to aid the scientists. Subsequent tranquillity seemed to justify the decision. He had, however, maintained ship’s alert on yellow; and occasionally he called an alert drill in which everybody fretfully participated.

  As he drowsed now in his bunk, he took special satisfaction in his serenity about the loss of Dorita. She had gone her way, and it was different from his way, and that was that.

  He awoke traumatically out of a dream that a ray-cannon had shot him skyward; he awoke on the hard cabin floor, rolling; he kept rolling as though the ship had hit a space-storm, while the horning of the humanoid alert filled his head; he got himself into some sort of orientation, worked himself erect with the aid of a stanchion, flipped on the intercom, demanded of the bridge: “This is the captain. What the hell?”

  The duty-lieutenant answered: “Captain, we don’t know what the hell, the ship has been somehow lofted by something coming up under it, we are teetering on top of something, we are using stabilizers and getting damage reports, we are in no position to take off. Sir, we need you and Mr. Zorbin on the bridge.”

  Zorbin was now under self-control and listening. Neither he nor Methuen waited to dress: pajama’d, they staggered to the bridge. The Farragut had floodlights sweeping around and down, and the situation revealed by the lights was upsetting in every imaginable way.

  Methuen, personally taking the con, assigned Zorbin to the intercom which was already lighting up with calls from scientists. Zorbin took none of these calls; instead, he went on general broadcast: “All scientists hear this, Commander Zorbin speaking for Captain Methuen who is here on duty. We have an emergency, we are dealing with it, we cannot accommodate you on the bridge. Repeat: we cannot accommodate scientists on the bridge. I will now note two exceptions. Because of certain anthropological and communicative entailments, Dr. Chu and Dr. Alexandrovna are needed on the bridge; repeat, urgently request that Drs. Chu and Alexandrovna come now to the bridge. The remaining scientists are requested to dress, keep cool, watch your viewports and keep your intercoms open. That is all.”

  Using all bridge viewports—front, sides, rear, top and bottom—Methuen got some sort of grasp of the precarious and weird situation. It appeared that the Farragut was teetering atop a skyscraper building which must be at least a hundred meters high. The roof on which they were perched was never meant for any sort of perch, particularly not for a space-frigate; they were holding balance only because of their stabilizers, which the duty lieutenant had intelligently activated. Still it was deep night at 0331 hours; but the ship’s floods gave a clear all-around picture over a diameter of two kilometers. It was not nearly enough diameter to reveal the full size of the city below. It was an Erth-modem city with bizarre modifications, displaying a dozen skyscrapers of assorted sizes and shapes arrayed around a spreading park nearby: this park was positioned where Narfar’s palace had been located, only now the park fielded half a dozen spacious buildings, among which the central structure was a sort of cross between Buckingham Palace and the Taj Mahal. The city was virtually deserted at this early hour; but night stragglers and a couple of police-persons had spotted the weirdity of a spaceship tower-teetering, and they were gawking upward; more were gathering, and now appeared two ground vehicles which could well be police cars.

  A trio of small wingless aircraft was moving in on the Farragut, their markings resembling those of the police cars; around the nose of each craft, eight tubes which could be ray or rocket guns were moving differentially to train themselves on the intruder. From one of the craft, a female voice bull-homed a question in an incomprehensible tongue. Now, how would one go about communicating? One might of course run out a white flag to indicate peaceful intent, but would a white flag mean peace to them?

  Olga said immediately, “It is basically the language of Quarfar and of Narfar, but badly distorted and adulterated. Try your translators.”

  Again the female bull-horn was challenging. Zorbin negated the lieutenant’s question as to whether he should train guns on the aircraft.

  Donning his translator, while Zorbin donned his, Methuen called through the exterior transmitter: “We are peaceful. Please repeat your question.” Pause; then he said it again.

  Long pause. Then a reply, most difficult to understand: “We hear. You hard to understand. You understand me?”

  “Not very well,” said Methuen, “but some. You understand we are peaceful?”

  “Understand that. What you do on top of building?”

  Olga intervened: “Captain, I’ve already done a provisional reprogramming of my translator. Would you like for me to talk with them?”

  “Well done,” Methuen acknowledged, “but let me have your translator.” They traded instruments.

  To the aircraft Methuen responded: “Hard to explain what we are doing up here. Surprise to us. Understand?”

  The reply was clearer than before: “Now we understand you quite well. Go on.”

  Despite the stabilizers, instruments were telling Zorbin that ship’s weight was beginning to crumple the building’s roof. He didn’t dare activate downward repulsors for fear of doing hideous damage below. From Methuen he requested and received permission to send out two tenders which could loft the ship temporarily.

  Methuen called to the aircraft: “We are sending out two small boats. They will attach lines to our ship and pull her up a little, to ease weight on the roof of your building.”

  “Go ahead and execute.”

  The three police aircraft were now being joined by larger and differently marked craft which could well be military. There was all-around silence for several minutes; then the Farragut‘s radio operator announced, “Sir, I have their wavelength.” A buzz of conversation among the aircraft filled the Farraguts bridge, and her officers through their translators could semi-understand much of it. Meanwhile Olga made more adjustments to her translator on the captain’s chest.

  The frigate vibrated, lifted perhaps a meter, steadied. Methuen this time spoke into the radio transmitter: “This is Captain Methuen of the frigate Farragut, the ship that is on top of your building. Will the individual in command of your group please come in.”

  After a pause, a crisp alto: “This is Commander Varji, in charge of this group. Over.”

  “Let me clarify, Commander, for my understanding. How does the title commander rank in your service?”

  “Second to captain, and captain is the senior rank below flag rank. How does captain rank in yours?”

  “Senior below flag rank. However, Commander, it appears that we are intruders, and I accept your command.”

  “Very good, Captain. Over.”

  “Commander Varji, as you see, we have our ship lofted minimally above the building roof. But our boats cannot hold us up very long. We cannot use ship’s power because of hazard to what is below. Can you help us?”

  ‘Tell me why we should not destroy you.”

  “Because if you destroy us, your superiors will never know anything about us. Commander, please expedite your decision. Can you help us?”

  Long pause; then: “I see your point, sir. I have called for two large freighters to loft you. Will your ringbolts hold?” ‘They will support our weight for a long time, but not forever.”

  “We will loft you and convey you to our spaceport and set you down there. Then we will take you into protective custody.”

  “Commander, why do I understand you so well?”

  “Captain, I presume you have programmed a translator; we have done the same; our translators are translating each oth
er.”

  “Beautiful!”

  “That is as it may be. Here come our freighters.”

  37

  Day One Twenty-Four

  During the thirty-minute convoy, with Olga working to program into her own translator all the richness of the new language which her dandy little computer had acquired (whereafter it was a mere quick detail to replicate the revised program into the other translators), Methuen took the intercom and delivered the following general message:

  “Now hear this. This is the captain. I am addressing all scientists, officers and crew.

  “We have been caught in a new time-paradox. If some of you do not understand that term, it is enough for now to know what has happened. As. a result of unknown events during some period far in the past, the Narfar-people with whom we have been dealing have been replaced; and after millennia of social evolution, the new people have established a great civilization which includes a mighty city right here. Our ship was on the ground last night; during the night, a tall building of the city materialized right at our ship-site, lofting us a hundred meters. But everyone must closely notice the following: as far as these people are concerned, their civilization has existed during many centuries, and this great city is not at all new. For them, the appearance of our ship atop their building has been a shocking anomaly.

  “All officers and crew are urgently requested, in any contacts with natives, to accept without question their assumption that we are the weird interlopers, not they. Apart from specific orders which the commander or I may issue, please avoid any and all references to time-paradox. Leave such references to the scientists and myself in our contacts with leaders. And even the scientists are not to mention time-paradox before consulting with me.