by Larry Niven
"It's there? There's air there? Your professional word?"
"My word as an astrophysicist. There's frozen gas back there."
Verd stretched like a great cat. He couldn't help himself. He could actually feel the muscles around his eyes and cheeks rippling as they relaxed, and a great grin crawled toward his ears. "You comedian!" he laughed. "Why didn't you say so?"
"Suppose I kept talking?"
Verd turned to look at him.
"You'll have thought of some of these things yourself. Can we breathe that air? Billions of years have passed. Maybe the composition of the air changed before it froze. Maybe too much of it boiled off into space while the sun was a red giant. Maybe there's too much, generated by outgasing after the Moon was too far away to skim it off. Lourdi said the Sun is putting out about the right amount of heat, but just how close will it be to a livable temperature? Can Jimm Farmer make us topsoil? There'll be live soil on the nightside, possibly containing frozen live bacteria, but can we get there if we have to?"
"Worst of all, can we spin the Earth in the first place? I know the drive's strong enough. I don't know about the Earth. There can't be any radioactivity left in the Earth's core, so the planet should be solid rock all the way to the center. But solid rock flows under pressure. We'll get earthquakes. Kdapt only knows how bad. Well, Captain, would you have taken all those risks?"
"She blows."
The drive was on.
Traces of hydrogen, too thin to stop a meteor, glowed faintly in the destroying light. A beam like a spotlight beam reached out over the sharp horizon, pointing dead east. Anything that light touched would flame and blow away on the wings of a photon wind. The drive nosed a little deeper into its tomb of lava.
The ground trembled. Verd turned on his flying unit, and Strac rose after him. Together they hovered over the quivering Earth. Other silver specks Boated above the plain.
In space the drive would be generating over a hundred savage gravities. Here ... almost none. Almost.
Little quick ripples came running in from the eastern horizon. They ran across the crater floor in parallel lines of dancing dust, coming closer and closer together. Rocks showered down from the old ringwall.
"Maybe I wouldn't have risked it," said Verd. "I don't know."
"That's why the Brain put me in charge. Did you see the oxygen ice as, we went by the night side? Or was it too dark? To you this frozen atmosphere is pure imagination, isn't it?"
"I'll take your professional word."
"But I don't need to. I know it's there."
Lines of dust danced over the shaking ground. But the ripples were less violent, and were coming less frequently.
"The Brain was damaged," Verd said softly.
"Yes," said Strac, frowning down into the old crater. Suddenly he touched his controls and dropped.
"Come on, Verd. In a few days there'll be air. We've got to be ready for wind and rain."
Like Banquo's Ghost
On a hot, lovely fall day I drove out to Stardrive Laboratories. If all went well, that was the day the Snarkhunter #3 probe would send its final message from Alpha Centauri. The Times had assigned me to cover the event.
There were coffee and donuts in the anteroom. A diverse lot milled about and introduced each other and shook hands and talked. Pretty secretaries moved briskly through the crowd. I recognized people I'd talked to when I was here two months ago, and one I knew only from his picture. Jubal Hendricks, Senior, had managed Stardrive Labs thirty years ago, when Snarkhunter #3 was launched. He'd retired just afterward, but here he was, emaciated and tottering, to watch his project's end.
I headed for the coffee table. The man everyone called Butch saw me coming and drew me a cup. He was five feet tall, the color of mahogany, his bright blond hair cut short in a butch cut.
"How good to see you again, Mr. Lane!" He pumped my hand with enthusiasm. "You do remember me?"
"Of course, Butch, very well indeed." I didn't remember his full name, but then, nobody did. And nobody else seemed to want to talk to him. "How have you been?"
"Very well, Mr. Lane, despite my allergies. I have been taking shots."
"They seem to help," I said. Last time I'd seen him his nose had dripped constantly. "Your accent has improved too."
He laughed self-consciously. "It is nearly eight o'clock. Shall we move into the—" His tongue stumbled, and he had to point.
"The auditorium? Yes, let's."
Two months ago we'd been here to catch the first signals from the Snarkhunter #3 probe as it entered the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. The probe had been flying since before I was born, but that had been its first message since leaving the solar system. On that occasion it had switched itself on on schedule, then given us the sizes and locations of the Centaurus planets.
The speed of light barred us from controlling the Snarkhunter from Earth. The probe had been programmed to choose the planet most likely to be earthlike, and to home on it. We had named that planet Centaura, even before we knew it existed... thirty years ago, when it was known only that the Centauri suns had planets.
Centaura did exist; we knew that now. For the last two months the Snarkhunter should have been moving toward it.
The auditorium hadn't changed much in that time. Stardrive Labs uses the same building for all its publicity on all the probes it currently has flying; but none of those probes had done anything interesting since the Snarkhuner's last report. There were seventy chairs with ashtrays fixed to the backs, set up to face a lighted screen. The screen showed a plot of the Sharkhunter's presumed position with respect to the planet Centaura. Arrows pointed in the directions of Earth and Alpha Centauri A. Naturally the plot was 4.3 years out of date, due to light lag. Hanging from the ceiling were eight TV screens, each presently showing a diagram of the Alpha Centauri A system. In one corner of the big room was a blank sphere eight feet across, with a clear plastic hyperbola mounted near it. That was new.
Butch pointed. "The curve is the projected course of the Snarkhunter. Mr. Hendricks, Junior, tells me they will draw continents on the sphere as the data arrives."
"Naturally," I said. We found seats. I manfully resisted the urge to smoke, that being one of Butch's allergies.
Time stopped.
I took my coffee in gulps. I'd been up at six o'clock, for the first time in years. My eyes felt gummy; my mouth was centuries old.
Most of the seats were empty. Even under the circumstances, the lack of excitement was remarkable.
On screen were a blank circle and a hyperbola and a couple of arrows, and a little rectangle showing the time remaining until perihelion. The rectangle changed every five minutes, and a new point appeared on the hyperbola, showing the new position of the Snarkhunter instrument package.
From time to time a blurred radio voice echoed in the auditorium.
"I am amazed," Butch said fervently. "To think that it has come so far! Do you think it will fulfill its purpose?"
"As you say, it's come this far."
"I cannot understand why there is so little excitement."
He couldn't, could he? "It's partly the time lag," I said. "Who can get excited about old news?"
"I suppose so. Still, so much hinges on the success of the project."
"My cap's empty. Can I get you some coffee?"
"Oh, no. No thank you."
I went out and filled my cup, then stayed in the anteroom to smoke a cigarette. Things were happening too slowly. Thirty years the probe had been on its way, but the hours it needed to round Centaura were far too long. Maybe Butch was getting on my nerves. Not his fault, of course. He was unfailingly polite.
You couldn't quarrel with his enthusiasm; it was genuine. It only seemed a mockery. And I had to stick with him. Butch's reactions were bigger news by far than the Snarkhunter itself.
I spent ten minutes by the coffee dispenser, waiting for interviewees. It was the one sure place to find anyone you wanted to see. I caught Hendricks, Senior, and Hendric
ks, Junior, Markham who had launched the Snarkhunter, and Duryodhana who ran the project now, and several others.
Butch couldn't stand coffee. What had he been doing out here by the coffee dispenser?
Just what I was doing, of course. Waiting for people to speak to him. And nobody wanted to.
I was heading for my seat when the radio cleared its throat.
"We are receiving the carrier wave from Snarkhunter. Snarkhunter has located Sol and is transmitting correctly. Repeat, location successful. We are now receiving Snarkhunter."
The air was full of a two-tone musical note, the sound of the carrier wave, low and sweet.
Butch was hugging his knees in delight. "Wonderful! What is it telling them? Why doesn't he say?"
"The Snarkhunter isn't saying anything," I told him. I'd gotten that information from my interviews. "It's just a locator wave to alert us."
"What kind of wave is the probe using?"
"A light beam, a ruby laser. Hear that musical tone? That's the laser, translated into sound and then stepped down to the audible range."
The point on the screen moved another notch. Ten minutes to perihelion.
The radio voice said, "We have received our first burst of data from Snarkhunter. Composition of Centaura's atmosphere is as follows. Oxygen sixteen percent, nitrogen eighty-three percent—" It continued detailing carbon dioxide, noble gases, water vapor, ozone, surface pressure, and the plant's surface temperature and magnetic field. Butch hugged his knew and made sounds of pleasure.
"Marvelous!" he enthused. "Marvelous! From such a distance! How sensitive, how versatile the instruments!"
"To me it all seems anticlimactic."
"I fear that is my own fault. I am sorry."
The radio saved me from having to answer. "Decoding of Snarkhunter's transmission is now in progress.
In a few minutes we should have a rough map of Centaura's surface." It added, "Snarkhunter is about to pass behind the planet. It will reach perihelion three minutes later."
The auditorium became silent. I made a shushing motion at Butch. We heard only the musical sound of the carrier wave.
The sound cut off abruptly.
"It will not reappear," Butch said sadly.
"That's a pity. It was programmed to take another set of measurements at perihelion. They would have been a little more accurate."
The point on the screen moved a notch, to its point of closest approach to Centaura.
"Is that where you shot it down?"
"Yes, at perihelion," said Butch. "How were we to know it was not hostile? We would not have believed it was possible at all. An instrument package, with no external guidance, finding its way over such a distance!" He stood up. "A remarkable achievement! Remarkable! To have done so much with so little!"
"Thanks," I said. Thanks for the pat on the head. "Then you'll go ahead with the trade?"
"I will have to wait," said Butch, "to see if your map of our world is accurate. Thus far your measurements have been excellent. Unbelievably so! If your map is as good, we have a bargain. We will trade you our faster-than-light drive for your incredible probes. Together we will explore space!"
"Fine." I had what I came for. I rose to leave.
"It has been a lonely year," said Butch. "I do not think I knew why until now. Mr. Lane, please don't be offended. Did my landing a year ago cause your people to regard their own technology as inferior?"
"Of course. Why wouldn't it? Our lousy little probe took thirty years to reach Centaura. Your ship took six months! And here you are, like the ghost at the banquet. Oh, damn. I'm sorry, Butch. I lost my head."
"And so you all tend to avoid me. But my own people felt the same way, when your probe reached us four point three years ago. Our faster-than-light drive was a single lucky discovery. Your probe was the combined result of centuries of single-minded, terribly expensive labor and experimentation. We are awed. We are not capable of such sustained effort. But you cannot believe that, can you?"
I couldn't. And I can't.
The Meddler
Someone was in my room.
It had to be one of Sinc's boys. He'd been stupid. I'd left the lights off. The yellow light now seeping under the door was all the warning I needed.
He hadn't used the door: the threads were still there. That left the fire escape outside the bedroom window.
I pulled my gun, moved back a little in the corridor to get elbow room. Then— I'd practiced it often enough to drive the management crazy— I kicked the door open and was into the room in one smooth motion.
He should have been behind the door, or crouching behind a table, or hidden in the closet with his eye to the keyhole. Instead he was right out in the middle of the living room, facing the wrong way. He'd barely started to turn when I pumped four GyroJet slugs into him. I saw the impacts twitching his shirt. One over the heart.
He was finished.
So I didn't slow down to watch him fall. I crossed the living-room rug in a diving run and landed behind the couch. He couldn't be alone. There had to be others. If one had been behind the couch he might have gotten me, but there wasn't. I scanned the wall behind me, but there was nothing to bide under. So I froze, waiting, listening.
Where were they? The one I'd shot couldn't have come alone.
I was peeved at Sinc. As long as he'd sent goons to waylay me, he might have sent a few who knew what they were doing. The one I'd shot hadn't had time to know he was in a fight.
"Why did you do that?"
Impossibly, the voice came from the middle of the living room, where I'd left a falling corpse. I risked a quick look and brought my head down fast. The afterimage:
He hadn't moved. There was no blood on him. No gun visible, but I hadn't seen his right hand.
Bulletproof vest? Sinc's boys had no rep for that kind of thing, but that had to be it. I stood up suddenly and fired, aiming between the eyes.
The slug smashed his right eye, off by an inch, and I knew he'd shaken me. I dropped back and tried to cool off.
No noises. Still no sign that he wasn't alone.
"I said, 'Why did you do that?'"
Mild curiosity colored his high-pitched voice. He didn't move as I stood up, and there was no hole in either eye.
"Why did I do what?" I asked cleverly.
"Why did you make holes in me? My gratitude for the gift of metal, of course, but—" He stopped suddenly, like he'd said too much and knew it. But I had other worries.
"Anyone else here?"
"Only we two are present. I beg pardon for invasion of privacy, and will indemnify—" He stopped again, as suddenly, and started over. "Who were you expecting?"
"Sinc's boys. I guess they haven't caught on yet. Sinc's boys want to make holes in me."
"Why?"
Could he be this stupid? "To turn me off! To kill me!"
He looked surprised, then furious. He was so mad he gurgled. "I should have been informed! Someone has been unforgivably sloppy!"
"Yeah. Me. I thought you must be with Sinc. I shouldn't have shot at you. Sorry."
"Nothing," he smiled, instantly calm again.
"But I ruined your suit ..." I trailed off. Holes showed in his jacket and shirt, but no blood. "Just what are you?"
He stood about five feet four, a round little man in an old-fashioned brown one-button suit. There was not a hair on him, not even eyelashes. No warts, no wrinkles, no character lines. A nebbish, one of these guys whose edges are all round, like someone forgot to put in the fine details.
He spread smoothly manicured hands. "I am a man like yourself."
"Nuts."
"Well," he said angrily, "you would have thought so if the preliminary investigation team had done their work properly!"
"You're a— martian?"
"I am not a martian. I am—" He gurgled. "Also I am an anthropologist. Your world. I am here to study your species."
"You're from outer space?"
"Very. The direction and distance
are secret, of course. My very existence should have been secret." He scowled deeply. Rubber face, I thought, not knowing the half of it yet.
"I won't talk," I reassured him. "But you came it a bad time. Any minute now, Sinc's going to figure out who it is that's on his tail. Then he'll be on mine, and this dump'll be ground zero. I hate to brush you. I've never met a ... whatever."
"I too must terminate this interview, since you know me for what I am. But first, tell me of your quarrel.
Why does Sinc want to make holes in you?"
"His name is Lester Dunhaven Sinclair the third. He runs every racket in this city. Look, we've got time for a drink-maybe. I've got scotch, bourbon—"
He shuddered. "No, I thank you."
"Just trying to set you at ease." I was a little miffed.
"Then perhaps I may adapt a more comfortable form, while you drink— whatever you choose. If you don't mind."
"Please yourself." I went to the rolling bar and poured bourbon and tap water, no ice. The apartment house was dead quiet. I wasn't surprised. I've lived here a couple of years now, and the other tenants have learned the routine. When guns go off, they hide under their beds and stay there.
"You won't be shocked?" My visitor seemed anxious. "If you are shocked, please say so at once."
And he melted. I stood there with the paper cup to my lip and watched him flow out of his one-button suit and take the compact shape of a half-deflated gray beach ball.
I downed the bourbon and poured more, no water. My hands stayed steady.
"I'm a private cop," I told the martian. He'd extruded a convoluted something I decided was an ear.
"When Sinc showed up about three years ago and started taking over the rackets, I stayed out of his way. He was the law's business, I figured. Then he bought the law, and that was okay too. I'm no crusader."
"Crusader?" His voice had changed. Now it was deep, and it sounded like something bubbling up from a tar pit.
"Never mind. I tried to stay clear of Sinc, but it didn't work. Sinc had a client of mine killed. Morrison, his name was. I was following Morrison's wife, getting evidence for a divorce. She was shacking up with a guy named Adler. I had all the evidence I needed when Morrison disappeared.