“The natives,” I said worriedly. “We were in contact with them.”
Ven’s aura darkened. “I had forgotten them,” she said “I hope that the feedback wasn’t intensified and returned to them. I’d better look.” She started for the control room and I followed more slowly.
“There’s no damage,” she said from beneath the helmet “Edith feels just as I do.”
I took my helmet and coded Don’s pattern on the selector. Peculiar, I thought with vague wonder. Most peculiar. For the first time Donald and I were in true rapport His mind was slow, lazy, sluggish—even his ambition was sated for the moment. Could it be, I wondered that we could find agreement through our emotions? Was it frustration that drove him? Whatever the block had been it was gone now. This was a true empathic meeting—something far more satisfying than our previous conflict.
I relaxed in it, feeling the slow languorous questings of his mind even as he felt mine. There was a sense of brotherhood that transcended differences in race and culture. We were down to basics, on the oldest meeting ground of life.
He was wondering idly what the outcome of this might be—conscious of me, but careless. It jolted me. He might be uncertain, but I knew Ven was from good family stock, and “good” to a Thalassan meant something entirely different than it commonly did to the natives of this planet!
I disengaged hurriedly and shook Ven out of her rapport with Edith. “We’ve no time to lose,” I said. “We must leave at once! You know what’s going to happen!”
“I know,” Ven said. “I feel the changes already.”
“That’s just in your mind,” I snapped.
“We’re not going home,” she said. There was a note of prophecy in her voice. “We’ll never make it.”
“We can’t stay here!”
“I know.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
We couldn’t stay here. But we couldn’t go home either. The trip would take weeks, and hyperspace is fatal to a gravid Thalassan female. That was something we learned long ago, and the principal reason for continence-conditioning for couples in space. What was more, I knew that where Ven stayed, I would stay.
“Remember the fourth planet of this system?” Ven asked.
“Yes. Ideal gravity, adequate oxygen, but too cold.”
“And with no intelligent life,” Ven added. “That’s an advantage—and we can beat the cold. It wouldn’t be too hard to build domes. We have plenty of power metal, and a matricizer. We could hatch our clutch there. With the mammals to help us, we should be able to make a comfortable enough life for the forty years it’ll take to bring our offspring to maturity. We should be able to do this easily, and still get home before we’re strangers.”
“Hmm,” I said. “It’s possible. And we can use this world for a supply base. But would you care to live on that cold, barren planet?”
“There are worse places,” she said matter-of-factly. “And we’d be close to everything we’d need.”
It did have possibilities. And the mammals could be adapted. They were a more advanced evolutionary from than we, but lower on the adaptive scale—nonspecialized—more so than any other intelligent race I had encountered.
Ven said, “We would actually be doing their race a favor, if the computation of this world’s future is correct Some of them would still survive if this planet commits suicide. And if the prediction is wrong, we would have done no harm. If they reach space, they’ll merely find that they’ve already arrived when they reach the fourth planet.”
“Which might be something of a surprise to their explorers,” I said with a chuckle. “All right. We’ll play it your way.”
I was pretty sure how Donald would take this. He was going to be furious, but after all one doesn’t make a pet of a wolf and then turn it loose. It’s too hard on the livestock. But I didn’t think he’d be too unhappy. He’d be the principal human on Mars; and after we left he’d be ruler of a world. And in the meantime he could be a domestic tyrant.
It was fortunate, I thought with a smile, that mammals were essentially polygamous. Donald would make some nasty comments about being a herd sire—but I didn’t think his comments would be too sincere. After all, it’s not every man that has a chance to become a founding father.
I was still smiling as I tinned the dials on the controller and flipped the switch. Founding father—the title was as much mine as his.
MATING CALL
Frank Herbert
It obviously is not advisable that every story in a science fiction anthology should be Pregnant with Meaning, like the previous story; such a collection might turn out to be a bore. Why not let’s have a feathery-light item for contrast—a tale that is just Pregnant, like this one?
“IF YOU GET CAUGHT WE’LL HAVE TO THROW YOU to the wolves,” said Dr. Fladdis. “You understand, of course.” Laoconia Wilkinson, senior field agent of the Social Anthropological Service, nodded her narrow head. “Of course,” she barked. She rustled the travel and order papers in her lap.
“It was very difficult to get High Council approval for this expedition after the . . . ah . . . unfortunate incident on Monligol,” said Dr. Fladdis. “That’s why your operating restrictions are so severe.”
“I’m permitted to take only this—” she glanced at her papers—“Marie Medill?”
“Well, the basic plan of action was her idea,” said Dr. Fladdis. “And we have no one else in the department with her qualifications in music.”
“I’m not sure I approve of her plan,” muttered Laoconia.
“Ah,” said Dr. Fladdis, “but it goes right to the heart of the situation on Rukuchp, and the beauty of it is that it breaks no law. That’s a legal quibble, I agree. But what I mean is you’ll be within the letter of the law.”
“And outside its intent,” muttered Laoconia. “Not that I agree with the law. Still—” she shrugged—“music!”
Dr. Fladdis chose to misunderstand. “Miss Medill has her doctorate in music, yes,” he said. “A highly educated young woman.”
“If it weren’t for the fact that this may be our last opportunity to discover how those creatures reproduce—” said Laoconia. She shook her head. “What we really should be doing is going in there with a full staff, capturing representive specimens, putting them through—”
“You will note the prohibition in Section D of the High Council’s mandate,” said Dr. Fladdis. “ ‘The Field Agent may not enclose, restrain or otherwise restrict the freedom of any Rukuchp native.’ ”
“How bad is their birthrate situation?” asked Laoconia. “We have only the word of the Rukuchp special spokesman. This Gafka. He said it was critical. That, of course, was the determining factor with the High Council. Rukuchp appealed to us for help.”
Laoconia got to her feet. “You know what I think of this music idea. But if that’s the way we’re going to attack it, why don’t we just break the law all the way—take in musical recordings, players . . .”
“Please!” snapped Dr. Fladdis.
Laoconia stared at him. She had never before seen the Area Director so agitated.
“The Rukuchp natives say that introduction of foreign music has disrupted some valence of their reproductive cycle,” said Dr. Fladdis. “At least, that’s how we’ve translated their explanation. This is the reason for the law prohibiting any traffic in music devices.”
“I’m not a child!” snapped Laoconia. “You don’t have to explain all—”
“We cannot be too careful,” said Dr. Fladdis. “With the memory of Monligol still fresh in all minds.” He shuddered. “We must return to the spirit of the SocAnth motto: ‘For the Greater Good of the Universe.’ We’ve been warned.”
“I don’t see how music can be anything but a secondary stimulant,” said Laoconia. “However, I shall keep an open mind.”
Laoconia Wilkinson looked up from her notes, said: “Marie, was that a noise outside?” She pushed a strand of gray hair from her forehead.
Mar
ie Medill stood at the opposite side of the field hut, staring out one of the two windows. “I only hear the leaves,” she said. “They’re awfully loud in that wind.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t Gafka?”
Marie sighed and said, “No, it wasn’t his namesong.”
“Stop calling that monster a him!” snapped Laoconia.
Marie’s shoulders stiffened.
Laoconia observed the reflex and thought how wise the Service had been to put a mature veteran anthropologist in command here. A hex-dome hut was too small to confine brittle tempers. And the two women had been confined here for 25 weeks already. Laoconia stared at her companion—such a young romantic, that one.
Marie’s pose reflected boredom . . . worry . . .
Laoconia glanced around the hut’s crowded interior. Servo-recorders, night cameras, field computers, meal-mech, collapsible floaters, a desk, two chairs, folding bunks, three wall sections taken up by the transceiver linking them with the mother ship circling in satellite orbit overhead. Everything in its place and a place for everything.
“Somehow, I just can’t help calling Gafka a him,” said Marie. She shrugged. “I know it’s nonsense. Still . . . when Gafka sings . . .”
Laoconia studied the younger woman: a blonde girl in a one-piece green uniform; heavy peasant figure, good strong legs, an oval face with high forehead and dreaming blue eyes.
“Speaking of singing,” said Laoconia, “I don’t know what I shall do if Gafka doesn’t bring permission for us to attend their Big Sing. We can’t solve this mess without the facts.”
“No doubt,” said Marie. She spoke snappishly, trying to keep her attention away from Laoconia. The older woman just sat there. She was always just sitting there—so efficient, so driving, a tall gawk with windburned face, nose too big, mouth too big, chin too big, eyes too small.
Marie turned away.
“With every day that passes I’m more convinced that this music thing is a blind alley,” said Laoconia. “The Rukuchp birthrate keeps going down no matter how much of our music you teach them.”
“But Gafka agrees,” protested Marie. “Everything points to it. Our discovery of this planet brought the Rukuchps into contact with the first alien music they’ve ever known. Somehow, that’s disrupted their breeding cycle. I’m sure of it.”
“Breeding cycle,” sniffed Laoconia. “For all we know, these creatures could be ambulatory vegetables without even the most rudimentary—”
“I’m so worried,” said Marie. “It’s music at the root of the problem, I’m sure, but if it ever got out that we smuggled in those education tapes and taught Gafka all our musical forms—”
“We did not smuggle anything!” barked Laoconia. “The law is quite clear. It only prohibits any form of mechanical reproducer of actual musical sounds. Our tapes are all completely visual.”
“I keep thinking of Monligol,” said Marie. “I couldn’t live with the knowledge that I’d contributed to the extinction of a sentient species. Even indirectly. If our foreign music really has disrupted—”
“We don’t even know if they breed!”
“But Gafka says—”
“Gafka says! A dumb vegetable. Gafka says!”
“Not so dumb,” countered Marie. “He learned to speak our language in less than three weeks, but we have only the barest rudiments of songspeech.”
“Gafka’s an idiot-savant,” said Laoconia. “And I’m not certain I’d call what that creature does speaking.”
“It is too bad that you’re tone deaf,” said Marie sweetly. Laoconia frowned. She leveled a finger at Marie. “The thing I note is that we only have their word that their birthrate is declining. They called on us for help, and now they obstruct every attempt at field observation.”
“They’re so shy,” said Marie.
“They’re going to be shy one SocAnth field expedition if they don’t invite us to that Big Sing,” said Laoconia. “Oh! If the Council had only authorized a full field expedition with armed support!”
“They couldn’t!” protested Marie. “After Monligol, practically every sentient race in the universe is looking on Rukuchp as a final test case. If we mess up another race with our meddling—”
“Meddling!” barked Laoconia. “Young woman, the Social Anthropoligical Service is a holy calling! Erasing ignorance, helping the backward races!”
“And we’re the only judges of what’s backward,” said Marie. “How convenient Now, you take Monligol, Everyone knows that insects carry disease. So we move in with our insecticides and kill off the symbiotic partner essential to Monligolian reproduction. How uplifting.”
“They should have told us,” said Laoconia.
“They couldn’t,” said Marie. “It was a social taboo.”
“Well . . .” Laoconia shrugged, “that doesn’t apply here.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve had enough of this silly argument,” barked Laoconia. “See if Gafka’s coming. He’s overdue.”
Marie inhaled a trembling breath, stamped across to the field hut’s lone door and banged it open. Immediately the tinkle of glaze forest leaves grew louder. The wind brought an odor of peppermint from the stubble plain to her left She looked across the plain at the orange ball of Almac sinking toward a flat horizon, swung her glance to the right where the wall of the glazeforest loomed overhead. Rainbow-streaked batwing leaves clashed in the wind, shifting in subtle competition for the last of the day’s orange light “Do you see it?” demanded Laoconia.
Marie dropped her attention to the foot of the forest wall, where stubble spikes crowded against great glasswood trunks. “No.”
“What is keeping that creature?”
Marie shook her head, setting blonde curls dancing across her uniform collar. “It’ll be dark soon,” she said. “He said he’d return before it got fully dark.”
Laoconia scowled, pushed aside her notes. Always calling it a him! They’re nothing but animated Easter eggs! If only—She broke the train of thought, attention caught by a distant sound.
“There!” Marie peered down the length of glazeforest wall.
A fluting passage of melody hung on the air. It was the meister-song of a delicate wind instrument. As they listened, the tones deepened to an organ throb while a section of cello strings held the melody. Glazeforest leaves began to tinkle in sympathetic harmony. Slowly, the music faded.
“It’s Gafka,” whispered Marie. She cleared her throat, spoke louder, self-consciously: “He’s coming out of the forest quite a ways down.”
“I can’t tell one from the other,” said Laoconia. “They all look alike and sound alike. Monsters.”
“They do look alike,” agreed Marie, “but the sound is quite individual.”
“Let’s not harp on my tone deafness!” snapped Laoconia. She joined Marie at the door. “If they’ll only let us attend their Sing . . .”
A six-foot Easter egg ambled toward them on four of its five prehensile feet.
The crystal glistening of its vision cap, tipped slightly toward the field hut, was semi-lidded by inner cloud-pigment in the direction of the setting sun. Blue and white greeting colors edged a great bellows muscle around the torso. The bell extension of a mouth/ear—normally visible in a red-yellow body beneath the vision cap—had been retracted to a multicreased pucker.
“What ugly brutes,” said Laoconia.
“Shhhh!” said Marie. “You don’t know how far away he can hear you.” She waved an arm. “Gaaafkaa!” Then: “Damn!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I only made eight notes out of his name instead of nine.”
Gafka came up to the door, picking a way through the stubble spikes. The orange mouth/ear extended, sang a 22-note harmonica passage: “Maarriee Mmmmmmedillll.” Then a 10-second concerto: “Laoconnnnia Wiiilkinnnsonnnn!”
“How lovely!” said Marie.
“I wish you’d talk straight out the way we taught you,” said Laoconia. “That singing
is difficult to follow.”
Gafka’s vision cap tipped toward her. The voice shifted to a sing-song waver: “But polite sing greeting.”
“Of course,” said Laoconia. “Now.” She took a deep breath. “Do we have permission to attend your Big Sing?” Gafka’s vision cap tipped toward Marie, back to Laoconia.
“Please, Gafka?” said Marie.
“Difficulty,” wavered Gafka. “Not know how say. Not have knowledge your kind people. Is subject not want for talking.”
“I see,” said Laoconia, recognizing the metaphorical formula, “It has to do with your breeding habits.”
Gafka’s vision cap clouded over with milky pigment, a sign the two women had come to recognize as embarrassment.
“Now, Gafka,” said Laoconia. “None of that. We’ve explained about science and professional ethics, the desire to be of real help to one another. You must understand that both Marie and I are here for the good of your people.”
A crystal moon unclouded in the part of the vision cap facing Laoconia.
“If we could only get them to speak straight out,” said Laoconia.
Marie said: “Please, Gafka. We only want to help.”
“Understand I,” said Gafka. “How else talk this I?” More of the vision cap unclouded. “But must ask question. Friends perhaps not like.”
“We are scientists,” said Laoconia. “You may ask any question you wish.”
“You are too old for . . . breeding?” asked Gafka. Again the vision cap clouded over, sparing Gafka the sight of Laoconia shocked speechless.
Marie stepped into the breech. “Gafka! Your people and my people are . . . well, we’re just too different. We couldn’t. There’s no way . . . that is . . .”
“Impossible!” barked Laoconia. “Are you implying that we might be sexually attacked if we attended your Big Sing?”
13 Above the Night Page 7