Starswarm

by Jerry Pournelle

  "I know that, silly, but I never heard of them doing it."

  "Is there any record of centaurs using spears?"

  "NO. DESCRIBE THE SPEAR."

  "I don't know, maybe two meters long, with a pointed leaf-shaped metal blade thing at the end."

  "THERE ARE NO RECORDS OF CENTAUR USE OF SPEARS, I REMIND YOU THAT THERE ARE RECENT REPORTS OF UNUSUAL CENTAUR BEHAVIOR. REPORTED ACTIVITIES INCLUDE AGGRESSIVE ACTIONS AGAINST HUMANS. CAUTION: SPEARS CAN BE THROWN TO CONSIDERABLE DISTANCES. YOU MAY BE IN DANGER. ADVICE: RETREAT AT ONCE."

  "They've seen us," Marty said. "They're looking at us—" The centaurs looked menacingly at Kip and his friends, but they didn't move. Then one of the centaurs waded into the lake. That centaur had a bright orange blaze on its chest, and Kip recognized it as the one he had decided was the leader. The centaur waded in until only his head was above water. He turned toward the humans and seemed to stare at them as he stood rigidly still in the icy water. Kip stared back through the binoculars. "He sure looks like he's looking at us, but he's not moving."

  "They're all looking at us," Marty said. "Not doing anything—"

  "You'd think he'd be cold," Lara said. "That water is freezing."

  "He's a centaur," Marty said. "Maybe they don't feel cold."

  "They have to," Lara said. "If they don't feel it when it's cold they'd all freeze to death."

  "Well, Blaze there sure doesn't act like he feels it," Marty said.

  Minutes passed. Humans and centaurs stood on opposite sides of the cove watching each other as the dogs lay waiting for orders. Then the centaur came out of the lake. He shook himself like a dog, then took the spear in his three-fingered hand and moved around the cove. The others followed single file, but the lead centaur, still dripping, turned and faced them. The others stared at him for a moment. When the leader turned again they didn't move, and stood waiting as the leader came around the cove toward Kip.

  The dogs stood. Silver growled, looked to Kip, and growled again. Their fur stood up along their backs. "Steady," Kip said. Lara fingered her pistol in its holster, but she didn't draw it.

  The centaur Marty had called Blaze rounded the cove and started toward them.

  "Jeez," Marty said.

  The dogs growled and moved slowly toward the centaur. Kip whistled. "Stay here," he said. "Watch."

  Silver complained, but they stopped and waited, fangs bare.

  The centaur came nearer. It was holding the spear aloft. Kip wondered how far it could throw it, and if it would try.

  Fifty meters away the centaur stopped. It looked directly at them, then drove the spear into the ground. It stared at them for what seemed like a full minute, then turned away and walked, slowly, back toward the other centaurs. When it reached the lake the others fell in behind it, and the whole line of centaurs trotted away from the lake and toward their grove, each carrying a bright red sphere. They vanished over the hilltop.

  "Let's go see," Marty said. He started toward the spear.

  "Wait," Kip said.

  "Wait? Why?"

  "Because he said to," Lara said. "I don't know why either, but you promised."

  Marty thought about that. "Well, all right, I'll wait. But I want to look at it! It's like the centaur left it for a present! Come on, Kip, let's go get it! It's a present for us!"

  Kip used the binoculars to examine the area around the spear. He saw nothing unusual. No traps that he could see, and how would the centaur have known where to set traps? He'd never heard of centaurs making traps, and anyway it couldn't have known they'd be here. This wasn't making any sense, but the idea of traps made even less.

  "What's your problem?" Marty demanded.

  "I don't know," Kip said. "I never heard of centaurs doing anything like that."

  "He left it for a present," Marty said. "Maybe he wants to make friends."

  "It sure looked like that," Lara said. "Come on, Kip, let's go see! I know Daddy will want to see this."

  "Yeah, I suppose so. Silver. Go out. Look."

  Silver barked and led three dogs out to the spear. They sniffed at the handle, then ran all around the area. Silver came back looking disappointed. He was panting. Lara scratched his ears.

  "I guess it's all right," Kip said. He led the way.

  The spear's handle didn't look like wood, but it was light and not cold to the touch. The point was bronze. There was something fastened around the handle. Kip took it off and showed it to the others. It was a cheap digital watch.

  Chapter Nine

  It Had to Come from the Sea. . .

  NO ONE here seems to have lost the watch," Dr. Henderson said. "Escapee?" Uncle Mike asked. He pushed his chair back from the big dining-room table. "Anything special about that watch?"

  "Not a thing. Seiko makes these by the million. I had one much like it myself." Henderson took the watch from his lab coat breast pocket. "Indeed, this could be it, but I doubt it. I lost mine months ago."

  "Where?" Lara asked. "Maybe this is your watch—" Her father shook his head. "I very much doubt it. I don't know where I lost mine, perhaps in Pearly Gates, or down by the sea. Not near here in any event."

  "So it was made on Earth?" Uncle Mike asked.

  "Probably. I haven't heard of Seiko manufacturing operations anywhere else." Dr. Henderson turned the watch over in his palm. "The only unusual thing about it was that it was wet. Kip, did you see them take it out of the lake?"

  "No, sir, but they took the spear out of the lake, so maybe the watch was there too. Or the watch could have got wet from the spear."

  "Possibly. More likely it was in the lake. The spear certainly had been. Perhaps they hide things in the lake? In any event the waterproofing held up, because it was still running. Odd thing, though, the display was set to Earth time." Dr. Henderson laid the watch on the table.

  "What good is it here to have a watch that thinks a day is twenty-four hours?" Marty demanded. "I mean—"

  "Actually, this watch just counts seconds," Dr. Henderson said. "So you just set the display when you set the time. The watch knows how many seconds in a day on Earth, Mars, Meiji, Pearson, McCarthy, Paradise, I think a couple of other worlds."

  "Lost by someone who just got here," Uncle Mike asked. "They keep twenty-four-hour days in space."

  "That's certainly a reasonable assumption, but if I change the display to Paradise local, it is set nearly correctly for this time zone of Paradise."

  Uncle Mike frowned. "Well, somebody about to land would set it to local time I guess."

  "Which is Pearly Gates time," Dr. Henderson reminded him. "Not our local time."

  Kip thought about it. "Could the centaurs have changed the display?"

  "Actually, that's likely," Dr. Henderson said. "The centaurs haven't hands as good as monkeys, but they'd serve. When I was in grad school the laboratory monkeys stole a similar watch, and they learned how to do all kinds of things with it. Of course they didn't understand what they were doing, and neither would the centaurs." He handed the watch to Kip. "No one claims it, and you found it. Do you want it?"

  "Sure—"

  "Don't you need it?" Uncle Mike asked.

  "No, I've long since replaced mine, and besides, Kip found it. It's just a watch. Probably lost by a helicopter pilot. Or as you speculate, an escapee from the GW labor camp. Don't look so crestfallen, Kip. The watch wasn't very interesting, but the spear certainly is. Thank you for bringing it to us." Henderson finished his coffee and refilled the cup. "Of course we've known the centaurs could work bronze, the axes show that, but they just use local wood for a handle. This spear handle is really unusual. It's driftwood. Soaked in salt water, and worn smooth in surf on a sandy beach. It had to come from the sea."

  "I sure didn't see them carrying it when they came up the hill," Kip said.

  "Me either," Lara said.

  "Oh, you probably didn't," Dr. Henderson said. "It looks like that handle soaked in the lake for days. Most of the salt was leached out, except deep inside it.
"

  "So why would centaurs bring a spear up from the coast and put it in the lake?" Lara asked. "That doesn't make sense."

  "No, it doesn't," Dr. Henderson said. "There's lots of things about that spear that don't make sense. For instance, it's sharp—"

  "It sure is," Kip said. "I cut myself on it, and all I did was touch it. It's really sharp."

  "Yes, and it doesn't appear to have been sharpened," Dr. Henderson said.

  "Eh? "Uncle Mike asked.

  "There are no signs of file marks. It's as if it were forged sharp."

  "Wow, if them centaurs can do that they're smarter than we thought," Uncle Mike said.

  "And they're not," Dr. Henderson said. "Certainly the ones in the zoo at Pearly Gates aren't. Intelligence comparable to, say, a very smart chimpanzee, or one of our dogs. We've seen no signs of greater intelligence among the local centaurs. I don't see how they could make axes and spears at all, much less with this workmanship."

  "Could they be trading for them?" Uncle Mike said. He shook his head. "Nah, who with? The centaurs are the most advanced critters on the planet. They have to be making that stuff."

  "Maybe somebody is giving them to the centaurs," Lara said.

  "Who would do that?" Dr. Henderson asked. "It seems unlikely. Of course it also seems unlikely that the centaurs made this spear."

  "Yeah, because where would centaurs make things?" Marty asked.

  "We know there are often fires in the centaur groves," Dr. Henderson said. "So we presume they were made there."

  "Could there be—something else in the centaur groves?" Lara asked. "Something smart that we've never seen?"

  "I don't think so," Dr. Henderson said. "We've never done it here, but in the settled areas hunters have killed off the centaurs and cut down the groves, and they found nothing like that. Primitive tools, very crude. Anvil and bellows, but no ores or ingots or metal sources at all. A lot of necrotic poisons—poisons caused by rotting flesh. The centaurs eat almost anything, and they're fond enough of carrion to hang game until it's nearly rotting. It's very dangerous to be around centaur groves, even if there are no centaurs. Necrotic poisons can be very dangerous."

  Lara shuddered, then giggled. "So that's what stinks when we get close to the grove."

  "Yes, I would think so. But the only creatures that live in the groves other than centaurs are birds and burrowing animals. Nothing larger than a gopher, and no signs of higher intelligence." He sighed. "Well, we may never know. The GWE people want to expand the population on Paradise, and they'll probably exterminate the centaurs and replace them with cattle."

  "That's not fair," Lara said.

  "No, and it certainly makes my job impossible," Dr. Henderson said. "But the GWE General Manager wants to do it, and there's nothing we can do."

  "They're going to kill all the centaurs? Even our local centaurs?" Kip asked.

  "Eventually. I suppose they'll leave some alive in zoos. And probably they'll leave some reserves as parks. Perhaps they will spare the groves around here."

  "Doesn't the Foundation own this land?" Uncle Mike asked.

  "The station. The lake. Quite a lot of land, actually. But not all," Dr. Henderson said. "You know, I think we own the local centaur grove. I'll have to look that up. But we don't own the mineral rights to all our land. I need to look that up too."

  "You make it sound like it's going to happen tomorrow," Uncle Mike said.

  "Not tomorrow, but from what I have heard from Pearly Gates it won't be all that long either. A few years at most. I must confess I don't understand what their hurry is. There's a whole planet here. Why they want our little part—"

  "Because they don't control us," Uncle Mike said. "Bernard Trent never could stand the notion that there was something he didn't control."

  "You know the General Manager?" Dr. Henderson asked, surprised.

  "I've met him. And know about him," Uncle Mike said. He poured himself more coffee. "And I don't like him much."

  "Well, we are likely to meet him," Dr. Henderson said. "I have messages about a visit from the GWE management staff, and they asked if we have accommodations suitable for the General Manager."

  Uncle Mike started to say something, but cut himself off.

  "When?" Kip asked. He could see that Uncle Mike was upset.

  "Not definite. A few weeks."

  "We sure don't have anyplace fancy for him to stay," Lara said. "Wow. The General Manager is more important than the Governor. Will I get to meet him?"

  "Actually, just now the General Manager is the Governor," Dr. Henderson said. "Acting Governor, anyway. Madame Benaris went back to Earth, and so far there has been no replacement. Perhaps there won't be. It's rather pointless to separate the two offices, since the Governor can't do anything without GWE's cooperation. In any event, I presume we will all get to meet him. He will be a guest in our home. I know of no other suitable place for him to stay. And your mother won't think this house fine enough."

  "Neither will Bernie," Uncle Mike said. "He'll probably bring a GWE outback prefab camp. The management level ones get pretty fancy. Bet Bernie's is really something. What in hell would he want here, anyway?"

  "I don't know—"

  "Something about Federation politics," Uncle Mike said. "Or GWE internal politics. It'd have to be one or the other. Bernie Trent doesn't do much by accident. Or much that isn't political."

  "There's nothing political here," Dr. Henderson said.

  "Yeah. Not that you know of, anyway."

  "I suspect you are letting your dislike of the GWE color your judgments. My guess is that he needs a vacation from politics. This is a perfect place for that."

  "Yeah, I guess," Uncle Mike said. He didn't sound convinced.

  Henderson turned to the youngsters. "Kip, we're going to the lake tomorrow. You've made a rather significant discovery."

  "Can I come?"

  "It might be a bit crowded."

  "I can show you where—"

  "They already know that," Lara said. " 'Cause you told them."

  "Yeah, if you hadn't showed them on the maps they'd have to take us," Marty said.

  "That may be, but it would still be too crowded," Dr. Henderson said.

  "What you really mean is that Dr. Bascombe doesn't like kids," Kip said.

  "Well, that's true enough. Kip, do you really believe the centaurs meant to give you the watch and spear as a present?"

  "I thought of that first," Marty said.

  "Yeah, that's what Marty said, and it sure looked like it to me," Kip said. "The big centaur, the one with the big splash of color on his chest."

  "I call him Blaze," Marty said.

  "Yeah, that one," Kip said. "He acted like the leader. He was looking at us the whole time he was in the lake, standing there up to his neck in that cold water and just staring at us. He never stopped looking at us when he was coming toward us with the spear, either. I was afraid he was going to throw it, but he didn't. Just walked up, put the point in the ground, and looked at us 'fore he went away."

  "I think he wanted to make friends," Marty said.

  "It's possible," Dr. Henderson said. He shrugged. "Let's assume that."

  "Could be a dangerous assumption," Uncle Mike said.

  "Oh, not really. We already have a policy of not attacking the centaurs. We will certainly continue to be wary of them. Nothing really different. Just be—well, not less wary, but a little less willing to shoot? A little better control over the dogs. Keeping in mind that they have killed dogs and tried to kill humans."

  "Did kill humans," Uncle Mike said.

  "But not here. Not our local centaurs. Surely we can't hold ours responsible for the actions of every centaur on the planet!"

  "Well, no, but you kids be damn careful," Uncle Mike said. "Damn careful."

  Chapter Ten

  Another One

  KIP, Lara, and Marty followed when the scientists went to the lake. They stayed well back and watched through binoculars as the sc
ientists and their assistants dragged rakes through the shallow areas near the shore. The rakes would get tangled in the Starswarm threadlets and they'd have to untangle them before they threw them out into the lake again.

  "I don't think they found anything," Lara said. "Daddy looks disappointed."

  "What did you expect them to find?" Marty demanded. "I don't know, another spear, or some of those gourd things," Lara said.