Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  Brazil was tall and bony, resembling a blond young Abe Lincoln. He rubbed sleep from his eyes as his long legs carried him toward the mess hall. A distracting young squab from Computing sailed past him in the opposite direction, smiling.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  “Is the coffee that bad?” It was the best facsimile of a joke he could think of this early. But the girl hadn’t been talking about coffee. Chief Planeteer Sam Gates had picked Brazil to go along on the first landing attempt, he learned when he met Gates in the chow line. He saw by the small computer clipped to Sam’s belt that the other man had been up early on his own, double-checking the crew chief and maintenance robots who were readying their scoutship. Brazil felt vaguely guilty—but not very. He might well have been just another body in the way.

  Sam Gates stood in the chow line swinging his arms and snapping his fingers, chewing his dark mustache as he usually did when nervous.

  “How’s it look?” Brazil asked.

  “Oh, free and clear. Guess we’ll have ground under our feet in a few hours.”

  MOST of the Yuan Chwang’s twenty-four planeteers were in the chow line, with a fair number of people from other departments. The day’s operation was going to be a big one for everybody.

  Trays loaded with synthetic ham, and a scrambled substance not preceded or followed by chickens, Gates and Brazil found a table. Ten scoutships were going down today, though only one would attempt to land; most of the night shift from all departments seemed to think it time for lunch. The mess was filling up quickly.

  “Here comes the alien,” said Gates, gesturing with his fork.

  Brazil raised his eyes toward the tall turbaned man bearing a tray in their direction.

  “Hi, Chan. Pull up a chair.”

  Chandragupta was no more an alien here than any other Earthman; his job had earned him the nickname.

  “Good morning,” said the Tribune with a smile, sitting down with Gates and Brazil. “I hope my people treat you well today.” He had not yet seen one of “his people” and possibly never would; but from the moment high-altitude reconnaissance had established that intelligent life at an apparently primitive technological level existed on Aqua, his job had taken on substance. He was to represent the natives below in the councils aboard the Yuan Chwang, to argue for what he conceived to be their welfare at every turn, letting others worry about the scientific objectives that had brought the exploration ship so far from Earth, until he was satisfied that the natives needed no help or the mission was over.

  “No reason to expect any trouble,” said Brazil. “This one looks fairly simple.”

  “Except we know there are some kind of people down there,” said Gates. “And people are never as simple as you’d like them to be.”

  “I wonder if they will need my help,” said Chan, “and I wonder if I will be able to help them.” The job of Tribune was a new one, really still experimental. Chan shrugged. “But there is no point in my speculating now. In a few hours perhaps I will know.”

  “We’re not trying to conquer them, you know,” said Brazil, half amused and a little offended by Chan’s eagerness to defend against Earth a people he had never seen.

  “Oh, I know. But we must be sure not to conquer them by accident, eh?” Chan attacked his ersatz eggs again.

  When Brazil got up to walk without Gates, he could feel the eyes on his back, or thought he could. Here go the heroes, he thought. First landing. Hail, hail.

  And deep inside he felt a pride and joy so fierce he was embarrassed to admit it to himself—to be one of the first Earthmen stepping onto this unknown world.

  BRIEFING was normal for a mission this size. The twenty planeteers who were going down into atmosphere, plus two reserve crews, slouched in their seats and scribbled notes and smoked and whispered back and forth about business, concentrating so intently on the job at hand that an outsider might have thought them bored and distracted.

  Captain Dietrich, boss of the Yuan Chwang, mounted the low dais in the front of the briefing “room. He was a rather small man, of mild and bookish appearance. After working with him for a while, you tended to treat cautiously all small men of mild and bookish appearance.

  Tribune Chandragupta entered the briefing room through the rear door. The Captain eyed him thoughtfully. This was the first voyage on which he had been required to carry a Tribune; the idea had been born as a political move in the committee meetings of Earth Parliament, and had earned certain legislators reputations as defenders of liberty, albeit only the liberty of certain as yet unmet aliens.

  Captain Dietrich had no wish to conquer anyone, having of course passed the Space Force psych tests, and he was willing to give the Tribune system a trial. After all, he could always overrule the man, on condition he thought it necessary for the safety of members of the expedition—though he was the only one aboard who could do so. But it seemed to the Captain that this placing of a civilian official aboard his ship might be only the start of an effort by the groundbound government to encroach upon the domain of the Space Force. Every time he went home he heard complaints that the SF was growing too powerful and cost too much.

  “Militarism,” they would say, over a drink or anywhere he met civilians. “We’ve just managed to really get away from all that on Earth, and now you want to start all over, on Mars and Ganymede and this new military base on Aldebaran 2.”

  “The Martian Colony is hardly a military base,” he would remind them patiently. “It now has its own independent civilian government and sends representatives to Earth Parliament. The Space Force has practically pulled out of Mars altogether. Ganymede is a training base. Aldebaran 2 you’re right about, mostly; and we do have other military bases.”

  “Aha! Now how do we know that none of these outlying bases or colonies will ever threaten Earth?”

  “Because all spaceships and strategic weapons are controlled by the SF, and the SF is controlled by the psych tests that screen people trying to enter it. Admittedly, no system is perfect, but what are our alternatives?”

  “We could destroy all strategic weapons,” they might say. Or: “We could cut down on this space exploration, maybe stop it altogether. It’s devilish expensive, and there seems no hope it will ever relieve our crowding on Earth. What do we get out of it anyway that makes it really profitable?”

  “Well,” Captain Dietrich might say, “since you talk of militarism, I will ignore the valuable knowledge we have gained by exploration, and answer you in military terms. We have the ability to travel hundreds of light-years in a matter of months, and to melt any known planet in minutes, with one ship delivering one weapon. How many other races do you think live in our galaxy with similar capabilities?”

  NO Earthman had met any but primitive aliens—yet. But people had begun to comprehend the magnitude of the galaxy, where man’s hundred-light-year radius of domination gave him no more than a Jamestown Colony.

  “Assume a race with such capabilities,” the Captain might continue, “and with motivations we might not be able to understand, spreading out across the galaxy as we are. Would you rather have them discover our military base on Aldebaran this year, or find all humanity crowded on one unprotected Earth, perhaps the year after next?”

  Dietrich got a wide range of answers to this question. He himself would much prefer to meet the hypothetical advanced aliens a thousand light-years or more from Earth, with a number of large and effective military bases in between.

  But right now it was time for him to start briefing his planeteers, who probably knew as much about Aqua as he, who had never driven a scoutship into her upper atmosphere.

  “Gentlemen, we’ve found out a little about this planet, the only child of a Sol-type sun, after watching it for six weeks. One point one AU from its sun, gravity point nine five, diameter point nine, eighty-five per cent of surface is water. Oxy-nitrogen atmosphere, about fifteen thousand feet equivalent. We won’t try breathing it for some time yet. Full suits until further not
ice.

  “What land there is is probably quite well populated with what we think are humanoids with a technical level probably nowhere higher than that of medieval Europe. Several rather large sailing ships have been spotted in coastal waters. There are only a couple of long paved roads, and none of the cities are electrically lit on nightside. We don’t think anyone down there can have spotted us yet.”

  Most of his audience looked back at him rather impatiently, as if to say: We know all this. We’re the ones who found it out.

  But the Captain wanted to make sure they all had the basic facts in proper focus. “The main objective of this mission is to make a first contact with the natives with the purpose of finding a way to establish a temporary scientific base on the surface, to continue our investigation here with seismic studies, biological studies, and so forth—and of course to see what we can learn from and about the intelligent inhabitants.”

  THE Captain raised his eyes and spoke as much to the Tribune as to his planeteers. “There seems very little chance of any permanent colony being established here, due to the inadequate air, and the native population on a very limited land area. This same apparently high population would seem to preclude any chance of establishing our temporary base in some remote area, without knowledge of the natives. So we will have to deal with them somehow from the start.

  “I’ve never believed in the god-from-the-sky approach, and you know SF policy is to avoid it if possible. It injects a false note into what may become a permanent relationship, even if we intend it now to be temporary. And he who takes godhood upon himself is likely to have to spend more time at it than at the business for which he came, and to assume responsibility for farreaching changes in the native history.

  “We’ve met enough primitive races to know that some change is bound to result from any contact, but SF policy is to keep it at a minimum and to try to make it beneficial.”

  The Captain paused, then looked at another man who stood waiting to speak, paper in his hand. “Meteorology?”

  “Roger, sir.”

  On a wall appeared a photomap of the island that had been picked for the first landing attempt, an irregular shape of land about a hundred miles long by ten wide. Air temperature at dawn in the landing area should be about fifty degrees F, the water a little cooler. There might be enough fog to aid the landing scoutship in an unseen descent.

  Meteorology also discussed characteristics of the atmosphere that might affect radio and video communication between scouts and mother ship, and predicted the weather in the landing area for the next twenty-four hours. He paused to answer a couple of questions, and introduced Passive Detection.

  The PD man discussed Aqua’s Van Allen belts, magnetic field, the variety and amount of solar radiation in nearby space and that to be expected on the surface, and what the natives probably burned for heat and light in the nightside cities. He confirmed the apparent absence of any advanced technology below.

  Biology was next, with a prediction that the island would show diverse and active life. It was near the tropics in the spring hemisphere, and green with vegetation. Scout photos showed no evidence of very large animals or plants. Some areas appeared to be under cultivation.

  Anthropology took the dais to speculate. The people of Aqua were thought to be humanoid, but in the photos anything as small as a man was at the very limit of visibility, and the estimate of the creatures’ appearance was based on lucky shots of dawn or dusk shadows striding gigantic across more or less level ground. Inhabitants of such a watery world would be expected to be sailors, and indeed ships had been photographed. There was some massive construction, probably masonry, in the one sizable city on the island. A sea wall and a couple of large structures had been built on a finger of land that protected the city’s small harbor.

  CAPTAIN Dietrich came back to outline the patterns he wanted the non-landing scouts to fly. “The target island is pretty well isolated from the planet’s main land areas, so if we put a base here it should have minimal effect on native culture. Also, if we botch things up here, we may be able to move on and try again without the natives in the new spot having heard of us.” He looked around at his men; the idea was strongly conveyed to them that the Captain preferred they not botch things up. “Chan—anything you want to say? No? All right, board your scouts.”

  Brazil strode beside Gates out the door in the rear of the briefing room, passing under the sign that read:

  MAYBE . . . ANYTHING

  Maybe they’re real telepaths down there. Maybe they’re a mighty race now retired from active competition and preferring the simple life. Maybe . . .

  Maybe nothing, Brazil told himself, quick-stepping beside Sam Gates along the corridor past the doors of scoutship berths that occupied this part of the hull of the Yuan Chwang. The time was for the planeteer’s motto: Go Down and Find Out.

  The main preflight check had been run yesterday. Gates and Brazil now faced the final quick Medical & Psych in the corridor. Brazil had long since given up trying to startle the psych doc by giving to the inevitable weird question an even weirder answer.

  “I’d swear you were sane if I didn’t know you better,” the doctor told him this time. “Pass on.”

  They fitted themselves into the suits of armor, light, space and ground, that had been selected for this job. The suits included among their accessories flotation bubbles that when inflated enabled the wearers to maneuver with supposed ease through several hundred feet of water. The suits now received a quick semifinal test.

  Captain Dietrich was waiting in the berth that was almost filled by the fifty-foot-long stubby bulk of scoutship Alpha. Gates and Brazil juggled checklists and fishbowl helmets to offer him each an armored paw to shake. The captain said something about good luck.

  The two planeteers climbed through the scout’s hatch, twisting sideways with practiced movements to meet the ninetydegree shift in artificial gravity between mother ship and scout. Gates climbed on toward the control room while Brazil stayed to seal the hatch. On planet they would of course use an airlock.

  Engines started. Ship’s power off and disconnected. All personnel out of berth. Ready for sterilizing.

  Lethal gas, swirling around the scout’s hull, was mostly pumped away to be saved and reused. Then a blast of ultraviolet, more intense than the raw Sol-type sunshine outside, bathed the inside of the berth. No microorganisms must be carried down into atmosphere.

  STRAPPED and clamped into control room chairs, ports sealed, watching the tiny world of the berth by video screen, Gates and Brazil were nearly ready. The berth door slid open on schedule, and what was left of gas inside went out in a faint puff of sudden mist.

  The watery world that someone with little imagination had named Aqua, ten thousand miles away, filled the opening. A quarter of it was dayside, blue-black as a fluorescent bruise; nightside was eerie with subtle atmospheric glows.

  “Stand by one, Alpha,” came over the radio. “A little trouble clearing Delta.”

  “Roger,” said Sam Gates. “Hey, Boris, I like those video stories at home. The guy just drives his ship up to a new planet and lands. The faithful crew stands around scratching their heads. ‘Well, what’ll we do now?’ says one. Then they wait for some hero to speak up.”

  “ ‘Let’s get out and look around,’ ” said Brazil, grinning. “ ‘O.K., but let’s all be careful. Maybe we better close the door of the ship after us.’ ”

  Sam gave a rare smile. “Then one shmoe takes his hornet off to eat a coconut. Only it turns out to be a chieftain’s daughter.”

  “And they’re all in the soup. They never seem to learn.”

  “Stand by, Alpha,” said Operations over the radio, unnecessarily.

  Gates pointed to the slim volume wedged under an arm of Brazil’s chair, secured, like everything else aboard, against some possible overloading or failure of the artificial gravity on the coming flight into the unknown. “What’s the book this time?”

  “Thoreau. I
thought I might need some philosophy if you get us stuck in the mud for a couple days down there.”

  “Always meant to read the old nature lover through some day.” Gates nodded at the screens showing the waiting planet. “Wonder what he would have thought of all this.”

  Brazil looked at the Passive Detection screen, where the image of the planet showed the dawnline creeping imperceptibly across upper atmosphere as a rainbow of varying ionization and light pressure. He smiled at a sudden recollection. “Ha. Maybe he wouldn’t’ve been so surprised as you might think.” He quoted: “Walden Pond—let’s see—‘A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above . . . I see where the breeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of light. It is remarkable that we can look down on its surface. We shall, perhaps, look down thus on the surface of air at length, and mark where a still subtler spirit sweeps over it.’ ”

  “He wrote that in the middle of the nineteenth century?” asked Gates, astonished. “Let me see that book when you’re done with it.”

  “You’re clear for takeoff, Alpha. Good luck,” said the radio.

  Scoutship Alpha outraced the dawnline by an hour to the island and eased down on schedule, without hurry, into thicker and thicker air, until it entered predawn darkness and fog. Gates used his radar for the first time, to work his way down toward the water a quarter of a mile off the rocky coastline.

  Aqua was Brazil’s ninth new planet, but I won’t forget this one, he thought in some corner of his brain not used for watching and interpreting screens.

  And he was right.

  THE plan called for an offshore landing unseen by the natives, the concealment of the scoutship in about a hundred feet of water as near land as possible, and the going ashore of Gates and Brazil in protective suits to make contact with the local intelligent life. Tight-beam communication was to be maintained at all times with the Yuan Chwang. A small video eye rode above each planeteer’s left ear; whatever the eye saw was transmitted to the mother ship.