Lukas stood up and stretched. He winced suddenly as his back muscles, still unaccustomed to the release of tension, gave a sharp twinge.
“They should be with us inside half an hour. . . . Come on, Joe, let’s take a look around the next stamping ground of the Trans-Solar Chemicals.”
He scrambled up into the observation dome and took his first close look at the new planet.
“What’s it like?” called Duluth as he struggled impatiently with the network of safety belts. “Anything startling?”
Lukas was amazed. “Holy smoke! Apart from the colors, this could be South America or the African coast!” His voice shook with excitement.
“Jesus,” said Duluth. “Maybe we took the wrong turning and blasted ourselves back into the System.” He hurried up the short ladder and stood by Lukas’s side.
From their observation point in the nose of the ship, more than seventy meters above ground level, they commanded a panoramic view of the landing area.
The Henri Poincare had come to rest on a broad sand belt. About five kilometers to the planetary east, the calm emerald-green ocean lay flat as a mirror under a misty, somewhat yellowish sky. On the opposite side of the ship, a kilometer or so to the west, a bright blue-green forest line rose abruptly from the red sand. Nothing moved anywhere, but far away on the sand belt was a colony of dark spots that proved, on inspection by the telescope, to be a flock of resting birds—something like terrestrial gulls.
High above, the noon sun contrived to filter its oddly relaxing light through the even layer of cloud. The star, Fomalhaut, was a thousand million miles away, but its intense radiation bathed the third planet with sunlight almost equal to the tropical brilliance found on Earth.
“Well, what do you know,” exclaimed Duluth after several seconds of fascinated silence. “Isn’t that something! What’s the atmosphere like, anybody find out?”
“Tony says we can use it, but better be careful than sorry. . . . How about letting the ladder down while Kurt and Tony are finishing their beauty sleep?”
“I’m on my way,” said Duluth. “Think I’ll jump into a pressure suit and stroll around.”
“You’ll be all right with a respiration mask,” Lukas assured him. “The pressure is only slightly under one atmos.”
Duluth climbed down from the observation dome, kissed his fingers archly to the unconscious scientists, and disappeared down the companion ladder. Presently Lukas heard him manipulating the airlock.
Lukas stayed in the dome for a while, gazing around him. The vague uneasiness he had felt about Fomalhaut Three intensified. He was not normally a superstitious man, or given to premonitions, and his uneasiness was hard to analyze.
As a veteran of three other planetary investigations, he was mentally prepared for any reasonable physical hazards that might be expected. But although Lukas sensed some kind of threat hidden in the almost conventional landscape of Fomalhaut Three, he felt oddly confident that it wasn’t physical.
As his eyes strayed idly over the forest line, he thought he detected some kind of movement; but by the time he got the telescope focused, there was nothing to be seen. Probably, he told himself, it was some trick of the peculiar yellow light.
Somnolent groans from down below indicated that Alsdorf and Chirico were returning to consciousness. He went down the ladder to help them with their straps.
“Devil take it,” grumbled the small Italian, blinking painfully, “I have the mother and father of all hangovers.”
“Swallow a pill. You’ll feel better.”
With a hand on his forehead, Alsdorf gently worked his head up and down. He seemed surprised when it didn’t fall off. “What’s the situation?” he asked.
Lukas jerked a thumb toward the observation dome. “Too good to be true. See for yourself.”
“Any signs of life?”
“Birds, I think. . . . But too far away for detail to show up.”
“Well, well. That’s an excellent start. Maybe we’ll find something better than a three-legged pseudo-wolf, eh, Mike?”
“Maybe.”
The two scientists went up into the observation dome. Lukas watched them, then said, “Joe’s already stretching his legs. Can you see him?”
Chirico laughed. “For a moment I thought he was the welcome committee.”
Lukas said, “I could use a drink before we go outside. If you need me, I’ll be on the mess deck.” He went down the companion ladder.
Ten minutes later, Alsdorf and Chirico joined him. They sat around the table, sipping hot coffee, enjoying the feel of an almost normal gravity pull, and discussing plans for tackling the survey block. Alsdorf, as the senior representative of Trans-Solar Chemicals, was busy making out duty lists.
Suddenly there was a commotion on the lower deck. Then the sound of heavy metallic boots on the main ladder. The three men jumped up and went to the hatch. They met Duluth on his way up. He was wearing a pressure suit. As soon as he saw them, he pressed the emergency release and whipped off his headpiece.
“Apes,” he panted. “Bloody big ones!”
“Where?” snapped Alsdorf.
“Half a kilometer away. There’s a troop of them—fifteen, maybe twenty—heading toward us from the forest.”
Chirico was almost bouncing with excitement. “This gets better and better. It looks like we really found something this time.”
The three of them hurried into pressure suits, while Duluth picked up a couple of machine pistols to deal with any misunderstandings that might arise. Then they went down to the airlock. By the time they had got through the entry-port and climbed down the landing ladder, the approaching troop was less than a hundred meters away.
Duluth and Alsdorf held the machine pistols firmly at their hips. “Ain’t this joyful?” remarked Duluth over his personal radio. “Hey, they got bundles with ’em. What’s the betting they’re going to pelt us with kingsize coconuts?”
“Anthropoids!” exclaimed Chirico incredulously. “By all that’s holy, we’ve found anthropoids on the first touchdown. . . . No, by heaven, they’re not anthropoids—they’re hominids! Look at the size of those heads!”
Lukas was staring through his visor intently. His eyes had not yet adjusted to the strange light of Fomalhaut Three, but as the troop came closer, moving at a queer half-trot, he saw that their limbs were pale and hairless while their faces were half-hidden under dark, shaggy manes.
“The major difference between us and them,” he said quietly, “is a haircut.”
“Plus another small detail,” said Alsdorf with some complacency. “We happen to be civilized.”
Lukas gave a dry laugh. “That’s our story. We might as well stick to it.”
Fifteen paces away, the troop fanned out into a semicircle and came to a halt. At a signal from one in the center, they placed their burdens down on the sand and waited expectantly. Men and hominids gazed at each other. Both groups seemed reluctant to make the first move.
Lukas and his companions saw that the inhabitants of Fomalhaut Three were almost uniformly tall—each of them about two inches higher than Alsdorf, who was the tallest of the terrenes. They were massive-chested creatures with hunched shoulders and long, sinewy arms. Their toes splayed uneasily, as if they were more accustomed to gripping branches than supporting those tough, wiry bodies in even balance. Their faces—what could be seen of them under the matting of coarse hair—were almost Neanderthal, with broad, flared nostrils, thick lips, receding forehead, and an occasional glimpse of dark eyes under bushy brows.
Presently one of them, whose hair was lighter and thinner than the rest, stepped out from the group and raised his right arm forward, level with the shoulder, as if in greeting. He began to work his lips.
Encased in their pressure suits, the terrenes could hear no sound. But Lukas suddenly decided that it was worth risking a few alien bugs to hear what Neanderthal Man, Fomalhaut Three version, had to say. He took off his headpiece.
“Czanyas” said th
e hominid, touching his own chest. Then, pointing at the terrenes, he added: “Olye ma nye kran czanyas.”
Lukas took a couple of steps forward and repeated the word czanyas experimentally with his finger pointing at the hominid.
The whole troop made a rumbling noise in their throats, and lips curved in broad grins. Encouraged, Lukas thumped his own chest: “Olye ma nye kran czanyas?” He displayed his bewilderment with exaggerated gestures.
The old hominid pointed to the sky: “Olye!” Then he pointed to the ship: “Ma nye kran!” Then he pointed to Lukas, Alsdorf, Duluth, and Chirico in turn: “Czanyas. . . . Olye ma nye kran czanyas”
Duluth had taken his headpiece off. “What does the old bird say, Mike?”
“In case we didn’t notice it,” said Lukas with a grin, “he’s pointing out the difference between us and them—I think. They are men, and we are men of the ship of the sky, or something like that.”
The old hominid turned and made a small hand signal to his own kind. One at a time, they came forward and laid their presents at the feet of the terrenes. Then they returned to the semicircle and squatted. Presently each of the terrenes had at his feet a pile of assorted fruits of varying shapes, sizes, and colors. Chirico, unable to restrain his interest, took off his headpiece and sat down to examine his pile. He began to sort out the local equivalents of melon, grapes, oranges, nuts, and even maize.
Only Alsdorf remained unrelaxed, still wearing his headpiece, still covering the hominids with his machine pistol.
Lukas examined his own pile of fruit, then with much gesture and patient repetition, managed to make the hominids understand that he and his companions were grateful. Finally he turned to Duluth. “Better make this mutual. What can we give ’em, Joe?”
Duluth grinned. “How about a machine pistol, or a gas bomb?”
But Lukas wasn’t in the mood for humor. “They’ll be getting the benefits of civilization soon enough. . . . Better break out a few plastic bowls. Jump to it!”
“Aye-aye, Skipper. Keep your shirt on.” Duluth went back into the ship, and emerged a few minutes later with an armful of utensils, which he presented to the hominids, gravely wishing each one in turn a Merry Christmas.
For the next hour or so, Lukas and Chirico concentrated on establishing the meaning of various words. Even Alsdorf became sufficiently interested to take off his head-piece and join in. They discovered that solyenas was food; czanyas solyenas ra meant man eats food. They learned that koshevo was the word for water, ilshevo the word for land, and lashevo the word for air. From this, they finally elucidated that olye was not the sky but the sun.
And while these language concepts were being established, the sun sank slowly down the yellowish sky until it hung just over the forest line. The hominids then indicated that they wished to go back to the forest, but would return again “when the sun swam out of the ocean.”
“Mahratasaid the old, grizzled leader, raising his arm. “Olye kalengo, czanyas kalengo. Olye rin koshevo, da czanyas va”
“Me too,” grinned Duluth. “What’s he saying, Mike?” “He says: ‘Farewell. Sun sleeps, men sleep. Sun swims from water, then men return.’ ”
The four terrenes watched the troop of hominids make their way back across the sand belt to the now darkening forest line. Then they went back into the ship, taking most of the fruit with them and dumping it in the laboratory for Chirico’s further attention.
The brief but tremendous stress of touch-down, followed by the equally tremendous discovery that Fomal-haut Three was inhabited by manlike beings, had almost drained them of emotional and intellectual energy. They were tired and, to their surprise, ravenously hungry.
However, there was still some daylight left, and Alsdorf suggested that they rig up the cargo derrick and lower the caterpillar tractor to the ground in readiness for the first survey trip. But by the time the derrick was ready to take the tractor, it was too dark to see what they were doing. Duluth went up to the navigation deck and swung out three searchlights, focusing them on the ground immediately below the derrick. For another ten or fifteen minutes the men worked in silence, lugging the tractor out of the bowels of the ship and hooking it up to the derrick with hiduminium hawsers. At last they lowered away, and had the satisfaction of knowing that the first survey party could push off as soon as the sun rose.
“By the Lord Harry, I’m dead on my feet,” panted Duluth as he stared down at the tractor in the pale, circular glare of the arc lights.
Chirico wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Bet I could eat one of our tame hominids raw.”
“I have a suggestion,” said Lukas. “Iced beer and chicken. Anybody with me?”
There was a minor stampede to the mess deck. Throughout a long, luxurious meal, discussion centered mainly upon the hominids and the possibility of Fomalhaut Three containing more highly developed cultures. Of the four of them, Alsdorf was the least interested in what he referred to as “the organic curiosities of the planet.” Being one of the star geophysicists of Trans-Solar Chemicals, his preoccupation was solely with the mineral content of the planet, how best it could be exploited and the resulting products transported to the Solar System.
“Do not forget,” he said dryly, “that we are here to look for rare metals, not to investigate the indigenous life forms. The hominids are interesting, but we must not let them sidetrack us. . . . On the other hand, if there are possibilities of large-scale mining, they may provide a convenient labor force. Otherwise—”
Lukas slammed his beer mug down. “Kurt, there are times when you make me sick. These poor bastards have a right to their own existence. I’m damned if I’d see them turned into a bunch of coolies so that Trans-Solar can double their dividends. Don’t you have any conscience?”
Alsdorf grinned. “My duty toward my neighbor,” he said slyly, “is surely my duty toward my fellow human beings. If the situation demanded it, I would not hesitate to exploit these creatures for the benefit of humanity. . . . We should, of course, civilize them in the process.”
“Bluebells to both of you,” drawled Duluth with an inane grin. “Quit arguin’ about what ain’t happenin’, and for Chris sake have another beer. ... I wonder if those long-haired boys got any idea how to make wallop? Thash the way to shivilishe ’em—teash ’em to make corn brandy and shay shir to the nishe zhentlemen from shpace.”
Next morning at dawn, the hominids returned, bringing with them more presents—only this time the presents were such as to make Alsdorf s eyes practically pop out of his head.
Nobody was awake when they arrived, so they squatted patiently outside the Henri Poincare, nursing their presents and chanting a kind of tuneless psalm, either to the ship or its occupants.
Lukas was the first to go down to them. He saw that their presents consisted of small whitish metal drinking bowls, crudely ornamented, and it occurred to him that these were offered in exchange for the colored plastic bowls that had been presented to the hominids the day before.
The old one who had previously done the talking again stepped out and opened the ceremony.
“Mahratanuahe said. “Olye rin a koshevo, e czanyas va kala mu omeso ” He touched the bowl he was holding to the center of his forehead, then held it out to Lukas.
Lukas had a peculiar feeling. For one odd moment, he had the conviction that the hominids were staging an elaborate joke—the sort of joke that sophisticated adults might rig for the benefit of credulous children. Then he met the innocent gaze of the old hominid, and the feeling passed.
He took the bowl, and was still busy expressing his thanks in mime and language when Alsdorf came down. The geophysicist was immediately presented with a bowl himself. With a brief gesture and a patronizing smile for the old one, he suddenly forgot everything and began to examine the bowl intently. He took a small knife from his pocket and scratched the surface. Then he took out a lens and peered at the scratch through it. Uttering a sharp exclamation, he hurried back into the ship. Five minutes later he
returned, pale and trembling.
“Mike, do you know what this thing is made of?” He stared at the bowl in his hand with an expression of sheer disbelief.
“Haven’t a clue,” said Lukas calmly. “You tell me.”
“Platinum,” croaked Alsdorf. “Solid platinum! We’ve just been presented with a small fortune.”
Though it was obviously impossible for the hominids to understand what Alsdorf was saying, they grinned broadly, as if they were delighted with his excitement—or as if their subtle private joke was a big success.
While Alsdorf was assuring himself that the bowl Lukas held was also made of platinum, Duluth and Chirico appeared. They, too, went through the presentation ceremony.
“Well, I’ll be sugared,” said Duluth, clutching his bowl tightly. “Pure platinum, by Hades! Now suppose we fix up a little trading post. . . . Plastics for platinum, and fair exchange is no robbery. We wouldn’t have to stay in business long. . . . You know, I always planned on buying a little estate in the South of France when I get too old for space travel. Now, I’ll just buy me the South of France.”
Chirico looked glum. “The moment we hit the Solar System,” he said, “Trans-Solar will step in. Before you know it, the bottom will have dropped out of the platinum market.”
“We’ll make a killing with the first load,” said Duluth happily. “Think I’ll buy Switzerland, as well—just for the winter sports.”
Lukas grinned. “This ship is under charter,” he remarked. “Read your articles, son. All cargo belongs to Trans-Solar.”
Meanwhile the old hominid began another speech. After much effort on both sides, it became clear that he was offering the hospitality of his village.
Alsdorf said, “We can’t all go. Somebody has to stay with the ship. Also, I need Tony for the survey. We’re going to make a start this morning.” He paused. “Now we know what we are looking for.”
Duluth tossed up his bowl and caught it. He grinned at Lukas. “You just been elected, Mike. Have a good time, and don’t get fresh with the women.”
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