Alien Harvest (aliens)

by Robert Sheckley

  “Okay, that's one way of saying it,” Julie said. “What do you think of that?”

  Again Gill paused before answering. “I can only believe that illogic is essential to being human, since it is the one thing we synthetics are not capable of.”

  “You can't go against logic and programming, is that it?”

  “It is, Miss Lish.”

  Julie didn't answer at once. Presently she reached out and took Gill's hand. Startled, the synthetic man let it go limp. Julie held it like she had never seen a hand before. She studied it, turning it slowly this way and that.

  “What an amazing piece of construction this is.” She marveled. “How perfectly the skin has been rendered and textured. It's hard to believe that anything as cunning as this could belong to someone not human.”

  “Yet so it is,” Gill said.

  “Is it? Or are you just being modest? A very human trait, I assure you.”

  “I don't know,” Gill muttered. “One thing I do know is, Dr. Myakovsky loves you very much.”

  “Yes,” Julie said, “I think he does. It's why he's here, isn't it?”

  “I believe it is, Miss Lish.”

  “But why then am I here?”

  “I do not know,” Gill said. He hesitated. “It is a difficult way to get rich.”

  “Do you know of any easy ways?” Julie asked. “Do you know any better ways to pass your time on Earth than doing what I'm doing now?”

  Gill shook his head. “I know nothing about these things.”

  Julie frowned and let his hand drop. “I like you, Gill, though you're very naive about some things. Look, Norbert seems to have reached the queen's chamber.”

  “You're right,” Gill said. “I'll go wake up Dr. Myakovsky.”

  “I appear to be in an anteroom deep in the middle of the hive,” Norbert reported. “I can see the queen's chamber just beyond. These surfaces and angles resemble nothing in my memory bank, Doctor. They seem to have been constructed according to a completely alien system. But that would stand to reason, wouldn't it?”

  “You're doing fine,” Stan said over the radio. “I just woke up and I'm pleased to see your progress. None of the aliens has sensed yet that you're not one of them?”

  “No, Doctor. Though their examinations grow more stringent the deeper we go into the hive.”

  “I think we have them foxed,” Stan said, sounding very pleased with himself. “This anteroom you're in appears to be an interesting place. Can you fix the focus? I can't make out what's on the walls.”

  “They are large containers,” Norbert said. “They appear to be made from a waxy substance similar in molecular makeup to royal jelly. They appear to be filling those containers with jelly.”

  “Might they be storing water?” Stan asked.

  “I don't believe so,” Norbert said. “The containers seem to be holding liquids of slightly different colors and densities. The aliens grow quite excited when they go near these containers. They have to be urged by what I take to be the guards to move on. I think that these containers hold royal jelly deposited by certain especially potent queens or queen types. These may be more efficacious than the common run of the jelly, and be prized by the queen accordingly.”

  “With your equipment,” Stan asked, “can you ascertain which is the purest?”

  “There's no difficulty in that, Doctor.”

  “Then draw me off a sample. This sounds like the pure royal jelly I need.”

  After a moment Norbert said, “It is done.”

  “Good,” Stan returned. “We'll meet up soon. Bring the sample with you. What are they doing with Mac?”

  “The alien holding him has brought him into the queen's chamber. He is offering him to the queen.”

  “That is the queen ahead? The image is not distinct.”

  “There is a diffracting vapor in this room, Doctor. It is difficult to make out anything clearly. Take it easy, Mac!”

  Stan said, “Why did you speak to the dog?”

  “To get him to be quiet, sir. We don't want to mar matters as he is presented to the queen. She is receiving him now. Although I am not expert in alien physiognomy, I'd say she finds pleasure in the gift She's holding him up to her olfactory receptors —“

  “You should have killed him first,” Julie interrupted.

  “I was not instructed to do so,” Norbert said. “No matter. He is beyond pain now. Doctor, one of the guards is coming over to me. It is to be another inspection.”

  “Well, you've passed them before.”

  “Yes, sir. But there are three guards interested in me this time. It must be because I came so close to the queen. Or maybe it was when I took the sample. I am stepping up my production of pheromones.”

  “Good idea,” said Stan. “Is it helping any?”

  “It doesn't seem to be doing much good. They are making odd head movements. I do not know what it means.”

  “What the hell has gone wrong?” Stan asked urgently. “What are they doing now?”

  “They seem suspicious. They have seized me. What do you want me to do, Doctor?”

  “Damn it,” Stan spat. “I should have gotten you out of there before this! Norbert! Break free and get out!”

  “Yes, sir,” Norbert said. The big robot whirled, tearing himself free from the aliens' hooked claws. Then, dropping to all fours, he began scuttling down the corridor.

  A reverse sensor in the back of Norbert's head clicked on and showed the view: the long winding tunnel curving behind, the three aliens scurrying on all fours after him.

  Norbert was running full out. Stan had never seen him go so fast before. A thrill of pride went through him as he witnessed his creation in action. With speed like that, surely …

  Stan could tell from the jarring movement of his sensor lens when the alien guard landed on Norbert's back. Stan winced as though the blow had landed on him. How could the guard be that fast? he wondered.

  To Norbert he said, “Fight him off! Get out of there!”

  “I'm trying, Dr. Myakovsky. But there are three of them —“

  Abruptly the screen went blank.

  Stan cried, “Norbert! Can you hear me? Come in!”

  “Nothing,” Gill said. He touched a dial, shook his head. “He's off the air.”

  “He's dead!” Julie cried.

  “I didn't want this to happen,” Stan screamed. “Not Norbert! Not Norbert!”

  Julie said urgently, “Stan, get a hold of yourself.”

  Stan shuddered and let out a deep breath. He seemed calmer. “Can you get Captain Hoban?” he asked.

  “Not yet, sir,” Gill said.

  Julie had stepped out of the control area for a moment. Now she was back, and her hair was flowing around her head like a network of electrical sparks had gotten into it.

  “Stan,” she said. “I just checked the short-range weather forecaster in the rear cabin. It's going haywire!”

  “Just what we need,” Stan groaned.

  53

  “There's the Bay port, just ahead,” Andy Groggins said. He had run ahead of Badger and the rest of the party. He had a slug-thrower with telescopic wire stuck under his arm. Strapped to his waist was a Geiss needle. He'd tied a bit of cloth around his forehead to keep sweat out of his eyes.

  “We'll just ease our way in it,” Red Badger said. His synthide shirt was torn, revealing his hairy freckled chest and prominent paunch. His small eyes gleamed as he pressed forward. He had a Krag beamer under his arm, its selector pointing to rapid intermittent.

  The corridor widened at this point. There were separate passageways leading to “stores” in one direction and to “power” in the other.

  As they came out into the wide opened area between corridors, a voice called out, “Freeze, you!”

  Badger stood motionless. The others, coming along behind him, managed to slink into the shadows. But Red Badger felt very exposed. He didn't let his apprehension show, however.

  He took two casual steps forward an
d said, “It's all right, the captain sent us.”

  “He didn't tell me nothin' about that,” the voice said.

  Badger had it located now. It was coming from a paint locker on the far side of the corridor. The guard who was stationed here must have taken refuge when the trouble began elsewhere in the ship. But where was his partner?

  “I don't blame you for being cautious,” Badger said. “But I'm telling you it's all right. We're here to relieve you.”

  As he talked he peered ahead, trying to figure out how long it would take him to blast through the paint locker and kill the man inside. Too long, he decided. The guard could get him in a single well-placed burst first.

  “Stop right there and drop your weapons,” the guard called out.

  “You're making a mistake,” Badger said, and kept on coming. “Captain Hoban told us to secure this area as quickly as possible. Damn it, man, this is serious!”

  “Stop right now, or —“

  At that moment there was a double burst of slugthrower fire as Glint and Connie opened up almost simultaneously from opposite sides of the corridor. They held down their fire while the paint locker rattled up and down and bounced against the corridor wall, finally letting up only after blowing the door off the hinges and seeing the single guard inside fall out onto the deck.

  “Let's go,” Badger said, leading the way to the pod. “We're getting out of here.”

  54

  “It's Badger and his men,” one of the engineers remarked, reading the terse information that flowed to the TV screen from all parts of the ship. “He's killed the guard.”

  “Damn it!” Captain Hoban said. “Can you see what they're doing now?”

  “They've just entered the pod.”

  “Seal the ports!” Hoban ordered.

  “Too late. They've already opened them.”

  “Close them again!”

  The engineer punched buttons then shook his head. “They've locked them into place. They're blasting off.”

  Hoban watched on the screen as a schematic came up, showing the Dolomite's landing pod lifting out of its bay and maneuvering away from the ship's side.

  “I can still pull them back with the short-range tractors,” the engineer said, his fingers poised on the controls.

  Captain Hoban hesitated. At this range, he knew that the tractors would pull the pod apart. Badger and the others wouldn't stand a chance. He didn't want to go that far. There would be a court of inquiry over this. He needed to keep his record clean.

  “Book their departure in the ship's log,” he ordered.

  “I don't know that they'll make it,” the engineering officer said. “The weather's really bad out there.”

  Hoban looked and saw that an entire weather front had moved in while they were dealing with Badger. Long ragged clouds covered the planet's surface, clouds that were whipped and torn apart by the wind's violent action. Lightning flashed, huge jagged blue-violet bolts, several miles long, lancing out of the black-bellied clouds into the naked land below. Although the Dolomite was well above it, Hoban gave an involuntary shudder at the size of the storm.

  “Try Dr. Myakovsky again,” he ordered. “We have to warn him.”

  “I'm trying, sir,” the officer said. “But no luck so far.”

  55

  “I'm getting something”, Gill reported.

  “Thank God,” said Julie.

  “Is it Hoban?” Stan asked.

  “Yes, I think it is.”

  Stan swung around in his big command chair and took the microphone from Gill's hand. “Hoban? What's going on there?”

  “Sorry for the delay in transmission, sir,” Hoban said, his voice echoing eerily around the lander's cabin. “We've had a revolt on-board. It's in hand now, but a group of crewmen have seized a pod and are on their way to the surface.”

  “Nothing much they can do to us,” Stan said. “Listen, Captain, something really important has happened here. We've lost Norbert.”

  “Your robot alien? I'm sorry to hear it, sir, though I was never that fond of him.”

  “At least he died doing what he was built to do,” Stan said.

  “What about the dog?” Hoban asked.

  “Yes, the dog's gone, too,” Stan said brusquely. “Why is everyone so upset about the dog? The dog's not important. We've got troubles of our own.”

  There was no reaction to that. Stan cleared his throat and wondered how soon he could take another ampoule. Then he brought his attention back to present matters.

  “Captain Hoban, we've found what we were looking for. The beekeepers have done our job for us. Norbert took over a Bio-Pharm harvester ship. It's packed full of royal jelly. We're rich, Captain.”

  “Yes, sir. If we can just get out of here now. Can you get up to our orbit?”

  “Negative,” Stan said. “We're still in the lander, which is barely maneuverable in this weather. Taking shelter in the harvester is our best bet, but it's going to take some doing to get there.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hoban said. “I copy.”

  “Secondly, preliminary visual inspection shows the flight controls of the harvester were badly damaged in the fighting. I doubt it'll fly, but it'll provide more refuge than the lander. You'll have to come down to us.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hoban said, without enthusiasm. “What about the volunteers?”

  “We've lost touch with them,” Stan answered. “As soon as we get ourselves out of here, they'll be our first order of business.”

  Hoban didn't like it, but it didn't seem the time or place to voice a disagreement.

  “It ought to be simple enough,” Stan said. “What you need to do, as soon as the weather stabilizes a little, is send the backup lander down here to pick us up. Our situation here is none too stable.”

  “We can't send the backup lander,” Hoban said. “I told you, sir, Badger and his men took it. Can you maneuver at all in your lander, Dr. Myakovsky?”

  “I don't know,” Stan said. “They weren't made for that sort of thing. And the weather down here is getting pretty severe.”

  “It's a major storm,” Captain Hoban told him. “The worst of it is heading your way.”

  “Damn!” Stan spat. “You can't maneuver the Dolomite to pick us up, can you?”

  “Not in this weather. None of us would stand a chance.”

  “All right.” Stan paused. “Just a minute, let me think.”

  It was then that the storm front burst in all its fury upon the lander and the unprotected splinter of land it rested upon. Despite its weight, the lander was rocked to its foundations. The earth beneath it rippled and swayed. Lights went out and were replaced by the dull red glow of emergency lighting. Julie screamed as another motion of the storm shot her legs out from under her. Gill caught her before she was slammed into a support.

  “Into the pod!” Stan shouted, referring to the small escape vehicle that the lander carried. “Gill, get in there and get power up.”

  Gill paused for a moment, looking at the five-point steel door separating them from the lander's rear compartment. “Maybe I should stay and try to help the crew?”

  “They don't have a chance,” Stan said. “We need your help to keep us alive! Now move!”

  The three of them, Stan, Gill, and Julie, struggled back to the pod and, during a brief lull, got in. Stan slammed home the hatch and Julie dogged it into place. Gill waited until they were all strapped in, then blew open the lander's exit doors. The storm swept in.

  Gill took the pod out under full acceleration. There was a moment of intoxicating freedom as the pod pulled away from the ship, then the full fury of the storm caught the little craft.

  Stan just had time to secure himself into a command chair by magnetic clamps, then the pod was launched into the air like a rocket from a launcher. As it turned, Stan could see the land beneath the lander collapse, throwing the vehicle into a deep pit that suddenly yawned beneath it.

  Glancing around, he saw that Julie was secured on a decele
ration couch. A moment later the internal lighting went out.

  The storm blazed at the pod's windows. There were long, stunning lines of force, outlined by a driving rain, lashing in at them. The pods spun around, its automatic stabilizers working hard to keep it on an even keel. The ground came up sickeningly below them, and the pod's jets blazed, avoiding the collision. They were airborne, and the sky through which they tore was colored ocher and purple. It was a world without stability, a place where titanic forces battled as though it were the beginning of time.

  “Can't you get her down, Gill?” Stan called out above the deafening clatter.

  “I'm trying, Doctor,” Gill said, busy over the controls.

  “You can do it, Gill!” Julie cried.

  “We hope,” Stan said.

  Gill's long fingers played across the controls. The pod seemed to flutter and skitter like a crazed bat in the luridly lit space between the harsh ground below and the beetling thunderheads above. The little craft spun like a leaf driven by a storm. Julie had to shut her eyes tightly to control the vertigo and nausea that racked her as the pod trembled and shook and rattled like a riveting machine gone berserk.

  For Stan the pain was almost unbearable as his tortured lungs strove to replace the air that the violent motions of the storm were driving out of him. He had never known such pain. And yet, paradoxically, he was also experiencing a moment of great exhilaration, a feeling of himself as a conquistador of the new age, persevering through pain and hardship as a new world and new opportunities came into sight.

  Yes, he thought, it has all been worth it. The pain reminds me that I'm alive. This is the way to go. But I do wish it would stop!

  And then, abruptly, they entered a space of quiet air and Gill was able to maneuver the controls. Suddenly the pod dropped thirty feet and hovered for a moment on its jets, bare inches above the ground. Then, with an almost grudging sigh — as though the insensate machine had enjoyed its experience of being airborne in the midst of fury — it settled to the ground.