Unearthly Neighbors

by Chad Oliver

  Louise held him tightly. “You will be careful, Monte?”

  “Of course, Lise.”

  “I hate to be a stupid wife, but you’re all I have. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

  He kissed her, feeling her lips trembling beneath his.

  It always comes back to this, he thought. After all the problems and all the fights and all the triumphs and all the sorrows, it comes back to one man and one woman alone in a room. Without her, I am nothing. Without her, the universe is empty.

  And then he thought: Monte, you’re a sentimental slob.

  Well, what the hell! I like it this way!

  “And so do I,” Louise said, reading his mind with the ease of long practice.

  In the darkness of the artificial night, with Louise asleep by his side, Monte Stewart woke up. He had been dreaming, and it hadn’t been a pleasant dream. His pajamas were damp with sweat.

  He lay quite still, his eyes open, staring into the blackness.

  Maybe it’s the ship that gives me the fitters. Maybe it’s the cold dead air that whispers from the vents, or the vibration of the drive that gets inside a man, or the gravity that’s never quite right. Maybe it’s the gray steel that seals me in…

  No.

  Come off of it, Monte.

  You know what it is.

  Sure, he knew. The alien forms of life that had been found on the Centaurus and Procyon systems hadn’t worried him any when he had read about them. They were really alien, so utterly different from human beings that there was no possible point of conflict, any more than there was between a trout and a pine tree. When life-forms are totally different, they can usually manage to ignore one another. But when they are close—well, there was a lot of unexpected truth in the old phrase about being too close for comfort.

  In a way, Monte felt, they had all been talking around the real problem, pretending that it didn’t exist. In the long run, it might not matter much whether or not the natives of Sirius Nine had a culture that was more complex than it seemed to be.

  The crucial fact was that they were men.

  The one animal man had to fear was man; so it had always been, and might always be.

  In one sense, Monte Stewart was going to meet a native of another world.

  In another sense, and an equally real one, man was at last going to meet man—his sometime friend, and his most ancient enemy.

  4

  There are a number of much-advertised facts, Monte discovered, that a man doesn’t give a hoot in Hades about when he’s actually living on an alien planet. Prominent among them are the following:

  The star Sirius is twenty-six times as bright as the Sun of Earth, and two and one-half times as massive. It has a temperature of 19,700 degrees Fahrenheit. It has a white dwarf star for a companion, which revolves around it every fifty years. The dwarf is a long way off—twenty times the distance from the Earth to the Sun—and it is only a little more than three times the width of the Earth. Sirius has twelve planets, and the ninth one, very far out in an elliptical orbit, is similar enough to pass for a cousin, if not a twin, of Earth. The planet has five percent more nitrogen in its atmosphere than does the Earth, and slightly less oxygen.

  On the other hand, there were certain facts that a man could not ignore. These were the ones that kicked him in the teeth:

  The sun is a blinding white; a raging giant furnace in the sky. If you are not careful, it blisters your skin with disconcerting speed. The daylight hours—there are ten of them—are oppressively hot, and the air is humid; your shirt is plastered to your hack ten minutes after you put it on. The gravity, particularly after the months on the ship, is a shade too strong and your feet feel as though they have picked up heavy gobs of mud with each step you take. Something in the air doesn’t agree with you; your nose itches constantly and your throat is always sore. Strange animals sniff you on the heavy wind and panic at the smell. The rolling grasslands look very pleasant, but they are never level—you are always either climbing or descending a deceptive grade, and there is a liberal supply of burrs and thorns to rip at your skin and your clothing. The great forests that grow in bands along the bases of the jagged mountains are gloomy and still, and the reddish leaves of the trees remind you of a nightmare autumn. There are dirty-gray clouds on the horizon, and muted thunder mutters down the wind…

  Monte wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his damp sleeve and tried to find a less slippery grip on his rifle. He had been on Sirius Nine for two weeks now, and in his considered opinion had accomplished precisely nothing. He had seen the natives with his own eyes, and knew no more about them than he had known on Earth. Journeying across the light-years, he thought, was sometimes easy when compared to crossing from one man’s mind to another’s.

  For the first time in his life, he genuinely understood that a culture, a way of life, could be a totally alien thing—something for which there was no counterpart on Earth at all. Nothing in his previous experience had prepared him for the reality of the people on Sirius Nine. Now, struggling through the thick grass of the field with Charlie Jenike at his side, he could not forget what he had written the night before in his notebook. (He kept two sets of notebooks, an official one and one for himself. So far, the official one was virtually blank.)

  It’s frightening to realize how ignorant we are, and how thoroughly conditioned by our own limited experiences. Stories and learned speculations about life on other planets always seem to emphasize the strange and exotic qualities of the alien worlds themselves, but the life-forms that exist against these dramatic backdrops all live like earthmen, no matter how odd their appearance may be. (Or else they live like social insects, which amounts to the same thing.) All the caterpillars and octopi and reptiles and frogs have social systems just like the Vikings or the Kwakiutls or the Zulus. Nobody seems to have realized that a culture too may be alien, more alien than any planet of bubbling lead. You can walk right up to something that looks like a man—and is a man—and not know him at all, or anything about him…

  Charlie sneezed. “Kleenex will make a fortune here.”

  Monte squinted, trying to see over the curtain of grass that surrounded him. “Dammit, I think we’ve lost him again.” He glanced up at the large gray reconnaissance sphere that hovered in the sky above them, then spoke into his wrist radio: “How are we doing, Ace? I can’t see a thing down here.”

  The soft, Texas voice of Ace Reid, who was piloting the sphere, was reassuring. “He’s right where he was, sir. Just at the edge of the trees. You’re right on target if he doesn’t panic.”

  “Thanks. Stand by.” He cut off the radio and concentrated on trying to avoid the hidden thorns in the grass. His throat was sore and his eyes were inflamed. The day was cloudy, fortunately, but the heat was almost unbearably sticky. He felt like the wrath of God, and he was none too optimistic about what he was doing. They had tried twice before to make contact—how he was coming to hate that phrase!—with the natives, and had gotten exactly nowhere.

  However, there was a possibility that the two of them approaching on foot might not be overly alarming. And the old man they had scouted had seemed to be more curious than the others…

  “This,” Charlie Jenike said, “is murder.”

  “Earthman’s Burden,” Monte muttered. He would have preferred to have Ralph Gottschalk with him today, but he desperately needed the linguist just in case the native actually said something. Anyhow, Charlie was trying to be cordial; it wouldn’t hurt him to reciprocate.

  He pushed on through the sticky blue grass, talking to fill up the silence. “You know, Charlie, it’s been a mighty long time since any anthropologist went in absolutely cold. I mean, even the early boys had some sort of a go-between—administrators, someone who knew someone, somebody. I feel like one of those Spaniards who washed ashore and looked up to find a bunch of Indians nobody had ever seen before.”

  “Give me the Indians every time. They’re at least from the same planet we are—one of those Spani
ards wound up being a chief, you know.” Charlie began to sneeze again.

  With startling abruptness, they climbed out of the grass and saw the dark shapes of the trees ahead of them. Monte stopped and surveyed the terrain. He didn’t see the man. Of course, they still had a good hundred yards to go…

  He cut in the radio. “Ace?”

  “A little to your left, and dead ahead.”

  “Right. Thanks.” He switched off the radio. “You ready, Charlie?”

  “I haven’t been taking this stroll to help my digestion.”

  Monte took a deep breath of the irritating air and wished irrationally that he could light his pipe. It was out of the question, of course. If there were no tobacco-like plants on Sirius Nine, the native might not take too kindly to the spectacle of a strange man with smoke coming out of his mouth.

  The two men walked steadily forward, their rifles at the ready.

  “Hold it,” Charlie whispered suddenly. “I see him.”

  The man stood right at the edge of the trees, half hidden by the faint shadows. He did not move at all, but he was looking directly at them.

  Monte did not hesitate. “Keep moving. Stay behind me and on my right. Don’t use that rifle unless I’m actually attacked, and for God’s sake, Charlie, try to look friendly.”

  Monte walked straight toward the man, keeping his pace steady. His heart hammered in his chest. He was within twenty yards of the man, fifteen…

  It was the closest he had ever gotten.

  The man stood as though rooted to the spot, his dark eyes wide and staring. His pale copper skin gleamed wetly in the light, and the fuzz of golden hair on his head seemed almost electrically alive. His long arms almost touched the ground. The man was completely naked, with a series of vertical stripes painted on his chest. The stripes were all vermilion.

  He carried no weapons of any kind.

  Ten yards…

  Monte stopped. Dammit, he thought, he is a man. When you get up this close, there is no doubt at all. Monte put his rifle down on the ground and held up his hands to show that they were empty.

  The man took one quick step backward. His dark eyes blinked. He was quite old, Monte noticed, although his muscles still seemed firm and supple. He looked frightened, confused, uncertain. But there was something else in his face, as though a struggle were raging within him. The dark sunken eyes were sad, and yet strangely eager…

  Don’t run away. Just don’t run away.

  Monte slowly fumbled in his pack. He took out a small piece of raw meat and a cluster of red berries. He held the meat in his right hand and the berries in his left. He extended them toward the man.

  The old man looked at the food silently. He wiped the palms of his hands against the bare skin of his legs.

  Monte took a step forward.

  The man retreated a single step, standing now almost behind a tall blue-barked tree.

  Monte froze, still holding out the food. He didn’t know what to do. If only he could talk to the man…

  He bent over and put the berries and the meat on the ground. Then he waved Charlie back and retreated ten paces. They waited. For a long minute that seemed to stretch into eternity, the old man did nothing at all.

  Then, surprisingly, he whistled—one long whistle, and one short. It sounded exactly like a whistle used to call a dog.

  Nothing happened.

  The man repeated the whistle, urgently.

  This time he got results. An animal whined back in the trees. There was a sound of padded feet slowly moving over a carpet of dead leaves. The sound came closer…

  The animal stepped out into the open and stood beside the man. It was a big beast, and the stink of him filled the air. He stood some four feet high and his coat was a dirty gray. His long muscles rippled under his taut skin. His ears flattened along his sleek head and he growled deep in his throat. He looked at the two strangers and bared his sharp, white teeth.

  Monte held his ground. The animal looked more like a wolf than anything else, but he was built for speed. His head was very long, with massive jaws. He was a killer; Monte knew it instinctively. He felt exactly the same way he felt when he looked at a rattlesnake.

  The wolf-thing sniffed the air and growled again.

  The old man whistled, once.

  The animal went down low, his belly almost touching the ground, and inched his way forward. It snarled constantly, its long white teeth bared. It looked at Monte, saliva dripping from its jaws. Its eyes were yellow, yellow…

  The wolf-thing paused at the meat, then kept coming.

  Monte could feel the sweat dripping down his ribs.

  The old man took a step forward, and whistled again, angrily. The beast paused reluctantly, still snarling. Then it turned, snatched up the meat, and trotted back to the man by the tree. The man patted its sleek head and nodded, and the wolf-thing disappeared into the forest, taking the meat with him. He held it gingerly in his mouth, not eating it.

  Very slowly, the man stepped out and scooped up the berries with his right hand. He stared at Monte, his dark eyes fearful.

  Monte took a deep breath. It was now or never. He pointed to himself. “Monte,” he said distinctly. He pointed to Charlie. “Charlie,” he said.

  The man stood there with the berries in his hand. He made no response. His eyes began to shift from point to point, not looking at either of them directly. He seemed very tense and nervous. Once, he glanced up at the gray sphere hovering in the sky.

  Monte tried again. He pointed to himself and repeated his name.

  The man understood; Monte was certain of that. The dark eyes were quick and intelligent. But he said nothing. He looked like he was trying to make up his mind about something, something terribly important…

  Quite suddenly, with no warning at all, the man turned on his heel and walked into the forest. In seconds, he had disappeared from view.

  “Wait!” Monte called uselessly. “We won’t hurt you, dammit!”

  “Try a whistle,” Charlie said sarcastically, lowering his rifle.

  Monte clenched his fists. Somehow, he felt very much alone now that the man was gone, alone on a world that was a long, long way from home. His skin itched horribly.

  He looked up. Great dark clouds filled the sky, and the rumble of thunder sounded closer. He saw a jagged fork of white lightning flicker down into the forest. There was a heavy smell of rain in the air.

  Monte made up his mind rapidly. He was not going to let that man get away. He called the sphere and dictated a fast report of what had happened. “What’s the extent of that forest, Ace?”

  “It isn’t very wide, sir—not over half a mile. But it stretches out lengthwise a far piece in both directions—maybe two or three miles before it thins out any.”

  “We’re going in after him. I want you to come down low, just above the trees. Let me know at once if he comes out the other side. Keep a fix on us, and if we holler you know what to do.”

  “You’re the boss. But there’s a bad storm coming up—”

  “I know that. Stand by.”

  Monte cut off the radio and wiped at his beard with his hand. “He was walking, Charlie. That means there must be a path.”

  Charlie Jenike eyed the gathering rain clouds without enthusiasm. “What if he takes to the trees?”

  “What if he does?” Monte asked impatiently. “Didn’t you ever play Tarzan when you were a kid?”

  Charlie put his hands on his ample hips and tried to figure out whether or not Monte was seriously considering taking to the trees after the man. He couldn’t decide, possibly because Monte himself wasn’t sure at this point of what he would or would not do.

  Monte picked up his rifle and pushed his way into the forest where the man had vanished. He thought for a moment that he heard the whine of an animal, but that was probably his imagination working. It was hot and breathless among the trees, and the subtly wrong shapes of the ferns and bushes gave the whole thing the improbable air of a make-believe w
orld. The woods were dark with shadows. He felt cut off, as though he had stepped behind an invisible wall.

  Thunder boomed high above them and the blue-black limbs of the tall trees stirred fitfully.

  “Look there,” he said. “There is a path.”

  It was just a narrow, twisting trail through the forest. In one place, where the leaves had been scraped away, there was a fresh print—the mark of a naked man-like foot, with the big toe sticking out at an angle like a human thumb. The path looked like a trail through the woods back home; there was nothing sinister about it.

  But it was quiet; too quiet. Even the birds were silent at their approach, and no animal stirred.

  Monte thought of nothing at all and started down the path.

  The storm hit with a cold wet fist before they had gone two hundred yards.

  A wall of wind smashed through the trees and a roar of metallic thunder exploded in the invisible sky. Great gray sheets of wind-driven rain pelted the trees and overflowed into silver waterfalls that drenched the forest floor.

  Monte put his head down and kept going. He heard Charlie swearing steadily behind him.

  The rain was cool and oddly refreshing on his damp back, and the storm seemed to clear the air in a way that was surprisingly welcome. In spite of the nerve-jangling bedlam of sound, he felt better than he had before. His nose stopped itching and even his sandpapered throat lost some of its rawness.

  He kept a sharp lookout, but it was hard to see anything except the rivers of rain and the dripping bushes and the water-blackened trunks of the trees. The crashing thunder was so continuous that it was impossible to talk. Far above him, the branches of the trees swayed and moaned in the wind.

  He was soaked to the skin, but it didn’t matter. He shoved his streaming hair out of his eyes and kept on walking. He concentrated just on putting one foot before the other, feeling his feet squishing inside his boots, and he kept looking, looking…

  There was still light, but it was a gray and cheerless light that was almost as heavy as the rain. It was a ghost light, fugitive from a hidden sun, and it had the feel of imminent darkness in it…