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Giant Series 01 - Inherit the Stars

Page 15

by Inherit the Stars [lit]


  didn't differentiate much between civilian and military personnel

  in terms of how their society was structured. It's more like

  everybody belonged to different branches of the same big

  organization."

  "A sort of last word in totalitarianism?"

  "Yeah, that's about it. The State ran just about everything; it

  dominated every walk of life and imposed a rigid discipline

  everywhere. You went where you were sent and did what you were told

  to do; in most cases, that meant into industry, agriculture, or the

  military forces. Whatever you did, the State was your boss anyway

  ..-that's what I meant when I said they were all different branches

  of the same big organization."

  "Okay. Now, about the pay records?"

  "Charlie was born on Minerva, we know that. So were his parents.

  His father was some kind of machine operator; his mother worked in

  industry, too, but we can't make out the exact occupation. The

  records also tell us where he went to school, for how long, where

  he took his military training-everybody seemed to go through some

  kind of military training-and where he learned about electronics.

  It tells us all the dates, too."

  "So he was something like an electronics engineer, was he?" Hunt

  asked.

  "Sort of. More of a maintenance engineer than a design or

  development engineer. He seems to have specialized in military

  equipment-there's a long list of postings to combat units. The last

  one is interesting - ." Maddson selected a sheet and passed it

  across to Hunt. "That's a translation of the last page of postings.

  The final entry gives the name of a place and, alongside it, a

  description which, when translated literally, means 'off-planet.'

  That's probably the Lunarian name for whatever part of our Moon he

  was sent to."

  "Interesting," Hunt agreed. "You've found out quite a lot more

  about him."

  "Yep, we've got him pretty well taped. If you convert their dates

  into our units, he was about thirty-two years old at the date of

  his last posting. Anyhow, that's all really incidental; you can

  read the details. I was going to run over the picture we're getting

  of the kind of world he was born into." Maddson paused to con-suit

  his notes again. Then he resumed: "Minerva was a dying world. At

  the time we're talking about, the last cold period of the Ice Age

  was approaching its peak. I'm told that ice ages are

  Solar-System-wide phenomena; Minerva was a lot farther from the Sun

  than here, so as you can imagine, things were pretty bleak there."

  "You've only got to look at the size of those ice caps," Hunt

  commented.

  "Yes, exactly. And it was getting worse. The Lunarian scientists

  figured they had less than a hundred years to go before the ice

  sheets met and blanketed the whole planet completely. Now, as you'd

  expect, they had studied astronomy for centuries-centuries before

  Charlie's time, that is-and they'd known for a long time that

  things were going to get worse before they got better. So, they'd

  reached the conclusion, way back, that the only way out was to

  escape to another world. The problem, of course, was that for

  generations after they got the idea, nobody knew anything about how

  to do something about it. The answer had to lie somewhere along the

  line of better science and better technology. It became kind of a

  racial goal-the one thing that mattered, that generation after

  generation worked toward-the development of the sciences that would

  get them to places they knew existed, before the ice wiped out the

  whole race."

  Maddson pointed to another pile of papers on the corner of his

  desk. "This was the prime objective that the State was set up to

  achieve, and because the stakes were so high, e~verything was

  subordinated to that objective. Hence, from birth to death the

  individual was subordinated to the needs of the State. It was

  implied in everything they wrote and drummed into them from the

  time they were knee-high. Those papers are a translation of a kind

  of catechism they had to memorize at school; it reads like Nazi

  stuff from the nineteen thirties." He stopped at that point and

  looked at Hunt expectantly.

  Hunt looked puzzled. After a moment he said, "This doesn't quite

  make sense. I mean-how could they be striving to develop space

  flight if they were colonists from Earth? They must have already

  developed it."

  Maddson gave an approving nod. "Thought you might say that."

  "But. . . it's bloody silly."

  "I know. It implies they must have evolved on Minerva from

  scratch-unless they came from Earth, forgot everything they knew,

  and had to learn it all over. But that also sounds crazy to me."

  "Me, too." Hunt thought for a long time. At last he shook his head

  with a sigh. "Doesn't make sense. Anyhow, what else is there?"

  "Well, we've got the general picture of a totally authoritarian

  State, demanding unquestioning obedience from the individual and

  controlling just about everything that moves. Everything needs a

  license; there are travel licenses, off-work licenses, sick-ration

  licenses-even procreation licenses. Everything is in short supply

  and rationed by permits-food, every kind of commodity, fuel, light,

  accommodation-you name it. And to keep everybody in line, the State

  operates a propaganda machine like you never dreamed of. To make

  things worse, the whole planet was desperately short of every kind

  of mineral. That slowed them down a lot. Despite their concentrated

  effort, their rate of technological progress was probably not as

  fast as you'd think. Maybe a hundred years didn't give them as long

  as it sounds." Maddson turned some sheets, scanned the next one

  briefly, and then went on. "To make matters worse still, they also

  had a big political problem."

  "Go on."

  "Now, we're assuming that as their civilization developed, it

  followed similar lines to ours-first tribes, then villages, towns,

  nations, and so on. Seems reasonable. So, somewhere along the way

  they started discovering the different sciences, same as we did. As

  you'd expect, the same ideas started occurring to different people

  in different places at around the same time-like, we've gotta get

  outa this place. As these ideas became accepted, the Lunarians seem

  to have figured also that there just weren't sufficient resources

  for more than a few lucky ones to make it. No way were they going

  to get a whole planet full of people out."

  "So they fought about it," Hunt offered.

  "That's right. The way I picture it, lots of nations grew up, all

  racing each other, as well as the ice, to get the technological

  edge. Every other one was a rival, so they fought it out. Another

  thing that made them fight was the mineral shortage, especially the

  shortage of metallic ores." Maddson pointed at a map of Minerva

  mounted above the table. "See those dots on the ice sheets? Most of

  them were a combination of fortress and mining town. They dug right

  down thr
ough the ice to get at the deposits, and the army was there

  to make sure they kept the stuff."

  "And that was the way life was. Mean people, eh?"

  "Yeah, for generation after generation." Maddson shrugged. "Who

  knows? Maybe if we were freezing over fast, we'd be forced in the

  same direction. Anyhow, the situation had complications. They had

  the problem of having to divide their efforts and resources between

  two different demands all the time: first, developing a technology

  that would support mass interplanetary travel and, second,

  armaments and the defense organization to protect it

  -and there weren't a lot of resources to divide in the first place.

  Now, how would you solve a problem like that?"

  Hunt pondered for a while. "Cooperate?" he tried.

  "Forget it. They didn't think that way."

  "Only one other strategy possible, then: Wipe out the opposition

  first and then concentrate everything on the main objective."

  Maddson nodded solidly. "That is exactly what they did. War, or

  near war, was pretty well a natural way of life all through their

  history. Gradually the smaller fish were eliminated until, by the

  time we get to Charlie, there are only two superpowers left, each

  dominating one of the two big equatorial continental land

  masses . . ." He pointed at the map again. ". . . Cerios and

  Lambia. From various references, we know Charlie was a Cerian."

  "All set for the big showdown, then."

  "Check. The whole planet was one big fortress-factory. Every inch

  of surface was covered by hostile missiles; the sky was full of

  orbiting bombs that could be dropped anywhere. We get the

  impression that relative to the pattern of our own civilization,

  their armaments programs had taken a bigger share than space

  research and had progressed faster." Maddson shrugged again. "The

  rest you can guess."

  Hunt nodded slowly and thoughtfully. "It all fits," he mused. "It

  must have been a huge con, though. I mean, even from whichever side

  won, only a handful would have been able to get away in the end; I

  suppose they'd have been the ruling clique and its minions. Christ!

  No wonder they needed good propaganda; they-"

  Hunt stopped in midsentence and looked at Maddson with a curious

  expression. "Just a minute-there's something else in all this that

  doesn't add up." He paused to collect his thoughts. "They had

  already developed interplanetary travel-how else did they get to

  our Moon?"

  "We wondered that," Maddson said. "The only thing we could think of

  was that maybe they'd already figured on making for Earth

  eventually-that had to be the obvious choice. Maybe they were

  capable of sending a scouting group to stake the place out, but

  didn't have full-scale mass-transportation capacity yet. Probably

  they weren't too far away from their goal when they blew it.

  Perhaps if they'd pooled their marbles at that point instead of

  starting a crazy war over it, things might have been different."

  "Sounds plausible," Hunt agreed. "So Charlie could have been part

  of a reconnaissance mission sent on ahead, only the opposition had

  the same idea and they bumped into each other. Then they started

  blowing holes in our Moon. Disgraceful."

  A short silence ensued.

  "There's another thing I don't get, either," Hunt said, rubbing his

  chin.

  "What's that?"

  "Well, the opposition-the Lambians. Everybody in Navcomms is going

  around saying that the war that clobbered Minerva was fought

  between colonists from Earth-that must be Charlie's lot, the

  Cerians-and an alien race that belonged to Minerva-the Gan

  ymeans, who, from what you said, would be the Lambians. We said a

  moment ago that this idea of the Cerians being from Earth doesn't

  make sense, because if they had originated there, they wouldn't be

  trying to develop space ifight. We can't be one hundred percent

  certain of that because something unusual could have happened, such

  as the colony being cut off for a few thousand years for some

  reason. But you can't say that about the Lambians; they couldn't

  have been neck-and-neck rivals trying to develop space flight."

  "They already had it, for sure," Maddson completed for him. "We

  sure as hell found them on Ganymede."

  "Quite. And that ship was no beginner's first attempt, either. You

  know, I'm beginning to think that whoever the Lambians were, they

  weren't Ganymeans."

  "I think you're right," Maddson confirmed. "The Ganymeans were a

  totally different biological species. Wouldn't you expect that if

  they were the opposition in Lambia, somehow it would show up in the

  Lunarian writings? But it doesn't. Everything we've examined

  suggests that the Cerians and the Lambians were simply different

  nations of the same race. For example, we've found extracts from

  what appear to be Cerian newspapers, which included political

  cartoons showing Lambian figures; the figures are drawn as human

  forms. That wouldn't be so if the Lambians looked anything like the

  Ganymeans must have looked."

  "So it appears the Ganymeans had nothing to do with the war," Hunt

  concluded.

  "Right."

  "So where do they fit in?"

  Maddson showed his empty palms. "That's the funny thing. They don't

  seem to fit anywhere-at least, we haven't even found anything that

  looks like a reference to them."

  "Maybe they're just a big red herring, then. I mean, we've only

  supposed that they came from Minerva; nothing actually demonstrates

  that they did. Perhaps they never had anything to do with the place

  at all."

  "Could well be. But I can't help feeling that. . ."

  The chime on Maddson's desk display console interrupted the

  discussion. He excused himself and touched a button to accept the

  call.

  "Hi, Don," said the face of Hunt's assistant, upstairs in Group

  L's offices. "Is Vic there?" He sounded excited. Maddson swiveled

  the unit around to point in Hunt's direction.

  "It's for you," he said needlessly.

  "Vic," said the face without preamble. "I've just had a look at the

  reports of the latest tests that came in from Jupiter Four two

  hours ago. That ship under the ice and the big guys inside it-

  they've completed the dating tests." He drew a deep breath. "It

  looks like maybe we can forget the Ganymeans in all this Charlie

  business. Vic, if all the figures are right, that ship has been

  sitting there for something like twenty-five million years!"

  chapter fifteen

  Caidwell moved a step closer to inspect more carefully the

  nine-foot-high plastic model standing in the middle of one of the

  laboratories of the Westwood Biological Institute. Danchekker gave

  him plenty of time to take in the details before continuing.

  "A full-size replica of a Ganymean skeleton," he said. "Built on

  the strength of the data beamed back from Jupiter. The first

  in-disputable form of intelligent alien life ever to be studied by

  man." Caldwell looked up at the towering frame, pursed his lips in


  a silent whistle, and walked in a slow circle around and back to

  where the professor was standing. Hunt simply stood and swept his

  eyes up and down the full length of the model in wordless

  fascination.

  "That structure is in no way related to that of any animal ever

  studied on Earth, living or extinct," Danchekker informed them. He

  gestured toward it. "It is based on a bony internal skeleton, walks

  upright as a biped, and has a head on top-as you can see; but apart

  from such superficial similarities, it has clearly evolved from

  completely unfamiliar origins. Take the head as an obvious example.

  The arrangement of the skull cannot be reconciled in any way with

  that of known vertebrates. The face has not receded back into the

  lower skull, but remains a long, down-pointing snout that widens at

  the top to provide a broad spacing for the eyes and ears. Also, the

  back of the skull has enlarged to accommodate a developing brain,

  as in the case of man, but instead of assuming a rounded contour,

  it bulges back above the neck to counterbalance the protruding face

  and jaw. And look at the opening through the skull in the center of

  the forehead; I believe that this could have housed a sense organ

  that we do not possess-possibly an infrared detector inherited from

  a nocturnal, carnivorous ancestor."

  Hunt moved forward to stand next to Caidwell and peered intently at

  the shoulders. "These are unlike anything I've ever come across,

  too," he commented. "They're made up of . . . kind of overlapping

  plates of bone. Nothing like ours at all."

  "Quite," Danchekker confirmed. "Probably adapted from the

  remains of ancestral armor. And the rest of the trunk is also quite

  alien. There is a dorsal spine with an arrangement of ribs below

  the shoulder plates, as you can see, but the lowermost

  rib-immediately above the body cavity-has developed into a massive

  hoop of bone with a diametral strut stretching forward from an

  enlarged spinal vertebra. Now, notice the two systems of smaller

  linked bones at the sides of the hoop . . ." He pointed them out.

  "They were probably used to assist with breathing by helping to

  expand the diaphragm. To me, they look suspiciously like the

  degenerate remnants of a paired-limb structure. In other words,

  although this creature, like us, had two arms and walked on two

  legs, somewhere in his earlier ancestry were animals with three

 

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