Apes and Angels

by Ben Bova

  “She seems all right. If she can put up with Larry, she must be pretty nice. Motherly type, I guess.” He headed for the lavatory. “It was good of her to volunteer to help me.”

  “Yes,” Felicia said, drawing out the word as if she didn’t really mean it.

  Brad picked up on it. “But?”

  “You’re going to be a very popular guy, you know.”

  “Me?”

  “The word’s going through the ship that you’re Kosoff’s fair-haired boy. Lots of people are going to want to get on your good side.”

  Brad turned at the door to the lavatory and went back to Felicia. “Are you jealous?”

  “Should I be?” But she was smiling, obviously teasing him.

  Brad sat beside her. “You’re the only woman in the world for me, Felicia. The only woman in all the worlds.”

  She nestled her head on his chest, murmuring, “I know, darling. But just be careful. Not everyone who offers to help you is going to be your friend, you know.”

  DANGERS

  Kosoff assigned one of the smaller offices to Brad, three doors down the passageway from his own office. Brad plunged into detailed studies of the physical conditions on the surface of planet Gamma.

  “The air is breathable, then?” he asked Emcee’s holographic image, on the wall display.

  “The oxygen content is three percent lower than Earth’s,” Emcee replied, “and the trace constituents are slightly different: four-tenths of a percent more argon, six-tenths of a percent less neon.”

  Brad nodded and pushed back a stubborn lock of hair from his eyes as he peered at the graph on his desk screen.

  “More water vapor,” he noted.

  “Yes, and two percent more carbon dioxide than Earth normal.”

  “So it’s breathable.”

  “It appears so. Standard procedure calls for testing samples of the atmosphere on laboratory animals before allowing any humans to breathe it.”

  Brad said, “We’ve already brought up enough samples for that. And we have plenty of lab mice.”

  Emcee’s normally impassive face tightened slightly, like the beginning of a frown. “Curious thing: the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere seems to be falling.”

  With a flick of his fingers, Brad called up the CO2 details. “It’s only a tenth of a percent drop.”

  “Over the short time we’ve been making observations, that could be a significant change.”

  Brad leaned back in his padded chair. “The planet’s nearing its perihelion; in a few months it will start heading outward from Mithra, heading into their long winter.”

  “Which will be made more severe if the CO2 content continues to diminish.”

  “And its rendezvous with planet Beta is coming up soon, too,” Brad noted.

  “Within two months, the two planets will be nearest to each other.”

  “Will that have any affects on Gamma’s surface conditions?”

  “Certainly. The Predecessors reported serious variances from normal.”

  Working his desktop screen again, Brad called up the orbital data on the two rocky planets. “Whew! They pass each other closer than the Moon is to Earth.”

  “There should be significant tidal effects,” said Emcee.

  “I ought to check with the astronomers.”

  “Indeed.”

  Returning to their original subject, Brad said, “But the atmosphere is breathable.”

  “It appears to be, but we should test it on lab animals before sending people to land on Gamma.”

  “That’s the sensible thing to do.”

  “Trust the observational data,” said Emcee, “but check its validity with controlled experiments whenever you can.”

  Brad grinned. “Like sending scouts out ahead of the main body.”

  “Like sending a probe before risking your own life,” said Emcee.

  “You think the conditions on Gamma could be dangerous?”

  “Any time you go into a new and untried environment there are dangers,” Emcee said. “There are always unknowns, and unknowns are dangerous.”

  Brad remembered a quotation from centuries earlier: “It’s easy to see the things you’re looking for. The trick is to see the things you’re not looking for.”

  What is it that I’m not looking for? he asked himself.

  As if in answer, his phone buzzed. Latifa Valente’s name was spelled out on its screen.

  Brad told the phone to connect. Tifa was smiling happily. “Good news, Brad! Professor Kosoff has agreed to let me join your team. I’ll be your geophysics specialist.”

  “Team? I don’t have a team. There’s just Emcee and me.”

  “Oh no, no,” she contradicted. “Professor Kosoff was quite clear. He’s putting together a team to assist you, and I’m the first person he’s named to it!”

  “But—”

  Her expression sobering slightly, she said, “I must admit that I asked him to be on your team. I think it’s very exciting, don’t you?”

  “Uh, yes. I guess so.”

  “Well, you could be more enthusiastic. After all, I’m trying to help you.”

  “I appreciate it.” Even in his own ears, Brad’s words sounded weak, unenthusiastic.

  And he was thinking, I don’t want a team. I have Emcee, why do I need a team?

  He decided that he’d have to talk to Kosoff about it.

  THE TEAM

  “But of course you need a team,” Kosoff insisted. “I don’t expect you to draw up the plan all by yourself, without help.”

  Sitting in front of Kosoff’s desk, Brad protested, “But I don’t want a team. I have Emcee, he’s got access to all the data we’ve acquired.”

  “Emcee is just a computer.”

  “Just a computer? He’s got all the information that a team could give me, and then some.”

  Flicking a hand in the air, Kosoff said, “I can’t expect you to do this job by yourself, it—”

  “But I’m not alone! I’ve got Emcee.”

  “Which is a computer, not a person,” Kosoff said with some heat. “You need a team of human beings, people that you can interact with, people who can show you different attitudes, new ideas.”

  Brad shook his head.

  Easing his approach, Kosoff coaxed, “Now don’t be stubborn. I’ve picked a team for you and you’ll find your task much easier by using them. Specialists from every department in our group: astronomy, planetology, geophysics, geochemistry … I’ve even put your wife in the biology slot. And I’ve assigned Untermeyer from your own anthropology department to be your second in command.”

  Brad sat there, appalled.

  “You don’t look happy,” Kosoff observed.

  “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, sir,” Brad replied. “I really do.”

  “But?”

  Feeling confused, distressed, Brad tried to explain, “I’ve always been kind of a lone wolf. I work best by myself.”

  Shaking his head, Kosoff said, “This is too big a job for a lone wolf. You need a team, and you need to learn how to work with others.”

  Brad nodded. Reluctantly. Ruefully.

  * * *

  From Kosoff’s office, Brad went straight to Littlejohn’s. The anthropologist was not there, but the ship’s phone system located him in the biology lab—with Felicia.

  The two of them were sitting on castered stools in front of the heavy metal hatch of a pressure chamber. Through its round window Brad could see three lab mice nibbling busily on what looked like lettuce.

  As Brad approached them, Felicia tapped a knuckle against the air lock hatch and said, “They’re breathing air from Gamma in there with no problems.”

  Despite himself, Brad asked, “How long have they been in there?”

  “Two hours,” Felicia said. “I thought, as the bio member of your team, we ought to test the planet’s air, first thing.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Brad said. Turning to Littlejohn,
he added, “Both of you.”

  The gnomish dark Aborigine understood immediately. “You talked with Kosoff about putting together a team.”

  “I don’t want a team,” Brad said.

  Felicia asked, “You’d rather work alone?”

  “I’d rather ask people for help when I need it. I don’t want a committee, they’ll be pestering me all the time.”

  “Well, thank you very much!” But Felicia grinned as she said it.

  “I think I understand,” said Littlejohn. “You’re afraid you’ll be spending all your time being a committee chairman, shuffling paperwork, without any time left to do any real work.”

  Brad nodded dumbly.

  Littlejohn gestured to an empty stool standing a few paces away. “Sit down, Brad. Try to relax.”

  “Am I that obvious?” Brad asked as he reached for the stool.

  “You look like a bow that’s been pulled tight, ready to fire its arrow.”

  As he dragged the stool toward Littlejohn and Felicia, Brad said, “Kosoff just assumes that I’ll need a team of people to help me. I don’t want a team. All I need is access to the individual people who can answer specific questions, solve specific problems.”

  “Without memos and meetings and all the trappings of a hierarchy,” said Littlejohn.

  “Exactly.”

  Felicia said, “But Kosoff doesn’t see it that way.”

  “Exactly,” Brad repeated.

  “It’s an old story,” Littlejohn said, almost sorrowfully. “There’s a job to be done. The bureaucracy puts together a group to tackle the job, but the larger the group, the more interactions among its people. You have to appoint a manager to handle all the interactions, and the manager becomes another bureaucrat. He stops doing any creative work.”

  “I don’t want to be a bureaucrat,” Brad said.

  “Kosoff’s only trying to help you, you know,” Felicia said.

  “Is he?” Littlejohn asked. “Maybe he’s trying to break Brad’s independent spirit, trying to make him a respectable, dues-paying member of the organization, who follows orders and does things the way Kosoff wants them done.”

  “You think?” Brad asked.

  “It seems possible.”

  “Then what do we do about it?”

  Littlejohn sighed. “An ancient piece of wisdom says, when handed a lemon, make lemonade.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Brad.

  “Kosoff’s setting up a team for you. Don’t waste your time and energy fighting him.”

  “But I don’t want—”

  Waving Brad to silence, Littlejohn explained, “Let him form the team. You appoint one of them to be your second in command—”

  “He’s already named my number-two person: Larry Untermeyer.”

  “Larry?” Littlejohn’s surprise was obvious. But he quickly recovered. “All right, then. Let Larry handle the organizational problems. Let him be the bureaucrat who chairs the meetings and assigns the duties. He reports to you, and you stay clear of the hierarchical busywork.”

  Brad blinked at him. “You think that will work?”

  “Try it and see. Frankly, I think Larry will love the idea.”

  Felicia said, “He’ll be protecting you.”

  “He’ll be guarding access to you, leaving you free to do the work you need to do.”

  Brad looked uncertain, but he said, “I guess it’s worth a try.”

  Putting on a serious face, Felicia said, “One thing has to be clear, though. The biologist on your team has to have unrestricted access to you.”

  Brad broke into a wide grin. “Yes indeed!”

  CONFLICT

  For nearly six weeks Brad worked virtually alone—with Emcee—in building up a detailed picture of the conditions on Gamma’s surface.

  Larry Untermeyer reveled in his task of keeping Brad free from meetings and reports and the thousand-and-one demands on his time and energy that the members of his team unconsciously and automatically imposed on him. Larry used Brad’s office more than Brad did; he made it his own, really, even down to removing Brad’s desk and bringing in one that was bigger, more imposing.

  Brad had his modest desk toted to his quarters, where the robots wedged it into a corner of the sitting room. Then he spent his days happily working with Emcee, while Larry handled the administrative chores.

  One evening, as they were finishing dinner, Felicia told him, “People are saying that Larry is running your team, not you.”

  Brad looked across the narrow kitchen table and saw that she was serious.

  “He’s welcome to it,” he said.

  “Aren’t you afraid he’s going to replace you?” she asked. “What if he tells Kosoff that he’s the de facto head of the team, and he wants to be recognized formally. That will leave you out in the cold. What’ll you do then?”

  Brad got to his feet and started clearing the table. “I’ll have more time to spend with Emcee.”

  “More time?” she half complained. “You already spend more time with the master computer than you do with me.”

  Carefully placing the dishes in the washer, Brad turned back to Felicia, took her in his arms, and kissed her soundly.

  “But it’s quality time,” he said to her.

  Felicia smiled and nodded.

  * * *

  More and more, Brad found himself intrigued by the upcoming close encounter between planets Beta and Gamma.

  As he sat staring at the latest projections by the astronomers, Brad said, “They’re actually going to pass so close to each other that they’ll share atmospheres.”

  “Briefly,” said Emcee’s disembodied voice. “For seventeen hours and eleven minutes.”

  “But that should cause terrific weather conditions,” Brad said. “All sorts of storms, awesome winds.”

  “As well as tremendous tides in the planet’s seas.”

  “Maybe that’s why all the villages are built well away from the seacoasts.”

  “Perhaps,” said Emcee.

  “I wonder how the close approach will affect Beta.”

  Emcee said, “The surveillance satellites orbiting Beta are reporting unusual movements across the planet’s surface.”

  “Unusual movements?”

  Brad switched the holographic display to a broad view of Beta’s surface: uneven rocky ground, thinly covered with grayish scrub and spots of lichen. Brad could not see anything moving.

  “Seismic activity?”

  “No,” answered Emcee. “It’s more like the movements of small animals.”

  “Animals?” Brad gulped. “There’s no record of animal life on Beta. Nothing big enough to register on the satellites’ sensors, at least.”

  “The surveillance cameras are set on wide-field focus,” Emcee said, “not fine enough to resolve anything smaller than a meter.”

  “We should get narrower focus, then. Sharper details.”

  “Changing resolution,” Emcee reported.

  After several minutes the view of Beta’s surface shifted, zooming in on a scene of broken rock, like rubble, with scabrous patches of sickly looking lichen here and there. No trees, no grass, no furry little animals scurrying along.

  Then something moved.

  Brad stared. Whatever it was disappeared in the flick of an eye.

  “Could it be an animal?”

  “Insufficient data to determine,” said Emcee.

  “Slow the imagery, please.”

  In slow motion, Brad saw that it was indeed an animal scurrying across the nearly barren ground: a small, furry, rodentlike animal.

  “Animal life on Beta!” Brad exclaimed. “Do the Predecessors’ observations include anything like this?”

  “No. Nothing. But their survey of the Mithra system took place at a time when Beta was near the apogee point of its orbit, deep in its long winter. They concentrated their observations on Gamma, with its villages and obviously intelligent inhabitants. Beta appeared to be lifeless, so it only received a cursory sc
an.”

  Brad sagged back in his desk chair. “Have we discovered a new life form?”

  Emcee’s image took shape again in the three-dimensional display. It was smiling, almost contentedly. “Perhaps,” the computer said.

  “A life form that the Predecessors missed,” Brad marveled.

  Again Emcee said merely, “Perhaps.”

  * * *

  “Send more surveillance satellites to Beta?” Kosoff looked surprised, upset. “Based on one flick of an image?”

  “It’s animal life,” Brad said.

  Sitting behind his impressive desk, Kosoff stared at Brad, silently mulling over this new demand.

  At last he said, “The Predecessors’ data show no animal life on Beta.”

  “None that they detected.”

  “If they didn’t detect any, then there’s probably none there to detect.”

  Feeling that Kosoff was being obtuse, Brad tried to explain. “The Predecessors saw that there was intelligent life on Gamma.”

  “That’s obvious.”

  “So they concentrated their attention on Gamma. Their intent was to rescue intelligent species from the approaching death wave.”

  Kosoff nodded.

  “They made some quick observations of Beta, found nothing, and focused their attention on Gamma.”

  “Because there was nothing on Beta to detect,” Kosoff said flatly.

  “But what if they were wrong?”

  “Wrong? The Predecessors wrong? A race of intelligent machines, millions of years older than humankind? A race that explored most of the galaxy eons before the first paramecium evolved on Earth?”

  “They could be wrong,” Brad insisted. “They’re not perfect.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Then where are they now? How come they asked for our help? Why do they need us if they’re so wise and powerful?”

  Kosoff glared at Brad for several long moments. Finally he muttered, “All right. You call a meeting of your team. Let’s see what they think.”

  Brad groaned audibly.

  * * *

  “Everybody’s here,” said Larry Untermeyer, sitting at Brad’s right.

  The conference table was filled. Twelve men and women, representing the twelve specialist departments of the ship’s scientific staff, everything from astronomy to zoology.