The Big Black Mark

by A Bertram Chandler

  Meanwhile, as the ship steadily narrowed the distance between herself and the first of the two possible stars, Flannery, with all his faults, was pulling his weight. Straining his telepathic faculties, he had begun to pick up what could be construed as indications of intelligent life on one of the worlds in orbit about that sun.

  "The skipper of Sundowner was right, Captain," he said. "There's somethin' there, all right. Or, even, somebody. There's—there's a sort o' murmur. Ye can't hear it, of course, but Ned's hearin' it, an' I'm hearin' it." He grinned. "T'is a real Irish parliament. Everybody talkin', an' nobody listenin'."

  "Except you," said Grimes.

  "Exceptin' me—an' Ned," agreed the PCO.

  "Human?" asked Grimes.

  "That I couldn't be sayin', Captain. T'is too early yet. But humanoid, for sure. Somethin' with warm blood an' breathin' oxygen."

  "Or its equivalent," suggested Grimes doubtfully. "After all, the essential physiology of chlorine breathers is very similar to our own."

  "A bridge we'll cross when we come to it, Captain. But even if they, whoever they might be when they're up an' dressed, ain't human, ye'll still have discovered a new world for the Federation—may all the Saints preserve it—an' that'll be a feather in yer cap!"

  "I suppose so." Somehow the prospect did not cheer Grimes, as it should have done. "I suppose so."

  He got up to return to his own quarters, where he was to preside over a meeting of his senior officers and petty officers.

  * * *

  He sat behind his desk, facing the others.

  Brandt was there, sitting by himself, a compact ball of hostility. Brabham, Swinton, and Vinegar Nell shared a settee—sullen bloodhound, belligerent terrier, and spiteful cat. Dr. Rath was wrapped in his own private cloud of funereal gloom. MacMorris, too, was keeping himself to himself, obviously begrudging the time that he was being obliged to spend away from his precious engines. Longer, the bos'n, and Washington, the sergeant of Marines, formed a two-man conspiracy in a corner, ostentatiously holding themselves aloof from the commissioned officers.

  "Gentlemen," began Grimes. "And Miss Russell," he added. "Mphm." He answered their not very friendly stares with one of his own. "Mr. Flannery assures me that there is life, intelligent life, very probably our sort of life, on one of the worlds of Ballchin 1717, the star that we are now approaching."

  "So your luck is holding, sir," said Brabham.

  "What exactly do your mean, Number One?"

  "Even you, sir, would have found it hard to justify this deviation from the original plan if you'd found nothing."

  "We have only the word of a drunken telepath that anything has been found," huffed Brandt. "And it still might not be a Lost Colony."

  "Even if it is," grumbled MacMorris, "I doubt if there'll be any machine shops. I'm still far from happy about my innies."

  "You never are," remarked Brabham.

  "We didn't have enough time on New Maine to get anything fixed up properly," complained Vinegar Nell, favoring Grimes with a hostile glare.

  "At least," stated Swinton, "my men, as always are ready for anything."

  "There probably will be some civilians for you to massacre," murmured Vinegar Nell sweetly.

  Swinton flushed hotly and Grimes spoke up before a quarrel could start. "Gentlemen. Miss Russell. If you wish to squabble, kindly do so elsewhere than in my quarters. I have called you here to discuss our course of action."

  "To begin with," said Brandt, "there must be the minimal interference with whatever culture has developed on that world."

  "If we're shot at," snapped Swinton, "we shoot back!"

  "You tell 'em, Major!" murmured Sergeant Washington.

  "That will do," said Grimes coldly. Then, "To begin with, I shall advise you all of my intentions. This original plan will be subject to modification as required by changing circumstances and, possibly, as suggested by your good selves."

  "The vessel will continue on her present trajectory. Mr. Flannery will maintain his listening watch, endeavoring to learn as much as possible of the nature of the inhabitants. We are also, of course, maintaining a Carlotti listening watch, although it is doubtful if we shall pick anything up. The Carlotti system had not been dreamed of at the time of the Second Expansion, the heyday of the lodejammers. And, in any case, any station using it must, of necessity, be a well-established component of today's network of interstellar communications. We can't listen on NST radio, of course, until we shut down the Mannschenn Drive and reemerge into normal space-time.

  "We shall endeavor to home on the source of psionic emission. With the interstellar drive shut down, we shall establish ourselves in orbit about the planet. We shall observe, listen, and send down our unmanned probes. And then we come in to a landing."

  "Not in the ship," said Brandt flatly.

  "And why not?" countered Grimes coldly.

  "Have you considered," asked the scientist, "the effect that a hulking brute of a vessel like this might—no, would!—have on a people who have reverted to savagery, who are painfully climbing back up the hill to civilization?"

  "If I'm going to be a stranger on a strange world," Grimes told him, "I prefer to be a stranger with all the resources of my own culture right there with me, not hanging in orbit and all too likely to be on the wrong side of the planet when I want something in a hurry!"

  "I agree with the captain," said Brabham.

  "And I," said Swinton.

  "It is high time that the real command was put in the hands of the scientists," growled Brandt.

  "If it ever is," Brabham snarled, "my resignation goes in."

  "That will do, gentlemen," said Grimes firmly. "Whether we land in the ship, or whether we send down small parties in the boats, will be decided when we know more about 1717—but I can say, now, that the second course of action is extremely unlikely. Needless to say, the actual site of our landing will have to be decided upon. If the civilization has attained or re-attained a high standard of technology, then there is no reason why we should not set down close to a large center of population, in broad daylight. If the people reverted to savagery after their own first landing, and stayed that way, then caution on our part is indicated."

  "Putting it bluntly, Commander Grimes," said Brandt unpleasantly, "you are dithering."

  "Putting it shortly," retorted Grimes, "I shall be playing by ear. As I always do. As I always have done." He was exaggerating, of course. Before any operation he always worked out his course of action in every smallest detail—but he was ever alert to changing circumstances, always ready to abandon his elaborate plan of campaign and to improvise.

  He went on, "I want all of you carefully to consider the problems that are liable to confront us. I want all of you to work out your own ways of dealing with them. I am always open to suggestions. Don't forget that we are a team." (Did he hear a faint, derisive, Ha, ha!?) "Don't forget that we are a team, and remember that this is a Federation vessel and not a warship of the Waldegren Navy, whose kapitan would have you pushed out of the airlock for speaking out of turn." (And who was it who whispered in mock incredulity, Oh, no?) "Be ready for anything—and, above all, be ready for the things for which you aren't ready. Mphm." He carefully filled and then lit his pipe.

  "Very enlightening, Commander Grimes," commented Brandt condescendingly.

  Brabham said nothing, merely looked wooden. Swinton said nothing and looked skeptical. Vinegar Nell permitted herself a slight sneer. Dr. Rath looked like an undertaker counting the dead for whom he would have to provide a free funeral. The burly Langer raised his hand, looking like an oversized schoolboy. "Captain?"

  "Yes, Bos'n?"

  "Speaking on behalf of the men, sir, I hope that you will allow shore leave. We had precious little back at Main Base, and precious little on New Maine."

  "This is not a pleasure cruise, Bos'n," said Grimes.

  "You can say that again!" whispered somebody, not quite inaudibly.

  Chapter 15

>   Star 1717 in the Ballchin Catalog was a Sol-type sun.

  Somehow it and its planetary family had, to date, escaped close investigation by the survey ships of the Interstellar Federation, the Empire of Waverley (although it was almost in the Imperial back yard), or the Duchy of Waldegren, to name the major human spacefaring powers; neither had it attracted the attention of the far-ranging Seeker-Queens of the Shaara Galactic Hive. One reason for its being ignored was that it lay well away from the regular trade routes. Another reason was that nobody—at the moment—was acutely short of lebensraum. There were other reasons—economic, political, and whatever—but Grimes, a mere Survey Service commander, knew nothing of these, and would know nothing of such matters until, if at all, he wore gold braid up to the elbow and a cap whose peak was one solid encrustation of scrambled egg.

  The planetary system of 1717 consisted of six worlds, easily observed as Discovery, her own time out of kilter with the real time of the universe, cautiously approached the star, running on interstellar drive, from well to the north of the plane of the ecliptic. The planets showed as wavering bands of luminescence about the shapeless, quivering iridescent blob that was their primary. After the Mannschenn Drive had been shut down they were, of course, far harder to locate—but Flannery, one of those telepaths capable of psionic direction-finding, was able to guide the ship in toward the world that harbored intelligent life.

  Of 1717's six planets, the outermost three were gas giants. Of the innermost three, one was far too close to the sun for life, of any kind, to have developed. The other two were within the biosphere. The third one was almost another Earth, a resemblance that became more and more striking as Discovery approached it. There were seas and continents, mountain ranges, polar ice caps, and a cloudy atmosphere. On the night side were sparkling clusters of lights that had to be cities. And there were networks of unnaturally straight lines crisscrossing the landmasses that could be roads, or railways, or canals.

  There was no doubt that 1717 III was inhabited. The people of 1717 III had achieved, it seemed certain, some kind of industrial civilization. But until an actual landing was made little could be known about them, although Flannery was doing his best to pick up information. He said to Grimes, who had taken to haunting the PCO's squalid office, "T'is like the roarin' o' the crowd at a football game, Captain. Niver a single voice that ye can make out what it's sayin' . . . just jabber, jabber, jabber. Oh, there's a power o' people down there all right, an' they're after thinkin' what people always do be thinkin'—that it's too hot, or too cold, or that it's almost dinnertime, or that it's a dreadful long time atween drinks. Which reminds me—" He reached for a full bulb of whiskey. "An' how long are ye keepin' us in free fall, Captain? I mislike these baby's feedin' bottles."

  Grimes ignored this. "But are they thinking in Standard English?" he demanded. "Or in any other human language?"

  "Now ye're askin'. An' the answer is—I don't know. Trouble is, there's niver a real telepath among the bunch of 'em. If there was, he'd be comin' in loud and clear at this range, and I'd be able to tell ye for sure." Flannery grinned. "Am I to take it that the opposition hasn't brought ye any joy? That the bould Sparkses—bad cess to 'em!—haven't been able to raise anythin' on their heathenish contraptions?"

  "You know damn well they haven't!" huffed Grimes. "We weren't expecting anything on the Carlotti—but there's been nothing on the NST either, nothing but static."

  "So ye haven't found a Lost Colony after all Captain. But ye've discovered a new world with new people. An' isn't that better?"

  "A new world? How do you make that out?"

  "A Lost Colony'd be makin' its start with all the books an' machinery an' know-how aboard the ship, wouldn't it? 'Less they went all the way back to the Stone Age they'd be keepin' the technology they started with, an' improvin' on it."

  "Mphm. But perhaps, for some reason, our friends down there prefer landlines to radio."

  "Ye've somethin' there, Captain. But—there's altogether too many o' the bastards. That world has a powerful big population. Could the crew an' passengers o' just one ship—one flyin' fridge, perhaps, or one o' the lodejammers still not accounted for—have done so well, even if they bred like rabbits? Historically speakin', the Deep Freeze ships o' the First Expansion were only yesterday, an' the Second Expansion was no more than a dog watch ago."

  "But you forget," Grimes told him, "that the later Deep Freeze ships', and all the lodejammers, carried big stocks of fertilized ova, together with the incubating machinery. One ship would have the capability to populate a small—or not so small—continent within a few decades after the first landing."

  "Ye've almost convinced me, Captain. But I can't pick up any clear thinkin' at all, at all. All I can tell ye is that they—whoever or whatever they are—are mammals, an' have two sexes an' a few o' the in-betweens, an' that most of 'em are runnin' hard to keep up in some sort o' rat race . . . like us. But how like? Now ye're askin', an' I can't tell ye. Yet."

  "So we just have to wait and see," said Grimes, getting up to return to the control room.

  * * *

  The planet 1717 III loomed huge through the planetward viewports, a great island in the sky along the shores of which Discovery was coasting. Like all prudent explorers in Man's past Grimes was keeping well out from the land until he knew more of what awaited him there. Like his illustrious predecessors he would send in his small boats to make the first contact—but, unlike them, he would not be obliged to hazard the lives of any of his crew when he did so.

  "Number one probe ready," reported Brabham.

  "Thank you," said Grimes.

  He glanced around the control room. Tangye was seated at the console, with its array of instruments, from which the probe would be operated. Brandt was looking on, obviously sneering inwardly at the amateurishly unscientific efforts of the spacemen. The officer of the watch was trying to look busy—although, in these circumstances, there was very little for him to do. The radio officers were hunting up and down the frequencies on the NST transceiver, bringing in nothing but an occasional burst of static.

  "Launch the probe, sir?" asked Brabham.

  "I'll just check with. Mr. Tangye first, Number One." Then, to the navigator, "You know the drill, pilot?"

  "Yes, sir. Keep the probe directly below the ship to begin with. Bring it down slowly through the atmosphere. The usual sampling. Maintain position relative to the ship unless instructed otherwise."

  "Good. Launch."

  "Launch, sir."

  The muffled rattle of the probe's inertial drive was distinctly audible as, decks away below and aft, it nosed out of its bay. It would not have been heard had Discovery's own engines been running, it was little more than a toy, but the big ship, in orbit, was falling free. Needles on the gauges of Tangye's console jerked and quivered, the traces in cathode ray tubes began their sinuous flickering; but as yet there was nothing to be seen on the big television screen tuned to the probe's transmitter that could not be better observed from the viewports.

  "Commander Grimes," said Brandt, "I know that you are in charge, but might I ask why you are not adhering to standard procedure for a first landing?"

  "What do you mean, Dr. Brandt?"

  "Aren't first landings supposed to be made at dawn? That tin spy of yours will be dropping down from the noon sky, in the broadest daylight possible."

  "And anybody looking straight up," said Grimes, "will be dazzled by the sun. The real reason for a dawn landing—a manned landing, that is—is so that the crew has a full day to make their initial explorations. That does not apply in this case."

  "Oh. This, I take it then, is yet another example of your famous playing by ear."

  "You could put it that way," said Grimes coldly.

  Shuffling in his magnetic-soled shoes, he went to stand behind Tangye. Looking at the array of instruments, he saw that the probe had descended into an appreciable atmosphere and that friction was beginning to heat its skin. He said, "Caref
ul, pilot. We don't want to burn the thing up."

  "Sorry, sir."

  Clouds on the screen—normal enough high cirrus.

  More clouds below the probe—an insubstantial but solid-seeming mountainscape of cumulus. A break in the cloud-floor, a rift, a wide chasm, and through it the view of a vast plain, and cutting across it a straight ribbon, silver-gleaming against the greens and browns of the land.

  "Oxygen . . . nitrogen . . . carbon dioxide .. ." Tangye was reciting as he watched the indicators on the console.