A large, brilliant blue tree about twenty meters away seemed to be his choice. He spent a moment getting the sights lined up and then pulled the trigger.
~ * ~
The entire lower half of the tree disappeared in a tremendous explosion of steam and splinters. The upper part of it came smashing down, as did great sections of others directly behind the target.
The stunned native staggered to his feet, still clutching the gun, and cooed at it lovingly. His two companions came running up, whistling and gabbling with excitement. They were allowed to take the gun up on the hill and try it out—at more distant targets. Several trees and a good-sized rock disappeared with a noisy violence that was obviously satisfactory.
The leader remained with the picture machine and began to examine it. He jumped, startled, when Stuart flipped one more sketch into view. It showed the little scout ship about to land. After the native had studied it a while, Stuart gave him the last one. This was a sketch of the linguist himself, stepping out of the scout ship and greeting a waiting Azuran.
The reaction to this was immediate and positive. Shrill commands sent the smaller native into ambush in the shrubbery; the other came running down the hill, handed over the gun, and fled to the cave. The leader, still watching the sky, squatted down to wait, rifle beside him. After a moment he took something out of his knapsack and apparently began to munch on it. Twice he snatched up the gun and sighted through it, as though practising.
Stuart frowned at the screen. “They seem to understand I’m about to visit them, but they’re not convinced they can trust visitors. No reason why they should be, I suppose.” He disconnected the pickup unit from the cephaloid circuit.
Gordon cocked his head to one side reflectively. “Well, I don’t think the situation is too bad. You’ve seen how cautious they are . . . they must have been very badly scared when their cities were destroyed. Perfectly natural. It’s also evident they’re not fundamentally warlike; their behavior shows an absence of military background. Even a couple of traders noticed that, by the way, over on the other side of the planet last year.”
The linguist shook his head reprovingly. “Let’s avoid semantic confusions when we can, Gordon. Their behavior does not fit in with your notion of military background. We have no right to say what it connotes in their culture.”
The captain acknowledged the reasonableness of this statement with a smile and left him to the solitude he needed. He began the task of receiving the material the cephaids had assimilated, feeding in associations of “probable general context” with the natives’ comments regarding each picture. He laughed to himself as he realized that a certain amount of projection of his own notions was inevitable.
Such was the tremendous power of the cephaloids, and the delicate, almost intuitive skill of his handling, that the major part of the analysis was complete in little more than an hour. He switched the controls to “Translate, Univ. Sp. to Other.” Indicator needles shifted and steadied as the surface potentials readjusted in the semi-living colloids.
Then, before proceeding further, he asked the captain to join him again. When Gordon was seated, the expert smiled wrily at him. “This is usually considered very poor procedure, but there’s only one word I can be fairly sure of as a check on this thing. It seems reasonable that, when the middle native exclaimed ‘Aru!,’ he meant ‘Good’!! That was when we destroyed the attacking ship, if you remember. ... a little fiction which I shall have to explain to them later.” Into the microphone he said, in Universal Speech, “Good. That is good.”
“Aru. Aru naa lo,” replied the loudspeaker.
Stuart, though he relaxed a little then, lost no time. It took him only a few minutes to memorize several phrases which the jelly-and-silver translator gave him. By the time Brettner had the little scout ship warmed up for him, Stuart was prepared to tell the natives, “Peace! I come in peace. Your people and my people have the same enemy. Therefore let us be friends and work together. We shall give you large and strong weapons.”
He turned to leave the lab, but stopped to squint once more at the screen. Only the native with the gun was visible, still grimly waiting. The linguist finished buckling on his gear with nervous fingers. “They look awfully well-disciplined to me,” he murmured to himself. “Wish I felt a little more nonchalant about this!” He clumped down the passageway to Number Three Lock, where he met Brettner climbing out of the scout ship.
Brettner slapped him on the back, saying, “She’s all wound up. Good luck, chum. Keep away from the girlies, hear?” From the control room, Rogers shouted gaily, “Send us a postcard, laddie. One of them Venus-type!” The two scouts guffawed heartily. Gordon looked out and waved at him.
The linguist climbed into the control seat, laughing in spite of himself. He waved at Brettner, shut the inner door, and opened the outer. A monitor light showed green. “Ready,” he told the intercom. He was surprised at how steady his voice and hands were.
“Cast off!” came Gordon’s voice.
~ * ~
VI
He touched the “release” button and felt himself flung away from the Special Agent. He boosted his little vessel around a semicircle several kilometers in diameter, as he had been instructed, so the position of the big ship would not be given away when he approached the ground. He overmodulated the drive then, to make plenty of noise, and headed directly for the waiting native. Over a suitable grassy spot, he waited until he was sure the Azuran had seen him; then he eased down slowly, careful not to make any sudden moves.
He landed with the nose about ten degrees too low, settled with a rolling bump, and opened the port as soon as he could manage. He mumbled to himself a bit, practising his little speech. Then he stepped out.
The blast rifle looked like a ninety-millimeter projector. It scowled viciously at his abdomen from only twenty paces away. He swallowed several times and managed a trembly little smile.
The native continued to inspect him sourly through the peep-sight. A tentacle seemed to twitch impatiently at the trigger.
“After all,” the linguist thought rapidly, “a facial expression such as a smile is probably meaningless to him. I shall have to make a more significant sign, as in that sketch.” He unbuckled his holster belt and carefully laid it to one side, handguns and all. Still no response.
He walked forward halfway to the native, holding up his open hands. He recited his speech, then, and stood waiting.
With his first words, the other’s attitude changed. The gun was lowered slowly while the native stared at him with big, black, disk-like eyes. He stared back, examining the bright red native with interest. Long feet, with two toes like pincers; heavily muscled legs; middle limbs like arms, with short, powerful hands of a sort; two six-fingered tentacles growing out from the sides of the head—
One of the middle limbs reached out and tugged at his arm experimentally. The native said something evidently meaning “Come along.” Stuart walked along with him, reporting “Okay, so far,” into his radio. The two beings walked up to the entrance to the cave, from where the scout ship could just be seen. Suddenly the smaller native sprang out of the brush and backed the linguist against a tree, holding the cross-bow almost at his throat. The first native whirled, aimed the blast rifle at the scout ship, and fired. There was a flash at the ship’s bow, and a deep gash was blasted into the metal.
“Aru!” said the natives.
Stuart’s earphone crackled, but the signal was weak. “What’s going on?” came Gordon’s voice, faintly. “Get away from them and we’ll blow them to smithereens!”
He tried to think clearly. “I don’t know how to get away,” he realized miserably. “Never had any of that combat training.” He found the native with the blast rifle chattering at him; the other had withdrawn the cross-bow from his throat. “I’m all right,” he reported weakly. He listened to the native a moment, then added, “This is rather puzzling, though. They actually seem friendly. I believe one of them is telling me that we�
�re friends now.”
“That lousy iron hill you’re on is killing your signal, Stuart. I can hardly hear you. You’re in plain sight, though, through the telescope. Shall we come after you?”
The natives were pulling at the linguist’s arm, urging him toward the cave. “No, keep out of sight a while,” he shouted, shaking his head. “I believe they want me to come with them.”
~ * ~
The reply from the Special Agent was unintelligible. Stuart allowed the Azurans to guide him into the cave; he was not surprised to find it the end of a long tunnel through the coral. Two other natives came running past and took up positions as guards just inside the entrance.
The phosphorescent material of the hill itself supplied a feeble light. There seemed to be an alarm system of some sort, for handles were set into small square boxes on the walls every fifty meters or so.
During the hour-long walk, Stuart learned bits of the natives’ language. If one could apply the hitherto universally valid criteria of the Linguistic Academy, he decided, this language represented a long history of high culture and philosophical achievement. He found the idea encouraging.
He was already constructing simple sentences when the tunnel turned sharply and entered a small cave. It was really an underground room, he noticed, with several corridors leading away. One of his guides pulled a lever; a moment later a dozen other natives entered the room. With them was a monkey-rat, sporting Rogers’ two hunting knifes; it pointed to the linguist and chattered shrilly. The linguist recognized one of the Azurans as the one he had caught. The first to enter, however, seemed considerably older than the rest. Stuart guessed he was a high official.
The elderly one approached the Earthman and held out his tentacles to the sides. It seemed to mean something. There was a short, tense silence.
“Of course!” exclaimed Stuart to himself. “The gesture of peaceful intent: showing the absence of weapons!” He held up his hands, likewise empty, and repeated his speech.
There were murmurs of “Aru!” around him. Unobtrusive weapons were unobtrusively lowered. Sketching materials were brought to the official: sheets of something like parchment, and a reed which exuded an inky substance through a fine hole. Two blocks of what seemed to be extraordinarily soft wood were carried in; the official sat down, somewhat in human fashion, and motioned the language expert to do likewise.
The “conversation” lasted almost two hours. Stuart, by sketching and using a few words, explained his mission. The natives seemed to understand; judging by their awareness of the outer universe, they had considerable scientific knowledge. He guessed, though, that their technology was more biological than mechanical. They knew where the Invaders were from, what they had looked like, and how some of their mechanisms had operated. But Azuran culture, never warlike, had been unable to strike back, and had been so badly smashed that there had been no opportunity to use the captured knowledge.
‘They nearly destroyed my people,” explained the official with words and pictures. “We were many millions. Now only thousands. We saved what we could and hid underground, scattered. For five years we have struggled to stay alive. Now we are regaining our strength and can think of building again. But always we must be ready for the Invaders. They killed for nothing or for amusement. Took nothing except specimens; apparently they wanted nothing here but sport. They simply attacked without warning one day, all over the planet, and hunted us for fifty-four days. Then they disappeared. We caught a few live ones outside their ships by trickery, and we captured two small ships the same way. But in our difficulty we have had little time to investigate the ships.”
“Where are the captured creatures?” asked Stuart.
“Oh, they did not live long.” The other’s manner did not indicate regret. “They needed high temperature and a special atmosphere to stay alive, and of course we had inadequate means to care for them. We made very thorough biological studies of them, however.” He shook his tentacles, as if in disgust. “They were remarkably unpleasant. Colorless, and gritty to the touch. Completely hateful. They used to throw dissected specimens of our people out of their ships; sometimes live people were dropped.”
~ * ~
He nodded toward the blast rifle. “You are good to offer weapons. From certain records we found, we believe the enemy will return soon. I understand your need for a base here. I can speak for my people . . . what is left of them. We accept your offer. Come down again tomorrow to the clearing in your big ship. Our highest leader will be present, and a treaty will be made.”
Abruptly, thus, the interview was over. The old native was obviously tired. The linguist got to his feet, intending to express his pleasure at the outcome. He had his mouth open, and it stayed that way when the blast rifle was suddenly thrust into his hands. The official, who had handed it to him, put a tentacle on his shoulder in what Stuart recognized as a gesture of friendship.
The linguist grinned, put his hand on the other’s shoulder, and handed back the weapon.
There was a great din of whistling and cries of “Aru! Aru naa lo!” It became a sort of cheer, with a crowd of natives following Stuart and his three guides back down the tunnel. The old official stood and watched them go.
Back in the daylight, the linguist was startled to discover that Procyon was low in the sky and that night was near. He hurried down the path toward his scout ship to get away from the iron hill. Hastily he switched on his radio. Before he could catch his breath enough to talk, he heard White’s voice.
“Hey, I see him! There he is, chief; there’s the little guy!” Sounds of the drive being activated came through the earphone.
Gordon’s voice cut in. “You okay, Stuart?”
“Yes, yes, I’m all right. Come on down—peaceably.”
“What’s the deal?”
“They’re convinced. They’ll have their president, or whatever, here in the morning to sign a treaty with us.”
“WHAT?!”
A moment later the big ship landed with a silent rush, flattening out a large expanse of scrub. The ground crunched under it. A dozen wide-eyed natives watched from a respectful distance.
The lower port flew open; Gordon and Rogers came scrambling down the ladder. The two men came running over, handguns swinging heavily at their sides. The turret guns were trained on the hill before the cave.
“Is this on the level?” demanded Gordon.
“Yes. I’ll explain later, after I’ve had some sleep.”
The captain’s eye fell on the scout ship. “Looks like your ship will navigate all right,” he said, still out of breath. “Probably have to replace the autopilot and tracker, though. But why in blazes did they take a shot at it? And why wasn’t your defensive field on?”
The linguist kicked a pebble. “I forgot to ask them why they did that. I guess they figured my gesture of offering a weapon didn’t mean much unless I was vulnerable to the weapon myself. Or maybe they felt that, if I came in good faith, I’d come without protection. Anyway, they didn’t want to shoot me just to find out, so they tested it on the ship and decided I was—er, on the level. If it had been on, they’d probably have shot me immediately with the cross-bow. Or maybe they’d have figured out what the glow was and shot me without testing it. Then they’d have gone back in the tunnel and sealed it up for good.”
He suddenly laughed aloud, face alight with pleasure and surprised realization. “For the first time on this trip, I’m glad I’ve never had any military experience! If I’d been well-trained, that field would have been turned on!”
Gordon’s strained face relaxed. He looked at Stuart in awe, and put an arm around his shoulders. After a moment he said, musingly, “What do we do next? We’ve got to get back, but we also ought to see this through when the brass gets here.”
Stuart’s reply was prompt. “You go back. Leave me food for a couple of days and tell Patrol to bring me what I need for a long stay. I’ll see this thing through.”
“Can I take a picture of you to
morrow with the Azuran big chief? It’d look swell in the papers back home.” Gordon’s tone was bantering.
The linguist looked him in the eye. “I wish you would,” he said, soberly.
<
~ * ~
The Rull
BY A. E. VAN VOGT
P
rofessor Jamieson saw the other space boat out of the corner of one eye. He was sitting in a hollow about a dozen yards from the edge of the precipice, and some score of feet from the doorway of his own lifeboat. He had been intent on his survey book, annotating a comment beside the voice graph, to the effect that Laertes III was so close to the invisible dividing line between Earth-controlled and Rull-controlled space that its prior discovery by man was in itself a major victory in the Rull-human war.
Travelers of Space - [Adventures in Science Fiction 03] Page 37