Darkover: First Contact

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Right. Need any help?”

  “No, Marco can help carry the instruments.”

  He started to protest, then shrugged and crawled back into his sleeping bag. It wasn’t entirely up to him. She knew her business and didn’t need his careful watchfulness. She’d made that amply clear.

  Some undefined apprehension, however, kept him from sleeping again; he lay in an uneasy doze, hearing around him the noises of the waking forest. Birds called from tree to tree, some harsh and raucous, some soft and chirping. There were small croakings and stirrings in the underbrush, and somewhere a distant sound not unlike the barking of a dog.

  And then the silence was shattered by a horrible yell—a shriek of unquestionably human agony, a harsh scream of anguish, repeated twice and breaking off in a ghastly babbling moan, and silence.

  MacAran was out of his sleeping bag and out of the tent, half dressed, Ewen less than half a step behind him, and all the others crowding after, sleepy, bewildered, frightened. He ran up the slope toward the sound, hearing Camilla cry out for help.

  She had set her equipment in a clearing near the summit, but now it was knocked over; nearby Marco Zabal lay on the ground, writhing and moaning incoherently. He was swollen and his face had a hideous congested look; Camilla was brushing frantically with her gloved hands. Ewen dropped by the writhing man, with a quick demand to Camilla:

  “Quick—what happened!”

  “Things—like insects,” she said, shaking as she held out her hands. On the gloved palm lay a small crushed thing, less than two inches long, with a curved tail like a scorpion and a wicked fang at the front; it was bright orange and green in color. “He stepped on that mound there, and I heard him scream, and then he fell down—”

  Ewen had his medical kit out, and was quickly moving his hands over Zabal’s heart. He gave quick directions to Heather, who had dropped beside him, to cut away the man’s clothes; the wounded man’s face was congested and blackening, and his arm swollen immensely. Zabal was unconscious now, moaning deliriously.

  A powerful nerve poison, Ewen thought; his heart is slowing down and his breathing depressed. All he could do now was to give the man a powerful stimulant and stand by in case he needed artificial respiration. He didn’t even dare give him anything to ease the agony—almost all narcotics were respiratory depressants. He waited, hardly breathing himself, his stethoscope on Zabal’s chest, while the man’s faltering heart began to beat a little more regularly; he raised his head to look briefly at the mound, to ask Camilla if she had been bitten—she hadn’t, although two of the hideous insects had begun to crawl up her arm—and to demand that everybody stay a good long distance from the mound, or anthill, or whatever it was. Just dumb luck we didn’t camp on top of it in the dark! MacAran and Camilla might have stumbled right into it—or maybe they’re dormant in snow!

  Time dragged. Zabal began to breathe again more regularly and to moan a little but he did not recover consciousness. The great red sun, dripping fog, slowly lifted itself up over the foothills surrounding them.

  Ewen sent Heather back to the tent for the rest of his medical equipment; Judy and MacLeod began to fix some breakfast. Camilla stoically calculated the few astronomical readings she had been able to take before the attack of the scorpionants—MacLeod, after examining the dead one, had temporarily christened them that. MacAran came and stood beside the unconscious man and the young doctor who knelt beside him.

  “Will he live?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. I never saw anything like it since I treated my one and only case of rattlesnake bite. But one thing’s certain—he won’t be going anywhere today, probably not tomorrow either.”

  MacAran asked, “Shouldn’t we carry him down to the tent? Could there be more of those things crawling around?”

  “I’d rather not move him now. Maybe in a couple of hours.”

  MacAran stood, looking down in dismay, at the unconscious man. They shouldn’t delay—and yet, their party had been rigidly calculated for size and there was no one to spare to send back to the ship for help. Finally he said, “We’ve got to go on. Suppose we move Marco back to the tent, when it’s safe, and you stay to look after him. The others can do their exploration work here as well as anywhere, check out soil, plant, animal samples. But I have to survey what I can from the peak, and Lieutenant Del Rey has to take her astronomical sightings from as high up as possible. We’ll go on ahead, as far as we can. If the peak turns out to be unclimbable we won’t try, just take what readings we can and come back.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to wait and see whether we can go on with you? We don’t know what kind of dangers there are in the forests here.”

  “It’s a matter of time,” Camilla said tautly. “The sooner we know where we are, the sooner we have a chance—” she didn’t finish.

  MacAran said, “We don’t know. The dangers might even be less for a very small party, even for a single person. It’s even odds, either way. I think we’re going to have to do it that way.”

  They arranged it like that, and since in two hours Zabal had shown no signs of recovering consciousness, MacAran and the other two men carried him, on an improvised stretcher, down to the tent. There was some protest about the splitting of the party, but no one seriously disputed it, and MacAran realized that he had already become their leader whose word was law. By the time the red sun stood straight overhead they had divided the packs and were ready to go, with only the small emergency shelter-tent, food for a few days, and Camilla’s instruments.

  They stood in the shelter tent, looking down at the semiconscious Zabal. He had begun to stir and moan but showed no other signs of returning consciousness. MacAran felt desperately uneasy about him, but all he could do was leave him in Ewen’s hands. After all, the important business here was the preliminary estimate of this planet—and Camilla’s observations as to where in the Galaxy they were!

  Something was nagging at his mind. Had he forgotten anything? Suddenly Heather Stuart pulled off her uniform coat and drew off the fut-knit jacket she was wearing under it. “Camilla, it’s warmer than yours,” she said in a low voice, “please wear it. It snows so here. And you’re going to be out with only the small shelter!”

  Camilla laughed, shaking her head. “It’s going to be cold here too.”

  “But—” Heather’s face was taut and drawn. She bit her lip and pleaded, “Please, Camilla. Call me a silly fool, if you like. Say I’m having a premonition, but please take it!”

  “You too?” MacLeod asked dryly. “Better take it, Lieutenant. I thought I was the only one having freaked-out second sight. I’ve never taken ESP very seriously, but who knows, on a strange planet it just might turn out to be a survival quality. Anyhow, what can you lose to take a few extra warm clothes?”

  MacAran realized that the nagging at his mind had been somehow concerned with weather. He said, “Take it, Camilla, if it’s extra warm. I’ll take Zabal’s mountain parka, too, it’s heavier than mine, and leave mine for him. And some extra sweaters if you have them. Don’t deprive yourselves, but it’s true that if it snows you will have more shelter than we do, and it sometimes gets pretty cold on the heights.” He was looking at Heather and MacLeod curiously; as a general rule he had no faith in what he had heard about ESP, but if two people in the party both felt it, and he too had some inkling of it—well, maybe it was just a matter of unconscious sensory clues, something they couldn’t add up consciously. Anyway, you didn’t need ESP to predict bad weather on the mountain heights of a strange planet with a freakishly bad climate! “Take all the clothes anyone can spare, and an extra blanket—we have extras,” he ordered, “and then let’s get going.”

  While Heather and Judy were packing, he made time for a word alone with Ewen. “Wait here for at least eight days for us,” he said, “and we’ll signal every night at sunset if we can. If there’s no word or signal by that time, get back to the ship. If we make it back, no sense disturbing everyone else with this—but if
something happens to us, you’re in charge.”

  Ewen felt reluctant to see him go. “What shall I do if Zabal dies?”

  “Bury him,” MacAran said harshly, “what else?” He turned away and motioned to Camilla. “Let’s go, Lieutenant.”

  They strode away from the clearing without looking back, MacAran setting a steady pace, not too fast, not too slow.

  As they climbed higher the land changed, the ground under foot becoming less overgrown, with more bare rocks and sparser trees. The slope of the foothills was not acute, but as they neared the crest of the slope where they had camped, MacAran called a halt to rest and swallow a mouthful of rations. From where they stood they could see the small orange square of the shelter-tent, only a flyspeck at this height, through the heavy trees.

  “How far have we come, MacAran?” the woman asked, putting back the fur-lined hood of her jacket.

  “I’ve no way of knowing. Five, six miles perhaps; about two thousand feet of altitude. Headache?”

  “Only a little,” the girl lied.

  “That’s the change in air pressure; you’ll get used to it presently,” he said. “Good thing we have a fairly gradual rise in land.”

  “It’s hard to realize that’s really where we slept last night—so far down,” she said a little shakily.

  “Over this ridge it will be out of sight. If you want to chicken out, this is your last chance. You could make it down in an hour, maybe two.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Are you frightened?”

  “Of course. I’m not a fool. But I won’t panic, if that’s what you mean.”

  MacAran rose to his feet, swallowing the last of his ration. “Let’s go, then. Watch your step—there are rocks above us.”

  But to his surprise she was sure-footed on the piled rocks near the peak, and he did not need to help her, or hunt for an easier pass. From the top of the hill they could see a long panorama beneath them, behind them; the valley where they had camped, with its long plain, the further valley where the starship lay—although even with his strong binoculars MacAran could only make out a tiny dark streak that might be the ship. Easier to see was the ragged clearing where they had cut trees for shelters. Passing the glasses to Camilla, he said, “Man’s first mark on a new world.”

  “And last, I hope,” she said. He wanted to ask her, put it up to her straight, could the ship be repaired? But that wasn’t the time for thinking about that. He said, “There are streams among the rocks, and Judy tested the water days ago. We can probably find all the water we need to refill our canteens, so don’t ration yourself too much.”

  “My throat feels terribly dry. Is it just the altitude?”

  “Probably. On Earth we couldn’t come much higher than this without oxygen, but this planet has a higher oxygen content.” MacAran took one last look at the orange tent below them; stowed the glasses and slung them over his shoulder. “Well, the next peak will be higher. Let’s get on, then.” She was looking at some small orange flowers that grew in the crannies of the rock. “Better not touch them. Who knows what might bite, here?”

  She turned around, a small orange flower in her fingers. “Too late now,” she said with wry grin. “If I’m going to drop dead when I pick a flower, better find it out now than later. I’m not so sure I want to go on living if it’s a planet where I can’t touch anything.” She added, more seriously, “We’ve got to take some risks, Rafe—and even then, something we never thought of might kill us. Seems to me that all we can do is take the obvious precautions—and then take our chances.”

  It was the first time since the crash that she had called him by his first name, and unwillingly he softened. He said, “You’re right of course; short of going around in space suits we haven’t any real protection, so there’s no point in being paranoid. If we were a First Landing Team we’d know what risks not to take, but as it is I guess all we can do is take our chances.” It was growing hot, and he stripped off his outer layer of clothing. “I wonder how much stock to put in Heather’s premonitions of bad weather?”

  They started down the other side of the ridge. Halfway down the slope, after two or three hours of searching for a path, they discovered a small crystal spring gushing from a split rock, and refilled their canteens; the water tasted sweet and pure, and at MacAran’s suggestion they followed the stream down; it would certainly take the shortest way.

  At dusk heavy clouds began to scud across the lowering sun. They were in a valley, with no chance to signal the ship or the other camp of their party. While they were setting up the tiny shelter-tent, and MacAran was making fire to heat their rations, a thin fine rain began falling; swearing, he moved the small fire under the flap of the tent, trying to shield it a little from the rain. He managed to get water heated, but not hot, before the gusting sleet put it out again, and he gave up and dumped the dried rations into the barely warm water. “Here. Not tasty but edible—and nourishing, I hope.”

  Camilla made a face when she tasted it, but to his relief said nothing. The sleet whipped around them and they crawled inside and drew the flap tight. Inside there was barely room enough for one of them to lie at full length while the other sat up—the emergency tents were really only meant for one. MacAran started to make some flippant remark about nice cozy quarters, looked at her drawn face and didn’t. He only said, as he wriggled out of his storm parka and pack, and started unrolling his sleeping bag, “I hope you don’t suffer from claustrophobia.”

  “I’ve been a spaceship officer since I was seventeen. How could I get along with claustrophobia?” In the dark he imagined her smile. “On the contrary.”

  Neither of them had much to say after that. Once she asked into the darkness, “I wonder how Marco is?” but MacAran had no answer for her, and there was no point in thinking how much better this trip would have been with Marco Zabal’s knowledge of the high Himalaya. He did ask, once, just before he dropped off to sleep, “Do you want to get up and try for some star-sights before dawn?”

  “No. I’ll wait for the peak, I guess, if we get that far.” Her breathing quieted into soft exhausted sighs and he knew she slept. He lay awake a little, wondering what lay ahead. Outside, the sleet lashed the branches of the trees and there was a rushing sound which might have been wind or some animal making a rush through the undergrowth. He slept lightly, alert for unexpected sounds. Once or twice Camilla cried out in her sleep and he woke, alert and listening. Had she a touch of altitude sickness? Oxygen content or no oxygen content, the peaks were pretty high and each successive one left their general altitude a little higher. Well, she’d get acclimated, or else she wouldn’t. Briefly, on the edge of sleep, MacAran reflected that it was the stuff of entertainment-media, a man alone with a beautiful woman on a strange planet full of dangers. He was conscious of wanting her—hell, he was human and male—but in their present circumstances nothing was further from his mind than sex. Maybe I’m just too civilized. In the very thought, exhausted by the day’s climbing, he fell asleep.

  The next three days were replays of that day, except that on the third night they reached a high pass at dusk and the night’s rain had not yet begun. Camilla set up her telescope and made a few observations. He could not forbear, as he set up the shelter-tent in the dark, to ask, “Any luck? Where are we, do you know?”

  “Not sure. I knew already that this sun is none of the charted ones, and the only constellations I can spot, from central co-ordinates, are all skewed to the left. I suspect we’re right out of the Spiral Arm of the Galaxy—note how few stars there are, compared even to Earth, let alone any centrally located colony planet! Oh, we’re a good long way from where we were supposed to be going!” Her voice sounded taut and drawn, and as he moved closer he saw in the darkness that there were tears on her cheeks.

  He felt a painful urge to comfort her. “Well, at least when we’re on our way again, we’ll have discovered a new habitable planet. Maybe you’ll even get part of the finder’s fee.”


  “But it’s so far—” she broke off. “Can we signal the ship?”

  “We can try. We’re at least eight thousand feet higher than they are; maybe we’re in a line-of-sight. Here, take the glasses, see if you can find any sign of a flash. But of course they could be behind some fold of the hills.”

  He put his arm around her, steadying the glasses. She did not draw away. She said, “Do you have the bearing for the ship?”

  He gave it to her; she moved the glasses slightly, compass in hand. “I see a light—no, I think it’s lightning. Oh, what difference does it make?” Impatiently she put the glasses aside. He could feel her trembling. “You like these wide open spaces, don’t you?”

  “Why, yes,” he said, slowly, “I’ve always loved the mountains. Don’t you?”

  In the darkness she shook her head. Above them the pale violet light of one of the four small moons gave a faint tremulous quality to the dimness. She said, faintly, “No. I’m afraid of them.”

  “Afraid?”

  “I’ve been either on a satellite or training ship since I was picked for space at fifteen. You—” her voice wavered, “you get kind of—agoraphobic.”

  “And you volunteered to come on this trip!” MacAran said, but she mistook his surprise and admiration for criticism. “Who else was there?” she said harshly, turned away and went into the tiny tent.

  Once again, after they had swallowed their food—hot tonight, since there was no rain to put out their fire—MacAran lay awake long after the girl slept. Usually at night there was only the sound of blowing rain and creaking, lashing branches; tonight the forest seemed alive with strange sounds and noises, as if, on the rare snowless night, all its unknown life came alive. Once there was a faraway howling that sounded like a tape he had heard, once, on Earth, of the extinct timber wolf; once an almost feline snarl, low and hoarse, and the terrified cry of some small animal, and then silence. And then, toward midnight, there was a high, eerie scream, a long wailing cry that seemed to freeze the very marrow of his bones. It sounded so uncannily like the scream Marco had given when attacked by the scorpion-ants that for a dreaming moment MacAran, shocked awake, started to leap to his feet; then as Camilla, roused by his movement, sat up in fright, it came again, and he realized nothing human could possibly have made it. It was a shrill, ululating cry that went on, higher and higher, into what seemed like ultra-sonics; he seemed to hear it long after it had died away.