Double Contact

by James White

  “Why don’t you go for a walk up to the hill?” Murchison said, more sharply that she had intended. “I’m safe enough here on the beach. No insects, no crabs, no fish, or amphibians in the water to crawl out and attack me. You might find something more interesting to mimic inland.”

  “No danger large enough to see,” said the smaller Murchison, “but we’re on an alien planet, remember?”

  Being reminded of the obvious had always irritated her, especially when, as now, she needed the reminder. Even so, it was very difficult to believe that this wonderful place was not on Earth. She didn’t reply.

  “So far we’ve seen only one species of animal,” said Danalta, “unless the others are hiding from us, and that one is boring to mimic. But I sense your annoyance. I’m sorry. Pathologist, is this body configuration not to your liking?”

  The half-sized Murchison, with the exception of its communications-and-translator pack, began to subside like melting wax into a pink, sluglike shape with a tiny mouth and a large, single eye. The real Murchison concentrated on looking out to sea.

  Apologetically, it went on. “If you would rather walk alone without distractions, I can take on an aquatic form and keep pace with you without holding conversation. Or if you would like to immerse yourself for a while, I can serve as a protective escort, should one be necessary, although there is no evidence of any threat here, from the land, sea, or air.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  That was what she had most wanted to do since the beginning of today’s walk, although, perversely, she didn’t want to appear too eager. As she continued walking, her peripheral vision showed her Danalta entering the water and spreading out into a flat, carpet shape resembling an Earthly stingray with the addition of a high, dorsal fin which had an eye at its tip to give both lateral stability and all-around visibility.

  She laughed suddenly and thought, The people I have to work with!

  Gradually her path curved until the waves were breaking over and cooling her feet, then her calves and around her knees. Her back was to the beach as she suddenly broke into a long, high-stepping, splashing run, dived in, and began to swim.

  The water was cold, pleasantly so, and so clear that if there had been anything on the sandy bottom larger than her thumbnail she would have seen it. After a few minutes of fast swimming, most of it underwater, she rolled onto her back and floated with only her face above the surface, comfortable in the embrace of an alien ocean which, on this world as well as on Earth, had been the mother of all life. She was looking up at the deep-blue sky and thinking that the casualties were well enough to profit from a therapeutic, closely supervised immersion, when she saw the birds.

  There were two of them, not quite overhead and circling, dipping and banking slowly to take advantage of rising air currents. They were so high, a few thousand feet at least, that they were almost hidden by the glare from the sun, and at that altitude they could scarcely be considered a threat. Nevertheless, feeling guilty rather than anxious over the way she had been enjoying herself, Murchison raised an arm to wave at Danalta, pointed up at the birds, and then towards the beach.

  It was time they returned to their patients

  * * *

  And even higher above the birds, in the orbiting Rhabwar, a similar thought was going through the mind of Prilicla regarding a different set of patients. There was very little that he could do for them until they had learned to trust not just their physician, himself, but the DBDGs and their portable equipment of which, for some reason, they were so afraid, because the specialized knowledge and experience of the Earth-humans were vital if the treatment that one of them so urgently needed was to have any hope of success.

  “In my cubicle I’ve been thinking as well as sleeping, friend Fletcher,” he said. “Our first problem here is one of communication and, more importantly, of reeducation, but without the use of the portable audio visual devices that are usual in first-contact situations. Any such equipment—especially, it seems, when it is carried by Earth-human DBDGs—is considered a threat. It also appears that suit ancillary equipment such as helmet lights, thrusters, and even our vision pickups which they may consider too low-powered to be dangerous, is allowable. That is why I want you to—”

  “We are agreed,” the captain broke in, “that they feel comfortable with you and are afraid of us. It must be that physically your smaller size, physical weakness, and obvious lack of natural weapons make you much less of a threat to them. Doctor, against my advice you insist on going back alone into that ship. Why not take the first-contact equipment with you?”

  “Because,” said Prilicla gently, “I’m not sure whether it is certain types of equipment, you DBDGs, or both that they are afraid of. So far, my close presence has been acceptable to them. Carrying the equipment with me might not be acceptable and I might destroy their feeling of trust in me. I don’t want to risk losing that.”

  The captain nodded. “We know you can detect their emotional radiation and to a lesser extent project your own feelings of friendship towards them. That is communication of a sort, but it isn’t the same as exchanging the words and concepts necessary for them to trust the rest of us as well. You have a problem, Doctor. Do you also have a solution?”

  “I may have,” said Prilicla. “We already know from our simple light signals that they have visual sensors on the undamaged area of their hull. The solution will involve my presence inside the control section, where I will be able to monitor their emotional responses, while you execute the first-contact visuals, highly magnified and edited to fit our situation, outside the ship. Is this technically feasible?”

  The captain was silent for a moment, radiating concern for his safety as well as the anticipation of overcoming a technical challenge; then it said, “So you want me to project tri-di images into the space between our ships. How big do they have to be?”

  “At least twice as large as the other ship, friend Fletcher,” he replied. “As yet we don’t know the degrees of resolution of their external visual equipment, so I want every detail of your display to be clearly visible to all the sensors on that side of their ship. Can do?”

  The captain nodded again and said, “Modifying the portable equipment to project externally will take time, Doctor. More than enough time for you to sleep and think again on the problem, and maybe find a solution that involves a lesser element of personal risk for yourself.”

  “Thank you, friend Fletcher”—ignoring the implied criticism—“I enjoy resting, even, and especially, when it isn’t strictly necessary and other people are doing the real work. But first I must discuss with you the exact content and presentation of the projection we will use, and, second, I need to pick your brain.”

  The captain radiated a silent mixture of curiosity and caution, as if it were expecting another surprise. It wasn’t disappointed.

  “In simple, nontechnical terms,” he went on, “I would like guidance on how and what to do in the damaged control section, as if you yourself were doing it. Naturally this will mean us studying the visual records together.”

  “It took many years of training in other-species technology to fill the brain you wish to pick, Doctor,” said the captain, sarcasm thick in its voice and its emotional radiation. “Is that all?”

  “Not quite,” said Prilicla. “I’ll have to remember to check on the condition of my less urgent, Earth-human patients. But that will not involve extra work for you.”

  By the time the captain and himself had completed their discussion, to the satisfaction of neither of them, Prilicla got very little additional rest. Before releasing his consciousness for sleep he called Murchison. The pathologist reported seeing two high-flying birds and, following its brief swim with Danalta, that the sea was safe for short-term Earth-human occupancy. It said that as Naydrad hated getting its fur wet and Danalta would be posted to seaward as a probably unnecessary guard, it suggested that their patients, although not yet ambulatory, would benefit both physically and ps
ychologically from a brief daily immersion in the sea followed by a lengthier exposure to what was for Earth-human DBDGs fresh air and sunshine. Understanding as he did from long experience of working among them the emotional attraction that existed between Earth-human males and females, he knew that the casualties would derive much pleasure from being bathed by an entity of the opposite sex, and so would his assistant. He acquiesced.

  He was dreaming of sunshine and sand and the soft crashing of the high, low-gravity waves of his native Cinruss when the idyllic scene was dissolved by the insistent sound of his communicator and the voice of the captain.

  “Doctor Prilicla,” said the captain. “Wake up, it’s showtime.”

  CHAPTER 17

  This time Prilicla made the trip alone, with the pinnace being guided by Haslam to the entry point on remote control. If the robot crew member or, through its sensors, its superior noticed the miniature, eye-level repeater screen that had been added to the interior of Prilicla’s helmet, it was not considered a threat because nothing was done to impede his trip back to the control section. It wasn’t absolutely necessary that he have a picture of what would shortly be going on outside since Fletcher could have told him about it via his communicator, but words took time and good pictures were always faster, clearer, and less susceptible to misinterpretation.

  When he was deep inside the control section he drifted as close as possible to the inner door that would give access to the least injured of the ship’s two organic survivors, a position where he could monitor the other’s emotional responses with optimum accuracy. The robot drifted passively less than a meter away. He knew that the tiny metal digits encircling its body were capable of ripping open his space suit in a matter of seconds, but he also knew—or rather he felt fairly sure—that it would remain passive unless he tried to open the inner door.

  “Ready when you are, friend Fletcher,” he said.

  A few seconds later an immediate change in the alien’s emotional radiation as well as the image on his helmet screen told him that, in the space between Rhabwar and the distressed alien ship, the show had begun.

  “It sees the external image,” Prilicla reported excitedly. “There are feelings of awareness, curiosity, and puzzlement.”

  The captain didn’t reply but one of the other officers laughed softly and said in a voice not meant to be overheard, “I would feel puzzled, too, if somebody projected the image of a star field onto another star field.”

  The projected star field remained unaltered for a few seconds, then slowly it began to shrink and condense so that more and more stars moved in from the edges of the three-dimensional projection until it took on the glittering, unmistakable, spiral shape of the Galaxy itself.

  The survivor’s concentration was now total.

  Gradually the fine detail of the image coarsened, the wisps and streamers of interstellar gas were erased, and the number of stars was reduced to a few hundred which became large enough to have been counted individually. One of them was highlighted inside a circle of bright green and the circle increased rapidly in size until a stylized representation of the star and its system of planets filled the projection volume for a few seconds before the image changed again.

  The viewpoint zoomed in on that solar system’s inhabited planet, showing the swirling, tattered cloud formations that could not quite hide the continental outlines. As it swooped closer and lower it slowed until the viewpoint was giving panoramic views of the planetary surface, seascapes, ice fields, mountains, tropical greenery, and great, sprawling cities with their interconnecting road systems. Then the image was reduced suddenly in size and moved to one side so that it filled only half of the projection.

  The other half displayed an equally detailed representation of the world’s dominant intelligent life-form.

  It was the picture of an enormous, incredibly fragile flying insect with a tubular, exoskeletal body that supported six sucker-tipped, pencil-thin legs, four even more delicately fashioned and precise manipulators, and two sets of wide, iridescent, and almost transparent wings. The head was a convoluted eggshell so finely structured that the sensory organs, particularly the two large, glowing eyes projecting from it, seemed ready to fall off at the first sudden movement. The head, manipulators—some of them holding tools—and legs were bent or rotated to demonstrate their limits of movement while the wings wafted slowly up and down as they broke up and reflected iridescent highlights like mobile rainbows. It was the picture of a Cinrusskin, one of the race generally held to be the most beautiful and delicate life-forms known to the explored reaches of the galaxy.

  Then the limb motions ceased, the wings folded away, and the body was suddenly encased in a space suit identical to the one Prilicla wore.

  “As well as the background discomfort, I detect feelings of surprise and growing curiosity,” Prilicla reported. “Go to the next stage.”

  They had shown a picture of Prilicla’s race first because he had already been seen by the alien casualty and seemed to be trusted by it. But now its education and, hopefully, its ability to trust had to be widened.

  Next was shown the solar system, planet, meteorology, rural and city environments of Kelgia, accompanied by a picture of a single member of its dominant species. The undulating, multipedal, caterpillarlike body with its silver, continually mobile fur, the narrow cone of a head, and the tiny forward manipulators, aroused no feelings of antipathy in the casualty, nor did the similar material on the crablike Melfan or the six-legged, elephantine Tralthan life-forms that followed it. But when the Hudlar planet and species were shown, there was a subtle change.

  Hudla was a heavy-gravity world pulling four Earth Gs whose nearly opaque atmosphere resembled a thick, dense soup that was rich in the suspended animal and vegetable nutrients on which the Hudlars lived. It was a world of constant storms that had forced its natives to build underground. Only a Hudlar could love it, Prilicla thought, and then, not very much.

  He said, “Now there are feelings suggestive of fear and familiarity. It is as if the casualty is recognizing a habitual enemy. To most people, Melfans and Tralthans are visually more horrendous than the smooth-bodied Hudlars, so it may well be that it is the planet Hudla itself rather that its native life-forms that is causing this reaction.”

  “Is this a guess, Doctor,” said the captain, “or one of your feelings?”

  “A strong feeling,” he replied.

  “I see,” said the other. It cleared its throat and added, “If your casualty considers Hudla as something like home, I can feel a certain sympathy for it in spite of what it did to Terragar. Shall I proceed?”

  “Please,” said Prilicla, and the lesson continued.

  Showing the planets and living environments of the sixty-seven intelligent species that comprised the Galactic Federation had never been their intention because the process would have been unnecessarily long and this was, after all, a primary lesson. The widely different types like the storklike, tripedal Nallajims; the multicolored, animated Gogleskan haystacks; the slimy, chlorine-breathing Illensans; and the radiation-eating Telfi, among others, were included, but so also were the DBDG classifications from Earth, Nidia, and Orligia. Those three were there deliberately because the prime purpose of the lesson was to instill in the alien casualty a feeling of trust for their Earth-human rescuers.

  “It isn’t working,” said Prilicla, disappointed. “Every time you showed a DBDG, regardless of its size or whether it was a large, hairy Orligian, an Earth-human, or a half-sized, red-furred Nidian, the reaction was the same—one of intense fear and hatred. It will be extremely difficult to make these people trust you.”

  “What on Earth,” said the captain, “could we ever have done to make them feel that way?”

  “It was not done on Earth, friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla. “But the show isn’t over yet. Please continue.”

  The format changed again. Instead of showing individual planets and subjects, two- and three-member groups comprising differ
ent species were shown meeting and talking, sometimes with their children present, or working together on various technical projects. In some of them they were encased in space suits while they rescued other-species casualties from damaged ships. The pictures’ application to the present situation, he hoped, was plain. Then the scene changed again to show all of the subjects, forming the rim of wheel and shown in scale, from the diminutive Nallajims and Cinrusskins, up to the massive Tralthans and Hudlars of more than ten times that body-weight. At the hub of the circle was shown a tiny, glittering representation of the galaxy, from which radiated misty spokes joining it to the individual species on the rim. Then the individual species were pictured again, this time with all of them displayed as being the same size, in order, it was again hoped, to illustrate equality of importance.

  Several seconds passed. At this extreme range Prilicla could not feel, but he could imagine, the captain’s anxiety as it spoke.

  “Well, Doctor,” it said urgently, “was there a response?”

  “There was, friend Fletcher,” he replied, “but I’m still trying for an exact analysis of the emotional radiation. In conjunction with the background feelings of anxiety, which may be caused by worry over its companion who it can no longer contact, there are strong feelings of excitement, wonder, and, I feel sure, comprehension. I’d say that it understood our lesson.”

  When he didn’t go on, the captain broke the silence. It said, “I’ve the feeling that you’re going to say ‘but.’”

  “But,” Prilicla went on obligingly, “every time you showed a DBDG, the casualty also radiated deep suspicion and distrust. These feelings are better than the earlier ones of intense fear and blind hatred, but only fractionally. I feel certain that the casualty still doesn’t want you DBDGs anywhere near it.”

  For the first time in Prilicla’s long experience on ambulance-ship operations, the captain used words that his translator had not been programmed to accept, and went on. “Then what the hell am I expected to do to change that?”