by Sam Smith
Chapter Nine
Sergeant Alger Deaver and Constable Drin Ligure lifted off from the same farm that Belid Keal had left three days previously. Alger held the control column. Drin manned the guns.
“I’ll take her up slowly,” Alger once again told Drin, “Soon as we’re above thirteen kilometres test the guns.”
The square green orchards around the white farm became smaller, came to resemble a grid, the irregular shoreline of the continent the limit of the ruffled blue ocean’s corrosion. Having passed through some thin white clouds the planet took on its spherical aspect. On the surface they had appeared, an optical illusion, to be in a bowl.
“Test ‘em now,” Alger said.
As instructed in gunnery school Drin double-checked the radar screens to ensure that no ships nor satellites were within range.
“Firing forward,” he said, depressed the grips. Two white beams shot out ahead of them.
“Firing laterals,” he glanced first to one side, flicked out the grips; checked the other side of the ship, flicked again. He went through the same procedure for testing the upper and lower guns.
“Can you put us horizontal to the surface?” Drin asked Alger. “Don’t want to add to their troubles down there.”
The ship levelled out. Drin again checked the radar.
“Firing aft,” he twisted the grips toward himself, studied his rear-view screens. Two shafts of light seared through their vapour trail.
“Guns all functioning,” Drin tonelessly reported. “Set for effective range 4 kilometres.”
“This is what we’re going to do,” Alger pulled the ship back up until it was pointing out to space. “We’ll keep the sun behind us and go out at maximum speed. Don’t bother about accuracy, just give ‘em an all round blast. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Here we go then.”
Both men tensed themselves for the acceleration. Alger depressed the throttle, gripped the control column. Drin fought forward to keep himself over the gun grips. They were in the black of space and still accelerating. Drin glanced from right to left, right to left. And still they accelerated. Their momentum was stabilising now. Drin looked all about him. Only the unwinking stars.
“See anything?” Alger asked him.
“No.”
“We’re way beyond their moon.”
From both his tone and the expression on his face Drin saw that Alger had expected to encounter opposition to their departure.
“You stay on the guns,” he told Drin. “I’ll lay in a course for home. Stay ready for action.”
Alger gave the ship its destination, told it maximum speed. The stars shifted before them, steadied. Alger, his hands still on the control column, scrutinised every screen.
“Nothing,” he said disgustedly. He nodded to the console, “When we reach maximum velocity stand down.”
They continued on the alert for another six minutes.
“That’s it,” Alger grunted. “Nothing there.”
Drin let out his breath, released the grips. Flopping back in his seat he wiped his palms on the padding. Sitting back up he flexed his shoulders,
“What do you suppose happened to the other ships?”
“Nothing.” Alger abruptly stood, with vehemence said, “They’ve all of ‘em done a bunk.”
“But she saw two ships destroyed.”
“You believe a girl who talks to animals?”
Throughout the interview Belid Keal had cradled a small furry creature, had whispered to it; and the animal had appeared to understand her words. Come the end of the interview, when she had told of the ships exploding, she had wept into the animal’s fur. The animal had licked the tears from her face. Drin Ligure had never seen a stranger sight.
“Why would she lie?” he asked Alger.
“You get to sense this sort of thing,” Alger called on the mystique of undefined experience to give weight to his opinion. He was standing behind Drin’s seat, swinging his arms, working the tension out of himself.
“But what reason can she have for lying?” Drin said.
“Who knows. Maybe she didn’t want to go, cooked up that story so she could stay home.”
Drin thought on that,
“Where are their ships then?”
“You’ll see. They’ll turn up sooner or later all over the place. These planet kids go mad when they get out here. Hardly surprising, after all that light and dirt.”
Drin brushed some of the dust from his tunic. He still did not entirely disbelieve Belid Keal’s testimony. The memory image of that creature licking the tears from her face both repelled and fascinated him. The creature itself had seemed discomfited by her tears. And, in Drin’s own experience, people who told lies, to camouflage their falsehoods, tried to make themselves appear reasonable and normal.
“What about the freighters?” he asked Alger, “They come to the planet, load their cargoes, and they go. But do they arrive?”
“Soon find out when we get back.” Alger was tired of the topic, “My betting is they do.”
“Say they were attacked though,” Drin persisted. “Why weren’t we attacked?”
“She saw no guns.” Alger wheezed as he did some kneebends, “Just the ships exploding. That make sense to you?”
Alger was talking himself into his new opinion. Drin, though, had seen Alger’s puzzlement when they hadn’t been attacked. His subsequent anger had been at himself for having believed what they had been told on Happiness.
“None of them,” Alger gasped, “were following the courses they’d been given. Could’ve been a collision she saw. That would support her claim that she saw no gun flashes.”
“What if whoever attacked them saw us testing our guns?” Drin turned in his seat, “Not one of those ships was armed. Maybe they thought better of attacking us?”
“Have a coffee Drin. Don’t take it so seriously. Always a rational explanation. Probably some natural cause. Say their moon exploded. That explosion would interfere with their transmissions. And the dirt diggers just got hysterical. You get to see a lot of hysteria in this job. You should have been told that at college.” Breathing heavily he busied himself with cups, “You’ll see.”
Drin checked the console before rising to join Alger in the galley.
“Yes,” he said. “But where’s their moon gone? We saw no debris.”
“Stop worrying Drin.” Alger handed him the coffee, “Just tell me this — who’d want to steal a moon? Motive?”
“I don’t know,” Drin said. “But where is it?”
Alger made no reply to that. When Drin next spoke it was to ask Alger about overtime rates; and then, scratching himself, to announce that he was going to take a shower and change his tunic.
Chapter Ten
Munred’s was a tight schedule. He had allowed himself an absolute maximum of 6 hours on the planet. Two days back to XE2, two hours to grab a change of clothes, catch up on any news, and four days to travel to the interview, arriving with three hours to spare.
The safe return of the police ship, with its communication update, had cancelled the ‘Urgent Happiness.’ His own return, even if radio contact remained blocked, would delay the resurgence of a ‘Please Investigate Happiness’ for a further seven days.
Despite the Happiness Senate’s threat to appeal to higher authorities if nothing was done, had it not been for his interview with Tulla being on record, Munred would have ignored the Senate’s impertinent demand to see him in person, would have delegated the trip to the Substation Liaison Director. Having things on record, Munred reminded himself, was a two-edged sword. He consoled himself that, if he was allowed to present it in light of his own choosing, his going in person might impress the interview board.
All the records on Happiness that the Substation Liaison Director had been able to find Munred had brought with him. Now, after a day and a half’s solitary swotting in the ship, Munred believed that he knew everything there was to know about Happiness — except
what exactly had happened to its moon.
The planet itself was 2.3 billion years old, the solar system 4.2 billion years old. Planet was mined out 453 years ago, moon 427; first agricultural settlements 387 years ago. Various perishable fruits in tropics and temperate zones. Timber in temperate zones only. Ice-capped land masses at both poles. Greatest population 4.5 million 126 years ago, been declining ever since.
As Munred’s deceleration tailed off, and he slowed into orbit around Happiness, he once more checked through the police report. Believing them, believing Tulla, and it would anyway take time, he made no attempt to look for the moon.
At his standard waiting orbital height he was receiving no ground transmissions. Taking the control column he eased the ship down through the ionosphere. As soon as he was through the ship reported that it was receiving transmissions. A natural if freak phenomena, Munred decided, gave the co-ordinates for the Spokesman’s farm in the North, and released the control column.
All was as the police had said. He recorded a memo to the effect that Police Sergeant Alger Deaver and Police Constable Drin Ligure were to be commended for their efficiency.
The Spokesman’s farm was tinted by the light of early evening. From below the horizon the sun was glowing redly, its refracted and diffused light painting the cornfields pink. The Spokesman was waiting patiently alone on the apron.
As soon as Munred reached the bottom of the ramp the Spokesman gripped his hand and ushered him towards his office. Munred was aware of birdsong and of a woman and several children watching him from the open windows of the farmhouse.
The office was a low outbuilding. Along one side was all the usual office equipment. In the middle of the room was a long table stacked high with papers. The Spokesman waved Munred to a seat at one end of the table, turned to a tray on the console to offer him a drink.
“If we could get to business,” Munred declined the hospitality.
“Of course,” the Spokesman said, moved aside some papers and sat opposite Munred. Both men then made a show of recording the interview.
“Your moon....” Munred said.
“....has disappeared,” the Spokesman curtly finished for him. “And moons don’t just disappear. What has happened to it?”
Munred took note of his hostile manner, composed himself, “From all the evidence I have seen so far I believe, as do the police...”
“They got back safely then?”
“Naturally. That’s why I’m here.”
“I’m pleased. Go on.”
“From all the evidence, so far gathered, I believe that your moon has disintegrated and that the debris from it is adversely affecting your ionosphere, causing transmissions to and from this planet to be blocked.”
“Feasible. But wouldn’t someone on this planet have seen our moon explode?”
“I said disintegrate. If it simply fell apart it may not have been noticeable from down here.”
“Unlikely, but possible. Now explain two of our ships being shot down and four of them being missing. I take it that those four ships have not arrived at XE2?”
“Not when I left. The police believe, as I do, that they have probably gone elsewhere.”
“Possible, but unlikely. What of the two that were shot down?”
“The police encountered no resistance.”
“They were seen firing their guns.”
“Testing them in light of what they were told here. A simple matter of prudence. Nothing, however, attempted to stop them.”
“Two of our ships were destroyed.”
“Ah yes... Miss Keal. I’m afraid I have reached the conclusion that her testimony is dubious.”
“I believe her.”
“Yes... Unfortunately, the police are of the same mind as me. You see I checked Miss Keal’s medical records. While she was at school on XE2 she was under psychiatric care.”
“She was homesick.”
“Quite. Though the records do say acute depression. And while I do not wish to denigrate or defame Miss Keal, in fact I can fully sympathise with her not wanting to leave home, but I can also imagine the routes whereby she came to invent such a story in order that she might remain at home. You must admit that her story does contain several inconsistencies, if, as she claims, those two ships were attacked by other ships.”
The Spokesman refused to be rattled by Munred’s deliberately superior tone.
“If they were not destroyed,” he said, “then where are those two ships and the other three that are missing? One of the five, at least, must have reached XE2.”
“According to our records,” Munred glanced to his open case, “all those who have gone missing were between seventeen and twenty two years of age. Now, as you are well aware, Sir, the majority of children who are born on planets ultimately end up in Space.”
“I am fully cognisant with the statistics Director. However your records appear to be incorrect. One of those missing was thirty seven years old. He left here a wife and three young children. His eldest son is at school on XE2. Where else would he have gone?”
“I was coming to him,” Munred said unperturbed. “Men have been known to leave their families before. Without warning. Given the least opportunity. I am sure that, sooner or later, they will all turn up. Intact.”
“I personally had to press that man into going.”
“I must emphasise, Sir, that nothing interfered with my journey here.”
“Nor has anything prevented several freighters coming here. I take it you’ve checked for them at their next port of call?”
“I have. But their failure to arrive may mean no more than that they had their itineraries altered. Happens all the time.”
“You are stretching coincidence pretty far to suppose that every ship that has left here in the last five weeks has had a change of mind about its destination.”
“Only if you read something sinister into it.”
“I am reading nothing whatsoever into it. The facts are speaking their own disquiet.”
Munred realised that this fat farmer was getting the better of him. He had thought to swamp him with facts, to overawe him with his authority. This farmer, though, simply saw him as but a part of the bureaucratic machinery and was consequently, for the record, addressing himself over Munred’s head to his superiors. Four of those superiors were going to interview Munred in six days time.
Munred, belatedly, tried to retake charge of the interview, brought up the subject of farm boundaries, that being a persistent grumble of most farmers.
No planet is allowed to be farmed exhaustively. Space stipulates that half the land area of each colonised planet, that is every planet with no indigenous intelligence, be left untouched to allow that planet’s natural evolution, in the belief and hope that it might throw up a heretofore unknown species of intelligence which might be, if not of direct use to Space, then at least add to the diversity of life in Space.
Having to live alongside vast tracts of uncultivated and potentially productive land is, however, irksome to many farmers, especially as the protected areas are often fertile river valleys, those being the places historically most likely to nurture a new intelligence. The aggrieved farmers generally believe that to be a forlorn hope, and often voice the suspicion that it is just Space putting yet another obstacle in the way of their making planetary life a success.
Those farmers, in this instance, are wrong. It is a genuine, if extremely farsighted, policy. Say, for instance, in one of those apparently useless tracts of wilderness a telepathic intelligence were to evolve. Such an intelligence would solve our communication difficulties at a stroke. Because telepathy, supposedly, is instant. No more confusing time factors to be taken into consideration.
Although Happiness came under his jurisdiction Munred passed on all communications concerning agriculture to the City-based Director of Planets.
“I will naturally forward your requests,” he told the Spokesman, “Indeed I have already done so. But first we will have t
o wait and see what the meteorological changes are here. If any. No doubt, in due time, the Department will send down a team to compute the changes. When the climate has stabilised the boundaries will be redrawn. Until then I suggest that you continue farming within your present boundaries.”
The Spokesman was not to be side-tracked.
“I realise that,” he said, and by his reasonable agreement stole Munred’s lead over him.
Before Munred could digress further the Spokesman returned to the disappearance of their ships and of their moon, speculated on the cause of that disappearance,
“Some Members of the Senate believe that we are the victims of Space skulduggery.”
“I assure you that these events, so far as I am concerned, have not been inspired by any official policy.”
“What about unofficial?”
“Unofficial?”
“Mining consortiums have been known to ride roughshod over many a law. When large profits are concerned people do not always behave reasonably.”
“You think that could have caused your moon to disappear? That it has been stolen by a mining consortium?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“But your moon was exhaustively mined over four hundred years ago. It has no intrinsic mineral value.”
Having scored that point Munred now felt free to patronise the farmer, “What other form of Space skulduggery did your Members have in mind?”
“Nothing specific. Mining was the most obvious. But they distrust Space. Have been the victims of too many ill-considered policies in the past. Ideas dreamt up in some office in Space by someone who’s never been to a planet.”
“I assure you there’s been no change of policy.”
“That may be so. But like one Member said, ‘For all we know someone Out There could have started a fashion for collecting moons. Our moon could have been sold.”‘
“Collecting moons?” Munred smiled, “Sold?”
With the more improbable the guesses as to what may have happened to the moon, with the floating of a conspiracy theory — one which implicated the police — Munred began to get the upper hand. His became the voice of reason: the Spokesman became the mouthpiece of planetary prejudice. When repeating the preposterous suggestion of one Senate Member the Spokesman realised how ridiculous he must sound.