by Ben Bova
“Then maybe he’s a visitor too,” Lee countered.
“Whatever it is,” Rassmussen said, “it won’t do for us to go rushing in like berserkers. Suppose there’s a civilization down there that’s so advanced we simply don’t recognize it as such?”
Before Charnovsky could reply, the captain went on, “We have plenty of time. We will get more data about surface conditions from the robot landers and do a good deal more studying and thinking about the entire problem. Then, if conditions warrant it, we can land.”
“But we don’t have time!” Lee snapped. Surprised at his own vehemence, he continued, “Five years is a grain of sand compared to the job ahead of us. We have to investigate a completely alien culture and determine what its attitude is toward us. Just learning the language might take five years all by itself.”
Lehman smiled easily and said, “Sid, suppose you’re totally wrong about this, and whoever’s down there is simply a harmless savage. What would be the shock to his culture if we suddenly drop in on him?”
“What’ll be the shock to our culture if I’m right?”
Rassmussen drained his mug and banged it down on the chess table. “This is getting us nowhere. We haven’t enough evidence to decide on an intelligent course of action. Personally, I’m in no hurry to go blundering into a nest of unknowns. Not when we can learn safely from orbit. As long as the beer holds out, we go slow.”
Lee pushed his chair back and stood up. “We won’t learn a damned thing from orbit. Not anything that counts. We’ve got to go down there and study them close up. And the sooner the better.”
He turned and walked out of the rec room. Rassmussen’s spent half his life hauling scientists out to Titan and he can’t understand why we have to make the most of our time here, he raged to himself.
Halfway down the passageway to his quarters, he heard footsteps padding behind him. He knew who it would be. Turning, he saw Lehman coming toward him.
“Sacking in?” the psychiatrist asked.
“Aren’t you sleepy?”
“Completely bushed, now that you mention it.”
“But you want to talk to me,” Lee said.
Lehman shrugged. “No hurry....”
With a shrug of his own, Lee resumed walking to his room. “Come on, I’m too worked up to sleep, anyway.”
All the cubicles were more or less the same; a bunk, a desk, a tape reader, a sanitary closet. Lee took the webbed desk chair and let Lehman plop on the sighing air mattress of the bunk.
“Do you really believe this hostile alien theory? Or are you just—”
Lee slouched down in his chair and interrupted, “Let’s not fool around, Rich. You’re supposed to be keeping an eye on me and I’ve got you worried.”
“It’s my job to worry about everybody.”
“I take my pills every day... to keep the paranoia away.”
“That wasn’t the diagnosis of your case, as you’re perfectly well aware.”
“So they called it something else. What’re you after, Rich? Want to test my reflexes while I’m sleepy and my guard’s down?”
Lehman smiled, professionally. “Look, Sid. You had a breakdown. You got over it. That’s finished.”
Nodding grimly, Lee added, “Except that I think there might be aliens down there plotting against me.”
“That could be nothing more than a subconscious attempt to increase the importance of the archaeology department,” Lehman countered.
“Horseshit,” Lee said. “I came out here expecting something like this. I was looking for it. Why do you think I fought my way into the star flight program? It wasn’t easy, after the breakdown. I had to push ahead of a lot of former friends.”
“And leave your wife.”
Sylvia’s face twisted almost out of recognition, screaming through her tears, “You’re just a cold sonofabitch! You don’t care about me or anybody else! You don’t give a damn about anybody but yourself!”
“The marriage was dead long before the star flights came up,” Lee said. “This was just a good excuse to bury it. She’s getting all my accumulated dividends. She’ll spend her old age in comfort while we’re sleeping our way back home.”
“But why?” Lehman said. “Why should you give up everything—friends, family, wife, position—to get out here?”
Lee knew the answer, hesitated about putting it into words, then realized that Lehman knew it too. “Because I had to face it. I had to do what I could to find out about those buildings on Titan.”
“And that’s why you want to rush down there and contact whoever it is we saw?”
“Right.” Lee almost wanted to laugh. “I’m hoping they can tell me if I’m crazy or not.”
It was three months before they landed.
Rassmussen was thorough, patient, and stubborn. Unmanned landers sampled and tested surface conditions. Observation satellites were strung out in a network of orbits, crisscrossing the planet at the lowest possible altitude—except for one that hung in synchronous orbit over the spot where the humanoids had first been found.
That was the only place where any animal life was seen, along the shoreline for a grand distance of perhaps five kilometers. The humanoids, nothing else. And nowhere else on the planet.
Lee argued and swore and stormed at the delay. Rassmussen stayed firm. Only when the captain was satisfied that nothing more could be learned from orbit did he agree to land his ship. And still he sent clear word back toward Earth that he might be landing in a trap.
The great ship settled slowly, almost delicately, on a hot tongue of fusion plasma and touched down on the western edge of a desert some two hundred kilometers from the humanoid site. A range of rugged-looking hills separated them. The staff and crew celebrated that night. The next morning, Lee, Charnovsky, Hatfield, Doris McNertny, Alicia Monteverdi, and Marlene moved into the ship’s “Sirius globe.” They were to be the expedition’s “outsiders,” the specialists who would eventually live in the planetary environment. They represented archaeology, geology, biochemistry, biology, ecology, and atmospheric physics, with backup specialties in chemistry, paleontology, anthropology, and meteorology.
The Sirius globe held their laboratories, workrooms, equipment, and living quarters. They were quarantined from the rest of the ship’s staff and crew, the “insiders,” until the captain agreed that the surface conditions on the planet would be no threat to the rest of the expedition members. That’ll take two years, minimum, Lee knew.
Gradually, the “outsiders” began to expose themselves to the local environment. They began to breathe the air, acquire the microbes. Pascual and Tanaka made them sit in the medical examination booths twice each day, and even checked them personally every other day. The two M.D.’s wore disposable biosuits and worried expressions when they entered the Sirius globe. The medical computers compiled miles of data tapes on each of the six “outsiders,” but still Pascual’s normally pleasant face acquired a perpetual frown of anxiety.
“I just don’t like the idea of this damned armor,” Lee grumbled.
He was already encased up to his neck in a gleaming white powersuit, the type that crew members wore when working outside the ship in vacuum. Aaron Hatfield and Marlene were helping to check out all the seams and connections. A few feet away, in the cramped “locker room,” Alicia Monteverdi looked as though she were being swallowed by an oversized automaton. Charnovsky and Doris were checking her suit.
“It’s for your own protection,” Marlene told Lee in a throaty whisper as she applied a test meter to the radio panel on his suit’s chest. “You and Alicia won the toss for the first trip outside, but this is the price you must pay. Now be a good boy and don’t complain.”
Lee had to grin. “Ja, Fraulein Schulmeisterein.”
She looked at him with a rueful smile. “Thank God you never had to carry on a conversation in German.”
Finally Lee and Alicia clumped through the double hatch into the airlock. It took another fifteen minutes for t
hem to perform the final checkout, but at last they were ready. The outer hatch slid back and they started down the long ladder to the planet’s surface. The armored suits were equipped with muscle-amplifying power systems, so that even a girl as tiny as Alicia could handle their bulk easily.
Lee went down the ladder first and set foot on the ground. It was bare and dusty, the sky a reddish haze. The grand adventure, he thought. All the expected big moments in life are flops. A hot breeze hummed in his earphones. It was early morning, Sirius hadn’t cleared the barren horizon yet, although the sky was fully bright. Despite the suit’s air conditioning, Lee felt the heat.
He reached up a hand as Alicia climbed warily down the last few steps of the ladder. The plastic rungs gave under the suit’s weight, then slowly straightened themselves when the burden was removed.
“Well,” he said, looking at her wide-eyed face through the transparent helmet of her suit, “what do you think of it?”
“It’s hardly paradise, is it?”
“Looks like it’s leaning the other way,” Lee said.
They explored. Lee and Alicia that first day, then the other “outsiders,” shuffling ponderously inside their armor. Lee chafed against the restriction of the powersuits, but Rassmussen insisted and would brook no argument. They went timidly at first, never out of sight of the ship. Charnovsky chipped samples from rock outcroppings, while the others took air and soil samples, dug for water, searched for life.
“The perfect landing site,” Doris complained after a hot, tedious day. “There’s no form of life bigger than a yeast mold within a hundred kilometers of here.”
It was a hot world, a dry world, a brick-dust world where the sky was always red. Sirius was a blowtorch searing down on them, too bright to look at even through the polarized visors of their suits. At night there was no moon to see, but the Pup bathed this world in a deathly bluish glow far brighter yet colder than moonlight. The night sky was never truly dark, and only a few strong stars could be seen from the ground.
Through it all, the robot satellites relayed more pictures of the humanoids along the seacoast. They appeared almost every day, usually only briefly. Sometimes there were a few of them, sometimes only one, once there were nearly a dozen. The highest resolution photos showed them to be human in size and build. But what their faces looked like, what they wore, what they were doing—all escaped the drone cameras.
The robot landers, spotted in a dozen scattered locations within a thousand kilometers of the ship, faithfully recorded and transmitted everything they were programmed to look for. They sent pictures and chemical analyses of plant life and insects. But no higher animals.
Alicia’s dark eyes looked perpetually puzzled, Lee saw. “It makes no sense,” she would say. “There’s nothing on this planet more advanced than insects... yet there are men. It’s as though humans suddenly sprang up in the Silurian period on Earth. They can’t be here. I wish we could examine the life in the seas... perhaps that would tell us more.”
“You mean those humanoids didn’t originate on this planet,” Lee said to her.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t see how they could have...”
Gradually they pushed their explorations farther afield, beyond the ship’s limited horizon. In the motorized powersuits a man could cover more than a hundred kilometers a day, if he pushed it. Lee always headed toward the grizzled hills that separated them from the seacoast. He helped others to dig, to collect samples, but he always pointed them toward the sea.
“The satellite pictures show some decent greenery on the seaward side of the hills,” he told Doris. “That’s where we should go.”
Rassmussen wouldn’t move the ship. He wanted his base of operations, his link homeward, at least a hundred kilometers from the nearest possible threat. But finally he relaxed enough to allow the scientists to go out overnight and take a look at the hills.
And maybe the coast, Lee added silently to the captain’s orders.
Rassmussen decided to let them use one of the ship’s two air-cushion vehicles. He assigned Jerry Grote, the chief engineer, and Chien Shu Li, electronics specialist, to handle the skimmer and take command of the trip. They would live in biosuits and remain inside the skimmer at all times. Lee, Marlene, Doris, and Charnovsky made the trip. Grote did the driving and navigating; Chien handled communications and the computer.
It took a full day’s drive to get to the hills. Grote, a lanky, lantern-jawed New Zealander, decided to camp at the base of the hills as night came on.
“I thought you’d be a born mountaineer,” Lee poked at him.
Grote leaned back in his padded driver’s seat and planted a large slippered foot on the skimmer’s control panel.
“I could climb those wrinkles out there in my sleep,” he said pleasantly. “But we’ve got to be careful of this shiny vehicle, don’t we?”
From the driver’s compartment, Lee could see Marlene pushing forward toward them, squeezing between the racks of electronics gear that separated the forward compartment from the living and working quarters.
Even in the drab coveralls, she showed a nice profile.
“I’d like to go outside,” she said to Grote. “We’ve been sitting all day like tourists in a shuttle.”
Grote nodded. “Got to wear a hard suit, though.”
“But...”
“Orders.”
She glanced at Lee, then shrugged. “All right.”
“I’ll come with you,” Lee said.
Squirming into the armored suits in the aft hatchway was exasperating, but at last they were ready and Lee opened the hatch. They stepped across the tail fender of the skimmer and jumped to the dusty ground.
“Being inside this is almost worse than being in the car,” Marlene said.
They walked around the skimmer. Lee watched his shadow lengthen as he placed the setting Sirius at his back.
“Look... look!”
He saw Marlene pointing and turned to follow her gaze. The hills rising before them were dazzling with a million sparkling lights: red and blue and white and dazzling, shimmering lights as though a cascade of precious jewels were pouring down the hillsides.
“What is it?” Marlene’s voice sounded excited, thrilled, not the least afraid.
Lee stared at the shifting multicolored lights. It was like playing a lamp on cut crystal. He took a step toward the hills, then looked down to the ground. From inside the cumbersome suit it was hard to see the ground close to your feet and harder still to bend down and pick up anything. But he squatted slowly and reached for a small stone. Getting up again, Lee held the stone high enough for it to catch the fading rays of daylight.
The rock glittered with a shower of varicolored sparkles.
“They’re made of glass,” Lee said.
Within minutes Charnovsky and Doris were out of the car to marvel at it. The Russian collected as many rocks as he could stuff into his suit’s thigh pouches. Lee helped him; the women merely stood by the skimmer and watched the hills blaze with lights.
Sirius disappeared below the horizon at last, and the show ended. The hills returned to being brownish, erosion-worn slumps of rock.
“Crystal mountains,” Marlene marveled as they returned to the skimmer.
“Not crystal,” Charnovsky corrected. “Glazed rock. Granitic, no doubt. Probably melted when the Pup exploded. Atmosphere might have blown away, and the rock cooled very rapidly.”
Lee could see Marlene’s chin rise stubbornly inside the transparent dome of her suit. “I name them the Crystal Mountains,” she said firmly.
Grote had smuggled a bottle along with them, part of his personal stock. “My most precious possession,” he rightfully called it. But for the Crystal Mountains he dug it out of its hiding place and they toasted the discovery and the name. Marlene smiled and insisted that Lee also be toasted, as co-discoverer.
Hours later, Lee grew tired of staring at the metal ceiling of the sleeping quarters a few centimeters abo
ve his top-tier bunk. Even Grote’s drinks didn’t help him to sleep. He kept wondering about the humanoids, what they were doing, where they were from, how he would get to learn their secrets. As quietly as he could, he slipped down from his bunk. The two men beneath him were breathing evenly and deeply. Lee headed for the rear hatch, past the women’s bunks.
The hard suits were standing at stiff attention, flanking both sides of the rear hatch. Lee was in his coveralls. He strapped on a pair of boots, slid the hatch open as quietly as he could and stepped out onto the fender.
The air was cool and clean, the sky bright enough for him to make out the worn old hills. There were a few stars in the sky, but the hills didn’t reflect them.
He heard a movement behind him. Turning, he saw Marlene.
“Did I wake you?”
“I’m a very light sleeper. Remember?”
“Sorry, I didn’t...”
“No, I’m glad you did.” She shook her head slightly, and Lee noticed once again the sweep and softness of her hair. The light was too dim to make out its color, but he knew it was auburn, knew the feel of it, the scent of it.
“Besides,” she was whispering, “I’ve been waiting for a chance to get outside without being in one of those damned suits.”
He helped her down from the fender and they walked a little way from the skimmer.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve been alone together,” Lee said.
“More than three years. Since Titan... all that time in the Training Center.”
“I know. I’ve been pretty lousy to you, haven’t I?”
She grinned. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry. There was just too much pressing on me... with Sylvia and the training and the exams... I just couldn’t...” He felt tongue-tied.
“I know, Sid. I didn’t like it while it was happening, but it’s all in the past now.” She walked a little bit away from him.
“All in the past? What does that mean?”
Shrugging, she answered, “Simply that we’re here and the time is now. What’s done is done.”
Lee looked at her, trying to determine what she meant from the expression on her face.