by John Brunner
All right: I recognized my shortcomings and I was determined to make up for them. Why, then, should I not be able to let go of my tension even now that I was lying in this hot tub, being massaged by the automatic rubbers?
The reason came to me with shocking suddenness. I spoke it aloud.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid of being killed.’
It wasn’t logical. But it was powerful. The survival level of a modern man’s brain was still at the stage it had reached long ago in the process of evolution, reacting blindly to any threat of danger. Its only concession to progress had been to widen the range of the cues to which it responded, matching the increased span of human life. I could expect a hundred and ten years of healthy, productive existence on current averages; naturally, like anyone in my position I took fewer risks and watched myself more closely than someone who’d subconsciously accepted that he was lucky to have survived his birth.
And what my reflexes had pieced together, obviously, was the suggestion Klabund had made – last night’s rocket crash might have been sabotage – with knowledge of the fact that I’d come to the attention of the League which might well be responsible.
Might! I stressed the word to myself savagely. I’d be scared of shadows next.
I got out of the tub in a depressed mood and went for fresh clothes. Just as I was dressed, the phone went, and it was Patricia calling. At once I forgot my worries – except that she might be annoyed at me for breaking our lunch date, unavoidable though that was.
But she smiled at me and puckered her lips in a mock kiss close to the camera at her end, then drew back to reveal that she was wearing nothing but an enormous towel.
‘How are you, sweet?’
‘Better for seeing you,’ I said. ‘Look, about lunch —’
‘Oh, you don’t have to say sorry!’ Her eyes widened. ‘Jacky told me you had an urgent call away – out to the spaceport, I think he said.’
‘Yes, that’s right. I had to go and meet the Tau Cetians, and this wildcat of a female courier from Starhome.’
‘Running around with another woman, hey?’
‘She called me a damnfool Terran bureaucrat, if you must know.’
Patricia burst out laughing and almost lost control of the towel. ‘Did you say you were meeting Tau Cetians? I thought they weren’t here yet – surely they’re the race the Starhomers found before we did?’
‘That’s right.’ I summarized the day’s events.
‘Well, I’m glad you didn’t have any worse trouble,’ she said finally. ‘Did you manage to find room in the Ark for these aliens?’
‘Oh yes, there was no problem there.’
‘I’ll look out for them, then. I pass the Ark on my way to work. Would I see them from the road?’
‘No, they’re in G Block, round the back of the site. Tonight I shall think of them all snug in bed or whatever they do, and I shall say, “There but for a kindly Mother Nature go I”’.
‘Wouldn’t you like to be a Tau Cetian?’ Patricia teased.
‘Of course not. I’d hate to be any kind of alien – principally because if I was an alien I’d find you repulsive, and that would be ridiculous.’
‘You say the nicest things, Roald – when you remember. Are you coming here to pick me up before we go to Jacky’s?’
‘I’d love to. Maybe you hadn’t better bother getting dressed …?’
‘If that was how you wanted to spend the evening, you ought not to have let Jacky invite us.’ She was chuckling. ‘No, come around at nineteen-fifteen and you’ll find me party-smart.’
‘Pity,’ I sighed. ‘Well – there’s always afterwards, isn’t there?’
9
As things turned out, when I’d finished saying hullo she had to make herself smart all over again – not that she seemed to object to the extra trouble – and we eventually got to the party half an hour late. Madeleine Demba met us at the door: a slender, very pretty woman older than Jacky, of Dutch and Indonesian extraction. They had folded back most of the ground-floor walls, so that Jacky, mixing drinks at a liquor console the far side of the living area, caught sight of us as we came in.
‘You’re late!’ he shouted. ‘But don’t worry, you’re not the last. Anovel hasn’t arrived – I told him to come at twenty, give everyone else a chance to get acquainted before he turns up to monopolise our attention. Drink?’
As he’d promised, this was a fairly small gathering. I knew two of the others already: one was Helga Micallef, who worked in the Bureau’s biochemical section, and the other was Jack’s ten-year-old daughter Janna, busy being on her best behaviour with a pale young man in the far corner.
Then, while Jacky was fussing around Patricia as he always did with attractive women guests, I realized that there was someone else here I ought to recognize. A man in a formal evening tweed suit.
Suddenly the tweeds melted in imagination into the red of spacecrew uniform, and I identified him as the navigation officer I’d spoken to at the spaceport, waiting for the elevator to crawl up to the Starhomer ship. I went across and introduced myself, and found that he remembered our meeting.
‘Glad to know you,’ he said, taking my hand. ‘I’m Martin van’t Hoff, Madeleine’s cousin.’
‘Did you figure out what was unusual about the ship from Starhome?’ I inquired, for the sake of conversation.
‘Not yet. I asked one of the officers if I could go on board, but he told me off rather rudely. Starhomers do tend to be big-headed, don’t they? Though of course if that ship is a sample of what they can do nowadays, they have every excuse … You won’t catch that beauty losing herself in deep space!’
‘Losing herself?’ I echoed. ‘I never heard of a starship getting lost!’
‘Didn’t you? Why, we lost the first one we ever built on Earth – out beyond Alpha Centauri, with a crew of ten on board. That was when we found out the hard way that you can only use a stardrive engine once. You see, the drive-fields permanently warp the electron orbits at the centre of the generators – the physical characteristics of the matter from which they’re built become irreversibly changed. This is the reason why starflight is so enormously expensive, of course. When a ship has to carry five or six spare engines…’
He broke off, eyes widening, and thumped his fist into his palm. ‘Why, maybe that’s what —!’
But I didn’t hear the rest. A mellifluous chime from the annunciator rang out, and since there was only one guest now due – a very unusual visitor indeed – a dead hush fell and everyone’s eyes fixed on Jacky, going to the door.
I realized how right he had been to say the Regulan would monopolize our attention. With the doubtful exception of Helga Micallef, I suspected that no one here had thought of meeting an alien socially before. It was odd to reflect that even a century and more after the discovery of the first alien intelligence, it was still not generally possible for ordinary people of different races to break through the barrier of strange air and strange food.
‘Anovel!’ Jacky exclaimed. ‘I’m really delighted you were able to come. Friends,’ he added, turning and ushering the alien forward, ‘you probably heard there was a Regulan passenger in the rocket which crashed last night, who did a lot of wonderful rescue work. Well, here he is.’
The Regulan seemed to turn a slightly brighter blue, as if blushing – though I knew it must be my imagination. The superb evolutionary process responsible for these incredible creatures would long ago have shed such superficial reflexes.
‘Good evening to you,’ he said pleasantly.
There was a chorus of rather nervous answers. Then, solemnly, Janna got to her feet, all ten-year-old again. She walked up to the visitor and gazed at him in silent wonder.
‘Are you a real Regulan?’ she demanded at last.
I glanced at Patricia with a smile. But she wasn’t smiling – her expression was positively frozen. I took it for granted she was afraid Janna’s behaviour might offend the alien.
No
t a bit of it. The long head simply cocked to one side, and Anovel agreed gravely, ‘Yes, I am. Are you a real girl?’
Everybody laughed, Patricia joining in a little late, and the moment of tension passed. Jacky introduced Madeleine and the rest of us, then went to the liquor console.
‘Do you take alcohol, Anovel?’ he inquired.
‘It doesn’t affect us as it does you, but I like the flavour of your red wine. Can I have some of that?’
‘Certainly!’ Jacky found and filled a glass, covering his own nervousness with an excess of flourishes. ‘Tell me,’ he went on as he offered the drink, ‘what do you use if you want to forget your cares – a nice bowl of nitric acid?’
‘I’m afraid we have no equivalent of intoxication,’ Anovel answered with a marvellous imitation of a chuckle. ‘Perhaps the nearest might be what we call darboonja – a fluorine-carbon compound we use to heighten the visual memory.’
‘Won’t you sit down?’ Madeleine murmured, offering a chair.
‘Thank you, but my knees bend the wrong way for your furniture. I shall be more comfortable on the floor.’ He chose a spot near the liquor console and dropped in a single complex motion to a relaxed squatting posture. Janna settled beside him and excitedly demanded that he tell her what it was like where he came from.
After that, all other conversation died a sudden death. Everyone gazed at the long, graceful head of the Regulan poised at a quizzical angle on the heavily maned neck. Finally Janna was persuaded to circle the room and say good night. Watching her reluctant progress to her bedroom, Jacky chuckled.
‘She’ll be boasting about meeting you all next week at school!’ he told Anovel, who gave his strange, rather sad-looking smile in reply. It crossed my mind that at least you weren’t likely to find a Stars Are For Man League among Janna’s classmates.
After that we all enjoyed Madeleine’s marvellous food, including Anovel, who explained that – as with wine – though he derived little nourishment from Terran dishes he liked the exotic flavours. It had been established long ago that a Regulan’s metabolism could cope with the ingestion of virtually any carbon-based organic substance, and several which weren’t carbon-based. Anovel had explained that a rocket crash wasn’t likely to do him much damage – for that, you’d need a nuclear explosion. It looked as though poisoning him was equally out of the question.
Later there was music from Jacky’s fine collection of tapes, and the evening slid into a mellow haze. During a lull, I glanced around for Patricia, but she wasn’t to be seen; I assumed she’d gone into the garden, for the doors were open to the mild spring night and a bird was singing. I felt great. The liquor had taken care of all my former tension. I considered setting off in search of Patricia, but then a casual remark caught my attention and I leaned forward on my chair.
‘What time is it?’ someone had asked.
I was making to consult my watch, but Anovel answered readily, ‘It’s just gone twenty-three.’
Jacky gave him a puzzled glance. ‘Do you – ah – do you carry a watch?’
‘I don’t need one. You humans are the only race which uses them. Did you not know?’
‘That’s right,’ Helga spoke up. ‘All the other species we know operate at a constant subjective time-rate. Ours varies. Tell me, Anovel – I’ve been meaning to ask you. You aren’t here on Bureau business, are you? I don’t recall seeing your name on any of our lists.’
‘No, I’m making a private tour – a complete round of the inhabited worlds. I was at Epsilon Eridani before this, and I plan to go on to Sigma Sagittarii.’
‘How can you do that?’ Madeleine asked in amazement.
‘I’m with what you call a “zoo ship”.’
Martin, her spacecrew cousin, chipped in. ‘We hire ships out to research foundations, and they provide transport between worlds for members of the various races with an itch to travel. In return, the passengers offer themselves for study wherever they stop. It’s a way of enabling scientists to get first-hand knowledge of other races’ metabolisms.’
‘I know someone who’s done that,’ I said. ‘A girl who went to study tectogenetics on Sigma Sagittarii.’
‘Mildred Bilinska?’ Helga inquired. ‘Yes, I know her too.’
‘Did she enjoy her trip?’ Anovel asked.
‘She said she’d had a fine time,’ I answered. ‘Of course, she was glad to give up living in a suit when she returned. But you Regulans are lucky that way – you aren’t bothered.’
Anovel used his marvellous imitation of a laugh again. ‘Yes, we’re very lucky in that respect.’
‘Surely it must take a long time to complete such a trip,’ Madeleine commented. ‘Isn’t it – well – difficult to spend so long away from home?’
The long head waved in a slow negative. ‘You see, we live much longer than you. The eight or ten years the trip will take is – you might say really a vacation.’
‘How long do you live, then?’ Jacky exclaimed.
‘At our natural rate – breathing fluorine, that is – twelve hundred of your years. Though since our subjective time is faster than yours, of course it seems even longer.’
‘And how old are you yourself – if it’s not a rude question?’ Jacky said.
‘On your scale, about two hundred. Quite a youngster yet!’
There was a stunned pause. Glancing around, I saw Patricia had reappeared and was sitting by herself on the other side of the room. Anovel drained his glass and rose.
‘Well, I have to be back at zoo by morning,’ he said. ‘I really must be going – no, I mean it!’ He gestured with all four arms to forestall Jacky’s objections, and departed amid a flurry of invitations to return as soon as possible.
‘That,’ Helga said to me dreamily, ‘is a lovely piece of design.’
‘What?’ I hadn’t quite seen the point.
‘Oh, Roald! Look, he can breathe fluorine, oxygen, chlorine or what-have-you with cheerful indifference. He can eat practically anything – and on top of that he lives twelve hundred years. A lovely piece of design!’
‘With all those natural advantages,’ sighed Martin van’t Hoff, ‘they ought to have discovered starflight instead of us.’ He gazed gloomily into the depths of his current drink.
At that point Patricia came over and sat on my knee, and for some while we paid no attention to the other people in the room. Finally she pulled away with a sigh.
‘I’m glad that thing’s gone,’ she murmured.
‘Why? Because I was paying attention to him instead of you?’ I grinned at her. ‘Don’t be silly, my sweet!’
She bit my ear casually. ‘What did he mean – he “had to be back at zoo”?’
‘Of course, you weren’t here when he explained.’ I told her about the zoo ship system, and finished thoughtfully, ‘You know, it might be fun to make a trip that way. Say to Regulus.’
She pulled away from me. ‘Roald, you can’t mean that!’
‘Why not?’ I was much drunker than I’d imagined. ‘I’d love to visit Regulus, and if there isn’t any other way…’
‘You mean you’d let yourself be turned into a lab specimen, poked and probed at by all sorts of—?’
The phone shrilled. I half saw Jacky unfold from his chair to go and answer it, but all my attention was on Patricia – as usual. ‘Say you’re joking!’ she pleaded with intensity I couldn’t account for in my liquor-muzzy state.
‘Sure I’m joking,’ I soothed. ‘Think I could stand to be away from you all that time? Of course, if I could take you with me—’
She tore away from me and stood up facing my chair, all the colour draining from her face. My shock of bewilderment and words I had in mind to speak were cut short by a cry from Jacky.
‘Roald! Here – quickly, for heaven’s sake!’
The edge of terror on his voice rasped through my personal dismay. I muttered an apology to Patricia, leaving explanations for later, and hurried to the phone. On the screen was the scowling face of bin
Ishmael.
‘Finally we managed to locate somebody! I’ve been calling all over town trying to get hold of your boss, but he’s – Oh, the hell with that. You’ll have to do. Come on over here, and make it fast.
‘Someone’s tried to murder the Tau Cetians!’
10
The words seemed to explode in my mind like a bomb. They were no less of a shock to everyone else in the room, and a babble of incredulous exclamations followed. I struggled to absorb the horrible fact bin Ishmael had hurled at me, but long before I’d recovered Jacky had seized command of the situation. With a fierce roar he made everybody else shut up; then he fired some crisp questions at bin Ishmael, and rang off with a promise of immediate action.
‘Madeleine, get me and Roald a shot of antalc each, will you?’ he rapped. He threw off his evening tweed jacket and replaced it with a casual day cape, shrugging it into place with the same movement that served to press the caller button for his car and bring it from the garage to the front door.
‘For me as well, please,’ Helga called, disengaging herself from Marin van’t Hoff, who had taken a great fancy to her. ‘It sounds as though I might be able to make myself useful.’
Madeleine brought three little glasses from the liquor console, brimming with anti-alcohol. I gulped mine down, and it felt in my guts as though I’d swallowed a cold breeze. Then I crossed the room to Patricia, who was ostentatiously ignoring me – gazing out into the garden with her lovely face set and expressionless.
‘Sweet, I hate to abandon you like this, but from what bin Ishmael said —’