Omega к-4

by Джек Макдевитт

  Below, it was early morning on the isthmus, a couple of hours before dawn. “Who wants to come?” asked Jack.

  “I guess I’m going,” said Digger.

  And Kellie would pilot. “Winnie,” he said, “you hold the fort.”

  She shook Digger’s hand solemnly as he started toward the cargo bay. Good luck, Dig, the body language said. I’m with you, kid.

  THE CARGO BAY also served as the launch area. Digger’s pulse picked up a few notches as they descended through the ship. He was telling himself to relax, don’t worry, we’re about to make history. Hello, Goompahs.

  The lander was a sleek, teardrop craft. It had less capacity than the older, boxy vehicles, but it provided a smoother ride. They climbed in, and Kellie started the launch process.

  Jack began dispensing advice. He was a good guy, but he was a bit too helpful. If we decide it’s okay for you to show yourself, don’t make any sudden moves. Try to smile. Nonverbals are different from culture to culture, but the Noks and the Angels both recognize smiles, so it can’t hurt. Unless, of course, things are different here.

  He continued in that vein despite all Digger’s efforts to change the subject, until finally Dig simply asked him to stop. “You’re getting me rattled,” he complained.

  “I’m sorry. Listen, Dig, everything’ll be okay.”

  Digger sat there in his native finery, feeling both foolish and scared. The Goompahs looked friendly. But he’d read about the Angels on Paradise, how harmless they’d looked, how angelic, before they tore two members of the Contact Society to shreds.

  “I’m fine, Jack,” he said. “I just wish I knew the language.”

  They dropped through a cloudless sky. The ground was dark despite innumerable individual lights. But they were mere sparks in the night, like distant stars, a few in the cities, some on the isthmus road, and a handful along the docks and on anchored ships.

  They had no way of concealing the lander, and though Kellie turned off all the lights, they were nonetheless descending through a cloudless moonlit sky. Kellie, up front in the pilot’s seat, held up five fingers to signify everything was okay. “All in it together,” she said.

  Jack sat lost in thought. “I wonder,” he said, “if we could do this strictly through the use of avatars.”

  “How do you mean, Jack?” asked Digger.

  “Produce a native avatar and stick with it. We stay out of sight altogether.”

  Digger thought about it. “Eventually,” he said, “it would have to talk to them.”

  Jack made a pained sound. The avatar could not be made spontaneous. It could be programmed to deliver lines, but unless they knew how the Goompahs would react, there was no way to have it respond to them.

  “Just as well,” Jack said. “You look so good it would be a pity not to put you out there.” Har-har.

  Digger sat in his chair, thinking how this was the gutsiest thing he’d done in his life. Except maybe for the time in high school when he’d gotten his courage together and asked Veronica Keating for a date. Veronica had passed—thanks but I’m tied up for the next couple years—but he’d tried. Next time out of the barn he’d done better. With somebody else, of course.

  They picked up some wind as they descended. Digger would have liked to open a window to get a sense of what the sea and the forest smelled like. Of course, they couldn’t do that. The atmosphere was breathable, but it was oxygen-rich. He didn’t know what the effect of that would be over an extended period, but it couldn’t be good.

  Jack was looking at the map, trying to decide where they should set down. “Here,” he said at last, indicating the isthmus road a short distance north of the city with the temple by the sea.

  The temple, lost in darkness now, looked Greek. That made the city Athens. He smiled at the notion. Athenians as oversize green critters waddling around.

  He couldn’t see anything out the windows other than the stars and the lights on the ground.

  “You all set?” asked Jack, trying to relieve the tension.

  “I’ll be okay.” He wasn’t used to riding in the lander with the navigation lights out. It was hard to say why, but it was disquieting, as if they were sneaking up on an enemy stronghold. Kellie had done something to render the vehicle quieter than usual, had made it virtually silent.

  “Be on the ground in two minutes, gentlemen,” she said. “Activate your suits.”

  Digger checked his harness and his converter, and complied. One advantage of a relatively earthlike atmosphere was that they didn’t have to haul air tanks around. The converter would provide an air supply from the existing atmosphere. Jack switched his on, and Digger momentarily caught the glow of the Flickinger field in the moment of ignition. Then it faded.

  He activated his suit, pulled on a vest, attached his converter, and wondered briefly if he should have brought some trinkets to hand out to the natives.

  Below, lanterns floated through the dark, spread out, and vanished. Trees rose around him. Kellie held the vehicle aloft for a moment to ensure that the ground was solid, then let the weight settle. They were down in a glade, the first streaks of light showing in the east.

  IT WAS DIGGER’S first time on a world that could really be said to be alive. He squeezed Kellie’s shoulder and shook hands with Jack. They were now eligible to join the Corbin Society, whose membership was limited to people who had made a first landing on a world with life-forms big enough to be visible. The Society was named for the director of the Tarbell mission, who, forty-five years before, had been the first to look out a window across extraterrestrial soil and see a live animal. In his case, it had been a large reptile, still the biggest land creature on record. It had inspected, then tried to eat, the lander.

  Kellie turned on her e-suit. Her voice sounded in his link. “It’s almost dawn. By the time we get out to the road, it should be daylight.”

  Jack’s notebook would provide the projector. He pushed it into a vest pocket and handed the avatar disk to Digger. “You hang on to this,” he said.

  Digger nodded, released his restraints, and started for the airlock.

  Kellie got out of her seat and pocketed the second notebook. “You might want to use the washroom before we leave. It’ll be a while before we get back here.” Their e-suits had no provision for disposing of bodily waste. Attachments were available but no one saw any need for them on this trip. Just get out, go to the road, say hello, and see how the locals respond. Then hustle back to the lander. Simple enough.

  THEY WENT THROUGH the airlock and stood momentarily in the outer hatch. There was some fluttering in the trees, and the steady clacking of insects, but otherwise the forest remained quiet. They switched on dark lights. Digger would have preferred a regular lamp, but who knew what might be wandering around in the woods.

  “Everyone ready?” asked Jack, climbing down onto saw-tooth grass. He knelt, reacted with an ouch, and said, “Be careful. It’s sharp.”

  In fact it was like a field of daggers. Digger squared his shoulders the way he had seen Jack Hancock do when facing danger in a dozen sims. He cautioned Kellie and stepped aside to let her pass. Then he fell in behind to bring up the rear.

  They all wore pistols, just in case. Digger was qualified but unpracticed. He’d never before been on ground where there was a risk from local wildlife.

  The line of trees was dark and quiet. Jack paused, looking for a break in the forest. Shrubbery, blossoms, vines, thorns, dead leaves, and misshapen trees crowded on them. Jack picked a spot and plunged in. Kellie followed, and Digger watched her plow through a spiderweb. Or something’s web. Digger remembered reading somewhere that, so far, spiders had been found only on Earth. Even safely enveloped in the Flickinger field, he felt queasy about them.

  It was slow going. The vegetation was thick, and the e-suits provided no defense against thorns and needles. The road was less than a half klick away from the landing site, but after an hour’s time they were still struggling through heavy growth.

/>   Winnie called from the ship twice to ask why it was taking so long. Jack, who usually stayed cool, told her that next time she should come and her grasp of the situation would improve.

  Then he felt badly about growling at her and apologized. On his private circuit, he told Digger that he understood why she was worried, that anything could happen, that nobody really knew what kind of creatures might be loose in this forest.

  That did nothing for Digger’s state of mind.

  Through breaks in the canopy of overhead branches and leaves, they saw the ship, a bright star moving through the fixed constellations. That alone, he realized, in a low-tech culture, could be enough to cause a major reaction.

  The eastern horizon was getting bright. Behind him, in the bushes, something moved, and there was a brief scuffle. But Digger never saw anything.

  “Road,” said Jack.

  At last. Digger came up beside him and looked out at it. It was really only a trail. But it had been laboriously cut through the forest, and it was wide enough for two wagons to pass side by side.

  There was a low hill directly opposite. “He should stand up there,” said Jack, referring to the avatar. “On the crest. I’d say under the tree would be good.”

  The tree looked more like an overgrown mushroom. Digger surveyed the area. To his left, north, the road proceeded another fifty meters or so before disappearing over the top of a hill. To his right, toward Athens, he could see for a considerable distance, maybe the length of a football field, before it curved off into the forest.

  They crossed the road, climbed the hill, and hid themselves behind a clump of bushes with bright red blossoms. Digger handed over the disk, which Jack inserted into his notebook. “Test run, Holmes?” he asked.

  “Indubitably, old chap.”

  The notebook was equipped with a projector on its leading edge. Jack aimed it toward the tree, which was about ten meters away, and punched a button. Digger’s image, in green and gold and with his bright red hat, blinked on. He was standing a half meter in the air. Jack adjusted the picture, focused it, and brought the feet to Earth. Then he turned to Digger. “Okay,” he said. “I think we’re in business.”

  THERE WERE GREEN trees, and pale gray growths like the big mushroom at the top of the hill. The wind sucked at them all, and when Digger closed his eyes, it sounded like any forest back home. Avery Whitlock had once written that all forests were alike in their essence, that there was a kind of universal forest that was a prerequisite for intelligent life. Wherever sentience is found, he’d predicted, it will have come to fruition in a deep wood.

  Kellie produced the second notebook and assured Digger she would take pictures and record everything for his grandchildren. She apparently thought remarks like that would put everybody off the trail of what was really happening (or not happening) between the two of them. But Jack was too excited wondering what was going to come around the curve in one direction or over the hill in the other, to give a damn about onboard romance.

  “Traffic on the road.” Winnie’s voice. As planned, she was watching through the ship’s scopes and satellites. (The ship by then was over the horizon and somewhere on the other side of the world.) As long as the sky stayed clear, the Jenkins would have them constantly in view. “Looks like two of them. And a cart.”

  “Thanks, Winnie.”

  “And a few more behind. Three on foot. And a second cart. Make that two, no, three, more carts. They’re coming from the south. About a half kilometer from you.”

  Around the curve.

  They waited, listening to the wind until they heard the sounds of creaking wheels, snorting, heavy clop-clops. And music. Pipes and stringed instruments, Digger thought. And thumping on a drum. And voices in allegro, maybe a little high-pitched.

  The song, if that was what it was, lacked the easy rhythms of human melodies. “They’re not exactly Ben and the Warbirds,” Kellie observed.

  Well, no. The voices were a bit lacking. But the critical news was that Digger hadn’t heard anything yet that wasn’t within the range of human capabilities.

  “But you’ll need women to do it,” commented Kellie.

  A large animal rounded the bend, hauling a cart, and lumbered toward them. It was one of the rhinos they’d spotted from orbit, big, heavy, with long tusks, and a body shaped like a barrel. The eyes were larger than a rhino’s, though; they were saucer-shaped and had the same sad expression that was so prominent a part of the inhabitants’ physiognomy. The eyes turned their way, and Digger got the distinct impression the beast could see them through their screen of shrubbery.

  “Maybe it can smell us,” said Digger.

  “No.” Kellie’s voice had gone flat. The way it might if she perceived danger. “Not through the e-suit.”

  Jack activated the recorder in the notebook.

  The cart was loaded with plants. Vegetables, maybe? Two Goompahs sat in the vehicle, singing at the top of their lungs. It was all off-key.

  “I’m tempted to take my chances,” said Jack, “and just go out and say hello.”

  “Don’t do it,” said Kellie.

  And there came the three on foot. And the other three wagons. They were filled with passengers. Everybody was singing. They plucked on instruments that looked like lutes, blew into pipes, and pounded on the sides of the carts. They were having a roaring good time.

  “They know how to travel,” said Kellie.

  There were eleven Goompahs in all. “Too many,” said Jack. “Let them go.”

  “Why?” asked Digger. “They’re in a good mood. Isn’t that what we want?”

  “If they turn out to be hostile, there are too many. I want to be able to get clear if things take a bad turn.”

  Some had mammaries. All were clumsy. Hadn’t evolution worked at all on this world? Digger couldn’t imagine how they’d avoided predators.

  The convoy passed, gradually climbed to the crest of the hill and disappeared beyond.

  TEN MINUTES LATER they got their chance. They heard the crunch of footsteps coming over the hill. A lone pedestrian appeared at the top. He carried a staff and swung it jauntily from side to side as he started down.

  He wore boots and red leggings and a shirt made of hide. A yellow cap was pulled almost rakishly over one saucer eye. “Ladies’ man,” said Kellie.

  The sky was clear. “Anybody else on the road?” Jack asked Winnie.

  “Not anywhere near you.”

  It struck Digger that the fact the creature was traveling alone said a great deal about the kind of society in which it lived. In early Europe, strolling about the highways without an armed escort would have been an exercise in recklessness.

  Digger felt Kellie’s hand on his shoulder. Here we go.

  Jack waited until the traveler was immediately adjacent. Then he switched on the projector. Digger’s avatar appeared gradually atop the crest opposite, as if striding up from the far side, paused on its summit, and waved.

  The traveler swung his large head in the avatar’s direction. “Hello, friend,” the avatar said cheerfully, in English. “How are you doing?”

  The Goompah stared.

  The avatar raised its hand and waved again.

  The Goompah’s eyes widened, grew enormous.

  The avatar started slowly down the slope.

  The Goompah growled and showed a set of incisors Digger hadn’t seen before. It retreated a step, but quickly found its back against a tree.

  “How are you today?” the avatar asked. “What a lovely day this is. I just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I’d pop by. Say hello.”

  “Careful,” said Kellie.

  The Goompah edged away from the tree, back in the direction from which it had come. It bowed its head, and Digger could see its lips moving although he couldn’t hear any sounds. It was, if he was reading the signs correctly, terrified.

  “What’s happening?” asked Winnie.

  Kellie told her to wait a minute.

  The creature w
as shaking its head from side to side. It moaned and choked and spasmed. It threatened the avatar with its staff. It waved its hands, odd gestures, signs almost.

  “This isn’t going well,” said Jack.

  “Where are you headed, friend?” asked the avatar, oblivious of the effect it was having. “By the way, my name’s Digger.” It waved yet again, in the friendliest possible fashion.

  The Goompah opened its mouth and said “Morghani,” or something very much like it. Then it turned and sprinted back the way it had come, moving far more quickly than Digger would have thought possible. It swayed wildly from side to side, tumbled but picked itself up without breaking stride, charged up the hill at the end of the road, and disappeared behind it.

  When it was gone, the avatar said, “It’s been good talking with you.”

  Kellie couldn’t resist snickering. “You are pretty fearsome,” she said, “now that I think of it.”

  DIGGER THOUGHT THEY should go back to the lander and rethink things. But getting back there would be a battle, and Kellie told him he was giving up too easily. Jack agreed and that was the vote that counted.

  “The problem,” Jack argued, “was that the image wasn’t responsive. The thing got scared, and the avatar can’t shrug, and say, ‘Hey buddy, it’s okay, don’t worry.’ ”

  “But who here can speak Goompah?” asked Digger.

  “Don’t have to,” said Jack. “All we need is a rational reaction. A sign that we can deal with them on a one-to-one basis. Nonverbals will do it.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “We dispense with the avatar.”

  IT DIDN’T MATTER. The second attempt, with Digger in the flesh trying to be friendly, went pretty much the same way. They passed on a couple of single travelers, selecting instead a group of four, bouncing along in a wagon pulled by one of the rhinos. Should have been enough to grant a sense of security to the proceedings. But they took one look at Digger, the real Digger, safely perched atop his hill so that a quick retreat was feasible, and went screaming back down the road, abandoning their wagon and the rhino.