Alton's Unguessable

by Jeff Sutton

  Later Keim went outside and stood with Jonley, the gaunt Chief of Maintenance, in keeping with the captain's orders that no man be alone. He noted that while the members of the science staff worked in pairs, the crewmen tended to cluster in groups of three or four. Their voices and actions were guarded, tense; all wore sidearms of one kind or another.

  Jonley put it into words. "They'll be damned glad to see the last of this planet," he observed. "Because of Weber's death?"

  "Partially."

  "What else?"

  "They feel that there's something they haven't been told, some danger." The maintenance chief phrased the words in a questioning manner, his eyes baffled.

  Keim shook his head. "There's nothing we can discern."

  "Except a broken neck and smart birds," retorted Jonley. "You have a point."

  "Yeah." Jonley scowled. "I just want to live long enough to enjoy it."

  When night came, Keim concentrated on the tumult in his mind. The muted thunder rose and fell, sporadically punctuated by crackling outbursts. Again he tried to pinpoint the source with his ^directional sense and failed. The stimuli seemed to assail him from all sides, but of one thing he was positive; the tumult didn't originate from within his own body, as Woon had suggested. It came from outside, from beyond the force field. He had the sensation that it was conveyed to him through that same unknown sense that gave him telepathy. He was also certain that the source wasn't one of nature; the intricate pattern, with certain odd repetitions, ruled that out. What did that leave? The answer was almost too unbelievable to contemplate.

  By late evening the rumble began to subside; in less than an hour it was gone. The only sensory stimuli remaining were those from inside the ship—fragments of thought from both those awake and those asleep. While he'd never purposefully tapped the thoughts of his companions, they often came unbidden, especially in the late hours when the environmental stimuli were low. Now, in the silence of the late evening, whispers filled his mind. Usually he shut them out. Tonight, he didn't.

  He didn't attempt to identify the sources; that struck him as too gross an invasion of privacy. Yet he often sensed both the thinker's identity and his location. At times the perception became so acute that it took the form of mental imagery. Telepathy was extremely rare, clairvoyance was nonexistent. All the books agreed to that. Keim knew better.

  "It's a hell ship," a voice from the crew's quarters whispered. "Weber. …"

  Another voice saying, "They know, all right."

  "They cant tell me…"

  Keim partially closed his mind to the chatter, trying to concentrate on what might come from beyond the force field. The damnable part was that he didn't know what to expect from beyond the force field.

  "T-marü knows…" The fragmented allusion to himself caught his attention. This time he concentrated on the speaker; The silent voice in his mind impressed him as being high, querulous, taut with emotion and… Burl Ashford! There, he had him pinned. The geologist was talking with… Ivor Bascomb. The botanist's visage flamed briefly in his mind. Burl was asserting that Keim knew all about what was happening, or at least knew the true nature of the danger. Bascomb, not so certain, was deeply troubled nevertheless. They both were. Their emotions, heavy with apprehension if not downright fear, surged into his mind along with their words. Ashford's face, round and pink-cheeked, flared photographically in his mind, then vanished. His imagination? No, he'd pictured the geologist as clearly as if he'd been standing in this very room.

  "… get the hell off the planet." New words, a new source, again from the crew's quarters. Damn, how could he concentrate with the medley of voices? He'd never felt such an awareness, such accompanying emotion. But there was none of the muted thunder, none of the crackling, none of the threat; he was certain of that. The alien, whoever or whatever it was, had signed off for the night.

  Later, there was a light tap at his door and Myron Kim-brough entered. "Any change?" he asked tautly.

  "Gone." Keim described his mental impressions of the phenomenon and added, "I've taped everything for the record." He didn't mention the snatches of conversation from within the ship; such things were the secrets of T-men.

  "Any closer to an explanation?" asked Kimbrough. His face denied the hope.

  "Nothing more than the impression of being plugged into a vast alien network."

  "That goes off the air in the late evening," mused Kim-brough. "At least it's not entirely nocturnal."

  "A sun-loving alien." Keim smiled feebly at his joke.

  "We're walking in strange territory, Roger."

  "Alton's unguessable?"

  "Possibly, although I'm reluctant to say that it can't be explained. All things can be explained."

  "Given the data," he countered.

  "We're getting the data." Kimbrough paused reflectively. "Perhaps I'm not being honest with myself, I don't know. It might be more honest to admit that we're against something entirely new. Up till now I've been looking for— hoping for—some explanation understandable in terms of our own definitions, of our own experience. I've assumed that we'd be stretching reality to go beyond that, but perhaps not. Whatever the answer, we have to find it or get off the planet. We can't justify that at this point, which means we're stuck with the problem."

  Keim viewed the other appreciatively. Ordinarily Kimbrough was a man for whom science held all the answers, or almost all. Now he wasn't so certain. The admission made him seem much more human. Almost humble. Against that, he had scant choice but to admit the dilemma. Birds that avoided force fields didn't fit any of the neat categories of expectancies; neither did necks broken with no apparent cause. But those were only two things. The tumult in his mind was another. Perhaps more significant was Borcher's "impossible ecology," as he termed it.

  Keim said, "I've considered all that, Myron."

  "So what do we do?"

  "Wait."

  Kimbrough nodded. "Keep listening, Roger. See if you can pick up something you can tape."

  "Like the growl of thunder in the sky?"

  "If it makes sense, yes."

  "I think the alien will come to us," Keim reflected.

  "God, I hope not."

  He grinned. "It might make a good paper some day."

  "Just ;SO it's not an obituary."

  When the chief scientist left, Keim selected a tape of classical music, tuned it down until it was barely audible, and settled in a deep chair to wait out the night. Shortly before dawn, his eyes heavy with sleep, he became aware of the first faint rumble in his mind. Within an hour it was back at full blast.

  FOUR

  Ivor Bascomb, the botanist, was first to discover the ruins. Making a sweep over the distant hills with the biologist Yozell, he caught the barest glimpse of what appeared part of a structure among a tangle of vines and giant trees before it became lost to view. "Spotted something," he said tightly.

  As Yozell twisted in his seat to look back, Bascomb brought the skimmer slowly around, dropping lower to the lush growth that appeared all but impenetrable. He was beginning to think he must have been mistaken when Yozell cried, "Hold it!" and threw a hand out in gesture.

  Bascomb brought the skimmer to a halt, hovering a hundred or so feet above the treetops. His eyes, following the biologist's pointing finger, fixed on the broken but still geometrical outlines. It appeared to be an ancient building almost completely shrouded by trees and vines. Excitedly he reached for the communicator.

  His brief message brought a swirl of excitement to the Alpha Tauri. Caught with a sense of expectancy, Keim rushed outside hoping a skimmer would be available. He found himself sharing one with Sam Gossett, the elderly chemist. Gossett's face was tight with anticipation when the T-man edged in alongside him.

  As Gossett lifted the vehicle from the plain, a second skimmer followed close behind. Through that inner sense that he'd never understood, Keim knew that its occupants were Myron Kimbrough and Lara Kamm.

  The communicator crackled. Kimbrough
's voice came on, instructing the remainder of the science staff to remain with the ship. The action told Keim that the chief scientist's main concern was still the possibility of an alien threat.

  "I can't imagine it," Gossett reflected. His words brought back the telepath's attention.

  "A ruin?"

  "How can a single ruin exist?" Gossett's tone was querulous. "A ruin implies builders, either past or present, and that means other buildings. But where? Even crude architecture isn't a one-time thing. But I thought the minisats have combed every inch of this planet."

  "Not quite every inch," Keim corrected. Gossett didn't answer.

  With the skimmer hurtling low above the grass, it struck Keim how few birds he saw. Why had hundreds of them congregated in the vicinity of the Alpha Tauri? Not food scraps certainly. The atomic furnace took care of that. Curiosity? Possibly. Not that he'd put anything past these particular birds, he reflected sourly.

  He pushed the speculation back into his mind as they drew close to the edge of the grasslands. Beyond, as far as the eye could see, lay rolling, forested hills. A stream flowed out from a gully, sparkling under the blue-white sun. Farther to the east, it emptied into a small lake.

  Gossett lifted the skimmer above the hills and homed in on a beacon set up by Bascomb. Keim was surprised to discover that the hills were covered with unmoving, peaceful trees that towered to awesome heights. The immediate ground cover appeared like a wild tangle of vines.

  From what or where in this peaceful, sunny world could danger possibly come? He couldn't imagine. Yet a man already had died, killed by something—a something that lurked beyond the human ability to perceive, or perhaps even comprehend. A something that brought the crackling thunder to his mind? Perhaps the ruin was the key that could tie together such diverse things as a broken neck, birds that sensed a force field, an unbalanced ecology, and muted thunder that seethed in his mind. He had to smile at his fancy, and yet…

  The skimmer began to decelerate and a moment later he spotted a small clearing ahead. The botanist's vehicle was parked at one edge. Keim saw him wave. Gossett hovered momentarily above the clearing before starting down. Kimbrough landed the second skimmer immediately behind them. Bascomb and Yozell were waiting impatiently.

  Kimbrough leaped from the vehicle and shouted, "Where is it?" Suddenly remembering, he turned and helped Lara Kamm from her seat.

  "A few hundred yards," Bascomb gestured with a thumb. "We couldn't land any closer."

  "You said a ruin?" Kimbrough looked hard at him.

  "A ruin, all right, but it's pretty well shrouded."

  "Let's go," Kimbrough instructed tersely. Bascomb drew a laser and commenced to cut a path through the thick tangle of vines while attempting to avoid damage to the trees. Keim fell in at the rear of the column behind Lara Kamm.

  As if by common consent, they moved in silence; progressing slowly as the botanist swung the beam from side to side. Keim marveled at the silence. He would have expected the flutter of wings, the screech of brilliantly-plum-aged birds, the occasional rustle of small animals, but there were none. Except for the sound of their own passage, the forest held the stillness of death.

  "There!" Bascomb suddenly halted and gestured with his laser. Keim looked past him, felt a clutch of wonder. Grayish, ghostly, tree-shrouded and entangled in vines, stood an ancient ^building. They gazed at it in rapt wonder.

  Finally Bascomb said in a hushed voice, "It resembles pictures I've seen of ancient temples." He glanced at Lara Kamm for confirmation. Her face was a study in concentration.

  "It does bear that resemblance," she said finally. "It's reminiscent of the Dravidian style of architecture of Old Earth, around the Eleventh Century of the old calendar. The strongly contrasted horizontal and vertical lines and the upthrust below the main dome suggested that. It's also reminiscent of the Gthmarian style of Glade in the Benwar system. Both were houses of worship," she added.

  Caught by some strangeness about the structure that he couldn't identify, Keim scarcely heard her. Then Lara put it into words. "Note the smallness of the doors, the closeness of the window lines to the floor. That suggests that the inhabitants, whoever they might have been, were of quite small stature."

  "Bipeds?" asked Kimbrough.

  "Most certainly. The front steps suggest that. Also, note the lowness of each step." Her voice grew speculative. "By human standards, everything is scaled down by about fifty per cent."

  "A temple in a world with no people," Yozell murmured. His voice held awe.

  "The presence of this single ruin is more baffling than nothing at all," declared Bascomb. "This planet gives me the jitters."

  Sam Gossett removed a knife from his pocket, flicked open the blade and stepped forward to scratch the ancient wall. Examining the marks under a glass, his face wrinkled in a frown. He scraped a bit of material loose, wrapped it carefully in a sheet from his notebook and deposited it in his pocket before saying, "It's not stone."

  "A cement of some kind?" asked Kimbrough.

  He shook his head. "Offhand I'd say some type of non-cellulose plastic, but I can't be certain until I submit it to chemical test."

  Kimbrough emitted a low whistle. "That suggests a fairly high level of civilization." He looked inquiringly at Lara.

  "Synthetic plastics came rather early in human history," she observed. "As I recall, around the Nineteenth or Twentieth Century of the old calendar. That would be, by our reckoning, some seven thousand years ago."

  Kimbrough said irritably, "A civilization that advanced should have left considerable ruins."

  "Perhaps they did," Bascomb cut in. "We don't know what the jungles hide. Look at that." He flung a hand toward the ancient, tree-shrouded structure.

  "Most of the continent is open grasslands. Why are there no ruins there?"

  "Civilizations on Old Earth vanished in less time," observed Yozell.

  "Not that completely." Kimbrough swung toward the telepath. "Do you still have that feel of something alien?"

  "Definitely." Keim saw the startled look in Lara's face.

  "Here? Is it stronger here?"

  "There's no life here."

  "But there has been," exclaimed Kimbrough. "When a civilization vanishes, does it vanish entirely, or does it leave some lingering sense of that life form itself?"

  "That would be looking beyond the grave," Keim protested. "What I sense is living… here… now."

  "Living?"

  "Could I sense the dead? Not except through their records, the artifacts they leave behind. What do you have in mind?"

  "Nothing I can pin down." Kimbrough looked baffled. "I suppose I'm subconsciously trying to relate the odd things that have happened to the builders of that." He gestured toward the ruin.

  "Do you believe some of them may still be alive?"

  "Possibly, I'm not certain. Perhaps I'm resurrecting ghosts."

  "Ghosts that break necks," said Gossett, but his voice held no humor.

  "Perhaps we might find clues inside," suggested Yozell. "I'm the smallest. I'll crawl through the doorway." As he turned toward the ruin, Lara moved to follow. He waited till she reached his side, then started up the steps. As they did, the muted thunder in Keim's mind rose to a howling shriek that all but staggered him. He had the wild impression of a thousand banshees loosed in his brain.

  "Wait," he shouted. Leaping forward, he grasped their arms and jerked them backward so violently that the biologist lost his balance and tumbled down the stairs. Only Keim's firm grip kept Lara from falling. At that instant the structure in front of them collapsed with a roar into a pile of rubble. The reverberations rolled through the forest.

  "Good God," someone exclaimed. Yozell scrambled to his feet and gazed disbelievingly at the debris. Lara's face was white with shock.

  "What happened?" Sam Gossett managed to ask.

  "Earthquake?" asked Yozell dubiously.

  "Not a quake." Gossett shook his head. "A plastic structure wouldn't collapse in th
at manner."

  Kimbrough spun toward the telepath. "You shouted the warning!" The words were both accusation and question.

  "I sensed it." Keim struggled to assess just what it was that he had sensed. The roar in his brain, the awful shriek…

  "Before it began to collapse?"

  "I believe so. I'm not certain."

  Kimbrough demanded harshly, "Exactly what did you sense?"

  "Danger… that there was danger. The thunder in my mind rose to a shrill screech." Keim eyed him steadily. "I believe I saw it collapsing in my mind."

  "Saw it?"

  "A vision, I'm not certain. Or perhaps I constructed the vision in retrospect. Everything happened too suddenly to pin down a time sequence."

  "How could you have a vision of an event beforehand?"

  "I don't know. I can't quite put the pieces together."

  "Did anyone else have a premonition?" Kimbrough glanced quickly around the circle of faces. When no one answered, he looked back at the telepath. "Something warned you? Try to dig it out, Roger, it's important. Can you relate this to the other things you've sensed?"

  "No more than what I've told you. Whatever happened, the action was too fast for me to follow."

  "You suggested the element of… prescience."

  "The vision could have followed the actuality," reminded Keim.

  Kimbrough shook his head. "You wouldn't have had time to pull them to safety if the structure already had begun to fall."

  "This is like Weber's death," remarked Gossett. "Half a dozen witnesses and no one knows what happened."

  "Weber's death." Kimbrough's.eyes fixed the rubble.

  Bascomb asked, "Aren't we overlooking the possibility of coincidence?"

  "Explain that."

  "The temple's age, its disrepair. It had to collapse someday. Perhaps this was the day."

  "We can't accept such a coincidence," interrupted Gossett. "That's the easy way out. We have to look elsewhere."

  "You explain it," invited Bascomb.

  "I'll make a stab." He looked broodingly at the debris. "Someone or something didn't want us to go inside, possibly because of what we might have found; or perhaps that something doesn't even want us on the planet. A mention has been made of aliens. Who is the alien? On this planet, we are. I'm convinced that there's another high form of life here, perhaps a life that's now fighting for its homeland. Nonsense? A few days ago I would have said so, now I'm convinced otherwise. But what form of life? Obviously it's beyond our ability to perceive. Alton once suggested the unguessable. Perhaps we've found it." He eyed the biologist.