by John Brunner
“Why in hell do you ask that?” he demanded.
“Because…” She hesitated. “Because if she doesn’t, it will be the women who have to worry most, won’t it?”
“Oh!” Ian sounded dismayed. “Yes, I see what you mean!”
“If the ship doesn’t arrive,” Cathy went on doggedly, “we shall presumably have to choose between suicide and trying to set up a permanent colony. I’m not the suicidal type, but on the other hand I’m not the maternal type, either. Sometimes, out at the dig, I’ve lain awake for hours, wondering whether I can face the job of bearing and raising children so that mankind can survive here when—for all we can tell—it hasn’t survived on its native planet.”
Chidingly he said, “But you’re talking as though the ship has already failed to come back!”
“Time’s wasting,” Cathy muttered. “We’ll know soon—in a matter of a few more months. Wouldn’t it be terrible if we did fathom the mystery of the Draconians and then sat here, waiting, forever and a day because on Earth they’d lost interest or smashed things up so badly they couldn’t afford to send the ship here again?”
“It won’t happen,” Ian said, trying to sound confident. “Out of the question! Even if there were—oh—a war, or something, the mere fact that people have been sent here would be enough to make them want to re-establish contact.”
“Garbage.”
“What?”
“I said garbage! I’m talking about the kind of war which would make it literally impossible to contact us again.”
“Well…” He lay down anew. “Well, yes. There is that.”
“Of course there is. And nothing we do can make any difference. I guess we’d better try to go to sleep. But if I wake up screaming, you’ll know what I’ve been dreaming about.”
XX
Item by item Ian ticked off his list, but it seemed to remain the same length as it was originally; every time he had to consign an idea to oblivion, another struck him. It would be a miracle if that process continued for more than a few more weeks; still, while it lasted, it was comforting.
He went to call on Karen at the civil engineering headquarters, where she was supervising the manufacture of a new batch of girders to be shipped to Peat and riveted together in order to hold back a wall of soft crumbly vegetable matter that threatened to slump down and bury the digging machines.
“Well, hello stranger!” Karen said in a friendly mocking tone as he entered her office, three-parts walled with tinted glass that allowed her to watch the foundry processes directly as well as monitoring them by way of the electronic systems. “I thought we weren’t pals any more!”
“Lord, has it become that bad?” Ian said in near dismay… but a second later he caught on, and was grinning as he sat down in a vacant chair beside her, without waiting for an invitation. “Can I interrupt?”
“Talk all you like. This is going very smoothly.”
“Well, what it boils down to is this. It just occurred to me that while almost everybody else keeps offering theories about the fate of the Draconians, you don’t. And you’re here, and you have a speciality that’s very important to us, and—well, do you have any new suggestions?”
“That’s a brute of a question!” She spun around in her chair and looked keenly at him. “The main reason nobody asked me before, I dare say, is because it’s out of my field. I make things. I’m practical, not theoretical.”
“Then make me a practical suggestion, why not?”
Karen chuckled. “Okay! After all, I’ve been here as long as you, and I must have thought of something by now, even if other people already decided it wasn’t worth consideration… I take it you’ve been through the biological and psychological bit, and you want me to see if I can think of a material, inorganic idea?”
“I’d welcome one. I’m not well grounded in that area.”
“Me, yes—but as to how a mineral salt or something contaminating water could have affected a Draconian… Well, I did once think of a point I don’t believe has been discussed at a monthly conference, though I’m sure it must have been investigated by Nadine or Lucas.”
“You’d be surprised at what we’ve overlooked. Even though it turned out not to be important when we did finally evaluate it.”
“Okay.” Karen shrugged, making her large soft body ripple like a disturbed pond. “Among the things they tell you when you’re training to design like a new city in an underdeveloped region is what may well have rendered the Roman upper classes decadent. Not only did they pipe their water by lead conduits—they also liked to ferment their wine in lead-lined vats because that made it sweeter. If you ever looked into primitive chemistry or alchemy, you probably ran across the ancient term ‘sugar of lead,’ which is a lead-salt that oddly enough tastes sweet.”
“You’re saying the Draconians might have let some insidious poison build up in their bodies?”
“Don’t ask me, ask a biologist—and right now, excuse me, please, because I think we’ve got an overheat in Number Nine solar furnace which is on the way to melting the wrong things!”
Nadine and Lucas were polite, but perceptibly scornful, and dashed his hopes. Naturally, any buildup of poisonous metal—whether light, like beryllium, or heavy, like lead or mercury—would have been revealed when they were running element checks on the first corpses to be dug up. Neither those nor any more recent specimens had shown signs of poison; the last remaining, very slender, possibility consisted in some organic poison like DDT which time had dissociated into its simpler molecules… but that was out of reach forever if it had existed.
Scrub another bright idea.
Meantime, he received uniformly doleful reports from the computer in which he had left running a programme to clarify and analyse the patterns in the printed crystals. No matter whether the data came from remotes at the digs, “reading” the crystals as they were found in one “library” after another—at least one per city-site, and at Peat and Ash two—or whether they came from crystals he had brought to the base with care in nonmagnetic padded crates, they all converged towards a single conclusion.
Damn it, they did make thousands and maybe millions of the things printed with patterns so nearly identical as to be indistinguishable now!
Olaf and Sue had temporarily turned over Ash to the automatics when a library was found, at long last, in the Silt city. Ian borrowed a hovercraft and went out to look it over. Small wonder, though, that it hadn’t been spotted before; so much weight had overlain the building where the crystals had been stored, the piezo effect had randomised the information beyond recall. Besides, when the site was underwater—probably for about fifteen thousand years—electrical fields due to sea creatures had also taken their toll.
It was raining when Ian first clapped eyes on that particular library: rack after stack of crystals were being laid bare to the downpour by the automatics. At random he said to his companions, “Hey, can you think of any reason to make so many identical entries in an information store?”
They both glanced at him in surprise. He went on rather sheepishly, “See, I came here to try to read what’s—what’s written in these things. I didn’t really have much hope of success, but I didn’t expect, either, that I couldn’t come up with any explanation for their existence!”
“You said something at the last monthly conference,” Sue recalled with a frown, “about the differences between them being so slight…”
Olaf snapped his fingers. “I know where you find lots of virtually identical records!”
“What?” Ian looked as though he wanted to embrace Olaf. “Tell me, quick!”
“Well, in a government office, right? I mean, like a tax collector’s or a birth-and-death registrar’s…” Olaf’s eyes grew round in wonder at his own perceptivity. “Say, I believe I just hit on something, didn’t I?”
“You certainly did,” Ian said with feeling. “And I’ve just realised there’s somebody I haven’t pestered with my questions when I ought to have
.”
The others looked a question at him.
“Valentine Rorschach, damn it!” Ian exploded. “We’ve been deep, deep into the bodily functions and the nervous system and the sexual habits and whatever of the natives, and we’ve neglected the holistic aspect of their society. We’ve never asked whether they had a government, and if so, how it could have operated.”
“I’ll be damned,” Sue said in pure wonderment. “You go beard Valentine and see what he can bring up for us at the next conference, hear?”
Rorschach looked faintly surprised when—after false starts due to excitement—Ian managed to put his point over.
“It honestly never occurred to me before,” he said, “but you’re right. They picked me to come here because they thought I’d be a competent director, not because I’m outstanding in any single scientific field like Igor or Lucas. But it’s true that every skill on the planet is precious, and I probably ought to have applied mine to the study of the natives as well… On the other hand: how could any—what would you call it?—any administrative problem lead to the extinction of a species?”
“I don’t know,” Ian admitted at once. “But I can tell you this. No other suggestion put to me has come closer to touching me on the spot where I felt the—the raw hurt of impending doom when I was exploring Ash in the simulated Draconian.”
Rorschach pursed his lips. “I don’t know whether to say that’s interesting, or that’s reassuring, or that’s indicative… Could you leave it with me for a day or two? I’ll review every item I can find that might have a bearing on hypothetical social organisation among the natives, and see if anything significant comes out.”
“That’ll be fine,” Ian said, and rose to leave. Rorschach checked him.
“Since you’re here, Ian, I ought to take advantage of the opportunity… I’m not sure how best to put this, but I imagine you, like most of us, have been wondering what will happen if Stellaris fails to turn up on schedule?”
Ian lowered himself slowly back into his chair. He said after a miniature eternity, “Yes. Cathy and I talked about that already.”
“Good; I can save the preamble for somebody else. I was expecting that.” Rorschach licked his lips. “I know it’s very cold-blooded, but we are compelled to think—if worse comes to worst—in terms of genetic pools and optimal unions and rhesus negative and—”
“What you’re driving at,” Ian broke in, “is that we shall have to work out a plan to establish ourselves permanently.”
“The plans don’t have to be worked out. They’ve existed since the base was set up. The chance of our being stranded has always been in the realm of possibility; now, though, it’s attained probability in many people’s minds. Have you noticed?”
Ian hesitated. Memories of casual, bitter remarks—like Ruggiero’s of a few weeks ago—came back to him. He nodded.
“I think it’s time I started making it clear to people that the failure of the Stellaris to arrive needn’t mean the end of the universe,” Rorschach said in a brittle, rehearsed-sounding voice. “We have an excellent spectrum of genetic endowment, and your heredity is among the finest on the planet. So is Cathy’s. We’d appreciate it if—”
Ian was ahead of him. He said sharply, “If, when the crunch comes, we’d be the first to agree that we ought to start a family and make a bid for survival of the species.”
Rorschach inclined his head.
“Precisely. But a little more than that. The first to agree that you’ll share out your genes—spread them as far as possible among the next generation.”
Ian looked at him for a long while. Eventually he said, cheeks very pale above his red beard, “I know why you had to say that, Valentine. I know it makes good sense. I’m sure Olaf and Sue and Karen and Achmed and everybody will be agreeable, and they wouldn’t be here any more than myself or Cathy if their heredity weren’t admirable. But I could wish that you’d prefaced that blunt remark with the answer to a question I imagine you know is bound to be asked.”
Rorschach, face strained, gave a slow nod. “What’s life going to be like among a group of thirty very independent, very intelligent people who came here for one special purpose and find that they’re marooned with no way of letting Earth know even if that original goal is attained?”
“Exactly. It’s not going to be much fun, is it?”
“No.” For a fleeting instant the director looked old, far older than his actual age, as though his mind had been much preyed on by anxiety. “But there it is—and we may be wrong in taking these pessimistic precautions.”
“I guess so.”
“I hope so,” Rorschach countered. “Keep it up on the level of hope as long as possible, hm?”
“Ah, Ian! Valentine tells me you’ve even cornered him now to kick him into a fresh appraisal of our problems!”
Beaming, Igor approached Ian in the refectory; both had arrived a few minutes early for the start of the monthly conference.
“What? Oh!” Ian gave a wry grin. “Really it was Olaf and Sue who put me on the track of that. And then Valentine promptly hit back with a real problem, something much worse than a mystery.”
Igor’s face became grave as he lowered himself into the adjacent chair.
“Yes, I know about that. We all do, I think. Even if we aren’t discussing it openly. I’m sure you’re taking it dispassionately for the time being at least, no matter how tough it may prove to be in the long run. Am I right in suspecting Cathy may be reacting the opposite way around?”
“You know her very well, don’t you?”
“No.” Igor shook his head. “Since—well, the tragedy I once described to you, I’ve been chary of overclose acquaintance with women. But I think I sum her up accurately.”
Ian nodded, his eyes on Igor’s face. He said after a pause, his voice strained, “We’ve talked about you a lot. She—I—what I mean is…” But the right phrase eluded him; he broke off.
“She—?” Igor said with deliberate obtuseness.
Ian drew a deep breath. “She said maybe her first child ought to be yours. Just in case, when it comes time for a second, you…”
“In case I’m too old,” Igor said in a gravelly voice. And raised his hand to forestall Ian’s ready contradiction. “Oh, don’t try to deceive me. I could well be. Deprived of our contact with Earth, flimsy though that is, we could easily slip into a decline. What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing. I want to hear it, that’s all.”
“Then I’m flattered” was Igor’s instant response. “More, perhaps, than ever in my life. How curious it is, though, to think of oneself as—as breeding stock! Isn’t it strange? To have to shed thousands of years of preconceptions, a lifetime of social conditioning… But I guess it’s true that we shall have to make the best of what we’ve got.”
He stared at Ian, whose eyes had suddenly unfocussed and whose cheeks had turned paper-pale.
“Ian!” he exclaimed. “Is something the matter?”
“I…” Ian shook his head, as though giddy. “I don’t know! But when you said that, I felt—I thought… Oh, hell! I don’t know! Something came right to the tip of my tongue, and now it’s gone again, and—”
And half a dozen other people came into the room and there were distractions on every side.
XXI
Slowly time wore away towards the scheduled date of the next visit by Stellaris. By stages the work at the various digs was cut back, so that there would be a chance to assess, review and digest what had been discovered during this two-year tour, and decisions could be reached concerning what artefacts should be shipped to Earth. Clearly, one of the most important items ought to be a statue; they settled on the second-least damaged of the group of four, and with utmost care dismounted it from its roof, loaded it on a hovercraft, brought it back to the base.
Encased in a transparent block of plastic, poured cold, to protect its delicate surface finish, it stood outside the puny human buildings, like the ghost of a g
iant, and seemed to mock without words.
Certainly there had been some spectacular finds since the ship last called. Equally certainly, each of them had made the mystery deeper. It burdened the minds of them all with gloom. To make sure that starflight would continue, to keep up the flagging interest of those at home, they had hoped to produce vast amounts of new positive knowledge. Instead, what they had learned was chiefly negative: that idea can be dismissed now, so can that, so can that…
Depressed and resentful, the staff reassembled on the day appointed, and then began the time of fearful waiting. It had been bad last trip, Ian was told, when Stellaris was twelve whole days overdue; this time it was going to be infinitely worse even though she might be a mere one day late.
Rorschach, with the help of Igor and Lucas, kept trying to revive people’s spirits by reminding them that Rudolf Weil had promised to devote all his efforts to ensuring that some kind of contact with Earth would be maintained at all costs. But his assurances rang hollow. The name of Ordoñez-Vico cropped up in conversation again, at first in passing, then as a central subject in an argument.
A myriad wild hypotheses flew from mouth to mouth: suppose there’s been an all-out war at long last, suppose some terrorist group managed to sabotage the ship by smuggling a bomb up to her in a batch of supplies, suppose there’s been a financial crash, worldwide, and the Starflight Fund has gone into bankruptcy, suppose the United Nations has collapsed owing to friction between competing nationalistic interests…!
Five days late; seven; ten—and the subject of conversation had altered again, this time to consideration of the ways in which they might survive here. Nobody wanted that. Nobody wanted to settle permanently on Sigma Draconis III, because they hadn’t come here as colonists, but as investigators. Frequently people invoked Ian’s experience when he was deciphering the Zimbabwe script: it was all very well for him to demonstrate that a modern man could still live the way an ancient tribe had lived, but would he have wanted to be condemned to that for the rest of his life—drinking foul water, eating what he could gather or kill with a snare or a spear, forever at the mercy of wild animals and strange disease?