Hugo awards the short st.., p.140
Hugo Awards: The Short Stories (Volume 1), page 140
The first reconnaissance hour passed. Johnny Rasmussen gave the word, the ship nosed upward slightly, and the land below us began to blur. In an hour we had traveled fifty miles. In the next few minutes we went almost twenty times that far. Then the Stardust cut speed and peeled off in a long sweeping glide. The structure we had come eighty-eight light-years to seek spread out ahead of us. It was, it had to be, the transmitter complex, and just to see it was worth the trip.
It rose out of a level plain, row on row and tier on tier of multicolored domes, piled on and against each other in a fashion that looked fearfully unstable, but which must have represented the ultimate in fine engineering. From a distance it looked like an Oriental fan or a peacock's tail, spreading outward and upward from a narrow base, the cantilevered domes like beads on strings, thousands and thousands of them, each as large as family dwellings on Earth. Two miles into the sky the great fan spread, the weirdest and most beautiful artifact of my experience.
We swung slowly around it, drifting in a twenty-mile circle.
Cameras and sensors were probing and recording the whole improbable complex. My info board also told me that the Stardust was enveloped in a force field that would require incredible energy to penetrate. Pegleg needn't have worried. Rasmussen wasn't underestimating anybody—or anything.
Our peerless leader was at his microphone.
"We're here, friends. We're coming in for a landing. Do you see us? Give us a sign! Can you hear us? Give us a sign!"
Perhaps the last was because we had heard nothing since we dropped into the atmosphere. And I found myself wearing a humorless grin. Even in this last extremity, they mistrusted us as well.
The domed dwellings were scattered in patterns outward from the base of the fan, multicolored, brilliant. There were many hundreds of them, and roads curved in from all directions. Everything was there—except the life forms; except the "people."
Cap'n Jules picked the closest empty spot and set the Stardust down gently, without a jar. Pegleg and I were suiting up, checking again and again the shielded protective coverings we had never had a chance to use before. Johnny's voice came at intervals from the speakers. No response. Suddenly we were too strange, too alien for the inhabitants of this world, some of whom had to be still alive and watching us at this moment. But they gave no sign.
Rasmussen has imagination. He wasn't getting through and he knew he was being heard. He changed tactics. The next sound that came from the speakers was very familiar and soothing to me. I had heard it under many circumstances, and on at least twenty worlds. Often in my quarters, after a good meal, it relaxes me as nothing else ever could. For Lindy strummed her guitar and sang softly, sang a baby lullaby from old Earth, eighty-eight light-years away.
That did it. Throbbing musical chords broke from the speakers. Sounds ran up the scales and peaked in little questioning tones. Lindy answered with chords of her own, always gentle, always changing. We could feel the answering excitement as the responses caught up each note, elaborated it, and flung it back, every time with the question so plain it was almost in words.
"I wonder what I'm really saying to them," Lindy murmured. "I do hope it's not insulting." She struck a series of soft notes and crooned a paraphrase of an old movie song, a fairy tale from back in the twentieth century: "Come out, little people, wherever you are, and see the nice spaceship that came from a star!"
But the little people did not come out. The musical dialogue continued, but nothing moved. By now, though, we had more information about them. The physiologists had activated their delicate metabolic probes and were searching the dwellings and working their way up and down the fan. There were life forms behind every wall, forms with complicated metabolisms, apparently all one species. They were shy or frightened or suspicious, but they were there.
Pegleg and I were ready. Johnny gave his okay and we went out through the locks, the first human beings to walk on this doomed world. We barely beat out Bud Merani and his team of archaeologists. If Merani can't find ruins, new, strange buildings will do. They swarmed out behind us, spread toward the nearer dwellings. In our bulky white suits and gleaming helmets we may have looked like a pretty formidable invasion, if Lindy's continuing concert wasn't reassuring enough. I rather hoped she wouldn't accidentally say the wrong thing. Undoubtedly the local inhabitants could use energy concentrations, if they chose. We each were protected by a force field, but as you would expect, it was minimal. It would be a minor deterrent, at best.
Pegleg saw them first.
"Roscoe! Bud! Heads up!" Pegleg's communicator was set for universal output; so he rasped in everyone's earphones.
Large oval doors were sliding open all along the base of the transmitter complex. Out of them small cars came rolling, one after another, a veritable fleet of them. Like the houses, their colors glistened. They came steadily toward the starship, falling into lines as the roads fanned out.
We had set down between two wide highways. In a few minutes each was choked with the little vehicles for the entire length of the Stardust. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of them, identical except for color, and each with its single occupant. And the reason for that was simple enough. One was all a car could hold. A hitchhiker would have been out of luck.
Each little car moved on four fat, balloonlike wheels. Each car body was a short, thick flat oval, and the driver fitted down into it like an egg into an eggcup. You'd be surprised how apt that was. The driver looked like an egg. Well, maybe not exactly, but they were the same shape. The old idea that intelligent life forms would inevitably be human or humanoid just hasn't panned out for us. We've never found any that were. Thinking it over, why should they be?
I walked slowly over to the nearest line of cars, the idea forming in the back of my mind that perhaps the beings couldn't leave their transportation. I could see no limbs, no outgrowths of any sort. They had them, though, as one of them quickly proved. It extended tentacles, pushed itself up out of its nest between the wheels, and climbed down, shooting out extensions wherever it needed them, retracting them again when the need passed. It rolled toward me on multiple outgrowths, each flattening at the tip as weight was put on it.
The thing was perhaps five feet tall. It was a uniform pale olive-green. Longitudinal striations showed on the body surface from top to bottom. Across the upper third of the body, on the side kept toward me, was a conspicuous, eight-inch ribbonlike strip, delicate and glistening and rosy pink in color. It came to a halt six feet away, raised itself up on three stiffened tentacles, tripod-like, and a well-defined oval section in its middle began to vibrate. The flutelike tones were familiar enough. We had been listening to them for many weeks. They were pleasing, varied, and the being produced them in what was evidently a formal manner. We were being welcomed. Or I hoped we were.
"The keys to the city, Roscoe." Pegleg seemed to have the same impression.
I bowed to the egglike dignity.
"We thank you very much, sir or madam, as the case may be. We understand you're having some trouble with your sun. I regret to say that there's not a blasted thing we can do about it, but we're at your service if you can think of something. Johnny, do you have any suggestions for dealing with our little friends?"
"Play it by ear. You're doing fine!" Rasmussen's voice was in my earphone. The egg couldn't hear him. It was already speaking again. Its voice was rich with overtones and rose and fell with undoubted emotion. Then it paused and stood as high as its tripod would allow, the pink strip across its upper front rippling and intensifying. I suspected that this was an organ of vision, a suspicion later verified.
I bowed again.
"It has made some kind of a profound pronouncement." I spoke clearly. "I think Lindy's guitar can give the best answer. Play something, Lindy." I turned and gestured toward the spaceship.
From twenty speakers Lindy's series of musical chords flooded out. Then, one note at a time, she picked out the first phrase of a simple tune, totally inappropriate and three hundred years out of date:
"Oh, the moon shines bright tonight along the Wabash!"
Out of date or not, it was a sensation. The beings all swiveled back and forth in their cars, their vision strips rippled, and a whole array of tentacles sprouted and waved and were retracted again.
"Oh, dear!" Lindy sang. "I hope I haven't promised them anything we can't deliver. Would you say they're pleased or angry?"
"If I had a month, I'd be able to tell you." I glanced upward at the savage, sullen sun, and once again was aware of the murderous orange overglow. "This is a shame! To us they look ridiculous, but they know what the problems are. Here's culture and learning and joy of living—and this time tomorrow it will all be gone. They know we know. And they know we can't help. Kismet!"
"In that case," Johnny Rasmussen said in my ear, "they'll find satisfaction in knowing about us. Invite him in!"
A lot of things were happening. Squads of white-suited, helmeted figures were pouring out of the exits as team after special team implemented its investigation pattern. They expected full cooperation from the inhabitants, which had nothing at all to lose, and certainly knew it. There was no time for diplomatic sparring, for evidences of good faith. The only verity was the dwindling time.
The little cars left the roads and scurried like beetles over the fields around the Stardust. The featureless hide of the ship changed. Rasmussen opened viewpoints, extruded platforms and a veritable forest of sensors, anything he could make visible without danger from the deadly radiation. I saw a whole circlet of the small vehicles ranged around Ursula's transparent studio, the vision strips of the drivers fixed on the strange figure dabbing away at the big canvas. What they must have thought unfortunately will never be known.
The first of the returning scoutboats circled the transmitter and planed in to ease itself into its slip through a briefly opened orifice. Each boat would be decontaminated as it entered. That the boat caused excited comment from the egg-beings was obvious, for the volume of sound rose and peaked as it came in. They were talking among themselves continuously now, like a vast orchestra tuning up.
Three more beings had left their cars and came rolling across to join the official greeter, if that is what he/she was. I beckoned, waved toward the starship, took a few steps. They got it immediately. They faced each other in a circle, fluted softly back and forth, then turned again to me. I led on and they followed.
As we went through decontamination, I worried. What it would do to them we couldn't even guess. But we were all lethally hot and it had to be done. As it happened, I was wasting my concern. It didn't inconvenience them in the least.
They were more concerned when Pegleg and I shucked our spacesuits and appeared as vastly different creatures emerging, like insects, from our bulky white chrysalides. They twittered and fluted in what was without doubt astonishment. The four of them rolled around and around us, nervously extruding and extending tentacles, almost touching us, but never quite making contact. When the purple all-clear light showed in the little room, we led them through the sphincter into the locker room beyond and then into the corridors of the Stardust.
"Bring them up to main."
Rasmussen's voice came from a speaker on the wall, and our guests responded with a series of organ tones. Evidently they recognized the voice. The corridors were empty; the automatic lift opened when we needed it, and there were no sounds. The ship was quiet. Since the egg-beings had no faces, it was pretty hard to read their reactions, but their vision strips were rippling and pulsing wildly, changing from palest pink to cloudy violet.
Dignity is a universal trait. Don't think of it as human. You've seen it in the confident pace of a fine horse, in the gracious, condescending mien of a full-fed lion, in a tabby cat lying in the sun.
***
Dignity projects and demands respect. And our guests, or hosts, depending on how you look at it, had it in full measure.
We ushered them into the big main lounge, with its easy chairs scattered as in a retirement club and wide multiview screens everywhere. Just about every chair was occupied. All rose to their feet as we entered. Johnny Rasmussen came forward with the brand of dignity that is his special trademark, tall and well-groomed and elegant. And the egg-beings matched him, gesture for gesture, tone for tone. They knew he was The Man.
"Welcome aboard the Stardust," the chief said.
The egg-beings responded in unison, a pleasing medley of sounds.
Johnny hesitated for a moment, then lowered himself into the nearest chair. He had nothing comparable to offer to them, but it was an experiment, just the same. It meant: Let's communicate. And they weren't at a loss. They ranged themselves in a half-circle before him, retracted all extrusions, flattened themselves on their bases, and sat, after their fashion. They looked like a half-moon of outsized paperweights, motionless except for their rippling vision strips.
Communication, though, wasn't that easy. Somehow, we hadn't been able to stumble on the key that would give meaning to their music. It was reasonable to suppose that they were trying and had had no better luck with our speech. Except for gestures, it was a stalemate. And there was no time.
After a few minutes of unintelligible amenities, Rasmussen made his decision.
"We will show them the ship, Dr. Kissinger." He still seemed to be chatting with his guests. "We'll show them quarters, labs, machinery, communications, libraries. We'll make things work. Project a tape for them. Show them how we prepare food and eat it. Let them look at viewscreens and through telescopes. Everything we can think of. Many physical principles are universal. They're bound to recognize something. Sooner or later we'll get a common denominator."
I could hear Pegleg's almost inaudible growl beside me. Rasmussen sensed it.
"Don't worry, Dr. Williams. We'll stay alert."
"See that we do, Johnny," Pegleg said. "No dopes built that transmitter out there. They may have us pretty well cased already."
"A possibility," Rasmussen admitted, "and a chance we have to take. You've never been exactly the conservative type, Pegleg."
Johnny never uses Pegleg's nickname.
"I'm almost tempted to hope," Pegleg said, "that I get a chance to say 'I told you so!' It doesn't make sense that they will cheerily tell us good-bye and then sit flat on their bottoms like they're doing now and await disintegration. 'Tain't lifelike. 'Tain't human!"
"Neither are they," I said.
We showed them the ship. As we progressed, I could sense the astonishment that they first exhibited give way to keen, understanding scrutiny. I was sure that they grasped the purposes of most equipment we showed them. They twittered and whistled and fluted over each new situation, with an occasional chord thrown in. When I spoke into a microphone and indicated by gestures that my voice was being heard by the thousands outside, they made the connection immediately. As you'd expect. Communication was probably their area of greatest technical competence.
One of them, perhaps the First Greeter, though I never could be sure, rolled before the mike and showed plainly that he wanted to use it.
"Oh, oh!" Pegleg said.
But Johnny waved a hand. The egg-being seemed to swell; his vision strip flickered frantically; and he launched into a long series of clear tones, modulated, muted, and then occasionally ringing. It was quite a speech, and it took him several minutes.
"Complete report," Pegleg said in disgust. "Those boys now know more about how this ship ticks than I do. May I timidly suggest that you don't show them Ultraspan?"
"I always like to hold something back," Rasmussen said dryly. "It would take perfect communication even to project the idea of Ultraspan. No, I think we're safe. There was another reason for that speech. Look at them."
The panoramic viewscreen hi the communications room showed the base of the great transmitter, the roads leading from it, and all the car-packed area between it and the ship. Our four visitors clustered around the screen, flattened their bottoms, and sat watching.
The little cars swirled and circled like colony ants. Many of them swung about and rolled back toward the entrances in the base of the complex. The roads cleared. The traffic departments in some of our Earth cities could have learned a lot from the neatness and dispatch with which they sorted themselves out.
By the time the roads were open, cars were again issuing from the transmitter base. They came slowly, each pulling a small four-wheeled trailer behind it, and each trailer was piled high with multicolored oval packages. Without hesitation they rolled toward the ship and on up to the port through which we had entered.
Our four visitors tried earnestly to explain. Their fluting notes were persuasive and pleading. They extruded more tentacles than we had yet seen, rolled around the communications room, paused to harangue each of us in turn.
"Well, I'll be-!" Pegleg said. "That's a cold-blooded bit. They want to load on supplies and go along. To heck with the peasants!"
Somehow that didn't seem valid to me. Rasmussen, too, looked dubious. Lindy had joined us on our tour of the ship but had stayed in the background. Now she moved forward, her guitar slung into position, her green eyes and bright hair shining. I felt it a shame that our guests had no basis for appreciating her.
They felt her sympathy, though. They clustered around her, all speaking together, a medley of musical frustration. She plucked single, somehow questioning notes. They responded with a flood of sound.
"I don't know what I'm saying," she said, "but maybe it will give them ideas. They make no sense at all out of our vocal sounds. They're more at home with the strings."
She pointed to the loaded trailers on the screen, then to the egg-beings themselves, then swept her hand in a wide arc to indicate the ship. She plucked a single sharp inquiring note on the A string. And the visitors grew completely quiet. There was no way to substantiate it, but to me they seemed appalled.
