“Walk slowly toward your ship.”
“And if I don’t?”
“We will order the bird to sever the tube. You see, the choice is entirely in your hands. Refusal to enter your ship would be tantamount to suicide.”
“You’ll—order—the bird?”
“All life on this planet is in harmony, Earthman. This is why we have no need of your Confederation. The bird understands our orders. But the bird is hungry, Earthman.”
Andersen did not need further hints. He began to edge across the flat terrain, slowly, cautiously, as if the creature perched on his helmet were highly explosive. He was twenty feet from his ship. Crossing those twenty feet seemed to take forever.
At length he reached the open hatch of the ship. His alien tormentors were eyeing him gravely from where they stood.
“All right,” Andersen growled. “I’m back at my ship. Call off your bird!”
“Enter the ship.”
“With the bird?”
“The bird will leave you.”
Bitterly, Andersen grabbed the handhold and pulled himself up into the hatchway. Just before he drew himself back into the ship, he heard two loud popping sounds, and saw the blue bird fluttering up into the air.
He exhaled feelingly. Having those pincers on his air-tube had been like having a hand round his throat.
The bird hovered ominously in the air a few feet above the ship, flying in a tight little circle, obviously ready to pounce again if Andersen should attempt to emerge. But he knew that this time the beak would close, and he remained where he was. “Is your answer final?” he said to the aliens.
“Our ecology is a closed cycle and our economy is stable. We value our stability. We have no desire for contact, Earthman.”
Andersen nodded. The door had slammed shut. Short of coercion, there was no way to make these beings see reason.
He glowered at the hovering bird. He scowled at the motionless knot of aliens. He frowned at the whole weird landscape and yellow sky.
Failure.
Andersen’s hand grasped the actuating lever of the airlock control. He yanked. The metal sheath rolled smoothly into place, blotting out bird and aliens and landscape and sky.
Minutes later, his ship was streaking out of the chlorinated atmosphere and heading for space.
* * * *
Andersen knew why the two previous Survey men had neglected to mention the fact of their visits to the small world. Obviously they had been too humiliated to care to record their encounter in the official record. The planet was an ecological whole; apparently the lean purple humanoids were merely first among equals. And the planet’s inhabitants wanted to remain what they were—isolated.
They would have cooperated to repulse any invasion. They had driven him away with a bird the size of a hen—and no doubt they had been equally imaginative in driving away the two previous Survey men. Andersen amused himself by trying to picture the scene. A cloud of gnats? A horde of small lizards? It didn’t matter. Humanity could not hope to win a conflict waged against the total inhabitants of a world. Defeating humanoids can be done; but when the birds and insects and perhaps even the filterable viruses join the fray, victory for the Confederation becomes impossible.
Andersen brooded long and hard before he tapped out his report on the planet. The easiest thing to do would be simply to neglect to mention the stop, as his predecessors had done; but he was too conscientious for that. He had to file a report.
He filed it.
* * * *
Report of Survey Scout J. F. Andersen on World Four of System 107b332.
Planet is inhabited by intelligent life. Contact was made but dominant life-forms show little interest in galactic affairs.
Hostile non-intelligent life-forms make the planet highly undesirable. This operative nearly lost his life in an encounter with a dangerous native life-form. Probability of other hostile life-forms is high.
Recommendation: This planet’s inhabitants are not promising members of the Confederation nor is the planet itself suitable for Terran habitation. Therefore it seems unwise to attempt further contact with this world.
* * * *
Andersen typed the report out on the black-bordered paper used for negative reports, and dropped the completed report in the polar facsimilizer. An electronic impulse flickered out along the subspace channels, and an instant later a reproduction of his report had arrived at the main headquarters of the Survey Corps, on Earth.
He knew the procedure. The report would be filed in the negative bank, and all references to World Four of System 107b332 would be altered to show the planet as not suitable for contact. In the course of events, his negative report would come up for review, as regulations provided. He would be called upon to explain his reasons for filing such a report.
But, at last word, the Central Board was fifty years behind on reviewing. Andersen shrugged and set up the coordinates for his next stop. By the time they got around to calling him up for an explanation, he would be pensioned off and no longer concerned with matters of pride. But, just for now, he thought, it was better that no one found out that on World Four of System 107b332 the mighty Terran Confederation had been repulsed by a bright-colored bird the size of a small hen.
THE LONELY ONE
Originally published in Science Fiction Stories, July 1956.
Jannes very carefully guided the two-man cruiser out through the Haughtsmith’s lock, while Norb Kendon paced up and down in the tiny confines of the little ship, watching the red dot of light that was Sol.
“I feel kind of funny about this, Harl.” Norb stared at the small hard point of red light. “I feel like a kid going where the grownups belong.”
Jannes said nothing till the cruiser was in free fall; then he wheeled around to face the other. “So what if it’s Earth? Those wild men down there can’t be anything to get sentimental about. That’s your trouble, Norb—sentiment. You haven’t learned, have you?”
Norb repressed a tiny beat of anger that rose suddenly within him. “You know I’m not being sentimental. It’s just that—just that here’s the planet that gave birth to life. The source of all mankind; and here it is dead or almost dead.”
“And that’s not being sentimental, eh? What do you call it, then?”
Norb frowned. “You win you long-nosed devil; I’m being sentimental. So what? Is it a crime? I just can’t help feeling reverential right now.”
“I’ll lay off,” Jannes said. A smile creased his face, and pulled his long, twisting snake of a nose into an even more grotesque shape.
The cruiser began to spiral down into its landing orbit. Jannes skillfully cut the orbit to minimum and sat the ship gently on its tail. He deactivated the pile, while Norb tested the atmosphere. “How is it, Norb?”
“What do you expect? Cold as hell, but breathable.”
“How cold?”
“Plenty; five below, I hope the natives have some warm igloos for us.”
“If we find natives, that is,” Jannes rejoined. “We haven’t heard a peep out of Earth for twenty years, and there were only a few hundred left then.”
“We’ll find them,” Norb said. “Life doesn’t give up so easily on this planet, methinks. Man’ll stick pretty closely to his home world.”
“Sentiment again,” Jannes snorted, as they snapped open the lock and headed out.
The snow was soft and unbroken, and the two spacemen sank in to their hips. They floundered around in the drifts for a few moments.
“Hey,” Jannes called shouting to make himself heard over the whistling wind. “We’d better clear a path in front of us, or we’ll never get anywhere.”
They fumbled out their blasters and began to melt a path through the snow. The warmth fanned out around them.
?
??Which way is that colony?” Norb asked.
“Mukennik said due east which is thataway. If it’s a colony, that is; how anything could survive in this kind of territory is beyond me.”
They pushed on through the snow, leaving a little river of warmth behind them. The day was dark with the perpetual gloom of a dying world, and the dwarfed sun afforded little illumination and less heat. For as far as they could see, there was nothing but the shiny glint of the snow, broken occasionally by the few twisted, leafless trees which pierced the white blanket and stood out sharp against the grey skies.
“Are we headed east, Harl?”
“Don’t you trust the compass?” Jannes asked. “It says we’re going east. Not that it matters much.”
“It’s just that I don’t see any sign of that colony. If Mukennik could see signs of life from the Haughtsmith we ought to be able to find them from down here. And there’s nothing in sight in any direction.”
Jannes stared hard at the compass. “It says east is out that way; and we’ll go that way. If we don’t find anything, we’ll turn back. Let Mukennik come down here and freeze for a while; I don’t see why that green-faced clown couldn’t come looking for his own colonies, instead of sending us.”
Norb looked quizzically at his companion. “Quit it, Harl. You know a Sirian couldn’t stand this kind of climate, or else Mukennik would be down here without any coaxing. Besides, we volunteered.”
“Yeah. I almost forgot that, didn’t I?” Jannes wiped a speck of snow from the end of his nose. “Let’s look real hard, yes? Maybe bring back a live Earthman or two for Mukennik’s collection.”
Norb said nothing. He squinted out toward the horizon, hoping to catch the slow rising of smoke or some other token of life. Suddenly he stretched up on tiptoe. “You see that out there Harl? That look like a living thing to you?”
“Where? You mean that tree all the way out there?” Jannes pointed.
“Right direction, but it’s not a tree; looks like a moving figure to me.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Say, is Mukennik serious about that offer?”
“I’m sure he is,” said Norb, straining hard to see the distant figure.
“He’ll feel pretty foolish if we do find them. He’ll have one hell of a time trying to fit them all aboard the Haughtsmith.” Mentioning the ship reminded Jannes that he had descended from space in a ship, and he hastily turned to look for the cruiser. He was somewhat surprised to see that the trail they had blazed extended only a few hundred meters back to the ship.
“Look at that, Kendon; I was sure we’d gone farther than that.”
“Must be your mind snapping,” Norb retorted. “Say, that is a figure out there!”
Jannes stared and agreed. They began to shout and run as fast as they could—which was not—very fast—through the snow toward the far-off shape.
The old man had caught sight of them as they ran, and was standing in the snow, arms akimbo, waiting for them to approach. He was waiting by one of the gnarled trees, and, Norb observed, he was as gnarled himself as the twisted tree he leaned against. He was very old and terribly dried-out looking; Norb hoped he wasn’t deaf.
“Greetings, Earthman,” Norb said slowly and carefully once they were within speaking range. “We have come from the skies in silver bird.” Norb illustrated this with his hands, and Jannes followed Norb’s lead.
“Do you understand us, old one?” Jannes asked, rolling each syllable out with care.
The wrinkled oldster smiled. “Of course I do, son. Why do you star people insist on treating us like savages, anyway?” The old man’s voice was husky and impossibly deep. “I’ve been speaking this language for as long as both of you’ve been alive.”
The two spacemen looked at each other in surprise. “Sorry,” Norb said, smiling. “It’s just that Earth’s been out of touch with the System for so many years that we didn’t know exactly what to expect.”
“Quite all right, believe me. Welcome to Earth. Where’d you say you were from, anyway?”
“Starship Haughtsmith, out of Vega II.”
“Is Vega II a beautiful planet, young man?”
“That it is,” Norb said. “Our winters are only a few degrees cooler than our summers, and the Climate Constant is one of the best in the galaxy.”
“Interesting,” the old man said.
“We’ll be glad to get back there,” Jannes replied. “No snow.”
Norb heard a low rumbling coming from the Earth. It grew steadily in intensity. “What’s that?”
“Earthquake,” the old man said. “Means Earth’s annoyed at what you said about going back. She likes to keep her visitors around for a while.”
“We’ll be here a while,” Jannes said; “and then we’ll clear out as fast as we can—if we’re not frozen solid first.” The ground began to quiver and the two Vegans fell forward in the snow. The old Earthman remained upright calmly ripping up the bark of the tree with horny fingers and stuffing the pieces of bark into a sack as they came off.
“Guess you got her angry, all right. Come; I’ve got all the bark I need now, so let me take you to see the king before you get into some real trouble. My name’s Kalvin, by the way; I’m just about the oldest man on Earth, I guess. McNeil’s been expecting you for years—ever since the transmitter broke down.” Kalvin gestured and led them off in a path through the snow.
Suddenly, the old man disappeared from sight. His voice boomed up from the ground below. “Keep moving; the entrance is right in front of you.”
The two spacemen moved cautiously forward, Norb in the lead, and felt the ground beginning to slope. Abruptly the snow fell away and Norb saw there was a slanting hole in the ground. He entered.
Kalvin was standing there with a knot of people around him. Most of them were old, Norb noted, all thin and knotty-looking. There were a few children, not many.
“Welcome to the capital city of Earth,” Kalvin said, “the last survivors of the glory that was Terra salute you.”
“Do you all live here?” Jannes asked.
“All hundred and two of us,” replied Kalvin, waving. “You see before you the guardians of man’s immortal heritage. That’s what they told us when they left us behind.” He laughed raucously.
A tall man appeared from somewhere in the back of the cavern. Like the others, he was warmly dressed in animal furs, and in his flowing white hair was a crown made of shining metal. As he approached the spacemen saw that he was very tall indeed.
“I’m McNeil,” the tall man said. Norb looked him up and down and decided he was almost three meters tall from shining crown to fur-swathed feet—the tallest man he had ever seen. “Welcome to Earth,” McNeil said. “I’m the king.”
Jannes and Norb exchanged uncertain glances. The space manual didn’t say anything about proper behavior in front of kings. “We’re honored, Your Majesty,” Norb began uncertainly. “We represent the Starship Haughtsmith out of Vega II.”
“Just call me McNeil,” the big man said. “Pleasure is all mine; I’ve been expecting visitors from space for twenty years—ever since our transmitter went off. Sorry we had to hide from you, but when I saw your ship up there I figured the best thing to do was to cover up all traces of our city until we knew whether it was safe or not. I think you saw us from up there before we had a chance to cover up, because you seemed to know where to land.” McNeil turned to Kalvin, who was standing nearby. “Hey, oldster, you’ve earned another.”
The king took a strip of fur from his collar and put it around Kalvin’s neck, where, Norb observed, there already were a number of similar strips. Kalvin smiled, bowed, and fingered the new fur strip pleasedly.
“Kalvin’s our most honored knight,” McNeil explained. “The old dog’s lived so long he’s been knighted ten times over. I was hoping th
e spacemen would eat you when you went out to get them, leatherface.” He gave the old man a playful shove and Kalvin backed slowly away.
“He said there were just a hundred and two of you,” Norb said.
“That’s right. There used to be more, but we’re slowly dying out. This life isn’t an easy one, and Earth seems to get colder every year. I won’t give us more than another century, and then this’ll be a dead planet. Come on, I’ll show you a room you can have while you’re here.”
Norb and Jannes followed the tall king down a winding corridor. Jannes was still too amazed to say very much, and followed along in silence.
“That’s why we came,” Norb said; “we weren’t sure anyone was left on Earth or not. But now you won’t have to fight the cold anymore; we’re going to take you back to Vega with us—all of you—and you can spend the rest of your lives in warmth.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” said McNeil; “better forget the idea. Here’s your room. The people will be putting on a dance for you tonight, and we’ll come get you when it’s time.” The king showed them a small room carved out of the side of the cavern, bowed, and vanished into the corridor.
“I guess you were right,” Jannes said, as soon as they were alone.
Norb smiled at the smaller man. “I guess so, Longnose. It’s wonderful to find the home of civilization again, isn’t it? When we get them back to Vega, we can give them a whole village and make it into a living museum to preserve the ways of dead Earth. Mukennik’ll really be delighted by this.”
“Somehow I don’t like it though,” said Jannes. “First, Kalvin telling us to watch out, and now McNeil saying it’s too late for them to leave. I smell trouble cooking.”
“My father warned me to watch out for people with long noses,” Norb said. “They find trouble where there’s none to be found.”
“Have it your own way, Kendon. You’re so thrilled to be on Earth that you can’t see beyond the end of your nose—which isn’t so small itself.”