Exiled to the Stars (37 page)

They would need time to plan, to study the new life form, and to work out procedures for establishing peaceful contact. From his 'believers' days, Ron knew that a bungled contact could have disastrous consequences; it was a common theme in the old first-contact stories.

Elaine had been a tolerant observer during Ron's 'believer' days, but the actual possibility shook her badly. With the others, she had snickered at the believers, and had teased Ron unmercifully. Now, she was content to let Ron take the lead here. After all, he was the one that had read the old stories, and the official procedures, and had discussed the subject
ad nauseum
with that bunch of weirdoes. Well, okay, she admitted to herself. Maybe they weren't such weirdoes, after all.

Still…"What makes you so sure?" she asked. "The plains rats build mounds two meters high. What makes these different?"

Ron paused, thinking. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "But a whole colony of plains rats only builds one mound. This was a whole cluster of rounded, dome-like things. They looked enough like our domes to scare me, though."

"How many?"

He shrugged. "Maybe a dozen or so. From that distance, I couldn't tell whether they were laid out in any kind of pattern." He paused a moment, thinking. After a moment, he sighed. "Well, I guess this is where we earn that 'Explorer' tag. We
have
to know more."

Elaine nodded agreement. "Best I can guess," she said, "we're about 500 meters upriver from them. Any ideas about how we can get closer without being taken by a wolf lizard or noticed by them?"

"Yes," he replied, "very slowly, and very carefully. I'll lead off with the sprayer, and you can back me up with the shoulder laser." He turned to face her. "
Please
don't shoot anything but wolf lizards. We have no idea what they look like, and if we kill one of them, it could start a war that might wipe out the colony!"

She frowned in irritation. "You know me better than that. I
never
shoot unless I have a target."

He nodded. "I know. But I'm just reminding you that we don't know what they look like. They might be something horrible-looking. They might even look like wolf lizards." He shrugged. "Just be careful, that's all."

"Yeah? Well,
you
be careful, too. We don't want to have you merrily burning a path through the grass, and suddenly find ourselves in the middle of their village!"

Ron grinned and nodded his surrender, though his eyes never ceased patrolling the surrounding grasses. "All right, Grandma. I'll be careful."

"Then, we're ready?"

Ron shook his head. "Not yet. Something we have to do, first." He tapped her shoulder, to let her know he was moving, and stood to return to the canoe.

After ten minutes of nervous watchfulness, that Elaine was certain was half an hour, he returned, carrying a small cloth bag. He held it out to her. "Trading materials. In case we're discovered. I'll watch while you check your baggage. We want small items, easy to carry. I'd say concentrate on shiny things, and things that might impress a primitive. Those domes didn't look very advanced to me."

Elaine nodded silently. Taking the bag, she returned to the boat and began sorting through her possessions. It didn't take long. All she had was a single pack. Ron had taken longer because he had also examined their common baggage.

Finally, she returned, and handed the bag to Ron. He hooked it onto his weapons belt, and picked up the sprayer.

Spraying a path to follow was
much
riskier than clearing a campsite. Ron had dialed the sprayer's nozzle to clear a path slightly wider than his shoulders. Grasses set to waving by careless passage could be as much a red flag for their possible natives as their sudden appearance.

But that meant that they were only cems from the impenetrable mass of the two-meter high grasses. Wolf lizards, or any other predator, would be able to creep easily to within attack distance.

Elaine had decided to leave the shoulder laser, and instead carry her hand laser in her hand. The shoulder laser was too unwieldy for such close quarters; she needed to be able turn and fire
quickly.

At last they were ready. Ron found it most effective to spray the grasses at ground level. That way they curled in on themselves as they turned to black ash, making no visible disturbance in the neighboring grass. It also had the advantage of killing any small burrowing creatures that could threaten them.

For Elaine, it was interminable. Spray, wait for the grasses to turn to ash, step, stop, spray, wait, step…it was almost maddening, especially given the tension of worry about what they might find at the end.

Finally, though, Ron stopped. Shedding the sprayer's pressure tank, he crouched, examining the marshy ground and the grasses themselves with great care.

Eventually, satisfied, he slowly parted the grasses and peered through them, using the sprayer's nozzle to part those grasses beyond his hand's reach.

He'd already known they were in some sort of marsh. The ground was very wet and muddy. In some places, water stood on the surface. The sticky mud had made the last hundred meters hard going, and Ron had winced at the occasional sucking sound as they pulled their feet free.

Now, he found that they had also reached the sea. Open water confronted him, a small inlet some fifty meters wide. The other side of the inlet seemed a bit higher; the ground looked firmer, and the group of structures occupied it.

They weren't domes. They were shaped like flat ovals, and each was mounted about two meters off the ground on what seemed to be a high pole. They looked almost like large, bulbous seedpods on stems. Other poles stretched from the ground to the bottom of each 'pod', seeming to lean against the 'stem' at an angle.

There were figures moving about, but they were indistinct at this distance. Ron eventually decided that the creatures, like wolf-lizards, traveled low to the ground, making it hard to get an idea of their appearance.

Elaine nudged him, and he started guiltily. He quickly fished out his tablet, and set it to simultaneously record and transmit its images to Elaine's tablet.

They watched for over an hour. There was little activity in the village, but Ron made certain he captured what activity there was. One of the figures appeared to scurry up the angled pole, and disappeared into a hole near the bottom of one of the 'pods.'

Suddenly Ron heard a quiet buzz, and the grasses reflected the flare of a laser blast. He whirled, and Elaine indicated something that appeared to be a meter-long centipede. The creature had appeared from the grasses, and Elaine had shot it. Since it was close enough to Ron for him to have felt the heat of the blast, he did not regret her action. Still…He turned back and once again parted the grasses.

The laser blast did not seem to have been noticed. At least, there was no visible excitement in the 'village.' He released the grasses and turned back to Elaine, nodding slightly. She returned the nod, and he indicated that they should start back.

Elaine nodded again, and laser in hand, began struggling back through the marshy mud. He kept the sprayer; the path already existed. He eyed the centipede creature longingly. It most resembled one of the sand worms, but there were obvious differences, and he was sure Elaine's mother would love to examine it. But they were a good week from the colony, and there was no way to get the carcass there. He settled for a dozen shots from his tablet's camera before hurrying to catch up with the struggling Elaine.

Back at the canoe, they discussed their plans while cleaning the clinging black mud from their legs and moccasins. Ron wanted to stay several more days, and try to get closer to the creatures.

But Elaine disagreed. "It's too risky, Ron," she said. "We already have over an hour of footage for the computer to analyze, and every time we go back increases the risk that we'll be discovered. In fact, our trail could be discovered any minute, and any intelligent creature would investigate such an obvious path through the grass." She shrugged, and the bobble of her breasts distracted Ron for a moment. "Anyway," she continued, "Those things may fish the river, and if so, one of them might come up the riverbank and see the canoe."

Ron argued, but even he was aware that their primary responsibility was to get knowledge of the natives back to the colony, and to do so without being discovered themselves.

Finally, he admitted defeat, and they reboarded the canoe, turning upriver. Their original plan had been for them to spend several days exploring the river's mouth and the seashore, but the native village had changed that. Now, they were impatient to get back to the colony with their news.

Moving upriver, they were fighting the current, instead of drifting with it. Travel was much slower, and required much more effort from the small water-jet motor. On one particularly dull, rainy day, they actually exhausted the solar-charged batteries, and had to set up camp early, and then waste an additional day waiting for the batteries to recharge.

They made an abortive attempt to talk about Ron's newfound romantic interest in Elaine, but it made them both so uncomfortable that they decided to table the subject until they got back to the colony, and they were no longer thrown together in isolation. Elaine was convinced that Ron's attraction was based on her close availability and the lack of other female companionship. Ron didn't agree, and rather resented the idea that she thought him so shallow, but the last thing he wanted to do was argue with her. The week-long trip back to the colony was uncomfortable for both of them.

Their return, though, was suitably triumphant. They barely had time to don their shipsuits before a crowd, headed by Elaine's parents and Ron's mother, descended on them. It was nearly half an hour before Vlad Renko was able to get the jubilant colonists to allow Ron and Elaine to lead a procession back to the colony. A beaming Cesar Montero welcomed them with a speech that was mercifully brief.

It was several hours before Ron could get Cesar and Vlad aside and tell them about the natives. The older men's eyes widened as he described what they had seen.

Cesar was lost in thought for a long minute. Finally, "Tomorrow morning, you two will present your discoveries to the Council. Meanwhile, send your footage on to the comp, so it can begin analyzing it."

Ron tried to apologize for not obtaining more and better footage, but Cesar waved it aside. "You did the right thing. You might have been able to get more without being discovered, but it wasn't worth the risk." He shrugged. "We'll talk more tomorrow, after the Council meeting."

The Council meeting was chaotic. The Council was unimpressed by the limited information their explorers could provide, but when the computer sent the images and footage to the Councilors' tablets, reactions were immediate.

Doug Ryles complained that the images were poor and lacked detail, but another Councilor reminded him that they were shot from a distance of more than fifty meters with tablet cameras, and even with computer enhancement, they became rather grainy with enlargement.

One of the Councilors, a 'believer', became very excited and gushed about their dream coming true, until he was stopped by Susan Renko.

"We don't
know
whether or not they're intelligent," she said. "There are a number of animals on Earth that construct elaborate homes. In fact, we don't know
what
they are. From the images, they seem to resemble wolf lizards more than anything else. But that means nothing, either. Before we can begin patting ourselves on the back, or even attempt contact, we need a
lot
more information."

"Yeah," Vlad put in. "If this Council had allowed Cesar to find and train some pilots, and unpack the aircraft, we'd be able to learn a lot, with little or no risk. Instead, for the last twenty years, all we've heard was, 'we can't risk peoples' lives', and 'unnecessary risk. We don't need aircraft', and 'better uses for our resources'. Well, you fools, we're lucky these brave kids went exploring. Otherwise, these
things
might have found us, instead of us finding them." He glared around the table as he continued, "Well, I move that we immediately begin training pilots, and that we build a hangar and unpack
all
the aircraft. These things are a week downriver. What if they've got cousins just over the next hill?"

This time, Cesar finally got his wish. The Council accepted Vlad's motion.

"In the meantime," Cesar said, "We need to start training a First Contact team, in case these creatures
are
intelligent."

"No problem," the 'believer' Councilor put in. "I can have twenty volunteers here in an hour."

Cesar shook his head. "I admit that the so-called 'believers' were more foresighted than the rest of us," he said, "but I suspect at least some of them would be psychologically unsuited for this task. I'm sure your people will be a great asset should we develop a relationship with these…creatures, But on-the-ground study and early contact will require much more than enthusiasm."

The Councilor, red-faced, started to respond, but Cesar quickly continued. "I move that we begin recruiting an 'Explorer Corps', to train in exploration techniques, and to study these creatures, with an eye to future contact, should they prove to be intelligent." He rested his gaze on the 'believer' Councilor. "Applications would, of course, be very welcome from among those foresighted individuals we have been calling 'believers'. I'm sure many of them will prove suitable."

"Nonsense!" Doug Ryles shouted. "There is no need to get overly excited by a few grainy pictures! This just shows the wisdom of this Council in deciding to build a fortress to defend our people against threats like this. I say ignore them. They're a week downriver. If they decide to come up here, well, we'll be ready for them!"

Vlad shook his head. "I cannot believe you just want to bury your head in the sand and pretend nothing has happened. If these really
are
intelligent creatures, do you really think they're the
only
ones on the planet? They may have cousins just over the horizon, scouting
us
even now! Do you really think we can just wish them away? Can you really be that big a fool?"