News From Elsewhere (8 page)

Chirico looked glum. “The moment we hit the Solar System,” he said, “Trans-Solar will step in. Before you know it, the bottom will have dropped out of the platinum market.”

“We’ll make a killing with the first load,” said Duluth happily. “Think I’ll buy Switzerland, as well—just for the winter sports.”

Lukas grinned. “This ship is under charter,” he remarked. “Read your articles, son. All cargo belongs to Trans-Solar.”

Meanwhile the old hominid began another speech. After much effort on both sides, it became clear that he was offering the hospitality of his village.

Alsdorf said, “We can’t all go. Somebody has to stay with the ship. Also, I need Tony for the survey. We’re going to make a start this morning.” He paused. “Now we know what we are looking for.”

Duluth tossed up his bowl and caught it. He grinned at Lukas. “You just been elected, Mike. Have a good time, and don’t get fresh with the women.”

“Why don’t you go yourself? I thought you would have been straining at the leash, Joe. Something wrong?”

“No, nothing wrong,” said Duluth innocently. “Only I’d like someone else to find out if these boys are cannibals. ... Be a pal, and bring back some more free samples. I got an idea Trans-Solar won’t worry about a few kilograms—not where I put ’em.”

Five minutes later, Lukas was trailing across the sand belt toward the forest, walking with the old hominid at the head of the column.

Alsdorf watched the procession silently for a while, then said, “Did he take a machine pistol?”

Chirico began to examine the curious pattern on his bowl. “He didn’t take anything, Kurt. At least, I don’t think so.”

“He must have the death wish,” said Alsdorf genially. He turned to Duluth. “How about improving your muscle tone, Joe? There’s a lot of gear to be stowed in the tractor.”

The village proved to be a couple of dozen two-room huts with adobe walls and thatches woven of thin branches and fronds. It stood in a small clearing by a stream in the forest, about three kilometers from the
Henri Poincare.

In his own way, Lukas had previously tended to romanticize the “noble savage.” In discussions with Alsdorf throughout the long star voyage, he had based his arguments relating to the decadence of civilization on the assumption that primitive man had in him some heroic element—a crude innocence, perhaps—that had slowly been depraved by the development of synthetic power. By synthetic power, he meant the output of all machinery whose energy did not derive directly from man himself. Because terrestrial humanity no longer lived by the sweat of its brow, but learned to rely upon steam, petroleum, atomic energy, and solar power to take care of the donkey work, Lukas had felt that some vital, indefinable force had been irrevocably lost. Secretly Lukas despised himself as the product of a machine culture. Secretly he despised the fascination space travel had for him, because it was the ultimate in reliance upon machines. As a child he had read stories, half-legend, half-fact, of the extinct races— the North American Indians, the Eskimos, the Polynesians. Their starkly primitive existence had enthralled him. Their eventual extinction—the work of modem man—had dealt a sharp blow to his early and conventional faith in the benefits of science. Ever since, he had regarded his own aptitude and affinity for machines with a mixture of guilt and hate. And though he turned out to be a first-class pilot, he both distrusted his skill and was ashamed of it. He was still unconsciously yearning for the simple life.

The village to which the hominids led him came as a small shock. It was squalid and it stank. He knew then that he had expected something better.

The women as well as the men were entirely naked. Their slack bellies, their pendulous breasts sagged wearily as they struggled with pitchers of water from the stream or returned from the morning’s forage with a basket of fruit and a couple of rickety children dancing at their heels. The overwhelming atmosphere was one of lassitude, almost of exhaustion.

He took in the scene with a feeling that perhaps Alsdorf was right, after all. Perhaps Fomalhaut Three would benefit by the commercially “civilizing” ventures of Trans-Solar Chemicals, even if all the hominids were reduced to the status of coolies. At least Trans-Solar would give them medical aid and clean living conditions, 
and rectify any deficiency of vitamins.

The old hominid who had presented the platinum bowls and then offered his pathetic hospitality was called Masumo. He led Lukas into one of the adobe huts and invited him to squat on the sanded floor. Presently they were served with bowls of vegetable milk and sliced yams by an old crone. Lukas stared at the refreshment distastefully, but decided to risk it. After all, he supposed it was possible even for an apelike creature in a jungle slum to feel insulted.

Surprisingly, Masumo’s main interest lay in getting Lukas to talk—not the hominid tongue, but his own language. By a complicated amalgam of signs, gestures, and sounds, he indicated his wish for Lukas to talk of his own world, of cities and spaceways. It was some time before the general idea became apparent, and Lukas obliged only with reluctance, feeling that it was going to be like talking to a blank wall.

But after a while he began to warm up to his subject. He almost forgot Masumo’s presence in the queer sensation that he was talking something out of himself. He described the vast metropolitan culture that had developed on Earth, the slow convergence of East and West, the origin of the Federated World Government after the first and last atomic war, the exploration of the solar planets, and the race for the stars.

And as he talked, an obscure pattern seemed to be taking shape at the back of his mind.

It was nearly sunset by the time Lukas got back to the ship. Duluth was waiting for him, but the others were still out with the tractor.

“Hello, Mike. Been making whoopee with the village maidens? How did it go?”

Lukas told him.

The engineer stared at him incredulously. “Boy, one of us has sunstroke, and I’m feeling all right. You say you spent most of the time talking
 
English
?”

“That’s what the old boy wanted.” He scratched his head and frowned slightly. “Somehow, it seemed perfectly natural once I got started. You should see that village, Joe. It’s an education. ... Well, what have you been doing with yourself?”

Duluth grinned. “I played truant. Things were so damn quiet around here, I fixed up the monowheel and went for a run. Covered about a hundred kilometers, I guess.”

“See anything of Kurt and Tony?”

“Nope. I went north. Funny thing, Mike, you’d think there’d be a hell of a lot of wild life about, wouldn’t you?”

“So?”

“So there just isn’t, that's all. When I’d done about fifteen kilometers, I got fed up with the sand and went for a spin in the forest. Saw a few birds, squirrels, and something that looked like a rabbit. But no big game. What do you make of that?”

“Nothing. What should I make of it?”

“I don’t know. It just seems mighty peculiar. Come to think of it, this whole damn setup is mighty peculiar. . . . Too stinking quiet.”

Lukas suddenly remembered the peculiar feeling he had when Masumo presented him with the platinum bowl that morning. He was about to mention it to Duluth, but was distracted by a flashing pencil beam of light over toward the forest line. “Here they come,” said Lukas. “Kurt has the headlights on.”

A few minutes later, Alsdorf and Chirico clambered up to the mess deck. The geophysicist’s eyes were gleaming with satisfaction.

“Palladium and platinum,” he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. “Concentrated alluvial deposits! You can fill your pocket with nuggets without taking a dozen steps. Here, take a look at these.” He passed a few small, irregular blackish stones for inspection.

“Looks to me like small slag,” said Duluth, unimpressed.

“They’re covered with iron oxide,” explained Alsdorf impatiently. “There is more platinum to the square kilometer here than the entire output of the solar planets! We have made history. This thing is going to be so big—”

“I’ll bet that fills the hominids with joy,” said Lukas dryly.

Alsdorf laughed. “We found a few of their crude artifacts lying around. Fiber shovels and picks. Imagine it, they have platinum and palladium, but they don’t have iron.” His laughter was uproarious.

Chirico stared at Lukas intently. “You look down in the 
mouth, Mike. Is something wrong?”

“Negative,” said Lukas with a faint smile.

Alsdorf collected his precious nuggets and put them back into his pocket. “How did the party go, Mike? Did they try to poison you?”

“Didn’t need to. That village of theirs is one unholy stinkpot.”

The German shrugged. “What did you expect? In a couple of years there won’t be any village. We will introduce the hominids to the concept of organized effort. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to build a spaceport.”

Lukas gave a wry grin. “You think they’ll be enthusiastic?”

“We’ll convert them.” Alsdorf was full of confidence, full of the civilized man’s self-assurance, secure in the knowledge that—as so often before—machines and psychological warfare would make the domination of a tribe of savages no problem at all.

The following morning, after an early meal, Alsdorf and Chirico set out in the tractor to continue their survey. Duluth stayed in the ship, doing a few small maintenance jobs. But by midday he had finished, and suggested that he and Lukas go for a spin in the monowheel.

“Not for me, Joe,” said Lukas, staring moodily through a transparent panel on the navigation deck. “Among other things, I’m going to bring the log up to date. Haven’t had time for it so far.”

“Suit yourself,” said Duluth. “I’m going to shoot me a squirrel if I can’t find anything bigger. . . . Maybe I’ll take a look at shantytown on the way back.”

He went down the companion ladder. Presently Lukas saw the monowheel hurtling along at high speed over the smooth sand belt. He watched till it became a small speck, then turned to the chart table and reached for the star log. He began to make concise entries in a neat, steady handwriting.

He had been working for about twenty minutes when a voice said softly in his ear:
 
“Masumo would speak with Lukas of the sky-machine.
^"

Lukas jumped as if he’d been stung. He spun around, but there was no one else on deck. Then he looked through the observation panel and saw down below a 
small, naked figure in the distance. It was coming toward the
 
Henri Poincare.
 
Puzzled, Lukas went down to meet it.

“Did you talk to me while I was in the sky-machine?” he asked abruptly.

But Masumo only smiled, raised his leathery arm in greeting, and offered the traditional salutation in his own language. Lukas returned it, and together they walked back to the ship.

Oddly enough, Lukas had already forgotten about the voice, and did not remember it until much later. Suddenly he wanted to show Masumo the interior of the ship, wanted to see his reaction to the wonders of terrestrial science.

He gestured toward the ladder. The hominid smiled and scrambled up it with incredible speed. Lukas followed and began the conducted tour.

If he expected a violent reaction—a display of superstition, dread, or near-worship—he was disappointed. Masumo looked at volatility tubes, pile drives, Kirchhausen units, refrigerators, contour berths, electronic cookers, and motion picture projectors with the same bland smile. It was as if, thought Lukas, the old hominid was on guard against something—too much on guard to remember that he ought to be suitably astounded.

Only once did Masumo forget himself. They were on the navigation deck, and Lukas had just shown him the manual telescope, pointing it toward the forest line and letting him look through. But even the glass that made things magically near did not shake Masumo. He treated it with that same unwavering smile.

Baffled, Lukas turned his attention to the small transceiver, intending to make radio contact with the tractor and see if Masumo would react to voices that he would recognize. He tried five hundred kilocycles, the agreed frequency, and called repeatedly. But as there was no answer, he concluded that Alsdorf and Chirico were out working on foot. As Lukas got up from the radio bench, he suddenly saw Masumo staring with poorly repressed excitement at a star chart. He stood still and watched for a moment, noting the quick, alert interest and the way Masumo swiftly moved his skinny finger from one constellation to another.

Then, aware that Lukas was staring at him, Masumo 
seemed to withdraw once more into his role of ignorant savage. The bland smile settled over his face like a mask.

“Masumo, you know what those are, don’t you?” demanded Lukas, pointing to the star charts.

But the hominid affected not to understand, and said in his own tongue, “Talk to me, man of the sky. Talk to me of your voyage across the ocean of many suns.”

Certain now that Masumo was practicing some elaborate deception, Lukas wanted to shake the truth out of him. Instead, he found himself obeying the old hominid with a strange sense of emotional submission—as if his willpower had been paralyzed.

Masumo left the
 
Henri Poincare
 
a little before sunset—long enough to give him a sufficient light to get back to the village. A few minutes after the hominid had gone, Lukas managed to rouse himself from a mental and emotional stupor. He had the sensation of awakening from some peculiar dream. He lit a cigarette, poured himself a stiff drink, and tried to consider the events of the afternoon calmly.