Quofum (5 page)

N’kosi shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t destruction on their minds. Perhaps it was simple loot and pillage.”

Tellenberg turned to his colleague. “How do you loot and pillage something the likes of which you’ve never seen before? How do you know if it contains anything worth looting and pillaging? Or that you could perhaps obtain everything you want from it just by asking? It doesn’t make sense. They were clearly intelligent, but they didn’t act intelligently.”

“Not to you,” Haviti pointed out. “Maybe a Quofumian native operates in accordance with a different philosophy.”

Tellenberg caught his breath. “You’re right, of course. But I’m not just addressing the events of last night from a human perspective. The general rule among newly contacted primitive races is that they don’t attack outright. If nothing else, they take the time to try and discern their new opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. Not these folk. We land, set up camp, and a few days later they launch an all-out frontal attack without even trying to establish the most rudimentary contact.”

“Sounds like it could be a religious reaction.” As he spoke, N’kosi was scrutinizing something on his communit’s readout. “Maybe we arrived on the day deemed locally most propitious for launching all-out attacks on strangers from the sky. Right now we know as little about the locals as they do about us.”

Drink container in hands, Valnadireb slipped daintily off his resting bench. “A situation that clearly must be rectified as rapidly as possible before we can pursue any additional field studies in our preferred specialties. I, for one, have no intention of mucking about in these exceedingly fantastic alien woods until I can be reasonably certain I can do so without having to worry about getting a spear thrust into my abdomen the first time I turn my full attention to my work.”

“The next item on the program, then, is second contact.” Haviti wiped her lips with the back of a recyclable cloth. “The question is—who with? We’re faced with the remarkable and, insofar as my recollection allows, unprecedented situation of having to deal with not one but three distinct indigenous sentient species inhabiting the same geographically limited area.”

N’kosi nodded. “I know of worlds where two different races were encountered living in close proximity to one another, but as far as I know this is the first time a survey team has made contact with three existing in such circumstances. And in the first week, no less.”

“The place is a veritable metropolis.” Valnadireb had walked up to the table to be closer to his colleagues. “We already know what the spikers think of us. It would be useful as well as interesting to know what the stick-jellies and the fuzzies think of them as well as of each other.”

Spikers, Tellenberg found himself thinking. Stick-jellies and fuzzies. Taxonomically surreal but descriptively useful. The application of proper scientific nomenclature could wait until, as their thranx colleague had colorfully put it, their backsides were as safe as their ship.

“We should proceed according to a plan,” he advised. “Try contacting and studying one species at a time.” He repeated the recommendation he had made previously. “I propose that we initiate initial formal contact with the stick-jellies.”

Haviti looked at him sharply. “Why? Are you continuing to favor early contact with them because those are the sentients you and N’kosi happened to encounter?”

He bridled slightly at the implication. “You ought to know me well enough by now, Tiare, to know that I wouldn’t base a decision as important as this on something as inconsequential as that. We’re not jockeying for an award here. It doesn’t matter which of us encountered which species first. I am proposing we pursue contact with the stick-jellies because they are the group that has so far shown the least hostility toward us. The spikers’ aggressiveness is beyond dispute, and according to your own report, the fuzzies approached you in a manner that was both armed and threatening.”

“I’d rather say ‘challenging.’”

“Fair enough. The nature of the fuzzies’ confrontation remains open to interpretation. That of the stick-jellies was clearly less antagonistic.”

“You reported that they waved sharpened sticks in your direction.”

“They gestured with sharpened pieces of wood, yes,” Tellenberg admitted. “They might have been hostile gestures. They might also have been simple acknowledgment of our presence, or even a type of salute.”

Haviti tried another tack. “You also reported that they made no sounds. If they communicate by methods other than speech it will be difficult to exchange complex concepts and ideas.”

“It could be managed.” By way of emphasis Valnadireb executed an intricate gesture in High Thranx that required the simultaneous use of all four of his hands.

The lively debate ate another hour. At the end of the discussion the decision was put to a vote. Trying to make contact with the spikers was obviously, for the moment anyway, out of the question. It was finally decided that they would make the formal attempt at second contact with the fuzzies. Not only because the representatives of that species had demonstrated the ability to express themselves verbally, but because they were the only one of the three encountered whose possible location could be guessed at. The spikers and the stick-jellies had emerged from the depths of the forest and vanished back into it, leaving no trails behind, whereas the fuzzies had made their appearance on the riverbank and had subsequently been observed by Haviti and Valnadireb retreating upstream. If not a direct path through the woods, the river at least offered a route that could be followed.

Furthermore, traveling on the river in a simple inflatable meant they could move upstream in comparative safety in a craft that, if necessary, could provide a means of rapid escape while simultaneously not revealing the kind of advanced technology that use of the shuttle’s skimmer would necessarily entail. When despite his innate fear of water Valnadireb bravely agreed to participate, Tellenberg felt he had no choice but to go along with the majority decision. Attempts at further contact with the fascinating stick-jellies would have to wait.

Three biologically distinct primitive native intelligences, he mused wonderingly to himself. If ever a planetary survey called for the personnel and resources of a full-scale expedition, this one did. In lieu of returning straight home and turning their discoveries over to the administrators of Commonwealth Science Central and the Xenology division of the United Church, however, the four of them would just have to manage on their own.

At least, he reflected, there would be none of the usual back-biting and infighting for credit among the scientific staff of the mission to the outlying system of Quofum. Already there were more than enough in the way of exceptional discoveries to go around. Why, each xenologist could virtually claim to have discovered a new intelligent species all by themselves. That was not how further research would progress, of course. As was only right and proper good science, they would continue to feed off one another’s sub-specialties.

He sighed. It was settled. They would begin by studying the fuzzies. He would duly make his contribution. Examination of the silent stick-jellies and the belligerent spikers would follow in due course. Only one other individual had to be convinced that the proper decisions had been made before they could get started.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, Boylan was less than eager to grant his imprimatur to their request. He looked down from the roof where he and Araza were putting the finishing touches on a long-range communications array that would allow anyone at the camp to engage in simultaneous chat with every other member of the team no matter where they were on the planet, so long as they were within range of the main relay on the orbiting starship.

“Let me get this straight: despite what happen last night, you want to leave safety of camp and take an inflatable upriver to study these club-wielding bipeds?” Behind him, Araza was spraying a network of circuitry onto the parabola of the main antenna.

“To do proper fieldwork,” N’kosi explained patiently and with a commendable absence of sarcasm, “you have to get out into the field.”

Boylan sat down, his legs dangling over the edge of the completed lab module. It had not been damaged in the previous night’s attack. “Isn’t this enough ‘field’ for you?” With a sweeping gesture he took in the swath of fantastic forest that surrounded the campsite.

Haviti stepped forward. “Captain Boylan, when confronted by a previously uncontacted alien species that rises to a minimum level of sentience it is our primary duty as xenologists to open inter-humanx dialogue with that species. We are confronted here with not one but three such potential species. Our expeditionary mandate is limited both by charter and supplies. We have no time to waste and, having no time to waste, cannot afford to be as circumspect as we ourselves might wish to be. We have no choice but to forge ahead with these multiple contacts as quickly as possible.”

Boylan responded with a hard stare. This was followed by a husky laugh. “If you were running for Commonwealth office, Ms. Tiare, I think I would take risk to vote for you twice. You are human mind-wiping machine that takes away all my common sense. All right, go and take your river cruise.” His gaze shifted to the figure standing next to her. “Even the bug is going?”

Valnadireb made a gesture none of his human companions could translate, which was just as well. “In the event of a catastrophic capsizing, I know that I will be able to utilize three bloated human sacs for flotation.”

Boylan roared louder than ever. Behind him, even Araza cracked a smile. The tech said little but missed nothing, Tellenberg observed.

It helped that there were numerous preparations to be made. In addition to amassing extra gear in case necessity required that they be away from the camp overnight, it took several of them to help with the inflation of the boat. Suspended on its own lifters, the finished craft could be guided to the river by one person. But first a path had to be cut through the forest. Their carbonizing shafts sweeping back and forth parallel to the ground, beam-cutters made quick work of most of the growth that blocked access to the water’s edge. A small copse of narrow, silvery poles simply would not be cut down, however, and this required a small but delaying detour.

By the following evening, the expandable boat rested with its bow on the sandy shore and its stern in the water. The attached compressing engine would power it effortlessly upstream against the current and in comparative silence. As for the hull itself, it was composed of reinforced aerogel froth that would shed water and floating debris with equal efficacy.

They would not load stores until the following morning. Boylan saw no reason to tempt marauding spikers or curious fauna by leaving supplies out on the craft overnight. As for the boat itself, the latter were unlikely to bother the beached vessel and the former had shown no interest in anything where the crew was not present, including the shuttle that lay outside the camp’s perimeter.

Later that night Tellenberg lay flat on his back on his bed, unable to sleep. While the inbuilt soundproofing of the camp’s buildings provided peace and privacy, they also shut out the splendid melodious tumult sung by the surrounding forest. Straining to hear beyond the silence he could not keep an endless stream of questions from running through his head.

Had the natives mastered higher pursuits such as music, or art, or storytelling? Had any of the three sentient species the visitors had encountered learned the use of materials more advanced than wood and stone and sinew? Hopefully, they would begin to answer such questions tomorrow. With luck they would encounter not only the lanky indigenes that Haviti and Valnadireb had stumbled across, but perhaps indications of embryonic civilization. Crude shelters, perhaps, or maybe even a village. Primitives who had learned to utilize scraps of hide or plant material to make clothing, however crude, could also employ them to fashion roofs and other items indicative of higher thought.

As he lay on his back staring at the smooth, seamless ceiling, he found himself listening for the sounds of rocks thudding against the module’s exterior wall. None were forthcoming. The spikers were lying low tonight, he mused. It was an encouraging sign. Maybe tomorrow he and his companions would actually be able to spend an entire day doing nothing but science. It would be a change from their first few days on Quofum.

Even better, the world beneath their feet had not winked out of existence. The planetary reality might be outré, bemusing, even impressive, but it was also thankfully a good deal more solid and stable than that first robotic probe and subsequent singular astronomical conclusions might have led one to believe.

With that comforting thought in mind he drifted off into a deep and restful sleep.

4

It did not take long to load the boat. Self-contained travel modules fit neatly into larger containers that were impervious to the local flora and fauna. Thermosensitive packaging would alternately cool or warm food supplies to maintain them at their optimal temperature and prevent spoilage. Armaments were checked and charged. The presence of these weapons was necessary not only for defense in case of another attack by the belligerent spikers but in the event they encountered dangerous carnivorous fauna. Their brief time on Quofum had already revealed an enormous variety of animal life. If experience and history held true to biological form, it was unlikely that all of it would be benign.

It began to rain when they pushed off, the silent motor backing the simple but sleek craft out into navigable water. The drizzle freshened and cooled the air. Unlike the ocean, it did not smell or taste of alcohol.

That meant, Tellenberg mused, that the alcoholic content of the local seas arose from a source other than the clouds. Did it dissolve out of ancient deposits? Could one establish an alcohol mine on Quofum? How would one identify and label such a claim? A host of possibilities crossed his mind in rapid succession, many of them more frivolous than scientific.

Off in the distance thunder boomed, hinting at heavier precipitation to come. A touch on a console unfurled the boat’s stiffened plastic roof. Seated at the controls, N’kosi swung the bow around and headed the craft upstream, accelerating modestly as he did so. Erupting from the water in advance of the boat’s prow, a flurry of winged white worms scattered, as if the silvery surface had suddenly been embossed with ivory.

“Beautiful morning.” Haviti leaned out slightly to look at the sky, which had begun to weep more heavily.

Eyeing his fellow scientist’s supple form as she turned and twisted slightly to scan the clouds, Tellenberg decided that he could not have agreed more. On the shore off to their left, something like a garbage heap fashioned of fragments of dark blue glass hastened to flatten itself against the earth, minimizing its silhouette to potential predators. Nearby, what at first glance appeared to be half a dozen tall narrow huts abruptly rose up on lanky, polelike legs and ambled off into the brush.

What a world, an energized Tellenberg found himself thinking. Not only did it flaunt life in tremendous variety, but life-forms that appeared to follow multiple patterns of development. Employing elementary cladistics he tried to construct a relationship between the long-legged hut-things and the blue glass blob, between the spikers and the stick-jellies, and failed. Even the makeup of the dense forest was suspect. Some growths were clearly composed of familiar complex carbohydrates, but the appearance of others suggested a silicate rather than a carbon base, while a great deal of the understory and brush was derived from a combination of sources, many of which defied casual visual identification. The place was a botanist’s wonderland.

As if that was not enough, they had not one but three native sentient species to study. Reputations were going to be made here, he was confident. Quofum might have proven to be a bit of a puzzle to astronomers, but that peculiar conundrum had now been resolved. It might boast an unreal ecosystem, but there was nothing mysterious about the world itself. It was as solid and bona fide as any other world. Privately he wondered at the unique astrophysical distortions that had so often hidden it from detection. A particularly dense and localized dark nebula had to be responsible, he decided, or perhaps some new kind of astronomical distortion yet to be determined.

Not his specialty. What mattered was that Quofum now stood revealed in all its fecund glory, just waiting for a fortunate few to unlock its apparent treasure trove of biological secrets. Not even a week had elapsed and they had already begun, had already started to fill information files with reams of entirely new and unexpected data. Soon they would be able to add details about and descriptions of sentient species to the explosively expanding compendium, starting with the fuzzies.

Boylan had not been happy to see them go. As expedition commander there was nothing to prevent him from accompanying the scientific team, but he knew he would only have taken up space on the boat. Someone had to remain and look after the camp. As he stated on more than one occasion he would have preferred to see his colleagues conduct their studies close to camp, where they would have remained under the protection of the camp and the shuttle’s defenses. Underneath his gruff exterior and behind his curt personality the captain was an old mothering hen, a smiling Tellenberg reflected. He would never dare voice such an analogy to the captain’s face, of course. Not if he wanted to retain his own facial features in their present familiar configuration.

Even Araza had come to the river’s edge to wish them well, in his terse, soft-spoken way. Tellenberg recalled watching both men standing side by side on the bank as they waved the science team on its way.

“Sample all the biota you want!” the captain had yelled after them as soon as N’kosi had started the boat upriver. “Just don’t let it sample
you
!”

Better to have a competent, crotchety, irritating, unsociable leader and a skilled accomplice who hardly ever spoke looking after things than a couple of cheerful, companionable idiots, Tellenberg knew.

While the excitement and sense of expectation on the boat was palpable, it was not universal. Though the current was lazy and there was little or nothing in the way of white water, Valnadireb remained resolutely in the center of the craft, as far away from the sturdy gunwales as possible. Observing the thranx’s discomfort, N’kosi quietly edged over to port and began pushing back and forth on the side of the boat in an attempt to impart a little extra rocking motion. Only a dirty look from Haviti stopped him. A little sheepishly, he returned to overseeing the control panel. He wasn’t having much luck rocking the highly stable inflatable anyway.

Tellenberg had to admit that their thranx colleague was doing an admirable job of dealing with a state of affairs that would have reduced the less stoic and resolved among his kind to shrinking piles of quivering chitin. Not only did Valnadireb stand upright (albeit on all sixes) with his eyes surveying the opposing shores, he even managed to make his share of field observations, taking notes on his recorder while deliberately ignoring the occasional splash that came over the bow.

The only time he evinced any visible fear was on the occasions when one of his counterparts hit a control that turned the sides and bottom of the boat from opaque to transparent, allowing for the study of the riverine flora and fauna directly beneath them. In the absence of visible ribs or a keel, the transformation made it appear as if they were standing or sitting on a particular stiff piece of water. Conscious of their companion’s discomfort at such moments, Tellenberg and the others minimized their use of the pertinent option.

There was an abundance of biota to study anyway, without gazing down into the watery depths. Just as it did in the vicinity of the camp, the alien forest grew down to the water’s edge. Seasonal flow must stay relatively steady, Tellenberg decided, since the opposing banks showed little evidence of periodic flooding. Much of the flora lining the shore was large and sturdy, evidence that it had been growing in place for a long time.

If the vegetation was a riot of conflicting patterns, plans, and configurations, the fauna they observed as the craft plowed smoothly upstream verged on the chaotic. As overwhelmed as his colleagues, Tellenberg tried to get a scientific rope around one small part of the local animal life by concentrating his attention on the Quofumian inhabitants of the rose-hued sky.

There were what appeared to be many birdlike creatures, though even with his magnifying lenses flipped down it was difficult to distinguish details among the profusion of fast-moving fliers. Some sported beaks and feathers. But even among these almost-familiar shapes there were discrepancies that spoke of biological bedlam. What did a seemingly skillful flier need with a leathery tail that was twice its own length? Why did some fliers soar on two wings while others boasted four, or six? While many had developed bisymmetrically, others were trisymmetrical, or quadri, or worse. Some displayed limbs and appendages and appurtenances that appeared to have sprouted according to no discernible pattern whatsoever, as if their maturation had been guided by cancer rather than genes.

There were wings with feathers, wings with hair, wings made of leathery membrane, and wings of diaphanous transparency. Propulsion was provided not only by flapping wings and gliding on wings but by spiral lifters and jetlike nozzles, by altering internal temperatures between body parts, and by inflation of others. The more he saw of the native fauna the more Tellenberg found himself thinking of it not as an ecosystem but as a circus.

A logical corollary would be to look for an external influence as the source of rampant mutation. The only problem was that preliminary observations had revealed none. Quofum’s star was comfortingly Sol-like. It rained no surfeit of damaging radiation onto the planet’s surface. Nor had instruments located any identifiable internal source. What then, he found himself wondering, was the cause of what they were seeing? Could they simply put Quofum down as one of the most biologically diverse worlds yet visited by humanxkind and leave it at that?

They could not, he knew, because it was not the planet’s diversity that kept nagging at him. It was the seeming lack of organic relationship between so many of the life-forms, both plant and animal, that they continued to encounter. For example, it was not unreasonable to record several dozen different species of reedlike growths colonizing the river’s watery shallows. What was unsettling was to discover that some of them were built up of cellulose, others of silicon, still others of biosulfates. And this developmental disparity among the flora was nothing compared to what he had seen occupying the sky and the land.

Dazzled by the unending parade of exotic life-forms, they passed the rest of the day wholly occupied in making individual and collective observations. Having failed by sundown to resight the group of fuzzies first encountered by Haviti and N’kosi, they settled down to spend the night cruising the middle of the river. While Tellenberg reported back to Boylan, N’kosi turned the craft’s controls over to its unpretentious AI. The automatics would keep the boat properly positioned, keeping it away from shore against any shift in current or sudden rise in water level. They would thus be able to sleep secure in the knowledge that they would not drift ashore and expose themselves to any marauding terrestrial carnivores. As for anything that might rise out of the deep or come swimming toward them, the boat’s integrated security systems would either deal with any such threat on its own or wake them with ample time to confront and analyze it themselves.

Inflatable sleepers (flat and rectangular for the humans, narrow and slightly rounded for Valnadireb) provided comfortable platforms for a night’s rest. Despite these beckoning temptations, everyone was reluctant to turn in for the night. With the disappearance of the sun and in the absence of a moon, a vast and varied multitude of night-dwellers soon took wing in the star-filled alien sky. They constituted, Tellenberg immediately determined, an entirely new and astounding biota that was if anything even more exceptional and perplexing than the fauna he and his colleagues had studied during the day. As he busied himself with his recorder, which automatically adjusted for the greatly reduced light, his fascination and unease continued to expand in equal measure.

While his eyes were drawn to the fluorescent and phosphorescent creatures that darted along the shoreline, or winked in and out among the trees, his mind was fascinated by the glowing growths themselves. Within the boundaries of the Commonwealth, plant life that fluoresced was hardly unknown, but it usually restricted itself to one class of flora. Fungi, for example, or the siliceous crystalline sprays of Prism.

Not here. So much light emanated from the forest fringe that Tellenberg guessed it would be possible to wander those alien woods without any artificial light at all. The biological quandary he found himself confronting did not involve a lack of naturally generated light but rather a surfeit of it.

A thicket of ten-meter-high bamboolike shoots alternately flashed a deep red, then purple. Nearby, a cluster of flowers with weirdly twisted petals flared bright yellow, their internal luminescence flashing in sequence from petal to petal as if their internal lights were chasing each other around the outside of the flower. Gnarled scrub that during the day would have defined inconspicuousness pulsed with soft pink, then green light. The tips of grasslike ground cover twinkled like a billion blue stars. Some otherwise florid florals remained perfectly dark, choosing to bask in the radiance of their neighbors.

Or perhaps to hide among it, he thought as he let his recorder run. Flashier plant life might draw the attention of nocturnal herbivores away from tastier growths that did not phosphoresce at all. Maybe the fluorescence was the luciferaselike equivalent of the bright colors worn by certain toxic Terran fauna, warning prospective predators that their potential prey was poisonous, treacherous, or both. For a xenologist, to see what amounted to the blanket application of luminous protective coloration was startling. Or possibly he was ruminating in the wrong direction. Perhaps all the rampant floral luminosity had another purpose entirely, one that could only be properly divined by patient research in the lab. For example, carnivorous plant life might use such internal lights to attract prey.

Whatever the function, the shimmering forest certainly made for a spectacular journey upriver. Reflected lights danced off the water as the boat cleaved a steady path to the northeast.

Flecks of deep crimson like windblown bloodstains swooped and darted through the night air just aft of the stern, surfing the disturbed air that trailed in the boat’s wake as they sought even smaller arboreal prey. One time something like a blue blanket soared past, blocking out the stars as it glided silently downriver. An increasingly drowsy Tellenberg estimated that its wingspan was at least twice that of the shuttle’s length. On shore, unseen animal life squealed and meeped, whistled and sang and hooted, the startling multiplicity of voices forming a perfect choral counterpoint to the sea of dancing floral colors.