Quozl (11 page)

“You may as well begin. Emphasize thoroughness, downplay speed. Have everyone take their time to check and recheck. It's time we'll need. Commencing preparations will stop some of the rumors and mute the talk. I need hardly remind you that the proceedings of this gathering are not for general dissemination. At no time is it to be discussed with anyone not present.” She flicked her gaze in the direction of Looks-at-Charts and Flies-by-Tail, the youngest Quozl present.

“Be especially vigilant while coupling. I won't have any member of my staff precipitating a panic.”

The two young members of the initial survey team deferentially dropped their eyes and ears.

They needed more time, of course. No matter how much time they took, Looks-at-Charts knew they would always need more. More knowledge of Shiraz and its mad inhabitants, more time to prepare the colonials, more time to consider the possibility of failure, something which the previous six generations had never had to contemplate. Many items were in short supply aboard the
Sequencer
after the long journey out from distant Quozlene, but none so precious as time.

Eventually the majority of ordinary colonists would have to be told, he knew. But the less time they had to reflect on the existence of a hostile non-Quozl intelligence on the world below, the less likelihood there would be of a panic. During touchdown everyone would be far too busy to mull over unworkable alternatives.

Landing Command pored over maps and statistics as they agonized over site selection. The place chosen for First Burrow had to be located in a region where the colony would have access to specific resources without drawing the attention of the Shirazians, and where they would be safely distant from the world-spanning native conflict.

The hastily assembled philology team distinguished itself by rapidly translating the most important of Shiraz's bewildering multiplicity of languages. Their reports proved that while the natives might biologically be related to the Quozl, mentally and spiritually they were vastly different.

Soon it was obvious to anyone with a smattering of elementary mass psychology that they fought among themselves because they had not yet come to terms with something as basic as their individual sex drives. They had no idea how to control them, channel the related energies, make use of the related cerebral aspects, or sublimate their violent tendencies in art, music, and other aspects of civilized behavior. Instead they regularly engaged in physical combat both on an individual level and as organized tribal groupings.

Even the most imaginative psychologists aboard the
Sequencer
were astonished. Controlling the sex drive was basic to the establishment of a mature civilization. That the Shirazians had achieved a high level of civilization could not be denied. That it was socially immature was equally unarguable.

“What is remarkable,” declared a senior philosopher one day, “is not that they continue to war with each other, but that they have somehow managed under these biological circumstances to avoid exterminating themselves.”

“War is a natural and understandable by-product of their lack of control and understanding of their own hormonal systemology,” said a colleague. “It is the only means left to control the expansion of the population.”

“It goes deeper than that,” argued his senior. “Is is more basic to their civilization and affects much more than mere population growth. It affects everything about them. It would affect the way they would react to us.”

The analysts could tell nothing about Shirazian art from the native's purely aural broadcasts, but they did record many samples of native music. It was clashing and discordant, full of the confusion that lay beneath the rest of their civilization. Such discoveries were discouraging, but there was no talk of giving up. They could not give up. Despite its incessantly warring, wild tribes, Shiraz was to be their home.

Pressed for a determination, Senses-go-Fade and the xenologists allowed as how if they landed and presented themselves to the natives there was a fifty-fifty chance they would be attacked and exterminated on the spot. The corollary was that there was a fifty-fifty chance they would be accepted and tolerated, if not welcomed with flattened ears. As these odds were not to the Captain's liking, it was decided to continue as planned. They would select a burrowsite, touch down, secure the colony as best they could, and deal with native contact only if and when it became unavoidable.

If the colony successfully established itself and throve, staff estimated that preliminary steps to make contact might commence in reasonable safety in one to two hundred of the local years.

V.

L
IFTS-WITH
-S
HOUT'S LANDING STAFF'S
first choice of a burrowsite was an island. Any island. But the larger ones were all occupied and the smaller provided insufficent resources and space for expansion. Nor for psychological reasons did any Quozl wish to live on a small body of land completely surrounded by water. The ship-born colonists knew of drowning only from texts. That did not mean any wished to experience the sensation in person.

The few extensive unpopulated regions were equally unpromising. Great tracts of empty tropical forest were not suitable for burrowing and based on the information gleaned from the settlement of Mazna, were the most likely to harbor dangerous diseases and lifeforms. The frozen polar regions were less hospitable still, as were those utterly devoid of vegetation.

Most promising were several places in the northern hemisphere which, while surrounded by large urban areas, were themselves practically empty. In the end staff settled on a mountainous region not far south in planetary terms from where the survey ship had set down. It had several notable advantages, first and foremost being that it was likely to be similar to the one area already studied firsthand.

The region contained no lush fertile valleys for the natives to farm. It was cut by deep canyons and wild rivers, and the best instrumentation on the
Sequencer
could find no evidence of habitation within a predetermined radius of safety.

A second survey visit was made. Like the first, its arrival and departure passed unnoticed by the natives. A third trip located a site as close to ideal as they were likely to find without far more extensive on-site inspection.

Several narrow valleys were cut by streams which emptied into a sizable lake. The valleys were largely indistinguishable from one another, which meant that anyone observing them from above was unlikely to remember individual geological features. One especially steep-sided valley was almost the exact width of the
Sequencer
, and much deeper. The land through which its watercourse cut was rocky and barren, unable to support tall stands of fur-needled trees which might damage the ship on touchdown. A modest waterfall was located far up the canyon. This distinguishing feature would be moved but not obliterated. Given the region's isolation it was unlikely anyone passing through would note the slight movement of the waterfall a modest distance to the west. The small river would provide excellent cover for the
Sequencer
once it was burrowed in.

For a while the ship would remain their only home, until expansion could begin. It had been designed to serve as such by its builders. The drive would be adjusted to provide power for the new colony. Instead of having to scramble to build dwellings of mud and stone, they would live in the same rooms they had lived in on the long journey outward from Quozlene. The ship was the colony's security, a bastion of familiarity and a reminder of home they would have no matter how extensive the colony grew. It was a gigantic, space-traversing pouch.

But once down, it would never be able to lift off again. There would be no second chance. Their first choice had to be the right one.

Landing Command produced topographic charts in three and four dimensions down to the smallest pebble. Every feature would be precisely reproduced atop the colony once the Sequencer was burrowed in. Artists would work alongside engineers and geologists and excavators.

Once it was announced that these final preparations for touchdown had begun and that a site had been chosen, the atmosphere on the
Sequencer
grew more relaxed. Everyone fell to assigned tasks with renewed enthusiasm and determination. Artists argued good-naturedly with the excavators as burrow-in procedures were built up in stages on modeling screens. Looks-at-Charts knew their differences would be settled before touchdown commenced. They had to be. There would be neither time nor room for last-minute improvisation.

Meanwhile Lifts-with-Shout was always arguing for more time; more time for study, more time to prepare. Despite repeated delays there eventually came a day when Stream-cuts-Through decided they had spent enough of that precious commodity. Word was passed.

Touchdown commenced.

The two scout ships would go down first, to prepare the way. The
Sequencer
presented another problem entirely. It would be much easier for the natives to detect with the naked eye and completely vulnerable once on the ground with its drive shut down. It was therefore decided despite the additional danger involved to descend only during bad weather, when the primitive native search-and-detect devices would be at their greatest disadvantage.

Crew and colonists made ready. There came a time when there was nothing left to check. In an atmosphere of worry and apprehension instead of the great joy that ought to have been, the
Sequencer
made ready to descend.

Each survey vessel would land at one end of the narrow valley which had been chosen to receive the burrow so that their visual observations might confirm the measurements made on board the colony ship. If something untoward was discovered, the
Sequencer
could still veer off and reascend at the last moment. Flies-by-Tail and Looks-at-Charts were on one, Walks-with-Whispers and Stands-while-Sitting on the other. Looks found that he missed the senior xenologist's reassuring presence and calm analytical manner, but he understood the practicality of dividing those who had actual knowledge of the Shirazian surface between the two survey ships.

He and Flies-by-Tail were themselves accompanied by four members of the landing team, all of them trying to hide their nervousness and unease. What to do if violent natives were encountered had been an anxious topic of discussion prior to departure. In the end it was decided that there could be no more killing, no more violence, unless the safety of the
Sequencer
itself was involved. Not because of the harm that might befall any Shirazians but because of the psychological damage such an encounter would do to the collective Quozl mentality.

Already heavy therapy had been required to stabilize the shaky psyches of Looks-at-Charts and his companions, and only their specialized training had enabled them to emerge relatively unscathed from the incident. Colonists who had not been the beneficiaries of such training would be much more likely to suffer permanent mental harm were they forced to witness such violence, which compelled Senses-go-Fade's staff to insist it be avoided at all cost.

Despite treatment, Looks-at-Charts still suffered recurring nightmares as a result of the encounter. The sight of drawn blood, the knowledge that he had taken an intelligent life, albeit in self-defense, were things that would stay with him the rest of his life.

And he had only been forced to kill one native. What if there had been several?

The survey craft bucked and heaved as it descended. The turbulence was far worse than on the previous flight, as was to be expected since they were making touchdown in the midst of a massive thunderstorm. The heavy clouds would serve to mask the
Sequencer
's presense. Thoughtfully he checked his freshly shaven whorls and spirals, his immaculate fur, the scarves and jewelry that indicated his personality and status. The site might prove difficult and the weather inauspicious, but he would arrive well-groomed. Anything less would have been unQuozl.

Under the expert direction of Flies-by-Tail, the survey ship fell through wind and rain. The presence of hostile, primitive fauna and flora notwithstanding, the weather was enough to prove that Shiraz was no paradise world like Azel. Lightning reached for the little vessel and its sister ship while the wind hindered instead of helped their descent. Black clouds obscured the view out the front port. Flies-by-Tail concentrated on her schematic screens, letting the ship fly itself as much as possible, inputting only when absolutely necessary.

The mountains that enclosed the landing site were jagged and unforgiving. The natives would not have to intervene to cause a disaster. There was no room for error on the part of Stream-cuts-Through and her staff. If they set down a little too far to the right, a shade too heavily north, the unbalanced
Sequencer
would slip and crash, leaving nothing of the Quozl dream but a memory.

The surface exploded into view with astonishing abruptness, drawing whistles of surprise from the inexperienced team members. In the dark and rain it was like returning to the primordial pouch. Mountain peaks loomed threateningly close, their peaks puncturing the low-lying clouds.

Then they saw a deeper slash through the rocks where wind and water had riven: the landing site. A flash of light vanished southward, barely visible. Flies-by-Tail saluted their companion survey craft before bending to the task of bringing them down safely. There was little room to maneuver, not enough time to reduce velocity. One moment they were airborne, riding the buffeting gale, and then they were rattling over the gravel that formed much of the valley floor.

Contemplative silence was supposed to prevail immediately after touchdown. Instead the team members chatted excitedly, gesturing through the port at slick granite walls and the tiers of spiny-leaved trees that climbed the eastern talus slope. As for the intermittent brush, the survey ship had sliced over and through it easily.

An exhausted Flies-by-Tail positioned the little craft according to instructions. With the engines cut, a rumble of a different kind filled their erect, alert ears, penetrating the walls of the ship. Shirazian thunder.