The Waitabits, page 1
THE WAITABITS
Eric Frank Russell
Science-fiction authors, however various their output, are not chameleons. To be sure, in a good cause they can alter certain parts of their basic colouration with marvellous flexibility and skill; but the essentials are unchanging - and recurrently we find in their work a whole-hearted reversion to whatever their true blue may happen to be.
With Eric Frank Russell this hue is a hatred of bullying, of brass-hats, of bureaucrats and of do-gooders who somehow always seem to end up doing more good to themselves than to anyone else; and he has added enormously to the gaiety of nations by envisaging sundry forms of natural immunity to such plagues. At first sight, Russell's antibodies to the eternal take-over bid may seem irrelevant for the reason that they are fanciful, and therefore not, for us-here-now, by any stretch of the imagination practical politics; we, after all, are not the fortunate inhabitants of Eterna. Jet we can, and do, delight with Russell in their oblivious bloodless victory; and in doing so we adopt, or confirm, a moral attitude which would like to believe in the indefeasibility of all harmless underdogs, always and everywhere.
He strode toward the Assignment Office with quiet confidence born of long service, much experience and high rank. Once upon a time a peremptory call to this department had made him slightly edgy exactly as it unnerved the fresh-faced juniors today. But that had been long, long ago. He was grey-haired now, with wrinkles around the corners of his eyes, silver oak-leaves on his epaulettes. He had heard enough, seen enough and learned enough to have lost the capacity for surprise.
Markham was going to hand him a tough one. That was Markham's job: to rake through a mess of laconic, garbled, distorted or eccentric reports, pick out the obvious problems and dump them squarely in the laps of whoever happened to be hanging around and was considered suitable to solve them. One thing could be said in favour of this technique: its victims often were bothered, bedevilled or busted but at least they were never bored. The problems were not commonplace, the solutions sometimes fantastic.
The door detected his body-heat as he approached, swung open with silent efficiency. He went through, took a chair, gazed phlegmatically at the heavy man behind the desk.
"Ah, Commodore Leigh," said Markham pleasantly. He shuffled some papers, got them in order, surveyed the top one. "I am informed that the Thunderer's overhaul is complete, the crew has been recalled and everything is ready for flight."
"That is correct."
"Well now, I have a task for you." Markham put on the sinister smile that invariably accompanied such an announcement. After years of reading what had followed in due course, he had conceived the notion that all tasks were funny except when they involved a massacre. "You are ready and eager for another trip, I trust?"
"I am always ready," said Commodore Leigh. He had outgrown the eagerness two decades back.
"I have here the latest consignment of scout reports," Mark-ham went on. He made a disparaging gesture. "You know what they're like.
Condensed to the minimum and in some instances slightly mad. Happy the day when we receive a report detailed with scientific thoroughness."
"You'll get that only from a trained mind," Leigh commented. "Scouts are not scientists. They are oddities who like roaming the loneliest reaches of space with no company but their own. Pilot-trained hoboes willing to wander at large, take brief looks and tell what they've seen. Such men are useful and necessary. Their shortcomings can be made up by those who follow them."
"Precisely," agreed Markham with suspicious promptness. "So this is where we want you to do some following."
"What is it this time?"
"We have Boydell's latest report beamed through several relay stations.
He is way out in the wilds." Markham tapped the paper irritably. "This particular scout is known as Gabby Boydell because he is anything but that. He uses words as if they cost him fifty dollars apiece."
"Meaning he hasn't said enough?" asked Leigh smiling.
"Enough? He's told us next to nothing!" He let go an emphatic snort.
"Eighteen planets scattered all over the shop and not a dozen words about each. He discovers a grand total of eighteen planets in seven previously unexplored systems and the result doesn't occupy half a page."
"Going at that speed, he'd not have time for much more," Leigh ventured. "You can't write a book about a world without taking up residence for a while."
"That may be. But these crackpot scouts could do better and it's time they were told as much." He pointed an accusative finger. "Look at this item. The eleventh planet he visited. He has named it Pulok for some reason that is probably crazy. His report employs exactly four words: 'Take it and welcome.' What do you make of that?"
Leigh thought it over carefully. "It is inhabitable by humankind. There is no native opposition, nothing to prevent us grabbing it. But in his opinion it isn't worth possessing."
"Why, man, why?"
"I don't know, not having been there."
"Boydell knows the reason." Markham fumed a bit and went on, "And he ought to state it in precise, understandable terms. He shouldn't leave a mystery hanging in mid-air like a bad smell from nowhere."
"He will explain it when he returns to his sector headquarters, surely?"
"That may be months hence, perhaps years, especially if he manages to pick up fuel and replacement tubes from distant outposts. Those scouts keep to no schedule. They get there when they arrive, return when they come back. Galactic gypsies, that's how they like to think of themselves."
"They've chosen freedom," Leigh offered.
Ignoring that remark, Markham continued, "Anyway, the problem of Pulok is a relatively minor one to be handled by somebody else. Ill give it to one of the juniors; it will do something for his education. The more complicated and possibly dangerous tangles are for older ones such as yourself."
"Tell me the worst."
"Planet fourteen on Boydell's list. He has given it the name of Eterna and don't ask me why. The code formula he's registered against it reads O/1.1/D.7. That means we can live on it without special equipment, it's an Earth-type planet of one-tenth greater mass and is inhabited by an intelligent life form of different but theoretically equal mental power. He calls this life form the Waitabits. Apparently he tags every thing and everybody with the first name that pops into his mind."
"What information does he offer concerning them?"
"Hah!" said Markham, pulling a face. "One word. Just one word." He paused, then voiced it. "Unconquerable."
"Eh?"
"Unconquerable," repeated Markham. "A word that should not exist in scout-language." At that point he became riled, jerked open a drawer, extracted a notebook and consulted it. "Up to last survey, four hundred and twenty-one planets had been discovered, charted, recorded. One hundred and thirty-seven found suitable for human life and large or small groups of settlers placed thereon. Sixty-two alien life forms mastered during the process." He shoved the book back. "And out there in the dark a wandering tramp picks a word like unconquerable."
"I can think of only one reason that makes sense," suggested Leigh.
"What is that?"
"Perhaps they really are unconquerable."
Markham refused to credit his ears. "If that is a joke, commodore, it's in bad taste. Some might think it seditious."
"Well, can you think up another and better reason?"
"I don't have to. I'm sending you there to find out. The Grand Council asked specifically that you be given this task. They feel that if any yet unknown aliens have enough to put the wind up one of our own scouts then we must learn more about them. And the sooner the better."
"There's nothing to show that they actually frightened Boy-dell. If they had done so he'd have said more, much more. A genuine first-class menace is the one thing that would make him talk his head off."
"That's purely hypothetical," said Markham. "We don't want guesses.
We want facts."
"All right."
"Consider a few other facts," Markham added. "So far no other life form has been able to resist us. I don't see how any can. Any creatures with an atom of sense soon see which side their bread is buttered, if they eat bread and like butter. If we step in and provide the brains while they furnish the labour, with mutual benefit to both parties, the aliens are soon doing too well for themselves to complain. If a bunch of Sirian Wimpots slave all day in our mines, then fly in their own helicopters back to homes such as their forefathers never owned, what have they got to cry about?"
"I fail to see the purpose of the lecture," said Leigh, dryly.
"I'm emphasizing that by force, ruthlessness, argument, persuasion, precept and example, appeal to common sense or any other tactic appropriate to the circumstances we can master and exploit any life-form in the cosmos. That's the theory we've been using for a thousand years-and it works. We've proved that it works. We have made it work. The first time we let go of it and admit defeat we're finished. We go down and disappear along with all the other vanished hordes." He swept his papers to one side.
"A scout has admitted defeat. He must be a lunatic. But lunatics can create alarm. The Grand Council is alarmed."
"So I am required to seek soothing syrup?"
"Yes. See Parrish in the charting department. He'll give you the co-ordinates of this Eterna dump." Standing up, he offered a plump hand.
"A smooth trip and a safe landing, commodore."
"Thanks."
The Thunderer hung in a balanced orbit while its officers examined the new world floating below. This was Eterna, second planet of a sun very much like Sol. Altogether there were four planets in this particular family but only the second harboured life in any detectable form.
Eterna was a pretty sight, a great blue-green ball shining in the blaze of full day. Its land masses were larger than Earth's, its oceans smaller. No vast mountain ranges were visible, no snow-caps either, yet lakes and rivers were numerous. Watersheds lay in heavily forested hills that crinkled much of the surface and left few flat areas. Cloud-banks lay over the land like scatterings of cotton-wool, small in area, widely dispersed, but thick, heavy and great in number.
Through powerful glasses towns and villages could be seen, most of them placed in clearings around which armies of trees marched down to the rivers. There were also narrow, winding roads and thin, spidery bridges. Between the larger towns ran vague lines that might be railroad tracks but lacked sufficient detail at such a distance to reveal their true purpose.
Pascoe, the sociologist, put down his binoculars and said, "Assuming that the night side is very similar, I estimate their total strength at no more than one hundred millions. I base that on other planetary surveys.
When you've counted the number of peas per bottle in a large and varied collection of them you develop the ability to make reasonably accurate guesses. One hundred millions at most."
"That's low for a planet of this size and fertility, isn't it?" asked Commodore Leigh.
"Not necessarily. There were no more of us in the far past. Look at us now."
"The implication is that these Waitabits are comparatively a young species?"
"Could be. On the other hand they may be old and senile and dying out fast. Or perhaps they're slow breeders and their natural increase isn't much."
"I don't go for the dying out theory," put in Walterson, the geophysicist.
"If once they were far bigger than they are today, the planet should still show signs of it. A huge inheritance leaves its mark for centuries.
Remember that city-site we found on Hercules? Even the natives didn't know of it, the markings being visible only from a considerable altitude."
They used their glasses again, sought for faint lines of orderliness in wide tracts of forest. There were none to be seen.
"Short in history or slow to breed," declared Pascoe. "That's my opinion for what it's worth."
Frowning down at the blue-green ball, Leigh said heavily. "By our space-experienced standards a world of one hundred millions is weak. It's certainly not sufficiently formidable to turn a hair on a minor bureaucrat, much less worry the Council itself." He turned, lifted a questioning eyebrow as a signals-runner came up to him. "Well?"
"Relay from Sector Nine, sir."
Unfolding the message, he found it duly decoded, read it aloud.
19.12. ex Terra. Defence H.Q. to C.O. battleship Thunderer. Light cruiser Flame, Lieut. Mallory commanding, assigned your area for Pulok check. Twentieth heavy cruiser squadron readied Arlington port, Sector Nine. This authorizes you to call upon and assume command of said forces in emergency only. Rathbone. Com. Op. Dep. D.H.Q. Terra.
He filed the message, shrugged and said, "Seems they're taking few chances."
"Yes," agreed Pascoe, a trifle sardonically. "So they've assembled reinforcements near enough to be summoned but too far away to do us any good. The Flame could not get here in less than seven weeks. The ships at Arlington couldn't make it in under nineteen or twenty weeks even at super-drive. By then we could be cooked, eaten, burped and forgotten."
"I don't see what all this jumpiness is about," complained Walterson.
"That scout Boydell went in and came out without losing his edible parts, didn't he? Where one can go a million can follow."
Pascoe regarded him with pity. "A solitary invader rarely frightens anyone. That's where scouts have an advantage. Consider Remy 11. Fellow name of James finds it, lands, makes friends, becomes a blood brother, finally takes off amid a huzzah of fond farewells. Next, down comes three shiploads of men, uniforms and guns. That's too much for the locals to stomach. In Remitan psychology the number represents critical mass.
Result: the Remy war which - if you remember your history-was long, costly and bitter."
"I remember history well enough to recall that in those primitive days they used blockheaded space-troopers and had no specially trained contact-men," Walterson retorted.
"Nevertheless, what has happened before can happen again."
"That's my problem right now," Leigh interjected. "Will the sight of a battleship a mile in length cause them to start something that can't be finished without considerable slaughter? Had I better risk the crew of a lifeboat in an effort to smooth the introduction? I wish Boydell had been a little more informative." He chewed his bottom lip with vexation, picked up the intercom phone, flipped the signals-room switch. "Any word from Boydell yet?"
"No, commodore," responded a voice. "Sector Nine doesn't think there will be any, either. They've just been through saying he doesn't answer their calls. They believe he's now out of range. Last trace they got of him showed him to be running beyond effective communication limits."
"All right." He dumped the phone, gazed through the port. "Seven hours we've waited. Nothing has come up to take a look at us. We can detect no signs of excitement down there. Therefore it's a safe bet that they have no ships, perhaps not even rudimentary aircraft. Neither do they keep organized watch on the sky. They're not advanced in our sense of the term."
"But they may be in some other sense," Pascoe observed.
"That is what I implied." Leigh made an impatient gesture. "We've hung within telescopic view long enough. If they are capable of formidable reaction, we should be grimly aware of it by now. I don't feel inclined to test the Waitabits at the expense of a few men in an unarmed lifeboat.
We'll take the Thunderer itself down and hope they're sane enough not to go nuts."
Hastening forward to the main control-cabin he issued the necessary orders.
The landing place was atop a treeless bluff nine miles south of a large town. It was as good a site as any that could have been chosen. The settling of great tonnage over a mile-long area damaged nobody's property or crops, the ground was solid enough not to furrow under the ship's weight, the slight elevation gave a strategic advantage to the Thunderer's guns.
Despite its nearness the town was out of sight, being hidden by intervening hills. A narrow road ran through the valley but nothing moved thereon. Between the road and the base of the bluff lay double railroad tracks of about twenty-inch gauge with flat-topped rails of silvery metal.
The rails had no spikes or ties and appeared to be held firmly in position by being sunk into long, unbroken ridges of concrete or some similar rock-like substance.
The Thunderer reposed, a long, black, ominous shape with all locks closed and gun-turrets open, while Leigh stared speculatively at the railroad and waited for the usual call from the metering lab. It came within short time. The phone rang, he answered it, heard Shallom speaking:
"The air is breathable, commodore."
"We knew that in advance. A scout sniffed it without dropping dead."
"Yes, commodore," agreed Shallom, patiently. "But you asked for an analysis."
"Of course. Because we don't know how long Boydell was here. Perhaps a day, perhaps a week. Whatever it was, it wasn't enough. He might have curled up his toes after a month or two. In his brief visit he'd have avoided any long-term accumulative effect. What we want to know is whether this atmosphere is safe for keeps."
"Quite safe, commodore. It's rather rich in ozone and argon but otherwise much like Earth's."
"Good. We'll open up and let the men stretch their legs."
"There's something else of interest," Shallom went on. "Preliminary observation time occupied seven hours and twenty-two minutes. Over that period the longitudinal shift of a selected equatorial point amounted to approximately three-tenths of a degree. That means this planet's period of axial rotation is roughly equivalent to an Earth-year. Its days and nights are each about six months long."
"Thanks, Shallom." He cut off without surprise, switched the intercom, gave orders to Bentley in the main engine room to operate the power locks. Then he switched again to Lieutenant Harding, officer commanding ground forces, gave permission for one-quarter of his men to be let out for exercise providing they bore arms and did not stray beyond direct cover of the ship's guns.
