Complete Short Fiction, page 139
“Why, lots of things, I guess . . . I . . . I don’t know; I hadn’t thought of that.” Realization struck him. “You’ve been talking to the engineers!”
“Of course. I don’t mean to be rude, but where else could I learn anything useful about this ship? I’ll admit you know the planet, but that wasn’t enough.”
“I see,” said Raeker slowly. “I hadn’t thought as much as I should about the machine; but I did ask the engineers about its wiring—and say! won’t you need that anyway? What are you going to do when they get enough gas into your cells to lift the ship out of their reach, but not enough to get you any higher? Hadn’t you better have them tie the ship down, at least? You’d better wait until we—”
He was interrupted by laughter. It didn’t come from Easy, who had looked impressed for a moment, but from the scientists in the observation chamber. Raeker realized that they were laughing at him, and for a moment was furious; then he realized he had asked for it. He put the best face he could on the matter while one of them carefully explained a little elementary physics.
And that, really, was all. Nick put to use the knowledge he had picked up in balancing on the experimental float, and made sure there were always more forward cells full than after ones. When the ship lifted, it naturally rode the wind toward the volcano; and it rose so slowly at first that the children had a good look at the terrifying sight. They dipped frighteningly toward the glowing mountain as it entered warm-, er air, but recovered in ample time as the hydrogen in its cells also warmed up. Gradually the glow faded out below them, and Easy and her friend waited happily to meet the shuttle.
EPILOGUE
“I told you human beings were helpless and useless.” Happy as he was, Aminadabarlee gave up his ideas with difficulty. “You spend weeks trying to rig a rescue, and then are outsmarted by a savage with less education than either of these children. You spend a decade or two training agents of your own on the planet, and learn more useful facts in a week from natives you never bothered to contact directly.”
“Natives who would have tried to eat the robot if any such attempt had been made,” Easy pointed out. “Remember, ’Mina and I know Swift. He respected the robot because it could talk and tell him things. He’d have ignored it or destroyed it otherwise.” Aminadabarlee’s eyes sought his son, who made a gesture of agreement.
“Well, anyway, the natives with their own culture are a lot more use, and I’ll prove it soon enough.”
“How?” asked Raeker.
“I’ll have a Drommian project here in three months. We can talk to Swift as well as you, and we’ll see who learns more about geophysics in general and Tenebra in particular after that.”
“Wouldn’t it be more profitable to run the projects jointly, and exchange information?”
“You’d certainly have to say that,” sneered the nonhuman. “I’ve had enough of co-operating with human beings, and so has the rest of Dromm, if my opinion’s good for anything. You learned Swift’s language, didn’t you, Son?”
“Yes, Dad, but—”
“Never mind the but. I know you like Easy, and I suppose she’s a little less poisonous than most human beings after the time she spent with you, but I know what I’m talking about. Here—use the robot voice and call Swift over to it; you can say something to him for me.”
“But I can’t, Dad.” Even the human beings could see that the youngster was uncomfortable.
“Can’t? What do you mean? You just said you’d learned enough of their language—”
“Oh, I understand it well enough. I just can’t speak it.”
“You mean you just listened, and let that human girl do all the talking? I’m ashamed of you. You know perfectly well that no chance to learn the use of a new language should ever be missed.”
“I didn’t miss it, Dad,” Aminadabarlee seemed to swell slightly.
“Then in the name of both suns, tell me what you did do!” His voice came closer to a roar than anyone in the room had ever heard from him. Aminadorneldo looked a little helplessly at Easy.
“All right, ’Mina,” the girl said. “We’ll show him.”
The two took their places before the microphone, which Easy snapped on. Then, keeping their eyes fixed on each other, they began to speak in unison. The sounds they produced were weird; sometimes both were together, sometimes the Drommian carried a high note alone, sometimes Easy took the deeper registers. A similar sound, which Raeker recognized perfectly well and understood slightly, came from the speaker; Easy started an answer, using her hands to guide her “little” companion on what words were coming next. They had apparently worked out a fairly satisfactory deaf-mute code between them; and while they spoke much more slowly than Swift, they were obviously perfectly clear to the native.
“He’s here, councilor,” Easy remarked after a moment. “What did you want to say to him? This particular translating team is ready to go to work. I do hope you’ll forgive ’Mina for co-operating with a human being. There really wasn’t any other way, you know.”
Nobody laughed.
1960
The Lunar Lichen
If Ingersoll were telling the truth, he had indeed made a radical find, here on the moon. But Dr. Imbriano had doubts, and the destruction of the samples made him wonder even more if the geologist were trying to perpetrate a hoax. But . . . if so, what was Ingersoll’s motive? And what would his next move be?
KINCHEN looked out and down from the observation port, watching the suited figure absorbed in its task about the trailer. He watched until the big number stencilled on the suit became visible, and he could be sure of the worker’s identity; then he turned abruptly to the men seated behind him. His eyes sought out one of these.
“You admit they were—and are—alive.” It was more a statement than a question. Imbriano took it so.
“They are.”
“And you don’t recognize the species.”
“I don’t—but that’s . . .” Kinchen raised a hand impatiently.
“I understand that you don’t know by sight every fungus, lichen, or what have you that’s ever been described. You can, though, recognize classes. And you think you recognize this one as belonging to whateveryou-call-it . . .”
“Hysteriales. And that’s not . . .”
“Never mind. I didn’t mean to get technical about orders and phyla and whatever you call them. I’m no biologist. The point is or I think it is—that you used fairly gross characteristics for identification, and such characteristics might very well be duplicated by parallel evolution. Right?”
“That’s true.”
“Very well, then. Will you tell me why, except for a natural reluctance to believe there’s any life at all on the moon, you feel so strongly that Ingersoll is pulling a Piltdown on us? Don’t you like the fellow or what?”
JACK IMBRIANO hesitated, and frowned.
“It’s true that I don’t like him very much,” he admitted finally, “but I don’t think that’s what had given me the idea. It’s the whole set-up. He came back from a trip, which he’d made alone, well past our normal exploring range, with these specimens of lichen—or pseudo-lichen if you prefer. He had taken pictures of the site, but he says he took them after collecting the specimens, and the pictures certainly don’t show any of the plants. They hardly could, of course, since the plants themselves are so small. He objects to going back to the site to find more . . .”
“He didn’t object. I did,” Kinchen pointed out. “We have just so much working juice for ground travel, and Ingersoll used too much of it as it is. We could draw a little from the main tanks, but I don’t want to cut our return allowance too fine.”
“All right, you objected. But he also said there was no use going back, because he’d collected all he could find in the vicinity. That’s ridiculous, on several counts. First of all, they’re so small he couldn’t be sure he’d found all that were there, any more than you pick all the raspberries from a patch the first time through. Secondly, he shouldn’t have done it. Even a geologist leaves some of his material in site so that his work can be checked, as a standard working procedure. Under the circumstances, I want to go back to that region and hunt for more of what he found—if he found it.”
THE DIRECTOR pondered for a minute or so.
“Your point is well taken, but the fuel question remains,” he said at last. “We can do it, of course, though it means cancelling some other part of the program. Aren’t there any more checks you could make right here, first? How about the rock the stuff is attached to? Don’t lichens have some effect on the stuff they grow on—stick roots into it, and so on? How about checking that with the microscope.”
“Lichens don’t have true roots . . .”
“Stop quibbling. They keep from being blown and shaken off rocks and trees somehow.”
“You’re right—but these were growing on the dust layer, according to Ingersoll. He brought some of the dust with him, but it’s not possible to say whether or not it’s the original substrate of the plants.”
“Well, if, as you imply, he brought them from Earth with him, there should be traces of Terrestrial soil mixed in with the things. Can’t you identify that?”
“I can’t. We have geologists here, but who thought we’d need a soil specialist?”
“True enough. All right—how about this? Put some of the plants outside, and see whether they live, and grow. You say they’re alive now.”
“They seem to be—as nearly as one can tell with a lichen. There is protoplasm, or something like it, in their cells. And it shows streaming at times.”
“Then do what I suggest. Ask Ingersoll whether he found them in full sunlight or in shadow—so he can’t say you didn’t reproduce conditions properly—put them out for a few hours, and see what happens.”
“A few hours wouldn’t produce detectable change in one of our lichens. Most of them take years to do much growing, as I remember.”
KINCHEN chuckled. “I’m just an astronomer and ballistics engineer,” he said, “but I’ll bet that a few hours of this environment will do something detectable to any Terrestrial life form. If that thing is still alive, after a few hours outside, then it’s genuine—whether it shows any growth or not. I know people have talked for years about lichen-like growths being possible here, but I never heard a competent man say that actual Terrestrial lichens themselves could stand it. They’d be cooked, irradiated to death, and desiccated in a matter of minutes, and you’ll have a hard time convincing me otherwise. That’s why I doubt that Milt could possibly be trying a fake. He’d know there are too many easy ways to check on him.”
“Why would he know it? He’s just a geologist.”
“Why would I know it? I’m just an astronomer. I don’t see how anyone sharp enough to make a name for himself any one science can be completely ignorant of the rest.”
“But Ingersoll hasn’t made much of a name, even in his own profession.”
“Then how come he’s with us here?”
“How come I’m here? I passed a Civil Service exam.”
“Hmph.” Kinchen might have been impressed; it was hard to tell. “Get on with your check, anyway. If those things stay alive outside, I’ll authorize another trip to the place he found ‘em—where was it? Other side of Short, somewhere, didn’t he say?”
“Right.” Imbriano was already on his way down the hatch from the “main” deck.
At an observation port beside the main airlock there was a microphone, which was tied to the suit-frequency transmitter. The doctor snapped it on. “Milt? You read me?”
“Clear enough. What is it?” Ingersoll’s voice came back instantly.
“I was wondering whether you’d found these plants in sunlight or shadow. It’s a rather small sample, and it occurred to us that if we put some of them back outside—planted ‘em, you might say—we could grow more before we have to leave, and learn more about them at the same time:”
“I SEE.” THERE was a pause, and Imbriano wondered whether the other was pursing his lips in his usual pontifical manner when asked a question, or trying to decide what answer would suit the situation best. “They were in sunlight when I found them,” he said after a moment, “but I can’t remember whether they were in spots which had been out of shadow for long, or not. None of them was very far from some sort of shadow—but of course nothing is, in this part of the moon. It’s as rough on a small scale as it is on the large one of astronomical photographs.”
“That’s true.” The doctor was suspicious of the answer—it sounded like hedging to him. Of course, almost any other answer would have been equally suspicious, and Imbriano might have been broad-minded enough to admit this if someone had taxed him with the idea.
“Certainly they’d been in the sun for hours, anyway, and maybe days,” the voice from the radio resumed. “I guess your stunt is worth trying. From what little I know of lichens, though, they won’t do much in the few hours the ship will be in the sun. Remember, we came down just about south of the central peak of this crater, and we’ll be in its shadow before long.”
“That’s true. Well, the few hours will do for an initial test—maybe I’ll be able to find out how the plants keep from drying out in this pressure and temperature, anyway. I’ll be out shortly.”
Imbriano broke the connection without waiting for an answer, and went back to the main deck. The specimens were on the small table which served him for a laboratory. He had distributed them, together with the lunar dust which had been brought in with them, over several plastic Petri dishes. He glanced over these, picked up two which seemed to have healthy cultures in them, and carried them back down to the air-lock deck. There he suited up, tested his gear, picked up the dishes again, and went through the air-lock.
Getting down the ladder with his burden took some skill, the gripping attachments of the suits being what they were, but he managed it at last. Ingersoll’s suited form was fifty yards away, still working over one of the tractor-trailer combinations; he did not seem too interested in the doctor’s work. They exchanged a brief word over the suit radios, but the geologist did not leave his job.
IMBRIANO looked around for a suitable place to expose the specimens. The neighborhood of the ship was littered with gear which had accumulated during the five days of their stay so far. Some of it was apparatus which would have to be returned to Earth; some, like auxiliary fuel tanks, was doomed to stay on the moon. He thought of setting the dishes in sunlight on top of one of the tanks, where it could easily be found again; then he remembered that the radiation equilibrium temperature of the polished metal was a good deal higher than that of the lunar rock, and he would hardly be duplicating natural conditions.
He finally selected a spot about thirty yards north of the ship, a small open area floored with the omnipresent lunar dust, set the dishes down, and removed their covers. He watched them for a minute or two; they showed no visible change, and he finally turned back toward the ship. He was startled to find Ingersoll just behind him, though he certainly shouldn’t have expected to hear him coming.
“Hello, Milt,” he greeted the geologist. “Does that seem an adequate replica of their growing conditions? You said they were on dust when you found them.”
“That’s right. I don’t suppose the dishes will make any difference. Why did you have covers on them, before?”
“The general idea is to keep foreign spores from settling in a culture. I was reasonably careful about that, and of course there won’t be too many drifting around in the ship anyway—they’d have been cycled through the purifying plant too many times by now. I suppose that spores from the algae in the plant itself might be loose, but I don’t think the danger’s very great. Anyway, if your specimens have been contaminated, they’re getting well sterilized now.”
“How’s that?”
IMBRIANO gestured around them. “This environment. Temperature and pressure would combine to dry out any Earthly life form in minutes. Creatures which formed spores might have time to do so, but the spores would die of ultra-violet irradiation quickly enough—no Terrestrial life has natural immunity, as far as I know. Those of us who can take it do so by virtue of a relatively opaque protecting layer of dead tissue. That’s one thing which interests me enormously about your plants—they must obviously have some other protection, or else a genuine immunity to ultra-violet light. That’s why I want to grow more of them. There aren’t enough now to spare for experiment. They’re amazing enough things as it is.”
“How come?” Neither Ingersoll’s voice, nor the face which could be seen inside the helmet, seemed unduly perturbed by the information which the doctor was deliberately providing.
“How come? Because even though they’re adapted to the moon, they survived the pressure and oxygen concentration inside the ship. They were definitely alive when I examined them in there microscopically.”
“Hmm. That is funny, now that you mention it. How do you account for it?”
“I don’t yet. With more information, I suppose ideas will suggest themselves. I’ll bring one of these dishes in just before the shadow of that peak reaches us, half a day or so from now, and leave the other one out to cool down in the dark. I’ll settle on when to bring it in after I’ve examined the first one. That seems like a sensible program?”
“I’d say so. Let me know what you find out, will you? I’m a bit curious—after all, I found the things.”
“Don’t worry. It will be remembered to your credit.” The doctor wondered whether he had worded that answer badly, but Ingersoll gave no evidence of thinking the remark at all odd. He turned with Imbriano and started back toward the ship.
“Finished your work?” the doctor asked.
“Not yet. Can’t stay in a suit forever, though. It’ll be nice, to get back to a place where they can spare air for smoking.”
Imbriano chuckled. “It isn’t that we can’t spare it, but that the algae in the ‘fresher are too sensitive to tobacco smoke. If you really want fame, breed a variety with comparable photosynthetic efficiency which can stand a few impurities of that sort. The submarine boys will probably give you an honorary commission.” The conversation broke off here, as climbing the ladder to the air lock took too much of a man’s attention for other matters to intrude.
