Cry from a Far Planet

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  CRY FROM A FAR PLANET

  By TOM GODWIN

  ILLUSTRATOR MARTINEZ

  * * * * *

  _The problem of separating the friends from the enemies was a major onein the conquest of space as many a dead spacer could have testified. Atough job when you could see an alien and judge appearances; far tougherwhen they were only whispers on the wind._

  * * * * *

  _A smile of friendship is a baring of the teeth. So is a snarl of menace. It can be fatal to mistake the latter for the former._

  _Harm an alien being only under circumstances of self-defense._

  _TRUST NO ALIEN BEING UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES._

  --From _Exploration Ship's Handbook_.

  He listened in the silence of the Exploration ship's control room. Heheard nothing but that was what bothered him; an ominous quiet whenthere should have been a multitude of sounds from the nearby villagefor the viewscreen's audio-pickups to transmit. And it was more than sixhours past the time when the native, Throon, should have come to sitwith him outside the ship as they resumed the laborious attempt to learneach other's language.

  Was the cat native to the planet, or to his imagination?]

  The viewscreen was black in the light of the control room, even thoughit was high noon outside. The dull red sun was always invisible throughthe world's thick atmosphere and to human eyes full day was no more thana red-tinged darkness.

  He switched on the ship's outside floodlights and the viewscreen came tobright white life, showing the empty glades reaching away between grovesof purple alien trees. He noticed, absently, that the trees seemed tohave changed a little in color since his arrival.

  The village was hidden from view by the outer trees but there shouldhave been some activity in the broad area visible to him. There wasnone, not even along the distant segment of what should have been a busyroad. The natives were up to something and he knew, from hard experienceon other alien worlds, that it would be nothing good. It would beanother misunderstanding of some kind and he didn't know enough of theirincomprehensible language to ask them what it was--

  * * * * *

  Suddenly, as it always came, he felt someone or something standing closebehind him and peering over his shoulder. He dropped his hand to theblaster he had taken to wearing at all times and whirled.

  Nothing was behind him. There never was. The control room was empty,with no hiding place for anything, and the door was closed, locked bythe remote-control button beside him. There was nothing.

  The sensation of being watched faded, as though the watcher hadwithdrawn to a greater distance. It was perhaps the hundredth timewithin six days that he had felt the sensation. And when he slept atnight something came to nuzzle at his mind; faceless, formless, utterlyalien. For the past three nights he had not let the blaster get beyondquick reach of his hand, even when in bed.

  But whatever it was, it could not be on the ship. He had searched theship twice, a methodical compartment-by-compartment search that hadfound nothing. It had to be the work of the natives from outside theship. Except....

  Why, if the natives were telepathic, did the one called Throon gothrough the weary pretense of trying to learn a mutually understandableform of communication?

  There was one other explanation, which he could not accept: that he wasfollowing in the footsteps of Will Garret of Ship Nine who haddeliberately gone into a white sun two months after the death of histwin brother.

  He looked at the chair beside his own, Johnny's chair, which wouldforever be empty, and his thoughts went back down the old, bitter paths.The Exploration Board had been wrong when they thought the close bondbetween identical twins would make them the ideal two-man crews for thelonely, lifetime journeys of the Exploration Ships. Identical twins weretoo close; when one of them died, the other died in part with him.

  They had crossed a thousand light-years of space together, he andJohnny, when they came to the bleak planet that he would name Johnny'sWorld. He should never have let Johnny go alone up the slope of thehoney-combed mountain--but Johnny had wanted to take the routine recordphotographs of the black, tiger-like beasts which they had called cavecats and the things had seemed harmless and shy, despite their ferociousappearance.

  "I'm taking them a sack of food that I think they might like," Johnnyhad said. "I want to try to get some good close-up shots of them."

  Ten minutes later he heard the distant snarl of Johnny's blaster. He ranup the mountainside, knowing already that he was too late. He found twoof the cave cats lying where Johnny had killed them. Then he foundJohnny, at the foot of a high cliff. He was dead, his neck broken by thefall. Scattered all around him from the torn sack was the food he hadwanted to give to the cats.

  He buried Johnny the next day, while a cold wind moaned under alead-gray sky. He built a monument for him; a little mound of frostystones that only the wild animals would ever see--

  * * * * *

  A chime rang, high and clear, and the memories were shattered. Theorange light above the hyperspace communicator was flashing; the signalthat meant the Exploration Board was calling him from Earth.

  He flipped the switch and said, "Paul Jameson, Exploration Ship One."

  The familiar voice of Brender spoke:

  "It's been some time since your preliminary report. Is everything allright?"

  "In a way," he answered. "I was going to give you the detailed reporttomorrow."

  "Give me a brief sketch of it now."

  "Except for their short brown fur, the natives are humanoid inappearance. But there are basic differences. Their body temperature iscool, like their climate. Their vision range is from just within thevisible red on into the infrared. They'll shade their eyes from thelight of anything as hot as boiling water but they'll look square intothe ship's floodlights and never see them."

  "And their knowledge of science?" Brender asked.

  "They have a good understanding of it, but along lines entirelydifferent from what our own were at their stage of development. Forexample: they power their machines with chemicals but there is no steam,heat, or exhaust."

  "That's what we want to find--worlds where branches of research unknownto our science are being explored. How about their language?"

  "No progress with it yet." He told Brender of the silence in the villageand added, "Even if Throon should show up I could not ask him what waswrong. I've learned a few words but they have so many differentdefinitions that I can't use them."

  "I know," Brender said. "Variable and unrelated definitions,undetectable shades of inflection--and sometimes a language that has nodiscernibly separate words. The Singer brothers of Ship Eight ran intothe latter. We've given them up as lost."

  "The Singers--dead?" he exclaimed. "Good God--it's been only a monthsince the Ramon brothers were killed."

  "The circumstances were similar," Brender said. "They always are. Thereis no way the Exploration men can tell the natives that they mean themno harm and the suspicion of the natives grows into dangerous hostility.The Singers reported the natives on that world to be both suspicious andpossessing powerful weapons. The Singers were proceeding warily, theirown weapons always at hand. But, somehow, the natives caught themoff-guard--their last report was four months ago."

  There was a silence, then Brender added, "Their ship was the ninth--andwe had only fifteen."

  He did not reply to the implications of Brender's statement. It wasobvious to them all what the end of the Plan would be. What it had
tobe.

  * * * * *

  It had been only three years since the fifteen heavily armed Explorationships set out to lead the way for Terran expansion across the galaxy; toanswer a cry from far planets, and to find all the worlds that heldintelligent life. That was the ultimate goal of the Plan: to accumulateand correlate all the diverse knowledge of all the intelligentlife-forms in the galaxy. Among the achievements resulting from thattremendous mass of data would be a ship's drive faster even thanhyperspace; the Third Level Drive which would bring all the galaxies ofthe universe within reach.

  And now nine ships were gone out of fifteen and nineteen men out ofthirty....

  "The communication barrier," Brender said. "The damned communicationbarrier has been the cause behind the loss of every ship. And there isnothing we can do about it. We're stymied by it...."

  The conversation was terminated shortly afterward and he moved about theroom restlessly, wishing it was time to lift ship again. With Johnny notthere the dark world was like a smothering tomb. He would like to leaveit behind and drive again into the star clouds of the galaxy; drive onand on into them--

  A ghostly echo touched his mind; restless, poignantly yearning. He swungto face the locked door, knowing there could be nothing behind it. Thefirst real fear came to him as he did so. The thing was lonely--thething that watched him was as lonely as he was....

  What else could any of it be but the product of a mind in the firststage of insanity?

  * * * * *

  The natives came ten minutes later.

  The viewscreen showed their chemically-powered vehicle emerge from thetrees and roll swiftly across the glade. Four natives were in it while afifth one lay on the floor, apparently badly injured.

  The vehicle stopped a short distance in front of the airlock and herecognized the native on the floor. It was Throon, the one with whom hehad been exchanging language lessons.

  They were waiting for him when he emerged from the ship, pistol-likeweapons in their belts and grim accusation in their manner.

  Throon was muttering unintelligibly, unconscious. His skin, where notcovered by the brown fur, was abnormal in appearance. He was dying.

  The leader of the four indicated Throon and said in a quick, brittlevoice: "_Ko reegar feen no-dran!_"

  Only one word was familiar: _Ko_, which meant "you" and "yesterday" anda great many other things. The question was utterly meaningless to him.

  He dropped his hand a little nearer his blaster as the leader spokeagain; a quick succession of unknown words that ended with a harshlydemanding "_kreson!_"

  _Kreson_ meant "now," or "very quickly." All the other words wereunfamiliar to him. They waited, the grim menace about them increasingwhen he did not answer. He tried in vain to find some way of explainingto them he was not responsible for Throon's sickness and could not cureit.

  Then he saw the spray of leaves that had caught on the corner of thevehicle when it came through the farther trees.

  They were of a deep purple color. All the trees around the ship werealmost gray by contrast.

  Which meant that he _was_ responsible for Throon's condition.

  The cold white light of the ship's floodlights, under which he andThroon had sat for day after day, contained radiations that went throughthe violet and far into the ultraviolet. To the animal and vegetablelife of the dark world such radiations were invisibly short and deadly.

  Throon was dying of hard-radiation sickness.

  It was something he should have foreseen and avoided--and that would nothave happened had he accepted old Throon's pantomimed invitation, in thebeginning, to go with him into the village to work at the languagestudy. There he would have used a harmless battery lamp for illumination... but there was no certainty that the natives were not planning to laya trap for him in the village and he had refused to go.

  It did not matter--there was a complex radiation-neutralizer andcell-reconstructor in the ship which would return Throon to full, normalhealth a few hours after he was placed in its chamber.

  He turned to the leader of the four natives and motioned from Throon tothe airlock. "Go--there," he said in the native language.

  "_Bron!_" the leader answered. The word meant "No" and there was adetermination in the way he said it that showed he would not move fromit.

  At the end of five minutes his attempts to persuade them to take Throoninto the ship had increased their suspicion of his motives to the pointof critical danger. If only he could tell them _why_ he wanted Throontaken into the ship ... But he could not and would have to take Throonby first disposing of the four without injuring them. This he could doby procuring one of the paralyzing needle-guns from the ship.

  He took a step toward the ship and spoke the words that to the best ofhis knowledge meant: "I come back."

  "_Feswin ilt k'la._"

  Their reply was to snatch at their weapons in desperate haste, even asthe leader uttered a hoarse word of command. He brought up the blasterwith the quick motion that long training had perfected and their weaponswere only half drawn when his warning came:

  "_Bron!_"

  * * * * *

  They froze, but did not release their weapons. He walked backward to theairlock, his blaster covering them, the tensely waiting manner in whichthey watched his progress telling him that the slightest relaxation ofhis vigilance would mean his death. He did not let the muzzle of theblaster waver until he was inside the airlock and the outer door hadslid shut.

  He was sure that the natives would be gone when he returned. And he wassure of another thing: That whatever he had said to them, it was notwhat he had thought he was saying.

  He saw that the glade was empty when he opened the airlock again. Atthe same time a bomb-like missile struck the ship just above the airlockand exploded with a savage crash. He jabbed the _Close_ button and thedoor clicked shut barely in advance of three more missiles whichhammered at its impervious armor.

  So that, he thought wearily, is that.

  He laid the useless needle-gun aside. The stage was past when he couldhope to use it. He could save Throon only by killing some of theothers--or he could lift ship and leave Throon to die. Either actionwould make the natives hate and fear Terrans; a hatred and fear thatwould be there to greet all future Terran ships.

  That was not the way a race gave birth to peaceful galactic empire, wasnot the purpose behind the Plan. But always, wherever the Explorationmen went, they encountered the deadly barrier; the intangible,unassailable communication barrier. With the weapons an Exploration mancarried in his ship he had the power to destroy a world--but not thepower to ask the simple questions that would prevent fatalmisunderstandings.

  And before another three years had passed the last Exploration man woulddie, the last Exploration ship would be lost.

  He felt the full force of hopelessness for the first time. When Johnnyhad been alive it had been different; Johnny, who had laughed wheneverthe outlook was the darkest and said, "_We'll find a way, Paul--_"

  The thought broke as suddenly, unexpectedly, he felt that Johnny wasvery near. With the feeling came the soft enclosure of a dream-likepeace in which Johnny's death was vague and faraway; only something thathad happened in another dream. He knew, without wondering why, thatJohnny was in the control room.

  A part of his mind tried to reject the thought as an illusion. He didnot listen--he did not want to listen. He ran to the ship's elevator,stumbling like one not fully awake. Johnny was waiting for him in thecontrol room--alive--alive--

  * * * * *

  He spoke as he stepped into the control room:

  "Johnny--"

  Something moved at the control board, black and alien, standing tall asa man on short hind legs. Yellow eyes blazed in a feline face.

  It was a cave cat, like the ones that had killed Johnny.

  Realization was a wrenching shock and a terrible disillusionment. J
ohnnywas not waiting for him--not alive--

  He brought up the blaster, the dream-like state gone. The paw of thecave cat flashed out and struck the ship's master light switch with amovement faster than his own. The room was instantly, totally, dark.

  He fired and pale blue fire lanced across the room, to reveal that thecave cat was gone. He fired again, quickly and immediately in front ofhim. The pale beam revealed only the ripped metal floor.

  "_I am not where you think._"

  The words spoke clearly in his mind but there was no directional source.He held his breath, listening for the whisper of padded feet as the cavecat flashed in for the kill, and made a swift analysis of the situation.

  The cave cat was telepathic and highly intelligent and had been on theship all the time. It and the others had wanted the ship and had killedJohnny to reduce opposition to the minimum. He, himself, had beenpermitted to live until the cave cat learned from his mind how tooperate the almost-automatic controls. Now, he had served his purpose--

  "_You are wrong._"

  Again there was no way he could determine the direction from which thethought came. He listened again, and wondered why it had not waylaid himat the door.

  Its thought came:

  "_I had to let you see me or you would not have believed I existed. Itwas only here that I could extinguish all lights and have time to speakbefore you killed me. I let you think your brother was here...._" Therewas a little pause. "_I am sorry. I am sorry. I should have used someother method of luring you here._"

  He swung the blaster toward what seemed to be a faint sound near theastrogator unit across the room.

  "_We did not intend to kill your brother._"

  He did not believe it and did not reply.

  "_When we made first telepathic contact with him, he jerked up hisblaster and fired. In his mind was