Dickson, Gordon - 8 Short Stories and Novellas

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2024-12-24 0 0 143.72KB 27 页 5.9玖币

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Gordy is so good at creating believably alien characters that

once at a convention I tugged on his face to see if it would come

off. (It didn't, but I'm not entirely sure that proves anything.) Two

of his most fascinatingly unique aliens decorate the following

story. If you squint at the plot, you'll notice that it's one of the

hoariest cliches in the business – turned around one hundred

eighty degrees. The art of diplomacy is a subtle and difficult one

. . . especially out there in the field.

BROTHER CHARLIE

The matter of her standby burners trembled through the APC9 like the

grumbling of an imminent and not entirely unominous storm. In the

cramped, lightly grease-smelling cockpit, Chuck Wagnall sat running

through the customary preflight check on his instruments and controls.

There were a great many to check out – almost too many for the small

cockpit space to hold; but then old number 9, like all of her breed, was

equipped to operate almost anywhere but underwater. She could even

have operated there as well, but she would have needed a little time to

prepare herself, before immersion.

On his left-hand field screen the Tomah envoy escort was to be seen in

the process of moving the Tomah envoy aboard. The Lugh, Binichi, was

already in his bin. Chuck wasted neither time nor attention on these – but

when his ship range screen lit up directly before him, he glanced at it

immediately.

"Hold Seventy-nine," he said automatically to himself, and pressed the

acknowledge button.

The light cleared to reveal the face of Roy Marlie, Advance Unit

Supervisor. Roy's brown hair was neatly combed in place, his uniform

closure pressed tight, and his blue eyes casual and relaxed – and at these

top danger signals, Chuck felt his own spine stiffen.

"Yo, how's it going, Chuck?" Roy asked.

"Lift in about five minutes."

"Any trouble picking up Binichi?"

"A snap," said Chuck. "He was waiting for me right on the surface of the

bay. For two cents' worth of protocol he could have boarded her here with

the Tomah."

Chuck studied the face of his superior in the screen. He wanted very

badly to ask Roy what was up; but when and if the supervisor wanted to get

to the point of his call, he would do so on his own initiative.

"Let's see your flight plan," said Roy.

Chuck played the fingers of his left hand over the keys of a charter to his

right. There appeared superimposed on the face of the screen between

himself and Roy an outline of the two continents of this planet that the

Tomah called Rant and the Lugh called Vanyinni. A red line that was his

projected course crept across a great circle arc from the dot of his present

position, over the ocean gap to the dot well inside the coastline of the

southern continent. The dot was the human Base camp position.

"You could take a coastal route," said Roy, studying it.

"This one doesn't put us more than eight hundred nautical miles from

land at the midpoint between the continents."

"Well, it's your neck," said Roy, with a light-heartedness as ominous as

the noise of the standby burners. "Oh, by the way, guess who we've got

here? Just landed. Your uncle, Member Wagnall."

Aha! said Chuck. But he said it to himself. "Tommy?" he said aloud. "Is

he handy, there?"

"Right here," answered Roy, and backed out of the screen to allow a

heavy, graying-haired man with a kind, broad face to take his place.

"Chuck, boy, how are you?" said the man.

"Never better, Tommy," said Chuck. "How's politicking?"

"The appropriations committee's got me out on a one-man junket to

check up on you lads," said Earth District Member 439 Thomas L. Wagnall.

"I promised your mother I'd say hello to you if I got to this Base. What's all

this about having this project named after you?"

"Oh, not after me," said Chuck. "Its full name isn't Project Charlie, it's

Project Big Brother Charlie. With us humans as Big Brother."

"I don't seem to know the reference."

"Didn't you ever hear that story?" said Chuck. "About three brothers – the

youngest were twins and fought all the time. The only thing that stopped

them was their big brother Charlie coming on the scene."

"I see," said Tommy. "With the Tomah and the Lugh as the two twins.

Very apt. Let's just hope Big Brother can be as successful in this instance."

"Amen," said Chuck. "They're a couple of touchy peoples."

"Well," said Tommy. "I was going to run out where you are now and

surprise you, but I understand you've got the only atmosphere pot of the

outfit."

"You see?" said Chuck. "That proves we need more funds and

equipment. Talk it up for us when you get back, Tommy. Those little airfoils

you saw on the field when you came in have no range at all."

"Well, we'll see," said Tommy. "When do you expect to get here?"

"I'll be taking off in a few minutes. Say four hours."

"Good. I'll buy you a drink of diplomatic scotch when you get in."

Chuck grinned.

"Bless the governmental special supply. And you. See you, Tommy."

"I'll be waiting," said the Member. "You want to talk to your chief, again?"

He looked away outside the screen range. "He says nothing more. So

long, Chuck."

"So long."

They cut connections. Chuck drew a deep breath. "Hold Seventy-nine,"

he murmured to his memory, and went back to check that item on his list.

He had barely completed his full check when a roll of drums from outside

the ship, penetrating even over the sound of the burners, announced that

the Tomah envoy was entering the ship. Chuck got up and went back

through the door that separated the cockpit from the passenger and freight

sections.

The envoy had just entered through the lock and was standing with his

great claw almost in salute. He most nearly resembled, like all the Tomah, a

very large ant with the front pair of legs developed into arms with six fingers

each and double-opposed thumbs. In addition, however, a large,

lobster-like claw was hinged just behind and above the waist. When

standing erect, as now, he measured about four feet from mandibles to the

point where his rear pair of legs rested on the ground, although the great

claw, fully extended, could have lifted something off a shelf a good foot or

more above Chuck's head – and Chuck was over six feet in height.

Completely unadorned as he was, this Tomah weighed possibly ninety to a

hundred and ten Earth-pounds.

Chuck supplied him with a small throat-mike translator.

"Bright seasons," said the Tomah, as soon as this was adjusted. The

translator supplied him with a measured, if uninflected voice.

"Bright seasons," responded Chuck. "And welcome aboard, as we

humans say. Now, if you'll just come over here –"

He went about the process of assisting the envoy into the bin across the

aisle from the Lugh, Binichi. The Tomah had completely ignored the other;

and all through the process of strapping in the envoy, Binichi neither stirred,

nor spoke.

"There you are," said Chuck, when he was finished, looking down at the

reclining form of the envoy. "Comfortable?"

"Pardon me," said the envoy. "Your throat-talker did not express itself."

"I said, comfortable?"

"You will excuse me," said the envoy. "You appear to be saying

something I don't understand."

"Are you suffering any pain, no matter how slight, from the harness and

bin I put you in?"

"Thank you," said the envoy. "My health is perfect." He saluted Chuck

from the reclining position. Chuck saluted back and turned to his other

passenger. The similarity here was the throat-translator, that little miracle of

engineering, which the Lugh, in common with the envoy and Chuck, wore as

close as possible to his larynx.

"How about you?" said Chuck. "Still comfortable?"

"Like sleeping on a ground-swell," said Binichi. He grinned up at Chuck.

Or perhaps he did not grin – like that of the dolphin he so much resembled,

the mouth of the Lugh had a built-in upward twist at the corners. He lay.

Extended at length in the bin he measured a few inches over five feet and

weighed most undoubtedly over two hundred pounds. His wide-spreading

tail was folded up like a fan into something resembling a club and his four

short limbs were tucked in close to the short snowy fur of his belly. "I would

like to see what the ocean looks like from high up."

"I can manage that for you," said Chuck. He went up front, unplugged one

of the extra screens and brought it back. "When you look into this," he said,

plugging it in above the bin, "it'll be like looking down through a hole in the

ship's bottom."

"I will feel upside down," said Binichi. "That should be something new,

too." He bubbled in his throat, an odd sound that the throat-box made no

attempt to translate. Human sociologists had tried to equate this Lugh noise

with laughter, but without much success. The difficulty lay in understanding

what might be funny and what might not, to a different race. "You've got my

opposite number tied down over there?"

"He's in harness," said Chuck.

"Good." Binichi bubbled again. "No point in putting temptation in my way."

He closed his eyes. Chuck went back to the cockpit, closed the door

behind him, and sat down at the controls. The field had been cleared. He

fired up and took off.

When the pot was safely airborne, he set the course on autopilot and

leaned back to light a cigarette. For the first time he felt the tension in his

neck and shoulder blades and stretched, to break its grip. Now was no time

to be tightening up. But what had Binichi meant by this last remark? He

certainly wouldn't be fool enough to attack the Tomah on dry footing?

Chuck shook off the ridiculous notion. Not that it was entirely ridiculous –

the Lugh were individualists from the first moment of birth, and liable to do

anything. But in this case both sides had given the humans their words

(Binichi his personal word and the nameless Tomah their collective word)

that there would be no trouble between the representatives of the two

races. The envoy, Chuck was sure, would not violate the word of his

people, if only for the reason that he would weigh his own life as nothing in

comparison to the breaking of a promise. Binichi, on the other hand . . .

The Lugh were impeccably honest. The strange and difficult thing was,

however, that they were much harder to understand than the Tomah, in

spite of the fact that being warm-blooded and practically mammalian they

appeared much more like the human race than the chitinous land-dwellers.

Subtle shades and differences of meaning crept into every contact with the

Lugh. They were a proud, strong, free, and oddly artistic people; in

contradistinction to the intricately organized, highly logical Tomah, who took

their pleasure in spectacle and group action.

But there was no sharp dividing line that placed some talents all on the

Tomah side, and others all on the Lugh. Each people had musical

instruments, each performed group dances, each had a culture and a

science and a history. And, in spite of the fantastic surface sociological

differences, each made the family unit a basic one, each was

monogamous, each entertained the concept of a single deity, and each had

very sensitive personal feelings.

The only trouble was, they had no use for each other – and a rapidly

expanding human culture needed them both.

It so happened that this particular world was the only humanly habitable

planet out of six circling a sun which was an ideal jumping-off spot for

further spatial expansion. To use this world as a space depot of the size

required, however, necessitated a local civilization of a certain type and

level to support it. From a practical point of view this could be supplied only

by a native culture both agreeable and sufficiently advanced to do so.

Both the Tomah and the Lugh were agreeable, as far as the humans

were concerned. They were not advanced enough, and could not be, as

long as they remained at odds.

It was not possible to advance one small segment of a civilization. It had

to be upgraded as a whole. That meant cooperation, which was not now in

effect. The Tomah had a science, but no trade. They were isolated on a

few of the large land-masses by the seas that covered nine-tenths of their

globe. Ironically, on a world which had great amounts of settlable land and

vast untapped natural resources, they were cramped for living room and

starved for raw materials. All this because to venture out on the

Lugh-owned seas was sheer suicide. Their civilization was still in the

candlelit, domestic-beast-powered stage, although they were further

advanced in theory.

The Lugh, on the other hand, with the overwhelming resources of the

oceans at their disposal, had by their watery environment been prohibited

from developing a chemistry. The sea-girt islands and the uninhabited land

masses were open to there; but, being already on the favorable end of the

current status quo, they had had no great need or urge to develop further.

What science they had come up with had been mainly for the purpose of

keeping the Tomah in their place.

The human sociologists had given their opinion that the conflicts between

the two races were no longer based on valid needs. They were, in fact,

hangovers from competition in more primitive times when both peoples

sought to control the seashores and marginal lands. To the Tomah in those

days (and still), access to the seas had meant a chance to tap a badly

needed source of food; and to the Lugh (no longer), access to the shore

had meant possession of necessary breeding grounds. In the past the

Tomah had attempted to clear the Lugh from their path by exterminating

their helpless land-based young. And the Lugh had tried to starve the

Tomah out, by way of retaliation.

The problem was to bury these ancient hatreds and prove cooperation

was both practical and profitable. The latest step in this direction was to

invite representatives of both races to a conference at the human Base on

the uninhabited southern continent of this particular hemisphere. The

humans would act as mediator, since both sides were friendly toward them.

Which was what caused Chuck to be at the controls now, with his two

markedly dissimilar passengers in the bins behind him.

Unfortunately, the sudden appearance of Member Thomas Wagnall

meant they were getting impatient back home. In fact, he could not have

come at a worse time. Human prestige with the two races was all humanity

had to work with; and it was a delicate thing. And now had arisen this

suddenly new question in Chuck's mind as to whether Binichi had regarded

his promise to start no trouble with the Tomah as an ironclad guaranty, or a

mere casual agreement contingent upon a number of unknown factors.

The question acquired its full importance a couple of hours later, and

forty thousand feet above nothing but ocean, when the main burners

abruptly cut out.

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摘要：

GordyissogoodatcreatingbelievablyaliencharactersthatonceataconventionItuggedonhisfacetoseeifitwouldcomeoff.(Itdidn't,butI'mnotentirelysurethatprovesanything.)Twoofhismostfascinatinglyuniquealiensdecoratethefollowingstory.Ifyousquintattheplot,you'llnoticethatit'soneofthehoariestclichesinthebusiness...

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Dickson, Gordon - 8 Short Stories and Novellas

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