Dickson, Gordon - Brother Charlie
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2024-11-19
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46 页
5.9玖币
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"All right," he said
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
I
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
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"All right," he said
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
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"All right," he said
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
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"All right," he said
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.
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"All right," he said
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
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"All right," he said
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."
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"All right," he said
"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 . . .
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"All right," he said
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,
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"All right," he said
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
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"All right," he said
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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分类：外语学习
价格：5.9玖币
属性：46 页
大小：94.79KB
格式：PDF
时间：2024-11-19
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