Leinster, Murray - The Aliens

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The Aliens 5

Fugitive From Space 38

Anthropological Note 90

Skit-Tree Planet 111

Thing From the Sky 126

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Amazing Stories.

Wonder Stories.

Astounding Science.Fiction.

Published by arrangement with the author.

BERKLEY MEDALLION EDITION, MARCH, 1960 New Edition, SEPTEMBER, 1965

BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOKS are published by

Berkley Publishing Corporation

15 East 26th Street, New York, N. Y. 10010

Printed in the United States of America

The Aliens

AT 04 HOURS 10 minutes, ship time, the Niccola was well inside the Theta Gisol solar system. She

had previously secured excellent evidence that this was not the home of the Plumie civilization. There

was no tuned radiation. There was no evidence of interplanetary travel-rockets would be more than

obvious, and a magnetronic drive had a highly characteristic radiation-pattern-so the real purpose of

the Niccola’s voyage would not be accomplished here. She wouldn’t find out where Plumies came

from.

There might, though, be one or more of those singular, conical, hollow-topped cairns sheltering

silicon-bronze plates, which constituted the evidence that Plumies existed. The Niccola went sunward

toward the inner planets to see. Such cairns had been found on conspicuous landmarks on oxygen-type

planets over a range of some twelve hundred light-years. By the vegetation about them, some were a

century old. On the same evidence, others had been erected only months or weeks or even days before

a human Space Survey ship arrived to discover them. And the situation was unpromising. It wasn’t

likely that the galaxy was big enough to hold two races of rational beings capable of space travel.

Back on ancient Earth, a planet had been too small to hold two races with tools and fire. Historically,

that problem was settled when Homo sapiens exterminated Homo neanderthalis. It appeared that the

same situation had arisen in space. There were humans, and there were Plumies. Both had interstellar

ships. To humans, the fact was alarming. The need for knowledge, and the danger that Plumies might

know more first, and thereby be able to exterminate humanity, was appalling.

Therefore the Niccola. She drove on sunward. She had left one frozen outer planet far behind. She had

crossed the orbits of three others. The last of these was a gas giant with innumerable moonlets

revolving about it. It was now some thirty millions of miles back and twenty to one side. The sun,

ahead, flared and flamed in emptiness against that expanse of tinted stars.

Jon Baird worked steadily in the Niccola’s radar room. He was one of those who hoped that the

Plumies would not prove to be the natural enemies of mankind. Now, it looked like this ship wouldn’t

find out in this solar system. There were plenty of other ships on the hunt. From here on, it looked like

routine to the next unvisited family of planets. But meanwhile he worked. Opposite him, Diane Holt

worked as steadily, her dark head bent intently over a radar graph in formation. The immediate job

was the completion of a map of the meteor swarms following cometary orbits about this sun. They

interlaced emptiness with hazards to navigation, and nobody would try to drive through a solar system

without such a map.

Elsewhere in the ship, everything was normal. The engine room was a place of stillness and peace,

save for the almost inaudible hum of the drive, running at half a million Gauss flux-density. The

skipper did whatever skippers do when they are invisible to their subordinates. The weapons officer,

Taine, thought appropriate thoughts. In the navigation room the second officer conscientiously

glanced at each separate instrument at least once in each five minutes, and then carefully surveyed all

the screens showing space outside the ship. The stewards disposed of the debris of the last meal, and

began to get ready for the next. In the crew’s quarters, those off duty read or worked at scrimshaw, or

simply and contentedly loafed.

Diane handed over the transparent radar graph, to be fitted into the three-dimensional map in the

making.

“There’s a lump of stuff here,” she said interestedly. “It could be the comet that once followed this

orbit, now so old it’s lost all its gases and isn’t a comet any longer.”

At this instant, which was 04 hours 25 minutes ship time, the alarm-bell rang. It clanged stridently

over Baird’s head, repeater-gongs sounded all through the ship, and there was a scurrying and a

closing of doors. The alarm gong could mean only one thing. It made one’s breath come faster or

one’s hair stand on end, according to temperament.

The skipper’s face appeared on the direct-line screen from the navigation room.

“Plumies?” he demanded harshly. “Mr. Baird! Plumies?”

Baird’s hands were already flipping switches and plugging the radar room apparatus into a new setup.

“There’s a contact, sir,” he said curtly. “No. There was a contact. It’s broken now. Something detected

us. We picked up a radar pulse. One.”

The word “one” meant much. A radar system that could get adequate information from a single pulse

was not the work of amateurs. It was the product of a very highly developed technology. Setting all

equipment to full-globular scanning, Baird felt a certain crawling sensation at the back of his neck.

He’d been mapping within a narrow range above and below the line of this system’s ecliptic. A lot

could have happened outside the area he’d had under long-distance scanning.

But seconds passed. They seemed like years. The all-globe scanning covered every direction out from

the Niccola. Nothing appeared which had not been reported before. The gas-giant planet far behind,

and the only inner one on this side of the sun, would return their pulses only after minutes. Meanwhile

the radars reported very faithfully, but they only repeated previous reports.

“No new object within half a million miles,” said Baird, after a suitable interval. Presently he added:

“Nothing new within three-quarter million miles.” Then: “Nothing new within a million miles…”

The skipper said bitingly:

“Then you’d better check on objects that are not new!”

He turned aside, and his voice came more faintly as he spoke into another microphone. “Mr. Taine!

Arm all rockets and have your tube crews stand by in combat readiness!

Engine room! Prepare drive for emergency maneuvers! Damage-control parties, put on pressure suits

and take combat posts with equipment!” His voice rose again in volume.

“Mr. Baird! How about observed objects?”

Diane murmured. Baird said briefly:

“Only one suspicious object, sir-and that shouldn’t be suspicious. We are sending an information-

beam at something we’d classed as a burned-out comet. Pulse going out now, sir.”

Diane had the distant-information transmitter aimed at what she’d said might be a dead comet. Baird

pressed the button. An extraordinary complex of information-seeking frequencies and forms sprang

into being and leaped across emptiness. There were microwaves of strictly standard amplitude, for

measurement-standards. There were frequencies of other values, which would be selectively absorbed

by this material and that. There were laterally and circularly polarized beams. When they bounced,

back, they would bring a surprising amount of information.

They returned. They did bring back news. The thing that had registered as a larger lump in a meteor

swarm was not a meteor at all. It returned four different frequencies with a relative-intensity pattern

which said that they’d been reflected by bronze-probably silicon bronze. The polarized beams came

back depolarized, of course, but with phasechanges which said the reflector had a rounded, regular

form. There was a smooth hull of silicon bronze out yonder. There was other data.

“It will be a Plumie ship, sir,” said Baird very steadily. “At a guess, they picked up our mapping beam

and shot a single pulse at us to find out who and what we were. For another guess, by now they’ve

picked up and analyzed our information-beam and know what we’ve found out about them.”

The skipper scowled.

“How many of them?” he demanded. “Have we run into a fleet?”

“I’ll check, sir,” said Baird. “We picked up no tuned radiation from outer space, sir, but it could be

that they picked us up when we came out of overdrive and stopped all their transmissions until they

had us in a trap.”

“Find out how many there are!” barked the skipper. “Make it quick! Report additional data

instantly!”

His screen clicked off. Diane, more than a little pale, worked swiftly to plug the radar-room equipment

into a highly specialized pattern. The Niccola was very well equipped, radarwise. She’s been a type 08

Survey ship, and on her last stay in port she’d been rebuilt especially to hunt for and make contact

with Plumies. Since the discovery of their existence, that was the most urgent business of the Space

Survey. It might well be the most important business of the human race-on which its survival or

destruction would depend. Other remodeled ships had gone out before the Niccola, and others would

follow until the problem was solved. Meanwhile the Niccola’s twenty-four rocket tubes and stepped-

up drive and computer-type radar system equipped her for Plumie-hunting as well as any human ship

could be. Still, if she’d been lured deep into the home system of the Plumies, the prospects were not

good.

The new setup began its operation, instantly the last contact closed. The three-dimensional map served

as a matrix to control it. The information-beam projector swung and flung out its bundle of

oscillations. It swung and flashed, and swung and flashed. It had to examine every relatively nearby

object for a constitution of silicon bronze and a rounded shape. The nearest objects had to be

examined first.

Speed was essential. But three-dimensional scanning takes time, even at some hundreds of pulses per

minute.

Nevertheless, the information came in. No other silicon-bronze object within a quarter-million miles.

Within half a million. A million. A million and a half. Two million...

Baird called the navigation room.

“Looks like a single Plumie ship, sir,” he reported. “At least there’s one ship which is nearest by a

very long way.”

“Hah!’ grunted the skipper. “Then we’ll pay him a visit. Keep an open line, Mr. Baird!” His voice

changed. “Mr. Taine! Report here at once to plan tactics!”

Baird shook his head, to himself. The Niccola’s orders were to make contact without discovery, if

such a thing were possible. The ideal would be a Plumie ship or the Plumie civilization itself, located

and subject to complete and overwhelming envelopment by human ships before the Plumies knew

they’d been discovered. And this would be the human ideal because humans have always had to con-

sider that a stranger might be hostile, until he’d proven otherwise.

Such a viewpoint would not be optimism, but caution. Yet caution was necessary. It was because the

Survey brass felt the need to prepare for every unfavorable eventuality that Taine had been chosen as

weapons officer of the Niccola. His choice had been deliberate, because he was a xenophobe. He had

been a problem personality all his life. He had a seemingly congenital fear and hatred of strangers-

which in mild cases is common enough, but Taine could not be cured without a complete breakdown

of personality. He could not serve on a ship with a multiracial crew, because he was invincibly

suspicious of and hostile to all but his own small breed. Yet he seemed ideal for weapons officer on

the Niccola, provided he never commanded the ship. Because if the Plumies were hostile, a well-

adjusted, normal man would never think as much like them as a Taine. He was capable of the kind of

thinking Plumies might practice, if they were xenophobes themselves.

But to Baird, so extreme a precaution as a known psychopathic condition in an officer was less than

wholly justified. It was by no means certain that the Plumies would instinctively be hostile.

Suspicious, yes. Cautious, certainly. But the only fact known about the Plumie civilization came from

the cairns and silicon-bronze inscribed tablets they’d left on oxygen-type worlds over a twelve-

hundred-light-year range in space, and the only thing to be deduced about the Plumies themselves

came from the decorative, formalized symbols like feathery plumes which were found on all their

bronze tablets. The name “Plumies” came from that symbol.

Now, though, Taine was called to the navigation room to confer on tactics. The Niccola swerved and

drove toward the object Baird identified as a Plumie ship. This was at 05 hours 10 minutes ship time.

The human ship had a definite velocity sunward, of course. The Plumie ship had been concealed by

the meteor swarm of a totally unknown comet. It was an excellent way to avoid observation. On the

other hand, the Niccola had been mapping, which was bound to attract attention. Now each ship knew

of the other’s existence. Since the Niccola had been detected, she had to carry out orders and attempt a

contact to gather information.

Baird verified that the Niccola’s course was exact for interception at her full-drive speed. He said in a

flat voice:

“I wonder how the Plumies will interpret this change of course? They know we’re aware they’re not a

meteorite. But charging at them without even trying to communicate could look ominous. We could

be stupid, or too arrogant to think of anything but a fight.” He pressed the skipper’s call and said

evenly: “Sir, I request permission to attempt to communicate with the Plumie ship. We’re ordered to

try to make friends if we know we’ve been spotted.”

Taine had evidently just reached the navigation room. His voice snapped from the speaker:

“I advise against that, sir! No use letting them guess our level of technology!”

Baird said coldly:

“They’ve a good idea already. We beamed them for data.” There was silence, with only the very faint

humming sound which was natural in the ship in motion. It would be deadly to the nerves if there

were absolute silence. The skipper grumbled:

“Requests and advice! Dammit! Mr. Baird, you might wait for orders! But 1 was about to ask you to

try to make contact through signals. Do so.”

His speaker clicked off. Baird said:

“It’s in our laps. Diane. And yet we have to follow orders. Send the first roll.”

Diane had a tape threaded into a transmitter. It began to unroll through a pickup head. She put on

headphones. The tapes began to transmit toward the Plumie. Back at base it had been reasoned that a

pattern of clickings, plainly artificial and plainly stating facts known to both races, would be the most

reasonable way to attempt to open contact. The tape sent a series of cardinal numbers-one to five.

Then an addition table, from one plus one to five plus five. Then a multiplication table up to five times

five. It was not startling intellectual information to be sent out in tiny clicks ranging up and down the

radio spectrum. But it was orders.

Baird sat with compressed lips. Diane listened for a repetition of any of the transmitted signals, sent

back by the Plumie. The speakers about the radar room murmured the orders given through all the

ship. Radar had to be informed of all orders and activity, so it could check their results outside the

ship. So Baird heard the orders for the engine room to be sealed up and the duty-force to get into

pressure suits, in case the Niccola fought and was hulled. Damage-control parties reported themselves

on post, in suits, with equipment ready. Then Taine’s voice snapped: “Rocket

crews, arm even-numbered rockets with chemical explosive warheads. Leave odd-numbered rockets

armed with atomics. Report back!”

Diane strained her ears for possible re-transmission of the Niccola’s signals, which would indicate the

Plumie’s willingness to try conversation. But she suddenly raised her hand and pointed to the radar-

graph instrument. It repeated the positioning of dots which were stray meteoric matter in the space

between worlds in this system. What had been a spot-the Plumie ship-was now a line of dots. Baird

pressed the button.

“Radar reporting!” he said curtly. “The Plumie ship is heading for us. I’ll have relative velocity in ten

seconds.”

He heard the skipper swear. Ten seconds later the Doppler measurement became possible. It said the

Plumie plunged toward the Niccola at miles per second. In half a minute it was tens of miles per

second. There was no re-transmission of signals. The Plumie ship had found itself discovered.

Apparently it considered itself attacked. It flung itself into a headlong dash for the Niccola.

Time passed-interminable time. The sun flared and flamed and writhed in emptiness. The great gas-

giant planet rolled through space in splendid state, its moonlets spinning gracefully about its bulk. The

oxygen-atmosphere planet to sun-ward was visible only as a crescent, but the mottlings on its lighted

part changed as it revolved-seas and islands and continents receiving the sunlight as it turned. Meteor

swarms, so dense in appearance on a radar screen, yet so tenuous in reality, floated in their appointed

orbits with a seeming vast leisure.

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TableofContentsTheAliens5FugitiveFromSpace38AnthropologicalNote90Skit-TreePlanet111ThingFromtheSky126COPYRIGHT©1960,byMURRAYLEINSTERAnthropologicalNote:Copyright©1957byMercuryPress,Inc.OriginallypublishedinTheMagazineofFantasyandScienceFiction.FugitiveFromSpace:Copyright1954byZiff-DavisPublishingCom...

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