[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine August 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Intelligent birds! They knew a dead-end
planet when they visited one!
Ingomar Bjorgson knew he was going to die.
He turned his back on his useless ship and went inside the bubble house
that had been his home for ninety-nine days. Methodically he donned his
all-weather clothes, his environment suit. He did not want to die in
this place. Here was food and refrigeration for the days, warmth and
comfort for the nights. He could not bring himself to put a gun to his
head, or end it by any other direct, willful act. But out there in the
desert, away from man-made helps for survival ... there a man could get
himself into circumstances where nature took care of it.
That was his reason for being here on this lonely planet, in the first
place--the promise of finding intelligent life. For intelligence was
rare in the universe, after all. A lone adventurer, a year before,
forced down on this planet by a cosmic storm, had waited a week here
for the storm to subside, then had landed on Earth with the feverish
news of intelligent life. Ingomar Bjorgson had come to investigate.
Birds, yet.
* * * * *
They were only two. Two birds with minds like the edge of a razor,
living alone on this planet that was one hundred per cent desert.
He took one last look around the bubble, then walked out, leaving the
door open. From ten feet away he watched the sand already blowing in
through the doorway, and he felt very lonely and small. He knew that
his death, like his life, would never be marked anywhere with any
degree of permanence.
He walked. There was no hurry, so he walked slowly, stopping
occasionally to turn and stare at the tracks his feet had scuffed in
the sand, watching sand drift into them. He smiled wryly. The universe
was so eager to be rid of him--as if he were a disease.
He looked up again, studying the whole sky. But there was no movement
of wings, no silver streak of a ship coming to pick him up. Only one
spot marred the desert's domain--the tiny bright reflection of the
burning sun on the now distant bubble.
The birds had promised him. They had been so sure of themselves.
When he knew that the fierce sun and wind would kill him before he
could get back to the bubble, he started removing his all-weather
clothes. He flung them aside like a dancer. Coat to the left, trousers
to the right. The hot wind threw the trousers back against his face. He
tore them off with a curse. Shirt to the left. He kept the shoes on,
out of respect for his feet. Then he trudged on, wondering vaguely how
a half dressed man, dying on his feet, could make the same marks in the
sand as a fully clothed, comfortable one.
He stumbled on an outcropping of rock. He fell. He picked himself up
again. It would be quick, after all. The sun was in league with the
rest of the universe. He would die soon.
He fell again.
He had found the planet of Lorrane easily. The adventurer's charts were
accurate. It was a dry, barren place, an old, worn-out world where only
wind and sand moved, where mountains shoved their eroded peaks into
the impotent sky. But Ingomar found, upon emerging from his ship, that
there was another movement. Two black dots appeared far away in the sky
and rapidly grew larger. He had been told that the planet was populated
by an intelligent form of bird life. Two were approaching now.
He smiled to himself. "Imagine that," he said to himself, "A smart
bird. How should you meet a smart bird? Should you shake hands?"
The birds alighted in the sand before him. They eyed him with bright,
intelligent eyes. They were quite large, standing at least two feet
tall. Their gray feathers lay smooth and straight, immaculately cared
for. Ingomar cast around in his mind for something to say, or some sign
to make that indicated friendship.
Then one of the birds looked at the other and said, "This one is
larger."
"Much," the other replied.