Ekem-ve continued, as the single hairs on the others stirred in
approval, "We can speak naturally when there are no other Earthmen
around, Roy, but it is best that we continue to talk like 'natives'
in the presence of Earthmen who assume us to be like that. To answer
your question: You are the second Earthman to put it to us, and your
deductions are correct so far as they go."
He felt that they expected him to come up with more, wanted him to
think more deeply and see still other things which they thought should
be apparent to a man of understanding.
"Then you have actually been testing all of us, all the time," he said.
"I suspect that you learned a good deal about us when Leitfred used the
language helmets--unless you can read our minds and learned it before
the transfer was made."
"We can read your minds when you are trying to tell us something,"
Syeltan said, "but that is very limited. We can read only what you want
us to know. We cannot extract anything you are trying to conceal from
us. If you concentrate on telling us something, we can pick up your
thought."
"What about things which we might not want you to know, but which we
cannot help thinking about? Or things which we might not be aware of
ourselves consciously?"
"The desire to communicate the information has to be present," Phrecle
said. "The most we would obtain from unconscious thoughts and
attitudes, or thoughts you wanted to hold back, would be a sense of
disturbance on your part. But we could not determine what caused the
disturbance or whether it had anything to do with us."
Auckland looked around him, wondering what to do with the cigarette
butt. Rycur passed him a small dish. "Thanks," he said. "Then you must
have gotten something special from the language-transfer process."
Ekem-ve blinked. "The helmets are much more powerful than you realize,
Roy. They bring up and amplify a great many things which you might not
want someone to know. We thought at first that they effected mutual
understanding, but it was soon apparent that Leitfred had learned
nothing about us from them."
"We saw his pictures of us, in terms of 'simple natives' as you put
it," Hcent said. "It amused us, and we decided to conform to it just
enough to satisfy those who felt we should be that way. Leitfred's
attitude was picturesque, you might say, but it was soon apparent that
the others were not much different. And they were all relieved that we
were not too advanced, as they thought."
Auckland nodded. "Then you saw some of our bad points, but some good
ones, too. You saw that some of us--all of us to an extent--take
ourselves too seriously. Pride. The man who has too much pride has too
little humor. He can't laugh at himself, which is often essential in
understanding other people. Your practical jokes on each other were
clues for us to follow if we could. And we did notice that none of them
were really harmful, which is not the case with practical jokes some
Earthmen play on each other."
"We were not astonished, but it did make us feel sad when we discovered
this," Nsenol said.
Auckland took out another cigarette. "Bad habit," he said, "but it does
help to settle the mind. There is one danger here. A man who cannot
laugh at himself resents being made the victim of a joke, however
well-intended. You say one other Earthman came to you as I did. Was
that Dr. Glamis?"
"Yes," said Ekem-ve. "He was a man of excellent mirth, which is the
simplest way of putting what we mean into your language."
"But there is one member of the expedition," Auckland mused, "who
cannot laugh at himself, who cannot bear the thought of being taken in
by people he considers 'natives' and inferior. Ekem-ve, where did Hcent
really find the imitation Vaec box?"
Hcent answered, and Auckland found that his suspicions had been
confirmed. He talked at length about the case, and his opinions.
Finally, he rose. "I'll have to be getting back," he said. "I think
something dangerous is about to happen already, but I've been counting
on a belief that someone will try to stop me from getting back safely
first."
"We will help as well as we can without interfering unwisely," Ekem-ve
said. "You must not think that the Vaec are all-powerful. The Creator
has given us some abilities that you do not have, but you will find
that you have abilities we do not have. Even though we can read minds
at times, we can be deceived." He arose and added. "Some of us will try
to guard your return."
He gave Auckland the slap of farewell, and the others followed suit.
"It is best that you do not see the guards," Ekem-ve said. "May you
come to us again under more mirthful circumstances."
He started away, thinking that he had learned nothing about the Vaec
technology, but somehow that seemed to be of very secondary importance
in comparison to what he had learned. Now he had to be on the
watch--for the Vaec could not be expected to know all the ruses of a
murderous human being--and try to think like the one he suspected was
the culprit.
Putting himself in this person's place and figuring out the best moves
could help to a certain extent. But you could be led into a trap of
your own making. What you thought was the most logical move for another
to make might not be so at all; and even if you were right, there was
no guarantee that the other person would make the best move. It was
better to try to think of your opponent's characteristic moves, always
keeping the best possibilities in mind.
The sky had started to become overcast that afternoon, and Auckland
realized that he had yet to experience rain on this planet. He'd been
told that rains were quite similar to those of Earth. The light was
very dim now, and the disadvantage would work both ways, so far as his
hunter was concerned. If someone were hunting him. He couldn't be sure
that this would be the case at all, but it was likely, and it made
sense.
They'd helped him make a more accurate map of his return route, then
showed him how he could follow the course off the "paths." There were
no paths in the sense of beaten down trails through woods. There
were clear areas, where only the grass-moss grew. It did not hold
footprints, not even the marks of the heavier crawler, and this would
be to mutual disadvantage. And footfalls were soundless.
The evening around him was soundless, too, except for his own breathing
and the pounding of his heart, which seemed unusually loud in his ears.
When he touched a bush, it sounded as if he'd made a terrific clatter,
although he knew he hadn't.
He knew there were friendly followers around him somewhere, but that
didn't decrease his apprehensions much. All the important little
questions that he should have asked the Vaec, but hadn't thought of at
the time, now came crowding into his mind. How well could they hear?
How sharp was their sense of smell?
Well, he thought, they could smell the faintest touch of _dodlig_,
undetectable to human nostrils--but, somehow, he felt that this was
misleading. There was something about this he knew, really knew,
without knowing; something he needed to remember and co-ordinate with
other observation.
Did the Vaec have senses which men did not--or which, in the
human being, were degenerate, vestigial, or potential and as yet
undeveloped--beyond the abilities which they had acknowledged? There
was telepathy and the ability to teleport, but these were both
qualities which many human philosophers and some scientists believed
to be in man, too. Vestigial or potential, perhaps present in that
large area of the brain for which no function had as yet been assigned
by specialists.
What were the qualities that Earthmen had which the Vaec realized they
did not have? Was pride and the foolish desire to be God a corruption
of one of these qualities?
His adrenals were reacting to danger signals, but such physical
response could come just as easily from an imagined peril as a real
one. He stopped by a large maple-like tree, stepped behind it and took
out the map, holding the pencil-light up against it and hoping that the
faint glow would not reveal his presence. Yes, he seemed to be on the
right track; he must bear left from here, and his next landmark would
be a roughly triangular-shaped patch of fungoid growths.
He stepped out from behind the tree, and a touch of giddiness assailed
him. It was only momentary, and he must have staggered to his right a
bit before it passed. He reached out to lean against the smooth trunk
for support, wondering what had happened to him. His finger touched
something cold and thin.
It felt like metal, a thin sliver of metal. Then he caught his breath
as he realized it was metal indeed, and the thickness and length of a
small needle. It had been fired from a needlegun, which was soundless
beyond a few feet and accurate for about a hundred yards. The needle
would not penetrate deeply, however, beyond a third of that distance
and it was not unusual for them to be poisoned.
He drew it out. There could be no certainty, without more careful
examination than he was able to conduct here, but it might be useful
for evidence. Then he realized that he had nothing in which to wrap it,
and it wouldn't be safe to carry any other way. Auckland momentarily
blasphemed the progress in fabrics which made his clothing tearproof,
so far as his own abilities were concerned. A strip from his shirt
would have been quite handy.
What to do with it? It would have been better, he thought now, to have
left it sticking in the tree. He settled the problem by stooping down
and pushing it deep into the grass-moss, then using his pencil-light to
ram it down into the soil. It would stay there.
When he stood up, he realized that he'd missed another bet. The
sensible thing to have done was to have feigned being hit and put on
a show of quick decease. Yet, as he thought more on this, starting
ahead again, there were risks. He was unarmed and if the hunter were
equally sensible he would not come too close without firing another
needle into his victim for certainty. That's what I would do under the
circumstances, if I were the hunter, Auckland thought, and grinned at
the comforting realization.
The giddiness hit him again, and when his mind cleared, he realized
he was well off his course. What was happening? Was the Vaec food
having some effect that his hosts hadn't foreseen, due to some personal
allergy? He saw clumps of unfamiliar growths and little patches of
water; he'd stumbled into the marshlands, so he had to bear roughly
north-north-west. He glanced at the compass dial in his watch and made
the turn indicated. The way led to a good size bare patch.
He had not traveled far into it, when he realized that he was sinking.
Quicksand! But if it were like quicksand known on Earth, he had a
chance; he could float on the top of it as one floated in water. He
tried to let himself down gently.
And found that he had lost all power of motion. He was paralyzed, and
the treacherous surface beneath him slid from beneath his feet so that
he sank down steadily, as if in a slow elevator. Roy Auckland closed
his eyes and concentrated on one thought: "Ekem-ve! Help! Quicksand!"
They would be listening for him, of that he felt certain. They would
receive his call. But whether they would arrive in time, whether this
were the only area of quicksand in the vicinity. He thought briefly of
the route he had traveled, as well as he knew it.
Auckland opened his eyes. He could not move his head but just stared
straight ahead. Something was stirring beyond the patch, by a clump of
tall bushes. In a moment, something came into sight. It was a figure in
a protective suit. It stood there motionless and raised its arm, then
lowered it. Auckland realized that the hunter had decided there was no
need to waste another needle. The hunter would wait to make sure that
he had gone under.
The downward motion was slow and silent, and Auckland's thoughts were
racing. Could he at least solve the mystery in his own mind before that
mind was released to another order of existence? He thought, "_Into thy
hands I commend my spirit_," then turned his mind to clues and evidence.
Shirley Mason entered his thoughts first, partly because he knew he
did not want her to be the guilty one. Yet she had a good motive for
killing Glamis and she could have set the deadly needle in the box.
That would mean that someone else, perhaps Glamis himself, had made the
phoney attempts on James. Glamis was capable of such humor.
Calvin Burleigh loathed Glamis; or rather, found Glamis's behaviour
and attitudes loathsome. Yes, he would be capable of killing the man
then praying for his soul. And Burleigh might have known that James was
going to study the Rosetta stone book that night, and would not go to
the lab to examine the box.
Anyone could have purloined Shirley's imitation Vaec box, and Burleigh
would have had time to make the substitution before Glamis got to the
lab. Shirley, however, didn't fit into that category. Had she gone to
the lab after supper and the meeting in the recreation room, she would
have been seen by one of the watching Vaec.
Unless James had indicated to her, without saying what it was,
that he had something of importance he was going to work on in his
quarters. But that might have applied to any of the others. It was
clear, however, that the substitution was made before the meeting in
the recreation room. And that was the best argument for the apparent
solution: that Glamis had been caught in a trap prepared for Howard
James.
But the person most likely to get a hint of James's change in plans was
Amelia, and Amelia hated Glamis. The misdirection made sense in her
case, and somehow the ineptness of the two attempts suggested Amelia's
attempts to be clever.
As to James himself, there was motive, although it did not seem to be
strong enough for murder. There was certainly opportunity. But would
James have blundered so badly? He could have arranged some other sort
of accident, without any preliminaries. And the stopping of the field
work hurt him far more than he presumably had to gain by Glamis's death.
Burleigh or Edholm, however, might well have wanted to put an end
to the expedition, but he couldn't see Edholm doing it that way. On
the other hand, the very fact that James was in no real danger from
either attempt suggested a person like Burleigh, who would not harm an
innocent person in order to get someone else. Not do physical harm,
that is. Any psychological suffering that James underwent as a result
of the abrupt frustration of his work would be justified in Burleigh's
mind by the good he would be doing the "uncorrupted natives."
Howard James had suffered a breakdown after the Marlene affair and
another misfortune in his profession might bring on a second. Burleigh
considered himself called to combat unrighteousness. Shirley had
been afraid. Amelia hated. Did she also fear Glamis for some reason?
Edholm--where did he fit?
Auckland's thoughts turned to Kenneth Glamis, whom he had last seen
alive working over the microscope in the lab, and jotting down notes.
Then, how had Phrecle put it, "Excellent Kenneth looks up from
microscope and delivers instruction to self. Then puts microscope away
and takes out camera." Glamis was in the habit of muttering to himself
while working.
Somewhere in this maze of conjectures and evidence there was a pattern,
Auckland thought, as he felt the sand around his neck. And now the
pieces were beginning to fall into shape. His thoughts raced even more
swiftly as the sands crept up his face and they all confirmed the
suspicion he was holding when he had last spoken to Ekem-ve. Yes, yes,
he was sure he knew who was out there, watching him go down. But the
case was still incomplete, the clinching details missing. He ought to
see it, ought to see it all now.
The thought of his own blindness was bitter in Roy Auckland's heart as
the sands touched his nostrils. He drew in a deep breath and felt them
rise over his head.