_illustrated by_ KELLY FREAS
There was something phony about the whole set-up on
that planet. Their culture was counterfeit. But why
did they go to so much trouble to put on their act?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Super-Science Fiction February 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Cliff Rowley's lean jowls beaded with sweat in the stagnant warmth of
the tent. He tapped a bony finger on the camp table and glared at the
communicator.
"Clear out in a week! _Why?_"
Commander Waldo Spliid's tired voice trickled from the communicator
grid. Rowley would have appreciated video hook-up now. He wondered how
Spliid's features portrayed his thoughts.
"Here's final classification on Hume, Cliff. Category two X sub one."
"Closed world!" Rowley groaned. "We've only been here three months!"
"Eleven men in the field, Cliff. You're the odd ball. Everybody else
is satisfied. Hume is only a step above savagery in culture. Top rating
is satisfied. I don't like the conflicting picture of it, myself,
but...."
"Nor I," Rowley stabbed. The look in his hazel eyes hardened.
"You wouldn't," Spliid said calmly, "even without seeing the reports.
You're a percie, Cliff--our only psi-sensitive on Hume. But you've got
to do a lot more than you've done yet to impress top rating. They're
keener on the things you can't do than the things you can."
"A few more months, Commander...."
"A week, Cliff. Seven days. Get in and dig for all you're worth."
"Me and my little psychic shovel," Rowley commented bitterly.
A hum came out of the comm. Somewhere, far above the atmosphere of
Hume, the Survey ship, with Spliid on board, cruised among the stars.
"Clean up any questions you can," Spliid went on. "Bring your notes
up to date. The pilot boat will pick you up ... let's see ... this is
Wednesday ... Wednesday for us, anyway. Next Wednesday, then. Have
everything ready to load. And keep on reporting."
Rowley started to retort, thought better of it. He switched off the
comm.
Well, that did it. They'd had it, as far as Hume was concerned. And the
puzzle still stared him in the face--_him_, Rowley, the boy who was
going to do great things, like with teleconscious apprehension, with
psychometry, with....
Psi-sensitives were new in the Galactic Ethnological Survey
Corps--Galethsurv in the cryptic, telegraphic coding of service
vernacular. Spliid had not been sarcastic when he had called Rowley a
"percie", the abbreviated, half-humorous, half-scornful, scuttle-butt
designation for the percipients.
Percipiency was still too new in the ethnological service to evaluate.
A percie had hunches and feelings he was supposed to follow. Sometimes,
it seemed, a percipient vaulted completely over painful steps of
reasoning and "cogged" a conclusion that was often correct. The ability
could be valuable, if properly used. That's where Rowley's harness
rubbed. His wasn't being used.
He _knew_ something was wrong on Hume. But if Galethsurv wanted to
overlook his recommendation for further study, it should be no concern
of his.
But he couldn't run away from a problem that challenged him to solve it.
* * * * *
Long grass swished against his calves as he strolled thoughtfully down
toward the village of thatched, stone houses, bathed in the pink glow
of a setting sun. Blue smoke curled lazily over stone chimneys, and
even from this distance, he could hear the sharp, shrill voices of
children raised in play. He took in the scene with a single glance, the
stream running beside the village, the small, brown figures darting
about the grassy lanes.
The village was nestled in a hollow of the rolling land. Beyond it and
stalking around it to enclose it in a clasp of balsam, lay the great
pine forest of Hume. Not really pine, but an other-world equivalent of
it, each tree spaced a precise, geometrical distance from its neighbor,
towering toward flecks of burnt-orange and mauve-colored clouds in the
aquamarine sky.
The forest of Hume was gigantic, mystifying. It challenged the mind. It
covered the whole land surface of Hume with its geometrical spacing of
trees. And the people who populated Hume called themselves Keepers of
the Trees.
Rowley tried to grasp the fact that what he saw here was almost
endlessly repeated over the broad face of Hume. Why did he think that
the _real_ culture of Hume was otherwise than what he saw? A thousand
thousand villages, purpling in the swift-rushing sunset ... a myriad of
slender semi-savages, who spent their lives tending the trees. If he,
Rowley, could perceive more than other men, then what did he perceive
here? He wished he knew.
What _was_ the real culture? What lay behind this facade? Why did he
think the impressions of his ordinary senses reported only the outward
effect of a mere stage play? It was a mighty big play, performed for a
very small audience--the eleven investigators for Galethsurv. How could
he get to the bottom of the puzzle in the few days remaining, with no
more guide than an inexplicable "feeling" of falseness? Time was so
short!
The illusion of reality in the village was strong enough to overwhelm
him. Teramis was scratching in his garden while the light faded from
the sky. He waved and called out to Rowley as he went by. Teramis
had spent the day, with the rest of the villagers, among the trees,
removing moss and insects, clipping dead branches ... why?
Shy, big-eyed little kids, showing brown where they weren't clothed,
ran in the grassy streets. Unusually--unnecessarily--clean for the
offspring of a semi-savage people, he thought.
Tsu was drawing water from the creek as he came up. She paused,
holding the water jar against youthful breasts, restrained under the
taut fabric of her yellow sarong. Like others of her race, she was
surpassingly slender, breathtakingly beautiful in the liquid melody of
her movements. Her face was long, tanned, glowing with the ripeness of
youth. Her eyes, long, tip-tilted, were lidded with mystery, and her
black hair was substanceless shadow caressing her shoulders.
It almost came to him as he looked at her, greeted her. Did Tsu look
the part of a shy, savage maiden of the wild? He had to admit that she
did ... she looked like an over-enthusiastic video casting director's
idea of category two X sub one maidenhood.
The implications slipped from his mind as she clasped his hand. The
warm flesh of her palm felt firm against his.
An electric tingle wriggled up his arm. Not even the rigor of his
emotional conditioning could have prevented that much. It was not good
for field men to be bothered by emotions. It made their work difficult;
they found wives on sub-standard worlds and wanted to bring them out
to civilization; or, they reverted to the wilds themselves with their
mates. The Corps conditioned its men against anything like that, so
that emotional vagaries could not disturb the single-mindedness trained
into them--to discover and interpret in the field.
"Good evening, _sintaha_ Rowley," Tsu said.
He followed her into the house she shared with Smarin and Torl, her
parents. They greeted Rowley warmly, slim, smiling, happy as usual.
It was a stage play, performed for his benefit. He moved around among
the actors, but he was not an actor himself. He was the audience.
Rowley had been in this house often, always with a haunting sense of
wrongness. He knew it as well as he knew his own tent. Living room,
kitchen, two bedrooms and quarters for bathing. Clean people, the
natives of Hume.
Rowley sat on the stone stoop and contemplated the gathering shadows.
Tsu came out and sat close beside him. He asked her again about the
trees, why the people tended them.
"It is proper to tend the trees, _sintaha_ Rowley. We have done so
always."
Was she evading? Or did he fully understand her language, simple as it
was? He had learned it quickly, and had wondered at the time that it
was so similar in grammar and syntax to his own. An odd coincidence--or
deliberate casting, to impress the play more easily on the audience?
"Tomorrow," he said, "I should like to learn more about the trees."
"If it will please you," she said.
* * * * *
Another sun was setting. Another day had gone to join the fruitless
ones preceding it. The expedition among the trees had told him
nothing. Everything was the same as Tsu had explained several times
before. His alerted senses found no discrepancy. He was disappointed,
and he said as much in his evening report to Commander Spliid.
"It adds up," Spliid said encouragingly.
Rowley felt a glow.
"You get it?"
"No, frankly. But top rating must have the right slant. Where does
percipiency leave off and old fashioned imagination begin? You're
functioning like a percie, even when there's nothing to perceive."
"I thought _you_ weren't satisfied...."
"I'm not a percie, Cliff. Any dissatisfaction I may feel is aroused by
the conflicting reports of the field men. Anyway, we can probably clear
that up in the correlating department."