"It seemed to me pale and luke-warm compared with the real thing,"
says Cray languidly, "which brings me to a point that, to quote dear
Kirsty, seems to have been missed."
I say, "Yep. Like what language it was that these people wrote their
log in that we can be _certain_ the Incognitans won't know."
"More than that," says B, "we didn't decide who they are or where they
were coming from or how they came to crash or anything."
"Come to think of it, though," I point out, "the language and a good
many other things must have been decided already because of getting
the right hypnotapes and translators on board."
B suddenly lights up.
"Yes, but look, I bet that's what we're here for, I mean that's why
they picked us instead of Space Department people--the ship's got to
have a past history, it has to come from a planet somewhere only no
one must ever find out _where_ it's supposed to be. Someone will have
to fake a log, only I don't see how--"
"The first reel with data showing the planet of origin got damaged
during the crash," says Cray impatiently.
"Yes, of course--but we have to find a reason why they were in that
part of Space and it has to be a _nice_ one, I mean so that the
Incognitans when they finally read the log won't hate them any more--"
"Maybe they were bravely defending their own planet by hunting down an
interplanetary raider," I suggest.
Cray says it will take only the briefest contact with other planets to
convince the Incognitans that interplanetary raiders can't and don't
exist, modern planetary alarm and defense systems put them out of the
question.
"That's all he knows," says B, "some interplanetary pirates raided
Lizzie's father's farm once. Didn't they, Liz?"
"Yes in a manner of speaking, but they were bums who pinched a
spaceship from a planet not many parsecs away, a sparsely inhabited
mining world like my own which had no real call for an alarm system,
so that hardly alters the argument."
"Well," says B, "the alarm system on Incognita can't be so hot or the
observation ships could not have got in, or out, for that matter,
unless of course they have some other gadget we don't know about."
"On the other hand," she considers, "to mention Interplanetary raiders
raises the idea of Menace in an Unfriendly Universe again, and this is
what we want to cancel out.
"These people," she says at last with a visionary look in her eye,
"come from a planet which went isolationist and abandoned space
travel; now they have built up their civilization to a point where
they can build ships of their own again, and the ones on Gilgamesh
have cut loose from the ideas of their ancestors that led to their
going so far afield--"
"How far afield?" says Cray.
"No one will ever know," I point out to him. "Don't interrupt."
"Anyway," says B, "they set out to rejoin the rest of the Human Race
just like the people on _Gilgamesh_ _really_ did, in fact, a lot of
this is the truth only kind of backwards--they were looking for the
Cradle of the Race, that's what. Then there was some sort of disaster
that threw them off course to land on an uninhabited section of a
planet that couldn't understand their signals. And when Incognita
finally does take to space flight again I bet the first thing the
people do is to try and follow back to where _Gilgamesh_ came from and
make contact with them. It'll become a legend on Incognita--the Lost
People ... the Lost ... Lost--"
"The Lost Kafoozalum," says Cray. "In other words we switch these
people off a war only to send them on a wild goose chase."
At which a strange voice chimes in, "No, no, no, son, you've got it
all _wrong_."
* * * * *
Mr. Yardo is with us like a well-meaning skeleton.
During the next twenty-five minutes we learn a lot about Mr. Yardo
including material for a good guess at how he came to be picked for
this expedition; doubtless there are many experts on Reversal Of
Vacuum-Induced Changes in Organic Tissues but maybe only one of them a
Romantic at heart.
Mr. Yardo thinks chasing the Wild Goose will do the Incognitans all
the good in the galaxy, it will take their minds off controversies
over interhemispherical trade and put them on to the quest of the
Unobtainable; they will get to know something of the Universe outside
their own little speck. Mr. Yardo has seen a good deal of the Universe
in the course of advising on how to recondition space-packed meat and
he found it an Uplifting Experience.
We gather he finds this desperate bit of damfoolery we are on now
pretty Uplifting altogether.
Cray keeps surprisingly quiet but it is as well that the rest of the
party start to trickle in about twenty minutes later the first
arrivals remarking Oh _that's_ where you've got to!
Presently we are all congregated at one end of the table as before,
except that Mr. Yardo is now sitting between B and me; when M'Clare
and the colonel come in he firmly stays where he is evidently
considering himself One of Us now.
"The proposition," says M'Clare, "is that we intend to take
_Gilgamesh_ to Incognita and land her there in such a way as to
suggest that she crashed. In the absence of evidence to the contrary
the Incognitans are bound to assume that that was her intended
destination, and the presence of weapons, even disarmed, will suggest
that her mission was aggressive. Firstly, can anyone suggest a better
course of action? or does anyone object to this one?"
We all look at Lennie who sticks his hands in his pockets and mutters
"No."
Kirsty gives her little cough and says there is a point which has not
been mentioned.
If a heavily-armed ship crashes on Incognita, will not the government
of the hemisphere in which it crashes be presented with new ideas for
offensive weapons? And won't this make it _more_ likely that they will
start aggression? And won't the fear of this make the other hemisphere
even more likely to try and get in first before the new weapons are
complete?
Hell, I ought to have thought of that.
From the glance of unwilling respect which the colonel bestows on
M'Clare it is plain these points have been dealt with.
"The weapons on Gilgamesh were disarmed when she was rediscovered," he
says. "Essential sections were removed. The Incognitans won't be able
to reconstruct how they worked."
_Another_ fact for which we shall have to provide an explanation. Well
how about this: The early explorers sent out by these people--the
people in Gilgamesh ... oh, use Cray's word and call them Lost
Kafoozalum anyway their ships were armed, but they never found any
enemies and the Idealists of B's story refused even to carry arms any
more.
(Which is just about what happened when the Terries set out to
rediscover the colonies, after all.)
So the Lost Kafoozalum could not get rid of their weapons completely
because it would have meant rebuilding the ship; so they just
partially dismantled them.
Mr. Yardo suddenly chips in, "About that other point, girlie, surely
there must be some neutral ground left on a half-occupied planet like
that?" He beams round, pleased at being able to contribute.
B says, "The thing is," and stops.
We wait.
We have about given up hope when she resumes, "The thing is, it will
have to be neutral ground of course, only that might easily become a
thingummy ... I mean a, a _casus belli_ in itself. So the _other_
thing is it ought to be a place which is very hard to get at, so
difficult that neither side can really get to it first, they'll have
to reach an agreement and co-operate."
"Yeah," says Dillie "that sounds fine, but what sort of place is
that?"
I am sorting out in my head the relative merits of mountains,
deserts, gorges, et cetera, when I an seized with inspiration at the
same time as half the group; we say the same thing in different words
and for a time there is Babel, then the idea emerges:
"Drop her into the sea!"
The colonel nods resignedly.
"Yes," he says, "that's what we're going to do."
He presses a button and our projection-screens light up, first with a
map of one pole of Incognita, expanding in scale till finally we are
looking down on one little bit of coast on one of the polar islands. A
glacier descends on to it from mountains inland and there is a bay
between cliffs. Then we get a stereo scene of approximately the least
hospitable of scenery I ever did see--except maybe when Parvati Lal
Dutt's brother made me climb up what he swore was the smallest peak in
the Himalayas.
It is a small bay backed by tumbled cliffs. A shelving beach can be
deduced from contour and occasional boulders big enough to stick
through the snow that smothers it all. A sort of mess of rocks and mud
at the back may be glacial moraine. Over the sea the ice is split in
all directions by jagged rifts and channels; the whole thing is a bit
like Antarctica but nothing is high enough or white enough to uplift
the spirit, it looks not only chilly but kind of mean.
"This place," says the colonel, "is the only one, about which we have
any topographical information, that seems to meet the requirements.
Got to know about it through an elementary planetography. One of the
observers had the sense to see we might need something of the sort.
This place"--the stereo jigs as he taps his projector--"seems it's the
center of a rising movement in the crust ... that's not to the point.
Neither side has bothered to claim the land at the poles...."