Trial-and-error familiarization with new life-forms is dangerously
impractical on a far planet, where the representation of Earth men
may be a solitary five-man crew. The loss of even a single man
constitutes, in effect, obliteration of one-fifth of that planet's
Earth-population. This is the "why" of the Space Zoologist.
The science of Contact came into being as a result of a
government-subsidized "crash" program in the early seventies,
following on the heels of the disastrous second Mars landing.
The first flight to Mars had been simple in intent. The job of the
men on board had been merely to land in one piece and radio the
joyous news back to Earth, to take some samplings of soil and air,
some photographs and then return to Earth. All this was
accomplished without incident.
It was the second Mars landing that occasioned the discovery of the
quilties. These furry beasts, somewhere between marmosets and
koalas in appearance save for overall bright orange and green
tangles of fur, were found to be friendly, and unanimously adopted
by the crew members as mascots and pets. The animals, disarmingly
akin to ambulant rag-toys cut from patchwork counterpanes, did
indeed deserve the nickname of "quilties". They were cuddly,
friendly, with sad eyes and mournful squeaky voices that endeared
them to all the men on that flight.
Fortunately, their discovery was radioed back to Earth along with
the usual information in that first day's report. There were no
subsequent messages.
Mars Flight Three found the remains of the crew where the quilties
had left them.
On investigation by the ship's doctor, it was found that the
biology of the quilty was similar to that of a hornet, and they
considered man--as they would anything warm and fleshy--in the
relative position of a caterpillar. During the cuddling with the
small beasts, minute hairlike spines at the base of the quilties'
tails had managed to prick the flesh of the crewmen. By the
following morning, the men had been eaten to death from within by
the grubs of gestating baby quilties.
All of this, of course, is common knowledge today. But it is
mentioned here solely to demonstrate to you the monumental hazards
which an astronaut had to encounter in the days before the
discovery of Contact, and the development of the Space Zoologist,
without whose training, courage and efforts extra-Terran
colonization would be next to impossible.
"CONTACT--Its Application and
Indigenous Hazards"
by Lt. Commander Lloyd Rayburn,
U. S. Naval Space Corps
* * * * *
Lieutenant Jerry Norcriss stood at the edge of the wide green clearing,
sniffing contentedly of the not-unpleasant air of Arcturus Beta. Three
hundred yards behind him, crewmen and officers alike labored to unload
the equipment necessary for setting up camp for this, their first night
on the planet.
No one had asked him to lend his strong back to the proceedings. Space
Zoologists were never required to do anything which might sap, even
slightly, any of their physical energies. Moreover, they were under
oath _not_ to take any orders to the contrary.
Now and then, a hot-shot pilot would feel resentment at the
zoologist's standoffish position, and take out his feelings with a
remark like, "Would you pass the sugar, if you don't think it would
sprain your wrist, sir?" Such incidents, if reported back to Earth,
inevitably resulted in the breaking of the pilot, and his immediate
removal from command. It was seldom the zoologist himself who made the
report. Any crew member who overheard such statements would make the
report as soon as possible, no matter what feelings of loyalty they
might otherwise have for the pilot or person who had spoken.
From the moment of landing, the lives of every man aboard a ship were
in the hands of the Space Zoologist.
From Captain Daniel Peters, the pilot, down to Ollie Gibbs, the mess
boy, there was nothing but respect for Jerry Norcriss, and no envy
whatsoever for the job he would soon be doing. That is not to say they
were on friendly terms with him, either.
It was the next thing to impossible to call a Space Zoologist "friend."
Even amongst themselves, the zoologists were distracted, bemused,
withdrawn from their surroundings. After their first Contact, they
never were able to join in amiable camaraderie with other men. Such
social contact was not forbidden them. It was merely no longer a part
of their inclination. In their eyes a cool, silvery light shimmered, an
inner light that marked them for the ultimate adventurers they were. No
person would ever suffice them. They lived only for the job they did.
Without it, few lived longer than a terrestrial year. Even with it,
there was often sudden death.
Jerry was barely thirty, but his thick shock of hair was almost totally
white and his mouth a firm line which never curled in a smile nor
twisted in a frown. At the edge of the clearing, his bronzed flesh
glowing ruddily in the failing sunset light of Arcturus, he stood and
waited. Off in the distance behind him, Daniel Peters started across
the clearing from the sunset-red gleaming of the sleek metal spaceship.
He drew abreast of the solitary figure, and said respectfully, "All in
readiness, sir."
The words reached Jerry as from across a void. He turned slowly to face
the other man, focusing his will with the effort it always took just to
use his voice.
"Thank you, Captain," he said.
That was all he said, but as he followed Peters across the clearing
toward the scorched circle where the great ship had descended on
its column of fire, the pilot could not suppress a shudder. Jerry's
voice was oddly disconcerting to the nervous system of the listener.
It seemed like the "ghost-voice" of a medium at a seance. The mind
that was Jerry Norcriss was only utilizing a body for the purpose of
speaking. It did not actually belong there.
And that was true enough. Jerry and the others of his kind no longer
lived in their bodies. They merely existed there, waiting painfully for
the next occasion of Contact.
* * * * *
Beside the ship's ladder, hooked to an external power-outlet beneath a
metal flap on one towering tailfin, was the couch and the helmet Jerry
Norcriss would use.
Jerry lay back with the ease of long habit and adjusted the
helmet-strap beneath his chin, as Peters read to him mechanically.
The data came from the translated resumé of the roborocket that had
gathered data on Arcturus Beta for the six months prior to the landing
of the spaceship.
"... three uncatalogued species," his voice droned on. "An underground
life-pulse in the swamp-lands near the equator; the creature could
not be spotted from the air.... A basically feline creature, also
near the equator, but in a desert region, metabolism unknown.... And
pulses of intelligent life, and of some unfamiliar lower animal life,
on the northern seas.... All other life-forms on the planet conform to
previously discovered patterns, and can be dealt with in the prescribed
manners."
A small section of Jerry Norcriss's mind found itself mildly amused,
as always, by this bit of formality. The outlining of the planetary
reconnaissance to a Space Zoologist was mere protocol, a holdover from
the ancient custom of briefing a man who was about to undergo a mission
of importance. Vainly did the zoologists try to convince authority
that this briefing was futile. A man in Contact was no longer a man.
He _was_ the creature whose mind he inhabited, save for a miniscule
remnant of personal identity. His job was to Learn the creature from
the inside out. As his mind, off in the alien body, Learned, the
information was relayed via the Contact helmet to an electronic brain
on the ship, to be later translated into code-cards for the roborockets.
Man's expansion throughout the universe was progressing faster than his
mind could memorize or categorize.
The roborockets obviated his need to learn. For every known kind of
alien-species problem, there was a solution. The scannerbeams of the
rocket would sense each life-form over which they passed, in the
rocket's six-month orbit about the planet. If all species conformed to
already known types, then a signal would fly by ultrawave across the
void to Earth, declaring the planet fit for immediate colonization. But
if new species were encountered, the beam to Earth carried a hurried
call to the Naval Space Corps, with a request for the next available
zoologist.
Zoologists spent their Earthside time at Corps Headquarters, in the
Comprehension Chamber. There, with the millions of index-cards at
fingertip control, they lay back upon their couches and learned,
through dream-like vicarious playbacks, about the species Contacted
by their confreres. Any Space Zoologist with even five years' service
had more accumulated knowledge in his brain than any dozen ordinary
zoologists. And more intimate knowledge, too. A man who has _been_ an
animal has infinitely more knowledge of that animal than a man who has
merely dissected one.
* * * * *
So Jerry lay there, letting his ears record the voice of the pilot but
closing his conscious mind to the import of the words. It never did
any good to know that the creature you were about to be was unknown.
And no comment on what sort of animal it _might_ be could be half so
informative as actually _being_ what it was.
Jerry repressed an urge to fidget. This was almost the worst part of
Contact: The wait, while the senseless briefing took place. Soon enough
he would know more of the species under observation than could be held
on ten reams of briefing-sheets. Soon enough he would be sent, for an
irreducible forty minutes, into the mind of each of the creatures to be
learned.
The irreducible time-extent of Contact was its primary hazard.
When the Contact helmet had been developed, it had been found
that approximately forty minutes--forty-point-oh-three minutes,
to be exact--had to be spent in the creature's mind. No amount of
redesigning, fiddling or tinkering could change that time. The
Zoologist could spend neither more nor less than that amount in a
creature's mind.
Since all creatures have natural enemies, Contact called for more than
simply curling up and relaxing inside the alien mind. The zoologist's
host-alien might have a metabolism which called for it to drink a pint
of water every fifteen minutes or shrivel. In which case the zoologist
would shrivel with it, his punishment for not sufficiently Learning his
host.
This, then, was the reason those irreducible forty minutes were a
hazard. Should the creature being Contacted die, the zoologist died
with it. There was no avoiding death if it came to the inhabited
creature. A good zoologist Learned fast, or perished. Which is why
there is no such thing as a bad Space Zoologist. You're either a good
one or a dead one.
Peters' voice came to a halt and he closed the plastic folder over the
briefing-sheet.
"That's about the size of it, sir," he said. "We've focused the
Contact-beams toward the indicated areas and made a final check of all
the wiring, tubes and power-sources."
Jerry sighed contentedly and shut his eyes.
"Whenever you're ready, then, Captain," he whispered, and relaxed his
body in preparation for his first Contact. His mind and imagination
toyed a moment with brief fancies about his forthcoming existences in
swamp, desert and sea, then he pushed the thoughts away and let his
mind go empty.
Faintly, he heard Peters calling an order to the technician within the
spaceship--
Then silent lightning flashed across his consciousness.