the original grid we'd built. Then we were able to modify that to
heave sand and to let it tap the ionosphere. We were able to use a good
many times the power the little grid could apply to sand lifting. In
two days more the landing-grid was clear. The valley bottom was clean.
We shifted some hundreds of millions of tons of sand by landing-grid,
and now it is possible to land the _Warlock_, and receive her
supplies. The solar-power furnace is already turning out pigs for her
loading. We wanted you to see what we have done. The colony is no
longer in danger, and we shall have the grid completely finished for
your inspection before the ship is ready to return."
Bordman said uncomfortably:
"That's very good. It's excellent. I'll put it in my survey report."
"But," said Ralph, more ceremonially still, "we have the right to count
coup for the members of our tribe and clan. Now--"
Then there was confusion. Aletha's cousin was saying syllables that did
not mean anything at all. The other Indians joined in at intervals,
speaking gibberish. Aletha's eyes were shining and she looked pleased
and satisfied.
"What--what's this?" demanded Bordman when they stopped.
Aletha spoke proudly.
"Ralph just formally adopted you into the tribe, Mr. Bordman--and into
his clan and mine! He gave you a name I'll have to write down for you,
but it means, 'Man-who-believes-not-his-own-wisdom.' And now--"
Ralph Redfeather, licensed interstellar engineer, graduate of the
stiffest technical university in this quarter of the galaxy, wearer of
three eagle-pinion feathers and clad in a pair of insulated sandals
and a breechclout--Ralph Redfeather whipped out a small paint-pot and
a brush from somewhere and began carefully to paint on a section of
girder ready for the next tier of steel. He painted a feather on the
metal.
"It's a coup," he told Bordman over his shoulder. "Your coup. Placed
where it was earned--up here. Aletha is authorized to certify it. And
the head of the clan will add an eagle feather to the head-dress he
wears in Council in the Big Tepee on Algonka, and--your clan-brothers
will be proud."
Then he straightened up and held out his hand.
Chuka said benignly:
"Being civilized men, Mr. Bordman, we Africans do not go in for
uncivilized feathers. But we--ah--rather approve of you too. And we
plan a corroboree at the colony after the _Warlock_ is down, when
there will be some excellently practiced singing. There is--ah--a song,
a sort of choral calypso, about this adventure you have brought to so
satisfying a conclusion. It is quite a good calypso. It's likely to be
popular on a good many planets."
Bordman swallowed. He felt that he ought to say something, and he did
not know what.
But just then there was a deep-toned humming in the air. It
was a vibrant tone, instinct with limitless power. It was the
eighteen-hundred-foot landing-grid, giving off that profoundly bass and
vibrant note it uttered while operating. Bordman looked up.
The _Warlock_ was coming down.
* * * * *
After Bordman made his report he found that the newest graduates
of Space Survey training had been swallowed up by the needs of the
service, and he was apparently needed as badly as before. But he
protested vigorously, and went back to Lani III and enjoyed the society
of Riki and his children for a full year and a half.
Then three Senior Officers died within one year, and the Survey's
facilities were stretched to the breaking-point. Population-pressure
required the opening of colonies. The safety of thousands and millions
of human lives depended on the Survey's work. Worlds which had been
biologically surveyed had also to be checked to make sure they were
equipped to sustain the populations waiting impatiently to swarm upon
them.
Reluctantly, to meet the emergency, Bordman agreed to return to the
Service for one year only.
But he'd served seven, with only two brief visits to his children and
his wife, when he was promised that after the checking of a single
robot-colony on Loren Two, his resignation would be accepted.
So he boarded a Crete Line Ship for his last active assignment in the
Colonial Survey....
COMBAT TEAM
The nearer moon went by overhead. It was jagged and irregular in shape,
probably a captured asteroid. Huyghens had seen it often enough, so
he did not go out of his quarters to watch it hurtle across the sky
with seemingly the speed of an atmosphere-flier, occulting the stars
as it went. Instead, he sweated over paper-work, which should have
been odd because he was technically a felon and all his labors on
Loren Two felonious. It was odd, too, for a man to do paper-work in a
room with steel shutters and a huge bald eagle--untethered--dozing on
a three-inch perch set in the wall. But paper-work was not Huyghens'
real task. His only assistant had tangled with a night-walker, and the
furtive Kodius Company ships had taken him away to where Kodius Company
ships came from. Huyghens had to do two men's work in loneliness. To
his knowledge, he was the only man in this solar system.
Below him, there were snufflings. Sitka Pete got up heavily and padded
to his water-pan. He lapped the refrigerated water and sneezed.
Sourdough Charley waked and complained in a rumbling growl. There
were diverse other rumblings and mutterings below. Huyghens called
reassuringly, "Easy there!" and went on with his work. He finished a
climate report, and fed figures to a computer. While it hummed over
them he entered the inventory totals in the station log, showing what
supplies remained. Then he began to write up the log proper.
"_Sitka Pete_," he wrote, "_has apparently solved the problem of
killing individual sphexes. He has learned that it doesn't do to hug
them and that his claws can't penetrate their hide, not the top-hide,
anyhow. Today Semper notified us that a pack of sphexes had found the
scent-trail to the station. Sitka hid down-wind until they arrived.
Then he charged from the rear and brought his paws together on both
sides of a sphex's head in a terrific pair of slaps. It must have been
like two twelve-inch shells arriving from opposite directions at the
same time. It must have scrambled the sphex's brains as if they were
eggs. It dropped dead. He killed two more with such mighty pairs of
wallops. Sourdough Charley watched, grunting, and when the sphexes
turned on Sitka, he charged in his turn. I, of course, couldn't shoot
too close to him, so he might have fared badly except that Faro Nell
came pouring out of the bear-quarters to help. The diversion enabled
Sitka Pete to resume the use of his new technique, towering on his hind
legs and swinging his paws in the new and grizly fashion. The fight
ended promptly. Semper flew and screamed above the scrap, but as usual
did not join in. Note: Nugget, the cub, tried to mix in but his mother
cuffed him out of the way. Sourdough and Sitka ignored him as usual.
Kodius Champion's genes are sound!_"
The noises of the night went on outside. There were notes like
organ-tones--song-lizards. There were the tittering, giggling cries of
night-walkers. There were sounds like tack-hammers, and doors closing,
and from every direction came noises like hiccoughs in various keys.
These were made by the improbable small creatures which on Loren Two
took the place of insects.
Huyghens wrote out:
"_Sitka seemed ruffled when the fight was over. He used his trick
on the head of every dead or wounded sphex, except those he'd killed
with it, lifting up their heads for his pile-driver-like blows from
two directions at once, as if to show Sourdough how it was done. There
was much grunting as they hauled the carcasses to the incinerator. It
almost seemed--_"
The arrival-bell clanged, and Huyghens jerked up his head to stare at
it. Semper, the eagle, opened icy eyes. He blinked.
Noises. There was a long, deep, contented snore from below. Something
shrieked, out in the jungle. Hiccoughs, clatterings, and organ-notes....
The bell clanged again. It was a notice that an unscheduled ship aloft
somewhere had picked up the beacon-beam--which only Kodius Company
ships should know about--and was communicating for a landing. But
there shouldn't be any ships in this solar system just now! The Kodius
Company's colony was completely illegal, and there were few graver
crimes than unauthorized occupation of a new planet.
The bell clanged a third time. Huyghens swore. His hand went out to cut
off the beacon, and then stopped. That would be useless. Radar would
have fixed it and tied it in with physical features like the nearby
sea and the Sere Plateau. The ship could find the place, anyhow, and
descend by daylight.
"The devil!" said Huyghens. But he waited yet again for the bell to
ring. A Kodius Company ship would double-ring to reassure him. But
there shouldn't be a Kodius Company ship for months.
The bell clanged singly. The space-phone dial flickered and a voice
came out of it, tinny from stratospheric distortion:
"_Calling ground. Calling ground. Crete Line ship_ Odysseus
_calling ground on Loren Two. Landing one passenger by boat. Put on
your field lights._"
Huyghens' mouth dropped open. A Kodius Company ship would be welcome.
A Colonial Survey ship would be extremely unwelcome, because it
would destroy the colony and Sitka and Sourdough and Faro Nell and
Nugget--and Semper--and carry Huyghens off to be tried for unauthorized
colonization and all that it implied.
But a commercial ship, landing one passenger by boat.... There were
simply no circumstances under which that could happen. Not to an
unknown, illegal colony. Not to a furtive station!
Huyghens flicked on the landing-field lights. He saw the glare over
the field half a mile away. Then he stood up and prepared to take the
measures required by discovery. He packed the paper-work he'd been
doing into the disposal-safe. He gathered up all personal documents
and tossed them in. Every record, every bit of evidence that the
Kodius Company maintained this station went into the safe. He slammed
the door. He moved his finger toward the disposal-button, which would
destroy the contents and melt down even the ashes past their possible
use for evidence in court.
Then he hesitated. If it were a Survey ship, the button had to
be pressed and he must resign himself to a long term in prison.
But a Crete Line ship--if the space-phone told the truth--was not
threatening. It was simply unbelievable.
He shook his head. He got into travel garb, armed himself, and went
down into the bear-quarters, turning on lights as he went. There
were startled snufflings, and Sitka Pete reared himself to a sitting
position to blink at him. Sourdough Charley lay on his back with his
legs in the air. He'd found it cooler, sleeping that way. He rolled
over with a thump, and made snorting sounds which somehow sounded
cordial. Faro Nell padded to the door of her separate apartment,
assigned her so that Nugget would not be underfoot to irritate the big
males.
Huyghens, as the human population of Loren Two, faced the work-force,
fighting-force, and--with Nugget--four-fifths of the terrestrial
non-human population of the planet. They were mutated Kodiak bears,
descendants of that Kodius Champion for whom the Kodius Company was
named. Sitka Pete was a good twenty-two hundred pounds of lumbering,
intelligent carnivore, Sourdough Charley would weigh within a hundred
pounds of that figure. Faro Nell was eighteen hundred pounds of female
charm and ferocity. Then Nugget poked his muzzle around his mother's
furry rump to see what was toward, and he was six-hundred pounds of
ursine infancy. The animals looked at Huyghens expectantly. If he'd had
Semper riding on his shoulder they'd have known what was expected of
them.
"Let's go," said Huyghens. "It's dark outside, but somebody's coming.
And it may be bad!"
He unfastened the outer door of the bear-quarters. Sitka Pete went
charging clumsily through it. A forthright charge was the best
way to develop any situation--if one was an oversize male Kodiak
bear. Sourdough went lumbering after him. There was nothing hostile
immediately outside. Sitka stood up on his hind legs--he reared up
a solid twelve feet--and sniffed the air. Sourdough methodically
lumbered to one side and then the other, sniffing in his turn. Nell
came out, nine-tenths of a ton of daintiness, and rumbled admonitorily
at Nugget, who trailed her closely. Huyghens stood in the doorway, his
night-sighted gun ready. He felt uncomfortable at sending the bears
ahead into a Loren Two jungle at night, but they were qualified to
scent danger, and he was not.
The illumination of the jungle in a wide path toward the landing-field
made for weirdness in the look of things. There were arching giant
ferns and columnar trees which grew above them, and the extraordinary
lanceolate underbrush of the jungle. The flood-lamps, set level with
the ground, lighted everything from below. The foliage, then, was
brightly lit against the black night-sky, brightly enough lit to dim
the stars.
"On ahead!" commanded Huyghens, waving. "Hup!"
He swung the bear-quarters door shut, and moved toward the
landing-field through the lane of lighted forest. The two giant male
Kodiaks lumbered ahead. Sitka Pete dropped to all fours and prowled.
Sourdough Charley followed closely, swinging from side to side.
Huyghens came behind the two of them, and Faro Nell brought up the rear
with Nugget nudging her.
It was an excellent military formation for progress through dangerous
jungle. Sourdough and Sitka were advance-guard and point, respectively,
while Faro Nell guarded the rear. With Nugget to look after, she was
especially alert against attack from behind. Huyghens was, of course,
the striking force. His gun fired explosive bullets which would
discourage even sphexes, and his night-sight--a cone of light which
went on when he took up the trigger-slack--told exactly where they
would strike. It was not a sportsmanlike weapon, but the creatures
of Loren Two were not sportsmanlike antagonists. The night-walkers,
for example. But night-walkers feared light. They attacked only in a
species of hysteria if it were too bright.
Huyghens moved toward the glare at the landing-field. His mental state
was savage. The Kodius Company on Loren Two was completely illegal.
It happened to be necessary, from one point of view, but it was still
illegal. The tinny voice on the space-phone was not convincing, in
ignoring that illegality. But if a ship landed, Huyghens could get back
to the station before men could follow, and he'd have the disposal-safe
turned on in time to protect those who'd sent him here.
Then he heard the far-away and high harsh roar of a landing-boat
rocket--not a ship's bellowing tubes--as he made his way through the
unreal-seeming brush. The roar grew louder as he pushed on, the three
big Kodiaks padding here and there, sniffing for danger.
He reached the edge of the landing-field, and it was blindingly
bright, with the customary divergent beams slanting skyward so a ship
could check its instrument-landing by sight. Landing fields like this
had been standard, once upon a time. Nowadays all developed planets
had landing-grids--monstrous structures which drew upon ionospheres
for power and lifted and drew down star-ships with remarkable
gentleness and unlimited force. This sort of landing-field would now
be found only where a survey-team was at work, or where some strictly
temporary investigation of ecology or bacteriology was under way, or
where a newly authorized colony had not yet been able to build its
landing-grid. Of course, it was unthinkable that anybody would attempt
a settlement in defiance of the law!
Already, as Huyghens reached the edge of the scorched open space,
the night-creatures had rushed to the light, like moths on Earth.
The air was misty with crazily gyrating, tiny flying things. They
were innumerable and of every possible form and size, from the white
midges of the night and multi-winged flying worms to those revoltingly
naked-looking larger creatures which might have passed for plucked
flying monkeys if they had not been carnivorous and worse. The flying
things soared and whirred and danced and spun insanely in the glare,
making peculiarly plaintive humming noises. They almost formed a
lamp-lit ceiling over the cleared space, and actually did hide the
stars. Staring upward, Huyghens could just barely make out the
blue-white flame of the space-boat's rockets through the fog of wings
and bodies.
The rocket-flame grew steadily in size. Once it tilted to adjust
the boat's descending course. It went back to normal. A speck of
incandescence at first, it grew until it was like a great star,
then a more-than-brilliant moon, and then it was a pitiless glaring
eye. Huyghens averted his gaze from it. Sitka Pete sat lumpily and
blinked at the dark jungle away from the light. Sourdough ignored the
deepening, increasing rocket-roar. He sniffed the air. Faro Nell held
Nugget firmly under one huge paw and licked his head as if tidying him
up to be seen by company. Nugget wriggled.
The roar became that of ten thousand thunders. A warm breeze blew
outward from the landing-field. The rocket-boat hurtled downward, and
as its flame touched the mist of flying things, they shriveled and
burned. Then there were churning clouds of dust everywhere, and the
center of the field blazed terribly--and something slid down a shaft
of fire, squeezed it flat, and sat on it--and the flame went out. The
rocket-boat sat there, resting on its tail-fins, pointing toward the
stars from which it came.
There was a terrible silence after the tumult. Then, very faintly,
the noises of the night came again. There were sounds like those of
organ-pipes, and very faint and apologetic noises like hiccoughs.
All these sounds increased, and suddenly Huyghens could hear quite
normally. As he watched, a side-port opened with a clattering,
something unfolded from where it had been inset into the hull of the
space-boat, and there was a metal passageway across the flame-heated
space on which the boat stood.
A man came out of the port. He reached back in and shook hands. Then
he climbed down the ladder-rungs to the walk-way, and marched above
the steaming baked area, carrying a traveling bag. At the end of the
walk he stepped to the ground, and moved hastily to the edge of the
clearing. He waved to the space-boat. The walk-way folded briskly
back up to the hull and vanished in it, and almost at once a flame
exploded into being under the tail-fins. There were fresh clouds of
monstrous, choking dust, a brightness like that of a sun, and noise
past the possibility of endurance. Then the light rose swiftly through
the dust-cloud, sprang higher, and climbed more swiftly still. When
Huyghens' ears again permitted him to hear anything, there was only a
diminishing mutter in the heavens and a faint bright speck of light
ascending to the sky, swinging eastward as it rose to intercept the
ship from which it had descended.
The night-noises of the jungle went on, even though there was a spot
of incandescence in the day-bright clearing, and steam rolled up in
clouds at the edge of the hottest area. Beyond that edge, a man with a
traveling bag in his hand looked about him.
Huyghens advanced toward him as the incandescence dimmed. Sourdough and
Sitka preceded him. Faro Nell trailed faithfully, keeping a maternal
eye on her offspring. The man in the clearing stared at the parade
they made. It would be upsetting, even after preparation, to land at
night on a strange planet, to have the ship's boat and all links with
the rest of the cosmos depart, and then to find oneself approached--it
might seem stalked--by two colossal male Kodiak bears, with a third
bear and a cub behind them. A single human figure in such company might
seem irrelevant.
The new arrival gazed blankly. He moved back a few steps. Then Huyghens
called:
"Hello, there! Don't worry about the bears! They're friends!"
Sitka reached the newcomer. He went warily down-wind from him and
sniffed. The smell was satisfactory. Man-smell. Sitka sat down with the
solid impact of more than a ton of bear-meat landing on packed dirt,
and regarded the man. Sourdough said "_Whoosh_!" and went on to
sample the air beyond the clearing. Huyghens approached. The newcomer
wore the uniform of the Colonial Survey. That was bad. It bore the
insignia of a senior officer. Worse.
"Hah!" said the just-landed man. "Where are the robots? What in all the
nineteen hells are these creatures? Why did you shift your station? I'm
Bordman, here to make a progress-report on your colony."
Huyghens said:
"What colony?"
"Loren Two Robot Installation--" Then Bordman said indignantly,
"Don't tell me that that idiot skipper can have dropped me at the wrong
place! This is Loren Two, isn't it? And this is the landing-field. But
where are your robots? You should have the beginning of a grid up! What
the devil's happened here and what are these beasts?"
Huyghens grimaced.
"This," he said, "is an illegal, unlicensed settlement. I'm a criminal.
These beasts are my confederates. If you don't want to associate with
criminals you needn't, of course, but I doubt if you'll live till
morning unless you accept my hospitality while I think over what to do
about your landing. In reason, I ought to shoot you."
Faro Nell came to a halt behind Huyghens, which was her proper post in
all out-door movement. Nugget, however, saw a new human. Nugget was a
cub, and therefore friendly. He ambled forward. He wriggled bashfully
as he approached Bordman. He sneezed, because he was embarrassed.
His mother overtook him and cuffed him to one side. He wailed. The wail
of a six-hundred-pound Kodiak bear-cub is a remarkable sound. Bordman
gave ground a pace.
"I think," he said carefully, "that we'd better talk things over.
But if this is an illegal colony, of course you're under arrest and
anything you say will be used against you."
Huyghens grimaced again.
"Right," he said. "But now if you'll walk close to me, we'll head back
to the station. I'd have Sourdough carry your bag--he likes to carry
things--but he may need his teeth. We've half a mile to travel." He
turned to the animals. "Let's go!" he said commandingly. "Back to the
station! Hup!"
Grunting, Sitka Pete arose and took up his duties as advanced point
of a combat-team. Sourdough trailed, swinging widely to one side and
another. Huyghens and Bordman moved together. Faro Nell and Nugget
brought up the rear.
There was only one incident on the way back. It was a night-walker,
made hysterical by the lane of light. It poured through the underbrush,
uttering cries like maniacal laughter.
Sourdough brought it down, a good ten yards from Huyghens.
When it was all over, Nugget bristled up to the dead creature, uttering
cub-growls. He feigned to attack it.
His mother whacked him soundly.
* * * * *
There were comfortable, settling-down noises below, as the bears
grunted and rumbled, and ultimately were still. The glare from the
landing-field was gone. The lighted lane through the jungle was dark
again. Huyghens ushered the man from the space-boat up into his living
quarters. There was a rustling stir, and Semper took his head from
under his wing. He stared coldly at the two humans, spread monstrous,
seven-foot wings, and fluttered them. He opened his beak and closed it
with a snap.
"That's Semper," said Huyghens. "Semper Tyrannis. He's the rest of the
terrestrial population here. Not being a fly-by-night sort of creature,
he didn't come out to welcome you."
Bordman blinked at the huge bird, perched on a three-inch-thick perch
set in the wall.
"An eagle?" he demanded. "Kodiak bears--mutated ones, but still
bears--and now an eagle? You've a very nice fighting unit in the
bears--"
"They're pack animals too," said Huyghens. "They can carry some
hundreds of pounds without losing too much combat efficiency. And
there's no problem of supply. They live off the jungle. Not sphexes,
though. Nothing will eat a sphex."
He brought out glasses and a bottle and indicated a chair. Bordman put
down his traveling bag, took a glass, and sat down.
"I'm curious," he observed. "Why Semper Tyrannis? I can understand
Sitka Pete and Sourdough Charley as fighters. But why Semper?"
"He was bred for hawking," said Huyghens. "You sic a dog on something.
You sic Semper Tyrannis. He's too big to ride on a hawking-glove, so
the shoulders of my coats are padded to let him ride there. He's a
flying scout. I've trained him to notify us of sphexes, and in flight
he carries a tiny television camera. He's useful, but he hasn't the
brains of the bears."
Bordman sat down and sipped at his glass.