"Don't you see," Charlie told Robin. "They're savages. They wouldn't
understand anything like spaceships. They wouldn't want to. If they get
the chance, they'll kill first and ask questions afterwards. We've got
to go to the Wild Country now."
Big and brawny Tashtu was nodding his head earnestly, but Robin seemed
unconvinced. "Why," she said, "there isn't even anything about Wild
Country in the book."
"That's because we made it."
"And besides, the Congressmen are dangerous."
"Congressmen? Don't you mean the Cyclopes?"
"Yes, I'm sorry. The Cyclopes are dangerous."
She couldn't possibly have meant the Congressmen. It was never clear to
either of them precisely what a Congressman did. But there were hundreds
of them on one side of Wild Country and they were forever making
speeches and promises, little round bald men with great, rich voices
and wonderful vocabularies. Charlie loved to hear them speak.
"We go, Lord?" Tashtu asked.
Charlie nodded and went inside swiftly for his rifle. It was modeled
after the most powerful rifle in the encyclopedia and was called a
Mannlicher Elephant Gun. Robin came with her own smaller Springfield
repeater.
"Ready?" Charlie asked.
"Yes. We can think up food along the trail."
"Hurry, Lord," Tashtu urged.
Charlie could hardly contain his excitement. The Wild Country, at last.
And a spaceship.
* * * * *
By the time they were ready to make planetfall on the unexplored world,
Purcell knew his dislike of Glaudot bordered on actual hatred. Purcell,
who was forty-five years old and a bachelor, liked his spacemen tough,
yes: you had to be tough to land on, explore, and subdue a couple of
dozen worlds, as Purcell himself had done. But he also liked his
spacemen with humility: facing the unknown and sometimes the unknowable
at every step of the way, you needed humility.
Glaudot, younger than Purcell by fifteen years, confident, arrogant, a
lean hard man and handsome in a gaunt-cheeked, saturnine way, lacked
humility. For one thing, he treated the crew like dirt and had treated
them that way since blastoff from Earth almost five months before. For
another, he seemed impatient with Purcell's orders, although Purcell was
not a cautious man, and certainly not a timid one. What had been growing
between them flared out into the open moments before planetfall.
"I can't get over it," Purcell said. "I've never seen a world anything
like it." They had made telescopic observations from within the
atmosphere. "Giants living in caves," Purcell went on. "Sailing ships
flying the Jolly Roger. A town consisting of miniature replicas of the
White House on Earth. Mermaids."
"Don't tell me you really thought you saw mermaids?" Glaudot asked a
little condescendingly.
"All right, I'll admit I only caught a glimpse of them. I thought they
were mermaids. But what about the Indians?"
"Yes," Glaudot admitted. "I saw the Indians."
Using their atmospheric rockets, they had flown over the Indian village
at an altitude of only a few hundred feet, to see bronze-skinned men
rush out of tents and stare up at them in awe. After that, Purcell had
decided to find some desolate spot in which to land, in order not to
risk a too-sudden encounter with any of the fantastically diversified
natives.
Now Glaudot said: "You're taking what we saw too literally, Captain.
Why, I remember on Harfonte we had all sorts of hallucinations until
Captain Jamison discovered they were exactly that--we'd been hypnotized
into seeing the things we most feared by powerless natives who really
feared us."
"This isn't Harfonte," Purcell said, a little irritably.
"Yeah, but you weren't there."
"I know that, Glaudot. I'm only trying to point out that each world must
be considered as unique. Each world presents its own problems, which--"
"I say this is like Harfonte all over again. I say if you'd had the guts
to land right smack in the middle of that Indian village, you'd have
seen for yourself. I say to play it close to the vest is ridiculous,"
Glaudot said, and then smiled deprecatingly. "Begging your pardon, of
course, Captain. But don't you see, man, you've got to show the
extraterrestrials, whatever form they take, that Earthmen aren't afraid
of them."
"Caution and fear aren't the same thing," Purcell insisted. He didn't
know why he bothered to explain this to Glaudot. Perhaps it was because
Ensign Chandler, youngest man in the exploration party, was in the
lounge listening to them. Chandler was a nice kid, clean-cut and right
out of the finest tradition of Earth, but Chandler was, like all boys
barely out of their teens, impressionable. He was particularly
impressionable in these, his first months in space.
"When you're cautious it's as much to protect the natives as yourself,"
Purcell went on, and then put into simple words what Glaudot and
Chandler should have learned at the Academy for Exploration, anyway.
When he finished, Glaudot shrugged and asked: "What do you think, Ensign
Chandler?"
Chandler blushed slowly. "I--I'd rather not say," he told them. "Captain
Purcell is--the captain."
Glaudot smiled his triumph at Purcell. It was then, for the first time,
that Purcell's dislike for the man became intense. Purcell wondered how
long he'd been poisoning the youth's mind against the doctrines of the
Academy.
Just then a light glowed in the bulkhead and a metallic voice intoned:
"Prepare for landing. Prepare for landing at once."
Purcell, striding to his blast-hammock, told Glaudot, who was the
expedition's exec, "I'll want the landing party ready to move half an
hour after planetfall."
"Yes, sir," said Glaudot eagerly. At least there was something they
agreed on.
* * * * *
"Men," Purcell told the small landing party as they assembled near the
main airlock thirty-five minutes later, "we have an obligation to our
civilization which I hope all of you understand. While here on this
unknown world we must do nothing to bring discredit to the name of Earth
and the galactic culture which Earth represents."
They had all seen the bleak moon-like landscape through the viewports.
They were eager to get out there and plant the flag of Earth and
determine what the new world was like. There were only eight of them in
the first landing party: others would follow once the eight established
a preliminary base of operations. The eight were wearing the new-style,
light-weight spacesuits which all exploration parties used even though
the temperature and atmosphere of the new world seemed close enough to
Earth-norm. It had long ago been decided at the Academy that chances
couldn't be taken with some unknown factor, possibly toxic, fatal and
irreversible, in an unknown atmosphere. After a day or two of thorough
laboratory analysis of the air they'd be able to chuck their spacesuits
if all went well.
They filed through the airlock silently, Purcell first with the flag of
Earth, then Glaudot, then the others. White faces watched from the
viewport as they clomped across the convoluted terrain.
"Nobody here but us chickens!" Glaudot said, and he laughed, after they
had walked some way across the desolate landscape. "But then, what did
you expect? Captain took us clear of all the more promising places."
The man's only motive, Purcell decided, was his colossal ego. He made no
reply: that would be descending to Glaudot's level.
After they walked almost entirely across the low-walled crater in which
the exploration ship had come down, and after Purcell had planted the
flag on the highest pinnacle within the low crater walls, Glaudot said:
"How's about taking a look-see over the top, Captain? At least that
much."
Purcell wasn't in favor of the idea. It would mean leaving sight of the
ship too soon. But the radio voices of most of the men indicated that
they agreed with Glaudot, so Purcell shrugged and said a pair of
volunteers could go, if they promised to rejoin the main party within
two hours.
Glaudot immediately volunteered. That at least made sense. Glaudot had
the courage of his convictions. Several others volunteered, but the
first hand up had been Ensign Chandler's.
"I don't want to sound like a martinet," Purcell told them. "But you
understand that by two hours I mean two hours. Not a minute more."
"Yes, sir," Chandler said.
"Glaudot?"
"Yes, sir," the Executive Officer replied.
"All right," Purcell said. He walked over to the first of the big
magna-sleds piled high with equipment. "We'll be setting up the base
camp over here. I know the men still in the ship will want to stretch
their legs soon as possible. We don't want to have to go looking for
you, Glaudot."
"Not me, Captain," Glaudot assured him, and walked off toward the crater
rim with young Ensign Chandler.
* * * * *
"What the devil was that?" Chandler said forty-five minutes later.
"Stop jumping at every shadow you see. Relax."
"I thought I saw something moving behind that rock."
"So, go take a look."
"But--"
"Hell, boy, don't let that Purcell put the fear of the unknown into you
on your very first trip out. Huh, what do you say?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Glaudot," Ensign Chandler replied.
"After all," Glaudot went on, "we have nothing to be afraid of. We're
still within sight of the ship."
Chandler turned around. "I don't see it," he said.
"From the top of that rock you could."
"Think so?"
"Sure I do. Why don't you take a look if it will make you feel better?"
"All right," Chandler said, and smiled at his own temerity. But he knew
vaguely that he'd been caught in a crossfire between the cautious
Purcell and the bold, arrogant Glaudot. Sometimes he really thought that
the Captain's caution made sense: on Wulcreston, he'd learned at the
Academy, a whole Earth expedition had been slaughtered before contact
because the natives mistook hand telescopes for weapons. And surely on
any world a spacesuited man looked more like a monster than a man
although he was vulnerable in a spacesuit, even more vulnerable than a
naked man because he could only run awkwardly.
All this Chandler thought as he climbed the high rock rampart. He'd send
a subspace letter back to the folks tonight, sure enough, he told
himself. Not only had he been chosen for the preliminary exploration
party, he'd made the first trip out of sight of the spaceship. It
certainly was something to write home about, and Mom would be very
proud ...
He was on top of the rock now. The vast tortuous landscape spread out
below him like a relief map in a mapmaker's nightmare. Far to his left,
beyond Glaudot's spacesuited figure, he could see the projectile-shaped
spaceship resting on its tail fins. And to his right--
He stared. He gawked.
At the last moment he tried to get down from the rock, but his spaceboot
caught on an outcropping and his fatal mistake was standing upright in
an attempt to free it.
Then all at once in a blinding burst of pain he was clutching at
something in his chest but knew as his life ebbed rapidly from his young
body that it would not matter if he was able to pull the cruel shaft
out....
* * * * *
Glaudot went rushing up the side of the rock. He still couldn't believe
his eyes. Ensign Chandler had been impaled by two long feathered shafts,
two arrows. The force of the first one had spun Chandler around and he
lay now with his back arched across the topmost ramparts of the rock,
two arrows protruding from his chest and his life blood, starkly crimson
against the white of the spacesuit, pouring out.
Reaching the top of the rock in an attempt to drag the dying boy down,
Glaudot saw the Indians rushing up the other side of the crater wall.
Indians, he thought incredulously. Indians, as in the American West
hundreds of years ago. Indians ... But just what the hell were they
doing here?
A muscular brave notched an arrow, his right hand drawing the feathered
shaft back to his ear. Quickly Glaudot flung his arms skyward, hoping
that the universal gesture of surrender would be understood. The brave
stood statue-still. His lips opened. He was speaking to another of the
half-dozen Indians in the raiding band, but Glaudot could not hear the
words through his space helmet. He knew his life hung in the balance.
He watched, fascinated and helpless, as the Indian who had slain Ensign
Chandler came toward him.
* * * * *
Tashtu said: "Two raiding bands, Lord. One go north. Other south. We
follow?"
They had reached the advance Indian camp on the fringe of the Wild
Country. So far they had seen nothing of the Cyclopes who lived in this
part of the world. Of all their creations, Charlie and Robin feared and
avoided only the Cyclopes, the enormous one-eyed giants which had so
intrigued Robin in the encyclopedia that she'd had a compulsion to
create them, and had done so.
"We can't follow both bands," Charlie said, looking troubled.
"Why can't we?" Robin asked. "You go north with some of the braves,
Charlie. I'll go south. We ought to be able to overtake the raiding
parties before anything happens."
"I can't let you go alone."
"All right. I'll take Tashtu with me. Don't you think Tashtu can take
care of me as well as you can?"
"Well, I just don't like the idea--" Charlie began.
"That's silly. If we have to find them before there's trouble, we have
to find them. Well, don't we?"
Charlie gave her an uncertain nod. He had grown up with her and had seen
her every day of his life, but every time he took a good look at her, at
the lovely face and the tawny, long-limbed form ill-concealed by the
gold-mesh garments, it took his breath away. Although in a sense a whole
world was his plaything, he had never seen anything so lovely. Finally
he said, "I guess you're too logical for me. Take care of her, Tashtu."
"With my life, Lord," the Indian vowed as the group broke up. Robin ran
to Charlie and hugged him, kissing his cheek half playfully, half in
earnest.
"You be careful, too," she said, and went off with Tashtu and several of
the braves.
* * * * *
Naturally she was excited. She knew more about spacemen than Charlie
did. She had read the encyclopedia more carefully, hadn't she? She
wondered what the spacemen would be like. She couldn't help wondering it
because the only man she had ever known, except for those they had
created, was Charlie. Of course, she hadn't told Charlie this in so many
words, but she felt, had always felt, vaguely and now felt clearly, that
before she could settle down contentedly with Charlie, she would have to
know something of the world beyond Crimson. And there was a vast
world--a multitude of worlds--beyond Crimson. She knew that. The
encyclopedia mentioned all of them but did not mention Crimson at all.
They walked for several minutes through green forest, and then abruptly
came to the edge of the Wild Country. Even the idea of the Wild Country
brought an eagerness to Robin's limbs and made her walk more rapidly.
The Wild Country was unknown, wasn't it? They had created it without
knowing quite what they were creating, and had never explored it.
She went ahead with Tashtu over the rocks and crushed pumice. No winds
blew in Wild Country. The air was neither hot nor cold. The landscape
seemed changeless and eternal, as if it had been that way since before
the dawn of history, although actually Charlie and Robin had created it
only a few years before.
They forged on for two hours, Tashtu following the easily read spoor in
the pumice. They came at last to a low crater wall, where the spoor
disappeared. At first Tashtu was confused, but then he pointed to the
top, several hundred feet above their heads. Robin caught a glimpse of
tawny skin and feathers and buckskin in the sunlight.
"Haloo!" Tashtu called, and some of the braves above them whirled, all
speaking excitedly in the clumsy English which was the only tongue they
knew.
"Huragpha slay monster," they said. "Capture other monster. But then
see ..." the words drifted off into silence. Obviously, the Indians were
perplexed. "You come, see. Monster, him bleed like man."
At Tashtu's side, Robin rushed up the steep rocky slope. When they
reached the top, breathless and all but exhausted, Robin put her hand to
her mouth with a little cry of horror.
* * * * *
There was a dead man stretched out on the rock there, two arrows
transfixing his chest through the fabric of his spacesuit. The spacesuit
had probably frightened the Indians, but he was a man all right. Had
they been closer, even the Indians would have known that. That poor
man.... Why, he was hardly more than a boy.
Spacemen!
And there was another, surrounded now by several of the Indians. "Him
prisoner," said the Indian called Huragpha a little uncertainly.
Robin walked over to the man in the spacesuit. He was a big man, even
bigger than Charlie. He looked very strong, but the spacesuit might have
been deceptive. He looked frightened, but not terrified.
"Are you really a spaceman?" Robin asked.
Glaudot said: "Well, so one of you can speak more than a few grunts.
That's something." He looked carefully at Robin. "Beautiful, too," he
said. The way he said it was not a compliment. It was an objective
statement of fact.
"I know it won't help to say I'm sorry about your friend. Words won't
help, I guess. But--"
"Yeah," Glaudot said. "All right. He's dead. I can't bring him back and
you can't bring him back, sister."
"I'm not your sister," Robin said.
Glaudot told her it was a way of speaking. He couldn't quite believe his
ears. She spoke English as well as he did, which was incredible enough
here on a world halfway across the galaxy. But he got the impression
that she was almost fantastically naive. Yet the Indians--and,
incredibly, they were Indians--seemed to be subservient to her, almost
seemed to worship her.
Glaudot sat down on his space helmet, which he had taken off some
minutes before, and said: "Are you the boss lady around here?"
"Boss lady? I don't understand."
"Are you in charge? Do you run things?"