All Judgment Fled (18 page)

 

 

". . . We have begun the countdown for a multiple launch --
three high-acceleration vehicles containing food and extra spacesuits
only. Until they arrive seven weeks from now, you will sit tight and do
nothing! Your only activity will be collecting and storing Ship water
for the return trip.
"Establish a base in one of the lock chambers close to the P-ships and
defend it if necessary, but not by taking the offensive! Try using your
ingenuity to avoid killing Twos now, and do not molest them or injure
them in any way even if they begin repairing the generator! Quite a few
of us here are far from convinced that the Two life-form is in fact
the nonintelligent animal you say it is. Exploration of the Ship will
cease forthwith and you will cease trying to experiment with its power
and control systems. Neither will you endanger yourselves, and quite
possibly the future of our society, by attempting to communicate with
the intelligent aliens who may he on the Ship . . ."

 

 

Berryman reached out quickly and turned the volume down to a whisper. He
looked from McCullough to Drew and Hollis and then back again. His smile
was all too plainly forced as he said, "Considering all that the general
has just said, the action we are contemplating is tantamount to mutiny."

 

 

Hollis said, "I agree." They both looked and sounded frightened, as if
they were already having second thoughts.

 

 

"He doesn't know what he's talking about," said Drew angrily. "Either
that or he doesn't believe what we've told him!"

 

 

And there is a really uncomfortable idea,
thought McCullough,
then went on quickly, "These orders are harsh, inflexible and ill-considered.
In a short time they will, like the earlier ones, be amended and qualified.
We'll still be forbidden to kill Twos -- unless circumstances make it
absolutely necessary. Exploration will be allowed -- within certain
limits which will not be clearly defined. It will be suggested that
we obtain further data on the hyperdrive generators -- if this can
be done without upsetting the aliens, or without running too great a
risk of upsetting the aliens. Gradually the orders will contain so many
qualifiers we will be back in square one, but with our self-confidence
reduced and our tempers drastically shortened."

 

 

Cynically, McCullough went on, "Instead of being heroes it seems we are to
become scapegoats -- at least, that is the way it looks to me. But this
means that we will have to be allowed some freedom of action, otherwise
they would not be able to blame us for everything that is happening . . ."

 

 

"In other words," said Drew grimly, "if we can't please anyone we can
at least try to please ourselves."

 

 

Hollis said doubtfully, "He wasn't at all sympathetic about our troubles,
and it is only three days since the colonel died and he didn't mention
him at all. But suggesting that we will be held responsible for everything
is going too far, don't you think?"

 

 

"Perhaps," said McCullough. "But you agree that if
we
are too close
to the problem,
they
are much too far away?"

 

 

The three men nodded in turn and suddenly Berryman laughed. He said,
"This must be the first mutiny in history where the captain is the
ringleader . . ."

 

 

He broke off as the quality of the whisper coming from the phones altered,
and at McCullough's nod he turned up the volume again.

 

 

". . . And he has no real appreciation of the harm his anger and
hostility toward you can cause,"
said a low, sympathetic, female
voice. It went on,
"In terms of physical distance alone you must feel
cut off, separated, even rejected by your friends and perhaps even your
race. In a very real sense you have withdrawn from reality, you have
lost touch with the world and life as it should be lived. The psychic
disturbances, the emotional dislocations, the constant and cumulative
frustration of even the simplest natural urges -- even the act of eating
and drinking is artificial and unnatural where you are concerned --
is more than enough without adding the terrible responsibility of First
Contact.
"I don't mean to suggest that any of you have reached the point of major
instability,"
she went on warmly,
"or that you are not quite sane.
I do suggest, however, that your judgment and reactions are seriously
affected by your present situation and may no longer be entirely trustworthy.
This is what is bothering the general, too, because he is being held
responsible for everything that you people think or do, and every
minority group in the world is trying to pressure him into taking fifty
mutually exclusive courses of action! We all admit he's a genius where
astronautics hardware and logistics are concerned, but let's face it,
fellows, he is no psychologist . . ."

 

 

McCullough switched off the radio feeling angry and a little frightened.
What idiot had been responsible for turning a woman psychologist loose on
the Prometheus Control transmitter? Previously there had been no mention
whatsoever of the mental effects of separation in time and space from
the world of normal existence. When such effects had become manifest,
they had been ignored -- the P-ship personnel had been treated as if
they were on an extended EVA and their distance was five hundred miles
from home rather than fifty million.

 

 

Emotionally they had been made to feel very close to home. Continuous
radio contact plus the knowledge that practically everyone in the world
was sharing their experiences and feeling concern for them were just
two of the factors aimed at achieving this, and there were probably
others which only the space medics knew about. But whoever had allowed a
psychologist ignorant of these factors, especially such a disturbingly
female one as this, to talk to them and cause them to question their
own sanity was either stupid or criminally irresponsible.

 

 

"Walters is listening," said McCullough. "He can tell us if she says anything
really important. Right now I'd like you to listen to this tape again.
I have another theory."

 

 

For several minutes the sounds of their dash from the Twos' enclosure
to the generator blister filled the lock chamber. McCullough asked them
to pay particular attention to the two alien voices. When the playback
was complete he said, "In my opinion the first voice is a recording
transmitted in conjunction with the warning chimes -- each group of
word-sounds is identical in tone, volume and length of transmission.
The second voice is none of these things. Its overall tone is different,
volume and inflection vary enormously and the message transmitted by
the first voice is repeated, after a fashion, by the second. Perhaps I
should say that the message is not so much repeated as parodied by the
second voice.

 

 

"I feel that certain words are repeated too often for it to be an intelligent
communication. It is as if one word in a sentence was repeated twenty times
and sung in different keys. Many of the sounds seem to be sheer organic
noise and sense-free -- you have heard them.

 

 

"My new theory," McCullough went on, looking at the three men in turn,
"is supported by all the facts. Briefly it is that the alien crew have no
effective control of their vessel, that its operation is almost entirely
automatic and that the experimental animals have overrun the ship. The
second alien voice belongs to one of the crew, or perhaps a descendant
of the original crew, and it is an intelligent being. However, it is
not at present a rational being, or even sane . . ."

 

 

While he had been talking, McCullough found that his finger had
instinctively gone to the suit radio switch. There was some vague
idea in his mind of putting in a full report to Control and shifting
responsibility by calling Earth for a Second Opinion. But Brady's opinions
would not be helpful, McCullough knew from short and bitter experience,
and he himself had insisted many times that the people on the Ship were
better informed on all aspects of the situation and should therefore
make their own decisions. He could have Walters send a full report,
or even a slightly edited report, later.

 

 

Firmly McCullough took his hand and mind off the radio.

 

 

 

 

chapter seventeen

 

 

Joined by their command module airlocks, the two P-ships were positioned
a few yards above the generator blister so that Walters would be able
to detect any attempt to repair the human-inflicted damage. The arrival
of an alien repair crew was not considered likely, but the presence of
Walters on watch meant that everyone else could be gainfully employed
inside the Ship on what McCullough referred to as wide-angle cultural
contact and Drew, with more honesty, called an offensive patrol.

 

 

Their real purpose, no matter what they chose to call it or how much
double-thinking they did around it, was to kill Twos. They would also
hunt down and exterminate any other alien life-form which might prove
dangerous to the intelligent extraterrestrials on the Ship or themselves.

 

 

"Thanks to the Doctor we know all their vital spots," Drew said as
they were preparing to leave their hull lock chamber, "and provided
we keep cool and pause for the necessary instant to take proper aim,
killing the beasts will be relatively easy. But we should not take on
more than one of them at a time unless we have the advantage of a solid
defensive position. This isn't very sporting since there are four of us,
but we cannot afford casualties."

 

 

McCullough was listening to Drew but thinking about Walters. One did not
have to be a psychologist to know that the pilot was close to the breaking
point. Even though he was in the least physical danger of all, Walters was
in one respect absorbing more punishment than any of them. Prometheus
Control, General Brady and assorted space medical people were continually
hammering at him, he being the only member of the expedition they could
talk to with any chance of getting an immediate reply. And because he
was the only one available, Brady was being much tougher on Walters than
the situation really warranted. The general was trying to get through
to McCullough and the others, but all the anger and recriminations and
outright threats sounded as if they were being directed at Walters alone.

 

 

McCullough no longer communicated direct with the general -- he was
usually too busy in the Ship and Walters was in a position to pass on any
new or constructive suggestions if there were any. This was, he knew,
very unfair to the pilot since he frequently had to wait days for the
chance to do so, days during which he could never be sure whether the
other men in the ship were alive or dead. When, at the conclusion of
a particularly bad session with Brady, one of the cosmonauts on the
circum-Venus station which was now relaying all transmissions added a
few words wishing him luck, Walters' reaction was both revealing and
quite unexpected in a grown man.

 

 

The pilot needed company. McCullough or Hollis, the only two who had
operational spacesuits, should have visited him more often. But somehow
there was never time. Something was always happening in the Ship . . .

 

 

The doctor became aware suddenly that the lock entrance was open and Drew
was beside it, saying, ". . . And remember, this is not a game. If anyone
feels like treating it as one they should remind themselves that the
nearest hospital is sixty million miles away and the ambulance service
is bad . . ."

 

 

On the way to the animal enclosure, they encountered -- singly --
three of the tentacled aliens and killed them. Since it was now generally
accepted that the Twos were nonintelligent lab animals, the job had been
performed with efficiency and, McCullough noted, quite a lot of enthusiasm.
Drew had noticed it, too, and he kept repeating his warnings about thinking
of the operation as a game until they reached the cages, and would probably
have continued if McCullough had not cut him short.

 

 

"I agree with Drew," he said firmly. "We must be entirely cold-blooded
about this. But before we put our plan into effect I would like to gain
a better idea of their physical capabilities. To begin with, how did they
break out?"

 

 

It was between mealtimes for the e-t's so they had a chance to search
the area thoroughly.

 

 

The animals' quarters occupied a cylindrical volume of space roughly
eighty yards in length and twenty in diameter. It was divided into pens
of various sizes by heavy wire mesh stretched between a framework of
tubing, so that the caged animals were always in sight of anyone in
the four personnel corridors which ran fore and aft along the sides of
the enclosure. The food and water dispensers also differed in size and
complexity, and were fitted to the common wall between two cages so
as to serve both. Some of the cages were still occupied, by drifting,
dessicated carcasses whose edible parts were missing.

 

 

From the condition of the bodies, the damage to large areas of the
restraining mesh and the condition of the food dispensers, they were
able to obtain a fairly good idea of what had happened.

 

 

One or more of the dispensers had failed. Whether the failure was due
to a design fault or the rough eating habits of the animals concerned
was impossible to say. But the result was an attack on the wire mesh,
a successful attack in most cases, which had forced an opening into the
operating dispensers in adjacent cages or into enclosures containing
smaller edible life-forms. The transfer of animals between cages had
so increased the demand on the remaining dispensers that they, too,
had broken down until only a few machines were still operating. An
attempt had been made to control the mass breakout by electrification
of sections of the wire mesh, but this had been a hasty, jury-rigged
installation which had also broken down in several places.