Andre Norton (ed) (2 page)

_{THE EXPLORERS}

IF Terra itself was to be considered as a colonial possibility by an
alien exploring party?
W
e,
the "Indians," to be confronted by a superior race?
(Or so
they
reckoned.) But there are secret weapons and booby traps on the quietest
planet—and Beneker was cautious . . .

The Illusionaries

ERIC
FRANK RUSSELL

Commodore Beneker viewed the dawn with
satisfaction. It was a strange sun that hoisted itself out of the horizon.
A big, brilliant, yellow-colored orb much more impressive than the
one that shone over his home world of Neshanta in the region of Bootes.
This primary turned ghostly trees into shapes of living emerald, brought birds
piping from their nests and warmed the dew-dampened ground in less than half a
time-unit.

But
his gratification was not born of these idyllic features. He was duly
appreciative of them since he had eyes to see and ears to hear. Being on a
strange and possibly antagonistic world, he nursed a viewpoint generated by the
circumstances, which viewpoint insisted that the birds and trees were of less
importance than the fact that no snake was yet evident in this Eden. There
could have been snakes by now, a dozen of them, a host of them, lying in the
grass waiting for the dawn and emergence of the first unwary Neshantan.

There could have been an ambush if the ship
had been seen to come down. True, it had descended in the gloom of the night,
with rockets silenced and the counter-gravs taking the weight, but it had not
been invisible. A pale moon had limned it with silver during one or two brief
breaks in the clouds. Moreover, it had fallen while surfaced with a peculiar
aura of pallid purple flames which disappeared at instant of ground contact.

Beneker thought uncomfortably of that moment.
The earth-touch had been marked by a superswif t and violent crack and the
purple flames vanished and most of the crew dropped flat on their bellies as
they gave up a couple of thousand volts.

It's
risky work, roaming around. Any world is likely to greet you with a conk off
its own bat. If you survive that, the
inhabitants
line
up for their turn, holding in their mitts or assorted grippers a multitude of
devices capable of anything from setting fire to beards to automatic and
instantaneous skinning.

That's
why Beneker felt pleased with himself, at least for a little while. On that
pink world they'd left in a hurry before coming here a spiderish creature had
discovered them, blandly squatted outside the door biding the dawn, and when
Chief Engineer Formel stuck an inquiring head outside it had pursed thick black
lips and produced an excruciating sound that addled his brains for all time.
Formel was still strapped down and would remain so to the home-going, if he
lived that long. It was a mode of space-travelling that Commodore Beneker had
no desire to emulate. So he looked at the sun, the trees, the birds, and was
gladdened by what wasn't there.

He
stepped outside onto the grass and still nothing happened. No whirr of
attacking wings, no flick of a poisoned dart, no brain-tearing whistle.
Just the sun and a yawning world not fully awake.

"Hah!"
he exclaimed with satisfaction. He could not expand his chest since he wore his
skeleton on the outside. That feature, plus the long, feathery antenna sticking
out of his hair, made him resemble an overgrown and upright insect, a
three-foot-tall praying mantis. He was not an insect. He was a Neshantan.

Second Engineer Dith and Astrogator Molop
joined him on the grass. Their exit was made with the airy confidence of those
who've seen it tried on the dog.

"Nice
morning, Commodore," ventured Dith. He smelled the air
,-
tested the springiness of the turf.

"Not too bad a morning," Beneker
conceded, giving him the frozen eye.
"Seeing that you
have been denied the pleasure of slamming the door upon my dead body."

"You were too quick for me," said
Dith. "I had planned to be first out."

"Me, too,"
declared Molop.

"So
not satisfied with having Formel tied up like a pomicker meditating his sins,
you want to get yourselves laid out and thus incapacitate the entire
expedition?"

"Oh, no, Commodore."
Trapped between joint implications of
cowardice and sabotage, Dith sought a plausible escape, found it and said with
grossly exaggerated humility, "I thought I could best be spared."

"Me, too,"
declared Molop, radiating virtue.

"A
reasonable assumption," agreed Beneker, thus dexterously damning both of
them.

He waved a chitinous limb at the landscape.
"There is nothing to indicate that we have been observed. That is the main
thing; not to be seen coming down. It seems that we have achieved it."

"Unless it takes them
a long time to get here," suggested Dith.

"There is a village a mere two and a
quarter linids away," Beneker informed. "I could walk it myself in
less than a time-unit."

"Me,
too," indorsed Molop, lending his authority to the estimate.

Beneker
rasped at him, "Who the space-demon asked you?" Without waiting for a
reply, he went on, "The longer we sit around the greater our chances of
being spotted. We aren't conspicuous in this valley, and we're in an area where
traffic is sparse, but these creatures have air machines from which they could
see us almost any time. So let's get moving. Call out the crew."

The crew emerged and lined up twenty strong.
Their eyes raked the surroundings warily, their antenna quivered as they sought
hostile thoughts radiating behind this clump of
trees, that
outcrop of rock. None of them shared Beneker's confidence in momentary safety
and many would have been glad not to share Beneker.

Looking
them over with singular lack of pride, Beneker remarked, "As
sloppy-looking a dollop of murts as I've seen since Rimbot crash-landed in a
garbage dump." He was pleased to note they resented that. "And as
sweet-smelling," he added for good measure. His jaundiced eye went along
the line until it found the fidgety one at the end. "You with the
jelly-like jerks, are you carrying passengers?"

"No, Commodore."

"Better make sure. No knowing what's
been picked up on the last ten worlds. Neshanta won't thank us for a cargo of
alien nib-blers and gnawers." He scratched himself at the thought of it.
"Get cleaned up while you have the chance. Jump to it, we've little time
to spare."

Hastily divesting themselves of harness they
brought spray-guns out of the ship and doused each other all over. That done,
they lined up again. The atmosphere was pungent with anti-parasite fluid.

"We're going to test our powers on the
local talent," Beneker informed. "A couple of guards are required to
watch over us. I need two volunteers." He pointed an authoritative finger
at Mu-shab One and Mushab Two who, as their names showed, had come from a
double-yolked egg.
"You and you!"

The
Mushabs obediently stepped forward, each taking a dim view of this method of
offering one's services.

"Well," said Beneker, with the
weary air of one compelled to seek genius among imbeciles, "here they
are,
our guard.
Standing to attention,
ready and prepared for the fray."
He waited awhile, staring at them
while they gaped back, then finished with false cordiality, "If the aliens
attack we can trust you to spit upon them?"

A
spark of revelation came into their eyes. Turning, they went into the ship,
brought back weapons.

"That
is better," Beneker approved. "It was thoughtful of Neshanta to arm
us, was it not? It showed foresight. We shall not be dependent upon spit, shall
we?" Getting no answer other than twin blinks of embarrassment, he shifted
his attention to Dith and Molop. "On the last world but one Wenk and
Formel explored with me. There were other pairs on previous worlds. It is high
time you two had a turn."

"But. . ." began
Dith.

"Go
get your hand-projectors. You're coming along whether you like it or not. I
know of no reason why any two should be exempt from risks. Besides,"
Beneker went on, "have you not agreed that you can best be spared?"

There was no answer to that one. Glumly they
fetched handprojectors, buckled them on, taking plenty of time about it. The
crew hung around and mooned at them, watched the trees, the rocks, the
hill-crests. Much of their original enthusiasm had been sapped by that pink
world's spider.

"Ten
planets," grumbled Dith, fiddling with his harness.
"Three
fertile but full of brainless life.
Suitable for
settlement only if we tackle all the hard work ourselves.
Then two more worlds completely sterile.
That was the first
solar system. So we try a second, this one. And what do we find?"

He
shot a glance at Beneker and, encouraged by that worthy's lack of remark,
continued, "Worlds big enough to crush us and with satellites either
sterile or full of life-forms too dim-witted to be of use. A pink world crammed
with eight-legged menaces.
Now this one."

"So what?" inquired Beneker, with
heavy
sarcasm.
"Did you expect to find a
Neshantan heaven in the first ten out of all these millions?" He swept a
hand to embrace the cosmos.

"It's
not that," said Dith. "It's just a feeling that bad luck or good luck
hangs around the right suns."

"Gross superstition!
A sun cannot determine the suitability of the various planets around
it." Then, aware that such a statement could be argued, Beneker modified
it with, "In limits, of course. We choose suns approximating most closely
to our own. That makes sense."

"Yes,
I know. It's just a feeling I've got that this particular solar system is a
waste of
..."

"The space-demon
take
your feelings! If I went by such illogic I'd never get anywhere." Irately,
Beneker turned to the nearer hillside, started upward through the trees. He
went at a fast pace.

Dith trailed after him, muttering.
"Maybe the need is urgent but, all the same, we ought to be limited to six
or seven planets per trip. Enough is enough. Sometimes I get sick of it."

"Me, too," said
Molop.

"You'll
be sicker before you're through," promised Beneker, his hearing sharper
than they had thought.

They went silent. The brothers Mushab mooched
in the rear, bearing their heavier weapons with dumb resignation.

The testing place was ideal for its purpose.
A narrow dirt road ran along a little valley with low but well-wooded rises at
either side. To the right, the hillocks gave way to hills and those in turn to
mountains shining in the far distance. Way over to the left the outskirts of a village
could just be seen.

There
was every facility for close concealment within a mere quarter-linid of the
road. This was plenty good enough for the task in hand. Posting the Mushabs
higher up the rise and well separated to provide cross-fire without Neshantan
casualties, Beneker laid himself flat under heavy bushes. With Dith and Molop
close by, he watched the road, directing his attention mostly toward the
village.

It
was a dreary wait. The world was still yawning and slow to arise. Nothing could
be seen stirring among the distant houses but finally thin bluish shafts of
smoke began to drift from a few roofs.

Beneker
filled in the time with warning lectures. "Don't get overexcited when one
approaches, like Wampot did on that third world. We aren't here to pick a
fight. Our job is to check on their possible usefulness as slaves."

"Yes,
Commodore," agreed Dith, who had no yearning for a fracas anyway. He eyed
the sun through a leafy gap, decided he did not like its color, size, degree of
light and heat, or anything about it.

"When
one of them appears he will look strange. That is inevitable, as you should
know by now.
But what of it?
No matter how he looks or
what weird abilities he possesses, he is a prospective article of utility so
far as we are concerned. All we need do is lie low, keep calm and test his
responses."

"Yes,
Commodore."

"That
and no more," insisted Beneker, determined to educate the less fortunately
endowed. "No matter how intelligent and dexterous these creatures may
prove to be, they are of no use to us if we cannot control and direct their
intelligence and dexterity. Without control, we shall have to do all our own
labor." He was revolted by the thought of it. "Neshantans were
created to direct the energies of other forms, not to perform lowly tasks
themselves
."

"Me, too," said
Molop, piously.

Beneker rolled onto one side in order to
glare at him. "Was that a deliberate impertinence? I suppose you think
you're doing too much doing, and not enough directing on this trip? Let's all
boss the ship, eh?
Everyone a space-admiral, eh?"
He motioned higher up the rise. "Very well, you can do something more
right now. Go see whether those dopey egg-friends are still on guard. And go
carefully."

Molop
crept quietly away, not so much to please the Commodore as to avoid giving the
Mushabs the jumps. That pair had a habit of doing things simultaneously and
more or less on mutual impulse. They were likely to let go first and then look
to see what had bounced.

"Sometimes,"
commented Beneker, when Molop had gone, "I think that low-quotient murt
talks too much."

"Me, too," agreed
Dith, absently.

"Did you have to say
that?" Beneker yelped.

"Sh-h-h!"
Dith became alert, his antenna vibrating. "Look, Commodore,
something comesl"

The something kept on coming, at steady pace,
along the dirt road toward the hidden watchers. It was still too far away to
discern fine details, but one could tell that it was a higher life-form rather
than a mere animal. In the first place, it had come from the village and was
proceeding unattended by any master-type, walking alone, casually,
confidently, of its own initiative. In the second place, it was clad from feet
to neck in artificial coverings, its attire neatly made and close-fitting.
Lastly, it was carrying some sort of implement.