Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (S.F. MASTERWORKS) (41 page)

But as the sounds came closer, they seemed clearly deliberate. Perhaps a path or road to
Calgary
was being cleared. If so, what would appear? An alien bulldozer? A siege ram? A weapon carrier brought to blast her and
Calgary
out of existence?

Yet she waited unafraid, only glad and fascinated. This world did not feel hostile. And had they not already helped her, saved her life?
Calgary
had rudimentary defenses, mainly of a ballistic sort, which in recent decades had been occasionally used only to break up rocks, but it never occurred to her to deploy them. Life here had saved her life, and she had intruded a great shipwreck upon them. Even if they wished to be rid of her now, whatever came she would accept.

And suddenly it was there—so different from her expectations that she didn’t at first take it in. One—no, two—tall-humped forms were pushing through the trees. Their sides and tops seemed hard, she could hear thuds as they brushed against stems. Why, they were great tortoises, or turtles! She had once seen a tiny live one, much flatter in outline. Or could these carapaces be, like the Watcher’s cloak, artificial shells? No, she decided. Their limbs and necks were formed to them, she seemed to see attachment in the openings’ depths. Could they be trained beasts, used here instead of inorganic machines?

As she watched mesmerized, one of them backed ponderously into a tangle of tree trunks, sending them down like paper trees. Then it turned, reared up, and began neatly to break up, sort, and pile the debris. Just behind it, the other was doing the same. Then it came past the first, selected an obstructive giant tree, and repeated the process. She realized how very big they were; the tops of their shells would be higher than her head, and their push-force must be in tons.

As she saw the results of their work, she realized these couldn’t be animals, however trained. They weren’t merely clearing a way, they were creating order. Behind them stretched a neat, attractive clearway, without the edging tangle of damage usual on Earth. It wound away quite far; she could see perhaps a kilometer.

As the creatures reared up, worked, dropped down to push, it was evident to CP that they had a generic resemblance to the first one, whom she thought of as the Watcher. The same heavier hind limbs, here ponderous and half-hidden by their carapaces; the same shorter forelimbs, here massively muscled. When they extended their necks, these too were long, though thickly muscular, coming from very large front openings in the shell. They walked with heads high and level. The heads, now retracted to their shells, were somewhat similar to the Watcher’s. Not at all reptilian, with upstanding “ears,” heavy frontals, and protectively lidded eyes.

As they came closer, working rapidly but always neatly, she could see that their carapaces carried decorations. Some self-luminous pebbles or seeds had been set among the designs; their undershells, seen brightly illumined, were beautifully scrolled, and seemed to have straps or tool pockets mounted on them. Logical, she thought; frees the front limbs to walk. And finally, as the closest one rose up to grapple a tree fern, came the most bizarre touch of all—she could clearly see that it was wearing cuffed, decorated work gloves.

This perception set off her overloaded nerves—she nearly dropped the kaffy from her shaking hands as a gale of giggles swept her, turned into peals of laughter that rang through the speaker into the swamp. Abashed, she thought how inappropriate this was, that the first human voice heard on this world should be not a proper formal speech, but laughing. She couldn’t help herself. She had laughed little in her life. No one had told her the sound was very sweet.

She had it under control in a moment. Wiping her eyes, she saw that the turtlelike workers had dropped their logs and come closer, for a look-in. She hoped the sound she had made wasn’t displeasing or ugly to them.

“Excuse me,” she said absurdly through the speaker.

A vague feeling of all-rightness suffused her; one of the “turtles” made what was clearly an attempt at imitating her laugh, and they went back to their labor, now almost at the ship.

And when her vision cleared, she could see, in the distance, six or seven new shapes approaching up the path the “turtles” had made.

She finally bethought herself the binoculars, and peered with all her might. The glasses were of course set for celestial use, with a very small field, and she had trouble at first in counting how many were in the group.

Four—no, three of them—closely resembled the Watcher, but she could pick him, or her, out by the paler fur, and the color of the tied-up cloak. This method of transporting stuff seemed to be common. The other two kangaroolike ones differed among themselves too—she had a glimpse of more strangely formed heads, possibly even an extra very small set of forelimbs—but she was too busy trying to see all the others to check.

Another of the turtle or tortoise types was with them, its carapace heavy with encrustments. She gained a quick impression that it was quite old. It was even larger, and differed from the tree movers in its eyes, which were enormous and very bright beneath the heavy lids. Indeed, her first sight of the group had featured eyes—huge eyes, so bright and reflective that some seemed almost self-luminous. She noticed that all of them, as they advanced, looked about continuously and carefully, but with their major attention on
Calgary
—almost like a group of advancing headlamps.

Touching, partly leaning upon the carapaced one, came a short figure so swathed in red fabric veils that CP could make nothing of it, except for the great eyes in a face much shorter and more pugged than the Watcher’s. The fur on its skin was pale, too. CP had the impression that this creature—no, this
person
—was somewhat ill or weak, perhaps old, too. She or he paced upright, much of the time leaning on the big “tortoise,” only now and then dropping to a quadrupedal amble. Their slower movements seemed to be setting the pace for all.

Another veiled person of the same general type, but taller and blue-veiled, came behind, moving strongly, so that the limbs often thrust through its veils. CP could definitely make out two pairs of upper “arms”; the lower pair seemed to be used for walking. Its upper body was upright so that, walking, it resembled a creature CP had only once seen a child’s picture of—a being half-horse and half-human. But its face was neither horse nor human—the features were so snarled that only the big eyes, and four tall feathery protrusions that might be ears, or other sensory organs, could be identified.

Two more figures with gray pelts brought up the rear. One of them attracted CP’s attention by swerving off the path into a pool of water, and drinking deeply with webbed hands held to a kind of bill or beak. She guessed that it might be at least partly aquatic. Its companion waited for it. Behind this one’s shoulders were two hard-looking humps that might be vestigial wings.

The party was close now; CP had discarded the binoculars. As they passed the tree-moving turtles, the personages she thought of as the Senior Tortoise and its veiled companion paused, and the others halted with them.

There was a brief interchange, consisting of some short, voiced phrases mingled with odd, meaningful silences. CP could not tell which voices belonged to whom; only one was melodious, but they were not unpleasing. Nor did they sound tense, agitated, or hostile. She gleaned the notion that this visit was in some weird way routine, and also that the road had been constructed voluntarily, by nearby residents, perhaps.

Could it be that people were
used
to spaceships landing here? But no; the party gave no sign of familiarity with anything like
Calgary
.

Their first act was to tour deliberately around the ship—CP saw that the ground had been cleared around her while she slept—looking gravely at every detail. CP followed them around from inside. On impulse, when they could see both her and the remaining wing, she raised her hand and moved an aileron control.

There was a general, surprised backward start.

By this time, CP was sure that some at least were telepathic. She sent them the strongest feeling of friendship she could project, and then pictures of herself moving controls. The “kangaroo” types seemed to respond with eagerness, as did the “Senior Tortoise.” They moved closer, eyeing her keenly. So CP spent a happy time moving and wiggling everything that functioned, at the same time naming it and its function through the speaker. The small red-veiled alien seemed particularly interested in her voice, often attempting to repeat words after her.

They all had no hesitation in touching anything and everything; the agile web-footed ones clambered over the remains of
Calgary
’s top, and all came up and peered into the cabin ports by turn.

Several times CP stopped herself from trying to warn them not to approach the “hot” thrust vents, or the debris of the reactor chamber. It was hard to realize that any residual radioactivity from
Calgary
was as nothing compared to the normal blizzard of hard radiation just outside, in which these visitors had evolved and lived.

Presently the small red-veiled alien limped, or hobbled, to the extended speaker and laid a fragile, pale, apparently deformed hand on it. At the same time, a very clear image came to CP; she closed her eyes to concentrate on it, and “saw” herself with opening and moving mouth. The image flickered oddly. The alien had made the connection between her voice and the speaker. But how to transmit “yes” by mental imagery? She nodded her head vigorously—a meaningless gesture here, no doubt—and said verbally, “Yes! Yes. Uh . . . hello!” pointing to her mouth and the speaker.

The little alien made a peculiar sound; was that a laugh? Next moment its hand moved to the auditory pickup, and CP experienced something new—a strikingly sharp image of the microphone, followed by a literal blanking of the mind—indescribable. As if an invisible blindfold had descended. Next instant came the mike image again, and again the blank—and back to the image; faster and faster, these two impressions alternated in her mind, to a flicker sequence that made her dizzy.

But she grasped it—as clearly as a human voice, the alien was saying, “And this thing is—what?”

So that was how questions were asked!

How to answer? She tried everything she could think of, pointing to the alien, to her own ears (which were doubtless not ears to the alien), saying “Hello” repeatedly like a parrot, all the while trying to picture an alien’s mouth speaking. She’d never seen the red-veiled mouth, so she imaged another’s.

Something worked—with apparent eagerness, the small alien put its face to the mike, and nearly blasted CP from her chair with “ER-ROW! ER-ROW! ES!”

CP was childishly delighted. She and the alien exchanged several “Hellos” and “Errows” through speaker and mike.

But shortly a new question emerged. She began to receive a strengthening picture—as if from several minds joining in—of herself coming out of
Calgary
and moving among them. After a few moments of her nonresponse, this image began to alternate slowly with a scene of the aliens inside
Calgary
with her. Again, the two images alternated faster and faster, to confusing flashes. But the meaning was plain—“Will you come out, or shall we come in?”

It took her a long, laborious effort to try to transmit the possibility. She concentrated hard on forming images of the port opening and air coming in, herself falling down, pictures of radiation (she hoped) coming from the ground. Suddenly, at those last pictures the old tortoise seemed to understand. He advanced and laid one heavy paw on
Calgary
, and then made a sweeping gesture that CP read as negation. Of course:
Calgary
, alone of most of this world, was inert, nonradioactive.

At this point they seemed to have had enough, or were tired; in very human fashion they drew off to sit in a group at the edge of the clearing with the tree-fellers, and produced packets of edibles. CP stared eagerly, wishing she could see and taste. As far as she could make out, most of them ate with more or less Earth-like mouths, but the veiled persons inserted their food beneath their throat veils.

Then the small red-clad alien seemed to notice her staring and CP suddenly felt her mouth and nose filled with an extraordinary alien sensation—neither good nor bad, but quite unknown—which must be the taste of what they were eating. She laughed again, and daringly transmitted a faint replica of the cheese-and-peanut-butter packet she was eating.

Refreshments were soon over. Now the large blue-veiled alien and the kangaroo-types came forward to the window. Looking directly at CP, the veiled one stood up and made motions of turning. CP understood; it was her time to be inspected. Obediently she turned, extended an arm, opened her mouth to show her teeth, wiggled her fingers.

Then the veiled one raised her top arm, unfastened something, and deliberately let drop a veil. The implication was plain: undress. For a moment CP was overcome with an ugly memory of Meich, the countless other humiliations she had undergone. She hesitated. But the alien eyes were insistent and seemed friendly. When CP didn’t move, the big alien pulled off another veil, exposing this time its own bare and furless belly and haunches. A strong feeling of reassurance came to her—of course, to these people her body was as neutral as a mollusk or a map. She unzipped her suit and stepped out of it and her underclothes. At the same time, as if to encourage her, the alien removed its own upper-body covering. CP noticed that the others in its group had turned tactfully away.

CP was amazed—in the crotch where human sex and excretory organs would be, the alien had nothing but smooth muscle. But its chest region was as complex as a group of sea creatures; valves, lips, unidentifiable moist flaps and protrusions—clearly its intimate parts. CP could form no idea of its gender, if any.

Not to be outdone in scientific detachment, CP demonstrated her own nude self, and made an attempt at transmitting images of the human reproductive process. She got nothing in reply—or rather, nothing she could interpret. She and the alien apparently diverged so widely here that thought could not carry across the gulf. Only excretion seemed sufficiently similar to be at least referable to.