The Lani People Part 25

"Why not?"

"Maybe because that curse you mentioned a few minutes ago was real."

Copper drew back. "But you said it wouldn't hurt us--"

"Not now. The heat's practically gone, but when whoever flew this crate came here, the whole sh.e.l.l could have been as hot as a Samarian summer."

"But couldn't they have come back when it cooled?"

"Not with this kind of heat. The hull was probably too radioactive to approach from the outside. And radioactivity cools off slowly. It might take several lifetimes for its level to become low enough to approach if there was no decontamination equipment available."

"I suppose that's why the early ones thought the Egg was cursed."

Kennon nodded. "Now let's check--oh! oh! what's this?" He pointed to a metal-backed book lying on the control panel.

"It looks like a book," Copper said.

"I'm hoping it's the book."

"The book?"

"Yes--the s.h.i.+p's log. It's possible. And if it is, we may have all the evidence we need--Copper!--Don't touch it!"

"Why not?"

"Because its position has to be recorded first. Wait until we get the camera and recorders set up."

Gingerly Kennon opened the ancient book. The sheets inside were brittle--crumbling with age--but he could make out the t.i.tle U.N.S.S.

Wanderer with the date of launching and a lower line which read "s.h.i.+p's Log." Kennon was thankful for his medical training. The four years of Cla.s.sical English that he had despised so much were essential now.

Stumbling over unfamiliar words and phrases, he moved slowly through the log tracing the old s.h.i.+p's history from pleasure craft to short-haul freight tractor to obsolescence in a s.p.a.ce dump orbiting around a world called Heaven.

There was a gap of nearly ten years indicated by a blank page before the entries resumed.

"Ah--this is it!" Kennon said.

"What is it?" Copper said curiously. "I can't read the writing."

"Of course you can't. It's in English--a language that became obsolete during the Interregnum. I had to learn it, since most medical terminology is based on it."

"What is an Interregnum?" Copper interrupted. "I've never heard that word before."

"It's a period of confusion when there is no stable government. The last one came after the Second Galactic War--but never mind that--it happened long ago and isn't important now. The important thing that did happen was the Exodus."

"What was that?"

"A religious revival and a tremendous desire to see what was happening beyond the next star. During that century men traveled wider and farther then they ever have before or since. In that outward explosion with its mixed motivations of religion and practicality, colonists and missionaries went starward to find new worlds to tame, and new races to be rescued from the darkness of idolatry and h.e.l.l. Almost any sort of vehicle capable of mounting a spindizzy converter was pressed into service. The old spindizzies were soundly engineered converters of almost childlike simplicity that could and did carry s.h.i.+ps enormous distances if their pa.s.sengers didn't care about subjective time-lag, and a little radioactivity.

"And that's what happened to this s.h.i.+p. According to this log it was bought by Alfred and Melissa Weygand--a missionary couple with the idea of spreading the Christian faith to the heathen.

"Alfred and Melissa--Ulf and Lyssa--they were a part of this ancient explosion that scattered human seed across pa.r.s.ecs of interstellar s.p.a.ce. It seems that they were a unit in a missionary fleet that had gone out to the stars with flame in their hearts and Gospel on their lips to bring the Word to the benighted heathen on other worlds."

Kennon's lips curled with mild contempt at their stupid foolhardiness even as his pulse quickened to their bravery. They had been fanatics, true enough, but theirs was a selfless fanaticism that would risk torture and death for what they believed--a fanaticism that was more sublime than the concept of Brotherhood which had evolved from it. They knew nothing of the enmity of race, of the incessant struggle man had since waged with alien intelligences all too willing to destroy intruders who encroached upon their worlds. Mankind's early selflessness had long ago been discarded for frank expansionism and dominance over the lesser races that stood in their way. And in a way it was too bad.

The s.h.i.+p's log, meticulously kept in neat round English script, told a story that was more than the bare bones of flight. There was pa.s.sion and tenderness and a spiritual quality that was shocking to a modern man steeped in millennia of conquest and self-interest. There was a greatness to it, a depth of faith that had since been lost. And as Kennon slowly deciphered the ancient script he admired the courage even as his mind winced with dismay at the unheeding recklessness.

The Weygands had lost contact with the others, and had searched for them in hypers.p.a.ce, doubling and twisting upon their course until they had become hopelessly lost, and then, with their fuel nearly exhausted, had broken out into the normal three-s.p.a.ce continuum to find Kardon's sun and the world they called Flora.

How little they had known and how lucky they had been.

It was only by the grace of their G.o.d that they had found this world before their fuel was exhausted. And it was only by further grace that the planet was habitable and not populated with intelligent life. They had more luck than people were ent.i.tled to in a dozen lifetimes. Against odds of a million to one they had survived.

It was fascinating reading.

But it was not proof.

The last entry read: "We have circled this world and have seen no buildings--no sign of intelligent life. We are lost, marooned on this empty world. Our fuel supplies are too low for us to attempt to find the others. Nor could we. The constellations in the sky are strange. We do not know which way to go. Therefore we shall land upon the great island in the center of the yellow sea. And perhaps someday men will come to us since we cannot return to them. Melissa thinks that this is an example of Divine Providence, that the Lord's mercy has been shown to us that were lost in the vastness of the deep--that we have been chosen, like Eve and Adam, to spread the seed of man to yet another world. I hope she is right, yet I fear the radiation level of the s.h.i.+p has become inordinately high. We may well be Eve and Adam, yet an Adam that cannot beget and an Eve that is not fruitful. I am tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the s.h.i.+p for landing, and we shall leave it immediately after we have landed, taking with us only what we absolutely need. There is too much radiation from the spindizzy and the drive to remain here longer--and G.o.d knows how hot the outer hull may be."

And that was all. Presumptive evidence--yes. Reasonable certainty--yes.

But not proof. Lawyers could argue that since no direct exploration was made there was no valid reason to a.s.sume that the Lani did not already inhabit Kardon. But Kennon knew. His body, more perceptive than his mind, had realized a truth that his brain would not accept until he read the log. It was at once joy and frustration. Joy that Copper was human, frustration that he could not obtain for her and her race the rights to which they were ent.i.tled. But the immediate problem was solved. His conditioning was broken now he was convinced that Copper was a member of the human race. It was no violation of his code to love her. The greatest barrier was broken, and with it gone the lesser ones would yield. Relief that was almost pain washed through him and left him weak with reaction.

"What is it?" Copper asked as he turned to her. "What is this thing that has turned your face to joy?"

"Can't you guess?"

She shook her head. "I have seen nothing but you reading this ancient book, yet you turn to me with the look in your eyes that the redes say Ulf had for Lyssa."

"You're human!"

Copper shrugged. "You're mad. I'm a Lani. I was born a Lani--and I shall die one."

"Don't you understand? All Lani are human. You all are the descendants of two humans who came here thousands of years ago."

"Then there is no reason why you cannot love me."

Kennon shook his head. "No," he said. "There is no reason."

Copper laughed. It was a sound so merry and gay that Kennon looked at her in surprise. She looked as happy as she sounded.

Simple and savage, Kennon thought. She cared nothing for the future, and probably very little about the injustice of her present. The thing that mattered was that what had kept them apart was gone. She was probably offering mental sacrifices to the Old Ones who had caused this change in the man she loved. She didn't really care about what had caused the change. To her it was sufficient that it had happened.

For a moment Kennon wished that it could be as simple for him as it apparently was for her. The fact that Copper was human posed a greater problem than the one it solved. The one had been personal. The other was infinitely greater. He could not let it lie. The very morality which had kept him from doing what he wished when he thought she was a humanoid now forced him to do what he did not wish. Every instinct said to leave it alone. The problem was too great for one man to solve, the situation too complicated, the evidence too inconclusive, the opposition too powerful. It would be far better to take his happiness and enjoy it.

It was not his problem to solve. He could turn the evidence over to the Brotherhood once his contract was over, and better and more capable people than he could settle the Lani legal status. But the inner voice that had called him b.e.s.t.i.a.l now called him s.h.i.+rker, coward, and slacker.

And this, too, could not be borne. The case of the Lani would have to be pursued as vigorously as he could do it. They were ent.i.tled to human rights--whether they wanted them or not.

His first idea of making the s.p.a.cer operational was a good one, Kennon decided as they finished the inspection of the s.h.i.+p. Even if it was never used it would make a good means of retreat. He grinned wryly. In a guerrilla operation such as the one he was considering it would be wise to have a way out if things got too hot. The heavy parts, the engines and the controls, were in workable condition and would merely require cleaning and oiling. Some of the optical equipment would have to be replaced and fuel slugs would have to be obtained for the drive--but none of these would be too hard to accomplish. The slugs from any of the power reactors on the island would serve nicely. All that would have to be done would be to modify the fuel ports on the s.h.i.+p's engine. The spindizzy would have to be disa.s.sembled and checked, and the main leads, embedded in time-resistant plastic, would have to be examined. The most serious problem, however, wouldn't involve these things. The control board wiring and circuitry was where the trouble would lie. Normal insulation and printed circuitry wasn't designed to last for thousands of years. Each wired circuit would have to be removed, duplicated, and replaced. Every printed panel would have to be cleaned and receive a new coat of insulating varnish. Working full time, a four-man electronics team could do the job in a week. Working part-time the two of them might get it done in three months. And the other jobs would take at least another. Add a month for errors in judgment, lack of materials, and mistakes--and another for unavoidable delays--it would be at least six months before the Egg would be s.p.a.ceworthy.

Six months.