The Martian Way and other Stories Part 14

By the everlasting Levels, the word "ocean" made sense. The old, traditional word "ocean." Who would dream that so much water could exist.

But then, if this was "ocean," then the traditional word "island" had an obvious significance. He thrust his whole mind into the quest for geographical information. The "ocean" was speckled with dots of land but he needed exact-- He was interrupted by a short stab of surprise as his host moved through s.p.a.ce and was held against the neighboring female's body.

Roi's mind, engaged as it was, lay open and unguarded. In full intensity, the female's emotions piled in upon him.

Roi winced. In an attempt to remove the distracting animal pa.s.sions, he clamped down upon the host's brain cells, through which the rawness was funneling.

He did that too quickly, too energetically. His host's mind flooded with a diffuse pain, and instantly almost every mind he could reach reacted at the air vibrations that resulted.

In vexation, he tried to blanket the pain and succeeded only in stimulating it further.

Through the clinging mental mists of his host's pain, he riffled the Tech's minds, striving to prevent contact from slipping out of focus.

His mind went icy. The best chance was almost now! He had perhaps twenty minutes. There would be other chances afterward, but not as good. Yet he dared not attempt to direct the actions of another while his host's mind was in such complete disorganization.

He retired, withdrew into mind closure, maintaining only the most tenuous connection with his host's spinal cells, and waited.

Minutes pa.s.sed, and little by little he returned to fuller liaison.

He had five minutes left. He chose a subject.

SEVEN.

The stewardess said, "I think he's beginning to feel a little better, poor little thing."

"He never acted like this before," insisted Laura tearfully. "Never."

"He just had a little colic, I guess," said the stewardess.

"Maybe he's bundled up too much," suggested Mrs. Ellis.

"Maybe," said the stewardess. "It's quite warm."

She unwrapped the blanket and lifted the nightgown to expose a heaving abdomen, pink and bulbous. Walter was still whimpering.

The stewardess said, "Shall I change him for you? He's quite wet."

"Would you please?"

Most of the nearer pa.s.sengers had returned to their seats. The more distant ceased craning their necks.

Mr. Ellis remained in the aisle with his wife. He said, "Say, look."

Laura and the stewardess were too busy to pay him attention and Mrs. Ellis ignored him out of sheer custom.

Mr. Ellis was used to that. His remark was purely rhetorical, anyway. He bent down and tugged at die box beneath the seat Mrs. Ellis looked down impatiently. She said, "Goodness, George, don't be dragging at other people's luggage like that. Sit down. You're in the way."

Mr. Ellis straightened in confusion.

Laura, with eyes still red and weepy, said, "It isn't mine. I didn't even know it was under the seat."

The stewardess, looking up from the whining baby, said, "What is it?"

Mr. Ellis shrugged. "It's a box."

His wife said, "Well, what do you want with it, for heaven's sake?"

Mr. Ellis groped for a reason. What did he want with it? He mumbled, "I was just curious."

The stewardess said, "There! The little boy is all nice and dry, and I'll bet in two minutes he'll just be as happy as anything. Hmm? Won't you, little funny-face?"

But little funny-face was still sobbing. He turned his head away sharply as a bottle was once more produced.

The stewardess said, "Let me warm it a bit"

She took it and went back down the aisle.

Mr. Ellis came to a decision. Firmly he lifted the box and balanced it on the arm of his seat. He ignored his wife's frown.

He said, "I'm not doing it any harm. I'm just looking. What's it made of, anyway?"

He rapped it with his knuckles. None of the other pa.s.sengers seemed interested. They paid no attention to either Mr. Ellis or the box. It was as though something had switched off that particular line of interest among them. Even Mrs. Ellis, in conversation witih Laura, kept her back to him.

Mr. Ellis tipped the box up and found the opening. He knew it had to have an opening. It was large enough for him to insert a finger, though there was no reason, of course, why he should want to put a finger into a strange box.

Carefully he reached in. There was a black k.n.o.b, which he longed to touch. He pressed it.

The box shuddered and was suddenly out of his hands and pa.s.sed through the arm of the chair.

He caught a glimpse of it moving through the floor, and then there was unbroken flooring and nothing more. Slowly he spread out his hands and stared at his palms. Then, dropping to his knees, he felt the floor.

The stewardess, returning with the bottle, said politely, "Have you lost something, sir?"

Mrs. Ellis, looking down, said, "George!"

Mr. Ellis heaved himself upward. He was flushed and fl.u.s.tered. He said, "The box-It slipped out and went down--"

The stewardess said, "What box, sir?"

Laura said, "May I have the bottle, miss? He's stopped crying."

"Certainly. Here it is."

Walter opened his mouth eagerly, accepting the nipple. Air bubbles moved upward through the milk and there were little swallowing sounds.

Laura looked up radiantly. "He seems fine now. Thank you, Stewardess. Thank you, Mrs. Ellis. For a while there, it almost seemed as though he weren't my little boy."

"He'll be all right," said Mrs. Ellis. "Maybe it was just a bit of airsickness. Sit down, George."

The stewardess said, "Just call me if you need me."

"Thank you," said Laura.

Mr. Ells said, "The box--" and stopped.

What box? He didn't remember any box. But one mind aboard plane could follow the black cube as it dropped in a parabola unimpeded by wind or air resistance, pa.s.sing through the molecules of gas that lay in its way. Below it, the atoll was a tiny bull's eye in a huge target.

Once, during a time of war, it had boasted an air strip and barracks. The barracks had collapsed, the air strip was a vanis.h.i.+ng ragged line, and the atoll was empty.

The cube struck the feathery foliage of a palm and not a frond was disturbed. It pa.s.sed through the trunk and down to the coral. It sank into the planet itself without the smallest fog of dust kicked up to tell of its entrance.

Twenty feet below the surface of the soil, the cube pa.s.sed into statis and remained motionless, mingled intimately with the atoms of the rock, yet remaining distinct.

That was all. It was night, then day. It rained, the wind blew, and the Pacific waves broke whitely on the white coral. Nothing had happened.

Nothing would happen-for ten years.

EIGHT.

"We have broadcast the news," said Gan, "that you have succeeded. I think you ought to rest now."

Roi said, "Rest? Now? When I'm back with complete minds? Thank you, but no. The enjoyment is too keen."

"Did it bother you so much? Intelligence without mental contact?"

"Yes," said Roi shortly. Gan tactfully refrained from attempting to follow the line of retreating thought.

Instead, he said, "And the surface?"

Roi said, "Entirely horrible. What the ancients called 'Sun' is an unbearable patch of brilliance overhead. It is apparently a source of light and varies periodically;'day' and 'night,' in other words. There is also unpredictable variation."

" 'Clouds' perhaps," said Gan.

"Why 'clouds'?"

"You know the traditional phrase: 'Clouds hid the Sun.'"

"You think so? Yes, it could be."

"Well, go on."

"Let's see. 'Ocean' and 'island' I've explained. 'Storm' involves wetness in the air, falling in drops. 'Wind' is a movement of air on a huge scale. 'Thunder' is either a spontaneous, static discharge in the air or a great spontaneous noise. 'Sleet' is falling ice."

Gan said, "That's a curious one. Where would ice fall from? How? Why?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. It's all very variable. It will storm at one time and not at another. There are apparently regions on the surface where it is always cold, others where it is always hot, still others where it is both at different times."

"Astonis.h.i.+ng. How much of this do you suppose is misinterpretation of alien minds?"

"None. I'm sure of that. It was all quite plain. I had sufficient time to plumb their queer minds. Too much time."

Again his thoughts drifted back into privacy.

Gan said, "This is well. I've been afraid all along of our tendency to romanticize the so-called Golden Age of our surface ancestors. I felt that there would be a strong impulse among our group in favor of a new surface life."

"No," said Roi vehemently.

"Obviously no. I doubt if the hardiest among us would consider even a day of life in an environment such as you describe, with its storms, days, nights, its indecent and unpredictable variations in environment." Gan's thoughts were contented ones. "Tomorrow we begin the process of transfer. Once on the island-An uninhabited one, you say."

"Entirely uninhabited. It was the only one of that type the vessel pa.s.sed over. The Tech's information was detailed."

"Good. We will begin operations. It will take generations, Roi, but in the end, we will be in the Deep of a new, warm world, in pleasant caverns where the controlled environment will be conducive to the growth of every culture and refinement."

"And," added Roi, "no contact whatever with the surface creatures."

Gan said, "Why that? Primitive though they are, they could be of help to us once we establish our base. A race that can build aircraft must have some abilities."

"It isn't that. They're a belligerent lot, sir. They would attack with animal ferocity at all occasions and-"

Gan interrupted. "I am disturbed at the psychopenumbra that surrounds your references to the aliens. There's something you are concealing."

Roi said, "I thought at first we could make use of them. If they wouldn't allow us to be friends, at least, we could control them. I made one of them close contact inside the cube and that was difficult. Very difficult. Their minds are basically different."

"In what way?"

"If I could describe it, the difference wouldn't be basic. But I can give you an example. I was in the mind of an infant. They don't have maturation chambers. The infants are in the charge of individuals. The creature who was in charge of my host--"

"Yes."

"She (it was a female) felt a special tie to the young one. There was a sense of owners.h.i.+p, of a relations.h.i.+p that excluded the remainder of their society. I seemed to detect, dimly something of the emotion that binds a man to an a.s.sociate or friend, but it was far more intense and unrestrained."

"Well," said Gan, "without mental contact, they probably have no real conception of society and subrelations.h.i.+ps may build up. Or was this one pathological?"

"No, no. It's universal. The female in charge was the infant's mother."

"Impossible. Its own mother?"