Invaders From Earth

12

The linguist was not happy to see him. He greeted him unsmilingly and said, “What do you want, Kennedy?”

With elaborate care Kennedy shut the door and took a seat facing Engel. “The first thing I want is absolute silence on your part. If a word of what I tell you now gets back to Gunther or anyone else, I’ll kill you.”

Just like that. And at the moment, Kennedy believed he would, too.

Engel said, “Go ahead. Talk.”

“I want you to do me a favor. I want you to get me one of those jeeps and fix things so I can go out alone during sleep-time tonight.”

“Kennedy, this is preposterous. I—”

“You nothing. Either I get the jeep or I tell Gunther you’re a subversive who deliberately gave me the Ganny dictionary and who tipped me off on a few of the lesser-known gambits the Corporation’s engaging in. I can lie damn persuasively, Engel; it’s my business.”

Engel said nothing. Kennedy noticed that the man’s fingernails had been bitten ragged. He felt sorry for the unfortunate linguist, but this was no time for pity; the Corporation showed none, and neither could he.

“Do I get the jeep?”

Engel remained silent.

Finally he pulled in his breath in a sobbing sigh and said, “Yes, damn you.”

“Without any strings?”

Engel nodded.

Kennedy rose. “Thanks, Engel. And listen: I don’t want you to get hurt in this business. I’m doing what I’m doing because I need to do it, and I’m stepping on your neck because it’s the only neck I can step on—but I’m sorry about the whole filthy business. If everything goes well, Gunther’ll never find out about the dictionary or the jeep.”

“Save the apologies,” Engel said. “When do you want the jeep?”

Kennedy left after dark-out time that night; the dome was shrouded in night, and the faint illumination afforded by Io and the larger radiation that was Jupiter’s light only served to cast conflicting and obscuring shadows over the outpost. He locked himself into the jeep’s pressurized cab, made sure his spacesuit was in order, checked the ammunition supply for the gun he had borrowed, made sure he had remembered the dictionary. Engel led him through the lock.

“Remember now,” he radioed back. “I’m going to be back here at 0600. Be damn sure you’re here to let me in, and that you’re alone.”

“I’ll be here,” Engel said. “Alone, I hope.”

The Ganny village was eleven miles to the east of the outpost. Kennedy knew that the aliens had a thirty-two hour sleep-wake cycle, and he hoped that his visit would find them awake; otherwise he might not have another opportunity to speak to them.

He had no difficulty operating the jeep; it was equipped with compass and distance guide, and no more than twenty minutes after he had left the Terran outpost he saw what could only be the alien village, nestling between two cruel rock fangs. It was located, logically enough, along one shore of a broad river of fast-flowing hydrocarbons. The houses were clusters of small, dome-shaped igloos put together out of bluish ice-blocks, and there were aliens moving to and fro in the settlement as he drew near. He saw them stop their work and peer suspiciously into the darkness at him.

He cut the jeep’s engines a hundred yards from the edge of the river, activated his spacesuit, strapped on his gun, pocketed the dictionary, and stepped outside. He walked toward the river, where half a dozen aliens were casting nets or dangling lines.

As he approached he saw one man yank forth his line with a catch—a thick-bodied fish-like creature with fierce red eyes and short fleshy fins. There was no look of triumph on the man’s face as he waded ashore and deposited his catch on a heap of similar fish caught earlier. This was food, not sport, and there was no occasion for triumph if a catch was made—only sadness if one were not.

The aliens looked alike to Kennedy. He wondered if there were some way of finding the three who had visited the outpost the week before.

“I am a friend,” he said slowly and clearly, in the Ganny tongue.

They gathered hesitantly about him, those who were not too busy with their nets and their lines. He looked from one noseless, grotesque face to the next, and hoped they were better at telling one Earthman from another than he was at discerning alien identities.

They were. One said, “You are a new one.”

“I am. I come to talk with you.”

“It is the food-gathering time. We must work. One will come from the village to talk with you.”

Kennedy looked sharply at the ring of aliens. They were stocky beings, not quite his height, lumpy-bodied, with thick, six-fingered hands and practically no necks. They were not human. It was strange to stand here in below-zero temperature on a world whose air was poison to his lungs, and talk with unhuman creatures. Nightmarish.

Another alien was coming from the village toward him. At first glance he seemed indistinguishable from all the others, but then Kennedy saw that this one had an air of authority about him that set him apart.

“You must not disturb the fishermen,” the new one said as he drew near. “Their job is sacred. Who are you?”

“I come from back there.”

“I know that. But you are not like the others.”

“I am not a friend of the other men who come to you,” Kennedy said.

“Then they will kill you. They kill those who are not their friends.”

“Have they killed any of your people?”

“No. But they say they will if we do not give them welcome here. We ask them to leave. To go back to the sky. But they say they will bring others of their kind here soon. We will not oppose this, but it grieves us.”

They walked away from the busy fishermen. Kennedy struggled to catch the alien’s words, and realized the Ganny was speaking with special care. The spokesman said, “Your people do not understand us. This is our land. Our tribe chose this as its dying-ground hundreds of hundred-days ago. We ask them to go, or to move to another clan-ground. But they will not go. They say they will stay, and will bring many hands of hands more of their numbers from the sky. And they will not let us teach them.”

“Teach them?” Kennedy repeated. “Teach them what?”

“The way of life. Respect for existence. Understanding of the currents of beingness.” The complex phrases made Kennedy frown, bewildered. “They think we are simple fishermen,” said the alien. “This is correct. But we are more than fishermen. We have a civilization. We have no guns and no space-vessels; we did not need them. But we have other things.”

Kennedy found himself becoming deeply interested. He squatted down on a barrel-shaped projection of ice and said, “Tell me about these things.”

“We have no books, none of the fine things you Earth-men have. Our world does not allow such luxuries. But we have developed other things, compensations. A language —you find it easy to understand?”

Kennedy nodded.

“Our language is the work of many minds over many years. Its simplicity caused us much pain to achieve. Do you have much time to spend with us?”

He looked at the chronometer in the wrist of his space-suit. The time was only 0230; he had three hours yet before it was time to return to the outpost. He told the alien that.

“Good. Our next sleep-time is when the silvery moon has set. Until the time for you to leave, we can talk. I think you will listen.”

The silvery moon meant high-albedo Europa. Kennedy tried to remember the schedule. Europa would set toward “morning,” some six or seven hours from now.

The alien spoke, and for the next three hours Kennedy listened in wonder. When the alien was through, Kennedy realized why Gunther had not been anxious for him to see the Gannys too closely.

They were far from being mere primitive savages. They had a culture perhaps older than Earth’s. The bleak barrenness of their world had made it impossible for them to develop a technology, but in compensation they had created an incredible oral tradition of poetry and philosophy.

Kennedy received a brief sketch. The philosophy was one of resignation, of calm understanding of the inexorable absolute laws of the universe. It was inevitable that a people living under conditions such as these would develop a philosophy that counseled them to accept in gratitude whatever came to them.

They were people who knew how to wait, and how to accept defeat. People who knew how to hope, even when menacing invaders from beyond the sky came to threaten.

They had a poetry, too; Kennedy listened, and wondered. Their language was awesomely simple, with a simplicity born of centuries of polishing, and the poetry was evocative and many-leveled, so far as Kennedy could penetrate it at first hearing. Everything was oral. He had never believed that a race without a written culture could achieve such things, but he had never known a race living on such a world.

He was reluctant to leave, when the time came. But he knew there would be grave consequences otherwise, so he made his apologies, breaking the spell cast by the alien being, and headed for his jeep.

At about 0530 he began driving back westward toward the outpost. In the quiet alien night the snowfields sparkled and glittered with the reflected light of half a dozen moons; it was a lovely sight, and, inside the warm pressurized cab of the jeep, he felt none of the brutality of the conditions outside, only the silent beauty.

But there was nothing beautiful about the Corporation scheme, he thought. He wondered if he could ever purge himself of the taint of the last two months’ work.

He thought of Marge’s gradual withdrawal from him as he became more and more involved in the Ganymede contract, and of Spalding’s cynical condemnation of the project at the same time as his continued work on it. Well, Spalding had his reasons. And at least he had seen through the plan, instead of blithely accepting it the way Kennedy had done.

The Corporation was using the U.N. as its cat’s-paw. Ganymede was likely territory for exploitation—the Earth had no more simple races left, no more technologically backward areas, thanks to a century of intensive development, but there still were other worlds for fast-working promoters to conquer.

Ganymede, for instance.

The Gannys had a rich and wonderful culture—anyone could see that given an hour’s contact with them. So the Corporation would have to suppress that fact, or else there would be interference with its plans. Thanks to the agency and to Kennedy’s own scheme, the Gannys would be mowed down, unprotesting—for that was the essence of their philosophy—to make room for the Terran exploiters.

Unless some action were taken now.

Kennedy felt clear-headed and tranquil about the part he was going to play in the coming weeks. He would return to Earth and somehow let the world know the profound nature of the Ganymedean culture; he would prevent the slaughter before it began, as partial atonement for all he had done to foment it. Marge would understand, and would forgive him for his earlier part.

He felt bitter about the deception that had been practiced on him and which he, in turn, had helped foist on all of Earth. He had no moralizing objections to Corporation activity—but he felt strongly that a culture such as he had just been shown should be preserved, and learned from. The Gannys had much to teach to an Earth caught in endless internal turmoil. He intended to visit them every night until the time came to return to Earth.

And when he was back on Earth he could reveal the truth. It isn’t everyone, he thought, who has the chance to repair damage he’s helped create. But I have a glittering opportunity.

The Gannys would never fight back. Armed resistance was not part of their way. But if he could prevent the conflict from ever beginning . . .

He would have to move carefully, though. He was taking on a mighty antagonist in the Corporation.

Engel was waiting inside the airlock as Kennedy brought the jeep up, at 0559 hours. Right on time. The linguist looked pale and tense; Kennedy wondered if there were some trap waiting for him. Gunther, maybe, with armed men.

He drew his gun. The airlock slid open and he guided the jeep through. Springing from the jeep, he made sure he had his gun out and ready.

“You can put the blunderbuss away,” Engel whispered. “Everything’s clear.”

Kennedy looked around. “No one knows I’ve been gone? No one missed me?”

“They’ve all been sleeping like babes,” Engel said. “All except me. I’ve been sitting in my room staring at the walls all night. Where the devil did you go, Kennedy? And why?”

“That’s hardly public concern, as they say. Help me off with my suit.”

Engel assisted him as he climbed out of the bulky protective suit. Kennedy turned to the linguist and stared quietly at him for a long moment.

“I went to visit the Gannys tonight,” he said. “I spent three hours listening to a disquisition on Ganny philosophy and hearing some Ganny poetry. These people aren’t as primitive as Gunther seems to think they are, Engel.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re lying. You’ve spoken to the Gannys. You know that their language is a marvel of communication. You know about their philosophy and their poetry and their outlook on life. And you intend to sit back and let all these things be blotted from the universe forever.”

Engel’s jaw tightened. He said nothing.

“Well,” Kennedy went on, “I don’t. And I’m going to do something about it, or at least try to do something, when I get back to Earth. And while I’m here I’m going to soak up as much Ganny thinking as I possibly can. It’s good for the soul, Engel. You’ll help me.”

“I don’t want to be a party to your crazy schemes, Kennedy.”

“I want you to help me. For once in your life you can do something worthwhile. More worthwhile than making lists of intransitive verbs, anyway.”