Ship of Strangers

CHAPTER TWO

“Close enough?” Voysey said. “Or do you think we should edge up a bit further?”

Surgenor made a dampening movement with his hands. “This is fine—it’s best to allow for a margin of error in our ranging equipment and Aesop’s.”

He scanned the forward screens and found that the only indication of other vehicles in the area was one distantly wavering light on the plain behind the big ship. Watching its glimmering progress, Surgenor speculated on whether the spark of light could be—he hesitated, then applied the label—the enemy.

“I wonder is that it,” Voysey said, echoing his own thoughts.

“Who knows?” Surgenor replied. “Why don’t you ask it?”

Voysey sat motionless for several seconds. “All right. I will.” He pressed his talk button. “This is Module Five, Voysey speaking. We are already at the ship. Who is the second module now approaching?”

“This is Module One, Lamereux speaking,” came a hearteningly familiar voice. “Hello there, Victor, Dave. Good to see you—that’s if it is you.”

“Of course it’s us. Who else could it be?”

Lamereux’s laugh sounded slightly unnatural. “At a time like this I wouldn’t even like to guess.”

Voysey released his talk button and turned to Surgenor. “At least Aesop ought to be sure of us two now. I hope he spots a difference in the extra module and blows it away without any more talk. Before it makes a move.”

“What if it doesn’t make a move?” Surgenor unwrapped a flavoured protein block and bit into it. He had planned that his next meal would be a triumphal banquet on board the mother ship, but now it looked as though dinner might be a little late.

“What do you mean about not making a move?”

“Well, even on Earth there are birds that imitate men’s voices, monkeys that mimic their actions—and they haven’t any special reason for doing it. That’s just the way they are. This thing might be a super-mimic. A compulsive copier. Maybe it just turns into the same shape as any new thing it sees without even wanting to.”

“An animal that can mimic something the size of a survey module?” Voysey considered the idea for a moment, obviously not impressed. “But why would it want to mingle with us?”

Behavioural mimicry. It saw us all converging on the Sarafand and was impelled to join us.

“I think you’re gassing me again, Dave. I swallowed what you told us about those other freaks—Drambons, was it—but this is too much.”

Surgenor shrugged and ate more protein cake. He had seen the Drambons on his 124th planetary survey, wheel-shaped creatures on a high-gravity world who were the opposite of humans and indeed most other beings in that their blood remained stationary at the bottom of the wheel while their bodies circulated. He always had trouble convincing new survey men that Drambons really existed—Drambons and a hundred other equally bizarre species. That was the trouble with beta-space transportation, the popularly named Instant Distant drive—it was the first form of travel which did not broaden the mind. Voysey was five thousand light-years from Earth, but because he had not done it the hard way, hopping from star to lonely star, he was mentally still inside the orbit of Mars.

Other lights began to flicker on Module Five’s viewscreens as the remaining vehicles made their appearances from behind hills or over folds in the terrain. They drew closer until there were seven ranged in a circle around the dimly etched black pinnacle of the Sarafand. Surgenor watched their progress with interest, hoping with part of his mind that the intruder would make the mistake of venturing across the invisible thousand-metre line.

Captain Aesop remained silent during the approach manoeuvres, but comment from the various crews crashed continuously from the radio grille. Some of the men, finding themselves still alive and unharmed as minute after minute went by, began to relax and make jokes about the situation. The banter died away as Aesop finally spoke from the lofty security of the ship’s operations level, sixty metres above the surface of the plain.

“Before we listen to individual reports and such suggestions as may be available,” he said in an even voice, “I wish to remind all crews of my instruction not to come nearer the ship than one thousand metres. Any module doing so will be destroyed without further warning.

“You may now,” Aesop concluded imperturbably, “proceed with the discussion.”

Voysey snorted with resentment. “Tea and cucumber sandwiches will be served presently! When I get back on board I’m going to take an axle wrench to Aesop and smash his…You’d think to hear him this is just some kind of kid’s puzzle.”

“That’s the way Aesop looks at everything.” Surgenor said. “In this case, it’s not a bad thing.”

The confident, reedy voice of Pollen in Module Four was the first to break the radio silence which had followed the announcement from the ship. This was Pollen’s eighth survey and he was writing a book about his experiences, but had never allowed Surgenor to hear any of his recorded notes or see the written portion of the manuscript. Surgenor suspected it was because he, Surgenor, was portrayed in it as a risible Oldest Member figure.

“The way I see it,” Pollen began, “the problem we have here takes the form of a classical exercise in logic.”

“It must be catching—he’s talking the same way,” Voysey said, brooding.

“Turn it off Pollen,” somebody shouted angrily.

“All right, all right. But the fact remains that we can think our way out of this one. The basic parameters of the problem are these—we have six unmarked and identical survey modules and, hidden among them, a seventh machine…’

Surgenor pressed his talk button as an idea which had been forming in his mind suddenly coalesced. “Correction,” he said quietly.

“Was that Dave Surgenor?” Pollen sounded impatient. “As I was saying—we’ve only got to be logical. There is a seventh machine and it…’

“Correction.”

“That is Mr Surgenor, isn’t it? What do you want Dave?”

“I want to help you be logical, Clifford. There isn’t a seventh machine—we’ve got six machines and a very special kind of animal.”

“An animal?”

“Yes. It’s a Grey Man.”

For the second time in an hour, Surgenor heard his radio loudspeaker fail to cope with the demands made on it, and he waited impassively for the noise to subside. He glanced sideways at Voysey’s exasperated face and wondered if he, too, had looked like that the first time he had heard about Grey Men.

The stories were thinly spread, difficult to isolate from the Manichean fantasies which abounded in many cultures, but they cropped up here and there, on worlds where the native racial memory reached far enough into the past. There were distortions upon distortions, but always the same recognizable theme—that of the Grey Men and the great battle they had waged with and lost to the White Ones. Neither race had left any tangible traces of its existence to be picked up by Earth’s belated armies of archaeologists, but the myths were there just the same.

And the most significant thing, to one whose intellectual ears were in tune, was that—no matter what the shape of the storytellers, or whether they walked, swam, flew, crawled or burrowed—the name they applied to the Grey Men was always their own name for members of their own species. The noun was often accompanied by a qualifier which suggested anonymity, neutrality or formlessness…’

“What in hell is a Grey Man?” It was Carlen in Module Three.

“It’s a big grey monster that can turn itself into anything it wants to,” Pollen explained. “Mr Surgenor has one for a pet and he never travels anywhere without it—that’s what started all those old stories.”

“It can’t turn itself into anything it wants,” Surgenor said. “It can only assume any external shape it wants. Inside it’s still a Grey Man.” There was another roar of disbelief intermingled with laughter.

“Getting back to this notion of yours about being logical,” Surgenor continued with deliberate stolidity, anxious to get the debate back on to a serious footing, “why don’t you at least think about what I’m saying and check it out. You don’t have to accept my word.”

“I know, Dave—the Grey Man will vouch for everything you say.”

“What I’m proposing is that we ask Captain Aesop to go through the xenological data stores and estimate the probability of the existence of the Grey Men in the first place, and also the probability that Module Seven is a Grey Man.” Surgenor noted that this time there was no laughter and he was relieved because, if he was right, there was no time for irrelevancies. In fact, there was probably no time at all, for anything.

The bright double star, which was the world’s parent sun, was hanging low in the sky beyond the dim bulk of the Sarafand and the distant black hills. In another seventeen months the planet would be threading its way between two points of light, and Surgenor wanted to be far away when that happened—but so did the multi-talented superbeast hidden in their midst.

Candar was astonished to find himself listening to the food creatures’ mental processes with something approaching interest.

His race had never been machine-builders—they had relied instead on the strength, speed and adaptability of their great grey bodies. In addition to his instinctive disregard for machinery, Candar had spent seventy centuries on a world where no artifact, no matter how well-constructed, could survive the annual passage through the binary hell. Consequently he was shocked to realize how much the food creatures depended upon their fabrications of metal and plastics. The discovery which most intrigued him was that the metal shells were not only a means of transport, but that they actually supported the lives of the food creatures while they were on this airless world.

Candar tried to imagine entrusting his life to the care of a complicated and fallible mechanism, but the idea filled him with a cool, unfamiliar dread. He pushed it aside and concentrated all his ferocious intelligence on the problem of getting close enough to the spaceship to paralyse the nerve centres of the creatures within. In particular, it was necessary to immobilize the one they called Captain Aesop before the ship’s weapons could be brought into play.

Gently, delicately, controlling his hunger, Candar prepared the attack.

Surgenor stared at his hand in disbelief.

He had decided to drink some coffee to ease the dryness in his throat and had begun to reach for the supply tube. His right hand had risen only a few millimetres, and then had dropped back on the armrest.

Surgenor’s instinctive reaction was to bring his left hand over to assist the other, but it, too, refused to move—and the realization came that he was paralysed.

The mindless period of panic lasted perhaps a full minute, at the end of which Surgenor found himself exhausted from the conflict with his locked muscles. Serpents of icy sweat were making savage downward rushes over every part of his body. He forced himself to relax and assess the situation, discovering as he did so that he still had control of his eye movements.

A sideways glance showed him that Voysey had been caught, too—the only sign of life being a barely perceptible tremor of the facial muscles. Surgenor guessed the phenomenom was new to Voysey. It was the first time Surgenor had ever experienced it at first hand, but he had been on many worlds where animals of prey were able to surround themselves with a blanket field capable of suppressing the grosser neural activities in other creatures. The deadly talent was most often encountered on high gravity planets whose predators were likely to be as sluggish as their victims. Surgenor tried to speak to Voysey but, as he had expected, was unable to direct air through his vocal cords.

He suddenly became aware that voices were still issuing from the communications speaker, and had listened to them for a while before the full significance of the fact dawned on him.

“There isn’t much to worry about,” Pollen was saying. “This is the sort of exercise in pure logic which is right up your street, Aesop. I would suggest that you lead off by calling out the module numbers in rotation and commanding each to move back a hundred metres. Fifty metres would do, or even five—the distance doesn’t really matter. The point is that by doing this you will separate the original six machines from the seventh, or on one of the commands two of the machines will…’

Surgenor swore mentally at his inability to reach his talk button and cut Pollen off before it was too late. He was desperately renewing his efforts to move one hand when, without warning, Pollen’s voice was lost in a shrill discordant whistle of interference. The noise continued with no sign of abating and Surgenor knew, with a pang of relief, that Module Seven had stepped in to take control of the situation. Surgenor drove the tensions out of his muscles, concentrated on breathing steadily and evenly, and regained most of his ability to think. Pollen had been loudly and confidently signing their death warrants by making the mistake—in this case a fatal one—of confusing a theoretical proposition with the inimical realities of their predicament.

The situation on the black airless plain which glimmered in the viewscreens bore a superficial resemblance to the puzzles sometimes given in aptitude tests, and when treating it on that level Surgenor could see several solutions. Apart from Pollen’s standard juggling-with-numbers technique, a more empirical approach would be to have Aesop fire a low-powered burst from a laser rifle at each module in turn. Even if a Grey Man were able to withstand that sort of treatment without flinching, spectroscope analysis of the light produced would almost certainly show up compositional differences. Another solution would be to order each module to unship the little inspection-and-repair robot which was used when conditions were too severe for manual work in protective suits. Surgenor doubted if the alien could cope with a simulation task which involved splitting itself into two independent sections.

The deadly flaw in all those solutions was that they employed a process of elimination—which was something Module Seven would never permit. Any attempt to narrow down the field would only have the effect of triggering off the final calamity a little earlier. The real-life solution, if one existed, must be capable of instantaneous application. And Surgenor was not at all optimistic about his chances of finding it.

From sheer force of habit he began reviewing the situation, searching for some lever which might be used to advantage, then he recalled the significance of the voices which had continued to issue from the communications speaker after he and Voysey had been struck dumb. Pollen and a number of the other crewmen were still able to talk, which probably meant they were out of Module Seven’s radius of control.

The discovery showed that the enemy had some limitations to its frightening power, but appeared to have no practical value. Surgenor examined the module’s viewscreens, wondering just how many minutes or seconds were left. It was difficult to assimilate the discrete images properly without moving his head, but he saw that there were two other modules not far away to the right, which meant his own vehicle was part of a loose group of three. All the others were much farther away on the opposite side of the circle, and as he watched one of them began flashing its main light in a hesitant attempt at Morse.

Surgenor ignored it, partly because he had long forgotten the code and partly because he was concentrating his attention on the two nearer machines, one of which was almost certain to be Module Seven. High up on the Sarafand lights flickered against the background of stars as Aesop responded in crisp, high-speed Morse to the vehicle which had been attempting to communicate with him. Surgenor could imagine the consternation in that vehicle as its occupants tried to cope with Aesop’s overtly efficient signalling.

The continuing screech of radio interference conspired with the sense of urgency to create a yammering in Surgenor’s nerves and brain, rendering it almost impossible for him to bring his thoughts together. He understood the fallacy in trying to interpret alien behaviour patterns in terms of human attitudes—and a Grey Man had to be the most alien creature mankind was ever likely to encounter—but there seemed to be something inconsistent about…

Voysey moved his right hand forward to the control console and activated the engines.

For an instant Surgenor thought they had been freed from the paralysis field, but he found himself still unable to move. Voysey’s face was chalk-white and immobile, saliva glistening on his chin, and Surgenor realized he had acted merely as a human servo-mechanism, controlled by Module Seven. Surgenor’s mind began to race.

This must be it, he thought, our time is up.

The only reason the alien could have for making Voysey activate the motors was that it was planning to move the vehicle to distract Aesop. Surgenor went cold at the idea—there was no way to distract or confuse Aesop, and he would not hesitate to vaporize the first module to cross the invisible thousand-metre line.

Voysey’s left hand released the brakes and the vehicle shifted slightly on the uneven ground.

Surgenor made another frantic, despairing effort to move, but all that happened was that his panic returned in full force. What was Module Seven’s plan intended to achieve? He had deducted that its radius of control was limited. He also knew that it was about to trigger off an accident in the hope of drawing Aesop’s attention away from itself, which almost certainly implied it was going to try getting closer to the Sarafand. But why? There was no point in such an action, unless…

His belated but full understanding of the situation expanded like a nova in Surgenor’s mind—then new vistas of danger unfolded.

I know the truth, he thought, but I mustn’t think about it because a Grey Man is telepathic, and if he gets to know what I’m thinking…

Vosey’s hand thrust hard against the throttle levers and the module dipped forward.

…the Grey Man will learn that…NO! Think about anything else in the universe. Think about the past, the distant past, going to school, history lessons, history of science…the quantum nature of gravity was finally established in 2063, and the successful detection of the graviton led directly to an understanding of beta-space and thus to the development of faster-than-light travel…but nobody really understands what beta-space is like…no human being, that is…only…I almost did it…I almost thought about…I can’t help it…AESOP!

The distance separating Candar from the spaceship was one that, in a more efficient form, he could have crossed in two bounds. It would take slightly longer this way, but he knew he was too fast to be stopped by anything. He gave full rein to his hunger, letting it drive him on as he leaped forward. Behind him, rather more slowly than he had expected, the two machines he had taken into his control rolled towards the spaceship. One of the food creatures was vainly trying to suppress a thought, but there was no time to study its meaning…

Changing shape as he went, Candar got safely within control distance. Exulting, he struck with his brain, hurling the intangible nets of mind-force which induced paralysis in lesser creatures.

Nothing!

An ultralaser beam hit him with a violence which would have annihilated any other being within microseconds, but Candar could not die so easily. The pain was greater than he could ever have expected, but even worse than the agony was his sudden clear understanding of the minds of the food creatures—those bleak, cold, alien minds.

For the first time ever, Candar felt fear.

Then he died.

The champagne was good, the steak was good, and sleep—when it finally came—would be even better.

Surgenor leaned back contentedly, lit his pipe, and gazed benignly at the eleven other men seated at the long table in the Sarafand’s mess room. During the meal he had reached a decision, and he knew with a comforting glow in his belly that, for him, it was the right decision. He had made up his mind that he liked being an Oldest Member figure. Shrewd young men could go on putting him in their books of space travel reminiscences, his cousins could buy him out of their plant-business—he was going to stay with the Cartographical Service until he had satiated mind and soul with the sight of new worlds. It was his life, his way of life, and he had no intention of giving it up.

At the other end of the table, Clifford Pollen was making his notes of the trip.

“The way you see it Dave,” Pollen said, “is that the Grey Man was simply incapable of understanding the machine-building philosophy?”

“That’s right. A Grey Man, because of his special physical properties, would have no use for a machine at the best of times. And thousands of years on a planet like Prila I—where a machine couldn’t exist anyway—would have conditioned his mind to the point where our machine-orientated lives would have been incomprehensible to him.”

Surgenor drew on the fragrant smoke, and he felt an unexpected surge of sympathy for the massive alien being whose remains still lay on the black rock of the planet they had left behind. Life would have been very precious to a Grey Man, too precious for him ever to consider entrusting it to anyone or anything but himself. That, basically, was why he had made the mistake of trying to control the entity which the Sarafand’s crew thought of as Captain Aesop.

Wondering how the Grey Man felt in that final moment of discovery, Surgenor glanced at the discreet identification plate on the nearest of the terminals belonging to the ship’s central computer installation—that vast artificial intelligence into whose keeping they delivered their lives at the beginning of each survey. The plate said:

A.E.S.O.P.

Surgenor had heard the crewmen guess that the letters stood for Advanced Electronic Spaceship Operator and Pilot—but nobody was absolutely sure. Human beings, he suddenly realized, tend to take a lot for granted.