Authors: The Plot Against Earth
One
important fact remained to be determined before they left the ship.
"How
far are we from the rescue beacon?" Catton asked. Sadhig's lean face was
puckered into one immense frown.
"I'm
still trying to get a fix," the Skorg said. "I'm picking up the carrier
beam intermittendy, but until I get the directional fix I can't—ah—there!"
Sadhig began to scribble computations in the involved squiggles that were Skorg
script. He chewed on the stylus for a moment, added up a column, fed the
results into the lifeship's miniature computer, and waited for confirmation. It
came, a moment later. "Well?" Carton asked.
"It's
better than I hoped for, considering I didn't have any idea where that damned
beacon was located. We hit the right continent—our luck's with us. We're only
about five hundred miles due south of the beacon. It could have been a lot
worse."
"Five
hundred miles!"
Carton exclaimed.
Sadhig
nodded. "By forced marches, we ought to get there in a month's time. We
don't have a month's food, of course, but we ought to be able to find something
edible in the jungle."
Catton
peered through the viewscreen. He saw close-packed vegetation, beady with
moisture. This was a young planet, only seventy million miles from its Sol-type
yellow sun. The temperature out there, according to the instruments, was about
310 degrees on the Skorg scale, which was reckoned up from Absolute Zero.
Sadhig informed him that the mean temperature on Morilar was about 305 in Skorg
degrees; juggling the figures hastily, Catton decided that the temperature
outside was in the neighborhood of 110 Fahrenheit. Hiking for a month on a
damp, humid, world like this wasn't going to be any Boy Scout jaunt.
When Catton returned to the rest of the
group, he found them stirring uneasily; none of them had any basic scientific
understanding of the problems involved in landing on an unexplored world, and
they regarded Catton and Sadhig with some suspicion.
"Well?" Royce asked. "What
have you two been figuring out?"
"The
planet's livable," Catton said. "We can all breathe the air, the
gravity is fairly low, and the temperature isn't much hotter than that of
Morilar. We won't be comfortable, but well survive. The rescue beacon is five
hundred miles north of here. If there aren't any large bodies of water in between
to give us trouble, we ought to reach it in a month."
"A month?" gasped the older and
more talkative of the two Morilaru women. "You mean we're going
to
walk for a
month
in that jungle?"
"You don't have to accompany us. You can
stay behind," Catton said. He could just as well do without the women on
the trek. "Well leave you a blaster and your pro rata share of the
food,
and you can live in the ship. When the rescue ship
arrives, well have him pick you up—if he can find you in this jungle."
"I
don't like that idea. But why can't we fly this ship to the beacon?"
"Two reasons," said Sadhig crisply.
"The first is that we have very little fuel, possibly not enough for a
blastoff. The second is that this lifeship is not a precision vessel. It is
virtually a toy. If we attempted a new blastoff and landing, there is no
guarantee we will not come down even further from the beacon."
"Oh,"
she said faintly. "Well, in that case—I guess we walk!"
The
trek began an hour later. The ship was stripped of everything that was portable
and might have some conceivable use. Catton, who had taken charge of the group
without any nomination or intention, parceled the food out equally for each to
carry, for the reason (which he did not voice) that in case of the sudden
disappearance of one member of the party he did not want the entire supply of a
given item to be lost. Similarly, he distributed the blasters and other weapons
and tools.
When
the outfitting was done, they set out—Catton and Royce in the lead, followed by
Woukidal and the other male Morilaru, then the two Morilaru women, with Sadhig
and the Arenaddin bringing up the rear. Catton set a jaunty pace for the party.
The air was thick and rich, invigorating almost to the point of intoxication;
after a few hundred yards the Earthman realized that he would bum himself out
quickly at this pace, and he slowed up. With air that was more than
a third
oxygen to breathe, it was easy to overlook the
bothersome heat and humidity; between the low gravity and the richness of the
air, Catton felt an exuberance he had never known before.
The
vegetation consisted largely of gigantic trees, thirty or forty feet thick at
the base, towering far into the sky. The trees had no limbs for at least their
first hundred feet of height; far above the ground they branched heavily, and
their crowns intermingled, with a thick mesh of vines to provide a virtual roof
for the forest. Evidendy the ceiling two hundred feet above blocked most of the
rainfall from the jungle floor; it was sparsely vegetated except for occasional
seedlings and man-high fems. A soft red-brown carpet of dead leaves lay
underfoot. Compass in hand, Catton doggedly led his litde band on a steady
northward path, pausing every ten minutes or so to malce sure that no
stragglers were falling behind.
It was difficult to tell when the day was
actually ending, because the close-knit forest roof kept most sunlight from
penetrating anyway. After three hours—Carton's watch was calibrated in Galactic
Absolute Time,
whose
minute was arbitarily pegged to
Morilaru time and whose day lasted twenty-six and a fraction Terran
hours—Catton called a rest halt.
"And about time we stopped, too,"
sighed the younger of the Morilaru women. "We've been walking
forever!"
"We've covered about seven miles,"
Catton said. "That's a pretty fair stint for people who aren't trained
hikers. We'll rest for a while and then go on until nightfall hits us."
He distributed anti-fatigue tablets—the
medical kit held a packet of five hundred tablets, which would be ample for the
entire month if they were parceled out with prudence. After half an hour of
resting, they continued on. Twilight overtook them within another hour.
They
made camp by the side of a small stream that had accompanied them northward for
more than a mile. Woukidal and Royce inflated four bubbletents—one to be shared
by the two women, one to be used by the Morilaru who had ejected the ship and
the Arenaddin, and a third to be shared by Catton, Royce, and Woukidal. The
Skorg was permitted to, sleep alone.
While
Royce and Woukidal busied themselves with the tents, the women were sent out to
gather wood for a fire, and Catton and Sadhig budgeted out food for the evening
meal. The Arenaddin was still groggy from sedation, and Catton gave him no
task.
Night
fell quickly. The little planet had no moon, but through the breaks in the
jungle roof could be seen the bright dots of unfamiliar constellations. The
temperature dropped considerably during the night.
A
watch system was instituted. Catton stood the first three hours himself,
then
woke Sadhig, who passed the duty along to Woukidal
after three more hours. Night was nine hours long. The entire day, Catton
discovered, was slightly more than one Galactic Absolute day in length—about
thirty hours by Terran reckoning. His body was quick to adjust to variations in
its schedule. Only the Arenaddin, accustomed to a day that was nearly twice
that of a Terran one, would experience any particular disorientation, and
before many days he would be fully adjusted to the new schedule of living.
Three
days passed without significant incident. The local fauna made
itself
evident quickly enough, but nothing of an unpleasant
size appeared: the animals that showed themselves were no bigger than Terran
sheep, at best, and showed no hostile intentions. The animals were constructed
on the standard four-limbed partem of most oxygen-breathing life-forms; they
appeared to be marsupial mammals, judging from those who came close enough to
be studied. Several looked as though they might be useful when the regular food
supply ran out, as it would probably do in another seven or eight days.
There were a few annoying flurries of rain;
the castaways could hear the water pounding the jungle roof, and enough
rainwater trickled down to make life uncomfortable below. The moist clothes
began to mildew rapidly. Insects became a nuisance, too; they came big on this
planet, some of them ugly beasts with wingspreads of a foot. The big ones did
not seem to sting—Catton imagined it would be a nasty experience to be stung by
one—but some of the smaller lands did. Why is it, Catton wondered, that
mosquitoes happened to evolve on 95 percent of the worlds of the universe?
At
the mid-day break on the fourth day, however, when they had covered better than
fifty miles since leaving the ship, the Arenaddin suddenly declared he could go
no further.
The massive creature was seated on a tree
stump. Rolls of fat sagged around his middle, and his breathing was rough and
irregular. The Arenaddin's orange skin was wet with perspiration. He pointed to
his swollen feet. The six splayed toes were designed to support three hundred
pounds of bulk without collapsing, but they had never been intended to take
their owner on extended hikes through a forest.
"Go on without me," the Arenaddin
insisted. "I'm slowing you all up. And I can't last much longer—I'm not
built for this kind of strain."
"We'll build a litter," Catton
said. "We ought to be able to manage you."
The Arenaddin shook his great globe of a head
sadly from side to side. "It is not worth your trouble. I consume too much
food, and I do no work. Let me remain behind."
But Catton would not hear of it. While the
others ate, he started to plan out the most efficient sort of litter to carry
the Arenaddin. Two sturdy branches about six feet long, he decided, with one of
the duriplast ponchos swung between them. The Arenaddin could ride in the
poncho as if he were in a hammock. Two men between them should be able to
support his weight for short stretches; Royce was a little old for that kind of
a strain, but there were still four able-bodied men who could take turns at it.
Catton began to scout around for a tree whose
branches were low enough for cutting down. It took a while; the adult trees
were bare for a hundred feet, while most of the seedlings were too spindly. He
found one at last—a young tree no more than thirty feet high, with forking
branches thick enough to hold the Arenaddin's weight. Catton turned, meaning to
call to Woukidal and Sadhig to help him with the logging operation.
He
heard the swift sizzling sound made by a blaster fired on narrow beam.
As a
matter of reflex, Catton flung himself to the jungle floor. But no second shot
came. Deciding that it had not been aimed at him, Catton rose and returned to
the group.
The
Arenaddin was dead. He lay sprawled grotesquely in the middle of the clearing,
a blaster still in his hand. He had fired one narrow-beam shot upward into his
mouth; it was an instantaneous death.
Royce was staring in blank-faced horror.
Neither the Skorg nor the four Morilaru seemed particularly moved by the
suicide.
Catton glared at them. He, Royce, and Sadhig
were the only ones armed with blasters.
Royce was pointing at the Skorg. "It—it
was his gun!" Royce said in a shaky voice.
Catton wheeled on Sadhig. "Is this true?
Did you let him take your gun away?"
"No," the Skorg said calmly.
"I gave it to him."
"Gave
it? Why'd you do a mad thing like that?"
"He
asked me for it," Sadhig replied. "He saw that you refused to honor
his request to be left behind, and he was determined to remove himself rather
than become a burden to the group."
Catton
goggled. "You knew he was going to commit suicide—and yet you gave him
the blaster?"
"Of
course," the Skorg said with some surprise. "It was the least I could
do for him. He was in physical pain, and he felt a necessity to do away with
himself. Would you refuse a fellow being the means of death?"
Catton could not answer. Once again it was a
conflict of values; the Skorg saw nothing ethically wrong with handing a weapon
to a declared suicide, and no amount of debate would ever produce agreement on
the point. Catton turned away. The Arenaddin had, after all, acted in the best
interests of the group. Carrying a cripple would have meant a delay of many
days in reaching the beacon.
But as an Earthman Catton held
certain ideas about the sanctity of life that left him chilled by the
matter-of-factness of the Arenaddins decision.