Federation World (17 page)

"That would mean," Beth replied worriedly, "that they were intelligent but not very friendly."

"Maybe we are misreading the indications," he said, switching sides in the argument. "Could there be a geological reason for the sudden appearance of those pits which-"

He broke off. Beth's disagreement was silent, but plainly evident.

"All right then," he went on. "We haven't seen these creatures or found any trace of their existence. We have no idea how they live except that it is underground. The reason why they don't show themselves is possibly because they are at a disadvantage on the surface. This suggests a small life form, a species of burrower which acts in concert to dismantle large predators and sophisticated robots alike. The latter capability suggests the possession of advanced technology, power sources and communications systems, none of which we have been able to detect. It is impossible to hide the radiation signature of a technologically advanced civilization unless they are hiding deliberately."

"Deliberately!" Beth said, and laughed. "Living underground as they do, their communication system could be very basic, simply modulated sonics transmitted through a solid medium. When we land the probe I'll have the answer to that one."

"Caution where strangers are concerned," Martin went on, feeling the hair at the back of his neck begin to prickle, "is also a sign of intelligence. The silence down there is complete, and the sound prints of indigenous life forms are already known to them, so that it would be easy to detect the presence of strangers.

"But they were hiding from us," he ended quietly, "while we were still in space."

For a long time Beth stared at the pastoral beauty which was pictured on the main screen, then she said, "I think it's time we reviewed this whole assignment."

"SOME vacation!" Beth said when the data had been reviewed. Her tone was one of angry disbelief. "If you remember," Martin said, trying to be objective, "the supervisor did not actually lie to us when we were assigned Teldi. It did not tell, because it did not know, the whole truth. Maybe it knows even less of the truth this time. Run the searchship data again, please?"

The third and only life bearing planet of a gee-type sun, the world had a near-perfect circular orbit, no axial tilt, no major topological features or temperature variations, all of which explained the absence of seasonal changes and the undramatic weather. The world had a predisposition toward silence and, Martin knew, the ability to hunt or graze quietly would be an important survival characteristic among its fauna. A species which could burrow underground and trap and smother their prey, regardless of size, would have a considerable advantage over the surface dwellers and might well have become the dominant, and intelligent, life form.

'The searchship carried out the usual surface scan," Martin said as the material was being presented. "They were looking for surface buildings, sea or airborne craft, power installations and radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum. They soft-landed probes to collect animal and vegetable specimens, then moved on to the next system on their list. The probes were not attacked while they were on the ground, so there was no way of knowing that intelligent subsurface life was present."

"Possible intelligent subsurface life," Beth said, stressing the first word. "Your conclusion is based on the fact that a robot protector was dismantled without causing its power cell to explode. But remember, our equipment is designed to cause minimum damage and pollution if a curious native tries to take something apart. It is more likely, although much less exciting to think about, that they are nonintelligent creatures with the magpie instinct, and that they were very lucky that the power cell did not blow up in their faces.

"Besides," she added, "if they're capable of taking apart a completely alien, to them, mechanism like the protector with safety, they would have to be very highly advanced scientifically, and the associated technology would leave a large and unmistakable radiation signature. There was no such signature."

'They were hiding it," Martin said.

"From the searchship and now from us?" Beth asked quietly. "Aren't you becoming a trifle paranoid about this?"

As the hypership captain providing technical and moral support to his first-contact specialty, she often took the devil's advocate position in an argument in order to clarify the situation for both of them.

"People usually hide because they are afraid," Martin said thoughtfully. "As yet we don't know why they are afraid. Maybe they had a very bad experience in the past as a result of a visitation from space. The searchship did not land and its investigations were carried out by long-range sensors and probes, which did little more than flatten a few square inches of grass. But there is no sign of the chemical and radioactive pollutants associated with a crash landing by a visiting ship, or other catastrophic malfunction which would have caused widespread damage or loss of life among the natives.

"Maybe they are simple xenophobes," he went on, "who are afraid of all strangers. I still think they are small, weak or have some other obvious disadvantage which would-"

"It isn't obvious to me," Beth said. "Look at what they did to our robot.”

"If we saw one of them it might be," Martin replied. "I'm still convinced that they are intelligent, technologically advanced, and afraid; that is a tricky combination to deal with."

Beth was still regarding the data on the main screen as she said, "Suppose these as yet hypothetical people are hiding without realizing that they are hiding. They may be an omnivorous vegetable life form with a fast-growing, controllable system of roots capable of breaking up the soil under their prey and trapping-"

"And they had a sudden and urgent requirement," Martin broke in, "for mineral trace elements used in the metal of the protector?"

"It's a possibility," Beth said lamely.

"I prefer the idea of acute xenophobia," Martin replied. 'That presupposes them having a knowledge of off-planet intelligent life, and methods of detecting the approach of such life from a great distance, and of concealing the detection system along with all the other traces of themselves. They must have something very important to hide, wouldn't you say?"

"Oh, come, now," Beth said, swinging round to face him. "Surety a species with that capability would not want to hide, it would have more than enough technological muscle to defend itself."

"A good point," Martin said. "But suppose they can detect our ships only after they leave hyper space, that would reduce the level of their technology by a few notches. And remember, a searchship doesn't start a planetary scan until it has taken up orbit, so there are several hours between emergence and close approach. Our friends would have time to power down then- equipment and play possum."

"Switch off their entire civilization, you mean?" Beth said incredulously. 'They would have to maintain some land of communication channel, which we could detect, otherwise how would they know when we left their system if everything was switched off?"

"A receiver is very hard to detect compared with a transmitter," Martin said, "so they might know when we left without having to reveal themselves. And their internal communications, if they use sound conducted through subsurface rock strata with relays and boosters for the long-range traffic, would not be detectable from space.

"And I don't think they switch off everything everywhere," he went on. "Just in the areas we are likely to notice. On the hemisphere we cannot see, it may be business as usual.

"The problem," he added, 'Will be tricking them into showing themselves."

"The problem," Beth said seriously, "will be how you will feel if they don't show themselves because they aren't there. I can see you going all broody on me and needing lots of nontechnical support."

"You're trying to change the subject," Martin said.

"I'm trying to give myself time to think," she replied. A few seconds later she went on, "First, let's forget about complicated maneuvers like pretending to leave, waiting for an indeterminate time to lull them into a false sense of security, and then jumping out of hyperspace as close to the planet as we can manage. For operational reasons that would not be all that close, and the emergence itself makes an awful lot of radio frequency noise which our hypothetical friends would be sure to detect. Instead, let's use the present proximity to the planet to our own advantage, and act now."

Unresolved questions bothered her tidy, impatient mind.

Martin did not reply, and she continued. "Right now we are in synchronous orbit with one hemisphere constantly in view. Suppose we launch a couple of large probes toward the surface after dark, but programmed only to make the greatest possible noise in the visible and radio frequency spectra so that our friends will be blinded, confused, and distracted for several minutes. During that period we will apply maximum thrust on a course which will take us past the edge of the planetary disk as we now see it, with just enough altitude to avoid burning up in atmosphere.

"I haven't tried this idea on the main computer yet," she went on, a tinge of excitement creeping into her voice, "and a ship this size isn't supposed to go in for such melodramatic maneuvering, but with the gravity compensators at maximum and the drive on emergency overload, I think we could manage about eight gees. As we pass over the presently visible horizon to the hidden side, we kill the probe interference and switch off everything but our receptors. We should then get a picture of whatever is happening on the other side of the planet as we coast out and away, and it should happen too quickly for them to switch off everything and hide themselves.

"They will know what we are doing by then," she ended, "but even if they are expecting such a message, it must take a little time to warn an entire hemisphere to initiate an immediate radio silence."

"You're the Ship Handler One," Martin said, smiling. "And if the other hemisphere is silent, too, I shall reluctantly admit the possibility that there is nobody there."

They would not get a second chance to pull this particular trick and so the preparations took several hours. Most of the time was taken up programming the lander, unmanned for this mission, and the probes so that it would appear that a widespread and thorough investigation of the hemisphere below them was taking place during the hours of darkness. Success depended on whether or not their visible and radio frequency fireworks blinded the surface observers to what was really going on.

When the hypership finally began to move, all of the natives attention, they hoped, was being focused on the darkside diversion.

From inside the control module, the power being expended to accelerate the tremendous ship was not apparent, because the gravity compensators were matching the acceleration so closely that the deck remained steady beneath their feet. The only motion visible was on the forward displays which showed the planet's edge expanding slowly, then not so slowly, until it was rushing up at them and all they could see was the pinkish gray sunrise line bisecting the screen.

A faint vibration against the soles of their feet told of the hypership encountering the soft vacuum that was the upper atmosphere, and a number of stress and temperature sensors winked red eyes at them. Beth insisted that they were merely polite warnings, not indications of an imminent catastrophic malfunction, and ignored them.

The sunrise line flashed past below them, the power was cut and the ship coasted spaceward again, the daylight side of the planet unrolling and shrinking rapidly in their rear screen. She reversed the image to black, the better to show up any points or areas of radiation which might be present.

For several minutes they studied the screen before Martin broke the silence.

"Well?"

Beth cleared her throat and said, "The natives display a very fast reaction time. Virtually everything was switched off within the first three minutes of their seeing us and realizing what we were doing. Some of the areas are still radiating, which could mean that their communications are at fault or that they now know that we know about them and further attempts at concealment are useless. We can study this material later, but right now I would say that these traces indicate power sources which are well below ground, and a few which are sharply defined and weaker, and are probably surface sensory equipment..."