A trip to an alien world serves as a lesson on prejudice. One alien doesn’t like working with another alien. No matter how alien, they prove that prejudice is universal in its prevalence, and its much-needed antidote.
I’m uncomfortable around Zeebs. It’s not just their scaleless, green skins or bulging eyeballs. It’s not their breathy voices or their eternal simpering, though, Osus knows, those are not endearing qualities. I, along with most true reptiles, have a deep-seated abhorrence for amphibians, not just Zeebs, but the lot — Cammoons, Dilips, Vorns, the whole slimy clan.
While my ancestors were busy learning to crawl on good dry land and stand on their back legs, theirs were still wallowing in the swamp-muck. They let us do the work of civilizing Homeworld and blazing the trail to the stars, and then they decided to come along for the ride.
Associating with an amphib is like bathing in the primordial ooze. Next to mammals, there’s nothing as disgusting, and mammals have the saving grace of being good to eat.
The captain is always bending over backwards to show that he’s not prejudiced against the mudcrawlers among the crew. On our last planetfall, Frosis V in the Oriol sector, he outdid himself. We carried out our mission of mapping, doing atmospheric and seismological tests, and cataloging life forms, all with an eye to the planet’s colonization potential. As it turned out, Frosis V was a gem, warm and dry, well-vegetated, and literally swarming with mammals — little ratty ones, big bipeds, and quadrupedal grazers as large as the lander.
Unfortunately, we also discovered that some of the bipeds lived in villages in huts they’d built themselves, only the second-known instance of mammals with high order intelligence. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it — big, hairy mammals using spears and tending fires. It’s enough to give a reptile nightmares, which it did to me.
And it started me thinking. What if we find a really evolved bunch someday, one that has reached early spaceflight potential? The Emperor on Homeworld would probably want to bring them in with full rights, just like he’d done with the mudcrawlers. Talk about a horrific scenario.
But I digress. I had intended to recount Captain Splin’s handling of a matter that arose from our visit to Frosis V, a matter which involved a Zeeb crewman named Lithz Shupik.
Shupik fancied himself something of an amateur zoologist, I suppose. And he proceeded to indulge his avocation through the capture, in a box trap he’d made in the ship’s hobby shop, of ten of the ratty mammals which abounded on Frosis V. He then hid the little vermin in his quarters.
Nobody found out about Shupik’s breach of discipline until we were in hyperspace bound for the next designated system. The nobody who found out was me.
I was going down for breakfast when one of the hairy little monsters darted out of the door to Shupik’s quarters before the Zeeb, who was also breakfast bound, could shut it. Automatically, I stomped its ratty little head and questioned Shupik. He told me everything, and I took the story straight to Captain Splin.
Splin called Shupik in for what I thought would be a real reaming, but in the end, he wound up commending the mudcrawler for his scientific interest and instructing him to take the rest of his brood down to the science lab for proper care and observation.
I was flabbergasted! We had no orders to take live specimens. If I, or, I suspect, any Dalkon, had done such a thing, it would have resulted in, at the very least, an official reprimand.
But I knew the reason for Splin’s leniency. Taking a severe line would have opened the captain up to a charge of species discrimination, an accusation which could be quite damaging to an officer’s career in the current political atmosphere. The Emperor had embraced the cause of “equality” and “inclusion.” The integration of the star service was simply the first beachhead in a movement which would, unless it was stemmed, horribly but inexorably erase the social and legal distinctions separating reptiles and amphibians.
The next system on our schedule, on the far rim of the Oriol sector, was composed of nine planets orbiting a yellow star called Yemed. The five outer planets were gas giants or cold rocks, and so held little interest. Our mission was quasi-scientific, but its central purpose was the discovery of worlds suitable for colonization.
The fifth planet showed some seismic abnormalities at its core that got a rise out of Commander Fezz, our expert in planetary physics. He calculated that within a thousand or so revolutions, Yemed V was likely to break up into an asteroid belt. That, and the ominous red patch on the gas giant beyond it, constituted the only interesting features on the outer worlds. But the inner planets, the third and fourth particularly, were quite interesting indeed.
Yemed IV was similar to Homeworld, generally dry, but with a sprinkling of lakes and rivers, and one small ocean that seemed to be in its latter days. Over much of the planet, vegetation was giving way to desertification. In short, Yemed IV was dying, but, using current Dalkon technology, it could yet be restored. That, however, would not happen. While Yemed IV possessed some attractive features, it was too far out to justify the expenditure of that degree of resources, and even if it had been in a more attractive location, there was one other feature which would have ruled out colonization. Yemed IV possessed intelligent life.
The natives were reptilian, and their culture was class-2, pre-industrial, and thus, according to the Dalkon Empire’s contact code, not to be disturbed. Only populations at class-5 (rudimentary space-flight capability) or above were to be made aware of our presence. Violations of that directive, unless absolutely necessary to protect the lives of Empire personnel, was punishable by dismissal from the space service at the very least.
Amphibs would appreciate the third planet, I thought, high temps, high humidity, water over eighty-plus percent of the surface. Altogether, a disgusting place, and thus perfectly suited to mudcrawlers.
Life existed on Yemed III in abundance that bordered on the obscene. It boiled up from the sea and spilled over the land in immense diversity. The reptilians were clearly in the ascendancy; they swam and flew and slithered and ran about on two legs and four. They were tiny, and impossibly huge, and all sizes in between.
I knew from my first glimpse of it on the viewscreen that we’d be sending teams down for a closer look; that was standard procedure for habitable worlds without young, impressionable cultures.
This world seemed on the verge of producing a dominant intelligent species, probably dry-land reptilian, but amphib and marine intelligence were distinct possibilities.
I present the likelihood of land-based intelligence being greater, not out of speciesism, but the generally acknowledged fact that the adaptive stimulation required by life out of the water generally results in faster evolution of the brain than the half-in-half-out life of the mudcrawler or the submerged one of the marinoid.
It came as little surprise when I, a junior science officer, was assigned leadership of one of surface survey teams; none of the ranking officers wanted to experience that squishy, soggy place any closer than standard orbit. I was not prepared, however, for who Captain Splin designated to be my one and only aide, Shupik. Splin must have had a good laugh when he made the assignment.
Actually, there was some sense in the selection. Shupik, being a Zeeb, was well-suited to duty on a watery world. I’d never been immersed in my life, and had no intention of getting any wetter than I absolutely had to while carrying out this duty, while Shupik would be right at home slogging through swamps.
I reported to the launch bay at the designated time and climbed into the lander’s control seat. Shupik was already aboard, back in the stowage area. It was every crew member’s duty, officers included, to make up his or her own pack for extra-ship jaunts and to see that it was properly stowed.
Mine was already stowed away, that task having been performed for me earlier by a certain ensign just out of training who liked to do things for me. I had not yet figured out if his intentions were in the direction of romance or career advancement. If it was the latter, he’d have done better to suck up to someone held in higher esteem by the powers that be. If it was the former, the distinct possibility existed that his efforts might not be entirely in vain.
When Shupik finished with his gear, he wordlessly took the seat beside me, and I pressed the appropriate buttons to seal the hatches and initiate the launch sequence. The bay doors slid back and we moved out into the void. I could see another lander ahead of us. It was just entering the atmosphere, its stubby wings on fire with reflected yellow sunlight.
“My,” Shupik said in his waterlogged voice, “that’s certainly a blue planet isn’t it?”
It was. A blue aquarium. A mudcrawler’s idea of heaven.
“Congratulations, Shupik. You may be stupid, but you’re not color blind.”
We set down on a plateau eight pulses from a beach where long-necked amphibs chased fish and each other offshore beyond slow-rolling breakers. We were close enough to see their dipping, thrusting necks and, when they rolled to the surface, their heavy bodies. I set the viewscreen magnification up to a factor of 200 so we could get a closer look. We could clearly make out the pebbly texture of their gray-green skin and, if we had had the time and inclination, could have counted the faceted scales around their shiny eyes.
“They’re beautiful,” Shupik bubbled.
“Might amount to something someday if they evolve enough sense to get out of the water.”
I caught a hurt look in Shupik’s bulging eyes and giggled mentally. There’s something about amphibs that brings out the mean in me.
I realize that admitting this opens me up to attacks on the basis of my sex. Dalkon males frequently accuse females of being the crueler, but that is sexist nonsense. While I admit to feelings of animosity toward amphibs, as I explained earlier, this is perfectly natural and defensible. Mudcrawlers have no place among the stars with reptiles, and, as long as we are forced to put up with them, we should at least strive to remind them of their inferiority, lest they grow to actually think themselves our equals. No amount of imperially mandated “inclusiveness” can accomplish what nature has not.
I went back to stowage and got my daypack. I strapped it on outside while I waited for Shupik to emerge. He came out after a moment, but, true to form, when he slung the pack up onto his back, one of the straps slipped loose and the whole thing fell to the ground with a thud. Shupik’s shocked expression might have made an observer think the pack was loaded with sensitive explosives. He scooped it up quickly and hugged it to his chest.
“I’d better go back inside and redo the straps, Lieutenant,” he said.
“Oh, Osus! Just buckle the stupid thing and let’s go.”
“It’ll only take a moment,” he said, and darted back into the lander where he remained for an exasperating sixty licks or more.
When he reemerged, he was wearing his pack.
“Are you ready now?” I asked with exaggerated politeness.
“I think so,” he replied.
“Seal the lander and come on,” I barked, and started off without looking back, leaving him to punch in the nine-digit code which closed and locked the port. It would require a different code to open it back up. The access codes are changed for each mission and the crew are required to memorize them. Carrying them in any written or encoded form is strictly forbidden. I wondered whether, if anything should happen to me, the dimwit amphib I was teamed with would be able to remember the access code.
Coniferous trees lined the slope of the plateau. As we made our way among them, small reptiles scurried out of our way and up their rough trunks with what seemed undue alarm. In a moment, I saw the cause of their wariness.
Out of the shadowy thatch of a recently fallen conifer strode six bipedal reptiles. Except for the presence of tails, they bore a great resemblance to Dalkons, and, judging by their fearlessness and armament, daggerlike teeth and curved claws, they were predators.
“Beamers out, set on four,” I ordered, pulling my sidearm and checking the setting. I didn’t want to kill them, but a force-four particle beam would stun them.
The pack charged with much hissing and spitting. Their heads, jaws gaping, were thrust far forward, and their flexing claws sliced the air.
I depressed the firing stud, and the leader toppled. Two others tripped over him and went down. But they were up in a lick with the agility of dancers, and closing on the remaining three who had never flagged in their rush.
I cut the rest down with a series of short sweeps. The last one fell less than a span in front of me. Five paces brought me alongside the quivering body which already seemed to be reviving. The eyelids slipped up and down and the shoulders spasmed.
“They’re reptiles, all right, but their bodies must maintain a constant temperature like ours for them to achieve this degree of vivacity.”
Then it occurred to me that Shupik had not been much help. I looked at him, and he looked away.
“I left my sidearm on the lander, Lieutenant Verrill,” he said. “When I fixed the straps on my pack, I removed the holster so I could get the waist strap buckled more easily. I guess I forgot to put it back on.”
“Shupik, you are not only stupid and ugly, you are dangerously incompetent. I’m going to report this.”
“You know that could end my career in the star service,” he whined.
“Osus, I hope so,” I hissed.
We took tissue samples from the stunned reptiles and continued on down to the beach where the long-necked amphibs played, out beyond the surf. I had Shupik record them with the multiscanner. These beasts were fascinating; the sinuous movements of their narrow, powerful necks were hypnotic. There could be beauty in amphibs, I decided, as long as they didn’t pretend to be on the same intellectual or moral plane as reptiles.
And watching those powerful jaws snap made me glad that they were largely water bound. From their size, I suspected it would take a direct hit to the head to stun one, though, if actually attacked, I would have no compunction against setting the beamer on burn and drilling one through the body.
We left the amphibs and continued down the beach. From the air, I had identified a river a few pulses to the south of the landing site. It was my intention to work down the beach to the river’s mouth and then follow it back upstream a short distance before striking back toward the lander. That way, we would have examined every micro-ecosystem within this grid, and could report with confidence on the flora, fauna, soils, and water.
I resented being sent into this muddy sewer accompanied by a mudcrawler, but I was a Dalkon officer, and as such, I would do my duty.
When we reached the river, I had Shupik take samples of the brackish water. Fish swam there in writhing shoals, and a variety of amphibs were actively feeding on them, including more of the long-necks which seemed quite as comfortable in the river as the ocean environment. They glided, necks outstretched and jaws wide, through the gray water, colliding with the schooling fish which scattered in silvery chaos before their onslaught.
The river’s bank was lined with open-jawed, somnolent amphibs basking in the sunlight. Multiscan readings revealed that these were more primitive types whose body temperature was dependent on the surrounding environment. Though not half as large as the long-necks, their potential for mayhem was obvious. We passed quite close to several of the sleeping beasts, and, since I was the only one armed, I was doubly vigilant.
Still, I was glad Shupik had left his beamer on the lander. When I reported the dereliction, Splin would have no choice but to enter a reprimand on his permanent record. I didn’t think he’d actually lose his place in the service, but that wasn’t totally impossible.
When we came to a rocky shoal devoid of baskers, I took out my locator beacon and flipped the lid. The device presented me with a readout of our location in relation to that of the lander and the time which had elapsed since we left the vehicle.
“We’re eight-point-five pulses south of the lander,” I told Shupik, “and we’ve been out for almost four megabeats.”
“Twenty-three hundred beats, twenty-seven licks,” Shupik corrected, consulting his wrist chronometer.
It was truly amazing how many ways that mudcrawler could find to irritate me.
“We’ll start back toward the lander and get a look at this low area abutting the plateau,” I said through tight lips.
“We might find some interesting life forms,” Shupik said hopefully.
“I doubt it. Seems to be swampy, so it’ll probably just hold some mudwallowers.”
A little way into the brush, we came to the lip of a sizable sand pit. It was oval and about as deep as I am tall. And it appeared to have been excavated by intelligent beings.
The pit contained thirty-seven cylindrical mounds, pillars really, with rounded tops. Their height was uniform, each as tall as a mature, male Dalkon, which made them chest high to me and slightly over Shupik’s head. They were made of the same sand which surrounded them, but some substance had been added which hardened them to the consistency of baked clay.
I instructed Shupik to record them and make some scrapings for analysis, which he dutifully did. I considered trying to break into one, but decided I’d better wait for approval on that. If these were artifacts associated with intelligent life, the code strictly forbade our tampering with them.
We’d finished examining the mounds and were starting to leave when my hypothesis regarding their origin was proven correct. About thirty of the intelligent life forms in question appeared above us on the rim of the pit. They were dark blue, slick-skinned reptiles, tailless, taller than me, and staring down at us through huge yellow eyes with vertical slits for pupils.
I held my hands up with empty palms facing out, the universal gesture of peace. One of the natives responded with a stream of clicks and hisses which sounded as though he either didn’t understand my gesture or doubted its sincerity.
Five of them started down the side of the pit toward us. They were armed with axes made from jagged bones lashed to wooden hafts, and their movements signaled belligerence.
There was no choice. I drew my beamer and cut them down.
I heard Shupik grunt and looked around in time to see him sag to the sand, a native axe having smashed into the side of his head.
I felt a numbing blow to my hand, and the beamer went flying. Another axe crashed into my forehead and I fell unconscious beside the groaning Zeeb.
When I regained consciousness, I found myself trussed up securely and slung over the shoulder of one of the natives — one of the intelligent natives which made this a class-2 world off-limits to colonization. This was, of course, precisely the sort of thing we were supposed to be discovering and reporting back about, but reporting anything seemed unlikely now since the natives had relieved me of my backpack which contained the portable communicator.
They hadn’t removed my clothing, though it must have seemed strange to them who wore nothing at all. I reasoned that it was possible they considered our uniforms a part of us since they were form-fitting and had a textured grain not unlike that of the blue skin which covered the flexing haunch in front of my face.
There must have been musk glands located there, because the aroma arising from the native’s anal area was pungent, not unpleasant, though. Certainly, these true reptiles smelled a good deal better than the Zeeb with which I had been partnered.
The natives carried Shupik and me to the river where they loaded us into sturdy dugouts they’d left pulled up on the beach. I was frankly terrified. As a rule, Dalkons cannot swim and abhor water. This is a rule to which I am no exception.
When we were actually under way, I began to think about the long-necks, and those magnificent, graceful beasts became nightmare creatures in my imagination. I imagined in grisly detail one coming up explosively under the dugout or reaching in for a snack.
They’d put Shupik in a dugout being paddled close beside mine. The amphib seemed none the worse for wear. He was sitting up and looking around. In fact, I thought he was probably in better shape than me. I was pretty sure bones had snapped in my hand when the axe knocked my beamer away, and I still felt a little groggy from the blow to the skull.
I hoped the natives wouldn’t mind if I talked to Shupik, but I intended to try it anyway. I could only think of one way out of this, and it depended on the Zeeb.
“Shupik,” I called across to him. One of the paddlers looked back over his shoulder at me but didn’t seem overly concerned.
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
“Could you swim to shore bound with those fibers like that?”
“No question, in fact, my bonds are a little loose. In the water, I’m sure I could slip them. When wet, my skin exudes a natural lubricating oil.”
“Don’t remind me of your disgusting amphib traits. You’ve got to get back to the lander and inform the ship of the…developments.”
“I’d better make a move soon,” he said. “I believe our destination is in sight.”
The dugouts were veering for the seaward end of what appeared to be a long, narrow island in the middle of the river. A logical place for the natives to establish themselves I thought. An island would provide a large degree of safety in a world of powerful land predators.
I turned back to Shupik just in time to see him give a sudden heave that sent him rolling over the side of the dugout. Blue arms reached out, but a lick too late. Shupik was gone. Probably into the mouth of something very large and very hungry, I thought.
The natives had a village on the island, but not one that would have been readily discernible from above. They lived in burrows scooped out of the sandy soil. If this was typical of the type of settlement constructed by these creatures, it was small wonder we had seen no evidence of their constructions from orbit.
I was unbound and escorted down into an underground chamber whose roof was supported by timbers. It was dark except for hazy light issuing from the opening, which was partially blocked by the bodies of two guards posted there.
The place was apparently a storage cellar. Woven baskets held dried fish and reptile flesh, and there were piles of reptile skins, both scaled and smooth.
Mammals had evidently never evolved on this planet. If any existed, there should have been evidence here. I’ve never heard of a reptilian race that didn’t relish mammal flesh, but among all the cured hides, there was not one hair in sight, and I didn’t think that was the result of tanning.
There were several clay jugs which contained a mucky, brown fluid. At first, I thought it was some kind of drink, but after testing the gluey stuff with my fingertips, I deduced that it was some sort of cement, perhaps the material they used to harden the exteriors of the mounds in the sand pit.
According to my wrist chronometer, they left me alone for almost two full megabeats. After this time, three of them came for me, and I was taken back up above.
The entire village seemed to have gathered to greet me. There was a good deal of pointing and hissing, especially from the females (which, unlike their Dalkon counterparts, were smaller than the males) and the spawn.
They formed a ring of pressing bodies around me but stepped back when one of the males detached himself from the group to address me. He stood close and clicked and hissed for a long time. I smiled and nodded, and, from time to time, tried to break in and make him understand that I had no idea what he was trying to say.
On each occasion I tried this, speaking in Dalkonian which was, of course, as unintelligible to him as the gibberish he was spouting was to me, he merely turned to the crowd, raised his palms slightly, clicked a few syllables, and shrugged. This, invariably, brought a renewed wave of hisses. Though I had no inkling of what he was saying about me, I had little doubt but that it was decidedly unflattering and probably slanderous.
As this odd scene unfolded, I began to suspect that if Shupik failed in his mission, it was unlikely that I would ever see Homeworld again.
What a hideous thought that was — my life in the slimy hands of a mudcrawler. And, more than that, dependent on those abilities of his which were most abhorrent. He’d never make it through the predators that filled this alien river unless he swam like a champion, or fought like one, or both. Recalling upon whom my fate depended, I calmly resigned myself to meet my fate like a true reptile.
Following the public interrogation, I was taken to the beach. For one awful moment, I thought they were going to make me swim for the far shore, but I soon perceived that the fate they had in mind for me possessed far more inherent entertainment value than a mere drowning.
The villagers assembled along the beach, and three of the males took me out into the water until I stood waist deep. I stifled an urge to vomit as the slimy water rode up my dry flesh.
Presently, another native paddled a dugout to where I stood and then climbed out of it and, with the help of the others, purposely tipped it so that it filled and sank. This accomplished, they took a line from the submerged dugout and knotted it snugly around my throat.
While this was going on, two other dugouts had put out, and the natives in them were busily engaged in throwing chunks of meat, some as large as my torso, into the water. The chunks were tied to wooden floats, so they remained on the surface. The dugouts worked well out into the river, and the water was soon littered with the floating red hunks. It looked as if some giant animal had exploded.
Before the natives in the dugouts had finished their work, the ones who had tethered me had waded back to shore. And, as soon as the last slab of meat had splashed into the oily water, the dugouts retreated to the beach as well.
I was alone with water lapping around my belly. Overhead, a leather-winged reptile soared. It had grown quiet.
I still had no clue as to what was going on. Knowing nothing about fishing, I had never heard of a practice known as chumming. Thus, it was a total surprise to me when the long-necks began to arrive.
An oval head broke water and jaws gaped for one of the most distant chunks of floating meat. A different toothy head gulped a piece a few spans closer to me. In moments, I counted six of them eating the bait, the appetizers, and working their way toward the main course of living flesh.
I pulled against the cord as hard as I could, and when I saw that it wouldn’t break, I began to try to untie the knots. Impossible. The raw reptile-leather might as well have been a forged metal chain. In desperation, I tried to chew through it, but my ancestors had been omnivores so my blunt teeth were thoroughly inadequate to the task.
I did however hear a few calls from the beach that might have been taken as a sign of approval for my spunk and ingenuity. Of course, they may have been expressions of contempt at my foolishness.
Two of the beasts reached shallow water at the same time. One of them forged strongly ahead and stretched its ropy neck toward a piece of meat which it gulped voraciously. It looked directly at me and moved in my direction.
The water was too shallow for the huge animal to swim, so it approached with a rolling, hitching motion that was terrible to watch. Terrible for me, that is. From the rising volume of screeches and hoots emanating from the beach, the spectators evidently found it quite entertaining.
The beast had competition, however. The other one had noticed me too, and was humping along in the same direction. Slightly faster than the first, the second beast overtook its rival and chugged ahead.
I had never felt so wanted.
Just before the second beast left it completely behind, the first shot its head across the gap separating them and grabbed the other by its sinuous neck. Blood spurted into the water.
A loud cheer went up from the appreciative crowd.
The reprieve was short-lived. Another beast forged ahead of the first two which were now locked in a death-battle. I shrank back to the end of my tether. As the beast closed, I couldn’t repress a scream. I thought that my last sight would be of jagged fangs and the black slits at the center of its cold, shiny eyes.
The head jerked to one side, and the supporting bowed stalk of its neck collapsed. This remarkable phenomenon occurred twice more, to the two other nearest long-necks, before I realized that I was seeing the effects of a well-aimed beamer.
Shupik stood chest deep in the water, a few spans away. He lowered himself until only his head and the hand holding the beamer were above water and glided to me.
A sound that I took for an expression of mass disappointment rose from the crowd on the beach when Shupik set the beamer on burn and used it to sever my tether.
“All right so far,” I said, “but how do we get out of here?”
“We swim,” he said, simply. “It isn’t very far to shore.”
“I can’t swim,” I said. “And do you really think you could make it through all those predators carrying me and taking me up for air if you had to submerge?”
“No,” he decided, “but I have another idea.”
Shupik took me by the hand and started for the beach.
“Are you crazy?”
“No. Follow me.”
For some reason, I did, without complaining or criticizing. I noticed that he was wearing a pack. I knew that the natives had taken his original pack off as they had mine, so I surmised that he must have taken another from the lander.
It occurred to me that Shupik was performing acts above and beyond his duty. To fulfill the letter of his duty, all Shupik had had to do was reach the lander and send a message for help. But he had done much more than that. He had risked his life coming back for me.
“Are you going to try to stun them all?” I asked, treading water now just barely above my knees. “They’re pretty good with those throwing axes.”
“Yes, I remember,” Shupik said, leading me doggedly on toward the beach.
When we reached the beach, a native raised an axe. Shupik stunned him and did the same to two others who made aggressive moves. Then he let go of my hand and reached into his pack. The thing he brought out had a galvanizing effect on the natives.
It was an ovoid about the size of Shupik’s fist.
The natives shrieked and hissed, and several started forward. Shupik tossed the object onto the sand and, quickly changing the setting on his beamer, reduced it to smoking shards with a burn ray.
The blue-skinned reptiles stopped cold, as though totally awed by what they had seen. Shupik took advantage of the pause by using it to hand the beamer to me. I winced a little as I took it due to the injury to my hand. Shupik took off his pack and laid it, opened, on the sand. It was filled with more of the grayish ovoids.
“Eggs,” he said. “I thought we might have stumbled onto a hatching ground before, so, after I called the ship, I went back and opened up one of the mounds. I thought I might need some…uh, hostages.”
“Then that’s why they’ve been so unfriendly, they thought we were threatening their young?”
“They evidently keep a strong guard near the hatching ground at all times. I had to stun several of them to get these.”
After laying the open pack in the sand, Shupik motioned for me to give him the beamer. I complied and he took my hand again.
“We’ll walk backwards to the dugouts,” he said, taking a first tentative, backward step while keeping the beamer angled down toward the eggs.
A native moved forward threateningly, and Shupik burned a smoking hole in the sand a finger width from the eggs. The big male who had moved out not only stopped, he threw down his axe and retreated. For good measure, Shupik sent two more shots close enough to the pack to singe it. There were no further threatening moves.
When we reached the dugouts, Shupik used the beamer to punch holes in all but one, and then we pushed off in the remaining craft.
The natives surged forward to gather up the eggs while Shupik and I paddled strongly for the far shore.
When we were well out, I looked back toward the island and the blue reptiles who inhabited it. Would we be remembered, I wondered. Would we become a part of their mythology? And, if so, would we be gods or demons?
We beached the dugout and had made it halfway back to the lander when we saw a rescue craft descending.
We met the team at the lander, and I explained what had happened.
“I noticed that the port was left open on the lander,” the leader said. “You realize that is a significant breach of protocol. I’ll have to report it, I’m afraid.”
“Of course,” I agreed, “it’s your duty to do so.”
She turned, her head tilted in a most irritatingly arrogant fashion, and led her team back to their craft.
“You mudworm,” I added when she was out of hearing.
I looked at Shupik who looked panicked.
“What’s wrong?”
“A good deal, I think.”
Shupik darted inside the open port. I followed him in and found him sagged into a seat and moaning.
“How could I have been so stupid?”
“It’s not that important,” I said, consolingly. “Sure, leaving the port open is a breach of the rules, but you were under considerable stress. And if you’d taken the time to lock the Osus damned port, you might have been too late to save me.”
“No, Lieutenant Verrill, you don’t understand. It’s not leaving the port unsealed that I’m concerned about, it’s what happened because I left it open.”
“What?”
“The mammals. I brought some of them with me. I’d been hiding them in my quarters. When I was assigned to this mission, I was afraid someone might find them and report it. I was supposed to take all of them to the science lab.”
“I know.”
“Anyway, I put them in my pack, and when we were getting ready to leave the lander…”
“You dropped the pack. I remember you seemed overly concerned about it.”
“I was afraid I might have hurt them. I went back in the lander to check if they were all right. They were fine.”
“That’s why you said you wanted to fix the straps and took so ridiculously long to do it.”
“That’s right. I left them in the stowage compartment. I’d planned to make up some excuse to get inside the lander before you when we finished the mission and get them back in my pack.”
“But when you came back to send the message about my capture—”
“I was so agitated, I forgot about them, and I left the port open.”
“And now they’ve escaped.”
“They could be anywhere.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
“Well, that’s a very serious breach all right, introducing alien life forms onto a class-2 world, and mammals at that on a world with no mammalian forms at all. But, Osus, Shupik, it’s not all that bad.”
“It’s not?” he brightened.
“Two little rats in the midst of all these razor-toothed reptiles. I’ll bet they don’t last the day. Of course, if they did establish a breeding population, it could change the whole ecological destiny of the planet. They weren’t a male and a female were they?”
“No, two females.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Both pregnant.”
It’s hard to owe one’s life to a mudcrawler.
End
