Rite of Passage Page 2

  He remembered Carol.

  He remembered Earth—one hundred light-years away.

  “That’s enough,” he said. “Turn it off.”

  They were alone again, alone with the muted scream of the jets and the whispers from an endless sea.

  Ahead of them, waiting, was Carinae IV. Only a name to them now, a name and a sphere of blue and green—a whole world, utterly unknown.

  And three men who would have to call it home.

  Bob Chavez, his face set and pale, pulled the shuttle out when they were five miles from the surface. He jockeyed the little ship down gingerly to a self-correcting altitude of one mile. The ship hissed through the atmosphere of Carinae IV, losing speed.

  The portable survey equipment from the Juarez was in action, but they all looked down.

  They saw great wooded tracts, soft brown under the yellow sun. They saw lush green fields, rolling away in search of the horizon. They saw emerald lakes and sparkling streams that spider-webbed across the land.

  And then there were blue-black mountain ranges, their peaks dusted with cloud, that the shuttle had to rise over sharply in order to pass. And a gray desert, cut with dry canyons and fluid with driven sand. And a band of thick green—

  And then the sea. An enormous sea, translucent green and flecked with white spray from long, chopping waves. A sea that seemed to go on forever, empty except for periodic outcroppings of coral islands, lightly sprinkled with green. A sea that stretched on and on, tossing fitfully, until it lost itself in darkness.

  The shuttle flashed on into the night side, its scream shattering the stillness of the deserted air. The three men sat quietly, listening to the portable survey equipment clicking and buzzing as it picked up and integrated data from scanner beams and thermal radiations and movement indices, correlating them into rough ecological frameworks.

  Martin Ashley had already seen enough to confirm the preliminary distance survey made by the Juarez when they had first entered the Carinae system.

  There were no cities, no large concentrations of any sort, on Carinae IV. There was no detectable industry. There was no radio, no power, no technology that could register on the sensitive detectors.

  But they had all seen one thing that the distance survey had missed. One thing that made all the difference.

  Men.

  The planet was occupied.

  The shuttle stayed in the air, circling the planet. It whistled into the sunrise and hissed on toward high noon.

  Martin Ashley lit up his pipe and worked his way through the survey data, adding to it from his own observations and training. His green eyes were bloodshot now, and he was going on sheer nervous energy. He was tired, but there was a question he had to answer. He read the question in the eyes of his two companions:

  What kind of a world is it, this new home of ours?

  He took a deep breath and clamped his pipe more firmly in his teeth. He looked down at the world slipping by under the shuttle, jungle growth now, and felt vaguely amused at his own presumption in trying to sum up a whole planet in a few well-chosen words. Planets could be tricky enough in themselves, and when they were inhabited by human beings it was a rash observer indeed who would predict dogmatically what they were like.

  Human beings had a curious tendency to remain unpredictable, despite all the survey equipment and charts and figures and analyzers. Quite possibly, Martin Ashley had long ago decided, that was why they were human beings.

  He took a stab at it, though. That was his job.

  “It looks pretty good,” he said slowly, “if we handle ourselves right when we land. But I’ve got to warn you about something, and you’ll have to remember it if you want to stay alive down there—all I can tell you about right now is what this planet looks like on the surface. You’ve both kicked around on survey ships long enough to know that surface indications can be very misleading. There’s an example I want you to paste inside your skull somewhere; imagine yourself to be some alien observer that has come to Earth. Say you land on a beach, and there you see some old joker padding about in his shorts and getting sunburned. Let’s say that this old joker is one of the greats, taking a day off. You name him—Aristotle, Shakespeare, Einstein, Retokin. All you see is an old red man in his shorts. Maybe he looks stupid and senile. How are you going to evaluate this man, just by watching him soak up the sun? Your first impression may be very, very wrong—and if you treat our hypothetical bigwig as an ignorant lout, you may very well wake up dead in the morning.”

  He blew a smoke ring at the shuttle control panel and tried to judge what effect his words were having. Hard to tell. It was so easy to make a false move in a contact situation that sometimes fantastic precautions had to be taken. And if they guessed wrong on Carinae IV, there wouldn’t be any Juarez to get them out alive.

  It was strictly up to them.

  “O.K.,” he said. “You’ve been watching too, and I don’t know that I can add very much to what you’ve seen. On the surface, and as far as the survey equipment can analyze, there is nothing technologically complex down there. The atmosphere and general planet-type are fine and dandy, of course, or we wouldn’t have come here from the Juarez. The planet is definitely inhabited, and evidently inhabited by human beings. As far as I can see, the people here are pretty well scattered over the planet—you could see them in the forests and on the plains and even out on those coral islands in that one big ocean. There’s one very curious thing, and I don’t quite know what to make of it yet; all the people I saw appear to have a relatively uniform material culture. I didn’t see a single group practicing really advanced agriculture, but on the other hand I didn’t see a single group without cleared crops of some sort. If the data’s been analyzed correctly, those crops all seem to be of the same general type, with specialized local varieties for differing environmental conditions. That may be very significant, or it may be just a fluke of planetary ecology—but it’s worth bearing in mind. All the groups I saw appear to practice a mixed economy—some agriculture, some hunting and fishing and gathering. The largest group we picked up contained about one hundred individuals—no really large concentrations of population. House types look crude but adequate. No energy weapons at all, so I assume these people utilize either a spear or a bow, depending on how far they’ve gotten. That’s about it, the way I see it. A rather primitive level of cultural development, as far as I can tell from here, and only one puzzling feature—the culture seems amazingly uniform all over the planet. That’s really astonishing, considering that they appear to have little or no means of long-distance communication. I can’t explain it. Any ideas?”

  Ernie Gallen shrugged. “That’s not my department, Mart,” he said. “Maybe they’re all in a rut.”

  “Telepaths?” suggested Bob Chavez.

  Martin Ashley shrugged, puffing on his pipe. “Let’s hope not,” he said. “Learning a telepathic language is the toughest job there is, especially when you don’t happen to work that way.”

  “It does sort of simplify things in a way—the uniform culture, I mean,” Gallen suggested. “At least there’s no problem of picking the right group to set down in. They’re all the same; we can just flip a coin.”

  “Don’t forget Mr. Einstein on the beach,” cautioned Ashley. He was genuinely worried, but it would serve no useful purpose to upset the others now. “But Ernie’s right—I guess we might as well set her down. The preliminary survey from the Juarez showed one other possibility in this system, remember—Carinae V. But I sure don’t feel like trying that hop in this scooter unless we have to. I vote we go down.”

  Ernie Gallen nodded. “Same here,” he said.

  “I’ll make it unanimous then,” Bob Chavez agreed. A spark of interest burned in his dark eyes—the first sign of animation he had shown since his father’s death. “It’s really something, isn’t it?” he asked with wonder in his voice, “just think of all we know, all we’ve been through, that they haven’t even started to think about yet down th
ere! A whole world waiting for us, a whole new world to build up for us—and maybe for our children.”

  “Lord knows it could use some developing,” agreed Ernie Gallen.

  Martin Ashley smiled, hiding the sick feeling that turned his stomach to ice. “Beggars can’t be too particular,” he said. “Take her down, Bob.”

  The scream of the jets muted into a roaring mutter and the shuttle from the Juarez started down.

  The shuttle had landed.

  They could not, of course, open up the port until the air was carefully analyzed—not for basic constituents, which they already knew were O.K., but for possible disease contamination. Just because some human beings could live on Carinae IV didn’t mean that they could, without long-developed immunities.

  The dead Juarez was eloquent testimony to this basic fact.

  They could see, however, and they could hear. They saw a rich green field of grass all around them, stretching away into the west as far as the eye could see, and merging in the east with the soft browns and yellows and greens of a spacious forest. They heard the strange silence of land left alone—a vibrant silence compounded of a myriad of tiny sounds, of wind whispers and furtive chirpings and distant cries of unknown animals.

  Carinae IV had a “day” of twenty-two Earth hours, and now the yellow sun was setting on the far horizon, settling gingerly like an elastic ball among the peaks of a blue-black mountain range. Long shadows marched silently through the sea of grass.

  The air analyzers hummed gently, and evening came to Carinae IV. Even here, Martin Ashley thought, so far from home, the night still came. How many times had the night fallen on this world, and what dramas of love and hate had played themselves out on the grass fields that swayed unconcernedly around the alien shuttle from Earth? How many times would he see the night fall here—and what would the days be like that separated the nights?

  This world looked peaceful, contented. A man could do a lot worse, he thought, and had done a lot worse. But how could you tell?

  A volcano was pleasant enough—until it erupted. And this world was far from Earth, had never even heard of Earth.

  Its standards would be different.

  “Well, we can’t go out until morning,” Ernie said, sensing the thoughts that were in all their minds. “Let’s hit the sack and worry about it when the time comes.”

  He tested the radio, and the message came in at once: “SHUTTLE TO FOURTH PLANET, SYSTEM OF CARINAE. CONDITIONS THERE UNKNOWN. WILL MAINTAIN CONTACT WITH SHUTTLE RADIO. SURVIVORS ARE ERNEST GALLEN, RADIOMAN; ROBERT CHAVEZ, APPRENTICE PILOT; MARTIN ASHLEY, ANTHROPOLOGIST. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL—”

  He switched it off. “A good night,” he finished. “Tell the bugler to take it easy in the morning; I got sensitive ears.”

  “Good night,” said Bob Chavez, lost in thought and awed again at the enormity of the thing that had happened to them.

  “Good night,” said Martin Ashley. He was very tired and trying not to hope too much. He did not sleep for a long time, listening to the night sounds outside and the rustling of the breeze in the long grass.

  He slept, finally, but it was a restless, uneasy sleep—the sleep of a man who knows that he is not alone.

  And high overhead, an almost invisible speck of light lost in the silver glow of the solitary moon of Carinae IV, the empty Juarez floated in a slow circle among the stars.

  III.

  In the morning, the natives were there.

  There were three of them, standing patiently in the tall green grass. They were dressed in short, togalike garments that left the arms and legs free. Two of them carried bows, and the third was armed with a metallic club of some sort. They acted neither threateningly nor fearfully.

  They simply waited.

  Martin Ashley looked them over carefully from the security of the shuttle, taking in the situation with a practiced eye. Bob Chavez was still new to this type of experience, and his pale face was flushed with excitement. Ernie Gallen sized them up without enthusiasm; to him, they looked pretty much like primitive peoples he had seen on any one of a dozen occupied planets.

  “Hail, fellow citizens and newfound brothers,” Ernie said, determined to make the best of a situation that in no way appealed to him. “We want to be pals, so kindly point them things the other way.”

  “They don’t look so bad, do they, Mart?” Bob asked.

  “Not from here,” Martin Ashley agreed.

  “The view from the inside of a stewpot is less flattering,” Ernie Gallen observed. “But this is your department, Mart. What do you make of them?”

  Martin Ashley smiled. There were three human beings, standing in the high grass fifty yards from the ship. He had never seen them before and knew practically nothing about them. Human beings were ticklish things to evaluate, even if you knew them well. What did he make of Ernie Gallen and Bob Chavez? He wasn’t sure, and they were inside the ship.

  But never mind all that, doctor. Just give us the capsule diagnosis, and if you’re wrong… well, better luck next time. If there is a next time.

  He said: “There are only three of them, and unless my eyes are getting too old to tell the difference one of them looks like a woman. See—the one with the club or whatever that thing is? I could be mistaken, but they hardly look like a war party. They don’t seem angry, and they don’t seem afraid. Probably we’re something completely outside their experience, but I’m just assuming that. Unfortunately, I’m not Sherlock Holmes. I can’t look at the color of the clay on their heels and tell you their philosophy of life. There’s only one way to find out, unfortunately.”

  Ernie Gallen cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “I’ll just have to go out and see,” Martin Ashley said. “The air analyzers say O.K., and we’ll have to do it sooner or later.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Bob Chavez offered at once.

  Ashley warmed a little at that; maybe he had misjudged the kid. “Thanks, but that won’t do,” he said. “You stay here with Ernie and keep me covered. Remember: don’t shoot unless I signal I’m in trouble. And if they get me first, just get out of here and try again some place else.

  “Good luck,” Ernie Gallen said.

  Martin Ashley nodded and stepped into the open air lock. He closed the inner door behind him; it wasn’t necessary except for the fact that the outer door would not operate with the inner door open. He spun the heavy wheel and the outer door clicked open.

  He took a deep breath and stepped out into the morning air.

  The tall grass of the field was still wet with dew and the world was still chilled by the night. The sun, climbing rapidly now, was pale and just beginning to feel warm on his back.

  He walked steadily, watching the three natives. He felt little emotion now; this was a job he had done many times, on many worlds. He was not visibly armed, but he had a gun inside his shirt. He didn’t want to use it, and wouldn’t use it if he could help it. But he had used it before, and would again if it were necessary. He smiled wryly.

  You didn’t have to go to school to learn about survival.

  The three natives watched him come, unmoving. As he came closer, he saw that one of them was unmistakably a woman. The natives had an odd pink skin color, almost the shade of salmon, that looked like a perpetual sunburn. They were handsome people, by any standards, and they looked him straight in the eye.

  Ashley walked slowly. It was a long fifty yards. He kept his face utterly expressionless. He was very careful not to smile. There were no such things as “universal” gestures. On one planet a smile meant friendship, while on another it might be a bitter insult. Expressionless features were almost always a sign of neutrality, since that was the resting position of the face. It was the safest bet there was.

  When he was about seven yards from them, Ashley stopped. He did nothing. He simply stood there, his hands empty at his side. He made no sound. He waited for them to make the first move.

  They eyed him without fear—without even curiosi
ty, as far as he could tell. A long sixty seconds passed. Then one of the men smiled, making Ashley feel a little silly, and put his bow on the ground. The other man promptly followed his example, and the woman put down her metallic club.

  Taking no chances, Ashley took out his gun and placed it on the pile with the other weapons. The others smiled approval.

  The first man said something to him, speaking slowly and softly. Testing? Ashley could not, of course, understand a word. He replied in English: “I know that we can’t understand each other yet, but I hope that understanding may come.” He smiled a little and added, “It had better come—and soon.”

  The native appeared satisfied. He pointed toward the east, where the forest trees loomed up like a wall beyond the grass, made the shape of a hut in the air, and then pointed at Ashley. The meaning was clear enough—Ashley was welcome to come to the village if he so desired.

  Ashley did some pointing of his own, to indicate that he wanted to go back to the ship first. The natives understood instantly. They’re not stupid, Ashley thought, and that’s for sure.

  Ashley went back to the shuttle and told Bob and Ernie where he was going. He told them to give him four days and then clear out if he didn’t make it back. He shook hands with both of them and rejoined the three natives.

  They picked up their weapons and Ashley picked up his, and no one bothered about them again. The first native led the way through the damp grass, with Ashley second and the other man and the woman following behind. The natives talked quietly among themselves and seemed perfectly at ease.

  Martin Ashley felt the sun getting hotter on his back and tried to tell himself that the wrongness he felt was only nerves.

  But he knew better.

  Once contact had been made, the rest slipped easily into routine—for a while. Ashley had to constantly remind himself that this time it was different. There was no Juarez to report back to, no paper to write up about a people whose lives had intersected his for a brief few weeks and then been lost again among the stars.