The Winds of Altair Read online

  "Am I?" Carbo got up from his chair and went to the computer terminal screen on the desk in Amanda's living room. He punched a few buttons as Amanda and Peterson, exchanging puzzled looks, left the dining table and crossed the room to join him.

  "Take a look," Carbo said, jabbing a stubby thumb at the screen. "From the Church of Nirvan's own Bible. The Book of Genesis . . . which they prefer to Darwin's 'Origin of the Species.' "

  Peterson bent his lanky frame to stare at the computer screen. Amanda took the desk chair and sat in it. The screen read:

  'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created them.

  'And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.'

  Peterson's craggy face, illuminated by the glow from the screen, went somber. "Be fruitful and multiply. What a mess that's gotten us into. Seventeen billion people on Earth . . ."

  "That's not the point," Carbo said, his soft voice almost a whisper.

  "Then what is the point?" Amanda asked.

  "According to the Church of Nirvan, according to the guiding principles of this colonization effort, God has given Man a blank check to subdue and dominate all the other creatures of the world."

  "Of Earth, you mean," Peterson corrected.

  Carbo shook his head. "No, of whatever part of the world we happen to be in. The Church is sophisticated enough to allow for the fact that the human race is no longer confined to one planet."

  "Subdue and dominate," Amanda echoed.

  "That's right," Carbo said. "God isn't interested in ecology. Man was told by God—they believe—that he can do whatever he feels necessary to any other creature in the world. And even if we come across an intelligent species, if it doesn't look human then it doesn't matter. Only we were created in God's image; the rest are nothing more than beasts."

  Amanda swivelled her chair around to look up at Carbo. "But you don't think that Foy . . ."

  "I think that Foy will follow the dictates of his religion, especially when they reinforce his own personal self-interest."

  Peterson walked slowly to the recliner chair next to the sofa and sank into it. "Then . . . even if the wolfcats are intelligent, Foy's attitude would be unchanged."

  "That's right."

  "But it's up to Dr. Ferris to stop any action that would harm an intelligent species," Amanda said.

  Carbo nodded glumly. "Do you honestly think that Louisa Ferris can stand up to Bishop Foy? I don't."

  CHAPTER 11

  Peterson left shortly afterward, looking very unhappy.

  Amanda, sitting beside Carbo on the sofa in her living room, said, "You've dropped a ton of bricks onto his shoulders."

  "I didn't mean to," he replied. "You think I should have stayed silent?"

  "No. I don't see how you could."

  "I had to tell him."

  "Yes," Amanda agreed. "It's just that he's already got so much responsibility, what with heading the landing team and all . . ."

  "I know."

  "So you think that Jeff's right? The wolfcats are intelligent?"

  Carbo threw up his hands. "How can I say? I'm not an anthropologist. I'm not even a psychologist! It's not my field."

  "But it's your responsibility. Our responsibility, I mean."

  "Yes," he admitted. "My responsibility. I can stop this whole business if I want to. It's my responsibility."

  "Not yours alone, Frank," she said. "I could run the lab without you, if I had to."

  He smiled at her. "Yes, I suppose you could."

  "So don't try to carry this whole load on your own shoulders."

  "You want your share of it?"

  "I've got my share, whether I want it or not."

  Carbo looked into her deep dark eyes for a long moment. Finally he said, "Would you share this burden with me even if you didn't have to?"

  Amanda cocked her head and grinned at him. "I'll tell you what responsibility I'll share with you . . . willingly."

  "What?"

  She nodded toward the dining area table. "Cleaning up the dirty dishes."

  "Oh." His face fell.

  "I never feel comfortable going to bed unless the kitchen's cleaned up first," Amanda said.

  "Oh?" Carbo felt his spirits rise.

  They lay side by side on Amanda's bed, a thin sheen of perspiration covering their naked bodies, the only light in the room coming from the soft glow of a luminescent abstract painting on the wall above their heads.

  Carbo stroked Amanda's shoulder. His hand wandered down across her breast, her stomach, the gentle curve of her hip.

  "You know, my skin is almost darker than yours," he whispered.

  "Too many white hunters in my family tree," Amanda answered, smiling.

  "There were Moors in my family background," Carbo said. "Centuries ago. People from northern Italy still call southerners Africans, Ethiopians. It's a big joke in northern Italy."

  "Not in Africa."

  He turned toward her and nuzzled the hollow where her throat and shoulder met. Amanda sighed softly.

  "We'll start our own religion," he said at last. "The African-Italian Voodoo Catholic Church."

  "Voodoo is West Indian, not African," Amanda said.

  "Oh. Yes, of course."

  She turned toward him and grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of his head. "But we can call it anything you like, Frank. Just as long as we leave all that petty nonsense behind us. No barriers between us, Frank! Not race, or religion, or nationality. We are two human beings, ninety-five trillion kilometers from Earth; two human beings who love each other."

  "It's a long distance from home, isn't it?" In the semi-darkness, his voice had a lost, sad echo in it.

  "A long distance from all the hatreds and terrors of the past," Amanda said.

  "And from all the rules, the laws that defined right from wrong."

  She was silent for a moment. Then, propping herself on one elbow, she asked, "Do you need those laws, Frank? Can't you make your own rules?"

  He gazed at her beautiful, serious face, barely visible in the soft radiance of the painting.

  "Amanda," he whispered, "I don't want to have this colonization effort shut down. I think perhaps Jeff is right, and the wolfcats are intelligent, but I still want the colonization to proceed."

  He couldn't see the expression on her face, whether she was surprised or disappointed or angry. Her voice was calm, though, as she asked:

  "Even if it means wiping out all the animals down there?"

  He nodded in the darkness. "Yes."

  "But why . . ."

  "Because I believe the same way that Foy does, damn my soul! I don't want to believe that way, but I do. I realized while we were talking with Peterson this evening. We've got to subdue and dominate that world down there. We have no choice!"

  "Frank, I don't understand why . . ."

  "Earth is dying, Amanda! You know that, you saw it every day of your life. The whole planet is suffocating under megatonnages of human flesh. We need colonies, we need places to export people, to ease the population pressure on our home world."

  "But Altair VI isn't fit for human life. You said so yourself."

  "We'll have to make it fit."

  "There are other worlds," Amanda said.

  "None like Earth. We haven't found a truly Earthlike planet anywhere. Altair VI is as good as any. We've got to transform it. Otherwise, Earth is lost."

  Amanda let herself drop back onto her pillows. To the ceiling, she said, "We've subdued and dominated the Earth to the point of destroying it Now we've got to subdue and dominate new worlds."

  "I don't like it any more than you do," he said. "But we have no choice. It's either tame the new worlds or sink into extinction."

  "And the living creatures on this world? The wolfcats and all the rest?
"

  "It's either them or us, Amanda."

  "There must be another way."

  "There isn't."

  Amanda thought hard about it, but she could find no argument to counter his.

  So the wolfcats and all the rest will die, she thought. Just as the gorilla and elephant and giraffe were driven into extinction on Earth. Man the exterminator. It's not enough that we slaughter ourselves and the other creatures of our own planet. Now we have to reach out and begin killing the creatures of every world we touch.

  She dozed fitfully, unaccustomed to sharing her bed after the long months away from Earth. She dreamed of Africa, of a dark menacing forest that was totally silent and empty of all animals. Not even an insect buzzed to relieve the oppressive, guilty silence. Yet something, someone was pursuing her. Amanda walked slowly through the shadowy woods, barefoot, frightened. She realized, all of a sudden, that she was naked and that this silence was a danger in itself. Something was behind her, coming after her, and she could not hear it approaching.

  She began to walk faster. The sun was a distant glowing blur against the clouds that covered the sky, but even so the heat was thick and heavy. Sweat poured from her, she could feel it trickling along her with stinging drops of salt. She wanted to stop, to rest, but she could not. Tangled vines and underbrush flailed at her bare legs. Moving forward was more difficult with each step. But she had to keep going. She ran, her lungs burning, knowing that if she stopped even for a moment she would be horribly, horribly killed.

  And then she saw someone up ahead. A man! A friend. He beckoned to her. She knew he was calling to her, but she could not hear a word. She struggled through the thick underbrush, battled against the vines that tried to twine themselves around her naked, sweating body. The man was dark-skinned, smiling to her, beckoning to her, showing her the way to safety.

  She broke free of the underbrush at last and ran the last dozen steps toward him. He collapsed onto the grass, his body slashed in a dozen gushing, bleeding wounds. She recognized his face. It was her brother.

  Amanda sat bolt upright in the bed, both her fists pressed against her mouth to keep herself from screaming. Carbo slept sprawled on his stomach, oblivious.

  She cried for a long while, rocking slowly back and forth, silently. When at last no more tears would flow from her eyes, she lay back again and stared at the ceiling. Carbo stirred and flung an arm across her midriff. She turned her head to look at him and smiled sadly at the sleeping man. She lay there, silent, awake, not daring to close her eyes for fear of dreaming again.

  CHAPTER 12

  Jeff was surprised when Dr. Peterson came up to his table and sat down beside him. It was early in the morning; the cafeteria was nearly empty, as usual. Only the handful of students who had early chores assigned to them were shuffling through the cafeteria's serving line, half asleep.

  Peterson put down a tray heaped with everything the cafeteria offered at this hour next to Jeff's meager breakfast of juice and cereal.

  "Mind if I have a few words with you?" he asked, pulling out the chair next to Jeff's.

  "Sure," Jeff said.

  Peterson folded his long legs around the chair, took up a large glass of juice and drank down half of it. "They don't serve coffee here," he said.

  "No. We don't drink coffee or tea," Jeff replied.

  "Where I come from," Peterson said, a smile on his craggy face, "nobody can start the day without a big mug of steaming hot coffee."

  Jeff said nothing.

  Peterson's smile faded by degrees. "Dr. Carbo tells me that you think the wolfcats are intelligent."

  "That's right."

  Cutting into his eggs, Peterson said, "I've looked at your tapes from the past three days. I'll admit that the wolfcats are a lot more complex than we originally thought they were."

  "They have definite social customs," Jeff said. "That's a sign of intelligence, isn't it?"

  "It's one possible sign," Peterson said. "But it's not the whole story by itself. True intelligence involves tool use, language . . ."

  "They have names," Jeff said.

  Peterson ate a forkful of eggs and soy-bacon.

  "My wolfcat's name is Crown. His family elder's name is Thunder. The females are Brightfur and Tranquil."

  "And the cubs?"

  Jeff blinked. "They don't have names yet. They're too little."

  The anthropologist grinned and swallowed at the same time. "They must weigh five hundred kilos each."

  "That's little for a wolfcat."

  "You realize, I hope, that the chances are that you invented those names yourself," Peterson said.

  "No," Jeff said. "Those names were in Crown's mind, not mine."

  "How can you be sure of that?"

  Frowning, Jeff said, "I'm sure. I . . . I just know it. The planet has a name, too. The wolfcats call it Windsong."

  Peterson said nothing for a while, he just worked away at his breakfast, chewing each bite methodically while Jeff sat there, his appetite gone.

  "Let me ask you this," the anthropologist said at last. "How do the wolfcats tell each other their names?"

  "They . . ." Jeff began, then hesitated. "They know."

  "Yes, but how? Do they speak to each other? Do they hear each other in their minds, like mental telepathy? Do they use sign language? Gestures?" Peterson smiled kindly to show Jeff that he wasn't trying to attack him.

  Jeff thought for a few moments. "It must be some form of telepathy. They don't speak or use sign language."

  "We'd have a tough time proving that to Foy, wouldn't we? Or anyone else."

  Glumly, Jeff nodded agreement.

  Peterson finished off most of his breakfast while Jeff sat in silence, barely picking at the meager meal before him.

  "Well," the anthropologist said at last, "we're going down there this morning. If there's anything you can do to help the wolfcat show his intelligence to the landing team . . . well, I'll be looking for a sign."

  He got to his feet and Jeff stood up too, barely reaching the older man's shoulder.

  "Thank you," Jeff said.

  "For what?" Peterson looked genuinely surprised.

  "For listening to me. For caring enough not to make fun of the idea."

  The anthropologist's rugged face grew very serious. "Son, I'm a scientist. Do you understand what that means?"

  "It means that you're interested in science."

  "Much more. A farmer can be interested in science." Peterson put a hand on Jeff's shoulder. His grip was strong and sure. "To be a scientist is a way of life. It means that when you come across a new idea, you use your five senses to get as much information about the idea as you can. You listen. You watch. You touch and taste and sniff. You test the idea. Only after all that do you start to make up your mind."

  Jeff almost smiled. "In the Church they teach that scientists can never make up their minds."

  "We're always open to new information. That makes some people very uneasy. They want to be told 'the truth,' the absolute unchanging final word. We don't deal with that kind of dogma. We're always ready to alter our conclusions in the light of new data."

  "So you can never know the truth," Jeff said.

  "We can get pretty close." Peterson grinned at him. "Closer than anyone else. But we never claim to have the final, absolute truth."

  "The Church has the Truth."

  "Not the same thing. Not the same at all. Your Church—any church—establishes a set of rules, and then tries to explain everything in the world according to those rules. Scientists try to discover how the world actually works, how things behave. Different approach."

  Jeff thought it over briefly, then said, "But you don't deal with why things work the way they do."

  Peterson's grin spread across his weathered face. "No. We have our hands full trying to figure out how they work. We leave the causes to religion and philosophy."

  "But then . . ."

  Peterson stopped him by looking at his wristwatch. "We'll have
to continue this some other time. I'm due at the shuttle port in ten minutes."

  Glancing at his own watch, Jeff agreed. "I've got to get to the contact lab."

  They left the cafeteria together, then took different tube-corridors toward their different destinations. The last Jeff saw of Peterson, the lanky anthropologist waved to him and said, "See you down there!"

  Jeff waved back and watched the scientist jog down the greenpath of the tube and disappear from sight.

  Amanda was already in the lab when Jeff arrived, but Dr. Carbo had not shown up yet.

  "He'll stagger in soon," she said, smiling, as she started fastening the cuffs on Jeff's ankles and wrists.

  "We're going to be working with the landing team today," Jeff said.

  "That's right."

  Jeff lay back on the couch. His stomach felt queasy, fluttery, and he knew it was not because the scientists were going down to the surface this morning.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, worked up his courage, and said, "Amanda?"

  "Yes?" She had moved over to the monitoring instruments on the wall next to the couch.

  "Would you have dinner with me tonight? To celebrate, I mean?"

  "Celebrate?"

  "This is the first time we've worked with a landing team," Jeff said

  Her eyebrows rose a centimeter. "That sounds like a good-enough reason to celebrate," Amanda said.

  "Then you'll have dinner with me?"

  "Yes. I would like to."

  Jeff's heart soared, but then he realized, "Uh . . . it'll have to be in the cafeteria in my dorm area. We don't have our own kitchens."

  She seemed to think it over for a moment. "That'll be fine, Jeff."

  He let out a long happy sigh and felt his body relax against the warm fabric of the couch.

  Dr. Carbo came in, his chin darker than usual. But he grinned happily as he strode up to Jeff.

  "All set?" he asked.

  "Yessir."

  Turning to Amanda, "Everything ready?"

  Jeff couldn't hear her reply.

  "All right, then," Carbo said. "Let's get started."