Apes and Angels Read online

  Brad sat discontentedly at the head of the table, Kosoff halfway down its left side. Next to Felicia, Brad saw unhappily. All eyes were on Kosoff, as usual. Along the wall at the end of the table was the holotank, with Emcee’s three-dimensional image sitting patiently, its hands folded on its lap.

  “All right,” Brad said. “The satellites orbiting Beta have shown evidence of animal life there that we’ve never seen before.”

  “Is that confirmed?” asked the planetologist.

  Untermeyer replied, “Three observations in the past two days. They seem to be little furry critters.”

  “Like field mice,” Felicia volunteered.

  “There’s been no observation of animal life on Beta before this,” the planetologist said.

  Untermeyer looked down the table and asked, “Emcee, has there been?”

  “None,” said the master computer’s avatar.

  “Could these observations be mistaken? Some sort of glitch in the satellite sensors?”

  “Unlikely,” said Emcee, “to within a ninety-three percent probability.”

  “Animal life,” muttered Tifa Valente, the geophysicist.

  “Not intelligent,” Untermeyer pointed out.

  Despite his displeasure at having to sit through this meeting, Brad said, “Beta is warming up rapidly as it approaches its perihelion. Maybe the local animal life hibernates until the climate becomes warm enough for them to become active.”

  Kosoff asked, “How long is its year, its orbit around Mithra?”

  “Forty-two Earth years,” answered the astronomer. “It’s a very elongated orbit.”

  “So is Gamma’s,” said the planetologist.

  “It’s hard to envision life forms hibernating for almost half a century,” said Kosoff.

  “Not so,” Felicia replied. “Tardigrades—water bears, they’re called—can go without any food or water for years. And—”

  “How many years?” Kosoff challenged.

  “Ten or more.”

  “That’s hardly half a century. And how big are these bears?”

  “Not much more than microscopic,” Felicia admitted, her voice fading.

  Brad jumped in. “Felicia’s point is that species on Earth can hibernate for long periods. Why can’t species on Beta go even longer?”

  Shaking his head, Kosoff said, “With the limited resources at our command, I don’t think we should go chasing after will-o’-the-wisps. Concentrate on the problem at hand: the intelligent humanoids of Gamma.”

  “Is that an order?” Brad demanded.

  Kosoff started to snap out a reply, caught himself, and forced a smile instead. “Let’s say it’s a suggestion. I’m not a dictator—although I believe you should consider the limited resources we have. We know the humanoids of Gamma need our help. If there are living creatures on Beta, there’s absolutely no evidence that they’re intelligent.”

  “No evidence yet,” Brad said almost angrily. “We have to investigate further, study the conditions on Beta.”

  “Our primary objective is to save the humanoids on Gamma,” Kosoff said flatly.

  “And what about the octopods on Alpha?” the linguist asked. “They’re intelligent too.”

  “Not really,” said the astronomer.

  “They are!”

  “It’s not the same order of intelligence.”

  “They’re a different order of creature,” Felicia pointed out. “How can you expect the same order of intelligence?”

  “And their ocean is boiling away,” the linguist said, with some fervor.

  The astronomer countered, “Slowly.”

  “Slowly,” the linguist admitted. “But soon enough the octopods will be in danger of extermination.”

  Brad sank back in his chair and stared down the length of the table at Emcee’s placid image while his team wrangled endlessly. Then he noticed that Kosoff was smiling grimly. He’s enjoying this, Brad thought. He’s very neatly sidetracked my attempt to study Beta more closely.

  CHOICES

  “He’s trying to drive a wedge between you and me,” said Littlejohn.

  Brad saw that the chief of the anthropology department looked downcast. It was midafternoon. The two of them were sitting alone at a table in the nearly empty cafeteria, Brad’s lime juice barely touched, Littlejohn’s steaming cup of tea also still brimming.

  “You mean because he’s put Larry on my team?”

  “I’ve only got twelve people in my department,” Littlejohn said, almost wistfully. “He’s put you and Larry onto this special team to plan our procedure for contacting the Gammans. That’s one-sixth of my manpower. And two more of my people have asked to join your team.”

  “I don’t want two more people,” Brad said. “I didn’t want to have a team in the first place!”

  Littlejohn’s red-rimmed eyes stared at Brad.

  “Kosoff is trying to wedge us apart,” he repeated.

  “But why?”

  “Because I’ve been explaining his motives to you. I’ve been protecting you from him, a little.”

  Brad said, “No, I think it’s because he doesn’t want you to continue with your study of how he operates.”

  “Our work isn’t aimed at him. You know that. We’re studying the entire community here, the evolution of a community that’s separated from the rest of human society.”

  “But inevitably,” Brad pointed out, “your study becomes a critique of how he runs things.”

  Littlejohn shook his head.

  “That’s how he sees it, I’ll bet you.”

  “How egocentric.”

  “That’s the way he is.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “But you could test it,” Brad said.

  “Test it? How?”

  “You go to Kosoff and volunteer to put the whole anthropology department to work on my team. You tell him you want to help me.”

  “But that would mean…” Littlejohn’s voice trailed off as he realized the implications of Brad’s suggestion.

  Brad said, “That would mean you’d have to suspend the department’s study of the ship’s personnel and the development of our unique society.”

  “Give up our study?”

  “On the surface,” Brad said. “Kosoff’ll jump at the chance to get your department to stop spying on the people here—”

  “We’re not spying!” Littlejohn bleated.

  “But that’s the way most of the people in the ship think of us. That’s the way Kosoff sees us: we anthropologists are nothing more than snoops sticking our noses where they’re not wanted.”

  “So if I offer to put my people to work helping you…”

  “You’ll have to stop studying the other people of this expedition.”

  “And that’s what he’s really after.”

  “It’s not the only thing he’s after,” Brad replied. “But he’ll be happy to have you stop the anthro study. I’m certain of it.”

  A slow smile spread across Littlejohn’s face. “That in itself would be a significant anthropological finding.”

  Hunching forward over the table, Brad added, “And although our original study will be sidetracked, we’d still have all the behavioral data that Emcee gathers automatically, every day.”

  “Yes, we would, wouldn’t we.”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  Littlejohn’s smile winked out. “But we can’t tell anyone else about this.”

  “Not Larry, certainly,” said Brad. “He couldn’t keep a secret like this. I’m not even sure he’d want to keep this secret. He’d blab it to Kosoff right away.”

  “Making points with the Big Boss,” Littlejohn mused. “Perhaps you’re right.”

  Brad prompted, “So you go to Kosoff instead—”

  “And volunteer the entire anthropology department to help in drawing up a plan for contacting the Gammans.”

  “I’ll offer to step down as team director, and let you take over in my place.”

  “N
o,” said Littlejohn. “That might be too obvious. It might tip Kosoff to the idea that we’ve concocted this scheme together.”

  Brad thought it over briefly. “Maybe you’re right. But it’ll seem awfully weird for me to be your boss.”

  “Fortunes of war, my boy. Stranger things have happened.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  * * *

  Kosoff stared across his desk at Littlejohn.

  “The entire anthropology department?” he asked.

  “There’s only twelve of us,” said the Aborigine. “Ten, actually, with Brad and Untermeyer working on the contact plan.”

  “But what about the work you’re already doing?” Kosoff asked. “You can’t give that up, can you?”

  “We can mothball it for the present and then resume the study after the contact plan is completed.”

  Kosoff drummed his fingers on his desktop for a few moments. Then, “Once we’ve actually established contact with the Gammans I imagine you’ll have a whole new area of study to occupy you.”

  Littlejohn allowed himself to smile a little. “Yes, I suppose we will.”

  Frowning slightly, Kosoff said, “Technically, this would mean you’d be working under MacDaniels. Would that bother you? Cause any problems?”

  “Brad and I have always gotten along quite well,” Littlejohn replied. “He’s not much of a one for organization charts and lines of command, anyway.”

  “He’s an unusual one.”

  With a forced sigh, Littlejohn said, “I know he’s caused his share of problems for you.”

  Kosoff grunted. “I should have a dozen like him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “MacDaniels is a very unusual young man. He goes outside the lines of authority, true enough, but he gets things done. We would never have realized the octopods on Alpha have a language if Brad hadn’t pushed us into it. And now he wants to study Beta more closely.”

  “He can be troublesome,” Littlejohn agreed.

  “That’s the kind of trouble I need,” said Kosoff. “That’s the kind of trouble that makes progress, makes breakthroughs.”

  Surprised, Littlejohn admitted, “I thought you were upset by Brad’s attitude.”

  “Of course I was upset when he first started defying me. But more and more I realize that he has an instinct for making discoveries. He follows his own drummer, that boy.”

  “And he gets others to follow along after him.”

  “He certainly does. None of us gave a thought to the possibility that there’s significant life on Beta. But he did. He just about forced me to increase our surveillance of the planet.”

  “Are field mice significant?” Littlejohn asked.

  “They certainly are. And this coming conjunction between Beta and Gamma—the astronomers are agog with anticipation and now MacDaniels has the biologists getting interested in watching what happens when the two planets pass each other.”

  “I didn’t realize…”

  Kosoff was smiling now. “The big challenge with an intellect like MacDaniels is to channel his energy, harness his curiosity.”

  “To use him,” Littlejohn murmured.

  Nodding vigorously, Kosoff said, “That’s right. From what Untermeyer has showed me of the plan they’re developing, they’re going to recommend sending one or more of our people to the surface of Gamma and initiating actual physical contact with the humanoids.”

  “Before the near-passage with Beta?”

  “Yes. Perhaps staying on the planet’s surface during the near-passage.”

  “Won’t that be dangerous?”

  “Of course it will. That’s why we need to choose the contact person very carefully.”

  Littlejohn realized where Kosoff was heading. “You’re thinking of sending Brad.”

  “I think he’s ideal for the job: bright, knowledgeable, adventurous … he’s ideal.”

  Littlejohn stared at Kosoff’s bearded, smiling face and wondered, Does he actually believe Brad should make first contact with the aliens, or is he trying to get rid of the lad permanently?

  ASSIGNMENT

  Felicia was genuinely upset. “But why should you be the one to go down to Gamma? Why you?”

  It had started as a dinnertime conversation. Sitting at their narrow kitchen table, Brad had told her that Kosoff had asked him to be the one to make first contact with the Gammans.

  Now, two hours later, they were still going round and round, hotter and hotter.

  “It’s going to be dangerous,” Felicia insisted. “You could get hurt, killed!”

  Brad tried to soothe her fears. “Look, honey, I’ll have the whole contact team watching me every minute—”

  “From up here in the ship, where it’s safe.”

  “But they’ll be able to lift me off the planet if trouble comes up.”

  “Really? Desai plans to move the ship into orbit around Alpha when Beta and Gamma have their close encounter. How can they rescue you when we’re more than thirty-two million kilometers away from you?”

  Their discussion evolved into an argument. From the kitchen to the sitting room, from there into the bedroom. Brad felt confused, almost betrayed, that Felicia could be so difficult, so demanding, so angry at him.

  In desperation, Brad summoned Emcee and asked for a risk evaluation.

  Appearing across the bedroom from them, Emcee stood silently thoughtful for several heartbeats—an eternity for the computer’s optronic circuitry, Brad thought.

  At last Emcee replied, “There are too many unknowns in the problem to give an accurate assessment.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Brad grumbled. “Off.”

  The holographic image winked out.

  “You see?” Felicia said. “Not even Emcee can calculate the risks.”

  Brad stood at the foot of the bed, Felicia to one side of it. He felt anger simmering inside him. She’s being stubborn. Foolish. But then he realized that what she really was was frightened.

  Without a word, Brad went to her and folded her into his arms. She leaned against him, whispering, “Please, Brad, please don’t go.”

  He kissed the tousled hair on the top of her head. “I’ve got to, honey. I can’t ask somebody else to go. It’s got to be me.”

  Felicia did not cry. She looked up at him, dry-eyed. “Even if you might get killed?”

  “Especially if I might get killed. I could never live with myself if I sent somebody else down there and he got killed.” Silently he added, Like my family.

  She nodded regretfully. “I know. I think that’s what bothers me the most. I knew you would go, and you wouldn’t let anyone else go in your place.”

  “I love you, Fil.”

  “Yes. I know. And I love you.” She almost smiled. “But you’re the most stubborn jackass I’ve ever met.”

  He laughed, weakly, then kissed her.

  As they broke their embrace, Brad said, “You just make sure you steer clear of Kosoff while I’m gone.”

  Her face utterly serious, Felicia said, “If anything happens to you, I’ll kill him.”

  Brad stood there, shocked by her intensity.

  She means it, he thought. I’d better make sure to come back in one piece.

  * * *

  While Brad stood in the middle of the antiseptic-smelling examination room, Noriyoshi Yamagata leaned his rump against the exam table, eying Brad like a hangman calculating how much rope he’s going to need.

  Head of the ship’s medical team, Yamagata was the scion of an old Japanese industrial family. His ancestors had helped build the lunar city-state of Selene, had made fortunes on solar-power satellites and fusion-powered spacecraft. Yamagata Industries had turned the planet Mercury into a solar-power center for the whole inner solar system and constructed the first starships, after specifications provided by the Predecessors.

  He was almost as tall as Brad’s shoulders, with a thick, heavy body and short but powerful limbs. His face was round and flat, his narrow eyes wreathed with la
ugh wrinkles. But he was not smiling as he silently studied Brad.

  Noriyoshi had dedicated his life to the study of medicine, especially the field of cyborg enhancements of the human body.

  Now he looked Brad up and down, muttering to himself in Japanese. Brad felt slightly uneasy, but forced himself to smile pleasantly at the chief of the ship’s medical department.

  “You have the right body build,” said Yamagata at last, in International English. “Very tall and slim, much like the Gammans themselves.”

  “Then I won’t need any surgical changes?” Brad asked.

  “You will need a full-body suit, of course. Protection against possible pathogens in the environment.”

  “But wouldn’t alien pathogens be … well, alien? They wouldn’t react with humans.”

  “That is the theory,” said Yamagata. “But we wouldn’t want to find out that the theory is wrong, would we?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “I’ll have to bring in some engineers. Your biosuit should also filter the air you breathe, and provide for elimination of your wastes.”

  Brad immediately asked, “What about food?”

  “A necessity, of course, unfortunately. You will have to bring a supply with you and cache it somewhere. And we will have to design a system to allow you to eat the food without breaking your protective seal.”

  “Sounds difficult.”

  “Interesting,” Yamagata corrected. “An interesting challenge.”

  Brad nodded.

  “We will have to implant communications equipment. Probably in your skull.”

  “Implant?” Brad asked. “You mean surgically?”

  “Of course. Professor Kosoff wants full-time recording of everything you see and hear.”

  He stepped up to Brad and peered closely at his face. “We will replace one of your eyes with a minicam.”

  “Take one of my eyes?” Brad yelped.

  Smiling slightly, Yamagata said, “We will store it for you and return it to its proper residence once you have returned to the ship.”

  Brad tried not to wince.

  “Yesss,” Yamagata hissed. “And an aural implant. That can go into your ear channel. Plus two-way communications, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Brad. “I wouldn’t want to be cut off from Emcee.”