Apes and Angels Read online

  “Yessir,” said Brad.

  “You should get approval from the executive committee before doing that, Brad,” Littlejohn said.

  Littlejohn’s holographic display showed what Brad was seeing: a broad green meadow that ended in the gentle slope of grassy hills. A few trees rose here and there, several of them noticeably bent by the recent storms. The ground appeared to be littered with twigs and debris. The sky overhead was cloudless, a brazen bowl of hammered copper.

  At last Brad said, “I promised them I’d come back to the village. They must think I’ve been killed … or maybe that I lied to them. I can’t break their trust in me. You can get Kosoff and the executive committee to approve my action, can’t you, please?”

  “What choice do I have?” Littlejohn muttered.

  * * *

  Beneath the hot glow of Mithra, Brad paused as he reached the crest of the hills that ringed the village. The hollow looked much as it had when he’d first seen it. The floodwaters were gone and the ground looked firm and dry. Several of the Gammans were repairing their roofs, including the longhouse’s, hauling cartloads of branches and twigs, teetering on the edge of the walls to weave them into rainproof roofs.

  Others were out in the fields, he saw, clearing the clutter blown in by the storms among the carefully tended rows.

  From this distance it was impossible for Brad to tell one of the aliens from another. They were all tall, lanky, dome-headed humanoids, unclothed, their pale white bodies spattered with irregular splotches of blues and purples.

  He started down the slope, into their hollow.

  “Brrd!” his computer translator erupted. “Look, it’s Brrd!”

  For an instant, everything in the village stopped, frozen with surprise. Then all the Gammans rushed toward him, dropping to the ground from their rooftop repairs, racing in from the fields.

  “Brrd!” they shouted. “Brrd!”

  Halfway down the hillside, Brad stopped and waved at them. “Hello!” he called.

  They stopped a respectful few meters before him. Mnnx shouldered his way to the front of the pack.

  “Brrd, we thought you were dead.”

  “We thought the cats got you.”

  “We thought you had left us.”

  Smiling inside his helmet, Brad said, “No. I’m fine. I simply need a little rest.”

  “But you’ve come back to us.”

  “I have come back to you.”

  “And you’ll never leave us again?”

  Brad hesitated. Then, “I will not leave you until I know that you can live through the long winter and survive on your own.”

  “But how can we do that? No one has ever lived through the winter,” said Mnnx.

  “Except the Rememberer,” Lnng corrected. “And even he goes to sleep in the ground until the winter is over.”

  “I will show you how to survive the long winter,” said Brad. Mentally, he added, If Kosoff and those other oafs don’t get in my way.

  RENEWAL

  It was almost like coming home to a big, welcoming family. The Gammans clustered around Brad, happy to see him, glad to have him back among them. Brad felt the warmth of comradeship for the first time since he’d been a teenager.

  Then Lnng asked, “What do we have to do to prepare for the winter?”

  The warm glow dimmed considerably. You get straight to the point, don’t you? Brad asked silently.

  “We’ll start preparing in a few days,” he temporized. “How did the farm get through the storms?”

  Mnnx said, “Not much damage. The new Folk are resting in the ground properly.”

  “May I see them?”

  The Gammans went silent. They all turned to Mnnx.

  Mnnx said to Brad proudly, “I’m the village Rememberer now. Everyone agreed that I should take Drrm’s place.”

  “That’s fine,” said Brad.

  Looking into the faces of his fellow Gammans, Mnnx said, “I think it would be good for Brrd to see the new Folk.”

  “Yes,” Lnng agreed. “And then we can start to prepare for building a new village for them.”

  Brad thought, Mnnx might be the new Rememberer, but Lnng is going to be pushing him every step of the way. Then he realized, with a pang of disquiet, how similar that was to his relationship with Kosoff.

  They all trooped out to the farm fields. Brad saw the neat rows of crops, sprouting nicely despite the storms. Some of the shoots were bent, a few torn away entirely, but by and large the farm appeared to be in reasonably good shape.

  Mnnx led Brad—and the others—off to a far corner of the farm where there was a different planting: little mounds spaced roughly five meters apart. Atop each mound a single leafy green stalk rose, sticking up like an antenna on a spacecraft.

  As the Gammans stood respectfully to one side, Mnnx gestured to the mounds and said, “The new Folk.”

  “They’re growing in the ground?” Brad asked.

  “Yes, of course.” Dropping to his knees, Mnnx said, “Listen to them.” And he bent his head to press it lightly against the earthen mound.

  Somewhat more awkwardly, Brad sank to his knees and pressed the side of his helmet against the dirt. Nothing. No, wait … the faintest whooshing sound, in and out, like a distant tide surging against a sandy shore. In and out … in and out …

  It’s breathing! Brad realized.

  And he heard the tiny lub-dub of a heartbeat.

  Straightening up, Brad stared at the mound of grayish brown soil. There’s a body in there! A Gamman is growing beneath the ground. Felicia and the rest of the biologists will go crazy over this.

  He realized now why the mounds were five meters apart. Room for the kids to grow to full size.

  Climbing up to his feet, Brad asked, “When will they come out of the ground? How long before they are fully grown?”

  “After the winter,” Mnnx said. “They will sleep in the ground while the world freezes. Then, when the ice melts, the new Folk will rise from the ground.”

  “And the Rememberer will teach them what they must know,” said Brad.

  “If the Rememberer survives the winter.”

  “We can help you there.”

  Lnng caught Brad’s word. “We? There are more of you? You are not alone?”

  Brad looked into their expressionless faces as they clustered around him. The computer’s translation of their words could not convey their emotions, but Brad guessed that they were at least inquisitive, at most fearful.

  They’ve got to find out, sooner or later. As gently as he could—even though he knew that his tone would not get through the computer’s translation—Brad said, “Yes, there are more of my kind coming here. They live in the sky—”

  “Do you live in the sky, Brrd?” asked one of the Gammans.

  Without hesitation, Brad replied, “Once I did. Now I live here, among you.”

  TACIT APPROVAL

  Emcee was reporting, “Transmissions from Gamma are much more reliable with the new communications satellite in place.”

  Kosoff nodded impatiently. “Yes. We can watch all the details of MacDaniels making a shambles of our contact protocols.”

  Emcee did not reply.

  Turning to Littlejohn, sitting before his desk, Kosoff asked, “What are we going to do with this young man? He’s made a mockery of our chain of command.”

  With a shrug of his thin shoulders, the anthropologist said, “Brad’s on his own down there. He’s doing what he thinks is best for the aliens.”

  “Is it best for them to shatter their traditions, their way of life?”

  “There’s not much we can do about it now.”

  Jabbing a finger at his desktop screen, Kosoff grumbled, “The executive committee back Earthside is furious with me. They’re blaming me for allowing MacDaniels to run wild.”

  Littlejohn’s dark face contracted into a frown. “You’ve been put into the position of a leader whose people are running off in an unexpected direction.”

 
“Not my people,” Kosoff snapped. “One man. Him. MacDaniels.”

  “It’s not a happy situation for you, I admit. Yet, if you take the long view, Brad just might have saved those people from annihilation. That should be worth something back on Earth.”

  “They’ll want my head on a platter.”

  Surprisingly, Littlejohn smiled. “Not if Brad succeeds.”

  “Succeeds?”

  “Get yourself to the head of the parade, Adrian. What would happen if you direct Brad to build a new village for the unborn Gammans?”

  Sourly, Kosoff replied, “He’s already telling them that that’s what they’re going to do.”

  “All right,” said Littlejohn. “You take the credit for it. You announce that we’re going to study how these survivors develop in contrast to the other villages that were wiped out by the cats from Beta. That would be a real achievement, wouldn’t it?”

  “An achievement that would take centuries to bring to fruition.”

  “But you would have started it. Under your direction, we can study the development of two alternative societies on Gamma. Anthropologically, it would be fabulous!”

  “Two alternative societies…”

  “The other villages have been wiped out by the cats, but their next generation is growing in the farms. Once the planet gets through its long winter, those Gammans are going to come out of the ground and restart their societies.” The Aborigine barely paused for a breath. “But in Brad’s village, the Gammans survived the cats. How will they get through the winter? What will their society be like when their next generation wakes up?”

  Kosoff stared at the anthropologist. “Study the differences between them,” he mused.

  “Yes! You’ve got to get to the head of this parade,” Littlejohn encouraged. “You’re the leader of our group. Lead, even if it’s not in the direction you originally planned to go.”

  Kosoff leaned back in his desk chair, fingers steepled in front of his lips. He muttered, “Don’t fight them. Join them.”

  “Lead them,” said Littlejohn eagerly.

  * * *

  All day long and into the lengthening shadows of sunset Brad tussled inwardly with the decision he knew he had to make. His problem was that he didn’t know how to make it.

  Sooner or later, he told himself, I’m going to have to show them my true form. I’m going to have to let them see me as I really am, not masquerading inside this biosuit.

  How will they react to that? he wondered. Will it shock them? Will it ruin the trust they have in me?

  How will they react to having others from the starship coming down to work with them? And study them? Kosoff is right: this is a very complicated, very delicate situation.

  How should I handle it?

  That night, once he’d returned to the crippled shuttlecraft, Brad peeled himself out of his protective suit and called not Kosoff, nor Littlejohn, but Felicia.

  “Show yourself to them?” she asked, looking startled.

  “It’s got to be done, sooner or later,” Brad said. “I can’t go decked out in this disguise forever.”

  The time lag between them was shorter, now that the starship was returning to Gamma. Still, the delay seemed to drag on forever.

  As he waited for her reply, Brad admired her beautiful face. She’s worried about me. For me. She really cares about me. I’m the luckiest man on Earth.

  Then he remembered that he wasn’t on Earth. He was two hundred light-years from Earth, on an alien planet.

  “Brad,” Felicia replied at last, “you should ask Littlejohn and Kosoff how to handle this. They’re your superiors; you’ve got to get their approval before you take such a big step.”

  He nodded, but he thought, Pass the buck upstairs. Let them take the responsibility. And what if they make the wrong decision?

  “I suppose that’s the correct thing to do,” he said.

  When Felicia’s reply reached him, it was, “You know it is.”

  But Brad was already thinking, What’s best for the Gammans? We’ve established contact with an alien race. We’ve helped them survive annihilation. Now we have to help them get through their winter. Are we going to put our decisions up to a committee vote?

  He knew what his answer was.

  * * *

  Long into the night Brad searched for a way to get Kosoff to make the decision he wanted him to make.

  At Brad’s behest, Emcee scanned all the mission protocols, seeking a loophole that would give Brad the authority to do what he wanted to do: show himself to the Gammans in his true form, free of the biosuit.

  The computer’s bland-looking image smiled at Brad as it reported, “The safety regulations permit you to dispense with the biosuit’s protection once the medical department has confirmed that you can breathe the planet’s air without harmful effects.”

  “I’ve done that,” said Brad, sitting in the cockpit’s seat, surrounded by the shuttlecraft’s controls and communications gear.

  It took a little more than one minute for Emcee to reply, “But you have not received clearance from the medical department.”

  Brad thought for a moment, turning alternatives over in his mind. Then, “Tacit approval.”

  After the delay, Emcee’s image actually blinked. “Tacit approval?”

  Nodding vigorously, Brad said, “The fact that I’ve exposed myself to the local environment and the medical department hasn’t raised any objections constitutes their tact approval, doesn’t it?”

  This time the time lag was noticeably longer. Emcee must be scanning every regulation in the protocols, Brad thought.

  “There is nothing in the mission protocols about tacit approval,” the computer said at last.

  “Search the legal files,” Brad commanded. “There must be something in there.”

  Even scanning the files at nearly the speed of light, it took Emcee several minutes before it announced, “Tacit approval is recognized in the legal files.”

  “Then that’s what we’ve got,” Brad declared, grinning. “The medical department hasn’t forbidden me to go outside without the biosuit. That’s tacit approval.”

  Emcee’s image froze in the three-dimensional display for almost exactly one minute. Then, “There is a term from old nautical jargon for what you are doing, Brad. You are a shipboard lawyer.”

  Brad laughed. “Whatever it takes,” he said. “Get the job done, whatever it takes.”

  UNMASKED

  “Tacit approval?” Kosoff roared.

  It was early morning aboard Odysseus. Kosoff had risen from his bed and troubled dreams about a dark-haired woman who kept eluding him. After his morning ablutions, as he dressed he called Emcee for a report on what Brad was doing.

  The master computer coolly informed him of Brad’s legalistic handiwork.

  Half dressed, tugging on his trousers, Kosoff sputtered, “He can’t do that! He’s got no right … he needs our approval … the medical department…”

  Dispassionately, Emcee replied, “He’s already on his way to the village, without wearing his biosuit.”

  Kosoff pulled up his trousers and fastened the belt, then sank down onto his rumpled bed.

  “Get Yamagata,” he said, scowling.

  After half an hour of talking with the head of the medical department, Kosoff realized that Brad had threaded his way through the mission protocols very neatly. Yamagata had not forbidden Brad to go outside without his protective suit.

  “Indeed,” said the Japanese biomedical director, “the young man seems eager to offer himself as a test subject, a guinea pig.”

  “Indeed,” Kosoff growled. And cut the connection.

  As the holographic display went dark, Kosoff realized he was still sitting on the edge of his bed, half dressed, flustered and feeling completely stymied.

  He’s damnably clever, Kosoff said to himself as he tugged on his slippers. MacDaniels is too clever for his own good. He’s making me look like an incompetent, impotent old fool.


  Going out on his own, is he? Kosoff simmered. All right. Sooner or later he’s going to take one step too far. And when he does, I’ll be right there to chop the legs out from under him.

  * * *

  Brad walked through the bright sunshine, unencumbered by his biosuit. He breathed the morning air, delighted in the strange yet not unpleasant odors of alien flowers and plants. Tiny animals scurried through the grass; the local equivalent of birds swooped colorfully overhead.

  As he started up the slope toward the village he remembered an old poem from his school days: God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.

  So far.

  He had taken the communications set and the computer translator from the biosuit and clipped them to the belt of his slacks, together with his laser pistol. The cochlear implants Yamagata had set in his skull picked up incoming transmissions easily enough; no need to wear earbuds. He was ready to show himself as he really was to the villagers.

  Were they ready to see him this way?

  We’ll soon find out, Brad said to himself.

  The villagers were busy at their usual tasks, most of them in the farm fields, a few gathered at the entrance to the longhouse. That must be Mnnx, Brad thought, in the middle of the group.

  He was nearly halfway down the hill before any of them noticed him. One of the Gammans pointed, and Brad heard, “A stranger!”

  They all turned and gaped at him.

  They’ve never shown any trace of violence, Brad reminded himself. The nearest thing to weapons they have are those puny hunting sticks. Still, his right hand grasped the butt of the laser pistol hanging from his belt.

  The gaggle at the longhouse seemed frozen, staring.

  “Hello,” Brad called to them. “It’s me, Brad.”

  Mnnx edged through the others and stared at him.

  “You are not Brrd,” he said, his voice sounding low, ominous, even in the computer’s translation.

  Brad stopped some twenty meters from them. “I am Brad,” he insisted. “And you are Mnnx … Where’s Lnng, out in the fields?”

  Slowly, Mnnx stepped closer. The rest of the Gammans remained rooted where they stood.