Since I began this account Eptus and Podas have brought me the most fantastic news yet. I have to believe it because they should know what they are talking about, and assure me that it is positively a fact.
It seems that Podas collected locally a few specimens for examination. Several of them were asymmetrical objects attached in some way to the ground. Another was of different type and showed some degree of symmetry. This latter was in the form of a soft cylinder, having a blunt projection at one end and a tapered one at the other, and was supported by four further projections beneath.
It was by no means attached to the ground, being able to move itself with agility on the four lower projections. After examining them all carefully Podas declares that they are all living objects, and that the basis in both types is carbon! Don't ask me how such a thing can be but Eptus supports him, so I have to accept it.
It has further occurred to them as a result of this discovery that if all life on this planet is on a carbon basis it may well account for the neglect of this excellent silicate region. It does not, however, account for the immediate and unprovoked hostility of the inhabitants, which is a matter that interests me more at the moment.
Podas states that none of his specimens exhibited intelligence, though the cylindrical object displayed some clear reflexes to external stimuli.
I find it difficult to imagine what a carbon-based intelligence could possibly look like but I expect we shall find out before long. I must admit that I look forward to this event not only with some misgiving, but with a considerable degree of distaste.
Report No. 2. All states and positions: No change. Redoubt completed. No confirmed contact yet with intelligent forms.
Dear Zenn. Soon after the third rising of Sol enabled us to set the furnace-lenses to work again we produced enough boltik to finish our redoubt. The last block was fused into place halfway through the diurnal period, which is very short here. I am relieved that it has been completed without interruption. Now that we and our craft have this protection we can face the future with more confidence.
Podas and Eptus have examined more specimens. These confirm their earlier views but add little. So far we have not made contact with an intelligence here. After our earlier experiences we are not seeking it out but are waiting for it to come to us.
As a qualification I should add that Podas thinks we almost contacted an intelligence during the fourth Sol and still may do so. Eptus, however, disagrees with him and on the face of it one would say Eptus was right. What hap-pened was this.
About the middle of the fourth Sol a cloud of dust was seem to the east of us above the long mark referred to in my last. It was soon evident that the creature responsible for the dust was travelling along this mark towards us.
We observed it with increasing amazement because it was clearly to be seen that this creature supported itself upon four disks. Its body was black and shining; at the front were metal appendages which shone like silver.
It moved at a moderate speed but clearly with discomfort since its disk supports transmitted the result of every inequality of the ground surface to its carcass. Eptus deduces from this that it evolved upon some level surface, possibly ice, and is ill adapted to this district.
That its intention was hostile there could be no doubt for it projected strongly against us. Luckily it was either ill-informed regarding us or was not capable of serious attack, for it operated upon a quite harmless range. Out of interest we let it come quite close before we turned the beam on it.
When we did we saw with astonishment — and I must admit some consternation — that nothing whatever resulted. We watched it with growing anxiety as it came on, still keeping close to the line. Two more beams were turned on to it, still without effect.
Podas said, “I don't think it can be sentient. It is coming as if we weren't here at all.” And indeed it was.
In spite of our defences it continued to come until, without slackening speed in the least, it ran right into the side of the redoubt where the front of it was crushed and some pieces fell off.
We waited some moments, and then when it did not stir again, we left the redoubt to examine it. It appeared to be a composite creature. One part had become detached and projected forward against the wall by the sudden stop.
This we found to bear a generic resemblance to the cylinder spoken of in my last report but was unlike it in that it was covered with detachable teguments. Its forward blunt projection had encountered the side of the redoubt with some force. Possibly this was the cause of its deanimation.
Podas, investigating, found a smaller creature inside the body of the disked creature and unattached to it. Possibly this is some singular form of parturition natural to this planet. I could not say. It is hard enough in this crazy place to hang on to one's reason, let alone try to apply it to the utterly unreasonable.
Against the idea is the fact that neither of the smaller creatures showed any vestige of disks. Also both of these were covered in teguments which can scarcely be natural — especially in the case of the latter creature, where the tegument seemed designed with the purpose of hampering the hinder limbs — though it may have some other purpose un-guessed.
The two creatures were brought into the redoubt for closer examination. The parent or host — for Frinctus has put forward the theory that the two we have may be parasitic upon it — creature was left outside on account of its size.
More careful examination showed that our two new specimens were not identical though the differences are of no great importance. The shortness of the fibres on the blunt projection of one compared with those on the other could easily be due to some kind of accident, for instance.
Podas, who set about opening up the revoltingly squashy body of our first find with scientific lack of disgust that I can only envy, reports that its internal arrangements, while quite incomprehensible to him, are on the same general lines as those of the small cylindrical creature referred to in my last.
Eptus is anxious to open the other for confirmation but Podas is against it. He says that we shall learn nothing more from it than from the other and that furthermore it is not entirely inactive. It inflates and deflates in a most curious rhythmic manner which interests him. As it is Podas' department, the matter rests there for the moment.
Meanwhile, Orkiss, our chief mathematician, who had out of curiosity been examining the supposed parent creature outside, returned to say that in his opinion it is not a creature at all but an artifact. Podas went back with Mm to look at it again and now concurs. Eptus reserves his opinion.
Podas has also tentatively suggested that our second specimen — the one with its nether limbs webbed by the odd tegument — may possibly be the vessel for an intelligence of some sort, since it was inside the artifact. To his Eptus objects strongly.
How, he asks, can any form of intelligence recognizable as such be expected from a sloppy collection of innumerable tubes slung on a hardened lime framework? Further, says he, reason presupposes at least the ability to comprehend a straight line. This type of creature has not a straight line in its make-up.
It is pudgy and squashy and would be almost amorphous but for its framework. Clearly it is not of a nature that could comprehend a straight line — and if it cannot do that it follows that it cannot be capable of mathematical nor, therefore, logical thinking. Which, I must say, sounds to me a very reasonable argument.