Vickers’ reflections were interrupted by Serrnak’s return.
“I am very sorry,” the Heklan said, “but I cannot show you more of our station at the moment. The main integrator is definitely making mistakes, and I shall have to help carry out alternate procedure with the smaller machines until the technical section can correct the trouble. I shall send someone to show you the way back to your ship, unless you wish to do something else until I can rejoin you.”
“I will return to the ship, for a while at least,” replied Vickers. “I can find my own way, if you will tell me the level at which I should stop the elevator. I saw no means of telling the number of the floor from which we started.
“The flight ramp and road exit are on the thirtieth level,” Deg informed him. “The control buttons in the cage are in order. I regret being so abrupt, but there is nothing else to be done. I will come to your ship when I am again free.”
Vickers nodded, touched Serrnak’s hand in the standard Heklan gesture of farewell, and entered the elevator. It was lit by a source which would have reminded the Earthman of an old carbon filament bulb, if he had ever seen such a thing, but the reddish glow was sufficient to enable him to count off thirty buttons. He pressed the thirtieth, and felt the cage sink slowly downwards. The ride, as before, was brief, and the door opened automatically at its termination.
He stepped into the corridor, turned right — and stopped short. The hallway should have extended for twenty yards and been crossed by another at that point. Instead, only a few paces from the elevator it opened directly into a room almost as large as the integration laboratory above. Electrical equipment, as unfamiliar as any other scientific apparatus to Vickers, crowded the floor; and among the installations sat or stood fully a score of Heklans, all apparently busily occupied. Vickers stood gazing into the chamber for several moments, until one of the workers chanced to glance up. His big eyes blinked once; then he took a pair of earphones from his head, rose from his seat, and approached the Earthman.
“Your ship is out on the landing ramp, which is on the thirtieth level,” he said. “Can I help you in locating it?”
“I thought I had reached the thirtieth level,” replied Vickers. “Serrnak Deg told me that the elevator buttons were in order, and I certainly pressed the thirtieth.” The Heklan looked steadily at him for several seconds, and blinked once more. Then he nodded his head violently.
“I think I see what must have happened,” he said. “You counted upward from the bottom of the panel. You are now on the sixteenth of the forty-five levels. The station was dug downwards from the top of the mountain, and it was natural to number in that direction. Do your people normally number from the ground up?”
“Yes, we do, on buildings above ground level; but if I had stopped to recall that this place is underground I should at least have asked Deg whether you counted up or down. It is a silly error on my part. Now that I am here, however, do you mind my seeing your department? I will try to keep out of the way of any activity.”
The big eyes blinked again, as their owner hesitated. Vickers decided that the expression on the grotesque face denoted discomfort.
“I dislike to appear discourteous,” the answer finally came, “but the trouble in the computing department has thrown a heavy load on us. We are all extremely busy, so that I can neither guide you around our section myself, nor provide another to do so. Some of the equipment is too dangerous to permit your examining it unattended. I am extremely sorry, but there is nothing I can do to grant your request. Do you think you can find the way back to your ship from here? If not, I can show you to the landing stage.”
He started to move toward the elevator before Vickers could answer him; but the Earthman declined the offer of guidance. The Heklan pointed out the proper button — they were labeled in Heklan characters, but the numbers happened not to stand out very clearly to blue-sensitive eyes — and returned to the chamber of electrical devices, leaving an elevator with a decidedly thoughtful occupant.
Vickers retraced his original way from the ship without further misadventure, passed through the air lock, still pondering. Until the time he had left Serrnak in his laboratory, everything had appeared to be proceeding favorably. The meteorologist had evidently been convinced of his sincerity — Vickers chalked up another point in favor of the policy of sticking to the truth as much as possible; but the technician on the sixteenth level had been patently anxious to get rid of him. The creature had said the entire force was too busy to show him around the department, and in the same breath had offered to guide him back to the spaceship. A personal dislike, or actual physical repugnance to a member of an alien race might be responsible, of course; but the apparently genuine effort at courtesy suggested some other cause.
Vickers settled down in a well padded chair — his ship was a converted lifeboat, and he had personally fitted it with items of luxury seldom found on such a craft — and gave his mind to the problem. In the first place, no Heklan except Serrnak Deg had had opportunity to become acquainted with him; during the three months in which he had learned the language of this race, Vickers had confined his attention to that one individual, and had caught no more than fleeting glimpses of the other inhabitants of the station. It seemed, therefore, that the Heklan on the sixteenth level either had formed an instantaneous dislike of the Earthman, had acquired one from Deg, or had been ordered by the same individual not to permit Vickers to examine that level. The first possibility the man had already dismissed as unlikely; and the other two posed the same question — to wit, what had he done or said to arouse the Heklan’s suspicion or dislike? Deg must be a fine actor, if Vickers’ opinion of his own ability to judge the expression of the Heklan face was not overrated; for no suggestion of any emotion save friendly interest had been apparent to the man in Serrnak’s attitude.
The conversation of the last hour or two was the most probable source of trouble. Vickers reviewed his words, with the aid of a nearly eidetic memory. He had, in the first place, adhered strictly to the truth in describing the Federation and its method of establishing contact with “new” races. He had described himself as an agent of the Federation, which was his only serious departure from scrupulous verity; but the lie should not have been obvious to Deg. He had answered the Heklan’s questions plausibly — and truthfully, as he recalled. He had known more than one Federation ambassador, and knew their usual troubles.
It was at this point that a recollection of the nature of Deg’s questions suddenly stood out in Vickers’ mind. There had been only one of importance, though he had asked it more than once, and in a variety of ways. The Heklan had been unable to understand why membership in or dealings with the Federation had been refused by some races; and — had he been entirely unmoved by Vickers’ speech, “A certain suspicion of strangers is natural”? A moment later he had said that “naturally” he could not answer for the attitude of the rest of his people; had the inflection of his voice as he uttered that word denoted sarcasm, or some other emotion — or was Vickers’ imagination adding to the picture painted by memory?
The man had not learned so much as he had meant to of the living conditions on Hekla. If the population were small and conditions hard, an instinct of co-operation rather than competition might be dominant; such cases were not unknown. If this were true of Hekia, Deg and his people would not be merely reluctant to have dealings with outsiders; they would be terrified at the mere thought, after the impression the meteorologist must have gained from what Vickers had considered “natural.”