“That’s true.” It was a new voice that made this answer, and Kruger turned to see Commander Burke standing in the air lock. “I should have liked to know your friend better, Mr. Kruger, but I don’t suppose we’d ever really know him — not even you.”
“Maybe not, sir, but I can’t help feeling that I do.”
“Good luck to you. Isn’t it nearly time for this sealing ceremony to take place?” Several more men were emerging from the little ship.
“I haven’t kept close track, sir, but I guess it must be, at that. Nearly all the gliders are gone, and — and I’ve seen a number of the big Teachers leaving the platform and starting around the mountain.” His voice shook a little as he mentioned this and the commander nodded gravely.
“Yes. The one who acted as your guide went the last time you were asleep.”
“What? I didn’t know that, sir.”
“I know you didn’t. It was by my advice that he went then. I thought it was better that way.” Something in the tone of the officer’s voice forbade further questioning.
Several more of the giant Teachers appeared on the platform at this point and the men stopped their conversation to watch them. One approached the group by the air lock and spoke.
“We are about to check the sealing of the outer gates. These are located some distance down the tunnel, as we have found it desirable to let ice come into the upper caverns later in the hot season. Would you care to come with us, to watch the operation?”
“Wait a minute! Dar Lang Ahn promised he’d see me before the doors were closed! Where is he?”
“He is coming. If you come with us you should meet him in the tunnel. I see his glider is waiting.” The being turned without further remark and the men followed, Burke watching the dazed Kruger with something like pity showing on his face.
The doors were about three hundred yards down the tunnel and, true to the Teacher’s prediction, Dar Lang Ahn was waiting beside them.
“Hi, Nils!” he called as the boy came in sight. “Sorry I was so long. There was a lot to do, believe me!”
“Dar! You can’t have finished — but this Teacher said…”
“Sure I did. Had to. Come on up to the surface — I want to check my glider. Or would you rather watch them seal the door?”
“But they can’t seal it yet! You can’t possibly have told them all you learned from us! You’ve got to stay and be a Teacher for the next generation!” The little native was silent for a moment, then spoke in a softer voice.
“Come with me, Nils. Maybe I did something I shouldn’t have, but it’s done. I’ll try to explain to you.” He gestured along the tunnel and the boy obeyed silently, staring at his little friend. Dar started talking as they went; the commander looked after them, shaking his head.
“Nils, I couldn’t do it. I thought about the point you’ve just mentioned and when I first started to learn things from you I rather planned to do what you’ve just suggested. I didn’t like it, of course, but it seemed to be my duty. Then I stayed with you and your people and — kept learning. Astronomy, geology, biology, archaelogy, mathematics, and all the other specialties that the men of your group represent. There was just too much of it.”
“Too much for you to remember?” Kruger stopped, his surprise momentarily covering his grief.
“Not too much to remember, no, but too much to grasp properly. I could have stayed down below and dictated scores of books about everything I had seen you do or heard you say, but even though I understood a good deal of it my people wouldn’t. There was something else they needed more, and gradually I came to understand what it was.
“It’s method, Nils. It’s the very way you people go about solving problems — imagination and experiment together. That was the thing my people had to learn and the thing I had to show them. Their problems are different from yours, after all; they’ll have to solve them for themselves. Of course, the facts are important, too, but I didn’t give too many of those. Just scattered pieces of information here and there, so that they could check their answers once in a while.”
“Then — then it was my own fault you’re doing this! I deliberately exposed you to as many different fields of knowledge as I could, so there’d be no chance of your getting it all recorded before the time of dying!”
“No! It’s not your fault, if you can call it a fault at all. You showed, indirectly I admit, just what we need to know. I was looking for an excuse to avoid staying in the Ramparts; if you want to say you furnished it, all right — and thanks.” He paused; they had reached the platform and Dar began without preamble to make sure his glider was ready for launching.
“But — can’t you come with us, instead? You don’t have to go back to Kwarr and — and…” Kruger could not finish the sentence. Dar straightened from his task and looked at him narrowly. For a moment or two he seemed to struggle with some decision; then he shook his head in the negative gesture he had learned from Kruger.
“I’m afraid not. I think I see a little of how you feel, friend Nils, and in a way I am sorry to leave you behind, but — would you come with me?” He almost gave his equivalent of a smile as he asked this. Kruger was silent.
“Of course you wouldn’t — you couldn’t. You expect to live a long time yet, even though you don’t know how long.” He gripped one of Kruger’s hands with his small claw. “Nils, many of your years from now there will be quite a lot of my people who are part of me. I will be gone, but you may still be around. Maybe with what you and I have done for them some of those people will be scientists, and will have learned to get respect instead of contempt from the ‘hot’ ones, and to start something which may in time be a civilization like yours. I would like to think that you will be helping them.”
He vaulted into the seat of the glider and, without giving the boy time to say a word, tripped the catapult.
Kruger watched the little aircraft out of sight. It did not take long to vanish, for his eyes were not as clear as they should have been, but he was still facing the direction in which it had gone when he finally muttered, “I will be!” He turned away as the thud of a great door sounded from the tunnel.
Contents
Title Page
Contents
I. LOGISTICS
II. DIPLOMACY
III. PEDAGOGY
IV. ARCHAEOLOGY
V. CONFISCATION
VI. INVESTIGATION
VII. ENGINEERING
VIII. TRANSPORTATION
IX. TACTICS
X. ELUCIDATION
XI. ASTRONOMY; DIPLOMACY
XII. GEOLOGY; ARCHAEOLOGY
XIII. ASTRONOMY; XENOLOGY
XIV. BIOLOGY; SOCIOLOGY
XV. ASTRONOMY; LOGIC
Author Bio
Hal Clement (1922–2003)
Hal Clement is the nom de plume under which Harry Clement Stubbs wrote science fiction. Born in Massachusetts in 1922, he graduated from Harvard with a BSc. in astronomy, and later added degrees in chemistry and education. A former B-24 pilot who saw active service during the Second World War, he worked for most of his life as a high-school science teacher. He made his reputation as an SF writer with the work that appeared in Astounding, where his best-known novel, Mission of Gravity, first appeared in serialised form in 1953.