You realize, of course, that you have laid yourselves open to severe penalties for unauthorized contact with aliens, he said with flat disapproval.
Look, Landreau, and Ken stepped forward, dump that alien bit. The Hrrubans are entirely too knowledgeable about this planet and its resources to be aliens. Your Department ostensibly surveyed Doona, and Alreldep searched it before they cleared it to Codep for our colony. Well, survey and search notwithstanding, the Hrrubans are here and you boys will have to admit to making a mistake.
Prove it! said Landreau expressionlessly.
My pleasure, Reeve retorted, anger flaring unreasonably within him. He shook off Pat's warning hand. Follow me. He started across the Common to the bridge.
You've got a copter, Landreau reminded him in a curt tone.
Ken turned and looked the spaceman up and down as contemptuously as he himself had been examined.
The village is in deep forest and inaccessible to a copter. We walk.
He and Landreau locked glances as he issued his challenge. The spaceman shrugged and gestured ironically to Reeve to continue. Lawrence, with a cryptic nod to Hu Shih, fell in with them.
As the three crossed the bridge, they could hear Gaynor's rousing bellow.
Okay, okay, so we lost our helping hands but we've got to get the job done.
Once across the bridge, Reeve set out at a bruising pace that drew a startled exclamation from Lawrence. The spaceman, however, was imperturbable and lengthened his own stride to match. Before they had reached the midpoint of the initial slope, Reeve could see the shine of sweat on the spaceman's forehead. Lawrence, in the same keen physical trim as Reeve, was just beginning to breathe heavily as they topped the rise. Landreau was panting but he kept to the pace set.
The trio plunged down into the welcome cool of the soughing forest. Reeve was forced to slow down or careen off tree trunks and boulders. At first, he attributed the absence of smoke to the fact that the Hrrubans had planned to eat with the colonists that day. They'd've banked their fire. But when he didn't see the bulk of the houses through the trees by the time they reached the edge of the clearing, a curious feeling hit him in the pit of his stomach.
What the hell? Lawrence demanded, turning around in the empty site, incredulous.
Where Reeve had first squatted under the needle tree with Hrrestan and the other elders of the village, there was no dust where restless fingers had made patterns; only an unblemished thick layer of tree droppings No indentations were left to mark where the heavy trestle bench had been; no burned-over area where the fire had flared. Only the silence of the forest and the frantic scuttling of Reeve and Lawrence to find some scrap of artifact that would bear witness to the village's existence.
With a blandness that bordered on insolence, Landreau watched their hectic search.
You've had your fun but I'll set the pace on the way back, he drawled at last. And from now on.
Knowing that protestations were useless, Reeve attempted none and, shrugging helplessly at this unexpected development, he curtly motioned to Landreau to lead off.
Suddenly a small body erupted into the village site, round-eyed, breath coming in staggering gasps. A panic-stricken Todd dug frantically in the mulch where Hrriss's house had stood.
They've gone. Where are they? he sobbed, hysterically interspersing his gasping phrases with Hrruban wails of despair. Daddy, where are they? he demanded, darting to his father and tugging at his hand as if Reeve somehow could lead him to his friends.
I don't know, son. I just don't know, Reeve admitted, looking about the clearing, anywhere except into the tragedy-filled eyes of his son.
Todd dropped his father's hand and whirled on Landreau, who was watching the scene with an expression of cynicism that deepened into a puzzled frown. The small wiry body seemed to coil like an overwound mechanism. And, with all the hatred of a loyal soul, Todd directed his righteous anger at the spaceman.
You, and the force of the small boy's contempt made the spaceman take an inadvertent step backward, you drove my friends away!
Chapter XVIII. HEREAGIN, GONEAGIN, FINNEGIN
REEVE WALKED PAST the half-finished barn, its bare studs pointing skyward like accusing fingers. He was going to report to the implacable Landreau the results of another day of fruitless searching. He had lost track of the number of drones he had launched and retrieved. As soon as one returned, a new trajectory was inserted, its film capsule was reloaded, and it was sent up again. He was now weighed down with exposed film which he hoped would keep Landreau up all night.
Only one burn had so far shown up. With a triumphant gleam in his eye, Landreau had taken off in the copter, to return-silent. Eckerd had reported sardonically that there had been nothing more suspicious on the scene than a natural forest fire, caused by the lightning storm the morning of the barn raising. Some of the larger stumps were still smoldering but the charred earth was cool and devoid of chemical traces.
When Landreau overheard someone mention the mountain caves, he had mounted a search party. To him they could easily harbor every variety of alien. All he found was dust, until Ben was attacked by a spider, the size of a dinner plate and extremely poisonous. But the spider was indigenous. And the necessity of getting the veterinary back to the camp cut short the expedition. The fact that Moody attributed Ben's continued life to Mrrva's yellow paste did not register with Landreau at all after a chemical analysis proved the paste to be composed of Doonan herbs.
Reeve was forced to admire the dogged determination of the spaceman. How the Hrrubans could have escaped the notice of such Vigorous, intensive searching defeated Ken.
He mounted the steps of the mess hall clumped wearily up to Landreau's neatly organized desk and tossed his load of reels down in front of the impassive spaceman.
Care to try submarine probes? Ken taunted. This finishes the aerial series. And, incidentally, the fuel for those probes.
The clear quick eyes locked with his briefly and then Landreau snorted. His self-assured passivity reminded Reeve, oddly enough, of Hrrula.
Switched sides? Landreau asked. Make up your mind, Reeve. Do you want indigenous personnel or don't you? Who do you want in the role? Yourselves or your mass hallucination?
Ken said nothing and withdrew, trudging up the path to his cabin. Suddenly he wondered who he did want in the starring role. The colonists or the Hrrubans? If the colonists were indigenous, they had not abrogated the Principle and could remain. But, and Ken shook his head sadly, the colonists knew the Hrrubans were indigenous and that they must leave.
Nevertheless, it was personally satisfying to see the haunted doubt flare occasionally in Landreau's eyes. And it was curiously gratifying, too, to find that the Hrrubans had been able to disappear so tracelessly. He knew the location of two of the other villages, and Dautrish and Gaynor had been at three others. No speck, spot or scorch could be found of any Hrruban habitation. A respect for them was mingled with a depressing sense of loss and frustration.
There had been quiet talk among the colonists, half-verbalized wishes to justify their initial reports by at least one trace of the vanished natives. Then oblique relief when the most careful search elicited nothing. But the colonists could not avoid the moral issue. They knew the Hrrubans existed and no matter how keenly they wished to remain on Doona, their conditioning on Co-Habitation was too strong.
I'd like to know how Landreau can explain away those films we sent in of the first contact, Lawrence had remarked in a hurried meeting Hu Shih had called after the first day's fruitless searching. And those artifacts we sent in after the bridge was built. We can't repudiate them. I admit it makes us look a little foolish right now but . . .
Landreau's looking for aliens, not natives, McKee had said.
Yes, but goddammit man, where did our natives go? Ken had demanded.