Lee sat down slowly on the top step of the mess hall porch, staring at the photographs Sam thrust in front of his face.
If I didn't have these, I'd've sworn it was a mirage or something, Sam went on. Because, Almighty God, I couldn't believe my eyes.
And there was no village in that clearing when we were there last fall or last winter, Ken added, white beneath his tan.
It stinks! Lawrence grated out. Oh God, you didn't talk to 'em? You weren't seen? he added, reverting to his professional self.
Hell, no. I shot the camera and we sloped out of there, Ken assured him.
Oh God, what do we do now? Phase IV is already started, Lawrence groaned.
One thing's sure, Ken reminded him sourly, they can't reach the ship in warp drive to turn it back, and it's not scheduled to stop this side of Doona.
At that moment, Hu Shih, Ramasan and Ben Adjei came running across the Common and by the time the others had reported in, Sam, Ken and Lee had some-what adjusted to the unsettling discovery. Hu Shih was already running through the tapes and films of Phase I and II for any references to the porous wood forest in which the village so blatantly existed.
There is absolutely no evidence of any habitation in that area on any of these reports, he said in a decisive tone, his face inscrutable. Not a house, not a roof, not a shingle in sight. Hu Shih picked up one of Ken's quick-prints, regarded it thoughtfully a moment before placing it carefully beside the inaccurate films.
Well, the place is now crawling with cats, Sam Gaynor said into the silence.
I thought cats lived in caves, Eckerd, the other jack-of-all-trades, remarked inanely, looking up from his elaborate doodle in spilled sugar.
That is not as odd, Dautrish, the botanist, added, as the fact that there is no other even faintly felinoid species on this planet. Strange that only one would evolve and to such a dominant position.
''Hmmm, a very interesting observation, Abe," Lee drawled. "Nevertheless, it does not bear on the fact that our noble Spacedep has committed a grave error."
Error cried Victor Solinari in mock horror. The storemaster's voice was edged with bitter sarcasm. Our noble spacemen fallible?
But how could the Phase II scouts have missed a village as big, as well established as this one? Gaynor demanded, jutting his chin out with ursine aggressiveness.
Tell you what, Lawrence suggested, waggling a finger at Sam, I'll bet those Phase II-ers experimented with that local red berry and they thought the pussycat people were just hallucinations! Last night I went upon a bat, and saw a tawny six-foot . . .
This is no joke! Gaynor snapped.
Son, drawled Lawrence, his mockery gone, his voice rough, iffen Ah doan laff, Ah sure as hell stinks am gwanta cry!
Silence gripped the eleven men as each fought to control his emotions at this crushing blow; this unexpected denouement to years of training and hope.
The grotesque injustice of it all threatened to over-whelm Ken Reeve. He thrust back the childish desire to deny what his eyes had seen, to disregard the evidence of the pictures he himself had taken. He thought of the incredible effort required of them throughout the past ten months; physical, mental and emotional. Not merely the hard work of building the colony's headquarters and family homes, of enduring the unfamiliar discomforts of a long hard cold winter, but the psychological upheavals of adjusting to something as fundamental as open sky, broad fields everyone had experienced some agoraphobia organic foods which, no sweat, had had to be killed by men who had never before ended the life of an ant. However, once they'd run out of their pre-packaged protein supplies, any reluctance had quickly disappeared with the onslaught of hunger pangs. But such minor things as learning to shout to bridge distance, to run, even to be able to hike for miles at a time all these new skills had had to be learned in painful adjustments. The idea of having to return to Earth and its stale, antiseptic sham life was grossly repellent.
There must be a mistake, Reeve heard himself say.
No, we're the mistake, Lawrence replied bitterly. If the cats are here, we shouldn't be. Simple as that. And at that, we have already broken the guiding principle of the Colonial Department.
Sweat the goddamned stinking principle, Gaynor said obscenely. He lurched to his feet and faced Hu Shih. We're here. We've worked, we've bled, we've sweated . . .
Gentlemen, the colony leader cut in sharply, rising to his feet. He turned to Gaynor, waiting until the engineer had subsided to his seat. It would be nice to believe that the evidence of these pictures is a mistake a mirage, as Sam suggested. But such houses are all too solid and cameras do not lie, despite the Phase I and II inaccuracies. Such houses do not grow overnight. Although I could wish that they did. We might then establish a prior claim to our lovely Doona. He surveyed his fingertips contemplatively before he continued. How such evidence of habitation can have escaped not only the robot cameras of the orbiting probe in Phase I but also the trained eyes of the scouts is beyond my comprehension. But, and he paused to sigh deeply, they are there. And we are here! And we have broken the Principle of Non-Cohabitation, by existing here with another and obviously sentient species.
"And when our families land, what do we tell them?" Ken demanded softly. "Do we say, Hello, honey, how are you? Have a good trip? Well, that's nice because we're going to turn around and go right back home." Home!" And into that last word Ken crammed all the bitterness, frustration, disappointment and black anger that boiled inside him.
Home! A planet so overpopulated you married at sixteen to get on the list to have one of the two children allowed you before you were thirty that is, if you could prove that you had no hereditary genetic faults or handicapping recessive traits. A planet so crowded for space there were only twelve Square Miles of international backyard remaining. He'd been eighteen before he had touched dirt, seen grass or smelled a pine tree. A trip to the local Square Mile had been his cherished award for being top man in Section Academy. The poignant memory of the experience had motivated and sustained him during the frustrating years of intensive study necessary to qualify for immigration under Colonial Department jurisdiction.
Once a man met the basic requirements of Codep, he was put on another list which permitted him to study specialties, one of which might get him a place on a Colony list. That is, if he had been lucky enough to choose a specialty needed on the very few planets turned over by the Spacedep and the Alien Relations Department to the Colonial Department.
In order for a planet to be relinquished to Codep control, it must meet two simple requirements: 1) Humans must be able to support themselves on it without atmospheric or gravitic adjustment. 2) It must be devoid of any dominant intelligent species.
In a hundred years, only nineteen of the two-thousand-odd worlds examined had been cleared by both Spacedep and Alreldep to Codep. Small wonder that this pastoral planet, with its earthlike atmosphere, its slightly-less-than-Earth gravity presented such a desirable Eden. Even the fact that its sidereal year was twice that of Earth, with winters and summers lasting ten months, did not form an insurmountable obstacle to its settlement. True, Doona was light on metals, but it was larger than Earth by some two thousand miles in diameter. Doona's two satellites might possibly have some mineral or light metal deposits that could be developed later on. The first job of the Initial colony was to farm the land, experimenting with both Terran and indigenous grains, adapting Terran livestock to Doona and, if possible, domesticating the herd, animals which roamed Doona's pasturelands. When the colony had proved itself self-supporting, it would be augmented from Earth's teeming millions. Considering the relatively few transport ships in Codep service, this would take decades.