“It wasn’t always like this,” Martin said, pointing at one of the sensor displays they had been studying. “That gray strip with the old impact craters all over it was an airport runway, those heaps of masonry and corroded metal could only be industrial complexes, and the rubble of what’s left of their residential area stretches for miles around. This culture must have been as advanced at least as that of pre-Exodus Earth before their moon broke up.”
“It may have been more than one moon,” Beth said thoughtfully. “The orbit and unusual clumping of the debris indicates a…”
“The difference is academic,” Martin broke in. “What we have here is a once advanced culture which has been hammered flat by meteorite bombardment to the extent that they have regressed to a primitive fanning and fishing society. Except for that polar settlement, which is virtually free of meteorites, their past technology seems to have been destroyed. The question is, where do I land?”
Beth displayed a blown-up photograph of the polar settlement along with the relevant sensor data. It was a scientific establishment of some kind, with a small observatory, a non-nuclear power source, and a well-built road which was obviously a supply route. Communicating with the inhabitants would be relatively easy, Martin thought, because the astronomers among them would be mentally prepared for the possibility of off-world visitors. But they would not be typical of the population as a whole.
An assessment should not be based on a species’ intellectuals alone. Ideally he should talk to the Teldi equivalent of a well-educated man in the street.
The landing site finally chosen was by a roadside some ten miles from a “city” which lay on and under the floor and walls of a deep, fertile valley on the equatorial continent.
“And now,” Beth said, “what about protection?”
For several minutes they discussed the advisability of using the ship’s special protection systems while he was on the surface, then decided against them. He had to make contact with a technologically backward alien, and he would do himself no good at all by frightening it with gratuitous demonstrations of supersedence.
“All right, then,” he said finally. “My only protection will be the tender’s force shield. I won’t carry anything in my hands, and will wear uniform coveralls and an open helmet with image-enhancing visor, and a Teldin-type backpack with a med kit and the usual supplies. The Teldins seem pretty flexible in the matter of clothing, so I would be displaying my physiological differences as well as showing them that I was unarmed.
“The translator will be in my collar insignia,” he went on, “and the helmet will contain the standard sensor and monitoring equipment, lighting, and the translator by-pass.
“Have I forgotten anything?”
She shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said awkwardly. “Everything will be just fine.”
But still she did not speak. Martin reached toward her and carefully removed her glasses, folded them, and placed them on top of the control console.
“I’m ready to go,” he said, then added gently, “sometime tomorrow…”
Martin made no secret of his landing. He arrived at night with all the lander’s external lights ablaze, and came in slowly so as not to be mistaken for one of the larger meteors. Then he waited anxiously for the reaction of the inhabitants and authorities of the nearby city.
With diminished anxiety and growing impatience, he was still waiting more than a full Teldin day later.
“I expected crowds around me by now,” Martin said in bewilderment. “But they just look at me as they pass on by. I have to make one of them stop ignoring me and talk. I’m leaving the lander now and beginning to move toward the road.”
“I see you,” Beth said from the hyper ship, then added warningly, “the chances of you being hit during the few minutes it takes you to reach the protection of the road are small, but even the computer cannot predict the impact point of every meteorite.”
Especially the rogues which were the result of collisions in low orbit, Martin thought, and which dropped in at a steep angle instead of slanting in from the west at the normal angle of thirty degrees or less. But the odd behavior of the satellite debris which fell around and onto Teldi, and which so offended Beth’s orderly mind, faded from his mind at the thought of meeting his first Teldin.
It would be a member of a species which had advanced perhaps only to the verge of achieving space-flight, and which still practiced astronomy in their dark, polar settlement. Such a species would have considered the possibility of off-planet intelligent life. Perhaps the idea might now exist only in the Teldin history books, but an ordinary Teldin should be aware of it and not be panicked into hostile activity by the sight of a puny and obviously defenseless off-worlder like Martin.
It was a nice, comforting theory which had made a lot of sense when they had discussed it back on the ship. Now he was not so sure.
“Can you see anyone on the road?”
“Yes,” Beth said. “Just over a mile to the north of you, heading your way and toward the city. One person riding a tricycle and towing a two-wheeled trailer. It should be visible to you in six minutes.”
While he was waiting, Martin tried to calm himself by examining at close range a stretch of the banked rock wall which ran along the side of the road. Like the majority of the roads on Teldi, this one ran roughly north and south, and the wall protected travelers from the meteorites which came slanting in from the west.
The banked walls were on average four meters high and built from rocks gathered in the vicinity. The roads were rarely straight, but curved frequently to take advantage of the protection furnished by natural features such as deep gullies or outcroppings of rock. When east-west travel was necessary, the roads proceeded in a series of wide zig-zags, like the track of a sailing ship tacking to windward.
Suddenly there was the sound of a short, sharp hiss and thud, and midway between his lander and the roadside there was a small, glowing patch of ground with a cloud of rock dust settling around it. A meteorite strike. When he looked back to the roadway, the Teldin was already in sight, peddling rapidly toward him and hugging the protective wall.
Martin walked to the outer edge of the roadway to get out of its path. He did not know anything about the oncoming vehicle’s braking system, and it was possible that he was in greater danger of being run over by a Teldin tricycle than being hit by a meteorite. His action could also, he hoped, be construed as one of politeness. When the vehicle slowed and came to a halt abreast of him, Martin extended both hands palms outward, then let them fall to his side again.
“I wish you well,” he said softly. Loudly and clearly and taking a fraction of a second longer, his translator expressed the same sentiment in Teldin.
The cyclist looked like a cross between an overgrown, four-armed kangaroo and a frog which was covered with sparse, sickly yellow fur. Because of the being’s size and his own lack of defensive armament, Martin was acutely aware of the other’s long, well-muscled legs which terminated in huge, clawed feet, and of the enormous teeth which showed clearly within the wide, open mouth. Its four, six-fingered hands also had bony terminations which had been filed short and painted bright blue, presumably to aid the manipulation of small objects and for decoration. It was wearing a dark brown cloak of some coarse, fibrous material, and the garment was fastened at the neck and thrown back over the shoulders where it was attached in some fashion to the being’s backpack, probably to leave the other’s limbs free for peddling and steering its vehicle. There was no doubt that this was a civilized entity, and that the open mouth with its fearsome display of teeth was simply a gape of surprise and curiosity, not a snarl of fury presaging an attack.