On the fourth day a tremendous storm swept in and engulfed the area. Kennedy stood in the yard near the arching curve of the dome, staring out in awe at the fierce torrent of precipitated ammonia that poured down on the plain, giving way finally to feathery clouds of ammonia-crystal snow and then, at last, to silence. The plain was covered with a fresh fall, now, and after it came the irascible wind, sculpturing the new fall into fantastic spires and eddies. Snow dunes heaped high against the side of the dome, and a trio of men in spacesuits went outside to clear them away. In the distance he saw the spaceship still upright, its landing vanes concealed by fresh snow, its dark prow tipped with mounds of white.
And on the fifth day he was again alone in his room when a tattoo of knocks sounded. He slipped Engel’s linguistics pamphlet under his soggy pillow and opened the door.
Spaceman Jaeckel stood there. “Gunther sent me to get you, Kennedy. Some aliens are here. They’re waiting outside the dome if you want to meet them.”
Hastily he ran downstairs, found the spacesuit rack, and donned his. Gunther was already in his, looking small and round and agile.
“On the double, if you want to see them, Kennedy! They aren’t going to wait out there forever!”
Four of them went through the lock—Gunther, Engel, Kennedy, and a spaceman named Palmer. Kennedy felt a strange tingle of excitement. These were the beings the Steward and Dinoli agency was training mankind to hate; these were the beings Alf Haugen was gradually building up as enemies of humanity, and he was going to meet them now.
There were three of them, standing in a little group ten feet from the airlock entrance. Naked except for their cloth girdles, noseless, eyes hooded, they looked to Kennedy like aborigines of some bizarre South Sea Island as seen in a dream. Their skin, pale white, had a waxy sheen to it. Their mouths were glum, sagging semicircles, lipless. At first Kennedy was surprised that they could bear the murderous cold, standing in calm nudity with no sign of discomfort.
But why the hell shouldn’t they, he thought. This is their world. They breathe its foul, corrosive air and they brush their teeth, if they have teeth, with the high-octane stuff that flows in their lakes and rivers. They probably can’t understand how we can possibly survive in the blazing heat of Earth, and drink that poisonous hydrogen-oxygen compound we’re so fond of.
“These three are from the closest tribe,” Gunther said. “They live eleven miles to the east and come here every seventh Earth-day to talk to us.”
And indeed they were talking; one of them began speaking in a low monotone, addressing his words to Gunther. Fascinated, Kennedy listened.
He could only pick out a word here and there; his few hours spent with Engel’s booklet had not made him a master of the language. But the words he picked out interested him greatly.
For the alien seemed to be saying, “. . . once again . . . leave us … hatecarryingbeings . . . interfere . . . when you go … soon . . .”
Gunther replied with a rapid-fire string of syllables spoken with such machine-gun intensity that Kennedy could scarcely catch the meaning of a single word. He did pick up one, though; it was the Ganny word for total negation, absolute refusal.
The alien replied, “. . . sadness . . . pain . . . until go . . . sacrilege . . .”
“Mind if I ask what the conversation’s all about?” Kennedy said.
Engel blinked. Gunther tightened his lips, then said, “We’re arranging for transportation of supplies to the alien village in exchange for a bit of negotiation for mining rights with the village chief. He’s telling us the best time of day to make the delivery.”
Kennedy tried to hide his surprise. Either Gunther had just reeled off a flat lie, or else Kennedy had been completely wrong in his translation of the conversation. It had seemed to him that the aliens had been demanding an Earth evacuation, and that Gunther had been refusing. But perhaps he had been wrong; not even the simplest of languages could be learned in a matter of days.
The aliens were stirring restlessly. The spokesman repeated his original statement twice, then tipped his head back in a kind of ceremonial gesture, leaned forward, and exhaled a white cloud. Ammonia crystals formed briefly on the face-plate of Gunther’s breathing-helmet. The Corporation man replied with a sentence too terse for Kennedy to be able to translate.
Then the aliens nodded their heads and uttered the short disyllabic that meant farewell; Kennedy caught it clearly. Automatically the response-word floated up from his memory, and he said it: “Ah-yah.” The other three Earthmen spoke the word at the same time. The aliens turned and gravely stalked away into the whirling wind.
A moment later Gunther whirled and seized Kennedy’s arm tightly with his spacegloved hand. Through the breathing mask Gunther’s face assumed an almost demonic intensity as he glared at Kennedy.
“What did you say?” he demanded. “What did you just say? Did I just hear you say a word to that Ganny in his own language? Where did you learn it! Who authorized you to learn Ganny? I could have you shot for this, Kennedy—agency pull or no agency pull!”
11
For a moment Kennedy stood frozen, listening to the fierce wind swirl around him, not knowing what to say. By revealing his knowledge of Ganymedean he had committed a major blunder.
“Well?” Gunther demanded. “How come you speak Ganny?”
“I…”
He stopped. Engel came to his rescue.
“That’s the only word he knows,” the tall linguist said. “Couple of days ago he was visiting me and when he left I said good-bye to him in Ganny. He wanted to know what I had just said, and I told him. There’s no harm in that, Gunther.”
Uncertainly the outpost chief released his grip on Kennedy’s arm. Kennedy realized Engel was saving his own skin as well as his by the lie; evidently it was out of bounds for him to speak the native tongue.
But he saw his advantage. “Look here, Gunther—I’m not a Corporation man and I’m only technically under your command. Where do you come off threatening to shoot me for saying good-bye to a Ganny in his own language? I could let Bullard know and he’d bounce you down to tenth-level for a stunt like that.”
In a short sharp sentence Gunther expressed his opinion of Corporation Executive Bullard. Then he said, “Let’s go back into the dome. This is no place to stand around having a chat.”
Without waiting for further discussion he signaled to have the lock opened. Kennedy was more than happy to turn his back on the bleakness of the open Ganymedean field.
They stripped off their spacesuits in silence, and racked them. Gunther said, “Suppose we go to my quarters, Kennedy. We can talk about things there.”
“Should I come too?” Engel asked.
“No, you get about your business. And watch out how much classified info you teach to visitors next time, Mr. Engel. Clear?”
“Clear,” Engel muttered, and turned away.
Gunther’s quarters proved to be considerably more auspicious than the other rooms under the dome. A wide window gave unrestricted view of the entire area, but could be opaqued at the touch of a button; the cot was general issue and ascetic, but extra ventilator controls and brighter room lights indicated to Kennedy that Gunther was no subscriber to the theory that a commanding officer should share every privation of his men.
He opened a closet and took out a half-empty bottle of liquor. The label had been removed and a new one substituted, reading Properly of Robert Gunther.
“Care for a drink?”
Kennedy did not, but he nodded deliberately. “Sure. Don’t mind if I do. Straight?”