‘No, not really, Captain. I'm just very upset.’
‘Why?’
‘I've been using the ND.’
‘The neuronic detector? On that empty world? Why?’
Blankowitz said, ‘Because I came here to use it. Because that's my function.’
‘And the results are negative,’ said Wendel. ‘I'm sorry, Blankowitz, but if we visit other star systems, you'll have other chances.’
‘But that's just it, Captain. The results are not negative. I detect intelligence on the world and that's why I'm upset. It's a ridiculous result, and I don't know what's wrong.’
Jarlow said, ‘Perhaps the device isn't working. It's so new that it wouldn't be surprising if it weren't reliable.’
‘But why isn't it working? Is the neuronic detector detecting us here on the ship? Or is it simply giving a false positive? I've checked it. The shielding is in perfect order, and if I had a false positive, I ought to have it elsewhere. There are no signs of any positive responses from the gas giant, for instance, or from the Neighbor Star, or from random points in space, but every time I allow it to sweep the satellite, I get a response.’
‘You mean,’ said Wendel, ‘that on this world, where we can detect no life, you detect intelligence?’
‘It's a very minimal response. I can just barely pick it up.’
Crile Fisher said, ‘Actually, Captain, what about Jarlow's point? If there's life in the world's ocean and we don't detect it because the water's opaque, there might still be intelligent life, and perhaps Dr Blankowitz detects that.’
Wu said, ‘Fisher has a good point. After all, life in the sea - however intelligent - is not likely to have a technology. You can't have fire in the sea. Nontechnological life does not make itself very evident, but it may still be intelligent. And a species, however intelligent, is not to be feared without technology, especially if it can't leave the sea, and if we remain on land. It just makes things more interesting and makes it more necessary for us to investigate.’
Blankowitz said in annoyance, ‘You all talk so quickly and so endlessly that I don't get a chance to say anything. You're all wrong. If it were intelligent sea life, I would get a positive response only from the oceans. I get it everywhere, just about evenly. Land as well as sea. I don't understand it at all.’
‘On land as well?’ said Wendel, clearly incredulous. ‘Then there must be something wrong.’
‘But I can't find anything wrong,’ said Blankowitz. ‘That's what's so upsetting. I just don't understand this.’ Then, as though in extenuation, she added, ‘It's very feeble, of course, but it's there.’
Fisher said, ‘I think I can explain it.’ All eyes turned to him, and he grew immediately defensive. ‘Maybe I'm not a scientist,’ he said, ‘but that doesn't mean I can't see something that's pretty plain. There's intelligence in the sea, but we can't see it because the water hides it. All right, that makes sense. But there's intelligence on land, too. Well, that's hidden also. It's underground.’
‘Underground?’ said Jarlow explosively. ‘Why should it be underground? There's nothing wrong with the air or with the temperature or with anything we can detect. What's here to hide from?’
‘From the light, for one thing,’ said Fisher forcefully. ‘I'm talking about the Rotorians. Suppose they did colonize the planet. Why would they want to remain under the red light of the Neighbor Star, light in which their Rotorian plant life would not flourish, and under which they themselves would grow despondent? Underground, they could have artificial lighting and both they and their plants would be better off. Besides-’
He paused and Wendel said, ‘Go on. What else?’
‘Well, you have to understand the Rotorians. They live on the inside of a world. It's what they're used to and what they consider normal. They wouldn't find it comfortable to cling to the outside skin of a world. They would dig underneath, as a matter of course.’
Wendel said, ‘Then you're suggesting that Blankowitz's neuronic detector is detecting the presence of human beings under the surface of the planet.’
‘Yes. Why not? It's the thickness of the soil between their caverns and the surface that weakens the response the neuronic detector is measuring.’
Wendel said, ‘But Blankowitz gets more or less the same response over both land and sea.’
‘Over the entire planet. It's very even,’ said Blankowitz.
‘All right,’ said Fisher. ‘Native intelligence in the sea, Rotorians underground on land. Why not?’
‘Wait,’ said Jarlow. ‘You get a response everywhere, Blankowitz. Right?’
‘Everywhere. I've detected some slight ups and downs, but the response is so shallow I can't really be sure. Certainly, there seems to be some intelligence everywhere on the planet.’
Jarlow said, ‘I suppose that's possible in the sea, but how is it possible on land? Do you suppose that Rotorians, in thirteen years, in thirteen years, have dug a network of tunnels under all the land surface of this world. If you got one area of response, or even two - small ones, taking up a tiny fraction of the world's surface - I'd consider the possibility of Rotorian burrowing. But the entire surface? Please! Tell that to my aunt Tillie.’
Wu said, ‘Am I to take it, Henry, that you are suggesting that there is an alien intelligence underground everywhere on the land surface?’
Jarlow said, ‘I don't see what other conclusion we can come to unless we want to conclude that Blankowitz's device is completely meaningless.’
‘In that case,’ said Wendel, ‘I wonder if it's safe to go down and investigate. An alien intelligence is not necessarily a friendly intelligence, and the Superluminal is not equipped to make war.’
Wu said, ‘I don't think we can give up. We must find out what kind of intelligent life is present, and how it might interfere - if at all - with any plans we may make to evacuate Earth and come here.’
Blankowitz said, ‘There is one place where the response is a tiny bit more intense than it is everywhere else. Not much. Shall I try to find it again?’
Wendel said, ‘Go ahead. Try. We can examine the surroundings there carefully and then decide whether to descender not.’
Wu smiled blandly. ‘I'm sure it will be entirely safe to do so.’
Wendel merely scowled unhappily.
85The peculiar thing about Saltade Leverett (in the opinion of Janus Pitt) was that he liked it out in the asteroid belt. Apparently, there were some people who truly enjoyed emptiness, who loved inanimacy.
‘I don't dislike people,’ Leverett would explain. ‘I can get all I want of them on holovision - talk to them, listen to them, laugh with them. I can do everything but feel them and smell them, and who wants to do that? Besides we're building five Settlements in the asteroid belt and I can visit any one of them and get my fill of people and smell them, too, for what good that does me.’
And then, when he did come to Rotor - the ‘metropolis’, as he insisted on calling it - he would keep looking from one side to the other as though he expected people to crowd in on him.
He even looked at chairs suspiciously, and sat down on them with a sidewise slide as though hoping to wipe off the aura that the previous backside had left upon it.
Janus Pitt had always thought he was the ideal Acting Commissioner for the Asteroid Project. That position had, in effect, given him a free hand in everything that had to do with the outer rim of the Nemesian System. That included not only the Settlements in progress, but with the Scanning Service itself.
They had finished their lunch in the privacy of Pitt's quarters, for Saltade would sooner go hungry than eat in a dining room to which the general public (meaning even a third person who was unknown to him) would be admitted. Pitt, in fact, felt a certain surprise that Leverett had agreed to eat with him.