“The Delphinus master lists. You’d still be on ’em as an R&R fieldman, full identification, eye pattern, everything. That’s important if you’re masquerading as…”
“Am I the only one you have? I’m a recent convert to I-A, but…”
“You want out?”
“I didn’t say that. I just want to know why I’m…”
“Because the bigdomes at HQ fed a set of requirements into one of their mechanical monsters. Your name popped out. They were looking for somebody capable, dependable… and expendable.”
“Hey!”
“That’s why I’m down here briefing you instead of sitting back on a flagship. I got you into the I-A. Now, you listen carefully: If you push the panic button here without cause I will personally flay you. We both know the advantages of an alien contact. But if you get into a really hot spot and call for help, I’ll dive this cruiser into that city to get you out. Clear?”
Orne tried to swallow in a dry throat. “Yes. And thanks, Stet, but if…”
“We’ll take up a tight orbit. Out beyond us will be five transports full of I-A marines plus a Class IX Monitor with one planet-buster. You’re calling the shots, God help you! First, we have to know if they’ve taken the Delphinus, and if so, where it is. Next, we want to know how warlike these goons are. Can we deal with them? Are they too bloodthirsty? What’s their potential?”
“In five days?”
“Not a second more.”
“What do we know about them?”
“Not much. They look something like an ancient Terran chimpanzee, but with blue fur. Face is hairless, pink-skinned.” Stetson touched a button at his waist. The translite map above him became a screen with a figure frozen on it. “This is life size.”
“Looks like the famous missing link,” Orne said.
“Yeah, but you’ve a different kind of link to find.”
“Vertical slit pupil in their eyes,” Orne said. He studied the figure intently. The Gienahn had been recorded from the front by a mini-sneaker. The figure stood about a meter and a half tall. The stance was slightly bent forward, long arms hanging. The nose was flat with two vertical slits. The mouth was a lipless gash above a receding chin. Four fingers on the hands. It wore a wide belt from which dangled neat pouches and what appeared to be tools, although their use was obscure. Perhaps they were weapons. There appeared to be the tip of a tail protruding from behind one of the squat legs. The creature stood on lawn like greenery and behind it towered the faery spires of the city they observed from the air.
“Tails?” Orne asked.
“Right. They’re arboreal. Not a road on the whole planet that we can find. Lots of vine lanes through the jungle, though.” Stetson’s face hardened. “Match that with a city as advanced as the one there.”
“Slave culture?”
“Probably.”
“How many cities do they have?”
“We’ve found two. This one and another on the far side. The other one’s a ruin.”
“War?”
“You tell us. Lots of mysteries here.”
“How extensive is the jungle cover?”
“Almost complete on the land surfaces. There are polar oceans, a few lakes and rivers. One low mountain chain follows the equatorial belt about two-thirds of the way around the planet. Continental drift scars are old. The surface has been stabilized for a long time.”
“And only two cities. Are you sure of that?”
“Reasonably. It’d be pretty hard to miss something the size of that place.” He pointed to the city behind the figure on the screen. “It must be two hundred kilometers long, at least fifty wide. It’s swarming with these creatures. We’ve a good zone-count estimate; it places this city’s population at more than thirty million. In population, it’s the biggest single city we’ve ever heard of.”
“Whee-ew,” Orne breathed. “Look at the size of those buildings. What these Gienahns could tell us about urban living.”
“And we may never hear what they have to say, Orne. Unless you bring them into the fold, there’ll be nothing but ashes for our archaeologists to pick over.”
“There has to be some other way!”
“I agree, but…”
The call bell jingled.
Stetson’s voice sounded tired: “Yeah, Hal?”
“That mob’s only about five klicks out, Stet. Orne’s gear is outside in the disguised air sled.”
“We’ll be right down.”
“Why a disguised sled?” Orne asked.
“Hal’s idea. If the Gienahns think it’s a ground buggy, they may get careless when you most need an advantage. We could always scoop you out of the air, you know.”
“Stet, what’re my chances?”
“Slim. Maybe less than that. These goons probably captured the Delphinus. Our best guess is they want you just long enough to get your equipment and everything you know.”
“Only five days.”
“If you’re not out by then, we blast.”
“Expendable.”
“You want to turn down this mission?”
“No.”
“Didn’t expect you to. Look, use the back-door rule, son. Always leave yourself a way out.”
“The way you’re doing,” Orne said.
Stetson stared at him for several heartbeats, then: “Yeah. Let’s check that equipment the surgeons put in your neck.”
“I was wondering about that.”
Stetson put a hand to his own throat. His mouth remained closed, but a surf-hissing voice became audible to Orne, radiating from the implanted transceiver: “You read me, Orne?”
“I read you. Is this…”
“No!” the voice hissed. “Touch the mike contact. Keep your mouth closed. Just use your speaking muscles without speaking aloud.”
Orne obeyed, hand to throat. “How’s this?”
“That’s better,” Stetson said. “You come in loud and clear.”
“How far will this transmit?”
“There’ll be a relay sneaker close to you at all times,” Stetson said. “Now, when you’re not touching the mike contact, this rig will still feed us everything you say and everything that goes on around you. We’ll monitor everything. Got that?”
“I hope so.”
Stetson held out his right hand. “Good luck, Orne. I meant that about diving in for you. Just say the word.”
“I know the word,” Orne said. “It’s HELP!”
Chapter Six
Bow down to Ullua, the star wanderer of the Ayrbs. Let no blasphemy occur, nor permit a blasphemer to live. May blasphemy shrivel the mouth. Blasphemers are accursed of God and accursed of the blessed. Let this curse strike a blasphemer from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, sleeping and waking, sitting and standing…
Gray mud floor and gloomy aisles between monstrous blue tree trunks—that was the Gienah jungle. Only the weakest glimmering of sunlight penetrated to the mud.
Orne’s disguised sled, its paragrav units turned off, lurched and skidded around buttress roots. The headlights swung in wild arcs across the trunks and down to the mud. Aerial creepers, great looping vines of them, swung down from the towering forest ceiling. A steady drip of condensation spattered the windshield, forcing Orne to use screen blowers.
In the bucket seat of the sled’s cab, Orne fought the controls while trying to watch on all sides for sign of the Gienahn raiding party. He felt plagued by the vague slow motion-floating sensations a heavy planet native always experienced in lighter gravity. It gave him an unhappy stomach.
Things skipped through the air around the lurching vehicle—flitting and darting things, blue, red, green, violet, iridescent and dull things. Gienahn insects with fuzzy wings came in twin cones, siphoned toward the headlights. An endless chittering screeching whistling chiming tok-tok-toking sounded in the gloom beyond the sled’s lights.