The Long Result Page 3

  No wonder spacemen had come to join the regular sightseers at the port today, if for the first time a ship built under another sun was due to make its Earthfall!

  4

  His face impassive as a bronze Buddha’s, Susumama spoke to a swinging mike alongside the luminous column. ‘Earth-port One to Algenib, we’re ready for you. Commence warping-in procedure. Crew and passengers to high-g stations, please.’

  ‘Confirm.’ The Starhomer sounded bored – I imagined, deliberately.

  ‘Declare your effective mass.’

  ‘One five one oh two decimal nine six two.’

  Over 15,000 tons. I tried to picture the effect of that mass crashing out of control on the fragile concrete raft of the port. It would blast the countryside clean at least as far as the horizon and probably beyond. I started to feel that I had as much of a stake in a perfect Earthfall as both the Starhomers and the port staff.

  ‘Remotes on now,’ Susumama said, and put his hand to the arm of his chair. He pressed down on an oblong, spring-loaded stud of luminous plastic, and there was a tiny click. In the depths of the column before him, the green pip started to descend visibly.

  I glanced around expecting to see the operators at their screen galvanized into frantic activity. But the only change was that the fourth screen had lit and I could read its label: SHIPBOARD MASTER.

  Rattray exhaled gustily and turned to me. ‘Safe to whisper now, if you have questions,’ he told me.

  ‘But—’

  ‘You don’t think we’d trust fifteen thousand tons of ship to anything but automatics, do you? The human part of the job is already over – unless the automatics fail, and they’re stacked in three-way parallel.’

  It sounded very safe, put that way. I relaxed a bit. ‘Ah – could one see the ship yet if one were outside?’ I ventured.

  ‘Not yet. Not till the main jets fire. Then she’d be as bright as Venus at full. And by landing, slightly brighter than the sun. You heard our warning to the spectators, didn’t you? In spite of that, we’ll have to doctor a couple of hundred idiots with sore eyes afterwards. We always do.’

  ‘Three g’s decel for one and a half seconds,’ the operator at Shipboard Master screen said. ‘Orienting over the port.’

  ‘Check,’ agreed Susumama. The blip in the column had descended a good hand’s breadth, and lengthened visibly.

  ‘Nasty blow at thirty-six thousand feet,’ reported Lateral I. ‘Looks like a transcontinental draught been displaced.’

  ‘Memo to talk to Met about that,’ Susumama said.

  ‘Three point three g’s decel, continuing,’ Shipboard Master said.

  This time Susumama merely nodded.

  There was silence for a long time after that. The blip floated lower in the column. An occasional flash from one of the wall screens made the room bright as air currents caused random reflections fifty miles below the ship. The tension mounted unbearably, like a trickle charge of electricity.

  Finally, the blip reached the floor of the projector. I found I was anticipating the ground-shudder which must surely accompany the touchdown of 15,000 tons, no matter how gently. Rattray gave me an amused glance.

  ‘Not yet. Watch.’

  Susumama kicked a pedal under his right foot. The scale of the column altered completely; the blip returned to its starting-point, and the Shipboard Master screen shone out like a green fire, eerily luminous.

  ‘Standing on her jets at the ten-mile level while we make a final sweep for obstructions,’ Rattray explained. ‘It only takes about ten seconds – and here she comes!’

  Now the ship was beyond the point of no return. If the remotes failed, nothing could prevent a crash. As though to underline the fact, even through the thickness of the sound-proofing there stole a faint echo of the mighty thunder of the jets.

  Slowly – slowly – the blip settled. It was so quiet I could hear my own breath in my throat. And at last the ground-shudder came, like a miniature earthquake – and the first non-Earthly starship had completed a successful descent.

  My face was running with sweat; so was Rattray’s. But when Susumama put the main lighting on, his features betrayed no hint of strain at all.

  ‘Very pretty, Sue,’ Rattray said.

  ‘Not bad. But if Area Met are going to bring their fast winds down so low, they might have the courtesy to warn us.’ Susumama activated his microphone again. ‘Algenib, remotes out!’

  ‘Thank you, Earthport One,’ the Starhomer acknowledged, and after a momentary hesitation added, ‘Our ten-mile g readings averaged one decimal one, plus or minus decimal oh four. Quite comfortable.’

  ‘About par for the course,’ Susumama said without emotion, and cut the mike.

  ‘Now that,’ he finished thoughtfully, ‘was a comment worth hearing.’

  It was nice to know the supervisor’s worries were over. I was afraid mine might only have begun. It was with a surge of relief that I saw through the windshield of my car the familiar blocky outline of the Bureau’s alien wagon parked at the entrance to the port workshops a few minutes later. A stocky man in an atmosphere suit stood by the driving cab and waved a bulky arm at my approach.

  ‘Mr Vincent? I’m Technician Asprey, from the Ark. You must be worried half to death about our truck.’

  ‘Did they fix it?’ I clambered out of the car.

  ‘Take a look. I have to hand it to these boys – I never saw anybody work under pressure like they do. Half an hour ago, there was a rip in the back of this wagon you could have walked through without ducking your head, and not a gastight seam anywhere. Now it’s set and ready.’

  The base of the passenger compartment was still crumpled, and stains of iodine clung to the unwiped body-shell. But the lines of bright fresh welding everywhere testified to the thoroughness of the repairs.

  ‘Kubishev’s inside double-checking the atmosphere mix,’ Asprey added. ‘But unless the aliens are going to be offended at some scratches, I guess we’re ready to roll.’

  ‘That’s marvellous,’ I said from the bottom of my heart. ‘Have they told you how soon we can go out to the ship?’

  ‘As soon as we’re ready. Ah, here’s Kuby now.’

  A man in atmosphere suiting emerged from the airlock at the back of the truck accompanied by a faint, pungent reek of chlorine. He signalled an okay and stumped around to the far door of the driving cab.

  ‘We’ll put the show on the road,’ Asprey grunted, and turned to get in. I checked him.

  ‘Do you have a spare suit for me, by the way? It may be necessary for me to ride with the visitors.’

  ‘I thought that was for the courier,’ Asprey countered, searching my face with sharp eyes.

  ‘The – uh – the courier seems to have been taken ill.’

  ‘Really!’ No fooling this man; Ark employees couldn’t afford to be stupid. I imagined he already had a shrewd idea of the reason why the Starhomers were handling the Tau Cetians’ first visit in this hamfisted manner. ‘Yes, we can fit you with a spare suit okay.’

  I got back in my car and ordered it to follow the alien wagon out across the field. I had the feeling that millions of eyes were on me – not only literally, because out at the perimeter of the port news cameras with ultra-telephoto lenses were ranked like mantises, but also subjectively. The fourteen hours or so which had passed since the Starhomers so casually announced they were bringing Tau Cetians with them had been pitifully inadequate for the Bureau to make preparations, but it would certainly have been time enough to let the rumours get around.

  Tinescu must have enlisted the Minister’s aid to keep the news from being officially circulated, I decided. Otherwise all hell would have broken loose.

  A corollary to that idea struck me, and I frowned. Was it pure chance – impulse – that had led the three young men to crash our alien wagon? Or had they known in advance that the wagon was on its way? If so, how? Starhomers were as human as ourselves, descended of Earthly stock; you wouldn’t ordinarily send al
ien wagons to meet even the unique and first of their starships.

  I shelved that question. I had no data. Instead, I stared at the ship ahead, trying to decide how it differed from the starships I’d seen before. Certainly it did, but though I felt the difference I couldn’t pin it down; my engineering knowledge was minimal. The rest of the scene was normal: the crash and rescue tenders moving away along the narrow-straight concrete tracks to the edge of the port, passing the huge and immensely powerful luggers that would hump the vessel to its permanent berth as soon as the passengers and crew were aground, various port officials in fast cars rolling to their appointed stations.

  I made a mental checklist. Landing tubes, mounted on outriggers for additonal leverage and maximum stability – still glowing dull red, but harmless. ‘Cold’ atomics had been the first break-through on the road to safe, effective spaceflight. The outriggers themselves, designed to transmit thrust along optimum resultants to the gigantic hull, now resting on the thousands of hydraulic buffers which adjusted to unevenness on the ground. The hull itself, perhaps unconventionally shaped, but…

  It was no use. I’d have to get some expert to explain the Starhomer design factors to me. As my car pulled to a halt, I glanced around. Asprey and Kubishev were perfectly capable of preparing the wagon for their passengers, and as yet the landing elevator hadn’t arrived on its lumbering tracked base, to suckle up leech-fashion to the ship’s main lock.

  He’d do, I told myself, spotting a man in spacecrew red, with navigation officer’s star and sextant gleaming on his lapels. I went over and called to him.

  ‘Excuse me, friend. This ship was built on Starhome, isn’t that right?’

  He glanced at me. He was frowning. ‘Yes, that’s right. We’ve been expecting her for some while.’

  ‘Can you tell me how she’s different from our own? I can’t pin the changes down.’

  ‘Nor can I,’ the spaceman muttered. ‘I was expecting something radically unconventional – the grapevine has been humming for months with rumours of a major design break-through. But her lines are ordinary enough. Very clean, but orthodox.’

  He resumed his own scrutiny of the vessel, obviously preferring to ignore me. I shrugged, and went over to the base of the passenger elevator which by now had reached the ship and lifted its telescopic cab-arm to the level of the locks.

  The wait for the cab seemed interminable. It had dragged on for a subjective eternity when the note of the elevator’s turbine changed and I tautened. Any moment now, I was due to come face to face with the first Tau Cetians to set foot on Earth.

  In a way, it was a disappointment. My immediate reaction was to think how much they resembled men in their protective suits. Then I started to take in the differences: the disproportionately long arms, the discoloration of their face-plates thanks to the mixture of gases behind them, their slenderness – allowing for the suits – in comparison with their height.

  The cab was large. There were a number of human beings in it with the aliens – among them, presumably, the courier, Kay Lee Wong. I stepped forward hesitantly, scanning faces and seeing several sufficiently Asiatic to match the name.

  ‘Ah – I’m Roald Vincent from BuCult,’ I said. ‘Which of you is the courier, Kay Lee Wong?’

  ‘I am,’ said a clear voice, and a girl pushed forward – a girl so tiny she barely reached my elbow. ‘And what the hell do you want?’

  5

  For the next few seconds I could only think of one thing: absurdly, it was that she couldn’t have done too bad a job, since she had obviously got over the first hurdle facing a courier. The aliens – there were five of them – could tell her from other human beings, for all their faceplates were turned to gaze at her. If the Starhomers had picked her for her small size, deliberately giving the aliens a physical characteristic by which to identify her more easily, they’d shown unusual good sense.

  Then I was overcome by a sensation of rootless terror, and for a moment thought it was genuine before remembering that the file on the Tau Cetians had warned me: they spoke below the human auditory range, and subsonics frequently engender futile alarm-reactions. They were simply discussing me among themselves.

  I mastered myself with an effort. I was about to curse Tinescu for not letting me know that the courier was a woman; then I realized the Starhomers might well not have mentioned the fact, and anyway it was irrelevant.

  I gave her a second and closer look. Now, I saw that her face showed extreme tension and weariness; her eyes were unnaturally bright, probably from some reaction-speeding dope such as chronodrin. This was confirmed by her movements – quick, but contrasted with periods of utter rigidity, like the darting head-movements of a bird.

  Hoping that my tact was enough to insure against the anticipated Starhomer resentment of Earthmen muscling in, I said, ‘I have a wagon waiting for the visitors, and accommodation for them has been arranged at the Ark – the Alien Accommodation Centre. Perhaps you’d like to introduce me to the delegation; then you can take my car and I’ll ride to the Ark with —’

  ‘Get out of my way,’ she said between her teeth. ‘I’ve shepherded these people all the way from Tau Ceti, and I’m not going to hand them over now to some damnfool Terran bureaucrat. Where’s this wagon of yours?’

  ‘But—’

  She stepped forward. At the last possible moment, seeing she was determined literally to push me aside if she had to, I got out of her way. It would make things worse than ever if the first sight the Tau Cetians were treated to on arrival was physical violence between humans. Behind her, I made a frantic signal to Asprey, waiting at the wagon. As I’d told myself a few minutes ago, he was no fool. He gave a nod which the girl saw, but was able to mistake for a greeting to herself, and I knew he was aware as I was of the risk involved in having a courier here who might explode into bad temper at any moment.

  I kept a smile on my face, just in case the aliens were capable of interpreting human expressions, but it didn’t reflect my churning emotions.

  Fortunately she seemed to regard Asprey and Kubishev as respectable – perhaps because, like most Starhomers, they were technical men. Shortly she came back to address her charges through a sound transformer carried over her shoulder on a strap.

  The whole business of disembarking the rest of the ship’s personnel was being held up while people watched the aliens – and me. With commendable politeness they stood back to give the visitors precedence as, moving with a sort of repressed urgency due to the interaction between their fast subjective-time level and the fifteen per cent greater gravity here than at home, they followed their courier to the truck and allowed themselves to be shown into the airlock. Having doggedly put on the suit which Kubishev offered, Kay Lee Wong got in with them.

  The instant she was out of sight, I moved. I didn’t care what comments I might provoke. The courier system was based on the assumption that during the psychologically disturbing experience of a starflight aliens should only have to adjust to the vagaries of one human being, then get the chance to settle down in a specially prepared environment before meeting a wide range of other people. But the Bureau’s couriers were handpicked for extreme tolerance, stability and adaptability – they could stand the pace, even if they had to deal with a fast-metabolism species. This girl wasn’t up to it.

  I ran straight to Asprey, reading in his grave expression the fact that he realized the girl was near breaking-point.

  ‘Is there a phone in your cab?’ I whispered, unsure of the sound-insulation of the truck.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Who’s going to take charge of the visitors at the Ark?’

  ‘I think they’ve briefed Dr bin Ishmael.’

  ‘Great!’ That was a reliable man; I’d met him some time before. ‘Well, look – as soon as you’re on the road, call him. Tell him to get the courier out of sight of the visitors as soon as they arrive. Make sure there’s a medical doctor on hand to shoot her full of pacificum and forcefeed her a good
meal and put her to bed till she recovers from her exhaustion. We’ll find someone to take care of the aliens. Got that?’

  Asprey nodded. ‘He may not like my telling him,’ he warned.

  ‘The hell. This is a Bureau order and it comes from me. He can take the argument to Chief Tinescu if he likes – maybe to the Minister. Now get going before she becomes suspicious.’

  Without waiting to see Asprey comply, I doubled back to my own car and ordered it to make for the Ark. As soon as it was rolling I seized the phone and called Tinescu.

  With the always-maddening sweetness of the Bureau’s robot secretaries, the answer came that Tinescu was out of the building.

  ‘Oh, blast!’ I said aloud. The machine on the other end didn’t react; oaths weren’t part of its programming. ‘Well, then, record this. Chief, I gather you know about the damage to our alien wagon. That was sorted out in time, but when I met the Starhomer courier – why didn’t you tell me to expect a woman, by the way? – she snapped my head off!’

  I gave a summary of the facts so far and explained what precautions I’d asked to be taken at the Ark; then I ended, ‘I’m going to the Ark right away, to smooth over any harm that may have resulted, but I honestly don’t know if I can manage it. Get an experienced alien contact man along as soon as you can!’

  I cradled the phone and glanced up, realizing the car had halted without orders. Ahead, I saw a police towcar hauling a battered private car out of the gate – the one, presumably, used to crash our alien wagon. Surely that could have waited till I was on the road ahead!