25 Short Stories and Novellas Part 12

'I'll bet you'd like to bring one back, too.'

'Maybe we can fit a young one aboard,' Davison said. 'If we can find a young one.' He turned to Holdreth. 'How's that air a.n.a.lysis coming? I'd like to get out there and start collecting. G.o.d, that's a crazy-looking beast!'

The animal outside had apparently finished its inspection of us, for it pulled its head away and gathering its legs under itself, squatted near the ship. A small doglike creature with stiff spines running along its back began to bark at the big creature, which took no notice. The other animals, which came in all shapes and sizes, continued to mill around the ship, evidently very curious about the newcomer to their world. I could see Davison's eyes thirsty with the desire to take the whole kit and caboodle back to Earth with him. I knew what was running through his mind. He was dreaming of the umpteen thousand species of extraterrestrial wildlife roaming around out there, and to each one he was attaching a neat little tag: _Something-or-other davisoni_.

'The air's fine,' Holdreth announced abruptly, looking up from his test-tubes. 'Get your b.u.t.terfly nets and let's see what we can catch.'

There was something I didn't like about the place. It was just too good to be true, and I learned long ago that nothing ever is. There's always a catch someplace.

Only this seemed to be on the level. The planet was a bonanza for zoologists, and Davison and Holdreth were having the time of their lives, hipdeep in obliging specimens.

'I've never seen anything like it,' Davison said for at least the fiftieth time, as he scooped up a small purplish squirrel-like creature and examined it curiously. The squirrel stared back, examining Davison just as curiously.

'Let's take some of these,' Davison said. 'I like them.'

'Carry 'em on in, then,' I said, shrugging. I didn't care which specimens they chose, so long as they filled up the storage hold quickly and let me blast off on schedule. I watched as Davison grabbed a pair of the squirrels and brought them into the ship.

Holdreth came over to me. He was carrying a sort of a dog with insect-faceted eyes and gleaming furless skin. 'How's this one, Gus?'

'Fine,' I said bleakly. 'Wonderful.'

He put the animal down -- it didn't scamper away, just sat there smiling at us -- and looked at me. He ran a hand through his fast-vanishing hair. 'Listen, Gus, you've been gloomy all day. What's eating you?'

'I don't like this place,' I said.

'Why? Just on general principles?'

'It's too _easy_, Clyde. Much too easy. These animals just flock around here waiting to be picked up.'

Holdreth chuckled. 'And you're used to a struggle, aren't you? You're just angry at us because we have it so simple here!'

'When I think of the trouble we went through just to get a pair of miserable vile-smelling anteaters, and- '

'Come off it, Gus. We'll load up in a hurry, if you like. But this place is a zoological gold mine!'

I shook my head. 'I don't like it, Clyde. Not at all.'

Holdreth laughed again and picked up his faceted-eyed dog. 'Say, know where I can find another of these, Gus?'

'Right over there,' I said, pointing. 'By that tree. With its tongue hanging out. It's just waiting to be carried away.'

Holdreth looked and smiled. 'What do you know about that!' He snared his specimen and carried both of them inside.

I walked away to survey the grounds. The planet was too flatly incredible for me to accept on face value, without at least a look-see, despite the blithe way my two companions were snapping up specimens.

For one thing, animals just don't exist this way -- in big miscellaneous quant.i.ties, living all together happily. I hadn't noticed more than a few of each kind, and there must have been five hundred different species, each one stranger-looking than the next. Nature doesn't work that way.

For another, they all seemed to be on friendly terms with one another, though they acknowledged the unofficial leadership of the giraffe-like creature. Nature doesn't work _that_ way, either. I hadn't seen one quarrel between the animals yet. That argued that they were all herbivores, which didn't make sense ecologically.

I shrugged my shoulders and walked on.

Half an hour later, I knew a little more about the geography of our bonanza. We were on either an immense island or a peninsula of some sort, because I could see a huge body of water bordering the land some ten miles off. Our vicinity was fairly flat, except for a good-sized hill from which I could see the terrain.

There was a thick, heavily-wooded jungle not too far from the ship. The forest spread out all the way towards the water in one direction, but ended abruptly in the other. We had brought the ship down right at the edge of the clearing. Apparently most of the animals we saw lived in the jungle.

On the other side of our clearing was a low, broad plain that seemed to trail away into a desert in the distance; I could see an uninviting stretch of barren sand that contrasted strangely with the fertile jungle to my left. There was a small lake to the side. It was, I saw, the sort of country likely to attract a varied fauna, since there seemed to be every sort of habitat within a small area.

And the fauna! Although I'm a zoologist only by osmosis, picking up both my interest and my knowledge second-hand from Holdreth and Davison, I couldn't help but be astonished by the wealth of strange animals. They came in all different shapes and sizes, colours and odours, and the only thing they all had in common was their friendliness. During the course of my afternoon's wanderings a hundred animals must have come marching boldly right up to me, given me the once-over, and walked away. This included half a dozen kinds that I hadn't seen before, plus one of the eye-stalked, intelligent-looking giraffes and a furless dog. Again, I had the feeling that the giraffe seemed to be trying to communicate.

I didn't like it, I didn't like it at all.

I returned to our clearing,and saw Holdreth and Davison still buzzing madly around, trying to cram as many animals as they could into our hold.

'How's it going?' I asked.

'Holds all full,' Davison said. 'We're busy making our alternate selections now.' I saw him carrying out Holdreth's two furless dogs and picking up instead a pair of eight-legged penguinish things that uncomplainingly allowed themselves to be carried in. Holdreth was frowning unhappily.

'What do you want _those_ for, Lee? Those dog-like ones seem much more interesting, don't you think?'

'No,' Davison said. 'I'd rather bring along these two. They're curious beasts, aren't they? Look at the muscular network that connects the -- '

'Hold it, fellows,' I said. I peered at the animal in Davison's hands and glanced up. 'This _is_ a curious beast,' I said. 'It's got eight legs.'

'You becoming a zoologist?' Holdreth asked, amused.

'No -- but I am getting puzzled. Why should this one have eight legs, some of the others here six, and some of the others only four?'

They looked at me blankly, with the scorn of professionals.

'I mean, there ought to be some sort of logic to evolution here, shouldn't there? On Earth we've developed a four-legged pattern of animal life; on Venus, they usually run to six legs. But have you ever seen an evolutionary hodgepodge like this place before?'

'There are stranger setups,' Holdreth said. 'The symbiotes on Sirius Three, the burrowers of Mizar -- but you're right, Gus. This _is_ a peculiar evolutionary dispersal. I think we ought to stay and investigate it fully.'

Instantly I knew from the bright expression on Davison's face that I had blundered, had made things worse than ever. I decided to take a new tack.

'I don't agree,' I said. 'I think we ought to leave with what we've got, and come back with a larger expedition later.'

Davison chuckled. 'Come on, Gus, don't be silly! This is a chance of a lifetime for us -- why should we call in the whole zoological department on it?'

I didn't want to tell them I was afraid of staying longer. I crossed my arms. 'Lee, I'm the pilot of this ship, and you'll have to listen to me. The schedule calls for a brief stopover here, and we have to leave. Don't tell me I'm being silly.'

'But you are, man! You're standing blindly in the path of scientific investigation, of -- '

'Listen to me, Lee. Our food is calculated on a pretty narrow margin, to allow you fellows more room for storage. And this is strictly a collecting team. There's no provision for extended stays on any one planet. Unless you want to wind up eating your own specimens, I suggest you allow us to get out of here.'

They were silent for a moment. Then Holdreth said, 'I guess we can't argue with that, Lee. Let's listen to Gus and go back now. There's plenty of time to investigate this place later when we can take longer.'

'But -- oh, all right,' Davison said reluctantly. He picked up the eight-legged penguins. 'Let me stash these things in the hold, and we can leave.' He looked strangely at me, as if I had done something criminal.

As he started into the ship, I called to him.

'What is it, Gus?'

'Look here, Lee. I don't _want_ to pull you away from here. It's simply a matter of food,' I lied, masking my nebulous suspicions.

'I know how it is, Gus.' He turned and entered the ship.

I stood there thinking about nothing at all for a moment, then went inside myself to begin setting up the blastoff orbit.

I got as far as calculating the fuel expenditure when I noticed something. Feedwires were dangling crazily down from the control cabinet. Somebody had wrecked our drive mechanism, but thoroughly.

For a long moment, I stared stiffly at the sabotaged drive. Then I turned and headed into the storage hold.

'Davison?'

'What is it, Gus?'

'Come out here a second, will you?'

I waited, and a few minutes later he appeared, frowning impatiently. 'What do you want, Gus? I'm busy and I -- ' His mouth dropped open. _'Look at the drive!_'

'You look at it,' I snapped. 'I'm sick. Go get Holdreth, on the double.'

While he was gone I tinkered with the shattered mechanism. Once I had the cabinet panel off and could see the inside, I felt a little better; the drive wasn't damaged beyond repair, though it had been pretty well scrambled. Three or four days of hard work with a screw driver and solderbeam might get the ship back into functioning order.

But that didn't make me any less angry. I heard Holdreth and Davison entering behind me, and I whirled to face them.

'All right, you idiots. Which one of you did this?'

They opened their mouths in protesting squawks at the same instant. I listened to them for a while, then said, 'One at a time!'

'If you're implying that one of us deliberately sabotaged the ship,' Holdreth said, 'I want you to know-'

'I'm not implying anything. But the way it looks to me, you two decided you'd like to stay here a while longer to continue your investigations, and figured the easiest way of getting me to agree was to wreck the drive.' I glared hotly at them. 'Well, I've got news for you. I can fix this, and I can fix it in a couple of days. So go on -- get about your business! Get all the zoologizing you can in, while you still have time. I -- '

Davison laid a hand gently on my arm. 'Gus,' he said quietly, _'we didn't do it._ Neither of us.'

Suddenly all the anger drained out of me and was replaced by raw fear. I could see that Davison meant it.

'If you didn't do it, and Holdreth didn't do it, and _I_ didn't do it -- then who did?'

Davison shrugged.

'Maybe it's one of us who doesn't know he's doing it,' I suggested. 'Maybe -- ' I stopped. 'Oh, that's nonsense. Hand me that tool kit, will you, Lee?'

They left to tend to the animals, and I set to work on the repair job, dismissing all further speculations and suspicions from my mind, concentrating solely on joining Lead A to Input A and Transistor F to Potentiometer K, as indicated. It was slow, nerve-harrowing work, and by mealtime I had accomplished only the barest preliminaries. My fingers were starting to quiver from the strain of small-scale work, and I decided to give up the job for the day and get back to it tomorrow.

I slept uneasily, my nightmares punctuated by the moaning of the accursed anteaters and the occasional squeals, chuckles, bleats, and hisses of the various other creatures in the hold. It must have been four in the morning before I dropped off into a really sound sleep, and what was left of the night pa.s.sed swiftly. The next thing I knew, hands were shaking me, and I was looking up into the pale, tense faces of Holdreth and Davison.

I pushed my sleep-stuck eyes open and blinked. 'Huh? What's going on?'

Holdreth leaned down and shook me savagely. 'Get up, Gus!'

I struggled to my feet slowly. 'h.e.l.l of a thing to do, wake a fellow up in the middle of the -- '

I found myself being propelled from my cabin and led down the corridor to the control room. Blearily, I followed where Holdreth pointed, and then I woke up in a hurry.

The drive was battered again. Someone -- or something -- had completely undone my repair job of the night before.

If there had been bickering among us, it stopped. This was past the category of a joke now; it couldn't be laughed off, and we found ourselves working together as a tight unit again, trying desperately to solve the puzzle before it was too late.

'Let's review the situation,' Holdreth said, pacing nervously up and down the control cabin. 'The drive has been sabotaged twice. None of us knows who did it, and on a conscious level each of us is convinced _he_ didn't do it.'

He paused. 'That leaves us with two possibilities. Either, as Gus suggested, one of us is doing it unaware of it even himself, or someone else is doing it while we're not looking. Neither possibility is a very cheerful one.'

'We can stay on guard, though,' I said. 'Here's what I propose: first, have one of us awake at all times -- sleep in shifts, that is, with somebody guarding the drive until I get it fixed. Two -- jettison all the animals aboard ship.'

_'What?'_ 'He's right,' Davison said. 'We don't know what we may have brought aboard. They don't seem to be intelligent, but we can't be sure. That purple-eyed baby giraffe, for instance -- suppose he's been hypnotizing us into damaging the drive ourselves? How can we tell?'

'Oh, but -- ' Holdreth started to protest, then stopped and frowned soberly. 'I suppose we'll have to admit the possibility,' he said, obviously unhappy about the prospect of freeing our captives. 'We'll empty out the hold, and you see if you can get the drive fixed. Maybe later we'll recapture them all, if nothing further develops.'

We agreed to that, and Holdreth and Davison cleared the ship of its animal cargo while I set to work determinedly at the drive mechanism. By nightfall, I had managed to accomplish as much as I had the day before.

I sat up as watch the first shift, aboard the strangely quiet ship. I paced around the drive cabin, fighting the great temptation to doze off, and managed to last through until the time Holdreth arrived to relieve me.

Only -- when he showed up, he gasped and pointed at the drive. It had been ripped apart a third time.

Now we had no excuse, no explanation. The expedition had turned into a nightmare.

I could only protest that I had remained awake my entire spell on duty, and that I had seen no one and no thing approach the drive panel. But that was hardly a satisfactory explanation, since it either cast guilt on me as the saboteur or implied that some unseen external power was repeatedly wrecking the drive. Neither hypothesis made sense, at least to me.

By now we had spent four days on the planet, and food was getting to be a major problem. My carefully budgeted flight schedule called for us to be two days out on our return journey to Earth by now. But we still were no closer to departure than we had been four days ago.

The animals continued to wander around outside, nosing up against the ship, examining it, almost fondling it, with those d.a.m.ned pseudo-giraffes staring soulfully at us always. The beasts were as friendly as ever, little knowing how the tension was growing within the hull. The three of us walked around like zombies, eyes bright and lips clamped. We were scared -- all of us.

Something was keeping us from fixing the drive.

Something didn't want us to leave this planet.

I looked at the bland face of the purple-eyed giraffe staring through the viewport, and it stared mildly back at me. Around it was grouped the rest of the local fauna, the same incredible hodgepodge of improbable genera and species.