The Unprotected Species Part 2

The 'copter landed expertly a few feet away, and the blades slowed to idling speed. It was Hawkins. He waved excitedly as he ran toward the truck.

"Mac! Gallifa!" he called. "There's a s.p.a.ce ship down a few miles from here!"

Gallifa gasped. A wrecked ship? It seemed inconceivable. A s.p.a.ce craft wasn't dainty. Damage from a wreck should have been plainly visible even from the spotting cruiser--ignoring completely their own air maps.

He faced Hawkins. "Are you sure?" he asked incredulously. "How did we ever miss the wreckage?"

"The ship isn't wrecked," Hawkins said levelly. "It's in the same condition that it was in when it landed."

"It's not wrecked?" MacFarland repeated blankly. "Now who in h.e.l.l--" He turned to Gallifa. "I thought we were the first crew on the planet," he said, almost accusingly. "It's very strange no one told us of any other expedition."

Gallifa frowned in annoyance. "We _are_ the first. I'm sure of that. The other ship must be a free-lance." He turned to Hawkins. "How about the crew? Are they still with the ship?"

"They're still with the ship," Hawkins said quietly. "But they're all dead. It's quite a mess," he added simply.

"A mess?" Gallifa echoed. "Could you tell how they died? Was it a disease? Were they killed by some animals? Speak up, man!"

"You aren't going to believe this," Hawkins said grimly. "But it sure looks like they killed each other."

"Why would they want to do that?" MacFarland protested. "Are you sure, Hawkins? How could you tell, anyway?"

"I could tell," Hawkins insisted. "You better come and have a look for yourselves. I'll take you in the 'copter, then bring you back for the truck."

Gallifa shrugged, and the men joined Hawkins in the helijet. The mapping man handled the controls, and the ship soared into the air.

"There is something else kind of funny, too," Hawkins volunteered. "The ship landed almost on top of a colony of the screwiest bunch of things you ever saw. They look something like little gnomes, only with a pinkish fur. They are all around the ship, but they haven't bothered anything."

"More gnomes," Gallifa told MacFarland. "I wonder if they're ecologically basic?" He addressed Hawkins. "Gnomes are exactly what I called them, but I'm quite sure there were never such gnomes on Earth.

What do you mean by colony? Like a village?"

"No," Hawkins said slowly. "Not that. Maybe I don't mean colony. They just sort of hang around and eat together. They don't have any dwellings, or anything like that. At least, none that I could see," he amended.

Gallifa wasn't sure why he sighed with relief. At least his hypothesis wasn't spoiled. They were clannish. But h.e.l.l, rabbits were clannish.

Herd development wasn't anything more than instinct.

IV

The helijet suddenly swooped around and settled for a landing. It was easy to see how the grounded ship had avoided detection. It was camouflaged almost perfectly--although whether purposely or not wasn't readily discernible.

The s.p.a.ce craft wasn't large. Gallifa estimated an eight-man crew, and Hawkins proved him correct. He had found all of them at once. They had been dead a long while; decomposition had been thorough. But Hawkins was right. It did look as if they had killed themselves.

They were scattered haphazardly around an irregular perimeter of the ship, and no two of the bodies were close together. The positions of the skeletons showed that they hadn't been molested by any wild animals--nor had they been killed by any.

But the strange thing--and this to Gallifa was also a senseless thing--was the startling fact that each skeleton had a pellet pistol still firmly clasped in its fleshless hand.

The magazines of all the weapons were either completely discharged or nearly so. Hence it was obvious that they had been firing at each other.

But why? If it had been a battle between two rival factions--in itself incredible--Gallifa could have understood to some degree. But these men were all alone. Each of them had obviously been against all the rest. No matter how you looked at it, there wasn't any answer.

MacFarland was hard to convince. "Maybe they didn't kill each other," he insisted. "How do you know those creatures--gnomes, as you call them--didn't attack the ship?"

"If you had ever been close to a gnome," Gallifa answered wearily, "you'd have your answer. I can't guess why, but these men killed themselves, beyond any possible doubt."

"Then they must have gone completely crazy," MacFarland said stubbornly.

"Every last one of them."

Gallifa frowned as he remembered Bradshaw. Crazy? Could it be possible that the crew of this ship had stumbled on something which had driven them into insanity? Psychologically, Gallifa couldn't discount an idea simply because it seemed impossible. A newly established colony was a fragile thing.

"While we are here," Gallifa said, "let's take a closer look at that colony of gnomes. I think I noticed something from the air which doesn't jibe with our first impression of them."

The three men climbed a little hillock, and Gallifa carefully studied the area in front of him. He finally shook his head in bafflement.

"This is an unbelievably screwy planet. These creatures apparently haven't reached any stage of development higher than the herd instinct, and yet they are farming. It doesn't make any kind of sense. The species is completely out of character."

MacFarland looked at the virgin growth below him, and shook his head.

"That's a farm?" he asked sarcastically.

Gallifa grinned. "You would have to be a biologist to catch on," he explained. "See that yellowish bush? The one with the purple blossoms?

Now look at the area directly in front of us. Not a single bush. If you will look carefully you will find several types of plant life which are growing freely everywhere except in the area I showed you. The gnomes are allowing only the plants they want to grow in the area.

"Perhaps they aren't exactly _farming_," he elaborated. "That is, they may not be planting anything in an orderly fashion. But they _are_ cultivating. And it all adds up to the same thing. They are increasing an edible crop by eliminating--well, weeds. And if they can do that, they should have a corresponding cultural development.

"Another thing bothers me," Gallifa complained. "If these stupids are a natural prey for animals, as unprotected as they are, I should think they would live in some kind of thick brambles. That at least would give them some measure of safety. I think the bio team is going to have more than their share of headaches."

"Let's work on it tomorrow," MacFarland suggested tiredly. "I want to get back to camp."

Hawkins returned them to the truck, and Gallifa and MacFarland jolted off into the gathering dusk. It was fully dark by the time they reached the camp.

Gallifa checked his team, then gathered their various findings together and sent them over to the Administration Building for further evaluation. Samuels didn't check in with the rest. Gallifa a.s.sumed that he was busy with the gnomes. He wanted to discuss the queer creatures with him, and wandered over to the specimen shack. Samuels wasn't there.

Neither were any of the natives.

Gallifa returned to the team shack and left a note on Samuel's bunk telling him where he could be found. Then he went over to the Administration Building to work with MacFarland. The next few hours he and MacFarland were so busy sorting material and feeding it to the a.n.a.lyzers that he forgot his aide.

Finally Gallifa finished verifying the last of a huge stack of photographs, and stuffed the important ones into a plastic envelope. He added the date seal, initialed it, and handed it to one of the men to take to the laboratory for micro-filming. Then he produced a battered pipe and filled it with tobacco, slowly tamping the bowl with his fingers.

He had just about finished his smoke when the messenger returned to the Administration Building. "--Gallifa," he began.

Gallifa knew that something was wrong by the way the man hesitated. He sprang up. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"Some of the boys ran into Samuels over on the edge of camp," the messenger said miserably. "He was clear out of his head. He fought like a tiger, and they had to tie him hand and foot to get him over to the sick bay. The doctor wants you to come right over."

Gallifa turned a white face to MacFarland. "What the devil," he said woodenly. "Is my whole team going crazy?"

MacFarland slipped into his field boots. "I'll go with you," he said.