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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24949-h.zip b/24949-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa9c1f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/24949-h.zip diff --git a/24949-h/24949-h.htm b/24949-h/24949-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..209c1b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/24949-h/24949-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1609 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Control Group, by Roger Dee + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + h1 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + h2 {text-align: right; clear: both; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-right: 2em;} + hr {width: 45%; margin: 1em auto; clear: both; visibility: hidden;} + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .figcenter {margin: 2em auto; width: 600px;} + .trn {border: solid 1px; margin: 1em 15%; padding: 1em; text-align: justify;} + img {border: none;} + p.cap:first-letter {float: left; margin-right: .05em; padding-top: .05em; font-size: 300%; line-height: .8em;} + .dcap {text-transform: uppercase;} + .tease {margin: 0 auto 2em; width: 17em; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; font-size: large; text-align: justify;} + .theend {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 2em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Control Group, by Roger Dee + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Control Group + +Author: Roger Dee + +Release Date: March 29, 2008 [EBook #24949] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTROL GROUP *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="tease">"Any problem posed by one group of +human beings can be resolved by any +other group." That's what the Handbook +said. But did that include primitive +humans? Or the Bees? Or a ...</p> + +<h1><big>CONTROL GROUP</big></h1> + +<h2>By ROGER DEE</h2> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> cool green disk of Alphard +Six on the screen was +infinitely welcome after the arid +desolation and stinking swamplands +of the inner planets, an +airy jewel of a world that might +have been designed specifically +for the hard-earned month of +rest ahead. Navigator Farrell, +youngest and certainly most impulsive +of the three-man Terran +Reclamations crew, would have +set the <i>Marco Four</i> down at +once but for the greater caution +of Stryker, nominally captain of +the group, and of Gibson, engineer, +and linguist. Xavier, the +ship's little mechanical, had—as +was usual and proper—no voice +in the matter.</p> + +<p>"Reconnaissance spiral first, +Arthur," Stryker said firmly. He +chuckled at Farrell's instant +scowl, his little eyes twinkling +and his naked paunch quaking +over the belt of his shipboard +shorts. "Chapter One, Subsection +Five, Paragraph Twenty-seven: +<i>No planetfall on an unreclaimed +world shall be deemed +safe without proper—</i>"</p> + +<p>Farrell, as Stryker had expected, +interrupted with characteristic +impatience. "Do you <i>sleep</i> +with that damned Reclamations +Handbook, Lee? Alphard Six +isn't an unreclaimed world—it +was never colonized before the +Hymenop invasion back in 3025, +so why should it be inhabited +now?"</p> + +<p>Gibson, who for four hours +had not looked up from his interminable +chess game with +Xavier, paused with a beleaguered +knight in one blunt brown +hand.</p> + +<p>"No point in taking chances," +Gibson said in his neutral baritone. +He shrugged thick bare +shoulders, his humorless black-browed +face unmoved, when +Farrell included him in his +scowl. "We're two hundred twenty-six +light-years from Sol, at +the old limits of Terran expansion, +and there's no knowing +what we may turn up here. Alphard's +was one of the first systems +the Bees took over. It must +have been one of the last to be +abandoned when they pulled back +to 70 Ophiuchi."</p> + +<p>"And I think <i>you</i> live for the +day," Farrell said acidly, "when +we'll stumble across a functioning +dome of live, buzzing Hymenops. +Damn it, Gib, the Bees +pulled out a hundred years ago, +before you and I were born—neither +of us ever saw a Hymenop, +and never will!"</p> + +<p>"But I saw them," Stryker +said. "I fought them for the better +part of the century they were +here, and I learned there's no +predicting nor understanding +them. We never knew why they +came nor why they gave up and +left. How can we know whether +they'd leave a rear-guard or +booby trap here?"</p> + +<p>He put a paternal hand on +Farrell's shoulder, understanding +the younger man's eagerness +and knowing that their close-knit +team would have been the +more poorly balanced without it.</p> + +<p>"Gib's right," he said. He +nearly added <i>as usual</i>. "We're on +rest leave at the moment, yes, +but our mission is still to find +Terran colonies enslaved and +abandoned by the Bees, not to +risk our necks and a valuable +Reorientations ship by landing +blind on an unobserved planet. +We're too close already. Cut in +your shields and find a reconnaissance +spiral, will you?"</p> + +<p>Grumbling, Farrell punched +coordinates on the Ringwave +board that lifted the <i>Marco Four</i> +out of her descent and restored +the bluish enveloping haze of +her repellors.</p> + +<p>Stryker's caution was justified +on the instant. The speeding +streamlined shape that had flashed +up unobserved from below +swerved sharply and exploded in +a cataclysmic blaze of atomic +fire that rocked the ship wildly +and flung the three men to the +floor in a jangling roar of +alarms.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"So the Handbook tacticians +knew what they were about," +Stryker said minutes later. Deliberately +he adopted the smug +tone best calculated to sting Farrell +out of his first self-reproach, +and grinned when the navigator +bristled defensively. "Some of +their enjoinders seem a little +stuffy and obvious at times, but +they're eminently sensible."</p> + +<p>When Farrell refused to be +baited Stryker turned to Gibson, +who was busily assessing the +damage done to the ship's more +fragile equipment, and to Xavier, +who searched the planet's +surface with the ship's magnoscanner. +The <i>Marco Four</i>, Ringwave +generators humming gently, +hung at the moment just +inside the orbit of Alphard Six's +single dun-colored moon.</p> + +<p>Gibson put down a test meter +with an air of finality.</p> + +<p>"Nothing damaged but the +Zero Interval Transfer computer. +I can realign that in a couple +of hours, but it'll have to be +done before we hit Transfer +again."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Stryker looked dubious. +"What if the issue is forced before +the ZIT unit is repaired? +Suppose they come up after us?"</p> + +<p>"I doubt that they can. Any +installation crudely enough +equipped to trust in guided missiles +is hardly likely to have developed +efficient space craft."</p> + +<p>Stryker was not reassured.</p> + +<p>"That torpedo of theirs was +deadly enough," he said. "And +its nature reflects the nature of +the people who made it. Any race +vicious enough to use atomic +charges is too dangerous to +trifle with." Worry made comical +creases in his fat, good-humored +face. "We'll have to find +out who they are and why +they're here, you know."</p> + +<p>"They can't be Hymenops," +Gibson said promptly. "First, +because the Bees pinned their +faith on Ringwave energy fields, +as we did, rather than on missiles. +Second, because there's no +dome on Six."</p> + +<p>"There were three empty +domes on Five, which is a desert +planet," Farrell pointed out. +"Why didn't they settle Six? It's +a more habitable world."</p> + +<p>Gibson shrugged. "I know the +Bees always erected domes on +every planet they colonized, Arthur, +but precedent is a fallible +tool. And it's even more firmly +established that there's no possibility +of our rationalizing the +motivations of a culture as alien +as the Hymenops'—we've been +over that argument a hundred +times on other reclaimed +worlds."</p> + +<p>"But this was never an unreclaimed +world," Farrell said +with the faint malice of one too +recently caught in the wrong. +"Alphard Six was surveyed and +seeded with Terran bacteria +around the year 3000, but the +Bees invaded before we could +colonize. And that means we'll +have to rule out any resurgent +colonial group down there, because +Six never had a colony in +the beginning."</p> + +<p>"The Bees have been gone for +over a hundred years," Stryker +said. "Colonists might have migrated +from another Terran-occupied +planet."</p> + +<p>Gibson disagreed.</p> + +<p>"We've touched at every inhabited +world in this sector, Lee, +and not one surviving colony has +developed space travel on its +own. The Hymenops had a hundred +years to condition their human +slaves to ignorance of +everything beyond their immediate +environment—the motives +behind that conditioning usually +escape us, but that's beside the +point—and they did a thorough +job of it. The colonists have had +no more than a century of freedom +since the Bees pulled out, +and four generations simply +isn't enough time for any subjugated +culture to climb from +slavery to interstellar flight."</p> + +<p>Stryker made a padding turn +about the control room, tugging +unhappily at the scanty fringe +of hair the years had left him.</p> + +<p>"If they're neither Hymenops +nor resurgent colonists," he said, +"then there's only one choice remaining—they're +aliens from a +system we haven't reached yet, +beyond the old sphere of Terran +exploration. We always assumed +that we'd find other races out +here someday, and that they'd +be as different from us in form +and motivation as the Hymenops. +Why not now?"</p> + +<p>Gibson said seriously, "Not +probable, Lee. The same objection +that rules out the Bees applies +to any trans-Alphardian +culture—they'd have to be beyond +the atomic fission stage, +else they'd never have attempted +interstellar flight. The Ringwave +with its Zero Interval Transfer +principle and instantaneous communications +applications is the +only answer to long-range travel, +and if they'd had that they +wouldn't have bothered with +atomics."</p> + +<p>Stryker turned on him almost +angrily. "If they're not Hymenops +or humans or aliens, then +what in God's name <i>are</i> they?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"Aye, there's the rub," Farrell +said, quoting a passage +whose aptness had somehow seen +it through a dozen reorganizations +of insular tongue and a +final translation to universal +Terran. "If they're none of those +three, we've only one conclusion +left. There's no one down there +at all—we're victims of the first +joint hallucination in psychiatric +history."</p> + +<p>Stryker threw up his hands in +surrender. "We can't identify +them by theorizing, and that +brings us down to the business +of first-hand investigation. +Who's going to bell the cat this +time?"</p> + +<p>"I'd like to go," Gibson said +at once. "The ZIT computer can +wait."</p> + +<p>Stryker vetoed his offer as +promptly. "No, the ZIT comes +first. We may have to run for it, +and we can't set up a Transfer +jump without the computer. It's +got to be me or Arthur."</p> + +<p>Farrell felt the familiar chill +of uneasiness that inevitably +preceded this moment of decision. +He was not lacking in courage, +else the circumstances under +which he had worked for the +past ten years—the sometimes +perilous, sometimes downright +charnel conditions left by the +fleeing Hymenop conquerors—would +have broken him long +ago. But that same hard experience +had honed rather than +blunted the edge of his imagination, +and the prospect of a close-quarters +stalking of an unknown +and patently hostile force was +anything but attractive.</p> + +<p>"You two did the field work +on the last location," he said. +"It's high time I took my turn—and +God knows I'd go mad if +I had to stay inship and listen +to Lee memorizing his Handbook +subsections or to Gib practicing +dead languages with Xavier."</p> + +<p>Stryker laughed for the first +time since the explosion that +had so nearly wrecked the <i>Marco +Four</i>.</p> + +<p>"Good enough. Though it +wouldn't be more diverting to +listen for hours to you improvising +enharmonic variations on +the <i>Lament for Old Terra</i> with +your accordion."</p> + +<p>Gibson, characteristically, had +a refinement to offer.</p> + +<p>"They'll be alerted down there +for a reconnaissance sally," he +said. "Why not let Xavier take +the scouter down for overt diversion, +and drop Arthur off in +the helihopper for a low-level +check?"</p> + +<p>Stryker looked at Farrell. "All +right, Arthur?"</p> + +<p>"Good enough," Farrell said. +And to Xavier, who had not +moved from his post at the magnoscanner: +"How does it look, +Xav? Have you pinned down +their base yet?"</p> + +<p>The mechanical answered him +in a voice as smooth and clear—and +as inflectionless—as a 'cello +note. "The planet seems uninhabited +except for a large island +some three hundred miles in +diameter. There are twenty-seven +small agrarian hamlets surrounded +by cultivated fields. +There is one city of perhaps a +thousand buildings with a central +square. In the square rests +a grounded spaceship of approximately +ten times the bulk +of the <i>Marco Four</i>."</p> + +<p>They crowded about the vision +screen, jostling Xavier's jointed +gray shape in their interest. The +central city lay in minutest detail +before them, the battered +hulk of the grounded ship glinting +rustily in the late afternoon +sunlight. Streets radiated away +from the square in orderly succession, +the whole so clearly +depicted that they could see the +throngs of people surging up +and down, tiny foreshortened +faces turned toward the sky.</p> + +<p>"At least they're human," +Farrell said. Relief replaced in +some measure his earlier uneasiness. +"Which means that they're +Terran, and can be dealt with +according to Reclamations routine. +Is that hulk spaceworthy, +Xav?"</p> + +<p>Xavier's mellow drone assumed +the convention vibrato that +indicated stark puzzlement. "Its +breached hull makes the ship incapable +of flight. Apparently it +is used only to supply power to +the outlying hamlets."</p> + +<p>The mechanical put a flexible +gray finger upon an indicator +graph derived from a composite +section of detector meters. "The +power transmitted seems to be +gross electric current conveyed +by metallic cables. It is generated +through a crudely governed +process of continuous atomic +fission."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Farrell, himself appalled by +the information, still found himself +able to chuckle at Stryker's +bellow of consternation.</p> + +<p>"<i>Continuous fission?</i> Good +God, only madmen would deliberately +run a risk like that!"</p> + +<p>Farrell prodded him with +cheerful malice. "Why say mad +<i>men</i>? Maybe they're humanoid +aliens who thrive on hard radiation +and look on the danger of +being blown to hell in the middle +of the night as a satisfactory +risk."</p> + +<p>"They're not alien," Gibson +said positively. "Their architecture +is Terran, and so is their +ship. The ship is incredibly +primitive, though; those batteries +of tubes at either end—"</p> + +<p>"Are thrust reaction jets," +Stryker finished in an awed +voice. "Primitive isn't the word, +Gib—the thing is prehistoric! +Rocket propulsion hasn't been +used in spacecraft since—how +long, Xav?"</p> + +<p>Xavier supplied the information +with mechanical infallibility. +"Since the year 2100 when +the Ringwave propulsion-communication +principle was discovered. +That principle has served +men since."</p> + +<p>Farrell stared in blank disbelief +at the anomalous craft on +the screen. Primitive, as Stryker +had said, was not the word +for it: clumsily ovoid, studded +with torpedo domes and turrets +and bristling at either end with +propulsion tubes, it lay at the +center of its square like a rusted +relic of a past largely destroyed +and all but forgotten. What a +magnificent disregard its builders +must have had, he thought, +for their lives and the genetic +purity of their posterity! The +sullen atomic fires banked in +that oxidizing hulk—</p> + +<p>Stryker said plaintively, "If +you're right, Gib, then we're +more in the dark than ever. How +could a Terran-built ship eleven +hundred years old get <i>here</i>?"</p> + +<p>Gibson, absorbed in his chess-player's +contemplation of alternatives, +seemed hardly to hear +him.</p> + +<p>"Logic or not-logic," Gibson +said. "If it's a Terran artifact, +we can discover the reason for +its presence. If not—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Any problem posed by one +group of human beings</i>," Stryker +quoted his Handbook, "<i>can be +resolved by any other group, regardless +of ideology or conditioning, +because the basic +perceptive abilities of both must +be the same through identical +heredity</i>."</p> + +<p>"If it's an imitation, and this +is another Hymenop experiment +in condition ecology, then we're +stumped to begin with," Gibson +finished. "Because we're not +equipped to evaluate the psychology +of alien motivation. We've +got to determine first which case +applies here."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>He waited for Farrell's expected +irony, and when the +navigator forestalled him by remaining +grimly quiet, continued.</p> + +<p>"The obvious premise is that +a Terran ship must have been +built by Terrans. Question: Was +it flown here, or built here?"</p> + +<p>"It couldn't have been built +here," Stryker said. "Alphard +Six was surveyed just before the +Bees took over in 3025, and there +was nothing of the sort here +then. It couldn't have been built +during the two and a quarter +centuries since; it's obviously +much older than that. It was +flown here."</p> + +<p>"We progress," Farrell said +dryly. "Now if you'll tell us <i>how</i>, +we're ready to move."</p> + +<p>"I think the ship was built on +Terra during the Twenty-second +Century," Gibson said calmly. +"The atomic wars during that +period destroyed practically all +historical records along with the +technology of the time, but I've +read well-authenticated reports +of atomic-driven ships leaving +Terra before then for the nearer +stars. The human race climbed +out of its pit again during the +Twenty-third Century and developed +the technology that gave +us the Ringwave. Certainly no +atomic-powered ships were built +after the wars—our records are +complete from that time."</p> + +<p>Farrell shook his head at the +inference. "I've read any number +of fanciful romances on the +theme, Gib, but it won't stand +up in practice. No shipboard society +could last through a thousand-year +space voyage. It's a +physical and psychological impossibility. +There's got to be +some other explanation."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Gibson shrugged. "We can +only eliminate the least likely +alternatives and accept the simplest +one remaining."</p> + +<p>"Then we can eliminate this +one now," Farrell said flatly. "It +entails a thousand-year voyage, +which is an impossibility for any +gross reaction drive; the application +of suspended animation +or longevity or a successive-generation +program, and a final +penetration of Hymenop-occupied +space to set up a colony under +the very antennae of the +Bees. Longevity wasn't developed +until around the year 3000—Lee +here was one of the first to +profit by it, if you remember—and +suspended animation is still +to come. So there's one theory +you can forget."</p> + +<p>"Arthur's right," Stryker said +reluctantly. "An atomic-powered +ship <i>couldn't</i> have made such a +trip, Gib. And such a lineal-descendant +project couldn't have +lasted through forty generations, +speculative fiction to the +contrary—the later generations +would have been too far removed +in ideology and intent from +their ancestors. They'd have +adapted to shipboard life as the +norm. They'd have atrophied +physically, perhaps even have +mutated—"</p> + +<p>"And they'd never have +fought past the Bees during the +Hymenop invasion and occupation," +Farrell finished triumphantly. +"The Bees had better +detection equipment than we +had. They'd have picked this +ship up long before it reached +Alphard Six."</p> + +<p>"But the ship wasn't here in +3000," Gibson said, "and it is +now. Therefore it must have arrived +at some time during the +two hundred years of Hymenop +occupation and evacuation."</p> + +<p>Farrell, tangled in contradictions, +swore bitterly. "But +why should the Bees let them +through? The three domes on +Five are over two hundred years +old, which means that the Bees +were here before the ship came. +Why didn't they blast it or enslave +its crew?"</p> + +<p>"We haven't touched on all the +possibilities," Gibson reminded +him. "We haven't even established +yet that these people were +never under Hymenop control. +Precedent won't hold always, and +there's no predicting nor evaluating +the motives of an alien +race. We never understood the +Hymenops because there's no +common ground of logic between +us. Why try to interpret their +intentions now?"</p> + +<p>Farrell threw up his hands in +disgust. "Next you'll say this is +an ancient Terran expedition +that actually succeeded! There's +only one way to answer the +questions we've raised, and +that's to go down and see for +ourselves. Ready, Xav?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>But uncertainty nagged uneasily +at him when Farrell found +himself alone in the helihopper +with the forest flowing beneath +like a leafy river and Xavier's +scouter disappearing bulletlike +into the dusk ahead.</p> + +<p>We never found a colony so +advanced, Farrell thought. Suppose +this is a Hymenop experiment +that really paid off? The +Bees did some weird and wonderful +things with human +guinea pigs—what if they've +created the ultimate booby trap +here, and primed it with conditioned +myrmidons in our own +form?</p> + +<p>Suppose, he thought—and derided +himself for thinking it—one +of those suicidal old interstellar +ventures <i>did</i> succeed?</p> + +<p>Xavier's voice, a mellow +drone from the helihopper's +Ringwave-powered visicom, cut +sharply into his musing. "The +ship has discovered the scouter +and is training an electronic +beam upon it. My instruments +record an electromagnetic vibration +pattern of low power but +rapidly varying frequency. The +operation seems pointless."</p> + +<p>Stryker's voice followed, querulous +with worry: "I'd better +pull Xav back. It may be something +lethal."</p> + +<p>"Don't," Gibson's baritone advised. +Surprisingly, there was +excitement in the engineer's +voice. "I think they're trying to +communicate with us."</p> + +<p>Farrell was on the point of +demanding acidly to know how +one went about communicating +by means of a fluctuating electric +field when the unexpected +cessation of forest diverted his +attention. The helihopper scudded +over a cultivated area +of considerable extent, fields +stretching below in a vague random +checkerboard of lighter and +darker earth, an undefined cluster +of buildings at their center. +There was a central bonfire that +burned like a wild red eye +against the lower gloom, and in +its plunging ruddy glow he made +out an urgent scurrying of shadowy +figures.</p> + +<p>"I'm passing over a hamlet," +Farrell reported. "The one nearest +the city, I think. There's +something odd going on +down—"</p> + +<p>Catastrophe struck so suddenly +that he was caught completely +unprepared. The helihopper's +flimsy carriage bucked and +crumpled. There was a blinding +flare of electric discharge, a +pungent stink of ozone and a +stunning shock that flung him +headlong into darkness.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>He awoke slowly with a brutal +headache and a conviction of +nightmare heightened by the +outlandish tone of his surroundings. +He lay on a narrow bed in +a whitely antiseptic infirmary, +an oblong metal cell cluttered +with a grimly utilitarian array +of tables and lockers and chests. +The lighting was harsh and +overbright and the air hung +thick with pungent unfamiliar +chemical odors. From somewhere, +far off yet at the same +time as near as the bulkhead +above him, came the unceasing +drone of machinery.</p> + +<p>Farrell sat up, groaning, +when full consciousness made his +position clear. He had been shot +down by God knew what sort of +devastating unorthodox weapon +and was a prisoner in the +grounded ship.</p> + +<p>At his rising, a white-smocked +fat man with anachronistic spectacles +and close-cropped gray +hair came into the room, moving +with the professional assurance +of a medic. The man stopped +short at Farrell's stare and +spoke; his words were utterly +unintelligible, but his gesture +was unmistakable.</p> + +<p>Farrell followed him dumbly +out of the infirmary and down +a bare corridor whose metal +floor rang coldly underfoot. An +open port near the corridor's end +relieved the blankness of wall +and let in a flood of reddish Alphardian +sunlight; Farrell slowed +to look out, wondering how +long he had lain unconscious, +and felt panic knife at him +when he saw Xavier's scouter lying, +port open and undefended, +on the square outside.</p> + +<p>The mechanical had been as +easily taken as himself, then. +Stryker and Gibson, for all their +professional caution, would fare +no better—they could not have +overlooked the capture of Farrell +and Xavier, and when they +tried as a matter of course to +rescue them the <i>Marco</i> would be +struck down in turn by the same +weapon.</p> + +<p>The fat medic turned and +said something urgent in his +unintelligible tongue. Farrell, +dazed by the enormity of what +had happened, followed without +protest into an intersecting way +that led through a bewildering +succession of storage rooms and +hydroponics gardens, through a +small gymnasium fitted with +physical training equipment in +graduated sizes and finally into +a soundproofed place that could +have been nothing but a nursery.</p> + +<p>The implication behind its +presence stopped Farrell short.</p> + +<p>"A <i>creche</i>," he said, stunned. +He had a wild vision of endless +generations of children growing +up in this dim and stuffy room, +to be taught from their first +toddling steps the functions they +must fulfill before the venture +of which they were a part could +be consummated.</p> + +<p>One of those old ventures <i>had</i> +succeeded, he thought, and was +awed by the daring of that thousand-year +odyssey. The realization +left him more alarmed than +before—for what technical marvels +might not an isolated group +of such dogged specialists have +developed during a millennium +of application?</p> + +<p>Such a weapon as had brought +down the helihopper and scouter +was patently beyond reach of his +own latter-day technology. Perhaps, +he thought, its possession +explained the presence of these +people here in the first stronghold +of the Hymenops; perhaps +they had even fought and defeated +the Bees on their own invaded +ground.</p> + +<p>He followed his white-smocked +guide through a power room +where great crude generators +whirred ponderously, pouring +out gross electric current into +arm-thick cables. They were +nearing the bow of the ship +when they passed by another +open port and Farrell, glancing +out over the lowered rampway, +saw that his fears for Stryker +and Gibson had been well +grounded.</p> + +<p>The <i>Marco Four</i>, ports open, +lay grounded outside.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Farrell could not have said, +later, whether his next move +was planned or reflexive. The +whole desperate issue seemed to +hang suspended for a breathless +moment upon a hair-fine edge of +decision, and in that instant he +made his bid.</p> + +<p>Without pausing in his stride +he sprang out and through the +port and down the steep plane +of the ramp. The rough stone +pavement of the square drummed +underfoot; sore muscles +tore at him, and weakness was +like a weight about his neck. He +expected momentarily to be +blasted out of existence.</p> + +<p>He reached the <i>Marco Four</i> +with the startled shouts of his +guide ringing unintelligibly in +his ears. The port yawned; he +plunged inside and stabbed at +controls without waiting to seat +himself. The ports swung shut. +The ship darted up under his +manipulation and arrowed into +space with an acceleration that +sprung his knees and made his +vision swim blackly.</p> + +<p>He was so weak with strain +and with the success of his coup +that he all but fainted when +Stryker, his scanty hair tousled +and his fat face comical with bewilderment, +stumbled out of his +sleeping cubicle and bellowed at +him.</p> + +<p>"What the hell are you doing, +Arthur? Take us down!"</p> + +<p>Farrell gaped at him, speechless.</p> + +<p>Stryker lumbered past him +and took the controls, spiraling +the <i>Marco Four</i> down. Men +swarmed outside the ports when +the Reclamations craft settled +gently to the square again. Gibson +and Xavier reached the ship +first; Gibson came inside quickly, +leaving the mechanical outside +making patient explanations +to an excited group of Alphardians.</p> + +<p>Gibson put a reassuring hand +on Farrell's arm. "It's all right, +Arthur. There's no trouble."</p> + +<p>Farrell said dumbly, "I don't +understand. They didn't shoot +you and Xav down too?"</p> + +<p>It was Gibson's turn to stare.</p> + +<p>"No one shot you down! These +people are primitive enough to +use metallic power lines to +carry electricity to their hamlets, +an anachronism you forgot +last night. You piloted the helihopper +into one of those lines, +and the crash put you out for +the rest of the night and most +of today. These Alphardians are +friendly, so desperately happy to +be found again that it's really +pathetic."</p> + +<p>"<i>Friendly?</i> That torpedo—"</p> + +<p>"It wasn't a torpedo at all," +Stryker put in. Understanding +of the error under which Farrell +had labored erased his +earlier irritation, and he chuckled +commiseratingly. "They had +one small boat left for emergency +missions, and sent it up to +contact us in the fear that we +might overlook their settlement +and move on. The boat was +atomic powered, and our shield +screens set off its engines."</p> + +<p>Farrell dropped into a chair at +the chart table, limp with reaction. +He was suddenly exhausted, +and his head ached dully.</p> + +<p>"We cracked the communications +problem early last night," +Gibson said. "These people use +an ancient system of electromagnetic +wave propagation called +frequency modulation, and once +Lee and I rigged up a suitable +transceiver the rest was simple. +Both Xav and I recognized the +old language; the natives reported +your accident, and we came +down at once."</p> + +<p>"They really came from Terra? +They lived through a thousand +years of flight?"</p> + +<p>"The ship left Terra for +Sirius in 2171," Gibson said. +"But not with these people +aboard, or their ancestors. That +expedition perished after less +than a light-year when its +hydroponics system failed. The +Hymenops found the ship derelict +when they invaded us, and +brought it to Alphard Six in +what was probably their first experiment +with human subjects. +The ship's log shows clearly +what happened to the original +complement. The rest is deducible +from the situation here."</p> + +<p>Farrell put his hands to his +temples and groaned. "The crash +must have scrambled my wits. +Gib, where <i>did</i> they come from?"</p> + +<p>"From one of the first peripheral +colonies conquered by the +Bees," Gibson said patiently. +"The Hymenops were long-range +planners, remember, and masters +of hypnotic conditioning. They +stocked the ship with a captive +crew of Terrans conditioned to +believe themselves descendants +of the original crew, and +grounded it here in disabled +condition. They left for Alphard +Five then, to watch developments.</p> + +<p>"Succeeding generations of +colonists grew up accepting the +fact that their ship had missed +Sirius and made planetfall here—they +still don't know where +they really are—by luck. They +never knew about the Hymenops, +and they've struggled along +with an inadequate technology in +the hope that a later expedition +would find them. They found the +truth hard to take, but they're +eager to enjoy the fruits of Terran +assimilation."</p> + +<p>Stryker, grinning, brought +Farrell a frosted drink that tinkled +invitingly. "An unusually +fortunate ending to a Hymenop +experiment," he said. "These +people progressed normally because +they've been let alone. Reorienting +them will be a simple +matter; they'll be properly spoiled +colonists within another generation."</p> + +<p>Farrell sipped his drink appreciatively.</p> + +<p>"But I don't see why the Bees +should go to such trouble to deceive +these people. Why did they +sit back and let them grow as +they pleased, Gib? It doesn't +make sense!"</p> + +<p>"But it does, for once," Gibson +said. "The Bees set up this +colony as a control unit to study +the species they were invading, +and they had to give their +specimens a normal—if obsolete—background +in order to determine +their capabilities. The fact +that their experiment didn't tell +them what they wanted to know +may have had a direct bearing +on their decision to pull out."</p> + +<p>Farrell shook his head. "It's +a reverse application, isn't it of +the old saw about Terrans being +incapable of understanding an +alien culture?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Gibson, surprised. +"It's obvious enough, +surely—hard as they tried, the +Bees never understood us +either."</p> + +<p class="theend">THE END</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/001.png" width="600" height="268" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="trn"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b><br /> +This etext was produced from <i>Amazing Science Fiction Stories</i> January +1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and +typographical errors have been corrected without note.</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Control Group, by Roger Dee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTROL GROUP *** + +***** This file should be named 24949-h.htm or 24949-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/9/4/24949/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Control Group + +Author: Roger Dee + +Release Date: March 29, 2008 [EBook #24949] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTROL GROUP *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + _"Any problem posed by one group of + human beings can be resolved by any + other group." That's what the Handbook + said. But did that include primitive + humans? Or the Bees? Or a ..._ + + +CONTROL GROUP + +By ROGER DEE + + +The cool green disk of Alphard Six on the screen was infinitely welcome +after the arid desolation and stinking swamplands of the inner planets, +an airy jewel of a world that might have been designed specifically for +the hard-earned month of rest ahead. Navigator Farrell, youngest and +certainly most impulsive of the three-man Terran Reclamations crew, +would have set the _Marco Four_ down at once but for the greater caution +of Stryker, nominally captain of the group, and of Gibson, engineer, and +linguist. Xavier, the ship's little mechanical, had--as was usual and +proper--no voice in the matter. + +"Reconnaissance spiral first, Arthur," Stryker said firmly. He chuckled +at Farrell's instant scowl, his little eyes twinkling and his naked +paunch quaking over the belt of his shipboard shorts. "Chapter One, +Subsection Five, Paragraph Twenty-seven: _No planetfall on an +unreclaimed world shall be deemed safe without proper--_" + +Farrell, as Stryker had expected, interrupted with characteristic +impatience. "Do you _sleep_ with that damned Reclamations Handbook, Lee? +Alphard Six isn't an unreclaimed world--it was never colonized before +the Hymenop invasion back in 3025, so why should it be inhabited now?" + +Gibson, who for four hours had not looked up from his interminable chess +game with Xavier, paused with a beleaguered knight in one blunt brown +hand. + +"No point in taking chances," Gibson said in his neutral baritone. He +shrugged thick bare shoulders, his humorless black-browed face unmoved, +when Farrell included him in his scowl. "We're two hundred twenty-six +light-years from Sol, at the old limits of Terran expansion, and there's +no knowing what we may turn up here. Alphard's was one of the first +systems the Bees took over. It must have been one of the last to be +abandoned when they pulled back to 70 Ophiuchi." + +"And I think _you_ live for the day," Farrell said acidly, "when we'll +stumble across a functioning dome of live, buzzing Hymenops. Damn it, +Gib, the Bees pulled out a hundred years ago, before you and I were +born--neither of us ever saw a Hymenop, and never will!" + +"But I saw them," Stryker said. "I fought them for the better part of +the century they were here, and I learned there's no predicting nor +understanding them. We never knew why they came nor why they gave up and +left. How can we know whether they'd leave a rear-guard or booby trap +here?" + +He put a paternal hand on Farrell's shoulder, understanding the younger +man's eagerness and knowing that their close-knit team would have been +the more poorly balanced without it. + +"Gib's right," he said. He nearly added _as usual_. "We're on rest leave +at the moment, yes, but our mission is still to find Terran colonies +enslaved and abandoned by the Bees, not to risk our necks and a valuable +Reorientations ship by landing blind on an unobserved planet. We're too +close already. Cut in your shields and find a reconnaissance spiral, +will you?" + +Grumbling, Farrell punched coordinates on the Ringwave board that lifted +the _Marco Four_ out of her descent and restored the bluish enveloping +haze of her repellors. + +Stryker's caution was justified on the instant. The speeding streamlined +shape that had flashed up unobserved from below swerved sharply and +exploded in a cataclysmic blaze of atomic fire that rocked the ship +wildly and flung the three men to the floor in a jangling roar of +alarms. + + * * * * * + +"So the Handbook tacticians knew what they were about," Stryker said +minutes later. Deliberately he adopted the smug tone best calculated to +sting Farrell out of his first self-reproach, and grinned when the +navigator bristled defensively. "Some of their enjoinders seem a little +stuffy and obvious at times, but they're eminently sensible." + +When Farrell refused to be baited Stryker turned to Gibson, who was +busily assessing the damage done to the ship's more fragile equipment, +and to Xavier, who searched the planet's surface with the ship's +magnoscanner. The _Marco Four_, Ringwave generators humming gently, hung +at the moment just inside the orbit of Alphard Six's single dun-colored +moon. + +Gibson put down a test meter with an air of finality. + +"Nothing damaged but the Zero Interval Transfer computer. I can realign +that in a couple of hours, but it'll have to be done before we hit +Transfer again." + + * * * * * + +Stryker looked dubious. "What if the issue is forced before the ZIT unit +is repaired? Suppose they come up after us?" + +"I doubt that they can. Any installation crudely enough equipped to +trust in guided missiles is hardly likely to have developed efficient +space craft." + +Stryker was not reassured. + +"That torpedo of theirs was deadly enough," he said. "And its nature +reflects the nature of the people who made it. Any race vicious enough +to use atomic charges is too dangerous to trifle with." Worry made +comical creases in his fat, good-humored face. "We'll have to find out +who they are and why they're here, you know." + +"They can't be Hymenops," Gibson said promptly. "First, because the Bees +pinned their faith on Ringwave energy fields, as we did, rather than on +missiles. Second, because there's no dome on Six." + +"There were three empty domes on Five, which is a desert planet," +Farrell pointed out. "Why didn't they settle Six? It's a more habitable +world." + +Gibson shrugged. "I know the Bees always erected domes on every planet +they colonized, Arthur, but precedent is a fallible tool. And it's even +more firmly established that there's no possibility of our rationalizing +the motivations of a culture as alien as the Hymenops'--we've been over +that argument a hundred times on other reclaimed worlds." + +"But this was never an unreclaimed world," Farrell said with the faint +malice of one too recently caught in the wrong. "Alphard Six was +surveyed and seeded with Terran bacteria around the year 3000, but the +Bees invaded before we could colonize. And that means we'll have to rule +out any resurgent colonial group down there, because Six never had a +colony in the beginning." + +"The Bees have been gone for over a hundred years," Stryker said. +"Colonists might have migrated from another Terran-occupied planet." + +Gibson disagreed. + +"We've touched at every inhabited world in this sector, Lee, and not one +surviving colony has developed space travel on its own. The Hymenops had +a hundred years to condition their human slaves to ignorance of +everything beyond their immediate environment--the motives behind that +conditioning usually escape us, but that's beside the point--and they +did a thorough job of it. The colonists have had no more than a century +of freedom since the Bees pulled out, and four generations simply isn't +enough time for any subjugated culture to climb from slavery to +interstellar flight." + +Stryker made a padding turn about the control room, tugging unhappily at +the scanty fringe of hair the years had left him. + +"If they're neither Hymenops nor resurgent colonists," he said, "then +there's only one choice remaining--they're aliens from a system we +haven't reached yet, beyond the old sphere of Terran exploration. We +always assumed that we'd find other races out here someday, and that +they'd be as different from us in form and motivation as the Hymenops. +Why not now?" + +Gibson said seriously, "Not probable, Lee. The same objection that rules +out the Bees applies to any trans-Alphardian culture--they'd have to be +beyond the atomic fission stage, else they'd never have attempted +interstellar flight. The Ringwave with its Zero Interval Transfer +principle and instantaneous communications applications is the only +answer to long-range travel, and if they'd had that they wouldn't have +bothered with atomics." + +Stryker turned on him almost angrily. "If they're not Hymenops or humans +or aliens, then what in God's name _are_ they?" + + * * * * * + +"Aye, there's the rub," Farrell said, quoting a passage whose aptness +had somehow seen it through a dozen reorganizations of insular tongue +and a final translation to universal Terran. "If they're none of those +three, we've only one conclusion left. There's no one down there at +all--we're victims of the first joint hallucination in psychiatric +history." + +Stryker threw up his hands in surrender. "We can't identify them by +theorizing, and that brings us down to the business of first-hand +investigation. Who's going to bell the cat this time?" + +"I'd like to go," Gibson said at once. "The ZIT computer can wait." + +Stryker vetoed his offer as promptly. "No, the ZIT comes first. We may +have to run for it, and we can't set up a Transfer jump without the +computer. It's got to be me or Arthur." + +Farrell felt the familiar chill of uneasiness that inevitably preceded +this moment of decision. He was not lacking in courage, else the +circumstances under which he had worked for the past ten years--the +sometimes perilous, sometimes downright charnel conditions left by the +fleeing Hymenop conquerors--would have broken him long ago. But that +same hard experience had honed rather than blunted the edge of his +imagination, and the prospect of a close-quarters stalking of an unknown +and patently hostile force was anything but attractive. + +"You two did the field work on the last location," he said. "It's high +time I took my turn--and God knows I'd go mad if I had to stay inship +and listen to Lee memorizing his Handbook subsections or to Gib +practicing dead languages with Xavier." + +Stryker laughed for the first time since the explosion that had so +nearly wrecked the _Marco Four_. + +"Good enough. Though it wouldn't be more diverting to listen for hours +to you improvising enharmonic variations on the _Lament for Old Terra_ +with your accordion." + +Gibson, characteristically, had a refinement to offer. + +"They'll be alerted down there for a reconnaissance sally," he said. +"Why not let Xavier take the scouter down for overt diversion, and drop +Arthur off in the helihopper for a low-level check?" + +Stryker looked at Farrell. "All right, Arthur?" + +"Good enough," Farrell said. And to Xavier, who had not moved from his +post at the magnoscanner: "How does it look, Xav? Have you pinned down +their base yet?" + +The mechanical answered him in a voice as smooth and clear--and as +inflectionless--as a 'cello note. "The planet seems uninhabited except +for a large island some three hundred miles in diameter. There are +twenty-seven small agrarian hamlets surrounded by cultivated fields. +There is one city of perhaps a thousand buildings with a central square. +In the square rests a grounded spaceship of approximately ten times the +bulk of the _Marco Four_." + +They crowded about the vision screen, jostling Xavier's jointed gray +shape in their interest. The central city lay in minutest detail before +them, the battered hulk of the grounded ship glinting rustily in the +late afternoon sunlight. Streets radiated away from the square in +orderly succession, the whole so clearly depicted that they could see +the throngs of people surging up and down, tiny foreshortened faces +turned toward the sky. + +"At least they're human," Farrell said. Relief replaced in some measure +his earlier uneasiness. "Which means that they're Terran, and can be +dealt with according to Reclamations routine. Is that hulk spaceworthy, +Xav?" + +Xavier's mellow drone assumed the convention vibrato that indicated +stark puzzlement. "Its breached hull makes the ship incapable of flight. +Apparently it is used only to supply power to the outlying hamlets." + +The mechanical put a flexible gray finger upon an indicator graph +derived from a composite section of detector meters. "The power +transmitted seems to be gross electric current conveyed by metallic +cables. It is generated through a crudely governed process of continuous +atomic fission." + + * * * * * + +Farrell, himself appalled by the information, still found himself able +to chuckle at Stryker's bellow of consternation. + +"_Continuous fission?_ Good God, only madmen would deliberately run a +risk like that!" + +Farrell prodded him with cheerful malice. "Why say mad _men_? Maybe +they're humanoid aliens who thrive on hard radiation and look on the +danger of being blown to hell in the middle of the night as a +satisfactory risk." + +"They're not alien," Gibson said positively. "Their architecture is +Terran, and so is their ship. The ship is incredibly primitive, though; +those batteries of tubes at either end--" + +"Are thrust reaction jets," Stryker finished in an awed voice. +"Primitive isn't the word, Gib--the thing is prehistoric! Rocket +propulsion hasn't been used in spacecraft since--how long, Xav?" + +Xavier supplied the information with mechanical infallibility. "Since +the year 2100 when the Ringwave propulsion-communication principle was +discovered. That principle has served men since." + +Farrell stared in blank disbelief at the anomalous craft on the screen. +Primitive, as Stryker had said, was not the word for it: clumsily ovoid, +studded with torpedo domes and turrets and bristling at either end with +propulsion tubes, it lay at the center of its square like a rusted relic +of a past largely destroyed and all but forgotten. What a magnificent +disregard its builders must have had, he thought, for their lives and +the genetic purity of their posterity! The sullen atomic fires banked in +that oxidizing hulk-- + +Stryker said plaintively, "If you're right, Gib, then we're more in the +dark than ever. How could a Terran-built ship eleven hundred years old +get _here_?" + +Gibson, absorbed in his chess-player's contemplation of alternatives, +seemed hardly to hear him. + +"Logic or not-logic," Gibson said. "If it's a Terran artifact, we can +discover the reason for its presence. If not--" + +"_Any problem posed by one group of human beings_," Stryker quoted his +Handbook, "_can be resolved by any other group, regardless of ideology +or conditioning, because the basic perceptive abilities of both must be +the same through identical heredity_." + +"If it's an imitation, and this is another Hymenop experiment in +condition ecology, then we're stumped to begin with," Gibson finished. +"Because we're not equipped to evaluate the psychology of alien +motivation. We've got to determine first which case applies here." + + * * * * * + +He waited for Farrell's expected irony, and when the navigator +forestalled him by remaining grimly quiet, continued. + +"The obvious premise is that a Terran ship must have been built by +Terrans. Question: Was it flown here, or built here?" + +"It couldn't have been built here," Stryker said. "Alphard Six was +surveyed just before the Bees took over in 3025, and there was nothing +of the sort here then. It couldn't have been built during the two and a +quarter centuries since; it's obviously much older than that. It was +flown here." + +"We progress," Farrell said dryly. "Now if you'll tell us _how_, we're +ready to move." + +"I think the ship was built on Terra during the Twenty-second Century," +Gibson said calmly. "The atomic wars during that period destroyed +practically all historical records along with the technology of the +time, but I've read well-authenticated reports of atomic-driven ships +leaving Terra before then for the nearer stars. The human race climbed +out of its pit again during the Twenty-third Century and developed the +technology that gave us the Ringwave. Certainly no atomic-powered ships +were built after the wars--our records are complete from that time." + +Farrell shook his head at the inference. "I've read any number of +fanciful romances on the theme, Gib, but it won't stand up in practice. +No shipboard society could last through a thousand-year space voyage. +It's a physical and psychological impossibility. There's got to be some +other explanation." + + * * * * * + +Gibson shrugged. "We can only eliminate the least likely alternatives +and accept the simplest one remaining." + +"Then we can eliminate this one now," Farrell said flatly. "It entails a +thousand-year voyage, which is an impossibility for any gross reaction +drive; the application of suspended animation or longevity or a +successive-generation program, and a final penetration of +Hymenop-occupied space to set up a colony under the very antennae of the +Bees. Longevity wasn't developed until around the year 3000--Lee here +was one of the first to profit by it, if you remember--and suspended +animation is still to come. So there's one theory you can forget." + +"Arthur's right," Stryker said reluctantly. "An atomic-powered ship +_couldn't_ have made such a trip, Gib. And such a lineal-descendant +project couldn't have lasted through forty generations, speculative +fiction to the contrary--the later generations would have been too far +removed in ideology and intent from their ancestors. They'd have adapted +to shipboard life as the norm. They'd have atrophied physically, perhaps +even have mutated--" + +"And they'd never have fought past the Bees during the Hymenop invasion +and occupation," Farrell finished triumphantly. "The Bees had better +detection equipment than we had. They'd have picked this ship up long +before it reached Alphard Six." + +"But the ship wasn't here in 3000," Gibson said, "and it is now. +Therefore it must have arrived at some time during the two hundred +years of Hymenop occupation and evacuation." + +Farrell, tangled in contradictions, swore bitterly. "But why should the +Bees let them through? The three domes on Five are over two hundred +years old, which means that the Bees were here before the ship came. Why +didn't they blast it or enslave its crew?" + +"We haven't touched on all the possibilities," Gibson reminded him. "We +haven't even established yet that these people were never under Hymenop +control. Precedent won't hold always, and there's no predicting nor +evaluating the motives of an alien race. We never understood the +Hymenops because there's no common ground of logic between us. Why try +to interpret their intentions now?" + +Farrell threw up his hands in disgust. "Next you'll say this is an +ancient Terran expedition that actually succeeded! There's only one way +to answer the questions we've raised, and that's to go down and see for +ourselves. Ready, Xav?" + + * * * * * + +But uncertainty nagged uneasily at him when Farrell found himself alone +in the helihopper with the forest flowing beneath like a leafy river and +Xavier's scouter disappearing bulletlike into the dusk ahead. + +We never found a colony so advanced, Farrell thought. Suppose this is a +Hymenop experiment that really paid off? The Bees did some weird and +wonderful things with human guinea pigs--what if they've created the +ultimate booby trap here, and primed it with conditioned myrmidons in +our own form? + +Suppose, he thought--and derided himself for thinking it--one of those +suicidal old interstellar ventures _did_ succeed? + +Xavier's voice, a mellow drone from the helihopper's Ringwave-powered +visicom, cut sharply into his musing. "The ship has discovered the +scouter and is training an electronic beam upon it. My instruments +record an electromagnetic vibration pattern of low power but rapidly +varying frequency. The operation seems pointless." + +Stryker's voice followed, querulous with worry: "I'd better pull Xav +back. It may be something lethal." + +"Don't," Gibson's baritone advised. Surprisingly, there was excitement +in the engineer's voice. "I think they're trying to communicate with +us." + +Farrell was on the point of demanding acidly to know how one went about +communicating by means of a fluctuating electric field when the +unexpected cessation of forest diverted his attention. The helihopper +scudded over a cultivated area of considerable extent, fields stretching +below in a vague random checkerboard of lighter and darker earth, an +undefined cluster of buildings at their center. There was a central +bonfire that burned like a wild red eye against the lower gloom, and in +its plunging ruddy glow he made out an urgent scurrying of shadowy +figures. + +"I'm passing over a hamlet," Farrell reported. "The one nearest the +city, I think. There's something odd going on down--" + +Catastrophe struck so suddenly that he was caught completely unprepared. +The helihopper's flimsy carriage bucked and crumpled. There was a +blinding flare of electric discharge, a pungent stink of ozone and a +stunning shock that flung him headlong into darkness. + + * * * * * + +He awoke slowly with a brutal headache and a conviction of nightmare +heightened by the outlandish tone of his surroundings. He lay on a +narrow bed in a whitely antiseptic infirmary, an oblong metal cell +cluttered with a grimly utilitarian array of tables and lockers and +chests. The lighting was harsh and overbright and the air hung thick +with pungent unfamiliar chemical odors. From somewhere, far off yet at +the same time as near as the bulkhead above him, came the unceasing +drone of machinery. + +Farrell sat up, groaning, when full consciousness made his position +clear. He had been shot down by God knew what sort of devastating +unorthodox weapon and was a prisoner in the grounded ship. + +At his rising, a white-smocked fat man with anachronistic spectacles and +close-cropped gray hair came into the room, moving with the professional +assurance of a medic. The man stopped short at Farrell's stare and +spoke; his words were utterly unintelligible, but his gesture was +unmistakable. + +Farrell followed him dumbly out of the infirmary and down a bare +corridor whose metal floor rang coldly underfoot. An open port near the +corridor's end relieved the blankness of wall and let in a flood of +reddish Alphardian sunlight; Farrell slowed to look out, wondering how +long he had lain unconscious, and felt panic knife at him when he saw +Xavier's scouter lying, port open and undefended, on the square outside. + +The mechanical had been as easily taken as himself, then. Stryker and +Gibson, for all their professional caution, would fare no better--they +could not have overlooked the capture of Farrell and Xavier, and when +they tried as a matter of course to rescue them the _Marco_ would be +struck down in turn by the same weapon. + +The fat medic turned and said something urgent in his unintelligible +tongue. Farrell, dazed by the enormity of what had happened, followed +without protest into an intersecting way that led through a bewildering +succession of storage rooms and hydroponics gardens, through a small +gymnasium fitted with physical training equipment in graduated sizes and +finally into a soundproofed place that could have been nothing but a +nursery. + +The implication behind its presence stopped Farrell short. + +"A _creche_," he said, stunned. He had a wild vision of endless +generations of children growing up in this dim and stuffy room, to be +taught from their first toddling steps the functions they must fulfill +before the venture of which they were a part could be consummated. + +One of those old ventures _had_ succeeded, he thought, and was awed by +the daring of that thousand-year odyssey. The realization left him more +alarmed than before--for what technical marvels might not an isolated +group of such dogged specialists have developed during a millennium of +application? + +Such a weapon as had brought down the helihopper and scouter was +patently beyond reach of his own latter-day technology. Perhaps, he +thought, its possession explained the presence of these people here in +the first stronghold of the Hymenops; perhaps they had even fought and +defeated the Bees on their own invaded ground. + +He followed his white-smocked guide through a power room where great +crude generators whirred ponderously, pouring out gross electric current +into arm-thick cables. They were nearing the bow of the ship when they +passed by another open port and Farrell, glancing out over the lowered +rampway, saw that his fears for Stryker and Gibson had been well +grounded. + +The _Marco Four_, ports open, lay grounded outside. + + * * * * * + +Farrell could not have said, later, whether his next move was planned or +reflexive. The whole desperate issue seemed to hang suspended for a +breathless moment upon a hair-fine edge of decision, and in that instant +he made his bid. + +Without pausing in his stride he sprang out and through the port and +down the steep plane of the ramp. The rough stone pavement of the square +drummed underfoot; sore muscles tore at him, and weakness was like a +weight about his neck. He expected momentarily to be blasted out of +existence. + +He reached the _Marco Four_ with the startled shouts of his guide +ringing unintelligibly in his ears. The port yawned; he plunged inside +and stabbed at controls without waiting to seat himself. The ports swung +shut. The ship darted up under his manipulation and arrowed into space +with an acceleration that sprung his knees and made his vision swim +blackly. + +He was so weak with strain and with the success of his coup that he all +but fainted when Stryker, his scanty hair tousled and his fat face +comical with bewilderment, stumbled out of his sleeping cubicle and +bellowed at him. + +"What the hell are you doing, Arthur? Take us down!" + +Farrell gaped at him, speechless. + +Stryker lumbered past him and took the controls, spiraling the _Marco +Four_ down. Men swarmed outside the ports when the Reclamations craft +settled gently to the square again. Gibson and Xavier reached the ship +first; Gibson came inside quickly, leaving the mechanical outside making +patient explanations to an excited group of Alphardians. + +Gibson put a reassuring hand on Farrell's arm. "It's all right, Arthur. +There's no trouble." + +Farrell said dumbly, "I don't understand. They didn't shoot you and Xav +down too?" + +It was Gibson's turn to stare. + +"No one shot you down! These people are primitive enough to use metallic +power lines to carry electricity to their hamlets, an anachronism you +forgot last night. You piloted the helihopper into one of those lines, +and the crash put you out for the rest of the night and most of today. +These Alphardians are friendly, so desperately happy to be found again +that it's really pathetic." + +"_Friendly?_ That torpedo--" + +"It wasn't a torpedo at all," Stryker put in. Understanding of the error +under which Farrell had labored erased his earlier irritation, and he +chuckled commiseratingly. "They had one small boat left for emergency +missions, and sent it up to contact us in the fear that we might +overlook their settlement and move on. The boat was atomic powered, and +our shield screens set off its engines." + +Farrell dropped into a chair at the chart table, limp with reaction. He +was suddenly exhausted, and his head ached dully. + +"We cracked the communications problem early last night," Gibson said. +"These people use an ancient system of electromagnetic wave propagation +called frequency modulation, and once Lee and I rigged up a suitable +transceiver the rest was simple. Both Xav and I recognized the old +language; the natives reported your accident, and we came down at once." + +"They really came from Terra? They lived through a thousand years of +flight?" + +"The ship left Terra for Sirius in 2171," Gibson said. "But not with +these people aboard, or their ancestors. That expedition perished after +less than a light-year when its hydroponics system failed. The Hymenops +found the ship derelict when they invaded us, and brought it to Alphard +Six in what was probably their first experiment with human subjects. The +ship's log shows clearly what happened to the original complement. The +rest is deducible from the situation here." + +Farrell put his hands to his temples and groaned. "The crash must have +scrambled my wits. Gib, where _did_ they come from?" + +"From one of the first peripheral colonies conquered by the Bees," +Gibson said patiently. "The Hymenops were long-range planners, +remember, and masters of hypnotic conditioning. They stocked the ship +with a captive crew of Terrans conditioned to believe themselves +descendants of the original crew, and grounded it here in disabled +condition. They left for Alphard Five then, to watch developments. + +"Succeeding generations of colonists grew up accepting the fact that +their ship had missed Sirius and made planetfall here--they still don't +know where they really are--by luck. They never knew about the Hymenops, +and they've struggled along with an inadequate technology in the hope +that a later expedition would find them. They found the truth hard to +take, but they're eager to enjoy the fruits of Terran assimilation." + +Stryker, grinning, brought Farrell a frosted drink that tinkled +invitingly. "An unusually fortunate ending to a Hymenop experiment," he +said. "These people progressed normally because they've been let alone. +Reorienting them will be a simple matter; they'll be properly spoiled +colonists within another generation." + +Farrell sipped his drink appreciatively. + +"But I don't see why the Bees should go to such trouble to deceive these +people. Why did they sit back and let them grow as they pleased, Gib? It +doesn't make sense!" + +"But it does, for once," Gibson said. "The Bees set up this colony as a +control unit to study the species they were invading, and they had to +give their specimens a normal--if obsolete--background in order to +determine their capabilities. The fact that their experiment didn't tell +them what they wanted to know may have had a direct bearing on their +decision to pull out." + +Farrell shook his head. "It's a reverse application, isn't it of the old +saw about Terrans being incapable of understanding an alien culture?" + +"Of course," said Gibson, surprised. "It's obvious enough, surely--hard +as they tried, the Bees never understood us either." + + +THE END + +[Illustration] + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Amazing Science Fiction Stories_ + January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that + the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. 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