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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe5e206 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68730 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68730) diff --git a/old/68730-0.txt b/old/68730-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 2be6e1e..0000000 --- a/old/68730-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2520 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Exploration Team, by Murray Leinster - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Exploration Team - -Author: Murray Leinster - -Release Date: August 11, 2022 [eBook #68730] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPLORATION TEAM *** - - - - - - EXPLORATION TEAM - - BY MURRAY LEINSTER - - Illustrated by Emsh - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Astounding Science Fiction, March 1956. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - I - - -The nearer moon went by overhead. It was jagged and irregular in shape, -and was probably a captured asteroid. Huyghens had seen it often -enough, so he did not go out of his quarters to watch it hurtle across -the sky with seemingly the speed of an atmosphere-flier, occulting the -stars as it went. Instead, he sweated over paper work, which should -have been odd because he was technically a felon and all his labors on -Loren Two felonious. It was odd, too, for a man to do paper work in a -room with steel shutters and a huge bald eagle--untethered--dozing on -a three-inch perch set in the wall. But paper work was not Huyghens' -real task. His only assistant had tangled with a night-walker and the -furtive Kodius Company ships had taken him away to where Kodius Company -ships came from. Huyghens had to do two men's work in loneliness. To -his knowledge, he was the only man in this solar system. - -Below him, there were snufflings. Sitka Pete got up heavily and -padded to his water pan. He lapped the refrigerated water and sneezed -violently. Sourdough Charley waked and complained in a rumbling growl. -There were divers other rumblings and mutterings below. Huyghens -called reassuringly, "Easy there!" and went on with his work. He -finished a climate report, and fed figures to a computer, and while -it hummed over them he entered the inventory totals in the station -log, showing what supplies remained. Then he began to write up the log -proper. - -"_Sitka Pete_," he wrote, "_has apparently solved the problem of -killing individual sphexes. He has learned that it doesn't do to hug -them and that his claws can't penetrate their hide--not the top hide, -anyhow. Today Semper notified us that a pack of sphexes had found the -scent-trail to the station. Sitka hid down-wind until they arrived. -Then he charged from the rear and brought his paws together on both -sides of a sphex's head in a terrific pair of slaps. It must have been -like two twelve-inch shells arriving from opposite directions at the -same time. It must have scrambled the sphex's brains as if they were -eggs. It dropped dead. He killed two more with such mighty pairs of -wallops. Sourdough Charley watched, grunting, and when the sphexes -turned on Sitka, he charged in his turn. I, of course, couldn't shoot -too close to him, so he might have fared badly but that Faro Nell came -pouring out of the bear quarters to help. The diversion enabled Sitka -Pete to resume the use of his new technic, towering on his hind legs -and swinging his paws in the new and grisly fashion. The fight ended -promptly. Semper flew and screamed above the scrap, but as usual did -not join in. Note: Nugget, the cub, tried to mix in but his mother -cuffed him out of the way. Sourdough and Sitka ignored him as usual. -Kodius Champion's genes are sound!_" - -The noises of the night went on outside. There were notes like organ -tones--song lizards. There were the tittering giggling cries of -night-walkers--not to be tittered back at. There were sounds like -tack hammers, and doors closing, and from every direction came noises -like hiccups in various keys. These were made by the improbable small -creatures which on Loren Two took the place of insects. - -Huyghens wrote out: - -"_Sitka seemed ruffled when the fight was over. He painstakingly used -his trick on every dead or wounded sphex, except those he'd killed -with it, lifting up their heads for his pile-driverlike blows from two -directions at once, as if to show Sourdough how it was done. There -was much grunting as they hauled the carcasses to the incinerator. It -almost seemed_--" - - * * * * * - -The arrival bell clanged, and Huyghens jerked up his head to stare at -it. Semper, the eagle, opened icy eyes. He blinked. - -Noises. There was a long, deep, contented snore from below. Something -shrieked, out in the jungle. Hiccups. Clatterings, and organ notes-- - -The bell clanged again. It was a notice that a ship aloft somewhere had -picked up the beacon beam--which only Kodius Company ships should know -about--and was communicating for a landing. But there shouldn't be any -ships in this solar system just now! This was the only habitable planet -of the sun, and it had been officially declared uninhabitable by reason -of inimical animal life. Which meant sphexes. Therefore no colony was -permitted, and the Kodius Company broke the law. And there were few -graver crimes than unauthorized occupation of a new planet. - -The bell clanged a third time. Huyghens swore. His hand went out to -cut off the beacon--but that would be useless. Radar would have fixed -it and tied it in with physical features like the nearby sea and the -Sere Plateau. The ship could find the place, anyhow, and descend by -day-light. - -"The devil!" said Huyghens. But he waited yet again for the bell to -ring. A Kodius Company ship would double-ring to reassure him. But -there shouldn't be a Kodius Company ship for months. - -The bell clanged singly. The space phone dial flickered and a voice -came out of it, tinny from stratospheric distortion: - -"_Calling ground! Calling ground! Crete Line ship_ Odysseus _calling -ground on Loren Two. Landing one passenger by boat. Put on your field -lights._" - -Huyghens' mouth dropped open. A Kodius Company ship would be welcome. -A Colonial Survey ship would be extremely unwelcome, because it -would destroy the colony and Sitka and Sourdough and Faro Nell and -Nugget--and Semper--and carry Huyghens off to be tried for unauthorized -colonization and all that it implied. - -But a commercial ship, landing one passenger by boat--There were simply -no circumstances under which that would happen. Not to an unknown, -illegal colony. Not to a furtive station! - -Huyghens flicked on the landing-field lights. He saw the glare in the -field outside. Then he stood up and prepared to take the measures -required by discovery. He packed the paper work he'd been doing into -the disposal safe. He gathered up all personal documents and tossed -them in. Every record, every bit of evidence that the Kodius Company -maintained this station went into the safe. He slammed the door. He -touched his finger to the disposal button, which would destroy the -contents and melt down even the ashes past their possible use for -evidence in court. - -Then he hesitated. If it were a Survey ship, the button had to -be pressed and he must resign himself to a long term in prison. -But a Crete Line ship--if the space phone told the truth--was not -threatening. It was simply unbelievable. - -He shook his head. He got into travel garb and armed himself. He went -down into the bear quarters, turning on lights as he went. There -were startled snufflings and Sitka Pete reared himself very absurdly -to a sitting position to blink at him. Sourdough Charley lay on his -back with his legs in the air. He'd found it cooler, sleeping that -way. He rolled over with a thump. He made snorting sounds which -somehow sounded cordial. Faro Nell padded to the door of her separate -apartment--assigned her so that Nugget would not be under-foot to -irritate the big males. - -Huyghens, as the human population of Loren Two, faced the work force, -fighting force, and--with Nugget--four-fifths of the terrestrial -nonhuman population of the planet. They were mutated Kodiak bears, -descendants of that Kodius Champion for whom the Kodius Company was -named. Sitka Pete was a good twenty-two hundred pounds of lumbering, -intelligent carnivore. Sourdough Charley would weigh within a hundred -pounds of that figure. Faro Nell was eighteen hundred pounds of female -charm--and ferocity. Then Nugget poked his muzzle around his mother's -furry rump to see what was toward, and he was six hundred pounds of -ursine infancy. The animals looked at Huyghens expectantly. If he'd had -Semper riding on his shoulder, they'd have known what was expected of -them. - -"Let's go," said Huyghens. "It's dark outside, but somebody's coming. -And it may be bad!" - - * * * * * - -He unfastened the outer door of the bear quarters. Sitka Pete went -charging clumsily through it. A forth-right charge was the best -way to develop any situation--if one was an oversized male Kodiak -bear. Sourdough went lumbering after him. There was nothing hostile -immediately outside. Sitka stood up on his hind legs--he reared up a -solid twelve feet--and sniffed the air. Sourdough methodically lumbered -to one side and then the other, sniffing in his turn. Nell came out, -nine-tenths of a ton of daintiness, and rumbled admonitorily at -Nugget, who trailed her closely. Huyghens stood in the doorway, his -night-sighted gun ready. He felt uncomfortable at sending the bears -ahead into a Loren Two jungle at night. But they were qualified to -scent danger, and he was not. - -The illumination of the jungle in a wide path toward the landing field -made for weirdness in the look of things. There were arching giant -ferns and columnar trees which grew above them, and the extraordinary -lanceolate underbrush of the jungle. The flood lamps, set level with -the ground, lighted everything from below. The foliage, then, was -brightly lit against the black night-sky--brightly lit enough to -dim-out the stars. There were astonishing contrasts of light and shadow -everywhere. - -"On ahead!" commanded Huyghens, waving. "Hup!" - -He swung the bear-quarters door shut. He moved toward the landing field -through the lane of lighted forest. The two giant male Kodiaks lumbered -ahead. Sitka Pete dropped to all fours and prowled. Sourdough Charley -followed closely, swinging from side to side. Huyghens came alertly -behind the two of them, and Faro Nell brought up the rear with Nugget -following her closely. - -It was an excellent military formation for progress through dangerous -jungle. Sourdough and Sitka were advance-guard and point, respectively, -while Faro Nell guarded the rear. With Nugget to look after, she was -especially alert against attack from behind. Huyghens was, of course, -the striking force. His gun fired explosive bullets which would -discourage even sphexes, and his night-sight--a cone of light which -went on when he took up the trigger-slack--told exactly where they -would strike. It was not a sportsmanlike weapon, but the creatures -of Loren Two were not sportsmanlike antagonists. The night-walkers, -for example--But night-walkers feared light. They attacked only in a -species of hysteria if it were too bright. - -Huyghens moved toward the glare at the landing field. His mental state -was savage. The Kodius Company station on Loren Two was completely -illegal. It happened to be necessary, from one point of view, but -it was still illegal. The tinny voice on the space phone was not -convincing, in ignoring that illegality. But if a ship landed, Huyghens -could get back to the station before men could follow, and he'd have -the disposal safe turned on in time to protect those who'd sent him -here. - -But he heard the faraway and high harsh roar of a landing-boat -rocket--not a ship's bellowing tubes--as he made his way through the -unreal-seeming brush. The roar grew louder as he pushed on, the three -big Kodiaks padding here and there, sniffing thoughtfully, making a -perfect defensive-offensive formation for the particular conditions of -this planet. - -He reached the edge of the landing field, and it was blindingly bright, -with the customary divergent beams slanting skyward so a ship could -check its instrument landing by sight. Landing fields like this had -been standard, once upon a time. Nowadays all developed planets had -landing grids--monstrous structures which drew upon ionospheres for -power and lifted and drew down star ships with remarkable gentleness -and unlimited force. This sort of landing field would be found where a -survey-team was at work, or where some strictly temporary investigation -of ecology or bacteriology was under way, or where a newly authorized -colony had not yet been able to build its landing grid. Of course it -was unthinkable that anybody would attempt a settlement in defiance of -the law! - -Already, as Huyghens reached the edge of the scorched open space, -the night-creatures had rushed to the light like moths on Earth. -The air was misty with crazily gyrating, tiny flying things. They -were innumerable and of every possible form and size, from the white -midges of the night and multi-winged flying worms to those revoltingly -naked-looking larger creatures which might have passed for plucked -flying monkeys if they had not been carnivorous and worse. The flying -things soared and whirred and danced and spun insanely in the glare. -They made peculiarly plaintive humming noises. They almost formed a -lamp-lit ceiling over the cleared space. They did hide the stars. -Staring upward, Huyghens could just barely make out the blue-white -flame of the space-boat's rocket through the fog of wings and bodies. - - * * * * * - -The rocket-flame grew steadily in size. Once, apparently, it tilted to -adjust the boat's descending course. It went back to normal. A speck -of incandescence at first, it grew until it was like a great star, and -then a more-than-brilliant moon, and then it was a pitiless glaring -eye. Huyghens averted his gaze from it. Sitka Pete sat lumpily--more -than a ton of him--and blinked wisely at the dark jungle away from the -light. Sourdough ignored the deepening, increasing rocket roar. He -sniffed the air delicately. Faro Nell held Nugget firmly under one huge -paw and licked his head as if tidying him up to be seen by company. -Nugget wriggled. - -The roar became that of ten thousand thunders. A warm breeze blew -outward from the landing field. The rocket boat hurled downward, -and its flame touched the mist of flying things, and they shriveled -and burned and were hot. Then there were churning clouds of dust -everywhere, and the center of the field blazed terribly,--and something -slid down a shaft of fire, and squeezed it flat, and sat on it,--and -the flame went out. The rocket boat sat there, resting on its tail -fins, pointing toward the stars from which it came. - -There was a terrible silence after the tumult. Then, very faintly, the -noises of the night came again. There were sounds like those of organ -pipes, and very faint and apologetic noises like hiccups. All these -sounds increased, and suddenly Huyghens could hear quite normally. Then -a side-port opened with a quaint sort of clattering, and something -unfolded from where it had been inset into the hull of the space boat, -and there was a metal passageway across the flame-heated space on which -the boat stood. - -A man came out of the port. He reached back in and shook hands very -formally. He climbed down the ladder rungs to the walkway. He marched -above the steaming baked area, carrying a traveling bag. He reached the -end of the walk and stepped gingerly to the ground. He moved hastily to -the edge of the clearing. He waved to the space boat. There were ports. -Perhaps someone returned the gesture. The walkway folded briskly back -up to the hull and vanished in it. A flame exploded into being under -the tail fins. There were fresh clouds of monstrous, choking dust and -a brightness like that of a sun. There was noise past the possibility -of endurance. Then the light rose swiftly through the dust cloud, and -sprang higher and climbed more swiftly still. When Huyghens' ears again -permitted him to hear anything, there was only a diminishing mutter in -the heavens and a small bright speck of light ascending to the sky and -swinging eastward as it rose to intercept the ship which had let it -descend. - -The night noises of the jungle went on. Life on Loren Two did not need -to heed the doings of men. But there was a spot of incandescence in the -day-bright clearing, and a short, brisk man looked puzzledly about him -with a traveling bag in his hand. - -Huyghens advanced toward him as the incandescence dimmed. Sourdough and -Sitka preceded him. Faro Nell trailed faithfully, keeping a maternal -eye on her offspring. The man in the clearing stared at the parade they -made. It would be upsetting, even after preparation, to land at night -on a strange planet, and to have the ship's boat and all links with the -rest of the cosmos depart, and then to find one's self approached--it -might seem stalked--by two colossal male Kodiak bears, with a third -bear and a cub behind them. A single human figure in such company might -seem irrelevant. - - * * * * * - -The new arrival gazed blankly. He moved, startledly. Then Huyghens -called: - -"Hello, there! Don't worry about the bears! They're friends!" - -Sitka reached the newcomer. He went warily down-wind from him and -sniffed. The smell was satisfactory. Man-smell. Sitka sat down with the -solid impact of more than a ton of bear-meat landing on packed dirt. -He regarded the man amiably. Sourdough said "_Whoosh!_" and went on to -sample the air beyond the clearing. Huyghens approached. The newcomer -wore the uniform of the Colonial Survey. That was bad. It bore the -insignia of a senior officer. Worse. - -"Hah!" said the just-landed man. "Where are the robots? What in all the -nineteen hells are these creatures? Why did you shift your station? I'm -Roane, here to make a progress report on your colony." - -Huyghens said: - -"What colony?" - -"Loren Two Robot Installation--" Then Roane said indignantly, "Don't -tell me that that idiot skipper dropped me at the wrong place! This is -Loren Two, isn't it? And this is the landing field. But where are your -robots? You should have the beginning of a grid up! What the devil's -happened here and what are these beasts?" - -Huyghens grimaced. - -"This," he said politely, "is an illegal, unlicensed settlement. I'm -a criminal. These beasts are my confederates. If you don't want to -associate with criminals you needn't, of course, but I doubt if you'll -live till morning unless you accept my hospitality while I think over -what to do about your landing. In reason, I ought to shoot you." - -Faro Nell came to a halt behind Huyghens, which was her proper post in -all out-door movement. Nugget, however, saw a new human. Nugget was a -cub, and, therefore, friendly. He ambled forward ingratiatingly. He was -four feet high at the shoulders, on all fours. He wriggled bashfully as -he approached Roane. He sneezed, because he was embarrassed. - -His mother overtook him swiftly and cuffed him to one side. He wailed. -The wail of a six-hundred-pound Kodiak bear-cub is a remarkable sound. -Roane gave ground a pace. - -"I think," he said carefully, "that we'd better talk things over. -But if this is an illegal colony, of course you're under arrest and -anything you say will be used against you." - -Huyghens grimaced again. - -"Right," he said. "But now if you'll walk close to me, we'll head back -to the station. I'd have Sourdough carry your bag--he likes to carry -things--but he may need his teeth. We've half a mile to travel." He -turned to the animals. "Let's go!" he said commandingly. "Back to the -station! Hup!" - -Grunting, Sitka Pete arose and took up his duties as advanced point -of a combat team. Sourdough trailed, swinging widely to one side and -another. Huyghens and Roane moved together. Faro Nell and Nugget -brought up the rear. Which, of course, was the only relatively safe way -for anybody to travel on Loren Two, in the jungle, a good half mile -from one's fortress-like residence. - -But there was only one incident on the way back. It was a night-walker, -made hysterical by the lane of light. It poured through the underbrush, -uttering cries like maniacal laughter. - -Sourdough brought it down, a good ten yards from Huyghens. When it was -all over, Nugget bristled up to the dead creature, uttering cub-growls. -He feigned to attack it. - -His mother whacked him soundly. - - - - - II - - -There were comfortable, settling-down noises below. The bears grunted -and rumbled, but ultimately were still. The glare from the landing -field was gone. The lighted lane through the jungle was dark again. -Huyghens ushered the man from the space boat up into his living -quarters. There was a rustling stir, and Semper took his head -from under his wing. He stared coldly at the two humans. He spread -monstrous, seven-foot wings and fluttered them. He opened his beak and -closed it with a snap. - -"That's Semper," said Huyghens. "Semper Tyrannis. He's the rest of the -terrestrial population here. Not being a fly-by-night sort of creature, -he didn't come out to welcome you." - -Roane blinked at the huge bird, perched on a three-inch-thick perch set -in the wall. - -"An eagle?" he demanded. "Kodiak bears--mutated ones you say, but still -bears--and now an eagle? You've a very nice fighting unit in the bears." - -"They're pack animals, too," said Huyghens. "They can carry some -hundreds of pounds without losing too much combat efficiency. And -there's no problem of supply. They live off the jungle. Not sphexes, -though. Nothing will eat a sphex, even if it can kill one." - -He brought out glasses and a bottle. He indicated a chair. Roane put -down his traveling bag. He took a glass. - -"I'm curious," he observed. "Why Semper Tyrannis? I can understand -Sitka Pete and Sourdough Charley as names. The home of their ancestors -makes them fitting. But why Semper?" - -"He was bred for hawking," said Huyghens. "You sic a dog on something. -You sic Semper Tyrannis. He's too big to ride on a hawking glove, so -the shoulders of my coats are padded to let him ride there. He's a -flying scout. I've trained him to notify us of sphexes, and in flight -he carries a tiny television camera. He's useful, but he hasn't the -brains of the bears." - -Roane sat down and sipped at his glass. - -"Interesting ... very interesting! But this is an illegal settlement. -I'm a Colonial Survey officer. My job is reporting on progress -according to plan, but nevertheless I have to arrest you. Didn't you -say something about shooting me?" - -Huyghens said doggedly: - -"I'm trying to think of a way out. Add up all the penalties for illegal -colonization and I'd be in a very bad fix if you got away and reported -this set-up. Shooting you would be logical." - -"I see that," said Roane reasonably. "But since the point has come -up--I have a blaster trained on you from my pocket." - -Huyghens shrugged. - -"It's rather likely that my human confederates will be back here before -your friends. You'd be in a very tight fix if my friends came back and -found you more or less sitting on my corpse." - -Roane nodded. - -"That's true, too. Also it's probable that your fellow terrestrials -wouldn't co-operate with me as they have with you. You seem to have the -whip hand, even with my blaster trained on you. On the other hand, you -could have killed me quite easily after the boat left, when I'd first -landed. I'd have been quite unsuspicious. So you may not really intend -to murder me." - -Huyghens shrugged again. - -"So," said Roane, "since the secret of getting along with people is -that of postponing quarrels--suppose we postpone the question of who -kills whom? Frankly, I'm going to send you to prison if I can. Unlawful -colonization is very bad business. But I suppose you feel that you have -to do something permanent about me. In your place I probably should, -too. Shall we declare a truce?" - -Huyghens indicated indifference. Roane said vexedly: - -"Then I do! I have to! So--" - -He pulled his hand out of his pocket and put a pocket blaster on the -table. He leaned back, defiantly. - -"Keep it," said Huyghens. "Loren Two isn't a place where you live long -unarmed." He turned to a cupboard. "Hungry?" - -"I could eat," admitted Roane. - - * * * * * - -Huyghens pulled out two meal-packs from the cupboard and inserted them -in the readier below. He set out plates. - -"Now--what happened to the official, licensed, authorized colony here?" -asked Roane briskly. "License issued eighteen months ago. There was -a landing of colonists with a drone fleet of equipment and supplies. -There've been four ship-contacts since. There should be several -thousand robots being industrious under adequate human supervision. -There should be a hundred-mile-square clearing, planted with food -plants for later human arrivals. There should be a landing grid at -least half-finished. Obviously there should be a space beacon to guide -ships to a landing. There isn't. There's no clearing visible from -space. That Crete Line ship has been in orbit for three days, trying -to find a place to drop me. Her skipper was fuming. Your beacon is the -only one on the planet, and we found it by accident. What happened?" - -Huyghens served the food. He said dryly: - -"There could be a hundred colonies on this planet without any one -knowing of any other. I can only guess about your robots, but I suspect -they ran into sphexes." - -Roane paused, with his fork in his hand. - -"I read up on this planet, since I was to report on its colony. A sphex -is part of the inimical animal life here. Cold-blooded belligerent -carnivor, not a lizard but a genus all its own. Hunts in packs. Seven -to eight hundred pounds, when adult. Lethally dangerous and simply too -numerous to fight. They're why no license was ever granted to human -colonists. Only robots could work here, because they're machines. What -animal attacks machines?" - -Huyghens said: - -"What machine attacks animals? The sphexes wouldn't bother robots, of -course, but would robots bother the sphexes?" - -Roane chewed and swallowed. - -"Hold it! I'll agree that you can't make a hunting-robot. A machine -can discriminate, but it can't decide. That's why there's no danger of -a robot revolt. They can't decide to do something for which they have -no instructions. But this colony was planned with full knowledge of -what robots can and can't do. As ground was cleared, it was enclosed in -an electric fence which no sphex could touch without frying." - -Huyghens thoughtfully cut his food. After a moment: - -"The landing was in the winter-time," he observed. "It must have -been, because the colony survived a while. And at a guess, the last -ship-landing was before thaw. The years are eighteen months long here, -you know." - -Roane admitted: - -"It was in winter that the landing was made. And the last ship-landing -was before spring. The idea was to get mines in operation for material, -and to have ground cleared and enclosed in sphex-proof fence before the -sphexes came back from the tropics. They winter there, I understand." - -"Did you ever see a sphex?" Huyghens asked. Then added, "No, of course -not. But if you took a spitting cobra and crossed it with a wildcat, -painted it tan-and-blue and then gave it hydrophobia and homicidal -mania at once--why you might have one sphex. But not the race of -sphexes. They can climb trees, by the way. A fence wouldn't stop them." - -"An electrified fence," said Roane. "Nothing could climb that!" - -"No one animal," Huyghens told him. "But sphexes are a race. The smell -of one dead sphex brings others running with blood in their eyes. -Leave a dead sphex alone for six hours and you've got them around by -the dozen. Two days and there are hundreds. Longer, and you've got -thousands of them! They gather to caterwaul over their dead pal and -hunt for whoever or whatever killed him." - -He returned to his meal. A moment later he said: - -"No need to wonder what happened to your colony. During the winter the -robots burned out a clearing and put up an electrified fence according -to the book. Come spring, the sphexes came back. They're curious, -among their other madnesses. A sphex would try to climb the fence just -to see what was behind it. He'd be electrocuted. His carcass would -bring others, raging because a sphex was dead. Some of them would try -to climb the fence--and die. And their corpses would bring others. -Presently the fence would break down from the bodies hanging on it, -or a bridge of dead beasts' carcasses would be built across it--and -from as far down-wind as the scent carried there'd be loping, raging, -scent-crazed sphexes racing to the spot. They'd pour into the clearing -through or over the fence, squalling and screeching for something to -kill. I think they'd find it." - -Roane ceased to eat. He looked sick. - -"There were ... pictures of sphexes in the data I read. I suppose that -would account for ... everything." - -He tried to lift his fork. He put it down again. - -"I can't eat," he said abruptly. - -Huyghens made no comment. He finished his own meal, scowling. He rose -and put the plates into the top of the cleaner. There was a whirring. -He took them out of the bottom and put them away. - -"Let me see those reports, eh?" he asked dourly. "I'd like to see what -sort of a set-up they had--those robots." - - * * * * * - -Roane hesitated and then opened his traveling bag. There was a -micro-viewer and reels of films. One entire reel was labeled -"Specifications for Construction, Colonial Survey," which would contain -detailed plans and all requirements of material and workmanship for -everything from desks, office, administrative personnel, for use of, -to landing grids, heavy-gravity planets, lift-capacity one hundred -thousand Earth-tons. But Huyghens found another. He inserted it and -spun the control swiftly here and there, pausing only briefly at index -frames until he came to the section he wanted. He began to study the -information with growing impatience. - -"Robots, robots, robots!" he snapped. "Why don't they leave them where -they belong--in cities to do the dirty work, and on airless planets -where nothing unexpected ever happens! Robots don't belong in new -colonies! Your colonists depended on them for defense! Dammit, let a -man work with robots long enough and he thinks all nature is as limited -as they are! This is a plan to set up a controlled environment! On -Loren Two! Controlled environment--" He swore, luridly. "Complacent, -idiotic, desk-bound half-wits!" - -"Robots are all right," said Roane. "We couldn't run civilization -without them." - -"But you can't tame a wilderness with 'em!" snapped Roane. "You had a -dozen men landed, with fifty assembled robots to start with. There were -parts for fifteen hundred more--and I'll bet anything I've got that the -ship-contacts landed more still." - -"They did," admitted Roane. - -"I despise 'em," growled Huyghens. "I feel about 'em the way the old -Greeks and Romans felt about slaves. They're for menial work--the -sort of work a man will perform for himself, but that he won't do for -another man for pay. Degrading work!" - -"Quite aristocratic!" said Roane with a touch of irony. "I take it that -robots clean out the bear quarters downstairs." - -"No!" snapped Huyghens. "I do! They're my friends! They fight for me! -They can't understand the necessity and no robot would do the job -right!" - -He growled, again. The noises of the night went on outside. Organ tones -and hiccupings and the sound of tack-hammers and slamming doors. -Somewhere there was a singularly exact replica of the discordant -squeaking of a rusty pump. - -"I'm looking," said Huyghens at the micro-viewer, "for the record of -their mining operations. An open-pit operation wouldn't mean a thing. -But if they had driven a tunnel, and somebody was there supervising the -robots when the colony was wiped out, there's an off-chance he survived -a while." - -Roane regarded him with suddenly intent eyes. - -"And--" - -"Dammit," snapped Roane, "if so I'll go see! He'd ... they'd have no -chance at all, otherwise. Not that the chance is good in any case!" - -Roane raised his eyebrows. - -"I'm a Colonial Survey officer," he said. "I've told you I'll send you -to prison if I can. You've risked the lives of millions of people, -maintaining non-quarantined communication with an unlicensed planet. -If you did rescue somebody from the ruins of the robot colony, does it -occur to you that they'd be witnesses to your unauthorized presence -here?" - -Huyghens spun the viewer again. He stopped. He switched back and forth -and found what he wanted. He muttered in satisfaction: "They did run a -tunnel!" Aloud he said, "I'll worry about witnesses when I have to." - - * * * * * - -He pushed aside another cupboard door. Inside it were the odds and -ends a man makes use of to repair the things about his house that he -never notices until they go wrong. There was an assortment of wires, -transistors, bolts, and similar stray items that a man living alone -will need. When to his knowledge he's the only inhabitant of a solar -system, he especially needs such things. - -"What now?" asked Roane mildly. - -"I'm going to try to find out if there's anybody left alive over there. -I'd have checked before if I'd known the colony existed. I can't prove -they're all dead, but I may prove that somebody's still alive. It's -barely two weeks' journey away from here! Odd that two colonies picked -spots so near!" - -He absorbedly picked over the oddments he'd selected. Roane said -vexedly: - -"Confound it! How can you check whether somebody's alive some hundreds -of miles away--when you didn't know he existed half an hour ago?" - -Huyghens threw a switch and took down a wall panel, exposing electronic -apparatus and circuits behind. He busied himself with it. - -"Ever think about hunting for a castaway?" he asked over his shoulder. -"There's a planet with some tens of millions of square miles on it. -You know there's a ship down. You've no idea where. You assume the -survivors have power--no civilized man will be without power very long, -so long as he can smelt metals!--but making a space beacon calls for -high-precision measurements and workmanship. It's not to be improvised. -So what will your shipwrecked civilized man do, to guide a rescue ship -to the one or two square miles he occupies among some tens of millions -on the planet?" - -Roane fretted visibly. - -"What?" - -"He's had to go primitive, to begin with," Roane explained. "He cooks -his meat over a fire, and so on. He has to make a strictly primitive -signal. It's all he can do without gauges and micrometers and very -special tools. But he can fill all the planet's atmosphere with a -signal that searchers for him can't miss. You see?" - -Roane thought irritably. He shook his head. - -"He'll make," said Huyghens, "a spark transmitter. He'll fix its output -at the shortest frequency he can contrive--it'll be somewhere in the -five-to-fifty-meter wave-band, but it will tune very broad--and it will -be a plainly human signal. He'll start it broadcasting. Some of those -frequencies will go all around the planet under the ionosphere. Any -ship that comes in under the radio roof will pick up his signal, get -a fix on it, move and get another fix, and then go straight to where -the castaway is waiting placidly in a hand-braided hammock, sipping -whatever sort of drink he's improvised out of the local vegetation." - -Roane said grudgingly: - -"Now that you mention it, of course--" - -"My space phone picks up microwaves," said Huyghens, "I'm shifting a -few elements to make it listen for longer stuff. It won't be efficient, -but it will pick up a distress signal if one's in the air. I don't -expect it, though." - - * * * * * - -He worked. Roane sat still a long time, watching him. Down below, -a rhythmic sort of sound arose. It was Sourdough Charley, snoring. -He lay on his back with his legs in the air. He'd discovered that -he slept cooler that way. Sitka Pete grunted in his sleep. He was -dreaming. In the general room of the station Semper, the eagle, blinked -his eyes rapidly and then tucked his head under a gigantic wing and -went to sleep. The noises of the Loren Two jungle came through the -steel-shuttered windows. The nearer moon--which had passed overhead not -long before the ringing of the arrival bell--again came soaring over -the eastern horizon. It sped across the sky at the apparent speed of an -atmosphere-flier. Overhead, it could be seen to be a jagged irregular -mass of rock or metal, plunging blindly about the great planet forever. - -Inside the station, Roane said angrily: - -"See here, Huyghens! You've reason to kill me. Apparently you don't -intend to. You've excellent reason to leave that robot colony strictly -alone. But you're preparing to help, if there's anybody alive to need -it. And yet you're a criminal--and I mean a criminal! There've been -some ghastly bacteria exported from planets like Loren Two! There've -been plenty of lives lost in consequence, and you're risking more! Why -do you do it? Why do you do something that could produce monstrous -results to other beings?" - -Huyghens grunted. - -"You're only assuming there are no sanitary and quarantine precautions -taken in my communications. As a matter of fact, there are. They're -taken, all right! As for the rest, you wouldn't understand." - -"I don't understand," snapped Roane, "but that's no proof I can't! Why -are you a criminal?" - -Huyghens painstakingly used a screwdriver inside the wall panel. He -delicately lifted out a small electronic assembly. He carefully began -to fit in a spaghettied new assembly with larger units. - -"I'm cutting my amplification here to hell-and-gone," he observed, -"but I think it'll do. I'm doing what I'm doing," he added calmly, -"I'm being a criminal because it seems to me befitting what I think I -am. Everybody acts according to his own real notion of himself. You're -a conscientious citizen, and a loyal official, and a well-adjusted -personality. You consider yourself an intelligent rational animal. But -you don't act that way! You're reminding me of my need to shoot you or -something similar, which a merely rational animal would try to make me -forget. You happen, Roane, to be a man. So am I. But I'm aware of it. -Therefore, I deliberately do things a merely rational animal wouldn't, -because they're my notion of what a man who's more than a rational -animal should do." - -He very carefully tightened one small screw after another. Roane said -annoyedly: - -"Oh. Religion." - -"Self-respect," corrected Huyghens. "I don't like robots. They're too -much like rational animals. A robot will do whatever it can that its -supervisor requires it to do. A merely rational animal will do whatever -it can that circumstances require it to do. I wouldn't like a robot -unless it had some idea of what was befitting it and would spit in my -eye if I tried to make it do something else. The bears downstairs, -now--They're no robots! They are loyal and honorable beasts, but they'd -turn and tear me to bits if I tried to make them do something against -their nature. Faro Nell would fight me and all creation together, if I -tried to harm Nugget. It would be unintelligent and unreasonable and -irrational. She'd lose out and get killed. But I like her that way! And -I'll fight you and all creation when you make me try to do something -against my nature. I'll be stupid and unreasonable and irrational about -it." Then he grinned over his shoulder. "So will you. Only you don't -realize it." - -He turned back to his task. After a moment he fitted a manual-control -knob over a shaft in his haywire assembly. - - * * * * * - -"What did somebody try to make you do?" asked Roane shrewdly. "What was -demanded of you that turned you into a criminal? What are you in revolt -against?" - -Huyghens threw a switch. He began to turn the knob which controlled -the knob of his makeshift-modified receiver. - -"Why," he said amusedly, "when I was young the people around me -tried to make me into a conscientious citizen and a loyal employee -and a well-adjusted personality. They tried to make me into a highly -intelligent rational animal and nothing more. The difference between -us, Roane, is that I found it out. Naturally, I rev--" - -He stopped short. Faint, crackling, crisp frying sounds came from the -speaker of the space phone now modified to receive what once were -called short waves. - -Huyghens listened. He cocked his head intently. He turned the knob -very, very slowly. Then Roane made an arrested gesture, to call -attention to something in the sibilant sound. Huyghens nodded. He -turned the knob again, with infinitesimal increments. - -Out of the background noise came a patterned mutter. As Huyghens -shifted the tuning, it grew louder. It reached a volume where it was -unmistakable. It was a sequence of sounds like discordant buzzing. -There were three half-second buzzings with half-second pauses between. -A two-second pause. Three full-second buzzings with half-second pauses -between. Another two-second pause and three half-second buzzings, -again. Then silence for five seconds. Then the pattern repeated. - -"The devil!" said Huyghens. "That's a human signal! Mechanically made, -too! In fact, it used to be a standard distress-call. It was termed an -SOS, though I've no idea what that meant. Anyhow, somebody must have -read old-fashioned novels, some time, to know about it. And so someone -is still alive over at your licensed, but now smashed-up, robot colony. -And they're asking for help. I'd say they're likely to need it." - -He looked at Roane. - -"The intelligent thing to do is sit back and wait for a ship--either of -my friends or yours. A ship can help survivors or castaways much better -than we can. A ship can even find them more easily. But maybe time is -important to the poor devils! So I'm going to take the bears and see -if I can reach them. You can wait here, if you like. What say? Travel -on Loren Two isn't a picnic! I'll be fighting nearly every foot of the -way. There's plenty of 'inimical animal life' here!" - -Roane snapped angrily: - -"Don't be a fool! Of course I'm coming! What do you take me for? And -two of us should have four times the chance of one!" - -Huyghens grinned. - -"Not quite. You forget Sitka Pete and Sourdough Charley and Faro -Nell. There'll be five of us if you come, instead of four. And, of -course, Nugget has to come--and he'll be no help--but Semper may make -up for him. You won't quadruple our chances, Roane, but I'll be glad -to have you if you want to be stupid and unreasonable and not at all -rational--and come along." - - - - - III - - -There was a jagged spur of stone looming precipitously over a -river-valley. A thousand feet below, a broad stream ran westward to the -sea. Twenty miles to the east, a wall of mountains rose sheer against -the sky. Its peaks seemed to blend to a remarkable evenness of height. -There was rolling, tumbled ground between for as far as the eye could -see. - -A speck in the sky came swiftly downward. Great pinions spread, and -flapped, and icy eyes surveyed the rocky space. With more great -flappings, Semper the eagle came to ground. He folded his huge wings -and turned his head jerkily, his eyes unblinking. A tiny harness held a -miniature camera against his chest. He strutted over the bare stone to -the highest point. He stood there, a lonely and arrogant figure in the -vastness. - -There came crashings and rustlings, and then snuffling sounds. Sitka -Pete came lumbering out into the clear space. He wore a harness too, -and a pack. The harness was complex, because it had not only to hold a -pack in normal travel, but, when he stood on his hind legs, it must not -hamper the use of his forepaws in combat. - -He went cagily all over the open area. He peered over the edge of the -spur's farthest tip. He prowled to the other side and looked down. He -scouted carefully. Once he moved close to Semper and the eagle opened -his great curved beak and uttered an indignant noise. Sitka paid no -attention. - -He relaxed, satisfied. He sat down untidily, his hind legs sprawling. -He wore an air approaching benevolence as he surveyed the landscape -about and below him. - -More snufflings and crashings. Sourdough Charley came into view with -Huyghens and Roane behind him. Sourdough carried a pack, too. Then -there was a squealing and Nugget scurried up from the rear, impelled -by a whack from his mother. Faro Nell appeared, with the carcass of a -staglike animal lashed to her harness. - -"I picked this place from a space photo," said Huyghens, "to make a -directional fix from. I'll get set up." - -He swung his pack from his shoulders to the ground. He extracted an -obviously self-constructed device which he set on the ground. It had -a whip aerial, which he extended. Then he plugged in a considerable -length of flexible wire and unfolded a tiny, improvised directional -aerial with an even tinier booster at its base. Roane slipped his pack -from his shoulders and watched. Huyghens slipped headphones over his -ears. He looked up and said sharply: - -"Watch the bears, Roane. The wind's blowing up the way we came. -Anything that trails us--sphexes, for example--will send its scent on -before. The bears will tell us." - -He busied himself with the instruments he'd brought. He heard the -hissing, frying, background noise which could be anything at all except -a human signal. He reached out and swung the small aerial around. -Rasping, buzzing tones came in, faintly and then loudly. This receiver, -though, had been made for this particular wave band. It was much more -efficient than the modified space phone had been. It picked up three -short buzzes, three long ones, and three short ones again. Three dots, -three dashes, and three dots. Over and over again. SOS. SOS. SOS. - -Huyghens took a reading and moved the directional aerial a carefully -measured distance. He took another reading. He shifted it yet again and -again, carefully marking and measuring each spot and taking notes of -the instrument readings. When he finished, he had checked the direction -of the signal not only by loudness but by phase--he had as accurate a -fix as could possibly be had with portable apparatus. - - * * * * * - -Sourdough growled softly. Sitka Pete whiffed the air and arose from -his sitting position. Faro Nell whacked Nugget, sending him whimpering -to the farthest corner of the flea place. She stood bristling, facing -down-hill the way they'd come. - -"Damn!" said Huyghens. - -He got up and waved his arm at Semper, who had turned his head at the -stirrings. Semper squawked in a most un-eaglelike fashion and dived -off the spur and was immediately fighting the down-draught beyond it. -As Huyghens reached his weapon, the eagle came back overhead. He went -magnificently past, a hundred feet high, careening and flapping in the -tricky currents. He screamed, abruptly, and circled and screamed again. -Huyghens swung a tiny vision-plate from its strap to where he could -look into it. He saw, of course, what the little camera on Semper's -chest could see--reeling, swaying terrain as Semper saw it, though -without his breadth of field. There were moving objects to be seen -through the shifting trees. Their coloring was unmistakable. - -"Sphexes," said Huyghens dourly. "Eight of them. Don't look for them to -follow our track, Roane. They run parallel to a trail on either side. -That way they attack in breadth and all at once when they catch up. And -listen! The bears can handle anything they tangle with! It's our job to -pick off the loose ones! And aim for the body! The bullets explode." - -He threw off the safety of his weapon. Faro Nell, uttering thunderous -growls, went padding to a place between Sitka Pete and Sourdough. -Sitka glanced at her and made a whuffing noise, as if derisive of her -blood-curdling sounds. Sourdough grunted in a somehow solid fashion. - -He and Sitka moved farther away from Nell to either side. They would -cover a wider front. - -There was no other sign of life than the shrillings of the incredibly -tiny creatures which on this planet were birds, and Faro Nell's -deep-bass, raging growls, and then the click of Roane's safety going -off as he got ready to use the weapon Huyghens had given him. - -Semper screamed again, flapping low above the treetops, following -parti-colored, monstrous shapes beneath. - -Eight blue-and-tan fiends came racing out of the underbrush. They had -spiny fringes, and horns, and glaring eyes, and they looked as if they -had come straight out of hell. On the instant of their appearance -they leaped, emitting squalling, spitting squeals that were like the -cries of fighting tomcats ten thousand times magnified. Huyghens' -rifle cracked, and its sound was wiped out in the louder detonation -of its bullet in sphexian flesh. A tan-and-blue monster tumbled over, -shrieking. Faro Nell charged, the very impersonation of white-hot fury. -Roane fired, and his bullet exploded against a tree. Sitka Pete brought -his massive forepaws in a clapping, monstrous ear-boxing motion. A -sphex died. - -Then Roane fired again. Sourdough Charley whuffed. He fell forward -upon a spitting bi-colored fiend, rolled him over, and raked with his -hind claws. The belly-hide of the sphex was tenderer than the rest. -The creature rolled away, snapping at its own wounds. Another sphex -found itself shaken loose from the tumult about Sitka Pete. It whirled -to leap on him from behind--and Huyghens fired very coldly--and two -plunged upon Faro Nell and Roane blasted one and Faro Nell disposed -of the other in truly awesome fury. Then Sitka Pete heaved himself -erect--seeming to drip sphexes--and Sourdough waddled over and pulled -one off and killed it and went back for another. And both rifles -cracked together and there was suddenly nothing left to fight. - - * * * * * - -The bears prowled from one to another of the corpses. Sitka Pete -rumbled and lifted up a limp head. Crash! Then another. He went -over the lot, whether or not they showed signs of life. When he had -finished, they were wholly still. - -Semper came flapping down out of the sky. He had screamed and fluttered -overhead as the fight went on. Now he landed with a rush. Huyghens -went soothingly from one bear to another, calming them with his voice. -It took longest to calm Faro Nell, licking Nugget with impassioned -solicitude and growling horribly as she licked. - -"Come along, now," said Huyghens, when Sitka showed signs of intending -to sit down again. "Heave these carcasses over a cliff. Come along! -Sitka! Sourdough! Hup!" - -He guided them as the two big males somewhat fastidiously lifted up -the nightmarish creatures they and the guns together had killed, and -carried them to the edge of the spur of stone. They let the dead -beasts go bouncing and sliding down into the valley. - -"That," said Huyghens, "is so their little pals will gather round them -and caterwaul their woe where there's no trail of ours to give them -ideas. If we'd been near a river, I'd have dumped them in to float -down-river and gather mourners wherever they stranded. Around the -station I incinerate them. If I had to leave them, I'd make tracks -away. About fifty miles upwind would be a good idea." - -He opened the pack Sourdough carried and extracted giant sized swabs -and some gallons of antiseptic. He tended the three Kodiaks in turn, -swabbing not only the cuts and scratches they'd received, but deeply -soaking their fur where there could be suspicion of spilled sphex blood. - -"This antiseptic deodorizes, too," he told Roane. "Or we'd be trailed -by any sphex who passed to leeward of us. When we start off, I'll swab -the bears' paws for the same reason." - -Roane was very quiet. He'd missed his first shot with a bullet-firing -weapon--a beam hasn't the stopping-power of an explosive bullet--but -he'd seemed to grow savagely angry with himself. The last few seconds -of the fight, he'd fired very deliberately and every bullet hit. Now he -said bitterly: - -"If you're instructing me so I can carry on should you be killed, I -doubt that it's worth while!" - -Huyghens felt in his pack and unfolded the enlargements he'd made of -the space photos of this part of the planet. He carefully oriented -the map with distant landmarks. He drew a painstakingly accurate line -across the photo. - -"The SOS signal comes from somewhere close to the robot colony," he -reported. "I think a little to the south of it. Probably from a mine -they'd opened up, on the far side--of course--of the Sere Plateau. -See how I've marked this map? Two fixes, one from the station and one -from here. I came away off-course to get a fix here so we'd have two -position-lines to the transmitter. The signal could have come from the -other side of the planet. But it doesn't." - -"The odds would be astronomical against other castaways," protested -Roane. - -"No-o-o-o," said Huyghens. "Ships have been coming here. To the -robot colony. One could have crashed. And I have friends, too." - -He repacked his apparatus and gestured to the bears. He led them beyond -the scene of combat and very carefully swabbed off their paws, so they -could not possibly leave a trail of sphex-blood scent behind them. He -waved Semper, the eagle, aloft. - -"Let's go," he told the Kodiaks. "Yonder! Hup!" - - * * * * * - -The party headed down-hill and into the jungle again. Now it was -Sourdough's turn to take the lead, and Sitka Pete prowled more -widely behind him. Faro Nell trailed the men, with Nugget. She kept -an extremely sharp eye upon the cub. He was a baby, still. He only -weighed six hundred pounds. And of course she watched against danger -from the rear. - -Overhead, Semper fluttered and flew in giant circles and spirals, never -going very far away. Huyghens referred constantly to the screen which -showed what the air-borne camera saw. The image tilted and circled -and banked and swayed. It was by no means the best air-reconnaissance -that could be imagined. But it was the best that would work. Presently -Huyghens said: - -"We swing to the right, here. The going's bad straight ahead, and it -looks like a pack of sphexes has killed and is feeding." - -Roane was upset. He was dissatisfied with himself. So he said: - -"It's against reason for carnivores to be as thick as you say! There -has to be a certain amount of other animal life for every meat-eating -beast! Too many of them would eat all the game and starve!" - -"They're gone all winter," explained Huyghens, "which around here -isn't as severe as you might think. And a good many animals seem to -breed just after the sphexes go south. Also, the sphexes aren't around -all the warm weather. There's a sort of peak, and then for a matter -of weeks you won't see a one of them, and suddenly the jungle swarms -with them again. Then, presently, they head south. Apparently they're -migratory in some fashion, but nobody knows." He said dryly: "There -haven't been many naturalists around on this planet. The animal life -is inimical." - -Roane fretted. He was a senior officer in the Colonial Survey, and -he was accustomed to arrival at a partly or completely-finished -colonial set-up, and to pass upon the completion or noncompletion of -the planned installation as designed. Now he was in an intolerably -hostile environment, depending upon an illegal colonist for his life, -engaged upon a demoralizingly indefinite enterprise--because the -mechanical spark-signal could be working long after its constructors -were dead--and his ideas about a number of matters were shaken. He was -alive, for example, because of three giant Kodiak bears and a bald -eagle. He and Roane could have been surrounded by ten thousand robots, -and they'd have been killed. Sphexes and robots would have ignored each -other, and sphexes would have made straight for the men, who'd have had -less than four seconds in which to discover for themselves that they -were attacked, prepare to defend themselves, and kill eight sphexes. - -Roane's convictions as a civilized man were shaken. Robots were -marvelous contrivances for doing the expected: accomplishing the -planned; coping with the predicted. But they also had defects. Robots -could only follow instructions--if this thing happens, do this, if -that thing happens do that. But before something else, neither this -or that, robots were helpless. So a robot civilization worked only in -an environment where nothing unanticipated ever turned up, and human -supervisors never demanded anything unexpected. Roane was appalled. -He'd never encountered the truly unpredictable before in all his life -and career. - -He found Nugget, the cub, ambling uneasily in his wake. The cub -flattened his ears miserably when Roane glanced at him. It occurred -to the man that Nugget was receiving a lot of disciplinary thumpings -from Faro Nell. He was knocked about physically, pretty much as Roane -was being knocked about psychologically. His lack of information and -unfitness for independent survival in this environment was being -hammered into him. - -"Hi, Nugget," said Roane ruefully. "I feel just about the way you do!" - -Nugget brighted visibly. He frisked. He tended to gambol. He looked -very hopefully up into Roane's face--and he stood four feet high at the -shoulder and would overtop Roane if he stood erect. - -Roane reached out and patted Nugget's head. It was the first time in -all his life that he'd ever petted an animal. - -He heard a snuffling sound behind him. Skin crawled at the back of his -neck. He whirled. - -Faro Nell regarded him--eighteen hundred pounds of she-bear only ten -feet away and looking into his eyes. For one panicky instant Roane -went cold all over. Then he realized that Faro Nell's eyes were not -burning. She was not snarling. She did not emit those blood-curdling -sounds which the bare prospect of danger to Nugget had produced up -on the rocky spur. She looked at him blandly. In fact, after a moment -she swung off on some independent investigation of a matter that had -aroused her curiosity. - - * * * * * - -The traveling party went on, Nugget frisking beside Roane and tending -to bump into him out of pure cub-clumsiness. Now and again he looked -adoringly at Roane, in the instant and overwhelming affection of the -very young. - -Roane trudged on. Presently he glanced behind again. Faro Nell was -now ranging more widely. She was well satisfied to have Nugget in the -immediate care of a man. From time to time he got on her nerves. - -A little while later, Roane called ahead. - -"Huyghens! Look here! I've been appointed nursemaid to Nugget!" - -Huyghens looked back. - -"Oh, slap him a few times and he'll go back to his mother." - -"The devil I will!" said Roane querulously. "I like it!" - -The traveling party went on. - -When night fell, they camped. There could be no fire, of course, -because all the minute night-things about would come eagerly to -dance in the glow. But there could not be darkness, equally, because -night-walkers hunted in the dark. So Huyghens set out the barrier -lamps which made a wall of twilight about their halting place, and the -staglike creature Faro Nell had carried became their evening meal. Then -they slept--at least the men did--and the bears dozed and snorted and -waked and dozed again. But Semper sat immobile with his head under his -wing on a tree limb. And presently there was a glorious cool hush and -all the world glowed in morning light diffused through the jungle by a -newly risen sun. And they arose, and traveled again. - -This day they stopped stock-still for two hours while sphexes puzzled -over the trail the bears had left. Huyghens discoursed calmly on the -need for an anti-scent, to be used on the boots of men and the paws of -bears, which would make the following of their trails unpopular with -sphexes. And Roane seized upon the idea and absorbedly suggested that -a sphex-repellent odor might be worked out, which would make a human -revolting to a sphex. If that were done--why--humans could go freely -about unmolested. - -"Like stink-bugs," said Huyghens, sardonically. "A very intelligent -idea! Very rational! You can feel proud!" - -And suddenly Roane, very obscurely, was not proud of the idea at all. - -They camped again. On the third night they were at the base of that -remarkable formation, the Sere Plateau, which from a distance looked -like a mountain-range but was actually a desert tableland. And it was -not reasonable for a desert to be raised high, while lowlands had rain, -but on the fourth morning they found out why. They saw, far, far away, -a truly monstrous mountain-mass at the end of the long-way expanse -of the plateau. It was like the prow of a ship. It lay, so Huyghens -observed, directly in line with the prevailing winds, and divided them -as a ship's prow divides the waters. The moisture-bearing air-currents -flowed beside the plateau, not over it, and its interior was pure sere -desert in the unscreened sunshine of high altitudes. - - * * * * * - -It took them a full day to get halfway up the slope. And here, twice -as they climbed, Semper flew screaming over aggregations of sphexes -to one side of them or the other. These were much larger groups than -Huyghens had ever seen before--fifty to a hundred monstrosities -together, where a dozen was a large hunting-pack elsewhere. He looked -in the screen which showed him what Semper saw, four to five miles -away. The sphexes padded uphill toward the Sere Plateau in a long line. -Fifty--sixty--seventy tan-and-azure beasts out of hell. - -"I'd hate to have that bunch jump us," he said candidly to Roane. "I -don't think we'd stand a chance." - -"Here's where a robot tank would be useful," Roane observed. - -"Anything armored," conceded Huyghens. "One man in an armored station -like mine would be safe. But if he killed a sphex he'd be besieged. -He'd have to stay holed up, breathing the smell of dead sphex, until -the odor had gone away. And he mustn't kill any others or he'd be -besieged until winter came." - -Roane did not suggest the advantages of robots in other directions. -At that moment, for example, they were working their way up a slope -which averaged fifty degrees. The bears climbed without effort despite -their burdens. For the men it was infinite toil. Semper, the eagle, -manifested impatience with bears and men alike, who crawled so slowly -up an incline over which he soared. - -He went ahead up the mountainside and teetered in the air-currents at -the plateau's edge. Huyghens looked in the vision-plate by which he -reported. - -"How the devil," panted Roane--they had stopped for a breather, and the -bears waited patiently for them--"do you train bears like these? I can -understand Semper." - -"I don't train them," said Huyghens, staring into the plate. "They're -mutations. In heredity the sex-linkage of physical characteristics -is standard stuff. But there's been some sound work done on the -gene-linkage of psychological factors. There was need, on my home -planet, for an animal who could fight like a fiend, live off the land, -carry a pack and get along with men at least as well as dogs do. In the -old days they'd have tried to breed the desired physical properties -into an animal who already had the personality they wanted. Something -like a giant dog, say. But back home they went at it the other way -about. They picked the wanted physical characteristics and bred for the -personality--the psychology. The job got done over a century ago--a -Kodiak bear named Kodius Champion was the first real success. He had -everything that was wanted. These bears are his descendants." - -"They look normal," commented Roane. - -"They are!" said Huyghens warmly. "Just as normal as an honest dog! -They're not trained, like Semper. They train themselves!" He looked -back into the plate in his hands, which showed the ground five and six -and seven thousand feet higher. "Semper, now, is a trained bird without -too much brains. He's educated--a glorified hawk. But the bears want -to get along with men. They're emotionally dependent on us! Like dogs. -Semper's a servant, but they're companions and friends. He's trained, -but they're loyal. He's conditioned. They love us. He'd abandon me if -he ever realized he could--he thinks he can only eat what men feed him. -But the bears wouldn't want to. They like us. I admit that I like them. -Maybe because they like me." - -Roane said deliberately: - -"Aren't you a trifle loose-tongued, Huyghens? I'm a Colonial Survey -officer. I have to arrest you sooner or later. You've told me something -that will locate and convict the people who set you up here. It -shouldn't be hard to find where bears were bred for psychological -mutations, and where a bear named Kodius Champion left descendants! I -can find out where you came from now, Huyghens!" - -Huyghens looked up from the plate with its tiny swaying television -image, relayed from where Semper floated impatiently in mid-air. - -"No harm done," he said amiably. "I'm a criminal there, too. It's -officially on record that I kidnaped these bears and escaped with -them. Which, on my home planet, is about as heinous a crime as a man -can commit. It's worse than horse-theft back on Earth in the old days. -The kin and cousins of my bears are highly thought of. I'm quite a -criminal, back home." - -Roane stared. - -"Did you steal them?" he demanded. - -"Confidentially," said Huyghens. "No. But prove it!" Then he said: -"Take a look in this plate. See what Semper can see up at the plateau's -edge." - - * * * * * - -Roane squinted aloft, where the eagle flew in great sweeps and dashes. -Somehow, by the experience of the past few days, Roane knew that Semper -was screaming fiercely as he flew. He made a dart toward the plateau's -border. - -Roane looked at the transmitted picture. It was only four inches by -six, but it was perfectly without grain and in accurate color. It moved -and turned as the camera-bearing eagle swooped and circled. For an -instant the screen showed the steeply sloping mountainside, and off -at one edge the party of men and bears could be seen as dots. Then it -swept away and showed the top of the plateau. - -There were sphexes. A pack of two hundred trotted toward the desert -interior. They moved at leisure, in the open. The viewing camera -reeled, and there were more. As Roane watched and as the bird flew -higher, he could see still other sphexes moving up over the edge of the -plateau from a small erosion-defile here and another one there. The -Sere Plateau was alive with the hellish creatures. It was inconceivable -that there should be game enough for them to live on. They were visible -as herds of cattle would be visible on grazing planets. - -It was simply impossible. - -"Migrating," observed Huyghens. "I said they did. They're headed -somewhere. Do you know, I doubt that it would be healthy for us to try -to cross the plateau through such a swarm of sphexes?" - -Roane swore, in abrupt change of mood. - -"But the signal's still coming through! Somebody's alive over at the -robot colony! Must we wait till the migration's over?" - -"We don't know," Huyghens pointed out, "that they'll stay alive. They -may need help badly. We have to get to them. But at the same time--" - -He glanced at Sourdough Charley and Sitka Pete, clinging patiently to -the mountainside while the men rested and talked. Sitka had managed to -find a place to sit down, though one massive paw anchored him in his -place. - -Huyghens waved his arm, pointing in a new direction. - -"Let's go!" he called briskly. "Let's go! Yonder! Hup!" - - - - - IV - - -They followed the slopes of the Sere Plateau, neither ascending to its -level top--where sphexes congregated--nor descending into the foothills -where sphexes assembled. They moved along hillsides and mountain-flanks -which sloped anywhere from thirty to sixty degrees, and they did not -cover much distance. They practically forgot what it was to walk on -level ground. Semper, the eagle, hovered overhead during the daytime, -not far away. He descended at nightfall for his food from the pack of -one of the bears. - -"The bears aren't doing too well for food," said Huyghens dryly. "A ton -of bear needs a lot to eat. But they're loyal to us. Semper hasn't any -loyalty. He's too stupid. But he's been conditioned to think that he -can only eat what men feed him. The bears know better, but they stick -to us regardless. I rather like these bears." - -It was the most self-evident of understatements. This was at an -encampment on the top of a massive boulder which projected from a -mountainous stony wall. This was six days from the start of their -journey. There was barely room on the boulder for all the party. And -Faro Nell fussily insisted that Nugget should be in the safest part, -which meant near the mountain-flank. She would have crowded the men -outward, but Nugget whimpered for Roane. Wherefore, when Roane moved -to comfort him, Faro Nell contentedly drew back and snorted at Sitka -and Sourdough and they made room for her near the edge. - -It was a hungry camp. They had come upon tiny rills upon occasion, -flowing down the mountain side. Here the bears had drunk deeply and the -men had filled canteens. But this was the third night, and there had -been no game at all. Huyghens made no move to bring out food for Roane -or himself. Roane made no comment. He was beginning to participate in -the relationship between bears and men, which was not the slavery of -the bears but something more. It was two-way. He felt it. - -"It would seem," he said fretfully, "that since the sphexes don't seem -to hunt on their way uphill, that there should be some game. They -ignore everything as they file uphill." - -This was true enough. The normal fighting formation of sphexes was -line abreast, which automatically surrounded anything which offered -to flee and outflanked anything which offered fight. But here they -ascended the mountain in long lines, one after the other, following -apparently long-established trails. The wind blew along the slopes and -carried scent only sidewise. But the sphexes were not diverted from -their chosen paths. The long processions of hideous blue-and-tawny -creatures--it was hard to think of them as natural beasts, male and -female and laying eggs like reptiles on other planets--simply climbed. - -"There've been other thousands of beasts before them," said Huyghens. -"They must have been crowding this way for days or even weeks. We've -seen tens of thousands in Semper's camera. They must be uncountable, -altogether. The first-comers ate all the game there was, and the -last-comers have something else on whatever they use for minds." - -Roane protested: - -"But so many carnivores in one place is impossible! I know they are -here, but they can't be!" - -"They're cold-blooded," Huyghens pointed out. "They don't burn food -to sustain body-temperature. After all, lots of creatures go for -long periods without eating. Even bears hibernate. But this isn't -hibernation--or estivation, either." - -He was setting up the radiation-wave receiver in the darkness. There -was no point in attempting a fix here. The transmitter was on the other -side of the Sere Plateau, which inexplicably swarmed with the most -ferocious and deadly of all the creatures of Loren Two. The men and -bears would commit suicide by crossing here. - -But Huyghens turned on the receiver. There came the whispering, -scratchy sound of background-noise. Then the signal. Three dots, three -dashes, three dots. Three dots, three dashes, three dots. It went on -and on and on. Huyghens turned it off. Roane said: - -"Shouldn't we have answered that signal before we left the station? To -encourage them?" - -"I doubt they have a receiver," said Huyghens. "They won't expect an -answer for months, anyhow. They'd hardly listen all the time, and -if they're living in a mine-tunnel and trying to sneak out for food -to stretch their supplies--why, they'll be too busy to try to make -complicated recorders or relays." - -Roane was silent for a moment or two. - -"We've got to get food for the bears," he said presently. "Nugget's -weaned, and he's hungry." - -"We will," Huyghens promised. "I may be wrong, but it seems to me that -the number of sphexes climbing the mountain is less than yesterday -and the day before. We may have just about crossed the path of their -migration. They're thinning out. When we're past their trail, we'll -have to look out for night-walkers and the like again. But I think they -wiped out all animal life on their migration-route." - - * * * * * - -He was not quite right. He was waked in darkness by the sound of -slappings and the grunting of bears. Feather-light puffs of breeze beat -upon his face. He struck his belt-lamp sharply and the world was hidden -by a whitish film which snatched itself away. Something flapped. Then -he saw the stars and the emptiness on the edge of which they camped. -Then big white things flapped toward him. - -Sitka Pete whuffed mightily and swatted. Faro Nell grunted and swung. -She caught something in her claws. She crunched. The light went off as -Huyghens realized. Then he said: - -"Don't shoot, Roane!" He listened, and heard the sounds of feeding in -the dark. It ended. "Watch this!" said Huyghens. - -The belt-light came on again. Something strangely-shaped and pallid -like human skin reeled and flapped crazily toward him. Something else. -Four. Five--ten--twenty--more.... - -A huge hairy paw reached up into the light-beam and snatched a flying -thing out of it. Another great paw. Huyghens shifted the light and the -three great Kodiaks were on their hind legs, swatting at creatures -which flittered insanely, unable to resist the fascination of the -glaring lamp. Because of their wild gyrations it was impossible to see -them in detail, but they were those unpleasant night-creatures which -looked like plucked flying monkeys but were actually something quite -different. - -The bears did not snarl or snap. They swatted, with a remarkable air -of businesslike competence and purpose. Small mounds of broken things -built up about their feet. - -Suddenly there were no more. Huyghens snapped off the light. The bears -crunched and fed busily in the darkness. - -"Those things are carnivores _and_ blood-suckers, Roane," said -Huyghens calmly. "They drain their victims of blood like vampire -bats--they've some trick of not waking them--and when they're dead the -whole tribe eats. But bears have thick furs, and they wake when they're -touched. And they're omnivorous--they'll eat anything but sphexes, and -like it. You might say that those night-creatures came to lunch. But -they stayed. They are it--for the bears, who are living off the country -as usual." - -Roane uttered a sudden exclamation. He made a tiny light, and blood -flowed down his hand. Huyghens passed over his pocket kit of antiseptic -and bandages. Roane stanched the bleeding and bound up his hand. Then -he realized that Nugget chewed on something. When he turned the light, -Nugget swallowed convulsively. It appeared that he had caught and -devoured the creature which had drawn blood from Roane. But Roane had -lost none to speak of, at that. - -In the morning they started along the sloping scarp of the plateau once -more. During the morning, Roane said painfully: - -"Robots wouldn't have handled those vampire-things, Huyghens." - -"Oh, they could be built to watch for them," said Huyghens, tolerantly. -"But you'd have to swat for yourself. I prefer the bears." - -He led the way on. Here their jungle-formation could not apply. On a -steep slope the bears ambled comfortably, the tough pads of their feet -holding fast on the slanting rock, but the men struggled painfully. -Twice Huyghens halted to examine the ground about the mountains' bases -through binoculars. He looked encouraged as they went on. The monstrous -peak which was like the bow of a ship at the end of the Sere Plateau -was visibly nearer. Toward midday, indeed, it looked high above the -horizon, no more than fifteen miles away. And at midday Huyghens called -a final halt. - -"No more congregations of sphexes down below," he said cheerfully, "and -we haven't seen a climbing line of them in miles." The crossing of a -sphex-trail meant simply waiting until one party had passed, and then -crossing before another came in view. "I've a hunch we've crossed their -migration-route. Let's see what Semper tells us!" - -He waved the eagle aloft. And Semper, like all creatures other than -men, normally functioned only for the satisfaction of his appetite, and -then tended to loaf or sleep. He had ridden the last few miles perched -on Sitka Pete's pack. Now he soared upward and Huyghens watched in the -small vision-plate. - -Semper went soaring--and the image on the plate swayed and turned and -turned--and in minutes was above the plateau's edge. And here there was -some vegetation and the ground rolled somewhat, and there were even -patches of brush. But as Semper towered higher still, the inner desert -appeared. But nearby it was clear of beasts. Only once, when the eagle -banked sharply and the camera looked along the long dimension of the -plateau, did Huyghens see any sign of the blue-and-tan beasts. There -he saw what looked like masses amounting to herds. But, of course, -carnivores do not gather in herds. - -"We go straight up," said Huyghens in satisfaction. "We cross the -plateau here--and we can edge down-wind a bit, even. I think we'll find -something interesting on our way to your robot colony." - -He waved to the bears to go ahead uphill. - - * * * * * - -They reached the top hours later--barely before sunset. And they saw -game. Not much, but game at the grassy, brushy border of the desert. -Huyghens brought down a shaggy ruminant which surely would not live on -a desert. When night fell there was an abrupt chill in the air. It was -much colder than night-temperatures on the slopes. The air was thin. -Roane thought confusedly and presently guessed at the cause. In the lee -of the prow-mountain the air was calm. There were no clouds. The ground -radiated its heat to empty space. It could be bitterly cold in the -nighttime, here. - -"And hot by day," Huyghens agreed when he mentioned it. "The sunshine's -terrifically hot where the air is thin, but on most mountains there's -wind. By day, here, the ground will tend to heat up like the surface -of a planet without atmosphere. It may be a hundred and forty or fifty -degrees on the sand at midday. But it should be cold at night." - -It was. Before midnight Huyghens built a fire. There could be no danger -of night-walkers where the temperature dropped to freezing. - -In the morning the men were stiff with cold, but the bears snorted and -moved about briskly. They seemed to revel in the morning chill. Sitka -and Sourdough Charley, in fact, became festive and engaged in a mock -fight, whacking each other with blows that were only feigned, but would -have crushed in the skull of any man. Nugget sneezed with excitement as -he watched them. Faro Nell regarded them with female disapproval. - -They went on. Semper seemed sluggish. After a single brief flight he -descended and rode on Sitka's pack, as on the previous day. He perched -there, surveying the landscape as it changed from semi-arid to pure -desert in their progress. His air was arrogant. But he would not fly. -Soaring birds do not like to fly when there are no winds to make -currents of which to take advantage. On the way, Huyghens painstakingly -pointed out to Roane exactly where they were on the enlarged photograph -taken from space, and the exact spot from which the distress-signal -seemed to come. - -"You're doing it in case something happens to you," said Roane. "I -admit it's sense, but--what could I do to help those survivors even if -I got to them, without you?" - -"What you've learned about sphexes would help," said Huyghens. "The -bears would help. And we left a note back at my station. Whoever -grounds at the landing field back there--and the beacon's working -again--will find instructions to come to the place we're trying to -reach." - -Roane plodded alongside him. The narrow non-desert border of the Sere -Plateau was behind them, now. They marched across powdery desert sand. - -"See here," said Roane, "I want to know something! You tell me you're -listed as a bear-thief on your home planet. You tell me it's a lie--to -protect your friends from prosecution by the Colonial Survey. You're on -your own, risking your life every minute of every day. You took a risk -in not shooting me. Now you're risking more in going to help men who'd -have to be witnesses that you were a criminal. What are you doing it -for?" - -Huyghens grinned. - -"Because I don't like robots. I don't like the fact that they're -subduing men--making men subordinate to them." - -"Go on," insisted Roane. "I don't see why disliking robots should make -you a criminal. Nor men subordinating themselves to robots, either!" - -"But they are," said Huyghens mildly. "I'm a crank, of course. But--I -live like a man on this planet. I go where I please and do what I -please. My helpers, the bears, are my friends. If the robot colony had -been a success, would the humans in it have lived like men? Hardly! -They'd have to live the way the robots let them! They'd have to stay -inside a fence the robots built. They'd have to eat foods that robots -could raise, and no others. Why--a man couldn't move his bed near a -window, because if he did the house-tending robots couldn't work! -Robots would serve them--the way the robots determined--but all they'd -get out of it would be jobs servicing the robots!" - -Roane shook his head. - -"As long as men want robot service, they have to take the service that -robots can give. If you don't want those services--" - -"I want to decide what I want," said Huyghens, again mildly, "instead -of being limited to choose among what I'm offered. On my home planet -we halfway tamed it with dogs and guns. Then we developed the bears, -and we finished the job with them. Now there's population-pressure -and the room for bears and dogs--and men--is dwindling. More and more -people are being deprived of the power of decision, and being allowed -only the power of choice among the things robots allow. The more we -depend on robots, the more limited those choices become. We don't want -our children to limit themselves to wanting what robots can provide! -We don't want them shriveling to where they abandon everything robots -can't give--or won't! We want them to be men--and women. Not damned -automatons who live _by_ pushing robot-controls so they can live _to_ -push robot-controls. If that's not subordination to robots--" - -"It's an emotional argument," protested Roane. "Not everybody feels -that way." - -"But I feel that way," said Huyghens. "And so do a lot of others. This -is a big galaxy and it's apt to contain some surprises. The one sure -thing about a robot and a man who depends on them is that they can't -handle the unexpected. There's going to come a time when we need men -who can. So on my home planet, some of us asked for Loren Two, to -colonize. It was refused--too dangerous. But men can colonize anywhere -if they're men. So I came here to study the planet. Especially the -sphexes. Eventually, we expected to ask for a license again, with proof -that we could handle even those beasts. I'm already doing it in a mild -way. But the Survey licensed a robot colony--and where is it?" - -Roane made a sour face. - -"You picked the wrong way to go about it, Huyghens. It was illegal. It -is. It was the pioneer spirit, which is admirable enough, but wrongly -directed. After all, it was pioneers who left Earth for the stars. -But--" - - * * * * * - -Sourdough raised up on his hind legs and sniffed the air. Huyghens -swung his rifle around to be handy. Roane slipped off the safety-catch -of his own. Nothing happened. - -"In a way," said Roane vexedly, "you're talking about liberty and -freedom, which most people think is politics. You say it can be more. -In principle, I'll concede it. But the way you put it, it sounds like a -freak religion." - -"It's self-respect," corrected Huyghens. - -"You may be--" - -Faro Nell growled. She bumped Nugget with her nose, to drive him closer -to Roane. She snorted at him. She trotted swiftly to where Sitka and -Sourdough faced toward the broader, sphex-filled expanse of the Sere -Plateau. She took up her position between them. - -Huyghens gazed sharply beyond them and then all about. - -"This could be bad!" he said softly. "But luckily there's no wind. -Here's a sort of hill. Come along, Roane!" - -He ran ahead, Roane following and Nugget plumping heavily with him. -They reached the raised place--actually a mere hillock no more -than five or six feet above the surrounding sand, with a distorted -cactuslike growth protruding from the ground. Huyghens stared again. He -used his binoculars. - -"One sphex," he said curtly. "Just one! And it's out of all reason -for a sphex to be alone! But it's not rational for them to gather in -hundreds of thousands, either!" He wetted his finger and held it up. -"No wind at all." - -He used the binoculars again. - -"It doesn't know we're here," he added. "It's moving away. Not another -one in sight--" He hesitated, biting his lips. "Look here, Roane! I'd -like to kill that one lone sphex and find out something. There's a -fifty per cent chance I could find out something really important. -But--I might have to run. If I'm right--" Then he said grimly, "It'll -have to be done quickly. I'm going to ride Faro Nell--for speed. I -doubt Sitka or Sourdough would stay behind. But Nugget can't run fast -enough. Will you stay here with him?" - -Roane drew in his breath. Then he said calmly: - -"You know what you're doing. Of course." - -"Keep your eyes open. If you see anything, even at a distance, shoot -and we'll be back--fast! Don't wait until something's close enough to -hit. Shoot the instant you see anything--if you do!" - -Roane nodded. He found it peculiarly difficult to speak again. Huyghens -went over to the embattled bears. He climbed up on Faro Nell's back, -holding fast by her shaggy fur. - -"Let's go!" he snapped. "That way! Hup!" - - * * * * * - -The three Kodiaks plunged away at a dead run, Huyghens lurching and -swaying on Faro Nell's back. The sudden rush dislodged Semper from his -perch. He flapped wildly and got aloft. Then he followed effortfully, -flying low. - -It happened very quickly. A Kodiak bear can travel as fast as a race -horse on occasion. These three plunged arrow-straight for a spot -perhaps half a mile distant, where a blue-and-tawny shape whirled to -face them. There was the crash of Huyghens' weapon from where he rode -on Faro Nell's back--the explosion of the weapon and the bullet was one -sound. The somehow unnatural spiky monster leaped and died. - -Huyghens jumped down from Faro Nell. He became feverishly busy at -something on the ground--where the parti-colored sphex had fallen. -Semper banked and whirled and came down to the ground. He watched, with -his head on one side. - -Roane stared, from a distance. Huyghens was doing something to the -dead sphex. The two male bears prowled about. Faro Nell regarded -Huyghens with intense curiosity. Back at the hillock, Nugget whimpered -a little. Roane patted him roughly. Nugget whimpered more loudly. In -the distance, Huyghens straightened up and took three steps toward Faro -Nell. He mounted. Sitka turned his head back toward Roane. He seemed -to see or sniff something dubious. He reared upward. He made a noise, -apparently, because Sourdough ambled to his side. The two great beasts -began to trot back. Semper flapped wildly and--lacking wind--lurched -crazily in the air. He landed on Huyghens' shoulder and his talons -clung there. - -Then Nugget howled hysterically and tried to swarm up Roane, as a cub -tries to swarm up the nearest tree in time of danger. Roane collapsed, -and the cub upon him--and there was a flash of stinking scaly hide, -while the air was filled with the snarling, spitting squeals of a sphex -in full leap. The beast had over-jumped, aiming at Roane and the cub -while both were upright and arriving when they had fallen. It went -tumbling. - -Roane heard nothing but the fiendish squalling, but in the distance -Sitka and Sourdough were coming at rocketship speed. Faro Nell let -out a roar and fairly split the air. And then there was a furry -cub streaking toward her, bawling, while Roane rolled to his feet -and snatched up his gun. He raged through pure instinct. The sphex -crouched to pursue the cub and Roane swung his weapon as a club. He was -literally too close to shoot--and perhaps the sphex had only seen the -fleeing bear-cub. But he swung furiously. - -And the sphex whirled. Roane was toppled from his feet. An -eight-hundred-pound monstrosity straight out of hell--half wildcat and -half spitting cobra with hydrophobia and homicidal mania added--such a -monstrosity is not to be withstood when in whirling its body strikes -one in the chest. - -That was when Sitka arrived, bellowing. He stood on his hind legs, -emitting roars like thunder, challenging the sphex to battle. He -waddled forward. Huyghens arrived, but he could not shoot with Roane -in the sphere of an explosive bullet's destructiveness. Faro Nell -raged and snarled, torn between the urge to be sure that Nugget was -unharmed, and the frenzied fury of a mother whose offspring has been -endangered. - -Mounted on Faro Nell, with Semper clinging idiotically to his shoulder, -Huyghens watched helplessly as the sphex spat and squalled at Sitka, -having only to reach out one claw to let out Roane's life. - - - - - V - - -They got away from there, though Sitka seemed to want to lift the -limp carcass of his victim in his teeth and dash it repeatedly to -the ground. He seemed doubly raging because a man--with whom all -Kodius Champion's descendants had an emotional relationship--had -been mishandled. But Roane was not grievously hurt. He bounced and -swore as the bears raced for the horizon. Huyghens had flung him up -on Sourdough's pack and snapped for him to hold on. He bumped and -chattered furiously: - -"Dammit, Huyghens! This isn't right! Sitka got some deep scratches! -That horror's claws may be poisonous!" - -But Huyghens snapped, "Hup! Hup!" to the bears, and they continued -their race against time. They went on for a good two miles, when Nugget -wailed despairingly of his exhaustion and Faro Nell halted firmly to -nuzzle him. - -"This may be good enough," said Huyghens. "Considering that there's -no wind and the big mass of beasts is down the plateau and there were -only those two around here. Maybe they're too busy to hold a wake, -even! Anyhow--" - -He slid to the ground and extracted the antiseptic and swabs. - -"Sitka first," snapped Roane. "I'm all right!" - -Huyghens swabbed the big bear's wounds. They were trivial, because -Sitka Pete was an experienced sphex-fighter. Then Roane grudgingly let -the curiously-smelling stuff--it reeked of ozone--be applied to the -slashes on his chest. He held his breath as it stung. Then he said -dourly: - -"It was my fault, Huyghens. I watched you instead of the landscape. I -couldn't imagine what you were doing." - -"I was doing a quick dissection," Huyghens told him. "By luck, that -first sphex was a female, as I hoped. And she was just about to lay her -eggs. Ugh! And now I know why the sphexes migrate, and where, and how -it is that they don't need game up here." - -He slapped a quick bandage on Roane. He led the way eastward, still -putting distance between the dead sphexes and his party. It was a crisp -walk, only, but Semper flapped indignantly overhead, angry that he was -not permitted to ride again. - -"I'd dissected them before," said Huyghens. "Not enough's been known -about them. Some things needed to be found out if men were ever to be -able to live here." - -"With bears?" asked Roane ironically. - -"Oh, yes," said Huyghens. "But the point is that sphexes come to the -desert here to breed--to mate and lay their eggs for the sun to hatch. -It's a particular place. Seals return to a special place to mate--and -the males, at least don't eat for weeks on end. Salmon return to their -native streams to spawn. They don't eat, and they die afterward. And -eels--I'm using Earth examples, Roane--travel some thousands of miles -to the Sargasso to mate and die. Unfortunately, sphexes don't appear to -die, but it's clear that they have an ancestral breeding place and that -they come here to the Sere Plateau to deposit their eggs!" - -Roane plodded onward. He was angry: angry with himself because he -hadn't taken elementary precautions; because he'd felt too safe, as a -man in a robot-served civilization forms the habit of doing; because -he hadn't used his brain when Nugget whimpered, in even a bear-cub's -awareness that danger was near. - -"And now," Huyghens added, "I need some equipment that the robot colony -had. With it, I think we can make a start toward making this a planet -that men can live like men on!" - -Roane blinked. - -"What's that?" - -"Equipment," said Huyghens impatiently. "It'll be at the robot colony. -Robots were useless because they wouldn't pay attention to sphexes. -They'd still be. But take out the robot-controls and the machines will -do! They shouldn't be ruined by a few months' exposure to weather!" - -Roane marched on and on. Presently he said: - -"I never thought you'd want anything that came from that colony, -Huyghens!" - -"Why not?" demanded Huyghens impatiently. "When men make machines do -what they want, that's all right. Even robots--when they're where they -belong. But men will have to handle flame-casters in the job I want -them for. There have to be some, because there was a hundred-mile -clearing to be burned off. And Earth-sterilizers--intended to kill the -seeds of any plants that robots couldn't handle. We'll come back up -here, Roane, and at the least we'll destroy the spawn of these infernal -beasts! If we can't do more than that--just doing that every year will -wipe out the race in time. There are probably other hordes than this, -with other breeding places. But we'll find them, too. We'll make this -planet into a place where men from my world can come--and still be men!" - -Roane said sardonically: - -"It was sphexes that beat the robots. Are you sure you aren't planning -to make this world safe for robots?" - -Huyghens laughed shortly. - -"You've only seen one night-walker," he said. "And how about those -things on the mountain-slope--which would have drained you of blood and -then feasted? Would you care to wander about this planet with only a -robot bodyguard, Roane? Hardly! Men can't live on this planet with only -robots to help them--and stop them from being fully men! You'll see!" - - * * * * * - -They found the colony after only ten days more of travel and after many -sphexes and more than a few staglike creatures and shaggy ruminants -had fallen to their weapons and the bears. But first they found the -survivors of the colony. - -There were three of them, hard-bitten and bearded and deeply -embittered. When the electrified fence went down, two of them were away -at a mine-tunnel, installing a new control-panel for the robots who -worked in it. The third was in charge of the mining operation. They -were alarmed by the stopping of communication with the colony and went -back in a tank-truck to find out what had happened, and only the fact -that they were unarmed saved them. They found sphexes prowling and -caterwauling about the fallen colony, in numbers they still did not -wholly believe. And the sphexes smelled men inside the armored vehicle, -but couldn't break in. In turn, the men couldn't kill them, or they'd -have been trailed to the mine and besieged there for as long as they -could kill an occasional monster. - -The survivors stopped all mining--of course--and tried to use -remote-controlled robots for revenge and to get supplies for them. -Their mining-robots were not designed for either task. And they had no -weapons. They improvised miniature throwers of burning rocket-fuel, -and they sent occasional prowling sphexes away screaming with scorched -hides. But this was useful only because it did not kill the beasts. -And it cost fuel. In the end they barricaded themselves and used the -fuel only to keep a spark-signal going against the day when another -ship came to seek the colony. They stayed in the mine as in a prison, -on short rations, waiting without real hope. For diversion they could -only contemplate the mining-robots they could not spare fuel to run and -which could not do anything but mine. - -When Huyghens and Roane reached them, they wept. They hated robots and -all things robotic only a little less than they hated sphexes. But -Huyghens explained, and armed them with weapons from the packs of the -bears, and they marched to the dead colony with the male Kodiaks as -point and advance-guard, and with Faro Nell bringing up the rear. They -killed sixteen sphexes on the way. In the now overgrown clearing there -were four more. In the shelters of the colony they found only foulness -and the fragments of what had been men. But there was some food--not -much, because the sphexes clawed at anything that smelled of men, and -had ruined the plastic packets of radiation-sterilized food. But there -were some supplies in metal containers which were not destroyed. - -And there was fuel, which men could dispense when they got to the -control-panels of the equipment. There were robots everywhere, bright -and shining and ready for operation, but immobile, with plants growing -up around and over them. - -They ignored those robots. But lustfully they fueled tracked -flame-casters--adapting them to human rather than robot operation--and -the giant soil-sterilizer which had been built to destroy vegetation -that robots could not be made to weed out or cultivate. And they headed -back for the Sere Plateau, burning-eyed and filled with hate. - -But Nugget became a badly spoiled bear-cub, because the freed men -approved passionately of anything that would even grow up to kill -sphexes. They petted him to excess, when they camped. - -And they reached the plateau by a sphex-trail to the top. And Semper -scouted for sphexes, and the giant Kodiaks disturbed them and the -sphexes came squalling and spitting to destroy them--and while Roane -and Huyghens fired steadily, the great machines swept up with their -special weapons. The Earth-sterilizer, it was found, was deadly against -animal life as well as seeds, when its diathermic beam was raised and -aimed. But it had to be handled by a man. No robot could decide just -when it was to be used, and against what target. - -Presently the bears were not needed, because the scorched corpses -of sphexes drew live ones from all parts of the plateau even in -the absence of noticeable breezes. The official business of the -sphexes was presumably finished, but they came to caterwaul and seek -vengeance--which they did not find. Presently the survivors of the -robot colony drove machines--as men needed to do, here--in great -circles around the hugest heap of slaughtered fiends, destroying new -arrivals as they came. It was such a killing as men had never before -made on any planet, but there would not be many left of the sphex-horde -which had bred in this particular patch of desert. There might be other -hordes elsewhere, and other breeding places, but the normal territory -of this mass of monsters would see few of them this year. - -Or next year, either. Because the soil-sterilizer would go over the -dug-up sand where the sphex-spawn lay hidden for the sun to hatch. And -the sun would never hatch them. - -But Huyghens and Roane, by that time, were camped on the edge of -the plateau with the Kodiaks. They were technically upwind from the -scene of slaughter--and somehow it seemed more befitting for the men -of the robot colony to conduct it. After all, it was those men whose -companions had been killed. - - * * * * * - -There came an evening when Huyghens amiably cuffed Nugget away from -where he sniffed too urgently at a stag-steak cooking on the campfire. -Nugget ambled dolefully behind the protecting form of Roane and -sniveled. - -"Huyghens," said Roane painfully, "we've got to come to a settlement of -our affairs. I'm a Colonial Survey officer. You're an illegal colonist. -It's my duty to arrest you." - -Huyghens regarded him with interest. - -"Will you offer me lenience if I tell on my confederates," he asked -mildly, "or may I plead that I can't be forced to testify against -myself?" - -Roane said vexedly: - -"It's irritating! I've been an honest man all my life, but--I don't -believe in robots as I did, except in their place. And their place -isn't here. Not as the robot colony was planned, anyhow. The sphexes -are nearly wiped out, but they won't be extinct and robots can't handle -them. Bears and men will have to live here or--the people who do will -have to spend their lives behind sphex-proof fences, accepting only -what robots can give them. And there's much too much on this planet for -people to miss it! To live in a robot-managed controlled environment on -a planet like Loren Two wouldn't ... it wouldn't be self-respecting!" - -"You wouldn't be getting religious, would you?" asked Huyghens dryly. -"That was your term for self-respect before." - -Semper, the eagle, squawked indignantly as Sitka Pete almost stepped on -him, approaching the fire. Sitka Pete sniffed, and Huyghens spoke to -him sharply, and he sat down with a thump. He remained sitting in an -untidy lump, looking at the steak and drooling. - -"You don't let me finish!" protested Roane querulously. "I'm a Colonial -Survey officer, and it's my job to pass on the work that's done on a -planet before any but the first-landed colonists may come there to -live. And of course to see that specifications are followed. Now--the -robot colony I was sent to survey was practically destroyed. As -designed, it wouldn't work. It couldn't survive." - -Huyghens grunted. Night was falling. He turned the meat over the fire. - -"Now, in emergencies," said Roane carefully, "colonists have the right -to call on any passing ship for aid. Naturally! So--I've always been -an honest man before, Huyghens--my report will be that the colony as -designed was impractical, and that it was overwhelmed and destroyed -except for three survivors who holed up and signaled for help. They -did, you know!" - -"Go on," grunted Huyghens. - -"So," said Roane querulously, "it just happened--just happened, -mind you--that a ship with you and Sitka and Sourdough and Faro -Nell on board--and Nugget and Semper, too, of course--picked up the -distress-call. So you landed to help the colonists. And you did. That's -the story. Therefore it isn't illegal for you to be here. It was only -illegal for you to be here when you weren't needed. But we'll pretend -you weren't." - -Huyghens glanced over his shoulder in the deepening night. He said -calmly: - -"I wouldn't believe that if I told it myself. Do you think the Survey -will?" - -"They're not fools," said Roane tartly. "Of course they won't! But when -my report says that because of this unlikely series of events it is -practical to colonize the planet, whereas before it wasn't--and when -my report proves that a robot colony alone is stark nonsense, but that -with bears and men from your world added, so many thousand colonists -can be received per year--And when that much is true, anyhow--" - -Huyghens seemed to shake a little as a dark silhouette against the -flames. A little way off, Sourdough sniffed the air hopefully. With a -bright light like the fire, presently naked-looking flying things might -appear to be slapped down out of the air. They were succulent--to a -bear. - -"My reports carry weight," insisted Roane. "The deal will be offered, -anyhow! The robot colony organizers will have to agree or they'll have -to fold up. It's true! And your people can hold them up for nearly what -terms they choose." - -Huyghens' shaking became understandable. It was laughter. - -"You're a lousy liar, Roane," he said, chuckling. "Isn't it -unintelligent and unreasonable and irrational to throw away a lifetime -of honesty just to get me out of a jam? You're not acting like a -rational animal, Roane. But I thought you wouldn't, when it came to the -point." - -Roane squirmed. - -"That's the only solution I can think of. But it'll work." - -"I accept it," said Huyghens, grinning. "With thanks. If only -because it means another few generations of men living like men on -a planet that is going to take a lot of taming. And--if you want to -know--because it keeps Sourdough and Sitka and Nell and Nugget from -being killed because I brought them here illegally." - -Something pressed hard against Roane. Nugget, the cub, pushed urgently -against him in his desire to get closer to the fragrantly cooking meat. -He edged forward. Roane toppled from where he squatted on the ground. -He sprawled. Nugget sniffed luxuriously. - -"Slap him," said Huyghens. "He'll move back." - -"I won't!" said Roane indignantly from where he lay. "I won't do it! -He's my friend!" - - THE END - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPLORATION TEAM *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Exploration Team</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Murray Leinster</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 11, 2022 [eBook #68730]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPLORATION TEAM ***</div> - - -<div class="figcenter x-ebookmaker-drop"> - <img src="images/illusc.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>EXPLORATION TEAM</h1> - -<h2>BY MURRAY LEINSTER</h2> - -<p>Illustrated by Emsh</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Astounding Science Fiction, March 1956.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">I</p> - - -<p>The nearer moon went by overhead. It was jagged and irregular in shape, -and was probably a captured asteroid. Huyghens had seen it often -enough, so he did not go out of his quarters to watch it hurtle across -the sky with seemingly the speed of an atmosphere-flier, occulting the -stars as it went. Instead, he sweated over paper work, which should -have been odd because he was technically a felon and all his labors on -Loren Two felonious. It was odd, too, for a man to do paper work in a -room with steel shutters and a huge bald eagle—untethered—dozing on -a three-inch perch set in the wall. But paper work was not Huyghens' -real task. His only assistant had tangled with a night-walker and the -furtive Kodius Company ships had taken him away to where Kodius Company -ships came from. Huyghens had to do two men's work in loneliness. To -his knowledge, he was the only man in this solar system.</p> - -<p>Below him, there were snufflings. Sitka Pete got up heavily and -padded to his water pan. He lapped the refrigerated water and sneezed -violently. Sourdough Charley waked and complained in a rumbling growl. -There were divers other rumblings and mutterings below. Huyghens -called reassuringly, "Easy there!" and went on with his work. He -finished a climate report, and fed figures to a computer, and while -it hummed over them he entered the inventory totals in the station -log, showing what supplies remained. Then he began to write up the log -proper.</p> - -<p>"<i>Sitka Pete</i>," he wrote, "<i>has apparently solved the problem of -killing individual sphexes. He has learned that it doesn't do to hug -them and that his claws can't penetrate their hide—not the top hide, -anyhow. Today Semper notified us that a pack of sphexes had found the -scent-trail to the station. Sitka hid down-wind until they arrived. -Then he charged from the rear and brought his paws together on both -sides of a sphex's head in a terrific pair of slaps. It must have been -like two twelve-inch shells arriving from opposite directions at the -same time. It must have scrambled the sphex's brains as if they were -eggs. It dropped dead. He killed two more with such mighty pairs of -wallops. Sourdough Charley watched, grunting, and when the sphexes -turned on Sitka, he charged in his turn. I, of course, couldn't shoot -too close to him, so he might have fared badly but that Faro Nell came -pouring out of the bear quarters to help. The diversion enabled Sitka -Pete to resume the use of his new technic, towering on his hind legs -and swinging his paws in the new and grisly fashion. The fight ended -promptly. Semper flew and screamed above the scrap, but as usual did -not join in. Note: Nugget, the cub, tried to mix in but his mother -cuffed him out of the way. Sourdough and Sitka ignored him as usual. -Kodius Champion's genes are sound!</i>"</p> - -<p>The noises of the night went on outside. There were notes like organ -tones—song lizards. There were the tittering giggling cries of -night-walkers—not to be tittered back at. There were sounds like -tack hammers, and doors closing, and from every direction came noises -like hiccups in various keys. These were made by the improbable small -creatures which on Loren Two took the place of insects.</p> - -<p>Huyghens wrote out:</p> - -<p>"<i>Sitka seemed ruffled when the fight was over. He painstakingly used -his trick on every dead or wounded sphex, except those he'd killed -with it, lifting up their heads for his pile-driverlike blows from two -directions at once, as if to show Sourdough how it was done. There -was much grunting as they hauled the carcasses to the incinerator. It -almost seemed</i>—"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The arrival bell clanged, and Huyghens jerked up his head to stare at -it. Semper, the eagle, opened icy eyes. He blinked.</p> - -<p>Noises. There was a long, deep, contented snore from below. Something -shrieked, out in the jungle. Hiccups. Clatterings, and organ notes—</p> - -<p>The bell clanged again. It was a notice that a ship aloft somewhere had -picked up the beacon beam—which only Kodius Company ships should know -about—and was communicating for a landing. But there shouldn't be any -ships in this solar system just now! This was the only habitable planet -of the sun, and it had been officially declared uninhabitable by reason -of inimical animal life. Which meant sphexes. Therefore no colony was -permitted, and the Kodius Company broke the law. And there were few -graver crimes than unauthorized occupation of a new planet.</p> - -<p>The bell clanged a third time. Huyghens swore. His hand went out to -cut off the beacon—but that would be useless. Radar would have fixed -it and tied it in with physical features like the nearby sea and the -Sere Plateau. The ship could find the place, anyhow, and descend by -day-light.</p> - -<p>"The devil!" said Huyghens. But he waited yet again for the bell to -ring. A Kodius Company ship would double-ring to reassure him. But -there shouldn't be a Kodius Company ship for months.</p> - -<p>The bell clanged singly. The space phone dial flickered and a voice -came out of it, tinny from stratospheric distortion:</p> - -<p>"<i>Calling ground! Calling ground! Crete Line ship</i> Odysseus <i>calling -ground on Loren Two. Landing one passenger by boat. Put on your field -lights.</i>"</p> - -<p>Huyghens' mouth dropped open. A Kodius Company ship would be welcome. -A Colonial Survey ship would be extremely unwelcome, because it -would destroy the colony and Sitka and Sourdough and Faro Nell and -Nugget—and Semper—and carry Huyghens off to be tried for unauthorized -colonization and all that it implied.</p> - -<p>But a commercial ship, landing one passenger by boat—There were simply -no circumstances under which that would happen. Not to an unknown, -illegal colony. Not to a furtive station!</p> - -<p>Huyghens flicked on the landing-field lights. He saw the glare in the -field outside. Then he stood up and prepared to take the measures -required by discovery. He packed the paper work he'd been doing into -the disposal safe. He gathered up all personal documents and tossed -them in. Every record, every bit of evidence that the Kodius Company -maintained this station went into the safe. He slammed the door. He -touched his finger to the disposal button, which would destroy the -contents and melt down even the ashes past their possible use for -evidence in court.</p> - -<p>Then he hesitated. If it were a Survey ship, the button had to -be pressed and he must resign himself to a long term in prison. -But a Crete Line ship—if the space phone told the truth—was not -threatening. It was simply unbelievable.</p> - -<p>He shook his head. He got into travel garb and armed himself. He went -down into the bear quarters, turning on lights as he went. There -were startled snufflings and Sitka Pete reared himself very absurdly -to a sitting position to blink at him. Sourdough Charley lay on his -back with his legs in the air. He'd found it cooler, sleeping that -way. He rolled over with a thump. He made snorting sounds which -somehow sounded cordial. Faro Nell padded to the door of her separate -apartment—assigned her so that Nugget would not be under-foot to -irritate the big males.</p> - -<p>Huyghens, as the human population of Loren Two, faced the work force, -fighting force, and—with Nugget—four-fifths of the terrestrial -nonhuman population of the planet. They were mutated Kodiak bears, -descendants of that Kodius Champion for whom the Kodius Company was -named. Sitka Pete was a good twenty-two hundred pounds of lumbering, -intelligent carnivore. Sourdough Charley would weigh within a hundred -pounds of that figure. Faro Nell was eighteen hundred pounds of female -charm—and ferocity. Then Nugget poked his muzzle around his mother's -furry rump to see what was toward, and he was six hundred pounds of -ursine infancy. The animals looked at Huyghens expectantly. If he'd had -Semper riding on his shoulder, they'd have known what was expected of -them.</p> - -<p>"Let's go," said Huyghens. "It's dark outside, but somebody's coming. -And it may be bad!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He unfastened the outer door of the bear quarters. Sitka Pete went -charging clumsily through it. A forth-right charge was the best -way to develop any situation—if one was an oversized male Kodiak -bear. Sourdough went lumbering after him. There was nothing hostile -immediately outside. Sitka stood up on his hind legs—he reared up a -solid twelve feet—and sniffed the air. Sourdough methodically lumbered -to one side and then the other, sniffing in his turn. Nell came out, -nine-tenths of a ton of daintiness, and rumbled admonitorily at -Nugget, who trailed her closely. Huyghens stood in the doorway, his -night-sighted gun ready. He felt uncomfortable at sending the bears -ahead into a Loren Two jungle at night. But they were qualified to -scent danger, and he was not.</p> - -<p>The illumination of the jungle in a wide path toward the landing field -made for weirdness in the look of things. There were arching giant -ferns and columnar trees which grew above them, and the extraordinary -lanceolate underbrush of the jungle. The flood lamps, set level with -the ground, lighted everything from below. The foliage, then, was -brightly lit against the black night-sky—brightly lit enough to -dim-out the stars. There were astonishing contrasts of light and shadow -everywhere.</p> - -<p>"On ahead!" commanded Huyghens, waving. "Hup!"</p> - -<p>He swung the bear-quarters door shut. He moved toward the landing field -through the lane of lighted forest. The two giant male Kodiaks lumbered -ahead. Sitka Pete dropped to all fours and prowled. Sourdough Charley -followed closely, swinging from side to side. Huyghens came alertly -behind the two of them, and Faro Nell brought up the rear with Nugget -following her closely.</p> - -<p>It was an excellent military formation for progress through dangerous -jungle. Sourdough and Sitka were advance-guard and point, respectively, -while Faro Nell guarded the rear. With Nugget to look after, she was -especially alert against attack from behind. Huyghens was, of course, -the striking force. His gun fired explosive bullets which would -discourage even sphexes, and his night-sight—a cone of light which -went on when he took up the trigger-slack—told exactly where they -would strike. It was not a sportsmanlike weapon, but the creatures -of Loren Two were not sportsmanlike antagonists. The night-walkers, -for example—But night-walkers feared light. They attacked only in a -species of hysteria if it were too bright.</p> - -<p>Huyghens moved toward the glare at the landing field. His mental state -was savage. The Kodius Company station on Loren Two was completely -illegal. It happened to be necessary, from one point of view, but -it was still illegal. The tinny voice on the space phone was not -convincing, in ignoring that illegality. But if a ship landed, Huyghens -could get back to the station before men could follow, and he'd have -the disposal safe turned on in time to protect those who'd sent him -here.</p> - -<p>But he heard the faraway and high harsh roar of a landing-boat -rocket—not a ship's bellowing tubes—as he made his way through the -unreal-seeming brush. The roar grew louder as he pushed on, the three -big Kodiaks padding here and there, sniffing thoughtfully, making a -perfect defensive-offensive formation for the particular conditions of -this planet.</p> - -<p>He reached the edge of the landing field, and it was blindingly bright, -with the customary divergent beams slanting skyward so a ship could -check its instrument landing by sight. Landing fields like this had -been standard, once upon a time. Nowadays all developed planets had -landing grids—monstrous structures which drew upon ionospheres for -power and lifted and drew down star ships with remarkable gentleness -and unlimited force. This sort of landing field would be found where a -survey-team was at work, or where some strictly temporary investigation -of ecology or bacteriology was under way, or where a newly authorized -colony had not yet been able to build its landing grid. Of course it -was unthinkable that anybody would attempt a settlement in defiance of -the law!</p> - -<p>Already, as Huyghens reached the edge of the scorched open space, -the night-creatures had rushed to the light like moths on Earth. -The air was misty with crazily gyrating, tiny flying things. They -were innumerable and of every possible form and size, from the white -midges of the night and multi-winged flying worms to those revoltingly -naked-looking larger creatures which might have passed for plucked -flying monkeys if they had not been carnivorous and worse. The flying -things soared and whirred and danced and spun insanely in the glare. -They made peculiarly plaintive humming noises. They almost formed a -lamp-lit ceiling over the cleared space. They did hide the stars. -Staring upward, Huyghens could just barely make out the blue-white -flame of the space-boat's rocket through the fog of wings and bodies.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The rocket-flame grew steadily in size. Once, apparently, it tilted to -adjust the boat's descending course. It went back to normal. A speck -of incandescence at first, it grew until it was like a great star, and -then a more-than-brilliant moon, and then it was a pitiless glaring -eye. Huyghens averted his gaze from it. Sitka Pete sat lumpily—more -than a ton of him—and blinked wisely at the dark jungle away from the -light. Sourdough ignored the deepening, increasing rocket roar. He -sniffed the air delicately. Faro Nell held Nugget firmly under one huge -paw and licked his head as if tidying him up to be seen by company. -Nugget wriggled.</p> - -<p>The roar became that of ten thousand thunders. A warm breeze blew -outward from the landing field. The rocket boat hurled downward, -and its flame touched the mist of flying things, and they shriveled -and burned and were hot. Then there were churning clouds of dust -everywhere, and the center of the field blazed terribly,—and something -slid down a shaft of fire, and squeezed it flat, and sat on it,—and -the flame went out. The rocket boat sat there, resting on its tail -fins, pointing toward the stars from which it came.</p> - -<p>There was a terrible silence after the tumult. Then, very faintly, the -noises of the night came again. There were sounds like those of organ -pipes, and very faint and apologetic noises like hiccups. All these -sounds increased, and suddenly Huyghens could hear quite normally. Then -a side-port opened with a quaint sort of clattering, and something -unfolded from where it had been inset into the hull of the space boat, -and there was a metal passageway across the flame-heated space on which -the boat stood.</p> - -<p>A man came out of the port. He reached back in and shook hands very -formally. He climbed down the ladder rungs to the walkway. He marched -above the steaming baked area, carrying a traveling bag. He reached the -end of the walk and stepped gingerly to the ground. He moved hastily to -the edge of the clearing. He waved to the space boat. There were ports. -Perhaps someone returned the gesture. The walkway folded briskly back -up to the hull and vanished in it. A flame exploded into being under -the tail fins. There were fresh clouds of monstrous, choking dust and -a brightness like that of a sun. There was noise past the possibility -of endurance. Then the light rose swiftly through the dust cloud, and -sprang higher and climbed more swiftly still. When Huyghens' ears again -permitted him to hear anything, there was only a diminishing mutter in -the heavens and a small bright speck of light ascending to the sky and -swinging eastward as it rose to intercept the ship which had let it -descend.</p> - -<p>The night noises of the jungle went on. Life on Loren Two did not need -to heed the doings of men. But there was a spot of incandescence in the -day-bright clearing, and a short, brisk man looked puzzledly about him -with a traveling bag in his hand.</p> - -<p>Huyghens advanced toward him as the incandescence dimmed. Sourdough and -Sitka preceded him. Faro Nell trailed faithfully, keeping a maternal -eye on her offspring. The man in the clearing stared at the parade they -made. It would be upsetting, even after preparation, to land at night -on a strange planet, and to have the ship's boat and all links with the -rest of the cosmos depart, and then to find one's self approached—it -might seem stalked—by two colossal male Kodiak bears, with a third -bear and a cub behind them. A single human figure in such company might -seem irrelevant.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The new arrival gazed blankly. He moved, startledly. Then Huyghens -called:</p> - -<p>"Hello, there! Don't worry about the bears! They're friends!"</p> - -<p>Sitka reached the newcomer. He went warily down-wind from him and -sniffed. The smell was satisfactory. Man-smell. Sitka sat down with the -solid impact of more than a ton of bear-meat landing on packed dirt. -He regarded the man amiably. Sourdough said "<i>Whoosh!</i>" and went on to -sample the air beyond the clearing. Huyghens approached. The newcomer -wore the uniform of the Colonial Survey. That was bad. It bore the -insignia of a senior officer. Worse.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"Hah!" said the just-landed man. "Where are the robots? What in all the -nineteen hells are these creatures? Why did you shift your station? I'm -Roane, here to make a progress report on your colony."</p> - -<p>Huyghens said:</p> - -<p>"What colony?"</p> - -<p>"Loren Two Robot Installation—" Then Roane said indignantly, "Don't -tell me that that idiot skipper dropped me at the wrong place! This is -Loren Two, isn't it? And this is the landing field. But where are your -robots? You should have the beginning of a grid up! What the devil's -happened here and what are these beasts?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens grimaced.</p> - -<p>"This," he said politely, "is an illegal, unlicensed settlement. I'm -a criminal. These beasts are my confederates. If you don't want to -associate with criminals you needn't, of course, but I doubt if you'll -live till morning unless you accept my hospitality while I think over -what to do about your landing. In reason, I ought to shoot you."</p> - -<p>Faro Nell came to a halt behind Huyghens, which was her proper post in -all out-door movement. Nugget, however, saw a new human. Nugget was a -cub, and, therefore, friendly. He ambled forward ingratiatingly. He was -four feet high at the shoulders, on all fours. He wriggled bashfully as -he approached Roane. He sneezed, because he was embarrassed.</p> - -<p>His mother overtook him swiftly and cuffed him to one side. He wailed. -The wail of a six-hundred-pound Kodiak bear-cub is a remarkable sound. -Roane gave ground a pace.</p> - -<p>"I think," he said carefully, "that we'd better talk things over. -But if this is an illegal colony, of course you're under arrest and -anything you say will be used against you."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Huyghens grimaced again.</p> - -<p>"Right," he said. "But now if you'll walk close to me, we'll head back -to the station. I'd have Sourdough carry your bag—he likes to carry -things—but he may need his teeth. We've half a mile to travel." He -turned to the animals. "Let's go!" he said commandingly. "Back to the -station! Hup!"</p> - -<p>Grunting, Sitka Pete arose and took up his duties as advanced point -of a combat team. Sourdough trailed, swinging widely to one side and -another. Huyghens and Roane moved together. Faro Nell and Nugget -brought up the rear. Which, of course, was the only relatively safe way -for anybody to travel on Loren Two, in the jungle, a good half mile -from one's fortress-like residence.</p> - -<p>But there was only one incident on the way back. It was a night-walker, -made hysterical by the lane of light. It poured through the underbrush, -uttering cries like maniacal laughter.</p> - -<p>Sourdough brought it down, a good ten yards from Huyghens. When it was -all over, Nugget bristled up to the dead creature, uttering cub-growls. -He feigned to attack it.</p> - -<p>His mother whacked him soundly.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">II</p> - - -<p>There were comfortable, settling-down noises below. The bears grunted -and rumbled, but ultimately were still. The glare from the landing -field was gone. The lighted lane through the jungle was dark again. -Huyghens ushered the man from the space boat up into his living -quarters. There was a rustling stir, and Semper took his head -from under his wing. He stared coldly at the two humans. He spread -monstrous, seven-foot wings and fluttered them. He opened his beak and -closed it with a snap.</p> - -<p>"That's Semper," said Huyghens. "Semper Tyrannis. He's the rest of the -terrestrial population here. Not being a fly-by-night sort of creature, -he didn't come out to welcome you."</p> - -<p>Roane blinked at the huge bird, perched on a three-inch-thick perch set -in the wall.</p> - -<p>"An eagle?" he demanded. "Kodiak bears—mutated ones you say, but still -bears—and now an eagle? You've a very nice fighting unit in the bears."</p> - -<p>"They're pack animals, too," said Huyghens. "They can carry some -hundreds of pounds without losing too much combat efficiency. And -there's no problem of supply. They live off the jungle. Not sphexes, -though. Nothing will eat a sphex, even if it can kill one."</p> - -<p>He brought out glasses and a bottle. He indicated a chair. Roane put -down his traveling bag. He took a glass.</p> - -<p>"I'm curious," he observed. "Why Semper Tyrannis? I can understand -Sitka Pete and Sourdough Charley as names. The home of their ancestors -makes them fitting. But why Semper?"</p> - -<p>"He was bred for hawking," said Huyghens. "You sic a dog on something. -You sic Semper Tyrannis. He's too big to ride on a hawking glove, so -the shoulders of my coats are padded to let him ride there. He's a -flying scout. I've trained him to notify us of sphexes, and in flight -he carries a tiny television camera. He's useful, but he hasn't the -brains of the bears."</p> - -<p>Roane sat down and sipped at his glass.</p> - -<p>"Interesting ... very interesting! But this is an illegal settlement. -I'm a Colonial Survey officer. My job is reporting on progress -according to plan, but nevertheless I have to arrest you. Didn't you -say something about shooting me?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens said doggedly:</p> - -<p>"I'm trying to think of a way out. Add up all the penalties for illegal -colonization and I'd be in a very bad fix if you got away and reported -this set-up. Shooting you would be logical."</p> - -<p>"I see that," said Roane reasonably. "But since the point has come -up—I have a blaster trained on you from my pocket."</p> - -<p>Huyghens shrugged.</p> - -<p>"It's rather likely that my human confederates will be back here before -your friends. You'd be in a very tight fix if my friends came back and -found you more or less sitting on my corpse."</p> - -<p>Roane nodded.</p> - -<p>"That's true, too. Also it's probable that your fellow terrestrials -wouldn't co-operate with me as they have with you. You seem to have the -whip hand, even with my blaster trained on you. On the other hand, you -could have killed me quite easily after the boat left, when I'd first -landed. I'd have been quite unsuspicious. So you may not really intend -to murder me."</p> - -<p>Huyghens shrugged again.</p> - -<p>"So," said Roane, "since the secret of getting along with people is -that of postponing quarrels—suppose we postpone the question of who -kills whom? Frankly, I'm going to send you to prison if I can. Unlawful -colonization is very bad business. But I suppose you feel that you have -to do something permanent about me. In your place I probably should, -too. Shall we declare a truce?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens indicated indifference. Roane said vexedly:</p> - -<p>"Then I do! I have to! So—"</p> - -<p>He pulled his hand out of his pocket and put a pocket blaster on the -table. He leaned back, defiantly.</p> - -<p>"Keep it," said Huyghens. "Loren Two isn't a place where you live long -unarmed." He turned to a cupboard. "Hungry?"</p> - -<p>"I could eat," admitted Roane.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Huyghens pulled out two meal-packs from the cupboard and inserted them -in the readier below. He set out plates.</p> - -<p>"Now—what happened to the official, licensed, authorized colony here?" -asked Roane briskly. "License issued eighteen months ago. There was -a landing of colonists with a drone fleet of equipment and supplies. -There've been four ship-contacts since. There should be several -thousand robots being industrious under adequate human supervision. -There should be a hundred-mile-square clearing, planted with food -plants for later human arrivals. There should be a landing grid at -least half-finished. Obviously there should be a space beacon to guide -ships to a landing. There isn't. There's no clearing visible from -space. That Crete Line ship has been in orbit for three days, trying -to find a place to drop me. Her skipper was fuming. Your beacon is the -only one on the planet, and we found it by accident. What happened?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens served the food. He said dryly:</p> - -<p>"There could be a hundred colonies on this planet without any one -knowing of any other. I can only guess about your robots, but I suspect -they ran into sphexes."</p> - -<p>Roane paused, with his fork in his hand.</p> - -<p>"I read up on this planet, since I was to report on its colony. A sphex -is part of the inimical animal life here. Cold-blooded belligerent -carnivor, not a lizard but a genus all its own. Hunts in packs. Seven -to eight hundred pounds, when adult. Lethally dangerous and simply too -numerous to fight. They're why no license was ever granted to human -colonists. Only robots could work here, because they're machines. What -animal attacks machines?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens said:</p> - -<p>"What machine attacks animals? The sphexes wouldn't bother robots, of -course, but would robots bother the sphexes?"</p> - -<p>Roane chewed and swallowed.</p> - -<p>"Hold it! I'll agree that you can't make a hunting-robot. A machine -can discriminate, but it can't decide. That's why there's no danger of -a robot revolt. They can't decide to do something for which they have -no instructions. But this colony was planned with full knowledge of -what robots can and can't do. As ground was cleared, it was enclosed in -an electric fence which no sphex could touch without frying."</p> - -<p>Huyghens thoughtfully cut his food. After a moment:</p> - -<p>"The landing was in the winter-time," he observed. "It must have -been, because the colony survived a while. And at a guess, the last -ship-landing was before thaw. The years are eighteen months long here, -you know."</p> - -<p>Roane admitted:</p> - -<p>"It was in winter that the landing was made. And the last ship-landing -was before spring. The idea was to get mines in operation for material, -and to have ground cleared and enclosed in sphex-proof fence before the -sphexes came back from the tropics. They winter there, I understand."</p> - -<p>"Did you ever see a sphex?" Huyghens asked. Then added, "No, of course -not. But if you took a spitting cobra and crossed it with a wildcat, -painted it tan-and-blue and then gave it hydrophobia and homicidal -mania at once—why you might have one sphex. But not the race of -sphexes. They can climb trees, by the way. A fence wouldn't stop them."</p> - -<p>"An electrified fence," said Roane. "Nothing could climb that!"</p> - -<p>"No one animal," Huyghens told him. "But sphexes are a race. The smell -of one dead sphex brings others running with blood in their eyes. -Leave a dead sphex alone for six hours and you've got them around by -the dozen. Two days and there are hundreds. Longer, and you've got -thousands of them! They gather to caterwaul over their dead pal and -hunt for whoever or whatever killed him."</p> - -<p>He returned to his meal. A moment later he said:</p> - -<p>"No need to wonder what happened to your colony. During the winter the -robots burned out a clearing and put up an electrified fence according -to the book. Come spring, the sphexes came back. They're curious, -among their other madnesses. A sphex would try to climb the fence just -to see what was behind it. He'd be electrocuted. His carcass would -bring others, raging because a sphex was dead. Some of them would try -to climb the fence—and die. And their corpses would bring others. -Presently the fence would break down from the bodies hanging on it, -or a bridge of dead beasts' carcasses would be built across it—and -from as far down-wind as the scent carried there'd be loping, raging, -scent-crazed sphexes racing to the spot. They'd pour into the clearing -through or over the fence, squalling and screeching for something to -kill. I think they'd find it."</p> - -<p>Roane ceased to eat. He looked sick.</p> - -<p>"There were ... pictures of sphexes in the data I read. I suppose that -would account for ... everything."</p> - -<p>He tried to lift his fork. He put it down again.</p> - -<p>"I can't eat," he said abruptly.</p> - -<p>Huyghens made no comment. He finished his own meal, scowling. He rose -and put the plates into the top of the cleaner. There was a whirring. -He took them out of the bottom and put them away.</p> - -<p>"Let me see those reports, eh?" he asked dourly. "I'd like to see what -sort of a set-up they had—those robots."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Roane hesitated and then opened his traveling bag. There was a -micro-viewer and reels of films. One entire reel was labeled -"Specifications for Construction, Colonial Survey," which would contain -detailed plans and all requirements of material and workmanship for -everything from desks, office, administrative personnel, for use of, -to landing grids, heavy-gravity planets, lift-capacity one hundred -thousand Earth-tons. But Huyghens found another. He inserted it and -spun the control swiftly here and there, pausing only briefly at index -frames until he came to the section he wanted. He began to study the -information with growing impatience.</p> - -<p>"Robots, robots, robots!" he snapped. "Why don't they leave them where -they belong—in cities to do the dirty work, and on airless planets -where nothing unexpected ever happens! Robots don't belong in new -colonies! Your colonists depended on them for defense! Dammit, let a -man work with robots long enough and he thinks all nature is as limited -as they are! This is a plan to set up a controlled environment! On -Loren Two! Controlled environment—" He swore, luridly. "Complacent, -idiotic, desk-bound half-wits!"</p> - -<p>"Robots are all right," said Roane. "We couldn't run civilization -without them."</p> - -<p>"But you can't tame a wilderness with 'em!" snapped Roane. "You had a -dozen men landed, with fifty assembled robots to start with. There were -parts for fifteen hundred more—and I'll bet anything I've got that the -ship-contacts landed more still."</p> - -<p>"They did," admitted Roane.</p> - -<p>"I despise 'em," growled Huyghens. "I feel about 'em the way the old -Greeks and Romans felt about slaves. They're for menial work—the -sort of work a man will perform for himself, but that he won't do for -another man for pay. Degrading work!"</p> - -<p>"Quite aristocratic!" said Roane with a touch of irony. "I take it that -robots clean out the bear quarters downstairs."</p> - -<p>"No!" snapped Huyghens. "I do! They're my friends! They fight for me! -They can't understand the necessity and no robot would do the job -right!"</p> - -<p>He growled, again. The noises of the night went on outside. Organ tones -and hiccupings and the sound of tack-hammers and slamming doors. -Somewhere there was a singularly exact replica of the discordant -squeaking of a rusty pump.</p> - -<p>"I'm looking," said Huyghens at the micro-viewer, "for the record of -their mining operations. An open-pit operation wouldn't mean a thing. -But if they had driven a tunnel, and somebody was there supervising the -robots when the colony was wiped out, there's an off-chance he survived -a while."</p> - -<p>Roane regarded him with suddenly intent eyes.</p> - -<p>"And—"</p> - -<p>"Dammit," snapped Roane, "if so I'll go see! He'd ... they'd have no -chance at all, otherwise. Not that the chance is good in any case!"</p> - -<p>Roane raised his eyebrows.</p> - -<p>"I'm a Colonial Survey officer," he said. "I've told you I'll send you -to prison if I can. You've risked the lives of millions of people, -maintaining non-quarantined communication with an unlicensed planet. -If you did rescue somebody from the ruins of the robot colony, does it -occur to you that they'd be witnesses to your unauthorized presence -here?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens spun the viewer again. He stopped. He switched back and forth -and found what he wanted. He muttered in satisfaction: "They did run a -tunnel!" Aloud he said, "I'll worry about witnesses when I have to."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He pushed aside another cupboard door. Inside it were the odds and -ends a man makes use of to repair the things about his house that he -never notices until they go wrong. There was an assortment of wires, -transistors, bolts, and similar stray items that a man living alone -will need. When to his knowledge he's the only inhabitant of a solar -system, he especially needs such things.</p> - -<p>"What now?" asked Roane mildly.</p> - -<p>"I'm going to try to find out if there's anybody left alive over there. -I'd have checked before if I'd known the colony existed. I can't prove -they're all dead, but I may prove that somebody's still alive. It's -barely two weeks' journey away from here! Odd that two colonies picked -spots so near!"</p> - -<p>He absorbedly picked over the oddments he'd selected. Roane said -vexedly:</p> - -<p>"Confound it! How can you check whether somebody's alive some hundreds -of miles away—when you didn't know he existed half an hour ago?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens threw a switch and took down a wall panel, exposing electronic -apparatus and circuits behind. He busied himself with it.</p> - -<p>"Ever think about hunting for a castaway?" he asked over his shoulder. -"There's a planet with some tens of millions of square miles on it. -You know there's a ship down. You've no idea where. You assume the -survivors have power—no civilized man will be without power very long, -so long as he can smelt metals!—but making a space beacon calls for -high-precision measurements and workmanship. It's not to be improvised. -So what will your shipwrecked civilized man do, to guide a rescue ship -to the one or two square miles he occupies among some tens of millions -on the planet?"</p> - -<p>Roane fretted visibly.</p> - -<p>"What?"</p> - -<p>"He's had to go primitive, to begin with," Roane explained. "He cooks -his meat over a fire, and so on. He has to make a strictly primitive -signal. It's all he can do without gauges and micrometers and very -special tools. But he can fill all the planet's atmosphere with a -signal that searchers for him can't miss. You see?"</p> - -<p>Roane thought irritably. He shook his head.</p> - -<p>"He'll make," said Huyghens, "a spark transmitter. He'll fix its output -at the shortest frequency he can contrive—it'll be somewhere in the -five-to-fifty-meter wave-band, but it will tune very broad—and it will -be a plainly human signal. He'll start it broadcasting. Some of those -frequencies will go all around the planet under the ionosphere. Any -ship that comes in under the radio roof will pick up his signal, get -a fix on it, move and get another fix, and then go straight to where -the castaway is waiting placidly in a hand-braided hammock, sipping -whatever sort of drink he's improvised out of the local vegetation."</p> - -<p>Roane said grudgingly:</p> - -<p>"Now that you mention it, of course—"</p> - -<p>"My space phone picks up microwaves," said Huyghens, "I'm shifting a -few elements to make it listen for longer stuff. It won't be efficient, -but it will pick up a distress signal if one's in the air. I don't -expect it, though."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He worked. Roane sat still a long time, watching him. Down below, -a rhythmic sort of sound arose. It was Sourdough Charley, snoring. -He lay on his back with his legs in the air. He'd discovered that -he slept cooler that way. Sitka Pete grunted in his sleep. He was -dreaming. In the general room of the station Semper, the eagle, blinked -his eyes rapidly and then tucked his head under a gigantic wing and -went to sleep. The noises of the Loren Two jungle came through the -steel-shuttered windows. The nearer moon—which had passed overhead not -long before the ringing of the arrival bell—again came soaring over -the eastern horizon. It sped across the sky at the apparent speed of an -atmosphere-flier. Overhead, it could be seen to be a jagged irregular -mass of rock or metal, plunging blindly about the great planet forever.</p> - -<p>Inside the station, Roane said angrily:</p> - -<p>"See here, Huyghens! You've reason to kill me. Apparently you don't -intend to. You've excellent reason to leave that robot colony strictly -alone. But you're preparing to help, if there's anybody alive to need -it. And yet you're a criminal—and I mean a criminal! There've been -some ghastly bacteria exported from planets like Loren Two! There've -been plenty of lives lost in consequence, and you're risking more! Why -do you do it? Why do you do something that could produce monstrous -results to other beings?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens grunted.</p> - -<p>"You're only assuming there are no sanitary and quarantine precautions -taken in my communications. As a matter of fact, there are. They're -taken, all right! As for the rest, you wouldn't understand."</p> - -<p>"I don't understand," snapped Roane, "but that's no proof I can't! Why -are you a criminal?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens painstakingly used a screwdriver inside the wall panel. He -delicately lifted out a small electronic assembly. He carefully began -to fit in a spaghettied new assembly with larger units.</p> - -<p>"I'm cutting my amplification here to hell-and-gone," he observed, -"but I think it'll do. I'm doing what I'm doing," he added calmly, -"I'm being a criminal because it seems to me befitting what I think I -am. Everybody acts according to his own real notion of himself. You're -a conscientious citizen, and a loyal official, and a well-adjusted -personality. You consider yourself an intelligent rational animal. But -you don't act that way! You're reminding me of my need to shoot you or -something similar, which a merely rational animal would try to make me -forget. You happen, Roane, to be a man. So am I. But I'm aware of it. -Therefore, I deliberately do things a merely rational animal wouldn't, -because they're my notion of what a man who's more than a rational -animal should do."</p> - -<p>He very carefully tightened one small screw after another. Roane said -annoyedly:</p> - -<p>"Oh. Religion."</p> - -<p>"Self-respect," corrected Huyghens. "I don't like robots. They're too -much like rational animals. A robot will do whatever it can that its -supervisor requires it to do. A merely rational animal will do whatever -it can that circumstances require it to do. I wouldn't like a robot -unless it had some idea of what was befitting it and would spit in my -eye if I tried to make it do something else. The bears downstairs, -now—They're no robots! They are loyal and honorable beasts, but they'd -turn and tear me to bits if I tried to make them do something against -their nature. Faro Nell would fight me and all creation together, if I -tried to harm Nugget. It would be unintelligent and unreasonable and -irrational. She'd lose out and get killed. But I like her that way! And -I'll fight you and all creation when you make me try to do something -against my nature. I'll be stupid and unreasonable and irrational about -it." Then he grinned over his shoulder. "So will you. Only you don't -realize it."</p> - -<p>He turned back to his task. After a moment he fitted a manual-control -knob over a shaft in his haywire assembly.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"What did somebody try to make you do?" asked Roane shrewdly. "What was -demanded of you that turned you into a criminal? What are you in revolt -against?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens threw a switch. He began to turn the knob which controlled -the knob of his makeshift-modified receiver.</p> - -<p>"Why," he said amusedly, "when I was young the people around me -tried to make me into a conscientious citizen and a loyal employee -and a well-adjusted personality. They tried to make me into a highly -intelligent rational animal and nothing more. The difference between -us, Roane, is that I found it out. Naturally, I rev—"</p> - -<p>He stopped short. Faint, crackling, crisp frying sounds came from the -speaker of the space phone now modified to receive what once were -called short waves.</p> - -<p>Huyghens listened. He cocked his head intently. He turned the knob -very, very slowly. Then Roane made an arrested gesture, to call -attention to something in the sibilant sound. Huyghens nodded. He -turned the knob again, with infinitesimal increments.</p> - -<p>Out of the background noise came a patterned mutter. As Huyghens -shifted the tuning, it grew louder. It reached a volume where it was -unmistakable. It was a sequence of sounds like discordant buzzing. -There were three half-second buzzings with half-second pauses between. -A two-second pause. Three full-second buzzings with half-second pauses -between. Another two-second pause and three half-second buzzings, -again. Then silence for five seconds. Then the pattern repeated.</p> - -<p>"The devil!" said Huyghens. "That's a human signal! Mechanically made, -too! In fact, it used to be a standard distress-call. It was termed an -SOS, though I've no idea what that meant. Anyhow, somebody must have -read old-fashioned novels, some time, to know about it. And so someone -is still alive over at your licensed, but now smashed-up, robot colony. -And they're asking for help. I'd say they're likely to need it."</p> - -<p>He looked at Roane.</p> - -<p>"The intelligent thing to do is sit back and wait for a ship—either of -my friends or yours. A ship can help survivors or castaways much better -than we can. A ship can even find them more easily. But maybe time is -important to the poor devils! So I'm going to take the bears and see -if I can reach them. You can wait here, if you like. What say? Travel -on Loren Two isn't a picnic! I'll be fighting nearly every foot of the -way. There's plenty of 'inimical animal life' here!"</p> - -<p>Roane snapped angrily:</p> - -<p>"Don't be a fool! Of course I'm coming! What do you take me for? And -two of us should have four times the chance of one!"</p> - -<p>Huyghens grinned.</p> - -<p>"Not quite. You forget Sitka Pete and Sourdough Charley and Faro -Nell. There'll be five of us if you come, instead of four. And, of -course, Nugget has to come—and he'll be no help—but Semper may make -up for him. You won't quadruple our chances, Roane, but I'll be glad -to have you if you want to be stupid and unreasonable and not at all -rational—and come along."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">III</p> - - -<p>There was a jagged spur of stone looming precipitously over a -river-valley. A thousand feet below, a broad stream ran westward to the -sea. Twenty miles to the east, a wall of mountains rose sheer against -the sky. Its peaks seemed to blend to a remarkable evenness of height. -There was rolling, tumbled ground between for as far as the eye could -see.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>A speck in the sky came swiftly downward. Great pinions spread, and -flapped, and icy eyes surveyed the rocky space. With more great -flappings, Semper the eagle came to ground. He folded his huge wings -and turned his head jerkily, his eyes unblinking. A tiny harness held a -miniature camera against his chest. He strutted over the bare stone to -the highest point. He stood there, a lonely and arrogant figure in the -vastness.</p> - -<p>There came crashings and rustlings, and then snuffling sounds. Sitka -Pete came lumbering out into the clear space. He wore a harness too, -and a pack. The harness was complex, because it had not only to hold a -pack in normal travel, but, when he stood on his hind legs, it must not -hamper the use of his forepaws in combat.</p> - -<p>He went cagily all over the open area. He peered over the edge of the -spur's farthest tip. He prowled to the other side and looked down. He -scouted carefully. Once he moved close to Semper and the eagle opened -his great curved beak and uttered an indignant noise. Sitka paid no -attention.</p> - -<p>He relaxed, satisfied. He sat down untidily, his hind legs sprawling. -He wore an air approaching benevolence as he surveyed the landscape -about and below him.</p> - -<p>More snufflings and crashings. Sourdough Charley came into view with -Huyghens and Roane behind him. Sourdough carried a pack, too. Then -there was a squealing and Nugget scurried up from the rear, impelled -by a whack from his mother. Faro Nell appeared, with the carcass of a -staglike animal lashed to her harness.</p> - -<p>"I picked this place from a space photo," said Huyghens, "to make a -directional fix from. I'll get set up."</p> - -<p>He swung his pack from his shoulders to the ground. He extracted an -obviously self-constructed device which he set on the ground. It had -a whip aerial, which he extended. Then he plugged in a considerable -length of flexible wire and unfolded a tiny, improvised directional -aerial with an even tinier booster at its base. Roane slipped his pack -from his shoulders and watched. Huyghens slipped headphones over his -ears. He looked up and said sharply:</p> - -<p>"Watch the bears, Roane. The wind's blowing up the way we came. -Anything that trails us—sphexes, for example—will send its scent on -before. The bears will tell us."</p> - -<p>He busied himself with the instruments he'd brought. He heard the -hissing, frying, background noise which could be anything at all except -a human signal. He reached out and swung the small aerial around. -Rasping, buzzing tones came in, faintly and then loudly. This receiver, -though, had been made for this particular wave band. It was much more -efficient than the modified space phone had been. It picked up three -short buzzes, three long ones, and three short ones again. Three dots, -three dashes, and three dots. Over and over again. SOS. SOS. SOS.</p> - -<p>Huyghens took a reading and moved the directional aerial a carefully -measured distance. He took another reading. He shifted it yet again and -again, carefully marking and measuring each spot and taking notes of -the instrument readings. When he finished, he had checked the direction -of the signal not only by loudness but by phase—he had as accurate a -fix as could possibly be had with portable apparatus.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Sourdough growled softly. Sitka Pete whiffed the air and arose from -his sitting position. Faro Nell whacked Nugget, sending him whimpering -to the farthest corner of the flea place. She stood bristling, facing -down-hill the way they'd come.</p> - -<p>"Damn!" said Huyghens.</p> - -<p>He got up and waved his arm at Semper, who had turned his head at the -stirrings. Semper squawked in a most un-eaglelike fashion and dived -off the spur and was immediately fighting the down-draught beyond it. -As Huyghens reached his weapon, the eagle came back overhead. He went -magnificently past, a hundred feet high, careening and flapping in the -tricky currents. He screamed, abruptly, and circled and screamed again. -Huyghens swung a tiny vision-plate from its strap to where he could -look into it. He saw, of course, what the little camera on Semper's -chest could see—reeling, swaying terrain as Semper saw it, though -without his breadth of field. There were moving objects to be seen -through the shifting trees. Their coloring was unmistakable.</p> - -<p>"Sphexes," said Huyghens dourly. "Eight of them. Don't look for them to -follow our track, Roane. They run parallel to a trail on either side. -That way they attack in breadth and all at once when they catch up. And -listen! The bears can handle anything they tangle with! It's our job to -pick off the loose ones! And aim for the body! The bullets explode."</p> - -<p>He threw off the safety of his weapon. Faro Nell, uttering thunderous -growls, went padding to a place between Sitka Pete and Sourdough. -Sitka glanced at her and made a whuffing noise, as if derisive of her -blood-curdling sounds. Sourdough grunted in a somehow solid fashion.</p> - -<p>He and Sitka moved farther away from Nell to either side. They would -cover a wider front.</p> - -<p>There was no other sign of life than the shrillings of the incredibly -tiny creatures which on this planet were birds, and Faro Nell's -deep-bass, raging growls, and then the click of Roane's safety going -off as he got ready to use the weapon Huyghens had given him.</p> - -<p>Semper screamed again, flapping low above the treetops, following -parti-colored, monstrous shapes beneath.</p> - -<p>Eight blue-and-tan fiends came racing out of the underbrush. They had -spiny fringes, and horns, and glaring eyes, and they looked as if they -had come straight out of hell. On the instant of their appearance -they leaped, emitting squalling, spitting squeals that were like the -cries of fighting tomcats ten thousand times magnified. Huyghens' -rifle cracked, and its sound was wiped out in the louder detonation -of its bullet in sphexian flesh. A tan-and-blue monster tumbled over, -shrieking. Faro Nell charged, the very impersonation of white-hot fury. -Roane fired, and his bullet exploded against a tree. Sitka Pete brought -his massive forepaws in a clapping, monstrous ear-boxing motion. A -sphex died.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Then Roane fired again. Sourdough Charley whuffed. He fell forward -upon a spitting bi-colored fiend, rolled him over, and raked with his -hind claws. The belly-hide of the sphex was tenderer than the rest. -The creature rolled away, snapping at its own wounds. Another sphex -found itself shaken loose from the tumult about Sitka Pete. It whirled -to leap on him from behind—and Huyghens fired very coldly—and two -plunged upon Faro Nell and Roane blasted one and Faro Nell disposed -of the other in truly awesome fury. Then Sitka Pete heaved himself -erect—seeming to drip sphexes—and Sourdough waddled over and pulled -one off and killed it and went back for another. And both rifles -cracked together and there was suddenly nothing left to fight.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The bears prowled from one to another of the corpses. Sitka Pete -rumbled and lifted up a limp head. Crash! Then another. He went -over the lot, whether or not they showed signs of life. When he had -finished, they were wholly still.</p> - -<p>Semper came flapping down out of the sky. He had screamed and fluttered -overhead as the fight went on. Now he landed with a rush. Huyghens -went soothingly from one bear to another, calming them with his voice. -It took longest to calm Faro Nell, licking Nugget with impassioned -solicitude and growling horribly as she licked.</p> - -<p>"Come along, now," said Huyghens, when Sitka showed signs of intending -to sit down again. "Heave these carcasses over a cliff. Come along! -Sitka! Sourdough! Hup!"</p> - -<p>He guided them as the two big males somewhat fastidiously lifted up -the nightmarish creatures they and the guns together had killed, and -carried them to the edge of the spur of stone. They let the dead -beasts go bouncing and sliding down into the valley.</p> - -<p>"That," said Huyghens, "is so their little pals will gather round them -and caterwaul their woe where there's no trail of ours to give them -ideas. If we'd been near a river, I'd have dumped them in to float -down-river and gather mourners wherever they stranded. Around the -station I incinerate them. If I had to leave them, I'd make tracks -away. About fifty miles upwind would be a good idea."</p> - -<p>He opened the pack Sourdough carried and extracted giant sized swabs -and some gallons of antiseptic. He tended the three Kodiaks in turn, -swabbing not only the cuts and scratches they'd received, but deeply -soaking their fur where there could be suspicion of spilled sphex blood.</p> - -<p>"This antiseptic deodorizes, too," he told Roane. "Or we'd be trailed -by any sphex who passed to leeward of us. When we start off, I'll swab -the bears' paws for the same reason."</p> - -<p>Roane was very quiet. He'd missed his first shot with a bullet-firing -weapon—a beam hasn't the stopping-power of an explosive bullet—but -he'd seemed to grow savagely angry with himself. The last few seconds -of the fight, he'd fired very deliberately and every bullet hit. Now he -said bitterly:</p> - -<p>"If you're instructing me so I can carry on should you be killed, I -doubt that it's worth while!"</p> - -<p>Huyghens felt in his pack and unfolded the enlargements he'd made of -the space photos of this part of the planet. He carefully oriented -the map with distant landmarks. He drew a painstakingly accurate line -across the photo.</p> - -<p>"The SOS signal comes from somewhere close to the robot colony," he -reported. "I think a little to the south of it. Probably from a mine -they'd opened up, on the far side—of course—of the Sere Plateau. -See how I've marked this map? Two fixes, one from the station and one -from here. I came away off-course to get a fix here so we'd have two -position-lines to the transmitter. The signal could have come from the -other side of the planet. But it doesn't."</p> - -<p>"The odds would be astronomical against other castaways," protested -Roane.</p> - -<p>"No-o-o-o," said Huyghens. "Ships have been coming here. To the -robot colony. One could have crashed. And I have friends, too."</p> - -<p>He repacked his apparatus and gestured to the bears. He led them beyond -the scene of combat and very carefully swabbed off their paws, so they -could not possibly leave a trail of sphex-blood scent behind them. He -waved Semper, the eagle, aloft.</p> - -<p>"Let's go," he told the Kodiaks. "Yonder! Hup!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The party headed down-hill and into the jungle again. Now it was -Sourdough's turn to take the lead, and Sitka Pete prowled more -widely behind him. Faro Nell trailed the men, with Nugget. She kept -an extremely sharp eye upon the cub. He was a baby, still. He only -weighed six hundred pounds. And of course she watched against danger -from the rear.</p> - -<p>Overhead, Semper fluttered and flew in giant circles and spirals, never -going very far away. Huyghens referred constantly to the screen which -showed what the air-borne camera saw. The image tilted and circled -and banked and swayed. It was by no means the best air-reconnaissance -that could be imagined. But it was the best that would work. Presently -Huyghens said:</p> - -<p>"We swing to the right, here. The going's bad straight ahead, and it -looks like a pack of sphexes has killed and is feeding."</p> - -<p>Roane was upset. He was dissatisfied with himself. So he said:</p> - -<p>"It's against reason for carnivores to be as thick as you say! There -has to be a certain amount of other animal life for every meat-eating -beast! Too many of them would eat all the game and starve!"</p> - -<p>"They're gone all winter," explained Huyghens, "which around here -isn't as severe as you might think. And a good many animals seem to -breed just after the sphexes go south. Also, the sphexes aren't around -all the warm weather. There's a sort of peak, and then for a matter -of weeks you won't see a one of them, and suddenly the jungle swarms -with them again. Then, presently, they head south. Apparently they're -migratory in some fashion, but nobody knows." He said dryly: "There -haven't been many naturalists around on this planet. The animal life -is inimical."</p> - -<p>Roane fretted. He was a senior officer in the Colonial Survey, and -he was accustomed to arrival at a partly or completely-finished -colonial set-up, and to pass upon the completion or noncompletion of -the planned installation as designed. Now he was in an intolerably -hostile environment, depending upon an illegal colonist for his life, -engaged upon a demoralizingly indefinite enterprise—because the -mechanical spark-signal could be working long after its constructors -were dead—and his ideas about a number of matters were shaken. He was -alive, for example, because of three giant Kodiak bears and a bald -eagle. He and Roane could have been surrounded by ten thousand robots, -and they'd have been killed. Sphexes and robots would have ignored each -other, and sphexes would have made straight for the men, who'd have had -less than four seconds in which to discover for themselves that they -were attacked, prepare to defend themselves, and kill eight sphexes.</p> - -<p>Roane's convictions as a civilized man were shaken. Robots were -marvelous contrivances for doing the expected: accomplishing the -planned; coping with the predicted. But they also had defects. Robots -could only follow instructions—if this thing happens, do this, if -that thing happens do that. But before something else, neither this -or that, robots were helpless. So a robot civilization worked only in -an environment where nothing unanticipated ever turned up, and human -supervisors never demanded anything unexpected. Roane was appalled. -He'd never encountered the truly unpredictable before in all his life -and career.</p> - -<p>He found Nugget, the cub, ambling uneasily in his wake. The cub -flattened his ears miserably when Roane glanced at him. It occurred -to the man that Nugget was receiving a lot of disciplinary thumpings -from Faro Nell. He was knocked about physically, pretty much as Roane -was being knocked about psychologically. His lack of information and -unfitness for independent survival in this environment was being -hammered into him.</p> - -<p>"Hi, Nugget," said Roane ruefully. "I feel just about the way you do!"</p> - -<p>Nugget brighted visibly. He frisked. He tended to gambol. He looked -very hopefully up into Roane's face—and he stood four feet high at the -shoulder and would overtop Roane if he stood erect.</p> - -<p>Roane reached out and patted Nugget's head. It was the first time in -all his life that he'd ever petted an animal.</p> - -<p>He heard a snuffling sound behind him. Skin crawled at the back of his -neck. He whirled.</p> - -<p>Faro Nell regarded him—eighteen hundred pounds of she-bear only ten -feet away and looking into his eyes. For one panicky instant Roane -went cold all over. Then he realized that Faro Nell's eyes were not -burning. She was not snarling. She did not emit those blood-curdling -sounds which the bare prospect of danger to Nugget had produced up -on the rocky spur. She looked at him blandly. In fact, after a moment -she swung off on some independent investigation of a matter that had -aroused her curiosity.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The traveling party went on, Nugget frisking beside Roane and tending -to bump into him out of pure cub-clumsiness. Now and again he looked -adoringly at Roane, in the instant and overwhelming affection of the -very young.</p> - -<p>Roane trudged on. Presently he glanced behind again. Faro Nell was -now ranging more widely. She was well satisfied to have Nugget in the -immediate care of a man. From time to time he got on her nerves.</p> - -<p>A little while later, Roane called ahead.</p> - -<p>"Huyghens! Look here! I've been appointed nursemaid to Nugget!"</p> - -<p>Huyghens looked back.</p> - -<p>"Oh, slap him a few times and he'll go back to his mother."</p> - -<p>"The devil I will!" said Roane querulously. "I like it!"</p> - -<p>The traveling party went on.</p> - -<p>When night fell, they camped. There could be no fire, of course, -because all the minute night-things about would come eagerly to -dance in the glow. But there could not be darkness, equally, because -night-walkers hunted in the dark. So Huyghens set out the barrier -lamps which made a wall of twilight about their halting place, and the -staglike creature Faro Nell had carried became their evening meal. Then -they slept—at least the men did—and the bears dozed and snorted and -waked and dozed again. But Semper sat immobile with his head under his -wing on a tree limb. And presently there was a glorious cool hush and -all the world glowed in morning light diffused through the jungle by a -newly risen sun. And they arose, and traveled again.</p> - -<p>This day they stopped stock-still for two hours while sphexes puzzled -over the trail the bears had left. Huyghens discoursed calmly on the -need for an anti-scent, to be used on the boots of men and the paws of -bears, which would make the following of their trails unpopular with -sphexes. And Roane seized upon the idea and absorbedly suggested that -a sphex-repellent odor might be worked out, which would make a human -revolting to a sphex. If that were done—why—humans could go freely -about unmolested.</p> - -<p>"Like stink-bugs," said Huyghens, sardonically. "A very intelligent -idea! Very rational! You can feel proud!"</p> - -<p>And suddenly Roane, very obscurely, was not proud of the idea at all.</p> - -<p>They camped again. On the third night they were at the base of that -remarkable formation, the Sere Plateau, which from a distance looked -like a mountain-range but was actually a desert tableland. And it was -not reasonable for a desert to be raised high, while lowlands had rain, -but on the fourth morning they found out why. They saw, far, far away, -a truly monstrous mountain-mass at the end of the long-way expanse -of the plateau. It was like the prow of a ship. It lay, so Huyghens -observed, directly in line with the prevailing winds, and divided them -as a ship's prow divides the waters. The moisture-bearing air-currents -flowed beside the plateau, not over it, and its interior was pure sere -desert in the unscreened sunshine of high altitudes.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It took them a full day to get halfway up the slope. And here, twice -as they climbed, Semper flew screaming over aggregations of sphexes -to one side of them or the other. These were much larger groups than -Huyghens had ever seen before—fifty to a hundred monstrosities -together, where a dozen was a large hunting-pack elsewhere. He looked -in the screen which showed him what Semper saw, four to five miles -away. The sphexes padded uphill toward the Sere Plateau in a long line. -Fifty—sixty—seventy tan-and-azure beasts out of hell.</p> - -<p>"I'd hate to have that bunch jump us," he said candidly to Roane. "I -don't think we'd stand a chance."</p> - -<p>"Here's where a robot tank would be useful," Roane observed.</p> - -<p>"Anything armored," conceded Huyghens. "One man in an armored station -like mine would be safe. But if he killed a sphex he'd be besieged. -He'd have to stay holed up, breathing the smell of dead sphex, until -the odor had gone away. And he mustn't kill any others or he'd be -besieged until winter came."</p> - -<p>Roane did not suggest the advantages of robots in other directions. -At that moment, for example, they were working their way up a slope -which averaged fifty degrees. The bears climbed without effort despite -their burdens. For the men it was infinite toil. Semper, the eagle, -manifested impatience with bears and men alike, who crawled so slowly -up an incline over which he soared.</p> - -<p>He went ahead up the mountainside and teetered in the air-currents at -the plateau's edge. Huyghens looked in the vision-plate by which he -reported.</p> - -<p>"How the devil," panted Roane—they had stopped for a breather, and the -bears waited patiently for them—"do you train bears like these? I can -understand Semper."</p> - -<p>"I don't train them," said Huyghens, staring into the plate. "They're -mutations. In heredity the sex-linkage of physical characteristics -is standard stuff. But there's been some sound work done on the -gene-linkage of psychological factors. There was need, on my home -planet, for an animal who could fight like a fiend, live off the land, -carry a pack and get along with men at least as well as dogs do. In the -old days they'd have tried to breed the desired physical properties -into an animal who already had the personality they wanted. Something -like a giant dog, say. But back home they went at it the other way -about. They picked the wanted physical characteristics and bred for the -personality—the psychology. The job got done over a century ago—a -Kodiak bear named Kodius Champion was the first real success. He had -everything that was wanted. These bears are his descendants."</p> - -<p>"They look normal," commented Roane.</p> - -<p>"They are!" said Huyghens warmly. "Just as normal as an honest dog! -They're not trained, like Semper. They train themselves!" He looked -back into the plate in his hands, which showed the ground five and six -and seven thousand feet higher. "Semper, now, is a trained bird without -too much brains. He's educated—a glorified hawk. But the bears want -to get along with men. They're emotionally dependent on us! Like dogs. -Semper's a servant, but they're companions and friends. He's trained, -but they're loyal. He's conditioned. They love us. He'd abandon me if -he ever realized he could—he thinks he can only eat what men feed him. -But the bears wouldn't want to. They like us. I admit that I like them. -Maybe because they like me."</p> - -<p>Roane said deliberately:</p> - -<p>"Aren't you a trifle loose-tongued, Huyghens? I'm a Colonial Survey -officer. I have to arrest you sooner or later. You've told me something -that will locate and convict the people who set you up here. It -shouldn't be hard to find where bears were bred for psychological -mutations, and where a bear named Kodius Champion left descendants! I -can find out where you came from now, Huyghens!"</p> - -<p>Huyghens looked up from the plate with its tiny swaying television -image, relayed from where Semper floated impatiently in mid-air.</p> - -<p>"No harm done," he said amiably. "I'm a criminal there, too. It's -officially on record that I kidnaped these bears and escaped with -them. Which, on my home planet, is about as heinous a crime as a man -can commit. It's worse than horse-theft back on Earth in the old days. -The kin and cousins of my bears are highly thought of. I'm quite a -criminal, back home."</p> - -<p>Roane stared.</p> - -<p>"Did you steal them?" he demanded.</p> - -<p>"Confidentially," said Huyghens. "No. But prove it!" Then he said: -"Take a look in this plate. See what Semper can see up at the plateau's -edge."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Roane squinted aloft, where the eagle flew in great sweeps and dashes. -Somehow, by the experience of the past few days, Roane knew that Semper -was screaming fiercely as he flew. He made a dart toward the plateau's -border.</p> - -<p>Roane looked at the transmitted picture. It was only four inches by -six, but it was perfectly without grain and in accurate color. It moved -and turned as the camera-bearing eagle swooped and circled. For an -instant the screen showed the steeply sloping mountainside, and off -at one edge the party of men and bears could be seen as dots. Then it -swept away and showed the top of the plateau.</p> - -<p>There were sphexes. A pack of two hundred trotted toward the desert -interior. They moved at leisure, in the open. The viewing camera -reeled, and there were more. As Roane watched and as the bird flew -higher, he could see still other sphexes moving up over the edge of the -plateau from a small erosion-defile here and another one there. The -Sere Plateau was alive with the hellish creatures. It was inconceivable -that there should be game enough for them to live on. They were visible -as herds of cattle would be visible on grazing planets.</p> - -<p>It was simply impossible.</p> - -<p>"Migrating," observed Huyghens. "I said they did. They're headed -somewhere. Do you know, I doubt that it would be healthy for us to try -to cross the plateau through such a swarm of sphexes?"</p> - -<p>Roane swore, in abrupt change of mood.</p> - -<p>"But the signal's still coming through! Somebody's alive over at the -robot colony! Must we wait till the migration's over?"</p> - -<p>"We don't know," Huyghens pointed out, "that they'll stay alive. They -may need help badly. We have to get to them. But at the same time—"</p> - -<p>He glanced at Sourdough Charley and Sitka Pete, clinging patiently to -the mountainside while the men rested and talked. Sitka had managed to -find a place to sit down, though one massive paw anchored him in his -place.</p> - -<p>Huyghens waved his arm, pointing in a new direction.</p> - -<p>"Let's go!" he called briskly. "Let's go! Yonder! Hup!"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">IV</p> - - -<p>They followed the slopes of the Sere Plateau, neither ascending to its -level top—where sphexes congregated—nor descending into the foothills -where sphexes assembled. They moved along hillsides and mountain-flanks -which sloped anywhere from thirty to sixty degrees, and they did not -cover much distance. They practically forgot what it was to walk on -level ground. Semper, the eagle, hovered overhead during the daytime, -not far away. He descended at nightfall for his food from the pack of -one of the bears.</p> - -<p>"The bears aren't doing too well for food," said Huyghens dryly. "A ton -of bear needs a lot to eat. But they're loyal to us. Semper hasn't any -loyalty. He's too stupid. But he's been conditioned to think that he -can only eat what men feed him. The bears know better, but they stick -to us regardless. I rather like these bears."</p> - -<p>It was the most self-evident of understatements. This was at an -encampment on the top of a massive boulder which projected from a -mountainous stony wall. This was six days from the start of their -journey. There was barely room on the boulder for all the party. And -Faro Nell fussily insisted that Nugget should be in the safest part, -which meant near the mountain-flank. She would have crowded the men -outward, but Nugget whimpered for Roane. Wherefore, when Roane moved -to comfort him, Faro Nell contentedly drew back and snorted at Sitka -and Sourdough and they made room for her near the edge.</p> - -<p>It was a hungry camp. They had come upon tiny rills upon occasion, -flowing down the mountain side. Here the bears had drunk deeply and the -men had filled canteens. But this was the third night, and there had -been no game at all. Huyghens made no move to bring out food for Roane -or himself. Roane made no comment. He was beginning to participate in -the relationship between bears and men, which was not the slavery of -the bears but something more. It was two-way. He felt it.</p> - -<p>"It would seem," he said fretfully, "that since the sphexes don't seem -to hunt on their way uphill, that there should be some game. They -ignore everything as they file uphill."</p> - -<p>This was true enough. The normal fighting formation of sphexes was -line abreast, which automatically surrounded anything which offered -to flee and outflanked anything which offered fight. But here they -ascended the mountain in long lines, one after the other, following -apparently long-established trails. The wind blew along the slopes and -carried scent only sidewise. But the sphexes were not diverted from -their chosen paths. The long processions of hideous blue-and-tawny -creatures—it was hard to think of them as natural beasts, male and -female and laying eggs like reptiles on other planets—simply climbed.</p> - -<p>"There've been other thousands of beasts before them," said Huyghens. -"They must have been crowding this way for days or even weeks. We've -seen tens of thousands in Semper's camera. They must be uncountable, -altogether. The first-comers ate all the game there was, and the -last-comers have something else on whatever they use for minds."</p> - -<p>Roane protested:</p> - -<p>"But so many carnivores in one place is impossible! I know they are -here, but they can't be!"</p> - -<p>"They're cold-blooded," Huyghens pointed out. "They don't burn food -to sustain body-temperature. After all, lots of creatures go for -long periods without eating. Even bears hibernate. But this isn't -hibernation—or estivation, either."</p> - -<p>He was setting up the radiation-wave receiver in the darkness. There -was no point in attempting a fix here. The transmitter was on the other -side of the Sere Plateau, which inexplicably swarmed with the most -ferocious and deadly of all the creatures of Loren Two. The men and -bears would commit suicide by crossing here.</p> - -<p>But Huyghens turned on the receiver. There came the whispering, -scratchy sound of background-noise. Then the signal. Three dots, three -dashes, three dots. Three dots, three dashes, three dots. It went on -and on and on. Huyghens turned it off. Roane said:</p> - -<p>"Shouldn't we have answered that signal before we left the station? To -encourage them?"</p> - -<p>"I doubt they have a receiver," said Huyghens. "They won't expect an -answer for months, anyhow. They'd hardly listen all the time, and -if they're living in a mine-tunnel and trying to sneak out for food -to stretch their supplies—why, they'll be too busy to try to make -complicated recorders or relays."</p> - -<p>Roane was silent for a moment or two.</p> - -<p>"We've got to get food for the bears," he said presently. "Nugget's -weaned, and he's hungry."</p> - -<p>"We will," Huyghens promised. "I may be wrong, but it seems to me that -the number of sphexes climbing the mountain is less than yesterday -and the day before. We may have just about crossed the path of their -migration. They're thinning out. When we're past their trail, we'll -have to look out for night-walkers and the like again. But I think they -wiped out all animal life on their migration-route."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He was not quite right. He was waked in darkness by the sound of -slappings and the grunting of bears. Feather-light puffs of breeze beat -upon his face. He struck his belt-lamp sharply and the world was hidden -by a whitish film which snatched itself away. Something flapped. Then -he saw the stars and the emptiness on the edge of which they camped. -Then big white things flapped toward him.</p> - -<p>Sitka Pete whuffed mightily and swatted. Faro Nell grunted and swung. -She caught something in her claws. She crunched. The light went off as -Huyghens realized. Then he said:</p> - -<p>"Don't shoot, Roane!" He listened, and heard the sounds of feeding in -the dark. It ended. "Watch this!" said Huyghens.</p> - -<p>The belt-light came on again. Something strangely-shaped and pallid -like human skin reeled and flapped crazily toward him. Something else. -Four. Five—ten—twenty—more....</p> - -<p>A huge hairy paw reached up into the light-beam and snatched a flying -thing out of it. Another great paw. Huyghens shifted the light and the -three great Kodiaks were on their hind legs, swatting at creatures -which flittered insanely, unable to resist the fascination of the -glaring lamp. Because of their wild gyrations it was impossible to see -them in detail, but they were those unpleasant night-creatures which -looked like plucked flying monkeys but were actually something quite -different.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<p>The bears did not snarl or snap. They swatted, with a remarkable air -of businesslike competence and purpose. Small mounds of broken things -built up about their feet.</p> - -<p>Suddenly there were no more. Huyghens snapped off the light. The bears -crunched and fed busily in the darkness.</p> - -<p>"Those things are carnivores <i>and</i> blood-suckers, Roane," said -Huyghens calmly. "They drain their victims of blood like vampire -bats—they've some trick of not waking them—and when they're dead the -whole tribe eats. But bears have thick furs, and they wake when they're -touched. And they're omnivorous—they'll eat anything but sphexes, and -like it. You might say that those night-creatures came to lunch. But -they stayed. They are it—for the bears, who are living off the country -as usual."</p> - -<p>Roane uttered a sudden exclamation. He made a tiny light, and blood -flowed down his hand. Huyghens passed over his pocket kit of antiseptic -and bandages. Roane stanched the bleeding and bound up his hand. Then -he realized that Nugget chewed on something. When he turned the light, -Nugget swallowed convulsively. It appeared that he had caught and -devoured the creature which had drawn blood from Roane. But Roane had -lost none to speak of, at that.</p> - -<p>In the morning they started along the sloping scarp of the plateau once -more. During the morning, Roane said painfully:</p> - -<p>"Robots wouldn't have handled those vampire-things, Huyghens."</p> - -<p>"Oh, they could be built to watch for them," said Huyghens, tolerantly. -"But you'd have to swat for yourself. I prefer the bears."</p> - -<p>He led the way on. Here their jungle-formation could not apply. On a -steep slope the bears ambled comfortably, the tough pads of their feet -holding fast on the slanting rock, but the men struggled painfully. -Twice Huyghens halted to examine the ground about the mountains' bases -through binoculars. He looked encouraged as they went on. The monstrous -peak which was like the bow of a ship at the end of the Sere Plateau -was visibly nearer. Toward midday, indeed, it looked high above the -horizon, no more than fifteen miles away. And at midday Huyghens called -a final halt.</p> - -<p>"No more congregations of sphexes down below," he said cheerfully, "and -we haven't seen a climbing line of them in miles." The crossing of a -sphex-trail meant simply waiting until one party had passed, and then -crossing before another came in view. "I've a hunch we've crossed their -migration-route. Let's see what Semper tells us!"</p> - -<p>He waved the eagle aloft. And Semper, like all creatures other than -men, normally functioned only for the satisfaction of his appetite, and -then tended to loaf or sleep. He had ridden the last few miles perched -on Sitka Pete's pack. Now he soared upward and Huyghens watched in the -small vision-plate.</p> - -<p>Semper went soaring—and the image on the plate swayed and turned and -turned—and in minutes was above the plateau's edge. And here there was -some vegetation and the ground rolled somewhat, and there were even -patches of brush. But as Semper towered higher still, the inner desert -appeared. But nearby it was clear of beasts. Only once, when the eagle -banked sharply and the camera looked along the long dimension of the -plateau, did Huyghens see any sign of the blue-and-tan beasts. There -he saw what looked like masses amounting to herds. But, of course, -carnivores do not gather in herds.</p> - -<p>"We go straight up," said Huyghens in satisfaction. "We cross the -plateau here—and we can edge down-wind a bit, even. I think we'll find -something interesting on our way to your robot colony."</p> - -<p>He waved to the bears to go ahead uphill.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They reached the top hours later—barely before sunset. And they saw -game. Not much, but game at the grassy, brushy border of the desert. -Huyghens brought down a shaggy ruminant which surely would not live on -a desert. When night fell there was an abrupt chill in the air. It was -much colder than night-temperatures on the slopes. The air was thin. -Roane thought confusedly and presently guessed at the cause. In the lee -of the prow-mountain the air was calm. There were no clouds. The ground -radiated its heat to empty space. It could be bitterly cold in the -nighttime, here.</p> - -<p>"And hot by day," Huyghens agreed when he mentioned it. "The sunshine's -terrifically hot where the air is thin, but on most mountains there's -wind. By day, here, the ground will tend to heat up like the surface -of a planet without atmosphere. It may be a hundred and forty or fifty -degrees on the sand at midday. But it should be cold at night."</p> - -<p>It was. Before midnight Huyghens built a fire. There could be no danger -of night-walkers where the temperature dropped to freezing.</p> - -<p>In the morning the men were stiff with cold, but the bears snorted and -moved about briskly. They seemed to revel in the morning chill. Sitka -and Sourdough Charley, in fact, became festive and engaged in a mock -fight, whacking each other with blows that were only feigned, but would -have crushed in the skull of any man. Nugget sneezed with excitement as -he watched them. Faro Nell regarded them with female disapproval.</p> - -<p>They went on. Semper seemed sluggish. After a single brief flight he -descended and rode on Sitka's pack, as on the previous day. He perched -there, surveying the landscape as it changed from semi-arid to pure -desert in their progress. His air was arrogant. But he would not fly. -Soaring birds do not like to fly when there are no winds to make -currents of which to take advantage. On the way, Huyghens painstakingly -pointed out to Roane exactly where they were on the enlarged photograph -taken from space, and the exact spot from which the distress-signal -seemed to come.</p> - -<p>"You're doing it in case something happens to you," said Roane. "I -admit it's sense, but—what could I do to help those survivors even if -I got to them, without you?"</p> - -<p>"What you've learned about sphexes would help," said Huyghens. "The -bears would help. And we left a note back at my station. Whoever -grounds at the landing field back there—and the beacon's working -again—will find instructions to come to the place we're trying to -reach."</p> - -<p>Roane plodded alongside him. The narrow non-desert border of the Sere -Plateau was behind them, now. They marched across powdery desert sand.</p> - -<p>"See here," said Roane, "I want to know something! You tell me you're -listed as a bear-thief on your home planet. You tell me it's a lie—to -protect your friends from prosecution by the Colonial Survey. You're on -your own, risking your life every minute of every day. You took a risk -in not shooting me. Now you're risking more in going to help men who'd -have to be witnesses that you were a criminal. What are you doing it -for?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens grinned.</p> - -<p>"Because I don't like robots. I don't like the fact that they're -subduing men—making men subordinate to them."</p> - -<p>"Go on," insisted Roane. "I don't see why disliking robots should make -you a criminal. Nor men subordinating themselves to robots, either!"</p> - -<p>"But they are," said Huyghens mildly. "I'm a crank, of course. But—I -live like a man on this planet. I go where I please and do what I -please. My helpers, the bears, are my friends. If the robot colony had -been a success, would the humans in it have lived like men? Hardly! -They'd have to live the way the robots let them! They'd have to stay -inside a fence the robots built. They'd have to eat foods that robots -could raise, and no others. Why—a man couldn't move his bed near a -window, because if he did the house-tending robots couldn't work! -Robots would serve them—the way the robots determined—but all they'd -get out of it would be jobs servicing the robots!"</p> - -<p>Roane shook his head.</p> - -<p>"As long as men want robot service, they have to take the service that -robots can give. If you don't want those services—"</p> - -<p>"I want to decide what I want," said Huyghens, again mildly, "instead -of being limited to choose among what I'm offered. On my home planet -we halfway tamed it with dogs and guns. Then we developed the bears, -and we finished the job with them. Now there's population-pressure -and the room for bears and dogs—and men—is dwindling. More and more -people are being deprived of the power of decision, and being allowed -only the power of choice among the things robots allow. The more we -depend on robots, the more limited those choices become. We don't want -our children to limit themselves to wanting what robots can provide! -We don't want them shriveling to where they abandon everything robots -can't give—or won't! We want them to be men—and women. Not damned -automatons who live <i>by</i> pushing robot-controls so they can live <i>to</i> -push robot-controls. If that's not subordination to robots—"</p> - -<p>"It's an emotional argument," protested Roane. "Not everybody feels -that way."</p> - -<p>"But I feel that way," said Huyghens. "And so do a lot of others. This -is a big galaxy and it's apt to contain some surprises. The one sure -thing about a robot and a man who depends on them is that they can't -handle the unexpected. There's going to come a time when we need men -who can. So on my home planet, some of us asked for Loren Two, to -colonize. It was refused—too dangerous. But men can colonize anywhere -if they're men. So I came here to study the planet. Especially the -sphexes. Eventually, we expected to ask for a license again, with proof -that we could handle even those beasts. I'm already doing it in a mild -way. But the Survey licensed a robot colony—and where is it?"</p> - -<p>Roane made a sour face.</p> - -<p>"You picked the wrong way to go about it, Huyghens. It was illegal. It -is. It was the pioneer spirit, which is admirable enough, but wrongly -directed. After all, it was pioneers who left Earth for the stars. -But—"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Sourdough raised up on his hind legs and sniffed the air. Huyghens -swung his rifle around to be handy. Roane slipped off the safety-catch -of his own. Nothing happened.</p> - -<p>"In a way," said Roane vexedly, "you're talking about liberty and -freedom, which most people think is politics. You say it can be more. -In principle, I'll concede it. But the way you put it, it sounds like a -freak religion."</p> - -<p>"It's self-respect," corrected Huyghens.</p> - -<p>"You may be—"</p> - -<p>Faro Nell growled. She bumped Nugget with her nose, to drive him closer -to Roane. She snorted at him. She trotted swiftly to where Sitka and -Sourdough faced toward the broader, sphex-filled expanse of the Sere -Plateau. She took up her position between them.</p> - -<p>Huyghens gazed sharply beyond them and then all about.</p> - -<p>"This could be bad!" he said softly. "But luckily there's no wind. -Here's a sort of hill. Come along, Roane!"</p> - -<p>He ran ahead, Roane following and Nugget plumping heavily with him. -They reached the raised place—actually a mere hillock no more -than five or six feet above the surrounding sand, with a distorted -cactuslike growth protruding from the ground. Huyghens stared again. He -used his binoculars.</p> - -<p>"One sphex," he said curtly. "Just one! And it's out of all reason -for a sphex to be alone! But it's not rational for them to gather in -hundreds of thousands, either!" He wetted his finger and held it up. -"No wind at all."</p> - -<p>He used the binoculars again.</p> - -<p>"It doesn't know we're here," he added. "It's moving away. Not another -one in sight—" He hesitated, biting his lips. "Look here, Roane! I'd -like to kill that one lone sphex and find out something. There's a -fifty per cent chance I could find out something really important. -But—I might have to run. If I'm right—" Then he said grimly, "It'll -have to be done quickly. I'm going to ride Faro Nell—for speed. I -doubt Sitka or Sourdough would stay behind. But Nugget can't run fast -enough. Will you stay here with him?"</p> - -<p>Roane drew in his breath. Then he said calmly:</p> - -<p>"You know what you're doing. Of course."</p> - -<p>"Keep your eyes open. If you see anything, even at a distance, shoot -and we'll be back—fast! Don't wait until something's close enough to -hit. Shoot the instant you see anything—if you do!"</p> - -<p>Roane nodded. He found it peculiarly difficult to speak again. Huyghens -went over to the embattled bears. He climbed up on Faro Nell's back, -holding fast by her shaggy fur.</p> - -<p>"Let's go!" he snapped. "That way! Hup!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The three Kodiaks plunged away at a dead run, Huyghens lurching and -swaying on Faro Nell's back. The sudden rush dislodged Semper from his -perch. He flapped wildly and got aloft. Then he followed effortfully, -flying low.</p> - -<p>It happened very quickly. A Kodiak bear can travel as fast as a race -horse on occasion. These three plunged arrow-straight for a spot -perhaps half a mile distant, where a blue-and-tawny shape whirled to -face them. There was the crash of Huyghens' weapon from where he rode -on Faro Nell's back—the explosion of the weapon and the bullet was one -sound. The somehow unnatural spiky monster leaped and died.</p> - -<p>Huyghens jumped down from Faro Nell. He became feverishly busy at -something on the ground—where the parti-colored sphex had fallen. -Semper banked and whirled and came down to the ground. He watched, with -his head on one side.</p> - -<p>Roane stared, from a distance. Huyghens was doing something to the -dead sphex. The two male bears prowled about. Faro Nell regarded -Huyghens with intense curiosity. Back at the hillock, Nugget whimpered -a little. Roane patted him roughly. Nugget whimpered more loudly. In -the distance, Huyghens straightened up and took three steps toward Faro -Nell. He mounted. Sitka turned his head back toward Roane. He seemed -to see or sniff something dubious. He reared upward. He made a noise, -apparently, because Sourdough ambled to his side. The two great beasts -began to trot back. Semper flapped wildly and—lacking wind—lurched -crazily in the air. He landed on Huyghens' shoulder and his talons -clung there.</p> - -<p>Then Nugget howled hysterically and tried to swarm up Roane, as a cub -tries to swarm up the nearest tree in time of danger. Roane collapsed, -and the cub upon him—and there was a flash of stinking scaly hide, -while the air was filled with the snarling, spitting squeals of a sphex -in full leap. The beast had over-jumped, aiming at Roane and the cub -while both were upright and arriving when they had fallen. It went -tumbling.</p> - -<p>Roane heard nothing but the fiendish squalling, but in the distance -Sitka and Sourdough were coming at rocketship speed. Faro Nell let -out a roar and fairly split the air. And then there was a furry -cub streaking toward her, bawling, while Roane rolled to his feet -and snatched up his gun. He raged through pure instinct. The sphex -crouched to pursue the cub and Roane swung his weapon as a club. He was -literally too close to shoot—and perhaps the sphex had only seen the -fleeing bear-cub. But he swung furiously.</p> - -<p>And the sphex whirled. Roane was toppled from his feet. An -eight-hundred-pound monstrosity straight out of hell—half wildcat and -half spitting cobra with hydrophobia and homicidal mania added—such a -monstrosity is not to be withstood when in whirling its body strikes -one in the chest.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>That was when Sitka arrived, bellowing. He stood on his hind legs, -emitting roars like thunder, challenging the sphex to battle. He -waddled forward. Huyghens arrived, but he could not shoot with Roane -in the sphere of an explosive bullet's destructiveness. Faro Nell -raged and snarled, torn between the urge to be sure that Nugget was -unharmed, and the frenzied fury of a mother whose offspring has been -endangered.</p> - -<p>Mounted on Faro Nell, with Semper clinging idiotically to his shoulder, -Huyghens watched helplessly as the sphex spat and squalled at Sitka, -having only to reach out one claw to let out Roane's life.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">V</p> - - -<p>They got away from there, though Sitka seemed to want to lift the -limp carcass of his victim in his teeth and dash it repeatedly to -the ground. He seemed doubly raging because a man—with whom all -Kodius Champion's descendants had an emotional relationship—had -been mishandled. But Roane was not grievously hurt. He bounced and -swore as the bears raced for the horizon. Huyghens had flung him up -on Sourdough's pack and snapped for him to hold on. He bumped and -chattered furiously:</p> - -<p>"Dammit, Huyghens! This isn't right! Sitka got some deep scratches! -That horror's claws may be poisonous!"</p> - -<p>But Huyghens snapped, "Hup! Hup!" to the bears, and they continued -their race against time. They went on for a good two miles, when Nugget -wailed despairingly of his exhaustion and Faro Nell halted firmly to -nuzzle him.</p> - -<p>"This may be good enough," said Huyghens. "Considering that there's -no wind and the big mass of beasts is down the plateau and there were -only those two around here. Maybe they're too busy to hold a wake, -even! Anyhow—"</p> - -<p>He slid to the ground and extracted the antiseptic and swabs.</p> - -<p>"Sitka first," snapped Roane. "I'm all right!"</p> - -<p>Huyghens swabbed the big bear's wounds. They were trivial, because -Sitka Pete was an experienced sphex-fighter. Then Roane grudgingly let -the curiously-smelling stuff—it reeked of ozone—be applied to the -slashes on his chest. He held his breath as it stung. Then he said -dourly:</p> - -<p>"It was my fault, Huyghens. I watched you instead of the landscape. I -couldn't imagine what you were doing."</p> - -<p>"I was doing a quick dissection," Huyghens told him. "By luck, that -first sphex was a female, as I hoped. And she was just about to lay her -eggs. Ugh! And now I know why the sphexes migrate, and where, and how -it is that they don't need game up here."</p> - -<p>He slapped a quick bandage on Roane. He led the way eastward, still -putting distance between the dead sphexes and his party. It was a crisp -walk, only, but Semper flapped indignantly overhead, angry that he was -not permitted to ride again.</p> - -<p>"I'd dissected them before," said Huyghens. "Not enough's been known -about them. Some things needed to be found out if men were ever to be -able to live here."</p> - -<p>"With bears?" asked Roane ironically.</p> - -<p>"Oh, yes," said Huyghens. "But the point is that sphexes come to the -desert here to breed—to mate and lay their eggs for the sun to hatch. -It's a particular place. Seals return to a special place to mate—and -the males, at least don't eat for weeks on end. Salmon return to their -native streams to spawn. They don't eat, and they die afterward. And -eels—I'm using Earth examples, Roane—travel some thousands of miles -to the Sargasso to mate and die. Unfortunately, sphexes don't appear to -die, but it's clear that they have an ancestral breeding place and that -they come here to the Sere Plateau to deposit their eggs!"</p> - -<p>Roane plodded onward. He was angry: angry with himself because he -hadn't taken elementary precautions; because he'd felt too safe, as a -man in a robot-served civilization forms the habit of doing; because -he hadn't used his brain when Nugget whimpered, in even a bear-cub's -awareness that danger was near.</p> - -<p>"And now," Huyghens added, "I need some equipment that the robot colony -had. With it, I think we can make a start toward making this a planet -that men can live like men on!"</p> - -<p>Roane blinked.</p> - -<p>"What's that?"</p> - -<p>"Equipment," said Huyghens impatiently. "It'll be at the robot colony. -Robots were useless because they wouldn't pay attention to sphexes. -They'd still be. But take out the robot-controls and the machines will -do! They shouldn't be ruined by a few months' exposure to weather!"</p> - -<p>Roane marched on and on. Presently he said:</p> - -<p>"I never thought you'd want anything that came from that colony, -Huyghens!"</p> - -<p>"Why not?" demanded Huyghens impatiently. "When men make machines do -what they want, that's all right. Even robots—when they're where they -belong. But men will have to handle flame-casters in the job I want -them for. There have to be some, because there was a hundred-mile -clearing to be burned off. And Earth-sterilizers—intended to kill the -seeds of any plants that robots couldn't handle. We'll come back up -here, Roane, and at the least we'll destroy the spawn of these infernal -beasts! If we can't do more than that—just doing that every year will -wipe out the race in time. There are probably other hordes than this, -with other breeding places. But we'll find them, too. We'll make this -planet into a place where men from my world can come—and still be men!"</p> - -<p>Roane said sardonically:</p> - -<p>"It was sphexes that beat the robots. Are you sure you aren't planning -to make this world safe for robots?"</p> - -<p>Huyghens laughed shortly.</p> - -<p>"You've only seen one night-walker," he said. "And how about those -things on the mountain-slope—which would have drained you of blood and -then feasted? Would you care to wander about this planet with only a -robot bodyguard, Roane? Hardly! Men can't live on this planet with only -robots to help them—and stop them from being fully men! You'll see!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They found the colony after only ten days more of travel and after many -sphexes and more than a few staglike creatures and shaggy ruminants -had fallen to their weapons and the bears. But first they found the -survivors of the colony.</p> - -<p>There were three of them, hard-bitten and bearded and deeply -embittered. When the electrified fence went down, two of them were away -at a mine-tunnel, installing a new control-panel for the robots who -worked in it. The third was in charge of the mining operation. They -were alarmed by the stopping of communication with the colony and went -back in a tank-truck to find out what had happened, and only the fact -that they were unarmed saved them. They found sphexes prowling and -caterwauling about the fallen colony, in numbers they still did not -wholly believe. And the sphexes smelled men inside the armored vehicle, -but couldn't break in. In turn, the men couldn't kill them, or they'd -have been trailed to the mine and besieged there for as long as they -could kill an occasional monster.</p> - -<p>The survivors stopped all mining—of course—and tried to use -remote-controlled robots for revenge and to get supplies for them. -Their mining-robots were not designed for either task. And they had no -weapons. They improvised miniature throwers of burning rocket-fuel, -and they sent occasional prowling sphexes away screaming with scorched -hides. But this was useful only because it did not kill the beasts. -And it cost fuel. In the end they barricaded themselves and used the -fuel only to keep a spark-signal going against the day when another -ship came to seek the colony. They stayed in the mine as in a prison, -on short rations, waiting without real hope. For diversion they could -only contemplate the mining-robots they could not spare fuel to run and -which could not do anything but mine.</p> - -<p>When Huyghens and Roane reached them, they wept. They hated robots and -all things robotic only a little less than they hated sphexes. But -Huyghens explained, and armed them with weapons from the packs of the -bears, and they marched to the dead colony with the male Kodiaks as -point and advance-guard, and with Faro Nell bringing up the rear. They -killed sixteen sphexes on the way. In the now overgrown clearing there -were four more. In the shelters of the colony they found only foulness -and the fragments of what had been men. But there was some food—not -much, because the sphexes clawed at anything that smelled of men, and -had ruined the plastic packets of radiation-sterilized food. But there -were some supplies in metal containers which were not destroyed.</p> - -<p>And there was fuel, which men could dispense when they got to the -control-panels of the equipment. There were robots everywhere, bright -and shining and ready for operation, but immobile, with plants growing -up around and over them.</p> - -<p>They ignored those robots. But lustfully they fueled tracked -flame-casters—adapting them to human rather than robot operation—and -the giant soil-sterilizer which had been built to destroy vegetation -that robots could not be made to weed out or cultivate. And they headed -back for the Sere Plateau, burning-eyed and filled with hate.</p> - -<p>But Nugget became a badly spoiled bear-cub, because the freed men -approved passionately of anything that would even grow up to kill -sphexes. They petted him to excess, when they camped.</p> - -<p>And they reached the plateau by a sphex-trail to the top. And Semper -scouted for sphexes, and the giant Kodiaks disturbed them and the -sphexes came squalling and spitting to destroy them—and while Roane -and Huyghens fired steadily, the great machines swept up with their -special weapons. The Earth-sterilizer, it was found, was deadly against -animal life as well as seeds, when its diathermic beam was raised and -aimed. But it had to be handled by a man. No robot could decide just -when it was to be used, and against what target.</p> - -<p>Presently the bears were not needed, because the scorched corpses -of sphexes drew live ones from all parts of the plateau even in -the absence of noticeable breezes. The official business of the -sphexes was presumably finished, but they came to caterwaul and seek -vengeance—which they did not find. Presently the survivors of the -robot colony drove machines—as men needed to do, here—in great -circles around the hugest heap of slaughtered fiends, destroying new -arrivals as they came. It was such a killing as men had never before -made on any planet, but there would not be many left of the sphex-horde -which had bred in this particular patch of desert. There might be other -hordes elsewhere, and other breeding places, but the normal territory -of this mass of monsters would see few of them this year.</p> - -<p>Or next year, either. Because the soil-sterilizer would go over the -dug-up sand where the sphex-spawn lay hidden for the sun to hatch. And -the sun would never hatch them.</p> - -<p>But Huyghens and Roane, by that time, were camped on the edge of -the plateau with the Kodiaks. They were technically upwind from the -scene of slaughter—and somehow it seemed more befitting for the men -of the robot colony to conduct it. After all, it was those men whose -companions had been killed.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There came an evening when Huyghens amiably cuffed Nugget away from -where he sniffed too urgently at a stag-steak cooking on the campfire. -Nugget ambled dolefully behind the protecting form of Roane and -sniveled.</p> - -<p>"Huyghens," said Roane painfully, "we've got to come to a settlement of -our affairs. I'm a Colonial Survey officer. You're an illegal colonist. -It's my duty to arrest you."</p> - -<p>Huyghens regarded him with interest.</p> - -<p>"Will you offer me lenience if I tell on my confederates," he asked -mildly, "or may I plead that I can't be forced to testify against -myself?"</p> - -<p>Roane said vexedly:</p> - -<p>"It's irritating! I've been an honest man all my life, but—I don't -believe in robots as I did, except in their place. And their place -isn't here. Not as the robot colony was planned, anyhow. The sphexes -are nearly wiped out, but they won't be extinct and robots can't handle -them. Bears and men will have to live here or—the people who do will -have to spend their lives behind sphex-proof fences, accepting only -what robots can give them. And there's much too much on this planet for -people to miss it! To live in a robot-managed controlled environment on -a planet like Loren Two wouldn't ... it wouldn't be self-respecting!"</p> - -<p>"You wouldn't be getting religious, would you?" asked Huyghens dryly. -"That was your term for self-respect before."</p> - -<p>Semper, the eagle, squawked indignantly as Sitka Pete almost stepped on -him, approaching the fire. Sitka Pete sniffed, and Huyghens spoke to -him sharply, and he sat down with a thump. He remained sitting in an -untidy lump, looking at the steak and drooling.</p> - -<p>"You don't let me finish!" protested Roane querulously. "I'm a Colonial -Survey officer, and it's my job to pass on the work that's done on a -planet before any but the first-landed colonists may come there to -live. And of course to see that specifications are followed. Now—the -robot colony I was sent to survey was practically destroyed. As -designed, it wouldn't work. It couldn't survive."</p> - -<p>Huyghens grunted. Night was falling. He turned the meat over the fire.</p> - -<p>"Now, in emergencies," said Roane carefully, "colonists have the right -to call on any passing ship for aid. Naturally! So—I've always been -an honest man before, Huyghens—my report will be that the colony as -designed was impractical, and that it was overwhelmed and destroyed -except for three survivors who holed up and signaled for help. They -did, you know!"</p> - -<p>"Go on," grunted Huyghens.</p> - -<p>"So," said Roane querulously, "it just happened—just happened, -mind you—that a ship with you and Sitka and Sourdough and Faro -Nell on board—and Nugget and Semper, too, of course—picked up the -distress-call. So you landed to help the colonists. And you did. That's -the story. Therefore it isn't illegal for you to be here. It was only -illegal for you to be here when you weren't needed. But we'll pretend -you weren't."</p> - -<p>Huyghens glanced over his shoulder in the deepening night. He said -calmly:</p> - -<p>"I wouldn't believe that if I told it myself. Do you think the Survey -will?"</p> - -<p>"They're not fools," said Roane tartly. "Of course they won't! But when -my report says that because of this unlikely series of events it is -practical to colonize the planet, whereas before it wasn't—and when -my report proves that a robot colony alone is stark nonsense, but that -with bears and men from your world added, so many thousand colonists -can be received per year—And when that much is true, anyhow—"</p> - -<p>Huyghens seemed to shake a little as a dark silhouette against the -flames. A little way off, Sourdough sniffed the air hopefully. With a -bright light like the fire, presently naked-looking flying things might -appear to be slapped down out of the air. They were succulent—to a -bear.</p> - -<p>"My reports carry weight," insisted Roane. "The deal will be offered, -anyhow! The robot colony organizers will have to agree or they'll have -to fold up. It's true! And your people can hold them up for nearly what -terms they choose."</p> - -<p>Huyghens' shaking became understandable. It was laughter.</p> - -<p>"You're a lousy liar, Roane," he said, chuckling. "Isn't it -unintelligent and unreasonable and irrational to throw away a lifetime -of honesty just to get me out of a jam? You're not acting like a -rational animal, Roane. But I thought you wouldn't, when it came to the -point."</p> - -<p>Roane squirmed.</p> - -<p>"That's the only solution I can think of. But it'll work."</p> - -<p>"I accept it," said Huyghens, grinning. "With thanks. If only -because it means another few generations of men living like men on -a planet that is going to take a lot of taming. And—if you want to -know—because it keeps Sourdough and Sitka and Nell and Nugget from -being killed because I brought them here illegally."</p> - -<p>Something pressed hard against Roane. Nugget, the cub, pushed urgently -against him in his desire to get closer to the fragrantly cooking meat. -He edged forward. Roane toppled from where he squatted on the ground. -He sprawled. Nugget sniffed luxuriously.</p> - -<p>"Slap him," said Huyghens. "He'll move back."</p> - -<p>"I won't!" said Roane indignantly from where he lay. "I won't do it! -He's my friend!"</p> - -<p class="ph1">THE END</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPLORATION TEAM ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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