Gordon Dickson - The Human Edge

The next stage was the sending down of the secondary type of collectors—almost identical lumps of nickel iron, but with cargo-carrying space inside them. After nine weeks of this and careful study of the small species of alien life returned to the Expedition Headquarters on the moon, he decided that one small flying blood-sucking insect, one crawling, six-legged pseudo-insect—one of the arthropoda, an arachnid or spider, in Muffled People’s classification—and a small, sharp-nosed, long-tailed scavenging animal of the Muffled People’s cities, should be used as live investigators. He marked Phase Two as Complete to Perfection.

Specimens of the live investigators were collected, controlling mechanisms surgically implanted in them, and they were taken back to the planet’s surface. By the use of scanning devices attached to the creatures, Expedition members remote-controlling them from the moon were able to investigate the society of the Muffled People at close hand.

The live investigators were directed by their controller into the libraries, factories, hospitals. The first two phases of the investigation had been cold matters of collecting, collating and filing data. With this third phase, and the on-shift members of the Expedition living vicarious insect and animal lives on the planet below, a spirit of adventure began to permeate the fifty-six men remaining on the moon.

The task before them was almost too great to be imagined. It was necessary that they hunt blindly through the civilization below until chance put them on the trail of the information they were after concerning the character and military strength of the Muffled People. The first six months of this phase produced no evidence at all of military strength on the part of the Muffled People—and in his cabin alone Kator paced the floor, twitching his whiskers. The character of the Muffled People as a race was emerging more clearly every day and it was completely at odds with such a lack of defensive elements. And so was the Muffled People’s past history as the Expedition had extracted it from the libraries of the planet below.

He called the Captain in.

“We’re overlooking something,” he said.

“I’ll agree with that, Keysman,” said the Captain. “But knowing that doesn’t solve our problem. In the limited time we’ve had with the limited number of men available, we’re bound to face blank spots.”

“Perfection,” Kator said, “admits of no blank spots.”

The Captain looked at him with slitted eyes.

“What does the Keysman suggest?” he said.

“…Sir.”

“For one thing,” Kator’s eyes were also slitted, “a little more of an attitude of respect.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And for another thing,” said Kator, “I make the suggestion that what we’re looking for must be underground. Somewhere the Muffled People must have a source of military strength comparable to our own—their civilization and their past history is too close to our own for there not to be such a source. If it had been on the surface of the planet or in one of the oceans, we would’ve discovered it by now. So it must be underground.”

“I’ll have the men check for underground areas.”

“You’ll do better than that, Captain. You’ll take every man and put them in a hookup with the long-tailed scavenging animals, and run their collectors underground. In all large blank areas.”

“Sir.”

The Captain went out. The change in assignment was made and two shifts later—by sheer luck or coincidence—the change paid off. One of the long-tailed animal collectors was trapped aboard a large truck transporting food. The truck went out from one of the large cities in the middle of the western continent of the planet below and at about a hundred and fifty of the Muffled People’s miles from the city turned into a country route that led to an out-of-operation industrial manufacturing complex. It trundled past a sleepy farm or two, across a bridge over a creek and down a service road into the complex. There it drove into a factory building and unloaded its food onto a still and silent conveyor belt.

Then it left.

The collector, left with the food, suddenly felt the conveyor belt start to move. It carried the food deep into the factory building, through a maze of machinery, and delivered it onto a platform, which dropped without warning into the darkness of a deep shaft.

And it was at this point that the Ruml in contact with the collector, called Kator. Kator did not hesitate.

“Destroy it!” he ordered.

The Ruml touched a button and the collector stiffened suddenly and collapsed. Almost immediately a pinpoint of brilliance appeared in the center of its body and in a second it was nothing but fine gray ash, which blew back up the shaft on the draft around the edges of the descending platform.

While the rest of the men of the Expedition there present in the gathering room watched, Kator walked over to the chart he had put up on the wall. Opposite Phase Three, with a clear hand he wrote Complete to Perfection.

Kator allowed the Expedition a shift in which to celebrate. He did not join the celebration himself or swallow one of the short-lived bacterial cultures that temporarily manufactured ethyl alcohol in the Ruml stomachs from carbohydrates the Expedition Members had eaten. Intoxication was an indulgence he could not at the moment permit himself. He called the Captain into conference in the Keysman’s private quarters.

“The next stage,” Kator said, “is, of course, to send a man down to examine this underground area.”

“Of course, sir,” said the Captain. The Captain had swallowed one of the cultures, but because of the necessity of the conference had eaten nothing for the last six hours. He thought of the rest of the Expedition gorging themselves in the gathering room and his own hunger came sharply on him to reinforce the anticipation of intoxication.

“So far,” said Kator, “the Expedition has operated without mistakes. Perfection of operation must continue. The man who goes down on to the planet of the Muffled People must be someone whom I can be absolutely sure will carry the work through to success. There’s only one individual in this Expedition of whom I’m that sure.”

“Sir?” said the Captain, forgetting his hunger suddenly and experiencing an abrupt chilliness in the region of his liver. “You aren’t thinking of me, are you, Keysman? My job with the ship, here—”

“I am not thinking of you.”

“Oh,” said the Captain, breathing freely. “In that case… while I would be glad to serve…”

“I’m thinking of myself.”

“Keysman!”

It was almost an explosion from the Captain’s lips. His whiskers flattened back against his face.

Kator waited. The Captain’s whiskers slowly returned to normal position.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “Of course, you can select whom you wish. It’s rather unheard of, but… Do you wish me to act as Keysman while you’re down there?”

Kator smiled at him.

“No,” he said.

The Captain’s whiskers twitched slightly, involuntarily, but his face remained impassive.

“Who, then, sir?”

“No one.”

This time the Captain did not even explode with the word of Kator’s title. He merely stared, almost blindly at Kator.

“No one,” repeated Kator, slowly. “You understand me, Captain? I’ll be taking the keys of the ship with me.”

“But—” the Captain’s voice broke and stopped. He took a deep breath. “I must protest officially, Keysman,” he said. “It would be extremely difficult to get home safely if the keys were lost and the authority of a Keysman was lacking on the trip back.”