Hal Clement - Cycle of Fire

Hunger satisfied, he reported to the commander, who immediately called another conference, this time of scientists only. It was decided that top priority on Dar’s time should be given the philologists, so that more interpreters would be available as soon as possible. The biologists were advised to take a landing boat and catch some animals of their own; they would have to get most of their knowledge the hard way. Kruger soothed them by promising to help them with the Teacher while Dar was giving language lessons.

The geologists, however, were going to need Dar’s personal assistance. They could, of course, map the whole land surface of Abyormen and start checking likely spots for sedimentary outcrops in person, but the time which would be consumed that way could be put to much better uses. In consequence, Dar was shown colored pictures of the sorts of rock the specialists hoped to find and asked if he knew any places on the planet where they might be found.

Unfortunately he failed to recognize a single picture. The geologists might have given up after exhausting their photographs and gone back to the map plan, but Kruger noticed that one of the pictures was of a sample of travertine virtually identical with the material deposited around the geyser pool. He pointed this out to Dar.

“Your pictures are not very good,” was the response.

Twenty minutes later it had been established that Dar Lang Ahn could see light ranging in wave length from forty-eight hundred Angstroms to just under eighteen thousand — that is, not quite as far to violet as the average human being but more than an octave farther into the infra-red. The color pictures, balancing the three primary shades to make combinations which reproduced what the human eye saw of the original, simply did not duplicate more than half the color range that Dar saw. As he said, the color pictures were no good. The dyes in the film were the wrong colors, in that part of the spectrum.

“No wonder I never did get any of his words for colors,” muttered Kruger disgustedly. The problem was solved by making black and white prints and letting Dar concentrate on texture. Thereafter he was able to identify more than half the pictures and to tell where samples of most of them could be found. After a short geology lesson he even suggested areas of thrust and block-faulting and canyons which exposed strata to depths of hundreds or thousands of feet; the maps he drew were more than sufficient to enable the regions in question to be located. The rock specialists were delighted. So was Dar Lang Ahn, and so was Nils Kruger — the last for reasons of his own.

The boy had resumed radio contact with the Teacher while this was going on and told him everything that had happened. He explained what the visitors wanted in the way of information and offered to trade as much knowledge as the creature wanted. Unfortunately the Teacher still felt that too much scientific knowledge was not good for his people. He would not budge from his point that knowledge would, in time, lead to space travel, and space travel would inevitably lead to disruption of the Abyormenite life cycle, since it was ridiculous to suppose that another planet could match Abyormen’s characteristics.

“But your people don’t have to stay on other planets; why not just visit, to trade or learn or simply look?”

“I have showed you, Nils Kruger, that your ignorance of my people led you far astray before. Please believe me when I tell you that you are equally in error to think that leaving this world could help them in any way.” He remained stubborn on that point, and Kruger had to give up.

He reported his failure to Commander Burke and was somewhat surprised at that officer’s answer.

“Aren’t you just as fortunate that he didn’t accept your offer?”

“Why, sir?”

“As I understand it you were virtually promising him any of our technical knowledge in which he might feel an interest. I admit that we are not as security conscious as we were a few generations ago when Earth still had wars, but it’s generally considered inadvisable to be too free with a new race in the matter of potentially destructive techniques until we know them pretty well.”

“But I do know them!”

“I’ll admit that you know Dar Lang Ahn. You have met a few others of his race, a number of his Teachers, and have spoken by radio to a Teacher of what I suppose we’ll have to call the complementary race. I refuse to credit you with ‘knowing’ the people in general, and still claim that you might have been in a rather equivocal position had that creature accepted your offer.”

“But you didn’t object to everyone’s telling Dar all he asked about.”

“For about the same reason that Teacher didn’t object to your telling him.”

“You mean because he’s going to die soon? Won’t you let him go back to the Ice Ramparts before then? He expects to.”

“I suppose he does. I don’t think it will do any harm; he will take no written material, and without that I am sure he could do no damage.”

Kruger checked himself; he had been on the verge of mentioning the native’s memory. He wanted Dar Lang Ahn to learn things. He knew that what the little native was told or shown he would remember, and what he remembered he would tell his Teachers at the Ice Ramparts. The Teacher at the village might object, but there seemed little he could do; Kruger had kept their bargain.

But could that being do something? He had claimed to have influence over the Teachers at the ice cap — enough to make them attempt to murder Kruger against their own wills. Perhaps he could force them to ignore the information Dar brought, or even destroy Dar; that was definitely not part of Kruger’s plan. What was the influence the being possessed, anyway? Could anything be done to reduce or eliminate it? He would have to talk to that Teacher again — and plan the talk very, very carefully indeed. The boy floated motionless for a long time, thinking, but at last his expression brightened a trifle. A few moments later he shoved himself into motion against the nearest wall and headed for the communication room.

The Teacher acknowledged the call at once.

“I suppose you have thought of some more arguments why I should favor the spread of your technology?”

“Not exactly,” replied Kruger. “I wanted to ask a question or two. You said that there were four of you Teachers at that city. I’d like to know whether the others share your attitude in this matter.”

“They do.” The answer was prompt and disconcerted the boy a trifle.

“All right. How about the Teachers in the other cities? I assume you have been telling them about all that has been happening.” This time the answer was not so prompt.

“As a matter of fact, we have not. We do not maintain constant communication; simply check with each other every year. If I were to call now they would probably not be listening. It does not matter; there is no doubt how they would feel. After all, we have maintained for many long years the policy of limiting technology for ourselves and making sure that we were the source of knowledge for the others — the radios they have at the Ice Ramparts were made by us, for example; they do not know how to do it.”

“I see.” The cadet was a trifle discouraged but by no means ready to give up. “Then you would not mind our visiting the other cities and contacting your fellow Teachers directly, to put the proposition to them.” He fervently hoped that it would not occur to the other to ask whether the human beings were all in accord on the matter.

“Certainly. You would, of course, explain the situation as you have to me; they would give the same answer.”

Kruger smiled wickedly.

“Yes, we might do that, or we might tell them a slightly different story — say, that your mind has become affected some way, and you had tricked some information out of us and were tired of the sacrifices involved in being a Teacher, and were going to build devices that would keep a larger part of the planet hot and stop your people’s time of dving…”