James White - Double Contact

“Dr. Prilicla,” the captain broke in. “The sector marshal rejects your suggestion and orders an immediate return of the medical team and casualties to Rhabwar. We can warn the Crextic to move clear before taking off, and hope they heed the warning. I’m sorry, Doctor. Start evacuating your casualties at once.”

“Friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla, “please ask the…” At that point one of his Educator tape donors, a straight-talking Kelgian, slipped suddenly to the forefront of his mind and he ended, “We’ve begun to make good progress here, so tell Sector Marshal Dermod to stay the hell out of my fur!”

“… You’ve said that your home world is poisoned and dying and that there aren’t many Trolanni left on it,” Irisik was saying. “Here there are many islands, particularly those close to the polar continents where high seas and treacherous currents make them dangerous for plant and animal cultivation but which you, with your greater knowledge and machines, could use. So why go to another and perhaps less suitable world when you would be welcomed here?

“You bear a closer physical resemblance to the Crextic than these others,” it went on, “so that even the most intellectually timid among us would have no difficulty in accepting you as strange but helpful neighbors. You Trolanni would be too few in numbers to threaten us and your knowledge is too valuable for us to waste it by hurting you…”

“That,” said one of the Terragar casualties, using one of its obscure Earth-human sayings, “would be like killing the geese that lay golden eggs.”

Prilicla was well pleased at the way things were going, but it was a time to be tough and, to use another Earth-human expression, tell the Crextic a few home truths.

“… If you have an ethical problem with this,” Irisik continued, “as we would have if the positions were reversed, think of it as paying ground rent, or a simple exchange of knowledge for a peaceful and pleasant living space. In time we would learn fully to understand and trust each other, and in more time you could show us how to harvest the metals that you have said lie deep beneath our surface, and work them into machines which will enable the Crextic one day, as these others do, to walk the web between the stars…”

“Doctor!” the captain’s voice broke in urgently. “Look at your ward repeater screen. All the Crextic vessels are launching their gliders and ground forces. Get your med team and casualties back to to Rhabwar. Now, Doctor.”

Prilicla looked at the repeater screen which showed spiders pouring out of the nearer ships and forming up on the beach while their gliders were moving in thermal-seeking circles above the hot sand as they strove for height. He felt sure, but not very sure, that the Crextic would wait until more force arrived and that an attack wasn’t imminent.

“Friend Fletcher,” he said, “if you’ve been listening you’ll know that we are making good progress…”

“Not to all of it,” the captain broke in. “We’re too busy here readying the ship for a hot blastoff. But everything said was and is being relayed to Vespasian. We’ve no time to retrieve the buildings and non-portable equipment, so just get your people out of there.”

“… and it would be a major crime to throw it away,” Prilicla continued, as if the other had not spoken. “Neither, I feel sure, would it favorably impress our Trolanni friends if we were to burn all the nearby Crextic ships and many hundreds of sailors just to save the lives of a few patients and medical staff.”

“So we are to be killed—” Irisik began, its anger and disappointment outweighing its personal fear. “You lied to us.”

“… You will now have realized, friend Fletcher, that the ward translator is on and our conversation is open,” he said, then continued briskly. “Naydrad, use the robots to help you move the Trolanni and Earth-human casualties to Rhabwar. Please link my translator to the ship’s external speaker system. The Crextic patients and I are going out and will try to talk some sense into their Krititkukik. Murchison, Danalta, set the other Crextic litters and restraints for remote control and quick release on my command, then assist Naydrad with the other patient transfers.”

“No, sir,” said Murchison, radiating feelings that were a strange combination of affection, respect, and downright mutiny. It glanced towards the shape-changer who twitched its upper body in assent, and added, “We are staying with you.”

“As will I,” said Keet.

He knew from the intensity of their emotional radiation that he could not make them change their minds. There were occasions, he thought gratefully, when insubordination had its place. It was obvious that the captain thought otherwise and was voicing its feelings without the usual verbal niceties.

“Are you losing your mind entirely, Doctor?” it said angrily. “And have you no control at all over your medical staff? Explain our situation to your spider patients, urge them to pass it on to their friends, and tell them that they will all die if they don’t move away fast. And don’t dare go outside. The meteorite shield has been withdrawn to support the launch system…”

Prilicla turned down the volume on his headset and addressed the Crextics.

“We have no intention of eating or harming any of you,” he said while the irate voice of the captain muttered in the background, “and you have a choice. You are free to go with the other casualties to the safety of our ship. Or leave here now with me, to rejoin your friends and help me convince them that I am telling the truth. If we can’t do that, then we and many hundreds of them will be burned to death.

“The next attack is about to begin so there isn’t much time to stop it,” he went on as he took control of the spider pilot’s litter. “I am asking for an immediate meeting with your Kritit-kukik and will explain the situation to you as we move outside. ”

Although the preparations for the attack were continuing, the Krititkukik came out to meet them without hesitation. It was a responsible commander, Irisik insisted, who preferred to win a battle with the minimum possible butcher’s bill. But it was still at a distance when the pathologist drew his attention to a difference in its appearance. A tubular collar into which variously-colored twigs and vegetation had been woven was encircling its long, thin neck.

“It wasn’t wearing that when I met it on its ship,” said Murchison. “Is it an insignia of rank?”

“No,” said Irisik.

The spider’s emotional radiation was far from unpleasant but it was so intense, poignant, and deeply personal that it made Prilicla waver in flight. Similar feelings were reaching him from the approaching Krititkukik. Considering the intimate nature of those feelings, he did not expect Irisik to elaborate, but it did.

“It is the Collar of First Mating,” it said through a surge of emotion, “worn by the male as self-protection and as a compliment to his partner’s sexual ardor which could and might be aroused to the point where the female loses control and bites off her mate’s head. There have been no cases reported for many centuries, and now it is worn only twice. On the night of first mating as a promise of the life of loving to come, and when the life of one aged partner or the other is about to end in gratitude for the life and loving that has gone before.”

The effect of its words on the females Murchison and Keet, and on the male subject of the discussion, Krititkukik, forced Prilicla to drop to the sand before he was forced to make an undignified crash-landing. Again, as he had done in the ward, he allowed Irisik and Keet, with a little help from the recuperating glider pilot and the other two Crextic casualties, to make the conversation run while he monitored the emotional radiation of all concerned.