Hal Clement - Natives of Space

CONTENTS

ASSUMPTION UNJUSTIFIED

TECHNICAL ERROR

IMPEDIMENT

1965 by Hal Clement

Printed in Canada

First Ballantine Printing: April 1965

Ballantine Books, Inc., 101 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003

Thrykar saw the glow that limned the broad pine trunk with radiance and sent an indefinite shadow toward the spot where he lay, and knew that extreme caution must direct his actions from then on. He had, of course, encountered living creatures as he had felt his way through the darkness down the forested mountain side; but they had been small, harmless animals that had fled precipitately as the sounds denoting his size or the odors that warned of his alienness had reached their senses. Artificial light, however, which he and Tes had seen from the mountain top and which was now just below him, meant intelligence; and intelligence meant — anything.

He felt the ridiculousness of his position. The idea of having not only to conceal his intentions, but even his existence, from intelligent beings could seem only silly to a member of a culture that embraced literally thousands of physically differing races, and Thrykar did have a rising desire to stand on his feet and walk openly down the main thoroughfare of the little settlement in the valley. He resisted the temptation principally because it was not an unexpected one; the handbook had warned that such a reaction was probable — and warned in the strongest terms against yielding to it.

Instead of yielding, therefore, he resumed his crawling, working his way headforemost downhill until he had reached the tree. Hugging the rough trunk closely, he reached his eight feet of snaky body to full height behind it, tapped out the prearranged signal to Tes on the small communicator he carried, and began carefully examining the town and the ground between him and the outlying houses.

It was not a large town. About three thousand human beings lived in it, though Thrykar was not familiar enough with men to be able to judge that fact from the number of buildings. He did realize that some of the structures were probably not dwelling places; the purposes of the railway station became fairly clear as a lighted train chugged slowly into motion and snaked its way out of town to the north. Most of the lights were concentrated within a few blocks of the station, and it was only in that neighborhood that Thrykar could see the moving figures of human beings. A few lighted windows, and the rather thinly scattered street lamps, were all that betrayed the true size of the place.

There was another center of activity, however. As the sound of the train died out in the distance, a rhythmic thudding manifested itself to Thrykar’s auditory organs. It seemed to come from his right, from that portion of the town nearest to the foot of the mountain. Leaning out from behind his tree, he could see nothing in that direction; but a fact which he had only subconsciously noted before was brought to prominence in his mind.

Only a few yards below him, the mountainside fell away abruptly in a sheer cliff which seemed, in the darkness, to extend for some distance to either side of Thrykar’s position. The undergrowth which covered the slope continued to the very edge of this cliff; so the alien dropped once more to the prone position and wormed his way downhill until he could look over. He hadn’t improved matters much, as the darkness was impenetrable to his eyes, but the sounds were a little clearer.

They were quite definitely coming from the right and below and after a moment’s hesitation, Thrykar began crawling along the cliff edge in that direction. The bushes, which grew thicker here, hampered him somewhat; for the flexibility of his body, which was no thicker than a man’s, was offset by the great, triangular, finlike appendages which extended more than two feet outward on each side. These, too, were fairly flexible, however, ribbed as they were with cartilage; and he managed to accommodate himself to the somewhat uncomfortable mode of travel.

He had gone less than a hundred yards when he found the cliff edge to be curving outward and down, as though it were the lip of a somewhat irregular vertical shaft cut into the mountain. This impression was strengthened when the curve led back to the left, away from the source of sound that Thrykar wished to investigate; but he continued to follow the edge, and eventually reached its lowest point, which must have been almost directly beneath the place at which he had first looked over. At this point things became interesting.

On Thrykar’s left — that is, within the shaft — the dripping of water became audible; and at the same time the bushes and irregular rocks disappeared, and he found himself on what could be nothing but a badly kept road. He did not realize its condition at first; but within a few feet he found a rivulet flowing across it, in a fairly deep gully which it had cut in the hard earth.

Investigating this flow of water, he found that its source was the shaftlike excavation, which was apparently full of water almost to the level of the road. With growing enthusiasm, Thrykar found that the hole was fully a hundred and fifty yards in the dimension running parallel to the face of the mountain; and he had learned during his descent that it had fully half that measure in the other direction. If it were only deep enough — he was on the point of entering the water to investigate, when he remembered the communicator, which might suffer damage if wet, and from which he had promised Tes not to separate himself. Instead of investigating the pit, therefore, he turned back, following the road toward the sounds which had first roused his curiosity.

His progress, on the legs which were so ridiculously short for his height, was not rapid. In fifteen minutes he had passed two more of the water-filled pits and was approaching a third. This he was able to examine in more detail than the others, though he could not approach it closely; for the road at this point, and the water near it, were illuminated by the first of the town’s outlying street lamps. A few yards farther, on the side of the road away from the pits, house lights began to be visible; and, seeing them, Thrykar paused to consider.

The sound was evidently coming from farther inside the town. If he went any further in his investigations, he not only sacrificed the shelter of darkness, but could also expect a heavier concentration of human beings. On the other hand, his skin was dark in color, the lights were by to means numerous, he was very curious about the sounds which had continued without interruption since he had first heard them, and it would be necessary to confront a human being eventually, in any case — though, if all went well, the human being would never know it. Thrykar finally elected to proceed, with increased caution.

He chose the side of the road away from the pits, as it was somewhat darker at first, and offered some concealment in the form of hedges and fences in front of the houses, which now began to be more numerous. He walked, with his mincing gait, close beside these, standing at his full height and letting the great, independent eyes set on either side of his neckless, rigidly set head rove constantly around the full circle of his vision. One more pit was passed in this fashion; but a hundred yards further down the road, on the right side, a wall began which effectually cut off the sight of any more, if they existed. It was a fence of boards, solidly built, and its top was fully two feet above Thrykar’s head. The sounds appeared to be coming from a point behind this barrier, but somewhat further down the road.

Having come so far, the alien was human enough to dislike the idea of having wasted his efforts.