Robert Silverberg: Neutral Planet

Harskin stared broodingly out the viewing bay as the blood-red seas of Fafnir grew larger. The Rigelian ship could not be seen, but he knew it was on its way. He made a mental note to inform Terran Intelligence that the secrecy of the high command’s secret orders was open to some question.

It was a strange war — a war fought with documents rather than energy cannons. The shooting stage of the war between the galaxy’s two leading races had long since ended in sheer futility; the development of the Martineau Negascreen, which happily drank up every megawatt of a bombardment and fired it back at triple intensity, had quickly put an end to active hostility.

Now, the war was carried on at a subtler level — the economic one. Rigel and Terra strove to outdo each other in extracting exclusive trading rights from systems, hoping to choke each other’s lifelines. The universe was infinite, or close enough to infinite to keep both systems busy for quite a few millennia to come.

Harskin shrugged. Terran scouts had visited Fafnir and had reported little anxiety on the part of the gnorphs to take part in the Galactic stream of things. Presumably, Rigel IV had not yet visited the world; it was simpler to pirate the Terran scout reports.

Well, this would really be a test.

“Preparing to land, sir,” said Navigator Dominic. “Any instructions?”

“Yes,” Harskin said. “Bring us down where it’s dry.”

The landing was a good one, on the centermost of the island group that made up Fafnir’s main land mass. Harskin and his twelve men — he had left five behind in the dome on Fasolt to hedge his bet — left the ship.

It would not be necessary to erect a dome here; Fafnir’s air was breathable, more or less. It was 11 percent oxygen, 86 percent nitrogen, and a whopping 3 percent of inerts, but a decent filter system easily strained the excess nitro and argon out and pumped in oxygen.

Wearing breathing-masks and converters, the thirteen Terrans advanced inland. At their backs was the ocean, red and glimmering in Antares’ light.

“Here come the Rigelians,” Observer Snollgren cried.

“As usual, they’re hanging back and waiting to see what we do.” Harskin frowned. “This time, we won’t wait for them. Let’s take advantage of our head start.”

The gnorph village was five miles inland, but the party had not gone more than two miles when they were greeted by a group of aliens.

There were about a hundred of them, advancing in a wedge-shaped phalanx. They were moving slowly, without any overt belligerent ideas, but Harskin felt uneasy. A hundred aroused savages could make quick work of thirteen Terrans armed with handguns.

He glanced at Mawley, Contact Technician First Class. “Go ahead. Get up there and tell ’em we’re friends.”

Mawley was a tall redhead with knobby cheekbones and, at the moment, an expression of grave self-concern. He nodded, checked his lingual converter to make sure it was operating, and stepped forward, one hand upraised.

“Greetings,” he said loudly. “We come in peace.”

The gnorphs spread out into a loose formation and stared stolidly ahead. Harskin, waiting tensely for Mawley to achieve his rapport with the aliens, peered curiously at them.

They were short — five-six or so — and correspondingly broad-beamed. Their chocolate-brown skin was glossy and scaled; it hung loosely, in corrugated folds. Thick antennae twined upward from either side of their bald heads, and equally thick fleshy processes dangled comblike from their jaws. As for their eyes, Harskin was unable to see them; they were hidden in deep shadow, set back two inches in their skull and protected by projecting, brooding rims of bone that circled completely around each eye.

Three of the gnorphs stepped out of the ranks, and the middle alien stepped forward, flanked slightly to the rear by his companions. He spoke in a harsh, guttural voice.

The converter rendered it as “What do you want here?”

Mawley was prepared for the question. “Friendship. Peace. Mutual happiness of our worlds.”

“Where are you from?”

Mawley gestured to the sky. “Far away, beyond the sky. Beyond the stars. Much distance.”

The gnorph looked skeptical. “How many days’ sailing from here?”

“Many days. Many, many days.”

“Then why come to us?”

“To establish friendship,” said Mawley. “To build a bond between your world and ours.”

At that, the alien did an abrupt about-face and conferred with his two companions. Harskin kept an eye on the spears twitching in the alien hands.

The conference seemed to be prolonging itself indefinitely. Mawley glanced back at Harskin as if to ask what he should do next, but the shipmaster merely smiled in approval and encouragement.

Finally the aliens broke up their huddle and the lead man turned back to the Terrans. “We think you should leave us,” he grunted. “Go. At once.”

There was nothing in Mawley’s instructions to cover this. The contact technician opened and closed his mouth a few times without speaking. Gravely, the aliens turned and marched away, leaving the Terrans alone.

First Contact had been achieved.

“This has to be done in a very careful way,” Harskin said. “Any news from the Rigelians?”

“They’re situated about eight miles from here,” Snollgren said.

“Hmmm. That means they’re as far from the village as we are.” Harskin put his hands to his head. “The gnorphs are certainly not leaping all over the place to sign a treaty with us, that’s for sure. We’ll have to handle them gently or we may make them angry enough to sign up with the Rigelians.”

“I doubt that,” offered Sociologist Yang. “They probably won’t be any more anxious to deal with the Rigelians than they are with us. They’re neutrals, and they want to stay that way.”

Harskin leaned back. “This is a problem we haven’t hit before. None of the worlds in either sphere of influence ever had any isolationist ideas. What do we do? Just pull up and leave?”

The blue sun was setting. Antares still hovered on the horizon, a shapeless blob of pale red eating up half the sky. “Well have to send a man to spy on the Rigelians. Archer, you’re elected.”

The man in question rose. “Yes, sir.”

“Keep an eye on them, watch their dealings with the gnorphs, and above all don’t let the Rigelians see you.” Another idea occurred to the shipmaster. “Lloyd?”

“Yes, sir?”

“In all probability the Rigelians have slapped a spy on us. You’re our counterespionage man, effective now. Scout around and see if you can turn up their spy.”

Archer and Lloyd departed. Harskin turned to the sociologist. “Yang, there has to be some way of pushing these gnorphs to one side or the other.”

“Agreed. I’ll have to see more of a pattern, though, before lean help you.”

Harskin nodded. “Well make contact with the gnorphs again after Archer returns with the word of what the Rigelians are up to. We’ll profit by their mistakes.”

Antares had set as far as it was going to set, which was about three quarters of the way below the horizon, and the blue sun was spiraling its way into the heavens again, when the quiet air of Fafnir was split by an earth-shaking explosion.

The men of the Peccable were awake in an instant — those eight who had been sleeping, at any rate. A two-man skeleton team had been guarding the ship. Harskin had been meditating in Control Cabin, and Archer and Lloyd had not yet returned from their scouting missions.

Almost simultaneously with the explosion came the clangor of the alarm bell at the main airlock, signifying someone wanted in. A moment later, Observer First Class Snollgren was on the wire, excitedly jabbering something incoherent.