Robert Silverberg - Neutral Planet

“Fasolt dead ahead,” came the word from Navigation. “Prepare for decelerating orbit.”

From the fore viewing bay of the Terran starship Peccable, the twin planets Fasolt and Fafnir had become visible — uninhabited Fasolt a violet ball the size of a quarter-credit piece dead ahead, and Fafhir, home of the gnorphs, a bright-red dot far to the right, beyond the mighty curve of the big ship’s outsweeping wing.

The nameless, tiny blue sun about which both worlds orbited rode high above them, at a sharp 36 degrees off the ecliptic. And, majestic in its vastness, great Antares served as a huge bright-red backdrop for the entire scene.

The eighteen men who comprised the Terran mission to the gnorphs of Fafhir moved rapidly and smoothly toward their landing stations. This was a functioning team; they had a big job, and they were ready for it.

In Control Cabin, Shipmaster Deev Harskin was strapping himself into the acceleration cradle when the voice of Observer First Rank Snollgren broke in.

“Chief? Snollgren. Read me?”

“Go ahead, boy. What’s up?”

“That Rigelian ship — the one we saw yesterday? I just found it again. Ten light-seconds off starboard, and credits to crawfish it’s orbiting in on Fasolt!”

Harskin gripped the side of the cradle anxiously. “You sure it’s not Fafhir they’re heading for? How’s your depth-perception out there?”

“A-one. That boat’s going the same place we are, chief!”

Sighing, Harskin said, “It could have been worse, I guess.” He snapped on the all-ship communicator and said, “Gentlemen, our job has been complicated somewhat. Observer Snollgren reports a Rigelian ship orbiting in on Fasolt, and it looks likely they have the same idea we have. Well, this’ll be a test of our mettle. We’ll have a chance to snatch Fafhir right out from under their alleged noses!”

A voice said, “Why not blast the Rigelians first? They’re our enemies, aren’t they?”

Harskin recognized the voice as belonging to Leefman — a first-rate linguist, rather innocent of the niceties of interstellar protocol. No reply from Harskin was needed. The hoarse voice of Military Attache Ramos broke in.

“This is a neutral system, Leefman. Rigelian-Terran hostilities are suspended pending contact with the gnorphs. Someday you’ll understand that war has its code too.”

Alone in Control Cabin, Shipmaster Harskin smiled. It was a good crew; a little overspecialized, perhaps, but more than adequate for the purpose. Having Rigelians on hand would be just so much additional challenge. Shipmaster Harskin enjoyed challenges.

Beneath him, the engines of the Peccable throbbed magnificently. He was proud of his ship, proud of his crew. The Peccable swept into the deadly atmosphere of Fasolt, swung downward in big looping spirals, and headed for land.

Not too far behind came the Rigelians. Harskin leaned back and let the crash of deceleration eddy up over him, and waited.

Fasolt was mostly rock, except for the hydrogen-fluoride oceans and the hydrogenous air. It was not an appealing planet.

The spacesuited men of the Peccable were quick to debouch and extrude their dome. Atmosphere issued into it. “A little home away from home,” Harskin remarked.

Biochemist Carver squinted balefully at the choppy hydrofluoric-acid sea. “Nice world. Good thing these goldfish bowls aren’t made out of glass, yes? And better caution your men about using the dome airlock. A little of our oxygen gets out into that atmosphere and we’ll have the loveliest rainstorm you ever want to see — with us a thousand feet up, looking down.”

Harskin nodded. “It’s not a pleasant place at all. But it’s not a pleasant war we’re fighting.

He glanced up at the murky sky. Fafhir was full, a broad red globe barely a million miles away. And, completing the group, there was the faint blue sun about which both worlds revolved, the entire system forming a neat Trojan equilateral with vast Antares.

Snollgren appeared. The keen-eyed observer had been in the ship, and apparently had made it from the Peccable to the endomed temporary camp on a dead run, no little feat in Fasolt’s 1.5-g field.

“Well?” Harskin asked.

The observer opened his face plate and sucked in some of the dome’s high-oxygen atmosphere. “The Rigelians,” he gasped. “They’ve landed. I saw them in orbit.”

“Where?”

“I’d estimate five hundred miles westward. They’re definitely on this continent.”

Harskin glanced at the chronometer set in the wrist of Snollgren’s spacesuit. “We’ll give them an hour to set up their camp. Then we’ll contact them and find out what goes.

The Rigelian captain’s name was Fourteen Deathless. He spoke Galactic with a sharp, crisp accent that Harskin attributed to his ursine ancestry.

“Coincidence we’re both here at the same time, eh, Shipmaster Harskin? Strange are the ways of the Guiding Forces.”

“They certainly are,” Harskin said. He stared at the hand-mike, wishing it were a screen so he could see the sly, smug expression on the Rigelian’s furry face. Obviously, someone had intercepted Harskin’s allegedly secret orders and studied them carefully before forwarding them to their recipient.

Coincidences didn’t happen in interstellar war. The Rigelians were here because they knew the Earthmen were.

“We have arrived at a knotty problem in ethics,” remarked Captain Fourteen Deathless. “Both of us are here for the same purpose, that of negotiating trading rights with the gnorphs. Now — ah — which of us is to make the first attempt to deal with these people?”

“Obviously,” said Harskin, “the ship which landed on Fasolt first has prior claim.”

“This is suitable,” said the Rigelian.

“We’ll set out at once, then. Since the Peccable landed at least half an hour before your ship, we have clear priority.”

“Interesting,” Captain Fourteen Deathless said. “But just how do you compute you arrived before we did? By our instruments we were down long before you.”

Harskin started to sputter, then checked himself. “Impossible!”

“Oh? Cite your landing time, please, with reference to Galactic Absolute.”

“We put down at…” Harskin paused. “No. Suppose you tell me what time you landed, and then I’ll give you our figures.”

“That’s hardly fair,” said the Rigelian. “How do we know you won’t alter your figures once we’ve given ours?”

“And how do we know, on the other hand . . . ?”

“It won’t work,” said the alien. “Neither of us will allow the other priority.”

Shrugging, Harskin saw the truth of that. Regardless of the fact that the Peccable actually had landed first, the Rigelians would never admit it. It was a problem in simple relativity; without an external observer to supply impartial data, it was Fourteen Deathless’ word against Harskin’s.

“All right,” Harskin said wearily. “Call it a stalemate. Suppose we both go to Fafnir now, and have them choose between us.”

There was silence at the other end for a while. Then the Rigelian said, “This is acceptable. The rights of the neutral parties must be respected, of course.”

“Of course. Until this system is settled, we’re all neutrals, remember?”

“Naturally,” said the Rigelian.

It was not, thought Harskin, a totally satisfactory arrangement. Still, it could hardly be helped.

By the very strict rules with which the Terran-Rigelian “war” was being fought, a system was considered neutral until a majority of its intelligently inhabited worlds had declared a preference for one power or the other.

In the Antares system, a majority vote would have to be a unanimous one. Of the eleven highly variegated worlds that circled the giant red star, only Fafnir bore. life. The gnorphs were an intelligent race of biped humanoids — the classic shape of intelligent life. The Terrans were simian-oid; the Rigelians, ursinoid. But the gnorphs owed their appearance neither to apes nor bears; they were reptilians, erect and tailless. Fafnir was not hospitable to mammalian life.