Arthur Clarke - The Songs of Distant Earth

“As you’ll see,” Commander Varley told the invited audience in the Terra Nova auditorium, “there were no scorps around when we arrived, but they may have heard — or felt — the bump when our, ah, package landed. Here’s the first investigator at one minute twenty seconds.”

Now the image was changing abruptly at every ten-second interval, and more scorps were appearing in each frame.

“I’ll freeze this one,” said the science officer, “so that you can study the details. See that scorp on the right? Look at his left claw — no less than five of those metal bands! And he seems to be in a position of authority — in the next frames the other scorps have moved out of his way — now he’s examining the mysterious pile of junk that’s just fallen out of his sky — this is a particularly good shot — see how he uses claws and mouth palps together — one set for power, the other for precision — now he’s pulling at the wire, but our little gift is too heavy to move — look at his attitude — I’ll swear he’s giving orders, though we haven’t detected any signal — maybe it’s subsonic — here comes another of the big fellows — ”

The scene shifted abruptly, tilting at a crazy angle.

“Here we go; they’re dragging us along — and you were right, Dr. Kaldor — they’re heading for that cave in the rock pyramid — the package is too big to go inside — just the way we planned it, of course — this is the really interesting part — ”

A good deal of thought had gone into the present for the scorps. Although it consisted mostly of junk, that junk had been carefully selected. There were bars of steel, copper, aluminium, and lead; wooden planks; tubes and sheets of plastic; pieces of iron chain; a metal mirror — and several coils of copper wire of assorted gauges. The entire mass weighed over a hundred kilograms, and had been carefully fastened together so that it could only be moved as a single unit. The spyball nestled inconspicuously at one corner, attached by four separate short cables.

The two big scorps were now attacking the pile of junk with determination and, it seemed, a definite plan. Their powerful claws quickly disposed of the wires holding it together, and they immediately discarded the pieces of wood and plastic; it was obvious that they were only interested in the metal.

The mirror gave them pause. They held it up and stared at their reflections — invisible, of course, in the spyball’s acoustical image.

“We rather expected them to attack — you can start a good fight by putting a mirror in a tank of fish. Perhaps they recognize themselves. That seems to indicate a fair level of intelligence.”

The scorps abandoned the mirror and began to drag the rest of the debris across the seabed. For the next frames, the views were hopelessly confused. When the image stabilized again, it showed a completely different scene.

“We were in luck — things worked out exactly as we’d hoped. They’ve dragged the spyball into that guarded cave. But it isn’t the Queen Scorp’s throne room — if there is a Queen Scorp, which I very much doubt… Theories, anyone?”

There was silence for a long time while the audience studied the strange spectacle. Then someone remarked, “It’s a junk room!”

“But it must have a purpose — ”

“Look — that’s a ten-kilowatt outboard motor — someone must have dropped it!”

“Now we know who’s been stealing our anchor chains!”

“But why — it doesn’t make sense.”

“Obviously it does — to them.”

Moses Kaldor gave his attention-demanding cough, which seldom failed to work.

“This is still only a theory,” he began, “but more and more the facts seem to support it. You’ll notice that everything here is metal, carefully collected from a wide variety of sources…

“Now, to an intelligent marine creature, metal would be very mysterious, something quite different from all the other natural products of the ocean. The scorps seem to be still in the Stone Age — and there’s no way they can get out of it as we land animals did on Earth. Without fire, they are trapped in a technological cul-de-sac.

“I think we may be seeing a replay of something that happened long ago on our own world. Do you know where prehistoric man got his first supplies of iron? From space!

“I don’t blame you for looking surprised. But pure iron never occurs in nature — it rusts too easily. Primitive man’s only source of supply was meteorites. No wonder they were worshipped; no wonder our ancestors believed in supernatural beings beyond the sky…

“Is the same story happening here? I urge you to consider it seriously. We still don’t know the level of intelligence of the scorps. Perhaps they are collecting metals out of mere curiosity and fascination with their — shall I say magical? — properties. But will they discover how to use them, for anything more than decoration? How far can they progress — while they stay underwater? Will they stay there?

“My friends, I think you should learn all you possibly can about the scorps. You may be sharing your planet with another intelligent race. Are you going to cooperate or fight? Even if they are not really intelligent, the scorps could be a deadly menace — or a useful tool. Perhaps you should cultivate them. By the way, look up the reference Cargo Cult in your History Banks… that’s C-A-R-G-O C-U-L-T.

“I would love to know the next chapter in this story. Are there scorp philosophers, even now, gathering in the kelp forests — to consider what to do about us?

“So please, repair the deep-space antenna so we can keep in touch! Magellan’s computer will be waiting for your report — as it watches over us on the road to Sagan 2.”

“What is God?” Mirissa asked.

Kaldor sighed and looked up from the centuries-old display he was scanning.

“Oh, dear. Why do you ask?”

“Because Loren said yesterday, “Moses thinks the scorps may be looking for God.”“

“Did he indeed? I’ll speak to him later. And you, young lady, are asking me to explain something that has obsessed millions of men for thousands of years and generated more words than any other single subject in history. How much time can you spare this morning?”

Mirissa laughed. “Oh, at least an hour. Didn’t you once tell me that anything really important can be expressed in a single sentence?”

“Umm. Well, I’ve come across some exceedingly long-winded sentences in my time. Now, where shall I start…”

He let his eyes wander to the glade outside the library window and the silent — yet so eloquent! — hulk of the Mother Ship looming above it. Here human life began on this planet; no wonder it often reminds me of Eden. And am I the Snake, about to destroy its innocence? But I won’t be telling a girl as clever as Mirissa anything that she doesn’t already know — or guess.

“The trouble with the word God,” he began slowly, “is that it never meant the same thing to any two people — especially if they were philosophers. That’s why it slowly dropped out of use during the Third Millennium except as an expletive — in some cultures, too obscene for polite use.

“Instead, it was replaced by a whole constellation of specialized words. This at least stopped people arguing at cross-purposes, which caused ninety per cent of the trouble in the past.

“The Personal God, sometimes called God One, became Alpha. It was the hypothetical entity supposed to watch over the affairs of everyday life — every individual, every animal! — and to reward good and punish evil, usually in a vaguely described existence after death. You worshipped Alpha, prayed to it, carried out elaborate religious ceremonies, and built huge churches in its honour…