Robert Sheckley - Alien Harvest

“Of course, Dr. Myakovsky. They should give me enough time to do what I have to do.”

“Okay,” Stan said. “Good-bye, Mac. You're a nice little dog. I hope I see you again one of these days.”

“Not likely, Doctor,” said Norbert.

Suddenly Stan was furious.

“Just get the hell out of here!” he said, slamming the pod's hatch shut. “I don't need your comments. Did you hear that, Julie?”

“Take it easy, Stan,” Julie said. “Norbert didn't mean anything. He only states facts. Anyway, what's the big deal?”

Norbert's voice came over the radio. “I am ready for the descent, Dr. 'Myakovsky.”

Stan turned to Gill. “Cut the pod loose. And then get the volunteers into their own pod.”

Gill, seated at the control panel, turned a switch. The pod came loose from the landing platform with a soft explosive sigh of power. It ejected straight into the air, dipped for a moment then its electromagnetic receptors came up to full and the pod darted across the stormy landscape of AR-32 toward the distant hive.

Badger and Glint left the workshop and entered crew country from the corridor into the crew's commissary. A wave of sound and smell hit them. The sound was of fifteen men and women, mostly young, celebrating their arrival at AR-32 with song and booze, hamburgers and pizza (these latter accounting for the smell), and a level of noise that had to be heard to be believed.

Celebrating landfall was an old custom among ship's crews. Columbus's men had celebrated in the same way, their arrival in the New World offering them a good excuse for a spree. That's what the arrival at AR-32 meant to the crew of the Dolomite , too: a chance to cut loose and tie one on in the secure surroundings of the commissariat, where officers were not permitted and where scanning procedures were prohibited by the strong Spacemen's Union.

Here the men could say what they wanted, and there were no ship's officers nearby or at the end of an electronic listening device ready to take their names and report them for summary discipline. The union wouldn't allow it, and Red Badger had counted on that when he made his entry.

Long Meg, a wiper third class from Sacramento back on Earth, slapped Badger on the back and pushed a bulb of beer into his face. “Where you been, Red? Not like you to miss a spree!”

“I been out to the wreck,” Red said.

“What wreck? They didn't tell us about no wreck.”

“No, they didn't,” Red said. “That's very like them, isn't it?”

Meg pushed her face close to Badger's. “None of your bullshit. What wreck are you talking about?”

Badger grinned at her easily. “That's what the captain sent me and Glint here to investigate. It showed up on the radar and he sent me to get the flight recorder.”

“Oh. Is that all?” Meg asked. “I guess the captain will tell us what was on it all in good time.”

“I don't think so,” Badger said. “If we knew what was on that recorder, it might change our minds about a few things.”

“Come out with it, Red! What are you talking about?”

“Suppose that flight recorder showed a freighter just like ours, poking around here just like we are, then being blasted to hell by someone who didn't want them here? What about that, huh?”

“That would be serious,” Meg admitted, and several other crewmen nodded agreement. “Are you saying that's what it said?”

“I'm not saying nothing,” Badger said. “You can decide for yourselves.”

“You took the flight indicator?”

“I listened to it in the workshop. And now I'm going to play it for you. Once you've heard it, you can come to your own conclusions.”

“I hope you know what you're doing, Red,” Meg said. “I'm sure the captain is expecting you to give that to him immediately.”

“Don't worry,” Badger said. “The message on it is pretty short.”

The pod, with Norbert and Mac aboard, was dancing around like a leaf in a storm. Norbert had lost contact with the other pod containing the five volunteers. Wind force threw his pod up into the air, and crosscurrents spun it like a top. Mac howled, and Norbert just clung tight.

“Hang on, boy!” Norbert called. Mac, cradled in his arms, was whimpering, his eyes rolling, in a paroxysm of fear.

Norbert had brought along some extra equipment in case of distress to the dog. The trouble was getting to it. Norbert was practically compressed into the space of the pod, and his size made him take up more room than an Earthman. The little ship was swinging around violently, but Norbert did not suffer from vertigo. He managed to reverse one of his wrist joints and grabbed a large piece of felt he had brought along. He managed to wrap this around Mac, cushioning him. The dog gave a little yelp as the cloth came around him, but he seemed to appreciate it. His spastic movement became calmer, and he began to adjust to the violent movements.

The pod, descending on automatic, danced and veered in the wind. Norbert was tempted to manually override the pod's controls and see if he could ease out the movements. But he decided against it. The pod's autopilot had been designed with a program that softened out its jerks and slides. He couldn't hope to do better. He concentrated instead upon providing a firm platform for Mac and keeping the felt wrapped around the shivering beast without smothering him. Norbert himself didn't breathe, and he had to remind himself that all other creatures did.

The ground was coming up fast now to meet them. Wind shear, this close to the ground, added another factor to the dangerous uncertainties of the descent. (The pod's own pulsar beams had to slow them and absorb the shock as the ground rushed up to meet them.) Then they were bouncing across it, and finally, spinning, they came to a halt.

Then Dr. Myakovsky's voice: “Norbert, are you all right?”

“Perfectly all right, Doctor. And so is Mac.”

“Was the landing very difficult?”

Norbert had something new in his vocabulary, learned from Julie, and he hastened to use it now. “A piece of cake, Doctor. A walk in the park.”

“Hurry up and get the job done,” Stan said. “We want to get rich and get out of here.”

After Badger played the recorder for the crew, there was an utter silence for a brief moment. Spaceship crews, with their volatile mix of people from all walks of life, tend to have low boiling points. The crew of the Dolomite was no exception, particularly since it included a high percentage of criminals.

“What the hell does it mean?” Meg asked.

“It means that a ship like ours was fired upon and destroyed. If they did it to them, then why not to us?”

“Wait a minute!” one of the crew said. “They aren't allowed to do that!”

“What does it matter what they're allowed?” Badger said. “People with power do what they please.”

The crew began quarreling among themselves. Badger waited for them to sort it out. He was pretty sure what conclusion they'd come to. And if, by a remote chance, they didn't, he'd steer them toward it.

He knew that cons were always open to the charge that they were being exploited, a supposition that had proven true too many times in the past. The crew had listened to the flight recorder from the Valparaiso Queen and, aided by Badger's comments, came to their own conclusions.

It was obvious that there was danger out there. Danger that Captain Hoban would soon know about. Danger that impinged directly on the lives of the crew. So what would Hoban do about it?

After a while the first babble of talk died down, and Walter Glint said to Badger, “Captain Hoban will see this soon. What do you think he's going to do about it?”