Damon Knight - Orbit 20

On the third day, Jon refused to go out of the shuttle, on the ground that Hanna was making no progress in talking to the Konans, and would make none until she came round to the Dixon-Ehrmann method. Alissin said she would not go out with Gerold because he talked too much. Erring promptly offered to go with Gerold, and Hanna and Alissin set out together. Hanna found herself almost hating the plains, wondering half-savagely if even an Enemy bombardment could have shrivelled their aloof expanses down to a manageable condition.

Today the Konans had moved a little farther from the shuttle. Hanna moved delicately around to asking them why, and was informed by several voices that this was a settlement. Hanna and Alissin looked round them, but could see nothing but a few humps and hollows, evenly covered with the tough Konan grass. The sequence teased up another memory in Hanna’s mind; again, too faint a one for instant reference, but demanding to be shelved for further thought.

In the midst of a long Konan disquisition on the incomprehensibility of the Terran prewar survey, Alissin nudged Hanna’s arm. “Do you know what’s strange about their faces?” she said.

“No.”

“They’re all quite symmetrical.”

Hanna said irritably, “Of course they are. If they only had one eye, maybe we wouldn’t call them humanoids.”

“No, I don’t mean that. It’s what makes them look nonhuman, actually. I mean their faces are perfectly regular. One side’s a mirror image of the other.”

Hanna looked at the Konans, rapt in saying repeatedly, “Why did they cease to be? It cannot be understood.” She saw that Alissin was right. All the faces were as regular as that of a classical statue; it made them look curiously immobile. She thought, Even in little things they are perfect. Not so much as a quirked eyebrow among them. Alissin said, “Biological engineering at some stage, perhaps.”

That day, Hanna gathered that some of the prewar team had died trying to follow the Konans up the mountains (which had bewildered and distressed the Konans a good deal), but that some had died in even more distressing—but unspecified—circumstances. Yes, they said repeatedly, they themselves, these people now talking, had seen and spoken with members of the prewar team—“they who looked and talked like you.” And at that, some of the Konans began to run their fingers up and down their forearms, in a quick tattoo, and the chant became “Like you, like you, little and short and quick like you.” By the end of the day, Hanna’s stomach was aching with tension.

She said to Alissin as they tramped back, “You don’t remember ever reading about people—I think they’re legendary, and I have a feeling it’s old British—who outlived their towns, and lived on for centuries as spirits among overgrown heaps of rubble?”

Alissin said, “Not my field, but you wouldn’t be thinking of the Danaans, would you? Irish? I had a really old micro of Irish legends when I was a kid.”

Hanna nodded slowly. “That would be it. Remind you of anything?”

Alissin indicated the Konans with her chin.

“They were immortal too.”

Alissin said flatly, “Only an analogy.”

When they got back to the shuttle they found Jon holding forth on the Dixon-Ehrmann method as if it were the key to an eternal paradise.

On the fourth day Hanna raised the problem of a report. As she pointed out, they were halfway through their first week on Kona, and the preliminary report on an eight point five priority planet would be expected very shortly after that.

Gerold said shortly, “We can’t file one. Haven’t had any opportunity to move around, so the data’s too limited.”

“That’s silly. We have to put in a report,” said Biren.

Alissin said, “I did once hear of a team that didn’t. They got all their leave cancelled, and were told to get one out double quick. Then they didn’t manage that either.”

“What happened to them?” asked Jon, not quite carelessly.

“Oh, they just got told to go back and try again. Well, it was a hell of a planet, and they couldn’t communicate with the locals, and there were all sorts of funny things wrong with the balance of the elements. So they flipped on and off it every month for three years before they finished.”

There was complete silence in the shuttle. Alissin added apologetically, “It was meant to be a funny story, but it was quite true. I looked up the reports on it.”

Everyone looked studiously at the floor. Finally Gerold said, “All right then, we’ll put out a report that it’s a suitable planet as far as we know.”

His words tripped and fell miserably into the general stillness. Hanna and Alissin looked at each other. Both shook their heads, infinitesimally. Gerold said loudly, “All agreed on that?”

Jon said, “Do we all have to write a section as usual?”

“Well, if you think I’m going to use my best forged identiprint just for you—”

“Of course we’ll have to put in a caution about the temperature and so on,” said Erring hastily.

“And what do you mean by ‘and so on’?”

“Well, I do think—”

“Wonderful! What else can you do?”

Hanna said, “You may as well stop squabbling. I won’t contribute to any report like that one, or have my identiprint on it. Alissin, will you—?”

“No, I won’t either.”

Gerold hesitated, decided visibly on bluff, and shouted, “Why not? Give me one good reason why not!”

Hanna felt suddenly detached and exhilarated by the need to speak the clear truth. “You’ve got a lot more than one reason. Look at us—we haven’t been here a week, and we’re all on razoredges, and you’re willing to send in a false report just to get off the place as quickly as you can. How would you feel if you were a colonist, stuck here for a lifetime? And we know the first survey ran into trouble, and we don’t yet know how, and we think we may be dealing with immortals, or at least incredibly long-lived and hardy people—”

“You’ve got no evidence for that—”

“What about the linguistic evidence? What evidence would you accept if you don’t accept that?”

“Any solid biological stuff—only I notice your tame biologist hasn’t produced any yet, trying to make us believe these local bastards are some kind of spirit, don’t need any source of energy, anything to eat—”

Alissin started to speak, but Hanna, her detachment submerged in anger, was too intent on answering to let her into the interchange. “We haven’t had time to make the necessary communications to carry out biological tests on the Konans and that itself backs up the linguistic evidence for longevity—”

“That's a lie—”

“It’s damn good evidence at the very least—”

“In your mind, perhaps—”

“And yours—”

Suddenly the whole cabinful seemed to be shouting, dividing to take sides for and against Hanna. She shouted above the noise, “And you can’t accept it—’’

Gerold looked round for something to throw, found a pile of Alissin’s plastiglas slides, and hurled them straight at Hanna’s face. Hanna ducked, and the slides clattered sharply down the wall in the sudden silence.

Hanna said, “Not to be overdramatic, but do you see what I mean about unusual degrees of tension?”

Gerold said stiffly, “No, I do not.”

“Anyway,” said Alissin, “there’s the food problem. I haven’t found any grain or fruit crops here, and that means importing a lot, at least to start off with. And if Terra had enough resources to do that, we wouldn’t be racing around looking for ideal planets.”

“We can put any reasonable caution in the report. All I object to is this silly talk of immortal locals.”