Пол Андерсон - Orbit 1

[Godwin was reminded of the old saw about Columbus: he did not know where he was going and he did not know where he was when he got there. But at least Ferdinand and Isabella were still doing business at the same old stand when he finally made it home.]

Possibly this form of space drive can be refined and collimated. Such a task, however, would in itself take several centuries of real time for human beings. These animals, if it is true that Euclidean space is abstract and insensible to them, may never be able to make it manageable; hence we conclude that they may be hopelessly lost. We do not believe that we have conveyed these conclusions to the Leloc. If Mager is to be credited, they are triumphantly aware that they have returned “unerringly” to the planet they colonized, and their principal concern appears to be to determine what we have done with — or to — the colony. The notion that eons of time may have elapsed since then has not been grasped by them as of this writing.

LIAISON

Leloc — VI—84:049: Signs and Symbols

. . and requires the closest measurement of the underlying (and usually only assumed) network, which for the most part we have been unable to make. In addition, Biology reports that…

[Godwin nervously touched the dial.]. . geometry. Their behavior in conference is that of a people with a sense of property so fundamental that it can hardly be distinguished from religion. Even the space occupied by a Leloc is his until he vacates it, and if a new person enters a spacio-social situation, etiquette requires that that situation be relieved of one prior occupant of approximately the same physical bulk and social authority. In ordinary social situations among the Leloc, this yielding of space is symbolized by stylized gestures with the animals’ tails, but in diplomacy it must be acted out by real exits and entrances. .

. . unable to say whether these are functional diagrams or works of art. Several members of our group believe that the Leloc use color as a code for motion; the Art subsection denies that this is possible, but Physics (see II = 44) considers it extremely important. The supposition that a species so acutely sensitive to color as to be able to detect differences in terms of Angstrom units would be seeing “in depth,” so that for them the sky is truly filled with stars, and color is equivalent to motion, implies a kind of relativistic physics very early in their development — and may also mean that they never have developed Newtonian physics at all. It is therefore quite possible that these are both functional diagrams and works of art at one and the same time. Any assumptions as to the existence or nature of an esthetic sense must wait upon semantic progress, which may be long delayed. The gesture language is overtly easier to read, but its conventions…

. . They would particularly like to know how we have altered the gridwork and landscaping of their colony in so short a time. Mager says they are not so much accusatory as admiring, and they seem to think that such an act must have symbolic function. There is not a shred of evidence for this.

. . interesting to note one of the earliest references in the literature, from the annals of Captain Cook’s first voyage of discovery, at Endeavour River, dated July 14, 1770: “Mr Gore, who went out this day with his gun, had the good fortune to kill one of the animals which had been so much the subject of our speculation, . and which is called by the natives Kanguroo.”

Godwin’s hand hovered over the next and repeat keys indecisively as the words lingered on the screen. An image formed in his mind of Mr. Gore stalking his “kanguroo,” and it looked remarkably like Tulliver Harms about to pull the trigger. He switched off the machine. “All right,” said Godwin briskly. “How soon can they lift ship?”

“Lift?” Agnes raised her eyebrows. “They won’t lift ship. Not for me, anyhow. What about this removal threat, Wys? Mager didn’t tell me much, and I put him right back to work, directly with the Leloc, since they are still receptive to him.”

“The threat is serious, Agnes. What do you mean, they ‘won’t’ lift ship? You have been warned-and-advised to move your camp out of range of the ‘extreme force’ Harms plans to use against the aliens at seventeen hundred hours tomorrow.”

“Impossible,” she said flatly. “Wasn’t he in your confidence when you okayed our whites for the last two weeks — the planned expedition to Australia, the—”

“I okayed your whites?” he repeated, astounded. “I haven’t seen any of this material before. There is only one white in the packet. I have just plowed my way through nothing but blues!”

A little quiver ran through both of them. They knew simultaneously who had forged Wystan Godwin’s signature on the Liaison whites, and they made an accurate assessment of why he had been playing for time.

“Caught in the act — tampering with a Liaison packet,” said Godwin. “It will destroy him.”

“Not unless we can bring him to trial, it won’t. In the meantime, the important thing is that he apparently plans to use explosives on the Leloc ship — and us. What were you doing all this time while he was presumably ordering up every bomb on the entire Seaboard?”

“I had no estimate of this situation at all — I was simply waiting for orders, information—”

He took a firm grip on himself. If Harms had not prevented his coming out to the camp, the Exec’s intention must be to kill off the one witness whose word counted for as much as his own, in the event the Liaison people failed to remove themselves in time. Now that Harms had screwed himself up to making the threat, he was probably hoping they would not move. In that case, —

“Agnes, I think he isn’t sane. He had admitted planning violence against living creatures. Obviously, he expects to be brought to trial for it, or he wouldn’t have stolen what he considers damning information out of the packet.” Godwin shook his head. It was still the breach of protocol that disturbed his sense of the way things should be, more than the imminent violence. “Therefore, he’s still operating within a distorted view of the Pax Magna even while he plans to commit — murder. Now that I am here, we outnumber him. Two Agents outrank one Exec.” He winced. “I never expected to use numbers to settle a dispute.”

“It’s been done,” said Agnes thoughtfully. “Twice, in extreme situations, since the Pax. But, Wys, how?”

“Send a runner. No, first we contact the Nine Old Men and put the order on the record, and then we order Harms to come out here for a parley with the Leloc. Furthermore, we order him to come with an evidence of good faith.”

“They have had us completely cut off from the outside world from the third day after we set up our camp. We haven’t been able to get a message out, much less a messenger. They don’t interfere with us otherwise. But we can’t contact the judiciary branch.”

“We will lie,” he said calmly, enjoying her gasp of surprise. “We will say that you established contact with the Nine Old Men on day one, feeling that alien diplomacy might go beyond the requirements of Pax Magna. Now, in spite of his rages and his xenophobia, he seems to respect the law sufficiently to take account of it in his planning. I think he may accede.” At Agnes’ troubled look, he added, “And in the event that he doesn’t, is there any way we can convey all the facts to the… the Leloc here?”

“No, yes… I don’t know,” she replied distractedly. “Mager!” She beckoned to the civ, adding, “Actually, he is the only one of us who can talk to them at all, on anyone’s behalf. I believe he is the greatest puzzler who ever lived, but it’s all intuitive lightness. My crew of certified experts has been fighting him all the way.”