Fred Saberhagen Golden People

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scattering of animate dots on the plain ahead. Under moderate magnification
these became deerlike creatures-another major interplanetary evolutionary
theme identified on Golden. As the scout drew closer the lenses showed that
the deer-like creatures had developed their own variation on the theme, in the
form of stretch-able necks. In a few minutes the scout passed directly over
the herd, gliding on the invisible force of its silent engines, still too high
for its presence to alarm the animals.
Adam continued to sweep the landscape below the scout, and the air around it,
with his instruments. He even scanned nearby birds suspiciously several times.
"I don't see any Field-generating superbeings."
"Maybe they've all dried up and blown away. Are you keeping one eye on the
Field, Junior? I have most of my attention on it."
"Ah, roger. I have one screen on radar."
But the Field only waited indifferently, whether they watched it or not. The
smooth cliff of it rising up around them on all sides, as motionless as stone.
Boris drove the scout steadily lower. Inside another hour they were circling
the Stem area just off the deck, dipping below hilltops and nearly brushing
trees with the bottom of the scout's nearly-spherical metal hull. Some of the
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flora below them stood fifteen meters tall and closely resembled the hardwood
trees of Earth.
As their altitude decreased, Boris slowed their speed as well. Now the
scoutship was moving not much faster than a man might run. Birds, singly and
in squawking flights, fluttered out of its path, their cries coming plainly
into the cabin through the outside microphones. On the ground an occasional
animal fled, or crouched snarling in the scoutship's moving shadow.
Brazil said: "Looks like a big trail over there, going down that ravine toward
the river."
"Animals only?"
"Maybe." Boris turned the scout, and drove it down the ravine, going lower and
slower than ever; and there was the little village, no more than a cluster of
teepees whose colors blended with the muddy earth. The themes of Galactic life
extended to humanity, on many worlds, and that the native humans on a planet
as Earthlike as this one should morphologically resemble their cousins from
Earth came as no real surprise.
But the native dwellers on Golden, or this sampling of them at least, were
less sophisticated. For a long second, naked humanoid figures stood about
their village in frozen poses, gaping up at the approaching scoutship, a
gigantic mass of bright metal drifting silently through thin air; then the
people below dropped fishnets and cooking pots and exploded into frenzied
motion.
"Wow-get all those cameras going!" Boris ordered as he turned the scout again,
taking it out over the river and there backing it slowly away from the
village. "We'll disappear for a while- starting a major panic isn't going to
do us any good."
And now the delayed voices from Alpha One began to gabble in the ears of the
two planeteers in the scout, urging them to turn viewscreens on this or that
detail in the fast-emptying village.
Joined by other scoutships carrying other planeteering teams, Colonel Brazil
and Spaceman Mann made one approach after another to the Stem area during the
next few days. There were interesting discoveries, but no truly surprising
ones, and none that appeared to have any direct connection with the Field. Nor
were there any observable changes in that mysterious phenomenon. Whatever
unknown powers there might be on Golden appeared to be still indifferent to
the presence of the explorers from Earth.
There arrived a morning when Colonel Boris Brazil, with Spaceman Adam Mann
aboard, launched early from Alpha One, and drove his scoutship down early into
the Field-free funnel leading to the planet's surface. On this flight the
Colonel circled the Stem area only once, to let the red sunrise at surface
level catch up with his measured descent. Then he drove toward a grassy hill
near the river, a spot that had been carefully selected on an earlier trip.
The scout sank gently; landing struts extended themselves to touch down in the
grass. The little ship settled quietly to rest on the hilltop.
The two men inside it examined the outside environment carefully, with eyes
and radar and infrared. Here and there life moved, in the grass, in the tall
reeds and bushes along the shore, and under the surface of the river.
Life moved, apparently going about its own business. Still nothing challenged
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their arrival.
"No reaction. Alpha One," said Brazil finally.
"Roger, proceed as briefed," said the delayed voice.
Brazil turned in his seat, and fixed Adam with what a stranger might have
interpreted as an angry stare. "Well, Junior, I need a body outside, to lure
these Field-formulating superbeings into my snare. Get your ass moving."
Adam unfastened himself from his chair and stood up, already wearing his
groundsuit. He gave his boss a half-smile through his faceplate and moved from
the control cabin to the final decontamination chamber, in which he stood with
his suited arms raised and legs spread, while poison gas and ultraviolet
sterilized the outside of his suit, a last step in the effort to protect
native life against possibly dangerous Earthly microorganisms.
Adam was going to be First Out. First Out, onthis planet, where Total
Investigation was a certainty. He had to remind himself that such an
assignment didn't necessarily mean that he was the best planeteer around.
Without argument, it meant he was expected to be one of the best.
A hatch opened in the seamless-looking hull near the base of the landed
scoutship, and a short ramp extended itself to the ground. A human figure, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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