The Only Neat Thing to Do

tanks! Such tanks must belong to a DRS, a depot resupply ship. Boney and Ko must have left them in orbit before they landed. And they wouldn't fail to pick them up when they left; that means the men are here. Oh, good. That'll give her the enthusiasm to sit out a long, boring search.

She tunes up every sensor on CC-One and starts the pattern while she's still, really, too far out. This is going to be a long chore, unless some really wild luck strikes.

And luck does strike! On her second figure eight orbit, she sees an immense blackened swath just south of the northern ice cap. A burn. Can it have been caused by lightning, or volcanism? Or even a natural meterorite?

No… on the next pass she can see a central line of scorch, growing as it leads north, with a perceptible zigzag such as no incoming natural object could make. She clicks on the recorder and whispering reports the burn and the tanks in orbit.

On the third pass she's sure. There's a gleam at the north end of the burn scar.

'Oh, the poor men! They must have been sick; they had to correct course with rockets… Syl! Syllobene! Are you awake?'

'Uh — hello?' her voice mumbles. Funny to hear herself sounding sleepy.

'Look, you have to do something about our throat so I can report. I think I've found the men.'

'Oh. Yes. Wait… I fear I need nourishment…'

'Go right ahead. Be my guest.'

For an instant Coati pictures Syl sipping blood, like a vampire; but no, Syl is too small. It'll be more like the little being snagging a red blood corpuscle or two as they rush by. Weird. Coati doesn't feel the least bit nervous about this. Syl had said she's increased the blood flow overall. And in fact Coati herself feels great, very alert and well. They would make wonderful healers, she thinks.

The gleam at the end of the burn is definitely a ship; the scope shows her a big Federation supply tug. Her calls on Fed frequencies bring no response. She kills the search pattern and prepares to land on antigrav. The plain beside the strange ship looks good. But maybe there was another reason for their use of torches, she thinks; those two men were super-experienced planetary pilots. Maybe this place has weird mascons or something that had to be corrected for? She'd better keep alert, and be ready to torch if she finds her course going unsteady.

When she calls the supply ship again, her voice is back and her throat suddenly feels great.

'Hey, thanks Syl.'

'Coati, why are we landing?'

'The Humans you left are down somewhere on the planet. They were never heard of after you left them; they're officially missing. That means, everybody search. Now I've found their ship, but they don't answer. I have to land and find out what's happening to them. So you'll get to see a strange planet.'

The news doesn't seem to cheer her little passenger, who only repeats, 'We must land?'

'Oh, yes. Among other things, they may need help.'

'Help…. ' Syllobene's voice repeats, with an odd,

almost bitter inflection.

But Coati is too busy to brood over this. 'What condition were they in when you left them, Syl?'

'Oh….' her throat sighs. 'I do not know your race well enough to tell what is normal. They were speaking of going to cold-sleep when I withdrew and left them. I was trying to hurry because I understood that the message device would soon be sent out. As I said, it's a slow process. As soon as I was dependent on my Eea senses, the men were too large to perceive — for example, I could no longer discern the sound waves of their voices.'

Coati thinks this over as she gentles the ship down through thick atmosphere. Her ablation shielding isn't all that good.

'Syl, you have just as much technology in your way as we do. Imagine going back and forth from the molecular to the molar scales!'

'Yes. It is a big learning. Very frightening the first time, when we're taught to visit.'

'You said there were other Eea in Boney and Ko?'

'Yes… but I couldn't establish good contact, and they controlled everything. That's why I slipped away, when I understood about the message device.'

Coati grins. 'I can understand that, Syl. But you took an awful chance.'

She feels the elfin hands nod her head emphatically. 'You are my savior.'

'Oh, well. I didn't know it. But if I had known it, I would have got you off there, Syllobene. I couldn't have let you die in space.'

A feeling of indefinable warmth and real happiness glows within her. Coati understands. There is genuine friendship between her and her tiny alien passenger.

The recorder has been clicking away as they talked. But of course it won't show her feelings. Pity.

'Just for the record,' she says formally, 'I have, uh, subjective reasons to believe that this alien has sincere feelings of friendship of me. I mean for me, not just as a convenience. I think that's important. I feel the same toward Syl.'

It's time to set CC-One down. With all care, Coati jockeys her little ship in above the big supply tug and comes down neatly beside it. Nothing untoward shows up. That must mean that Boney and/or Ko were really in wobbly condition when they came in.

The atmosphere tests out green, but still she suits up for her first trip out. As her ports open, she gets her first good look at the DRS.

'Their ramp's down,' she tells the 'corder. 'And, hey, the port's ajar! Not good. I'm going in… Hello! Hello in there! …Oh!'

Her voice breaks off. Sounds of footsteps, squeaks of ports being pulled.

'Oh, my. What a mess. There were gloves on the ramp — and the inside looks like they didn't clean anything up for a long time. I see food dishes and cassettes and a suit — wait, two suits — in a heap on the deck, as if they'd just jumped out of them. Oh, dear, this looks like trouble… I think somebody threw up here. …There're a lot of those goldy seeds around everywhere, too.'

She prowls the cabin, reporting as she checks the sleep chests and anyplace a man-sized body could be. Nothing. And the big cargo hold is empty, too, except for a carton of supplies bound somewhere.

She comes outside, saying, 'I think I should try to find them. The ground here is soft, like peat, with low vegetation or whatever, and lean see trampled places. There's one big place that looks like a trail leading' — she checks her bearings—'leading north, of all things. The atmosphere is highly Human-compatible, lots of oxy. I have my helmet off. So I'm going to try to follow their trail. But just in case I get into trouble, I think I better send this record off first. It has all about Syl's planet on it. Lords, I wish I could send it from the surface. I guess I'll have to lift above atmosphere. I'm taking some of their message pipes over to my ship. So here goes. It's the only neat thing to do.'

She sighs, clicks off, and gets back into her ship.

Preparing to lift off, she says, 'You're very quiet, Syllobene. Are you all right?'

'Oh, yes. But I am — I am afraid.'

'Afraid of what? Walking around on a strange planet? Listen, I do have a hand weapon in case we run into big, wild, vicious beasts. But I don't think there's anything like that around here. Nothing for a carnivore to eat.'

'No …I am not afraid of the planet. I fear …what you will find.'

Coati is maneuvering her ship up for a~fast single orbit and return. 'What do you mean, Syl?' she asks a trifle absently.

'Coati, my friend' — it sounds weird to hear her name in her own voice—'I wish to wait until you search. Perhaps I am wrong. I hope so.'

'Well-ll, green, if you must,' Coati is preoccupied with opening a message pipe. 'Oh, bother, there're some of those little yellow dust seeds in here. How do I clear them out? I don't want to kill them — you say they can live in space, like you — but I don't think they should get loose in FedBase, do you?'

'No! No!'

'Look, I'm sorry about your seeds. I just want to make them get out of this pipe. How do I do that?'

'Heat. High heat.'