“Does it matter?” Martin asked.
“It matters,” Beth replied. “If there were two groups of hunters and burrowers who are used to trapping their prey in this fashion, the chances are significantly greater that we are dealing with another specialized form of predator. But if it was the same beings responsible for both attacks, they may have thought that our robot had not been able to defend itself against the predator and they may have diverted and destroyed the creature to save the lander from a similar fate. So it matters whether our friends were being guided by a highly evolved instinct pattern, or intelligence and, possibly, friendship.”
Martin was silent for a moment, then he said apologetically, “I should have thought of that. But suppose our friends, realizing that the predator had wrecked our other vehicle, wanted to protect the lander so that they would have an undamaged machine to take apart?”
“That would mean,” Beth replied worriedly, “that they were intelligent but not very friendly.”
“Maybe we are misreading the indications,” he said, switching sides in the argument. “Could there be a geological reason for the sudden appearance of those pits which…”
He broke off. Beth’s disagreement was silent, but plainly evident.
“All right then,” he went on. “We haven’t seen these creatures or found any trace of their existence. We have no idea how they live except that it is underground. The reason why they don’t show themselves is possibly because they are at a disadvantage on the surface. This suggests a small life form, a species of burrower which acts in concert to dismantle large predators and sophisticated robots alike. The latter capability suggests the possession of advanced technology, power sources and communications systems, none of which we have been able to detect. It is impossible to hide the radiation signature of a technologically advanced civilization unless they are hiding deliberately.”
“Deliberately!” Beth said, and laughed. “Living underground as they do, their communication system could be very basic, simply modulated sonics transmitted through a solid medium. When we land the probe I’ll have the answer to that one.”
“Caution where strangers are concerned,” Martin went on, feeling the hair at the back of his neck begin to prickle, “is also a sign of intelligence. The silence down there is complete, and the sound prints of indigenous life forms are already known to them, so that it would be easy to detect the presence of strangers.
“But they were hiding from us,” he ended quietly, “while we were still in space.”
For a long time Beth stared at the pastoral beauty which was pictured on the main screen, then she said, “I think it’s time we reviewed this whole assignment.”
Chapter 13
“SOME vacation!” Beth said when the data had been reviewed. Her tone was one of angry disbelief. “If you remember,” Martin said, trying to be objective, “the supervisor did not actually lie to us when we were assigned Teldi. It did not tell, because it did not know, the whole truth. Maybe it knows even less of the truth this time. Run the searchship data again, please?”
The third and only life bearing planet of a gee-type sun, the world had a near-perfect circular orbit, no axial tilt, no major topological features or temperature variations, all of which explained the absence of seasonal changes and the undramatic weather. The world had a predisposition toward silence and, Martin knew, the ability to hunt or graze quietly would be an important survival characteristic among its fauna. A species which could burrow underground and trap and smother their prey, regardless of size, would have a considerable advantage over the surface dwellers and might well have become the dominant, and intelligent, life form.
‘The searchship carried out the usual surface scan,” Martin said as the material was being presented. “They were looking for surface buildings, sea or airborne craft, power installations and radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum. They soft-landed probes to collect animal and vegetable specimens, then moved on to the next system on their list. The probes were not attacked while they were on the ground, so there was no way of knowing that intelligent subsurface life was present.”
“Possible intelligent subsurface life,” Beth said, stressing the first word. “Your conclusion is based on the fact that a robot protector was dismantled without causing its power cell to explode. But remember, our equipment is designed to cause minimum damage and pollution if a curious native tries to take something apart. It is more likely, although much less exciting to think about, that they are nonintelligent creatures with the magpie instinct, and that they were very lucky that the power cell did not blow up in their faces.
“Besides,” she added, “if they’re capable of taking apart a completely alien, to them, mechanism like the protector with safety, they would have to be very highly advanced scientifically, and the associated technology would leave a large and unmistakable radiation signature. There was no such signature.”
‘They were hiding it,” Martin said.
“From the searchship and now from us?” Beth asked quietly. “Aren’t you becoming a trifle paranoid about this?”
As the hypership captain providing technical and moral support to his first-contact specialty, she often took the devil’s advocate position in an argument in order to clarify the situation for both of them.
“People usually hide because they are afraid,” Martin said thoughtfully. “As yet we don’t know why they are afraid. Maybe they had a very bad experience in the past as a result of a visitation from space. The searchship did not land and its investigations were carried out by long-range sensors and probes, which did little more than flatten a few square inches of grass. But there is no sign of the chemical and radioactive pollutants associated with a crash landing by a visiting ship, or other catastrophic malfunction which would have caused widespread damage or loss of life among the natives.
“Maybe they are simple xenophobes,” he went on, “who are afraid of all strangers. I still think they are small, weak or have some other obvious disadvantage which would…”
“It isn’t obvious to me,” Beth said. “Look at what they did to our robot.”
“If we saw one of them it might be,” Martin replied. “I’m still convinced that they are intelligent, technologically advanced, and afraid; that is a tricky combination to deal with.”
Beth was still regarding the data on the main screen as she said, “Suppose these as yet hypothetical people are hiding without realizing that they are hiding. They may be an omnivorous vegetable life form with a fast- growing, controllable system of roots capable of breaking up the soil under their prey and trapping…”
“And they had a sudden and urgent requirement,” Martin broke in, “for mineral trace elements used in the metal of the protector?”
“It’s a possibility,” Beth said lamely.
“I prefer the idea of acute xenophobia,” Martin replied. ‘That presupposes them having a knowledge of off- planet intelligent life, and methods of detecting the approach of such life from a great distance, and of concealing the detection system along with all the other traces of themselves. They must have something very important to hide, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh, come, now,” Beth said, swinging round to face him. “Surety a species with that capability would not want to hide, it would have more than enough technological muscle to defend itself.”
“A good point,” Martin said. “But suppose they can detect our ships only after they leave hyper space, that would reduce the level of their technology by a few notches. And remember, a searchship doesn’t start a planetary scan until it has taken up orbit, so there are several hours between emergence and close approach. Our friends would have time to power down then- equipment and play possum.”
“Switch off their entire civilization, you mean?” Beth said incredulously. ‘They would have to maintain some land of communication channel, which we could detect, otherwise how would they know when we left their system if everything was switched off?”
“A receiver is very hard to detect compared with a transmitter,” Martin said, “so they might know when we left without having to reveal themselves. And their internal communications, if they use sound conducted through subsurface rock strata with relays and boosters for the long-range traffic, would not be detectable from space.
“And I don’t think they switch off everything everywhere,” he went on. “Just in the areas we are likely to notice. On the hemisphere we cannot see, it may be business as usual.
“The problem,” he added, ‘Will be tricking them into showing themselves.”
