century without one. And without being able to chart or predict them, there's no way we can get close enough to the surface to learn any more than we already know.” “I suppose we could just orbit the damned thing for a few weeks, and then return and tell them we
couldn't hack it,” said Nelson.
“And forfeit two million bucks?” demanded Bowman. “I'd say the cards are stacked against us, Milt,” said Nelson. “Item: The gravity is too heavy for us to land. Item: The air is both unbreathable and radioactive. Item: Even if a Pioneer-type ship could land, it would melt before it could take off again. Item: No permanent base could be set up, even if we solved all those problems, because the planet's temperature is going to double in another ten years. Item: If none of the preceding items were enough to dissuade us, we still don't know when an explosion will come along and blow us straight to hell and back. Item—” “Well, they never said it was going to be easy,” said Bowman with a smile. Three days later the smile was long gone and forgotten. The ship's sensing devices had logged 129 more explosions, and the computer had verified that all were totally spontaneous and patternless. “And if that isn't enough,” said Bowman, checking the readout, “it looks as if the planet is getting smaller by the minute. Not enough so you'd notice it, but enough so it will finally blow itself to pieces in another four or five thousand years.”
“Well, what next?” asked Nelson.
“I'm running out of ideas,” said Bowman. “I was up all night with the computer. According to our mechanical comrade, all we have to do is get a superstrong mining ship and develop immunities to heat, radiation, and things that go bang in the night.” A week later things weren't appreciably better. The two Pioneers had shot a dozen probes into the planet; one had been demolished in an explosion within minutes, and the others were deactivated by heat and radiation shortly thereafter. They had sent a mechanical drone out to take a sample of the upper layer of the atmosphere, and the gravity had pulled it to the planet's surface, destroying it before it could feed its findings into the computer. They had tightened their orbit, and had barely escaped with their lives. They had shot two nuclear devices into the planet's stratosphere and exploded them, with no noticeable effect in either creating or alleviating the natural explosions. And they had played 3,407 hands of blackjack, also without producing any solution to their problem. “You know,” said Bowman, “a person could go absolutely nuts trying to crack this planet. How the hell do you take a world that's having nuclear fits and turn it into a nice place to visit? Well, back to the drawing board,” he finished, turning to the computer. The drawing board was no help. There were simply no analogous situations stored within its memory banks.
“We could tie in with the Master Computer on Deluros VIII,” suggested Nelson. “It might know something that our baby is overlooking.” “Sure,” said Bowman sarcastically. “And pay out a million-dollar fee for the privilege. Hell, I'd sooner forfeit the contract. I hooked in once when I was a novice and spent my next five contracts paying it off.” “Then what do you suggest?”
“I don't know. We'll just keep trying. Sooner or later we've got to learn something about this goddamn
planet.”
Bowman was right. They did learn something, two days later. The Pioneers had sent off their last dozen probes with very little hope of any results, but one of them remained functional long enough to report the presence of life on or beneath the surface. “That's crazy!” said Bowman. “What in hell could possibly be living down there?'’ “We're not going to know until we can get our hands on some more probes,” said Nelson. “We've got to find some way to make contact with them,” said Bowman. “They're the only way we're ever going to beat this dizzy world. You know all that bitching I did about the Master Computer a few days ago?”
Nelson nodded.
“Forget it,” said Bowman. “This time I think we're going to need it.” Nelson offered no objection, and a few hours later their ship's computer was tied in. It fed the Master Computer every piece of data available about the planet and waited far the gigantic machine to hypothesize the makeup of the inhabitants. Its conclusion was less than comforting. “According to the Big Brain,” said Bowman, checking the readout, “the little bastards feed on energy. Which figures, I suppose; I don't know what the hell else they could feed on. But it also means that they're not going to bend over backwards to help us siphon it away from the planet.” He paused. “As long as we're still tied in, and in hock for half the contract, we might as well see what it says about landing our miners on the surface.”
It said
“Well, I'll be damned!” said Bowman as he looked at the readout. “What does it say?” asked Nelson.
“It says, in effect, that since we can't bring Mohammed to the mountain, our alternative is to bring the mountain to Mohammed.”
“Translated from the Biblical, what does that mean?” “It means that instead of trying to land men on Bowman 29, we can funnel off the energy into a force field and send it across the galaxy.”
“Do you know anything about force fields?” asked Nelson. “No,” said Bowman. “Do you?”
“Nope.”
“I'll bet the Big Brain does, though,” said Bowman disgustedly. “There goes our other million. There's more to this computer business than meets the eye.” “While you're at it,” said Nelson, “you'd better ask it how to chart the field as it travels through space. We don't want any ships running into it, and we don't want it to collide with any stars or planets on way. And you might also have the Big Brain figure out just how we're supposed to tap and utilize all this energy once it gets where it's going.”
“Let the Republic pay for that last answer,” said Bowman. “Before you tie in again, Milt,” said Nelson, “we've got a little ethical problem that we're going to have to solve first.”
“You mean the energy- eaters?”
Nelson nodded. “They'll starve, you know.” “Not right away,” said Bowman.
“I didn't know slow starvation was any better than fast starvation,” said Nelson. “It's not,” said Bowman. “But there's the other side of the coin to consider.” “Our money?”
“That, too,” agreed Bowman. “But I was thinking of the life expectancy of the race. After all, at the rate it's blowing itself up, the planet can't last another five thousand years before there's nothing left of it. And these creatures aren't ever going to migrate to anywhere else. Hell, there
“How about a star?”
“Not a chance. Any star the size of Zeta Cancri would sizzle them before they got close, and even if it didn't, it's still a totally different environment. Besides, they're never going to come upon space travel. The only fuel they've got is their food, and as long as they've got food, why leave?” “Because you're not the only guy in the galaxy who knows the planet's dying.” “Maybe,” said Bowman. “But we're presupposing that they're intelligent. I think it's far more likely that they're not.”
“Why?”
“Because this is obviously a young planet. It's going to die in its adolescence, so to speak. That's barely enough time to develop life of any sort, let alone intelligent life. Besides, no creature could adapt so greatly that it can become an energy-eater if it was something else to begin with. And, assuming that these beings have always eaten energy, why should they have developed intelligence? There was no environmental need for it.”
“Not so,” said Nelson. “The probe said they're living underground. They may have had to develop
intelligence to keep one step ahead of the explosions.” “The probe said they were on
“The hell there isn't. You've seen the explosions, Milt. Nothing could survive those.” “If they've evolved anything,” said Bowman, “it's probably an instinctive awareness of what areas to avoid at what times.”
“Maybe,” said Nelson. “But it sounds like so much rationalizing to me.” Bowman
