The Gentle Giants of Ganymede

long, now somehow sorrowful, Ganymean faces, as if their very bones were being touched by a wail that came from the beginning of time.

It took a while for the aliens to become communicative again. The Earthmen, noting that the Ganymean expectations had been based on a knowledge of the Solar System that belonged to the distant past, concluded that they must after all, as had been suspected for some time, have migrated to another star. Very probably then, their sudden reappearance represented a sentimental journey to the place where their kind had originated millions of years before and which none of them had ever seen except, perhaps, as carefully preserved records that had been handed down for longer than could be remembered. Small wonder they were dismayed at what they had come so far to find.

But when the Earthmen introduced the notion that the Ganymeans had journeyed from another star, and sought an indication of its position, they were greeted with what appeared to be a firm denial. The aliens seemed to be trying to tell them that their journey had begun long ago from Minerva itself, which of course was ridiculous. By this time, however, Storrel had got himself into a hopeless grammatical tangle and the whole subject was dismissed as the result of a short-term communications problem. No doubt it would be resolved later, when the linguistic skills of the interpreter had improved.

The Ganymean interpreter had spotted the implied connection between 'Earth' and 'Earthmen,' and returned to the subject to obtain confirmation that the beings he was talking to had indeed come from the third planet from the Sun. The Ganymeans visible on the screen appeared very agitated when informed that this was correct, and they went off into a lengthy exchange of remarks among themselves which were not audible on radio. Why that revelation should cause such a reaction was not explained. The question was not asked.

The aliens concluded by indicating that they had been voyaging for a great length of time and had endured much illness and many deaths among their numbers. They were short of supplies, their equipment was in poor condition with much of it unserviceable, and they were all suffering from total physical, mental, emotional and spiritual exhaustion. They gave the impression that only the thought of returning to their home had given them the will to carry on against impossible difficulties; now that hope had been shattered, they were at their end.

Leaving Storrel to continue talking to the aliens, Shannon moved away from the screen and beckoned some of the others, including the two scientists, to gather round for a short, impromptu conference.

'I #146;m going to send a party across to their ship,' he informed them in a lowered voice. 'They need help over there and I guess we #146;re the only ones around here that can give it. I #146;ll recall Storrel from the bay and have him lead it; he seems to be getting along fine with them.' Then he glanced at Hayter. 'Captain, make ready a bus for immediate flight. Detail ten men to go with Storrel, including at least three officers. I #146;d like everybody in the party to be assembled for a briefing in the lock antechamber to whichever bus can leave soonest, let #146;s say. . . thirty minutes from now. Everyone to be fully supplied, of course.'

'Right away,' Hayter acknowledged.

'Any other points from anybody?' Shannon asked the assembly.

'Do you want sidearms issued,' one of the officers inquired.

'No. Anything else?'

'Just one thing.' The speaker was Hunt. 'A request. I #146;d like to go too.' Shannon looked at him and hesitated, as if the question, had taken him by surprise. 'I was sent here specifically to investigate the Ganymeans. That #146;s my official assignment. What better way could there be of helping me do it?'

'Well, I really don #146;t know.' Shannon screwed up his face and scratched the back of his head as he sought for possible objections. 'There #146;s no reason why not, I suppose. Yeah #151;I guess that #146;d be okay.' He turned to Danchekker. 'How about you, Professor?'

Danchekker held up his hands in protest. 'You are most kind to offer, but thank you, no. I #146;m afraid I #146;ve already had quite enough excitement for one day. And besides that, it has taken me more than a year to feel safe inside this contraption. What an alien one must be like, I dread to think.'

Hayter grinned and shook his head, but said nothing.

'Fine then.' Shannon cast his gaze around one more time to invite further comments. 'That #146;s it. Let #146;s get back to our man out front.' He walked back to the screen and drew toward him the microphone that connected him with Storrel. 'How #146;s it going down there, Gordon?'

'Okay. I #146;m teaching them to count.'

'Good. But get one of the others to take over, would you? We #146;re sending you out on a little trip. Captain Hayter will provide the details in a second. You #146;re going to be an ambassador for Earth.'

'What do they pay one of those?'

'Give us time, Gordon. We #146;re still working on the matter.' Shannon smiled. It was the first time he had felt relaxed for what seemed like a very long while.

Chapter Six

The bus #151;a small personnel carrier normally used for ferrying passengers between satellites or orbiting spacecraft #151;was drawing near to the Ganymean ship. From where he was sitting, squeezed between the bulky shapes of two other spacesuited figures on one of the benches that ran along the sides of the cabin, Hunt could see the ship closing in toward them on the small viewscreen set into the end wall.

From close range, the impression of age and wear was even more vivid than it had been previously. The patterns of discoloration covering the ship from nose to tail, not fully resolved from J5 even under quite high magnification, were now distinct and in places suggested camouflage patterns reminiscent of movies. The outer skin was peppered irregularly with round holes of various sizes, none of them very large, each of which was surrounded by a raised rim of rounded grayish metal and looked like a miniature Lunar crater; it was as if the ship had been bombarded by thousands of tiny particles moving at enormous speed #151;sufficient to puncture the skin and dissipate enough energy to melt the surrounding material. Either the ship had traveled an enormous distance, Hunt told himself, or there were conditions outside the Solar System that UNSA had yet to encounter.

A rectangular aperture, easily large enough to admit the bus, had opened in the side of the Shapieron , as they now knew the Ganymean ship to be called. A soft orange glow illuminated the inside and a white beacon flashed near the center of one of the longer sides.

As the bus turned gently to home in on it, the pilot #146;s voice came over the intercom. 'Hold on to your seats back there. We #146;re going in without any docking radar so it #146;s gonna have to be a purely visual approach. Leave all helmets in their racks until after touchdown.'

With its maneuvering jets nudging delicately, the bus inched its way through the opening. Inside the bay a bulbous craft with a blue-black sheen was secured against the inner bulkhead, taking up most of the available space. Two large and sturdy-looking platforms, constructed perpendicular to the main axis of the ship, projected into the volume that remained; a pair of silver eggs lay side by side on one of them but the other was clear except for a beacon that had been positioned well over to one side to allow ample unobstructed landing space. The bus lined itself up, moved in to hover ten feet or so above the platform, eased itself gingerly downward and came to rest.

Hunt knew immediately that there was something strange about the situation but it took him a few seconds to realize just what it was. There were puzzled expressions on a couple of the faces around him too.

The seat was pressing up against him. He was experiencing an approximately normal weight, but he had seen no evidence of any mechanism whereby such an effect could have been achieved. Jupiter Five had sections that simulated normal gravity by means of continual rotation, although some parts of the ship were designated zero-G areas for special purposes. Instruments that needed to be trained on fixed objects, for example the camera that had been holding the Shapieron for the previous few hours, were mounted on projecting booms which could be counterrotated to compensate #151;similar in principle to ground-based astronomic telescopes. But the view of the Ganymean ship presented on the screens back at J5 had given no suggestion that the vessel, or any part of it, was rotating. Furthermore, as the bus had positioned itself for its final approach into the landing bay, thus maintaining a fixed position relative to the door, the background stars had been stationary; this meant that the pilot had not been obliged to