Star Born Page 4

  4

  CIVILIZATION

  Raf surveyed the wide sweep of prairie where dawn gave a gray tinge tosoften the distance and mark the rounded billows of the ever-ripplinggrass. He tried to analyze what it was about this world which made itseem so untouched, so fresh and new. There were large sections of hisown Terra which had been abandoned after the Big Burn-Off and theatomic wars, or later after the counterrevolution which had defeatedthe empire of Pax, during which mankind had slipped far back on theroad to civilization. But he had never experienced this same feelingwhen he had ventured into those wildernesses. Almost he could believethat the records Hobart had showed him were false, that this world hadnever known intelligent life herding together in cities.

  He walked slowly down the ramp, drawing deep breaths of the crisp air.The day would grow warmer with the rising sun. But now it was just thesort of morning which led him to be glad he was alive--and young!Maybe part of it was because he was free of the ship and at last notjust excess baggage but a man with a definite job before him.

  Spacemen tended to be young. But until this moment Raf had never feltthe real careless freedom of youth. Now he was moved by a desire todisobey orders--to take the flitter up by himself and head off intothe blue of the brightening sky for more than just a test flight, notto explore Hobart's city but to cruise over the vast sea of grass andfind out its wonders for himself.

  But the discipline which had shaped him almost since birth sent himnow to check the flyer and wait, inwardly impatient, for Hobart,Lablet, and Soriki, the com-tech, to join him.

  The wait was not a long one since the three others, with equipmenthung about, tramped down the ramp as Raf settled himself behind thecontrol board of the flyer. He triggered the shield which snapped overthem for a windbreak and brought the flitter up into the spreadingcolor of the morning. Beside him Hobart pressed the button of theautomatic recorder, and in the seat behind, Soriki had the headset ofthe com clamped over his ears. They were not only making a record oftheir trip, they were continuing in constant communication with theship--now already a silver pencil far to the rear.

  It was some two hours later that they discovered what was perhaps onereason for the isolation of the district in which the _RS 10_ had setdown. Rolling foothills rose beneath them and miles ahead thewhite-capped peaks of a mountain range made a broken outline againstthe turquoise sky. The broken lands would be a formidable barrier forany foot travelers: there were no easy roads through that series ofsharp lifts and narrow valleys. And the one stream they followed for ashort space descended from the heights in spectacular falls. Twicethey skimmed thick growths of trees, so tightly packed that from theair they resembled a matted carpet of green-blue. And to cut throughsuch a forest would be an impossible task.

  The four in the flitter seldom spoke. Raf kept his attention on thecontrols. Sudden currents of air were tricky here, and he had to beconstantly alert to hold the small flyer on an even keel. His glimpsesof what lay below were only snatched ones.

  At last it was necessary to zoom far above the vegetation of the lowerslopes, to reach an altitude safe enough to clear the peaks ahead.Since the air supply within the windshield was constant they need notfear lack of oxygen. But Raf was privately convinced, as they soared,that the range might well compare in height with those Asian mountainswhich dominated all the upflung reaches of his native world.

  When they were over the sharp points of that chain disaster almostovertook them. A freakish air current caught the flitter as if in agiant hand, and Raf fought for control as they lost altitude past themargin of safety. Had he not allowed for just such a happening theymight have been smashed against one of the rock tips over which theyskimmed to a precarious safety. Raf, his mouth dry, his hands sweatingon the controls, took them up--higher than was necessary--to coastabove the last of that rocky spine to see below the beginning of thedownslopes leading to the plains the range cut in half. He heardHobart draw a hissing breath.

  "That was a close call." Lablet's precise, lecturer's voice cutthrough the drone of the motor.

  "Yeah," Soriki echoed, "looked like we might be sandwich meat therefor a while. The kid knows his stuff after all."

  Raf grinned a little sourly, but he did not answer that. He _ought_ toknow his trade. Why else would he be along? They were each specialistsin one or two fields. But he had good sense enough to keep his mouthshut. That way the less one had to regret minutes--or hours--later.

  The land on the south side of the mountains was different in characterto the wild northern plains.

  "Fields!"

  It did not require that identification from Lablet to point out whatthey had already seen. The section below was artificially divided intolong narrow strips. But the vegetation growing on those strips was nodifferent from the northern grass they had seen about the spacer.

  "Not cultivated now," the scientist amended his first report. "It'sreverting to grassland--"

  Raf brought the flitter closer to the ground so that when a domedstructure arose out of a tangle of overgrown shrubs and trees theywere not more than fifty feet above it. There was no sign of lifeabout the dwelling, if dwelling it was, and the unkempt straggle ofgrowing things suggested that it had been left to itself through morethan one season. Lablet wanted to set down and explore, but thecaptain was intent upon reaching the city. A solitary farm was oflittle value compared with what they might learn from a metropolis.So, rather to Raf's relief, he was ordered on.

  He could not have explained why he shrank from such investigation.Where earlier that morning he had wanted to take the flitter and gooff by himself to explore the world which seemed so bright and new,now he was glad that he was only the pilot of the flyer and that theothers were not only in his company but ready to make the decisions.He had a queer distaste for the countryside, a disinclination to landnear that dome.

  Beyond the first of the deserted farms they came to the highway and,since the buckled and half-buried roadway ran south, Hobart suggestedthat they use it as a visible guide. More isolated dome houses showedin the course of an hour. And their fields were easy to map from theair. But nowhere did the Terrans see any indication that those fieldswere in use. Nor were there any signs of animal or bird life. Theweird desolation of the landscape began to work its spell on the menin the flitter. There was something unnatural about the country, andwith every mile the flyer clocked off, Raf longed to be heading in theopposite direction.

  The domes drew closer together, made a cluster at crossroads, gatheredinto a town in which all the buildings were the same shape and size,like the cells of a wasp nest. Raf wondered if those who had builtthem had not been humanoid at all, but perhaps insects with a hivemind. And because that thought was unpleasant he resolutely turned hisattention to the machine he piloted.

  They passed over four such towns, all marking intersections of roadsrunning east and west, north and south, with precise exactness. Thesun was at noon or a little past that mark when Captain Hobart gavethe order to set down so that they could break out rations and eat.

  Raf brought the flitter down on the cracked surface of the road,mistrusting what might lie hidden in the field grass. They got out andwalked for a space along pavement which had once been smooth.

  "High-powered traffic--" That was Lablet. He had gone down on oneknee and was tracing a finger along the substance.

  "Straight--" Soriki squinted against the sun. "Nothing stopped them,did it? We want a road here and we'll get it! That sort of thing. Musthave been master engineers."

  To Raf the straight highways suggested something else. Masterengineering, certainly. But a ruthlessness too, as if the builders,who refused to accept any modifications of their original plans fromnature, might be as arrogant and self-assured in other ways. He didnot admire this relic of civilization; in fact it added to his vagueuneasiness.

  The land was so still, under the whisper of the wind. He discoveredthat he was listening--listening for the buzz of an insect, the squeakof some grass dweller, anything
which would mean that there was lifeabout them. As he chewed on the ration concentrate and drank sparinglyfrom his canteen, Raf continued to listen. Without result.

  Hobart and Lablet were engrossed in speculation about what might lieahead. Soriki had gone back to the flitter to make his report to theship. The pilot sat where he was, content to be forgotten, but eagerto see an animal peering at him from cover, a bird winging through theair.

  "--if we don't hit it by nightfall--But we can't be that far away!I'll stay out and try tomorrow." That was Hobart. And since he wascaptain what he said was probably what they would do. Raf shied awayfrom the thought of spending the night in this haunted land. Though,on the other hand, he would be utterly opposed to lifting the flitterover those mountains again except in broad daylight.

  But the problem did not arise, for they found their city in themidafternoon, the road bringing them straight to an amazing collectionof buildings, which appeared doubly alien to their eyes since it didnot include any of the low domes they had seen heretofore.

  Here were towers of needle slimness, solid blocks of almost windowlessmasonry looking twice as bulky beside those same towers, archwaysstringing at dizzy heights above the ground from one skyscraper to thenext. And here time and nature had been at work. Some of the towerswere broken off, a causeway displayed a gap--Once it had been abreathtaking feat of engineering, far more impressive than thehighway, now it was a slowly collapsing ruin.

  But before they had time to take it all in Soriki gave an exclamation."Something coming through on our wave band, sir!" He leaned forward todig fingers into Hobart's shoulder. "Message of some kind--I'd swearto it!"

  Hobart snapped into action. "Kurbi--set down--there!"

  His choice of a landing place was the flat top of a near-by building,one which stood a little apart from its neighbors and, as Raf couldsee, was not overlooked except by a ruined tower. He circled theflitter. The machine had been specially designed to land and take offin confined spaces, and he knew all there was possible to learn aboutits handling on his home world. But he had never tried to bring itdown on a roof, and he was very sure that now he had no margin forerror left him, not with Hobart breathing impatiently beside him, hishands moving as if, as a pilot of a spacer, he could well take overthe controls here.

  Raf circled twice, eyeing the surface of the roof in search of anybreak which could mean a crack-up at landing. And then, though herefused to be hurried by the urgency of the men with him, he came in,cutting speed, bringing them down with only a slight jar.

  Hobart twisted around to face Soriki. "Still getting it?"

  The other, cupping his earphones to his head with his hands, nodded."Give me a minute or two," he told them, "and I'll have a fix. They'reexcited about something--the way this jabber-jabber is comingthrough--"

  "About us," Raf thought. The ruined tower topped them to the south.And to the east and west there were buildings as high as the one theywere perched on. But the town he had seen as he maneuvered for alanding had held no signs of life. Around them were only signs ofdecay.

  Lablet got out of the flitter and walked to the edge of the roof,leaning against the parapet to focus his vision glasses on what laybelow. After a moment Raf followed his example.

  Silence and desolation, windows like the eye pits in bone-pickedskulls. There were even some small patches of vegetation rooted andgrowing in pockets erosion had carved in the walls. To the pilot'suninformed eyes the city looked wholly dead.

  "Got it!" Soriki's exultant cry brought them back to the flitter. Asif his body was the indicator, he had pivoted until his outstretchedhand pointed southwest. "About a quarter of a mile that way."

  They shielded their eyes against the westering sun. A block of solidmasonry loomed high in the sky, dwarfing not only the building theywere standing on but all the towers around it. Its imposing lines madeclear its one-time importance.

  "Palace," mused Lablet, "or capitol. I'd say it was just about theheart of the city."

  He dropped his glasses to swing on their cord, his eyes glistening ashe spoke directly to Raf.

  "Can you set us down on that?"

  The pilot measured the curving roof of the structure. A crazy foolmight try to make a landing there. But he was no crazy fool. "Not onthat roof!" he spoke with decision.

  To his relief the captain confirmed his verdict with a slow nod."Better find out more first." Hobart could be cautious when he wantedto. "Are they still broadcasting, Soriki?"

  The com-tech had stripped the earphones from his head and was rubbingone ear. "Are they!" he exploded. "I'd think you could hear them clearover there, sir!"

  And they could. The gabble-gabble which bore no resemblance to anylanguage Terra knew boiled out of the phones.

  "Someone's excited," Lablet commented in his usual mild tone.

  "Maybe they've discovered us." Hobart's hand went to the weapon at hisbelt. "We must make peaceful contact--if we can."

  Lablet took off his helmet and ran his fingers through the scrappyginger-and-gray fringe receding from his forehead. "Yes--contact willbe necessary--" he said thoughtfully.

  Well, he was supposed to be their expert on that. Raf watched theolder man with something akin to amusement. The pilot had a suspicionthat none of the other three, Lablet included, was in any great hurryto push through contact with unknown aliens. It was a case of dancingalong on shore before having to plunge into the chill of autumn seawaves. Terrans had explored their own solar system, and they hadspeculated learnedly for generations on the problem of intelligentalien life. There had been all kinds of reports by experts andwould-be experts. But the stark fact remained that heretofore mankindas born on the third planet of Sol had _not_ encountered intelligentalien life. And just how far did speculations, reports, and argumentsgo when one was faced with the problem to be solved practically--andspeedily?

  Raf's own solution would have been to proceed with caution and yetmore caution. Under his technical training he had far more imaginationthan any of his officers had ever realized. And now he was certainthat the best course of action was swift retreat until they knew moreabout what was to be faced.

  But in the end the decision was taken out of their hands. A muffledexclamation from Lablet brought them all around to see that distantcurving roof crack wide open. From the shadows within, a flyerspiraled up into the late afternoon sky.

  Raf reached the flitter in two leaps. Without orders he had the spraygun ready for action, on point and aimed at the bobbing machineheading toward them. From the earphones Soriki had left on the seatthe gabble had risen to a screech and one part of Raf's brain notedthat the sounds were repetitious: was an order to surrender beingbroadcast? His thumb was firm on the firing button of the gun and hewas about to send a warning burst to the right of the alien when anorder from Hobart stopped him cold.

  "Take it easy, Kurbi."

  Soriki said something about a "gun-happy flitter pilot," but, Rafnoted with bleak eyes, the com-tech kept his own hand close to hisbelt arm. Only Lablet stood watching the oncoming alien ship withplacidity. But then, as Raf had learned through the long voyage of thespacer, a period of time which had left few character traits of any ofthe crew hidden from their fellows, the xenobiologist was a fatalistand strictly averse to personal combat.

  The pilot did not leave his seat at the gun. But within seconds heknew that they had lost the initial advantage. As the tongue-shapedstranger thrust at them and then swept on to glide above their headsso that the weird shadow of the ship licked them from light to darkand then to light again, Raf was certain that his superiors had madethe wrong decision. They should have left the city as soon as theypicked up those signals--if they could have gone then. He studied theother flyer. Its lines suggested speed as well as mobility, and hebegan to doubt if they _could_ have escaped with that craft trailingthem.

  Well, what would they do now? The alien flyer could not land here, notwithout coming down flat upon the flitter. Maybe it would cruiseoverhead as a warning threat until the c
ity dwellers were able toreach the Terrans in some other manner. Tense, the four spacemen stoodwatching the graceful movements of the flyer. There were no visibleportholes or openings anywhere along its ovoid sides. It might be arobot-controlled ship, it might be anything, Raf thought, even a bombof sorts. If it was being flown by some human--or nonhuman--flyer, hewas a master pilot.

  "I don't understand," Soriki moved impatiently. "They're justshuttling around up there. What do we do now?"

  Lablet turned his head. He was smiling faintly. "We wait," he told thecom-tech. "I should imagine it takes time to climb twenty flights ofstairs--if they have stairs--"

  Soriki's attention fell from the flyer hovering over their heads tothe surface of the roof. Raf had already looked that over withoutseeing any opening. But he did not doubt the truth of Lablet'ssurmise. Sooner or later the aliens were going to reappear. And it didnot greatly matter to the marooned Terrans whether they would dropfrom the sky or rise from below.