Part 18 (1/2)
”It's been bad since then,” Jed continued. ”Seems like once they got the wind up, the whole thing hit them all over again. Like cattle in a stampede, they didn't have a lick of sense. They didn't even stay together. They scattered in all directions, hid out in the bushes from each other.
”You could hunt for 'em, call for 'em, yell your lungs out. You could pa.s.s within ten feet of one of 'em, callin', pleadin', and they wouldn't say a word. Just stand there and watch you like a hunted animal, not even breathin' lest you discover them.
”After a couple of days, some of us kind of pulled ourselves together--me and Martha, Ahmed and Dirk here. Maybe a dozen of us now have got together again. Funny thing though, even so, all we want is to hide. Can't get over hidin', somehow. That's why you didn't see us from the air. We was hidin' from you.
”Martha, couple other womenfolks, they practically had to push us out of the woods to come greet you, lead you to us. They wouldn't come themselves, being naked and all. They told us, first thing was to get some clothes for them from the s.h.i.+p.
”We was countin' on the arrival of your s.h.i.+p to bring the rest of the colonists back to their senses. Some ain't been found yet, not since the footprint thing. If they were watchin' you from hidin' places, if they also saw your s.h.i.+p disappear--well now, I just don't know.”
”There'll be another s.h.i.+p from Earth,” Cal said. ”In a matter of fifteen or twenty hours at most. We were communicating at the time. They'll know we didn't cut out through choice.”
”Yes,” Tom Lynwood confirmed. ”As I remember, I got cut off in the middle of a sentence. They'll know something was wrong.”
”There's another s.h.i.+p out there right now,” Cal added. ”Not an E.H.Q.
s.h.i.+p, but one that would have seen what happened. We'll not count on anything from them, but an E.H.Q. s.h.i.+p will be here soon, probably with an E on board--McGinnis.”
”Don't know what good it would do,” Jed said despondently. ”That s.h.i.+p might disappear, too, soon as it landed. And the next, and the next.”
”I don't plan to let it land,” Cal told them. ”You'll notice nothing happened to us until we touched ground. I'll find a way to talk to the s.h.i.+p, keep it from landing until we've got a line on whatever this is.”
”You figger to solve this one?” Jed asked curiously, unbelieving.
”I'm going to try,” Cal said with more confidence than he felt. ”It's what I'm here for. Maybe I can't solve it, but I can try.”
”I don't know how you're going to start,” Dirk spoke up. ”We're just like animals here. We can't use tools.”
”But animals do use tools,” Cal answered after a moment. ”Materials, anyway. Birds build nests using sticks, gra.s.s, clay. Monkeys and apes throw sticks and stones. Even insects use materials. Basic difference between man and the rest is that man gives special shapes to tools, where mainly the rest use whatever falls to hand. But all higher, organized protoplasmic life uses tools in one form or another.”
”We ain't allowed to,” Jed said emphatically. ”Not even what's at hand.
Somebody, or somethin', is bound and determined we ain't goin' to.”
At that moment Cal felt close to a solution, or at least an understanding of the nature of the problem, which is the first step toward solution. But like the specter seen in twilight from the corner of the eye, as soon as he tried to focus on the problem, the concept disappeared. Something about protoplasmic life using materials.
Non-protoplasmic life? Could there be, and still meet the definitions of what const.i.tute life? As compared with our evolution, from its earliest beginning finding some other approach to the manipulation of the physical universe? A totally alien kind of science? Come to think of it, the use of material to affect other material was a c.u.mbersome, indirect, awkward way of going about it, as compared with ...
Compared with what?
The concept would not yet allow him full focus upon it. He filed it away for future contemplation.
He saw Dawkins and the other colonists looking at him defiantly, as if interpreting his silence to be doubt of their veracity about the taboo on tools. Their eyes challenged him to disbelieve them, to find out for himself.
”Other than the feeling of being watched,” he said carefully, ”have you had any sign, any other evidence or indication of somebody, or something? I know about the feeling, because I feel it too. And very strongly, right now. But any specific evidence?”
Jed Dawkins looked relieved at the confession.
”Everything's the evidence. Everything that's happened. What more evidence would you want?” he said.
”One of the strongest arguments in favor of something, or some kind of intelligence,” Cal said slowly, ”is that n.o.body's been hurt. All natural law hasn't been canceled. We still have light radiation, heat radiation, gravity, water still flows, the planet still turns. Trees still grow and fruit still ripens. We can talk and be understood, using our tongues and minds as tools. We can still eat and drink. We can still know.
”This is no chaotic co-ordinate system that defies all natural law. This is a deliberate manipulation of some natural laws to get a result. Man manipulates natural laws by the use of tools and materials, but he doesn't suspend them. Here, apparently without tools, at least tools we can perceive, natural law is manipulated, but not suspended.