Point of Focus
by Robert Silverberg
Federation Emissary Holis Bork was a confident man—and, if he-felt a twinge of curious uneasiness at his first glimpse of Mellidan VII, it was not because he doubted his own capabilities, or the value of the Federation’s name as a civilizing force.
He told himself that it was something subtler and deeper that twinged him, as the warpship spiraled down about the unfederated planet.
Emissary Bork worried about that subliminal reaction through most of the landing period. He sat broodingly with his eyes fixed; the members of his staff gave him a wide berth. It was, he saw, the deference due to a Federation Emissary so obviously deep in creative thinking. The others were clustered at the far end of the observation deck, staring down at the fog-shrouded yellow-green ball that was soon to be the newest addition to the far-flung Federation. Bork listened to them.
Vyn Kumagon was saying, “Look at that place! The atmosphere blankets it like so much soup.”
“I wonder what it’s like to breathe chlorine?” asked Hu Sdreen. “And to. give off carbon tetrachloride instead of CO2?”
“To them it’s all the same,” Kumagon snapped.
Emissary Bork looked away. He had the answer; he knew what was troubling him.
Mellidan VII was different. The peoples of the worlds of the Federation, and even the four non-Federated worlds of the Sol system, shared one-seemingly universal characteristic: they breathed oxygen, gave off carbon dioxide. And the Mellidani? A chlorine-carbon tetrachloride cycle which worked well for them—but was strange, different. And that difference troubled Federation Emissary Bork on a deep, shadowy, half-grasped plane of thought.
He shook his mind clear and nudged the speaker panel at his wrist. “How long till landing?”
“We enter final orbit in thirty-nine minutes,” Control Center told him. “Contact’s been made with the Mellidani and they’re guiding us in.”
Bork leaned back in the comforting webfoam network and twined his twelve tapering fingers calmly together. He was not worried. Despite Mellidan VII’s alienness, there would be no problems. In minutes, the landing would be effected—and past experience told him it would be but a matter of time before the Federation had annexed its four hundred eighty-sixth world.
Later, Bork stood by the rear screens, looking down at the planet as the Federation ship whistled downward through the murky green atmosphere. To civilize is our mission, he thought. To offer the benefits—
It was four years Galactic since a Federation survey ship had first touched down on Mellidan VII. It had been strictly an accidental planet-falclass="underline" the prelim scouts had thoroughly established that there was little point in. bothering to search a chlorine world for oxygen-type life. That was easily understood.
What was not so easily understood was the possibility of a nonoxygen metabolism. Statistics lay against it; the four hundred eighty-five worlds of the Federation all operated on an oxynitrogen atmosphere and a respiration-photosynthesis cycle that endlessly recirculated oxygen and carbon dioxide. The four inhabited worlds of the unfederated system of Sol were similarly constituted. It was a rule to which no exceptions had been found.
But then the scoutship of Dos Nollibar, cruising out of Vronik XII, came tumbling down into the chlorinated soup of Mellidan VII’s atmosphere, three ultrones in its warpdrive fused beyond repair. It took six weeks for a rescue ship to locate and remove the eleven Federation scouts—and by that time, Chief Scout Dos Nollibar and his men had discovered and made contact with the Mellidani.
Standing at the screen watching his ship thunder down into the thick green shroud of the planet, Emissary Bork cast an inward eye back over Nollibar’s scout report—a last-minute refresher, as it were.
“…Inhabitants roughly humanoid in external structure, though probably nearly solid internally. This is subject to later verification when a specimen is available for complete examination.
“…Main constituents of atmosphere: hydrogen, chlorine, nitrogen, helium. Smaller quantities of other gases. No oxygen. This mixture, is, of course, unbreathable by all forms of Federation life.
“…Mean temperature 260 Absolute. Animal life gives off carbon tetrachloride as respiratory waste; this is broken down by plants to chlorine and complex hydrocarbons. Inhabitants consume plants, smaller animal life, drink hydrochloric acid—
“…Seat of planetary government apparently located not far from our landing-point, unless aliens have deliberately misled, or we have misunderstood. Naturally most of our data is highly tentative in nature, subject to confirmation after this world is enrolled in the Federation and available for further study.”
Which is my job, Bork thought.
For four years, ever since Nollibar had filed his report, Bork had readied himself for the task of bringing Mellidan VII into the Federation. Nollibar had returned with recorded samples of the language, and a few months of phoneme analysis had been sufficient to work out a rough conversion-equation to Federation, good enough for Bork to learn and speak.
There would undoubtedly be a promotion in this for him: to Subgalactic Overchief, perhaps, or Third Warden. Of the ten emissaries whose task it was to bring newly-discovered planets into the Federation, it was he the First Warden had chosen for this job. That was significant, Bork thought: on no other world would the Emissary be forced to forgo direct face-to-face contact with the leaders of the species to be absorbed. Here, on the other hand—
Bork sensed a presence behind him. He turned.
It was Vyn Kumagon, Adjutant in Charge of Communications. Bork had no way of knowing how long Kumagon had been peering over his shoulder; he resented the intrusion on an emissary’s privacy.
And Kumagon’s green eyes were faintly slitted—the mark of Gyralin blood somewhere in his heritage. As a pure-bred Vengol of the Federation’s First Planet, Bork felt vague contempt for his assistant. “Yes?” he said, mildly but with undertones of scorn.
Kumagon’s slitted eyes fixed sharply on the Emissary’s. “Sir, the Mellidani have beamed us for some advice.”
“Eh?”
“They’d like to know how close to the Terran dome we want to land, sir.”
Bork barely repressed a gasp. “What Terran dome?”
“They said the Terrans established a base here several months ago. Sir? Are you well? You—”
“Tell them,” Bork said heavily, “that we wish to land no closer than five miles from the Terran dome, and no further than ten. Can you translate that into their equivalents?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then transmit it.” Bork choked back a strangled cry of rage. Someone, he thought, had blundered in the home office. That Terrans should be allowed to land on a world being groomed for Federation entry—!
Why, it was unthinkable!
The planet was the most forbidding-looking Bork had ever seen, and he had seen a great many. With screens turned to maximal periphery, he could stand in the snout of the ship and look out on Mellidan VII as if he stood outside. It was hardly a pleasant sight.
The land was utterly flat. Long stretches of barren gray-brown soil extended in every direction, sweeping upward into tiny hillocks far toward the horizon. Soil implied the presence of bacteria—anerobic bacteria, of course. Life had evolved on Mellidan VII despite the total lack of oxygen.
There were seas, too, shimmering shallow pools of carbon tetrachloride that had precipitated out of the atmosphere. Plants grew in these ponds: ugly squishy plants, that looked like hordes of gray bladders strung on thick hairy ropes. They lay flat against the bright surface of the carbon tetrachloride pond, drifting. As Bork watched, a Mellidani appeared, wading knee-deep, gathering the bladders, slinging them over his blocky round shoulders. He was a farmer, no doubt.