«But we don’t have time!» Lee snapped. Surprised at his own vehemence, he continued, «Five years is a grain of sand compared to the job ahead of us. We have to investigate a completely alien culture and determine what its attitude is toward us. Just learning the language might take five years all by itself.»
Lehman smiled easily and said, «Sid, suppose you’re totally wrong about this, and whoever’s down there is simply a harmless savage. What would be the shock to his culture if we suddenly drop in on him?»
«What’ll be the shock to our culture if I’m right?»
Rasmussen drained his mug and banged it down on the chess table. «This is getting us nowhere. We have not enough evidence to decide on an intelligent course of action. Personally, I’m in no hurry to go blundering into a nest of unknowns. Not when we can learn safely from orbit. As long as the beer holds out, we go slow.»
Lee pushed his chair back and stood up. «We won’t learn a damned thing from orbit. Not anything that counts. We’ve got to go down there and study them close up. And the sooner the better.»
He turned and walked out of the rec room. Rasmussen’s spent half his life hauling scientists out to Titan, and he can’t understand why we have to make the most of our time here, he raged to himself.
Halfway down the passageway to his quarters, he heard footsteps padding behind him. He knew who it would be. Turning, he saw Lehman coming along toward him.
«Sacking in?» the psychiatrist asked.
«Aren’t you sleepy?»
«Completely bushed, now that you mention it.»
«But you want to talk to me,» Lee said.
Lehman shrugged. «No hurry.»
With a shrug of his own, Lee resumed walking to his room. «Come on. I’m too worked up to sleep anyway.»
All the cubicles were more or less the same: a bunk, a desk, a filmspool reader, a sanitary closet. Lee took the webbed desk chair and let Lehman plop on the sighing air mattress of the bunk.
«Do you really believe this hostile alien theory? Or are you just—»
Lee slouched down in his chair and interrupted. «Let’s not fool around, Rich. You know about my breakdown on Titan and you’re worried about me.»
«It’s my job to worry about everybody.»
«I take my pills every day … to keep the paranoia away.»
«That wasn’t the diagnosis of your case, as you’re perfectly well aware.»
«So they called it something else. What’re you after, Rich? Want to test my reflexes while I’m sleepy and my guard’s down?»
Lehman smiled professionally. «Look, Sid. You had a breakdown on Titan. You got over it. That’s finished.»
Nodding grimly, Lee added, «Except that I think there might be aliens down there plotting against me.»
«That could be nothing more than a subconscious attempt to increase the importance of the anthropology department,» Lehman countered.
«Crap,» Lee said. «I came out here expecting something like this. Why do you think I fought my way onto this expedition? It wasn’t easy, after my breakdown. I had to push ahead of a lot of former friends.»
«And leave your wife.»
«That’s right. Ruth divorced me for it. She’s getting all my accumulated dividends. She’ll die in comfort while we’re sleeping our way back home.»
«But why?» Lehman asked. «Why should you give up everything—friends, wife, family, position—to get out here?»
Lee knew the answer, hesitated about putting it into words, then realized that Lehman knew it too. «Because I had to face it … had to do what I could to find out about those buildings on Titan.»
«And that’s why you want to rush down and contact whoever it is down there? Am I right?»
«Right,» Lee said. He almost wanted to laugh. «I’m hoping they can tell me if I’m crazy or not.»
It was three months before they landed.
Rasmussen was thorough, patient and stubborn. Unmanned landers sampled and tested surface conditions. Observation satellites crisscrossed the planet at the lowest possible altitudes—except for the one that hung in synchronous orbit in the longitude of the spot where the first humanoid had been found.
That was the only place where humanoid life was seen, along that shoreline for a grand distance of perhaps five kilometers. Nowhere else on the planet.
Lee argued and swore and stormed at the delay. Rasmussen stayed firm. Only when he was satisfied that nothing more could be learned from orbit did he agree to land the ship. And still he sent clear word back toward Earth that he might be landing in a trap.
The great ship settled slowly, almost delicately, on a hot tongue of fusion flame, and touched down on the western edge of a desert some 200 kilometers from the humanoid site. A range of rugged-looking hills separated them. The staff and crew celebrated that night. The next morning, Lee, Charnovsky, Hatfield, Doris McNertny, Marlene Ettinger and Alicia Monteverdi moved to the ship’s «Sirius globe.» They were to be the expedition’s «outsiders,» the specialists who would eventually live in the planetary environment. They represented anthropology, geology, biochemistry, botany, zoology and ecology, with backup specialties in archeology, chemistry and paleontology.
The Sirius globe held their laboratories, workrooms, equipment and living quarters. They were quarantined from the rest of the ship’s staff and crew, the «insiders,» until the captain agreed that the surface conditions on the planet would be no threat to the rest of the expedition members. That would take two years minimum, Lee knew.
Gradually, the «outsiders» began to expose themselves to the local environment. They began to breathe the air, acquire the microbes. Pascual and Tanaka made them sit in the medical examination booths twice a day, and even checked them personally every other day. The two M.D.’s wore disposable biosuits and worried expressions when they entered the Sirius globe. The medical computers compiled miles of data tapes on each of the six «outsiders,» but still Pascual’s normally pleasant face acquired a perpetual frown of anxiety about them.
«I just don’t like the idea of this damned armor,» Lee grumbled.
He was already encased up to his neck in a gleaming white powersuit, the type that crew members wore when working outside the ship in a vacuum. Aaron Hatfield and Marlene Ettinger were helping to check all the seams and connections. A few feet away, in the cramped «locker room,» tiny Alicia Monteverdi looked as though she were being swallowed by an oversized automaton; Charnovsky and Doris McNertny were checking her suit.
«It’s for your own protection,» Marlene told Lee in a throaty whisper as she applied a test meter to the radio panel on his suit’s chest. «You and Alicia won the toss for the first trip outside, but this is the price you must pay. Now be a good boy and don’t complain.»
Lee had to grin. «Ja, Fraulein Schluemeisterejn.»
She looked up at him with a rueful smile, «Thank God you never had to carry on a conversation in German.»
Finally Lee and Alicia clumped through the double hatch into the airlock. It took another fifteen minutes for them to perform the final checkout, but at last they were ready. The outer hatch slid back, and they started down the long ladder to the planet’s surface. The armored suits were equipped with muscle-amplifying power systems, so that even a girl as slim as Alicia could handle their bulk easily.
Lee went down the ladder first and set foot on the ground. It was bare and dusty, the sky a reddish haze.
The grand adventure, Lee thought. All the expected big moments in life are flops. A hot breeze hummed in his earphones. It was early morning. Sirius had not cleared the barren horizon yet, although the sky was fully bright. Despite the suit’s air-conditioning, Lee felt the heat.
He reached up a hand as Alicia climbed warily down the last few steps of the ladder. The plastic rungs gave under the suit’s weight, then slowly straightened themselves when the weight was removed.