Read Ebook: Export Commodity by Cox Irving E Terry W E Illustrator

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Ebook has 109 lines and 8298 words, and 3 pages

The young man laughed again and paused a moment before replying.

"I'm always very glad to come and keep you company, Uncle Archie."

At the end of the broadcast the newscaster mentioned the discovery of two brutally mutilated bodies behind a mountain garage. "An alleged eye-witness is held by the police. He claims to have seen a strange animal approach the victims shortly before the murder." The announcer repeated a very accurate description of Henig--which, he said, tallied with no species known to zoology.

To Henig that statement was incomprehensible. The computers couldn't be that wrong. They were objective, logical machines, processing the information submitted by the mechanical observers. The computers said Henig resembled a native species. That much had to be true. The conclusion that he would be able to pass unnoticed on the alien planet might be faulty for lack of emotional data. But the newscaster claimed no such species existed!

The Lieutenant hid his vehicle in a copse of trees close to the deserted side road. He slid off the seat, glad to escape the cramped position behind the wheel. As he walked toward the oil field, his wound began to pain him again. With his tongue he worked the small capsule loose from the back of his mouth--the only place where he could conceal it, since the computers had decreed that he come naked to this world.

He stooped beside a sump and watched the black earth filter slowly through the membrane into the capsule. In his own mind Henig had no doubt that the petroleum resources here were economically worth exploitation. He thought, for a moment, of the brutal occupation by the empire fleet--the slaughter and the destruction, before the survivors could be herded into prison reservations.

The killing and the burning of their primitive cities didn't disturb him. The aliens were animals. Because of their biological evolution, they would never achieve a higher social level. They were eternally tied to emotion, and a logical civilization was beyond their mentality. To wipe them out meant no more to Henig than the extermination of a germ colony or a nest of vermin.

Still the particular emotion dominating these bipeds was unique. It was worth preserving--if that emotion actually existed; if he were reading the data correctly. The Lieutenant still didn't know; he still couldn't make up his mind.

The test earth seeped slowly into the capsule. Henig raised his eyes and studied the field. It was dark and the skeletal shafts of the oil derricks were silhouetted against the glow of the city lights. The hairless bipeds had developed the field extensively. Two or three generations ago, Henig thought enviously, the planet must have been enormously rich in oil if, after so much native exploitation, it was still worth an empire invasion.

Two galactic millennia had passed since the empire had reached that same period in technological growth, depleting the petroleum resources of a hundred worlds. The empire had to have oil. Not for fuel--atomic energy had been harnessed long ago--but for lubrication. All the scientists, all the logical computers which governed the empire, had never come up with a satisfactory substitute.

The sample capsule was full. Henig stood up, sealing the vial again at the back of his mouth. And as he turned toward the road, he saw one of the aliens watching him. Behind the biped a pipe was burning gas exhausted from the field. The flame lit the animal face and Henig saw the crushing weight of terror.

The animal turned and ran, blowing on a whistle which was suspended around its neck. Henig sprang after him and caught the white thing with a blow that split the fragile neck bone. But one blast on the alarm whistle had been enough. Henig saw other animals pouring out of the low-roofed, stone building nestled among the oil derricks. Bright lights blazed up, sweeping the field with a deadly glare.

Henig ran toward the trees where he had hidden his vehicle. He saw the lights of other cars on the side road, and he heard the nervous scream of sirens. He swung aside, running in the direction of the suburban cottages in the foothills. Unless he found another vehicle unguarded, he had to return to the shuttle on foot; and that would give the aliens too much time to spread the alarm.

As he crossed the main highway, he saw two bipeds walking together, arm in arm. The female began to scream. Henig had to silence her. He sprang for her throat; without his customary weapons, that was the only self-defense he had. The male should have turned and fled, since he was not armed. That was sensible and that was logical.

But once more the Lieutenant tangled with the unique emotional reactions of this planet. The male held his ground and tried to protect the female. Henig's first slash missed her throat and she fought back, too. The male's forepaw, doubled into a hammer-shape, struck Henig's wounded shoulder, and blood oozed down his naked chest again.

A nausea of pain sapped Henig's strength. He staggered toward the shadows beyond the road. If the two aliens came after him now, he was lost; he was too weak to defend himself. He collapsed, panting and retching.

But he heard no footsteps. When he was able, he looked back toward the road. He saw the male holding the female in his arms and mopping blood from the gash Henig had torn in her cheek.

These inexplicable aliens and their affection for each other! It defied all logic and reason. Their behavior was absurd; yet somehow sublime, too. From the arid emptiness of his logical mind, Henig, for a moment, had a vision of something great: a new world which fused the intellect of the computer civilization and the warmth of this animal emotion. These ugly, white-faced animals had a resource far more valuable than petroleum to export to the empire.

Then he heard the sirens coming closer and he began to run. He saw a brightly lighted street, where bipeds crowded the walks. He turned in panic down a dark alley. The sirens were behind him. He saw savages at both ends of the alley, and he pushed his way blindly into a dark warehouse.

He fell across a pile of sacks filled with a soft, grainy substance. A narrow shaft of moonlight made a sharp angle on the floor. He tried to examine his wound in the light. It was still bleeding; the skin was puffy and inflamed. A kind of dull haze crowded the periphery of his mind. The Lieutenant knew the symptoms; he had been wounded twice before when the fleet occupied primitive worlds. He would be all right when he reached the shuttle. He had an emergency kit there and he could sterilize the wound.

He heard footsteps and muffled voices in the alley. He shrank closer to the sacks; unconsciously he clawed a rent in the cloth and the grain spilled out, making a tiny pyramid in the moonlight.

There was a scurrying of tiny feet, a shrill squeal, and a rodent came from the darkness to nibble at the food. It was the smallest rat Henig had even seen, no larger than his hand. Instinctively his mouth began to water. The rat would make a tasty delicate morsel, and it was a long time since he had eaten. But before he could pounce on it, another animal shot out of the shadows and caught the rat in its claws.

Then Henig knew the truth. He knew why the computers had been wrong and he knew what data the mechanical observers had failed to transmit. For the small animal, which was torturing the rat with its forepaws, was a physical duplicate of himself--in miniature. No wonder the radio newscaster had said this world had no zoological species like Henig's! It was a question of relative size and the error might have amused him--if he had been safely back aboard the exploration ship.

Henig was aware of minor physical differences. The small, green-eyed miniature of himself did not walk erect. Its bare feet had not yet evolved the necessary alteration in joint structure. And its claws were still only cutting tools, incapable of more delicate manipulation. Tentatively Henig used the telecommunicator to explore the animal mind; he found no indication of a cerebral cortex.

But the animal apparently felt the transmission, for it arched its back and every hair on its body stood on end. It dropped the rat and swung toward Henig, hissing and spitting into the darkness. The Lieutenant grinned and purred; this little creature was like a newborn child, lying in the family nest. It was the first familiar thing he had found on this alien world of hairless bipeds.

But his purring frightened the animal. It dropped its rat and fled, screaming. The sound brought the feet running back to the alley door. Henig heard the pounding fists beating upon the wooden panels. He clawed his way to the top of the pile of sacks, where he saw a window. As he broke it open, the door gave and the hairless animals tumbled into the darkness.

A weapon flashed and a metal pellet split the wood close to Henig's head. He leaped through the window. The jar, when he landed, sent pain spiraling through his body. He staggered along a dark street. Behind him he heard footsteps and hysterical voices. He couldn't outrun them; he knew that. When he saw a garden gate, he pushed it open. He fell exhausted into a bed of blooming flowers. He didn't quite lose consciousness. He heard the animals when they ran past the garden gate.

In the sullen silence he began to breathe more easily. The terrified pounding of his heart slowed. He tried to push himself to his feet, and he found that his arm below the shoulder wound was paralyzed with pain.

He turned on his back--and rolled against the legs of a female who stood above him, looking straight ahead toward the street. He waited for her to scream and call the others. Instead she said, in a whisper,

"Poor thing! You're hurt."

Henig's mind soared with hope. Was it possible that the love these animals felt for each other could be extended to include himself?

She knelt beside him, gently feeling his wound with her hairless fingers. Her head was still erect. She did not look at him. He winced when she touched him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'll have to put something on it for you."

She went very slowly to a dilapidated garden shed. She moved by shuffling her feet along the gravel walk, occasionally reaching out to brush her hands against the larger shrubs growing beside the path. When she returned she poured a liquid over Henig's wound. The new pain was like fire, but he knew she had used a primitive remedy to burn out the infection. There was no doubt in his mind after that. While some of her species searched the streets for him and tried to kill him, she was ready to give him help.

Although the Scientist-General had warned Henig against it, he decided to use the telecommunicator. If she would help him, he had a chance of getting back to his shuttle. It was the only way he could escape. He took one risk in using the device: the female might become aware of every concept in Henig's mind. But that was a small risk. Only an intellectual equal, with the heightened perceptions of the computer civilization, would read the full context of his communication.

"I need help," he conveyed to her. "I have a place of safety in the mountains; will you take me to it?"

With a sudden, indrawn breath--like the hissing of a small child--the female stiffened beside him. Had he frightened her? He tried to explore her mind, but her cerebral pattern was amazingly complex. He couldn't evaluate the interlocked emotion--shock, sorrow, a sympathetic loneliness, and finally understanding. How much of his thinking--how much of himself--she had seen, he did not know. Her rational logic was subordinate to the emotion. Her most surprising reaction was pity.

Pity for him because of the computer civilization that had shaped his mind!

"Of course you must go back," she said. So she had dredged that much out of his mind during the brief openness of the telecommunication. "And you--you have found a resource that your unfortunate people need."

The petroleum? Did she understand about that, too? Then why would she help him escape, since it meant the invasion and destruction of her world?

She told him she would persuade her brother to drive his truck up the mountain road. She had learned from the telecommunication where Henig wanted to stop. "You'll be hidden in back. Open the door and slip out when we stop. It won't be far to your shuttle." So she had understood that, too. Henig realized he had grossly underestimated the mental abilities of these emotional animals.

Very gently she put a salve and a bandage on his wound. She helped him into a small, panel truck which was sheltered in a frame building open to the street. Before she closed the door she handed him a package of nut meats.

"This will help you--with your other problem. Give them to your scientists. We call these nuts peanuts. They make an excellent oil. You may have the soil on one of your worlds to grow them for yourselves; if not, we might be able to produce the oil for you."

She closed the door. Henig felt a tight constriction in his throat. This hairless female had read every thought in his mind; there was no question of that. And she was letting him go home unharmed; she was helping him escape. To Henig this was the final demonstration of the emotion of her species, the quality of love that the computer civilization had never found.

He would not let her world be invaded and exploited. The oil resources were not that important. Very carefully he removed the sample capsule from his mouth and emptied it. With his unhurt arm he clawed loose dirt together from the floor of the truck and pushed it through the membrane. When the scientists analyzed that sample, they would leave her world in peace.

The motor hummed and the truck began to move. In the darkness Henig opened the package of peanuts and crushed one between his teeth. As a food it was very unpalatable. Perhaps the hairless bipeds enjoyed it--from her mind the telecommunicator had picked up the fact that they looked upon it as a food--but nothing like this was of any value to the empire. The various species in the computer civilization were not vegetable eaters.

Henig was sure the nut was not a source of oil. The female, of course, had underestimated his mentality, just as he had misjudged hers. The purpose of her gift was forlornly obvious. She wanted to buy off the invasion she had read in his mind, and presumably the nutmeat was their favorite food which they produced in quantity. The Lieutenant grinned over her emotional foolishness.

Her world needed no subterfuge to protect it. The bipeds had something better--they would be safe. Henig would make sure of that.

After a time the truck came to a stop. Henig opened the rear door and dropped to the road. He recognized the garage where he had killed the two aliens that afternoon. He knew where he was.

The Lieutenant leaned for a moment against the open truck door, adjusting to the new pain in his wound. In the front of the vehicle he saw the girl and her brother. A pale light from the dash fell on their faces. Henig saw the girl's eyes for the first time, and he realized suddenly that she was blind!

No wonder she had helped him, then. She hadn't known he was an alien. That accounted, too, for her quick understanding of his telecommunication; sightlessness had heightened her other perceptions.

The radio in the truck was on. The girl and her brother were listening to a newscast reporting the diplomatic maneuvers of something referred to as the cold war. Impatiently the blind female snapped off the broadcast.

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