He was a leader from his birth, because among the People intelligence was strictly proportional to size. They had two kinds of knowledge: Tree-knowledge, which they possessed from the moment they were born; and Learned-knowledge, the slow accumulation of facts passed on from one generation to another with the perfect accuracy of transmitted thought, which again was shared by all alike. The Learned-knowledge of the People covered all the necessities that they had previously experienced: but now they were faced with a wholly new danger and they needed somebody to acquire the Learned-knowledge to deal with it. So they made use of the long-known arts that could delay ripening of the pods on the Tree. These were not used often, because neighbouring pods were liable to be stunted by the growth of an extra-large one, but now there was the greatest possible need for a leader. The Big Folk, after two years of harmlessness, had suddenly revealed themselves as an acute danger, one that threatened the life of the People altogether.
Tree-knowledge Big Sword had, of course, from the moment of his hatching. The Learned-knowledge of the People was passed on to him by a succession of them sitting beside him in the tree-tops while his body swelled and hardened and absorbed the light. He would not grow any larger: the People made use of the stored energy of sunlight for their activities, but the substance of their bodies came from the Tree. For three revolutions of the planet he lay and absorbed energy and information. Then he knew all that they could pass on to him, and was ready to begin.
A week later he was sitting on the edge of a clearing in the forest, watching the Big Folk at their incomprehensible tasks. The People had studied them a little when they first appeared in the forest, and had made some attempt to get in touch with them, but without success. The Big Folk used thought all right, but chaotically: instead of an ordered succession of symbols there would come a rush of patterns and half-patterns, switching suddenly into another set altogether and then returning to the first, and at any moment the whole thing might be wiped out altogether. Those first students of the People, two generations ago, had thought that there was some connection between the disappearance of thought and the vibrating wind which the Big Folk would suddenly emit from a split in their heads. Big Sword was now certain that they were right, but the knowledge did not help him much. After the failure of their first attempts at communication the People, not being given to profitless curiosity, had left the Big Folk alone. But now a totally unexpected danger had come to light. One of the Big Folk, lumbering about the forest, had cut a branch off the Tree.
When they first arrived, the Big Folk had chopped down a number of trees - ordinary trees - completely, and used them for various peculiar constructions in the middle of the clearing, but that was a long time ago and the People had long since ceased to worry about it. Two generations had passed since it happened. But the attack on the Tree itself had terrified them. They had no idea why it had been made and there was no guarantee that it would not happen again. Twelve guardians had been posted round the Tree ready to do anything possible with thought or physical force to stave off another such attack, but they were no match for the Big Folk. The only safety lay in making contact with the Big Folk and telling them why they must leave the Tree of the People alone.
Big Sword had been watching them for two days now and his plan was almost ready. He had come to the conclusion that a large part of the difficulty lay in the fact that the Big People were hardly ever alone. They seemed to go about in groups of two or three and thought would jump from one to another at times in a confusing way: then again you would get a group whose thoughts were all completely different and reached the observer in a chaotic pattern of interference. The thing to do, he had decided, was to isolate one of them. Obviously the one to tackle would be the most intelligent of the group, the leader, and it was clear which one filled that position: he stood out among his companions as plainly as Big Sword. There were one or two factors to be considered further, but that evening, Big Sword had decided, he would be ready to act.
* * * *
Meanwhile the Second Lambdan Exploratory Party had troubles of their own. Mostly these were the professional bothers that always accompany scientific expeditions; damaged equipment, interesting sidelines for which neither equipment nor workers happened to be available, not enough hours in the day. Apart from that there was the constant nag of the gravitation, twenty per cent higher than that of Earth, and the effect, depressing until you got used to it, of the monochromatic scenery, laid out in darker and fighter shades of black and grey. Only the red soil and red rocks varied that monotony, with an effect which to Terrestrial eyes was somewhat sinister. Nevertheless, the Expedition were having fewer troubles than they expected. Lambda, apparently, was a thoroughly safe planet. Whatever those grey-and-black jungles might look like it appeared that they had nothing harmful in them.
At thirty light-years away from Earth most personal troubles had got left behind. John James Jordan, however, the leader of the party, had brought his with him. His most urgent responsibility was in the next cabin, in bed and, it was to be hoped, asleep.
There was no doubt about it, a man who made his career in space had no business to get married. Some men, of course, could take their wives with them: there were three married couples on the expedition, though they were with the first party at base on the coast. But for a spaceman to marry a woman and leave her at home didn’t make sense.
He wondered, now, what he had thought he was doing. Marriage had been a part of that hectic interval between his first expedition and his second, when he had arrived home to find that space exploration was News and everybody wanted to know him. He had been just slightly homesick, that first time. The idea of having somebody to come back to had been attractive.
The actual coming back, three years later, had not been so good. He had had time to realize that he scarcely knew Cora. Most of their married life seemed to have been spent at parties: he would arrive late, after working overtime, and find Cora already in the thick of it. He was going to have more responsibility preparing for the third expedition: he was going to have to spend most of his time on it. He wondered how Cora was going to take it. She had never complained when he wasn’t there, during the brief period of their married life: but somehow what he remembered wasn’t reassuring.
Just the same, it was a shock to find that she had divorced him a year after his departure - one of the first of the so-called ‘space divorces.’ It was a worse shock, though, to find that he now had a two-year-old son.
The rule in a space divorce was that the divorced man had the right to claim custody of his children, providing that he could make adequate arrangements for them during his absence. That would have meant sending Ricky to some all-year-round school. There was no sense to that. Cora’s new husband was fond of him. Jordan agreed to leave Ricky with his mother. He even agreed, three years later on his next leave, not to see Ricky - Cora said that someone had told the little boy that her husband was not his real father and contact with somebody else claiming that position was likely to upset him.
Once or twice during his Earth-leaves - usually so crammed with duties that they made full-time exploration look like a holiday - Jordan got news of Cora. Apparently she was a rising star in the social world. He realized, gradually, that she had married him because for a brief time he had been News, and could take her where she wanted to be. He was vaguely relieved that she had got something out of their marriage: it was nice that somebody did. He was prepared to grant her doings the respect due to the incomprehensible. Nevertheless he was worried, for a moment, when he heard that she had been divorced yet again and remarried - to a prominent industrialist this time. He wondered how Ricky had taken it.
His first actual contact with Cora in about seven years came in the form of a request from her lawyer that he should put his signature to an application for entrance to a school. Merely a formality. The insistence on that point roused his suspicions and he made some inquiries about the school in question.
Half an hour
after getting answers he had found Cora’s present address, booked a passage on the Trans-equatorial Flight and cancelled his engagements for the next twenty-four hours.
He was just in time to get aboard the flier. He had taken a bundle of urgent papers with him and he had three hours of flight in which to study them, but he hardly tried to do so. His conscience felt like a Lothornian cactus-bird trying to break out of the egg.
Why on Earth, why in Space, why in the Universe hadn’t he taken some sort of care of his son?
He had never visited Antarctica City before and he found it depressing. With great ingenuity somebody had excavated a building-space in the eternal ice and filled it with a city which was an exact copy of all the other cities. He wondered why anybody had thought it worth while.
Cora’s house seemed less a house than an animated set for a stereo on The Life of the Wealthy Classes. It had been decorated in the very latest style - he recognized one or two motifs which had been suggested by the finds of the First Lambdan Expedition, mingled with the usual transparent furniture and electrified drapes. He was contemplating a curious decorative motif, composed of a hooked object which he recognized vaguely as some primitive agricultural implement and what looked like a pileman’s drudge - but of course that particular mallet-shape had passed through innumerable uses -when Cora came in.
Her welcome was technically perfect: it combined a warm greeting with just a faint suggestion that it was still open to her to have him thrown out by the mechman if it seemed like a good idea. He decided to get the business over as soon as possible.
‘What’s the matter with Ricky, Cora? Why do you want to get rid of him?’
Cora’s sparkle-crusted brows rose delicately.
‘Why, Threejay, what a thing to say.’
The idiotic nickname, almost forgotten, caught him off balance for a moment, but he knew exactly what he wanted to say.
‘This school you want to send him to is for maladjusted children. It takes complete responsibility, replacing parents -you wouldn’t be allowed to see him for the next three years at least.’
‘It’s a very fine school, Threejay. Camillo insisted we should send him to the best one available.’
Camillo must be the new husband.
‘Why?’ repeated Jordan.
The welcome had drained right out of Cora’s manner. ‘May I ask why this sudden uprush of parental feeling? You’ve never shown any interest in Ricky before. You’ve left him to me. I’m not asking you to take any responsibility. I’m just asking you to sign that form.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s unbearable! Because I won’t have him in the house! He pries round - there’s no privacy. He finds out everything and then uses it to make trouble. He’s insulted half our friends. Camillo won’t have him in the house and neither will I. If you don’t want him to go to that school, perhaps you’ll suggest an alternative.’
Jordan was shaken, but tried not to show it. ‘I’d like to see him, Cora.’
As swiftly as it had arisen Cora’s rage sank out of sight. ‘Of course you can see him, Threejay!’ She turned to the wall-speaker and murmured briefly into it. ‘Who knows, maybe the sight of a really, truly father is all he needs! You can just have a nice fatherly chat with him before you have to catch your flier back, and then he’ll settle down and turn into a model citizen.’
The door slid open and a boy came quietly in. He was a very neat and tidy boy, small for his age, with a serious, almost sad expression. He said gently, ‘Good morning, Cora.’
Cora spoke over her shoulder. ‘Ricky, dear, who do you think this is?’
Ricky looked at the visitor and his eyes widened.
‘You... you’re Dr Jordan, aren’t you? You wrote that book about Cranil - it’s called “The Fossil Planet.” And I saw you on the stereo two nights ago. You were talking about that place where all the forests are grey and black. And—’ Ricky stopped with his mouth half open. His face went blank.
‘That’s who I am,’ said Jordan gravely.
‘I know,’ Ricky swallowed. ‘But you’re here ... I mean ... this sounds silly, but I suppose ... I mean, you wouldn’t be my father, would you?’
‘Don’t put on an act, Ricky,’ said Cora harshly. ‘You know perfectly well he’s your father.’
Ricky turned rather white. He shook his head. ‘No, honestly. I knew my father’s name was Jordan, but I just didn’t connect it up. I say—’ he stopped short.
‘Yes, Ricky?’
‘I suppose you wouldn’t have time to talk to me a little? About Lambda, I mean. Because I really am interested - not just kid stuff. I want to be a xenobiologist.’
Cora laughed, a delicate metallic sound.
‘Why be so modest, Ricky? After all, he’s your father. He’s apparently decided it’s time he took an interest in you. He’s due back to that place that fascinates you so much in a week or two, so I don’t see how he’ll do that unless he takes you with him. Why not ask him to?’
Ricky went scarlet and then very pale. He looked quickly away, but not before Jordan had had time to see the eager interest in his face replaced by sick resignation.
‘Why shouldn’t you take him, Threejay?’ went on Cora. 5These Mass-time ships have lots of room. You’ve decided that it’s time you were responsible for him instead of me. Those books he reads are full of boys who made good in space. Why don’t you—’
‘Yes, why don’t I?’ said Jordan abruptly.
‘Don’t!’ said Ricky sharply. ‘Please, don’t! Honestly, I know it’s a joke... I mean I don’t read that kid stuff now... but—’ ‘No joke,’ said Jordan. ‘As Cora says, there’s lots of room.
Do you want to come?’ And I’d had my psycho check only the week before, reflected
Jordan, and they didn’t find a thing.
* * * *
He noticed suddenly that a report was moving through the scanner on his desk - the latest instalment of Woodman’s researches on the sexual cycles of Lambdan fresh-water organisms. He’d intended to read that tonight instead of mulling over all this stuff about Ricky.
He pushed the switch back to the beginning, but it was no use. He remembered how he had felt - how Cora’s needling had made him feel - and how Ricky had looked when he grasped that the proposal was serious. No chance at all of backing out then - not that he had wanted to. It was true that, with Mass-time flight, there was plenty of room; one feature of the drive was that within certain limits the bigger the ship the faster it would go. And he had complete authority over the selection of personnel for this second expedition, which was to reinforce the team already settled on Lambda. Ricky’s inclusion was taken with a surprising lack of concern by the rest of the staff. And it had looked as though his insane action was working out all right. Until the last two days Ricky had been no trouble at all.
If anything, Ricky had been too desperately anxious to keep out of the way and avoid being a nuisance, but he had seemed completely happy. Jordan’s project of getting to know him had never got very far, because his time was fully occupied, but Ricky had spent the weeks before blast-off mainly in the Interstellar Institute, chaperoned by young Woodman, who had taken a fancy to him. Jordan had taken time out once or twice during that period to worry over the fact that he was hardly seeing the boy, but once they got aboard ship it would be different.
Once aboard ship, absorbed in checking stores and setting up projects to go into operation as soon as they landed, it was -once the party’s settled and working, it’ll be different. He’d have some time to spare.
Unfortunately that hadn’t been soon enough. He should have paid some attention to Cora. She wouldn’t have got worked up like that over nothing. She had said Ricky made trouble. He’d done that all right. And Jordan had known nothing about it till it attained the dimensions of a full-blown row.
Rivalry on the expedition was usually friendly enough. Unfortunately Cartwright and Penn, the two geologists, didn’t get on. They had different methods of wor
king and each was suspicious of the value of the other’s work. But without Ricky they wouldn’t have come to blows on it.
Quite accidentally the riot had been started by Ellen Scott. As soil specialist she had an interest in geology. Talking to Cartwright she had happened to say something about the date of the Great Rift. Cartwright had shot out of his chair.
‘Ellen - where did you get that idea? Who told it to you?’
Ellen looked surprised.
‘I thought you did, Peter. The Great Rift’s your pet subject. If you didn’t, I suppose it was Penn.’
‘I haven’t mentioned it to anyone. I only worked it out a couple of days ago. It’s in my notes now, on my desk. Penn must have been going through them. Where is he?’
‘Calm down, Peter!’ Ellen got to her feet in astonishment. ‘Probably he worked it out too - you may have mentioned something that set him on the track. He must have mentioned it to me in the last few days, I think... that is, if he was the one who told me.’ She looked puzzled. ‘I don’t remember discussing it with him. No, I believe—’ she broke off suddenly and refused to say any more. Cartwright, unmollified, strode off to look for Penn. Dr Scott departed in search of Ricky.