'Let's stop insulting Mr Custer and hear him out,' the cameraman said.
'Get that man's name,' Tiborough told an aide. 'If he ...'
'I'm an expert electronic technician, Senator,' the man said. 'You can't threaten me now.'
* * * *
Custer smiled, turned to face Tiborough.
'The revolution begins,' Custer said. He waved a hand as the senator started to whirl away. 'Sit down, Senator.'
Wallace, watching the senator obey, saw how the balance of control had changed in this room.
'Ideas are in the wind,' Custer said. 'There comes a time for a thing to develop. It comes into being. The spinning jenny came into being because that was its time. It was based on countless ideas that had preceded it.'
'And this is the age of the laser?' Tiborough asked.
'It was bound to come,' Custer said. 'But the number of people in the world who're filled with hate and frustration and violence has been growing with terrible speed. You add to that the enormous danger that this might fall into the hands of just one group or nation or ...' Custer shrugged. 'This is too much power to be confined to one man or group with the hope they'll administer wisely. I didn't dare delay. That's why I spread this thing now and announced it as broadly as I could.'
Tiborough leaned back in his chair, his hands in his lap. His face was pale and beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead.
'We won't make it.'
'I hope you're wrong, Senator,' Custer said. 'But the only thing I know for sure is that we'd have had less chance of making it tomorrow than we have today.'
* * * *
Mating Call
By Frank Herbert, 1961
* * * *
'If you get caught we'll have to throw you to the wolves,' said Dr Fladdis. 'You understand, of course.'
Laoconia Wilkinson, senior field agent of the Social Anthropological Service, nodded her narrow head. 'Of course,' she barked. She rustled the travel and order papers in her lap.
'It was very difficult to get High Council approval for this expedition after the ... ah ... unfortunate incident on Monligol,' said Dr Fladdis. 'That's why your operating restrictions are so severe.'
'I'm permitted to take only this -' she glanced at her papers - 'Marie Medill?'
'Well, the basic plan of action was her idea,' said Dr Fladdis. 'And we have no one else in the department with her qualifications in music.'
'I'm not sure I approve of her plan,' muttered Laoconia.
'Ah,' said Dr Fladdis, 'but it goes right to the heart of the situation on Rukuchp, and the beauty of it is that it breaks no law. That's a legal quibble, I agree. But what I mean is you'll be within the letter of the law.'
'And outside its intent,' muttered Laoconia. 'Not that I agree with the law. Still -' she shrugged - 'music!'
Dr Fladdis chose to misunderstand. 'Miss Medill has her doctorate in music, yes,' he said. 'A highly educated young woman.'
'If it weren't for the fact that this may be our last opportunity to discover how those creatures reproduce -' said Laoconia. She shook her head. 'What we really should be doing is going in there with a full staff, capturing representative specimens, putting them through -'
'You will note the prohibition in Section D of the High Council's mandate,' said Dr Fladdis. ''The Field Agent may not enclose, restrain or otherwise restrict the freedom of any Rukuchp native.''
'How bad is their birthrate situation?' asked Laoconia.
'We have only the word of the Rukuchp special spokesman. This Gafka. He said it was critical. That, of course, was the determining factor with the High Council. Rukuchp appealed to us for help.'
Laoconia got to her feet. 'You know what I think of this music idea. But if that's the way we're going to attack it, why don't we just break the law all the way - take in musical recordings, players ...'
'Please!' snapped Dr Fladdis.
Laoconia stared at him. She had never before seen the Area Director so agitated.
'The Rukuchp natives say that introduction offoreign music has disrupted some valence of their reproductive cycle,' said Dr Fladdis. 'At least, that's how we've translated their explanation. This is the reason for the law prohibiting any traffic in music devices.'
'I'm not a child!' snapped Laoconia. 'You don't have to explain all ...'
'We cannot be too careful,' said Dr Fladdis. 'With the memory of Monligol still fresh in all minds.' He shuddered. 'We must return to the spirit of the SocAnth motto: 'For the Greater Good of the Universe' We've been warned.'
'I don't see how music can be anything but a secondary stimulant,' said Laoconia. 'However, I shall keep an open mind.'
* * * *
Laoconia Wilkinson looked up from her notes, said: 'Marie, was that a noise outside?' She pushed a strand of gray hair from her forehead.
Marie Medill stood at the opposite side of the field hut, staring out one of the two windows. 'I only hear the leaves,' she said. 'They're awfully loud in that wind.'
'You're sure it wasn't Gafka?'
Marie sighed and said, 'No, it wasn't his namesong.'
'Stop calling that monster a him!' snapped Laoconia.
Marie's shoulders stiffened.
Laoconia observed the reflex and thought how wise the Service had been to put a mature, veteran anthropologist in command here. A hex-dome hut was too small to confine brittle tempers. And the two women had been confined here for 25 weeks already. Laoconia stared at her companion - such a young romantic, that one.
Marie's pose reflected boredom ... worry ...
Laoconia glanced around the hut's crowded interior. Servo-recorders, night cameras, field computers, mealmech, collapsible floaters, a desk, two chairs, folding bunks, three wall sections taken up by the transceiver linking them with the mother ship circling in satellite orbit overhead. Everything in its place and a place for everything.
'Somehow, I just can't help calling Gafka a him,' said Marie. She shrugged. 'I know it's nonsense. Still ... when Gafka sings ...'
Laoconia studied the younger woman. A blonde girl in a one-piece green uniform; heavy peasant figure, good strong legs, an oval face with high forehead and dreaming blue eyes.
'Speaking of singing,' said Laoconia, 'I don't know what I shall do if Gafka doesn't bring permission for us to attend their Big Sing. We can't solve this mess without the facts.'
'No doubt,' said Marie. She spoke snappishly, trying to keep her attention away from Laoconia. The older woman just sat there. She was always just sitting there - so efficient, so driving, a tall gawk with windburned face, nose too big, mouth too big, chin too big, eyes too small.
* * * *
Marie turned away.
'With every day that passes I'm more convinced that this music thing is a blind alley,' said Laoconia. 'The Rukuchp birthrate keeps going down no matter how much of our music you teach them.'
'But Gafka agrees,' protested Marie. 'Everything points to it. Our discovery of this planet brought the Rukuchps into contact with the first alien music they've ever known. Somehow, that's disrupted their breeding cycle. I'm sure of it.'
'Breeding cycle,' sniffed Laoconia. 'For all we know, these creatures could be ambulatory vegetables without even the most rudimentary ...'
'I'm so worried,' said Marie. 'It's music at the root of the problem, I'm sure, but if it ever got out that we smuggled in those education tapes and taught Gafka all our musical forms ...'
'We did not smuggle anything!' barked Laoconia. 'The law is quite clear. It only prohibits any form of mechanical reproducer of actual musical sounds. Our tapes are all completely visual.'
'I keep thinking of Monligol,' said Marie. 'I couldn't live with the knowledge that I'd contributed to the extinction of a sentient species. Even indirectly. If our foreign music really has disrupted ...'
'We don't even know if they breed!'
'But Gafka says ... '
'Gafka says! A dumb vegetable. Gafka says!'
'Not so dumb,' countered Marie.
'He learned to speak our language in less than three weeks, but we have only the barest rudiments of songspeech.'
'Gafka's an idiot-savant,' said Laoconia. 'And I'm not certain I'd call what that creature does speaking.'
'It is too bad that you're tone deaf,' said Marie sweetly.
Laoconia frowned. She leveled a finger at Marie. 'The thing I note is that we only have their word that their birthrate is declining. They called on us for help, and now they obstruct every attempt at field observation.'
'They're so shy,' said Marie.
'They're going to be shy one SocAnth field expedition if they don't invite us to that Big Sing,' said Laoconia. 'Oh! If the Council had only authorized a full field expedition with armed support!'
'They couldn't!' protested Marie. 'After Monligol, practically every sentient race in the universe is looking on Rukuchp as a final test case. If we mess up another race with our meddling ...'
'Meddling!' barked Laoconia. 'Young woman, the Social Anthropological Service is a holy calling! Erasing ignorance, helping the backward races!'
'And we're the only judges of what's backward,' said Marie. 'How convenient. Now, you take Monligol. Everyone knows that insects carry disease. So we move in with our insecticides and kill off the symbiotic partner essential to Monligolian reproduction. How uplifting.'
'They should have told us,' said Laoconia.
'They couldn't,' said Marie. 'It was a social taboo.'
'Well ...' Laoconia shrugged. 'That doesn't apply here.'
'How do you know?'
'I've had enough of this silly argument,' barked Laoconia. 'See if Gafka's coming. He's overdue.'
* * * *
Marie inhaled a trembling breath, stamped across to the field hut's lone door and banged it open. Immediately the tinkle of glaze-forest leaves grew louder. The wind brought an odor of peppermint from the stubble plain to her left.
She looked across the plain at the orange ball of Almac sinking toward a flat horizon, swung her glance to the right where the wall of the glazeforest loomed overhead. Rainbow-streaked batwing leaves clashed in the wind, shifting in subtle competition for the last of the day's orange light.
'Do you see it?' demanded Laoconia.
Marie dropped her attention to the foot of the forest wall, where stubble spikes crowded against great glasswood trunks. 'No.'
'What is keeping that creature?'
Marie shook her head, setting blonde curls dancing across her uniform collar. 'It'll be dark soon,' she said. 'He said he'd return before it got fully dark.'
Laoconia scowled, pushed aside her notes. Always calling it a him! They're nothing but animated Easter eggs! If only ... She broke the train of thought, attention caught by a distant sound.
'There!' Marie peered down the length of glazeforest wall.
A fluting passage of melody hung on the air. It was the meister-song of a delicate wind instrument. As they listened, the tones deepened to an organ throb while a section of cello strings held the melody. Glazeforest leaves began to tinkle in sympathetic harmony. Slowly, the music faded.
'It's Gafka,' whispered Marie. She cleared her throat, spoke louder, self-consciously: 'He's coming out of the forest quite a ways down.'
'I can't tell one from the other,' said Laoconia. 'They all look alike and sound alike. Monsters.'
'They do look alike,' agreed Marie, 'but the sound is quite individual.'
'Let's not harp on my tone deafness!' snapped Laoconia. She joined Marie at the door. 'If they'll only let us attend their Sing ...'
A six-foot Easter egg ambled toward them on four of its five prehensile feet.
The crystal glistening of its vision cap, tipped slightly toward the field hut, was semi-lidded by inner cloud-pigment in the direction of the setting sun. Blue and white greeting colors edged a great bellows muscle around the torso. The bell extension of a mouth/ear - normally visible in a red-yellow body beneath the vision cap - had been retracted to a multi-creased pucker.
'What ugly brutes,' said Laoconia.
'Shhhh!' said Marie. 'You don't know how far away he can hear you.' She waved an arm. 'Gaaafkaa!' Then: 'Damn!'
'What's wrong?'
'I only made eight notes out of his name instead of nine.'
Gafka came up to the door, picking a way through the stubble spikes. The orange mouth/ear extended, sang a 22-note harmonica passage: 'Maarrriee Mmmmmmedillll.' Then a second concerto: 'Laoconnnnia Wiiilkinnnsonnnn.'
'How lovely!' said Marie.
'I wish you'd talk straight out the way we taught you,' said Laoconia. 'That singing is difficult to follow.'
* * * *
Gafka's vision cap tipped toward her. The voice shifted to a singsong waver: 'But polite sing greeting.'
'Of course,' said Laoconia. 'Now.' She took a deep breath. 'Do we have permission to attend your Big Sing?'
Gafka's vision cap tipped toward Marie, back to Laoconia.
'Please, Gafka?' said Marie.
'Difficulty,' wavered Gafka. 'Not know how say. Not have knowledge your kind people. Is subject not want for talking.'
'I see,' said Laoconia, recognizing the metaphorical formula. 'It has to do with your breeding habits.'
Gafka's vision cap clouded over with milky pigment, a sign the two women had come to recognize as embarrassment.
'Now, Gafka,' said Laoconia. 'None of that. We've explained about science and professional ethics, the desire to be of real help to one another. You must understand that both Marie and I are here for the good of your people.'
A crystal moon unclouded in the part of the vision cap facing Laoconia.
'If we could only get them to speak straight out,' said Laoconia.
Marie said: 'Please, Gafka. We only want to help.'
'Understand I,' said Gafka. 'How else talk this I?' More of the vision cap unclouded. 'But must ask question. Friends perhaps not like.'
'We are scientists,' said Laoconia. 'You may ask any question you wish.'
'You are too old for ... breeding?' asked Gafka. Again the vision cap clouded over, sparing Gafka the sight of Laoconia shocked speechless.
Marie stepped into the breech. 'Gafka! Your people and my people are ... well, we're just too different. We couldn't. There's no way ... that is ... '
'Impossible!' barked Laoconia. 'Are you implying that we might be sexually attacked if we attended your Big Sing?'
Gafka's vision cap unclouded, tipped toward Laoconia. Purple color bands ran up and down the bellows muscle, a sign of confusion.
'Not understand I about sex thing,' said Gafka. 'My people never hurt other creature.' The purple bands slowed their upward-downward chasing, relaxed into an indecisive green. The vision cap tipped toward Marie. 'Is true all life kinds start egg young same?' This time the clouding of the vision cap was only a momentary glimmerwhite.
'Essentially, that is so,' agreed Laoconia. 'We all do start with an egg. However, the fertilization process is different with different peoples.' Aside to Marie, she said: 'Make a note of that point about eggs. It bears out that they may be oviparian as I suspected.' Then: 'Now, I must know what you meant by your question.'
Gafka's vision cap rocked left, right, settled on a point between the two women. The sing-song voice intoned: 'Not understand I about different ways. But know I you see many thing my people not see. If breeding (glimmerwhite) different, or you too old for breeding (glimmerwhite) my people say you come Big Sing. Not want we make embarrass for you.'
* * * *
'We are scientists,' said Laoconia. 'It's quite all right. Now, may we bring our cameras and recording equipment?'
'Bring you much of things?' asked Gafka.
'We'll only be taking one large floater to carry our equipment,' said Laoconia. 'How long must we be prepared to stay?'
'One night,' said Gafka. 'I bring worker friends to help with floater. Go I now. Soon be dark. Come moonrise I return, take to Big Sing place you.' The trumpet mouth fluted three minor notes of farewell, pulled back
to an orange pucker. Gafka turned, glided into the forest. Soon he had vanished among reflections of glass-wood boles.
'A break at last!' barked Laoconia. She strode into the hut, speaking over her shoulder. 'Call the ship. Have them monitor our equipment. Tell them to get duplicate recordings. While we're starting to analyze the sound-sight record down here they can be transmitting a copy to the master computers at Kampichi. We want as many minds on this as possible. We may never get another chance like this one!'