Is That What People Do? (23 page)

“One of them’s coming forward alone. Chief, perhaps. Or sacrificial offering.”

“What is he wearing?”

“He has on a—a sort of—will you kindly come here and look for yourself?”

Maarten, at his instrument bank, had been assembling a sketchy picture of Durell. The planet had a breathable atmosphere, an equitable climate, and gravity comparable to that of Earth. It had valuable deposits of radioactives and rare metals. Best of all, it tested free of the virulent microorganisms and poisonous vapors which tended to make a Contacter’s life feverishly short.

Durell was going to be a valuable neighbor to Earth, provided the natives were friendly—and the Contacters skillful.

Maarten walked to the viewport and studied the natives. “They are wearing pastel clothing. We shall wear pastel clothing.”

“Check,” said Croswell.

“They are unarmed. We shall go unarmed.”

“Roger.”

“They are wearing sandals. We shall wear sandals as well.”

“To hear is to obey.”

“I notice they have no facial hair,” Maarten said, with the barest hint of a smile. “I’m sorry, Ed, but that mustache—”

“Not my mustache!” Croswell yelped, quickly putting a protective hand over it.

“I’m afraid so.”

“But, Jan, I’ve been six months raising it!”

“It has to go. That should be obvious.”

“I don’t see why,” Croswell said indignantly.

“Because first impressions are
vital.
When an unfavorable first impression has been made, subsequent contacts become difficult, sometimes impossible. Since we know nothing about these people, conformity is our safest course. We try to look like them, dress in colors that are pleasing, or at least acceptable to them, copy their gestures, interact within their framework of acceptance in every way—”

“All right, all right,” Croswell said. “I suppose I can grow another on the way back.”

They looked at each other; then both began laughing. Croswell had lost three mustaches in this manner.

While Croswell shaved, Maarten stirred their linguist into wakefulness. Chedka was a lemur-like humanoid from Eboria IV, one of the few planets where Earth maintained successful relations. The Eborians were natural linguists, aided by the kind of associative ability found in nuisances who supply words in conversation—only the Eborians were always right. They had wandered over a considerable portion of the Galaxy in their time and might have attained quite a place in it were it not that they needed twenty hours sleep out of twenty-four.

Croswell finished shaving and dressed in pale green coveralls and sandals. All three stepped through the degermifier. Maarten took a deep breath, uttered a silent prayer and opened the port.

A low sigh went up from the crowd of Durellans, although the chief—or sacrifice—was silent. They were indeed humanlike, if one overlooked their pallor and the gentle sheep-like blandness of their features—features upon which Maarten could read no trace of expression.

“Don’t use any facial contortions,” Maarten warned Croswell.

Slowly they advanced until they were ten feet from the leading Durellan. Then Maarten said in a low voice, “We come in peace.”

Chedka translated, then listened to the answer, which was so soft as to be almost undecipherable.

“Chief says welcome,” Chedka reported in his economical English.

“Good, good,” Maarten said. He took a few more steps forward and began to speak, pausing every now and then for translation. Earnestly, and with extreme conviction, he intoned Primary Speech BB-32 (for humanoid, primitive-pastoral, tentatively nonaggressive aliens).

Even Croswell, who was impressed by very little, had to admit it was a fine speech. Maarten said they were wanderers from afar, come out of the Great Nothingness to engage in friendly discourse with the gentle people of Durell. He spoke of green and distant Earth, so like this planet, and of the fine and humble people of Earth who stretched out hands in greeting. He told of the great spirit of peace and cooperation that emanated from Earth, of universal friendship, and many other excellent things.

Finally he was done. There was a long silence.

“Did he understand it all?” Maarten whispered to Chedka.

The Eborian nodded, waiting for the chiefs reply. Maarten was perspiring from the exertion and Croswell couldn’t stop nervously fingering his newly shaven upper lip.

The chief opened his mouth, gasped, made a little half turn, and collapsed to the ground.

It was an embarrassing moment and one uncovered by any amount of theory.

The chief didn’t rise; apparently it was not a ceremonial fall. As a matter of fact, his breathing seemed labored, like that of a man in a coma.

Under the circumstances, the Contact team could only retreat to their ship and await further developments.

Half an hour later, a native approached the ship and conversed with Chedka, keeping a wary eye on the Earthmen and departing immediately.

“What did he say?” Croswell asked.

“Chief Moreri apologizes for fainting,” Chedka told them. “He said it was inexcusably bad manners.”

“Ah!” Maarten exclaimed. “His fainting might help us, after all—make him eager to repair his ‘impoliteness.’ Just as long as it was a fortuitous circumstance, unrelated to us—”

“Not,” Chedka said.

“Not what?”

“Not unrelated,” the Eborian said, curling up and going to sleep.

Maarten shook the little linguist awake. “What else did the chief say? How was his fainting related to us?”

Chedka yawned copiously. “The chief was very embarrassed. He faced the wind from your mouth as long as he could, but the alien odor—”

“My breath?” Maarten asked. “My
breath
knocked him out?”

Chedka nodded, giggled unexpectedly and went to sleep.

Evening came, and the long dim twilight of Durell merged imperceptibly into night. In the village, cooking fires glinted through the surrounding forest and winked out one by one. But lights burned within the spaceship until dawn. And when the sun rose, Chedka slipped out of the ship on a mission into the village. Croswell brooded over his morning coffee, while Maarten rummaged through the ship’s medicine chest.

“It’s purely a temporary setback,” Croswell was saying hopefully. “Little things like this are bound to happen. Remember that time on Dingoforeaba VI—”

“It’s little things that close planets forever,” Maarten said.

“But how could anyone possibly guess—”

“I should have foreseen it,” Maarten growled angrily. “Just because our breath hasn’t been offensive anywhere else—here it is!”

Triumphantly he held up a bottle of pink tablets. “Absolutely guaranteed to neutralize any breath, even that of a hyena. Have a couple.”

Croswell accepted the pills. “Now what?”

“Now we wait until—aha! What did he say?”

Chedka slipped through the entry port, rubbing his eyes. “The chief apologizes for fainting.”

“We know that. What else?”

“He welcomes you to the village of Lannit at your convenience. The chief feels that this incident shouldn’t alter the course of friendship between two peace-loving, courteous peoples.”

Maarten sighed with relief. He cleared his throat and asked hesitantly, “Did you mention to him about the forthcoming ah—improvement in our breaths?”

“I assured him it would be corrected,” Chedka said, “although it never bothered
me.”

“Fine, fine. We will leave for the village now. Perhaps you should take one of these pills?”

“There’s nothing wrong with
my
breath,” the Eborian said complacently.

They set out at once for the village of Lannit.

When one deals with a primitive-pastoral people, one looks for simple but highly symbolic gestures, since that is what they understand best. Imagery! Clear-cut and decisive parallels! Few words but many gestures! Those were the rules in dealing with primitive-pastorals.

As Maarten approached the village, a natural and highly symbolic ceremony presented itself. The natives were waiting in their village, which was in a clearing in the forest. Separating forest from village was a dry stream bed, and across that bed was a small stone bridge.

Maarten advanced to the center of the bridge and stopped, beaming benignly on the Durellans. When he saw several of them shudder and turn away, he smoothed out his features, remembering his own injunction on facial contortions. He paused for a long moment.

“What’s up?” Croswell asked, stopping in front of the bridge.

In a loud voice, Maarten cried, “Let this bridge symbolize the link, now eternally forged, that joins this beautiful planet with—” Croswell called out a warning, but Maarten didn’t know what was wrong. He stared at the villagers; they had made no movement.

“Get off the bridge!” Croswell shouted. But before Maarten could move, the entire structure had collapsed under him and he fell bone-shakingly into the dry stream.

“Damnedest thing I ever saw,” Croswell said, helping him to his feet. “As soon as you raised your voice, the stone began to pulverize. Sympathetic vibration, I imagine.”

Now Maarten understood why the Durellans spoke in whispers. He struggled to his feet, then groaned and sat down again.

“What’s wrong?” Croswell asked.

“I seem to have wrenched my ankle,” Maarten said miserably.

Chief Moreri came up, followed by twenty or so villagers, made a short speech and presented Maarten with a walking stick of carved and polished black wood.

“Thanks,” Maarten muttered, standing up and leaning gingerly on the cane. “What did he say?” he asked Chedka.

“The chief said that the bridge was only a hundred years old and in good repair,” Chedka translated. “He apologizes that his ancestors didn’t build it better.”

“Hmm,” Maarten said.

“And the chief says that you are probably an unlucky man.”

He might be right, Maarten thought. Or perhaps Earthmen were just a fumbling race. For all their good intentions, population after population feared them, hated them, envied them, mainly on the basis of unfavorable first impressions.

Still, there seemed to be a chance here. What else could go wrong?

Forcing a smile, then quickly erasing it, Maarten limped into the village beside Moreri.

Technologically, the Durellan civilization was of a low order. A limited use had been made of wheel and lever, but the concept of mechanical advantage had been carried no further. There was evidence of a rudimentary knowledge of plane geometry and a fair idea of astronomy.

Artistically, however, the Durellans were adept and surprisingly sophisticated, particularly in wood carving. Even the simplest huts had bas-relief panels, beautifully conceived and executed.

“Do you think I could take some photographs?” Croswell asked.

“I see no reason why not,” Maarten said. He ran his fingers lovingly over a large panel, carved of the same straight-grained black wood that formed his cane. The finish was as smooth as skin beneath his fingertips.

The chief gave his approval and Croswell took photographs and tracings of Durellan home, market and temple decorations.

Maarten wandered around, gently touching the intricate bas-reliefs, speaking with some of the natives through Chedka, and generally sorting out his impressions.

The Durellans, Maarten judged, were highly intelligent and had a potential comparable to that of
Homo sapiens.
Their lack of a defined technology was more the expression of a cooperation with nature rather than a flaw in their makeup. They seemed inherently peace-loving and nonaggressive—valuable neighbors for an Earth that, after centuries of confusion, was striving toward a similar goal.

This was going to be the basis of his report to the Second Contact Team. With it, he hoped to be able to add,
A favorable impression seems to have been left concerning Earth. No unusual difficulties are to be expected.

Chedka had been talking earnestly with Chief Moreri. Now, looking slightly more wide awake than usual, he came over and conferred with Maarten in a hushed voice. Maarten nodded, keeping his face expressionless, and went over to Croswell, who was snapping his last photographs.

“All ready for the big show?” Maarten asked.

“What show?”

“Moreri is throwing a feast for us tonight,” Maarten said. “Very big, very important feast. a final gesture of good will and all that.” Although his tone was casual, there was a gleam of deep satisfaction in his eyes.

Croswell’s reaction was more immediate. “Then we’ve made it! The contact is successful!”

Behind him, two natives shook at the loudness of his voice and tottered feebly away.

“We’ve made it,” Maarten whispered, “if we watch our step. They’re a fine, understanding people—but we
do
seem to grate on them a bit.”

By evening, Maarten and Croswell had completed a chemical examination of the Durellan foods and found nothing harmful to humans. They took several more pink tablets, changed coveralls and sandals, bathed again in the degermifier, and proceeded to the feast.

The first course was an orange-green vegetable that tasted like squash. Then Chief Moreri gave a short talk on the importance of intercultural relations. They were served a dish resembling rabbit and Croswell was called upon to give a speech.

“Remember,” Maarten whispered,
“whisper!”

Croswell stood up and began to speak. Keeping his voice down and his face blank, he began to enumerate the many similarities between Earth and Durell, depending mainly on gestures to convey his message.

Chedka translated. Maarten nodded his approval. The chief nodded. The feasters nodded.

Croswell made his last points and sat down. Maarten clapped him on the shoulder. “Well done, Ed. You’ve got a natural gift for—what’s wrong?”

Croswell had a startled and incredulous look on his face. “Look!”

Maarten turned. The chief and the feasters, their eyes open and staring, were still nodding.

“Chedka!” Maarten whispered. “Speak to them!”

The Eborian asked the chief a question. There was no response. The chief continued his rhythmic nodding.

“Those gestures,” Maarten said. “You must have hypnotized them!” He scratched his head, then coughed once, loudly. The Durellans stopped nodding, blinked their eyes and began to talk rapidly and nervously among themselves.