Chapter 24

"Nothing?" Igwanda repeated in disbelief.

"Nothing I can see, Colonel," Chavez said. "They seem to be going on pretty much exactly as they were before you hit the ground. There's that small group on the outer fringes of the woods or whatever around your field, and the rest of them are giving the field a wide bypass when they need to get to the other side, but other than that ... well, sir, life goes on for them."

Shortly after the landing party had returned to their vessel for the evening the skies had brightened briefly despite the arriving twilight; a breeze had sprung up to temporarily dissipate the smog that usually obscured the area from orbital view. Igwanda had joined the group meal and discussion period until full night had fallen, but then excused himself to contact Chavez on the Gardener from the communicator in his private compartment for a report on what activities might be taking place in the native settlement beyond the lander's view. The response astonished him.

"Do you want to see for yourself?" asked Chavez.

"Sampling, Sergeant," Igwanda replied. "Not the entire scan, at any rate not now."

For the next several minutes he compared today's recording with his memory of what the few hours of prior scans had displayed. Other than incidental differences he found nothing disagreeing with Chavez' report. The foundry continued to pump out smoke at about the same rate; the natives moved with their usual briskness but nothing more; agricultural activity proceeded with about the same number of workers; those few aliens who approached the lander field did indeed detour around it, as Chavez had said, but otherwise offered no hint of interest in what lay beyond the overgrowth or even showed they were aware of anything unusual there.

"Enough," he said finally. Chavez' face returned on his monitor. "Conjectures, Sergeant?" the colonel asked.

"None, sir. They know you're there. Most of them just don't seem to give a shit. No curiosity at all. Maybe it's a characteristic of their species..."

"Doubtful," said Igwanda, more to himself than his sergeant. "A species able to progress so rapidly in technology must have a very sharp curiosity, exploratory interest. Yet the Argo lander likewise evoked only feigned interest, masking what appeared to be a xenophobic attack ... Well. Insufficient data to this point."

"If I may ask, how does this fit with your experience on the ground?" said Chavez.

Igwanda shook his head slowly. "Incomplete data again. They clearly have some fear. As an example, I was greeted today by a well-muscled bodyguard as my companion, who might perhaps hope to overpower me hand-to-hand if combat were initiated—by either side. It would not, I might add, succeed."

"Are you confident of that, Colonel?" interrupted the sergeant. "We have no real sense of their strengths or their vulnerabilities; their weak points—"

"I know my own, however," Igwanda cut him off. "And our clothing would thwart any threat even more quickly. But my point is that, notwithstanding their fear—or at the least a healthy respect for our weaponry—they avidly pursue this contact through these few individuals. Yet the rest of their populace show neither the fear nor the interest, but merely continue their normal pursuits. Either this is a colony practicing discipline at a level unknown on Earth, or..."

"Or?" prompted Chavez.

"Or practicing an extended subterfuge of the same sort as was perpetrated on the Argo lander, gulling us into laxity. Or perhaps some third thing that fits the operation of their minds but not our own..." He trailed off. Suddenly decisive, he abandoned his musings. "Sergeant, I want you to review once more the scan of the Argo attack—both the attack itself and the previous false alarm just before the airlock recycled. My recollection is that I saw their eyes slightly dilate on each occasion. I want you to confirm that, and also to take a precise timing between the moment ocular dilation began and the decisive action on each occasion: withholding attack the first time, striking the second. Please report to me privately at 0700 by the Eden clock. Otherwise, that will be all; and my commendations on an excellent report."

"Thank you, Colonel. I'll make the analysis."

It wasn't until sleep began to overtake him that Igwanda reacted to Chavez' particular choice of words. "Analysis?" he vaguely thought. Sergeants "analyze" now? I merely asked him to check the scan and report.

Oh well, we are all entitled to make ourselves important.

He slept.

The next morning brought two developments for Igwanda. The first was Chavez' report. Yes, the natives' eyes had visibly enlarged before both Argo events, the false alarm and the actual attack.

"Roughly a second before the reposturing that preceded the strike, about another half second before the airlock began recycling in the first case and just a little more before the natives began actually striking in the second," the sergeant told him.

That close, the colonel thought. A fraction of a second might have saved some lives. "Thank you, Sergeant," he replied.

The second development was that, when he emerged from his compartment, he saw the on-board displays registering a significant deterioration in the weather. Igwanda had timed the landing to coincide with a period of predicted clear skies, but even the Gardener's meteorologist acknowledged that weather forecasting was a sometime thing in the climatological conditions of a little-known world, and it appeared that the breeze which had briefly cleared Centerville's smog the evening before had been the precursor of an oncoming storm system. There was now a down-drenching rain outside.

He looked at Meiersdottir, who was just finishing her breakfast. "Where does this leave us for today?" he asked, gesturing at the display.

"I think it leaves us getting wet," she smiled. "For a while, anyhow. But I have an idea..." He raised his eyebrows. "Don't worry, Carlos, nothing compromising. But I think we have on board the material to build a kind of pavilion shelter at our meetingplace. All we need is a dozen or so solid rods about three meters long, and I know we can put those together out of spare supports for our on-board beds and furniture, plus about a hundred square meters of fabric—half for a ground covering, half for a roof—for which we can use the bolts we have for emergency purposes. It'll be wide open on the sides so we'll be in full view to your troops but still stay nice and dry. All right?"

Not exactly all right, Igwanda considered; such a structure would have to remain in place overnight—it would be too cumbersome to dismantle it every evening and reassemble it every morning—making Earth technology available to any aliens bold enough to pilfer pieces of the shelter during the nights. It would also, despite Meiersdottir's assurance, impose some restraints on defense in the event of an all-out assault. But neither risk seemed realistically great, and the colonel had long recognized that some compromises would be necessary if the mission were to have any chance of success. He merely nodded, and retrieved a food package for his breakfast.

This time Meiersdottir and Lee, still disarmed, emerged on the ramp together with the four soldiers (Dzenda, whose turn it had been for the night watch, remained on board). At Meiersdottir's suggestion, she and Lee carried collapsible umbrellas that they immediately extended; "it'll show our distaste for the rain and also make it easier to describe our plan," she'd said. They and Igwanda moved quickly to the established meetingplace. For a moment there was no corresponding movement from the natives, but then their three native companions emerged from the overgrowth and came to meet them.

The greetings were more perfunctory this time; the natives were clearly taken aback by the scientists' new accessories, and stared uneasily at the umbrellas. Meiersdottir quickly dispelled their evident concern, though, by pointing at the sky and, with gestures, mimicking the falling rain. "Rain," she said, with a motion indicating displeasure. Joe copied her gestures; "raign," he repeated. Now she pointed to her own umbrella and then to Lee's; "umbrella," she said. "Guard."

Joe emitted the same snort of choking laughter that Akakha had made the previous afternoon, and all three natives visibly relaxed. Igwanda realized their eyes had been dilated continuously up to now. "Unghrella," the native said. "Garg. Goog." It pointed to the cropfields. "Raign goog." It pointed in turn to itself and the others; the clothing of all three was saturated, hanging loosely on their torsos and both upper and lower limbs. "Raign gnot goog."

"Yes," she agreed. She gestured to include all six individuals, natives and humans alike. "Umbrella. Big umbrella. We can make. OK?"

"Gno," Joe said immediately. "Uee can make." Then it looked directly at Igwanda. "Make gneed many. OK?"

Meiersdottir started to turn toward him, but Igwanda had made his decision instantly. This was their world; it was their prerogative to show off to these technologically superior visitors. "Yes," he responded. "We go there." He pointed to an area a few meters distant. "Not in the way."

"'In the way?'" Joe asked with what the humans had come to recognize as a puzzled look.

Lee took over. "You make," she said, with gracefully coordinated hand and finger movements. "We here," she pointed to the ground beneath her feet and then moved her hands and fingers spastically. "In the way. We there, you make more good, more fast." Her hands and fingers moved gracefully once more. "We not in the way."

"Ah," said Joe. As Igwanda and the scientists moved away, Shaw's voice over the communicator warned of a sizeable group of aliens approaching. The colonel quickly interrupted to advise over the general lander communication channel that this incursion was authorized and why, but told the soldiers to remain on particular alert for the duration of the construction project. But once again he was distracted and failed to ask himself the critical question: how did they know? Joe had made no gesture or called out.