Chapter III

It was when you stepped outside the cluster of prefab units that made up headquarters, Roy Auckland thought, that you really knew you were on an alien world. He didn't feel much lighter, but there was a springy feeling underfoot, and it seemed as if the mossy ground-covering was propelling him into the air. His blood tingled.

And the air--not much different from Earth chemically, they said, but he smelled something that reminded him of apple-blossoms. And when the light breeze blew, he got a whiff of something that reminded him of the months he'd spent in the tropics as a student. The planet Carolus was almost vertical on its axis, which meant that seasonal variations would be small.

He followed Burleigh to the crawler and stood beside it, looking back at the severely functional headquarters unit, laid out like a letter "I". Calvin Burleigh took out his pipe and followed Auckland's gaze.

"Not exactly artistic," he said, "but not too bad. The dull, gray finish stands out amidst all the greenery without looking like too much of an intruder, though I haven't seen that shade of gray anywhere else here."

"Plenty of greenery," Auckland agreed. "And I suppose somewhere on this planet there's grass or trees or shrubbery the shade of green that looks right to an Earthman. All I can see is a bit too yellow, too white, or too blue to be my idea of vegetation--where it isn't some tone of red instead." His eyes narrowed as he fixed the layout of the building in his mind. "You know, whoever designed this was a genius at avoiding convenient arrangements."

Burleigh smiled faintly as he lit his pipe. "Tired of having to take a walk to the shower room? At least we all have our own sanitary equipment." He held the match in his hand, as if uncertain whether it would set fire to the moss, then let it drop. "Well, I'm more fortunate. At least I don't have to step outside to get to the kitchen, rec-room, or office."

Auckland nodded. "You and Edholm at the upper end, and Ken and Shirley at the lower end have doors connecting with the three rooms in the shaft. The lab's like the shower rooms, inaccessible to any others. Doc James and I have no connections with any other rooms at all."

"And everyone has to hike to the storage sheds.... Well, the weather here's pretty good, although there are sand storms out in the desert where we're heading. Up here, though, we just get ordinary rains and moderate winds. It won't be much different in winter; hardly noticeable, I'd say."

"We all have ample windows with shutters, and none of them look on to each other. I suppose that's something to be grateful for."

"Except for the lab. Anyone in the lab can look into James' quarters, if he hasn't closed his shutters. And each room has its own individual power unit for light and heat, so it's almost impossible for the entire building to be blacked out by any accident."

Shirley emerged from her room wearing shorts, and Ekem-ve followed. Auckland sat beside her, in back, trying to fix the various inter-room connections in his mind. Each room was accessible to any of the others via the intercoms, but the important thing was that someone watching the single door to the James's quarters could tell if anyone tried to slip in there. Which might be an important point if things were shaping up as Dr. Howard James suspected.

Something like a bumblebee buzzed by the crawler. Auckland ducked instinctively, and Burleigh chuckled. "Don't worry about them. A couple of us got mild bee-stings--they're not really bees, of course, but fairly close to them, and they act a lot like Earth-type bees--but they weren't much worse than mosquito bites. The insects haven't bothered us at all since the first week or so, and Glamis never had to worry about them at all, since he wears that suit every time he goes outside in daylight.

"Now there's something for you to look into. I know you're no entomologist, but we suspect that the Vaec control them in some way."

He took a cigarette from his case and passed it around. "Carolus is going to be a fascinating field for ecologists, by the way. We've seen only two kinds of insects: the 'bees' and a kind of praying mantis thing which keeps them down. Nothing of what you'd call pestiferous insects at all, very few birds or animals--the last two keep away from our vicinity.

"Plant life is abundant--" he indicated the outcroppings of flowers, shrubs, and occasional trees that resembled weeping willows in bloom--"and seems to have been arrayed in a sort of order. You don't find fruit or nut trees in amongst the willows, and that goes for the flowers, too. Whatever sort you want to find, you've got to look for a group. Oh, they're not bunched together--what I mean is, you'll never find just one willow, say, in an area that has other kinds of trees."

Auckland nodded as they started out and noticed that the indentations made by the crawler were soon lost. It was as if the--grass-moss?--pulled itself in just before being crushed then gradually rose again. Which meant that it was almost hopeless to look for footprints if the occasion ever arose; he'd seen very few bits of bare ground with its faintly violet soil.

"I boned up on Carolus before I came," he said, "but there doesn't seem to be much information on the planet."

"There isn't," said Shirley. "After all we're only the third group of visiting humans. Leitfred discovered two planets in this system which would be suitable for occupation, and named them after early Anglican martyrs: Carolus, who was a king, I think, and Laud--wasn't he a cardinal?"

"Archbishop," corrected Burleigh. "This was back in the days when the church was all split up into sects and the various rites weren't in communion with each other. Virtual warfare between them at times."

The terrain was reasonably smooth, though far from flat, and seemed to have a general incline. Despite the lack of bumps, crawler-riding was hardly comfortable, Auckland thought. Well, at least the top was down.

"Well," Shirley went on, "Leitfred established relations with the Vaec and his report made Planet Control decide that there would be no colonization until we learned more about them. Leitfred considered them primitives, but others didn't agree."

"Ah, yes," broke in Auckland, then stopped himself and looked embarrassedly at Ekem-ve. "This isn't very polite, I'm afraid."

The Carolinian's hair waved slightly. "No need for apology, excellent Roy. Humble native have no pride of culture. We were in fact greatly pleased that excellent Jonas--" Auckland blinked then realized that he was talking about Leitfred "--taught us fascinating language of Earth people. Far more interesting than Vaec tongue, so with humble joy we adopt same for ourselves by generous permission of excellent visitors."

"That was when Dr. James came back with Leitfred's second expedition," Burleigh said. "He persuaded Leitfred to stop here for a little while--Leitfred was en route to another system--to test his theory that the Vaec weren't really natives of Carolus, but were descendants of a race that had established a colony here in the distant past. The Old Martian records mention a star-empire which they discovered when they went traveling in space, and James thinks that the Vaec are remnants of it."

"Excellent Howard inquire of us about old-time Vaec history, but we unable to tell much." Auckland frowned, wondering why Ekem-ve lapsed into this sort of diction every now and then, when he could speak as good English (allowing for differences in thought-patterns) as any of them. "Long time, Vaec find history poverty-stricken in mirth. We show excellent Howard some furniture from old-time dwellings."

"James tried to find traces of an earlier civilization here," Burleigh continued. "But he couldn't find any in the time he had. Took him nearly ten years after returning to Earth to convince Planet Control that something might be found, due to Vaec references to what might be considered a buried city in the desert."

"Great was our distress," said Ekem-ve, "that we could not assist excellent Howard at that time, for we could see that much mirth would attend his finding of same. While we wait for excellent Earth people to honor us with further visit, we look around planet ourselves. What joy that we are able to help excellent Howard now."

The crawler was passing a stream which made a wide pool at this point. A lone Carolinian was sitting on a rock, fishing, with some sort of container beside him. Ekem-ve said, "May we not pause, excellent Calvin, and observe Syeltan in his unawareness?" The Vaec's hair was now waving a little more vigorously.

"Afraid not, Ekem-ve. There may be mirth to spare out at the diggings. We have to get there before we miss it." He explained the hidden bomb, avoiding any hint of intent to harm the victim. "What sort of joke is being played on Syeltan?"

"Every day, Syeltan fish in pool for time-space of three baits. He uses _vlagin_ nut for bait, that the fish may have a fair chance for happy feed and escape. It occurred to this dull person that the pop-ball resembles _vlagin_ nut if slight operation be made. So this one performs operation and secretes pop-ball among bait. When Syeltan intrudes hook into disguised pop-ball...." He broke off, and his hair looped wildly.

"What happens then?" asked Auckland.

"Ball makes loud pop and perhaps startles Syeltan into pool. Juice from pop-ball splatters all over Syeltan, covering him with red splotches. Juice very tenacious, does not like to leave what it touches. Syeltan wear juice for long time. Will know when he pops ball, but extra mirth if can see him do it."

"Oh, you put the pop-ball in his bait last night?" asked Auckland.

"Oh no. Secrete pop-ball when Syeltan fill container four months ago, as excellent Earth people say. Bait last for exactly fifteen more days, as even this short-thinking person realize that number of bait must remain the same. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. Every day, this one comes to watch."

"Heavens," said Shirley. "To wait nearly five months to see if a practical joke comes off! But Ekem-ve, suppose he drops the pop-ball into the water accidentally, or recognizes it despite your skill?"

"Long joke make for most exquisite mirth, excellent Shirley. If ball is lost, then this person must try again. If discovered, then this person is caught on own vine."

"They lay sticky traps for each other," Burleigh explained. "When one of them discovers a trap--custom decrees that it be identifiable as the work of a particular person--he moves it to another spot where the one who made the trap may step into it. Next to being the perpetrator of a joke, the Vaec consider it most mirthful to be caught in one's own trap. These vines aren't harmful, but they're hard to get off once they stick to you. And there doesn't ever seem to be hard feelings when a joke comes off, either on the victim or rebounding on the perpetrator."

"Of course no hard feelings. Mirth too precious to be spoiled by overestimation of self."

And if a Vaec didn't realize that the _dodlig_ would lose most of its odor when mixed with James's soup, thought Auckland, he'd think it a first-class joke. He remembered how he had walked into a sticky trap himself, the first day he was out alone. He'd managed to remove all traces of it before he returned to camp, and none of the Carolinians had referred to it since.

Yes, might not some native have reasoned that James would open the thermos and--_phew_! No danger of him eating it, and they all knew it would take only a little while to replace the lunch.

Burleigh's comment answered the question he was about to ask. "They've pulled things on all of us, too, but they seem to realize that we don't find some of the more undignified jokes they play on each other as funny. I must say that they haven't overstepped the bounds."

Before he could pursue the thought any farther, Shirley broke in. "We're coming to the rise now, Roy. You'll see the desert from the top of it."

They were out of sight of the pool now, where Syeltan still sat fishing. Their last glimpse of him caught him in the act of pulling his empty hook out of the water and putting his hand into the bait-container. Auckland felt a twinge of sympathy for Ekem-ve, along with admiration for his patience and stoicism. The Vaec didn't seem put out at all by such disappointments.

Now the crawler was at the top of a plateau. They turned and headed for an edge where the slope was fairly gentle. As they passed the rim, Auckland gasped at the sight of what looked like an expanse of pure gold, in mounds and hills and flat stretches much like the Sahara.

"Put on your desert glasses," said Shirley as she donned hers. "Five minutes or less looking at that without filters and you'll find that snow-blindness is mild by comparison."

He obeyed sheepishly, as they'd told him about this before. The beauty of the scene remained even when the glare had diminished. "I wonder how Leitfred could have missed this, or failed to have mentioned it," he said.

"Didn't land in this part of the planet," Burleigh explained. "Talks with the natives seemed to indicate that there was a desert where the original settlements had been. But that was during the second trip. Ekem-ve assured James that the Vaec would be happy to help if we wanted to send out an expedition." He mused for a moment as the crawler started down the incline. "Ekem-ve and his clan migrated thousands of miles and resettled, in order to be here when we came back."

"They must have very long lives," said Auckland. "Ekem-ve and the others were here when Leitfred first landed, and the Vaec don't seem to show signs of aging."

"There're the diggings, Roy," said Shirley.

Auckland could see tents, machinery, and a large group of people standing or sitting around the excavation.

"Archaeology is slow work," sighed Burleigh. "Even with modern excavators which make for fewer aching backs and risk of damage to buried objects."

"How many Vaec assistants do you have?"

"About twenty are all we need at a time. They take shifts, each putting in three days at a stretch. We've been here about four months now, and we're ahead of Doc's timetable. But now...."

A dull, booming sound came to them.

Burleigh turned to Auckland, his face suddenly pale. "Lord, Doc was right. It sounds as if someone _did_ plant an explosive in that room."