“Just what do you think you’re doing?”
Brad snapped awake at the sound of Kosoff’s voice. For a moment he was disoriented, foggy. But then it all became clear. He was sprawled on the sleeping roll in his shelter, on planet Gamma, alone in the predawn dimness.
And Kosoff’s face filled his comm screen, glowering at him.
“Well?” the professor demanded.
Knuckling his eyes as he sat up, Brad mumbled, “Good morning.”
“You went into their village,” Kosoff accused.
“Yessir, I did.”
“I specifically told you not to make contact with the aliens.”
“I haven’t made contact,” Brad said.
His face red with anger, Kosoff started to reply, thought better of it, and snapped his mouth shut. Brad sat there looking at the comm display, fighting an urge to urinate.
At last Kosoff said, his voice iron-hard, “Last night you went into the village three times and left three small animals that you had caught.”
“Yes, I did.”
“That’s contact, which I specifically prohibited you from initiating.”
“It’s not contact. They didn’t see me. They don’t know where the animals came from.”
Kosoff’s glowering expression cooled a bit, but only a bit. “Don’t split hairs with me, young man.”
Thinking quickly, Brad improvised, “What I did is an experiment. I want to see how the Gammans react to something unexpected.”
“How they react,” Kosoff growled.
“Surely they won’t think that those animals were left with them by a visitor from another world.”
Kosoff said nothing.
“If we’re going to make contact—eventually,” Brad went on, “I thought it would be a good idea to see how they react to the unexpected.”
“React to the unexpected.”
“That’s within the mission protocol, I think.”
“You’d have to go through the rules with an atomic force microscope to find anything covering what you just did.”
Glancing up at the brightening shell of his shelter, Brad said, “They’ll be waking up soon. We’ll be able to see how they react.”
Still looking grim, Kosoff grumbled, “I’ll get Chang and her people to record everything they say.”
“The linguistics computer should be able to understand at least some of it,” said Brad.
“You’d better get up to the crest of the ridge and observe them.”
“Yes. Right away.”
Kosoff was clearly unhappy, but he added, “And don’t let them see you!”
Suppressing a grin, Brad answered, “I’ll try not to.”
* * *
By the time he had done his morning ablutions (including relieving his bladder) and pulled on the biosuit, the bloodred sphere of Mithra had climbed above the distant mountains. It was full daylight when Brad cautiously looked down at the village from the crest of the wooded ridge. He stayed behind a row of bushes and focused his helmet’s telescopic lenses on the longhouse.
A growing crowd of Gammans was clustered at the building’s door, talking rapidly and gesticulating with their ropy, tentacle-like arms.
“… not me,” the linguistics computer translated.
“Who did it?” demanded a voice. Brad thought it must have come from the Gamman standing in the doorway, with the three caged animals at his feet. The splotches of color on his body were several different shades of blue and purple, and he seemed to be the one asking questions, demanding answers.
The village chief, Brad concluded.
They kept on chattering and pointing at one another. Brad’s gift of the captured animals had clearly upset them. It was something different, something new in their lives, and they had no explanation for it. Very much like humans, what they didn’t understand, they feared.
Brad noticed with some disappointment that their wide-splayed feet were obliterating the bootprints he had left in the packed earth.
There goes one of my brilliant ideas, he thought.
The computer’s translation was hit and miss. Mostly miss. It buzzed weakly when it came across a word or phrase it didn’t understand. But it kept spitting out the word “who.” None of the Gammans had an answer.
At last the village chief raised his arm and pointed to the hills on the far side of their farmland.
“… strangers … their village,” Brad heard in his helmet earphones. “… why? Who?”
“… death time coming…”
“… gift?”
“Why?” the chief repeated.
The villagers fell silent. Several of them turned to look toward the distant hills.
Then one of them said, “Far village.”
Brad grinned to himself. “Far village, indeed,” he muttered. “You have no idea how far.”