DAMOS

  The interminable receiving lines ended at last. Fortunately the little group brought the small translator, which allowed people to exchange a few words (providing only one person spoke at a time) as they grasped left elbows with right hands, the Damosian equivalent of a handshake.
  At the head table sat High Commissioner Ylro and the Deputy High Commissioner Amil, flown back from Bobol for the event. Chief of Security Neac and Director Enohr flanked them. Christina, Martin, and Mujama sat opposite them. Each of these dignitaries had a headset connected by radio to the translater, which made real conversation possible.
  The other members of the party were seated at smaller tables of four or five persons with a variety of notables. For the sergeants and the technicians it was a particularly great treat: normally only officers received the kind of treatment they were offered. But they had spent two long and full years together on this expedition, and had shared in the triumphs and failures of the flight. All those disappointments, all those planets with no intelligent life! In particular, to have come across dead civilizations, one that seems to have annihilated itself in war, another that had choked itself with the destruction of its natural resources! And the wormhole experience! They were also grateful to their leaders, who put so much faith in them and who never failed to treat them with dignity. Maybe that can explain, at least in part, why so many of the ordinary crew members on Constellation spent a good portion of their leisure time in the pursuit of skills and knowledge. "We're getting to be scientists in our own right," as Sergeant Torquato put it.
  Many notables were present, mayors, governors, scientists like Klor and Noyl and Gar from the Catta Space Center. Only eight of the people seated with the sergeants had headsets. Christina noted that many more of these would be needed for future contacts. In the meanwhile, the speaker was set at one table, in hopes that the guests there could communicate. Instead, a veritable Babel ensued, as English and Kolok were constantly being translated, and the translations retranslated back into the original, with some funny distortions.
  "I've noticed that all of you have fur on top of your heads, except Sergeant Torquato, whose head is smooth like ours" became, after retranslation, "I've taken account of the fact that you have rich pile atop your craniums, except Sergeant Torquato, whose skull is debonair like ours." It was clear that Colombina and the Commodore would have to work on their little program. It was finally decided that just one person should speak at a time, and that they would use the delayed translation button. Not as funny as the speaker, but it made real dialog at least imaginable.
  The large room glittered with the bright lights from crystal chandeliers, tall pier mirrors, the highly polished floor over which the serving staff seemed to glide. The ten Earthlings did not recognize any of the food, except that there was a delicious meat course that reminded them of ostrich, and curious orange-colored vegetables that looked something like lima beans but were unusually sweet. A bright red wine with a delicate and fruity taste accompanied the main dish.
  Bit by bit the conversations all tended to turn to details of the technologies employed by the transgalactic visitors, which fascinated the Kolok: the translating devices, teleportation, the huge spaceship, the now-fully functional sensing devices were among the most popular. Accounts, even summary, of the space travelers' adventures and experiences in alien worlds, the wormhole transverse, their training and occupations. And the Earth dwellers discovered that the Damosians were on the verge of space exploration themselves.
  Their first space exploit had been the visit to the Damosian moon, which was found to have a light atmosphere and primitive life forms that had evolved to a kind of algae. Then an unmanned spaceship had been sent on a photographic fly-by of the twin planets Tertia Major and Tertia Minor, on both of which evidence of life had been discovered; Damosians were dreaming of exploring these worlds, with the expectation of discovering new life forms. After that, of course, came the discovery of Unias and its biota made possible by the new landing device designed by Dr. Enohr's associates, Klor Emor and Noyl Zerof, first deployed on the very day that Constellation arrived on the scene.
  The Damosians already had ambitious plans for manned expeditions to all three of the neighboring planets, probably within a decade. And in the meanwhile, the robot ship that had flown past the twin planets was soon to reach the giant gaseous outer planet, Oarnn, named after the great god worshipped by most Kolok; several important experiments were to be conducted.
  Martin, in particular, was amazed at the energy and drive of the hosts, just as the entire party was when they learned that this little solar system was teeming with life: life on the four rock planets and one moon!
  Just before dessert, High Commissioner Ylro lifted his glass in a toast to the honored guests. His wishes for their life and safety, and for an extended stay among the Damosians, were cheered by all present. He offered to have the entire crew shown around the planet, with no restrictions. "All 500 of us?" asked Christina. "If you were twice that many," he replied, "our planet would be open to you."
  Christina rose, and offered to have Damosians, in small groups, visit Constellation for as long as the Earth people remained in stationary orbit. "You'll have to decide who will be eligible," she said, "because we can't take you on by the  millions. And because we want to visit and explore your solar system, we would be honored to do so in a series of joint expeditions. I propose first a voyage to Unias, lasting for perhaps several months. We might even decide to establish a joint scientific station there. Then a second voyage, this time to Tertia Major and Minor, where two groups can explore the planets simultaneously. Thanks to teleportation and the speed of our ship, expedition leaders will be able to get to both planets."
  When she had made her suggestion, a rumble arose in the room, and the tumblers rocked on their not-quite-flat bottoms as an earthquake-like movement shook the hall. The Kolok were giving her their strongest cheer, the Tremor of Damos.
  Naturally, details of the expeditions and the visits would take time to work out, but within days, the crew had all had their first direct encounter with an intelligent alien species in its own habitat, and the chief Damosian dignitaries had set foot in an alien spacecraft for the first time. Some people were even becoming friends.
    

  The somber face of Ogatrac seemed to be darkening during these first euphoric weeks. He and other ministers of the Schadite sect were following events as closely as possible; some had even ventured to join the lottery for tickets to board  Constellation, and had won. The Schadite leaders devoured every news item, sent spies to bars and public places to see what effect the space travelers were having on the Kolok, watched the evening news on digitvision, monitored the reception the leaders and the people of Damos were giving to these aliens, who were the very face of evil. Furrowing his forehead, he withdrew into dark musings.

  We must find a way to train our women and men as rapidly as possible. The aliens have captured the imagination of the entire planet. It is not possible that they have traversed an entire galaxy for the reasons their leader gave. Scientific interest, indeed. Looking for intelligent life beyond the stars. Desire to know if they are alone in the universe.
  We must discover what evil they intend to visit upon the Kolok people. Their mask of friendliness must be penetrated. We must drive them away. Schad has warned us, Oarnn has spoken explicitly against such bearers of evil coming from beyond the moon. The world will not be safe until they leave. But if they leave, they will surely return, perhaps with an invading army. Better to find ways of detaining them here. Their people will assume they were lost in space. Yet, how do you detain them, when they have a ship as large as a village, and implements of mass destruction that our people cannot even imagine? In this era of bonhommie, how can we turn the will of the people against them? How can we show our people that they are being led into grave transgressions of Oarnn's sacred laws?
  I must find a way to call the Schadite leaders together to plan strategies for our deliverance. This will take time. This will take some political maneuvering, some incisive words, the right psychology. I must think carefully, plan carefully, be prepared in advance. Do I dare consider violence? Violence is prohibited by Oarnn's law; and Oarnn's law has united the Kolok into a single people that has not known the ravages of war for over one thousand years. Is there another way? Moral persuasion? Passive resistance? Do we have time? Already we have fewer people at our religious services, and we are hearing blasphemous speech  in the mouths even of our children. Already the official church leaders have bent the meaning of the words of Oarnn to make it seem as though the aliens are embodiments of good, not evil itself, as Oarnn has called them. We must rid our lives of this evil influence.
  I must think carefully, plan carefully, be prepared in advance. Plan for what? Be prepared for what? This is what my thoughts must turn to. First thoughts, then deeds. Oarnn will be served by the servants of Schad.

  On a tall bluff overlooking a vast plain through which meandered several streams and a large river, Christina and Han Lee were examining spectacular rock formations that glowed in various colors like the Grand Canyon of North America. One could see the evidence of at least a billion years of geological activity, from seismological faults and mammoth movements of planetary crust to centuries, millenia really, of inland seas and fossil life forms; from underground limestone caverns with stalactites and stalagmites to layers of granite and marble. A lot like Earth in many respects, the same geological basis manifested somewhat differently because of variants such as movement of the crust, the size of the tectonic plates, the effects of the weathering caused by rainstorms.
  "Damos has never experienced what you describe, Han," explained Tsepadub; "no ice ages, ever. We have had, while our ancestors roamed the world, periods of planetary drought and planetary flooding, great earthquakes and tsunamis, but never ice. Maybe it's because we're closer to our sun than Earth is to its, or because Damos tilts an almost imperceptible 50 on its axis, which means that we have climate belts rather than what you call seasons. And, compared to what you describe as your planets' elliptical orbits, our planets have orbits closer to circles."
  "Where did the Kolok people come from, Tsesadub?" asked Christina. "I mean, we humans evolved from great apes, bipedal mammals that gradually developed large brains, opposable thumbs, and an intelligence that no other creature on Earth had ever seen."
  "On Damos, Commodore, mammals are looked on with disdain. They are little things that eat our grains, spread disease, smell bad. But they do seem to be about as smart as some of our lizards. The Kolok evolved from four-digit warm-blooded lizards that had developed large brains, like your apes. All our warm-blooded lizards have larger brains than their cold-blooded relatives and have four digits. We believe that this symmetry is somehow connected with our mathematical way of confronting nature. And, as you know, we have opposable thumbs like you. A million or so years ago, when the first clearly Kolok-like creatures evolved, they were already ovovivaporous like us. This is a second characteristic that sets us off from other reptiles. There is a huge fossil record that you would perhaps like to see when we return to Ilhed."
  "We would love to do so. We've all been fascinated to see that your biota is in many ways similar to ours in general, although the evolutionary processes have produced very different species from ours. For example, the mahlils seem to fill the same niche as our birds, but they are not feathered, and it's clear they're flying reptiles of some sort. Some of the ocean creatures look like our fish, but others don't. You have crustaceans and gastropods and amphibians and other animals that have similar but not identical counterparts on Earth. You have trees and flowers and herbs and grasses, as we do, but they are quite different from ours. Nature is amazing in its variety and also in its sameness. When we first arrived on Paracelsus, the life forms on land were unlike anything we had ever seen: little scurrying vertebrates no bigger than insects. Some vegetation, but no trees or other wooded plants. Mesnos had been closer to Earth-like in its life-forms, but there were no one-to-one match-ups. Damos seems to us like an Earth that somehow evolved differently. It's a strange feeling."
  "You perhaps do not have venomous serpents and even venomous plants. Many of ours are deadly. In some areas, people are routinely vaccinated against snake-bites."
  A rumble seemed to come from the ground above them. Christina suddenly had an image of the rockslide on Paracelsus and its almost-fatal consequences to her. She paled visibly.
  "Commodore," said Han Lee, "maybe we should seek some shelter until this passes."
  "Ah, you heard the thunder before I did," said Tsepadub cheerily, not knowing the cause of Christina's nausea. "It is the afternoon shower. It should start in about five minutes. Let's go watch the rainfall from inside that cave over there. I see the others are on their way there already. We'd better hurry: the rains here are very heavy, although they last only a half hour or so. And they come like clockwork in this area. We call them Old Faithful."
  "I see the mahlils have flown back to their nests. A few more meters and we'll be there. Then I'll tell you what made me grow pale a moment ago."
    

  Atraps seemed particularly eager to join the group of people visiting Constellation. They were taken up into the craft in groups of 20, teleported 10 at a time in a two-minute interval. Atras was assigned a place in the first group.
  They were not the first people to visit Constellation. The major scientists and engineers, the national politicians had gone first. Now tours were arranged for ordinary citizens on the basis of a lottery. These tours alternated with tours offered to second-level politicians and academics. Special visits were arranged for authors, artists, musicians, school and university students. While everyone was fascinated by the craft, the students seemed particularly attracted to the Constellation crew, to the concept of space travel, to the thought of crossing the galaxy. This had Ogatrac and other high-placed members of the Schadite clergy very concerned. Atraps was sent to gather intelligence.
  "Is our first group ready?" asked Sergeant Torquato. "OK, come this way. I'd like you to establish three lines in a quincunctal formation." The group arranged themselves appropriately. High levels of excitement (and, truth to tell, anxiety) could easily be sensed. Atraps felt his blood flowing stronger, his heart beating faster. I'm not used to this feeling. I must control myself, I must not show my concern. My job is to observe, question, touch, discover. And report. Directly to the great Ogatrac! Be calm. Concentrate. What is Torquato saying? I missed the first part.
  "...a disintegration of the particles that make up your being. They will be instantly reproduced on board ship by the  computer. Nothing to worry about. You've already seen a thousand people come back from one of these visits, all of them in good health. You'll feel a tingling sensation, then some brief disorientation when you're reconstituted. We here on the ground will see a kind of white glimmer, and then you'll disappear. If you're worried about this, now's the time to drop out."
  Drop out? I've been waiting for a month to be here! I must record my sensa...
  At this point, Torquato gave a signal to Ju-Sen, up on the huge craft that was invisible from this distance. Atraps felt the tingle, then the disorientation, then he blinked and found himself in the alien ship. The ship was filled with a soothing light that came from some unknown source. Four or five aliens greeted them, led by the one called Susanna, who identified herself as the pilot and navigator of Constellation.
  "You're in a utility area of the ship, a working place that our technicians and engineers call home. This room is used only for teleportation. Lieutenant Ju-Sen is our operator. Someone else will be leading the second group in a couple of minutes."
  The first little group was led to a corridor, then to an elevator. "We're on level seven here. I'd like to let you see what my quarters look like. Then we'll visit various parts of the ship: the bridge, the medical center, the library, the biological laboratory, the engine room, whatever you'd like to see in the two hours we'll be together. Some of the people will be working; they'll let you know if they can't be interrupted. Otherwise, feel free to ask whatever questions you'd like."
  "Commander," asked Atraps as they emerged from the elevator, "what kind of training have you had on Earth? It must be difficult learning to be a pilot of this kind of craft."
  "Actually, we have some six years of training and education at the university level; the last two years are internships in our choice of three specializations, and at least one full year in the field we hope to enter. I had a two-year specialist training. I didn't get to pilot a Constellation-class ship until I had flown about 15 years on smaller craft. I've been a pilot on Constellation for 25 years."
  The group gasped. "You must be over 60 years old, but you look so young. Like the Commodore. So many of your people look older than she does: their skin has wrinkled, their hair has changed color." Atraps's implied question was on everyone's mind. Normally a Damosian would not ask such a question, but Atraps was a man on a mission.
  "Some of us on board have had our genes altered so that we are frozen in age, and have had our lives extended by about 200 years. I underwent this operation when I was 26, a short time after my internships had ended. The Commodore was 28."
  At this point, the group noticed that the corridor they were taking had a view of the outside in several large windows placed at 30-meter gaps. They saw their planet below them; they were not so high up that they could not see cities and geographical features. Above and beyond, they saw the sky with an almost unthinkable clarity. Everywhere they went, they saw crew members working on maintenance, or exercising, or carrying on their various duties. They continued their walk, amazed at the vastness of the spaceship. Finally they cam to Susanna's quarters.
 "As one of the senior officers, I have a somewhat larger personal area than the technicians and the non-commisioned officers," she explained before they went in. "They have just one large room instead of the two that I have."
  "The rooms are beautiful," exclaimed Atraps. "Still, I don't understand how you can have an exterior window when your room faces inward. We can see Damos from here!"
  "That's actually a kind of illusion. It's really what you just saw outside, but it's a hologram of that scene projected on the wall. I have a large number of holograms to choose from. Keeps us from getting claustrophobic."
  The outer room was a large workroom-study-living room, filled with books and scientific instruments and a small nook for meals near a computer terminal. There were musical instruments, a cello attracting the attention of several visitors. There was also a device to play recorded music. The inner chamber was smaller but comfortably furnished, with a bed, chairs, another study table with a computer terminal. A private bathroom completed the little apartment.
  After seeing the bridge, speaking with Colombina ("You can actually talk to that computer, and she answers you!"), looking at charts and maps of the galaxy that the Earth people had generated, the group made the rounds of the medical center and the other points that Susanna had suggested. At Atraps's suggestion, the group ended its visit with a tour of the engineering facilities, the engine room, the antimatter colliders, the communications center. Everyone had relaxed enough to ask questions of their hosts, and Atraps tried to commit everything he saw to memory.
  "You did not show us a place of worship," he said as they were approaching the elevator that would take them to Level Seven. "Do you have no god?"
  "Many on board are believers and attend regular religious services in chapels set aside for them. Some of our crew members are ordained priests and ministers of their religion. There are many crew members who prefer to spend some time in meditation or in study."
  "Not everyone is a believer?"
  "No. Many of us are not."
  Ogatrac will be pleased to hear this. Their god seems to be their quest for knowledge, and not the source of knowledge and the creator of divine design. Their attitude proves that these people are evil. They are proud of their accomplishments, of their travels, of the work they have done. Do they wish to suborn us in some way? Maybe their plan is to wean us away from the devotions we offer to Oarnn and Schad. I will have much to tell Ogatrac.