Brad asked Emcee to set up a brief get-together with Kosoff, to obtain his okay for going into the village. Instead, Kosoff convened a formal meeting of the full executive committee, all twelve department heads.
“Show yourself to them so soon?” Kosoff asked, from the head of the conference table. Even in the communicator’s small screen Brad could see the negative frown on his bearded face.
Sitting cross-legged on the inflated floor of his tent, Brad started to reply, “I don’t think I can learn much more about—”
Kosoff interrupted, “The schedule calls for a minimum of two weeks of observation before making physical contact with the aliens. Isn’t that right, Dr. Littlejohn?”
The display screen’s view enlarged to show the entire conference table. The people sitting around it looked so small that it was difficult for Brad to make out their faces. But Littlejohn’s dark, heavy-browed features were unmistakable.
“The schedule has some flexibility in it,” the anthropologist began.
Kosoff leaned forward in his chair. No mistaking the frown he wore. “Making actual physical contact with the aliens is the most delicate part of our mission. And the most important. We mustn’t let impatience wreck our work.”
Brad asked, “So what am I supposed to do, sit here and watch them from afar for another ten days?”
“Another few days, at least,” Kosoff replied.
“What’s the point of that?” argued Brad. “What am I going to see that I haven’t already seen? That’s a primitive culture we’re looking at. They work, eat, and sleep. Day in and day out.”
Elizabeth Chang, head of the philology department, spoke up. In her low, smoky voice she pointed out, “Every day you spend observing the aliens from afar, our linguistics program decodes more of their language. It is very difficult and very slow, but we are making progress. Do you not think it best to wait upon showing yourself to them until we have a fuller grasp of their language?”
Kosoff nodded vigorously.
Brad asked, “How long do you think it would take?”
Chang’s doll-like face eased into a gentle smile. “How far is up?”
“We can’t wait forever,” Brad said.
“Not forever, but perhaps a few more weeks,” Chang replied.
Quentin Abbott raised a hand. Without waiting for Kosoff to recognize him, the astronomer pointed out, “We do face a time limit, you know. The planet’s conjunction with Beta is coming in four months. We shall have to move this ship to an orbit around Alpha before then. I should imagine you’ll want to make contact before all that.”
Kosoff waved a hand in the air. “Another week or two shouldn’t make much difference.”
Abbott’s brows rose toward his scalp. “Really?”
Brad insisted, “I can make contact with them tomorrow morning.”
“And be their dinner tomorrow night,” Kosoff muttered.
Littlejohn said, “There’s another element to consider. If Brad makes contact with them, and then the conjunction hits the planet with enormous storms and other ecological catastrophes, mightn’t the aliens blame Brad for the disaster?”
There was a moment of silence, then comments came from around the table.
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“They might think MacDaniels is a witch!”
“It might be better to wait until after the conjunction.”
Brad watched as they talked. Each person at the conference table had an opinion, or at least wanted to be heard.
Finally he said to them, “Well, instead of sitting around discussing the problem, you need to make a decision.”
Kosoff nodded. “You’re right. Elizabeth, we’ll give you and your people another ten days to extend your understanding of the Gammans’ language. Brad, you’ll continue to observe them at a distance for ten days. No contact until then.”
“But the possibility that they’ll blame MacDaniels for the conjunction storms?”
With a shake of his head, Kosoff answered, “They’ve been through conjunctions before. Even if it’s happened before any of the living Gammans were born, they must have an oral history about it.”
Chang nodded daintily. “They do talk about a bad time, an evil time that brings death.”
“You see? Ten more days and then MacDaniels makes contact.”
Brad felt as if he’d been neatly maneuvered into waiting ten days. Then he looked at Kosoff, who was smiling satisfiedly, and Brad felt frustration rising in him. Frustration—and anger.
* * *
Smoldering as he sat in his tent, Brad waited impatiently for the meeting to break up, then asked Emcee to connect him with Littlejohn on the anthropologist’s personal channel.
“Nobody listens in on personal calls, do they?” he asked the master computer.
“No one but me,” Emcee replied, “and I am programmed to respect an individual’s privacy unless some matter of danger to the mission is involved.”
“Good. Put me through to Littlejohn, then.” Brad almost added, “Please,” but knew Emcee didn’t need human politeness.
The anthropologist was in his kitchen, just reaching out for a steaming cup of tea.
“I thought you might call,” Littlejohn said, heading for the recliner in his sitting room.
Still squatting on the floor of his tent, Brad blurted, “Kosoff is wasting valuable time.”
Littlejohn stretched out on his recliner, the teacup still in his hand. With a sad little smile, he replied, “He doesn’t see it that way.”
“I don’t understand why he wants me to spend another ten days repeating what I’ve already done. I’m ready to make contact with these people.”
“But he’s not.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are.”
Brad blinked with puzzlement. “What?”
“He wants to make certain that you—and everyone else—knows who’s in charge. It’s a simple matter of two alpha males competing for leadership of the pack.”
“I’m not competing with Kosoff!”
“Aren’t you?”
“No!”
With a slight shake of his head, Littlejohn said, “Well, he thinks you are. And that’s what matters. He feels he has to show you, and everyone else, that he makes the decisions and the rest of us follow his lead. That includes you.”
“That’s crazy!” Brad said.
“He doesn’t see it that way. I don’t think he even realizes what he’s doing. But the most important thing to him is to maintain his position as leader. That means he has to make sure that you do what he tells you to do.”
Brad pulled his knees up to his chin and muttered, “This is a helluva way to run the mission.”
“No,” said Littlejohn, looking almost amused. “It’s the human way. The way of the primate apes.”
* * *
Brad stewed inwardly as the sun set and darkness enveloped the woods. His shelter wasn’t big enough to pace in, so he pulled on his biosuit, then pushed out through the air lock seal and walked through the trees for the better part of an hour.
He heard strange animal cries in the darkness, and caught a glimpse of a large bird gliding almost silently between the trees. He trudged up to the crest of the rise and looked down at the village. All the buildings were dark, not a single light showing anywhere.
Then he realized that the hollow was bathed in a faint, eerie reddish glow. Looking up, he saw the crescent of Beta glowering down. It’s getting closer, he knew.
Finally he went back to his tubular shelter, crawled inside, and stripped off his suit. Sitting on the bedroll in nothing but his skivvies, he called to Emcee:
“What time is it aboard the ship?”
The computer’s smooth voice instantly replied, “Twenty-one fifty-three.”
Felicia might be asleep already, he thought. But he told Emcee to buzz her personal channel anyway.
His communicator screen glowed to life and Felicia’s warm-eyed face smiled at him.
“I thought you would call,” she said.
“Woman’s intuition?” Brad asked with a smile.
“No, I heard about the meeting with the department heads.”
He rehashed the meeting with her, and Littlejohn’s claim that Kosoff felt that Brad was competing against him. Felicia listened patiently, then asked, “So what do you intend to do?”
“I’ll tell you what I’d like to do: walk right down into the village tomorrow morning and say hello.”
“Would that be wise?”
“It’d be better than sitting here doing nothing.”
“So do it,” she said.
Brad shook his head slowly. “But if I frighten them, or anger them, or screw up the contact in any way—the mission would be totally loused up, and it would be all my fault.”
Felicia said, “It’s all your responsibility, one way or another.”
“My responsibility,” Brad echoed. “Not Kosoff’s damned committee’s.”
“It’s a shame the Gammans don’t discover you on their own. Don’t they ever leave their village?”
“They go to work in their fields, on the other side of the hollow from where I am. They forage for small game out at the edge of the hollow.”
Felicia’s expression turned thoughtful. “Too bad they don’t come up to where you are and discover you on their own.”
For several moments Brad fell silent, thoughts whirling in his head.
At last he said, “Maybe I could arrange that.”
“You think so?”
“It’s worth a try.”