Brad slept dreamlessly after his talk with Felicia, even though he realized he hadn’t asked her how she was doing, or what she was doing in his absence.
He awoke as morning sunlight brightened the curved surface of his tent. Sitting up, he called Emcee and asked for a review of the animals that the Gammans caught and ate.
By midmorning Brad was outside the shelter, in his biosuit, cheerfully building a primitive trap from branches and twigs, humming to himself. His work was clumsy at first, especially with his hands encased in the suit’s thin, slightly slippery gloves. But within a couple of hours, with Emcee’s help, he had built a barred little box with a hinged door that could snap shut and lock. Then he reached up and pulled a bright-colored fruit from one of the sinuous trees.
It looks ripe, he said to himself. We’ll see.
“What are you doing?” the voice of a controller demanded.
Startled by the intrusion, Brad replied, “An experiment,” and quickly returned his attention to his work.
“That’s not on the mission protocol.”
“Yes it is. We’re supposed to study the eating habits of the local fauna.”
The controller did what bureaucrats usually do when faced with a contradiction: he bucked the question to the next-highest level of authority.
I just hope it doesn’t get to Kosoff, Brad thought.
With Emcee guiding him, Brad found tiny paw prints around the edges of the bushes at the base of one of the big, sky-reaching trees. He placed his lopsided little trap beneath the bush’s leaves and backed away, then hunkered down on his stomach to watch and wait.
And wait. And wait.
“They’re not coming,” he muttered to Emcee.
“Hunting requires patience,” the computer replied. “The animals you seek are wary. After all, it’s their lives that are at stake.”
Brad nodded inside his helmet. “Patience,” he whispered.
He was drifting off to sleep when he was startled by a screeching, snarling noise. His eyes flashing wide, Brad saw that a little furball was caught inside his rickety trap, desperately struggling to get out.
Grinning at his success, Brad got to his feet and walked to the trap. The animal was making it shake and rattle with his exertions. It seemed to be half fur, half teeth, and either terrified or furious. Perhaps some of both. Its eyes were wide and glaring.
It had six little legs, Brad saw. And the fruit he had laid inside the trap for bait had been half gnawed away.
“You had your meal before you realized you couldn’t get out,” he said to the trapped critter.
Brad’s plan was to go down to the edge of the village that night and lay the dead beast where the natives would be certain to find it. Curiosity would drive them to wonder how it got there, and that would impel them to follow the trail of his bootprints and find him. Contact.
But that brought up a problem. He had to kill the animal.
Brad stared down at the little beast. It had quieted down, probably exhausted from its struggles. It crouched inside the trap, panting and staring at him.
He knew that the equipment in his pack included a laser pistol with enough power to instantly, painlessly kill a human being, let alone an undersized ferret.
He also knew he couldn’t do it.
Well, he thought, I’ll leave a live gift in the village. Tonight.
He picked up the wooden cage. The animal snarled and nipped at Brad’s fingers, making him drop the little coop. Its door popped open and the furball scooted away, chattering furiously.
Holding his hand close to his helmet, Brad saw that the critter’s teeth had not penetrated the fabric of his glove. He didn’t feel any pain, except to his ego.
Mighty hunter, Brad said to himself.
Undeterred, he picked up the empty cage and started all over again.
By nightfall, Brad had collected three squeaky, chittering little rodents in three lopsided, flimsy traps. He had added primitive straps made from vines, so that he could carry them without getting his fingers nipped.
As he gently laid his handiwork outside his shelter, he saw that all three animals had curled up and gone to sleep. Good, he thought. The quieter the better.
Using the night-vision optics in his helmet, he carefully carried his catches to the crest of the ridge and looked down at the village. Only one light was showing, in the building he thought of as the longhouse.
The controllers back aboard the orbiting starship had been quiet, for the most part. Brad’s explanation that he was studying the local fauna apparently satisfied them. They must have found a line in the mission protocol that covers what I’ve done so far.
But going down into the sleeping village was another matter, he knew. Emcee was watching everything he did; Brad hoped that the human controllers on the night shift depended on the computer to alert them of anything deviating from mission protocol, and were not watching him moment by moment.
Brad hunkered down amidst his catches and waited. He drifted off to sleep, then woke with a start when his earphones buzzed with the sounds of Gammans speaking.
Raising his helmeted head above the crest, he saw in the ruddy light of Beta four Gammans walking leisurely away from the longhouse, chatting among themselves. He knew the sounds of their conversation were automatically relayed from his suit to Emcee, up in the orbiting starship. More grist for the linguists’ mill, he thought.
The four aliens went their separate ways to their huts, calling to one another in what Brad thought must be their version of “good night.” The village grew quiet and utterly dark. Maybe they can see in the dark better than I can, he thought.
Brad waited an hour, fighting off the urge to sleep. The animals he had caught were quietly snoozing away. Hope I can get them down to the village without waking them, he thought. He decided to carry them one by one, and deposit them at the doorway to the longhouse. That’ll make more bootprints for the villagers to follow, he told himself.
The work was tedious, but at last Brad had all three little traps in place just outside the longhouse’s entrance. Then he hurried back up the hillside and started for his shelter, thankful that the controllers hadn’t paid any attention to what he was doing.
Nobody up in the ship has thought of this, he realized. There’s nothing in the mission protocol about it. So what is not forbidden is allowed. I haven’t triggered any alarms from Emcee. Brad thought of the master computer as his partner in crime.
Going to be a big day tomorrow, he thought as he trudged toward the shelter. With a grin, Brad wished he could see Kosoff’s face when the professor learned that he had made contact with the Gammans.