New Writings in SF 21 - [Anthology] Read online

  His own observations suggested that the storm itself attracted the birds. Even as he watched, he could see many thousands of the giant creatures looping and flashing across the treetops like a band of furious angels. Heedless of the occasional heavy showers of rain, they appeared much intent on some purpose of their own. Kinoul brought out binoculars and studied them carefully, but the purpose of their activity remained a mystery.

  Only one of the birds seemed unmoved by the proceedings. This was the bird which Janice Howell had called the king. He perched darkly in a darkening tree and paid as much attention to Kinoul as Kinoul paid to the rest of the scene. Curiously, the Sector Superintendent did not find its presence threatening. In a way it was vaguely comforting. The feeling made him think of Janice Howell’s scientifically-unproven tenet that here was an awareness and an intelligence.

  Kinoul decided that his long vigil was playing havoc with his own objectivity. He shrugged impatiently and retired inside. His imagination had leaped to a vision of the great birds actually shepherding the storm. His equilibrium was not improved by finding a similar observation in the notes of Janice Howell.

  The storm that broke overhead during the night was the worst he had ever experienced. Though no damage was done to the installation, he lay for many hours listening to its violent fury. And again and again, too frequently for it always to have been imagination, he thought he heard the sound of great wings.

  * * * *

  At the headquarter offices of the Terran Trade Consortium on Baba, Kinoul sought out an old acquaintance, John Mangostein, the Consortium’s local director. Mangostein, not having heard that Kinoul was on Baba, was duly surprised.

  ‘I take it, George, that you’re not here on vacation?’

  ‘Far from it,’ said Kinoul. ‘I’m here because Professor Rockwell died and because before he died he tried to give us a message which didn’t get through.’

  ‘Well I’m afraid I can’t help you there. We discovered his ‘cat burnt-out in the forest and we sent you a summary of our findings. There’s little we can add to that.’

  ‘He was working on a theory that the birds of Baba possess a high innate intelligence.’

  ‘I was aware of his theory. It just didn’t happen to fit the facts.’

  ‘But you realise the implications behind the idea?’

  ‘Sure!’ Mangostein nodded sagely. ‘Under Space Conventions, it’s forbidden to exploit any planet where an indigenous life-form can be shown to have an intelligence rating above four on the Manneschen Scale. Sorry, George, but you won’t make that one stick. There’s not one shred of evidence that the birds out there rate more than one point two Manneschen—that’s about the same as a Terran chicken.’

  ‘Rockwell didn’t appear to think so.’

  ‘Let’s face it, George. Rockwell was not exactly in his prime. Now I know he was a friend of yours, so don’t take this amiss. But when he died he was closing up to sixty-five years of age, and well past retirement. Every man is entitled to the dreams of his dotage, but don’t let’s confuse them with reality.’

  ‘I’m trying to preserve an open mind,’ said Kinoul. ‘So to do justice to you all, I’ve opted to make an independent assessment.’

  ‘Yours? With respect, you’re not a trained ecologist, or an extra-terrestrial biologist. If your conclusions conflict with those of my specialists, I’d have no choice but to fight you through every court in the Galaxy.’

  ‘I hope it won’t come to that,’ said Kinoul. ‘But present evidence suggests you may be wrong—so wrong, in fact, that you’d be laughed out of even primary court.’

  ‘That’s a bold statement, George. But I’d be interested in hearing your evidence.’

  ‘Very well!’ said Kinoul. ‘Let’s consider first what the Manneschen Scale is supposed to represent. It claims to be a measure of alien intelligence. In the final analysis it’s purely a measure of the intelligence that can be communicated in terms a human estimator can understand. Communication is an essential feature in establishing a Manneschen level.’

  ‘Granted. But the ability to communicate is also an essential part of the concept of intelligence. An IQ of a thousand sealed up in a box is a nil intelligence as far as the rest of the universe is concerned.’

  ‘Then let’s look at intelligence as a survival factor. Species-wise, if your environment contains something you can’t tolerate, you either evolve so that the worry factor is of lesser importance—or you use your intelligence directly to manipulate your environment. You either develop long legs to run from the tiger, or you invent a gun with which to shoot it.’

  ‘I don’t see where you’re leading, George.’

  ‘Then tell me—has a bird on Baba ever directly injured a man?’

  ‘There were a couple of incidents in the early days when we were clearing the nests from the plantation areas. Finally we shot a few of the beasties and I don’t think there’s been a case since.’

  ‘Did it ever strike you as odd that shooting a few should have an effect on the behaviour of them all?’

  ‘I don’t think I ever thought about it. I suppose we just assumed...’ Mangostein paused in mid-sentence.

  ‘You just assumed that the creatures had learnt their lesson,’ supplied Kinoul. ‘A lesson learnt by a few, which radically altered the behaviour of the whole species. That’s a rare exercise in communication, by any standards. And you still maintain they’re devoid of intelligence?’

  ‘You’re splitting hairs,’ said Mangostein disgustedly. ‘What we really assumed is that when we stopped attacking the nests, they stopped attacking us. Though perhaps they do have intelligence enough to have a rudimentary language. But does that really alter the point ? We need the agricultural products we can grow on Baba. The plantations supply a lot of the essential alkaloids and natural organic derivatives which can’t economically be produced on Terra. The birds don’t use the space for a damn thing.’

  ‘Except to live in.’ Kinoul was critical. ‘It’s a questionable morality for us to acquire their living space simply to save ourselves a little commercial inconvenience.’

  ‘Are you going soft, George?’ asked Mangostein. ‘Isn’t that the way of all humanity since the beginning of time?’

  ‘On Terra, yes. But we’d hoped not to bring that particular trait with us to the stars. That’s why the Space Conventions were formulated.’

  ‘But you can’t cite one major instance where the birds use intelligence to manipulate elements of their environment to their own advantage.’

  T think I can,’ said Kinoul quietly. ‘You see, it looks as though they have the ability to create and control the storms.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s your line!’ Mangostein moved stray locks of hair back from his forehead. ‘Beavers manipulate streams by building dams, remember. But that doesn’t qualify them for a high IQ.’

  ‘But you don’t deny the birds can manipulate storms?’

  ‘I don’t deny they associate with storms. I’d be very doubtful about their ability to control them. But whatever they do is an instinctive approach. It has nothing to do with intelligence.’

  ‘Then it gives you a hard question to answer. For the first couple of years you imported a considerable quantity of bird repellent field-dressing for seed protection. Then you stopped importing it. Why?’

  ‘There’s no mystery there. It was only necessary for certain crops. These crops we finally ceased to grow.’

  ‘Why? Did the birds get them?’

  ‘No. The venture proved uneconomic. As a matter of fact the plantations were all destroyed by storms.’

  ‘And how many types of crop which didn’t need bird-repellent dressings have had to be abandoned because of storms?’

  ‘Very few.’

  ‘Yet you refuse to accept the obvious conclusion that the birds directed the storms to destroy the plantations because they objected to the field-dressing?’

  ‘Yes, because it doesn’t fit the facts. It took us a long while
to work out the answers, but the picture finally emerged. You see, the birds didn’t direct the storms to those fields—we did it ourselves.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘So our latest theory runs. We had asked Professor Rockwell to investigate the causal relationship between field-dressing and the incidence of storms. Unfortunately we couldn’t accept his findings that the correlation was due to avian intelligence. We therefore challenged him to put our own theory to the test.’

  ‘With what result?’

  ‘I’m truly sorry, George—but the resulting storm was the one which killed him.’

  ‘Then you’d better let me have the facts,’ said Kinoul, because this is one experiment which will have to be repeated.’

  * * * *

  Kinoul drove the landcat as far as he was able, finally coming to the edge of one of the great plantations where huge crimson plants were obviously under intensive cultivation. Not wishing to damage the crop, he necessarily had to skirt the fields. Soon his way was obstructed by wide irrigation channels and an unusual density of palms and bamboo-like vegetation which congregated close to the abundant water.

  By trial he found he could proceed faster on foot than by landcat. The tall fronds overhead gave him a welcome shade which made his labours with a machette just about tolerable in the heat. Beneath the undergrowth his way was brightened by all manner of incredible flowers and orchids. In the little rills and streams which broke away from the main watercourse, a million rainbow water-creatures flashed brilliant in the occasional shafts of sunlight. The air was alive with heavy scents, unfamiliar, yet decidedly heady and pleasant. The brush was athrob with the rasp and whisper of living and thrusting yet virtually unseen fauna and overall came the long, clear calls of the great birds sporting in the high trees.

  Half an hour’s exertions brought him to the place he had selected. The instrumented radio-pocketpack verified his position. He glanced at his watch and noted the time, then made a radiocall to the control centre of the Terran Consortium. Finally he returned the pocketset to the frequency of the supervising satellite and left the channel open.

  He now faced a period of waiting. He occupied himself by studying the spacious trees rising above and appreciating the intense vigour of life in the brush on all sides. His position had placed him roughly on the edge of the forest and close to the great plantation whose florid blooms he could just discern as a sea of bright redness beyond the thinning treeline.

  Life on Baba was thrusting and abundant, whether natural or cultivated in form. The urgent insistence of every living thing on the right to attempt to survive and multiply, was a message which he read very plainly. From the giant birds in the high branches down to the minutest insects underfoot, Baba was vibrantly; almost ecstatically, alive.

  Within the hour he heard the sound of the Consortium’s helicopters far out in a circle around him. They were spraying bird-repellent across literally hectares of plantation and forest. By careful pre-arrangement they kept their distance and left a clear kilometre radius between him and the broad band of chemical emulsion which descended from their sprays. Using his binoculars, Kinoul watched the birds in the high, heavy roof of trees. They seemed attentive and aware of the event, but not unduly perturbed. As Mangostein had predicted, the great birds of Baba appeared to consider it no great concern of theirs.

  Unconvinced, Kinoul sat down to await the next phase of the prediction. The theory was simple. As the emulsion dried upon the foliage it whitened—and in so doing increased the infra-red reflection over a local area to such an extent that broad thermal currents were caused to rise. These upset the equilibrium of Baba’s permanently unstable weather. Like Terra, Baba’s atmosphere was a gigantic heat-engine, drawing its energy from its sun. It was unlike Terra inasmuch as there were no great seas or substantial mountains to continually moderate the pattern. Baba was one great ball of virtually continuous tropical forest with an almost uniform absorption of radiant heat. Very little change in surface reflectively was needed before the hair-trigger sensitivity of the dynamic forces in the upper air would respond by producing a major thunderstorm.

  It had been the contention of the Consortium investigators that any substantial change in surface reflectivity would be likely to initiate a storm. The theory was that the spraying of bird-repellent over a large area was itself sufficient to trigger the effect. They maintained that the destruction of the plantations so treated was in no way due to the presence of the birds. If this was proven, it left a deep gap in Rockwell’s case for avian intelligence. It was putting this theory to the test that had cost Rockwell his life.

  Now Kinoul was having the experiment repeated, with himself at the proposed storm centre. He realised he could have observed the event more safely from a distance, but he was still unconvinced about the role of the birds merely as followers of the storm. His view, confirmed by Rockwell’s notes, was that the birds played an active part in the development of the storm. Kinoul felt that it was imperative that he understood the nature of the relationship between the avians and the forces of the sky. This was why he was placing his life at risk in the same manner as had Rockwell.

  With his binoculars he constantly scanned the leafy heights and the patches of sky beyond. His first observation was the formation of a haze across the sun and the slow gathering of clouds. Perhaps the birds noticed it too, because one by one they split the leafy screen and rose lazily upwards to circle the area and then to fly beyond his ken. Presently none of them remained.

  Kinoul felt he should have quit then—before the storm broke. Having determined the reason for the cloud’s formation, there was no logical sense in remaining to suffer the discomfort and danger of the aftermath. The ‘cat was only a kilometre distant and he judged he had ample time to gain it and be heading for clear weather before the fury broke. Yet some instinct urged him to remain and follow the development through.

  As he turned and surveyed the tunnel formed under the great palms he felt a sudden sense of something unusual. The feeling was incredibly strong, yet for a moment he had difficulty in placing the factor which warned him. Then he realised that, whereas a minute earlier, the lesser wildlife-in the brush had been swarming industriously, all was now silent. Even the minute creatures in the bushes had run away and hidden themselves in whatever lairs they possessed. The swift transition from industry to the forlorn sense of desolation and desertion, was a contrast not to be treated with equanimity. He could only guess at the rising electrical charge, but the creatures knew its value. And the mechanics of natural selection had taught them to be very much afraid.

  Slowly the cloud grew and a darkness descended. An overall shade killed what had been shadows and overlaid everything with even deeper shadow. This was an unusual and premature night, where the only suggestion of light crept in at the edges, providing surreal and impossible illumination for an impossible and surreal scene. Even the solitary leaves ceased their movement as the slight perpetual breeze was quelled by the depths of a mighty calm.

  Kinoul now began to regard the trees with a new appreciation of their form. Almost sapless, their glazed trunks and knuckled joints had been fashioned by evolution to become almost perfect high-voltage insulators. When the electrical potentials of a growing storm approached seven or more kilovolts per metre, survival frequently depended on having either a high electrical resistance, or else in being very small. It was no accident that Baba possessed no large vertebrates except for birds. From his original contention that being struck by lightning was only a slight possibility, Kinoul was now forced to the conclusion that the probability ran uncomfortably high. Like Rockwell, he had already made the mistake of remaining in the area too long.

  He felt the distinct bite of the bright and eager wind rushing towards the centre of the forming thundercell. It crossed his mind that it might at least be advisable to move away from the cell centre, but he decided it would be labour in vain. The darkness had continued to close until soon it was almost complete. It was no l
onger possible even to walk without tripping over trailing creepers and rotting logs.

  In any case, he would have been halted by the rain. Never before in his life had he experienced anything to compare with the force of the deluge which descended. Although partly protected by the leafy screen above, the force of the falling water was a physical, bruising hurtfulness which thrashed his head and shoulders and soaked him instantly. Using his hands to protect his head against the beating streams, he staggered close against the bole of a large tree, gasping for breath as the water cascaded down his face and into his mouth and nose. Beneath his feet the forest floor became a minor river which rose halfway to his knees with unbelievable rapidity. With his legs trapped in a sea of muddy loam, he could only wait in shocked anticipation to see what the elements would deal to him next.

  He did not have long to wait. Soft hail as large as hen’s eggs thrashed his soaked and unprotected shoulders and tore at his ears. He kept his hands protectively over his head and his face he kept down, with his forehead pressed against the tree. The chill shock of the semi-liquid snowballs against his spine caused his teeth to chatter and reduced him to a degree of wretchedness quite beyond his previous experience. If there was any consolation it was only that the sky had lightened somewhat to an overall murky grey, still forbidding but at least permitting him to see the details of the environment which caused him such discomfort. Nothing in his tribulations, however, quite prepared him for what followed.