Chapter XII

Ekem-ve continued, as the single hairs on the others stirred in approval, "We can speak naturally when there are no other Earthmen around, Roy, but it is best that we continue to talk like 'natives' in the presence of Earthmen who assume us to be like that. To answer your question: You are the second Earthman to put it to us, and your deductions are correct so far as they go."

He felt that they expected him to come up with more, wanted him to think more deeply and see still other things which they thought should be apparent to a man of understanding.

"Then you have actually been testing all of us, all the time," he said. "I suspect that you learned a good deal about us when Leitfred used the language helmets--unless you can read our minds and learned it before the transfer was made."

"We can read your minds when you are trying to tell us something," Syeltan said, "but that is very limited. We can read only what you want us to know. We cannot extract anything you are trying to conceal from us. If you concentrate on telling us something, we can pick up your thought."

"What about things which we might not want you to know, but which we cannot help thinking about? Or things which we might not be aware of ourselves consciously?"

"The desire to communicate the information has to be present," Phrecle said. "The most we would obtain from unconscious thoughts and attitudes, or thoughts you wanted to hold back, would be a sense of disturbance on your part. But we could not determine what caused the disturbance or whether it had anything to do with us."

Auckland looked around him, wondering what to do with the cigarette butt. Rycur passed him a small dish. "Thanks," he said. "Then you must have gotten something special from the language-transfer process."

Ekem-ve blinked. "The helmets are much more powerful than you realize, Roy. They bring up and amplify a great many things which you might not want someone to know. We thought at first that they effected mutual understanding, but it was soon apparent that Leitfred had learned nothing about us from them."

"We saw his pictures of us, in terms of 'simple natives' as you put it," Hcent said. "It amused us, and we decided to conform to it just enough to satisfy those who felt we should be that way. Leitfred's attitude was picturesque, you might say, but it was soon apparent that the others were not much different. And they were all relieved that we were not too advanced, as they thought."

Auckland nodded. "Then you saw some of our bad points, but some good ones, too. You saw that some of us--all of us to an extent--take ourselves too seriously. Pride. The man who has too much pride has too little humor. He can't laugh at himself, which is often essential in understanding other people. Your practical jokes on each other were clues for us to follow if we could. And we did notice that none of them were really harmful, which is not the case with practical jokes some Earthmen play on each other."

"We were not astonished, but it did make us feel sad when we discovered this," Nsenol said.

Auckland took out another cigarette. "Bad habit," he said, "but it does help to settle the mind. There is one danger here. A man who cannot laugh at himself resents being made the victim of a joke, however well-intended. You say one other Earthman came to you as I did. Was that Dr. Glamis?"

"Yes," said Ekem-ve. "He was a man of excellent mirth, which is the simplest way of putting what we mean into your language."

"But there is one member of the expedition," Auckland mused, "who cannot laugh at himself, who cannot bear the thought of being taken in by people he considers 'natives' and inferior. Ekem-ve, where did Hcent really find the imitation Vaec box?"

Hcent answered, and Auckland found that his suspicions had been confirmed. He talked at length about the case, and his opinions. Finally, he rose. "I'll have to be getting back," he said. "I think something dangerous is about to happen already, but I've been counting on a belief that someone will try to stop me from getting back safely first."

"We will help as well as we can without interfering unwisely," Ekem-ve said. "You must not think that the Vaec are all-powerful. The Creator has given us some abilities that you do not have, but you will find that you have abilities we do not have. Even though we can read minds at times, we can be deceived." He arose and added. "Some of us will try to guard your return."

He gave Auckland the slap of farewell, and the others followed suit.

"It is best that you do not see the guards," Ekem-ve said. "May you come to us again under more mirthful circumstances."

He started away, thinking that he had learned nothing about the Vaec technology, but somehow that seemed to be of very secondary importance in comparison to what he had learned. Now he had to be on the watch--for the Vaec could not be expected to know all the ruses of a murderous human being--and try to think like the one he suspected was the culprit.

Putting himself in this person's place and figuring out the best moves could help to a certain extent. But you could be led into a trap of your own making. What you thought was the most logical move for another to make might not be so at all; and even if you were right, there was no guarantee that the other person would make the best move. It was better to try to think of your opponent's characteristic moves, always keeping the best possibilities in mind.

The sky had started to become overcast that afternoon, and Auckland realized that he had yet to experience rain on this planet. He'd been told that rains were quite similar to those of Earth. The light was very dim now, and the disadvantage would work both ways, so far as his hunter was concerned. If someone were hunting him. He couldn't be sure that this would be the case at all, but it was likely, and it made sense.

They'd helped him make a more accurate map of his return route, then showed him how he could follow the course off the "paths." There were no paths in the sense of beaten down trails through woods. There were clear areas, where only the grass-moss grew. It did not hold footprints, not even the marks of the heavier crawler, and this would be to mutual disadvantage. And footfalls were soundless.

The evening around him was soundless, too, except for his own breathing and the pounding of his heart, which seemed unusually loud in his ears. When he touched a bush, it sounded as if he'd made a terrific clatter, although he knew he hadn't.

He knew there were friendly followers around him somewhere, but that didn't decrease his apprehensions much. All the important little questions that he should have asked the Vaec, but hadn't thought of at the time, now came crowding into his mind. How well could they hear? How sharp was their sense of smell?

Well, he thought, they could smell the faintest touch of _dodlig_, undetectable to human nostrils--but, somehow, he felt that this was misleading. There was something about this he knew, really knew, without knowing; something he needed to remember and co-ordinate with other observation.

Did the Vaec have senses which men did not--or which, in the human being, were degenerate, vestigial, or potential and as yet undeveloped--beyond the abilities which they had acknowledged? There was telepathy and the ability to teleport, but these were both qualities which many human philosophers and some scientists believed to be in man, too. Vestigial or potential, perhaps present in that large area of the brain for which no function had as yet been assigned by specialists.

What were the qualities that Earthmen had which the Vaec realized they did not have? Was pride and the foolish desire to be God a corruption of one of these qualities?

His adrenals were reacting to danger signals, but such physical response could come just as easily from an imagined peril as a real one. He stopped by a large maple-like tree, stepped behind it and took out the map, holding the pencil-light up against it and hoping that the faint glow would not reveal his presence. Yes, he seemed to be on the right track; he must bear left from here, and his next landmark would be a roughly triangular-shaped patch of fungoid growths.

He stepped out from behind the tree, and a touch of giddiness assailed him. It was only momentary, and he must have staggered to his right a bit before it passed. He reached out to lean against the smooth trunk for support, wondering what had happened to him. His finger touched something cold and thin.

It felt like metal, a thin sliver of metal. Then he caught his breath as he realized it was metal indeed, and the thickness and length of a small needle. It had been fired from a needlegun, which was soundless beyond a few feet and accurate for about a hundred yards. The needle would not penetrate deeply, however, beyond a third of that distance and it was not unusual for them to be poisoned.

He drew it out. There could be no certainty, without more careful examination than he was able to conduct here, but it might be useful for evidence. Then he realized that he had nothing in which to wrap it, and it wouldn't be safe to carry any other way. Auckland momentarily blasphemed the progress in fabrics which made his clothing tearproof, so far as his own abilities were concerned. A strip from his shirt would have been quite handy.

What to do with it? It would have been better, he thought now, to have left it sticking in the tree. He settled the problem by stooping down and pushing it deep into the grass-moss, then using his pencil-light to ram it down into the soil. It would stay there.

When he stood up, he realized that he'd missed another bet. The sensible thing to have done was to have feigned being hit and put on a show of quick decease. Yet, as he thought more on this, starting ahead again, there were risks. He was unarmed and if the hunter were equally sensible he would not come too close without firing another needle into his victim for certainty. That's what I would do under the circumstances, if I were the hunter, Auckland thought, and grinned at the comforting realization.

The giddiness hit him again, and when his mind cleared, he realized he was well off his course. What was happening? Was the Vaec food having some effect that his hosts hadn't foreseen, due to some personal allergy? He saw clumps of unfamiliar growths and little patches of water; he'd stumbled into the marshlands, so he had to bear roughly north-north-west. He glanced at the compass dial in his watch and made the turn indicated. The way led to a good size bare patch.

He had not traveled far into it, when he realized that he was sinking. Quicksand! But if it were like quicksand known on Earth, he had a chance; he could float on the top of it as one floated in water. He tried to let himself down gently.

And found that he had lost all power of motion. He was paralyzed, and the treacherous surface beneath him slid from beneath his feet so that he sank down steadily, as if in a slow elevator. Roy Auckland closed his eyes and concentrated on one thought: "Ekem-ve! Help! Quicksand!"

They would be listening for him, of that he felt certain. They would receive his call. But whether they would arrive in time, whether this were the only area of quicksand in the vicinity. He thought briefly of the route he had traveled, as well as he knew it.

Auckland opened his eyes. He could not move his head but just stared straight ahead. Something was stirring beyond the patch, by a clump of tall bushes. In a moment, something came into sight. It was a figure in a protective suit. It stood there motionless and raised its arm, then lowered it. Auckland realized that the hunter had decided there was no need to waste another needle. The hunter would wait to make sure that he had gone under.

The downward motion was slow and silent, and Auckland's thoughts were racing. Could he at least solve the mystery in his own mind before that mind was released to another order of existence? He thought, "_Into thy hands I commend my spirit_," then turned his mind to clues and evidence.

Shirley Mason entered his thoughts first, partly because he knew he did not want her to be the guilty one. Yet she had a good motive for killing Glamis and she could have set the deadly needle in the box. That would mean that someone else, perhaps Glamis himself, had made the phoney attempts on James. Glamis was capable of such humor.

Calvin Burleigh loathed Glamis; or rather, found Glamis's behaviour and attitudes loathsome. Yes, he would be capable of killing the man then praying for his soul. And Burleigh might have known that James was going to study the Rosetta stone book that night, and would not go to the lab to examine the box.

Anyone could have purloined Shirley's imitation Vaec box, and Burleigh would have had time to make the substitution before Glamis got to the lab. Shirley, however, didn't fit into that category. Had she gone to the lab after supper and the meeting in the recreation room, she would have been seen by one of the watching Vaec.

Unless James had indicated to her, without saying what it was, that he had something of importance he was going to work on in his quarters. But that might have applied to any of the others. It was clear, however, that the substitution was made before the meeting in the recreation room. And that was the best argument for the apparent solution: that Glamis had been caught in a trap prepared for Howard James.

But the person most likely to get a hint of James's change in plans was Amelia, and Amelia hated Glamis. The misdirection made sense in her case, and somehow the ineptness of the two attempts suggested Amelia's attempts to be clever.

As to James himself, there was motive, although it did not seem to be strong enough for murder. There was certainly opportunity. But would James have blundered so badly? He could have arranged some other sort of accident, without any preliminaries. And the stopping of the field work hurt him far more than he presumably had to gain by Glamis's death.

Burleigh or Edholm, however, might well have wanted to put an end to the expedition, but he couldn't see Edholm doing it that way. On the other hand, the very fact that James was in no real danger from either attempt suggested a person like Burleigh, who would not harm an innocent person in order to get someone else. Not do physical harm, that is. Any psychological suffering that James underwent as a result of the abrupt frustration of his work would be justified in Burleigh's mind by the good he would be doing the "uncorrupted natives."

Howard James had suffered a breakdown after the Marlene affair and another misfortune in his profession might bring on a second. Burleigh considered himself called to combat unrighteousness. Shirley had been afraid. Amelia hated. Did she also fear Glamis for some reason? Edholm--where did he fit?

Auckland's thoughts turned to Kenneth Glamis, whom he had last seen alive working over the microscope in the lab, and jotting down notes. Then, how had Phrecle put it, "Excellent Kenneth looks up from microscope and delivers instruction to self. Then puts microscope away and takes out camera." Glamis was in the habit of muttering to himself while working.

Somewhere in this maze of conjectures and evidence there was a pattern, Auckland thought, as he felt the sand around his neck. And now the pieces were beginning to fall into shape. His thoughts raced even more swiftly as the sands crept up his face and they all confirmed the suspicion he was holding when he had last spoken to Ekem-ve. Yes, yes, he was sure he knew who was out there, watching him go down. But the case was still incomplete, the clinching details missing. He ought to see it, ought to see it all now.

The thought of his own blindness was bitter in Roy Auckland's heart as the sands touched his nostrils. He drew in a deep breath and felt them rise over his head.