A Matter for Men

SIXTEEN

OUR FIRST stop was Specimen Section, ET-3. Ted and I pushed the cart down the long disinfectant-smelling hall of the section, while Major Bright-Eyes and his honor guard followed us -glowering.

At one point we passed a heavy steel door with a very tantalizing sign:

LIVE CHTORRAN OBSERVATION

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

I craned my neck as we passed, hoping to peer in through the windows in the doors, but there was nothing to see. And Major Shithead gave me a dirty look for my trouble.

We went all the way to the end of the hall through a pair of double doors marked SUPERVISION. The person in charge of the section was a surprisingly unmilitary little old lady, who peered at us over the tops of her half-frame spectacles. "Well, hello!" She gave us a twinkly-sweet smile. "What did you bring me today?" She took the clipboard from the major and peered at it, smiling and blinking as she did so. "Uh huh, yes ... yes, very good. . . ." She had rosy pink cheeks and shiny white hair piled and curled on top of her head. She was wearing a white lab coat, but where it was open at the neck I could see the collar of a green and blue flowered dress. Her nametag said M. PARTRIDGE, Ph.D.

"Millipedes, yes ... uh huh, eggs ... uh huh, wall scrapings . . ." She thumbed through the rest of the specimen list, squinting carefully as each page flashed up on the clipboard. "What's this? Purple Coleus? Whose classification is that?"

"Mine." I raised my hand.

"Oh, yes." She blinked at me. "And you are-?"

"McCarthy, James. Special Forces."

"Ah, yes," she said. "Well, James, please don't classify specimens anymore. Leave that to those who are better qualified for the task. I know you were only trying to be helpful-"

"Excuse me," I interrupted. "But I am qualified."

"Eh?" She looked up at me. And blinked.

"I'm Special Forces, ma'am. Extraterrestrial Section. I gathered those specimens myself. At some risk. And I've had several days in which to observe them. I've also had access to the entire Scientific Catalog of the Library of Congress. `Purple Coleus' is an accurate description of that plant, regardless of the qualifications of the person pointing to it and saying, `That's a purple coleus.' " I looked at Ted, but he was busy admiring the ceiling. It was very well plastered.

The major was glaring at me. Dr. Partridge shushed him and turned to me. "James, we receive many, many specimens every week. I have no way of knowing whether this is the first time we've seen samples of this particular species or not. This may not even be a Chtorran species at all-"

"It was growing in a carefully cultivated ring all around the Chtorran igloo-" I started to explain.

"Yes, yes, I know." She held up a hand. "But please let us make that confirmation. If we accepted the classifications of every person who brought in specimens, we'd have fifty different descriptions of every single plant and animal." She patted my hand like a forgiving grandmother. "I know you'll remember that with the next batch of specimens you bring us."

"Uh, ma'am-" I fumbled my orders out of my pocket. "We've been reassigned here. We're detached from the Rocky Mountain Control District to function as independent observers in the National Science Center, Extraterrestrial Division."

She blinked. And blinked again. "Goodness," she said. "Well, it wasn't cleared with me. How do they expect me to run a section if they don't keep me informed?" She took the pink copy of my orders, adjusted her glasses on her nose and looked down at it. She held it almost at arm's length. When she finished scanning, she said, "Hm," very quietly. She passed the paper back almost absentmindedly. "Yes. Well, I'm sure we can find something for you boys to do. Come and see me on, ah . . . Tuesday. No, wait a minute-where did I leave my calendar?-oh, here it is. Let's see, now. No, Thursday will be better-"

"Uh, ma'am?" She stopped and blinked and gave me that wide-eyed look again. "We'd like to get to work immediately. If you could assign us a terminal ... ?"

"My goodness, are you Special Forces boys always in such a hurry?"

"Yes, ma'am, we are. There's a war on." I remembered something Shorty had said and added, "It's the first invasion ever fought on American territory." I held up my disk meaningfully. "A terminal? And can we get our live specimens settled in?"

Major Bombast interrupted then. "Dr. Partridge-it's already Friday afternoon, and you have a reception and a plenary session-"

"Yes, I know." There was an impatient edge to her voice. She caught herself and smiled sweetly at him. "I'll finish up here, and you can pick me up for the briefing in-ah, forty-five minutes." The major hrumphed and disappeared. Dr. Partridge stepped to a desk and hit a buzzer. "Jerry!" she called.

Jerry was a dumpy-looking potato of a human being hiding a rubbery face behind thick glasses and a frazzle of dirty blond hair. He appeared in a smudged lab coat and was carrying a disemboweled modulator. He didn't seem to be aware that he still had it in his hands. His nametag said J. LARSON, and he wore a slightly confused frown, as if he were perpetually preoccupied in some minor befuddlement.

Dr. Partridge gave him a cloying smile. "Oh, there you are. Will you handle James and-what is your name? Ted? Will you help them out? They're here as observers."

"Oh," said Jerry. He stared at us as if we were intruders. He looked to be somewhere in his mid-thirties, but he could have been any age from twenty-five to fifty. "Do you have orders?" he asked.

I passed them over. As he glanced through them, Dr. Partridge chirped, "I know that Jerry will take good care of you. If there's anything you need, just see him. He represents me. Now, if you'll excuse me-" And she disappeared into an office.

Jerry finished reading our orders and passed them back. "Special Forces, I see." He coughed. "My uncle's in the Special Forces. My Uncle Ira."

I nodded politely. "Sorry. I don't know him. Look, can we get on with this? I need a terminal. And I want these millipedes installed under special conditions."

Jerry rubbed his nose, then looked at me with a flat expression. "I'll have to have you cleared before I can assign you a terminal and work space. It'll take two weeks."

"Oh, terrific," I said. "Look-I'm in the middle of a process here. I can't wait two weeks." I pointed to the cases on the cart. "Those eggs and millipedes have to be installed under special conditions-"

"What kind of conditions?" Jerry had stepped over to the cart and was opening the metal handling cases and peering in.

"A cool, dry place for the eggs. The millipedes too-a cool room with dim light. I can give you specific recommendations."

"That won't be necessary."

"Ahh-I strongly suggest it."

Jerry opened another case. "Why?"

"Because that's what they like." I stepped over to the cart next to him. "Use a little common sense. Look at the size of their eyes. They're all pupil. Of course they're not going to like bright light."

Jerry hmphed.

I said, "Hazy sunshine blinds them. Indoor light blinds them. Even dim light blinds them. They can maneuver in twilight or dusk, but they can only see well in the dark."

Jerry looked skeptical. "Even absolute dark?"

I nodded. "I think their eyes are heat sensitive. I wasn't able to test it, but it looks as if they can see pretty far into the infra-red."

Ted spoke up then, for the first time. "Tell him what that means, Jim."

"Uh . . ." I wished he hadn't done that. I said, "They're not nocturnal-"

Jerry looked up from the case, frowning. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. "I don't get that."

"-on their home planet. On Earth, they have to be."

"Huh?"

"Well," I said, "it's the size of their eyes. That really suggests that they've evolved under much poorer lighting conditions than we have here. It's compensation. Either their home planet is farther from its primary, or the primary doesn't put out as much light in the visible spectrum as Sol. Or both. That makes the planet noticeably cooler than Earth; probably its temperatures range between five and twenty degrees Centigrade. Maybe it's in a long glaciation. The millipedes seem most comfortable between ten and thirteen degrees, but that depends on the amount of light hitting them."

Jerry began to look interested.

"Earth daylight is too bright," I continued. "It slows them down, even makes them curl up. At a light level approximating dusk, they're at their most active across the widest possible temperature range-that's when they really move. When we found them, they were torpid-but only by comparison. I take it to be a pretty good indication of the general level of brightness to be found on Chtorr. Hence, the big eyes."

Jerry said, "Hm," and looked back into the millipede case with studied thoughtfulness.

"If I had access to a terminal," I hinted, "I could tell a lot more. It's very interesting how sensitive to light and temperature differences these creatures are. That suggests to me that the climate on Chtorr is incredibly stable. The nights must be fairly warm in relation to the days. I'd guess that the planet has a fairly hazy atmosphere with a lot of carbon dioxide in it; that would create a greenhouse effect and keep the nights from cooling too much. I also think the planet may not have any moons-or maybe only very small ones. Nothing that can exert strong tidal effects. That would make the planet stormy, not hazy."

"Hazy, huh?" Jerry pursed his lips as he thought. His whole rubbery face deformed. "I do know a little bit of theoretical ecology," he said. "You might be right-" Then he added, "but I doubt it."

"Oh, thanks." I folded my arms across my chest. "Listen, if you know a little bit, then you know a little bit isn't enough."

He nodded his agreement. "I know. I took my degree in T.E."

"B.S.?"

"Ph.D."

"Oh." Suddenly, I felt stupid.

"Listen, I applaud your industriousness-as well as your imagination-but your theory has holes in it big enough to drive a worm through."

"Name six."

"Just one will do." He closed the lid on the case again. "If Chtorr has a hazy atmosphere, then that means they can't see the stars. If the atmosphere is hazy enough, they won't see any moons either, especially not if they're small. That means no celestial objects in the sky to attract their interest-and that means no incentive for an intelligent race to discover space travel. If your theory is correct, these bugs shouldn't be here, and neither should the worms who brought them."

"Their eyes are much more sensitive than ours," I replied. "They should be able to see celestial objects under far worse viewing conditions. Look-" I took a deep breath. "To an exobiologist, the species filling the bottom rungs of the ladder are very efficient little monitors of the physical conditions of the planet-its rotation, its temperature cycles, its light levels, its weather patterns and a thousand and six other variables. You can extrapolate the context of the ecology out of the content, if you know what to look for. Based on this evidence, Chtorr is a perpetually smoke-filled room. Or haze, or smog, or something. The point is, the atmosphere is thick and the primary is dim, but how much of each, I don't know-oh, but I can tell you what color it is."

"Huh?" Jerry's jaw dropped. "How?"

"That's what I've been working on." I tapped my disk. "It's all on here."

He blinked. "What is it?"

"It's a three-dimensional graph-the variables are temperature, light intensity and light frequency, demonstrated by millipede reactivity."

"Oh," said Jerry. He looked impressed.

"Well, hey-!" put in Ted, "What color is it?"

"It's red," I grinned. "The star is dark red. What else?" Jerry considered that. His face was thoughtful. "That's fairly well advanced along the sequence. I can see why the Chtorrans might be looking for a new home; the old one's wearing out." He looked at me. "How do you know?"

"Serendipity," I admitted. "I thought I could approximate darkness with a two-hundred-lumen output in the red bandwell, it works in a dark room; why not here? I got tired of stumbling into things. But then the new measurements didn't fit the curve I'd already established. The bugs were way too active. So I started thinking about the wavelengths of their visual spectrum. All last night I had the computer varying the color temperature of the plates at regular intervals. I gave the bugs eighteen different colors. Most of them provoked no response at all. The yellow gave some, the orange a bit more, but it was the red that made them sit up twice. A little more testing this morning showed they like it best no brighter than a terrestrial twilight-and then it correlates almost perfectly with the other set of tests."

"It sounds like a good piece of work," said Jerry. Suddenly, he grinned. On his face, the effect was grotesque. "It reminds me of a project I did once. We were given three disparate life forms and we had to extrapolate the native ecology. It was a two-year project. I used over twenty thousand hours of parallel processing." He grew more serious. "So please don't be upset when I tell you that your conclusions might be premature. I've been through this exercise once. I know some of the pitfalls. You can't judge a planet by a single life form. There's a lot of difference between rattlesnakes and penguins. You don't know if these millipedes are representative or just a special case. We don't know what part of the planet they're from, or what kind of region-are they from the poles or the equator? Are they representative of mountainous fauna on Chtorr, or swampland creatures? Or desert, or grasslands, or what? And what would that identification imply about conditions on the rest of the planet? What kind of seasons are these bugs geared to-how long are they? What kind of biological cycles? How long are the days, months, years? If they have no moons, or more than one, do they even have cyclical equivalents of months? The real question about these specimens is, where do these millipedes fit in the Chtorran ecology? All you have here are indicators: the worms like to eat bugs, and the bugs like to eat anything-is that a general or arbitrary condition? What can we imply about the shape of their food chain? And what about their breeding-what is their reproductive cycle like? What are their growth patterns? Their psychology-if they even have one? Diseases? And I haven't even begun to ask questions."

"That's what we're here for," I said. "To help ask questions-and to help find answers."

Jerry accepted that. "Good." He said, "I'll see that your information gets passed along to those who can make the best use of it. You've probably opened up a valuable area of inquiry." He held his hand out for the disk.

"Sorry." I shook my head. "No terminal, no disk."

"Uh-" Jerry looked annoyed. "If you have information about any extraterrestrial or suspected extraterrestrial life forms, you know you're required by law to report it to the federal authorities. This is the agency." He held out his hand again.

"No way," I said. "A man died for this information. I owe it to him to see it delivered. I don't want it disappearing down some rabbit hole."

"It's against regulations to let you on a terminal before you're cleared." He looked unhappy. "What branch of Special Forces did you say you were with?"

"Alpha Bravo."

"And what do you do?"

"We burn worms."

"I wouldn't phrase it like that, if I were you. At least, not around here." He thought for a moment, then made a face. "Phooey on regulations. You've got a green card, haven't you? All right, I know how to do it. Come on." He led us to a nexus of four terminals, powered up two of them, logged himself in on one and slaved the second one to his control. "Go ahead," he said. "Create a password for yourself. You too-Jackson, is it? You'll be operating on a special department account for V.I.P.s---0h, and don't tell anyone I did this. Now, first thing-I want you to dupe that disk-"