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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..32b6f4c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51615 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51615) diff --git a/old/51615-8.txt b/old/51615-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9f3f055..0000000 --- a/old/51615-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1012 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Matter of Protocol, by Jack Sharkey - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Matter of Protocol - -Author: Jack Sharkey - -Release Date: April 1, 2016 [EBook #51615] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MATTER OF PROTOCOL *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - A MATTER OF PROTOCOL - - By JACK SHARKEY - - Illustrated by SCHELLING - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Magazine August 1962. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - First Contact was always dangerous--but - usually only to the man involved! - - -From space, the planet Viridian resembled a great green moss-covered -tennis ball. When the spaceship had arrowed even closer to the lush -jungle that was the surface of the 7000-mile sphere, there was still no -visible break in the green cloak of the planet. Even when they dipped -almost below their margin of safety--spaceships were poorly built -for extended flight within the atmosphere--it took nearly a complete -circuit of the planet before a triangle of emptiness was spotted. -It was in the midst of the tangled canopy of treetops, themselves -interwoven inextricably with coarse-leaved ropy vines that sprawled and -coiled about the upthrust branches like underfed anacondas. - -Into the center of this triangle the ship was lowered on sputtering -blue pillars of crackling energy, to come to rest on the soft loamy -earth. - -A bare instant after setdown, crewmen exploded from the airlock and -dashed into the jungle shadows with high-pressure tanks of gushing -spume. Their job was to coat, cool and throttle the hungry fires -trickling in bright orange fingers through the heat-blackened grasses. -Higher in the trees, a few vines smoldered fitfully where the fires had -brushed them, then hissed into smoky wet ash as their own glutinous -sap smothered the urgent embers. But the fire was going out. - -"Under control, sir," reported a returning crewman. - -Lieutenant Jerry Norcriss emerged into the green gloaming that cloaked -the base of the ship with a net of harlequin diamonds. Jerry nodded -abstractedly as other crewmen laid a lightweight form-fitting couch -alongside the tailfins near the airlock. On this couch Jerry reclined. -Remaining crew members turned their fire-fighting gear over to -companions and stood guard in a rough semi-circle with loaded rifles, -their backs to the figure on the couch, facing the jungle and whatever -predatory dangers it might hold. - -Ensign Bob Ryder, the technician who had the much softer job of simply -controlling and coordinating any information relayed by Jerry, leaned -out through the open circle in the hull. - -"All set, sir," said the tech. Jerry nodded and settled a heavily -wired helmet onto his head, while Bob made a hookup between the helmet -and the power outlet that was concealed under a flap of metal on the -tailfin. - -Helmet secured, Jerry lay back upon the couch and closed his eyes. "Any -time you're ready, Ensign." - -Bob hurried back inside, found the panel he sought among the jumble of -high-powered machinery there, and placed a spool of microtape on a -spindle inside it. - -He shut the panel and thumbed the button that started an impulse -radiating from the tape into the jungle. - -The impulse had been detected and taped by a roborocket which had -circled the planet for months before their arrival. It was one of -the two Viridian species whose types were as yet uncatalogued by the -Space Corps, in its vast files of alien life. Jerry's job, as a Space -Zoologist, was to complete those files, planet by planet throughout the -spreading wave of slowly colonized universe. - -Bob made sure the tape was functioning. Then he clicked the switch that -would stimulate the Contact center in Jerry's brain and release his -mind into that of the taped alien for an immutable forty minutes. - -Outside the ship, recumbent in the warm green-gold shadows, Jerry's -consciousness was dwarfed for an instant by a white lightning-flash -of energy. And then his body went limp as his mind sprang with -thought-speed into Contact.... - - * * * * * - -Jerry opened his eyes to a dizzying view of the dull brown jungle -floor. He blinked a moment, then looked toward his feet. He saw two -sets of thin knobby Vs, extending forward and partly around the tiny -limb he stood upon, their chitinous surface shiny with the wetness of -the jungle air. - -Slowly working his jaws, he heard the extremely gentle "click" as they -came together. The endoskeleton must exist all over his host's body. - -After making certain it would not disturb his balance on the limb, he -attempted bringing whatever on the alien passed for hands before his -face. - -Sometimes aliens had no hands, nor any comparable organisms. Then Jerry -would have to soft-pedal the mental nagging of being "amputated," an -unavoidable carryover from his subconscious "wrong-feeling" about -armlessness. - -But this time the effort moved up multi-jointed limbs, spindly as a -cat's whiskers, terminating in a perpetually coiling soft prehensile -tip. He tried feeling along his torso to determine its size and shape. -But the wormlike tips were tactilely insensitive. - -Hoping to deduce his shape from his shadow, he inched sideways along -the limb on those inadequate-looking two-pronged feet toward a blob of -yellow sunlight nearer the trunk. - -The silhouette on the branch showed him a stubby cigar-shaped torso. - -"I seem to be a semi-tentacled no-hop grasshopper," he mused to -himself, vainly trying to turn his head on his neck. "Head, thorax and -abdomen all one piece." - -He tried flexing what would be, in a man, the region of the -shoulderblades. He was rewarded by the appearance of long, narrow -wings--two sets of them, like a dragonfly's--from beneath two flaps of -chitin on his back. - -He tried an experimental flapping. The pair of wings--white and stiff -like starched tissue paper, not veinous as in Earth-insects--dissolved -in a buzzing blur of motion. The limb fell away from under his tiny -V-shaped feet. And then he was up above the blinding green blanket -of jungle treetops, his shadow pacing his forward movement along the -close-packed quilt of wide leaves below. - -"I'd better be careful," thought Jerry. "There may be avian life here -that considers my species the _piéce de resistance_ of the pteroid -set...." - -Slowing his rapid wingbeat, he let himself drop down toward the nearest -mattress-sized leaf. He folded his out-thrust feet in mid-air and -dropped the last few inches to a cushiony rest. - - * * * * * - -A slight shimmer of dizziness gripped his mind. - -Perhaps the "skull" of this creature was ill-equipped to ward off the -hot rays of the tropic sunlight. Lest his brain be fried in its own -casing, Jerry scuttled along the velvet top of the leaf, and ducked -quickly beneath its nearest overlapping companion. The wave of vertigo -passed quickly, there in the deep shadow. Under the canopy of leaves -Jerry crawled back to a limb near the top of the tree. - -A few feet from where he stood, something moved. - -Jerry turned that way. Another creature of the same species was -balancing lightly on a green limb of wire-thickness, its gaze fixed -steadily toward the jungle flooring, as Jerry's own had been on -entering the alien body. - -Watching out for predators? Or for victims? - -He could, he knew, pull his consciousness back enough to let the -creature's own consciousness carry it through its daily cycle of -eating, avoiding destruction, and the manifold businesses of being an -ambient creature. But he decided to keep control. It would be easier -to figure out his host's ecological status in the planet's natural -life-balance by observing the other one for awhile. - -Jerry always felt more comfortable when he was in full control. You -never knew when an alien might stupidly stumble into a fatality that -any intelligent mind could easily have avoided. - -Idly, as he watched his fellow creature down near the inner part of -the branch, he wondered how much more time he would be in Contact. -Subjectively he'd seemed to be enhosted for about ten minutes. But one -of the drawbacks of Contact was the subjugation of personal time-sense -to that of the host. Depending on the species he enhosted, the -forty-minute Contact period could be an eternity, or the blink of an -eye.... - - * * * * * - -Nothing further seemed to be occurring. Jerry reluctantly withdrew some -of his control from the insect-mind to see what would happen. - -Immediately it inched forward until it was in the same position it had -been in when Jerry made Contact: V-shaped feet forward and slightly -around the narrow branch, eyes fixed upon the brownish jungle floor, -body motionless with folded wings. For awhile, Jerry tried "listening" -to its mind, but received no readable thoughts. Only a sense of -imminence.... Of patience.... Of waiting.... - -It didn't take long for Jerry to grow bored with this near-mindless -outlook. He reassumed full control. Guiding the fragile feet carefully -along the branch, he made his way to his fellow watcher, and tried -out the creature's communication system. His mind strove to activate -something on the order of a larynx; the insect's nervous system -received this impulse, changed in inter-species translation, as a broad -request for getting a message to its fellow. Its body responded by -lifting the multi-jointed "arms" forward. It clapped the hard inner -surfaces of the "wrists" together so fast that they blurred into -invisibility as the wings had done. - -A thin, ratchetty sound came forth from that hardshell contact. The -other insect looked up in annoyance, then returned its gaze to the -ground again. - -Aural conversation thus obviated, Jerry tried for physical -attention-getting. He reached out a vermiform forelimb-tip and tugged -urgently at the other insect's nearest hind leg. An angry movement gave -out the unmistakable pantomimic message: "For pete's sake, get off my -back! I'm _busy_!" The other insect spread its thin double wings and -went buzzing off a few trees away, then settled on a limb there and -took up its earthward vigil once more. - -"Well, they're not gregarious, that's for sure," said Jerry to himself. -"I wish I knew what the hell we were waiting for!" - -He decided he was sick of ground-watching, and turned his attention to -his immediate vicinity. His gaze wandered along all the twists, juts -and thrusts of branch and vine beneath the sun-blocking leaves. - -And all at once he realized he was staring at another of his kind. -So still had its dull green-brown body been that he'd taken it for a -ripple of bark along a branch. - -Carefully, he looked further on. Beyond the small still figure he soon -located another like it, and then another. Within a short space of -time, he had found three dozen of the insects sitting silently around -him in a spherical area barely ten feet in diameter. - - * * * * * - -Oddly disconcerted, he once more spread his stiff white wings and -fluttered away through the treetops, careful to avoid coming out in -direct sunlight this time. - -He flew until a resurgence of giddiness told him he was over-straining -the creature's stamina. He dropped onto a limb and looked about once -more. Within a very short time, he had spotted dozens more of the -grasshopper-things. All were the same, sitting in camouflaged silence, -steadily eyeing the ground. - -"Damn," thought Jerry. "They don't seem interested in eating, mating or -fighting. All they want to do is sit--sit and _wait_. But what are they -waiting for?" - -There was, of course, the possibility that he'd caught them in an -off-period. If the species were nocturnal, then he wouldn't get any -action from them till after sunset. That, he realized gloomily, meant a -re-Contact later on. One way or another, he would have to determine the -functions, capabilities and menace--if any--of the species with regard -to the influx of colonists, who would come to Viridian only if his -report pronounced it safe. - -Once again, he let the insect's mind take over. Again that -over-powering feeling of imminence.... - -He was irritated. It couldn't just be looking forward to nightfall! -There were too many things tied in with the imminence feeling: the -necessity for quiet, for motionlessness, for careful watching. - -The more he thought on it, the more he had the distinct intuition that -it would sit and stare at the soft, mulch-covered jungle floor, be it -bright daylight or blackest gloom, waiting, and waiting, and waiting.... - -Then, suddenly, the slight feel of imminence became almost unbearable -apprehension. - -The change in intensity was due to a soft, cautious shuffling sound -from down in the green-gold twilight. Something was coming through the -jungle. Something that moved on careful feet along the springy, moist -brown surface below the trees. - -Far below, a shadow detached itself slowly from the deeper shadows of -the trees, and a form began to emerge into the wan filtered sunlight. -It-- - -An all-encompassing lance of silent white lightning. Contact was -over.... - - * * * * * - -Jerry sat up on the couch, angry. He pulled the helmet off his head as -Bob Ryder leaned out the airlock once more. "How'd it go, sir?" - -"Lousy. I'll have to re-establish. Didn't have time to Learn it -sufficiently." A slight expression of disappointment on the tech's face -made him add, "Don't tell me you have the other tape in place already?" - -"Sorry," Bob said. "You usually do a complete Learning in one Contact." - -"Oh--" Jerry shrugged and reached for the helmet again. "Never mind, -I'll take on the second alien long as it's already set up. I may just -have hit the first one in an off-period. The delay in re-Contact may be -just what I need to catch it in action." - -Settling the helmet snugly on his head once more, he leaned back onto -the couch and waited. He heard the tech's feet clanking along the metal -plates inside the ship, then the soft clang of an opening door in the -power room, and-- - -Whiteness, writhing electric whiteness and cold silence. And he was in -Contact. - - * * * * * - -Darkness, and musky warmth. - -Then a slot of light appeared, a thin fuzzy line of yellow striped -with spiky green. Jerry had time, in the brief flicker, to observe -thick bearlike forelimbs holding up a squarish trapdoor fastened with -cross-twigs for support. Then the powerful forepaws let the door drop -back into place, and it was dark again. - -He hadn't liked those forepaws. Though thick as and pawed like -a bear's, they were devoid of hair. They had skin thin as a -caterpillar's, a mottled pink with sick-looking areas of deathly white. - -Skin like that would be a push-over to actinic rays for any long -exposure. Probably the thing lived underground here, almost -permanently. His eyes had detected a rude assortment of thick wooden -limbs curving in and out at regular intervals in the vertical wall of -soil that was the end of this tunnel, just below the trapdoor. Tree -roots. But formed, by some odd natural quirk, into a utile ladder. - -But why had the thing peered out, then dropped the door to wait? Did -_every_ species on this planet hang around expectantly and nothing -else? And what was the waiting for? - -Then he felt the urge within the creature, the urge to scurry up that -ladder into the light. But there was, simultaneously, a counter-urge in -the thing, telling it to _please_ wait a _little_ longer.... - -Jerry recognized the urge by quick anthropomorphosis. It was the goofy -urge. The crazy urge. Like one gets on the brinks of awesome heights, -or on subway platforms as the train roars in: The impulsive urge to -self-destruction, so swiftly frightening and so swiftly suppressed.... - -Yet, it had lifted and dropped that lid too briefly to have seen -anything outside. Could it be _listening_ for something? Carefully, he -relinquished his control of the beast, fraction by fraction, to see -what it would do. - -It rose on tiptoe at once, and again lifted that earthen door. - -It squinted at the profusion of green-yellow sunlight that stung -its eyes. Then it rose on powerful hind limbs and clambered just -high enough on that "ladder" to see over the grassy rim of the -trapdoor-hole. Jerry then heard the soft shuffling sound that had -re-alerted it, and saw the source. - -Out on the matted brown jungle flooring, beneath the towering trees, -another of the bear-things was moving forward from an open turf-door, -emitting low, whimpering snorts as it inched along through the -dappling yellow sunlight. - -Obviously it was _following_ that manic-destruction impulse that he -just felt and managed to suppress. It must have been almost a hundred -degrees out there. And the damned thing was _shivering_. - - * * * * * - -Here and there, Jerry noticed suddenly, other half-opened trapdoors -were framing other bear-things' heads. The air was taut with electric -tension, the tension of a slow trigger-squeeze that moves millimeter by -millimeter toward the instant explosion.... - -The soft shuffling sounds of the animal's movement jogged Jerry's -memory then, and he knew it for the sound he had heard when enhosted in -the grasshopper-thing. Was a bear-thing what they'd been waiting in the -trees so silently for? And what would be the culmination of that vigil? - -Then the bear-thing he was in Contact with hitched itself up another -root-rung. Jerry saw the thing toward which the quaking creature was -headed, in a hunched crawl, its whimpers more anguished by the moment. - -Pendant in the green gloaming, about four feet above the spongy brown -jungle floor, hung a thick yellow-gray gourd at the tip of a long vine. -Its sides glittered stickily with condensed moisture that mingled -with the effluvium of the gourd itself. The odor was both noisome and -compelling, powerful as a bushel of rotting roses. It sickened as it -lured, teased the nostrils as it cloyed within the lungs. - -To this dangling obscenity the bear-thing moved. Its eyes were no -longer afraid, but glazed and dulled by the strength of that musky -lure. Its movements were fluid and trancelike. - -It arose on sturdy hind limbs and struck at the gourd with a gentle -paw, sending it jouncing to one side on its long green vine. As it -bobbed back, the creature struck it off in the opposite direction with -a sharper blow. - -Jerry watched in fascination. The gourd swung faster; the mottled -pink-white alien creature swayed and wove its forelimbs and thick body -in a ritual dance matching the tempo of the arcing gourd. - -Then Jerry noted that the vine was unlike earth-vines which -parasitically employ treetops as their unwilling trellises. It is a -limp extension of the tip of a tree branch itself. So were all the -other vines in that green matting overhead. - - * * * * * - -A ripping sound yanked his gaze back to the dazed creature and the -gourd again. - -A ragged tear had riven the side of the gourd. Tiny coils of green -were dribbling out in batches, like watchsprings spilled from a paper -bag. They struck with a bounce and wriggle on the resilient brown -mulch. And then, as they straightened themselves, Jerry knew them for -what they were: Miniature versions of the grasshopper-things, shaped -precisely like the adults, but only a third as large. - -The bear-thing's movements had gone from graceful fluidity to frenzy -now. A loud whistle of fright escaped it as the last of the twitching -green things flopped from its vegetable cocoon, whirred white wings to -dry them and flew off. - -And the lumbering creature had reason for its fright. - -The instant the last coil of wiggly green life was a vanishing blur in -the green shadows, a cloud of darker green descended upon the pink form -of the beast from the trees. - -The grasshopper-things were waiting no longer. Thousands swarmed on the -writhing form, until the bear-thing was a lumpy green parody of itself. - -As quickly as the cloud had plunged and clustered, it fell away. The -earth was teeming with the flip-flopping forms of dying insects, white -wings going dark brown and curling like cellophane in open flame. The -bear-thing itself was no longer recognizable, its flesh a myriad -egg-like white lumps. It swayed in agony for a moment, then toppled. - -Instantly the other creatures--his host with them--were racing forward -to the site of the encounter. Jerry felt his host's long gummy tongue -flick out and snare one--just one--of the dead adult insects. It was -ingested whole by a deft backflip of tongue to gullet. As his host -turned tail and scurried for the tunnel once more, Jerry swiftly took -control again, and halted it to observe any further developments. - - * * * * * - -Each of the other things, after a one-insect gulp, was just vanishing -back underground. The turf-tops were dropping neatly into almost -undetectable place hiding the tunnels. The sunlight nipped at his pale -flesh, but Jerry held off from a return to the underground sanctuary, -still watching that lump-covered corpse on the earth. Then.... - -The vine, its burden gone, began to drip a thick ichor from its ragged -end upon the dead animal beneath it. - -And as the ichor touched upon a white lump, the lump would swell, -wriggle, and change color. Jerry watched with awe as the color became a -mottled pink, and the surface of the lumps cracked and shriveled away, -and tiny forms plopped out onto the ground: miniature bear-things, -tiny throats emitting eager mouse-squeaks of hunger. - -They rushed upon the body in which they'd been so violently incubated -and swiftly, systematically devoured it, blood, bone and sinew. - -And when not even a memory of the dead beast was left upon the soil, -the tiny pink-white things began to burrow downward into the ground. -Soon there was nothing left in the area but a dried fragment of vine, a -few loose mounds of soil and a vast silence. - -"I'll be a monkey's uncle!" said Jerry ... forgetting in his excitement -that this phrase was nearly a concise parody of the Space Zoologists' -final oath of duty, and kiddingly used as such by the older members of -the group. - -The whole damned planet was symbiotic! After witnessing those alien -life-death rites, it didn't take him long to figure out the screwball -connections between the species. Insects, once born of vine-gourds -and fully grown, then propagated their species by a strange means: -laying bear-eggs in a bear-thing and dying. And dying, eaten by the -surviving bears, they turned to seeds which--left in the tunnels by the -bear-things as droppings--in turn took root and became trees. - -And the trees, under the onslaught of another bear-thing on a dangling -pod, would produce new insects, then drip its ichor to fertilize the -eggs in the newly dead bear-thing.... - -Jerry found his mind tangling as he attempted a better pinpointing of -the plant-animal-insect relationship. A dead adult insect, plus a trip -through a bear-thing's alimentary canal, produced a tree. A tree-pod, -with the swatting stimulus of a bear-thing's paws, gave birth to new -insects. And insect eggs in animal flesh, stimulated by the tree-ichor, -gestated swiftly into young animals.... - -That meant, simply, that insect plus bear equals tree, tree plus bear -equals insect, and insect plus tree equals bear. With three systems, -each relied on the non-inclusive member for the breeding-ground. -Insect-plus-ichor produced small animals _in_ the animal flesh. -Dead-insect-plus-bear produced tree _in_ the tree-flesh (if one -considered dead tree leaves and bark and such as the makeup of the -soil.) Bear-swats-plus-tree produced insects.... "Damn," said Jerry to -himself, "but _not_ in the insect-flesh. The thing won't round off...." - -He tried again, thinking hard. In effect, the trees were parents to -the insects, insects parents to the bears, and bears parents to the -trees.... Though in another sense, bear-flesh gave birth to new bears, -digested insects gave birth (through the tree-medium) to new insects, -and trees (through the insect-medium) gave birth to new trees.... - -Jerry's head spun pleasantly as he tried vainly to solve the confusion. -Men of science, he realized, would spend decades trying to figure -out which species were responsible for which. It made the ancient -chicken-or-egg question beneath consideration. And a lot of diehard -evolutionists were going to be bedded down with severe migraines when -his report went into circulation.... - -A dazzle of silent lightning, and Contact was over. - - * * * * * - -"Ready with that first tape again," Bob Ryder said as Jerry removed the -Contact helmet and brushed his snow-white hair back from his tanned, -youthful face. "Or do you want a breather first?" - -Jerry shook his head. "I won't need to re-Contact that other species, -Ensign. I got its life-relationships from the second Contact." - -"Really, sir?" said Bob. "That's pretty unusual, isn't it?" - -"The whole damned planet's unusual," said Jerry, rising from his supine -position and stretching luxuriously in the warm jungle air. "You'll see -what I mean when you process the second tape." - -Bob decided that Jerry--running pretty true to form for a Space -Zoologist--wasn't in a particularly talkative mood, so he had to -satisfy himself with waiting for the transcription of the Contact to -get the details. - -Later that day, an hour after takeoff, with Viridian already vanished -behind them as the great ship plowed through hyper-space toward Earth -and home, Bob finished reading the report. Then he went down the -passageway to the ward room for coffee. Jerry was seated there already. -Bob, quickly filling a mug from the polished percolator, slid into a -seat across the table from his superior and asked the question that had -been bugging him since seeing the report. - -"Sir--on that second Contact. Has it occurred to you that you'd -relinquished control to the host _before_ you saw that other creature -move out and start swatting the gourd-thing?" - -"You mean was I taking a chance on being destroyed in the host if the -creature I was Contacting gave in to the urge to do the swatting?" - -"Yes, sir," said Bob. "I mean, I know you can take control any time, if -things get dangerous. But wasn't that cutting it kind of thin?" - -Jerry shook his head and sipped his coffee. "Wrong urge, Ensign. -You'll note I recognized it as the _goofy_ urge, the impulse to die -followed instantly by a violent surge of self-preservation. It wasn't -the death-wish at all. Myself and the creatures who remained safely at -the tunnel-mouths had a milder form of what was affecting the creature -that _did_ start swatting the gourd." - -"Then what was the difference, sir? Why did that one particular -creature get the full self-destruction urge and no other?" - -Jerry wrinkled his face in thought. "I wish I didn't suspect the answer -to that, Ensign. The only thing I hope it _isn't_ is the thing I have -the strongest inkling it _is_: Rotation. Something in their biology has -set them up in a certain order for destruction. And that rite I saw -performed was so un-animal, so formalized--" - -Bob's eyes widened as he caught the inference. "You think they have -an inbuilt protocol? That if one particular creature missed its cue, -somehow, the designated subsequent creature would simply wait forever, -never jumping its turn?" - -"That's what I mean," nodded Jerry. "I hope I'm wrong." - -"But the right creature made it," said Bob, blinking. "We can't have -upset the ecology, can we?" - -"Things develop fast on Viridian," mused Jerry. "If I figure the -time-relationship between their egg-hatching rate and growth rate, -those trees must mature in growth in about a month. And we managed to -shrivel a half dozen vines with our rocket fires when we landed, and -probably that many again when we blasted off...." - -"We dropped CO_{2} bombs after we cleared the trees," offered the tech, -uneasily. "The fire was out in seconds." - -"That wouldn't help an already-shriveled vine, though, now would it!" -sighed Jerry. "And if my hunch about protocol is correct--" - -"The life-cycle would interrupt?" gasped the tech. - -"We'll see," said Jerry. "It'll take us a month to get back, and -there'll be another six months before the first wave of engineers is -sent to begin the homesteads and industry sites. We'll see, Ensign." - - * * * * * - -It took two months for the engineers to go out and return. - -They hadn't landed. A few orbits about the planet had shown them -nothing but a vast dead ball of dust and rotted vegetation, totally -unfit for human habitation. They brought back photographs taken of the -dead planet that no longer deserved the name it had rated in life. - -But Jerry Norcriss, Space Zoologist, made it a special point to avoid -looking at any of them. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Matter of Protocol, by Jack Sharkey - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MATTER OF PROTOCOL *** - -***** This file should be named 51615-8.txt or 51615-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/6/1/51615/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Matter of Protocol - -Author: Jack Sharkey - -Release Date: April 1, 2016 [EBook #51615] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MATTER OF PROTOCOL *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="387" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>A MATTER OF PROTOCOL</h1> - -<p>By JACK SHARKEY</p> - -<p>Illustrated by SCHELLING</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Magazine August 1962.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3"><i>First Contact was always dangerous—but<br /> -usually only to the man involved!</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>From space, the planet Viridian resembled a great green moss-covered -tennis ball. When the spaceship had arrowed even closer to the lush -jungle that was the surface of the 7000-mile sphere, there was still no -visible break in the green cloak of the planet. Even when they dipped -almost below their margin of safety—spaceships were poorly built -for extended flight within the atmosphere—it took nearly a complete -circuit of the planet before a triangle of emptiness was spotted. -It was in the midst of the tangled canopy of treetops, themselves -interwoven inextricably with coarse-leaved ropy vines that sprawled and -coiled about the upthrust branches like underfed anacondas.</p> - -<p>Into the center of this triangle the ship was lowered on sputtering -blue pillars of crackling energy, to come to rest on the soft loamy -earth.</p> - -<p>A bare instant after setdown, crewmen exploded from the airlock and -dashed into the jungle shadows with high-pressure tanks of gushing -spume. Their job was to coat, cool and throttle the hungry fires -trickling in bright orange fingers through the heat-blackened grasses. -Higher in the trees, a few vines smoldered fitfully where the fires had -brushed them, then hissed into smoky wet ash as their own glutinous -sap smothered the urgent embers. But the fire was going out.</p> - -<p>"Under control, sir," reported a returning crewman.</p> - -<p>Lieutenant Jerry Norcriss emerged into the green gloaming that cloaked -the base of the ship with a net of harlequin diamonds. Jerry nodded -abstractedly as other crewmen laid a lightweight form-fitting couch -alongside the tailfins near the airlock. On this couch Jerry reclined. -Remaining crew members turned their fire-fighting gear over to -companions and stood guard in a rough semi-circle with loaded rifles, -their backs to the figure on the couch, facing the jungle and whatever -predatory dangers it might hold.</p> - -<p>Ensign Bob Ryder, the technician who had the much softer job of simply -controlling and coordinating any information relayed by Jerry, leaned -out through the open circle in the hull.</p> - -<p>"All set, sir," said the tech. Jerry nodded and settled a heavily -wired helmet onto his head, while Bob made a hookup between the helmet -and the power outlet that was concealed under a flap of metal on the -tailfin.</p> - -<p>Helmet secured, Jerry lay back upon the couch and closed his eyes. "Any -time you're ready, Ensign."</p> - -<p>Bob hurried back inside, found the panel he sought among the jumble of -high-powered machinery there, and placed a spool of microtape on a -spindle inside it.</p> - -<p>He shut the panel and thumbed the button that started an impulse -radiating from the tape into the jungle.</p> - -<p>The impulse had been detected and taped by a roborocket which had -circled the planet for months before their arrival. It was one of -the two Viridian species whose types were as yet uncatalogued by the -Space Corps, in its vast files of alien life. Jerry's job, as a Space -Zoologist, was to complete those files, planet by planet throughout the -spreading wave of slowly colonized universe.</p> - -<p>Bob made sure the tape was functioning. Then he clicked the switch that -would stimulate the Contact center in Jerry's brain and release his -mind into that of the taped alien for an immutable forty minutes.</p> - -<p>Outside the ship, recumbent in the warm green-gold shadows, Jerry's -consciousness was dwarfed for an instant by a white lightning-flash -of energy. And then his body went limp as his mind sprang with -thought-speed into Contact....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Jerry opened his eyes to a dizzying view of the dull brown jungle -floor. He blinked a moment, then looked toward his feet. He saw two -sets of thin knobby Vs, extending forward and partly around the tiny -limb he stood upon, their chitinous surface shiny with the wetness of -the jungle air.</p> - -<p>Slowly working his jaws, he heard the extremely gentle "click" as they -came together. The endoskeleton must exist all over his host's body.</p> - -<p>After making certain it would not disturb his balance on the limb, he -attempted bringing whatever on the alien passed for hands before his -face.</p> - -<p>Sometimes aliens had no hands, nor any comparable organisms. Then Jerry -would have to soft-pedal the mental nagging of being "amputated," an -unavoidable carryover from his subconscious "wrong-feeling" about -armlessness.</p> - -<p>But this time the effort moved up multi-jointed limbs, spindly as a -cat's whiskers, terminating in a perpetually coiling soft prehensile -tip. He tried feeling along his torso to determine its size and shape. -But the wormlike tips were tactilely insensitive.</p> - -<p>Hoping to deduce his shape from his shadow, he inched sideways along -the limb on those inadequate-looking two-pronged feet toward a blob of -yellow sunlight nearer the trunk.</p> - -<p>The silhouette on the branch showed him a stubby cigar-shaped torso.</p> - -<p>"I seem to be a semi-tentacled no-hop grasshopper," he mused to -himself, vainly trying to turn his head on his neck. "Head, thorax and -abdomen all one piece."</p> - -<p>He tried flexing what would be, in a man, the region of the -shoulderblades. He was rewarded by the appearance of long, narrow -wings—two sets of them, like a dragonfly's—from beneath two flaps of -chitin on his back.</p> - -<p>He tried an experimental flapping. The pair of wings—white and stiff -like starched tissue paper, not veinous as in Earth-insects—dissolved -in a buzzing blur of motion. The limb fell away from under his tiny -V-shaped feet. And then he was up above the blinding green blanket -of jungle treetops, his shadow pacing his forward movement along the -close-packed quilt of wide leaves below.</p> - -<p>"I'd better be careful," thought Jerry. "There may be avian life here -that considers my species the <i>piéce de resistance</i> of the pteroid -set...."</p> - -<p>Slowing his rapid wingbeat, he let himself drop down toward the nearest -mattress-sized leaf. He folded his out-thrust feet in mid-air and -dropped the last few inches to a cushiony rest.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A slight shimmer of dizziness gripped his mind.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the "skull" of this creature was ill-equipped to ward off the -hot rays of the tropic sunlight. Lest his brain be fried in its own -casing, Jerry scuttled along the velvet top of the leaf, and ducked -quickly beneath its nearest overlapping companion. The wave of vertigo -passed quickly, there in the deep shadow. Under the canopy of leaves -Jerry crawled back to a limb near the top of the tree.</p> - -<p>A few feet from where he stood, something moved.</p> - -<p>Jerry turned that way. Another creature of the same species was -balancing lightly on a green limb of wire-thickness, its gaze fixed -steadily toward the jungle flooring, as Jerry's own had been on -entering the alien body.</p> - -<p>Watching out for predators? Or for victims?</p> - -<p>He could, he knew, pull his consciousness back enough to let the -creature's own consciousness carry it through its daily cycle of -eating, avoiding destruction, and the manifold businesses of being an -ambient creature. But he decided to keep control. It would be easier -to figure out his host's ecological status in the planet's natural -life-balance by observing the other one for awhile.</p> - -<p>Jerry always felt more comfortable when he was in full control. You -never knew when an alien might stupidly stumble into a fatality that -any intelligent mind could easily have avoided.</p> - -<p>Idly, as he watched his fellow creature down near the inner part of -the branch, he wondered how much more time he would be in Contact. -Subjectively he'd seemed to be enhosted for about ten minutes. But one -of the drawbacks of Contact was the subjugation of personal time-sense -to that of the host. Depending on the species he enhosted, the -forty-minute Contact period could be an eternity, or the blink of an -eye....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Nothing further seemed to be occurring. Jerry reluctantly withdrew some -of his control from the insect-mind to see what would happen.</p> - -<p>Immediately it inched forward until it was in the same position it had -been in when Jerry made Contact: V-shaped feet forward and slightly -around the narrow branch, eyes fixed upon the brownish jungle floor, -body motionless with folded wings. For awhile, Jerry tried "listening" -to its mind, but received no readable thoughts. Only a sense of -imminence.... Of patience.... Of waiting....</p> - -<p>It didn't take long for Jerry to grow bored with this near-mindless -outlook. He reassumed full control. Guiding the fragile feet carefully -along the branch, he made his way to his fellow watcher, and tried -out the creature's communication system. His mind strove to activate -something on the order of a larynx; the insect's nervous system -received this impulse, changed in inter-species translation, as a broad -request for getting a message to its fellow. Its body responded by -lifting the multi-jointed "arms" forward. It clapped the hard inner -surfaces of the "wrists" together so fast that they blurred into -invisibility as the wings had done.</p> - -<p>A thin, ratchetty sound came forth from that hardshell contact. The -other insect looked up in annoyance, then returned its gaze to the -ground again.</p> - -<p>Aural conversation thus obviated, Jerry tried for physical -attention-getting. He reached out a vermiform forelimb-tip and tugged -urgently at the other insect's nearest hind leg. An angry movement gave -out the unmistakable pantomimic message: "For pete's sake, get off my -back! I'm <i>busy</i>!" The other insect spread its thin double wings and -went buzzing off a few trees away, then settled on a limb there and -took up its earthward vigil once more.</p> - -<p>"Well, they're not gregarious, that's for sure," said Jerry to himself. -"I wish I knew what the hell we were waiting for!"</p> - -<p>He decided he was sick of ground-watching, and turned his attention to -his immediate vicinity. His gaze wandered along all the twists, juts -and thrusts of branch and vine beneath the sun-blocking leaves.</p> - -<p>And all at once he realized he was staring at another of his kind. -So still had its dull green-brown body been that he'd taken it for a -ripple of bark along a branch.</p> - -<p>Carefully, he looked further on. Beyond the small still figure he soon -located another like it, and then another. Within a short space of -time, he had found three dozen of the insects sitting silently around -him in a spherical area barely ten feet in diameter.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Oddly disconcerted, he once more spread his stiff white wings and -fluttered away through the treetops, careful to avoid coming out in -direct sunlight this time.</p> - -<p>He flew until a resurgence of giddiness told him he was over-straining -the creature's stamina. He dropped onto a limb and looked about once -more. Within a very short time, he had spotted dozens more of the -grasshopper-things. All were the same, sitting in camouflaged silence, -steadily eyeing the ground.</p> - -<p>"Damn," thought Jerry. "They don't seem interested in eating, mating or -fighting. All they want to do is sit—sit and <i>wait</i>. But what are they -waiting for?"</p> - -<p>There was, of course, the possibility that he'd caught them in an -off-period. If the species were nocturnal, then he wouldn't get any -action from them till after sunset. That, he realized gloomily, meant a -re-Contact later on. One way or another, he would have to determine the -functions, capabilities and menace—if any—of the species with regard -to the influx of colonists, who would come to Viridian only if his -report pronounced it safe.</p> - -<p>Once again, he let the insect's mind take over. Again that -over-powering feeling of imminence....</p> - -<p>He was irritated. It couldn't just be looking forward to nightfall! -There were too many things tied in with the imminence feeling: the -necessity for quiet, for motionlessness, for careful watching.</p> - -<p>The more he thought on it, the more he had the distinct intuition that -it would sit and stare at the soft, mulch-covered jungle floor, be it -bright daylight or blackest gloom, waiting, and waiting, and waiting....</p> - -<p>Then, suddenly, the slight feel of imminence became almost unbearable -apprehension.</p> - -<p>The change in intensity was due to a soft, cautious shuffling sound -from down in the green-gold twilight. Something was coming through the -jungle. Something that moved on careful feet along the springy, moist -brown surface below the trees.</p> - -<p>Far below, a shadow detached itself slowly from the deeper shadows of -the trees, and a form began to emerge into the wan filtered sunlight. -It—</p> - -<p>An all-encompassing lance of silent white lightning. Contact was -over....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Jerry sat up on the couch, angry. He pulled the helmet off his head as -Bob Ryder leaned out the airlock once more. "How'd it go, sir?"</p> - -<p>"Lousy. I'll have to re-establish. Didn't have time to Learn it -sufficiently." A slight expression of disappointment on the tech's face -made him add, "Don't tell me you have the other tape in place already?"</p> - -<p>"Sorry," Bob said. "You usually do a complete Learning in one Contact."</p> - -<p>"Oh—" Jerry shrugged and reached for the helmet again. "Never mind, -I'll take on the second alien long as it's already set up. I may just -have hit the first one in an off-period. The delay in re-Contact may be -just what I need to catch it in action."</p> - -<p>Settling the helmet snugly on his head once more, he leaned back onto -the couch and waited. He heard the tech's feet clanking along the metal -plates inside the ship, then the soft clang of an opening door in the -power room, and—</p> - -<p>Whiteness, writhing electric whiteness and cold silence. And he was in -Contact.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Darkness, and musky warmth.</p> - -<p>Then a slot of light appeared, a thin fuzzy line of yellow striped -with spiky green. Jerry had time, in the brief flicker, to observe -thick bearlike forelimbs holding up a squarish trapdoor fastened with -cross-twigs for support. Then the powerful forepaws let the door drop -back into place, and it was dark again.</p> - -<p>He hadn't liked those forepaws. Though thick as and pawed like -a bear's, they were devoid of hair. They had skin thin as a -caterpillar's, a mottled pink with sick-looking areas of deathly white.</p> - -<p>Skin like that would be a push-over to actinic rays for any long -exposure. Probably the thing lived underground here, almost -permanently. His eyes had detected a rude assortment of thick wooden -limbs curving in and out at regular intervals in the vertical wall of -soil that was the end of this tunnel, just below the trapdoor. Tree -roots. But formed, by some odd natural quirk, into a utile ladder.</p> - -<p>But why had the thing peered out, then dropped the door to wait? Did -<i>every</i> species on this planet hang around expectantly and nothing -else? And what was the waiting for?</p> - -<p>Then he felt the urge within the creature, the urge to scurry up that -ladder into the light. But there was, simultaneously, a counter-urge in -the thing, telling it to <i>please</i> wait a <i>little</i> longer....</p> - -<p>Jerry recognized the urge by quick anthropomorphosis. It was the goofy -urge. The crazy urge. Like one gets on the brinks of awesome heights, -or on subway platforms as the train roars in: The impulsive urge to -self-destruction, so swiftly frightening and so swiftly suppressed....</p> - -<p>Yet, it had lifted and dropped that lid too briefly to have seen -anything outside. Could it be <i>listening</i> for something? Carefully, he -relinquished his control of the beast, fraction by fraction, to see -what it would do.</p> - -<p>It rose on tiptoe at once, and again lifted that earthen door.</p> - -<p>It squinted at the profusion of green-yellow sunlight that stung -its eyes. Then it rose on powerful hind limbs and clambered just -high enough on that "ladder" to see over the grassy rim of the -trapdoor-hole. Jerry then heard the soft shuffling sound that had -re-alerted it, and saw the source.</p> - -<p>Out on the matted brown jungle flooring, beneath the towering trees, -another of the bear-things was moving forward from an open turf-door, -emitting low, whimpering snorts as it inched along through the -dappling yellow sunlight.</p> - -<p>Obviously it was <i>following</i> that manic-destruction impulse that he -just felt and managed to suppress. It must have been almost a hundred -degrees out there. And the damned thing was <i>shivering</i>.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Here and there, Jerry noticed suddenly, other half-opened trapdoors -were framing other bear-things' heads. The air was taut with electric -tension, the tension of a slow trigger-squeeze that moves millimeter by -millimeter toward the instant explosion....</p> - -<p>The soft shuffling sounds of the animal's movement jogged Jerry's -memory then, and he knew it for the sound he had heard when enhosted in -the grasshopper-thing. Was a bear-thing what they'd been waiting in the -trees so silently for? And what would be the culmination of that vigil?</p> - -<p>Then the bear-thing he was in Contact with hitched itself up another -root-rung. Jerry saw the thing toward which the quaking creature was -headed, in a hunched crawl, its whimpers more anguished by the moment.</p> - -<p>Pendant in the green gloaming, about four feet above the spongy brown -jungle floor, hung a thick yellow-gray gourd at the tip of a long vine. -Its sides glittered stickily with condensed moisture that mingled -with the effluvium of the gourd itself. The odor was both noisome and -compelling, powerful as a bushel of rotting roses. It sickened as it -lured, teased the nostrils as it cloyed within the lungs.</p> - -<p>To this dangling obscenity the bear-thing moved. Its eyes were no -longer afraid, but glazed and dulled by the strength of that musky -lure. Its movements were fluid and trancelike.</p> - -<p>It arose on sturdy hind limbs and struck at the gourd with a gentle -paw, sending it jouncing to one side on its long green vine. As it -bobbed back, the creature struck it off in the opposite direction with -a sharper blow.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" width="346" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Jerry watched in fascination. The gourd swung faster; the mottled -pink-white alien creature swayed and wove its forelimbs and thick body -in a ritual dance matching the tempo of the arcing gourd.</p> - -<p>Then Jerry noted that the vine was unlike earth-vines which -parasitically employ treetops as their unwilling trellises. It is a -limp extension of the tip of a tree branch itself. So were all the -other vines in that green matting overhead.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A ripping sound yanked his gaze back to the dazed creature and the -gourd again.</p> - -<p>A ragged tear had riven the side of the gourd. Tiny coils of green -were dribbling out in batches, like watchsprings spilled from a paper -bag. They struck with a bounce and wriggle on the resilient brown -mulch. And then, as they straightened themselves, Jerry knew them for -what they were: Miniature versions of the grasshopper-things, shaped -precisely like the adults, but only a third as large.</p> - -<p>The bear-thing's movements had gone from graceful fluidity to frenzy -now. A loud whistle of fright escaped it as the last of the twitching -green things flopped from its vegetable cocoon, whirred white wings to -dry them and flew off.</p> - -<p>And the lumbering creature had reason for its fright.</p> - -<p>The instant the last coil of wiggly green life was a vanishing blur in -the green shadows, a cloud of darker green descended upon the pink form -of the beast from the trees.</p> - -<p>The grasshopper-things were waiting no longer. Thousands swarmed on the -writhing form, until the bear-thing was a lumpy green parody of itself.</p> - -<p>As quickly as the cloud had plunged and clustered, it fell away. The -earth was teeming with the flip-flopping forms of dying insects, white -wings going dark brown and curling like cellophane in open flame. The -bear-thing itself was no longer recognizable, its flesh a myriad -egg-like white lumps. It swayed in agony for a moment, then toppled.</p> - -<p>Instantly the other creatures—his host with them—were racing forward -to the site of the encounter. Jerry felt his host's long gummy tongue -flick out and snare one—just one—of the dead adult insects. It was -ingested whole by a deft backflip of tongue to gullet. As his host -turned tail and scurried for the tunnel once more, Jerry swiftly took -control again, and halted it to observe any further developments.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Each of the other things, after a one-insect gulp, was just vanishing -back underground. The turf-tops were dropping neatly into almost -undetectable place hiding the tunnels. The sunlight nipped at his pale -flesh, but Jerry held off from a return to the underground sanctuary, -still watching that lump-covered corpse on the earth. Then....</p> - -<p>The vine, its burden gone, began to drip a thick ichor from its ragged -end upon the dead animal beneath it.</p> - -<p>And as the ichor touched upon a white lump, the lump would swell, -wriggle, and change color. Jerry watched with awe as the color became a -mottled pink, and the surface of the lumps cracked and shriveled away, -and tiny forms plopped out onto the ground: miniature bear-things, -tiny throats emitting eager mouse-squeaks of hunger.</p> - -<p>They rushed upon the body in which they'd been so violently incubated -and swiftly, systematically devoured it, blood, bone and sinew.</p> - -<p>And when not even a memory of the dead beast was left upon the soil, -the tiny pink-white things began to burrow downward into the ground. -Soon there was nothing left in the area but a dried fragment of vine, a -few loose mounds of soil and a vast silence.</p> - -<p>"I'll be a monkey's uncle!" said Jerry ... forgetting in his excitement -that this phrase was nearly a concise parody of the Space Zoologists' -final oath of duty, and kiddingly used as such by the older members of -the group.</p> - -<p>The whole damned planet was symbiotic! After witnessing those alien -life-death rites, it didn't take him long to figure out the screwball -connections between the species. Insects, once born of vine-gourds -and fully grown, then propagated their species by a strange means: -laying bear-eggs in a bear-thing and dying. And dying, eaten by the -surviving bears, they turned to seeds which—left in the tunnels by the -bear-things as droppings—in turn took root and became trees.</p> - -<p>And the trees, under the onslaught of another bear-thing on a dangling -pod, would produce new insects, then drip its ichor to fertilize the -eggs in the newly dead bear-thing....</p> - -<p>Jerry found his mind tangling as he attempted a better pinpointing of -the plant-animal-insect relationship. A dead adult insect, plus a trip -through a bear-thing's alimentary canal, produced a tree. A tree-pod, -with the swatting stimulus of a bear-thing's paws, gave birth to new -insects. And insect eggs in animal flesh, stimulated by the tree-ichor, -gestated swiftly into young animals....</p> - -<p>That meant, simply, that insect plus bear equals tree, tree plus bear -equals insect, and insect plus tree equals bear. With three systems, -each relied on the non-inclusive member for the breeding-ground. -Insect-plus-ichor produced small animals <i>in</i> the animal flesh. -Dead-insect-plus-bear produced tree <i>in</i> the tree-flesh (if one -considered dead tree leaves and bark and such as the makeup of the -soil.) Bear-swats-plus-tree produced insects.... "Damn," said Jerry to -himself, "but <i>not</i> in the insect-flesh. The thing won't round off...."</p> - -<p>He tried again, thinking hard. In effect, the trees were parents to -the insects, insects parents to the bears, and bears parents to the -trees.... Though in another sense, bear-flesh gave birth to new bears, -digested insects gave birth (through the tree-medium) to new insects, -and trees (through the insect-medium) gave birth to new trees....</p> - -<p>Jerry's head spun pleasantly as he tried vainly to solve the confusion. -Men of science, he realized, would spend decades trying to figure -out which species were responsible for which. It made the ancient -chicken-or-egg question beneath consideration. And a lot of diehard -evolutionists were going to be bedded down with severe migraines when -his report went into circulation....</p> - -<p>A dazzle of silent lightning, and Contact was over.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Ready with that first tape again," Bob Ryder said as Jerry removed the -Contact helmet and brushed his snow-white hair back from his tanned, -youthful face. "Or do you want a breather first?"</p> - -<p>Jerry shook his head. "I won't need to re-Contact that other species, -Ensign. I got its life-relationships from the second Contact."</p> - -<p>"Really, sir?" said Bob. "That's pretty unusual, isn't it?"</p> - -<p>"The whole damned planet's unusual," said Jerry, rising from his supine -position and stretching luxuriously in the warm jungle air. "You'll see -what I mean when you process the second tape."</p> - -<p>Bob decided that Jerry—running pretty true to form for a Space -Zoologist—wasn't in a particularly talkative mood, so he had to -satisfy himself with waiting for the transcription of the Contact to -get the details.</p> - -<p>Later that day, an hour after takeoff, with Viridian already vanished -behind them as the great ship plowed through hyper-space toward Earth -and home, Bob finished reading the report. Then he went down the -passageway to the ward room for coffee. Jerry was seated there already. -Bob, quickly filling a mug from the polished percolator, slid into a -seat across the table from his superior and asked the question that had -been bugging him since seeing the report.</p> - -<p>"Sir—on that second Contact. Has it occurred to you that you'd -relinquished control to the host <i>before</i> you saw that other creature -move out and start swatting the gourd-thing?"</p> - -<p>"You mean was I taking a chance on being destroyed in the host if the -creature I was Contacting gave in to the urge to do the swatting?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," said Bob. "I mean, I know you can take control any time, if -things get dangerous. But wasn't that cutting it kind of thin?"</p> - -<p>Jerry shook his head and sipped his coffee. "Wrong urge, Ensign. -You'll note I recognized it as the <i>goofy</i> urge, the impulse to die -followed instantly by a violent surge of self-preservation. It wasn't -the death-wish at all. Myself and the creatures who remained safely at -the tunnel-mouths had a milder form of what was affecting the creature -that <i>did</i> start swatting the gourd."</p> - -<p>"Then what was the difference, sir? Why did that one particular -creature get the full self-destruction urge and no other?"</p> - -<p>Jerry wrinkled his face in thought. "I wish I didn't suspect the answer -to that, Ensign. The only thing I hope it <i>isn't</i> is the thing I have -the strongest inkling it <i>is</i>: Rotation. Something in their biology has -set them up in a certain order for destruction. And that rite I saw -performed was so un-animal, so formalized—"</p> - -<p>Bob's eyes widened as he caught the inference. "You think they have -an inbuilt protocol? That if one particular creature missed its cue, -somehow, the designated subsequent creature would simply wait forever, -never jumping its turn?"</p> - -<p>"That's what I mean," nodded Jerry. "I hope I'm wrong."</p> - -<p>"But the right creature made it," said Bob, blinking. "We can't have -upset the ecology, can we?"</p> - -<p>"Things develop fast on Viridian," mused Jerry. "If I figure the -time-relationship between their egg-hatching rate and growth rate, -those trees must mature in growth in about a month. And we managed to -shrivel a half dozen vines with our rocket fires when we landed, and -probably that many again when we blasted off...."</p> - -<p>"We dropped CO<sub>2</sub> bombs after we cleared the trees," offered the tech, -uneasily. "The fire was out in seconds."</p> - -<p>"That wouldn't help an already-shriveled vine, though, now would it!" -sighed Jerry. "And if my hunch about protocol is correct—"</p> - -<p>"The life-cycle would interrupt?" gasped the tech.</p> - -<p>"We'll see," said Jerry. "It'll take us a month to get back, and -there'll be another six months before the first wave of engineers is -sent to begin the homesteads and industry sites. We'll see, Ensign."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It took two months for the engineers to go out and return.</p> - -<p>They hadn't landed. A few orbits about the planet had shown them -nothing but a vast dead ball of dust and rotted vegetation, totally -unfit for human habitation. They brought back photographs taken of the -dead planet that no longer deserved the name it had rated in life.</p> - -<p>But Jerry Norcriss, Space Zoologist, made it a special point to avoid -looking at any of them.</p> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Matter of Protocol, by Jack Sharkey - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MATTER OF PROTOCOL *** - -***** This file should be named 51615-h.htm or 51615-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/6/1/51615/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Matter of Protocol - -Author: Jack Sharkey - -Release Date: April 1, 2016 [EBook #51615] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MATTER OF PROTOCOL *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - A MATTER OF PROTOCOL - - By JACK SHARKEY - - Illustrated by SCHELLING - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Magazine August 1962. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - First Contact was always dangerous--but - usually only to the man involved! - - -From space, the planet Viridian resembled a great green moss-covered -tennis ball. When the spaceship had arrowed even closer to the lush -jungle that was the surface of the 7000-mile sphere, there was still no -visible break in the green cloak of the planet. Even when they dipped -almost below their margin of safety--spaceships were poorly built -for extended flight within the atmosphere--it took nearly a complete -circuit of the planet before a triangle of emptiness was spotted. -It was in the midst of the tangled canopy of treetops, themselves -interwoven inextricably with coarse-leaved ropy vines that sprawled and -coiled about the upthrust branches like underfed anacondas. - -Into the center of this triangle the ship was lowered on sputtering -blue pillars of crackling energy, to come to rest on the soft loamy -earth. - -A bare instant after setdown, crewmen exploded from the airlock and -dashed into the jungle shadows with high-pressure tanks of gushing -spume. Their job was to coat, cool and throttle the hungry fires -trickling in bright orange fingers through the heat-blackened grasses. -Higher in the trees, a few vines smoldered fitfully where the fires had -brushed them, then hissed into smoky wet ash as their own glutinous -sap smothered the urgent embers. But the fire was going out. - -"Under control, sir," reported a returning crewman. - -Lieutenant Jerry Norcriss emerged into the green gloaming that cloaked -the base of the ship with a net of harlequin diamonds. Jerry nodded -abstractedly as other crewmen laid a lightweight form-fitting couch -alongside the tailfins near the airlock. On this couch Jerry reclined. -Remaining crew members turned their fire-fighting gear over to -companions and stood guard in a rough semi-circle with loaded rifles, -their backs to the figure on the couch, facing the jungle and whatever -predatory dangers it might hold. - -Ensign Bob Ryder, the technician who had the much softer job of simply -controlling and coordinating any information relayed by Jerry, leaned -out through the open circle in the hull. - -"All set, sir," said the tech. Jerry nodded and settled a heavily -wired helmet onto his head, while Bob made a hookup between the helmet -and the power outlet that was concealed under a flap of metal on the -tailfin. - -Helmet secured, Jerry lay back upon the couch and closed his eyes. "Any -time you're ready, Ensign." - -Bob hurried back inside, found the panel he sought among the jumble of -high-powered machinery there, and placed a spool of microtape on a -spindle inside it. - -He shut the panel and thumbed the button that started an impulse -radiating from the tape into the jungle. - -The impulse had been detected and taped by a roborocket which had -circled the planet for months before their arrival. It was one of -the two Viridian species whose types were as yet uncatalogued by the -Space Corps, in its vast files of alien life. Jerry's job, as a Space -Zoologist, was to complete those files, planet by planet throughout the -spreading wave of slowly colonized universe. - -Bob made sure the tape was functioning. Then he clicked the switch that -would stimulate the Contact center in Jerry's brain and release his -mind into that of the taped alien for an immutable forty minutes. - -Outside the ship, recumbent in the warm green-gold shadows, Jerry's -consciousness was dwarfed for an instant by a white lightning-flash -of energy. And then his body went limp as his mind sprang with -thought-speed into Contact.... - - * * * * * - -Jerry opened his eyes to a dizzying view of the dull brown jungle -floor. He blinked a moment, then looked toward his feet. He saw two -sets of thin knobby Vs, extending forward and partly around the tiny -limb he stood upon, their chitinous surface shiny with the wetness of -the jungle air. - -Slowly working his jaws, he heard the extremely gentle "click" as they -came together. The endoskeleton must exist all over his host's body. - -After making certain it would not disturb his balance on the limb, he -attempted bringing whatever on the alien passed for hands before his -face. - -Sometimes aliens had no hands, nor any comparable organisms. Then Jerry -would have to soft-pedal the mental nagging of being "amputated," an -unavoidable carryover from his subconscious "wrong-feeling" about -armlessness. - -But this time the effort moved up multi-jointed limbs, spindly as a -cat's whiskers, terminating in a perpetually coiling soft prehensile -tip. He tried feeling along his torso to determine its size and shape. -But the wormlike tips were tactilely insensitive. - -Hoping to deduce his shape from his shadow, he inched sideways along -the limb on those inadequate-looking two-pronged feet toward a blob of -yellow sunlight nearer the trunk. - -The silhouette on the branch showed him a stubby cigar-shaped torso. - -"I seem to be a semi-tentacled no-hop grasshopper," he mused to -himself, vainly trying to turn his head on his neck. "Head, thorax and -abdomen all one piece." - -He tried flexing what would be, in a man, the region of the -shoulderblades. He was rewarded by the appearance of long, narrow -wings--two sets of them, like a dragonfly's--from beneath two flaps of -chitin on his back. - -He tried an experimental flapping. The pair of wings--white and stiff -like starched tissue paper, not veinous as in Earth-insects--dissolved -in a buzzing blur of motion. The limb fell away from under his tiny -V-shaped feet. And then he was up above the blinding green blanket -of jungle treetops, his shadow pacing his forward movement along the -close-packed quilt of wide leaves below. - -"I'd better be careful," thought Jerry. "There may be avian life here -that considers my species the _piece de resistance_ of the pteroid -set...." - -Slowing his rapid wingbeat, he let himself drop down toward the nearest -mattress-sized leaf. He folded his out-thrust feet in mid-air and -dropped the last few inches to a cushiony rest. - - * * * * * - -A slight shimmer of dizziness gripped his mind. - -Perhaps the "skull" of this creature was ill-equipped to ward off the -hot rays of the tropic sunlight. Lest his brain be fried in its own -casing, Jerry scuttled along the velvet top of the leaf, and ducked -quickly beneath its nearest overlapping companion. The wave of vertigo -passed quickly, there in the deep shadow. Under the canopy of leaves -Jerry crawled back to a limb near the top of the tree. - -A few feet from where he stood, something moved. - -Jerry turned that way. Another creature of the same species was -balancing lightly on a green limb of wire-thickness, its gaze fixed -steadily toward the jungle flooring, as Jerry's own had been on -entering the alien body. - -Watching out for predators? Or for victims? - -He could, he knew, pull his consciousness back enough to let the -creature's own consciousness carry it through its daily cycle of -eating, avoiding destruction, and the manifold businesses of being an -ambient creature. But he decided to keep control. It would be easier -to figure out his host's ecological status in the planet's natural -life-balance by observing the other one for awhile. - -Jerry always felt more comfortable when he was in full control. You -never knew when an alien might stupidly stumble into a fatality that -any intelligent mind could easily have avoided. - -Idly, as he watched his fellow creature down near the inner part of -the branch, he wondered how much more time he would be in Contact. -Subjectively he'd seemed to be enhosted for about ten minutes. But one -of the drawbacks of Contact was the subjugation of personal time-sense -to that of the host. Depending on the species he enhosted, the -forty-minute Contact period could be an eternity, or the blink of an -eye.... - - * * * * * - -Nothing further seemed to be occurring. Jerry reluctantly withdrew some -of his control from the insect-mind to see what would happen. - -Immediately it inched forward until it was in the same position it had -been in when Jerry made Contact: V-shaped feet forward and slightly -around the narrow branch, eyes fixed upon the brownish jungle floor, -body motionless with folded wings. For awhile, Jerry tried "listening" -to its mind, but received no readable thoughts. Only a sense of -imminence.... Of patience.... Of waiting.... - -It didn't take long for Jerry to grow bored with this near-mindless -outlook. He reassumed full control. Guiding the fragile feet carefully -along the branch, he made his way to his fellow watcher, and tried -out the creature's communication system. His mind strove to activate -something on the order of a larynx; the insect's nervous system -received this impulse, changed in inter-species translation, as a broad -request for getting a message to its fellow. Its body responded by -lifting the multi-jointed "arms" forward. It clapped the hard inner -surfaces of the "wrists" together so fast that they blurred into -invisibility as the wings had done. - -A thin, ratchetty sound came forth from that hardshell contact. The -other insect looked up in annoyance, then returned its gaze to the -ground again. - -Aural conversation thus obviated, Jerry tried for physical -attention-getting. He reached out a vermiform forelimb-tip and tugged -urgently at the other insect's nearest hind leg. An angry movement gave -out the unmistakable pantomimic message: "For pete's sake, get off my -back! I'm _busy_!" The other insect spread its thin double wings and -went buzzing off a few trees away, then settled on a limb there and -took up its earthward vigil once more. - -"Well, they're not gregarious, that's for sure," said Jerry to himself. -"I wish I knew what the hell we were waiting for!" - -He decided he was sick of ground-watching, and turned his attention to -his immediate vicinity. His gaze wandered along all the twists, juts -and thrusts of branch and vine beneath the sun-blocking leaves. - -And all at once he realized he was staring at another of his kind. -So still had its dull green-brown body been that he'd taken it for a -ripple of bark along a branch. - -Carefully, he looked further on. Beyond the small still figure he soon -located another like it, and then another. Within a short space of -time, he had found three dozen of the insects sitting silently around -him in a spherical area barely ten feet in diameter. - - * * * * * - -Oddly disconcerted, he once more spread his stiff white wings and -fluttered away through the treetops, careful to avoid coming out in -direct sunlight this time. - -He flew until a resurgence of giddiness told him he was over-straining -the creature's stamina. He dropped onto a limb and looked about once -more. Within a very short time, he had spotted dozens more of the -grasshopper-things. All were the same, sitting in camouflaged silence, -steadily eyeing the ground. - -"Damn," thought Jerry. "They don't seem interested in eating, mating or -fighting. All they want to do is sit--sit and _wait_. But what are they -waiting for?" - -There was, of course, the possibility that he'd caught them in an -off-period. If the species were nocturnal, then he wouldn't get any -action from them till after sunset. That, he realized gloomily, meant a -re-Contact later on. One way or another, he would have to determine the -functions, capabilities and menace--if any--of the species with regard -to the influx of colonists, who would come to Viridian only if his -report pronounced it safe. - -Once again, he let the insect's mind take over. Again that -over-powering feeling of imminence.... - -He was irritated. It couldn't just be looking forward to nightfall! -There were too many things tied in with the imminence feeling: the -necessity for quiet, for motionlessness, for careful watching. - -The more he thought on it, the more he had the distinct intuition that -it would sit and stare at the soft, mulch-covered jungle floor, be it -bright daylight or blackest gloom, waiting, and waiting, and waiting.... - -Then, suddenly, the slight feel of imminence became almost unbearable -apprehension. - -The change in intensity was due to a soft, cautious shuffling sound -from down in the green-gold twilight. Something was coming through the -jungle. Something that moved on careful feet along the springy, moist -brown surface below the trees. - -Far below, a shadow detached itself slowly from the deeper shadows of -the trees, and a form began to emerge into the wan filtered sunlight. -It-- - -An all-encompassing lance of silent white lightning. Contact was -over.... - - * * * * * - -Jerry sat up on the couch, angry. He pulled the helmet off his head as -Bob Ryder leaned out the airlock once more. "How'd it go, sir?" - -"Lousy. I'll have to re-establish. Didn't have time to Learn it -sufficiently." A slight expression of disappointment on the tech's face -made him add, "Don't tell me you have the other tape in place already?" - -"Sorry," Bob said. "You usually do a complete Learning in one Contact." - -"Oh--" Jerry shrugged and reached for the helmet again. "Never mind, -I'll take on the second alien long as it's already set up. I may just -have hit the first one in an off-period. The delay in re-Contact may be -just what I need to catch it in action." - -Settling the helmet snugly on his head once more, he leaned back onto -the couch and waited. He heard the tech's feet clanking along the metal -plates inside the ship, then the soft clang of an opening door in the -power room, and-- - -Whiteness, writhing electric whiteness and cold silence. And he was in -Contact. - - * * * * * - -Darkness, and musky warmth. - -Then a slot of light appeared, a thin fuzzy line of yellow striped -with spiky green. Jerry had time, in the brief flicker, to observe -thick bearlike forelimbs holding up a squarish trapdoor fastened with -cross-twigs for support. Then the powerful forepaws let the door drop -back into place, and it was dark again. - -He hadn't liked those forepaws. Though thick as and pawed like -a bear's, they were devoid of hair. They had skin thin as a -caterpillar's, a mottled pink with sick-looking areas of deathly white. - -Skin like that would be a push-over to actinic rays for any long -exposure. Probably the thing lived underground here, almost -permanently. His eyes had detected a rude assortment of thick wooden -limbs curving in and out at regular intervals in the vertical wall of -soil that was the end of this tunnel, just below the trapdoor. Tree -roots. But formed, by some odd natural quirk, into a utile ladder. - -But why had the thing peered out, then dropped the door to wait? Did -_every_ species on this planet hang around expectantly and nothing -else? And what was the waiting for? - -Then he felt the urge within the creature, the urge to scurry up that -ladder into the light. But there was, simultaneously, a counter-urge in -the thing, telling it to _please_ wait a _little_ longer.... - -Jerry recognized the urge by quick anthropomorphosis. It was the goofy -urge. The crazy urge. Like one gets on the brinks of awesome heights, -or on subway platforms as the train roars in: The impulsive urge to -self-destruction, so swiftly frightening and so swiftly suppressed.... - -Yet, it had lifted and dropped that lid too briefly to have seen -anything outside. Could it be _listening_ for something? Carefully, he -relinquished his control of the beast, fraction by fraction, to see -what it would do. - -It rose on tiptoe at once, and again lifted that earthen door. - -It squinted at the profusion of green-yellow sunlight that stung -its eyes. Then it rose on powerful hind limbs and clambered just -high enough on that "ladder" to see over the grassy rim of the -trapdoor-hole. Jerry then heard the soft shuffling sound that had -re-alerted it, and saw the source. - -Out on the matted brown jungle flooring, beneath the towering trees, -another of the bear-things was moving forward from an open turf-door, -emitting low, whimpering snorts as it inched along through the -dappling yellow sunlight. - -Obviously it was _following_ that manic-destruction impulse that he -just felt and managed to suppress. It must have been almost a hundred -degrees out there. And the damned thing was _shivering_. - - * * * * * - -Here and there, Jerry noticed suddenly, other half-opened trapdoors -were framing other bear-things' heads. The air was taut with electric -tension, the tension of a slow trigger-squeeze that moves millimeter by -millimeter toward the instant explosion.... - -The soft shuffling sounds of the animal's movement jogged Jerry's -memory then, and he knew it for the sound he had heard when enhosted in -the grasshopper-thing. Was a bear-thing what they'd been waiting in the -trees so silently for? And what would be the culmination of that vigil? - -Then the bear-thing he was in Contact with hitched itself up another -root-rung. Jerry saw the thing toward which the quaking creature was -headed, in a hunched crawl, its whimpers more anguished by the moment. - -Pendant in the green gloaming, about four feet above the spongy brown -jungle floor, hung a thick yellow-gray gourd at the tip of a long vine. -Its sides glittered stickily with condensed moisture that mingled -with the effluvium of the gourd itself. The odor was both noisome and -compelling, powerful as a bushel of rotting roses. It sickened as it -lured, teased the nostrils as it cloyed within the lungs. - -To this dangling obscenity the bear-thing moved. Its eyes were no -longer afraid, but glazed and dulled by the strength of that musky -lure. Its movements were fluid and trancelike. - -It arose on sturdy hind limbs and struck at the gourd with a gentle -paw, sending it jouncing to one side on its long green vine. As it -bobbed back, the creature struck it off in the opposite direction with -a sharper blow. - -Jerry watched in fascination. The gourd swung faster; the mottled -pink-white alien creature swayed and wove its forelimbs and thick body -in a ritual dance matching the tempo of the arcing gourd. - -Then Jerry noted that the vine was unlike earth-vines which -parasitically employ treetops as their unwilling trellises. It is a -limp extension of the tip of a tree branch itself. So were all the -other vines in that green matting overhead. - - * * * * * - -A ripping sound yanked his gaze back to the dazed creature and the -gourd again. - -A ragged tear had riven the side of the gourd. Tiny coils of green -were dribbling out in batches, like watchsprings spilled from a paper -bag. They struck with a bounce and wriggle on the resilient brown -mulch. And then, as they straightened themselves, Jerry knew them for -what they were: Miniature versions of the grasshopper-things, shaped -precisely like the adults, but only a third as large. - -The bear-thing's movements had gone from graceful fluidity to frenzy -now. A loud whistle of fright escaped it as the last of the twitching -green things flopped from its vegetable cocoon, whirred white wings to -dry them and flew off. - -And the lumbering creature had reason for its fright. - -The instant the last coil of wiggly green life was a vanishing blur in -the green shadows, a cloud of darker green descended upon the pink form -of the beast from the trees. - -The grasshopper-things were waiting no longer. Thousands swarmed on the -writhing form, until the bear-thing was a lumpy green parody of itself. - -As quickly as the cloud had plunged and clustered, it fell away. The -earth was teeming with the flip-flopping forms of dying insects, white -wings going dark brown and curling like cellophane in open flame. The -bear-thing itself was no longer recognizable, its flesh a myriad -egg-like white lumps. It swayed in agony for a moment, then toppled. - -Instantly the other creatures--his host with them--were racing forward -to the site of the encounter. Jerry felt his host's long gummy tongue -flick out and snare one--just one--of the dead adult insects. It was -ingested whole by a deft backflip of tongue to gullet. As his host -turned tail and scurried for the tunnel once more, Jerry swiftly took -control again, and halted it to observe any further developments. - - * * * * * - -Each of the other things, after a one-insect gulp, was just vanishing -back underground. The turf-tops were dropping neatly into almost -undetectable place hiding the tunnels. The sunlight nipped at his pale -flesh, but Jerry held off from a return to the underground sanctuary, -still watching that lump-covered corpse on the earth. Then.... - -The vine, its burden gone, began to drip a thick ichor from its ragged -end upon the dead animal beneath it. - -And as the ichor touched upon a white lump, the lump would swell, -wriggle, and change color. Jerry watched with awe as the color became a -mottled pink, and the surface of the lumps cracked and shriveled away, -and tiny forms plopped out onto the ground: miniature bear-things, -tiny throats emitting eager mouse-squeaks of hunger. - -They rushed upon the body in which they'd been so violently incubated -and swiftly, systematically devoured it, blood, bone and sinew. - -And when not even a memory of the dead beast was left upon the soil, -the tiny pink-white things began to burrow downward into the ground. -Soon there was nothing left in the area but a dried fragment of vine, a -few loose mounds of soil and a vast silence. - -"I'll be a monkey's uncle!" said Jerry ... forgetting in his excitement -that this phrase was nearly a concise parody of the Space Zoologists' -final oath of duty, and kiddingly used as such by the older members of -the group. - -The whole damned planet was symbiotic! After witnessing those alien -life-death rites, it didn't take him long to figure out the screwball -connections between the species. Insects, once born of vine-gourds -and fully grown, then propagated their species by a strange means: -laying bear-eggs in a bear-thing and dying. And dying, eaten by the -surviving bears, they turned to seeds which--left in the tunnels by the -bear-things as droppings--in turn took root and became trees. - -And the trees, under the onslaught of another bear-thing on a dangling -pod, would produce new insects, then drip its ichor to fertilize the -eggs in the newly dead bear-thing.... - -Jerry found his mind tangling as he attempted a better pinpointing of -the plant-animal-insect relationship. A dead adult insect, plus a trip -through a bear-thing's alimentary canal, produced a tree. A tree-pod, -with the swatting stimulus of a bear-thing's paws, gave birth to new -insects. And insect eggs in animal flesh, stimulated by the tree-ichor, -gestated swiftly into young animals.... - -That meant, simply, that insect plus bear equals tree, tree plus bear -equals insect, and insect plus tree equals bear. With three systems, -each relied on the non-inclusive member for the breeding-ground. -Insect-plus-ichor produced small animals _in_ the animal flesh. -Dead-insect-plus-bear produced tree _in_ the tree-flesh (if one -considered dead tree leaves and bark and such as the makeup of the -soil.) Bear-swats-plus-tree produced insects.... "Damn," said Jerry to -himself, "but _not_ in the insect-flesh. The thing won't round off...." - -He tried again, thinking hard. In effect, the trees were parents to -the insects, insects parents to the bears, and bears parents to the -trees.... Though in another sense, bear-flesh gave birth to new bears, -digested insects gave birth (through the tree-medium) to new insects, -and trees (through the insect-medium) gave birth to new trees.... - -Jerry's head spun pleasantly as he tried vainly to solve the confusion. -Men of science, he realized, would spend decades trying to figure -out which species were responsible for which. It made the ancient -chicken-or-egg question beneath consideration. And a lot of diehard -evolutionists were going to be bedded down with severe migraines when -his report went into circulation.... - -A dazzle of silent lightning, and Contact was over. - - * * * * * - -"Ready with that first tape again," Bob Ryder said as Jerry removed the -Contact helmet and brushed his snow-white hair back from his tanned, -youthful face. "Or do you want a breather first?" - -Jerry shook his head. "I won't need to re-Contact that other species, -Ensign. I got its life-relationships from the second Contact." - -"Really, sir?" said Bob. "That's pretty unusual, isn't it?" - -"The whole damned planet's unusual," said Jerry, rising from his supine -position and stretching luxuriously in the warm jungle air. "You'll see -what I mean when you process the second tape." - -Bob decided that Jerry--running pretty true to form for a Space -Zoologist--wasn't in a particularly talkative mood, so he had to -satisfy himself with waiting for the transcription of the Contact to -get the details. - -Later that day, an hour after takeoff, with Viridian already vanished -behind them as the great ship plowed through hyper-space toward Earth -and home, Bob finished reading the report. Then he went down the -passageway to the ward room for coffee. Jerry was seated there already. -Bob, quickly filling a mug from the polished percolator, slid into a -seat across the table from his superior and asked the question that had -been bugging him since seeing the report. - -"Sir--on that second Contact. Has it occurred to you that you'd -relinquished control to the host _before_ you saw that other creature -move out and start swatting the gourd-thing?" - -"You mean was I taking a chance on being destroyed in the host if the -creature I was Contacting gave in to the urge to do the swatting?" - -"Yes, sir," said Bob. "I mean, I know you can take control any time, if -things get dangerous. But wasn't that cutting it kind of thin?" - -Jerry shook his head and sipped his coffee. "Wrong urge, Ensign. -You'll note I recognized it as the _goofy_ urge, the impulse to die -followed instantly by a violent surge of self-preservation. It wasn't -the death-wish at all. Myself and the creatures who remained safely at -the tunnel-mouths had a milder form of what was affecting the creature -that _did_ start swatting the gourd." - -"Then what was the difference, sir? Why did that one particular -creature get the full self-destruction urge and no other?" - -Jerry wrinkled his face in thought. "I wish I didn't suspect the answer -to that, Ensign. The only thing I hope it _isn't_ is the thing I have -the strongest inkling it _is_: Rotation. Something in their biology has -set them up in a certain order for destruction. And that rite I saw -performed was so un-animal, so formalized--" - -Bob's eyes widened as he caught the inference. "You think they have -an inbuilt protocol? That if one particular creature missed its cue, -somehow, the designated subsequent creature would simply wait forever, -never jumping its turn?" - -"That's what I mean," nodded Jerry. "I hope I'm wrong." - -"But the right creature made it," said Bob, blinking. "We can't have -upset the ecology, can we?" - -"Things develop fast on Viridian," mused Jerry. "If I figure the -time-relationship between their egg-hatching rate and growth rate, -those trees must mature in growth in about a month. And we managed to -shrivel a half dozen vines with our rocket fires when we landed, and -probably that many again when we blasted off...." - -"We dropped CO_{2} bombs after we cleared the trees," offered the tech, -uneasily. "The fire was out in seconds." - -"That wouldn't help an already-shriveled vine, though, now would it!" -sighed Jerry. "And if my hunch about protocol is correct--" - -"The life-cycle would interrupt?" gasped the tech. - -"We'll see," said Jerry. "It'll take us a month to get back, and -there'll be another six months before the first wave of engineers is -sent to begin the homesteads and industry sites. We'll see, Ensign." - - * * * * * - -It took two months for the engineers to go out and return. - -They hadn't landed. A few orbits about the planet had shown them -nothing but a vast dead ball of dust and rotted vegetation, totally -unfit for human habitation. They brought back photographs taken of the -dead planet that no longer deserved the name it had rated in life. - -But Jerry Norcriss, Space Zoologist, made it a special point to avoid -looking at any of them. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Matter of Protocol, by Jack Sharkey - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MATTER OF PROTOCOL *** - -***** This file should be named 51615.txt or 51615.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/6/1/51615/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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