Eric Frank Russell - Symbiotica, Angielskie [EN](4)(2)
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file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt
SYMBIOTICA by Eric Frank Russell
They had commissioned the Marathon to look over a
likely planet floating near Rigel and what some of us would
have liked to learn was how the devil our Terrestrial
astronomers could select worthwhile subjects at such an
enormous distance.
Last trip they'd found us a juicy job when they'd sent us
to that mechanical world and its watery neighbour near
Bootes. The Marathon, a newly designed Flettner boat, was
something super and had no counterpart in our neck of the
cosmos. So our solution of the mystery was that the
astronomers had got hold of some instrument equally
revolutionary.
Anyway, we had covered the outward trip as per instructions
and had come near enough to see that once again the
astronomers had justified their claim to expertness when
they'd said that here was a planet likely to hold life.
Over to starboard Rigel blazed like a distant furnace
about thirty degrees above the plane which was horizontal
at that moment. By that I mean the horizontal plane always
is the ship's horizontal plane to which the entire cosmos had
to relate itself whether it likes it or not. But this planet's
primary wasn't the far-off Rigel: its own sun- much nearer
- looked a fraction smaller and rather yellower than Old Sol.
Two more planets lay farther out and we'd seen another
one swinging round the opposite side of the sun, That
made four in all, but three were as sterile as a Venusian
guppy's mind and only this, the innermost one, seemed
interesting.
We swooped upon it bow first. The way that world
swelled in the observation-ports did things to my bowels.
One trip on the casually meandering Upsydaisy had given
me my space-legs and made me accustomed to living in
suspense over umpteen million miles of nothingness, but I
reckoned it was going to take me another century or two to
become hardened to the mad bull take-offs and landings of
these Flettner craft.
Young Wilson in his harness followed his pious custom
of praying for the safety of his photographic plates. From
his expression of spiritual agony you'd have thought he
was married to the darned things. We landed, kerumph!
The boat did a hectic belly-slide.
"I wouldn't grieve," I told Wilson. "Those emulsified
window-panes never fry you a chicken or shove a
strawberry shortcake under your drooling mouth."
"No," he admitted. "They don't" Struggling out of his
harness, he gave me the sour eye and growled, "How'd you
like me to spit in the needlers?"
"I'd break your neck," I promised.
"See?" he said, pointedly, and forthwith beat it to find
out whether his stuff had survived intact.
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file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt
Sticking my face to the nearest port I had a look through
its thick disc and studied what I could see of the new world.
It was green. You'd never have believed any place could
be so thoroughly and absolutely green. The sun, which had
appeared a primrose colour out in space, now looked an
extremely pale green. It poured down a flood of yellow-
green light.
The Marathon lay in a glade that cut through a mighty
forest. The area immediately around us was lush with green
grasses, herbs, shrubs and bugs. And the forest itself was
a near-solid mass of tremendous growths that ranged in
colour from a very light silver-green to a dark, glossy green
that verged upon black.
Brennand came and stood beside me. His face promptly
became a spotty and bilious green as the eerie light hit it.
He looked like one of the undead.
"Well, here we are again." Turning away from the port,
he grinned at me, swiftly wiped the grin off his face and
replaced it with a look of alarm. "Hey, don't you be sick
over me!"
"It's the light," I pointed out. " Take a look at yourself.
You resemble a portion of undigested haggis floating in the
scuppers of a Moon-tripper."
"Thanks," he said.
"Don't mention it."
For a while we remained there looking out the port and
waiting for the general summons to the conference which
usually preceded the first venture out of the ship. I was
counting on maintaining my lucky streak by being picked
from the hat. Brennand likewise itched to stamp his feet
on real soil. But the summons did not come.
In the end, Brennand griped, "The skipper is slow-
what's holding him?"
"No idea."
I had another look at his leprous face. It was awful.
Judging by his expression he wasn't fanatically in love with
my features either.
I said, "You know how cautious McNulty is. Guess that
spree on Mechanistria has persuaded him to count a
hundred before issuing an order."
"Yes," agreed Brennand. "I'll go forward and find out
what's cooking."
He mooched along the passage. I couldn't go with him
because at this stage it was my duty to be ready at the
armoury. You never could tell when they'd come for the
stuff therein, and they had a habit of coming on the run.
Brennand had only just disappeared around the end corner
when sure enough the exploring party barged in shouting
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt (2 of 40) [11/13/03 2:32:30 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt
for equipment. Six of them. Molders, an engineer; Jepson,
a navigating officer; Sam Hignett, our Negro surgeon; young
Wilson, and two Martians, Kli Dreen and Kli Morg.
"Hah, lucky again?" I growled at Sam, tossing him his
needle ray and sundry oddments.
"Yes, sergeant " His very white teeth glistened in his
dark face as he smiled with satisfaction. "The skipper says
nobody is to go out afoot until first we've scouted around
in number four lifeboat"
Kli Morg got his needler in a long, snaky tentacle, waved
the dangerous thing around with bland disregard for every-
one's safety, and chirruped, "Give Dreen and me our
helmets."
"Helmets?" I glanced from him to the Terrestrials. "You
guys want spacesuits, too?"
"No," replied Jepson. "The stuff outside is up to fifteen
pounds and so rich in oxygen you whizz around thinking
you're merely ambling."
"Mud!" snapped Kli Morg. "Just like mud! Give us
our helmets."
He got them. These Martians were so conditioned by the
three pounds pressure of their native planet that anything
thicker and heavier irritated their livers, assuming that they
had livers. That's why they had the use of the starboard
airlock in which pressure was kept down to suit their taste.
They could endure weightier atmosphere for a limited time,
but sooner or later they'd wax unsociable and behave as
though burdened with the world's woes.
We Terrestrials helped them clamp down their head-and-
shoulder pieces and exhaust the air to what they considered
comfortable. If I'd lent a hand with this job once I'd done it
fifty times and still it seemed as crazy as ever. It isn't right
that people should feel happier for breathing in short whiffs.
Jay Score lumbered lithely into the armoury just as I'd
got all the clients decorated like Christmas trees. He leaned
his more than three hundred pounds on the tubular barrier
which promptly groaned. He got off it quickly. His eyes
shone brightly in a face as impassive as ever.
Shaking the barrier to see if it was wrecked, I said, "The
trouble with you is that you don't know your own strength."
He ignored that, turned his attention to the others and
told them, "The skipper orders you to be extra careful. We
don't want any repetition of what happened to Haines and
his crew. Don't fly below one thousand feet, don't risk a
landing elsewhere. Keep the autocamera running, keep your
eyes skinned and beat it back here the moment you discover
anything worth reporting."
"All right, Jay." Molders swung a couple of spare ammo
belts over an arm. " We'll watch our steps."
They traipsed out. Soon afterwards the lifeboat broke
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt (3 of 40) [11/13/03 2:32:30 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt
free with a squeaky parody of the Marathon's deep-throated,
sonorous drumming. It curved sharply through the green
light, soared over huge trees and diminished to a dot.
Brennand returned, stood by the port and watched the boat
vanish.
"McNulty's as leery as an old maid with a penitentiary
out back," he remarked.
"He has plenty of reasons. And he has all the explaining
to do when we arrive home."
A smirk passed over his seasick complexion. "I took a
walk to the noisy end and found that a couple of those
stern-gang bums have beaten everyone to the mark. They
didn't wait for orders. They're outside right now, playing
duck-on-the-rock."
"Playing what?" I yelped.
"Duck-on-the-rock," he repeated, deriving malicious
satisfaction from it.
I went to the tail-end, Brennand following with a wide
grin. Sure enough, two of those dirty mechanics who service
the tubes had pulled a fast one. They must have crawled
out through the main driver, not yet cool. Standing ankle-
deep in green growths, the pair were ribbing each other and
slinging pebbles at a small rock poised on top of a boulder.
To look at them you'd have thought this was a Sunday
school picnic.
"Does the skipper know about this?"
"Don't be silly," advised Brennand. "Do you think he'd
pick that pair of unshaven tramps for first out?"
One of the couple turned, noticed us staring at him
through the port. He smiled toothily, shouted something
impossible to hear through the thick walls, leaped nine feet
into the air and smacked his chest with a grimy hand. He
made it plain that the gravity was low, the oxygen-content
high and he was feeling mutinously topnotch. Brennand's
face suggested that he was sorely tempted to crawl through
a tube and join the fun.
"McNulty will skin those hoodlums," I said, dutifully
concealing my envy.
"Can't blame them. Our artificial gravity is still switched
on, the ship is full of fog and we've come a long, long way.
"It'll be great to go outside. I could do some sand-castling
myself if I had a bucket and spade."
"There isn't any sand."
Becoming tired of the rock, the escapees picked
themselves a supply of round pebbles from among the growths,
moved toward a big bush growing fifty yards from the
Marathon's stern. The farther away they went, the greater
the likelihood of them being spotted from the skipper's
lair, but they didn't care a hoot. They knew McNulty
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt (4 of 40) [11/13/03 2:32:30 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt
couldn't do much more than lecture them and enter it in
the log disguised as a severe reprimand.
This bush stood between twelve and fifteen feet high, had
a very thick mass of bright green foliage at the top of a thin,
willowy trunk. One of the pair approached it a couple of
yards ahead of the other, flung a pebble at the bush, struck
it fair and square in the middle of the foliage. What
happened next was so swift that we had difficulty in
following it.
The pebble crashed amid the leaves. The entire bush
whipped over backwards as if its trunk were a steel spring. A
trio of tiny creatures fell out at the limit of the arc, dropped
from sight into herbage below. The bush whipped forward
in a return swipe then stood precisely as before, undisturbed
except for a minute quivering in its topmost branches.
But the one who'd flung the stone now lay flat on his
face. His companion, three or four paces behind, had
stopped and was gaping like one petrified by the utterly
unexpected.
"Hey? " squawked Brennand. "What happened there?"
Outside, the man who had fallen suddenly stirred, rolled
over, sat up and started picking at himself. His companion
got to him, helped him pick. Not a sound came into the
ship, so we couldn't hear what they were talking about or
the oaths they were certainly using.
The picking process finished, the smitten one came
unsteadily erect. His balance was lousy and his fellow had
to support him as they started back to the ship. Behind
them the bush stood as innocent-looking as ever, its vague
quivers having died away.
Halfway back to the Marathon the pebble-thrower
teetered and went white, then licked his lips and keeled
over. The other glanced anxiously toward the bush as if
he wouldn't have been surprised to find it charging down
upon them. Bending, he got the body in a shoulder-hitch,
struggled with it toward the midway airlock. Jay Score met
him before he'd heaved his load twenty steps. Striding
powerfully and confidently through the carpet of green,
Jay took the limp form from the other and carried it with
ease. We raced toward the bow to find out what had
happened.
Brushing past us, Jay bore his burden into our tiny
surgery where Wally Simcox - Sam's side-kick - started
working on the patient. The victim's buddy hung around
outside the door and looked sick. He looked considerably
more sick when Captain McNulty came along and stabbed
him with an accusative stare before going inside.
After half a minute, the skipper shoved out a red, irate
face and rapped, "Go tell Steve to recall that lifeboat at
once - Sam is urgently needed."
Dashing to the radio-room, I passed on the message.
Steve's eyebrows circumnavigated his face as he flicked a
switch and cuddled a microphone to his chest. He got
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt (5 of 40) [11/13/03 2:32:30 AM]
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file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt
SYMBIOTICA by Eric Frank Russell
They had commissioned the Marathon to look over a
likely planet floating near Rigel and what some of us would
have liked to learn was how the devil our Terrestrial
astronomers could select worthwhile subjects at such an
enormous distance.
Last trip they'd found us a juicy job when they'd sent us
to that mechanical world and its watery neighbour near
Bootes. The Marathon, a newly designed Flettner boat, was
something super and had no counterpart in our neck of the
cosmos. So our solution of the mystery was that the
astronomers had got hold of some instrument equally
revolutionary.
Anyway, we had covered the outward trip as per instructions
and had come near enough to see that once again the
astronomers had justified their claim to expertness when
they'd said that here was a planet likely to hold life.
Over to starboard Rigel blazed like a distant furnace
about thirty degrees above the plane which was horizontal
at that moment. By that I mean the horizontal plane always
is the ship's horizontal plane to which the entire cosmos had
to relate itself whether it likes it or not. But this planet's
primary wasn't the far-off Rigel: its own sun- much nearer
- looked a fraction smaller and rather yellower than Old Sol.
Two more planets lay farther out and we'd seen another
one swinging round the opposite side of the sun, That
made four in all, but three were as sterile as a Venusian
guppy's mind and only this, the innermost one, seemed
interesting.
We swooped upon it bow first. The way that world
swelled in the observation-ports did things to my bowels.
One trip on the casually meandering Upsydaisy had given
me my space-legs and made me accustomed to living in
suspense over umpteen million miles of nothingness, but I
reckoned it was going to take me another century or two to
become hardened to the mad bull take-offs and landings of
these Flettner craft.
Young Wilson in his harness followed his pious custom
of praying for the safety of his photographic plates. From
his expression of spiritual agony you'd have thought he
was married to the darned things. We landed, kerumph!
The boat did a hectic belly-slide.
"I wouldn't grieve," I told Wilson. "Those emulsified
window-panes never fry you a chicken or shove a
strawberry shortcake under your drooling mouth."
"No," he admitted. "They don't" Struggling out of his
harness, he gave me the sour eye and growled, "How'd you
like me to spit in the needlers?"
"I'd break your neck," I promised.
"See?" he said, pointedly, and forthwith beat it to find
out whether his stuff had survived intact.
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt (1 of 40) [11/13/03 2:32:30 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt
Sticking my face to the nearest port I had a look through
its thick disc and studied what I could see of the new world.
It was green. You'd never have believed any place could
be so thoroughly and absolutely green. The sun, which had
appeared a primrose colour out in space, now looked an
extremely pale green. It poured down a flood of yellow-
green light.
The Marathon lay in a glade that cut through a mighty
forest. The area immediately around us was lush with green
grasses, herbs, shrubs and bugs. And the forest itself was
a near-solid mass of tremendous growths that ranged in
colour from a very light silver-green to a dark, glossy green
that verged upon black.
Brennand came and stood beside me. His face promptly
became a spotty and bilious green as the eerie light hit it.
He looked like one of the undead.
"Well, here we are again." Turning away from the port,
he grinned at me, swiftly wiped the grin off his face and
replaced it with a look of alarm. "Hey, don't you be sick
over me!"
"It's the light," I pointed out. " Take a look at yourself.
You resemble a portion of undigested haggis floating in the
scuppers of a Moon-tripper."
"Thanks," he said.
"Don't mention it."
For a while we remained there looking out the port and
waiting for the general summons to the conference which
usually preceded the first venture out of the ship. I was
counting on maintaining my lucky streak by being picked
from the hat. Brennand likewise itched to stamp his feet
on real soil. But the summons did not come.
In the end, Brennand griped, "The skipper is slow-
what's holding him?"
"No idea."
I had another look at his leprous face. It was awful.
Judging by his expression he wasn't fanatically in love with
my features either.
I said, "You know how cautious McNulty is. Guess that
spree on Mechanistria has persuaded him to count a
hundred before issuing an order."
"Yes," agreed Brennand. "I'll go forward and find out
what's cooking."
He mooched along the passage. I couldn't go with him
because at this stage it was my duty to be ready at the
armoury. You never could tell when they'd come for the
stuff therein, and they had a habit of coming on the run.
Brennand had only just disappeared around the end corner
when sure enough the exploring party barged in shouting
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt (2 of 40) [11/13/03 2:32:30 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt
for equipment. Six of them. Molders, an engineer; Jepson,
a navigating officer; Sam Hignett, our Negro surgeon; young
Wilson, and two Martians, Kli Dreen and Kli Morg.
"Hah, lucky again?" I growled at Sam, tossing him his
needle ray and sundry oddments.
"Yes, sergeant " His very white teeth glistened in his
dark face as he smiled with satisfaction. "The skipper says
nobody is to go out afoot until first we've scouted around
in number four lifeboat"
Kli Morg got his needler in a long, snaky tentacle, waved
the dangerous thing around with bland disregard for every-
one's safety, and chirruped, "Give Dreen and me our
helmets."
"Helmets?" I glanced from him to the Terrestrials. "You
guys want spacesuits, too?"
"No," replied Jepson. "The stuff outside is up to fifteen
pounds and so rich in oxygen you whizz around thinking
you're merely ambling."
"Mud!" snapped Kli Morg. "Just like mud! Give us
our helmets."
He got them. These Martians were so conditioned by the
three pounds pressure of their native planet that anything
thicker and heavier irritated their livers, assuming that they
had livers. That's why they had the use of the starboard
airlock in which pressure was kept down to suit their taste.
They could endure weightier atmosphere for a limited time,
but sooner or later they'd wax unsociable and behave as
though burdened with the world's woes.
We Terrestrials helped them clamp down their head-and-
shoulder pieces and exhaust the air to what they considered
comfortable. If I'd lent a hand with this job once I'd done it
fifty times and still it seemed as crazy as ever. It isn't right
that people should feel happier for breathing in short whiffs.
Jay Score lumbered lithely into the armoury just as I'd
got all the clients decorated like Christmas trees. He leaned
his more than three hundred pounds on the tubular barrier
which promptly groaned. He got off it quickly. His eyes
shone brightly in a face as impassive as ever.
Shaking the barrier to see if it was wrecked, I said, "The
trouble with you is that you don't know your own strength."
He ignored that, turned his attention to the others and
told them, "The skipper orders you to be extra careful. We
don't want any repetition of what happened to Haines and
his crew. Don't fly below one thousand feet, don't risk a
landing elsewhere. Keep the autocamera running, keep your
eyes skinned and beat it back here the moment you discover
anything worth reporting."
"All right, Jay." Molders swung a couple of spare ammo
belts over an arm. " We'll watch our steps."
They traipsed out. Soon afterwards the lifeboat broke
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt (3 of 40) [11/13/03 2:32:30 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt
free with a squeaky parody of the Marathon's deep-throated,
sonorous drumming. It curved sharply through the green
light, soared over huge trees and diminished to a dot.
Brennand returned, stood by the port and watched the boat
vanish.
"McNulty's as leery as an old maid with a penitentiary
out back," he remarked.
"He has plenty of reasons. And he has all the explaining
to do when we arrive home."
A smirk passed over his seasick complexion. "I took a
walk to the noisy end and found that a couple of those
stern-gang bums have beaten everyone to the mark. They
didn't wait for orders. They're outside right now, playing
duck-on-the-rock."
"Playing what?" I yelped.
"Duck-on-the-rock," he repeated, deriving malicious
satisfaction from it.
I went to the tail-end, Brennand following with a wide
grin. Sure enough, two of those dirty mechanics who service
the tubes had pulled a fast one. They must have crawled
out through the main driver, not yet cool. Standing ankle-
deep in green growths, the pair were ribbing each other and
slinging pebbles at a small rock poised on top of a boulder.
To look at them you'd have thought this was a Sunday
school picnic.
"Does the skipper know about this?"
"Don't be silly," advised Brennand. "Do you think he'd
pick that pair of unshaven tramps for first out?"
One of the couple turned, noticed us staring at him
through the port. He smiled toothily, shouted something
impossible to hear through the thick walls, leaped nine feet
into the air and smacked his chest with a grimy hand. He
made it plain that the gravity was low, the oxygen-content
high and he was feeling mutinously topnotch. Brennand's
face suggested that he was sorely tempted to crawl through
a tube and join the fun.
"McNulty will skin those hoodlums," I said, dutifully
concealing my envy.
"Can't blame them. Our artificial gravity is still switched
on, the ship is full of fog and we've come a long, long way.
"It'll be great to go outside. I could do some sand-castling
myself if I had a bucket and spade."
"There isn't any sand."
Becoming tired of the rock, the escapees picked
themselves a supply of round pebbles from among the growths,
moved toward a big bush growing fifty yards from the
Marathon's stern. The farther away they went, the greater
the likelihood of them being spotted from the skipper's
lair, but they didn't care a hoot. They knew McNulty
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt (4 of 40) [11/13/03 2:32:30 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt
couldn't do much more than lecture them and enter it in
the log disguised as a severe reprimand.
This bush stood between twelve and fifteen feet high, had
a very thick mass of bright green foliage at the top of a thin,
willowy trunk. One of the pair approached it a couple of
yards ahead of the other, flung a pebble at the bush, struck
it fair and square in the middle of the foliage. What
happened next was so swift that we had difficulty in
following it.
The pebble crashed amid the leaves. The entire bush
whipped over backwards as if its trunk were a steel spring. A
trio of tiny creatures fell out at the limit of the arc, dropped
from sight into herbage below. The bush whipped forward
in a return swipe then stood precisely as before, undisturbed
except for a minute quivering in its topmost branches.
But the one who'd flung the stone now lay flat on his
face. His companion, three or four paces behind, had
stopped and was gaping like one petrified by the utterly
unexpected.
"Hey? " squawked Brennand. "What happened there?"
Outside, the man who had fallen suddenly stirred, rolled
over, sat up and started picking at himself. His companion
got to him, helped him pick. Not a sound came into the
ship, so we couldn't hear what they were talking about or
the oaths they were certainly using.
The picking process finished, the smitten one came
unsteadily erect. His balance was lousy and his fellow had
to support him as they started back to the ship. Behind
them the bush stood as innocent-looking as ever, its vague
quivers having died away.
Halfway back to the Marathon the pebble-thrower
teetered and went white, then licked his lips and keeled
over. The other glanced anxiously toward the bush as if
he wouldn't have been surprised to find it charging down
upon them. Bending, he got the body in a shoulder-hitch,
struggled with it toward the midway airlock. Jay Score met
him before he'd heaved his load twenty steps. Striding
powerfully and confidently through the carpet of green,
Jay took the limp form from the other and carried it with
ease. We raced toward the bow to find out what had
happened.
Brushing past us, Jay bore his burden into our tiny
surgery where Wally Simcox - Sam's side-kick - started
working on the patient. The victim's buddy hung around
outside the door and looked sick. He looked considerably
more sick when Captain McNulty came along and stabbed
him with an accusative stare before going inside.
After half a minute, the skipper shoved out a red, irate
face and rapped, "Go tell Steve to recall that lifeboat at
once - Sam is urgently needed."
Dashing to the radio-room, I passed on the message.
Steve's eyebrows circumnavigated his face as he flicked a
switch and cuddled a microphone to his chest. He got
file:///F|/rah/Russell,%20Eric%20Frank%20-%20Symbiotica.txt (5 of 40) [11/13/03 2:32:30 AM]
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]