Read Ebook: The Unprotected Species by Sturgis Melvin

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Ebook has 471 lines and 27186 words, and 10 pages

The Unprotected Species

Early on the first morning after the camp had been secured--scarcely twenty-four hours after the first plastic shack had been erected--four members of the surveying section brought in Bradshaw.

Gallifa, the senior biologist of the party, was loading the halftrack in preparation for a field trip when the men placed the stretcher in the shade of the truck. He took one look; and immediately stopped congratulating himself on the ease of operations.

"Damn! Is he dead?" asked the stunned Gallifa.

"He isn't dead," the mapping officer said lamely. "But he's damn well beat up."

Gallifa nodded awkwardly and looked down at the stretcher. Bradshaw was one of his team. A good man. Gallifa hadn't known he wasn't in the compound. Bradshaw wasn't a pleasant sight. Blood covered his face from a deep gash above the temple, and his clothes and body were cut and scratched in a dozen places.

"Better get him over to the hospital," Gallifa ordered brusquely. "I'll be along as soon as I can."

The mapping officer gestured, and the men moved away with their burden. The officer inspected the toes of his boots uncomfortably.

"How did it happen?" Gallifa asked quietly. "I would say that he had been clawed by some kind of animal."

"That's possible," the other agreed unconvincingly. He licked his lips nervously. "Of course, we are not sure just what did happen." He nodded at a tall, sad-faced man standing almost at his elbow. "Hawkins spotted him from the 'copter on his second recon flight this morning. He came back and directed a crew to pick Bradshaw up."

The officer's manner was hesitant and confusing. Gallifa started to speak, then glanced questioningly at Hawkins and motioned impatiently.

Hawkins cleared his throat. "I saw him almost as soon as I was in the air. He was about half a mile on the other side of camp. I probably wouldn't have paid any attention if he hadn't been acting so funny."

Hawkins paused and glanced apologetically at Gallifa. Gallifa frowned.

"You know how thick those brambles are all around here?" Hawkins continued quickly. "Well, Bradshaw was running through them, just as if something was chasing him. The thorns were cutting the clothes right off his back. I couldn't see anything from the air, so I swung the 'copter back and grabbed some men to see if we could find out what was wrong.

"It took almost an hour to find him again. He was in the bottom of a little ravine, leaning against a rock. He seemed to be all right until we were close. Then he picked up a stick and started swinging it around like a wild man. He was clear crazy. I finally had to hit him over the head with a rock to save myself. He was true crazy."

So that was what they had been so hesitant in telling him! Gallifa shook his head in bewilderment. Bradshaw was one of his most competent men. It didn't make sense that he suddenly should go berserk. Something seemed to be missing in the report.

"That doesn't sound right," Gallifa argued stubbornly. "Are you sure Bradshaw wasn't scared half to death by something? A man sometimes does some funny things if he's scared."

Gallifa glanced at his wrist watch and swore softly to himself. He had planned to get an early start, but the Bradshaw tragedy was too important. They still knew relatively nothing about the planet. If a man could wander around for only an hour or so and return with grievous, unexplained injuries--Well, it obviously needed looking into.

It would be difficult enough to finish the pre-colonization survey in the allotted time under the best of circumstances, and this was hardly what could be called a smooth beginning. He sighed and walked over to the hospital.

Dr. Thorndyke, a small, swarthy man with the penetrating gaze of his profession, greeted him with a shrug and a puzzled frown.

Gallifa framed the question with his eyes.

"I don't know," the doctor said slowly. "Frankly, I've never seen anything like this before. Your man seems to have lost his mind completely, yet his reactions are at least pseudo-normal. He has an intense homicidal mania, however. He regained consciousness unexpectedly and almost brained two of my medics with a headboard before we could give him a hypo. I don't know whether he'll improve or not. But I've classified him unfit for further survey duty."

The planet--as yet unnamed--had been surveyed by the spotting cruiser and pronounced suitable for colonization to nine-point-oh on a scale of ten. Of course, the nine-point figure was really only a pro tem rating. The cruiser hadn't been able to conduct a personal survey. That more difficult undertaking would fall to the lot of the pre-col crew.

It was the biological team's specific job not only to classify the flora and fauna of the planet, but to determine the adaptability of the colonists to all existing conditions. Bradshaw might have encountered something which would have helped tremendously with the latter category. But it was obvious he wouldn't be able to tell anyone about it.

Gallifa pressed young Samuels into service and finished loading the halftrack. While they were waiting for MacFarland, senior geologist and acting executive of the camp, the natives of the planet appeared.

Gallifa saw them first, and more from surprise than fear hopped to the platform beside the truck seat and swiveled the automatic pellet rifle until the muzzle covered the visitors.

"Samuels," he called softly. "Hey, Samuels, we have a welcoming committee."

Samuels stopped his work and peered over the back of the truck. He was well trained. He didn't move an inch.

"Are they intelligent?" he asked. His view was curtailed slightly by a tool box.

"I can't tell," Gallifa said quietly. "They're clannish, though. There must be fifteen, maybe twenty, in the group. Climb over the back of the truck and take a look," he suggested.

Samuels vaulted lightly into the truck.

Gallifa looked quizzically at his aide. "Well, what do you make of them?" he asked. "Do you think they could have anything to do with Bradshaw's sudden crackup?"

Samuels removed his hat and ran stubby fingers through his blond, short-cropped hair. "It's hard to tell," he answered. "But they sure look harmless to me. In fact, they look somewhat like a bunch of Celtic little people."

Gallifa frowned. He didn't understand.

"You know," Samuels grinned. "Gnomes or elves with big ears. Large dwarf model."

Gallifa turned his attention back to the visitors and laughed. "I see what you mean," he agreed. "Ears and all. They do seem harmless. But it's strange they aren't upset by us. They could be semi-intelligent."

Gallifa stepped gingerly from the truck. He really didn't expect to find a modicum of intelligence. The spotting cruiser had orbited around the planet for more than seventy-two hours before the crew had been deposited, and had almost definitely established the contrary.

The swift, but amazingly discerning survey, had revealed absolutely no evidence of any intelligence on the planet. There were no artifacts, dwellings, roads, dams, bridges--primitive or otherwise. Any stage of culture would have been observed by the cruiser immediately. The planet seemed ideally suited to colonization.

Gallifa, the trained biologist, carefully studied the creatures. The dwarf-like gnomes, as Samuels had dubbed them, might be considered caricatures of humanity.

They were about four feet high--bipeds, and covered with a soft, pinkish fur. They walked erect; normally so, Gallifa could tell, because their upper limbs were too short for knuckling and were not jointed correctly for moving on all fours. They had five digited limbs, both upper and lower, just as did all higher life forms ever discovered on any planet. Their features were without hair and of a fairy story-humanoid type. With their large, floppy ears, and round-solemn eyes they were very unusual gnomes indeed.

Gallifa spoke to them quietly, trying a few standard low-order communication and classification tricks. The visitors--somehow he couldn't think of them as base animals--made no response. They didn't quite seem to fit any classification niche. The creatures faintly puzzled Gallifa. The best he could do was: Low order intelligence and probably harmless. Cultural development, nil.

As if to prove his rationalizations, the creatures suddenly seemed to ignore the humans. They walked unconcernedly past the truck and attacked the vegetation on the edge of the clearing. Every so often one would overturn a small rock and grub for the exposed insects.

Gallifa observed their broad, dull teeth. They weren't, he decided, omnivorous.

Samuels interrupted his train of thought. "Do you think they will give us any trouble?" he asked.

"No," Gallifa affirmed slowly. "Not materially, anyway. But it's going to be interesting, and a little difficult, to study this species. They don't seem to be ecologically feasible. Look at them. They are small and weak. They don't have claws, not even sheathed--and they are definitely too low in the evolutionary scale to know anything of weapons. Their feet obviously aren't constructed for climbing, and their limbs are too short and aren't planned right for running."

"That's odd enough," Samuels agreed. "But maybe they don't need protection. Maybe they don't have any natural enemies."

"On a raw planet?" Gallifa retorted. "That's not very likely."

"Perhaps I can catch a few for the lab," Samuels suggested. "I'll work up a behavior pattern analysis."

"That shouldn't be too hard," Gallifa said. "They certainly aren't afraid of us. You do that," he added suddenly. "I'm going to pick up Mac and be on my way. Otherwise, we'll never get out of here."

"Good hunting," Samuels said. "I'll have a couple of these fat little specimens neatly catalogued for you when you get back."

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