Herds

CHAPTER 1-1

CHAPTER 1

A two-lane stretch of California 1 ran along the coastline. To the west, sometimes only a couple of hundred feet from the road, was the Pacific Ocean, quietly lapping its waves over the sand and stone of San Marcos State Beach. To the east, a cliff of white, naked rock sprang upwards to a height of over two hundred feet. Beyond the cliff lay a string of mountains. They weren’t very tall, the highest barely a thousand feet above sea level, but they were sufficient for the local residents. The mountains were covered with sparse forests of cypress trees and tangled underbrush, with a few other types of vegetation daring to make their presence known at scattered intervals.

At the top of the cliff, overlooking the highway and the ocean, was a small wooden cabin. It stood in the center of a cleared area, a simple understatement of human presence in the midst of nature. A car was parked beside the cabin on the gravel that had been spread around the structure’s perimeter. The gravel extended for about ten yards, then gave way to loose dry dirt atop hard rock until it entered the trees another six yards. farther on.

There was a narrow dirt road that led up from the highway to the cabin. It did not come straight up, but wound snake-like among the trees until it reached the clearing. A pair of headlights could currently be seen weaving along that road, alternately vanishing and reappearing as the car rounded various curves or passed behind groups of cypress trees.

Stella Stoneham stood in the darkness, watching those headlights approach. Her internal organs were trying valiantly to tie themselves into knots as the lights came nearer. She took a final long drag on her cigarette and ground it out nervously beneath her foot in the gravel. If there were any person she didn’t want to see right now it was her husband, but it looked as though the choice was not hers to make. She frowned and looked up into the sky. The night was fairly clear, with only a few small patches of cloud obscuring the stars. She looked back down at the headlights. He would be here in a minute. Sighing, she went back inside the cabin.

The interior normally cheered her with its brightness and warmth, but tonight there was an ironic quality about it that only deepened her depression. The room was large and uncrowded, giving the illusion of space and freedom that Stella had wanted. There was a long brown sofa along one wall, with a small reading table and lamp beside it. In the next corner, going clockwise, there was a sink and a small stove; a supply cupboard hung on the wall near them, elaborately carved out of hardwood, with scrollwork and little red gnomes in the corner holding it up. Also on the wall was a rack of assorted kitchen utensils, still shiny from lack of use. Continuing around the room there was a small white dinette set standing neatly in the third corner. The door to the back bedroom and bathroom stood half ajar, with light from the main room penetrating only slightly into the darkness beyond the threshold. Finally there was a writing desk with a typewriter and telephone and an old folding chair beside it in the corner nearest the door. The center of the room was bare except for a frayed brown carpet that covered the wooden floor. The place was not much to cling to, Stella knew, but if a fight were going to take place at all—as it now appeared it would—it would be better to handle it on her own territory.

She sat down on the sofa and stood up again immediately. She paced the length of the room, wondering what she would do with her hands while she was talking or listening. Men at least were lucky enough to have pockets. Outside she could hear the car crunch its way up the gravel to the very door of the cabin and stop. A car door opened and slammed shut. A man’s footsteps clomped up the three front stairs. The door flew open and her husband walked in.

* * *

This was to be the eleventh solar system he had personally explored, which meant that, to Garnna iff-Almanic, the task of finding and examining planets had gotten as routine as a job that exotic could become. The Zartic had trained for years before even being allowed on the Project. There was, first of all, the rigorous mental training that would allow the combination of machines and drugs to project his mind away from his body and far out into the depths of space. But an Explorer had to have more training than just that. He would have to chart his course in the void, both in attempting to locate a new planet and in finding his way home again afterwards; that required an extensive knowledge of celestial navigation. He had to classify in an instant the general type of planet he was investigating, which called for up-to-the-minute expertise in the growing science of planetology. He would be called on to make a report on the life forms, if any, that the planet held; that necessitated a knowledge of biology. And, in the event that the planet harbored intelligent life, he had to be able to describe the level of their civilization from little more than a glance—and that required that he be made as free of personal prejudices and fears as possible, for alien societies had different ways of doing things that could send a normal Zartic into hysterical fits.

But most of all, be had had to overcome the instinctive Zartic fear of the Offasii, and that required the hardest training of the lot. His mind hovered above this new solar system, inspecting it for possibilities. It was the farthest Exploration made to date, well over a hundred parsecs from Zarti. The star was average, a yellow dwarf—the type frequently associated with having planetary systems. But as to whether this system had planets... Garnna made a mental grimace. This was always the part he hated most.

He began to disperse himself through the space immediately surrounding the star. His mental fibers spread like a net, becoming thinner and thinner as he pushed his fragments of mind outward in all three dimensions in his quest for planets.

There! He touched one almost immediately, and discarded it just as quickly. It was nothing but an airless ball of rock, and not even within the star’s zone of habitability for protoplasmic life. Although it was faintly conceivable that some sort of life might exist there, it did not bother him. He continued to spread his net outward.

Another planet. He was glad to find a second, because the three points that he now had—sun and two planets—would determine for him the ecliptic plane of the system. It had long since been discovered that planetary systems formed generally within a single plane, with only minor individual deviations from it. Now that he knew its orientation, he could stop his three-dimensional expansion and concentrate, instead, on exploring all the area within the ecliptic plane.

The second planet was also a disappointment. It was within the zone of habitability, but that was the only thing that could be said in its favor. The atmosphere was covered with clouds and filled with carbon dioxide, while the surface was so incredibly hot that oceans of aluminum and rivers of tin were commonplace. No protoplasmic life could exist here, either. Garnna continued on in his Exploration.

The next thing be encountered was a bit of a surprise—a double planet. Two large, planet-sized objects circled the star in a common orbit. Upon closer inspection, one of the planets appeared far more massive than the other; Garnna began to think of that one as the primary and the other as a satellite.

He tried to focus as much attention as he could on this system while still maintaining the net he had spread through space. The satellite was another airless gray ball, smaller even than the first planet outward, and appeared quite lifeless, but the primary looked promising. From space it had a mottled blue and white appearance. The white was clouds and the blue, apparently, was liquid water. Large quantities of liquid water. That boded well for the existence of protoplasmic life there. He checked the atmosphere and was even more pleasantly surprised. There were large quantities of oxygen freely available for breathing. He made himself a mental note to investigate it more closely if nothing even better should turn up, and continued expanding outwards in his search for planets.

The next one he discovered was small and red. What little atmosphere there was seemed to consist mainly of carbon dioxide, with almost no detectable free oxygen. The surface temperature was acceptable to protoplasmic life, but there seemed to be little, if any, water available—a very dismal sign. Though this place had possibilities, the primary of the double planet had more. Garnna continued his expansion.

The net was becoming very thin, now, as the Zartic stretched himself farther and farther. Images were becoming blurry and his mind seemed to hold only a tenuous grip on its own identity. He encountered some tiny rocks floating in space, but declined to even consider them. The next world out was a gas giant. It was very difficult to make it out because his mentality was stretched so thin at this point, but that was not necessary. The search for planets was over in this system, he knew, for he had passed outside the zone of habitability once more. A gas giant like this could not exist within that zone, according to theory. There might be other planets beyond the orbit of this one, but they wouldn’t matter, either. The Offasii would not be interested in them, and therefore Garnna wasn’t interested in them.

He returned his attention to the double planet system. He felt enormous relief as he reeled in all the far-flung parts of his mind that had expanded through space. It was always a good feeling when the initial planetary survey was over, a feeling of bringing disparate elements together to form a cohesive whole once more. A feeling akin to making a Herd out of individuals, only on a smaller, more personal scale.

It was bad enough to be a lone Zartic out in space, cut off from the entire Herd not to mention the safety and security of his own iff-group. The job was necessary, of course, for the good of the Herd, but necessity did not make it any the more pleasant. And when an individual Zartic had to extend parts of himself until there was almost nothing left, that was almost unbearable. That was why Garnna hated that part of the mission the worst. But it was over, now, and he could concentrate on the real business of Exploration.

* * *

Wesley Stoneham was a big man, well over six feet, with broad, well-muscled shoulders and the face of a middle-aged hero. He still had all his hair, a thick black mane of it, cut so that it would even muss stylishly. The forehead beneath the hair was comparatively narrow and sported large, bushy eyebrows. His eyes were steel gray and determined, his nose prominent and straight. In his hand, he carried a medium-sized suitcase.

“I got your note,” was all be said as he took a folded piece of paper from his pocket and flipped it to the ground at his wife’s feet.

Stella exhaled softly. She recognized that tone all too well, and knew that this was going to be a long and bitter evening. “Why the suitcase?” she asked.

“As long as I was driving up here, I thought I might as well stay the night.” His voice was even and smooth, but there was an edge of command to it as he set the suitcase down on the floor.

“Don’t you even bother asking your hostess’s permission before moving in?”

“Why should I? This is my cabin, built with my money.” The emphasis on the “my” in both cases was slight but unmistakable.

She turned away from him. Even with her back to him, though, she could still feel his gaze piercing her soul. “Why not finish the thought, Wes? ‘My cabin, my money, my wife,’ isn’t that it?”

“You are my wife, you know.”