Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SYMBIOTICA duce further meanings from the context. Give me a few days.” “Go ahead. Do your best, Jay. We can’t expect to be able to talk turkey in the first five minutes. It isn’t reasonable.” Taking our prisoner to the rest room, Jay summoned Minshull and Petersen. He thought three might just as well learn some- thing as one. Minshull and Petersen were both hot on languages, speaking Esperanto, Ido, Venusian, low Martian and high Martian. They were the only ones aboard the ship who could give our chess maniacs a boiling in their own lingo. I found Sam in the armory, waiting to hand in the stuff he’d taken out, and I said to him, “What did you see from the life- boat, Sam?” 3 i “Not so much. We weren’t out long enough. Didn’t get more than a hundred and twenty miles away. There was forest, noth- ing but forest with glades here and there. A couple of glades were the size of counties. The biggest of them lay at the end of a long lake. There were several rivers and streams.” | “Any signs of life?” “None.” He gestured down the passage toward the rest room where Jay and the others were cross-examining the native. “It seems there’s superior life in the forest, but you can detect no signs of it from above. Wilson’s. processing his reel—I doubt whether his camera caught anything that we missed.” “Ah, well,” I said, “one twenty miles in one direction is nothing from which to esti- mate a world. I don’t let myself be deluded, not since that drummer sold me a can of striped paint.” He chuckled. “Didn’t it come out?” “I laid it wrong side up,” I told him. It was right in the middle of that banter- ing that a powerful idea smote me. I fol- lowed him out of the armory, made a rush to the radio room. Steve Gregory was sit- ting by his instruments trying to look busy doing nothing. I was all set to wake him with my brain wave. IV. As. Steve looked up inquiringly, I said to him, “Hey, how about combing the bands?” “Th?” “Remember those weird whistles and waterfalls you picked up on Mechanistria? 35 Well, if anyone’s radiating here, couldn’t you detect ‘em?” “Sure.” He kept his bushy eyebrows still for once, but spoiled it by waggling his ears. “If anyone was radiating.” “Go ahead and find out. It'll tell us some- thing. What’re you waiting .for?” ““Have you kept those needlers cleaned and charged?” he asked. I stared at him. “You bet I have! They’re always ready for action. That’s my job.” ‘And this one’s mine,” he said, dryly. He waved the ears again. ““You’re hours behind the times. 1 searched the ether immediately we landed, got nothing but a faint hiss on twelve point three meters. It was Rigel’s characteristic discharge and came from that way. D’you think I’m that snake-armed snorer Sug Farn?” “No, I don’t. Sorry, Steve—it just struck me as a bright idea.” “Oh, it’s O.K., sergeant,” he said, ami- ably. “Every man to ‘his job and every tail mechanic to his dirt.” Idly he twiddled the shining dials of his slow-motion selectors. The loud-speaker coughed as if it was ‘clearing its throat, then announced in sharp tones, “Pip-pip-whop! Pip-pip-whop!” Nothing could have been better calculated to upset the determined serenity of his brows. I'll swear that after they’d entered his hair they continued over the top, down the back and lodged under his collar. “Morse,” he said, in the complaining tone of a hurt child. ; “I always thought Morse was a code, not a mode,” I remarked. “Anyway, if it is ‘Morse, you'll be able to translate it.” I paused as the loud-speaker shouted me down with, “Pip-pipper-pee-eep-whop!” then I concluded, “Every cat to his ash can.” : ‘“**Tain’t Morse,” he contradicted himself. “But it’s spark signals.” He might have frowned if it hadn’t taken too long to drag the brows back. Giving me one of those tragic looks you get sometimes, he snatched a pad, started recording the impulses. The spacesuits, pom-pom chargers and other things had to be done, so I left him, returned to the armory, got on with my work. He was still fiddling around when darkness fell. So were Jay and his gang, but _ not for long. The sun sunk, its long, greenish streamers faded from the sky and a velvet pall covered the forest and the glade. I ambled along the passage toward the gallery and was passing the rest room when its door jerked open and the green native burst out. His face was Ccomiclooks.c©