Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [157]
THIRTY-FOUR
Matthew was right, as he had known he would be, about Captain Milyukov having to make good on his promise to do his best. Not only did Hope’s technicians manage to land the mini-shuttle within 400 meters of the reassembled boat, but they even contrived to put it down on the right side of the river and to miss the kinds of vegetation that might have suspended it out of reach. Ike and Matthew raced to the spot, worrying that the aliens might get there first, but it proved easy enough to recover the TV camera and the emergency food supplies. The replacement parts for the boat were a bonus, which they loaded on an improvised sled so that they could drag them back to the boat without too much difficulty. Matthew was able to do his share of the haulage by looping the towrope over his left shoulder.
“I told you so,” Matthew said to Lynn, who was waiting for them on the hastily reassembled boat, ready to extend a gangplank to the shore. “Everybody wants in on this now,” he added. “Everybody’s heard Dulcie’s final phone call, and everybody wants to know what happened to her. We couldn’t have a better story if we’d hired a scriptwriter.”
“If we’d hired a scriptwriter,” Ike pointed out, “we’d know how it was going to come out. This way, we don’t even now if it’s going to come out. You and I could march for days through that wilderness and find precisely nothing. How long do you think it will take for your audience to get impatient? Who do you think they’re going to blame if we can’t deliver?”
“Not you,” Matthew assured him. “You’ll be the one pointing the camera. I’ll be the talking head. If I can’t keep them in suspense until we can contrive a punchline, I’ll be the one they go for. But you don’t need to worry. The aliens are as curious as they’re anxious, and they’re acquisitive too. They’re not going to let us wander around their forest indefinitely. If Dulcie’s still alive they’ll bring her back, because it’s the only unambiguous gesture of amity they can make.” While he was speaking he was already assembling the pack that he’d have to carry on his back for the next few days. Ike was doing likewise.
“If she’s alive,” Lynn echoed, dubiously, “and if their reasoning works the same way as ours.”
“Reasoning’s reasoning,” Matthew told her. “Two and two always make four. Now that they’ve had a chance to test our machetes, they’ll want to find a way of getting more. Bernal was right to think that the best first offering would be stuff they already have—or had, when they were city-builders—but it’s too late now to worry about explosive cultural pollution. Their thievery’s cut right through that kind of crap. It’s make-do time now, whether we like it or not … and whether they like it or not.”
“Why do I have this nagging feeling that you like it way too much?” Lynn came back.
He smiled, in what he hoped was a reassuring fashion. “Okay,” he said. “I’m all set. Ike?”
Ike nodded, but Lynn was still hesitant. “Aren’t you taking Rand’s gun?” she asked. “They could be dangerous.”
“ “We’ve got too much to carry as it is,” Matthew told her. “If they kill us, we’ll just have to go down shooting with the camera. Don’t worry about it. However it goes, it’ll be an epoch-making event in human history—at least as significant, in its way, as the development of true emortality back home on Earth—and it’s ours. Rumor has it that there are billions of people in the solar system who have just about everything they ever wanted now, but they don’t have this and we do. The one thing we can trade for the attention and support we need and deserve is first contact, and a text message saying Eureka! isn