Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [149]
Eagerness filled the air like a cool fog. What would the aliens look like? Would they be atavistically alarming like the thranx? Elegantly handsome and yet vaguely sinister like the AAnn? Or quaintly charming like the Quillp? Humankind had yet to voyage sufficiently far, had still to encounter enough intelligent species, to be blasé at the prospect of meeting still another.
Perhaps they would look like nothing the smooth-skinned simians in their glistening new KK-drive starships had yet met. They might be towering horrors, or diminutive pacifists. Or diminutive horrors or towering pacifists. No one knew. Kairuna and the rest of the survey team would be the first to gaze upon these new, previously unencountered alien countenances. He and his associates were acutely conscious of the singular privilege that was being accorded them.
Everyone had been thoroughly, if hastily, briefed. No matter what the aliens looked like, no matter how repulsive, or absurd, or disconcerting, or surprising, all reaction was to be kept to a minimum. There was to be no cheering lest sudden noises upset the visitors. No wrinkling of faces, no distorted expressions that might be misinterpreted in the event the visitors communicated by similar means. No expansive gestures in case they asserted themselves in a manner akin to the highly gesticulatory thranx. Response to any overtures and all expressions of greeting would be made by Pranchavit and Morobe. Everyone else was welcome to watch, but in stillness and silence.
That did not prevent Idar from nudging Kairuna in the side as an opaque cylinder slowly and silently descended from the belly of the alien craft. It looked as if a particularly sleek bird was laying an oblong egg. Nearby, a grim-faced Alwyn patted his side.
“Not to worry. I’m carrying a regulation sideshot with a full clip.”
“It won’t be much use to you in the brig,” Idar hissed at him.
“Both of you, be quiet.” Kairuna nodded. “They’re coming out. Or something is.” The possibility that the aliens might choose to make first contact through intermediaries such as mechanicals could not be discounted.
There were no mechanicals, however. The aliens had chosen to greet the tightly packed crowd of anxious bipeds in person. There were three of them. Nitrox breathers themselves, they were clad only in lightweight clothing of some unfamiliar fabric that shimmered in the bright, cold air, and no helmets or other headgear whatsoever.
The reaction to their appearance was a uniform gasp on the part of the assembled humans. Kairuna was unaware that his lower jaw dropped slightly, leaving him standing in full defiance of orders with a mock-stupid expression on his face. Idar stood wide-eyed but with more presence of mind as well as person. Alwyn, whose left hand had been hovering in the vicinity of his concealed weapon, was moved to comment, but mindful of the general directive to keep quiet, held his peace.
It was a good thing he had the forbearance to keep from drawing the gun. The aliens might not have reacted immediately to its emergence, but his erstwhile fellow humans surely would have. It was not that his naturally suspicious nature was in any way mollified by the aliens’ utterly unexpected and novel appearance. Only that he was for once, no less shocked than his companions.
DIRGE
by Alan Dean Foster
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By Alan Dean Foster
Published by Ballantine Books:
THE BLACK HOLE
CACHALOT
DARK STAR
THE METROGNOME and Other Stories
MIDWORLD
NOR CRYSTAL TEARS
SENTENCED TO PRISM
SPLINTER OF THE MIND’S EYE
STAR TREK® LOGS ONE–TEN
VOYAGE TO THE CITY OF THE DEAD
…WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE…
MAD AMOS
PARALLELITIES
THE HOWLING STONES
The Icerigger Trilogy
ICERIGGER
MISSION TO MOULOKIN
THE DELUGE DRIVERS
The Adventures of Flinx of the Commonwealth
FOR LOVE OF MOTHER-NOT
THE TAR-AIYM KRANG
ORPHAN STAR
THE END OF THE MATTER