The Ambassadors from Aurigel Read online

  Mullon shook his head. "I don't believe they'd have to rack their brains over it very long. As far as I can tell, their mentality is not that much different from ours. They seem to think along the same general lines. We only have to imagine what we would do in a certain situation to know in most cases how the Whistlers would react under the same circumstances."

  "In that case, let's try it right away," Milligan chimed in. "What are the Whistlers going to do now that they get hold of our papers on Aurigel and intercepted our radio message?"

  Mullon thought awhile before he answered. "Now they know that our technology is five centuries ahead of theirs. They're a proud and martial race whose situation is becoming desperate because their world is too small for their three billion people. I'm inclined to draw the conclusion that they'll be anxious to wrest the secrets of our technology from us."

  "How?" Chellish wanted to know.

  "By investigating our ship, for instance."

  "They wouldn't dare," O'Bannon claimed.

  "Of course they'd have to think of a subterfuge," Mullon continued, unimpressed. "Anything to keep us away from the ship for a few days."

  Chellish got up. "You're absolutely right, Mullon. That's just what they'll do. They'll proceed gingerly because they can't simply kill us. They would be haunted by the fear that our armada would attack them in revenge. But they can stage an accident and make it look so genuine that nobody could blame them for it."

  "And what do you propose we can do about it?" O'Bannon asked with curiosity.

  Chellish shrugged his shoulders. "That'll all depend on the situation. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Milligan, did you write out the text?"

  "It's been ready for some time."

  "What does it say?"

  Milligan puckered up his mouth and produced some high tones like a flutist: "Eejnii-hee-Iii-weeu..."

  "Don't be silly! In Eng... I mean French."

  "Caution! The foreigners went to subjugate Heeninniy.

  "Is the language correct? Nobody must be allowed to suspect that we've written these words ourselves."

  "Listen," Milligan protested, insulted. "For six days I've done my best to learn the language of the Whistlers and you think I don't know how to write a simple sentence like this?"

  "I meant no offense, Milligan," Chellish soothed him. "You can't learn too much about a totally different language in six days. What makes you so sure it's right?"

  "Because I've copied the text," Milligan replied.

  "Copied? Where?"

  "They've got posters in the city which proclaim: CAUTION! THE INSURGENTS WANT TO ENSLAVE HEENINNIY! All I had to do was to replace the words 'insurgents' and 'enslave' by 'foreigners' and 'subjugate'. This wasn't very difficult."

  Chellish showed the greatest interest. "What are these posters all about?"

  "I intended to talk to you about them," Milligan replied. "It seems that a strong opposition against the ruling system exists on Peep. The insurgents call themselves guerrillas and aspire to set up a democratic regime. At least that's how my escort explained it. Of course this opposition is illegal like everything else in this beautiful world and it causes Iiy-Juur-Eelie quite a bit of trouble. That's why he's waging a propaganda war."

  Chellish nodded. "They could turn out to be very helpful," he commented quietly, talking more to himself than to the others. Then he looked up. "OK. Let's get the posters done! We don't have any time to lose."

  • • •

  Iiy-Juur-Eelie didn't consider it prudent to control the movements of the foreigners although he would have liked to do so. He had given them several large apartments at different levels in one of his palace towers and assigned the appropriate number of servants to his noble guests. Furthermore he had put his fleet of cars at the disposal of the strangers. The chauffeurs had been ordered to instruct the guests in driving the vehicles themselves or to take them wherever they wished to go.

  The whole affair was treated like a state visit. Iiy-Juur-Eelie ate official dinners with his guests and displayed a great deal of pomp and hospitality on such occasions. The dinners were followed by friendly conversations during which each party tried to probe the others' true feelings. The guests expressed their wishes and Iiy-Juur-Eelie advised them on the best way to fulfill them.

  Otherwise the strangers could do as they pleased and they took good advantage of it-much to Iiy-Juur-Eelie's regret. Not that he was afraid of espionage or something similar. According to the report Gii-Yeep had presented to him, the aliens had no such intentions. Iiy-Juur-Eelie was eager to persuade his guests to take a tour of the whole planet so that they would become stranded in the Eenee Desert and give his technicians time to study their vessel. However as long as the visitors were content to remain in the capital and rove through the dark streets for hours without escorts, he had hardly an opportunity to make such a proposal. He would have preferred it if he could have simply ordered them to take a roundtrip flight.

  Iiy-Juur-Eelie was also perplexed by the radio-message they had intercepted. Did it really mean that a hostile fleet was stationed somewhere on Feejnee or one of its moons, ready to pounce on Heeninniy?

  Iiy-Juur-Eelie faced a dilemma. In keeping with his character, he considered the aliens as enemies. So far he had believed he had the upper hand, because their attitude was friendly and they behaved quite innocently. However if they had come to Heeninniy on a mission of reconnaissance before launching an invasion by their fleet, his advantage was more than dubious.

  Therefore he followed each movement of the strangers with apprehension. He had intended to place listening bugs in the apartments of the strangers but refrained from the idea because he was afraid that their technical knowledge was so much more sophisticated that they would have immediately detected these devices and regarded it as a hostile act. Thus he was forced to rely on the reports of Gii-Yeep's Secret Service agents who tailed the visitors continuously. However the information they provided was insignificant since the strangers spent all their days driving around the city to learn the ways of life on Heeninniy on the spot-or so they pretended.

  So it went again today. A security agent followed the strangers into the city and watched them looking at one of the main shopping streets and finally enter a Uuhee bar from which they had not yet emerged four hours later. Iiy-Juur-Eelie was amused by the thought that the Uuhee could have made them feel tipsy. However he underestimated the capacity of his guests, as Uuhee was only some kind of beer and a rather light one at that.

  Chellish and his nine friends had spent an hour to marvel at the peculiar shopping streets. The stores of the Whistlers were not located on street level-along the coasting track as O'Bannon called it-but high up in the towers, and the higher they were the more elegant and expensive they would be. Huge bridges between the high commercial towers formed regular business streets and were lined with the smaller boutiques.

  Buying and selling was carried on in a manner resembling the customs of oriental bazaars. Almost everywhere-except on the highest floors-the merchandise was hawked with violent screeching and no customer made a deal unless he had bargained and cussed for at least 15 minutes. Chellish and his partners had been given small electronic transmitters which translated the unknown language into French so that they could follow some of the conversations-if that was the term for them. They enjoyed the bartering and acquired some souvenirs with the money they had been generously presented.

  What astonished them most of all was that the Whistlers paid little attention to the foreigners. This suited Chellish very well as he could wander around without being molested by gawkers. He had no desire to satisfy anyone's curiosity.

  On their stroll through the shopping district Milligan had the job of watching for detectives and it didn't take long before he whispered to Chellish: "I've noticed two faces behind us for some time. The men move at the same pace with us and stop when we do while they seem to eye us suspiciously."

  Chellish asked for a description of the
two men but was unable to pick them out of the crowd of Whistlers because all the cone-shaped heads with the pinched faces looked alike to him. Therefore he left it to Milligan to keep an eye on the agents.

  At the end of the street, which was crammed with shops, they found a number of places in a spacious tower which offered refreshments and snacks. Chellish and his companions entered a bar which was almost full. They found an empty table and sat down on the tall uncomfortable chairs. Milligan, who was the only one among the 10 who could read some of the Whistler's signs, had noted the word Uuhee above the entrance to the bar which apparently advertised an unfamiliar drink. The Whistlers in the bar were already more or less inebriated. The place was even louder than the streets and Milligan suggested they should taste the Uuhee.

  The Terrans found the service rather odd. Everybody shouted his order in the direction of some kind of a bar behind which two Whistlers stood and repeated the order to show that they understood it. They then shouted again after they had either mixed or poured the drink. The customer then got up and went to the bar to pick up and pay for his drink. As it frequently happened that several people had asked for the same drinks, the patrons started to quarrel at the bar since the mysterious Uuhee made their behavior rowdy instead of peaceful.

  Milligan puckered up his lips and tried to call "10 Uuhees" as clearly as possible with the proper pronunciation. He beamed with delight when one of the two men behind the bar took his call and repeated it loudly. The Uuhee was poured into non-transparent cups and put on the bar as the bartender shouted again: "10 Uuhees!"

  Milligan, O'Bannon and Wolley rose to pick up the cups. Each one held about half a liter.

  They tasted the beverage with great expectations. O'Bannon took a big swig. His eyes popped and his face became twisted. He gulped and announced with fervent disgust: "Near beer! Third class!"

  None of the others voiced a better opinion. After the first sip it seemed to be inexplicable why the Whistlers were so besotted until Chellish offered his theory: "Maybe it's because of the low air pressure. Perhaps alcohol has a stronger effect when it is taken in thin air."

  He looked around and noticed a Whistler sitting two tables away and staring at them. In contrast to the others he was very calm which made an exceedingly distinct impression. Chellish looked at him and after awhile the Whistler turned his eyes the other way.

  The conversation around the table of the Terrans was mostly chitchat. When Chellish glanced a second time at the other table he found that the quiet Whistler still looked at them.

  At the next opportunity he nudged Milligan and asked him unobtrusively: "Take a look at the second table in the direction of the door and tell me if that man is one of those who followed us."

  Milligan looked carefully around. "The quiet one?" he inquired.

  "Yes, that's the one I mean."

  "No, he's not one of the spies I've seen before. Maybe he's a new one."

  This didn't seem plausible to Chellish because, as far as he remembered, the man had already been sitting there when they came in from the street. But what could he be if he wasn't an informer?

  Finally Chellish peered a third time at the stranger. This time he didn't evade his look but slowly lowered his hairless lids over his eyes, raised them again and repeated the inconspicuous gesture three times. It wasn't much different from the wink of a Terran to attract attention or point out something without letting anyone else know about it.

  Chellish imitated the gesture and as far as he could read the facial expressions of the Whistlers the stranger seemed to understand him. Chellish turned his attention again to his cup and took a sip of Uuhee.

  He had no idea what the Whistler might expect him to do. Was he supposed to get up and go some place where they could talk undisturbed or did he want to be called to their table?

  He didn't mention his observation to anyone. It would be impossible to tell nine people such startling news without making them turn their heads at once and stare at the man in question. He had to avoid any undue commotion at all costs.

  After a few minutes the Whistler got up. Chellish observed him closely and saw that he opened the fingers of his right hand for a fraction of a second to show him a small piece of paper. After closing his hand he began to walk toward Chellish's table. Shortly before reaching it he turned left into a wide aisle separating two rows of tables in the bar. In doing so he stumbled over a chair leg which was in his way. He tottered and Chellish jumped up to keep him from falling down. The Whistler held on to his garment, regained his balance and bowed politely. He uttered a few high-pitched sounds which the transmitter in Chellish's pocket translated at once: "I thank You very much!"

  Then, as if nothing had happened, the Whistler continued on his way, walking down the aisle to the back of the room and disappearing through a door.

  Chellish knew that he had the little piece of paper the stranger had shown him in his pocket. That's why the Whistler had grabbed him just above his pocket.

  Had the incident been noticed? It didn't look like it. The din of the intoxicated and cantankerous Whistlers persisted and nobody paid any special attention to the table of the aliens. Still!

  Chellish left the note for the time being where it was. Two hours later after they left the bar to take an elevator down to the street level to get their cars, he fished it out to give it to Milligan for deciphering.

  He was quite surprised when he saw that the text didn't need any deciphering. The text was written in the script Chellish and his colleagues had invented on Grautier and which they used on their journey to Peep.

  The note read: PLEASE MEET SUNDOWN TODAY AIRPORT SOUTH GATE.

  The French was atrocious but it was clearly understandable. Chellish had been requested to meet somebody-probably the same Whistler-at sundown at the southern exit of the airport. Chellish could not even try to guess what the purpose was.

  He put the slip of paper back in his pocket when the elevator stopped. The cars were parked at the ground level in a brightly lit hall where the Whistlers left their vehicles while doing their shopping. There were 15 elevators for the convenience of the shoppers. At the moment there were very few people using the elevators. Several Whistlers left an elevator cabin at the same time with them and went to their aircushion cars, chattering in their squeaky tongue.

  "Milligan!" Chellish said in a low tone. "Take a poster and go back up and put it on the wall of the cabin. Be sure that nobody sees you when you leave."

  Milligan was all prepared. He went back to the elevator and waited until the door was closed. Then he took out one of the posters and pressed it against the metal sidewall as the elevator ascended. This was simple and quick because the back of the poster was self-adhesive.

  He stopped at a floor which was completely deserted and changed elevators to go down again. A few moments later he joined Chellish and his friends in the garage just as they were about to get into their cars.

  "Did you do it?" Chellish asked quietly.

  "Of course," Milligan replied. "The first one has been put up and nobody knows how it got there."

  "We hope," Chellish added.

  5/ MIDNIGHT MYSTERIES

  During the afternoon they distributed nine more posters which exhausted their first batch. They managed to be so careful that nobody had seen them. It would vex Iiy-Juur-Eelie who violated the hospitality in such a flagrant manner and above all it would baffle him why anybody would want to do such a thing.

  Chellish was well pleased with the day's work. He considered it a success and was of the opinion that it would create a lot of confusion and contribute to making the Whistlers forget all about Grautier or at least diminish the importance they attached to that planet for some time to come. His mission to Peep didn't attempt to do more than that.

  However his day had not yet ended. He was still to meet the unknown Whistler at the south gate of the airport. Perhaps there was another opportunity to apply a lever to get things rolling faster. Chellish had decided to kee
p the little episode under his hat for the present time. If the unknown Whistler was a member of the insurgents, it could turn out to be a serious and important matter and any risk, however slight, had to be avoided.

  About one hour before sundown the little column of cars returned to the palace of His Excellency, the President-King. Chellish and his pals went to their rooms and Milligan was instructed to tell Iiy-Juur-Eelie when he invited them for dinner that Chellish would be unable to accept as he had some business to take care of aboard his ship.

  Half an hour after returning to the palace Chellish left again. In the meantime he had taken Mullon into his confidence and Mullon insisted on accompanying him on his secret rendezvous. Chellish had no objections since the possibility that he might walk into a trap could not be excluded.

  • • •

  "Feejnee is 900 million kilometers away," Wee-Nii begged to consider, "and it is moving away at a rate of four kilometers every second, Your Excellency."

  "I know," Iiy-Juur-Eelie replied sullenly but since he knew that it wasn't easy to fool his Commanding Admiral, he qualified his remark by adding: "At least I figured something like that. I'm afraid you'll have to think again, Admiral. It's not a question of calculating risks. One of our ships must fly to Feejnee. I didn't summon you here to ask you if it's possible but because I want to know what results we could expect."

  Wee-Nii leaned back in his chair and took a second to pity the men Iiy-Juur-Eelie wanted to send to Feejnee in the second of his three ships.

  "We can assume that the aliens maintain frequent radio contacts," Iiy-Juur-Eelie continued, "if they use Feejnee or one of its moons as a base. I know that we can't rival their technology but, I ask you, isn't there a possibility that we can pinpoint their base and establish one of our own without them getting wind of it?"

  Wee-Nii hesitated a little. "To answer this I'd have to know what kind of rangefinder and detection instruments the aliens have in their possession and the magnitude, of their range."