Part 1

BIG BABY

By JACK SHARKEY

Illustrated by GAUGHAN

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine April 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The baby was lonesome, helpless and afraid. It wasn't his fault he was seven hundred feet tall!

The dancing green blip traced an erratic course upon the glossy gray screen, the jagged-line pattern repeated over and over, its outline going from dim to sharply emerald brightness to dim again before fading. The technician cut the switch. There was a sustained whir of reorganization within the machine as the data-cards were refiled.

"Care to see it again, sir?" asked the technician. His fingers hovered over the dials, his body in an attitude of impending motion.

Jerry Norcriss tilted his head in a brief, authoritative nod. The technician started the machine again. With a soft humming, the gray circular screen began to pulse once more with that dancing line of brightness.

"Now, here, sir," said the tech, "is where the scanner beam first caught the pulse of the creature."

Jerry nodded, his eyes riveted to that zigzag phosphor pattern upon the screen. He noted the soaring peaks and plunging valleys with something like dismay. "It's a powerful one," he marveled. It was one of his rare comments. Space Zoologists rarely spoke at all, to any but their own kind, and even then were typically terse of speech.

The tech, almost as impressed by this--for Jerry--long speech as he had been by the first warning from Naval Space Corps Headquarters on Earth, could only nod grimly. His own eyes were as intent upon the screen as Jerry's.

"Here--" the line was glowing its brightest now--"here's where the creature passed directly beneath the scanner-beam. That's the full strength of its life-pulse." The line lost clarity and strength, faded. "And here's where it was lost again, sir."

"Time of focus?" snapped Jerry, trying to keep his voice calm.

"Nearly a full minute," said the tech, still blinking at the screen. It was now devoid of impulse, barren once more. "That means that whatever the thing is, it's big, sir. Damned big, to stay at maximum pulse that long."

"I know very well what it means!" Jerry grated. "The thing's so--"

The tech smiled bleakly. "--incredible, sir?"

Jerry's nod was thoughtful. "The only word for it, Ensign." His inner eye kept repeating for him that impossible green pattern he'd seen. The strong, flat muscles of his shoulders and neck knotted into what could easily become a villainous tension-headache. Jerry realized suddenly that he was badly scared....

* * * * *

"Sir," the tech said suddenly, "I was under the impression that the roborocket scanners couldn't miss a life-pulse on a planet. I mean, making a complete circuit of the planet every ninety minutes, for a period of six months.... It's impossible for them to miss an uncatalogued life-form."

"I know it is," said Jerry Norcriss, pushing blunt fingers through his shock of prematurely white hair. "Save for two precedents, I cannot conceive of any way in which this pulse could have been overlooked."

"Two precedents, sir?" said the tech, intrigued both by the unsuspected fallibility of the scanner and by this unusual loquacity from the zoologist.

Jerry removed his gaze from the screen and regarded the young man standing beside it. He made as if to reply, then thought better of it. Any out-going on his part was an effort. A big effort. And a danger. Only another Space Zoologist would understand the danger of speech, of letting loose, of relaxing for a moment that terrible vigil over one's personal psychic barricades.

"Skip it," he said abruptly. The young ensign's smile tightened to obedience at the words.

"Yes, sir," said the tech, with strained cordiality. "Will that be all, sir?"

"Yes," said Jerry. Then, as the tech started out of the compartment, "No, wait. Tell Ollie Gibbs in the Ward Room to bring up a pot of coffee. Black."

The man nodded, and went out the door, dogging it after him.

Jerry listened to the booted feet clanking on their magnetic soles up the passageway of the spaceship, and sighed.

The situation, in Jerry's experience, was fantastic. Only twice, in the history of Space Zoology, had there been oversights on the part of the scanners. One, almost comically, had been on Earth, when the scanners were first being tested. The chunky roborocket--its angles and bulges and tapering pickup-heads unsuitable for flight in any medium but airless space--had swept giddily about the planet, the sensitive pickup-heads recording and filing on microtape the patterns of the life-pulses of all sentient life below. And when the tape had been translated onto the IBM cards, and the cards run through the translation chambers, to get their incomprehensible sine-patterns changed into readable English, it was found that there was an animal missing.

Six months of circling the planet had still left the index blank on that animal's expected check-pattern. The animal was the brown bear, of north central America. And only after agonizing hours of theorizing and worrying did someone come up with the answer to the dilemma:

It had been a long, hard winter. The bears were in extended hibernation. Somehow, the fleeting flicker of their subdued life-pulses had never managed to correspond with the inquisitive sweep of the scanner-beams from the blackness of space overhead. And so, they'd been left off, as though they did not even exist.

A lot of sweat was dabbed from relieved foreheads in the Corps when a secondary roborocket, sent into a short one-week orbit, had picked up the animals' pulses with ease as soon as springtime was upon the land. The odds against their being thus missed were fantastic, astronomically unlikely. But it _had_ happened, despite the odds against it, and the Corps was forcibly reminded that in a universe of planets, there is infinite room for even the unlikely to occur.

The only other oversight had been years later, when a just-settling colony had been half-destroyed by a herd of immense beasts similar to the buffalo of Earth, but viciously carnivorous. There had been no indication, in the six-month scanning period, that such a species even existed on the planet, the third planet of Syrinx Gamma, the sun of a newly discovered system beyond the Coalsack.

The reason was maddeningly simple. The herds were migratory. Their migrations had corresponded in scope around the oceanless planet with the sweep of the scanner-beam in such a way that the roborocket was scanning either where the herd had just been or where it had not yet arrived. Again, the odds were fantastic against the occurrence. Yet, again, it _had_ happened. Other than these two events, though, there had been no further error on the part of scanners for nearly a decade.

Precautions had been taken against recurrence.

Roborockets were now sent to scan a planet only at a time when there would be an overlap of seasonal climes, so that the beam would inspect the surface throughout both the mild and the rigorous weathers, thus obviating a repeat of the brown bear incident. And the sweep of the beam had been extended, so that no animal with migratory movement at speeds less than that of a supersonic plane could have avoided being duly detected and catalogued. That, they thought, should prevent any more such incidents.

All that Jerry knew.

* * * * *

And yet, here he was, descending through the black vacuum of space toward an already-colonized planet, the second planet of Sirius, a planet supposedly already scanned, catalogued, and long-since ready for inhabitation. And now, after the colonials had been there for nearly five years, something was starting to wipe them out. Some unsuspected alien thing was present on the planet, a thing that a hastily lofted roborocket had located in a matter of hours, and yet had missed in its original six-month orbital check, before the settlers came.

It was impossible. Incredible. And yet, again, it _had_ happened--_was_ happening--and had to be stopped.

A frantic appeal had been beamed to Earth through sub-space, an appeal for a Space Zoologist to find the alien, learn its weaknesses, and recommend its mode of destruction.

"Some day," Jerry mused, waiting impatiently for Ollie Gibbs with the coffee, "I'll come upon an invincible alien. What recommendation then!" He could just imagine himself telling a second-generation village of hardshell settlers that they'd best just pack up and get out....

Jerry's ruminations were interrupted by the soft tap on the door that meant Ollie had arrived. He grunted an answer, and the ship's mess boy came in, his face rigid in an expression of polite decorum as he set the steaming pot and drab plastic cup down on the swing-out table at Jerry's elbow.

Jerry sensed the man's eyes flickering onto him each time the mess boy felt the zoologist wasn't looking his way. He finally turned and caught the youth in mid-stare.

"What is it, Ollie?" said Jerry, not unkindly. "You'll burst if you don't talk. Go ahead, spit it out."

Ollie flashed a brief grin, a dazzle of white teeth that was all the brighter in his bronze face. "If I'm bursting with anything, sir, it's just plain nosiness."

* * * * *

Jerry glanced from Ollie to the wall clock--spaceship clocks were always set at Eastern Standard Earth Time--and sighed. He was cutting it terribly close this time. Suddenly, he wanted very much to have someone to talk to. It didn't matter, all at once, that he'd be exposing himself to danger by relaxing his mental grip on himself. If the ship were not landed and his job begun within two hours he'd be no worse off speaking than if he'd kept still.

"Sit down, Ollie," he said abruptly.

The mess boy's eyebrows rose at this unheard-of request, but he perched obediently in a chair, almost poised for flight on the edge of the seat. To have a chat with a Space Zoologist was without precedent in Ollie's experience.

Jerry carefully poured himself a cup of coffee, took a sip and settled back comfortably in his chair. "What's on your mind, Ollie?"

"Like I said, sir, just plain nosiness. I--I can't get over you Learners, sir, that's all. I always wonder what gets you into the business. Why you stay in it so long, why you die so quick if you quit the Corps, or--Well, like that, sir."

"Just general curiosity about my _raison d'ĂȘtre_, huh?" said Jerry. He wasn't trying to floor the mess boy with a four-dollar word; even the lowliest crewman on a spaceship had been chosen for brainpower, long before brawn came into consideration at all.

"That's about it, sir." Ollie nodded. "I mean, I watch you, sir, when you come out on these trips. You get all keyed up and worried and sick-looking, and I keep wondering, 'Why does he do it? Why doesn't he get out of it if it affects him like that?'"

Jerry stared ruefully at the wall before him, and didn't meet the mess boy's eyes as he replied.

"Every man gets keyed up and scared when he has an important undertaking at hand. It's just worry, plain and simple. The thought of failure keeps me all tightened up."

Jerry paused, awaiting a response. When none was forthcoming, he turned his gaze slowly to meet that of the mess boy, hoping he was doing it casually enough to allay anything like suspicion in the other man. But the smile he met was, affectionately, the smile of a man who hasn't been fooled.

"That's not it, sir," said Ollie. "I know it's not. Because you're keyed up the wrong way. You're keyed up with worry that you _won't_ have a job to do. Your big upset's a lot like a--Well, like a junky waiting for his next fix.... If you'll pardon the expression, sir."

* * * * *

"I will _not_ pardon it!" Jerry bawled, then gripped the arms of his chair and shook his head in instant apology as the other man's face went slack with surprise. "No, Ollie, no. I take that back. I _asked_ you to sit there, _told_ you to let me know what was on your mind. I can't very well blow up just because you followed my lead."

"Everyone blows up, now and then, sir," Ollie said.

Jerry nodded glumly.

Ollie got up. "I'll be in the ward room, sir, if you need anything else," he said. "Unless you'd like me to stick around awhile?"

Jerry considered the offer, then shook his head. "No.... I'd better not, Ollie." The barest ghost of humor glowed a moment on the zoologist's face. "You're too damned easy to talk to."

"Yes, sir," Ollie grinned, then went out and closed the door after him.

Jerry sat in the chair a second longer, then jumped up and pulled the door open again. Ollie, a few steps down the passageway, turned about in curious surprise.

"Sir?"

"Tell Captain--" Jerry began, then realized his voice was nearly a ragged shout, and lowered it. "Would you please tell the captain to speed things up if he can, Ollie?"

Ollie hesitated. "The vector--" he started, then stiffened militarily and replied, "Yes, sir. At once, sir."

"No," Jerry groaned, closing his eyes and hanging onto the metal edge of the doorframe. "Forget it. He's got a course to follow in. He can't get there any faster."

Ollie, knowing this already, just stood there.

"Just go have a cup of coffee," Jerry added, lamely. "And about what I said--"

"_You_ know I wouldn't say anything about it, sir," Ollie said.

"I know," Jerry admitted. "Sorry. Space nerves or something of the sort, I guess."

"Sure, sir."

The mess boy turned and continued down the passageway. Jerry shut the door slowly, then sat down in his chair once more, and stared at the clock, and sipped the hot coffee, and fought the cold needle-pricks of fear in every muscle and joint of his body....

II

The colony on the second planet of Sirius existed solely due to one of those vicious circles of progress. Just as iron is needed to make the steel to build the tools and equipment necessary to mine the raw iron ore, so this colony was needed to mine the precious mineral that made such colonies possible in the first place.

The mineral was called Praesodynimium, a polysyllabic mouthful which meant simply that it was an unstable crystalline isotope of sodium that broke down eventually into ordinary sodium (hence "prae-":before; "sod-":sodium), which was possessed of extreme kinetic potentials ("dyn-":power), and was first extracted from sodium compounds by a Canadian scientist ("-imium" instead of the more American "-inum" or even "-um").

This crystal had the happy habit of electrical allergy. When subjected to even a mild electric current, it avoided the consequent shakeup of its electronic juxtaposition by simply vanishing from normal space until the power was turned off. The nice part about its disappearance--from an astronaut's point of view--was that the crystal took not only itself, but objects within a certain radius along with it. It turned out that a crystal of Praesodynimium the moderate size of a sixteen-inch softball would warp a ninety-foot spaceship into hyperspace without even breathing hard. Of course, it would warp anything _else_ within a fifty-foot radius, too; so it was only turned on after the ship had ascended beyond planetary atmosphere, lest a large scoop of landing-field, not to mention a few members of the ground crew, be carried away with the ship.

In her eagerness to investigate the now-attainable stars, Earth had soon exhausted her sources of the mineral. Worse, the crystal, being unstable, had a half-life of only twenty-five years. That meant that a ship using it had a full-range radial margin of about five years before the crystal ceased warping the ship-inclusive area.

Until some way was discovered to get into hyperspace without using Praesodynimium--and its actual function was as much a mystery to scientists as an automobile's cause-and-effect is to a lot of drivers; very few people can describe the esoteric relationships between the turning of the ignition key and the turning of the rear wheels--the mineral was worth ten times its weight in uranium 235.

Sirius II had been found to be as rife with the mineral as a candy store is with calories. Hence the colony.

For so long as the ore held out the planet would be regarded with fond respect and esteem by any and all persons who had investments, relatives or even just interest in the Space Age and its contingent programs.

* * * * *

So it was with considerable trepidation that Earth received the news that the mines on Sirius were no longer being worked. Oh, yes, there was still ore--enough to keep the planet profitable for another century. The trouble was the miners. They weren't coming out of the mines anymore. And no one who went inside to look for them was ever seen again, either.

Naturally, mining slacked off. The men refused to set foot in the mines until somebody found out what had happened to their predecessors.

So the officials of the colony resurrected a scanner-beam and roborocket from the cellar of the spacefield warehouse and storage depot. They sent the rocket into an orbit matching planetary rotation. In effect it simply hovered over the mines while it scanned the area for uncatalogued alien life.

And when they brought the rocket down and checked the microtape against the file of known species on the planet, they found that no such beast had ever been catalogued. Its life-pulse gave a reading of point-nine-nine-nine.

Since life-pulses are catalogued on a decimal scale based on the numeral one (with Man rated at point-oh-five-oh), the colonial administration staff immediately ordered the mines officially closed and off-limits. This brought no results on Sirius II which had not been already achieved, but the declaration made the miners feel a little less guilty over their dereliction of duty.

An SOS was swiftly sent to Earth, explaining the situation in detail and requesting instructions.

Earth sent word to hang on, keep calm and leave the mines closed until an investigation could be made--all of which the colony was trying to do anyway.

A duplicate of the microtape had been transmitted along with the SOS. Earth had checked the pattern against every known species filed in U.S. Naval Space Corps Alien-Contact Library, a collection of the vast alien multitude gathered by Space Zoologists in the methodical colonization and exploration of the universe. It was found to be not only _unknown_ anywhere in the thus-far-explored cosmos, but totally _unlike_ any life-pulse previously encountered.

Earth decided the only way to get any satisfaction would be by the unorthodox method of sending in a Space Zoologist to Contact the alien, though this would be the first time in the history of Contact that this had ever been done on an already-settled planet.

And so the badly frightened colony lingered behind bolted doors, and peered through locked windows at the sky--awaiting the arrival of Jerry Norcriss, and praying he'd locate the alien and tell them how it might be dealt with....

* * * * *

"Begging your pardon, sir," grinned the tech, doing some last-minute fiddling with the machine, "but you never had it so good." Jerry dabbed at the cold sweat-film on his forehead and upper lip, and nodded silently.

In all his previous Contacts, done before any colonization was even attempted, things were a bit more rustic. His present environs were luxury compared to those setups. If the six-month orbit of the roborocket found the planet safe for humans, well and good; Jerry did not have to go. But if a new life-form were spotted--one that did not correspond in life-pulse to any known species--then it was Jerry's job to land on the planet and Learn the beast, to determine its probable menace, if any, to man.

The tech was referring to the fact that Jerry's usual base of operations was out on the sward beside the tailfin of the rocket, the only power-source on a non-colonized planet. There, in his Contact helmet, relaxed upon his padded couch, he would let his mind be sent right into that of the alien, to Learn it from the inside out. Here, though, on a settled world, his accommodations were pleasantly out of the ordinary. He was in the solarium of the town's research laboratory-hospital. He gazed up through quartz panes at soothing blue skies, in air-conditioned comfort spoiled only by a fugitive scent of disinfectant lingering in the building.

Some half-dozen curious members of the building's staff were gathered in the room. None of them had ever seen a man go into Contact before. In vain the tech had assured them, before Jerry's arrival, that there was nothing to be seen. Jerry would lie on the couch and adjust the helmet upon his head, and then the tech would throw a switch. And for forty minutes there would be nothing to see except Jerry's silent supine body.

Later, of course, the information transmitted by Jerry's mind through the helmet pickups to the machine would be translated into English. Then they could all read about the new animal. That would be the interesting part, for them; not this senseless staring at the young man, white-haired at thirty-plus, who would, so far as they'd be able to tell, merely doze off for an uneventful forty-minute nap.

For Jerry, however, things would be anything but dull for those forty minutes.

Once the process was begun, there was no way known even to the discoverer of the Contact principle to extend or reduce the time-period. When Jerry's mind had traveled to that of the alien, he would remain there for the full time. Anything that happened to the alien in that period would also happen to Jerry. Including death.

If the alien somehow perished with Jerry "aboard," as it were, the group in the solarium would wait in vain for him ever to bestir himself and rise from the couch again.

Jerry, fighting the waves of nausea that burned in the pit of his stomach, lay there in his helmet and waited for the tech to finish adjusting the machine.

A scanner-beam, sent toward the suspected locale from the solarium, had instantly retriggered that same green blip in response, as jagged and powerful as before. Jerry would soon be sent right into the center of the response-area, and his mind imbedded in the brain of the alien.

"Hurry it up, will you?" Jerry called over to the tech, trying not to shout.

"Ready, sir," the other man said abruptly. "Are you all set?"

"All set, Ensign," Jerry replied, then shut his eyes to the clear blue sky and the stares of the curious and let his mind relax for the brief shock of transport....

A flare of lightning, silent, white and cold in his mind--and Jerry Norcriss was in Contact....

* * * * *

One of the nurses, crisp and efficient in white starched cotton, took a hesitant step toward the figure on the couch, then spoke to the tech without looking at him, intensely. "What are his chances? It's so important that he succeed!"

About to brush her off with a noncommittal reply, the tech turned his gaze from the control panel to meet, turning to face him, a pair of the deepest blue eyes he'd ever seen, and a smooth-skinned serious face beneath a short-cropped tangle of bright yellow hair. The eyes were troubled. His manner softened instantly.

Trying not to show the sudden warmth he felt, he pointed with offhand authority at the tall metal machine, its face alive with leaping lights and quivering indicator needles.

"This'll tell the story, one way or the other," he said. "A Space Zoologist's chances are always fifty-fifty. He either succeeds and returns in perfect health, or he fails and doesn't return at all. But whatever data he picks up in Contact will be punched onto the microtape. It may help us deal with the menace. Or it may not."