On clear days the land lay darklingly rich beneath a deep blue sky. Growth was nowhere green, but ruddy-brown, chocolate, black, maroon, damask, countless shades, lightened by petals white or colorful. The effect was not gloomy; there was so much life, leaves rippling and soughing in sunlight, odors as of strange spices. A mossy turf seemed to play the basic role of grass. Trees, shrubs, canes, brachiated more or less like Earth’s; to that extent had two evolutions happened to run parallel. Wildlife abounded, from tiny things that could incorrectly be called worms or insects, on through swimmers, runners, and wings multitudinous in heaven. Cries, whistles, bellows, trills sounded through the glades.
Tahir rotated once in nineteen and a quarter hours, with an axial inclination of thirty-one degrees. Though the irradiation was lower, the atmosphere, slightly denser than Earth’s, joined with albedo to maintain a planetary mean temperature three degrees higher. However, climates varied tremendously from region to region, weather still more, through a year seven-tenths terrestrial length. This was in considerable part due to an orbit as eccentric as Mars’s — northern summers longer and colder, northern winters shorter and warmer, than southern. All factors considered, the place granted the humans might well be the best possible for them.
A gravity 9 percent above terrestrial added about five to eight kilos to a person’s weight, depending on mass. It was evenly distributed, and the crew soon hardened to it; as well as resetting their circadian rhythms — with pharmaceutical help. The work of settlement kept them busily and, most times, cheerily occupied. Ruszek and Kilbirnie ferried down load after load of equipment, supplies, and prefabricated parts. Robots helped, but hands found plenty to do. A storage shed rose; a building for a power plant and other facilities; a third for meeting, cooking, dining, recreation, celebration. At last individual cabins replaced the two temporary shelters that had separately housed men and women.
Although the Tahirians did not seem to have closed the region off, none of the nuisances appeared who would have come swarming on Earth, journalists, curiosity seekers, salespeople, cranks, politicians. Three or four visitors were frequently present, arriving and departing in small, silent aerial vehicles of teardrop shape and iridescent hues. They observed and recorded, with exotic apparatus, except for those who worked with Sundaram. They let the humans stare and record in turn. Otherwise they kept to themselves.
“It suggests a very controlled society,” Dayan remarked.
“Or a very alien one,” Cleland said.
Abruptly that changed. While speech was not yet possible, sign language had steadily improved. It took the form of animated cartoons displayed on a portable screen. The figures were simplified and conventionalized to the point of grotesquerie, but usually comprehensible. One day a Tahirian ran off a sequence that made Kilbirnie shout, “Harroo!” and dance across the sward.
The newcomers were invited to go on tours.
“They’ve decided we know enough by now and are harmless,” Nansen guessed.
“Not necessarily harmless,” Brent said.
“Who made the decision, and how?” wondered Yu.
Evidently the Tahirians gave priority to scientific and technological rapport. Was that because those were the least difficult subjects? They tried to explain what kinds of establishment they offered to show, on trips of a few days’ duration. Nansen divided his people accordingly. It made more sense than going in one herd. Nor did he want the camp left empty. For the initial jaunts, he assigned just two parties. The rest would stay behind until another time. He took the worst jealousy off that by including himself. When the aircraft took off, swiftly vanishing, Kilbirnie saw him bite his lip. She swallowed her own disappointment and slipped over to stand beside him.
Mokoena and Zeyd entered into magic.
They landed at a cluster of structures, low shapes of complex, pleasing geometry around a filigree tower. Their guide showed them to a chamber with soft pads on the floor and an adjoining bath and sanitor copied from the humans’. Obviously this would be their lodging. They stowed the food, bedrolls, changes of clothing, and personal kits they had brought along and turned eagerly back to the guide. The little being led them straightway to a descent and down a spiral ramp, down and down.