One of the standard plots for short stories during
the 1950s and 1960s was the first visit to an alien
planet and the solution of some mystery involving the local life, either biological or cultural.
The Planet Explorer (1957) by Murray LEINSTER
and Mission to Universe (1965) by Gordon DICKSON
are both episodic novels in which a team deals
with a series of such mysteries. In most cases the
characters are rendered in a shallow fashion; it
is the problem and the exotic setting that are
supposed to hold the reader’s attention. Occasionally a talented writer uses that same form
to tell a more complex story, as is the case with
this novelette by Ursula K. LE GUIN, set in the
author’s Hain universe.
Although the Hainish Empire explored much
of the galaxy, there were remote regions that they
overlooked, and younger members of their civilization, particularly those from Earth, press for
further missions. Because these will be extremely
long journeys for little reward, most of those who
volunteer for this kind of mission are mentally
unstable in one fashion or another, and putting
together a viable crew has become something of
an art form. The story follows one of the less successful efforts, unsuccessful because one member
of the crew is an empath who feels the negative
feelings of his fellows and responds by becoming
increasingly obnoxious, a self-defeating and mutually destructive cycle of feedback that progressively destabilizes them all. By the time they
reach the first habitable planet and begin their
survey, tempers are on edge; one individual is on
the verge of a breakdown, and another has been
driven into a murderous rage.
The planet has plant life, lush and varied, but
no animals whatsoever, which appears to mean
that they are in no physical danger. Osden, the empath, goes off on his own on a protracted mission,
which initially lessens the tension, but the rest of
the crew continue to feel a foreboding they cannot
articulate. One claims to have been chased
through the jungle by some unseen shape. Then
Osden is attacked and nearly killed, and it appears
that they might not be alone on the planet after
all. It turns out, however, that they themselves are
the source of their growing unease. All of the vegetation on the planet shares a single nervous system, is in a sense one great organism that has some
latent form of intelligence but lacks even the concept of there being another creature in the universe. Like Osden, the plants have picked up the
agitation of the humans and are broadcasting it
themselves, reinforcing and exaggerating the tension. The mystery is solved, perhaps; but the bigger
question is, how can we learn to break the cycle
among ourselves? Even without the power of
empathy, the accumulated animosity of humans
toward one another inevitably breeds more of the
same.