The Garments of Caean

There was no question of sitting or lying down in the suit. Clamps reached out to hold him fast in the cockpit, so that the suit’s maniples, several feet outside the reach of his real hands, could manage the controls. There was little for him to do, in any case; the lighter was mostly on automatic.

Mast’s voice came to him through the suit intercom. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘we’ve just heard that the survey sensors have located a large metal object. That might be it. The lighter knows where to go. Good luck.’

‘Right,’ answered Peder. And then, as his mind ranged over the situation, still trying to fight down his fears, a realization came to him.

‘The lots!’ he gasped. ‘You rigged it!’

‘Well naturally, old man. I have to protect my investment, after all. We can’t have you chopping and changing plans at this stage. Good luck.’

‘Let me out!’ raged Peder impotently. ‘I demand that we cast the lots again!’

But it was no use. He felt the lighter moving under him. On the screen, he saw that it was trundling through the air-lock. Seconds later he had been launched into space and the lighter darted down towards the glowing atmosphere of Kyre.

The rustling of the air over the outside surfaces, the buzzing of the lighter’s mechanisms as it guided itself in, filled Peder’s consciousness for some minutes. Seen from the outside, Kyre was an unremarkable, hospitable-looking planet. The atmosphere expanded and brightened as he plunged in. Nearer the surface it would contain a fair proportion of oxygen. The white clouds were water vapour. It would be a world fit for colonization, if it weren’t for the habits of its denizens.

Once below the cloud layer, the features of the landscape began to take shape. There were mountains and plains, rivers and forests. All looked normal and innocuous. From a height, Kyre’s special feature was not discernible.

The lighter slowed down and winged over a plain broken into a series of gullies, many of them fringed and hidden by tree-like vegetation. The lighter stopped and hovered about uncertainly in the air.

Mast came through again. ‘You’re on our sensor spot,’ he said. ‘Can you see anything?’

‘No,’ said Peder, ‘but I get a reading too.’

He focused his attention on one of the tree-cloaked gullies. It could be down there, he thought.

Then he noticed that there was animal life on the plain. A big animal emerged from cover, looked around it, and trotted lumberingly towards a small body of water about a mile away. That reminded Peder of what a jam he would be in if the lighter was destroyed or damaged, and that he was asking for trouble by hovering about in the open. He would have to continue on foot – or on what, in the baffle suit, passed for feet.

He put the lighter down as close to the gorge as he could get. ‘I’m down. I’m going out,’ he said curtly. Mast’s reply came faint and thoughtful. ‘Right.’

Releasing the clamps, Peder backed himself to the hatch. Promptly it opened, and he backed straight out onto the ground. No sooner was he three or four feet away than the lighter took off again and went soaring skywards, back to the Costa. It was good strategy, but it still gave him the feeling of being alone and cut off.

For here he was at last, on the infra-sound planet.

Evolution on Kyre had reached a stage somewhat equivalent to the Jurassic. But the animal life here had developed a unique form of offensive and defensive armament: infra-sound, low-frequency vibrations that could, by hitting the right resonant note, shake to pieces any large object using very little power. Buildings, vehicles, machines, animals or men, all were equally vulnerable.

Several roving expeditions had landed on Kyre, and one of them had been lucky enough to get off sufficiently in one piece to report on the conditions there. The animals on Kyre attacked one another with infra-sound. Conversely, surviving species were those that had best learned to defend themselves against infra-sound. The use of infra-sound had developed biologically into a sophisticated spectrum of effects on Kyre. Even plants had been obliged to guard themselves against it and to generate it on their own account.

The baffle suit was Mast’s answer to this deadly environment. Constructed at great expense, the suit’s ranks of tubes were designed to deaden lethal frequencies before they reached the wearer. As a last-ditch defence the suit carried its own sound generator to try to cancel out or interfere with any attacking vibrations that got through.

‘Are you getting anything?’ Mast asked with interest.

Inside the suit, two screens confronted Peder. One gave a panoramic view of his surroundings: bright, clean air, a sky tinged with pale blue, a rocky foreground with boulders and trees in the farther distance. The second screen was an oscilloscope. Waggly traces ran across it. From a small speaker curious tones and squeals emerged; ranged-up analogues of infra-sounds the air outside was carrying.