on the continent.
An interstellar sportsman, climbing Kilimanjaro for the challenge of it? But he had no climbing gear, at least none that I could see, and if he could make it all the way to this mountain from some other star system, he could have gone a few thousand miles farther to the Himalayas. Everest had to be two miles higher.
A hunter, perhaps? If he’d arrived more than seventy-five years ago, Tanzania was so thick with game that it must have seemed like it would go on forever. The wildebeest herds numbered in the millions, the zebras were almost as numerous, and the Big Five-elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo, and leopard-were abundant on both the ground and the mountain.
But he had no weapons, there was no trace of a camp, and if he’d stockpiled any trophies they’d been appropriated by some resident of the mountain or perhaps a climber-but if they’d found his trophies, they’d almost certainly have found him as well.
All my training, all my experience, told me that he wasn’t a freak born of Earth. No human, no ape, nothing of this world ever gave birth to the being that lay before me. He must have come from a relatively similar world. If the gravity were much heavier he’d have thicker limbs and would probably walk on all fours; any lighter and he’d be thinner and more elongated. It had to be an oxygen world; he couldn’t have gone two steps, let alone up the mountain, if he couldn’t breathe the air. I assumed he could metabolize some of the vegetation or meat animals, since there was no indication he’d come with a sufficient supply of his own food-though I wouldn’t know for sure until we thawed him out and examined his teeth and the contents of his stomach. The ears weren’t much bigger than ours; the eyes were closed, but also seemed about the same size as ours. The elongated foreface implied that scent was more important to him, but even that was just a guess until we began examining him in a lab.
I was suddenly aware that Bonnie and Ray were approaching me.
"Your turn, Professor," she said cheerfully.
"Call me Doctor," I said. "Or better still, Anthony or Tony."
"How about Doc?"
I shrugged. "That’ll be fine."
Ray reached over and attached a tiny microphone to the collar of my coat.
"Don’t worry about it," said Bonnie. "It won’t show up in the video."
Why would I give a damn? I thought, but I merely smiled at her.
"Well, let’s get right to it, Doc," she said. "What do you think of our discovery?"
"I think it could be very important," I said carefully. "Of course, we’ll have to examine it under laboratory conditions before we can draw any firm conclusions."
"Jim Donahue keeps calling it a man from Mars," said Bonnie. "Would you care to comment on that?"
I smiled. "Jim has a fine imagination. It didn’t come from Mars."
"Where did it come from?"
"I have no idea."
"Would you care to suggest what it’s doing here?"
"Waiting to be discovered and evaluated," I said.
"Besides that," she said, a note of irritation creeping into her voice. "Why would this creature, whatever it is, climb the tallest mountain in Africa?"
Because it’s there , I wanted to say. "I really don’t know, Bonnie," I said aloud. "Scientists don’t jump to conclusions."
She ended the interview in another minute, clearly disappointed, and wandered off to interview Njobo.
As for me, I looked down at the alien, and the phrase kept running through my mind again and again: Because it’s there.
***
I was the sixth blind man.
To be continued-
What the Scientist Saw
His name was Mavorine, and he felt like the King of the Universe, standing atop the highest mountain on Neffertine VI, staring out across the craggy surface of the planet. This one
An interstellar sportsman, climbing Kilimanjaro for the challenge of it? But he had no climbing gear, at least none that I could see, and if he could make it all the way to this mountain from some other star system, he could have gone a few thousand miles farther to the Himalayas. Everest had to be two miles higher.
A hunter, perhaps? If he’d arrived more than seventy-five years ago, Tanzania was so thick with game that it must have seemed like it would go on forever. The wildebeest herds numbered in the millions, the zebras were almost as numerous, and the Big Five-elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo, and leopard-were abundant on both the ground and the mountain.
But he had no weapons, there was no trace of a camp, and if he’d stockpiled any trophies they’d been appropriated by some resident of the mountain or perhaps a climber-but if they’d found his trophies, they’d almost certainly have found him as well.
All my training, all my experience, told me that he wasn’t a freak born of Earth. No human, no ape, nothing of this world ever gave birth to the being that lay before me. He must have come from a relatively similar world. If the gravity were much heavier he’d have thicker limbs and would probably walk on all fours; any lighter and he’d be thinner and more elongated. It had to be an oxygen world; he couldn’t have gone two steps, let alone up the mountain, if he couldn’t breathe the air. I assumed he could metabolize some of the vegetation or meat animals, since there was no indication he’d come with a sufficient supply of his own food-though I wouldn’t know for sure until we thawed him out and examined his teeth and the contents of his stomach. The ears weren’t much bigger than ours; the eyes were closed, but also seemed about the same size as ours. The elongated foreface implied that scent was more important to him, but even that was just a guess until we began examining him in a lab.
I was suddenly aware that Bonnie and Ray were approaching me.
"Your turn, Professor," she said cheerfully.
"Call me Doctor," I said. "Or better still, Anthony or Tony."
"How about Doc?"
I shrugged. "That’ll be fine."
Ray reached over and attached a tiny microphone to the collar of my coat.
"Don’t worry about it," said Bonnie. "It won’t show up in the video."
Why would I give a damn? I thought, but I merely smiled at her.
"Well, let’s get right to it, Doc," she said. "What do you think of our discovery?"
"I think it could be very important," I said carefully. "Of course, we’ll have to examine it under laboratory conditions before we can draw any firm conclusions."
"Jim Donahue keeps calling it a man from Mars," said Bonnie. "Would you care to comment on that?"
I smiled. "Jim has a fine imagination. It didn’t come from Mars."
"Where did it come from?"
"I have no idea."
"Would you care to suggest what it’s doing here?"
"Waiting to be discovered and evaluated," I said.
"Besides that," she said, a note of irritation creeping into her voice. "Why would this creature, whatever it is, climb the tallest mountain in Africa?"
Because it’s there , I wanted to say. "I really don’t know, Bonnie," I said aloud. "Scientists don’t jump to conclusions."
She ended the interview in another minute, clearly disappointed, and wandered off to interview Njobo.
As for me, I looked down at the alien, and the phrase kept running through my mind again and again: Because it’s there.
***
I was the sixth blind man.
To be continued-
What the Scientist Saw
His name was Mavorine, and he felt like the King of the Universe, standing atop the highest mountain on Neffertine VI, staring out across the craggy surface of the planet. This one
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