“What in the Galaxy is a loudspeaker and microphone doing in that thing? Surely they don’t work at the temperatures you mentioned — and you can’t be speaking to these natives!”
The technician answered the first question.
“It works, all right. It’s a crystal outfit without vacuum tubes, and should work in liquid hydrogen.”
Drai supplemented the other answer. “We don’t exactly talk to them, but they can apparently hear and produce sounds more or less similar to those of our speech.”
“But how could you ever have worked out a common language, or even a code, without visual contact? Maybe, unless you think it’s none of my business and will not be any help in what is, you’d better give me the whole story from the beginning.”
“Maybe I had,” Laj Drai said slowly, draping his pliant form over a convenient rack. “I have already mentioned that contact was made some twenty years ago— our years, that is; it would be nearer thirty for the natives of Planet Three.
“The Karella was simply cruising, without any particular object in view, when her previous owner happened to notice the rather peculiar color of Planet Three. You must have remarked that bluish tint yourself. He put the ship into an orbit at a safe distance beyond the atmosphere, and began sending down torpedoes. He knew better than to go down himself — there was never any doubt about the ghastly temperature conditions of the place.
“Well, he lost five projectiles in a row. Every one lost its vision connection in the upper atmosphere, since no one had bothered to think of the effect of the temperature on hot glass. Being a stubborn character, he sent them on down on long-wave instruments, and every one went out sooner or later; he was never sure even whether they had reached the surface. He had some fair engineers and plenty of torpedoes, though, and kept making changes and sending the results down. It finally became evident that most of them were reaching the surface— and going out of action the instant they did so. Something was either smashing them mechanically or playing the deuce with their electrical components.
“Up to then, the attempts had all been to make the landings on one of the relatively smooth, bluish areas; they seemed the least complicated. However, someone got the idea that this steady loss of machines could not be due to chance; somewhere there was intelligent intervention. To test the idea, a torpedo was sent down with every sort of detecting and protecting device that could be stuffed aboard — including a silver mesh over the entire surface, connected to the generators and capable of blocking any outside frequency which might be employed to interfere with control. A constantly changing control frequency was used from our end. It had automatic heat control — I tell you, it had everything. Nothing natural and darned little that was artificial should have been able to interfere with that machine; but it went out like the others, just as the reflection altimeter reported it as almost touching the surface.
“That was enough for the boss. He accepted as a working theory the idea that a race lived on the flatter parts of the planet; a race that did not want visitors. The next torpedo was sent to one of the darker, rougher areas that could be seen from space, the idea being that these beings might avoid such areas. He seems to have been right, for this time the landing was successful. At any rate, the instruments said the machine was down, it proved impossible to drive it lower, and it stayed put with power off.