Emile and the Dutchman Read Online Free PDF Page A

Dutchman tapped at the hatch control panel. "Okay, children, it's show time."
    In a few moments, we were all standing in the short purple grasses of the plain. My earphones hissed like a threatening rattlesnake. Sweating, I reached to the control box on my hip to turn up the squelch.
    The air was hot, just not hot enough to require the more rigid suits, the ones with temperature control. Which made the job easier, at least in one sense. Unlikely as it was that any of the local bugs could bite us—and do us harm—through standard E-suits, if they could, that would "solve the problem," too.
    There are times when I wish I'd gone to work for my father.
    As blasé as I was trying to be, there was a certain something about being on a new world. The bounce in my walk as we headed away from the scout couldn't be accounted for just by the planet's low gravity—it was low only relative to Earth, not to freefall. After more than two weeks in zero gee, I should have been dragging; in fact, even after the three klicks from the shuttle to where the forest broke on the plain, I was still ready to break into a happy lope.
    But it bothered me that we hadn't seen any locals yet. Once we were into the forest, the skimmer wouldn't be able to come when called. Not that there was a problem with the radio, but the autopiloting wasn't nearly good enough to work its way through a maze of trees.
    A few hundred meters from the edge of the forest, McCaw started muttering to himself.
    "Here we go, Kurt." The Dutchman's voice seemed distant, even though he was only a couple of meters away.
    "Peeling off, Major." Buchholtz jogged away to our left, his assault rifle in one hand, a Korriphila 10mm pistol in the other. He was moving quickly across the plain; even though he was moving diagonally to our path, it was likely he would reach the stand of trees before we would.
    "Contact, Major." McCaw didn't sound bored, for once. "They are about a quarter klick ahead, concealed in those columnar vegetable growths."
    "Trees, Ari, trees ."
    For once I sympathized with Norfeldt. What else do you call ten-meter-high, three-lobed plants, covered with what looked like purple moss?
    "Major, I like them."
    I shot a look at McCaw, then caught myself. No, he wasn't armed. Comm officers are never armed. You can't trust an esper who is supposed to open himself to telepathic—and telempathic—communication with aliens.
    "So you like them. Big deal; let's go meet the natives. Emmy, keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Kurt, you on station yet?"
    My earphones hissed as Buchholtz thumbed his communicator. The damn F9s put out enough RF to interfere with FM.
    "Got them in my sights, Major."
    I could barely make out the words through the interference. But Buchholtz's eagerness came through loud and clear.
    The Dutchman caught it too. "You fire on my order only —you got that, Kurt?" Norfeldt liked repeating himself; he'd only given that order to Buchholtz and me a couple dozen times already.
    "Got it."
    The Dutchman stopped the three of us about twenty meters from the sharp edge of the forest with a sudden, chopping gesture of his left hand.
    "Ari, just translate what I say. No unnecessary interpretation."
    Three aliens walked out of a dark gap in the wall of trees, then took up positions facing McCaw, as though Norfeldt and I simply weren't there.
    They were erect, bipedal creatures, tall and almost comically thin. Their purplish skin looked slick, but not wet. I could understand how First Team had described them as looking like amphibians, but we humans resemble lemurs more than they resemble salamanders. The orange splotches on their naked skin could have been natural pigmentation, I suppose, but the stochastic quasi-regularity of the patterns seemed to suggest dyes.
    "They are . . . powerful, Major." I could barely hear McCaw. While Norfeldt was closer, he must have been having trouble hearing him, too; the Dutchman reached over and flicked a switch on the tall