Free News From Elsewhere by Edmuind Cooper

presented him with the platinum bowl that morning. He was about to mention it to Duluth, but was distracted by a flashing pencil beam of light over toward the forest line. “Here they come,” said Lukas. “Kurt has the headlights on.”
    A few minutes later, Alsdorf and Chirico clambered up to the mess deck. The geophysicist’s eyes were gleaming with satisfaction.
    “Palladium and platinum,” he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. “Concentrated alluvial deposits! You can fill your pocket with nuggets without taking a dozen steps. Here, take a look at these.” He passed a few small, irregular blackish stones for inspection.
    “Looks to me like small slag,” said Duluth, unimpressed.
    “They’re covered with iron oxide,” explained Alsdorf impatiently. “There is more platinum to the square kilometer here than the entire output of the solar planets! We have made history. This thing is going to be so big—”
    “I’ll bet that fills the hominids with joy,” said Lukas dryly.
    Alsdorf laughed. “We found a few of their crude artifacts lying around. Fiber shovels and picks. Imagine it, they have platinum and palladium, but they don’t have iron.” His laughter was uproarious.
    Chirico stared at Lukas intently. “You look down in the  mouth, Mike. Is something wrong?”
    “Negative,” said Lukas with a faint smile.
    Alsdorf collected his precious nuggets and put them back into his pocket. “How did the party go, Mike? Did they try to poison you?”
    “Didn’t need to. That village of theirs is one unholy stinkpot.”
    The German shrugged. “What did you expect? In a couple of years there won’t be any village. We will introduce the hominids to the concept of organized effort. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to build a spaceport.”
    Lukas gave a wry grin. “You think they’ll be enthusiastic?”
    “We’ll convert them.” Alsdorf was full of confidence, full of the civilized man’s self-assurance, secure in the knowledge that—as so often before—machines and psychological warfare would make the domination of a tribe of savages no problem at all.
    The following morning, after an early meal, Alsdorf and Chirico set out in the tractor to continue their survey. Duluth stayed in the ship, doing a few small maintenance jobs. But by midday he had finished, and suggested that he and Lukas go for a spin in the monowheel.
    “Not for me, Joe,” said Lukas, staring moodily through a transparent panel on the navigation deck. “Among other things, I’m going to bring the log up to date. Haven’t had time for it so far.”
    “Suit yourself,” said Duluth. “I’m going to shoot me a squirrel if I can’t find anything bigger. . . . Maybe I’ll take a look at shantytown on the way back.”
    He went down the companion ladder. Presently Lukas saw the monowheel hurtling along at high speed over the smooth sand belt. He watched till it became a small speck, then turned to the chart table and reached for the star log. He began to make concise entries in a neat, steady handwriting.
    He had been working for about twenty minutes when a voice said softly in his ear:   “Masumo would speak with Lukas of the sky-machine. "
    Lukas jumped as if he’d been stung. He spun around, but there was no one else on deck. Then he looked through the observation panel and saw down below a  small, naked figure in the distance. It was coming toward the   Henri Poincare.   Puzzled, Lukas went down to meet it.
    “Did you talk to me while I was in the sky-machine?” he asked abruptly.
    But Masumo only smiled, raised his leathery arm in greeting, and offered the traditional salutation in his own language. Lukas returned it, and together they walked back to the ship.
    Oddly enough, Lukas had already forgotten about the voice, and did not remember it until much later. Suddenly he wanted to show Masumo the interior of the ship, wanted to see his reaction to the wonders