Benevolence Deferred

Prologue

Arrival

Day 31,057.

The ship came into System Z9P-329 above the plane of its planets, as was customary, and slowed.

The star was bright yellow, as the charts had promised. The outer planets were giants of gas and ice, ringed or banded, and of no interest to anyone. The fourth was small, red and dry. The third was blue.

It was very blue. The instruments confirmed what the eye had already suggested: more of its surface lay under water than on any world in the survey's records. A number of the crew who had no reason to be in the observation gallery found reasons to be in the observation gallery. They stood in a row along the glass with their necks extended, saying nothing, until one of them began, absently, to preen, and then several of them did.

The Captain came to the gallery once, his golden rank feather catching the light as he turned, and the row of necks straightened. He looked at the planet for some time without comment. Then he returned to the bridge, and the ship took up station on the far side of the planet's single moon, where, initial scans suggested, the locals were not in the habit of looking.

Day 31,058.

The full analysis began with the first watch.

The operations room was long and low, with consoles set at the height of a comfortably extended neck. The Ensigns waddled to their stations in the normal way: single file, without hurry, each settling onto the cushion at their console with their feet tucked beneath them. Within minutes the room filled with the quiet, irregular tapping of eleven Ensigns pecking at their controls.

Each station took a class of data: atmosphere, oceans, land cover, energy, population. Ensign Tik took the dominant species' own records. This was traditionally the least popular station. Every civilisation the survey had visited had kept records of itself, and every one had been, in its way, untidy. This planet's were the untidiest yet. Its dominant species, upright and two-legged, recorded nearly everything it did and protected almost none of it. It had gathered the whole lot into a single vast network that anyone with a connection could read, and wherever it ran short of information it filled the gaps with pictures of its food.

The Lieutenant came through the operations room twice each watch, his blue rank feather marking his progress between the consoles. On the first day he stopped at the head of the room.

"The Captain will expect the catalogue on the tenth day," he said. "Who has the locals' own records?"

"Ensign Tik has the archive feeds, Lieutenant," said Ensign Thrum, from the next station.

In the operations room, names were reserved. Eleven Ensigns worked there every day, and a room that renamed all of them whenever a conversation began would never have got round to anything else.

"Ensign Tik," said the Lieutenant. "Anything?"

"Not yet, Lieutenant."

"There never is," said the Lieutenant, and moved on.

On the second day he said the catalogue was due in nine days. On the third day, eight.

Further aft, behind doors the Ensigns did not use, the usual preparations were being made in line with standing orders. Nobody in the operations room spoke about it. It was not a secret. It was simply not their department, and it was never late.

In the evenings Ensign Tik took his studies to the recreational deck, where the water was kept warm and still. He floated at the quiet end with his reader propped on the edge.

He was studying for his qualification. His thesis had a long title, which his supervisor had asked him to shorten, and a short argument, which nobody had asked him to lengthen. Given the number of worlds in the galaxy, and the number on which life had taken some form or other, there must logically be worlds on which it had taken a form like their own. Thirty-one thousand days of survey had not produced a single example. Ensign Tik did not regard this as evidence against. He regarded it as a sample size.

In his own time, he checked every new world for anything that might qualify. The third planet had flying creatures in great quantity. He had begun working through them on the second evening, without much hope. Most were small. Many were loud. None, so far, could have been mistaken for anyone he knew.

The days went by in the usual way. The atmosphere station reported. The oceans station reported, at length. The bipeds, Ensign Tik found, had measured their own decline with great care, from orbit and on the ground, in every medium they possessed. They had published the measurements, discussed them and disagreed about them. Then, as far as he could tell, they had gone back to their food.

He entered it in his notes for the Lieutenant, under the headings the Lieutenant preferred: Awareness and Response. Under Response he wrote very little.

Day 31,067.

On the tenth day, a little before the catalogue was due, Ensign Tik was working through a regional news service from an island off the western edge of the largest landmass. It was a small service with small stories. He was not reading it for any particular reason. It was next on the list.

The article was short. It concerned a group of the bipeds in a settlement called Milton Keynes, and it came with a picture.

He read it once, as he read everything. Then he read it again, and then a third time, which he had not done with anything since the ship arrived. At the bottom was the address of the group's own pages. He followed it.

The pages were not large. They had pictures. They had moving pictures.

At the next station, Ensign Thrum noticed that the tapping beside her had stopped. She looked across. Ensign Tik was standing at his console with his neck at full extension, which was not regulation posture, watching the same few moments of footage over and over again.

"Tik," said Ensign Thrum.

Ensign Tik did not answer.

On the bridge, at that moment, the Lieutenant stretched his neck and began.

The bridge

The bridge was the quietest room on the ship. A short channel came in through the bow-ward bulkhead and ended in a shallow pool, and from the pool's edge a carpet ran the length of the room to the Captain's station. Nobody walked on it wet.

The Captain stood at the far end. The Lieutenant stood before him with his notes, his neck straight, and his eyes, from time to time, on the gold feather.

"Captain," said the Lieutenant. "The catalogue for the third planet of System Z9P-329."

The Captain lowered his head a fraction, which meant proceed.

"The planet was originally a well-balanced system. Its present condition is the work of the dominant species: bipedal, four-limbed and, unfortunately for them, wingless." He turned a page. "Fresh water first."

He always began with the water.

In the operations room, Ensign Tik stepped down from his cushion, left his console unlocked, and waddled out of the door without a word to anyone. Ensign Thrum watched him go.

"Since they began counting," said the Lieutenant, "the creatures of their fresh waters have declined by eighty-five parts in every hundred. That is over fifty of their years, and by their own figures."

The corridor beyond the operations room was long, and Ensign Tik bustled along it faster than the corridor was used to. Two technicians flattened themselves against the wall to let him pass. At the end of the corridor was bow-ward channel 3.

"A lake in the interior of their largest landmass," said the Lieutenant, "was once the fourth largest on the planet. They diverted the rivers that fed it to water a plant from whose fibres they manufacture coverings for themselves. The lake is now mostly dust. The dust is visible from here."

The Captain said nothing.

Bow-ward channel 3 ran the length of the forward section, straight and narrow, with a lip at either end. The Ensign hopped over the lip and into the water, stretched his wings to their full span, and began to run.

"They feed their crops more than the crops can use. The remainder runs off into their lakes and coasts, and the water turns green. The contamination has been significant enough to be visible from orbit."

His feet slapped the surface, once, twice, a dozen times. The throb of his wings filled the channel.

"They have made a material that does not rot," said the Lieutenant, "and it is now in everything. It is in their water and their food. It has been found in every one of sixty-two of the organs with which they nourish their unhatched young." He paused, as the catalogue required. "The effects are not yet known. A few of them are reportedly researching it."

The water fell away beneath Ensign Tik. The forward section went past in a blur of bulkheads.

"Their seas are absorbing the gases they produce and becoming more acidic as a result. Last year, by their own measure, the seas crossed a limit for the first time."

The bridge approach came up very quickly as the Ensign continued beating his wings. Regulation speed for the bridge approach was a slow glide.

"The planet is warming," said the Lieutenant. "They know."

He closed his notes.

"In summary, Captain: by their own accounting, they have exceeded seven of the nine limits they set themselves for a habitable world. They have measured it, published it and debated it. They have not stopped. The pattern is a familiar one."

He drew breath to continue.

The Ensign flew onto the bridge much faster than regulation speed. He hit the pool feet first, skidded the length of it, and sent a sheet of water over its edge and a good way across the carpet, like an untrained fledgling.

There was a silence on the bridge, apart from the dripping.

The Lieutenant turned. A long hiss left him before he could stop it.

On the bridge, the Captain's low grunt and the Lieutenant's hiss were already spoken for. The newcomer's first distinct sound had been the splash.

"Ensign Splash," hissed the Lieutenant. "This is the bridge."

"Sirs!" The Ensign looked from the Lieutenant's blue feather to the Captain's gold one, and back again. He was panting. "Sorry to interrupt, but I have some vital information!"

"You have flown the length of the forward section," said the Lieutenant, "at twice the regulation speed, onto the bridge, during the catalogue. Whatever it is, Ensign Splash, it can wait until—"

The Captain lowered his head a fraction.

The Lieutenant stopped. After a moment, he stepped aside.

"Proceed, Ensign Splash."

The Ensign climbed out of the pool and left a line of wet prints across the carpet to the console beside the main screen. He pecked at it until it found the feed he had left running in the operations room.

"Their records are open," he said. "Anyone can read them. There is a wealth of information, all of it freely available." He pecked once more. "This is from the settlement called Milton Keynes."

The screen showed a stretch of grey water under a grey sky. Something was moving across it at speed, wings spread, feet slapping the surface. Then the throb of its wings came through the speakers, and it lifted clear of the water and flew out of the frame.

Nobody on the bridge said anything.

The footage cut to the bank. The creature stood at the water's edge with its wings folded and its long neck curved, preening. It could have been mistaken for anyone on the bridge.

"The locals have a word for them," said the Ensign. "Swans."

The Captain raised his head.

"Every planet has fauna," said the Lieutenant, after a moment. "Some of it was always going to resemble someone. It has no bearing on the catalogue."

"It isn't the swans, Lieutenant. It's the bipeds."

He pecked again, and the footage changed. A swan sat hunched at the edge of the water, with a length of fishing line wound tight round one leg and one wing. A biped waded out towards it, slowly, keeping low. The swan hissed at it the whole way. The biped kept coming. When it reached the swan, it gathered it up in both arms and carried it to the bank, where a second biped knelt and began, very carefully, to cut the line away.

The swan was still hissing.

"There is a group of them whose whole purpose is this," said the Ensign. "It is all on their pages, and in their news. They watch over the swans on the waters around the settlement. When one is injured or sick, they rescue it and nurse it back to health, with healers trained for the work. They ask everyone in the settlement to tell them when a bird is in distress. They tell the other bipeds which foods do swans harm, and ask them to stop. They teach the rest of their kind about the hazards they leave behind, thoughtlessly or without knowing." He drew breath. "And none of them is paid for it. They give their own time."

The Lieutenant glanced at the gold feather, then back at the Ensign.

"Ensign Splash. Every species we have catalogued has shown only self-interest. This one" (a tilt of the neck towards the screen) "drained a lake for its coverings. It has exceeded seven of its own nine limits. A handful of them tending some birds on one small island does not change the catalogue. Why should this planet be treated differently from every other?"

"Because none of the others demonstrated behaviour like this, Lieutenant."

The bridge was very quiet.

"These ones have never seen us," said the Ensign. "They don't know we exist. And these strange, featherless bipeds are giving their own time to look after swan-kind, for nothing." He looked at the screen, where the second biped was still kneeling on the bank. "And swan-kind is about to do to them what we did at H74A-556."

Nobody spoke. Water dripped from the edge of the pool onto the carpet. On the screen, the last of the line came away, and the swan shook itself, walked back into the water and swam off without a backward glance.

The Lieutenant looked at the screen for a long moment. Then he straightened his neck, turned away from the Ensign, and faced the Captain.

"Captain," said the Lieutenant. "Benevolence is prepared and standing by for your order."

The Captain made a low sound, deep in his chest. It was the first sound he had made since the catalogue began.

"Thank you, Lieutenant, but I will not be issuing that command today."

The Lieutenant's neck, which had been straight, became straighter.

"Sir, I don't understand..."

"No," said the Captain. "You are familiar with the commonplace, but there is a broader context to consider, Lieutenant."

He stepped down from his station, went round the wet part of the carpet, and stopped in front of the screen.

"Your catalogue is correct," he said. "Catalogues usually are. Most of the species we find are exactly as you described: so occupied with their own undoing that they notice nothing else. The order exists for them. It spares them the end they are already arranging for themselves, and the long part before it."

On the screen, the second biped was still kneeling on the bank.

"But the order is for the doomed, Lieutenant. It is not for the merely damaged. Not every species that reaches the slope goes over it. It is rare. You have not seen it before. Neither had I." He watched the screen a moment longer. "They give their own time. They wade into cold water for a creature that hisses at them the whole way. A species that will do that for a stranger has not yet finished deciding what it is."

The Lieutenant said nothing. He was looking at the screen again, and for rather longer this time.

"We will review on the return leg," said the Captain. "No contact. They will not know we were here." He turned. "Have the preparations stood down, Lieutenant, and set course for the next waypoint. System Q3N-718."

The Lieutenant lowered his head a fraction.

"Yes, Captain."

The Captain went back up the carpet towards his station. Halfway there he stopped, looked down at the dark wet patch, and then at the Ensign.

"Ensign Splash."

"Captain?"

"The carpet."

"Yes, Captain."

The ship turned away from the third planet. The screen, which nobody had thought to switch off, went on showing the footage. The second biped got to its feet, wiped its hands, and walked away up the bank. It did not look up.

Epilogue