They were alone on an enchanted planet, a
lost Eden glowing with beauty and strangeness.
But over them hung a cloud of tribal hate.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Universe October 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_As science fiction has increased its speculative scope there
has come into its orbit a new and largely unexplored world of
shining possibilities--the world of comparative ethnology. Why
do some primitive human societies glorify hate, fear, cruelty,
war, and others live at peace with their neighbors? In this
unusual novelette the gifted and versatile Frank Belknap Long
has penetrated to the very core of the mystery with dramatically
compelling logic._
She was kneeling when I saw her, her face half in shadows, her
girlishly slender figure mirrored by the cool-running stream at her
feet.
You'd think that on a planet like Dracona a man would be safe from
shock. Between the fire mountains and the sea, and the snowy-crested
birds that never stop singing you'd think that nothing could surprise
him.
Remember Blake's City and Garden, his New Jerusalem with its shining
Eden just over the hill? Well--Dracona is just as tremendous as that,
even though it's all a garden wilderness with the city part left out.
Surely on Dracona there was enough nerve-tingling beauty everywhere
to enchant a lad with my capacity for enjoyment. Why couldn't I have
accepted that beauty as a near approach to paradise, content in the
knowledge that I was my own master under the stars? Why did I have to
step into a forest clearing and let a slender pale girl strip away all
of my defenses, leaving me as naked as a new-born babe to the great,
roaring winds of unreason?
If I had shouted the question then and there the forest might have
murmured in reply: "It's because you haven't seen a woman for so long.
It's because loneliness is a destructive blight, and you're a young
romantic fool."
It might have shouted that to my mind, to the tumultuously pounding
blood at my temples. But it wouldn't have been a complete answer.
I knew she wasn't from Earth the instant she raised her eyes, and
looked at me. Mocking eyes she had, of a deep, lustrous violet, and her
pale hair clustered in little, golden ringlets about her brow, giving
her the tantalizingly defiant aspect of a woman with enough of the
eternal tease in her to be secretly amused by her own beauty.
* * * * *
She was collecting zoological specimens in the pollen-scented Draconian
dusk. Not me, especially. Just iridescent spider bats, darter birds
with vermilion beaks, and flying lizards which measured forty-eight
inches straight across their wing-tips.
To be strictly accurate--there was only one lizard. It was thrashing
wildly about in the metallic net at her back, the glow from the
stationary lure-light giving it the aspect of some fiery monster which
she had enticed from its cave by her beauty, and trapped at the risk
of her life.
As I returned her stare she blinked in amazement, then laughed
outright, the gulfs between us dissolving in a sudden, warming intimacy
that was like nothing I'd ever known before.
To keep the scales from dipping too cruelly to her side I threw in
everything I had that could be weighed and measured. Mother Earth still
gives her sons a good start physically. Surely I was big and strong
enough to please her, with a grip no man could break.
Furthermore, I knew how to look after myself. I'd been born and bred
to the thunder of primitive rocket jets, and I could walk any jungle
like a native, bargain and hold my own. I was a man who would fight
tooth-and-nail to justify what I was and always would be at heart--an
Earthborn trader.
We of Earth are traders still! We haven't forgotten how to rejoice when
waterfalls crash on rocks white with foam, and the mists of morning
rise clear and cold to the wheeling stars. I was prepared to tell her
what that meant in terms of human dignity, human worth.
I was prepared to remind her that the real target of a trader is the
unknown. Everything else he does, or fails to do, is a prelude to the
kind of wayfaring that brought the restless human breed to Tragor.
Tragor! The scales started dipping her way, and I couldn't stop them.
She was a woman of Tragor, with the star-bright insignia of her
heritage gleaming on the folded-back flaps of her weather jacket.
I thought of how human civilization had shifted from Earth to the
stars, and what it meant to stand at the hub of the Galaxy in Tragor
City. I thought of Tragor City as a man will who is eager not to remain
a child in the eyes of one who has never known the meaning of childhood.
I thought of the thousand square miles of research laboratories, the
museums and the libraries, the sports arenas swimming in a golden
radiance and the sky-mirroring splendors of the biogenetic fulfillment
centers. I thought of the schools where teaching had become an exact
science completely integrated with human needs.
I remembered that no woman of Tragor could ever become tender and
yielding without first dissecting a man. I told myself she'd see
through me the instant I spoke to her. With her understanding of the
conflict between the sexes the primitiveness in me would stand out like
a gall blister on a sturdy oak.
Right at that moment I didn't feel so sturdy. But I knew I'd have to
speak first. I couldn't just stand there staring her out of countenance.
"I'm sorry if I startled you," I said. "I didn't mean to stare, but
I couldn't very well help myself. I don't quite know how to say it.
You're not just an attractive woman. I wouldn't have stared if you were
just one woman in ten--or one woman in twenty. I stared because I think
you're the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
She flushed scarlet. "I thought you'd never stop staring," she said.
"You're angry," I said. "Don't be. Many men must have told you how
beautiful you are. I just happen to mean it."
"Please," she whispered. "Are Terrans always that abrupt?"
"We have a reputation for candor," I said. "If I hadn't told you why
you left me speechless you'd have been angry for the wrong reason. You
may take that as a compliment."
"I'm not sure I want to."
"You must know how lovely you are," I protested. "Why should you resent
being told the simple truth?"
"Perhaps this is one of my bad-tempered days," she said, her eyes
searching my face. "You don't look like the kind of man who would
deliberately try to embarrass anyone. No man is wise enough to be
gallant by design, and make the pretense seem casual and completely
honest. You're right, of course. I had no reason to be angry."
She came toward me, straightening her hair, her eyes crinkling with
undisguised amusement.
"I still don't know who you are."
"The name's Hargon," I said. "Taro Hargon. I came here to trade with
the natives. I get on fairly well with them."