IV

"I've never seen anyone quite as angry as that doctor," Brion said.

"Can't blame him," Ihjel shifted his immense weight and grunted from the

console, where he was having a coded conversation with the ship's brain.

He hit the keys quickly, and read the answer from the screen. "You took

away his medical moment of glory. How many times in his life will he

have a chance to nurse back to rugged smiling health the triumphantly

exhausted Winner of the Twenties?"

"Not many, I imagine. The wonder of it is how you managed to convince

him that you and the ship here could take care of me as well as his

hospital."

"I could never convince him of that," Ihjel said. "But I and the

Cultural Relationships Foundation have some powerful friends on Anvhar.

I'm forced to admit I brought a little pressure to bear." He leaned back

and read the course tape as it streamed out of the printer. "We have a

little time to spare, but I would rather spend it waiting at the other

end. We'll blast as soon as I have you tied down in a stasis field."

The completeness of the stasis field leaves no impression on the body or

mind. In it there is no weight, no pressure, no pain--no sensation of

any kind. Except for a stasis of very long duration, there is no

sensation of time. To Brion's consciousness, Ihjel flipped the switch

off with a continuation of the same motion that had turned it on. The

ship was unchanged, only outside of the port was the red-shot blankness

of jump space.

"How do you feel?" Ihjel asked.

Apparently the ship was wondering the same thing. Its detector unit,

hovering impatiently just outside of Brion's stasis field, darted down

and settled on his forearm. The doctor back on Anvhar had given the

medical section of the ship's brain a complete briefing. A quick check

of a dozen factors of Brion's metabolism was compared to the expected

norm. Apparently everything was going well, because the only reaction

was the expected injection of vitamins and glucose.

"Can't say I'm feeling wonderful yet," Brion answered, levering himself

higher on the pillows. "But every day it's a bit better, steady

progress."

"I hope so, because we have about two weeks before we get to Dis. Think

you'll be back in shape by that time?"

"No promises," Brion said, giving a tentative squeeze to one bicep. "It

should be enough time, though. Tomorrow I start mild exercise and that

will tighten me up again. Now--tell me more about Dis and what you have

to do there."

"I'm not going to do it twice, so just save your curiosity a while.

We're heading for a rendezvous-point now to pick up another operator.

This is going to be a three-man team, you, me and an exobiologist. As

soon as he is aboard I'll do a complete briefing for you both at the

same time. What you can do now is get your head into the language box

and start working on your Disan. You'll want to speak it perfectly by

the time we touch down."

* * * * *

With an autohypno for complete recall, Brion had no difficulty in

mastering the grammar and vocabulary of Disan. Pronunciation was a

different matter altogether. Almost all the word endings were swallowed,

muffled or gargled. The language was rich in glottal stops, clicks and

guttural strangling sounds. Ihjel stayed in a different part of the

ship, when Brion used the voice mirror and analysis scope, claiming that

the awful noises interfered with his digestion.

Their ship angled through jump-space along its calculated course. It

kept its fragile human cargo warm, fed them and supplied breathable air.

It had orders to worry about Brion's health, so it did, checking

constantly against its recorded instructions and noting his steady

progress. Another part of the ship's brain counted microseconds with

moronic fixation, finally closing a relay when a predetermined number

had expired in its heart. A light flashed and a buzzer hummed gently but

insistently.

Ihjel yawned, put away the report he had been reading, and started for

the control room. He shuddered when he passed the room where Brion was

listening to a playback of his Disan efforts.

"Turn off that dying brontosaurus and get strapped in," he called

through the thin door. "We're coming to the point of optimum possibility

and we'll be dropping back into normal space soon."

The human mind can ponder the incredible distances between the stars,

but cannot possibly contain within itself a real understanding of them.

Marked out on a man's hand an inch is a large unit of measure. In

interstellar space a cubical area with sides a hundred-thousand miles

long is a microscopically fine division. Light crosses this distance in

a fraction of a second. To a ship moving with a relative speed far

greater than that of light, this measuring unit is even smaller.

Theoretically it appears impossible to find a particular area of this

size. Technologically it was a repeatable miracle that occurred too

often to even be interesting.

Brion and Ihjel were strapped in when the jump-drive cut off abruptly,

lurching them back into normal space and time. They didn't unstrap, just

sat and looked at the dimly distant pattern of stars. A single sun, of

apparent fifth magnitude was their only neighbor in this lost corner of

the universe. They waited while the computer took enough star sights to

triangulate a position in three dimensions, muttering to itself

electronically while it did the countless calculations to find their

position. A warning bell chimed and the drive cut on and off so quickly

the two acts seemed simultaneous. This happened again, twice, before the

brain was satisfied it had made as good a fix as possible and flashed a

NAVIGATION POWER OFF light. Ihjel unstrapped, stretched and made them a

meal.

Ihjel had computed their passage time with criminally precise

allowances. Less than ten hours after they arrived a powerful signal

blasted into their waiting receiver. They strapped in again as the

NAVIGATION POWER ON signal blinked insistently.

A ship had paused in flight somewhere relatively near in the vast volume

of space. It had entered normal space just long enough to emit a signal

of radio query on an assigned wave length. Ihjel's ship had detected

this and instantly responded with a verifying signal. The passenger

spacer had accepted this assurance and gracefully laid a ten-foot metal

egg in space. As soon as this had cleared its jump field the parent ship

vanished towards its destination, light-years away.

Ihjel's ship climbed up the signal it had received. This signal had been

recorded and examined minutely. Angle, strength and Doppler movement

were computed to find course and distance. A few minutes of flight were

enough to get within range of the far weaker transmitter in the

dropcapsule. Homing on this signal was so simple, a human pilot could

have done it himself. The shining sphere loomed up, then vanished out of

sight of the viewports as the ship rotated to bring the space lock into

line. Magnetic clamps cut in when they made contact.

"Go down and let the bug-doctor in," Ihjel said. "I'll stay and monitor

the board in case of trouble."

"What do I have to do?"

"Get into a suit and open the outer lock. Most of the drop sphere is

made of inflatable metallic foil so don't bother to look for the

entrance. Just cut a hole in it with the oversize can opener you'll find

in the tool box. After Dr. Morees gets aboard jettison the thing. Only

get the radio and locator unit out first--it gets used again."

The tool did look like a giant opener. Brion carefully felt the

resilient metal skin that covered the lock entrance, until he was sure

there was nothing on the other side. Then he jabbed the point through

and cut a ragged hole in the thin foil. Dr. Morees boiled out of the

sphere, knocking Brion aside.

"What's the matter?" Brion asked.

There was no radio on the other's suit, he couldn't answer. But he did

shake his fist angrily. The helmet ports were opaqued so there was no

way to tell what expression went with the gesture. Brion shrugged and

turned back to salvaging the equipment pack, pushing the punctured

balloon free and sealing the lock. When pressure was pumped back to

ship-normal he cracked his helmet and motioned the other to do the same.

"You're a pack of dirty lying dogs!" Dr. Morees said when the helmet

came off. Brion was completely baffled. Dr. Lea Morees had long dark

hair, large eyes and a delicately shaped mouth now taut with anger. Dr.

Morees was a woman.

"Are you the filthy swine responsible for this atrocity?" Lea asked

menacingly.

"In the control room," Brion said quickly, knowing when cowardice was

much preferable to valor. "A man named Ihjel. There's a lot of him to

hate, you can have a good time doing it. I just joined up myself--" He

was talking to her back as she stormed from the room. Brion hurried

after her, not wanting to miss the first human spark of interest in the

trip to date.

"Kidnaped! Lied to and forced against my will! There is no court in the

galaxy that won't give you the maximum sentence and I'll scream with

pleasure as they roll your fat body into solitary--"

"They shouldn't have sent a woman," Ihjel said, completely ignoring her

words. "I asked for a highly-qualified exobiologist for a difficult

assignment. Someone young and tough enough to do field work under severe

conditions. So the recruiting office sends me the smallest female they

can find, one who'll melt in the first rain."

"I will not!" Lea shouted. "Female resiliency is a well known fact and

I'm in far better condition than the average woman. Which has nothing to

do with what I'm telling you. I was hired for a job in the university on

Moller's World and signed a contract to that effect. Then this bully of

an agent tells me the contract has been changed, read sub paragraph

189-C or some such nonsense, and I'll be transshipping. He stuffed me

into that suffocation basketball without a by-your-leave and they threw

me overboard. If that is not a violation of personal privacy--"

"Cut a new course, Brion," Ihjel broke in. "Find the nearest settled

planet and head us there. We have to drop this woman and find a man for

this job. We are going to what is undoubtedly the most interesting

planet an exobiologist ever conceived of, but we need a man who can take

orders and not faint when it gets too hot."

Brion was lost. Ihjel had done all the navigating and Brion had no idea

how to begin a search like this.

"Oh no you don't," Lea said. "You don't get rid of me that easily. I

placed first in my class and most of the five-hundred other students

were male. This is only a man's universe because the men say so. What is

the name of this garden planet where we are going?"

"Dis. I'll give you a briefing as soon as I get this ship on course." He

turned to the controls and Lea slipped out of her suit and went into the

lavatory to comb her hair. Brion closed his mouth, aware suddenly it had

been open for a long time. "Is that what you call applied psychology?"

he asked.

"Not really. She was going to go along with the job in the end--since

she did sign the contract even if she didn't read the fine print--but

not until she had exhausted her feelings. I just shortened the process

by switching her onto the male-superiority hate. Most women, who succeed

in normally masculine fields, have a reflexive antipathy there, they

have been hit on the head with it so much." He fed the course tape into

the console and scowled. "But there was a good chunk of truth in what I

said. I wanted a young, fit and highly qualified biologist from

recruiting. I never thought they would find a female one. And it's too

late to send her back now. Dis is no place for a woman."

"Why?" Brion asked, as Lea appeared in the doorway.

"Come inside, and I'll show you both," Ihjel said.

V

"Dis," Ihjel said, consulting a thick file. "Third planet out from its

primary, Epsilon Eridani. The fourth planet is Nyjord--remember that

because it is going to be very important. Dis is a place you need a good

reason to visit and no reason at all to leave. Too hot, too dry, the

temperature in the temperate zones rarely drops below a hundred

Fahrenheit. The planet is nothing but scorched rock and burning sand.

Most of the water is underground and normally inaccessible. The surface

water is all in the form of briny, chemically saturated swamps.

Undrinkable without extensive processing. All the facts and figures are

here in the folders and you can study them later. Right now I want you

just to get the idea that this planet is as loathsome and inhospitable

as they come. So are the people. This is a solido of a Disan."

Lea gasped at the three-dimensional representation on the screen. Not at

the physical aspects of the man, as the biologist trained in the

specialty of alien life she had seen a lot stranger sights. It was the

man's pose, the expression on his face. Tensed to leap, his lips drawn

back to show all of his teeth.

"He looks like he wanted to kill the photographer," she said.

"He almost did--just after the picture was taken. Like all Disans he

has an overwhelming hatred and loathing of offworlders. Not without good

reason though. His planet was settled completely by chance during the

Breakdown. I'm not sure of the details, but the overall picture is

clear, since the story of their desertion forms the basis of all the

myths and animistic religions on Dis."

"Apparently there were large scale mining operations carried on there

once, the world is rich enough in minerals and mining it is very

simple." But water came only from expensive extraction processes and I

imagine most of the food came from offworld. Which was good enough until

the settlement was forgotten, the way a lot of other planets were during

the Breakdown. All the records were destroyed in the fighting and the

ore carriers pressed into military service. Dis was on its own. What

happened to the people there is a tribute to the adaptation

possibilities of Homo sapiens. Individuals died, usually in enormous

pain, but the race lived. Changed a good deal, but still human.

"As the water and food ran out and the extraction machinery broke down,

they must have made heroic efforts to survive. They didn't do it

mechanically, but by the time the last machine collapsed, enough people

were adjusted to the environment to keep the race going. Their

(Their? n. of transc.) descendants are still there, completely adapted

to the environment. Their body temperatures are around one hundred and

thirty degrees. They have specialized tissue in the gluteal area for

storing water. These are minor changes compared to the major ones they

have done in fitting themselves for this planet.

"I'm not sure of the exact details, but the reports are very

enthusiastic about symbiotic relationships. They assure us that this is

the first time Homo sapiens has been an active part of either

commensalism or inquilinism other than in the role of host."

"Wonderful!" Lea enthused.

"Is it?" Ihjel scowled. "Perhaps from the abstract scientific point of

view. If you can keep notes, perhaps you might write a book about it

some time. But I'm not interested. I'm sure all these morphological

changes and disgusting intimacies will fascinate you, Dr. Morees. But

while you are counting blood types and admiring your thermometers, I

hope you will be able to devote a little time to a study of the Disans'

obnoxious personalities. We must either find out what makes these people

tick--or we are going to have to stand by and watch the whole lot blown

up!"

"Going to do what?" Lea gasped. "Destroy them? Wipe out this fascinating

genetic pool? Why?"

"Because they are so incredibly loathsome, that's why!" Ihjel said.

"These aboriginal hotheads have managed to lay their hands on some

primitive cobalt bombs. They want to light the fuse and drop these bombs

on Nyjord, the next planet. Nothing said or done can convince them

differently. They demand unconditional surrender or else. This is

impossible for a lot of reasons--most important because the Nyjorders

would like to keep their planet for their very own. They have tried

every kind of compromise but none of them work. The Disans are out to

commit racial suicide. A Nyjord fleet is now over Dis and the deadline

has almost expired for the surrender of the cobalt bombs. The Nyjord

ships carry enough H-bombs to turn the entire planet into an atomic

pile. That is what we must stop."

* * * * *

[Illustration]

Brion looked at the solido on the screen, trying to make some judgment

of the man. Bare, horny feet--a bulky, ragged length of cloth around the

waist was the only garment. What looked like a piece of green vine was

hooked over one shoulder. From a plaited belt were suspended a number

of odd devices made of hand-beaten metal, drilled stone and looped

leather. The only recognizable one was a thin knife of unusual design.

Loops of piping, flared bells, carved stones tied in senseless patterns

of thonging gave the rest of the collection a bizarre appearance.

Perhaps they had some religious significance. But the well-worn and

handled look of most of them gave Brion an uneasy sensation. If they

were used--what in the universe could they be used _for_?

"I can't believe it," he finally concluded. "Except for the exotic

hardware, this lowbrow looks like he has sunk back into the stone age. I

don't see how his kind can be of any real threat to another planet."

"The Nyjorders believe it, and that's good enough for me," Ihjel said.

"They are paying our Cultural Relationships Foundation a good sum to try

and prevent this war. Since they are our employers, we must do what they

ask." Brion ignored this large lie, since it was obviously designed as

an explanation for Lea. But he made an mental note to query Ihjel later

about the real situation.

"Here are the tech reports." Ihjel dropped them on the table. "Dis has

some spacers as well as the cobalt bombs--though these are the real

threat. A tramp trader was picked up _leaving_ Dis. It had delivered a

jump-space launcher that can drop those bombs on Nyjord while anchored

to the bedrock of Dis. While essentially a peaceful and happy people the

Nyjorders were justifiably annoyed at this and convinced the tramp's

captain to give them some more information. It's all here. Boiled down

it gives a minimum deadline by which time the launcher can be set up and

start throwing bombs."

"When is that deadline?" Lea asked.

"In ten days. If the situation hasn't been changed drastically by then

the Nyjorders are going to wipe all life from the face of Dis. I assure

you they don't want to do it. But they will drop the bombs in order to

assure their own survival."

"What am I supposed to do?" Lea asked, annoyedly flipping the pages of

the report. "I don't know a thing about nucleonics or jump-space. I'm an

exobiologist with a supplementary degree in anthropology. What help

could I possibly be?"

Ihjel looked down at her, fondling his jaw, fingers sunk deep into the

rolls of flesh. "My faith in our recruiters is restored," he said.

"That's a combination that is probably rare--even on Earth. You're as

scrawny as an underfed chicken but young enough to survive if we keep a

close eye on you." He cut off Lea's angry protest with a raised hand.

"No more bickering. There isn't time. The Nyjorders must have lost over

thirty agents trying to find the bombs. Our Foundation has had six

people killed--including my late predecessor in charge of the project.

He was a good man, but I think he went at this problem the wrong way. I

think it is a cultural one, not a physical one."

"Run it through again with the power turned up," Lea said frowning. "All

I hear is static."

"It's the old problem of genesis. Like Newton and the falling apple,

Levy and the hysteresis in the warp field. Everything has a beginning.

If we can find out why these people are so hell-bent on suicide, we

might be able to change the reasons. Not that I intend to stop looking

for the bombs or the jump-space generator either. We are going to try

anything that will avert this planetary murder."

"You're a lot brighter than you look," Lea said, rising and carefully

stacking the sheets of the report. "You can count on me for complete

co-operation. Now I'll study all this in bed if one of you overweight

gentlemen will show me to a room with a strong lock on the inside of the

door. Don't call me, I'll call you when I want breakfast."

* * * * *

Brion wasn't sure how much of her barbed speech was humor and how much

serious, so he said nothing. He showed her to an empty cabin--she did

lock the door--then looked for Ihjel. The Winner was in the galley

adding to his girth with an immense gelatin dessert that filled a

good-sized tureen.

"Is she short for a native Terran?" Brion asked. "The top of her head is

below my chin."

"That's the norm. Earth is a reservoir of tired genes. Weak backs,

vermiform appendixes, bad eyes. If they didn't have the universities and

the trained people we need, I would never use them."

"Why did you lie to her about the Foundation?"

"Because it's a secret--isn't that reason enough?" Ihjel rumbled

angrily, scraping the last dregs from the bowl. "Better eat something.

Build up the strength. The Foundation has to maintain its undercover

status if it is going to accomplish anything. If she returns to Earth

after this, it's better that she should know nothing of our real work.

If she joins up, there'll be time enough to tell her. But I doubt if she

will like the way we operate. Particularly since I plan to drop some

H-bombs on Dis myself--if we can't turn off the war."

"I don't believe it!"

"You heard me correctly. Don't bulge your eyes and look moronic. As a

last resort I'll drop the bombs myself, rather than let the Nyjorders do

it. That might save them."

"Save them--they'd all be radiated and dead!" Brion's voice was raised

in anger.

"Not the Disans. I want to save the Nyjorders. Stop clenching your fists

and sit down and have some of this cake. It's delicious. The Nyjorders

are all that counts here. They have a planet blessed by the laws of

chance. When Dis was cut off from outside contact the survivors turned

into a gang of swamp-crawling homicidals. It did the opposite for

Nyjord. You can survive there just by pulling fruit off a tree."

"The population was small, educated, intelligent. Instead of sinking

into an eternal siesta they matured into a vitally different society.

Not mechanical--they weren't even using the wheel when they were

rediscovered. They became sort of cultural specialists, digging deep

into the philosophical aspects of interrelationship. The thing that

machine societies never have had time for. Of course this was ready made

for the Cultural Relationships Foundation, and we have been working

with them ever since. Not guiding so much as protecting them from any

blows that might destroy this growing idea. But we've fallen down on the

job."

"Nonviolence is essential to those people--they have vitality without

needing destruction. But if they are forced to blow up Dis for their own

survival--against every one of their basic tenets--their philosophy

won't endure. Physically they'll live on. As just one more dog-eat-dog

planet with an A-bomb for any of the competition who drop behind."

"Sounds like paradise now."

"Don't be smug. It's just another world full of people with the same old

likes, dislikes and hatreds. But they are evolving a way of living

together, without violence, that may some day form the key to mankind's

survival. They are worth looking after. Now get below and study your

Disan and read the reports. Get it all pat before we land."