XII

On Brion's desk when he came in, were two neat piles of paper. As he sat

down and reached for them he was conscious of an arctic coldness in the

air, a frigid blast. It was coming from the air-conditioner grille

which was now covered by welded steel bars. The control unit was sealed

shut. Someone was either being very funny or very efficient. Either way

it was cold. Brion kicked at the cover plate until it buckled, then bent

it aside. After a careful look into the interior he disconnected one

wire and shorted it to another. He was rewarded by a number of

sputtering cracks and a good quantity of smoke. The compressor moaned

and expired.

Faussel was standing in the door with more papers and a shocked

expression. "What do you have there?" Brion asked. Faussel managed to

straighten out his face and brought the folders to the desk, arranging

them on the piles already there.

"These are the progress reports you asked for, from all units. Details

to date, conclusions, suggestions, et cetera."

"And the other pile?" Brion pointed.

"Offplanet correspondence, commissary invoices, requisitions," he

straightened the edges of the stack while he answered. "Daily report,

hospital log--" His voice died away and stopped as Brion carefully

pushed the stack off the edge of the desk into the wastebasket.

"In other words, red tape," Brion said. "Well it's all filed."

One by one the progress reports followed the first stack into the

basket, until his desk was clear. Nothing. It was just what he had

expected. But there had always been the off-chance that one of the

specialists could come up with a new approach. They hadn't, they were

all too busy specializing.

Outside the sky was darkening. The front entrance guard had been told to

let in anyone who came asking for the director. There was nothing else

Brion could do until the Nyjord rebels made contact. Irritation bit at

him. At least Lea was doing something constructive, he could look in on

her.

He opened the door to the lab with a feeling of pleasant anticipation.

It froze and shattered instantly. Her microscope was hooded and she was

gone. _She's having dinner_, he thought, _or--she's in the hospital_.

The hospital was on the floor below and he went there first.

"Of course she's here!" Dr. Stine grumbled. "Where else should a girl in

her condition be? She was out of bed long enough today. Tomorrow's the

last day, and if you want to get any more work out of her before the

deadline, you have better let her rest tonight. Better let the whole

staff rest. I've been handing out tranquilizers like aspirin all day.

They're falling apart."

"The world's falling apart. How is Lea doing?"

"Considering her shape she's fine. Go in and see for yourself if you

won't take my word for it. I have other patients to look at."

"Are you that worried, doctor?"

"Of course I am! I'm just as prone to the ills of the flesh as the rest

of you. We're sitting on a ticking bomb and I don't like it. I'll do my

job as long as it is necessary, but I'll also be glad to see the ships

land to pull us out. The only skin that I really feel emotionally

concerned about right now is my own. And if you want to be let in on a

public secret--the rest of your staff feels the same way. So don't look

forward to too much efficiency."

"I never did," Brion said.

* * * * *

Lea's room was dark, illuminated only by the light of Dis' moon slanting

in the window. Brion let himself in and closed the door behind him.

Walking quietly he went over to the bed. She was sleeping soundly, her

breathing gentle and regular. A night's sleep now would do as much good

as all the medication.

He should have gone then, instead he sat down in the chair placed next

to the head of the bed. The guards knew where he was, he could wait here

just as well as any place else.

It was a stolen moment of peace on a world at the brink of destruction.

He was grateful for it. Everything looked less harsh in the moonlight

and he rubbed some of the tension from his eyes. Lea's face was ironed

smooth by the light, beautiful and young; a direct contrast to

everything else on this poisonous world. Her hand was outside of the

covers and he took it in his own, obeying a sudden impulse. Looking out

of the window at the desert in the distance, he let the peace wash over

him, forcing himself to forget for the moment that in one more day life

would be stripped from this planet.

Later, when he looked back at Lea he saw that her eyes were open, though

she hadn't moved. How long had she been awake? He jerked his hand away

from hers, feeling suddenly guilty.

"Is the boss-man looking after the serfs, to see if they're fit for the

treadmill in the morning?" she asked. It was the kind of remark she had

used with such frequency in the ship, though it didn't sound quite as

harsh now. And she was smiling. Yet it reminded him too well of her

superior attitude towards the rubes from the stellar sticks. Here he

might be the director, but on ancient Earth he would be only one more

gaping yokel.

"How do you feel?" he asked, realizing and hating the triteness of the

words, even as he said them.

"Terrible. I'll be dead by morning. Reach me a piece of fruit from that

bowl, will you? My mouth tastes like an old boot heel. Wonder how fresh

fruit ever got here? Probably a gift to the working classes from the

smiling planetary murderers on Nyjord," she took the apple Brion gave

her and bit into it. "Did you ever think of going to Earth?"

Brion was startled, this was too close to his own thoughts about

planetary backgrounds. There couldn't possibly be a connection though.

"Never," he told her. "Up until a few months ago I never even considered

leaving Anvhar. The Twenties are such a big thing at home that it is

hard to imagine that anything else exists while you are still taking

part in them."

"Spare me the Twenties," she pleaded. "After listening to you and Ihjel

I know far more about them than I shall ever care to know. But what

about Anvhar itself? Do you have big city-states like Earth?"

"Nothing like that. For its size it has a very small population. No big

cities at all. I guess the largest centers of population are around the

schools, packing plants, things like that."

"Any exobiologists there?" Lea asked, with a woman's eternal ability to

make any general topic personal.

"At the universities, I suppose, though I wouldn't know for sure. And

you must realize that when I say no big cities, I also mean no little

cities. We aren't organized that way at all. I imagine the basic

physical unit is family and the circle of friends. Friends get important

quickly since the family breaks up when children are still relatively

young. Something in the genes I suppose, we all enjoy being alone.

Suppose you might call it an inbred survival trait."

"Up to a point," she said, biting delicately into the apple. "Carry that

sort of thing too far and you end up with no population at all. A

certain amount of proximity is necessary for that."

"Of course there is. And there must be some form of recognized

relationship or control--that or complete promiscuity. On Anvhar the

emphasis is on personal responsibility, and that seems to take care of

the problem. If we didn't have an adult way of looking at ... things,

our kind of life would be impossible. Individuals are brought together

either by accident or design, and with this proximity must be some

certainty of relations--"

"You're losing me," Lea protested. "Either I'm still foggy from the dope

or you are suddenly unable to speak a word of less than four syllables

in length. You know--whenever this happens with you I get the distinct

impression that you are trying to cover up something. For Occam's sake

be specific! Bring together two of these hypothetical individuals and

tell me what happens."

* * * * *

Brion took a deep breath. He was in over his head and far from shore.

"Well--take a bachelor like myself. Since I like cross-country skiing I

make my home in this big house our family has, right at the edge of the

Broken Hills. In summer I looked after a drumtum herd, but after

slaughtering my time was my own all winter. I did a lot of skiing, and

used to work for the Twenties. Sometimes I would go visiting. Then

again, people would drop in on me--houses are few and far between on

Anvhar. We don't even have locks on our front doors. You accept and give

hospitality without qualification. Whoever comes. Male--female--in

groups or just traveling alone--"

"I get the drift. Life must be dull for a single girl on your iceberg

planet, she must surely have to stay home a lot."

"Only if she wants to. Otherwise she can go wherever she wishes and be

welcomed as another individual. I suppose it is out of fashion in the

rest of the galaxy--and would probably raise a big laugh on Earth--but a

platonic, disinterested friendship between man and woman is an accepted

thing on Anvhar."

"Sounds exceedingly dull. If you are all such cool and distant friends,

what keeps your birthrate going?"

Brion felt his ears flushing, not quite sure if he was being teased or

not. "There are plenty of happy marriages. But it is up to the woman

always to indicate if she is interested in a man. A girl who isn't

interested won't get any proposals. I imagine this is a lot different

from other planets--but so is our world. The system works well enough

for us."

"Just about the opposite of Earth," Lea told him, dropping the apple

core into a dish and carefully licking the tips of her fingers. "I guess

you Anvharians would describe Earth as a planetary hotbed of sin. The

reverse of your system, and going full blast all the time. There are far

too many people there for comfort. Birth control came late and is still

being fought--if you can possibly imagine that. There are just too many

crack-brained ideas that have been long entrenched in custom. The

world's overcrowded. Men, women, children, a boiling mob wherever you

look. And all of the physically mature ones seem to be involved in the

Great Game of Love. The male is always the aggressor, and women take the

most outrageous kinds of flattery for granted. At parties these are

always a couple of hot breaths of passion fanning your neck. A girl has

to keep her spike heels filed sharp."

"She has to _what_--?"

"A figure of speech, Brion. Meaning you fight back all the time, if you

don't want to be washed under by the flood."

"Sounds rather"--Brion weighed the word before he said it, but could

find none other suitable--"repellent."

"From your point of view, it would be. I'm afraid we get so used to it

that we even take it for granted. Sociologically speaking--" She stopped

and looked at Brion's straight back and almost rigid posture. Her eyes

widened and her mouth opened in an unspoken _oh_ of sudden realization.

"I'm being a fool," she said. "You weren't speaking generally at all!

You had a very specific subject in mind. Namely _me_!"

"Please, Lea, you must understand--"

"But I do!" she laughed. "All the time I thought you were being a frigid

and hard-hearted lump of ice, you were really being very sweet. Just

playing the game in good old Anvharian style. Waiting for a sign from

me. We'd still be playing by different rules if you hadn't had more

sense than I, and finally realized that somewhere along the line we must

have got our signals mixed. And I thought you were some kind of frosty

offworld celibate." She let her hand go out and her fingers rustled

through his hair. Something she had been wanting to do for a long time.

"I had to," he said, trying to ignore the light touch of her fingers.

"Because I thought so much of you, I couldn't have done anything to

insult you. Until I began to worry where the insult would lie, since I

knew nothing about your planet's mores."

"Well you know now," she said very softly. "The men aggress. Now that I

understand, I think I like your way better. But I'm still not sure of

all the rules. Do I explain that yes, Brion, I like you so very much?

You are more man, in one great big wide shouldered lump, than I have

ever met before--"

His arms were around her, holding her to him, and their lips sought each

other's in the darkness.