Kennon stopped at Blalok’s house long enough to tell the superintendent
what was causing the trouble. Blalok scowled. “We’ve never had flukes
here before,” he said. “Why should they appear now?”
“They’ve been introduced,” Kennon said. “The thing that bothers me is
how Dr. Williamson missed them.”
“The old man was senile,” Blalok said. “He was nearly blind the last six
months of his life. I wouldn’t doubt that he let his assistants do most
of his work, and they could have missed them.”
“Possibly, but the lesions are easy to see. At any rate, the culprit is
known now.”
“Culprit?”
“Hepatodirus hominis--the human liver fluke. He’s a tricky little
fellow--travels almost as far as men do.”
“I’m glad it’s your problem, not mine. All I can remember about flukes
is that they’re hard to eradicate.”
“Particularly H. hominis.”
“You can tell me about it later. Right now Mr. Alexander’s over at
Old--your house. Probably he’s looking for you.”
“Where’s Jordan?”
“He went up to Station Fourteen. We’ll see him tomorrow.”
“I’ll say good night then,” Kennon said.
“I’m glad you’re here. It’s a load off my shoulders. See you tomorrow.”
Blalok waved a friendly good night and left the lights on long enough
for Kennon to make his way to his quarters.
Alexander was seated in a heavily upholstered chair listening to a taped
symphony in the stereo, his eyes half closed, an expression of peace
on his face. An elderly Lani stood beside him. It was a comfortable
picture.
The humanoid saw Kennon and gasped, a tiny indrawn sound of surprise.
Alexander’s eyes snapped open. “Oh--it’s you,” he said. “Don’t worry,
Kara--it’s your new doctor.”
Kara smiled. “You startled me,” she said. “I was dreaming.”
“On your feet?” Alexander interjected idly.
“I should have known you at once, Doctor. There’s talk about you all
over the yards, ever since you arrived.”
“They know what is going on around here better than any of us,”
Alexander chuckled. “The grapevine is amazingly efficient. Well--what’s
the story?”
“Liver fluke.”
“Hmm--not good.”
“I think it can be stopped. I looked at the records. It doesn’t seem to
have been here too long.”
“I hope you’re right. How long will it take?”
“Several months, maybe a year, maybe more. I can’t say. But I’ll try to
clean it up as quickly as possible. I’m pretty sure of the fluke, and
it’s a hard one to control.”
“Hepatodirus?”
Kennon nodded.
“That’s an offworld parasite, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It originated on Santos. Parasitized the Varl originally, but
liked humans better. It’s adapted to a hundred different planetary
environments, and it keeps spreading. It’s a real cutie--almost
intelligent the way it behaves. But it can be licked.”
“Good--get on it right away.”
“I’m starting tomorrow.”
“Fine--I thought you’d be the right man. Kara! Fix the doctor a drink.
We might as well have a nightcap--then I’ll go back to the house and
listen to Henry and Anne’s screams about poor mistreated Douglas, and
then back to Albertsville tomorrow. Duty and the credits call.”
With mild surprise, Kennon realized that Alexander was drunk. Not
obnoxiously, but enough to change his character. Intoxicated, he was a
friendlier person. If there was any truth in the ancient cliche
about alcohol bringing out a man’s true character, then Alexander was
basically a very nice person indeed.
“Well--here’s your home for the next five years,” Alexander said. “Eight
rooms, two baths, a freshener, and three Lani to keep the place running.
You’ve got it made.”
“Perhaps--we’ll see when we tackle this fluke infestation. Personally, I
don’t think I’m going to have an easy time. Tomorrow I’m going to be up
to my neck in trouble trying to save your profits.”
“You’ll do it. I have confidence in you.”
“I still think you should have hired a medic.”
“This isn’t all of your job,” Alexander said. “And besides I can’t
afford to do it. Oh--not the money, but it might be admitting that the
Lani might be human. And we’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to prove
they’re not.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “There’s a story
behind this.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.”
“Maybe it’d be better if I told it. It goes back over four centuries.
Grandfather was a clever man. After he had secured this island he
became worried about the surviving Lani. He didn’t want to be accused
of genocide, since the Lani were so human in appearance. So he had his
medical officer make a few autopsies. The M.D. reported that while there
was similarity, the Lani were probably not human.
“That was enough for Grandfather. He requested a Court of Inquiry. The
court was sitting in Halsey and the hearing was private. Even so, it
leaked and Grandfather was highly unpopular for a time until the lab
reports came in. It cost him over eight hundred Ems and nearly two
years’ time to finish the case, but when it was over the Lani were
declared alien, and Grandfather had ironclad discovery rights.
“They really put him through the mill. Grandfather furnished the bodies
and three court-appointed M.O.’s went through them with microscopes.
They didn’t miss a thing. Their reports are so detailed that they’re
classics of their kind. They’re almost required reading for anyone
who wants to learn Lani structure and function. The court rendered
an interim decision that the Lani were nonhuman, and armed with this,
Grandfather prepared the final tests which were run by a team of
court-appointed medics and biologists, who made in vitro and live tests
on a number of Lani female prisoners. The tests ran for over two years
and were totally negative. So the Alexander family acquired Flora and
the Otpens, and a legal status.” Alexander stood up. “Well--that’s a
capsule summary. The records are in the library if you’d care to check
them.”
“Why?”
“Just to prove we’re honest.” He moved carefully toward the door, opened
it, and disappeared into the night.
Silently Kennon watched him descend the porch steps. He seemed steady
enough. For a moment Kennon debated whether he should see him home--and
then decided against it. If Alexander needed help he’d have asked for
it. As it was, it was better to leave things alone. Certainly he didn’t
know Alexander well enough to act as a guardian. He turned back to the
living area. The stereo was playing something soft and nostalgic as
Kennon sank into the chair Alexander had vacated. He let his body relax.
It had been as full a day as he had ever spent filled with changes
so abrupt that they were exhausting. He felt confused. There were no
precedents he could apply. Neither his studies nor his travels had
prepared him for living in a situation like this.
Legally and biologically the Lani weren’t human. But they were
intelligent, upright, bipedal mammals whose morphology was so close to
man’s that it had taken the ultimate test to settle their status. And
being a Betan, Kennon was suspicious of the accuracy of that ultimate
test.
But the Brotherhood of Man was based upon it. The feeling of unity that
pervaded mankind’s expanding empire was its product. From almost the
beginning of mankind’s leap to the stars it had been recognized that men
must help each other or perish. The spirit of co-operation against the
common enmity of alien worlds and cultures transcended the old petty
rivalries on Earth. Men--all men--were brothers in arms.
And so the Brotherhood was born--and the concept born of necessity
developed its muscles in a thousand battles on a thousand hostile
worlds. And ultimately it evolved into the only form of central
authority that men would accept. Yet basically it was not a government.
It was an attitude of mind. Men accepted its decisions as they would
accept the rulings of a family council, and for the same reasons.
The Brotherhood laid down certain rules but it did not attempt to
enforce them. After all, it didn’t need to. It also arbitrated disputes,
admitted new worlds to membership, and organized concerted human effort
against dangerous enemies. And that was all. Yet in its sphere the
authority of the Brotherhood was absolute.
There was only one criterion for membership in the
Brotherhood--membership in the human race. No matter how decadent or
primitive a population might be, if it was human it was automatically
eligible for Brotherhood--a free and equal partner in the society of
human worlds.
Kennon doubted that any nonhuman race had ever entered the select circle
of humanity, although individuals might have done so. A docked Lani, for
instance, would probably pass unquestioned as a human, but the Lani race
would not. In consequence they and their world were fair prey, and had
been attacked and subjugated.
Of course, proof of inhumanity was seldom a problem. Most alien life
forms were obviously alien. But there were a few--like the Lani--where
similarities were so close that it was impossible to determine their
status on the basis of morphology alone. And so the Humanity Test had
come into being.
Essentially it was based upon species compatibility--on the concept that
like can interbreed with like. Tests conducted on every inhabited world
in the Brotherhood had proven this conclusively. Whatever changes had
taken place in the somatic characteristics of mankind since the Exodus,
they had not altered the compatibility of human germ plasm. Man could
interbreed with man--aliens could not. The test was simple. The results
were observable. And what was more important, everyone could understand
it. No definition of humanity could be more simple or direct.
But was it accurate?
Like other Betans, Kennon wondered. It was--so far--probably. The
qualifying phrases were those of the scientist, that strange breed that
refuses to accept anything as an established fact until it is proven
beyond a shadow of a doubt. After all, the human race had been
spaceborne for only six thousand years--scarcely time for any real
differences to develop. But physical changes had already appeared--and
it would only be a question of time before these would probably be
followed by genetic changes. And in some groups the changes might be
extensive enough to make them genetic strangers to the rest of humanity.
What would happen then? No one knew. Actually no one bothered to think
about it except for a few far-seeing men who worried as they saw.
Probably.
Might.
Possibly.
If.
Four words. But because of them the Betans were slowly withdrawing from
the rest of humanity. Already the radiations of Beta’s variant-G sun had
produced changes in the population. Little things like tougher
epidermis and depilation of body hair--little things that held alarming
implications to Beta’s scientists, and to Beta’s people. Not too many
generations hence a Betan outside his home system would be a rarity,
and in a few millennia the Betan system itself would be a closed enclave
peopled by humans who had deviated too far from the basic stock to
mingle with it in safety.
Of course, the Brotherhood itself might be changed by that time, but
there was no assurance that this would happen. And mankind had a history
of dealing harshly with its mutants. So Beta would play it safe.
Kennon wondered if there were other worlds in the Brotherhood that had
come to the same conclusion. Possibly there were. And possibly there
were worlds where marked deviations had occurred. There wasn’t a year
that passed that didn’t bring some new human world into the Brotherhood,
and many of these had developed from that cultural explosion during the
First Millennium known as the Exodus, where small groups of colonists in
inadequate ships set out for unannounced goals to homestead new worlds
for man. Some of these survived, and many were being discovered even
at this late date. But so far none had any difficulty in proving their
human origin.
The Lani, conceivably, could have been descendants of one of these
groups, which probably explained the extreme care the Brotherhood
courts had taken with their case. But they had failed the test, and
were declared animals. Yet it was possible that they had mutated beyond
genetic compatibility. If they had, and if it were proved, here was a
test case that could rock the galaxy--that could shake the Brotherhood
to its very foundations--that could force a re-evaluation of the
criteria of humanity.
Kennon grinned. He was a fine employee. Here he was, less than a full
day on the job, dreaming how he could ruin his employer, shake the
foundation of human civilization, and force ten thousand billion humans
to change their comfortable habit patterns and their belief in the
unchangeable sameness of men. He was, he reflected wryly, an incurable
romantic.