There is a special providence that looks over recent veterinary
graduates, Kennon reflected as he checked the monthly reports from the
Stations. Since the time he had laid down the law to Judson and Blalok,
he had had no trouble from the production staff. And for the past four
months there had been no further trouble with Hepatodirus. That unwanted
visitor had apparently been evicted. At that, they had been lucky. The
parasite had been concentrated at Hillside Station and had failed to
establish itself in the training area. The intermediate host, it had
turned out, was a small amphibian that was susceptible to commercial
insecticide. It had been no trouble to eradicate. Systemic treatment and
cooking of all food had cleaned up the infective cercaria and individual
infections, and after six months of intensive search, quarantine, and
investigation, Kennon was morally certain that the disease had been
eradicated. The last four reports confirmed his belief.
He sighed as he leaned back in his chair. Blalok was at last convinced
that his ideas were right. The hospital was operating as a hospital
should, with a staff of twelve Lani kept busy checking the full wards.
Actually, it was working better than it should, since stationmasters all
over the island were now shipping in sick animals rather than treating
them or requesting outpatient service.
“Hi, Doc,” Blalok said as he pushed the door open and looked into the
office. “You doing anything?”
“Not at the moment,” Kennon said. “Something troubling you?”
“No--just thought I’d drop in for a moment and congratulate you.”
“For what?”
“For surviving the first year.”
“That won’t be for two months yet.”
Blalok shook his head. “This is Kardon,” he said. “There’s only three
hundred and two days in our year, ten thirty-day months and two special
days at the year’s end.”
Kennon shrugged. “My contract is Galactic Standard. I still have two
months to go. But how come the ten-month year? Most other planets have
twelve, regardless of the number of days.”
“Old Alexander liked thirty-day months.”
“I’ve wondered about that.”
“You’ll find a lot more peculiar things about Flora when you get to know
her better. This year has just been a breaking-in period.”
Kennon chuckled. “It’s damn near broken me,” he admitted. “You know, I
thought that the Lani’d be my principal practice when I came here.”
“You didn’t figure that right. They’re the easiest part. They’re
intelligent and co-operative.”
“Which is more than one can say about the others.” Kennon wiped the
sweat from his face. “What with this infernal heat and their eternal
stubbornness, I’ve nearly been driven crazy.”
“You shouldn’t have laid out that vaccination program.”
“I had to. Your hog business was living mostly on luck, and the sheep
and shrakes were almost as bad. You can’t get away from soil saprophytes
no matter how clean you are. Under a pasture setup there’s always
a chance of contamination. And that old cliche about an ounce of
prevention is truer of livestock raising than anything else I can think
of.”
“I have some more good news for you,” Blalok said. “That’s why I came
over. We’re going to have another species to treat and vaccinate.”
Kennon groaned. “Now what?”
“Poultry.” Blalok’s voice was disgusted. “Personally I think it’s a
mess, but Alexander thinks it’s profitable. Someone’s told him that
pound for pound chickens are the most efficient feed converters of all
the domestic animals. So we’re getting a pilot plant: eggs, incubator,
and a knocked-down broiler battery so we can try the idea out.
The Boss-man is always hot on new ideas to increase efficiency and
production. The only trouble is that he fails to consider the work
involved in setting up another operation.”
“You’re so right. I’ll have to brush up on pullorum, ornithosis,
coccidosis, leukosis, perosis, and Ochsner knows how many other-osises
and--itises. I was never too strong on fowl practice in school, and I’d
be happier if I never had anything to do with them.”
“So would I,” Blalok agreed. “I can’t see anything in this but trouble.”
Kennon nodded.
“And he’s forgotten something else,” Blalok added. “Poultry need
concentrated feed. We’re going to have to install a feed mill.”
Kennon chuckled. “I hope he’ll appreciate the bill he gets.”
“He thinks we can use local labor,” Blalok said gloomily. “I wish he’d
realize that Lani are technological morons.”
“They could learn.”
“I suppose so--but it isn’t easy. And besides, Allworth is the only man
with feed-mill experience, and he’s up to his ears with Hillside Station
since that expansion order came in.”
“I never did get the reason for that. After we complained about the
slavery implications and got the Boss-man’s okay to hold the line, why
do we need more Lani?”
“Didn’t you know? His sister’s finally decided to try marriage. Found
herself some overmuscled Halsite who looked good to her--but she
couldn’t crack his moral barrier.” Blalok grinned. “I thought you’d be
the first to know. Wasn’t she interested in you?”
Kennon chuckled. “You could call it that. Interested--like the way a
dog’s interested in a beefsteak. It’s a good thing we had that fluke
problem or I’d have been chewed up and digested long ago. That woman
frightens me.”
“I could be scared by uglier things,” Blalok said. “With the Boss-man’s
sister on my side I wouldn’t worry.”
“What makes you think she’d be on my side? She’s a cannibal.”
“Well, you know her better than I do.”
He did--he certainly did. That first month had been one of the worst he
had ever spent, Kennon reflected. Between Eloise and the flukes, he had
nearly collapsed--and when it had come to the final showdown, he thought
for a while that he’d be looking for another job. But Alexander had been
more than passably understanding and had refused his sister’s passionate
pleas for a Betan scalp. He owed a debt of gratitude to the Boss-man.
“You’re lucky you never knew her,” Kennon said.
“That all depends on what you mean,” Blalok said as he grinned and
walked to the door. The parting shot missed its mark entirely as Kennon
looked at him with blank incomprehension. “You should have been a
Mystic,” Blalok said. “A knowledge of the sacred books would do you no
end of good.” And with that cryptic remark the superintendent vanished.
“That had all the elements of a snide remark,” Kennon murmured to
himself, “but my education’s been neglected somewhere along the line. I
don’t get it.” He shrugged and buzzed for Copper. The veterinary report
would have to be added to the pile already before him, and the Boss-man
liked to have his reports on time.
Copper watched Kennon as he dictated the covering letter, her slim
fingers dancing over the stenotype. He had been here a full year--but
instead of becoming a familiar object, he had grown so gigantic that
he filled her world. And it wasn’t merely because he was young and
beautiful. He was kind, too.
Yet she couldn’t approach him, and she wanted to so desperately that
it was a physical pain. Other Lani had told her about men and what they
could do. Even her old preceptress at Hillside Station had given her
some advice when Man Allworth had tattooed the tiny V on her thigh that
meant she had been selected for the veterinary staff. And when Old Doc
had brought her from the Training Station to the hospital and removed
her tail, she was certain that she was one of the lucky ones who would
know love.
But love wasn’t a pain in the chest, an ache in the belly and thighs, an
unfulfilled longing that destroyed sleep and made food tasteless. Love
was supposed to be pleasant and exciting. She could remember every word
her preceptress had spoken.
“My little one,” the old Lani had said, “you now wear the doctor’s mark.
And soon no one will be able to tell you from a human. You will look
like our masters. You will share in their work. And there may be times
when you will find favor in their eyes. Then you may learn of love.
“Love,” the old voice was soft in Copper’s ears. “The word is almost a
stranger to us now, known only to the few who serve our masters. It was
not always so. The Old Ones knew love before Man Alexander came. And
our young were the fruit of love rather than the product of our masters’
cunning. But you may know the flower even though you cannot bear its
fruit. You may enter that world of pleasure-pain the Old Ones knew, that
world which is now denied us.
“But remember always that you are a Lani. A man may be kind to you. He
may treat you gently. He may show you love. Yet you never will be his
equal. Nor must you become too attached to him, for you are not human.
You are not his natural mate. You cannot bear his young. You cannot
completely share. You can only accept.
“So if love should come to you, take it and enjoy it, but do not try to
possess it. For there lies heartache rather than happiness. And it is
a world of heartache, my little one, to long for something which you
cannot have.”
To long for something which one cannot have! Copper knew that feeling.
It had been with her ever since Kennon had come into her life that
night a year ago. And it had grown until it had become gigantic. He
was kind--yes. He was harsh--occasionally. Yet he had shown her no more
affection than he would have shown a dog. Less--for he would have petted
a dog and he did not touch her.
He laughed, but she was not a part of his laughter. He needed her, but
the need was that of a builder for a tool. He liked her and sometimes
shared his problems and triumphs with her, and sometimes his defeats,
but he did not love. There had never been for her the bright fierce look
he had bent upon the Woman Eloise those times when she had come to him,
the look men gave to those who found favor in their eyes.
Had he looked at her but once with that expression she would have come
to him though fire barred the way. The Woman Eloise was a fool.
Copper looked at him across the corner of the desk, the yellow hair, the
bronze skin, firm chin, soft lips and long straight nose, the
narrowed eyes, hooded beneath thick brows, scanning the papers in his
lean-tendoned hands. His nearness was an ache in her body--yet he was
far away.
She thought of how his hands would feel upon her. He had touched her
once, and that touch had burned like hot iron. For hours she had felt
it. He looked up. Her heart choked her with its beating. She would die
for him if he would but once run his fingers over her tingling skin, and
stroke her hair.
The naked emotion in Copper’s face was readable enough, Kennon thought.
One didn’t need Sorovkin techniques to interpret what was in her mind.
And it would have been amusing if it weren’t so sad. For what she
wanted, he couldn’t give. Yet if she were human it would be easy. A
hundred generations of Betan moral code said “never,” yet when he looked
at her their voices faded. He was a man--a member of the ruling race.
She was an animal--a beast--a humanoid--near human but not near enough.
To like her was easy--but to love her was impossible. It would be
bestiality. Yet his body, less discerning than his mind, responded to
her nearness.
He sighed. It was a pleasant unpleasantness, a mixed emotion he could
not analyze. In a way it was poetry--the fierce, vaguely disquieting
poetry of the sensual Santosian bards--the lyrics that sung of the joys
of flesh. He had never really liked them, yet they filled him with a
vague longing, an odd uneasiness--just the sort that filled him now.
There was a deadly parallel here. He sighed.
“Yes, sir? Do you want something?” Copper asked.
“I could use a cup of coffee,” he said. “These reports are getting me
down.” The banality amused him--sitting here thinking of Copper and
talking about coffee. Banality was at once the curse and the saving
grace of mankind. It kept men from the emotional peaks and valleys that
could destroy them. He chuckled shakily. The only alternative would be
to get rid of her--and he couldn’t (or wouldn’t?--the question intruded
slyly) do that.
Copper returned with a steaming cup which she set before him. Truly,
this coffee was a man’s drink. She had tried it once but the hot
bitterness scalded her mouth and flooded her body with its heat. And she
had felt so lightheaded. Not like herself at all. It wasn’t a drink for
Lani. Of that she was certain.
Yet he enjoyed it. He looked at her and smiled. He was pleased with
her. Perhaps--yet--she might find favor in his eyes. The hope was always
there within her--a hope that was at once fear and prayer. And if she
did--she would know what to do.
Kennon looked up. Copper’s face was convulsed with a bright mixture of
hope and pain. Never, he swore, had he saw anything more beautiful or
sad. Involuntarily he placed his hand upon her arm. She flinched, her
muscles tensing under his finger tips. It was though his fingers carried
a galvanic current that backlashed up his arm even as it stiffened hers.
“What’s the matter, Copper?” he asked softly.
“Nothing, Doctor. I’m just upset.”
“Why?”
There it was again, the calm friendly curiosity that was worse than a
bath in ice water. Her heart sank. She shivered. She would never find
her desire here. He was cold--cold--cold! He wouldn’t see. He didn’t
care. All right--so that was how it had to be. But first she would tell
him. Then he could do with her as he wished. “I hoped--for the past year
that you would see me. That you would think of me not as a Lani, but as
a beloved.” The words came faster now, tumbling over one another. “That
you would desire me and take me to those worlds we cannot know unless
you humans show us. I have hoped so much, but I suppose it’s wrong--for
you--you are so very human, and I--well, I’m not!” The last three words
held all the sadness and the longing of mankind aspiring to be God.
“My dear--my poor child,” Kennon murmured.
She looked at him, but her eyes could not focus on his face, for his
hands were on her shoulders and the nearness of him drove the breath
from her body. From a distance she heard a hard tight voice that was her
own. “Oh, sir--oh please, sir!”
The hands withdrew, leaving emptiness--but her heartbeat slowed and the
pink haze cleared and she could see his face.
And with a surge of terror and triumph she realized what she saw! That
hard bright look that encompassed and possessed her! The curved lips
drawn over white, white teeth! The flared nostrils! The hungry demand
upon his face that answered the demand in her heart! And she knew--at
last--with a knowledge that turned her limbs to water, that she had
found favor in his eyes!