"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 could."
"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 impressions 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 bare 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.
"I 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.
Do you 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 awhile.
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 touchdown."
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, but just sat and looked at the dimly distant pattern of
stars. A single sun, apparently of 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 that 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 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 drop-capsule. 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 spacelock 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 can-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 opaque, so there
was no way to tell what expressions 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?" Dr. Morees
asked menacingly.
"In the control room," Brion said quickly, knowing when cowardice
was 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.
"Kidnapped! 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 subparagraph 189-C or some such nonsense--and I'll be
transhipping. He stuffed me into that suffocating 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 folder 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 a 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 this teeth.
"He looks as if 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 them
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 were 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 couldn'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 descendants are still there, completely adapted to the
environment. Their body temperatures are around a 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 don't know
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 exclaimed.
"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 works. 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."
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 item
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 as if he has sunk back into the Stone
Age. I don't see how his kind can be 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 a 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 aren't
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 more 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, 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, stroking 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 cooperation. 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 was 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 rose
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 swampcrawling 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 these
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 worldful 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."