"We ought to scrape this planet clean of every living thing on it,"
muttered Umbo Stetson, section chief of Investigation & Adjustment.
Stetson paced the landing control bridge of his scout cruiser. His
footsteps grated on a floor that was the rear wall of the bridge during
flight. But now the ship rested on its tail fins--all four hundred
glistening red and black meters of it. The open ports of the bridge
looked out on the jungle roof of Gienah III some one hundred fifty
meters below. A butter yellow sun hung above the horizon, perhaps an
hour from setting.
"Clean as an egg!" he barked. He paused in his round of the bridge,
glared out the starboard port, spat into the fire-blackened circle that
the cruiser's jets had burned from the jungle.
The I-A section chief was dark-haired, gangling, with large head and big
features. He stood in his customary slouch, a stance not improved by
sacklike patched blue fatigues. Although on this present operation he
rated the flag of a division admiral, his fatigues carried no insignia.
There was a general unkempt, straggling look about him.
Lewis Orne, junior I-A field man with a maiden diploma, stood at the
opposite port, studying the jungle horizon. Now and then he glanced at
the bridge control console, the chronometer above it, the big translite
map of their position tilted from the opposite bulkhead. A heavy planet
native, he felt vaguely uneasy on this Gienah III with its gravity of
only seven-eighths Terran Standard. The surgical scars on his neck where
the micro-communications equipment had been inserted itched maddeningly.
He scratched.
"Hah!" said Stetson. "Politicians!"
A thin black insect with shell-like wings flew in Orne's port, settled
in his close-cropped red hair. Orne pulled the insect gently from his
hair, released it. Again it tried to land in his hair. He ducked. It
flew across the bridge, out the port beside Stetson.
There was a thick-muscled, no-fat look to Orne, but something about his
blocky, off-center features suggested a clown.
"I'm getting tired of waiting," he said.
"_You're_ tired! Hah!"
A breeze rippled the tops of the green ocean below them. Here and there,
red and purple flowers jutted from the verdure, bending and nodding like
an attentive audience.
"Just look at that blasted jungle!" barked Stetson. "Them and their
stupid orders!"
A call bell tinkled on the bridge control console. The red light above
the speaker grid began blinking. Stetson shot an angry glance at it.
"Yeah, Hal?"
"O.K., Stet. Orders just came through. We use Plan C. ComGO says to
brief the field man, and jet out of here."
"Did you ask them about using another field man?"
Orne looked up attentively.
The speaker said: "Yes. They said we have to use Orne because of the
records on the _Delphinus_."
"Well then, will they give us more time to brief him?"
"Negative. It's crash priority. ComGO expects to blast the planet
anyway."
Stetson glared at the grid. "Those fat-headed, lard-bottomed,
pig-brained ... POLITICIANS!" He took two deep breaths, subsided. "O.K.
Tell them we'll comply."
"One more thing, Stet."
"What now?"
"I've got a confirmed contact."