Nef raised the corner of the sheet with a hand that seemed infinitely
weary. The body was Paula Piacentelli. "Another accident," the Colonel
grunted.
A hydroponics corporal, S.C., spoke up. "She was relieved of duty as
soon as she heard about her husband's death, sir. Someone should have
stayed with her. She went up to Level Eight to be alone. There are only
two of us on duty there through the night. She must have blundered off
the walkway, blinded by her tears. However it happened, she caught
hold of a lighting-cable where the insulation was frayed, and was
electrocuted the moment she touched the wet seeding-bed. Colonel Nef
found her there."
"I was going to console her on Gabriel Piacentelli's death," Nef said.
"Leave the body here and clear out, all of you." No refrigeration was
needed for Paula's corpse, of course. An uncontaminated Axenite was
preserved by purity. The body might dry a bit, the integrity of the
internal organs suffer somewhat from the corrosive effects of their own
juices: but Paula's corpse would otherwise remain uncorrupted until
taken outside and buried in bug-dirt. "Hartford," Nef said, "I'd like
to have a talk with you."
"I'm still on O.G., sir," Hartford said.
"And I relieve you of that duty," Nef snapped. "Come up to my quarters."
Nasty Nef's sitting-room had the only window in the Barracks, a
skylight through which poured the brilliance of Kansas's pyrotechnic
flood of stars. "Rest, Hartford. Sit down. Brandy?"
Hartford allowed that he could use some.
"What do you think of tonight's adventure, Lee?" Nef asked. "Don't look
startled. I know the first name of every officer and non-com in the
Regiment."
"What happened, sir, was horrible," Hartford said.
"I understand your feelings," Nef said. "Two tragic accidents, killing
your two closest friends the same night. I am certain that the loss
of these comrades will fire your zeal for getting the Stinkers under
control. Isn't that right, Lee?" Nef took a cigar from the humidor next
his chair.
"With all respect, sir," Hartford said, placing his empty brandy-glass
on the table to his right, "I can hardly see how the events tonight
were caused by the Indigenous Hominids."
"You must use the official name for the Gooks, mustn't you?" Nef
mused. His voice turned harsh: "Someone stripped the safety-suit off
Piacentelli, Mister."
* * * * *
Hartford nodded, his face pale. The "A" of the Axenite's alphabet
was Apprehension. As a germ-free--axenic, gnotobiotic--human being,
he is superior in most ways to ordinary men. He's usually larger and
stronger. He never has dental caries, pimples, appendicitis, the
common cold or certain cancers. No matter how much or how long he
sweats, the Axenite doesn't stink; nor do his other excretions. On a
contaminated world, however, the Axenite is a tender flower indeed. A
baby's breath can be death to him, if that baby be a "normal" human;
for no microbe is benign to the man without antibodies. To him a drop
of rain may reek with pestilence, the scent of evening may be a lethal
gas. "I can't understand their stripping Pia, sir," he said. "Why would
they do such a terrible thing?"
"Because they're Stinkers!" Nef said. "Can you imagine what it must be
like to be one of them? Every inch of your skin a-crawl with living
filth, your guts packed with foulness, your whole frame a compromise
with rottenness? Do you wonder that they'd delight to make us as
unwholesome as they are themselves?" Colonel Nef lighted the cigar he'd
been mulling. "Lee, do you think one Stinkerville destroyed is too high
a price for them to pay for having murdered two Axenite troopers? For
Piacentelli's wife is as much their victim as her husband."
Hartford shook his head. "I'm not sure, sir. What bothers me more than
anything else is that it's my fault Pia went out last night. He asked
me to arrange for him to replace the scheduled picket officer, and I
did."
"Lee, why was Piacentelli so anxious to pull this extra duty?" Nef
asked.
Hartford tried unobtrusively to squirm his chair out of the jet-stream
from Nef's cigar. "He told me he wanted to work on the language, sir,"
he said. "Pia really had such a project. He'd never had contact with
anyone with a speech other than Standard before, and the problem of
transducing one language into another fascinated him. The Kansans call
their speech _Nihon-go_. Pia taught me to understand some of it."
"A waste of your time, Lee," Nef said. "You'll never have occasion
to speak it. Be that as it may, unless Piacentelli was attempting to
coax a course in Bedroom Kansan from a Stinker maiden, I can hardly
understand why his lexigraphical labors should require him to unsuit
himself. No, Piacentelli was deliberately murdered."
"I'm puzzled, sir," Hartford admitted. "When we tossed those
smoke-candles, I heard Pia shouting for us to stop it. Would he have
done so if the Indigenous Hominids had him captive? Why did none of the
natives lift a hand against us, though we were burning their homes? Why
did Paula Piacentelli seem to know why Pia was going outside tonight?
Why did he take a microscope with him? Why did Paula kill herself?"
* * * * *
"Don't noise that last 'why' around the Barracks, Mister," Nef growled.
"Officially, she died in tear-blinded grief, an accident." He smiled.
"Whatever our reason for burning out Stinkerville, Lee, we got it
done. The fact that those half-humans down the hill bred and sweat and
poisoned the soil within half an hour's walk has been a stench in my
nostrils ever since we got here. Now they're gone. I'm as sorry as you
that the Piacentellis are dead. But the manner of their dying was such
as to assure Axenic mankind a new home."
"I'm not sure I understand you, sir."
Nef poured them each a second brandy. He raised his; Hartford of
necessity followed suit. "To Brotherhood," the colonel said. He stared
into Hartford's eyes. "To _the_ Brotherhood," he amended.
Hartford was tired, confused and in awe of Nef's rank; otherwise he
might have ventured protest. Nef sipped his drink. "I must emphasize,
Lee, that what I say is my opinion only, not Axenite policy. You see my
point."
"I do, sir," Hartford said.
"Forgive me, then, for prefacing my remarks with a bit of truism," Nef
said. "In all history before gnotobiotic man was cut from his mother
through cellophane, the human being was never pure organism. Before
us, every man who ever lived was, in fact, one mammal plus the sum
of millions of viruses, rickettsia, bacteria, fungi and molds. When
the old philosophers asked, 'What is man?' the answer could only be:
'Foul smell and blood in a bag.' We're the first men beyond that, Lee.
The first real men, True Men, members of the winner-species. _Homo
gnotobioticus_.
"We must destroy the bridge that led to us. We must destroy the
Stinkers. Not just these quasi-human natives here on Kansas, but the
Stinkers on Earth, and on every other planet where bug-laden man has
followed Axenite. What chance has _Homo sapiens_ to match his sapiency
against _Homo gnotobioticus_, when he is a bifurcate septic tank, a
polyculture of a thousand kinds of living dirt?"
Hartford finished his brandy, wishing he were anywhere else than in
Nasty Nef's quarters, tired, ill at ease and a little drunk from
the two brandies. "What do you propose, sir?" he asked with Academy
politeness.
"Aha!" Nef rejoiced, pouring them each another drink. "You justify
my trust, Lee. You perceive that I speak not merely if-ly,
philosophically, but as a man of action, leashed only by temporary
practicality." He leaned back in his chair and regarded Hartford more
as a sculptor might regard a recent product than a father a son, with
uncritical approval. "Where were you born, Lee?"
"On Titan, sir."
* * * * *
"I thought so. You have the mark of natal excellence," Nef said.
"You're a second or third-generation Axenite, then?"
"Third, sir," Hartford said.
"Splendid. Your grandparents were from their mothers' wombs untimely
ripp'd; your parents and yourself born normally, in germ-free ambience.
How fortunate we are, you and I! Third-generation Axenites. Eff-two of
a new race." Nef paused in his recital. "There is one fact that chafes
us, though. We, perforce the Columbuses of tomorrow, explorers of the
planets beyond even the stars we see here on the frontier, are held
back by our Stinker cousins. They have the proper feeling, that only
pure man might pioneer the alien worlds, for fear of destroying what he
finds there. But who will inherit those planets when we've finished our
explorations? Who will at the last till the fields of Kansas?"
"Colonists from Earth, sir," Hartford said. "From Eurus, Tinkle,
Westside, Unashamed, T'ang, Williams's World and Hope. From all the
planets normal man has colonized."
"Doesn't that annoy you, Lee?" Nef asked. "That our work's fruit is to
be enjoyed by shiploads of Stinkers?"
"They're as human as we, sir," Hartford said. He smiled. "You might say
they just haven't had our advantages."
"You're tender-minded, Lee," Nef said. "We garrison a hundred worlds
on the Frontier, planets our Stinker masters mustn't visit yet, least
Man contaminate some life-form yet unmet. We pioneer, clear planets as
safe, and move on. For reward, we Axenites have three worlds of our own
in the M'Bwene System, axenized for our use; we have the Academies on
Luna and Titan, and a dome on Pluto. _It's not enough._ We are the new
men, the next-comers to humanity. We must have worlds of our own. I,
and the Brotherhood whose hand here I am, intend that Kansas shall be
ours."
"What about the Stinkers?" Hartford asked. "What will happen to them if
we decide to axenize Kansas?"
"Maybe they'll leave," Colonel Nef said, smiling in the manner that
had won him the name "Nasty." "A few more punitive expeditions like
tonight's--an incendiary grenade was thrown at Kansannamura, did you
know that, Lee? I threw it--and we'll have no Stinkers underfoot.
We soon will be able to mop and polish this world to our own high
standards. We'll walk this lovely world without safety-suits and
breathe unfiltered air. We'll enter into our birthright, Lee." Nef
gazed at his cigar admiringly, though it had gone out. "So much for the
moment, Brother Hartford," he said. "Perhaps we'd both do well to get
some sleep."
Hartford jumped to attention and formally requested permission to
withdraw. Nef nodded. Hartford about-faced and left the room.