Deathworld

  V.

  Once the ship was in orbit the captain sent for Jason and Kerk. Kerktook the floor and was completely frank about the previous night'sactivities. The only fact of importance he left out was Jason'sbackground as a professional gambler. He drew a beautiful picture oftwo lucky strangers whom the evil forces of Cassylia wanted to depriveof their gambling profits. All this fitted perfectly the captain'spreconceptions of Cassylia. In the end he congratulated his officer onthe correctness of his actions and began the preparation of a longreport to his government. He gave the two men his best wishes as well asthe liberty of the ship.

  It was a short trip. Jason barely had time to catch up on his sleepbefore they grounded on Darkhan. Being without luggage they were thefirst ones through customs. They left the shed just in time to seeanother ship landing in a distant pit. Kerk stopped to watch it andJason followed his gaze. It was a gray, scarred ship. With the stubbylines of a freighter--but sporting as many guns as a cruiser.

  "Yours, of course," Jason said.

  Kerk nodded and started towards the ship. One of the locks opened asthey came up but no one appeared. Instead a remote-release foldingladder rattled down to the ground. Kerk swarmed up it and Jason followedglumly. Somehow, he felt, this was overdoing the no-frills-and-nonsenseattitude.

  Jason was catching on to Pyrran ways though. The reception aboard shipfor the ambassador was just what he expected. Nothing. Kerk closed thelock himself and they found couches as the take-off horn sounded. Themain jets roared and acceleration smashed down on Jason.

  It didn't stop. Instead it grew stronger, squeezing the air out of hislungs and the sight from his eyes. He screamed but couldn't hear his ownvoice through the roaring in his ears. Mercifully he blacked out.

  When consciousness returned the ship was at zero-G. Jason kept his eyesclosed and let the pain seep out of his body. Kerk spoke suddenly, hewas standing next to the couch.

  "My fault, Meta, I should have told you we had a 1-G passenger aboard.You might have eased up a bit on your usual bone-breaking take-off."

  "It doesn't seem to have harmed him much--but what's he doing here?"

  Jason felt mild surprise that the second voice was a girl's. But hewasn't interested enough to go to the trouble of opening his sore eyes.

  "Going to Pyrrus. I tried to talk him out of it, of course, but Icouldn't change his mind. It's a shame, too, I would like to have donemore for him. He's the one who got the money for us."

  "Oh, that's awful," the girl said. Jason wondered why it was _awful_. Itdidn't make sense to his groggy mind. "It would have been much better ifhe stayed on Darkhan," the girl continued. "He's very nice-looking. Ithink it's a shame he has to die."

  That was too much for Jason. He pried one eye open, then the other. Thevoice belonged to a girl about twenty-one who was standing next to thebed, gazing down at Jason. She was beautiful.

  Jason's eyes opened wider as he realized she was _very_ beautiful--withthe kind of beauty never found in the civilized galaxy. The women he hadknown all ran to pale skin, hollow shoulders, gray faces covered withtints and dyes. They were the product of centuries of breedingweaknesses back into the race, as the advance of medicine kept alivemore and more non-survival types.

  This girl was the direct opposite in every way. She was the product ofsurvival on Pyrrus. The heavy gravity that produced bulging muscles inmen, brought out firm strength in straplike female muscles. She had thefigure of a goddess, tanned skin and perfectly formed face. Her hair,which was cut short, circled her head like a golden crown. The onlyunfeminine thing about her was the gun she wore in a bulky forearmholster. When she saw Jason's eyes open she smiled at him. Her teethwere as even and as white as he had expected.

  "I'm Meta, pilot of this ship. And you must be--"

  "Jason dinAlt. That was a lousy take-off, Meta."

  "I'm really very sorry," she laughed. "But being born on a two-G planetdoes make one a little immune to acceleration. I save fuel too, with thesynergy curve--"

  Kerk gave a noncommittal grunt. "Come along, Meta, we'll take a look atthe cargo. Some of the new stuff will plug the gaps in the perimeter."

  "Oh yes," she said, almost clapping her hands with happiness. "I readthe specs, they're simply wonderful."

  _Like a schoolgirl with a new dress. Or a box of candy. That's a greatattitude to have towards bombs and flame-throwers._ Jason smiled wrylyat the thought as he groaned off the couch. The two Pyrrans had gone andhe pulled himself painfully through the door after them.

  * * * * *

  It took him a long time to find his way to the hold. The ship was bigand apparently empty of crew. Jason finally found a man sleeping in oneof the brightly lit cabins. He recognized him as the driver who hadturned the car over to them on Cassylia. The man, who had been sleepingsoundly a moment before, opened his eyes as soon as Jason drifted intothe room. He was wide awake.

  "How do I get to the cargo hold?" Jason asked.

  The other told him, closed his eyes and went instantly back to sleepbefore Jason could even say thanks.

  In the hold, Kerk and Meta had opened some of the crates and werechortling with joy over their lethal contents. Meta, a pressure canisterin her arms, turned to Jason as he came through the door.

  "Just look at this," she said. "This powder in here--why you can eat itlike dirt, with less harm. Yet it is instantly deadly to all forms ofvegetable life ..." She stopped suddenly as she realized Jason didn'tshare her extreme pleasure. "I'm sorry. I forgot for a moment there thatyou weren't a Pyrran. So you don't really understand, do you?"

  Before he could answer, the PA speaker called her name.

  "Jump time," she said. "Come with me to the bridge while I do theequations. We can talk there. I know so little about any place exceptPyrrus that I have a million questions to ask."

  Jason followed her to the bridge where she relieved the duty officer andbegan taking readings for the jump-setting. She looked out of placeamong the machines, a sturdy but supple figure in a simple, one-pieceshipsuit. Yet there was no denying the efficiency with which she wentabout her job.

  "Meta, aren't you a little young to be the pilot of an interstellarship?"

  "Am I?" She thought for a second. "I really don't know how old pilotsare supposed to be. I have been piloting for about three years now andI'm almost twenty. Is that younger than usual?"

  Jason opened his mouth--then laughed. "I suppose that all depends onwhat planet you're from. Some places you would have trouble gettinglicensed. But I'll bet things are different on Pyrrus. By theirstandards you must rank as an old lady."

  "Now you're making a joke," Meta said serenely as she fed a figure intothe calculator. "I've seen old ladies on some planets. They are wrinkledand have gray hair. I don't know how old they are, I asked one but shewouldn't tell me her age. But I'm sure they must be older than anyone onPyrrus, no one looks like that there."

  "I don't mean old that way," Jason groped for the right word. "Notold--but grown-up, mature. An adult."

  "Everyone is grown-up," she answered. "At least soon after they leavethe wards. And they do that when they're six. My first child isgrown-up, and the second one would be, too, only he's dead. So I_surely_ must be."

  That seemed to settle the question for her, though Jason's thoughtsjumped with the alien concepts and background, inherent behind herwords.

  * * * * *

  Meta punched in the last setting, and the course tape began to chunk outof the case. She turned her attention back to Jason. "I'm glad you'reaboard this trip, though I am sorry you are going to Pyrrus. But we'llhave lots of time to talk. There are so many things I want to find outabout other planets, and why people go around acting the way they do.Not at all like home where you _know_ why people are doing things allthe time." She frowned over the tape for a moment, then turned herattention back to Jason. "What is your home planet like?"

  One after another the usual lies he told people came to his lip
s, andwere pushed away. Why bother lying to a girl who really didn't care ifyou were serf or noble? To her there were only two kinds of people inthe galaxy--Pyrrans, and the rest. For the first time since he had fledfrom Porgorstorsaand he found himself telling someone the truth of hisorigin.

  "My home planet? Just about the stuffiest, dullest, dead-end in theuniverse. You can't believe the destructive decay of a planet that ismainly agrarian, caste-conscious and completely satisfied with its ownboring existence. Not only is there no change--but no one _wants_change. My father was a farmer, so I should have been a farmer too--if Ihad listened to the advice of my betters. It was unthinkable, as well asforbidden for me to do anything else. And everything I wanted to do wasagainst the law. I was fifteen before I learned to read--out of a bookstolen from a noble school. After that there was no turning back. By thetime I stowed aboard an off-world freighter at nineteen I must havebroken every law on the planet. Happily. Leaving home for me was justlike getting out of prison."

  Meta shook her head at the thought. "I just can't imagine a place likethat. But I'm sure I wouldn't like it there."

  "I'm sure you wouldn't," Jason laughed. "So once I was in space, with nolaw-abiding talents or skills, I just wandered into one thing andanother. In this age of technology I was completely out of place. Oh, Isuppose I could have done well in some army, but I'm not so good attaking orders. Whenever I gambled I did well, so little by little I justdrifted into it. People are the same everywhere, so I manage to make outwell wherever I end up."

  "I know what you mean about people being alike--but they are so_different_," she said. "I'm not being clear at all, am I? What I meanis that at home I know what people will do and why they do it at thesame time. People on all the other planets do act alike, as you said,yet I have very much trouble understanding why. For instance, I like totry the local food when we set down on a planet, and if there is time Ialways do. There are bars and restaurants near every spaceport so I gothere. And I always have trouble with the men. They want to buy medrinks, hold my hand--"

  "Well, a single girl in those port joints has to expect a certain amountof interest from the men."

  "Oh, I know that," she said. "What I don't understand is why they don'tlisten when I tell them I am not interested and to go away. They justlaugh and pull up a chair, usually. But I have found that one thingworks wherever I am. I tell them if they don't stop bothering me I'llbreak their arm."

  "Does that stop them?" Jason asked.

  "No, of course not. But after I break their arm they go away. And theothers don't bother me either. It's a lot of fuss to go through and thefood is usually awful."

  Jason didn't laugh. Particularly when he realized that this girl _could_break the arm of any spaceport thug in the galaxy. She was a strangemixture of naivete and strength, unlike anyone he had ever met before.Once again he realized that he _had_ to visit the planet that producedpeople like her and Kerk.

  "Tell me about Pyrrus," he asked. "Why is it that you and Kerk assumeautomatically that I will drop dead as soon as I land? What is theplanet like?"

  All the warmth was gone from her face now. "I can't tell you. You willhave to see for yourself. I know that much after visiting some of theother worlds. Pyrrus is like nothing you galaxy people have everexperienced. You won't really believe it until it is too late. Will youpromise me something?"

  "No," he answered. "At least not until after I hear what it is anddecide."

  "Don't leave the ship when we land. You _should_ be safe enough aboard,and I'll be flying a cargo out within a few weeks."

  "I'll promise nothing of the sort. I'll leave when I want to leave."Jason knew there was logic in her words, but his back was up at herautomatic superiority.

  Meta finished the jump settings without another word. There was atension in the room that prevented them both from talking.

  It was the next shipday before he saw her again, then it was completelyby accident. She was in the astrogation dome when he entered, looking upat the sparkling immensity of the jump sky. For the first time he sawher off duty, wearing something other than a shipsuit. This was a loose,soft robe that accentuated her beauty.

  She smiled at him. "The stars are so wonderful," she said. "Come look."Jason came close to her and with an unthinking, almost automaticmovement, put his arm around her. Neither did she resent it, for shecovered his hand with hers. Then they kissed and it was just the way heknew it would be.