Planet of the Damned

  XII

  On Brion's desk when he came in, were two neat piles of paper. As hesat down and reached for them he was conscious of an arctic coldnessin the air, a frigid blast. It was coming from the air-conditionergrill, which was now covered by welded steel bars. The control unitwas sealed shut. Someone was either being very funny or veryefficient. Either way, it was cold. Brion kicked at the cover plateuntil it buckled, then bent it aside. After a careful look into theinterior he disconnected one wire and shorted it to another. He wasrewarded by a number of sputtering cracks and a quantity of smoke.The compressor moaned and expired.

  Faussel was standing in the door with more papers, a shockedexpression on his face. "What do you have there?" Brion asked.

  Faussel managed to straighten out his face and brought the foldersto the desk, arranging them on the piles already there. "These arethe progress reports you asked for, from all units. Details to date,conclusions, suggestions, et cetera."

  "And the other pile?" Brion pointed.

  "Offplanet correspondence, commissary invoices, requisitions." Hestraightened the edges of the stack while he answered. "Dailyreports, hospital log...." His voice died away and stopped as Brioncarefully pushed the stack off the edge of the desk into thewastebasket.

  "In other words, red tape," Brion said. "Well, it's all filed."

  One by one the progress reports followed the first stack into thebasket, until the desk was clear. Nothing. It was just what he hadexpected. But there had always been the off chance that one of thespecialists could come up with a new approach. They hadn't; theywere all too busy specializing.

  Outside the sky was darkening. The front entrance guard had beentold to let in anyone who came asking for the director. There wasnothing else Brion could do until the Nyjord rebels made contact.Irritation bit at him. At least Lea was doing somethingconstructive; he could look in on her.

  He opened the door to the lab with a feeling of pleasantanticipation. It froze and shattered instantly. Her microscope washooded and she was gone. _She's having dinner_, he thought,or--_she's in the hospital_. The hospital was on the floor below,and he went there first.

  "Of course she's here!" Dr. Stine grumbled. "Where else shoulda girl in her condition be? She was out of bed long enough today.Tomorrow's the last day, and if you want to get any more work outof her before the deadline, you had better let her rest tonight.Better let the whole staff rest. I've been handing out tranquilizerslike aspirin all day. They're falling apart."

  "The world's falling apart. How is Lea doing?"

  "Considering her shape, she's fine. Go in and see for yourself ifyou won't take my word for it. I have other patients to look at."

  "Are you that worried, Doctor?"

  "Of course I am! I'm just as prone to the weakness of the flesh asthe rest of you. We're sitting on a ticking bomb and I don't likeit. I'll do my job as long as it is necessary, but I'll also bedamned glad to see the ships land to pull us out. The only skin thatI really feel emotionally concerned about right now is my own. Andif you want to be let in on a public secret--the rest of your stafffeels the same way. So don't look forward to too much efficiency."

  "I never did," Brion said to the retreating back.

  Lea's room was dark, illuminated only by the light of Dis's moonslanting in through the window. Brion let himself in and closed thedoor behind him. Walking quietly, he went over to the bed. Lea wassleeping soundly, her breathing gentle and regular. A night's sleepnow would do as much good as all the medication.

  He should have gone then; instead, he sat down in the chair placednext to the head of the bed. The guards knew where he was--he couldwait here just as well as any place else.

  It was a stolen moment of peace on a world at the brink ofdestruction. He was grateful for it. Everything looked less harshin the moonlight, and he rubbed some of the tension from his eyes.Lea's face was ironed smooth by the light, beautiful and young, adirect contrast to everything else on this poisonous world. Her handwas outside of the covers and he took it in his own, obeying asudden impulse. Looking out of the window at the desert in thedistance, he let the peace wash over him, forcing himself to forgetfor the moment that in one more day life would be stripped from thisplanet.

  Later, when he looked back at Lea he saw that her eyes were open,though she hadn't moved. How long had she been awake? He jerked hishand away from hers, feeling suddenly guilty.

  "Is the boss-man looking after the serfs, to see if they're fit forthe treadmills in the morning?" she asked. It was the kind of remarkshe had used with such frequency in the ship, though it didn't soundquite as harsh now. And she was smiling. Yet it reminded him toowell of her superior attitude towards rubes from the stellar sticks.Here he might be the director, but on ancient Earth he would be onlyone more gaping, lead-footed yokel.

  "How do you feel?" he asked, realizing and hating the triteness ofthe words, even as he said them.

  "Terrible. I'll be dead by morning. Reach me a piece of fruit fromthat bowl, will you? My mouth tastes like an old boot heel. I wonderhow fresh fruit ever got here. Probably a gift to the workingclasses from the smiling planetary murderers on Nyjord."

  She took the apple Brion gave her and bit into it. "Did you everthink of going to Earth?"

  Brion was startled. This was too close to his own thoughts aboutplanetary backgrounds. There couldn't possibly be a connectionthough. "Never," he told her. "Up until a few months ago I nevereven considered leaving Anvhar. The Twenties are such a big thing athome that it is hard to imagine that anything else exists while youare still taking part in them."

  "Spare me the Twenties," she pleaded. "After listening to you andIhjel, I know far more about them than I shall ever care to know.But what about Anvhar itself? Do you have big city-states as Earthdoes?"

  "Nothing like that. For its size, it has a very small population.No big cities at all. I guess the largest centers of populationare around the schools, packing plants, things like that."

  "Any exobiologists there?" Lea asked, with a woman's eternal abilityto make any general topic personal.

  "At the universities, I suppose, though I wouldn't know for sure.And you must realize that when I say no big cities, I also mean nolittle cities. We aren't organized that way at all. I imagine thebasic physical unit is the family and the circle of friends. Friendsget important quickly, since the family breaks up when children arestill relatively young. Something in the genes, I suppose--we allenjoy being alone. I suppose you might call it an inbred survivaltrait."

  "Up to a point," she said, biting delicately into the apple. "Carrythat sort of thing too far and you end up with no population at all.A certain amount of proximity is necessary for that."

  "Of course it is. And there must be some form of recognizedrelationship or control--that or complete promiscuity. On Anvharthe emphasis is on personal responsibility, and that seems to take careof the problem. If we didn't have an adult way of looking at ...things, our kind of life would be impossible. Individuals arebrought together either by accident or design, and with thisproximity must be some certainty of relations...."

  "You're losing me," Lea protested. "Either I'm still foggy fromthe dope, or you are suddenly unable to speak a word of less thanfour syllables. You know--whenever this happens with you, I getthe distinct impression that you are trying to cover up something.For Occam's sake, be specific! Bring me together two of thesehypothetical individuals and tell me what happens."

  Brion took a deep breath. He was in over his head and far fromshore. "Well--take a bachelor like myself. Since I likecross-country skiing I make my home in this big house our familyhas, right at the edge of the Broken Hills. In summer I looked aftera drumtum herd, but after slaughtering my time was my own allwinter. I did a lot of skiing, and used to work for the Twenties.Sometimes I would go visiting. Then again, people would drop in onme--houses are few and far between on Anvhar. We don't even havelocks on our doors. You accept and give hospitality withoutqualification. Whoever comes. Male ... female ... in grou
ps or justtraveling alone...."

  "I get the drift. Life must be dull for a single girl on youriceberg planet. She must surely have to stay home a lot."

  "Only if she wants to. Otherwise she can go wherever she wishes andbe welcomed as another individual. I suppose it is out of fashionin the rest of the galaxy--and would probably raise a big laugh onEarth--but a platonic, disinterested friendship between man andwoman is an accepted thing on Anvhar."

  "Sounds exceedingly dull. If you are all such cool and distantfriends, how do babies get made?"

  Brion felt his ears reddening, not sure if he was being teased ornot. "The same damn way they get made any place else! But it's notjust a reflexive process like a couple of rabbits that happen tomeet under the same bush. It's the woman's choice to indicate ifshe is interested in marriage."

  "Is marriage the only thing your women are interested in?"

  "Marriage or ... anything else. That's up to the girl. We have aspecial problem on Anvhar--probably the same thing occurs on everyplanet where the human race has made a massive adaptation. Not allunions are fertile and there is always a large percentage ofmiscarriages. A large number of births are conceived by artificialinsemination. Which is all right when you can't have babiesnormally. But most women have an emotional bias towards havingtheir husband's children. And there is only one way to find outif this is possible."

  Lea's eyes widened. "Are you suggesting that your girls see if a mancan father children _before_ considering marriage?"

  "Of course. Otherwise Anvhar would have been depopulated centuriesago. Therefore the woman does the choosing. If she is interested ina man, she says so. If she is not interested, the man would neverthink of suggesting anything. It's a lot different from otherplanets, but so is our planet Anvhar. It works well for us, whichis the only test that applies."

  "Just about the opposite of Earth," Lea told him, dropping the applecore into a dish and carefully licking the tips of her fingers. "Iguess you Anvharians would describe Earth as a planetary hotbed ofsexuality. The reverse of your system, and going full blast all thetime. There are far too many people there for comfort. Birth controlcame late and is still being fought--if you can possibly imaginethat. There are just too many of the archaic religions still around,as well as crackbrained ideas that have been long entrenched incustom. The world's overcrowded. Men, women, children, a boiling mobwherever you look. And all of the physically mature ones seem to beinvolved in the Great Game of Love. The male is always theaggressor. Not physically--at least not often--and women take themost outrageous kinds of flattery for granted. At parties there arealways a couple of hot breaths of passion fanning your neck. A girlhas to keep her spike heels filed sharp."

  "She has to _what_?"

  "A figure of speech, Brion. Meaning you fight back all the time,if you don't want to be washed under by the flood."

  "Sounds rather"--Brion weighed the word before he said it, butcould find none other suitable--"repellent."

  "From your point of view, it would be. I'm afraid we get so used toit that we even take it for granted. Sociologically speaking...."She stopped and looked at Brion's straight back and almost rigidposture. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened in an unspoken _oh_of sudden realization.

  "I'm being a fool," she said. "You weren't speaking generally atall! You had a very specific subject in mind. Namely _me_!"

  "Please, Lea, you must understand...."

  "But I do!" She laughed. "All the time I thought you were being afrigid and hard-hearted lump of ice, you were really being verysweet. Just playing the game in good old Anvharian style. Waitingfor a sign from me. We'd still be playing by different rules if youhadn't had more sense than I, and finally realized that somewherealong the line we must have got our signals mixed. And I thought youwere some kind of frosty offworld celibate." She let her hand go outand her fingers rustled through his hair. Something she had beenwanting to do for a long time.

  "I had to," he said, trying to ignore the light touch of herfingers. "Because I thought so much of you, I couldn't have doneanything to insult you. Such as forcing my attentions on you. UntilI began to worry where the insult would lie, since I knew nothingabout your planet's mores."

  "Well, you know now," she said very softly. "The men aggress. Nowthat I understand, I think I like your way better. But I'm still notsure of all the rules. Do I explain that yes, Brion, I like you sovery much? You are more man, in one great big wide-shouldered lump,than I have ever met before. It's not quite the time or the placeto discuss marriage, but I would certainly like--"

  His arms were around her, holding her to him. Her hands clasped himand their lips sought each other's in the darkness.

  "Gently ..." she whispered. "I bruise easily...."