XIX
Dis was a floating golden ball, looking like a schoolroom globe inspace. No clouds obscured its surface, and from this distance itseemed warm and attractive set against the cold darkness. Brionalmost wished he were back there now, as he sat shivering inside theheavy coat. He wondered how long it would be before his confusedbody-temperature controls decided to turn off the summer adjustment.He hoped it wouldn't be as sudden or as drastic as turning it onhad been.
Delicate as a dream, Lea's reflection swam in space next to theplanet. She had come up quietly behind him in the spaceship'scorridor, only her gentle breath and mirrored face telling himshe was there. He turned quickly and took her hands in his.
"You're looking infinitely better," he said.
"Well, I should," she said, pushing back her hair in an unconsciousgesture with her hand. "I've been doing nothing but lying in theship's hospital, while you were having such a fine time this lastweek. Rushing around down there shooting all the magter."
"Just gassing them," he told her. "The Nyjorders can't bringthemselves to kill any more, even if it does raise their owncasualty rate. In fact, they are having difficulty restraining theDisans led by Ulv, who are happily killing any magter they see asbeing pure _umedvirk_."
"What will they do when they have all those frothing magter madmen?"
"They don't know yet," he said. "They won't really know until theysee what an adult magter is like with his brain-parasite dead andgone. They're having better luck with the children. If they catchthem early enough, the parasite can be destroyed before it has donetoo much damage."
Lea shuddered delicately and let herself lean against him. "I'm notthat sturdy yet; let's sit down while we talk." There was a couchopposite the viewport where they could sit and still see Dis.
"I hate to think of a magter deprived of his symbiote," she said."If his system can stand the shock, I imagine there will be nothingleft except a brainless hulk. This is one series of experimentsI don't care to witness. I rest secure in the knowledge thatthe Nyjorders will find the most humane solution."
"I'm sure they will," Brion said.
"Now what about us?" she said disconcertingly, leaning back in hisarms. "I must say you have the highest body temperature of any oneI have ever touched. It's positively exciting."
This jarred Brion even more. He didn't have her ability to put pasthorrors out of the mind by substituting present pleasures. "Well,just what about us?" he said with masterful inappropriateness.
She smiled as she leaned against him. "You weren't as vague as that,the night in the hospital room. I seem to remember a few otherthings you said. And did. You can't claim you're completelyindifferent to me, Brion Brandd. So I'm only asking you what anyoutspoken Anvharian girl would. Where do we go from here? Getmarried?"
There was a definite pleasure in holding her slight body in his armsand feeling her hair against his cheek. They both sensed it, andthis awareness made his words sound that much more ugly.
"Lea--darling! You know how important you are to me--but youcertainly realize that we could never get married."
Her body stiffened and she tore herself away from him.
"Why, you great, fat, egotistical slab of meat! What do you mean bythat? I like you, Lea, we have plenty of fun and games together, butsurely you realize that you aren't the kind of girl one takes hometo mother!"
"Lea, hold on," he said. "You know better than to say a thing likethat. What I said has nothing to do with how I feel towards you.But marriage means children, and you are biologist enough to knowabout Earth's genes--"
"Intolerant yokel!" she cried, slapping his face. He didn't move orattempt to stop her. "I expected better from you, with all yourpretensions of understanding. But all you can think of are thehorror stories about the worn-out genes of Earth. You're the same asevery other big, strapping bigot from the frontier planets. I knowhow you look down on our small size, our allergies and haemophiliaand all the other weaknesses that have been bred back and preservedby the race. You hate--"
"But that's not what I meant at all," he interrupted, shocked, hisvoice drowning hers out. "Yours are the strong genes, the viablestrains--_mine_ are the deadly ones. A child of mine would killitself and you in a natural birth, if it managed to live to term.You're forgetting that you are the original homo sapiens. I'm arecent mutation."
Lea was frozen by his words. They revealed a truth she had known,but would never permit herself to consider.
"Earth is home, the planet where mankind developed," he said. "Thelast few thousand years you may have been breeding weaknesses backinto the genetic pool. But that's nothing compared to the hundredmillions of years that it took to develop man. How many newbornbabies live to be a year of age on Earth?"
"Why ... almost all of them. A fraction of one per cent die eachyear--I can't recall exactly how many."
"Earth is home," he said again gently. "When men leave home they canadapt to different planets, but a price must be paid. A terribleprice is in dead infants. The successful mutations live, thefailures die. Natural selection is a brutally simple affair. Whenyou look at me, you see a success. I have a sister--a success too.Yet my mother had six other children who died when they were stillbabies. And several others that never came to term. You know aboutthese things, don't you, Lea?"
"I know, I know ..." she said sobbing into her hands. He held hernow and she didn't pull away. "I know it all as a biologist--butI am so awfully tired of being a biologist, and top of my class anda mental match for any man. When I think about you, I do it asa woman, and can't admit any of this. I need someone, Brion, andI needed you so much because I loved you." She paused and wiped hereyes. "You're going home, aren't you? Back to Anvhar. When?"
"I can't wait too long," he said, unhappily. "Aside from my personalwants, I find myself remembering that I'm a part of Anvhar. When youthink of the number of people who suffered and died--or adapted--sothat I could be sitting here now ... well, it's a littlefrightening. I suppose it doesn't make sense logically that I shouldfeel indebted to them. But I do. Anything I do now, or in the nextfew years, won't be as important as getting back to Anvhar."
"And I won't be going back with you." It was a flat statementthe way she said it, not a question.
"No, you won't be," he said. "There is nothing on Anvhar for you."
Lea was looking out of the port at Dis and her eyes were dry now."Way back in my deeply buried unconscious I think I knew it wouldend this way," she said. "If you think your little lecture on theOrigins of Man was a novelty, it wasn't. It just reminded me of anumber of things my glands had convinced me to forget. In a way, Ienvy you your weightlifter wife-to-be, and your happy kiddies. Butnot very much. Very early in life I resigned myself to the fact thatthere was no one on Earth I would care to marry. I always had theseteen-age dreams of a hero from space who would carry me off, and Iguess I slipped you into the pattern without realizing it. I'm oldenough now to face the fact that I like my work more than a banalmarriage, and I'll probably end up a frigid and virtuous old maid,with more degrees and titles than you have shot-putting records."
As they looked through the port Dis began slowly to contract. Theirship drew away from it, heading towards Nyjord. They sat apart,without touching now. Leaving Dis meant leaving behind somethingthey had shared. They had been strangers together there, on astrange world. For a brief time their lifelines had touched. Thattime was over now.
"Don't we look happy!" Hys said, shambling towards them.
"Fall dead and make me even happier then," Lea snapped bitterly.
Hys ignored the acid tone of her words and sat down on the couch nextto them. Since leaving command of his rebel Nyjord army he seemed muchmellower. "Going to keep on working for the Cultural RelationshipsFoundation, Brion?" he asked. "You're the kind of man we need."
Brion's eyes widened as the meaning of the last words penetrated."Are you in the C.R.F.?"
"Field agent for Nyjord," he said. "I hope you don't think thosehelpless office type
s like Faussel or Mervv really represented usthere? They just took notes and acted as a front and cover for theorganization. Nyjord is a fine planet, but a gentle guiding handbehind the scenes is needed, to help them find their place in thegalaxy before they are pulverized."
"What's your dirty game, Hys?" Lea asked, scowling. "I've had enoughhints to suspect for a long time that there was more to the C.R.F.than the sweetness-and-light part I have seen. Are you peopleegomaniacs, power hungry or what?"
"That's the first charge that would be leveled at us if ouractivities were publicly known," Hys told her. "That's why we domost of our work under cover. The best fact I can give you tocounter the charge is _money_. Just where do you think we get thefunds for an operation this size?" He smiled at their blank looks."You'll see the records later so there won't be any doubt. The truthis that all our funds are donated by planets we have helped. Even atiny percentage of a planetary income is large--add enough of themtogether and you have enough money to help other planets. Andvoluntary gratitude is a perfect test, if you stop to think aboutit. You can't talk people into liking what you have done. They haveto be convinced. There have always been people on C.R.F. worlds whoknew about our work, and agreed with it enough to see that we arekept in funds."
"Why are you telling me all this super-secret stuff," Lea asked.
"Isn't that obvious? We want you to keep on working for us. You canname whatever salary you like--as I've said, there is no shortage ofready cash."
Hys glanced quickly at them both and delivered the clinchingargument. "I hope Brion will go on working with us too. He is thekind of field agent we desperately need, and it is almost impossibleto find."
"Just show me where to sign," Lea said, and there was life in hervoice once again.
"I wouldn't exactly call it blackmail," Brion smiled, "but I supposeif you people can juggle planetary psychologies, you must find thatindividuals can be pushed around like chessmen. Though you shouldrealize that very little pushing is required this time."
"Will you sign on?" Hys asked.
"I must go back to Anvhar," Brion said, "but there really is nopressing hurry."
"Earth," said Lea, "is overpopulated enough as it is."
* * * * *
72 HOURS IN HELL
Dis was a harsh, inhospitable, dangerous place and the Magter made it worse. They might have been human once--but they were something else now. The Magter had only one desire--Kill! Kill everything, themselves, their planet, the universe if they could-- Brion Brandd was sent in at the eleventh hour. His mission was to save Dis, but it looked as though he was going to preside over its annihilation.
PLANET OF THE DAMNED
* * * * *
HARRY HARRISON
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