"In the control room," Brion said quickly, knowing when cowardice was preferable to valor. "A man named Ihjel. There's a lot of
him to hate, you can have a good time doing it. I just joined up myself...." He was talking to her back as she stormed from the room.
Brion hurried after her, not wanting to miss the first human spark of interest in the trip to date.
"Kidnapped! Lied to, and forced against my will! There is no court in the galaxy that won't give you the maximum sentence, and I'll scream with pleasure as they roll your fat body into solitary--"
"They shouldn't have sent a woman," Ihjel said, completely ignoring her words. "I asked for a highly qualified exobiologist for a difficult assignment. Someone young and tough enough to do field work under severe conditions. So the recruiting office sends me the smallest female they can find, one who'll melt in the first rain."
"I will not!" Lea shouted. "Female resiliency is a well-known fact, and I'm in far better condition than the average woman. Which has nothing to do with what I'm telling you. I was hired for a job in the university on Moller's World and signed a contract to[Pg 34] that effect. Then this bully of an agent tells me the contract has been changed--read subparagraph 189-C or some such nonsense--and I'll be transhipping. He stuffed me into that suffocating basketball without a by-your-leave and they threw me overboard. If that is
not a violation of personal privacy--"
"Cut a new course, Brion," Ihjel broke in. "Find the nearest settled planet and head us there. We have to drop this woman and find
a man for this job. We are going to what is undoubtedly the most interesting planet an exobiologist ever conceived of, but we need a man who can take orders and not faint when it gets too hot."
Brion was lost. Ihjel had done all the navigating and Brion had no idea how to begin a search like this.
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"Oh, no you don't," Lea said. "You don't get rid of me that easily. I placed first in my class, and most of the five hundred other students were male. This is only a man's universe because the men say so. What is the name of this garden planet where we are going?"
"Dis. I'll give you a briefing as soon as I get this ship on course." He turned to the controls and Lea slipped out of her suit and went into the lavatory to comb her hair. Brion closed his mouth, aware suddenly it had been open for a long time. "Is that what you call applied psychology?" he asked.
"Not really. She was going to go along with the job in the end--since she did sign the contract even if she didn't read the fine print--but not until she had exhausted her feelings. I just shortened the process by switching her onto the male-superiority hate. Most women who succeed in normally masculine fields have a reflexive antipathy there; they have been hit on the head with it so much."
He fed the course tape into the console and scowled. "But there was a good chunk of truth in what I said. I wanted a young, fit and highly qualified biologist from recruiting. I never thought they would find a[Pg 35] female one--and it's too late to send her back now. Dis is no place for a woman."
"Why?" Brion asked, as Lea appeared in the doorway. "Come inside, and I'll show you both," Ihjel said.[Pg 36] V
"Dis," Ihjel said, consulting a thick file, "third planet out from its primary, Epsilon Eridani. The fourth planet is Nyjord--remember that, because it is going to be very important. Dis is a place you need a good reason to visit and no reason at all to leave. Too hot, too dry; the temperature in the temperate zones rarely drops below a hundred Fahrenheit. The planet is nothing but scorched rock and burning sand. Most of the water is underground and normally inaccessible. The surface water is all in the form of briny, chemically saturated swamps--undrinkable without extensive processing. All the facts and figures are here in the folder and you can study them later. Right now I want you just to get the idea that this planet is as loathsome and inhospitable as they come. So are the people. This is a solido of a Disan."
Lea gasped at the three-dimensional representation on the screen. Not at the physical aspects of the man; as a biologist trained in the specialty of alien life she had seen a lot stranger sights. It was the man's pose, the expression on his face--tensed to leap, his lips drawn back to show all of this teeth.
"He looks as if he wanted to kill the photographer," she said.
"He almost did--just after the picture was taken. Like all Disans, he has an overwhelming hatred and loathing of offworlders. Not without good reason, though. His planet was settled completely by chance during the Breakdown. I'm not sure of the details, but the overall picture is clear, since the story of their desertion forms the basis of all the myths and animistic religions on Dis.
"Apparently there were large-scale mining operations carried on there once; the world is rich enough in minerals and mining them is very simple. But water[Pg 37] came only from expensive extraction processes and I imagine most of the food came from offworld. Which was good enough until the settlement was forgotten, the way a lot of other planets were during the Breakdown. All the records were destroyed in the fighting, and the ore carriers were pressed into military service. Dis was on its own. What happened to the people there is a tribute to the adaptation possibilities of homo sapiens. Individuals died, usually in enormous pain, but the race
lived. Changed a good deal, but still human. As the water and food ran out and the extraction machinery broke down, they must have made heroic efforts to survive. They couldn't do it mechanically, but by the time the last machine collapsed, enough people were adjusted to the environment to keep the race going.
"Their descendants are still there, completely adapted to the environment. Their body temperatures are around a hundred and thirty degrees. They have specialized tissue in the gluteal area for storing water. These are minor changes, compared to the major ones they have done in fitting themselves for this planet. I don't know the exact details, but the reports are very enthusiastic about symbiotic relationships. They assure us that this is the first time homo sapiens has been an active part of either commensalism or inquilinism other than in the role of host."
"Wonderful!" Lea exclaimed.
"Is it?" Ihjel scowled. "Perhaps from the abstract scientific point of view. If you can keep notes perhaps you might write a book
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about it some time. But I'm not interested. I'm sure all these morphological changes and disgusting intimacies will fascinate you, Dr. Morees. But while you are counting blood types and admiring your thermometers, I hope you will be able to devote a little time to
a study of the Disans' obnoxious personalities. We must either find out what makes these people tick--or we are going to have to
stand by and watch the whole lot blown up!"
"Going to do what!" Lea gasped. "Destroy them? Wipe out this fascinating genetic pool? Why?
"Because they are so incredibly loathsome, that's[Pg 38] why!" Ihjel said. "These aboriginal hotheads have managed to lay their hands on some primitive cobalt bombs. They want to light the fuse and drop these bombs on Nyjord, the next planet. Nothing said or
done can convince them differently. They demand unconditional surrender, or else. This is impossible for a lot of reasons--most important, because the Nyjorders would like to keep their planet for their very own. They have tried every kind of compromise but none of them works. The Disans are out to commit racial suicide. A Nyjord fleet is now over Dis and the deadline has almost expired for the surrender of the cobalt bombs. The Nyjord ships carry enough H-bombs to turn the entire planet into an atomic pile. That is what we must stop."
Brion looked at the solido on the screen, trying to make some judgment of the man. Bare, horny feet. A bulky, ragged length of cloth around the waist was the only garment. What looked like a piece of green vine was hooked over one shoulder. From a plaited belt were suspended a number of odd devices made of hand-beaten metal, drilled stone and looped leather. The only recognizable item was a thin knife of unusual design. Loops of piping, flared bells, carved stones tied in senseless patterns of thonging gave the rest of the collection a bizarre appearance. Perhaps they had some religious significance. But