by Anthology
Lea was working in the lab when he came in, bent over a low-power binocular microscope. Something small, limbless and throbbing was on the slide. She glanced up when she heard his footsteps, smiling warmly when she recognized him. Fatigue and pain had drawn her face; her skin, glistening with burn ointment, was chapped and peeling.
"I must look a wreck," she said, putting the back of her hand to her cheek. "Something like a well-oiled and lightly cooked piece of beef." She lowered her arm suddenly and took his hand in both of hers. Her palms were warm and slightly moist.
"Thank you, Brion," was all she could say. Her society on Earth was highly civilized and sophisticated, able to discuss any topic without emotion and without embarrassment. This was fine in most circumstances, but made it difficult to thank a person for saving your life. However you tried to phrase it, it came out sounding like a last-act speech from a historical play. There was no doubt, however, as to what she meant. Her eyes were large and dark, the pupils dilated by the drugs she had been given. They could not lie, nor could the emotions he sensed. He did not answer, just held her hand an instant longer.
"How do you feel," he asked, concerned. His conscience twinged as he remembered that he was the one who had ordered her out of bed and back to work today.
"I should be feeling terrible," she said, with an airy wave of her hand. "But I'm walking on top of the world. I'm so loaded with pain-killers and stimulants that I'm high as the moon. All the nerves to my feet feel turned off—it's like walking on two balls of fluff. Thanks for getting me out of that awful hospital and back to work."
Brion was suddenly sorry for having driven her from her sick bed.
"Don't be sorry!" Lea said, apparently reading his mind, but really seeing only his sudden ashamed expression. "I'm feeling no pain. Honestly. I feel a little light-headed and foggy at times, nothing more. And this is the job I came here to do. In fact … well, it's almost impossible to tell you just how fascinating it all is! It was almost worth getting baked and parboiled for."
She swung back to the microscope, centering the specimen with a turn of the stage adjustment screw. "Poor Ihjel was right when he said this planet was exobiologically fascinating. This is a gastropod, a lot like _Odostomia_, but it has parasitical morphological changes so profound that—"
"There's something else I remember," Brion said, interrupting her enthusiastic lecture, only half of which he could understand. "Didn't Ihjel also hope that you would give some study to the natives as well as their environment? The problem is with the Disans—not with the local wild life."
"But I _am_ studying them," Lea insisted. "The Disans have attained an incredibly advanced form of commensalism. Their lives are so intimately connected and integrated with the other life forms that they must be studied in relation to their environment. I doubt if they show as many external physical changes as little eating-foot _Odostomia_ on the slide here, but there will surely be a number of psychological changes and adjustments that will crop up. One of these might be the explanation of their urge for planetary suicide."
"That may be true—but I don't think so," Brion said. "I went on a little expedition this morning and found something that has more immediate relevancy."
For the first time Lea became aware of his slightly battered condition. Her drug-grooved mind could only follow a single idea at a time and had over-looked the significance of the bandage and dirt.
"I've been visiting," Brion said, forestalling the question on her lips. "The magter are the ones who are responsible for causing the trouble, and I had to see them up close before I could make any decisions. It wasn't a very pleasant thing, but I found out what I wanted to know. They are different in every way from the normal Disans. I've compared them. I've talked to Ulv—the native who saved us in the desert—and I can understand him. He is not like us in many ways—he certainly couldn't be, living in this oven—but he is still undeniably human. He gave us drinking water when we needed it, then brought help. The magter, the upper-class lords of Dis, are the direct opposite. As cold-blooded and ruthless a bunch of murderers as you can possibly imagine. They tried to kill me when they met me, without reason. Their clothes, habits, dwellings, manners—everything about them differs from that of the normal Disan. More important, the magter are as coldly efficient and inhuman as a reptile. They have no emotions, no love, no hate, no anger, no fear—nothing. Each of them is a chilling bundle of thought processes and reactions, with all the emotions removed."
"Aren't you exaggerating?" Lea asked. "After all, you can't be sure. It might just be part of their training not to reveal any emotional state. Everyone must experience emotional states, whether they like it or not."
"That's my main point. Everyone does—except the magter. I can't go into all the details now, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Even at the point of death they have no fear or hatred. It may sound impossible, but it is true."
Lea tried to shake the knots from her drug-hazed mind. "I'm dull today," she said. "You'll have to excuse me. If these rulers had no emotional responses, that might explain their present suicidal position. But an explanation like this raises more new problems than it supplies answers to the old ones. How did they get this way! It doesn't seem humanly possible to be without emotions of some kind."
"Just my point. Not _humanly_ possible. I think these ruling class Disans aren't human at all, like the other Disans. I think they are alien creatures—robots or androids—anything except men. I think they are living in disguise among the normal human dwellers."
At first Lea started to smile, then her feeling changed when she saw his face. "You are serious?" she asked.
"Never more so. I realize it must sound as if I've had my brains bounced around too much this morning. Yet this is the only idea I can come up with that fits all of the facts. Look at the evidence yourself. One simple thing stands out clearly, and must be considered first if any theory is to hold up. That is the magters' complete indifference to death—their own or anyone else's. Is that normal to mankind?"
"No—but I can find a couple of explanations that I would rather explore first, before dragging in an alien life form. There may have been a mutation or an inherited disease that has deformed or warped their minds."
"Wouldn't that be sort of self-eliminating?" Brion asked. "Anti-survival? People who die before puberty would find it a little difficult to pass on a mutation to their children. But let's not beat this one point to death—it's the totality of these people that I find so hard to accept. Any one thing might be explained away, but not the collection of them. What about their complete lack of emotion? Or their manner of dress and their secrecy in general? The ordinary Disan wears a cloth kilt, while the magter cover themselves as completely as possible. They stay in their black towers and never go out except in groups. Their dead are always removed so they can't be examined. In every way they act like a race apart—and I think they are."
"Granted for the moment that this outlandish idea might be true, how did they get here? And why doesn't anyone know about it besides them?"
"Easily enough explained," Brion insisted. "There are no written records on this planet. After the Breakdown, when the handful of survivors were just trying to exist here, the aliens could have landed and moved in. Any interference could have been wiped out. Once the population began to grow, the invaders found they could keep control by staying separate, so their alien difference wouldn't be noticed."
"Why should that bother them?" Lea asked. "If they are so indifferent to death, they can't have any strong thoughts on public opinion or alien body odor. Why would they bother with such a complex camouflage? And if they arrived from another planet, what has happened to the scientific ability that brought them here?"
"Peace," Brion said. "I don't know enough to be able even to guess at answers to half your questions. I'm just trying to fit a theory to the facts. And the facts are clear. The magter are so inhuman they would give me nightmares—if I were sleeping these days. What we nee
d is more evidence."
"Then get it," Lea said with finality. "I'm not telling you to turn murderer—but you might try a bit of grave-digging. Give me a scalpel and one of your friends stretched out on a slab and I'll quickly tell you what he is or is not." She turned back to the microscope and bent over the eyepiece.
That was really the only way to hack the Gordian knot. Dis had only thirty-six more hours to live, so individual deaths shouldn't be of any concern. He had to find a dead magter, and if none was obtainable in the proper condition he had to get one of them by violence. For a planetary savior, he was personally doing in an awful lot of the citizenry.
He stood behind Lea, looking down at her thoughtfully while she worked. The back of her neck, lightly covered with gently curling hair, was turned toward him. With one of the about-face shifts the mind is capable of, his thoughts flipped from death to life, and he experienced a strong desire to caress this spot lightly, to feel the yielding texture of female flesh….
Plunging his hands deep into his pockets, he walked quickly to the door. "Get some rest soon," he called to her. "I doubt if those bugs will give you the answer. I'm going now to see if I can get the full-sized specimen you want."
"The truth could be anywhere. I'll stay on these until you come back," she said, not looking up from the microscope.
Up under the roof was a well-equipped communications room. Brion had taken a quick look at it when he had first toured the building. The duty operator had earphones on—though only one of the phones covered an ear—and was monitoring through the bands. His shoeless feet were on the edge of the table, and he was eating a thick sandwich held in his free hand. His eyes bulged when he saw Brion in the doorway and he jumped into a flurry of action.
"Hold the pose," Brion told him; "it doesn't bother me. And if you make any sudden moves you are liable to break a phone, electrocute yourself, or choke to death. Just see if you can set the transceiver on this frequency for me." Brion wrote the number on a scratch pad and slid it over to the operator. It was the frequency Professor-Commander Krafft had given him for the radio of the illegal terrorists—the Nyjord army.
The operator plugged in a handset and gave it to Brion. "Circuit open," he mumbled around a mouthful of still unswallowed sandwich.
"This is Brandd, director of the C.R.F. Come in, please." He went on repeating this for more than ten minutes before he got an answer.
"_What do you want?_"
"I have a message of vital urgency for you—and I would also like your help. Do you want any more information on the radio?
"_No. Wait there—we'll get in touch with you after dark._" The carrier wave went dead.
Thirty-five hours to the end of the world—and all he could do was wait.
XII
On Brion's desk when he came in, were two neat piles of paper. As he sat down and reached for them he was conscious of an arctic coldness in the air, a frigid blast. It was coming from the air-conditioner grill, which was now covered by welded steel bars. The control unit was sealed shut. Someone was either being very funny or very efficient. Either way, it was cold. Brion kicked at the cover plate until it buckled, then bent it aside. After a careful look into the interior he disconnected one wire and shorted it to another. He was rewarded 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 shocked expression on his face. "What do you have there?" Brion asked.
Faussel managed to straighten out his face and brought the folders to the desk, arranging them on the piles already there. "These are the 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." He straightened the edges of the stack while he answered. "Daily reports, hospital log…." His voice died away and stopped as Brion carefully pushed the stack off the edge of the desk into the wastebasket.
"In other words, red tape," Brion said. "Well, it's all filed."
One by one the progress reports followed the first stack into the basket, until the desk was clear. Nothing. It was just what he had expected. But there had always been the off chance that one of the specialists could come up with a new approach. They hadn't; they were all too busy specializing.
Outside the sky was darkening. The front entrance guard had been told to let in anyone who came asking for the director. There was nothing else Brion could do until the Nyjord rebels made contact. Irritation bit at him. At least Lea was doing something constructive; he could look in on her.
He opened the door to the lab with a feeling of pleasant anticipation. It froze and shattered instantly. Her microscope was hooded 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 should a 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 out of her before the deadline, you had better let her rest tonight. Better let the whole staff rest. I've been handing out tranquilizers like 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 if you 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 as the rest of you. We're sitting on a ticking bomb and I don't like it. I'll do my job as long as it is necessary, but I'll also be damned glad to see the ships land to pull us out. The only skin that I really feel emotionally concerned about right now is my own. And if you want to be let in on a public secret—the rest of your staff feels 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 moon slanting in through the window. Brion let himself in and closed the door behind him. Walking quietly, he went over to the bed. Lea was sleeping soundly, her breathing gentle and regular. A night's sleep now would do as much good as all the medication.
He should have gone then; instead, he sat down in the chair placed next to the head of the bed. The guards knew where he was—he could wait here just as well as any place else.
It was a stolen moment of peace on a world at the brink of destruction. He was grateful for it. Everything looked less harsh in the moonlight, and he rubbed some of the tension from his eyes. Lea's face was ironed smooth by the light, beautiful and young, a direct contrast to everything else on this poisonous world. Her hand was outside of the covers and he took it in his own, obeying a sudden impulse. Looking out of the window at the desert in the distance, he let the peace wash over him, forcing himself to forget for the moment that in one more day life would be stripped from this planet.
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 his hand away from hers, feeling suddenly guilty.
"Is the boss-man looking after the serfs, to see if they're fit for the treadmills in the morning?" she asked. It was the kind of remark she had used with such frequency in the ship, though it didn't sound quite as harsh now. And she was smiling. Yet it reminded him too well of her superior attitude towards rubes from the stellar sticks. Here he might be the director, but on ancient Earth he would be only one more gaping, lead-footed yokel.
"How do you feel?" he asked, realizing and hating the triteness of the words, even as he said them.
"Terrible. I'll be dead by morning. Reach me a piece of fruit from that bowl, will you? My mouth tastes like an old boot heel. I wonder how fresh fruit ever got here. Probably a gift to the working classes from the smiling planetary murderers on Nyjord."
She took the apple Brion gave her
and bit into it. "Did you ever think of going to Earth?"
Brion was startled. This was too close to his own thoughts about planetary backgrounds. There couldn't possibly be a connection though. "Never," he told her. "Up until a few months ago I never even considered leaving Anvhar. The Twenties are such a big thing at home that it is hard to imagine that anything else exists while you are still taking part in them."
"Spare me the Twenties," she pleaded. "After listening to you and Ihjel, 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 Earth does?"
"Nothing like that. For its size, it has a very small population. No big cities at all. I guess the largest centers of population are around the schools, packing plants, things like that."
"Any exobiologists there?" Lea asked, with a woman's eternal ability to 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 no little cities. We aren't organized that way at all. I imagine the basic physical unit is the family and the circle of friends. Friends get important quickly, since the family breaks up when children are still relatively young. Something in the genes, I suppose—we all enjoy being alone. I suppose you might call it an inbred survival trait."
"Up to a point," she said, biting delicately into the apple. "Carry that 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 recognized relationship or control—that or complete promiscuity. On Anvhar the emphasis is on personal responsibility, and that seems to take care of the problem. If we didn't have an adult way of looking at … things, our kind of life would be impossible. Individuals are brought together either by accident or design, and with this proximity must be some certainty of relations…."
"You're losing me," Lea protested. "Either I'm still foggy from the dope, or you are suddenly unable to speak a word of less than four syllables. You know—whenever this happens with you, I get the distinct impression that you are trying to cover up something. For Occam's sake, be specific! Bring me together two of these hypothetical individuals and tell me what happens."
