by J F Bone
Poor Walter—she sighed. Sometimes it was harder to be among the living. It was good that she didn’t let him know how she felt. She had sensed a change in him recently. His friendly impersonality had become merely friendly. It could, with a little encouragement, have developed into something else. But it wouldn’t now. She sighed again. His hardness had been a tower of strength. And his bitter gallows humor had furnished a wry relief to grim reality. It had been nice to work with him. She wondered if he would miss her. Her lips curled in a faint smile. He would, if only for the trouble he would have in making chaos out of the order she had created. Why couldn’t that elevator hurry?
“Mary! Where are you going?” Kramer’s voice was in her ears, and his hand was on her shoulder.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Why not?” His voice was curiously different. Younger, excited.
“I have Thurston’s Disease,” she said.
He didn’t let go. “Are you sure?”
“The presumptive tests were positive.”
“Initial stages?”
She nodded. “I had the first coughing attack a few minutes ago.”
He pulled her away from the elevator door that suddenly slid open. “You were going to that death trap upstairs,” he said.
“Where else can I go?”
“With me,” he said. “I think I can help you.”
“How? Have you found a cure for the virus?”
“I think so. At least it’s a better possibility than the things they’re using up there.” His voice was urgent. “And to think I might never have seen it if you hadn’t put me on the track.”
“Are you sure you’re right?”
“Not absolutely, but the facts fit. The theory’s good.”
“Then I’m going to the clinic. I can’t risk infecting you. I’m a carrier now. I can kill you, and you’re too important to die.”
“You don’t know how wrong you are,” Kramer said.
“Let go of me!”
“No—you’re coming back!”
She twisted in his grasp. “Let me go!” she sobbed and broke into a fit of coughing worse than before.
“What I was trying to say,” Dr. Kramer said into the silence that followed, “is that if you have Thurston’s Disease, you’ve been a carrier for at least two weeks. If I am going to get it, your going away can’t help. And if I’m not, I’m not.”
“Do you come willingly or shall I knock you unconscious and drag you back?” Kramer asked.
She looked at his face. It was grimmer than she had ever seen it before. Numbly she let him lead her back to the laboratory.
“But, Walter—I can’t. That’s sixty in the past ten hours!” she protested.
“Take it,” he said grimly, “then take another. And inhale. Deeply.”
“But they make me dizzy.”
“Better dizzy than dead. And, by the way—how’s your chest?”
“Better. There’s no pain now. But the cough is worse.”
“It should be.”
“Why?”
“You’ve never smoked enough to get a cigarette cough,” he said.
She shook her head dizzily. “You’re so right,” she said.
“And that’s what nearly killed you,” he finished triumphantly.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m certain. Naturally, I can’t prove it—yet. But that’s just a matter of time. Your response just about clinches it. Take a look at the records. Who gets this disease? Youngsters—with nearly one hundred per cent morbidity and one hundred per cent mortality. Adults—less than fifty per cent morbidity—and again one hundred per cent mortality. What makes the other fifty per cent immune? Your crack about leather lungs started me thinking—so I fed the data cards into the computer and keyed them for smoking versus incidence. And I found that not one heavy smoker had died of Thurston’s Disease. Light smokers and nonsmokers—plenty of them—but not one single nicotine addict. And there were over ten thousand randomized cards in that spot check. And there’s the exact reverse of that classic experiment the lung cancer boys used to sell their case. Among certain religious groups which prohibit smoking there was nearly one hundred per cent mortality of all ages!
“And so I thought since the disease was just starting in you, perhaps I could stop it if I loaded you with tobacco smoke. And it works!”
“You’re not certain yet,” Mary said. “I might not have had the disease.”
“You had the symptoms. And there’s virus in your sputum.”
“Yes, but—”
“But, nothing! I’ve passed the word—and the boys in the other labs figure that there’s merit in it. We’re going to call it Barton’s Therapy in your honor. It’s going to cause a minor social revolution. A lot of laws are going to have to be rewritten. I can see where it’s going to be illegal for children not to smoke. Funny, isn’t it?
“I’ve contacted the maternity ward. They have three babies still alive upstairs. We get all the newborn in this town, or didn’t you know. Funny, isn’t it, how we still try to reproduce. They’re rigging a smoke chamber for the kids. The head nurse is screaming like a wounded tiger, but she’ll feel better with live babies to care for. The only bad thing I can see is that it may cut down on her chain smoking. She’s been worried a lot about infant mortality.
“And speaking of nurseries—that reminds me. I wanted to ask you something.”
“Yes?”
“Will you marry me? I’ve wanted to ask you before, but I didn’t dare. Now I think you owe me something—your life. And I’d like to take care of it from now on.”
“Of course I will,” Mary said. “And I have reasons, too. If I marry you, you can’t possibly do that silly thing you plan.”
“What thing?”
“Naming the treatment Barton’s. It’ll have to be Kramer’s.”
FOUNDING FATHER
The creatures were huge, hairy, surly—and the males were always chasing the females. But what else could you expect of mammals?
I
“WE need data,” I said as I manipulated the scanner and surveyed our little domain of rocks and vegetation. “The animate life we have collected so far is of a low order.”
“There is nothing here with intelligence,” Ven agreed, gesturing at the specimens in front of us. “Although they’re obviously related to our race, they’re quite incapable of constructing those artifacts we saw on our way down.”
“Or of building electone communications or even airboats,” I added.
“I expect that there is only one way to get what we want—and that’s to go looking for it,” Ven said as she smoothed her antennae with a primary digit. “I also expect,” she added acidly, “that there might have been other places from which it wouldn’t be so hard to start looking. Or did you have to set us down in this isolated spot?”
I glared at her and she flushed a delicate lavender. “Do you think I landed here because I wanted to?” I asked with some bitterness, inflating my cheek pouches to better express my disgust. “There were less than two vards of useful fuel left on the reels when I cut the drives. There isn’t enough to take us across this valley. We came close to not making planetfall here at all.”
“Oh,” Ven said in a small voice, vocalizing as she always does when she is embarrassed. Like most females, she finds it difficult to project normally when she is under emotional stress. Afraid or angry she can blow a hole in subspace; but embarrassed, her projections are so faint that I have to strain my antennae to receive them.
Her aura turned a shamefaced nacreous lavender. I couldn’t stay angry with her. She was lovely, and I was proud to be her mate. The Eugenics Council had made an unusually good match when they brought us together. The months we had spent aboard ship on our sabbatical had produced no serious personality conflicts. We fitted well, and I was more happy than any Thalassan had a right to be.
“We shall have to try other measures,” I said. “Although there aren’t very many nati
ves hereabouts, we had better start looking for them rather than wait for them to look for us.” I felt disappointed. I was certain that we made enough disturbance coming down for them to be here in droves, which was why I had the robots camouflage the ship to look like the surrounding rocks. There could be such a thing as too much attention.
“They could have mistaken us for a meteor,” Ven said.
“Probably,” I agreed. “But it would have saved a great deal of trouble if one of them had come to us.” I sighed. “Oh well.”
I added, “it was only a hope, at best.”
“I could explore,” Ven offered.
“I was about to suggest that,” I said. “After all, the atmosphere is breathable although somewhat rich in oxygen, and the gravity is not too severe. It would be best to wait until dark before starting out. There may be danger. After all, this is an alien world, and Authority knows what’s out there.”
Her antennae dropped, her aura dimmed to gray and her integument turned a greenish black. “It doesn’t sound pleasant,” she said.
THE sun dipped below the horizon with an indecently gaudy display of color. After the last shades of violet had faded, I opened the airlock and watched Ven, a darker blot in the darkness of the night, slip away into the shadows.
She went unarmed. I wanted her to take a blaster, but she refused, saying that she had never fired one, wouldn’t know what to do with one—and that its weight would hold her back. I didn’t like it. But I was unable to go with her, and it was better that she did as she wished at this time.
I sat for a while in the entrance port watching the slow wheel of the stars across the heavens, and for a moment I wished that I were a female with the rugged physique to withstand this gravity. As it was, the beauty of the night was lost on me. I breathed uncomfortably as the pressure crushed my body and made every joint and muscle ache. Males, I reflected gloomily, weren’t what they were in the old days. Too much emphasis on mind, and not enough on body, had made us a sex of physical weaklings.
I wondered bitterly if a brain was as worthwhile as the Council insisted.
The next few hours were miserable. I worried about Ven, imagining a number of unpleasant things which might have happened to her. I dragged myself into the control room and fiddled with the scanners, trying the infra and ultra bands as well as the normal visible spectrum in the hopes of seeing something. And just as I was beginning to feel the twinges of genuine fear, I heard Ven.
Her projection was faint. “Help me, Eu! Help me!”
I stumbled to the entrance port, dragging a blaster with me. “Where are you?” I projected. I couldn’t see her, but I could sense her presence.
“Here, Eu. Just below you. Help me. I can’t make it any farther!”
Somehow I managed it. I don’t know from where the strength came, but I was on the ground lifting her, pushing her onto the flat surface of the airlock—clambering up—dragging her in and closing the lock behind us. I looked down at her with pride. Who would have thought that I, a male, could lift a mature female into a ship’s airlock even against normal gravity? I chuckled shakily. Strange things happen to a body when its owner is stressed and its suprarenals are stimulated.
She looked up at me. “Thank you,” she said simply. But there was more behind the words than the bare bones of customary gratitude.
I helped her into the refresher and as she restored her tired body I pelted her with numerous questions.
“Did you succeed?” I asked.
“Better than I expected.”
“Did you find a native?”
“Two of them.” The cubicle glowed a pale green as her strength came back.
“Where?”
“Two vursts from here—down the hill. They’re camped near a road. They have a big ground car with them.”
“Did you see them?”
“Yes.”
“What did they look like?”
The radiance in the cubicle flicked out. “They’re horrible!” Ven said. “Monstrous! Four or five times our size! I never saw anything so hideous!”
“Did they see you?”
“No, I don’t think so. They weren’t looking in my direction at first. And I don’t think they can sense, because I was frightened and they didn’t respond to my projection.” She was beginning to recover.
“You couldn’t have been too frightened,” I said. “I didn’t hear you—and you can reach farther than two vursts.”
“Mostly I was repelled,” Ven admitted.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. They smelled bad, but it was more than that. There was something about them that made my antennae lie flat against my ears. Anyway—I did a foolish thing.” The cubicle turned a pale embarrassed lavender.
“What did you do?” I demanded.
“I ran away,” Ven said. “And I made a lot of noise.”
“All right—all right,” I said impatiently. “Go ahead and tell the rest of it.”
“By the time I stopped running I was down at the bottom of the hill,” Ven said. “I was dead tired—and with all that rock to climb to get back to the ship. I didn’t really think I’d make it.”
“But you did,” I said proudly. “You’re a real Thalassan—pure green.”
The cubicle slowly brightened again.
“Can you find them again?” I asked.
“Of course. I wasn’t lost at any time. If I hadn’t panicked, I’d have been back a whole lot sooner.”
“Can you go now?”
SHE shivered with distaste. “I can,” she said, “but I don’t want to.”
“That’s nonsense. We can’t let a little physical revulsion stop us. After all, there are some pretty grim things to be seen in this universe.”
“But nothing like this! I tell you, Eu, they’re horrible! That’s the only word that can describe them.”
“Take a stat projector—” I began.
“Aren’t you coming?” she asked.
“Two vursts on this planet? What do you think I am?”
Her face hardened. “I don’t know,” she said coldly, “but I do know this—if you don’t come, I won’t go.”
I groaned. From her aura I could tell she meant every word. It angered me, too, because Thalassan females usually don’t defy a male. “Remember,” I said icily, “that you’re not the only female on Thalassa.”
“We’re not on Thalassa,” she said. Her aura was a curious leaden color, shot through with sullen red flares and blotches.
“I have no right to force you,” she went on stubbornly, “but I can’t handle them alone. You simply have to come.”
“But Ven—I’m a physical cipher. This gravity flattens me. I won’t make it.”
“You will,” she said. “I’ll help you. But this job needs a male mind.”
It was deliberate flattery, I suppose. But there was an element of truth in it. Ven obviously couldn’t do it, and obviously she thought I could. I couldn’t help feeling pride in her need for me. I liked the feeling. For, after all, we hadn’t been mated so long that there was too great an amount of familiarity in our relationship. The Eugenics Council had taken care of that very effectively when we announced our plans for our sabbatical.
“All right—I’ll go,” I repeated.
With a quick light movement she touched my antennae with her primary digits. The shock ran through me clear to my pads. “You’re good,” she said—and the way she said it was an accolade.
II
“THIS way,” Ven said, emitting a faint yellow aura that lighted the area around her. “Follow me.” She staggered a little under the weight of the equipment she was carrying. I wished that we had enough power to energize an air sled—-but we had none to spare. The robots had used up most of our scanty power metal reserves in camouflaging the ship and the adaptor had taken the rest. This was going to be a miserable trip. It was going to be painful, uncomfortable and perhaps even dangerous.
It was.
We went across rock
s, through sharp-twigged brush—across the saw-edged grass of the meadow below us, over more rocks, and down-hill along a faint double trail that never seemed to end. I was nearly dead with weariness when Ven’s aura flicked off and the dark closed in. My proprioceptors were screaming as I sank to the ground and panted the rich air of this world in and out of my aching chest.
“They’re just ahead,” Ven whispered. “Around that next group of rocks. Be careful.”
We moved forward cautiously. “There was a fire,” Ven whispered.
“There isn’t now,” I said. “I can’t sense any heat.” The night air blew a rank odor to my nostrils. My spines stiffened! I knew what Ven meant when she said that these natives repelled her. I had smelled that scent before—the scent of our ancestral enemies! So these were the natives, the dominant life on this planet! I gagged, my tongue thick in my throat.
“You see?” Ven asked.
I nodded. “It’s pretty bad,” I said.
“It reminds me of a zoo,” Ven answered softly.
I nodded. It did and it was thoroughly unpleasant.
I strained my perception to its limits, pushing it through the gelid darkness, searching until I found the natives. “They’re asleep,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Suspension of consciousness. Something like estivation.”
“Oh. Then we can approach safely?”
“If we are quiet,” I replied. “Sleep is broken easily and consciousness returns quickly.”
The trail deepened beyond the rocks—two rutted tracks about three vards apart. We moved forward cautiously, our senses keyed to their highest pitch. The night was oppressively still and every movement rasped loudly. My breath came fast and shallow. My heart pounded and my musk glands were actively secreting as I parted the opening to their cloth shelter, and sensed the dim forms within.
“Stat,” I projected and Ven handed me the weapon. It was almost more than I could manage in my weakened condition, but I aimed it and fired a full intensity blast at the nearest lumpy figure. It jerked and flopped inside its coverings, and the second form sat up with horrid speed!
