 1 A man said to the universe, Sir, I exist. However, replied the universe, the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation. Stephen Crane. Sweat covered Brion's body, trickling into the tight-loin cloth that was the only garment he wore. The light-fencing foil in his hand felt as heavy as a bar of lead to his exhausted muscles, worn out by a month of continual exercise. These things were of no importance. The cut on his chest, still dripping blood. The ache of his overstrained eyes, even the soaring arena around him with the thousands of spectators, were trivialities not worth thinking about. There was only one thing in his universe. The button-tipped length of his shining steel that hovered before him, engaging his own weapon. He felt the quiver and scrape of its life, knew when it moved and moved himself to counteract it. And when he attacked, it was always there to beat him aside. A sudden motion. He reacted, but his blade just met air. His instant panic was followed by a small, sharp blow high on his chest. Touch! A roll-shaking voice bellowed the word to a million waiting loudspeakers, and the applause of the audience echoed back in a wave of sound. One minute, a voice said, and a time buzzer sounded. Brian had carefully conditioned the reflex in himself. A minute is not a very large measure of time, and his body needed every fraction of it. The buzzers were, triggered his muscles into complete relaxation. Only his heart and lungs worked on at a strong measured rate. His eyes closed, and he was only distantly aware of his handlers catching him as he fell, carrying him to his bench. While they massaged his limp body and cleansed the wound, all of his attention was turned inward. He was in reverie, sliding along the borders of consciousness. The nagging memory of the previous night loomed up then, and he turned it over and over in his mind, examining it from all sides. It was a very unexpectedness of the event that had been so unusual. The contestants in the twenties needed undisturbed rest. Therefore nights in the dormitories were as quiet as death. During the first few days, of course, the rule wasn't observed too closely. Demand themselves were too keyed up and excited to rest easily. But as soon as the scores began to mount and eliminations cut into their ranks, there was complete silence after dark. Particularly so, on this last night, when only two of the little cubicles were occupied, the thousands of others standing with dark empty doors. Angry words had dragged Brion from a deep and exhausted sleep. The words were whispered but clear. Two voices, just outside the thin middle of his door. Someone spoke his name. Brion Brandt? Of course not. Whoever said you could was making a big mistake, and there is going to be trouble. Don't talk like an idiot! The other voice snapped with a harsh urgency, clearly used to command. I'm here because the matter is of utmost importance, and Brandt is the one I must see. Now stand aside. The twenties—I don't give a damn about your games, hearty cheers, and physical exercises. This is important, or I wouldn't be here. The other didn't speak. He surely was one of the officials, and Brion could sense his outraged anger. He must have drawn his gun because the intruder said quickly, Put that away, you're being a fool! Out was the single snarled word of the response. There was silence then, and, still wondering, Brion was once more asleep. Ten seconds. The voice chopped away Brion's memories, and he led awareness seeped back into his body. He was unhappily conscious of his total exhaustion. The months of continuous mental and physical combat had taken its toll. It would be hard to stay on his feet, much less some of the strength and skill to fight and win a touch. How do we stand? He asked the handler who was kneading his aching muscles. Four-four, all you need is a touch to win. That's all he needs, too, Brion grunted, opening his eyes to look at the wiry length of the man at the other end of the long mat. No one who had reached the finals in the twenties could possibly be a weak opponent, but this one, Iroge, was the pick of the lot. I read here a mountain of a man with an apparently inexhaustible store of energy. That was really all that counted now. There could be little art in this last and final round of fencing. Just thrust and parry and victory to the stronger. Brion closed his eyes again and knew the moment he had been hoping to avoid had arrived. Every man who entered the twenties had his own training tricks. Brion had a few individual ones that had helped him so far. He was a moderately strong chess player, but he had moved to quick victory to chess rounds by playing incredibly unorthodox games. This was no accident, but the result of years of work. He had a standing order with off-planet agents for archaic chess books, the older the better. He had memorized thousands of these ancient games and openings. This was allowed. Anything was allowed that didn't involve drugs or machines. Self-hypnosis was an accepted tool. It had taken Brion over two years to find a way to tap the sources of hysterical strength. Common as the phenomenon seemed to be in the textbooks, it proved impossible to duplicate. There appeared to be an immediate association with the death drama as if the two were inextricably linked into one. Preserkers and juramentados continued to fight and kill, though carved by scores of mortal wounds. Men with bullets in the heart or brain fight on, though already clinically dead. Death seemed an inescapable part of this kind of strength. But there is another type that could easily be brought about in any deep trance, hypnotic rigidity. The strength that enables someone in a trance to hold his body stiff and unsupported except at two points, the head and heels. This is physically impossible when conscious. Working with this as a clue, Brion had developed a self-hypnotic technique that allowed him to tap this reservoir of unknown strength, the source of second wind, the survival strength that made the difference between life and death. It could also kill, exhaust the body beyond hope of recovery, particularly when in a weakened condition as his was now. But that wasn't important. Others had died before during the 20s, and death during the last round was, in some ways, easier than defeat. Working deeply, Brion softly spoke the auto-hypnotic phrases that triggered the process. Fatigue fell softly from him, as did all sensations of heat, cold and pain. He could feel with acute sensitivity, hear and see clearly when he opened his eyes. With each passing second, the power drew at the basic reserves of life, draining it from his body. As the buzzer sounded, he pulled his foil from his second startled grasp and ran forward. Iroge barely had time to grab up his own weapon and parry Brion's first thrust. The force of his rush was so great that the guards in their weapons locked, and their bodies crashed together. Iroge looked amazed at the sudden fury of the attack, then smiled. He thought it was the last burst of energy. He knew how close they both were to exhaustion. This must be the end for Brion. The disengaged and Iroge put up a solid defense. He didn't attempt to attack. Just let Brion wear himself out against the firm shield of his defense. Brion saw something close to panic on his opponent's face when the man finally recognized his error. Brion wasn't tiring. If anything, he was pressing the attack. A wave of despair rolled out from Iroge. Brion sensed it and knew the fifth point was his. Thrust, thrust, and each time the parrying saw it a little slower to return. Then the powerful twist that thrust to the side, in and under the guard, the slap of the button on flesh and the arc of steel that reached out and ended on Iroge's chest over his heart. Waves of sound, cheering and screaming, lapped against Brion's private world, but he was only remotely aware of their existence. Iroge dropped his foil and tried to shake Brion's hand, but his legs suddenly gave way. Brion had an arm around him, holding him up, walking towards the rushing handlers. Then Iroge was gone and he waved off his own men, walking slowly by himself. That something was wrong and it was like walking through warm glue, walking on his knees. No, not walking, falling. At last, he was able to let go and fall. End of chapter one. Chapter two of Planet of the Damned. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Rose. Planet of the Damned by Harry Harrison. Chapter two. Eil gave the doctors exactly one day before he went to the hospital. Brion wasn't dead, so there had been some doubt about that the night before. Now a full day later he was on the mend and that was all Eil wanted to know. He bullied and strong armed his way to the new winners room, meeting his first stiff resistance at the door. You're out of order, winner Eil, the doctor said, and if you keep on forcing yourself in here where you were not wanted, rank or no rank, I shall be obliged to break your head. Eil had just begun to tell him in some detail just how slim his chances were of accomplishing that when Brion interrupted them both. He recognized the newcomer's voice from the final night in the barracks. Let him in, Dr. Calry, he said. I want to meet a man who thinks there is something more important than the twenties. While the doctor stood undecided, Eil moved quickly around him and closed the door in his flushed face. He looked down at the winner in the bed. There was a drip plugged into each one of Brion's arms. His eyes peered from sooty hollows. The eyeballs were a network of red veins. The silent battle he fought against death had left its mark. His square jutting jaw now seemed all bone as did his long nose and high cheekbones. They were prominent landmarks rising from the limp grayness of his skin. Only the erect bristle of his close cropped hair was unchanged. He had the appearance of having suffered a long and wasting illness. You look like sin, Eil said, but congratulations on your victory. You don't look so very good yourself for a winner, Brion snapped back. His exhaustion and sudden peevish anger at this man let the insulting words slip out. Eil ignored them. But it was true. Winner Eil looked very little like a winner, or even an envarian. He had the height and the frame all right, but it was draped in billows of fat, grounded soft tissue that hung loosely from his limbs, and made little limp rolls on his neck and under his eyes. There were no fat men on Anvar, and it was incredible that a man so gross could ever have been a winner. If there was muscle under the fat, it couldn't be seen. Only his eyes appeared to still hold the strength that had once bested every man on the planet to win the annual games. Brion turned away from their burning stare. Sorry now, he had insulted the man without good reason. He was too sick, though, to bother about apologizing. Eil didn't care either. Brion looked at him again and felt the impression of things so important that he himself, his insults, even the 20s, were of no more interest than dust moats in the air. It was only a fantasy of a sick mind, Brion knew, and he tried to shake the feeling off. The two men stared at each other, sharing a common emotion. The door opened soundlessly behind Eil, and he reeled about, moving as only an athlete of Anvar can move. Dr. Colary was halfway through the door, off balance. Two men in uniform came close behind him. Eil's body pushed against them, his speed and the mountainous mass of his flesh sending them back in a tangle of arms and legs. He slammed the door and locked it in their faces. I have to talk to you, he said, turning back to Brion. Privately he added, bending over and ripping out the communicator with a sweep of one hand. Look it out, Brion told him. If I were able, well, you're not. So you're just going to have to lie there and listen. I imagined we have about five minutes before they decided to break the door down, and I don't want to waste any more of that. Will you come with me off world? There's a job that must be done. It's my job, but I'm going to need help. You're the only one who can give me that help. Now, refuse, he added, as Brion started to answer. Of course I refuse, Brion said, feeling a little foolish and slightly angry, as if the other man had put the words into his mouth. Enver is my planet. Why should I leave? My life is here, and so is my work. I might also add that I have just won the 20s. I have a responsibility to remain. I'm a winner, and I left. What you really mean is you would like to enjoy a little of the ego inflation you have worked so hard to get. Off-Enver, no one even knows what a winner is, much less respects one. You will have to face a big universe out there, and I don't blame you for being a little frightened. Someone was hammering loudly on the door. I haven't the strength to get angry, Brion said hoarsely, and I can't bring myself to admire your ideas when they permit you to insult a man too ill to defend himself. I apologize, I'll said, with no hint of apology or sympathy in his voice, but there are more desperate issues involved than your hurt feelings. We don't have much time now, so I want to impress you with an idea. An idea that will convince me to go off-planet with you? That's expecting a lot. No, this idea won't convince you, but thinking about it will. If you really consider it, you will find a lot of your illusions shattered. Like everyone else on Enver, you're a scientific humanist with their faith firmly planted in the 20s. You accept both of these noble institutions without an instance thought. All of you haven't had a single thought for the past, for the untold billions who led the bad life as mankind slowly built up the good life for you to lead. Do you ever think of all the people who suffered and died in misery and superstition, while civilization was clicking forward one more slow notch? Of course I don't think about some, Brion retorted. Why should I? I can't change the past. But you can change the future, Isle said. You owe something to the suffering ancestors who got you where you are today. If scientific humanism means anything more than just words to you, you must possess a sense of responsibility. Don't you want to try and pay off a bit of this debt by helping others who are just as backward and disease ridden today as great-grandfather Troglodyte ever was? The hammering on the door was louder. This and the drug-induced buzzing in Brion's ear made thinking difficult. Abstractly, I, of course, agree with you, he said, holdingly. But you know there is nothing I can do personally without being emotionally involved. Logical decision is valueless for action without personal meaning. Then we have reached the crux of the matter, Isle said gently. His back was braced against the door, absorbing the sudden blows of some heavy object on the outside. They're knocking, so I must be going soon. I have no time for details, but I can assure you upon my word of honor as a winner that there is something you can do. Only you. If you help me, we might save seven million human lives. That is a fact. The locked burst and the door started to open. Isle shouldered it back into the frame for a final instant. Here is the idea I want you to consider. Why is it that the people of Anvar, in a galaxy filled with warring, hate-filled, backward planets, should be the only ones who base their entire existence on a complicated series of games? CHAPTER III This time there was no way to hold the door. Isle didn't try. He stepped aside, and two men stumbled into the room. He walked out behind their backs without saying a word. What happened? What did he do? The doctor asked, brushing in through the ruined door. He swept a glance over the continuous recording dials at the foot of Brion's bed. Respiration, temperature, heart, blood pressure. All were normal. The patient lay quietly and didn't answer him. For the rest of that day, Brion had much to think about. It was difficult. The fatigue, mixed with the tranquilizers and other drugs, had softened his contact with reality. His thoughts kept echoing back and forth in his mind, unable to escape. What had Isle meant? What was that nonsense about Anvar? Anvar was that way, because, well, it just was. It had come about naturally. Or had it? The planet had a very simple history. From the very beginning there had never been anything of real commercial interest on Anvar. Well off the interstellar trade routes, there were no minerals worth digging and transporting the immense distances to the nearest inhabited worlds. Hunting the winter beasts for their pelts was a profitable but very minor enterprise, never sufficient for mass markets. Therefore, no organized attempt had ever been made to colonize the planet. In the end it had been settled completely by chance. A number of off-planet scientific groups had established observation and research stations, finding unlimited data to observe and record during Anvar's unusual yearly cycle. The long-duration observations encouraged the scientific workers to bring their families, and slowly but steadily small settlements grew up. Many of the fur hunters settled there as well, adding to the small population. This had been the beginning. Few records existed of those early days and the first six centuries of Unvarian history were more speculation than fact. The breakdown occurred about that time, and in the galaxy-wide disruption Anvar had to fight its own internal battle. When the Earth Empire collapsed it was the end of more than an era. Many of the observation stations found themselves representing institutions that no longer existed. The professional hunters no longer had markets for their furries, since Anvar possessed no interstellar ships of its own. There had been no real physical hardship involved in the breakdown as it affected Anvar since the planet was completely self-sufficient. Once they had made the mental adjustment to the fact that they were now a sovereign world, not a collection of casual visitors with various loyalties, life continued unchanged. Living on Anvar is never easy, but at least without difference on the surface. The thoughts and attitudes of the people were, however, going through a great transformation. Many attempts were made to develop some form of stable society and social relationship. Again, little record exists of these early trials other than the fact of their culmination in the 20s. To understand the 20s you have to understand the unusual orbit that Anvar tracks around its sun, Seventy of Yoki. There are other planets in this system, all of them more or less conforming to the plane of the ecliptic. Anvar is obviously a rogue, perhaps a captured planet of another sun. For the greatest part of its 780-day year it arcs out far from its primary in a high-angled, sweeping cometary orbit. When it returns, there is a brief hot summer of approximately 80 days before the long winter sets in once more. This severe difference in seasonal change has caused profound adaptations in the native life forms. During the winter most of the animals hibernate, the vegetable life lying dormant as spores or seeds. Some of the warm-blooded herbivores stay active in the snow-covered tropics, preyed upon by fur-insulated carnivores. Though unbelievably cold, the winter is a season of peace in comparison to the summer. For summer is a time of mad growth. Plants burst into life with a strength that cracks rocks, growing fast enough for the emotion to be seen. The snow fields melt into mud and within days a jungle stretches high into the air. Everything grows, swells, proliferates. Plants climb on top of plants fighting for the life energy of the sun. Everything is eat and be eaten, grow and thrive in that short season. Because when the first snow of winter falls again, 90% of the year must pass until the next coming of warmth. It has had to adapt to the invariant cycle in order to stay alive. Food must be gathered and stored enough to last out the long winter. Generation after generation had adapted until they look on the mad seasonal imbalance as something quite ordinary. The first thaw of the almost nonexistent spring triggers a wide reaching metabolic change in the humans. Changes of subcutaneous fat, vanish, and half-dormant sweat glands come to life. Other changes are more subtle than the temperature adjustment, but equally important. The sleep center of the brain is depressed. Short naps or a night's rest every third or fourth day becomes enough. Life takes on a hectic and hysterical quality that is perfectly suited to the environment. By the time of the first frost, rapid growing crops have been raised and harvested. Sides of meat either preserved or frozen in mammoth lockers. With the supreme talent of adaptability, mankind has become part of the ecology and guaranteed his own survival during the long winter. Physical survival has been guaranteed, but what about mental survival? Interimative earth eskimos can fall into a long dose of half-conscious hibernation. Civilized men might be able to do this, but only for the few cold months of terrestrial winter. It would be impossible to do during a winter that is longer than an earth year. With all the physical needs taken care of, boredom became the enemy of any envarian who was not a hunter, and even the hunters could not stay out on solitary trek all winter. Drink was one answer, and violence another. Alcoholism and murder were the twin terrors of the cold season after the breakdown. It was the 20s that ended all that. When they became a part of normal life, the summer was considered just an interlude between games. The 20s were more than just a contest. They became a way of life that satisfied all the physical, competitive, and intellectual needs of this unusual planet. They were a decathlon, or rather a double decathlon, raised to its highest power, where contests in chess and poetry composition held equal place with those in ski-jumping and archery. Each year there were two planet-wide contests held, one for men, and one for women. This was not an attempt at sexual discrimination, but a logical facing of facts. Inherent differences prevented fair contests. For example, it is impossible for a woman to win a large chess tournament, and this fact was recognized. Anyone could enter for any number of years. There were no scoring handicaps. When the best man won, he was really the best man. A complicated series of playoffs and the eliminations kept contestants and observers busy for half the winter. They were only preliminary to the final encounter that lasted a month and picked a single winner. That was the title he was awarded. Winner. The man and woman who had bested every other contestant on the entire planet and who would remain unchallenged until the following year. Winner. It was a title to take pride in. Brian stirred weakly on his bed and managed to turn so he could look out of the window. Winner of Anvar. His name was already slated for the history books, one of the handful of planetary heroes. Schoolchildren would be studying him now just as he had read of the winners of the past, weaving daydreams and imaginary adventures around Brian's victories, hoping and fighting to equal them some day. To be a winner was the greatest honor in the universe. Outside, the afternoon sun shimmered weakly in a dark sky. The endless ice fields soaked up the dim light, reflecting it back as a colder and harsher illumination. A single figure on skis cut a line across the empty plain. Nothing else moved. The depression of the ultimate fatigue fell on Brian and everything changed as if he looked in a mirror at a previously hidden side. He saw suddenly, with terrible clarity, that to be a winner was to be absolutely nothing, like being the best flea among all the fleas of a single dog. What was Anvar, after all, an ice-locked planet inhabited by a few million human fleas, unknown and unconsidered by the rest of the galaxy, there was nothing here worth fighting for. The wars after the breakdown had left them untouched. The Anvarians had always taken pride in this, as if being so unimportant that no one else had even wanted to come near you could possibly be a source of pride. All the other worlds of man grew, fought, won, lost, changed. Only on Anvar did life repeat its sameness endlessly, like a loop of tape in a player. Brian's eyes were moist. He blinked. Tears. Realization of this incredible fact wiped the model and pity from his mind and replaced it with fear. Had his mind snapped in the strain of the last match? These thoughts weren't his. Self-pity hadn't made him a winner. Why was he feeling it now? Anvar was his universe. How could he even imagine it as a tag-end planet at the outer limb of creation? What had come over him and induced this inverse thinking? As he thought the question, the answer appeared at the same incident. Winner Ile. The fat man with the strange pronouncements and probing questions. Had he cast a spell like some sorcerer or the devil in Faust? Now that was pure nonsense. But he had done something. Perhaps planted a suggestion when Brian's resistance was low, or used subliminal vocalization like the villain in Cerebrus chained. Brian could find no adequate reason on which to base his suspicions, but he knew with sure positiveness that Ile was responsible. He whistled at the sound switch next to his pillow and the repaired communicator came to life. The duty nurse appeared in the small screen. The man who was here today, Brian said, Winner Ile, do you know where he is? I must contact him. For some reason this flustered her professional calm. The nurse started to answer, excused herself, and blanked the screen. When it lit again, a man in a guard's uniform had taken her place. You made an inquiry, the guard said, about Winner Ile. We are holding him here in the hospital, following the disgraceful way in which he broke into your room. I have no charges to make. Will you ask him to come and see me at once? The guard controlled his shock. I'm sorry, Winner, I don't see how we can. Dr. Calvary left specific orders that you were not to be the doctor has no control over my personal life, Brian interrupted. I'm not infectious nor ill with anything more than extreme fatigue. I want to see that man at once. The guard took a deep breath and made a quick decision. He's on the way up now, he said, and rung off. What did you do to me? Brian asked as soon as Ile had entered and they were alone. You won't deny that you have put alien thoughts in my head? No, I won't deny it, because the whole point of my being here is to get those alien thoughts across to you. Tell me how you did it, Brian insisted. I must know. I'll tell you, but there are many things you should understand first before you decide to leave Anvar. You must not only hear them, you will have to believe them. The primary thing, the clue to the rest, is the true nature of your life here. How do you think the Twenties originated? Before he answered, Brian carefully took a double dose of the mild stimulant he was allowed. I don't think. I know. It's a matter of historical record. The founder of the games was Giroldi, the first contest was held in 378 AB. The Twenties had been held every year since then. There were strictly local affairs in the beginning, but were soon well established on a planet-wide scale. True enough, Ile said, but you're describing what happened. I asked you how the Twenties originated. How could any single man take a barbarian planet, lately inhabited by half-med hunters and alcoholic farmers, and turn it into a smooth-running social machine built around the artificial structure of the Twenties? It just couldn't be done. But it was done, Brian insisted. You can't deny that, and there is nothing artificial about the Twenties. They are a logical way to live on a planet like this. Ile laughed, a short ironic bark. Very logical, he said. But how often does logic have anything to do with the organization of social groups and governments? You're not thinking. Put yourself in founder Giroldi's place. Imagine that you have glimpsed the great idea of the Twenties and you want to convince others. So you walk up to the nearest, lowest-ridden, brawling, pristicious, booze-embalmed hunter and explain clearly how a program of his favorite sports, things like poetry, archery, and chess, can make his life that much more interesting and virtuous. You do that. But keep your eyes open at the same time and be ready for a fast draw. Even Brian had to smile at the absurdity of the suggestion. Of course it couldn't happen that way. But since it had happened there must be a simple explanation. We can beat this back and forth all day, Ile told him. And you won't get the right idea, unless—he broke off suddenly, staring at the communicator. The operational light had come on, so the screen stayed dark. Ile reached down a meaty hand and pulled loose the recently connected wires. That doctor of yours is very curious, and he's going to stay that way. The truth behind the twenties is none of his business, but it's going to be yours. You must come to realize that the life you lead here is complete and artificial construction, developed by Societics experts and put into application by skilled field workers. Nonsense, Brian broke in. Problems of society can't be dreamed up and forced on people like that, not without bloodshed and violence. Nonsense yourself, Ile told him. That may have been true in the dawn of history, but not anymore. You have been reading too many of the old earth classics. You imagine that we still live in the ages of superstition. Just because fascism and communism were once forced on reluctant populations, you think this holds true for all time. Go back to your books. In exactly the same era, democracy and self-government were adapted by former colonial states like India and the Union of North Africa, and the only violence was between local religious groups. Change is a lifeblood of mankind. Everything we today accept as normal was at one time an innovation, and one of the most recent innovations is the attempt to guide the societies of mankind into something more consistent with the personal happiness of individuals. The God complex, Brian said, forcing human lives into a mold whether they want to be fitted into it or not. Societies can be that, Ile agreed. It was in the beginning and there were some disastrous results of attempts to force populations into a political climate where they didn't belong. They weren't all failures, and there here is a striking example of how good the technique can be when correctly applied. It's not done this way anymore, though. As with all of the other sciences, we have found out that the more we know, the more there is to know. We no longer attempt to guide cultures towards what we consider a beneficial goal. There are too many goals, and from our limited vantage point it is hard to tell the good ones from the bad ones. All we do now is try to protect the growing cultures, give a little jolt to the stagnating ones, and bury the dead ones. When the work was first done here on Envar, the theory hadn't progressed that far. The understandably complex equations that determine just where in the scale from a Type I to a Type V a culture is had not yet been completed. The technique then was to work out an artificial culture that would be most beneficial for a planet then bend it into the mold. How can that be done, Brian asked? How is it done here? We've made some progress. You're finally asking how. The technique here took a good number of agents and a great deal of money. Personal honor was emphasized in order to encourage dueling, and this led to a heightened interest in the technique of personal combat. When this was well entrenched, Geraldier was brought in, and he showed how organized competitions could be more interesting than haphazard encounters. Tying the intellectual aspects onto the framework of competitive sports was a little more difficult, but not overwhelmingly so. The details aren't important. All we are considering now is the end product, which is you. You were needed very much. Why me, Brian asked? Why am I special? Because I want a 20s. I can't believe that. Taken objectively, there isn't that much difference between myself and the 10 runner-ups. Why don't you ask one of them? They could do your job as well as I. No, they couldn't. I'll tell you later why you are the only man I can use. Our time is running out, and I must convince you of some other things first. I'll glance that as watched. We have less than three hours to dead deadline. Before that time, I must explain enough of our work to you to enable you to decide voluntarily to join us. A very tall order, Brian said. You might begin by telling me just who this mysterious we is that you keep referring to. The Cultural Relationships Foundation. A non-governmental body, privately endowed, existing to promote peace and ensure the sovereign welfare of independent planets so that all will prosper from the good will and commerce thereby engendered. Sounds as if you're quoting, Brian told him. No one could possibly make up something that sounds like that on a spur of the moment. I was quoting from our Charter of Organization, which is all very fine in a general sense, but I'm talking specifically now, about you. You are the product of a tightly knit and very advanced society. Your individuality has been encouraged by your growing up in a society so small in population that a mild form of government control is necessary. The normal and variant education is an excellent one, and participation in the 20s has given you a general and advanced education second to none in the galaxy. It would be a complete waste of your entire life if you now took all this training and wasted it on some rustic farm. If you give me very little credit, I plan to teach forget Anvar. I'll cut him off with the chop of his hand. This world will roll on quite successfully whether you are here or not. You must forget it, think of its relative unimportance on a galactic scale, and consider instead the existing suffering hordes of mankind. You must think what you can do to help them. What can I do as an individual? The days long passed when a single man like Caesar or Alexander could bring about world-shaking changes. True, but not true, I'll said. There are key men in every conflict of forces, men who act like catalysts applied at the right instant to start a chemical reaction. You may be one of these men, but I must be honest and say that I can't prove it yet. So, in order to save time and endless discussion, I think I will have to spark your personal sense of obligation. Obligation to whom? To mankind, of course, to the countless billions of dead who kept a whole machine rolling along that allows you the full, long, and happy life you enjoy today. What they gave to you, you must pass on to others. That is the keystone of humanistic morals. I have agreed, and a very good argument in the long run, but not one that is going to tempt me out of this bed within the next three hours. A point of success, I'll said. You agree with the general argument. Now, I apply it specifically to you. Here is the statement I intend to prove. There exists a planet with a population of seven million people. Unless I can prevent it, this planet will be completely destroyed. It is my job to stop that destruction. So that is where I am going now. I won't be able to do the job alone. In addition to others, I need you, not anyone like you, but you and you alone. You have precious little time left to convince me of all that, Brian told him. So let me make the job easier for you. The work you do, this planet, the imminent danger of the people there, these are all facts that you can undoubtedly supply. I'll take a chance that this whole thing is not a colossal bluff and admit that, given time, you could verify them all. This brings the argument back to me again. How can you possibly prove that I am the only person in the galaxy who can help you? I can prove it by your singular ability, the thing I came here to find. Ability? I am different in no way from the other men on my planet. You're wrong, I'll said. You are the embodied proof of evolution. Rare individuals with specific talents occur constantly in any species, man included. It has been two generations since an empathetic was last born in Enver, and I have been watching carefully most of that time. What in blazes is an empathetic, and how do you recognize it when you have found it? Brian circled this talk, was getting preposterous. I can recognize one because I'm one myself, and there is no other way. As to how projective empathy works, you had a demonstration of that a little earlier when you felt those strange thoughts about Enver. It would be a long time before you can master that, but receptive empathy is your natural trait. This is mentally entering into the feeling, or what could be called the spirit of another person. Empathy is not thought perception, it may better be described as the sensing of someone else's emotional makeup, feelings, and attitudes. You can't lie to a trained empathetic because he can sense the real attitude behind the verbal lies. Even your undeveloped talent has proved immensely useful in the 20s. You can out guess your opponent because you know his movements, even as his body, tends to make them. You accept this without ever questioning it. How do you know? This was Brian's understood, but never voiced secret. I'll smiled, just guessing, but I wanted 20s too, remember, also without knowing a thing about empathy at the time. On top of our normal training, it's a wonderful trait to have, which brings me to the proof we mentioned a minute ago. When you said you would be convinced if I could prove you were the only person who could help me. I believe you are, and that is one thing I cannot lie about. It's possible to lie about a belief verbally, to have a falsely based belief, or to change a belief, but you can't lie about it to yourself. Equally important, you can't lie about a belief to an empathetic. Would you like to see how I feel about this? See is a bad word. There is no vocabulary yet for this kind of thing. Better, would you join me in my feelings, sense my attitudes, memories, and emotions, just as I do? Brian tried to protest, but he was too late. The doors of his senses were pushed wide, and he was overwhelmed. Dis, I'll said aloud. Seven million people, hydrogen bombs? Brian brand. These were just keywords, landmarks of association. With each one, Brian felt the rushing wave of the other man's emotions. There could be no lies here. I'll was right in that. This was the raw stuff that feelings are made of, the basic reactions to the things and symbols of memory. Dis, dis, dis. It was a word, it was a planet, and the word thundered like a drum. A drum, the sound of a thunder surrounded and was a wasteland, a planet of death. A planet where living was dying and dying was very better than living. Dis, crude, barbaric, backward, miserable, dirty, beneath consideration planet. Hot, burning, scorching wasteland of sands and sands and sands and sands that burned, had burned, will burn forever. The people of this planet so crude, dirty, miserable, barbaric, subhuman, inhuman, lesson human. But they were going to be dead. And dead, they would be seven million blackened corpses that would blacken your dreams, all dreams. Dreams forever because those hydrogen bombs were waiting to kill them, unless, unless, unless you, I'll, stopped it, you, I'll, death, you, death, you, death. Alone couldn't do it, you, death. Must have Brion Brand, wet behind the ears, raw, untrained Brion Brand to help you. He was the only one in the galaxy who could finish the job. As the flow of sensation died away, Brion realized he was sprawled back weekly on his pillows soaked with sweat, washed with the memory of the raw emotion. Across from him, Ile sat with his face bowed in his hands. When he lifted his head, Brion saw within his eyes a shadow of the blackness he had just experienced. Death, Brion said, that terrible feeling of death. It wasn't just the people of this who would die. It was something more personal. Myself, Ile said. In behind this simple word were the repeated echoes of night that Brion had been made aware of with his newly recognized ability. My own death, not too far away. This is a wonderfully terrible price you must pay for your talent. Unxt is an inescapable part of empathy. It is a part of the whole unknown field of sigh phenomena that seems to be independent of time. Death is so traumatic and final that reverberates back along the timeline. The closer I get, the more aware of it I am. There is no exact feeling of date, just a rough location in time. That is the horror of it. I know I will die soon after I get to this, and long before the work there is finished I know the job to be done there and I know the men who have already failed at it. I also know that you are the only person who can possibly complete the work I have started. Do you agree now? Will you come with me? Yes, of course, Brion said. I'll go with you. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of Planet of the Damned This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in a public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by John Rose Planet of the Damned by Harry Harrison Chapter 4 I've never seen anyone quite as angry as that Dr. Brion said. Can't blame him. I always shifted his immense weight and grunted from the console where he was having a coded conversation with the ship's brain. He hit the keys quickly and read the answer from the screen. You took away his medical moment of glory. How many times in his life will he have a chance to nurse back to rugged smiling health the triumphantly exhausted winner of the twenties? Not many, I imagine. To wonder if it is how you managed to convince him that you and the ship here could take care of me as well as his hospital could. I could never convince him of that. I'll said. But I and the Cultural Relationships Foundation have some powerful friends on Anvar. I'm forced to admit I brought a little pressure to bear. He leaned back and read the course tape as it streamed out of the printer. We have a little time to spare but I would rather spend it waiting at the other end. We'll blast as soon as I have you tied down in a stasis field. The completeness of the stasis field leaves no impressions on the body or mind. In it there is no weight, no pressure, no pain, no sensation of any kind. Except for a stasis of very long duration there is no sensation of time. To Brienne's consciousness I'll flip the switch off with a continuation of the same motion that had turned it on. The ship was unchanged. Only outside of the port was the red-shot blankness of jump space. How do you feel? I'll asked. Apparently the ship was wondering the same thing. Its detector unit hovering impatiently just outside of Brienne's stasis field darted down and settled on his beer forearm. The doctor back on Anvar had given the medical section of the ship's brain a complete briefing. A quick check of a dozen factors Brienne's metabolism was compared to the expected norm. Apparently everything was going well because the only reaction was the expected injection of vitamins and glucose. I can't say I'm feeling wonderful yet, Brienne answered, levering himself higher on the pillows, but every day it's a bit better. Steady progress. I hope so, because we have about two weeks before we get to this. Do you think you'll be back in shape by that time? No promises, Brienne said, giving a tentative squeeze to one bicep. It should be enough time though. Tomorrow I start mild exercise and that will tighten me up again. Now, tell me more about this and what you have to do there. I'm not going to do it twice, so just save your curiosity a while. We're heading for a rendezvous point now to pick up another operator. This is going to be a three-man team, you, me, and an exobiologist. As soon as he is aboard, I'll do a complete briefing for you both at the same time. What you can do now is get your head into the language box and start working on your dis-an. You'll want to speak it perfectly by the time we touch down. With an auto-hypno for complete recall, Brienne had no difficulty in mastering the grammar and vocabulary of dis-an. Pronunciation was a different matter altogether. Almost all the word endings were swallowed, muffled, or gargled. The language was rich in glottal stops, clicks, and guttural strangling sounds. I'll stayed in a different part of the ship when Brienne used the voice mirror and analysis scope, claiming that the awful noises interfered with his digestion. Their ship angled through jump space along its calculated course. It kept its fragile human cargo warm, fed them, and supplied breathable air. It had orders to worry about Brienne's health, so it did, checking constantly against its recorded instructions and noting his steady progress. Another part of the ship's brain counted microseconds with moronic fixation, finally closing a relay when a predetermined number had expired in its heart. A light flashed and a buzzer hummed gently but insistently. I'll yawned, put away the report he had been reading, and started for the control room. He shuddered when he passed the room where Brienne was listening to a playback of his dis-an efforts. Turn off that dying brontosaurus and get strapped in, he called, through the thin door. We're coming to the point of optimum possibility and we'll be dropping back into normal space soon. The human mind can ponder the incredible distances between the stars, but cannot possibly contain within itself a real understanding of them. Marked out on a man's hand, an inch is a large unit of measure. In interstellar space, a cubicle area with sides a hundred thousand miles long is a microscopically fine division. Light crosses this distance in a fraction of a second. To a ship moving with a relative speed far greater than that of light, this measuring unit is even smaller. Theoretically, it appears impossible to find a particular area of this size. Technologically, it was a repeatable miracle that occurred too often to even be interesting. Breein and Isle were strapped in with a jump-drive cut off abruptly, lurching them back into normal space and time. They didn't unstrap, but just sat and looked at the dimly distant pattern of stars. A single sun, apparently of fifth magnitude, was their only neighbor in this lost corner of the universe. They waited while the computer took enough star sites to triangulate a position in three dimensions, muttering to itself electronically while it did the countless calculations to find their position. A warning bell chimed and the drive cut on and off so quickly that the two acts seemed simultaneous. This happened again, twice. Before the brain was satisfied, it had made as good a fix as possible and flashed a navigation power off light. Isle unstrapped, stretched and made them a meal. Isle had computed their passage time with precise allowances. Less than ten hours after they arrived, a powerful signal blasted into their waiting receiver. They strapped in again as the navigation power on signal blinked insistently. A ship had paused in flight somewhere relatively near in the vast volume of space. It had entered normal space just long enough to emit a signal of radio query on an assigned wavelength. Isle's ship had detected this and instantly responded with a verifying signal. The passenger spacer had accepted this assurance and gracefully laid a ten-foot metal egg in space. As soon as this had cleared its jump field, the parent ship vanished towards its destination light years away. Isle's ship climbed up the signal it had received. This signal had been recorded and examined minutely. Angle, strength, and Doppler movement were computed to find a course in distance. A few minutes of flight were enough to get within range of the far weaker transmitter in the drop capsule. Homing on this signal was so simple a human pilot could have done it himself. The shining sphere loomed up, vanished out of sight of the viewports as the ship rotated to bring the space lock into line. Magnetic clamps cut in when they made contact. Go down and let the bug doctor in, Isle said. I'll stay and monitor the board in case of trouble. What do I have to do? Get into a suit and open the outer lock. Most of the drop sphere is made of inflatable metallic foil, so don't bother to look for the entrance. Just cut a hole in it with the oversized can opener you'll find in the toolbox. After Dr. Maurice gets aboard, jettison the thing. When they get the radio and locator unit out first, it gets used again. The tool did look like a giant can opener. Brian carefully felt a resilient metal skin that covered the lock entrance until he was sure there was nothing on the other side. Then he jabbed a point through and cut a ragged hole in a thin foil. Dr. Maurice boiled out of the sphere, knocking Brian aside. What's the matter? Brian asked. There was no radio on the other's suit. He couldn't answer. But he did shake his fist angrily. The helmet ports were opaque, so there was no way to tell what expressions went with the gesture. Brian shrugged and turned back to salvaging the equipment pack. Pushing the punctured balloon free and sealing the lock. When pressure was pumped back to ship normal, he cracked his helmet and motioned the other to do the same. You're a pack of dirty lying dogs, Dr. Maurice said when the helmet came off. Brian was completely baffled. Dr. Leah Maurice had long dark hair, large eyes and a delicately shaped mouth now taught with anger. Dr. Maurice was a woman. Are you the filthy swine responsible for this atrocity? Dr. Maurice asked menacingly. In the control room, Brian said quickly, knowing when cowardice was preferable to valor. A man named Isle, 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. Brian hurried after her, not wanting to miss the first human spark of interest and a trip to date. Kidnapped, lied to and forced against my will. There is no court in a 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, Isle said, completely ignoring her words. I asked for a highly qualified exobiologist for a difficult assignment. Someone young and tough enough to do fieldwork 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 conditions than the average woman, which has nothing to do with what I'm telling you. I was hired for a job in the university and signed a contract to that effect. Then this bully of an agent tells me the contract has been changed. Read some paragraph 189C or some such nonsense and I'll be trans-shipping. He stuffed me into that suffocating basketball without a buyer leave and they threw me overboard. If that is not a violation of personal privacy. Cut a new chorus, Brian. Isle broke in. Find a 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 a nexobiologist ever conceived of, but we need a man who can take orders and not faint when it gets too hot. Brian was lost. Isle had done all the navigating and Brian had no idea how to begin a search like this. 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 500 other students were male. This is only a man's universe because 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. Brian closed his mouth and 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. The 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 female one and it's too late to send her back now. Why, Brianna asked as Leah appeared in the doorway. Come inside and I'll show you both, I all said. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Planet of the Damned by Harry Harrison This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Planet of the Damned by Harry Harrison Chapter 5 Dis, I just said. Consulting a thick file. Third planet out from its primary, Epsilon Eridani. The fourth planet is Nyjord. Remember that because it's 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 100 Fahrenheit. The temperature in the temperate zones rarely drops below 100 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 as they come. So are the people. This is a solido of a disson. Leah 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'd seen a lot stranger sites. It was the man's pose, the expression on his face, tense to leap, his lips drawn back to show all of his teeth. He looks as if he wanted to kill what he said. He almost did, just after the picture was taken. Like all distance he has an overwhelming hatred and loathing of off-worlders. Not without good reason, though. His planet was completely settled 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 this. Apparently there were large-scale civilizations carried on there once. The world is rich enough in minerals and mining them is very simple. But water came only from expensive extraction processes and I imagine most of the food came from off-world. 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 orcarios were pressed into military service. Dis was on its own. 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 food and water 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 adopted to the environment. Their body temperatures are around 130 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 this is the first time Homo sapiens has been an active part of either Commensalism Quillinism other than in the role of the host. Wonderfully exclaimed. Is that Ijil Scald? Perhaps from the abstract scientific point of view. If you can keep notes perhaps you might write a book about it some time but I'm not interested. I'm sure all these morphological changes and disgusting intimacies will fascinate you Dr. Morays but while you're counting blood types and admiring your thermometers I hope you will be able to devote a little time to the study of the Dyson's obnoxious personalities. We must either find out what makes these people tick or we're going to have to stand by and watch the whole lot blown up. Going to do what, Leagast? Destroy them? Wipe out this fascinating genetic pool? Why? Because they are so incredibly loathsome. That's why Ijil 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 Nijord, 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 Nijorders would like to keep their planet for their own. They've tried every kind of compromise but none of them works. The Dyson's are out to commit racial suicide. A Nijord fleet is now over dis and the deadline has almost expired for the surrender of the cobalt bombs. The Nijord ships carrying FH bombs to turn the entire planet into an atomic pile. That is what we must stop. Brian 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 plated belt were suspended a number of odd devices made of hand-beaten metal, drill stone, and loop leather. The only recognizable item was a thin knife of unusual design. Loops of piping, flared bells, carved stones, tied in senseless patterns of thawing gave the rest of the collection a bizarre appearance. Perhaps they had some religious significance. But the well-worn and handled look of most of them gave Breon an uneasy sensation. If they were used, what in the universe could they be used for? I can't believe it he finally concluded, except for the exotic hardware this lowbrow looks as if he is sunk back into the Stone Age. I don't see how his kind can be any real threat to another planet. The Nijorders believe it, and that's good enough for me, Ijil said. But paying our cultural relations foundation a good sum to try and prevent this war. Since they are our employers we must do what they asked. Breon ignored this large lie since it was obviously designed as an explanation for Lea. But he made a metal note to query Ijil later about the real situation. Here are the tech reports. Ijil dropped them on the table. Dis has some spacers as well as the cobalt bombs, though these aren't the real threat. A Tramp Trader was picked up leaving Dis. It had delivered a jump-space launcher that can drop these bombs on Nijord while anchored to the bedrock of Dis. While essentially a peaceful and happy people, the Nijorders were justifiably annoyed at this and convinced the Tramps captain to give them some more information. It's all here, boiled down, it gives a minimum deadline by which time the launcher can be set up for the bombs. When is that deadline, Lea asked? In ten more days. If the situation hasn't changed drastically by then, the Nijorders are going to wipe all life from the face of Dis. I assure you they don't want to do it. But they will drop the bombs in order to assure their own survival. What am I supposed to do, Lea? asked, flipping the pages of the report. I don't know a thing about nucleonics or jump-space. I'm an exobiologist with a supplementary degree in anthropology. What help could I possibly be? I shall look down at her, stroking his jaw, fingers sunk deep into the rolls of flesh. My faith in our recruiters is restored, he said. That's a combination that is probably rare, even on earth. You're a scrawny as an underfed chicken, but young enough to survive if we keep a close eye on you. He cut off Lea's angry protest with a raised hand. No more bickering, there isn't time. The nige-orders must have lost over thirty agents trying to find the bombs. Our foundation has had six people killed, including my late predecessor in charge of the project. He was a good man, but I think he went at this problem the wrong way. I think it is a cultural one, not a physical one. Run it through again with a power turned up, Lea said, frowning. All I hear is static. It's the old problem of Genesis. Like Newton and the falling apple, Levy and the hysteresis in the warp field, everything has a beginning. If we can find out why these people are so hell-bent on suicide, we might be able to change the reasons. Not that I intend to stop looking for the bombs or the jump-space generator, either. We're going to try anything that will avert this planetary murder. You're a lot brighter than you look, Lea said, rising and carefully stacking the sheets of the report. You can count on me for complete cooperation. Now I'll study all this in bed if one of you overweight gentlemen will show me to a door with a strong lock on the inside of the door. Don't call me. I'll call you when I want breakfast. Breanne wasn't sure how much of her barb speech was humor and how much was serious, so he said, nothing. He showed her to an empty cabin. She did lock the door, then looked for Igel. The winner was in the gallery, adding to his girth with an immense gelatin dessert that filled a good-sized terrine. Is she short for a native terrain, Breanne asked? The top of her head is below my chin. That's the norm. Earth is a reservoir of tired genes, weak backs, veriform appendixes, bad eyes. If they didn't have the universities and the trained people we need, I would never use them. Why did you lie to her about the foundation? Because as the secret, isn't that reason enough? Igel rumbled angrily, scraping the last dregs from the bowl. Better eat something, build up the strength. The foundation has to maintain its undercover status if it's going to accomplish anything. If she returns to Earth after this, it's better she should know nothing of our real work. If she joins up, they'll be time enough to tell her. But I doubt if she will like the way we operate. Particularly since I plan to drop some H-bombs on disc myself if we can't turn off the war. I don't believe it. You heard me correctly. Don't pulse your eyes and look moronic. As a last resort, I'll drop the bombs myself rather than let the Nigerders do it. That might save them. Save them? They'll all be radiated and dead, Brienne's voice rose in anger. Not the dissons. I want to save the Nigerders. Stop clenching your fists and sit down and have some of this cake. It's delicious. The Nigerders are all it counts here. They have a planet blessed by the laws of chance. When disc was cut off from the outside contact, the survivors chained to a gang of swamp-crawling homicidals. It did the opposite for Nigerd. You can survive there just by pulling fruit off a tree. The population was small, educated, intelligent. Instead of sinking into a eternal siesta, they matured into a vitally different society. Not mechanical. They weren't even using the wheel when they were rediscovered. They became sort of cultural specialists. Digging deep into the philosophical aspects of interrelationship. The thing that machine societies have never had time for. Of course, this was ready-made for the Cultural Relationships Foundation and we've been working with them ever since. Not guiding so much as protecting them from any blows that might destroy this growing idea. But we've fallen down on the job. Non-violence is essential to these people. They have vitality without needing destruction. But, if they are forced to blow up discs for their own survival against every one of their basic tenants their philosophy won't endure. Physically, they'll live on as just one more dog-eat-dog planet with an A-bomb for any of the competition who drop behind. Sounds like a paradise now. Don't be smug. It's just another whirl-full of people with the same old likes, dislikes and hatred. But, they are evolving a way of life together without violence that may someday form the key to mankind's survival. That's what we're looking after. Now, get below and study your disson and read the reports. Get it all pat before we land. End of Chapter 5 The quiet words from the speaker in no way appeared to coincide with the picture on the screen. The spacer that had matched their orbit over discs had recently been a freighter. A quick conversion had tacked the hulking shape of a primary weapons turret on top of her hull. The black disc of the immense muzzle pointed squarely at them. Isle switched open the ship-to-ship communication channel. This is Isle. This is the pattern 490-BJ4-67 which is also the code that is supposed to get me through your blockade. Do you want to check that pattern? There will be no need, thank you. If you will turn on your recorder I have a message relayed to you from Prime 4. Recording it out, Isle said. Damn, trouble already and four days to blow up. Prime 4 is our headquarters on discs. This ship carries a cover car go so we can land at the spaceport. This is probably a change of plan and I don't like the smell of it. There was something behind Isle's grumbling this time and without conscious effort Brienne could sense the chilling touch of the other man's angst. Trouble was waiting for them on the planet below. When the message was typed by the decoder Isle hoovered over it reading each word as it appeared on the paper. When it was finished he only snorted and went below to the galley. Brienne pulled the message out of the machine and read it. Isle, Isle, Isle spaceport landing danger night landing preferable coordinates, map 4-6 J-9-2 MN-75 remote your ship viand will meet end, end, end the darkness was safe enough. It was done on instruments and the distance were thought to have no detection apparatus. The altimeter dial spun backwards to zero and a soft vibration was the only indication they had landed. All of the cabin lights were off except for the fluorescent glow of the instruments. A white speckled gray filled the infrared screen radiation from the still warm sand and stone. There were no moving blips on it not the characteristic shape of a shielded atomic generator. We're here first, Isle said, opaking the ports and turning on the cabin lights. They blinked at each other, faces damp with perspiration. Must you have the ship this hot Leah asked patting her forehead with an already soddened kerchief. Stripped over heavier clothing she looked even tinier to Brienne. But the thin clothed tunic barely reaching halfway to her knees concealed very little. Small she may have appeared to him. Unfeminine she was not. Her breasts were full and high her waist tiny enough to offset the outward curve of her hips. Shall I turn around so you can stare at the back too? She asked Brienne. Five days experience had taught him that this type of remark was best ignored. It only became worse if he tried to make an intelligent answer. This is hotter than this cabin, he said, changing the subject. By raising the interior temperature we can at least prevent any sudden shock when we go out. I know the theory, but it doesn't stop me from sweating, she said curtly. Best thing you can do is sweat, Isle said. He looked like a glistening captive balloon in shorts. Finishing a bottle of beer he took another from the freezer. Have a beer. No, thank you. I'm afraid it would dissolve and my kidneys would float completely away. On earth we were never. Get Professor Maurice's luggage for her, Isle interrupted. Viens coming, there's a signal. I'm sending the ship up before any of the locals spot it. When he cracked the outer port the puff of air struck them like an exhaust from a furnace. Dry and hot as a tongue of flame. Brienne heard Leah's gasp in the darkness. She stumbled down the ramp and swallowed her slowly, careful of the weight of packs and equipment he carried. The sand, still hot from the day, burned through his boots. Isle came last, the remote control unit in his hand. As soon as they were clear he activated it and the ramp slipped back like a giant tongue. As soon as the lock had swung shut the ship lifted and drifted upward silently towards its orbit, a shrinking darkness against the stars. There was just enough starlight to see the sandy wastes around them, as wave-filled as a petrified sea. The dark shape of a sand-car drew up over a dune and hummed to a stop. When the door opened Isle stepped towards it and everything happened at once. Isle broke into a blue nimbus of crackling flame, his skin blackening charred. He was dead in an instant. A second pillar of flame a choking scream was cut off at the moment it began. Isle died silently. Brienne was diving, even as the electrical discharges still crackled in the air. The boxes and packs dropped from him and he slammed against Leah knocking her to the ground. He hoped she had the sense to stay there and be quiet. This was his only conscious thought. The rest was reflex. He was rolling over and over the flames flared again, playing over the bundles of luggage he had dropped. This time Brienne was expecting it, pressed flat on the ground a short distance away. He was facing the darkness away from the sand-car and saw the brief blue glow of the ion-rifle discharge. His own gun was in his hand. When Isle had given him the missile weapon, he had asked no questions, but had just strapped it on. There had been no thought he would need it this quickly. Holding it firmly before him in both hands, he let his body aim at the spot where the glow had been. A whiplash of explosive slugs ripped the night air. They found their target and something thrashed voicelessly and died. In the brief instant after he fired a jarring weight landed on his back and a line of fire circled his throat. Normally he fought with a calm mind, with no thoughts other than of the contest. But Isle, a friend, a man of Anvar had died a few seconds before and Briand found himself welcoming this physical violence and pain. There are many foolish and dangerous things that can be done, such as smoking next to high-octane fuel and putting fingers into electrical sockets. Just as dangerous and equally deadly is physically attacking a winner of the twenties. Two men hit Briand together, though this made very little difference. First died suddenly as hands like steel claws found his neck and in a single spasmodic contraction did such damage to the large blood vessels there that they burst and tiny hemorrhages filled his brain. The second man had time for a single scream, though he died just as swiftly when those hands closed on his larynx. Running in a crouch, partially on his knuckles, Briand swiftly made a circle of the area, gun-ready. There were no others. Only when he touched the softness of Leah's body did the blood anger seep from him. He was suddenly aware of the pain and fatigue, the sweat soaking his body and the breath rasping in his throat. Holstering the gun, he ran light fingers over her skull, finding a bruise spot on one temple. Her chest was rising and falling regularly. She had struck her head when he pushed her. It had undoubtedly saved her life. Heading down suddenly he let his body relax, breathing deeply. Everything was a little better now, except for the pain in his throat. His fingers found a thin strand on the side of his neck with a knobby weight on the end. There was another weight on his other shoulder and a thin line of pain across his neck. When he pulled on them both, the strangler's cord came away in his hand. It was thin fiber, strong as a wire. When it had been pulled around his neck, it had sliced the surface skin and flesh like a knife, halted only by the corded bands of muscle below. Breein threw it from him into the darkness where it had come from. He could think again and carefully kept his thoughts from the men he had killed. Knowing it was useless, he went to Isle's body. A single touch of the scorched flesh was enough. Behind him Leah moaned with and he hurried on to the sand car, stepping over the charred body outside the door. The driver's slump, dead, killed perhaps by the same strangling cord that had sunk into Breein's throat. He laid the man gently on the sand and closed the lids over the staring horror of the eyes. There was a canteen in the car and he brought it back to Leah. My head, I've hurt my head, she said groggily. I assured her, drink some of this water and you'll soon feel better. Lie back, everything's over for the moment and you can rest. Isle's dead, Leah said, with sudden shocked memory. They've killed him, what's happened, she tensed, tried to rise and he pressed her back gently. I'll tell you everything, just don't try to get up yet. There was an ambush and they killed Vian and the driver and they're all dead now too. I don't think there are any more around but if there are, I'll hear them coming. We're just going to wait a few minutes until you feel better than we're getting out of here in the car. Bring the ship down. There was a thin note of hysteria in her voice. We can't stay here alone. We don't know where to go or what to do. With Isle dead, the whole thing spoiled. We have to get out. There are some things that can't sound gentle no matter how gently they are said. But this was one of them. I'm sorry, Lea, but the ship is out of our reach right now. I always killed with an eye on gun and it fused the control unit into a solid lump. We must take the car and get to the city. We'll do it now. See if you can stand up. I'll help you. She rose not saying anything and as they walked towards the car a single reddish moon cleared the hills behind them. In its light, Brien saw a dark line by secting the rear panel of the sand car. He stopped abruptly. What's the matter, Lea asked? The unlocked engine cover could only have one significance and he pushed it open, knowing in advance what he would see. The attackers had been very thorough and fast. In the short time available to them they had killed the driver and the car as well. Ruddy light shown on torn wires ripped out connections. Repair would be impossible. I think we'll have to walk, he told her, trying to keep the gloom out of his voice. This spot is roughly 150 kilometers from the city of Hovastat where we have to go. We should be able to. We're going to die. We can't walk anywhere. This whole planet is a death trap. Let's get back in the ship. The shrillness of hysteria was at the edge of her voice as well as a subtle slurring of sounds. Brien didn't try to reason with her or bother to explain. She had a concussion from the blow. That much was obvious. He had her sit and rest while he made what preparations he could for the long walk. Clothing first. With each passing minute the desert air was growing colder as the days heat ebbed away. Leo was beginning to shiver and he took some heavier clothing from her charred bag and made her pull it on over her light tunic. There was little else that was worth carrying. The canteen from the car was a state kit he found in one of the compartments. There were no maps and no radio. Navigation was obviously done by compass on this almost featureless desert. The car was equipped with an electrically operated gyro compass of no use to him now. But he did use it to check the direction of Hovastad as he remembered it from the map and found it lined up perfectly with the tracks the car had cut into the sand. It had come directly from the city. They could find their way by backtracking. Time was slipping away. He would have liked to bury Isle and the men from the car but the night hours were too valuable to be wasted. The best he could do was to put the three corpse in the car for protection from the disson animals. He locked the door and threw the key as far as he could into the darkness. Leo had slipped into a restless sleep and he carefully shook her awake. Come, said Brian, we have a little walking to do. End of chapter 6