3
3
The computer control system was complex, but eventually Gwen was able to use it for simple tasks, such as calling up pictures and documents. A good thing, too, she told herself. Otherwise she’d be bored to distraction.
Not with Les, of course. He was attentive and kind. He spent hours preparing dinners to be served in a romantic setting, with exotic music from a dozen worlds, wines and liqueurs from as many more, so that their evenings—and nights!—were more exciting than anything she could imagine.
But that was a few hours a day. You can spend only so much of your time being charmed. Or in bed, she told herself. Les had his work; he was translating documents for the mercenaries. That left her with mornings and afternoons (ship time, of course; since they had left the solar system there was nothing to be seen outside the ship—no star or sun to mark days or seasons) with nothing to do. Les wouldn’t let her talk to the mercenaries; they weren’t to know she was aboard. He insisted on that.
Which left her curious. Who were they? Why were they going to a primitive world called Tran?
When she first learned to use the computer’s information-retrieval system, she could only look at pictures. The languages were a total mystery. The pictures were amazing enough; stars and nebulae, time-lapse photographs of multiple star systems with the stars so close they touched and sent streams of star-stuff spiraling off into the universe; another time-lapse of a black hole devouring its companion, taken from close enough and with long enough time delay that she could actually see the real star diminish in size, torn into gases which spiraled down and down to vanish into a central nothing; and more. There were intriguing pictures of life on a hundred planets. She counted a dozen races. Shalnuksis, of course, and others; Centauroids. Octopoids. A race like humans, but obviously reptilian in ancestry. A world where humans—real humans—kept as seeming pets small winged reptiles looking for all the world like tiny dragons.
And it was frustrating because Les didn’t want to answer questions. Not that he flatly refused, but he would put her off, ask what she thought of what she had seen, ask what it reminded her of, until the evening was over and once again she had done all the talking. His desire for knowledge about Earth was insatiable. He wanted to know everything, trivial or profound. No detail seemed unimportant.
An anthropologist studying her. But few anthropologists were so charming about it.
Eventually she found the file on Tran, the place where the mercenaries were going. She could read none of it, of course; but she had learned how to make the computer pronounce the words it displayed on the screen, and from that she learned the phonetic alphabet used by the Confederacy. She made very little progress learning that language. There were too many words referring to places and people and things and ideas that were thoroughly unfamiliar. This didn’t surprise her. The real shock came when the computer showed her the languages of Tran.
She spent a day being certain. Then, in the evening, when they were together with a glass of amontillado (“One of Earth’s finest products,” Les had said. “Nothing to match it anywhere. Too bad regular trade with Earth isn’t allowed.”), she could stand it no longer.
“I was listening to Tran languages,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Nothing there to interest you.”
“But there is! Les, I recognized some of the words! A lot of them. That language is based on an ancient Indo-European tongue! Some of the words are unchanged from Mycenaean Greek!”
“Astute of you to notice,” he said. “I expect you’re right.”
“Les, you’re teasing me. You know what this means. It means that there was an exchange of people—a lot of people, enough to bring languages with them—between Tran and Earth as far back as four thousand years.”
“Other way,” he said. “From Earth to Tran.”
“I meant that. It’s obvious that humans didn’t evolve on Tran. It’s only a colony. But why is it so primitive? Even relative to Earth. And Earth is primitive by your standards—Les, is Earth a colony?”
“No.” He looked thoughtful. “Perhaps that’s not the right answer. Perhaps you’re right. Earth is a colony—”
“Les, you’re not making sense. Did humanity evolve on Earth?”
“What do you think? You’ve read Darwin and Ardrey and Leakey. More sherry?”
“I don’t want sherry, I want answers!”
He came over and filled her glass. “Don’t be so serious,” he said. “Now. You obviously think humanity is native to Earth. Tell me why.”
An hour later, it was time for dinner. He still hadn’t answered her questions.
* * *
Dinner was exotic, as usual, but she wasn’t interested in food.
“Hey. You’re crying,” he said. “What’s the matter? You don’t like nastari?”
“You treat me like a child.”
“No. I treat you like an adult,” he said. He was very serious.
“I—what do you mean?”
“You are an intelligent woman. You raise fascinating questions. Don’t you want to find answers for yourself?”
“But you know, and I don’t—”
“Do I?”
“You mean you don’t know? You don’t know where humanity evolved?”
“I don’t even know that it did.”
“But—” The enormity of what he’d said struck her. “But you—your culture—you’ve had space travel for four thousand years,” she insisted. “If you don’t know the answers, at least you have a lot more data! Give me some.”
“I’m doing that. How much can you absorb in a few weeks?”
“Oh.” She was silent for a long time.
“Gwen.” His voice was very gentle, his expression very serious. “Gwen, accept it. All of it. Believe me, I care for you. And believe me when I say I’m trying to do what’s best for both of us.” He laughed. “My, aren’t we serious. And the dessert will melt.”
* * *
Gradually she realized it: he was interested in what she thought. He wanted to know her ideas, and more than that, her reactions to what she was learning. But he was getting her talking to herself.
“What am I?” she asked her mirror. “Lover or laboratory animal? Anthropologist’s informant, mistress, or—” She broke off. She’d been about to say “wife” and she didn’t have any right even to think that.
And he did want to know. When she pointed out that some of the intelligent races she’d seen in pictures were identical to descriptions found in ancient mythology: centaurs, an aquatic race that might be mistaken for mermaids, a saurian race that might or might not have inspired the Minotaur legend—he not only listened, he insisted on having her describe and sketch the legendary creatures.
He also encouraged her to study Tran. She might think of something useful, something that would aid the mercenaries. “It would help a lot if you could,” he said.
“Why?”
“If they succeed, they’ll make a lot of money for the traders. Traders have influence with the Council. Won’t hurt my career.”
She stared in disbelief. “I—I thought I knew you better than that,” she said. “Don’t you care about the people on Tran? They’re human. Don’t you care?”
“Oddly enough, I do care,” Les said. “Enough, in fact, to see if I can think of any way to help the mercenaries succeed with a minimum of slaughter. Because, you see, they really have to succeed—”
“Why?”
He ignored her question. “Can you think of anything that would help?”
“I don’t know,” Gwen said. “All the information I’ve seen is very old—”
“About six hundred years old,” Les said. “No one’s been there since, except for one fairly recent fly-by. We know they’re still pretty primitive down there. No railroads, industries, paved roads. No technological civilization.”
“But no one has landed for six hundred years?”
Les nodded.
“But I thought this crop was valuable—”
“It is. But there are some powerful reasons for the Shalnuksis to stay far away from Tran.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “It’s best you know. Tran’s not in the Council’s data banks. Except for the Shalnuksis and a few humans who work for them, no one knows the planet exists.”
He seemed very serious, and she knew he already regretted trusting her with even that much information. She wanted to tell him that he could trust her with anything, that she’d always be loyal to him no matter what he was doing. That thought shocked her because she’d never thought such a thing before. And was it even true? “What would happen if the—the Council found out?”
Les shook his head. “I don’t know.” He was silent for a moment.
She waited, hoping he’d trust her again, but instead he said, “But it wouldn’t be good for me. The Shalnuksis would lose control. They’d never get their crop harvested.”
“But without information, how can they expect a small group of mercenaries to get them anything?”
“Maybe they can’t.” There was definite worry in the pilot’s voice. “But it is important. Have you any suggestions?”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Gwen said. “You say the crop is valuable, but they don’t visit the source for hundreds of years—”
“Oh. Yes,” Les said. “But you see, the real surinomaz won’t grow under normal conditions on Tran. Just for a few years out of every six hundred. But for about five years, starting a couple years from now, it grows very well. The mercenaries could demand a pretty stiff price if they knew it.” He sighed. “I guess the best thing will be to set them down near a small village in the right geographical region and hope they’re intelligent enough to manage.”
“They won’t even know the languages—”
“They’ll have to learn them.”
“Why six hundred years?”
“Orbits,” the pilot said. “Tran has two main suns. Both a little bigger and a little hotter than Sol. Planet’s farther away from either of them, so it’s not as warm. Reasonable climate, actually. But even with both suns, surinomaz won’t grow properly. It’s only a weed until the third sun comes close, but then for a short time it’s the best stuff in the galaxy.”
“But what is surinomaz?”
“Ever hear of Acapulco Gold?” the pilot asked.
“Marijuana—you mean drugs?”
“In a way. Look, back on Earth, you’ve just discovered endogenous morphiates. Know what I’m talking about? No? Well, it turns out that the brain manufactures its own painkillers and euphoric drugs. Chemicals similar to morphines. Enough of them in your system, and you have a natural high. Surinomaz makes the stuff, only by the barrelful. It has about the same effect on Shalnuksis as on humans, and they use it about the same way Americans use alcohol. And Tran Natural gets a premium price, like Talisker scotch, or the rarer wines.”
Gwen stared at him.
“I see you don’t approve,” Les said. “Look, what is it to me if the Shalnuksis use drugs? Or to you?”
But there has to be more, she thought. There has to be. Or is it that I can’t accept being in love with a drug dealer? “Isn’t all this illegal?” Gwen asked.
Les shrugged. “The drug traffic isn’t precisely legal, but no one really cares. Keeping Tran a secret—now, that’s highly illegal.”
“But the crop is important to you,” Gwen said.
The pilot was very serious now. “More important than you can guess that the mercenaries succeed.”
“Then you should stay and help them,” she said.
“Can’t. The ship’s too valuable. And this trip has to be kept secret, which means the ship must return as quickly as possible—”
And then, as he always did, he changed the subject.
* * *
The computer’s files on Tran were sketchy. As nearly as Gwen could tell, the planet had never been visited except to obtain a harvest, and there had never been any systematic studies made. No one had been sufficiently curious. There were only groups of traders who had brought mercenary soldiers from Earth with instructions to seize a particular area and cultivate surinomaz, harvest it, and sell the product to ships that would come later.
That had begun in Indo-European times, as Gwen had deduced from the language. She was pleased to find confirmation in the computer’s records. The first humans had been sent to Tran because a dominant life-form, centauroid (vaguely similar to the Greek centaur of legend, but the intelligent and unrelated centauroids she’d seen in other pictures far more so) and about as intelligent as a chimpanzee, could not be trained to do cultivation. She could not find out why humans had been chosen, or why, once they had decided on humans, they had brought a band of Achaean warriors and their slaves instead of planting a high-technology colony.
The original expedition had been expensive. In addition to the Achaeans, the Shalnuksi traders had brought a variety of Earth plants and animals, scattering seeds broadside on the planet and returning years later with more animals and insects. There had been no scientific rationale to what they had brought, no attempt at a balanced ecology. It was instant natural selection; adapt or die.
The records didn’t say so, but Gwen wondered if one of the reasons that surinomaz had become increasingly difficult to cultivate might be the competition from Earth plants, animals, and insects. Tran’s native life-forms used levoamino acids and dextro sugars, like Earth’s, and thus competed for many of the same nutrients.
Tran’s history and evolution was dominated by its suns. The two major suns together gave it at best only a bit more than ninety percent of what Earth receives from Sol; Tran was normally a cold world, with only the regions near the equator comfortable for humans. But then came the cyclic approach of the third star; for twenty years out of each six hundred, Tran received nearly twenty percent more sunlight, a combined total of ten percent more illumination than Earth ever got.
In those times of burning, ice caps melted. Weather became enormously variable, with cycles of drought and rainstorms alternating nearly everywhere. The higher latitudes, in normal times too cold for humans and resembling the Alaska tundra, were warmed and became temperate, experiencing a brief but glorious bloom of life.
The effects of the invader’s passage were devastating to the human cultures. They never rose higher than an Iron Age feudalism. Gwen thought that curious and wanted to talk to Les about it, but she didn’t feel very good and went to bed early.
The next morning she vomited her breakfast.
* * *
In a week she was certain. She went to find Les. He was seated at the control console dictating notes for the mercenaries. When she came in he looked up with a slight frown, annoyed that she’d disturbed him at work. “Yes?”
“I’m pregnant.”
His face ran a gamut of emotions. Surprise, but then something else. It looked almost like horror. He said nothing for what seemed like an eternity. Then, his voice calm, he said, “We have reasonably complete medical robots aboard. I can ask the computer if they’re up to an abortion.”
“Damn you!” she shouted. “Damn you!”
“But—”
“What makes you think I want an abortion? I suppose this is an inconvenience to you. It—”
“Hush. There’s more involved than you know.”
He’s serious, she thought. Deadly serious. Deadly. Now there’s an appropriate word. “Les, I thought you might be pleased.” Tears welled despite her effort to control them. Couldn’t he understand?
“There’s so much you don’t know. Can’t know,” he said. “Gwen, we can’t have a family life. Not as you think of family life—”
“You’re already married. I should have known.” She was alone again. Alone, and she couldn’t go home.
His reaction startled her. He laughed. Then he said, “No. I’m not married.” He stood and came toward her. She moved away. His face changed, the expression softening. “Gwen, it’s going to be all right. You startled me, that’s all. It will be all right. You’ll see.”
She wanted desperately to believe him. “Les, I love you—”
He moved closer. She was afraid, of him and of everything, but she didn’t know what to do; and when he came to her, she clung to him in despair.
Two weeks passed. Les did not mention their future again. They entered Tran’s star system, and Les busied himself finding a suitable place to land the mercenaries.