Chapter V

When Joel sat down to breakfast the next morning, Tamis shot him a warning glance from beneath lowered lashes. The pallor of her cheeks was accentuated by her sooty hair. She had the exotic look of some temple harlot strayed through time from ancient Babylonia.

Joel realized suddenly that Professor Liedl was talking to him. "What did you say?" he asked.

"That was a splendid service you performed last night."

"You mean Eriss? But I didn't do it."

"You're too modest." Liedl combed his black van dyke with long brown fingers. "I'm a light sleeper, my boy. And my bunk, you may recall, is next yours."

Joel's face stiffened. He glanced quickly at Tamis. The blood had drained from the girl's countenance.

"What did you hear?" he asked in a frozen voice.

"Don't be embarrassed. Your voices didn't carry, and I'm quite broadminded."

Joel stared at him bewildered. Then the blood began to burn in his cheeks as it dawned on him what Liedl meant. "The old goat," he thought. "So that's what he believes!" And he felt suddenly relieved.

Tamis' lashes were lowered. She bit her nether lip. But whether from amusement or confusion, he couldn't decide.

Fortunately, at that moment the door to the guardroom opened. Mister Mullin stuck his head inside; shouted:

"Get a move on. Inspection in fifteen minutes."

With relief Joel made his escape. He didn't like Liedl's insinuation. He didn't like Liedl. There was something cold and repellant about the black bearded professor. He wondered what crime he had committed to be sentenced to the Experimental Station.

In exactly fifteen minutes Captain Goplerud, accompanied by Mister Mullin entered the prisoners' quarters and lined them up at their bunks. Then a dozen guards filed in and took posts about the fo'cs'le with drawn paralyzers.

Joel wondered uneasily what was up. He wasn't left long in doubt.

A stiff-backed man in a faultless olive-green uniform came through the door. He was wearing the gold sunburst of a Star Ship commander on his breast.

Nick Thorp nudged Joel. "The old man!" he said out of the corner of his mouth. "What the devil brings him down here?"

The commandant ran his eyes over the prisoners. "Very good, Mullin." He turned, said crisply, "This way, Governor."

Governor Cameron and his daughter came through the door together. The governor was a big man with harassed gray eyes. He faced his daughter in obvious exasperation. "Well, here they are, Priscilla. Now why were you so confounded anxious to see them?"

The girl stared around with parted lips. There was a curious eagerness in her green eyes. Then she discovered Joel and he was suddenly conscious of that strange affinity between them.

She wore gold sandals and her toenails and fingernails were lacquered green to match her eyes and hair. She had on a brief pleated skirt, a matching monkey jacket of shimmering rose silkon. Her bare midriff, the valley between her breasts, her long legs were smooth golden tan.

"Which one," she asked in a breathless voice, "broke Walt Eriss' jaw?"

"Hakkyt," Mullin informed her briskly. "The big ugly one over there." He pointed at Joel.

Joel found himself staring into the girl's green eyes again. Her lashes were long, black and curly. Her green hair was startling but it wasn't garish.

Without taking her eyes from Joel's, she asked, "Could I see his examination reports? I think he's a...."

The governor started nervously. "You're buying no more serfs Priscilla!" he interrupted in haste. "That's final!"

Joel felt his face burn. Buy him? So that's what had brought them down here to the prisoners' quarters!

The girl was staring at her father with a puzzled expression. Something very like a warning flickered between them--something in Governor Cameron's expression. Joel couldn't be sure.

But the girl's eyes widened.

For a moment there was a strained silence. Then she shrugged, turned back to Joel, studied him brazenly detail by detail. He felt naked beneath those probing green eyes. He felt like a prize Hereford bull.

Priscilla said, "Nevertheless, I should like to glance over those reports, Captain." Her voice didn't sound quite natural.

She had slipped into a part, Joel sensed; she was acting. But why? He was too furious to care. He created a shocked disturbance by saying in a cold voice, "I wouldn't be a good buy!"

* * * * *

Jaws dropped among the prisoners.

Mister Mullin shouted, "Speak when you're spoken to!"

Priscilla Cameron suddenly smiled. "Why not?" she asked him, silencing the apoplectic mate with a wave.

"I'll damn well see to it that I'm not!"

Priscilla continued to regard him with delighted green eyes. "A challenge!" She turned to the saturnine man wearing the gold sunburst. "How much do you want for him, Commandant?"

The commandant had been observing the scene with cynical gray eyes. He was the perfect Terran type; tall, brown-skinned, erect. Now he said,

"Sorry, Priscilla, but he's not mine to sell. He's the property of the Republic, and the laws are specific. He has to be sold at auction in Eden."

Priscilla said, "Stuff! The governor can authorize the private sale of any serf...."

"We're not on Asgard," the commandant reminded her dryly. "This is a Star Ship."

Governor Cameron's visage had grown a rich plum shade. "This farce has gone far enough!" he bellowed furiously. But his anger didn't ring quite true. "I wouldn't authorize the sale of this fellow to my daughter if I could!"

Priscilla said sweetly, "I'll buy him at public auction."

"You will not!"

"Exactly how, pater dear, do you propose to stop me?"

The governor looked as if he were about to have a stroke. Then he swung around, stamped from the fo'cs'le.

It struck Joel as a shade overdrawn. As if Priscilla inadvertently had been about to let something slip, and they'd staged this impromptu fight to cover up.

He heard the commandant say, "Sorry, Priscilla, but I'm due on the bridge."

Priscilla gave Joel a last searching look. Her green eyes sparkled. "I'll see you at the slave block in Eden," she said as she preceded the commandant through the door.

As soon as the guards had withdrawn, Nick Thorp gave a low whistle.

Joel was still furious. "What was she driving at? Why the devil did she pick me out?" He noticed that Professor Liedl was regarding him with a frown. Tamis, too, was watching him, a speculative expression on her elfin piquant features.

Thorp shrugged. "That's hard to tell. She's got a reputation from one end of Asgard to the other. There's even been talk that she's a mutant."

"Mutant." Joel frowned. She certainly hadn't bred true to type. The standard Terran female had light brown skin, black hair and gray eyes. But hers were green--like cat eyes. Like his own eyes!

A startled expression passed over his likeable rugged features. "By George!" he said aloud. "I wonder!"

Later, when the lights had been extinguished again, he lay awake in the dark--tense, listening. The fo'cs'le was quiet. At length, satisfied that everyone was asleep, he slid from his bunk, crossed the deck to the mess-room.

The faint yellow night light was burning. He sat down at a table, lit a cigarette, waited. He was chain-smoking his third cigarette before he heard a step. He glanced up quickly. Tamis was standing in front of him.

Joel said, "I thought you must have gone to sleep."

* * * * *

Tamis sat down facing him. She'd removed the contact lenses. The liquid luminous depths of her eyes were hypnotic. "No. I couldn't sleep. We need men like you too badly. You especially."

"Me?" he said, startled. "You need me?"

She smiled. "My people, Joel, are a timid race, unwarlike, unaggressive. There are many differences between us. Not of an organic nature. We are fundamentally alike. The differences lie in our culture."

"How do you mean?"

"It is difficult to explain. But your race is so far advanced in the physical sciences that it terrifies us. With your incomprehensible machines you could sweep us into extinction in the wink of an eye.

"When the first Terran ship landed on Asgard, we were careful not to show ourselves. Then we learned a queer thing. Although the Terrans were amazingly clever in physics and chemistry, they knew nothing about the potential of the machines that were their own bodies. Nothing! So we continued to elude them and to study them...."

"How?"

"I am not at liberty to tell you that. If the Thinkers accept you, they'll inform you how it is done."

Joel stared at her narrow eyes. "But...."

"No. Don't interrupt. Your civilization, we learned, was a machine civilization. Your race even went so far as to reject any individual who differed from the norm. The Republic's goal was an ant-like similarity of all its members."

Joel said, "I don't see...."

"Don't you? What becomes of any mutation who escapes the vigilance of the Eugenics Board? What happened to you, Joel Hakkyt?"

Joel was silent.

She looked at him searchingly. "Instead of concentrating on the physical sciences, my people have studied--themselves! The psychological sciences. We don't try to control our environment; we fit ourselves to it."

Joel shook his head, still not comprehending.

She said, "You humans build elaborate shelters to protect yourselves against the elements; we have developed our bodies to resist the weather. We revel in rain. Sunlight is intoxicating.

"You have added speed to your legs with machines, wings to your arms with machines. Your machines are like crutches. They give you an immense power, but they atrophy the natural endowments of your body. Could you do this?"

She pointed with a bird-like gesture behind Joel. He swung around. His eyes widened.

The bulkhead had disappeared! He was staring straight through the ship as if it had ceased to exist. He could see the awesome black infinity of deep space speckled with countless pinpoint suns.

Then the bulkhead gathered substance. And he was looking at the blank wall again.

He let his breath escape. "How did you do that?"

"You were seeing with my eyes. Your people have invented machines to do that--the X-ray machine, the fluoroscope. They are crutches. They cannot do half so well as the eye alone!"

"But it's impossible!" he burst out.

She shook her head. "No. Consider the facts. Even in the densest solid, there is more space than matter. Every atom is like a miniature solar system. There is an infinity of space in that bulkhead but only a drop of matter no bigger than a grain of sand. Is it not true?"

Joel nodded.

Tamis giggled. "You know that, and yet you let the grain of sand obstruct your view!"

"But why hide yourselves?" he burst out. "With powers like that...."

"I didn't destroy the wall," she interrupted. "I recognized its transparent qualities. That is all. We have no weapons, no science that can destroy. We can only hide!"

"But why hide?" he persisted.

She regarded him sadly. "Your people are a hard grasping race--ruthless. What has happened to the dominant life forms of Mars and Venus? They are extinct!

"We don't propose to be driven into extinction. We have hidden ourselves, waiting for a weapon to free Asgard. And now the Republic itself has given us one!"

"The Republic has given you a weapon!"

"Yes. The maladjusted. The misfits. They are being organized. They are our weapon!"

"Very interesting!" drawled a low voice from the doorway to the fo'cs'le.

Tamis gave a startled gasp. Her face paled. Joel sprang to his feet.

Professor Gustav Liedl stood just inside the doorway. He held a small poisoned needle automatic trained unwaveringly at Joel's belly.