Kennon wondered if his colleagues in human medicine felt toward their patients as he did toward the Lani, or if they ultimately lost their individuality and became mere hosts for diseases, parasites, and tumors—vehicles for the practice of surgical and medical skills—economic units whose well-being meant a certain amount of credits. Probably not, he decided. They were human and their very humanity made them persons rather than things.
But the possession of individuality was not an asset in the practice of animal medicine where economics was the main factor and the satisfaction of the owner the principal personality problem. The normal farm animals, the shrakes, cattle, sheep, morks, and swine were no problem. They were merely a job. But the Lani were different. They weren’t human, but they were intelligent and they did have personality even though they didn’t possess that indefinable quality that separated man from the beasts. It was hard to treat them with dispassionate objectivity. In fact, it was impossible.
And this lack of objectivity annoyed him. Should he be this way? Was he right to identify them as individuals and treat them as persons rather than things? The passing months had failed to rob them of their personalities: they had not become the faceless mass of a herd of cattle or a flock of sheep. They were still not essentially different from humans—and wouldn’t men themselves lose many of their human characteristics if they were herded into barracks and treated as property for forty generations? Wouldn’t men, too, approach the animal condition if they were bred and treated as beasts, their pedigrees recorded, their types winnowed and selected? The thought was annoying.
It would be better, Kennon reflected, if he didn’t have time to think, if he were so busy he could drop to his bed exhausted each night and sleep without dreaming, if he could keep on the run so fast that he wouldn’t have time to sit and reflect. But he had done his work too well. He had trained his staff too thoroughly. They could handle the petty routines of minor treatment and laboratory tests as well as he. He had only the intellectual stimulation of atypical cases and these were all too rare. The routine inspections were boring, yet he forced himself to make them because they filled the time. The hospital wards were virtually empty of patients, the work was up to date, the whole island was enjoying a carnival of health, and Kennon was still impaled upon the horns of his dilemma. It wasn’t so bad now that the first shock was over, but it was bad enough—and showed no signs of getting better. Now that Copper realized he wanted her, she did nothing to make his life easier. Instead she did her best to get underfoot, usually in some provocative position. It was enough to try the patience of a marble statue Kennon reflected grimly. But it did have its humorous side and were it not for the fact that Copper wasn’t human could have been thoroughly enjoyable. That, however, was the real hell of it. He couldn’t relax and enjoy the contest—his feet were on too slippery ground. And Copper with her unerring female instinct knew just what to do to make the footing slipperier. Sooner or later, she was certain that he would fall. It was only a question of applying sufficient pressure at the right spot and the right time. Now that she knew he desired her, she was content to wait. The only thing that had bothered her was the uncertainty whether he cared or not. For Copper the future was a simple thing and she was lighthearted about it. But not so Kennon. Even after the initial shock had passed there still remained the moral customs, the conditioning, and the prohibitions. But Copper—was Copper—and somehow the conditioning lost its force in her presence. Perhaps, he thought wryly, it was a symptom of the gradual erosion of his moral character in this abnormal environment.
“I’m getting stale,” he confided to Copper as he sat in his office idly turning the pages of the Kardon Journal of Allied Medical Sciences. “There’s nothing to do that’s interesting.”
“You could help me,” Copper said as she looked up from the pile of cards she was sorting. He had given her the thankless task of reorganizing the files, and she was barely half through the project.
“There’s nothing to do that’s interesting,” he repeated. He cocked his head to one side. From this angle Copper looked decidedly intriguing as she bent over the file drawer and replaced a stack of cards.
“I could suggest something,” Copper said demurely.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “You’re full of suggestions.”
“I was thinking that we could go on a picnic.”
“A what?”
“A picnic. Take a lunch and go somewhere in the jeep. Maybe up into the hills. I think it might be fun.”
“Why not?” Kennon agreed. “At least it would break the monotony. Tell you what. You run up to the house and tell Kara to pack a lunch and we’ll take the day off.”
“Good! I hoped you’d say that. I’m getting tired of these dirty old cards.” She stood up and sidled past the desk. Kennon resisted the impulse to slap as she went past, and congratulated himself on his self-control as she looked at him with a half-disappointed expression on her face. She had expected it, he thought gleefully. Score one for morality.
He smiled. Whatever the other Lani might be, Copper was different. Quick, volatile, intelligent, she was a constant delight, a flashing kaleidoscope of unexpected facets. Perhaps the others were the same if he knew them better. But he didn’t know them—and avoided learning. In that direction lay ulcers.
“We’ll go to Olympus,” he said.
Copper looked dubious. “I’d rather not go there. That’s forbidden ground.”
“Oh nonsense. You’re merely superstitious.”
She smiled. “Perhaps you’re right. You usually are.”
“That’s the virtue of being a man. Even if I’m wrong, I’m right.” He chuckled at the peculiar expression on her face.
“Now off with you—and get that lunch basket packed.”
She bowed. “Yes, master. Your slave flies on winged feet to execute your commands.”
Kennon chuckled. Copper had been reading Old Doc’s romances again. He recognized the florid style.
* * *
Kennon landed the jeep in a mountain meadow halfway up the slope of the peacefully slumbering volcano. It was quiet and cool, and the light breeze was blowing Olympus’s smoky cap away from them to the west. Copper unpacked the lunch. She moved slowly. After all, there was plenty of time, and she wasn’t very hungry. Neither was Kennon.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Copper said. “The woods look cool—and maybe we can work up an appetite.”
“Good idea. I could use some exercise. That lunch looks big enough to choke a horse and I’d like to do it justice.”
They walked through the woods, skirting scant patches of underbrush, slowly moving higher on the mountain slopes. The trees, unlike those of Beta, did not end abruptly at a snow line, but pushed green fingers upward through passages between old lava flows, on whose black wrinkled surfaces nothing grew. The faint hum of insects and the piping calls of the birdlike mammals added to the impression of remoteness. It was hard to believe that scarcely twenty kilometers from this primitive microcosm was the border of the highly organized and productive farmlands of Outworld Enterprises.
“Do you think we can see the hospital if we go high enough?” Copper said. She panted a little, unaccustomed to the altitude.
“Possibly,” Kennon said. “It is a long distance away. But we should be able to see Alexandria,” he added. “That’s high enough and big enough.” He looked at her curiously. “How is it that you’re so breathless?” he asked. “We’re not that high. You’re getting fat with too much soft living.”
Copper smiled. “Perhaps I’m getting old.”
“Nonsense,” Kennon chuckled. “It’s just fat. Come to think of it you are plumper. Not that I mind, but if you’re going to keep that sylphlike figure you’d better go on a diet.”
“You’re too good to me,” Copper said.
“You’re darn right I am. Well—let’s get going. Exercise is always good for the waistline, and I’d like to see what’s up ahead.”
Scarcely a kilometer ahead they came to a wall of lava that barred their path. “Oh, oh,” Kennon said. “We can’t go over that.” He looked at the wrinkled and shattered rock with its knifelike edges.
“I don’t think my feet could take it,” Copper admitted.
“It looks like the end of the trail.”
“No—not quite,” Kennon said. “There seems to be a path here.” He pointed to a narrow cleft in the black rock. “Let’s see where it goes.”
Copper hung back. “I don’t think I want to,” she said doubtfully. “It looks awfully dark and narrow.”
“Oh, stop it. Nothing’s going to hurt us. Come on.” Kennon took her hand.
Unwillingly Copper allowed herself to be led forward. “There’s something about this place that frightens me,” she said uncomfortably as the high black wails closed in, narrowing until only a slit of yellow sky was visible overhead. The path underfoot was surprisingly smooth and free from rocks, but the narrow corridor, steeped in shadows, was gloomy and depressingly silent. It even bothered Kennon, although he wouldn’t admit it. What forces had sliced this razor-thin cleft in the dense rock around them? Earthquake probably. And if it happened once it could happen again. He would hate to be trapped here entombed in shattered rock.
Gradually the passage widened, then abruptly it ended. A bleak vista of volcanic ash dotted with sputter cones opened before them. It was a flat tableland, roughly circular, scarcely half a kilometer across, a desolation of black rock, stunted trees and underbrush, and gray volcanic ash. A crater, somewhat larger than the rest, lay with its nearest edge about two hundred meters away. The rock edges were fire polished, gleaming in the yellow sunshine, and the thin margin of trees and brush surrounding the depression were gnarled and shrunken, twisted into fantastic shapes.
“Hey! what’s this?” Kennon asked curiously. “That crater looks peculiar, like a meteor had struck here—but those stunted plants—hmm—there must have been some radioactivity too.” He looked at the crater speculatively. “Now I wonder—” he began.
Copper had turned a sickly white. “No!” she said in a half-strangled voice—“oh, no!”
Kennon looked at her. “You know what this is?” he demanded.
“No,” Copper said. But her voice was unsteady.
“You’re lying.”
“But I don’t know.” Copper wailed. “I’m only guessing. I’ve never seen this place before in my life! Please!—let’s get out of here!”
“Then you know about this,” Kennon demanded.
“I think it’s the Pit,” Copper said. “The redes don’t say where it is. But the description fits—the Circle of Death, the Twisted Land—it’s all like the redes say.”
“Redes?—what are redes? And what is this business about circles of death? There’s something here that’s peculiar and I want to know what it is.”
“It’s nothing. Truly. Just let’s go back. Let’s leave this place. It’s no good. It’s tabu.”
“Tabu? You’ve never used that word before.”
“Forbidden.”
“Who forbids it?”
“The Gods—the Old Ones. It is not for Lani. Nor for you.” Her voice was harsh. “Come away before it is too late. Before the Silent Death strikes you down.”
“I’m going to have a look at this.”
“You’ll be killed!” Copper said. “And if you die, I die too.”
“Don’t be foolish. There’s nothing here that can hurt me. See those trees and plants growing right up to the crater’s edge. If they can take it permanently, I can stand it for a few moments. If there’s any radioactivity there, it’s not very much.”
“But the redes say—”
“Oh, forget those redes. I know what I’m doing. Besides, I’m a Betan and can stand more radiation than most men. A brief exposure isn’t going to hurt me.”
“You go and I go too,” Copper said desperately.
“You’ll stay here where it’s safe,” Kennon said flatly.
“I’m going with you,” Copper repeated. “I don’t want to live without you.”
“I tell you I won’t be hurt. And one quick look isn’t going to bother whatever’s down there.”
“That’s what Roga the Foolish said when he opened Lyssa’s tower. But he brought men to Flora. And your little look may bring an even greater calamity.”
Kennon shrugged, and started Walking toward the crater’s edge.
Copper followed.
He turned to order her back, but the words died on his tips as he saw the terror and determination on her face. Neither commands nor pleas would move her. If he went she would follow. The only way he could stop her would be with violence, and he didn’t want to manhandle her. He felt an odd mixture of pride, tenderness, and admiration for her. Were their situations reversed, he doubted whether he would have the courage she was showing. He sighed. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he did need an antiradiation suit.
“All right,” he said. “You win. I’ll get some protective clothing and look at it later.”
Her knees sagged, but he caught her before she fell, and held her erect until her strength returned. Belatedly he understood the emotional strain that had been gripping her. “If you come back later, sir, you’ll take me with you.” The words were a statement, not a question.
He nodded. “Providing you wear a radiation suit,” he said.
She grimaced with distaste and he chuckled. Clothing and Copper simply didn’t get along together.
“Well?”
“All right,” she said unhappily.
“And there’s one more condition.”
“What’s that?” she asked suspiciously.
“That you tell me about this place. You obviously know something about it, and with all your talking, you’ve never mentioned it to me.”
“It is forbidden to talk of these things to men,” Copper said—and then, perversely, “Do you want me to tell you now?”
“No—it can wait. We have come a long way and I am hungry. I listen poorly on an empty stomach. Let’s go back to the jeep and you can tell me later.”
Copper smiled. “That’s good,” she said. “I’d feel better away from this place.”
“I was a poor learner of the redes,” Copper confessed. “And I’ll have to skip the Mysteries. I never even tried to learn them. Somehow I was sure I’d never be a preceptress.” She settled herself more comfortably on the tawny grass and watched him as he lay on his back beside her.
“Eh?” Kennon said, “Preceptress?”
“The guardians of our traditions. They know the redes and mysteries by heart.”
“And you have kept your religion alive that way all these years?”
“It isn’t exactly religion,” Copper said. “It’s more like history, we learn it to remember that we were once a great race—and that we may be again. Someday there will come a male, a leader to bring us out of bondage, and our race will be free of dependence on men. There will be pairings again, and freedom to live as we please.” She looked thoughtfully at Kennon. “You might even be the one—even though you are human. You’re different from the others.”
“You’re prejudiced.” Kennon smiled. “I’m no different. Well—not very different at any rate.”
“That is not my thought,” Copper said. “You are very different indeed. No man has ever resisted a Lani as long as you have.”
Kennon shook his head. “Let’s not go into that now. What are these redes?”
“I do not remember them all,” Copper apologized. “I was—”
“You’ve said that before. Tell me what you do know.”
“I remember the beginning fairly well,” she said. “It goes back to the time before Flora when everything was nothing and the Master Himself was lonely.”
Without warning her voice changed to a rhythmic, cadenced chant that was almost a song. Her face became rapt and introspective as she rocked slowly from side to side. The rhythm was familiar and then he recognized it—the unintelligible music he had often heard coming from the barracks late at night when no men were around—the voiceless humming that the Lani sang at work.
First there was Darkness—starless and sunless
Void without form—darker than night
Then did the Master—Lord of Creation
Wave His right hand, saying, “Let there be light!”
Verse, Kennon thought. That was logical. People remember poetry better than prose. But the form was not what he’d normally expect. It was advanced, a style that was past primitive blank verse or heroic pentameter. He listened intently as Copper went on.
Light filled the heavens, bright golden glowing,Brought to the Void by His wondrous hand;Then did the Master—Lord of Creation—Nod His great head, saying, “Let there be land!”Air, land, and water formed into being,Born in the sight of His all-seeing eyes;Then did the master—Lord of Creation—Smile as He murmured, “Let life arise!”All of the life conceived by the Master,Varied in shape as the grasses and birds;Hunters and hunted, moveless and moving,Came into form at the sound of His words.
“That’s a great deal like Genesis,” Kennon said with mild astonishment. “Where could you have picked that up?”
“From the beginning of our race,” Copper said. “It came to us with Ulf and Lyssa—but what is Genesis?”
“A part of an ancient religion—one that is still followed on some of the Central Worlds. Its followers call themselves Christians. They say it came from Earth, the mother-world of men.”
“Our faith has no name. We are children of Lyssa, who was a daughter of the Master.”
“It is an odd similarity,” Kennon said. “But other races have had stories of the Creation. And possibly there may be another explanation. Your ancestors could have picked this up from Alexander’s men. They came from Earth originally and some of them could have been Christians.”
“No,” Cooper said. “This rede is long before Man Alexander. It is the origin of our world, even before Ulf and Lyssa. It is the first Book—the Book of the God-spell. Man Alexander came in the sixth Book—the Book of Roga.”
“There’s no point in arguing about it,” Kennon said. “Go on—tell me the rest.”
“It’s going to be a long story,” Copper said. “Even though I have forgotten some of it, I can chant the redes for hours.”
Kennon braced his back against one of the fat tires of the jeep. “I’m a good listener,” he said.
She chuckled. “You asked for this,” she said—and took up the verses where she had left off. And Kennon learned the Lani version of creation, of the first man and woman, cast out of Heaven for loving each other despite the Master’s objection, of how they came to Flora and founded the race of the Lani. He learned how the Lani grew in numbers and power, how they split into two warring groups over the theological point of whether Ulf or Lyssa was the principal deity, how Roga the Foolish opened Lyssa’s tower to find out whether the Ulfians or Lyssans were right, and brought the Black Years to Flora.
He heard the trial of Roga and the details of his torture by the priests of Ulf and the priests of Lyssa—united by this greatest sacrilege. And he heard the Lani version of the landing of Alexander’s ship and man’s conquest of Flora.
It was a story of savagery and superstition, of blood and intolerance, of bravery and cowardice, of love and beauty. Yet through it all, even through the redes that described the Conquest, there was a curious remoteness, a lack of emotion that made the verses more terrible as they flowed in passionless rhythm from Copper’s lips.
“That’s enough!” Kennon said.
“I told you you wouldn’t like it.”
“It’s horrible. How can you remember such things?”
“We begin to learn them as soon as we can talk. We know the redes almost our entire lives.” Copper was silent for a moment. “There’s lots more,” she said, “but it’s all about our lives since the Man Alexander—the old one—took possession of us. And most of the newer redes are pretty dull. Our life hasn’t changed much since the men came. The Book of Man is boring.” Copper sighed. “I have dared a great deal by telling you these things. If the others knew, they would kill both of us.”
“Then why tell me?” he asked.
“I love you,” she said simply. “You wanted to know—and I can deny you nothing.”
A wave of tenderness swept over him. She would give her life for him—and what would he give? Nothing. Not even his prejudices. His face twisted. If she was only human, If she wasn’t just an animal. If he wasn’t a Betan. If, if, if. Resentment gorged his throat. It was unfair—so damned unfair. He had no business coming here. He should have stayed on Beta or at least on a human world where he would never have met Copper. He loved her, but he couldn’t have her. It was Tantalus and Sisyphus rolled into one unsightly package and fastened to his soul. With a muttered curse he rose to his feet, and as he did he stopped—frozen—staring at Copper as though he had never seen her before.
“How did you say that Roga was judged responsible for Alexander coming here?” he demanded.
“He went into Lyssa’s tower—where Ulf and Lyssa tried to call Heaven—and with his foolish meddling set the tower alight with a glow that all could see. Less than a week later the Man Alexander came.”
“Where was this tower?”
“Where Alexandria now stands. Man Alexander destroyed it and built his house upon its ruins.”
“And what was that place of the Pit?”
“The Shrine of Ulf—where the God-Egg struck Flora. It is buried in the pit, but the Silent Death has protected it from blasphemy—and besides Man Alexander never learned about it. We feared that he would destroy it as he did Lyssa’s tower.”
A wild hope stirred in Kennon. “We’re going home,” he announced.
“Good.”
“And we’re going to get a pair of radiation suits—and then we’re coming back. We’ll have a good look at that Pit, and if what’s in there is what I think it is”—his face was a mixture of grimness and eagerness—“we’ll blow this whole operation off this planet!”
Copper blanched. “It is death to meddle with the God-Egg,” she said.
“Superstition!” Kennon scoffed. “If that Egg is what I think, it was made by men, and you are their descendant.”
“Perhaps you’re right, but I can’t help thinking you are wrong,” she said soberly. “Look at the trouble that came with Roga’s meddling. Be careful that you do not bring us a worse fate.”
“I’ll be very careful. We’ll take every precaution.”
“We?”
“You’re coming, of course. I can’t imagine you staying away.”
Copper nodded.
“You shouldn’t worry so much,” Kennon teased. “You know we men live forever.”
“That is true.”
“And if I’m right you’re just as human as I. And you’re capable of living as long as I do.”
“Yes, sir,” Copper said. Her voice was unconvinced, her expression noncommittal.
“You females,” Kennon said in quick exasperation. “You drive a man crazy. Get an idea in your head and it takes triatomate to blast it out. Now let’s go.”
Two hours brought them back to the volcanic area, and knowing what to look for, Kennon located the pockmarked mountain valley. From the air it looked completely ordinary. Kennon was amazed at the perfection of the natural camouflage. The Pit was merely another crater in the pitted ground. He dropped to a lower altitude, barely a hundred feet above the sputter cones. “Look!” he said.
Below them was the crater of the Pit and in its center a smooth bluish-black hemisphere protruded from the crater floor. It would have passed unnoticed by the casual eye—nearly concealed by two gigantic blocks of pumice.
“The God-Egg!” Copper exclaimed.
“Egg—ha! that’s a spacer! I thought it would be. I’d recognize durilium anywhere. Let’s go down and look this over, but first we want a couple of pictures.” He pointed a camera at the crater and snapped the shutter. “There—now let’s have a closer look at our baby.”
“Do you expect me to get into that thing?” Copper said distastefully as she prodded the shapeless green coveralls with a bare toe. She eyed the helmet, gloves and boots with equal distaste. “I’d suffocate.”
“If you want to come with me, you’ll wear it,” Kennon said. “Otherwise you won’t come near that pit. Try it and I’ll chain you to the jeep.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Just try me.”
“Oh—all right. I’ll wear the thing—but I won’t be comfortable.”
“Who cares about that? You’ll be protected.”
“All right—show me how to put it on. I’d rather be with you than worry about what you are doing.”
The suit was several sizes too large but it covered her adequately. Too adequately, Kennon decided. She looked like a pile of wrinkles with legs. He chuckled.
She glared. “So I’m funny,” she said. “Let me tell you something else that’s funny. I’m hot. I’m sweating. I itch. Now—laugh!”
“I don’t feel like laughing,” Kennon said. “I feel the same way.”
They approached the edge of the Pit carefully. Kennon kept checking the radiation counter. The needle slowly rose and steadied at one-half roentgen per hour as he thrust the probe over the rim of the depression. “It’s fine, so far,” he said encouragingly. “We could take this much for quite a while even without suits.” He lowered himself over the edge, sliding down the gentle slope.
“How is it down there?” Copper called. The intercom crackled in his ear.
“Fine—barely over one roentgen per hour. With these suits we could stay here indefinitely.” The sigh of relief was music in her ears. “This place is barely lukewarm.”
“That’s what you think,” Copper said.
“I mean radiation warm,” Kennon said. “Stay up there and watch me. I may need some things.”
“All right.” Copper squirmed inside the hot suit. The thing was an oven. She hoped that Kennon didn’t plan to work in the daytime. It would be impossible.
Kennon gingerly approached the ship. It was half buried in the loose debris and ash that had fallen or blown into the pit during the centuries it had rested there. It was old—incredibly old. The hull design was ancient—riveted sheets of millimeter-thick durilium. Ships hadn’t been built like that in over two thousand years. And the ovoid shape was reminiscent of the even more ancient spindizzy design. A hyperspace converter like that couldn’t be less than four millennia old. It was a museum piece, but the blue-black hull was as smooth and unblemished as the day it had left fabrication.
Space travel would have gotten nowhere without durilium, Kennon reflected. For five thousand years men had used the incredibly tough synthetic to build their spacecraft. It had given man his empire. Kennon gave the hull one quick glance. That part of the ship didn’t worry him. It was what he would find inside that bothered him. How much damage had occurred from two thousand or more years of disuse? How much had the original travelers cannibalized? How much could be salvaged? What sort of records remained? There were a thousand questions that the interior of that enigmatic hull might answer.
The upper segment of the airlock was visible. It was closed, which was a good sign. A few hours’ work with a digger should expose it enough to be opened.
“Copper,” he said, “we’re going to have to dig this out. There’s a small excavator in the cargo bed of the jeep. Do you think you can bring it down here?”
“I think so.”
“Good girl!” Kennon turned back to the ship. He was eager to enter it. There might be things inside that would settle the question of the Lani. The original crew had probably recognized the value of the hull as a repository as well as he did. But in the meantime there would be work—lots of it. And every step must be recorded.
It was the rest of the day’s work to expose the emergency airlock. The little excavator toiled over the loose ash for hours before it displaced enough to make the port visible, and the ash was not yet cleared away sufficiently to open the portal when darkness brought a halt to the work.
It would be impossible to unearth the spaceship with their low-capacity digger, Kennon decided. It would be difficult enough to clear the emergency airlock in the nose. But if the tubes and drive were still all right, by careful handling it should be possible to use the drive to blast out the loose ash and cinders which surrounded the hull.
Kennon reluctantly gave up the idea of entering the spaceship. That would have to wait until tomorrow. Now they would have to conceal the work and call it a day. A few branches and the big blocks of pumice would suffice for temporary camouflage. Later they could make something better. Anything in the jeep which might be useful was cached along with the radiation suits in the passageway through the lava wall—and in a surprisingly short time they were heading homeward.
Kennon was not too displeased. Tomorrow they would be able to enter the ship. Tomorrow they would probably have some of the answers to his questions. He looked ahead into the gathering night. The gray mass of the abandoned Olympus Station slipped below them as he lined the jeep along the path indicated by the luminous arrow atop the main building, set the controls on automatic, and locked the craft on the guide beacon in Alexandria’s tower. In a little less than an hour they would be home.
Kennon was morally certain that the Lani were of human stock. Evolved, of course. Mutated. Genetic strangers to the rest of humanity. But human. The spaceship and the redes proved it as far as he was concerned. But moral certainty and legal certainty were two different things. What he believed might be good enough to hold up in a Brotherhood court, but he doubted it. Ulf and Lyssa might be the founders of the Lani race, but they had come to Kardon nearly four thousand years ago and no records existed to prove that the Lani weren’t here before they came. Redes passed by word of mouth through hundreds of generations were not evidence. Even the spaceship wasn’t the absolute proof that would be needed to overturn the earlier legal decision. Other and better proof was needed—something that would stand up in any court in the Brotherhood. He hoped the spaceship would hold that proof.
But Kennon’s eagerness to find out what was inside the ancient spacer was tempered by hard practicality. Too much depended on what he might find inside that hull. Every step of the work must be documented beyond any refutation. Some method of establishing date, time, and location had to be prepared. There must be a record of every action. And that would require equipment and planning. There must be no mistake that could be twisted by the skillful counsel that Alexander undoubtedly retained.
He had no doubt that the Family would fight. Too much money and prestige were involved. To prove the Lani human would destroy Outworld Enterprises on Kardon. Yet this thought did not bother him. To his surprise he had no qualms of conscience. He was perfectly willing to violate his contract, break faith with his employers, and plot their ruin. The higher duty came first—the duty to the human race.
He smiled wryly. It wasn’t all higher duty. There were some personal desires that leavened the nobility. To prove Copper human was enough motivation—actually it was better than his sense of duty. Events, Kennon reflected, cause a great deal of change in one’s attitude. Although not by nature a plotter, schemes had been flitting through his mind with machinelike regularity, to be examined and discarded, or to be set aside for future reference.
He rejected the direct approach. It was too dangerous, depended too much on personalities, and had too little chance for success. He considered the possibility of letters to the Brotherhood Council but ultimately rejected it. Not only was the proof legally insufficient to establish humanity in the Lani, but he also remembered Alexander’s incredible knowledge of his activities, and there was no reason to suppose that his present didn’t receive the same scrutiny as the past. And if he, who hadn’t written a letter in over a year, suddenly began to write, the correspondence would undoubtedly be regarded with suspicion and would probably be examined, and Dirac messages would be out for the same reason.
He could take a vacation and while he was away from the island he could inform the Brotherhood. Leaving Flora wouldn’t be particularly difficult, but leaving Kardon would be virtually impossible. His contract called for vacations, but it expressly provided that they would be taken on Kardon. And again, there would be no assurance that his activities would not be watched. In fact, it was probable that they would be.
There was nothing that could be done immediately. But there were certain long-range measures that could be started. He could begin preparing a case that could be presented to the Council. And Beta, when it knew, would help him. The situation of the Lani was so close to Beta’s own that its obvious merit as a test case simply could not be ignored. If he could get the evidence to Beta, it would be easy to enlist the aid of the entire Medico-Technological Civilization. It would take time and attention to detail; the case, the evidence, everything would have to be prepared with every safeguard and contingency provided, so that there would not be the slightest chance of a slip-up once it came to court.
And perhaps the best method of bringing the evidence would be to transport it under its own power. The thought intrigued him. Actually it wouldn’t be too difficult. Externally the Egg wasn’t in bad shape. The virtually indestructible durilium hull was still intact. The controls and the engines, hermetically sealed inside the hull, were probably as good as the day they stopped running. The circuitry would undoubtedly be bad but it could be repaired and restored, and new fuel slugs could be obtained for the engine and the converter. But that was a problem for the future.
The immediate problem was to get into the ship in a properly documented fashion.
It took nearly two months, but finally, under the impersonal lenses of cameras and recorders, the entrance port of the God-Egg swung open and revealed the dark interior. Kennon moved carefully, recording every step as he entered the black orifice in the spaceship’s side. His handtorch gave plenty of light for the recorders as he moved inside—Copper at his heels, both of them physically unrecognizable in antiradiation suits.
“Why are we moving so slowly?” Copper said. “Let’s go ahead and find out what’s beyond this passageway.”
“From a superstitious coward you’ve certainly become a reckless explorer,” he said.
“The Egg hasn’t hurt us, and we’ve been around it many times,” she said. “Either the curse has become too old to hurt us, or there never was any in the first place. So let’s see what is ahead. I’m curious.”
Kennon shook his head. “In this business we must hurry slowly—very slowly. You know why.”
“But I want to see.”
“Patience, girl. Simmer down. You’ll see soon enough,” Kennon said. “Now help me set up this camera.”
“Oh, all right—but isn’t there any excitement in you?”
“I’m bubbling over with it,” Kennon admitted, “but I manage to keep it under control.”
“You’re cold-blooded.”
“No—I’m sensible. We want to nail this down. My future, yours, and that of your people depend upon how carefully we work. You wouldn’t want to let us all down by being too eager, would you?”
She shook her head. “No—you’re right of course. But I still would like to see.”
They moved cautiously through the airlock and into the control room.
“Ah!” Kennon said with satisfaction. “I hoped for this, but I didn’t dare expect it.”
“What?”
“Look around. What do you see?”
“Nothing but an empty room. It’s shaped like half an orange, and it has a lot of funny instruments and dials on the walls, and a video screen overhead. But that’s all. Why—what’s so unusual about it? It looks just like someone had left it.”
“That’s the point. There’s nothing essential that’s missing. They didn’t cannibalize the instruments—and they didn’t come back.”
“Why not?”
“Maybe because that curse you mentioned a few minutes ago was real.”
Copper drew back. “But you said it wouldn’t hurt us—”
“Not now. The heat’s practically gone, but when whoever flew this crate came here, the whole shell could have been as hot as a Samarian summer.”
“But couldn’t they have come back when it cooled?”
“Not with this kind of heat. The hull was probably too radioactive to approach from the outside. And radioactivity cools off slowly. It might take several lifetimes for its level to become low enough to approach if there was no decontamination equipment available.”
“I suppose that’s why the early ones thought the Egg was cursed.”
Kennon nodded. “Now let’s check—oh! oh! what’s this?” He pointed to a metal-backed book lying on the control panel.
“It looks like a book,” Copper said.
“I’m hoping it’s the book.”
“The book?”
“Yes—the ship’s log. It’s possible. And if it is, we may have all the evidence we need—Copper!—Don’t touch it!”
“Why not?”
“Because its position has to be recorded first. Wait until we get the camera and recorders set up.”
* * *
Gingerly Kennon opened the ancient book. The sheets inside were brittle—crumbling with age—but he could make out the title U.N.S.S. Wanderer with the date of launching and a lower line which read “Ship’s Log.” Kennon was thankful for his medical training. The four years of Classical English that he had despised so much were essential now. Stumbling over unfamiliar words and phrases, he moved slowly through the log tracing the old ship’s history from pleasure craft to short-haul freight tractor to obsolescence in a space dump orbiting around a world called Heaven.
There was a gap of nearly ten years indicated by a blank page before the entries resumed.
“Ah—this is it!” Kennon said.
“What is it?” Copper said curiously. “I can’t read the writing.”
“Of course you can’t. It’s in English—a language that became obsolete during the Interregnum. I had to learn it, since most medical terminology is based on it.”
“What is an Interregnum?” Copper interrupted. “I’ve never heard that word before.”
“It’s a period of confusion when there is no stable government. The last one came after the Second Galactic War—but never mind that—it happened long ago and isn’t important now. The important thing that did happen was the Exodus.”
“What was that?”
“A religious revival and a tremendous desire to see what was happening beyond the next star. During that century men traveled wider and farther then they ever have before or since. In that outward explosion with its mixed motivations of religion and practicality, colonists and missionaries went starward to find new worlds to tame, and new races to be rescued from the darkness of idolatry and hell. Almost any sort of vehicle capable of mounting a spindizzy converter was pressed into service. The old spindizzies were soundly engineered converters of almost childlike simplicity that could and did carry ships enormous distances if their passengers didn’t care about subjective time-lag, and a little radioactivity.
“And that’s what happened to this ship. According to this log it was bought by Alfred and Melissa Weygand—a missionary couple with the idea of spreading the Christian faith to the heathen.
“Alfred and Melissa—Ulf and Lyssa—they were a part of this ancient explosion that scattered human seed across parsecs of interstellar space. It seems that they were a unit in a missionary fleet that had gone out to the stars with flame in their hearts and Gospel on their lips to bring the Word to the benighted heathen on other worlds.” Kennon’s lips curled with mild contempt at their stupid foolhardiness even as his pulse quickened to their bravery. They had been fanatics, true enough, but theirs was a selfless fanaticism that would risk torture and death for what they believed—a fanaticism that was more sublime than the concept of Brotherhood which had evolved from it. They knew nothing of the enmity of race, of the incessant struggle man had since waged with alien intelligences all too willing to destroy intruders who encroached upon their worlds. Mankind’s early selflessness had long ago been discarded for frank expansionism and dominance over the lesser races that stood in their way. And in a way it was too bad.
The ship’s log, meticulously kept in neat round English script, told a story that was more than the bare bones of flight. There was passion and tenderness and a spiritual quality that was shocking to a modern man steeped in millennia of conquest and self-interest. There was a greatness to it, a depth of faith that had since been lost. And as Kennon slowly deciphered the ancient script he admired the courage even as his mind winced with dismay at the unheeding recklessness.
The Weygands had lost contact with the others, and had searched for them in hyperspace, doubling and twisting upon their course until they had become hopelessly lost, and then, with their fuel nearly exhausted, had broken out into the normal three-space continuum to find Kardon’s sun and the world they called Flora.
How little they had known and how lucky they had been.
It was only by the grace of their God that they had found this world before their fuel was exhausted. And it was only by further grace that the planet was habitable and not populated with intelligent life. They had more luck than people were entitled to in a dozen lifetimes. Against odds of a million to one they had survived.
It was fascinating reading.
But it was not proof.
The last entry read: “We have circled this world and have seen no buildings—no sign of intelligent life. We are lost, marooned on this empty world. Our fuel supplies are too low for us to attempt to find the others. Nor could we. The constellations in the sky are strange. We do not know which way to go. Therefore we shall land upon the great island in the center of the yellow sea. And perhaps someday men will come to us since we cannot return to them. Melissa thinks that this is an example of Divine Providence, that the Lord’s mercy has been shown to us that were lost in the vastness of the deep—that we have been chosen, like Eve and Adam, to spread the seed of man to yet another world. I hope she is right, yet I fear the radiation level of the ship has become inordinately high. We may well be Eve and Adam, yet an Adam that cannot beget and an Eve that is not fruitful. I am trimming the ship for landing, and we shall leave it immediately after we have landed, taking with us only what we absolutely need. There is too much radiation from the spindizzy and the drive to remain here longer—and God knows how hot the outer hull may be.”
And that was all. Presumptive evidence—yes. Reasonable certainty—yes. But not proof. Lawyers could argue that since no direct exploration was made there was no valid reason to assume that the Lani did not already inhabit Kardon. But Kennon knew. His body, more perceptive than his mind, had realized a truth that his brain would not accept until he read the log. It was at once joy and frustration. Joy that Copper was human, frustration that he could not obtain for her and her race the rights to which they were entitled. But the immediate problem was solved. His conditioning was broken now he was convinced that Copper was a member of the human race. It was no violation of his code to love her. The greatest barrier was broken, and with it gone the lesser ones would yield. Relief that was almost pain washed through him and left him weak with reaction.
“What is it?” Copper asked as he turned to her. “What is this thing that has turned your face to joy?”
“Can’t you guess?”
She shook her head. “I have seen nothing but you reading this ancient book, yet you turn to me with the look in your eyes that the redes say Ulf had for Lyssa.”
“You’re human!”
Copper shrugged. “You’re mad. I’m a Lani. I was born a Lani—and I shall die one.”
“Don’t you understand? All Lani are human. You all are the descendants of two humans who came here thousands of years ago.”
“Then there is no reason why you cannot love me.”
Kennon shook his head. “No,” he said. “There is no reason.”
Copper laughed. It was a sound so merry and gay that Kennon looked at her in surprise. She looked as happy as she sounded.
Simple and savage, Kennon thought. She cared nothing for the future, and probably very little about the injustice of her present. The thing that mattered was that what had kept them apart was gone. She was probably offering mental sacrifices to the Old Ones who had caused this change in the man she loved. She didn’t really care about what had caused the change. To her it was sufficient that it had happened.
For a moment Kennon wished that it could be as simple for him as it apparently was for her. The fact that Copper was human posed a greater problem than the one it solved. The one had been personal. The other was infinitely greater. He could not let it lie. The very morality which had kept him from doing what he wished when he thought she was a humanoid now forced him to do what he did not wish. Every instinct said to leave it alone. The problem was too great for one man to solve, the situation too complicated, the evidence too inconclusive, the opposition too powerful. It would be far better to take his happiness and enjoy it. It was not his problem to solve. He could turn the evidence over to the Brotherhood once his contract was over, and better and more capable people than he could settle the Lani legal status. But the inner voice that had called him bestial now called him shirker, coward, and slacker. And this, too, could not be borne. The case of the Lani would have to be pursued as vigorously as he could do it. They were entitled to human rights—whether they wanted them or not.
His first idea of making the spacer operational was a good one, Kennon decided as they finished the inspection of the ship. Even if it was never used it would make a good means of retreat. He grinned wryly. In a guerrilla operation such as the one he was considering it would be wise to have a way out if things got too hot. The heavy parts, the engines and the controls, were in workable condition and would merely require cleaning and oiling. Some of the optical equipment would have to be replaced and fuel slugs would have to be obtained for the drive—but none of these would be too hard to accomplish. The slugs from any of the power reactors on the island would serve nicely. All that would have to be done would be to modify the fuel ports on the ship’s engine. The spindizzy would have to be disassembled and checked, and the main leads, embedded in time-resistant plastic, would have to be examined. The most serious problem, however, wouldn’t involve these things. The control board wiring and circuitry was where the trouble would lie. Normal insulation and printed circuitry wasn’t designed to last for thousands of years. Each wired circuit would have to be removed, duplicated, and replaced. Every printed panel would have to be cleaned and receive a new coat of insulating varnish. Working full time, a four-man electronics team could do the job in a week. Working part-time the two of them might get it done in three months. And the other jobs would take at least another. Add a month for errors in judgment, lack of materials, and mistakes—and another for unavoidable delays—it would be at least six months before the Egg would be spaceworthy.
Six months.
Not too long if everything went well, but far too long if there were any mistakes. He would have to be careful, yet he must not give the impression of being careful. He shook his head. Being a subversive was going to require a greater amount of acting ability than he had ever been called upon to display.
And what of Copper? How would she behave under the double strain of knowledge that she was human and knowledge of the spaceship? Women weren’t noted for their tight-lipped reticence. Would she tell the other Lani? Would she crack under the pressure? Did she have the qualities of a good conspirator?
As it turned out, he didn’t need to worry. As a partner in crime, Copper was all that could be wished. Everything was normal. She was still obedient, helpful, and gay as ever. To watch her, no one would ever think that her bright head was full of knowledge that could rock Flora to its foundations. Never by look or word did she betray the slightest trace of strain or guilt.
And in her other moments she was ecstatic in her love and helpful with the repair work on the Egg whenever Kennon could get time to visit the old spaceship.
“You amaze me,” Kennon said as they eased the cover of the spindizzy in place and spun the bolts on the lugs that held it to the outer shielding. He picked up a heavy wrench and began methodically to seat the bolts as Copper wiped the white extrusion of the cover sealant from the shining case.
“How?”
“The way you hide your knowledge of this ship from the others. I know you better than anyone else on this island, and yet you would fool me.”
“We Lani are used to hiding things. You men have been our masters for centuries, yet you do not know our redes. Nor do you know what we think, We obey you, but there are parts of us you do not own. It is easy to hide a little thing like this.”
Kennon nodded. It figured. He seated another bolt. Three more and the drive room would be restored and they could start on the control circuits. “I wish you were as clever about adopting human customs as you are about hiding guilty knowledge,” he said.
Copper laughed. “You mean those silly things you have been teaching me? Why should I learn them? I’m happy as I am. I love you, you love me, and that is all that matters.”
“It’s not all that matters. Can’t you get it through your head that civilized customs are necessary in a civilized society?” He gave the next-to-last bolt an extra-vicious wrench. “You’ll have to know them if you expect to get along on Beta.”
“But I will never see Beta.”
“I am going there when my duty here is over. And you’re going with me.”
“When will that be?”
“Three years.”
“So long? Well—we can think of it then, but I don’t think Man Alexander will let you take me.”
“Then I shall take you without his consent.”
She smiled. “It would be easier to stay here. In another fifteen years I will be old and you will not want me.”
“I’ll never do that. I’ll always want you.”
“You swear too easily,” she said gently. “You men live forever. We Lani are a short-lived race.”
“But you needn’t be. It’s obviously—”
“It’s been tried, my love—and those who were treated died. Man Alexander tried many years ago to make us long-lived like you. But he failed. You see, he loved one of us too.”
“But—”
“Let us think no more of it. Let us enjoy what we have and be grateful to the Gods for the love we enjoy—or do you have any Gods?”
“One.”
“Two are better. More, anyway. And besides, Ulf and Lyssa and the God-Egg are responsible for our joy.”
“They are indeed,” Kennon said.
“Then why should you think of leaving the place where they rule? You should stay here. There will be other Lani when I am gone. You will be happy always.”
“Not without you,” Kennon said. “Don’t you understand that I love you?”
“And I you. But I am a Lani. You are a man.”
“You’re as human as I am,” Kennon said abruptly.
“That is what you say,” Copper replied. “I am not so sure. I need more proof than this.” She waved her hand at the ship.
“What proof do you need?”
“The same as the proof you men require. If I should have your child, then I would believe that I was human.”
“I’ve told you a thousand times that the radiation on this ship must have affected Ulf and Lyssa’s germ plasm. Can’t you understand that?”
“I can understand it all right, but it does not change things. Ulf and Lyssa may have been human before they came here, but they were not when they landed. They were Lani, and their children were Lani.”
“But they were of human stock.”
“The law that lets men become our masters does not agree with you.”
“Then the law is wrong. It should be changed.”
Copper shrugged. “Two people cannot change a law.”
“They can try—particularly if the law is unjust.”
Copper sighed. “Is it not enough for us to love? Must you try to run through a wall?”
“When the wall stands in the way of right and justice I must.”
Copper looked at him with pity in her green eyes. “This I do not understand. I know nothing of right and justice. What are these things? Just words. Yet you will endanger our happiness for them. If it is my happiness you wish—then leave this foolishness alone. I have fifteen years I can live with you before I am old and you tire of me. With those years I can be content.”
“But I can’t,” Kennon said. “Call me selfish if you wish, but I want you with me as long as I live. I don’t want to live my life without you.”
“You want too much,” Copper said softly. “But if it makes you happy to try to get it, I shall help. And if we do not succeed you will at least be happier for trying. And if you are happy”—she shrugged—“then the rest makes little difference.”
That was the crux of the matter, Kennon reflected bitterly. He was convinced she was human. She was not. And until her mind could be changed on that point she would help him but her heart wouldn’t be in it. And the only thing that would convince her that she was human would be a child—a child of his begetting. He could perhaps trick her with an artificial insemination of Lani sperm. There were drugs that could suspend consciousness, hypnotics that would make her believe anything she was told while under their influence.
But in the end it would do no good. All witnesses in Brotherhood court actions were examined under psychoprobe, and a hypnotic was of no value against a lie detector that could extract the deepest buried truth. And he would be examined too. The truth would out—and nothing would be gained. In fact—everything would be lost. The attempt at trickery would prejudice any court against the honest evidence they had so painfully collected.
He sighed. The only thing to do was to go on as they were—and hope that the evidence would hold. With Betan legal talent at their back it might. And, of course, they could try to produce a child as nature had intended. They could try—but Kennon knew it would not succeed. It never had.