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"Kerk, I want to tell you...."
"Tell me nothing!" The thunder of Kerk's voice bounced back from the ceiling
and walls. "I'm telling you. I'll tell you once and that will be the end of
it. You're not wanted on Pyrrus, Jason dinAlt, neither you nor your precious
off-world schemes are wanted here. I let you convince me once with your
twisted tongue. Helped you at the expense of more important work. I should
have known what the result of your 'logic' ' would be. Now I've seen. Welf
died so you could live. He was twice the man you will ever be."
'Welf? Was that his name?" Jason asked stumblingly. "I didn't know...."
"You didn't even know." Kerk's lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of
disgust. "You didn't even know his name-yet he died that you might continue
your miserable existence." Kerk spat, as if the words gave a vile flavor to
his speech, and stamped toward the exit lock. Almost as an afterthought, he
turned back to Jason.
"You'll stay here in the sealed buildings until the ship returns in two weeks.
Then you will leave this planet and never come back. If you do I'll kill you
instantly. With pleasure." He started through the lock.
"Wait," Jason shouted. "You can't decide like that. You haven't even seen the
evidence I've uncovered. Ask Meta-" The lock thumped shut and Kerk was gone.
The whole thing was just too stupid. Anger began to replace the futile despair
of a moment before. He was being treated like an irresponsible child, the
importance of his discovery of the log completely ignored. -
Jason turned and saw for the first time that Brucco was standing there. "Did
you hear that?" Jason asked him.
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"Yes. And I quite agree. You can consider yourself lucky."
"Lucky!" Jason was the angry one now. "Lucky to be treated like a moronic
child, with contempt for everything I do-"
"I said lucky," Brucco snapped. 'Welf was Kerk's only surviving son. Kerk had
high hopes for him, was training him to take his place eventually." He turned
to leave but Jason called after him.
"Wait. I'm sorry about Welf. I can't be any sorrier knowing that he was Kerk's
son. But at least it explains why Kerk is so quick to throw me out-as well as
the evidence I have uncovered. The log of the ship..."
"I know, I've seen it," Brucco interrupted. "Meta brought it in. Very
interesting historical document."
"That's all you can see it as, an historical document? The significance of the
planetary change escapes you?"
"It doesn't escape me," Brucco answered briefly. "But I cannot see that it has
any relevancy today. The past is unchangeable and we must fight in the
present. That is enough to occupy all our energies."
The pressure of futility built up inside Jason, fighting for a way to burst
free. Wherever he turned, there was only indifference.
"You're an intelligent man, Brucco-yet you can see no further than the tip of
your own nose. I suppose it is inevitable. You and the rest of the Pyrrans are
supermen by Earth standards. Tough, ruthless, unbeatable, fast on the draw.
Drop you anywhere and you land on your feet. You would make perfect Texas
Rangers, Canadian Mounties, Venus Swamp Patrolmen-any of the mythical frontier
fighters of the past. And I think that's where you really belong. In the past.
On Pyrrus, mankind has been pushed to the limit of adaptability in muscle and
reflex. And it's a dead end. Brain was the thing that dragged mankind out of
the caves and started him on his way to the stars. When we start thinking with
our muscles again we are on our way right back to those caves.
Isn't that what you Pyrrans are? A bunch of cavemen hitting animals on the
head with stone axes. Do you ever stop to think why you are here? What you are
doing? Where you are going?"
Jason had to stop; he was exhausted and gasping for breath. Brucco rubbed his
chin in thought. "Caves?" he asked. "Of course we don't live in caves or use
stone clubs. I don't understand your point at all."
It was impossible to be angry, or even exasperated. Jason started to answer,
then laughed instead. A very humorless laugh. He was too tired to argue
anymore. He kept running into this same stone wall with all the Pyrrans.
Theirs was a logic of the moment.
The past and future unchangeable, unknowable-and uninteresting. "How is the
perimeter battle going?" he asked finally, wanting to change the subject.
"Finished. Or in the last stages at least." Brucco was enthusiastic as he
showed Jason stereos of the attackers. He did not notice
Jason's repressed shudder.
"This was the most serious breakthrough in years, but we caught it in time. I
hate to think what would have happened if they hadn't been detected for a few
weeks more."
"What are those things?" Jason asked. "Giant snakes of some kind?"
"Don't be absurd," Brucco snorted. He tapped the stereo with his thumbnail.
"Roots. That's all. Greatly modified, but still roots. They came in under the
perimeter barrier, much deeper than anything we've had before. Not a real
threat in themselves as they have very little mobility. Die soon after being
cut. The danger came from their being used as access tunnels. They're bored
through and through with animal runs, and two or three species of beasts live
in a sort of symbiosis inside. Now we know what they are we can watch for
them. The danger was they could have completely undermined the perimeter and
come in from all sides at once. Not much we could have done then."
The edge of destruction. Living on the lip of a volcano. The Pyrrans took
satisfaction from any day that passed without total annihilation. There seemed
no way to change their attitude. Jason let the conversation die there. He
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picked up the log of the
Polhwc Victory from Brucco's quarters and carried it back to his room. The
wounded Pyrrans there ignored him as he dropped onto the bed and opened the
book to the first page. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]