His eyes fell on Magda Hollis. The sociologist stood as if frozen, staring at one of the male Forest People. Her eyes were wide, and her breasts rose and fell irregularly with her disordered breathing. She seemed almost to quiver with desire.
The alien song of praise to the Tree rose to an almost numbing crescendo of sound. Rayner watched unbelievingly as Magda moved on unsteady feet toward the little group of Forest People.
Horror swept through him as he watched. She sank to her knees next to one of the alien creatures, and from her mouth came a wordless song that blended strangely with the hymn to the Tree.
The Ceremony ended some time later, and Earthmen and hybrids made their way back through the now-steaming jungle to the village. The Forest People slipped away, silently as they came, into the darker recesses of the jungle that lay on the far side of the Tree.
Rayner walked by himself, too shocked and disgusted to seek the company of his fellow Examiners. Vivid in his mind was the image of Magda Hollis kneeling next to the sleek moist-skinned alien, her eyes turned toward the being in adoration and lust.
It was the way the hybridization had originally begun, he thought. The sudden quick hot burst of desire at first sight, when Earthman sees alien. It was incomprehensible and vaguely obscene, but there was no denying it had happened.
He wondered if the men of the group had felt the same way about the alien women. He knew that, for his own part, he had found them unattractive, though they were handsome in an exotic sort of way. But he was no judge of such things; and there was no telling what lures Killian or Ehrenfeld might respond to.
He looked at Magda as she walked alone thinking secret thoughts, with a strange smile on her lovely face. Deliberately he came to her side of the path and moved alongside her.
“You’re very quiet,” Rayner said.
“Thinking.”
“May I ask?”
“No,” she said.
He grinned amiably. “You were doing some sociological research at that Ceremony, weren’t you?”
Her hand came up like a rising sword; Rayner saw it come, but allowed the blow to land anyway. It raised an area of stinging redness along his left cheek.
“What I do is my business,” she snapped. “And if you make another remark like that—”
She left it unfinished, but there was dark malice in her tones.
Back at their quarters, Rayner sought out Ehrenfeld and said, “Did you see how Magda behaved at the ceremony this morning?”
“What do you mean?”
“The way she crossed over to those aliens and practically fawned over the one on the end?”
Ehrenfeld’s tanned, leathery face displayed no sign of any emotion. In a quiet voice he said, “I saw it. What am I supposed to say?”
“You mean you don’t object to what she’s up to?”
Ehrenfeld shrugged. “She’s a free individual, Rayner. If she happens to find that alien interesting, there’s no way I can prevent her doing anything about it. You’ll have to learn to mind your own business.”
Rayner took a deep breath. He stared bewilderedly at the squad chief, trying to read the unfathomable expression in the smaller man’s face, wondering if this were really happening or whether it were some drug-induced nightmarish hallucination.
Finally he said, “You don’t seem to get my point. Magda’s an Earthwoman. You don’t object to the fact that she’s obviously falling in love with an alien being?”
The corner of Ehrenfeld’s mouth quirked impatiently. “An entire colony of Earthmen did just that thing two hundred years ago, Rayner. Why should I complain if Magda decides to do the same thing?”
“Because it’s insane and disgusting, that’s why!” Rayner burst out. “Because space knows what kind of alien traits are being mingled into Terran blood! Because—” He stopped. There was obviously little point in arguing with Ehrenfeld, or with any of them.
One of the cardinal rules of Terran civilization was that bloodlines had to be preserved. Man’s genetic heritage was the product of centuries of selective breeding; it was not lightly to be destroyed.
Stringent laws prevented undesirable marriages. Sickly genes were weeded out of the species. The insane, the unfit, the hereditarily deficient—these were forbidden to breed, by laws harsh to the individual but kindly in the light of the overall future of the race. A new Earthman was emerging, healthier, wiser than ever before.
What the Maldonad colony had done, what Magda Hollis was now doing, was ten times more dreadful than mere violation of the eugenics laws. Alien blood, alien genes, mingled with those of Earth—Rayner’s mind rebelled at the thought. It was inconceivable.
Yet these four fellow Earthmen of his did not seem to object at all. It was as if, thought Rayner, they were under the influence of some strange compulsion, utterly outside themselves.
Two days went by; days in which the group of Earthmen continued their researches, each along their own specialized lines. Rayner surveyed the district, preparing his ecological report. Bryson and Magda operated as a unit, studying the hybrid people from sociological and anthropological viewpoints, analyzing the strange culture that had sprung up in this one-time Terran settlement. Killian ran biological tests; Ehrenfeld worked ceaselessly as the squad coordinator, preparing the unified report that would be submitted upon their return to Earth.
On the third day since the ceremony of the Tree, Rayner noticed that Magda was behaving peculiarly. She seemed tense and high-strung, irritable, fidgety; she continued to stare at her wristwatch, as if the day could not pass fast enough for her.
Rayner wondered what was on her mind. She spent half the day primping and fussing, as if she had an extra-special date that evening; as if—he went stiff in sudden alarm—as if she were going to meet a lover.
He decided to speak to Killian.
The blockily-built young biologist was working in his improvised lab when Rayner entered. Killian was bent over his microscope, adjusting the viewing stage, groping out with one hand for his tray of specimens, and scribbling notes every time he had a free hand available.
Rayner paused a few moments at the door, not wanting to interrupt anything. But Killian remained busily at work, and it became apparent to Rayner after a while that he was deliberately being ignored.
He cleared his throat. “Killian?”
“That you, Rayner?”
“Yes. Could I have a couple of words with you now?” Rayner said.
Without looking up the biologist muttered, “I’m pretty busy on these trypanosome slides, Rayner. You think you could come back in a little while—tomorrow afternoon, some time?”
Rayner’s jaws tightened. In a level voice he said, “I want to talk to you about Magda, Killian. And I don’t want to wait till tomorrow.”
Reluctantly Killian shut off the illumination for the microscope and restored his slide to the nutrient chamber. He pushed his sheaf of notes to one side, swiveled in his chair, and looked up at Rayner with an expression of sour impatience.
“Well?”
“You and Magda were pretty friendly aboard the ship coming out, weren’t you?”
Killian frowned. “Maybe. What’s it to you?”
“Nothing much. I was just thinking that the two of you must have had some sort of fight lately, the way you’ve been ignoring each other.”
The biologist drummed on the desktop. “I’m not married to the girl, you know. What happened on shipboard was just a shipboard romance. Over. Kaput. I have no more interest in that girl than I do in old Bryson, at the moment. But you didn’t come here to talk gossip with me, did you? You can clear out if that’s all that was on your mind. I’m too busy to—”
“Magda’s in love with one of those alien beings,” Rayner interrupted suddenly. “She’s going to go out to the forest tonight and meet him—it?”
He thought it would be a bombshell, but Killian hardly seemed to react at all.
“So?”
“So? Killian, doesn’t it mean anything to you to
know that a girl you’ve loved is meeting an alien being in the forest and—and—” Rayner stopped. “I guess I must look like an awful busybody to you people.”
“You do,” Killian agreed coldly.
“It isn’t because I give a damn about your love life, or Magda’s,” Rayner burst out bitterly. “It’s just that it makes me sick to think of these hybrids…and Magda going to produce another one. How could anyone possibly want to get that close to one of those things?”
For the first time an expression appeared on Killian’s face. An expression of pity for Rayner.
“How could anyone possibly not want to?” Killian asked in astonished tones.
“You mean—you too—”
A smile of joy appeared on the biologist’s swarthy face. “There’s one of them out there, a slim little girl I saw at the Tree last week—and Ehrenfeld has his eye on one too. Even old Bryson says he wishes he was younger, so he could have one. And you, Rayner? It makes you sick?” Killian shook his head. “You poor pathetic thing. I don’t think I’ve ever felt sorrier for you than right now. I wondered why you stood like that the other day at the Tree, stiff and bored-looking. Now I know, Rayner. You just weren’t responding. You poor creature.”
Rayner had had enough. He glanced puzzledly at Killian, shrugged, and said, “So you’re in love with an alien too, eh? And Ehrenfeld? I guess I’m wasting my breath, then. I guess I might as well get out of here.”
He opened the door and stared once more at Killian before closing it. The biologist’s face still wore that calm expression of deep compassion.
In his room that night, Rayner lay on the straw pallet the hybrids had provided for him and stared upward at the striated pattern of veining that had formed in the ceiling where the ancient paint was starting to crack and crumble.
He had retired early, but he was unable to sleep. Instead he revolved the situation round wearily in his mind, examining it from all angles, trying to make it make sense.
His four companions had been normal Earthmen until the landing on Maldonad. He was fairly sure of that. He had spent seventeen months with them, and during that time none of them had revealed any unnatural urges, none of them had shown any strange predilections or bizarre personality traits.
Until landing here. And here on Maldonad three hundred and fifty supposedly normal men and three hundred and fifty allegedly normal women, all of them hand-screened and specially approved for colonization by the rigid classification system of the Colonial Force, had given themselves up to the aliens as lovers and had produced a strange semi-human race of hybrid beings.
It made no sense, Rayner thought.
It made no sense—unless one postulated the existence of some intangible force that had brought about the grotesque intermingling of the races.
What was it Killian had said about his behavior at the Tree? I wondered why you stood like that the other day at the Tree, stiff and bored-looking. Now I know, Rayner. You just weren’t responding.
You just weren’t responding, Rayner thought. Responding to what?
Immediately his trained mind gave him a plausible answer: responding to some psychic force, perhaps thrown out by the Tree, which urges the species to mate with each other.
It was biological nonsense, Rayner thought. But yet he had seen the neat classifications of biology—Terran biology—overthrown on half a dozen worlds before. There had been strange beasts, half animal half plant, with green chlorophyll surging in their veins. Those had been on the planet Legba, roaming the deserts of nitrogen-sand and feeding omnivorously. And there were the spider-beasts of Riyell, which metamorphosed weirdly, passing through amphibious and reptilian stages before reaching their final pseudomammalian forms.
Evolution had unrolled simultaneously on hundreds of worlds. The cosmos had played many tricks, made many experiments with the life force. And perhaps here on Maldonad, a sentient Tree, brooding over the forest like a rooted titan, sending out psi pulses which affected all within its reach, all except Rayner himself.
Yes, he thought. It makes sense. It makes a crazy sort of sense.
He rolled over, trying to sleep. The sound of a door opening further down the hall echoed for a moment, and he sat up, frowning. Everyone had long since turned in. Lights were out. There was no reason why—
Magda.
He recalled immediately; the primping, the fussing. Her impatience.
The hour of rendezvous had come.
Silently Rayner rose from his cot and drew some clothes on. He had to see for his own eyes, confirm what he already knew to be a foregone fact. Stealthily he slipped out into the hall just in time to see the slim figure of Magda, still clad in her sleeping wraps, vanishing at the end of the corridor, turning to go down the stairs.
Rayner followed along the corridor. He paused in the dark; there was a window at the head of the stairs that looked out over the front of the building. Quickly he snapped the release-catch; the window sprang open.
Cool strange-smelling Maldonad night air flooded in. He thrust his head out. He heard low voices.
Magda had appeared at the building. There was someone with her, someone who had been waiting in the shadows, someone who had advanced out of the darkness to meet her. Rayner heard them talking.
The other spoke in liquid alien accents.
He watched as they melted together in a tight embrace; then the alien being took Magda by the arm, gestured, led her away. They strode rapidly down the deserted village streets together, heading for the border that separated forest from settlement. With straining eyes Rayner watched as long as he could, until the pair vanished into the moonless darkness at the end of the road.
He turned away. Magda had gone to meet her lover. There was no doubt about it, now.
There were only four Earthmen when the time came to eat the morning meal. Killian, Bryson, Ehrenfeld, and Rayner. They ate quietly. No one seemed to comment on the fact that Magda was not among them this morning, and by this time Rayner knew better than to raise the question. He ate quickly; he was not hungry. As soon as he could he left the company of his fellow Earthmen and settled down to his day’s work.
He worked listlessly, unable to concentrate. The idea of an intelligent tree troubled him, almost frightened him. He pictured the vast thing rooted there in the forest, sending out its emanations.
Magda did not return from the forest. No one mentioned her name. The day slipped by slowly. Groups of the hybrids collected from time to time outside the building that served as the Examination Squad’s headquarters, staring at the Earthmen strangely. They almost seemed to be smiling encouragingly.
A second evening Rayner stared at the ceiling and heard sounds in the hallway; a second time he rose from bed to follow the footsteps down the hall, and a second time he peered from the landing window.
He saw the thick-bodied form of Killian down below. Killian—with a native woman who looked like a forest sprite. The two of them vanished into the darkness of night.
Two gone. Two more converts for the Tree.
Breakfast was an oddly subdued meal that morning, with only Ehrenfeld and Bryson and Rayner there. Bryson said little, Rayner nothing. Ehrenfeld spoke briefly of some plans he had.
When the meal was over Ehrenfeld turned to Rayner and said, “Would you stop into my office for a couple of moments, Rayner?”
Rayner shrugged and followed the squad leader down the hall. They turned in at the entrance to Ehrenfeld’s office.
Lying on the leader’s bed was a neatly printed slip of paper. Ehrenfeld scooped it up.
“I’d like you to take the day off and return to the ship, Rayner. I want you to transmit this message back to Earth for us.”
Rayner smiled apologetically. “Killian is officially the signal officer,” he said.
“Killian isn’t here. You know how to operate the subradio transmitter, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then you’ll do so. The message is to be transmitted to the main Colo
nial Force office, and you’re to wait until you have an acknowledgement. Read through the message now and let me know if there are any questions you want to raise.”
He handed the paper to Rayner, who took it and read the brief message through quickly. When he was finished, he stared at the squad leader.
“You intend to send this?”
“Of course. Is something wrong?”
Rayner’s hands trembled a bit. He said, “It’s—it’s a recommendation that the planet of Maldonad be admitted into the Council of Worlds at once, with full representation on a parity status.” He shook his head. “That means opening of galactic trade routes between Maldonad and the other worlds, and sending of delegates from here to Earth, and tourist travel—”
“I’m well aware of what I’ve written there,” Ehrenfeld snapped crisply.
“You can’t be, sir! How could those half-civilized hybrids send a delegate to the Council of Worlds? How could there possibly be any trade between a non-industrial tribal culture like this and the civilized words of the galaxy? Pardon me, sir, but this message doesn’t make any sense at all. This world is the least qualified for admission of all those I’ve ever seen.”
Ehrenfeld glared coldly at him for a moment. Scowling, he said, “Mister Rayner, I order you to return to the ship and transmit the message to Earth. Do I understand that you’re defying my order?”
Rayner considered. Defiance of the squad leader was mutiny—punishable, if Ehrenfeld so chose, by immediate execution. The squad leader was fingering the blaster at his belt.
Finally Rayner nodded reluctantly. “All right,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Order accepted.”
It was a five-mile trek from the colonial settlement through the forest to the clearing where the Examination Squad ship had come down. Rayner set out almost immediately, bearing a light pack and Ehrenfeld’s message.
It was a warm day, even for Maldonad. Flies buzzed round him as he walked. Ground-lizards ran daringly up to his feet, darted out their scarlet triforked tongues, and scurried away toward safety. After half an hour, he saw the slim greenish-blue needle that was their ship, standing erect, glittering brightly in the hot mid-morning sunlight of Maldonad.