XII
On Brion's desk when he came in, were two neat piles of paper. As he satdown and reached for them he was conscious of an arctic coldness in theair, a frigid blast. It was coming from the air-conditioner grillewhich was now covered by welded steel bars. The control unit was sealedshut. Someone was either being very funny or very efficient. Either wayit was cold. Brion kicked at the cover plate until it buckled, then bentit aside. After a careful look into the interior he disconnected onewire and shorted it to another. He was rewarded by a number ofsputtering cracks and a good quantity of smoke. The compressor moanedand expired.
Faussel was standing in the door with more papers and a shockedexpression. "What do you have there?" Brion asked. Faussel managed tostraighten out his face and brought the folders to the desk, arrangingthem on the piles already there.
"These are the progress reports you asked for, from all units. Detailsto date, conclusions, suggestions, et cetera."
"And the other pile?" Brion pointed.
"Offplanet correspondence, commissary invoices, requisitions," hestraightened the edges of the stack while he answered. "Daily report,hospital log--" His voice died away and stopped as Brion carefullypushed the stack off the edge of the desk into the wastebasket.
"In other words, red tape," Brion said. "Well it's all filed."
One by one the progress reports followed the first stack into thebasket, until his desk was clear. Nothing. It was just what he hadexpected. But there had always been the off-chance that one of thespecialists could come up with a new approach. They hadn't, they wereall too busy specializing.
Outside the sky was darkening. The front entrance guard had been told tolet in anyone who came asking for the director. There was nothing elseBrion could do until the Nyjord rebels made contact. Irritation bit athim. At least Lea was doing something constructive, he could look in onher.
He opened the door to the lab with a feeling of pleasant anticipation.It froze and shattered instantly. Her microscope was hooded and she wasgone. _She's having dinner_, he thought, _or--she's in the hospital_.The hospital was on the floor below and he went there first.
"Of course she's here!" Dr. Stine grumbled. "Where else should a girl inher condition be? She was out of bed long enough today. Tomorrow's thelast day, and if you want to get any more work out of her before thedeadline, you have better let her rest tonight. Better let the wholestaff rest. I've been handing out tranquilizers like aspirin all day.They're falling apart."
"The world's falling apart. How is Lea doing?"
"Considering her shape she's fine. Go in and see for yourself if youwon't take my word for it. I have other patients to look at."
"Are you that worried, doctor?"
"Of course I am! I'm just as prone to the ills of the flesh as the restof you. We're sitting on a ticking bomb and I don't like it. I'll do myjob as long as it is necessary, but I'll also be glad to see the shipsland to pull us out. The only skin that I really feel emotionallyconcerned about right now is my own. And if you want to be let in on apublic secret--the rest of your staff feels the same way. So don't lookforward to too much efficiency."
"I never did," Brion said.
* * * * *
Lea's room was dark, illuminated only by the light of Dis' moon slantingin the window. Brion let himself in and closed the door behind him.Walking quietly he went over to the bed. She was sleeping soundly, herbreathing gentle and regular. A night's sleep now would do as much goodas all the medication.
He should have gone then, instead he sat down in the chair placed nextto the head of the bed. The guards knew where he was, he could wait herejust as well as any place else.
It was a stolen moment of peace on a world at the brink of destruction.He was grateful for it. Everything looked less harsh in the moonlightand he rubbed some of the tension from his eyes. Lea's face was ironedsmooth by the light, beautiful and young; a direct contrast toeverything else on this poisonous world. Her hand was outside of thecovers and he took it in his own, obeying a sudden impulse. Looking outof the window at the desert in the distance, he let the peace wash overhim, forcing himself to forget for the moment that in one more day lifewould be stripped from this planet.
Later, when he looked back at Lea he saw that her eyes were open, thoughshe hadn't moved. How long had she been awake? He jerked his hand awayfrom hers, feeling suddenly guilty.
"Is the boss-man looking after the serfs, to see if they're fit for thetreadmill in the morning?" she asked. It was the kind of remark she hadused with such frequency in the ship, though it didn't sound quite asharsh now. And she was smiling. Yet it reminded him too well of hersuperior attitude towards the rubes from the stellar sticks. Here hemight be the director, but on ancient Earth he would be only one moregaping yokel.
"How do you feel?" he asked, realizing and hating the triteness of thewords, even as he said them.
"Terrible. I'll be dead by morning. Reach me a piece of fruit from thatbowl, will you? My mouth tastes like an old boot heel. Wonder how freshfruit ever got here? Probably a gift to the working classes from thesmiling planetary murderers on Nyjord," she took the apple Brion gaveher and bit into it. "Did you ever think of going to Earth?"
Brion was startled, this was too close to his own thoughts aboutplanetary backgrounds. There couldn't possibly be a connection though."Never," he told her. "Up until a few months ago I never even consideredleaving Anvhar. The Twenties are such a big thing at home that it ishard to imagine that anything else exists while you are still takingpart in them."
"Spare me the Twenties," she pleaded. "After listening to you and IhjelI know far more about them than I shall ever care to know. But whatabout Anvhar itself? Do you have big city-states like Earth?"
"Nothing like that. For its size it has a very small population. No bigcities at all. I guess the largest centers of population are around theschools, packing plants, things like that."
"Any exobiologists there?" Lea asked, with a woman's eternal ability tomake any general topic personal.
"At the universities, I suppose, though I wouldn't know for sure. Andyou must realize that when I say no big cities, I also mean no littlecities. We aren't organized that way at all. I imagine the basicphysical unit is family and the circle of friends. Friends get importantquickly since the family breaks up when children are still relativelyyoung. Something in the genes I suppose, we all enjoy being alone.Suppose you might call it an inbred survival trait."
"Up to a point," she said, biting delicately into the apple. "Carry thatsort of thing too far and you end up with no population at all. Acertain amount of proximity is necessary for that."
"Of course there is. And there must be some form of recognizedrelationship or control--that or complete promiscuity. On Anvhar theemphasis is on personal responsibility, and that seems to take care ofthe problem. If we didn't have an adult way of looking at ... things,our kind of life would be impossible. Individuals are brought togethereither by accident or design, and with this proximity must be somecertainty of relations--"
"You're losing me," Lea protested. "Either I'm still foggy from the dopeor you are suddenly unable to speak a word of less than four syllablesin length. You know--whenever this happens with you I get the distinctimpression that you are trying to cover up something. For Occam's sakebe specific! Bring together two of these hypothetical individuals andtell me what happens."
* * * * *
Brion took a deep breath. He was in over his head and far from shore."Well--take a bachelor like myself. Since I like cross-country skiing Imake my home in this big house our family has, right at the edge of theBroken Hills. In summer I looked after a drumtum herd, but afterslaughtering my time was my own all winter. I did a lot of skiing, andused to work for the Twenties. Sometimes I would go visiting. Thenagain, people would drop in on me--houses are few and far between onAnvhar. We don't even have locks on our front doors. You accept and givehospitality without qualification. Whoev
er comes. Male--female--ingroups or just traveling alone--"
"I get the drift. Life must be dull for a single girl on your icebergplanet, she must surely have to stay home a lot."
"Only if she wants to. Otherwise she can go wherever she wishes and bewelcomed as another individual. I suppose it is out of fashion in therest of the galaxy--and would probably raise a big laugh on Earth--but aplatonic, disinterested friendship between man and woman is an acceptedthing on Anvhar."
"Sounds exceedingly dull. If you are all such cool and distant friends,what keeps your birthrate going?"
Brion felt his ears flushing, not quite sure if he was being teased ornot. "There are plenty of happy marriages. But it is up to the womanalways to indicate if she is interested in a man. A girl who isn'tinterested won't get any proposals. I imagine this is a lot differentfrom other planets--but so is our world. The system works well enoughfor us."
"Just about the opposite of Earth," Lea told him, dropping the applecore into a dish and carefully licking the tips of her fingers. "I guessyou Anvharians would describe Earth as a planetary hotbed of sin. Thereverse of your system, and going full blast all the time. There are fartoo many people there for comfort. Birth control came late and is stillbeing fought--if you can possibly imagine that. There are just too manycrack-brained ideas that have been long entrenched in custom. Theworld's overcrowded. Men, women, children, a boiling mob wherever youlook. And all of the physically mature ones seem to be involved in theGreat Game of Love. The male is always the aggressor, and women take themost outrageous kinds of flattery for granted. At parties these arealways a couple of hot breaths of passion fanning your neck. A girl hasto keep her spike heels filed sharp."
"She has to _what_--?"
"A figure of speech, Brion. Meaning you fight back all the time, if youdon't want to be washed under by the flood."
"Sounds rather"--Brion weighed the word before he said it, but couldfind none other suitable--"repellent."
"From your point of view, it would be. I'm afraid we get so used to itthat we even take it for granted. Sociologically speaking--" She stoppedand looked at Brion's straight back and almost rigid posture. Her eyeswidened and her mouth opened in an unspoken _oh_ of sudden realization.
"I'm being a fool," she said. "You weren't speaking generally at all!You had a very specific subject in mind. Namely _me_!"
"Please, Lea, you must understand--"
"But I do!" she laughed. "All the time I thought you were being a frigidand hard-hearted lump of ice, you were really being very sweet. Justplaying the game in good old Anvharian style. Waiting for a sign fromme. We'd still be playing by different rules if you hadn't had moresense than I, and finally realized that somewhere along the line we musthave got our signals mixed. And I thought you were some kind of frostyoffworld celibate." She let her hand go out and her fingers rustledthrough his hair. Something she had been wanting to do for a long time.
"I had to," he said, trying to ignore the light touch of her fingers."Because I thought so much of you, I couldn't have done anything toinsult you. Until I began to worry where the insult would lie, since Iknew nothing about your planet's mores."
"Well you know now," she said very softly. "The men aggress. Now that Iunderstand, I think I like your way better. But I'm still not sure ofall the rules. Do I explain that yes, Brion, I like you so very much?You are more man, in one great big wide shouldered lump, than I haveever met before--"
His arms were around her, holding her to him, and their lips sought eachother's in the darkness.