Susceptibility
Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1951.
The colonists on this world needed help urgently. It was as if they had deliberately decided to set their civilization back to some harsh era out of the past!
Sean Malloy stood unnoticed at the edge of the clearing and frowned as he watched the girl work. Exposure to the rays of the yellow-white sun, half again the size of Sol, had turned her to copper bronze, against which the mane of yellow hair was quite startling. He found that he was taking pleasure in watching the smooth play of muscles in her naked back as she swung the instrument against the tree. Each stroke bit out a chunk of the soft yellowish wood, veined with green. Exertion had put a sheen of perspiration on her shoulders.
The proper paleolingual word eluded him. Suddenly he remembered. Of course — it was an ax.
The sound of it, biting into the wood, resounded across the clearing, a sharp, metronomic sound. He heard the crackle of fibers and saw her step back from the tree. Sean Malloy glanced up then, and saw the great mass of branches and leaves sway toward him. He gave a gasp of alarm, and forgetting all the dignity of a Praecursor from the Colonial Adjustments Bureau, he ran at right angles to the line of fall. After fifty feet of surprising fleetness, he struck a hummock of grass and fell just at the moment the tree thundered to the ground, so close behind him that the end of a branch rapped him smartly across the shoulders. He crawled out from under the leaves and stood up. The tall woman was hurrying toward him, buttoning on a shirt of coarse fabric, quick concern in her eyes.
“You’re not hurt?”
“It so happens that I’m not,” he said acidly.
He saw her glance take in his uniform, the CAB seal, the tiny gold question mark of the Praecursor blazoned upon it. She no longer looked concerned.
“People who wait for trees to fall on them generally get hurt,” she said indifferently.
“I am Sean Malloy, Praecursor. They told me, in the village, that I should talk to you. You are Deen Thomason?”
She nodded. She looked regretfully at the tree. “I suppose I can just as well finish it tomorrow. Come along, Malloy.”
She shouldered the ax and headed across the clearing to the mouth of a narrow trail. Her stride was long. Once again Malloy found himself taking a rather surprising pleasure in watching her. He made a mental note to apply, on his return to the Bureau, for deep psychological analysis. Praecursors who became emotionally involved with colonial women suffered a loss of efficiency. It would be wise to have this susceptibility tracked down and eliminated. In the meantime, to take his attention away from the swing of her walk, he asked hastily, “What were you planning to do with the tree, Thomason?”
Cut off the branches today, saw it tomorrow, then split it and carry the pieces back to my place.
“But why?” he asked, baffled.
She stopped so suddenly that he almost ran into her. She turned around and he saw a mixture of amusement and irony in her gray eyes.
“Our winter season is coming, Malloy,” she said. “I burn the wood in order to keep warm.”
She was almost as tall as he. He said, as though reasoning with a child, “Wouldn’t it be much simpler to ask for a heat unit? There’s a field station here, an unlimited power source. All you have to do is...”
“Of course, Malloy. It just so happens that I’d rather do it this way.”
“But...”
She had turned again and was striding along the trail. He had to trot to catch up with her. They emerged into a second clearing. A crude wooden house sat at the base of a hill, and he was forced to admit that the setting, with the small busy stream foaming through the rocky channel, was superb. Primitive, though.
He followed her to the door of the house. It was open.
“Where is your mate?” he asked, realizing too late that his choice of words had been a bit hasty. It was undiplomatic to point out the backwardness of this unfortunate social order without shrewd preparation.
She looked more amused than angered. “Sit down, Malloy. I have not yet mated, if that’s what you Bureau people prefer to call it.”
“You built this house yourself?”
“No. I selected the spot. All the others helped me. It was built in two days. The Bureau would have been horrified. Everyone working with their hands. Dancing and food that didn’t come from the field station and a strong brew made from fruits. Very barbaric.”
He sat at a bench beside a wooden table. She lifted a trap door, went down steps and returned with a corked earthenware jug. She poured a cup of water and handed it to him. The day was warm, the water cool and sweet.
“Thank you,” he said. She sat opposite him.
He smiled officially. “Well, shall we get to it, Thomason? It took me a long time to find you. And I didn’t expect anyone like you to be... head of the planet.”
“Let us be accurate, Malloy. This year it happened to be my turn to represent the village at general meeting, and also the turn of my village to supply the chairman for the meeting.”
Malloy gave her a pained look. “My dear young woman, my duty involves contacting the person in charge here. Are you or are you not in charge?”
“If you could say anyone is in charge, I suppose I am.”
“Then you keep the records, I gather. Issue orders. Take care of administration.”
“There are no records to keep, Malloy. I issued one order, I think. I set the day of the next meeting. And the villages administer themselves.”
Malloy stood up, walked to the stone fireplace, turned abruptly. “Please, Thomason. A Praecursor named Zedder was sent here to Able XII seven Earth years ago, five and a half of your years. His job was to find out why the field station was almost unutilized, why there were no entertainment imports, why you were canceled off the tour schedules for lack of business. Zedder came here and put his ship on homing automatic with his resignation fastened to the flight panel. That was so unusual that Able XII was put on emergency priority. Our press of business is so great that this is the first time you have had Bureau contact since then.
«I came here expecting to find most of the population gone. At first I thought I was right. No one seems to live at the Centers the Bureau built for you people. Then I found you of Able XII living out here in these crude villages and shacks. It has taken me two full weeks to locate you, Thomason. I’m a busy man. A very busy man. The field station is in perfect working order. I’ve tested it. I projected a perfectly satisfactory little flier, synthesized foods at random from the list that checked perfectly, even used the tele-tubes from Center to Center. My job is to find out what’s wrong here, Thomason.»
«Does something have to be wrong?» she demanded.
«Don’t try my patience, Thomason.»
Her gray eyes narrowed a bit. «I can think of very few things I’m more indifferent to, Malloy, than your patience or lack of patience. This is my home. You have all the normal privileges of a guest. An autocratic attitude is not one of those privileges.»
He sat down wearily. «I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m upset. Where’s Zedder?»
«I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea.»
«Isn’t there any central record of population? Any index?»
«We don’t find that necessary, Malloy.»
«I can’t spare the time to hunt in every village for him. I’ve got four more emergency priority cases to cover in other parts of the Galaxy.»
«Then why don’t you just get back into whatever you came here in and go take care of them?»
He lifted his chin. «When the Colonial Bureau sets up proper resident facilities on a planet and stocks the planet with colonists, and when said colonists fail to use the facilities provided, it is the duty of the Colonial Adjustments Bureau to send a Praecursor to make investigation and recommendation as to what sort of adjustment team should be sent to rectify said non-utilization of standard facilities.»