“Thomason, isn’t it?” he asked.
“That’s right. This is just an inspection trip.”
“Go right ahead,” he said.
He turned to a metallic plate set beside the rude door, depressed a switch. Malloy, slightly baffled, followed Deen through the gate. As he passed through he felt the momentary tingle of a space-twist fence temporarily reversed.
Then he straightened his shoulders. He walked beside Thomason. “You see how pleasant life can be in a Center?” he asked proudly.
A well-larded woman sat in the sun playing with two romping fuzzy creatures she had created out of the mental projector. Beyond her a man slept propped against a wall, half-empty bottles surrounding him.
“Very pleasant,” Thomason said.
“They all have everything they want. Who would want to live out in the brush when everything is right here, within arm’s reach? Exotic foods, toys, amusement.”
“Who indeed?” Thomason stressed with gentle irony.
Malloy beamed at the colonists. They had the familiar triple chins of the home planet, the same shortness of breath, the same bland look that comes of satiety in all things. But he was puzzled by the way they stared at the two of them. Dulled eyes, with the glow of resentment almost submerged.
At the end of the street he stopped. “But the rest of the Center is empty!” he said.
“Yes. There’s just this one street. We can’t go any farther. The fence will stop us.”
She turned and started back. He caught her in two quick strides, grasped her arm and pulled her around roughly. “Why have you people installed a twist fence around this street?”
“Because there’s no need to put it around a bigger area.”
“Why put it around any area?” he shouted into her face.
“You are rude,” she said coldly. “And more stupid than I thought. We’ll walk back slowly. Look at their faces, Malloy. Look long and well. You see, this is the penal colony for this planet.”
The breath whoofed out of him. “Penal? But... Wait. Anybody who lives here can have every last thing they want.”
“Exactly,” she said.
Subdued, he walked beside her and he looked at their faces.
It was dusk in the heart of the village. He heard the thin eager voices of children at play. Smoke from the cook fires lost itself in the grayness overhead where the first strange star patterns were beginning to appear. Deen sat with her back against a tree. Sean Malloy lay stretched out on the grass on his back, the concavity of the nape of his neck fitting comfortably over the warm convexity of her thigh.
An insect lit on the back of his hand and he slapped it. He squirmed a bit. He wasn’t yet accustomed to the scratchiness of homespun clothes. He squinted up at the skies and thought of his ship speeding toward Bureau headquarters, the resignation affixed to the automatic controls. This was the third night back at her home.
“A crazy thing to do,” he muttered.
She took her cool fingertips from his forehead abruptly. “Sorry you did it, Sean?” she asked a bit frigidly.
He captured her hand, kissed the palm. “Not the way it sounded. My ship will get back there. They’ll give Able XII a double priority. A new Praecursor will be here in probably less than four years. He may send an adjustment team.”
The children were being called in from play. A few hundred feet down the unpaved main street came the first tentative sounds of music.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Sean,” she said softly.
He sat up, faced her. “Why in Sol not?”
She smiled at him. “Because when he comes, he’ll go looking for the person in charge, won’t he?”
“Naturally.”
“It was decided a long time ago that what little centralized administration we need should be handled by those of us least likely to be hungry for that sort of power.”
“I don’t get the connection.”
“Village representatives to the general meeting are always unmarried girls, and are always those considered to be the most pleasing to the eye. And we are beginning to find that anyone who has become a Praecursor seems peculiarly... susceptible to this sort of existence.”
He was silent for a long time, and then he laughed. “Poor Zedder,” he said.
“And poor Malloy,” she added teasingly.
Suddenly he became suspicious. “Did you have orders to... to—”
“Seduce the Praecursor? How strangely short your memory is, my Sean! I seem to remember that the shoe was on the other foot.” She stood up quickly and held out her hand. “Come. They will expect us to dance. I shall teach you. It will make you hungry for the wedding feast.”
“How barbaric!” muttered the ex-Praecursor as he urgently up-tilted her mouth.
“How primitive you’re becoming!” she taunted, and writhed out of his arms.
He caught her finally, but only because she let him. He needed some woodchopping and farming, maybe some hunting and hiking, too, before he could outrun her legitimately. A couple of months and she would see who was the stronger.
Common Denominator
Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1951.
Advanced races generally are eager to share their knowledge with primitive ones. In this case... with Earthmen!
When Scout Group Forty flickered back across half the Galaxy with a complete culture study of a Class Seven civilization on three planets of Argus Ten, the Bureau of Stellar Defense had, of course, a priority claim on all data. Class Sevens were rare and of high potential danger, so all personnel of Group Forty were placed in tight quarantine during the thirty days required for a detailed analysis of the thousands of film spools.
News of the contact leaked out and professional alarmists predicted dire things on the news screens of the three home planets of Sol. A retired admiral of the Space Navy published an article in which he stated bitterly that the fleet had been weakened by twenty years of softness in high places.
On the thirty-first day, B.S.D. reported to System President Mize that the inhabitants of the three planets of Argus 10 constituted no threat, that there was no military necessity for alarm, that approval of a commerce treaty was recommended, that all data was being turned over to the Bureau of Stellar Trade and Economy for analysis, that personnel of Scout Group Forty was being given sixty days’ leave before reassignment.
B.S.T.E. released film to all commercial networks at once, and visions of slavering oily monsters disappeared from the imagination of mankind. The Argonauts, as they came to be called, were pleasantly similar to mankind. It was additional proof that only in the rarest instance was the life-apex on any planet in the home Galaxy an abrupt divergence from the “human” form. The homogeneousness of planet elements throughout the Galaxy made homogeneousness of life-apex almost a truism. The bipedal, oxygen-breathing vertebrate with opposing thumb seems best suited for survival.
It was evident that, with training, the average Argonaut could pass almost unnoticed in the Solar System. The flesh tones were brightly pink, like that of a sunburned human. Cranial hair was uniformly taffy-yellow. They were heavier and more fleshy than humans. Their women had a pronounced Rubens look, a warm, moist, rosy, comfortable look.