Martia had regained consciousness. She sat on the edge of the -bed, her shoulders hunched, her head drooping, tears running down her cheeks and into the towel around her mouth. Her wide eyes were focused on the smashed worm by her feet.
Roughly, Lane seized her shoulder and pulled her upright. She gazed wildly at him, and he gave her a little shove. He felt sick within him, knowing that he had killed the larva when he did not have to do so and that he was handling her so violently because he was afraid, not of her, but of himself. If he had been disgusted because she had fallen into the trap he set for her, he was so because he, too, beneath his disgust, had wanted to commit that act of love. Commit, he thought, was the right word. It contained criminal implications.
“Shut up!” he howled, pushing her again. She went sprawling and only saved herself from falling on her face by dropping on her knees. Once more, he pulled her to her feet, noting as he did so that her knees were skinned. The sight of the blood, instead of softening him, enraged him even more.
“Behave yourself, or you’ll get worse!” he snarled.
She gave him one more questioning look, threw back her head, and made a strange strangling sound. Immediately, her face took on a bluish tinge. A second later, she fell heavily on the floor.
Alarmed, he turned her over. She was choking to death.
He tore off the gag and reached into her mouth and grabbed the root of her tongue. It slipped away and he seized ifagain, only to have it slide away as if it were a live animal that defied him.
Then he had pulled her tongue out of her throat; she had swallowed it in an effort to kill herself.
Lane waited. When he was sure she was going to recover, he replaced the gag around her mouth. Just as he was about to tie the knot at the back of her neck, he stopped. What use would it be to continue this? If allowed to speak, she would say the word that would throw him into retching. If gagged, she would swallow her tongue again.
He could save her only so many times. Eventually, she would succeed in strangling herself.
The one way to solve his problem was the one way he could not take. If her tongue were cut off at the root, she could neither speak nor kill herself. Some men might do it; he could not.
The other way to keep her silent was to kill her.
“I can’t do it in cold blood,” he said aloud. “So, if you want to die, Martia, then you must do it by committing suicide. That, I can’t help. Up you go. I’ll get your pack, and we’ll leave.”
Martia turned blue and sagged to the floor.
“I’ll not help you this time!” he shouted, but he found himself frantically trying to undo the knot.
At the same time, he told himself what a fool he was. Of course! The solution was to use her own gun on her. Turn the rheostat to a stunning degree of intensity and knock her out whenever she started to regain consciousness. Such a course would mean he’d have to carry her and her equipment, too, on the thirty-mile walk down the tube to an exit near his base. But he could do it. He’d rig up some sort of travois. He’d do it! Nothing could stop him. And Earth…
At that moment, hearing an unfamiliar noise, he looked up. There were two Eeltau in pressure suits standing there, and another crawling out of the tunnel. Each had a bulb-tipped handgun in her hand.
Desperately, Lane snatched at the weapon he carried in his belt. With his left hand he twisted the rheostat on the side of the barrel, hoping that this would turn it on full force. Then he raised the bulb toward the group…
She spoke in English that held only a trace of foreign accent. “Settle down, Mr. Lane. You’re in for a long ride. You’ll be more comfortably situated once we’re in our ship.”
He opened his mouth to ask her how she knew his name but closed it when he realized she must have read the entries in the log at the base. And it was to be expected that some Eeltau would be trained in Earth languages. For over a century their sentinel spaceships had been tuning in to radio and TV.
It was then that Martia spoke to the captain. Her face was wild and reddened with weeping and marks where she had fallen.
The interpreter said to Lane, “Mahrseeya asks you to tell her why you killed her… baby. She cannot understand why you thought you had to do so.”
“I cannot answer,” said Lane. His head felt very light, almost as if it were a balloon expanding. And the room began slowly to turn around.
“I will tell her why,” answered the interpreter. “I will tell her that it is the nature of the beast.”
“That is not so!” cried Lane. “I am no vicious beast. I did what I did because I had to! I could not accept her love and still remain a man! Not the kind of man…”
“Mahrseeya” said the interpreter, “will pray that you be forgiven the murder of her child and that you will someday, under our teaching, be unable to do such a thing. She herself, though she is stricken with grief for her dead baby, forgives you. She hopes the time will come when you will regard her as a—sister. She thinks there is some good in you.”
Lane clenched his teeth together and bit the end of his tongue until it bled while they put his helmet on. He did not dare to try to talk, for that would have meant he would scream and scream. He felt as if something had been planted in him and had broken its shell and was growing into something like a worm. It was eating him, and what would happen before it devoured all of him he did not know.
The King of Beasts
THE BIOLOGISTS WAS showing the distinguished visitor through the zoo and laboratory.
“Our budget,” he said, “is too limited to re-create all known extinct species. So we bring to life only the higher animals, the beautiful ones that were wantonly exterminated. I’m trying, as it were, to make up for brutality and stupidity. You might say that man struck God in the face every time he wiped out a branch of the animal kingdom.”
He paused, and they looked across the moats and the force fields. The quagga wheeled and galloped, delight and sun flashing off his flanks. The sea otter poked his humorous whiskers from the water. The gorilla peered from behind bamboo. Passenger pigeons strutted. A rhinoceros trotted like a dainty battleship. With gentle eyes a giraffe looked at them, then resumed eating leaves.
itself.” In the great building, they passed between rows of tall and wide tanks. They could see clearly through the windows and the jelly within.
“Those are African Elephant embryos,” said the biologist. “We plan to grow a large herd and then release them on the new government preserve.” “You positively radiate,” said the distinguished visitor. “You really love the animals, don’t you?” “I love all life.”
“Tell me,” said the visitor, “where do you get the data for recreation?” “Mostly, skeletons and skins from the ancient museums. Excavated books and films that we succeeded in restoring and then translating. Ah, see those huge eggs? The chicks of the giant moa are growing within them. There, almost ready to be taken from the tank, are tiger cubs. They’ll be dangerous when grown but will be confined to the preserve.”
The visitor stopped before the last of the tanks. “Just one?” he said. “What is it?” “Poor little thing,” said the biologist, now sad. “It will be so alone. But I shall give it all the love I have.” “Is it so dangerous?” said the visitor. “Worse than elephants, tigers, and bears?” “I had to get special permission to grow this one,” said the biologist. His voice quavered. The visitor stepped sharply back from the tank. He said, “Then it must be… But you wouldn’t dare!” The biologist nodded. “Yes. It’s a man.”