"I go to all this work," snapped Crobe, "and you don't even listen!"
"Oh, I heard you," said Heller. "Learn to walk, oxygen, exercise, water, nutrition, hamburger and beer. I appreciate it." He bent over and picked up a book that had big color plates, pictures of people, the races of Earth. He tapped them with the back of his hand. "I was just struck by the appearances of these races on Earth. You wouldn't happen to have here the book In the Mists of Time,would you?" That really annoyed Crobe. "No, of course not! This is the anthropology library!" I got sick at my stomach again.
The old crone held up her hand in a gesture to wait and snuffled off. She came back carrying a scuffed-up volume about two feet thick. "It was in the history library," she said with a toothless smile at Heller.
He put it down on the table. Crobe was gathering up his papers with some hostility.
The volume cover tabs said, Abridged Edition. In the Mists of Time, Legends of the Original Planets of the Voltarian Confederacy, Compiled by the Lore Section, Interior Division.
I wondered what the unabridged editions must be if the abridged was this huge tome.
"Fables," Crobe was muttering to himself.
Heller had found what he wanted. He had turned to the Manco Section.His finger was poised at Folk Legend 894M.
"Got it," he said. "Haven't seen it since nursery school." He read: Folk Legend 894: And it is said that some thousands of years ago, during the Great Rebellion on Manco, that Prince Caucalsia, finding his cause irretrievably lost, did flee Manco with the remnants of his fleet, taking with him numerous followers and their families and did depart the Manco System. And it is further related, nine years having passed by, that two transports did return to Manco, landing at the Fortress City of Dar. They were treacherously betrayed, it is said, by a woman named Nepogat and apprehended in the night. The crews were interrogated by the Apparatus and it was later claimed that they revealed a landing by Prince Caucalsia upon the Planet Blito-P3 after his escape from Manco. And it is further said that the Prince had founded a colony named Atalanta with all his numerous followers and they did prosper there. But failing all but little fuel and lacking some supplies, two freighters had been sent in hope of peaceful return and even engagement in trade. But it was decreed that mercy be given not. Blito-P3 colonization was deemed illegal at that time and in violation of the Holy Invasion Timetables of Voltar. At the insistence of the woman Nepogat the freighter crews were put to death. The turmoil of the times foreswore any further campaign to punish Prince Caucalsia, the Fortress City of Dar was burned in the Great Overthrow of the succeeding year and all records that could substantiate the legend have vanished from view. This folk legend forms the background of the child fairy tale: Nepogat the Damnableand is found in the Manco child's song "Bold Prince Caucalsia."
"Rubbish!" said Crobe. "I will have you know, whatever your name is, that the moment fable enters the world of solid science, we are lost!" Crobe was almost frothing. "You are overlooking one important fact!" he told Heller. "Humanoid forms are the commonest sentient forms in the universe! They comprise 93.7 percent of all populations discovered to date. The humanoid form is inevitable from the basic survival demands of any reasonable carbon-oxygen planet: if sentient life is to appear and succeed, the adeptness of hands, the articulation of feet, the symmetrical right-left body construction and flexible skin are needed." Why you old fraud! I thought. You know all that and yet you make freaks and pretend they are other populations!
"The facts are built into the structure of cells!" harangued Crobe. "But every sentient population of a planet evolved there. And that'sthe scientific fact. Forget your religions and fables! Oh, of course," he said, modifying his view, "the blood cells are different, humanoid race to humanoid race, and these are the one channel by which you can identify crossbreeding between planets." Heller said mildly, "I was just interested in the similarity between the facial bone structures of the races on Earth, some of them, and the races on Manco."
"I'll show you!" snapped Crobe as though Heller had been arguing with him. The cellologist rushed out. I had an idea where he was going: the deep freeze body vats. And sure enough I shortly heard from there the chunk of an axe.
Crobe rushed back in. He was carrying a frozen human hand chopped off at the wrist. He dug into the dirty litter on a cart and came up with an instant-thawer and in a moment the severed hand started to bleed. Leave it to Crobe to hack off a hand when all he wanted was a little blood. I began to feel ill, very ill. "Earthman!"said Crobe, dripping some blood into a culture.
Heller looked a bit startled. "Soltan, do you kidnap Earth people?" Yes, indeed, Royal Officer Heller. "No," I said. "We picked up some bodies years ago from vehicle accidents and they're here in deep freeze for study." Crobe shot me an odd glance, as well he might. He threw the hand on the floor where it landed with a plop and gave his attention to lining up the culture vial in a microscope.
Then the doctor took a filthy, sharp probe and, before I could stop him, seized Heller's hand and punctured his thumb. I almost threw up. I couldn't account for my reaction.
But Crobe didn't do any more to Heller. He took the blood sample and put it in another vial and set it up in a second microscope. "Now take a look at that!" he challenged Heller. "And once and for all you see there is no crossbreeding between Manco and Blito-P3! Anything human on Earth generated on Earth. That's scientific fact!" Heller looked at both. "They're similar," he said.
"Ha!" said Crobe. "Unqualified observer!" He gave Heller a shove off to one side and looked himself. He straightened up. "Officer Gris, was that one of your Earth agents? Go in that vault and look. No." He changed his mind and picked up the hand and threw it into a bone densimeter. "Well, it wasan Earthman." Crobe gathered up his notes and bawled at an assistant to collect up the dolly and table. He pointed to a stool and said to Heller, "Go ahead and sit there and dream up your fables." And Heller smiled faintly and picked up the book of color plates again.
The doctor went to the door and beckoned to me urgently and I followed him into an even more filthy office. I was afraid to sit down for fear I'd find a piece of a corpse under me. But I was feeling poorly and I got on a stool.
Crobe sat down and indicated his notes. He leaned forward like a conspirator. What else? "Officer Gris, we've got problems with this agent. We're in trouble." He hadn't sounded like that before. My stomach felt worse.
"Officer Gris, we'll have to work over that agent." He looked at his notes. "The weight is all right. He weighs about 239 pounds here and he'll weigh about 199 pounds on Earth. That will pass unnoticed. It is his age." He thumped some tables. "Now according to this, possibly due to nutrition or some malfunction inherent in their organ evolution, Earthmen do not live out a proper life span. Any self-respecting mammal on any self-respecting planet that has any self-respecting cellular structure normally lives six times as long as its growth period." Well, I knew that. What of it?
"On Blito-P3," said Crobe, consulting his tables, "they are reported to mature and achieve full growth by the age of twenty. That may be too fast for them. But, whatever, they should live to about one hundred and twenty years of age. They don't. They usually kick off at seventy or before."