Winston K. Marks

“ But Sue took a different view. "What does the koodi look like?" she persisted.
Joe looked puzzled. He raised a long, four-segmented finger and pointed to a corner of the room where Toots was curled up like a fur neck-piece. "He looks like that. There is a koodi."
My first impulse was to reject the statement as ridiculous. Toots was as harmless as an over-sized kitten. Besides, the manual made no mention of—
Sue made a small sound in her throat. Her face was colorless. "Sam! Get him out of here!" ”

“ Benson's face was thin and drawn, and he stared at the floor. "If we haven't murdered it already," he said, "there will be no more attempts while I am in charge." He covered his face with his hands. "Bailey. Tell him, Bailey."
The doctor's voice was gravelly and weak. "If it hadn't been for the natives we'd all have died. The venom from the flies paralyzed everyone the second day after the swarm hit us. The flies were gone the next morning, but every soul in the colony passed out. Joe and his friends took care of us, poured tala down our throats and fed us." ”

“ Benson, who had set up a sheltered desk outside Joe's window in order to listen in with an anthropologist's avid interest, posed the question which grew into quite a mystery. Under such fruitful conditions and ideal environment, why hadn't Joe's people overrun the planet? Even with the brief life-span, each female should produce many babies. ”

“ Because of the shorter days, a Sirian year about equalled an Earth year, and I found it difficult to believe that these wonderful little animals lived only two or three years. He persisted until I believed him.
He was strangely vague when I tried to determine the common manner of death. Indeed, personal death was a concept either so hazy or distasteful to him that he refused to dwell on it. The most he would convey was that there were always new faces in the tribe, and the old faces rarely remained more than three years. ”

“ We were all, incidentally, quite curious to taste Joe's tala juice, but it was his sole property. His lady-friends would hand it to no one but him, and he guarded it selfishly. Bailey and Sorenson had enlisted the help of our two organic chemists to examine the moist residue of the empty skins, but with their limited lab facilities all they could do was make guesses that the coveted juice was the product of fermentation or enzymic action with which we were unfamiliar.
As a psychologist I knew that Joe responded to the tala similarly to the way a human dipsomaniac does to alcohol. ”

“ Joe said. "There is always another. Once they hold you tightly it is too late."
Sue thought differently. She came through the door like a hell-cat. Catching up her garden hoe she swung a blow that, had it missed Toots, would have crushed my skull. But Sue didn't miss. I fell on my back, and Toots let go, dead of a broken spine.
The "liquor control board" was Benson's best idea. Not only did it put tala on a legitimate basis, but it controlled our dealings with the natives. ”

“ This time we tallied 496 males which, according to Joe, was certainly the whole masculine population. The mystery of our failure at genocide forced an unpleasant decision on Benson. The biologists and medics insisted that we must win the natives' confidence even further to gain their cooperation. As the heat of summer bore down and the mercury rose, we eased off on the work schedule and deliberately planned social functions to which we had Joe invite a group of natives. There were picnics and beach parties where our guests brought their own tala, and ours was carefully rationed. ”

“ Benson's speech had the desired effect. Without the little people around to distract us, the colonists plunged into their work, and things got done. True, a rather disproportionate number of logs brought in by the falling crews turned out to be mango-wood, but the tala-rationing program added incentive precisely where it was needed. The perimeter of our clearing advanced rapidly, the cultivating and planting parties followed closely behind, and the sawmill added an industrious sound to the whole operation. ”

“ He nodded silently.
"You had changed your mind about the natives at that time?"
"I—I suppose so. Don't rub it in, Sam. It's hard enough to live with the thought of how wrong I was. All I can do now is pray that whatever failed in our first try failed again. Joe's people have made the human race look pretty dismal. They have every right to their planet, and if we are foolish enough to go native, well—at least we have a stronger survival instinct."
At that point Susan came in carrying Richard. He had the hiccoughs. Sue kissed me. "Richard just drew his ration of sterile tala from the clinic. ”

“ The golden people matured in three months to fully grown adults. A female could bear several babies a year and usually did. Yet Joe insisted that his tribe was the only clan on the face of the planet, so far as he knew, and that it numbered fewer than a thousand individuals. ”

“ Benson rubbed the gray of his temple with a knuckle. He mounted the ramp and announced, "The emergency is reduced to a blue alert. Women will have the freedom of the clearing and the visible beach, but only authorized working parties will enter the forest. Men will continue to wear sidearms. When outside shelters are complete we will sleep in them, but until then, or until we are better informed about the natives, we shall continue sleeping in the ship." ”

“ Bailey said from behind us, "They catch our scent and don't know what to make of it. Thank heavens most of them took off. We can handle a dozen of them easily enough."
Our people opened ranks and let the little creatures infiltrate. Sue squeezed my arm. "Why, they're beautiful little things! They make me feel self-conscious with my bleached-out skin. They certainly look intelligent, those eyes—no fear in them at all—look, they're even smiling!" ”

“ But they feel that since you and Sue have escaped any disease there's no reason for the non-fraternizing rule, not even in closed spaces. Several couples I know hold parties every night in their huts after dark. They invite a couple of natives who supply the tala. They all sit around a candle. The natives sleep there."
He kicked at an empty tala skin that Joe had tossed out the door earlier. "Things are out of hand, and I'm ashamed I haven't come to you sooner, Benson." ”

“ The natives are cleaning it out near at hand."
Turning to me Benson said, "There's another thing. The little devils have settled all around us, and everything is community property with them. Not only do they strip the fruit but they pick up anything that isn't nailed down and wander off with it."
"That's odd," I said. "Joe indicates that they place no value on possessions normally."
"Oh, they don't keep things," Donnegan explained. "They pack them off, fiddle with them and then we find them strewn all over the forest. Sometimes I'd like to wring their little necks!" ”

“ Bailey said, "Joe told us that the day he saw Sue kill the koodi that was attacking you, he got the idea that he should do something about them himself. Through his efforts the natives no longer take the little devils as an inevitable evil. They kill them wherever they find them now. And when they had to get drunk to save themselves from the flies, Joe passed the word for them to head for the clearing. ”

“ Somewhat subdued I said, "How do you plan to accomplish a complete extermination? If we start hunting them down they'll just fade into the woods. Besides, you'd have a devil of a time getting agreement among our people to take on such a messy project." ”

“ As Benson had hoped, when the people buckled down they once again began yearning for the conveniences they had left on earth. The chemists finally contrived suitable raw materials for the plasticizer and began manufacturing screens for our gaping windows, much-needed pipe for our water and sewage systems and even a few "frivolous" luxuries such as cups, saucers and fruit bowls. The commissary and other public buildings were planked out roughly, and the hospital-clinic was completed before the first two babies arrived. ”

“ The older ones get quite plastered. I've seen it myself. Disgusting. And they have no common sense of, of—well, I shouldn't say decency, because obviously morality as we know it just doesn't exist. But thank heavens they don't care for the scent of humans."
I said, "Don't depend on that too much. I asked Joe about it, and he said that we don't necessarily smell bad to them. It's just so alien to any scent they've known that they tend to shy off. Joe is quite used to it now. He lets Sue rub his back and his head. She's made quite a pet of him."
Benson didn't like this news at all. ”

“ We have a well-picked, highly adaptable group of people. Let's keep them that way. The quicker we hit a more normal existence the less risk we run of emotional disturbances."
"They'll take it," Benson said positively, and Spooner nodded in arrogant agreement.
My 20-hour wristwatch, geared to the shorter rotation of Sirius XXII, said nine o'clock, one hour before noon, when the women began undressing. ”

“ Benson was on his feet, his face livid. "What else?"
Bromley said, "I checked around a little bit, and I found that quite a few of our people are making pets out of the natives. The little devils have got used to our scent, and they'll do anything just to watch a match burn." ”

“ When the guard watch was worked out for a week in advance, I spoke up. "I think we're getting off on the wrong foot, Phil. We can't stay penned up like animals at night and expect to function as humans."
Benson argued: "We are a carefully balanced group, Sam. We can't afford casualties. Look at our medical corps, two doctors and four nurses. Suppose we were attacked and lost them?"
Captain Spooner, whose authority had lapsed when we touched down, backed up Benson. "I see no great hardship in the precautions. Inconvenience, yes, but nothing that the danger doesn't fully justify." ”

“ I looked at Bailey, and he looked at Dr. Sorenson. "Lord, I don't know. Except for the possibility of microbe infection, they appear perfectly harmless to me," Sorenson said.
I said, "Since they don't like our scent there doesn't seem to be much danger of contact. Phil, why don't we call off the yellow alert with the exception of a rule or two about fraternization in closed spaces?"
Benson looked over his people. All were paired off now, husband with wife. And to a man their arms were wrapped protectively around their respective spouses, watching for the decision. ”

“ They don't appear very vicious to me."
"Neither does man," Benson replied. "It's his brain that makes him deadly. Look at those skulls, the ear placement, the eyes and forehead. If I know my skull formations, I think man has met his intellectual equal at last—maybe, even, his superior."
"What makes you think they may have superior minds?" As a psychologist I felt Benson was jumping to a pretty quick conclusion.
"The atmosphere. Forty percent oxygen. Invariably, on other planets, that has meant higher metabolisms in the fauna. ”

“ Bailey murmured as the clouds of flies continued to sweep through our village. "Nothing we can do, though. I wonder why they come out in the open? You'd think they had better protection in the trees."
I had no answers, so I covered my head again and made a dash for my own hut. Inside I brushed off the clinging flies and stamped on them. "The medics don't have any help for us," I said. Then I saw him.
Sue was struggling to hold Joe on his feet. His arms were draped loosely over her shoulders, and for a second I couldn't decided whether he was ill or making a pass at Sue. ”

“ I said. "They're all serious, industrious people, and this is still an adventure with them. It will wear off pretty soon, and they'll be yearning for comforts of Earth. They'll buckle down when the rainy season hits," I predicted.
"I wonder. Here's one good example. Look over there. Donnegan's food detail is just now returning with its first load. They left three hours ago." He yelled over to the foreman.
Donnegan, a large, pleasant-faced biologist sauntered over to us. Benson said, "Was the expedition successful?" ”

“ Benson, however, ignored it and bent a thoroughly serious gaze out over his "flock".
"Please give me your closest attention," he began and waited until everyone was quiet. "Until further notice, we must proceed under a yellow alert during daylight hours and a red alert at night. All work parties leaving the ship will check with the scribe every hour on the hour. We will resume sleeping in the ship. Women are restricted to within 100 yards of the ship at all times. Men will go armed and will please inform themselves of their position on the security watch list which will be posted tonight." ”

“ He said he would, but his face became very thoughtful.
That afternoon they formed a short line at the ramp, and the "tours" began. The line was short because they refused to wait long for anything, but as the line shortened, others came from the woods to take their places. To produce a favorable "press" on our show and thus assure perfect attendance by all the males, Benson rigged several mechanical displays of flashing lights and whirling devices. ”