Dis was a ball, looking like a in space. No clouds its surface, and from this it warm and set against the cold darkness. Brion almost he were there now, as he sat the coat. He how long it would be his body-temperature to turn off the adjustment. He it wouldn't be as or as as it on had been.
Delicate as a dream, Lea's in space next to the planet. She had come up him in the spaceship's corridor, only her and telling him she was there. He and took her hands in his.
"You're looking better," he said.
"Well, I should," she said, pushing her in an with her hand. "I've been doing nothing but in the ship's hospital, while you were having such a time this last week. Rushing around there all the magter."
"Just them," he told her. "The Nyjorders can't themselves to kill any more, if it their own rate. In fact, they are having the Disans by Ulv, who are killing any they see as being pure umedvirk."
"What will they do when they have all those madmen?"
"They don't know yet," he said. "They won't know until they see what an adult is like with his brain-parasite and gone. They're having luck with the children. If they catch them early enough, the can be it has done too much damage."[Pg 170]
Lea and let herself against him. "I'm not that yet; let's while we talk." There was a opposite the where they and still see Dis.
"I to think of a of his symbiote," she said. "If his can the shock, I there will be nothing left a hulk. This is one series of I don't to witness. I secure in the knowledge that the Nyjorders will the most solution."
"I'm sure they will," Brion said.
"Now what about us?" she said disconcertingly, in his arms. "I must say you have the temperature of any one I have touched. It's positively exciting."
This Brion more. He didn't have her ability to put past out of the mind by present pleasures. "Well, just what about us?" he said with inappropriateness.
She as she against him. "You weren't as as that, the night in the hospital room. I to a other you said. And did. You can't you're to me, Brion Brandd. So I'm only you what any Anvharian girl would. Where do we go from here? Get married?"
There was a in her in his arms and her against his cheek. They it, and this his that much more ugly.
"Lea—darling! You know how you are to me—but you that we married."
Her and she herself away from him.
"Why, you great, fat, of meat! What do you by that? I like you, Lea, we have of fun and together, but surely you that you aren't the of girl one takes home to mother!"
"Lea, on," he said. "You know than to say a thing like that. What I said has nothing to do[Pg 171] with how I you. But marriage means children, and you are to know about Earth's genes—"
"Intolerant yokel!" she cried, his face. He didn't move or attempt to stop her. "I from you, with all your of understanding. But all you can think of are the about the worn-out of Earth. You're the same as every other big, from the planets. I know how you look on our small size, our and and all the other that have been and by the race. You hate—"
"But that's not what I meant at all," he interrupted, shocked, his voice hers out. "Yours are the genes, the strains—mine are the ones. A child of mine would kill itself and you in a natural birth, if it managed to live to term. You're that you are the original sapiens. I'm a mutation."
Lea was by his words. They a truth she had known, but would permit herself to consider.
"Earth is home, the where developed," he said. "The last thousand years you may have been into the pool. But that's nothing to the hundred millions of years that it took to man. How many live to be a year of age on Earth?"
"Why ... almost all of them. A of one die each year—I can't how many."
"Earth is home," he said again gently. "When men home they can to different planets, but a price must be paid. A terrible price is in infants. The successful live, the die. Natural selection is a affair. When you look at me, you see a success. I have a sister—a success too. Yet my mother had six other children who died when they were still babies. And others that came to term. You know about these things, don't you, Lea?"[Pg 172]
"I know, I know ..." she said into her hands. He her now and she didn't away. "I know it all as a biologist—but I am so of being a biologist, and top of my class and a match for any man. When I think about you, I do it as a woman, and can't admit any of this. I need someone, Brion, and I needed you so much I loved you." She paused and her eyes. "You're going home, aren't you? Back to Anvhar. When?"
"I can't wait too long," he said, unhappily. "Aside from my personal wants, I myself that I'm a part of Anvhar. When you think of the number of people who and died—or adapted—so that I be here now ... well, it's a little frightening. I it doesn't make that I should to them. But I do. Anything I do now, or in the next years, won't be as as to Anvhar."
"And I won't be going with you." It was a the way she said it, not a question.
"No, you won't be," he said. "There is nothing on Anvhar for you."
Lea was looking out of the port at Dis and her were now. "Way in my I think I it would end this way," she said. "If you think your little lecture on the Origins of Man was a novelty, it wasn't. It just me of a number of my had me to forget. In a way, I you your wife-to-be, and your happy kiddies. But not very much. Very early in life I myself to the that there was no one on Earth I would to marry. I always had these teen-age of a hero from space who would me off, and I I you into the pattern without it. I'm old now to the that I like my work more than a marriage, and I'll end up a and old maid, with more and titles than you have shot-putting records."
As they looked through the port Dis slowly[Pg 173] to contract. Their ship away from it, Nyjord. They sat apart, without now. Leaving Dis meant something they had shared. They had been together there, on a world. For a time their had touched. That time was over now.
"Don't we look happy!" Hys said, them.
"Fall and make me then," Lea bitterly.
Hys the of her and sat on the next to them. Since of his Nyjord army he much mellower. "Going to keep on for the Cultural Relationships Foundation, Brion?" he asked. "You're the of man we need."
Brion's as the meaning of the last penetrated. "Are you in the C.R.F.?"
"Field agent for Nyjord," he said. "I you don't think those office like Faussel or Mervv us there? They just took notes and as a and for the organization. Nyjord is a planet, but a hand the is needed, to help them their place in the they are pulverized."
"What's your dirty game, Hys?" Lea asked, scowling. "I've had to for a long time that there was more to the C.R.F. than the sweetness-and-light part I have seen. Are you people egomaniacs, power or what?"
"That's the that would be at us if our were publicly known," Hys told her. "That's why we do most of our work under cover. The best I can give you to the is money. Just where do you think we the for an operation this size?" He at their blank looks. "You'll see the records later so there won't be any doubt. The truth is that all our are by we have helped. Even a of a is large—add of them together and you have money to help other planets. And is a perfect test, if[Pg 174] you stop to think about it. You can't talk people into what you have done. They have to be convinced. There have always been people on C.R.F. worlds who about our work, and with it to see that we are in funds."
"Why are you telling me all this super-secret stuff," Lea asked.
"Isn't that obvious? We want you to keep on for us. You can name salary you like—as I've said, there is no of cash."
Hys at them and delivered the argument. "I Brion will go on with us too. He is the of agent we need, and it is almost to find."
"Just me where to sign," Lea said, and there was life in her voice once again.
"I wouldn't call it blackmail," Brion smiled, "but I if you people can psychologies, you must that can be pushed around like chessmen. Though you should that very little pushing is this time."
"Will you on?" Hys asked.
"I must go to Anvhar," Brion said, "but there is no pressing hurry."
"Earth," said Lea, "is as it is."[Pg 175]
