Sense of Obligation

by Harry Harrison

  XIX

  Dis was a floating golden ball, looking like a schoolroom globe inspace. No clouds obscured its surface, and from this distance it seemedwarm and attractive set against the cold darkness. Brion almost wishedhe were back there now, as he sat shivering inside the heavy coat. Hewondered how long it would be before his confused body-temperaturecontrols decided to turn off the summer adjustment.

  Delicate as a dream, Lea's reflection swam in space next to the planet.She had come up quietly behind him in the spaceship's corridor, only hergentle breath and mirrored face telling him she was there. He turnedquickly and took her hands in his.

  "You're looking better," he said.

  "Well I should," she said, pushing her hair in an unconscious gesturewith the back of her hand. "I've been doing nothing but lie in theship's hospital, while you were having such a fine time this last week.Rushing around down there shooting all the magter."

  "Just gassing them," he told her. "The Nyjorders can't bring themselvesto kill any more, even if it does raise their own casualty rate. In factthey are having difficulty restraining the Disans led by Ulv, who arehappily killing any magter they see as being pure _umedvirk_."

  "What will they do when they have all those frothing magter madmen?"

  "They don't know yet," he said. "They won't really know until they seewhat an adult magter is like with his brain-parasite dead and gone.They're having better luck with the children. If they catch them earlyenough, the parasite can be destroyed before it has done too muchdamage."

  Lea shuddered delicately.

  "I hate to think of a magter deprived of his symbiote," she said. "Ifhis system can stand the shock, I imagine there will be nothing leftexcept a brainless hulk. This is one series of experiments I don't careto witness. I rest secure in the knowledge that the Nyjorders will findthe most humane solution."

  "I'm sure they will," Brion said.

  "Now what about us," she said disconcertingly.

  This jarred Brion. He didn't have her ability to put past horrors out ofthe mind by substituting present pleasures. "Well, what about us?" hesaid with masterful inappropriateness.

  She smiled and leaned against him. "You weren't as vague as that, thenight in the hospital room. I seem to remember a few other things yousaid. You can't claim you're completely indifferent to me, Brion Brandd.So I'm only asking you what any outspoken Anvharian girl would. Where dowe go from here? Get married?"

  There was a definite pleasure in holding her slight body in his arms andfeeling her hair against his cheek. They both sensed it, and thisawareness made his words sound that much more ugly.

  "Lea ... darling! You know how important you are to me--but youcertainly realize that we could never get married."

  Her body stiffened and she tore herself away from him.

  "Why you great, fat, egotistical slab of meat," she screamed. "What doyou mean by that? I like you Lea, we have plenty of fun and gamestogether, but surely you realize that you aren't the kind of girl onetakes home to mother!"

  "Lea, hold on," he said. "You know better than to say a thing like that.What I said has nothing to do with how I feel towards you. But marriagemeans children, and you are biologist enough to know about Earth'sgenes--"

  "Intolerant yokel!" she cried, slapping his face. He didn't move orattempt to stop her. "I expected better from you, with all yourpretensions of understanding. But all you can think of are the horrorstories about the worn out genes of Earth. You're the same as everyother big, strapping bigot from the frontier planets. I know how youlook down on our small size, our allergies and hemophilia and all theother weaknesses that have been bred back and preserved by the race. Youhate--"

  "But that's not what I meant at all," he interrupted, shocked, his voicedrowning hers out. "Yours are the strong genes, the viablestrains--_mine_ are the deadly ones. A child of mine would kill itselfand you in a natural birth, if it managed to live to term. You'reforgetting that you are the original Homo sapiens. I'm a recentmutation."

  Lea was frozen by his words. They revealed a truth she had known, butwould never permit herself to consider.

  "Earth is home, the planet where mankind developed," he said. "The lastfew thousand years you may have been breeding weaknesses back into thegenetic pool. But that's nothing compared to the hundred millions ofyears that it took to develop man. How many newborn babies live to be ayear of age on Earth?"

  "Why ... almost all of them."

  "Earth is home," he said gently. "When men leave home they can adapt todifferent planets, but a price must be paid. A terrible price in deadinfants. The successful mutations live, the failures die. Naturalselection is a brutally simple affair. When you look at me you see asuccess. I have a sister--a success too. Yet my mother had six otherchildren who died when they were still babies. And at least fifteenothers that never came to term. You know these things, don't you Lea?"

  "I know, I know...." she said sobbing into her hands. He held her nowand she didn't pull away. "I know it all as a biologist--but I am soawfully tired of being a biologist, and top of my class and a mentalmatch for any man. But when I think about you, I do it as a woman, andcan't admit any of this. I need someone Brion, and I needed you so muchbecause I loved you." She sniffed and pushed at her eyes. "You're goinghome, aren't you? Back to Anvhar. When?"

  "I can't wait too long," he said, unhappily. "Aside from my personalwants I find myself remembering that I'm a part of Anvhar. When youthink of the number of people who suffered and died--or adapted--so thatI could be sitting here now. Well, it's a little frightening. I supposeit doesn't make sense logically that I should feel indebted to them. ButI do. Whatever I do now, or in the next few years, won't be as importantas getting back to Anvhar."

  "And I won't be going back with you." It was a flat statement the wayshe said it, not a question.

  "No, you won't be," he said.

  Lea was looking out of the port at Dis and her eyes were dry now. "Wayback in my deeply buried unconscious I think I knew it would end thisway," she said. "If you think your little lecture on the Origins of Manwas a novelty, it wasn't. Just reminded me of a number of things myglands had convinced me to forget. In a way I envy you your weightlifterwife-to-be, and your happy kiddies. But not very much. Very early inlife I resigned myself to the fact that there was no one on Earth Iwould care to marry. I always had these teen-age dreams of a hero fromspace who would carry me off, and I guess I slipped you into the patternwithout realizing it."

  * * * * *

  "Don't we look happy," Hys said, shambling towards them.

  "Fall dead and make me even happier then," Lea snapped bitterly.

  Hys ignored the acid tone of her answer and sat down on the couch nextto them. Since leaving command of his rebel Nyjord Army he seemed muchmellower. "Going to keep on working for the Cultural RelationshipsFoundation, Brion?" he asked. "You're the kind of man we need."

  Brion's eyes widened as the meaning of the last words penetrated. "Areyou in the C.R.F.?"

  "Field agent for Nyjord," he said. "I hope you don't think thosehelpless office types like Faussel or Mervv really represented us there?They just took notes and acted as a front and cover for theorganization. Nyjord is a fine planet, but a gentle guiding hand behindthe scenes is needed, to help them find their place in the galaxy beforethey are pulverized."

  "What's your dirty game, Hys?" Lea asked, scowling. "I've had enoughhints to suspect for a long time that there was more to the C.R.F. thanthe sweetness-and-light-part I have seen. Are you people egomaniacs,power hungry or what?"

  "That's the first charge that would be leveled at us, if our activitieswere publicly known," Hys told her. "That's why we do most of our workunder cover. The best fact I can give you to counter the charge is_money_. Just where do you think we get the funds for an operation thissize?" He smiled at their blank looks. "You'll see the records later sothere won't be any doubt. The truth is that all our funds are donated byplanets we have helped. Even a tiny percentag
e of a planetary income islarge--add enough of them together and you have enough money to helpother planets. And voluntary gratitude is a perfect test, if you stop tothink about it. You can't talk people into liking what you have done.They have to be convinced. There have always been people on C.R.F.worlds who knew about our work, and agreed with it enough to see that weare kept in funds."

  "Why are you telling me all this super-secret stuff," Lea asked.

  "Isn't that obvious? We want you to keep on working for us. You can namewhatever salary you like, as I've said there is no shortage of readycash." Hys glanced quickly at them both and delivered the clinchingargument. "I hope Brion will go on working with us, too. He is the kindof field agent we desperately need, and it is almost impossible tofind."

  "Just show me where to sign," she said, and there was life in her voiceonce again.

  "I wouldn't exactly call it blackmail," Brion smiled, "yet I suppose ifyou people can juggle planetary psychologies, you must find thatindividuals can be pushed around like chess men. Though you shouldrealize that very little pushing is required this time."

  "Will you sign on?" Hys asked.

  "I must go back to Anvhar," Brion said, "but there really is no pressinghurry."

  "Earth," said Lea, "is overpopulated enough as it is."

  THE END