The greenskins left without a word.
The Earthmen were equally silent, as they clambered into their ship. It had been a long, exhausting day; Bernard could not remember when he had ever felt wearier. No academic responsibility had been this grueling. No personal tribulation had exhausted him this much.
But even with the heavy weight of fatigue numbing them all, it was impossible not to feel a deep, inspiring sense of pride and accomplishment. Earth had come into contact with another race today, an alien people, and there had been communication across the gulf that separated them.
Inside the ship, Martin Bernard sought out Havig—reluctantly, but out of inner need that seemed imperative. The Neopuritan had not loosened his tight black surplice with its starched collar, but had simply sprawled out on his bunk fully dressed.
Bernard stood above him. Havig’s eyes were open, but he did not seem to take notice of the sociologist.
“Havig?”
Havig’s glance flickered upward. “What is it?”
Bernard hesitated, fighting back the lingering compulsion to argue with the other man. “I—I just wanted to tell you that I thought you did a splendid job today,” he said, getting the words out haltingly and with difficulty. “We’ve had our differences in the past, Havig, but that doesn’t keep me from offering you congratulations on the way you handled the session today. I can recognize good work when I see it.”
The Neopuritan rose to a sitting position. His unyielding gray eyes bored into Bernard’s milder blue ones. In a firm, emotionless voice Havig said, “I seek no congratulations for my work, Dr. Bernard. Whatever I may have accomplished, I have done it only by virtue of God’s working through me, and so there is little credit for me to claim.”
“But—well, all right, so God worked through you,” Bernard sputtered in surprise. “But I still think you did a hell of—you did a swell job, and…”
“I do not deserve your praise, Dr. Bernard. But I recognize the growth of spirit that enables you to offer it.” There was just the flicker of a smile. “Good night, Dr. Bernard.” Havig lowered himself to his berth once again.
Bernard blinked in bewilderment. He had been pleased to find the strength in himself necessary to offer the congratulations; he had considered it a steep sacrifice of pride. And, though his gesture had not met with utter rejection, it had certainly been received indifferently by Havig. Bernard felt angered. He started to say something.
Dominici broke in gently, “Let him alone, Bernard. You’ve both made a step in the right direction. Don’t press things now. What do you expect him to do—smile and say thanks? He doesn’t think he deserves them.”
“I could have saved my breath, then,” Bernard muttered.
He turned away and readied himself for sleep. Havig, eyes closed, seemed already soundly slumbering. Stone was making notes in a memorandum pad, and Dominici was scrubbing himself under the vibroshower.
Bernard stripped and joined the biophysicist beneath the invigorating molecular field; a stream of ions peeled the day’s grime and sweat from him.
Dominici said, “Don’t fly off the handle because he didn’t beam at your congratulations. You did the right thing in offering them. He was damned good out there today.”
“Yes, he was,” Bernard agreed. “But the man’s a congenital sourpuss. He didn’t have to give me the stone-wall treatment. He…”
“He honestly feels he’s just the tool through which God worked today,” Dominici said. “Save your breath and don’t try to get him to think differently. Just be grateful he was as good as he was out there, and take the rest in stride.”
Bernard slipped into his bunk and wearily tried to relax. He attempted to put himself behind Havig’s forehead, wondering what manner of man it was who could so renounce all the joy of life, all the pleasure of accomplishment, and so dourly go through all his days garbed unsmilingly in black. No doubt that Havig had done a superb job today, absolutely first-rate; but was there really any moral harm in accepting congratulations for what he had done? Maybe, Bernard thought, Havig was one of those men who are unable to accept face-to-face praise without acute embarrassment—and thus he took refuge behind the convenient mask of selflessness that his creed provided him.
Bernard closed his eyes, thumbing the throbbing eyeballs. He thought for a moment of his own cozy life, the life he had left behind, the life that was as different from Havig’s as could be imagined. No doubt Havig would deem it scandalous, maybe even blasphemous, to spend an evening listening to music, reading poetry, and sipping brandy, when those hours could have been spent in prayer, contemplation, or the performance Of charitable deeds.
Yet for all Havig’s staunch discipline, he was no better in his specialty than Bernard in his—and for all Bernard’s self-indulgence, he was no worse in his field than Havig in linguistics. I’m easy-going and hedonistic, maybe even a bit selfish, but I’m a good man in my field. As Havig is in his, except when he starts mixing propaganda with his conclusions. It took a whole spectrum of personality types to make up a culture, Bernard thought. He pondered Havig a while, wishing he knew what motivated the man, whether he was really just a dull fanatic or if there were more to him.
After a while, Bernard slept.
When he woke, it was only reluctantly. Nakamura was standing over his bunk shaking him roughly.
“Time to get up, Dr. Bernard.” The sociologist stared blearily up at the grinning face. “Commander Laurance says you’ve done enough sleeping,” Nakamura said.
Commander Laurance was certainly right about that, Bernard had to admit; a glance at the clock told him that he had slept just over eleven hours. But his head still felt full of cobwebs, and he growled complainingly as he knuckle-eyed himself into wakefulness.
It was an hour past sunrise. The day on this planet was twenty-eight Terran Absolute Hours and twenty minutes long. Still fettered by sleep, Bernard ambled up front to join the others for breakfast.
Laurance had already broken out the ship’s two landsleds. When they had finished breakfast, the Commander said, “We’ll split up as follows. Clive, you’re going to pilot Sled One. Havig and Stone will go with you, also myself. Hernandez, you take the other sled. You’ll be driving Bernard, Dominici, Peterszoon, and Nakamura.”
The sled-ride took a little more than an hour. When the Earthmen had reached the Norglan settlement, they saw that the scene was much the same as it had been the day before: the builders were at work, their fierce energy undiminished. The three blueskins who were involved in the language lessons came to greet the band of Earthmen, offering a vocabulary display by way of salutation:
“I—you. Travel. Come. Here. We—Norglans. You—Terrans.”
Bernard smiled. Right now, the conversation had an almost comic tinge; but he knew that even the attainment of these halting, disjointed syllables was a staggering achievement. And it was only the beginning.
After three hours of instruction a pair of greenskins hesitantly approached bearing trays of food—flat, coarsely glazed yellow plates on which were arranged slabs of some sweet-smelling pale meat, and thick earthenware flasks of a pungent black wine. Havig looked doubtfully at Laurance, who said, “Refuse, as politely as you can. We don’t want to touch anything until Dominici’s had a chance to do some analysis.”
The food was politely declined. The Earthmen produced their own supplies, and Havig explained haltingly that it might not be safe for Earthmen to eat Norglan food. The aliens seemed to comprehend.