Michael raised his eyebrows, then finished off his drink. He lowered the glass, then frowned. "Tell me, Mr. Lynn. Why do I get the feeling that you want me to argue with you; to tell you that ideals are still important?"
"You're drunk."
"Which does not answer the question."
Lynn looked for a moment at the overhead, then brought his glance down to look at Michael. "Maybe I'd like to see you put up at least a little fight; something to tell me that those years I wasted in and after college were worth something. You know, when I finally made my peace with reality and got with the program, I felt guilty—like I was betraying myself. I didn't stop feeling guilty until I saw you characters being frozen out of teaching positions, and finally hopping on the RMI bandwagon." He shook his head. "And all the time the truth was staring me right in the face."
"Truth?"
"Biology. Any lifeform faced with the circumstances of its environment must either adapt to those circumstances, or perish."
"And you have adapted?"
Lynn nodded. "And so have you, finally. And there really wasn't any choice, was there? Powerful blocs of capital, labor, and governmental force are the circumstances of our environment, and those blocs aren't ruled by foggy ideals, Fellman, but by pragmatics."
Michael shrugged. "I still have the feeling that you expect some kind of protest from me."
Lynn curled his lip. "Don't you just make yourself the least little bit sick? Where are all those ideals you and your bunch held so dear?"
Michael motioned for another drink. "They went the way of the snail darter and the dodo, Mr. Lynn. As you put it, I have adapted." Lynn narrowed his eyes and stared at Michael for a moment, then he left his half-finished drink on the table, stood and walked quickly from the lounge. Michael took his fresh drink from the steward and gulped it down. As he held the glass in his hand, he glanced at the door through which Jacob Lynn had disappeared. He looked back at his glass and nodded. "Of course, some of us adapt better than others." He studied the glass until it shattered in his hand.
Armath squatted sullenly as his wives moved away from the eating fire. He watched Nanka, his head wife, as she went to the edge of the forest and brought back an armload of wood for the fire. He studied her short golden fur, her sleek flanks and gracefully arched back. He scratched at the long black fur on his shoulder. "Need not burn all wood in forest, wife. The eating is done."
Nanka tossed her head to one side, added another stick to the fire, then dropped the wood at the fire's edge. Armath frowned, then folded his arms. "You not speak."
Nanka squatted by the fire. "Husband. I speak for your wives. Our Tueh is almost ended—"
"Stop!" Armath reared back, then settled to the fire under Nanka's unblinking stare. "Hear no more of this, wife."
"Must talk, Armath. Your duty to your wives—"
"No!" Armath growled, then swiped at the snow with a clawed hand. "No talk! Enough!"
Nanka studied her husband for a moment, then looked down at the fire. "Last Tueh season, when you saw the male killed in the valley, then the teachers came. This started. Armath, you sired only six females last season. This season you have sired none. Is our Dishah to die, Armath?"
Armath scratched at his shoulder and frowned. He lowered his hand, then brought up both hands and folded his arms. "The school, Nanka. You have not seen it. You do not understand."
"The school." Nanka nodded, then drew her left arm down her flanks. "You get from this school what your wives exist to give you?"
Armath lowered his head and shook it. "No. You no understand the school… It…" He shook his head again. He looked up at Nanka. "Join the others. I talk no more." As she rose and loped off toward the edge of the forest, Armath looked back to the fire. The little gray human and his assistants had been teaching at the big houses for three winters. The Benda males would watch, listen and hear of the mighty human advance through space—a huge rock reeling down a steep hill, with other races nothing but feeble blades of grass. Armath looked up from the fire to see his wives talking together at the edge of the forest. He rose, shook his head and moved away from them to seek the solitude of the frozen river.
At his unit in the lavish instructors' complex, Michael Fellman put down his history of the Roman Empire, removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He looked at his watch, noted the time, then mentally calculated the remaining Bendadn minutes left before his self-appointed happy hour. He looked at the bottle on his clothes dresser, then stood. "To Hell with it." He went to the dresser, uncapped the bottle, and poured a glass full of straight gin. Returning to his chair, he sipped at the drink, closed his eyes, and let the familiar taste of juniper berries fill his mouth. He smiled, remembering that he had taken to drinking Martinis in an effort to curb his drinking. Michael had hated the taste of gin—once, long ago. Since then he had acquired a taste for the stuff. He raised his glass to take another sip, then the chimes sounded.
He stood, went to the door and opened it. Standing outside, his overcoat collar hunched against the cold, stood a frowning Dale Stevenson. "Oh, it's you. Won't you come in? I was just about to have a drink."
Stevenson nodded, then walked through the door. "Doctor Fellman, I've come about something pretty important."
Michael closed the door, then moved back to his chair. "You can dispose of your own coat." He sipped at his drink as Stevenson removed his coat and tossed it on a chair. Stevenson pulled up his sweater as he turned and withdrew a large envelope that had been hidden there. "What have you got there, Dale?"
Stevenson held out the envelope, then walked to the dresser and poured himself a generous quantity of gin. "Something I want you to read."
Michael weighed the thing, then chuckled. "What is it? Your rough draft on the history of human conquest?"
Stevenson took a chair across from Michael, reached out a hand and tapped the envelope with his finger. "It's a confidential RMI report. It's a biological study that was done on Bendadn by the company five years ago."
Michael shrugged. "I have no interest in biology. And what are you doing with a confidential report? We're not exactly in the inner circle around here."
Stevenson took a gulp of his drink, twisted his face up until the fumes cleared his lungs, then lowered his glass. "I had it stolen from Lynn's office."
Michael raised his eyebrows. "How very imaginative of you, Dale. Would you mind informing me why you placed both of our positions in jeopardy in this manner?"
Stevenson lowered his glass after his second gulp, then nodded. "Doctor, do you know anything about the sexual habits of the Benda?"
"Not a thing."
"Didn't you wonder why males are the only students?"
Michael frowned. "The black-haired ones? I had no idea they were all male. I had supposed that the blonde ones were on a lower social scale—you know, something racial."
Stevenson shook his head, finished his drink, then stood and went again to the dresser. As he poured, he talked. "The Benda are all females at birth."
"Interesting, but how do they reproduce?"