"Yes. What really shook up the system was not so much their personal conflict as the fact that Gorchakov took a gun with him. That's the worst possible violation of Interplanetary Council rules."
"How did it come out? My informants seemed secretive about it."
"No wonder, since that's Novorecife's biggest black eye. Two other Earthmen fled with the girl. When Gorchakov caught up with them and one of the Terrans tried to protect her, Gorchakov killed him. Then one of the locals killed Gorchakov."
"What became of the missionary?"
"She married the local."
"Is that legal?" asked Marot.
"Depends on where you are. Now help me find some more dry wood. We'll need a pile of it before morning."
As darkness fell, they sat across the fire from each other, slapping at flying pests and trying to heat their emergency rations by toasting them on sharpened sticks. Luminous winged arthropods, scarlet specks like animated sparks, wove looping patterns against the dark. When a real spark flew up, several arthropods would swoop upon it in a futile attempt to mate. Marot said:
"Mr. Reith—"
"Call me Fergus," Reith interrupted. "Hokay, then call me Aristide, if you please."
"Fine, Aristide. Isn't that the name of some ancient Greek politician, who was exiled for always being right?"
Marot chuckled. "Something like that. Actually, me, I was named for a Saint Aristide, because I was born on the thirty-first of August. The saint, I suppose, was named for this ancient Aristides. How do you know about such things?"
"I taught school before I got into the travel business and became a tour guide. But you were about to ask something."
"Yes; what was it? Ah, I remember. How much delay will the loss of our equipment cause?"
Reith shrugged, "Maybe ten or fifteen days. I'll try to expedite things; but it'll still take more time than if we had gone the longer, safer route."
"All right; you need not rub it on."
"I think you mean rub it in," said Reith.
"In any case, I hope you can try to catch up our lost time. I do not wish Foltz to get any more of a start on us."
"So that's why you insisted on the route through the swamp, to save a couple of days! What's between you and Foltz? Aren't you both scientists, devoted to the truth regardless of petty personal feelings?"
"Hah! Whoever told you that the scientists were godlike thinking machines, free of normal human failings and prejudices? If someone did, my friend, he misinformed you."
"Well," said Reith, "who is this Foltz? I haven't met him."
"Warren Foltz—a countryman of yours—calls himself a scientist, and he has the degrees and experience. But he has the temperament of a fanatic, which does not mix with the science. He has an unorthodox theory, which he is determined to prove no matter what—would you say skull dodgery?—he has to commit."
"I think you mean skullduggery."
"Hokay, skullduggery. Oh, that villainous queux!" Marot clenched a fist. Reith was surprised to see that mention of Foltz actually enraged his usually good-natured companion.
"What's his nutty theory?"
"It was not nutty when Krishnan biology was new to Terrans. Then it was plausible. But, since then, the weight of evidence has accumulated against it."
"But what is it?" Reith persisted.
"It is a matter of the descent of the two main classes of Krishnan terrestrial vertebrates, the oviparous Tetrapoda and the viviparous Hexapoda, with four limbs and six limbs respectively. Most of my colleagues and I now believe that they evolved separately from aquatic predecessors, dwelling in different land-locked seas on this planet. But Foltz is determined that the Tetrapoda are merely an offshoot of terrestrial Hexapoda, who have lost one pair of limbs."
"In other words, it's a question of whether the four-leggers branched off from the main stem before or after they crawled out of the water?"
"That is an oversimplification, but you have stated the general idea."
"Seems like a funny thing to get fanatical about. I can imagine getting all hot over a political cause, or a personal relationship, or even a work of art; but not over something that happened a hundred million years ago."
Marot spread his hands with a wry smile. "You do not know some of my fellow scientists, especially those who go to other planets for field work. For that you must—how do you say— go for bust?"
"Go for broke."
"Yes, yes; for broke. It is a lifetime commitment in a way. You get on a spaceship and spend perhaps a year in transit and in the field, and when you return you find that a quarter or half of a century has elapsed, because of the Fitzgerald contraction. If the human life span had not been tripled by longevity medicine, nobody would undertake a round trip to an extra-solar planet."
"How far ahead of us is this Foltz character?"
"They told me at Novo that he left ten days before we did. Were you not there when he was at Novorecife?"
"No; I was running a tour, mostly Arabs and other Middle Easterners."
Marot said: "They told me at Novorecife that you had had adventures on your tours to lift the hair."
"I've had some. On my first tour, everything that could go wrong did, including the kidnapping of my whole tour group. We were lucky to get out alive. The second time, when I had a party of oh-so-polite East Asians, everything went as smooth as silk. The third tour would have gone well except that I had certain—umm—personal difficulties."
"Oh? I have heard rumors of that."
"Yeah. That was the tour that started the breakup with my wife."
"Oh. I am most sorry, Fergus. I did not mean to intrude on painful matters."
"That's okay. I've put it all behind me."
"Was your wife that Krishnan princess they say you married in Dur?"
"No; that was annulled long ago on grounds of coercion."
"You mean you were compelled?"
Reith grinned. "Yes, sir! The Regent of Dur caught us in flagrante delicto, and I had the choice of marrying this Krishnan squid or being carved into small pieces, a piece at a time. Nice kid, but no brains. The Regent staged the whole thing, knowing that Vázni and I couldn't produce an egg to hatch and grow up to take Tashian's power away, as a legitimate prince would have done. After a few moons of this world's most exquisite boredom, I escaped."
"Is the—ah—the poum-poum with Krishnans pleasurable?"
"Just as much fun as with Terrans, although there are differences in the way they function. They're the only extraterrestrial species you can say that about."
"An amazing example of convergent evolution!"
"Oh, sure! But then, Krishna's the most Earthlike planet we know of; so we shouldn't be surprised to find some pretty Earthlike organisms. But the fact that Earthmen can mate with Krishnan females doesn't mean they're entitled to unlimited free pussy."
"Kitten? Oh, I see. You mean the foutre."
"Krishnan sexual customs vary at least as widely as ours. One of these jaspers hears of a place where the women of the house bed down with male guests as a matter of normal hospitality. So he jumps into an occupied bed in some place where the customs are different, and khlk!" Reith drew a finger across his throat.
"I will be most cautious in making advances. But this other wife of whom you spoke, if you do not mind?"
"That's Alicia Dyckman, the xenanthropologist—or xenologist as most people call it." Reith shook his head sadly. "She's the prettiest thing I know of as well as the most brilliant and charming. I first met her the day she got back with Percy Mjipa from the Khaldoni countries, where they'd had hair-raising adventures. It was one of those instantaneous things; we practically fell into each other's arms. The first moon of our marriage was wonderful.