There was a pause in which the administrator chewed his lip uncertainly. 'But there's this birth-rate problem now. It's finally been assigned to AdHQ, you know - and double A priority, too.'
Zammo muttered wordlessly.
Antyok said, 'You may not realize it, but that project will now take precedence over all other work proceeding on Ceph-eus 18. It's important.'
He turned back to the viewing window and said thoughtfully with a bald lack of preamble. 'Do you think those creatures might be unhappy?'
'Unhappy!' The word was an explosion.
'Well, then,' Antyok corrected hastily, 'maladjusted. You understand? It's difficult to adjust an environment to a race we know so little of.'
'Say - did you ever see the world we took them from?'
'I've read the reports-'
'Reports!' - infinite contempt. 'I've seen it. This may look like desert out there to you, but it's a watery paradise to those devils. They have all the food and water they can get. They have a world to themselves with vegetation and natural water flow, instead of a lump of silica and granite where fungi were force-grown in caves and water had to be steamed out of gypsum rock. In ten years, they would have been dead to the last beast, and we saved them. Unhappy? Ga-a-ah, if they are, they haven't the decency of most animals.'
'Well, perhaps. Yet I have a notion.'
'A notion? What is your notion?' Zammo reached for one of his cigars.
'It's something that might help you. Why not study the creatures in a more integrated fashion? Let them use their initiative. After all, they did have a highly-developed science. Your reports speak of it continually. Give them problems to solve.' 'Such as?'
'Oh… oh,' Antyok waved his hands helplessly. 'Whatever you think might help most. For instance, spaceships. Get them into the control room and study their reactions.' 'Why?' asked Zammo with dry bluntness. 'Because the reaction of their minds to tools and controls adjusted to the human temperament can teach you a lot. In addition, it will make a more effective bribe, it seems to me, than anything you've yet tried. You'll get more volunteers if they think they'll be doing something interesting.' 'That's your psychology coming out. Hm-m-m. Sounds better than it probably is. I'll sleep on it. And where would I get permission, in any case, to let them handle spaceships? I've none at my disposal, and it would take a good deal longer than it was worth to follow down the line of red tape to get one assigned to us.'
Antyok pondered, and his forehead creased lightly, 'It doesn't have to be spaceships. But even so - If you would write up another report and make the suggestion yourself - strongly, you understand - I might figure out some way of tying it up with my birth-rate project. A double-A priority can get practically anything, you know, without questions.'
Zammo's interest lacked a bit even of mildness, 'Well, maybe. Meanwhile, I've some basal metabolism tests in progress, and it's getting late. I'll think about it. It's got its points.'
From: AdHQ-Cephl8
To: BuOuProv
Subject: Outer Province Project 2910, Part I - Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of,
Reference:
(a) BuOuProv letr. Ceph-N-CM/car, 115097, 233/977 G.E.
Enclosure:
1. SciGroup 10, Physical amp; Biochemical Division report, Part XV, dated 220/977 G.E.
1. Enclosure 1 is forwarded herewith for the information of the BuOuProv.
2. Special attention is directed to Section V, Paragraph 3 of Enclosure 1 in which it is requested that a spaceship be as signed SciGroup 10 for use in expediting investigations author ized by the BuOuProv. It is considered by AdHQ-Ceph18 that such investigations may be of material use in aiding work now in progress on the subject project, authorized by reference (a). It is suggested, in view of the high priority placed by the BuOu Prov upon the subject project, that immediate consideration be given the SciGroup's request.
L. Antyok, Superv.
AdHQ-CephlS, 240/977 G.E.
From: BuOuProv
To: AdHQ-CephlS
Subject: Outer Province Project 2910 - Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of. Reference: (a) AdHQ-CephlS letr. AA-LA/mn, dated 240/977 G.E.
1. Training Ship AN-R-2055 is being placed at the disposal of AdHQ-Ceph18 for use in investigation of non-Humans on Cepheus 18 with respect to the subject project and other authorized OuProv projects, as requested in Enclosure 1 to reference (a).
2. It is urgently requested that work on the subject project be expedited by all available means.
C. Morily, Head,
BuOuProv, 251/977G.E.
IV
The little, bricky creature must have been more uncomfortable than his bearing would admit to. He was carefully wrapped in a temperature already adjusted to the point where his human companions steamed in their open shirts.
His speech was high-pitched and careful, 'I find it damp, but not unbearably so at this low temperature.'
Antyok smiled, 'It was nice of you to come. I had planned to visit you. but a trial run in yoUr atmosphere out there-' The smile had become rueful.
'It doesn't matter. You other worldlings have done more for us than ever we were able to do for ourselves. It is an obligation that is but imperfectly returned by the endurance on my part of a trifling discomfort.' His speech seemed always indirect, as if he approached his thoughts sidelong, or as if it were against all etiquette to be blunt.
Gustiv Bannerd, seated in an angle of the room, with one long leg crossing the other, scrawled nimbly and said, 'You don't mind if I record all this?'
The Cepheid non-Human glanced briefly at the journalist, 'I have no objection.'
Antyok's apologetics persisted. This is not a purely social affair, sir. I would not have forced discomfort on you for that. There are important questions to be considered, and you are the leader of your people.'
The Cepheid nodded, 'I am satisfied your purposes are kindly. Please proceed.'
The administrator almost wriggled in his difficulty in putting thoughts into words. 'It is a subject,' he said, 'of delicacy, and one I wou'd never bring up if it weren't for the overwhelming importance of the… uh… question. I am only the spokesman of my government-'
'My people consider the otherworld government a kindly one.'
'Well, yes, they are kindly. For that reason, they are disturbed over the fact that your people no longer breed.'
Antyok paused, and waited with worry for a reaction that did not come. The Cepheid's face was motionless except for the soft, trembling motion of the wrinkled area that was Ms deflated drinking tube.
Antyok continued, 'It is a question we have hesitated to bring up because of its extremely personal angles. Noninterference is my government's prime aim, and we have done our best to investigate the problem quietly and without disturbing your people. But, frankly, we -'
'Have failed?' finished the Cepheid, at the other's pause.
'Yes. Or at least, we have not discovered a concrete failure to reproduce the exact environment of your original world; with, of course, the necessary modification to make it more livable. Naturally, it is thought there is some chemical shortcoming. And so I ask your voluntary help in the matter. Your people are advanced in the study of your own biochemistry. If you do not choose, or would rather not -'
'No, no, I can help.' The Cepheid seemed cheerful about it. The smooth flat planes of his loose-skinned, hairless skull wrinkled in an alien response to an uncertain emotion. 'It is not a matter that any of us would have thought would have disturbed you other-worldlings. That it does is but another indication of your well-meaning kindness. This wor'd we find congenial, a paradise in comparison to our o!d. It lacks in nothing. Conditions such as now prevail belong in our legends of the Golden Age.'
'Well-'
'But there is a something; a something you may not understand. We cannot expect different intelligences to think alike.'
'I shall try to understand.'
The Cepheid's voice had grown soft, its liquid undertones more pronounced, 'We were dying on our native world; but we were fighting. Our science, developed through a history older than yours, was losing; but it had not yet lost. Perhans it was because our science was fundamentally biological. rather than physical as yours is. Your people discovered new forms of energy and reached the stars. Our people d:scovered new truths of psychology and psychiatry and built up a working society free of disease and crime.
'There is no need to question which of the two angles of approach was the more laudable, but there is no uncertainty as to which proved more successful in the end. In our dying world, without the means of life or sources of power, our biological science could but make the dying easier.