"Bah. The ovulation of One-women is not susceptible to our control."
"Long ago," said Ern, "I watched a One-woman preparing her nest. She laid in clutches of three. If sufficient eggs were collected, rearranged and joined, in some cases the female principle would dominate."
"This is an unorthodox proposal," said Mazar, "and to my knowledge has never been tried. It cannot be feasible ...
Such women might not be fertile. Or they might be freaks indeed."
"We are a product of the process," Ern argued. "Because there are two male eggs to the clutch, we are masculine. If there were two female and one male, or three female, why should not the result be female? As for fertility, we have no knowledge until the matter is put to test"
"The process is unthinkable!" roared Mazar, drawing himself erect, crests extended. "I will hear no more!"
Dazed by the fury of the old Three's response, Ern stood limp. Slowly he turned and started to walk sea-right, toward the wall.
"Where are you going?" Mazar called after him.
"To the swamps."
"And what will you do there?"
"I will find eggs and try to help a Three-woman into being."
Mazar glared and Ern prepared to flee for his life. Then Mazar said, "If your scheme is sound, all my comrades are dead in vain. Existence becomes a mockery."
"Perhaps nothing will come of the notion," said Ern. "If so, nothing is different."
"The venture is dangerous," grumbled Mazar. "The Twos will be alert."
"I will go down to the shore and swim to the swamp; they will never notice me. In any case, I have no better use to which to put my life."
"Go then," said Mazar in his hoarsest voice. "I am old and without enterprise. Perhaps our race may yet be regenerated. Go then, take care and return safely. You and I are the only Threes alive."
Mazar patrolled the wall. At times he ventured out into the pole-forest, listening, peering down toward the Two village. Ern had been gone a long time, or so it seemed. At last: far-off alarms, the cry of "Freak! Freak! Freak!"
Recklessly, three crests furiously erect, Mazar plunged toward the sound. Ern appeared through the trees, haggard, streaked with mud, carrying a rush-basket. In frantic pursuit came Two halberdiers and somewhat to the side a band of painted One-men. "This way!" roared Mazar. "To the walll" He brought forth his fire-gun. The halberdiers, in a frenzy, ignored the threat. Ern tottered past him; Mazar pointed the projector, pulled the trigger: flame enveloped four of the halberdiers who ran thrashing and flailing through the forest The others halted. Mazar and Ern retreated to the wall, passed through the gap. The halberdiers, excited to rashness, leapt after them. Mazar swung his sword; one of the Twos lost his head. The others retreated in panic, keening in horror at so much death.
Ern slumped upon the ground, cradling the eggs upon his body.
"How many?" demanded Mazar.
"I found two nests. I took three clutches from each."
"Each nest is separate and each clutch as well? Eggs from different nests may not fuse."
"Each is separate."
Mazar carried the corpse to the gap in the wall, flung it forth, then threw the head at the skulking One-men. None came to challenge him.
Once more in the hall Mazar arranged the eggs on a stone settle. He made a sound of satisfaction. "In each clutch are two round eggs and one ovaclass="underline" male and female; and we need not guess at the combinations." He reflected a moment. "Two males and a female produce the masculine Three; two females and a male should exert an equal influence in the opposite direction ... There will necessarily be an excess of male eggs. They will yield two masculine Threes; possibly more, if three male eggs are able to fuse." He made a thoughtful sound. "It is a temptation to attempt the fusion of four eggs."
"In this case I would urge caution," suggested Ern.
Mazar drew back in surprise and displeasure. "Is your wisdom so much more profound than mine?"
Ern made a polite gesture of self-effacement, one of the graces learned at the Two school. "I was born on the shallows, among the water-babies. Our great enemy was the ogre who lived in a slough. While I searched for eggs, I saw him again. He is larger than you and I together; his limbs are-gross; his head is malformed and hung over with red wattles. Upon his head stand four crests."
Mazar was silent. He said at last: "We are Threes. Best that we produce other Threes. Well then, to work."
The eggs lay in the cool mud, three paces from the water of the pond.
"Now to wait," said Mazar. 'To wait and wonder."
I will help them survive," said Ern. "I will bring them food and keep them safe. And if they are female .."
There will be two females," declared Mazar. "Of this am certain. I am old-but, well, we shall see."
The Masquerade on Dicantropus
Two puzzles dominated the life of Jim Root. The first, the pyramid out in the desert, tickled and prodded his curiosity, while the second, the problem of getting along with his wife, kept him keyed to a high pitch of anxiety and apprehension. At the moment the problem had crowded the mystery of the pyramid into a lost alley of his brain.
Eyeing his wife uneasily, Root decided that she was in for another of her fits. The symptoms were familiar-a jerking over of the pages of an old magazine, her tense back and bolt-upright posture, her pointed silence, the compression at the corners of her mouth.
With no preliminary motion she threw the magazine across the room, jumped to her feet. She walked to the doorway, stood looking out across the plain, fingers tapping on the sill. Root heard her voice, low, as if not meant for him to hear.
"Another day of this and I'll lose what little's left of my mind."
Root approached warily. If he could be compared to a Labrador retriever, then his wife was a black panther-a woman tall and well covered with sumptuous flesh. She had black flowing hair and black flashing eyes. She lacquered her fingernails and wore black lounge pajamas even on desiccated, deserted, inhospitable Dicantropus.
"Now, dear," said Root, "take it easy. Certainly it's not as bad as all that."
She whirled and Root was surprised by the intensity in her eyes. "It's not bad, you say? Very well for you to talk-you don't care for anything human to begin with. I'm sick of it Do you hear? I want to go back to Earth! I never want to see another planet in my whole life. I never want to hear the word archaeology, I never want to see a rock or a bone or a microscope-"
She flung a wild gesture around the room that included a number of rocks, bones, microscopes, as well as books, specimens in bottles, photographic equipment, a number of native artifacts.
Root tried to soothe her with logic. "Very few people are privileged to live on an outside planet, dear." t
"They're in their right minds. If I'd known what it was like, I'd never have come out here." Her voice dropped once more. "Same old dirt every day, same stinking natives, same vile canned food, nobody to talk to-" 1
Root uncertainly picked up and laid down his pipe. "Lie down, dear," he said with unconvincing confidence. "Take a nap! Things will look different when you wake up."
Stabbing him with a look, she turned and strode out into the blue-white glare of the sun. Root followed more slowly, bringing Barbara's sun-helmet and adjusting his own. Automatically he cocked an eye up the antenna, the reason for the station and his own presence, Dicantropus being a relay point for ULR messages between Clave II and Polaris. The antenna stood as usual, polished metal tubing four hundred feet high.
Barbara halted by the shore of the lake, a brackish pond in the neck of an old volcano, one of the few natural bodies of water on the planet. Root silently joined her, handed her her sun-helmet. She jammed it on her head, walked away.