He watched as an animal about the weight and height of a large dog investigated the unprecedented phenomena of open ground. It sniffed with an elongated trunk-like protuberance at a blackened and twisted plant. Fires were rare things on Jade’s wet surface. The creature acted uncertain and cautious. Dr. Beckwith watched quietly as it tested the air and picked at clods of blackened ground.
Like all the animals that had been discovered on Jade thus far, it lacked fur of any kind. Dr. Beckwith had speculated that furred creatures had probably died out because of the prevalence of parasites: on Jade, fur did little other than provide homes for insects. Inside the animal had a tough hide of layered, armor-like gray skin, similar to that of Earth’s rhinoceros. Parasites resembling barnacles were visible on one of its flanks and in clusters about its throat.
Dr. Beckwith took an immediate interest in the insects it carried. He did not recognize the species. He pondered killing the animal and examining them. He fingered the pistol on his hip, but rejected the idea. There was no more time.
He set down his helmet and began searching a rubbish pile of scorched bushes and trash from the ship. He found it difficult to use his left hand, as it was now stiff and throbbing all the way up to his elbow. Fortunately, he believed it had now reached its worst stage and would soon begin to heal. He dug through discarded cartons and used bits of plastic that held pockets of wriggling larvae. When he moved the cartons they broke one and he found himself holding two moving handfuls of pinkish scavenging insects, about the size of twelve-year molars. Finding them to be of a familiar species, he shook them unconcernedly from his gloves and continued his search. At last he found what he was looking for, a hefty length of steel-plex with a solid core.
Holding the piece of steel-plex like a club, he approached the hull of the ship. He stood before the microwave navigational sensor. The sensor was a four-pointed dish with gold foil wrapped around it. The delicate instrument was presently exposed in its pod as Captain Rogers planned to check it before lift-off.
Dr. Beckwith had discarded his helmet, but not his radio headset. He had only to speak to be heard by Rogers.
“Captain, could you give me a hand with this?”
“With what?”
“One of my experiments, I need your help to get it aboard.”
He heard Rogers sigh. It sounded like a wind storm over the mike. “Shit. Alright, sure.”
He glanced about furtively before beginning. He felt a slight movement in the humid air, not quite enough to be called a breeze. It touched and cooled the sweat on his brow and lifted a few locks of his hair. To have this world, to live in the open on Jade as men should, it was something that he knew would mean much to his race.
He patted the comforting bulge in his suit’s hip pocket. He had to do this right. Rogers was not going to give him a second chance.
Delaying no longer, he raised his improvised club and crashed it down into the delicate navigational sensor. Gold foil bent and tore. Steel-plex clanged against real metal. The force of the blow jarred his slight body. He jerked his club loose from the tangled ruin and struck again. Copper-trace circuits and microprocessors were smashed to fragments. There was a shout in his earphones, Rogers had come around the corner of the ship. Beckwith paid no heed and struck again. Fresh beads of sweat welled up on his forehead and clung to his skin. His left hand throbbed, but he continued to destroy the sensor.
“What the hell-” yelled Rogers as he came closer. Dr. Beckwith could hear his labored breathing as he trotted to him in his heavy suit. “I’ve got my needler on you, Beckwith!”
Dr. Beckwith took another swing, missing clumsily this time, managing only to gouge the protective plate that covered the sensor when it was not in use. His left arm was giving out, becoming useless. He ignored Rogers’ approach, keeping his back to the man. He gambled that Rogers wouldn’t burn down a lunatic with his back turned to him.
“You’re crazy!” buzzed his earphones. “You’re absolutely, goddamn crazy!”
Dr. Beckwith was relieved when he found Rogers’ powerful hands wrapping around him. He was yanked back from the crumpled sensor. There was a brief struggle for possession of the steel-plex club. Dr. Beckwith kicked and twisted. Both men were hampered by their pressure-suits, Rogers having the added handicap of wearing a helmet. Finally, Rogers simply grappled with the smaller man, putting him into a powerful bear hug. He managed to restrain Beckwith’s flailing limbs. It was this proximity that Beckwith had been waiting for.
Rogers powerful arms hugged his shoulders, but didn’t stop him from slipping the hypodermic he had gotten from Mom out of his pocket. If he had tried to sneak up on Rogers, the man might have seen the hypodermic and stopped him. But now there was no chance. With an underhand thrust, he stabbed the needle through the tough layers of fabric and into Rogers’ solar plexus. The pliant bulb at the other end pumped automatically, injecting its contents in rhythmic surges, like the poison sacs of a wasp.
Captain Rogers folded like a popped balloon.
The day of the lift-off was unbearably hot. Jade had transformed into a wet green hell. Perspiration itched as it flowed out of Dr. Beckwith’s pores to run in tiny streams down his body. He stood in a clearing he had burned in the jungle with his needler, several hundred meters from the ship. He had stacked a considerable store of survival equipment and medical supplies in the clearing. Included in the equipment were two cots, an air-conditioned tent and the nursing unit, Mom. Dr. Beckwith wished only to maroon the two men, not murder them.
“It’s all very simple,” he explained. “I, as a biologist, understood it almost immediately.”
There was no response. Neither of his two listeners was capable of making one. Both Rogers and Foster were strapped to their cots and gagged. Beckwith had gagged them after tiring of their endless alternating threats, pleas and complaints. Mom moved between them, attending faithfully to the needs of her patients. The left hands of both were in restraining casts of fiberglass. Their fingers, protruding from the casts, were red and swollen as if infected. They were, in fact, infested.
Enjoying the coolness of the air-conditioned tent and the novelty of an attentive audience, Beckwith lectured on. “Because of Jade’s parasitic ecological system, it is simply a requirement for all native life forms here to maintain a personal colony of one of the more dominant species of insect. You see, you need them here, for your own protection. One colony of a more easily endured species will keep other more harmful types at bay.
“That is just how I got rid of the particularly malevolent insect that had you in its death grip, Paul. All that was necessary was the introduction of another species to get it to retreat.”
In order to continue his lecture, he needed a model. He removed his glove and carefully rolled up his sleeve, as though peeling delicate fruit. His left arm had healed almost completely, and looked puffy and sore only around his knuckles.
He took a pen out of his breast pocket and used it as a pointer while he talked. “You see, the particular species that seems easiest to live with requires certain compounds, such as calcium, that are most easily reached at the joints-” here he indicated his swollen knuckles with the tip of his pen. “-Since the hand has many accessible joints just below the skin, it is an ideal breeding site for them.”