The Venom Trees of Sunga

I – The Ship Ijumo

The steamship Ijumo wheezed and puffed its way to the pier at Sungecho, on the island of Sunga, on the planet that Terrans called Kukulcan after an Aztec god. Kukulcan was a satellite of the star Epsilon Eridani. Kirk Sa-lazar stood with his parents' friends the Ritters at the rail.

"That's Sungecho," said Hilbert Ritter, graying and stoop-shouldered. "A lot of Terran riffraff have collected here; not a good place to explore alone at night."

On the bridge the Kukulcanian skipper, Captain Oyodo, bawled orders in the Sungao dialect of Feënzuo. He spoke in the harsh, rasping voice of his species, like the screams of an angry macaw.

"There's Alexis," said Hilbert Ritter, pointing.

"Where?" said Salazar. "Oh, you mean the redhead beside the armed Kook?" Terrans called the civilized reptiles of Kukulcan "Kooks."

"Yes. I think the Kook is a cop, though I can't quite make out his insignia."

The paddle wheels ceased their thrashing; the ship drifted up against the bumpers. Longshorekooks snubbed hawsers round bollards. The gangplank slammed down like the crack of doom, and a rush of Kook porters came aboard.

Kukulcanians were slender bipeds of vaguely dinosaurian appearance, taller and leaner than most Terrans. Their horny mouths gave them a turtle-beaked appearance, while their scaly hides bore painted symbols in a rainbow of colors. Otherwise unclad and displaying no visible organs of sex, they wore a harness of straps, whence dangled pouches and sheaths in lieu of pockets. They attacked the pile of luggage and marched back up the gangplank, each bearing a load that would have strained the broadest Terran back.

After the Kooks, Salazar and the Ritters clustered around the plank with others of the Patel Society's field trip. Lanky, graying Igor Tchitchagov, the director, stood at the base of the plank, waving his group ashore. As the Patelians shuffled up the plank, Salazar touched Ritter's arm and pointed, asking:

"Hey! How does Cantemir get ashore ahead of us? He's not a Patelian."

He pointed to a squat, stocky, ruddy, robust-looking man with bushy blond hair and beard, just stepping from plank to pier. Ritter sighed.

"George Cantemir does as he damn pleases, and he gets away with it because he's a flunky of the Reverend Dumfries, and Dumfries is in cahoots with High Chief Yaamo. By God, I think he's headed for Alexis!"

"He'll probably proposition her," said Suzette Ritter. "He's done it to every woman on the ship under a hundred and fifty—including me." She gave a little sputter of laughter.

"That's not funny," growled Ritter. "Least of all to me."

"Jealous, Hilbert?" said Suzette.

"Damn right! Now he's introducing himself, all smiles and smarmy charm. That Kook policeman has disappeared."

"She'll take care of herself," said Suzette. "What I don't understand," said Salazar, "is why, if the reverend is such a puritan, he puts up with George's womanizing. After all, the Bible has some nasty things to say about fornication."

"That's Saint Paul," said Ritter, stepping from the gangplank to the pier. "My preacher friend thinks Paul was not a celibate, as most suppose, but a married man who hated his wife. In the Old Testament they took a more relaxed attitude, allowing concubines—"

"Oh!" exclaimed Suzette.

Whatever Cantemir had said, Alexis Ritter backed away from him with an expression of fury. Salazar could not hear the words, but they must have been pungent. Cantemir moved a step towards her.

Salazar hesitated. He wanted to protect the Ritters' daughter not only because the Ritters were family friends but also because of a subliminal chivalrous drive to which he would not have admitted. On the other hand, in a rough-and-tumble with Cantemir, he would have all the chance of a snowball in the crater of Mount Sungara. Although like Cantemir he was of average height, the latter had half again his weight.

Kirk Sheffield Salazar was young and slim with rounded features, a toothbrush mustache, and a small chin, which led some unkindly to liken his face to that of a rabbit. Most Terrans knew how rabbits looked, although there were no rabbits on Kukulcan, thanks to the Interplanetary Council's rule against the importation of exotic species.

As the dispute between Cantemir and Alexis Ritter seemed about to explode, Salazar lengthened his stride. For two paces, fear of looking ridiculous kept him from breaking into a run. Then he thought, To hell with dignity, and ran towards the couple.

"Hey, George!" he called.

Cantemir turned his jowly face. "What is it, Kirk?" Salazar spoke to the girl: "You're Alexis Ritter, aren't you?"

"Yes. What—"

"Is George giving you trouble?"

"He—"

"Damn it, Kirk," said Cantemir, "mind your own goddamn business and go away!"

The girl said: "He made a—"

"Look," said Salazar, whose heart pounded between fear and combativeness, "this is the Ritters' daughter. You can't—"

Cantemir's ruddy face reddened further. "Didn't you hear me? I said bugger off!"

"Who the hell are you—"

Stepping closer, Cantemir brought up a fist. Salazar .had an instant thought: Oh, Lord, now I shall get the shit beat out of me in vain!

Cantemir aimed his punch at Salazar's jaw. Salazar jerked his head back, but the blow glanced off his cheekbone with enough force to stagger him.

Behind Cantemir, Alexis swung her handbag in a swift circle. The bag struck Cantemir on the side of his head with a clank, audible above the noise of wind, wave, and disembarkation. Cantemir stretched his stubby length on the splintery planks of the pier.

The older Ritters hastened nigh. Hilbert Ritter demanded: "What's going on here?"

Salazar faced Alexis, seeing a pretty, slightly plump young woman of stocky, muscular build in well-filled shirt and slacks. She received him with a toothsome grin. "Thanks! You gave him just the distraction I needed."

"Nothing very heroic, I'm—"

Hilbert Ritter said: "Alexis, this is—"

"I know," said Alexis. "You're the Salazars' boy Kirk, aren't you?"

She extended a hand. Salazar shook, receiving a crushing grip. He knew the appearance of plumpness was deceptive; she was all muscle.

"How did you know?" he asked.

"Don't you remember my fourteenth birthday party?"

Salazar thought. "Oh, yes. You're the one who pushed me off the roof! Lucky you didn't break my neck."

"But you had such a runny expression on the way down! Hey, the slob's reviving!"

Cantemir hauled himself to his feet, felt the spot where the weighted bag had struck him, and with an angry growl started toward Alexis Ritter and Kirk Salazar. As he approached, he fumbled in a trouser pocket and produced a small pistol.

"George!" said an extraordinarily resonant, penetrating voice.

Cantemir instantly ceased his advance. Alexis, who had been swinging her bag in small arcs, let its motion dampen out. Salazar, who had suffered an instant of stark fear, looked at the speaker, the Reverend Valentine Dumfries.

The preacher was a tremendously fat man; he was also, a rarity among Terrans of his day, bald. His round, cleanshaven features bore a wide mouth beneath a blob of a nose and blue eyes beneath two bristly bushes of gray eyebrow. He had a way of screwing up the inner corners of his eyelids that gave the effect of a hypnotic glare. He wore a transmundane, the usual semisafari suit adopted by most Terrans for going about a foreign planet. But Dumfries's suit, instead of the usual khaki, was black. He leaned on a massive, crutch-headed walking stick as he rolled slowly forward like something risen from a Mesozoic swamp.

"Look, Val," began Cantemir, "this red-haired floozy—"

"I saw it all," rumbled Dumfries. "I've warned you."

The Kook policeman, identified by the symbols painted on his scaly hide, reappeared, unslinging the rifle strapped slantwise across his back. Salazar noted that the firearm was a breech-loading repeater instead of a muzzle-loading, single-shot musket such as a few years before had been the island's most advanced native weaponry. He had heard of High Chief Yaamo's efforts to modernize his armament.

Several Terrans from the Ijumo, drawn by the disturbance, followed the Kook. The reptilian officer hissed like a teakettle, and a quarter-meter of pink forked tongue flicked out and in. He said:

"Troubre iss?" Terrans unused to it could not understand it.

"No, nothing I cannot control," said Dumfries. Cantemir quietly returned his pistol to its pocket. Alexis said:

"Now you bugger off, Mr. Cantemir, or I'll have you run in!"

With a wordless growl, Cantemir turned away. He and Dumfries walked off, talking heatedly in undertones. Alexis Ritter said to the Kook in good Sungao:

"The trouble is all over, Officer."

As the policeman departed, Ritter asked: "What happened, Alexis?"

"The usual," she said. "He put it more politely, but the gist was 'How about a nice, quick fuck?' You'd better go claim your baggage."

Two nights before, after the final show of passengers' night on the Ijumo had ended and Kirk Salazar had washed off his makeup, Hilbert Ritter had said: "Hey, Kirk, come have a drink with us!"

Seated at a bar-lounge table, he continued: "Quite a show you put on, your burlesque mahatma act. All that bilge about resuming the triad in unity, engendering the cosmic tetrad. You made it sound as if it really meant something."

"I got a stitch from laughing," said Suzette Ritter. "You even got a discreet smile or two out of the Reverend Dumfries."

Ritter continued: "You surprised me. You seemed like such a quiet, shy little fellow—" Salazar winced at the word "little"

"—but on the platform you became a real spellbinder, with a hypnotic delivery. You could probably lead a cult and make ten times the money you get as assistant instructor at the U."

Salazar waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, I was in the drama club as an undergraduate, and the patter I got from a couple of occult books. Speaking of cults, I heard something of your daughter's being involved in one."

Suzette sighed. "That's our particular problem."

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Salazar. "Didn't mean to bring up a sore subject which is none of my—"

"That's all right," said Suzette. "We don't mind talking about it, especially since you'll probably run into her where you're going."

"Then are you two on this safari to look at zutas or to—ah—rescue your daughter?"

"In a sense, both," said Ritter, "though anybody who thinks he can rescue Alexis when she doesn't want to be rescued has his work cut out for him. At least, we hope to make her hold still long enough for a reasonable discussion. You might say we're in the Patel Society under false pretenses, but Igor won't mind. He's an old friend, and we've paid our dues up to date. We leave the main group at Amoen."

"I suppose I'm a faker, too," said Salazar. "I joined because I could get to Sunga cheaper on the group rate. The university makes us take such field trips on our own; say they've already committed all their grant money for the year."

"If not to identify zutas, then why are you going to Sunga?"

"Bucking for my doctorate. My thesis is on the kusinanshin problem."

"Tell us," said Ritter. "I'm in xenanthropology, and Suzette's in linguistics, so we wouldn't know."

"All right," said Salazar, seeming to expand in size and stature as he started in on his specialty. "You know the kusi, the omnivorous, semiarboreal relative of the hurato? Well, the stump-tailed kusi, Cusius brachiurus, lives in the forests of Mount Sungara. Some colleagues think it's a living fossil, like the common ancestor of the Kooks and the rest of the Pithecoidea.

"This species has a peculiar adaptation. The main tree on the upper slopes of Mount Sungara is the nanshin or venom tree, Pharmacodendron saitonis, though it also grows elsewhere in the highlands. If you brush against it, it sprays corrosive venom from its needles, like little hoses. The stuff eats holes in your skin if not quickly washed off. But the stump-tailed kusi lives in the nanshin's branches without apparent damage. I'm supposed to find out how it does it."

"How," asked Suzette, "will you do that without getting holes in your skin, too? Wear a fireman's suit?"

Salazar shrugged. "I shall have to see when I get there." His speech held an audible trace of his father's down-East accent, from the elder Salazar's youth on the coast of Maine, on Terra.

Ritter asked: "What if, despite precautions, you get some on your skin?"

"They say sodium bicarb neutralizes it, or at least limits the damage."

"Are you doing the whole job yourself?" asked Ritter.

"Not quite. A Kook at the U, a Gariko scholarship student, recommended his cousin Choku as a helper. This Hakka, a Shongarin, was, I suppose, as close to a personal friendship as one can have with a Kook."

"I know," said Ritter. "Those cold, reptilian minds don't seem to know friendship in our sense. That inflexible formality becomes a bore."

"That's not fair, dear," said Suzette. "They have excellent qualities. You can rely on their word more than on a Terran's."

"True, my dear. They're honest, truthful, logical, and literal-minded. Also humorless, hidebound, and pigheaded, like our daughter. If I had to jump into a river to save a drowning man, I'd rather hand my wallet to a Kook to hold than to a Terran, but I could never have so good a time with one as with a Terran friend—or with you. Go on, Kirk, about this helper."

"If I can find this Choku in Sungecho, I shall at least have someone to haul the heavy baggage. It's no imposition, since they are much stronger than we. And I'm to inquire after my former roommate, Jean-Pierre Latour."

"The one who disappeared?"

"Yep. The kusi problem was originally his."

"I've heard rumors of others' disappearance on Sungara. When they send someone to investigate, all they find is a mob of naked naturists running around and saying they know nothing."

"Is your daughter's cult on Sungara?"

"So they tell me."

"Then I ought to talk to your daughter. She might be helpful in getting me into the kusi country."

"Well, watch yourself. She's the most willful, bull-headed person I've ever known, quite different from her brothers. Besides, we don't know what the Reverend Dumfries is cooking up, and he wields a big stick on Sunga. He may disapprove of her cultists' going bare-arse naked and send the lot packing. Is the kusi problem the basis for your thesis?"

"Yep. If it's accepted, there'll be another unread Ph.D. thesis on the university library shelves."

"I don't know about that," said Ritter. "Remember the dust-up your father's friend Firestone made with his scholarly book on population statistics, showing that the two civilized societies on Kukulcan were on a collision course? He thought that births should be managed, which made the natalists howl."

"And since he was wrong," said the resonant, penetrating voice of Valentine Dumfries, who had come up silently behind Ritter, "it was the duty of those who know better to correct him. My dear friends, if someone were to go around preaching that the planet Kukulcan was fiat, wouldn't you—"

"Just what was wrong?" said Kirk Salazar loudly enough to break into Dumfries's flow of speech.

"On several counts," said the fat clergyman. "In the first place, he put human beings on the same level as Kooks, as if each had equal rights."

"But Kooks are reasoning beings—" began Salazar.

"If you will permit me to finish," said Dumfries, holding up a hand. Such was the commanding note in his voice that Salazar, not easily silenced, broke off. Dumfries continued:

"So are Terran dogs and cats reasoning beings, within their limitations, but we do not put them on a par with us legally or morally. See first Genesis, twenty-eight. God—that is, the Terran Demiurge to those who understand these things—gave man dominion over the fish of the sea and so on. In other words, over the animal kingdom. And Kooks certainly belong to the animal kingdom."

"Oh, come on!" said Salazar. "Do you believe that God paraded samples of Terra's several million species before Adam—"

"That is second Genesis, nineteen and twenty," said Dumfries. "It is a later and more mythologized version. We must understand these things in the light of modern discoveries."

"I don't believe Genesis mentions other worlds," said Suzette Ritter.

"Next," continued Dumfries, ignoring Suzette's point, "Doctor Firestone proposes the limitation of births by any means available: contraception, abortion, or—he hasn't actually proposed infanticide, but wait and see. It is such degenerate practices—"

"Come off it!" said Ritter. "Even the Pope has come around to admitting—"

"I cannot help it if the great Catholic Church has fallen into error," said Dumfries. "If the possibility of conceiving a child is artificially deleted from the conjugal act, couples shut themselves off not only from the Terran Demiurge but also from the Supreme God whose will is that they be fruitful and multiply—"

"And replenish the Earth," said Ritter. "But he didn't say what to do next."

"It is obvious, my dear professor," said Dumfries. "Since the faculties that the Demiurge gave man have enabled man to be the first species to attain space travel, it is the Supreme God's will that man go out and conquer other worlds where conditions permit human life and where the native inhabitants show no sign of spiritual enlightenment and must therefore be classed with the lower animals—such as our lizardlike friends." Dumfries jerked his globular head toward a table at which a quartet of Kooks were drinking a native beverage.

"How about Krishna?" asked Ritter.

"That is not yet decided. The Krishnans have evolved impressive theologies and are possibly groping toward that degree of spiritual advancement whereat their Demiurge will send them a Redeemer, as ours did to Terra."

Dumfries looked at his poignet and added: "I should like to carry this interesting discussion further, but I find I have an appointment with some of the enlightened. So, dear friends, excuse me for the nonce."

As Dumfries departed, Salazar said: "Somebody ought to expose that guy for the nutty troublemaker he is."

"Been done," said Ritter. "Didn't stop him; didn't even slow him down. The kind of people who believe in him would say the exposé was just persecution of their messiah. Too many of our fellow anthropoids fall for his kind of thing; we belong to an incredibly credulous species. And don't underestimate him, either. He's dangerous."

Salazar mused: "I'm told he's completely sincere, even if that Gnostic Gospel is, as my father thinks, a forgery."

"No doubt he is sincere in his way. That only makes him more dangerous."

In the customs shed, the fishy smell of Kooks was strong. Each zuta watcher had claimed his or her own baggage and passed inspection. Drumbeats and the wailing music of the chief Sungan instrument, like a hybrid of zither and clarinet, announced the approach of Yaamo, high chief of the Sungarin. Tchitchagov fussed about, getting his charges in line. He said:

"One knee, remember! Two knees would be an invitation to cut off your head. Ready? Down! Down! Vniz!"

The Terrans sank to one knee on the planking as Chief Yaamo strode forward, resplendent in symbols of gold paint spangling his scaly skin. A golden disk hung round his neck on a golden chain. Nodding politely, he said in barely understandable English:

"Wey come, member of ze—de Patey Society! Rise, prease!"

"Is all well with your Highness?" asked Tchitchagov. "Aw iss wey wiss my Highness. Iss aw wey wiss you?"

"All is well with us. Is your Highness's health good?"

"Sanks to our ancestors' spirits, our hess iss good. Iss your hess good?"

"Thanks to the Universal Law, our health is good. Has your Highness lived a tranquil life?"

"Sanks to ze Great Spirit Shiiko, we have rived a very tranqui' rife. We trust you wi' have a successful' visit. But you mush—muss make ze most of your time here, because zis may be ze wast—rast such expedition to Sunga."

Society members stirred and muttered. Tchitchagov spoke to the chief in Sungao, which Salazar could follow: "How means your Highness?"

The chief replied in the same tongue: "It is the price of progress, honorable Tchitchagov. The Adriana Company, represented by their vice president, the honorable Mr. Cantemir, and the chairman of their board, the Reverend Dumfries— There they go now!"

The chief glanced around as the fat cleric and the stocky Cantemir walked past the line of zuta watchers, nodded casually to Chief Yaamo, and went on without further ceremony. Yaamo turned back, resuming:

"As—as I was saying, the honorable Cantemir has made me an offer for the timber on Mount Sungara. He has come hither to render our agreement final. When cutting begins, we cannot have other Terrans running about the mountain, getting in the way of Mr. Cantemir's machines and belike being injured or slain. A part of the contract whereon we have agreed ordains that to avoid possible lawsuits, all Terran visitors to Sunga be barred from the mountain and the surrounding area whilst lumbering be in progress. His company has already brought in the necessary machinery."

Tchitchagov translated for the benefit of such Patelians as could not follow Sungao. Society members burst into cries of dismay, like people who had bought a ticket to one place and found themselves in quite another. Salazar muttered:

"Bet it's really Yaamo who's afraid of lawsuits. Kooks abominate Terran litigation, which they think a plot to steal their lands."

"They may not be far off," replied Suzette Ritter.

Tchitchagov said: "But your Highness, the Patel Society has field trips to Sungara planned for two years in advance! We have already paid your deposit!"

"That," said the chief, "were no obstacle to the proposed agreement, honorable Tchitchagov. When the treaty is signed, the society's payments would be as naught compared to the Adriana Company's royalties. Your advance against the next year's fee would be refunded, and you would have to revise your plans. Zutas flit all over the mainland."

"Your Highness," said Tchitchagov, "this is a serious matter. I doubt whether Mr. Cantemir has presented both sides of the question. May I, therefore—"

"Come to the residence as soon as these formalities are completed and your people settled, and present your arguments. Now, pray introduce your zuta watchers!"

Tchitchagov said to the Patel Society members: "Step forward singly or in couples, please, starting with that end of the line. Bow and give your names as you greet him. Do not fear his offer of a handshake; his claws will not hurt you."

The zuta watchers lined up. They were Terrans of both sexes and a wide spread of ages, with a slight preponderance of women and a tendency toward mature years, getting on but still fit. At that period, modern medicine had more than doubled the normal human life span, so that human beings far into their second century were still active and two-hundred-year-oldsters were not uncommon. The common cliché was that legends promised eternal youth, but in fact medicine had given eternal middle age.

The Terran population of Kukulcan was dominated by three ethnic groups—the Chinese, the Russians, and the Anglophones—but other strains, much mixed, were also common. This group of zuta watchers was mainly Anglophone with a sprinkling of others.

Kirk Salazar found himself behind the Ritters in line. The Ritters advanced, bowed, and shook the chief's scaly, clawed, four-digit hand. Ritter introduced "Dr. Suzette Ritter, my wife."

Salazar in turn stepped forward, saying: "I am Kirk Sheffield Salazar of Henderson." He switched to Sungao. "If I may take the liberty, knows your Highness aught of what befell my colleague, Jean-Pierre Latour?"

The spines on the Kook chief's neck rippled in a way that signified startle. An experienced Terran could infer a Kook's emotions from the movement of those cervical bristles. Since each Kook thus bore a built-in lie detector, this feature might have accounted for their unhuman honesty. Yaamo replied:

"Nay indeed, honorable Sarasara. Naught beyond the fact that this Ratoo went up Mount Sungara and failed to come down again. Belike he remains with the wiseman Seisen."

"Permit me to ask: Who is the wiseman Seisen?"

"He was a teacher in that advanced school which Empress Gariko established in Machura. On retirement he came to Sunga, ascended the mountain, and settled himself to think."

"Do people consult him?"

"We human beings do, aye, but Terrans think they know everything already." For "human being" the chief used the Sungao word konohto, with the "h" pronounced, which Kukulcanians employed about their own kind in exactly the same sense that Terrans referred to themselves as "human beings."

"How does one consult him? By bringing an offering of food?"

Yaamo's neck spines rippled in the Kookish equivalent of a chuckle. "Nay, he raises his own. The needed tribute, to hear his wisdom, is a book, either human—a boxed scroll—or the Terran kind, with all pages bound together at one edge." Yaamo fiddled with his golden disk of office. "Tell me, pray, are you kin to the Terran Sarasara who digs up the remains of ancient cities and burial places?"

"My father."

"He is well regarded here. Are you, like him, connected with one of your institutions of Terran learning?"

"Aye, sir. I am a candidate for the degree of doctor."

"Then you will, certes, find Seisen of interest."

"I thank your Highness and will pursue the matter further."

"That were a worthy course. I congratulate you on your mastery of human speech. Not once have I had to ask you to repeat!"

Salazar made a self-deprecating motion. "Just a quirk of mine, but it is useful in my work."

"May your health continue good!"

"And may your Highness's health surpass even mine!"

"May your ancestral spirits preserve you ..."

Yaamo finally broke off the exchange of formalities to speak to the next Terran in line. Salazar hurried after the Ritters, who walked leisurely toward the exit. Alexis Ritter had rejoined her parents. As a permanent resident, she did not have to go through the formalities that had greeted them.

When Yaamo had disposed of the last Patelian, he said: "And now farewell. Take utmost care of your health!"

Tchitchagov replied: "And may your Highness take utmost care of his health also!"

"May all your lives be tranquil!"

"May your Highness's life be as smooth as a mill-pond!"

"May your ancestral spirits be well disposed toward you!"

"And may your Highness's ancestral spirits sustain him in all ways!"

The Kukulcanian formalities continued as Tchitchagov and the high chief piled good wishes on each other. Then the chief stalked off, surrounded by bodyguards and followed by the musician playing a martial-sounding tune.

Outside on the cobblestones, members of the Patel Society stared at the slatternly town, more Terran than Kukulcanian. As a zuta fluttered overhead in pursuit of insectoid life, a Patelian exclaimed and pointed. At once a dozen pairs of binoculars swung up like the guns of a battery. Terrans across the avenue halted to stare at the zuta watchers.

The zuta looked like a small flying lizard or perhaps like one of the smaller Mesozoic pterosaurs. But its batlike wings bore a colorful pattern like those of a Terran butterfly: gold, ruby, and emerald flashing in the light of Epsilon Eridani.

Salazar pulled out his glasses and followed the example of the others. Although the zuta was in plain sight, he could not seem to find it in the narrow field of the glasses. Mrs. Ramos cried:

"That's a Nicterophis jacksoni, I'll swear!" She marked a tally sheet.

"Right genus, wrong species," said Mr. ben-Yahya. "That's the orlovi."

"No, I'm sure of my identification."

The argument died as the zuta fluttered away and disappeared. Then another took its place, and again the binoculars swung. Beside Salazar, Hilbert Ritter murmured:

"On these field trips, Kirk, the one thing you can count on is a sore neck from staring up."

Tchitchagov puffed up with the mannerisms of a mother hen trying to govern a fractious brood of chicks. When he had caught his breath, he said:

"I—I have obtained transportation. We shall go to Levontin's Paradise Palace, down the main street beyond that mushroom-shaped tower." Tchitchagov pointed. "Do not, from the name, get exaggerated ideas of the quarters. But it is still the best in Sungecho, having what I believe are the only flush toilets on Sunga."

A pair of Kooks—rustics from the symbols spangling their hides—trotted past on jutens. The common riding animal of Kukulcan looked something between a medium-sized bipedal dinosaur and a featherless ostrich. Their large heads ended in hooked beaks like those of Terran birds of prey, and their coppery scales reflected the blazing sun.

The animals bore saddles but no stirrups or bridles. The riders held on with their clawed feet and controlled their mounts by voice, although each juten had a leading rope dangling from its neck. When a juten had been specially trained to carry Terrans, on command the animal grasped its rider's ankles in its handlike forefeet, obviating the need for stirrups. Salazar's father, Keith Salazar, had devised this system many years ago, before Kirk's birth. At that time, the older Salazar was courting his ex-wife, Kara Sheffield, who after their remarriage became Kirk's mother.

A pair of wagons driven by Kooks, each drawn by a kyuumei, a large, horned, reptilian, purplish-brown quadruped, called a "buffalo-lizard" by many Terrans, rumbled up. One wagon bore benches, while Kook porters loaded baggage on the other. Mrs. Eagleton said:

"Igor, why must we ride in these primitive vehicles when the Kooks have perfectly good steam cars?"

Tchitchagov said: "Because the only steam car on Sunga is High Chief Yaamo's personal auto. The Council of Chiefs argues furiously over letting more in. Opponents cite noise and smoke and have so far carried the day."

Salazar said: "Don't think there'll be room for all of us."

"How did you figure that out so quickly?" asked Alexis Ritter.

"We have twenty-three Terrans, counting Igor. The wagon has four benches with space for five butts each, provided none is so fat as the Reverend Dumfries. That's twenty places."

"Let's walk!" said Alexis. "You need the exercise after being cooped up on that little ship. Besides, there wouldn't be room for Hatsa and Hagii. Come on!"

She started off with an aggressive stride while the zuta watchers were still fitting themselves into places on the first wagon. A glance showed Salazar that Tchitchagov was perched atop a pile of baggage on the second wagon. As Salazar followed Alexis, walking fast to catch up, he became aware of two Kooks, each with a rifle slung across its back, following the pair. A glance told him that neither of the twain bore the painted insignia of the Sungecho constabulary; therefore, these had to be the Hatsa and Hagii she had spoken of, apparently bodyguards.

Alexis slowed her taxing pace. Salazar thought that Alexis was an athletic girl, too husky to be altogether cozy. Still, she was certainly one to arouse masculine lust, with the sun agleam on her coppery mop. He said:

"What did you hit George with?"

"Heft this!" She proffered her handbag.

"Jeepers! It must weigh over a kilo. What's in it? Lead sinkers?"

"Gold from the Kashanite treasury."

"Is 'Kashanites' what you call members of your cult?"

"Damn it, it's not a cult! It's a spiritual confluence of minds!"

"Sorry."

"But yes, we do call ourselves the Kashanite Society, after Rostam Kashani, our founder."

They walked silently for a few steps; Salazar had no wish to become entangled in a theological argument. At last he said:

"How come Dumfries and Cantemir walk in here with a mere nod to the chief, when the rest of us had to go through that kneeling rigmarole?"

"Dumfries owns the controlling stock in the Adriana Company and has the final say about paying the chief for his timber. Cantemir's just his flunky. I hear rumors of some big plan those two are cooking, but nothing definite.

"Not to change the subject or anything, but isn't there an odd story about your parents' having been divorced and remarried? It happened before my time, so I haven't any firsthand knowledge."

Salazar sighed; discussion of this quirk in the family history made him uncomfortable. He said: "Just one of those nutty things middle-aged men sometimes do—dump the spouse of their youth to run off with a much younger woman and then wish they hadn't. But it all happened before my time, too."

"Obviously," she said, "since you're the product of their second marriage. How are they getting along now?"

"They seem happy and devoted. She bosses him, and he spoils her; guess he's afraid she might trade him in on another spouse, the way he did to her. What's that structure?" Salazar jerked a thumb at the mushroom-shaped tower as they passed it.

"That's Mao Dai's revolving restaurant, or 'retsuraan' as he calls it in imitation of the Kooks. If you stand still and watch, you'll see it turn."

"What's its source of power?"

"Look over that fence."

Salazar rose on tiptoe to peer. At the base of the tower two large kyuumeis, yoked to two of the four ends of a cruciform whim, walked the device around. A Kook leisurely walked outside the circle, now and then flicking one animal or the other with a whip. A pen beyond held two more kyuumeis, eating from mangers.

Salazar squinted up. Behind him the two wagons summoned by Tchitchagov rumbled past on the waterfront street. "I should estimate four or five revolutions an hour. That implies a gear ratio of—"

"You scientists! Instead of being thrilled by the novelty, your first thought is to turn everything into numbers. Let's move on. You'll want to clean up for dinner, and I'm expecting a—a friend.

"That's Doc Deyssel's clinic on our right. He's the only Terran M.D. on the island, and thank Shiiko he's competent. And there is the library. It has a fine collection of tapes and even some real books."

Salazar joined the three Ritters at the entrance to Levontin's Paradise Palace to walk with them back to Mao Dai's. As he approached, he heard Alexis growl:

"If that bastard has stood me up again ..."

"Maybe he broke a leg or something," said Suzette Ritter.

"Then he could have left word with Levontin ..." She broke off as Salazar approached, and the four set out for the restaurant.

Mao Dai's servitors were all short, yellow-skinned, flat-faced, black-haired, slant-eyed Gueilin types like Mao himself. When the party had been plied with the Kukulcanian distillate that pretended, without great success, to call itself whiskey, Hilbert Ritter asked:

"Alexis, tell us about this cult of yours."

"Father! It's not a cult; it is a spiritual philosophy."

"Call it what you like. But tell me about Kashani. Immigrant from Iran, wasn't he?"

"Rostam Kashani was a man of great spiritual insight, in touch with intelligences other than those inhabiting visible bodies." Alexis stared into the distance, and her voice took on an oratorical quality, as if she were addressing a throng. Some of the other diners turned to look.

"Was?"

"Oh, didn't you know? He's ascended to a higher plane."

"Dead, you mean?"

"If you want to call it that. He sacrificed himself to Shiiko, the spirit of Mount Sungara."

"How? Diving into the crater?"

"Exactly. He held our mortal bodies of no account."

Ritter said: "Mine may be of no account from the cosmic point of view, but it's the only one I've got. Then who runs the cult—excuse me, the spiritual philosophy— now?"

"I do."

The jaws of the three other diners sagged. Suzette said: "You mean you're their high priestess?"

"If you want to put it that way. My official title is Supreme Choraga. I'm expected to set an example for my fellow seekers that shall give them an advantage in assignment to their next incarnations."

The older Ritters exchanged a long glance. Hilbert Ritter said: "Have you some sort of tract or textbook setting forth the theology of—"

"No theology, please!" Alexis interrupted. "We recognize spirits, those of our ancestors not yet reincarnated and spirits of places like Mount Sungara. But no all-powerful gods like those of—"

"Hel-lo, folks!" said George Cantemir, grinning with glass in hand. "Mind if I join you while waiting for my grub?" When the four at the table stared stonily, he added:

"Now, Miss Ritter, I want to apologize for the misunderstanding this afternoon. I was just bein' friendly, not meaning to go beyond the bounds of polite intercourse."

"Depends on what you mean by 'intercourse'," said Alexis. Salazar thought she gave the nearest feminine equivalent of a growl that he could remember hearing.

"I meant just ordinary good manners, miss. It was just a misunderstanding, and you came out of it better'n I did. I've still got a lump on my poor head. See, here? That's right, smile a little. Are you folks going with the rest of the gang to the Michisko Bush?"

"I suppose so," said Hilbert Ritter. "It's on our itinerary. We're to get up early tomorrow. But what we want is the straight goods on this deal between Yaamo and the Adriana Company."

"Just normal lumbering," said Cantemir. "I've got some of our machinery at the base of Sungara now."

"Are you planning to clear-cut the whole mountain?"

"Just the nanshin forest."

"But still clear-cutting?"

"Sure. That's the most efficient, profitable way."

Salazar asked: "How will you cope with the poison-spraying nanshin trees?"

"No problem. We'll wear protective suits."

"But you'll wipe out the local biota, which I'm here to study!"

"Sorry about that, but we can't hold up progress while you superdomes take a century to study the situation. Yaamo wants to uplift and modernize his Kooks, to catch up with the mainland nations, and we'll pay him enough to make it possible. As the boss Kook here, he has the right, by their laws and ours, to sell that stand of timber if he wants. Our population is growing, and people have to live somewhere. The nanshin tree has the best wood for houses on Kukulcan.

"Besides, it'll provide jobs for the Terrans of Sungecho, which is a pretty seedy outpost of humanity. If you say we've got to put up a front for the Kooks so they'll respect us, they'd say: 'But look at Sungecho, with its gangs and crime!' "

Salazar asked: "Alexis, how will that affect your cu— the followers of your philosophy?"

She shrugged. "We'll adapt. We are one with nature now, but nature is always changing. The geologists say that millions of years ago there was no Sunga; it was all built up by the volcanoes. Then it was once connected with the mainland, until the sea level rose."

Hilbert Ritter said: "The Patelians may have something to say about your project. We're not without influence."

Cantemir smiled through his curly blond beard. "Go right ahead! Then we'll see who comes out on top. I know you are all red-hot environmentalists. If Terrans had felt that way a couple of million years ago, we'd still all be running naked through the woods and turning over flat stones for our dinners—a state of culture that, I take it, your daughter wants to go back to.

"Understand, I sympathize with your feelings, but business is business. And there are plenty of other places where you can watch zutas flitting about or kusis sitting on a branch and scratching. Don't take it personally. Just because we disagree don't mean we can't be friendly. Here comes my dinner, so excuse me!"

As Cantemir returned to his solitary table, Salazar leaned forward and said softly: "This looks like an ecological disaster for me as well as for Mount Sungara. If they start cutting the nanshins, the kusis will beat it to another woodland, just to survive. Those lumberjacks will be the kind whose idea of fun on an off day is to take a gun out and shoot something, no matter what. In any case, they'll bollix up my thesis."

"I agree," said Suzette. She looked after Cantemir, now seated and shoveling away. "That man must have a hide as thick as a tseturen's." The tseturen was a huge, massive, four-homed quadruped of the mainland.

"That's how he got to be a successful corporate exec," said Hilbert Ritter.

"Dreadful," said Suzette. "What can Skanda Patel do for his society?"

Hilbert Ritter shrugged. "He's as full of lofty ideals as an eggshell is of egg, but he's more talk than action."

Alexis asked: "Is he the man the society is named for?"

"Yes," said Ritter. "He's a modest fellow who didn't want the name, but the members insisted because he's the founder. He's never mobilized the members for political action. In fact, he looks down on politics and politicians, which didn't do the museum any good when he was director."

"I know Skanda," said Salazar. "He was my father's boss at the University of Henderson Museum until he retired. His wife is a holy terror, but she built up his money until he didn't have to work for a living. Now he just does an occasional dig when he feels like it. Do you know any useful politicians, Doctor Ritter?"

Both older Ritters answered at once, since both bore the title. Hilbert Ritter said: "Maybe I could pull a wire with Basil Aliprandos ..."

Suzette said: "I know the wife of Representative de Sola pretty well ..."

Dinner arrived. During a pause Salazar said: "You should help, Alexis. Set your naturists to raiding the lumber camp and sabotaging their machines."

Alexis smiled grimly. "You don't know what you're asking. Can you imagine fifty-odd naked, unarmed followers attacking a camp full of tough lumberjacks in hobnailed boots, armed with axes and probably guns as well? Besides, Cantemir will probably hire Kook guards."

"You don't wear clothes there?"

"Only when weather demands. The climate's mild, and this is the hot season."

"And unarmed, you say? What do you do if a fyunga or a pack of poöshos attacks?"

"We have a couple of heavy rifles, but so far it's been enough to keep a fire burning."

"Look, Kirk," said Ritter. "Your father's director of the museum, and he's as hot a conservationist as we are. He also wields a big stick politically. Why don't you get him to work on the legislature about this."

"I'm thinking," said Salazar. "It's not really his kind of dispute; he'd rather argue the order of kings of the ancient Nomuruvian Empire. But I'll write him."

"Couldn't you call him on your poignet?"

Salazar shook his head. "We're out of range of Henderson. I shall have to write, and it'll take several days for a letter to reach him by ship and rail."

Ritter leaned forward. "Kirk! The Ijumo sails at midnight. If you can get a letter aboard, it might make all the difference."

Salazar sighed. "Okay, I'll do it."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Several other Patelians entered the restaurant during this conversation. When not greeting fellow zuta watchers with smiles and waves, the quartet discussed ideas for ditching the Adriana Company's project. They rejected many plans and by the end of dinner had not yet found a hopeful one.

Back at Levontin's, Alexis excused herself for a brief, whispered conversation with the innkeeper. Salazar heard Levontin say, spreading his hands in an expression of impotence: "Absolutely not, Miss Ritter! If there had been a message, I should have known it! My people are well trained!"

Salazar bade the senior Ritters good night and walked Alexis to her room. The girl was frowning and muttering expletives under her breath. She opened the door and turned to face him, looking him up and down as if he were a prize piece of livestock. Then she broke into a sunny smile. Without further ado, she slid her arms around his neck for a long, moist kiss. Salazar was so startled that he almost failed to respond, but he quickly pulled himself together. She said:

"How about coming in for a while, Kirk? We ought to get to know each other better."

Salazar's blood pounded in his ears. His own experience with women had been negligible. He had driven himself so hard in his studies as to leave little time for even the most innocent dalliance. He pushed himself because of a burning desire to equal or surpass his father, whom he vastly admired for his signal achievements and fair renown among the Terrans of Kukulcan. Keith Salazar was planet-famed for the discovery of the buried library of the ancient Kookish king, Bembogu of Nomuru.

If Keith Adams Salazar had become the planet's foremost archaeologist, Kirk Sheffield Salazar was determined to become the foremost biologist or perish trying. The older Salazar encouraged and supported his son's progress.

And now, unless all indications were wrong, Alexis was offering the utmost in female hospitality. The thought made him pant with anticipation, tempered by fear that he might not measure up. The nasty little thought also crept in that he was substituting for a truant lover of Alexis. Hesitantly he said:

"Look, I've got to write that letter to my father."

"Can't that wait?"

"I might miss the Ijumo's sailing. I'll come back for a proper good night."

"Oh, all right, if you must," she said.

Back in his room Salazar dictated his letter into a small wire recorder, extracted the spool, put it in a pouch, addressed it in English and Feënzuo, and applied a United Settlements stamp to the pouch.

Kukulcanian postal service was still chaotic. He would have to pay the postal clerk on the Ijumo, hope that this person would put the letter aboard the right train at Oõi, and hope that the conductor would put it on the right connecting train at Machura to Henderson. When it reached the museum, assuming that it did, the elder Salazar would have to pay a whopping bill of postage due, owed to each of the carriers through whose hands the missive had passed. The wonder was that any letter reached its destination.

Salazar walked swiftly to the pier, where the Ijumo was getting up steam. He paid the postal clerk and was on his way back to Levontin's when lightning flashed, thunder roared, and rain came down in bucketfuls. He reached the inn soaked.

In his room he shed his wet clothes and hung them up to dry. Since they were drably durable garments for travel, he did not fear damage from wetting. But there was something he was supposed to do once he got the letter off. What was it?

Oh, yes, he must enter a record of the day's events in his journal while they were still fresh in his mind. If he did not faithfully discharge this task, then, when he later came to write up his expedition, dates and places would be jumbled.

He sprawled on the bed, holding the recorder near his mouth, and dictated a narrative into the machine. At the first reference to Alexis Ritter, he remembered that she was waiting for an assignation.

Kirk Salazar had a compulsion to finish any task he began before starting on another, despite hell or high water. Having commenced this job he was determined to finish it before letting anything distract him. Besides, it had only a few minutes more to go. He dictated as much verbatim conversation as he could remember.

He awoke to find that the time, by his poignet, was nigh unto dawn. Then he remembered Alexis's invitation. Now, however, seemed hardly the time. He cursed himself as an ineffectual incompetent.

In the morning Salazar entered the room where Levontin's staff served breakfast. When he sighted Alexis, he started toward her with a cheerful "Good morning, Al—"

She saw him coming and turned her back.

"Hello, Kirk!" boomed George Cantemir around a doughnut. He gulped acha, the Kukulcanian analogue of coffee, and asked: "Sleep well?"

"So-so."

Cantemir drew Salazar toward a corner and lowered his voice. "I saw your little byplay just now. What did you do to get her sore?"

"Fell asleep."

"Huh?"

"Yep. She told me to come back for a proper good night after I'd done some necessary work. But I fell asleep on my bed, and when I woke up the sky was getting light."

Cantemir shook with suppressed mirth. "No wonder! You got her all horny, and then, when she expected a royal fuck, you stood her up! If I'd known, I'd have been glad to substitute."

"Sure that's what she wanted?"

"Oh, sure. I've asked around, and she's a hot piece. Up in the hills, with her cult, she's holier than thou and asks the same of her suckers. But every couple of sixtnights she comes down on the train for a good frigging with some local. Named Peters, I hear. In fact, I think that's him now."

He jerked his leonine head toward a large young man with sandy hair and a snub nose standing near Alexis. The young man was speaking in an earnest undertone, with rapid gestures. Probably, thought Salazar, trying to explain why he had not appeared for his date with Alexis.

"Better luck next time," said Cantemir, slapping Salazar's narrow back. "What work was so important you couldn't break it off for a good screw?"

"I had to write—" Salazar began. He almost blurted out that he was writing his father to use his influence against Cantemir's project when he realized what a bungle that would be. He finished: "I mean, I had to dictate my day's observations."

Cantemir grinned. "You've got some growing up to do yet, boy. No real man lets clerical work stand in the way of free cunt; only with her, watch out she doesn't hit you with a bag full of buckshot, like she did me. Going to look at the giant makutos in the Michisko Bush?"

"Yep. I'm told they're the only herd of them on this island."

"I'll ask Tchitchagov to let me tag along. I haven't seen them, either, and I want to before we kill them off. See you!" Cantemir walked off.