Shrouded Planet

I

The hard, savage mandibles of the hugl slashed at Kiv peGanz Brajjyd and missed. Kiv jerked his hand out of the beast's way just in time. Again the hugl lashed out—and this time, the animal connected. The powerful jaws came together; Kiv's blood spurted down over the creature's head.

"Damn," he snapped, irritated.

The animal's little teeth had taken a nasty bite out of the ball of his thumb. Before the hugl could snap again, Kiv dropped it into the little wooden box he usually carried with him for just this purpose, and clicked the lid shut.

"Bite you?" his wife Narla asked.

"Yes. Nasty little beast," Kiv said without rancor. ''I should have learned how to handle them by now. If they're all as hungry as this one, I can see why they're having so much trouble with them on the northern farms."

He turned the box over. The bottom, which was made of glass, permitted him to see the hugl. Clashing its jaws, the inch-long creature scrambled madly around the inside of the hard, plastic-impregnated box.

Narla iKiv geFulda Sesom, who had only recently been privileged to add the "iKiv" that denoted marriage to her name, looked with interest at the little box in her husband's hand.

"What's so different about it, Kiv?"

"The armor," he told her. "It's black. I've never seen a black one before. All the specimens I have in my lab at the School are brown." He wrapped his pocket kerchief around the nipped thumb and tied it. "Take this thing, will you?"

He handed the box up to her, and she stared at it curiously. Kiv dug his high-heeled riding boot into the stirrup and pulled himself up to the saddle. "Jones will be interested in that specimen,'' he said, as they guided their deests out of the roadside thicket where they had paused for midmeal. "Put it in the saddlebag. And be sure to remind me to show it to Jones, as soon as we're back at the School."

She nodded and reached back obediently to stow the box in the leather pouch. Kiv felt a glow of pleasure as he watched the smooth play of her muscles under the fine golden down that covered her skin.

Since she was clad, as he was, in the traditional Nidorian dress—sleeveless vest and thigh-length shorts—he had no thought about the beauty of her clothing; it was her own beauty he saw. She might not be the most beautiful girl on Nidor, but she approached Kiv's personal ideal well enough to satisfy him.

He tipped his head back and squinted at title eternally clouded sky. The Great Light was almost at His brightest, spreading His effulgence magnificently over the green countryside. It was a little after midday.

The Earthman, Jones, said that the Great Light was a "blue-white star." Just what a star was, Kiv didn't know. They were supposed to be above the cloud layer. Some of the things Jones said didn't make much sense, Kiv thought. But it was better than two cycles since they had arrived on Nidor and made themselves known to Grandfather Kinis peCharnok Yorgen, and the Earthmen had said many strange things in that time.

"We've got about an hour's ride ahead of us," Kiv remarked. "If we make good time, that is. I can't wait to see the School again, Narla. This vacation seemed to last forever."

"You've been terribly anxious to get back to work, haven't you? I felt it all the time you were home. You seemed so anxious to leave that I almost felt like apologizing to your parents. But—"

"The School is very important to me, Narla. I don't have to tell you that.'' It was a great honor to be chosen to study at the Earthmen's School, and Kiv was conscious of that.

"Of course, silly. I know," Narla said.

Kiv snapped the reins, and his deest broke into a smooth trot, its long legs pistoning up and down. Narla's mount kept pace easily.

"How long will it be before you write your book?" she asked. "I mean, do you think you'll manage to get the rest of the data you need this term? Seems to me you've covered the hugl about as thoroughly as the little creatures deserve to be covered."

Kiv nodded. "I think I'm nearly done. It's going to be a rather scholarly thing, I'm afraid; no one is very interested in the life cycle of the hugl. Otherwise some-one at the School would have thought of the project long before I did."

"I know. But your work is still good training for you, even if it's not terribly important,'' Narla said. "As the Scripture says, 'The observation of life permits one to attain an inner peace.' "

Kiv frowned.' T'm not sure the Scripture means that. I don't think they were talking about lower forms of life."

"Of course they were! It says 'life,' doesn't it? And if a hugl isn't alive, I don't know what it is."

Kiv grinned and rode on silently for a while, resting lightly in the saddle while his deest carried him at a swift pace over the matted turf of the road.

Finally he said, "It may be so. Certainly Jones was all in favor of my studying the hugl as my big project. And I don't think Jones would permit anything that violated the Word of the Scriptures. Hoy! What's that?"

Narla, startled by his sudden change of tone, glanced quickly at him. Kiv was pointing down the road with one golden arm outstretched.

Someone stood in the middle of the readjust where it forked. As they drew nearer, they saw it was a man, in the familiar blue tunic of a priest, who held up his hand as Kiv and his wife approached. The two riders pulled their animals to a halt and bowed their heads reverently.

"The peace of your Ancestors be with you always,'' said the priest ritually.

"And may the Great Light illumine your mind as He does the world, Grandfather," Kiv and Narla chanted together.

"How may we serve you, Grandfather?'' asked Kiv.

"By carrying a message. Did you intend to cross the Bridge of Klid?"

Kiv nodded. He took careful notice of the other man. The priest was not too much older than Kiv himself, and was evidently a recent graduate of one of the priestly Schools—perhaps even Bel-rogas. His bearing had all the dignity that was proper to his office.

"Yes, we were going to use the bridge," Kiv said.

The Grandfather shook his head. "I'm afraid you'll have to use the Bridge of Gon and go through the city, my son. The Bridge of Klid is being repaired."

Kiv barely managed to conceal a frown. Another delay! And, of course, the proper thing for him to do would be to offer his services in the repair work. He began to think he would never get back to the School.

''If you would do so," the priest went on, ''it would be appreciated if you could go to the nearest communicator and tell the City Fathers that we need more men to help repair the bridge. Give them my name: Dom peBril Sesom."

"I'll be glad to. What happened, Grandfather?"

"A section of the roadbed near the center has collapsed. We want to get the job done before the evening traffic begins."

"I see," Kiv said. "Very well, Grandfather. My wife and I will go on to the city and get hold of a communicator. Then I'll come back and help with the work. My wife can go on to the School."

The priest's reaction was an immediate one. "The School? The Bel-rogas School?"

Kiv nodded.

Frowning, the priest said, "In that case I don't see how I can take up your time with bridge repair work. Your studies are much more important. Anyone can repair a bridge; only a few can assimilate the Scriptures and the Law. And,'' he added, a faint wistfulness in his voice that told Kiv much, "Even fewer are worthy of studying at Bel-rogas. Go and give my message to the City Fathers, and then continue on to the School." "Very well, Grandfather."

The priest raised one hand in benediction. "Go, with the blessings of the Great Light, and Those Who have passed on to His Realm."

Leaving the priest, Kiv and Narla turned their deests and took the southern branch of the road toward the great city of Gelusar, a long ribbon of a road curling through the gray-green farmlands.

"Nuisance," Narla said.

"What is?"

"This business of treating us as if we were likely to melt in the first rainfall. Did you see the way he looked at you when you said we were from the School? 'Your studies are of greater importance,' she mimicked. 'I can not permit you to work on the bridge.' And I'll wager that's what you wanted him to say, too. You didn't want to work on that bridge, but you had to offer for the sake of courtesy. You just want to get back to the School, and Jones."

"Narla!"

He speared her with an angry scowl. "When a Grandfather tells you something—" he began.

"I know," she said, crestfallen. "I'm sorry."

They rode on in silence for a while, Kiv brooding over Narla's lapse of taste. Kiv prided himself on his keen sense of the right; he believed that was why he had been chosen for the School, and he hoped that someday it would place him on the Council of Elders.

The road to the Bridge of Gon was a narrow, winding one, and Kiv's deest required considerable guiding at each turn. A stupid animal, Kiv reflected, as for what seemed the twentieth time in the last ten minutes he put pressure on the reins to turn the deest.

"Narla?" he said after a while. "Narla, that's the second time I've heard you question a Grandfather's instructions since we left my parents. And I don't like it—not at all."

"I'm sorry, I told you. Why can't you leave it at that?"

"But the tone of your voice when you mimicked him!" Kiv protested. "Narla, don't you know what respect means?"

"All I wanted to know is why we 're so sacred,'' she said petulantly. "As soon as he found out we were from Bel-rogas, we suddenly became too important to help repair the bridge. Why?"

''Because we've been chosen, Narla. Only a few are chosen. And the Law, Narla—that's what's important. The Grandfather told you: anyone can fix a bridge. We're special."

The Earthmen had come from the sky—from the stars, Jones said, whatever they were—from the Great Light Himself, for all Kiv knew. The Earthmen were there to teach; his job was to learn.

"I'm sorry," Narla said a third time. "I'm only a woman, I guess. I don't understand these things."

Be patient, Kiv thought wearily. Patient.

After a long spell of hard riding, they eased up on their tired deests to rest them for the final lap of the journey.

Narla had said nothing all this time. Finally she asked: "Is Jones really from the sky? I mean, is it true that the Earthmen come from the Great Light?"

She keeps asking questions like a small child who's too impatient to sit still, Kiv thought. It's been a long trip; she's tired.

"I don't know," he said, keeping his voice quiet and matter-of-fact. "I don't see how they could come from Nidor, and the Grandfathers tell us that the Earthmen do not lie. The Grandfathers have accepted the Earthmen."

''And therefore we accept them,'' Narla completed. The response was ritualistic. "Of course," said Kiv.

And then the first scattered outskirts of the City of Gelusar came into sight.

II

They rode into Holy Gelusar—the city legend said was founded by the Great Light Himself. The vast, sprawling city was the center of all Nidorian culture. For two thousand and more years, it had stood almost unchanged. The city spread out radially from its center, the Great Temple, where the mighty Council of Sixteen Elders ruled the world of Nidor according to the Scripture and the Law.

Kiv and Narla guided their deests through a crowded thoroughfare that led toward the heart of the city, looking for a public communicator. They finally found one near a shabby little side street that edged off toward the river. A few black-clad sailors lounged about, evidently just having come up the Tammul river from the southerly harbor of Tammulcor. Dismounting, Kiv eyed them uneasily; coming from a line of farmers and priests, he had a deep-rooted dislike for seamen, who tended, in the main, to be a blaspheming lot.

Kiv entered. A chubby little man behind the counter took Kiv's request.

"This is a local call, then, not long distance," muttered the clerk, half to himself. "Hmmm. That will be three pieces and four."

Kiv scooped a ring of coins from his vest, unclipped several, and handed them over. He walked to the booth and closed the door. Then, picking up the microphone, he flipped the switch.

"Communications central," said a voice from the speaker.

"This is Kiv peGanz Brajjyd. I have a message for the Uncle of Public Works."

"One moment.'' Kiv heard a series of clicks over the speaker, and then a new voice.

"Office of Public Works. What is it, please?"

"I'm bearing a message for the Uncle from Grandfather Dom peBril Sesom at the Bridge of Klid. He asked me to tell you that he needs another squad of men if he's going to get the bridge repaired for the evening traffic."

"And your name?''

Kiv identified himself, was thanked, and cut the connection.

Outside the communications office, he found Narla talking to an elderly man—a farmer, obviously, judging by his dress.

"—and I tell you, something has to be done!" the farmer was saying. "My sons and their families are fighting desperately now, but if we run short of Edris powder, there won't be a crop this year."

"It sounds bad,'' Narla said. "And you say there are other farmers having the same sort of trouble?"

"Plenty of them,'' said the farmer. "The Great Light alone knows how many million of those damned hugl are chewing up the countryside out in my sector."

"Your pardon, Aged One," Kiv broke in, using a term of respect even though the farmer was not really old enough to deserve the flattering term. "What's this about the hugl?"

The man turned. "They 're eating my crops! They 're swarming again. The swarms eat and strip everything in their path. And that goes for animals, too. They eat everything!''

"I realize that," Kiv said patiently. "But I hardly see that it's anything to worry about. This happens periodically, doesn't it?"

"Never like this. It seems to get worse all the time.''

Kiv noticed for the first time that the farmer looked tired and travel worn. The fine golden down that covered his skin was heavy with road dust. Kiv realized suddenly that he and Narla probably looked about the same.

"I've come to talk to one of the Elder Grandfathers," the man continued. "One of my own clan, with whom I schooled as a boy. We need help out there." He took a deep breath. "May you have many children to honor you."

"And may your children and their children honor you forever,'' Kiv called after him as he turned and headed into the communicator office.

He remounted his deest, turned the animal's long, bony head gently, and trotted with Narla down the thoroughfare toward the Great Temple.

"He seemed worried," Narla said.

"They all do. If you'd had as much contact with farmers as I have, you'd understand. Every so often, the hugl march, and when they do, the farmers worry. Edris powder is expensive, but it's the only thing that will control the hugl. Fortunately, it does control them. It's a nerve poison, and it kills within a few minutes.''

"The way he talked, you'd think that the hugl were going to eat up every bit of organic matter in the whole world."

"Remember, darling, to a farmer, his farm is the whole world."

"It's almost as if the hugl wanted to destroy us," Narla said, her voice changing suddenly.

Kiv looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"According to the Scripture, 'To destroy a thing, one must cut at the root, and not at the branch.' And certainly, the farmer is the root of our economy."

Kiv laughed aloud. "I see what you mean. Well, it just proves that all living things obey the Law. But I'm sure the hugl don't do it consciously."

They rode on through the city, watching the peddlers and vendors hawking their wares. They passed by the Central Railway Terminal, where the little steam engines chuffed and puffed their way across the ancient overhead rails.

"We could have been to the School by now," Kiv complained. "Having to detour through the city like this is an awful waste of time."

"What would you have done?'' Narla asked, a smile crinkling the skin around her eyes. "Swim the river where the Klid Bridge was out?"

Kiv chuckled.

"It might have been cooler at that," Narla went on. "I'm going to be in bad need of a bath by the time we get to the School. It's so much dustier here in the city.''

Several minutes later the Great Temple came into view. Narla glanced at Kiv and said softly, "Should we go in, Kiv?"

Kiv thought of the interior of the Temple—the vast rows of kneeling stands, the brilliant white glare of the altar, where the beams of the Great Light were focused through the huge lens in the ceiling, and the restful silence of the flickering incense candles.

But he shook his head. "No," he said. "We should have been at the School by now." Catching the little spark of petulance that flickered for a moment in Narla's eyes, he added, "We'll come back on the next Holy Day. I promise."

She nodded in silent agreement.

"That's our road," Kiv said. "Over there."

The Bel-rogas School of Divine Law was situated five miles outside the city of Gelusar, up a long, twisting turf road. They trotted out to where the road began, and started up the hill.

The Earthman Jones was a tired-looking man with faded blue eyes and a short, stiff brown beard that provided a never-ending source of conversation for the beardless Nidorians.

"Glad to see you back," he said as Narla and Kiv entered the Central Room of the School's main building, after having stabled their deests outside. He was sitting comfortably on a bench in one corner of the big room, leafing through a ponderous leather-bound volume.

"Have a nice visit?" Jones asked amiably. "How were the folks?"

"My parents were in good health," Kiv said. "As were Narla's."

"Good to hear it," the Earthman said. He closed his book and replaced it on a shelf just above his head. "Well? Sorry vacation's over?"

"Not at all," Kiv said. "I didn't realize how much the School meant to me until the vacation time came. All year long I was waiting impatiently for classes to end so I could go back home—"

''—But as soon as he got home he started counting the days before School started again,'' Narla said. "He just couldn't wait."

"Impatient, eh?" Jones said. He frowned as if considering something.

"Yes," Kiv confessed. "Impatient."

Narla said, "It's been awful, Jones. He's been ordering me around as if I were his deest. We couldn't even stop off at the Great Temple on our way through Gelusar; he was in such a hurry to get back.''

"That's not true!" protested Kiv. "I did try to help repair that bridge, didn't I? And they wouldn't let me!"

"What bridge?" Jones asked.

"The Bridge of Klid. Roadbed collapsed. That's why we took the back road."

"I figured something like that must have happened. I've never seen two more bedraggled-looking people than you two. Why don't you head up to your room and get some of that dust off your skin?"

"Good idea." Kiv looked enviously at Jones' smooth skin. "You Earthmen are lucky," he said. "You have all your fur under your skin."

"A mere matter of Providence,'' Jones said. "For so the Great Light decreed."

"And so shall it be," Kiv completed.

"Come on," Narla said. "Let's wash up."

They started to move toward the great staircase that led up to the students' rooms. Kiv felt a warm sense of being home again when he saw the thick banister of glossy black wood.

"I suppose we're in the same room as we were last semester?"

"There's been no change in room assignment," Jones said.

"I was afraid of that,'' said Kiv glumly. He stared up at the winding staircase. "That means another year of struggling up seven flights of stairs." Drawing in a resolute breath, he said, "Oh, well. So shall it be, the Scripture says. Let's go."

Kiv took Narla by one hand, hoisted his saddlebag with the other, and they started up the stairs.

When Kiv came down, half an hour later, Jones was sitting exactly where he had been before.

"You look a lot cleaner now," Jones said.

Kiv smiled broadly. "It's astonishing what a quick shower can do. But Narla's still up there scrubbing herself; her skin's glistening by now, and she still maintains she's covered with dust."

"It's been a pretty dry month. The roads are dusty.''

"Don't we know it!" Kiv started to sit down, then recalled the little box that had been in his saddlebag. He clapped his hands together and dashed up the stairs, returning a few moments later with the box.

"I found this specimen on the road, when we stopped for midmeal. And forgot all about it till now, like the stupid deest I am." He handed the box to Jones.

The Earthman turned the box over and scrutinized the little animal within. The hugl still was battering the side of the box in an attempt to escape, but it had made no impression on the hard plastic.

"You notice that it's got black armor,'' Kiv pointed out.

"Oh, yes, I see that. I'm pretty well aware of what these things should look like, you know." Jones drew the box close to his eye and peered at the hugl.

"Beg pardon," Kiv said. He started to make the ritualistic bow of forgiveness, but Jones checked him with a quick gesture.

"All right, Kiv. I'm not offended.'' He gave the box a quick flip; the unfortunate little prisoner went over on its back. Jones studied the creature's underside for a moment, before the hugl managed to right itself.

"What do you make of it, Jones? Why is it black? All the others are brown, you know."

"Yes, I do know," Jones said, a trifle impatiently. But before Kiv had a chance even to begin apologizing again, Jones had uncoiled himself from the bench and was walking briskly across the Central Room.

"Come with me," he said.

Kiv followed, trying to keep up with the pace set by the long-legged Earthman. "Where are we going?"

"You have become impatient, Kiv. Always bursting out with questions?"

Kiv smiled. He recalled that not long before, he had been criticizing Narla for the same thing. Apparently he shared her fault, since he had managed to give offense to Jones three times within just a few minutes.

Had Jones been an Elder, Kiv reflected, I'd be still finishing my ritual apology, with numbers two and three to go. It's a good thing Jones is different.

''Here we are," Jones said. He fumbled at his waist until he managed to detach his door-opener from the belt of his shorts. He inserted it; the door clicked open.

They were in Kiv's laboratory.

"To forestall your question," Jones said, "Yes, I have been taking care of your pets while you were gone, as requested."

"I never doubted it," Kiv said.

"I know." Jones smiled. "Pardon me when I tease you. You're so solemn sometimes."

I'll never get used to the way he talks, Kiv thought. As if I were his brother, almost. And he's older than I am, by the Light! Perhaps the Earthmen will never understand that they are due the greatest respect.

Jones drew out the box containing Kiv's hugl.

"While you were gone, I started a new nest. Come here and look at it, will you?"

Kiv walked to the cabinet near the window and peered in. The cabinet swarmed with hugl, fiercely tearing what looked like the haunch of a deest to ribbons.

And every one of them was a dark, glossy black.

Kiv looked up, startled.

"They're just like mine," he said. "Black!"

"Exactly," Jones said. "Your specimen is of a type not exactly uncommon in these parts. As a matter of fact, I collected all of these on the farm of one Korvin peDrang Yorgen, not very far from here. His farm was completely overrun with them about three days ago. It should take these black hugl about ten days to reach your father's farm in—where is it—Kandor?"

Kiv stared at the Earthman's bland, unexpressive face. Suddenly, he remembered the weary old farmer Narla had encountered outside the communications office, and how he had protested so bitterly that the onslaughts of the hugl seemed to get worse every year.

"These hugl are all over the district?"

"All over," Jones said. "They go from farm to farm. Eating. They're the hungriest creatures I've ever seen. Take a look at Korvin peDrang's farm later in the day. Right out in front you'll see a very fine deest skeleton. The hugl picked it clean of flesh in less time than I can tell about it."

Kiv squinted into the cabinet again, watching the furious milling-about of the little animals. They were marching round and round their enclosure, as if mere motion would eventually free them.

"I'll testify that they 're hungry beasts." He held out his bandaged thumb for Jones' inspection. "This one I brought back took a neat chunk out of me while I was collecting him."

Jones nodded. "Oh, they'll eat anything, all right. Ask some of our farmers."

"It's funny," Kiv remarked. "Here I am, an expert on hugl, and the first time the little beasts do something significant I have to be miles away! Some specialist I am! My own animals develop a new species and begin eating deests, and I don't find out about it for days."

He stared gloomily into the big tank where his hugl larvae lived. The little teardrop-shaped animals— "water wiggles," the farmers called them—were paddling peacefully up and down in the brackish pond water Kiv had so carefully transported to his laboratory from the nearby lake where he had collected them.

"Will these be black or brown?" he asked Jones.

"How should I know? Ask them."

Kiv smiled, concealing his feeling of annoyance at the Earthman's flippancy. "I haven't learned their language," he said. "Or they haven't learned mine."

He looked back over his shoulder at Jones, who was staring out the window, watching the stream of radiance from the Great Light slowly fade from the clouded skies. It was approaching nightfall.

"I guess the poor farmers are working all day and all night to get their fields sprayed with Edris powder," Kiv said.

"They are. They've used so much that the supply is starting to run low. You can almost smell the Edris drifting on the wind, they've used so much."

"That's good. Hugl make very interesting beasts to study—but I don't feel so affectionate toward them when they threaten the crops. And it's a lucky thing the Edris powder controls them so well."

"Very lucky," said Jones. He turned to face Kiv, and there was a curious twinkle in his eyes. "But there's one other thing I haven't told you yet. The Edris powder isn't controlling these black hugl at all. Not at all."

III

Picture a multilegged little animal about half as long as your thumb. Now multiply it by a factor of between one and three million. Picture this vast horde of vicious, eternally hungry little monsters moving slowly but inexorably over the farmland of Nidor's one great continent.

Every lake and every pond could become a focal point of the infection, from which the predators would spread, consuming everything in their path.

That was the picture that sprang into Kiv's mind. If what Jones said was true, if Edris powder could no longer control the hugl, then—then—

His mind simply failed to grasp the immensity of the disaster. So he rejected it. He shook his head, partly in negation, partly to clear it.

"That doesn't seem right," he said uneasily. "Edris powder will kill hugl. It's always killed them. For thousands of years. Why shouldn't it kill them now? What difference does their color make?"

The last glow of the Great Light streamed through the window and outlined Jones' head. The Earthman's face was coolly expressionless.

"That's what you ought to find out, isn't it?"

"But—but Jones—how do you know Edris powder won't kill them?"

"The same way you would have found out if you'd been here when the first ones appeared.'' The Earthman stopped, his alien eyes looking at Kiv's own.

Kiv met the Earthman's glance, as he tried to penetrate the peculiar logic of Jones' thought processes.

"If I'd caught one, I'd have tried to dissect it, I suppose. Naturally, I'd have killed it first. But I'd have used the gas generator. I don't understand."

Jones smiled. "That's because I withheld a minor bit of information. The gas generator overheated several weeks ago and cracked."

Kiv nodded. "So you used Edris instead. And—it didn't work?"

Frowning, the Earthman said, "I wouldn't say it didn't work altogether. The thing finally died, but it took a rather long time. Four days."

"Four days?" Kiv's voice held a touch of awe. The long shadows began to gather in the little laboratory room, and he reached for the illuminator cord. "Four days?" He paused, holding the cord, letting the implications of Jones' statement sink in.

There was a diffident knock on the door. Narla stepped inside.

"I thought I'd find you here." She looked around. "What are you two so somber about? Look."

She held out a small printed booklet. "According to the Term Bulletin, I'm eligible to take Grandfather Syg's course—Application of Canon Law. Didn't you say you were going to take it, Kiv?"

"I wouldn't miss it for anything," Kiv said, glad to get his mind off the peculiarities of the black hugl for a moment.

"Grandfather Syg is a brilliant man," Jones said in his soft voice. "I believe McKay is working with him on teaching technique.'' Abruptly, Jones rose. "You'll have to excuse me now," he said.

After Jones had left the lab, Kiv turned to look again at the peacefully-swimming hugl larvae. "I don't think I'll ever understand these Earthmen," he said.

"Nor will I," Narla agreed. "But you'll have to admit that the School has done some wonderful things for Nidor."

"Yes," Kiv said absently.

"Their new teaching techniques enable us to learn faster and remember more. We can understand the Law and the Scriptures much better than any of our Ancestors did."

Kiv hardly heard her. He continued to stare at the larva tank. Then the meaning of her words reached him, and he saw that she was implying criticism of the Ancestors. And that, to Kiv's tradition-heavy mind, was not far from sacrilege.

"Narla!"

"I'm sorry,'' she said quickly. "I didn't mean to say anything disrespectful. I guess I'll never understand.'' And then he had to console her.

Before another day had passed, all the students of the Bel-rogas School had returned. The spacious green parks that surrounded the cluster of buildings were soon filled with young men and women, and the soft hum of their conversation carried through the air.

But their talk now vibrated with strange undertones. Several of them from the northern province of Sugon had not shown up at all. Rumor had it that they were fighting to save their parents' farms from the onslaught of the armies of hugl. And Kiv didn't like it.

"There should be something we can do about it,'' he exclaimed to Narla. "There must be some way of stopping them."

"Edris powder,'' Narla said. "Edris powder kills the hugl. Edris powder has always killed the hugl."

"But it's not killing them now," Kiv said savagely, and sank back into his gloom. The new semester was sliding by, and only one thing obsessed him: the failure of the Edris powder.

The Scripture prescribed Edris powder. Not in so many words, perhaps. But it did say, "Those ways are best which have been tried and pass the test.''

Edris powder had passed the test. As long as there had been hugl, the Edris powder had controlled them.

But now the powder was failing. Could the test be passed once and then failed, Kiv wondered?

And more important: could the Scripture be wrong?

The thought sickened him.

The first three days of the new semester made little impression on him. He studied, but only half-heartedly, and what he learned left him as soon as classes ended. On the fourth day, eight of the young men Kiv knew asked permission to leave. They had received word that they were needed at home.

Within a week, the hugl problem had grown from a nuisance to the status of a full-fledged menace.

"You're not studying," Narla said, as Kiv stared uneasily at the page of his textbook. "You 're looking, but you're not studying. What's the matter?"

"Nothing," he said, and tried to focus his attention. But he was unable to study. He rubbed the palm of his hand over the light golden hair that blurred the outlines of his face, and shifted worriedly in his seat. He felt nervous without quite knowing what he was nervous about. The destruction of acres of crops, and even the occasional reports of lives being lost, bothered him— but he knew it was something else, something deeper and subtler, that gnawed at the back of his mind.

I'll look at it as if I'm an Earthman, he told himself. The Scripture says, Rely on trusted things. The Scripture itself is a trusted thing. For thousands of years it has guided us safely. We are happy, contented with our world and its ways.

But what happens when the trusted guide no longer leads in the right direction? For a moment, Kiv pretended that he was Jones, and tried to look at the situation through the alien eyes of an Earthman.

When the trusted guide no longer leads, Jones might say—what?

Get a new guide?

He sat down to think it through—the whole thing, still using Jones' mind as a focus. And when he came up with what he thought was a conclusion, he went somewhat timidly to Jones.

He explained his thought.

"I don't quite see what you mean, Kiv," the Earthman said, his eyes inscrutable. He leaned back in the comfortable chair, facing Kiv in the tiny cubicle that was Jones' office.

"Well, look here: we know that Edris powder is a nerve poison, right?"

Jones nodded wordlessly.

"Well, then, why doesn't it kill this new kind of hugl? I thought about it a long time, and I finally came up with an answer—at least, I think it's an answer." Kiv looked at Jones for reassurance; the Earthman seemed somehow to smile with his eyes.

"Edris kills through the epidermis of the animal," Kiv went on. "It doesn't bother them if they eat it. Now: if a nerve poison doesn't work, it's because it's not getting to the nerves. I checked my theory by measuring the thickness of the chitin armor of these black hugl, and I came up with something odd: the armor is half again as thick and considerably denser than the armor of the normal animal. The Edris takes longer to penetrate, and it takes more of it. That's my guess. How does it sound to you?"

Jones rubbed his smooth fingers through his chin hair. "It sounds perfectly logical to me. What about it?"

"Well, then, if we kill them when they're still in the larval stage, they won't have the protection armor. Edris can be put in the lakes and ponds in quantities great enough to kill the larval hugl without endangering any other aquatic life."

"Perhaps," Jones said.

"I'm sure of it," returned Kiv, just a little surprised at his own new confidence. "I'd like to go down to Gelusar to see the Council of Elders. If they'll send the word out over the wires in time, we can stop the hugl onslaught before it gets any further and becomes really serious. If you would come with me to Gelusar, we could explain how this might work, and—"

He stopped. He could read the expression on the Earthman's face clearly, and he knew what it meant.

Jones confirmed it.

"I'm sorry, Kiv. We're here only to teach, not to interfere in government policies. If you want to go to the Council, you certainly have my permission to do so. In fact, you don't even need my permission." Jones smiled. "It is said in the Scripture: 'You shall govern yourselves according to the Law.' " He accented the yourselves.

Kiv considered that for a moment. "All right," he said. "You've got me there. But it's not fair."

"The Scripture is a potent arguing force, Kiv. Don't ever forget that." The Earthman's pale blue eyes looked steadily at him. "If you can understand and use the Scripture and the Law, you need fear nothing— neither here, nor in the sky."

"I—I see. Very well, Jones. If you think it's the right way, I'll go to the Council alone."

Kiv left the room without another word. His thoughts were confused, not angry. Somehow, the Earthmen always seemed to strike at the very root of a problem, no matter how complex.

And they could back up their solutions with unerring reference to the unanswerable Scripture.

Kiv turned his thoughts over in his mind as his deest trotted down the winding road to the Holy City.

Gelusar, located centrally on Nidor in the heart of the Province of Dimay, perched on the river Tammul and thus was both the religious and commercial center of the nation. In the heart of all loomed the Great Temple.

Kiv had brought his notebooks and his specimen drawings with him; they would constitute his argument in favor of the new plan. He would have to be absolutely sure of what he was saying before he would be able to convince the all-powerful Council of Elders.

He had plenty of time. Because of the press of the emergency, it took four days to gain an audience with the Elder of his Clan.

Kiv spent the four days wandering the city, trying not to worry. Narla came down from the School to join him on the second day, and they passed most of their time in the Great Temple, staring at the huge lens through which the Great Light was focused.

Finally, notification came through that Grandfather Bor peDrogh Brajjyd would see him.

Theoretically, any of the Elders of the Council of Sixteen would have done—but in practice it was customary to call upon one's own Clan Elder. As a member of the Clan Brajjyd, Kiv was obliged to seek audience with Grandfather Bor peDrogh Brajjyd.

And Grandfather Bor peDrogh had been extremely busy for the past three days. On the fourth day, however, he consented to see Kiv; because of the young man's status in the Bel-rogas School, the audience was to last for a full half hour.

A short, dark-hued young acolyte, also of the Clan Brajjyd, ushered Kiv in. The Elder Grandfather's office was not ornate, but neither was it austere. It was decorated in simple good taste, with the customary symbol of the Great Light in its honored niche in the wall.

The Elder Grandfather's extreme age was evident in every line of his body. The golden aura of body hair had long since turned to silver, and was growing sparse on his face, making him look oddly like an Earthman. His face was lined but peaceful, and his hands, though gnarled with age, were still quick and graceful.

Kiv knelt and bowed his head.

"The peace of your Ancestors be with you always,'' said the priest. His voice was deeper and more virile than Kiv had expected.

4 'And may the Great Light illumine your mind as He does the world," Kiv responded.

"Sit down, my son.'' The old man's bass voice again startled Kiv. "Tell me what it is that troubles you."

"It's the hugl, Grandfather. The farmers are having a terrible time controlling them, and I understand the situation has been getting worse for the past six days.'' "This is correct. But just what is it you wish to tell me?"

Kiv drew a deep breath. The Grandfather suddenly seemed terribly, terribly ancient. For a wild moment Kiv thought of throwing himself at the old man's feet to beg forgiveness for—

No, he told himself. Pretend you are Jones.

The Grandfather was awaiting his reply with patience. Kiv said, "I think I've found something that might help, Grandfather. To wipe out the hugl, that is."

The shadow of a frown passed across the wrinkled face. "I see. Go on, my son." Still not a trace of impatience on the part of the Grandfather.

Kiv pulled his charts and drawings out of a leather carrying case.

"The trouble is," he began, "that not very much is known about the hugl. Up to now, the Edris powder has controlled them well, so there was, of course, no reason to study them. But I did it as a sort of—well, as a sort of hobby, Grandfather. We call them 'projects' at the School: some little facet of life that we choose to study in order to gain greater illumination in the Great Light's Law."

"I have heard that the Earthmen have ingenious ways of helping youngsters to learn,'' said the old man. "I think it's commendable. Very. And so you studied the hugl?"

"Yes, Grandfather. And I found out some rather weird things. You know those little teardrop-shaped things that you see swimming in ponds and lakes—the little animals that farmers call 'water wiggles'? Well, these are young hugl!"

"Young hugl?" The Grandfather frowned. "But they look nothing like hugl."

"I know, Grandfather,'' Kiv said. "That's the amazing thing. The young start out as little 'water wiggles' and live that way for most of their lives—about a year. They eat soft water plants and decaying organic matter, since they have no teeth.

"After a year of this kind of life, they go down to the bottom and bury themselves in the mud, where they stay for thirty-five to forty days. During that time, they live in a sort of shell built out of mud. They absorb their endoskeletons and grow exoskeletons. When they emerge, they're hugl. The hugl," Kiv concluded triumphantly, "is the adult female form of the water wiggle.

"As soon as it cracks out of its shell in the mud, the adult hugl goes to the surface and swims to land. As I said, the thing we call the hugl is the female; the male is a much smaller animal, hardly more than an animated sex organ.

"The mating takes place on land, and the female immediately eats the male. Then she goes out and looks for more food—anything she can eat. And as long as she finds nothing to eat, she'll keep going looking for more—until she starves to death.

"If she does find food, she eats all she can hold, converting it into a kind of predigested concentrate. But her system can't assimilate anything she eats; her body just stores it.

"When she's eaten enough—when her glands tell her she's at the proper point—she crawls to a lake or pond, dies, and drops to the bottom.

"The eggs are never laid; they remain within the body of the female. The dead female, protected from dissolution by her hard armor, provides food for the young larvae for the first few days of their life, until they 're ready to go out and hunt for food of their own.

Then the cycle begins all over again,'' Kiv concluded.

The old priest had looked carefully at Kiv's diagrams and had seemed to be following his lecture with interest. When Kiv had finished, the Grandfather rose and wandered to the window overlooking the Square of Holy Light. He nodded slowly.

"Very interesting. Very! And what bearing does this have on our present crisis, now?"

"I'm coming to that, Grandfather. You see, the reason that Edris powder isn't working so well this time is simply that a new variety of hugl has appeared which has an exoskeleton too heavy and dense to allow the Edris powder to penetrate very rapidly."

"A new variety?" He sounded skeptical.

"And if we put the powder in the ponds,'' Kiv said, "it will kill the young; their skins will absorb it immediately."

Kiv sat back expectantly. The old man returned to his desk, sat down, and began toying with a heavy, jewel-encrusted paper-weight. Finally the Grandfather said:

"A very interesting theory, and very ingeniously worked out. But I'm afraid it's not really of much practical use. As the Scripture says, 'Those ways are best which have been tried and passed the test."'

I might have known that was coming, Kiv thought.

"You see," said the priest, "we have already alleviated the problem very simply. The farmers haven't been using enough of the Edris powder to cope with these hugl. Since the menace has been largely confined to the north so far, we have simply shipped additional quantities of Edris to the northern farmers. The hugl are dying."

"I see," Kiv said softly.

The Grandfather rose in what could only be a gesture of dismissal. "I'm happy you told me all about the hugl, my son. Your instructors at the School must be fine ones. And now, I have another appointment. May the blessings of the Great Light beam down upon you and your children."

IV

"—and, of course, he was right," Kiv told Jones. "And I can understand why you wanted no part of it."

"You can, eh?" The Earthman's eyes were glittering oddly. "Kiv, have you thought about what's going to happen in the next thirty days? The hugl are swarming down out of the north; they'll be maturing in the south soon, and then there'll be trouble." Pausing, Jones jabbed a forefinger at Kiv. "If the Council diverts the south's supplies of Edris to the north, what's going to happen?" he demanded.

"I don't know," Kiv said, scratching his fuzzy head in puzzlement, "I really don't know."

Jones stood up and walked toward the door of Kiv's room. "Yes, you do. You're just afraid to say it out loud."

Kiv picked up a book and weighed it idly with one hand. He had to admit that as usual Jones had cut right to the heart of the problem.

"All right. If things keep on like this, either the south or the north or both will be wiped clean of crops in a hurry."

Jones nodded in solemn agreement. "A fine situation, don't you think?"

Before Kiv could reply, the Earthman had walked through the door and was gone.

Classes continued as usual in Bel-rogas, but over everything hung an invisible cloud of fear and uncertainty. Kiv found himself far too preoccupied with the crisis to be able to devote much time to his studies, and he couldn't even bear the thought of working in his laboratory. The sight of hugl had become completely abhorrent to him.

And then the reports began to trickle down from the north.

The Edris powder, when used in large enough amounts, killed even the black hugl quite nicely. Unfortunately, it was also killing the crops. The peych plants, staple crop of Nidor, withered and shrivelled under the poison.

Stalemate. Either let the hugl eat the peych crops, or kill the peych before harvest time with an excess of Edris powder.

"In either case, people are going to go hungry,'' Kiv told Narla.

"I suppose they'll begin rationing soon."

Kiv didn't even bother to reply.

"Kiv?"

He turned to look up at Narla. Her face seemed thin already, he thought. Perhaps it's only my imagination. There isn't any famine yet. Not yet.

"What is it?" he asked wearily.

"Kiv, didn't the Grandfather want to listen at all when you went to him?"

"I told you. He listened very carefully. He just wasn't open to suggestions, that's all. The Way of the Ancestors was going to provide the answer, he said. It was all very simple. He—" He broke off.

Kiv studied the golden-fuzzed backs of his hands and said no more. The implications now were terrifying to him. The Grandfathers were following the Scripture, and starvation was the consequence.

But yet the Great Light still streamed through the window.

"I'll go to Jones," Kiv said in a troubled voice. "Jones will help me."

Jones looked up quizzically when Kiv entered the tiny office.

"I hope I didn't disturb your work—" Kiv began apologetically.

Jones put him at ease immediately with a quick grin. "Of course not. What's on your mind, Kiv?"

Kiv sat down in the deep chair that faced the Earthman. Nervously he fumbled for an opening.

"The hugl?" Jones prompted.

"If they'd only accepted my plan!" Kiv broke out, almost bitterly. "Now what will they do?"

Jones leaned forward, and Kiv felt a sudden glow of confidence radiating from the Earthman. The thought struck him that there could be no doubt that the Earthmen must really be from the Great Light; in their quiet, inconspicuous way, they had become the props on which the Nidorians could lean in time of trouble.

When the Earthmen arrived, Kiv thought, they said they were here to guide us toward the Light. So my father Ganz told me. And it must be true.

"What will they do now?'' Kiv repeated, wondering if Jones knew the answer.

And Jones did. "Kiv," the Earthman said softly, "You just didn't approach the Grandfather the right way. You didn't show him how the situation was according to the Law.''

"How could I?" Kiv burst out. "There's nothing in the Law about this!"

Jones held up a hand. "You're still too impatient, Kiv. Listen to me. For one thing, you didn't tell him that you had watched the life cycle of the hugl with your own eyes. The Elder Grandfather probably thought you were just speculating. But if you could offer some scriptural passage that would—"

Suddenly Kiv smiled. "I've got it! It was a passage that Narla quoted, from the Fourteenth Section: 'To destroy a thing, one must cut at the root, and not at the branch.'

"Jones! I'm going back to Gelusar!"

The dark-hued little acolyte attempted to block Kiv as he burst into the vestibule of Elder Grandfather Bor peDrogh Brajjyd's office.

"You can't go in there like that!" the acolyte said.

"This is important," Kiv snapped.

"I say you can't go in there. The Elder Grandfather's not there, anyway."

"Where is he?"

"He's at a meeting of the Council,'' the acolyte said. "Not that that could possibly concern you. "

Kiv didn't stay to argue the point. He dashed down the corridor and sped across the crowded street to the dome of the Great Temple.

Then, almost unthinkingly, he plunged inside and found himself heading toward the High Councilroom. The enormity of what he was doing did not strike him until he was inside the ornate room, facing the sixteen Elder Grandfathers as they sat in a majestic semi-circle.

They didn't even notice him for a while, so intent were they on their deliberations. Kiv glanced from one to another. There was the Elder of the Clan Sesom— Narla's Clan. He recognized several of the other Clan Elders among the venerable assemblage. The very tall, gaunt man was Yorgen peYorgen Yorgen, a lineal descendant of the great Bel-rogas. Everyone knew him. And the somewhat plump Elder in crimson robes was Ganz peDrang Kovnish. Next to him, Kiv recognized the familiar face of the Elder Brajjyd whom he had seen earlier. The others Kiv did not know.

Finally one of the Elders noticed him.

"What are you doing here? Who are you?"

Kiv felt a desire to turn and run. He held his ground, however, when he saw the Elder Brajjyd smiling at him.

"This man is of my Clan,'' Elder Grandfather said in his prodigious bass rumble. "He spoke to me before; he has studied the hugl at Bel-rogas."

At the mention of the School's name Kiv perceived a visible change in the manner of the Council.

"He had some interesting information for me. But what is it you want now?" The Elder Grandfather leaned forward as if to hear Kiv's reply more clearly.

Slowly, as if there were no one in the room but some other students at the School, Kiv began to explain the life-cycle of the hugl to the Council as he had to the Elder Brajjyd. They watched with apparent interest as he spoke.

When he finished, it was the Elder Kovnish who broke the silence first.

"The Scripture says on this matter that—"

Had it been the fierce-looking Elder Yorgen who was speaking, Kiv would have never dared interrupt. But the chubby Elder Kovnish did not seem so terrifying to Kiv. He cut the Elder off in mid-sentence.

"Yes—the Scripture." Kiv cited Narla's quotation: "To destroy a thing, cut at the root, not at the branch.''

"Fourteenth Section," the Elder Yorgen said in a sepulchral voice.

And then it seemed to Kiv that he was talking to the Elders as if they might be pupils of his. Heatedly he threw out his arms.

"Don't you see? The branch means the adult hugl; the root means the larva! It's right there in the Scripture: cut at the root of the menace! Pour Edris powder into the lakes; kill the larvae!"

The sixteen members of the Council stared coldly at Kiv for what seemed to him an infinitely long time. Then, as the meaning of his demonstration broke through to them, their stony silence became an excited hubbub.

"That's the last of it," said Nibro peGanz Kovnish. The burly farmer crumpled the empty packet of Edris powder and let it fall to the ground. He turned to face Kiv, who stood watching him.

"Craziest thing I ever heard," Nibro peGanz said. "Dumping Edris into my lake. Might as well lie down and let the hugl eat me too."

"Patience, friend. The Council has decided."

"And therefore I accept," the farmer responded reluctantly.

"Right. I'll be back to check on your farm in six days."

Kiv mounted his deest and trotted on down to the next farm. He had much ground to cover.

The six days passed slowly, and then Kiv revisited the farms in the test areas.

The few hugl that had made their appearance didn't even constitute a swarm, much less a menace.

"It's all over," he said, throwing open the door of Jones' office with an assurance he had never known before. The Earthman was waiting inside, with Narla.

"What happened?" Narla asked anxiously.

"As expected. Perfectly as expected. Hardly a hugl to be found."

Narla sighed in relief; Jones' face creased in a broad smile.

"Congratulations," the Earthman said. "I guess that makes you a celebrity. The Man Who Saved the World."

"It was your doing, Jones. You showed me how."

Jones shook his head. "Ah, no! It was your doing. I'm merely here as a guide. My aim is eventually to bring you and your people to the Great Light, Kiv. But actually I will only help you to bring yourselves. When you guide a deest, it is still the deest, not you, who is doing the real work."

Kiv frowned. "I don't care much for your analogy.''

"Don't let him upset you," Narla said. "He's only teasing again." She drew close to him. "I'm tremendously proud of you."

Jones rubbed his beard with a forefinger. "In a way, Kiv, I am too. I can't help but think of how much you've learned since you came to Bel-rogas. You've really made progress."

"Do you think he should become a priest? And maybe someday become an Elder?" Narla asked.

"Why, I think they ought to put him on the Council right away," Jones said, smiling. "After all, if he's capable of walking right in there and telling the Council how to run Nidor—"

Jones paused and stared meaningfully at Kiv. Kiv met his glance with difficulty. There was something strange in the Earthman's blue eyes.

"Let's go outside," Kiv said. "The air in here's none too fresh."

At the suggestion, Narla and Jones arose. The three of them filed out of Jones' office.

Kiv considered what Jones had just said during the passage down the stairs. After all, if he's capable of walking right in and telling the Council how to run Nidor-

But they were Elders, and he was only Kiv peGanz Brajjyd, an insignificant student. And he had told them what to do. And they had accepted it.

The thought cut suddenly deep into him. Since the beginning of time, young men had sat quietly and listened to the counsels of the Elders. Now, barely more than two cycles after the Earthmen had descended from the sky, the age-old pattern had begun to break.

Was this the way the Earthmen were leading them toward the Light?

The enormity of what Kiv had done struck him, and then the even greater enormity that no one had questioned his action. No one. The Earthmen's stay was having its effect on Nidor, all right.

They reached the foot of the stairs. Absently, Kiv turned to enter the little room where his laboratory was. He opened the door and saw the rows and rows of cabinets, each with their specimens of hugl, and right in the center of the room was the larva tank.

"Where are you going, Kiv?" Jones called. "I thought you wanted some fresh air."

Jones began to walk through the front door, followed by Narla. Kiv hastened to catch up with them.

Turning as Kiv reached the door, Jones asked, "What's on your mind, Kiv peGanz?"

"Nothing, Jones. Nothing." But he was certain the Earthman knew exactly what was on his mind.

He stepped out of the building onto the front lawn of the Bel-rogas campus. He looked up, and the Great Light illumined the cloud-laden sky. Suddenly Kiv thought again of the quotation from the Fourteenth Section—and for some reason, his head began to hurt.