Part 3

One of the Terrans lingered a moment as the last of the group left. His expression was serious. "I'd like you to know that I'm all for you, sir, and I'm glad to see a man of your stature in the PA's office," he said nervously. "I hope we'll see some changes in the attitude of these Nemarians. I've never liked their attitude." He ran a hand through his sandy-colored hair. "They're funny people, sir. You've only been here a day, and nobody may have warned you yet. They're very courteous, but don't let it fool you. You're going to have trouble with them."

Kirk looked after him as he followed the others out, a sense of confusion and discouragement beginning to settle over him. He wandered slowly into the flowered patio adjoining the office.

The reaction of the Nemarian officials was the strangest. They had shown no open opposition. On the other hand, there had certainly been no cheering. Their attitude had been one of courteous interest, plus some quality he couldn't quite define. He searched for the right word ... something almost like compassion, as if they were humoring a child's enthusiasm for a naive, impractical project.

He sat down by a clump of blue-green flowers. Maybe he was just nervous because of his inexperience, he thought. He'd had plenty of practice experience (supervised, of course), but it was a different matter managing an isolated planet, completely on his own. And he'd had the bad luck to come after a guy who'd apparently let discipline go to pieces. Maybe it was just the newness of the whole thing. Maybe--

But he knew better.

He had given them a good, efficient, well-organized plan of action. They should have been impressed--impressed and respectful. They should have been grateful he was plunging so enthusiastically into an effort to improve their situation. They should have been excited and hopeful.

There was something strange here, something he didn't understand.

He knew so little about Nemar.

The Terrans in the group had not reacted as they should have, either, he thought. Some of them had shown the sort of reaction he expected, but most of them had remained quiet, too quiet, with a peculiar, tolerant look. As if they knew something he didn't.

There was something disturbing about their whole manner. They were respectful and deferential, but not quite respectful enough. Their attitude was just a shade too casual. Something was wrong.

They even looked different, somehow, from the usual Terran on space duty. The dedicated look was gone and a softness had crept in.

Somehow, the planet had infected them.

* * * * *

The clear-eyed old Nemarian he'd been talking to had just turned away when she came up.

"Good evening. How do you like bird's eggs a la Nemar?" Jeannette pointed to the shells beside him.

"Hello. They're very good." He motioned her to sit down.

"The youngsters here gather them out of the trees. They make a sport of it." She reached for one from the pile near them and tapped it open. "Sentimental creatures--they always leave one or two so the mother bird won't be unhappy."

Kirk was trying to draw his eyes away from the young Nemarian mother in the group near him who was complacently nursing her baby in full view of everyone. Jeannette stared in the direction of his look.

"Oh, you'll get used to that soon enough."

He wondered if he would. They made a rather touching picture, though, he realized through his embarrassment. There was a lot of tenderness in the woman's gestures.

"They spoil their children rotten."

Kirk looked surprised. "The ones I've seen have been very courteous."

She shrugged. "Oh, they're polite enough. But just try and make them do something they don't want to! They're completely undisciplined--they're fed when they please, they sleep when they please, they do whatever they like. They have schools for them, but it's completely up to the children whether they want to go or not. The parents haven't a thing to say about it. No one ever lays a hand to them, no matter what they do."

"I haven't noticed any quarreling," he said, surprised at his own observation. It was true. He hadn't seen a sign of it, even between the children themselves, though they made enough noise yelling and romping.

"Oh, those tactics fit them perfectly for this society," she said indifferently. "The adults here are just like the children. Nobody ever does any work."

"But that's impossible. The food, the houses, the--"

"Well, I suppose I exaggerated. They do things they don't like once in awhile, if they want the end product enough. But mostly, if they can't make a big game of it, they don't do it. Tomorrow's nut-gathering day," she added irrelevantly.

"Nut-gathering day?"

"Yes. Everybody frolics off into the hills to pick nuts. Like a picnic. That's what I mean--if they didn't consider it a pleasure outing, the nuts could hit them on the head, and they'd never bother to pick them up." She cocked her head at him. "Want to go?"

"Go where? Nut-gathering, you mean?" He laughed. "No, thanks."

"Thought you might like to study the natives in their day-to-day activities, get the real local flavor. You might learn something, at that. Though I guess you'd have a rough time climbing the trees."

"I've had an hour a day at gymnastics for the past three years."

"Yes, you look in good shape." Her glance swept over him approvingly. "But gymnastics and those trees are two different things. The edible nuts grow on the tall trees, not the short ones, and they sway in the wind. The young men do most of the climbing. They're pretty wonderful physical specimens, I'll say that." She glanced at one of them near by, who was whispering in the ear of a Nemarian girl.

Kirk felt oddly annoyed. They were magnificent physical specimens, he thought. But then so were the women and children. He realized that he hadn't seen a sickly or weak-looking native since he arrived. Even the old people kept their magnificent posture, and managed to make age seem a matter of gathering wisdom instead of collecting infirmities. Weren't they ever sick, he wondered.

"The girls are lovely, too," he reminded her.

"Yes, but try to get near one of them," she flashed back. "They prefer their own." Her eyes narrowed. "They're pleasant people, but they're not pleasant to live with. It gets on your nerves after awhile."

"Why didn't you leave, Jeannette?"

"On the spaceship you came on?"

"Yes. There may not be another for five years."

"That's the big question," she said slowly. "I'm not sure I know the answer. I half intended to leave on the ship when it came. But when it came down to it, I didn't leave." She stared ahead of her. "Something about the place gets you. Maybe it's the life. Maybe you get used to lying around in the sun, and you feel kind of frightened at returning to all the hustle and bustle of Terra. And then, you keep waiting, hoping that--"

"Hoping what?"

For a moment, she looked defenseless and a little hurt. Then the cynical smile came back. "You don't even know what you're hoping for, really," she said lightly.

He knew she was evading him.

* * * * *

He lay in bed later, wondering what Jeannette could have meant, what could account for that brief hurt look.

She was an attractive girl, he thought idly. He wondered why he felt nothing for her, when the native girl aroused in him such an unreasonable longing. It would be a good deal more convenient to fall for Jeannette.

He couldn't afford to get mixed up with his maid.

Remembering her, he suddenly felt his body trembling.

All right, he told himself, so she's an ignorant, backward native on a planet nobody ever heard of. Practically a savage. And even here, she's just a maid, a cleaning woman. Nobody a Planetary Administrator could think about getting mixed up with. But how do they turn them out like that?

How do they turn them out like that, he thought--every movement fluid, every position graceful, every gesture exquisite? How does this nonentity of a planet turn out a girl with the kind of walk the video-stars back home practice and work years to approach? With a voice with that indescribable music and precision? With a flawless skin, radiant hair, a serenity and self-confidence that would make the greatest beauties on Terra envious? With a quiet, careless pride that made him, the new ruler of her planet, awkward and insecure in the presence of his own servant?

Jeannette had been jealous, he realized suddenly. She was jealous of these girls, of their grace, of their radiance. Her cynicism covered a bitter envy.

For a long time he lay there, trying to sleep, haunted by Nanae's luminous eyes.

* * * * *

He started working the next morning.

There was no use putting it off, he thought. Nemar seemed to act like a drug, gradually depriving you of your drive and ambition. He wasn't going to give it a chance to let its poison seep into him.

He flung himself into his duties as Planetary Administrator with a grim determination. He struggled to organize the affairs of the planet on a more efficient basis. He introduced new methods and techniques. He worked tirelessly, relentlessly, hardly noticing their passage as one day followed another. And every moment he could spare, he devoted to the project for finding something of value to export.

He was going to put this planet on the map. He didn't know how yet, but he was going to do it.

He was going to turn his misfortune into a triumph.

Every hint of a possibility was followed up with eagerness. Every lead, every clue, was the subject of exhaustive study and investigation. His days were a succession of guarded hopes and disappointments, of surges of optimism and long stretches of discouragement. He pushed his wearied body into greater and greater efforts, working unflaggingly through the day and most of the night, spurred by the anger that still burned in him.

The natives, he knew, looked at the light burning late into the night and thought he was a little crazy. He gave up eating with them. It was too easy, there by the river, to drift into staying later and later, drinking their hot wine, chatting, watching the dancing. It was too hard to resist the temptation of midnight swimming later with the young men and women at the nearby beach, with revels and bonfires on the lavender sands afterward.

* * * * *

At the end of two weeks, he sat on his bed, taking stock of what he had accomplished.

It was very little.

And he was very tired.

The tiredness was familiar. It was just like school all over again, he thought, the same long exhausting hours of driving oneself relentlessly. He wondered when he'd be able to relax. He didn't dare relax now. When he had a lead, a definite hope of some kind, he could begin to let up. But not till then. It would be too easy to give up and let go altogether, go the way Jerwyn had gone.

He was beginning to understand why Jerwyn had given up.

He was beginning to understand a lot of things--the odd, cryptic remarks he had heard about the natives when he first arrived, the mixed admiration and exasperation they seemed to arouse.

He remembered a man named Gandhi from ancient Indian history.

The Nemarians could have given Gandhi lessons.

Working with them was like working with an invisible wall of resistance that weakened here and strengthened there, gave in unexpectedly at one place and resisted implacably at another.

At times his plans were praised; then they were put into effect with an efficiency that astonished him. At other times they were criticized, in a casual, friendly manner that enraged him. Then they were not put into effect at all. When he insisted on obedience, the natives reacted with an attitude of patient tolerance, and did nothing. Most of the time, his orders were received indifferently and carried out with an agonizing slowness.

He pushed and prodded them. He reasoned with them. He shouted at them.

He reaped nothing but frustration.

They didn't hate him. He knew that. He had never seen a trace of malice in their expressions. People smiled at him when he passed, and children came up to tug at his hand and ask him to come to visit their house. There was none of the stony hatred here he knew existed in many places for the all-powerful Galactic Union.

They simply seemed to lack all appreciation of the importance of his position.

Yet they knew, he thought. They knew he had what amounted to almost unlimited power over their planet. They knew a space-fleet that had burned life off the face of entire planets lay at his disposal. They knew he could crush any rebellion instantly.

But, of course, they weren't rebelling, he thought. They weren't even openly uncooperative. There it was again: they weren't even unfriendly; they deluged him with constant invitations.

They knew of his power, but they acted as if it didn't exist.

And he wasn't sure they weren't going to win with him, as they had with Jerwyn. The Galactic Union did not look with approval on any call for aid except in a military crisis; such a request was in effect an affidavit of failure. Besides, he didn't want to complain. He didn't want to set himself against them. He was working for them, not just for himself.

He sighed and began to get ready for bed.

Primitive people had always fought progress and change. They had always clung to old, outworn methods. But there was more to it than that, he thought. Primitive people were usually full of superstitious fear of change, but the Nemarians were not afraid. You couldn't think of them as fearful. They knew the danger--they knew the strength and power that faced them--but they were not afraid. They didn't even "handle with care".

Where did their courage come from?

Or was it just blind stupidity, he thought, a refusal to look facts in the face, to admit that they were the helpless, backward subjects of an immensely more powerful and more advanced civilization?

He pulled off a shoe absently, and he thought of all the documents and reports he had read about Nemar. Ross had given them to him, and he had searched in them for a clue to help him understand why Ross was sending him here. He had read and reread them, and they had told him little more than Ross himself about Nemar.

There was something peculiar about all those documents, he thought, something odd about the way they were written. They described an undeveloped planet without valuable resources or any kind of technology, in no way out of the ordinary. But between the lines was something that said this planet was out of the ordinary, in spite of the apparent facts. There was the unavoidable feeling that something was left unsaid.

What were they trying to hide? Why hadn't they let him know what he was in for?

Terrans had been coming for forty years. In forty years, they must have learned something. They must have found out something about what made these people the way they were, and about how to deal with them. There should have been warnings and suggestions and at least, if nothing else, descriptions of methods that had been tried and failed. It should all have been there, out in the open; it should have been down in black and white: this is the situation, so far as we know it; these are the problems.

Instead, there had been only routine description, and veiled hints and allusions.

He hadn't been here long, he thought. There was a lot to learn here yet. The other Terrans, the ones who had been here a long time, knew something he didn't know. He could tell from their faces, from their attitude toward him. Cortland didn't know, or he would have told him, and some of the others didn't either, but most of them did. They knew something, but whether it was pleasant or unpleasant knowledge, he couldn't tell. Whatever it was, it affected them. They neglected their work, and they had a different look from the Terrans back home.

Jerwyn had known, and he hadn't told him. He'd said he'd have to live here to find out.

He lay down and stretched out wearily on the bed.

Well, the answers here exist, he thought. Somehow, when he had all the pieces, the jigsaw would have to fit together and make a coherent picture.

Maybe he was looking in the wrong direction.

But he didn't know where to look.

He thought of the day he had just been through, remembering incident after incident when he had had all he could do to keep his temper under control. Annoyance welled up in him again, as he recalled the series of frustrations, the useless arguments.

His mind was still revolving in an upheaval of confusion and anger as he fell asleep.

* * * * *

It was barely past dawn when he awoke. He tried to fall asleep again and failed. Giving up, he dressed and wandered into the other room and the garden beyond. He felt the early morning coolness slipping over his shoulders like a garment, and a sense of the futility of all his struggling filled him. He felt a sudden longing to rest, bask in the sun, live as the natives did in sunny, amiable unconcern.

He stiffened, annoyed at himself. That would mean giving up everything he had worked so hard for all his life, ending up as a lazy failure. He felt a surge of anger inside him toward something he could hardly name.

As he stood there, he saw two Nemarian children, a boy and a girl about five years old, emerge from the trees and begin to pick the shimmering flowers in the garden. Irritation rose hotly in him. He knew that it was out of proportion, built out of a hundred frustrating incidents, but he found he didn't want to control it. He wanted to lash out at somebody.

"Stop stealing my flowers!" he yelled. He was surprised at the harshness of his own voice.

The children did not start fearfully or run, as he expected. They turned and stared at him in an unconcerned manner. "You can't steal flowers," the boy said matter-of-factly. "They don't belong to anybody." He looked at Kirk questioningly. "You didn't plant them, did you?"

Kirk stared at him, speechless.

The boy went on, his tone slightly indignant. "Anyway, it's very rude of you to speak to us like that!"

"They are quite right," an angry voice cut in. Kirk whirled around to find Nanae standing beside him, a basket in her hand. Her hair, radiant in the sunlight, was caught back from her face with a green ribbon, and the brown, gold-flecked eyes, for once, were not soft, but sparkling with anger. "These are my sister's children," she said icily. "They help me gather flowers for your table. Do you think just because they are young you have the right to treat them without respect?"

Staring at her angry face, Kirk felt his own anger ebbing. Into his mind a forgotten incident flashed back from his childhood. Through a door left ajar in a neighboring apartment he had seen a ripe purple fruit imported from a newly discovered planet, and had taken it, curious to find out what unsynthetic food might taste like. He had been discovered, and angrily whipped and locked in his room. He remembered wiping away the tears, alone in his room, smarting with humiliation, and vowing he would show them, he would show them all; he would grow up to be so powerful he could have anything he wanted, and everybody would be afraid of him.

He looked now at Nanae, who had put an arm around each of the children, cradling them to her. His anger left him completely. Remembering the hurt child he had once been, he found himself longing for the touch of softness and kindness that had never come to him, wishing that even now for a moment he could take the children's place--lay his head against her breast, and feel her fold him in and brush her hand through his hair. He felt something melting inside of him. He could feel the lines of his face softening as he looked at them.

The words stuck, but he forced them out. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right," said the boy.

Leaning down, Kirk put an arm tentatively around each of the children, half-surprised at himself for the gesture. As he felt their small bodies relax against his, it seemed as though some deep inner tension began to flow out of him. He straightened up to find Nanae's glance on him surprisingly warm, almost tender. The approval in her eyes filled him with an unfamiliar kind of happiness.

* * * * *

"You mean Ross spent five years here!" Kirk stared in amazement at Cortland, sitting beside him.

The older officer turned toward him, shifting his position on the grassy ledge to which they had climbed for a look at the surrounding countryside. "Yes, that's right. Ross was straight out of the Institute then, had an A-1 record, and this place had just been discovered. They thought then it might have all sorts of valuable minerals and things. It seemed like a great chance." He shrugged. "As it turned out, of course, there was nothing, but nobody could have known then."

"They know now," Kirk said shortly. He sat looking over the valleys beneath them, silent for a moment. It was discouraging to learn Ross had been here and had not turned up anything: Ross was capable, whatever else he might be, and it would take luck as well as work to succeed where he had failed. And his luck didn't seem to be working out too well, he thought, unhappily.

But this might throw some new light on why he'd been sent here. Maybe Ross's reason for sending the Institute's star pupil had been one he could never have guessed at the time--a gesture of sentimentality. Maybe he wanted to help these people with whom he had spent his first years as an Administrator. Maybe he wanted to make up for his own failure to help lift their living standards.

He turned toward the other man. "Cortland, you say you've done a lot of traveling here. How about the rest of the planet? Are any of the other villages more advanced; are the people any different?"

Cortland laughed shortly. "Thinking of hiring yourself a new native staff? Your impatience about worn out bucking this one? Can't say I blame you, but it's no go. All these villages are the same. One outfit's as bad as the next. Oh, they go in for different things--one will go all out for sculptures, one will be great on weaving, and another one maybe will grow a special kind of fruit. But the people are all alike--all equally charming and equally impossible. All sweet and friendly on the surface and stubborn as mules underneath. All acting like they know something they're not talking about, like they've got some secret hidden behind those clear, guileless eyes of theirs, some source of strength that makes them able to tell us to go to hell--figuratively, of course--when they don't like our orders." He leaned forward, intently. "I'd give a lot to find out what makes them tick." A look of insecurity, almost of anxiety filled his eyes.

A sudden gust of wind blew a flurry of leaves against Kirk's face. He brushed them away, feeling chilled.

Cortland blinked his eyes, and his face resumed its customary firm look. "But to get back to your question--this village here is supposed to be a center of government. When the Nemarians have to decide on anything that affects the whole planet, the Council in this village does it. The Council has nothing to do with the Galactic Union set-up, of course. It's strictly local, was here before GU discovered this place. You probably studied up on it before you came here."

Kirk nodded. Every planet with an indigenous population had its own political set-up. It was GU policy not to interfere with them, unless their interests clashed in some way.