Part 3

Slow or not, no better plan was conceived among six of us who met secretly that night in Benson's new ship quarters. Donnegan brought his fellow biologist, Terrence Frost, and I had contacted the two medics. We reached swift agreement as to the necessity of taking steps, and decided to work on my rough plan. It was also voted not to divulge our intentions to the others, and then the meeting broke up.

When I returned to my hut, Jane was sitting cross-legged just outside my door visiting with Susan. I thought she would be curious about the confidential nature of the meeting from which she was excluded, but she had other things on her mind. She stood up and said, "I think your patient is recovered, and you've got a problem, mister." She stalked off into the night.

I looked at Sue's pink face and half-guessed the answer before she told me. It seemed that Joe had suddenly developed amorous inclinations. Sue had the habit of stroking his head like a pet dog, and this evening, without warning, Joe had begun returning the caresses in a manner so casual and gentle that Sue hadn't noticed the trend.

From a more objective viewpoint, however, Jane had observed the rather unplatonic indications of Joe's attitude and mortified Sue by drawing her attention to it with an acid remark.

In my fury I fancied that Joe had tried to take advantage of my absence. His cleverness in avoiding such advances in my presence was nullified by his error of assuming that Jane would pose no obstacle.

At present he sprawled in his corner beside an empty mango skin, breathing rapidly, innocently asleep. The incident served to drive home Donnegan's story and steel me against the many twinges of conscience I was to suffer in our campaign to wipe out Joe's race.

It also served as an adequate excuse, in Sue's eyes, when I told Joe the next morning that he was quite well enough to return to the forest. This was a fact we both had known for over a week, but Joe in his indolent way, had been quite content to remain and talk with me endlessly. Until now, I had welcomed his presence as an inexhaustible source of information.

He accepted the dismissal without rancor and promised to return and visit us next spring.

"Next spring?" I said.

"We will leave soon," he said. "We go south in the autumn."

"Wait," I said. And I told him that as a gesture of friendship we had decided to take all males of his race for a tour through the ship. Would he take this word to his people?

He said he would, but his face became very thoughtful.

That afternoon they formed a short line at the ramp, and the "tours" began. The line was short because they refused to wait long for anything, but as the line shortened, others came from the woods to take their places. To produce a favorable "press" on our show and thus assure perfect attendance by _all_ the males, Benson rigged several mechanical displays of flashing lights and whirling devices.

They were delighted, and when they got to the X-ray booth, to induce them to stand still we set up a gas torch with a beautiful, vermilion, strontium flame. The only problem at this point was to get them to move on after they got their painless dose of sterilizing radiation.

Every tenth "golden boy" was shunted into a small chamber filled with _orgon_, the instant anaesthetizing gas, and Dr. Sorenson, wearing an oxygen mask, would catch him as he fell, take his specimen, hand it through a slot to Dr. Bailey and then drag the unsuspecting victim into the fresh air where the nurses took over with more wonders to distract his attention.

This running spot-check on the collected semen samples assured us that our radiation was effectively destroying the spermatozoa.

I sat at my old place at the base of the ramp, weeding out the occasional females who tried to sneak in and also checking to see that we had no repeats.

Our method was simplicity itself. As each native finished our tour an attendant atomized a faint but very permanent stain of waterproof dye on the hair of the right shoulder blade. It was hardly noticeable unless you were looking for it, and that was one of my jobs.

In two days we "toured" 481 males.

A week later the night rains began, and our unwelcomed neighbors vanished.

* * * * *

Benson had postponed his little lecture deliberately, and now he called us all together for a fatherly talk which I helped him prepare. He began abruptly.

"Since nature has been so bountiful in providing us with tala, I don't intend to proclaim any silly prohibition regarding its consumption. With a little reflection, however, I hope that all of you can understand that we must have some control. I am fully aware that many of you arranged your own private channels for obtaining this liquor, but with the departure of our tree-climbing friends the easy source has dried up.

"Now, to prevent some of you from breaking your fool necks trying to climb the trees yourselves, I propose that we place tala in the commissary as a normal ration to be issued equitably to all--when it is available. And working together, our clearing parties will, no doubt, fell enough mango trees to give us all a fair taste."

Benson's unexpected tolerance and remarkable proposal was received with mixed embarrassment, relief and enthusiasm. He went on, "We have enjoyed almost two months of rather unrestrained partying, and I'm not going to rail at you for some of the illicit behaviour that came to my attention. So far the intimacies which some of you took with the natives have produced no epidemics nor bastard offspring on either side. However, were I to accept your actions as typical of the future, I would consider our colony doomed already and write off this planet as unfit for further investment by Earth civilization.

"Instead, I feel you will, during the winter months, regain your perspective and apply yourself to the principles which brought us here and must continue to bind us together if we are to survive as a permanent culture."

Benson's speech had the desired effect. Without the little people around to distract us, the colonists plunged into their work, and things got done. True, a rather disproportionate number of logs brought in by the falling crews turned out to be mango-wood, but the tala-rationing program added incentive precisely where it was needed. The perimeter of our clearing advanced rapidly, the cultivating and planting parties followed closely behind, and the sawmill added an industrious sound to the whole operation.

As Benson had hoped, when the people buckled down they once again began yearning for the conveniences they had left on earth. The chemists finally contrived suitable raw materials for the plasticizer and began manufacturing screens for our gaping windows, much-needed pipe for our water and sewage systems and even a few "frivolous" luxuries such as cups, saucers and fruit bowls. The commissary and other public buildings were planked out roughly, and the hospital-clinic was completed before the first two babies arrived.

The history-making blessed event was an honor and an onus to Captain Spooner and his young wife. To father the first human offspring on Sirius XXII was the fond hope of many of us, but Spooner and the Second Officer had something over a light-year head-start on the rest of us.

Infant Spooner arrived just 5-1/2 months after our landing. The Mate's baby came two weeks later. Sue herself was satisfyingly pregnant. By spring it was obvious that Earth's gynecologists had chosen the members of our colony well, and there would be no dearth of young blood. Fully a third of the women were expecting, and Sue's date indicated she would have won the derby if it hadn't been for the ship's officers' perfidy.

The colony as a whole was in good shape. As the most pressing work was disposed of, the men took turns at the pleasant hunting details, and we began enjoying fresh meat from the small game of the forest.

On one such trip I brought back a live little animal that looked like a cross between a three-toed sloth and a teddy bear, except that he had a long, woofly snout like an ant-eater. He seemed to be hibernating in the crotch of a small tree, and when I shook him down he cuddled up and clung to my neck so lovingly that I decided he'd make a good pet for Sue.

The little cub kept nipping affectionately at my neck on the hike back, and he clung so close he was a nuisance, but Sue was delighted. We had to improvise a cage at night to keep him from mauling us and keeping us awake.

Sue named him, "Toots", and we were the envy of all the camp. When Joe and his people returned three weeks later, and we discovered the truth about Toots, the others were happy they hadn't acquired a similar pet.

* * * * *

It was late spring, and the mango trees were rapidly refilling their high branches with the tala-fruit. We now had a roofed central kitchen where the women prepared our meals. We ate at long tables in the open.

Shortly after the noon meal one day, Joe and his people returned. He caught up to Sue and me as we were strolling to our hut for our daily fifteen-minute siesta. He appeared tired from the journey but quite glad to see us. I felt the pangs of conscience as I added my hypocritical welcome to Sue's warm greeting.

In his old room we sat on the rough furniture I had fashioned, and Joe eyed Sue's fruitful contours. "A baby soon, eh? We have many babies among us."

"You--have?" I said.

"Many were born on the return trip. They slowed up the females with their sucking. For eight days they are a burden on the mother."

Sue exclaimed, "Eight days? Then what happens?"

The subject did not greatly interest Joe. "Then they find their own food--if the _koodi_ does not find them first."

"What in the world is a _koodi_?" Sue asked with a shiver.

Joe was silent for a minute. He wrinkled his broad brow and looked at me. "Samrogers, you asked me many questions about how we die. I did not understand this death for a long time. Now I know. It is when the _koodi_ comes. He comes to the very young and to the old. The babies are too small to hold him off. The old drink much tala, then the _koodi_ comes to them. This is my third year, and my thirst for tala is great. The _koodi_ will come."

His words painted a clear picture of a superstitious concept of death, personifying it even as humans refer to the "grim reaper". But Sue took a different view. "What does the _koodi_ look like?" she persisted.

Joe looked puzzled. He raised a long, four-segmented finger and pointed to a corner of the room where Toots was curled up like a fur neck-piece. "He looks like that. There is a _koodi_."

My first impulse was to reject the statement as ridiculous. Toots was as harmless as an over-sized kitten. Besides, the manual made no mention of--

Sue made a small sound in her throat. Her face was colorless. "Sam! Get him out of here!"

"But the manual--"

"The manual didn't mention Joe's people, either," she said half-hysterically. "_Get Toots out of here._"

Still unbelieving I walked over and hauled the little fuzzy animal up into my arms. Instantly, he cuddled close and rammed his pointed snout under my open collar and began nibbling at my neck. I took him outside, and out of perverse curiosity I let him have his way with my neck. At first it tickled, as always, but instead of batting his head away I let him nibble with his soft, pointed lips.

Sue called out, "Sam what are you doing? Kill him, Sam!"

His lips spread into a little circle on my flesh and began sucking gently. There was no pain, just the throb of my jugular under his mouth. Now his long, soft, hairy arms became firmer around my neck. I jerked back and they gripped hard. A chill of panic stabbed me, and I could feel the taut flesh of my neck drawn more deeply into his puckered lips.

I tugged at him silently, not wishing to frighten Sue. He wouldn't come loose. In broad, noon-daylight I had a Sirian vampire in my arms, threatening to rupture my jugular vein and kill me within speaking distance of half a hundred people. I tried to level my voice. "Joe, would you come out here, please?"

He came at once, stared with a blank expression and said, "You have been drinking much tala?"

"Help me, dammit!" I said, holding my voice down. "I can't shake him loose. He's trying to--" The long, tight arm squeezed off my breath. In turn I tried to strangle him, but under the thick fur was a bony protection where there should have been soft neck.

"It does no good to kill the _koodi_," Joe said. "There is always another. Once they hold you tightly it is too late."

Sue thought differently. She came through the door like a hell-cat. Catching up her garden hoe she swung a blow that, had it missed Toots, would have crushed my skull. But Sue didn't miss. I fell on my back, and Toots let go, dead of a broken spine.

* * * * *

The "liquor control board" was Benson's best idea. Not only did it put tala on a legitimate basis, but it controlled our dealings with the natives. Bromley, the chemist, who was the original offender, was charged with manufacturing the wooden matches, and the medium of exchange was concentrated in the hands of the commissary "purchasing agent".

The reason that Benson sanctioned the controlled tala trade with the natives stemmed from our apparent failure to sterilize the males. There was, indeed, a huge crop of native babies, tiny little dolls that looked like spider monkeys and dropped from their mothers' breasts after little more than a week.

The brisk tala trade was part of our program to keep the natives in close association while we devised ways and means to discover the cause of our failure. All quarantine rules had long since been dropped, and Sorenson and Bailey began inventing ruses to lure the males into the gas chamber again.

Weeks passed while we worked our way through the whole male population again, testing for fertility and X-raying it wherever we found it. Through Joe we advertised new wonders to be seen in the ship, and as the sight-seers left we tagged each with an atomized spot on the other shoulder, indicating that he was still sterile or had just become so.

This time we tallied 496 males which, according to Joe, was certainly the whole masculine population. The mystery of our failure at genocide forced an unpleasant decision on Benson. The biologists and medics insisted that we must win the natives' confidence even further to gain their cooperation. As the heat of summer bore down and the mercury rose, we eased off on the work schedule and deliberately planned social functions to which we had Joe invite a group of natives. There were picnics and beach parties where our guests brought their own tala, and ours was carefully rationed. Group singing entranced the little golden people, and they took remarkable delight in the discovery of their own, sweetly pitched voices. Enterprising Joe, with his remarkable memory, soon became unofficial song leader, and all day long we would hear the natives practicing.

Sue's baby came, a sturdy little boy whom we named Richard Joseph--Sue insisted on the second name, and I couldn't argue her out of it without revealing my reasons. Within two weeks the clinic's nursery was full of babies, and it was at this point that the natives' interest became deeply stirred.

The language barriers were breaking down rapidly. Many of our regular visitors were females, and with Joe's help as an interpreter they were soon able to ask questions. Their greatest curiosity hinged on the fabulous care we gave our infants.

Although I wouldn't permit Sue to do it, several of our women began using female natives for baby-sitters. This led to the first basic behaviour change we had noticed. The females began to pay more attention to their own offspring. It was as if they had just discovered the pleasure of fondling their babies and watching them crawl and kick and gurgle. Even after the first week they were still carrying them around, finding choice morsels of fruit for them, fanning off the insects and singing them to sleep with their new-found abilities to make music.

Benson noticed it and called a meeting of the secret six. He said, "Our little program had better work this time or we are in for it. Apparently this _koodi_ animal that Sam had the tussle with is the principal population control, and now the mothers are packing their kids around until they're old enough to fight off the _koodi_."

Donnegan shook his head. "Damned if I can find out where we slipped up. Frost and I just finished a series of tests with native ova and human sperm. They don't mix. Of course, we didn't expect them to, but what in hell is the answer?"

I hadn't known of this project. I said, "You didn't think that our male colonists--"

Benson scowled with exasperation. "We don't know what to think, Sam! We sterilized 481 native males last fall, and the babies are just as thick as ever."

I said, "Well, we got to 496 of them this time. That should do it for sure. Joe says he'll keep a lookout for any males without the two stains on his shoulder."

Benson narrowed his eyes. "You know, it strikes me that Joe is being awfully helpful. What reason did you give him for wanting this information?"

"He didn't ask," I said.

* * * * *

Our 12-month year was composed of 37-day months, except February which we shorted six days to make it come out even.

According to this calendar the "May-flies" came in July, just a month before our first anniversary. The little winged insects were a seasonal life-form, one more item that escaped the exploratory party, and for which we were unprepared.

They came out of the north, and they struck us before we could take shelter in the ship or our plastic-screened huts. They were a little smaller than flying ants, and even their long wings were jet-black. Their bites were infinitesimal, but each one smarted like a prick with a hot needle.

In the midst of the confusion of rescuing babies and herding everyone in doors, I noticed that all the natives had disappeared into the forest. Everyone had suffered a hundred bites or more, and we were sorry, swollen sights. Sue insisted that I cover myself and make a run for the clinic to see if Dr. Bailey had any remedies for the bites. Richard Joseph was crying loudly from the irritation, so I agreed.

It was only 75 yards to the clinic, and I made it without collecting many more stings. But the doctors had nothing to offer. They were dabbing various salves, astringents and pastes on test patches of their own skin, but nothing seemed to have any effect at all.

"All we hope," said Sorenson, "is that the flies aren't microbe-carriers."

I started out the door to return then stepped back and peered through the screen. The forest was erupting with natives. They staggered into the clearing, headed for the center of it and sank down as if with great weariness. On and on they came until the ground among our buildings was literally paved with their prone bodies.

"Poor devils." Bailey murmured as the clouds of flies continued to sweep through our village. "Nothing we can do, though. I wonder why they come out in the open? You'd think they had better protection in the trees."

I had no answers, so I covered my head again and made a dash for my own hut. Inside I brushed off the clinging flies and stamped on them. "The medics don't have any help for us," I said. Then I saw him.

Sue was struggling to hold Joe on his feet. His arms were draped loosely over her shoulders, and for a second I couldn't decided whether he was ill or making a pass at Sue.

I pulled him off her by one shoulder. He swung around and toppled into my arms. Remarkably few insect bites showed under the transparent haze of golden hair, but he reeked of tala.

"You're drunk," I yelled at him. "A lot of help you are at a time like this!"

"Tala," he said from loose lips. "Much tala."

"You've had much tala, all right!" I said disgusted.

Sue said, "We've got to let him stay in here, Sam. The flies will eat him alive out there." She went to the window and knocked the flies from the outside of the screen. Then she screamed. I thought she had just discovered the massed natives, but she kept on screaming until I went to her and looked out.

In the late afternoon sun, fuzzy little brown animals were waddling out of the forest, closing in on the 900 or more natives lying senseless in the clearing. _Koodi!_ Dozens of them.

I forgot my screaming wife, my crying infant, the drunken wife-stealer slumped on the floor. I forgot the torture of my own stings. All I remember is snatching my pistol from its holster that hung by the door and plunging out and pulling the trigger until fire ceased to come out of it. Then I was kicking and smashing with a tree limb, and every blow smashed one of the vile little ghouls into the grass. I thought I saw Benson firing and kicking, but I blacked out before I could be sure.

I regained consciousness with the flies still keening in my ears. Sue was calling my name and slapping me sharply in the face. Joe was trying to pull me to my feet, but the last thing I remember is the both of us collapsing to the ground.

* * * * *

I awoke days later with a burning fever and gloriously drunken sensation of floating. Joe brought a fruit to me when he saw I was stirring. I drank the thin, tangy juice in one breath and sank back into a deep sleep again.

My next drink came from the long, slender fingers of a pretty little female native. This time it was water, and I stayed awake. Joe came in, saw I was awake and came back in a few minutes with Benson and Dr. Bailey.

They both looked terrible, Benson especially. Bailey said, "Take it easy. Sue's at the clinic. She and the baby are all right, but you damned near didn't make it."

Benson said, "Can you talk?"

I cleared my throat and decided I could. He waved Joe and the female out. Then he and Bailey sat down beside me. I asked, "Any casualties?"

"Two of our babies and thirty-six native babies. Some of the _koodi_ came in after dark."

It sounded strange, Benson's listing native casualties with our own.

The memory of the _koodi_ attack brought a wave of nausea over me. I said, "Benson, I'm sorry, but I'm all done trying to murder Joe's race. I want no further part of it."

Benson's face was thin and drawn, and he stared at the floor. "If we haven't murdered it already," he said, "there will be no more attempts while I am in charge." He covered his face with his hands. "Bailey. Tell him, Bailey."

The doctor's voice was gravelly and weak. "If it hadn't been for the natives we'd all have died. The venom from the flies paralyzed everyone the second day after the swarm hit us. The flies were gone the next morning, but every soul in the colony passed out. Joe and his friends took care of us, poured tala down our throats and fed us."

"But they were soused," I said.

"Their only defense against the flies. The little black devils left the natives pretty well alone, and it appears that the tala was responsible. Could be that the stuff is what neutralized the toxin, too. They must have poured a gallon of it down me, judging from the empty skins by my bed. At any rate, they kept us alive until we could get up and feed ourselves."

"Why did they come into the clearing when they drank the tala?" I asked.

Bailey said, "Joe told us that the day he saw Sue kill the _koodi_ that was attacking you, he got the idea that he should do something about them himself. Through his efforts the natives no longer take the little devils as an inevitable evil. They kill them wherever they find them now. And when they had to get drunk to save themselves from the flies, Joe passed the word for them to head for the clearing. The _koodi_ usually avoid the sunlight, but it was late in the afternoon. They came anyway."