LITMIR.BIZ

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sir. Carbon and hydrogen. They want coal and oil.”

      “Really?”

      The Astronomer said, quickly, “You are going to ask why creatures who have mastered space travel, and therefore atomic power, would want coal and oil. I can’t answer that.”

      The Industrialist smiled. “But I can. This is the best evidence yet of the truth of your story. Superficially, atomic power would seem to preclude the use of coal and oil. However, quite apart from the energy gained by their combustion they remain, and always will remain, the basic raw material for all organic chemistry. Plastics, dyes, pharmaceuticals, solvents. Industry could not exist without them, even in an atomic age. Still, if coal and oil are the low price for which they would sell us the troubles and tortures of racial youth, my answer is that the commodity would be dear if offered gratis.”

      The Astronomer sighed and said, “There are the boys!”

      They were visible through the open window, standing together in the grassy field and lost in animated conversation. The Industrialist’s son pointed imperiously and the Astronomer’s son nodded and made off at a run toward the house.

      The Industrialist said, “There is the Youth you speak of. Our race has as much of it as it ever had.”

      “Yes, but we age them quickly and pour them into the mold.”

      Slim scuttled into the room, the door banging behind him.

      The Astronomer said, in mild disapproval, “What’s this?”

      Slim looked up in surprise and came to a halt. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t know anyone was here. I am sorry to have interrupted.” His enunciation was almost painfully precise.

      The Industrialist said, “It’s all right, youngster.”

      But the Astronomer said, “Even if you had been entering an empty room, son, there would be no cause for slamming a door.”

      “Nonsense,” insisted the Industrialist. “The youngster has done no harm. You simply scold him for being young. You, with your views!”

      He said to Slim, “Come here, lad.”

      Slim advanced slowly.

      “How do you like the country, eh?”

      “Very much, sir, thank you.”

      “My son has been showing you about the place, has he?”

      “Yes, sir. Red—I mean—”

      ”No, no. Call him Red. I call him that myself. Now tell me, what are you two up to, eh?”

      Slim looked away. “Why—just exploring, sir.”

      The Industrialist turned to the Astronomer. “There you are, youthful curiosity and adventure-lust. The race has not yet lost it.”

      Slim said, “Sir?”

      “Yes, lad.”

      The youngster took a long time in getting on with it. He said, “Red sent me in for something good to eat, but I don’t exactly know what he meant. I didn’t like to say so.”

      “Why, just ask cook. She’ll have something good for young’uns to eat.”

      “Oh, no, sir. I mean for animals.”

      “For animals?”

      “Yes, sir. What do animals eat?”

      The Astronomer said, “I am afraid my son is city-bred.”

      “Well,” said the Industrialist, “there’s no harm in that. What kind of an animal, lad?”

      “A small one, sir.”

      “Then try grass or leaves, and if they don’t want that, nuts or berries would probably do the trick.”

      “Thank you, sir.” Slim ran out again, closing the door gently behind him.

      The Astronomer said, “Do you suppose they’ve trapped an animal alive?” He was obviously perturbed.

      “That’s common enough. There’s no shooting on my estate and it’s tame country, full of rodents and small creatures. Red is always coming home with pets of one sort or another. They rarely maintain his interest for long.”

      He looked at the wall clock. “Your friends should have been here by now, shouldn’t they?”

      III

      The swaying had come to a halt and it was dark. The Explorer was not comfortable in the alien air. It felt as thick as soup and he had to breathe shallowly. Even so—

      He reached out in a sudden need for company. The Merchant was warm to the touch. His breathing was rough, he moved in an occasional spasm, and was obviously asleep. The Explorer hesitated and decided not to wake him. It would serve no real purpose.

      There would be no rescue, of course. That was the penalty paid for the high profits which unrestrained competition could lead to. The Merchant who opened a new planet could have a ten year monopoly of its trade, which he might hug to himself or, more likely, rent out to all comers at a stiff price. It followed that planets were searched for in secrecy and, preferably, away from the usual trade routes. In a case such as theirs, then, there was little or no chance that another ship would come within range of their subetherics except for the most improbable of coincidences. Even if they were in their ship, that is, rather than in this—this—cage.

      The Explorer grasped the thick bars. Even if they blasted those away, as they could, they would be stuck too high in open air for leaping.

      It was too bad. They had landed twice before in the scout-ship. They had established contact with the natives who were grotesquely huge, but mild and unaggressive. It was obvious that they had once owned a flourishing technology, but hadn’t faced up to the consequences of such a technology. It would have been a wonderful market.

      And it was a tremendous world. The Merchant, especially, had been taken aback. He had known the figures that expressed the planet’s diameter, but from a distance of two light-seconds, he had stood at the visi-plate and muttered, “Unbelievable!”

      “Oh, there are larger worlds,” the Explorer said. It wouldn’t do for an Explorer to be too easily impressed.

      “Inhabited?”

      “Well, no.”

      “Why, you could drop your planet into that large ocean and drown it.”

      The Explorer smiled. It was a gentle dig at his Arcturian homeland, which was smaller than most planets. He said, “Not quite.”

      The Merchant followed along the line of his thoughts. “And the inhabitants are large in proportion to their world?” He sounded as though the news struck him less favorably now.

      “Nearly ten times our height.”

      “Are you sure they are friendly?”

      “That is hard to say. Friendship between alien intelligences is an imponderable. They are not dangerous, I think. We’ve come across other groups that could not maintain equilibrium after the atomic war stage and you know the results. Introversion. Retreat. Gradual decadence and increasing gentleness.”

      “Even if they are such monsters?”

      “The principle remains.”

      It was about then that the Explorer felt the heavy throbbing of the engines.

      He frowned and said, “We are descending a bit too quickly.”

      There had been some speculation on the dangers of landing some hours before. The planetary target was a huge one for an oxygen-water world. Though it lacked the size of the uninhabitable hydrogen-ammonia planets and its low density made its surface gravity fairly normal, its gravitational forces fell off but

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