'As a matter of fact, I do,' McHonnery said. 'It's a one-week Shuffle, which, even if you don't like it, you could do standing on your head. Not that you should have to, since it's a pleasant and compatible job, combining mild outdoor exercise with modest intellectual stimulation, all in a framework of good working conditions, an enlightened management, and a congenial working force.'
'It sounds marvellous,' Flynn said. 'What's wrong with it?'
'Well, it's not the sort of job you can get rich at,' McHonnery said. 'In fact, the pay is lousy. But what the hell, you can't have everything. A week at this will give you a chance to think things over, talk with your fellow workers, decide upon a direction for yourself.'
'What is the job?' Marvin asked.
'The official job title is Ootheca Indagator, Second Class.'
'That sounds impressive.'
'Glad that you like it. It means that you hunt for eggs.'
'Eggs?'
'Eggs. Or to be more specific, you hunt for and, upon finding, collect the eggs of the rock ganzer. Think you can swing it?'
'Well, I'd like to know a little more about the techniques utilized for the collecting, and also about job conditions, and-'
He stopped because McHonnery was slowly, sadly shaking his head. 'You can find that out when you get there. I ain't delivering no goddamned travelogue, and you ain't deciding on no guided tour. Do you want the job or not?'
'Do you have anything else available?'
'No.'
'Then I'll take the job.'
'You've made a smart decision,' McHonnery said. He took a paper out of his pocket. 'Here is the standard government-approved contract, written in Kro-Melden, which is the official language of the planet Melde II, wherein is licensed the employing company. Can you read Kro-Melden?'
'I'm afraid not.'
'Then I'll translate the pertinent clauses for you, as required by law. Let's see … standard stuff about the Company not being responsible for fire, earthquake, atomic warfare, sun going nova, acts of god or gods, and so forth. The Company agrees to hire you for the sum of one credit a month, plus transportation to Melde; there it will furnish you with a Melde body; it will further issue you a set of clothes, and will feed and shelter you and care for your health and welfare, unless it finds itself unable to do so, in which case it won't and you will hold it harmless for that failure. In return for these and other Services, you will perform designated tasks as instructed, in this case those tasks exclusively relating to and specifically effecting upon the finding and collecting of ganzer eggs. And may God have mercy on your soul.'
'I beg your pardon?' Flynn asked.
'The last is just the standard invocation. Let me see, I think that about covers it. You guarantee, of course, not to commit acts of sabotage, espionage, irreverence, disobedience, etc, and to furthermore eschew and desist from the practices of sexual perversion as defined in Hoffmeyer's
'Well,' Flynn said, 'about those things I'm supposed to guarantee-'
'That's unimportant,' McHonnery said. 'Do you want the job or not? A simple yes or no will suffice.'
Marvin had his doubts, but, unfortunately, he didn't have any alternatives; and this lack rendered his doubts extraneous to the situation. He thought fleetingly of the detective, then he put that thought firmly aside. As McHonnery had said, how bad could a week of anything be? Therefore he agreed to take the job, registering his assent upon the mind-sensitive universal signaturizer at the bottom of the page. McHonnery led him forthwith to the Transportation Centre, from which point minds were shipped across the galaxy at a multiple of the speed of thought.
The next thing Marvin knew, he was on Melde, in a Melden body.
Chapter 9
The Ganzer Rain Forest on Melde was deep and wide; the faintest ghost of a breeze whispered among the colossal trees, slithered through the interlocked vines, and crept broken-backed over hook-edged grass. Drops of water slid painfully down and around the tangled foliage like exhausted runners of a maze, coming to rest at last in the spongy and indifferent soil. Shadows mingled and danced, faded and reappeared, called into spurious motion by two tired suns in a mouldy green sky. Overhead, a desolate therengol whistled for his mate, and heard in reply the quick ominous cough of a predatory kingspringer. And through this dolorous woodland, so tantalizingly like Earth and yet so different, Marvin Flynn moved in his unfamiliar Melden body, his eyes downcast, searching for ganzer eggs but not knowing what they looked like.
All had been haste. From the moment he arrived on Melde, he had barely had a chance to take stock of himself. No sooner was he bodified than someone was barking orders in his ear. Flynn had just had time to look hastily over his four-armed, four-legged body, give his tail a single experimental flick, and fold his ears across his back; then he was herded into a work gang, given a barracks number and a mess-hall location, and handed a jumper two sizes too big for him, and shoes that fitted tolerably well except for the left front. He signed for and was given the tools of his new trade; a large plastic bag, dark glasses, a compass, a net, a pair of tongs, a heavy metal tripod, and a blaster.
He and his fellow workers were then assembled in ranks, and received a hasty indoctrination lecture by the manager, a bored and supercilious Atreian.
Flynn learned that his new home occupied an insignificant portion of space in the vicinity of Aldeberan. Melde (so named for its dominant race, the Meldens) was a thoroughly second-rate world. Its climate was rated 'intolerable' on the Hurlihan-Chanz Climatic Tolerance Scale; its natural-resource potentiality was classified 'submarginal', and its aesthetic-resonance factor (unweighted) was given as 'unprepossessing'.
'Not the sort of place,' the manager said, 'that one would choose for a vacation, or indeed, for anything, except possibly the practice of extreme mortification.'
His audience tittered uneasily.
'Nevertheless,' the manager continued, 'this unloved and unlovely place, this solar misfortune, this cosmic mediocrity is home to its inhabitants, who consider it the finest place in the universe.'
The Meldens, with a fierce pride in their only tangible asset, had made the best of their bad bargain. With the plucky determination of the eternally unlucky, they had farmed the edges of the rain forest and collected meagre low-yield ores from the vast blazing deserts. Their dogged persistence would have been inspiring had it not been so tedious; and their efforts might have been considered a tribute to the vaunting spirit of life had they not invariably ended in failure. Because, despite all their travail, the Meldens were able to achieve nothing better than slow starvation in the present, and the promise of racial degeneration and extinction in the future.
'This, then, is Melde,' said the manager. 'Or rather, this is
'Ganzer eggs!' the manager repeated. 'No other planet possesses them; no other planet so desperately needs them. Ganzer eggs! No object in the known universe so clearly epitomizes the quality of desirability. Ganzer eggs! Let us consider them, if you will.'
Ganzer eggs were the sole export of the planet Melde. And luckily for the Meldens, the eggs were always in heavy use. On Orichades, ganzer eggs were utilized as love-objects; on Opiuchus II, they were ground up and eaten as a sovereign aphrodisiac; on Morichades, after consecration, they were worshipped by the irrational K'tengi. Many other uses could be cited.
