The World Menders

“Vaguely,” Farrari answered.

Jorrul lowered the visor with a snort of disgust. Chagrined, Farrari began to search his memory. The land of Scorvif lay amid its mountain surroundings like an elongated, six-fingered hand. At the high altitude of the fingertips the summers were cool, the winters snow-choked and frigid; but the elevation fell sharply, and through most of their lengths the broad finger valleys enjoyed mild summers and suffered cool, wet winters. The palm, being at the lowest level and nearest the equator, had mild winters and uncomfortably hot summers. Each finger funneled its streams into the land’s one river that snaked across the palm, looping around the flat hill upon which stood Scorv, the land’s only large city. In the spring the river was a thundering torrent that overflowed its banks and frequently gouged out a new course for itself. Sometimes it passed to the east of Scorv, sometimes to the west, and in especially wet springs the city stood on an island. At the land’s southern boundaries the mountains closed in on the river, narrowing and deepening it and finally tumbling it through a series of impassable cascades into a granite-lined crevass.

That much Farrari knew, but as he squinted at the dim, snow-covered slopes he was humiliated to find that he had no idea where he was. The best route for a lumbering supply platform would not be the shortest, but the one that got the platform to its destination with the least possible chance of detection. To reach the city of Scory they would circle to the north and approach the lilorr, the palm-plain, by way of one of the mountain chains that separated the finger valleys. They would spend the day at a shelter and finally arrive at Scory in the deepest darkness of the second night. A platform flight on a straight line from base to Scory would arrive at dawn, and IPR could not risk startling an early-rising native with the sight of a strange object in the sky. If it left early enough to arrive in darkness, it would be aloft over the mountains before dark, and nomads sometimes hunted in the mountain valleys.

As Graan had once remarked, IPR proceeded cautiously in even its smallest endeavors.

As daylight touched the highest mountain peaks the platform dipped downward, slowed its pace, and nosed along a shallow valley. Farrari thought he could hear the tinkling murmur of a leaping mountain stream. At the end of the valley they drifted against the sheer face of a high cliff, and a cave opened soundlessly before them. The opening closed after them, and lights came on as the platform settled gently to the floor. Jorrul pulled off his visor and gestured wearily at the row of bunks along one wall.

“Better get some sleep,” he said. “And enjoy it. Going into the field this is the last place, and returning it’s the first place, where a field agent can sleep with both eyes closed.”

He tossed a package of rations to Farrari and took one for himself, but before eating he went to the imposing bank of communications equipment in the corner. He first reported their safe arrival to base, and then he began to replay the reports that had accumulated. Munching his rations, Farrani reflected that this kind of officer simply did not occur in the Cultural Survey.

There was a disturbing grimness of purpose about him, as though he expected the worst of any situation and was usually right. His body was slender, his legs almost spindly, and his arms incongruously thick and muscular. It was probably small consolation to his subordinates that he would never order them to do something he would not do himself. There would be very few things that Peter Jorrul could not do himself.

Farrari had heard that he rarely smiled and never laughed.

When Farrari finally drifted off to sleep he had acquired a new respect for command responsibilities. Jorrul was still listening to reports, and his ration package was still unopened.

The cave was dark when Farrari awoke, and Jorrul was asleep. There was nothing for him to do but sleep again, which he did after lying awake for a time pondering the strange turn of events that had plucked him away from base. The next time he awoke there was a soft light in the corner where Jorrul was again poised over the communications equipment.

He looked up when Farrari swung down from his bunk. “Hungry?”

“Not especially,” Farrari said.

“Have another ration package if you want it. But you might want to save your appetite—we’ll be at my headquarters shortly after midnight, and there’ll be a hot native meal waiting.”

Farrari must have grimaced unconsciously, because Jorrul straightened up and demanded sternly, “Don’t you like native food?”

Farrari said, “Well—”

“Have you ever had any?”

“Every week,” Farrari said. “Dallum has those lunches, you know, and—”

He broke off in amazement as a legend exploded before his disbelieving eyes. Jorrul leaned forward in his chair to pound the floor with one hand while the other grasped his stomach and his body shook in a helpless convulsion of laughter. “Native food!” he gasped. “That’s laboratory stuff. No sane native would touch any of it.”

“I know that,” Farrari admitted. “But when you said ‘native food’ that was the first thing I thought of.”

Jorrul wiped his eyes, brushing aside his laughter with a final, resounding chuckle. “The rascz have a gourmet society,” he said seriously. “That’s why you rarely see my agents at base. They can’t stand the food there.”

“And the olz—do they have a gourmet society?”

“The olz starve, and so do my agents when they’re living with them. But when they leave the field for a rest they don’t go to base, they come to my headquarters where they can eat.” He spoke to the transmitter. “Farrari’s never had native food. Break him in gently. No, not the stuffed torn, but save some for me.” He canceled out and sat back wearily, his eyes fixed on Farrari.

“How did you know the kru was dead?” he asked.

“I thought it was obvious,” Farrari said.

“How’d you know the moving picture was missing?”

“I didn’t. I still don’t. It seemed like one good reason for the tapestry to be hanging there.”

Jorrul got to his feet. “The worst thing about field work,” he announced, “is the waiting.”

After an hour Farrari agreed fervently. He returned to his bunk for the want of anything else to do and finally fell asleep again. When Jorrul shook him awake it was dark outside; when the platform cleared the last mountain and dipped down over the lilorr, it was midnight.

Uarrari, gazing up at the brilliant span of starlight, asked suddenly, “Aren’t there any moons?”

After a long pause Jorrul answered curtly, “No. No moons.”

Under the bright sky the land below seemed appallingly black, a vast emptiness broken only once by the distant, half-concealed red glow of a dying fire.

Finally the platform settled slowly and came to rest. Invisible hands assisted Farrari as he climbed out. Jorrul followed him, announcing with rare enthusiasm, “Field team headquarters. Now we can eat.”

V

The faint, persistent vibration could have been Farrari’s imagination, but the incessant rumble in the background was real. Jorrul ate his stuffed Porn slowly, with obvious relish, and listened to reports. Farrari ate a rich stew much more slowly—he didn’t like it—and tried to follow the conversation.

Agent 93 reported a squad of the kru’s cavalry headed up the narru, one of the finger valleys, and this fact was discussed and pondered with a seriousness that Farrari would have accorded only to a full army on the march.

Agent 176 reported a village of sick olz on the south edge of the nlorr. Jorrul sat up alertly, pushed his food aside, and wanted to know what action had been taken. When informed that the report had just been received, he hurried away to talk with base.

Enis Holt, their portly host, who had introduced himself to Farrari as 101 and added his name as an afterthought, met Farrari’s puzzlement with a smile. “The olz are in such poor health that