may shoot the son of a bitch and get on with a rational discussion. The lesser of two evils doesn’t stop being evil on that account. And I… have had friends on the opposite side, in happier days.”
Dejerine paused before he added, “It is that, you understand, I want to have a part in ending this thing. I happen to take seriously the theory that our service is the space police arm of the Peace Control Authority of the World Federation.” He stirred. “Tell me, since you say they generally oppose the war on Ishtar, why? Most Earthside intellectuals support it with crusading fervor.”
Conway drank. “I’m afraid at that distance, the issues look kind of unreal,” he said, and leaned forward. “Mainly, though—from what I heard and read before leaving home, when the conflict was only potential but the news kept getting uglier—and from letters and tapes I’ve gotten since, and talking with visitors here—mainly, they see it as a disaster to their special cause, to the whole planet. If nothing else, the supplies they need are being pinched off. Let the affair go on awhile, and they won’t be able to get any stuff for their projects. At the worst possible time. too.”
“Ah.” Dejerine blew a smoke ring and followed its progress through squinted eyes till it had dissipated. “We come to what I want from you. Information. Background. Advice. The care and feeding of Ishtarians and of the small but venerable scientific-altruistic colony which the Exploratory Consortium maintains among them. Anything you can tell. You see, my orders were cut last week. Nearly all my waking hours and half my sleeping ones have gone to getting my command organized, and will until we leave, which is soon. I suppose it would be indiscreet to tell a junior officer how much high-level sperm I receive—”
Seeing Conway’s bemusement, he stopped. “Uh, sperm, sir?” the younger man asked.
“What, you haven’t heard? You are an innocent. Standard Procedure, Entropy Reaching Maximum. The point is, you are my single chance to learn about my objective. Ignorant as I am, I could do every kind of harm, perhaps actually compromise my mission.”
“But—you’re educated, you’ve been around in space—”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” Dejerine said impatiently. “I understand the celestial mechanics of the Anubelean System. I know a little something about the natives of Ishtar, including their unique biological situation.” He drew breath. “Planets where men can walk around in shirt sleeves are few enough that everybody alive between the ears can at least name you those we know. By the same token, however, they’re thinly scattered. Our main involvements are with races and bases closer to home. Also, never forget, any planet is a whole world, too big and complicated to comprehend. Bon Dieu, man, I live on Earth and I can’t describe its littoral ecology or the dynastic history of China or what the current squabble in the Kenyan Empire is about!”
He dropped cigar in ashtaker, slammed his drink down next to it, and from the table snatched the book on Ishtar. “I have been studying this, for instance.” His words came quick and harsh. “The latest published, ten years old. Neatly assembled information.” He flopped it open, more or less at random, and thrust it under Conway’s nose. “Observe.”
The left page:
ANUBELEA B (Bel)
Type: G2, main sequence
Mass: 0.95 Sol
Mean diameter: 1.06 Sol
Mean rotation period: 0.91
Sol Luminosity: 0.98 Sol
Effective temperature: 5800° K.
The right page:
ANUBELEA B III (Bel III)
ISHTAR
Mass: 1.53 E.
Mean equatorial diameter: 1.14 E = 14,502 km.
Mean density: 1.03 E = 5.73 H20.
Mean surface gravity: 1.18 E = 1155 cm/sec2.
Sidereal year: 1,072 E = 392 Terrestrial days = 510 Ishtarian days.
Rotation period: 0.775 E = 18 h 36 m 10.3 s.
Axial inclination: 1.14 E = 28° 3’.2.
Mean irradiation (from Bel only): 0.89 Sol/Earth.
Mean angular diameter of Bel: 1.03 Sol/Earth = 33’.
Mean sea-level atmospheric pressure: 1.12 E = 810 mm Hg.
Normal % atmospheric composition by volume: N3 76.90, O2 21.02, H2O 0.35, A 1.01, CO2 0.03, + misc.
Water/land surface ratio: 1.20 E = 2.94:1.
“What’s there that I couldn’t get better and quicker from the navigator’s bible?” Dejerine said. “Oh, yes, sf, and, da, ja, also text, pictures, anecdotes. Not bad material for a tourist to study in advance, if anybody could afford to play tourist over such a distance. And I’ve gone through other stuff too, projected hours of 3V records, I know the shape of an Ishtarian—” He had been riffling pages as he talked, and for no logical reason halted at such an illustration.
A male and female were shown, plus a human who gave scale. The male was the larger of the pair, about the size of a small horse. “Centauroid” was a very loose description. The burly two-armed torso merged smoothly with the four-legged barrel, taurine hump above the forequarters leading from the horizontal to the almost vertical sections of the back. The body looked leonine rather than equine, with its robust build, long tail, padded feet whose three toes (more prehensile in front than behind) bore purplish nails. The arms resembled, somewhat, those of a Terrestrial weight lifter; but the hands each had four digits, the first three not unlike man’s thumb and two of his fingers though spreading more widely, the last like a less-developed extra thumb with one more joint, all possessing nails too. The head was big and round, ears large and pointed (slightly movable), jaw showing a chin and near- anthropomorphous delicacy, teeth white and small except for a pair of upper fangs which barely protruded from the mouth. Instead of a nose, a short muzzle opened in a single broad nostril which curved downward and flared at the ends. Beneath, feline whiskers surrounded the upper lip. The eyes also suggested a cat’s, whiteless, his blue, hers golden.
Face and arms were glabrous, the skin (in the race depicted, native to Beronnen) light brown. Most of the body bore a tawny-green mosslike pelt. The lion impression was heightened by a rufous mane which covered head, throat, and spine down to the hump: composed not of hair but of thickly leaved vines. A familiar growth formed a shelf of eyebrow.
