during gestation until—”
“You’ve made your point, Doctor,” said O’Mara, approaching once again. His right hand, palm upward, held three tablets. “I won’t give you a shot because stopping you to do so will cause distress, obviously. Instead I’ll give you three of these sleep-bombs. The effects will be sudden and you will be out for at least forty-eight hours. I shall erase the tape while you’re unconscious. There will be a few residual memories and impressions when you awaken, but no panic.
“Now open your mouth, Doctor. Your eyes will close by themselves
Conway awoke in a tiny cabin whose austere color scheme told him that he was aboard a Federation cruiser and whose wall plaque narrowed it down to Cultural Contact and Survey vessel Descartes. An officer wearing Major’s insignia was sitting in the single, fold-down chair, overcrowding the cabin while studying one of the thick Meatball files. He looked up.
“Edwards, ship’s medical officer,” he said pleasantly. “Nice to have you with us, Doctor. Are you awake?”
Conway yawned furiously and said, “Half.”
“In that case,” said Edwards, moving into the corridor so that Conway could have room to dress, “the Captain wants to see us.
Descartes was a large ship and its control room was spacious enough to contain Surreshun’s life-support system without too much inconvenience to the officers manning it. Captain Williamson had invited the roller to spend most of its time there-a compliment which could be appreciated by any astronaut regardless of species-and for a being who did not know the meaning of sleep it had the advantage of always being manned. Surreshun could talk to them, after a fashion.
The vessel’s computer was tiny compared with the monster which handled Translation at Sector General, and even then only a fraction of its capacity could be spared for translation purposes since it still had to serve the ship. As a result the Captain’s attempts at communicating complex psycho political ideas to Surreshun were not meeting with much success.
The officer standing behind the Captain turned and he recognized Harrison. Conway nodded and said, “How’s the leg, Lieutenant?”
“Fine, thank you,” said Harrison. He added seriously, “It troubles me a little when it rains, but that isn’t often in a spaceship …
“If you must make conversation, Harrison,” said the Captain with controlled irritation, “please make intelligent conversation.” To Conway he said briskly, “Doctor, its governmental system is completely beyond me-if anything it appears to be a form of paramilitary anarchy. But we must contact its superiors or, failing this, its mate or close relatives. Trouble is, Surreshun doesn’t even understand the concept of parental affection and its sex relationships seem to be unusually complex …
“That they are,” said Conway with feeling.
“Obviously you know more than we do on this subject,” said the Captain, looking relieved. “I had hoped for this. As well as sharing minds for a few minutes it was also your patient, I’m told?”
Conway nodded. “It was not really a patient, sir, since it wasn’t sick, but it cooperated during the many physiological and psychological tests. It is still anxious to return home and almost as anxious for us to make friendly contact with its people. What is the problem, sir?”
Basically the Captain’s problem was that he had a suspicious mind and he was giving the Meatball natives credit for having similar minds. So far as they were concerned Surreshun, the first being of their race to go into space, had been swallowed up by Descartes’ cargo lock and taken away.
“They expected to lose me,” Surreshun put in at that point, “but they did not expect to have me stolen.”
Their subsequent reaction on Descartes’ return was predictable- every form of nastiness of which they were capable had been hurled at the ship. The nuclear missiles were easily evaded or knocked out, but Williamson had withdrawn because their warheads had been of a particularly dirty type and surface life would have been seriously affected by fallout if the attack had been allowed to continue. Now he was returning again, this time with Meatball’s first astronaut, and he must prove to the planetary authorities and/or Surreshun’s friends that nothing unpleasant had happened to it.
The easiest way of doing this would be to go into orbit beyond the range of their missiles and let Surreshun itself spend as much time as necessary convincing its people that it had not been tortured or had its mind taken over by some form of monstrous alien life like the Captain. Its vehicle’s communications equipment had been duplicated so there was no technical problem. Nevertheless, Williamson felt that the proper procedure would be for him to communicate with the Meatball authorities and apologize for the mistake before Surreshun spoke.
“The original purpose of this exercise was to make friendly contact with these people,” Williamson concluded, “even before you people at the hospital got so excited about these thought-controlled tools and decided that you wanted more of them.”
“My reason for being here is not altogether commercial,” said Conway, in the tone of one whose conscience is not altogether clear. He went on, ’so far as the present problem is concerned, I can help you. The difficulty stems from your not understanding their complete lack of parental and filial affection or any other emotional ties other than the brief but very intense bond which exists prior to and during the mating process. You see, they really do hate their fathers and everyone else who …
“Help us, he said,” muttered Edwards.
Everyone else who is directly related to them,” Conway went on.
“As well, some of Surreshun’s more unusual memories have remained in my mind. This sometimes occurs after exposure to an unusually alien personality, and these people are unusual …
The structure of Meatball’s society until the fairly recent past had been a complete reversal of what most intelligent species considered normal. Outwardly it was an anarchy in which the most respected people were the rugged individualist, the far travelers, the beings who lived dangerously and continually sought for new experiences. Cooperation and self-imposed discipline was necessary for mutual protection, of course, since the species had many natural enemies, but this was completely foreign to their natures and only the cowards and weaklings who put safety and comfort above all else were able to overcome the shame of close physical cooperation.
In the early days this stratum of society was considered to be the lowest of the low, but it had been one of them who had devised a method of allowing a person to rotate and live without having to travel along the sea bed. This, the ability to live while remaining stationary, was analogous to the discovery of fire or the wheel on Earth and had been the beginning of technological development on Meatball.
As the desire for comfort, safety and cooperation grew the number of rugged individualists dwindled-they tended to be killed off rather frequently, in any case. Real power came to lie in the stubby tentacles of the beings who worried about the future or who were so curious about the world around them that they were willing to do shameful things and give up practically all of their physical freedom to satisfy it. They made a token admission of guilt and lack of authority, but they were, in fact, the real rulers. The individualists who were nominally the rulers had become figureheads with one rather important exception.
The reason for this topsy-turvy arrangement was a deep, sex-based revulsion toward all blood relations. Since the rollers of Meatball had evolved in a fairly small and confined area and had been forced to move continually within this area, physical contact for mating purposes-a wholly instinctive affair in presapient times-was much more likely to occur between relatives than complete strangers, they had evolved an effective safeguard against inbreeding.
Surreshun’s species reproduced hermaphroditically. Each parent after mating grew their twin offspring, one on each side of their bodies like continuous blisters encircling the side walls of a tire. Injury, disease or the mental confusion immediately following birth could cause the parent to lose balance, roll onto its side, stop and die. But this type of fatality occurred less frequently now that there were machines to maintain the parent’s rotation until it was out of danger. But the points where the children eventually detached themselves form their parents remained very sensitive areas to everyone concerned and their positions were governed by hereditary factors. The result was that any close blood relation trying to make mating contact caused itself and the other being considerable pain. The rollers really did hate their fathers and every other relative. They had no choice.
… And the very brief period of courtship,” Conway added in conclusion, “explains the apparent boastfulness we have observed in Surreshun. During a chance convergence on the sea bottom there is never much time to
