He interrupted: 'What are lambtchots?'
'Wait till you smell them. Then guess. I'll tell you this much. It's a smell hundreds and hundreds of years old. They found about it in the old books.'
'Is a lambtchot a Beast?'
'I won't tell you. You've got to wait,' she laughed, as she helped him sit down and spread his tasting dishes before him. He wanted to go back over the dinner first, sampling all the pretty things he had eaten, and savoring them this time with his now-living lips and tongue.
When Luci had found the Music Wire and had thrown its sphere up into the force-field, he reminded her of the new smells. She took out the long glass records and set the first one into a transmitter.
'Now sniff!'
A queer frightening, exciting smell came over the room. It seemed like nothing in this world, nor like anything from the Up-and-Out. Yet it was familiar. His mouth watered. His pulse beat a little faster; he scanned his Heart box. (Faster, sure enough.) But that smell, what was it? In mock perplexity, he grabbed her hands, looked into her eyes, and growled:
'Tell me, darling! Tell me, or I'll eat you up!'
'That's just right!'
'What?'
'You're right. It should make you want to eat me. It's meat.'
'Meat. Who?'
'Not a person,' said she, knowledgeably, 'a beast. A beast which people used to eat. A lamb was a small sheep—you've seen sheep out in the Wild, haven't you?—and a chop is part of its middle—here!' She pointed at her chest.
Martel did not hear her. All his boxes had sung over toward Alarm, some to Danger. He fought against the roar of his own mind, forcing Was body into excess excitement. How easy it was to be a Scanner when you really stood outside your own body, naberman-fashion, and looked back into it with your eyes alone. Then you could manage the body, rule it coldly even in the enduring agony of Space. But to realize that you were a body, that this thing was ruling you, that the mind could kick the flesh and send it roaring off into panic! That was bad.
He tried to remember the days before he had gone into the Haberman Device, before he had been cut apart for the Up-and-Out. Had he always been subject to the rush of his emotions from his mind to his body, from his body back to his mind, confounding him so that he couldn't Scan? But he hadn't been a Scanner then.
He knew what had hit him. Amid the roar of his own pulse, he knew. In the nightmare of the Up-and-Out, that smell had forced its way through to him, while their ship burned off Venus and the habermans fought the collapsing metal with their bare hands. He had scanned then: all were in Danger. Chestboxes went up to Overload and dropped to Dead all around him as he had moved from man to man, shoving the drifting corpses out of his way as he fought to scan each man in turn, to clamp vises on unnoticed broken legs, to snap the Sleeping Valve on men whose instruments showed they were hopelessly near overload. With men trying to work and cursing him for a Scanner while he, professional zeal aroused, fought to do his job and keep them alive in the Great Pain of Space, he had smelled that smell. It had fought its way along his rebuilt nerves, past the Haberman cuts, past all the safeguards of physical and mental discipline. In the wildest hour of tragedy, he had smelled aloud. He remembered it was like a bad cranching, connected with the fury and nightmare all around him. He had even stopped his work to scan himself, fearful that the First Effect might come, breaking past all Haberman cuts and ruining him with the Pain of Space. But he had come through. His own instruments stayed and stayed at Danger, without nearing Overload. He had done his job, and won a commendation for it. He had even forgotten the burning ship.
All except the smell.
And here the smell was all over again—the smell of meat-with-fire....
Luci looked at him with wifely concern. She obviously thought he had cranched too much, and was about to haberman back. She tried to be cheerful: 'You'd better rest, honey.'
He whispered to her: 'Cut—off—that—smell.'
She did not question his word. She cut the transmitter. She even crossed the room and stepped up the room controls until a small breeze flitted across the floor and drove the smells up to the ceiling.
He rose, tired and stiff. (His instruments were normal, except that Heart was fast and Nerves still hanging on the edge of Danger.) He spoke sadly:
'Forgive me, Luci. I suppose I shouldn't have cranched. Not so soon again. But darling, I have to get out from being a haberman. How can I ever be near you? How can I be a man—not hearing my own voice, not even feeling my own life as it goes through my veins? I love you, darling. Can't I ever be near you?'
Her pride was disciplined and automatic: 'But you're a Scanner!'
'I know I'm a Scanner. But so what?'
She went over the words, like a tale told a thousand times to reassure herself: '
'You are the bravest of the brave, the most skilful of the skilled. All Mankind owes most honor to the Scanner, who unites the Earths of Mankind. Scanners are the protectors of the habermans. They are the judges in the Up- and-Out. They make men live in the place where men need desperately to die. They are the most honored of Mankind, and even the Chiefs of the Instrumentality are delighted to pay them homage!'
With obstinate sorrow he demurred: 'Luci, we've heard that all before. But does it pay us back—'
' 'Scanners work for more than pay. They are the strong guards of Mankind.'
Don't you remember that?'
'But our lives, Luci. What can you get out of being the wife of a Scanner? Why did you marry me? I'm human only when I cranch. The rest of the time—you know what I am. A machine. A man turned into a machine. A man who has been killed and kept alive for duty. Don't you realize what I miss?'
'Of course, darling, of course—'
He went on: 'Don't you think I remember my childhood? Don't you think I remember what it is to be a man and not a haberman? To walk and feel my feet on the ground? To feel a decent clean pain instead of watching my body every minute to see if I'm alive? How will I know if I'm dead? Did you ever think of that, Luci? How will I know if I'm dead?'
She ignored the unreasonableness of his outburst. Pacifyingly, she said: 'Sit down, darling. Let me make you some kind of a drink. You're overwrought.'
Automatically, he scanned: 'No I'm not! Listen to me. How do you think it feels to be in the Up-and-Out with the crew tied-for-space all around you? How do you think it feels to watch them sleep? How do Vu think I like scanning, scanning, scanning month after month, when
can feel the Pain-of-Space beating against every part of my body, tying to get past my Haberman blocks? How do you think I like to Wake the men when I have to, and have them hate me for it? Have you ever seen habermans fight—strong men fighting, and neither knowing Pain, fighting until one touches Overload? Do you think about that, Luci?' Triumphantly he added: 'Can you blame me if I cranch, and come back to being a man, just two days a month?'
'I'm not blaming you, darling. Let's enjoy your cranch. Sit down now, and have a drink.'
He was sitting down, resting his face in his hands, while she fixed the drink, using natural fruits out of bottles in addition to the secure alkaloids. He watched her restlessly and pitied her for marrying a Scanner; and then, though it was unjust, resented having to pity her.
Just as she turned to hand him the drink, they both jumped a little as the phone rang. It should not have rung. They had turned it off. It rang again, obviously on the emergency circuit. Stepping ahead of Luci, Mar- tel strode over to the phone and looked into it. Vomact was looking at him.
The custom of Scanners entitled him to be brusque, even with a Senior Scanner, on certain given occasions. This was one.
Before Vomact could speak, Martel spoke two words into the plate, not caring whether the old man could read lips or not:
'Cranching. Busy.'
He cut the switch and went back to Luci.
The phone rang again.
Luci said, gently, 'I can find out what it is, darling. Here, take your drink and sit down.'
'Leave it alone,' said her husband. 'No one has a right to call when I'm cranching. He knows that. He ought to
