‘WeIf? Was that his name?” Jason asked stumblingly. “I didn’t know… .”
“You didn’t even know.” Kerk’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of disgust. “You didn’t even know his name-yet he died that you might continue your miserable existence.” Kerk spat, as if the words gave a vile flavor to his speech, and stamped toward the exit lock. Almost as an afterthought, he turned back to Jason.
“You’ll stay here in the sealed buildings until the ship returns in two weeks. Then you will leave this planet and never come back. If you do I’ll kill you instantly. With pleasure.” He started through the lock.
“Wait,” Jason shouted. “You can’t decide like that. You haven’t even seen the evidence I’ve uncovered. Ask Meta-” The lock thumped shut and Kerk was gone.
The whole thing was just too stupid. Anger began to replace the futile despair of a moment before. He was being treated like an irresponsible child, the importance of his discovery of the log completely ignored. –
Jason turned and saw for the first time that Brucco was standing there. “Did you hear that?” Jason asked him.
“Yes. And I quite agree. You can consider yourself lucky.”
“Lucky!” Jason was the angry one now. “Lucky to be treated like a / moronic child, with contempt for everything I do-”
“I said lucky,” Brucco snapped. ‘Welf was Kerk’s only surviving son. Kerk had high hopes for him, was training him to take his place eventually.” He turned to leave but Jason called after him.
“Wait. I’m sorry about Welf. I can’t be any sorrier knowing that he was Kerk’s son. But at least it explains why Kerk is so quick to throw me out-as well as the evidence I have uncovered. The log of the ship…”
“I know, I’ve seen it,” Brucco interrupted. “Meta brought it in. Very interesting historical document.”
“That’s all you can see it as, an historical document? The significance of the planetary change escapes you?”
“It doesn’t escape me,” Brucco answered briefly. “But I cannot see that it has any relevancy today. The past is unchangeable and we must fight in the present. That is enough to occupy all our energies.”
The pressure of futility built up inside Jason, fighting for a way to
burst free. Wherever he turned, there was only indifference.
“You’re an intelligent man, Brucco-yet you can see no further than the tip of your own nose. I suppose it is inevitable. You and the rest of the Pyrrans are supermen by Earth standards. Tough, ruthless, unbeatable, fast on the draw. Drop you anywhere and you land on your feet. You would make perfect Texas Rangers, Canadian Mounties, Venus Swamp Patrolmen-any of the mythical frontier fighters of the past. And I think that’s where you really belong. In the past. On Pyrrus, mankind has been pushed to the limit of adaptability in muscle and reflex. And it’s a dead end. Brain was the thing that dragged mankind out of the caves and started him on his way to the stars. When we start thinking with our muscles again we are on our way right back to those caves. Isn’t that what you Pyrrans are? A bunch of cavemen hitting animals on the head with stone axes. Do you ever stop to think why you are here? What you are doing? Where you are going?”
Jason had to stop; he was exhausted and gasping for breath. Brucco rubbed his chin in thought. “Caves?” he asked. “Of course we don’t live in caves or use stone clubs. I don’t understand your point at all.”
It was impossible to be angry, or even exasperated. Jason started to answer, then laughed instead. A very humorless laugh. He was too tired to argue anymore. He kept running into this same stone wall with all the Pyrrans. Theirs was a logic of the moment. The past and future unchangeable, unknowable-and uninteresting. “How is the perimeter battle going?” he asked finally, wanting to change the subject.
“Finished. Or in the last stages at least.” Brucco was enthusiastic as he showed Jason stereos of the attackers. He did not notice Jason’s repressed shudder.
“This was the most serious breakthrough in years, but we caught it in time. I hate to think what would have happened if they hadn’t been