“I don’t, really, I just needed some guide to Cyclops
when they posted me here, and these are the examples
our social psychologists dredged up for me.”
“What does support the Cyclopean economy? And
wliat’s the total population now?”
“Efficient census-taking is one of the expensive luxuries
they don’t enjoy, but our best estimates are around seven
to eight hundred million. Mark you, life expectancy is
low; one child in eight dies in its first year. As to the
economy: it’s self-sapporring in respect of food and
housingthe climate in the equatorial belt is an ad-
vantage there, with very mild rainy seasons and no real
wintersand several other basics like textiles . . . It’s a
safe Class A planet, or the original settlers would never
have survived.
“About the only exports are fish-oil, which serves as a
source of proteins for farther synthesis and ultimate use
as a diet-supplement on some nearby vitamin-poor worlds,
and raw materials from the asteroid belt. There are some
lumps of ore pure enough to be worth shipping long dis-
tances. But the margin is slender, and two invisible ex-
ports make the crucial difference between getting by and
relapsing to starvation.
“One of them is a small tramp space-fleet, consisting of
a hundred-odd interstellar vessels. And the other isall
this.” Langenschmidt gestured to embrace their surround-
ings. “Cyclops is conveniently sited with respect to the
forward bases in this sector, and we’ve rented this island
since shortly after the Corps was constituted.
“Trapped in their economic snare, the Cyclopeans
don’t like having us beret Isn’t it a truly ancient platitude
that the poor don’t like the police? But here we are, and
they can’t afford to be rid of us.”
The office communicator sounded, and Nole’s voice,
nervous, addressed them. “Commandant, can you come
down to the computing room? I’m getting results I can’t
make sense of, and I think you’ll want to see them.”
“Coming!” Langenschmidt said briskly, and rose.
Very cautiously, Bracy Dyge swung his legs over the
side of the bed. It was further to the floor than he had
expected. Anyway, this hardly fitted his concept of a
bedit was an elaborate therapeutic installation with a
disturbing aura of near-sentience about it, and he would
much rather have been on the pile of inflated fish-skins
which he was used to at home, three inches from the
ground.
He had been instructed to lie here and sleep, but he’d
been unable to. After ashort lifetime on the edge of
starvation, the nutrient and restorative shots he had been
given had acted like a violent stimulantsomething the
doctors should have made allowances for, but hadn’t,
being used to scaling their treatment to the healthier and
better-fed patients they- normally had.
He felt, in short, fighting fit. The burns he had suf-
fered when he let off his signal rockets against the wolf-
shark had been dressed with something to relieve the
pain, and although he had lost half his braided hair and
several square inches of skin, the injured area was cool
and perfectly comfortable. Nothing distracted him from
what was uppermost in his mindto wit, the fact that he
had been brought to half-legendary Corps Island, from
which the local inhabitants were strictly excluded.
Tomorrow he would have to ask to be sent awayhe
owed it to his family to get back to sea and try and
complete his unfinished business. He had ventured to tell
the doctor of his dream-ambitionbeing allowed to join
the Corpsbut something in the answering laugh had
convinced him it was a ridiculous proposal. They had
promised to mend his fish-finder, and he would have to
be content with that as his reward for rescuing the wolf-
shark-hunter.
If only it had been one of the men from the Corps
base . . .! But it was useless to wish that the past were
different.
Maybe he could beg replacements for his torn solar
sails, too. Even so, tomorrow he would have to leave
and lying wakeful without using this opportunity to see
how the Corps lived was more than he could endure.
He stole to the door and fumbled with the latch. It
proved to be simple in operation, and after pressure .on a