Stop! Danger! He was over the safe limit of euphoria, and took action to correct it. He had been adjusting to his life-supports since sundown. Years of experience underwater had accustomed him to similar systems; moonlongs of practice had prepared him for this particular version. Nonetheless it had taken a fair while before he persuaded it to eliminate from the cylinder’s sealed atmosphere all trace of the pheromones that beset the launch site, redolent of doubt about himself, and he must have overcompensated.
Yet there were excellent reasons for choosing a male to venture into orbit first. Had it not been long accepted that legendary Gveest’s revision of the folk’s genetic heritage lacked certain safeguards, currently being supplied with all possible expedition? Was it not past a doubt that radiation or even minor stress might trigger the masculinizing effect again? Which of the mission controllers would risk such a doom falling on their own buds—?
Unfair! Unfair! They were the latest in line of those who for generations had dedicated themselves to ensuring that the folk of Slah should benefit to the full from the bequest of that astonishing pioneer of genetic control. Without such experience there could have been no hauqs, no life-supports in space or underwater … and Karg’s epoch-making flight today would have been impossible.
Even so, there were many who resented it!
He struggled to dismiss such thoughts, and failed. What was one to make of people who knew their world might be destroyed without warning, yet scoffed at any attempt to seek refuge in space, called it foolish to obey the dictates of evolution, held that the only moral good consisted in multiplying the folk as much as possible? Oh, they were glad that the astronomers kept constant watch, for the whole world knew they had been right about the comet-head that crashed on Swiftyouth, and nobody in Karg’s lifetime had tried to revive the sick and crazy teaching about “planet people” which their forebudders had swallowed—and been poisoned by. On the other claw, if Swiftyouth’s gravity had been inadequate, or if it had been elsewhere in its orbit, then the folk of today might be struggling back from the swamps again.
But the past was dead, regardless of how vividly it might survive in one’s imagination, and he was due for a ground check. He tensed his right foremantle, his left side being reserved for on-hauq maintenance. The hauq herself was a very refined version, maybe excessively so; she now and then responded to casual pheromones and did her mindless best to please her pilot without asking permission…
Well, so did scudders sometimes. Nobody could expect a trailblazing flight like this to be a simple task.
His pressure on the farspeaker stimulated its pith and woke it to signal mode on the correct wavelength. Its response was prompt. Would it perform as well in space? No good saying others like it had done so; never before had a living person been carried into orbit…
“Karg? You register?”
“Clearly! How long until lift-off?”
“Full gas-globe expansion predicted imminently. Final confirmation of system status! Body cushioning?”
Karg reviewed every point at which his mantle and torso were braced by the comfortable shape of the far tougher hauq, and announced, “Fine!”
“Propulsion mass and musculator pumps?”
There were no complaints from the docile creatures responsible for his maneuvers in orbit. He said so.
“Respiration?”
“Sourgas level normal.”
“Pheromone absorption?”
Traces of his own exudations were still, he feared, leaking back to him before the purifiers could cancel them. But he had endured worse underwater, and it seemed like a trifling matter to complain about.
“Seems satisfactory so far.”
The distant voice—he assumed it must belong to Yull, second-in-command at the launch site, but there was a degree of unreality about any communication by audio alone—took on a doubtful note. “Only ‘so far’?”
He turned it with a joke. “How far have I got?”
However, there was no amusement in the response. “You realize we can’t abort after you leave the ground?”
“Of course I do! Next is remote readings, correct?”
“Ah … Yes: we report normal signals. Mutual?”
“Confirm.”
“Any unusual textures or odors that might indicate potential navigation or orientation errors?”