Student Body.
by Floyd L. Wallace.
_When a really infallible scientific bureau makes a drastically serious error, the data must be wrong ... but wrong in what way?_
The first morning that they were fully committed to the planet, the executive officer stepped out of the ship. It was not quite dawn.
Executive Hafner squinted in the early light; his eyes opened wider, and he promptly went back inside. Three minutes later, he reappeared with the biologist in tow.
"Last night you said there was nothing dangerous," said the executive.
"Do you still think it"s so?"
Dano Marin stared. "I do." What his voice lacked in conviction, it made up in embarra.s.sment. He laughed uncertainly.
"This is no laughing matter. I"ll talk to you later."
The biologist stood by the ship and watched as the executive walked to the row of sleeping colonists.
"Mrs. Athyl," said the executive as he stopped beside the sleeping figure.
She yawned, rubbed her eyes, rolled over, and stood up. The covering that should have been there, however, wasn"t. Neither was the garment she had on when she had gone to sleep. She a.s.sumed the conventional position of a woman who is astonished to find herself unclad without her knowledge or consent.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"It"s all right, Mrs. Athyl. I"m not a voyeur myself. Still, I think you should get some clothing on." Most of the colonists were awake now. Executive Hafner turned to them. "If you haven"t any suitable clothing in the ship, the commissary will issue you some. Explanations will be given later."
The colonists scattered. There was no compulsive modesty among them, for it couldn"t have survived a year and a half in crowded s.p.a.ceships.
Nevertheless, it was a shock to awaken with no clothing on and not know who or what had removed it during the night. It was surprise more than anything else that disconcerted them.
On his way back to the s.p.a.ceship, Executive Hafner paused. "Any ideas about it?"
Dano Marin shrugged. "How could I have? The planet is as new to me as it is to you."
"Sure. But you"re the biologist."
As the only scientist in a crew of rough-and-ready colonists and builders, Marin was going to be called on to answer a lot of questions that weren"t in his field.
"Nocturnal insects, most likely," he suggested. That was pretty weak, though he knew that in ancient times locusts had stripped fields in a matter of hours. Could they do the same with the clothing of humans and not awaken them? "I"ll look into the matter. As soon as I find anything, I"ll let you know."
"Good." Hafner nodded and went into the s.p.a.ceship.
Dano Marin walked to the grove in which the colonists had been sleeping. It had been a mistake to let them bed down there, but at the time the request had been made, there had seemed no reason not to grant it. After eighteen months in crowded ships everyone naturally wanted fresh air and the rustle of leaves overhead.
Marin looked out through the grove. It was empty now; the colonists, both men and women, had disappeared inside the ship, dressing, probably.
The trees were not tall and the leaves were dark bottle-green.
Occasional huge white flowers caught sunlight that made them seem larger than they were. It wasn"t Earth and therefore the trees couldn"t be magnolias. But they reminded Marin of magnolia trees and thereafter he always thought of them as that.
The problem of the missing clothing was ironic. Biological Survey never made a mistake--yet obviously they had. They listed the planet as the most suitable for Man of any so far discovered. Few insects, no dangerous animals, a most equitable climate. They had named it Glade because that was the word which fitted best. The whole land ma.s.s seemed to be one vast and pleasant meadow.
Evidently there were things about the planet that Biological Survey had missed.
Marin dropped to his knees and began to look for clues. If insects had been responsible, there ought to be a few dead ones, crushed, perhaps, as the colonists rolled over in their sleep. There were no insects, either live or dead.
He stood up in disappointment and walked slowly through the grove. It might be the trees. At night they could exude a vapor which was capable of dissolving the material from which the clothing had been made. Far-fetched, but not impossible. He crumbled a leaf in his hand and rubbed it against his sleeve. A pungent smell, but nothing happened. That didn"t disprove the theory, of course.
He looked out through the trees at the blue sun. It was bigger than Sol, but farther away. At Glade, it was about equal to the Sun on Earth.
He almost missed the bright eyes that regarded him from the underbrush. Almost, but didn"t--the domain of biology begins at the edge of the atmosphere; it includes the brush and the small creatures that live in it.
He swooped down on it. The creature fled squealing. He ran it down in the gra.s.s outside the grove. It collapsed into quaking flesh as he picked it up. He talked to it gently and the terror subsided.
It nibbled contentedly on his jacket as he carried it back to the ship.
Executive Hafner stared unhappily into the cage. It was an undistinguished animal, small and something like an undeveloped rodent. Its fur was spa.r.s.e and stringy, unglamorous; it would never be an item in the fur export trade.
"Can we exterminate it?" asked Hafner. "Locally, that is."
"Hardly. It"s ecologically basic."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
The executive looked blank. Dano Marin added the explanation: "You know how Biological Control works. As soon as a planet has been discovered that looks suitable, they send out a survey ship loaded with equipment. The ship flies low over a good part of the planet and the instruments in the ship record the neural currents of the animals below. The instruments can distinguish the characteristic neural patterns of anything that has a brain, including insects.
"Anyway, they have a pretty good idea of the kinds of animals on the planet and their relative distribution. Naturally, the survey party takes a few specimens. They have to in order to correlate the pattern with the actual animal, otherwise the neural pattern would be merely a meaningless squiggle on a microfilm.
"The survey shows that this animal is one of only four species of mammals on the planet. It is also the most numerous."
Hafner grunted. "So if we kill them off here, others will swarm in from surrounding areas?"
"That"s about it. There are probably millions of them on this peninsula. Of course, if you want to put a barrier across the narrow connection to the mainland, you might be able to wipe them out locally."
The executive scowled. A barrier was possible, but it would involve more work than he cared to expend.
"What do they eat?" he asked truculently.
"A little bit of everything, apparently. Insects, fruits, berries, nuts, succulents, and grain." Dano Marin smiled. "I guess it could be called an omnivore--now that our clothing is handy, it eats that, too."
Hafner didn"t smile. "I thought our clothing was supposed to be verminproof."
Marin shrugged. "It is, on twenty-seven planets. On the twenty-eighth, we meet up with a little fella that has better digestive fluids, that"s all."