the Dark Light Years Read Free Page B

synthetic foods so popular on Earth. At one table sat a stocky young American with a fresh face, a red neck, and a razor-sharp crewcut. His name was Hank Quilter, and the more perceptive of h is friends had him marked down as a man who would go far. He sat over a synthwine (made from nothing so vulgar as a grape grown from the coarse soil and ripened by the un-refined elements) and argued, his surly-cheerful face animated as he scorned the viewpoint of Ginger Duffield, the ship's weedy messdeck lawyer.
    Ainson broke up the conversation without ceremony. Quilter had led the patrol of the previous night.
    Draining his glass, Quilter resignedly fetched a thin youth named Walthamstone who had also been on the patrol, and the four of them walked over to the motor pool - being demolished amid shouting preparatory to take-off - to collect an overlander.
    Ainson signed for the vehicle, and they drove off with Walthamstone at the wheel and Phipps distributing weapons. The latter said, "Bargerone hasn't given us much time, Bruce. What do you hope to find?”
    "I want to examine the site where the creatures were captured. Of course I would like to find something that would make Bargerone eat humble pie." He caught Phipps' warning glance at the men and said sharply, "Quilter, you were in charge last night. Your trigger-finger was a bit itchy, wasn't it? Did you think you were in the Wild West?”
    Quilter turned round to give his superior a look.
    "Captain complimented me this morning," was all he said.
    Dropping that line of approach, Ainson said, "These beasts may not look intelligent, but if one is sensitive one can feel a certain something about them. They show no panic, nor fear of any kind.”
    "Could be as much a sign of stupidity as intelligence." Phipps said.
    "Mm, possible, I suppose. All the same. ... Another thing, Gussie, that seems worth pursuing.
    Whatever the standing of these creatures may be. they don't fit with the larger animals we've discovered on other planets so far. Oh, I know we've only found a couple of dozen planets harboring any sort of life - dash it, star travel isn't thirty years old yet. But it does seem as if light gravity planets breed light spindly beings and heavy planets breed bulky compact beings. And these critters are exceptions to the rule.”
    "I see what you mean. This world has not much more mass than Mars, yet our bag are built like rhinoceroses.”
    "They were all wallowing in the mud like rhinos when we found them," Quilter offered. "How could they have any intelligence?”
    "You shouldn't have shot them down like that They must be rare, or we'd have spotted some elsewhere on 12B before this.”
    "You don't stop to think when you're on the receiving end of a rhino charge," Quilter sulked.
    "So I see.”
    They rumbled over an unkempt plain in silence. Ainson tried to recapture the happiness he had experienced on first walking across this untrod planet. New planets always renewed his pleasure in life; but such pleasures had been spoiled this voyage - spoiled as usual by other people. He had been mistaken to ship on a Company boat; life on Space Corps boats was more rigid and simple; unfortunately, the Anglo-Brazilian war engaged all Corps ships, keeping them too busy with solar system maneuvers for such peaceful enterprises as exploration. Nevertheless, he did not deserve a captain like Edgar Bargerone.
    Pity Bargerone did not blast-off and leave him here by himself, Ainson thought. Away from people, communing -he recollected his father's phrase - communing with nature!
    The people would come to 12B. Soon enough it would have, like Earth, its over-population problems.
    That was why it was explored: with a view to colonization. Sites for the first communities had been marked out on the other side of the world. In a couple of years, the poor wretches forced by economic necessity to leave all they held dear on Earth would be trans-shipped to 12B (but they would have a pretty and tempting colonial