The Seed of Evil

“I was thinking less of that,” Brand said, “than of the Chid themselves. Those laws are for our own protection. Maybe we’d be getting into something we can’t get out of.”

Ruiger’s voice was blunt and obstinate. “My ancestors were Boers,” he said. “They were people who learned to hang on to life, no matter what it costs. That’s my outlook, too. Chances are worth taking where it’s a matter of living or not living.”

He took a last look round the clearing, feeling a lingering regret that he had not found time to go after the scythe-cat. “No sense hanging about here. Let’s get moving.”

“The way I see it,” Ruiger said as they flew over the tawny-coloured continent, “creatures with such a knowledge of surgery can’t be all that bad. They can mend the sick and injured—that’s not something I find incomprehensible. Maybe the government’s too quick to write the no-go sign.”

Brand didn’t answer. Soon the Chid camp came in sight. It was on the edge of a level plain, perched near a two-hundred foot cliff that fell away to sharp rocks and a boiling sea. It had only three features: a pentagonal hut that seemed to be roofed with local ferns, the Chid ship, which resembled nothing so much as an Earth street tram, and a small, dark wood which occupied an oval-shaped depression in the ground. Ruiger did not think the wood was indigenous. Probably, he thought, the Chid had set it up as a garden or a park, using plants and trees from their own world.

They set down on what could roughly be interpreted as the perimeter of the camp. For some time they sat together in the control cabin, saying nothing, watching the site through the view-screens. At first there was no sign of life. After about half an hour, two tall Chid emerged from the hut and strolled to the wood, with not a single glance at the Earth ship nearby.

Anxiously Ruiger and Brand watched. At length the Chid reappeared, brushing aside foliage and coming into the light of day from the dank depths of the wood. Unconcernedly they ambled back to the fern-covered hut.

“It seems they spend their time in the hut, not in the ship,” Brand observed.

“Unless there are more of them in the ship.”

“It’s not very big. It couldn’t carry many.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Ruiger gnawed his knuckles. “They’re ignoring us.”

“Wise of them. We’d do the same if they landed near us. We might even move away. They haven’t done that.”

“Well, the first move’s up to us.” Ruiger rose, and looked at Brand. Both men felt nervousness make a sick ache in their stomachs. “Let’s go out there and see what they’ll do for us.”

They holstered their side-arms inside their shirts so that to outward appearances they were unarmed. Wessel’s jellified body still lay on the sled. They eased it out of the port, and set off across the short stretch of savannah-like grass to the Chid hut.

From outside the hut looked primitive and could as well have been erected by savages. They stopped a few feet from the door, which like the walls was made of a frame of branches from a local tree interwoven with ferns.

He decided it was probably an advantage that they would have to converse by means of gestures. When only the simplest and most obvious wants could be made known there was less room for misunderstanding.

He hooked his thumbs in his belt and called out. “Hello! Hello!”

Again: “Hello! We are Earthmen!”

The door opened, swinging inwards. The interior was dim. Ruiger hesitated. Then, his throat dry, he stepped inside, followed by Brand who guided the sled before him. “We are Earthmen,” he repeated, feeling slightly ridiculous. “We have trouble. We need your help.”

Anything else he might have said was cut off as he absorbed the scene within. The two Chid he had seen earlier swivelled their eyes to look at him. One lolled on a couch, but in such a manner as to seem like a corpse that had been carelessly thrown there, limbs flung apart in disarray, head hanging down and almost touching the beaten earth floor. The other was leaning forward half upright, dangling limply from a double sling into which his arms were thrust, and which was suspended from the roof rafters. His head lolled forward, his legs trailed behind.

Both postures looked bizarrely uncomfortable. Ruiger supposed, however, that the Chid were simply relaxing.

Somewhat larger of frame than a human, they had a lank, loose appearance about them. Their skin was grey, with undertones of green and buff orange. For clothing they wore a simple garment consisting of short trousers combined with a bib held in place by straps going over the shoulders. As with many androform species, their nonhuman faces were apt to seem caricatures of a particular human expression—in the Chid instance, an idiotic, chuckling gormlessness. It was important, Ruiger knew, not to be influenced by this doubtlessly totally wrong impression.