15

FRAFFIN SAT WAITING BEHIND HIS DESK AS KELEXEL entered the director's salon. The room's silver light had been tuned to a high pitch, almost glaring. The surface of the desk glittered. Fraffin wore native dress, a black suit with white linen tie. Golden buttons at the cuffs reflected shards of brilliance into Kelexel's eyes.

Behind a mask of brooding superiority, Fraffin felt himself poised for a pouncing elation. This poor fool of an Investigator! The man had been aimed at his present moment like an arrow. It only remained for him to find the sort of target in which he'd been embedded.

And I aimed him! Fraffin thought. I put him here as surely as I put any native into its predicament.

"You asked to see me?" Fraffin asked. He remained seated, emphasizing his displeasure with the visitor.

Kelexel noted the gesture, ignored it. Fraffin's posture was almost boorish. Perhaps it reflected confidence and that would bear watching. But the Primacy did not send complete fools to do its investigating and the Director must discover this soon.

"I wish to discuss my pet with you," Kelexel said, seating himself across from Fraffin without invitation. The desk was an enormous empty expanse separating them. A fault glistening reflection of Fraffin could be seen in its surface.

"There's something wrong with your pet?" Fraffin asked. He smiled to himself, thinking of the latest report on Kelexel's antics with the native female. The Investigator was suspicious now; no doubt of that. But too late --far too late.

"Perhaps there's nothing wrong with my pet," Kelexel said. "Certainly she delights me. But it has occurred to me that I know so little really about the natives, her sources, so to speak."

"And you came to me to fill out this information?"

"I felt certain you'd see me," Kelexel said. He waited, wondering if that barb would sink home. Surely, it was time they brought the battle more into the open.

Fraffin sat back, eyelids drooping, silver-blue shadows in the sockets. He nodded to himself. Ahh, it was going to be good sport playing out this fool's downfall. Fraffin savored the anticipatory moment, the instant of revelation.

Kelexel put his hands on the arms of his chair, felt clean edges of construction, a gentle warmth. A distant musky aroma permeated the room, an exotic tantalizing thing full of alien strangeness ... a floral essence perhaps.

"But you enjoy your pet?" Fraffin asked.

"A delight," Kelexel said. "Better even than the Subi. I wonder that you don't export them. Why is that?"

"So you've had a Subi," Fraffin said, parrying the question.

"I still wonder that you don't export these females," Kelexel said. "I find it very odd."

Oh, you find it odd, Fraffin thought. He experienced an abrupt sour feeling about Kelexel. The man was so obviously besotten with the native female --his first experience with them.

"There are many collectors who'd leap at the chance to have one of these natives," Kelexel said, probing. "Of all the delights you've gathered here ... "

"And you think I've nothing better to do than collect my natives for the delight of my fellows," Fraffin said. His voice sounded snappish and he wondered at the emotion in it. Am I jealous of Kelexel? he asked himself.

"Then what is your task here if not to make profit?" Kelexel asked. He could feel himself growing angry with Fraffin. Certainly, the Director knew he faced an Investigator. But none of Fraffin's actions betrayed fear.

"I'm a collector of gossip," Fraffin said. "That I create some of this gossip myself, that is of no moment." Gossip? Kelexel wondered.

And Fraffin thought: A collector of ancient gossip --yes.

He knew then that he was jealous of Kelexel, envious of the man's first encounter with a native female. Fraffin remembered the old days when the Chem had moved more openly on this world, creating the machinery of long maturation which they could exploit --devising leprous diplomats full of pride's blind ignorance, nurturing death wishes to ride each back like a demon. Ahhh, those had been the days.

Fraffin felt himself stretched for a moment on the rack of his own vision, remembering days when he'd lived among the natives --manipulating, maneuvering, eavesdropping, learning, listening to sniggering Roman boys talks of things their elders had forgotten even to whisper. In his mind, Fraffin saw his own villa with sunglow on a brick walk, grass, a tree, a planting of petulant forsythia. That's what she'd called them -- "petulant forsythia." How clearly he could see in his mind the young pear tree beside the walk.

"They die so easily," he whispered.

Kelexel put a finger to his cheek, said: "I think you're just a touch morbid --all this emphasis on violence and death."

It wasn't in the plan, but Fraffin couldn't help himself. He glared at Kelexel, said: "You think you hate such things, eh? No, you don't! You say you're attracted by such things as this pretty native of yours. I hear you fancy the native clothing." He touched a sleeve of his jacket, a curious caressing gesture. "How little you know yourself, Kelexel."

Kelexel's face went dark with anger. This was too much! Fraffin exceeded all bounds of propriety!

"We Chem have locked the door on death and violence," he muttered. "Viewing it as a dalliance, no more."

"Morbid, you say?" Fraffin asked. "We've locked the door on death? No longer for us, is it?" He chuckled. "Yet, there it stands, our eternal temptation. What do I do here that attracts you so --attracts you so much that in the very voice of admission you inquire about that which repels? I'll tell you what I do here: I play with temptations that my fellow Chem may watch."

Fraffin's hands moved as he talked --chopping, cutting gestures that exposed the ever- young flesh, active, vibrant --small hairs curling on the back of the fingers, nails blunt, flat.

Kelexel stared at the man, caught in the spell of Fraffin's words. Death-temptation? Surely not! Yet, there was a cold certainty in the idea.

Watching Fraffin's hands, Kelexel thought: The hand must not overthrow the mind.

"You laugh," Kelexel said. "You think me amusing."

"Not just you," Fraffin said. "All is amusement -- the poor creatures of my caged world and every last blessed one of us who cannot hear the warnings of our own eternal lives. All warnings have one exception, eh? Yourself! That's what I see and that's what amuses me. You laugh at them in my productions, but you don't know why you laugh. Ahh, Kelexel, here's where we hide the awareness of our own mortality."

Kelexel spoke in shocked outrage: "We're not mortal!"

"Kelexel, Kelexel --we're mortal. Any of us can end it, cease the rejuvenation, and that's mortal. That's mortal."

Kelexel sat silently staring. The Director was insane! For Fraffin, the everlasting awareness which his own words had aroused foamed across his mind and, receding, exposed his rage.

I'm angry and remorseful, he thought. I've accepted a morality no other Chem would entertain for a moment. I'm sorry for Kelexel and for all the creatures I've moved and removed without their knowing. They sprout fifty heads within me for every one I cut off. Gossip? A Collector of gossip? I'm a person of sensitive ears who can still hear a knife scraping toast in a villa that no longer exists.

He remembered the woman then --the dark, exotic chatelaine of his Roman home. She'd been no taller than himself, stunted by native standards, but lovely in his sight --the best of them all. She'd borne him eight mortal children, their mixed blood concealed in the genetic melt. She'd grown old and dull of face --and he remembered that too. Remembering her blunted look, he saw the black throng, the mixed-up disasters of their mingled genes. She'd given him something no other could: a share in mortality that he could accept for his own.

What the Primacy wouldn't give to know about that little interlude, he thought.

"You talk like a madman," Kelexel whispered.

We contend openly now, eh? Fraffin thought. Perhaps I move too slowly with this dolt. Perhaps I should tell him now how he's caught in our trap. But Fraffin felt himself swept up in the flow of his own anger. He couldn't help himself.

"A madman?" he asked, his voice sneering. "You say we're immortal, we Chem. How're we immortal? We rejuvenate and rejuvenate. We achieve a balance point, frozen short of final destruction. At what stage in our development, Chem Kelexel, are we frozen?"

"Stage?" Kelexel stared at him. Fraffin's words were firebrands.

"Yes, stage! Are we frozen in maturity? I think, not. To mature one must flower. We don't flower, Kelexel."

"I don't ... "

"We don't produce something of beauty and loveliness, something which is the essence of ourselves! We don't flower."

"I've had offspring!"

Fraffin couldn't contain his laughter. When it subsided, he faced a now openly angry Kelexel, said: "The unflowering seed, the perpetual immaturity producing the perpetual immaturity --and you brag about it! How mean and empty and frightened you are, Kelexel."

"What've I to fear?" Kelexel demanded. "Death can't touch me. You can't touch me!"

"Except from within," Fraffin said. "Death can't touch a Chem except from within. We're sovereign individuals, immortal citadels of selfdom that no force can storm ... except from within. In each of us there's that seed out of our past, the seed which whispers: Remember? Remember when we could die?'"

Kelexel pushed himself upright, stood glaring down at Fraffin. "You're insane!"

"Sit down, visitor," Fraffin said. And he wondered at himself. Why do I goad him? To justify myself in what I must do? If that's so, then I should give him something he can use against me. I should make this a more equal contest.

Kelexel sank back into his seat. He reminded himself that the Chem were mostly immune to the more bizarre forms of madness, but one never knew what stresses might be imposed by outpost living, by contact with an alien race. The boredom psychosis threatened all of them-perhaps Fraffin had succumbed to something in that syndrome. "Let us see if you have a conscience," Fraffin said.

It was such an unexpected statement that Kelexel could only goggle at him. There came a sense of furtive emptying within himself, though, and Kelexel recognized peril in Fraffin's words.

"What harm could there be in that?" Fraffin asked. He turned. Earlier one of the crew had brought a vase of roses and put them on the cabinet behind his desk. Fraffin looked at the roses. They were full blown, dripping blood-colored petals like the garlands on Diana's altar. There's no more joking in Sumeria, he thought No more do we jest, inserting foolishness into Minerva's wisdom.

"What are you talking about?" Kelexel asked.

For answer, Fraffin moved a control stud beneath his desk. His pantovive reproducer whirred into action, slid across the room like a giant beast and positioned itself at Fraffin's right where they would share the view of its focusing stage.

Kelexel stared at it, suddenly dry-mouthed. The frivolous entertainment machine was a sudden monster that he feared was capable of striking him unaware.

"It was thoughtful of you to provide one of these for your pet," Fraffin said. "Shall we see what she's watching?"

"How can that concern us?" Kelexel demanded. He heard anger and uncertainty in his own voice, knew Fraffin was aware of this reaction.

"Let us see," Fraffin said. He swung the bank of control studs within easy reach, moved them lovingly. The stage became a native room up there on the planet surface --a long, narrow room with beige plaster walls, a washed brown ceiling. The view looked directly along a burn-scarred plank table that jutted from a steam radiator which hissed beneath the red and white curtains of a barred window.

Two men sat facing each other across the table.

"Ahh," Fraffin said. "On the left we have your pet's father, and on the right we have the man she'd have mated with had we not stepped in and given her to you."

"Stupid, useless natives," Kelexel sneered.

"But she's watching them right now," Fraffin said. "This is what's going into her pantovive ... which you so kindly provided."

"She's quite happy here; I'm sure of it," Kelexel said.

"Then why don't you release her from the manipulator?" Fraffin asked.

"When she's fully conditioned," Kelexel said. "She'll be more than content to serve a Chem when she understands what we can provide her."

"Of course," Fraffin said. He studied Andy Thurlow's profile. The lips moved, but Fraffin kept the sound bar turned off. "That's why she watches this scene from my current production."

"What's so important about this scene?" Kelexel demanded. "Perhaps she's caught by your artistry."

"Indeed," Fraffin said.

Kelexel studied the native on the left. His pet's father? He noted how the native's eyelids drooped. This was a heavy-featured creature with an air of secretiveness about it. The native might almost have been a gross Chem. How could that thing have fathered the slender grace of his pet? "The one she'd have mated with is a native witchdoctor," Fraffin said.

"Witchdoctor?"

"They prefer to be called psychologists. Shall we listen to them?"

"As you said: What harm could there be in that?"

Fraffin moved the sound bar. "Yes, indeed."

"Perhaps it'll be amusing," Kelexel said, but there was no amusement in his voice. Why did his pet watch these creatures out of her past? This could only torment her.

"Shhh," Fraffin said.

"What?"

"Listen!"

Thurlow bent to arrange a stack of papers on the table. The sound was a faint hissing. There came the smell of dusty air, stale and full of strange essences, as the sensimesh web encompassed Kelexel and Fraffin.

Joe Murphey's guttural voice rumbled from the stage: "I'm surprised to see you, Andy. Heard you had some sort of attack."

"It must've been the one-day flu," Thurlow said. "Everybody's been having it"

(Fraffin chuckled.)

"Any word from Ruthy?" Murphey asked.

"No."

"You've lost her again, that's what. Thought I told you to take care of her. But maybe women's all alike."

Thurlow adjusted his glasses, looked up and straight into the eyes of the watching Chem.

Kelexel gasped.

"What do you make of that?" Fraffin whispered.

"An immune!" Kelexel hissed. And he thought: I have Fraffin now! Allowing an immune to watch his shooting crew! He asked: "Is the creature still alive?"

"We recently gave him a little taste of our power," Fraffin said, "but I find him too amusing to destroy."

Murphey cleared his throat and Kelexel sat back, watching, listening. Destroy yourself, then, Fraffin, he thought.

"You wouldn't get sick if you were in here," Murphey said. "I've gained weight on this jailhouse diet. What surprises me is how well I've adjusted to the routine here."

Thurlow returned his attention to the papers in front of him.

Kelexel felt himself caught by the creatures' actions, sensed himself sinking out of sight into these other beings, becoming a bundle of watchful senses. One irritant remained to gnaw at him, though: Why does she watch these creatures from her past?

"Things are going along all right, eh?" Thurlow asked. He stacked inkblot cards in front of Murphey.

"Well it does drag," Murphey said. "Things're slow here." He tried not to look at the cards.

"But you think jail agrees with you?" Fraffin manipulated the pantovive controls. Point of view moved closer to the natives. The two figures became enlarged profiles. (Kelexel experienced the eerie sensation that his own flesh had been moved, pushed forward to a new vantage.)

"We're going to run these cards a little differently this time," Thurlow said. "You've been having these tests so frequently, I want to change the pace."

An abrupt crouching look came over Murphey's hunched shoulders, but his voice emerged open and bland: "Anything you say, Doc."

"I'll sit here facing you," Thurlow said. "That's a bit unorthodox, but this situation's full of irregularities."

"You mean you knowing me and all?"

"Yes." Thurlow placed a stopwatch beside him on the table. "And I've changed the usual order of the cards."

The stopwatch exerted a sudden attraction for Murphey. He stared at it. A fault tremor moved up his thick forearms. With a visible effort, he arranged his features into a look of eager brightness, a willingness to cooperate.

"You sat behind me last time," he said. "So did Doctor Whelye."

"I know," Thurlow said. He busied himself checking the order of the cards.

Kelexel jumped as Fraffin touched his arm, looked up to see the director leaning across the desk. "This Thurlow's good," Fraffin whispered. "Watch him carefully. Notice how he changes the test. There's a learning element involved in having the same test several times in a short period. It's like being put in jeopardy enough times until you learn how to avoid the danger."

Kelexel heard the double meaning in Fraffin's words, watched as the Director sank back, smiling. A sense of unease came over Kelexel then. He returned his attention to the pantovive stage. What was the importance of this scene, this confession of guilt? A conscience? He studied Thurlow, wondering if Ruth were released would she go back to that creature. How could she after experiencing a Chem?

A pang of jealousy shot through Kelexel. He sat back, scowled.

Thurlow now gave evidence of being ready to start his test. He exposed the first card, started his stopwatch, kept a hand on it.

Murphey stared at the first card, pursed his lips. Presently, he said: "Been a car accident. Two people killed. That's their bodies beside the road. Lotsa accidents nowadays. People just don't know how to handle fast cars."

"Are you isolating part of the pattern or does the whole card give you that picture?" Thurlow asked.

Murphey blinked. "Just this little part here." He turned the card face down, lifted the second one. "This is a will or a deed like to property, but somebody's let it fall in the water and the writing's all smeared. That's how you can't read it."

"A will? Any idea whose?"

Murphey gestured with the card. "You know, when grandpaw died they never found the will. He had one. We all knew he had one, but Uncle Amos wound up with most of Gramp's stuff. That's how I learned to be careful with my papers. You've gotta be careful with important papers."

"Was your father cautious like that?" "Paw? Hell, no!"

Thurlow appeared caught by something in Murphey's tone. He said: "You and your father ever fight?"

"Jawed some, that's all."

"You mean argued."

"Yeah. He always wanted me to stay with the mules and wagon."

Thurlow sat waiting, watchful, studying.

Murphey assumed a death's head grin. "That's an old saying we had in the family." Abruptly, he put down the card in his hand, took up the third one. He cocked his head to one side. "Hide of a muskrat stretched out to dry. They brought eleven cents apiece when I was a boy."

Thurlow said: "Try for another association. See if you can find something else in the card."

Murphey flicked a glance at Thurlow, back to the card. An appearance of spring-wound tension came over him. The silence dragged out.

Watching the scene, Kelexel had the sensation that Thurlow was reaching through Murphey to the pantovive's audience. He felt that he himself was being examined by the witch doctor. Logically, Kelexel knew this scene already lay in the past, that it was a captured record. There was an immediacy about it, though, a sensation of moving freely in time.

Again Murphey looked at Thurlow. "It might be a dead bat," he said. "Somebody might've shot it"

"Oh? Why would anyone do that?"

"Because they're dirty!" Murphey put the card on the table, pushed it away from him. He looked concerned. Slowly, he reached for the next card, exposed it as though fearful of what he might find.

Thurlow checked the watch, returned his attention to Murphey.

Murphey studied the card in his hand. Several times he appeared about to speak. Each time he hesitated, remained silent. Presently, he said: "Fourth of July rockets, the fire kind that go off in the air. Dangerous damn' things."

"The explosive kind?" Thurlow asked.

Murphey peered at the card. "Yeah, the kind that explode and shoot out stars. Those stars can start fires."

"Have you ever seen one start a fire?"

"I've heard about it."

"Where?"

"Lotsa places! Every year they warn people about those damn' things. Don't you read the papers?"

Thurlow made a note on the pad in front of him.

Murphey glowered at him a moment, went on to the next card. "This one's a drawing of where they've poisoned an ant hill and cut the hill in half to map out how the holes were dug." Thurlow leaned back, his attention concentrated on Murphey's face. "Why would someone make such a map?"

"To see how the ants work it out. I fell on an anthill when I was a kid. They bit like fire. Maw put soda on me. Paw poured coal oil on the hill and set a match to it. Man, did they scatter! Paw jumping all around, smashing 'em."

With a reluctant motion, Murphey put down the card, took up the next one. He glared at Thrulow's hand making notes, turned his attention to the card. A charged silence settled over him.

Staring at the card in Murphey's hand, Kelexel saw Chem flitters against a sunset sky, a fleet of them going from nowhere to nowhere. He experienced a sudden fearful wondering at what Thurlow might say to this.

Murphey extended the card at arm's length, squinted his eyes. "Over on the left there it could be that mountain in Switzerland where people're always falling off and getting killed."

"The Matterhorn?"

"Yeah."

"Does the rest of the card suggest anything to you?"

Murphey tossed the card aside. "Nothing."

Thurlow made a notation on the pad, looked up at Murphey who was studying the next card.

"All the times I've seen this card," Murphey said. "I never noticed this place up at the top." He pointed. "Right up here. It's a shipwreck with lifeboats sticking up out of the water. These little dots are the drowned people."

Thurlow swallowed. He appeared to be debating a comment. With an abrupt leaning toward, he asked: "Were there any survivors?"

A look of sad reluctance came over Murphey's face. "No," he sighed. "This was a bad one. You know, my Uncle Al died the year the Titanic sank."

"Was he on the Titanic?"

"No. That's just how I fix the date. Helps you remember. Like when that Zeppelin burned, that was the year I moved my company into the new building."

Murphey went to the next card, smiled. "Here's an easy one. It's a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb."

Thurlow wet his lips with his tongue, then: "The whole card?"

"No, just this white place here at the side." He pointed. "It's ... like a photograph of the explosion."

Murphey's blocky hand shuffled to the next card. He held it close, squinting down at it. An air of brooding silence settled over the room.

Kelexel glanced at Fraffin, found the director studying him.

"What's the purpose of all this?" Kelexel whispered.

"You're whispering," Fraffin said. "Don't you want Thurlow to hear you?"

"What?"

"These native witch doctors have strange powers," Fraffin said. "They're very penetrating at times." "It's a lot of nonsense," Kelexel said. "Mumbo jumbo. The test doesn't mean a thing. The native's answers are perfectly logical I might've said comparable things myself."

"Indeed?" Fraffin said.

Kelexel remained silent, returned his attention to the pantovive stage. Murphey was peering warily at Thurlow.

"Part through the middle might be a forest fire," Murphey said. He watched Thurlow's mouth.

"Have you ever seen a forest fire?"

"Where one'd been. Stank to heaven with dead cows. Burned out a ranch up on the Siuslaw."

Thurlow wrote on the pad.

Murphey glared at him, swallowed, turned to the final card. As he looked at it, he drew in a sharp, hard breath as though he'd been hit in the stomach.

Thurlow looked up quickly, studied him.

A look of confusion passed over Murphey's face. He squirmed in his chair, then: "Is this one of the regular cards?"

"Yes."

"I don't remember it."

"Oh. Do you remember all the other cards?"

"Kind of."

"What about this card?"

"I think you've rung in a new one."

"No. It's one of the regular Rorschach cards."

Murphey turned a hard stare on the psychologist, said: "I had a right to kill her, Doc. Let's remember that. I had a right. A husband has to protect his home."

Thurlow sat quietly waiting.

Murphey jerked his attention back to the card. "A junkyard," he blurted. "It reminds me of a junkyard."

Still, Thurlow remained silent.

"Wrecked cars, old boilers, things like that," Murphey said. He tossed the card aside, sat back with a look of cautious waiting.

Thurlow took a deep breath, collected the cards and data sheets, slipped them into a briefcase which he lifted from the floor beside his chak. Slowly, he turned, stared directly into the pantovive.

Kelexel had the disquieting sensation that Thurlow was staring him in the eyes.

"Tell me, Joe," Thurlow said, "what do you see there?" He pointed at the pantovive's watchers.

"Huh? Where?"

"There." Thurlow continued to point.

Murphey now stared out of the pantovive at the audience. "Some dust or smoke," he said. "They don't keep this place too clean."

"But what do you see in the dust or smoke?" Thurlow persisted. He lowered his hand.

Murphey squinted, tipped his head to one side, "Ohh, maybe it's kinda like; a lot of little faces ... babies' faces, like cherubs or ... no, like those imps they put in pictures of hell."

Thurlow turned back to the prisoner. "Imps of hell," he murmured. "How very appropriate."

At the pantovive, Fraffin slapped the cutoff. The scene faded from the stage.

Kelexel blinked, turned, was surprised to find Fraffin chuckling.

"Imps of hell," Fraffin said. "Oh, that's lovely. That is purely lovely."

"You're deliberately allowing an immune to watch us and record our actions," Kelexel said. "I see nothing lovely about that!"

"What did you think of Murphey?" Fraffin asked.

"He looked as sane as I am."

A spasm of laughter overcame Fraffin. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, then: "Murphey's my own creation, Kelexel. My own creation. I've shaped him most carefully and certainly from his infancy. Isn't he delightful. Imps of hell!"

"Is he an immune, too?"

"Lords of Preservation, no!"

Kelexel studied the Director. Surely Fraffin had penetrated the disguise by now. Why would he betray himself, flaunt an immune before an Investigator from the Primacy? Was it the witch doctor? Had these natives some mysterious power which Fraffin could use?

"I don't understand your motives, Fraffin," Kelexel said.

"That's obvious," Fraffin said. "What about Thurlow. Does it give you no pangs of guilt to watch the creature you've robbed of a mate?"

"The ... witchdoctor? The immune? He must be disposed of. How can I rob him of anything? It's a Chem's right to take whatever he desires from the lower orders."

"But ... Thurlow's almost human, don't you think?"

"Nonsense!"

"No, no, Kelexel. He has a great native capability. He's superb. Couldn't you see how he was drawing Murphey out, exposing the flesh of insanity?"

"How can you say the native's insane?"

"He is, Kelexel. I made him that way."

"I ... don't believe you."

"Patience and courtesy," Fraffin said. "What would you say if I told you I could show you more of Thurlow without your seeing him at all?"

Kelexel sat up straight He felt wary, as though all his previous fears had come back amplified. Bits of the scene Fraffin had just shown reeled through his mind, clinging and wisping away, their meanings changed and distorted. Insane? And what of Ruth, his pet? She had watched that scene, perhaps was still watching more of it. Why would she wish to see such a ... painful thing. It must be painful for her. It must be. For the first time in his memory, Kelexel felt himself drawn to share another being's emotions. He tried to shake it off. She was a native, one of the lower orders. He looked up to find Fraffin staring at him. It was as though they had exchanged places with the two natives they'd just watched. Fraffin had assumed the role of Thurlow and he, Kelexel, was Murphey.

What powers has he gained from these natives? Kelexel asked himself. Can he see into me, divine my thoughts? But I'm not insane ... or violent.

"What paradox is this you propose?" Kelexel demanded. And he was proud that his voice remained level, calm and questing.

Gently, gently, Fraffin thought He's well hooked, but he mustn't struggle with me too much --not yet.

"An amusing thing," Fraffin said. "Observe." He gestured at the pantovive's stage, manipulated the controls.

Kelexel turned reluctantly, stared at the projected scene-the same drab room, the same barred window with its red and white curtains, the hissing radiator, Murphey seated in the same position at the scarred table. It was a tableau, identical with the scene they'd just watched except that another native sat behind Murphey, his back to the observers, a clipboard and papers on his knees.

Like Murphey, this new figure conveyed an impression of excessive bulk. The visible curve of cheek when he turned his head showed choleric. The back of his neck carried a sanitary, barber-scraped appearance.

A scattered stack of the inkblot cards lay on the table before Murphey. He was tapping a finger on the back of one of them.

As Kelexel studied the scene, he observed a subtle difference in Murphey. There was a suggestion of greater calm. He was more relaxed, more sure of himself.

Fraffin cleared his throat, said: "The native writing on that pad is another witch doctor, Whelye, an associate of Thurlow's. He has just finished administering the same test to Murphey. Observe him carefully."

"Why?" Kelexel asked. This repetition of native rites was beginning to bore him.

"Just observe," Fraffin said.

Abruptly, Murphey picked up the card he'd been tapping, looked at it, discarded it.

Whelye turned, raised his head to expose a round face, two buttons of blue eyes, a steep shelf of nose and thin mouth. Satisfaction poured from him as though it were a light he shone on everything within range of his senses. In the satisfaction there lay a stalking craftiness.

"That card," he said, his voice petulant. "Why'd you look at that card again?"

"I ... ah, just wanted another look," Murphey said. He lowered his head.

"Do you see something new in it?"

"What I always see in it --an animal skin."

Whelye stared at the back of Murphey's head with a look of glee. "An animal skin, the kind you trapped when you were a boy."

"I made a lot of money off those skins. Always had an eye for money."

Whelye's head bobbed up and down, a curious wracking motion that rippled a fold of flesh against his collar. "Would you like a second look at any of the other cards?"

Murphey wet his lips with his tongue. "Guess not." "Interesting," Whelye murmured.

Murphey turned slightly, spoke without looking at the psychiatrist. "Doc, maybe you'd tell me something."

"What?"

"I had this test from another of you headshrinkers, you know --from Thurlow. What's it show?"

Something fierce and pouncing arose in Whelye's face. "Didn't Thurlow tell you?"

"No. I figured you're more of a right guy, that you'd level with me."

Whelye looked down at the papers in his lap, moved his pencil absently. He began filling in the "o's" of a printed line. "Thurlow has no medical degree."

"Yeah, but what's the test show about me?"

Whelye completed his pencil work on the line of print, sat back and examined it "It takes a little time to evaluate the data," he said, "but I'd hazard a guess you're as normal as the next fellow."

"Does that mean I'm sane?" Murphey asked. He stared at the table, breath held, waiting.

"As sane as I am," Whelye said.

A deep sigh escaped Murphey. He smiled, looked sidelong at the inkblot cards. "Thanks, Doc."

The scene faded abruptly.

Kelexel shook his head, looked across the desk to see Fraffin's hand on the pantovive's cutoff controls. The Director was grinning at him.

"See," Fraffin said. "Someone else who thinks Murphey's sane, someone who agrees with you."

"You said you were going to show me Thurlow."

"But I did!"

"I don't understand."

"Didn't you see the compulsive way this witch doctor filled in those letters on his paper? Did you see Thurlow doing anything like that?"

"No, but ... "

"And didn't you notice how much this witch doctor enjoyed Murphey's fear?"

"But fear can be amusing at times."

"And pain, and violence?" Fraffin asked.

"Certainly, if they're handled correctly."

Fraffin continued to stare at him, smiling.

I enjoy their fear, too, Kelexel thought. Is that what this insane director's suggesting? Is he trying to compare me to these ... creatures? Any Chem enjoys such things!

"Some of these natives have conceived the strange idea," Fraffin said, "that anything which degrades life --degrades any life --is a sickness."

"But that depends entirely on what form of life's degraded," Kelexel objected. "Surely, even these natives of yours wouldn't hesitate to degrade a ... a ... a worm!" Fraffin merely stared at him.

"Well?" Kelexel demanded.

Still Fraffin stared.

Kelexel felt his rage rising. He glared at Fraffin.

"It's merely an idea," Fraffin said, "something to toy with. Ideas are our toys, too, aren't they?"

"An insane idea," Kelexel growled.

He reminded himself then that he was here to remove the menace of this storyship's mad director. And the man had exposed his crime! It would bring severe censure and relocation at the very least. And if this were widespread --ah, then! Kelexel sat studying Fraffin, savoring the coming moment of denunciation, the righteous anger, the threat of eternal ostracism from his own kind. Let Fraffin go into the outer blackness of eternal boredom! Let this madman discover what Forever really meant!

The thought lay there a moment in Kelexel's mind. He had never approached it from quite this point of view before. Forever. What does it really mean? he asked himself.

He tried to imagine himself isolated, thrown onto his own resources for time-without-end. His mind recoiled from the thought, and he felt a twinge of pity for what might happen to Fraffin.

"Now," Fraffin said. "Now is the moment."

Can he be goading me to denounce him? Kelexel wondered. It isn't possible!

"It's my pleasant task to tell you," Fraffin said, "that you're going to have another offspring."

Kelexel sat staring, stupefied by the words. He tried to speak, couldn't. Presently, he found his voice, rasped: "But how can you ... "

"Oh, not in the legally approved manner," Fraffin said, "There'll be no delicate little operation, no optimum selection of ovarian donor from the banks in the Primacy's cr�che. Nothing that simple."

"What do you ... "

"Your native pet," Fraffin said. "You've impregnated her. She's going to bear your child in the ... ancient way, as we once did before the orderly organization of the Primacy."

"That ... that's impossible," Kelexel whispered.

"Not at an," Fraffin said. "You see, what we have here is a planet full of wild Chem."

Kelexel sat silently absorbing the evil beauty of Fraffin's revelation, seeing the breath behind the words, seeing things here as he was meant to see them. The crime was so simple. So simple! Once he overcame the mental block that occluded thinking about such matters, the whole structure fell into place. It was a crime fitting Fraffin's stature, a crime such as no other Chem had ever conceived. A perverse admiration for Fraffin seeped through Kelexel.

"You are thinking," Fraffin said, "that you have but to denounce me and the Primacy will set matters right. Attend the consequences. The creatures of this planet will be sterilized so as not to contaminate the Chem bloodlines. The planet will be shut down until we can put it to some proper use. Your new offspring, a half-breed, will go with the rest."

Abruptly, Kelexel sensed forgotten instincts begin to war in him. The threat in Fraffin's words opened a hoard of things Kelexel had thought locked away. He'd never suspected the potency or danger of these forces he'd supposed were chained --forever. Odd thoughts buzzed in his mind like caged birds. Something free and wild rose in him and he thought:

Imagine having an unlimited number of offspring!

Then: So this is what happened to the other Investigators!

In this instant, Kelexel knew he had lost.

"Will you let them destroy your offspring?" Fraffin asked.

The question was redundant. Kelexel had already posed it and answered it. No Chem would hazard his own offspring-so rare and precious a thing, that lonely link with the lost past. He sighed.

In the sigh, Fraffin saw victory and smiled.

Kelexel's thoughts turned inward. The Primacy had lost another round with Fraffin. The precise and formal way he had participated in that loss grew clearer to Kelexel by the minute. There was the blind (was it really blind?) way he'd walked into the trap. He'd been as easy for Fraffin to manipulate as any of the wild creatures on this wonderful world.

The realization that he must accept defeat, that he had no choice, brought an odd feeling of happiness to Kelexel. It wasn't joy, but a backward sorrow as poignant and profound as grief.

I will have an unlimited supply of female pets, he thought. And they will give me offspring.

A cloud passed across his mind then and he spoke to Fraffin as a fellow conspirator: "What if the Primacy sends a female Investigator?"

"Make our task easier," Fraffin said. "Chem females, deprived of the ability to breed, but not deprived of the instinct, find great joy here. They dabble in the pleasures of the flesh, of course. Native males have a wonderful lack of inhibitions. But the magnetic attraction for our females is a very simple thing. One exposure and they're addicted to watching at the births! They get some vicarious pleasure out of it that I don't understand, but Ynvic assures me it's profound."

Kelexel nodded. It must be true. The females in this conspiracy must be held by some strong tie. But Kelexel was still the Investigator in his training. He noted the way Fraffin's mouth moved, the creasing of lines at the eyes: little betrayals. There was an element here that Fraffin was refusing to recognize. The battle would be lost some day. Forever was too long for the Primacy to lose every exchange. Suspicions would mount to certainty and then any means would be employed to unveil this secret.

Seeing this, Kelexel felt a pang of grief. It was as though the inevitable already had happened. Here was an outpost of the Chem mortality and it, too, would go --in time. Here was a part of all Chem that rebelled against Forever. Here was the proof that somewhere in every Chem, the fact of immortality hadn't been accepted. But the evidence would be erased.

"We'll find you a planet of your own," Fraffin said.

The instant he'd spoken, Fraffin wondered if he'd been too precipitate. Kelexel might need time to digest things. He'd appeared to stiffen there, but now he was rising, the polite Chem taking his leave, accepting defeat --no doubt going to be rejuvenated. He'd see the need for that at once, of course.

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