Robert Silverberg - The Planet Killers

That evening, when he returned from his day’s commerce, she was in the lobby again. She smiled graciously at him as he entered.

“Hello, Roy. Sleep well last night?”

“I slept fine. It was waking up that hurt.”

She grinned. “I know what you mean.”

“I missed you at breakfast,” Gardner said. “You sleep through all the racket the chambermaids make?”

“It’s easier to juggle hot coals,” she said. “No, I was up and out early, at the crack of dawn. I went down to the produce markets at sunup to watch the cockfights they stage down there.”

Gardner’s eyebrows rose. “I’m impressed. You couldn’t have had more than four hours’ sleep.”

“It’s the natural resiliency of youth,” she said lightly. “But I’m starting to feel it now. I’m crumbling around the edges, if you know what I mean.”

Gardner invited her into the casino for a drink; this time, they limited themselves to one apiece, then went on into the dining-room for dinner, and spent the rest of the evening in the hotel lounge talking to each other.

The next day, when Gardner arrived at the jewel exchange for his day’s trading session, he saw Tom Steeves heading toward him. Steeves, the veteran of twenty years of jewel trading on Lurion, had made several attempts to get friendly with Gardner, but the Security man had warded Steeves off as politely as possible, not wanting to get entangled in a friendship with a man he had to kill.

But this morning Steeves would not be shaken off. “Are you free for lunch today, Roy?”

“Yes, I am… uh… why?” Gardner asked, wishing he had had the good sense to offer a defensive excuse.

Steeves smiled jovially. “I’m having lunch with a couple of interesting fellows, and I’m looking around for company. I’d very much like you to join us, Roy. I think it would be well worth your while.”

There was something almost cajoling in Steeves’ tone, as if the stout, middle-aged jewel merchant were pleading with Gardner to say yes.

Frowning, Gardner asked, “What sort of fellows do you mean? Are they in the jewel line?”

“Not exactly. They’re… well, philosophers, for lack of a better word. Two young Lurioni.”

The idea of Lurioni philosophers seemed Unlikely to Gardner, unless it was a philosophy of evil that Steeves’ friends expounded. But the Security man felt strangely moved by Steeves’ insistence. Wondering whether he were making another major tactical error, he accepted Steeves’ invitation and agreed to meet the older man at noon.

It was a hectic morning. Gardner threw himself into his trading with such energy that he surprised himself; it was almost as if this really were his life’s focus, this trading of stones and amassing of money. At noon, he found Steeves waiting at the prearranged street corner.

“The restaurant is a few blocks from here,” Steeves said. “It’s quickest to walk. My friends will meet us there.”

As they made their way through the narrow, crowded streets, Steeves said, “Well, Gardner, you’ve been on Lurion close to a week now. What do you think of the place, eh?”

“You want me to be blunt?”

“I want you to be honest.”

Gardner shrugged. “It’s a hellhole, the most unmitigatedly evil planet I’ve ever seen; a world where the prime commandment seems to be Hate thy neighbor.”

“You seem to have sized the place up pretty quickly,” Steeves said. “It doesn’t take long, does it?”

“Not at all.”

“Yet I’ve been here twenty years,” the older man remarked. “I’m almost used to it. And you know something, Gardner? It doesn’t bother me any more. My first couple of months on Lurion, I kept thinking that this planet was the pinnacle of savagery. I hated it here. But gradually I began to understand why Lurion was the way it was, and I stopped hating.” He laughed self-consciously. “You think I’m a fat old fool, eh, Gardner?”

“I didn’t say—”

“Of course not. But you’re new here, and you can’t possibly believe that anyone could learn to tolerate Lurioni ways. And maybe I am a fat old fool. Maybe living here so long has dissolved my brain. Here’s the restaurant.”

They turned in the doorway of a small, dimly-lit place with only a scattering of patrons. Two Lurioni were sitting at a table to the left of the door, and they rose the moment Steeves and Gardner entered. They looked young, and there was something about their eyes—a gentleness, a sadness, that

Gardner had not observed before on this planet. He felt uneasy and troubled, and told himself that once again his curiosity had led him into risks. Meeting Lurioni socially was unwise, considering the nature of his assignment.

Steeves said, “Roy Gardner, meet Elau Kinrad and Irin Damiroj.” As they all sat, Steeves said to the two Lurioni, “Mr. Gardner is new to Lurion. He’s only been here a few days, and he told me just now that he despises Lurion.”

Before Gardner could say something that would fake the sting from Steeves’ truthful remark, Damiroj said softly, “Your attitude is quite understandable, ser Gardner. We despise our culture ourselves.”

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the waiter. After they had ordered, Steeves said to Gardner, “Kinrad and Damiroj are what you’d call progressive Lurioni. They’re active in philosophical circles here.”

“I wasn’t aware that there were philosophical circles on Lurion,” Gardner said.

Kinrad smiled. “It is a recent development, say, of the past three years. That is, our organization dates only from three years past. Previously there were always a few of us, isolated, generally unaware of the existence of any others like themselves. Usually their fate was suicide. Damiroj and I hope to counteract this.”

Gardner was silent while they explained, speaking alternately, with Steeves bridging the occasional linguistic gaps. They began with a brief history of Lurion, a poor planet to begin with, badly cheated by nature; its soil was barren and devoid of many useful heavy elements, and its climate was treacherous and unstable from pole to pole. Dank hot seasons were succeeded by blood-freezing cold ones.

There was only one race of Lurioni, but there had been many nations, each toiling along at a bare subsistence level-Marginal life had given rise to a counsel of despair; on a world like Lurion, it was each man for himself. War had been frequent, usually for the basest imperialistic motives.

Some fifteen hundred years ago, the scattered nations of Lurion had finally begun to amalgamate. First came the alliances and ententes; then, the beginning of linkage between the alliances. Until finally Lurion had attained its present confederate form of government, with one central authority, one main language; but with considerable autonomy in the confederated nations. With such a shaky union, Lurion entered the era of interstellar space travel and established communications with most of the other planets.

But the old ways of fear and greed had remained. A planet-wide religion, conceived in ancient pre-technological days, still survived, though transformed and secularized; it was a free-enterprise kind of religion which counseled each man to do evil lest evil be done to him first.

“Our world is not an attractive one,” Kinrad admitted. “Our laws are archaic, our ethics brutish, our art debased, our commerce rapacious. There are those on Lurion who even agitate for war with other worlds.”

“No!” Gardner said.

“Alas, yes,” Damiroj replied mournfully. “We hope this will not come to pass. But in the meantime we work quietly, privately, in hopes of influencing our countrymen. And Earth-men like ser Steeves are invaluable to us.”