Robert Silverberg - The Overlord's Thumb

The sun had gone down blood-red, and Colonel John Devall slept poorly because of it. The atmosphere on Markin was not normally conducive to blood-red sunsets, though they did happen occasionally on evenings when the blue of sunlight was scattered particularly well. The Marks connected red sunsets with approaching trouble. Colonel Devall, who headed the Terran cultural and military mission to Markin, was more cultural than military himself, and so was willing to acccpt the Markin belief that the sunset was a premonition of conflict.

He was tall, well-made and erect in bearing, with the sharp bright eyes and crisp manner of the military man. He successfully tried to project an appearance of authoritative officerhood, and his men respected and feared the image he showed them.

His degree was in anthropology. The military education was an afterthought, but a shrewd one; it had brought him command of the Markin outpost. The Department of Extraterrestrial Affairs insisted that all missions to relatively primitive alien worlds be staffed and headed by military men—and, Devall reasoned, so long as I keep up the outward show, who’s to know that I’m not the tough soldier they think I am? Markin was a peaceful enough world. The natives were intelligent, fairly highly advanced culturally if not technically, easily dealt with on a rational being-to-being basis.

Which explains why Devall slept badly the night of the red sun. Despite his elegant posture and comportment, he regarded himself essentially as a bookish, un-military man. He had some doubts as to his own possible behavior in an unforeseen time of crisis. The false front of his officerhood might well crumble away under stress, and he knew it.

He dozed off, finally, toward morning, having kicked the covers to the floor and twisted the sheets into crumpled confusion. It was a warmish night—most of them were, on Markin—but he felt chilled.

He woke late, only a few minutes before officers’ mess, and dressed hurriedly in order to get there on time. As commanding officer, of course, he had the privilege of sleeping as late as he pleased—but getting up with the others was part of the task Devall imposed on himself. He donned the light summer uniform, slapped depilator hastily on his tanned face, hooked on his formal blaster and belt, and signalled to his orderly that he was awake and ready.

The Ter ran enclave covered ten acres, half an hour’s drive from one of the largest Markin villages. An idling jeep waited outside Devall’s small private dome, and he climbed in, nodding curtly at the orderly.

“Morning, Harris.”

“Good morning, sir. Sleep well?”

It was a ritual by now. “Very well,” Devall responded automatically, as the jeep’s turbos thrummed once and sent the little car humming across the compound to the mess hall. Clipped to the seat next to Devall was his daily morning program-sheet, prepared for him by the staffman-of-the-day while he slept. This morning’s sheet was signed by Dudley, a major of formidable efficiency—Space Service through and through, a Military Wing career man and nothing else. Devall scanned the assignments for the morning, neatly written out in Dudley’s crabbed hand.

Kelly, Dorfman, Mellors, Steber on Linguistic Detail , as usual. Same assignment as yesterday, in town.

Haskell on medic duty . Blood samples; urinalysis .

Matsuoko to maintenance staff (through Wednesday ).

Jolli on zoo detail.

Leonards, Meyer, Rodriguez on assigned botanical field trip, two days. Extra jeep assigned for specimen collection.

Devall scanned the rest of the list, but, as expected, Dudley had done a perfect job of deploying the men where they would be most useful and most happy. Devall thought briefly about Leonards, on the botanical field trip. A two-day trip might take them through the dangerous rain-forest to the south; Devall felt a faint flicker of worry. The boy was his nephew, his sister’s son—a reasonably competent journeyman botanist with the gold bar still untarnished on his shoulder. This was the boy’s first commission; he had been assigned to Devall’s unit at random, as a new man. Devall had concealed his relationship to Leonards from the other men, knowing it might make things awkward for the boy, but he still felt a protective urge.

Hell, the kid can take care of himself, Devall thought, and scribbled his initials at the bottom of the sheet and clipped it back in place; it would be posted while the men were cleaning their quarters and the officers ate, and by 0900 everyone would be out on his day’s assignment. There was so much to do, Devall thought, and so little time to do it. There were so many worlds—

He quitted the jeep and entered the mess hall. Officers’ mess was a small well-lit alcove to the left of the main hall; as Devall entered he saw seven men standing stiffly at attention, waiting for him.

He knew they hadn’t been standing that way all morning; they had snapped to attention only when their lookout—probably Second Lieutenant Leonards, the youngest—had warned them he was coming.

Well, he thought, it doesn’t matter much. As long as appearance is preserved. The form.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said crisply, and took his place at the head of the table.

For a while, it looked as if it were going to turn out a pretty good day. The sun rose in a cloudless sky, and the thermometer tacked to the enclave flagstaff registered 93 degrees. When Markin got hot, it got hot. By noon, Devall knew by now, they could expect something like 110 in the shade—and then, a slow, steady decline into the low eighties by midnight.

The botanical crew departed on time, rumbling out of camp in its two jeeps, and Devall stood for a moment on the mess hall steps watching them go, watching the other men head for their assigned posts. Stubble-faced Sergeant Jolli saluted him as he trotted across the compound to the zoo, where he would tend the little menagerie of Markin wildlife the expedition would bring back to Earth at termination. Wiry little Matsuoko passed by, dragging a carpenter’s kit. The linguistic team climbed into its jeep and drove off toward town, where they would continue their studies in the Markin tongue.

They were all busy. The expedition had been on Markin just four months; eight months was left of their time. Unless an extension of stay came through, they’d pack up and return to Earth for six months of furlough-cum-report-session, and then it would be on to some other world for another year of residence.

Devall was not looking forward to leaving Markin. It was a pleasant world, if a little on the hot side, and there was no way of knowing what the next world would be like. A frigid ball of frozen methane, perhaps, where they would spend their year bundled into Valdez breathing-suits and trying to make contact with some species of intelligent ammonia-breathing molluscs. Better the devil we know, Devall felt.

But he had to keep moving on. This was his eleventh world, and there would be more to come. Earth had barely enough qualified survey teams to cover ten thousand worlds half-adequately, and life abounded on ten million. He would retain whichever members of the current team satisfied him by their performance, replace those who didn’t fit in, and go off to his next job eight months from now.

He turned on the office fan and took down the logbook; unfastening the binder, he slipped the first blank sheet into the autotype. For once he avoided his standard blunder; he cleared his throat before switching on the autotype, thereby sparing the machine its customary difficulties in finding a verbal equivalent for his Brghhumph!