when he stepped out into the open and whistled shrilly through two fingers. A directional microphone ground out of its casing on the ship’s fin and twisted in his direction.

  “What are you doing here, Singh?” he shouted toward the mike. “Too crooked to find a planet of your own so you have to come here to steal an honest trader’s profits?”

  “Honest!” the amplified voice roared. “This from the man who has been in more jails than cathouses—and that is a goodly number in itself, I do declare. Sorry, friend of my youth, but I cannot join you in exploiting this aboriginal pesthole. I am on course to a more fairly atmosphered world where a fortune is waiting to be made. I only stopped here since an opportunity presented itself to turn an honest credit by running a taxi service. I bring you friendship, the perfect companionship, a man in a different line of business who might help you in yours. I’d come out and say hello myself, except I would have to decon for biologicals. I’m cycling the passenger through the lock, so I hope you won’t mind helping with his luggage. “

  At least there would be no other trader on the planet now, that worry was gone. But Garth still wondered what sort of passenger would be taking one-way passage to an undeveloped world. And what was behind that concealed hint of merriment in Singh’s voice? He walked around to the far side of the spacer where the ramp had dropped, and looked up at the newcomer in the cargo lock, who was wrestling ineffectually with a large crate. The man turned toward him and Garth saw the clerical dog collar and knew just what it was Singh had been chuckling about.

  “What are you doing here?” Garth asked, and in spite of his attempt at self-control he snapped out the words. If the man noticed this he ignored it, because he was still smiling and putting out his hand as he came down the ramp.

  “Father Mark, ” he said, “of the Missionary Society of Brothers. I’m very pleased to meet… “

  “I said, what are you doing here. ” Garth’s voice was under control now, quiet and cold. He knew what had to be done, and it must be done quickly or not at all.

  “That should be obvious, ” Father Mark said, his good nature still unruffled. “Our missionary society has raised funds to send spiritual emissaries to alien worlds for the first time. I was lucky enough… “

  “Take your luggage and get back into the ship. You’re not wanted here—and you have no permission to land. You’ll be a liability and there is no one on Wesker to take care of you. Get back into the ship. “

  “I don’t know who you are, sir, or why you are lying to me, ” the priest said. He was still calm but the smile was gone. “But I have studied galactic law and the history of this planet very closely. There are no diseases or beasts here that I should have any particular fear of. It is also an open planet, and until the Space Survey changes that status I have as much right to be here as you do. “

  The man was of course right, but Garth couldn’t let him know that. He had been bluffing, hoping the priest didn’t know his rights. But he did. There was only one distasteful course left for him, and he had better do it while there was still time left.

  “Get back in that ship, ” he shouted, not hiding his anger now. With a smooth motion his gun was out of the holster and the pitted black muzzle only inches from the priest’s stomach. The man’s face turned white, but he did not move.

  “What the hell are you doing, Garth?!” Singh’s shocked voice grated from the speaker. “The guy paid his fare and you have no right at all to throw him off the planet. “

  “I have this right, ” Garth said, raising his gun and sighting between the priest’s eyes. “I give him thirty seconds to get back aboard the ship or I pull the trigger. “

  “Well, I think you are either off your head or playing a joke, ” Singh’s exasperated voice rasped down at them. “If this is a joke it is in bad taste. But either way you’re not getting away with it. Two can play at that game—only I can play it better. “

  There was the rumble of heavy bearings and the remote-controlled four-gun turret on the ship’s side rotated and pointed at Garth. “Now—down gun and give Father Mark a hand with the luggage, ” the speaker commanded, a trace of humor back in the voice now. “As much as I would like to help, old friend, I cannot. I feel it is time you had a chance to talk to the father; after all, I have had the opportunity of speaking with him all the way from Earth. “

  Garth jammed the gun back into the holster with an acute feeling of loss. Father Mark stepped forward, the winning smile back now. A Bible, taken from a pocket of his robe, in his raised hand. “My son—” he said.

  “I’m not your son” was all Garth could choke out as the bitterness and the defeat welled up within him. His fist drew back as the anger rose, and the best he could do was open the fist so he struck only with the flat of his hand. Still the blow sent the priest crashing to the ground and hurled the white pages of the book splattering into the thick mud.

  Itin and the other Weskers had watched everything with seemingly emotionless interest. Garth made no attempt to answer their unspoken questions. He started toward his house, but turned back when he saw they were still unmoving.

  “A new man has come, ” he told them. “He will need help with the things he has brought. If he doesn’t have any place for them, you can put them in the big warehouse until he has a place of his own. “

  He watched them waddle across the clearing toward the ship, then went inside and gained a certain satisfaction from slamming the door hard enough to crack one of the panes. There was an equal amount of painful pleasure in breaking out one of the few remaining bottles of Irish whiskey that he had been saving for a special occasion. Well, this was special

  enough, though not really what he had had in mind. The whiskey was good and burned away some of the bad taste in his mouth, but not all of it. If his tactics had worked, success “would have justified everything. But he had failed, and in addition to the pain of failure there was the acute feeling that he had made a horse’s ass out of himself. Singh had blasted off without any goodbyes. There was no telling what sense he had made of the whole matter, though he would surely carry some strange stories back to the traders’ lodge. Well, that could be worried about the next time Garth signed in. Right now he had to go about setting things right with the missionary. Squinting out through the rain, he saw the man struggling to erect a collapsible tent while the entire population of the village stood in ordered ranks and watched. Naturally none of them offered to help.

  By the time the tent was up and the crates and boxes stowed inside of it, the rain had stopped. The level of fluid in the bottle was a good bit lower and Garth felt more like facing up to the unavoidable meeting. In truth, he was looking forward to talking to the man. This whole nasty business aside, after an entire solitary year any human companionship looked good. Will you join me now for dinner? John Garth, he wrote on the back of an old invoice. But maybe the guy was too frightened to come? Which was no way to start any kind of relationship. Rummaging under the bunk, he found a box that was big enough and put his pistol inside it. Itin was of course waiting outside the door when he opened it, since this was his tour as Knowledge Collector. He handed him the note and box.

  “Would you take these to the new man, ” he said.

  “Is the new man’s name New Man?” Itin asked.

  “No, it’s not!” Garth snapped. “His name is Mark. But I’m only asking you to deliver this, not get involved in conversation. “

  As always when he lost his temper, the literal-minded Weskers won the round. “You are not asking for conversation, “

  Itin said slowly, “but Mark may ask for conversation. And others will ask me his name, if I do not know his na—” The voice cut off as Garth slammed the door. This would not work in the long run either, because next time he saw Itin—a day, a week, or even a month later—the monologue would be picked up on the very word it had ended with, while the concept would be dragged out to its last frayed end. Garth cursed under his breath and poured water over a pair of the tastier concentrates that he had left.

  “Come in, ” he said when there was a quiet knock on the door. The priest entered and held out the box with the gun.

  “Thank you for the loan, Mr. Garth. I appreciate the spirit that made you send it. I have no idea what caused the unhappy affair when I landed, but I think it would be best forgotten if we are going to be on this planet together for any length of time. “

  “Drink?” Garth asked, taking the box and pointing to the bottle on the table. He poured two glasses full and handed one to the priest. “That’s about what I had in mind, but I still owe you an explanation of what happened out there. ” He scowled into his glass for a second, then raised it to the other man. “It’s a big universe and I guess we have to make out as best we can. Here’s to Sanity. “

  “God be with you, ” Father Mark said, and raised his glass as well.

  “Not with me or with this planet, ” Garth said firmly. “And that’s the crux of the matter. ” He half-drained the glass and sighed.

  “Do you say that to shock me?” the priest asked with a smile. “I assure you that it doesn’t. “

  “Not intended to shock. I meant it quite literally. I suppose I’m what you would call an atheist, so revealed religion is no concern of mine. While these natives, simple and unlettered Stone Age types that they are, have managed to come this far

  with no superstitions or traces of deism whatsoever. I had hoped that they might continue that way. “

  “What are you saying?” The priest frowned. “Do you mean that they have no gods, no belief in the hereafter? They must die… ?”

  “Die they do, and to dust returneth. Like the rest of the animals. They have thunder, trees, and water without having thunder gods, tree sprites, or water nymphs. They have no ugly little gods, taboos, or spells to hagride and limit their lives. They are the only primitive people I have ever encountered that are completely free of superstition—and appear to be much happier and sane because of it. I just wanted to keep them that way. “

  “You wanted to keep them from God—from salvation?” The priest’s eyes widened and he recoiled slightly.

  “No, ” Garth said. “I wanted to keep them from superstition until they knew more and could think about it realistically. Without being absorbed and perhaps destroyed by it. “

  “You’re being insulting to the Church, sir, to equate it with superstition…. “

  “Please, ” Garth said, raising his hand. “No theological arguments. I don’t think your society footed the bill for this trip just to attempt to convert me. Just accept the fact that my beliefs have been arrived at through careful thought over a period of years, and no amount of undergraduate metaphysics will change them. I’ll promise not to try and convert you—if you will do the same for me. “

  “Agreed, Mr. Garth. As you have reminded me, my mission here is to save these souls, and that is what I must do. But why should my work disturb you so much that you try and keep me from landing? Even threaten me with your gun, and… ” The priest broke off and looked into his glass.

  “And even slug you?” Garth said, frowning. “There was no excuse for that, and I would like to say that I’m sorry. Plain bad manners and an even worse temper. Live alone long

  enough and you find yourself doing that kind of thing. ” He brooded down at his big hands where they lay on the table, reading memories into the scars and calluses patterned there. “Let’s just call it frustration, for lack of a better word. In your business you must have had a lot of chance to peep into darker places in men’s minds and you should know a bit about motives and happiness. I have had too busy a life to ever consider settling down and raising a family, and right up until recently I never missed it. Maybe leakage radiation is softening up my brain, but I have begun to think of these furry and fishy Weskers as being a little like my own children, that I am somehow responsible to them. “

  “We are all His children, ” Father Mark said quietly.

  “Well, here are some of His children that can’t even imagine his existence, ” Garth snapped, suddenly angry at himself for allowing gentler emotions to show through. Yet he forgot himself at once, leaning forward with the intensity of his feelings. “Can’t you realize the importance of this? Live with these Weskers awhile and you will discover that they have a simple and happy existence that matches the state of grace you people are always talking about. They get ‘pleasure’ from their lives— and cause no one pain. By circumstance they have evolved on an almost barren world, so they never had a chance to grow out of a physical Stone Age culture. But mentally they are our match—or perhaps better. They have all learned my language so I can easily explain the many things they want to know. Knowledge and the gaining of knowledge gives them real satisfaction. They tend to be exasperating at times because every new fact must be related to the structure of all other things, but the more they learn the faster this process becomes. Someday they are going to be man’s equal in every way, perhaps surpass us. If—would you do me a favor?”

  “Whatever I can. “

  “Leave them alone. Or teach them if you must—history and science, philosophy, law, anything that will help them face the

  realities of the greater universe they never even knew existed before. But don’t confuse them with your hatreds and pain, guilt, sin and punishment. Who knows the harm… “

  “You are being insulting, sir!” the priest said, jumping to his feet. The top of his gray head barely came to the massive spaceman’s chin, yet he showed no fear in defending what he believed was right. Garth, standing now himself, was no longer the penitent. They faced each other in anger, as men have always stood, unbending in the defense of that which they believe is right.

  “Yours is the insult, ” Garth shouted. “You have the incredible egotism to believe that your derivative little mythology, differing only slightly from the thousands of others that still burden men, can do anything but confuse their still fresh minds. Don’t you realize that they believe in truth—and have never heard of such a thing as a lie. They have not been trained yet to understand that other kinds of minds can think differently from theirs. Will you spare them this… ?”

  “I will do my duty, which is His will, Mr. Garth. These are God’s creatures here, and they have souls. I cannot shirk my duty, which is to bring them His word so that they may be saved and enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. “

  When the priest opened the door, the wind caught it and blew it wide. He vanished into the storm-swept darkness and the door swung back and forth and a splatter of raindrops blew in. Garth’s boots left muddy footprints when he closed the door, shutting out the sight of Itin sitting patiently and uncomplaining in the storm, hoping only that Garth might stop for a moment and leave with him some of the wonderful knowledge of which he had so much.

  By unspoken consent that first night was never mentioned again. After a few days of loneliness, made worse because each knew of the other’s proximity, they found themselves talking

  on carefully neutral grounds. Garth slowly packed and stowed away his stock and never admitted that his work was finished and he could leave at any time. He had a fair amount of interesting drugs and botanicals that would fetch a good price. And the Wesker artifacts were sure to create a sensation in the sophisticated galactic market. Crafts on the planet here had been limited before his arrival, mostly pieces of carving painfully chipped into the hard wood with fragments of stone. He had supplied tools and a stock of raw metal from his own supplies, nothing more than that.

  In a few months the Weskers had not only learned to work with the new materials, but had translated their own designs and forms into the most alien—but most beautiful—artifacts that he had ever seen. All he had to do was release these on the market to create a primary demand, then return for a new supply. The Weskers wanted only books and tools and knowledge in return. Through their own efforts he knew they would pull themselves into the galactic union.

  This is what Garth had hoped. But a wind of change was blowing through the settlement that had grown up around his ship. No longer was he the center of attention and the focal point of the village life. He had to grin when he thought of his fall from power; yet there was very little humor in the smile. Serious and attentive Weskers still took turns of duty as Knowledge Collectors, but their stale recording of dry facts was in sharp contrast to the intellectual hurricane that surrounded the priest.

  Where Garth had made them work for each book and machine, the priest grave freely. Garth had tried to be progressive in his supply of knowledge, treating them as bright but unlettered children. He had wanted them to walk before they could run, to master one step before going on to the next.

  Father Mark simply brought them the benefits of Christianity. The only physical work he required was the construction of a church, a place of worship and learning. More Weskers

  had appeared out of the limitless planetary swamps and within days the roof was up, supported on a framework of poles. Each morning the congregation worked a little while on the walls, then hurried inside to learn the all-promising, all-encompassing, all-important facts about the universe.

  Garth never told the Weskers what he thought about their new interest. This was mainly because they never asked him. Pride or honor stood in the way of his grabbing a willing listener and pouring out his grievances. Perhaps it would have been different if Itin had on collecting duty, he was the brightest of the lot, but Itin had been rotated the day after the priest had arrived and Garth had not talked to him since.

  It was a surprise then, after seventeen of the trebly-long Wesker days, he found a delegation at his doorstep when he emerged after breakfast. Itin was their spokesman, and his mouth was opened slightly. Many of the other Weskers had their mouths open as well, one even appeared to be yawning, clearly revealing the double row of sharp teeth and the purple-black throat. The mouths impressed Garth as to the seriousness of the meeting: this was the one Wesker expression he had learned to recognize. An open mouth indicated some strong emotion; happiness, sadness, anger, he could never be really sure which. The Weskers were normally placid and he had never seen enough open mouths to tell what was causing them. But he was surrounded by them now.