“There are no safe places,” insisted Drummond. “Even if there were, the mutants would still outnumber us. Does your geneticist have any idea how this’ll come out, biologically speaking?”

  “He doesn’t know. His specialty is still largely unknown. He can make an intelligent guess, and that’s all.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, our problem is to learn to live with the mutants, to accept anyone as—Earthling—no matter how he looks, to quit thinking anything was ever settled by violence or connivance, to build a culture of individual sanity. Funny,” mused Drummond, “how the impractical virtues, tolerance and sympathy and generosity, have become the fundamental necessities of simple survival. I guess it was always true, but it took the death of half the world and the end of a biological era to make us see that simple little fact. The job’s terrific. We’ve got half a million years of brutality and greed, superstition and prejudice, to lick in a few generations. If we fail, mankind is done. But we’ve got to try.”

  They found some flowers, potted in a house, and Robinson bought them with the last of his tobacco. By the time he reached the hospital, he was sweating. The sweat froze on his face as he walked.

  The hospital was the town’s biggest building, and fairly well equipped. A nurse met them as they entered.

  “I was just going to send for you, General Robinson,” she said. “The baby’s on the way.”

  “How…is she?”

  “Fine, so far. Just wait here, please.”

  Drummond sank into a chair and with haggard eyes watched Robinson’s jerky pacing. The poor guy. Why is it expectant fathers are supposed to be so funny? It’s like laughing at a man on the rack. I know, Barbara, I know.

  “They have some anaesthetics,” muttered the general. “They…Elaine never was very strong.”

  “She’ll be all right.” It’s afterward that worries me.

  “Yeah—Yeah—How long, though, how long?”

  “Depends. Take it easy.” With a wrench, Drummond made a sacrifice to a man he liked. He filled his pipe and handed it over. “Here, you need a smoke.”

  “Thanks.” Robinson puffed raggedly.

  The slow minutes passed, and Drummond wondered vaguely what he’d do when—it—happened. It didn’t have to happen. But the chances were all against such an easy solution. He was no psychologist. Best just to let things happen as they would.

  The waiting broke at last. A doctor came out, seeming an inscrutable high priest in his white garments. Robinson stood before him, motionless.

  “You’re a brave man,” said the doctor. His face, as he removed the mask, was stern and set. “You’ll need your courage.”

  “She—” It was hardly a human sound that croak.

  “Your wife is doing well. But the baby—”

  A nurse brought out the little wailing form. It was a boy. But his limbs were rubbery tentacles terminating in boneless digits.

  Robinson looked, and something went out of him as he stood there. When he turned, his face was dead.

  “You’re lucky,” said Drummond, and meant it. He’d seen too many other mutants. “After all, if he can use those hands he’ll get along all right. He’ll even have an advantage in certain types of work. It isn’t a deformity, really. If there’s nothing else, you’ve got a good kid.”

  “If? You can’t tell with mutants.”

  “I know. But you’ve got guts, you and Elaine. You’ll see this through, together.” Briefly, Drummond felt an utter personal desolation. He went on, perhaps to cover that emptiness:

  “I see why you didn’t understand the problem. You wouldn’t. It was a psychological block, suppressing a fact you didn’t dare face. That boy is really the center of your life. You couldn’t think the truth about him, so your subconscious just refused to let you think rationally on that subject at all.

  “Now you know. Now you realize there’s no safe place, not on all the planet. The tremendous incidence of mutant births in the first generation could have told you that alone. Most such new characteristics are recessive, which means both parents have to have it for it to show in the zygote. But genetic changes are random, except for a tendency to fall into roughly similar patterns. Four-leaved clovers, for instance. Think how vast the total number of such changes must be, to produce so many corresponding changes in a couple of years. Think how many, many recessives there must be, existing only in gene patterns till their mates show up. We’ll just have to take our chances of something really deadly accumulating. We’d never know till too late.”

  “The dust—”

  “Yeah. The radiodust. It’s colloidal, and uncountable other radiocolloids were formed when the bombs went off, and ordinary dirt gets into unstable isotopic forms near the craters. And there are radiogases too, probably. The poison is all over the world by now, spread by wind and air currents. Colloids can be suspended indefinitely in the atmosphere.

  “The concentration isn’t too high for life, though a physicist told me he’d measured it as being very near the safe limit and there’ll probably be a lot of cancer. But it’s everywhere. Every breath we draw, every crumb we eat and drop we drink, every clod we walk on, the dust is there. It’s in the stratosphere, clear on down to the surface, probably a good distance below. We could only escape by sealing ourselves in air-conditioned vaults and wearing spacesuits whenever we got out, and under present conditions that’s impossible.

  “Mutations were rare before, because a charged particle has to get pretty close to a gene and be moving fast before its electromagnetic effect causes physico-chemical changes, and then that particular chromosome has to enter into reproduction. Now the charged particles, and the gamma rays producing still more, are everywhere. Even at the comparatively low concentration, the odds favor a given organism having so many cells changed that at least one will give rise to a mutant. There’s even a good chance of like recessives meeting in the first generation, as we’ve seen. Nobody’s safe, no place is free.”

  “The geneticist thinks some true humans will continue.”

  “A few, probably. After all, the radioactivity isn’t too concentrated, and it’s burning itself out. But it’ll take fifty or hundred years for the process to drop to insignificance, and by then the pure stock will be way in the minority. And there’ll still be all those unmatched recessives, waiting to show up.”

  “You were right. We should never have created science. It brought the twilight of the race.”

  “I never said that. The race brought its own destruction, through misuse of science. Our culture was scientific anyway, in all except its psychological basis. It’s up to us to take that last and hardest step. If we do, the race may yet survive.”

  Drummond gave Robinson a push toward the inner door. “You’re exhausted, beat up, ready to quit. Go on in and see Elaine. Give her my regards. Then take a long rest before going back to work. I still think you’ve got a good kid.”

  Mechanically, the de facto President of the United States left the room. Hugh Drummond stared after him a moment, then went out into the street.

  Kinnison’s Band

  (To the tune of McNamara’s Band)

  My name is Kimball Kinnison, I lead the Lensman band.

  Although we’re few in number, our abilities are grand;

  We play with stars and planets, catch comets in a net,

  And use a supernova to light a cigarette.

  Chorus:

  All clear and on green, QX, QX!

  All clear and on green, QX, QX!

  All clear and on green, QX, QX!

  Sound it loudly, clearly, Brek-ke-ke-kex, QX!

  I met with good old Worsel and he took my by the hand

  And said, “How’s civilization, and how does she stand?

  It’s the most distressing galaxy that ever you have seen;

  Boskone is hanging everyone whose tentacles aren’t green.”

  Chorus

  So Tregonsee got down to work, our fearless mental scout.

  His X-ray eyes and ESP went peering all about

  Behind all doors where he might spy a lurking zwilnik louse;

  Especially the dressing room down at the burlesque house.

  Chorus

  Then frigid-blooded, poison-breathing Nadreck came to town

  And said we all should have a drink to wet our whistles down.

  King’s Ransom isn’t aqua regia, which he drank with vim,

  But all we Earthmen cooled our beers by standing them on him.

  Chorus

  Then Mentor of Arisia, our good old college dean,

  Who personally ground each Lens upon his Dean machine,

  Decided we must learn much more, lest Civilization fall.

  To lecture us, he first went out and hired a Cosmic ‘All.

  Chorus

  The Helping Hand

  A mellow bell tone was followed by the flat voice of the roboreceptionist: “His Excellency Valka Vahino, Special Envoy from the League of Cundaloa to the Commonwealth of Sol.”

  The Earthlings rose politely as he entered. Despite the heavy gravity and dry chill air of terrestrial conditions, he moved with the flowing grace of his species, and many of the humans were struck anew by what a handsome people his race was.

  People—yes, the folk of Cundaloa were humanoid enough, mentally and physically, to justify the term. Their differences were not important; they added a certain charm, the romance of alienness, to the comforting reassurance that there was no really basic strangeness.

  Ralph Dalton let his eyes sweep over the ambassador. Valka Vahino was typical of his race—humanoid mammal, biped, with a face that was very manlike, differing only in its beauty of finely chiseled features, high cheekbones, great dark eyes. A little smaller, more slender than the Earthlings, with a noiseless, feline ease of movement. Long shining blue hair swept back from his high forehead to his slim shoulders, a sharp and pleasing contrast to the rich golden skin color. He was dressed in the ancient ceremonial garb of Luai on Cundaloa—shining silvery tunic, deep-purple cloak from which little sparks of glittering metal swirled like fugitive stars, gold-worked boots of soft leather. One slender six-fingered hand held the elaborately carved staff of office which was all the credentials his planet had given him.

  He bowed, a single rippling movement which had nothing of servility in it, and said in excellent Terrestrial, which still retained some of the lilting, singing accent of his native tongue: “Peace on your houses! The Great House of Cundaloa sends greetings and many well-wishings to his brothers of Sol. His unworthy member Valka Vahino speaks for him in friendship.”

  Some of the Earthlings shifted stance, a little embarrassed. It did sound awkward in translation, thought Dalton. But the language of Cundaloa was one of the most beautiful sounds in the Galaxy.

  He replied with an attempt at the same grave formality. “Greetings and welcome. The Commonwealth of Sol receives the representative of the League of Cundaloa in all friendship. Ralph Dalton, Premier of the Commonwealth, speaking for the people of the Solar System.”

  He introduced the others then—cabinet ministers, technical advisers military staff members. It was an important assembly. Most of the power and influence in the Solar System was gathered here.

  He finished: “This is an preliminary conference on the economic proposals recently made to your gov…to the Great House of Cundaloa. It has no legal standing. But it is being televised and I daresay the Solar Assembly will act on a basis of what is learned at these and similar hearings.”

  “I understand. It is a good idea.” Vahino waited until the rest were seated before taking a chair.

  There was a pause. Eyes kept going to the clock on the wall. Vahino had arrived punctually at the time set, but Skorrogan of Skontar was late, thought Dalton. Tactless, but then the manners of the Skontarans were notoriously bad. Not at all like the gentle deference of Cundaloa, which in no way indicated weakness.

  There was aimless conversation of the “How do you like it here?” variety. Vahino, it developed, had visited the Solar System quite a few times in the past decade. Not surprising, in view of the increasingly close economic ties between his planet and the Commonwealth There were a great many Cundaloan students in Earthian universities, and before the war there had been a growing tourist traffic from Sol to Avalki. It would probably revive soon—especially if the devastation were repaired and—

  “Oh, yes,” smiled Vahino. “It is the ambition of all young anamai, men on Cundaloa, to come to earth, if only for a visit. It is not mere flattery to say that our admiration for you and your achievements is boundless.”

  “It’s mutual,” said Dalton. “Your culture, your art and music, your literature—all have a large following in the Solar System. Why, many men, and not just scholars, learn Luaian simply to read the Dvanago-Epai in the original. Cundaloan singers, from concert artists to nightclub entertainers, get more applause than any others.” He grinned. “Your young men here have some difficulty keeping our terrestrial coeds off their necks. And your few young women here are besieged by invitations. I suppose only the fact that there cannot be issue has kept the number of marriages as small as it has been.”

  “But seriously,” persisted Vahino, “we realize at home that your civilization sets the tone for the known Galaxy. It is not just that Solarian civilization is the most advanced technically, though that has, of course, much to do with it. You came to us, with your spaceships and atomic energy and medical science and all else—but, after all, we can learn that and go on with you from there. It is, however, such acts as…well, as your present offer of help: to rebuild ruined worlds light-years away, pouring your own skill and treasure into our homes, when we can offer you so little in return—it is that which makes you the leading race in the Galaxy.”

  “We have selfish motives, as you well know,” said Dalton a little uncomfortably. “Many of them. There is, of course, simple humanitarianism. We could not let races very like our own know want when the Solar System and its colonies have more wealth than they know what to do with. But our own bloody history has taught us that such programs as this economic-aid plan redound to the benefit of the initiator. When we have built up Cundaloa and Skontar, got them producing again, modernized their backward industry, taught them our science—they will be able to trade with us. And our economy is still, after all these centuries, primarily mercantile. Then, too, we will have knitted them too closely together for a repetition of the disastrous war just ended. And they will be allies for us against some of the really alien and menacing cultures in the Galaxy, planets and systems and empires against which we may one day have to stand.”

  “Pray the High One that that day never comes,” said Vahino soberly. “We have seen enough of war.”

  The bell sounded again, and the robot announced in its clear inhuman tones: “His Excellency Skorrogan Valthak’s son, Duke of Kraakahaym, Special Envoy from the Empire of Skontar to the Commonwealth of Sol.”

  They got up again, a little more slowly this time, and Dalton saw the expressions of dislike on several faces, expressions which smoothed into noncommittal blankness as the newcomer entered. There was no denying that the Skontarans were not very popular in the Solar System just now, and·partly it was their own fault. But most of it they couldn’t help.

  The prevailing impression was that Skontar had been at fault in the war with Cundaloa. That was plainly an error. The misfortune was that the suns Skang and Avaiki, forming a system about half a lightyear apart, had a third companion which humans usually called Allan, after the captain of the first expedition to the system. And the planets of Allan were uninhabited.

  When terrestrial technology came to Skontar and Cundaloa, its first result had been to unify both planets—ultimately—both systems into rival states which turned desirous eyes on the green new planets of Allan. Both had had colonies there, clashes had followed, ultimately the hideous five years’ war which had wasted both systems and ended in a peace negotiated with terrestrial help. It had been simply another conflict of rival imperialisms, such as had been common enough in human history before the Great Peace and the formation of the Commonwealth. The terms of the treaty were as fair as possible, and both systems were exhausted. They would keep the peace now, especially when both were eagerly looking for Solarian help to rebuild.

  Still—the average human liked the Cundaloans. It was almost a corollary that he should dislike the Skontarans and blame them for the trouble. But even before the war they had not been greatly admired. Their isolationism, their clinging to outmoded traditions, their harsh accent, their domineering manner, even their appearance told against them.

  Dalton had had trouble persuading the Assembly to let him include Skontar in the invitation to economic-aid conferences. He had finally persuaded them that it was essential—not only would the resources of Skang be a material help in restoration, particularly their minerals, but the friendship of a potentially powerful and hitherto aloof empire could be gained.

  The aid program was still no more than a proposal. The Assembly would have to make a law detailing who should be helped, and how and how much and then the law would have to be embodied in treaties with the planets concerned. The initial informal meeting here was only the first step. But—crucial.

  Dalton bowed formally as the Skontaran entered. The envoy responded by stamping the butt of his huge spear against the floor, leaning the archaic weapon against the wall, and extending his holstered blaster handle first. Dalton took it gingerly and laid it on the desk. “Greeting and welcome,” he began, since Skorrogan wasn’t saying anything. “The Commonwealth—”

  “Thank you.” The voice was a hoarse bass, somehow metallic, and strongly accented. “The Valtam of the Empire of Skontar sends greetings to the Premier of Sol by Skorrogan Valthak’s son, Duke of Kraakahaym.”