Just the same, he had not escaped an early confrontation.

  The day after Gilhart had been ceremoniously committed to space for burial, Gilban of the Medic staff had approached him. Gildoran had asked “Is Gilrae all right?” —

  “She’ll do. You did right to order her to rest, though, she was pretty near collapse. However, Captain, I’d like to know how soon you plan to go down again. We have to get the children downworld. They need to live in an iron-rich environment, they need sunlight, they need gravity. Can I order them down with the landingcraft today?”

  He looked and sounded belligerent; a surly man, he was one of the few crew members taller than Gildoran, who had always been a little in awe of him. He had been Medic Chief since Doran’s own childhood.

  He temporized; “Have you talked to the Poohbears about it?”

  Gilban brushed that aside. “I know how they feel about it, but they’re not Medical experts. I think this is more important than someone’s vague feelings.” He pressed. “Can I order the Nursery camp set down today?”

  There was no help for it. Gildoran said “I’d rather go along with the Poohbears feelings on the matter, at least for a couple of days, Gilban. They are, after all, the specialists on the well-being of the children.” He fished for an acceptable excuse. “It might be more diplomatic not to antagonize them right away.”

  Gilban fixed the young Captain with a cold stare from long, yellow eyes; a stare which said more plainly than words that Gildoran could choose between antagonizing the Poohbears and antagonizing him. He said briefly “I’ve given you my opinion as Medical expert. Are you going to take it, or not?”

  Gildoran said “Gilhart agreed to postpone it for further study and we are giving them land-based drinking water, which should remedy the iron problem right away. As for gravity and sunlight, according to the Poohbears, that isn’t nearly so urgent. I think we should take a few more days on the planet to see what made Pooh-bear so uneasy about it.”

  Gilban said, teeth clenched, “Gildoran, you’re the Captain, but I’d like to remind you that I was Chief Medical officer on this ship before you were out of the Nursery. Are you questioning my competence?”

  This is bad. This is very bad. I’m going to need all the help I can get from the specialists, and I’ve already made Gilban furious. Does he think the power’s gone to my head?

  He said, desperately trying to placate the older man, “I would never question that, Gilban. But this isn’t my own decision, it’s Gilhart’s. I don’t want to question his competence, either. I don’t feel free to set it aside until I have advice from everybody, including those who have actually been on the planet.” He very carefully did not mention that Gilban hadn’t.

  Gilban said stiffly “Then I can’t persuade you to trust my judgment.”

  Damn it, he was asking for it right between the eyes, and there was no way Gildoran could avoid it. “I’ll always be ready to hear your advice, Gilban, after you’ve been down to the surface and made a study from there.”

  Gilban clenched his hands at his sides. His very tufts of hair‘Seemed to bristle with wrath. He said “It’s your decision to make, of course,” and went away. And Gildoran knew that for the first time in his life, he had an enemy on the Gypsy Moth. Within hours of assuming his first command he had alienated one of the officials whose support would be most important to him.

  Gildoran had posted no guards—extensive exploration in the landingcraft had shown no land animals of any sort, and no birds; in fact, no life form larger than the gleaming seven-inch butterflies who fluttered around the small dymaxion domes the crew had constructed for portable shelters. Ramie, walking at Gildoran’s side across the burned area, smiled with pleasure at the iridescent shimmer of the creatures and said “I wonder if they’re looking for the bushes we burned down? I hate to think of killing off such lovely Creatures by destroying their food supplies.”

  “There are miles and miles of these bushes all along the range of hills,” Gildoran said, “and if they’re like most butterflies, these individuals would only live a few days anyway. A burnoff this size won’t damage anything, and it will keep the insects away until we’re sure if there are any deadly poisonous ones among them. Once we know, we can initiate control processes.”

  “These aren’t poisonous, are they?”

  Gildoran said “I’m no biologist, but Gilmerritt thinks not.”

  “What’s the glitter on their wings? They look like jewels.”

  “According to our biological report, they almost are,” Gildoran said. “A lot of life is based on hydrocarbons, and jewels are just crystallized carbon. Their wing surfaces are covered with, in essence, diamond dust—crystallized scales of microscopic carbon material. Diamond plated butterflies!”

  Gilramie smiled. “I can see them becoming a fashion among some women. Remember how the glow-lizards on little gold chains became a fashion? Wear a live diamond-plated butterfly jewel. We should get a nice finder’s fee for this world—it’s beautiful!”

  Gildoran smiled at the whimsy, and thought, again, how comfortable it was to be with her, when she could accept him simply as a companion. She must know by now that when he had moved into the Captain’s quarters he had assigned the adjoining cabin to Gilmerritt and that they were together, but she had not spoken of it, and he was grateful.

  He said “I take it you’re down here as Nursery representative? I’m not keeping you from your work?”

  “No, Gilban asked me to scout around and locate a good place for the children; drinking water, shade, reasonably away from the noise of the groundlab and equipment. I was tentatively thinking of the top of that little hill; the lake would be pleasant, but we’re not sure yet about what forms of life the water might hold.”

  “Ramie, do you think I did wrong to refuse having the children down?”

  “How do I know, Gildoran? I think you were wise to take the most careful course. Somebody’s going to criticize you whatever you do,” she reminded him, “Gilban thinks you’re too careful, somebody else would grouse because you’re too reckless. You’re going to get the blame either way, so you may as well make whatever decision you think you can live with.”

  But she still looked troubled, and he asked “What’s bothering you, Ramie?”

  Her eyes sought out the edge of the clearing where the geodesic crew were running survey lines. “Gilharrad,” she said slowly. “I think I would have forbidden him to come down to the surface. There’s work enough for him aboard the Gypsy Moth. Are you sure he can handle the gravity?”

  “He wanted to come, and Gilrae asked for him,” Gildoran said. “That’s the hard part of it, Ramie. I don’t feel comfortable giving orders to people who were commanding the Gypsy Moth before I learned how to hold a slide rule—or for that matter, a spoon. For the children, I had Gilhart’s decision to rest on.”

  “But you can’t deny Gilrae anything,” said Ramie shrewdly.

  “Damn it, Ramie—”

  “Oh, Doran—don’t! I can’t, either, how could I? But I’m worried about Gilharrad. Can’t you send him up next time we break? He doesn’t look right to me.”

  When they gathered for lunch in the clearing, Gildoran made a point of observing the old man, but although he was slow-moving and fragile, Gilharrad had good color. When Gildoran asked him, he declared testily that he’d never felt better, that the air was doing him good, and that unless this planet had his name on it, nothing down here could hurt him anyway. “You don’t look too great yourself, young man,” he finished, and Gilderan gave up. It was true, he had a headache. They all had headaches, and Gildoran suspected that if it wasn’t the ozone, his at least was a purely psychosomatic headache; the result of having the weight, if not of the planet, at least of the Gypsy Moth, resting on his solitary shoulders.

  I don’t like this world. It’s foolish, hut I keep having this sense of impending disaster, and I don’t like it.

  Later that day Gilmerritt brought him a big sample box. “Did you ever see an insect who looked like a frog?” she asked, “Look at this fellow—an amphibious insect. But look at the big air-bladders in his chest!”

  Gildoran looked at the huge red-striped creature. It did, indeed, resemble a monster frog, being almost eight inches long. “But it’s really an insect?”

  “No doubt about it.”

  The huge chest was puffed like a bellows. “He ought to have a monstrous croak,” Gildoran commented.

  “But that’s the charming bit about it,” Gilmerritt said, dimpling. “Listen. You don’t hear a thing, do you?”

  “No. But I’ve got such a headache I can’t see straight, so I’m just as pleased he doesn’t make a racket in proportion to his size.” >

  ’That’s it,” Gilmerritt said quietly. ’That’s why the Poohbear found this place noisy, and why Lori got sick, and why we all have headaches. The Poohbears evidently hear better than we do. Human ears only respond to sounds between, about, 16 cycles per second, and 20,000 cycles. This big fellow sends out subsonics—pulses at about nine per second. And everybody knows that subsonics will make people sick, give them headaches, feelings of fear and general malaise. We were reacting to soundless noise from the croakings of a giant frog.”

  Gildoran felt,a sudden overwhelming relief. So that was the reason behind his vague unease, behind Lori’s sudden sickness, behind the headaches and strange nameless fears. Pure, physical reaction to sound waves! “Can we get rid of the frogs in the area of the nursery camp?” he asked, and Gilmerritt nodded. “It will take a few days to round them all up, but I can bring down a subsonic detector to locate them. I ought to have thought of subsonics before—we have to damp them out for a mile or so around the Transmitter. So there’s one of your problems on the way out, Doran.” She touched the sleeve of his uniform, a curiously intimate gesture, and he smiled with relief.

  “The subsonics won’t do any physical damage?”

  Gilmerritt shook her head. “Not unless they were of much, much greater volume than anything this size could give off. If this frogthing were the size of an elephant, now, he might be dangerous; as it is, he’s just a pest. I thought you’d like to know.”

  Gildoran nodded, suggested she tell Gilban about it, and watched her go, thinking that, at least, one of their problems was ended. Once they knew that their malaise and headaches were due to a simple, physical and correctable cause, and once the frogbugs were rounded up and released out of earshot, the camp would become quite livable and this beautiful world could begin living up to its promise.

  At that moment he became aware of a clamor of voices in the distance. At first they were only wordless cries, from the general area of the geodesic crew; then he realized that someone was calling his name. He began to run along the burned edge of the cliffs, apprehension surging up again almost to the panic point.

  What now? What now, damn it?

  It wasn’t far enough to use the landingcraft, but too far for hearing.

  Got to organize some surface transit down here.

  Halfway he met them, a tight knot of crew men and women, clustered together, carrying something that was pale and terrifyingly limp, and with a hideous sense of replay, he knew that not all of his apprehension could be written off blithely to the subsonics.

  Gilrae, looking even more white and shocked than at Gilhart’s funeral, spoke the bad news in a daze.

  “It’s Gilharrad,” she said, softly, “I saw him fall. There was nothing near him. He was tracing a fault line with the portable sonar gear. He didn’t even cry out. He just clutched his hand at his head, and fell down. I wasn’t three steps from him, and he was dead before I could reach his pulse. It was so sudden. So sudden!”

  Over her bent head Gildoran met Ramie’s dark accusing look. And Gildoran had no defense against those eyes.

  “Call Gilban,” he said wearily, “and have them take him up for an autopsy.”

  Poor, old man, he wanted to the in space, he had earned it, I couldn’t let him rest.

  He asked the usual questions, hating what he knew it was doing to Gilrae. No, there had been nothing near him, nothing touching him. Was there anything about it that was like Gilhart’s death? Only that it must have been very sudden, as he was passing below the cliffs. “Right there, behind that clump of bushes, next to the big grey-and-red striped rock under the clump of cup-plants,” young Gilbami pointed out the spot.

  Both deaths took place near the cup-plants. But that was ridiculous, Gilmerritt had tested every plant for organic poisons and in any case there was no trace of poisoning.

  When he asked for an autopsy Gilban audibly snorted, but agreed, with the quite obvious attitude that he was humoring a power-mad dictator. That night, when they consigned Gilharrad’s body to space for burial, Gilban gave him the results with weary patience.

  “Immediate cause of death, obviously, a cerebral hemorrhage.”

  “Just like Gilhart?”

  “No,” said the big man testily, “not just like Gilhart. Gilhart was a vigorous man in the prime of life, and though he was subject to sudden cerebral accidents, like anyone else, it was evidently some sudden strain or attack. It could happen tomorrow to you or me. Gilharrad’s real proximate cause of death was simply extreme old age. He was five hundred and seven years old, shiptime. In planetary time—God alone knows…centuries… Millennia—Several thousand years at least. He could have died of the same thing any time during the last thirty or forty years; the blood cells in his brain must have been as fragile as spiderwebs, and one of them simply gave way. You or I should live so long!”

  Gildoran knew this was reasonable, but couldn’t hold back a further question.

  “Then you don’t think there’s any serious coincidence in the fact of two accidental deaths, from the same immediate cause, within a few days?”

  Gilban looked disgusted. “I told you they were not, in effect, the same cause at all,” he said. “You, or I, or one of the children of the Nursery, could the tomorrow of a cerebral hemorrhage, anyone could. Don’t try to work up a big sinister tragedy out of nothing, Gildoran, just to justify your own fears about this planet. And by the way, I’m ordering the children down tomorrow. Gilmerritt assured me she’ll have the subsonic frogbugs cleared out of that area by then.”

  Gildoran said “What do the Poohbears say?”

  “I didn’t ask them.” Gilban’s voice was cold. “I don’t like having to remind you of this within a few days of your first command, Gildoran, but in emergency I have the authority to override even the Captain’s orders on any strictly medical matter. I want those babies down in gravity and sunshine, Poohbears or no Poohbears—if they can’t tolerate the noise, you can detail some crewmen for nursery duty. The babies won’t hear the subsonics even if a stray frogbug gets into the camp. I’m not eager to throw my weight around, Gildoran, but the facts of the matter are, you’ve left me no choice.”

  Gildoran, having no choice himself, gave in as graciously as he could. That night in his quarters, he gave way to his secret doubts and miseries.

  “What could I say, Merritt? I’ve no claim to be psychic. I think it’s simply too much to believe, that they both died of the same thing, at nearly the same spot, within a few days of each other, but what can I prove? Am I supposed to wait for another death to convince him? Have you analyzed the cup-plants?”

  “Only superficially,” she said. ’They seem to have some strange internal organs, I can’t figure them out—I suspect they’re for reproduction. I can tell you the cups have that glitter, because, like the frogbugs, they’re covered with carbon crystals—tiny fragments of ruby, sapphire, diamond. There are other crystals inside and I suspect they “digest” live insects by grinding them up inside the cup-roots. I found a half-dissolved butterfly inside one of the internal organs, so that the cups operate something like a Venus flytrap. But there’s no chemical poison involved—I doubt if anyone could eat one of the cups without one hideous tummy ache, but no poison, no gas—it was the first thing I checked.” She hesitated and added “Anyway, the cup-plants are all binned off near the camp, just in case; shall I have them bum them off near the nursery too?”

  It was a temptation. Gildoran had a definite dislike for the cup-plants, ever since he had seen Gilhart lying dead under a cluster of them. But he was a scientist, not a child. “No,” he said slowly, “certainly not, if they’re harmless. There’s no sense in disturbing the ecology any more than we have to; we’ll have to do enough clearing when we set down the Gypsy Moth and get started on a Transmitter.” He remembered that first thing tomorrow-»in orbit around a planet, the Gypsy Moth observed day and night cycles—he would have to consult with Raban and Marti about a Transmitter location.

  “I’d counted so on Gilharrad for advice,” he said. “I forced him to come back. And it killed him.”

  Gilmerritt reached up and drew him down to her. She said softly, against his lips, “Hush, Doran. You know what he would have said to that: Planets and Space are all one Cosmos. And you know what he believed: for everyone, somewhere, there’s a planet with your name on it. All we can do is the best we can, until the right one comes along. I won’t tell you not to grieve, Doran. I loved him too. We all did. But there’s nothing we can do for him, and we have to live.”