Four for the Future by Harry Harrison (ed)

Author:Harry Harrison (ed) [Harrison, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2019-02-03T05:00:00+00:00

Night came in and filled the room. Evalyth didn’t rise to turn on the light. It was as if this chair, which had been Donli’s favourite, wouldn’t let her go.

Finally she remembered the psychodrugs. She had a few tablets left. One of them would make the execution easy to perform. No doubt Jonafer would direct that Moru be tranquilized - now, at last - before they brought him here. So why should she not give herself calmness?

It wouldn’t be right.

Why not?

I don’t know. I don’t understand anything any longer.

Who does? Moru alone. He knows why he murdered and butchered a man who trusted him.

Evalyth found herself smiling wearily into the darkness. He has a superstition for his sure guide. He’s actually seen his children display the first signs of maturity. That ought to console him a little.

Odd, that the glandular upheaval of adolescence should have commenced under frightful stress. One would have expected a delay instead. True the captives had been getting a balanced diet for a change and medicine had probably eliminated various chronic low-level infections. Nonetheless the fact was odd.

Besides, normal children under normal conditions would not develop the outward signs beyond mistaking in this short a time. Donli would have puzzled over the matter. She could almost see him, frowning, rubbing his forehead, grinning one-sidedly with the pleasure of a problem.

‘I’d like to have a go at this myself,’ she heard him telling Uden over a beer and a smoke. ‘Might turn up an angle.’

‘How?’ the medic would have replied. ‘You’re a general biologist. No reflection on you, but detailed human physiology is out of your line.’

‘Um-m-m…yes and no. My main job is studying species of terrestrial origin and how they’ve adapted to new planets. By a remarkable coincidence, man is included among them.’

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