The Demon Breed by James H. Schmitz

Author:James H. Schmitz [Schmitz, James H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-05-24T09:14:11+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

« ^ »

THE OUTSTANDING feature of the big room in the blockhouse structure the Parahuans had

assigned Ticos Cay as his working laboratory was its collection of living specimens. The

floatwood island’s life forms lined three of the walls and filled long shelf stands in between.

Neatly labeled and charted, they perched on or clung to their original chunks of floatwood,

stood rooted in the pockets of forest mold or in victimized life forms in which they had been

found, floated in lagoon water, clustered under transparent domes. They varied from the

microscopic to inhis organisms with a thirty foot spread. For the most part, they were in

biological stasis—metabolism retarded by a factor of several million, balance maintained by

enzyme control and a variety of other checks. Proper handling would otherwise have been

impossible.

The Guardian was able to find little fault with the progress Dr. Cay had made in his work

projects. “In this respect you have not done badly,” she acknowledged, for the benefit of

whatever ears might be listening. She tapped the charts he’d offered for her inspection and

dropped them into the file he’d taken them from. “It’s disappointing, however, that it be-»

came necessary at last for me to intervene directly in a matter we had expected you to handle

without our assistance.”

“Given more time, I might have done it!” Ticos remonstrated humbly. “I was opposed by a

number of intractable beings, as you know.”

“I do know—having encountered one of those beings. But it was hardly a question of time.

The issues were clear. If they had been presented with clarity, a rational majority of our

uninvited guests would have drawn the correct conclusions and acted on them. We must count

this a failure. You needn’t let it concern you unduly. The excellent thoroughness of your work

on the basic assignment, under somewhat limiting conditions, will offset the failure, at least in

part.”

Ticos mumbled his gratitude, went back with evident relief to additional explanations

about his project. Nile checked her watch.

Forty-two minutes since she’d been escorted with careful courtesy from the assembly

chamber to the lab and left there with Ticos. No word from the Everliving since then, and the

Palach Moga hadn’t shown up with her gun. Good sign or bad? While she was talking to them,

she’d almost been a Tuvela. She’d blasted them! She’d felt exalted. There’d been no questions.

The Great Palachs closest to her in the chamber had edged farther back to the walls before she

was done, stirred nervously again whenever she shifted a glance in their direction.

Afterward, brief sharp letdown. No Tuvela, no Guardian. Simply a scared human in a

potentially very bad spot, with much too much at stake. If she’d fumbled this in any way,

made the slightest slip—

Now she was somewhere between those states, back to normal, worried enough but again

busily balancing possibilities, planning as much as could be planned here.

One of the factors she’d been considering was this room itself. It was long, wide, high,

located somewhere near the top of the overall structure—she’d come up another level after

leaving the chamber. It had a door at either end, probably locked now. The

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