He thought no shame all the day long

It was Jackstraw who heard it firstit was always Jackstraw, whose hearing was an even match for his phenomenal eyesight, who heard things first. Tired of having my exposed hands alternately frozen, I had dropped my book, zipped my sleeping-bag up to the chin and was drowsily watching him carving figurines from a length of inferior narwhal tusk when his hands suddenly fell still and he sat quite motionless. Then, unhurriedly as always, he dropped the piece of bone into the coffee-pan that simmered gently by the side of our oil-burner stovecurio collectors paid fancy prices for what they To wear the bags of bread. imagined to be the dark ivory of fossilised elephant tusksrose and put his ear to the ventilation shaft, his eyes remote in the unseeing gaze of a man lost in listening. A couple of seconds were enough. "Aeroplane," he announced casually. "Aeroplane!" I propped myself up on an elbow and stared at him. "Jackstraw, you've been hitting the methylated spirits again." "Indeed, no, Dr Mason." The blue eyes, so incongruously at

You've passed your youth not so unpleasantly,

them yourself. Want to try?" It was boorish of me, but that was the effect she had. I turned away to see the minister or priest hold up his hand against the offered brandy. "Go on, take it," I said impatiently. "I don't really think I should." The voice was high-pitched, but the enunciation clear and precise, and I found it vaguely irritating that it should so perfectly match his appearance, be so exactly what I should have expected. He laughed, a nervous deprecating laugh. "My parishioners, you know . . . " I was tired, worried and felt like telling him what he could do with his parishioners, but it wasn't his fault. "There's precedent in plenty in your Bible, Reverend. You know that better than I. It'll do you good, really." "Oh well, if you think so." He took the glass gingerly, as if Beelzebub himself were on the offering end, but I noticed that there was nothing so hesitant about his method and speed of disposal of the contents: his subsequent expression could properly be described as beatific. I caught Marie LeGarde's eye, and smiled at the twinkle I caught there. The reverend wasn't the only one who found the coffeeand brandywelcome. With the exception of the stewardess, who sipped at her drink in a distraught fashion, the others had also emptied their glasses, and I decided that the broaching of another MarteU's was justified. In the respite from the talk, I bent over the injured man on the floor. His pulse was slower, steadier and his breathing not quite so shallow: I slipped in a few more heat pads and zipped up the sleeping-bag. "Is heis he any better, do you think?" The stewardess was so close to me that I brushed against her as I straightened. "Hehe seems a bit better, doesn't he?" "He is a bit, I think. But nothing like over the shock from the wound and the exposure, though." I looked at her speculatively and suddenly felt almost sorry for her. Almost, but not quite: I didn't at all like the direction my thoughts were leading me. "You've flown together quite a bit, haven't you?" "Yes." She didn't offer anything more. "His headdo you think" "Later. Let me have a quick look at that back of yours." "Look at what?" "Your back," I said patiently. "Your shoulders. They seem to give you some pain. I'll rig a screen." "No, no, I'm all right." She moved away from canon 7.1mp digital camera powershot a560 me. "Don't be silly, my dear." I wondered what trick of voice production made Marie LeGarde's voice so clear and carrying. "He is a doctor, you know." "No!" I shrugged and reached for my brandy glass. Bearers of bad news were ever unpopular: I supposed her reaction was the modern equivalent of the classical despot's unsheathing his dagger. Probably only bruises, anyhow, I told myself, and turned to look at the company. An odd-looking bunch, to say the least, but then any group of people dressed in lounge suits and dresses, trilby hats and nylon stockings would have looked odd against the strange and uncompromising background of that cabin where every suggestion of anything that even remotely suggested gracious living had been crushed and ruthlessly made subservient to the all-exclusive purpose of survival. Here there were no armchairsno chairs, evenno carpets, wall-paper, book-shelves, beds, curtainsor even windows for the curtains. It was a bleak utilitarian box of a room, eighteen feet by fourteen. The floor was made of unvarnished yellow pine. The walls were made of spaced sheets of bonded ply, with kapok insulation between: the lower part of the walls was covered with green-painted asbestos, the upper part and entire roof sheeted with glittering aluminium to reflect the maximum possible heat and light. A thin, ever-present film of ice climbed at least half-way up all four walls, reaching almost to the ceiling in the four corners, the parts of the room most remote from the stove and therefore the coldest. On very cold nights, such as this, the ice reached $e ceiling and started to creep across it to the layers of opaque ice that permanently framed the undersides of our rimed and opaque skylights. The two exits from the cabin were let into the fourteen-foot sides: one led to the trap, the other to the snow and ice tunnel where we kept our food, petrol, oil, batteries, radio generators, explosives for seismological and glacial investigations and a hundred and one other items. Half-way along, a secondary tunnel led off at right anglesa tunnel which steadily increased in length as we cut out the blocks of snow which were melted to give us our water supply. At the far end of the main tunnel lay our primitive toilet system. One eighteen-foot wall and half of the wall that gave access to the trap-door were lined with twin rows of bunkseight in all. The other eighteen-foot wall was given over entirely to our

"Some suits, some suits," the sheriff he said,

exception of tourists seeking to enjoy the gentler pleasures of old Terra in a Totally Natural World. Killashandra, reading with an eye to hidden significances, paused to consider the implications. Although her experience with planets had been limited to two Fuerte, her planet of origin, and Ballybran, she knew enough of how worlds wagged to sense the iron idealism that probably supported the Optherian propaganda. She tapped a question and frowned at the negative answer: Optherias Charter Signers were not proselytizers of a religious sect nor did Optheria recognize a federal church. As many worlds had been colonized for idealist forms of government, religiously or secularly oriented, as for purely commercial considerations. The guiding principle of foundation could not yet be considered the necessary criterion for a successful subculture. The variables involved were too numerous. But the entry made it clear that Optheria was considered efficiently organized and, with its substantial positive galactic balance of payments, a creditably administered world. The entry concluded with a statement that Optheria was well worth a visit during its annual Summer Festival. She detected a certain hint of irony in that bland comment. While she would have preferred to sample some of the exotic and sophisticated pleasures available to those with credit enough, she felt she could tolerate Optherias natural pastimes in return for the sizeable fee and a long vacation from Ballybran. She considered Lanzeckis diffidence about the assignment. Could he be charged with favoritism if he gave her another choice off-world assignment? Who would remember that she had been away during the horrendous Passover Storms, much less where? Shed been peremptorily snatched away by Trag, shoved onto the moon shuttle, and without a shred of background data about the vagaries of the Trundomoux, delivered willy-nilly to a naval autocracy to cope with the exigencies of installing millions of credits worth of black communication crystal for a bunch of skeptical spartan pioneers. The assignment had been no sinecure. As Trag was the only other person who had known of it, was he the objector? He very easily could be, as Administration Officer, yet Killashandra did not think that Trag could, or did, influence Guild Master Lanzecki. A second wild notion followed quickly on the heels of that one. Were there any Optherians on the roster of the Heptite Guild to whom such a job might be assigned? The Heptite Guild had no Optherian members. From canon a digital camera her ten years in the Music Department of Fuertes Culture Center, Killashandra was familiar with the intricacies of Optherian sensory organ instruments. The encyclopedia enlarged the picture by stating that music was a planetwide mania on Optheria, with citizens competing on a planetary scale for opportunities to perform on the sensory organs. With that sort of environment, Killashandra thought it very odd indeed that Optheria produced no candidates with the perfect pitch that was the Heptite Guilds essential entry requirement. And, with competitions on a worldwide scale, there would be thousands disappointed. Killashandra smiled in sour sympathy. Surely some would look for off-world alternatives. Her curiosity titillated, Killashandra checked other Guilds. Optherians did not go into the Space Services or into galactic mercantile enterprises, nor were embassies, consulates or legates of Optheria listed in the Diplomatic Registers. There she lucked out by discovering a qualifier: As the planet was nearly self-sufficient and no Optherians left their home world, there was no need for such services. All normal inquiries about Optheria had to be directed to the Office of External Trade and Commerce on Optheria. Killashandra paused in perplexity. A planet so perfect, so beloved by its citizens that no one chose to leave its surface? She found that very hard to believe. She recalled the encyclopedias entry on the planet, searching for the code on Naturalization. Yes, well, citizenship was readily available for those interested but could not be rescinded. She checked the Penal Code and discovered that, unlike many worlds, Optheria did not deport its criminal element: any recidivists were accommodated at a rehabilitation center. Killashandra shivered. So even perfect Optheria had to resort to rehabilitation. Having delved sufficiently into Optherias history and background to satisfy her basic curiosity, she turned to research the procedure necessary to replace a fractured manual. The installation posed no overt problems as the bracketing was remarkably similar to that required by the black communications crystal. The tuning would be more complex because of the broad-frequency variable output of the Optherian organ. The instrument was similar to early Terran pipe organs, with four manuals and a terminal with hundreds of stops, but a performer on the Optherian organ read a score containing