that he didn’t even hear Monte come in.
Monte studied the man, seeing him with fresh eyes. He had never felt really close to Charlie until that fantastic night by the fire in the bloody clearing on Sirius Nine; there had always been a subtle antagonism between them. It was probably nothing much; they just rubbed each other the wrong way. And yet, somehow, he had been fated to commit a murder with Charlie Jenike. In a universe where strangeness lurked behind every commonplace facade, this was surely one of the strangest things of all.
(Oh yes, it had been murder when they had killed the native. Monte knew it and Charlie knew it. They had not even recognized the man. They had never seen him before. They hadn’t known what he wanted or what he was doing. If you come home some night and find your wife has been murdered, you don’t just charge out into the street and shoot the first man you find on the principle that one victim is as good as another. Maybe they had been a little crazy, but that didn’t excuse them in their own minds. What was it that Don King had said in that bull session so long ago? “We say we’re civilized, which means that we have enough surplus to afford luxuries like high-minded philosophies. But if things got tough I’ll bet we’d be right back where we started from quicker than you can say Cuthbert Pomeroy Gundelfinger; it’d be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a pancreas for a pancreas. That’s the way men are.” Monte recalled that he had been rather self-righteous in that argument, talking learnedly about progress and ethics and all the rest. He had been pretty sure of himself. But then, it had been a very long time ago…)
Charlie certainly wasn’t very impressive physically. He was a dumpy, sloppy man who was losing his nothing-colored hair; if he had ever glanced into the mirror, which was highly unlikely, he would have seen what looked disturbingly like a bulldog’s face perched atop a penguin’s rotund body. Charlie lacked all of the conventional virtues: he dressed badly, changed his clothes all too infrequently, had little visible charm, and didn’t bother to cultivate the civilized buzz of small-talk which serves to cushion our dealings with our fellow seasick passengers on the voyage of life. Nonetheless, Charlie had something, something that was quite rare. Watching him at work, Monte realized that the man had a certain dignity, a certain integrity that had all but vanished from the contemporary scene. The very words dignity and integrity were slightly suspect these days; like so many others, they had been corrupted by the politicians and the tri-di dramatists. It was a surprising thing to find such a man and to know him—it was something like finding a worm that could do algebra. Now that the chips were down, Monte found that he could turn to Charlie Jenike in a way that he never could with a man like Don King, or even with Tom Stein.
Charlie finally sensed his presence and turned around, his eyebrows lifted questioningly.
“I’ve been talking to Bill York. He wants to take the ship back to Earth.”
“That figures. Will he do it?”
“Unless I can talk him out of it. I’d like to kick it around with you a little, if you don’t mind.”
The linguist fumbled for a cigarette and lit it. “I’ll try to fit you into my list of appointments. Shoot.” Monte filled his pipe and sat down on a hard, straight-backed chair. The whisper of the air vents seemed very loud to him. It was odd that the noise didn’t make Charlie’s work more difficult than it was. He wondered suddenly why Charlie kept on working as he did. To keep himself from thinking about Helen? Work was a kind of opiate, but that was a feeble explanation. For that matter, Monte didn’t know what it was that kept himself working. He smiled a little. He didn’t understand Charlie, he didn’t understand himself. How could he possibly hope to understand the natives of the Sirius Nine?
“How
Monte studied the man, seeing him with fresh eyes. He had never felt really close to Charlie until that fantastic night by the fire in the bloody clearing on Sirius Nine; there had always been a subtle antagonism between them. It was probably nothing much; they just rubbed each other the wrong way. And yet, somehow, he had been fated to commit a murder with Charlie Jenike. In a universe where strangeness lurked behind every commonplace facade, this was surely one of the strangest things of all.
(Oh yes, it had been murder when they had killed the native. Monte knew it and Charlie knew it. They had not even recognized the man. They had never seen him before. They hadn’t known what he wanted or what he was doing. If you come home some night and find your wife has been murdered, you don’t just charge out into the street and shoot the first man you find on the principle that one victim is as good as another. Maybe they had been a little crazy, but that didn’t excuse them in their own minds. What was it that Don King had said in that bull session so long ago? “We say we’re civilized, which means that we have enough surplus to afford luxuries like high-minded philosophies. But if things got tough I’ll bet we’d be right back where we started from quicker than you can say Cuthbert Pomeroy Gundelfinger; it’d be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a pancreas for a pancreas. That’s the way men are.” Monte recalled that he had been rather self-righteous in that argument, talking learnedly about progress and ethics and all the rest. He had been pretty sure of himself. But then, it had been a very long time ago…)
Charlie certainly wasn’t very impressive physically. He was a dumpy, sloppy man who was losing his nothing-colored hair; if he had ever glanced into the mirror, which was highly unlikely, he would have seen what looked disturbingly like a bulldog’s face perched atop a penguin’s rotund body. Charlie lacked all of the conventional virtues: he dressed badly, changed his clothes all too infrequently, had little visible charm, and didn’t bother to cultivate the civilized buzz of small-talk which serves to cushion our dealings with our fellow seasick passengers on the voyage of life. Nonetheless, Charlie had something, something that was quite rare. Watching him at work, Monte realized that the man had a certain dignity, a certain integrity that had all but vanished from the contemporary scene. The very words dignity and integrity were slightly suspect these days; like so many others, they had been corrupted by the politicians and the tri-di dramatists. It was a surprising thing to find such a man and to know him—it was something like finding a worm that could do algebra. Now that the chips were down, Monte found that he could turn to Charlie Jenike in a way that he never could with a man like Don King, or even with Tom Stein.
Charlie finally sensed his presence and turned around, his eyebrows lifted questioningly.
“I’ve been talking to Bill York. He wants to take the ship back to Earth.”
“That figures. Will he do it?”
“Unless I can talk him out of it. I’d like to kick it around with you a little, if you don’t mind.”
The linguist fumbled for a cigarette and lit it. “I’ll try to fit you into my list of appointments. Shoot.” Monte filled his pipe and sat down on a hard, straight-backed chair. The whisper of the air vents seemed very loud to him. It was odd that the noise didn’t make Charlie’s work more difficult than it was. He wondered suddenly why Charlie kept on working as he did. To keep himself from thinking about Helen? Work was a kind of opiate, but that was a feeble explanation. For that matter, Monte didn’t know what it was that kept himself working. He smiled a little. He didn’t understand Charlie, he didn’t understand himself. How could he possibly hope to understand the natives of the Sirius Nine?
“How
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