is no accident that you are here,” said the git keeper.
“More so than you know,” said Brenner, bitterly. “The contents of the experimental vats, in one of which I was nurtured, were ordered destroyed, that such genes, putatively dangerous to the security of the regime on the home world, be removed from the gene pool. I was the only one saved, rescued by an attendant technician.”
“Does that seem so mysterious to you, or such a coincidence?” asked the git keeper.
“Yes!” said Brenner.
“That it should be you, alone, of all the others, who was saved?”
“Yes,” said Brenner, faltering.
“Why?” asked the git keeper.
“I do not know,” said Brenner.
“Your genetic materials were selected, thousands of years ago, as being suited for our purposes,” said the git keeper. “Their location, condition, treatment, and such, were carefully monitored.”
“It was no accident then that I, alone, was spared?”
“No,” said the git keeper.
Brenner looked up at him, in consternation, through the heavy netting.
“You have been prepared, so to speak, chosen, if you will, for our purposes,” said the git keeper.
“I see,” said Brenner.
“The technician was well rewarded,” said the git keeper.
“Of course,” said Brenner, bitterly. No one, then, it seemed, had cared for him, or loved him. Only Rodriguez, in his rough, unpolished fashion, had seemed to care for him, if only begrudgingly. Tears sprang into Brenner’s eyes, as he thought of his friend.
“There must be records kept,” said Brenner. “There must be traces of your work, here and there. Some must understand, or suspect, what you are doing!” To be sure, Brenner had wondered, long ago, about the sparsity of records, and reports, and such, pertaining to Pons. On the whole, saving for some obscure monographs, there were little more than fragments, often no more than notes in old texts, and, apparently, some references in company records.
“Did you?” asked the git keeper.
“No,” said Brenner.
“The university will have records of our expedition.”
“They have been misplaced,” said the git keeper.
“The directress?”
“Of course,” said the git keeper.
“She was influenced?”
“Yes,” said the git keeper.
“It was no accident then that she brought the expedition to my attention, and such.”
“No,” said the git keeper.
“I might have refused to come,” said Brenner.
“Other pressures would then have been brought to bear,” said the git keeper. “In one fashion or another you would have arrived here in autumn, before the feast of the harvesting of seed.”
“What difference would it have made?” said Brenner.
“None, really,” said the git keeper. “But we have our calendar, and are fond of our traditions.”
“How could you have purchased the cooperation of the directress?”
“By means of agents, through the company,” said the git keeper.
“What did you buy her for?” asked Brenner.
“An interesting way of putting it,” said the git keeper.
“I did not mean it that way!” said Brenner.
“That is your disposition for atavistic conceptualization betrayed,” said the git keeper.
“No!” said Brenner, angrily.
“She is a female,” said the git keeper.
“I was never too sure of that,” said Brenner.
“Our agent, who is skilled in assessing such matters, assured us that she was quite female, and profoundly so, but one of those who is frightened of her own femaleness, and attempts, by any means, to suppress it, to conceal it, and hold it in check.”
“Absurd,” said Brenner. To be sure, he himself had sensed, or imagined, a profound, latent sexuality in the directress.
“She is female enough, it seems,” said the git keeper, “to have been fascinated by a handful of Chian diamonds.”
Brenner looked up at the git keeper. If pure, and well cut, such diamonds are quite valuable.
“I have heard the cries of a beast outside, from somewhere beyond the temple,” said Brenner. “What is it? What is its meaning?”
“That is not important for you to understand now,” said the git keeper.
“Is it caged?”
“Of course,” said the git keeper. “But do not fear. The bars are so closely set that it could not even thrust a part of its muzzle through them.”
“How could it have been brought here?” asked Brenner.
“By air truck,” said the git keeper.
“The drivers will know of this place.”
“The truck will fail to return to Company Station,” said the git keeper. “It will crash in the forests.”
“There will be a search,” said Brenner.
“The remains of the crash will be found,” said the git keeper.
“I see,” said Brenner. He suddenly felt cold, and began to sweat.
“Do not concern yourself,” said the git keeper.
“What of the directress?” he asked.
“What of her?” asked the git keeper.
“She is high in a party,” said Brenner, “perhaps in the metaparty, the party which controls the others!”
“No,” said