by DAVID MASON
Illustrated by TEMPLE
When on Pru'ut, you must do as the natives
do—and that includes dying as they do!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity July 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
On the charts, it's P-1345-AZ, and a thin blue line marked with crypticletters indicates that a Mallor Lines cargo ship stops three times ineach local year. The Guide will tell you a little more; that it's asmall hot planet, covered with fern forests and swamps, and inhabitedby one of the innumerable primate-human species of the universe. It wasalso inhabited, for a while, by one Terran, James Grady.
The natives call it Pru'ut, which, freely translated, means "theworld." They refer to themselves as Kya, which means "people." JamesGrady, being a realist, called it the Mudhole, and added a descriptiveadjective or two; but he did not find it nearly as unpleasant a placeas a few others in which he had been in the course of forty years ofwandering.
Pru'ut has no inclination, and only one season, which is rather like arainy August on Earth. When Grady arrived, he stepped from the landingstage of the Mallor Lines' Berenice into six inches of gluey mud; thesun was seldom out long enough to harden the surface of Pru'ut.
"It's not an easy place," the departing agent, Jansen, told Grady."Rain, and heat, and getting along with the locals."
"Anything the matter with 'em?" Grady asked. He was watching the tall,yellow-pale shapes of natives loading bales into the Berenice's cargoslings.
"Nothing much," Jansen said. "Sane as any primitives. All kinds ofcomplicated rules and taboos, and naturally they'll get as mad as hellat you if you scratch a single rule. Most of the data on that is inthe agent's notebooks. You add anything to the record that seems to beworth putting down, the way the rest of us have."
"And if they get mad at you, they stop packing plants," theBerenice's mate put in. "Which will make the Mallor Company mad atyou, too. This place is a regular bargain basement for drug materials.At least eight different drug plants, all of them worth as much asuranium. More, in some ways."
"Mm." The ex-agent picked up a handful of brown leaves from a table."This, for instance. It's a distant relation of coca. The natives chewit for fun, but it's the source of a first class anesthetic. And this.If your kidneys ever break down, the doctors use this stuff to keepyou alive. Kerosin, it's called. Anyway, you'll find price lists anddescriptive material in the files. You've worked for Mallor before,haven't you?"
"Yes," Grady said. "I put in three years on Tengo, in Port City. Then Iquit for a while. Had something else to do."
"Oh? What?"
Grady's face cracked into a slight grin. "Little bit of an argument.The Mutiny. I joined the local army, if you could call it that. I hadmy own gun, so they made me a major on the spot."
"The Mutiny?" The Berenice's mate had heard of that brief and savagewar, in which a handful of settlers and local militia had beatenoff the troops of a powerful state, and had actually won. The matehastily readjusted his opinion of Grady upward. A trader's agent wasone thing; a man who had fought through the Mutiny was something morethan that. The mate opened his mouth to ask more of the story; but theBerenice's air-horn cut him off with a long wail.
"Take-off in twenty minutes," the mate said, as the noise subsided."You ready, Jansen?"
The ex-agent nodded, and shook hands with Grady. "Good luck," he said,and started for the ship, the mate fol