life scale. Lani only live about one tenth as long as we do. They’re mature at twelve and dead at fifty.”
Alexander sighed. “That’s another difference. Even without agerone we’d live to be a hundred.”
“Have you tried gerontological injections?”
“Once. They produced death in about two days. Killed five Lani with them.” Alexander’s face darkened at an unpleasant memory. “So we don’t try any more,” he said. “There are too many differences.” He stretched. “I’d tell you more about them but it’ll be better to hear it from Evald Blalok. He’s our superintendent. Steve Jordan can tell you a lot, too. He runs the Lani Division. But right now let’s wait for Cousin Douglas. The pup will take his time about coming—but he’ll do it in the end. He’s afraid not to.”
“I’d rather not,” Kennon said. “It’s poor manners to be injected into a family affair—especially when I’m just one of the employees.”
“You’re not just one of the employees. You are the Station Veterinarian, and as such you hold an authority second only to Blalok and myself. You and Blalok are my hands, ears, and eyes on Flora. You are responsible to me—and to me alone. While I defer at times to the desires of the Family, I do not have to. I run Outworld Enterprises and all the extensions of that organization. I possess control—and the Family knows it. My men are respected and furthermore they know everything that goes on.” He smiled icily. “In a way it’s quite a healthy situation. It keeps my relatives under control. Somehow they dislike being disciplined before outsiders. Now think no more about it.” Alexander stood up and walked over to one of the windows opening onto the broad roof gardens, and stood looking at the sun-drenched greenery.
“Odd, isn’t it,” Alexander said, “how beautiful nature is and how simple things are in a state of nature. It’s only when man interjects himself onto a scene that things get complicated. Take Flora for instance. Before Grandfather came here, it must have been a pleasant place with the simple natives happy in their paradise. But that’s all changed now. We have taken over—and they, like other lesser creatures on other worlds, have been bent to our will and uses. I could pity them, but being human I cannot afford that luxury.”
Kennon understood. He, too, had felt that sensation, that odd tightening of the throat when he first saw a Varl on Santos. The Varl had been the dominant life form there until men had come. Now they were just another animal added to humanity’s growing list of pets and livestock. The little Varl with their soft-furred bodies and clever six-fingered hands made excellent pets and precision workmen. The products of those clever hands, the tiny instruments, the delicate microminiaturized control circuits, the incredibly fine lacework and tapestries, formed the bulk of Santos’ interstellar trade.
He had owned a Varl once and had delighted in its almost human intelligence. But the Varl weren’t human and there lay their tragedy. Two thousand years of human domination had left them completely dependent on their conquerors. They were merely intelligent animals—and that was all they would ever be until the human race changed its cultural pattern or was overthrown. The one alternative was as unlikely as the other. Humanity had met some fierce competitors, but none with its explosive acquisitive nature, and none with its drive to conquer, colonize, and rule. And probably it never would.
The little Varl were one race among hundreds that had fallen before the fierceness and the greed of men. But unlike most others, the Varl were not combative. Therefore they had survived.
Yet had it been necessary to reduce them to slavery? They would never be a threat. Not only were they essentially gentle and noncombative, but their delicate bodies could not stand the strains of spaceflight. They were trapped on their world. Why should they be forced into so subordinate a role?—Why was humanity so jealous of its dominance that no other species could exist except by sufferance? Why after five thousand years of exploration, invasion, and colonization did the human race still consider the galaxy as its oyster, and themselves uniquely qualified to hold the knife? He hadn’t thought this way since he had given the Varl to his girl friend of the moment, and had blasted off for Beta. Now the questions returned to haunt him. As a Betan, the haunting was even more acute, since Beta had a related problem that was already troublesome and would become more acute as the years passed.
He shrugged and laid the thought aside as a slim, dark-haired Lani entered pushing a service cart ahead of her. The two men ate silently, each busy with his own thoughts. And behind the view wall of Alexander’s apartment Kardon’s brilliant yellow sun sank slowly toward the horizon, filling the sky with flaming colors of red and gold, rimmed by the blues and purples of approaching night. The sunset was gaudy and blatant, Kennon thought with mild distaste, unlike the restful day-end displays of his homeworld.
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