Read Online News From Elsewhere by Edmuind Cooper - Free Book Online Page A

Chirico appeared. They, too, went through the presentation ceremony.
    “Well, I’ll be sugared,” said Duluth, clutching his bowl tightly. “Pure platinum, by Hades! Now suppose we fix up a little trading post. . . . Plastics for platinum, and fair exchange is no robbery. We wouldn’t have to stay in business long. . . . You know, I always planned on buying a little estate in the South of France when I get too old for space travel. Now, I’ll just buy me the South of France.”
    Chirico looked glum. “The moment we hit the Solar System,” he said, “Trans-Solar will step in. Before you know it, the bottom will have dropped out of the platinum market.”
    “We’ll make a killing with the first load,” said Duluth happily. “Think I’ll buy Switzerland, as well—just for the winter sports.”
    Lukas grinned. “This ship is under charter,” he remarked. “Read your articles, son. All cargo belongs to Trans-Solar.”
    Meanwhile the old hominid began another speech. After much effort on both sides, it became clear that he was offering the hospitality of his village.
    Alsdorf said, “We can’t all go. Somebody has to stay with the ship. Also, I need Tony for the survey. We’re going to make a start this morning.” He paused. “Now we know what we are looking for.”
    Duluth tossed up his bowl and caught it. He grinned at Lukas. “You just been elected, Mike. Have a good time, and don’t get fresh with the women.”
    “Why don’t you go yourself? I thought you would have been straining at the leash, Joe. Something wrong?”
    “No, nothing wrong,” said Duluth innocently. “Only I’d like someone else to find out if these boys are cannibals. ... Be a pal, and bring back some more free samples. I got an idea Trans-Solar won’t worry about a few kilograms—not where I put ’em.”
    Five minutes later, Lukas was trailing across the sand belt toward the forest, walking with the old hominid at the head of the column.
    Alsdorf watched the procession silently for a while, then said, “Did he take a machine pistol?”
    Chirico began to examine the curious pattern on his bowl. “He didn’t take anything, Kurt. At least, I don’t think so.”
    “He must have the death wish,” said Alsdorf genially. He turned to Duluth. “How about improving your muscle tone, Joe? There’s a lot of gear to be stowed in the tractor.”
    The village proved to be a couple of dozen two-room huts with adobe walls and thatches woven of thin branches and fronds. It stood in a small clearing by a stream in the forest, about three kilometers from the Henri Poincare.
    In his own way, Lukas had previously tended to romanticize the “noble savage.” In discussions with Alsdorf throughout the long star voyage, he had based his arguments relating to the decadence of civilization on the assumption that primitive man had in him some heroic element—a crude innocence, perhaps—that had slowly been depraved by the development of synthetic power. By synthetic power, he meant the output of all machinery whose energy did not derive directly from man himself. Because terrestrial humanity no longer lived by the sweat of its brow, but learned to rely upon steam, petroleum, atomic energy, and solar power to take care of the donkey work, Lukas had felt that some vital, indefinable force had been irrevocably lost. Secretly Lukas despised himself as the product of a machine culture. Secretly he despised the fascination space travel had for him, because it was the ultimate in reliance upon machines. As a child he had read stories, half-legend, half-fact, of the extinct races— the North American Indians, the Eskimos, the Polynesians. Their starkly primitive existence had enthralled him. Their eventual extinction—the work of modem man—had dealt a sharp blow to his early and conventional faith in the benefits of science. Ever since, he had regarded his own aptitude and affinity for machines with a