in every way. She was the product of survival on Pyrrus. The heavy gravity that produced bulging muscles in men, brought out firm strength in straplike female muscles. She had the figure of a goddess, tanned skin and perfectly formed face. Her hair, which was cut short, circled her head like a golden crown. The only unfeminine thing about her was the gun she wore in a bulky forearm holster. When she saw Jason’s eyes open she smiled at him. Her teeth were as even and as white as he had expected.
“I’m Meta, pilot of this ship. And you must be—”
“Jason dinAlt. That was a lousy take-off, Meta.”
“I’m really very sorry,” she laughed. “But being born on a two-G planet does make one a little immune to acceleration. I save fuel too, with the synergy curve—”
Kerk gave a noncommittal grunt. “Come along, Meta, we’ll take a look at the cargo. Some of the new stuff will plug the gaps in the perimeter.”
“Oh yes,” she said, almost clapping her hands with happiness. “I read the specs, they’re simply wonderful.”
Like a schoolgirl with a new dress. Or a box of candy. That’s a great attitude to have towards bombs and flame-throwers. Jason smiled wryly at the thought as he groaned off the couch. The two Pyrrans had gone and he pulled himself painfully through the door after them.
*
It took him a long time to find his way to the hold. The ship was big and apparently empty of crew. Jason finally found a man sleeping in one of the brightly lit cabins. He recognized him as the driver who had turned the car over to them on Cassylia. The man, who had been sleeping soundly a moment before, opened his eyes as soon as Jason drifted into the room. He was wide awake.
“How do I get to the cargo hold?” Jason asked.
The other told him, closed his eyes and went instantly back to sleep before Jason could even say thanks.
In the hold, Kerk and Meta had opened some of the crates and were chortling with joy over their lethal contents. Meta, a pressure canister in her arms, turned to Jason as he came through the door.
“Just look at this,” she said. “This powder in here—why you can eat it like dirt, with less harm. Yet it is instantly deadly to all forms of vegetable life ...” She stopped suddenly as she realized Jason didn’t share her extreme pleasure. “I’m sorry. I forgot for a moment there that you weren’t a Pyrran. So you don’t really understand, do you?”
Before he could answer, the PA speaker called her name.
“Jump time,” she said. “Come with me to the bridge while I do the equations. We can talk there. I know so little about any place except Pyrrus that I have a million questions to ask.”
Jason followed her to the bridge where she relieved the duty officer and began taking readings for the jump-setting. She looked out of place among the machines, a sturdy but supple figure in a simple, one-piece shipsuit. Yet there was no denying the efficiency with which she went about her job.
“Meta, aren’t you a little young to be the pilot of an interstellar ship?”
“Am I?” She thought for a second. “I really don’t know how old pilots are supposed to be. I have been piloting for about three years now and I’m almost twenty. Is that younger than usual?”
Jason opened his mouth—then laughed. “I suppose that all depends on what planet you’re from. Some places you would have trouble getting licensed. But I’ll bet things are different on Pyrrus. By their standards you must rank as an old lady.”
“Now you’re making a joke,” Meta said serenely as she fed a figure into the calculator. “I’ve seen old ladies on some planets. They are wrinkled and have gray hair. I don’t know how old they are, I asked one but she wouldn’t tell me her age. But I’m sure they must be older than anyone on Pyrrus, no one looks like that there.”
“I don’t mean old that way,” Jason groped for the right word. “Not old—but grown-up, mature. An adult.”
“Everyone is grown-up,” she answered. “At least soon after they leave the wards. And they do that when they’re six. My first child is grown-up, and the second one would be, too, only he’s dead. So I surely must be.”
That seemed to settle the question for her, though Jason’s thoughts jumped with the alien concepts and background, inherent behind her words.
*
Meta punched in the last setting, and the course tape began to chunk out of the case. She turned her attention back to Jason. “I’m glad you’re aboard this trip, though I am sorry you are going to Pyrrus. But we’ll have lots of time to talk. There are so many things I want to find out about other planets, and why people go around acting the way they do. Not at all like home where you know why people are doing things all the time.” She frowned over the tape for a moment, then turned her attention back to Jason. “What is your home planet like?”
One after another the usual lies he told people came to his lips, and were pushed away. Why bother lying to a girl who really didn’t care if you were serf or noble? To her there were only two kinds of people in the galaxy—Pyrrans, and the rest. For the first time since he had fled from Porgorstorsaand he found himself telling someone the truth of his origin.
“My home planet? Just about the stuffiest, dullest, dead-end in the universe. You can’t believe the destructive decay of a planet that is mainly agrarian, caste-conscious and completely satisfied with its own boring existence. Not only is there no change—but no one wantschange. My father was a farmer, so I should have been a farmer too—if I had listened to the advice of my betters. It was unthinkable, as well as forbidden for me to do anything else. And everything I wanted to do was against the law. I was fifteen before I learned to read—out of a book stolen from a noble school. After that there was no turning back. By the time I stowed aboard an off-world freighter at nineteen I must have broken every law on the planet. Happily. Leaving home for me was just like getting out of prison.”
Meta shook her head at the thought. “I just can’t imagine a place like that. But I’m sure I wouldn’t like it there.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Jason laughed. “So once I was in space, with no law-abiding talents or skills, I just wandered into one thing and another. In this age of technology I was completely out of place. Oh, I suppose I could have done well in some army, but I’m not so good at taking orders. Whenever I gambled I did well, so little by little I just drifted into it. People are the same everywhere, so I manage to make out well wherever I end up.”
“I know what you mean about people being alike—but they are so different,” she said. “I’m not being clear at all, am I? What I mean is that at home I know what people will do and why they do it at the same time. People on all the other planets do act alike, as you said, yet I have very much trouble understanding why. For instance, I like to try the local food when we set down on a planet, and if there is time I always do. There are bars and restaurants near every spaceport so I go there. And I always have trouble with the men. They want to buy me drinks, hold my hand—”
“Well, a single girl in those port joints has to expect a certain amount of interest from the men.”
“Oh, I know that,” she said. “What I don’t understand is why they don’t listen when I tell them I am not interested and to go away. They just laugh and pull up a chair, usually. But I have found that one thing works wherever I am. I tell them if they don’t stop bothering me I’ll break their arm.”
“Does that stop them?” Jason asked.
“No, of course not. But after I break their arm they go away. And the others don’t bother me either. It’s a lot of fuss to go through and the food is usually awful.”
Jason didn’t laugh. Particularly when he realized that this girl could break the arm of any spaceport thug in the galaxy. She was a strange mixture of naivete and strength, unlike anyone he had ever met before.