Cum Grano Salis, Page 2

lit up in a kind of half hope. "Unless the native flora--"

  But even before he finished, he could see the look in Dr. Pilar's eyes.

  * * * * *

  Broderick MacNeil was a sick man. The medical officers of the SpaceService did not agree with him _in toto_, but MacNeil was in a positionto know more about his own state of health than the doctors, because itwas, after all, he himself who was sick.

  Rarely, of course, did he draw the attention of the medical officers tohis ever-fluctuating assortment of aches, pains, signs, symptoms,malaises, and malfunctions. After all, it wouldn't do for him to bereleased from the Service on a Medical Discharge. No, he would suffer insilence for the sake of his chosen career--which, apparently, was to bea permanent Spaceman 2nd Class.

  Broderick MacNeil had never seen his medical record, and therefore didnot know that, aside from mention of the normal slight defects whichevery human body possesses, the only note on the records was one whichsaid: "Slight tendency toward hypochondria, compensated for by tendencyto immerse self in job at hand. According to psych tests, he cancompetently handle positions up to Enlisted Space Officer 3rd Class, butpositions of ESO/2 and above should be carefully considered. (See PsychRept. Intelligence Sectn.)"

  But, if MacNeil did not know what the medics thought of him, neither didthe medics know what he thought of them. Nor did they know that MacNeilcarried a secret supply of his own personal palliatives, purgatives andpoly-purpose pills. He kept them carefully concealed in a small sectionof his space locker, and had labeled them all as various vitaminmixtures, which made them seem perfectly legal, and which was not _too_dishonest, since many of them _were_ vitamins.

  On the morning after the fire, he heaved his well-muscled bulk out ofbed and scratched his scalp through the close-cropped brown hair thatcovered his squarish skull. He did not feel well, and that was a fact.Of course, he had been up half the night fighting the blaze, and thathadn't helped any. He fancied he had a bit of a headache, and his nervesseemed a little jangled. His insides were probably in their usual balkystate. He sighed, wished he were in better health, and glanced around atthe other members of the company as they rose grumpily from their beds.

  He sighed again, opened his locker, took out his depilator, and ran itquickly over his face. Then, from his assortment of bottles, he beganpicking over his morning dosage. Vitamins, of course; got to keep plentyof vitamins in the system, or it goes all to pot on you. A, B_1, B_2,B_12, C, ... and on down the alphabet and past it to A-G. All-purposemineral capsules, presumably containing every element useful to thehuman body and possibly a couple that weren't. Two APC capsules.(Aspirin-Phenacetin-Caffeine. He liked the way those words sounded; verymedicinal.) A milk-of-magnesia tablet, just in case. A couple ofpatent-mixture pills that were supposed to increase the bile flow.(MacNeil wasn't quite sure what bile was, but he _was_ quite sure thatits increased flow would work wonders within.) A largish tablet ofsodium bicarbonate to combat excess gastric acidity--obviously a_horrible_ condition, whatever it was. He topped it all off with afootball-shaped capsule containing Liquid Glandolene--"_Guards thesystem against glandular imbalance!_"--and felt himself ready to facethe day. At least, until breakfast.

  He slipped several bottles into his belt-pak after he had put on hisfield uniform, so that he could get at them at mealtimes, and trudgedout toward the mess hall to the meager breakfast that awaited him.

  * * * * *

  "Specifically," said Colonel Fennister, "what we want to know is: Whatare our chances of staying alive until the relief ship comes?"

  He and most of the other officers were still groggy-eyed, having had toomuch to do to even get an hour's sleep the night before. Only thephlegmatic Major Grodski looked normal; his eyes were always about halfclosed.

  Captains Jones and Bellwether, in charge of A and B Companiesrespectively, and their lieutenants, Mawkey and Yutang, all looked grimand irritable.

  The civilian components of the policy group looked not one whit better.Dr. Pilar had been worriedly rubbing at his face, so that his normallyneat beard had begun to take on the appearance of a ruptured mohairsofa; Dr. Petrelli, the lean, waspish chemist, was nervously trimminghis fingernails with his teeth: and the M.D., Dr. Smathers, had ahangdog expression on his pudgy face and had begun drumming his fingersin a staccato tattoo on his round belly.

  Dr. Pilar tapped a stack of papers that lay before him on the long tableat which they were all seated. "I have Major Grodski's report on theremaining food. There is not enough for all of us to live, even on themost extended rations. Only the strongest will survive."

  Colonel Fennister scowled. "You mean to imply that we'll be fightingover the food like animals before this is over? The discipline of theSpace Service--"

  His voice was angry, but Dr. Pilar cut him off. "It may come tofighting, colonel, but, even if perfect discipline is maintained, what Isay will still be true. Some will die early, leaving more food for theremaining men. It has been a long time since anything like this hashappened on Earth, but it is not unknown in the Space Service annals."

  The colonel pursed his lips and kept his silence. He knew that what thebiologist said was true.

  "The trouble is," said Petrelli snappishly, "that we are starving in themidst of plenty. We are like men marooned in the middle of an ocean withno water; the water is there, but it's undrinkable."

  "That's what I wanted to get at," said Colonel Fennister. "Is there anychance at all that we'll find an edible plant or animal on this planet?"

  The three scientists said nothing, as if each were waiting for one ofthe others to speak.

  * * * * *

  All life thus far found in the galaxy had had a carbon-hydrogen-oxygenbase. Nobody'd yet found any silicon based life, although a good manyorganisms used the element. No one yet had found a planet with a halogenatmosphere, and, although there might be weird forms of life at thebottom of the soupy atmospheres of the methane-ammonia giants, no bravesoul had ever gone down to see--at least, not on purpose, and noinformation had ever come back.

  But such esoteric combinations are not at all necessary for thepostulation of wildly variant life forms. Earth itself was prolific inits variations; Earthlike planets were equally inventive. Carbon,hydrogen, and oxygen, plus varying proportions of phosphorus, potassium,iodine, nitrogen, sulfur, calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, andstrontium, plus a smattering of trace elements, seem to be able to cookup all kinds of life under the strangest imaginable conditions.

  Alphegar IV was no different than any other Earth-type planet in thatrespect. It had a plant-dominated ecology; the land areas were coveredwith gigantic trees that could best be described as crosses between aCalifornia sequoia and a cycad, although such a description would havemade a botanist sneer and throw up his hands. There were enough smalleranimals to keep the oxygen-carbon-dioxide cycle nicely balanced, but theanimals had not evolved anything larger than a rat, for some reason. Ofcourse, the sea had evolved some pretty huge monsters, but the camp ofthe expedition was located a long way from the sea, so there was noworry from that quarter.

  At the time, however, the members of the expedition didn't know any ofthat information for sure. The probe teams had made spot checks andtaken random samples, but it was up to the First Analytical Expeditionto make sure of everything.

  And this much they had discovered: The plants of Alphegar IV had a nastyhabit of killing test animals.

  * * * * *

  "Of course," said Dr. Pilar, "we haven't tested every plant yet. We maycome across something."

  "What is it that kills the animals?" asked young Captain Bellwether.

  "Poison," said Major Grodski.

  Pilar ignored him. "Different things. Most of them we haven't been ableto check thoroughly. We found some vines that were heavily laced withcyanide, and there were recognizable alkaloids in several of the shrubs,but most of them are not that direct. Like Ear
th plants, they vary fromfamily to family; the deadly nightshade is related to both the tobaccoplant and the tomato."

  He paused a moment, scratching thoughtfully at his beard.

  "Tell you what; let's go over to the lab, and I'll show you what we'vefound so far."

  Colonel Fennister nodded. He was a military man, and he wasn't too surethat the scientists' explanations would be very clear, but if there wasinformation to be had, he might as well make the most of it.

  * * * * *

  SM/2 Broderick MacNeil kept a firm grip on his blast rifle and lookedaround at the surrounding jungle, meanwhile thanking whatever gods therewere that he hadn't been put on the fence-mending detail. Not that heobjected violently to work, but he preferred to be out here in theforest just now. Breakfast hadn't been exactly filling,