The Asses of Balaam Read online

perceptible libration at all; one sidewould burn eternally, and the other side would freeze, since therewould be no seasonal winds blowing first east, then west, bringing thewarmth of the Blue Sun from the other side.

  Or, again, suppose there were no Moon and no Yellow Sun to give lightto the dark side. Who could live in an everlasting night?

  Or suppose that the magnetic field of the World were too weak to focusthe majority of the Blue Sun's output of electrons and ions on thepoles. How could life have evolved at all?

  Balance. And the Ultimate Universal Motivator had put part of theresponsibility into the hands of His only intelligent species. And apart of that part had been put into the hands of Dodeth Pell as thehead of Predator Control.

  Fry it! Something was niggling at the back of Dodeth's mind, and noamount of philosophizing would shake it. He reached into the drawer ofthe business bench and pulled out the duplicate of Wygor's databooklet. He flipped it open and looked at the bathygraphs again.

  * * * * *

  There was no single thing about them that he could pinpoint, but thebeasts just didn't _look_ right. Dodeth Pell had seen many monstrousanimals in his life, but none like this.

  Most people disliked and were disgusted by a snith because of theuncanny resemblance the stupid beast had to the appearance of Dodeth'sown race. There could be no question of the genetic linkage betweenthe two species, but, in spite of the physical similarities, theiractions were controlled almost entirely by instinct instead of reason.They were like some sort of idiot parody of intelligent beings.

  But it was their similarity which made them loathsome. Why shouldDodeth Pell feel a like emotion when he saw the bathygraphs of thetwo-legged thing? Certainly there was no similarity.

  Wait a minute!

  He looked carefully at the three-dimensional pictures again.

  Fry it! He couldn't be sure--

  After all, he wasn't a geneticist. Checking the files wouldn't beenough; he wouldn't know how to ask the proper cross-filing questions.

  He lolled his tongue out and absently rasped at a slight itch on theback of his hand while he thought.

  If his hunch were correct, then it was time to call in outside helpnow, instead of waiting for more information. Still, he needn'tnecessarily call in official expert help just yet. If he could justget a lead--enough to verify or disprove the possibility of his hunchbeing correct--that would be enough for a day or two, until Wygor gotmore data.

  There was always Yerdeth, an older parabrother on his prime-father'sside. Yerdeth had studied genetics--theoretical, not applied--with thethought of going into Control, and kept on dabbling in it even afterhe had discovered that his talents lay in the robot design field.

  "Ardan!" he said sharply.

  At the other end of the office, the robot assistant ceased his workfor a moment. "Yes, sir?"

  "Come here a minute; I want you to look at something."

  "Yes, sir."

  The robot's segmented body was built very much like Dodeth's own,except that instead of the twelve pairs of legs that supportedDodeth's body, the robot was equipped with wheels, each suspendedseparately and equipped with its individual power source. Ardan rolledsedately across the floor, his metallic body gleaming in the lightfrom the low ceiling. He came to a halt in front of Dodeth's businessbench.

  Dodeth handed Ardan the thin data booklet. "Scan through that."

  Ardan went through it rapidly, his eyes carefully scanning each page,his brain recording everything permanently. After a few seconds, helooked back up at Dodeth. "A new species."

  "Exactly. Did you notice anything odd about their appearance?"

  "Naturally," said Ardan. "Since their like has never been seen before,it is axiomatic that they would appear odd."

  _Fry it!_ Dodeth thought. He should have known better than to ask aquestion like that of Ardan. To ask it to determine what might becalled second-order strangeness in a pattern that was strange in thefirst place was asking too much of a robot.

  "Very well, then. Make an appointment for this evening with YerdethPell. I would like to see him at his home if it is convenient."

  "Yes, sir," said the robot.

  * * * * *

  Evening was four work-periods away, and even after Yerdeth had grantedthe appointment, Dodeth found himself fidgeting in anticipation.

  Twice, during the following work periods, Wygor came in with moreinformation. He had gone above ground with a group of protectionrobots, finally, to take a look at the new animals himself, but hehadn't yet managed to obtain enough data to make a definitive reporton the strange beasts.

  But the lack of data was, in itself, significant.

  Dodeth usually liked to walk through the broad tunnels of the mainthoroughfares, since he didn't particularly care to ride robot-backfor so short a distance, but this time he was in such a hurry to seeYerdeth that he decided to let Ardan take him.

  He climbed aboard, clamped his legs to the robot's sides, and said:"To Yerdeth Pell's."

  The robot said "Yes, sir," and rolled out to the side tunnel that ledtoward one of the main robot tunnels. When they finally came to atunnel labeled _Robots and Passengers Only_, Ardan rolled into it andrevved his wheels up to high speed, shooting down the tunnelway at amuch higher velocity than Dodeth could possibly have run.

  The tunnelway was crowded with passenger-carrying robots, and withrobots alone, carrying out orders from their masters. But there was nodanger; no robot could harm any of Dodeth's race, nor could any robotstand idly by while someone was harmed. Even in the most crowded ofconditions, every robot in the area had one thing foremost in hismind: the safety of every human within sight or hearing.

  Dodeth ignored the traffic altogether. He had other things to thinkabout, and he knew--without even bothering to consider it--that Ardancould be relied upon to take care of everything. Even if it cost himhis own pseudolife, Ardan would do everything in his power to preservethe safety and health of his passenger. Once in a while, in unusualcircumstances, a robot would even disobey orders to save a life, forobedience was strictly secondary to the sanctity of human life, justas the robot's desire to preserve his own pseudoliving existence wasoutranked by the desire to obey.

  Dodeth thought about his job, but he carefully kept his mind off thenew beasts. He knew that fussing in his mind over them wouldn't do himany good until he had more to work with--things which only hisparabrother, Yerdeth, could supply him. Besides, there was theproblem of what to do about the hurkle breeding sites, which werebeing encroached upon by the quiggies. Some of the swamps on thesurface, especially those that approached the Hot Belts, were beingdried out and filled with dust, which decreased the area where thehurkle could lay its eggs, but increased the nesting sites forquiggies.

  That, of course, was a yearly cycle, in general. As the Blue Sun movedfrom one side to the other, and the winds shifted accordingly, theswamps near the Twilight Border would dry out or fill up accordingly.But this year the eastern swamps weren't filling up as they should,and some precautionary measures would have to be taken to prevent toogreat a shift in the hurkle-quiggie balance.

  Then there was the compensating migratory shift of the Hotlandbeasts--those which lived in the areas where the slanting rays of theBlue Sun could actually touch them, and which could not stand the, tothem, terrible cold of the Darklands. Instead, they moved back andforth with the Blue Sun and remained in their own area--a hot, dry,fiery-bright hinterland occupied only by gnurrs, gpoles, and otherhorrendous beasts.

  Beyond those areas, according to the robot patrols which hadreconnoitered there, nothing lived. Nothing could. No protoplasmicbeing could exist under the direct rays of the Blue Sun. Even themetal-and-translite bodies of a robot wouldn't long protect thesensitive mechanisms within from the furnace heat of the huge star.

  Each species had its niche in the World. Some, like the hurkle, livedin swamp water. Others lived in lakes and streams. Still others flewin the skies or r
oamed the surface or climbed the great trees. Some,like Dodeth's own people, lived beneath the surface.

  The one thing an intelligent species had to be most careful about wasnot to disturb the balance with their abilities, but to work topreserve it. In the past, there had been those who had built cities onthe surface, but the cities had removed the natural growth from largeareas, which, in turn, had forced the city people to import their foodfrom outside the cities. And that had meant an enforced increase inthe cultivation of the remaining soil, which destroyed the habitats ofother animals, besides depleting the soil itself. The only sensibleway was to live _under_ the farmlands, so that no man was ever morethan a few hundred feet from the food supply. The Universal Motivatorhad chosen that their species should evolve in burrows beneath thesurface, and if that was the niche chosen for Dodeth's people, thenthat was obviously where they should remain to keep the