He couldn’t stay long then. It was not a weakness.[17] It was a matter of genetics. But he was ashamed. [17] Aletha nodded to him when he found the Project Engineer’s office. It occupied one of the hulls in which colony-establishment materials had been lowered by rocket power. There were forty of the hulls, and they had been emptied and arranged for inter-communication in three separate communities, so that an individual could change his quarters and ordinary associates from time to time and colony fever—frantic irritation with one’s companions—was minimized. Aletha sat at a desk, busily making notes from a loose leaf volume before her. The wall behind the desk was fairly lined with similar volumes. “I made a spectacle of myself!” said Bordman, bitterly. “Not at all!” Aletha assured him. “It could happen to anybody. I wouldn’t do too well on Timbuk.” There was no answer to that. Timbuk was essentially a jungle planet, barely emerging from the carboniferous stage. Its colonists thrived because their ancestors had lived on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea, on Earth. But Anglos did not find its climate healthful, nor would many other races. Amerinds died there quicker than most. “Ralph’s on the way here now,” added Aletha. “He and Dr. Chuka were out picking a place to leave the records. The sand dunes here are terrible, you know. When an explorer-ship does come to find out what’s happened to us, these buildings could be covered up completely. Any place could be. It isn’t easy to pick a record-cache that’s quite sure to be found.” “When,” said Bordman skeptically, “there’s nobody left alive to point it out. Is that it?” “That’s it,” agreed Aletha. “It’s pretty bad all around. I didn’t plan to die just yet.” Her voice was perfectly normal. Bordman snorted. As a senior Colonial Survey officer, he’d been around. But he’d never yet known a human colony to be extinguished when it was properly equipped and after a proper pre-settlement survey. He’d seen panic, but never real cause for a matter-of-fact acceptance of doom. There was a clanking noise outside the hulk which was the Project Engineer’s headquarters. Bordman couldn’t see clearly through the filtered ports. He reached over and opened a door. The brightness outside struck his eyes like a
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