okay,” Quade said. “Thanks.” He clicked off the televisor. “All right, then. We film Sons of Titan in spacesuits.”

Kathleen looked worried.

“I—I don’t like it, Tony. Do you have to—”

“Can’t leave a flicker like that unfinished,” Quade said. “I saw the reel Udell sent in. It’s magnificent theater. The tragedy of the Zonals—one of the biggest epics the System ever saw. They used to be highly civilized at one time, historians think, but something wrecked their brains.

“They’re decadent now, little better than animals. If I can film the rest of Sons of Titan, we’ll have something really big—Grass and Chang and Dust all rolled into one. If I can figure out how to make the Zonals act.

“They acted for Udell—magnificently. They lived their roles. And that’s what’s so mysterious, Kathleen. The Zonals aren’t really smart enough to come in out of the rain.”

“Could it have been faked?” the girl asked.

“No,” Von Zorn said decisively. “No question of robots. Udell made ace actors out of—of sub-idiots. The question is how?”

“Same way you did with that new crooner you’re starring, maybe,” Quade said rather sardonically. He was examining a slip of paper. “I picked this up in Udell’s ship—it’s a list of supplies he planned to get in Hollywood on the Moon. That’s probably why he came back from Titan—he ran out of some things he needed. Let’s see. Why did he want neo-curare?”

“What’s that?” Von Zorn asked.

“Derivative of curare. A poison that paralyzes the motor nerves. I didn’t know the Zonals had nerves.”

“Their neural structure’s atrophied, Tony. Mm-m. What else is on that list?”

“Cusconidin, Monsel’s Salt, sodium sulphoricinate, a baresthesiometer, lenses, filters, camera stuff—nothing special in the medical supplies Udell wanted. You’ve got to jazz up the pharmacy when you’re in space, anyhow. Your katabolism changes, and so on. Variant drugs—”

Von Zorn spoke abruptly.

“There was something about a degenerate race of Zonals that attacked Udell’s party, I think. An outlaw tribe. They had a high resistance to wounds; pretty invulnerable. Neo-curare’s a fast-working poison, isn’t it?

 Prev. P 8/30 next