PIONEERS
BY BASIL WELLS
Deception can be good or bad, depending
on how you look at it and on the circumstances.
Dorav and Tzal had the right way of looking at
it, and the circumstances were undoubtedly prime.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, June 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Gradually he became aware of resilient rubber and plastic supportinghim. He lay on his back, heels together and toes lopped outward, elbowscrowding uncomfortably into his ribs. His body shifted. The month-longhibernation was over.
A delicious feeling of completeness—of achievement—swept over him.He, Dorav Brink, had escaped from the endless boredom and idleness ofEarth's mechanized domes, after all. Here on Sulle II there would beadventure and work in plenty.
His eyes opened. In the soft yellowish light which flooded the smallsquare room, he saw a dozen other couches, similar to that on which helay. Most of them were occupied. His gaze probed the huddled figuressearching for the girl Rea.
He had met her aboard the space lighter enroute to the interstellarliner that was to carry them to Sulle II. Then they had been giventheir preliminary capsules of iberno and he remembered no more.
Iberno hits some people that way—with others it takes five or sixcapsules to put them into the death-like cataleptic state required forstar hopping....
He saw her! Third couch to the right of his own. He stood up carefully,balancing on rubbery legs, and his hand went up to the constrictionbinding his skull. What was this? Goggles! Brink's fingers curled aboutthe flexible band securing them. He tugged.
"Stop that, Brink!"
Brink's hand fell away. He recognized the voice of Len Daniels, therecruiter for this illegal voyage here to Sulle II.
"Want to lose your eyesight, Brink?" demanded the dapper little man."We warned you of the danger. For at least ten days your eyes mustremain protected."
The little gray-haired man wore no glasses, he had acquired an immunityto the sunlight of Sulle II from former voyages, but his naturallypink-and-white complexion was a sickly yellow.
Their voices roused the other colonists, and now Daniels moved amongthem, his soft full voice admonishing and sympathetic.
A coarse-haired giant of a man, dark hair graying at the temples of hisruddy outsize features, clamped Brink's fist with a huge hand.
"Name's Bryt Carby," he said, his voice ridiculously shrill.
"I'm Dorav Brink." His eyes slid toward the tall slenderness of ReaSmyt.
"Air don't taste much different from back home, Brink."
Brink made a wry face. "After breathing spacer air and being doped withiberno for months could we tell the difference?"
Carby laughed in agreement. "But Senior Daniels," and Brink wanted togrin at the respectful term used by the big, slow speaking man, "SeniorDaniels says that Sulle II is like Earth in almost every respect."
"He would! And possibly it is. According to him even the animalsresemble our own planet's."
"Once," and Carby grinned widely, "I ate a bit of cooked native meat.Ten credits it cost me. After that the protein packets and yea-steakssickened me."
"I tried it once too, Carby, but it cost me fifteen credits. And that'sthe way Daniels and his company will get back the thousand credits weowe them for the trip." Brink laughed. "With food that we raise and