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  ATTRITION

  By JIM WANNAMAKER

  _Of course if Man is to survive, he must be adaptable, as any life form must. But that's not enough; he must adapt faster than the competing forms. And on new planets, that can be tricky...._

  Illustrated by Krenkel

  The faxgram read: REPORT MA IS INSTANTER GRAVIS. The news obelisk justoff the express strip outside Mega Angeles' Galactic Survey Building wasflashing: ONE OF OUR STAR SHIPS IS MISSING!

  Going up in the lift, I recalled what I had seen once scrawled upon thebulkhead of a GS trainer: _Space is kind to those who respect her._ Andunderneath, in different handwriting: Fear _is the word, my boy_.

  The look given me by the only other passenger, a husky youngster in GSgray, when I punched Interstel's level, didn't help. It was on the tipof my tongue to retaliate: _Yes, and I'd turn in my own mother if shewere a star chaser and I caught her doing something stupid._ But I letit ride; obviously, it was a general-principles reaction; he couldn'thave known the particulars of my last assignment: the seldom kind thathad given Interstel its reputation.

  The lumer over the main entrance glowed: INTERSTELLAR SECURITY,INVESTIGATION, AND SPECIAL SERVICES BRANCH, GALACTIC SURVEY, NORTHAMERICAN FEDERATION.

  At the end of the long corridor between offices was a door labeled:CHIEF SPECIAL AGENT.

  Gravis hadn't changed a bit in the thirty-six hours since I'd last seenhim: a large, rumpled man who showed every year of the twenty he'd spentin Interstel.

  "It's a nasty job, Ivy."

  "Always has been," I said, completing the little interchange that hadbeen reiterated so often that it had become almost a shibboleth.

  I took advantage of his momentary silence. I'd had an hour during theair-taxi hop from Xanadu, the resort two hundred miles off the coast ofCalifornia, to prepare my bitter statement. Words come fluently when anearned leave has been pulled peremptorily out from beneath you; a leavethat still had twenty-nine days to go. But I was brief; the news flasherhad canceled much of the bite of my anger; it took me something underone hundred and twenty seconds, including repetition of certain wordsand phrases.

  Gravis lived up to his name; he didn't bat an eye. He handed me a thinfolder; three of its sheets were facsimile extrapolations of probotreports; the fourth was an evaluation-and-assignment draft; all werefrom Galactic Survey Headquarters, NAF, in Montreal. The top three wereidentical, excepting probot serial numbers and departure and arrivaltimes. GSS 231 had been located in its command orbit above a planet thathad not yet been officially named but was well within the exploredlimits of the space sector assigned NAFGS by the interfederational body,had been monitored by three robot probes--described as being in _optimummechanical condition_--on three distinctly separate occasions, and alldevices that could be interrogated from outside had triggered _safe andsecure_. But no human contact had been accomplished. The fourthsheet--which bore the calligraphy on its upper right corner: _AttentionCallum_--assumed that the crew of 231, a survey team and con alternate,had met with an accident or series of accidents of undetermined originand extent in the course of carrying out the duty described as_follow-up exploration_ on the Earth-type planet, _herein and heretoforedesignated Epsilon-Terra_, and must therefore be considered--

  "The news is--" I started to say.

  "Pure delirium," Gravis interrupted. "Haven't you read Paragraph Six? Weknow exactly where the ship is because it's exactly where it should be.It's the crew that's missing."

  Paragraph Seven concluded: _We therefore recommend that an agent ofexperience be dispatched soonest to the designated star system._

  "Experienced or expendable?" I muttered.

  "Ivy, after ten years in Interstel, you should know that experience andexpendability are synonymous."

  * * * * *

  Inside the GS section of the Lunar Complex, I had the occasion to thinksemantically again.

  Words like _instanter_ and _soonest_ seldom match their literal meaningwhen applied to the physical transport of human beings, but in my job--Ihadn't even had time to get my gee-legs.

  I stepped off the glide strip in front of the ramp marked OUTGOINGPERSONNEL, handed the efficient looking redhead my Q-chit and ID, andsaid: "Priority one."

  "Quarantine, O.K.," she checked, smiling. "Feeling antiseptic?"

  I had to admit, privately, that I did not. As applied to her, the term:_coveralls, regulation, gray_ was strictly a euphemism. Perhaps it wasthe combination of low gravity and controlled conditions that madeLunatics of female persuasion blossom so anatomically. Or maybe she wasa plant, a deliberate psych experiment to put outbound starmen in aparticular frame of mind.

  She flashed my identification on the screen, took a long look, andbecame coldly efficient. _Callum, Ivor Vincent. Age: 40. Height: 5'8".Weight: 142. Hair: brown. Eyes: green. Rank: Special Agent, Interstel._"You look much older, Mr. Callum."

  She consulted her assignment list.

  "Lock Three."

  I snapped the identoflake back in its bracelet, picked up my jump bagand briefing kit, and headed up the ramp, feeling more eyes than theredhead's. The anonymity of a GS working uniform hadn't lasted verylong.

  * * * * *

  By the time I was able to capture enough breath to make coherent sounds,the shuttler was already approaching parking orbit. The pilot had usedmaximum grav boost, and the trip must have crowded the record.

  "That wasn't exactly SOP, was it?"

  "Priority one, sir," the youngster replied, showing teeth wolfishly.

  I was still trying to think up an adequate rebuttal when I came out ofthe air lock and into the ship. Then I felt better. P 1 means, amongother things, first available transportation--but this giant was thenewest type, crammed to the buffers with the results of science'slatest efforts to make star _voyageurs_ as safe as express-stripcommuters inside a Terran dome. Even the vibrations of the greatGatch-Spitzer-Melnikov generators, building toward maximum output, hadbeen dampened to a level more imaginary than tangible. Internal gravitywas momentarily in operation, as an additional blessing; and, walkingdown the blue-lit corridor toward Astrogation, I could feel theoccasional, metallic, thermal thump that meant the IP drive was hot andcritical.

  I got a second lift when I saw who was bending over the robopilotconsole: Antonio Moya, Mexico City's gift to Galactic Survey somethirty-five years earlier; a _cafe-con-leche_ type with shrewd eyes,nervous hands, silver-streaked hair that showed a defiance of geriatricinjections, a slight, wiry body that couldn't have gone more than onehundred and twenty pounds at 1.0 gee, and probably the best MasterSpaceman extant. Only discipline kept the grin off my face. But he wason the horn, getting traffic clearance, so I didn't interrupt.

  The others were unknowns, the sort characterized by old spacers as"pretty boy, recruitment ad types," but they looked competent; I figureda medic and a spread of ratings; counting Moya, a basic GS unit. I'dexpected both a con crew and a standby. Either this was the total ofavailable personnel, or the brass had decided not to risk more men thanabsolutely necessary. If I'd had illusions about the assignment, theywould have faded at that instant.

  It's this way in Interstel: you're taught to be a loner. You're expectedto have absolute confidence in your own abilities and completeskepticism about the talents of others. You're supposed to besuspicious, cynical, courageous, and completely trustworthy. And you'renot expected to have friends. Which, obviously, in the light of theaforementioned and part of what is yet to come, could serve as thedefinition of redundancy. You're required to weed out incompetentswherever you find them without prejudice, mercy, or feeling. Thestanding order is survival, yet yo
u are expected to lay down your lifegladly if the sacrifice will save one, pink-cheeked, short-time,assistant teamer who gives the barest suggestion that he might some daygrow up to be a man and repay the thousands of credits squandered uponhis training in that profound hope. Which, stated another way, hasbecome the Eleventh Commandment of special agents: _Remember the bodycorporeal and keep it inviolate_; and, if the reaction of therank-and-file of Galactic Survey to Interstel is used as criterion, isthe best-kept secret in the explored, physical universe. "The agent'sburden," Gravis calls it.

  Moya's jaw dropped when he caught sight of me--apparently he had beentold only to expect an agent--but he recovered quickly.

  "Hello, Callum," he barked. "I won't say it's a pleasure. Stow your gearand strap down."

  The