Free Deathworld by Harry Harrison Page B

“But don’t snap my neck for it. I’m gambling that your civilized mind can control your reflexes. Because I have to talk about things that are strictly taboo on Pyrrus.
    “In your people’s eyes I’m a weakling because I come from off-world. Realize though, that this is also my strength. I can see things that are hidden from you by long association. You know, the old business of not being able to see the forest for the trees in the way.” Kerk nodded agreement and Jason went on.
    “To continue the analogy further, I landed from an airship, and at first all I could see was the forest. To me certain facts are obvious. I think that you people know them too, only you keep your thoughts carefully repressed. They are hidden thoughts that are completely taboo. I am going to say one of them out loud now and hope you can control yourself well enough to not kill me.”
    Kerk’s great hands tightened on the arms of his chair, the only sign that he had heard. Jason talked quietly, as smoothly and easily as a lancet probing into a brain.
    “Human beings are losing the war on Pyrrus. There is no chance they can win. They could leave for another planet, but that wouldn’t be victory. Yet, if they stay and continue this war, they only prolong a particularly bloody form of racial suicide. With each generation the population drops. Until eventually the planet will win.”
    One arm of Kerk’s plastic and steel chair tore loose under the crushing grasp of his fingers. He didn’t notice it. The rest of his body was rock-still and his eyes fixed on Jason.
    Looking away from the fractured chair, Jason sought for the right words.
    “This is not a real war, but a disastrous treating of symptoms. Like cutting off cancerous fingers one by one. The only result can be ultimate death. None of you seem to realize that. All you see are the trees. It has never occurred to you that you could treat the causes of this war and end it forever.”
    Kerk dropped the arm of the chair clattering to the floor. He sat up, astonished. “What the devil do you mean? You sound like a grubber.”
    Jason didn’t ask what a grubber was — but he filed the name.
    “Call me a Pyrran by adoption. I want this planet to survive as much as you do. I think this war can be ended by finding the causes  — and changing them, whatever they are.”
    “You’re talking nonsense,” Kerk said. “This is just an alien world that must be battled. The causes are self-obvious facts of existence.”
    “No, they’re not,” Jason insisted. “Consider for a second. When you are away for any length of time from this planet, you must take a refresher course. To see how things have changed for the worse while you were gone. Well, that’s a linear progression. If things get worse when you extend into the future, then they have to get better if you extend into the past. It is also good theory — though I don’t know if the facts will bear me out — to say that if you extend it far enough into the past you will reach a time when mankind and Pyrrus were not at war with each other.”
    Kerk was beyond speech now, only capable of sitting and listening while Jason drove home the blows of inescapable logic.
    “There is evidence to support this theory. Even you will admit that I, if I am no match for Pyrran life, am surely well versed in it. And all Pyrran flora and fauna I’ve seen have one thing in common. They’re not functional. None of their immense armory of weapons is used against each other. Their toxins don’t seem to operate against Pyrran life. They are good only for dispensing death to Homo sapiens. And that is a physical impossibility. In the three hundred years that men have been on this planet, the life forms couldn’t have naturally adapted in this manner.”
    “But they have done it!” Kerk bellowed.
    “You are so right,” Jason told him calmly. “And if they have done it there must be some agency at work. Operating how — I have no idea. But