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Updated: May 18, 2025
The law of diminishing returns seems to operate. They're trying to maintain a civilization higher than their environment will support. They work until they're ready to drop, just to stay in the same place. And the monotony and the strain makes some of them take to cuyal for relief." He surveyed the city from the oval window, frowning in thought. "It's a drug which grows wild," he added slowly.
"Cuyal," said Aten in an explanatory tone, seeing Tommy's expression. He put his shoulder to the big ship, to wheel it back into its shed. "You son of a gun," grunted Tommy, "it's all in the day's work to you, fighting an invading fleet!" A messenger came panting through the doorway. Tommy grinned. "The Council wants us, Evelyn. Now maybe they'll listen."
And he learned that the thermit-throwers actually spat out in normal operation tiny droplets of matter Aten could not describe clearly, but which seemed to be radioactive with a period of five minutes or less; that in Rahn, the nearest other city, cuyal was taken openly, and the jungle was growing into the town with no one to hold it back; that two generations since there had been twenty cities like this one, but that a bare dozen still survived; that there was a tradition that human beings had come upon this planet from another world where other human beings had harried them, and that in that other world there were divers races of humanity, of different colors, whereas in the world of the Golden City all mankind was one race; that Tommy's declaration that he came from another group of dimensions had been debated and, on re-examination of Jacaro's Tube, accepted, and that there was keen argument going on as to the measures to be taken concerning it.
As he stood up, Aten murmured "Cuyal!" and Tommy understood that this man used the drug which was destroying the city's citizens, but gave a transient energy to its victims. He spoke in fiery phrases, urging action which would be drastic and certain. He spoke confidently, persuasively. There was a rustling among those who watched and listened to the debate. He had caught at their imagination.
There are some other towns, ten or twelve of them. Rahn is the nearest, and it's worse off than this one." "Of course," said Evelyn, smiling. "They use cuyal openly, there!" "How'd you learn all that?" demanded Tommy. "Ahnya told me. We made gestures and smiled at each other. We understood perfectly. She's crazy about her husband, and I well she knows I'm going to marry you, so...."
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