Chena leaned back and studied Evalyth across her desk. The Krakener girl sat so quietly. It seemed unnatural, despite the drugs in her bloodstream retaining some power. To be sure, Evalyth was of aristocratic descent in a warlike society. Furthermore, hereditary psychological as well as physiological differences might exist on the different worlds. Not much was known about that, apart from extreme cases like Gwydion—or this planet? Regardless, Chena thought, it would be better if Evalyth gave way to simple shock and grief.

“Are you quite certain of your facts, dear?” the anthropologist asked as gently as possible. “I mean, while this island alone is habitable, it’s large, the topography is rugged, communications are primitive, my group has already identified scores of distinct cultures.”

“I questioned Rogar for more than an hour,” Evalyth replied in the same flat voice, looking out of the same flat eyes as before. “I know interrogation techniques, and he was badly rattled. He talked.

“The Lokonese themselves are not as backward as their technology. They’ve lived for centuries with savages threatening their borderlands. It’s made them develop a good intelligence network. Rogar described its functioning to me in detail. It can’t help but keep them reasonably well informed about everything that goes on. And, while tribal customs do vary tremendously, the cannibalism is universal. That is why none of the Lokonese thought to mention it to us. They took for granted that we had our own ways of providing human meat.”

“People have, m-m-m, latitude in those methods?”

“Oh, yes. Here they breed slaves for the purpose. But most lowlanders have too skimpy an economy for that. Some of them use war and murder. Among others, they settle it within the tribe by annual combats. Or— Who cares? The fact is that, everywhere in this country, in whatever fashion it may be, the boys undergo a puberty rite that involves eating an adult male.”

Chena bit her lip. “What in the name of chaos might have started it? Computer! Have you scanned?”

“Yes,” said the machine voice out of the case on her desk. “Data on cannibalism in man are comparatively sparse, because it is a rarity. On all planets hitherto known to us it is banned and has been throughout their history, although it is sometimes considered forgivable as an emergency measure when no alternative means of preserving life is available. Very limited forms of what might be called ceremonial cannibalism have occurred, as for example the drinking of minute amounts of each other’s blood in pledging oath brotherhood among the Falkens of Lochlanna—”

“Never mind that,” Chena said. A tautness in her throat thickened her tone. “Only here, it seems, have they degenerated so far that— Or is it degeneracy? Reversion, perhaps? What about Old Earth?”

“Information is fragmentary. Aside from what was lost during the Long Night, knowledge is under the handicap that the last primitive societies there vanished before interstellar travel began. But certain data collected by ancient historians and scientists remain.