“What’s in this ship you arranged for tonight? What kind of a cargo was I risking my neck for?”

“I thought you were risking your neck for money,” Kerk said dryly. “But be assured it was in a good cause. That cargo means the survival of a world. Guns, ammunition, mines, explosives and such.”

Jason choked over a mouthful of food. “Gun-running! What are you doing, financing a private war? And how can you talk about survival with a lethal cargo like that? Don’t try and tell me they have a peaceful use. Who are you killing?”

Most of the big man’s humor had vanished: he had that grim look Jason knew well.

“Yes, peaceful would be the right word. Because that is basically all we want. Just to live in peace. And it is not who are we killing-it is what we are killing.”

Jason pushed his plate away with an angry gesture. “You’re talking in riddles,” he said. “What you say has no meaning.”

“It has meaning enough,” Kerk told him. “But only on one planet in the universe. Just how much do you know about Pyrrus?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

For a moment Kerk sat wrapped in memory, scowling distantly. Then he went on.

“Mankind doesn’t belong on Pyrrus-yet has been there for almost three hundred years now. The age expectancy of my people is sixteen years. Of course most adults live beyond that, but the high child mortality brings the average down.

“It is everything that a humanoid world should not be. The gravity is nearly twice earth normal. The temperature can vary daily from arctic to tropic. The climate-well you have to experience it to believe it. Like nothing you’ve seen anywhere else in the galaxy.”

“I’m frightened,” Jason said dryly. ‘What do you have, methane or chlorine reactions? I’ve been down on planets like that-”

Kerk slammed his hand down hard on the table. The dishes bounced and the tablelegs creaked. “Laboratory reactions!” he growled. “They look great on a bench-but what happens when you have a world filled with those compounds? In an eye-wink of galactic time all the violence is locked up in nice, stable compounds. The atmosphere may be poisonous for an oxygen breather, but taken by itself it’s as harmless as weak beer.

“There is only one setup that is pure poison as a planetary atmosphere. Plenty of H2O, the most universal solvent you can find, plus free oxygen to work on-”

“Water and oxygen!” Jason broke in. “You mean Earth-or a planet like Cassylia here? That’s preposterous.”

“Not at all. Because you were born in this kind of environment, you accept it as right and natural. You take it for granted that metals corrode, coastlines change, and storms interfere with communication. These are normal occurrences on oxygen-water worlds. On Pyrrus these conditions are carried to the nth degree.