e looks as if he wanted to kill the photographer," she said.

"He almost did--just after the picture was taken. Like all Disans,
he has an overwhelming hatred and loathing of offworlders. Not
without good reason, though. His planet was settled completely by
chance during the Breakdown. I'm not sure of the details, but the
overall picture is clear, since the story of their desertion forms
the basis of all the myths and animistic religions on Dis.

"Apparently there were large-scale mining operations carried on
there once; the world is rich enough in minerals and mining them
is very simple. But water came only from expensive extraction
processes and I imagine most of the food came from offworld. Which
was good enough until the settlement was forgotten, the way a lot
of other planets were during the Breakdown. All the records were
destroyed in the fighting, and the ore carriers were pressed into
military service. Dis was on its own. What happened to the people
there is a tribute to the adaptation possibilities of homo sapiens.
Individuals died, usually in enormous pain, but the race lived.
Changed a good deal, but still human. As the water and food ran out
and the extraction machinery broke down, they must have made heroic
efforts to survive. They couldn't do it mechanically, but by the
time the last machine collapsed, enough people were adjusted to
the environment to keep the race going.

"Their descendants are still there, completely adapted to the
environment. Their body temperatures are around a hundred and thirty
degrees. They have specialized tissue in the gluteal area for
storing water. These are minor changes, compared to the major ones
they have done in fitting themselves for this planet. I don't know
the exact details, but the reports are very enthusiastic about
symbiotic relationships. They assure us that this is the first time
homo sapiens has been an active part of either commensalism or
inquilinism other than in the role of host."

"Wonderful!" Lea exclaimed.

"Is it?" Ihjel scowled. "Perhaps from the abstract scientific point
of view. If you can keep notes perhaps you might write a book about
it some time. But I'm not interested. I'm sure all these
morphological changes and disgusting intimacies will fascinate you,
Dr. Morees. But while you are counting blood types and admiring your
thermometers, I hope you will be able to devote a little time to a
study of the Disans' obnoxious personalities. We must