|
|
|
|
|
|
whose herbivorous race developed from cowlike creatures and who is on Earth ostensibly for biological research; and 3) Tholan raises the delicate question of the Inhibition Death that has begun to affect the four other intelligent races in the Galaxy, stopping their growth and bringing about their deaths within a year. Only Earthmen, it seems, stop growing when they reach maturity, and only they are carnivores. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The story contains fascinating speculations about the evolutionary development of a herbivore and about how this might affect psychological and social adaptations. The underlying tension between cyanide-breathers and oxygen-breathers, between herbivores and carnivores, erupts in a grisly scene in which Tholan is deprived of his cyanide by Drake and forced to talk. Tholan reveals a theory that he has not yet shared with anyone else: only Earthmen are immune to the Inhibition Death. He thinks the Inhibition Death is caused by a parasitic kind of life native to Earth that kills when it is spread to aliens who are not adapted to it. He thinks the parasite is spread by young men who disappear into space, but that it must return to Earth to reproduce by using some intermediate host. Drake restores Tholan's cyanide and then kills him. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When Rose questions him, Drake reveals that Tholan was right, but he insists that the parasite has become symbiotic and is indispensable to humanity's existence, that the absence of the parasite is called cancer. To get rid of the parasite, extraterrestrials would have to eliminate all human life. Drake leaves with Tholan's body, and Rose realizes that he has lied to her, perhaps to avoid killing her. Cancer could not be the absence of the parasite, since it is present in many other kinds of living things. And she realizes too that young men who disappear into space usually do so in the first year of marriage, that the parasite must require close and continuous association with another parasite in order to reproduce, that Drake will not be returning, and that she has been a hostess. She also knows now why Drake married her. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The story differs from earlier Asimov stories, and from most later ones, for several reasons. One is its complexity; it is difficult to summarize. Second, its primary motivation is not so much the solution of a physical puzzle but the answer to the question of why Drake is behaving so strangely. Its development is one in which a character changes: Rose moves from puzzled happiness to misery. Knowledge, which usually brings satisfaction if not always success in the Asimov story, is no consolation for Rose. And third, the conclusion is ambiguous. Asimov seldom leaves the reader in doubt about the outcome of the situation, but in this story many threads are left dangling. If Drake lied to Rose, |
|
|
|
|
|