No one had asked him to lend his strong back to the proceedings. Space Zoologists were never required to do anything which might sap, even slightly, any of their physical energies. Moreover, they were under oath not to take any orders to the contrary.
Now and then, a hot-shot pilot would feel resentment at the zoologist's standoffish position, and take out his feelings with a remark like, "Would you pass the sugar, if you don't think it would sprain your wrist, sir?" Such incidents, if reported back to Earth, inevitably resulted in the breaking of the pilot, and his immediate removal from command. It was seldom the zoologist himself who made the report. Any crew member who overheard such statements would make the report as soon as possible, no matter what feelings of loyalty they might otherwise have for the pilot or person who had spoken.
From the moment of landing, the lives of every man aboard a ship were in the hands of the Space Zoologist.
From Captain Daniel Peters, the pilot, down to Ollie Gibbs, the mess boy, there was nothing but respect for Jerry Norcriss, and no envy whatsoever for the job he would soon be doing. That is not to say they were on friendly terms with him, either.
It was the next thing to impossible to call a Space Zoologist "friend." Even amongst themselves, the zoologists were distracted, bemused, withdrawn from their surroundings. After their first Contact, they never were able to join in amiable camaraderie with other men. Such social contact was not forbidden them. It was merely no longer a part of their inclination. In their eyes a cool, silvery light shimmered, an inner light that marked them for the ultimate adventurers they were. No person would ever suffice them. They lived only for the job they did. Without it, few lived longer than a terrestrial year. Even with it, there was often sudden death.
Jerry was barely thirty, but his thick shock of hair was almost totally white and his mouth a firm line which never curled in a smile nor twisted in a frown. At the edge of the clearing, his bronzed flesh glowing ruddily in the failing sunset light of Arcturus, he stood and waited. Off in the distance behind him, Daniel Peters started across the clearing from the sunset-red gleaming of the sleek metal spaceship.
He drew abreast of the solitary figure, and said respectfully, "All in readiness, sir."
The words reached Jerry as from across a void. He turned slowly to face the other man, focusing his will with the effort it always took just to use his voice.
"Thank you, Captain," he said.
That was all he said, but as he followed Peters across the clearing toward the scorched circle where the great ship had descended on its column of fire, the pilot could not suppress a shudder. Jerry's voice was oddly disconcerting to the nervous system of the listener. It seemed like the "ghost-voice" of a medium at a seance. The mind that was Jerry Norcriss was only utilizing a body for the purpose of speaking. It did not actually belong there.