He paused to consider the prospect of adding another sixty years to his lifetime. Then he asked, "What happens if a man takes sersee again after the fifty years?"
"We do not know," Deg told him. "No man would take it a second time while there is not enough."
Carver and Fred exchanged glances.
"Now listen to me carefully, Deg," Professor Carver said. He spoke of the sacred duties of science. Science, he told the medicine man, was above race, above creed, above religion. The advancement of science was above life itself. What did it matter, after all, if a few more Lorayans died? They would die eventually anyhow. The important thing was for Terran science to have a sample of sersee.
"It may be as you say," Deg said. "But my choice is clear. As a priest of the Sunniheriat religion, I have a sacred trust to preserve the lives of my people. I cannot go against this trust."
He turned and walked off. The Earthmen frustratedly returned to their spaceship.
After coffee, Professor Carver opened a drawer and took out the manuscript of Underlying Causes for the Implicit Inferiority of Non-Terran Races. Lovingly he read over the last chapter, the chapter that dealt with the specialized inferiorities of the Lorayan people. Then he put the manuscript away.
"Almost finished, Fred," he told his assistant. "Another week's work, two weeks at the most!"
"Um," Fred replied, staring at the village through a porthole.