Deathworld by Harry Harrison Page A

gun — it is in your hand. When you don’t — it is in the holster.”
    Jason made grasping motions with his right hand, crooked his index finger. There was a sudden, smashing pain against his hand and a loud roar. The gun was in his hand — half the fingers were numb — and smoke curled up from the barrel.
    “Of course there are only blank charges in the gun until you learn control. Guns are always loaded. There is no safety. Notice the lack of a trigger guard. That enables you to bend your trigger finger a slight bit more when drawing so the gun will fire the instant it touches your hand.”
    It was without a doubt the most murderous weapon Jason had ever handled, as well as being the hardest to manage. Working against the muscle burning ache of high gravity, he fought to control the devilish device. It had an infuriating way of vanishing into the holster just as he was about to pull the trigger. Even worse was the tendency to leap out before he was quite ready. The gun went to the position where his hand should be. If the fingers weren’t correctly placed, they were crashed aside. Jason only stopped the practice when his entire hand was one livid bruise.
    Complete mastery would come with time, but he could already understand why the Pyrrans never removed their guns. It would be like removing a part of your own body. The movement of gun from holster to hand was too fast for him to detect. It was certainly faster than the neural current that shaped the hand into the gun-holding position. For all apparent purposes it was like having a lightning bolt in your fingertip. Point the finger and blamm , there’s the explosion.
    * * * *
    Brucco had left Jason to practice alone. When his aching hand could take no more, he stopped and headed back towards his own quarters. Turning a corner he had a quick glimpse of a familiar figure going away from him.
    “Meta! Wait for a second — I want to talk to you.”
    She turned impatiently as he shuffled up, going as fast as he could in the doubled gravity. Everything about her seemed different from the girl he had known on the ship. Heavy boots came as high as her knees, her figure was lost in bulky coveralls of some metallic fabric. The trim waist was bulged out by a belt of canisters. Her very expression was coldly distant.
    “I’ve missed you,” he said. “I hadn’t realized you were in this building.” He reached for her hand but she moved it out of his reach.
    “What is it you want?” she asked.
    “What is it I want!” he echoed with barely concealed anger. “This is Jason, remember me? We’re friends. It is allowed for friends to talk without ‘wanting’ anything.”
    “What happened on the ship has nothing to do with what happens on Pyrrus.” She started forward impatiently as she talked. “I have finished my reconditioning and must return to work. You’ll be staying here in the sealed buildings so I won’t be seeing you.”
    “Why don’t you say ‘with the rest of the children’ — that’s what your tone implies. And don’t try walking out, there are some things we have to settle first —”
    Jason made the mistake of putting out his hand to stop her. He didn’t really know what happened next. One instant he was standing — the next he sprawled suddenly on the floor. His shoulder was badly bruised, and Meta had vanished down the corridor.
    Limping back to his own room he cursed women in general and Meta in particular. Dropping onto his rock-hard bed he tried to remember the reasons that had brought him here in the first place. And weighed them against the perpetual torture of the gravity, the fear-filled dreams it inspired, the automatic contempt of these people for any outsider. He quickly checked the growing tendency to feel sorry for himself. By Pyrran standards he was soft and helpless. If he wanted them to think any better of him, he would have to change a good deal.
    He sank into a fatigue-drugged sleep then, that was broken only by