Birthright

The planet, with its deep gouges and explosive brilliance, was as much an enigma as the ship orbiting it

was a commonplace.

And common it was, with its Republic insignia, its oft-repaired hatches, and its two sloppily efficient tenants. It was no newcomer to space, this ship that had known a dozen owners and ten times that many worlds. If sound could travel through the vacuum, the ship would doubtless have sputtered as it glided around the tiny red world. For decades now, each takeoff had been a death-defying challenge, each landing a death-inviting proposition. The ship's exterior was covered with the grime and soot of more than one hundred worlds, which may well have been what held it together. It was prone to periods of deafening and body-wrenching vibrations, which was one of the few ways its occupants knew it was still functioning.

They sat before a viewing screen, unkempt, unshaven, unshod—and unhappy. One was tall and gaunt, with hollow cheeks and deepset, brooding blue eyes; the other was of medium height, medium weight, and nondescript hair color, and was named Allan Nelson. “Has the damned thing even got a name?” asked Milt Bowman disgustedly as he gazed at the screen. “Not to my knowledge,” grunted Nelson. “Just Zeta Cancri IV.” “We named the last one after you, so we'll christen this one Bowman 29,” said Bowman, jotting it down on his star chart. “Or is it 30?”

Nelson checked his notebook. “Bowman 29,” he said at last. He glanced at the screen and muttered, “Some world.”

“Three billion worlds in the damned galaxy,” said Bowman, “and they decide that they've got to have this one. Sometimes I wonder about those bastards. I really do.” “Sometimes they must wonder about us,” said Nelson grimly. “I didn't see them beating off volunteers for Zeta Cancri IV.”

“You mean Bowman 29.”

“Well, whatever the name, there can't be more than a couple of hundred idiots around who'd open the damned place up.”

He was wrong. There were only two: Bowman and Nelson. The Republic, vast as it was, couldn't spare anyone else, for Man had traveled too far too fast. In the beginning, when Sol's planets were first being explored, Man's footholds were mere scientific outposts. Later, as the planets were made habitable, the outposts became colonies. Even after the Tachyon Drive was developed, the handful of planets Man conquered were simple extensions of Earth. But things soon got out of hand, for planets, with planetary civilizations, were a far cry from outposts and colonies. They were the permanent homes of entire populaces, with environments that had to be battled and tamed, urbanized and mechanized. And, before Man was quite ready for it, there were fourteen hundred such planets. It didn't sound like a lot, but precious few of them were even remotely similar to Earth, and Man needed all eleven billions of his population just to keep things running smoothly. More than a third of the planets—those with alien life forms—were under martial law; this required an