In Solitary by Garry Kilworth Read Free Book Online Page A

who pierced one of the leather-shelled eggs at random, fertilizing it. Thus several Soal might have the same mother but different fathers. The male cared for the egg during the period prior to hatching and the mother played no more part in the welfare of her offspring. It was only during reproduction that the Soal discriminated between their sexes. At all other times the gender was disregarded. Endrod was a male and Opanion a female but apart from their hidden sexual organs, there was no physical difference between them. No Soal would take gender into account when considering anything but the layingand fertilizing of eggs. Comradeship was not unknown amongst them, but romantic love was. The Soal considered the human males and females as two entirely different species – they felt more comfortable with that idea, though they knew it to be untrue.
    Endrod said, ‘I want you to go to him and ask him to delay the search for the natives until I arrive there. The Klees of Ostraylea is still here, for the annual conference is not yet over. I will ask leave of absence to join him in his homeward journey tomorrow. It is a long time since I visited the southern hemisphere so there will be nothing suspicious in my request. Now you go.’
    Opanion left to make preparations for his trip. Endrod made his way to his own chambers.
    Once in his rooms he took a favourite crossbow from the wall upon which it hung to serve as an ornamentation and then called for a junior librarian to accompany him upon a long hunting trip.
    The annual Conference of the Klees was nearing its close and the twenty-four Klees had once again given a majority vote in favour of allowing those humans that were alive to remain so – apart from any law-breakers amongst them. It was a small insurance against an accident of the future. The majority vote was becoming smaller each year, however, and the Klees of Brytan, the leader of the moderates, feared that the extremists would soon gain fuller support. It was argued by the latter group that humans were wasteful, in that they devoured flesh by the pound, whereas a Soal would make a decaying piece of meat last until the maggots finally consumed it. Humans also required constant surveillance to prevent revolt and this was an exhausting task for the Soal military, whose numbers were decreasing rather than growing. The Soal race, as a whole, was shrinking because of sexual indolence. Reproduction was a duty, not a pleasure, and duties were becoming distasteful things that wasted valuable relaxation time.
    Soal public opinion held that the Earth was a safe little nest, and nothing could possibly harm them, except perhaps the internal problems created by humans. Destroy the humans, and all would be placid and unruffled security. Why bother keeping numbers at their maximum if it was unnecessary?Of course there would need to be a minimum population for the species to perpetuate – but the actual figure could be decided upon when the numbers fell nearer to danger level. It was only by skilful oratory that the Klees of Brytan had managed to persuade the majority of the other Klees that the slaughter of humans was not a course to embark upon at that time.
    The world was segregated into twenty-four sections between latitudes 60° North and 6o° South. Each segment was of the same size, and whether it consisted of water or of land was of no consideration. The Klees of Brytan was no less important than the Klees of Central Aysea, even though the latter’s territory consisted entirely of continental land mass and the Klees of Brytan had included in his area many thousands of useless acres of ocean. In fact, policing was more difficult work for the Klees of Brytan as humans were permitted to live only on small islands and wasteland.
    The land outside the 60° latitudes, the poles, part of Kanadar, Skandanayvea and Usser, was not under the direct control of the Klees, but those who had territories that bordered these places helped to