Regulations by Murray Leinster

It was only the dew-god making a monstrous noise off in the darkness, / but Fahnes allowed his eyes to open and he halfway sat up. There was a / shaded light over by Boles' bunk, and Boles was fussily arranging his / kit for a journey to the trading-center in the Lamphian hills. Food, / canteens, and the trading-stuff, these things would be left at the / untended mart in exchange for a new lot of _llossa_ fiber, which / on Earth was equal in exchange pound for pound with platinum.

Fahnes made an apologetic noise as Boles whirled at his movement. Boles / snorted indignantly.

"It's just one of them gods," he said scornfully. "They make a racket / like that before dawn every mornin'."

Fahnes made himself grin sheepishly, as if half-awake. He knew about / the dew-god. He had more brains than Boles, and he knew more than Boles / about all the things that really mattered on Oryx, though he'd only / been on the small planet five months. Because of his knowledge, he'd / been awake for hours, feverishly debating with himself whether as a / matter of common-sense he had not better murder Boles this morning. / There were reasons for killing him, but it would be satisfying to let / Boles come back from the Lamphian hills to find the trading-post in / ashes, the Honkie village a mere black scar on the green surface of / Oryx, and the supply-ship come and gone.

It would be amusing, too, to picture Boles trying to live on Oryx / without supplies from Earth until another ship came to reestablish / trade. Fahnes inclined not to do murder, this morning, so Boles could / learn what a fool he'd been. Meanwhile Boles regarded him in a superior / fashion.

"I know," said Fahnes. He yawned, now. "But the racket does seem louder / than usual, this morning. I wonder -- "

"Regulations say native customs an' religions ain't to be messed with," / said Boles inflexibly. "You ain't paid to wonder. Quit it."

Boles checked off his equipment on a list. Then he glanced at / the instrument-bank and laboriously began to copy the regulation / before-dawn observations into the post's log-book. Temperature. / Humidity -- always from 97 to 100 per cent in the day time, but sometimes / dropping to a conservative 90 at night. Ionization-constant of the air. / Fahnes watched the ironic zest. A lot of good these observations were!

He said impatiently, "I can fix the log, Boles. I'm going to do it / while you're gone."

"While I'm here," said Boles dogmatically, "regulations say I got to do / it. When I'm gone, regulations say you do it. You stick to regulations, / Fahnes, an' you'll get along."

The unholy racket which was the dew-god off beyond the jungle seemed / to grow louder yet. No man, it was said in the _Instructions / for Oryx_, had ever yet seen a dew-god. But the native deities / were of extreme importance to the Honkies, and the maintenance of / trade-relations required that their religion should be undisturbed.

"Blister it! " said Fahnes, in private irony but seeming peevishness. "I / wish regulations would let a man do something about that racket. It's / tough to be waked up every morning by some kind of Honkie god with a / voice like sixteen steam-whistles in different keys all going at once."

Boles struggled into his waterproof garments. On Oryx, where it never / rains, one naturally wears waterproof clothing.

"Listen here! " said Boles firmly. "You get this! Before this post was / set up, the Comp'ny had a survey-party on Oryx for months. You read / the report. They studied the place, an' the natives, an' they made up / regulations for this special planet. They're good regulations. You / follow 'em an' you'll do all right. Same way with the Honkies.

"They found out, somehow, what hadda be done to get along. They didn't / do it scientific, but like human people did back in the old days. They / didn't call what they found out regulations. They called it religion. / But it works. It's good regulations, for Honkies. You get the idea that / Honkie religion is good regulations for them, an' ain't to be meddled / with. Then you won't get into no trouble."

"I assure you," said Fahnes sarcastically, "I shan't try to make the / Honkies atheists."

"Yeah," said Boles. "That's it. Don't."

Boles zipped his suit shut. He began to struggle into the various / straps which would hold the articles of his equipment about him. Fahnes / watched with concealed amusement. The Honkie religion was not to be / meddled with?

The windows of the trading-post rattled from a sudden special uproar / from the god. He, Fahnes, knew things about the Honkie religion that / Boles didn't, that the survey-party, apparently, hadn't found out. Gods / which roared in the darkness could arouse the curiosity even of a man / like Fahnes, who despised such stupidities as gods and regulations. / Fahnes had taken satisfaction in breaking the regulations about Honkies / under Boles' very nose. He'd set up a camera and flash-bulb and / trigger-string off where the dew-god roared even now and he, Fahnes, / had a photograph of a dew-god.

The blinding flash of the flash-bulb had startled it. It had crashed / into a jungle-tree in its flight. And at the scene of the accident -- the / crystal was in the pocket of Fahnes' sleeping-suit -- he'd found a / memento of Honkie religion. It had been torn from the headdress of the / dew-god. The photograph of the dew-god told how many more such mementos / the dew-god wore in his headdress. So Fahnes had planned murder for / this morning, and was still in two minds about its necessity. The / prospects before him were enough to make a man giddy.