THE SWEEPER OF LORAY By FINN O'DONNEVAN Illustrated by GOODMAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine April 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] You wish a universal panacea? A simple boon to grant--first decide what part of you it is that you wish to have survive! "Absolutely impossible," declared Professor Carver. "But I saw it," said Fred, his companion and bodyguard. "Late last night, I saw it! They carried in this hunter--he had his head half ripped off--and they--" "Wait," Professor Carver said, leaning forward expectantly. They had left their spaceship before dawn, in order to witness the sunrise ceremonies in the village of Loray, upon the planet of the same name. Sunrise ceremonies, viewed from a proper distance, are often colorful and can provide a whole chapter for an anthropologist's book; but Loray, as usual, proved a disappointment. Without fanfare, the sun rose, in answers to prayers made to it the preceding night. Slowly it hoisted its dull red expanse above the horizon, warming the topmost branches of the great rain-forest that surrounded the village. And the natives slept on.... Not _all_ the natives. Already the Sweeper was out, cleaning the debris between huts with his twig broom. He slowly shuffled along, human-shaped but unutterably alien. The Sweeper's face was a stylized blank, as though nature had drawn there a preliminary sketch of intelligent life. His head was strangely knobbed and his skin was pigmented a dirty gray. The Sweeper sang to himself as he swept, in a thick, guttural voice. In only one way was the Sweeper distinguishable from his fellow Lorayans: painted across his face was a broad black band. This was his mark of station, the lowest possible station in that primitive society. "Now then," Professor Carver said, after the sun had arisen without incident, "a phenomenon such as you describe could not exist. And it most especially could not exist upon a debased, scrubby little planet like this." "I saw what I saw," Fred maintained. "I don't know from impossible, Professor. I saw it. You want to pass it up, that's up to you." * * * * * He leaned against the gnarly bole of a stabicus tree, folded his arms across his meager chest and glowered at the thatch-roofed village. They had been on Loray for nearly two months and Fred detested the village more each day.