 What was the mission of Eckert and Templin?
THE FIRE and THE SWORD By FRANK M. ROBINSON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1951. ] Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that peaceful planet. Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the time for takeoff was nearing. Or more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. Weltschmerz, perhaps. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke at the neon "No Smoking" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical disapproval. He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told him that Don Pendleton had killed himself. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the status of a breakfast food testimonial. Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched his scenery-window. Eckert had fiddled with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight. Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. He had been raised in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the normal amount of trouble. In high school and later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular, hard-working. How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left of Pendleton was a page of statistics? Hell, no! Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind, so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be sent and naturally he had gone alone. And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment. So friendly that he had made sure that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles, needle pistols, and the fat little gas guns. It was almost black inside the cabin now; only a thin red line around the ceiling told how close they were to takeoff.
 To find out what happened to Pendleton
 To locate Pendleton  To find out what happened to Pendleton  To get to know the primitive way of life.  To try to cover up what happened to Pendleton