title: Direct Descent
author:  Frank Herbert 
description: <DIV><B>Frank Herbert</B> was born in Tacoma, Washington, and educated at the University of Washington, Seattle. He worked a wide variety of jobs--including TV cameraman, radio commentator, oyster diver, jungle survival instructor, lay analyst, creative writing teacher, reporter and editor of several West Coast newspapers--before becoming a full-time writer. He died in 1986.</div>
zlib_text: Direct Descent
  
  Frank Herbert
  
  1980
  
  A portion of this book appeared as "Pack Rat Planet" in the December 1954
  
  issue of Astounding Science Fiction, 1954.
  
  **Part I**
  
  Vincent Coogan pulled at his thin lower lip as he stared at the image of his
  home planet growing larger in the star ship's viewscreen.
  
  "What kind of an emergency would make Patterson call me off a Library
  collection trip?" he muttered.
  
  The chief navigator turned toward Coogan, noted the down-drooping angles on
  the Library official's face. "Did you say something, sir?"
  
  "Huh?" Coogan realized he had been speaking his thoughts aloud. He drew in a
  deep breath, squared his stringy frame in front of the viewscreen, said, "It's
  good to get back to the Library."
  
  "Always good to be home," said the navigator. He turned toward the planet in
  the screen.
  
  It was a garden world of rolling plains turning beneath an old sun. Pleasure
  craft glided across shallow seas. Villages of flat, chalk-white houses
  clustered around elevator tow