Short Fiction Complete Page 6

  Brazil handed the blood-sample syringe to the boy after locking the plunger. The kid took it after a brief hesitation, looked it over cautiously, then gave a sudden shy smile and said something that might have been a question. If his head was bothering him he gave no sign of it.

  Brazil answered with some kindly nonsense and took the syringe back. He made a show of rubbing it on his own suited arm, turning his head to the other side as he did so. Then he turned the boy’s head gently away and got his blood sample without fuss, on the first try. He valved the loaded syringe out into the airlock, where the robot came to load it into a courier tube that would carry it up to the Yuan Chwang.

  EARTH and Aqua life turned out to be too alien to one another for infectious disease to pose a problem either way. Brazil shed his suit with relief.

  The courier tube returned before sunset with containers of vile looking gunk that Supply swore would feed the boy, whose name was approximately Tim. Tim tasted the stuff but looked unhappy, so Gates went out spearfishing. Tim was pleased with some of the assortment and ate it raw, while turning down the rest in disgust. He seemed to be suffering no after effects from the kick in the head, but Brazil did his best to keep him quiet anyway.

  For the next few days the scout stayed well out at sea, mostly submerged.

  Brazil spent most of his time in the Alien Room, pretending to learn Tim’s language almost as fast as he could hear the words, while the linguistically expert brains, human and mechanical, aboard the Yuan Chwang, looked and listened over his shoulder. They forgot nothing, and spoke into his ear, prompting him on what to say next.

  Tim became restlessly active after getting over his first awed fascination with video screen, doors, acceleration couch and plumbing. When told he was aboard a ship, he wanted to see it all. Brazil kept the robot, at least, out of Tim’s sight, and had to struggle to learn more than he taught. He played games with Tim to give him exercise, and to gather data on his physical strength and dexterity.

  The hungry brains aboard the Yuan Chwang devoured Tim’s language. Within two weeks they had fed it by memory tape to every planeteer. A few days of practice would give them command of it.

  It was time for a major conference. The two planeteers on surface sat in with Captain Dietrich and the department heads above, via communicator, while Tim was confined discontentedly to the Alien Room.

  “Gentlemen, we have a choice between two main courses of action,” the Captain began. “We can try again to establish relations with the natives of this island, on some friendly basis, or we can pull out and start over somewhere else, and hope we don’t get into a brawl with the local authorities at the start.” The Captain was not chewing out his planeteers for the fight; when he chewed, there was never anything equivocal about his words.

  “Those authorities I didn’t mind brawling with,” said Gates.

  The Captain went on. “I think we can agree that our only major problem on this island is likely to be intercultural?”

  NO ONE disputed him. There were no horrendous non-intelligent life forms, volcanos or other insuperable acts of nature in evidence on the target island.

  “I’d like to say that I hope we can find a way to set up a base on this island,” said Biology. “That luminous water-ring was fascinating, even though I’m not sure it’s in my field. And that groundvine . . .”

  “We can’t complete our gravitic tables for this system without seismic measurements of the planet,” put in Geology. “That island still looks like a good place to me.”

  “Well, then—does everyone think we should try the island again?” The Captain looked around as if a bit surprised.

  “We’ve got the language here now,” said Brazil. “Our tapes show the red tribe’s speech is nearly the same as Tim’s. And they’re already trying to kill us on sight, so what can we lose by another try?”

  “We can cause considerable damage to the people of this island if we are not careful, Mr. Brazil,” said Chandragupta sharply. “Indeed, we may have caused damage already, by inserting ourselves into a situation of considerable tension between two tribes—though any harm we may have done was accidental and I do not blame you for it. Yet we are not on this world by invitation, and so we must assume a certain responsibility for such accidents.”

  “You mean that sociological damage has been caused by our visit?” asked the Captain. He had already heard all about it, but he wanted the subject talked over now.

  “I think I can explain that,” said Sociology, clearing his throat. “The data we have from Tim fit in with what we saw on First Contact. Everything indicates that conditions on the island may be ripe for civil war.

  “The picture is this: a local settled tribe, fishermen and parttime farmers—the Blonds, as we have come to call them—invaded and conquered by a warrior tribe of the Viking type, probably fewer in numbers. The invaders seem to have come from the smaller islands farther north. Perhaps they were driven out themselves by someone else. Now they have settled down here as a ruling class. Tim says this invasion was a very long time ago, before he was born, but that his grandfather—the old man who unfortunately was killed during our First Contact—could remember a time when there were no Reds on the island, and his people were free. We make the invasion to have been about fifty years ago. We’ve seen no evidence of intermarriage, although in fact we’ve seen none of the Red women or children yet.”

  “Tim talks of a day when his people will rise up and destroy the Reds,” said Brazil. “The dream of his young life seems to be to find a way to slaughter them wholesale. He wants me to lead the revolution. I have the feeling though that he doesn’t really hate them, or didn’t until grandpa bit the dust. It’s mainly just a sort of exciting game in his mind. But I don’t doubt he would wipe them out if given a chance. Someone has talked a lot of revolution to him, that’s for sure.

  “Tim’s grandfather thought I was a tribal folk-hero, come back from the great beyond or somewhere, wearing strange armor, to lead them out of slavery. That’s what the old man was talking to me about. I suppose that’s why they speared him. It’s on the tape, of course, if any of you haven’t seen it. Now I can understand what he was saying.” Brazil fell moodily silent.

  “I suppose the First Contact incident might have touched off a Blond rebellion?” someone asked.

  “If conditions had been just right, yes,” said Sociology. “Apparently they were not.”

  CAPTAIN Dietrich spoke up: “During the last five days we’ve made numerous high speed photo runs with recon robots from as low as five miles on clear days. If there were any riots or open warfare in progress, we’d be pretty sure to spot it.”

  “How about that body lashed to the rock?” someone asked after a brief pause. “Have we learned anything on that?”

  “Tim can’t read or write,” said Sociology. “So neither can we, yet. So we don’t know what the placard hung around the fellow’s neck says. Tim says the Reds put him up there because they were angry at him. Seems reasonable, if not illuminating.”

  “Captain, I wish we had made such photo runs as you now mention before First Contact,” said the Tribune.

  “We weren’t sure of their technological level then,” said the Captain, a little wearily. “We didn’t want them to spot us flying over. It’s one of those choices you have to make. We didn’t want to shock them by appearing as gods, remember?”

  The discussion flowed on for a while. Finally Dietrich brought it back to his original question: “Shall we continue to try for a base on this island, or shall we move on?”

  “Let’s try again here, since we’ve got a start,” said Gates. “If we can’t make it, we can always move on to another island.” Chandragupta: “The question I must insist we try to answer, Mr. Gates, is this: How can we be helpful to the people of this island, where we have already interfered?”

  The Captain: “Chan, we didn’t come all this way to open a social service bureau.”

  “I realize that, Captain.” Grimly.
“Nevertheless, I consider our effect upon the natives more important than seismic measurements. I would like to ask if you plan to conclude an agreement with the authorities controlling those Red soldiers, for a scientific base on the island?”

  “I’m considering it.”

  “I believe our doing so would in effect recognize their authority to live as they do, holding another tribe in slavery.”

  Sociology raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean by slavery?

  It would be unusual if it could not be found in some form at this level.”

  “Perhaps I should have been more precise. I consider it evil that a member of the ruling class should have it in his power to take at any time the life of one of the lower class, as we have seen here. I think we are now bound to try to correct such a condition. Of course I do not expect that we shall be able, or should attempt, to establish our idea of a perfect society here. But I think we must try to set these people on the road to greater freedom and justice.” Chandragupta raised his voice above several protesting ones. “We are already committed to interference here, in my view. We must now see that the changes we produce are for the better.”

  The Captain smiled faintly. “Are you arguing for the revolution now, Chan?”

  “I think you know better.” The Tribune was somewhat irritated. “We could hardly expect the total effect of a general armed uprising to be beneficial.”

  “Just what do you think we should do, then, to start these people on the road to greater freedom and justice, as you put it?”

  Chandragupta sighed. “I think we must first investigate them further, to learn how best to help.”

  There was a little silence. “Anyone got further comment he thinks important?” asked the Captain. “All right, this is it. We continue work on this island. We try to stabilize native affairs on as just a basis as possible, and then deal for our base. Boris, you say Tim has relatives in an inland village who can hide him out from the Reds if need be?”

  “So he tells me.”

  “All right. Take him to this inland village, tonight or tomorrow night. Talk with some of the adults there. Especially try to find out more about the political situation. Is there a Blond resistance group, how strong, and so on. Since we seem to be committed to some sort of interference here, we’d better get all the data we can, and quickly. Any questions?”

  THE following night was dark and foggy. Gates drove the scoutship silently and he hoped invisibly over the island’s hills toward the village of Tim’s relatives. They boy acted as pilot, guiding an electronically presented green spot over a contour map of the island, with an air of sophistication. He had, he said, seen maps before, if not flying machines. But he was excited at the prospect of showing off Brazil in armor to people he knew, and telling them of the wonders he had seen. Brazil had given him orders to keep the scoutship’s flying powers secret if possible.

  Brazil changed the scale of the map to show only the area within a mile of the village. Tim guided Gates to a clear landing spot, out of sight of the village but within easy walking distance.

  Gates brought the scout down quickly, probing below with radar and infrared, until the little ship settled with a crackle of crushed vines into a tiny hollow between hills. Gates left the autopilot on to keep the scout balanced on its tail at ground level, and joined Brazil in observing the outside world with instruments.

  The chittering and movement of small life alarmed by their landing gradually quieted. There were no signs of human alarm.

  Brazil suited up, for protection against other dangers than infection. He led Tim into the airlock, and paused for a final briefing.

  “Now, who did we agree you should look for in the village?”

  “First of all I will look for Sunto. He is one of my cousins. He hates the Reds and is not afraid of them. If he is not home I will seek Lorto or Tammamo, who are the junior headmen of the village. Only if I can find none of those will I talk to my female cousins, who do not understand these things. I will try to avoid Tamotim, who I think is still the boss headman here. He likes the Reds and tells them things. If I see no one who is safe to talk to I will come back here and we will talk over what to do next.”

  “And if someone stops you and asks you questions?”

  “I will not hide anything. I will just say there is a strange man out here who wants to speak with someone from the village. I know what to do, you don’t have to worry. I won’t say you are our Warrior Spirit, or anything like that. Unless there are Reds in the village, who capture me; then I will cry out for Warrior Spirit and you will come and kill them, eh?”

  “My name’s not Warrior Spirit. And if you see any Reds, just come back.” Brazil opened the lock’s outer door and they stepped out and down into matted vines. “Remember, just say I brought you over the hills if anyone asks how you come to be here. No one else need know yet that my ship can fly.”

  “All right. Over that way is a path,” said Tim, becoming oriented. “And that way is the village.”

  “Get going, then.” Brazil sent him off with a gentle shove, and stood quietly, testing the alien night with artificially aided senses.

  The sound of Tim’s bare feet faded quickly on the path.

  “I’ll take her up a ways,” said Gates on radio.

  “Roger. I’ll move over.”

  BRAZIL saw the dark bulk of the scoutship lift in silence that was almost eerie even to him, and drift up out of sight into fog and darkness. No stars to see tonight, he thought. Well, I’ve seen enough of them. For a while.

  He found the path with his infrared lamp and waited just at one side of it. He hoped the kid wouldn’t run into any trouble. About five minutes passed before the glass of his helmet, set for infrared translation, showed him some large life moving toward him along the trail from the village. “One—two of them, Sam, coming this way.”

  “Roger, I have them now.”

  “Boro?” His native name, called in a soft voice from the darkness.

  Brazil switched his air mike on again. “Right here.”

  Tim approached him. “This is Tammamo with me, Boro. He is a junior headman.”

  Brazil gave the second vague shape a slight bow, which Tim had told him was the ordinary greeting between equals.

  “Sam, keep a sharp eye out. We need to use a little light down here.” Planeteers worked their air-mike switches for such asides as quickly and naturally as they used their tongues.

  “Rog.” Sam outdid himself in brevity.

  Brazil turned on what he hoped was a dim and non-startling electric glow from a detachable suit lamp, revealing a Tammamo bug-eyed at being called out of his hut at night to meet what he might think was the Warrior Spirit.

  Boris greeted him in a matter-of-fact, business-like way. Maybe the fact that he spoke the common language of the peasants put the junior headman more at ease.

  Tammamo had heard a version of the First Contact incident which began with the Red garrison of the coastal village executing an old man for daring to worship the Sea God in a way reserved for rulers. Dying, the elder had called down a curse upon their heads, whereupon the Warrior Spirit of the Blonds appeared, and slew sixty Reds with a sweep of his arm—or perhaps it had taken several armsweeps, the point was uncertain. A Red magician had been called upon by the enemy. He had evoked from somewhere a dark and evil spirit, also clad in armor. The Blond Warrior had departed to do battle with this other elsewhere, not wishing to devastate the entire island in the struggle, but it was expected he would win and return shortly to—and this point was whispered very cautiously—slay all the Red warriors and turn over their women and children to the Blonds as slaves.

  Tammamo almost managed to look Brazil hopefully in the eye as he finished the tale.

  TIM started to speak with the exasperated eagerness of a youngster to point out errors—or maybe in disappointment at being left out of the story altogether. But Brazil shushed him by putting a hand in front of his face. He spoke carefully to Tammamo.


  “Junior headman—look at me carefully. I am only a man, nothing more. I am not a Warrior Spirit, or any kind of god. I am only a man from a far land, who looks like one of your people and wears armor that is strange to you. Now I wish to speak in private with the leaders of your people—not with the headman who tells everything to the Reds, but to the leaders of your own people, who may not be known to everyone. Do you understand me?”

  “If you say you are a man, so be it.” Tammamo seemed to be shivering with more than the night chill. “The leaders you speak of—I do not know anything about such matters, except for stories heard by all. I am a junior headman, wishing no one to hate me. There is a man in the village who might know. His name is Sunto. I can tell him what you want when I meet him. Will that please you?”

  “It will. And I think there is no need for you to speak of me to anyone else.”

  “I will not! I will not!”

  “Then send Sunto here to meet me at this time tomorrow night. One thing more, junior headman—this boy goes to live now with his relatives in your village. I want you, Tammamo, to see to it that no harm comes to him from the Reds. As I said, I am only a man, yet I can do many things. I would be quite angry if the Reds were to harm this boy. Do you understand?”

  Tammamo indicated vehemently that he understood. Obviously he wished himself a hundred miles at sea, or anywhere out of this situation.

  “Tim, keep out of trouble. Go, both of you, and send me Sunto here tomorrow night.”

  Evidently it was not a Blond habit to waste any time in farewells.

  Brazil watched them out of sight, realizing suddenly he was going to miss having the kid around. “Okay, Sam, you can bring her down.”

  Trudging to where the scout was crackling down into vines, Brazil paused and looked up toward the invisible nose with a sudden grin.