Authors: Brian Stableford
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Space Opera, #sci-fi, #space travel, #arthur c. clarke
After switching it on I turned to go back and shut the door, but I was brought up short by the realization that I was not alone. Sitting in the chair, concealed by its high back from the door and the light filtering through it from the corridor, was Piet Verheyden.
His jaw was tight. The expression in his eyes would probably have nauseated Mariel if she’d been required to read what was behind it.
Paranoids, I remembered, often didn’t sleep too well. They are, as a matter of habit, night birds.
“Where have you been?” he said, in a laryngeal acid whisper.
“Out,” I said, flatly.
It was a mistake. If I’d spoken smoothly and lightly, and answered at some length, I could have set the tone for the conversation. We could have spent the next half hour swapping sarcasms in honeyed tones. But the harshness of my clipped answer constituted a challenge.
“You’ve come here to destroy us,” he said, still in that idiotic whisper. “You think you can take it all away from us. Well, you can’t. It’s ours. We built it...my father and I. No one will take it from us. Not you. Not Ul’el.”
I didn’t know what to say. I could hardly humor him, and I certainly didn’t want to start a long and fierce argument.
“I’m tired,” I said, finally. “I want to go to bed.”
“Then why are you wandering the corridors at this time? You’ve been with Ul’el.”
Whether it was a guess or whether he knew there was no way to tell. It didn’t matter much.
“I did meet him,” I agreed. “He explained his position. I explained mine. If it will reassure you, we didn’t reach any measure of agreement. There is something of a gap between our aims. Is that what you wanted to know?”
He stared at me balefully.
“You don’t realize the situation here,” he said. “You’re a stranger. You must allow us to be your guides. You must take my advice on all matters. We understand the situation. You do not. If you act unwisely....”
The threat was naked in his words.
“I’ll take my chances,” I said. Again, the wrong thing—I was tired and my nerves were set on edge.
“And the girl?” he said. “You don’t realize just how vulnerable you are here. You must let those who understand what is best be your guides and your protectors. Trafficking with Ul’el will bring nothing but trouble.”
I wanted to tell him to get out, but I kept that much of my temper in hand.
Instead, I walked over to his chair and leaned close, supporting myself with a hand on the back.
“Why are you so scared?” I asked, in a low voice. “What’s thrown you into this panic? Not just the general state of affairs, that’s for sure. I meant to ask Ul’el, but I never quite got around to it. Why does this epidemic in the south frighten you so much?”
His face was livid with anger. I’d taken the initiative and was pressuring him. It’s an easy thing to do when you’re dealing with a paranoid...but it’s not always a wise thing.
“The plague is nothing,” he whispered. “It may kill a thousand peasants or a hundred thousand. Herdsmen and dirt farmers. But what they’re saying—in the gutters of Ak’lehr as well as in the south—is that it’s a judgment from god...from their beloved Y’su. They say that my father was a false messenger, a tempter, and that the plague is Y’su’s punishment because the people listened. The rumor was deliberately started as a political attack upon the family. It’s an attempt to discredit and dispossess us. It was started by Ul’el.”
I stepped back, letting the force of his oration bleed some of the tension out of the situation.
“You’re wrong,” I said, after barely a moment to think it out. “However much Ul’el wants to discredit you, he doesn’t want to discredit your father and the knowledge he brought to Ak’lehr—and he certainly doesn’t want to discredit himself and the church for having listened to your father. Rumors like that come up from the bottom, they aren’t started on top. It’s an expression of resentment against the entire political hierarchy...if it had any real power it would be the banner of a revolution. But I don’t believe it has.”
He didn’t take a lot of notice of my objections. That wasn’t the way he saw it—he took it too personally for that. If anything, my little speech only confirmed his determined opinion that I couldn’t understand what was at stake or what was going on here.
He got up from the chair. “I can handle this.” he said. “I’ve handled it before. We’ve always been able to handle Ul’el and his kind. Just remember that I’m in control. I can crush you if I need to. Remember that, too.”
“I will,” I promised, making way for him as he went to the door. “I will.”
He closed the door behind him, very quietly. I couldn’t hear the sound of his footfalls as he went away down the passage.
I sat down on the bed and pulled off my boots, cursing silently. If Piet had achieved nothing else he had certainly revitalized my sense of our vulnerability here in Ak’lehr. For a while, talking to Ul’el, I had almost reached the illusory sense of being in control, of feeling things yield to my presence and my will. Now, that was gone, and I knew once more how helpless I really was.
Vanity, Ul’el had called my attempt to interfere here—to interfere with nothing less than the course of history. I had denied it. But vanity it was. A vain pursuit, in more than one sense of the word.
I got into bed, and went very rapidly to sleep.
I didn’t get a backache.
I very nearly slept until noon. There was very little noise in the building or outside the window (which looked out on to an inner courtyard) and there was little to disturb my peace and luxury. I could have slept on and on, but I was interrupted by polite knocking at the door.
It was Mariel, already up and about. She seemed to disapprove of my situation. She had, of course, gone to bed rather earlier than I had.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Action,” she replied. “Thought you’d like to know. Charles turned up. Family quarrel brewing.”
I sat up, rubbing my eyes and trying to clear my head. “What sort of quarrel?”
“Charles had trouble getting into the city. Rumor apparently had it that he’d brought the plague back with him. What he seems to have brought is some animals and a few sick men. They’re still outside the walls. Piet is pretty mad.”
I could guess why. If he was worried about rumors concerning the epidemic being a personal statement by Y’su he was going to construe Charles’ action in bringing it to the gates of Ak’lehr as a monumental stroke of stupidity.
I eased myself from the bed and dressed quickly. “Where are they?” I asked.
“Piet’s rooms,” she replied.
I reflected sadly that it was a pity to have missed breakfast, but followed her along the corridor and up the staircase. The row was still going strong when we got here. Piet was pacing up and down, almost trembling with anger. The others stood still in various corners of the room. Anna was well back, with the table in between herself and the others, taking little or no part. The one that I hadn’t seen before—Charles—was standing about a meter inside the doorway, with Christian by his side. Both were stationed at right angles to the path of Piet’s prowling line. Jan was away to the side, participating but not overtly taking one side or the other. Mariel and I slipped in behind the co-defendants and moved to a station opposite Jan’s. Only Anna glanced at us for more than a fraction of a second.
“I think he’s right!” Christian was saying.
“You
would
think he’s right,” rasped Piet, with some vituperation.
“You could at least listen,” suggested Charles. The second of the four brothers was physically the most impressive—he was slightly taller than Piet but much more solidly built. His resemblance to Piet and Jan might otherwise have been clear had he not sported a beard that concealed much of the lower part of his face in a tangle of pale brown curly hair.
“Piet,” put in Jan, “there’s no point in this. It’s done now. Why rave about it? We’re committed. Let’s get on with it.”
“It’s done now!”
mimicked Piet, throwing up his hands in a histrionic gesture. “I hear nothing else. All of you...you just carry on without thinking...you foul things up right, left and center. And you come to me and say ‘Never mind what I ought to have done. Never mind what I ought to have thought. It’s done now.’ And you expect
me
to....”
“Nobody expects
you
to do anything,” Charles cut in.
“You make me
sick!”
said Piet. “The lot of you. You bring the plague to our very doorstep and Jan brings....”
He had stopped and half-turned to point at us. He had known that we were in the room, but it had not quite impinged upon his consciousness until he’d actually referred to us. Now he thought to question our presence. He checked the pointing finger and dropped his arm.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked, pleasantly.
There was a chorus of contradictory answers. Christian and Jan both said “Yes,” and all but drowned out Piet’s “No.” The mixed reaction surprised me, but it seemed to reinfuriate Piet. He didn’t know quite which one of his brothers to attack. Jan stepped quickly forward to take hold of his arm.
“Listen, Piet,” he said. “There’s no point in all this. Perhaps Charles acted precipitately. But he had his reasons, and there’s some merit in them. If we
can
do as he says then we can destroy this stupid rumor just like
that.
And Alex can help. If there’s one man who
can
do it, it’s Alex. And don’t you see what that will do for us? An emergency arises, and in the very moment that panic begins to spread new human visitors arrive...and through them we cope with the emergency.
Ilah’y’su!
Who could deny it?”
While Jan was speaking I began to have small doubts about the role that he was carving out for me, but it didn’t seem to be the right moment to object. If this was a chance to get a foot in the door....
But Piet was already answering. “Oh yes!” he said, his voice almost a hiss. “And what then? He takes our place, I suppose. He becomes the successor to our father. And what do we do? Go to the sea, like you? Become dam-builders, like idiot Charles? What are you trying to
do
to us?”
“Don’t be a fool,” said Christian. “The Ore’l aren’t going to discriminate between us. As far as they’re concerned we’re all humans, all one family. Whatever he does can only work in favor of all of us. He doesn’t want to take our place, or take up where our father left off. Do you?”
The last question was addressed to me.
“No,” I answered, truthfully.
Piet, still seething with fury, looked around for support. Jan had definitely taken his stance alongside Charles and Christian. Anna was still standing well back. When he looked at her she gave no sign of support, and said nothing.
“You’ll destroy us all!” he said, his voice still twisted by the infection in his throat—if infection it was. He was facing Charles as he said it, but the condemnation was meant much more generally. He turned away, then, and walked to the inner door of the suite, which presumably led through to the bedroom. He closed it behind him with a crash.
“We’d better go to my room,” said Christian. He moved toward the door. We all moved with him except Anna. Jan turned as we left, and said to her: “Are you coming?”
She shook her head slowly. Jan shrugged.
Christian’s room was only a few doors down the corridor. We all went inside. He indicated soundlessly that we should sit down. There were only two armchairs—Jan took one and Mariel the other. The rest of us took chairs from the table and moved them around so that we could all see one another. The atmosphere was tense. Christian still seemed angry about the quarrel and embarrassed about his anger. Jan, too, was angry—perhaps because Piet had referred unkindly to his own action in bringing us to Ak’lehr. Charles just looked deflated by the whole thing.
Jan introduced us to the newcomer, with mock formality.
“What makes you think I can help?” I asked, already having more than a suspicion.
“Charles had better tell it,” said Christian. “From the beginning.”
Charles gathered himself together a little. “We’ve been building a dam on a river in the far southwest,” he said. “We occupy the territory—which is to say, we lay claim to it all and have established army posts in most of the major settlements. We’ve pushed the road through. There’s lots of good land there, once the trees are cleared from the hills, and there could be a great deal more if we can irrigate the grassland plain to the south of the hills. That’s what the dam’s for. We can divert a good deal of the river’s flow westward into the dry land. At the moment, the grassland’s inhabited by nomadic herdsmen—there were a lot of the same type in the plain to the north of the range of hills, and there still are, although farmers are moving in. There’s always trouble in that region between herdsmen and farmers, and I think that has a lot to do with the discontent that’s bred this vile rumor.
“Anyhow, most of my workers come from the villages north of the hills. A couple of months ago I tried to recruit more, and couldn’t. Not only that, but once I’d made the trip the rate of desertion on the job itself began to climb. It turned out that there’d been an outbreak of some disease north of the hills, and it was being whispered about that it had been caused by the involvement of local people with the dam—or, more specifically—with me. The herdsmen had always had the disease in their tribes, but it had always been rare. There’d never been an epidemic—only isolated cases. They associated the change with all the other changes going on around them—with the farmers coming, with the road, with the soldiers—all the things which they see threatening their way of life. The trouble is that the farmers seemed to accept this diagnosis, because they began to catch the disease too...only in ones or twos to start with, but with cases becoming more frequent. The army was infected, too...and they all began to accept the logic of its being caused by the changes in their way of life. Only the empire immigrants knew that it wasn’t them who were to blame but us...the humans. We, in their minds, were the ultimate cause of all the changes. We had been hailed as ilah’y’su by the priests. Thus the disease was the judgment of Y’su, sent because the priests had made a mistake.