Citizen of the Galaxy (5 page)

“A slave had better talk that way, or else keep his mouth shut.”

“Then, for Heaven's sake, keep it shut! Listen, son, let me explain. There's nothing here for you and we both know it. If I die without freeing you, you revert to the Sargon --”

“They'll have to catch me!”

“They will. But manumission solves nothing. What guilds are open to freedmen? Begging, yes -- but you'd have to poke out your eyes to do well at it, after you're grown. Most freedmen work for their former masters, as you know, for the freeborn commoners leave mighty slim pickings. They resent an ex-slave; they won't work with him.”

“Don't worry, Pop. I'll get by.”

“I do worry. Now you listen. I'm going to arrange to sell you to a man I know, who will ship you away from here. Not a slave ship, just a ship. But instead of shipping you where the bill of lading reads, you'll --”

“No!”

“Hold your tongue. You'll be dropped on a planet where slavery is against the law. I can't tell you which one, because I am not sure of the ship's schedule, nor even what ship; the details have to be worked out. But in any free society I have confidence you can get by.” Baslim stopped to mull a thought he had had many times. Should he send the kid to Baslim's own native planet? No, not only would it be extremely difficult to arrange but it was not a place to send a green immigrant . . . get the lad to any frontier world, where a sharp brain and willingness to work were all a man needed; there were several within trading distance of the Nine Worlds. He wished tiredly that there were some way of knowing the boy's own home world. Possibly he had relatives there, people who would help him. Confound it, there ought to be a galaxy-wide method of identification!

Baslim went on, “That's the best I can do. You'll have to behave as a slave between the sale and being shipped out. But what's a few weeks against a chance --”

“No!”

“Don't be foolish, son.”

“Maybe I am. But I won't do it I'm staying.”

“So? Son . . . I hate to remind you -- but you can't stop me.”

“Huh?”

“As you pointed out, there's a paper that says I can.”

“Oh.”

“Go to bed, son.”

Baslim did not sleep. About two hours after they had put out the light he heard Thorby get up very quietly. He could follow every move the lad made by interpreting muffled sounds. Thorby dressed (a simple matter of wrapping his clout), he went into the adjoining room, fumbled in the bread safe, drank deeply, and left. He did not take his bowl, he did not go near the shelf where it was kept.

After he was gone, Baslim turned over and tried to sleep, but the ache inside him would not permit It had not occurred to him to speak the word that would keep the boy; he had too much self-respect not to respect another person's decision.

Thorby was gone four days. He returned in the night and Baslim heard him but again said nothing. Instead he went quietly and deeply asleep for the first time since Thorby had left. But he woke at the usual time and said, “Good morning, son.”

“Uh, good morning. Pop.”

“Get breakfast started. I have something to attend to.”

They sat down presently over bowls of hot mush. Baslim ate with his usual careful disinterest; Thorby merely picked at his. Finally he blurted out, “Pop, when are you going to sell me?”

“I'm not.”

“Huh?”

“I registered your manumission at the Archives the day you left. You're a free man, Thorby.”

Thorby looked startled, then dropped his eyes to his food. He busied himself building little mountains of mush that slumped as soon as he shaped them. Finally he said, “I wish you hadn't.”

“If they picked you up, I didn't want you to have 'escaped slave' against you.”

“Oh.” Thorby looked thoughtful. “That's 'F&B,' isn't it? Thanks, Pop. I guess I acted land of silly.”

“Possibly. But it wasn't the punishment I was thinking of. Flogging is over quickly, and so is branding. I was thinking of a possible second offense. It's better to be shortened than to be caught again after a branding.”

Thorby abandoned his mush entirely. “Pop? Just what does a lobotomy do to you?”

“Mmm . . . you might say it makes the thorium mines endurable. But let's not go into it, not at meal times. Speaking of such, if you are through, get your bowl and let's not dally. There's an auction this morning.”

“You mean I can stay?”

“This is your home.”

Baslim never again suggested that Thorby leave him. Manumission made no difference in their routine or relationship. Thorby did go to the Royal Archives, paid the fee and the customary gift and had a line tattooed through his serial number, the Sargon's seal tattooed beside it with book and page number of the record which declared him to be a free subject of the Sargon, entitled to taxes, military service, and starvation without let or hindrance. The clerk who did the tattooing looked at Thorby's serial number and said, “Doesn't look like a birthday job, kid. Your old man go bankrupt? Or did your folks sell you just to get shut of you?”

“None of your business!”

“Don't get smart, kid, or you'll find that this needle can hurt even more. Now give me a civil answer. I see it's a factors mark, not a private owner's, and from the way it has spread and faded, you were maybe five or six. When and where was it?”

“I don't know. Honest I don't.”

“So? That's what I tell my wife when she asks personal questions. Quit wiggling; I'm almost through. There . . . congratulations and welcome to the ranks of free men. I've been free a parcel of years now and I predict that you will find it looser but not always more comfortable.”

Thorby's leg hurt for a couple of days; otherwise manumission left his life unchanged. But he really was becoming inefficient as a beggar; a strong healthy youth does not draw the alms that a skinny child can. Often Baslim would have Thorby place him on his pitch, then send him on errands or tell him to go home and study. However, one or the other was always in the Plaza. Baslim sometimes disappeared, with or without warning; when this happened it was Thorby's duty to spend daylight hours on the pitch, noting arrivals and departures, keeping mental notes of slave auctions, and picking up information about both traffics through contacts around the port, in the wineshops, and among the unveiled women.

Once Baslim was gone for a double nineday; he was simply missing when Thorby woke up. It was much longer than he had ever been away before; Thorby kept telling himself that Pop could look out for himself, while having visions of the old man dead in a gutter. But he kept track of the doings at the Plaza, including three auctions, and recorded everything that he had seen and had been able to pick up.

Then Baslim returned. His only comment was, “Why didn't you memorize it instead of recording?”

“Well, I did. But I was afraid I would forget something, there was so much.”

“Hummph!”

After that Baslim seemed even quieter, more reserved, than he had always been. Thorby wondered if he had, displeased him, but it was not the sort of question Baslim answered. Finally one night the old man said, “Son, we never did settle what you are to do after I'm gone.”

“Huh? But I thought we had decided that, Pop. It's my problem.”

“No, I simply postponed it . . . because of your thickheaded stubbornness. But I can't wait any longer. I've got orders for you and you are going to carry them out.”

“Now, wait a minute, Pop! If you think you can bully me into leaving you --”

“Shut up! I said, 'After I'm gone.' When I'm dead, I mean; not one of these little business trips . . . you are to look up a man and give him a message. Can I depend on you? Not goof off and forget it?”

“Why, of course, Pop. But I don't like to hear you talk that way. You're going to live a long time -- you might even outlive me.”

“Possibly. But will you shut up and listen, then do as I tell you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You'll find this man -- it may take a while -- and deliver this message. Then he will have something for you to do . . . I think. If he does, I want you to do exactly what he tells you to. Will you do that also?”

“Why, of course, Pop, if that's what you want.”

“Count it as one last favor to an old man who tried to do right by you and would have done better had he been able. It's the very last thing I want from you, son. Don't bother to burn an offering for me at the temple, just do these two things: deliver a message and one more thing, whatever the man suggests that you do.”

“I will, Pop,” Thorby answered solemnly.

“All right. Let's get busy.”

The “man” turned out to be any one of five men. Each was skipper of a starship, a tramp trader, not of the Nine Worlds but occasionally picking up cargoes from ports of the Nine Worlds. Thorby thought over the list. “Pop, there's only one of these ships I recall ever putting down here.”

“They all have, one time or another.”

“It might be a long time before one showed up.”

“It might be years. But when it happens, I want the message delivered exactly.”

“To any of them? Or all of them?”

“The first one who shows up.”

The message was short but not easy, for it was in three languages, depending on who was to receive it, and none of the languages was among those Thorby knew. Nor did Baslim explain the words; he wanted it learned by rote in all three.

After Thorby had stumbled through the first version of the message for the seventh time Baslim covered his ears. “No, no! It won't do, son. That accent!”

“I'm doing my best,” Thorby answered sullenly.

“I know. But I want the message understood. See here, do you remember a time when I made you sleepy and talked to you?”

“Huh? I get sleepy every night. I'm sleepy now.”

“So much the better.” Baslim put him into a light trance -- with difficulty, as Thorby was not as receptive as he had been as a child. But Baslim managed it, recorded the message in the sleep instructor, set it running and let Thorby listen, with post-hypnotic suggestion that he would be able to say it perfectly when he awakened.

He was able to. The second and third versions were implanted in him the following night Baslim tested him repeatedly thereafter, using the name of a skipper and a ship to bring each version forth.

Baslim never sent Thorby out of the city; a slave required a travel permit and even a freedman was required to check in and out. But he did send him all over the metropolis. Three ninedays after Thorby had learned the messages Baslim gave him a note to deliver in the shipyard area, which was a reserve of the Sargon rather than part of the city. “Carry your freedman's tag and leave your bowl behind. If a policeman stops you, tell him you're looking for work in the yards.”

“He'll think I'm crazy.”

“But he'll let you through. They do use freedmen, as sweepers and such. Carry the message in your mouth. Who are you looking for?”

“A short, red-hailed man,” Thorby repeated, “with a big wart on the left side of his nose. He runs a lunch stand across from the main gate. No beard. I'm to buy a meat pie and slip him the message with the money.”

“Right.”

Thorby enjoyed the outing. He did not wonder why Pop didn't viewphone messages instead of sending him a half-day's journey; people of their class did not use such luxuries. As for the royal mails, Thorby had never sent or received a letter and would have regarded the mails as a most chancy way to send a note.

His route followed one arc of the spaceport through the factory district. He relished that part of the city; there was always so much going on, so much life and noise. He dodged traffic, with track drivers cursing him and Thorby answering with interest; he peered in each open door, wondering what all the machines were for and why commoners would stand all day in one place, doing the same thing over and over -- or were they slaves? No, they couldn't be; slaves weren't allowed to touch power machinery except on plantations -- that was what the riots had been about last year and the Sargon had lifted his hand in favor of the commoners.

Was it true that the Sargon never slept and that his eye could see anything in the Nine Worlds? Pop said that was nonsense, the Sargon was just a man, like anybody. But if so, how did he get to be Sargon?

He left the factories and skirted the shipyards. He had never been this far before. Several ships were in for overhaul and two small ships were being built, cradled in lacy patterns of steel. Ships made his heart lift and he wished he were going somewhere. He knew that he had traveled by starship twice -- or was it three times? -- but that was long ago and he didn't mean traveling in the hold of a slaver, that wasn't traveling!

He got so interested that he almost walked past the lunch stand. The main gate reminded him; it was twice as big as the others, had a guard on it, and a big sign curving over it with the seal of the Sargon on top. The lunch stand was across from it; Thorby dodged traffic pouring through the gate and went to it.

The man behind the counter was not the right man; what little hair he had was black and his nose had no wart.