Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (90 page)

“Huh?”

“Klavith—fat, fat, fat!” He tapped his chest several times, pretended to crumple to the floor, and succeeded in conveying that Klavith had expired with official assistance.

“Holy cow!” said Leeming.

In businesslike manner the tutor produced a stack of juvenile picture books and started the imparting process while the guards lounged against the wall and looked bored. Leeming cooperated as one does with the enemy, namely, by misunderstanding everything, mispronouncing everything and overlooking nothing that would prove him a linguistic moron.

The lesson ended at noon and was celebrated by the arrival of another bowl of gruel containing a hunk of stringy, rubbery substance resembling the hind end of a rat. He drank the gruel, sucked the portion of animal, shoved the bowl aside.

Then he pondered the significance of their decision to teach him how to talk. In bumping off the unfortunate Klavith they had become the victims of their own ruthlessness. They’d deprived themselves of the world’s only speaker of Cosmoglotta. Probably they had a few others who could speak it stationed on allied worlds, but it would take time and trouble to bring one of those back here.

Someone had blundered by ordering Klavith’s execution; he was going to cover up the mistake by teaching the prisoner to squeal.

Evidently they’d got nothing resembling Earth’s electronic brain-pryers and could extract information only by question-and-answer methods aided by unknown forms of persuasion. They wanted to know things and intended to learn them if possible. The slower he was to gain fluency the longer it would be before they put him on the rack, if that was their intention.

His speculations ended when the guards opened the door and ordered him out. Leading him along the corridor, down the stairs, they released him into a great yard filled with figures mooching aimlessly around under a bright sun. He halted in surprise.

Rigellians! About two thousand of them. These were allies, fighting friends of Terra. He looked them over with mounting excitement, seeking a few more familiar shapes amid the mob. Perhaps an Earthman or two. Or even a few humanlike Centaurians.

But there were none. Only rubber-limbed, pop-eyed Rigellians shuffling around in the dreary manner of those confronted with many wasted years and no perceivable future.

Even as he gazed at them he sensed something peculiar. They could see him as clearly as he could see them and, being the only Earthman, he was a legitimate object of attention, a friend from another star. They should have been crowding up to him, full of talk, seeking the latest news of the war, asking questions and offering information.

It wasn’t like that at all. They took no notice of him, behaved as if the arrival of a Terran were of no consequence whatever. Slowly and deliberately he walked across the yard, inviting some sort of fraternal reaction. They got out of his way. A few eyed him furtively, the majority pretended to be unaware of his existence. Nobody offered a word of comfort. Obviously they were giving him the conspicuous brush-off.

He trapped a small group of them in a corner of the yard and demanded with ill-concealed irritation, “Any of you speak Terran?”

They looked at the sky, the wall, the ground, or at each other, and remained silent.

“Anyone know Centaurian?”

No answer.

“Well, how about Cosmoglotta?”

No reply.

Riled, he walked away and tried another bunch. No luck. Within an hour he had fired questions at two or three hundred without getting a single response. It puzzled him completely. Their manner was not contemptuous or hostile but something else. He tried to analyze it, came to the conclusion that for an unknown reason they were wary, they were afraid to speak to him.

Sitting on a stone step he watched them until a shrill whistle signaled that exercise time was over. The Rigellians formed up in long lines in readiness to march back to their quarters. Leeming’s guards gave him a kick in the pants and chivvied him to his cell.

Temporarily he dismissed the problem of unsociable allies. After dark was the time for thinking because then there was nothing else to do. He wanted to spend the remaining hours of daylight in studying the picture-books and getting well ahead with the local lingo while appearing to lay far behind. Fluency might prove an advantage some day. Too bad that he had never learned Rigellian, for instance.

So he applied himself fully to the task until print and pictures ceased to be visible. He ate his evening portion of mush, after which he lay on the bench, closed his eyes, set his mind to work.

In all of his hectic life he’d met no more than about twenty Rigellians. Never once had he visited their three closely bunched solar systems. What little he knew of them was hearsay evidence. It was said that their standard of intelligence was good, they were technologically efficient, they had been consistently friendly toward men of Earth since first contact nearly a thousand years ago. Fifty percent of them spoke Cosmoglotta, about one per cent knew the Terran tongue.

Therefore if the average held up, several hundreds of those met in the yard should have been able to converse with him in one language or another. Why had they steered clear of him and maintained silence? And why had they been mighty unanimous about it?

Determined to solve this puzzle he invented, examined and discarded a dozen theories, all with sufficient flaws to strain the credulity. It was about two hours before he hit upon the obvious solution.

These Rigellians were prisoners deprived of liberty for an unknown number of years to come. Some of them must have seen an Earthman at one time or another. But all of them knew that in the Combine’s ranks were a few species superficially humanlike. They couldn’t swear to it that a Terran really was a Terran and they were taking no chances on him being a spy, an ear of the enemy planted among them to listen for plots.

That in turn meant something else: when a big mob of prisoners become excessively suspicious of a possible traitor in their midst it’s because they have something to hide. Yes, that was it! He slapped his knee in delight. The Rigellians had an escape scheme in process of hatching and meanwhile were taking no chances.

They had been here plenty long enough to become at least bored, at most desperate, and seek the means to make a break. Having found a way out, or being in process of making one, they were refusing to take the risk of letting the plot be messed up by a stranger of doubtful origin. Now his problem was that of how to overcome their suspicions, gain their confidence and get himself included in whatever was afoot. To this he gave considerable thought.

Next day, at the end of exercise time, a guard swung a heavy leg and administered the usual kick. Leeming promptly hauled off and punched him clean on the snout. Four guards jumped in and gave the culprit a thorough going over. They did it good and proper, with zest and effectiveness that no onlooking Rigellian could possibly mistake for a piece of dramatic play-acting. It was an object lesson and intended as such. The limp body was taken out of the yard and lugged upstairs, its face a mess of blood.

It was a week before Leeming was fit enough to reappear in the yard. The price of confidence had proved rough, tough and heavy and his features were still an ugly sight. He strolled through the crowd, ignored as before, chose a soft spot in the sun and sat.

Soon afterward a prisoner sprawled tiredly on the ground a couple of yards away, watched distant guards and spoke in little more than a whisper.

“Where d’you come from?”

“Terra.”

“How’d you get here?”

Leeming told him briefly.

“How’s the war going?”

“We’re pushing them back slowly but surely. But it’ll take a long time to finish the job.”

“How long do you suppose?”

“I don’t know. It’s anyone’s guess.” Leeming eyed him curiously. “What brought your bunch here?”

“We’re not combatants but civilian colonists. Our government placed advance parties, all male, on four new planets that were ours by right of discovery. Twelve thousand of us altogether.” The Rigellian paused while he looked carefully around, noted the positions of various guards. “The Combine descended on us in force. That was two years ago. It was easy. We weren’t prepared for trouble, weren’t adequately armed, didn’t even know that a war was on.”

“They grabbed your four planets?”

“You bet they did. And laughed in our faces.”

Leeming nodded understanding. Cynical and ruthless claim-jumping had been the original cause of the fracas now extended across a great slice of the galaxy. On one planet a colony had put up an heroic resistance and died to the last man. The sacrifice had fired a blaze of fury, the Allies had struck back and were still striking good and hard.

“Twelve thousand, you said. Where are the others?”

“Scattered around in prisons like this one. You certainly picked a choice dump on which to sit out the war. The Combine has made this its chief penal planet. It’s far from the fighting front, unlikely ever to be discovered. The local lifeform isn’t much good for space-battles but plenty good enough to hold what its allies have captured. They’re throwing up big jails all over the world. If the war goes on long enough this cosmic dump will become solid with prisoners.”

“So your crowd has been here about two years?”

“Sure have—and it seems more like ten.”

“And done nothing about it?”

“Nothing much,” agreed the Rigellian. “Just enough to get forty of us shot for trying.”

“Sorry,” said Leeming sincerely.

“Don’t let it bother you. I know exactly how you feel. The first few weeks are the worst. The idea of being pinned down for keeps can drive you crazy unless you learn to be philosophical about it.” He mused awhile, indicated a heavily built guard patrolling by the farther wall. “A few days ago that lying swine boasted that already there are two hundred thousand Allied prisoners on this planet and added that by this time next year there would be two million. I hope he never lives to see it."

“I’m getting out of here,” said Leeming.

“How?”

“I don’t know yet. But I’m getting out. I’m not going to stay here and rot.” He waited in the hope of some comment about others feeling the same way, perhaps evasive mention of a coming break, a hint that he might be invited to join in.

Standing up, the Rigellian murmured, “Well, I wish you luck. You’ll need all you can get.”

He ambled away, having betrayed nothing. A whistle blew, the guards shouted, “Merse, faplaps! Amash!” And that was that.

Over the next four weeks he had frequent conversations with the same Rigellian and about twenty others, picking up odd items of information but finding them peculiarly evasive whenever the subject of freedom came up. They were friendly, in fact cordial, but remained determinedly tightmouthed.

One day he was having a surreptitious chat and asked, “Why does everyone insist on talking to me secretively and in whispers? The guards don’t seem to care how much you gab to one another.”

“You haven’t yet been cross-examined. If in the mean-time they notice that we’ve had plenty to say to you they will try to force out of you everything we’ve said— with particular reference to ideas on escape.”

Leeming immediately pounced upon the lovely word.

“Ah, escape, that’s all there is to live for right now. If anyone is thinking of making a bid maybe I can help them and they can help me. I’m a competent space-pilot and that fact is worth something.”

The other cooled at once. “Nothing doing.”

“Why not?”

“We’ve been behind walls a long time and have been taught many things that you’ve yet to learn.”

“Such as?”

“We’ve discovered at bitter cost that escape attempts fail when too many know what is going on. Some planted spy betrays us. Or some selfish fool messes things up by pushing in at the wrong moment.”

“I am neither a spy nor a fool. I’m certainly not enough of an imbecile to spoil my own chance of breaking free.”

“That may be,” the Regillian conceded. “But imprisonment creates its own special conventions. One firm rule we have established here is that an escape-plot is the exclusive property of those who concocted it and only they can make the attempt by that method. Nobody else is told about it. Nobody else knows until the resulting hullabaloo starts going. Secrecy is a protective screen that would-be escapers must maintain at all costs. They’ll give nobody a momentary peek through it, not even a Terran and not even a qualified space-pilot.”

“So I'm strictly on my own?”

“Afraid so. You’re on your own in any case. We sleep in dormitories, fifty to a room. You’re in a cell all by yourself. You’re in no position to help with anything.”

“I can damned well help myself,” Leeming retorted angrily.

And it was his turn to walk away.

He’d been in the pokey just thirteen weeks when the tutor handed him a metaphorical firecracker. Finishing a session distinguished only by Leeming’s dopiness and slowness to learn, the tutor scowled at him and gave forth to some point.

“You are pleased to wear the cloak of idiocy. But am I an idiot too? I do not think so! I am not deceived—you are far more fluent that you pretend. In seven days time I shall report to the Commandant that you are ready for examination.”

“How’s that again,” asked Leeming, putting on a baffled frown.

“You will be questioned by the Commandant seven days hence.”

“I have already been questioned by Major Klavith.”

“That was verbal, Klavith is dead and we have no record of what you told him.” Slam went the door. Came the gruel and a jaundiced lump of something unchewable. The local catering department seemed to be obsessed by the edibility of a rat’s buttocks. Exercise time followed.

“I’ve been told they’re going to put me through the mill a week from now.”

“Don’t let that scare you,” advised the Rigellian. “They would as soon kill you as spit in the sink. But one thing keeps them in check.”

“What’s that?”

“The Allies are holding a stack of prisoners, too.”

“Yes, but what they don’t know they can’t grieve over.”