Worlds Apart (23 page)

"Jim," he said, "if we do come out of this Clades affair well, we should thank God for it. We were like a wound-down clock. Already we're ticking merrily again. And there's another thing. From what Pertwee said, I don't think the Clades are bounding with life either. Happy people are people working at high efficiency in a job they want to do. The Clades aren't happy, and I don't think they're really efficient. Frankly, I hope . . . "

He told Bentley what he hoped. Bentley shook his head, unable to share such optimism. But then Bentley, though he had the experience, was no psychologist; Rog, though his experience was limited, knew people and had always known them, naturally, effortlessly.

Bentley went back to his work and Rog to his.

Rog still thought he was right. The Mundans were free, contented, healthy, hopeful. The Clades were fettered, afraid, grim, without imagination or appreciation of beauty, split in half by their subordination of one sex, welded together only by fear.

The Clades couldn't win. Give the Mundans time to regain what they had lost, and they couldn't fail. For the Mundans, always, would be looking forward. The Clades, always, were looking back. Their whole society was built on the conditions of the world they had left. Those conditions were no more applicable to the present than boats on sealess Mundis.

X

1

The Clades sank gently to the surface of Secundis. Pertwee could feel it sinking, though he was in a windowless cabin. Mathers was with him and Toni. They were to be landed at once.

Pertwee looked at Mathers speculatively and wondered whether to risk the spy-eye. He glanced at Toni. They hadn't ever talked freely since he returned, but without saying anything that would help the Clades at all they were developing a system of communication. If every room on the ship was or could be watched, probably one man would have to look at scores of tiny pictures. Though one could never be certain one wasn't being watched, one could be reasonably satisfied that tiny nods, slight changes of expression, minute gestures would never be observed. In a small picture they would cease to exist. Likewise, one was probably safe in whispering a few words under cover of another noise.

But Toni's answering expression said no, quite plainly.

There was a lot Toni must know that Pertwee wanted to know too. Her attitude showed him that she knew a lot more about the Clades now than he did, and that she even had a few tentative plans.

Pertwee had been left with her in comparative freedom since the ship left Mundis. Apparently no one was concerned about them any longer. Several times Pertwee had been prepared to risk casual conversation with a few hints of things that mattered thrown in. But Toni cut off all such attempts.

They talked, certainly. They made love. They spoke of things that had happened on the ship, things which the Clades knew had happened. Pertwee told Toni about people in Lemon, and Toni told him all that had happened on the ship since he escaped. But she said hardly a word about what she had said to Phyllis or Phyllis to her in those hours of comparative freedom. When she mentioned Phyllis, she still spoke about her in the same way. Pertwee was given no hint of any change.

They would have enjoyed those days but for the knowledge of the situation. Toni did, anyway. She was naturally capable of living from hour to hour. The knowledge of something unpleasant to come cast hardly a shadow on her enjoyment of the pleasure of the moment. Pertwee could appear to be as contented as she was, but he wasn't really. Returning among the Clades had restored to him all his worry about them and what they could do to Mundis.

Corey had told them once, as a warning, what had happened to one of the Clades' own officers who had been found guilty or treason recently. The story didn't have the effect on Pertwee it had been intended to have.

This Captain Worsley was nothing to Pertwee, but he had been a man. He had been born on Earth and his mother had probably loved him. For some unknown crime, very likely one which didn't exist among the Mundans, he had had a sword thrust in his stomach and had been left to die in agony. For discipline, for unity, for strength. That was the Clades, If they triumphed, quite a few Mundans would die the same way. Pertwee knew somehow that most of his closest friends would soon be accused and convicted of treason in a Clade community.

Pertwee looked at Mathers again and remembered. Corey had told him that it was Mathers who had executed Worsley. Pertwee shuddered slightly. Cruelty was always ugly. One of the best things he could think of about Lemon was that be had so seldom heard of cruelty in it. Two of the three who had died for offenses against the Constitution had died because of a cruel streak. That wasn't stated, but Pertwee knew there would have been no death penalty if the court hadn't known the men before them were going to go on hurting anyone weak enough to be hurt and stay silent. They knew that to let the men live would only mean so much unnecessary horror and misery in the world.

The Clades meant a lot of horror and misery in two worlds, and they didn't even keep it for their enemies. They shared it among themselves.

There was a very slight jar. Then Toni gave a cry and staggered. There had been one-and-three-quarter gravity for some time, but they had gradually allowed for it as the ship sank. Only now when they expected it to lift did they realize how heavy it was. It was fully double what they were used to; the pull of Mundis was slightly less than that of Earth.

Mathers tried to hurry them along the corridors, but they couldn't be hurried. The gravity didn't cripple them, it merely made them very careful. A stumble which could be righted on Mundis would mean a very heavy fall here. They didn't have to fall to know that.

At the lock Mathers passed them on to Phyllis. Pertwee didn't miss the cold, correct way they treated each other.

Phyllis jumped down, but Pertwee and Toni knew that for them to do that would be asking for broken ankles or strained tendons. They were too intent on watching the ground to see much else, but they did catch a glimpse of a land of mountain and cloud and rock and green foliage. Then they were looking at the gravel under their feet in case they stumbled.

Toni gave an involuntary cry, and Phyllis turned. The Clade disregard for anything the Mundans could do physically was considerable, but, unfortunately, fully justified. Phyllis had been left in charge of both of them, and they could have attacked her together. But the very way she strode along while they had to pick their way carefully showed how useless that would be.

Toni had noticed one thing the gravity had done to her, and didn't like it at all. Her ket gave no support, and her abdominal and pectoral muscles weren't used to treatment like this. They sagged and for the first time Toni had a belly and pendulous breasts. Pertwee looked down and saw that he, too, suddenly had a small paunch. Also, he and Toni were beginning to feel the cold. It was warm enough, but no place for kets and trunks.

"Mathers should have told you," said Phyllis. "Come on, let's hurry. You'll stay warm that way."

It was so unexpected that Pertwee could only stand and gape. But he saw that Toni took it as a matter of course. This, then, was the explanation of Phyllis's fleeting smile and Toni's determined silence. She had an ally, or near-ally, among the Clades. Anyone who admitted to human feelings among the Clades must be an ally.

They hurried on and, as Pertwee began to get used to the heavy gravity he looked about him more. The ship had landed on a pitted field, and most of the Clades had marched off down a hill towards a big, square building that said barracks in every line of it. Phyllis was taking them the other way -- up a slight incline through an avenue of trees which were much more like the trees of Earth than those of Mundis were. They rustled in a slight breeze -- slight, but stronger than anything Mundis ever produced.

Rounding a bend in the avenue, which was very dark by Mundan standards, they saw where they were going. Two hundred yards on, among the trees, was a village, almost a small town. No people were visible, however, except two sentries posted before one of the buildings, and two other men in uniform who were going from door to door with some message or other. All four had been sent on ahead from the ship, apparently. Pertwee recognized two of them.

Pertwee liked the village, save for its dullness. It was built in sandstone, which he had never seen on Mundis. There was no grace about the houses, but he liked their solid simplicity.

"Don't talk when we get inside," Phyllis murmured without turning round. "We'll be able to talk later, but not yet."

The sentries saluted her. Phyllis opened the door and pushed the two Mundans inside in front of her. The building was a meeting place of some sort. They were to be shown off to some of the Clades who hadn't been on the ship, apparently.

"This is Base One," said Phyllis, "You will be asked questions, and we expect sensible answers without delay." Pertwee and Toni didn't have to be told that she was the Clade officer again. "Speak freely," she went on, "and there will be no trouble. Wait in there."

She locked them in a tiny room behind the president's chair. Phyllis's warning presumably applied to this cell too. There was nothing in it; the only break in four bare gray walls was the barred window high up.

"Base One," said Pertwee. "I wonder how many there are?" He was getting used to talking and saying nothing.

About twenty minutes later they were led out again. The Clades who by this time filled the chamber were not in uniform, but wore clothes on the Terran pattern. Generally they were about Pertwee's own age. Of the Clades in uniform, only Phyllis and Sloan were present.

They were asked about the Mundan's numbers, how they lived, the conditions on Mundis -- all the expected questions. Pertwee answered easily and untruthfully. No one expected him to tell the truth, surely. On the other hand, it would lead to unnecessary unpleasantness to declare baldly that every word was a lie, or to refuse to answer at all.

Presently it occurred to him that they /did/ expect him to tell the truth, more or less. The Clades reminded him somehow of the early Quakers. And he began to see that the Clades who stayed at home were very different from the Clades who went on the ship. He remembered how the barracks was placed well away from the village. These Clades were duller, more honest, more like peasant stock.

Apparently the people there were limited to certain fields of inquiry, for there was no mention of any Mundan-Clade dispute or the fact that Pertwee and Toni were prisoners. But if Pertwee saw them as potential allies against their own militarist party, the way they looked at Sloan and Phyllis showed how little value they would be. The civilians were under the heel of the men in uniform. One knew that while only Sloan and Phyllis were there, other eyes were watching, seeing if anyone whispered to his neighbor. The meeting meant nothing, and it didn't matter how Pertwee lied. Its purpose was merely to tell the stay-at-home Clades what Corey thought they should know. Presumably, before Pertwee and Toni had been brought in, they had been told what they were to think.

The base, then, and the people living in it, were nothing. It was still the Clades and its complement that counted. Apparently these people weren't much more than their slaves.

They showed, Pertwee thought bitterly, exactly what was going to happen to the Mundans.

2

"This may be the only time we can talk freely before the fight, if there is one," said Phyllis suddenly and unexpectedly, "so let's use it."

She was leading them to the top of the hill, past the village. They were not alone, precisely; the villagers were straggling up the hill too, but Phyllis had explained briefly what was happening. The Clades, which had returned to Secundis merely to take in supplies for the trip to Outpost and to inform Base One of what was going on, was being tested and its crew exercised before leaving for Outpost. It was a routine test and exercise, but its secondary purpose, Pertwee presumed, though Phyllis didn't say so, was to show both the civilian Clades and the two Mundans how strong and well-trained and invincible the Clades and its crew were. So this was the promised chance to speak freely, unheard by the rest of the Clades. Pertwee hesitated. "I'd like to talk to Toni alone," he said.

"Impossible," Phyllis told him. "No one seems to be paying any attention to us, but I expect we're being watched. No one can hear what we're saying here, but almost certainly everything we do is being observed. Say what you like."

"How far can we trust her?" Pertwee asked Toni bluntly, taking her at her word.

Toni hesitated, working out how to phrase it. "Only so long as it may be to her advantage to keep silent," she said at last. "Not with anything that would mean certain victory for the Clades, for she'd use that against the Mundans. With anything which would mean certain victory for us, yes, I think. She's with us as far as it's to her own advantage."

Pertwee thought it out. Phyllis was running with the foxes and the hounds, and he and Toni had to accept that.

"I can't afford to do anything else," said Phyllis, admitting what Toni had said. "I'm gambling on you Mundans. I'll help you, if I can, in return for recognition."

"As what?"

"The Clade spokesman."

"We can't guarantee that"

"Guarantee as much as you can, and I'll trust you for the rest."

"What can you do? How can you help us?"

Phyllis shrugged. "Who knows? It's a complex situation. I admit frankly I prefer what seems to be the Mundan way to the Clade way. I'm with you, if you have any chance. I may soon be in a position to help your people against mine. I'll do it if I think you have anything to offer."

Gradually Pertwee was understanding her position. She was a traitor, of course. She had been brought up as a Clade, and she was turning callously against her people. She wanted them to be beaten.

However, Pertwee not only thought she was right and justified, but was prepared to trust her -- because she admitted, in effect, that she was not to be trusted. Besides, the Mundans stood to lose nothing and perhaps gain something from her co-operation. "I want any help you can give," said Phyllis, "for myself, Sloan, and Wyness. As little co-operation as possible with Corey and Mathers and Fenham."