Slave Planet, Laurence M. Janifer [i love reading books .TXT] 📗

die down, while all stared at the audacious newcomer.

"I am looking for Dara," Cadnan said loudly, to be heard over the continuous noise from elsewhere.

Puna said: "I do not know Dara," and turned away. Another shouted:

"Where are the masters? Where is work?"

Cadnan shouted: "Wait for the masters," and went on, pushing his way through the noise, through the babbling crowd of Alberts. There were no masters visible anywhere: that was a new thing and a strange one, but too many new things were happening. Cadnan barely noticed one more.

At the front of his mind now was only the thought of Dara. Behind that was a vague, nagging fear that he was the cause of all the rumbling and shaking of the building, and all else, by his breaking of the chain of obedience. Now, he told himself, the buildings even did not obey.

Then he heard a voice say: "Cadnan," and all other thought fled. The voice was hers, Dara's. He saw her, ahead, and went to her quickly.

She had not been hurt.

That fact sent a wave of relief through him, a wave so strong that for a second he could barely stand.

"The door opens," she said when he had reached her, in a small and frightened voice. "The masters are not here."

"They return," Cadnan said, but without complete assurance. In this barrage of novelty, who could make any statement certain?

Dara nodded. "Then we must go," she said. "If they are not here, then maybe they do not hear the noise when we open the door: and there is much noise already to hide it. Maybe they do not see us."

"And if they do?"

Dara looked away. "I have my song," she said.

"And I have mine." It was settled.

As they headed toward the big front doors others followed, but there was no use bothering about that. When Cadnan opened the door, in fact, the others fell back and remained, staring, until it had shut behind them. There was the great noise of bells and buzzers—but that had been going on, Cadnan realized, even before they had begun. Outside, the spot-lights seemed weaker. There was smoke everywhere, and ahead the forest was a black and frightening mass.

He looked at Dara, who showed her fear for one instant.

"I am also afraid," he told her, and was rewarded by a look of gratitude. "But we must go on." He took her hand.

They walked slowly into the smoke and the noise. As they reached the edge of the forest, the sound began to diminish, very slowly; and, ahead of them, through the haze and beyond the twisted trees, the sun began to rise.

They walked for a long while, and by the time they had finally stopped the noise was gone. There was a haze over everything, but through the haze a morning sun shone, and a heavy peace hung over the world.

There were trees, but these were neither like Bent Line Tree, for mating, nor for food. Perhaps, Cadnan thought, they were for building, but he did not know, and had no way to know until an elder showed him.

And there were no elders any more. There were neither elders nor masters: there was only Cadnan, and Dara—and, somewhere, Marvor and the group he had spoken of. Cadnan peered round, but he saw no one. There were small new sounds, and those were frightening, but they were so tiny—rustles, squeaks, no more—that Cadnan could not feel greatly frightened by them.

The green-gray light that filtered through the trees and haze bathed both Alberts in a glow that enhanced their own bright skin-color. They stood for a few seconds, listening, and then Dara turned.

"I know these sounds," she said. "I talk to others in our room, and some of these work outside. They tell me of these sounds and this place: it is called a jungle."

Cadnan made a guess. "The trees make the sound."

"Small beings make it," Dara corrected him. "There are such small beings, not slaves and not masters. They have no speech but they make sound."

Cadnan meditated on this new fact for a short time. Then Dara spoke again.

"Where is Marvor? The time of mating is near."

Cadnan saw her meaning. It was necessary to find Bent Line Tree, or some like it, and advising elders, all before the time of mating. Yet he did not know how. "Maybe masters come," he suggested hopefully, "and tell us what to do."

Dara shook her head. "No. The masters kill us. They do not lead us any more. Only we lead ourselves."

Cadnan thought privately that such an idea was silly, almost too silly for words: how could a person lead himself? But he said nothing to Dara, not wanting to hurt her. Instead, he pretended, helplessly, to agree with her: "You are right. We lead ourselves now."

"But we must know where Marvor stays."

That sounded more reasonable. Cadnan considered it for a minute. Wherever Marvor was hiding, it had to be somewhere in the jungle. And so, in order to find him, they had only to walk through it.

And so they set out—on a walk long enough to serve as an aboriginal Odyssey for the planet. The night-beasts, soft glowing circles of eyes and mouths which none of their race had ever seen before: the giant flesh-eating plants: the herd of bovine monsters which, confused, stampeded at them, shaking the ground with their tread and making the feathery trees shake as if there were a hurricane: all this might have made an epic, had there been anyone to record it. But Cadnan expected no more and no less: the world was strange. Any piece of it was as strange as any other.

Once they came across a grove of food-trees, and ate their fill, but they saved little to take with them, being unused to doing their own planning. So they went on, hungry and in the midst of dangers scarcely recognized, sleeping at night however they could, travelling aimlessly by day. And after a time that measured about three days they stopped in a small clearing and heard a voice.

"Who is there?"

Cadnan, frightened by the sudden noise, managed to says "I am Cadnan and there is one with me called Dara. We look for Marvor."

The strange voice hesitated a second, but its words, when it did speak, were in a tone that was peaceful enough.

"I know of Marvor and will take you to him. It is not far to where he stays."

20

After the first rush of battle, matters began to quiet a little. Against tremendous odds, and in a few brief hours, the armaments of Fruyling's World had managed to beat off the Confederation fleets, and these had withdrawn to reform and to prepare for a new phase of the engagement.

In the far-off days before the age of Confederation, war had, perhaps, been an affair of grinding, constant attack and defense. No one could say for sure: many records were gone, much had been destroyed. But now there was waiting, preparation, linked batteries of armaments and calculators for prediction—and then the brief rush and flurry of battle, followed by the immense waiting once more.

For Dodd, it was a time to breathe and to look around. He had enough work to do: the damage to Building Three, and the confusion among the Alberts, had to be dealt with, and all knew time was short. Very few of the Alberts had actually escaped—and most of those, Dodd told himself bitterly, would die in their own jungles, for lack of knowledge or preparation. Most, though, simply milled around, waiting for the masters, wondering and worrying.

Norma was safe, of course: after a frantic search Dodd had found her below-ground in the basements of Building One, along with most of the Psych division. Without present duties forcing them to guard or maintain the Alberts, the Psych division had holed up almost entire in the steel corridors that echoed with the dull booms of the battle. He'd gasped out some statement of relief, and Norma had smiled at him.

"I knew you'd be safe," she said. "I knew you had to be."

And of course she was right. Even if what she said had sounded cold, removed—he had to remember she was under shock, too, the attack had come unexpectedly on them all. It didn't matter what she said: she was safe. He was glad of that.

Of course he was, he thought. Of course he was.

Even if the things she said, the cold-blooded way she looked at the world, sometimes bothered him....

And, a day later, when everyone was picking up the scattered pieces of the world and attempting, somehow, to rig a new defense, she'd said more. Not about herself, or about him. Tacitly, they knew all of that had to wait for a conclusion to the battle. But about the Alberts....

"Of course they're not disloyal," she told him calmly. "They don't even know what disloyalty means: we've seen to that. The masters are as much a part of their world as—as food, I suppose. You don't stage a rebellion against food, do you?"

Dodd frowned. "But some of them have escaped."

"Wandered, you mean. Just wandered off. And—oh, I suppose a few have. Our methods aren't perfect. But they are pretty good, Johnny: look at the number of Alberts who simply stayed around."

"We're making them slaves."

"No." She shook her head, violently. "Nobody can make a slave. All we've done is seize an opportunity. Think of our own history, Johnny: first the clan, or the band—some sort of extended family group. Then, when real leadership is needed, the slave-and-master relationship."

"Now, wait a minute," Dodd said. Norma had been brain-washed into some silly set of slogans: it was his job to break them down. "The clan can elect leaders—"

"Sure it can," she said. "But democracy is a civilized commodity, Johnny—in a primitive society it's a luxury the society can't afford. What guarantees have you got that the clan will elect the best possible leader? Or that, having elected him, they'll follow him along the best paths?"

"Self-interest—"

But again she cut him off. "Self-interest is stupid," she said casually. "A child needs to learn. Schooling is in the best interest of that child. Agreed?"

"Yes, but—"

"Did you ever hear of a child who liked school, Johnny?" she asked. "Did you ever hear of a child who went to school, regularly, eagerly, without some sort of force being applied, physical, mental or moral? No, Johnny, self-interest is short-sighted. Force is all that works."

"But—" He was sure she was wrong, but he couldn't see where. "Who are we to play God for them?" he said at last.

"They need somebody," Norma said. "And we need them. Even."

She seemed harder now, somehow, more decided. Dodd saw that the one attack had changed a lot—in Norma, in everyone. Albin, for instance, wasn't involved with fun any more: he had turned into a fanatical drill-sergeant, with a squad of Alberts under him, and it was even rumored that he slept in their quarters.

And Norma ... what had happened to her? After the fighting was over, and they could talk again, could relax and reach out for each other once again....

She had become so hard....

One new fear ran through the defenders. The Alberts who had escaped might return, some said, vowing vengeance against the masters....

21

Cadnan had learned much in a very short time. Everyone was hurried now, as the time of mating approached more and more quickly and as the days sped by: knowledge was thrown at Cadnan and at Dara in vast, indigestible lumps, and they were left to make what they could of it, while the others went about their normal assigned work.

He learned about the invasion, for instance—or as much about it as Marvor, the elders and a few other late arrivals could piece together. Their explanations made surprisingly good sense, in the main, though none of them, not even Marvor, could quite comprehend the notion of masters having masters above them: it appeared contrary to reason.

Cadnan learned, also, the new trees in this new place, which the elders had found. There were food trees nearby, and others whose leaves were meant for building, and there were also trees of mating like his own Bent Line Tree. No one could tell Cadnan where Bent Line Tree itself might be: and so he became resigned to his first mating with a new tree, which the elders had called Great Root Tree. It was not truly right, he told himself, but there was nothing to do about it.

The life in the jungle made Cadnan uncomfortable: he was nothing larger than himself, and he felt very small. When he had masters, he was a part of something great, of the chain of obedience. But here, in the jungle, there was no chain (and would the trees obey when