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

mistily-remembered comic strip dating back before space travel, before the true beginnings of Confederation history. If you ignored the single, Cyclopean eye, the rather musty smell and a few other even more minor details, they looked rather like two-legged alligators four feet tall, green as jewels, with hopeful grins on their faces and an awkward, waddling walk like a penguin's. Seen without preconceptions they might have been called cute.

But no man on Fruyling's World could see the Alberts without preconceptions. They were not Alberts: they were slaves, as the men were masters. And slavery, named and accepted, has traditionally been harder on the master than the slave.

John Dodd, twenty-seven years old, master, part of the third generation, arranged his chair carefully so that it faced the door of the Commons Room, letting the light from the great window illumine the back of his head. He clasped his hands in his lap in a single, nervous gesture, never noticing that the light gave him a faint saintlike halo about his feathery hair. His companion took another chair, set it at right angles to Dodd's and gave it long and thoughtful consideration, as if the act of sitting down were something new and untried.

"It's good to be off-duty," Dodd said violently. "Good. Not to have to see them—not to have to think about them until tomorrow."

The standing man, shorter than Dodd and built heavily, actually turned and looked out at the window. "And then tomorrow what do you do?" he asked. "Give up your job? You're just letting the thing get you, Johnny."

"I'd give up my job in twenty seconds if I thought it would do any good," Dodd said. He shook his head. "I give up a job here in the Buildings, and then what do I do? Go out and starve in the jungle? Nobody's done it, nobody's ever done it."

"Well?" the squat man said. "Is that an excuse?"

Dodd sighed. "Those who work get fed," he said. "And housed. And clothed. And—God help us—entertained, by 3D tapes older than our fathers are. If a man didn't work he'd get—cast out. Cut off."

"There's more than 3D tapes," the squat man said, and grinned.

"Sure." Dodd's voice was tired. "But think about it for a minute, Albin. Do you know what we've got here?"

"We've got a nice, smooth setup," Albin said. "No worries, no fights, a job to do and a place to do it in, time to relax, time to have fun. It's okay."

There was a little silence. Dodd's voice seemed more distant. "Marxian economics," he said. "Perfect Marxian economics, on a world that would make old Karl spin in his grave like an electron."

"I guess so," Albin said. "History's not my field. But—given the setup, what else could there be? What other choice have you got?"

"I don't know." Again a silence. Dodd's hands unclasped: he made a gesture as if he were sweeping something away from his face. "There ought to be something else. Even on Earth, even before the Confederation, there were conscientious objectors."

"History again," Albin said. He walked a few steps toward the window. "Anyhow, that was for war."

"I don't know," Dodd said. His hands went back into his lap, and his eyes closed. He spoke, now, like a man in a dream. "There used to be all kinds of jobs. I guess there still are, in the Confederation. On Earth. Back home where none of us have ever been." He repeated the words like an echo: "Back home." In the silence nothing interrupted him: behind his head light poured in from the giant window. "A man could choose his own job," he went on, in the same tone. "He could be a factory-worker or a professor or a truck-driver or a musician or—a lot of jobs. A man didn't have to work at one, whether he wanted to or not."

"All right," Albin said. "Okay. So suppose you had your choice. Suppose every job in every damn history you've ever heard of was open to you. Just what would you pick? Make a choice. Go ahead, make—"

"It isn't funny, Albin," Dodd said woodenly. "It isn't a game."

"Okay, it isn't," Albin said. "So make it a game. Just for a minute. Think over all the jobs you can and make a choice. You don't like being here, do you? You don't like working with the Alberts. So where would you like to be? What would you like to do?" He came back to the chair, his eyes on Dodd, and sat suddenly down, his elbows on his knees and his chin cupped in his hands, facing Dodd like a gnome out of pre-history. "Go on," he said. "Make a choice."

"Okay," Dodd said without opening his eyes. His voice became more distant, dreamlike. "Okay," he said again. "I—there isn't one job, but maybe a kind of job. Something to do with growing things." There was a pause. "I'd like to work somewhere growing things. I'd like to work with plants. They're all right, plants. They don't make you feel anything." The voice stopped.

"Plants?" Albin hooted gigantically. "Good God, think about it! You're stuck on a planet that's over seventy per cent plant life—trees and weeds and jungles all over the land and even mats of green stuff covering the oceans and riding on the rivers—a planet that's just about nothing but plants, a king-sized hothouse for every kind of leaf and blade and flower and fruit you could ever dream up—"

"It's not the same," Dodd said.

"You," Albin said, "are out of your head. So if you're crazy for plants, so grow them in your spare time. If you've got a window in your room you can put up a window-box. If not, something else. Me, I think it's damn silly: with the plants all around here, what's the sense of growing more? But if you like it, God knows Fruyling's World is ready to provide it for you."

"As a hobby," Dodd said flatly.

"Well, then, a hobby," Albin said. "If you're interested in it."

"Interested." The word was like an echo. A silence fell. Albin's eyes studied Dodd, the thin face and the play of light on the hair. After a while he shrugged.

"So it isn't plants," he said. "It isn't any more than the Alberts and working with them. You want to do anything to get away from them—anything that won't remind you you have to go back."

"Sure," Dodd said. "Sure I do. So do all of us."

"Not me," Albin said instantly. "Not me, brother. I get my food and my clothing and my shelter, just like good old Marx, I guess, says I should. I'm a trainer for the Alberts, supportive work in the refining process, and some day I'll be a master trainer and get a little more pay, a little more status, you know?" He grinned and sat straight. "What the hell," he said "It's a job. It pays my way. And there's enough leisure time for fun—and when I say fun I don't mean 3D tapes, Dodd. I really don't."

"But you—"

"Look," Albin said. "That's what's wrong with you, kid. You talk as if we all had nothing to do but work and watch tapes. What you need is a little education—a little real education—and I'm the one to give it to you."

Dodd opened his eyes. They looked very large and flat, like the eyes of a jungle animal. "I don't need education," he said. "And I don't need hobbies. I need to get off this planet, that's all. I need to stop working with the Alberts. I need to stop being a master and start being a man again."

Albin sighed. "Slavery," he said. "You think of slavery and it all rises up in front of you—Greece, India, China, Rome, England, the United States—all the past before the Confederation, all the different slaves." He grinned again. "You think it's terrible, don't you?"

"It is terrible," Dodd said. "It's—they're people, just like us. They have a right to their own lives."

"Sure they do," Albin said. "They have the right to—oh, to starve and die in that forest out there, for instance. And work out a lot of primitive rituals, and go through all the Stone Age motions for thousands of years until they develop civilization like you and me. Instead of being kept nice and warm and comfortable and taken care of, and taught things, by the evil old bastards like—well, like you and me again. Right?"

"They have rights," Dodd said stubbornly. "They have rights of their own."

"Sure they do," Albin agreed with great cheerfulness. "How'd you like it if they got some of them? Dodd, maybe you'd like to see them starve? Because it's going to be a long, long time before they develop anything like a solid civilization, kiddo. And in the meantime a lot of them are going to die of things we can prevent. Right? And how'd you like that, Dodd? How would you like that?"

Dodd hesitated. "We ought to help them," he muttered.

"Well," Albin said cheerfully, "that's what we are doing. Keeping them alive, for instance. And teaching them."

"Teaching," Dodd said. Again his voice had the faintly mocking sound of an echo. "And what are we teaching them? Push this button for us. Watch this process for us. If anything changes push this button. Dig here. Carry there." He paused. "Wonderful—for us. But what good does it do them?"

"We've got to live, too," Albin said.

Dodd stared. "At their expense?"

"It's a living," Albin said casually, shrugging. Then: "But I'm serious. One good dose of real enjoyment will cure you, friend. One good dose of fun—by which, kiddo, I mean plain ordinary old sex, such as can be had any free evening around here—and you'll stop being depressed and worried. Uncle Albin Cendar's Priceless Old Recipe, kiddo, and don't argue with me: it works."

Dodd said nothing at all. After a few seconds his eyes slowly closed and he sat like a statue in the room.

Albin, watching him, whistled inaudibly under his breath. A minute went by silently. The light in the room began to diminish.

"Sun's going down," Albin offered.

There was no response. Albin got up again and went to the window.

"Maybe you're right," he said with his back to Dodd's still figure. "There ought to be some way of getting people off-planet, people who just don't want to stay here."

"Do you know why there isn't?" Dodd's voice was a shock, stronger than before.

"Sure I know," Albin said. "There's—"

"Slavery," Dodd said. "Oh, sure, maybe somebody knows about it, but it's got to be kept quiet. And if anybody got back—well, look."

"Don't bother me with it." Albin's voice was suddenly less sure.

"Look," Dodd said. "The Confederation needs the metal. It exists pure here, and in quantity. But if they knew, really knew, how we mined and smelted and purified it and got it ready for shipment...."

"So suppose somebody goes back," Albin said. "Suppose somebody talks. What difference does it make? It's just rumor, nothing official. No, the reason nobody goes back is cargo space, pure and simple. We need every inch of cargo space for the shipments."

"If somebody goes back," Dodd said, "the people will know. Not the government, not the businesses, the people. And the people don't like slavery, Albin. No matter how necessary a government finds it. No matter what kind of a jerry-built defense you can put up for it."

"Don't be silly," Albin said. There was less conviction in his voice; he looked out at the sunset as if he were trying to reassure himself.

"Nobody's allowed to leave," Dodd said, more quietly. "We're—they're taking every precaution they can. But some day—maybe some day, Albin—the people are going to find out in spite of every precaution." He sat straighter. "And then it'll all be over. Then they'll be wiped out, Albin. Wiped out."

"They need us," Albin said uncertainly. "They can't do without us."

Dodd swung round to face him. The sunset was a deepening blaze in the Commons Room. "Wait and find out," he said in a voice that suddenly rang on the metal walls. "Wait and find out."

After a long time Albin said. "Damn it, what you need is education. A cure. Fun. What I've been saying." He paused and took a breath. "How about it, Dodd?"

Dodd didn't move. Another second passed. "All right, Albin," he said slowly, at last. "I'll think about it. I'll think about it."

3

The sleeping room for the Small Ones was, by comparison with the great Commons Room only the masters inhabited, a tiny place. It had only the smallest of windows, so placed as to allow daylight without any sight of the outside; the windows were plastic-sheeted slits high up on the metal walls, no more. The room was, at best, dim, during the day, but that hardly mattered: during the day the room was empty. Only