Balant: A Beginning

by Sam Smith

  "Better lock them up," I said. “When you've done that, can you sort out quarters for everyone?”

  “Some will have to sleep in the holds," Dag said.

  "That might be difficult. That's how they were brought here. Get Ronan to help you. Then he'll see the problem.”

  "It'll be easier once their chains are off,” Dag said.

  "Just what I was about to do. Thought I’d do it in the canteen. Should find enough talk there to prime the voice box." (A voice box, for those of you who do not know, initially divines the meaning of words and phrases from the frequency and context of their use.)

  As we descended to the stores — I to collect a minder and a voice box for Malamud, Dag to lock the guns in the armoury and to search for more salve — we discussed what else needed to be done. Dag thought that giving everyone a shower might prove conducive to harmonious cohabitation. I told him that that, again, might prove difficult — because of their experience on the outward journey.

  "If we offered them clean new tunics as a reward?" Dag suggested. I agreed: the stores had plenty.

  In the canteen I found Malamud attempting to demonstrate how a chair and table were to be used. With little success. Most of the slaves were sitting on the floor. I gave Malamud the voice box, told him that, in this hubbub, it should pick up enough to make him comprehensible in a few minutes.

  The two slaves nearest me edged warily away from the minder. I made a mime of cutting their chains. None came forward to be freed. Dag entered the canteen with Ronan. I told Dag to tell Ronan that I wanted to cut off his chains. Ronan came without hesitation to me. I lifted his ankle by the chain, told the minder to cut. The chain fell away.

  “Stop.” I took hold of Ronan’s other ankle, “Cut.” Ronan was free. I tossed the chain into a corner.

  Ronan addressed his people. When he had finished one of the men who had come up the ramp with Malamud and I stepped forward. I threw his chain into the corner. Ronan and Dag were talking. My voice box was beginning now to pick out several words and translate them, but not enough yet to be trusted to translate my speech.

  "We've arranged it," Dag tapped me on the shoulder as I was bent over another chain, "that, once they've eaten their fill, you will cut off their chains, then Ronan and I will put them in their rooms. We'll try to keep a family to a room."

  "What about showers?" I said.

  "We'll leave that until tomorrow."

  Another ankle was placed before me. I cut it free, passed onto the next ankle and tossed the chain into a corner. Another ankle was lifted to my hands. A pile of chains grew in the corner. Behind me I could hear every so often Malamud's exasperated,

  "Sit on the chair!"

  I cut another chain, then another.

  "Why won't this contraption tell them to sit on the chair?" Malamud bemoaned to me, "I tell them to sit on the chair, they smile and they nod, and then they sit on the floor."

  "They've probably got no word for chair," I told him; and I cut another chain.

  A few chains later I felt a tentative tap on my back. I glanced up. The musician smiled nervously down on me. I had looked for him earlier; and, not having seen him, had assumed him to be one of the dead. I was, therefore, doubly pleased to see him. I switched on my voice box.

  "My friend," I said. "I am glad you are alive." He was surprised to hear me speak his language.

  “I knew you were a prisoner too," he looked furtively about him. “Some said that I did not speak the truth.”

  “We are all free now," I told him; and cut off his chains. He went to walk on as the others had before him.

  “No,” I called after him. "Wait here for me. I have a present for you." He frowned. I wondered if the voice box had translated correctly.

  "A gift," I said. "Wait." He nodded, and squatted on his haunches behind me. I turned to the next ankle.

  Meanwhile Malamud had been hectoring and good-naturedly haranguing the slaves. At his triumphant shout I looked up from my work. All were sitting on their chairs.

  “These people have great potential Pi," he called to me and, with a flourish, he continued doling out food.

  As there were no more queuing to have their chains removed I took the minder and cut the chains of the remainder as they sat at table. The musician took the discarded chains from me and we were soon finished.

  The musician tagging along with me, I then collected a valet who, much to the amazement of the Balantians, gathered up all the chains in his arms. Telling Malamud to get a domestic and clean up when everyone had finished, and to lock the stores behind him, I deposited the redundant chains in the stores and took the musician to the command room.

  "Sit there," I pointed to the seat.

  Realising that he wasn't yet used to chairs, I demonstrated its use, rose and told him to do as I had done. When he was sat on the seat I called up some of Boss's music.

  As the sound of the massed violins welled up into the room the musician's first reaction was stupefaction, then puzzlement as to where the players could be. Then, abandoning all such practical considerations, he began to listen. Then, with a smile to me, he began to enjoy it. I shared in his pleasure, for — as I listened as if with his ears — the music lost its taint of Boss's pomposity and I heard it as if for the first time myself.

  When the music finished he sat there a moment, stunned by the final crescendo. Then he turned to me and gabbled. My voice box translated thus,

  “Good. Good. Good. Good. Good.” It was obviously, as yet, unprepared for such Balantian superlatives.

  “More?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he sat himself assuredly on the chair. I called up a violin duo. On hearing the opening bars he beamed at me.

  We were on our third piece of music when Ronan and Yolande came into the command room. They paused a moment to listen to the music. Yolande's chain had been removed. I had not noticed her in the queue.

  "Can you talk to me now?” Ronan asked me.

  “Yes,” I said, and turned off the music.

  The musician, seeing Ronan, started to rise as if to leave. I gestured him back to his seat, asked Ronan what he wished to know.

  First he wanted to know why the stars were so different. I called up charts to explain to him that we were in another part of his galaxy. Then he wanted to know how the ship worked. I gave him a simplified explanation, but which begged many questions. He put them aside to ask where my home was. I pointed over his shoulder to one of civilisation’s fuzzy nebulae. Then he wanted to hear how I had come to be on the ship.

  I told him that I would tell him in my room, but that first I wanted to give my friend some more music. Ronan scowled at that, that I should give precedence to a lowly musician, but he made no objection.

  Beckoning the musician I showed him the buttons that selected the music from the library. I tapped two buttons at random, then the execute button. The music began. I tapped the cancel button to stop it. Then I pressed two more buttons, and again the execute button; then cancelled it.

  I told the musician to try it. Tentatively, glancing to me, he did as I had done; laughed exultantly around at all of us when the music began.

  "When it finishes," I told him, "do the same again for more music. Do not touch anything else."

  I took Ronan and Yolande to my room, where I gave them each a glass of wine and began my story. I told them that I had not realised that they too were aboard the ship until we had landed on Onam. Ronan nodded.

  Dag and Malamud joined us. I related briefly what had happened on Carthi. On learning that all the crew had been killed Yolande said,

  "That was well done.”

  To explain her vindictiveness Ronan told us that all but the old women had been violated by the crew. And two young boys. One of the boys was not from his village. Dag questioned him on that. It transpired that only half the people were from Ronan's settlement.

  "Their leader was killed when they were taken captive," he said. “So now I speak for all."

 
; Above I could hear that the musician had moved onto music new. Ronan wanted to know what had happened after Carthi. I refilled our glasses, told him of my flight to Balant, of collecting Dag and Malamud,

  "And the rest you know.”

  He nodded. Yolande pointed to the bank of monitors,

  "What are those?"

  I explained that they were for seeing into every part of the ship, and I switched them on. As I flicked through from room to room Ronan and Yolande delightedly pointed out people they recognised. I noticed that some of the corridors were blocked with sleeping bodies.

  "That could be dangerous," I said to Dag. "If I should need a minder in a hurry."

  "We've left a hold door open," Dag said. "We're hoping that, when they've been trodden on enough, they'll move there."

  "Bad memories," Ronan said.

  "What's that?" Yolande shrieked.

  I had been flicking through the monitors as we had talked. I retraced. A man and woman were coupling in one room. Ronan and Yolande burst out laughing. Even Dag and Malamud smiled. I stood embarrassedly by while Ronan peered closely at the monitor. He named the man and the woman. Yolande gleefully rocked back and forth. I asked my usual unrewarding question at such moments,

  'Why is that funny?"

  "It's not his wife," Ronan said. "His wife is ugly."

  “And she..." Yolande could scarcely speak, waved feebly at the monitor, "she is even uglier." Although I found it disquieting that they should be amused by someone’s appearance, I feel that I should add that the woman was remarkably unappealing; therefore the man's choosing her did own a certain humour.

  Yolande, however, abruptly stopped her laughter and looked with alarm around the room. I knew that the realisation had come to her that it was from here that Boss may have watched her being abused. Ronan too became quiet. I switched off the monitors, laid my hand on Ronan's shoulder.

  “There was nothing I could do to stop it," I told him.

  "I was here too," he said. "I too could do nothing. A shame you and I will have to carry with us."

  Crime corrupts even its victims, even the helpless bystander; that one crime ineluctably corrupting all whom it touches. I looked up from my commiseration with Ronan to find Dag regarding me with a kindly compassion, understanding — if not forgiving me — my apparently insouciant killing on Onam. Soon after that they all left to go to their rooms. As I laid on my bed I heard the music from above and sank with a smile into sleep. We awoke to a new problem.

  None of the Balantians knew how to use a lavatory. The rooms, the corridors, even the canteen had been soiled. I shepherded up the domestics and put them to work, then consulted Ronan. The upshot of it was that Dag, Malamud and I selected three men each and demonstrated to them how to use a lavatory. Having understood its use, they were then to inform their womenfolk, who were to pass the instructions on to their children.

  That accomplished we gathered together some of the men and women and attempted to explain to them the working of a shower. They nodded to all that Dag said, said that they would be pleased to have clean new clothes, but not one would be the first to step into the shower. Again and again Dag tried to persuade them. All nodded until Dag opened the shower door, and then they shook their heads. Malamud came to the rescue with his customary clowning.

  "Ladies and gentlemen,” he thrust Dag aside. “This is how we get ourselves clean. First we remove all our clothes." And, so saying, he pulled his tunic over his head and tossed it aside. His nakedness was greeted with general hilarity.

  "Then,” he continued his lecture unabashed, though not understood by any of the Balantians, because he had removed his voice box, “we step out of our slippers and into the shower." As Malamud lathered himself he broke into loud song. He was unanimously cheered. And his example was followed. To the letter. For, from then on, for the rest of that journey, everyone who took a shower sang. Many strange noises issued from the washrooms.

  And from that morning on, in those few remaining days of our journey, I endeavoured to induce Ronan to bring his people into Space. I promised him that on my return to civilisation I would appeal to the authorities to send an Emissary to Balant.

  Ronan, however, after the treatment he had received at the hands of Spacemen, was understandably sceptical of any benefits that Space had to offer. Undeterred, knowing that once in Space he and his people would be protected from predatory criminals, I persevered with my attempts to persuade him.

  Long into the nights Dag and I laboured to convince him that in Space, within civilisation, lay his safety. A self-sufficient supply station near Balant would be subject to regular police patrols, would probably become a staging post for freighters and ore carriers; and its being the first in the galaxy would almost guarantee its peoples' prosperity. To that end I showed Ronan and Yolande films of space stations, of cities, of what could be their own future.

  And not only did I attempt to persuade the head of the people, but the body also. Impressed as they already were with machines which undertook the drudgery and with food which apparently prepared itself, I wanted the Balantians to see beyond the results, to the simple — if numerous — processes which caused civilisation to be, that it was all but a matter of learning.

  Because of our familiarity with the artefacts of Space, the Balantians had at first believed us to be the possessors of supernatural powers — in that by speech alone we could move inanimate objects. To bring the Balantians to the understanding that such powers were but mere mechanics Malamud, again, proved most useful — he taught some of the younger men and women to play the gaming machines.

  Those machines, existing solely for amusement, the younger men and women were not frightened of them, and they soon mastered the controls and the rules of the games. So when, at my invitation, they came to the command room, being already used to making machines do their bidding, they were not overly daunted by the complexity of the consoles and I was able to teach them simple computations. Consequently, by the time we reached Balant, several had come of the understanding that all of Space’s machines, no matter how seemingly complicated, had been built by people like them for people like them.

  The musician slept between symphonies in the command room chair. Having been earlier introduced to the console, he also, despite his age, proved an adept pupil. So much so that I must confess to a little mischief here.

  Knowing how undeservedly low was the esteem in which musicians were held on Balant, I inferred, because many of the older Balantians still regarded me as chief magician, that all musicians had, if not supernatural powers, then an unnatural affinity with the instruments of space.

  When on the fifth day we reached Balant, I called all the people in turn to the command room to show them their small planet below — to impress them with its smallness. A mere planet. And while we thus orbited Balant, I scanned the continent for mineral deposits. There did not exist sufficient quantities for the people of Balant to attain space technology by any of the conventional routes. The seabeds contained more metals than they would need, but the seas the Nautili inhabited.

  I told Ronan of my findings, that if I did not send an Emissary to him then he and his children, and his children’s children, and all the people of Balant would be doomed to remain there.

  “Tell this Emissary to come," Ronan said. "But tell him also to approach with caution. My people will not be caught unawares a second time."

  I said that I understood, and that I would warn him.

  "We will listen to what he has to say," Ronan promised. "Now, please take us home.”

  Ronan and Yolande, at my invitation, remained in the command room.

  We descended through the atmosphere, passed over the desert; and, as we hovered along the mountains, Ronan pointed out his new settlement. I set the ship down in the clearing before it.

  "Your home," I said.

  From within the gleaming command room the settlement looked a pathetic collection of shabby buildings. I lowered the ramp. As Rona
n and Yolande prepared to leave the command room, I asked Ronan, by way of further reminding him of what he had come home to, if he would like us to delouse the settlement first. Ronan said that he would to grateful.

  So Dag, Malamud and I donned spacesuits and, armed each with a spray and a tank of insecticide, we proceeded from dwelling to dwelling. Ronan and his people waited by the ship until we had finished. Then, quietly, they dispersed to their houses, those from the other village being directed to the houses of those who had died. Dag, Malamud and I stayed aboard the ship and discussed what had to be done before we left.

  Dag and Malamud delved into Boss's encyclopaedias of antique designs for something which would make the life of Ronan's people easier. After much argument, both Dag and Malamud being inordinately ambitious, they finally agreed to build a seemingly modest water wheel and a water tower.

  The obvious immediate use of those two artefacts would be that the women would no longer have to carry water, and all could have showers. But we were also going to leave the people plans for making a dynamo and all the information relevant to electricity. For that they would need metal. So we would also leave them designs for a smelter; and, so that they could read those designs, we would also print out the phonetic vocabularies of the voice boxes. After that it would be up to them.

  My self-assigned task was to rig up a minder as an energy source and to attach to it four of the gaming machines. Leaving just one as a machine for their entertainment, I converted two of the others into a simple computer, stored it with as much data as I thought necessary. The fourth gaming machine I made into a gift for my friend the musician, fitted it with amplifiers and stored copies from Boss's music library there.

  All those machines, I hoped, would serve to keep them familiar with the things of space until the arrival of the Emissary.

  You may question the probity of our interfering with the natural evolution of a planet. I would, however, hasten to point out that the people of Balant had already, with far less altruistic intent, suffered interference from our civilisation. And that is not taking into account the Nautili. We three's interference was at least benign. Nor was it simply naive well-intentioned folly. We three knew that, when we told the authorities what we had done on Balant, they would have no option but to send an Emissary, if only to investigate.