The Outposter

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "Because they're supposed to keep the rats away from the garbage, just by being there— and being there is all they do," Mark said. An understeward put down a cup of coffee by his plate, and he stopped eating to drink. Putting the cup back down he looked directly at Ulla.

  "Rats?" she asked.

  "It's as good a name as any," he said, "for the Meda V'dan." He went back to eating his breakfast.

  "But the aliens don't do anything but trade nowadays," she said. "They don't dare with the Navy there. Oh, I understand they're dif­ferent from us and one of them goes renegade once in a long while—"

  "No," he said.

  "No?" She stared at him until he stopped eating once more to look at her.

  "The Meda V'Dan only trade when they have to," Mark said. "Otherwise they raid the Outposts for supplies. When the supplies don't get replaced in time, people die."

  He was looking directly at her. She stared back at him with a fixed gaze.

  "Die?" she echoed. "The... poor colonists."

  "No," he said. "It's the poor outposters. They're the ones who get killed when their stations are raided. If their colonists have training, guts, and energy, they can scratch out a living until fresh supplies come."

  She shook her head slowly, watching him.

  "It isn't what you say," she commented slowly. "It's the tone of your voice when you say it. I never heard anyone sound so bitter. Besides, everybody knows the Navy protects the stations."

  "The Navy—" he began, but the sound of voices from the entrance to the dining lounge interrupted. They both turned to look.

  Entering the dining room and coming toward the head of the long table were a small, spare, sharp-eyed, middle-aged man in civilian clothes, a tall heavy man of roughly the same age in captain's uniform, a tall younger man also in civilian clothes, and another individual. This fourth one wore soft, loose clothing—a multicoloured, striped shirt-like upper garment with billowing sleeves and loose checkered pants. The shirt sleeves were cuffed tight to the narrow wrists of long greyish-white hands; a broad belt held two knives and a side arm with a twisted, jewelled butt; the pants were stuffed into red boots that would have been calf high on a man. Above all this colour the unnaturally nar­row face of the Meda V'Dan was strangely drab and placid with its grey-white skin. Only two patches of black hair on the lower cheeks caught the eye, in contrast to the long, narrow, shaven skull. Bringing up the rear were two of the ship's crewmen in dress guard uniforms, wearing side arms and carry­ing plasma rifles.

  "There you are, Ulla!" called the sharp-eyed spare little man, who was leading the group. "No, no, don't get up, you and your friend. We'll all be sitting in a moment."

  The group reached the long table and sorted itself out. The captain took the head of the table with the small man at his right, in the chair on the other side of Ulla. The Meda V'Dan was ushered to the chair on the cap­tain's left, opposite the small man, with the younger man in civilian clothes at the left of the alien.

  "Daddy," said Ulla to the small man, "this is Outposter Mark Ten Roos—"

  But Mark was already getting to his feet, knife and fork still in his hand.

  "I'm sorry," he said to the table, looking around at all of them, but bringing his eyes at last to bear on the Meda V'Dan, who looked back—not directly, but at a point just past Mark's right shoulder—"the Abruzzi Four­teen Station is always open to the Meda V'Dan for trade. But I trade with them, I don't eat with them."

  He laid his fork and knife back down on the plate, the two utensils crossed, the edge of the knife toward the alien.

  With an explosive sound from his throat, the Meda V'Dan was suddenly on his feet, the civilian beside him also rising hastily.

  "What's this? What is this?" snapped the small man, looking from Mark to the alien.

  "Admiral," said the younger man beside the Meda V'Dan, "he's been insulted."

  "Insulted? What do you mean insulted?" Admiral-General Showell stared at Mark, who did not answer, then switched his gaze back to the younger man across the table. "Insulted how?"

  "I don't know, sir." The younger man's face was pale.

  "You're the interpreter! Ask him!"

  The interpreter turned to the Meda V'Dan and spoke for a few moments in a heavy, coughing series of sounds. The Meda V'Dan, still facing Mark and staring past Mark's shoulder, answered in a rapid rolling of similar sounds.

  "The Lord and Great Captain"—the inter­preter interrupted himself with a series of throaty, explosive sounds that came out sounding something like Hov'rah Min Hlan— "whose name means Sleepless Under Oath in our primitive tongue, has been offended by an intimation that he is..." the interpreter hesitated momentarily, glancing at Ulla, "a gelded male who hides behind females."

  The interpreter pointed to the crossed knife and fork.

  "You see, Admiral," he said, "the knife is under the fork—"

  "Guards!" It was the captain at the head of the table, on his feet also now, his heavy-fleshed face flushed. "Put that outposter under arrest!"

  Mark took one step back from the table so that he had the guards and the Meda V'Dan all in view at once. His right hand lifted a little so that it was above the butt of his side arm. The two guards hesitated. They were men hardly older than Mark, who had plainly never fired a weapon in anger nor had they expected to do so.

  "What're you waiting for?" snapped the captain. "I said arrest him! If he gives you any trouble—"

  "All right! Hold it. Hold it!" broke in the hoarse, tenor voice of Whin, and a second later his tall, wide-shouldered figure stepped in between Mark and the two armed guards— much to the guards' plain relief.

  "If he gives you any trouble," Whin said to the captain, "I'll deal with him myself. But your tin sheep aren't shooting any outposters, now or ever. And you aren't putting any under arrest, either, for the sake of a skunk of a Meda V'Dan."

  Chapter Three

  For a short, breathless second, no one else spoke or moved. Then the dry sound of Admiral-General Showell's laughing broke the tension.

  "Well, Captain?" Showell said. "Are you going to arrest them both, then? Or all three of them?"

  "Sir!" said the captain, his face flooded with colour, almost glaring down at his superior officer.

  "Give it up, Juan. Give it up," replied Showell. "We don't arrest outposters away from Earth, and they don't arrest Navy men. We need each other out on the Colonies. Call vour guards off."

  "Ground arms," said the captain sulkily to the two guards, who dropped the plasma rifles quickly, butt down on the carpet, upper barrels held at their trousered sides.

  "But," said the still-seated Showell, turning to look up at Whin, "I'll leave it up to you to calm down the—er—Lord and Great Captain, who is our guest."

  "He's already calmed down." Whin looked across at Sleepless Under Oath, who trans­ferred his gaze to a point just past the right shoulder of the older outposter. "Hov'rah Min Hlan, a ship of your people—"

  The interpreter hastily began to translate.

  "Shut up," said Whin. "He understands me just as well as I understand him when he speaks his own tongue, and a lot better than he follows that hash you make of trying to talk a language you haven't got the jaws or vocal cords to handle. As I was saying, Hov'rah Min Hlan, a ship of the Meda V'Dan killed this boy's parents six weeks after he was born, at Abruzzi Fifteen Station. He holds your whole people under blood guilt to him. He can do or say anything he wants to you individually, without involving any other men or Meda V'Dan."

  Without changing the off-angle of his fixed gaze, Sleepless Under Oath rattled off a throaty string of sounds.

  "Sure," said Whin. "Oh, sure, we under­stand that. They were renegades, and the Meda V'Dan will punish them if found."

  He turned to Mark.

  "What do you say about that, Ten Roos?" the big outposter demanded. "Or didn't you understand him?"

  "I understood him perfectly," said Mark. "And my answer is that the day the renegades are punished bef
ore me, I'll absolve the rest of the Meda V'Dan of blood guilt. Until then, any one of them I meet may be one of those who destroyed the Abruzzi Fifteen Station."

  Sleepless Under Oath said a few short syl­lables and sat down, transferring his gaze to the table before him.

  "All right. I don't see him either—for the rest of this trip," said Mark.

  He turned and walked out of the dining lounge. A few steps away down the corridor outside, he heard the voice of Whin behind him.

  "Hold it."

  Mark stopped and turned to face the larger, older man.

  "Just a minute, Ten Roos," said Whin. "I told them in there that none of them was going to shoot an outposter, but it could be I might. What makes you think you can play games with Meda V'Dan on a Navy ship just to make yourself feel good without counting the consequences ?"

  "I counted the consequences," said Mark.

  "You mean you counted on Al and me to get you out of any trouble you got yourself in?" The lines on Whin's tanned brow deepened into hard ridges.

  "I expected you to help," said Mark. "But I was ready to get myself out if I had to."

  "Get yourself out!" Whin stared at him. "You think you can take on a whole ship, even of Navy men, with one side arm?"

  "Not exactly—"

  "No, not exactly!" snorted Whin. "Anyway, that's not what matters. The point you've got to learn is that the principle of every out­poster backing up every other outposter wasn't invented just so you could stick pins in any Meda V'Dan you meet and get away without being hurt. It's a law we came up with, and proved with the blood of some good men, so that we could at least live with a Navy that has no more guts and principle out among the stars than a fat rabbit. And you're going to learn what the law means. I'm restricting you to your cabin for the rest of the trip, and when you get to Brot Halliday, you'll bring him a message from me telling him to finish your education about matters like this."

  "No," said Mark quietly. "I'm not accepting any restriction, and I'll carry no message."

  Whin took a half step back from him, so they were now far enough apart to have a full vision of each other from boot caps to skull top. The big man's right hand lifted above his holster, which once more held the gun that had lain beside his plate on the table.

  "Boy," said Whin gently, "maybe being a Trophy winner back at the Earth-City's gone to your head. Maybe you think reflexes and marksmanship are all there is to it. You want to fight me?"

  "Not unless I have to," said Mark. "But I can't stay shut up in my stateroom this trip, or anything else. I've got duties."

  "Getting revenge for your folks," said Whin still softly, "that's something to do in your spare time, and without involving other out-posters."

  "Not just that," said Mark. "I've got a bigger job to do. How would you like the

  Colonies and Outposts with no more Meda V'Dan?"

  Whin stared at him.

  "No more ..." His voice trailed off. "You had your psychological tests before you were passed?"

  "Yes," said Mark. "I rated AA One."

  "And you're not out to get just one Lord and Great Captain with his shipload of pirates, you're after them all?" Whin shook his head. "Those tests missed for once."

  "Maybe," said Mark. "Maybe not. Worth your finding out?"

  Whin's spread hand sank slowly to his side, until his thumb touched, relaxed, against the side of his holster.

  "You're a strange one," he said, staring at Mark. After a second, he shook his head. "But you're second generation, and maybe that means something."

  "Maybe," said Mark.

  Whin took a deep breath.

  "All right," he said. "How do you plan to clean out a whole race of aliens?"

  "I'm sorry," said Mark. "If it was the kind of thing I could explain to people, I'd have talked about it before now. This is something I'm going to have to work on alone."

  Whin's eyes squeezed themselves narrow between the wrinkled lids and the wrinkled sun creases of the skin below.

  "I'm just supposed to take your word for it, then?" he said.

  "My word, and the fact I won't confine my­self on this trip under anyone's orders," said

  Mark. "It meant enough to me that I'm willing to back my freedom up right now if I have to. And, just as you said, I know there's more to a gunfight than just good reflexes and marks­manship."

  "Yes," said Whin. He stood looming over Mark, staring down at him for a long moment. Then he turned and walked away.

  "Mark?"

  It was a hesitant question from Ulla Showell behind him. Mark turned to see her standing a few feet away, just to the right of the entrance to the dining room. He waited and she came up to him, looking at him as if seeing him from some new, strange angle.

  "Forgive me," he said, "for interrupting your breakfast."

  "There's nothing to forgive," she said. She was a little pale. She glanced back at the dining room entrance and then up at him. "Let's walk a little way away from here, why don't we?"

  He nodded. Together they turned and moved off down the empty, cleanly carpeted corridor.

  "I didn't have any idea," she said, after they had gone some little way without saying any­thing, "you felt that way about the Meda V'Dan. I thought you were just someone who'd picked the outposts as a career, or to stay out of government service during your draft years."

  "No," he smiled a little. "I'm what they call in the Outposts a second-generation man. The children of outposters usually get sent to

  Earth to finish their education, but most of them don't stay there. They come back to the Outposts again."

  "Even when they know what it's like?" she asked. "Even when they've seen people in their own family killed, like you?"

  He smiled again.

  "I may have seen it," he said, "but I don't remember it. I was only six weeks old. All I know is what the outposters from Brot Haili­day's station—he's been my foster father since—told me when I got a little older."

  She shook her head, looking sideways and up at him as they walked together. Her eyes were large and dark; and, happening to meet them for a second as he glanced down at her, he found her once more strangely disturbing to his mind, as she had been after hearing Wilkes's message in his stateroom.

  "What did happen?" she asked.

  He told her.

  It had been just past 7 P.M., local time, of a summer evening in the Northwest Sector of Garnera VI, when the colonists of the distract saw the red light of the flames reflected on the grey-black belly of the low-hanging clouds in the night sky, overhead. But as they had known they were no match for a ship of the Meda V'Dan, they only took to the woods and cowered there until dawn, meanwhile sending a messenger with word of the raid to the next Outpost Station.

  So it had been nearly ten o'clock of the bright morning following—for the clouds had cleared with the sunrise—that the outposters from the next station arrived, riding their slide-rafts above the still dew-wet grass to the burned-out station, their heavy, raft-mounted plasma rifles restlessly turning and weaving and searching the sky.

  But there had been nothing there for them to find. The ship of the Meda V'Dan had de­parted with the clouds and the night. And all that had been left where Abruzzi Fifteen Out­post Station had stood were empty ware­houses and a burned Residence—charred concrete, smoking, wood ash, and rubble, and among the rubble, a baby, crying.

  "Now, why do you suppose they let him live?" said one of the station's assistants. He was a lean outposter named Price, who had had his own station once, and lost it to the Meda V'Dan. He spoke sourly.

  "Who knows?" retorted Brot Halliday, the station master, scooping up the child—at which, for the moment, the baby voice had cried even more violently. "But he was Chav and Lila's boy, and he's mine now. You'll all be witness to that?"

  The three station assistants had nodded. For all its informality, the adoption proceed­ings, with those nods, became as final as any processed before a judge back on Earth.

 
; "All right for the boy, then," said Price, scowling at the still hot and reeking wood ash, "but the Meda V'Dan have done it and gotten away again in our sector. Picking up after them now won't scare them off from the next time they decide to raid instead of trade!"

  "That's our problem, not this boy's," said Brot shortly. "As I say, who knows? Maybe he'll grow up to pay them back in his own way, sometime."

  Price had scowled again at the burned-out station. But he said no more on that subject. He had very little respect for the gift of proph­ecy in any man, but he was too well aware of the strength in Brot's squat body and the shortness of the fuse to Brot's temper to ex­press whatever doubts he may have had about the orphan's future. He had kept his silence, therefore, put the matter from his mind, and done his work during the ensuing years, until he was finally killed during a trading raid on Brot's station by the Meda V'Dan.

  As a result of that later raid, the onetime baby, Outposter-Trainee Mark Ten Roos, under tutorship back on faraway Earth, had been gifted on his eighteenth birthday by a message from Outposter HQ, Trinidad, Earth.

  The message had been short and to the point, almost brutal in its official language:

  Dear Mr. Ten Roos:

  It is with great regret that we advise you of information just received here concerning the serious injury of your adopted father during a trading session at his station with ships of the Meda V'Dan, March 32, local calendar, Garner a VI.

  Regretfully, Outposter Halliday is not ex­pected to survive; and since the question and estate remain unsettled, it is the recommendation of the Outpost sector commander over his district that you return from Earth at once.

  Transportation to Garnera VI is available by civilian spaceship, but may be arranged through this office in the case of station depen­dents if so preferred. ..

  When Mark finished talking, Ulla did not immediately say anything. They walked on together to the end of the corridor and she turned right, Mark following her silently.

  "It's all so hard to imagine," she said after a while. "Here Dad's been Outer Navy ever since I was born, and I grew up back in the Earth-City never hearing about anything like that."