“The Sky Fire passes across the sky, from east to west, as the Always-Same does, but it is farther away than the Always-Same, because sometimes the Always Same passes in front of it, but the Sky Fire never passes in front of the Always-Same. None of the grandfather-stories, not even the oldest, tell of a time when this happened.
“Sometimes the Sky Fire is big and bright; that is when the Gone Ones feast and dance. Sometimes it is smaller and dimmer; then the Gone Ones rest and sleep. Sometimes it is close, and there is a Hot Time; sometimes it goes far away, and then there is a Cool Time.
“Now, the Last Hot Time has come. The Sky Fire will come closer and closer, and it will pass the Always-Same, and then it will burn up the World. Then will be a new World, and the Gone Ones will return, and the People will be given new bodies. When this happens, the Sky Fire will go out, and the Gone Ones will live in the World again with the People; the Gone Ones will make great magic and teach wisdom as I teach to you, and will no longer have to send dreams. In that time the crops will grow without planting or tending or the work of women; in that time, the game will come into the villages to be killed in the gathering-places. There will be no more hunger and no more hard work, and no more of the People will die or be slain. And that time is now here,” he finished. “All the People know this.”
“Tell me, Grandfather; how is this known? There have been many Hot Times before. Why should this one be the Last Hot Time?”
“The Terrans have come, and brought oomphel into the World,” the old shoonoo said. “It is a sign.”
“It was not prophesied beforetime. None of the People had prophesies of the coming of the Terrans. I ask you, who were the father of children and the grandfather of children’s children when the Terrans came; was there any such prophesy?”
* * * *
The old shoonoo was silent, turning his pornographic ikon in his hands and looked at it.
“No,” he admitted, at length. “Before the Terrans came, there were no prophesies among the People of their coming. Afterward, of course, there were many such prophesies, but there were none before.”
“That is strange. When a happening is a sign of something to come, it is prophesied beforetime.” He left that seed of doubt alone to grow, and continued: “Now, Grandfather, speak to us about what the People believe concerning the Terrans.”
“The Terrans came to the World when my eldest daughter bore her first child,” the old shoonoo said. “They came in great round ships, such as come often now, but which had never before been seen. They said that they came from another world like the World of People, but so far away that even the Sky Fire could not be seen from it. They still say this, and many of the People believe it, but it is not real.
“At first, it was thought that the Terrans were great shoonoon who made powerful magic, but this is not real either. The Terrans have no magic and no wisdom of their own. All they have is the oomphel, and the oomphel works magic for them and teaches them their wisdom. Even in the schools which the Terrans have made for the People, it is the oomphel which teaches.” He went on to describe, not too incorrectly, the reading-screens and viewscreens and audio-visual equipment. “Nor do the Terrans make the oomphel, as they say. The oomphel makes more oomphel for them.”
“Then where did the Terrans get the first oomphel?”
“They stole it from the Gone Ones,” the old shoonoo replied. “The Gone Ones make it in their place in the middle of the Sky Fire, for themselves and to give to the People when they return. The Terrans stole it from them. For this reason, there is much hatred of the Terrans among the People. The Terrans live in the Dark Place, under the World, where the Sky Fire and the Always-Same go when they are not in the sky. It is there that the Terrans get the oomphel from the Gone Ones, and now they have come to the World, and they are using oomphel to hold back the Sky-Fire and keep it beyond the Always-Same so that the Last Hot Time will not come and the Gone Ones will not return. For this reason, too, there is much hatred of the Terrans among the People.”
“Grandfather, if this were real there would be good reason for such hatred, and I would be ashamed for what my people had done and were doing. But it is not real.” He had to rise and hold up his hands to quell the indignant outcry “Have any of you known me to tell not-real things and try to make the People act as though they were real? Then trust me in this. I will show you real things, which you will all see, and I will give you great secrets, which it is now time for you to have and use for the good of the People. Even the greatest secret,” he added.
There was a pause of a few seconds. Then they burst out, in a hundred and eighty-four—no, three hundred and sixty eight—voices:
“The Oomphel Secret, Mailsh Heelbare?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes. The Oomphel Secret will be given.”
He leaned back and relaxed again while they were getting over the excitement. Foxx Travis looked at him apprehensively.
“Rushing things, aren’t you? What are you going to tell them?”
“Oh, a big pack of lies, I suppose,” Edith Shaw said scornfully.
Behind her and Travis, the native noncom interpreter was muttering something in his own language that translated roughly as: “This better be good!”
The shoonoon had quieted, now, and were waiting breathlessly.
“But if the Oomphel Secret is given, what will become of the shoonoon?” he asked. “You, yourselves, say that we Terrans have no need for magic, because the oomphel works magic for us. This is real. If the People get the Oomphel Secret, how much need will they have for you shoonoon?”
Evidently that hadn’t occurred to them before. There was a brief flurry of whispered—whooshed, rather—conversation, and then they were silent again. The eldest shoonoo said:
“We trust you, Mailsh Heelbare. You will do what is best for the People, and you will not let us be thrown out like broken pots, either.”
“No, I will not,” he promised. “The Oomphel Secret will be given to you shoonoon.” He thought for a moment of Foxx Travis’ joking remark about the Kwannon Thaumaturgical Society. “You have been jealous of one another, each keeping his own secrets,” he said. “This must be put away. You will all receive the Oomphel Secret equally, for the good of all the People. You must all swear brotherhood, one with another, and later if any other shoonoo comes to you for the secret, you must swear brotherhood with him and teach it to him. Do you agree to this?”
* * * *
The eldest shoonoo rose to his feet, begged leave, and then led the others to the rear of the room, where they went into a huddle. They didn’t stay huddled long; inside of ten minutes they came back and took their seats.
“We are agreed, Mailsh Heelbare,” the spokesman said.
Edith Shaw was impressed, more than by anything else she had seen. “Well, that was a quick decision!” she whispered.
“You have done well, Grandfathers. You will not be thrown out by the People like broken pots; you will be greater among them than ever. I will show you how this will be.
“But first, I must speak around the Oomphel Secret.” He groped briefly for a comprehensible analogy, and thought of a native vegetable, layered like an onion, with a hard kernel in the middle. “The Oomphel Secret is like a fooshkoot. There are many lesser secrets around it, each of which must be peeled off like the skins of a fooshkoot and eaten. Then you will find the nut in the middle.”
“But the nut of the fooshkoot is bitter,” somebody said.
He nodded, slowly and solemnly. “The nut of the fooshkoot is bitter,” he agreed.
They looked at one another, disquieted by his words. Before anybody could comment, he was continuing:
“Before this secret is given, there are things to be learned. You would not understand it if I gave it to you now. You believe many not-real things which must be chased out of your minds, otherwise they would spoil your understanding.”
That was verbatim what they told adolescents before giving them the Manhood Secret. Som
e of them huffed a little; most of them laughed. Then one called out: “Speak on, Grandfather of Grandfathers,” and they all laughed. That was fine, it had been about time for teacher to crack his little joke. Now he became serious again.
“The first of these not-real things you must chase from your mind is this which you believe about the home of the Terrans. It is not real that they come from the Dark Place under the World. There is no Dark Place under the World.”
Bedlam for a few seconds; that was a pretty stiff jolt. No Dark Place; who ever heard of such a thing? The eldest shoonoo rose, cradling his graven image in his arms, and the noise quieted.
“Mailsh Heelbare, if there is no Dark Place where do the Sky Fire and the Always-Same go when they are not in the sky?”
“They never leave the sky; the World is round, and there is sky everywhere around it.”
They knew that, or had at least heard it, since the Terrans had come. They just couldn’t believe it. It was against common sense. The oldest shoonoo said as much, and more:
“These young ones who have gone to the Terran schools have come to the villages with such tales, but who listens to them? They show disrespect for the chiefs and the elders, and even for the shoonoon. They mock at the Grandfather-stories. They say men should do women’s work and women do no work at all. They break taboos, and cause trouble. They are fools.”
“Am I a fool, Grandfather? Do I mock at the old stories, or show disrespect to elders and shoonoon? Yet I, Mailsh Heelbare, tell you this. The World is indeed round, and I will show you.”
The shoonoo looked contemptuously at the globe. “I have seen those things,” he said. “That is not the World; that is only a make-like.” He held up his phallic wood-carving. “I could say that this is a make-like of the World, but that would not make it so.”
“I will show you for real. We will all go in a ship.” He looked at his watch. “The Sky Fire is about to set. We will follow it all around the world to the west, and come back here from the east, and the Sky Fire will still be setting when we return. If I show you that, will you believe me?”
“If you show us for real, and it is not a trick, we will have to believe you.”
* * * *
When they emerged from the escalators, Alpha was just touching the western horizon, and Beta was a little past zenith. The ship was moored on contragravity beside the landing stage, her gangplank run out. The shoonoon, who had gone up ahead, had all stopped short and were staring at her; then they began gabbling among themselves, overcome by the wonder of being about to board such a monster and ride on her. She was the biggest ship any of them had ever seen. Maybe a few of them had been on small freighters; many of them had never been off the ground. They didn’t look or act like cynical charlatans or implacable enemies of progress and enlightenment. They were more like a lot of schoolboys whose teacher is taking them on a surprise outing.
“Bet this’ll be the biggest day in their lives,” Travis said.
“Oh, sure. This’ll be a grandfather-story ten generations from now.”
“I can’t get over the way they made up their minds, down there,” Edith Shaw was saying. “Why, they just went and talked for a few minutes and came back with a decision.”
They hadn’t any organization, or any place to maintain on an organizational pecking-order. Nobody was obliged to attack anybody else’s proposition in order to keep up his own status. He thought of the Colonial Government taking ten years not to build those storm-shelters.
Foxx Travis was commenting on the ship, now:
“I never saw that ship before; didn’t know there was anything like that on the planet. Why, you could lift a whole regiment, with supplies and equipment—”
“She’s been laid up for the last five years, since the heat and the native troubles stopped the tourist business here. She’s the old Hesperus. Excursion craft. This sun-chasing trip we’re going to make used to be a must for tourists here.”
“I thought she was something like that, with all the glassed observation deck forward. Who’s the owner?”
“Kwannon Air Transport, Ltd. I told them what I needed her for, and they made her available and furnished officers and crew and provisions for the trip. They were working to put her in commission while we were fitting up the fourth and fifth floors, downstairs.”
“You just asked for that ship, and they just let you have it?” Edith Shaw was incredulous and shocked. They wouldn’t have done that for the Government.
“They want to see these native troubles stopped, too. Bad for business. You know; selfish profit-move. That’s another social force it’s a good idea to work with instead of against.”
The shoonoon were getting aboard, now, shepherded by the K.N.I. officer and a couple of his men and some of the ship’s crew. A couple of sepoys were lugging the big globe that had been brought up from below after them. Everybody assembled on the forward top observation deck, and Miles called for attention and, finally, got it. He pointed out the three viewscreens mounted below the bridge, amidships. One on the left, was tuned to a pickup on the top of the Air Terminal tower, where the Terran city, the military reservation and the spaceport met. It showed the view to the west, with Alpha on the horizon. The one on the right, from the same point, gave a view in the opposite direction, to the east. The middle screen presented a magnified view of the navigational globe on the bridge.
Viewscreens were no novelty to the shoonoon. They were a very familiar type of oomphel. He didn’t even need to do more than tell them that the little spot of light on the globe would show the position of the ship. When he was sure that they understood that they could see what was happening in Bluelake while they were away, he called the bridge and ordered Up Ship, telling the officer on duty to hold her at five thousand feet.
The ship rose slowly, turning toward the setting M-giant. Somebody called attention that the views in the screens weren’t changing. Somebody else said:
“Of course not. What we see for real changes because the ship is moving. What we see in the screens is what the oomphel on the big building sees, and it does not move. That is for real as the oomphel sees it.”
“Nice going,” Edith said. “Your class has just discovered relativity.” Travis was looking at the eastward viewscreen. He stepped over beside Miles and lowered his voice.
“Trouble over there to the east of town. Big swarm of combat contragravity working on something on the ground. And something’s on fire, too.”
“I see it.”
“That’s where those evacuees are camped. Why in blazes they had to bring them here to Bluelake—”
That had been EETA, too. When the solar tides had gotten high enough to flood the coastal area, the natives who had been evacuated from the district had been brought here because the Native Education people wanted them exposed to urban influences. About half of the shoonoon who had been rounded up locally had come in from the tide-inundated area.
“Parked right in the middle of the Terran-type food production area,” Travis was continuing.
That was worrying him. Maybe he wasn’t used to planets where the biochemistry wasn’t Terra-type and a Terran would be poisoned or, at best, starve to death, on the local food; maybe, as a soldier he knew how fragile even the best logistics system can be. It was something to worry about. Travis excused himself and went off in the direction of the bridge. Going to call HQ and find out what was happening.
* * * *
Excitement among the shoonoon; they had spotted the ship on which they were riding in the westward screen. They watched it until it had vanished from “sight of the seeing-oomphel,” and by then were over the upland forests from whence they had been brought to Bluelake. Now and then one of them would identify his own village, and that would start more excitement.
Three infantry troop-carriers and a squadron of air cavalry were rushing past the eastward pickup in the right hand screen; another fire had started in the trouble area.
The crowd that had gathered
around the globe that had been brought aboard began calling for Mailsh Heelbare to show them how they would go around the world and what countries they would pass over. Edith accompanied him and listened while he talked to them. She was bubbling with happy excitement, now. It had just dawned on her that shoonoon were fun.
None of them had ever seen the mountains along the western side of the continent except from a great distance. Now they were passing over them; the ship had to gain altitude and even then make a detour around one snow-capped peak. The whole hundred and eighty-four rushed to the starboard side to watch it as they passed. The ocean, half an hour later, started a rush forward. The score or so of them from the Tidewater knew what an ocean was, but none of them had known that there was another one to the west. Miles’ view of the education program of the EETA, never bright at best, became even dimmer. The young men who have gone to the Terran schools…who listens to them? They are fools.
There were a few islands off the coast; the shoonoon identified them on the screen globe, and on the one on deck. Some of them wanted to know why there wasn’t a spot of light on this globe, too. It didn’t have the oomphel inside to do that; that was a satisfactory explanation. Edith started to explain about the orbital beacon-stations off-planet and the radio beams, and then stopped.
“I’m sorry; I’m not supposed to say anything to them,” she apologized.
“Oh, that’s all right. I wouldn’t go into all that, though. We don’t want to overload them.”
She asked permission, a little later, to explain why the triangle tip of the arctic continent, which had begun to edge into sight on the screen globe, couldn’t be seen from the ship. When he told her to go ahead, she got a platinum half-sol piece from her purse, held it on the globe from the classroom and explained about the curvature and told them they could see nothing farther away than the circle the coin covered. It was beginning to look as though the psychological-warfare experiment might show another, unexpected, success.
There was nothing, after the islands passed, but a lot of empty water. The shoonoon were getting hungry, but they refused to go below to eat. They were afraid they might miss something. So their dinner was brought up on deck for them. Miles and Travis and Edith went to the officers’ dining room back of the bridge. Edith, by now, was even more excited than the shoonoon.
The H. Beam Piper Megapack Page 117