Bram had been summoned to the meeting on short notice. He had just finished a frugal supper of soyrice and greens and was putting away his bowl, when somebody began rattling his door impatiently. He had opened it to find one of Pite’s bravos standing there: Spak, the fellow with the dented head.
“Pite wants you at the Ascendist hall right away.”
“Ascendist hall? I thought all Ascendists are supposed to be deviationists and traitors these days.”
“There’s a meeting,” Spak said without humor. “We’re going to take it over. Pite wants the seats filled with our people. We need a strong show of support.”
“All right. I’ll be along as soon as —”
“Now,” Spak said.
He waited, silent and huge, while Bram got his over-garment, then fell in behind him. Outside, a small alcohol-propelled vehicle was waiting. Bram got in the back. Three other people were inside: a man from Kerthin’s discussion group and two others he didn’t recognize. When they got to the meeting hall, the burly Ascendist door guard opened his mouth as if to say something, but Spak gave him a menacing look and swept past him with his little flock.
Now the place was crammed. Word had gotten out that this was to be an important meeting, and even the idly curious had crowded in. Penser’s supporters were scattered through the seats in little self-reinforcing groups. Bram remembered what Kerthin had said about determined minorities.
“We have a resolution before us,” Jupe said, pounding for order with his cube of wood, “and we’ve had a discussion. Before I call for a vote, we’re going to hear from the party secretary.”
The resolution called for a reprimand of Penser and the disbanding of his special goon squads, on pain of a request to the Nar for the deportation of Penser and his Juxtian associates. There was a bribe in it too, though, of minor party sinecures for those involved if they pledged to behave. The motion and seconding had almost been drowned out but had gone through.
The party secretary came forward. He was a grave, dignified man with flat cheeks and a pointed black beard. His face was mottled with emotion, but he held himself in check as he spoke.
“We all of us here believe in the principles of human ascendancy. We must not forget that basic fact during the vote to come. The human race is small, but its destiny is large. We may reasonably disagree among ourselves on the means of achieving that destiny. But we must disagree without rancor. We must never forget that we are all gene brothers and gene sisters, descended from a single genome — though our genotypes vary — and that the purpose of all of us collectively is the purpose of each one of us individually.”
“Bodyrot!” somebody yelled from the audience.
The party secretary blinked mildly and went on. “We are always willing to welcome our strayed brothers and sisters back into the fold, but we must make it unmistakably clear that —”
“Sewage gas!” the same voice shouted.
Bram looked to see where it was coming from and saw that the heckler was one of Pite’s plants — part of a little group of mono-clad bullies that included Fraz. Fraz was grinning hugely, enjoying himself.
The party secretary tried to go on, but the orchestrated interruptions came thicker and thicker.
“Gene brother Penser’s supporters would do well to remember that he is here illegally and that the Nar as yet do not know about his presence,” the secretary said tightly. “But —”
A chorus of boos and jeers threatened to drown him out.
“— but,” he continued doggedly, “that can be fixed with the Nar through the good offices of the leadership of this party. Therefore —”
“No more Accommodationist poison!” the heckler yelled. “We want to hear from Penser!”
“Therefore,” the party secretary said, struggling to control himself, “in the interests of human unity, the party leadership asks each one of you to vote for this resolution. We hope that it will have the effect of chastening —”
“No more talk!” Pite rose to his feet from his seat in the front row. Spak and another bullyboy rose with him, pulling concealed clubs out of their monos.
“You’re all through speaking,” Pite ordered. “Clear the platform, all of you.”
The party secretary sputtered, but by that time Pite and his two thugs had leaped up onto the platform and seized him by the arms. More of Pite’s mono-clad roughnecks converged on the platform from either side and began pushing and shoving the moderator and other functionaries. One of the younger party officers tried to resist and got himself whacked across the abdomen with a club. He sat down slowly on the floor, his face gone white, holding himself tenderly.
That was a signal for a surge from the anti-Penser elements at the meeting. But Pite had planned his strategy well. The small, disciplined groups of agitators that were dispersed throughout the rows of seats were in position to stop each surge as it started, sometimes by clubbing an opponent from behind. A dozen small scuffles broke out, and the rest of the audience began to stir belatedly into life like a rippling bed of ocean weed.
Suddenly there was the crack of an explosion and a bright flash at the front of the hall. Out of the comer of his eye, Bram barely caught the blur of movement that preceded it — an arm tossing a small round object onto the platform.
All the small straggles in the hall ceased. In the shocked silence that followed, Pite stepped forward with a grin.
“All right, it’s all over,” he said. “We’re going to hear Penser speak, so everybody just sit down and keep quiet.”
The bomb had only been a noisemaker, but it had done its job. There was a rising murmur that quickly died down as people settled in to make the best of it. The man who had been hit in the stomach was helped off the platform and given a place to sit. The other party leaders were escorted to one side and kept in a group, surrounded by a small bodyguard of strong-arm men. They took their seats with injured dignity, but they did what they were told.
Penser came down the aisle from the rear with his honor guard of Juxtians in their short robes and tights. Bram had not even seen him enter the hall. Penser looked neither right nor left. There was not a flicker of expression on his pasty face; it was as if nothing in his surroundings was worth his notice. Penser himself was not wearing Juxtian costume. He wore a plain, decent gray garment that was gathered at the wrists and ankles and covered any looseness of neck so that all that could be seen of Penser himself was pale hands, pale face.
When he took his place at the improvised podium, his claque stood up en masse and clapped and cheered. He stared out over the audience, appearing not to hear.
Bram got a poke in the ribs from the goon next to him. “On your feet.” Bram stood up obediently and cheered with the rest.
It was not only Penser’s faction that was applauding. Others in the audience joined in — some with patent enthusiasm, some because they were being prodded by mono-clad agitators — until a good half of the meeting was on record as showing support for the gray-draped figure on the platform. The other half, intimidated, kept silent and neutral.
Penser waited until the prearranged demonstration ended, then began to speak, simply, and quietly.
“The time has come to stand up and be counted. The time has come to prove your allegiance to the great idea which is the human race. The time has come to make a choice. And that choice will be judged harshly. There will be no forgiveness for those who make the wrong choice. For the universe does not forgive. I tell you the time is at hand. The time has come
The simple sentences and the repetition had a hypnotic effect. There was an impression of untapped power behind them. And, Bram had to admit, Penser had a magnificent speaking voice and knew how to use it. As Penser gathered force, the crowd was visibly swayed. Even Bram, much as he now detested the man, found himself responding on some primitive level.
“… Man was made by Man. Man made Himself. The Nar were merely his instrument. The Nar were his tool. And how were the Nar made? By the acci
dents of organic chemistry in a primordial soup. They are accidents of creation. But Man was created with a purpose. For a purpose. To master the universe. To own all of creation …”
It was obvious that if Penser went on, he was going to carry the meeting. Some of the members who had previously spoken out against Penser grew visibly agitated, muttering among themselves and wriggling in their chairs like schoolchildren. The toughs in sleeveless monos who were monitoring the crowd’s behavior moved in a little closer, watchful and alert.
Gorch, the man who was worried about violence in the Quarter, was speaking in low tones to the person next to him, a large raw-knuckled man who looked as if he did a lot of outdoor labor. Bram remembered his name: Lal. At the previous Ascendist meeting, Lal had spoken in favor of a peaceful infiltration of Nar society. He had advocated token human representation in Nar institutions proportional to human numbers. At the time, Gorch had accused him of being a Partnerite. Now it looked as if Gorch and Lal were on the same side.
“Unfortunately, the human species is not united in its aspirations,” Penser was saying, the model of reasonableness. “There are destructive elements among us …”
It was too much for Gorch. Gathering courage from the mutterings of the cronies around him, he lurched to his feet and shouted, “The destructive elements are those who’re risking forfeiting the good opinion of the Nar with this violence in the Quarter! Why are we letting this Juxtian interloper intimidate us? Let’s get back to the business of this meeting and vote on the resolution!”
The goons moved in joyfully. Shoving people aside, they grabbed Gorch. Bram saw one of them produce the electrical shocking instrument that had been displayed to Penser’s troops.
He didn’t see it actually make contact. But it must have touched Gorch somewhere — Bram heard a mindless reflexive cry of pain, and Gorch went down, flopping.
The man who had applied the dose of current turned Gorch’s body over with his foot. Gorch’s mouth hung open; his eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling. You could tell he was still alive because his arms and legs kept twitching minutely and a feeble gargling sound was coming from the back of his throat.
Lal had his big workman’s hands around the throat of the Penserite who had shoved him aside. A couple of the others were struggling with Pite’s henchmen, too, and getting the worst of it. Another young man, inspired to do battle by their example, leaped up. More of the Penserite strong-arm men moved in.
On the platform, Penser waited, detached and distant, for the disturbance to end. The blue-ringed eyes showed no interest. To Bram, Penser’s aloofness was more chilling than any show of impatience would have been.
Somebody clubbed the young man who had tried to join in. The sound of the club against the side of his head could be heard at the back of the hall. He sank to his knees, blood streaming down his face.
Their other opponents disposed of, the bullyboys converged on Lal. They didn’t bother to try to pry his fingers from around their friend’s neck. A club struck Lal between the eyes, right across the bridge of the nose, and he let go, staggering. Another club thudded across his ribs, and somebody else took a lick at his skull.
A woman screamed, and people scrambled to get out of the way, knocking over chairs. Lal had somehow stayed on his feet until now, but with the last blow he sagged and went down. Bram could not see him. Burly men in monos surrounded him completely, bent over him like a circular, many-legged beast. All you could see was the clubs, rising and falling, and the feet, drawing back to kick.
Pite and his two lieutenants had bounded to the spot and were trying to pry their cohorts away. The attackers seemed to have lost all control. “That’s enough,” Pite was saying. “Take it easy.”
The frenzy subsided, and at last there was a ring of monos standing quietly around Lal’s blood-spattered form. Lal wasn’t moving at all. Nor would he ever move judging by the huge mushy depression in his skull.
The hall was filled with an underwater silence, with little currents of whispers running through it, dying out, and starting up again. Gorch’s stertorous breathing could be plainly heard. Every once in a while it would stop and, after a frightening interval, go on. Some people came over to help him. They partially raised his limp form and dragged him off to the side, trailing a set of flexible legs. Nobody moved to stop them.
On the platform, Penser had enough sense not to resume speaking. He stood with his arms at his sides, still as a statue. He showed no reaction to events in the hall. He seemed merely to have switched himself off.
There was a sense of expectation in the hall, a vacuum to be filled. Afterward, Bram felt that Penser had, with his uncanny instincts, correctly gauged the situation — that his unnatural immobility had created a negative force that provided the impetus for what happened next.
The party secretary stepped forward. The Penserite strong-arms assigned to watch him made no effort to interfere. Penser watched aloofly as he approached the platform.
“Listen,” the party secretary said in a ragged voice. “Everybody listen. We’ve all witnessed a terrible thing. A man is dead.”
A woman started to cry. A male voice choked: “Damn you, Penser!”
No attempt at retribution was made by the Penserite goon squads. The imprecation stirred an angry murmur of agreement through the hall.
The party secretary raised both palms in an attempt to restore calm.
“It’s no good talking about who’s to blame,” he said, pleading with them. “And the one thing we don’t want is more bloodshed. We can’t afford to let this enmity continue. As far as the Nar are concerned, the human race is one.” His voice shook. “We all have blood on our hands. If they ever find out about this, they’ll step in and take charge of us — for our own good. None of us want that. Do you all want to be children again, with a Nar guardian to supervise you?”
That got to them. A babble grew, then subsided as the secretary held up a hand again.
“Or maybe they’ll decide that humans can’t be trusted to have a society at all. Maybe they’ll curtail breeding, get us down to manageable numbers, separate us, turn us into individual pets, like muffbeasts. Does anybody want that?”
Another brief uproar arose. Bram sucked in his breath. Around him he heard cries of “No, no!”
“Then there’s only one thing to do,” the party secretary said. He looked directly at Penser. Penser met his gaze imperturbably.
The party secretary bit his lip. “We’ll bury Lal,” he said in a hollow voice. “We’ll undertake to explain it away somehow. We’ll see to the medical treatment of the others. No one in this hall will ever mention what went on here tonight to anyone outside — not to a close friend, not even to a mate if he or she is outside the party.”
There was a pause while that sank in. A subdued ripple of voices swept through the audience, and Bram knew that the party secretary had them with him.
“In return,” the party secretary said, trying to hold his voice steady, “these violent activities must cease. The Quarter is no longer to be a battlefield for internecine conflict. And one more thing. We are aware of these anti-Nar training exercises. They have almost reached the point of open scandal. They must cease, too. No whisper of such activities must ever reach the Nar. Is that understood?”
Penser gave the barest nod. The two locked eyes for a moment.
The party secretary was the first to drop his gaze. “All right, then,” he muttered.
Somebody had already covered Lal’s body with a blanket. Now, as if recovering from paralysis, people became busy. A couple of men started to improvise a litter, while others stood by, waiting to take the body away as soon as it was finished. A medhelper who had been in the audience was administering aid to a weakly flopping Gorch, and a number of Good Samaritans were helping the other injured to hobble over to await their turn.
The toughs who had wrought the havoc had drawn back into a loose group, looking defiant or abashed or sulky, whispering among themselves. No one wo
uld look at them. Bram saw Fraz among them, the front of his mono splattered with blood. Presumably Fraz had been a part of the thicket of legs that had surrounded the fallen Lal.
Bram caught Kerthin’s eye across the room. She was sitting with Eena. Bram thought that Eena looked pale and drawn and even thinner than usual. Her right arm was missing. It had been blown off in a small mishap at the bomb factory that had been set up in her living quarters. A little bud had already formed, but it was going to be some time before the arm grew back.
Kerthin got up and made her way toward him. She didn’t speak. They left together, both of them thoroughly subdued. Nobody was guarding the doors anymore. The meeting was definitely over.
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Chapter 11
“You’re sure you won’t come?” Bram said.
“No, you go alone. I’ve already seen the tree. And they’re your friends, not mine.”
Kerthin was slapping wet clay on the armature, building up a figure that was beginning to resemble a rather pyramidal human with enormous feet, a tiny head, and huge, clump-fingered hands hanging down somewhere about knee level.
He looked at her doubtfully. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” she said bitterly. “Isn’t it?”
Bram sighed. He put down his little overnight pod and went over to her. “It’s all for the best,” he said. “The Quarter’s been quiet. Everything’s getting back to normal.”
“Normal?” she said. “Back to the hypocritical status quo, you mean. All those hidebound party hacks are all puffed out with self-importance over having put Penser in his place — or so they see it. And the fair-weather converts falling all over themselves to desert the cause when they saw the wind blowing in a different direction. Everyone back to foot-licking the Nar again. The great dream of winning the cosmos destroyed!”
The Genesis Quest Page 24