Larry munched absentmindedly on one of the sweet things. They were filled with tart fruit, like little pies. He was beginning to see the contrast between his own world—orderly, with impersonal laws—and Darkover, with a fierce and individualistic code of every man for himself. When the two clashed—
“But it was more than that,” Kennard said. “I was curious about you. I’ve been curious about you since the first day I saw you at the spaceport. Most of you Terrans like to stay behind your walls—they won’t even take the trouble to learn our language! Why are you different?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why they are the way they are, either. Just—well, call it curiosity.” Something else occurred to Larry. “So you didn’t just happen to come along then? You’ve been watching me?”
“Off and on. But it was just luck I came along then. I was off duty and coming home, and heard the racket in the square. And, on duty or off, that’s part of my work.”
“Your work?”
Kennard said, “I’m a cadet officer in the City Guard. All the boys in my family start as cadets, when they’re fourteen winters old, working three days in the cycle as peace officers. Mostly, I just supervise guards and check over the duty lists. What sort of work do you do?”
“I don’t do any work yet. I just go to school.” It made him feel, suddenly, very young and ill at ease. This self-possessed youngster, no older than Larry himself, was already doing a man’s work—not frittering his time away, being treated like a schoolboy!
“And then you have to start in doing your man’s work full time, without any training? How strange,” Kennard said.
“Well, your system seems strange to me,” Larry said, with a flare of resentment against Kennard’s assumption that his way was the proper one, and Kennard grinned at him.
“Actually, I had another reason for wanting to get to know you—and if this hadn’t happened, sooner or later I suppose I’d have managed it somehow. I’m wild to know all about space travel and the stars! And I’ve never had a chance to learn anything about it! Tell me—how do the Big Ships find their way between stars? What moves the ships? Do the Terrans really have colonies on hundreds of worlds?”
“One question at a time!” Larry laughed, “and remember I’m only learning!” But he began to explain navigation to Kennard, who listened, fascinated, asking question after question about the spaceships and the stars.
He was describing his one view of the drive rooms on the starship when the door swung open and a very tall man came in. Like Kennard, he had red hair, graying a little at the temples; his eyes were deepset, hawk-keen and stern, and he looked upright, handsome and immensely dignified in his scarlet embroidered jacket. Kennard got quickly to his feet, and Larry got up, too.
“So this is your friend, Kennard?” The man made a formal bow to Larry. “Welcome to our home, my boy. Kennard tells me you are a brave fellow, and have won the freedom of the city. Please consider yourself free of our house as well, at any time. I am Valdir Alton.”
“Larry Montray, z’par servu,” said Larry, bowing as he had seen Kennard do and using the most respectful Darkovan phrase, “At your service, sir.”
“You lend us grace.” The man smiled and took his hand. “I hope you will come to us often.”
“I would like that very much, sir.”
“You speak excellent Darkovan. It is rare to find one of your people who will do us even the small courtesy of learning our language so well,” Valdir Alton said.
Larry felt inclined to protest. “My father speaks it even better than I do, sir.”
“Then he is wise,” Valdir replied.
“Father,” Kennard cut in excitedly; he might be a poised young soldier in the streets, but here, Larry saw, he was just a kid like Larry himself. “Father, Larry has promised to lend me some books about space travel and about the Empire! And, to get permission, if he can, to show me over the spaceport!”
“For that last, of course, you must not be disappointed if permission is refused,” Valdir warned the boys, smiling indulgently. “They might think that you were a spy. But the books will be welcome; I myself shall enjoy seeing them. I can read a little of the Terran Standard language.”
“I thought about that,” Larry said. “I wasn’t sure if Kennard could. These are mostly pictures and photographs.”
“Thanks,” Kennard laughed, “I can read our scripts if I have to—well enough for duty lists and the like—but I’m too busy for a scholar’s work! Oh, I can write my name well enough to serve, but why should I spoil my eyes for the hunt by learning what any public scribe can do for me? If it’s a question of pictures, though—that’s something worth seeing!”
Larry, too startled to wonder whether it was polite, blurted out, “You can’t even read your own language? Why, I can read Darkovan!”
“You can?” Kennard sounded honestly awed. “Why, I thought you weren’t even old enough to bear arms—and you read two languages and can write too! Are you a scholar by trade, then?”
Larry shook his head.
“But how old are you? If you can read already?”
“I was sixteen three months ago.”
“I’ll be sixteen in the Dark Month,” Kennard said. “I thought you were younger.”
Valdir Alton, idly eating sweets from one of the bowls, interrupted, saying, “I should be sorry to fail in hospitality, Lerrys”—he spoke Larry’s name with an odd, Darkovan accent—“but it is late and your spaceport curfew will be enforced. I think, Kennard, you must have your guest escorted home—unless you would like to spend the night? We have ample room for guests, and you would be welcome.”
“Thank you, sir, but I’d better not. My father would worry, I’m afraid. If someone can tell me the way—”
“My bodyguards will take you,” Kennard said, “but come again very soon. I’m on duty tomorrow and the next day, but—the day after? Could you come and spend the afternoon?”
“I’d like to,” Larry promised.
“You had better wear those clothes,” Valdir said; “your own, I fear, are fit only to clean floors. These are outworn ones of Kennard’s brother; you need not return them.”
Kennard went to the door with him, repeating his cordial urgings to come again, and Larry, escorted by the silent guard, found his way quickly to the spaceport. His mind still on his adventure, he was brought up with a shock when the spaceport guard stopped him with a sharp challenge.
“What do you think you’re doing here at this time of night? Nobody admitted now but spaceport personnel!”
With a shock, Larry remembered his Darkovan clothing. He produced his identity card, and the guard stared. “What the deuce you doing in that rig, kid? And you’re late; half an hour more and I’d have had to put you on report for the Commandant. Don’t you know it’s not safe to go prowling around at night?” He caught sight of Larry’s bruised and reddened knuckles, his slowly blackening left eye. “Holy Joe, you look like you found that out. I bet you catch it when your Dad sees you!”
Larry was beginning to be a little afraid of that, himself. Well, there was nothing to do but face it.
It had been worth it, whatever Dad said. Even worth a licking, if it turned out that way.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was worse than he had thought it would be.
As he came through the doors of the apartment in Quarters A, he saw his father, intercom in hand, and heard Wade Montray’s sharp, preoccupied voice, with overtones of trouble.
“—went out after school, and hasn’t come in; I checked with all his friends. The guard at the western gate saw him leave, but hasn’t seen him come back.... I don’t want to sound like an alarmist, sir, but if he’d wandered into the Old Town—you know as well as I do what could have happened. Yes, I know that, sir, and I’ll take all the responsibility for letting it happen; it was foolish of me. Believe me, I realize that now—”
Larry said hesitantly “Dad—?”
Montray started, half dropping t
he cap of the intercom.
“Larry! Is that you?”
Montray said into the intercom, “Forget it. He just came in. Yes, I know, I’ll attend to it.... All right, Larry, come in where I can get a good look at you.”
Larry obeyed, bracing himself for a storm. As he came into the main room, and the light fell on his bruised face, Montray turned pale.
“Larry, your face! Son, what’s happened? Are you all right?” He came forward, quickly, taking Larry by the shoulders and turning him toward the light; Larry tensed, trying to pull away.
“It’s all right, Dad; I got into a fight. A bunch of toughs. It’s all right.” He added quickly, “It looks worse than it is.”
Montray’s face worked, and for a moment he turned away. When he looked at Larry again, his face was controlled and grim, his voice level. “You’d better tell me about it.”
Larry began the story, trying to make light of the roughing up he had had, but his father interrupted, harshly, “You could have been killed! You know that, don’t you?”
“I wasn’t, though. And really, Dad, it’s an incredible piece of luck, meeting Kennard and everything. It was worth a little trouble—Dad, what’s wrong, what is it?”
Montray said, “I made a mistake ever letting you go into the town alone. I know that, now. That’s all over. It could have been very serious. Larry, this is an order: You are not to leave the Terran Zone again—not at any time, not under any conditions.”
Startled, outraged, hardly believing, Larry stared at his father. “You can’t mean that, Dad!”
“But I do mean it.”
“But you haven’t even been listening to me, then! Nothing like that would happen again! Kennard said I had the freedom of the city, and his father invited me to come again—”
“I heard you perfectly well,” his father cut in, “but you’ve had your orders, Larry, and I don’t intend to discuss it any further. You are not to leave the Terran Zone again—at any time. No”—he raised his hand as Larry began to protest—“not another word, not one. Go and wash your face and put something on those cuts and get to bed. Get going!”
Larry opened his mouth and, slowly, shut it again. It wasn’t the slightest use; his father wasn’t listening to him. Fuming, outraged, he stalked toward his room.
It wasn’t like Dad to treat him this way—like a little kid to be ordered around! Usually, Dad was reasonable. While he washed his bruised face and painted his skinned knuckles with antiseptic, he stormed silently inside. Dad couldn’t mean it—not now, not after the trouble he’d had getting accepted!
Finally he decided to let it ride until morning. Dad had been worried about him; maybe when he’d had a chance to think it over, he’d listen to reason. Larry went to bed, still thinking over, with excitement, the new friend he’d made and the opportunity this opened up—the chance to see the real Darkover, not the world of the spaceport and the tourists but the strange, highly colored world that lay alien and beautiful beyond them.
Dad would have to see it his way!
But he didn’t. When Larry tackled him again, over the breakfast table, Montray’s face was dark and forbidding, and would have intimidated anyone less determined than Larry.
“I said I didn’t even want to discuss it. You’ve had your orders, and that’s all there is to it.”
Larry bit his lip, scowling furiously into his plate. Finally, flaming with indignation, he raised his head and stared defiantly at his father.
“I’m not taking that, sir.”
Montray frowned again. “What did you say?”
Larry felt a queer, uneasy sensation under his belt. He had never openly defied his father since he was a toddler of four or five. But he persisted:
“Dad, I don’t want to be disrespectful, but you can’t treat me that way. I’m not a kid, and when you say something like that, I have a right, at least to an explanation.”
“You’ll do as you’re told, or else you’ll—” Montray checked himself. At last he laid down his fork and leaned forward, his chin on his hands, his eyes angry. But all he said was, “Fair enough, then. Here’s the story. Suppose, last night, you’d been badly hurt, or killed?”
“But I—”
“Let me finish. One silly kid goes exploring, and it could create an interplanetary incident. If you’d gotten into real trouble, Larry, we would have had to use all the power and prestige of the Terran Empire just to get you out of it again. If we had to do that—especially if we had to use force and Terran weapons—we’d lose all the good will and tolerance that it’s taken us years to build up. It would all have to be done over again. Sure, if it came to a fight, we’d win. But we want to avoid incidents, not win fights which cost us more than we gain by winning them. Do you honestly think it’s worth it?”
Larry hesitated.
“Well, do you?”
“I suppose not, when you put it that way,” Larry said slowly. Mentally he was comparing this with what Kennard had said: how the Darkovans resented the use of the whole power of Terra, just to “pry into” what should be a private quarrel between one troublemaker and the people he had offended. It would also mean that if Larry had been harmed, the Terrans would have held all of Darkover responsible, not just the few young toughs who had actually committed the incident.
He was trying to think how he could explain this to his father, but Montray left him no time. “That’s the situation. No more exploring on your own. And no arguments, if you don’t mind; I don’t intend to discuss it any further with you. That’s just the way it’s got to be.” He pushed away his plate and stood up. “I’ve got work to do.”
Larry sat on at the empty breakfast table, a dull and simmering resentment burning through him. So Kennard had been right, after all. It seemed that all of Darkover and all of the Terran Empire had to be dragged into it.
His head throbbed and he could hardly see out of his black eye, and his knuckles were so swollen that he found it hard to handle a fork. He decided not to go to school, and spent most of the morning lying on his bed, bitterly resentful. This meant the end of his adventure. What else was there? The dull world of Quarters and spaceport, identical with the world he’d left on Earth. He might as well have stayed there!
He got out the books he had promised Kennard. So he couldn’t even keep that promise! And Kennard would think his word wasn’t worth anything. How could he get word to his Darkovan friend about the punishment imposed on him? Kennard, and Kennard’s father, had shown him friendship and hospitality—and he couldn’t even keep his word!
Well, they’d started out by not thinking much of the Terrans—and now their opinion would just be confirmed that Terrans weren’t to be trusted.
The day dragged by. The next day he went back to school, turning aside queries about his black eye with some offhand story of falling over a chair in the darkness. But the day after, as the hour approached when he had promised the Altons to visit them, his conflict grew and grew.
Damn it, he’d promised.
His father, looking into his glowering face at breakfast, had said briefly, “I’m sorry, Larry. This isn’t pleasant for me—to deny you something you want so much. Some day, when you’re older, perhaps you’ll understand why I have to do this. Until then, I’m afraid you’ll just have to accept my judgment.”
He thinks he’ll cut off my interest in Darkover just by forbidding me to go outside the Terran Zone, Larry thought resentfully. He doesn’t know anything about it, really—or about me!
The day wore away, slowly. He considered, and rejected, the idea of a final appeal to his father. Wade Montray seldom gave an order, but when he did, he never rescinded it, and Larry could tell his father’s mind was made up on this subject.
But it wasn’t fair—and it wasn’t right, or just! Painfully, Larry faced a decision that all youngsters face sooner or later: the knowledge that their parents are not always right—that sometimes they can be dead wrong!
Wrong, or not, he thinks I ought to have t
o obey him anyhow! And that’s the bad thing. What else can I do?
I can refuse to obey him, the thought came suddenly, as if he had never had it before.
He had never deliberately defied his father. The thought made him uncomfortable.
But this time, I’m right and he’s wrong, and if he can’t see it, I can. I made a commitment, and if I break my word, that in itself is going to make a couple of Darkovans—and important people—think that Terrans aren’t worth much.
This is one time where I’m going to have to disobey Dad. Afterward, I’ll take any punishment he wants to hand out to me. But I’m not going to break my word to Kennard and his father. I’ll explain to them why I may not be able to come again, but I won’t insult their hospitality by just disappearing and not even letting them know why I never came back.
Kennard saved me from a mauling—maybe from being killed. I promised him something he wants—some books—and I owe him that much.
He was uneasy about disobeying. But he still felt, deep down, that he was right.
If I’d been born on Darkover, he told himself, I’d be considered a man; old enough to do a man’s work, old enough to make my own decisions—and take the consequences. There comes a time in your life when you have to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong, and stop accepting what older people say. Dad may be right as far as he knows, but he doesn’t know the whole story, and I do. And I’ve got to do what I think is right.
He wondered why he felt so bad about it. It hurt, suddenly, to realize that he’d made a decision he could never go back on. He might be punished like a child, when he got back; but suddenly he understood that he’d never feel like one again. It wasn’t just the act of disobeying his father—any kid could do that. It was that he had decided, once and for all, that he no longer was willing to let his father decide right and wrong for him. If he obeyed his father, after this, it would be because he had thought it over and decided, on a grown-up basis, that he wanted to obey him.
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