Strange, they seemed not surprised that he would eat with them. Surely no true Tarnisi would put into his mouth anything which had ever been in a Volanth’s mouth. But in all probability they had never had occasion to put any true Tarnisi to the touch or test. Even refused commensality likely had not been common enough for them ever to have heard of it. They showed him no hate, no fear, no resentment. Neither did they engage in elaborate shows of how hospitable they were. They were just reacting simply to a simple situation. Neither the dead nor the living were to be exposed to the rain. But the living were subject to wet and cold and hunger and their needs in these respects must be taken care of. That was all.
But was that really all? And was it really that simple? Ah, alas, no. It wasn’t at all.
And so, regretfully, but with determination not allowing nasty memory to prevent, he began to mimic. The woman fleeing. The man pursuing. The other men. The thrown stones. The death. And the woman and the other men vanishing … . Strange, that he never felt in danger from them! He felt no danger at all here. But it was clear that the old man and woman understood. Of their explanation, if that was what it was, he understood nothing. Their gestures conveyed nothing, neither did the excited gutturals and plosives which burst upon the air … nothing, that is, but regret and dismay. Which made it even stranger yet: that they were not afraid of him. Which, after all, considering, they had every right to be.
From below a noise, a sound, tossed by the winds, muffled by the rains. He darted from the cave and from the ledge he could see his companion of the survey. On foot, with no sign of the float. Tonorosant cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. And again. Until Storiogath saw him at last. The old man was already on his way down and Tonorosant obeyed the old woman’s gestures and returned to shelter. By the time the others had returned, his clothes had dried.
“Where’s the float?” he asked his panting friend.
A gasp, a gesture and look of complete bewilderment — “It’s not there! It’s not there — !”
They demonstrated this as best they could to the old one, who grasped it in a moment. He and his wife broke into excited talk. In a few moments it seemed arranged that they were to follow the old man. He knew where it was? — Where it might be? He knew, at any rate, something.
“All right, then, we’ll go with him,” said Storiogath. He was unhappy, wet. He gestured to the still form at the back of the cave. “But we need the rain suits more than he does now.” Tonorosant agreed.
It grew perceptibly darker as they followed the aged guide along a trail visible only to him. He was long silent. When he spoke it was with a wordless groan. Evidently he had hoped to find something which was no longer there. What it was he soon showed them. In the sodden grass he paced an outline, gestured to them to see how it was pressed down within the area … an area the size of a float. And, just where the vents would be, he showed them the grass shriveled as though by a jet of steam. It was still faintly warm to the touch.
“This does us up good. My mother’s mammary! Who stole our float?” Storiogath pressed his hands to his head. “Not that it matters … or why he put it down here. It couldn’t have been a Volanth — ”
“Obviously. But what just struck me isn’t as obvious. This wasn’t our float.”
“Wasn’t — What do you mean?”
“Look at the outline. Too small. It was a different model — one of the older ones.”
The other studied the rain-swept ground a moment before nodding. “You’re right. A Y-rack. So — ”
Slowly, guessing out loud — “There were two of them. The one back in the cave was the other. They came and put down here. Well. Then there were the fun and games, but only that one participated. The other one went … somewhere else … maybe to watch … maybe to do something else. Anyway — He saw us. And while we were down below or on our way down, he took our float. Made it back here quickly. And then took off quickly. So — If I’m right — ”
He started out in a widening spiral. Almost at once the old man understood what he intended. The three of them tracked outward from the place where the other float had been. And by and by they found what they were looking for: their own float, wedged into a gulley.
“It shouldn’t be too hard to wiggle her out of there.”
“It wouldn’t be if he hadn’t taken the starting-cam with him.”
It could have been worse, much worse. The craft might have been wrecked, defueled, blown up, damaged in a variety of ways, Tonorosant thought. This way they at least had food and shelter until their signals might bring relief. Whoever it was had done it had shown them fair courtesy. It was all very odd.
When he turned to see the old man, though, he saw only that he had gone. The two of them sat inside and talked and watched it darken and watched it rain while they waited.
• • •
His up-seat comfortably adjusted so that he could both see the ceiling screen and reach for his drink, Tonorosant lay back and regarded the reflected paragraph for the tenth or twentieth time.
The increasing chemo-industrial utility of oron-oil has begun to show signs of overtaking its utility as a product intended mainly for consumption as food. In the past five years, oron-oil to the value of ten million units has been converted into synthetics, and the process shows no signs of slackening. This new use for an old produce comes barely a generation after the former haphazard methods of cultivation in the Isles of Ran.
His thumb pressed the tiny control box resting on his chest and half of the text slid up and away and was replaced on the ceiling screen by more. But it was no use. He was still not able to concentrate, still — between his mind and the text — the events of the previous day persisted in intervening. Once again he saw the chase, the false chase ending in death. There within his opulent room so safe from the discomforts of nature a slanting rain continued to fall. He smelled, not the scented wood of his own walls, but the reek of the turf fire in the cave.
It was Hob Sarlamat who had set down next to them in the distant darkness, Sarlamat in a double-motor float large enough for all of them.
“Didn’t you bring a replacement?” Tonorosant asked, motioning to the empty place where the starting-cam had been.
He shook his head. “I left before we got. your signal. In fact, I left as soon as that,” he indicated the little box whose purpose was to guide them in making their landings at the proper places to test and drill, “as soon as that started sending erratically, and I realized that something was wrong.”
“So you’re in on this, too? — This scrape-and-drill levy, I mean.”
Sarlamat’s thin face twisted impatiently. “Do you think we can leave it all up to the sons of the Seven Signs? They’d get bored to death and drop it by the third day … . What happened?”
He listened, frowning, rubbing his eyes. At last he said, “At least let’s transfer the soil samples.” And that, for a while, was that. Later, in answer to questions about the body, he said that “it would have to keep till morning.” He would voice no notion as to what it all meant or could mean, but — “I think the two of you have earned a release from levy-duty for the present,” he said, as lights began to show with increasing frequency. “I’ll see to it.”
“ ‘Earned’ it? I should think we have, my father-in-law’s fanny, I must hope to Hell we’ve earned it — ”
But Sarlamat wasn’t finished. “One condition, though — Keep this quiet. All of this. Agreed?”
Tonorosant said he had a condition of his own. “Will you — Can you see to it, too, that the old Volanth and his wife aren’t bothered? — when the body is picked up? Or afterwards?”
His friend’s eyelids had dropped a bit and his mouth had set a bit, as though he had not cared for anyone else’s making conditions. But when he heard what the conditions were, a spasm of annoyance had passed over his face. “Of course, of course. Need you have bothered?”
Perhaps not, Tonorosant now thought. Nothing in the actions of Sarlamat a
nd his associates had indicated that they would be likely to find pleasure in Tarnisi-style violence. He tried once again to concentrate on his book. If he hoped some day to be a planter and an island owner, it behooved him to begin to learn something more of the economics of the whole scene than the little he knew now.
This new use for an old product comes barely a generation after the former haphazard methods of cultivation on the Isles of Ran gave way to the current techniques of industrial agriculture. The old-style “planter” seldom if ever actually planted anything, contenting himself with the gathering of the oron-nuts as they happened to ripen and fall. In terms of labor force and production schedules this was hopelessly inefficient, producing less than the value of one million units in an average year. The introduction of efficiency-oriented plantations had to wait upon the establishment of efficiently planted groves. The first of these was the Model Experimental Station in North Oto-Ran which began its operations in the year 0756 under the sponsorship of the gigantic Commerce-Lermencas combine. The scattered clusters … .
He yawned, blinked, stretched. Wished that Atoral was there with him. The wish was not even erotic. He would like just to be next to her and to fall asleep in her arms. But she had finally whisked her sister away from the stuffy atmosphere of idealistic confusion in the old tulan’s home and was now occupied with setting the girl up in a town cottage of her own. Resolutely, he turned back to his book, jiggled the control. A moment later he was sitting bolt upright, swearing, pounding his fist upon his thigh.
He found Storiogath in the company of a rumpled and sullen-eyed lackland girl who left without a word even while he was apologizing for his hasty and unexpected entry. Stori cut short the further apologies prompted by this.
“Never mind, and in fact — just as well. Those double-L females are all the same, anyway. Very unsubtle. First they climb all over you and then afterwards they insist that you marry them. Marry! If I’d wanted to marry I could have stayed where I was, my nephew’s neurons, I must hope — so what is it brings you here all of a flurry? A book? What — feelthy pictures? No. So — Insular Industrial Arboriculture — now, what in the Hell?”
He subsided and watched as his companion of the previous day fitted the book-cartridge into the projector, dutifully reading each sentence as it proceeded up the screen towards oblivion. “ ‘Commerce-Lermencas,’ ” he said. “They don’t come much bigger, do they? But what — ”
“Be quiet and read on.”
Stori obediently closed his mouth, raised his eyebrows.
The scattered clusters of oron-trees were all removed and the land left free for replanting in planned, coordinated groves. In order that this might be done with maximum efficiency and the resultant trees be identical in size, the following system was used. Aero-3D shots were taken all up and down a reticulated area, and from designated spots within each rectangle both core- and surface-samples were taken. By this method the necessity of working with and not against the terrain, plus the equally important matter of plus-, minor-, and mean-factors in the surface and sub-surface soil …
In a stifled voice, Stori said, “My brother-in-law’s balls — ”
“You wondered if either the Lords or the Guardians were behind the Survey,” Tonorosant reminded him. “And, to tell you the truth, I was puzzled about that, too. Well, now we know. It’s neither. And we not only know who isn’t.
“We know who is.”
CHAPTER NINE
The rest of the page lacked the shock value of that one paragraph, but it was nonetheless informative.
Stori said, “But that wasn’t oron-tree country.”
“No, it isn’t. That’s beside the point. Which is, that that country — and I suppose, sooner or later, most of Tarnis — is being readied for factory-type agriculture. There are other crops beside oron-nut oil. We know who is behind the survey. The Craftsmen. And we also know — now — who is behind the Craftsmen.”
“Commerce-Lermencas. Which means Lermencas itself … ” Stori mused. “Which means … all kinds of things. Who’s going to supply that ‘well-regulated labor force’ the book talks about, do you suppose?”
“Oh, Commerce-L. is going to supply the regulation, you may be sure of that. As for the labor, well, I guess that’s where the Volanth come in.”
“Pshwew. … The poor hairy lack-lucks. No more piddling along at their own pace, with now and then a pleasant pause to play the he and she game. Too bad. Too bad.”
But Tonorosant didn’t think it was too bad at all. He wasn’t at all sure but what the bad might be outweighed by the good. Stori was hardly taking a realistic view of the scene. There was nothing Arcadianly picturesque in the life the Volanth led. They toiled to set up fish-weirs … along came a boat and knocked them down, just for fun. They slaved to make their crops, gather resin, cut and fashion timber … along came a little war which was still big enough to steal most of their surplus and spread murder and rape. This was the way things had been and as long as the Tarnisi stayed on top, it seemed, this was the way things would always be.
“And you think that the Craftsmen have been setting this up all along, this whole program of changing peoples’ bodies and giving them additional minds, planting them here and there where we can be of the most use to them, mixing in local politics — all of this, to help the Volanth?” Stori’s whole stocky body expressed his complete scepticism.
Tonorosant gave a one-sided smile. “Of course not. The Craftsmen, which is to say the Lermencasi, it seems, are completely selfish. But their selfishness is a modern one, it doesn’t reek of blood and cruelty like the selfishness of the Tarnisi. The Volanth could hardly be worse off, working for wages on huge, supervised management-farms, than they are now. Keep romance out of this. It doesn’t belong here, it’s a lie. The truth is inescapable: the Volanth would be much better off. Furthermore, they won’t remain just laborers forever. The Lermencasi are practical. They’ll set up schools. Once you start that process, there’s no way to stop it. First, some Volanth will be trained to perform minor tasks. And, gradually, by the usual sort of reverse gravity, others will begin drifting upwards. Lermencas is part of the modern world; Tarnis isn’t. The Volanth aren’t. But they are going to become part of it, from now on. And eventually, either with Lermencasi help or without it, the Volanth are going to have what they ought to have: a share in running their own country.”
Stori nodded, mused a moment. Shrugged. “Well, I don’t begrudge it to them, my aunt’s navel, I must hope. If the Craftsmen want to give me a job running a sanitary nut-farm and teaching the Volanth not to blow their noses with their fingers, it’s fine with me. There’s just one or two minor details, though. Agreed, out in Volanth country, the Tarnisi are rogues. But most of the time they’re not there, they’re here. And here they’re rather pleasant people. Charming, gracious. If we didn’t all think so, we wouldn’t have come here. The obvious question is: What’s going to become of the Tarnisi? Aren’t they entitled to have a share in running their own country, too?”
Tonorosant grimaced, began walking up and down the room, pulling his fingers. After a while he said, almost grudgingly, “That’s the big bump in the road. Ideally, the job of moving into the real world is one they ought to be doing themselves. But they are never going to do it. They can submit to being dragged along into it — or they can resist. Either way, they won’t like it. Naturally. I suppose that no one thing is going to happen to all of them. Some, I suppose, will be pensioned off to just flit around being decorative: the Lermencasi are bound to develop the tourist industry; as of now it doesn’t exist. Some — damned few, I suppose — will manage to adjust and fit into the action. More of them in the next generation, inevitably.
“But … as for the others … the ones who’d have a fit if anyone who lacks the Seven Signs outclassed them … the ones who can’t even lead a normal sex life without regular bouts of an abnormal sex life at the expense of others — those will go under. They must go under. I don’t see that ther
e’s any other way.
“No, no. I just don’t see that there’s any other way.”
• • •
And in the darkness Atoral moved closer and put her arm around him. He kissed her shoulder. She said, into his ear, “Is everyone upset these days? My sister was bound to become upset and my father has always been upset. But you, Tonoro? There was a time when you, at least, were not upset. What is this disturbing spirit which is in you?”
“How do you know that I’m upset?”
“ ‘How do I know?’ Ah, Tonoro! Oh — it’s not as bad as it was after you returned from levy, and that it never will be, I must hope … . But you sigh all night and you turn all night and you seldom smile. And I know that it is not me.”
“Ah, no! And it will never be you, I must hope!”
He returned her impulsive embrace, then her caress of a moment earlier. His lips found hers in the darkness. Their lips moved, but their hands moved more. And then their bodies. Later, “she listened through his skin to his slowing heart,” as an ancient poet had written. Marvelously, for the moment, at peace, he soon slipped away into sleep. He. But not she.
Such peace, however, does not last forever, and while it may diminish other troubles, it cannot abolish them.
It was their custom that, when they were together, they never were always together. “Thus we shall avoid being bored with one another, I must hope,” she’d said. Now in the morning she had her self-appointed task — planting several slips and saplings which she had brought from her golden garden; it was her intention to create one for him in a tiny corner of his own garden to remind him of her when she was not there. So her own morning was to be taken up with something she wanted to do and the doing of which would make her happy. But for him — ? There was nothing, he found, that he then desired doing. The thought of happiness seemed very far away.
The Enemy of My Enemy Page 13