The Golden People

by Fred Saberhagen

  "Seven humans are approaching the scoutship on foot," interrupted Otto's robotic voice.

  Chun Lui quickly switched the viewscreen to show the scene outside. Six naked warriors, armed with bows and bone knives, were approaching the landed ship with an air of timid determination. The one woman stumbling along in their midst wore a wrap of cloth about her hips, and was nearly hysterical with grief. The woman bore in her arms what the geryons had left of the little girl, and the woman's body and her legs were stained with the child's blood.

  Brazil's voice from the screen said: "I would suggest one of you two down there go out and say hello to the people, since it appears they finally want contact." The Colonel turned away briefly and could be heard exchanging a few muttered words with Grodsky. Then Brazil went on: "Mann, you're still the ranking planeteer down there. Take charge."

  And may the mighty spirits aid our cause on Golden, Adam thought. All right; here we go again. He stood up. His legs almost betrayed him.

  "Damn. Chun, help me up to the left seat, will you? Then you go out and talk to them."

  Chun Lui assisted him. "Sorry I had to use that stun beam on you, Ad."

  "Dammit, quit saying you're sorry. It's all right. Just shut up and get outside quick."

  The seven natives knelt before the groundsuited figure of Chun Lui when he descended to greet them formally.

  Dr. Osa Yamaguchi, head of Linguistics, was getting up in years. Whether as a result of her advancing age or not, she sometimes adopted a didactic manner, irrespective of her listeners' rank.

  "They're undoubtedly appealing for our help against the geryons," she informed General Grodsky, meanwhile tapping the papers and other records arrayed on the conference table before her. The language of the local people—the Tenoka, they called themselves—was now well on the way to being understood, at least well enough for some practical conversation. The job had taken several weeks of recording and computing and study, since Tenoka was not a simple tongue and the native speakers of it had been dwelling mostly on one subject.

  "That's definite?"

  "Yes."

  Grodsky turned to the head of Anthropology. "How does it look to you?"

  "They're not really too surprised at our presence, though they've never seen anything like us before. They accept us as some kind of demigods." The Chief Anthropologist was a small man named Pamon, usually vague of manner and sometimes indeterminate in his appearance. He tended to absorb the behavior of whatever people he was working with; already he was sitting with his hands clasped in the fashion of a Tenoka warrior, though he had not yet seen one of the Golden natives except on a screen.

  "So, they ask our help," Pamon went on. "I gather they've had more than the usual trouble with geryons lately. The beasts don't often attack healthy adults, and it seems probable that they can tell when a human is armed. For a child, or even two of them together, to leave the village unescorted is quite dangerous; and yet the children do. I suppose they must, to learn the adult skills."

  "Girls too?"

  "Perhaps. Or, she might have sneaked out just to watch our planeteering work, just out of curiosity." Pamon sighed.

  Grodsky frowned. "Have they any taboo against killing these particular animals? I don't mean to slaughter 'em wholesale, of course; no telling what that might do to the ecology. But if the beasts are cunning enough to avoid armed adults, it occurs to me that we might find a way to teach 'em that from now on attacking children is dangerous also."

  "No taboo against killing them, General. But they're doubtless hard to put away with primitive weapons."

  "I think we can educate 'em," said Colonel Brazil, breaking a thoughtful silence.

  "We have made this magic-doll, in the semblance of a child of your people," Brazil announced a few days later. He spoke in the Tenoka tongue, in which some days of intensive training had made him almost fluent, and he was standing outside his own scoutship on the surface of the planet. "The doll has no spirit of its own. When we wish it, the spirit of one of our warriors will enter into it. Thus we hope that the geryons will come to fear the children of your people."

  The Tenoka delegation, twelve or fifteen strong and including both men and women, shifted their feet uncertainly. Strong Breather, who seemed to be the most influential available leader, grunted thoughtfully. Pierced Arms, the local shaman, gave no sign of what he might be thinking, at least no sign that Boris could interpret. Pierced Arms was daubed over most of his gaunt, aged body with colored goo, and the scarred loops of tissue on his arms and shoulders were strung with feathered cords.

  The entire Tenoka delegation kept looking at the semblance of a child. A modified small robot, it stood with its back almost against one of the scoutship's extended landing struts. About a meter tall, the robot had been transformed into a tolerably good likeness of a naked native youngster, though if you looked at it closely it was obviously not alive. A breeze now stirred the realistic hair; otherwise the small figure was motionless. When turned on, it answered to the name of Shorty.

  "I will tell you now," Brazil resumed, "how we of the far land of Earth plan to help our friends, the Tenoka. As is well known, the Tenoka are fearless warriors; if they see any one of their tribe in danger, they will rush fiercely to help."

  Two of the fearless warriors listening to him giggled suddenly, holding sun-darkened-hands over their mouths. Strong Breather looked at them sternly, but his own mouth twitched. Wait a moment, thought Boris—did I use the word for 'fiercely' or 'drunkenly'? But in any case it seemed no great harm had been done.

  "This magic-doll," he went on, "will not need the help of the great Tenoka warriors. Our magic within the circle of our power is stronger than any number of the geryons. Therefore if you should see this seeming child pursued or attacked by geryons tomorrow, you must make no move to interfere. Will you inform all of your people of this?"

  Strong Breather and Pierced Arms exchanged a look. Then Boris got the chin-thrusts and grunts that meant agreement.

  Brazil added: "And tomorrow all of the real children must be kept in the villages, so there will be no mistake."

  Again the leaders of the delegation signified that they were willing.

  Now came what might well be the most ticklish part of the negotiation. "You have brought the used blankets, and the clothing worn but not washed." Brazil made it a statement and not a question; he could see that they had brought the stuff along as requested, tied into a bundle. But such things were often considered potentially powerful tools of magic against their owners. Pamon had been worried that the Tenoka might refuse at the last moment to turn them over.

  The technicians aboard Alpha One had given Shorty no odor of his own, but had provided the robot with a plastic skin that would absorb any smells it came in contact with after activation. The plan was to immerse Shorty in the bundle of Tenoka-redolent cloth for a day. To a geryon, smell might well be a more important sense than sight.

  "Take up the cloth things now," Boris instructed the Tenoka, "and wrap the child-doll in them, so it may convey to the geryons the danger of attacking your children. Tomorrow you may take back the things."

  After a brief pause, and another exchange of looks with Strong Breather, Pierced Arms stepped forward and delivered a sing-song harangue to Shorty, who received it stoically; then another to Boris, who understood not a word of either speech.

  But apparently this did not matter. The old man untied the bundle of laundry and began draping it around Shorty, piece by piece.

  "Well, you're the combat expert," Brazil said to Adam in the grounded scoutship that evening. "Ready to go tomorrow?"

  "All set." Adam glanced at the puppet chamber that had come down with Shorty from Alpha One, and now filled most of the scoutship's living space.

  Right now the puppet chamber resembled an empty shower room, its glass walls enclosing enough space for a man to stand or jump or turn a somersault, but very little more. When the power was turned on, the interior of the chamber was filled by
a fine, three-dimensional grid of forcefield lines. The grid recorded every instantaneous position of a human operator inside the chamber, data that could then be passed on by radio to Shorty or any other yesman, allowing a robot to be controlled exactly by the human. There was a return transmission also. Whatever experience presented itself to Shorty's electronic senses would be radioed back to the puppet chamber, and translated there into forcefield effects, with their intensity modified as necessary for the human operator's safety and comfort. A forcefield floor in the chamber acted as a treadmill, and continually modified its shape to imitate whatever terrain was under the yesman.

  Shorty was now standing in the scoutship's airlock, still wrapped in the Tenoka bedding and garments. Adam had spent some time in practice with the puppet chamber, marching the small yesman around in the vicinity of the scout. It had not taken long for him, with his reflexes, to regain the walking gait and habits of childhood, with his legs effectively reduced to about half their adult length. Shorty also possessed a kind of autopilot mode, useful for steady travel, in which the robotic brain took over control of legs and balance.

  "I'd just like to get started on the job," Adam added. Then abruptly he got up and paced, moving restlessly in the little space that was left outside the puppet chamber.

  Since there was scarcely room for two men to walk about, Brazil sat down at the table. The Colonel produced a deck of cards from somewhere, and began in an abstracted way to deal out two hands.

  Adam stopped his pacing and watched the fall of cards. "Two-handed poker?"

  "Not necessarily. Look, Junior, don't find some new way to go wild tomorrow. Grodsky and I are both sticking our necks out quite a bit by keeping you on the job after what happened."

  Mann stared at him for a moment, then said "Thanks" as if he possibly meant it, and spun away with nervous speed to pace again. He came back and stopped. "It's just that I keep thinking about that kid."

  "I know." Brazil's own life was not yet very long, as years were counted, but it was crowded with experience. "You'll see a lot of bad things in this job. You can't get too involved."

  "But I was involved. I was right there."

  "You did what you could."

  "Yeah."

  "Possibly we were wrong to stop you. Maybe Grodsky made a mistake there. He's only human. But maybe you made one, you're only human too."

  "Yeah." Mann was looking at him in a new way, as if the Colonel had somehow managed to make a previously unnoticed point. "Yeah, we're stuck with being only human, aren't we?"

  Brazil blinked at him. "Right." It was good that he had made some point, but… the Colonel decided to let it lie. "Now bring back some geryon ears tomorrow, and as a special reward I'll stop calling you Junior."

  Adam dozed, on the borderland of sleep. When he got tomorrow's job out of the way, when he had smashed some of those damnable animals and taught the rest a lesson, maybe things in his life would somehow straighten out. Planeteering would once again mean everything to him that it had once meant—or that he had once thought that it was going to mean. Back in the days when there had been more meaning to a lot of things. Before Alice had been…

  In sleep, Alice's face came again to drift before him. She cried out again for help, only to be replaced by the image of the mangled Tenoka girl.

  "Turns out she was an orphan," Pamon had told him. "The woman who carried her to your ship was a widow, acting as a foster parent, supported by the tribe. Interesting institution."

  Later there was another dream, this one involving yellow teeth.

  Chapter Eight

  "Overseer reports another group of five animals, coming this way, bearing about one-two-oh," said Colonel Brazil. He was speaking over the scoutship's intercom system, and referring to an aerial survey of geryons within the chosen area of the Stem. "Range about a klick and a half. That makes twenty-two of the beasties within reasonable walking range. Be nice if you could get 'em all chasing after you."

  "I'll walk by and give them the chance," Adam answered, He was standing inside the puppet chamber now, trying to persuade the skin-tight operator's suit to stretch into something like a comfortable fit. "Let's hope they feel like playing."

  "Ready for chamber power?"

  "Roger."

  "Power coming on."

  Adam reached up to the top of the chamber, unhooked the operator's helmet from its suspension there and fitted it carefully over his head. The helmet covered his eyes and ears completely, effectively shutting out surrounding sight and sound. Blindly he worked to get the mouth control, that managed certain of the robot's functions, comfortably positioned where his teeth could operate it.

  Now Adam let his arms drop to his sides. Color swam and steadied before his eyes, forming shapes and illusory distances, becoming the inside of the closed outer door of the scoutship's airlock. The background noise changed subtly in his ears.

  The illusion was well-nigh perfect. Both sight and hearing assured Adam that he was now standing inside the airlock, inside Shorty's metal body, only a meter tall and still wrapped in the Tenoka cloth. He shrugged the stuff away from him, thinking himself probably lucky that the yesman had been provided with no functioning nose.

  Adam stepped forward one child-sized stride, and raised one of his/Shorty's little arms. The stiff latch of the airlock door eased open at a touch of Shorty's baby-sized finger, steel-boned, electrically muscled, powered by a tiny hydrogen fusion lamp in Shorty's chest.

  Adam-Shorty toddled down the short landing ramp. He was barely able to see over the tallest grass.

  "Robot," Adam said, and let his legs relax, as the chamber controls read the code word, and the chamber forcefields tightened to support his human weight. The robot brain had now taken over the routine business of making step after step with the yesman's legs. This might be an all-day job, and there was no point in wearing himself out hiking. Adam steered with the sterile-tasting mouth control, and with a light biting pressure held Shorty's speed to that of a walking child.

  Tall grass flowed easily by him, the long blades still bearing traces of morning dew.

  "Bear about ten degrees left," said the voice of the aerial observer in his ears. "You're going to find the first group, four beasts, about two hundred meters ahead, moving down a little ravine, very slowly."

  Adam bore left as directed. He looked up into kindly blue. After a bit he was able to spot Overseer. If geryons were aware at all of distant scoutships, they ought to be accustomed to the sight of them by now. This one presumably would mean nothing in particular to the animals.

  Adam didn't want to run right into the four animals ahead. He preferred to go past them and let them stalk him, if they would. They were cunning creatures, and the lesson was to be spelled out for them precisely and plainly. Death-beams or bullets might not be connected in the geryons' minds with the seeming child they were, Adam hoped, about to attack. Therefore beams and bullets would not be used.

  He came to the ravine where he had been directed to go, and toddled along the top of the high bank. Soon he saw the four geryons, all adults, moving slowly along, grazing in sparse cover at the bottom. Adam/Shorty gave no sign that he had seen them. He walked past and let them become aware of him, then turned away from the ravine.

  "Where's the next bunch?" Adam whispered into his helmet mike. Then he chuckled at himself for whispering.

  Ninety minutes later Adam-Shorty had fourteen of the animals interested enough to follow him. The geryons were moving in a widespread formation that still seemed to be trying to give the impression of aimless drifting. Adam, taking care to keep the little robot well clear of the Field, was headed now toward a certain eroded slope above a bend of the river. There was plenty of rocky ground there to offer the firm support that Shorty's tiny feet might need, and there was a small box canyon that also figured in the plan.

  He cast a quick look back over Shorty's shoulder. The geryons, at a distance of a hundred meters or so, were following him a little more obviously
now, a slow certainty of intention apparent in their movements. Less frequently now did the omnivorous animals stop to graze, or pretend to graze.

  Adam took a quick count—there were fifteen of the animals now, three or four of them only half grown, with scaly-looking bodies and heavily furred legs. The faces of the adult females among the group were those of lovely but unhappy women. The males had men's faces with a look of nobility about them, slight variations on the face of the first geryon that Adam had ever seen.

  The illusion was intense of his actual presence out there on the plain, a child small and alone before gigantic predators. How many real children had turned to discover that the things were following them, how many real children had run and tripped and screamed…

  The illusion was heightened further as Adam took Shorty's legs back under his direct control. Now the rocks of the chosen slope were not far ahead. Out of nervous habit he felt with the yesman's hand for a holster at its side. Then he grinned to himself. Shorty did not carry sidearms. Or need them.

  As he neared the stony area, Adam began to run, imitating the movements of a frightened child. Glancing back at the animals, he saw them drop all pretense of innocence now and give chase. They were probably clever enough to know that a child might be able to find a sheltering crevice among the rocks.

  Adam/Shorty toddled into the chosen box canyon only a few seconds ahead of the geryons, then turned and stood as if frozen in despair, near the center of the steep-walled natural trap. His pursuers came crowding after him through the canyon's narrow entrance, snapping and shoving to get ahead of one another. None wanted to be left out. One child was not going to provide much sport for fifteen geryons.

  Now Adam continued to stand as if paralyzed by fright, while the huge gray beasts first settled a pecking order among themselves, then waddled to form a ring around him. As soon as the ring was closed, they began to tighten it, moving almost as if in practiced ritual. Some moved toward Shorty with high dainty steps, looking down their human noses at him as if in righteous pride. Some crept forward on their bellies, scummy tongues lolling from their frowning mouths, an effect that ruined the nobility of their fine men's and women's faces.