The Golden People

by Fred Saberhagen

  "Who the devil is that?" It came out rougher than he had intended.

  "An old friend." Merit suddenly looked worried. "His name is Adam Mann. I told you about him, darling."

  The anger rose up in Vito, a flame finding new fuel. "Didn't lose any time getting cozy with him, did you? He looks like a tramp. Is he another of your parapsych friends?"

  "No—no." Merit was shaken. She appeared to be too surprised by his outburst to know how to react to it; somehow that only made him worse.

  "So, you got off the ship and went straight to see him." The wrong words, meant to hurt, came out with perverse ease, like lines well-studied for a play, even when Vito knew that they were wrong.

  "Yes, Vito, I did that." Merit, as usual, had needed only a moment to regain complete control of herself. Still she was angry too. "And I even went to visit the cabin where he lives. So be angry if you must. If you can't grow up. You could decide to trust me."

  "Oh, I could, could I? And what would happen then?" How good it would be, how really fine, to find some reason to hit someone. And meanwhile Dr. Shishido, looking more and more worried, was hovering almost beside them, watching the argument. He kept making little fussing starts of movement as if he yearned to interfere. And Kedro still stood at the railing, now looking down at his huge hands clamped onto the wood, determinedly minding his own business.

  It was just at this point that the Earthman chatting with the natives on the dock below looked up at them all again and smiled pleasantly. To Vito, at the moment, there was no doubt of what that smile meant: She came straight to me, and I took her to my cabin, and what are you going to do about it?

  Vito growled in his throat, and started down the stairs. Mann, or whatever his name was down there, was shorter than Vito and a little lighter probably, but the bastard was carrying a knife, and if he wanted to try using his knife Vito right now didn't give a damn.

  "Vito, no!" Merit clutched at his arm belatedly as he went by her, and it afforded him minor satisfaction to be able to tear his sleeve free of her grip without a pause. Skipping downstairs with the unthinking balance of the natural athlete, he knew in the back of his mind that he was wrong, dead wrong and going overboard. But this was one of those times when temper just got out of hand, and afterward there could always be apologies.

  He heard and ignored Shishido behind him, the little scientist raising his voice in some ineffectual protest. Then Vito hit the bottom of the stairs, and bounced along straight toward the man who owned what must be a very attractive cabin. The two natives saw Vito coming, and the way he looked, and they hastily backed away to stand with folded arms and wooden faces.

  At close range, he could see that Man was well built, with a deep chest and strong arms; good. There wouldn't be much difference in weight after all. Mann's pleasant smile had changed to a look of startled caution.

  Vito stopped just within his own long reach of the bearded man. "Have a good time with my wife today?" he asked. He felt his lips drawn back, the blood beating in his head, the muscles in his face hurting a little. He felt his fists big and hard, and his feet ready to shift, quickly and lightly.

  "Yeah," said Mann, plainly. He was squinting at Vito with his head a little tilted, as if he were trying to understand something.

  Vito said a filthy name and shifted his weight and stabbed his left arm out in a well-aimed jab that shot past Mann's instantly moving face. The second jab missed too, and the hard overhand right, thrown without having the range at all, missed so badly that Vito almost fell down.

  He lost sight of Mann for just an instant, and spun around with his guard up. But Mann was only shuffling backward away from him. A clumsy-looking man of about average size, his arms down, still puzzled. "What goes on?" he asked, seeming no more than annoyed.

  Vito moved after him, with cold precision, and no lessening of the urge to strike and destroy. He shifted and feinted, like the good amateur boxer that he was, but drew no response. He moved in with another left jab that also missed those unblinking elusive eyes, and a long hook that touched only air, and then a looping right that was stopped when his forearm caught on Mann's, which came up with unhurried speed and felt like a wooden club

  Vito stood there for a long instant, with his right arm caught and his left out of position, his feet somehow misplaced and his balance failing as Mann's forearm pulled him slightly forward, and he knew he was ripe to be clobbered, by someone who knew how.

  But Vito wasn't clobbered. Mann disengaged at once and stepped back again.

  "Keep it up, bud, and I'll chuck you in the river," he said in a flat voice. "Pretty cold this time of year."

  Vito too stepped back this time. He was breathing heavily. Merit was calling something to him. From the sound of her voice, she was almost in tears. Shishido like an angry schoolmaster was saying: "Here, now! Stop it, you two!"

  And now Vito's rage was burning out quickly, not with fear or frustration, though he began to feel both of those, but as if the fuel were being cut off. He backed away carefully from Mann, turned and headed for the stairway.

  The draining out of anger left him shaky, going up the stairs. Oh, by all the Laws, he thought, I really popped my circuit breakers that time, He stopped and half-turned once on the stairs, intending to try to say something to Mann; but what was there to say?

  Keeping his back turned to the dock, Vito climbed on. At the top of the stair he muttered some futile apology to Shishido, who favored him with a look of sad pity as he went by. Vito plunged right on into the lab; he had to be alone for a minute.

  What kind of a damn fool am I? he thought. What have I done to Merit now? I never blew up like that before in my whole adult life.

  He leaned against a generator that was still humming itself down slowly into silence after the day's futile experiment. After a few seconds he heard the door behind him, and then Merit's blessed footsteps.

  "Adam, the way you look seems to prove that going native here is healthy. I should have come to try it years ago." It was Ray Kedro who said that, Ray grinning as of old, looking down from his great height and engulfing Adam's right hand in his own, almost crushing it in greeting.

  "Seeing you and Merit again was what I needed," said Adam. Ray was looking stronger and handsomer than ever. Somehow he even gave the impression of being still bigger than the last time Adam had seen him, as if he might have kept on growing after the age of twenty or so. But it wasn't really an increase in physical size, Adam decided. In controlled dominance, perhaps.

  Adam was introduced to Dr. Shishido, who went through the motions rather blankly, his mind obviously elsewhere. As director of the lab he probably had a lot to think about, when his physicists started trying to pick fights with strangers. Merit had already followed her husband inside.

  "Do you suppose we had better postpone our dinner engagement?" the little administrator asked Ray now. Shishido was still looking almost fearfully after Vito and Merit.

  Ray told him: "Sorry about the demonstration."

  "It's not your fault, Dr. Kedro." Shishido dropped his voice. "Tell me, is he—?" He concluded with a nervous motion of his head toward the closed laboratory door.

  Ray puffed out his breath faintly. "Vito really isn't himself just now. There have been problems, some of which you know about… I regret to say that I think you're right about the dinner. Should I call you about it tomorrow?—maybe we can arrange to get together then."

  "That would be best, I suppose."

  "Good." Ray shook his head, as if trying to dismiss a nagging thought. "Right now I'd better start trying to get back to town. I have an appointment in half an hour to see General Lorsch. Ride in with me, Ad?"

  "Sure."

  While walking beside Ray toward the meadow where the shuttle copter waited, Adam remarked: "Merit's husband is not himself just now, you said. I can believe that. Why would she have married a total madman? What's going on?"

  "It's a long story, Ad. Bureaucracy and frustration are only part of it. A
mong other problems. I didn't want to go into it all in front of Shishido. I'll tell you the whole story, sometime."

  They walked the next few paces in silence. Then Adam commented: "So you're going to see the General, not wasting any time. She hasn't too much to do these days. There isn't very much Space Force left on Golden."

  "I'm not wasting any time," Ray agreed, looking gently serious. "Not here on Golden. I don't think that there's any time left to waste."

  And though he tried fiercely, Adam could not persuade him to elaborate on that.

  Chapter Eleven

  "Why are you people so anxious to get the Space Force completely off this planet?" General Lorsch made her voice deliberately casual. "I know you're putting pressure on Earth Parliament."

  A woman whose rather shapeless body never managed to look well-fitted in any uniform, she still sat with practiced ease behind the huge desk she had inherited some years ago, along with the mysteries of Golden, from General Grodsky. Grodsky was currently serving in a high-placed staff job back on Earth. There were times when General Lorsch would have been quite ready to change places with him.

  The only other person in the General's private office at this moment was the Jovian, Ray Kedro, who was sitting in an equally relaxed attitude in the big visitor's chair on the other side of the desk.

  "General Lorsch," said Kedro, "I just got off the ship from Earth this morning. I've come to Golden as the representative of several organizations, so I'm not sure what you mean by 'you people'."

  Lorsch consulted a scrap of paper on her generally untidy desk. She said offhandedly: "Oh, those organizations, yes… I have the list here. You represent the Research Foundation, of course, plus a hotel chain, plus a mining corporation. Plus one or two others."

  "Is there anything wrong with my representing them?"

  "No. Not necessarily. Though / wouldn't want to represent them all. Most of the people on this roster, probably all of them, have schemes to get rich quick, and some of them would like a freer hand in trading and dealing with the natives here… when they've made their profit, of course, they will then pull but, leaving a mess for someone else to worry about."

  "You may be right about them, General, in some cases at least. My representation of them on Golden is limited. And it has a purpose."

  "I'm sure it does. And I know I'm right. They have put similar schemes into operation on other planets."

  "I—we Jovians—have had nothing to do with those schemes. I would only suggest that here, on this planet where we are somewhat involved, you might wait and see if those companies don't manage their affairs somewhat differently. More to the benefit of all concerned."

  "If I waited to be sure of the result, it might well be too late."

  "Not necessarily, General. It would depend to a great extent on how the contracts were drawn, wouldn't it?"

  "Perhaps… but let that go for the moment. Even that is not my first concern just now."

  "Then what is, ma'am?" Kedro, she thought, could find just the right note of politeness.

  "I'll tell you what. There's recently been extra heavy pressure on Earth Parliament to get us—the Space Force—to leave Golden. And I don't mean just pressure from the mining corporations and so on that I've just been talking about. That kind of thing we expect, that's routine. This, as I say, is extra. And it comes from you people, always from you, and you know who I mean. Jovians. Now why is that?"

  Kedro had been gently nodding his understanding throughout her speech. Now his eyes seemed to be asking her to understand him too. He said: "To me, the concept of 'my people' extends a long way beyond my ninety-nine siblings. I consider that my people are the human race. The whole Earth—descended branch of it, at least."

  "I might say the same thing about my own feelings," commented the General drily. She made her chair creak, rocking gently. Sometimes the creak unsettled visitors, and she had an urge to see if Kedro could be unsettled. "But what I have in mind now is a certain sub-class of that large group, the very one you first mentioned. Namely you and your gene-altered friends. Your siblings, if you want to call them that, though I understand there's no direct biological relationship among you. In the popular phrase, the Jovians."

  "You should not view us as opponents," said Kedro. His manner was still thoroughly calm, his tone almost reproving. He seemed to be skirting the edge of the attitude of someone who lays down moral rules and then expects to have them followed.

  "General, I think that your organization and mine can help each other, to the benefit of the entire human race. And I don't mean just the Earthly branch of it."

  "Fine!" Lorsch pushed forward a carved box on her desk, offering Kedro several versions of Antarean cigars, an invitation which was politely declined. The General chose one of the smaller variants for herself, and lit up. Then she leaned back, still rocking and creaking a little. Then she asked again, patiently: "Why do you people want to get the Space Force off this planet?"

  Kedro said imperturbably: "I think you are no longer needed here. I think that the Field itself adequately protects most of the natives of this particular world from exploitation. Adequate local laws, and improved contracts in the case of some of the people you mentioned, can protect the rest, here in the Stem area, which is the only place the Space Force can protect them anyway. I also think that the best place for the Space Force is elsewhere, out on the real Galactic frontier, exploring new worlds and in general doing the job that it was created to do."

  Lorsch drummed her fingers on the desk. "Golden still is a frontier. What we have here is a small beachhead on an unexplored planet, though Earth people who live here for any length of time tend to get used to having the Field surrounding them and think of it as something natural. I wasn't in favor of opening the place up for colonization so quickly, myself, but… that's been done now. You're going to work on the Field at the lab. Do you think there's any hope of our physicists being able to solve the Field, manage it, push it back in the near future?"

  Kedro shook his head, a thoughtful but definite negative.

  Lorsch went on: "So, we're still very much on the frontier here, even though as you must know we've explored for a dozen parsecs beyond this system in every direction, trying to find more evidence of the Field-builders. So far, no success."

  "I don't know that there are any Field-builders," Kedro replied.

  The General was surprised. "You say it's a natural phenomenon, then? Why?"

  "I don't know that that's the right answer either… well, stay on Golden if you like, General. Not that you have to ask my permission. I have not much influence in the matter, whatever you may think. But if this is, as you say, still a frontier, then I wonder why you haven't done more frontier work here over the last few years. Has the Space Force ever made any serious attempt to explore this planet's surface away from the Stem?"

  Lorsch's cigar was burning itself out, forgotten in an ashtray. Her chair was still. "There have been a few scouting expeditions, necessarily made on foot—neither horses nor native animals have worked out as well as we had hoped for transportation. We intend to send out more expeditions eventually, probing deeper."

  "I'd like to go along on the next one that you do send, General. It might be possible to make some observations away from the Stem that would materially help the physicists' work at Fieldedge."

  "Well." Somewhat surprised, Lorsch thought it over. "Maybe something can be arranged along that line." It didn't hurt to say that much, at least. "I'll let you know if a suitable chance should come up while you're still on planet."

  "I intend to be on Golden quite a while. Why did you call me in here today, General? Just to ask about my lobbying efforts back on Earth?"

  "You weren't forced to come when I called. You're a practicing telepath, aren't you? Do you need to ask me about my motives?"

  "I need no special parapsych powers to read your hostility. General Lorsch, you must know something of how telepathy actually works, as opposed to the popular ideas. Y
ou must realize that the idea of probing your mind is as distasteful to me as it must be to you. And I can assure you it's not a very reliable way to obtain information."

  "You have tried it, then."

  Kedro ignored the question. "Now why do you think I want you and your people to leave Golden? So I can make myself governor? Dictator? Or enrich myself by smuggling?"

  The General shook her head. "No." Her voice was weakening a little, and with a conscious effort she made it stronger. "I don't really think you people want such things, except maybe in an incidental way. You people don't work to become conspicuous rulers, and you're not ostentatious about your wealth. You'd much rather stay behind the scenes, and marry each other, and cooperate with each other to accumulate indirect control over all kinds of human activity."

  "I might say the very same things, and just as accurately, about the Space Force, General Lorsch. Are those things evil when we do them, and good—"

  "It's not the same thing at all, dammit!" Lorsch, to her own surprise, could feel her self control slipping. "It's simply not true that we try to control all kinds of human activity. And we don't consider ourselves to be more than human!"

  Kedro looked down at the floor for a few seconds. His handsome face was sad. When he raised his eyes and spoke, his voice was soft and almost tentative. "Why should you be tempted to consider yourselves more than human, General?"

  "Do you think you're more than human? Homo Superior? I've heard that you do!"

  "Do you believe that I am human, General Lorsch? Or even something less than that, perhaps?" Kedro's voice this time was still low. But it was no longer soft, or tentative.

  Seconds slid away in silence. Lorsch, trying with unexpected difficulty to frame her answer, felt an impression growing on her with the speed and force of nightmare. It was the impression that what sat and spoke with her in her office was not a man in any sense, but rather an elemental force, a materialized law of the universe that had taken on a slightly larger than human form, and might at any moment take on a different and more disquieting form than that.