A Jungle of Stars

by Jack L. Chalker

  The old teacher had shaken her head sadly, and replied as one would to a retarded child. "Galaxies crash, suns explode, civilizations rise and fall. The nar-bug is eaten by the fikkil, who is in turn eaten by the dros; and good people worldwide are visited with undeserved affliction.

  "No, do not look for civilizing influences," the old one continued, and she had taken the young Gayal's arm and brought her over to a window. The sky was ablaze with stars, exactly like this night. "When all is said and done, you will find no paradise out there--only a jungle of stars."

  The teacher, Gayal reflected, must have felt very smug and self-righteous when the invaders came, in their great black ships, settling down and burning acres of grain and grass.

  She had heard the news on the television and on her wall had seen tapes of the great ships landing and disgorging their weirdly alien troops. There had been no army to oppose them, no ships in which to flee...

  A new order had been established planetwide: henceforth, they were to provide food first for the conquering hordes. What was left over was for themselves, if they worked particularly hard and if they increased production as well.

  Fala had called her in, shortly after. He looked particularly old and very, very tired.

  "Gayal, my favorite of all," he began, his voice cracking with emotion, "it is time to show you some things that must be shown, and to do what must be done."

  "You have heard, then, of the invaders?" she asked innocently.

  "I have known of them since only a few years after I was born," he told her. "I have feared this day, though I knew it would come. An army travels on its stomach, always, and The Bromgrev has a huge army."

  She looked puzzled. "Who or what is a Bromgrev?" she asked--and he told her: of the Kreb, of the Union of Souls, of the great battle for the minds and hearts of the galaxy that was then being waged.

  "I was taken early, when I was but three or four, to an alien world far from here. How I was chosen, or why, I know not--although it was with the approval of the Agent-in-Charge here before me, who was then old and dying, lucky him!

  "I was raised both on- and off-planet by the agent and by the greater organization of beings that he served. A great installation lies below our feet, with charts of the battle and the great starfield. It has kept me in contact with them for many years, and I have friends of strange races, many of whom I have never seen. Even so, none foresaw our conquest this quickly--though we could do little with simple handguns against such a powerful horde. Now they are here and my job is complex."

  "What sort of job, my husband?" she asked, curious and apprehensive.

  "My organization is activated. It will, by its actions, attempt to deny, at least for a time, that which the enemy seeks. Our beloved world is to be placed in ruins by my own hand."

  His voice gave completely, and he dissolved for a time in tears. Finally, he composed himself.

  "There are key missions that I have not been able to verify which must be carried out," he explained, "and we have a very little time to do them. I must see that they are done, personally, if there is no other way. The least of them is dangerous enough. Thus, someone must be here to do my job."

  He had shown Gayal the wondrous communications equipment, and the rudiments of operating it. He had told her what to say and how to say it; how to interpret the sabotage reports that would come in and how to report these to the unseen agency far off in space. Had she been any less of an intellectual, it would have been too much to grasp; as it was, her head still reeled with it.

  The final shock was the little surgeon with tiny, shifty eyes who had planted something, painlessly and invisibly, in her head.

  "When you have lost contact with me and my principal people, you are to destroy this place as I have shown you and use the signal to get picked up, in order to flee the planet."

  "But," she had protested, "what about you? I would rather stay, as you would, and fight these monsters."

  Sadness had tinged his voice as he replied. "I will stay because I expect to die. If I somehow live, I will join you, I promise. But you must survive--for I have made certain that within your brain are the moral and intellectual foundations of our race. One day, these monsters will be defeated. Live for it! Work for it! And then you must come back and make our people free again!"

  He had taken her head in his hands, and together they had coupled for the last time. In the morning, he was gone.

  Gayal had done as instructed, and from the reports she learned just how utter the destruction was. Bacteria had been released by Delialians that killed the grain crops in most areas; by signals, they destroyed their orbiting factories. Retaliation had been swift--although the Conquerors' first attempt, public hangings, did not work: the Delialians had neck muscles too strong to allow them to be choked by rope. The enemy therefore settled on public torture of old men and children--particularly children. The planet caved in.

  After nine days, reports from Fala ceased and all attempts to raise him failed.

  Slowly, too, a horrible pattern of conquest developed. Kah'diz were dropped in the key regions and made the "adjustments" in the locals. The emotion-masters could turn hatred into love, horror into worship; they methodically started work on key towns and plantations across the planet. And there appeared to be an endless supply of them for the job. Their task was the most difficult thing in warfare: pacification of captured indigenous populations. Slowly, very slowly, but quite efficiently, the Kah'diz turned the bulk of the population from heartsick resisters into willing and loving slaves.

  Word came one day that it would soon be the turn of Gayal's plantation for the treatment, word sent at grave risk by as yet "unaltered" relations.

  The Kah'diz had entered haughtily, mounted on the back of a Delialian, and demanded to see the man in charge. One of Gayal's sisters--all the females in a herd were called "sisters"--had explained that he had gone away and had not been seen or heard from since.

  The Kah'diz had nodded, and demanded an inventory of stock, farm reserves, tools--and people.

  Gayal and her sisters had talked of killing the creature, but then decided that this would only bring more--and perhaps death and ruin for them and their children. They agreed to go along with the Kah'diz, but do as little as possible for the conquerors.

  Then the true horror had begun.

  She and her nine sisters had been sitting around talking of the heartbreak and bleak future that must surely await them, when the intercom buzzed.

  "Send in Maral," the Kah'diz's dead voice commanded.

  Maral, the plantation's voice, and overseer of the business end of the operation, was not surprised; she had gotten used to being summoned whenever the Kah'diz was unhappy over something--which was always.

  She left in her usual defiant spirit, ready to do battle with what she called the "one and a half-wit" in the front office. She was gone over two hours, and they began to worry. They had just decided to see what had happened when Maral walked back into the room. A tiny smile was on her lips and her eyes had a faraway, dreamy look.

  They crowded around her, dying to hear the new story of what the creature had demanded and what she'd told him.

  "The Master commanded that we increase production and tilled acreage, and I assured him that we would all do our duty," she replied matter-of-factly.

  There was a stunned silence. Finally, Freyal, the youngest, spoke.

  "You're not serious, are you? We swore not to help--"

  "You are a thought criminal!" Maral snapped, cutting her off. "The Master warned me of this, but he assured me that he could cure such thoughts. I certainly hope so!"

  And with that she stormed out of the room.

  The sisters were all talking at once, most of them in stunned disbelief, when, suddenly they noticed that the Kah'diz stood in the doorway.

  "You see how easy it is?" it said casually. The creature was obviously enjoying their shock and horror, almost bathing in it. "If you're thinking of leaving," the Kah'diz
warned them after a long pause, "I would advise against it. I have people around to see that no one leaves--and you cannot even be certain of your lifelong friends anymore. Besides, there is nowhere to run. Accept the new order, and work better than before. I shall be finished here in two days, anyway."

  With that, it turned and left.

  There had been no mistaking that last: within two days, the entire plantation would be run by loyal slaves willing to work themselves to death to please their conquerors.

  Later that night, Gayal had slipped away to the hidden passage in the stone wall of the main hall. No one saw or heard her, as it was the outside that was guarded.

  She stepped into the elevator and the wall in front became solid once again. For the final time she went to the War Room, and for the final time she made her report to the anonymous, alien voices.

  "This location is in enemy hands. Those horrible parasites are enslaving everyone here. If I do not get out now, it will be too late."

  "Get away," came a tinny reply. "Seek some place to stay that is safe for a few days. We're very busy, but we'll get someone there as quickly as possible."

  "My sisters and children--"

  "Only you. We trust Fala's judgment. Also, more than one of you will be too many to remain hidden until we can get there, and a child would be impossible to hide for days on end. Go. Pull the switch and get out by the emergency exit. This is the last transmission."

  "But how will you find me?" she asked.

  "We will," came the voice for the last time, and the line went dead.

  The little whine had begun instantly in her head...

  ***

  Gayal had been living in caves with only that whine for company for almost ten days.

  She got up now, reluctantly, from her grassy mat and headed back to the cave. As she neared it, she sniffed the air for unfamiliar scents. There was no scent in the air at all.

  She stopped dead in her tracks. There is never no scent in the air at all.

  They were waiting for her to return to the cave. Looking hard through the darkness, she thought she could detect movement.

  Slowly she edged back down the slope and, when at a safe distance, started running for the little patch of forest just on the other side of the fields from the hills.

  She had just made the first trees when she heard noises on the hill behind her--four clear shots, pop, pop, pop, pop, then silence. She stopped and stared at the trail, clearly visible from her position.

  After a short interval, a creature appeared, walking slowly on the trail, from time to time consulting a little device which glowed. In its right hand was a large rifle of a design she had never seen.

  Abruptly the creature halted, and seemed to be looking around. She saw that it wore goggles.

  A night viewer!

  She froze.

  "It's all right, Gayal," the creature called in her own language. "I am here to pick you up. The four who sought to capture you are dead." It patted its rifle.

  Gayal was puzzled and frightened. How could she know if this weird creature was friend or enemy?

  "I'm locating you by the device in your head and the device in my hand. You are--let's see--behind the fourth tree and slightly to the right of me. Since I know where you are, you might as well trust me."

  Gayal had never felt such fear, but the creature was right. She was saved--or dead. She arose from her hiding place and came toward it.

  Ralph Bumgartner smiled and slung the rifle over his shoulder. Four dead, another soul saved. All in a day's work.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The last rescue was the easiest for Bumgartner and his cyborg pilot.

  "We have the lifeboat in sight," the cyborg's voice told him as Gayal entered from the aft compartment.

  The trip had not been wasted on her; she had been handling language tapes and had progressed very well in several of the "essential" languages needed to get along in The Hunter's polyglot world of refugees, and she'd been making use of the ship's master library to acquaint herself with the conflict into which she was so newly propelled. Bumgartner kept the atmosphere in the ship deliberately rich in oxygen for her sake, toning it down day by day so she could get used to the Terran atmosphere.

  "What's the story on this one?" she asked him in Universal, the trading language used by most of the galaxy's races when communicating with those not of their kind.

  Bumgartner shrugged. "Nothing much. Koldon's world hasn't been touched directly by the war, and probably won't be. They're a race of nasty telepaths with the ability to jam some of The Bromgrev's most useful mental frequencies, and they can't be conned by the Kah'diz or have a successful attitude change. Also, their planet isn't very valuable--a neutral clearing house for interplanetary business, run by Koldon's race of middlemen. Take them out--and The Bromgrev would have to take them out--and it would foul up trade and communication, not to mention finances, on such a drastic scale that it would hurt The Bromgrev as bad as us."

  "They are salesmen, then?"

  "And bankers. Strictly mercenary, loyal only to money."

  Gayal was appalled by the vision of such cold, robotic, greedy creatures. "So what do we want with one of them?" she asked.

  "Oh, Koldon's on our side. He was a commodities broker--would buy and sell anything, really, for a price. When The Bromgrev took over Rhambda, he acquired three billion willing servants. You remember that, don't you?"

  "Yes," she replied gravely. "A whole world of unblocked telepaths. The mass mind."

  "Right. Well, The Bromgrev had three billion little Bromgrevs, but because they had lacked competition for so long it was an extremely primitive world, too. To put those soldiers into action required technology: starships, weaponry, and the like. To get them, The Bromgrev went to Koldon."

  "Then this--this Koldon is responsible for the war!" she exclaimed. "He should be killed, not rescued!"

  "Well, perhaps, but Koldon didn't know who or what he was really dealing with. It seemed legit on the surface--and if he hadn't made the deal, somebody else would have. At any rate, Koldon has suffered his guilty conscience over the deal ever since the first shots were fired. He feels as you do--that the war is his fault. He's been working with us ever since."

  "But, if that's so, what's he doing being picked up?"

  "Well, after several years of being a double agent, somebody caught on. They decoyed him onto a liner, where he thought--or was led to think--some highly sensitive information on Bromgrev fleet movements would be passed to him. They caught him; but he's a rather imposing sort of fellow and he broke free, got to a lifeboat, and cast off. Now his cover's blown, so we have to pick him up."

  "Lifeboat alongside," reported the metallic feminine voice of the cyborg. "Prepare to link." A pause was followed by a mild bump. "Lock linked."

  Bumgartner and Gayal went back to the lock area to receive the latest refugee. Gayal watched and waited as the pressure gauges showed the air transfer. The red light turned green, and the ship's lock door opened.

  Gayal wasn't quite certain what she expected, but she could not shake the image of a mechanical man of some kind, all facts and figures. Or perhaps a wizened, serious gnome accustomed to dreary offices and accounting books. Koldon was not so easily stereotyped.

  "I thought you'd never get here," came a voice--No, not a voice, really. It seemed to boom, full of life and emotion, yet no sound had been uttered. The words formed inside her head.

  "Your fat belly could stand to lose some lard," Bumgartner shot back good-naturedly.

  The creature he addressed was almost three meters tall. It had to bend to get through the port. Gayal had seen nothing remotely like it in her life, but to Bumgartner the creature could have been a reddish-blond grizzly bear with a skeletal structure better suited to walking upright. Its eyes were huge, a bright blue, and very human; while its long, thick forelegs ended in stubby, fur-covered hands with coal-black palms--three fingers and an oversized thumb that was almost as long as the hand itse
lf. Gayal also noted that he was incredibly fat; it hung in droopy layers all over him.

  The newcomer spotted her.

  "Ah! What's this? A Delialian? And a female at that!"

  "What's so odd about that?" she snapped angrily. She didn't care for the continuously humorous note of the newcomer's thought projections.

  Telepathic Koldon caught this immediately and grew serious.

  "I know what your world must have gone through. I'm terribly sorry. I feel--well--somewhat responsible..."

  "And so you should!" She almost shot the words at him.

  He showed it, and his "voice" took on a tone that was incredible for its depth and range of sadness and hurt. She felt suddenly sorry for the big creature.

  "I--I don't know what to say," he went on. "There has been too much tragedy already, and this is, I fear, only the beginning of it. But you must learn to accept those who are on your side, you know, no matter what you think of them personally. We live, work, breathe for the same cause." He jabbed a stubby index finger at her. "But never lose that moral tone! It's what separates us from them."

  The great bear-creature went over and plopped down on a cot. It was far too short for him, and he finally lay straddling the end of the cot with his great hind legs as it sagged and creaked.

  "I trained Fala, you know," he said quietly.

  Gayal turned as if shot. "What do you know of Fala?" she asked sharply.

  "When this network was set up long, long ago, I trained him. He was just a boy then. An orphan, alone, a castoff among his own kind."

  "But why?" she asked, remembering the strong, sensual man she had known for so many years.

  "He was born weak--a runt, with little to ensure survival. Too much inbreeding, I think. He was a bleeder, and had a humped back. They threw him out to die in the fields."

  "That's not so!" Gayal protested. "He was neither of those things!"

  "Oh, but he was," Koldon replied. "Our field agent discovered him and took him in, realizing that in that rotten body was a keen intellect, if properly developed. We took him to where we're going now--to a world called Valiakea, in the Aruni Cluster. They're master biologists--had to be. Things are so unstable on that planet that they change shape and metabolism ten times an hour just to stay alive.