Worldmakers

by Gardner Dozois

  A man rattled the bars of his door as they passed. “I’m from New America!” His harsh scream bounded between steel walls. “Do you know my wife? Is Martha Riley all right?”

  “Shut up!” snapped the guard, and fed him a shock beam. He lurched back into the darkness of his cell. His mate, whose face was disfigured by a cancer, eased him to his bunk.

  Someone else yelled, far down the long white-lit rows. A guard came running from that end. The voice pleaded: “It’s a nightmare. It’s just a nightmare. The stuff’s got intuh muh brain and I’m always dreamin’ nightmares—”

  “They get twitchy after a while,” said Thomas. “Stuff will seep through the suits and lodge in their bodies. Then they’re not much good for anything but pick-and-shovel work. Don’t be afraid, gentlemen, we have reinforced suits for the visitors and guards.”

  These were donned at the end of the cell block. Beyond the double door, a catwalk climbed steeply, till they were on the edge of an excavation which stretched farther than they could see in the gloom.

  “It’s rich enough yet for open-pit mining,” said Thomas, “though we’re driving tunnels, too.” He pointed to a giant scooper. Tiny shapes of convicts scurried about it. “Four-hour shifts because of the radiation down there. Don’t believe those rumors that we aren’t careful with our boys. Some of them live for thirty years.”

  Hollister’s throat felt cottony. It would be so easy to rip off Thomas’ air hose and kick him down into the pit! “What about women prisoners?” he asked slowly. “You must get some.”

  “Oh, yes. Right down there with the men. We believe in equality on Venus.”

  There was a strangled sound in the earphones, but Hollister wasn’t sure which of his men had made it.

  “Very essential work here,” said Thomas proudly. “We refine the ore right on the spot too, you know. It not only supplies such nuclear power as Venus needs, but exported to Earth it buys the things we still have to have from them.”

  “Why operate it with convict labor?” asked Hollister absently. His imagination was wistfully concentrated on the image of himself branding his initials on Thomas’ anatomy. “You could use free men, taking proper precautions, and it would be a lot more efficient and economical of manpower.”

  “You don’t understand.” Thomas seemed a bit shocked. “These are enemies of the state.”

  I’ve read that line in the history books. Some state, if it makes itself that many enemies!

  “The refinery won’t interest you so much,” said Thomas. “Standard procedure, and it’s operated by nonpolitical prisoners under shielding. They get skilled, and become too valuable to lose. But no matter who a man is, how clever he is, if he’s been convicted of treason he goes to the mine.”

  So this was a warning—or was it a provocation?

  When they were back in the office, Thomas smiled genially. “I hope you gentlemen have enjoyed the tour,” he said. “Do stop in and see me again sometime.” He held out his hand. Hollister turned on his heel, ignoring the gesture, and walked out.

  Even in the line of duty, a man can only do so much.

  Somewhat surprisingly Hollister found himself getting a little more popular with his crew after the visit to Lucifer. The three who were with him must have seen his disgust and told about it. He exerted himself to win more of their friendship, without being too obtrusive about it: addressing them politely, lending a hand himself in the task of setting up camp, listening carefully to complaints about not feeling well instead of dismissing them all as malingering. That led to some trouble. One laborer who was obviously faking a stomachache was ordered back to the job and made an insulting crack. Hollister knocked him to the floor with a single blow. Looking around at the others present, he said slowly: “There will be no whippings in this camp, because I do not believe men should be treated thus. But I intend to remain chief and to get this business done.” Nudging the fallen man with his foot: “Well, go on back to your work. This is forgotten also in the records I am supposed to keep.”

  He didn’t feel proud of himself—the man had been smaller and weaker than he. But he had to have discipline, and the Venusians all seemed brutalized to a point where the only unanswerable argument was force. It was an inevitable consequence of their type of government, and boded ill for the future.

  Somewhat later, his radio-electronics technie, Valdez—a soft-spoken little fellow who did not seem to have any friends in camp—found occasion to speak with him. “It seems that you have unusual ideas about running this operation, señor,” he remarked.

  “I’m supposed to get the airmakers installed,” said Hollister. “That part of it is right on schedule.”

  “I mean with regard to your treatment of the men, señor. You are the mildest chief they have had. I wish to say that it is appreciated, but some of them are puzzled. If I may give you some advice, which is doubtless not needed, it would be best if they knew exactly what to expect.”

  Hollister felt bemused. “Fairness, as long as they do their work. What is so strange about that?”

  “But some of us … them … have unorthodox ideas about politics.”

  “That is their affair, Señor Valdez.” Hollister decided to make himself a little more human in the technie’s eyes. “I have a few ideas of my own, too.”

  “Ah, so. Then you will permit free discussion in the barracks?”

  “Of course.”

  “I have hidden the recorder in there very well. Do you wish to hear the tapes daily, or shall I just make a summary?”

  “I don’t want to hear any tapes,” stated Hollister. “That machine will not be operated.”

  “But they might plan treason!”

  Hollister laughed and swept his hand around the wall. “In the middle of that? Much good their plans do them!” Gently: “All of you may say what you will among yourselves. I am an engineer, not a secret policeman.”

  “I see, señor. You are very generous. Believe me, it is appreciated.”

  Three days later, Valdez was dead.

  Hollister had sent him out with a crew to run some performance tests on the first of the new airmakers. The men came back agitatedly, to report that a short, sudden rock storm had killed the technie. Hollister frowned, to cover his pity for the poor lonely little guy. “Where is the body?” he asked.

  “Out there, señor—where else?”

  Hollister knew it was the usual practice to leave men who died in the field where they fell; after Venusian conditions had done their work, it wasn’t worthwhile salvaging the corpse for its chemicals. But—“Have I not announced my policy?” he snapped. “I thought that you people, of all, would be glad of it. Dead men will be kept here, so we can haul them into town and have them properly buried. Does not your religion demand that?”

  “But Valdez, señor—”

  “Never mind! Back you go, at once, and this time bring him in.” Hollister turned his attention to the problem of filling the vacancy. Control wasn’t going to like him asking for another so soon; probably he couldn’t get one anyway. Well, he could train Fernandez to handle the routine parts, and do the more exacting things himself.

  He was sitting in his room that night, feeling acutely the isolation of a commander—too tired to add another page to his letter to Barbara, not tired enough to go to sleep. There was a knock on the door. His start told him how thin his nerves were worn. “Come in!”

  Diego Fernandez entered. The chill white fluorolight showed fear in his eyes and along his mouth. “Good evening, Simon,” he said tonelessly. They had gotten to the stage of first names, though they still addressed each other with the formal pronoun.

  “Good evening, Diego. What is it?”

  The other bit his lip and looked at the floor. Hollister did not try to hurry him. Outside, the wind was running and great jags of lightning sizzled across an angry sky, but this room was buried deep and very quiet.

  Fernandez’s eyes rose at last. “There is something you ought to know, Simon. Perhaps
you already know it.”

  “And perhaps not, Diego. Say what you will. There are no recorders here.”

  “Well, then, Valdez was not accidentally killed. He was murdered.”

  Hollister sat utterly still.

  “You did not look at the body very closely, did you?” went on Fernandez, word by careful word. “I have seen suits torn open by flying rocks. This was not such a one. Some instrument did it … a compressed-air drill, I think.”

  “And do you know why it was done?”

  “Yes.” Fernandez’s face twisted. “I cannot say it was not a good deed. Valdez was a spy for the government.”

  Hollister felt a knot in his stomach. “How do you know this?”

  “One can be sure of such things. After the … the Venusians had taken Alcazar, Valdez worked eagerly with their police. He had always believed in confederation and planetary independence. Then he went away, to some engineering assignment it was said. But he had a brother who was proud of the old hidalgo blood, and this brother sought to clear the shame of his family by warning that Valdez had taken a position with the Guardians. He told it secretly, for he was not supposed to, but most of Alcazar got to know it. The men who had fought against the invaders were sent here, to the other side of the world, and it is not often we get leave to go home even for a short while. But we remembered, and we knew Valdez when he appeared on this job. So when those men with him had a chance to revenge themselves, they took it.”

  Hollister fixed the brown eyes with his own. “Why do you tell me this?” he asked.

  “I do not—quite know. Except that you have been a good chief. It would be best for us if we could keep you, and this may mean trouble for you.”

  I’ll say! First I practically told Valdez how I feel about the government, then he must have transmitted it with the last radio report, and now he’s dead. Hollister chose his words cautiously: “Have you thought that the best way I can save myself is to denounce those men?”

  “They would go to Lucifer, Simon.”

  “I know.” He weighed the factors, surprised at his own detached calm. On the one hand there were Barbara and himself, and his own mission; on the other hand were half a dozen men who would prove most valuable come the day—for it was becoming more and more clear that the sovereign state of Venus would have to be knocked down, the sooner the better.

  Beyond a small ache, he did not consider the personal element; Un-man training was too strong in him for that. A melody skipped through his head. “Here’s a how-de-do—” It was more than a few men, he decided; this whole crew, all fifty or so, had possibilities. A calculated risk was in order.

  “I did not hear anything you said,” he spoke aloud. “Nor did you ever have any suspicions. It is obvious that Valdez died accidentally—too obvious to question.”

  Fernandez’s smile flashed through the sweat that covered his face. “Thank you, Simon!”

  “Thanks to you, Diego.” Hollister gave him a drink—the boss was allowed a few bottles—and sent him on his way.

  The boss was also allowed a .45 magnum automatic, the only gun in camp. Hollister took it out and checked it carefully. What was that classic verdict of a coroner’s jury, a century or more ago in the States? “An act of God under very suspicious circumstances.” He grinned to himself. It was not a pleasant expression.

  VI

  The rocket landed three days later. Hollister, who had been told by radio to expect it but not told why, was waiting outside. A landing space had been smoothed off and marked, and he had his men standing by and the tanks and bulldozers parked close at hand. Ostensibly that was to give any help which might be needed; actually, he hoped they would mix in on his side if trouble started. Power-driven sand blasts and arc welders were potentially nasty weapons, and tanks and dozers could substitute for armored vehicles in a pinch. The gun hung at his waist.

  There was a mild breeze, for Venus, but it drove a steady scud of sand across the broken plain. The angry storm-colored light was diffused by airborne dust till it seemed to pervade the land, and even through his helmet and earphones Hollister was aware of the wind-yammer and the remote banging of thunder.

  A new racket grew in heaven, stabbing jets and then the downward hurtle of sleek metal. The rocket’s glider wings were fully extended, braking her against the updraft, and the pilot shot brief blasts to control his yawing vessel and bring her down on the markings. Wheels struck the hard-packed sand, throwing up a wave of it; landing flaps strained, a short burst from the nose jet arched its back against the flier’s momentum, and then the machine lay still.

  Hollister walked up to it. Even with the small quick-type air lock, he had to wait a couple of minutes before two suited figures emerged. One was obviously the pilot; the other—

  “Barbara!”

  Her face had grown thin, he saw through the helmet plate, and the red hair was disordered. He pulled her to him, and felt his faceplate clank on hers. “Barbara! What brings you here? Is everything all right?”

  She tried to smile. “Not so public. Let’s get inside.”

  The pilot stayed, to direct the unloading of what little equipment had been packed along; a trip was never wasted. Fernandez could do the honors afterward. Hollister led his wife to his own room, and no words were said for a while.

  Her lips and hands felt cold.

  “What is it, Barbara?” he asked when he finally came up for air. “How do we rate this?”

  She didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Simple enough. We’re not going to have a baby after all. Since you’ll be in the field for a long time, and I’m required to be a mother soon, it … it wasn’t so hard to arrange a leave for me. I’ll be here for ten days.”

  That was almost an Earth month. The luxury was unheard-of. Hollister sat down on his bunk and began to think.

  “What’s the matter?” She rumpled his hair. “Aren’t you glad to see me? Maybe you have a girl lined up in Trollen?”

  Her tone wasn’t quite right, somehow. In many ways she was still a stranger to him, but he knew she wouldn’t banter him with just that inflection. Or did she really think—“I’d no such intention,” he said.

  “Of course not, you jethead! I trust you.” Barbara stretched herself luxuriously. “Isn’t this wonderful?”

  Yeah … too wonderful. “Why do we get it?”

  “I told you.” She looked surprised. “We’ve got to have a child.”

  He said grimly, “I can’t see that it’s so all-fired urgent. If it were, it’d be easier, and right in line with the Board’s way of thinking, to use artificial insemination.” He stood up and gripped her shoulders and looked straight at her. “Barbara, why are you really here?”

  She began to cry, and that wasn’t like her either. He patted her and mumbled awkward phrases, feeling himself a louse. But something was very definitely wrong, and he had to find out what.

  He almost lost his resolution as the day went on. He had to be outside most of that time, supervising and helping; he noticed that several of the men had again become frigid with him. Was that Karsov’s idea—to drive a wedge between him and his crew by giving him an unheard-of privilege? Well, maybe partly, but it could not be the whole answer. When he came back, Barbara had unpacked and somehow, with a few small touches, turned his bleak little bedroom-office into a home. She was altogether gay and charming and full of hope.

  The rocket had left, the camp slept, they had killed a bottle to celebrate and now they were alone in darkness. In such a moment of wonder, it was hard to keep a guard up.

  “Maybe you appreciate the Board a little more,” she sighed. “They aren’t machines. They’re human, and know that we are too.”

  “‘Human’ is a pretty broad term,” he murmured, almost automatically. “The guards at Lucifer are human, I suppose.”

  Her hand stole out to stroke his cheek. “Things aren’t perfect on Venus,” she said. “Nobody claims they are. But after the Big Rain—”

  “Yeah. The carrot in front
and the stick behind, and on the burro trots. He doesn’t stop to ask where the road is leading. I could show it by psychodynamic equations, but even an elementary reading of history is enough to show that once a group gets power, it never gives it up freely.”

  “There was Kemal Ataturk, back around 1920, wasn’t there?”

  “Uh-huh. A very exceptional case: the hard-boiled, practical man who was still an idealist, and built his structure so well that his successors—who’d grown up under him—neither could nor wanted to continue dictatorship. It’s an example which the U.N. Inspectorate on Earth has studied closely and tried to adapt, so that its own power won’t someday be abused.

  “The government of Venus just isn’t that sort. Their tactics prove it. Venus has to be collective till the Big Rain, I suppose, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to collectivize the minds of men. By the time this hellhole is fit for human life, the government will be unshakeably in the saddle. Basic principle of psychobiology: survival with least effort. In human society, one of the easiest ways to survive and grow fat is to rule your fellow men.

  “It’s significant that you’ve learned about Ataturk. How much have they told you about the Soviet Union? The state was supposed to wither away there, too.”

  “Would you actually … conspire to revolt?” she asked.

  He slammed the brakes so hard that his body jerked. Danger! Danger! Danger! How did I get into this? What am I saying? Why is she asking me? With a single bound, he was out of bed and had snapped on the light.

  Its glare hurt his eyes, and Barbara covered her face. He drew her hands away, gently but using his strength against her resistance. The face that looked up at him was queerly distorted; the lines were still there, but they had become something not quite human.

  “Who put you up to this?” he demanded.

  “No one … what are you talking about, what’s wrong?”

  “The perfect spy,” he said bitterly. “A man’s own wife.”

  “What do you mean?” She sat up, staring wildly through her tousled hair. “Have you gone crazy?”