by Dan Donoghue
Out of the void came a roar in her mind, drowning her senses in one great mass of searing pain. For a moment the people about her stared, stunned, while she convulsed on the floor screaming through her fountaining vomit, then they realised. “Sender!” someone shrieked. “Get her out of here. Old Pa'Lar will kill us!”
They moved then. A doctor appeared, and they captured an arm, and he thrust a needle in, and pumped drug into her veins. Still she writhed and screamed. Again the needle was inserted. More drug, and still more. The doctor's face grew pale, his hand shook. At last he jerked the needle out. “No more!” he whispered. “She can't take any more!” Still the drug had no visible effect. Leeli was being torn apart in front of them. “Get her out of here!” the doctor roared.
They bundled her out to a waiting jet, passing two other hapless listeners jerking on the floor, and trailing a harried stream of medical men and nurses. The jet screamed into the stratosphere, and fled to put the world between it and the source of hate.
At last they succeeded, and Leeli relaxed, and the drug hit all at once, plunging her into deep unconsciousness. Now they worked desperately to keep her alive, and they really began to search for her father. He was no longer hard to find. He too was fleeing the killing hate—urgently, for it knew, and sought the pulse rate of his mind. He would have died, but he was in flight when it hit, and almost within the shadow of the planet, and he knew the mind, and the direction from whence it came.
So he escaped, but not until he had experienced a pain and fear, the like of which he had never known before. In terrible dismay, he realised the strength of his enemy—an enemy of his own making—an enemy who could lock his very life force from half a world away. The one thing that Papa Pa'Lar feared was death—he had sent too many on before him. For all his power, for all his knowledge, and his contempt for religion, he could not allay the thought that somewhere they were waiting, that somewhere he would be at the mercy of men who had called on him for mercy; and found him void of it. Immediate, physical fear was a new experience for Papa Pa'Lar. He had despised it in others, he had tasted it now truly for the first time, and he did not like it.
He found Leeli in a bad way, and together they jetted around the earth keeping always in the shadow. At last the horror was gone, and they could land. Leeli survived, but she was shattered in body and spirit. She who had never been allowed to feel pain—had not really known the meaning of the word, had tasted agony beyond the power of words to describe, she had felt her cramping muscles literally tearing themselves away from her bones, and her blood vessels swelling and bursting inside her.
She was rushed to the Pa'Lar institution where the most advanced medical science known to the world, put her body back together, and deadened the horror from her mind.
Still, it was weeks before father and daughter could talk. Leeli lay weakly in the bed staring at her father. She too, had recognised that mind. She had seen it glowing with love of her. She had felt the hate in it long after the pain had gone. She knew what had happened.
“You fool!” she whispered. “You Bloody, mindless, fool! Did you actually think I would fall for an ignorant cave man?”
Pa'Lar shook his head helplessly. “You acted—”
“He was shielded! Shielded! I tried to read him in the dance. There was nothing! You understand! Nothing! I thought he was a moron! I wondered how they had trained him to do their stupid dances! Then he told me he loved me, and I laughed at him. You ever hear of a man being able to hide his love from a listener? From me? Then he opened his mind. I don't know how he did it, but he did. Just like that. And there he was all glowing like a darb light, and me in there like something out of dreamland. I tried to get hold of you. I couldn't let anyone else know. I was frightened someone would read me. He was shielded, he was besotted—Ignorant. What I could have done with him. And you. You sent him to High America of all places. You made him hate us. And why? Why? Because you thought I'd fallen in love with him.” She shoved her arms down, and raised her body in the bed, and her voice rose to almost a scream. “If I ever love a man. No matter who, or what he is, and you interfere. You interfere, and, God Damn me! I'll—see—you—dead!” She had spent her strength, fell back choking and gasping. Nurses rushed in, and Pa'Lar was ushered out by nervous employees, but for once their fears were unfounded. Old Pa'Lar walked as though his years had suddenly won through all the drugs that had held them at bay, and, in one fell stroke, had claimed him for hell. Two thoughts flashed, and reflashed in his mind. One was the terrible loss he had suffered: the other was that a shielded man might survive on High America—might survive long enough to come back seeking revenge, and he had cause for vengeance—his whole tribe had just been wiped out.
It took old man Pa'Lar only a couple of minutes to know what had to be done. It took a couple of weeks before Leeli was calm enough to discuss the thing rationally. He put as much as he thought advisable to her over dinner. The goals were simple. They needed semen from Wolf Carthar to breed their own shielded sensitive, and they needed Carthar, himself, dead.
Murder on high America wasn't as simple as it was on Earth. Pa'Lar's group had few friends on the planet, and any ship planeting on private business must arouse curiosity. With plenty of funds it would, no doubt, be possible to arrange a simple killing, but to snatch someone like Carthar—that was different, and, once he became suspicious, not only well neigh impossible, but very dangerous.
On the other hand, if Leeli went as a lover, rescuing her beloved from the evil done by her father, carrying a pardon, a beautiful young woman begging his forgiveness, willing to do all in her power to make amends. That would get him on board, would get the semen, then a powerful drug, and they could space him quietly somewhere between High America and Earth, and who was to know or care?
Leeli listened silently, her eyes never leaving her father's face, watching intently for that tiny inward look that gave away the reader. She longed to read him, if only to know if he had broken the pledge they had made to each other to respect the other's privacy in all circumstances.
When he finished speaking she merely shook her head. “He is not a fool. I got only a glance, but he is not a fool. He would read me—then what?”
“We have a process—drugs and hypnosis—it wouldn't stand up to a dredging, but remember, he loved you, there's no reason to think he's changed. He'd just glance in. After that you could handle him until you have him back to the ship. Then the others would take over. T'Sar will go with you. It might only take a day or less.”
Leeli sat thinking. The benefits of the semen would be hers rather than her father's. He couldn't last forever, and it appeared that Pa'Lar enterprises were in danger of breaking up when the old man died. She could not count on loyalty from any of the employees, and she dreaded, with good reason, any loss in her power. With a group of young shielded sensitives to watch over things for her, however, her power would skyrocket. She would have power over sensitive and non-sensitive alike. She could become the most powerful woman in history. There was no limit to the potential. Against that was the danger of the Thing, against which she would be well guarded, and the distaste of debasing her will to the hypnotist. She could not really refuse.
Still she did not agree at once. “Why did you send me off on that silly dance thing? There was no mineral there. You didn't think there was.”
Pa'Lar looked away. “No. I wanted you out of the way. There is something I am doing. I didn't want you to know. If you were with me, I couldn't hide it from you, and it is possible that you might have become worried and shown it, and someone might have read you. Then we would all have been destroyed.” He saw the question in her eyes, and quickly lifted his hand. “No! Don't ask me. The danger is still with us, even more so. Don't even think about it. Do this thing for us. Believe me, you will be safer on High America than here if anything goes wrong.”
When Leeli agreed, even she was surprised at the speed with which events moved. Not even Pa'Lar enterprises had the wealth
to own a private spacer, but one had been hired, a special crew obtained at great expense, and they had spaced within the week.
By blasting at top speed, Space-bird V planeted only a little more than a week after the Star-bird. On the day before planetfall, Leeli allowed herself to be drugged and hypnotised. She woke burning with a strange desire that she was unable to place until her “memory” began to function, and she knew a great sorrow for the wrong her father had done to the young man of the Out-people who loved her, and whom she desired with all her being. Fondly she fingered the pardon won from her father at great personal cost, and gladly she welcomed the day that would see their meeting. The ship had planeted. A wonderful feeling of well-being invaded her senses.
A goat-bearded old husk of a man, who smelled of drugs and tor weed, came into her room with only a perfunctory knock, and had the presumption to ask how she was feeling. She vaguely remembered him from some other time and place, but could give him no name. She couldn't help comparing his decrepit, old body with the magnificent physique of her beloved, and she curtly told him that she was well, and ordered him to leave her. He seemed well satisfied, and left readily enough. His visit puzzled her for a little, but the sense of well being, and the joy at the prospect of being at last reunited with her beloved lifted her spirits, and banished care.
She went about singing songs she had learnt in childhood, and being pleasant to all, and, if there were many cynical glances, she was too happy to note them. She felt amazingly well. Only small things marred her pleasure. When she went in for breakfast the best table in the dining room, the one over by the wall, was already taken, and, for some unknown reason she felt a wave of unreasoning anger. When she was dressing to go to meet Wolf, the mirror was on the wrong wall, and that annoyed her.
Then word was brought that Wolf was not in the settlement. He was out on some senseless expedition, and was not expected back for at least a week. Her disappointment was devastating. She wept bitterly in front of them all like a little girl, but, like a little girl, she was easily diverted, and the story of how Wolf had won his freedom on the ship cheered her. She felt so wonderfully good, that she couldn't stay sad for long, and soon she was reconciled to waiting for Wolf's return. She even went out of her way to make the stay pleasant for everyone, and was childishly eager to please.
She was happy enough, but she was surrounded by very worried people. Dansard, the leader of the expedition, wanted to snap her out of the hypnosis to get her real views. T'Sar protested. She might have to be put under again almost immediately, and the drugs were dangerous. The state of hypnosis might even become permanent, and he did not want to face Papa Pa'Lar if that happened. Everyone was definitely of the opinion that the new Leeli was an outstanding improvement, but it could hardly be expected that Papa Pa'Lar would share that view. Still, they reasoned, she seemed happy enough, and with twenty of the best men in the Pa'Lar private army to guard her, it didn't seem possible that anything could get at her. It would be different if she complained of some sort of feeling of compulsion, but she didn't, and insisted that she felt in the best of health and spirits. Only the slight aberration of wanting a mirror shifted to another wall, and wanting her special table placed against the wall so that she ate with her back to the company, was out of the normal, but, as T'Sar said, you can't have almost a complete personality change without some little quirk or two surfacing, and on the whole, it had been a pretty good job.
On the third night, after she had got ready for bed, and while she was brushing her hair, Leeli Pa'Lar picked up a heavy bottle of Luvs Wonder-woman Bath Salts, and walked quietly down and hit the first guard she saw over the head. Then, in a flowing diaphanous, night gown, and still brushing her hair, she walked through the deserted building, turned abruptly north, north-east, and disappeared into the jungle.
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Chapter 8
Wolf had expected to move out almost at once, but Courteau had other views. There were vaccinations to be had against a variety of illnesses peculiar to high America. These left the patient weak for at least five days, and there was a lot to be learned about the flora and fauna that was essential to any expedition.
He was introduced to a landholder called Stan Cort, a big man for an ordinary human, with a mass of blond hair and beard, and quick blue eyes that watched everywhere with a strange alertness, reminding Wolf startlingly of the hunters of his own people. Courteau had briefed him thoroughly, and he looked up at Wolf with a certain guarded sympathy. “Sensie, eh. You're the first one I've met, and that's the truth. Space me if it isn't. Well, I'll do the best I can for you, Ki, but if you take off, you're on your own. I didn't ask for this, and I'm too short handed now to lose men trying to track you.” He glanced a little resentfully at the governor as he spoke, but Courteau ignored it.
“Stan is the best bushman we've got, by far,” he explained. “He'll teach you all he can about the lay of the land, and what fruit you can eat, and what'll kill you. Take notice. There's vines with poison barbs that'll wipe you out in minutes from a bad scratch, and a fish thing in the water that'll do the same, then coat your body in a sort of jelly containing its eggs. The jelly starts digesting you, so, when the young hatch, they can swim about inside you sucking you up. A man doesn't look nice at all after one of those has hit him, and remember, they come looking for you, the rabbit things are not big enough, and most of the young die, so they look for bigger animals, and that's kerries or men. There's one rule everyone follows, no matter how hot it is, you don't go swimming, and, if the water's dirty, you dip it out with a long handled pot.” He smiled grimly at the expression on Wolf's face, as they took their leave.
Cort's holding was one on the far south of the settlement. It was big, taking up almost the entire surface of a small plateau. They travelled by steam car, which had come back into fashion early in the twenty-second century when nuclear energy packs had become small, cheap, and radiation free.
Wolf had a chance to study the settlement. The area was a deeply dissected highlands with great, deep, jungle-choked gorges separating the open-forested, much cooler plateaux. On these were situated the vast holdings where a landholder, and a number of worker families, made use of a small fraction of the land to grow crops, and to run the little furry, bird-like animals, called, diks, that ate the grass seeds and insect type life. Poultry had taken well to the new land, and chicken and eggs formed an important part of the diet. There were a variety of nuts from which an artificial meat was synthesised, but it was mainly held in contempt. Native fruit and vegetables were plentiful, and earth-type tropical fruits seemed to flourish. It was difficult to see why the population was not increasing faster.
The road passed through a number of holdings before dropping off the main plateau. Some had convicts working on them. They wore distinctive overalls, and carried no weapons. Everyone else, even children were armed with blasters. Wolf was struck by the wasteful size of the holdings that spread the settlement uneconomically wide, and the feudal like structure of the system. He asked about the convicts, and was told that, generally speaking, a man who was willing to work, and keep out of trouble, could get a ticket after a couple of years at the longest, and, if he was any sort of a decent type, could stay on the farm where he was first hired, because there was always a shortage of labour. It took a special type of Earthman to stick it out on the holdings, however, when a kerry could drop out of the trees at any moment. Mostly the convicts came from the cities of Earth, and, when they had earned their ticket, they headed for the mines or factories.
All the buildings had high kerry fences, but, as Cort pointed out, these were more of psychological value than a stop to the kerries who could go over the top of the highest if it really wanted to. Mostly they weren't that hungry, however, and, when they did invade the buildings, the roused household could generally burn the animal before it could get back over with its kill. It gave them something to bury, and it thinned out the kerries. Wol
f began to understand the alertness in the eyes of men like Cort.
Then the car dropped down along the inevitable winding road into the jungle and the intense humidity. Cort pointed out trees, and named plants, as they ploughed through the dim, filtered light. At places, as they neared the river, the vegetation closed in over the road completely, and there was a continual flick, flick, on the roof and sides, as though the jungle resented the passage of the vehicle. They crossed a river, as yellow as the one between the city and the space port, by a narrow timber bridge, and almost immediately began to climb again.
Two more plateaux, and gorges, they crossed before eventually climbing up to Cort's own. They had travelled most of the day, though there had been frequent brief stops at holdings along the way, yet they could see the sun glinting on the buildings of the city as they reached the top of the scarp. When Wolf commented, Cort merely shrugged, and said that jump-jets got him to town quickly enough when there was an emergency, but they were too expensive for everyday use.
Cort's headquarters consisted of one very large house, two stories high, and built of stone, surrounded by lawns and gardens, and ringed by ten smaller homes, built of timber, but in good repair, and also surrounded by lawns and gardens. Around the whole assemblage was a ring of outbuildings, and a high kerry fence. A large swimming pool graced one side of the main house, and there were playing fields of various kinds. Tall poles, from which jutted clusters of lights, dominated all the land inside the kerry fence. Outside the fence, cultivated lands and chicken runs stretched away to a distant line of forest.
As the car swung up to the gate, it was opened by a gate-keeper, who covered them first with a blaster until some secret sign caused him to relax. At Wolf's surprised look, Cort pointed out that they were on the outskirts of civilisation, and not only had they to beware of kerries, but also of escaped convicts. It was relatively easy for convicts to get hold of weapons, and it was not uncommon for whole holdings to be held hostage while some demented escapee tried to bargain with the government.