by Moulton, CD
On With It
[ Kit, I think you might have seen something we haven't, but please remember, Z is a prisoner in there. What's your plan? We have to be able to act in exact concert if we're to save Z. ]
"Simple," Kit replied. "Tab and I change back into our regular forms, we board Maita and we land next to TR where we demand that Z be brought out. T Six lands at the mine in the mountains with either Tab or myself aboard and tells the Jornians there they are to get aboard and come to the camp. We won't worry about the fumarole dome or any of that because it doesn't matter."
*What if they threaten to kill Z?*
"Oh, they won't," Kit promised. "I have them figured out the same way I'm sure Z has. They're really trying not to hurt anyone here and they haven't. They all came originally with grandiose plans to start an empire, but found an empire's not what they want. There are exceptions.
"The people like and enjoy the Pads and the Pads like and enjoy the Jornians as much. They're pioneering this planet. They don't want or need the same parts of it as the Pads. Those women set out to seduce Tab and me. It was a game and was great fun. No one would be hurt. Everyone would have a good time. They only did it because they were sure they'd fail. As soon as Tab responded they chattered at each other in an attempt to find a reason to back out of it. They found the touching and teasing and playing was fun. The seeking was a great adventure, but they didn't actually want to have sexual relations with a Pad, they wanted to know if they COULD!
"They came here because it was a great adventure. There's real danger in about the same ratio as the danger a Pad would respond to them or as in starting an empire. They're a young race and are only testing the limits. They don't want these things, they only want to know how far is too far. Kilk and maybe a few more are serious about it, but the rest of them are already tired of the idea. They wanted to know if they could get away with building the disruptors and if their intrigues would be found out. They have the weapon and've managed to get away with it for fifteen years. Now they simply want to colonize the world. Maybe the seduction bit was enough of a new thrill that some will actually try to complete it. Maybe both races will benefit. It'll certainly be different.
"I think Z will want us to leave most of the Jornians alone. I know I'll vote to allow those here at the moment to stay – with those obvious exceptions. I think the few rotten redpeels in the bin should be taken to Jorn and judged by their own kind."
[ A hell of a lot hinges on you being right, but I'm willing to try it. I think Tab should go to the mines aboard T Six and you should be the empire spokesman at the camp. You'll have us to bail you out if it goes wrong. ]
"I think we'll get some huff and bluff, but we can handle it," Kit said. "We won't know until we try!"
*You and Tab go to the shop and I'll change you back into a Kheth and a Swaz. I think Kilk will be the only one who's going to be hard to handle. He may deliberately try to force the issue so let's have a plan before we act. He'll probably try to kill Z so be ready to respond to that. Fast.*
"Have a floater go right to him and stay on him like water on an ocean," Tab said. "Have another go to that door to let Z out."
[ No. Have one in there to let Z out if we have to, but let's give those people the chance to do it first. ]
*I agree. I'll have the one watching the camp locate Kilk and move to watch him exclusively as soon as we're ready to move in. I'll have another ready to go to that door, but stay high and not too close. Maybe it can appear we don't know which room Z is in. Let's get started!*
*
Z reattached the lamp cord and dropped it behind the table where it would be out of sight. Five transmissions of the message should be enough to guarantee TR would hear it even if the robots didn't. Nothing to do then but wait and think. He laid back on the mattress and relaxed. These people didn't want any silly empire. They were playacting a fantasy. They could be allowed to stay here to form a new colony world with certain restrictions. They would always get along well enough with the Pads and wouldn't do them any harm. They would quickly establish their own farms and generators and would be careful not to infringe on the Pads' territory. The problem there would be in convincing Maita, who often made inflexible rules.
Well, they always ended up breaking those rules – or bending them far out of shape! There was no reason not to do it again. There was nothing to lose and really quite a lot to gain. It could well be best for the Shar and the Jornians, too. If Tab and Kit allowed those silly fool women to seduce them Z hoped they would have the sense to make it a neutral sort of experience for the Jornians and not some fantastic thing that would make Jornians spend the future chasing after Pads. He also hoped they wouldn't make it a painful or unpleasant thing that would make them stop trying. It was one thing they shouldn't do anything to change. Z suspected the Pads were more intelligent than was known and they knew what the women were doing. From what he'd heard, sex was a pleasure response in them just as in the Jornians so it wasn't impossible the races would work out some mutual code of behavior there. Z also suspected Tab wouldn't lose the opportunity to work on his own personal inhibitions if he got the chance.
He grinned to himself. He didn't have any conception as to how he would handle that. He would have to return the intimacies to remain in character at all.
The next – and obvious – problem was how he was going to get out of that room! TR couldn't send a floater without giving far too much away. It could have been a bad mistake to have sent that message because TR could well call Maita in – and that would end his chances of talking the rest of them into getting a few of the bad apples off the world and leaving the rest alone.
Damn it! Jornians and Shars could share this world to mutual benefit!
How odd! Kilk might come storming in here at any moment and blast him to vapors and he was worried about Maita and the rules of the empire!
He lost track of time, dozing off now and then and using the meantimes to try to think of a way to convince Maita to leave most of this alone.
At one time Kilk came with a woman, they gave him food while Kilk kept a heat laser pointed directly at his midsection, then left again. He was finally awakened when the heavy bar across the door was dropped and the door was thrown wide open. There was a very noisy crowd outside so this must be it! Kilk had somehow worked them into a frenzy and Steve Zutec was about to become history.
Would TR have a floater there to save him?
This was hardly the way he had planned to die. He hadn't even gotten a tenth of those orchids planted on Ec!
*
Thing waited in room two while Maita changed the robots back into their "regular" forms. Kit was probably right. He thought most like Z and Z was a mammal, not unlike the Jornians. The danger was that it only took one person to kill Z and they knew perfectly well Kilk was such a person. Thing wasn't sure it would want to continue without Z there to share those things the empathy talent had developed for them. Their need for one another was now a symbiotic thing. They both loved Maita and Tab and TR and Kit and T6, but those were all machines. The empathic need wasn't completely filled by them. It demanded an organic mind – an irrationally emotional mind.
Maita would do all it could to protect Z and so would TR and T6 so there probably was little real danger, but the longer the group lived the stronger the interactions among them. It would never lessen.
How odd. They were so unlike – and yet so much the same. The lack of logic in Z and the total logic of Thing each influenced the other in such a way the individual traits remained as strong as ever they were while the modified traits were ever increasing in strength at the same time. It wasn't only odd, it was very complicated and things were seldom too complicated for Thing. It could fully understand even the impossible abstractions of the TTH14 plane. The machines could use most of it, but only Thing understood it.
Tangental thought lessened the worry. Tab came from the shop Maita had built into room five, which was originally a temporary holding cell
for prisoners of the Pweetoos. He was again in the form of a Swaz. Thing climbed to his shoulder where they used the internal circuit to silently communicate. He then went to T6 and prepared to head for the mines. Kit came out as a Kheth. Everything was ready.
T6 left with Tab and Maita rose from the lake to go to the Jornian camp. Thing climbed to Kit's shoulder, they went to the cargo hold, Thing's floater came to hover a meter above their heads.
*Okay. We are landed. These people have heard enough about this ship to know it's the emperor's personal craft. The floaters are in place and Kilk is covered. I won't allow him to go anywhere near that door. It's up to you, Kit. Good luck!*
The port opened for Kit to walk out onto the ramp. He stared at the people who came to stand around the base. Kilk came with a drawn laser.
"Put that thing away, Kilk," Kit ordered. "I'm called Kit. I'm a Kheth, as you can see, and am a personal friend and member of the emperor's crew. We can see you've completed the disruptor, but we know you haven't finished the reactor to run it. You were very successful and it might even have worked to some extent except that your operatives under the one you called Lugac were found out. It was inevitable they would be discovered when this silly plot was started.
"The Jornians are a good race. There are few like Kilk. I'm sure most of the people here will wish to remain as colonists – the best way for the Jornians to establish their place in the scheme of things. You've invaded this world, but Emperor Maita has seen in our few days here that you have most studiously avoided doing any damage to the natives. That is a good trait in you. You in fact mesh well with those natives. It'll do no harm for a colony to be established so long as certain rules are followed. Those rules are the same as the ones you're now operating under so there'll be no change. It's for the people here to decide.
"There are a few who may not stay because they're to be held responsible for the attempted militarization of this world. Kilk is one of those. We'll return those people to Jorn where they'll be dealt with by their own kind in the manner Jorn finds most fitting. As no harm has been done,we won't seek punishment of any kind. It's for your own government to decide.
"I repeat it yet again, it's not an empire matter."
T6 came in to settle quietly on the far side of TR. The port opened and the nine Jornians came out followed by Tab, who was supporting one of his passengers. Kit recognized the person with his foot in a cast and grinned.
"You've learned to live with the Pads, as you call the native people," Kit continued. "You don't realize how very far along the intelligence scale they are. They know what you are and what you're doing and think you're both wonderful and stupid at the same time. Wonderful because you've become friends with them and even have accepted them as equals, though you don't know that yet. Stupid because you spend so very much of your efforts to build a weapon you aren't capable of using.
"Wonderful because the reason you wouldn't use the disruptor is because the backwash would maim or kill thousands of them. You've seen they're always playing. You've seen they won't take your orders. Have you seen they would no more give orders than follow them?
"The time is here for a choice! Any of you who so wish may leave this world and return to Jorn. Where you go from that point is your own affair. Those who wish to stay may make this your home and the home of your progeny. It'll be a shared home with the Pads. They'll have anything they want in the waters and shores and you'll have anything you want in these mountains or on the millions of square kilometers of fertile plains and you'll share the borders. If you so choose you may share all of it. I know the Pads will choose that option. There will be very few ships to and from Sharstedt. It'll be a very restricted world so it may evolve in its own way. You may make the choice as you see fit."
Tab brought the Jornian with the cast on his foot to the ramp with another Jornian aiding. Kit knew, of course, that these were Sech and Yeld. Sech came up the ramp first and turned to the crowd. "Ain't no way I'm a'leavin this here world alive!" he shouted. "I done made my mind up ter stay 'n Emperor Maita ner no one else's gonna ever change ut! Es fer tha Pads, I'll let Yeld tell yer what's what!"
Yeld winced and grinned, then said, "A Pad done saved muh leg 'n probably muh life jist yesterdy. I was makin a stupid damned fool out'n muhself ... well, I was playin with 'im. Yuh knows how thet is. What I done was t'ketch muh foot in thet rail es yuh go inter tha 'finery cave'n tha cart with uh full load rolled back'n was jist about ta cut this here leg off'n run me over when tha Pad runned in'n jist pushed it out'n tha way!
"Now, y'all knows we can't git no Pads ta do our work fer us, but thet'n sure're'n hell saved muh life! Yuh can't tell me he didn't know what I was tryin' ta get 'im ta do! They jist thinks ut's stupid ta push loads'a rocks from one place t'thother. Ask me, they's right! Ut's stupid! If'n done spent haf's much time'n growin' food'n doin' somethin' what counts we'd have uh plenty time ta play! Tha same's they do.
"I'm with Sech! Maita wants me off'n this here world he gotta kill me ta git me off! I'm gonna build me a house'n Ameth'n tha kids'n I're gonna live in ut'n farm a liddle'n play a lot! Any Pad wants ta come in any time he's full welcome! Anythin' I got's joint property'ith ever Pad on this here planet! We kin go ahead'n build generators fer cannons'n use 'em fer power fer all'n us! We kin salvage parts from cannons fer t'other things.
"Jist personly, I don't care if everone what wants ta go goes! I don't care iff'n we never sees another ship so long es I live!"
There were assents among the crowd. Kit looked to see Kilk making his way toward the cave.
"Kilk!" he shouted. "You can just turn around right now and go aboard the ship that brought the people from the mine! There's an empire criminal who came aboard that ship! (He pointed to TR) That one will be brought here immediately!"
Kilk looked confused, then turned the laser on himself. It was too fast for Tab, who had moved close to him, to stop. Some of the crowd turned to the caves to bring the "criminal" to the empire ship.
*
Tab left the injured Jornian with his friend at the ramp base and sidled toward Kilk, who still held the laser in his hand, though it was pointing at the ground. Sech and Yeld made their speeches and Tab knew Kit had won. The only problem was that Z was in far more danger now than a few moments before. Kilk wasn't entirely sane and could probably have Z dead before they could do anything. They had no real idea who else was as involved as Kilk.
Kit saw what was happening! He declared Z an outlaw, making him not in the protection of the empire so, as a hostage, he was useless while at the same time he was on the same side as Kilk so there was no reason for revenge against him. He didn't expect Kilk to commit suicide, though. It was clear enough he would be exiled to Jorn at worst.
Then the crowd was surging toward the caves to deliver the criminal so Tab moved in the forefront to be sure they didn't do him any harm. He was sure they wouldn't. They would still have to find anyone else who was a part of the military thing and was still pushing it and would have to get them off the world and back to Jorn.
He was standing to one side when the people dropped the bar from across the door and threw it open. He could see Z standing there looking trapped. He probably thought this was to be his death.
Suddenly – and irrationally – Tab wished he were still in the guise of a Pad so he could rush ahead and go through a rather extended and personal identification ritual in front of all these people!
Tab giggled to himself at the thought.
Game Over!
Z looked at the crowd and at the looks on their faces. It was more curiosity than enmity and they didn't sound angry, then he saw Tab grinning at him like an idiot. He felt like dancing a jig!
"I place you under arrest, Grot of Jorn, late of Grlaq!" Tab snapped in a very official sort of tone. "You are hereby advised to make no statement as your words WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU! As agent of the Maitan Empire I suggest you do not speak in any manner at this time!"
What was going on? Obviously
he was to keep his mouth shut and was to act like a prisoner. That suited him.
Tab took his arm and led him out and into T6, then into orbit quickly. Tab explained the ruse that was started to keep Kilk from killing him and then how they had felt it would be smarter to keep the ruse going. Kit would bring TR, they would change Z back to his normal form and return to Sharstedt on TR changed to its natural configuration. While they were gone Thing and Maita would work on finding who the other leaders of the military thing were and would determine if they had changed their patterns of thinking enough that they would be allowed to stay. Then T6 explained they had decided that as this was already at the point of longterm contact the best thing for all concerned would probably be to allow the Jornians to colonize.
"I should've known you guys would think pretty much like I did," Z said. "I was worried Maita would stick to its rules on restricted worlds here."
"When did Maita ever stick to any of its rules?" Tab asked. "T Six put one of the Shar on the probe, you know."
"They're about three times as intelligent as we were giving them credit for being?" Z asked.
"About that," T6 agreed.
They discussed possibilities and Tab said he wished he had been given the chance to meet Z when he was a Pad and Z was a Jornian. Z admitted he suspected as much and really didn't know how he would have reacted.
T6 waited until TR was there and had removed its disguise, then Z went aboard it with Tab while Kit transferred back to T6. Kit was going to Grlaq to meet the ship the Jornians sent there, then was going to go to Kiguarn where the second ship was hiding. He would give the crews the choice of returning to Sharstedt as colonists or of going to Jorn. The smaller ship would return with as many as wanted to return – with the exception of three, who would go to Jorn under guard. The fourth was in the encampment and the fifth was in the domes at the fumaroles. No one else wanted to leave the new world.