"I think Ravano and Akala have been trying to tell us that we are a part of some kind of prophecy."
It developed that the Talavats had hoped the visitors were the "Star Sons" of their oracle who had come to help them, but their disillusionment had been almost too much to bear when they learned otherwise.
"Yet they seem to study us as they were still hoping we might come up with a miracle for them."
Danny thought of the betrayal that was being planned for these innocent people. While Lalille went on with her commentary, he noted that Nolokov was staring across the room at something in dark fascination. When he followed his gaze, he saw that the Duke's coat of arms had been mounted on the wall. The emblazoned shield was like an impudent symbol of possession, gleaming there with its bright chromaplast trimmings.
A warning answer seemed to come in the next moment, and the Monk turned his dark eyes quickly toward Ravano when an unexpected revelation was made. Boozie had just commented about Ravano being the local chief of a local tribe when suddenly Ravano's eyes widened imperiously. He looked fiercely at Lalille and spoke to her rapidly in Talavat.
A troubled frown touched her brow. "He tells me that the people you saw in the canyon, the ones who later attacked the base camp, were only of one tribe. He and Akala were there on a visit. There are many tribes." She stared at everyone in surprise. "He is speaking of thousands more of his people!" This was obviously new information.
"Hum," said Boozie, "then who's the king?"
Ravano slapped his chest in righteous anger and spoke in English. His voice was deep and authoritative. "I, Ravano, king of Talavat nation!"
Boozie and Jerry and Danny all exchanged glances with Nolokov and Sam. They hadn't missed the challenge in the native monarch's eyes as he glared across the room at the shield of Terra Nova.
* * * *
Danny knew the overtime work was an excuse. As he worked with Fitz and Boozie and Foxy in the assembly hangar, he knew the air cars weren't this urgent on the backlog schedule. The kits had only been brought down that day from the cargo pods.
"So why don't you boys open up?" he finally challenged them. "I suppose you want to talk about getting your so-called signals together."
Boozie gave him a crafty smile instead of a smirk. He paused over the cowling jig and looked about conspiratorially. The hangar doors were closed. "Why Captain, how you talk!" He pulled out a flask and handed it over.
Danny opened it and sniffed it. The contents had a sickly sweet odor with a pungent hint of fermentation. "Where the hell did you get this?" He tasted it and made awry face. "It's awful!"
"That's uighyic, Danny boy. Don't knock it!" said Fitz with a grin.
"It's Talavat for ugh-yek," added Foxy. "You can have it!"
"Liquor's not allowed, Frans. You ought to know that. How'd you get it?"
The story was told of how Jerry Fontaine had cooked up a batch from certain native fruit juices – "strictly research of course." He had figured it might as well not go to waste, since he had promised Boozie a vineyard. While this was being explained, the man-hatch opened and Nolokov came in, his dark eyes far more somber than usual.
Danny felt his temper rising. "So that's how Zeb Kane got high last night. Damn it! Jerry's never going to stay out of trouble!"
"Last night is what I came to talk about," said Nolokov.
They fell to discussing the unfortunate events of the night before. A group of noisy colonists had staged a demonstration in the square to voice their protests against enslaving the natives. The militia had been rough on them, and Kane had landed in the clinic with head wounds.
"So they all knew the charter regulations," Danny retorted. "They could have stated their case in Forum."
"Perhaps, Danny," said Nolokov, "but now they may have another case. Pike's boys are getting out of hand. Zebulon Kane is dying of a brain concussion. They practically clubbed him to death."
Danny knew that his second test of conscience had come when the actual "signals" began to be discussed. Now came the reason for all of them being here together. Fitz and Boozie shared the "ugh-yek" while the subversive talk went on. Nolokov was the chief reporter. An underground movement was growing. There was a plan to desert the camp and take Ravano and Akala along. Behind this amazing idea was a plan to "interface" with the Talavats through their king.
Danny finally had to stop them. "Hold it!" he exclaimed, holding up his hands. "Somebody's really flipped! Besides, why tell me, for Christ's sake!? I answer to the Skipper and the Duke. You know I can't listen to this!"
Boozie smirked this time and placed a slender hand on his shoulder. "My boy, you saw the hypno-strobe at work last week in the temple. Did you ever think it might have been used on our fearless leaders? What if they've been brainwashed? You know, Captain, you could be duty blind. You might be of service to your chief if you'd open those faithful gray-blue eyes a little more."
The concept left Danny tongue-tied. He listened grimly as it all came out about how the underground group was planning to help build up the fighting power of the Talavat nation, since it was now known Ravano's subjects were numbered in the tens of thousands. The object was to eventually rescue Terra Nova from secessionist madmen like Poyntner, Stockton, and the rest of their self-serving hardheads. Ravano himself had been secretly queried on the idea, by way of Akala and the Monk. The king still didn't trust anyone, but he was listening, especially now that he knew about the slavery plan.
There were motivations here that Danny hadn't suspected, plans and strategies that were growing like a prairie fire. Boozie was convinced of the secessionist plot, saying that the "nuclear-fuel gag" was just a stall for time so that the "Monarchy" could be consolidated over a comfortable period of years and the entire native population could be enslaved. He further believed that if the insurgents escaped they would need an inside group here at the base, especially on the ship. He and Fitz were volunteering for that job, and for an additional reason.
"If things get too rough," said Boozie, "we may be able to pull a surprise hiber hop."
For the first time, Danny realized that a hiber trip could be accelerated. Under hiber conditions the life-pod could run on minimal energy with occasional solar help. The majority of the remaining fuel cores in the life-pod pile could be transferred to the propulsion reactor in flight, before the skeletal crew took the "long sleep." It was a narrow gamble with far less flight range, but it was just barely possible.
"So while the Talavats are beefing up," Boozie concluded, "Fitz and I and maybe Foxy will watch our chances to prepare the bird for an emergency hiber run. It may take time, but not all those years the secessionists are counting on. In other words, if the Talavats fail to rescue the colony, we've got a hiber ticket up our sleeves. That still leaves many behind, but it completes the flight mission, baby!"
As for Jerry Fontaine, he wasn't in the picture. He was too much of a maverick, too unpredictable and star-crossed. Besides, he was busy mooning over the Lily. The grapevine had it that the romance was on again with those two.
Nolokov mentioned another name, Axel Bjornson, known as the Axe. "His motives are beautifully simple," the Monk said. "It's a Viking's rejection of the package. He's turning on to what he was born with."
Danny asked Fitz, point-blank, what his motives were.
"Well, it's the Irish in me," Fitz said, nipping at the flask. "This colony plan is like mixing the green and the orange. There'll be confetti flyin' here before they're through, and I don't mean the paper kind. You can count me out of the great Colonial Assembly, boys, but I'm with you behind the fence!"
Foxy had his own philosophy on the matter. He didn't like what he called the double-P, meaning Pike and Poyntner. "I sort of go along with the Axe. Maybe I'm a Viking at heart. I like the sea better than jungle rot. I might settle down on the beach some day with one of those chesty Talavat orals. I can't face up to another try at the Great Big Empty. I got burned once fooling around with Mother Nature's chastity belt. I'm stay
ing here. As for the slavery deal, maybe some of old Abe Lincoln is in me. I'm not much for the big plantation scene. Next thing you know, they'll be planting cotton."
Danny had fought for time in all this. He had been desperately trying to gather his wits in the midst of an internal tug-of-war. The thoughts expressed here had been like a bombshell which further tore at the seams of his own package. What should he turn on to? Where was honesty and a wheel to put his shoulder to? The possibility of the Duke and the Skipper being hypno-strobed was preposterous, and yet– He needed time. Above all, perhaps, he needed some basis, some positive proof, of a secessionist plot. With that he could go the Skipper and maybe avoid an eventual massacre on both sides.
"Who's the real leader of the underground plan?" he asked abruptly.
"I am."
He found himself staring into the Mad Monk's enigmatic dark eyes.
"As for motivations, they are largely the same as those of the majority, but there's one thing more. Akala has told me of a long-lost sacred temple of the Lahas. It seems the Lily's hunch was true. Some of the Great Ones may still be around."
Suddenly the alert horns started blasting. The man-hatch opened, and Axel Bjornson's massive frame came through. His big florid face was taut with excitement. "They're after Fontaine again!" he shouted. "This time he's really in trouble!"
* * * *
The big lights were on in the square and other search beams were sweeping the area from the temple terraces. Men were running and shouting. There was a gathering cluster of confusion and conflict at the north end. By the time Danny and the others got there, they saw Jerry being clubbed, and Pike in the middle. Bjornson and Fitz tried to break it up but were stopped by a bristling line of beamers and machine rifles. Jerry had to be held up by the guards. He was a bleeding mess, his brown eyes glazed from shock.
"You boys stay out of this or get shot!" said Pike, glowering heatedly at all of them. "This time your little mascot's had it!"
Danny moved forward to the gun line and faced him. "I'm still in Flight Command, Adolf, so answer up! What the hell is the charge?"
Pike sneered at him. "Bootlegging for one thing, and maybe attempted rape!"
"Rape!!" came simultaneous cries from the crowd.
"No! No! It isn't true!" Freddie came pushing through in frantic tears and threw herself against Danny. "I saw it all. It's a mistake! Jerry just forgot himself. He's been so desperate for Lalille. She cried out once, and the guard–" She couldn't go on.
Danny held her but glared at Pike and his men as they dragged Jerry past him. He could reconstruct the scene – a lovestruck, lonely romanticist, carried away by a tropical night. Maybe the Lily's religion got in her way. Girls in love had yelped before when they drew the line at "no-man's land."
"Just a damn minute!" he called out. He left Freddie and pushed forward. "You don't have proof, Dolph. There are no charges against him!"
Pike kept going while adding his own shoves against the prisoner. "The booze alone is enough. He doesn't like the brig, so maybe we'll get him a real cage!"
Danny ran into trouble when he grabbed his arm. He had forgotten Adolf's club. It landed hard on his skull, and lights flashed through his brain.
He lay on the ground with the lights still flashing. They flashed and strobed at him like those irritating reflections on Kitty's beautiful red hair. Kitty Keene was holding his head against her warm young breasts. His mind was on a rocket. The Pit flashes! Hypno-strobe! Half the ship could have been brainwashed through the Pit, using the computer! That could explain the "double-think" and all the "futility" garbage. They had been priming everyone to vote for a landing. There was something he could play by the book! The Skipper would have to listen to him!
"My God!" he groaned.
Suddenly he realized that Kitty Keene was really Frederica. It was her warm young breasts he was pressed against. She was sitting there on the ground with him and softly crying.
CHAPTER XI
His unexpected breakthrough with Frederica was interrupted by a stretcher trip to sick bay. His head injury had been compounded by his fall to the pavement. A number of other patients were added to the clinic load because of the melee involving Jerry's capture – and Zebby Kane was still in critical care, not expected to live. The grapevine was on fire with rumors. Everyone was in an uproar over the militia's growing heavy-handedness, especially since Jerry Fontaine was apparently having the book thrown at him. The liquor charge had been tied to Zeb Kane's condition plus suspicion of inciting a riot. Jerry had been "remanded into custody" pending a closed special hearing. Ugly rumor had it that he might be up for execution. As for the so-called "attempted rape" charge, that was left dangling as a useful negative inference.
Meanwhile, Lalille had gone into cloistered seclusion, protected by the "Big M." And the Skipper had acquired a new name. There were resentful whisperings now of "the Khan and his Pike" – although, of course, "Adolf" ostensibly answered directly to the Council.
His temporary entrapment on a clinic cot also made him a focal point for the underground reports. Boozie, Fitz, and Foxy had come in that same night with whispered news from Nolokov and Bjornson. The insurgents would have weapons and maps, maybe even air cars. Just who in Security was going to "come over" was a taboo subject even for Danny's ears. But the whole insane plan was developing like a volcano. Ravano was still standing them off but listening. He didn't trust the false "Star Sons" and he feared to place the lives of himself and his sister in the hands of probable madmen.
Danny kept arguing for time. His chief trump was his theory concerning the "Pit flashes." When he explained it to his three confidants, Boozie became excited.
"Buddy boy, you just may have hit it!" he said. He knew the principle of the hypno-strobe and explained it. "It compresses verbal suggestions into millisecond flashes. You get the stuff subliminally and it's anchored in the subconscious." When asked if this process could be channeled into the HP consoles in the Pit by way of the computer, he was sure of it. "And remember, our boy 'Fritters' was a computer maintenance tech. No wonder he was strobed and killed, after they brainwashed him into making the changes! But man, if I could lay my hands on some of Freddie's monitor tapes, I could break down the flashes, if that's what they are. If there are any hypno-signals on those tapes, we've got a case!"
"For what?" asked Fitz dubiously. "Proving that we were conned into a landing? Don't look now, but we're here!"
"The real trick," said Foxy, "will be trying to con 'Hot Sachs' out of her X-rated flickers!"
"That's my territory," said Danny emphatically. "I'll get to her soon enough!"
"Down boy!"
Boozie's double entendre included a warning signal. Dr. Alonso Madrazo had come to check the latest casualties...
* * * *
It was sheer accident but there she was, on a tropical night with her open picture collar and the welling innocence limned in platinum by the moon. She wasn't wearing her horn-rims. He had come to find Alonso, but he was not in his chambers. With his mind on his fight for time, he had reconnoitered around the temple, considering its defense points. He was wondering how the underground plotters would have a chance with their plan to take the royal captives with them. In checking the searchlight system he had stepped out onto the western terrace of the ziggurat.
An old moon was lowering over the distant sea, as swollen as Jerry's "universal earth mother." Long ago, hand-carried water had kept a garden alive here. Ever since the temple move, it had been irrigated from a water tower on top of the sanctuary. Plants and flowers were here again. A fresh young garden was growing riotously from the fertile red soil of the planter trenches, and here too was the aura of animal vitality of the forest, laden with spice from yellow blossomed atraya vines. He remembered hearing that Sam had been coming here to meditate.
When Frederica turned and saw the bandage on his forehead it seemed to remind her of their previous contact and of everything else, the sorrow and conflict, the tragedy o
f Jerry, Lalille's confused seclusion, and her own uncertainty. He took her into his arms and simply held her to him in silence. For a magic moment, the "feint and fend" was cancelled.
The magic part was the absence of words. They looked at each other, lost in a far place where everything was suddenly "off the cuff." The "package" was gone along with the masks. He kissed her gently and she responded repeatedly. For the first time since he had known the formidable Dr. Frederica Sachs, her soft white arms were around him. The endless starry light years they had come, across the Barrier Wall... And it was all so simple. Or was it?
When it was time for words, she suddenly turned to the low stone parapet and stared at the jungle. He studied her shining female silhouette. Her dark hair lay down her slender back, touched with silver by the moon. Her head was slightly bowed as if to hide her face from either him or herself. He remembered Foxy's "nervous virgin" remark. Did the worthy doctor actually have a hangup? Perhaps the roles should be reversed here, he thought. His arms ached to hold her again but he couldn't take advantage of a moment that was only a flimsy bridge for both of them. Much had to be determined first regarding the future.
Joining her casually at the wall, he decided to put her on his "couch," to draw her out in a safer type of conversation. They had never talked, he told her, about themselves as persons, about who and what they were, back home before the star quest began. He gently held her hand and spoke of Earth dreams. What had happened to them?
She found she could talk a little about more distant things. As if she'd been caught naked in her boudoir, she used the past as a screen. But were there revealing tatters in that fragile partition that she was unaware of? He wondered, searching as he listened to her, suddenly protective and wishing he could give her the security she seemed to need, for all her stiff-necked clinicality.
Her unspoken theme was that the Earth dreams couldn't be, not with the world engulfed in its own psychosis. There was something about her parents having fought the growing insecurity of society and failed. Her father had died of alcoholism and her mother had finally taken pills. Her own dreams, if any, had been to start a foundation for a study of the psychic problems of man as a species. As for herself personally, marriage meant children. She agreed with the swami's criticism of irresponsible procreation. She couldn't see bringing a child into the world where the tragedy of her parents could be repeated.
Star Quest Page 13