Equator & Segregation

by Brian Aldiss

  ‘Perhaps to plant plankton,’ Tyne suggested, turning away unsmiling as she doubled up again with fluty laughter. What the devil would Murray be going out there for? Walking blindly, he almost bumped into a fat man in a white linen suit.

  ‘Follow me to hear about Murray Mumford,’ the fat man said; speaking from the corner of his mouth and appearing to take no notice of Tyne. As Tyne stared after him in surprise, the fat man pushed through a swing door into one of the adjoining bars. For a moment, Tyne wondered if he had heard all right. Then he shouldered his way through the door.

  A miniature solid a foot high fluttered on the bar counter. It was silent. Piped from the full-size cinema solid, it showed only half the original. As such, it was almost unintelligible: but its job was to Jure bar-flies inside to see what the original was about. At present, the breasty half of Lulu Baltazar reclined on pillows gesturing meaninglessly.

  Tyne flicked his gaze from the cube to the fat man. The fat man was sitting in the far corner with his face to the door, raising two plump fingers to the waiter. The waiter was nodding and smiling like an unctuous fool. Several people sat about, drinking.

  ‘Who are you?’ Tyne asked the fat man, on reaching his table. ‘Sorry, but I don’t remember you.’

  ‘Sit down, Mr. Leslie,’ the stranger said. ‘Remember your manners and thank your lucky stars I found you before anyone else did.’

  ‘Who are you, I asked?” Tyne said, sitting down. ‘Have you a message for me from Murray?’

  ‘Here come the whiskies,’ the other said, smiling as the waiter set the glasses down. ‘Let me drink to your continued health.’

  Tyne pushed his away.

  ‘I’m in a hurry,’ he said. ‘How do you know I am after Murray?

  I suppose you overheard what I said to the ice cream kiosk girl? Are you trying to be funny or helpful ?’

  The fat man downed his drink and then, looking quizzically at Tyne, usurped the one Tyne had pushed away. Without troubling to answer any of Tyne’s questions, he said, ‘If you want to call me anything, Stobart is as good a name as any, I’m a U.N.C. agent. I can arrest you by flicking my fingers, should I feel like it.’

  A bit - a very nice bit - of Lulu Baltazar was climbing into a dynocar. The waiter was smiling and nodding like a fool to new patrons.

  ‘You talk as if you’ve just popped out of a cloak-and-dagger solid,’ Tyne said.

  ‘Don’t reveal your genteel background, son,’ Stobart said curtly, ‘I’m real enough, as you’ll find out if you start playing tough. And remember - I’ve got no sense of humour.’

  ‘All right. You’re real,’ Tyne conceded. “Then tell me this. Why should a U.N.C. agent reveal himself as you have done? Why should he be interested in me, or in Mumford ? If you were a thick-eared M.P. from camp, I could understand it.’

  ‘You couldn’t understand a thick-eared hat stand. Look, son, you are dabbling on the edge of deep, waters. Stay out. That’s all I’m here to tell you; stay out! The finding of Murray Mum-ford is top priority, and you’ll only be in the way of several interested parties.’

  As he spoke, he slid the whisky back to Tyne, who took it and drank it. Stobart raised two fingers in the air, and the waiter doubled over, curtseying, with more drink.

  ‘Let me in on the mystery,’ Tyne said. He disliked the note of pleading he heard in his own voice. ‘Why did Murray kill Allan Cunliffe? Why are the U.N.C. and not the police or the Space Service after him?’

  ‘You’re inquisitive,’ Stobart said stonily.

  Tyne went red in the face. He took one of the empty glasses in his left hand and squeezed. He went on squeezing till a little pile of glittering fragments lay on the table.

  ‘Answer my questions,’ he said.

  Stobart laughed. ‘You’ve got a temper,’ he said, and blew the powdered glass over Tyne’s jacket. Before Tyne could move, the other had grasped his left wrist in an unshakable grip.

  ‘Listen to me, Mr. Leslie,’ Stobart said. ‘Stay out of this. Mumford lied to you, I don’t doubt. He wouldn’t let you see how big this thing was. I want to hear what he told you happened outside Area 101; then I’ll tell you what really happened. Fair enough?’

  Sullenly, Tyne repeated the story Murray had told him on the scout ship.

  ‘Hogwash,’ Stobart exclaimed at the end of it. ‘While you were out cold on the moon, the Rosks caught you and Mumford. He had no time to get back into the snip, man, not with you sleeping peacefully on his shoulder. They caught him as easy as kiss your hand, and persuaded him to carry vital information down here, to a Rosk contact in Padang who will pass it to the Rosk Sumatra base.’

  ‘How could they persuade him? What was the information? Why couldn’t he have told me the truth?’

  ‘You innocent fool!’ Stobart said. He had stopped looking at Tyne now, as if he had lost interest in him; his watery eyes slid round the other customers in the bar. ‘Do you think Mumford would tell anyone the truth? He has turned traitor! He’s helping the Rosks; don’t bother to ask me what they offered him for the job. And don’t bother to ask me what the information is; if I knew I shouldn’t tell you.’

  ‘I can’t believe it! Why couldn’t the Rosks carry the informa­tion themselves? They’ve got four small ships plying between Earth and Luna.’

  ‘If we knew all the answers, we’d not be looking for Mumford now,’ Stobart said tersely. ‘And that’s all I’ve got to say to you. On your way, Leslie, blow. Go back to camp and play spacemen before the shooting starts.’

  ‘You’re drunk, from the way you talk and look,’ Tyne said quietly. ‘Or does your mouth always hang down like an old red sock?’

  ‘There’s a Rosk sitting up at the bar disguised as a Sumatran business man, watching us like a hawk,’ Stobart replied, without batting an eyelid.

  ‘I’m from Neptune,’ Tyne said. ‘How did you get hold of all this information, Stobart?’

  The fat man swore at him. ‘Think I’d tell you? For the last time, get, Tyne. You’re up against organisations. You’ll never find Murray Mumford. Go on, on your feet, beat it! The free whisky is finished.’

  A bit of someone was wrestling with a bit of Lulu Baltazar as Tyne passed the bar. He boiled inside. His face burned. He hated every cubic inch of lard hi Stobart’s body, but his intelligence told him the man’s advice was sound. If Murray was really involved in trouble so deeply, the affair had passed out of Tyne’s hands.

  Avoiding Mina’s eye, he strode out on to the Roxy’s steps. It was raining heavily. The streets ran with water. Further up the street, two miserable policemen stood beside a smoking Russian Pudenta; the Displaced had struck again. The time was 1.15.

  Inside the cinema, Stobart watched with satisfaction as the Rosk agent slid from the bar and left, almost directly after Tyne Leslie. Stobart liked his job. As long as you stayed in control it was as comfortable as an old armchair. With the right psycho­logical push, anyone could be induced to do anything. Even a random factor like Mr Tyne Leslie.

  III

  Tyne decided to cut through the side streets. He might dodge most of the rain that way. The sooner he got back to base, the better; there would be trouble awaiting him for failing to report in from a completed mission. He felt full of defeat. He had even forgotten to ask that slob Stobart about Allan.

  Rain pelted down his neck. His light tropical suit would be soaked in no time. A taxi slowly overtook him, splashing his legs.

  ‘Jump in for a good ride, sir,’ the Chinese driver called cheer­fully.

  It was a sound idea. As Tyne bent to open the back door, it was flung wide. Strong hands grasped his hand, catching him off balance, pulling him into the car. He felt it gather speed even as he struggled under a heavy rug which was thrown over him. Someone was lying on top of him, pinning him down. Tyne fought to get his steel hand free. Then a blow caught him on the nape of his neck.

  For what seemed like an eternity, he lay half-suffocating under the rug, in a drifting state between consciousne
ss and uncon­sciousness. Lurid colours curled and coiled in his head. When the car began to bump, as if it had left the road, he took an intelligent interest in the world again. An odd hissing noise rose outside; they were driving through long grass.

  The occupant of the back of the car had climbed off Tyne now, and was arguing with the driver. It was something about damage to the machine. Money was offered, the driver was refusing it.

  At length the car stopped. Tyne did not struggle as his wrists were lashed behind his back. The hands that touched his felt feverishly hot. Undoubtedly their temperature was 105.1 degrees.

  He was hauled unceremoniously out of the car by his shoulders, rolling over in knee-deep, wet grass. As he struggled to his knees, and then to his feet, he saw the Chinese driver accept a wad of dollars, grin and rev the engine. The Rosk took Tyne by the belt of his pants, pulling him out of the way as the car backed round and shot back up the track in the direction it had come from. It disappeared; man and Rosk were alone.

  Tall trees, secondary growth rather than true jungle, sur­rounded them. The only sign of human existence was an old native hut sagging under its own weight, although in the dis­tance came the regular sound of traffic: a highway not too far off.

  ‘Let’s walk, shall we?’ the Rosk said, pleasantly, pushing Tyne ahead.

  ‘If you’ve nothing better to offer.’

  It was still raining, but without passion, as they started down the track. Tyne had hardly managed to get a glimpse of his assailant. He looked like a Malayan. How ironic, Tyne thought, that this race should have set itself up in Sumatra! They could pass anywhere here unnoticed. In England, they would stand out a mile.

  ‘Fond of the country?’ Tyne asked.

  ‘Keep walking.’

  The track grew worse. The rain stopped as if a celestial tap had been turned off. The sun came out; Tyne steamed. Through the trees, the ocean appeared. It lay there flat as failure, stagnant and brassy.

  The cliffs were steep here, deep water coming in close. To­gether, Tyne and his captor slithered down a perilous slope. At the bottom, three great palms fought motionlessly for position on a minute ledge, their stony trunks canting over the water. Down below the surface, their roots extended like drowned fingers; Tyne could see fish among the fingers. Then,”without warning, he was pushed off the ledge.

  He went down among the roots, the water burning up his nose. He struggled frantically. He was drowning! With his hands tied, he was helpless.

  There was hardly time to think. The Rosk was swimming beside him, tugging his collar. In no time, they slid into darker water under the cliff, and surfaced. Water streaming from his mouth and clothes. Tyne gasped painfully, floundering up rough steps as the Rosk dragged him out.

  They were in a cavern, the mouth of which would be hardly visible even from the sea, thanks to the big palms outside. Con­ditions were claustrophobic in the extreme. The water came within two-foot six of the slimy roof; there was no chance of climbing out of the water - one just stood chest deep in it. Bitterly, Tyne remembered that the Rosks had strong aquatic traditions.

  In the middle of the cavern, in deeper water, floated a small submarine. It looked battered and ancient, and was streaked with rust. It might have been a veteran from the” Malayan Navy, but Tyne could not certainly identify it.

  The conning tower was open. A dark head now appeared, exchanging a few barked words with Tyne’s captor. Without delay, he was prodded aboard.

  Inside, it was like crawling round an oven, both as regards heat and size. Tyne was made to lie on the bare steel lattice of a bunk, his hands still tied behind Ms back. When the sub began to move, the motion was barely perceptible.

  Shutting his eyes, he tried to think. No thought came. He only knew that the repulsive Stobart’s warning had been well founded but too late. He only knew that he coveted the life of a second secretary to an under-secretary of the Under-Secretary.

  ‘Up again now,’ the Rosk said, prodding his ribs.

  They had arrived.

  Pushed and goaded from behind, Tyne climbed the steel ladder and thrust his head into daylight.

  The sub had surfaced out to sea. No land was visible, owing to haze which hung like a steam over the smooth water. A native, low-draught sailing ketch floated beside them, a mooring line from it already secured to the sub’s rail. Three presumed Rosks showed predatory interest when Tyne appeared. Reaching over, they took him by his armpits and hauled him aboard, to dump him, dripping on deck.

  ‘Thanks,’ Tyne snapped. ‘And how about a towel, while you’re feeling helpful?’

  When Ms first captor had climbed aboard, he was urged down a companionway, still dripping. Below decks, structural altera­tions had created one good-sized room. The ketch was perhaps a hundred-tonner. Evidence suggested it had been used as a passenger boat, probably to nearby islands, before it passed into Rosk hands.

  Five male Rosks and a woman were down here. They were dressed in Rosk style, with a abundance of oily-looking cloth over them that seemed highly out of place on the equator. Relaxed here, among their own people, the foreign-ness of them became more apparent. Their mouths, perhaps by the quick, clattering language they spoke, were moulded into an odd expression. Their gestures looked unnatural. Even in the way they sat on the plain wooden chairs was a hint that they found the artifacts alien, out of harmony.

  These were beings from Alpha Centauri II, beings like men,

  but inevitably always estranged from man. The physical similarity seemed merely to mark the spiritual difference. As though life on Earth, Tyne thought, wasn’t complicated enough without this

  The Rosk who had captured Tyne in Padang was delivering a report, in Roskian, to the leader of the group, a coarse-looking individual with nostrils like a gorilla’s and a shock of white hair. He interrogated Tyne’s captor at length, searchingly, but in a manner that suggested he was pleased with the man, before turning to address Tyne in English.

  ‘So now. I am War-Colonel Budo Budda, servant of the Supreme Ap II Dowl, Dictator of Alpha-Earth. We need infor­mation quickly from you, and shall use any means to extract it. What are you called?’

  ‘My name is Pandit Nehru,’ Tyne said, unblinkingly.

  ‘Put him on the table,’ Budda said.

  Moving in unison, the other Rosks seized Tyne and laid him, despite his struggles, heavily on his back in the middle of the table.

  ‘Pandit Nehru was a figure in your history,’ Budda said im­patiently. ‘Try again.’

  ‘Martin Todpuddle,’ Tyne said, wondering just what they did or did not know about him.

  Evidently they did not know his name.

  ‘You were talking to a U.N.C. agent,’ Budda said, ‘at half-past twelve by your local time, in the Roxy Cinema, Padang. What were you talking about?’

  ‘He was telling me I should change my socks more often.’

  A terrific side-swipe caught Tyne on his right ear. The world exploded into starlit noise. He had forgotten how unpleasant pain could be; when he reclaimed enough of his head to render hearing partly possible again, a lot of his cockiness had evapor­ated.

  Budda loomed over him, gross, engrossed.

  ‘We people from Alpha n do not share your ability for humour,’ he said. ‘Also, time is very vital to us. We are about to select from you a finger and an eye, unless you tell us rapidly and straightly what the U.N.C. agent spoke about to you.’

  Tyne looked up from the table at their foreshortened faces. What were these blighters thinking and feeling? How did it differ from what men would think and feel, in their position? That sort of basically important question had never been intelligently asked or answered since the Rosks arrived, nearly five years ago. The great, seminal, emancipating event, the meeting of two alien but similar races, had been obscured in a fog of politics. The merging of cultures boiled down to a beating-up on a table.

  Tyne had been on the talking end of politics. Now here he was on the receiving end.

  ‘I’ll
talk,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a wise choice, Todpuddle,’ Budda said; but he looked disappointed.

  This acceptance of his false name gave Tyne heart again. He began a rambling account of the murder of his friend Allan, without saying where it took place.

  Within a minute, the Rosk who had captured Tyne came for­ward, clattering angrily in Roskian.

  ‘This fellow says you lie. Why do you not mention Murray Mumford?’ Budda asked.

  Turning his head, Tyne glared at his first captor. He had had no chance until now to get a good look at him. Like a shock, recognition dawned. This was the man drinking at the bar of the Roxy, whom Stobart had named as a Rosk agent; he was still dressed as a local business man. Then if Stobart knew this fellow, perhaps Stobart or one of bis men was following, and already near at hand. Perhaps - that thought sent his flesh cold -Stobart was using, him, Tyne, as bait, expecting him to pass on Stobart’s tale to the enemy. Stobart, as a rough calculation, was as callous as any three Rosks put together, even allowing two of them to be Ap II Dowl and Budo Budda.

  His mind totally confused, Tyne paused.

  At a barked command, one of Budda’s henchmen began to rip at Tyne’s clothes.

  ‘All right,’ Tyne said. One look at Budda, crouching eagerly with tongue between teeth, decided him. ‘This is what Stobart said.’

  While they stood over him, he told them everything, con­cealing only the fact that he had been personally involved in the affair on Luna. As he talked, Budda translated briskly into Roskian.

  On one point in particular the War-Colonel was persistent.

  ‘Stobart told you Mumford had to meet one of our contacts in Padang town, you say?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Mumford did not have to go to our base here?’

  ‘I can only tell you what Stobart told me. Why don’t you go and pick up Stobart?’

  ‘Stobart is not so easily caught as you, Todpuddle. There is a native saying of ours that little fish are caught but big fish die natural deaths.’

  ‘Stuff your native sayings. What are you going to do to me?’