Equator & Segregation

by Brian Aldiss

  ‘Try the right door,’ suggested the priest.

  As Tyne stepped inside, the priest slammed the door behind him. Left suddenly in semi-darkness, he moved, carefully over to the right-hand door; steadying himself, levelling the gun, he flung the door open.

  It was a long, narrow room with a dirty window at one end. Occupying most of the space near the door was a wooden bed, now in use as a table and seat combined.

  Benda Ittai, in a Chinese dress, stood alone in the middle of the room, her mouth slightly open in a moue of surprise.

  ‘Come in, Mr. Todpuddle,’ she said, using the name Tyne had assumed when interrogated on Budo Budda’s ketch.

  He nodded to her, as if in brief acknowledgement of her beauty.

  His hackles up, Tyne took one step inside the room. Murray Mumford stood behind the door, his hands raised above his head. Round his waist he wore a Space Service belt; a revolver protruded from its unbuttoned holster.

  Tyne swung slowly on his heel, bringing his own revolver up to cover Murray’s chest. He was aware of his face, stiff as leather, contorted into a killer’s grin.

  ‘Glad you finally made it, Tyne,’ Murray said, with a fair attempt at his old manner. ‘Put your gun away and make yourself at home. Welcome to my humble -‘

  ‘Move over by the girl,’ Tyne said in a rasping whisper. ‘And I’ll have your gun. Keep your hands raised. You’re scum, Mumford - a betrayer, a traitor.’

  ‘If you hadn’t got that toy in your hand I’d break your neck for saying that,’ Murray said evenly, his cheeks colouring darkly.

  ‘No, you wouldn’t! Are you suggesting you aren’t carrying information for the Rosks - information absolutely vital to Earth?’

  Murray, keeping his hands raised, looked at Tyne straightly as he shuffled over towards Benda. His roughly handsome face looked tired and shadowy.

  ‘If you want to discuss it, throw both the guns up on that high shelf,’ he said.

  The shelf he referred to ran along one wall by the ceiling. Tyne never even glanced at it. He had the two of them together now, standing awkwardly by the foot of the bed.

  ‘I don’t want to discuss anything with you, Murray,’ he said.

  ‘Go ahead and shoot me, then. But you probably realise as well as I do that one fool move like that and everything is lost.’

  ‘Give me that spool of microfilm, Murray.’

  ‘I’ve not got it!’

  Tyne jerked his revolver convulsively. That he had not expected.

  ‘Stop!’ Benda Ittai made a nervous move forward] Though haggard, she still looked impressively cool and beautiful. “There is no time for quarrels, or we may be trapped here. Mr. Leslie, put both of the guns on the shelf and then we can explain to you. It is really necessary.’

  Tyne hesitated. He was in an awkward spot and he knew it. The vital matter was not his personal urge for revenge, but the need to get the film. The Rosk woman at least made it possible for him to back down without losing too much face. Roughly, he snatched Murray’s revolver from its holster and threw it up on the shelf with his own.

  ‘Better,’ Murray said, lowering his hands and fumbling for mescahales. Tyne noted with satisfaction how those hands trembled as they lit the tube. His own hands - even his steel one -were trembling in the same way.

  Taking the initiative again, he said to Benda, ‘I assume from your presence here that you are the Rosk agent Murray was told to meet?’

  She said: ‘That is correct; as you know, I was held up.’ She smiled slightly, with satisfaction at the understatement.

  Murray said: ‘You guess right; now stop guessing and listen to me. We may have very little time and we need your help.’

  ‘My help!’ Tyne exploded. ‘I came here to kill you, Murray, by God, and now you tell me -‘

  Benda Ittai laid her hand on Tyne’s arm. It felt soft and hot. 105.1, of course.

  ‘Please give him a chance to explain!’ she begged. ‘Don’t talk so much: listen! Just listen!’

  ‘Yes, sound advice to an ex-politician!’ Murray said. He was quickly getting control of himself. Tyne also savagely, wildly, took control of himself, sat on the edge of the plank bed and took a mescahale from Murray.

  ‘Make it good,’ he said. ‘Make it very good.’

  The microfilm must be handed to Miss Ittai,’ Murray said, ‘and she must get it to Sumatra base, to the RPF there. Re­member Tawdell Co Barr, the first Rosk to speak to Earth? He’s the Peace Faction leader, secretly opposing Ap II Dowl. The RPF is weak; here is the one last chance to strengthen them to the point where they might overthrow Dowl. If they could show this microfilm, this proof of Dowl’s bloody-mindedness, to a majority of the Rosks, the population would rise and rebel against the dictator.’

  ‘Our people are as human as yours,’ Benda broke in. ‘Please see this terrible business as a moral struggle rather than a detec­tive game. When their eyes are opened to what is going on behind their backs, all my people will surely rise against Dowl.’

  ‘You’re trying to tell me they don’t know they’re merely the advance party of an invasion?’

  ‘Of course they don’t. Can’t you see,’ she said desperately, ‘we were all born on the ship, thinking ourselves colonists. There must have been sealed orders passed down from one generation of the officer class to the next.’

  ‘I see,’ Tyne said. He did see; this is how political manoeuvres must be carried out anywhere in the galaxy. The leaders plotted, and the rest followed like sheep - unless they could be roused to see that only muttonhood awaited them.

  ‘You already have proof that I am no friend of Ap II Dowl and his ruffians,’ Benda said, speaking quietly, probably con­scious of the effect she had upon Tyne. ‘Therefore trust me. Let me take the microfilm to my people, the RPF. There it will be used to more effect than if World Government got it. Can you see that?’

  Yes, it was all clear enough, Tyne thought bitterly, knowing the other two were searching his face for a clue in advance to what he was going to say. He did not know what he was going to say. The issue - get the microfilm or bust! - had disintegrated as he approached it. Now he was faced with as ticklish a problem as ever he had met across the highly polished tables of the U.N.C.

  If he did nothing - say, if he were shot - Under-Secretary Grierson would start the machinery grinding. The small Rosk force on Earth would be crushed before reinforcements arrived. And when they did ‘arrive? Why, they would presumably be merciless: nuclear bombardment from space did not bear thinking of.

  If Stobart and Ms men arrived here, they of course would take the microfilm without delay; they would find it wherever it was concealed. It would never go near a Rosk again. That move would also entail an immediate counter-attack against the perfidious alien within the gates.

  If Ap II Bowl’s men arrived here first - well, that was obviously the worst alternative of all.

  At present, however, the initiative was not with Grierson, Stobart or Dowl; it was with Tyne. Fleetingly, he remembered the Theory of Irresponsible Activity he had formulated; he must have been light-headed at the time. Here he was faced with the weightiest problem of all time; how was he to resolve it for what would ultimately prove the best ?

  Turning towards the window, he gazed irritably out through the dusty panes, to hide his indecision from Murray and the girl. In the bright landscape outside, something moved. A man - or a Rosk - had dodged from one clump of bushes to another. Tyne’s time was running low.

  Abruptly, he turned back into the dull room. The RPF ought to have knowledge of the invasion plans, as Benda suggested; the more dissension sown in Sumatran Base, the better. Equally, Earth must have the details; then, they could be prepared for eventualities.

  ‘A copy must be made of the microfilm, Miss Ittai,’ he said. “The U.N.C. will keep the copy to study. You will then be given safe conduct to slip back into your base with the original, to hand over to Tawdell Co Barr.’

  He turned to Murray, sitting now on the edge
of the bed, stubbling out his mescahale.

  ‘As you observed, time is short,’ he said. ‘Give me the micro­film quickly.’

  ‘You don’t seem to take a point too well,’ Murray said. He rubbed his eyes, looking tired and irritable: it was as if he had suddenly realised that whether he personally triumphed now or not, life would ultimately triumph over him - impersonally, of course, but with as little remorse as if the issue were a personal one! ‘Lord Almighty, Tyne, isn’t it obvious to you what a fool you are being? As I told you, I haven’t got the microfilm.’

  The bent figures running behind bushes - they would be straightening up now, perhaps making a last dash for the temple. And there was Allan Cunliffe, permanently straightened up, stiff as a stick. The two images, spears of urgency- and anger, struck at Tyne’s mind. He flung himself at Murray.

  Murray got half up, then fell back under the assault. They crashed together on to the bed. The middle of it fell through, pitching them on to the floor. Tyne rolled on top of Murray. Doubled up, Murray ground his knee into Tyne’s solar plexus. Tyne brought his steel hand chopping down on the side of Murray’s neck. Blue about the lips, Murray subsided.

  That’ll settle . . . your . . .’ Tyne gasped. He had been badly winded. Blobs of colour waved like flags before his eyes. He shook his head to get the knocking sound out of it, before realising that someone was actually hammering on the door.

  Looking up amid the ruins of the big bed, he saw Benda Ittai -but through a haze - open the door; one of the priests entered, speaking urgently to her. After a minute, she ran over to Tyne.

  ‘The enemy are surrounding this building!’ she said. ‘The priests have seen them. Quickly, we must get away! I have a helicopter concealed outside. Come along!’

  Seizing his good hand in her hot one, she pulled him to his feet. Murray groaned to himself as the weight shifted off him. Dazedly, Tyne allowed himself to be dragged from the room as the priest led them out. They trotted through the labyrinth of the building, Tyne gradually regaining his wits as they went. As they left the temple, he recalled that he had left his gun behind. It was too late to go black.

  They emerged into a secluded courtyard surrounded by small cells once inhabited by novices. The whole place was slowly crumbling; it might have been built of old bread. Heat as choking as regret lay in the well of the mossy buildings. Under a stretched canopy of some camouflage material stood a small, trim heli­copter. Benda ran across to it. She pressed one corner of the canopy and the whole thing collapsed, snapped up together like a blind. Picking it up, business-like, the girl stowed it into the helicopter and swung herself up.

  She had an attractive pair of legs, Tyne thought. His powers of observation and deduction were returning. Even the sick feeling in his stomach was fading.

  He pulled himself into the seat beside her as the priest backed bowing into the temple. At once, Benda started the rotors moving. They could see the disturbed heat move in whirlpools round them. Big green lizards scuttled for safety in the courtyard.

  ‘Look!’ Tyne shouted, pointing.

  Over the top of a row of cells, a head appeared. Then shoulders. Then a rifle, swinging down to point into the helicopter. Rosk or man ? Did Benda know ? All she had said in the temple was, ‘The enemy are surrounding us.’ By that, she might have meant Ap II Bowl’s toughs, or Stobart’s. Which indicated the ambiguity of the role she played.

  Almost jabbing her elbow into Tyne’s ribs, Benda thrust her hand down into a capacious pocket. She had one of those murderous .88’s there. Whipping it round, leaning half out of the cabin, she took a pot-shot at the sniper on the roof.

  She missed.

  Tyne saw the ridge of the roof shatter, spraying bits of tile into the sniper’s face. His rifle went off wildly as he flung his hands up to his bleeding mouth. Then the helicopter began to rise.

  As they began to bucket upwards, a man ran from the temple into the bright sunlight. It was Stobart, his face blistered with sweat, his great body heaving with exertion. Although he clasped a gun in one hand, he made no attempt to shoot; instead he was bellowing at Tyne, beckoning him savagely. Not a word came through the blanketing roar of the rotors above them.

  ‘Just away in time!’ Benda called.

  Rising speedily about the ramshackle knot of temple buildings, they slanted eastwards and saw ant-sized men run into the open. Their shadow fled across the ants. The ants were firing upwards, fruitlessly.

  VII

  Mopping his face, Tyne thought hard. It was obvious enough that the charming Miss Ittai, far from having saved his life again, as he had at first believed to be the case, had tricked him into getting into the helicopter. She had wanted, for reasons of her own, to get him away from his own people. His ,brain was still muzzy from the effect of Murray’s knee in his stomach; savagely, he shook his head. Fuzzy he might be, but on several points he was clear enough. And one of them was: this little beauty was heading in the direction of the Roskian Sumatra Base as fast as she could go.

  A little, round cloud formed ahead, and another beyond that. They hit turbulence and lumped heavily up and down. Someone below had an anti-flight gun trained on them.

  Tyne looked down, but could see only roads and plantations. All round the outskirts of Padang, the U.N.C. Force had pockets of fortification and defence. Stobart must have worked, quickly in getting on to them. In a minute, Tyne thought, interceptors would be up after them. He did not relish the idea.

  The same thought had occurred to the girl. Grimly, she was knocking every last spark of power out of the machine. Another crumpling explosion outside sent them rocking sideways. Locking the controls on a climbing course, she turned to Tyne. Suddenly, the gun was in her hand again.

  ‘I hate to do this, but you must realise I will do anything to succeed, anything,’ she said. “This mission must be carried through at all costs. Beside it, none of us matter at all. If you so much as move suspiciously I will kill you. I will have to kill you.’

  ‘You know, you interest me, Benda,’ Tyne said. ‘Why couldn’t you nave fallen in with the scheme for duplicating the microfilm I suggested back in the temple?’

  She smiled dismissively. ‘Do you really think your people would let you, me or the film go, once they had us? You are really an amateur, Tyne.’

  ‘I’ve heard that said before, thanks. What do you want me to do?’

  The craft bucked furiously as he asked. Hanging on, keeping the gun fixed on him, Benda said, ‘It is getting rough. We are probably being pursued so you must bail out. There is one of our mini-rotor kits behind you, which is the equivalent of your parachutes. Put it on, jump! That will be a distraction to the U.N.C. Forces. Possibly when they see you are going down, they will cease to chase me. Also, this little flier will travel faster without you.’

  ‘You have it all worked out,’ Tyne said admiringly. ‘And it can’t be far to the Rosk base now. Anything else you want before’ I go?’

  Her gun waved a little.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Unscrew your false hand and give it to me.’

  A wave of something like triumph ran over Tyne. So at last he had guessed, and guessed rightly. Benda had ‘rescued’ him for the same reason that Murray had deliberately left him a trail to follow: because Tyne was absolutely essential to their plan. All the time he had seemed to be on the fringe of events, he had been at the centre.

  Murray had wanted a safe hiding place for the microfilm, somewhere where his contact could still get them even if he were intercepted. So when Tyne was unconscious on the trip back from Luna Area 101, it had been an easy matter for him to slip the little spool inside the cavity of one of Tyne’s steel fingers. Then he had played on Tyne’s feelings harshly enough to ensure the latter followed him, made himself conveniently accessible! All the time that Tyne had presumed himself to be acting under free will, to be daring all in the name of action, his moves had been calculated long in advance by someone else. The puppet had danced, unconscious of its strings.
<
br />   Reading the anger and resentment on Tyne’s face, Benda jerked the gun at him in warning.

  ‘Fire!’ he said. ‘For God’s sake, fire, girl! I’m less of an amateur than you think. When I thought about it, it was obvious why you left Murray behind at the temple instead of me; before

  I broke in on the pair of you, he told you what he’d done about hiding the film, didn’t he?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You were rather sweet.’ Shutting her eyes she fired at point blank range. He watched her little fist contract as she squeezed the trigger.

  Tyne opened his good hand, showing her a palm full of the semi-self-propelled bullets.

  ‘I emptied your gun while you were playing with the controls. I thought you might be dangerous; I was right, wasn’t I?’

  Unexpectedly, she burst into tears; they looked much like any girl’s tears. Tyne did not realise at the time the relief those tears expressed; relief both at having done her duty and at having been baulked of the necessity for taking life. Pulling the gun from her hand, Tyne reloaded and thrust it into his own pocket.

  Now he turned his attention to the helicopter.

  The anti-flight barrage had dropped behind. They were over jungle now, still gaining height. Screwing his eyes against the sun’s glare, Tyne peered back into the blue sky. Scudding behind them, a V-shape moved low over the variegated cover, gaining, climbing. It was a manned interceptor, coming after them fast.

  It seemed to be a case of get down or be shot down. Tyne grabbed the controls, angling the rotors, letting them slide down the sky. He felt only exhilaration at that moment.

  Away ahead, blue, hazy, an egg stuck out of the broken wash of landscape. It was the grounded Alpha II ship. They were that near Rosk Base! Tyne growled with a sort of pleasure. At least he had saved himself a visit there. Moreover, although at the eleventh hour, he had saved the situation; Benda sat helpless beside him, suddenly drained of will. He was in control now.