Equator & Segregation

by Brian Aldiss

  Tyne sighed.

  ‘I’m not really a man of action, governor, but that doesn’t mean you have to be avuncular with me. What have you brought me here for this time?’

  ‘Take a mescahale, young man. The Governor-General of the U.N.C., Mr. Hjanderson, is here to see you; and I should advise you to watch your tongue for the occasion. Now please excuse me for a minute.’

  He disappeared through a rear door with his sprightly old man’s gait. To kill time, Tyne stared at the linen-faced attendant who had brought him here; the attendant fingered his tie and coughed.

  Hjanderson, when he appeared, was instantly recognisable: dapper, fiftyish, a little like a wolf with an expense account, smelling agreeably of the most fashionable shaving soap. He shook hands briskly with Tyne and sat down facing him, palms pressed on knees.

  ‘I promised to come and see you,’ he said, ‘and I have kept that promise. I regret it has taken me so long to do. These have been days of crisis. Very grave crisis.’

  ‘I’m pleased if I have been of any service. Perhaps I can have my hand back now, sir.’

  Hjanderson brushed most of this aside.

  ‘Service? Yes, Leslie, I think you played your part as you saw it. You were never more than partially in the picture, you know. We have received a great deal of help from the Roskian girl, Benda Ittai, whom you left for dead beside her crashed helicopter.’

  With an effort, Tyne swallowed this blatant misrepresenta­tion; his term with the U.N.C. had accustomed him to such gambits.

  ‘Apart from the fact that I did not leave her for dead how is she? Where is she?’ he asked.

  ‘She is radiant; she is here,’ Purdoe said, interrupting, coming up from behind his desk. With his thin, veined hand he touched -for whatever privately submerged reason of his own - the arm of the fur coat Benda wore, as he ushered her through the rear doorway and into the office.

  ‘Benda!’ Tyne exclaimed. Forgetting the Governor-General of the U.N.C., he went over to her and took her hands. Hot; 105.1; alien; but beautiful, and smiling in most tender fashion. He couldn’t let her get away with it so easily.

  ‘Haven’t seen you since you tried to shoot me,’ he said affably.

  “The situation has changed,’ she said, still smiling. The tor­mented look she had worn when putting him ashore on the island had entirely gone now.

  ‘Since you appear to have lost interest in the political situa­tion,’ Hjanderson said dryly, rising to his feet, ‘it remains for me only to tell you that you are now a free man, Mr. Leslie. More­over, I think I can mention that it is possible you may eventually get some sort of decoration; the E.D.C.E., probably.’

  ‘I’ll wear it all the time,’ Tyne promised, ‘but before you go, please tell me about the invasion - what’s happening, what’s been done about it?’

  ‘Miss Ittai can tell you the details,’ Hjanderson said smiling and extending a sharp hand. ‘Now you must excuse me; I have a news conference to attend. I am, of course, delighted to have been able to see you. I wish you good luck for the future.’

  ‘Of course,’ Tyne murmured vaguely. He turned to Benda before Purdoe had shown the Governor-General out. ‘I’d prefer to ask you this over a restaurant table, but what’s been happening that I don’t know about?’

  ‘Perhaps the table can be arranged later,’ she said. ‘From now on - whether that is what I want or not -1 am on your side of the fence. I cannot go back to my people. That is why I have told the Governor-General the truth as I have found it to be.

  “The invasion plans, as I think you have heard, are false. And not they only. The RPF also was a spurious organisation! Don’t mistake me - a lot of its members genuinely wished for peace between Rosk and Man as I did and still do myself. But Tawdell Co Barr is, and must always have been, a puppet of Ap II Dowl’s. No doubt we should all have been wiped out when we had served our purpose.’

  ‘Budo Budda was out to kill you as it was.’ Tyne said.

  ‘Oh quite; I was merely expendable, I fear. Even Budda would not have known the RPF was a dummy front - otherwise he would not have been after Murray. Only Ap II and Tawdell Co Barr are supposed to know.’

  ‘And how did you find out ?’

  She shrugged her shoulders, her face puckered as she recalled that horrible moment of revelation.

  ‘For some time, small events in the Base had, made me sus­picious, but I really knew what was happening when we crashed near Sumatra Base and they neither opened fire on us nor sent a party out to pick us up. Their silence could mean only one thing: the plans were intended only for U.N.C. eyes. They were false, designed only to scare Earth.’

  ‘They certainly did that,’ Tyne agreed. ‘This clears up one point that has been bothering me. I’d been wondering what this spool of microfilm was doing on Luna in the first place. Ob­viously it was planted there where its journey to your base would attract maximum attention.’

  Benda Ittai began to look moist about the eyes, as the treachery of her fellow beings struck her afresh. Turning to Purdoe, who stood sympathetically by, Tyne asked, ‘What was Ap II Dowl’s idea in all this?’

  With a barely perceptible gesture, Purdoe led Tyne to the other side of the room.

  ‘This is all very sad for the young woman,’ he said in an official voice. ‘You see the invasion scare was Dowl’s last bluff. When confronted in the Council with our knowledge of the plans, he would probably have said that he would call the attacking fleet off if we’d give him all Sumatra, or perhaps Africa as well, or half the globe, or whatever his megalomaniac mind conceived. He’s got nothing to back a real threat, Leslie. This was pure bluff from start to finish. You were really ill-advised, if I may say so, to get mixed up in it.’

  ‘We’ve all been chasing around risking our necks,’ Tyne said testily, ‘just to serve Dowl’s purpose. But how are you so sure it’s all bluff?’

  For answer, the governor pulled a message form from his pocket and unfolded it daintily, Tyne recognised the flimsy as a signal which had come through secret government channels.

  ‘This arrived just before I summoned you,’ Purdoe said. ‘Please read it. You will find it enlightening.’

  The message read: ‘Circulation: Govt Levels A-C only and List 566 as specified. Text begins: Hoyle Observatory, Luna, confirms Alpha Centauri about to go nova. Increase to apparent magnitude Minus One expected by end of year. This temperature rise will be sufficient to render life on its planets untenable. Authoritative circles confirm that first signs of nova effect would have been observable locally three generations ago in sunspot and radio phenomena. Rosk ship may therefore be regarded as lifeboat; no doubt other lifeboats dispatched to other nearby systems. Therefore chances of invasion now highly improbable, repeat highly improbable. Suggested course of action: summit announcement of text of this action, with warning to Ap II Dowl to settle down or move on. Text ends. 10/10/2193 Luna-Sipga-Beam Y.’

  Tyne put the flimsy down, slowly, blankly. Round his head ran some lines from an historical solid, the name of which eluded him; “Thus enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard their currents turn awry. And lose the name of action.” Was it Shakespeare? He was confused; from the diplomatic point of view, this, of course, was a triumph. The Rosks stood revealed in all their weakness, and could now be squashed as Earth saw fit. Yet in Tyne’s head, the picture of oceans steaming, babies cooking slowly in cellars, planets gradually turning to ashes, seemed to him something less than a happy ending.

  ‘I must say I have marked you down.’ Governor Purdoe said, regarding Tyne coldly, ‘as rather a hard and impertinent young man. How typical of your generation that you should have no reaction of this great news!’

  ‘Good heavens!’ Tyne exclaimed. ‘I was just thinking -‘

  ‘Forgive me if I interrupt; no doubt you were thinking of your own personal glory; I can read you like a book. When Governor-General Hjanderson gave you your freedom, I hoped it meant you would leave here at once. Will you please do s
o now? And one thing - please take Miss Ittai with you. I under­stand she has formed an attachment for you; for me, that will always remain the ultimate proof of Roskian misguidedness.’

  Tyne looked hard at the old man, so neat, so smiling. With unexpected self-control, he swallowed his anger. He wanted to say that it would be impossible to understand a Rosk as long as it was impossible to understand a man, but the words did not come. There were no words; he realised he could comprehend Purdoe no more than Purdoe comprehended him.

  Frustratedly, he turned to Benda Ittai. Here at least was someone worth trying to comprehend.

  He felt like spending a life at it.

  ‘Let’s go and find that restaurant table I was telling you about,’ he said, taking her arm.

  She smiled at him. It was a very comprehensible smile.

  SEGREGATION

  by BRIAN ALDISS

  At other times of day, the pigmies brought the old man fish from the river, or the watercress which he loved, but in the after­noon they brought him two bowls of entrails. He stood to receive them, staring over their heads through the open door, looking at the blue jungle without seeing it. He was in pain. Yet he dared not let his subjects see that he suffered or was weak; the pigmies had a short way with weakness. Before they entered his room, he had forced himself to stand erect, using his heavy stick for support.

  The two bearers stopped before him, bowing their heads until their snouts were almost in the still steaming bowls.

  ‘Thank you. Your offering is received,’ the old man said.

  Whether or not they really comprehended his clicking attempt at reproducing their tongue, he could not tell. Shaking slightly, he patted their scaly heads, after which they rose and departed with their rapid, slithering walk. In the bowls, oily highlights glistened, reflected from the sunshine outside.

  Sinking back on to his bed, the old man fell into his usual fantasy: the pigmies came to him, and he treated them not with forbearance but hatred. He poured over them the weight of his long-repressed loathing and despisal, striking them over the heads with his stick and finally driving them and all their race for ever from this planet. They were gone. The azure sun and the blue jungles were his alone; he could live where nobody would ever find or worry him. He could die at last as simply as a leaf falls from a tree.

  The reverie faded, and he recognised it for what it was. He knotted his hands together till the knuckles stood out like cobble stones, coughing a little blood. The bowls of intestines would have to be disposed of.

  Next day, the rocket ship landed a mile away.

  The big overlander lumbered along the devious forest track. It was losing as little time as possible with Barney Brangwyn’s expert hand at the wheel. On either side of the vehicle, the vegeta­tion was thick, presenting that sombre blue-green hue which characterised most of the living things on the planet Kakakakaxo.

  ‘You neither of you look in the pink of health!’ Barney observed, flicking his eyes from the track to glance at the azure lights on the faces of his two companions.

  The three members of the Planetary Ecological Survey Team (PEST for short) appeared to have blue snow-shadows shading every plane of their countenances; yet in this equatorial zone, and with the sun Cassivelaunus shining at zenith, it was com­fortably warm, if not hot. The surrounding jungle grew thickly, with an almost tropical luxuriance, the bushes seeming to sag under the weight of their own foliage. It was strange to recall that they were heading for a man who had lived in these unin­viting surroundings for almost twenty years. Now they were here, it became easier to see why he was universally regarded as a hero.

  “There’s plenty of cover here for any green pigmies who may be watching us,’ Tim Anderson said, peering at the passing thickets. ‘I was hoping to see one or two.’

  Barney chuckled at the worried note in the younger man’s voice.

  “The pigmies are probably still getting over the racket we made in landing,’ he said. ‘We’ll be seeing them soon enough. When you get as ancient as I am, Tim, you’ll become less keen to meet the local bigwigs. The top dogs of any planet are generally the most obstreperous - ipso facto, as the lawyers say.’

  He lapsed into silence as he negotiated a gulley, swinging the big vehicle expertly up the far slope.

  ‘By the evidence, the most obstreperous factor on Kakakakaxo is the climate,’ Tim said. ‘Only six or seven hundred miles north and south of here, the glaciers begin, and go right on up to the poles. Admittedly our job is to vet the planet to see that it’s safe for colonists to move in, but I shouldn’t want to live here, pigmies or no pigmies; I’ve seen enough already to tell you that.’

  ‘It’s not a question of choice for the colonists,’ Craig Hodges, leader of the team, remarked. “They’ll come because of some kind of pressure on them: economic factors, oppression, destitution, or the need for liebensraum - the sort of grim necessities which keep us all on the hop.’

  ‘Cheer up, Craig!’ Barney exclaimed. ‘At least Daddy Danger-field likes it here! He had faced Kakakakaxo for nineteen years, wet nursing his pigmies!’

  ‘Don’t forget he crashed here accidently in the first place; he’s just had to adjust,’ Craig said, unwilling to be shaken out of a melancholy which always descended on him when the PEST first confronted the mystery of a new planet.

  ‘What a magnificent adjustment!’ Tim exclaimed. ‘Daddy Dangerfield, God of the Great Beyond! He was one of my child­hood heroes. I’m greatly looking forward to seeing him.’

  ‘Most of the legends built round him originated on Droxy,’ Craig said, ‘where half the ballyhoo in the universe comes from. I am chary about the blighter myself, but at least he should prove helpful to us - which is why we’re going to look him up.’

  ‘Of course he’ll be helpful,’ Barney said, skirting a thicket of rhododendron. ‘He’ll save us a wack of field work. In nineteen years - if he’s anything like the man he’s cracked up to be - he should have accumulated a mass of material of inestimable value to us. You can’t tell me Daddy won’t simplify our task enor­mously, Craig; don’t be a pessimist.’

  The PEST task was seldom simple. When a three-man team landed on an unexplored planet like Kakakakaxo, they had to categorise its possible dangers and determine exactly the nature of the opposition any superior species might offer to colonising man. The superior species, in a galaxy tumbling with diversity, might be mammal, reptile, insect, vegetable, mineral, or virus -but frequently it was, as Barney hinted, so obstreperous that it had to be obliterated entirely before man could move in - and exterminated so that the ecological balance of the planet was disturbed as little as possible.

  Their journey ended unexpectedly. They were only a mile from their ship when the jungle on one side of the overlander gave way to a cliff, which formed the base of a steep and affor­ested mountain. Rounding a high spur of rock, they saw the pigmies’ village ahead of them. When Barney braked and cut out the atomic motor, the three of them sat for a minute in silence, taking in the scene..

  Rapid movement under the trees followed their arrival.

  ‘Here comes the welcoming committee,’ Craig said. ‘We’d better climb down and look agreeable, as far as that is possible; Heaven knows what they are going to make of your beard, Barney. Get your gun on, Tim, just in case it’s needed.’

  Jumping to the ground, the trio were almost immediately surrounded. The pigmies moved like jerky lightning, enclosing the ecologists. Though they appeared from all quarters, appar­ently without prearranged plan, it took them only a few seconds to form a wall round the intruders. And for all their speed, there was a quality of stealth about them, possibly because they made no sound. Perhaps, Tim thought encouragingly to himself, it was because they were shy. Yet there was something menacing about their haste; they were ugly creatures.

  They moved like lizards, and their skin was like lizard skin, green and mottled, except where it broke into coarse scales down their backs. Pigmy-sized, none of them stood more than four f
eet high. They were four-legged and two-armed. Their heads, perched above their bodies with no visible neck, were like cayman heads, fitted with long, cruel jaws and serrated teeth. These heads now swivelled from side to side, like gun turrets on tanks seeking sight of the enemy. It looked an apprehensive gesture.

  Once they had surrounded the ecologists, the pigmies made no further move, as if the initiative had passed from them. In their baggy throats, heavy pulses beat.

  Craig pointed at a cayman-head in front of him and said, ‘Greetings! Where is Daddy Dangerfield? We intend you no harm. We merely wish to see Dangerfield. Please take us to him.’

  He repeated his words in Galingua.

  The pigmies stirred, opening their jaws and croaking. An excited clack-clack-clackering broke out on all sides. Over-poweringly, an odour of fish rose from the creatures. None of them volunteered anything which might be construed as a reply. The wave of excitement, if it was that, which passed over them emphasised their more formidable features. Their stocky bodies might have been ludicrous, but their two pairs of sturdy legs and, above all, their armoured jaws would deter anyone from re­garding them as figures of fun.

  ‘These are only animals!’ Tim exclaimed. ‘Look at them -they relieve themselves as they stand, like cattle. They possess none of the personal pride you’d expect in a primitive savage. They wear absolutely nothing in the way of clothes. Why they aren’t even armed!’

  ‘Don’t say that until you’ve had a good look at their claws and teeth,’ Barney said cheerfully. He had caught the loathing in the youngster’s voice, and knew how often loathing cloaks fear. He himself felt a curious, dry tension, originating less from thought of the pigmies than from the reflection that the three of them were in an unknown world, without precedents to guide them; when he ceased to feel that tension, he would be due for retirement.

  ‘Move forward slowly with me,’ Craig said. ‘We are doing no good just standing here. Dangerfield must be about some­where, heaven help him.’