New Writings in SF 23 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Kenneth Bulmer

  * * * *

  Head aching slightly from the effects of the hypnotute Lieutenant Zac Karsov made his way through the ship to where the landing party waited before the main lock. That he was late was no fault of his own, at the last moment Lieutenant Ku Buryia had developed an attack of acute appendicitis and was now lying cured and unconscious beneath the healing radiation in the sick bay. The ethnologist had demanded a replacement and Karsov was the only suitable type though why red hair and mongoloid features were so important he couldn’t guess.

  Hands checking buttons, insignia and weapon belt he made his way to where the little group stood waiting and snapped a salute.

  ‘Lieutenant Karsov reporting for duty, sir!’

  He had spoken to Gregg Haljan, another lieutenant but one of the planetary service and senior both in age and rank; but it was the ethnologist who answered.

  ‘Lieutenant you are incorrectly dressed.’ Susan Ward stood three inches below six feet and even the severe uniform of the Terran League could do little to hide the rounded curves of her figure. Blonde hair cut short framed a neatly rounded head and her lips were a spaceman’s dream; but she had a cold, analytical mind and blue eyes to match. The general consensus of opinion among the younger men was that, as a woman, she made a good robot.

  ‘You are bearing arms,’ she explained as Karsov looked blank. ‘You will please remove your weapon belt.’

  Silently he obeyed. With the planetary rank of captain her word was law on everything connected with the contact and dealing with newly discovered races. Even so—he thought she was crazy. Haljan was old and she was a female which left himself and the three stalwart yeomen, all unarmed, to protect the landing party.

  “That’s better,’ she said, and condescended to explain. ‘Our purpose is to make peaceful contact with the natives and obtain their co-operation. If we bear weapons it will betray both our fear and our possible warlike intent, two impressions we have to avoid.’ Without pause or change of expression she added, in the local tongue, ‘I take it that you have been fully instructed in what you have to do?’

  For a moment he looked baffled then, as his recently acquired education came to the rescue, answered in the same language, ‘My teaching has been as good as the time allowed. Madam.’

  ‘Try again,’ she said curtly. ‘You are talking to a superior therefore the title must be a prefix. Also your inflexion carries a negative connotation. The pitch should lift, fall then lift again.’

  Dutifully be obeyed.

  ‘Again!’

  ‘Madame, my teaching has been as good as the time allowed.’

  ‘Better,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Still not perfect but it will have to do. In any case I shall do all the talking.’ To Haljan she said, ‘Is the guide waiting ?’

  He sat outside, small in the screen, a slight figure enveloped in a dust-coloured robe. His skull was shaven and his face, what they could see of it, was completely devoid of hair. He looked as if he had sat there, waiting, for a dozen years.

  ‘All right,’ said Susan, reverting to English. ‘You all know what to do. The three yeomen will leave first and stand, waiting, one ahead and the others to either side. Then you, Haljan, followed by myself and you, Karsov, at the rear. Under no account say or do anything unless it is absolutely necessary. You must understand that this is our first real contact with these people. The exploratory probe which discovered this planet did no more than land, test for environmental hazards, snatch a specimen, check for humanoid characteristics and brain-tape the language. The rest is up to us.’

  Karsov cleared his throat. ‘These people, are they human?’

  ‘Yes. Probably the descendants of a group which left Earth at the beginning of the Great Expansion or even a splinter group from some settled world. That is why it is so important to gain their co-operation before they are discovered by the Outworld Federation. The League needs every ally it can get.’ She nodded to the lock-operator. ‘We are ready to leave now.’

  * * * *

  Outside the sun held a gentle warmth and the air was rich with the scent of growing things. It was good air, clean, the slightly higher oxygen content inducing a subtle euphoria. Karsov inflated his chest as he followed the woman down the ramp, idly watching the sway of her hips before remembering to keep his mind on the job. Dutifully he looked around. The ship had landed in a clearing ringed with trees thick with blossom. The town, he knew, lay to the north hugging the banks of a river, within easy walking distance but invisible because of the forest. Lifting his head he looked at the sky, a clear blue dotted with fleecy cloud, the sun close to zenith.

  As he reached the foot of the ramp the guide rose, took three steps backward and, with his hand held before his mouth, said, ‘Oh, Mighty Excellencies, speak so that I may learn how to serve you.’

  Susan said, harshly. ‘Take me to those who rule.’

  It was, thought Karsov, taking a hell of a lot for granted. For all she knew the man could have been a high chief waiting to greet the visitors from the stars and even his unused knowledge of the language told him she had used a contemptuous inflexion. Back home he wouldn’t have used such a tone to a dog.

  As they followed the guide he caught up with the ethnologist and said, quietly, ‘Was that wise ? I mean, you could have upset him. I thought we wanted to make friends with these people.’

  Her nostrils flared with anger. ‘Lieutenant, must I remind you of our respective ranks ?’

  ‘No, but-’

  ‘You lack experience,’ she interrupted. ‘I do not. We are dealing with a primitive people, the very complexity of the language tells us that. No primitive chief would be unattended therefore this guide is a person of little account. A criminal, probably, someone who has no caste and certainly no pride. Having no pride he can afford to be offended for he cannot suffer hurt in what he does not have. Is that clear, Lieutenant?’

  ‘I guess so,’ he said slowly. ‘But why need they be primitive ? After all, if they are settlers from Earth, they must have retained something of their technology.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’ She was impatient and it showed. ‘Cultures can regress. Lieutenant, or have you learned nothing in your travels through space ?’

  ‘Regress, true,’ he said, controlling his anger. ‘But so far ?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have no time to give you a lecture on ethnology. Lieutenant, but believe me, yes. Now regain your position, we are approaching the town.’

  It was a small place as towns went, a straggle of low houses gaining height and obvious importance as they neared the centre where a multi-storied edifice reared. Behind it the houses shrank again until they reached the river where a mass of small boats clung to wharves. The streets were narrow, winding, yet clean enough with flowers blooming in beds to either side and more flowers bright against the walls, their roots held in boxes of coloured wood. Everything, Karsov noted, seemed to be made of wood, natural enough he supposed considering the proximity of the forest.

  The streets were alive with people, men, women and the inevitable horde of curious children running bare-foot for the most part, brown bodies lithe as they scampered among the adults. The women were as tall as Susan and wore a simple dress which fell from one shoulder and reached to their ankles. The men were six inches taller, his own height, and wore tunics falling to mid-thigh, belted, the belts supporting knives and pouches. The hair of both sexes fell to the shoulder and both men and women wore jewellery, engraved bands of metal around wrists and upper arms, earrings, necklaces of pierced seeds, animal teeth and the separated vertebrae of fish. Facially they all seemed much the same; broad, flat, mongoloid features with dark eyes deep-set beneath lowering brows. Their hair was a glistening black and from them came the scent of vegetable oil.

  Their guide halted as they entered a small plaza, backing, holding up his hand to shield his mouth.

  ‘Oh, Mighty Excellencies, if it should please you to wait I will summon those you seek.’

  ‘Lead o
n,’ snapped Susan, in the tone she had used before. ‘Make no further delay.’

  Karsov frowned as they continued their journey wondering if the woman had made a mistake. She was too young to have had very much experience and he doubted if she’d had any. Real field experience, that was, not the theoretical problems set up by the classroom analogues. It was possible that in a system governed by rigid protocol points could be lost by making the initial approach but it was too late to worry about it now. Already they had entered the main square lying before the largest building which, logic told him, could only be the palace.

  Before it stood a treble row of armed and armoured guards.

  They were tall, their height accentuated by plumes springing from the crests of their helmets, robot-like in quilted padding, their faces masked, round shields on the left arms, long spears in their right hands. Barbaric, thought Karsov as the little group came to a halt. Decked and plumed and coloured like popinjays; but the spears were no toys and quilted armour had proven its efficiency too often for him to deride it.

  As he watched a file of men came from within the open doors of the palace. First came a man dressed like their guide, another wearing an ornamented tunic and carrying a staff followed him, the third held a spear and wore a crested helmet, the one behind him carried a thing like an engraved disc surrounded by points, finally came a resplendent figure accompanied by two attendants each supporting one side of a panoply which sheltered the august personage from the sun.

  The guards parted to let them through and, at Susan’s order, the three yeomen fell back, Haljan with them, to leave her standing at the front.

  To the older officer Karsov said, ‘If there is trouble, sir, you grab the girl and I’ll cover the retreat.’

  ‘Orders, Lieutenant,’ said Haljan tersely. ‘Remember your instructions. Do not contravene them again.’

  Snubbed, Karsov watched the proceedings, trying to ignore the prickling between his shoulder-blades and managing to keep his hand from groping at a non-existent holster. The two guides met and spoke to each other. They stepped back and the man with the staff approached.

  ‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘From whence do you come ?’

  ‘From a far place,’ said Susan. ‘Bearing rich gifts for you all.’

  Staff fell back and was replaced by spear. ‘Are you warriors? Men of battle?’

  ‘We are those of peace. We come in peace. We seek and offer friendship.’

  Disc replaced spear. ‘Do you worship the one true god?’

  ‘We do.’

  The power civil, thought Karsov. The power military and now the power spiritual. Pass them all and the next would be the big wheel himself. The King Elect or the King Divine or the All High, whatever his title might be he was the one with whom to do business. But the man who held the disc didn’t seem satisfied. He was old, his face seamed with creases, his eyes narrowed as he stared over the rim of his emblem.

  ‘Your voice is strange,’ he said. ‘High. Do all sound the same?’

  Susan drew in a deep breath. ‘Yes.’

  Karsov flinched at the sudden howl of rage which broke out from all sides.

  * * * *

  Captain Rayment rubbed thoughtfully at his chin as he stared at the three seated across his desk in the operations room of his vessel. ‘So it was a bust,’ he said. ‘A washout. Is that it?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Susan was defensive. ‘We gained some knowledge and the next time we’ll have greater success.’

  ‘Haljan ?’

  The elderly lieutenant shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me, I’m an ecologist not an ethnologist. All I know is that something went wrong and we left that place on the double.’

  ‘Karsov?’

  ‘Our expert made a mistake,’ said Zac. It would have been against human nature not to have taken his revenge. ‘She obviously lacks experience in actually handling primitive peoples. Unfortunately for the success of the attempt she is a woman. Most primitive peoples have a taboo against women. Some things they can do, cook, bear children, weave, tend the fields even, but they are not allowed to participate in areas reserved for men. Primitives have no time for women diplomats. As soon as they discovered her sex they simply didn’t want to know. Had she actually spoken to the big wheel they might have killed us all. As it was they simply ran us out of town.’

  ‘So she broke a local taboo,’ said Rayment. ‘Well, that’s understandable if annoying. Your recommendations?’

  ‘I hardly think they will be of value,’ said Susan impatiently. ‘The Lieutenant is untrained in ethnology.’

  ‘But he is trained in the use of offensive and defensive weapons,’ said the captain flatly. ‘He has also undergone a full survival course and one of the things about any spaceman is that he soon learns how to get along with other people. Lieutenant?’

  ‘Miss Ward is a very attractive woman,’ said Karsov imperturbably. ‘As such she tends to be somewhat vain. A subconscious prompting, perhaps, but it is there. Unless she disguises her hair, learns to talk in a deep voice and wears a less constricting uniform she will always be taken for what she is.’ He decided that he had been, perhaps, a little too rough. ‘She isn’t to be wholly blamed, of course. Within the League women have had true equality for so long now that I expect she simply didn’t think about it.’

  ‘Thank you for trying, Lieutenant,’ said Susan, a little mollified. ‘But you were right the first time. It was a mistake I shouldn’t have made.’

  ‘We learn by mistakes,’ said Rayment. ‘Is there value in the lieutenant’s suggestion?’

  ‘That I disguise myself?’ Susan frowned. ‘Perhaps, but there is something to take into consideration. They are sun-worshippers, that was obvious from the rayed disc and, anyway, most primitive peoples are. There could be ceremonies in which the body is exposed to the sun. Need I elaborate?’

  Haljan grunted. ‘Don’t let us admit defeat before we’ve really begun. Do we have to participate in their ceremonies?’

  ‘To gain their friendship, yes. If their spiritual life is strong, and if they follow the primitive pattern it is, then unless we participate we shall always be considered as outsiders.’ She frowned at Karsov. ‘You want to comment?’

  ‘A matter of curiosity. Why did you insist that I accompany you?’

  ‘I wanted to display a variety of differing racial characteristics so as to prove that peoples of divergent stock could work together in harmony.’ She caught his expression. ‘You disagree?’

  ‘I think you are trying to run before you’ve learned to walk,’ said Karsov deliberately. ‘Not your fault, perhaps, theoretical knowledge can never be as good as actual experience and it could be that your instructors have grown a little careless. But in my experience no primitive race welcomes strangers. Xenophobia is a real problem to overcome. Of all the landing party I came closest to the natives as regards facial distinction. Dye my skin, fit me with a long, black wig, rig me in a tunic and I might just be able to move among them without arousing suspicion.’

  ‘A spy?’ Rayment frowned then nodded. ‘It might work at that. Captain?’

  ‘He lacks the necessary knowledge to make sense of any data he might obtain. If this society is taboo-ridden he would be bound to make mistakes. One of them might kill him.’

  ‘A combined effort,’ rumbled Haljan. ‘Him to pry and you to teach. A miniaturised transceiver planted behind one ear and you to give instruction. The best of both worlds.’ He chuckled, the sound echoing from deep in his chest. ‘What is it they say? If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. My boy, you’re going to do just that.’

  * * * *

  A few hours later, trying to ignore the itching behind his left ear and the unaccustomed feel of air against his lower limbs, Zac Karsov left the ship and headed towards the forest. He did not head directly towards the town, unless the natives were totally lacking in curiosity there would be watchers, so he left the vessel on the far side intending to circle towards his destination.

&n
bsp; As he reached the first of the trees a tiny voice carried by bone-conduction from the implanted mechanism said, ‘Testing. Can you hear me, Lieutenant?’

  ‘I can hear you.’ The words were formed in his throat, dying before they could leave his lips. Man-made telepathy undetectable to anyone lacking instruments.

  ‘Remember to report everything and anything you see. I shall not be able to advise you without full data to work on.’

  ‘I’ll remember. Captain,’ he promised. ‘And it’s nice to know that you care.’

  ‘For the mission, Lieutenant,’ the voice said coldly. ‘There is nothing personal about this.’

  ‘A pity. With you I’d like to get personal.’

  ‘Lieutenant!’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, smiling. ‘A sub-vocal wish, Captain. You shouldn’t have heard it. Not that it wasn’t genuine. As I said you are a very attractive woman.’