[Jan Darzek 02] - Watchers of the Dark

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  “They won’t get tired,” Brokefa said gloomily. “They’re nocturnals.”

  “Even nocturnals have to get tired sometime, and these are starving.”

  “You weren’t here when the Dark came. Once they’re roused, they stay active until the next morning. I know.”

  “We’d better see if there are any in the house.”

  From the back of the room a curving ramp led up to the level above. Darzek started up; Brokefa, after a moment of hesitation, scrambled after him.

  The odor became stronger as they climbed, and long before they reached the top its fetid pungency had sickened them. Darzek clenched his teeth to keep from gagging and peered into the dim light. Abruptly he turned, pushing Brokefa back toward the ramp.

  “What is it?” Brokefa whispered.

  “Dead Quarmers.”

  They returned to the lower level. Darzek said soberly, “The Quarmers told the truth. They’re starving. The entire planet must be in the same fix. Why would the Dark take a world only to let its people starve?”

  “We’re marooned here,” Brokefa whimpered. “We’ll starve, too.”

  “Nonsense. Your cousins won’t go off and leave us.”

  “Marooned,” Brokefa whined. “I’m hungry already.”

  “Oh, be quiet! I want to think.”

  He paced back and forth, occasionally going to the air vent for a look at the milling Quarmers. The dripping water irritated him. He went to investigate and found a queer type of water clock. Obviously there was no shortage of water; but even on a primitive planet the utilities, if properly automated, would continue to function long after there were people to use them.

  It was the economic system that had collapsed. The socialism that assured life’s necessities to everyone had ceased to function as soon as its odd veneer of capitalism had been removed. “The Dark is a more horrible menace than anyone seems to have imagined,” Darzek announced thoughtfully. “I thought it was enslaving the populations of the worlds it has taken. Instead, it’s exterminating them. How could the Dark or anyone else possibly benefit from killing off every intelligent life form in the galaxy?”

  He had no fear for their immediate safety; the house’s taint of death probably offered a better defense than any that he could devise. When daylight routed the nocturnals, the ship would put down another transmitter.

  But the night, in a house reeking of death, would be a long one.

  Most of the Quarmers went home at dawn. Those who did not lay dead in the tall, brittle grass. With the sun high in the sky Darzek and Brokefa walked quickly toward the central oval. A transmitter materialized as they approached, fell twenty feet to the ground, and smashed. Another was waiting when they reached the center of the oval, and they stepped through.

  The first person Darzek saw was the Quarmer who had inadvertently stumbled through the transmitter the day before. He sat beside a pile of shells, happily munching on Iwip nuts.

  “There is no trade,” Brokefa said bitterly, in answer to the efa’s first question. “They have nothing to trade. Let’s go home.”

  “They have nothing to trade,” Darzek said quietly, “but they have a tremendous need. They are starving.”

  “That is no affair of ours,” Brokefa snapped. “Let them starve.”

  “It’s an affair of mine. Has the Quarmer given you any trouble?”

  “Only at first, when we did not realize he was asking for food,” Linhefa said.

  “Talk to him,” Darzek told Brokefa. “Find out what’s been happening on Quarm.”

  Brokefa put the question, listened to the answer, and said disgustedly, “Nothing has been happening on Quarm.”

  “Has he seen anything at all of anyone representing the Dark?”

  “He says not. He says we’re the first strangers—foreigners—he has seen since the foreigners left.”

  “Ask him if there is hunger in the other villages, and in the cities.”

  The Quarmer jabbered excitedly, and Brokefa interpreted, “There is hunger everywhere, except that it is worse in the cities. The food ran out sooner in the cities. The villagers smashed their transmitter so people from the cities would not come to take their food.”

  “Ask him why an agricultural planet ran out of food.”

  “He does not know. Suddenly the food supplies were gone, and there were no crops to harvest.”

  “We should congratulate Gul Darr for his brilliant deduction,” Gudefa said sarcastically. “The Dark worlds do need trade. Unfortunately, no one will trade with them if they have nothing to offer in payment.” He whipped his tendrils in a gesture of disgust. “We’ll return the Quarmer to his village and retrieve the transmitter.”

  “I want to know why they have nothing to trade,” Darzek said.

  “They have seen nothing,” Brokefa said scornfully. “They have done nothing. They know nothing. They have not operated their mines, nor planted their farms. Now they wait for the foreigners to return and feed them. When last I saw them they shouted Grilf! Grilf! meaning what they could not tell me themselves. Now they shout only Food! Food! Let us leave them to the fate they have chosen.”

  “Their emotional orgy must have continued long after the foreigners left,” Darzek mused. “But that was—Great Scott!—a couple of periods ago, at least. I’ve had some personal experience of how emotional Quarmers are, but I hardly expected that. Do you suppose they went right on rioting until their food gave out?”

  “It would seem so,” Brokefa said. “Then it was too late to produce more, and they starved. Whatever happened, it does not concern us.”

  “Ask him why the Quarmers ejected the foreigners.”

  Brokefa interpreted disgustedly. “He doesn’t know. He says he doesn’t remember.”

  “If we could find out what got them worked up to such a peak of excitement, we’d be well on our way to understanding the Dark.” He moved on into the lounge and slumped wearily onto a chair. The suspenseful night had taken its toll; he felt utterly exhausted. “We can’t return to Yorlq with a shipload of food when all of Quarm is starving,” he said.

  “How can we trade with them when they have nothing to trade?” Tizefa demanded.

  “How can you think about trade when they’re, starving? Give them the food!”

  “One shipload of nuts won’t feed a planet. It won’t even feed a city.”

  “It’ll keep some people alive until we can get back here with more food.”

  “We?” The efa gazed at him dumbfounded.

  “Look,” Darzek said. “I’ll buy your ship. I’ll buy your load of nuts.”

  “What do you offer?” Linhefa asked politely.

  “For your ship, what you paid for it plus the cost of this voyage. For the nuts, whatever the price used to be on Yorlq.”

  The efa exchanged glances. “Agreed,” Linhefa said.

  Darzek turned to the captain. “You’re working for me now. Start breaking out the cargo. We’ll return this Quarmer to his village with a ration of nuts, and then we’ll put nuts down at every populated place as long as the supply lasts.”

  “You mean as long as the transmitters last,” the captain said. “We have only four left, including the one that is down now.”

  “Then put them down carefully. A lot of lives depend on it.”

  The efa, though they made no effort to conceal their puzzlement, obediently opened shipping compartments and began counting bags of nuts. Brokefa rationed them out, drawing upon his amazingly detailed recollections of towns and cities and their pre-Dark populations. Darzek didn’t want the nuts dumped into the overgrown ovals where they might not be found, so the captain meticulously placed the transmitter in the street near the center of each town.

  It required only seconds to unload a ration of nuts, but puttin
g down the transmitter and retrieving it took tedious calculations and tense, nerve-wracking minutes. They followed the line of day around the planet, and when finally they finished, tossing out all of the ship’s emergency rations at the last stop, the captain had made several hundred of the difficult point transmissions and lost only one more transmitter. He gleefully called himself the galaxy’s foremost expert.

  “I’ll pay you a bonus,” Darzek promised him. “Now take us home.”

  But captain and crew were too exhausted even to perform the routine functions of the return to Yorlq. All of them sprawled about the small lounge and went to sleep. Darzek dozed off thinking wryly that few men had ever begun a journey as a stowaway and ended it owning the ship. Equally amazing was the fact that none of the efa had asked him what he was doing there. Perhaps each of them assumed that one of the others had invited him.

  When he awoke the ship was safely under way, so he went back to sleep. He awoke a second time to find the lounge deserted. Efa, captain, and crew were all crowded into the small control room.

  “What’s the matter?” Darzek called.

  “We can’t catch a beam from the Yorlq transfer station,” the captain said.

  Darzek blinked sleepily and covered a yawn. “Something wrong with our equipment?”

  “No,” the captain said emphatically.

  “Something’s wrong with their equipment, then. What about the other stations?”

  “There aren’t any beams, and none of them answer our signal.”

  “There’s nothing to do but keep trying,” Darzek said cheerfully.

  “And you had to give away all of our rations,” Brokefa complained.

  “I’ll buy you any food you want at the transfer station,” Darzek promised. He said quietly to the captain, “Can you go in without a beam?”

  “No. It would be too risky, both for the ship and the station. Difficult, too. Anyway, it’s forbidden, and—just a moment.”

  “Got something?”

  “Yes.”

  The captain jerked out the message strip and glanced at it wonderingly. “It says—‘Go away, Grilf!’”

  Grilf. They stared at each other.

  During their brief absence the Dark had taken Yorlq.

  Chapter 13

  They avoided the orbital plane of the transfer stations and slipped unnoticed into an orbit around Yorlq. Yorlez and the Hesr lay under the night shadow, where the captain, for all of his recently acquired experience, found point transmitting to be an entirely different matter. While they watched the screen tensely he smashed two of their three remaining transmitters, and then scored a perfect bull’s-eye on Darzek’s garden.

  Darzek leaped through into the feeble light of Yorla’s diminutive moons. Without breaking stride he dashed to the house and pounded on the outside door. The efa positioned themselves to guard the transmitter and waited anxiously.

  Darzek pounded again, bellowing “Schluppy!” and finally poised himself to kick in the door.

  It opened soundlessly. Miss Schlupe faced him, belligerently brandishing a revolver. “You scared me to death,” she announced resentfully.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Nothing is all right.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re here alone.”

  “Are you kidding? I have the whole Trans-Star staff, and all of their families. Their hungry families, I might add. The service transmitters haven’t worked since yesterday, and there’s no food in the house. I don’t suppose you happen to have a ham sandwich in your pocket.”

  Darzek signaled to the efa, who carefully carried the transmitter frame into the house. “Where’s Kxon?” he asked.

  “I haven’t seen him since he brought your message.”

  “Message? Didn’t he bring two?”

  She shook her head.

  “That’s odd. He was to hand you a note if I wasn’t back in three days. Are the regular transmitters still working?”

  “They were a moment ago. I just came back from Rhinzl’s.”

  The efa were stirring impatiently. “You want to know how things are at home,” Darzek told them. “Go ahead. But I want you back here at once with the rest of the traders. All of them. Tell them their presence is urgently required at a meeting, and if they won’t come bring them anyway.”

  “Meeting?” Brokefa exclaimed. “What is there to meet about? We need only to obtain the necessary supplies, and leave.”

  “Suit yourself. But this particular ship belongs to me, and it isn’t going anywhere until I’m ready/ And,” he added darkly, “it isn’t accepting any passengers who refuse to come to my meetings.” He waved them away and turned to greet Gud Baxak, who hurried in slobbering joyfully.

  “This transmitter connects with a spaceship,” Darzek told him, patting the portable frame. “Put some of the undertraders here, and tell them to guard it with their lives. The ship is short of supplies. It has no food at all, and not enough water and air for the number of passengers it may have to carry. We’ll make better arrangements later, but for the present everything will have to be brought here and passed through this transmitter. Do you know what to do?”

  “Yes, Sire,” Gud Baxak said, beaming.

  “Then do it” He said to Miss Schlupe, “Tell me what’s been happening.”

  “I really don’t know. The natives whoop it up all day, but so far they’ve just wandered about in mobs and made a lot of noise. Except for cutting off the service transmitters, they’ve left us alone. Do you need me at your meeting?”

  “No. Go to bed. You look worn out, and this is only the beginning. Get some sleep while you can.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find Kxon. I can’t make any plans until I’ve talked with him.”

  He stepped through to Kxon’s headquarters. The place was a shambles. The carefully compiled files were strewn from room to room; furnishings had been tossed about and smashed. Stunned, Darzek righted a chair and seated himself wearily.

  He’d lost the battle for Yorlq before it began. At the moment he most urgently needed his investigators—the moment he’d trained them for—they’d gone mad along with the other natives.

  “That’s why the traders hired only foreigners,” he thought. “Their experience with the Dark taught them not to trust natives.” He told himself defensively that he’d had to trust natives, that no foreigner could have moved about Yorlq unnoticed the way Kxon did. But he should have been prepared for this.

  Minutes slipped by, and still he sat huddled in bleak despondency, unwilling to move, reluctant even to think or plan. He had called the traders together, intending to rally them to a battle that was already lost. Now he could only ask their help in collecting supplies and organizing an evacuation. They’d help eagerly, of course. The same mental weapon with which the Dark maddened the natives probably paralyzed the traders’ will to resist.

  He started. Was it possible that the Dark’s mental weapon was working on him? Angrily he got to his feet and strode to the transmitter.

  At dawn Miss Schlupe found him sitting meditatively in the garden. She handed him a dish of her synthetic rhubarb beer, and he sipped it appreciatively, saying, “This is the right time for it.”

  “Did you get any sleep at all?”

  He shook his head.

  “Are the traders going to cooperate?”

  “They have no choice if they want to leave here on my ship. It took me hours to get that point across, but it finally registered.”

  “I wondered if you’d found an obstructionist among them.”

  Darzek smiled. “Which is a polite way of saying, ‘Agent of the Dark.’ No, but I’m watching all of them very carefully—watching them and having them watched. Each of them now has one of my undertraders as an assistant, sup
posedly for liaison duties. It’d be difficult to say which were deliberately obstructive and which were merely scared stiff, but all of them are cooperating, albeit reluctantly.

  “Gul Meszk owns an interest in a factory that produces compartments for spaceships, or did before the Dark put a damper on the spaceship business in this sector. He thinks there are enough finished passenger units on hand to fill my ship. Gul Kaln is what would be called an electronics nut back on Earth, and he has enough equipment available to put together any number of outsized transmitters. The two of them are working at getting the passenger compartments up to the ship. As for the others, Rhinzl is willing to do whatever I want, but only at night when he knows there’ll be very little that I want done. He’s going to muster the few available nocturnals and organize a night watch. I have the rest out collecting supplies, but I’m afraid I’ll have to prod them constantly.”

  “I hope you have something for me to do. I’ve never felt so useless in my life.”

  “You can take charge of the evacuation. The natives may turn off the broadcast power at any moment, so I’m having outside doors cut in all of the dwellings. As the compartments are made ready you can bring the women and children over here, one household at a time, and pass them through to the ship.”

  “Are you really going to fight the natives?”

  “The hill is a perfect defensive position. Any native who climbs it won’t feel much like fighting when he reaches the top.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I’m going to make a show of fighting,” Darzek said. “There’s something I want to find out—something I must find out—and this is the only way it can be done.”

  “Can it be done before we starve?”

  “We’re culling all of the warehouses for anything that might be of use to us. Gul Kaln has some self-powered transmitters ready so we can keep moving supplies after the power is cut off. As fast as the noncombatants move out we’ll convert the dwellings into supply depots.”