The Longest Way Home

by Robert Silverberg

  “We don’t exactly own them. We provide for them; we make sure everyone is housed, that nobody goes hungry, that there’s work for everybody, that good medical care is available. And in return for that they work the lands, and look after the livestock, and do what needs to be done in the factories.”

  “But everyone is housed here in Eysar Haven, and everyone has work to do, and nobody goes hungry, and all of that. Why would we need Masters here?”

  “You don’t, I suppose. But the Folk of other places aren’t as self-sufficient as the people of the cuyling towns are.”

  “You mean, they came to your ancestors and said, ‘Please rule us, please be our Masters?’ They wanted your people to take charge of their lives for them?”

  “Well, in a manner of speaking—”

  “No. Actually they were conquered, weren’t they? There was a thing called the Conquest, when the Masters came out of the sky and seized the land and forced everyone to submit to them. Except for a few like us, off in places of the world that nobody seemed to want to bother conquering. Isn’t that so, Joseph?”

  He could not deny that. He would not even try. It would not be known as the Conquest, he thought, if it had not been a conquest. And yet—yet—it had always been his understanding that the Masters had imposed the system of Great Houses upon the Folk for the good of the Folk themselves, not just for their own, and that the Folk had learned to see the wisdom of that system. It had been his understanding, too, that the Folk were an inherently weak breed, nothing more than creatures of a docile domesticated sort that had been waiting for leadership to be provided for them.

  But it was impossible for Joseph to say any of that to her. How could he let this girl—this woman, really—for whom he now felt such desire, such need, such love, even, and from whom he had received such delights and hoped to receive more, think that he looked upon her not as a human being but as a kind of domesticated beast? Not only would telling her that be a hideous impossible insult, but he knew it was not even true. Everything about her demonstrated that. Everything he had seen about Eysar Haven demonstrated that. These people were quite capable of functioning on their own. And perhaps that had been true of all the other Folk, too, once upon a time, back before the Conquest.

  It was clear to him now that the Conquest had been a conquest indeed, in fact as well as name. The Folk had been doing well enough before the first Masters came to Homeworld. They lacked the force and drive of Masters, perhaps, but was that a sin? Had they deserved to lose control of their own lives, their own world, for such failings? The Masters had subjugated the Folk. There was no other applicable word. Even if the bloody rebellion that had driven Joseph himself into these wanderings across the face of the continent of Manza had not taught him by now how resentful of Master rule the Folk were, or some of them, anyway, this stay in Eysar Haven and these late-night conversations with Thayle would have shown him that. It all seemed obvious enough to him now; but it was devastating to him to be forced to see how much he had simply taken for granted, he with his fine Master mind, his keen, searching intellect.

  She challenged him in other areas, too.

  “Your father, the Master of House Keilloran—how did he get to be the Master of the House?” She still could not pronounce the name correctly, but Joseph let that go. “Did everybody who lives there choose him for that?”

  “His father was Master of the House before him,” Joseph told her. “And his father before that, going back to the beginning. The eldest son inherits the title.”

  “That’s all?” Thayle said. “He is allowed to govern thousands and thousands of people, Masters and Folk alike, simply because he’s his father’s son? How strange. It seems very foolish to me. Suppose there’s someone else better suited to govern, somebody who’s smarter and wiser and more capable in every way. Everyone can see that, but he won’t be allowed, will he? Because he’s not the eldest son of the eldest son. That’s a stupid system, I think.” Joseph said nothing, and Thayle was silent a moment, too. Then she said, “What happens if there’s more than one son? That wouldn’t be very unusual, would it?”

  “The eldest son always inherits.”

  “Even if the second or even third son is plainly better qualified. Or the second or third daughter, for that matter. But I suppose daughters don’t figure into this.”

  “Only the eldest son,” Joseph said. “He’s specially trained for the job from childhood on. Since it’s known that he’s going to inherit, they see to it that he’s been properly taught to do what must be done.”

  “But no matter how well they teach him, he isn’t necessarily the smartest member of his family, is he? Even if it is agreed that you have to limit the title to a single family just because that family happens to have grabbed power first, you could have generation after generation where the new Master isn’t even the best qualified person among his own people. Do you think that’s so good, Joseph?”

  This is a girl of the Folk who is asking me these questions, he said to himself. This is a docile, ignorant creature, a peasant, a person incapable of serious thought.

  There was another long silence.

  Thayle said then, “Are you the eldest son, Joseph?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “You will inherit the title, then, and be Master of House Keilloran. By right of birth alone, nothing else.”

  “If I live to get home, yes. Otherwise my brother Rickard will be. He won’t like that, if things happen that way. He never expected to rule and he’s not well prepared for doing it.”

  “But he’ll become the Master anyway, because he’ll be the eldest available son.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “By right of birth alone. Not necessarily because he’ll be a good Master.”

  He wished she would stop pounding at him. “Rickard will be a good Master if the title comes to him,” Joseph said stubbornly. “I’m sure that he will. I know that he will.” But he could not hide the lack of conviction in his voice. He was amazed at how, within the space of fifteen minutes, Thayle had undermined every assumption he had ever held about the relationship of Master to Folk, about the method by which the Great Houses chose their leaders, about the merit of his own automatic succession to the powers of head of the House. He felt as though this bed on which the two of them were lying had turned somehow into a flimsy raft, on which he was being borne down some turbulent river toward a steep cataract that lay only a short distance ahead.

  Joseph let the silence stretch and stretch until it was nearing the breaking-point, but still he could not bring himself to speak. Whatever he might say would be wrong.

  “Are you angry with me?” Thayle asked him finally.

  “No. Of course I’m not.”

  “I’ve offended you. You thought I was criticizing you.”

  “You have a different way of looking at things, that’s all. I was just thinking about everything you said.”

  “Don’t think too much. Not now.” She reached across to him. Gratefully he surrendered to her embrace. They began to move in the way that was already beginning to become familiar to them. Joseph was glad to be able to lose himself in the unthinking pleasures that her supple body offered.

  The next morning after breakfast, the hour when nearly everyone had gone off to the day’s work in the fields and Joseph was alone in the house, he was startled to hear her voice, calling to him from outside, a low, sharp whisper: “Joseph! Joseph!”

  That surprised him, that she should be calling him by his real name. But at this time of the day there was no one around but old people and small children to hear her do it.

  And the fact of Thayle’s presence here at this time of day made his heart leap. She must have sneaked back from the fields so that they could be together. It was exciting to think that she would want him that much. And there was another thing: they had never made love by daylight. That would be something new, different, wonderful, a revelation.

  He rushed out onto the porch to greet her a
nd lead her to his bedroom.

  But then he saw her. How she looked. “Thayle?” he said, in a small, bewildered voice. “What happened, Thayle? Was there an accident?”

  “Oh, Joseph—oh—oh, Joseph—”

  She looked horrifying. Her clothing was torn and dirty. One sleeve dangled by threads. Thayle herself looked bruised and hurt. Her lower lip had a bloody cut on it and it was beginning to turn puffy. Another narrow trail of blood ran down from one of her nostrils. Her left eye was swelling shut. She held her hand pressed to her cheek: that seemed to be swelling up also. One of her sandals was missing. Her expression was a strange one: blank, frozen, dazed.

  Joseph gathered her in without asking questions, held her close against himself, gently stroked her back and shoulders. She began to sob quietly. For a few moments she accepted the comfort he was offering her, and then she pulled back from him, looking up into his eyes, searching for words. “You have to leave,” she said. “Right now. There’s no time to waste.”

  “But what—what—?”

  “Grovin. He knows. He was hiding outside your window last night. He heard us . . . everything.”

  “And he beat you?” Joseph asked, incredulous. “He did this?” It had never occurred to him that a man would strike a woman, any woman, let alone his own lover. But then he reminded himself that these people were Folk, and that not very long ago the Folk had risen up and slaughtered their Masters as they sat in their manor-houses, and plenty of their own kind as well.

  “He did it, yes.” She made it sound almost unimportant. “Come on, Joseph! Come on. Get your things. I’ve taken a truck. We need to get you away from here, fast. I told you he’d kill me if he found out I was going to bed with you, and he will, he will, if you stay here any longer. And he’ll kill you too.”

  It was still hard for Joseph to get his mind around all that Thayle was telling him. He felt like a sleepwalker who has been unceremoniously awakened. “You say he overheard us?” he asked. “The lovemaking, you mean, or the things we were discussing, too? Do you think he knows I’m a Master?”

  “He knows, yes. Not because he overheard our conversation. I told him. He suspected that you were, you know. He’s suspected all along. So he asked me what I knew about you, and then he hit me until I told him the truth. And hit me again afterward. —Oh, please, Joseph, don’t just stand there in that idiotic way! You have to get moving. Now. This very minute. Before he brings Stappin down on you.”

  “Yes. Yes.” The stasis that had enfolded him these past few minutes began to lift. Joseph rushed into his room, grabbed up his few possessions, bundled them together. When he emerged he saw that Thayle had had the presence of mind to assemble a little packet of food for him. He was going to be alone again soon, he realized, trekking once more through unknown regions of this unfriendly continent, living off the land.

  The thought of parting from her was unbearable.

  What was running through his mind now were thoughts not of the dangers he would be facing out there, or of the trouble Grovin could cause for him before he managed to leave, but only of Thayle’s lips, Thayle’s breasts, Thayle’s open thighs, Thayle’s heaving hips. All of which had been his this brief while, and which now he must leave behind forever.

  When they emerged from the house they found Grovin waiting outside, standing squarely in their path. His face was cold and mean, a tight, pinched-looking, furious face. He glared at them, looking from Thayle to Joseph, from Joseph to Thayle, and said, “Going somewhere?”

  “Stop it, Grovin. Let us pass. I’m taking him to the highway.”

  He ignored her. To Joseph he said, icily, fiercely, “You thought you had a sweet little deal, didn’t you? They fed you, they gave you a soft place to sleep, and they gave you something soft to sleep with, too. Wasn’t that nice? But what are you doing here, anyway, you lazy parasite? Why aren’t you dead like the rest of your kind?”

  Joseph stared. This was his rival, the man who had hurt Thayle. What was he supposed to do, hurt this man in return? Something within him cried out that he should do it, that he should beat Grovin to his knees for having dared to take his hand to her. But nothing in his education had prepared him for doing anything like that. This was not like punishing an unruly field-hand, which any Master would do without thinking twice about it; this was something else, a private quarrel over a woman, between two people who also happened to be of two different races.

  Nothing in his education had prepared him, either, for the spectacle of an angry Folker hurling abuse at him this way. That was not a thing that ought to be happening. It was a phenomenon on the order of water running uphill, of the sun rising in the west, of snow falling in the middle of summer. Joseph did not know what to say or do. It was Thayle, instead, who took it upon herself to step forward and push Grovin out of the way; but Grovin merely grinned and seized her by one wrist and flung her easily from him, sending her spiraling down into a heap on the ground.

  That could not be allowed. Joseph dropped the things he was carrying and went toward him, not sure of what he was going to do but certain that he had to do something.

  He had fought before, roughhousing with other Master boys his age, or even with Anceph or Rollin, but it had been clearly understood then that no one would be hurt. This was different. Joseph clenched his hand into a fist and swung at Grovin, who slapped the fist aside as though it were a gnat and punched him in the pit of the stomach. Joseph staggered back, amazed. Grovin came after him, growling, actually growling, and hit him again, once on the point of his left shoulder, once on the side of his chest, once on the fleshy part of his right arm.

  Being hit like this was as surprising as first sex had been, but not at all in the same way. The flying fists, the sudden sharp bursts of pain, the absolute wrongness of it all—Joseph was barely able to comprehend what was taking place. He understood that it was necessary to fight back. He could do it. Grovin was slightly built, for a Folker, and shorter than Joseph besides. Joseph had the advantage of a longer reach. And he was angry, now, thinking of what Grovin had dared to do to Thayle.

  He struck out, once, twice, swinging hard, missing the first time but landing a solid blow on Grovin’s cheekbone with the second blow. Grovin grunted and stepped backward as though he had been hurt, and Joseph, heartened, came striding in to hit him again. It was an error. He managed to hit Grovin once more, a badly placed punch that went sliding off, and then the other, crouching before him like a coiled spring, came back at him suddenly with a baffling flurry of punches, striking here, here, there, spinning Joseph around, kicking him as he was turned about, then hitting him again as Joseph swung back to face him. Joseph staggered. He moved his arms wildly, hoping somehow to connect, but Grovin was everywhere about him, hitting, hitting, hitting. Joseph was helpless. I am being beaten by a Folker, Joseph thought in wonder. He is faster than I am, stronger than I am, in every way a better fighter. He will smash me into the ground. He will destroy me.

  He continued to fight back as well as he could, but his best was not nearly good enough. Grovin danced around him, hissing derisively, laughing, punching at will, and Joseph made only the foggiest of responses. He was faltering now, lurching and teetering, struggling to keep from falling. Grovin took him by the shoulders and spun him around. And then, as Joseph turned groggily back to face him and began gamely winding up for one last desperate swing, Grovin was no longer there. Joseph did not see him at all. He stood blinking, bewildered.

  Thayle was at Joseph’s side. “Hurry, Joseph! Hurry, now!”

  Her eyes were bright and wild, and her face was flushed. In her hand she was gripping a thick, stubby piece of wood, a club, really. She looked at it, grinning triumphantly, and tossed it away. Joseph caught sight of Grovin a short distance off to the left, kneeling in a huddled moaning heap, shoulders hunched, head down, rocking his head from side to side. He was holding both hands clapped to his forehead. Blood was streaming out freely between his fingers.

  Joseph could not belie
ve that Thayle had done that to him. He could not have imagined a woman clubbing a man like that, not under any circumstances, any at all.

  But these people are Folk, Joseph reminded himself. They are very different from us.

  Then he was scooping up his discarded possessions and running, battered and dizzy and aching as he was, alongside Thayle toward the truck that was parked at the edge of the clearing, a truck much like the one in which his two rescuers had brought him to Eysar Haven many weeks before. He jumped in beside her. She grasped the steering-stick and brought the truck to a roaring start.

  Neither of them spoke until they were well outside the town. Joseph saw that it was not easy for Thayle to control the vehicle, that it took all her concentration to keep it from wandering off the road. Plainly she was not an experienced driver. But she was managing it, somehow.

  It did not seem to him that the fight had caused him any serious injury. Grovin had hurt him, yes. There would be bruises. There would be painful places for some days to come. But his disorientation and bewilderment in the final stages of the battle, that weird helplessness, he saw now, had been the result more of simply finding himself personally involved in violence, finding himself in actual hand-to-hand combat, than of any damage Grovin had been able to inflict. Of course, it might all have become much worse very soon. If Grovin had succeeded in knocking him down, if Grovin had begun to kick him and stomp on him, if Grovin had jumped on him and started to throttle him—