"Don't thank me--yet," Dr. Haenlingen said. "Go and do your own work.
I've got quite a lot to oversee here." She went back to her papers.
Norma turned, stopped and then walked to the door. At the door she
turned again but Dr. Haenlingen was paying no visible attention to
her. She opened the door, went out and closed it behind her.
In the corridor she took one deep breath and then another.
The trouble was, you couldn't depend on the woman to do anything. She
meant exactly what she had said: "For the present." And who could tell
what might happen later?
Norma headed for her own cubicle, where she ignored the papers and the
telephone messages waiting for her and reached for the intercom button
instead. She pushed it twice and a voice said:
"What happened?"
"It's not good, Greta," Norma said. "It's--well, undecided, anyhow:
we've got that much going for us."
"Undecided?" the voice asked.
"She said she wouldn't do anything--yet. But she left it open."
"Oh. Lord. Oh, my."
Norma nodded at the intercom speaker. "That's right. Anything's
possible--you know what she's like."
"Oh, Lord. Do I."
"And--Greta, why did you have to be there, right by the door, with that
strange type--as if it had been set up for her? Right in front of her
eyes...."
"An accident," Greta said. "A pure by-God accident. When she walked
in, when I saw her, believe me, Norma, my blood ran absolutely cold.
Temperature of ice, or something colder than ice."
"Just that one look, just that one long look around." Norma said, "and
she was gone. As if she'd memorized us, every one of us, filed the
whole thing away and didn't need to see any more."
"I would have explained. But there wasn't any time."
"I know," Norma said. "Greta, who was he, anyhow?"
"Him?" Greta said. "Who knows? A friend of Cendar's--you know Cendar,
don't you?"
"Albin Cendar?"
"That's the one. He--"
"But he's not from Psych." Norma said.
"Neither is his friend, I guess," Greta said. "But they come over, you
know that--Cendar's always around."
"And you had to invite them...."
"Invite?" Greta said. "I didn't invite anybody. They were there, that's
all. Cendar always shows up. You know that."
"Great," Nonna said. "So last night he had to bring a friend and the
friend got grabby--"
"No," Greta said. "He was--well, confused maybe. Never been to a party
of ours before, or anyhow not that I remember. I was trying to--loosen
him up."
"You loosened everybody up," Norma said.
There was a silence.
"I'm sorry," Norma said. "All right. You couldn't have known--"
"I didn't know anything," Greta's voice said. "She was there, that's
all."
"I wonder whether Dr. Haenlingen knew him," Norma said. "The new one, I
mean."
"His name was Johnny something," Greta said.
"We'll just have to wait and find out," Norma said. "Whatever she's
going to do, there isn't any way to stop it. I did the best I could--"
"Sure you did," Greta said. "We know that. Sure."
"Cendar and his friends--" Norma began.
"Oh, forget about that," Greta said. "Who cares about them?"
6
The party had meant nothing, nothing at all, and Albin told himself he
could forget all about it.
If Haenlingen wanted to take any action, he insisted, she'd take it
against her own division. The Psych people would get most of it. Why,
she probably didn't even know who Albin Cendar was....
But the Psych division knew a lot they weren't supposed to know. Maybe
she would even....
Forget about it, Albin told himself. He closed his eyes for a second
and concentrated on his work. That, at least, was something to keep him
from worrying: the whole process of training was something he could
use in forgetting all about the party, and Haenlingen, and possible
consequences.... He took a few breaths and forced his mind away from
all of that, back to the training.
Training was a dreary waste of time, as a matter of fact--except that
it happened to be necessary. There was no doubt of that: without
sufficient manual labor, the metal would not be dug, the smelters
would not run, the purifying stages and the cooling stages and even
the shipping itself would simply stop. Automation would have solved
everything, but automation was expensive. The Alberts were cheap--so
Fruyling's World used Alberts instead of transistors and cryogenic
relays.
And if you were going to use Alberts at all, Albin thought, you sure as
hell had to train them. God alone knew what harm they could do, left
alone in a wilderness of delicate machinery without any instructions.
All the same, "dreary" was the word for it. (An image of Dr.
Haenlingen's frozen face floated into his mind. He pushed it away. It
was morning. It was time for work.)
He met Derban at the turn in the corridor, perhaps fifty feet before
the Alberts' door. That wasn't strictly according to the rules, and
Albin knew it: he had learned the code as early as anyone else. But the
rules were for emergencies--and emergencies didn't happen any more. The
Alberts weren't about to revolt.
He was carrying his Belbis beam, of course. The little metal tube
didn't look like much, but it was guaranteed to stop anything short
of a spaceship in its tracks, and by the very simple method of making
holes. The Belbis beam would make holes in nearly anything: Alberts,
people or most materials. It projected a quarter-inch beam of force in
as near a straight line as Einsteinian physics would allow, and it was
extremely efficient. Albin had been practicing with it for three years,
twice a week.
Everybody did. Not that there's ever been a chance to use it.
And there wasn't going to be a chance, Albin decided. He exchanged a
word or two absently with Derban and they went to the door together.
Albin reached for the door but Derban's big brown hand was already on
it. He grinned and swung the door open.
Air conditioning had done something to minimize the reek inside, but
not much. Albin devoted most of his attention to keeping his face a
complete mask. The last thing he wanted was to retch--not in front of
the Alberts, who didn't really exist for him, but in front of Derban.
And the party (which he wasn't going to think about) hadn't left his
stomach in perfect shape.
The Alberts, seeing these masters enter stirred and rose. Albin barked
at them in a voice that was only very slightly choked: "Form a line.
Form a line."
The Alberts milled around, quite obviously uncertain what a line was.
Albin gripped his beam tighter, not because it was a weapon but just
because he needed something handy to take out his anger on.
"Damn it," he said tightly, "a line. Form a straight line."
"It's only their second day," Derban said in a low voice. "Give them
time." Albin could barely hear him over the confused babble of the
Alberts. He shook his head and felt a new stab of anger.
"One behind the other," he told the milling crowd. "A line, a straight
line."
After a little more confusion, Albin was satisfied. He sighed heavily
and beckoned with his beam: the Alberts started forward, through the
door and out into the corridor.
Albin went before, Derban behind, falling naturally into step. They
came to the great elevator and Albin pushed a stud. The door slid open.
The Alberts, though, didn't want to go in. They huddled, looking at
the elevator with big round eyes, muttering to themselves and to
each other. Derban spoke up calmly: "This is the same room you were
in yesterday. It won't hurt you. Just go through the door. It's all
right." But the words had very little effect. A few of the Alberts
moved closer and then, discovering that they were alone, hurriedly
moved back again. The elevator door remained open, waiting.
Albin, ready to shriek with rage by now, felt a touch at his arm. One
of the Alberts was standing near him, looking up. Its eye blinked: it
spoke. "Why does the room move?" The voice was not actually unpleasant,
but its single eye stared at Albin, making him uncomfortable. He told
himself not to blow up. Calm. _Calm._
"The room moves because it moves," he said, a little too quickly.
"Because the masters tell it to move. What do you want to know for?"
"I want to learn," the Albert said calmly.
"Well, don't ask questions," Albin said. He kept one eye on the
shifting mob. "If there's anything good for you to know, you'll be
told. Meanwhile, just don't ask any questions."
The Albert looked downcast. "Can I learn without questions?"
Albin's control snapped. "Damn it, you'll learn what you have to!" he
yelled. "You don't have to ask questions--you're a slave. A slave! Get
that through your green head and shut up!"
The tone had two effects. First, it made the Albert near him move back,
staring at him still with that single bright eye. Second, the others
started for the elevator, apparently pushed more by the tone than the
words. A master was angry. That, they judged, meant trouble. Acceding
to his wishes was the safest thing to do.
And so, in little, frightened bunches, they went in. When they were all
clear of the door, Albin and Derban stepped in, too, and the doors slid
shut. Derban took a second to mutter secretly: "You don't have to lose
your temper. You're on a hell of a thin edge this morning."
Albin flicked his eyes over the brown face, the stocky, stolid figure.
"So I'm on a thin edge," he said. "Aren't you?"
"Training is training," Derban said. "Got to put up with it, because
what can you do about it?"
Albin grinned wryly. "I told somebody else that, last night," he said.
"Man named Dodd--hell, you know Johnny Dodd. Told him he needed some
fun. Holy jumping beavers--fun."
"Maybe you need some," Derban said.
"Not like last night, I don't," Albin said, and the elevator door
opened.
Now others took over, guiding the Alberts to their individual places on
the training floor. Each had a small room to himself, and each room had
a spy-TV high up in a corner as a safeguard.
But the spy-eyes were just as much good as the beams, Albin thought.
They were useless precautions: rebellion wasn't about to happen. It
made more sense, if you thought about it, to worry the way Johnny Dodd
worried, about the Confederation--against which spy-eyes and Belbis
beams weren't going to do any good anyhow. (And nothing was going to
happen. Nothing, he told himself firmly, was going to happen. Nothing.)
The Alberts were shunted off without trouble. Albin, heaving a small
sigh, fixed the details of his next job in his mind: quality control
in a smelting process. It took him a few seconds to calm down and get
ready, and then he headed for room six, where one Albert waited for
him, trying to think only of the job ahead, and not at all of the
party, of Dr. Haenlingen, of Johnny Dodd, of rebellion and war.
He nearly succeeded.
* * * * *
When he opened the door the Albert inside turned, took a single look at
him, and said: "I do not mean to make masters troubled."
Albin said: "What?"
"I do not ask questions now." Albin blinked, and then grinned.
"Oh," he said. "You're the one. Damn right you don't ask questions. You
just listen to what I tell you--got that?"
"I listen," the Albert said.
Albin shut the door and leaned against it. "Okay," he said. "Now the
first thing, you come over here and watch me." He went to the far side
of the room, flicked on the remote set, and waited for it to warm up.
In a few seconds it held a strong, steady picture: a single smelter, a
ladle, an expanse of flooring.
"I see this when you teach me before," the Albert said in almost a
disappointed tone.
"I know," Albin told it. Routine was taking over and he felt almost
cheerful again. There was a woman working in the food labs in Building
Two. He'd noticed her a few times in the past weeks. Now he thought of
her again, happily. Maybe tonight "This time I'm going to show you what
to do," he told the Albert, and swept a hand over a row of buttons. In
the smelter, metal began to heat.
The job was simple enough: the metal, once heated, had to be poured
out into the ladle, which acted as a carrier to take the stuff on to
its next station. The only critical point was the color of the heated
liquid, and the eyes of Alberts and humans saw the same spectrum,
with perhaps a little more discrimination in the eyes of the Alberts.
This Albert had to be taught to let the process go unless the color
was wrong, when a series of buttons would stop everything and send a
quality alarm into men's quarters.
A machine could have done the job very easily, but machines were
expensive. An Albert could be taught in a week.
And this one seemed to learn more quickly than most. It grasped the
idea of button-pushing before the end of the day, and Albin made a
mental note to see if he could speed matters up, maybe by letting the
Albert have a crack at actually doing the job on its own by day four or
five instead of day six.
"You learn fast," he said, when work was finally over. He felt both
tired and tense, but the thought of relaxation ahead kept him nearly
genial.
"I want to learn," the Albert said.
"Good boy," Albin said absently. "What's your name?"
"Cadnan."
7
But Cadnan, he knew, was only a small name: it was not a great name. He
knew now that he had a great name, and it made him proud because he was
no longer only small Cadnan: he was a slave.
It was good, he knew, to be a slave. A slave worked and got food and
shelter from the masters, and the masters told him what he could know
without even the need of asking a question. The elders were only
elders, but the masters were masters, and Cadnan was a slave. It made
him feel great and wise when he thought of it.
That night he could hardly wait to tell his news to Marvor--but Marvor
acted as if he knew it already and was even made angry by the idea.
"What is a slave?" he asked, in a flat, bad tone.
Cadnan told him of the work, the food, the shelter....
"And what is a master?" Marvor asked.
"A master is a master," Cadnan said. "A master is the one who knows."
"A master tells you what to do," Marvor said. "I am training and there
is more training to come and then work. This is because of the masters."
"It is good," Cadnan said. "It is important."
Marvor shook his head, looking very much like a master himself. "What
is important?" he said.
Cadnan thought for a minute. "Important is what a master needs for
life," he said at last. "The masters need a slave for life, because a
slave must push the buttons. Without this work the masters do not live."
"Then why do the masters not push the buttons?" Marvor said.
"It is good they do not," Cadnan said stubbornly. "A slave is a big
thing, and Cadnan is only a little thing. It is better to be big than
little."
"It is better to be master than slave," Marvor said sullenly.
"But we are not masters," Cadnan said, with the air of a person trying
to bring reason back to the discussion. "We do not look like masters,
and we do not know what they know."
"You want to learn," Marvor said. "Then learn what they know."
"They teach me," Cadnan said. "But I am still a slave, because they
teach me. I do not teach them."
Marvor hissed and at the same time shook his head like a master. The
effect was not so much frightening as puzzling: he was a creature,
suddenly, who belonged to both worlds, and to neither. "A master is one
who does what he wants," he said. "If I do what I want, am I a master?"
"That is silliness," Cadnan said. Marvor seemed about to reply, but
both were surprised instead by the opening of the door.
A master stood in the lighted entrance, holding to the sides with both
hands.
Anyone with a thorough knowledge of men could have told that he was
drunk. Any being with a sense of smell could have detected the odors of
that drunkenness. But the Alberts knew only that a master had come to
them during the time for eating and sleeping. They stirred, murmuring
restlessly.
"It's all right," the master said, slurring his words only very
slightly. "I wanted to come and talk. I wanted to talk to one of you."
Before anyone else could move, Cadnan was upright. "I will talk," he
said in a loud voice. The others stared at him, including Marvor. Even
Cadnan himself was a little surprised at his own speed and audacity.
"Come on over," the master said from the doorway. "Come on over." He
made a beckoning motion.
Cadnan picked his way across the room over wakeful Alberts.
When he had reached the master, the master said: "Sit down." He looked
strange, Cadnan realized, though he could not tell exactly how.
Cadnan sat and the master, closing the door, sat with his back against
it. There was a second of silence, which the master broke abruptly.
"My name's Dodd," he said.
* * * * *
"I am called Cadnan," Cadnan said. He couldn't resist bringing out his
latest bit of knowledge for display. "I am a slave."
"Sure," Dodd said dully. "I know. The rest of them say I shouldn't, but
I think about you a lot. About all of you."
Cadnan, not knowing if this were good or bad, said nothing at all, but
waited. Dodd sighed, shook his head and closed his eyes. After a second
he went on.
"They tell me, let the slaves have their own life," he said. "But
I don't see it that way. Do you see it that way? After all, you're
people, aren't you? Just like us."
Cadnan tried to untangle the questions, and finally settled for a
simple answer. "We are slaves," he said. "You are masters."
"Sure," Dodd said. "But I mean people. And you want the same things
we do. You want a little comfort out of life, a little security--some
food, say, and enough food for tomorrow. Right?"
"It is good to have," Cadnan said. He was determined to keep his end of
the odd conversation up, even if it seemed to be leading nowhere.
"It isn't as if we've been here forever," Dodd said. "Only--well, a
hundred or so of your years. Three generations, counting me. And here
we are lording it over you, just because of an accident. We happen to
be farther advanced than you, that's all."
"You are masters," Cadnan said. "You know everything."
"Not quite," Dodd said. "For instance, we don't know about you. You
have--well, you have got mates, haven't you? Hell, of course you do.
Male or female. Same as us. More or less."
"We have mates, when we are ready for mates," Cadnan said.
Dodd nodded precariously. "Uh-huh," he said. "Mates. They tell me I
need mates, but I tried it and I got into trouble. Mates aren't the
answer, kid. Cadnan. They simply aren't the answer."
Cadnan thought, suddenly, of Dara. He had not spoken to her again,
but he was able to think of her. When the time of mating came, it was
possible that she would be his mate....
But that was forbidden, he told himself. They came from the same tree
in the same time. The rule forbade such matings.
"What we ought to do," Dodd said abruptly, "is we ought to do a
thorough anthropological--anthropological study on you people. A really
big job. But that's uneconomic, see? Because we know what we have to
know. Where to find you, what to feed you, how to get you to work. They
don't care about the rest."
"The masters are good," Cadnan said stolidly into the silence. "They
let me work."
"Sure," Dodd said, and shrugged, nearly losing his balance. He
recovered, and went on as if nothing at all had happened. "They let
you work for them," he said. "And what do you get out of it? Food and
shelter and security, I guess. But how would you like to work for
yourself instead?"
Cadnan stared. "I do not understand," he said slowly.
Dodd shook his head. "No," he said. "How would you like it if there
were no masters? Only people, just you and your people, living your own
lives and making your own decisions? How about that, kid?"
"We would be alone," Cadnan said simply. "No master would feed us. We
would die."
"No," Dodd said again. "What did you do before we came?"
"It was different," Cadnan said. "It was not good. This is better." He
tried to imagine a world without masters, but the picture would not
come. Obviously, then, the world he lived in was better: it was better
than nothing.
"Slaves," Dodd said to himself. "With a slave mentality." And then:
"Tell me, Cadnan, do they all think like you?"
Cadnan didn't think of Marvor. By now he was so confused by this
strange conversation that his answer was automatic. "We do not talk
about it."
Dodd looked at him mistily. "I'm disturbing you for nothing," he said.
"Nothing I can do but get killed trying to start up a slave revolt.
Which might be okay, but I don't know. If you get me--I don't know
about that, kid. Right?" He stood up, a little shakily, still leaning
against the door. "And frankly," he said, "I don't want to get killed
over a lot of alligators."
"No one wishes to die," Cadnan said.
"You'd be surprised," Dodd told him. He moved and opened the door.
For a second he stood in the entrance. "People can wish for almost
anything," he said. "You'd be surprised." The door banged shut and he
was gone.
* * * * *
Cadnan sat staring at the door for a second, his mind a tangle of ideas
and of new words for which he had no referents whatever. When he turned
away at last his eye fell on Dara, curled in a far corner. She was
looking at him but when he saw her he looked away. That disturbed him,
too: the rules were very clear on matings.
Cadnan wanted to tell someone what he felt. He wanted information,
and he wanted someone to follow. But the masters were masters: he
could not be like them. And in the room where he slept there were no
elders. The thought of speaking with an elder, in any case, gave him no
satisfaction. He did not want an elder: he could not join the masters
and ask questions.
Somewhere, he told himself, there would be someone....
Somewhere....
Of course, there was Marvor. Later in the night, while Cadnan still lay
awake trying to put thoughts and words together in his mind, Marvor
moved closer to him.
"I want you with me," he said.
But Marvor, Cadnan had decided, was bad. "I sleep here," Cadnan said, a
trifle severely. "I do not move my place."
In the dimness Marvor shook his head _no_, like a master. "I want you
with me in the plan I have," he said. "I want you to help me."
That was different. The rules of the elders covered such a request.
"Does a brother refuse help to a brother?" Cadnan asked. "We are from
the same tree and the same time. Tell me what I must do."
Marvor opened his mouth wide, wider, until Cadnan saw the flash of his
many teeth, and a second passed in silence. Then Marvor snapped his
jaws shut, hissing, and spoke. "The masters tell us what to do. They
make our life for us."
"This is true," Cadnan muttered.
"It is evil," Marvor said. "It is bad. We must make our own lives.
Every thing makes its own life."
"We are slaves," Cadnan said. "This is our life. It is our place."
Marvor sat up suddenly. Around them the others muttered and stirred.
"Does the plant grow when a master tells it?" he asked. "Does the tree
bud when a master tells it? So we must also grow in our own way."
"We are not plants or trees," Cadnan said.
"We are alive," Marvor said in a fierce, sudden whisper. "The masters,
too, are alive. We are the same as they. Why do they tell us what to
do?"
Cadnan was very patient. "Because they know, and we do not," he said.
"Because they tell us, that is all. It is the way things are."
"I will change the way things are," Marvor said. He spoke now more
softly still. "Do you want to be a master?"
"I am no master," Cadnan said wearily. "I am a slave."
"That is a bad thing." Cadnan tried to speak, but Marvor went on
without stopping. "Dara is with me," he said, "and some of the others.
There are not many. Most of the brothers and sisters are cowards."
Then he had to define "coward" for Cadnan--and from "coward" he
progressed to another new word, "freedom." That was a big word but
Cadnan approached it without fear, and without any preconception.
"It is not good to be free," he said at last, in a reasonable, weary
tone. "In the cold there is a bad thing. In the rain there is a bad
thing. To be free is to go to these bad things."
"To be free is to do what you want," Marvor said. "To be free is to be
your own master."
After some thought Cadnan asked: "Who can be his own master? It is like
being your own mate."
Marvor seemed to lose patience all at once. "Very well," he said. "But
you will not tell the masters what I say?"
"Does a brother harm a brother?" Cadnan asked. That, too, was in the
rules: even Marvor, he thought sleepily, had to accept the rules.
"It is good," Marvor said equably. "Soon, very soon, I will make you
free."
"I do not want to be free."