"Certainly not success."
Norma went to the desk, leaned over it, looking down into the still,
blank face. "It's too soon to give up," she said tensely. "You're just
backing down, and there's no need for that yet--"
"You think not?" The face was still.
"There are lots of rumors, that's true," Norma said. "But--even if the
worst comes to the worst--we have time. They aren't here yet. We can
prepare--"
"Of course," the voice said. "We can prepare--as I am doing. There is
nothing else for us, not any more. Idealism has taken over, and what we
are and what we've done can go right on down the drain. Norma, you're
a bright girl--"
"Too bright to sit around and do nothing!"
"But you don't understand this. Maybe you will, some day. Maybe I'll
have a chance--but that's for later. Not now."
Norma almost reached forward to shake some sense into the old woman.
But she was Dr. Haenlingen, after all--
Norma's hand drew back again. "You can't just sit back and wait for
them to come!"
"There is nothing else to do." The words were flat, echoless.
"Besides," Norma said desperately, "they're only rumors--"
She never finished her sentence. The blast rocked the room, and the
window thrummed, steadied and then suddenly tinkled into pieces on the
carpeted floor.
Norma was standing erect. "What's that?"
Dr. Haenlingen had barely moved. The eyes, in dimness, were open now.
"That, my dear," the old woman said, "was your rumor."
"My--"
The blast was repeated. Ornaments on the desk rattled, a picture came
off the far wall and thudded to the carpet. The air was filled with a
fine dust and, far below, Norma could hear noise, a babel of voices....
"They're here!" she screamed.
Dr. Haenlingen sat very still, saying nothing. The eyes watched, but
the voice made no comment. The hands were still, flat on the desk.
Below, the voices continued: and then Dr. Haenlingen spoke.
"You'd better go," the calm voice said. "There will be others needing
help--and you will be safer underground, in any case."
"But you--" Norma began.
"I may be lucky," Dr. Haenlingen said. "One of their bombs may actually
kill me."
Her mouth open in an unreasoning accession of horror, Norma turned and
fled. The third blast rattled the corridor as she ran crazily along it.
18
Dodd stayed on his post because he had to: as a matter of fact, he
hardly thought of leaving, or of doing anything at all. Minutes passed,
and he stood in the hallway, quite alone. The other guard had spoken to
him when Cadnan had been picked up and tossed back into solitary, but
Dodd hadn't answered, and the guard had gone back to his own post. Dodd
stood, hardly thinking, and waiting--though he could not have said what
for.
_This is the end._ He had hit Cadnan: in those few seconds he had acted
just as a good slaver was supposed to act. And that discovery shocked
him: even more than his response during the attempted escape, it showed
him what he had become.
He had thought the words he used had some meaning. Now he knew they had
next to none: they were only catch-phrases, meant to make him feel a
little better. He was a slaver, he had been trained as a slaver, and he
would remain a slaver. What was it Norma had said?
"You'd rather live...."
It was true, it was all true. But there was (he told himself dimly)
still, somewhere, hope: the Confederation would come. When they did, he
would die. He would die at last. And death was good, death was what he
wanted....
No matter what Norma had told him, death was what he wanted.
He was still standing, those few thoughts expanding and filling his
mind like water in a sponge, when the building, quite without warning,
shook itself.
He heard the guard at the end of the corridor shouting. The building
shook again, underneath and around him, dancing for a second like a man
having a fit. Then he caught the first sounds of the bombardment.
"Norma!" He heard himself scream that one word over the sounds of blast
and shout, and then he was out of the corridor, somehow, insanely,
running across open ground. Behind him the alarms attached to the front
doors of Building Three went off, but he hardly heard that slight
addition to the uproar. God alone knew whether the elevators would be
working ... but they had to be, they had to stand up. After he found
Building One (he could hardly trust the basement levels, choked by
panic-stricken personnel from everywhere) he had to get an elevator and
find Norma.... He had to find Norma.
Overhead there was a flash and a dull roar. Dodd stared before him at
a tangled, smoking mass of blackness. A second before, it had been a
fringe of forest. Smoke coiled round toward him and he turned and ran
for the side of Building Three. There were other sounds behind him,
screams, shouts....
As he passed the Building the ground shook again and there was a
sudden rise in the chorus of screams. He smelled acrid smoke, but
never thought of stopping: the Building still stood gleaming in the
bombardment flashes, and he went round the corner, behind it, and found
himself facing the dark masses of One and Two, five hundred feet away
over open ground.
As he watched there was a flash too bright for his eyes: he blinked and
turned away, gasping. When he could look again a piece of Building Two
was gone--looking, from five hundred feet distance, as if it had been
bitten cleanly from the top, taking about four floors from the right
side, taking the topmast, girders, and all ... simply gone.
But that was Building Two, not Building One. Norma was still safe.
She had to be safe. He heaved in a breath of smoky air, and ran.
Behind him, around him, the bombardment continued.
* * * * *
PUBLIC OPINION FIVE
Being an excerpt from Chapter Seven of _A Fourth Grade Reader in
Confederation History_, by Dr. A. Lindell Jones, with the
assistance of Mary Beth Wilkinson, published in New York, U. S. A.,
Earth in September of the year one hundred and ninety-nine of the
Confederation and approved for use in the public schools by the
Board of Education (United) of the U. S. A., Earth, in January of
the year two hundred of the Confederation.
... The first explorers on Fruyling's World named the new planet after
the heroic captain of their ship, and prepared long reports on the
planet for the scientists back home in the Confederation. The reports
mentioned large metallic deposits, and this rapidly became important
news.
The metallic deposits were badly needed by the Confederation for making
many of the things which still are found in your homes: such useful
objects as cleaners, whirlostats and such all require metal from
Fruyling's World.
Of course, there were not many explorers on the new planet, and it was
a hard job for them to dig out the metal the Confederation needed.
But the planet had natives on it already. The natives were called
Alberts, and here is a picture of them. Aren't they funny-looking?
The Alberts were happy to help with the digging in exchange for some of
the good things the explorers talked about, because they didn't have
many good things. But the explorers built houses for them and gave them
food and taught them English, and the Alberts dug in the ground and
helped get the metal ready to ship back to the Confederation.
* * * * *
... The following list of Review Questions may be helpful to the
instructor:
1. Why is Fruyling's World called by that name? After whom was it named?
2. What is so valuable about Fruyling's World?
3. Who helps the explorers dig up the metal?
4. Why do they help?
19
For Cadnan, the time passed slowly.
Consciousness came back, along with a thudding ache in the head and a
growing hunger: but there were no leaves on the smooth metal of the
floor, and the demands of his body had to be ignored. His mind began to
drift: once he heard a voice, but when he told himself that the voice
was not real, it went away. He found his hands moving as if he were
pushing the buttons of his job. He stopped them and in a second they
were moving again.
Then the room itself began to shake.
Cadnan had no doubts of his sanity: this was different from the
imaginary voice. The room shook again and he wondered whether this were
some new sort of punishment. But it did not hurt him.
The rumbling sound of the bombardment came to him only dimly, and for
brief seconds. To Cadnan, it sounded like a great machine, and he
wondered about that, too, but he could find no answers.
The rumbling came again, and sounded nearer. Cadnan thought of machines
shaking his small room, perhaps making it hot as the machines made
metal hot. If that happened, he knew, he would die.
He called: "Dara." It was hard to hear his own voice. There was no
answer, and he had expected none: but he had had to call.
The rumbling came again. Surely, he told himself, this was a new
punishment, and it was death.
There was only one thing for him to do. He sat crosslegged on the
smooth floor as the rumble and the other sounds continued, and in
opposition to them he made his song, chanting in a loud and even voice.
He had learned that a song was to be made when facing death: he had
learned that in the birth huts, and he did not question it.
The song was necessary, and his voice, carrying over the sounds that
filtered through to him, was clear and strong.
"I am Cadnan,
I am Cadnan of Bent Line Tree,
I work for the masters,
I push buttons and the machine obeys me,
I push buttons when the masters say to do it.
My song is short. I am near the dead.
I have broken the chain, the chain of obedience.
I do not want to break this chain.
I must break it. Dara says I go.
If I do not go then Dara does not go.
Dara must go. I break the chain.
For this I am near the dead and the room shakes.
It is my death and my song.
I am Cadnan and Bent Line Tree and I work."
After the song was over, he remained sitting, waiting for what had to
come. The rumbling continued, and the room shook more strongly. For
some seconds he waited, and then he was standing erect, because he
could see.
The door, sprung from its lock by the shaking of the building, had
fallen a little open. As Cadnan watched, it opened a bit more, and he
went and pushed at it. Under a very light shove, it swung fully open,
and the corridor, lights flickering down its length, stood visible. As
Cadnan peered out, the lights blinked off, and then came on again.
The rumbling was very loud now, but he saw no machines. He went into
the corridor in a kind of curious daze: there were no masters anywhere,
none to watch or hurt him. He called once more for Dara, but now he
could not hear himself at all: the rumbling was only one of the sounds
that battered at him dizzily. There were bells and buzzes, shrieks and
cascades of brutal, grinding sounds more powerful than could be made by
any machine Cadnan could imagine.
He started down the corridor: the masters had taken Dara in that
direction, opposite to his own. Suddenly, one of his own kind stood
before him, and he recognized a female, Hortat, through the dusty air.
Hortat was staring at him with a frozen expression in her eye.
"What is it?" she asked. "What happens?"
Cadnan, without brutality, brushed her aside. "I do not know. The
masters know. Wait and they tell you." He did not consider whether
the statement were true, or false, or perhaps (under these new
circumstances) entirely meaningless: it was a noise he had to make in
order to get Hortat out of his way. She stood against the corridor wall
as he passed, watching him.
He went on past her, moving faster now, into the central room from
which corridors radiated. The lights went off again and then came on:
he peered round but there were no masters. Besides, he thought, if the
masters found him the worst they could do would be to kill him, and
that was unimportant now: he already had his song.
In a corridor at the opposite side of the central room he saw a knot
of Alberts, among whom he recognized only Puna. The elder was speaking
with some others, apparently trying to calm them. Cadnan pushed his way
to Puna's side and heard the talk die down, while all stared at the
audacious newcomer.
"I am looking for Dara," Cadnan said loudly, to be heard over the
continuous noise from elsewhere.
Puna said: "I do not know Dara," and turned away. Another shouted:
"Where are the masters? Where is work?"
Cadnan shouted: "Wait for the masters," and went on, pushing his way
through the noise, through the babbling crowd of Alberts. There were no
masters visible anywhere: that was a new thing and a strange one, but
too many new things were happening. Cadnan barely noticed one more.
At the front of his mind now was only the thought of Dara. Behind that
was a vague, nagging fear that he was the cause of all the rumbling and
shaking of the building, and all else, by his breaking of the chain of
obedience. Now, he told himself, the buildings even did not obey.
Then he heard a voice say: "Cadnan," and all other thought fled. The
voice was hers, Dara's. He saw her, ahead, and went to her quickly.
She had not been hurt.
That fact sent a wave of relief through him, a wave so strong that for
a second he could barely stand.
"The door opens," she said when he had reached her, in a small and
frightened voice. "The masters are not here."
"They return," Cadnan said, but without complete assurance. In this
barrage of novelty, who could make any statement certain?
Dara nodded. "Then we must go," she said. "If they are not here, then
maybe they do not hear the noise when we open the door: and there is
much noise already to hide it. Maybe they do not see us."
"And if they do?"
Dara looked away. "I have my song," she said.
"And I have mine." It was settled.
As they headed toward the big front doors others followed, but there
was no use bothering about that. When Cadnan opened the door, in fact,
the others fell back and remained, staring, until it had shut behind
them. There was the great noise of bells and buzzers--but that had been
going on, Cadnan realized, even before they had begun. Outside, the
spot-lights seemed weaker. There was smoke everywhere, and ahead the
forest was a black and frightening mass.
He looked at Dara, who showed her fear for one instant.
"I am also afraid," he told her, and was rewarded by a look of
gratitude. "But we must go on." He took her hand.
They walked slowly into the smoke and the noise. As they reached the
edge of the forest, the sound began to diminish, very slowly; and,
ahead of them, through the haze and beyond the twisted trees, the sun
began to rise.
* * * * *
They walked for a long while, and by the time they had finally stopped
the noise was gone. There was a haze over everything, but through the
haze a morning sun shone, and a heavy peace hung over the world.
There were trees, but these were neither like Bent Line Tree, for
mating, nor for food. Perhaps, Cadnan thought, they were for building,
but he did not know, and had no way to know until an elder showed him.
And there were no elders any more. There were neither elders nor
masters: there was only Cadnan, and Dara--and, somewhere, Marvor and
the group he had spoken of. Cadnan peered round, but he saw no one.
There were small new sounds, and those were frightening, but they were
so tiny--rustles, squeaks, no more--that Cadnan could not feel greatly
frightened by them.
The green-gray light that filtered through the trees and haze bathed
both Alberts in a glow that enhanced their own bright skin-color. They
stood for a few seconds, listening, and then Dara turned.
"I know these sounds," she said. "I talk to others in our room, and
some of these work outside. They tell me of these sounds and this
place: it is called a jungle."
Cadnan made a guess. "The trees make the sound."
"Small beings make it," Dara corrected him. "There are such small
beings, not slaves and not masters. They have no speech but they make
sound."
Cadnan meditated on this new fact for a short time. Then Dara spoke
again.
"Where is Marvor? The time of mating is near."
Cadnan saw her meaning. It was necessary to find Bent Line Tree, or
some like it, and advising elders, all before the time of mating. Yet
he did not know how. "Maybe masters come," he suggested hopefully, "and
tell us what to do."
Dara shook her head. "No. The masters kill us. They do not lead us any
more. Only we lead ourselves."
Cadnan thought privately that such an idea was silly, almost too silly
for words: how could a person lead himself? But he said nothing to
Dara, not wanting to hurt her. Instead, he pretended, helplessly, to
agree with her: "You are right. We lead ourselves now."
"But we must know where Marvor stays."
That sounded more reasonable. Cadnan considered it for a minute.
Wherever Marvor was hiding, it had to be somewhere in the jungle. And
so, in order to find him, they had only to walk through it.
And so they set out--on a walk long enough to serve as an aboriginal
Odyssey for the planet. The night-beasts, soft glowing circles of eyes
and mouths which none of their race had ever seen before: the giant
flesh-eating plants: the herd of bovine monsters which, confused,
stampeded at them, shaking the ground with their tread and making the
feathery trees shake as if there were a hurricane: all this might have
made an epic, had there been anyone to record it. But Cadnan expected
no more and no less: the world was strange. Any piece of it was as
strange as any other.
Once they came across a grove of food-trees, and ate their fill, but
they saved little to take with them, being unused to doing their own
planning. So they went on, hungry and in the midst of dangers scarcely
recognized, sleeping at night however they could, travelling aimlessly
by day. And after a time that measured about three days they stopped in
a small clearing and heard a voice.
"Who is there?"
Cadnan, frightened by the sudden noise, managed to says "I am Cadnan
and there is one with me called Dara. We look for Marvor."
The strange voice hesitated a second, but its words, when it did speak,
were in a tone that was peaceful enough.
"I know of Marvor and will take you to him. It is not far to where he
stays."
20
After the first rush of battle, matters began to quiet a little.
Against tremendous odds, and in a few brief hours, the armaments of
Fruyling's World had managed to beat off the Confederation fleets, and
these had withdrawn to reform and to prepare for a new phase of the
engagement.
In the far-off days before the age of Confederation, war had, perhaps,
been an affair of grinding, constant attack and defense. No one could
say for sure: many records were gone, much had been destroyed. But
now there was waiting, preparation, linked batteries of armaments and
calculators for prediction--and then the brief rush and flurry of
battle, followed by the immense waiting once more.
For Dodd, it was a time to breathe and to look around. He had enough
work to do: the damage to Building Three, and the confusion among the
Alberts, had to be dealt with, and all knew time was short. Very few
of the Alberts had actually escaped--and most of those, Dodd told
himself bitterly, would die in their own jungles, for lack of knowledge
or preparation. Most, though, simply milled around, waiting for the
masters, wondering and worrying.
Norma was safe, of course: after a frantic search Dodd had found her
below-ground in the basements of Building One, along with most of
the Psych division. Without present duties forcing them to guard or
maintain the Alberts, the Psych division had holed up almost entire in
the steel corridors that echoed with the dull booms of the battle.
He'd gasped out some statement of relief, and Norma had smiled at him.
"I knew you'd be safe," she said. "I knew you had to be."
And of course she was right. Even if what she said had sounded cold,
removed--he had to remember she was under shock, too, the attack had
come unexpectedly on them all. It didn't matter what she said: she was
safe. He was glad of that.
Of course he was, he thought. Of course he was.
Even if the things she said, the cold-blooded way she looked at the
world, sometimes bothered him....
And, a day later, when everyone was picking up the scattered pieces of
the world and attempting, somehow, to rig a new defense, she'd said
more. Not about herself, or about him. Tacitly, they knew all of that
had to wait for a conclusion to the battle. But about the Alberts....
"Of course they're not disloyal," she told him calmly. "They don't even
know what disloyalty means: we've seen to that. The masters are as
much a part of their world as--as food, I suppose. You don't stage a
rebellion against food, do you?"
Dodd frowned. "But some of them have escaped."
"Wandered, you mean. Just wandered off. And--oh, I suppose a few have.
Our methods aren't perfect. But they are pretty good, Johnny: look at
the number of Alberts who simply stayed around."
"We're making them slaves."
"No." She shook her head, violently. "Nobody can make a slave. All
we've done is seize an opportunity. Think of our own history, Johnny:
first the clan, or the band--some sort of extended family group. Then,
when real leadership is needed, the slave-and-master relationship."
"Now, wait a minute," Dodd said. Norma had been brain-washed into some
silly set of slogans: it was his job to break them down. "The clan can
elect leaders--"
"Sure it can," she said. "But democracy is a civilized commodity,
Johnny--in a primitive society it's a luxury the society can't afford.
What guarantees have you got that the clan will elect the best
possible leader? Or that, having elected him, they'll follow him along
the best paths?"
"Self-interest--"
But again she cut him off. "Self-interest is stupid," she said
casually. "A child needs to learn. Schooling is in the best interest of
that child. Agreed?"
"Yes, but--"
"Did you ever hear of a child who liked school, Johnny?" she asked.
"Did you ever hear of a child who went to school, regularly, eagerly,
without some sort of force being applied, physical, mental or moral?
No, Johnny, self-interest is short-sighted. Force is all that works."
"But--" He was sure she was wrong, but he couldn't see where. "Who are
we to play God for them?" he said at last.
"They need somebody," Norma said. "And we need them. Even."
She seemed harder now, somehow, more decided. Dodd saw that the one
attack had changed a lot--in Norma, in everyone. Albin, for instance,
wasn't involved with fun any more: he had turned into a fanatical
drill-sergeant, with a squad of Alberts under him, and it was even
rumored that he slept in their quarters.
And Norma ... what had happened to her? After the fighting was over,
and they could talk again, could relax and reach out for each other
once again....
She had become so hard....
One new fear ran through the defenders. The Alberts who had escaped
might return, some said, vowing vengeance against the masters....
21
Cadnan had learned much in a very short time. Everyone was hurried
now, as the time of mating approached more and more quickly and as
the days sped by: knowledge was thrown at Cadnan and at Dara in vast,
indigestible lumps, and they were left to make what they could of it,
while the others went about their normal assigned work.
He learned about the invasion, for instance--or as much about it as
Marvor, the elders and a few other late arrivals could piece together.
Their explanations made surprisingly good sense, in the main, though
none of them, not even Marvor, could quite comprehend the notion of
masters having masters above them: it appeared contrary to reason.
Cadnan learned, also, the new trees in this new place, which the elders
had found. There were food trees nearby, and others whose leaves were
meant for building, and there were also trees of mating like his own
Bent Line Tree. No one could tell Cadnan where Bent Line Tree itself
might be: and so he became resigned to his first mating with a new
tree, which the elders had called Great Root Tree. It was not truly
right, he told himself, but there was nothing to do about it.
The life in the jungle made Cadnan uncomfortable: he was nothing larger
than himself, and he felt very small. When he had masters, he was a
part of something great, of the chain of obedience. But here, in the
jungle, there was no chain (and would the trees obey when their time
came?) and each felt himself alone. It was not good to feel alone,
Cadnan decided; yet, again, there was nothing he could do. It mattered
for a time, and then it ceased to matter.