needs grow with the hours. The sun rose, and fell, and rose again.
Then the time came.
* * * * *
It was dark. There were others near them, but they were alone. Cadnan
knew Dara was standing near him in the darkness, though he saw nothing.
He heard her breath coming slowly at first, and then a little faster.
He did not hear his own, but that was no matter. There was a sound from
a small night-animal, but it did not come near. He stood with Dara near
to Great Root Tree: if he put out his hand, he could touch it.
But he kept his hand at his side. Touching the tree, at that moment,
was wrong. There were the old rules, the true rules, and to think of
them made him feel better.
Dara said nothing: it was not necessary for her to speak. They knew
each other, and the attraction was very strong. Cadnan had felt the
attraction before, but until that moment he had not known how strong it
was. And then it grew, and grew.
Still they did not move. Darkness covered both, and there was no more
sound. The very feeling of the presence of others disappeared: there
was nothing but Cadnan, and Dara, and Great Root Tree.
It called to him, but not to him alone. He knew what he had to do. He
felt the front of his body growing warm and then hot. He felt the first
touch of the liquid.
He touched Dara: their fronts touched. That alone was more than Cadnan
had ever imagined yet it was not enough. Still there was more he was
called on to do: he did not think about it, or know of it until it was
done. He moved against Dara, as she against him: he was not himself. He
was more and less, he was only the front of his body and he was Great
Root Tree, he was all trees, all worlds....
When he stepped back it was like dying, but he could not die, since
there was more for him to do. He stood still, very close to Dara, and,
remaining close, he went to the tree. It was not far and both knew the
path, but it seemed far. Cadnan could feel the mixed liquids on his
front, his and Dara's: Great Root Tree seemed to call these liquids to
itself, and himself and Dara with them.
They walked to it. In the darkness they could not see it, but they knew
the tree: they had spent time knowing it before that night. Cadnan
reached out a slow hand and touched the back of the tree, almost
as smooth as metal, with only minute irregularities throughout its
surface. Once again a long time seemed to pass, but it was not long.
Then he was against the tree while Dara stood behind, waiting. He
pressed himself against the bark and he felt himself becoming part of
Great Root Tree, becoming the tree itself; and this lasted for all time
and no time, and he was separated from it and saw Dara come to where he
had pressed, and move delicately and then fiercely upon the bark; then
he saw nothing but heard her breathing faster and faster, and all sound
stopped ... there was a long silence ... and then her breathing began
again, very slowly, very slowly.
She returned to Cadnan and took his hand. It was finished. Soon the
tree would bud with the results of the liquids rubbed on it: after
that, there would be small ones, and Cadnan would be an elder. All
of this was in the future and it was very dim in Cadnan's mind, but
everything was dim: he lay on the ground and Dara lay near him, both
very tired, too tired to think of anything, and he felt himself shaking
for a time and his breath hissed in and out until the shaking stopped.
Dara, too, was quiet at last. The darkness had not changed. There was
no sound, and no motion.
It was over.
22
When the Confederation forces reformed, they came on with a crash. Dodd
had heard for months that Fruyling's World could never stand up to a
real assault: he had even thought he believed it. But the first attack
had bolstered his gloomy confidence, and the results of the second came
not only as a surprise but as a naked shock.
The Alberts in spite of a few fearful masters, had been issued Belbis
tubes and fought valiantly with them; the batteries did everything
expected of them, and the sky was lit with supernal flashes of blinding
color throughout one hard-fought night. Dodd himself, carrying a huge
Belbis beam, braced himself against the outer wall of Building One and
played the beam like a hose on any evidence of Confederation ships up
there in the lightning-lit sky: he felt only like a robot, doing an
assigned and meaningless job, and it was only later that he realized he
had been shivering all the time he had used the killing beam. As far as
he could tell he had hit nothing at all.
The battle raged for six hours, and by its end Dodd was half-deafened
by the sound and half-blinded by the sporadic rainbow flashes that
meant a hit or a miss or a return-blow, lancing down from the ships to
shake buildings and ground. At first he had thought of Norma, safe in
the bunkers below Building One. Then she had left his mind entirely and
there was only the battle, the beginning of all things and the end
(only the battle and the four constant words in his mind): even when
the others began to retreat and Dodd heard the shouted orders he never
moved. His hands were frozen to the Belbis beam, his ears heard only
battle and his eyes saw only the shining results of his own firing.
There was a familiar voice--Albin's: "... get out while you've got a
chance--it's over...."
Another voice: "... better surrender than get killed...."
The howls of a squad of Alberts as a beam lanced over them, touching
them only glancingly, not killing but only subjecting them to an
instant of "punishment"; and the howls ceased, swallowed up in the
greater noise.
A voice: "... Johnny...."
It meant nothing. Dodd no longer knew he had a name: he was only
an extension of his beam, firing with hypnotized savagery into the
limitless dark.
"Johnny...."
He heard his own voice answering. "Get back to the bunker. You'll be
safe in the bunker. Leave me alone." His voice was strange to his ears,
like an echo of the blasts themselves, rough and loud.
Dawn was beginning to color the sky, very slightly. That was good: in
daylight he might be able to see the ships. He would fire the beam and
see the ships die. That was good, though he hardly knew why: he knew
only that it pleased him. He watched the dawn out of a corner of one
eye.
"Johnny, it's all over, we've lost, it's finished. Johnny, come with
me."
Norma's voice. But Norma was in the bunker. Norma had caused the
battle: she had made the slaves. Now she was safe while he fought.
The thought flickered over his mind like a beam blast, and sank into
blackness.
"Johnny, please ... Johnny ... come on, now. Come on. You'll be safe.
You don't want to die...."
No, of course he didn't. He fired the beam, aimed, fired again, aimed
again. He could die when his enemies were dead. He could die when
everyone who was trying to kill him was dead. Then he could die, or
live: it made no difference.
He fired again, aimed again, fired....
"Johnny, please...." The voice distracted him a little. No wonder
he couldn't kill all the ships, with that voice distracting him.
It went on and on: "Johnny, you don't have to die ... you're not
responsible.... Johnny, you aren't a slaver, you just had a job to
do.... Killing isn't the answer, Johnny, death isn't the answer...."
The voice went on and on, but he tried to ignore it. He had to keep
firing: that was his job, and more than his job. It was his life. It
was all of his life that he had left.
* * * * *
Dr. Haenlingen had told her she was too close to see properly, and, of
course, she was. Perhaps she knew that, in the final seconds. Perhaps
she never did. But that Dodd, who wanted to die and who considered
death the only proper atonement for his life, could have displaced
that wish onto the Confederation, onto his "enemies," and so reached a
precarious and temporary balance, never occurred to her. And if it had,
perhaps she could have done nothing better ... time had run out.
Time had run out. Johnny Dodd's enemies wanted him dead, and so he had
to kill them (and so avoid killing himself, and so avoid recognizing
how much he himself wanted to be dead). But the balance wasn't
complete. There was still the guilt, still the terrible guilt that made
it _right_ for the Confederation to kill him.
The guilt had to be displaced, too.
Norma did what she could, did what she thought right. "You don't have
to die," she told him. "You're not responsible."
That was what he heard, and it was enough. He hadn't made the Alberts
into slaves. He hadn't made the Alberts into slaves.
But he knew who had. Long before, it had all been carefully explained
to him. All of the tricks that had been used....
Of course, Dodd thought. Of course he wasn't responsible.
He felt an enormous peace descend on him, like a cloak, as he turned
with the beam in his hand and smiled at Norma. She began, tentatively,
to return his smile.
The beam cut her down where she stood and left a swathe of jungle
behind her black and smoking.
Dodd, his job completed, dropped the beam. For one instant four words
lit up in his mind, and then everything went out into blankness and
peace. The body remained, the body moved, the body lived, for a time.
But after those four words, blinding and bright and then swallowed up,
Johnny Dodd was gone.
He had found what he needed.
_This is the end._
* * * * *
PUBLIC OPINION SIX
From A Cultural Record of Fruyling's World
Personal Histories of the Natives (called Alberts)
As Dictated and Preserved on Tape by Historical Commission HN3-40-9
Subject (called) Cadnan
... Dara is dead in the returning, when new masters come to us and say
the fighting is over. It is an accident which kills her, a stumble,
they say, against a plant which is dangerous to animal life and to our
kind. The accident is over and Dara is dead, and we return.
I find Marvor after the fighting, once only, and I ask him what it
is that is so important about this fighting. The Confederation--the
masters we now have--are only masters like the ones we know. Marvor
looks at me with a look as if he, too, is a master.
"Freedom is that important," he says. "Freedom is the most important
thing."
I know that Marvor is not right, because I know the most important
thing: it is the dead. For me Dara is most important, and I remember
Puna, who is dead in the fighting: the rest does not matter. I say this
now, knowing that the talk-machine hears me and that the Confederation
hears me.
I say: "Can freedom make me feel happy?"
Marvor looks more like a master. "Freedom is good," he says.
"And yet Dara is dead," I say. "And others are dead. How do I feel
happy when I know this?"
"In freedom," Marvor tells us, "Dara would be safe, and the others."
"Yet it is freedom that kills them," I say.
Marvor says: "Not freedom but the war. The fight against our masters
here, the old masters, to make them give us freedom."
I say: "Do not our old masters have freedom?"
"They do," Marvor says, "now."
This puzzles me. I say: "But they have freedom at all times. They have
what they want, and if freedom is a good, and they want it, then they
have it."
Marvor says: "It is true. They have freedom for themselves."
"Yet these other masters tell them what to do," I say, "and fight them
to make them do it. This is not the freedom you tell of."
Marvor says: "There is a difference."
I do not see this difference, and he can not tell it to me though he
tries hard. But I think maybe the new masters can tell me what it is.
Marvor is going to what they call a school and I also go. This is a
place where masters tell things, and we must remember them. Remembering
is not hard, but we must think also, and do work. It is not enough to
ask a question and find an answer. It is necessary to find our own
answers.
A master asks us to count, and then to do things with the numbers we
use in our counting. This is called arithmetic. We must do things with
the numbers every day, and if we do not the masters are not happy with
us. This arithmetic is hard: it is all new. Yet if I do it right I do
not find more food or a better place or any thing I want. I do not see
what is the use of this arithmetic.
But the use does not matter. The master tells me a use. He says
arithmetic and all of the things in the school raise the cultural
level. I do not know what a cultural level is or if it is good to be
raised. The masters do not care whether I know this. They make me do
what they want me to do.
And it is not simple like pushing buttons and watching a machine. It
is not simple like all the things I do since I am small Cadnan. It is
hard, very hard, and all the time it is more hard.
Every day there is a school. Every day there is hard work. Marvor says
that freedom means doing for yourself what you want and deciding right
and wrong. I say freedom is bad because the masters know right and
wrong and we do not. Others say with me: there are some who know the
old truths and think it is better when we, too, can understand right
and wrong.
But the masters say what we have is freedom. I say it is not so. The
masters tell us what to do: they tell us to do arithmetic, to do all
other school things, and we do not do for ourselves what we want. We do
not do anything for ourselves, but always the masters tell us.
This is the same as before the fighting. It is always the same. A
master is a master.
But the old masters were the best. I remember the old masters and the
old work, and I want this time to come again. I want the old work,
which is easy, and not this new work, which is hard. I want the old
slavery, where we know right and wrong, and not the new slavery, where
only the masters know and they say they cannot tell us.
If I am free, if I can decide for myself what it is that I want, then
this is what I decide.
I want the old masters back again.
I, Cadnan, say this.
* * * * *
PUBLIC OPINION SEVEN
From the speech of Dr. Anna Haenlingen
Before the High Court (Earth) of the Confederation
Preparatory to the Passing of Sentence
... The attorneys for the Confederation government have called our
position cynical, and my own attorneys have attempted, without
success, to refute this charge. As head of the Psychological Division
on Fruyling's World previous to the unjustified intervention of
Confederation force in the affairs of that world, I feel it incumbent
on me to define a position which even our own advocates do not seem to
understand.
I bear a good deal of the responsibility for conditions on Fruyling's
World, and I have not shirked that responsibility. I found the
natives of that world in a condition of slavery, due to the work of
my predecessors. I maintained them in that slavery, and made no move
whatever to free them or to mitigate their status.
This is, in truth, a cynical position. I do not believe, and I have
never believed, that freedom is necessarily a good for all people at
all times. Like any other quality, it can be used for good or for ill.
In the contact between any barbarian people and any civilized people,
some species of slavery is necessary. The barbarian does not know
that he is a barbarian, and the only way to convey to him the fact
that he stands at the bottom of a long ladder--a ladder so long
that we have by no means reached its end, and have perhaps not yet
seen its midpoint--is to force him to make contact with elements of
civilization, and to utilize continuous force to keep this contact
alive and viable.
The alien--the barbarian--will not of himself continue contact in any
meaningful manner. The gap is too great between his life and that
of the civilized person, and a disparity so great becomes, simply,
invisible. Under conditions of equality, the civilized person must
degenerate to barbarian status: his mind can comprehend the barbarian,
and he can move in that direction. The barbarian, incapable of
comprehension of the civilized world, cannot move toward that which he
cannot see.
In order to bring him into motion, slavery and subjection appear
necessities. There has been no civilization of which we have record
which has not passed through a period of subjection to another, more
forceful civilization: the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, all the great
civilizations of which there is available record have passed through a
period of slavery. Nor is this accidental.
Some force must be applied to begin the motion toward civilization.
That force--disguise it how you will--is slavery. It is clearly the
attempt to make another person do what he would not do, does not
wish to do, and sees no personal profit in doing, under threat of
punishment. It is subjection. That subjection is all we mean by slavery.
And slavery is a necessity.
Perhaps we were wrong: perhaps the slavery which was dictated to us by
the conditions which prevailed upon Fruyling's World was not the best
sort available. But freedom is not, in any case, the answer. A man may
die as the result of too much oxygen: a culture, likewise, may die of
too much freedom.
I have no fear of the sentence of this court. My death is unimportant,
and I do not fear it. I might fear that my work be left undone, were I
not certain that, under whatever name, the Confederation will find it
necessary to maintain slavery on Fruyling's World.
Of this, I am quite sure.
* * * * *
From the Report of Genmo. Darad Farnung, Commanding Confederation
Expeditionary Force, 3rd Sector From Base of Occupation, Fruyling's
World (NC34157:495:4)
... In the three planetary months (approx. ninety-two Solar days) since
occupation of this world, no serious incidents have been reported.
The previous "rulers" of this world have been transshipped to Earth
for disposal there by Confederation governmental process. With the
introduction of fully automated machinery, the world's primary
resources are being utilized for the good of the Confederation without
the introduction of any form of slavery or forced labor whatever....
... Regarding education and aid as involving the native population,
the initial shipments of teachers, investigators and experts in
xenopsychology have enabled the occupation force to begin a full
educational program for the benefit of the natives. This program has
been accepted by the natives without delay and without any untoward
incidents, and reports to the contrary are assumed to have been
initiated by disaffected personnel. The program of education in a
democratic and workable form of government for these natives is, and
must remain, one of the shining examples of the liberative effects of
Confederation doctrine and government, and should provide a valuable
precedent in future cases....
... Reports that the profits of the major business of this world,
since the introduction of automated machinery and experts for the
repair and upkeep thereof, have decreased to the vanishing point should
not be taken as serious: this is assumed to be merely a temporary
hardship due to the transfer workload from the natives to the automated
structure.... Since the only alternative is the placement of the
workload on enslaved natives of this world, the temporary rise in taxes
due to the loss on essential product profit should be taken as a needed
and welcome sacrifice in the name of liberty by the peoples of the
Confederation....
... A list of further urgent materials, together with a list of
specialties now urgently required in order to maintain full production
here, and a revised schedule of budgetary requirements to include these
additional requisitions, is hereby appended....
* * * * *
THE MASTERS
_johnny dodd:_ he had everything a man could want on Fruyling's
World--except freedom from the horror of being there.
_dr. haenlingen:_ icy, reserved, the architect of the system that kept
men on top and aliens enslaved.
_norma:_ warm and human, she was Dodd's one hope for salvation.
THE SLAVES
_cadnan:_ he did what he was told ... until the Masters told him to die.
_marvor:_ the first of his race to have an independent idea--an idea
that was dangerous and deadly.
_dara:_ green and reptilian, but beautiful enough to inspire Cadnan to
the slave world's worst crime.
As the space fleets of an outraged Terran Confederation close in on the
outlaw planet of Fruyling's World, the destinies of slave and master
meet explosively, and from the shock of battle and its aftermath come
an unexpected and awesome conclusion.
PYRAMID PRESENTS
ROBERT BLOCH
BOGEY MEN (F-839)
A PYRAMID BOOK 40ยข
Cover painting by Jack Gaughan