"I understand that is pretty bad around here."
"With some people, true. But all the people who hate the Ships don't
realize that if it beedn't for the Ships they wouldn't be here at all.
They hold their grudge too close to their hearts. There be some of us
who disagree with the government though it has lost us our families or
years from our lives, and we would not destroy what we cannot agree
with. When such an one as Horst Fanger uses this as an excuse to rob
and injure a child, I will not agree. He has taken all that you have
and there is no way to reclaim it, but what I can give of my house be
yours."
* * * * *
I thanked him as best I could and then I asked him what the grudge was
that they held against the Ships.
"It ben't a simple thing," he said. "You have seen how poor and
backward we be. We realize it. Now and again, when you decide to stop,
we see you people from the Ships. And you ben't poor or backward. You
could call what we feel jealousy, if you wanted, but it be more than
that and different. When we beed dropped here, there beed no scientists
or technicians among us. I can understand. Why should they leave the
last places where they had a chance to use and develop their knowledge
for a backward planet where there is no equipment, no opportunity? What
be felt here be that all the men who survived the end of Earth and the
Solar System be the equal heirs of man's knowledge and accomplishment.
But by bad luck, things didn't work out that way. So ideas urged by the
Ships be ignored, and the Ships be despised, and people from the Ships
be treated as shamefully as you have beed or worse."
I could think of a good example of an idea that the Ships emphasized
that had been ignored. Only it was more than an idea or an opinion. It
was a cold and deadly lesson taught by history. It was: Man becomes an
organism that ultimately destroys itself unless he regulates his own
size and growth. That was what I was taught.
I said, "I can understand how they might feel that way, but it's not
fair. We pretty much support ourselves. As much as we can, we re-use
things and salvage things, but we still need raw materials. The only
thing we have to trade is knowledge. If we didn't have anything to
trade for raw materials, that would be the end of us. Do we have a
choice?"
"I don't hold you to blame," Mr. Kutsov said slowly, "but I can't help
but to feel that you have made a mistake and that it will hurt you in
the end."
I didn't say it, but I thought--when you lay blame, whom do you put it
on? People who are obviously sick like these Mud-eaters, or people who
are normal like us?
After I got better, I had the run of Mr. Kutsov's house. It was a small
place near the edge of Forton, surrounded by trees and with a small
garden. Mr. Kutsov made a regular shipping run through the towns to the
coast and back every second week. It was not a profitable business, but
he said that at his age, profit was no longer very important. He was
very good to me, but I didn't understand him.
He gave me lessons before he let me go outside into the town. Women
were second class citizens around here, but prejudice of that sort
wasn't in Mr. Kutsov. Dressed as I was, as scrawny as I am, when people
saw me here, they saw a boy. People see what they expect to see. I
could get away with my sex, but not my accent. I might sound right
on seven Ships and on all other planets, but here I was wrong. And
I had two choices--sound right or shut up. One of these choices was
impossible for me, so I set out to learn to sound like a Tinteran,
born and bred, with Mr. Kutsov's aid.
It was a long time before he was willing to give me a barely passing
grade. He said, "All right. You should keep listening to people and
correcting yourself, but I be satisfied. You talk as though you have a
rag in your mouth, but I think you can get by."
Before I went out into town, I found out one more important thing. It
was the answer to a question that I didn't ask Mr. Kutsov. I'd been
searching for it in old newspapers, and at last I found the story I was
looking for. The last sentence read: "After sentencing, Dentremont was
sent to the Territorial Jail in Forton to serve his three-month term."
I thought, they misspelled his name. And then I thought, trust it to be
Jimmy D. He gets in almost as much trouble as I do.
* * * * *
Though you may think it strange, my first stop was the library. I've
found that it helps to be well-researched. I got what I could from Mr.
Kutsov's books during the first days while he was outdoors working in
his garden. In his library, I found a novel that he had written himself
called _The White Way_.
He said, "It took me forty years to write it, and I have spent
forty-two years since living with the political repercussions. It has
beed an interesting forty-two years, but I am not sure that I would do
it again. Read the book if you be interested."
I did read it, though I couldn't understand what the fuss was about.
It seemed reasonable to me. But these Mud-eaters were crazy anyway. I
couldn't help but think that he and Daddy would have found a lot in
common. They were both fine, tough-minded people, and though you would
never know it to look at them, they were the same age. Except that at
the age of eighty Mr. Kutsov was old, and at the age of eighty Daddy
was not.
It cost me an effort to walk through the streets of Forton, but after
my third trip, the pain was less, though the number of children still
made me sick.
In the library, I spent four days getting a line on Tintera. I read
their history. I studied their geography and, as sneakily as I could, I
tore out the best local maps I could find.
On my trips through town, I took the time to look up Horst Fanger's
place of business. It was a house, a shed and pen for the Losels, a
stable, a truck garage (one truck--broken down) and a sale block,
all housed in one rambling, shanty building. Mr. Horst Fanger was
apparently a big man. Big deal.
When I was ready, I scouted out the jail. It was a raw unpleasant day,
the sort that makes me hate planets, and rain was threatening when I
reached the jailpen. It was a solid three-story building of great stone
blocks, shaped like a fortress and protected by bars, an iron-spike
fence and two nasty-looking dogs. On my second trip around, the rain
began. I beat it to the front and dodged in the entrance.
I was standing there, shaking the rain off, when a man in a green
uniform came stalking out of one of the offices that lined the
first-floor hallway. My heart stopped for a moment, but he went right
by without giving me a second look and went upstairs. That gave me some
confidence and so I started poking around.
* * * * *
I had covered the bulletin boards and the offices on one side of the
hall when another man in green came into the hall and made straight for
me. I didn't wait, I walked toward him, too. I said, as wide-eyed and
innocent as I could, "Can you help me, sir?"
"Well, that depends. What sort of help do you need?" He was a big,
rather slow man with one angled cloth bar on his shirt front over one
pocket and a plate that said ROBARDS pinned over the pocket on the
other side. He seemed good-natured.
I said, "Jerry had to write about the capital, and Jimmy got the
Governor, and I got _you_."
"Hold on there. First, what be your name?"
"Billy Davidow," I said. "I don't know what to write, sir, and I
thought you could show me around and tell me things."
"I be sorry, son," he said. "We be pretty caught up today. Could you
make it some other afternoon or maybe some evening?"