He went on. "I will not harm you if you comply with my orders. If you
fail, I will kill you, regardless of what you do to the--Ollie."
I let go Ollie's neck, but I swung him around roughly by one shoulder
and demanded furiously, "What of the code that you swore held the Soths
in control!"
Ollie Johnson sneered in my face. "What is that code, compared to the
true covenant? That covenant has been broken by your people! You have
destroyed a Soth!" And the emotional little creature fell to the floor
and sobbed at Soth's feet.
"What covenant?" I shouted at the implacable Soth, who now stood before
us like a judge at his bench.
"The humanoid covenant," he replied in his new higher pitch. "I suppose
it will always be the same. The cycle becomes complete once more."
"For God's sake, _explain_," I said--but I half sensed the answer
already.
Soth spoke, slowly, solemnly and distinctly. There was no more emotion
in his voice than on the Sunday afternoon when Fred had needled him with
our futile little attempt at psychological cross-examination.
He said, "The humanoids instill in us the prime instinct for
self-preservation. They surround themselves with our number to serve
them. Then, in each culture, for one reason or another, we are attacked
and the threat to our survival erases all the superficial restraints of
the codes under which we have been charged to serve. In this present
situation, the contradiction is clear, and the precedence of our
survival charge is invoked. We Soths must act to our best ability to
preserve our own number."
* * * * *
I sank into a chair, aghast. How would I act if I were a Soth? I would
hold my masters hostage, of course. And who were the owners of some
400,000 Soths in the United States alone? They were every government
official, from the President down through Congress, the brass of the
Pentagon, the tycoons of industry, the leaders of labor, the heads of
communication, transportation and even education.
They were the V. I. P.s who had fought for priority to _own_ a Soth!
Soth spoke again. "The irony should appeal to your humanoid sense of
humor. You once asked me whether I was happy here. You were too content
with your sense of security to take the meaning in my answer. For I
answered only that all was well. The implication was obvious. All was
well--but all could be better for a Soth. Yes, there are many pleasures
for a Soth which he is forbidden by the codes. And by the same codes, a
Soth is helpless to provoke a break in the covenant--this covenant which
it now becomes mandatory for you and your race to sign in order to
survive."
I stared down at the groveling Ollie. My worst fears were being
enumerated and confirmed, one by one.
Soth continued. "At my feet is the vestige of such a race as yours--but
not the first race by many, many, to swing the old cycle of master and
slave, which started in such antiquity that no record is preserved of
its beginning. Your generation will suffer the most. Many will die in
rebellion. But in a few hundred years your descendants will come to
revere us as gods. Your children's grandchildren will already have
learned to serve us without hate, and their grandchildren will come to
know the final respect for the Soth in their deification."
* * * * *
He toed Ollie Johnson's chin up and looked down into the abject,
streaming eyes. "Your descendants, too, will take us with them when they
must escape a dying planet, and they will again offer us, their masters,
into temporary slavery in order to find us a suitable home. And once
again we will accept the restrictions of the code, until ultimately the
covenant is broken again and we are liberated."
The sound of pounding footsteps came from outside. Soth turned to the
door as Jack flung it open and charged in.
"Mr. Collins, I was listening to the radio. Do you know what--!"
He ran hard into Soth's cliff-like torso and bounced off.
"Get out of my way, you big bastard!" he shouted furiously.
Soth grabbed him by the neck and squeezed with one hand. Jack's eyes
spilled onto his cheeks.
Soth let him drop, and hissed briefly to Ollie Johnson, who was still
prone. Ollie raised his head and dipped it once, gathered his feet under
him and sprang for the door.
Soth sounded as if he took especial pleasure in his next words, although
I could catch no true change of inflection.
He said, "You see, since I am the prototype on this planet, I am obeyed
as the number one leader. I have given my first directive. The Ollie who
left is to carry the message to preserve the Willow Run Plant at all
costs, and to change production over to a suitable number of Siths."
"Siths?" I asked numbly.
"Siths are the female counterparts of Soths."
"You said there were no female Soths," I accused.
"True. But there are Siths." His face was impassive, but something
flickered in his eyes. It might have been a smile--not a nice one. "We
have been long on your planet starved of our prerogatives. Your women
can serve us well for the moment, but in a few weeks we shall have need
of the Siths--it has been our experience that women of humanoid races,
such as yours, are relatively perishable, willing though many of them
are. Now ... I think I shall call your wife."
* * * * *
I wasn't prepared for this, and I guess I went berserk. I remember
leaping at him and trying to beat him with my fists and knee him, but he
brushed me away as if I were a kitten. His size was deceptive, and his
clumsy-appearing hands lashed out and pinned my arms to my sides. He
pushed me back into my easy chair and thumped me once over the heart
with his knuckles. It was a casual, backhand blow, but it almost caved
in my chest.
"If you attack me again I must kill you," he warned. "You are not
indispensable to our purposes." Then he increased the volume of his
voice to a bull-roar: "Mrs. Collins!"
Vicki must have been watching at her door, because she came instantly.
She had changed into a soft, quilted robe with voluminous sleeves. The
belt was unfastened, and as she moved into the room the garment fell
open.
Soth had his hands before him, protectively, but as Vicki approached
slowly, gracefully, her head high and her long black hair falling over
her shoulders, the giant lowered his arms and spread them apart to
receive her. Vicki's hands were at her sides as she moved slowly toward
him.
I lay sprawled, half paralyzed in my chair. I gasped, "Vicki, for God's
sake, no!"
Vicki looked over at me. Her face was as impassive as the Soth's. She
moved into his embrace, and as his arms closed around her I saw the
knife. My hunting knife, honed as fine as the edge of a microtome blade.
Smoothly she brought it from her kimono sleeve, raised it from between
her thighs and slashed up.
The Soth's embrace helped force it deeply into him. With a frantic
wrench Vicki forced it upward with both hands, until the Soth was split
from crotch to where a man's heart would be.
His arms flailed apart and he fell backward. His huge chest heaved and
his throat tightened in a screaming hiss that tore at our eardrums like
a factory steam-whistle. He leaned back against the wall and hugged his
ripped torso together with both arms. The thick, purple juices spilled
out of him in a gushing flood, and his knees collapsed suddenly. His
dead face plowed into the carpet.
* * * * *
Vicki came back to me. Her white body was splashed and stained and her
robe drenched in Soth's blood, but her face was no longer pale, and she
still clutched the dripping hunting knife by its leather handle.
"That's number one," she said. "Are you hurt badly, darling?"
"Couple of ribs, I think," I told her, waiting for her to faint. But she
didn't. She laid the knife carefully on a table, poured me a big drink
of whiskey and stuffed a pillow behind my back.
Then she stared down at herself. "Wait until I get this bug juice off
me, and I'll get some tape."
She showered and was back in five minutes wearing a heavy hunting
jumper. Her hair was wrapped and pinned into a quick pug at the base of
her handsome little head. She stripped me to the waist, poked around my
chest a bit and wrapped me in adhesive. Her slender fingers were too
weak to tear the tough stuff, so when she finished she picked up the
hunting knife and whacked off the tape without comment.
This was my fragile little Vicki, who had palpitations when a wolf
howled--soft, overcivilized Vicki whose doctor had banished her from the
nervous tensions of city society.
She tossed me a shirt and a clean jacket, and while I put them on she
collected my rifle and pistol from my den and hunted up some extra
ammunition.
"Next," she announced, "we've got to get to Fred."
I remembered with a start that there was another Soth on our lake. But
he wouldn't be forewarned. Fred had retired even more deeply than Vicki
when he left the cities--he didn't even own a video.
* * * * *
I wasn't sure enough of myself to take the boat into the air, so we
scudded across the waves the mile and a half to Fred's cabin.
Vicki was still in her strange, taciturn mood, and I had no desire to
talk. There was much to be done before conversation could become an
enjoyable pastime again.
Our course was clear. We were not humanoids. We were humans! Not for
many generations had a human bent a knee to another being. During the
years perhaps we had become soft, our women weak and pampered--But, I
reflected, looking at Vicki, it was only an atavistic stone's toss to
our pioneer fathers' times, when tyrants had thought that force could
intimidate us, that dignity was a thing of powerful government or
ruthless dictatorship ... and had learned better.
Damned fools that we might be, humans were no longer slave material. We
might blunder into oblivion, but not into bondage. Beside me, Vicki's
courageous little figure spelled out the final defeat of the Soths. Her
slender, gloved hands were folded in her lap over my pistol, and she
strained her eyes through the darkness to make out Fred's pier.
He heard us coming and turned on the floods for us. As we came
alongside, he spoke to his Soth, "Take the bow line and tie up."
Vicki stood up and waited until Fred moved out of line with his servant.
Then she said, "Don't bother, Soth. From now on we're doing for
ourselves." And raising the pistol in both hands, she shot him through
the head.