_They were languorous, anarchic, shameless
in their pleasures ... were they lower
than man ... or higher?_
Over the cabin 'phone, Ann's voice was crisp with anger. "Mr. Lord, I must
see you at once."
"Of course, Ann." Lord tried not to sound uncordial. It was all part of a
trade agent's job, to listen to the recommendations and complaints of the
teacher. But an interview with Ann Howard was always so arduous, so stiff
with unrelieved righteousness. "I should be free until--"
"Can you come down to the schoolroom, Mr. Lord?"
"If it's necessary. But I told you yesterday, there's nothing we can do to
make them take the lessons."
"I understand your point of view, Mr. Lord." Her words were barely civil,
brittle shafts of ice. "However, this concerns Don; he's gone."
"Gone? Where?"
"Jumped ship."
"Are you sure, Ann? How long ago?"
"I rather imagined you'd be interested," she answered with smug
satisfaction. "Naturally you'll want to see his note. I'll be waiting for
you."
The 'phone clicked decisively as she broke the connection. Impotent fury
lashed Lord's mind--anger at Don Howard, because the engineer was one of
his key men; and, childishly, anger at Don's sister because she was the one
who had broken the news. If it had come from almost anyone else it would,
somehow, have seemed less disastrous. Don's was the fourth desertion in
less than a week, and the loss of trained personnel was becoming serious
aboard the _Ceres_. But what did Ann Howard expect Lord to do about it?
This was a trading ship; he had no military authority over his crew.
As Lord stood up, his desk chair collapsed with a quiet hiss against the
cabin wall, and, on greased tubes, the desk dropped out of sight beneath
the bunk bed, giving Lord the luxury of an uncluttered floor space eight
feet square. He had the only private quarters on the ship--the usual
distinction reserved for a trade agent in command.
From a narrow wardrobe, curved to fit the projectile walls of the ship,
Lord took a lightweight jacket, marked with the tooled shoulder insignia of
command. He smiled a little as he put it on. He was Martin Lord, trade
agent and heir to the fabulous industrial-trading empire of Hamilton Lord,
Inc.; yet he was afraid to face Ann Howard without the visible trappings of
authority.
* * * * *
He descended the spiral stairway to the midship airlock, a lead-walled
chamber directly above the long power tubes of the _Ceres_. The lock door
hung open, making an improvised landing porch fifty feet above the charred
ground. Lord paused for a moment at the head of the runged landing ladder.
Below him, in the clearing where the ship had come down, he saw the rows of
plastic prefabs which his crew had thrown up--laboratories, sleeping
quarters, a kitchen, and Ann Howard's schoolroom.
Beyond the clearing was the edge of the magnificent forest which covered so
much of this planet. Far away, in the foothills of a distant mountain
range, Lord saw the houses of a village, gleaming in the scarlet blaze of
the setting sun. A world at peace, uncrowded, unscarred by the feverish
excavation and building of man. A world at the zenith of its native
culture, about to be jerked awake by the rude din of civilization. Lord
felt a twinge of the same guilt that had tormented his mind since the
_Ceres_ had first landed, and with an effort he drove it from his mind.
He descended the ladder and crossed the clearing, still blackened from the
landing blast; he pushed open the sliding door of the schoolroom. It was
large and pleasantly yellow-walled, crowded with projectors, view-booths,
stereo-miniatures, and picture books--all the visual aids which Ann Howard
would have used to teach the natives the cultural philosophy of the
Galactic Federation. But the rows of seats were empty, and the gleaming
machines still stood in their cases. For no one had come to Ann's school,
in spite of her extravagant offers of trade goods.
Ann sat waiting, ramrod straight, in front of a green-tinged projectoscope.
She made no compromise with the heat, which had driven the men to strip
to their fatigue shorts. Ann wore the full, formal uniform. A less
strong-willed woman might have appeared wilted after a day's work. Ann's
face was expressionless, a block of cold ivory. Only a faint mist of
perspiration on her upper lip betrayed her acute discomfort.
"You came promptly, Mr. Lord." There was a faint gleam of triumph in her
eyes. "That was good of you."
She unfolded her brother's note and gave it to Lord. It was a clear,
straight-forward statement of fact. Don Howard said he was deserting the
mission, relinquishing his Federation citizenship. "I'm staying on this
world; these people have something priceless, Ann. All my life I've been
looking for it, dreaming of it. You wouldn't understand how I feel, but
nothing else--nothing else--matters, Ann. Go home. Leave these people
alone. Don't try to make them over."
The last lines rang in sympathy with Lord's own feelings, and he knew that
was absurd. Changes would have to be made when the trade city was built.
That was Lord's business. Expansion and progress: the lifeblood of the
Federation.
"What do you want me to do?" he demanded.
"Go after Don and bring him back."
"And if he refuses--"
"I won't leave him here."
"I have no authority to force him against his will, Ann."
"I'm sure you can get help from this--" her lip curled "--this native girl
of yours. What's her name?"
"Niaga."
"Oh, yes; Niaga. Quaint, isn't it?" She smiled flatly.
He felt an almost irresistible urge to smash his fist into her jaw.
Straight-laced, hopelessly blind to every standard but her own--what right
did Ann have to pass judgment on Niaga? It was a rhetorical question.
Ann Howard represented the Federation no less than Lord did himself. By
law, the teachers rode every trading ship; in the final analysis, their
certification could make or break any new planetary franchise.
* * * * *
"Niaga has been very helpful, Ann; cooperative and--"
"Oh, I'm sure she has, Mr. Lord."
"I could threaten to cut off Don's bonus pay, I suppose, but it wouldn't do
much good; money has no meaning to these people and, if Don intends to stay
here, it won't mean much to him, either."
"How you do it, Mr. Lord, is not my concern. But if Don doesn't go home
with us--" She favored him with another icy smile. "I'm afraid I'll have to
make an adverse report when you apply for the franchise."
"You can't, Ann!" Lord was more surprised than angry. "Only in the case of
a primitive and belligerent culture--"
"I've seen no evidence of technology here." She paused. "And not the
slightest indication that these people have any conception of moral
values."
"Not by our standards, no; but we've never abandoned a planet for that
reason alone."
"I know what you're thinking, Mr. Lord. Men like you--the traders and
the businessmen and the builders--you've never understood a teacher's
responsibility. You make the big noise in the Federation; but we hold it
together for you. I'm not particularly disturbed by the superficials I've
seen here. The indecent dress of these people, their indolent villages,
their congenital irresponsibility--all that disgusts me, but it has not
affected my analysis. There's something else here--something far more
terrible and more dangerous for us. I can't put it in words. It's horrible
and it's deadly; it's the reason why our men have deserted. They've had
attractive women on other worlds--in the trade cities, anything money
could buy--but they never jumped ship before."
"A certain percentage always will, Ann." Lord hoped he sounded reassuring,
but he felt anything but reassured himself. Not because of what she said.
These naive, altogether delightful people were harmless. But could the
charming simplicity of their lives survive the impact of civilization? It
was this world that was in danger, not by any stretch of the imagination
the Federation.
* * * * *
As the thought occurred to him, he shrank from it with a kind of inner
terror. It was heresy. The Federation represented the closest approximation
of perfection mortal man would ever know: a brotherhood of countless
species, a union of a thousand planets, created by the ingenuity and the
energy of man. The Pax Humana; how could it be a threat to any people
anywhere?
"That would be my recommendation." Suddenly Ann's self-assurance collapsed.
She reached for his hand; her fingers were cold and trembling. "But, if you
bring Don back, I--I won't report against a franchise."
"You're offering to make a deal? You know the penalty--"
"Collusion between a trade agent and the teacher assigned to his ship--yes,
I know the law, Mr. Lord."
"You're willing to violate it for Don? Why? Your brother's a big boy now;
he's old enough to look after himself."
Ann Howard turned away from him and her voice dropped to a whisper. "He
isn't my brother, Mr. Lord. We had to sign on that way because your company
prohibits a man and wife sailing in the same crew."
In that moment she stripped her soul bare to him. Poor, plain,
conscientious Ann Howard! Fighting to hold her man; fighting the unknown
odds of an alien world, the stealthy seduction of an amoral people. Lord
understood Ann, then, for the first time; he saw the shadow of madness
that crept across her mind; and he pitied her.
"I'll do what I can," he promised.
As he left the schoolroom she collapsed in a straight-backed chair--thin
and unattractive, like Ann herself--and her shoulders shook with silent,
bitter grief.
* * * * *
Martin Lord took the familiar path to Niaga's village. The setting sun
still spread its dying fire across the evening sky, but he walked slowly
through the deep, quiet shadows of the forest. He came to the stream where
he had met Niaga; he paused to dip his sweat-smeared face into the cool
water cascading over a five foot fall.
A pleasant flood of memory crowded his mind. When he had first met Niaga,
almost a week before, she had been lying on the sandy bank of the stream,
idly plaiting a garland of red and blue flowers. Niaga! A copper-skinned
goddess, stark naked and unashamed in the bright spot light of sun filtered
through the trees. Languorous, laughing lips; long, black hair loosely
caught in a net of filmy material that hung across her shoulder.
The feeling of guilt and shame had stabbed at Lord's mind. He had come,
unasked, into an Eden. He didn't belong here. His presence meant pillage, a
rifling of a sacred dream. The landing had been a mistake.
Oddly enough, the _Ceres_ had landed here entirely by chance, the result of
a boyish fling at adventure.
Martin Lord was making a routine tour of representative trade cities before
assuming his vice-presidency in the central office of Hamilton Lord, Inc.
It had been a family custom for centuries, ever since the first domed ports
had been built on Mars and Venus.
Lord was twenty-six and, like all the family, tall, slim, yellow-haired.
As the Lords had for generations, Martin had attended the Chicago
University of Commerce for four years, and the Princeton Graduate School
in Interstellar Engineering four more--essential preparations for the
successful Federation trader. In Chicago Martin had absorbed the basic
philosophy of the Federation: the union of planets and diverse peoples,
created by trade, was an economy eternally prosperous and eternally
growing, because the number of undiscovered and unexploited planets
was infinite. The steady expansion of the trade cities kept demand
always one jump ahead of supply; every merchant was assured that this
year's profits would always be larger than last. It was the financial
millennium, from which depression and recession had been forever
eliminated. At Princeton Lord had learned the practical physics
necessary for building, servicing and piloting the standard interstellar
merchant ships.
Martin Lord's tour of the trade cities completed his education. It was his
first actual contact with reality. The economy of progress, which had
seemed so clear-cut in the Chicago lecture halls, was translated into a
brawling, vice-ridden, frontier city. In the older trade cities, the
culture of man had come to dominate the occupied worlds. No trace of what
alien peoples had been or had believed survived, except as museum oddities.
This, Lord admitted to himself, was conquest, by whatever innocuous name it
passed. But was it for good or evil? In the first shock of reality, Martin
Lord had doubted himself and the destiny of the Federation. But only for a
moment. What he saw was good--he had been taught to believe that--because
the Federation was perfection.
But the doubt, like a cancer, fed and grew in the darkness of Lord's soul.
* * * * *
On the home trip a mechanical defect of the calibration of the time-power
carried the _Ceres_ off its course, light years beyond the segment of the
Galaxy occupied by the Federation.
"We've burned out a relay," Don Howard reported.
"Have we replacements?" Lord asked.
"It's no problem to fix. But repairs would be easier if we could set the
ship down somewhere."
Lord glanced at the unknown sun and three satellite planets which were
plotted electronically on his cabin scanning screen. His pulse leaped with
sudden excitement. This was his first--and last--chance for adventure, the
only interstellar flight he would command in his lifetime. When he returned
to earth, he would be chained for the rest of his days to a desk job,
submerged in a sea of statistical tables and financial statements.
"Run an atmosphere analysis on those three worlds, Mr. Howard," he said
softly.
Driven by its auxiliary nuclear power unit, the ship moved closer to the
new solar system. In half an hour Don Howard brought Lord the lab report.
Two of the planets were enveloped in methane, but the third had an
earth-normal atmosphere. Lord gave the order for a landing, his voice
pulsing with poorly concealed, boyish pleasure.
The _Ceres_ settled on a hilltop, its cushioning rockets burning an
improvised landing area in the lush foliage. As the airlock swung open,
Lord saw half a dozen golden-skinned savages standing on the edge of the
clearing. As nearly as he could judge, they were men; but that was not
too surprising, because a number of planets in the Federation had evolved
sentient species which resembled man. The savages were unarmed and nearly
naked--tall, powerfully built men; they seemed neither awed nor frightened
by the ship.
Over the circle of scorched earth Lord heard the sound of their voices. For
a fleeting second the words seemed to make sense--a clear, unmistakable
welcome to the new world.
But communication was inconceivable. This planet was far beyond the fringe
of the Federation. Lord was letting his imagination run away with him.
He flung out his arms in a universally accepted gesture of open-handed
friendship. At once the talk of the natives ceased. They stood waiting
silently on the burned ground while the men unwound the landing ladder.
* * * * *
Lord made the initial contact himself. The techniques which he had learned
in the University of Commerce proved enormously successful. Within ten
minutes rapport was established; in twenty the natives had agreed to submit
to the linguistic machines. Lord had read accounts of other trailblazing
commercial expeditions; and he knew he was establishing a record for speed
of negotiation.
The savages were quite unfrightened as the electrodes were fastened to
their skulls, entirely undisturbed by the whir of the machine. In less than
an hour they were able to use the common language of the Federation.
Another record; most species needed a week's indoctrination.
Every new development suggested that these half-naked primitives--with
no machine civilization, no cities, no form of space flight--had an
intellectual potential superior to man's. The first question asked
by one of the broad-shouldered savages underscored that conclusion.
"Have you come to our world as colonists?"
No mumbo-jumbo of superstition, no awe of strangers who had suddenly
descended upon them from the sky. Lord answered, "We landed in order
to repair our ship, but I hope we can make a trade treaty with your
government."
For a moment the six men consulted among themselves with a silent exchange
of glances. Then one of them smiled and said, "You must visit our villages
and explain the idea of trade to our people."
"Of course," Lord agreed. "If you could serve as interpreters--"
"Our people can learn your language as rapidly as we have, if we can borrow
your language machine for a time."
Lord frowned. "It's a rather complex device, and I'm not sure--you see, if
something went wrong, you might do a great deal of harm."
"We would use it just as you did; we saw everything you turned to make it
run." One of the golden-skinned primitives made a demonstration, turning
the console of dials with the ease and familiarity of a semantic expert.
Again Lord was impressed by their intelligence--and vaguely frightened.
"You could call this the first trade exchange between your world and ours,"
another savage added. "Give us the machine; we'll send you fresh food from
the village."
The argument was logical and eventually the natives had their way. Perhaps
it was Ann Howard's intervention that decided the point. She vehemently
disapproved; a gift of techniques should be withheld until she had
examined their cultural traditions. But Martin Lord was a trade agent, and
he had no intention of allowing his mission to be wrecked by the ephemeral
doubts of a teacher. Here at the onset was the time to make it clear that
he was in command. He gave the natives the machine.
As the six men trudged across the burned earth carrying the heavy apparatus
easily on their shoulders, Lord wondered if either he or Ann Howard had
much to do with the negotiations. He had an unpleasant feeling that, from
the very beginning, the natives had been in complete control of the
situation.
* * * * *
Less than an hour after the six men had departed, a band of natives emerged
from the forest bearing gifts of food--straw baskets heaped with fruit,
fresh meat wrapped in grass mats, hampers of bread, enormous pottery jars
filled with a sweet, cold, milky liquid. Something very close to the
miraculous had occurred. Every native had learned to use the Federation
language.
A kind of fiesta began in the clearing beside the _Ceres_. The natives
built fires to cook the food. The women, scantily dressed if they were
clothed at all, danced sensuously in the bright sunlight to a peculiarly
exotic, minor-keyed music played on reed and percussion instruments.
Laughing gaily, they enticed members of Lord's crew to join them.
The milky drink proved mildly intoxicating--yet different from the
stimulants used in the Federation. Lord drank a long draught from a mug
brought him by one of the women. The effect was immediate. He felt no
dulling of his reason, however; no loss of muscular control, but instead
a stealthy relaxation of mental strain joined with a satisfying sense of
physical well-being. A subtle shifting in prospective, in accepted values.
The savage feast, which grew steadily more boisterous, Lord would have
called an orgy under other circumstances. The word did occur to him, but it
seemed fantastically inapplicable. Normally the behavior of his men would
have demanded the severest kind of disciplinary action. But here the old
code of rules simply didn't apply and he didn't interfere with their
enjoyment.
The afternoon sun blazed in the western sky; heat in shimmering waves
hung over the clearing. Lord went into the ship and stripped off his
uniform; somehow the glittering insignia, the ornamental braid, the stiff
collar--designed to be impressive symbols of authority--seemed garish and
out of place. Lord put on the shorts which he wore when he exercised in
the capsule gym aboard ship.
Outside again, he found that most of the men had done the same thing. The
sun felt warm on his skin; the air was comfortably balmy, entirely free of
the swarms of flies and other insects which made other newly contacted
frontier worlds so rugged.
As he stood in the shelter of the landing ladder and sipped a second mug
of the white liquor, Lord became slowly aware of something else. Divested
of their distinguishing uniforms, he and his crew seemed puny and ill-fed
beside the natives. If physique were any index to the sophistication of a
culture--but that was a ridiculous generalization!
He saw Ann Howard coming toward him through the crowd--stern-faced,
hard-jawed, stiffly dignified in her uniform. The other women among the
crew had put on their lightest dress, but not Ann. Lord was in no frame of
mind, just then, to endure an interview with her. He knew precisely what
she would say; Ann was a kind of walking encyclopedia of the conventions.
Lord slid out of sight in the shadow of the ship, but Ann had seen him. He
turned blindly into the forest, running along the path toward the village.
In a fern-banked glen beside the miniature waterfall he had met Niaga.
* * * * *
No woman he had ever known seemed so breathtakingly beautiful. Her skin had
been caressed by a lifetime's freedom in the sun; her long, dark hair had
the sheen of polished ebony; and in the firm, healthy curves of her body
he saw the sensuous grace of a Venus or an Aphrodite.
[Illustration: In a fern-banked glen beside a miniature waterfall, Martin
Lord first saw Niaga.]
She stood up slowly and faced him, smiling; a bright shaft of sunlight fell
on the liquid bow of her lips. "I am Niaga," she said. "You must be one of
the men who came on the ship."
"Martin Lord," he answered huskily. "I'm the trade agent in command."
"I am honored." Impulsively she took the garland of flowers which she had
been making and put it around his neck. When she came close, the subtle
perfume of her hair was unmistakable--like the smell of pine needles on a
mountain trail; new grass during a spring rain; or the crisp, winter air
after a fall of snow. Perfume sharply symbolic of freedom, heady and
intoxicating, numbing his mind with the ghosts of half-remembered dreams.
"I was coming to your ship with the others," she said, "but I stopped here
to swim, as I often do. I'm afraid I stayed too long, day-dreaming on the
bank; time means so little to us." Shyly she put her hand in his. "But,
perhaps, no harm is done, since you are still alone. If you have taken no
one else, will I do?"
"I--I don't understand."
"You are strangers; we want you to feel welcome."
"Niaga, people don't--that is--" He floundered badly. Intellectually he
knew he could not apply the code of his culture to hers; emotionally it
was a difficult concept to accept. If his standards were invalid, his
definitions might be, too. Perhaps this society was no more primitive
than--No! A mature people would always develop more or less the same
mechanical techniques, and these people had nothing remotely like a
machine.
"You sent us a gift," she said. "It is only proper for us to return the
kindness."
"You have made a rather miraculous use of the language machine in a
remarkably short period of time."
"We applied it to everyone in the village. We knew it would help your
people feel at ease, if we could talk together in a common tongue."
"You go to great pains to welcome a shipload of strangers."
"Naturally. Consideration for others is the first law of humanity." After a
pause, she added very slowly, with her eyes fixed on his, "Mr. Lord, do you
plan to make a colony here?"
"Eventually. After we repair the ship, I hope to negotiate a trade treaty
with your government."
"But you don't intend to stay here yourself?"
"I couldn't."
"Have we failed in our welcome? Is there something more--"
"No, Niaga, nothing like that. I find your world very--very beautiful."
The word very inadequately expressed what he really felt. "But I'm not
free to make the choice."