Clarey knew what happened, because the headman gave a report of the
conversation to the Barshwat Prime Bulletin. He also got a letter from
his aunt describing the incident as vividly as if she had been there
herself. The Barshwat Prime ran a series of increasingly intemperate
editorials calling upon all the nations of Damorlan to unite against
the Earthmen; it was spirit that counted, it said, rather than
technology. Malesor wrote a letter asking how superior spiritual values
could compete against presumably superior weapons. He read it aloud
in the Purple Furbush before he sent it to the editor of the Barshwat
Prime, which was lucky, because the Prime never printed it, although
the Dordonec Bulletin ran a copy.
* * * * *
However, the Barshwat Prime did print letters from editors in different
countries. All of them pledged firm moral support. It also printed a
letter from an anonymous correspondent in Katund which alleged that
there was an Earth spy in that village, disguised as a Damorlant, and
it was this spy who was personally responsible for the decline of
musical taste on the whole planet. But the Bulletin seemed to consider
this merely as an emanation from the lunatic fringe: "It would be as
easy to disguise a hix as one of us as an Earthman. And, although we
could certainly not minimize the importance of music in our culture,
it is hardly likely that Earth would be attempting to achieve fell
purposes through undermining that art. No, the decline in musical taste
represents part of the general decline in public morality which has
left us an easy prey."
Irik went back to Barshwat to help riot, but he left the Katundi
convinced that Clarey was, if not actually an Earthman, at least a
traitor. When he came into the Furbush, everybody got up and left.
Nobody patronized the branch library any more. The constant readers
went to the main library at Zrig, and, since the trip was expensive,
their books were usually overdue and they had to pay substantial fines.
Sometimes they never returned the books at all and messengers had to
be sent from the city. Finally the chief librarian at Zrig issued a
regulation that only those resident within the city limits could take
books out; all others in the district had to read them on the premises.
The Katundi blamed that on Clarey, too. One night they broke into his
library and stole all the best-sellers.
A couple of days later, he came home and found all the windows of his
dome broken. Best-sellers are often disappointing, he thought. He found
a note from Embelsira, saying, "I have gone home to Mother."
He knew she expected him to go after her, but he wrote her a note
saying he was going to see his aunt who was terrified by all the riots,
and put it in the mail, so she wouldn't get it too soon. He packed his
kit with his most important possessions and he took his ulerin under
his arm.
When he reached Barshwat, he had some difficulty getting through the
crowd in front of Earth Headquarters. All the windows were boarded up
and the garbage hadn't been collected for a considerable length of
time. Just as he reached the door, a familiar voice called, "That's the
Earth spy!"
"Don't be silly!" another voice said. "He's obviously one of us!"
"But a traitor!" cried another voice. "Otherwise why go in there?"
Stones splattered against the door, followed by impartial cries of
"Spy!... Traitor!... Fool!" the last seemingly addressed to each other,
rather than Clarey.
Blynn was haggard and anxious-looking "I've been wondering when you'd
show up. Afraid maybe they'd got you--"
"I'm all right," Clarey interrupted. "But what are we going to do?"
Blynn laughed without stopping for a full minute. "Do? I'll tell you
what we're going to do. We're going to sit tight and wait for the staff
ship."
Two months later the staff ship came. Blynn radioed for the general and
the secretary to come in a closed ground car.
"But why?" the general's voice crackled plaintively over the com-unit.
"I thought we didn't want them to know about ground cars--"
"They know," Blynn said crisply. "They've got one of their own now,
maybe more. Crazy-looking thing, but it works. You'll see it outside
Headquarters when you get here. The letters on the side mean 'Earthmen,
Go!' Form imperative impolite emphatic."
Han Vollard strode into Headquarters, eyes ablaze. "Why didn't you
send a report before trouble started? How could you allow an emergency
situation to happen?"
Neither Blynn nor Clarey said anything.
"Very distressing thing," Spano declared. "Maybe it hit them so
suddenly they didn't know it was building."
"You and Blynn get over to the ship right away for deep-probing," Han
Vollard ordered, as both began to speak at once. "It's the only way
I'll be able to get a coherent report."
After the results came through, her anger was cold, searing, unwomanly.
"You knew a year ago that things were beginning to go wrong and you
didn't even mention it on the tapes! I could have both of you broken
for this."
"If only that were all there was to worry about," Clarey sighed
wistfully.
* * * * *
She whirled on him. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself!" The sudden loss
of control in that dark amazon was more threatening than anything that
had happened yet.
"I'm not feeling sorry for myself," he said. "It's the Damorlanti I
feel sorry for."
"You feel sorry for them because you identify with them. That makes you
sorry for yourself."
She misunderstood his motives as she misunderstood everything he did
or said, but their rapport wasn't at stake now. "What are you going to
do?" he forced himself to ask.
"The decision will have to be made on Earth. Unless you mean what's
going to happen to you? That's simple--you'll go back with us. Blynn
will stay here, pending orders."
The colonel saluted.
"But I thought I was going to stay here ten years," said Clarey.
"Five to ten years," she corrected. "Apparently five was enough--" She
cut herself short. "What's the matter with me?" she suddenly exclaimed.
"I've been letting myself think in the same woolly way you do."
Suddenly, almost frighteningly, she smiled. "Clarey, you _did_ the job
we sent you out to do! You did it better than we expected! What threw
me off was that we sent you out to act as an observer. Instead, you
became a catalyst!"
She seized his hand and wrung it warmly. "Clarey, I apologize. You've
done a splendid job!"
He wrenched his hand from her grasp. "I didn't act as a catalyst!
It would have happened anyway." His voice rang in his own horrified
ears--a voice begging for reassurance.
And she was a woman; she had maternal instincts; she reassured him. "It
would have happened anyway," she said soothingly, "but it would have
dragged on for years, cost the taxpayers billions."
"And now," he whispered, still unable to believe that the thing had
really happened, "will you ... dispose of everyone on Damorlant?"
She smiled and threw herself into a chair, her body limp and tired and
contented-looking. "Come, Clarey, we're not that ruthless. Some kind of
quarantine will probably be worked out. We just made the whole thing
sound more drastic to appeal to your patriotism."
The general beamed. "So everything has worked out all right, after all?
I knew it would. I always had the utmost confidence in you, Clarey."
She was busily planning. "We'll arrange some kind of heroic
accident.... I have it! You died saving your aunt from the flames."
"What flames?"
"The flames of the fire that burned down her house. She died of the
local equivalent of shock. Embelsira will be rich, so she'll want to
believe the story. She'll be able to find herself another husband;
she'll have children. She'll be better off, Clarey."
He looked at her, his misery welling out of his eyes.
"Oh, I don't mean it that way, man! All I meant was that you're a human
being; she's not. I'm not saying one is better than the other. I'm
saying they're different."
"But I felt less different with her, with the Damorlanti, than with
anyone on Earth," he said.
She walked across to the window and looked out at the Damorlanti
rioting ineptly below. "Most of us are happier in our dream world," she
said at last, "but society couldn't function if we were allowed to stay
there."
"Damorlan wasn't a dream world."
"But it will be," she said.
* * * * *
And so Clarey went back to Earth on the staff ship. Once its luxury
would have given him pleasure; now the cabin with its taps that gave
out plain water, salt water, mineral water, and assorted cordials held
no charm; neither did the self-contained tri-di projector-receiver. The
only reason he stayed there most of the time was to avoid the others.
However, he couldn't avoid turning up in the dining salon for meals.
The greater his sorrow, the greater his appetite.
One day after lunch, Han stopped him forcibly, grasping his arm. "I've
got to talk to you. Afterward you can go off and sulk if you want to.
But we're going to make planetfall in a few days. It's necessary to
discuss your future now."
"I have no future," he said.
"Come this way, Clarey. That's an order!"
Obediently, he followed her into a lounge that was a dazzle of
color and splendor. There were eight pseudo-windows, each framing a
pseudo-scene of a different planet at a different season. The harsh,
barren summer of Mars, the cold, bleak winter of Ksud, the gentle green
spring of Earth.... It must be a park, he knew; in no other place on
Earth could spring be manifest--and yet it gave him a little pang to
look at it. He tore his eyes away to turn them toward the others, and
then up at the domed ceiling, fashioned to resemble a blue sky with
clouds drifting across it. A domed ceiling ... and he thought of the
domes of Damorlan, light-years away among the stars....
"I'm afraid the décor's a bit gaudy," Han apologized. "We didn't
check the decorator's past performance until it was too late. But
it's comfortable, anyway. Try one of these chairs. They accommodate
themselves to the form."
She threw herself on a chaise lounge that accommodated itself perfectly
to her form. She wasn't wearing her usual opulent secretarial garb, but
something simple of clinging stuff that occasionally went transparent.
So we're back to the first movement, Clarey though wearily.
He made sure that the chair opposite her was old-style before he
lowered himself into it. "Where's the general? I thought he always sat
in on these conferences."
"The formalities are over now," she said, smiling up at him. "Besides,"
she added, "if he doesn't take a nap after lunch, it wreaks havoc with
his digestion. Afraid to be alone with me, Clarey?" she asked huskily.
"Yes," he said, rising, "as a matter of fact, I am, now that you
mention it."