_No!_ Gavir thought. Back behind the Preserve Barrier that killed you
instantly if you stepped too close to it? Back to the constant fear of
being seized by MDC guards for a labor pool, to wind up in the MDC
mines?
Mars was where Gavir's father had been pinned, bayonets through his
hands and feet, to the wall of a shack just the other side of the
Barrier, to die slowly, out of Gavir's reach. Father James told Gavir
that the head of MDC himself had ordered the killing, because Gavir's
father had tried to organize resistance to the Corporation. Mars was
where the magic powers of the Earthmen and the helplessness of the
Martian tribes would always protect the head of MDC from Gavir's
vengeance.
Back to that world of hopeless fear and hatred? _I never want to go
back to Mars! I want to stay here!_
But that wasn't what he was supposed to think. Quickly he said, "I
will be happy to return to my people."
A movement caught his eye. The producer, reclining on a divan in a far
corner of the small studio, was making some kind of signal by beating
his fist against his forehead.
"Well, enough of that!" the moderator said briskly. "How about singing
one of your tribal songs for us?"
Gavir said, "I will sing the _Song of Going to Hunt_." He heaved
himself up from the divan, and, feet planted wide apart, threw back
his head and began to howl.
He was considered a poor singer in his tribe, and he was not surprised
that Malcomb and the moderator winced. But Malcomb had told him that
it wouldn't matter. The dreamees receiving the dreamcast would hear
the song as it _should_ sound, as Gavir heard it in his mind.
Everything that Gavir saw and heard and felt in his mind, the dreamees
could see and hear and feel....
* * * * *
It was cold, bitter cold, on the plain. The hunter stood at the edge
of the camp as the shriveled Martian sun struck the tops of the Shakam
hills. The hunter hefted the long, balanced narvoon, the throwing
knife, in his hand. He had faith in the knife, and in his skill with
it.
The hunter filled his lungs, the cold air reaching deep into his
chest. He shouted out his throat-bursting hunting cry. He began to run
across the plain.
Crouching behind crumbling red rocks, racing over flat expanses of
orange sand, the hunter sought traces of the seegee, the great slow
desert beast whose body provided his tribe with all the essentials of
existence. At last he saw tracks. He mounted a dune. Out on the plain
before him a great brown seegee lumbered patiently, unaware of its
danger.
The hunter was about to strike out after it, when a dark form leaped
at him.
The hunter saw it out of the corner of his eye at the last moment. His
startled sidestep saved him from the neck-breaking snap of the great
jaws.
The drock's long body was armored with black scales. Curving fangs
protruded from its upper jaw. Its hand-like forepaws ended in hooked
claws, to grasp and tear its prey. It was larger, stronger, faster
than the hunter. The thin Martian air carried weirdly high-pitched
cries which proclaimed its craving to sink its fangs into the hunter's
body. The drock's huge hind legs coiled back on their triple joints,
and it sprang.
The hunter thrust the gleaming knife out before him, so that the dark
body would land on its gleaming blade. The drock twisted in mid-air
and landed to one side of the hunter.
Now, before it could gather itself for another spring, there was time
for one cast of the blade. It had to be done at once. It had to be
perfect. If it failed, the knife would be lost and the drock would
have its kill. The hunter grasped the weapon by the blade, drew his
arm back, and snapped it forward.
The blade struck deep into the throat of the drock.
The drock screamed eerily and jumped clumsily. The hunter threw
himself at the great, dark body and retrieved the knife. He struck
with it again and again into the gray twitching belly. Colorless blood
ran out over the hard, tightly-stretched skin.
The drock fell, gave a last convulsion, and lay still. The hunter
plunged the blade into the red sand to clean it. He threw back his
head and bellowed his hunting cry. There was great glory in killing
the drock, for it showed that the Desert Man and not the drock, was
lord of the red waste....
* * * * *
Gavir sat down on the divan, exhausted, his song finished. He didn't
hear the moderator winding up the dreamcast. Then the producer of the
program was upon him.
He began shouting even before Gavir removed his headset. "What kind
of a fool are you? Before you started that song, you dreamed things
about the Martian Development Corporation that were libelous! I got
the whole thing--the Barrier, the guards, the labor pools and mines,
the father crucified. It was awful! MDC is one of our biggest
sponsors."
Malcomb said, "You can't expect an untrained young Martian to control
his very thoughts. And may I point out that your tone is hostile?"
At this a sudden change came over the producer. The standard Earth
expression--invincible benignity--took control of his face. "I
apologize for having spoken sharply, but dreamcasting is a
nerve-wracking business. If it weren't for Ethical Conditioning, I
don't know how I'd control my aggressive impulses. The Suppression of
Aggression is the Foundation of Civilization, eh?"
Malcomb smiled. "Ethical Conditioning Keeps Society from Fissioning."
He shook hands with the producer.
"Come around tomorrow at 1300 and collect your fee," said the
producer. "Good night, gentlemen."
As they left the Global Dreamcasting System building, Gavir said to
Malcomb, "Can we go to a bookstore tonight?"
"Tomorrow. I'm taking you to your hotel and then I'm going back to my
apartment. We both need sleep. And don't forget, you've been warned
not to go prowling around the city by yourself...."
As soon as Gavir was sure that Malcomb was out of the hotel and well
on his way home, he left his room and went out into the city.
In a pitifully few days he would be back in the Preserve, back with
the fear of MDC, with hunger and the hopeless desire to find and kill
the man who had ordered his father's death.
Now he had an opportunity to learn more about the universe of the
Earthmen. Despite Malcomb's orders, he was going to find a seller of
books.
During a reading class at the mission school, Father James had said,
"In books there is power. All that you call magic in our Earth
civilization is explained in books." Gavir wanted to learn. It was his
only hope to find an alternative to the short, fear-ridden,
impoverished life he foresaw for himself.
A river of force carried him, along with thousands of
Earthmen--godlike beings in their perfect health and their impregnable
benignity--through the streets of the city. Platforms of force raised
and lowered him through the city's multiple levels....
And, as has always happened to outlanders in cities, he became lost.
* * * * *
He was in a quarter where furtive red and violet lights danced in the
shadows of hunched buildings. A half-dozen Earthmen approached him,
stopped and stared. Gavir stared back.
The Earthmen wore black garments and furs and metal ornaments. The
biggest of them wore a black suit, a long black cape, and a
broad-brimmed black hat. He carried a coiled whip in one hand. The
Earthmen turned to one another.
"A Martian."
"Let's give pain and death to the Martian! It will be a new
experience--one to savor."
"Take pain, Martian!"
The Earthman with the black hat raised his arm, and the long heavy
lash fell on Gavir. He felt a savage sting in the arm he had thrown up
to protect his eyes.
Gavir leaped at the Earthmen. He clubbed the man with the whip across
the face. As the others rushed in, Gavir flailed about him with long
arms and heavy fists.
He began to enjoy it. It was rare that a Martian had an opportunity to
knock Earthmen down. The mood of the _Song of Going to Hunt_ came over
him. He sprang free of his attackers and drew his glittering narvoon.
The man with the whip yelled. They looked at his knife, and then all
at once turned and ran. Gavir drew back his arm and threw the knife
with a practiced catapult-snap of shoulder, elbow, and wrist. To his
surprise, the blade clattered to the street far short of his
retreating enemies. Then he remembered: you couldn't throw far in the
gravity of Earth.
The Earthmen disappeared into a lift-force field. Gavir decided not to
pursue them. He walked forward and picked up his narvoon, and saw that
the street on which it lay was solid black pavement, not a
force-field. He must be in the lowest level of the city. He didn't
know his way around; he might meet more enemies. He forgot about the
books he'd wanted, and began to search for his hotel.
* * * * *
When he got back to his room, he went immediately to bed. He slept
late.
Malcomb woke him at 1100. Gavir told Malcomb about the
strangely-dressed men who had tried to kill him.
"I told you not to wander around alone."
"But you did not tell me that Earthmen might try to kill me. You have
told me that Earthmen are good and peace-loving, that there have been
no acts of violence on Earth for many decades. You have told me that
only the MDC men are exceptions, because they are living off Earth,
and this somehow makes them different."
"Well, those people you ran into are another exception."
"Why?"
"You know about the Regeneration and Rejuvenation treatment we have
here on Earth. A variation of it was given you to acclimate you to
Earth's gravity and atmosphere. Well, since the R&R treatment was
developed, we Earthmen have a life-expectancy of about one hundred
fifty years. Those people who attacked you were Century-Plus. They are
over a hundred years old, but as healthy, physically, as ever."
"What is wrong with them?"
"They seem to have outgrown their Ethical Conditioning. They live
wildly. Violently. It's a problem without precedent, and we don't know
what to do with them. The fact is, Senile Delinquency is our number
one problem."
"Why not punish them?" said Gavir.
"They're too powerful. They are often people who've pursued successful
careers and acquired a good deal of property and position. And there
are getting to be more of them all the time. But come on. You and I
have to go over to Global Dreamcasting and collect our fee."
* * * * *
The impeccably affable producer of _Dreaming Through the Universe_
gave Malcomb a check and then asked them to follow him.
"Mr. Davery wants to see you. Mr. _Hoppy_ Davery, executive
vice-president in charge of production. Scion of one of Earth's oldest
communications media families!"
They went with the producer to the upper reaches of the Global
Dreamcasting building. There they were ushered into a huge office.
They found Mr. Hoppy Davery lounging on a divan the size of a
space-port. He was youthful in appearance, as were all Earthmen, but a
soft plumpness and a receding hairline made him look slightly older
than average.
He pointed a rigid finger at Malcomb and Gavir. "I want you two to
hear a condensed recording of statements taken from calls we received
last night."
Gavir stiffened. They _had_ gotten into trouble because of his
thoughts about MDC.
A voice boomed out of the ceiling.
"That Martian boy has power. That song was a fist in the jaw. More!"
A woman's voice followed:
"If you let that boy go back to Mars I'll never dream a Global program
again."
More voices:
"Enormous!"
"Potent!"
"That hunting song drove me mad. I _like_ being mad!"
"Keep him on Earth."
Hoppy Davery pressed a button in the control panel on his divan, and
the voices fell silent.
"Those callers that admitted their age were all Century-Plus. The boy
appeals to the Century-Plus mentality. I want to try him again. This
time on a really big dream-show, not just an educational 'cast. Got a
spot on next week's Farfel Flisket Show. If he gets the right
response, we talk about a contract. Okay?"