To Follow a Star

by Terry Carr

  He gestured to Ruth to come over and translate for him to the two red-faced representatives. His voice was loud enough so the crowd could catch the scorn in it, though they didn’t understand the words.

  “Tell them that the Mantanai bring children’s gifts, that they are not fit to accept; that their tribe must indeed be poor if this is all they can afford. Tell them the gifts I shall give them will make theirs look like the castoffs of beggars.”

  Then he started enumerating his own gifts in turn. One air mattress, two wool blankets, a chair of stainless tubular steel. He hesitated. There wasn’t a sound from the crowd, so he continued adding to the pile. A white twill space uniform, a chest of exquisite silver he had meant as a conciliatory gift for his wife, and a set of pale, translucent pottery he had picked up on Altair. The crowd was murmuring now, impressed. Finally, with a show of disdain, he threw on a sleek, black jacket of heavy, shiny leather.

  Once again the crowd roared approval, then started to drift away. Ruth nodded slightly; for the moment he had won. But only for the moment.

  He worked furiously all afternoon and long into the night, his welding torch a bright spot of white in the blackness. How much time he had left, he didn’t know. But it wouldn’t be much.

  The next morning he was awakened by the clamor of the crowd outside the rocket. The natives and a sober-faced Ruth were waiting for him, along with a file of men carrying heavy bundles in their arms.

  The challenge gifts for the day had arrived.

  It was a week since he had crashed on the planet, Reynolds thought, jitterly, and despite working practically every waking hour, the job of repairing the ship was still only half done.

  And the deadly game had progressed apace.

  Everything not absolutely essential to the operation of the ship had gone. Stanchions, railings, ladders—every bit of shiny, glittering metal that he had thought might appeal to the native eyes as being of value. And then all the dishes, the linens, his voco-writer, and most of his clothing had followed. All delivered to the property-crazy natives who had looked them over curiously, then destroyed them to show how worthless the items were in comparison with their own wealth.

  And in return, what had he done? How many coppers and furs and blankets had he been forced to destroy? And it meant nothing to the natives because the planet was so lush that there was much, much more where that had come from.

  It was the contents of his ship against the resources of a planet and there wasn’t the slightest doubt as to how it would turn out.

  “I’ve stripped the ship,” he said quietly.

  Ruth moved closer to the fire, the yellow light playing on her smooth tan skin.

  “I know,” she said. “You’ve lost the game.”

  He couldn’t have done much better, though, he thought grimly. He had played it out with what he had as well as he could, analyzing the native sense of values so he had some idea of what they attached worth to.

  “When will they come for me?” he asked dryly.

  She was staring into the fire, the leaping flames reflected in her green eyes.

  “Tomorrow, maybe the next day. And then next week you will be nothing but . . .” She felt the sentence unfinished and gave an expressive shudder instead.

  Reynolds felt a little sick with fear. There was no way out. If he ran away, he would be running away from his ship and all chance of ever getting home. His chances of surviving alone on the planet would be slim anyway.

  “My father will be here tomorrow to watch,” Ruth said.

  “Your father?”

  She showed her teeth. “My father. The chief, the wealthiest man in the village.”

  They were all turning out, he thought, to watch Reynolds entertain at the big celebration.

  Then he caught the look on her face and tried to forget his own troubles. She wasn’t having an easy time of it, risking her life to give him information and do what little she could for him.

  “How did Father Williams ever get into this mess?” he asked.

  “When he first came here,” she said, “there was a big sickness. Father Williams helped the Mantanai and my father let him clothe me and teach me your language. But after a few years they forgot and made Father Williams play the game of the Giving of Gifts.” She paused, and then repeated: “He was very kind to me.”

  If he ever got out of it alive, Reynolds thought, he’d build a monument someplace to the memory of Father Williams.

  The clearing around the ship was jammed the next morning, natives of all shapes and sizes jockeying for position to see Reynolds’ final humbling and open admittance of the wealth of their tribe. As interested as brokers on the floor of the stock exchange watching the quotations on the board, Reynolds thought dryly. He wondered how some of the natives would do if they were suddenly transferred to his own society. With their lust for wealth and shrewdness at manipulating it, they would probably own the universe within a year.

  As usual, he had a bonfire all ready to light. Then he made a great show at stacking the mounds of coppers and furs and tanned skins and the hampers of food; probably enough to feed and clothe the village for a month, he reflected.

  “The people of the Mantanai are mighty,” he intoned solemnly, Ruth translating, “and their feats at trapping the arapai are sung in hunting songs passed from father to son” He picked up several of the thick, luxurious furs lying on one of the piles. “But these cannot be the pelts of the arapai; rather, they are the thin and smelly hides of the wood rat.” And he threw the pelts scornfully into the flames, following them up with the others in the sack. The crowd “ohed” and Reynolds knew the chiefs face was burning.

  He picked up one of the huge sheets of copper next.

  “I have heard tales of the mighty value of the Copper-of-Many-Suns, and have heard its praises from many throats. But why then, did you not bring it to me? Why this ugly imitation that would not fool a child of six, this piece of hammered hunswah?” He broke it into pieces along the lines etched by acid, and consigned it to the flames. The Copper-of-the-Autumn-Feast and the Copper-of-the-Laughing-Waters followed.

  It was forty minutes later when he had finally thrown the last of the hampers of food into the oily flames, to the approval of the crowd.

  Then the chief was striding toward him, magnificent in his richly decorated furs. Ruth trailed after him, her face calm but her eyes showing fright.

  “You have destroyed the mighty coppers and the soft skins of the arapai,” the chief said silkily, “but they were wealth of no great importance. You, perhaps, have gifts that would put these to shame, gifts that will show your might and your own great wealth.”

  He was faintly sarcastic, knowing full well that Reynolds had stripped his ship.

  “I have,” Reynolds said calmly, catching the startled look in Ruth’s eyes. He pointed to a pile of goods just outside the port of the rocket that he had spent most of the night assembling. “Succulent and tasty foods, breads and meats that will last your tribe for many days, and a machine that will take the basest of materials and turn them into the choicest of delicacies”

  The pile included all the provisions he had on board, including his synthetic food machine.

  As before, the crowd good-naturedly shouted their approval and left, knowing that the climax had merely been postponed another day or so.

  After they had gone, Reynolds could feel the fingers of fear grip his heart once more. There was no way back now, except the slim chance that Ruth might be able to help him restock on the sly with native foods.

  The day was a cloudy one, an excellent day for working on the rocket. The clouds cut the enervating heat of the sun and Reynolds felt filled with a new enthusiasm. Even the odor of burning grease, fired by the heat of his welding torch, smelled good to him. He was a day away from finishing his repairs; another twenty-four hours and he would be on his way to Canopus with an explanation for his delay that was so bizarre it was almost bound to be believed.

  He had finis
hed with one of the last strips on a firing tube and was just reaching for another clay-covered welding rod, when he spotted the procession coming down the valley. The chief and the two stern-faced representatives and Ruth. And, as always, the thrill-seeking crowd.

  Only twenty-four more hours, he thought agonizedly, and that was to be denied to him! One more turn of the planet’s axis and he would have been gone . . .

  “You are to go to my father’s house for the next feast,” Ruth said heavily. “They are planning it to be the last one.”

  He dropped his welding torch and made ready to follow Ruth to the village. There was no chance of changing for dinner, he thought grimly, with only one pair of pants left to him. All his other clothing had gone the way of “gifts.”

  The chief’s house was an elaborate, thatched affair with a large circular opening in the room. Beneath this opening was the open fireplace, black with the ashes of many fires. Currently there was another fire in it, roasting the huge branches of meat for the feast and broiling the tubers buried in the coals around its periphery.

  The feast was an elaborate one to which, apparently, the entire village had been invited. The enclosure was packed with hot, sweating natives whose eyes were glued on every mouthful of food that Reynolds took and every move he made.

  The condemned ate a light meal, Reynolds thought, and he didn’t enjoy a single bite of it.

  The interminable meal and entertainment finally came to a halt and the chief raised his arms for silence. At his signal, a dozen of the young men in the hut disappeared and came back bearing the cartons of supplies and the food machine that had been Reynolds’ “gift” a few days before.

  “The stranger is mighty,” the chief said solemnly, “and has shown that he possesses great wealth. But, alas, his wealth is as nothing to that of the Mantanai.” One of the men threw a carton on the flames and Reynolds watched it puff up in smoke. “It is as the dew in the morning, compared to the waters in the ocean.” Another carton. “The number of people in this village compare to the blades of grass in the valley.” It was insane, Reynolds thought; a cultural mania that apparently would go to any lengths. A fanatical, perverted capitalism run wild.

  The last of the cartons had been consumed in the fire and the food machine reduced to twisted metal when the chief turned to Reynolds.

  “It is now our turn to show the might of the Mantanai, the great springs of wealth of our people.”

  Again the twelve young men disappeared and came back hauling the usual variety of gifts, but this time in an incredible profusion. An exclamation went up from the crowd that quickly dwindled to awed silence as the chief enumerated the gifts.

  “The furs of a hundred cirapai, caught in the prime period of spring, switched and tanned with the gentlest of willow bough . . . the Copper-of-the-Many-Winters . . . the Copper-of-the-Endless-Snows . . . twenty-two hampers of the plumpest and most perfect of fowls . . . the Copper-of-the-Wild-Crows . . . three hampers of the reddest of wood-berries, noted for their succulence and flavor . . .”

  The mere enumerating took half an hour and by the time he was finished, the center of the hut was packed with the hampers and furs and the reddish wheels of copper.

  The chief finished and turned triumphantly to Reynolds. “What have you to offer now, stranger? It is your turn for the Giving of Gifts!”

  Ruth finished translating by his side and sat down on the floor beside him.

  “I have nothing to offer,” Reynolds told her in a low voice. “We are finished then,” she said softly.

  Now that he had finally reached the climax, Reynolds felt too tired to feel fear. “Say a prayer for me and Father Williams,” he said in a dull voice.

  She shrugged faintly. “We will say one together.”

  The way she said it made him glance at her, startled. “What do you mean?”

  She laughed softly. “Because we shall be together. They know that I have been helping you. While you have been playing the game, I have been safe. But now that you have lost, whatever happens to you will happen to me.”

  The crowd was ominously still, waiting for the climatic moment when Reynolds and Ruth would be seized and forced to drink of the Last Cup. The chief was even ready to motion to his aides to seize them, when Reynolds got to his feet and strode to the center of the room.

  He stared bitterly at the surprised crowd for a moment, then spat on the nearest copper and hurled it into the fire.

  “The gifts of the Mantanai are as the gifts of small children,” he said loudly. “The wealth of old women.”

  He kicked through the assembled gifts like a small cyclone, pulling at the furs and edging the hampers toward the fire, until at last the huge fire had spread to twice its original circumference and the flames had begun to crisp the thatch around the hole in the roof and blister the natives closest to the fire.

  When he finally stopped, the crowd was watching him in expectant stillness, waiting for his offer.

  “I offer in turn,” he said slowly, “a gift of the house of many fires, the arrow of shining metal that voyages among the heavens; my rocket.”

  There was a roar of astonishment and heads bobbed in eager approval.

  He had won again, Reynolds thought weakly, but the comedy was in its last act.

  Ruth came to see him early the next morning and they found a secluded spot on the bank of the stream, not far from the now guarded rocket.

  “You were very brave,” she said.

  He resisted an urge to be modest.

  “I know.”

  “My father was very much surprised.”

  “I rather suspected that he would be,” Reynolds said indifferently.

  She was quiet for a moment, staring intently into the waters of the stream.

  “Will you be sorry not to go back?”

  “Of course,” he said automatically, then began to give it some thought. Would he be sorry about not going back? If he stayed away, he would be taken for dead and insurance would amply provide for his family. And being provided for was all that they had wanted of him anyway.

  Besides, the people here weren’t bad people, despite their twisted outlook on matters of property.

  “Well, now, I don’t know,” he added thoughtfully. “Perhaps after a while I could learn to forget . . .”

  She laughed and then asked: “Will you like being a chief?” He hunched himself up on one elbow and stared at her questioningly. She wasn’t smiling any more.

  “You will be a chief soon,” she said. “At least for several days.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She gestured at the village and the surrounding land. “They will destroy the rocket this afternoon; then all this will be yours as their last gift.”

  He felt expansive. “That means I’ve won, doesn’t it?”

  She shook her head. “You will own the village and land, but only for a while.”

  It was a very clever idea, he thought, suddenly no longer appreciating the beautiful day or Ruth’s company. They would give him title to the village and all the lands of the tribe, and there the game would end. Since he was unable to return an even more worthy gift, the remaining portion of the custom would be carried out, during the performance of which he would automatically become an absentee landlord, so to speak, and the property would all revert back to the original owners.

  The game was surely at an end. He couldn’t very well destroy their “gift” or give them something in return; he was a bankrupt.

  He was admiring the landscape and the beautiful stream and the fine tropical weather with a sort of sickly enjoyment, considering it was probably the last time he would be able to do so, when the idea struck him. Why not? What had he to lose?

  “How much time have we left, Ruth?”

  She looked up at the sun. “Not long, a few of your hours.”

  “That’s time enough.” He grabbed her wrist and then ran downstream, to a small cul-de-sac along the bank, not far from the ship.

  The
drums of lubricating oil—an even half dozen—were still where he had cached them, to prevent any possible fires when he had been welding on the ship. He found a rock and pounded the spout of one until it broke and the oil was free to gush out, then turned the drum on its side and started rolling it rapidly along the bank, the oil spilling out on the grass and spreading over the calm waters of the stream.

  By the time the few hours were up, Reynolds had finished with the last of the drums of oil and was ready to receive the chief and the thrill-seekers from the village.

  “The wealth of the Mantanai is great.”

  (There was a pounding from within the rocket as natives cheerfully hammered the generators and the coils and the delicate thrust machinery with rocks and crude metal bars.)

  “The wealth of the Mantanai is as the sands on the beach.”

  (There was a shaking and rattling sound from the rocket as the delicate meters and instruments were pounded to fragments of glass and metal.)

  “The wealth of the Mantanai is as boundless as the stars in the heaven.”

  (There was a hissing noise as the huge bonfire was lit in the control room.)

  Reynolds watched the destruction of the rocket calmly; he had accepted its ultimate fate for what seemed a long time now. But his turn was coming.

  After a long and elaborate ceremony, Reynolds was gifted with the village and the lands surrounding it and presumably the people in it. Then he stepped forward with a lighted torch in his hands.

  “The lands of the Mantanai are as the egg of the vulture: worthless. A poor land, with a poor people. See, I think little of it!” and he cast the torch at a wet spot on the ground.