Sanctuary in the Sky / the Secret Martians

by John Brunner

  “Thank you, Vykor,” she said. “It is nice to hear that.”

  Then she briskened. “And now, if you please—about your passengers?”

  IV

  The tall Pag officer had shouted one final, ringing insult across the reception hall after disembarkation procedure, and had turned with a swirl of her short dress cloak to climb on a conveyer chair. For her part, the quicker she got back among her own kind, the better.

  Ferenc, absently waving aside offers from the Glaithe reception clerks of maps, currency scrip and other necessaries, watched her go, eyes narrowed. He was picturing the Pag officer’s man. He would be a yard taller than Ferenc, muscled like two ordinary men, smooth of scalp and cheek, with long white teeth that he bared meaninglessly or sometimes in a smile every few moments. He would wear, if anything, a wove-metal smock that even he could not rip to pieces. It would probably be fouled around the lower edges. He would speak little; they seldom bothered to teach male children to talk properly on Pagr.

  Depicting this to himself, Ferenc felt the rankling sore in his mind diminish. The Pag officer was probably quite right to say that neither he nor any other Cathrodyne male could force her to submit. But who would want to make her submit, when her idea of love-making was to strip and climb into a cage with the male of the species, and be throttled half to death beforehand?

  And yet he would dearly have liked to shove her remark —well—down her throat. . . .

  He swung on his heel and reached out a long arm—long by Cathrodyne standards; Pig standards were another thing entirely. His hand fell on the shoulder of Ligmer, the archeologist, who was immersed in the Glaithe-prepared maps he had been handed.

  “Listen, young man!” he said harshly. “I didn’t like the attitude you were taking, back there aboard ship. You’d do well to keep your scientific detachment in a separate compartment when there are Pags around to hear you. I don’t know how much it’s already spread around, but if there’s a lot of this half-heartedness among your kind, it’ll do our prestige a lot of harm.”

  Ligmer blinked at him, a little owlishly, and stopped and withdrew half a pace so that his shoulder was free of Ferenc’s grasp. He said with dignity, "Officer Ferenc, national pride has to be based on truth, on hard fact. Would you have us descend to the level of the Pags, and bluster inflated nonsense about the ‘vaulting Cathrodyne spirit? Surely not!”

  Ferenc hesitated, suddenly at a loss. Seizing his advantage, Ligmer hurried on, “No, of course not! Let them make their empty claims—it impresses no one except themselves. You may be sure that we, and I, will do nothing so foolish.”

  “All right!” growled Ferenc. “But bear in mind what I said, remember.”

  “Of course. They’re not all as bad as that one we shipped with, fortunately; some of them are quite levelheaded. I’m going to be working with a woman from an archeological institute on Pagr who’s something of a subversive movement so far as this kind of subject is concerned, and refuses to have any part of their nationalist boasting.”

  “It sounds unlikely,” said Ferenc curtly. "Don’t let them fool you into thinking they’re reasonable beings—they aren’t capable of it.”

  Ligmer flushed and turned away, and Ferenc, after one last hard glare at the other’s back, finally allowed a receptionist to allot him the papers for his stay.

  He saw out of the corner of his eye that the stranger, Lang, had approached Ligmer a few moments later, and was driven by curiosity to pass within earshot of their talk when he was walking toward the elevator cars. Lang was speaking.

  “. . compliment you on your attitude,” he said. Ligmer smiled in self-deprecation.

  "Oh, I mean it,” Lang was insisting. “I’ve traveled a good deal, as you know, and I always appreciate it when I find someone who doesn’t let prejudice rule his thinking.”

  Ferenc frowned, and passed on toward his elevator. He made a mental note to investigate Lang while he was here; he didn’t think Ligmer’s stability was adequate for him to be sent out here to come under Pag influence, and Lang’s remark—coming as it did from someone out of eye-range and therefore automatically regarded as a man of distinction— was apt to make the situation still worse.

  And there was another matter he ought to drop some hints about, too. That priest, Dardaino: where was the man? He glanced along the row of elevators and saw the plump figure waiting at another door for the car to arrive. He walked across and spoke authoritatively.

  “Dardaino!”

  The priest blinked a little and fingered a ceremonial symbol on his robe. Ferenc ignored the gesture; Dardaino’s creed had lost its hold on its home planet some time back.

  “Yes, my son?”

  “Officer Ferenc, if you please. Dardaino, I oughtn’t to have to say this to you, but I’d better if no one else did already. Don’t you know that this Iquida woman—the Lubarrian who came with us—represents a deliberate snub to the Cathrodynes? Haven’t you heard about the reason for her being sent here?”

  A little nervously, the priest nodded. “Yes, it struck me as odd to find her traveling with us, so I made inquiries.”

  “Yet you engaged her in conversation, and—one might almost say—attempted to make up to her. I suppose one can’t expect any better taste on your part, since you live and work among Lubarrians all the time. But one might have expected more restraint from -one whose first allegiance is to Cathrodyne.”

  Dardaino gulped. “I ... I was restrained in my behavior, I thought. She is of my own faith, after all, and it is my duty to foster the faith where I can. But I did not attempt to exercise my rights over her, in view of the circumstances. I had to express my disapproval in some way, and that was the —the most obvious.”

  “Rights over her?”

  “Why, yes—I did not bid her to my cabin, or visit hers.”

  “But isn’t she coming out here to her husband . . .?” Bells rang in Ferenc’s memory, and he checked himself. Of course. This faith of Dardaino’s incorporated some strange practices, the abusi of which had been a major factor in destroying its hold on Cathrodyne itself. Marriage, for example, was forbidden between the parents of children; all families were out- crossed, and it was considered anti-social to have more than one child by the same partner. It was, however, requisite to have a permanent partner as regards financial support and the maintenance of a home. A peculiar reversal of the system common to the other worlds of the Arm—and, so it appeared, of worlds further in-galaxy.

  “Oh yes,” said Ferenc. “Oh yes. I’d forgotten. Well, I wouldn’t have expected more self-restraint from one of your persuasion, anyway. All right.”

  He turned away, catching sight of Mrs. Iquida as he did so. Under the smiling supervision of a pretty Glaithe girl, she was climbing aboard a conveyer-chair, her eyes bright with excitement.

  Behind Ferenc, the priest was sighing loudly with relief. Ferenc spat, deliberately and conspicuously, to symbolize his cumulative disgust: with the Glaithes at the way they had made the Cathrodynes eat dust in the Iquida case, with Dardaino and his sensual, self-indulging religion, with Ligmer for his lack of proper patriotism, and lastly with himself for failing to make the Pag officer respect him.

  Well, he had business to attend to—in the intervals of pretending that he was on furlough. He found that the elevator car he wanted was waiting, and stepped into it. His last look back across the reception hall showed him that Lang, still in conversation with Ligmer, and stroking his pet animal, had his eyes on him.

  “Your—uh—compatriot didn’t seem to approve of your remarks,” Lang suggested. Ligmer shook his head.

  “Ferenc is an example of something we Cathrodynes would do better to rid ourselves of,” he said. “I’m afraid his type is all too common—although,” he added with virtuous planetary loyalty, “we’re far better off than they are on Pagr. I suppose people like Ferenc had their place when Cathrodyne was expanding; it was his kind who got us our empire on Majkosi and Lubarria. But their automatic contempt for ev
erything that isn’t Cathrodyne is out of date, I think.”

  He gestured with a hand full of papers, to indicate the severe but impressive hall in which , they stood. “It became out of date when Waystation was discovered, you might say. When it became perfectly obvious that things Cathrodyne were not superior to anything else, because Waystation is so incredibly far in advance of everything else we know.”

  “It is very remarkable,” Lang agreed, glancing around.

  “On Pagr, of course, they reacted quite characteristically. They said—as you heard from that officer we shipped with— that since everything Pag, in their view, is superior to all the rest, Waystation was built by Pags. Perfect logic! It’s their official propaganda, but luckily some few of them are intelligent enough to be able to shake themselves free of such rubbish.”

  “You’ve been here before, I take it?” Lang asked. "You know Waystation well?”

  “Nobody knows Waystation well except the Glaithes themselves,” Ligmer said with a rueful expression. “Oh, they’re very reasonable and co-operative in most respects; their only stipulation is that archeologists like myself and other investigators must not pry too closely into technical matters. Mark you, that’s a handicap in itself, because so much of Way- station’s hidden history must be bound up with technical questions—like the master memory banks, for instance. There’s knowledge in the banks that the Glaithes can’t use themselves and which they daren’t, simply daren’t, let loose indiscriminately. I suppose one can’t blame them; they know that given a free hand both we Cathrodynes and the Pags would try to seize Waystation for themselves.”

  "Yes, I already gathered that.” Lang frowned, and lifted his little pet on to his shoulder.

  “What is that thing of yours?” Ligmer inquired. “I never saw one before.”

  “Oh, it’s a creature that’s popular as a pet on some planets further in-galaxy, beyond the Arm.” Lang rubbed his head against the pet’s with a grin. “I call him Sunny. He’s company for me.”

  Ligmer was aching to ask the all-important question— where Lang actually hailed from—but somehow he hadn’t quite summoned the necessary words before Lang was speaking again.

  “How do they organize Waystation—the Glaithes, I mean?” “Well, there are about half a million Glaithes here, on the staff. It’s practically a planetary industry with them, running it. They supervise luxury-goods trading between the rival empires, who otherwise would never get a chance to trade peaceably; they act as mediators in cases like that of Iquida, whose wife came out here with us; they help keep diplomatic relations below boiling point; they provide—and this isn’t the least of their services—they provide a holiday resort for people who want a trip into space. And they run a very fine hospital with techniques they found out either for themselves or from records here.”

  “They occupy the whole station?” Lang blinked.

  “Not exactly. They lease sections—under supervision—to us and the Pags, to do more or less what we like with. It annoys some people that they also insist on leasing sections to the subject races, who are in their view only subject by right of conquest, and won’t forever remain inferior peoples. But naturally, because their home planets and all the shipping lines are under other jurisdiction the Majkos, Lubarrians, and Alchmids don’t get much chance to enjoy their theoretical advantage. I suppose the Glaithes do it because only their occupation of Waystation has kept them from falling into the hands of one or other of the empires of the Arm.” Lang was staring across toward the elevators; Ferenc was just descending. A smile played around Lang’s mouth.

  “You know,” he said, “I rather like what I hear of these Glaithes. Well, thank you for your time. I hope we shall meet again during our stay.”

  “Of course. And anything you want to know about Waystation—get in touch with me,” Ligmer invited. “I can’t guarantee to answer your questions, but I’ll try.”

  V

  Raige was after something. At first, Vykor was merely glad that this time he was spending more time with her than usual, and did not have the detachment necessary to question why. But the calm discussion, the series of precise, probing inquiries, continued, while Raige’s gende fingers stroked code combinations into her recorder.

  He warned her about the risk of explosion if Ferenc came back into contact with the Pag officer during their stay at Waystation; he gave his impression—not a very deep one—of Dardaino, reported that the bringing of Mrs. Iquida to Waystation had satisfactorily irritated the Cathrodyne authorities. But he gradually came to realize that all this was unimportant.

  That much was routine, after all. Pag and Cathrodyne were liable to explode anyway, like a hammer and fulminate of mercury, or phosphorus and sandpaper. But Raige knew all that, and allowed for it. It was her life’s work.

  And if a new factor had entered, then it was due to something unprecedented. Eliminate everything else; that left a stranger. Lang.

  But he could tell her practically nothing about Lang, except that he was so self-possessed that his imperturbability was in some peculiar way infectious. And he didn’t tell Raige that directly; he hadn’t even realized that he had noticed the fact until she elicited it from him by persistent questioning. Then he recounted how Lang had drained some of the tension from the air of the observation saloon, when Ferenc and the Pag officer were insulting each other, and he saw what he had missed previously.

  He liked to watch Raige as they talked; he liked to see the ghost-reactions which his long acquaintance had taught him to recognize: satisfaction, puzzlement, annoyance—all

  28

  showing as mere reflections in the misty mirror of her face. The subtlety of Glaithe manners appealed to him; his own people, the Majkos, might learn a lot from the Glaithes. After all, they had to conceal their own thoughts from their overlords the Cathrodynes. And for a reason more urgent than politeness—for survival’s sake.

  He had even tried to match her glacial calm. But he had failed, and given up the attempt. A lifetime of habit was necessary to achieve it.

  More: it called for intense, never-ending concentration. But it gave results, that was certain. When he first met Raige, he had been half surprised at what he saw; he had taken her for a mere girl of twenty, so smooth and unlined was her face, so graceful and unforced were her movements. Gradually he had understood that her experiences and ability could never have been gained so young, and that indeed her age must be at least twice what he had guessed at first. And her apparent youth was due to the preternatural calm she and the others of her people maintained from childhood up. Glaithe levelheadedness formed the fulcrum of the balance which they kept between Pag and Cathrodyne.

  Lang, Lang, Lang—the pattern of her questions dissolved and re-crystallized a hundred times, but always Lang was near the center of what she was hunting for. A resolution hardened in Vykor’s mind: Since Raige wanted to know more' about Lang, he would provide the information if he could.

  At last Raige closed down the recorder and set it on the padded arm of her chair, giving a wide smile. “Thank you, Vykor,” she said. "You have as usual been most helpful.”

  “But not nearly helpful enough,” Vykor objected. “I have given you very little that you did not know already.”

  The ghost-reaction which he had learned to read indicated that she was surprised, inclined to deny what he had said, but unable to because it was true.

  She shrugged, finally. “Yet more could not have been asked; not even I know what it is we really wish to discover. Thank you in any case. And I will see you again before your ship blasts off, with the replies to your group’s dispatches.”

  She rose to her feet and bent her body in a neat formal bow; Vykor tried to match it, aware that his version was clumsy and awkward compared to hers, and found himself almost without warning outside in the passage again. The elevator door opposite was dark, indicating that the car was at some other level—not surprisingly, since the visits it paid to these hidden premises must be very few
.

  He reached out to touch the call button, and then drew back as a sudden surge of excitement raced through him. How long would it take to cover the twenty paces to the T- junctions at the end of the short, straight corridor he stood in? Three seconds? And then at least he would be able to look beyond the limits . . .

  He didn’t wait long enough to develop qualms, this time; he decided and acted and was noiselessly striding toward the left-hand intersection. At the comer, he stopped and craned his head round the sharp right-angle of the bulkhead.

  His disappointment was acute. There was merely another corridor like the one he knew—rather narrow, rather dim, lit only by the orange neon strips, with plain doors in its walls. It was the same in both directions.

  And once again, a T-junction blocked off his view twenty paces away.

  Reluctantly, he began to turn away, back to the elevator. And as he started to move, soft footfalls fell on his ears— light, brushing footsteps, made by a woman or a lightly built man in soft-soled shoes. He flattened himself against the wall and once more craned his head around the corner.

  And Lang walked across the intersection at which he was staring.

  It must be Lang. A hundred other people in Waystation might have his build, his gait, his type of clothing. But who else in Waystation would carry on his shoulder a black-furred pet animal?

  Vykor stayed frozen with astonishment for a long moment after Lang had disappeared, arguing with himself. If Lang was a stranger to Waystation, how had he so rapidly entered this area, which the Glaithes kept secret from all but a few outsiders? By mistake? By accident? Or from prior knowledge? The odds against accidental entry seemed incredibly high.