by Various
Naran released his pressure and stepped back.
"All right," he said. "Let's forget it. Now, we'll get breakfast over with and then we'll take care of the long-necks. You take the drivers out, Rosel. I'm going to make some arrangements in the village. Be with you later." He swung away.
* * * * *
Barra looked at his reflection with satisfaction. It was too bad, he thought, that he didn't have some companion to appreciate his wealth and power. He examined his equipment carefully.
Everything was clean. Everything was in order. There was no device lacking.
Proudly, he looked down at the huge, yellow pendant he was wearing for the first time. It was funny, he thought, that he had never considered a probe unit before. Now that he thought of it, this was a most satisfactory device. Now, he could look into his villagers' minds and see clearly what lay there. Even, he could get some ideas of the intentions of visiting caravan masters.
Fitting the device and becoming familiar with it had been hard work, of course, but he had mastered it. And today, he could wear the jewel and use it. It would make the day's work easier.
He activated his levitator, floated to his boat, and pulled it away from its shelter, setting the course toward Tibara.
The hard part of this operation was over, he thought. The rest was simple routine.
This caravan master had given him a bit more trouble than some of the others, but his final reaction had been just like all the others. He smiled.
That flash of incredulity, followed by sudden, horrified comprehension, then blankness, was becoming perfectly familiar. In fact, even this was simple routine.
He wondered if he might be able to extend just a little. Perhaps he could operate on a wider scale. There should be some way he could work out to take over a neighboring estate and go from there.
Surely, there must be some outlet for his abilities, beyond mere increase in the wealth of Kira Barra. And there must be some way to gain a companion of sorts. He would have to think that over.
He swung the boat to the pier and floated away, grandly ignoring the pseudomen who hurried to secure his lines.
He examined the village with approval as he stood in the center of the clearing. There had been a great improvement since he had taken that headman in hand. Perhaps this fellow would be satisfactory--might even learn to take some pride in the appearance of his village--if, that is, a pseudoman were capable of pride.
He looked over toward the headman's hut.
The fellow had come out, followed by the lead driver of the caravan. Good, that would save the trouble of hunting the fellow out.
He concentrated on the caravan slave.
"Your master has decided to remain at the Residence for a time," he thought confidently. "You may have your drivers load up and move to a more permanent location."
The answering thought was unexpectedly distinct.
"This location looks as though it were designed for a caravan's stay. Where's Dar Girdek?"
Barra looked at the man in surprise. What was this? This fellow didn't think like any pseudoman. Had Dar Girdek somehow managed to persuade a halfman to act as his lead driver? But why?
He drew back a little, tensing. There was something wrong here.
"Now, look," persisted the man before him. "I'd like to see Dar Girdek. I'd like to know why I haven't been able to get in touch with him this morning."
Barra blinked, then activated the new probe. He would have to find out what this man knew--how much others might know. Abruptly, he felt a violent return of the fear sickness which had temporarily subsided with the death of Dar Girdek.
The probe was met by an impenetrable barrier. Barra's eyes widened. This man was no halfman, either. He was one of the great psionics. Frantically, Barra's thought retraced the past.
Was this an investigator from the Council? Was he, Kio Barra, suspect? But how had any leak occurred? The fear grew, till he could almost smell the sour stench of it. And with it, came a buoying lift of pure fury.
This man may have unmasked him, to be sure. The Council might even now be sending men to take him, but this spy would never know the results of his work. He would profit nothing here.
He flipped the distorter from under his arm.
* * * * *
As the Master Protector started to raise his distorter, Naran felt a sharp twinge of regret. He had resigned himself to this, and had made his preparations, but he hated to leave Barra to someone else. Of course, the man had no chance now. The disturbance he had keyed himself to make if he were hit with a distorter would be heard by every scholar in Ganiadur, and by half the Council. But--
Suddenly, he felt a sort of pity for the killer before him. The guy wasn't really altogether to blame. He'd been living for all these years with everything against him.
Born into a psionic family, he had been the family skeleton--a thing of disgrace--to be hidden from the rest of the world and given tolerant protection.
And when this barely tolerated being had managed somehow to gain power and get amplifying devices? Well--
The crystal was leveled at him now. He looked at it indifferently, thinking of the man who held it.
"Poor, lonesome weakling!"
Abruptly, the clearing was lit up by a blinding red glare. Naran closed his eyes against the searing light. Seconds went by and he opened his eyes again, looking about the village in confusion.
Had he somehow managed to retain full consciousness of ego, even after being reduced by a distorter beam? Was there a release into some other state of being? He had felt no--
He looked at Kio Barra. The man stood, slack-faced, still holding his distorter rod, but gradually allowing it to sag toward the ground. Naran shook his head.
"Now, what goes on?"
He probed at the man's mind.
There was consciousness. The man could think, but the thoughts were dim and blurred, with no trace of psionic carrier. The control and amplifier jewels he wore had lost their inner fire--were merely dull, lifeless reflectors of the sunlight. This man could do no more toward bringing life to the jewels than could the village headman--perhaps, even less.
Naran looked at him in unbelieving confusion, then turned as a sudden, screaming thought struck his mind.
"A stinking, high-nosed witchman! And we thought he was one of us! Ate with him. Argued with him. Even fought with him. I've got to get away. Got to!"
There was desperation in the thought. And there were hatred overtones, which blended, then swelled.
As the terrorized ululation went on, Naran swung his head, locating the source. He'd have to do something about that--fast. The fellow would really demoralize the caravan now--even infect the big saurians--cause a stampede.
This guy had some power of projection and his terror was intensifying it till anyone could receive the disturbing impulses, even though complete understanding might be lacking.
Naran lifted himself from the ground, arrowing rapidly toward the caravan, his mind already forming the thoughts which he hoped would soothe the frantic fear and--at least to some degree--allay the frenzy of hatred that swelled and became stronger and stronger.
Barra could wait.
* * * * *
As Barra swung his distorter to bear, he concentrated on the violent pulse needed to trigger the jewel, his mind closed to all else. He turned his attention on his target.
Suddenly, he recognized the curiously tender expression which had formed on the face of the man before him.
Frantically, he tried to revise his thoughts--to recall the blaze of energy he had concentrated to build up.
It was too late.
With a sense of despair, he recognized the sudden, lifting, twisting agony that accompanied the flare of the overloaded power crystal. For an eternal instant, his universe was a blinding, screaming, red nightmare.
The flare died and he watched dully as the unharmed man before him looked about unbelievingly, then looked back to carefully examine him.
"Oh,"
he told himself dully. "I suppose they'll take care of me, but what of it? They'll put me somewhere. I'll lose everything. It'll be just like the place Boemar thought of sending me, when I--"
Furiously, he tried to summon some tiny bit of energy to activate the distorter.
Nothing happened.
The man whose pity had destroyed him suddenly frowned, then turned and darted away. Dully, Barra watched him, then he turned, to look around the village. His face contorted in new terror.
Some of the village men were moving toward him, curious expressions on their faces. He backed away from them and turned.
A few more had moved to block his path.
They were grunting and hissing to each other. Barra looked from face to face, then looked over toward the well.
There were men over there, too, by the pile of stones. The old man who worked on the retaining walls of the village had picked up some of his building material.
He stood, eying Barra calculatingly, a stone poised in each hand.
THE END
* * *
Contents
IMPACT
By IRVING E. COX, Jr.
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.
