The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  Again, he set out, looking for Hatha throughout as much of the rambling quarters as he could move around in; but he looked in vain, and found no trace of him. Hatha was gone, and apparently so was Liszendir. After wasting the greater part of the day with guards and clerks who either knew nothing or would admit to nothing, Han finally located a subordinate of the hetman’s who still possessed a little initiative, who agreed after considerable persuasion to send a recall out by heliograph. But he could not promise that it would be answered. “The hetman,” he said, “comes and goes as he chooses.” Han gritted his teeth with impatience; it might take days to find him, and what he had to do could not be done with anyone else. The rest of the ler Warriors around Hatha neither trusted Han nor would they pay any attention to him whatsoever. Why should they, he reflected. Han, like Usteyin, was not a person. He was, in fact, now no less a pet than the girl.

  He returned, enthusiasm blunted, to the little quarters where Usteyin waited. As Han came into the room, he saw her sitting quietly in her corner, as he had come to think of it, going through her morning routine: a thorough combing-out of the fine, copper-colored hair, to be followed by a short nap. He went over to her and settled down beside her. We will, he thought, still have some days left together; and then, either many more, or none at all. He touched the girl’s hair lightly.

  “Show me how to do this, with that.” He pointed to the little comb, seemingly undersize, which she used so expertly. Usteyin slowly handed it to him, a wondering expression on her face. He continued, “And I will show you some other things, which I hope will make you happy. Others ...”

  Hatha did not appear that day, nor the following one: So, having caught a moment of time, they had time to consider, to decide, and to try the feel of it on for size. It fitted them both better than either would have hoped.

  As he spent more time with her, he learned something else about the girl Usteyin: she learned fast, blindingly fast, much faster even than he had suspected at first. He had a lot to expose her to, and he went slowly at first. At times she balked, or would cry in frustration, but she would recover, immediately, and they would go on. Gradually, Usteyin learned all about a world she had suddenly been born into. But if Han had worried at the first about turning the universe loose on her, it was now the other way around—he worried about turning her loose on the universe. And once it was brought out of her, into the open, she had a matter-of-factness that was even more abrupt than Liszendir’s.

  “So if you catch the fat one again, then we may go back to your home, to the wild-ones-who-are-people? And you want me, a Zlat, for all time you can see? Do you not have others whom you would want more?”

  “Indeed I do not.”

  “It is a hard thing to see, for me. Your world. I will not know how to behave with decorum.”

  “I will show you, and you will act as you wish. Do you want this thing?”

  “If you were offering to send me there alone, I would say no. But I will go with you, and I will stay. Do not fear! I have made my mind the same way you have made yours. I feel something with you I did not know even existed for creatures of the world. Only in story-blocks. But I ask one thing of you.”

  “Ask, Usteyin.”

  “Please do not make me take the hair off my legs. That is the most prized Zlat trait. I will cover myself, if that is your way, curious though it seems. Do your women not think they are beautiful, that they have to hide what they are, and then show only certain parts? Would you cut off the hair on your head?”

  “No. And you can keep it. I have grown to like it, too.” He stroked the fine, silky hair which covered her lower legs to the ankles. He had, he admitted to himself, indeed grown very fond of it. As he sat, absentminded, he noticed her looking at him, expectantly, shyly.

  “Now come closer to me, here. I wish to nibble on you some more,” she said softly. “Of all the things we have done together, that is the sweetest.”

  So the days and nights passed. And he did not grow tired of her. She had aspects, sides, angles which he had not been aware of at first, but which unfolded, like some vastly accelerated recording of a plant, developing. But the day came when Hatha returned, and their time was over. Han was notified as soon as he had come back into the compound. It was suppertime, and Hatha summoned him. Han asked to take Usteyin, and to his surprise, Hatha agreed, although with a cynical leer Han found disturbing, and dangerous.

  Liszendir was waiting for them, in the hall where they were to gather. Han looked at her closely: she appeared to be tired, drawn, overworked. Whatever had been happening, she was being pushed close to her limits, somehow. He did not think it was physical, but something deeper. The strain of cooperating with the Warriors was beginning to tell on her. And as far as he could see, she did not know what he thought he knew, which made this temporary cooperation much easier. And she did not have an Usteyin.

  Hatha would not hear any talk until the meal was over. He was, he announced, a bit worn himself. Han restrained himself, with difficulty; but at last, the moment came. Hatha spoke.

  “I see that you have done wonders with your new friend. I, too, can no longer bring myself to refer to her as a mere possession, a pet, a breed. You have undone in a few days what it took us thousands of years to do. She is now human. You will realize what this accomplishment means. She can never go back to the Zlats, or even be allowed near one again. She knows entirely too much for her scope. Yours I overlook, for it arose in an erroneous society; but hers is new, special. So if she went back, I think she would very likely become, ah, fatally unhappy with her place.” It was a reminder and a threat. He was in very ill-temper, tonight.

  But Han went ahead anyway. “There are many things which have been bothering me, since I came to this planet Dawn.”

  “Some valuable, some inconsequential rubbish.” Hath scoffed.

  “May I ask you some questions? I suspect something. And if I am wrong, then I will keep silent forever; but if I am right, even partly right, then you yourself will not wait for me to ask for action. You will demand it!”

  “Indeed? Well, then—proceed!”

  “How long ago was the Hammerhand built?”

  “Not so very long ago. That is no secret. About twenty of your so-called standard years ago.” A relay closed in Han’s mental picture. Step one, verified. The rest grew brighter and clearer by a degree.

  “How did this happen? Did you just think it up, or did someone suggest it?”

  “It was acted upon in the great council. Some of us, who were junior at the time, thought to enlarge our scope, to assume our rightful place in the universe.”

  “Who brought it up?”

  “As a fact, I did.”

  “Where did you get the idea?”

  “To be more truthful than I prefer, it came from a valued associate. But it was I who acted decisively.”

  “And you did well. Who was the valued associate?”

  “Aving, in company with his three sons.” Relay two closed. The image was coming into shape fast now.

  “Did you know Aving before this?”

  “Ahh, this is nonsense. I grow tired. I have not been so shabbily interrogated since I was a buck.”

  “If you will grant me the liberty of asking a few more questions, I will do you and the Warriors a service that you will judge to be greater than Aving’s.”

  “How could that be? You are nothing but a wild klesh and a prisoner. But go on a little more. A little. Only a little. Now, Aving. No, I did not know Aving, then. The position he held had been vacant, defunct. He took it over. I assumed he came up from the ler folk of the upper troughs. They are, by and large, an unassuming folk, and such ambition would be rare, but valuable. He came here.”

  “Did you check his origins? Do you know, personally, where he came from?”

  “No. I would have no reason to. He was ler, he came to the Warriors.”

  “Has anyone ever seen him or his so-called sons unclothed?”

  “Ridiculous and i
mpertinent! No. Their Triad . . . No. I do not know.”

  “If you look as you may, you will not find one who has mated with any of them.”

  “That would take days. And for what? We are a restrained folk, compared to you, or to these overcivilized ler of which this girl, Liszendir, is a specimen.”

  “This is my suspicion: Aving is not a native of Dawn. He, if you can call him that, if his people even have sex as we know it, and gender, is very likely neither human nor ler. Check with your oversexes. They will have had no contact. Aving has set up a vile thing here; he is a spy, and worse. He is using the Warriors, your culture, to perform his own ends.”

  Hatha was on his feet instantly. Mad, raging. This was perilous, now, if he had not planted the tiniest seed of doubt. Usteyin already had heard his suspicions, and agreed. In fact, she had been able to fill in considerable detail. He glanced at her: she was rigid, tense, waiting. But Liszendir was just catching on. Yes! She saw it, too.

  “What is it you say? Do you seek to sow dissent? I will put you in a cage! I will . . .”

  “Wait! Who rebuilt the ship?”

  “Guards! Guards! Here! . . . Who built the ship? That makes no difference! I will ... Aving and his sons built it.” He paused, reflecting, suddenly sober. The guards rushed in. He waved them to a halt.

  “And they took it off-planet, didn’t they?”

  “Well, yes, after some local repairs. They said they needed weightlessness, to make the changes.”

  “Could you ever see the ship from the surface of Dawn?”

  “No. They said they were to fly to the gas giant—the one we call Pesha. For certain tests.”

  “How did you explain their knowledge?”

  “We accepted their word, their Warriors’ words, after they had been initiated. They said that the family had been studying the holy books, the old manuals, and that they had discovered a new way out of the old. Well? We could not use it for much as it was. They seemed . . . But they were gone for a year. A Dawn year. I had not looked at this in this way before. But I fail to see, even if what you say is true, how this affects things. It makes no difference. We have the weapon, we have used it, and we can use it in the future against whomever we choose.”

  “Hatha, a weapon is only as powerful as the uses to which it is put, and the defenses used against it. Arrows daunt those who have none, but those with armor and shields merely laugh as they cut the archers down. Liszendir tells me that your ship once had extensive detection equipment on it. What happened to it all? I saw none, on that tour you took me on.”

  “They said that it was not necessary.” He was still not convinced. But he was wavering.

  “Listen. I will tell you something you do not know. In mine and Liszendir’s ship, a little ship, which you fly manually, knowing nothing of what it can do, I could detect you long before you even were aware of my existence; and then I could inflict enough damage on yours to immobilize that monster out there. Mine and hers! And ours is the smallest one made with arms! Do you know what would happen if you took the Hammerhand into a real battle? They would carve you up like meat! Conquest! You fool, you’d stir up a war for someone else’s profit, and pay all the costs yourself. Oh, sure, the first planet you hit, you’d probably win. But then the armed ships would come, from the other worlds, and ler ships, too, filled with warriors who give no quarter, once you use a projectile weapon against people, a planetary population. Who was it that told you to capture wild humans?”

  “It was Aving . . .”

  “Of course. He wanted the Warriors to be seen. Identified. Reported. As they were. Otherwise, how would anyone know the Warriors were ler? Did you know that while you were lurking around Chalcedon that Aving was back in our civilization, visiting?”

  “When?”

  “Before Liszendir and I came to Chalcedon. He made sure that the news got back, and then he killed him, Efrem.”

  “That’s impossible. I don’t understand. How could he get there? He was here, in the camp, when we left on the raid. And I commanded the only spaceship on Dawn.”

  “Crap. Khashet manure. He waited until you left, then went to his own ship, shadowed you. While you were playing around Chalcedon, he was waiting somewhere nearby, waiting for a response. Then, before you left, he returned here. He left Seabright after us. But we detected his ship decelerating for Chalcedon, so he had passed us in midflight.”

  Liszendir broke in wildly. “Yes! Yes! It was he who we ler did not know, who wanted only two of us to journey to Chalcedon, not a fleet!”

  “We shall see if Aving will admit to this.”

  “No. I have a better idea. Take your guards with you, and go to my ship. We will fly, and find the anomaly I saw as we flew here. Then you will see, and then you can come back here, get the big ship, and treat it to the sting of its own lash. Only let us all stay together, now.”

  “And if you are wrong . . . ?”

  “No, I am not! And there is more. They would incite a war, identify the tool, and afterwards see all the evidence destroyed. Do your people know how stars evolve?”

  “Evolve? No. Are they not eternal?”

  “Great gods of history, Hatha! Your star out there is too big. It’s going to explode, and I’ll bet within a few years. Before anyone could work back to this isolated planet, and uncover the truth. That would seal up the evidence for sure. Aving would know; that is why he chose this planet as a base of operations. It had everything he needed—a steerable, primitive culture, complete ignorance of the inner civilized parts of this part of the galaxy, and something which would eradicate all the evidence that anything had ever been done here. And you had a spaceship you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, fly. A little cosmetic surgery, small price to pay, and he was in. What he couldn’t know was that the ler here were devolving into a more primitive form, from the repeated bursts of hard radiation that gets in when your planet, Dawn, reverses polarity of its magnetic field. They might have known a few things, but not that kind of detailed information, to compare, which Liszendir would see instantly, and even I caught after a little time. You talk about superior types, Hatha, but I’d be willing to bet that the Warriors are no better on the whole than the wild humans of the Leilas area, and your pets may very well be superior to you. The only thing that would keep them from taking over is the ingrained belief that they themselves are not people, but animals. How could they think otherwise? They have no native primates, or even mammals, on Dawn with which to compare themselves.”

  Liszendir said sadly, “It is true, every word of it. I see its sense, now. You have lost Multispeech, this I know, not just forgotten it, or let it fall into misuse. Your people are indeed devolving; you don’t even know what standards are except for the physical ones you impose on your pets, like this girl, Usteyin.”

  Hatha’s face was blank, and his only response to this sudden revelation was to turn and gaze at Usteyin. When he did speak, it was towards her, but the tone was abstracted and distant, as if he were ruminating to himself.

  “I have not believed them until now, of course, but we have several legends which speak to that effect—that the people of the past were somehow greater than we are today. This is the root of our desire to annex the older worlds and bring them to the realization of the great truth. And we have other legends, too. About the Zlats, in particular. It has been said that the Zlats have supernatural powers, that they are waiting, biding their time, until the day when they shall all speak a great spell in unison and in an instant they, not the Warriors, will be the masters of Dawn. When did it arise? I cannot say. I have heard that they know something which cannot be realized until they are all together; hence comes the prohibitions about gathering more than a few together.”

  Usteyin looked directly at Hatha. “So I have also heard. But I can give you no knowledge of how it would be done, for I do not know myself. That has never been said. Only that we would know when the moment had come, and we would know what to do. Then. I have always felt it just a story,
that we would never do it. Just a story. And win or lose here, in this, I foresee that it will not come to pass. You will escape us. But we would have treated you with some honor, for though we hated you deep inside, we were also grateful, for without the Warriors, there would have been no Zlats, no what-we-are.”

  Han said, “I have nothing from you to be grateful for. You have favored me, but you have brought misery to uncounted millions, and ruined your own people as well. I would wish my own revenge, therefore, but I will not have it, because there is a greater danger, and I would not see any people be used as you have here.”

  Hatha asked, “Everything but reason. Motivation. Why would they—if there is a they—do such a thing as this, a task which at best would take years?”

  Liszendir answered, “They are probably an old race, and are now declining in numbers. They will have exhausted the energy potential of the worlds they control, and would seek others. Only they know that now they cannot conquer by force. But we both are still expanding, full of low-energy demands, since the first runaway days. They will take us who have saved, and live like lords after we have worn ourselves out fighting each other. It will be like nothing you can imagine.”

  “One more thing, Hatha.” Han said, getting to his feet. “The gun.”

  “Gun?”

  “The one you had on Chalcedon. Where did you get it?”

  He looked like a bear at bay. He moved from one foot to the other, uncertainly, vaguely. “The air gun came with the ship!” he blurted out.