Spartan Planet

by A Bertram Chandler

"And so do men at times." The King grinned, his teeth very white in his dark, bearded face. "We become ferocious, and we smile, when councilmen presume to tell us our business." He raised his voice. "Guards! Remove this man."

  "But, sire . . ."

  "Enough."

  There was a scuffle at the back of the chamber as the doctor was hustled out by four hoplites. Brasidus noticed, with grim satisfaction, that none of the man's scarlet-robed colleagues made any move to defend him. He thought, Cresphontes knows where his real strength lies. With us, the military.

  "Lieutenant Commander Grimes!"

  "Your Majesty?"

  "We have decided that you may carry out your survey. You and your officers and men, both human and Arcadian, may leave your ship—but only as arranged with our Captain Diomedes, and only under escort. Is that quite clear?"

  "Quite clear, Your Majesty. We shall see only what we are allowed to see."

  "You have made a correct assessment of the situation. And now, as we have matters of import to discuss with our Council, you are dismissed."

  Grimes saluted and then, slowly, he and Margaret Lazenby backed from the royal presence. Brasidus accompanied them. Beyond the door to the throne room the escort fell in about them.

  As they marched out of the palace to the waiting car, Grimes asked, "Brasidus, what will happen to that doctor? The one who was dragged out of the chamber?"

  "He will he beheaded, probably. But he is lucky."

  "Lucky?"

  "Yes. If he were not a doctor and a councilman, he could have his arms and legs lopped off before being exposed on the hillside with the defective children."

  "You're joking, Brasidus!" exclaimed Margaret Lazenby.

  "Joking? Of course not."

  The Arcadian turned to Grimes. "John, can't we do something?"

  Grimes shook his head. "Anything that we could do would mean the death of more than one man. Besides, our strict orders are not to interfere."

  "It is expedient," said Margaret Lazenby bitterly, "that one man should die for the good of the people."

  "Careful, Peggy. This place may be bugged. Remember that we aren't members of the Council."

  "Spoken like a true naval officer of these decadent days. I often think that the era of gunboat diplomacy had much to recommend it."

  Chapter 12

  THEY RODE BACK to the spaceport almost in silence. Brasidus realized that the two foreigners had been shocked when told of the probable fate of Pausanius. But why should they be? He could not understand it. Surely on their world, on any world, insolence toward the King himself must result in swift and drastic punishment. To make their reaction even stranger, the doctor had spoken against them, not for them.

  They sped through the streets of the city, one chariot rattling ahead of the hovercar, the second astern of it. There were more people abroad now, more sightseers; word must have gotten around that aliens from the ship were at large. Citizen and helot, every man stared with avid curiosity at the Arcadian.

  Margaret Lazenby shuddered. He muttered, "John, I don't like this planet at all, at all. I'd have said once that to be one woman in a world of men would be marvelous. But it's not. I'm being undressed by dozens of pairs of eyes. Do you know, I was afraid that the King was going to order me to strip."

  "That shouldn't worry an Arcadian," John Grimes told him. "After all, you're all brought up as nudists."

  "And I don't see why it should worry him," Brasidus put in, "unless he is ashamed of his deformities."

  Margaret Lazenby flared, "To begin with, Sergeant, I'm not deformed. Secondly, the correct pronouns to use insofar as I am concerned are 'she' and 'her.' Got it?"

  "And are those pronouns to be used when talking of the other spacemen who are similarly . . . malformed?" asked Brasidus.

  "Yes. But, as a personal favor, will you, please, stop making remarks about the shape of my body?"

  "All right." Then he said, meaning no offense, "On Sparta nobody is deformed."

  "Not physically," remarked Margaret Lazenby nastily, and then it was the Sergeant's turn to lapse into a sulky silence, one that remained unbroken all the rest of the way to the ship.

  Brasidus left the spacemen at the barrier, then reported to Spaceport Security. Diomedes was seated in his inner office, noisily enjoying his midday meal. He waved the Sergeant to a bench, gestured toward the food and drink on the table. "Help yourself, young man. And how did things go? Just the important details. I already know that the King has agreed to let Grimes carry out some sort of survey, and I've just received word that Pausanius has lost his head. But what were your impressions?"

  Deliberately Brasidus filled a mug with beer. Officers were allowed stronger liquor than the lower-ranking hoplites, even those with the status of sergeant. He rather hoped that the day would soon come when he would be able to enjoy this tipple in public. He gulped pleasurably. Then he said, "It must be a funny world that they come from. To begin with, they didn't seem to have any real respect for the King. Oh, they were correct enough, but . . . I could sense, somehow, that they were rather looking down on him. And then . . . they were shocked, sir, really shocked when I told them what was going to happen to Pausanius. It's hard to credit."

  "In my job I'm ready and willing to credit anything. But go on."

  "This Margaret Lazenby, the Arcadian. She seems to have a terror of nudity."

  "She, Brasidus?"

  "Yes, sir. She told me to refer to her as 'she'. Do you know, it sounds and feels right, somehow."

  "Go on."

  "You'll remember, sir, that we saw a picture in Lieutenant Commander Grimes' cabin of what seemed to be a typical beach scene on Arcadia. Everybody was naked."

  "H'm. But you will recall that in that picture humans and Arcadians were present in roughly equal numbers. To know that one is in all ways inferior is bad enough. To be inferior and in the minority—that's rather much. His—or her—attitude as far as this world is concerned makes sense, Brasidus. But how did it come up?"

  "She said, when we were driving back through the city, that she felt as though she were being undressed by the eyes of all the people looking at her. (Why should she have that effect on humans? I'm always wondering myself what she is like under her uniform.) And she said that she was afraid that King Cresphontes was going to order her to strip in front of him and the Council."

  "Men are afflicted by peculiar phobias, Brasidus. You've heard of Teleclus, of course?"

  "The Lydian general, sir?"

  "The same. A very brave man, as his record shows. But let a harpy get into his tent and he's a gibbering coward." He picked up a meaty bone, gnawed on it meditatively. "So don't run away with the idea that this Arcadian is outrageously unhuman in his—or 'her'—reactions." He smiled greasily. "She may be more human than you dream."

  "What are you getting at, sir? What do you know?"

  Diomedes waved the bone playfully at Brasidus. "Only what my officers tell me. Apart from that—I'm Security, so nobody tells me anything. Which reminds me, there's something I must tell you. Your little friend Achron has been ringing this office all morning, trying to get hold of you." He frowned. "I don't want you to drop him like a hot cake now that you've acquired a new playmate."

  "What new playmate, sir?"

  "Oh, never mind, never mind. Just keep in with Achron, that's all. We still want to find out what's going on at the crèche, alien ships or no alien ships. As I've said—and I think you'll agree—it seems to tie in."

  "But, sir, wouldn't it be simple just to stage a raid?"

  "I like my job, Brasidus—but I like the feel of my head on my shoulders much better. The doctors are the most powerful branch of the priesthood. This Pausanius, do you think that the King would have acted as he did if he hadn't known that he, Pausanius, was in bad with his own colleagues? All that happened was that he got himself a public execution instead of a very private one."

  "It all seems very complicated, Captain."

  "You can say that ag
ain, Brasidus." Diomedes tossed his bone into the trash basket. "Now . . ." He picked up a sheaf of crumpled, grease-stained papers from the untidy table. "We have to consider your future employment. You'll not be required for escort duties this afternoon. I shall be arranging his itinerary with Lieutenant Commander Grimes. And tomorrow the bold space commander and his Arcadian sidekick will not be escorted by yourself."

  "And why not, sir?"

  "Because you'll be working—working with your hands. You've plainclothes experience. You can mix with helots as one of them and get away with it. This afternoon you pay a call on Alessis, who is both an engineer and—but let it go no further—on our payroll. Tomorrow Alessis with a gang of laborers will carry out the annual overhaul of the refrigerating machinery in the Andronicus warehouse. You will be one of the laborers."

  "But I don't know anything about refrigeration, sir."

  "Alessis should be able to teach you all that a common laborer should know this afternoon."

  "But the other helots, sir. They'll know that I'm not a regular member of the gang."

  "They won't. Alessis has just recruited green labor from at least half a dozen outlying villages. You'll be the one big-city boy in the crowd. Oh, this will please you. Your friend Heraklion will not be in the crèche. He has been called urgently to his estate. It seems that a fire of unknown origin destroyed his farm outbuildings."

  "Unknown origin, sir?"

  "Of course."

  "But what has the Andronicus warehouse to do with the crèche?"

  "I don't know yet. But I hope to find out."

  Brasidus returned to the barracks in Diomedes' car, changed there into civilian clothes. He had been given the address of Alessis' office, walked there briskly. The engineer—a short, compact man in a purple-trimmed tunic—was expecting him. He said, "Be seated, Lieutenant. And I warn you now that tomorrow, on the job, I shall be addressing you as 'Hey, you!' "

  "I'm used to plainclothes work, sir."

  "As a helot?"

  "Yes. As a helot."

  "As a stupid helot?"

  "If that is what's required."

  "It will be. You're going to wander off by yourself and get lost. You'll be tracing the gas-supply main—that will be your story if anybody stumbles on you. I was supposed to be giving you an afternoon's tuition in refrigeration techniques, but that will not be necessary. All I ask of my helots is that they lift when I tell them to lift, put down when I tell them to put down, and so on and so forth. They're the brawn and I'm the brain. Get it?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good. Can you read a plan?"

  "I can."

  "Splendid." Alessis got up, opened a drawer of his desk and pulled out a large roll of tough paper. He flattened it out. "Now, this is the basement of the Andronicus warehouse. Power supply comes in here," his stubby forefinger jabbed, "through a conduit. Fans here, compressors here—all the usual. The cold chambers are all on the floor above—with the exception of this one. Deep freeze—very deep freeze, in fact."

  "There's no reason why it shouldn't be in the basement."

  "None at all. And there's no reason why it shouldn't be up one floor, with the other chambers. But it's not its location that's odd."

  "Then what is?"

  "It's got two doors, Brasidus. One opening into the basement, the other one right at the back. I found this second door, quite by chance, when I was checking the insulation."

  "And where does it lead to?"

  "That is the question. I think, although I am not sure, that there is a tunnel behind it. And I think that the tunnel runs to the crèche."

  "But why?"

  Alessis shrugged. "That's what our mutual friend Diomedes wants to find out."

  Chapter 13

  A BLACK, WINDOWLESS CUBE, ugly, forbidding, the Andronicus warehouse stood across the cobbled street from the gracefully proportioned crèche complex. To its main door, a few minutes before 0800 hours, slouched the gang of workmen employed by Alessis, among them Brasidus. He was wearing dirty, ill-fitting coveralls, and he was careful not to walk with a military stride, proceeded with a helot's shamble.

  The other men looked at him, and he looked at them. He saw a bunch of peasantry from the outlying villages, come to the city to (they vaguely hoped) better themselves. They saw a man like themselves, but a little cleaner, a little better fed, a little more intelligent. There were grunted self-introductions. Then, "You'll be the foreman?" asked one of the workmen.

  "No," admitted Brasidus. "He'll be along with Alessis."

  The engineer arrived in his hovercar, his foreman riding with him. They got out of the vehicle and the foreman went to the doorway, pressed the bell push set to one side of it. Then he said, "Jump to it. Get the tools out of the car." Brasidus—his years of training were not easily sloughed off—took the lead, swiftly formed an efficient little working party to unload spanners, hammers, gas cylinders and electrical equipment. He heard the foreman say to his employer, "Who's that new man, sir? We could use a few more like him."

  Slowly the door opened. It was thick, Brasidus noted. It appeared to be armored. It looked capable of withstanding a chariot charge, or even the fire of medium artillery. It would have been more in keeping with a fortress than a commercial building. In it stood a man dressed in the gray tunic of an industrialist. That made him a helot, although one of a superior class. Nonetheless, his salutation of Alessis was not that of an inferior to a superior. There could even have been a hint of condescension.

  The maintenance gang filed into the building—the engineer and his foreman unhampered, Brasidus and the others carrying the gear. So far there was little to be seen—just a long, straight corridor between featureless metal walls, terminating in yet another door. But it was all so clean, so sterile, impossibly so for Sparta. It reminded Brasidus of the interior of John Grimes' ship, but even that, by comparison, had a lived-in feel to it.

  The farther door was heavily insulated. Beyond it was a huge room, crowded with machinery, the use of which Brasidus could only guess. Pumps, perhaps, and compressors, and dozens of white-faced gauges. Nothing was in motion; every needle rested at zero.

  "Have you everything you want, Alessis?" asked the industrialist.

  "I think so. Nothing's been giving any trouble since the last overhaul?"

  "No. I need hardly tell you that the deep freeze is, as always, top priority. But Hera's not due for another couple of months."

  "Not to worry, what's the hurry?" quipped the engineer. Then, to his foreman, "O.K., Cimon, you can start taking the main compressor down. One of you"—he looked over his workmen carefully although making a decision—"come with me to the basement to inspect the deep freeze. You'll do, fellow. Bring a hammer and a couple of screwdrivers. And a torch."

  Brasidus opened the hatch in the floor for Alessis and then, as he followed the engineer down to the lower level, managed to shut it after himself. It was not difficult; the insulation, although thick, was light. In the basement there was more machinery seeming, thought Brasidus, to duplicate the engines on the floor above. It, too, was silent. And there was the huge, insulated door that he, as instructed by Alessis, opened.

  The chamber beyond it was not cooled, but a residual chill seemed to linger in the still air. Physical or psychological? Or psychic? There was . . . something, some influence, some subtle emanation, that resulted in a slight, involuntary shudder, a sudden, prickly gooseflesh. It was as though there were a million voices—subsonic? supersonic? on the verge of audibility—crying out to be heard, striving, in vain, to impart a message. The voices of the dead? Brasidus must have spoken aloud, for Alessis said, "Or the not yet born."

  "What do you mean?" demanded Brasidus. "What do you mean?"

  "I . . . I don't know, Lieutenant. It seemed that the words were spoken to me by someone, by something outside."

  "But this is only a deep-freeze chamber, sir."

  "It is only a deep-freeze chamber—but it has too many doors."

  "
I can't see the second one."

  "No. It is concealed. I found it only by accident. You see that panel? Take your screwdriver and remove the holding screws."

  In spite of his unfamiliarity with power tools, with tools of any kind, Brasidus accomplished the job in a few seconds. Then, with Alessis' help, he pried the insulated panel out from the wall, lifted it to one side. There was a tunnel beyond it, high enough so that a tall man could walk without stooping, wide enough so that bulky burdens could be carried along it with ease. There were pipes and conduits on the roof of the tunnel, visible in the light of the torches.

  "An alternative freezing system," explained Alessis. "Machinery in the crèche itself. I'm not supposed to know about it. The tunnel's insulated, too—and I've no doubt that when it's in use it can be brought down to well below zero."