Tomson turned his eyes firmly to the trail ahead.
They left Ris and Flaokh at the village, and continued up towards the Residency, which stood on the only piece of fairly high ground within miles. It was common to find such a spot chosen—perhaps the natives subconsciously assumed when building them that the men from beyond the sky wanted to be as near home as possible. Here Lattimer fetched out his first-aid kit, swabbed the scratches on Tomson's arms and legs with surgical spirit, and spread them with a tissue regenerant.
He realized as he returned the kit to the cupboard that the long walk had made him uncommonly hungry. He asked the other curiously, "How did you manage for food?"
"I had my emergency pack," said Tomson. He gestured at it, lying across a chair along with the little personal radio beacon which had guided Lattimer to his refuge.
"But that can't have lasted you long." Lattimer was taking paplets, broomak and chirrits from the food store. "Why didn't you take the offerings the natives brought? Or didn't you see them?"
"Offerings?" Tomson stared. Then he gestured at the fruits Lattimer had set out on the table. "You mean you eat this stuff? Is is safe?"
Lattimer needed absolutely no more confirmation of his suspicions. Any prospector who turned himself loose on the country without learning the local vegetation was doomed to a very short career. Ergo, Tomson was no prospector. He kept his face carefully calm as he said, "Certainly. They taste quite good, too."
Apprehensively, Tomson helped himself to a chirrit. When he bit it, he grimaced at the sharp flavor, but after a few mouthfuls he nodded in appreciation.
He ate as if he was half-starved.
Across the table, Lattimer kept up a careful front, trying not to let it appear that he was watching the other. Not a prospector . . . That made it a better than even chance that Tomson—or whatever his real name was—was running away from someone.
After a while, the latter finished his food and glanced around. "Got a drink?" he asked.
"Surely," said Lattimer. He reached for the faucet of the rain-purifier. "That's one thing we're never short of."
"Ach, I didn't mean water," said Tomson. "A real drink."
Lattimer twisted back in his chair. "No," he answered politely. "No alcohol. The bacteria here don't ferment in the same way as terrestrial ones."
Tomson pulled a wry face. "Well, guess I'll have to take your word for it. No tobacco either, I suppose."
"Won't grow and won't keep. Only wet-belt stuff will take to the climate. I don't use it, anyway."
"Pity." Tomson tilted back his chair and nodded out of the window at the village. "What is this place, anyway?"
"My village," said Lattimer without a trace of conceit. "I told you—I'm a Resident."
"Government agent?" said Tomson. There was something about die way he said it. Something—deliberately casual.
"In a way," Lattimer told him, shrugging. "I have a charter, but I don't tangle with the Service boys. Too much red tape. I'm here to keep the natives respectful."
He phrased it with care. Maybe Tomson would take it the wrong way.
He did. "Then all these animals—they're what they call Venusians? he said. "This village—they built it?" Lattimer nodded.
"I thought they were savages," Tomson went on. "It doesn't look too bad from what I saw of it. Do you have a lot of trouble keeping them in line?"
"I haven't up to now," said Lattimer pointedly.
Tomson missed the point. He looked the Resident over with narrow eyes, as if assessing his toughness. He seemed to form a favorable opinion—favorable as far as Lattimer was concerned.
"How long before this car from the port which you mentioned?" he inquired.
"Going on two years," said Lattimer quietly. "I'm due for relief in twenty-two months from now."
He rose and began to throw paplet hulls into the dispenser. "Of course, as I said, I can arrange for guides to get you back to port."
Tomson shuddered elaborately. "If you don't mind," he said, "I'd rather not face that forest again just yet."
"As you like," said Lattimer. "I'd be glad to some human company." He stressed the last word but one very slightly. "But if you plan to stay long, you'll have to learn the native language."
"Don't these seals talk English?"
Lattimer looked at him levelly. "They're forbidden to learn any human language," he said. "They might overhear things."
Tomson grinned lopsidedly. "I get," he said softly.. "It might make them less respectful."
"Exactly," answered Lattimer. Heaven above, what had he done to deserve this?
There was a quiet knock at the door. Tomson started and tensed himself as Lattimer went to open. He found Flaokh waiting.
"Do you wish to continue your audience today?" the junior Awakener inquired politely, "or do you wish to confer further with your egg-sib?"
Lattimer checked the time. "I shall be present in the village when the shadow passes the third mark," he said. "As a mark of your respect, my brother"—same word, but he would never reconcile himself to the meaning of egg-sib in a human connection—"has announced that he will also be present."
Flaokh withdrew with the appropriate ceremony, and Lattimer turned to his involuntary visitor. "We'll have to go down to the village," he said. "I adjourned an audience this morning and told them to elect a new chief—the last one was trying to use his position to get favors for his relatives. It'll mean you coming with me, of course. They thought you were displeased when you didn't take their offerings in the forest, so you'll have to present youself and show them you mean no harm."
Tomson stared unashamedly. Then he guffawed. "Sort of token of goodwill?" he asked. "All right—you know the ropes. Keep 'em happy at all costs, sort of thing."
"Not that exactly," said Lattimer. "By the way, I shall address you as—" he gave the native word for egg-sib. "To them, all men are as brothers. They haven't got a word for 'brother/ of course—they're hermaphroditic, like snails— but that is the nearest equivalent. It means ^born of the same egg •
Tomson laughed again. "I'd have hated to share an egg with anybody. All right. I'll look wise if you talk to me—is that the idea?"
"That's the idea," said Lattimer, forcing a smile.
For the next few days he refrained carefully from using the communication band of the radio. Tomson might have taken it the wrong way. If the port knew of the latter's presence on Venus, it was ten to one that they had assumed him dead in the forest.
Fortunately, of course, for the first few weeks at any rate, until he felt sure of himself, Tomson would remain on his best behavior, and Lattimer managed to make the best of that time. What he would do when the^ other man started to make a nuisance of himself, he didn't know and hardly cared to think about. The risk of making an open break with him was too great to be contemplated. But he was walking a most horrible dangerous tight-rope.
It isn't easy for a man to be a god.
In the hope of putting off the inevitable, Lattimer took Tomson out and showed him his achievements—the drainage system, the levees around the paddy fields, the native pottery and housing designs. But Tomson remained steadily uninterested. He was content to let time go by in the life of comfort and relaxation which the constant care of the natives provided for him.
Almost three months went by before Lattimer s nerves began to tremble under the strain, and he broached the subject of the other's departure. At the first and second delicate mentions of it, Tomson brushed it aside, but at the third Lattimer was a little clumsy.
It was almost nightfall, and the rain had started again. After three years its drumming meant little to Lattimer, except to make him worried as always for the strength of the levees, but it still had a grating effect on Tomson. He snapped at Lattimer harshly, and then seemed to read a second meaning into the Resident's words.
He sat down slowly at the table. "You know," he said softly.
It was no good bandying words by this time. "Yes, I know," said La
ttimer levelly. "You're no prospector, Jim. You're on the run from someone—at a guess, you stowed away on a Venus ship because Earth was considerably too hot for you. I've known it since you came here."
Tomson stared unblinkingly at him. "Why didn't you turn me in?" he said.
"And risk having you start a fight with me—or with the Service when they came to pick you up? Do you think I'm that crazy?"
"Spell it out," said Tomson coldly. "It's beginning to make a pattern—a mighty dirty pattern at that. You're scared of these black inhuman savages, aren't you? Why?"
Tiredly—he had had another long and complex case to solve at audience, and Chinsel was proving as difficult a chief as Miglaun had been—tiredly Lattimer said, "No, I'm not afraid of them. I'm afraid of myself."
"Obviously," sneered Tomson. "I've been here three months now, and I've seen that these natives are getting to think they're very smart. Very smart. They'll be setting up to rival men next. You're coddling them, when what they need is someone to take a strong line with them—teach them who is master. You even let them argue with you—I've heard you do it!"
Lattimer folded his hands to stop them trembling. "They are smart," he said with an effort. "They figure their ideas out for themselves. They understand things like soil preservation and rotation of crops. Given another thirty to fifty years, and they'll be at the fertilizer level. They can work stone, they have fire—metal-working is only a few steps away. They're smart, all right."
"All the more reason to keep them down," said Tomson. "I know what I'd do if I were in your position. I'd keep them respectful, all right."
"Not for long," said Lattimer. He thought of other ways of solving the problem, but there remained only one that might work—and an appeal to a man like this would probably be wasted. Still, he had to try.
"You'd have learnt this tomorrow or the next day," he said. "It's worship day."
"What does that mean?" demanded Tomson.
"You and I are gocTs," said Lattimer soberly.
Tomson suddenly began to grin. "You mean that?" he said incredulously. "These creatures think we're gods? Well, isn't that just too sweet?"
"It's no joke," said Lattimer shortly. "It sure as hell is no joke at all. Have you ever tried to be infallible? To be just, merciful, humane, on top of giving advice on every kind of subject from civil engineering to agrobiology? It isn't easy."
Tomson wasn't listening. He was grmning widely as if he had just been struck by a wonderful idea. "Well, isn't that just perfect?" he said. "Boy, what a set-up! I'm a god!"
Lattimer looked at him calmly. "Yes. Up to now you've behaved more or less like one, too—at any rate you've been polite and careful. Keep it that way. We're the only driving force in these people's lives. Their only motive for good behavior is to please the supernatural beings who came on wings of fire from beyond the sky. We can't afford to be wrong, Jim—or we'd lose Venus."
"Lose Venus? To a bunch of performing seals?"
Lattimer nodded. "We depend on them—for food, for a labor supply. We need their co-operation. If once we fail from the role they've assigned to us, we can expect organized opposition."
Tomson hefted his blaster. "What can they do against human weapons?" he demanded. "We've got everything they haven't."
"You've seen a jume," answered Lattimer. "The natives have known how to deal with creatures bigger, faster and more dangerous than men for centuries. We, on the other hand, lost the whole of two expeditions through the jumes."
Tomson cut him short. "This is idiotic!" he declared. "I know what I'd do if I had a lot of savages calling me a god. I'd get some profit out of it. You're more a slave than a mast-
it
er.
"Not at all," said Lattimer. "I'm simply having to live and act like a human being instead of an animal for the first time in my life. I'm having to keep my temper—to observe all the virtues—"
"Including chastity," said Tomson sourly. "Or doesn't it worry you?"
Lattimer half rose, his face murderous. As he fought to control himself, Tomson gestured significantly with his blaster. "I've—already killed a man," he said quietly "They can't do any more to me for killing two."
The Resident sank back into his seat "Your threats don't bother me," he said. "I'm going to give you a choice. I'm prepared to keep you here until I'm relieved—what you do then is up to you. You haven't done me any wrong-yet. And, as I told you, I don't much like to tangle with the Service. They're one of my major liabilities in this job— they have a point of view too much like yours. But if you do one single thing to make this tribe distrust human beings— if you try to make capital for yourself out of your position— I'll either burn you down or turn you in."
He stared at the other man. "Is that fair enough?"
Tomson laughed and nodded.
It rained all that night and went on the next day. It was the longest single rain he could remember in three years and the natives weren't interested enough in the past to recall a precedent. It was bad for the levees that held back the swamp-water from the reclaimed paddies, and those were spreading by degrees. He went out the following morning on a tour of inspection with Chinsel, and discussed strengthening them again. The rain welled wetly down his neck, and added to his miseries, but fortunately Chinsel was more co-operative than usual today, since his own reputation was largely founded on the building of the levees.
On his return to the village, Lattimer held a full audience and announced the postponement of worship day. He implied carefully that the gods were being land to their people and thinking of their safety before their homage. The gesture was met with appreciative web-spreadings.
Instead of the ceremony, then, the following day—which was mercifully dry again—was passed by the adult members of the clan in packing tough young saplings and interwoven reed hurdles into the sodden earth of the dams to reinforce them. When night fell, Lattimer carried out a final survey and decided, regretfully, that it would have to do. He hoped that the rain would hold off long enough for the drainage system to clear the water down to a safe level. But it set in again.
He was soaked and uncomfortable when he got back to the Residency, but the worry for the villagers' safety had displaced Tomson from his mind.
Now, though, he had to find the man engaged in trying to teach one of the younglings to fetch, a stick. He sat in the partial shelter of the overhang of the stoep and tossed the piece of wood out into the muddy court. Obediently, but not understanding the reason for the action, the child was bringing it back to him.
Lattimer paused in the concealment of a slump of trees some way from the house. Tomson did it again. He cuffed the child when it did not run fast enough for his amusement. The poor beast was patently dropping with weariness.
Lattimer summed up the situation narrow-eyed. Then he drew his blaster. Til burn you where you stand if you make a move," he called in English. Then to the child he added, "Go home."
It scampered off as fast as its tired legs would carry it.
When it was out of sight, Lattimer walked slowly up to Tomson where he waited on the stoep. He kept his blaster aligned on the other's belly. When he came within speaking distance, he said, "What was the idea of that, Tomson?"
"I got bored," said Tomson softly. "So what?"
Lattimer reversed his blaster and hit Tomson in the face, twice with the rubber of the butt. The other staggered back, cursing, his hands clutching his cheeks.
"I warned you," said Lattimer. "That was for the beating you gave the kid. I'm going to turn you in."
Tomson mastered his pain and surprise. He dropped his hands again. "Seals have pups, not kids," he said. "So you think you're going to turn me in. You wouldn't leave your faithful followers on worship day, would you?"
"I'm not going," said Lattimer. "I'll call the Service."
"Well, isn't that interesting?" said Tomson. He backed before the muzzle of the weapon and went through the open door. He seemed strangely unconcerned at the thr
eat.
As soon as Lattimer came inside, he realized where the other's confidence lay. The radio was scattered in shreds across the floor.
He lowered the blaster. "All right, Tomson," he said. "You've won one point. I should have blasted you earlier. You can think yourself lucky that I daren't start a fight where the natives can see you, or I'd give you the biggest beating you ever had. But worship day is tomorrow, and it's quite true that I can't leave now. However, I'm better off than you. You can't leave at all. You can't face the forest—especially not when another jume has been reported from the foot of the ridge." He added this lie with a perfectly straight face.
"But the day after worship day," he finished, "you will be back at the port and ready to be psyched. Clear?"
Tomson grinned insultingly. "As mud," he said blandly. "You're a bloody good liar, Lattimer."
"I'm not lying," said Lattimer, holstering his blaster. "By the day after tomorrow at latest, you will be ready for psyching."
He said it with a calm certainty that took the bluster out of Tomson's attitude and left him sullenly undecided.
They could not avoid each other in the narrow confines of the Residency. But avoidance was no part of Lattimer's plan. He kept Tomson carefully in sight for the remainder of the evening, and when the other had bunked down for the night he stealthily filched his blaster and stored the few remaining charges in his own ammunition belt, which he wore for the rest of the night. Now that the other had shown himself completely unreliable, there was no doubt left in his mind as to what he would have to do.
But it was a long time before he fell asleep.
Sharply, at rising time, Ris and Flaokh came together-worship day awakening was an honor not to be partitioned. He tried fiercely to conceal the tiredness consequent on his lack of sleep, and as he concentrated on acknowledging their greeting in the formal manner, he became aware that the rain was pelting down anew, and that the early chants of worship day were keening up from the village. The native music was odd to human ears, but he had learned to detect the sombre grandeur of the ritual songs. Besides, ritual was the only occasion on which the entire tribe sang together.
More Adventures On Other Planets Page 7
