Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra

by Poul Anderson

  "What?"

  Luang threw the garments to the floor and laughed. She sat on top of the dresser, swinging bare feet against its drawers. Her kilt was dazzling white, her only ornament the ivory inlay on her dagger hilt. Not that she needed more. She wasn't tall, and her face had never been sculpted into the monotonous beauty of all rich Terran women. But it was a vivid face, high cheekbones, full mouth, delicately shaped nose, eyes long and dark under arched brows. Her bobbed hair was crow's-wing color, her complexion dull gold, and her figure reminded Flandry acutely that he had been celibate for months.

  "Reason it out, mugger," she said with a note of affectionate teasing. She took a cigarette case from her pocket and offered it to the Terran. Flandry accepted a yellow cylinder and inhaled. Nothing happened. Luang laughed again and snapped a lighter for him and herself. She trickled smoke from her nostrils, as if veiling her expression. Flandry tried it and choked. If this was tobacco, then tobacco on Unan Besar had mutated and crossed itself with deadly nightshade.

  "Well, Captain, as you style yourself," said Luang, "what do you suggest we do with you?"

  Flandry regarded her closely, wishing the local costume weren't quite so brief. Dammit, his life depended on cool thinking. "You might try listening to me," he said.

  "I am. Though anyone who breaks in on my rest as you did—"

  "I couldn't help that!"

  "Oh, the trouble you caused isn't held against you." Luang raised her feet to the dresser top, hugged her legs and watched him across rounded knees. "On the contrary, I haven't had so much fun since One-Eyed Rawi went amok down on Joy Canal. How those fat frumps squealed—and dove into the water in all their finery!" Malice faded and she sighed. "It ended unhappily, though, when poor old Rawi must needs be killed. I hope this adventure doesn't end likewise."

  "I hope so too," Flandry agreed. "Let's work together very hard to prevent any such outcome."

  Kemul, who was hunkered on the floor, snapped his fingers. "Ah! Kemul understands!"

  She smiled. "What do you mean?"

  "About his clothes and other valuables. They would be noticed, Luang, and Biocontrol would ask questions, and might even trace them back to us. And if it turned out we had failed to give Biocontrol this man they were hunting, it would be the cage for both of us."

  "Congratulations," said Flandry.

  "Best we surrender him at once." Kemul shifted uneasily on his haunches. "There might even be a reward."

  "We shall see." Luang inhaled thoughtfully—and, to the Terran, most distractingly. "Of course," she mused, "I had best go back to my other place soon. The Guard Corps must be swarming all over it. They'll establish my identity from fingerprints." She looked at Flandry through drooping lashes. "I could tell them that when you broke in, I was frightened and escaped through the trap and don't know anything about the affair."

  He leaned against the wall near the window. It was very dark outside. "But I have to make it worth your while to take the risk they won't believe you, eh?" he said.

  She made a face. "Poo! That's no risk. Whoever heard of a Guard able to think past the end of his own snout? The real danger would come later, in keeping you hidden, outworld man. Swamp Town is full of eyes. It would be expensive, too."

  "Let's discuss the matter." Flandry took another puff of his cigarette. It wasn't so bad the second time; probably his taste buds were stunned. "Let's get acquainted, at least. I've told you I'm an Imperial officer, and explained a little of what and where the Empire is nowadays. So let me learn something about your own planet. Check my deductions against the facts for me, will you?

  "Biocontrol manufactures the antitoxin pills and distributes them through local centers, right?" She nodded. "Every citizen gets one, every thirty days, and has to swallow it there on the spot." Again she nodded. "Obviously, even infants must have a ration in their milk. So every person on this world can be fingerprinted at birth. The prints are kept in a central file, and automatically checked every time anyone comes in for his pill. Thus no one gets more than his ration. And anyone in trouble with the law had better surrender very meekly to the Guards... or he won't get the next dose." This time her nod included a faint, derisive smile.

  "No system ever worked so well that there wasn't some equivalent of an underworld," Flandry continued. "When the authorities began to get nasty, I struck out for the slums, where I figured your criminal class must center. Evidently I was right about that. What I don't yet know, though, is why as much freedom as this is allowed. Kemul, for example, seems to be a full-time bandit; and you, m'lady, appear to be a, ahem, private entrepreneur. The government could control your people more tightly than it does."

  Kemul laughed, a gusty noise overriding that mumble and tinkle which seeped through the floorboards. "What does Biocontrol care?" he said. "You pay for your medicine. You pay plenty, each time. Oh, they make some allowance for hardship cases, where such can be proven, but that puts you right under the Guards' nosy eye—" Wow! thought Flandry. "Or a slave owner gets a reduction on the pills he buys for his folk. Bah! Kemul would rather slash his own belly like a free man. So he pays full price. Most people do. So Biocontrol gets its money. How that money is earned in the first place, Biocontrol doesn't care."

  "Ah." Flandry stroked his mustache. "A single tax system."

  The socioeconomics of it became obvious enough now. If every person, with insignificant exceptions, had to pay the same price for life every two weeks, certain classes were placed at a severe disadvantage. Men with large families, for example: they'd tend to put the kids to work as young as possible, to help meet the bills. This would mean an ill-educated younger generation, still less able to maintain its place on the economic ladder. Poor people generally would suffer; any run of hard luck would land them in the grip of the loan sharks for life. The incentive toward crime was enormous, especially when there was no real policing.

  Over lifetimes, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. At last a small class of billionaires—merchants, big manufacturers and landholders—lorded it over a beaten-down peasantry and a turbulent city proletariat. These distinctions became hereditary, simply because no one ever got far enough ahead to rise above his father's status.... If there had been contact with other planets, the necessities of interstellar competition would have forced Unan Besar into a more efficient pattern. But except for the occasional unimportant visit of a strictly segregated Betelgeusean trader, Unan Besar had been isolated these past three centuries.

  Flandry realized he was oversimplifying. A planet is a world, as big and diverse as ever Terra was. There had to be more than one social structure, and within any sub-culture there must be individuals who didn't fit the pattern. Luang, for instance; he didn't know quite what to make of her. But no matter for now. He was in Kompong Timur, where life was approximately as he had deduced.

  "I take it, then, that failure to respect Biocontrol personnel is the only serious crime here," he said.

  "Not quite." Kemul's fist clenched. "Biocontrol is chummy with the rich. Burgle a rich man's house and see what happens. Ten years in the quarries, if you're lucky. Enslavement, more likely."

  "Only if you are caught," purred Luang. "I remember once—But that was then."

  "I see why Guards don't bother carrying firearms," said Flandry.

  "They do in this section of town." Kemul looked still grimmer. "And they go in teams. And still they're apt to end up floating in the canal, with none to say who did it to them. So many people might, you see. Not so much for the money they have. But might be a husband, after some rich boy come slumming saw his wife and ordered her aboard his boat. Or a palace servant, whipped once too often. Or a sometime engineer, what lost his post and sank down to our level, because he'd not wink at a defective load of cement. Cases like that."

  "He speaks of people he knows," said Luang. "He hasn't imagination enough to invent examples." Her tone remained bantering.

  "But most times," Kemul finished doggedly, "the Guards don't come into
Swamp Town. No reason for it. We buy our pills and stay out of the palace section. What we do to each other, nobody cares."

  "Have you never thought of—" Flandry groped in his Pulaoic vocabulary, but couldn't find any word for revolution. "You commoners and paupers outnumber the ruling class. You have weapons, here and there. You could take over, you know."

  Kemul blinked. Finally he spat. "Ah, what use has Kemul for fancy eats and a fancy harem? Kemul does well enough."

  Luang caught Flandry's real meaning. He saw that she was a little shocked; not that she found any sacredness in the existing order of things, but the idea of complete social change was too radical. She lit another cigarette from the butt of the first and fumed a while with eyes closed, forehead bent on her knees. When she glanced up again, she said:

  "I remember now, outworld man. Things I have read in books. Even a few very old ones, that Biocontrol must think were all burned long ago. Unlike most, I know how the masters first came to power. And we can't overthrow them. At least, not without dying." She stretched like a cat. "And life amuses me."

  "I realize Biocontrol has the sole knowledge of how to manufacture the antitoxin," Flandry said. "But once you stood over their technicians with a gun—"

  "Listen to me," said Luang. "When Unan Besar was first colonized, Biocontrol was merely one arm of the government. Troubles came that I don't quite know about: foolishness and corruption. Biocontrol was staffed by men who were very clever and... what word?... saintly? They wanted the best for this planet, so they issued a proclamation calling for a certain program of reform. The rest of the government didn't like this. But Biocontrol was standing by the great vats where the antitoxin is made. The process must be watched all the time, you understand, or it goes bad. One man, pulling the wrong switch, can ruin an entire batch. Biocontrol could not be attacked without danger of wrecking those vats. The people were afraid they would get no more medicine. They forced the government men to lift the siege of Biocontrol, and yield.

  "Then Biocontrol was the whole government. They said they would not rule forever, only long enough to establish the best social order for Unan Besar. One that was carefully planned and would endure."

  "I see." Flandry spoke with a coyote grin. "They were scientists, and wanted a rationalized civilization. Probably they subscribed to some version of Psychotechnocracy. It was a popular theory in those days. When will the intellectuals learn that scientific government is a contradiction in terms? Since people didn't fit into this perfect scheme—and the scheme being perfect by definition, this must be the fault of the people—Biocontrol never did find an occasion to give up its power. After a few generations, it evolved into an old-fashioned oligarchy. Such governments always do."

  "Not quite." He wasn't sure how closely the girl had followed him. Perforce he used many Anglic words, hoping Pulaoic had cognates. But her gaze was steady on him and she spoke with almost a scholar's detachment. "Biocontrol was forever Biocontrol. I mean, they have always recruited promising boys and trained them to tend the vats. Only after a long period of service, rising from grade to grade, can a member hope to get on the governing board."

  "So... it is still a rule by technicians," he said. "Odd. The scientific mentality isn't well suited to governing. I'd expect Biocontrol would hire administrators, who would eventually make all the real decisions."

  "That did happen once, about two hundred years ago," she said. "But a dispute arose. The corps of hireling experts started giving orders independently. Several Biocontrol people realized that Biocontrol had become a mere figurehead. One of them, Weda Tawar—there are statues to him all over the planet—waited until his turn to go on watch. Then he threatened to destroy the vats, unless the hireling corps surrendered itself to him. His fellow conspirators had already seized the few spaceships and were prepared to blow them up. Every human on Unan Besar would have died. The hirelings capitulated.

  "Since then, Biocontrol has done its own governing. And during his novitiate, every member is trained and sworn to destroy the vats—and, thus, all the people—if the power of his fellowship is threatened."

  That explains the general sloppiness, Flandry thought. There's no bureaucracy to control things like slums and crime rates. By the same token, Biocontrol itself no longer exists for any reason except to man the brewery and perpetuate its own meaningless power.

  "Do you think they actually would carry out their threat, if it came to that?" he asked.

  "Many of them, at least," said Luang. "They are very harshly trained as boys." She. shivered. "It's not a risk to take, outworld man."

  Kemul stirred on the floor. "Enough of this buttertonguing!" he grumbled. "We've still not learned what you really came here for."

  "Or why the Guards want you," said Luang.

  It grew most quiet. Flandry could hear the lapping of oily water against the piles below him. He thought he could hear thunder, far out over the jungle. Then someone cursed down in the tavern, there was a scuffle, a joy girl screamed and a body splashed in the canal. Only a minor argument: the loser could be heard swimming away, and the music resumed.

  "They want me," said Flandry, "because I can destroy them."

  Kemul, who had ignored the fight under his broad bottom, half rose. "Don't joke Kemul!" he gasped. Even Luang's cool eyes widened, and she lowered her feet to the floor.

  "How would you like to be free men?" Flandry asked. His gaze returned to Luang. "And women," he added. "Obviously."

  "Free of what?" snorted Kemul.

  "Most obviously... Oh. Yes. How would you like to be done with Biocontrol? To get your antitoxin free, or for a very low price that anyone can afford? It's possible, you know. You're being outrageously overcharged for the stuff, as a form of taxation which, I'm sure, has been screwed higher each decade."

  "It has," said Luang. "But Biocontrol possesses the vats, and the only knowledge of their use."

  "When Unan Besar was colonized," Flandry said, "this whole sector was backward and anarchic. The pioneers seem to have developed some elaborate process, probably biosynthetic, for preparing the antitoxin. A process which even in that day would have been clumsy, old-fashioned. Any decent laboratory—on Spica VI, for instance—can now duplicate any organic molecule. The apparatus is simple and foolproof, the quantity that can be manufactured is unlimited."

  Luang's lips parted to show small white teeth. "You want to go there," she whispered.

  "Yes. At least, that's what Brothers Bandang and Warouw are afraid I want to. Not a bad idea, either, Mitsuko Laboratories on Spica VI would pay me a handsome commission for calling as juicy a market as Unan Besar to their attention. Hm, yes-s-s," said Flandry dreamily.

  Kemul shook his head till the gray hair swirled. "No! Kemul doesn't have it badly, the way things are. Not badly enough to risk the cage for helping you, Kemul says turn him in, Luang."

  The girl studied Flandry for a long minute. Her face was not readable. "How would you get off this planet?" she asked.

  "Details." Flandry waved a hand in an airy gesture.

  "I thought so. If you don't know, how can we? Why should we hazard anything, least of all our lives?"

  "Well—" Flandry flexed his arms, trying to work out some of the tension that stiffened them and made his voice come out not quite natural. "Well, we can discuss that later."

  She blew smoke. "For you," she said, "will there be a later?"

  He donned the smile which had bowled over female hearts from Scotha to Antares. "If you wish it, my lady."

  She shrugged. "I might. If you make it worth the risk and trouble. But Kemul already took everything you were carrying. What can you buy your next thirty days with?"

  That was a good question.

  VI

  The part of Swamp Town between Lotus Flower Canal, the great spice warehouse of Barati & Sons, the Canal of the Drowned Drunkard, and those miserable tenement rafts where Kompong Timur faded into unreclaimed watery wastes was ruled by Sumu the Fat. Which is to say, every resident
with a noticeable income—artisan, rentier, joy girl, bazaar keeper, freight hauler, priest, wizard, coiner, et multifarious cetera—paid regular tribute to him. It was shrewdly calculated according to ability to pay, so no one resented it dangerously. Sumu even made some return. His bully boys kept rival gangs out of the district; sometimes they caught lone-wolf robbers and made examples of them. He was an excellent fence for goods stolen from other parts of town. With his connections, he could even help a legitimate merchant make an extra profit, or find a buyer for the daughter of some impoverished man who didn't know where his next pill was coming from. In such cases, Sumu didn't charge an exorbitant commission. He offered rough-and-ready justice to those who wanted to lay their quarrels before him. Every year at the Feast of Lanterns, he bore the whole expense of decorating the quarter and went about giving candy to small children.

  In short, he was hated no more than any other overlord would have been.

  Wherefore Sumu's man Pradjung, making his regular rounds to collect the tribute, was distressed to hear that a new storyteller had been operating on Indramadju Square for two whole days without so much as a by-your-leave.

  Pradjung, who was of ordinary size but notoriously good with a knife, went thither. It was a clear day. The sun stood high and white in a pale sky. Sheet metal walls, canal water, even thatch and wood cast back its radiance until all things swam in that fierce light, wavered with heat haze but threw hard blue shadows. Far off above the roofs, Biocontrol Pagoda reared as if molten, too dazzling to look at. Sound of squalling voices and rumbling motors seemed baked out of the air; women squatted in doorways nursing their babies and gasping. As he hurried past the booths of listless potters, Pradjung heard his own sandals go slap-slap on planks where tar bubbled.

  He crossed a suspension bridge to the hummock where Indramadju Square had been constructed, so long ago that the stone dragons on the central fountain were weathered into pug dogs. The fountain was dry, its plumbing had been stolen generations back, but fruit and vegetable vendors from the outlying paddy-farms still brought their produce here to sell. Their booths surrounded the square with thatch and tiny red flags. Because it was cooler here than many other places, and the chance of stealing an occasional modjo not too bad, children and idlers could always be found by the score. Which made it a good location for storytellers.