by John Rankine
The debate went on for a half hour by Koenig’s time disk, before one speaker said that it would help him to make up his mind if a spokesman for the Alphans could speak a piece.
Karl turned to the Alphans. ‘Which of you will speak?’
Koenig stood up and moved forward. There had been some chatter and lack of concentration as some citizens lost interest. The tall, impressive figure of the Alphan made an impact. There was a sudden hush. If they were expecting an appeal, they were heading for disappointment. Koenig had never been one to compromise. He began slowly. ‘People of Megaron, this is your place. The decision is yours. We can only abide by it. In our long journey, we have seen many peoples. Some patterns of life have seemed incredible to us. Your way is, on the whole, the nearest to our own that we have seen. But I tell you, the difference between all life, anywhere, and the great blank of unknowing in the interstellar spaces is so great, that all life forms fall in one pan of the scale. What is common to intelligent life is more important than any differences. For our part, we believe in the future and we will fight for it. The freedom of the human spirit to work out its own salvation, we take to be an inalienable right. That right is denied in the city. At some point, we would want to try to bring back freedom there. Because, make no mistake, their system is a barbarism and in any long confrontation between barbarism and civilisation, barbarism will win out, unless the civilised people take the initiative. The choice is yours.’
Karl was looking grave. He was ready to accept the principles, but as an experienced politician, he wished Koenig had taken a softer line.
There was only one comment from the floor. A woman’s voice said, ‘We have heard enough. Take the vote.’
There was an orderly bustle and tellers moved along the rows with collecting boxes. House lights went up and the audience was no longer anonymous. The boxes were brought forward and the contents spilled out on the table in front of the chairman. Karl began to make stacks of ten with red and black draughtsmen. He had twelve stacks of red and nine and a half stacks of black. He said, ‘The majority are in favour of accepting the Alphans. But it is not a clear majority, which would require two-thirds in favour. I rule, therefore, that the executive will vote having regard to this opinion expressed by the meeting.’
On his left he had his brother, Melanion, an older version of himself with a balding head and an unsmiling face. Beyond him was a younger man, who had been watching Carter with a speculative eye. His ID badge said Golgos. On the right was an oldster, Urion, and on the far right, the only woman on the executive, a trim brunette in a green tabard, labelled Hepa.
Karl passed round a closed box with a slot in the lid. All were discreet. It was impossible to see how they voted. When he opened the box and held up the counters, there were two red and two black. He said, ‘The rules of this assembly are plain. The decision has been put in my hand. Very well. I have to tell you that I judge in the Alphans’ favour. They are admitted to citizenship as Outfarers.’
There was sporadic applause, which masked, for a few seconds, a noise which had been slowly rising to the threshold of attention. Inside the hall, there was sudden silence, as everybody strained to listen. To those passing a black counter, it was almost a vindication and a judgement. The forces of law and order in Caster had been needled into action and were out to redress the balance. A squadron of air cars was sweeping in over the Outfarers’ sanctuary.
In spite of the grandiose label given to it, the defence corps had only twenty citizens in full-time service. There was a fall-back militia force of a hundred men and women with some training in the use of arms; but to mobilise them for any length of time would put the base on a hand-to-mouth footing, which could only be maintained for a few days. In living memory, it had not been needed, and in the sudden emergency, the first reaction was to leave it to the professionals.
There was an orderly scatter to hearth and home. Karl, after a hard look at his brother, swept the voting counters into their box. He said, ‘Professor, I’d like you to join Melanion. He can show you something of our technical setup. Commander, you and Captain Carter come with me. Doctor Russell can assist at our medical centre, and I only hope her services won’t be needed.’
Given the sheer size of the complex and the few defenders, Koenig could only suppose there was no military genius in Caster, or the Outfarers would have been overrun before this. The defence corps was already assembled at a supply point and Golgos, a taciturn, bearded type, was handing out machine pistols and a bandolier of clips to every man. There was a shatter of glass as a car stormed along the sea frontage strafing a line of living quarters. But it was more nuisance value than serious attack. There was no way for a car to land there and get its crew into the building.
Golgos took half the company and raced off along the corridor. Karl took the rest and they went at a jog trot for the ramp that came up from the basement. As they went, he jerked out, ‘Only two ways into this level. Two ramps we can defend.’
Carter said, ‘Can’t they get in from above?’
‘The cars could not land.’
It could be true, but Carter could see a determined and skillful pilot finding a toehold to drop a commando party. He said no more. They were at the head of the stairs. The noise of the air cars was plainer. There was a drumming reverberation as at least one dived along the track of the runabout service and a sudden firework shower of explosive charges as it fired under the basement itself.
Karl’s party had flung themselves down in a line at the top of the ramp and sent a withering volley at nothing in particular. Training was too strong for Koenig. He snapped out, ‘Hold your fire,’ in an authoritative command that checked them all.
There was silence. The car appeared briefly, between two distant support piers and then sidled away out of view. Koenig said, ‘It isn’t an attack. It’s reconnaissance. Don’t show our positions or our strength. If and when they’re serious, they’ll use ground forces with the cars in support. With your permission, Karl, I’ll take Captain Carter and we’ll go take a look.’
‘Help yourself.’
Bent double in the shelter of the continuous, solid parapet, the Alphans ran down the ramp into the basement area. They were in a stone jungle with an endless vista of support piers in every direction. Cover was no problem. Koenig worked towards the land side, believing that any serious attempt at mounting an assault would come that way. There was no sign that any other car had penetrated below the building and it would need a cool and experienced pilot to take a machine that way.
There was still a lot of noise overhead as the squadron made its show of force. When they reached the outer edge of the basement, they could see debris showering down. The Outfarers would have a big repair programme ahead. Koenig cautiously left the shelter of the last, squat pier and moved out on a flagged terrace which ran all round the ruined building. A racing scan round the set confirmed his thinking. There were three cars in line astern on this side and they had worked along the frontage. They were rising and turning. Even as he watched, they were joined by three more which had come from round back and had been strafing the seaward-facing rooms.
Carter’s shout and the clatter of his pistol had him diving back for cover. A seventh car, no doubt the one which had been nosing in towards the ramp, had suddenly appeared in a murderous rush along the terrace. As it passed, its rear gunner sprayed into the vaults and the curious energy charges flared like star shells as they bounced and ricocheted amongst the columns.
The six were waiting for the seventh to join. When it took its place as flight leader, they were away, arrowing off over the hill in the direction of Caster.
Koenig watched them go, standing out on the terrace. He said, ‘They know that the Outfarers have no air defences. They know they can do that anytime they like. The question is whether or not they want a final solution. I guess they could wipe out this enclave if they thought it was worth it.’
Carter said, ‘If they don’t regard it as a thre
at, why should they bother? They would lose some men.’
‘But they don’t care too much about that, as we saw ourselves. I wouldn’t want to say this too loudly, but it could be that our arrival tips the scale. Rightly or wrongly, they might believe that we disturb the balance of power.’
‘These Outfarers are no fools. Some thought of that and passed in those black chequers.’
‘Could be. But what would you say was the standard answer in a situation where a small power is expecting an attack from a larger and more powerful neighbour?’
‘Get in first.’
‘That’s the way I see it. We’re here. We aim to survive. I don’t like it one little bit, but we haven’t come all this way to end up as sitting ducks for some black-coated zombies, whatever the glories of their past. Now, Karl is a man open to a reasoned argument. We should talk to him and see what there is in this scrap heap that we could use. Are you with me?’
‘All the way, Commander.’
CHAPTER FOUR
The more Koenig thought about it, the more he was convinced that there was no other way. On Karl’s own submission, there was no place for the Outfarers to go. They were stuck on their neck of land, with only the immediate neighbourhood of the ruin as a place to live. If Caster was set on rooting them out, it was fight or go under.
But there was another idea coming to the bubble in his head. A preemptive strike might buy them time, but it was not the final solution. The real answer would lie in getting a change of heart in Caster itself. As he understood it, there were two elements that kept Spadec in the saddle. The people, by their own choice or not, had gotten used to a diet which included an intake of drugs, so that they questioned nothing. Together with some subliminal suggestion technique, which was on stream, like a constant carrier wave, this was enough for a totally static society. A community could not stand still—it went forward or back. But that was only true if it was free to move. In this situation, there was equilibrium. Forces had been set up to resist change.
Almost all the rooms with an open view had been strafed and there would be months of work before they were back in full use. The Alphans had a temporary suite in the centre area. It had been an information centre. There were study carrels with selector gear so that data from a storage silo was on tap at the flick of a switch. No longer operative. One wall had a stylised diagram of the complex as it had been in its heyday, and Bergman was finding matters of wonder by the minute, as he walked its length while eating his biscuits and cheese simulate.
Rhoda had joined them on the pretext that Helena would need help to open food dispensers and issue the rations. She sat facing Carter, fixing him with a bright eye and eating compulsively to make up for the loss.
Koenig asked her, ‘What are the people in Caster like? Are they good people or bad?’
‘What they did to me and to Alan could not be j called good.’
‘Not just the guards. The ordinary people.’
‘They are law abiding. They do what Spadec tells them. They are neutral. They are not really people at all.’
Helena said, ‘More like puppets?’
‘What are puppets.’
‘Mechanical dolls, operated by strings so that they go through the motions. Children play with them on Earth Planet and make them act out scenes in plays.’
‘What a good idea. We could do that in the nursery. I’ll mention it to Hepa and Gara. But why do you concern yourself about Caster, Commander Koenig?’
‘As I see it, the future lies there. The Outfarers can only hang on from one generation to the next. Caster is big enough to be the starting point for a new civilisation on Megaron. What drug will it be, Helena?’
‘There are several that would serve. Some variant of what was once used on Earth Planet as a truth drug?’
‘Could you work out an antidote?’
‘I shouldn’t think it would be necessary. All they have to do is to stop taking it.’
Victor Bergman was quicker off the mark. He left the information panel and joined them at the table. ‘Do I read you right, John? Are you thinking of a neutraliser? Another additive that would make the drug ineffective?’
‘Something like that.’
Bergman mused, ‘Interesting. Now, if that could be introduced without their knowledge, without alerting Spadec, that would be a move forward. It might start self-criticism. They’d begin to think for themselves.’
Helena Russell said, ‘Thinking by itself is no guarantee that they’d move in the right direction. It could make them worse. You have to remember that there are some psychotic types that can’t be trusted to behave rationally unless they’re given suppressive drugs.’
Rhoda had been watching each speaker and was ready with a telling piece of logic. ‘But we know what happens when the drugs are not used. The Outfarers are Megaronians just like the people of Caster. We don’t use them. That’s why we’re here—to avoid using them. You saw all the people at the meeting. You wouldn’t say they were worse for it.’
There was no answer to that one. The assembled Outfarers had looked like any cross section of any human community. They were living vindication of the theory.
Koenig said, ‘Then it’s something to work on. Three steps. Identify the drug. Manufacture a reagent. Introduce it into the supply.’
There was a pause. Carter said, ‘I’m surely glad you didn’t say three easy steps, Commander. But to break it down, we need samples of the food. Then it’s up to Doctor Russell to come up with analysis and production of the antidote. Stage three would be very delicate indeed, since we don’t know how and where it gets into the food chain.’
There was help from Rhoda. She had listened to Carter with flattering attention, as though to some oracle. When he stopped, she said, ‘We can start right away. There are samples of the food here already, but we have not succeeded in isolating the drug. Doctor Russell might be able to do that. There is only one place where it can be added to the food chain. All the food products are made up from a protein staple which is processed in the hydroponic farm spread outside Caster. I know the way. But getting inside would be a problem. I do not think the railway would serve us a second time and, indeed, it does not go in that direction, as far as I know.’
Bergman went back to his stylised diagram. He called across, ‘John, what do you make of this?’
To orientate the searcher, there was a blue asterisk which marked the place they were in. The wall was parallel to the outer wall facing the estuary. The tongue of land which held the ruined tower block and Caster itself was faintly shaded in red, the rivers and the sea were pale green. Caster could be seen on the estuary of the second river. There was a land route marked with a miniature model of a toast rack which could be moved along it to a terminus.
The others lined up beside Koenig and Bergman. Rhoda pointed a supple finger at a collection of circles between Caster and the sea. ‘There it is. That’s the farm spread. It must have been there, even when this tower was a town. It could have been one of the supply farms for this very place. You see, Caster is shown there, but it isn’t very big. Just a perimeter wall and some living spaces. I expect it was first used to accommodate the people who worked on the farms. Look, you can see other farm spreads marked out. That would be it. It was a collection centre.’
Carter picked out another feature. ‘There was a sea route. That looks like a wharf close to the farm.’ He walked along the panel following a faint dotted line. ‘It comes all round the point and ends up here, below the tower. It was always the most economical way to shift bulk supplies. You could work an auto freighter on a fixed course. Bring it in at the basement.’
Again Rhoda had information. ‘There’s a whole complex down there. I’ve been there with Melanion. They need to check sometimes. We get power from a tidal race. It’s pretty well self-maintaining, but once in a while something clogs the intake. You can get out into the sea in diving gear. There’s a swimming pool on this floor and the intake for it comes in that wa
y, through a filter system.’
Koenig cleared his mind of the last lingering regrets for Alpha. They were here to stay. The best therapy they could have would be to get down to a piece of work that would put them on load. He said, ‘Right then, I’ll find Karl and get him to take us down there. Meantime, Helena, if you go to work in the lab, you could try to crack this drug. The only thing we can do if we hang about is grow older.’
Helena Russell allowed a half-formed thought to pass—the plan that was taking shape gave every chance that those involved in it would not get much older—but she stifled it, loyally. She said, mildly, ‘If Rhoda would come with me, it might be easier to explain what I’m doing.’
Rhoda looked disappointed, but saw the wisdom of it.
At every point, the sheer scale of the ancient enterprise made Earth-type planning look like a child’s game in a playpen. But Koenig held fast to the simple truth that all their progress had finally run into the sand. It was all a vindication for Bergman’s thesis that small is beautiful and too much reliance on technical progress, as an end in itself, was not what human life should be all about.
Karl took them through Melanion’s workshop section to an elevator which dropped them below the basement level into what had been an underground seaport, no less. There was even a broad-beamed freighter, dry-docked in an immense empty basin. Melanion had grudgingly turned on some power and there was a dim light from a few ceiling ports. At the end of the quay, he turned left into a square-sectioned tunnel and followed it for a good three hundred metres before the way was blocked by a ribbed concrete seal.
Karl said, ‘It’s some time since I was down this way. Last time, it was dry as a bone, but we should be ready to drop this slab, if there’s water behind it.’ He indicated a recess in the tunnel wall with two stub levers, one green and one red. He heaved down on the green one and there was a deep rumble as a massive counterweight took the strain. He said, ‘Now it should lift. The red lever disengages the counterweight. That’s the one, if the sea comes in.’
