Mutiny in Space

by Avram Davidson

  Jory licked the last drop of paste food from his palate. “Why, yes, sir. I do. But I didn’t suppose that you intended to conceal it from me.”

  Rond drew in the sand with a stick. “You’re a saucy fellow, Mr. Cane. But a loyal one. Well. It was intended by those rogues in the junta that we should make for C-3, where the Second Academy’s Guild has a Spotting Station, of course. But I’m afraid that wouldn’t do. No, sir, it wouldn’t do at all.”

  The cool wind was like a long drink of clean water. Cane thought of clean water, water that hadn’t been used, reused, refined, distilled, redistilled, aerated — the works — a hundred times. There might be a spring somewhere. Or, he could dig in the sand and see if — but not now. He was tired, suddenly. Infinitely tired. But not too tired to wonder how they could have made a journey of such an impossible length. G-27! How could they conceivably have made it to such a distant sector?

  “Why not, sir?”

  There were many reasons, Rond explained, still drawing in the sand. For one thing, as his first officer must know, relations between their own Guild and the Second Academy’s Guild weren’t too good at the present time. Their Guild wouldn’t like its men to have to appeal to the other one for assistance. Furthermore, the Spotting Station was on a Dead World, and had a complement of only three men. An additional eight would have made it impossible for them to hold out till Relief — they would have to appeal for immediate supplies, and this, of course, would be embarrassing….

  And so, rather than be embarrassed, Jory thought, his anger almost lost at the man’s infinite effrontery — and infinite courage —

  “Besides, you see, there was no reason to believe that the mutineers mightn’t have changed their minds. And they could — and in such a case probably would — find us waiting for them there on C-3. Whereas, you know, here — ”

  It made sense. It did make sense. “But … sir … the distance …?”

  “There was enough fuel. Barely enough, but — as you see — enough.”

  Jory shook his head, impatiently.

  “I meant food. We must have gone ten times past the break point. You can only regenerate so many times before there’s nothing more to reclaim from the wastes, you know.”

  Captain Rond scratched out his drawings, tossed the stick away. “You’re thinking in terms of normal metabolism,” he said. “Ours wasn’t normal. We were on double-slow NH.”

  The full picture came as abruptly to Jory Cane’s mind as the sudden smell of smoke again. Of course men under narcohypnosis had a slower metabolism — under slow NH, even more so. But slow NH was dangerous in the extreme, almost never used, and then only briefly. And as for double-slow — !

  “I thought,” he said, slowly, “that to put men on double-slow without permission wasn’t allowed. And I don’t remember having given mine.”

  “You didn’t,” said Captain Rond, almost cheerfully. “There was no time to gain. I made the decision. Obviously the right one. I know what you are thinking, He saved a pettyboat and lost a ship, but — ”

  Sharp on the “but” came a shout. Half the men were on their feet, the others had fallen on hands and knees in trying to rise. Hands were pointing, waving, gesturing toward the main shore. Duston came running, stumbling. “Something in the bosky over there, Captain! Something moved — I saw it — moved in the bushes!”

  The sun was dipping into the water. The counter-coast looked blue and dim. Jory peered, but saw nothing which might not have been the breeze. “An animal?” he suggested.

  “No, sir. Not an animal.”

  That persistent tinge of smoke, coming and going on the edges of his perception … was it a lightning-struck tree?

  “A man?”

  Duston shook his head. “No, no man. It was too small for a man.” He turned, looked again. His heavy face showed, not so much alarm, as suspicion. Puzzlement.

  Rond got briskly to his feet, brushed off sand. “Crammer, you will take the first watch. Draw a weapon from the First Officer. I will relieve you in two hours. We had better see about food. Then, perhaps, sleep. Real sleep.”

  Just before Jory lay down he heard Rond say, “ ‘The rude mind with difficulty associates the ideas of power and benignity’ — remember that, Cane. It’s from George Eliot, a twentieth-century poet, in case pre-Technic Lit is no longer being taught at the Academy.”

  Somewhat later, before real sleep came rolling in like a fog, Jory heard, or thought he heard, Duston mutter once again: “It was too small for a man.”

  two

  THE SUN ROSE NEXT DAY A PALE ORANGE-YELLOW IN the clear air. The scent-lures on the fishing tackle in the emergency gear had brought in a catch of a half-dozen creatures rather more like trilobites than fish, each the size of a man’s arm. Pieces of Allen’s Paper were affixed to parts of one, cut up for the test; they waited the required half-hour and then, the paper having remained uncolored, they grilled and ate the lot.

  Captain Rond cleared his throat, gestured to the men to dispose of the remains of the meal. Jory did not envy the man’s position. Rond’s career was, time-wise, half over. To have had his ship stolen from him (and from the Guild) might well mean it was entirely over — unless he was willing, for his pension’s sake, to take some obscure post at reduced pay. On the other hand, should he come well out of it — get the ship back, for example — he might actually come out ahead — which was unlikely.

  Jory’s own status was equivocal. On the one hand, the Guild Directorate could hardly blame a first officer for a mutiny, and Rond was not the type to try shifting the blame onto him. If they made a bad return, one costly or embarrassing, say, then he would share in Rond’s disgrace — and without the hope of a half-pay post. Not that he’d be likely to take one. A good return, in which he figured well, would be to his own credit, also. An ordinary one? Ordinary from the distant viewpoint of the Directorate, that was … well … they’d watch him carefully from that time on. And any question which might come up would find his name remembered. “Cane? Isn’t that the Cane who was in the Persephone?” And that would be that.

  As if the Captain had been reading his mind, this was the precise point at which Rond chose to begin in talking, now, to the men.

  “You have separated yourselves from the boys,” he said. “I will recommend you for double pay dating from the mutiny and until we sign in aboard a Guild ship or other installation. I will further recommend that you all be advanced two places in rank, and — while I cannot promise — I should think a special service bonus very likely, too.”

  One of the men said, judiciously, “Well … I don’t think I’ll spend mine just yet.” A chuckle ran through the little group. Jory looked at the man who’d spoken. “Storm,” they called him, but he didn’t know if it was his real name or a nickname. A young man, with a pleasant and mildly ugly face. He knew little enough about any of the men — a first officer wouldn’t. But he was certainly going to get to know more about them, that was sure. And they, about him.

  Rond smiled faintly. “It would be foolish of me to minimize the dangers and difficulties of our position,” he said. “We are on a world all but unknown to the worlds we know, and about the only thing known about it previously was that it was here … and had a breathable atmosphere. Those two things were enough to convince me that I had the one thing we immediately needed — a place of refuge. A starting-point for the long road back. Our position is not only a hard one, it is a classic one. We are castaways. Other loyal members of mutinous ships have been murdered, or sent off in pettyboats which could not conceivably have brought them to any place of safety. We are fortunate.”

  He told them of groups which had made it back safely. Some, they had heard of … Neptune VI, Anti-gone, Dancer, Guildsman II. Others were new to them, although not all of these had been involved in mutiny — Leading Officer Shohet and ten men, when the Jeremias crashed on Hyperion beta; the four crewmen and two passengers of the Bonavita, disabled in magnetic storms between the Lace Pattern and the Ri
m, under the leadership of Dr. Oliphant; and, of course, the legendary but nonetheless actual exploits of the Six Stewards of Centauri. “Although I don’t expect it will take us twenty years, nor are we burdened with the ship’s treasury, as they were,” he commented.

  Their immediate job was to find fuel. If Valentine’s Planet supported a Technic-civilization, and if it was not a hostile one, this would be easy. But every hour which passed without contact decreased the likelihood that they were on a T-world. If there were inhabitants with even a rudimentary knowledge of the planet’s mineral resources, if they could get from them some sort of clue to the location of, say, petroleum —

  “Captain.”

  “Steward Mars. Yes.”

  “Why start at the bottom? Why not look for fissables right off?”

  Jory picked up that one. “Mars, if we’ve got a pre-T population here, they won’t know what a fissive is, while oil often seeps up to the surface, or releases gases which catch fire. And if we can crack oil, we can scan the whole world with the pettyboat, checking for radiation. If we find the right kind, good. If not, well, we’ve still got our liquid fuel.”

  “Okay, First,” Mars nodded.

  Rond nodded, too. Then he gave his orders.

  Sunlight and shadow dappled the ground. Clean clothes felt good, and so did clean bodies. Rond had ordered a general wash-up (or, rather, had directed Jory Cane to do so) before they moved out. Crammer had volunteered to stay behind to guard the pettyboat. Jory had wanted another man to remain with him, but Rond felt that the laser-gun was by itself worth several men — assuming that anything (or anybody) got by the watch-wires or -wards, which was unlikely. So they inflated the dingy, fastened the line, and crossed the narrow strait to the mainland. Crammer hauled in the dingy. They waved, he waved back. They moved on. Three times a day he and Rond would be in touch via their tiny pectoral communicators. Crammer said he wouldn’t be lonely.

  Rond had the other weapon, of course. The rest had fashioned hafts to which their emergency-kit knives were snapped, forming effective, if makeshift, spears. Jory carried the flare-shooter. If any craft were sighted or heard overhead, he would fire a signal. Smoke by day, it would show up as fire by night. “Almost Biblical, isn’t it?” was Rond’s comment.

  Rivers, or streams too broad to ford, would present a problem, not so much in tactics as in policy. Was there an intelligent race here? Was it friendly? If so, they should move downstream, for there seemed a sort of universal tendency for settlements to increase in size and number as a river progressed toward its mouth. If, on the other hand, there was no intelligent race — or if it were hostile — then they ought to go upstream, where they might cross more easily and be less likely to be seen.

  They passed on, now, through countryside of a Temperate Zone type. There were too many trees for it to be savannah, and too few for it to be a forest. The effect was rather like the Great Park on Island L’vong in the P’vong Cluster, though — so far — without any signs that it was, like Island L’vong, thoroughly inhabited.

  Inhabited by men, that is. There was certainly life.

  It was Levvis, the tall riggerman, who first pointed. “Hey, Duston, was that what you saw last night?” he asked, gesturing.

  There were three or four of them, like large and fat gray lizards, and they moved slowly along, grazing the leafy grass. Lizards, of course, did not have six feet.

  “Nope,” said Duston, firmly. “Uh-uh. Too small.”

  Levvis tossed a twig at one of them. “Awk,” it said, looking up, its mouth full of browse. “Awk …”

  The engine man laughed. “That’s its name,” he said. “The awk.”

  Rond’s dry voice commented, “Levvis’s awk. As its discoverer, you are entitled to the honor, Riggerman. But I would refrain from tossing twigs. The fact that it eats grass does not prove it might not eat flesh. On the old Homeworld there were said to be but four omnivorous creatures — ‘The rat, the roach, the pig, the man …’ Other planets have proven more prolific in omnivores.”

  They reached a slight but definite upward tilt of land when the gray-haired Systemsman, Lockharn, spoke, almost for the first time. “I wonder it didn’t run away,” he said, thoughtfully. “I wonder none of them do … see? It could mean two things, that I can think of. Maybe there aren’t any dangerous forms of life here on Valentine.” He stopped. A fallen tree barred their way. It was so long that Jory gestured them to climb over rather than walk around. The trees were growing thicker now.

  “What’s the other thing it could mean, Lockie, you think?” Mars asked.

  “Why,” Lockharn said, mildly surprised that this wasn’t obvious, “maybe they’re domestic.”

  Someone said, “Psst” — and pointed. One of the awks crawled off a heap of leaves, waddled down to thrust a long, bifurcated tongue into a tiny stream. Something scuttled swiftly down from a tree, dug into the heap, emerged with something in its mouth, swiftly scuttled back up the tree again. The awk waddled back to its nest and sat down again. A leathery-yellow flake of shell spiraled down from the tree. And another.

  “If it was me that saw it,” Storm said, “I wouldn’t let on. I wouldn’t want it to be known forever after as ‘Storm’s eggsucker.’ I — ” His sentence was never finished, nor did the last piece of shell ever seem to finish its fall. In a flat, tight voice, Duston said, “Oh, there they are — ”

  And there they were — two of them.

  • • •

  He had been right — not animals — and too small to be men. What was the answer? Obviously, Jory thought, in the microsecond or two before everything started moving again — obviously, children! They hadn’t thought of that.

  Then two came into the clearing together, long sticks in their hands. After that first frozen moment, one of them uttered a high cry of fright and turned and fled. The other started to follow, tripped, let out a wail, scrambled up again and darted away — only to look back and run headlong into a tree. This time there was no getting up.

  Captain Rond and Levvis knelt. The others stood around. The child had red hair, auburn, almost, Jory thought — or chestnut. Rond fingered the kilted robe with its intricate pattern of curling interwined leafy sprigs. “Too bad,” he murmured. “Woven stuff. Almost certainly a pre-T culture. Too bad. Too bad.”

  “How’s the kid, Captain?” Mars asked, slightly impatiently.

  “I’m sure he’s not hurt. Probably not even unconscious … ah.”

  The eyelids, pale in the rather ruddy face, flickered. Rond took hold of a wrist, gently but firmly. The eyes opened. They were green, dark green, slightly but not unpleasantly prominent, and unquestionably intelligent. The ears were thin and somewhat narrow, with long lobes. The face was heart-shaped. One small hand groped along the turf, found its stick, closed firmly around it. The other pulled, was restrained by Rond’s grip. The child gave a faint cry, trembled.

  Levvis took the hand and patted it. “Don’t be afraid, Little Joe,” he said. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

  “Certainly not,” said Rond. With his own free hand he gently tilted the small, delicate face so that the eyes looked up at him. He stroked the face from brow to chin, softly, tenderly. In a voice, low, soft, infinitely different from anything Jory had ever heard him use before, he began to speak.

  “Ahnaah … ahnaah … lahlaah … lahlahlaah … hahahnah …” It was not quite a chant, not quite a singsong. Jory recognized it almost instantly; so must all the men. He heard one of them, short-breathed, awed, “Maahmohsses …”

  Maahmohsses! The strange, the difficult, the utterly effective art of the Raangaan-tahani, the priest-physicians of planet Ur in the not quite Glactic string of stars called the Chaldees.

  The curious persuasive sounds went on, the gestures continued. It was said that the sounds did not actually form words even in any of the languages of Ur, and parallels had been sought (though not satisfactorily found) in such antique phenomona as glossolalia, hypnotism, and projection. It was n
ot intended as a cure, or as a ceremony valid in itself. The Raangaan-tahani called it “the opening of the way,” and said that it required three conditions: the willingness of the subject, the absolute sincerity of the performer, and — of course — the capacity of both. Maahmohsses. It annulled hostility, dissipated fright, created rapport. There was more, a lot more, but where fact left off and legend began, Jory did not know. He had not known that Captain Rond was a kaapahmohsses, an adept of the art. It occurred to him that there might well be a universe of things about Captain Rond which he did not know.

  Some while ago, the child’s hand had been released, and he had let go of his stick. How long had the strange, infinitely pleasant and soothing voice been silent? Jory did not know. He knew that the child was smiling, that Rond was smiling … everyone was. On his knees, now, the child searched the ground, gave a pleased little noise, plucked up a sprig of something. He gave the leaves a slight twist, handed it to Rond, and got up.

  “How nice,” said Rond. “How very nice.” He bent over it a moment, then handed it to Jory. It went the circle, only a stem and a few leaves, bruised to release a strange and spicy-sweet scent — but in its strong, rich odor Jory Cane seemed to come aware of the whole rich world which was planet Valentine.

  “Well, well,” said Rond, “we must get on.” He addressed the child: “Let’s go, my young friend.”

  Little Joe smiled, thrust his stick under his arm, bowed with his hands cupped up and together, and moved away. He spoke to them over his shoulder, in the husky and not unpleasant tones sometimes found in precocious children.

  “Hey, Captain,” said Mars, “what’s the kid saying?”

  “I have no idea,” the Captain said, serenely, marching along.

  Mars seemed both surprised and disappointed. “Don’t you understand each other’s language now? I thought that … that …”

  “No. That’s one of the many fables, I’m afraid, about the art of Ur. Later, when time allows, I will arrange for language pick-up in the usual manner.”