The Florians

by Brian Stableford

  Jason still had cards to play. He looked at me again.

  “I think you should come with me, Mr. Alexander,” he said.

  And suddenly, the ball was in my court. It really hadn’t occurred to me until then that this might happen. I was lodged in my corner, waiting for the two giants to argue it out, winner take all. The idea that I might be called upon to choose simply hadn’t entered into my head. But I realized, then, that it really was my choice. Vulgan couldn’t keep me any more than Jason could take me away.

  I hesitated, wondering if there was any way I could weigh the consequences of the alternatives. There didn’t seem to be anything in standing orders to cover it, and I was damned if I was going to sit there and ask myself what Nathan Parrick would do if he were in my place.

  I did the simplest thing. I asked, “Why should I?”

  “Vulgan is trying to use you,” Jason replied. “He’s trying to be an opportunist...to further his own political ambitions. He’s not acting in your interests, nor in the interests of the colony. I don’t know what he’s told you, but his real intention is to cause strife. It would be a bad mistake for you to allow yourself to be used.”

  “Where’s Nathan Parrick?” I asked.

  “He went to the island this evening. He’s with the Planners now. That’s where you should be, too, Mr. Alexander. You’re a scientist. Your business is with the scientists of this world, not with the bureaucrats at Hope Landing. You have nothing in common with Vulgan. I know that he’s an officer of the law, but you must surely have realized that it was an officer of the law who abducted you. Vulgan is no longer operating as a policeman but as a free agent.”

  All of which sounded very true. Jason had a strong case. It was true that I didn’t like him, but that prejudice was immaterial. It was my job to make contact, not to start civil wars.

  Vulgan was watching me. He must have seen the decision in my face.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. Then, to Jason, “If your intention is to establish friendly and meaningful relations with these people, why did your men attack their ship?”

  I didn’t know whether Vulgan was guessing or whether he really knew. He must have had plenty of time before we left South Bay to send men out to the ship, and maybe they had returned—I didn’t know what had passed while he was talking to the men in the station. But if it was a guess, it hit the mark. Jason was suddenly lost in the confusion of trying to estimate how much Vulgan knew, how much I knew, and what interpretation we had put on events. What he finally said was, “That’s a lie.”

  But I didn’t believe him.

  “Of course the Planners sent men to your ship,” he said quickly. “We must establish a base in the village. But this accusation concerning an attack is nonsense.”

  “You didn’t say anything about that before,” I pointed out. “We told you that it would be necessary to establish a base near the ship, because it couldn’t be moved. But you said nothing about men having already gone out there. When we met you on the road, I saw other riders in the distance—but you said nothing about them. The messenger Harwin sent into South Bay went to Vulgan, yet you let us believe that you came in response. How did you know the ship had landed?”

  “The Planners have an elaborate information network,” he replied. “We know everything that happens in the colony. Yes, the riders you saw were headed for your ship, and no, I didn’t mention them. I was deliberately cautious. Wouldn’t you have been, in my situation? I knew nothing about you—your purpose in coming here or the manner of your coming. I misled you. But I assure you that our intentions are in no way hostile. Your ship has not been attacked. Only you have been attacked. By Vulgan. He is the man who has exposed his determination to use you even if it means injuring you. Vulgan and Ellerich have no real understanding of the colony, the way it is organized, or the principles behind that organization. Don’t be misled by the title of ‘Colony Manager’ or ‘Chief of Police’—these men are of minor importance carrying out routine work. If you want to know about this colony, if you want to do anything for this colony, the men you must talk to are the Planners.”

  Again, I had to concede that his arguments had force. Maybe the ship had been attacked, maybe it hadn’t. I still didn’t trust Jason. But there were other priorities. We had to be vulnerable in order to carry out our allotted task. If the colonists attacked us, it was our job to be attacked, not to fight back. The old theory that it takes two to make a quarrel isn’t necessarily so, but it certainly helps to avert a quarrel if one side is ready to capitulate first and argue later. But how many sides were there here?

  I had a flash of inspiration, albeit not a bright one.

  “Suppose we all go to the island,” I said. “Let’s all talk to the Planners.”

  Vulgan didn’t like the idea one little bit—and I hadn’t expected him to. What surprised me, though, was the fact that Jason didn’t appear to have the least enthusiasm for it either. Neither seemed to have heard that compromise is the soul of diplomacy.

  There was a pause while both Vulgan and Jason looked at one another, each running possibilities quickly through, his mind. It was awkward and there seemed, to judge by their faces, not the slightest hope of resolution. I was desperately afraid that despite the Planners this situation might ultimately lead to violence. Violence arises out of frustration, and both these men seemed very frustrated.

  Why on Earth, I wondered, apologizing to myself for the inaptness of the expression, is Jason so horrified by the idea of Vulgan coming along? My suspicious mind couldn’t help thinking that it might be because something was scheduled to happen that Jason didn’t want Vulgan to know about...

  And then there was a scream.

  It was high-pitched, but it was undeniably a masculine scream. It contained rage, surprise, and a great deal of pain. It broke up the tripartite impasse. Jason was the first to move toward the corridor, and Vulgan followed. At first, they moved fairly casually, motivated primarily by curiosity, but then someone shouted “Arne!” in urgent tones.

  Jason moved to the door at the end of the carriage with a litheness that seemed strange in one of his dimensions. I had managed to slip out of the compartment after Vulgan, before the two uniformed men, and I got down to the platform immediately behind the police chief, but several paces down on Jason.

  This station was larger than the one at South Bay by a factor of three, and its layout was far more complex. Instead of being gathered tightly about a terminal the complex here was scattered about a through line with numerous sidings. There was a large apron of open concrete between the train and the bays to and from which the men were busy transferring loads. They had started on several trucks at once, and the platform was strewn with bales and boxes and wooden trolleys.

  A man was lying on the platform some forty or fifty feet up the train, curled up and still moaning. One does not expect to see a man seven feet tall felled and moaning—nor, for that matter, does one expect to hear them scream—but on a world of such giants there is obviously not the same compulsion to live up to the image. They say that the bigger you are the harder you fall, and this one certainly seemed to have been laid out comprehensively.

  No one was paying much attention to him. They were all looking up. I looked up, too, and saw who’d hit him...

  And she saw me....

  “Run!” she howled.

  For a moment, I was rooted to the spot. The very last thing I’d expected to see was Karen Karelia, on top of a goods wagon, wielding a three-foot crowbar with a wicked hook at one end. That she was ready to use it was obvious. Her ankles, at least, were within the reach of the felled man’s co-workers, but no one was attempting to grab her.

  Perhaps it was as well that I was still for a second, because it allowed Vulgan to take an extra step forward, and so leave me, for the moment, alone and with the space to act.

  When she shouted again, elaborating somewhat, “Get out of here, you dumb bastard!” I was ready and able to comply. The two uniformed
men were still behind me and would have had me if I’d tried to run back beyond the train, but there was one way that was unguarded. There was a gap between the carriage and the edge of the platform just big enough to take a long, thin body. Before anyone could stop me, I launched myself into it, and under the train. The best thing of all was that every damn one of them was too fat to follow.

  I hauled myself up onto the far platform, and looked back for Karen. She was running along the top of the train in my direction, jumping the gaps between the trucks with some difficulty but without losing her balance. She came to the end of a sequence of half a dozen roofed trucks and then leaped down into an open wagon. Here, one of Jason’s men made a serious attempt to get at her and the blow she gave his fingers with the iron bar must have smashed his hand beyond repair. She came over the side of the wagon to the empty track on our side of the train and I extended a hand to help her up onto the platform.

  Jason was coming over the same wagon behind her, and one of Vulgan’s cops had gone back into the carriage and was now opening the door on the near side of the train. But we had five or six strides’ start, and we took them at maximum speed. We raced toward the nearer end of the station—the south side, by which the train had come in. Beyond that there was a curtain of lovely darkness.

  The only man who had a chance to stop us was a lone railway official who had, by an unfortunate stroke of fortune, been attending to some business down that end of the vacant platform. But as he saw us coming he made no move to cut us off, simply staring at us in blatant incomprehension. Jason yelled something at him, but even then he didn’t immediately get into gear. The chance went by, and we ran out of the glare of the electric light and into the dismal night.

  When a northbound railway line curves to go west you build the station at the southwest corner of town—and that, for us, was just about perfect. Beyond the station in the direction that we were going there was no town at all—merely a conglomeration of railroad sheds, and sidings containing spare trucks. There was no light to speak of and plenty of cover. There was no problem at all about shaking the pursuit. Giants may make great weight lifters but they aren’t much at sprinting and no damn use at all at middle-distance running. Our big problem was keeping our feet on ground that was littered with junk just waiting to trip us up and break our ankles, but we were lucky. A couple of stumbles, but no falls. We made it through the yards and out into the open country, and once there it was all too easy to get well and truly lost.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  We kept going for about an hour or so, picking our way carefully across country that was moderately open but very much up-and-down. We crossed a small stream and passed through a couple of small woods. We had only the stars to light our way and they weren’t exactly trying as hard as they might have. The idea was to keep going until we hit some large region where we could hide out without fear of being cut off by any search—a forest, for preference. Where we wound up, though, was an area of steep slopes and exposed rocks where we either had to double back or go up into the hills. Here the territory was really rough—the rocks were weathered very unevenly and there were innumerable gullies and clefts hidden even from careful probing by dense vegetation. If we tried to go farther in the dark one of us would almost certainly have ended up with a serious injury, so we settled for searching out a comfortably claustrophobic crevice where we could rest.

  Resting was not so easy. The adrenalin was surging in my blood, my head was ringing, and my breath was coming in ragged gulps. My whole being seemed to be vibrating with pain and effort. I slumped down with my backside on a cushion of damp mossy stuff and my back leaning against a near-vertical stone face, and tried hard to recover my breath. It took time.

  Karen seemed to be the same way, but she found her voice first, even though she used it only to say, “Hi.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, feeling that the time for amiable greetings was past.

  “What the hell are you?” she countered.

  “I was riding in the train,” I said, implying that of all the places on the planet I might have been, that was the most appropriate.

  “So was I,” she said. “Only I didn’t have a ticket. I was in a truck.” She was still holding the hooked crowbar in her right hand, and I could hear its point stirring the dirt between her feet.

  I didn’t bother to ask why she’d been in the truck. I just waited until she got around to it.

  “You’d hardly been gone an hour,” she began, “when things started happening back at the farm. A dozen riders came in and started behaving in a manner that seemed just a little high-handed. Linda was already back at the ship, but Mariel and I were looking around. We saw them before they saw us, and we listened while they were arguing with Saccone—the farmer. They seemed to be trying to move him out of his farm. A couple of them went to the ship. They weren’t armed and they looked harmless enough except for being built like tanks.

  “Mariel and I stayed out of sight, and we watched. Conrad came out of the lock to talk. We couldn’t hear what was said, but it started out polite and slowly degenerated. I think they wanted in, and weren’t too clever about providing reasons. When Conrad wouldn’t let them, as per policy, they tried to jump him. They dragged him out of the lock and tried to get at the inner door. Pete must have released a whiff of gas because they both came back out in a hurry looking very tearful. Conrad took the opportunity to get back in, and though he probably got sick doing it he’s maybe in the best place.

  “We had no chance. They were already looking for us, and while we’d been watching the fun they’d found us. We ran...but they got Mariel.”

  “You left her?” I interposed.

  “Sure. I left her. I can’t see that dirty look you’re giving me but wipe it off anyway. I figured I might be able to get her away if I could stay loose.... Oh, damn it, no I didn’t.... We were both running and they were after us both.... I just kept running when they got her. What was I supposed to do—stop and give up?”

  “You know that’s what you were supposed to do,” I said.

  There was a moment’s silence. “Yeah,” she said finally. “Well, I didn’t. It seemed like a good idea at the time. This isn’t like the type of situation they talked about when they briefed us on the tribulations of Kilner’s crew. And it wasn’t as if I were hauling out a gun and blasting. All I wanted to do was stay free, get out of the way. I didn’t know who those guys were, but they didn’t seem to me like representatives of the government. I mean, the villagers were friendly...I thought everyone was friendly. It just threw me, that’s all.

  “Anyhow, I hiked east, because that’s the way you’d gone—you and Nathan. I had some idea of catching up with you, joining you if things were OK, maybe helping you if things were sticky. It did occur to me that a planet is a big place, and that I was as inconspicuous as a ladybird in a beehive, but not until later. I hit the tracks, eventually, when it was just about getting dark, and I couldn’t decide whether to walk along them into town or what. While I was thinking, along came the train. And I was on this bend, where it had to go slow, so....”

  “I bet you signed on for this trip looking for adventure.” I commented bitterly.

  “Don’t be so bloody smart,” she said. “Where are you, hey?”

  And that, of course, was true. Given the stimulus, I’d run just as she had. Admittedly, I’d been in an awkward spot, where following standing orders and meekly submitting to the demands of the natives involved certain difficulties, but the fact remained that I had done what came naturally...and it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

  “What about the incident at the station?” I asked.

  “They were unloading my truck. The guy found me. He grabbed. What would you do if a seven-foot.... Oh, hell...sure I should have surrendered meekly. ‘It’s a fair cop,’ I should have said. Only it didn’t seem fair, he wasn’t a cop, and I didn’t think his intentions were honorable. I was scared. I tried to fend him off an
d he got mad....”

  “So you belted him in the balls with the hooked end of an iron bar,” I finished. “Defending your maidenly honor? In this day and age?”

  “It isn’t the twenty-third century here,” she muttered. “More like the eighteenth. No, I wasn’t afraid of rape...just afraid, period. I hit him to get him out of the way so I could run.”

  “Getting to be a habit, isn’t it?” I said sourly.

  “Isn’t it?” she echoed. She didn’t exactly sound contrite. She’d certainly sent all the sweet talking we’d done about contact and vulnerability to hell and gone. Maybe she’d cocked the whole operation. But what she’d done was only natural. Anyone might have done the same. Or why was I here? Like she said, I wasn’t sitting in the right place to be so bloody smart. I hadn’t stopped to think whether I was playing by standing orders, or about long-term objectives. Triggered, I’d gone off. There was no point in recrimination.

  The question was: What now?

  “Come on,” she said, breaking up the silence. “Let’s hear your side of the story.”

  “We appear to have stirred up some trouble,” I said tiredly. “To put the worst possible interpretation on things, we seem to have started a revolution. Not by any fault of our own, but simply by arriving at the wrong time. The colony is administered from the capital—Hope Landing—but really controlled by a small aristocracy of the mind who live on an island offshore from the town we just ran away from. Jason took Nathan to see the puppet masters, and one of the puppets hit me over the head. The logic seems to be that if we can be persuaded to deal with the administrators, the Planners’ monopoly of Earthly knowledge won’t be worth a damn—and their power will automatically be broken. Ergo, the Planners are mad keen to keep us to themselves, and the rebels are just as keen to co-opt us. The result is that all the hostility which would have stayed pretty much concealed has suddenly flared up. And here we are, with wasps flying all around. Not pleasant.