After a surreptitious check up on sewer outlets one evening, he returned to the apartment, to find Sam DeRudder there with another.
John entered the living room and came to an abrupt halt, his eyes bugging. He blurted, “Mister of the Harmons!”
Harmon looked up from where he sat on a comfort chair and said, “The name is Milton, John. Milton Harmon. Milt to my friends—such as they are.”
Sam DeRudder came over from the autobar, drinks in hand. He proffered one to Harmon. “That’s right—you two haven’t seen each other since John’s coming to New Sidon.”
John blurted, “But… but you wear not the robes of the followers of Krishna.”
Harmon’s aging over the past few years had softened considerably his sourness of expression and acidity of voice. He said, and there was a far wistfulness somewhere, “And I am not always sure, John, that I appreciate Sam’s giving me the antidote at the end of my decade rather than letting me take the booster dose.”
“Antidote?” John still flabbergasted, looked from his old enemy back to DeRudder.
Sam DeRudder, amused, handed John the second drink and headed back for the bar to dial himself one. He said, “Take that. You look as though you need it.”
And then, from the bar, “You’ve been assimilating fast these last days, John, but you simply haven’t had the time to pick up all aspects of life beyond Caledonia. You might spend a couple of hours at the communicator checking out soma.”
John was bewildered. “I don’t understand.” He looked at Harmon, as though accusingly. “You mean, you are no longer a worshipper at the Shrine of Kalkin, the false religion against the Holy?”
Harmon said ruefully, “I wouldn’t state it exactly that way.”
Sam DeRudder returned with his drink. “Briefly, John, when soma first came on the scene, the League took a tolerant view, as usual in matters pertaining to religion. However, there were dangerous aspects to the use of soma, which you’re fully aware of and I needn’t go into. League Canons now provide that the initial dosage of soma may not be effective for more than a decade. At that point, they who have taken it have two courses. They may take their booster dose and, ah, continue to follow the path of Lord Krishna. Or they may take antisoma and return, well, to the land of the living.”
Harmon said, a note of deprecation there, “It’s not the way I put it, Sam. Until you have taken soma yourself and walked with the Lord Krishna, you can have no idea of the reality of the experience.”
“However, no, thanks,” DeRudder said. He looked back at John. “Milt Harmon is an old, old associate. When his decade was up, I made sure to be there and made sure he took antisoma, rather than a new charge.”
“And what effect does this antisoma have?”
“It creates a prejudice against dosage of the hallucinogen. Otherwise…” The Sidonian shrugged. “Otherwise, there are few who wouldn’t continue to tread the way of the Avatara of Kalkin and the path of Lord Krishna.”
John finished his drink in one fell gulp but did not take his eyes from Harmon.
That worthy shook his head in self-deprecation. “John Hawk, I suppose I owe you apologies. You see, one effect of a decade spent with Krishna has a permanent aspect Though I am now…” He looked at DeRudder. “… now normal, many of the frailties and shortcomings of my former self have been burnt away or, if you will, cast aside. So then, my apologies for the harm I caused you”—he twisted his mouth ruefully—“or tried to in years past.”
John was saved the necessity of a reply by the musical note of the door.
Sam DeRudder went to answer it and returned with Nadine Pond, brisk and efficient as ever, her recorder slung over her shoulder.
She nodded to those present. “Milt, John. Have you already got underway?”
After coming to his feet to acknowledge her presence, Harmon said, “We’ve just been giving John a rundown on the short and longcomings of soma.”
“Longcomings,” she snorted. “I’ve never been an admirer of the effects of soma on the average person. For some, yes; the mentally upset, perhaps, under proper medical direction.
Milt Harmon reseated himself and said softly, “If you’ve never experienced it, don’t knock it.”
“You should know,” Nadine Pond told him, finding a place for herself in a comfort chair. “However, so far as outfits such as our United Interplanetary Mining sponsoring its use on recalcitrant natives, it defeats its purpose. Those who take soma are not good workers. They lack aggression, ambition, initiative. Perhaps your devoted follower of Lord Krishna is right, but whether or not ambition and aggression are desirable traits, men without them are not good workers. The zombi story is a myth. A zombi would be but worthless, even at brute physical labor. Two mentally and physically healthy men set to work digging a hole would accomplish the task in half the time a squad of zombis would. Why? Because they’d figure out some way to lighten the load which is, after all, on their shoulders. The zombis wouldn’t care.”
“I have heard the argument before, as one promoting free enterprise,” DeRudder said from the autobar, where he was dialing the newcomer a drink.
The assignment clerk-cum-anthropologist was impatient. “Not just free enterprise, or capitalism, which is the less mealy-mouthed term, but any socioeconomic system. Even under chattel slavery that slave who was bright and aggressive and had initiative could get to the top—unless his master was an unbelievably stupid dully. Many an ancient empire was in actuality run by slaves. They might have borne such titles as secretary or major-domo, but they were the brains behind the emperor. The same applied under feudalism. That man with push and brains could overcome the handicap of being born of low degree.”
“So far, you’ve mentioned class divided society.”
“The same applies to a collectivized society. Whenever man works, the bright and aggressive will attempt to make the load lighter, and he is as valuable under socialism, or even anarchism, for that matter, as he is under private ownership. Do you labor under the illusion that when the Russians were abuilding their so-called communist state the bright and efficient, the innovator and progressive, didn’t forge to the top?”
“They had a lot of disadvantages, in that particular example,” DeRudder argued, although not very strongly.
“That they did. But those who thwarted them eventually disappeared from the scene, especially the zombi types. As a Caledonian would say, the proof is there before you. Because they did reach their goals. It took time, but eventually they industrialized and became the second of the world powers of the period, and the reason was that eventually direction eased out of the hands of the politicians, at least on an industrial level, and into the hands of scientists, technicians and engineers.”
DeRudder sighed and lowered himself into his own favorite comfort chair. “So much for soma,” he said. “Let us get to the project at hand.” He looked at John contemplatively. “It’s not up to us to make final decisions, of course. This is simply a preliminary investigation of the possibilities. However, John Hawk, how would you like to be Mayor of New Sidon?”
John, who was even still in a mental whirl over the words of the past fifteen minutes, could only gape.
“Mayor!” he blurted.
Harmon chuckled. Nadine Pond smiled amusement.
“That’s right,” DeRudder nodded.
“But… but if I understand… if what I have been reading this past week… but that’s your equivalent of eldest sachem of a town. Even more than that.”
“Ummm, that’s right.”
“But I don’t understand. I am a Caledonian. New Sidon is a city of you from Beyond.”
Sam DeRudder leaned forward. “Only up to a certain point, John. We Sidonians, and others from Beyond, as you call it, have come to a crossroads. The initial exploitation of this planet’s resources has moved very rapidly; in fact, we’ve reached what was once called the takeoff point in industrialization. But that’s the economic aspect. Now it’s time for the politica
l to be considered.”
“But I’m a Caledonian,” John repeated.
“Yes,” Nadine Pond said mildly. “And this is Caledonia.”
Harmon leaned forward to put in a word. “Were you of the opinion that United Interplanetary Mining expected to dominate this world indefinitely by force of arms?”
John looked at him blankly.
Sam DeRudder took over again. “John, the thing is this. Our mining concern is interested basically in Caledonia’s platinum, nothing more. Not even most of your other metals. The value of platinum is such through the League planets that it can profitably be shipped through space. In return for exploitation rights, the company can and does give a great deal to Caledonia and would like to contribute still more. In fact, the more it does contribute, the more profitable its own efforts. For instance, it would like to sponsor petroleum production, if for no other reason than that it is extremely expensive to cart its products all the way from Sidon or elsewhere. It would like to see schools turning out local doctors, so that it wouldn’t have to import such employees from the advanced planets. It would like to see skimmers being manufactured in Caledonian factories, because they’re so expensive to bring in from overspace. I could go on and on.”
John blurted, “But what has this got to do with my taking high office in a Sidonian City?”
“That’s the point,” Nadine Pond said. “This must not remain a Sidonian City. It must become a Caledonian city.
The time has come that you friendlies begin to take over the responsibilities of running your own affairs.”
John settled back in his chair, his face blank.
Milton Harmon said urgently, “You make a mistake if you think that we of the League planets are simply evil destroyers of what has been the way of Caledonia. Opportunistic, we admittedly might have been, but we bring much that you need, including the wherewithal, eventually, for this planet to join the League and take its place with the other advanced worlds.”
“But we Caledonians have no desire to join what you call the advanced worlds.”
DeRudder snorted. “More of you than you might think, John Hawk. You have been up in the hills with the malcontents and have no idea of how rapidly many Caledonians have been coming around. There is security here in our new cities—security and plenty and the opportunities to become educated and to advance.”
“But why me!”
Nadine Pond said, “John Hawk, from what you have told us, you were the youngest sachem in the whole Loch Confederation, not to mention that you also fought your way up to becoming supreme raid cacique. Obviously, you have leadership ability. You are also the highest ranking Caledonian who has ever come over to us.”
Harmon said, “Do not misunderstand the offer. We do not expect simply to put you in the office of mayor and maintain you there. It would be an interim position until political matters could be mapped out to fit local conditions; then elections would be held.”
“Elections?” John said. “How can you have elections? All in New Sidon are clannless.”
The anthropologist took over there. “In your Caledonian society, John, you were represented in your government body through the clann. Your phylum, or tribe, governed itself by a muster of sachems and caciques, each of whom were elected by the adults of the claims they represented. But in the new system, your family would make no difference at all. You would vote for your representatives from the city ward in which you live. New Sidon amounts to a city-state. Later, when we consolidate the planet a bit more, those who live outside the cities will vote in geographic areas we’ll call counties.”
She looked at DeRudder, and a sarcastic aspect came over her expression. “All this isn’t just altruism, of course. The fact is that United Interplanetary Mining and the planet Sidon have stuck their necks out a bit. Caledonia is rather far from the jurisdiction of the League, but it won’t be long before authorities will be turning up to see if League Canons are being observed. The fat will be in the fire, unless self-government is being observed.”
DeRudder said, “To quote a favorite phrase of Milt, here, that’s not exactly the way I’d put it. But it’s near enough. Well, John?” He looked up at the wall chronometer.
John Hawk was shaking his head. “I’d… I’d have to think about it. I know nothing of governing a city such as this. I am—or was—a simple sachem of a clann in the small town of Aberdeen.”
“You are as experienced as anyone else,” Milton Harmon told him. “And obviously a person of sincerity and integrity. The job is there to be done. Who would do it better?”
DeRudder came to his feet and said to Nadine Pond and Harmon, “We’ll have to get along to the company meeting. I suggest we leave John to his considerations and expect a reply from him in the morning.”
The other two stood as well, and shortly the three of them were gone.
John sat for a long time before finally leaving his own scat and making his way to the kitchenette. He stood over the autoserve and inserted his duplicate of DeRudder’s credit card into the slot and dialed Pharmacy.
He said into the screen. “Please let me have one dosage of antisoma.”
John of the Hawks left the apartment and descended the gravity lift to the street level. He turned right and, ignoring the public transportation, headed by foot toward the river front.
New Sidon’s defensive walls came down to the river edge, and John strolled along the inner side of them, attracting no particular attention. It was as DeRudder and the others had said—this was, or was rapidly becoming, a city of Caledonians.
He passed an alleyway, and a voice hissed, “John! John of the Hawks!”
Without immediately turning, he looked up and down the street. All seemed clear. He reversed his way and entered the darker passage.
“Don of the Clarks!”
They embraced in the manner of clannsmen who had taken the blood oath.
“How long have you waited?” John said.
“I but arrived.”
Don was attired in the same type coverall worn by John himself but was considerably soiled. He said sourly, “It is not the cleanest way in the world—through the sewers.” John said, “Your report?”
The other’s eyes gleamed excitement. “All is ready. The clannsmen have gathered there in the hills to the west, riding their fastest steeds. We filtered in, in small groups, and are hidden in the caves and rocks. There is no sign that we have been detected.”
“They have devices that can locate a man simply by his body heat.”
“So we know. However, we had herdsmen drive in large bodies of cattle before us, and now they graze in the same vicinity. Their devices do not detect a man, but animal heat. That of a cow, sheep or horse is no different than a man. It is our belief that thus far we have cozened them.”
John took a deep breath. “What else?”
“We have selected thirty to come through the sewers. All are armed with the weapons of Beyond which we have captured. All are our top clannsmen from the three confederations—sagamores, caciques and top raiders all. At whatever time you name, we will come through.” He brought forth charts of the immediate surroundings and of the town and stabbed with a large forefinger. “We will divide into three bodies. One will dominate the landing field where the vehicles of the sky are kept. All of these will be flamed down, so there will be no escape and no participation on their part in the fight.”
“The other two groups?”
“The two gun emplacements, on the towers at the corners of the town furthest from the river. These will be knocked out. Then we fire our signal into the air, and the clannsmen will ride at full speed from the hills. There will be no laser rifles available to be brought to bear on them before they have reached the walls. They will be up and over and in the streets with carbine, claidheammor and skean before the cursed Sidonians know what is about.”
John of the Hawks took another deep breath. “And then what, Don of the Clarks?”
“Why, then we will
slay them. We will loot the city of nil that is worthy of looting. The women and children we will take to serve as clannless ones in our towns.”
“And the Caledonians here?”
They are slinks and traitors. They will share the fate ol the men from Beyond. This the supreme muster of the three united confederations has decided.”
“And then?” John pursued. “New Sidon is but one of the cities the men from Beyond have built.”
Don was scowling at him. “Why, then we’ll go on to the next. Probably to Berkeley. And we’ll sack it, in turn.”
John was shaking his head. “No. Once, we might succeed, though many will go down to black death in the attempt These from Beyond are not slinks Don of the Clarks. Many of their ways are not ours, but they are not slinks. They will fight and fight hard for their women and children, Their property and their lives. And the word will go out to their other cities, and once warned, they will not be cozened again.”
“You sound strange, John of the Hawks. This was basically your plan. It was you who devised the elaborate playacting in which you were supposedly stripped of your kilts, so that you could enter this city and spy upon the Sidonians. It was you who called for the union of confederations and the attack.”
“I have learned much in the past few days, Don. If we are successful, and admittedly, we have excellent chance, they will mount further, stronger reprisals against our phyla. Their skimmers will seek out the smallest hamlet and flame it down, as Aberdeen was flamed down. It is a battle that we cannot win, no matter how brave the clannsmen, no matter how staunchly our womenfolk back our efforts. It is a battle that cannot be won, for we are simple herdsmen and farmers, and they are advanced and as numerous as the blades of grass on the heath. In this League of theirs they have more planets than we have towns on all California.”
The Space Barbarians Page 18
