Escape from the Drowned Planet

by Helena Puumala

  “The Federation will do nothing outside of expelling the off-world crooks without consultation with the representatives of the indigent people. Probably what you will see first are scholars who come to study you, to find out about the recent history, the composition and the present size of the population, about the resources possibly available for trade, the forms of present government—oh, the list of what they’ll want to know will be a long one. Decisions about how to integrate you into the Space Lanes, and to what extent, will be taken only after their reports have been considered, and after extensive consultations with the local people.”

  “This sort of a thing has been done before, I assume?” Kati asked. At Mikal’s nod she added:

  “Can you give an example of the process?”

  Mikal pondered for a few moments while Captain Lomen and Kati waited in silence.

  “Maybe the Paradiso case would give you some idea of how it goes,” he said finally, “although in some ways that was a very different situation from this one. However, I happen to be familiar with it because I was a part of the team which made observations in situ, about the dangers that the indigenous people would have faced, had The Federation not stepped in to help protect them.

  “When a contingent of the Betans of Volkor IV, in their quest to get away from under the thumb of the Alfans, landed on the world they named Paradiso, they had no idea that there was an indigent sapient race already on it. Their space ships were crude affairs pieced together from what they had been able to buy from Free Traders and keep hidden from the Alfans. Their ability to survey planets was almost non-existent.

  “Paradiso’s sun was only a single warp-jump from Volkor but the planet was anomalous enough that the Betans figured that nobody, especially not the Alfans of their home world would take much interest in it. Because the axial tilt of the planet in respect to the ecliptic is quite small, there is not much seasonal variation on Paradiso, plus most of the water on the planet is concentrated in giant icecaps on the poles. There are no seas or lakes to speak of. The equatorial areas are mainly deserts, then come grasslands and after that, forests. The forests vary from tropical nearest to, and interspersed with, the grasslands, to broad-leafed, to mixed, and, finally, to evergreens. Between the evergreen forest and the polar ice caps is tundra. What seasonal variation there is, causes some melting of the snow and ice that accumulates on the tundra and the ice caps, each polar region doing this in its turn while the other one collects more snow and ice at that time. This is what makes the planet work as an eco-system; of course I’m simplifying the picture since there are mountain ranges and lowlands and such, but basically the melt-water from the poles, running down into the central parts of the planet in rivers which disappear into the desert, is what makes Paradiso a habitable planet.

  “The Betans settled into the grasslands and did not come across the indigent Grenies until they penetrated into the forests. They did that for two reasons: One, they wanted wood with which to build homes and farm buildings. Two, they had brought with them from Volkor IV sprouts of plants known as bean-bushes, the fruit of which when it’s roasted makes an excellent, stimulative beverage, usually consumed hot. These bean-bushes grow best in shady, wooded locations and the Betans had a notion that they might gain a crop to sell in the Space Lanes, if they succeeded in growing them on their new world.”

  “Coffee,” Kati sub-vocalized to her node, excitedly. “I bet it’s coffee.”

  “I do think you’re right,” the granda sub-vocalized back.

  She was elated. There was something familiar out there, perhaps even to be found where she was going!

  “The Grenies seemed to the Betans to not be much of a threat to them. They were a small, peaceful people, short and slight, and distinctively green-skinned. The first reaction of the Betans was to feel protective; having known oppression at the hands of the Alfans, who had colonized Volkor IV and taken over its governance in a far past--but not so distant that the Betans had totally forgotten--their instinctive reaction was to want to treat these folk well. However, although the Grenies liked the idea of growing the bean-bushes and quickly became the best tenders of them, they did not like the idea of live trees being cut down from the forests which they considered their home.

  “This threatened to cause trouble but, it turned out that the Grenies had a solution. They offered the services of members of their communities, known as the Stonesingers, to the newcomers. The Stonesingers used their larynxes to create sounds that could cut thin slabs of stone from cliff-sides, in all shapes and sizes. Other sounds that these men could make--the Stonesingers were all male—transported the stone slabs to where they were needed, ready to be used for building houses and barns—and later, even a Space Port.

  “In time, the Betans imported from Volkor IV some tree species which they grew for wood from which they built many of the buildings in their towns. They did this as much to save wear and tear on the Stonesingers as because they liked wood as a building material. Within about a century, the Betans and the Grenies of Paradiso had become closely affiliated in their living patterns, and it was natural for the Betans to be concerned with the health of members of the Grenie population, especially the ones with unique talents, such as the Stonesingers. In many ways the two populations came to depend on one another: the Grenies worked on the Betan estates, especially with the bean-bushes and bean roasteries; the Grenies grew to be expert handlers of the runnerbeasts that the Betans introduced for cross-country transport; the Betans came to depend on the Grenie Seeresses for advice on all sorts of topics, including politics, health, and economics.

  “Trouble came to Paradiso when the arrogant Alfans of Volkor IV finally realized what was going on. It dawned on them that their subject population was diminishing rather than growing, and when some of the more enterprising (if just as arrogant) of their numbers took passage to neighbouring worlds on Trading ships—some of these carried passengers as well as goods, just like The Seabird does-- they were told that many Betans had moved to a new planet, were doing extremely well there, and the planet even had indigenous inhabitants who had some really interesting talents! The Alfans who had lost their capacity for space flight over the years because they had come to believe that Volkor IV with its subject population, held everything that they might ever want, abruptly decided that it made sense for them to build space ships just like the Betans had and fly to Paradiso and take over. After all, since, according to their thinking, the Betans belonged to them, anything that the Betans had gained or discovered, also belonged to them!”

  “How can any population be that arrogant?” Kati asked, appalled. “What gave them the right to own anybody?”

  “Ah, therein hangs a tale!” Mikal said with a rueful laugh. “I don’t want to go into the details, but here are the bare bones of that story:

  “Alfans worship a mysterious tall, fair-haired Goddess who apparently bestowed on them, as her chosen people, a superiority over other sentients. This superiority comes in a genetic form. About a quarter of the male population of the Alfans, who, by the way, are a tall, fair-haired race, carries a male chromosome which is not a y, but is, instead a better form of it, known as the k. The men with the k are healthier, stronger, possibly more intelligent (because of their arrogance, it’s hard to know for sure), lustier than the others of their race. The odd thing about the k is that it can be passed on by the female line as well as the male line; it was, after all, supposedly the gift of a goddess. I have had it explained to me how that is possible, but I’d have to have access to genetic and chromosomal tables to clarify it for you. In any case, it happens, fairly often.

  “The assumption of superiority creates its own problems. Because the Alfans are arrogant and the k males are lusty, over the generations the k mutation was passed on to a good portion of the Betan population. So the Betans, tending to be shorter and darker than the Alfans, have nevertheless, been producing these marvellous examples of masculinity for almost as long as the two people have share
d a world. Being a more sensible race than the Alfans, they have made a habit of schooling their k’s to be paragons in behaviour as well as in looks and health. Whereas the sight of an Alfan k will take your breath away but his behaviour will infuriate you, it is hard not to be impressed by a Betan k. When I was on Paradiso, even a pup of a Peace Officer that I was, I could see that the k’s were present there in noticeable numbers and that these k-men were a credit to their society.

  “In any case, Alfans began to arrive on Paradiso, usually travelling aboard Trader vessels, their passage paid for by the bush-beans produced on Volkor IV. There were incidents of loutish behaviour in the towns and the locals were not happy. They insisted on disciplining the visitors, only to find out from their talk that a plan to take over their new home was in the works on their old home planet. Could the Alfans do it? No-one knew for sure. It depended, apparently, on how much co-operation they had from the Betans still residing on Volkor IV, but that was not necessarily a reassuring thought. Most of the Betans who had wanted out had already settled on Paradiso, and there was enough Alfan blood among the Betans left, that very possibly their loyalties were with the Alfans on their world, rather than with what amounted to renegades on another planet.

  “The Paradisans could have armed themselves, I suppose. There are still arms-traders among the Space Lanes, although a lot fewer than there were before the Federation came into being. But these were peaceful people; the Grenies especially, would not raise a weapon against a fellow sapient. That circumstance of Grenie pacifism made the Betans of Paradiso feel even more strongly that it was their duty to protect these gentle people from the rapacious Alfans.

  “Things came to a head when two young, upper class Alfan k’s, came to visit Corville, the town nearest to the Paradiso Space Port. They ran across a quatrad of naive, teenaged Grenie girls (Grenie girls form friendship groups of four) who had come to do some shopping in the town. The Alfans, looking for action, found them attractive, and believed themselves to be entitled to treat Grenie girls as they habitually treated the Betan women on their home planet. They brutally raped all four of them, when the girls turned down their advances.

  “The scandal rocked Paradiso. There were Beta Paradisans, both men and women, who seriously considered using some of the wealth their world had generated for them, to buy some big guns and blow off the heads of any Alfans alighting on their soil. The Grenie Seeresses counselled against such action, saying that they trusted the Paradiso Betans to come up with a better solution.

  “They did. They sent a delegation to the Star Federation Senate, asking to be taken on as a Member with Restricted Status. Paradiso would use its bush-bean crop to pay whatever fees and taxes were required if the Federation would set up whatever systems were necessary to keep space travellers from accessing the planet. They would gladly channel all their trade through Federation routes and forgo dealing with Free Traders, if the Federation could protect them from being taken over by the Alfans of Volkor IV. The justification for the Restricted Status was the vulnerability of the Grenie population. Not only were they pacifists, incapable of defending themselves against attack, but they were also incapable of existing away from their home planet. The Grenies, the Betans of Paradiso had discovered, could not travel away from their home world; for reasons that have remained obscure, they simply fade away and die within a few months of leaving their planet.

  “I was one of the Peace Officers sent to verify the claims of the Paradisans. The presence of the Peace Officers was considered necessary since the loutish Alfans had become hated visitors on Paradiso and it seemed better if we, as a third party, were the ones to haul them off, preferably before they managed to do too much damage. I was fresh out of training; it was my first on site placement as a member of the Corps. It was interesting; besides muscling Alfans off-planet, I got to watch the investigators do their work.

  “Well, the upshot was that Paradiso got their Restricted Status, and these days, if you want to visit there, you’ll have to jump through hoops. Plenty of hoops. And the Betans and the Grenies, as far as I know, have been leading unmolested lives ever since.”

  “That was definitely an interesting tale,” Captain Lomen commented, “although I’m not sure how much of it applies to us here. We have been able to lead our lives pretty much without interference—unless you count the off-world criminals’ meeting place and that seems to be in one of the less accessible parts of the Southern Continent. And that Guzi and Dakra chasing you with all those weapons—but would they have been on planet if you two hadn’t escaped custody in the first place?”

  “Jocan could tell you about how Guzi used to come to River City and round up undesirable youngsters for Gorsh’s slave trade,” Kati said, a touch of acid in her voice. ”He mentioned to me that had Guzi not known that they were father and son, he would have been among those shipped out.”

  “You’re not telling me that the folk of River City went along with that?” The Captain sounded disbelieving.

  “Actually, the ones with power were pleased to get rid of trouble-makers,” Mikal said. “not everyone on this world is as kindly towards his neighbours as the Sickle Islanders are.”

  “Too true.” The Captain sighed. “Still, you’d think we could police ourselves, even about that sort of thing, without needing to involve outsiders.”

  *****

  Later, on their way to the Six Palms Inn, Kati had asked Mikal point-blank whether his concern was more for the Kitfi than anyone else on the planet.

  “It’s mostly them, of course,” he had agreed. “But I can’t talk about them because we made the promise to not reveal their presence to the others. And I’m not really worried about the Kitfi vis a vis the general population; the Kitfi are quite capable of hiding from them, especially now that they are fewer, thanks to The Disaster.

  “It’s the off-planet crooks that have me worried. Clearly the slavers are capable of anything, and wouldn’t a Kitfi Farseer make a great exhibit in a side-show of a circus?”

  “There are circuses in the Space Lanes,” Kati had asked bemused.

  “You can find anything and everything among the Fringe Planets and the Fringe Stations,” Mikal had answered. “And yes, that includes circuses.

  “The presence of the Free Traders worries me, too, even though the one who buys from Gerrard will come in handy for us. As the Narra-cloth becomes better known in trading circles, more traders will want in on the action. Sooner or later some enterprising Crime Syndicate will recognize that controlling the trade is a good way to get rich, and that this planet has no defences whatsoever to stop someone from just walking in and taking over.

  “No-one on this world is ready to admit it (except for the Kitfi who have an advantage), but they need the protection of the Federation just as much as Paradiso needed it.”

  *****

  The final evening before Kati, Jocan and Mikal joined the little caravan that was to cross the desert, Kati and Mikal spent at Gerrard’s, while Jocan was seeing Rosine for the last time until...whenever. It was another bittersweet time, what with the impending good-byes. Kati immersed herself for a while in the doings of Alia and Gerrard’s sons, hoping to capture old feelings of pleasure from entertaining and being entertained by children. However, since she was already feeling vulnerable, the fact that the older of the boys was close to Jake’s age, added a sharp edge against her nerves. In the end she was relieved when Mikal suggested that they make an early retreat to their beds so as to be fresh and ready for the trip, in the morning.

  As they walked towards The Six Palms Inn, through the tropical dark, darkness interrupted only by the torches with which the townspeople lighted the fronts of their houses at night, Mikal grabbed hold of her arm, crooking his elbow into hers.

  “When this is all over, Kati, when we’re back in my kind of civilization, you and I are going to have to have a long talk,” he said, and there was something urgent in his voice. “We have so much to say to one another, yet we have all thi
s to get through before it can be said.”

  “I guess we’ll just muddle through in the meantime,” she replied with a sigh.

  She gently patted his arm, while controlling the emotions that his words and the touch aroused within her. He was right. This was no time to deal with the questions involving their relationship.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The threesome arrived at Makkaro’s office before sunrise.

  They had walked through the torchlit streets, once again with all their personal possessions inside the rucksacks and Kati’s money bag bulging with the copper and silver coins she had got the day before in exchange for two gold ones. They had very little idea what services there would be in the small settlements that, according to all the information they had, were all in the way of populated places that they were going to come across between the Oasis City and their destination. With that in mind, they had bought their gear from Makkaro, instead of renting it. The equipment included their saddles, a three-person Narra-cloth tent, blankets of the same material, and an ingenious little stove that could boil water by burning a few twigs or a cake or two of dried Narra dung. Ceta, Wayfarer and Runner were not part of the bargain; at the far border of the herder territory, they would be dropping the animals off at an hostelry with which Makkaro dealt. There they ought to be able to replace them with true runnerbeasts with which to continue their journey. The Narra were never taken into the mountains, Makkaro had explained; they became too sluggish for use in cooler, wetter terrain.

  Jad brought the animals out of the stable and helped the travellers with the saddlebags which contained their food and equipment, and with the full waterskins, showing how to fasten them on to the mounts so that they would remain secure even during fast travel. The Narra were easy to deal with; they were early morning sluggish, Jad explained, but that would change once the sun rose. The stable hand told them that it was best to walk the riding beasts this early in the morning to where the travellers using other equippers were to meet them. Makkaro’s Narra were treated well, he told them, and he would be grateful if the three of them would keep to that practise on the road.