The Destroyers

by Randall Garrett

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Geetu Melwani, Bruce Albrecht andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net

  THE DESTROYERS

  BY RANDALL GARRETT

  _Any war is made up of a horde of personal tragedies--but the greater picture is the tragedy of the death of a way of life. For a way of life--good, bad, or indifferent--exists because it is dearly loved...._

  Illustrated by van Dongen

  Anketam stretched his arms out as though he were trying to embrace thewhole world. He pushed himself up on his tiptoes, arched his back, andgave out with a prodigious yawn that somehow managed to express all thecontentment and pleasure that filled his soul. He felt a faint twinge inhis shoulders, and there was a dull ache in the small of his back, bothof which reminded him that he was no longer the man he had been twentyyears before, but he ignored them and stretched again.

  He was still strong, Anketam thought; still strong enough to do hisday's work for The Chief without being too tired to relax and enjoyhimself afterwards. At forty-five, he had a good fifteen years morebefore he'd be retired to minor make-work jobs, doing the small choresas a sort of token in justification of his keep in his old age.

  He settled his heels back to the ground and looked around at the fieldsof green shoots that surrounded him. That part of the job was done, atleast. The sun's lower edge was just barely touching the westernhorizon, and all the seedlings were in. Anketam had kept his crewsweating to get them all in, but now the greenhouses were all empty andready for seeding in the next crop while this one grew to maturity. Butthat could wait. By working just a little harder, for just a littlelonger each day, he and his crew had managed to get the transplantingdone a good four days ahead of schedule, which meant four days offishing or hunting or just plain loafing. The Chief didn't care how aman spent his time, so long as the work was done.

  He thumbed his broad-brimmed hat back from his forehead and looked up atthe sky. There were a few thin clouds overhead, but there was no threatof rain, which was good. In this part of Xedii, the spring rainssometimes hit hard and washed out the transplanted seedlings before theyhad a chance to take root properly. If rain would hold off for anotherten days, Anketam thought, then it could fall all it wanted. Meanwhile,the irrigation reservoir was full to brimming, and that would supply allthe water the young shoots needed to keep them from being burnt by thesun.

  He lowered his eyes again, this time to look at the next section overtoward the south, where Jacovik and his crew were still working. Hecould see their bent figures outlined against the horizon, just at thebrow of the slope, and he grinned to himself. He had beaten Jacovik outagain.

  Anketam and Jacovik had had a friendly feud going for years, each tryingto do a better, faster job than the other. None of the other supervisorson The Chief's land came even close to beating out Anketam or Jacovik,so it was always between the two of them, which one came out on top.Sometimes it was one, sometimes the other.

  At the last harvest, Jacovik had been very pleased with himself whenthe tallies showed that he'd beaten out Anketam by a hundred kilos ofcut leaves. But The Chief had taken him down a good bit when the reportcame through that Anketam's leaves had made more money because they werebetter quality.

  He looked all around the horizon. From here, only Jacovik's sectioncould be seen, and only Jacovik's men could be seen moving.

  When Anketam's gaze touched the northern horizon, his gray eyes narroweda little. There was a darkness there, a faint indication of cloudbuild-up. He hoped it didn't mean rain. Getting the transplants in earlywas all right, but it didn't count for anything if they were washed out.

  He pushed the thought out of his mind. Rain or no rain, there wasnothing could be done about it except put up shelters over the rows ofplants. He'd just have to keep an eye on the northern horizon and hopefor the best. He didn't want to put up the shelters unless he absolutelyhad to, because the seedlings were invariably bruised in the process andthat would cut the leaf yield way down. He remembered one year whenJacovik had gotten panicky and put up his shelters, and the storm hadbeen a gentle thing that only lasted a few minutes before it blew over.Anketam had held off, ready to make his men work in the rain ifnecessary, and when the harvest had come, he'd beaten Jacovik handsdown.

  * * * * *

  Anketam pulled his hat down again and turned to walk toward his house inthe little village that he and his crew called home. He had warned hiswife to have supper ready early. "I figure on being finished bysundown," he'd said. "You can tell the other women I said so. But don'tsay anything to them till after we've gone to the fields. I don't wantthose boys thinking about the fishing they're going to do tomorrow andthen get behind in their work because they're daydreaming."

  The other men were already gone; they'd headed back to the village asfast as they could move as soon as he'd told them the job was finished.Only he had stayed to look at the fields and see them all finished, eachshoot casting long shadows in the ruddy light of the setting sun. He'dwanted to stand there, all by himself feeling the glow of pride andsatisfaction that came over him, knowing that he was better than anyother supervisor on The Chief's vast acreage.

  His own shadow grew long ahead of him as he walked back, his steps stillbrisk and springy, in spite of the day's hard work.

  The sun had set and twilight had come by the time he reached his ownhome. He had glanced again toward the north, and had been relieved tosee that the stars were visible near the horizon. The clouds couldn't bevery thick.

  Overhead, the great, glowing cloud of the Dragon Nebula shed its softlight. That's what made it possible to work after sundown in thespring; at that time of year, the Dragon Nebula was at its brightestduring the early part of the evening. The tail of it didn't vanishbeneath the horizon until well after midnight. In the autumn, it wasn'tvisible at all, and the nights were dark except for the stars.

  Anketam pushed open the door of his home and noted with satisfactionthat the warm smells of cooking filled the air, laving his nostrils andpalate with fine promises. He stopped and frowned as he heard a man'svoice speaking in low tones in the kitchen.

  Then Memi's voice called out: "Is that you, Ank?"

  "Yeah," he said, walking toward the kitchen. "It's me."

  "We've got company," she said. "Guess who."

  "I don't claim to be much good at guessing," said Anketam. "I'll have topeek."

  He stopped at the door of the kitchen and grinned widely when he saw whothe man was. "Russat! Well, by heaven, it's good to see you!"

  There was a moment's hesitation, then a minute or two of handshaking andbackslapping as the two brothers both tried to speak at the same time.Anketam heard himself repeating: "Yessir! By _heaven_, it's good to seeyou! Real good!"

  And Russat was saying: "Same here, Ank! And, gee, you're looking great.I mean, real great! Tough as ever, eh, Ank?"

  "Yeah, sure, tough as ever. Sit down, boy. Memi! Pour us something hotand get that bottle out of the cupboard!"

  Anketam pushed his brother back towards the chair and made him sit down,but Russat was protesting: "Now, wait a minute! Now, just you hold on,Ank! Don't be getting out your bottle just yet. I brought some _real_stuff! I mean, _expensive_--stuff you can't get very easy. I brought itjust for you, and you're going to have some of it before you say anotherword. Show him, Memi."

  Memi was standing there, beaming, holding the bottle. Her blue eyes hadfaded slowly in the years since she and Anketam had married, but therewas a sparkle in them now. Anketam looked at the bottle.

  "Bedamned," he said softly. The bottle was beautiful just as it was. Itwas a work of art in itself, with designs cut all through it and prettytracings of what looked like gold thread laced in and out of thesurface. A
nd it was full to the neck with a clear, red-brown liquid.Anketam thought of the bottle in his own cupboard--plain, translucentplastic, filled with the water-white liquor rationed out from thecommissary--and he suddenly felt very backwards and countryish. Hescratched thoughtfully at his beard and said: "Well, Well. I don't know,Russ--I don't know. You think a plain farmer like me can take anythingthat fancy?"

  Russat laughed, a little embarrassed. "Sure you can. You mean to sayyou've never had brandy before? Why, down in Algia, our Chief--" Hestopped.

  Anketam didn't look at him. "Sure, Russ; sure. I'll bet Chief Samasgives a drink to his secretary, too, now and then." He turned around andwinked. "But this stuff is for brain