Winners!

by Poul Anderson

  The least hum answered her. She imagined the links: to the maser in the ferry, up past the sky to the nearest orbiting relay unit, to the next, to the next, around the bloated belly of the planet, by ogre sun and inhuman stars, until the pulses reached the mother ship; then down to an unliving brain that routed the question to the appropriate data bank; then to the scanners, whose resonating energies flew from molecule to distorted molecule, identifying more bits of information than it made sense to number, data garnered from hundreds or thousands of entire words, data preserved through the wreck of Empire and the dark ages that followed, data going back to an Old Earth that perhaps no longer existed. She shied from the thought and wished herself back on dear stem Kraken. We will go there, she promised Donli’s child. You will dwell apart from these too many machines and grow up as the gods meant you should.

  “Query,” said the artificial voice. “Of what origin was the victim of this assault?”

  Evalyth must wet her lips before she could reply: “Atheian. He was Donli Saim, your master.”

  “In that event, the possibility of tracking the desired local inhabitant may exist. The odds will now be computed. In the interim, do you wish to know the basis of the possibility?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Native Atheian biochemistry developed in a manner quite parallel to Earth’s,” said the voice, “and the early colonists had no difficulty in introducing terrestrial species. Thus they enjoyed a friendly environment, where the population soon grew sufficiently large to obviate the danger of racial change through mutation and/or genetic drift. In addition, no selection pressure tended to force change. Hence the modem Atheian human is little different from his ancestors of Earth, on which account his physiology and biochemistry are known in detail.

  “This has been essentially the case on most colonized planets for which records are available. Where different breeds of men have arisen, it has generally been because the original settlers were highly selected groups. Randomness, and evolutionary adaptation to new conditions, have seldom produced radical changes in biotype. For example, the robustness of the average Krakener is a response to comparatively high gravity, his size aids him in resisting cold, his fair complexion is helpful beneath a sun poor in ultraviolet. But his ancestors were people who already had the natural endowments for such a world. His deviations from their norm are not extreme. They do not preclude his living on more Earth-like planets or interbreeding with the inhabitants of these.

  “Occasionally, however, larger variations have occurred. They appear to be due to a small original population or to unterrestroid conditions or both. The population may have been small because the planet could not support more, or have become small as the result of hostile action when the Empire fell. In the former case, genetic accidents had a chance to be significant; in the latter, radiation produced a high rate of mutant births among survivors. The variations are less apt to be in gross anatomy than in subtle endocrine and enzymatic qualities, which affect the physiology and psychology. Well-known cases include the reaction of the Gwydiona to nicotine and certain indoles, and the requirement of the Ifrians for trace amounts of lead. Sometimes the inhabitants of two planets are actually intersterile because of their differences.

  “While this world has hitherto received the sketchiest of examinations—” Evalyth was yanked out of a reverie into which the lecture had led her—“certain facts are clear. Few terrestrial species have flourished; no doubt others were introduced originally, but died off after the technology to maintain them was lost. Man has thus been forced to depend on autochthonous life for the major part of his food. This life is deficient in various elements of human nutrition. For example, the only Vitamin C appears to be in immigrant plants; Saim observed that the people consume large amounts of grass and leaves from those species, and that fluoroscopic pictures indicate this practice has measurably modified the digestive tract. No one would supply skin, blood, sputum, or similar samples, not even from corpses.” Afraid of magic, Evalyth thought drearily, yes, they’re back to that too. “But intensive analysis of the usual meat animals shows these to be undersupplied with three essential amino acids, and human adaptation to this must have involved considerable change on the cellular and sub-cellular levels. The probable type and extent of such change are computable.

  “The calculations are now complete.” Evalyth gripped the arms of her chair and could not breathe. “While the answer is subject to error for lack of precise data, it indicates a fair probability of success. In effect, Atheian flesh is alien here. It can be metabolized, but the body of the local consumer will excrete certain compounds and these will impart a characteristic odor to skin and breath as well as to urine and feces. The chance is good that it will be detectable by neo-Freeholder technique at distances of several kilometers, after sixty or seventy hours. But since the molecules in question are steadily being degraded and dissipated, speed of action is recommended.”

  I am going to find Donli’s murderer. Darkness roared around Evalyth.

  “Shall the organisms be ordered for you and given the appropriate search program?” asked the voice. “They can be on hand in an estimated three hours.”

  “Yes,” she stammered. “Oh, please—Have you any other . . . other . . . advice?”

  “The man ought not to be killed out of hand, but brought here for examination: if for no other reason, then in order that the scientific ends of the expedition may be served.”

  That’s a machine talking, Evalyth cried. It’s designed to help research. Nothing more. But it was his. And its answer was so altogether Donli that she could no longer hold back her tears.

  VI

  The single big moon rose nearly full, shortly after sundown. It drowned most stars; the jungle beneath was cobbled with silver and dappled with black; the snowcone of Mount Burns floated unreal at the unseen edge of the world. Wind slid around Evalyth where she crouched on her gravsled; it was full of wet acrid odors, and felt cold though it was not, and chuckled at her back. Somewhere something screeched, every few minutes, and something else cawed reply. . . .

  She scowled at her position indicators, aglow on the control panel. Curses and chaos, Morn had to be in this area! He couldn’t have escaped from the valley on foot in the time available, and her search pattern had practically covered it. If she ran out of bugs before she found him, must she assume he was dead? They ought to be able to find his body regardless, ought they not? Unless it was buried deep—Here. She brought the sled to hover, took the next phial off the rack, and stood up to open it.

  The bugs came out many and tiny, like smoke in the moonlight. Their cloud whirled, began to break apart. Evalyth felt a nausea. Another failure?

  No! Wait! Were not those motes dancing back together, into a streak barely visible under the moon, and vanishing downward? Heart thuttering, she turned to the indicator. Its neurodetector antenna was not aimlessly wobbling but pointed straight west-northwest, declination thirty-two degrees below horizontal. Only a concentration of the bugs could make it behave like that. And only the particular mixture of molecules to which the bugs had been presensitized, in several parts per million or better, would make them converge on the source.

  “Ya-a-a-ah!” She couldn’t help the one hawk-yell. But thereafter she bit her lips shut—blood trickled unnoticed down her chin—and drove the sled in silence.

  The distance was a mere few kilometers. She came to a halt above an opening in the forest. Pools of scummy water gleamed in its rank growth. The trees made a solid-seeming wall around. Evalyth clapped her night goggles down off her helmet and over her eyes. A lean-to became visible. It was hastily woven from vines and withes, huddled against a pair of the largest trees to let their branches hide it from the sky. The bugs were entering.

  Evalyth lowered her sled to a meter off the ground and got to her feet again. A stun pistol slid from its sheath into her right hand. Her left rested on the blaster.

  Morn’s two sons groped from the shelter. The bugs
whirled around them, a mist that blurred their outlines. Of course, Evalyth realized, nonetheless shocked into a higher hatred, I should have known, they did the actual devouring. More than ever did they resemble gnomes—skinny limbs, big heads, the pot bellies of undernourishment. Krakener boys of their age would have twice their bulk and be noticeably on the way to becoming men. These nude bodies belonged to children, except that they had the grotesqueness of eld.

  The parents followed them, ignored by the entranced bugs. The mother wailed. Evalyth identified a few words, “What is the matter, what are those things—oh, help—” but her gaze was locked upon Morn.

  Limping out of the hutch, stooped to clear its entrance, he made her think of some huge beetle crawling from an offal heap. But she would know that bushy head though her brain were coming apart. He carried a stone blade, surely the one that hacked up Donli. I will take it away from him, and the hand with it, Evalyth wept. I will keep him alive while I dismantle him with these my own hands, and in between times he can watch me flay those repulsive spawn of his.

  The wife’s scream broke through. She had seen the metal thing, and the giant that stood on its platform, with skull and eyes shimmering beneath the moon.

  “I have come for you who killed my man,” Evalyth said.

  The mother screamed anew and cast herself before the boys. The father tried to run around in front of her, but his lame foot twisted under him and he fell into a pool. As he struggled out of its muck, Evalyth shot the woman. No sound was heard; she folded and lay moveless. “Run!” Morn shouted. He tried to charge the sled. Evalyth twisted a control stick. Her vehicle whipped in a circle, heading off the boys. She shot them from above, where Moru couldn’t quite reach her.

  He knelt beside the nearest, took the body in his arms and looked upward. The moonlight poured relentlessly across him. “What can you now do to me?” he called.

  She stunned him too, landed, got off and quickly hogtied the four of them. Loading them aboard, she found them lighter than she had expected.

  Sweat had sprung forth upon her, until her coverall stuck dripping to her skin. She began to shake, as if with fever. Her ears buzzed. “I would have destroyed you,” she said. Her voice sounded remote and unfamiliar. A still more distant part wondered why she bothered speaking to the unconscious, in her own tongue at that. “I wish you hadn’t acted the way you did. That made me remember what the computer said, about Donli’s friends needing you for study.

  “You’re too good a chance, I suppose. After your doings, we have the right under Allied rules to make prisoners of you, and none of his friends are likely to get maudlin about your feelings.

  “Oh, they won’t be inhumane. A few cell samples, a lot of tests, anaesthesia where necessary, nothing harmful, nothing but a clinical examination as thorough as facilities allow. No doubt you’ll be better fed than at any time before, and no doubt the medics will find some pathologies they can cure for you. In the end, Morn, they’ll release your wife and children.”

  She stared into his horrible face. “I am pleased,” she said, “that to you, who won’t comprehend what is going on, it will be a bad experience. And when they are finished, Morn, I will insist on having you, at least, back. They can’t deny me that. Why, your tribe itself has, in effect, cast you out. Right? My colleagues won’t let me do, more than kill you, I’m afraid, but on this I will insist.”

  She gunned the engine and started toward Lokon, as fast as possible, to arrive while she felt able to be satisfied with that much.

  VII

  And the days without him and the days without him.

  The nights were welcome. If she had not worked herself quite to exhaustion, she could take a pill. He rarely returned in her dreams. But she had to get through each day, and would not drown him in drugs.

  Luckily, there was a good deal of work involved in preparing to depart, when the expedition was short-handed and on short notice. Gear must be dismantled, packed, ferried to the ship, and stowed. New Dawn herself must be readied, numerous systems recommissioned and tested. Her militechnic training qualified Evalyth to double as mechanic, boat jockey, or loading gang boss. In addition, she kept up the routines of defense in the compound.

  Captain Jonafer objected mildly to this. “Why bother, Lieutenant? The locals are scared blue of us. They’ve heard what you did—and this coming and going through the sky, robots and heavy machinery in action, floodlights after dark—I’m having trouble persuading them not to abandon their town!”

  “Let them,” she snapped. “Who cares?”

  “We did not come here to ruin them, Lieutenant.”

  “No. In my judgment, though, Captain, they’ll be glad to ruin us if we present the least opportunity. Imagine what special virtues your body must have.”

  Jonafer sighed and gave in. But when she refused to receive Rogar the next time she was planetside, he ordered her to do so and to be civil.

  The Kiev entered the biolab section—she would not have him in her living quarters—with a gift held in both hands, a sword of Imperial metal. She shrugged; no doubt a museum would be pleased to get the thing. “Lay it on the floor,” she told him.

  Because she occupied the single chair, he stood. He looked little and old in his robe. “I came,” he whispered, “to say how we of Lokon rejoice that the heaven-borne has won her revenge.”

  “Is winning it,” she corrected.

  He could not meet her eyes. She stared moodily at his faded hair. “Since the heaven-borne could . . . easily . . . find those she wished . . . she knows the truth in the hearts of us of Lokon, that we never intended harm to her folk.”

  That didn’t seem to call for an answer.

  His fingers twisted together. “Then why do you forsake us?” he went on. “When first you came, when we had come to know you and you spoke our speech, you said you would stay for many moons and after you would come others to teach and trade. Our hearts rejoiced. It was not alone the goods you might someday let us buy, nor that your wisemen talked of ways to end hunger, sickness, danger, and sorrow. No, our jubilation and thankfulness were most for the wonders you opened. Suddenly the world was made great, that had been so narrow. And now you are going away. I have asked, when I dared, and those of your men who will speak to me say none will return. How have we offended you, and how may it be made right, heaven-borne?”

  “You can stop treating your fellow men like animals,” Evalyth got past her teeth.

  “I have gathered . . . somewhat . . . that you from the stars say it is wrong what happens in the Sacred Place. But we only do it once in our lifetimes, heaven-borne, and because we must!”

  “You have no need.”

  Rogar went on his hands and knees before her. “Perhaps the heaven-borne are thus,” he pleaded, “but we are merely men. If our sons do not get the manhood, they will never beget children of their own, and the last of us will die alone in a world of death, with none to crack his skull and let the soul out—” He dared glance up at her. What he saw made him whimper and crawl backwards into the sun-glare.

  Later Chena Damard sought Evalyth. They had a drink and talked around the subject for a while, until the anthropologist plunged in: “You were pretty hard on the sachem, weren’t you?”

  “How’d you—Oh.” The Krakener remembered that the interview had been taped, as was done whenever possible for later study. “What was I supposed to do, kiss his man-eating mouth?”

  “No.” Chena winced. “I suppose not.”

  “Your signature heads the list, on the official recommendation that we quit this planet.”

  “Yes. But—Now I don’t know. I was repelled. I am. However—I’ve been observing the medical team working on those prisoners of yours. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “You should. The way they cringe, and shriek, and reach to each other when they’re strapped down in the lab, and cling together afterward in their cell.”

  “They aren’t suffering any pain or mutilation, are they?”
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  “Of course not. But can they believe it when their captors say they won’t? They can’t be tranquillized while under study, you know, if the results are to be valid. Their fear of the absolutely unknown—Well, Evalyth, I had to stop observing. I couldn’t take any more.” Chena gave the other a long stare. “You might, though.”

  Evalyth shook her head. “I don’t gloat. I’ll shoot the murderer because my family honor demands it. The rest can go free, even the boys, even in spite of what they ate.” She poured herself a stiff draught and tossed it off in a gulp. The liquor burned on the way down.

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” Chena said. “Donli wouldn’t have liked it. He had a proverb that he claimed was very ancient—he was from my city, don’t forget, and I have known . . . I did know him longer than you, dear—I heard him say, twice or thrice, Do I not destroy my enemies if I make them my friends?”

  “Think of a venomous insect,” Evalyth replied. “You don’t make friends with it. You put it under your heel.”

  “But a man does what he does because of what he is, what his society has made him.” Chena’s voice grew urgent; she leaned forward to grip Evalyth’s hand, which did not respond. “What is one man, one lifetime, against all who live around him and all who have gone before? Cannibalism wouldn’t be found everywhere over this island, in every one of these otherwise altogether different groupings, if it weren’t the most deeply rooted cultural imperative this race has got.”

  Evalyth grinned around a rising anger. “And what kind of race are they to acquire it? And how about according me the privilege of operating on my own cultural imperatives? I’m bound home, to raise Donli’s child away from your gutless civilization. He will not grow up disgraced because his mother was too weak to exact justice for his father. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get up early and take another boatload to the ship and get it inboard.”