Fiction Complete, page 15
“Don’t blow your top. Anybody would think what I thought.”
“Exactly. And that’s why I don’t want it to get back to Peerless Leader.”
“Look what you just told me, and I didn’t doubt you,” Bill said, picking up a useful argument. “What you’re doing looks bad—you can’t deny that. Elphinstone puts things in a way that makes me look bad, and you take his word for it.”
“Hold it, kid. I’m not likely to take old Baggy Belly’s word for anything. Why are you so convinced he’s plotting against you? What he says sounds logical. Maybe that’s the way it looks to him. As it happens, I know his version of your wingding at Copta’s was all wet. Some of my creepers told me about it. They were laughing fit to kill. The only thing they were sorry about was that they had to throw you out when the fight started. They were afraid you’d get hurt. From their point of view, you missed the high point of the party. For basically peaceful beings, they sure enjoy walloping each other around—but they’re so well armored, they can’t really hurt each other much as long as they keep their claws shut, and they always do. They don’t hold our group in high esteem—and a couple of the psychs claim they’re not intelligent!—but they like me pretty well, considering the communication problem, and they said you were a social smash. The word is that even though you’re a slimy, soft-bodied slug, you’re a real human being. Or zap.”
Bill blushed with pleasure, and had to fight an impulse to dig his toe into the carpet and mutter, “Aw, shucks!” But he still had a bone to pick with Misner.
“Do you believe me when I tell you I’m not a spy?” he asked.
The engineer hesitated.
“I believe you believe it.”
“But I’m telling the truth!”
“So was the Elf, when you get right down to it. Did he tell any lies? Did he actually accuse you of anything?”
“He pointed to the path, and they all walked down it. It comes to the same thing.”
“Not quite. Elphinstone gets a giant ego-boost out of pushing the buttons and making people react, but he’s not as simple as all that. He’s been in the Service quite a while, you know, and with all that seniority and experience behind him, he’s assigned to Irdra. That doesn’t look too good. This job may be make-or-break for him, and he’s not overlooking any angles. I can understand why he wants you under his thumb. Thyg-F-3 sent you here. Why? Nobody—perhaps not even you—can be sure you’re the defenseless pawn you appear to be. You’re an enigma, my friend. I’m on your side because I think you’re honorable by the same standards as mine. Not only that—” He cocked his head and scrutinized Bill judiciously: “When I look at the shrewd little eyes peering out of that innocent, boyish face, and consider what I know about your record—all I can say is, I bet Thyg-F-3 would make one hell of a poker player, with or without sleeves. On which note, I’m going to work.”
XII
Bill went back to his room, pushed on the “Do Not Disturb” light, depolarized the window, and stood staring gloomily at the searing purple and orange landscape.
“Judson,” he said to the ghost of his reflection, “you are lost in the desert without a camel. I don’t even trust you any more. Furthermore, if you spend another week in this rest home for point-worshipers, with nobody to talk to and nothing to do, knowing that every time you set foot out of your room you’re being watched, you’ll wind up wearing the tightest of straitjackets in the most padded of cells. Maybe you better send F-3 a scream for transfer.”
He rejected that idea after the briefest consideration. F-3 wasn’t likely to make it easy for him. It was too much like Uncle Arpad, and he knew what Uncle Arpad would have said: “You asked for this, boy; now do something with it. You ain’t put your back into this yet. Quit draggin’ your tail and feelin’ sorry for yourself. Up and at ’em!”
Thinking of Uncle Arpad reinforced his backbone. He’d made a wish, and the wish had been granted. In fairy tales, every time a wisher got what he asked for there was a kicker in it, and he wasn’t going to lie down and admit defeat. He would probably be on Irdra for a while. Why should he waste time and lose sanity in the station? Before his very eyes, even if he couldn’t see it, there was a village full of friendly, cheerful, pro-Judson beings. He liked them, and after the hours he had spent with them he’d gotten so used to their appearance he no longer thought of them as funny-looking aliens, but as people—his kind of people, far better company than, say, Irma.
Furthermore, he was sure that, with Space Emergency Rations, living out there was feasible. He was sure enough to bet his life on it. Full of enthusiasm, he rubbed his hands and started planning. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Of course, he hadn’t known SpEms were available. Without them, he wouldn’t have dared try it. If he had to balance vot-juice with ordinary food, he’d be eating every waking moment, and how could he supply himself with that amount of nourishment? He certainly couldn’t masticate zap food, and his own wouldn’t keep in the heat; but SpEms were processed and packaged to withstand any kind of external conditions as long as they remained sealed, and a one-by-three-inch block could keep an averagesized humanoid going all day. He could use chocolate for barter, too, and these goodies conveniently awaited him in the Storage Area, from whence he could easily load them onto one of the dolly rigs that stood on the apron all day. Since there was seldom Anyone in that area except at loading time, he could operate without being asked embarrassing questions. It was perfect! He could load up, take off, dump his supplies somewhere, return the tractor, and the chances were excellent that no one would notice or even realize that he had left the station.
In his characteristic harebrained fashion, Bill wasted no time mulling over this decision but hastened to the storage dome immediately. He sneaked up to the office, ascertained that the coast was clear, punched the filer for the coordinates of the SpEms and set happily to work, restraining himself with difficulty from whistling.
When he had accumulated what might normally be a year’s supply of provisions (Had he really lost seventeen pounds in six hours?), he started the tractor and pulled off the apron, on his way to adventure at last. He drove slowly over the rock-hard ground until he found the road that would guide him through the presently invisible jungle to the equally invisible village. It stretched before him, no more than a smoothed-out band cleared of obstacles. He could make good time on it, and he wanted to hurry to get away from this empty landscape, where all that lived was driven underground by the blasting sun. He spotted the marker of the bar Ixot had first taken him to, and slid thankfully in.
The bartender took one look at him and poured two beakers of vot-juice, shaking his head disapprovingly. Bill gulped the first cup and waited for it to take effect. . . . The heat became bearable, ceased to register as uncomfortable. The bartender’s movements no longer seemed blurred by speed, his speech was readily understandable. And the biotechs had refused to listen to a word he told them! Experts! He sniffed contemptuously.
“You sure cut it fine,” the bartender reproved him. “Thirst-shock’s nothing to play around with—or don’t you Glaxies know any better?”
“We don’t have vot-juice,” Bill pointed out, and bartered some chocolate in exchange for a generous supply of it. The deal concluded, he asked directions to Gort’s dwelling. Ixot, Edris, and Tikvol had all urged him to come and visit them, but they had been a bit elated at the time. Since he and Gort had saved each other’s lives, he felt that with him he had a stronger claim to friendship. He finally found the right burrow (the design on its boulder-marker was the same as that on Gort’s back), stamped on the trap door, and waited.
Nothing happened.
He stamped again, waited, and again nothing happened. Should he go in anyway? What was the custom?
“I’ll see if the door is open,” he decided. “If it is, he probably doesn’t mind people coming in. I hope.”
The door lifted easily; he slid down the ramp. Gort was resting against a half-inclined leaner, whetting a knife.
“Oh,” Bill said feebly, embarrassed. “I thought you weren’t home. You didn’t answer the door.”
“Why should I? Did it say anything?”
“Uh.” Bill found himself at a loss. “I don’t know how to interpret your expression. Are you surprised? Angry? You want me to leave?”
“Not until I find out why you came, anyway. I hear you brought your lunch. Planning to stay awhile?”
Bill’s mouth opened, but no words came forth.
“You Glaxies certainly are peculiar,” Gort said, shaking his head. “Well? What’s on your mind, if any?”
Gort’s manner didn’t encourage beating about the bush.
“I’d like to stay with you for a few days,” Bill blurted.
“I’m not teaching until vot-flower night after next; I’m taking time out to think. . . . Still, we might work something out.” He put down his knife and whetstone and began dancing idly about the room, snapping his claws and muttering to himself. At last he came to rest facing Bill.
“I’ve got it: You’ll be a vot-picker,” he announced. “There aren’t any empty burrows available right now, so you’d have to live in one that’s already occupied, and I’m a vot-picker and I live here alone, so it’s logical you’d move in with me. Just don’t tell anybody you’re receiving instruction. I shouldn’t make exceptions, but your case is unusual.”
Bill sat on the floor.
“Why don’t we go back to the beginning and start over?” he asked plaintively. “What you’ve been saying has gone right past me and out the door. You’re a teacher? I’m going to receive instruction? In what?”
“Philosophy, of course. Isn’t that why you came to me?”
“Oog. Well, frankly, no. I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.” He explained his presence.
“That’s very interesting,” Gort mused, tapping a fist against his mouth-shields. “I’m glad you came. You have an upside-down way of looking at things that should prove quite stimulating. You’re an adult, you talk and act so close to rationally, it’s hard to believe that for all practical purposes, you come among us as green as a hatchling with the yolk-sac still attached. I’ll try to remember that. And I daresay there are a few things you can teach me,” he added kindly.
Bill bit his tongue, swallowing the sharp retort that sprang to mind, as Gort brushed his thanks aside with a graceful flick of his antennae.
“Anybody would do the same, as long as they didn’t find you personally offensive. Come on, I’ll help you unload your stuff and then we can get you a knife and a sack.”
XIII
His supplies tucked away in Gort’s storeroom, Bill returned the tractor and dolly to the apron unobserved. On his return to the burrow he accompanied his new roommate to a craftsman who made tools of various sorts. Their entrance into the toolmaker’s burrow interrupted an argument between the artisan and three whizzers, the latter all tricked out alike in snappy red-and-black paint jobs.
“Don’t you leap in here and tell me what Zletz wants!” the toolmaker was shouting, snapping his claws angrily. “Has hanging around with him muddied your brains as well? Tm a serious person, I make fine tools for people who respect them, not toys for whizzers to play games with. I wouldn’t take your tabs anyway. You waste so much of your time on Zletz’s silliness, you don’t do the work to back them up.”
“What’s that froth-brain up to now?” Gort asked.
“He gets crazier every day. Listen to this: He wants me to make knives for everybody he’s enrolled in that “club” or whatever he calls it. Can you imagine that? As if I had nothing better to do! And look at the witless way he’s got them painted up, all alike, too! Have you seen that yet? Turn around, there, and show off your Glaxie symbols.”
The whizzers obligingly did so, and Bill saw that the patterns on their backs were letters of the Galactic Standard alphabet: GLANSTROP.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“It stands for “Galactic League Associated National Society for Training and Recruitment of Politicians,” one of the whizzers explained. “You should know that—you’re a Glaxie.”
“I never heard of it. What’s it supposed to do?”
“We’re learning to help Zletz take over the world.” The whizzers rattled as heartily at this as Gort and the knifemaker.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, playing up to the poor fool like that!” the craftsman scolded when he had regained control of himself. “And pestering other people with it! Make knives for you, indeed! What use could you possibly have for them? If you think it’s funny that Zletz is muddier than the Wet Place, that’s your business; but you should know better than to bother the rest of us with it.”
“Don’t lose moisture over it, pops,” one of them soothed. “Zletz told us to ask, so we asked. No harm in that, is there?”
“I suppose not. But you know how he is, he takes this game seriously. You shouldn’t encourage him. It’s unkind.”
“It doesn’t hurt him, and we can’t play it without him. He’s the one with the Glaxie who gives him all these neat ideas.”
“All right, all right, it’s none of my affair. You’ve finished your nattering here, go away and leave me in peace.”
They saluted in a fairly snappy manner, fell into line, right-faced and marched off, giggling happily as they attempted to get up the stairs in formation.
The toolmaker helped himself to a swig of distilled vot-juice and glanced at Bill with distaste.
“I’m surprised at you, Gort. You—a vot-picker, a philosopher—taking up with a Glaxie. This isn’t the same one who gave the talk-machine to Zletz, at least. He looks repulsive enough. What did you bring him here for? I’m no anything-for-a-laugh whizzer.”
“No, you’re a shoot-off-your-mouth-without-thinking walker. It’s a damned good thing for the race that enough vot-pickers are born into it to teach sense to the rest of you. What do you think I’d bring him to you for?”
“He needs a tool?” The toolmaker backed away, gesticulating astonishment.
“Right. A vot-vine cutter is what he wants.”
“What does he want it for? And what’s he giving for it?”
“He’s not going to trim his clutchers with it, and he’s giving tabs for it, like everybody eke.”
“Oh, no! You’re not slipping any of that Glaxie trash off on me. What’s the matter with you, anyway, Gort? I wouldn’t be surprised if he fed you chocolate. Is that what hit you?”
Gort took the toolmaker by the shoulders, pushed him back against a leaner, and said firmly, “Shut up and listen. This Glaxie has moved into the burrow I live in. He’s going to cut vot-vines, for which he needs a cutter. You’re still with me? Good. Nobody said anything about that Glaxie funny stuff; I distinctly pronounced the word ‘tab.’ He’s going to give you his own, like everybody else does, and he’s going to back it up with vot-cuttings. You’ve got that? Fine. Now, how about a cutter?”
“A Glaxie vot-picker? How about that!” The stroller’s antennae snapped upright.
“Beam it later,” Gort sighed. “Let’s have a cutter.”
Gort selected one, and Bill gave in exchange a leathery-textured square of material on which he obediently traced the symbols Gort showed him how to make, promising to provide vot-cuttings equal to the agreed-on value of the tool. Tikvol was next on the agenda. From him the novice vot-cutter acquired a large netted sack for his cuttings, and a belt to which he could attach his knife and canteen.
When they went outside, the sun was low in the sky, and the cool breeze that presaged evening had begun to stir. They left the concentration of inhabited burrows and struck out into open country to reach the area Gort was currently cropping, where the vot-vines clustered thick above the course of an underground river. From beneath the boulders scattered here like jacks, the first venturesome tips of the vot-tendrils were beginning to creep forth, exposing themselves as if cautiously testing the air, and the scrawny branches of the pliquot trees were beginning to plump out. On the shady sides of their refuges the vines were long enough to be seized, hauled out three or four feet, then chopped off and stuffed into the expandable sack.
“Aren’t these things dangerous?” Bill asked nervously.
“Not yet,” Gort reassured him. “By the time the leaves that are big enough to hold us are out, it’ll be too cold and dark to work. Just grab them like this, so they can’t nip you.”
Bill worked clumsily at first, then began to fall into the rhythm of it: grab, pull, slash; grab, pull, slash. His cutter, of some material that looked like glass, had a razor-sharp edge and was engineered for maximum efficiency. He thought of its maker with respect. It was exquisitely balanced, and the carving on the handle, seemingly no more than ornamental, kept it from slipping as his palm got sweaty, whether designed for this purpose or not. It was a beautiful piece of workmanship, and he could well understand why a craftsman who respected his skill would refuse to create such tools to be used as toys. A sudden recollection stopped him short in his work.
“Zletz?” he blurted. “The crazy guy they were talking about couldn’t have been Coordinator Zletz, surely?”
“That’s what the guys in GLANSTROP have been calling him. Why?”
Bill felt like taking his ears off and shaking them to see if they still functioned.
“You mean that Coordinator Zletz, that Elphinstone says is the Big Boss of the whole planet, is actually the village idiot?”
“I don’t know what the Glaxie says, but as far as Zletz is concerned, you’ve hit it just about right.”
“. . . And he’s got a Glaxie who gives him neat ideas. . . . That has to be Elphinstone. What is this GLANSTROP business, anyway?”
“Some clutch of morons Zletz organized,” Gort shrugged. “A lot of the whizzers have joined it. It’s new, it’s different, it amuses them. They’re prone to fads.”
