Taboo by Fritz Leiber, Jr.

  The sanctuaries were protected against the self-willed warriors—

  by the self-interest of warriors. Most taboos have a good, even

  a potent, reason—

  Illustrated by Williams

  From Astounding Science Fiction February 1944 issue

  “In the name of the Great Heritage, I claim refuge!”

  The voice was strong and trumpet-clear, yet with a curious note of mockery. The face was in shadow, but the embers of a smoky sunset outline, with smudged brushstrokes of blood, the giant figure. The left hand lightly gripped the lintel of the low doorway for support. The right hung limp—Seafor noted that there the sunset red merged into real blood, which now began to drip upon the floor.

  Seafor looked up. “If I am not mistaken,” he said, “you are Arnine, the outlaw—”

  “When there was law, or rather, the illusion of law, which there hasn’t been, in my lifetime,” interjected the other, in an amused rumble.

  “—who has ravaged a hundred petty domains,” Seafor continued imperturbably, “who has thieved, kidnaped, and killed without mercy, whose trickery and cunning have already become a legend, and who does not care one atom in chaos for the Great Heritage which he now invokes to save his life.”

  “What difference does that make?” Arnine chuckled. “You have to grant me refuge if I claim it. That’s your law.” He swayed, gripped the lintel more strongly, and looked behind him. “And if you don’t cut your speech of welcome pretty short, it’ll be my funeral oration. I’m still fair prey, you know, until I’m inside the door.”

  There was a sudden humming in the murky sky. A narrow beam laced down, firing the air to incandescence, making a great gout of blinding light where it struck the ground a dozen yards away. Immediately came thunder, a puff of heat, and the smell of burning. Seafor fell back a step, blinking. But in the empty hush that followed the thunder, his reply to Arnine sounded as cool and methodical as his previous remarks.

  “You are right, on all counts. Please come in.” He moved a little to one side and inclined his head slightly. “Welcome, Arnine, to Bleaksmound Retreat. We grant you refuge.”

  The outlaw lurched forward, yet with something of the effect of a swagger. As he passed Seafor, there came from beyond the door a groan of the sort that sets the teeth on edge. Seafor looked at him sharply.

  “You have a companion?”

  The outlaw shook his head. He turned, so that the ruddy sunset glow highlighted his lean, big-featured face—a dangerous, red-haired god, a hero with a fox somewhere among his ancestors.

  “Some beast, perhaps, singed by the blast,” he hazarded, and showed his teeth in a long, thin smile.

  Seafor made no comment. “Hyousiks! Teneks!” he called. “We have a guest. Attend to his hurts. Relieve him of his weapons.” Then he took down from the wall a small transparent globe with a dark cylindrical base and went inside.

  It was a ragged and desolate landscape that opened up for Seafor. The‘crimson band of sky edging the horizon heightened the illusion that a forest fire had recently burned through it. Dead and sickly trees were outlined blackly.

  Seafor skirted the blasted patch, holding up the globe, in which a curled wire now glowed brightly. The humming returned. He did not look up, but he moved the luminous globe back and forth to call attention to it.

  The groan was repeated. A metallic shimmer caught Seafor’s eyes. A few steps brought him to the wreck of a small flier. Beside it, in an unnaturally contorted posture, was sprawled a small figure clad in rich synthetics.

  Seafor unlashed the small wrists, and did a little to ease the broken ankle. The boy shuddered and tried to draw away. Then his eyes opened.

  “Seafor! Seafor of Bleaks-mound!” There was surprise in the shrill voice. He stared and plucked at Seafor’s sleeve with his skinny fingers.

  The humming increased. It was as if the buzzing of one giant wasp had brought others.

  “You’re safe now/’ said Seafor. “Amine’s gone. Your father’s men will be here very soon.”

  The boy’s fingers tightened. “Don’t let them take me,” he whispered suddenly.

  “Don’t you understand? I said your father’s men.”

  The boy nodded. “Please don’t let them take me,” he repeated in the same imploring whisper. “I want to stay with you, Seafor. I want to stay at Bleaksmound.” Within seconds of each other, four fliers grounded, their repulsors scattering clods of black soil. From each, two men sprang.

  The boy tugged frantically at Seafor’s arms, as if by that means he could force a nod or a reassuring smile. Then a kind of boyish cunning brightened his eyes.

  ‘Refuge, Seafor,” he whispered. “I claim refuge.”

  Seafor did not reply and his expression remained impassive, but he hooked to his belt the globe which he had previously set down, and carefully lifted the boy in his arms.

  The men hurried up. They wore identical emblems on their blue synthetic coveralls and skull-tight hoods. They carried blasters. They seemed like soldiers, except for a lack of discipline and a kind of animal bleakness that darkened their faces like a tangible film. Because of that film, they did not even seem human—quite.

  Seafor’s gray robe was crude and beggarly compared with their sleek clothing, but his pale, stern, ascetic face, like something carved from ivory, shone with a light that further darkened theirs.

  Now that they faced him, a certain confusion became apparent in their manner.

  “We’re Ayarten of Rossel’s men,” one of them explained. “That’s his son you’ve got there. Amine the outlaw kidnaped him, intending ransom. We brought down his flier.”

  “I know that,” said Seafor.

  “We’re grateful to you, outsider, for the help you’ve given Ayarten’s son,” the other continued. He stepped forward to take the boy, but his manner lacked assurance.

  Seafor did not reply. The boy clung to him. He turned and walked toward the dark, square mass of Bleaksmound.

  “We must take the boy home to his father,” the other protested, following a step. “Give him to us, outsider.”

  “He has claimed refuge,” Seafor told them without turning his head, and walked on.

  They conferred together in whispers, but no action came of it. They watched the luminous globe jog gently up the hill, casting a huge fantastic shadow.

  “Gives you the shivers,” muttered one. “Dead men. That’s what they’re like. Dead men.”

  “You can’t figure them out. Think of getting light by heating a wire inside a ball of dead air. Like our primitive ancestors. And when there’s atom power a-plenty!”

  “But they give up atom power, you know, when they give up everything else—when they die to the world.”

  “Imagine the boy asking for refuge. Scared out of his wits, I suppose. Never catch me doing that.”

  “I always thought young Ayten was a queer boy.”

  “Ayarten won’t like this when we tell him. He won’t like it at all—not with Amine taking shelter in the same place. He’ll be angry.”

  “Not our fault, though.”

  “We’d better hurry. Set the cordon. Report to Ayarten.”

  Burly, blue-tinged shadows, they dispersed to their fliers.”

  Seafor handed the boy to two of his gray-robed brethren, who l)ad a stretcher ready, and preceded them to the infirmary. He met Arnine coming out of the weapon room under escort, and noted the greedy look on the outlaw’s face.

  “Remarkable collection you have there,” said Arnine. “Some of the fine old models they don’t turn out any more. And so many!”

  “Some people die in refuge,” Seafor explained. “A few become outsiders. And some go away without reclaiming their weapons.”

  Amine’s ruddy-gold eyebrows arched skeptically. He seemed on the point of launching a satirical reply w hen he noticed the stretcher.

  Seafor motioned the bearers on to the infirmary. “Do you feel up to having dinner in the refectory?” he asked.

  The outlaw laughed boisterously, as if the idea of his being too sick to eat was very humorous indeed. His arm was in a sling and the feline springiness had returned to his stride. Seafor accompanied him back along the gloomy corridor.

  “Is it your intention to become the accomplice of a kidnaper?” Arnine asked in amused tones a moment later. He showed no embarrassment at his previous lie having been uncovered.

  “The boy claimed refuge,” Seafor said.

  “They’d have found him soon enough, and that would have satisfied Ayarten. But the way it is now—Well, you’re lucky that the border war with Levensee of Wols is keeping Ayarten’s hands full. Still, even that may not be enough.” He shrugged his good shoulder.

  An elderly man turned into the corridor some distance ahead of them. He wore a green uniform of archaic cut. faded and frayed but very neat. Disks of a greenish metal formed the chief insignia.

  “The president of the Fourth Global Republic,” Seafor replied in answer to Amine’s immediate question. “Been in refuge here for the past year.”

  The outlaw expressed incredulity. “Why, if that were the case, he’d have to be two hundred…two hundred fifty years old.”

  “Not at all. When the last elected president died, he exercised his power to appoint an emergency successor to serve until elections could be resumed. Several of his cabinet members held the office. When the last of those died, he handed on the executive authority to some faithful subordinate—perhaps a secretary or bodyguard. It’s gone on that ever since/�

��

  Arnine roared with laughter. “Do you mean to say that that old chap still thinks of the state of the world as merely an emergency temporarily interrupting the majestic and tranquil course of the Fourth Global Republic? Is he grooming a secretary to succeed him?”

  Seafor shook his head. “He was alone when he came here. He is a very old man. He has decided to sign over his authority to me, when he dies.”

  Amine’s laughter became Gargantuan. “One more worthless tradition for you to guard! One more trinket tossed into the rubbage bag of the Great Heritage!” He looked at the man ahead more closely. “I see a blaster. Isn’t that against your rules?”

  “As commander in chief of the Earth’s armed forces, we have granted him certain extraordinary privileges,” Seafor replied imperturbably.

  Amine shrugged his shoulder, indicating that it was impossible to find a laugh big enough to do justice to that jest. They had caught up with the old man now, and Seafor introduced them.

  “Your excellency—Arnine the outlaw.”

  The old man inclined his head politely. “It is always good to meet a fellow citizen. Though I warn you, sir, that when peace is restored I will have to proceed against you with the utmost severity.” There was a grave twinkle in his eyes. “Still, no need to dwell upon such subjects now. Perhaps you can give me news of what’s happening outside this little corner of the Republic. Surely an outlaw ought to get around.” His voice became thoughtful. “No one seems to travel any more—perhaps because it’s so easy.”

  Amine seemed to derive amusement from replying in the same quaintly polite veins. Seafor left them talking amiably and returned to the infirmary.

  A gray-robed doctor was setting the broken ankle. Unmindful of his sharp command the boy tried to sit up.

  “Can I stay here, Seafor?” he called anxiously.

  Seafor nodded. “For the present, at least. Now be quiet.”

  He stood beside the bed until the doctor had finished. Then he looked down at the small damp face and asked, “Why do you want to stay her, Ayten? Why don’t you want to go home?” A faint smile touched his thin, pale lips.

  The doctor went out.

  The boy frowned, trying to find the right answer. A look of fear came into his eyes. “I don’t want to go home because…because they’re not human beings—not father or his women, or any of them. They’re—animals.”

  “All human beings are animals,” said Seafor softly.

  “When I was little, I thought they were gods,” said the boy. “I took it for granted we were all gods. Why shouldn’t I? Things that take you up in the sky at the touch of a finger, transformers that synthesize food and clothes and dwelling domes, weapons that annihilate, picture tapes that tell you how to do things—all that and more!

  “But gradually I realized that something must be wrong. All those wonderful things didn’t square with our cramped lives, with the endless jealousies and quarrels and killings. Nobody ever had a new idea. Nobody ever seemed to think. Nobody could answer my real questions—neither could the picture tapes. They couldn’t tell me why the world seemed to end at the boundaries of Rossel, why we almost never saw strangers, except to kill them, why, with all those wonderful powers, we lived like beasts in a cave!”

  His face was flushing with the excitement and relief of talking out his thoughts. Quietly Seafor laid his hand on the small shoulder.

  “For a long time I told myself that it must be a kind of test,” the boy continued, “that they were seeing if I was worthy of the domain of Rossel, and that some day, when I had proved myself, a door would open and I would walk into the real world, the big friendly world I knew must exist somewhere.

  “Now I know there is no door. The real world doesn’t exist—except for you outsiders, in some way that I don’t understand. And you’ve given up all the things that we possess.” He caught hold of Seafor’s wrist. “Why is that? And why, with all our powers, do we live like animals?”

  Seafor waited a moment before he spoke. “There was a real world,” he said. “There’s still a little of it left, and some day it will all come . back. Civilization came because men needed each other. They found that life was easier and better if they traded together—not only the necessities of life but also the things that can’t be weighed or measured and that haven’t a definite barter value, like the beauty of a song, or the joy of dancing, or the understanding of each other’s troubles and hopes.

  “As civilization grew, that mutual dependency increased and became infinitely complicated. Each man’s life and happiness was the work of millions of his fellow workers.

  “But there were forces working in the opposite direction. Man was learning to synthesize materials and make use of universal power sources. Wars accelerated this process, by periodically shutting off supplies of essential raw materials.

  “That trend reached its ultimate development with the perfecting of atomic power and the invention of multipurpose transmutators capable of supplying all the necessities of life anywhere.

  “At almost any other time that development would have been a great boon, freeing man’s energies for more intensive participation in the social quest. But the shadow of the Second Global Empire still darkened the Fourth Global Republic, and interplanetary war with the Venusian and Martian colonies sapped its strength. The Great Migrations began. There was an endless, seemingly purposeless surging of populations between the three planets, attended by wanton massacres.

  “The end product was stagnation. Distrust in the very forces that brought civilization into being. Humanity turned in upon itself, mentally and physically. Small communities came into existence, each built around some leader who had a little more energy and determination left than any of his fellows. The stragglers were killed, or they drifted into such communities—and stayed there. Men were tired. They wanted only to attach themselves to a single locality—to the soil. A vegetative cycle succeeded a cycle of movement.

  “In any previous age, hunger and want would have broken that unwholesome equilibrium. But now each little community was independent of trade, so far as the necessities of life were concerned. And as for the things that have no definite barter value—disillusioned men could get along without them.

  “The jealousies and rivalries and suspicions of small-community existence came to make up the whole of life. Strangers were persecuted. There was almost continual warfare between neighboring communities, but it remained a petty, spiteful warfare, incapable of giving rise to widespread conquest and the establishment of nations, because it lacked any enduring economic motivation.

  “That’s the sort of world you’ve been bom into, Ayten.”

  The boy said nothing. Seafor continued, “A few men realized what was being lost. They saw all of Earth’s cultural heritage sliding into oblivion, save the bare minimum needed for the new self-maintaining mode of life. Reading and writing, for example, were going into the discard—picture tapes were sufficient to transmit the necessary education.

  “These men found that they could not change the small-community system of life from within. So long as they remained part of it, they would have to conform to its savage and inhospitable laws. So they got out of it. They gave up atomic power. They gave up all valued possessions. Only by paying that price could they purchase even the most shadowy immunity from attack. They formed small communities. They devoted themselves to preserving the cultural heritage and to maintaining the ideals of universal brotherhood and of individual honor and integrity. They became the outsiders.”

  Ayten whispered, “I want to be an outsider.”

  Seafor nodded with a frown. “1 tell you what,*’ he said finally. “You can live with us as a novice, and work and .study for a year. Then, if you’re still determined, we’ll talk it over again.”

  Ayten smiled.

  In the refectory, Amine’s brown-and-gold tunic made a gaudy break in the long rows of gray, as did the clothing of the other refugees.

  Seafor paused by Arnine. “How does it taste after a diet of synthetics?”

  The outlaw- turned around. “Inferior, of course. But I’ve been in refuge before. Where do you get such garbage?” he inquired pleasantly.

 

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