Collected Short Fiction, page 27
Larissa twisted violently in Felks’ grip, and the blaster swung in a short arc. Clint leaped toward the man, grabbing the gun arm. The blaster went off, searing the sky with its crackling beam. Then the cops jumped into the fray. Felks fell heavily to the ground, slamming his head against the hard steelite cement. He didn’t move.
One of the cops bent over him for a moment. Then he stood up. In his palm was a little cup of transparent plastic. In its center there was a delicately tinted circle of green.
“He’s a phony, all right, Miss Larissa,” said the cop.
She nodded. “I—I see.” She was clenching her teeth. “Give Mr. Conrad his fifty thousand back. And then you know what to do.”
Clint took the sheaf of bills and pocketed them. Larissa turned to look at him. “You were right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I—”
Clint broke off suddenly as he saw the tears half-formed, glistening in the corners of her eyes.
“He’s dead,” she said softly. “Cantelli’s really dead.”
And then Clint was comforting her as she sobbed on his chest. Over her shoulder, he watched the cops carry the unconscious Felks into their aircar. He didn’t think Felks was going to enjoy the ride—not in the least.
THE END
The Chosen People
The essential trick in getting a puppet to stand on its own feet is to pull the strings so delicately it never learns it isn’t!
The hard, savage mandibles of the hugl slashed at Kiv peGanz Brajjyd and missed. Kiv jerked his hand out of the beast’s way just in time. Again the hugl lashed out—and this time, it connected. The powerful jaws came together, and Kiv’s blood spurted down over the monster’s head.
“Damn!” Kiv snapped, irritated.
The animal’s little teeth had taken a nasty bite out of the ball of Kiv’s thumb. Before it could snap again, Kiv dropped the animal into the little wooden box he usually carried with him for just this purpose and clicked the lid shut.
“Bite you?” Narla asked.
“Yes. Nasty little beast,” Kiv said without rancor. “I should have learned how to handle them by now. If they’re all as hungry as this one, I can see why they’re having so much trouble with them on the northern farms.”
He turned the box over. The bottom, which was made of glass, permitted him to see the hugl. Clashing its jaws, the inch-long creature scrambled madly around the inside of the hard, plastic-impregnated box.
Narla iKiv geFulda Sesom, who had only recently been privileged to add the “iKiv” to her name, looked with interest at the little box in her husband’s hand.
“What’s so different about it, Kiv?” she asked.
“The armor,” he told her. “It’s black. I’ve never seen a black one before. All of the specimens I have at the School are brown.” He wrapped his pocket kerchief around the nipped thumb and tied it.
“Take this, will you?” Kiv handed the box up to her, and she stared at it curiously. He dug his high-heeled riding boot into the stirrup and pulled himself up to the saddle.
“Jones will be interested in that specimen,” Kiv said, as they guided their deests out of the roadside thicket where they had paused for midmeal. “Put it in the saddlebag,” he told her. “And be sure to remind me to show it to Jones as soon as we’re back at the School.”
She nodded and reached back obediently to stow the box in the leather pouch. Kiv felt a glow of pure pleasure as he watched the smooth play of her muscles under the fine golden down that covered her skin. Since she was clad, as he was, in the traditional Nidorian dress—sleeveless vest and thigh-length shorts—he had no thought about the beauty of her clothing; it was her own beauty he saw. She might not be the most beautiful girl on Nidor, but she approached Kiv’s ideal so closely as to be almost indistinguishable from it.
He tipped his head back and squinted at the eternally clouded sky. The Great Light was almost at His brightest, spreading His effulgence magnificently over the green countryside. It was a little after midday.
The Earthman, Jones, said that the Great Light was a “blue-white star.” Just what a star was, Kiv didn’t know; they were supposed to be above the cloud layer. Some of the things Jones said didn’t make much sense, Kiv thought.
“We’ve got about an hour’s ride ahead of us,” he said. “We should be getting along. I can’t wait to see the School again; this vacation seemed to last forever.”
“You’ve been terribly anxious to get back to work, haven’t you, Kiv? I felt it all the time you were home. You seemed so anxious to leave that I almost apologized to your parents.”
“The School is very important to me, Narla; you know that. It’s a great honor to be chosen to study with the Earthmen.”
“Of course; silly. I know.”
He snapped the reins, and his deest broke into a smooth trot. Narla’s mount kept pace easily with him.
“How long will it be before you write your book?” she asked. “I mean, do you think you’ll be able to get the rest of your information during the next term? It seems to me that you’ve covered all there is cover on the hugl already.”
Kiv nodded. “I think I’m nearly done. It’s going to be a rather scholarly thing, I’m afraid; no one is too interested in the life cycle of the hugl. If anyone were, he would have done the job years ago.”
“I know. But even if your work isn’t terribly consequential, it’s still good training for you,” Narla said. “As the Scripture says, ‘The observation of life permits one to attain an inner peace.’
Kiv frowned. “I’m not sure the Scripture means that. I don’t think it means lower forms of life.
“Don’t be silly, Kiv. It says ‘life,’ doesn’t it? And if a hugl isn’t alive, I don’t know what it is.”
Kiv was silent for a while, resting easily in the saddle while the swift pace of the deest carried him over the matted turf of the road.
“It may be so, he said finally. “Certainly Jones was all in favor of my studying the hugl for my book. And I don’t think Jones would permit anything that violated the Word of the Scripture. Hoy! What’s that?”
Narla, startled by his sudden change of tone, glanced quickly at him. Kiv was pointing down the road with one golden arm outstretched.
Someone was standing in the middle of the road, just where it forked. As their deests drew nearer, they saw that it was a man in the familiar blue tunic of a priest. He held up his hand as Kiv and his wife approached. The two riders pulled their animals to a halt and bowed their heads reverently.
“The peace of your Ancestors be with you always,” said the priest ritually.
“And may the Great Light illumine your mind as He does the world, Grandfather,” Kiv and Narla chanted together.
“How may we serve you, Grandfather?” Kiv asked.
Did you intend to cross the Bridge of Klid?” the priest inquired.
Kiv nodded. He took careful notice of the other man. The priest was not much older than Kiv himself, but his bearing had all the dignity that was proper to his office.
“We were going to use the bridge, yes,” Kiv confirmed.
The Grandfather shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ll have to use the Bridge of Gon and go through the city, my son. The Bridge of Klid is being repaired.”
Kiv barely managed to conceal a frown. Another delay! And, of course, the proper thing, for him to do would be to offer his services in the repair work. He began to think he would never get back to the School.
“If you would do so,” the priest said, “it would be appreciated if you could go to the nearest communicator and tell the City Fathers that we need more men to help repair the bridge. Give them my name: Dom peBril Sesom.”
“I’ll be glad to. What happened, Grandfather?”
“A section of the roadbed near the center has collapsed. We want to get the job done before the evening traffic begins.”
“I see,” said Kiv. “Very well, Grandfather. My wife and I will go on to the city and get hold of a communicator. Then I’ll come back and help you build. My wife can go on to the School.”
“The School?” The Grandfather looked politely astonished. “Are you, then, students at the Bel-rogas School?”
“We are, Grandfather.”
“Then I cannot permit you to work on the bridge,” he said. “Your studies are of greater importance. Any man can work on a bridge; only a few can assimilate the Scriptures and the Law—and even fewer are worthy of studying at Bel-rogas. Go and give my message to the City Fathers and then go on to the School.”
“Very well, Grandfather,” Kiv agreed.
The priest raised his hand in benediction. “Go, with the blessings of the Great Light, and Those Who have passed on to. His realm.”
Kiv and Narla turned their deests and took the southern branch of the road toward the great city of Gelusar, a long ribbon of a road curling through the gray-green farmlands.
“Nuisance,” Narla said.
“What is?” Kiv asked pleasantly.
“This business of treating us as if we were likely to melt in the first rainfall. Did you see the way he looked at you when you said we were from the School? ‘Your studies are of greater importance,’ ” she mimicked. “ ‘I cannot permit you to work on the bridge.’ And I’ll wager that’s what you wanted him to say, too. You didn’t want to work on that bridge, but you had to offer for the sake of courtesy. You just want to get back to Jones and the School.”
“Narla!” He speared her with an angry glance. “When a Grandfather tells you something—”
“I know,” she said, crestfallen. “I’m sorry.”
They rode on in silence for a while. The road to the Bridge of Gon was a narrow, winding one, and Kiv’s deest required considerable guiding at each turn. A stupid animal, Kiv reflected, as for what seemed the twentieth time in the last ten minutes he put pressure on the reins to turn the deest.
“Narla?” he said after a while. “Narla, that’s the second time I’ve heard you question a Grandfather’s instructions since we left my parents. And I don’t like it—not at all.”
“I’m sorry, I told you. Why can’t you leave it at that?”
“But the tone of your voice when you mimicked him,” Kiv protested. “Don’t you know what respect means, Narla?”
“All I wanted to know was why we’re so sacred, that’s all,” she said impatiently. “As soon as he found out we were from the School, we were suddenly too important to help repair the bridge. Why?”
“Because we’ve been chosen, Narla. Jones and the other Earthmen have come from the sky—from the stars, Jones says, whatever they are—from the Great Light Himself, for all we know. They’re here to teach, and we must learn. Only a few are chosen. And the Lajtv, Narla—that’s what’s important. Grandfather told you: anyone can fix a bridge. We’re special.”
“I’m sorry,” she said a third time. “I’m only a woman. I don’t understand these things.”
Be patient, Kiv thought. Patience and understanding, that’s what a woman needs.
After a long spell of hard riding, they eased up on their tired deests to rest them for the final lap of the journey.
Narla had said nothing all this time. Finally she asked: “Is Jones really from the sky? I mean, is it true that the Earthmen come from the Great Light?”
She keeps asking questions like a small child who’s too impatient to sit still, Kiv thought. It’s been a long trip; she’s tired.
“I don’t know,” he said, keeping his voice quiet and matter-of-fact. “I don’t see how they could come from Nidor, and the Grandfathers tell us that the Earthmen did not lie. The Grandfathers have accepted the Earthmen.”
“And, there, we accept them,” Narla completed.
“Of course,” said Kiv.
And then the first scattered outskirts of the City of Gelusar came into sight.
They rode into Holy Gelusar—founded by the Great Light Himself! The vast, sprawling city was the center of all Nidorian culture. For two thousand and mote years, it had stood almost unchanged, spreading out radially from its center, the Grand Temple; where the mighty Council of Sixteen Elders ruled the world of Nidor according to the Scripture and the Law.
Kiv and Narla guided their deests through a crowded thoroughfare that led toward the heart of the city, looking for a public. communicator. They finally found one near a shabby little side street that shot off toward the river. Kiv dismounted and went in.
There was a chubby little man behind the counter who took Kiv’s request.
“This is a local call, then, not long distance.” The little man was talking to himself more than to Kiv. “That will be three weights and four.”
Kiv paid the attendant, walked over to the booth, and closed the door. Then he picked up the microphone and flipped the switch.
“Communications central,” said a voice from the speaker.
“This is Kiv peGanz Brajjyd. I want to give a message to the Uncle of Public Works.”
“One moment.” Kiv heard a series of clicks over the speaker, and then a new voice spoke.
“Office of Public Works. What is it, please?”
“I have a message for the Uncle from Grandfather Dom peBril Sesom at the Bridge of Klid. He asked me to tell you that he needs another squad of men if he’s going to get the bridge repaired for the evening traffic.”
“And your name, sir?” queried the speaker.
Kiv identified himself, was thanked, and cut the connection.
Outside the communications office, he found Narla talking to an elderly man, obviously a farmer, judging by his dress.
“. . . And I tell you, something has to be done!” the farmer was saying. “My sons and their families are fighting desperately now, but if we run short of Edris powder, there won’t be a crop this year.”
Narla said: “It sounds bad. And you say there are other farmers having the same sort of trouble?”
“Plenty of them,” said the farmer. “The Great Light alone knows how many million of those hugl are chewing up the countryside out in my sector.”
“Your pardon, Aged One,” said Kiv, even though the farmer was not really old enough to deserve the flattering term. “What’s this about the hugl?”
The man turned, “They’re eating my crops! They’re swarming again. You see, the hugl travel in vast swarms, eating and stripping everything in their path. And that goes for animals, too. Everything!”
“I realize that,” said Kiv patiently, “but I hardly see that it’s anything to worry about. This happens periodically, doesn’t it?”
“Never like this,” said the middle-aged man. “It seems to get worse all the time.” Kiv noticed for the first time that the man looked tired and travelworn. The fine golden down that covered his skin was heavy with road dust. Kiv realized suddenly that he and Narla probably looked about the same.
“I’ve come to talk to one of the Elder Grandfathers,” the man said. “One of my own clan, with whom I schooled as a boy. We need help out there.” He took a deep breath. “May you have many children to honor you.” Then he turned and headed into the communicator office.
“And may your children and their children honor you forever,” Kiv called after him.
He remounted his deest, turned the animal’s head gently, and trotted with Narla down the thoroughfare toward the Grand Temple.
“He seemed quite worried,” said Narla.
Kiv grinned. “They all do. If you’d had as much contact with farmers as I have, you’d understand. Every so often, the hugl march, and when they do, the farmers worry. Edris powder is expensive, but it’s the only thing that will control the hugl. Fortunately, it does control them. It’s a nerve poison, and it kills within a few minutes.”
Narla smiled back at him. “The way he talked, you’d think that the hugl were going to eat up everything organic in the whole world.”
“Remember, darling, to a farmer, his farm is the whole world.”
“It’s almost as if the hugl wanted to destroy us,” Narla said, her voice changing suddenly.
Kiv looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“According to the Scripture: ‘To destroy a thing, one must cut at the root, and not at the branch.’ And certainly, the farmer is the root of our economy.”
Kiv laughed aloud. “I see what you mean.” He smiled. “It just proves that all living things obey the Law. But I’m sure the hugl don’t do it consciously.”
They rode on through the city, watching the peddlers and vendors excitedly hawking their wares. They passed by the Central Railway Terminal, where the little steam engines chuffed and puffed their way across the ancient overhead rails.
“We could have been to the School by now,” Kiv complained. “Having to detour through the city like this is an awful waste of time.”
“What would you have done?” Narla asked, a smile crinkling the skin around her eyes. “Swim the river where the Klid Bridge was out?”
Kiv chuckled. “It might have been cooler at that,” Narla went on. “I’m going to need a bath badly by the time we get to the School. It’s so much dustier here in the city.” She said nothing more for several minutes, but when the Grand Temple came into view, she said softly, “Should we go in, Kiv?”
Kiv thought of the interior of the Temple—the vast rows of kneeling stands, the brilliant white glare of the altar, where the beams of the Great Light were focused through the huge lens in the ceiling, and the restful silence of the flickering incense candles.
But he shook his head. “No,” he said. “We should have been at the School by now.” Then he caught the little spark of petulance that flickered for a moment in Narla’s eyes, and added, “We’ll come back on the next Holy Day. I promise.”
She nodded in silent agreement. “That’s our road,” Kiv said. “Over there.” The Bel-rogas School of Divine Law was situated five miles outside the city of Gelusar, up a long, twisting turf road. They trotted out to where the road began, and started up the hill.
Jones was a tired-looking man with faded blue eyes and a short, stiff brown beard that provided a never-ending source of conversation for the beardless Nidorians.
