Jack Williamson, page 16
We had all read the transcripts and listened to the audios again and again, till in our minds we were the clone selves who had spent their last days here on Earth four centuries ago. I remembered the rust-red hue of the continent when we saw it from space, remembered the landing in the thorn jungle north of Kilimanjaro, remembered the thick tangle of saw-edged blades taller than we were.
Calvin DeFort had left the plane to look for whatever built the roads and cities we had seen from space. He never came back. Casey went out to look for him and met the thing that mauled and nearly killed him. A slick black creature the size of a human skull, it had clung with saberlike limbs driven into the alien creature it rode. It sprang at Casey when he killed the creature under it, sliced his arms with its talons, chased him back into the jungle, left an infection in his wounds that nearly killed him.
These beads were tiny copies of it.
“We called them vampires!” Pepe whispered again. “Aliens from somewhere off the Earth. Now…” He gripped my arm hard and stood a long time staring down at the eight identical black men standing robotlike at the poles. “Now riding us. Ruling our bodies and sucking our blood.” A bitter grin twisted his face. “I think the colonists have somehow created their own hot little corner of hell.”
Drake was waiting at the foot of the stair.
“Your Mercies?” He seemed impatient and uneasy. “Are you ready?”
Teeth gritted, Pepe led the way down. Drake gave us a sweaty handshake and gestured us into the chair. At a sharp word from him, the bearers picked it up and ran with us back through the gate and down a wide avenue.
“Moon Boulevard.” Drake gestured. “It runs from the Moon Pad through the regency district.”
Men in blue-black uniforms guarded street intersections. Brighter-clad people lined the sidewalks, waiting to watch us pass. Most fell silent as we came by. Now and then I heard a patter of applause or a child’s voice, quickly hushed.
Looking around, wondering about the history and the present state of the colony, I saw no flashing signs, no trolley tracks, no high towers. Because there was no electricity? Yet everything looked well constructed, most of the buildings laid up from some white stone, roofed with red tile, set back from trees at the edge of the empty pavement. The city had an air of solid prosperity.
Beside me Pepe was silent, jaws set hard, eyes on the bearers. Shaved heads bent down, black muscles rippling and gleaming with sweat, they ran in step, calloused feet slapping the pavement in unison. Slave power instead of internal combustion engines.
Pepe leaned forward with a sort of grim intentness, pointing, asking Drake about everything. A few oaks and elms along the street we knew from videos of old Earth, but more of trees were unfamiliar. Towering toadstools had thick red-brown trunks crowned with masses of leaves that looked like fat, bloodred snakes. They filled the air with a heavy fragrance that had a hint of rotting fruit and set me to sneezing.
“African.” Drake gestured at them. “Arne the Sixth sent an expedition that brought specimens back. He thought they were ornamental. I despise the bog rot stink, but they’re historical monuments now.”
Trying in a nervous way to play the genial host, he said our arrival had been awaited for hopeful generations. The regent was vastly honored by our visit. His voice turned anxious. Had we brought news of disaster or threat of disaster? Perhaps a second impact?
“No disaster,” Pepe assured him. “The computer watches the sky, even while the station sleeps. It has reported no new impactor.”
Drake seemed happy to hear that, happy that our arrival had happened in his lifetime. So many generations had died in disappointment. The regent was eager to know more about our mission. How long could we stay? What were our plans? What did we want to see? What changes had we brought to Earth?
Pepe answered cautiously. We had no plan to change the regency. All we wanted was information. The station existed simply to replenish the damaged Earth, not to rule it. We had come to survey the colony and return to the Moon with our data. Any future action would depend on what we learned.
Drake became the sly inquisitor, turning in his seat to smile and keep up his shrewd queries. Could our telescopes follow events on Earth? Did we know how the alien invaders had reached Africa? Had we been informed of the Scienteer rebellions in North America?
Careful not to betray Laura Grail, Pepe asked more question about the Scienteers.
Drake’s smile faded and his voice grew angry. They were a cult of outlaw heretics, enemies of the regency. They had been almost extirpated from Asia, but lately their treason had grown new roots in North America.
“They claim to be secret agents of the Moon.” He twisted in the seat to peer sharply at us. “Are you aware of any possible contacts?”
“No.” Pepe’s eyebrows lifted. “Never.”
Drake sat back and asked for more about the station. If the Moon had no air and little water, if nothing grew there, how had anybody stayed alive there for hundreds of years?
“Make it millions,” Pepe told him. “The robots maintain the computer and rebuild themselves. The computer never stops, but none of us are cloned till it has a new mission for us.”
“Remarkable!” Drake shook his head as if he had never heard of robots or computers. “Remarkable!”
His own world seemed remarkable enough to me. Wondering how much had been done with only steam power, I thought of the Parthenon, the Roman aqueducts, the great Medieval cathedrals, all built with human power.
Drake called something to the bearers. They carried us off the street, through a gate guarded by half a dozen identical black men who looked like more clones of Casey. Uniformed in white and blue, they carried weapons that resembled the muskets we had seen in ancient drawings.
The wide courtyard beyond was filled with heavy chairs like our own, their black bearers standing frozen. Our own carriers ran with us up a long flight of marble steps and set us down between the white columns of a portico at the entrance of a monumental building.
“The Tycho Palace.” Drake gestured. “Once the regent’s residence. Now Deputy Regent Frye’s.”
Smiling broadly, Frye came down a strip of red carpet to greet us. A fleshy man with a gleaming silver band around a head of yellow curls, he wore a silvery garment that resembled the togas in drawings of ancient Rome. It looked stiff and heavy, as if actual metal wire had been woven into the fabric.
“Agent Navarro! Agent Yare!” He caught our hands as we climbed out of the chair. “Regent Arne regrets that he is not able to greet you himself. On his behalf, we are gathered to welcome you to Earth. He asked me to put every resource of the regency at your disposal for the duration of your visit.”
His hand felt limp and clammy. He quickly drew it back, his shrewd eyes narrowed to scan us. Stolidly, Pepe asked him to give our thanks and greetings to the regent, and we followed him into a long hall that hummed with many voices.
“Agency people.” Drake nodded toward the crowd. “Officials. Citizens of Kashmir. All eager to meet you before we go in to dinner.”
The clamor of voices paused while a man with a foghorn voice announced our names. People stared toward us for a moment, but turned back to their groups. Their voices rose again. Any eagerness to receive us was well concealed. We stood there at the entrance, getting our bearings. In the huge room, the voices rang back from lofty walls and a vaulted ceiling.
My eye was caught by huge murals whose artist had tried to imagine the impact and its aftermath. On one wall, a blazing fireball was plunging into an ocean, the splash drowning a city, its people in panicked flight from a towering wave already curling high over them. The opposite wall carried his vision of a lunar landscape, with the cliffs of Tycho climbing to an enormous crystal dome. A gigantic figure, with Arne’s face but no helmet or space gear, stalked from it along the crater rim, toward a red-painted spacecraft. A second Arne stared down from an enormous portrait at the end of the room, a cold smile on his heavy-jawed, square-chinned face.
“He ought to be here,” Pepe murmured at my ear. “He’d be proud to meet his heirs.” He shook his head and squinted at me. “Though I’m afraid the actual regent might see him as a problem.”
Leading us into the hall, Frye nodded at a group of white-gowned men around a young woman in bright green.
“Someone you must meet.” He raised an imperative hand. Laura Grail left her companions and came smiling to join us. “A watchgirl,” he said. “She will want your story.”
Blue eyes wide, she waited innocently for him to introduce us.
“Our distinguished guests,” he told her. “Inspectors from the Moon. Agent Pepe Navarro.” Pepe bowed over her offered hand. “Agent Duncan Yare. They may have a story for you.”
“I’ll have questions.”
Pepe turned to a young girl standing near us with a tray of glasses.
Naked to the waist and blond as Mona, she had the vacant face of a sleeping child. Her eyes were wide, unfocused, blankly staring. A small stain of blood was drying around the bright black skull-shaped bead on her forehead.
“Sire?” Still staring blankly away, she spoke in a child’s high voice. “A cocktail?”
Frye took two drinks off the tray and offered them to us. Grimly, Pepe shook his head. I tasted the cocktail. It was something sharp as vinegar, raw with alcohol. I set it back.
“That button?” His voice suddenly harsh and violent, Pepe pointed to the skull-shaped bead. “What is it?”
“A rider,” Frye said. “Something new to you?”
Pepe nodded, bleakly silent.
“There’s the expert.” He beckoned to a man half across the room. “Kroman Venn, the Agent for Energy.”
Venn waddled to meet us. As soft and fleshy as Frye, he gave us a genial grin and offered his fat white hand.
“Our guests are inquiring about rider energy,” Frye told him.
“I have inquiries of my own.” Venn’s pale eyes narrowed to scan our faces. “I suppose you have electricity on your flyer? Perhaps atomic energy? The ancient texts mention such technologies. If they ever did exist.”
“They still do,” Pepe said. “Tycho Station runs on nuclear power. But I want to know about those bugs.”
“The riders?” He paused to study us again. “New to you? Call them our compensation for all the electric magic the Scienteers say we have lost.”
Pepe looked back at the girl with the tray of drinks. Still near us, she stood rigid as the wax figures I had seen in old holos. Venn reached for a drink to offer him. He gestured as if to knock it away. His face white with emotion, it took him another moment to control his anger, but at last he spoke reasonably.
“If you want electricity, we could teach you the science. Your people would need to develop the skills to use it.” He pointed a quivering finger at the skull-shaped bead, which stared back at him with tiny, white-rimmed eyes. “That little monster? What is it?”
“A useful technology of our own.” Venn smiled with satisfaction. “You may not know our history. Our first century was a time of troubles. We had problems and found solutions. We built windmills. We developed waterpower. Most useful of all, we learned to use the riders.”
Pepe’s fists had clenched. “Those black bugs?”
“A surprise to you?” Venn backed away and raised his hand defensively. “If I must explain, the rider seed are bartered from Africa. They are grown and trained on our own regency farms and planted in sterile labs by skilled surgeons. They are an essential economic resource. More precious than rubies, as the saying goes.”
“Planted?” Pepe rasped. “Where?”
“Where you see them.” Venn gestured at the girl. “In the brains of convicts and clones.”
“You breed clones for slaves?”
“Why not?” Venn’s voice sharpened impatiently. “We have no other use for them.”
Pepe nodded at the girl. “Is she a clone?”
Venn swung to bark at the girl, “What was your crime?”
“Shoplifting, sire.” Her high child’s voice held no feeling. “I took fruit from a market because my mother was hungry.”
“You see?” He turned back to Pepe. “The riders are instruments of social order. They keep convicted criminals removed from society without the cost of prisons or guards. The surgeons assure us that they feel no pain. Their labor serves the nation. Does that answer your question?”
“It certainly does.” Venn was turning away. Pepe raised his voice. “Sir, if you don’t mind, I have another.”
Frowning impatiently, Venn turned back to listen
“Cloning technologies are complex and difficult. I wonder how you manage them without electricity.”
Venn shrugged.
“Life itself is electric. You may have heard of electric eels. We’re familiar enough with the theories, but we have never tried to rebuild your old devices. As I understand them, your technologies were mechanical. Ours are organic.”
“Organic?”
“You may be ignorant of Africa.” Venn raised his sharp nose with a scarcely veiled disdain. “The inhabitants are exotic. Their evolutionary origin is unknown. Some say they come from off the Earth. Their culture is as alien as their bodies. They use no machines. Instead they adapt living organisms to fit their needs.
“Quite successfully.” A frown creased his narrow face. “They have occupied the entire continent and now spread beyond it. We have fought endless wars to contain them. They don’t communicate with us. Their language, in fact, may be biochemical. But we have learned something of their peculiar bioscience. Enough, in fact, to breed the riders and clone the slaves.”
He nodded at a little man across the room.
“There’s Hibbly. A rider engineer. If you like, I can arrange for you to visit his breeding station.”
Pepe thanked him, and he stalked away.
“Don’t go.” Laura dropped her voice. “I’d advise you not to talk about rider slavery. The Scienteers have always fought to get rid of the riders. That is their greatest treason. If you express too much concern it could earn you riders of your own.”
22
Nice to meet you both.” Laura Grail raised her voice and smiled for those around us. “Welcome to the regency. When you have time, I want to get the whole Tycho Station story for our readers.”
“One more question,” Pepe murmured. “How can we find Mona?”
She shook her head and slipped away. He stood looking after her till Frye caught his arm.
“Your Mercies, please.” Frye nodded at the crowd, scores of people talking and sipping their drinks, ignoring us after those curious glances when we were introduced. “Our guests are dignitaries invited to meet you.”
“Happy about it?” Pepe grinned. “They’re keeping their distance.”
“Hesitant, perhaps.” Frye frowned in apology. “Please understand that your sudden arrival has taken us by surprise. Created something of a crisis, in fact. Nobody is certain what to expect from you.”
“We are grateful for the welcome,” Pepe assured him. “We plan no trouble for anybody.”
He gave us a narrow look and escorted us around the hall. I listened and made mental notes for our reports. Pepe spoke for us, wary with what he said.
The Agent of Trade was short fat man named Gait Wickman, who wore a bright gold headband and a golden fringe on his toga. Frye told us he owned the rail system. He shook our hands and beckoned the girl with cocktails. Moving as stiffly as a robot, she thrust her tray toward us and stood rigid, the black bug on her forehead watching us with tiny bright eyes till we refused the drinks and the agent waved her away. He stood inspecting us in a silence that had grown awkward before Frye broke it.
“Our guests are curious about our sources of power. They were asking if we understand electricity.”
“Our engineers have looked at the theory.” His mouth pursed thoughtfully. “I’ve seen them creating bolts of lightning, but we have steam. Our rail system spreads south to the Indian Ocean and east to the Pacific, and our ships reach the Americas. We’ve never needed anything better.”
“Are you certain?” Pepe frowned after the girl with the drinks. “With electricity, you wouldn’t need human power.”
“Why bother?” He shrugged. “It’s free.”
Pepe blinked and looked again at the girl. “That thing on her forehead? A rider, I think you call it? I understand that they come from Africa?”
“The seeds do.”
“So you grow the bugs?”
“I don’t.” Wickman flushed and looked uncomfortable. “If you want to inquire into rider culture, talk to Sheba Kingdom.”
“There she is.” Frye nodded at a woman half across the hall. “I’ll introduce you. Her family controls the Africa Company. If you care about history, there’s a historic drama.”
Sheba Kingdom glanced at us and turned back to the group around her while Frye expanded on his drama.
“Her great-great-grandfather was an early explorer, back before the age of steam. A typhoon wrecked his sailing vessel on the east coast of Africa. He got ashore alive and escaped twenty years later, paddling across the Red Sea in a crude little skin-covered canoe.
“He had been captured by the strange creatures of the continent. Creatures he called the black masters. One of them had ridden him, its fangs driven into his skull and controlling his brain. He escaped when it died and went back in one of the first ocean-going steamers to bombard their coastal cities with his cannon. He then began the Africa Company. Its business methods are secret, but it has been profitable. Sheba Kingdom is said to be the richest woman in the world.”
She left her admirers and strode toward us. A commanding presence, she was tall and muscular, her long dark hair bound in gold. A heavy rope of black pearls hung below her ample breasts. Gold paint shone on her lips and around her eyes. She stood silent, regarding us with cold curiosity, while Frye explained that we were the new agents from the Moon.
