Chapter V: Part TWO (2)

... The story behind all of this is simple enough. The takeover Gogarty and Ramsbotham have been trying to pull is interfering with practical business. Frankly, AMP'S competitors are happy enough to jump in and stir the pot: I think they've been buying up Senators here and there (for which there is, God knows, enough precedent; the entire Senate hasn't been bought since the Dedrick mutiny forty years back but you don't _need_ the entire Senate if you have a few key men, and I've always thought Dedrick's lawyers were wasteful), and beyond what the competition's been active in, there are always the fanatics. Freedom for all--you know the sort of thing.

Now the big danger is that if R. and G. succeed in keeping things messed up the rest of the metals boys will step in, push the government into the right moves, and kill Fruyling's World deader than Dedrick himself. Which (according to the statistical breakdown) won't put us into the bankruptcy courts, but will slide us from a first-or-second spot to a ninth-or-tenth one. The big question is whether you'd rather be a small frog in a big puddle or the reverse. Me, I'd rather be a big frog in a big puddle than any other combination I can think of, and in spite of everything I think I'm going to go on being just that.

Fruyling's World has been around for a long time, but the current AMP fight gives the competition the opportunity they need, and they're pushing it. If we can weather the storm....

Well, I'm being gloomy. Of course we can weather the storm. I'll swing Gogarty back, and that will leave Ramsbotham nowhere to go....

* * * * *

TO: John Harrison

FROM: Fredk. Ramsbotham

RE: Fruyling's World

... Support of the suggestion put forward by Mr. Gogarty at the last Board meeting was not, believe me, given without grave consideration.

Now that the matter has been decided, I hope we can all pull together like team-mates, and "let the dead past bury its dead". I'm sure that....

* * * * *

TO: Fred Ramsbotham

FROM: John Harrison

RE: Your memo May 21

I'm worrying a little more about burying some of the currently living--our own men on Fruyling's World.

I've got to ask you to reconsider....

* * * * *

TO: All news services, for immediate release

FROM: Williston Reed

As almost his first act on taking his position as Chairman of the Board of Associated Metallic Products, Ltd., Frederick Ramsbotham today issued a statement of policy regarding "interference by Confederation governmental officials" in what he termed the "private business of AMP."

Mr. Ramsbotham, whose recent election came as a surprise to many shareholders, has stated his intention of "remaining firm in continuance of present policies" regardless of what he described as "threats" from Confederation officials.

He states that his duty to shareholders of AMP must include protection of the private and profit-making enterprise being carried on at Fruyling's World, and that such private concerns are not "the business of public government."

As former Chairman of the Board, John Harrison was asked to comment on the position taken by Mr. Ramsbotham. Mr. Harrison stated that he disagreed with the particular stand taken by Mr. Ramsbotham in this matter, but sympathized with his strong feelings of duty toward the shareholders of the concern.

Confederation response was reported to be "immediate and strong" by sources high in the government, but as yet no final word has been received regarding what action, if any, is contemplated....

* * * * *

TO: Fredk. Ramsbotham

FROM: John Harrison

SUBJECT: The daily paper

Now you've torn it.

Unless you think we can make money selling weapons to be used against our own people on Fruyling's World.

I've sold out my shares as of this morning, Fred. I'm through. I think you are, too--whether you know it or not just yet.

12

"That old-time religion."

Dodd heard the words echoing in his mind that night, and the next night, and the next. All that she had said:

"We set up a nice pie-in-the-sky sort of thing, all according to the best theory, just the thing to keep the Alberts happy and satisfied and working hard for us. It started right after the first setup here, and by now I guess the Alberts think they invented it all by themselves, or their Great Elder came down from a tree and told them."

"It's horrible," he had said.

"Of course it is." There was a silence. "But you said it yourself: what can we do? We're here and we're stuck here."

"But--"

Norma didn't want to argue, but the argument went on in Dodd's mind, and it still continued, circling in his mind like a buzzard. There was nothing he could do about it, nothing Norma could do about it. He avoided even the thought of seeing her for a few days, and then he found himself making an excuse to go over to Building One. He met her there, after lounging about for hours.

And what she had disclosed to him, what they spoke of, made no difference that he could see in what he felt.

He was happy. Slowly he realized that he had hardly ever been happy before.

He even forgot, for a time, about the rumors, the threat of Confederation troops that had hung over her words like a gray cloud: all he could think of was Norma, and the terrible thing in which they were both bound up.

He told himself grimly that it would never have bothered Albin, for instance. Albin would have had his fun with Norma, and that would have been that.

But it bothered Johnny Dodd.

He was still worrying over it, and in spite of himself finding happiness, when the escape came, and the end.

13

"There's nothing to be done about it." Dr. Haenlingen delivered the words and sat down rigidly behind her desk. Norma nodded, very slowly.

"I know that," she said. "I started out--I started to do just what you wanted. To talk to him, draw him out, find out just what he did feel and what he planned."

"And then something happened," Dr. Haenlingen said tightly. "I know."

Norma paced to the window and looked out, but the day was gray: she saw only her own reflection. "Something happened," she murmured. "I--guess I had too much to drink. I wanted to talk."

"So I understand," Dr. Haenlingen said. "And you talked. And--whatever his situation--you managed to increase his tension rather than understand or lessen it."

Norma shook her head at the reflection. "I'm sorry."

"I have often found," Dr. Haenlingen said, "that sorrow following an action is worse than useless. It usually implies a request to commit the same action again."

"But I wouldn't--" Norma said, turning, and then stopped before the calm gaze of the old woman.

"No?" Dr. Haenlingen said.

"I'll try to--"

Dr. Haenlingen lifted a hand and brushed the words aside. "It doesn't matter," she said. "I am beginning to see that it doesn't matter."

"But--"

"All we can do now is wait," Dr. Haenlingen said. "We are--outplayed."

There was a little silence. Norma waited through it without moving.

"Would you like to have a lesson in psychology?" Dr. Haenlingen said in the graying room. "Would you like to learn a little, just a little, about your fellow man?"

Norma felt suddenly frightened. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong," Dr. Haenlingen said. "Everything is moving along exactly as might have been predicted. If we had known what the Confederation planned, and exactly the timetable of their actions ... but we did not, and could not. Norma, listen to me."

The story she told was very simple. It took a fairly long time to tell.

* * * * *

Slavery takes a toll of the slaves (as the Confederation was beginning to find out, as the idealists, the do-gooders, were beginning, however slowly to realize). But it takes a toll of the masters, too.

The masters can't quite rid themselves of the idea that beings which react so much like people may really (in spite of everything, in spite of appearance, in spite of laws and regulations and social practices) be people, after all, in everything but name and training.

And it just wouldn't be right to treat _people_ that way....

Slaves feel pain. In simple reciprocity, masters feel guilt.

And because (according to the society, and the laws, and the appearances, and the regulations) there was no need for guilt, the masters of Fruyling's World had, like masters anywhere and any time, buried the guilt, hidden it even from themselves, forbidden its existence and forgotten to mention it to their thoughts.

But the guilt remained, and the guilt demanded.

Punishment was needed.

"They're going to fight," Dr. Haenlingen said. "When the Confederation attacks, they're going to fight back. It's senseless: even if we won, the Confederation fleet could blockade us, prevent us getting a shipment out, bottle us up and starve us for good. But they don't need sense, they need motive, which is quite a different thing. They're going to fight--both because they need the punishment of a really good licking, and because fighting is one more way for them to deny their guilt."

"It seems complex," Norma said.

"Everything is complex," Dr. Haenlingen said, "as soon as human beings engage in it. The action is simple enough: warfare."

"We've got to stop them--"

Dr. Haenlingen went on as if she hadn't heard. "The action serves two different, indeed two contradictory purposes. If you think that's something rare in the actions of mankind, you must be more naive than you have any right to be."

"We've got to stop them," Norma said again. "Got to. They'll die--we'll all die."

"There is nothing to do," Dr. Haenlingen said. "We are outplayed--by the Confederation, by our own selves. We are outplayed: there are no moves left. There is nothing I can offer, nothing anyone can offer, quite as attractive as the double gift of punishment and denial." Shockingly, for the first time, the old woman sounded tired. Her voice was thin in the gray room. "Nothing we can do, Norma. You're dismissed: go back to work."

"But you can't just give up--you can show them there aren't any real reasons, show them they're not being rational--"

"Oh, but they'll be rational," Dr. Haenlingen said in the same still voice. "Wait for the rumors to start, Norma. Wait for them to begin telling each other that the Confederation is going to kill them all anyhow, take them back and hang them as war criminals--"

"That's ridiculous!"

"Perhaps."

"Then--"

"Rumors during a war are almost always ridiculous. That fact makes no difference at all. They'll be believed--because they have to be believed."

Norma thought. "We can start counter-rumors."

"Which would not be believed. They offer nothing, nothing that these people want. Oh, yes, people can be changed--" Dr. Haenlingen paused. "Given sufficient time and sufficient equipment, it is possible to make anyone into anything, anything at all. But to change these people, to make them act as we want--the time required is more than ten years, Norma. And we haven't got ten years."

"We've got to try," Norma said earnestly.

"What we have got," Dr. Haenlingen said, "is more like ten days. And there is nothing to do in ten days. The people have spoken. Vox populi...." The eyes closed. There was a silence Norma waited, astonished, horrified. "Perhaps it is necessary," Dr. Haenlingen's voice said. "Perhaps ... we must wait. _Ich kann nicht anders...._"

"What?" Norma asked.

"Martin Luther," Dr. Haenlingen's voice said, remote and thin. "It means: 'I can do nothing else.' He wrote it as his justification for a course of action that was going to get him excommunicated, perhaps killed."

"But--"

Dr. Haenlingen said nothing, did nothing. The body sat behind its desk in the gray room. Norma stared, then turned and fled.

14

The mixture of feelings inside Cadnan was entirely new to him, and he couldn't control it very well. He found himself shaking without meaning to, and was unable to stop himself. There was relief, first of all, that it was all over, that he no longer had to worry about what Marvor might have planned, or whether Marvor were going to involve him. There was fright, seeing anyone carry through such a foolhardy, almost impious idea in the teeth of the masters. And there was simple disappointment, the disappointment of a novice theologue who has seen his pet heretic slip the net and go free.

For Cadnan had tried, earnestly, night after night, to convert Marvor to the new truths the elders had shown him. They were luminously obvious to Cadnan, and they set the world in beautiful order; but, somehow, he couldn't get through to Marvor at all, couldn't express the ideas he had well enough or convincingly enough to let Marvor see how beautiful and true all of them really were. For a time, in fact, he told himself with bitterness that Marvor's escape had really been all his own fault. If he'd only had more talks with Marvor, he thought cloudily, or if he'd only been able to speak more convincingly....

But regret is part of a subjunctive vocabulary. At least one writer has noted that the subjunctive is the mark of civilization. This may be true: it seems true: in Cadnan's case, at any rate, it certainly was true. Uncivilized, he spent little time in subjunctive moods. All that he had done, all that Marvor had done, was open to him, and he remembered it often--but, once the bad first minutes were past, he remembered everything with less and less regret. The mixture, as it stood, was heady enough for Cadnan's untrained emotions.

He had tried to talk to Marvor about the truths, of course. Marvor, though, had been obstinately indifferent. Nothing made any impression on his hardened, stubborn mind. And now he was gone.

Dara had the news first. She came into their common room at the end of the day, very excited, her hands still moving as if she were turning handles in the refinery even after the close of work. Cadnan, still feeling an attraction for her, and perceiving now that something had disturbed her, stayed where he was squatting. Attraction for Dara, and help given to her, might lead to mating, and mating was against the rule. But Dara came to him.

"Do you know what happens with Marvor?" she said. Her voice, always quiet, was still as sweet to Cadnan as it had ever been. "He is gone, and the masters do not know where."

The mixture of emotions began: surprise and relief first, then regret and disappointment, then fear, all boiling and bubbling inside him like a witch's stew. He spoke without thinking: "He is gone to break the chain of obedience. He is gone to find others who think as he thinks."

"He is escaped," Dara said. "It is the word the masters use, when they speak of this."

"It happens before now," Cadnan told her. "There are others, whom he joins."

Dara shut her eye. "It is true. But I know what happens when there is an escape. In the place where my work is, there is one from Great Bend Tree. She tells me of what happens."

Dara fell silent and Cadnan watched her nervously. But he had no chance to speak: she began again, convulsively.

"When this other escapes it is from a room of Great Bend Tree." Cadnan nodded: he and Dara were of Bent Line Tree, and hence in a different room. The segregation, simple for the masters, was handy and unimportant, and so it was used. Cadnan thought it natural: every tree had its own room.

"Do they find the one who escapes?" he asked.

"They find him. The masters come in and they punish the others from the room."

Precedent was clearly recognizable, even though it made no sense. Those who had not escaped surely had no reason to be punished, Cadnan thought. But what the masters had done to Great Bend Tree they would do to Bent Line Tree.

Everyone would be punished.

With a shock he realized that "everyone" included Dara.

He heard himself speak. "You must go."

Dara looked at him innocently. "Go?" she said.

"You must go as Marvor has gone. The masters do not take you for punishment if you go."

"There is nothing for me to do," she said, and her eye closed. "No. I wait for you, but only to tell you this: there is nothing I can do."

"Marvor is gone," Cadnan said slowly. "You, too, can go. Maybe the masters do not find you. If you stay you are punished. If you go and they do not find you there is no punishment for you." It amazed him that she could not see so clear a point.

"Then all can go," she said. "All can escape punishment."

Cadnan grunted, thinking that over. "Where one goes," he said at last, "one can go. Maybe many can not go."

Her answer was swift. "And you?"

"I stay here," he said, trying to sound as decisive as possible.

Dara turned away. "I do not listen to your words," she said flatly. "I do not hear you or see you."

Cadnan hissed in anguish. She had to understand.... "What do I say that is wrong? You must--"

"You speak of my going alone," she said. "But that is me, and no more. What of the others?"

"Marvor," Cadnan said after a second. "He is to come and aid them. He tells me this. We join him and come back with him, away from here, to where he stays now. Then none of us are punished." He paused. "It will be a great punishment."

"I know," Dara said. "Yet one does not go alone."

Her voice was so low that Cadnan could barely hear it, but the words were like sharp stones, stabbing fear into his body. For the first time, he saw clearly exactly what she was driving at. And after a long pause, she spoke again.

"Where one goes, two may go. Where Marvor goes, two may follow, one to lead the other."

"One goes alone," Cadnan said, feeling himself tremble and trying to control it. "You must go."

It seemed a long time before she spoke again, and Cadnan held himself tightly, until his muscles began to ache.

"We go together," she said at last "Two go where one has gone. Only so do I leave at all."

It was an ultimatum, and Cadnan understood what was behind it. But an attraction between Dara and himself ... he said: "There is the rule of the tree," but it was like casting water on steel.

"If we leave here," Dara said, "why think of a smaller rule?"

Cadnan tried to find words, but there were no words. She had won, and he knew it. He could not let Dara stay behind to draw a great punishment, possibly even to die, to be no more Dara. And there was no way of forcing her to go and escape that fate--no way except to go with her.

"We must wait until they sleep," Dara said in a sudden return to practicality. "Then we go."

Cadnan looked around at the huddled, vaguely stirring forms of his companions. Fear was joined by a sort of sickness he had never known before. He was a slave, and that was good--but once outside where would he find work, or food, or a master? Where there was no master, Cadnan told himself, there was no slave: he was nothing, nameless, non-existent.

But there was neither word nor action for him now. He tried once more to argue but his words were parried with a calm tenacity that left no room for discussion. In the end he was ready to do what he had to do--had to do in order, simply, to save Dara. There was no other reason: he needed none.

He had heard of the attraction of male for female, though some did not experience it until the true time of mating. He had not until that moment known how strong the attraction could be.

* * * * *

The waiting, though it seemed like positive days, didn't take long. The others in the room fell asleep, by habit, one by one, and soon Dara and Cadnan were the only ones left awake. Neither was tempted to sleep: their own terror and their decision kept them very effectively alert.

Cadnan said: "If the masters see us?"

Dara turned on him a face that seemed completely calm. "They do not see us," she said flatly. "Now do not speak."

They rose and, silently, went to the door. The door opened just as quietly, and shut once again behind them.

The corridor was filled with watching eyes, Cadnan felt: but there were no masters in evidence. They stood for a second, waiting, and then Dara started down toward the big room at the end, her feet silent on the floor, and Cadnan followed her.

No masters were visible. There should have been guards, but the guards might have been anywhere: one escape had hardly served to alert a lazy, uninterested group who performed their duties out of no more than habit. Wherever the guards were resting, they were not in the corridor: everything went smoothly. It was smoother than Cadnan was willing to believe.

Soon, though, they were actually in the great lobby of the building. It, too, was dark and empty. They stood dwarfed by the place, the gigantic doors that led to freedom no more than a few feet away.

Cadnan kept telling himself that where Marvor had gone he, too, could go. But Marvor had had a plan, and Cadnan had none.

Yet they were safe--so far, so far. They walked toward the door now, a step at a time. Each step seemed to take an hour, a full day. Dara walked ahead, straight and tall: Cadnan caught up with her, and she put out her hand. There was no more than an instant of hesitation. He took the hand.

That pledged them to each other, until the time of mating. But what was one more law now?

Another step. Another.

Cadnan, in the silence, was suddenly tempted to make a noise, any sort of noise--but it seemed impossible to create sound. The quiet dimness wrapped him like a blanket. He took another step.

Mating, he thought. If the chain of obedience was broken would the trees refuse to obey, in their turn? Puna had said so, and it was true. And if the trees refused to obey there would be no mating....

Yet Dara would be safe. That was the important thing. One thing at a time.

Another step.

And then, at last, the door.

Cadnan pushed at it, and it opened--and then there was sound, plenty of sound, more sound than he could have imagined, sound to fill the great lobby, to fill the entire building with rocking, trembling agonies of noise!

There was an alarm-bell, to be exact, an alarm-buzzer, combinations and solo cadenzas. The guards were, after all, no more than dressing: the automatic machinery never slept, and it responded beautifully and with enthusiasm.

Cadnan and Dara ran crazily out into the darkness. The building fell behind them and the jungle was ahead: still they ran, but Cadnan felt the ground, bumpy instead of smooth, and stumbled once, nearly falling. He saw Dara ahead of him. Getting up and beginning again was automatic: panic beat at him. The noise grew and grew. His feet moved, his heart thudded....

And then the lights went on.

Automatic sweep searchlights were keyed in. The machinery continued to respond.

Cadnan found himself suddenly struck blind: ahead of him, Dara made a single, lonely, terrified sound that overrode all the alarms.

Cadnan tried to shout: "We must run! In the dark the masters cannot see--"

But, of course, by then it was too late to move.

The masters were all around them.

The escape was over.

15

Of course there was Norma, Dodd told himself.

There was Norma to make everything worth-while--except that Norma needed something, too, and he couldn't provide it. No one could provide it, not as long as no one was allowed off-planet. And it was quite certain, Dodd told himself gloomily, that the restrictions that had been in force yesterday were going to look like freedom and carefree joy compared with the ones going into effect tomorrow, or next week.

If, of course, there was going to be a tomorrow ... that, he thought, was always in doubt. He managed sometimes to find a sort of illusory peace in thinking of himself as dead, scattered into component atoms, finished, forever unconscious, no longer wanting anything, no longer seeing the blinking words in his mind. Somewhere in his brain a small germ stirred redly against the prospect, but he tried to ignore it: that was no more than brute self-preservation, incapable of reasoning. That was no more than human nature.

And human nature, he knew with terror, was about to be overthrown once more.

It was only human, after all, to find the cheapest way to do necessary work. It was only human to want the profits high and the costs low. It was only human to look on other races as congenitally inferior, as less-than-man in any possible sense, as materials, in fact, to be used.

That was certainly human: centuries of bloody experience proved it. But the Confederation didn't want to recognize human nature. The Confederation didn't like slavery.

The rumor he'd heard from Norma was barely rumor any more: instead, it had become the next thing to an officially announced fact. Everyone knew it, even if next to no one spoke of it. The Confederation was going to send ships--had probably sent ships already. There was going to be a war.

The very word "war" roused that red spark of self-preservation. It was harder, Dodd had found, to live with hope than to live without it: it was always possible to become resigned to a given state of affairs--but not if you kept thinking matters would improve. So he stamped on the spark, kept it down, ignored it. You had to accept things, and go on from there.

It was too bad Norma didn't know that.

He'd tried to tell her, of course. They'd even been talking, over in Building One, on the very night of the near-escape. He'd explained it all very clearly and lucidly, without passion (since he had cut himself off from hope he found he had very few passions of any kind left, and that made it easy); but she hadn't been convinced.

"As long as there's a fighting chance to live, I want to live," she'd said. "As long as there's any chance at all--the same as you."

"I know what I want," he told her grimly.

"What?" she asked, and smiled. "Do you like what you're doing? Do you like what I'm doing--what the whole arrangement is here?"

He shrugged. "You know I don't."

"Then get out of it," she said, still smiling. "You can, you know. It's easy. All you have to do is stop living--just like that! No more trouble."

"Don't be sil--"

"It can be done," she went on flatly. "There are hundreds of ways." Then the smile again. "But you'd rather live, Johnny. You'd rather live, even this way, being a slaver, than put an end to it and to yourself."

He paused. "It's not the same thing."

"No," she said. "This way, you'd have to do the killing yourself. When the ships come, you can let them do it for you, just sit and wait for someone to kill you. Like a cataleptic. But you won't, Johnny."

"I will," he said.

She shook her head, the smile remaining. Her voice was quiet and calm, but there was a feeling of strain in it: there was strain everywhere, now. Everyone looked at the sky, and saw nothing: everyone listened for the sound of engines, and there were no engines to hear. "Catalepsy is a kind of death, Johnny. And you'll have to inflict that much on yourself. You won't do it."

"You think I--" He stopped and swallowed. "You think I like living this way, don't you?"

"I think you like living," Norma said. "I think we all do, no matter how rough it gets. No matter how it grates on the nerves, or the flesh, of the supersensitive conscience. And I know how you feel, Johnny, I do--I--" She stopped very suddenly.

He heard his voice say: "I love you."

There was a silence.

"Johnny," she said, and her hands reached out for him blindly. He saw, incredibly, tears like jewels at the corners of her eyes. "Johnny--"

It was at that moment that the alarm-bell rang. It was heard only faintly in Building One, but that didn't matter. Dodd knew the direction, and the sound. He turned to go, for a second no more than a machine.

Norma's voice said: "Escape?"

He came back to her. "I--the alarm tripped off. This time they must have tried it through the front door, or a window. The last one must have tunnelled through--"

He had to leave her. Instead he stood silently for a second. She said nothing.

"There are spots the steel's never covered," he said. "You can tunnel through if you're lucky." A pause. "I--"

"It's all right, Johnny," she said.

"Norma--"

"It's all right I understand. It's all right."

Her voice. He hung on to it as he turned and walked away, found the elevator, started away from the room, the Building where she was, started off to do his duty.

His duty as a slaver.

* * * * *

The night was long, so long it could have been the night before the end of the world, the universe drawing one last deep breath before blowing out the candles and returning, at last, to peace and darkness and silence. Dodd spent it posted as one of the guards around the two cells where the Alberts were penned.

He had plenty of time to think.

And, in spite of Norma, in spite of everything, he was still sure of one thing. Because he was a slaver, because he acted, still, as a slaver and a master, hated by the Confederation, hated by the Alberts, hated by that small part of himself which had somehow stayed clean of the foulness of his work and his life, because of all that....

It was going to be very easy to die.

* * * * *

PUBLIC OPINION FOUR

Being an excerpt from a directive issued by the Executive and his
Private Council, elected and confirmed by the Confederation, and
upheld by majority vote of the Senate: the directive preserved in
Confederation Archives, and signed under date of May 21 in the year
two hundred and ten of the Confederation.

... It is therefore directed that sufficient ships be fitted out with all modern armaments, said fitting to be in the best judgment of the competent and assigned authorities, and dispatched without delay toward the planet known as Fruyling's World, both to subdue any armed resistance to Confederation policy, and to affirm the status of Fruyling's World as a Protectorate of the Confederation, subject to Confederation policy and Confederation judgment.

An act of this nature cannot be undertaken without grave thought and consideration. We affirm that such consideration has been given to this step.

It is needless to have fear as to the outcome of this action. No isolated world can stand against, not only the might, but the moral judgment of the Confederation. Arms can be used only as a last resort, but times will come in the history of peoples when they must be so used, when no other argument is sufficient to force one party to cease and desist from immoral and unbearable practices.

In accordance with the laws of the Confederation, no weapons shall be used which destroy planetary mass.

In general, Our efforts are directed toward as little blood-shed as possible. Our aim is to free the unfortunate native beings of Fruyling's World, and then to begin a campaign of re-education.

The fate of the human beings who have enslaved these natives shall be left to the Confederation Courts, which are competent to deal in such matters by statute of the year forty-seven of the Confederation. We pledge that We shall not interfere with such dealings by the Courts.

We may further reassure the peoples of the Confederation that no further special efforts on their part will be called for. This is not to be thought of as a war or even as a campaign, but merely as one isolated, regretted but necessary blow at a system which cannot but be a shock to the mind of civilized man.

That blow must be delivered, as We have been advised by Our Councillors. It shall be delivered.

The ships, leaving as directed, will approach Fruyling's World, leaving the FTL embodiments and re-entering the world-line, within ten days. Full reports will be available within one month.

In giving this directive, We have been mindful of the future status of any alien beings on worlds yet to be discovered. We hereby determine, for ourselves and our successors, that nowhere within reach of the Confederation may slavery exist, under any circumstances. The heritage of freedom which We have protected, and which belongs to all peoples, must be shared by all peoples everywhere, and to that end we direct Our actions, and Our prayers.

Given under date of May 21, in the year two hundred and ten of the Confederation, to be distributed and published everywhere within the Confederation, under Our hand and seal:

Richard Germont
by Grace of God Executive
of the Confederation
together with
His Council in judgment assembled
all members subscribing thereto.

16

The room had no windows.

There was an air-conditioning duct, but Cadnan did not know what such a thing was, nor would he have understood without lengthy and tiresome explanations. He didn't know he needed air to live: he knew only that the room was dark and that he was alone, boxed in, frightened. He guessed that somewhere, in another such room, Dara was waiting, just as frightened as he was, and that guess made him feel worse.

Somehow, he told himself, he would have to escape. Somehow he would have to get to Dara and save her from the punishment, so that she did not feel pain. It was wrong for Dara to feel pain.

But there was no way of escape. He had crept along the walls, pushing with his whole body in hopes of some opening. But the walls were metal and he could not push through metal. He could, in fact, do nothing at all except sit and wait for the punishment he knew was coming. He was sure, now, that it would be the great punishment, that he and Dara would be dead and no more. And perhaps, for his disobedience, he deserved death.

But Dara could not die.

He heard himself say her name, but his voice sounded strange and he barely recognized it. It seemed to be blotted up by the darkness. And after that, for a long time, he said nothing at all.

He thought suddenly of old Gornom, and of Puna. They had said there was an obedience in all things. The slaves obeyed, the masters obeyed, the trees obeyed. And, possibly, the chain of obedience, if not already broken by Marvor's escape and what he and Dara had tried to do, extended also to the walls of his dark room. For a long time he considered what that might mean.

If the walls obeyed, he might be able to tell them to go. They would move and he could leave and find Dara. Since it would not be for himself but for Dara, such a command might not count as an escape: the chain of obedience might work for him.

This complicated chain of reasoning occupied him for an agonized time before he finally determined to put it to the test. But, when he did, the walls did not move. The door, which he tried as soon as it occurred to him to do so, didn't move either. With a land of terror he told himself that the chain of obedience had been broken.

That thought was too terrible for him to contemplate for long, and he began to change it, little by little, in his mind. Perhaps (for instance) the chain was only broken for him and for Marvor: perhaps it still worked as well as ever for all those who still obeyed the rules. That was better: it kept the world whole, and sane, and reasonable. But along with it came the picture of Gornom, watching small Cadnan sadly. Cadnan felt a weight press down on him, and grow, and grow.

He tried the walls and the door again, almost mechanically. He felt his way around the room. There was nothing he could do. But that idea would not stay in his mind: there had to be something, and he had to find it. In a few seconds, he told himself, he would find it. He tried the walls again. He was beginning to shiver. In a few seconds, only a few seconds, he would find the way, and then....

The door opened, and he whirled and stared at it. The sudden light hurt his eye, but he closed it for no more than a second. As soon as he could he opened it again, and stood, too unsure of himself to move, watching the master framed in the doorway. It was the one who was called Dodd.

Dodd stared back for what seemed a long time. Cadnan said nothing, waiting and wondering.

"It's all right," the master said at last. "You don't have to be afraid, Cadnan. I'm not going to hurt you." He looked sadly at the slave, but Cadnan ignored the look: there was no room in him for more guilt.

"I am not afraid," he said. He thought of going past Dodd to find Dara, but perhaps Dodd had come to bring him to her. Perhaps Dodd knew where she was. He questioned the master with Dara's name.

"The female?" Dodd asked. "She's all right. She's in another room, just like this one. A solitary room."

Cadnan shook his head. "She must not stay there."

"You don't have to worry," Dodd said. "Nobody's doing anything to her. Not right now, anyhow. I--not right now."

"She must escape," Cadnan said, and Dodd's sadness appeared to grow. He pushed at the air as if he were trying to move it all away.

"She can't." His hands fell to his sides. "Neither can you, Cadnan. I'm--look, there's a guard stationed right down the corridor, watching this door every second I'm here. There are electronic networks in the door itself, so that if you manage somehow to open it there'll be an alarm." He paused, and began again, more slowly. "If you go past me, or if you get the door open, the noise will start again. You won't get fifteen feet."

Cadnan understood some of the speech, and ignored the rest: it wasn't important. Only one thing was important: "She can not die."

Dodd shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said flatly. "There's nothing I can do." A silence fell and, after a time, he broke it. "Cadnan, you've really messed things up. I know you're right--anybody knows it. Slavery--slavery is--well, look, whatever it is, the trouble is it's necessary. Here and now. Without you, without your people, we couldn't last on this world. We need you, Cadnan, whether it's right or not: and that has to come first."

Cadnan frowned. "I do not understand," he said.

"Doesn't matter," Dodd told him. "I can understand how you feel. We've treated you--pretty badly, I guess. Pretty badly." He looked away with what seemed nervousness. But there was nothing to see outside the door, nothing but the corridor light that spilled in and framed him.

"No," Cadnan said earnestly, still puzzled. "Masters are good. It is true. Masters are always good."

"You don't have to be afraid of me," Dodd said, still looking away. "Nothing I could do could hurt you now--even if I wanted to hurt you. And I don't, Cadnan. You know I don't."

"I am not afraid," Cadnan said. "I speak the truth, no more. Masters are good: it is a great truth."

Dodd turned to face him. "But you tried to escape."

Cadnan nodded. "Dara can not die," he said in a reasonable tone. "She would not go without me."

"Die?" Dodd asked, and then: "Oh. I see. The other--"

There was a long silence. Cadnan watched Dodd calmly. Dodd had turned again to stare out into the hallway, his hands nervously moving at his sides. Cadnan thought again of going past him, but then Dodd turned and spoke, his head low.

"I've got to tell you," he said. "I came here--I don't know why, but maybe I just came to tell you what's happening."

Cadnan nodded. "Tell me," he said, very calmly.

Dodd said: "I--" and then stopped. He reached for the door, held it for a second without closing it, and then, briefly, shook his head. "You're going to die," he said in an even, almost inhuman tone. "You're both going to die. For trying to escape. And the whole of your--clan, or family, or whatever that is--they're going to die with you. All of them." It was coming out in a single rush: Dodd's eyes fluttered closed. "It's my fault. It's our fault. We did it. We...."

And the rush stopped. Cadnan waited for a second, but there was no more. "Dara is not to die," he said.

Dodd sighed heavily, his eyes still closed. "I'm--sorry," he said slowly. "It's a silly thing to say: I'm sorry. I wish there was something I could do." He paused. "But there isn't. I wish--never mind. It doesn't matter. But you understand, don't you? You understand?"

Cadnan had room for only one thought, the most daring of his entire life. "You must get Dara away."

"I can't," Dodd said, unmoving.

Cadnan peered at him, half-fearfully. "You are a master." One did not give orders to masters, or argue with them.

But Dodd did not reach for punishment. "I can't," he said again. "If I help Dara, it's the jungle for me, or worse. And I can't live there. I need what's here. It's a matter of--a matter of necessity. Understand?" His eyes opened, bright and blind. "It's a matter of necessity," he said. "It has to be that way, and that's all."

Cadnan stared at him for a long second. He thought of Dara, thought of the punishment to come. The master had said there was nothing to do: but that thought was insupportable. There had to be something. There had to be a way....

There was a way.

Shouting: "Dara!" he found himself in the corridor, somehow having pushed past Dodd. He stood, turning, and saw another master with a punishment tube. Everything was still: there was no time for anything to move in.

He never knew if the tube had done it, or if Dodd had hit him from behind. Very suddenly, he knew nothing at all, and the world was blank, black, and distant. If time passed he knew nothing about it.

When he woke again he was alone again: he was back in the dark and solitary room.

17

The office was dim now, at evening, but the figure behind the desk was rigid and unchanging, and the voice as singular as ever. "Do what you will," Dr. Haenlingen said. "I have always viewed love as the final aberration: it is the trap which lies in wait for the unwary sane. But no aberration is important, any more...."

"I'm trying to help him--" Norma began.

"You can't help him, child," Dr. Haenlingen said. Her eyes were closed: she looked as if she were preparing, at last, for death. "You feel too closely for him: you can't see him clearly enough to know what help he needs."

"But I've got to--"

"Nothing is predicated on necessity but action," Dr. Haenlingen said. "Certainly not success."

Norma went to the desk, leaned over it, looking down into the still, blank face. "It's too soon to give up," she said tensely. "You're just backing down, and there's no need for that yet--"

"You think not?" The face was still.

"There are lots of rumors, that's true," Norma said. "But--even if the worst comes to the worst--we have time. They aren't here yet. We can prepare--"

"Of course," the voice said. "We can prepare--as I am doing. There is nothing else for us, not any more. Idealism has taken over, and what we are and what we've done can go right on down the drain. Norma, you're a bright girl--"

"Too bright to sit around and do nothing!"

"But you don't understand this. Maybe you will, some day. Maybe I'll have a chance--but that's for later. Not now."

Norma almost reached forward to shake some sense into the old woman. But she was Dr. Haenlingen, after all--

Norma's hand drew back again. "You can't just sit back and wait for them to come!"

"There is nothing else to do." The words were flat, echoless.

"Besides," Norma said desperately, "they're only rumors--"

She never finished her sentence. The blast rocked the room, and the window thrummed, steadied and then suddenly tinkled into pieces on the carpeted floor.

Norma was standing erect. "What's that?"

Dr. Haenlingen had barely moved. The eyes, in dimness, were open now. "That, my dear," the old woman said, "was your rumor."

"My--"

The blast was repeated. Ornaments on the desk rattled, a picture came off the far wall and thudded to the carpet. The air was filled with a fine dust and, far below, Norma could hear noise, a babel of voices....

"They're here!" she screamed.

Dr. Haenlingen sat very still, saying nothing. The eyes watched, but the voice made no comment. The hands were still, flat on the desk. Below, the voices continued: and then Dr. Haenlingen spoke.

"You'd better go," the calm voice said. "There will be others needing help--and you will be safer underground, in any case."

"But you--" Norma began.

"I may be lucky," Dr. Haenlingen said. "One of their bombs may actually kill me."

Her mouth open in an unreasoning accession of horror, Norma turned and fled. The third blast rattled the corridor as she ran crazily along it.

18

Dodd stayed on his post because he had to: as a matter of fact, he hardly thought of leaving, or of doing anything at all. Minutes passed, and he stood in the hallway, quite alone. The other guard had spoken to him when Cadnan had been picked up and tossed back into solitary, but Dodd hadn't answered, and the guard had gone back to his own post. Dodd stood, hardly thinking, and waiting--though he could not have said what for.

_This is the end._ He had hit Cadnan: in those few seconds he had acted just as a good slaver was supposed to act. And that discovery shocked him: even more than his response during the attempted escape, it showed him what he had become.

He had thought the words he used had some meaning. Now he knew they had next to none: they were only catch-phrases, meant to make him feel a little better. He was a slaver, he had been trained as a slaver, and he would remain a slaver. What was it Norma had said?

"You'd rather live...."

It was true, it was all true. But there was (he told himself dimly) still, somewhere, hope: the Confederation would come. When they did, he would die. He would die at last. And death was good, death was what he wanted....

No matter what Norma had told him, death was what he wanted.

He was still standing, those few thoughts expanding and filling his mind like water in a sponge, when the building, quite without warning, shook itself.

He heard the guard at the end of the corridor shouting. The building shook again, underneath and around him, dancing for a second like a man having a fit. Then he caught the first sounds of the bombardment.

"Norma!" He heard himself scream that one word over the sounds of blast and shout, and then he was out of the corridor, somehow, insanely, running across open ground. Behind him the alarms attached to the front doors of Building Three went off, but he hardly heard that slight addition to the uproar. God alone knew whether the elevators would be working ... but they had to be, they had to stand up. After he found Building One (he could hardly trust the basement levels, choked by panic-stricken personnel from everywhere) he had to get an elevator and find Norma.... He had to find Norma.

Overhead there was a flash and a dull roar. Dodd stared before him at a tangled, smoking mass of blackness. A second before, it had been a fringe of forest. Smoke coiled round toward him and he turned and ran for the side of Building Three. There were other sounds behind him, screams, shouts....

As he passed the Building the ground shook again and there was a sudden rise in the chorus of screams. He smelled acrid smoke, but never thought of stopping: the Building still stood gleaming in the bombardment flashes, and he went round the corner, behind it, and found himself facing the dark masses of One and Two, five hundred feet away over open ground.

As he watched there was a flash too bright for his eyes: he blinked and turned away, gasping. When he could look again a piece of Building Two was gone--looking, from five hundred feet distance, as if it had been bitten cleanly from the top, taking about four floors from the right side, taking the topmast, girders, and all ... simply gone.

But that was Building Two, not Building One. Norma was still safe.

She had to be safe. He heaved in a breath of smoky air, and ran.

Behind him, around him, the bombardment continued.

* * * * *

PUBLIC OPINION FIVE

Being an excerpt from Chapter Seven of _A Fourth Grade Reader in
Confederation History_, by Dr. A. Lindell Jones, with the
assistance of Mary Beth Wilkinson, published in New York, U. S. A.,
Earth in September of the year one hundred and ninety-nine of the
Confederation and approved for use in the public schools by the
Board of Education (United) of the U. S. A., Earth, in January of
the year two hundred of the Confederation.

... The first explorers on Fruyling's World named the new planet after the heroic captain of their ship, and prepared long reports on the planet for the scientists back home in the Confederation. The reports mentioned large metallic deposits, and this rapidly became important news.

The metallic deposits were badly needed by the Confederation for making many of the things which still are found in your homes: such useful objects as cleaners, whirlostats and such all require metal from Fruyling's World.

Of course, there were not many explorers on the new planet, and it was a hard job for them to dig out the metal the Confederation needed.

But the planet had natives on it already. The natives were called Alberts, and here is a picture of them. Aren't they funny-looking?

The Alberts were happy to help with the digging in exchange for some of the good things the explorers talked about, because they didn't have many good things. But the explorers built houses for them and gave them food and taught them English, and the Alberts dug in the ground and helped get the metal ready to ship back to the Confederation.

* * * * *

... The following list of Review Questions may be helpful to the instructor:

1. Why is Fruyling's World called by that name? After whom was it named?

2. What is so valuable about Fruyling's World?

3. Who helps the explorers dig up the metal?

4. Why do they help?

19

For Cadnan, the time passed slowly.

Consciousness came back, along with a thudding ache in the head and a growing hunger: but there were no leaves on the smooth metal of the floor, and the demands of his body had to be ignored. His mind began to drift: once he heard a voice, but when he told himself that the voice was not real, it went away. He found his hands moving as if he were pushing the buttons of his job. He stopped them and in a second they were moving again.

Then the room itself began to shake.

Cadnan had no doubts of his sanity: this was different from the imaginary voice. The room shook again and he wondered whether this were some new sort of punishment. But it did not hurt him.

The rumbling sound of the bombardment came to him only dimly, and for brief seconds. To Cadnan, it sounded like a great machine, and he wondered about that, too, but he could find no answers.