Enemies of the System (6 page)

“But the guide
knows
,” exclaimed a ferrous metal analyst called Che Burek. “She knows, she lives here, she's been indoctrinated.”

“She is still only a guide, a worker,” said Sygiek. “No offense, Comrade Constanza. Except for Fererer, we did not need reminding that all Lysenkan animals claim descent from the capitalists who crashed here. Of course there are dangers; but the fact that the animals are semi-human will enable us to use the system's most powerful weapon—
reason
!”

Dulcifer uttered a dry laugh and kicked the corpse so that it rolled against the chassis of the bus.

“That comes well from you, Sygiek! You should know better. You shot this thing.”

“Retract, Sygiek,” called Che Burek.

“Enough. No indulging in personalities,” said Kordan, stepping forward. “More than one of us is capable of making reports. We understand our position, don't we? The bus log tells us that we are approximately two hundred and fifty kilometers out from the Unity Hotel. Six hours of daylight remain. We have emergency flares and torches and other equipment in the vehicle, also a trolley which will carry supplies. We are now going to march in a body back to the safety of our hotel. The likelihood of attack on the road is remote.”

Usla Denning, a woman from the Cupran State who was accompanying Che Burek, said, “Such a walk will take us over two E-days, without allowing for rest periods. That means a Lysenkan day and a half. And by the way, I'm one of the System's leading seasons technicians, and I believe a storm is brewing.”

“We have made our decision,” said Kordan and Fererer together.

“May I put forward an alternative, although I am only a worker?” asked Constanza. She was a slight, trim figure, and she regarded them almost with an amused air. “Unity is a stiff uphill march, and I presume none of you is used to walking far. There is a nearer refuge, and it lies downhill. At the Gorge itself is a comfortable restaurant with plenty of restrooms, saunas, and so on, plus a swimming pool in part of the lake especially for your convenience.”

“How far away is the Gorge?” asked a dozen voices.

“Under an hour's LDB travel. Say one hundred and eighty, one hundred and eighty-five kilometers. We shall be safe at the Gorge.”

They held an impromptu discussion.

While they were talking, a distant note of a horn was heard.

“A vehicle!” someone exclaimed, and they all ran to look up and down the road. One or two of them climbed on the bus.

The freeway lay empty in both directions, fading into dun-colored haze. They were completely isolated from civilization. To one side, perhaps a kilometer away, the plain ended and an old green forest began. A herd of creatures was issuing from the trees and coming at a brisk gait toward the embankment and the river that lay between forest and embankment. In the thick light, it was impossible to distinguish their characteristics clearly.

Everyone stood and watched.

“I'll get those emergency flares,” said Che Burek, but he made no move.

The herd comprised perhaps fifty individuals. They progressed with a lolloping gait, and seemingly on all fours. At the rear were three runners proceeding with a more upright stance. One of these three raised an instrument to his mouth and blew a ragged note. This was the horn they had heard.

The sound of it—unpleasantly reminiscent of a huntsman's horn—was enough to promote terror among the tourists. Without waiting to form a committee, they climbed into the bus, scrambling through doors and windows. Only Kordan, Takeido and Dulcifer were left standing on the road.

“Assist me in getting Georg Morits into the coach,” said Kordan to Dulcifer, going over to the wounded man.

Together the three of them heaved Morits up the slope of the cab, where other hands helped lift him inside as gently as possible.

At this juncture, Morits roused from his coma, struggled and started feebly screaming. His bandages began to ooze. He waved his arm in pain, smearing blood everywhere. A convulsion seized his entire body, he arched himself backward, cried again, collapsed. Lech Czwartek, the doctor, was by his side; after examination, he shook his head and pronounced Morits dead.

Hardly were the words out of his mouth than Hete Orlon went into an hysterical fit. She threw herself about, tore her hair, and struck at Lao Fererer as he tried to comfort her. Then she hurled herself weeping on the dead body, crying incoherently.

“Mother, mother, what have I done to you? They have taken all your beads away. It's not for me and not for you. No one's to blame, mother, no one's to blame, I swear—not me, not you! Why did you ever leave me? We're both safe together, little mother!”

Fererer put his arms round her heaving shoulders, trying to comfort her. Turning a red face to the others, he said, “I don't know what she is saying. I can assure you she was an exobirth, like the rest of us. She had no mother. She was brought up in a crèche with her other siblings in Mali Zemlya.”

While Orlon subsided into troubled gasps, the creatures from the forest were drawing closer. They took their time, swinging along between the sparse green fronds, looking perpetually to left and to right.

Their features were not more clearly distinguishable. They were brown-and-white striped. Their ears were remarkably large and round, and cupped forward almost as if they formed extensions to the lower jaw.

“They look like zebras,” said Dennig, in a relieved voice. “Could they be grazers, rather than carnivores?”

The herd slowed, skirting some mole tunnels. They approached the river with due caution. Occasionally they stopped entirely, raising their front feet off the ground to look round in a man-like stance. The tourists were fascinated.

“To imagine that they were once human …” exclaimed Lydy Fracx.

“To think that they were once capitalists,” said Kordan.

“To think that they are born inside the female still,” said Takeido. “Only when Biocom delivered our kind from that burden could the familial societies be dismantled and a true global society established.”

“Quiet!” said Sygiek.

The striped herd had seen the bus. They looked at it for a long time and then moved toward the river. Wide stretches of sand on either side of the water showed how the river had shrunk from its original state; but it was still considerable and looked treacherous, with boulders rising above its rolling surface here and there, and a channel in the middle where the race was deep, sending up a mane of foam which seemed to run perpetually before a silent wind.

The leaders of the zebras plunged into the water and the rest followed. One of the rear runners blew his horn again like a challenge. Females and younger members of the group were positioned protectively inside a circle of pressing bodies as they braved the flood. The leaders had reached the deeper water when they were attacked. A tough gray-maned male suddenly fell to his knees and almost disappeared beneath threshing water. Two of his companions grabbed him with their forefeet and pulled him up. A dark-bodied seal-creature came up with him, its fangs sunk into his belly. It was immediately attacked by the other zebra-people.

More of the seals appeared. General confusion ensued, in which more than one of the younger zebras was hauled screaming beneath the flood. The first seal was dispatched with a stunning blow. It lost its grip and was carried rapidly downstream. Something grey and fast had it almost at once, and it disappeared from sight.

The zebra herd milled and plunged about. It had backed into shallower water. The horn was blown again; as it was raised in the air to sound three tipsy notes, the watchers saw its elaborate design. Afterward, they were to argue whether it was fashioned from bone, wood, or metal.

Those brazen notes rallied the indecisive creatures. Wheeling, they moved back to the far bank in good order. Without once looking back at the spot where several among them had been lost, they moved along the top of the cliff with that all-fours gait until they grew small in the distance.

“We could have driven them off easily, if it had come to it,” said Kordan breezily. “Now, let us gather supplies together and prepare to walk down to the Gorge as soon as we can.”

“I have just remembered something important,” said Jaini Regentop. “Every ten kilometers or so along the road, there are landphones. Presumably it was a system installed for the convenience of the road-builders. I observed the phones from the bus. We can walk to the nearest one and phone for help.”

“Why didn't you have the sense to mention this before?” asked Takeido.

“Why didn't the guide mention it? She has seen those phones over and over again.”

“I had forgotten,” said Constanza, snapping her fingers. “I have never known anyone have occasion to use those phones. Besides, I'm only a stupid worker, aren't I?”

“We have occasion to use the phones now!” said Kordan. “Our plan of action is clear. No more delay. We walk toward the Gorge and stop at the nearest landphone. If it works, we summon help. Then it may be best to return here to the bus and wait—”

“And find it already overrun by ferocious animals!” exclaimed Hete Orlon, who was still looking tearful. “I am not leaving the safety of this bus, whatever the rest of you decide.”

Ignoring the interruption, Kordan continued, “If the phone doesn't work, we carry on toward the Gorge. Rubyna Constanza has told us that it is only one hundred and eighty kilometers. She also informs me that a routine maintenance crew patrols the road from Peace City at dawn every morning, so relief will be on its way, even if we cannot get through by landphone—and even if one of the tourist buses does not drive back from the Gorge to find what has happened to us. Is this all agreed? May we have a show of hands, comrades.”

Disagreement immediately broke out. What should be done about Orlon? Others besides her did not want to leave the bus. Would not a big group on the road be a target for attack?

It took half an E-hour to decide that a small party of six with provisions would go forward. The rest would stay by the bus.

“Who has to go in this small party?” asked Czwartek, anxiously scratching his beard. “As a doctor, my duty is to stay here with the larger party.”

“It is a privilege to go forward, Utopianist Doctor,” cried Sygiek, flinging up her hand. “I shall go with my partner, Jerezy Kordan. Fererer will remain here in charge of the bus party, and to look after poor feeble creatures like Orlon. Volunteers to go with Kordan and me to assemble here in a line. We want no cowards, either—this is a miserable backward capitalist planet for which we should feel every contempt.”

Several volunteers stepped forward, among them the burly Dulcifer.

“Utopianist Dulcifer, you are under criticism,” said Sygiek. “You will remain with the bus.”

Kordan touched her arm. “You must not give all the orders,” he said. “Dulcifer is a resourceful man, even if he is from Venus. Let him come in our party—we can then keep him under surveillance. That is best.”

After some further argument, the six were agreed upon. Besides Sygiek, Kordan and Dulcifer, the party was to consist of Rubyna Constanza and the two young men from different sectors of the Martian State, Ian Takeido, the exobotanist, and Che Burek, the metals analyst. Takeido's partner, Regentop, was to have gone, but she and Takeido quarreled, so that Burek stepped into her place. He was a well-built cheerful man who announced that he would be pleased to take orders.

VI

The six set off, waving farewell and giving the System salute. They took with them a motorized luggage truck which had been stowed in the rear compartment of the bus. On this were loaded provisions, flares and other items. They marched sturdily down the center of the freeway, in single file with the truck in their midst. The bus was left behind and obscured by a slow curve in the road. They were alone in the immense tan landscape. Silence dwelt over them.

A breeze rose and died. An immense dragonfly came to inspect them, hovering above them for some way. The river meandered away from the road. The land became more uneven. They remained in the center of a great inverted bowl of soupy air. Only once did the sun shine through the cloud sufficiently to be remarked as a blurry disk.

An E-hour and a half had passed before they saw the post of a landphone in the distance. By it stood a large road sign. As the party approached, the letters on the sign formed themselves into words:

DUNDERZEE GORGE
200 Km.

Work—Enjoy—Learn Even From Scenery

“Oh, it's much farther than I remembered,” Constanza exclaimed. “This journey is so fast and easy by LDB.”

“We're certainly learning more than we want from this damned scenery,” said Dulcifer.

“Just recall that the magnificent road on which we walk is a part of our culture,” said Kordan.

When they reached the phone, it was Sygiek who opened the armored box and switched on. The others stood by the trolley, looking on expectantly. The small screen did not light.

“Defunct,” she said. She switched off and closed the box. Takeido pushed her aside and tried himself, joggling the switch up and down, without result.

“So much for our culture,” he said. He looked half-regretfully at Kordan. “We'll never make the Gorge. You and I will never have our confidential discussion. These—these protein-seekers will have us as soon as the sun goes down.” He hopped on top of the luggage truck and began to whistle.

Kordan cleared his throat, frowned at the younger man, then stared up at the low clouds overhead.

They stood there forlornly under the big sign, avoiding each other's gaze.

“Can we go back to the bus?” asked Constanza. “I know it sounds decadent, but my shoes are pinching my feet.”

“Walk without your shoes,” said Sygiek, curtly. “We must strike on to the next phone and the one after that, if necessary. It's no good giving up, comrades. Let's keep some good utopianist hope in our hearts.”