Federation World (40 page)

"We will discuss it now," said the First, "or my remaining family will not join me, and few indeed will be the other Keidi who reach any of their designated centers."

Beth and the doctor had swung around to stare at the screen. Martin wet his lips and said quietly, "Explain."

There were many Keidi crowded around and behind the First, but none of them made a sound as he said, "Off-worlder, I have been considering your earlier words to me about overcrowding and your means of relieving it, and the real meaning of these words so far as my Family and myself are concerned. I have decided that you intend to use the center's matter transmitters to split up my family and organization and scatter it to centers all over the north and south continents."

Too quietly for the doctor to hear her, Beth said, "So that's why you weren't worried about letting his special people into one center. A neat, but nasty, solution."

"The idea had occurred to me," Martin said softly.

Concentrating Keida's proven Undesirables-they had been unknowingly nominated as such by the First- into one center, then scattering them so thinly among the more normal Keidi that their ability to reorganize and regain control would have been lost, had been a very attractive idea. After all, on a planetary scale that had been the primary purpose of the induction centers, as well as to filter out potential non-Citizens like Beth and himself. But it had been a nice, simple, and too uncertain solution which he had been reluctantly obliged to discard.

To the First he said, "I do not intend to split your family. Your fears are groundless."

"That," the First said harshly, "is the expected reply, a piece of verbal misdirection aimed at rendering my people more amenable until the treachery is accomplished. You must bind yourself to those words, completely and without any possibility of later argument or modification, as I have bound myself to mine. You must do this now."

"Or else?" asked Martin,

"Your evacuation," the First replied, "will become an ever greater shambles than it is now." "Explain," Martin said again,

In order to allay his people's distrust and suspicions regarding the Galactics' intentions, the First explained, he had told them that they should proceed toward their assigned centers only so long as he was able to report it safe to do so. He was in constant communication with them and they with each other, and if he signaled that the centers were not, in fact, radiation shelters but a cunning trap devised by the off-worlders to gather them together for easy execution, few indeed were the refugee groups who would not immediately halt or go somewhere, anywhere, else. If advanced technology was used to blank out or otherwise interfere with the First's continuing signals of reassurance, his people would then know that the off-worlder’s treachery was a fact and act accordingly, by spreading The news to the other, non-Family groups.

"If you were to blank all Keidi-operated radio transmitters," the First added, "I suspect that your own ship-directed rescue plans would be seriously hampered. Is this not so?"

For a moment Martin was too angry to speak, then he said, "Those nuclear detonations were a fact, not an off-worlder trick. You know the effects of massive radiation exposure on unprotected people. Will you risk killing a large proportion of your present and future population for selfish, political gain? And for a personal reassurance which you have already received?"

"The majority of my people are post-Exodus second and third generation," the First said slowly, "and have no understanding of nuclear fallout. They treat the stories about the terrible things which may happen to them with disbelief. Unless, of course, it is a trusted person and not the hated off-worlders or a Keidi healer who has apparently sided with the Galactics, who is telling the stories. It is possible that I would not risk killing so many of my people but you, off-worlder, cannot be sure of that. And the political gain I seek is not selfish, it is for the future of a people who want to live, no matter how difficult that life may be, without the help of off-worlders. As yet your reassurances have no substance."

"But such threats are unnecessary," Martin said angrily. "Wait."

"Had your response been immediate, off-worlder," the First said, "I would have suspected a total misdirection. I shall wait as long as you can afford to wait."

That would not be for long, Martin thought. Beth and the doctor were staring at him, ignoring the master screen where the sensor displays and attention lights which were flickering into the colors denoting third-level emergencies. He swore and tried to think.

Plainly the First was frightened by a situation which would not occur, so badly that he was overreacting. Was the Keidi leader so old and selfish and power hungry that even the thought of losing control of his Family Estate i was worse than death to him? Martin did not think so. Perhaps the First really believed that he was being unselfish, that he was acting for the ultimate good of his race, the Keidi equivalent of death or glory. ! "I don't understand," he said in quiet desperation. "Why is this promise so important to him? He is an old Keidi, after all. Why doesn't he let go?"

"I don't know what overall strategy, if any, you had in mind," Beth said sympathetically, "but this particular battle you've lost."

Martin shook his head. To the First he said, "For my promise you offered a return which would be equally binding. Please specify."

"I offer active and total cooperation in the evacuation and movement of refugees," the First said. "From the situation reflected on my screen it is obvious that the operation is being mishandled by a couple of ignorant if well-meaning off-worlders no Keidi trusts, and a healer who is good at his job but sadly inadequate in other areas. I will take charge of this operation, which is essentially a military one, and complete it, if not to your satisfaction, at least with a degree of success many times greater than you could achieve unaided.

"All Keida knows the First Father of the Estate," he ended proudly. "When I speak they will listen, believe, and obey."

The attention lights on the status and prediction panel were proliferating like tiny, fast-growing flowers which blossomed yellow and orange and, in a few places, bright red. More and more refugee groups were either not moving or moving too slowly to reach safety. Martin stared at the wrinkled, age-discolored features on his screen and reached for the transmit stud.

"Off-worlder," the Doctor warned. "Take time to think."

"Yes, dammit," said Beth. "He made fools of us once already. Now he wants to take all the credit for saving, not only the people of his Estate, but the entire population from the disaster he caused, while maintaining his precious military dictatorship intact as well, it means giving him what he has always wanted, the leadership of all the Keidi, and what he could never have expected, their life-long gratitude for saving them as well. Surely we can't let him get away with that!"

Martin nodded toward the status board and the immediate attention lights that were winking urgently all over it, and sighed. "I have no choice."

To the waiting First he went on, "Very well. In return for the services specified, I most solemnly bind myself and my life-mate to this obligation. To the best of our ability, and without any misdirection or omission of effort, we will ensure that you, your blood family and the special members of your Family Estate whom you wish to remain with you will so remain. All of the relevant facts and circumstances governing this situation are being recorded for later study and assessment by our superior, who will..."

"Have our bloody guts for garters," Beth said with quiet intensity. 'This is exactly what we aren't supposed to do."

"... Who will be obliged to follow our recommendations and be similarly bound by them," Martin went on, "since we have been given responsibility for the Keida assignment. This obligation will be honored and may not be abrogated, nor amended in any particular, until you and your chosen Family, even to its youngest present member, have died by accident, at the hands of other Keidi, or from old age..."

"There was no need to go that far," Beth protested.

"... And no future agency," he continued, "direct or indirect, will be used to separate your group or hasten the death of any member covered by this binding. Are we agreed?"

"Have you the power to do that?" asked the Keidi leader. He sounded impressed.

"As the Federation's representative on Keida," Mar-tin replied, "I have the responsibility."

The First regarded Martin silently for a moment, then said, "We are agreed, off-worlder. The primary responsibility for the movement of the refugees is now mine. Henceforth you will provide information and additional communication channels when required and will not, by any word, act, omission, or implication try to undermine or criticize in any way my personal authority or that of my organization. You will not interfere verbally in any situation nor provide material assistance of any kind unless requested by me to do so. Is this also agreed?"

Beth seemed ready to go into spontaneous combustion.

"Yes," Martin said quickly, "unless we are able to provide forms of assistance which you cannot."

When the First spoke it was obvious that he had been testing Martin, trying to see just how far the off-worlder could be pushed, because there was no argument. He said, "We and our organizations are agreed, then. I shall begin by speaking to Group Eleven-twenty-seven," he went on, "which is progressing like a beheaded cretsil with one leg..."

During the three hours which followed Beth and Martin had nothing to do but watch the sensor data flashing onto the big surveillance screen and listen while the First did all the talking with, occasionally, a little help from the doctor. In the time they saw, with very mixed feelings, an increasing number of the Immediate Attention tights flicker from red to orange, and the orange downgrade to the yellow or green denoting refugee groups which, barring accidents, would make it to their assigned centers in time or had already reached them. A few of the lights persisted in burning red, but the Keidi leader was working hard on those groups, in turn bullying, threatening, encouraging, and, wherever possible, sending Estate vehicles and draught animals to speed them along. Much as Martin hated to admit it, the First was doing a fine job.

Beth's angry voice made him realize that he had been thinking aloud again.

"I can admire the job he's doing," she said, "but I most definitely do not admire him! He deserves to be lynched for what he did, and instead he's going to end up as the apparent savior of all Keida. You've handed him exactly what he's always wanted, the whole damned planet, and without even trying to reduce his demands."

Martin looked from her to the main screen and said quietly, "Bargaining might have satisfied my pride, wasted time, and lost a lot of Keidi lives which the First is busy saving. In the circumstances I couldn't afford to be proud.

"Pride, independence, self-reliance," he went on, "are considered more important among the Keidi than I had realized, even though there were clear indications of how they felt during that Keidi-Surreshon contact in the World. They'll need Federation help, food, fuel, insulated housing and so on, to resettle, but they don't want too much outside help. The First is saving their pride as well as their lives, and, even though the motive is self-aggrandizement, I think he also has the ultimate good of the Keidi at heart."

"If he has one," Beth said. "But what bothers me is that there is nothing we can do to save people like the doctor, potential Federation Citizens, from people like the First. I can't see him allowing anyone to try for citizenship under the new set up...Oh, no, this is all we need!"

"What is it?" Martin asked.

"Seismic activity along a fault line which runs thirty miles south of the missile arsenal," she said. "A delayed reaction to that subsurface detonation in the crater, 1 should think. The shockwaves are moving in both directions along the line, which diagonally bisects the continent. Our sound sensors are beginning to pick it up and within a few minutes the nearest refugee groups will feel as well as hear it. I'm flagging the areas at immediate risk on the screen. We'd better tell the First what's happening ..."

The Keidi leader reacted quickly, rerouting his groups where necessary to avoid them having to travel through forested areas where the severe shocks would be certain to bring down trees with consequent death, injury, and reduced mobility. Martin was still talking to the First when Beth interrupted him.