MacRoscope (53 page)

Persis nodded. “That’s horrible, I know. One of them touched me once, on the arm, and I thought I’d never wash that spot clean. I was an outcast for weeks. Filthy thing!”

Something was strange. “It didn’t hurt you?”

“Of course not. They wouldn’t dare attack a human being.”

A sick feeling crept over Beatryx. “What do they
do
, then? I mean, if you hadn’t come here in time—”

“Don’t you know? It probably would have touched you, tried to talk to you. Disgusting.”

“They talk?”

“They talk. But let’s get off this depressing subject. You must be very tired, after what you went through.”

Beatryx looked toward the body. “What about it?”

“The men will burn it and bury the suit. We don’t need to look. They’ll put on special gloves, and bury them too, afterward. That’s the worst part of it — having to handle them.”

Something else nagged her. “The suit?”

“The diving suit. They use those rigs for swimming under the water. Didn’t you see?”

Beatryx walked to the body, appalled at what she knew she would find. “That’s a
man
!”

“That’s a
black
!” Persis corrected her. Then, horrified: “What are you doing?”

Beatryx ignored her. She kneeled beside the corpse, seeing now the machined parts she had taken for scales. The protective face-mask attached to the large goggles, almost the way the macroscope headgear did. The breathing apparatus — what she had seen as the “snout” — was fastened below the helmet to a ribbed diving outfit. She put her hands to the helmet and twisted, and the mask snapped loose. She worked it away from the face.

The head inside was that of a young man, as handsome in his own way as Hume was in his. This man was dark, however: a Negro.

A black.

Beatryx stumbled along in the dusk. The stones and brush and sharp twigs hurt her feet but did not slow her. The cries of the men and women of the beach village were lost behind her; they would not find her tonight, and tomorrow did not matter.

That such a lovely world could have such horror! It had been so appealing at first, with the delicious climate, attractive seascape, and friendly people. And her own gift-body, youthful and vigorous.

But to kill fellow-men so brutally simply because they came from the sea — she could not comprehend or accept this. Harold would never have abided it. He was a peaceful man but could be moved to severe measures when something really important came up. “The horoscope does not specify race,” he would have said.

So she had fled. Not bravely, not openly; she was not a courageous woman, and she did not know what was best. She had washed her hands again and again, as they demanded, though in truth she was not ashamed of the touch of the black; rather she was painfully remorseful that she had failed to touch the man when it had counted, in her fatal ignorance. She had waited until night, then gone into the forest as though to — to employ the facilities. Then she had plunged into the darkness, though the branches struck cruelly at her bare flesh and the rocks turned under her bruising feet.

No, she did not have physical courage, and the darkness terrified her, with its thousand lurking suggestions of spiders and snakes and centipedes. But there was something she had to do. It was the thing Harold would have done.

She made her way to the beach and found the corpse. Then she moved down toward the mirror-cliff. Even in the night she was sure she could find
that
landmark, and of course it was not completely dark. The stars were out in vaguely unfamiliar constellations, and the ocean glowed gently. It was cool, now, but her motion kept her warm.

She saw the somber hump of rock and knew that her bearings were good. Only a little way beyond this spot…

Now, cautiously, she began to call. “Black — black, I don’t have any weapon… black, if you’re there, I want to talk with you… black, where are you?…”

For somewhere was the second black. The men had not found it — found
him
. They had followed the traces, but the man from the sea had eluded them in the brush. Tomorrow they were going to burn the forest here, to drive him out.

He had to be here somewhere, Hume had explained, for in the chase the man’s face-plate had been knocked out. It had fallen to the ground, and Hume had it. He had hurled it into the fire with gloved hands so that it could never be used again. The black could not go under the sea again without it.

Neither could he get far inland, for the second line of defense was canine. The big, vicious dogs would be released if they winded him, and the black surely knew that. They were cunning that way, Hume had explained. They knew enough to stay clear of the hounds. He would not venture out of the shoreline foliage.

Tomorrow, the fire…

“Black,” she called again. “I have the other faceplate…”

It had been a grisly task, in the dark, prying out the plate from the helmet of the corpse. But what else could she do? She could not let them kill another man.

For an hour she tramped up and down the beach, not daring to call too loudly lest the others hear. There was no answer. Then she cut into the forest, hurting her feet again but keeping on, still calling. She could think of nothing else to do.

And finally blind purpose prevailed. Somewhere in the night she had an answer.

“I hear you, white.”

It was a woman’s voice.

And Beatryx found her, lying in the hollow between two fallen trunks. The woman had a tiny electric lantern she had kept hooded until now — until she was sure that the calling voice was not a trap. By its abruptly unfettered light Beatryx saw that the woman had removed her useless helmet and much of the rest of the underwater outfit. She lay on her side, her rather attractive dark head propped against her elbow.

“You have to move,” Beatryx said urgently. “They’re going to set fire to the forest. They’re going to—”

“One place is as good as another,” the woman replied philosophically.

“You don’t understand. Tomorrow morning—”

“Tomorrow morning you be gone from here, white. And don’t tell them you saw me, or they’ll kill you too. I can’t move.”

“But I brought you the face-plate. From the dead man. So you can go back under the water. That’s why I—”

“White.”

The tone stopped her. The woman angled the light of the lantern so that it illuminated the area around her feet.

Then Beatryx understood. Both flippers were off, and one black ankle was swollen grotesquely. The woman could not walk.

“I’ll help you get to the water,” Beatryx said quickly. “You can swim slowly, can’t you? Using your hands and one foot?”

“I could.” But the tone was fatalistic. Obviously the woman did not intend to try. “Where would I go in the sea, what would I do, and my husband dead on land?”

Her husband!

What would Beatryx do if Harold were dead? If some stranger had casually mentioned the fact and offered his belongings for her use? There would not be much point in going on. Why should this woman feel any differently?

“I am Dolora,” the woman said. “The lady of sorrows.”

“I am Beatryx. But I don’t bring any joy to you.” How stupid her name seemed now! And how pitiful the delayed introduction, abreast of tragedy.

Dolora carefully removed a capsule from a sealed pocket in her suit and swallowed it.

“Your foot?” Beatryx inquired sympathetically. “For the pain?”

“For the pain, yes.”

“How did this happen?” Beatryx asked after a pause. “Why do they hate you? Why do you come from the ocean?”

And Dolora explained: In the time of the Traveler Siege the whites of this planet had embarked upon conquest and plunder, recognizing no law but force. The blacks of the neighboring less-technological world had been defeated and subjugated. Great numbers of them had been brought to this world as slaves.

“But you are both human!” Beatryx protested. “How could—”

“We are of the same stock, yes,” Dolora said, misunderstanding the nature of her objection. “There must have been a prior siege, before the dawn of history, and one world colonized the other. We could not have evolved independently. But this world is not so good for us as was our own; its sun is too dim.”

Beatryx had meant to protest the enslavement of one human race by another, rather than the genetic probabilities. Now she remembered how similar it had been on Earth, and did not bring the matter up again.

When the siege ended (Dolora continued) and the Traveler signal was gone, the slaves were stranded on the alien world. But, deprived of foreign conquests, the whites returned to planetary matters, and gradually a liberalizing sentiment grew among them. In time they formally abolished the institution of slavery. But there followed a considerable minority reaction against
this
, as certain economic interests suffered; and trouble was continuous. The blacks had mastered the white technology but were refused admittance into white society.

At last a compromise was achieved. The blacks were given a country of their own — under the water. They built tremendous dome-cities there, with artificial sunlight approximating that of their homeworld, and they cultivated the flora and fauna of the sea-floor efficiently. They traded with the landborne whites, shipping up ocean produce and metals from undersea mines in exchange for grams and wood.

The separation was not complete. A few blacks had elected to remain on land in spite of stringent discrimination there, and a few whites had joined the undersea kingdom. Both minorities had a difficult time of it, being under constant suspicion, though their motives had been high. Periodically some land-blacks would give up and seek the sea, and some sea-whites would return to land. These were welcomed by both groups as rescued personnel, and encouraged to publish lurid narratives of their hardships among the barbarians.

Beatryx realized at this point what the whites had taken her for.

But gradually this supposedly ideal compromise had soured. Too many on each side believed they somehow had the worst of the bargain. Politicians forwarded their careers by making a scapegoat of the other culture, and after a time polemics became policy. Trade became disrupted, and the blacks found their diet lacking in trace elements that only land-grown produce could provide, while the whites’ industry suffered for lack of the sea metals. It seemed to each that the other was maliciously trying to destroy it.

White militants made preparations for what they claimed would be an effective solution to the problem: not a kind one. But they acted subtly, because the great majority still believed in the double-culture compromise, and would protest if the truth were to become known. Meanwhile the black militants were also making their moves. They had almost achieved control of their government, and would take military action against the whites as soon as the proper power was theirs. They, too, believed in simple solutions.

At best, somebody was going to be badly hurt. At worst…

“
We
don’t want this strife either,” Dolora said. Her voice had become lower and sadder, as though she were very tired, and Beatryx had to strain to hear. “It will be the end. We
have
to establish lines of communication. To put the reasonable blacks in touch with the reasonable whites, acquaint them all with the leadership crisis, reintegrate the two societies. This two-culture compromise is sundering the planet…”

“But why don’t you just send a — a message?
Telling
them? Or talk with—”

“Governments do not listen very well,” Dolora said, her voice a whisper. “Particularly ‘conservative’ governments. And as for talking — that is what the two of us set out to do. We were not the first. For many years people like us have been trying, but none has returned, and no one has come to us from the whites. But my husband and I — we did not believe that the average white would actually refuse to listen, if approached without malevolence. So we came without weapons, spreading out in the hope of making individual contact sooner, thinking good intentions were enough—”

And had met savagery. And Beatryx herself, caught up in the fever, had cried “Kill it!” with the others.

And thus this girl’s well-meaning husband had been butchered, and she pursued through the forest by a killer mob — all because the man had seen Beatryx and come to talk with her.

“But I see now that we were wrong,” Dolora whispered. “They do not
want
to listen. So there is nothing to be done.”

Beatryx herself had been so ignorant. She had screamed instead of listening. What could she say?

“Dolora, I—”

But the girl was not paying attention. She lay still, her head resting in dry leaves. Asleep?

Beatryx picked up the lantern and shone it on Dolora. Then she touched the flaccid hand.

The girl appeared to be dead.

Now, too late, Beatryx realized the significance of the capsule. Dolora had taken it after she was assured that her husband was dead…

Beatryx looked for something to dig with. It seemed important that the girl be buried before the fire came. Then she realized that something more important remained. No whites had gone to the undersea city…

Tediously she stripped the remainder of the suit from the dead girl’s body. She experimented with the various attachments and controls, learning how the air supply operated. She fitted in the alternate face-plate. The suit was well designed and largely automatic; otherwise, she knew, she could never have succeeded in using it. Probably if the face-plate had not been designed to pop out without disturbing the goggles, it would not have come loose.

“You were
not
wrong, Dolora,” she said.

She put on the suit and all its equipment, sealed herself in, and made her way to the water. It was almost morning.

Beatryx was not a proficient swimmer, but her strong new body and the diving equipment made the endeavor possible. She was tired, she was clumsy, she was afraid, but she could do it because she had to. She entered the water, her feet stinging as the salt brine pried into the multiple scratches. She submerged, relieved to discover that she could breathe well enough, and followed the coastal shelf down. The suit was heavy, holding her down, so that she actually walked as much as she swam.