Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1959 (10 page)

           
"Apparendy you don't. When do
you think the right time will come?"

 
          
Lyle's
eyes grew narrow in thought. "Perhaps not for years," he replied.
"Perhaps not for generations.
We have an escape
committee, made up of our best minds, gathering knowledge, studying . . ."

 
          
"Hold
on," interrupted Darragh unceremoniously. "It just happens that I
can't wait for years or generations. I have to get back home and make my report
to the council of chiefs."

 
          
"Indeed?"
Lyle's grin was harsh again above his teacup. "And just how do you propose
to escape?"

 
          
"I'm
not quite sure yet," Darragh was forced to admit, and felt his ire grow
warmer as Lyle's grin broadened. "Yet," and he forced himself to
speak calmly and coolly, "it ought to be possible. There are about thirty
people
here,
and . . ."

 
          
"These
people obey me, Darragh," Lyle reminded him, frostily and blundy.
"They're my people. I'm related to many of them, and I'm a friend of all
of them."

 
          
"I
want to be their friend, too," Darragh tried to temporize. He glanced
toward the front window. "They're out there now, and they seem mighty
interested in what's going on in here."

 
          
"They
understand cooperation and discipline," elaborated Lyle. "They put
their trust in the committee."

 
          
"Please,"
spoke up Brenda Thompson. "Mr. Darragh's our guest, Orrin."

 
          
"Thank
you, ma'am," said Darragh.

           
"An uninvited guest, you might
say," rejoined Lyle. "I don't want to be impolite or stubborn,
Darragh, but you must realize that we are scientists here."

 
          
"Scientists?"
repeated Darragh:

           
"How's the state of science
down there in your jungle?" "Why," said Darragh, "we do
what we can ..." "And what can you do? Do you have electricity or
steam power?"

           
"We have electricity,"
Darragh told him. "We use steam for things like mills and presses. We have
radio—not television, though probably we could have that if we really wanted
it."

 
          
"How about airplanes?"

           
"We have some of those.
Not jet planes—propeller craft."

           
"You seem to have done a
lot," contributed Brenda Thompson.

           
"In this little community, we
are scientists," said Lyle again. "Our fathers were captured at the
moment of the original invasion; they've kept books and plans, have set out
their knowledge and passed it on."

 
          
Darragh
stared. "You've been here from the time the Cold People landed? Fifty
years?"

 
          
"We
have picked up considerable knowledge from the Owners—the Cold People,"
went on Lyle. "We understand some of their science, things like the
rays."

 
          
Darragh
leaned forward eagerly, almost spilling his tea. "You can make the
ray-throwers?"

 
          
Lyle
shook his head. "I said we
understand
those things. Well manufacture them some day. We're learning; it has been a
slow process but it's been a steady one."

 
          
"Try
to understand, Mr. Darragh," Brenda Thompson's soft voice pleaded.

 
          
"Yes,"
said Lyle, "try to understand. We work in a way that doesn't arouse
suspicion. After all, we've been penned up here for two generations or so. But
well find out how to build and operate one of their
ships,
and in that ship . . ." He spread his free hand. "In that ship, well
fly out of this prison shaft and away to freedom."

 
          
"I've
flown one of their ships," reminded Darragh.

           
"Yes, yes, so you've told
us," nodded Lyle impatiendy; "but can you make one?"

 
          
"No.
I can see how that would take years, all right." He set down his teacup.
"Sorry I can't hang around here and watch it work out."

 
          
"What
do you think you'll do?"

           
"Look, Lyle, I've been forming
a plan while we've been talking here," said Darragh. "Why don't you
let me offer it to your crowd here—let them take it or leave it?"

 
          
"I'd
rather you didn't," said Lyle, his eyes bright and
un
-
 
friendly. "In fact, I'm going to
have to ask you not .to make
 
any orations at all."

 
          
"Why,"
said Darragh, "I hadn't any notion of making orations."

 
          
"Thanks
for your promise." Lyle got up. "Will you wait here? I'm going to
bring someone else back to talk to you." "More tea first,
Orrin?" asked the girl.

           
"No thanks," Lyle almost
snapped. "Ill
be
back in a little while."

 
          
He
was gone. Darragh, too, rose. "This leatherwork's getting hot," he
said to Brenda Thompson. "Mind if I shed it?"

 
          
"Please
do," she granted, and he kicked off his moccasins,
then
pulled the jacket over his head. Her blue eyes grew round as she watched, and
he realized that he stood stripped to the waist.

 
          
"
Oh,"
and he tried to laugh, "excuse me. I didn't
stop to think—down in the tropics we wear just as few clothes as we can get by
with."

 
          
"I
just was thinking that you have such big shoulders." She turned. "Let
me bring you some things my father used to wear.
A
robe."

 
          
She
was gone. Darragh wriggled out of his heavy trousers. He put the garments on
the chair,
then
turned suddenly.

 
          
He
had felt an intent study of his back. But behind him was only that mirror-like
rectangle of glass in the rear wall. He walked toward it.

 
          
On
the other side a Cold Creature pressed close, as though watching him in rapt
interest.

 
          
Darragh fairly
sprang at that window,
his hand going to the knife at his belt. Close to the pane he came, craning his
neck to look into what would be a face if Cold Creatures had faces. He felt his
skin tighten and twitch, his hair bristle. At his sudden rush, the thing
outside seemed to shrink back in the dimly lighted corridor. It paused, and its
tentacles made fluttering motions, as though trying to signal him.

 
          
"I'd
like to give you this, you damned jelly-blob!" snarled Darragh aloud,
whirling the knife up above his head.

 
          
A
gasp behind him, and he swung around on his bare heel.

           
Brenda Thompson had come back. Over
her arm was slung a folded robe, black with dark red belt, collar and cuffs.

 
          
"Heavens!"
she said, and smiled with lips that seemed to quiver.

 
          
He
gestured furiously at the pane. "That thing out there-it was gaping in at
me."

 
          
"They
often watch us," she said, as though to reassure him. "They never do
harm."

 
          
"I
don't want to be watched," Darragh growled, and walked toward her. For a
moment he thought she might retreat before him, as the Cold Creature out there
had retreated. But she smiled again, and offered him the robe. He took it.

 
          
"Thanks,"
he said, and put it on. He pulled the sandals out of his belt and stooped to
pull one, then the other, upon his bare feet. Her eyes were still on the knife
he held, and he laid it on the table beside the tea-tray.

 
          
"You
looked as though you'd actually kill that Owner," she half-whispered.

 
          
"I've
killed two already," he reminded her. "I told you about that. Didn't
you believe me?"

 
          
She
pursed her lips, and a tiny crease marked her brow. "Now that you ask
me," she said slowly, "I don't really think I did believe you. Not
until this moment. But I believe you now."

 
          
She
sat down, and so did he.

           
"Haven't any of your people
tried to kill one?" he asked.

           
A shake of her
bright head.
"Nobody ever really thought of trying. But you—yes, I
can believe you would. I can believe you could." She smiled suddenly, and
radiantiy, with mouth and eyes and a bunching of-her round cheeks. "You're
not like these men here. You're—I don't know exactiy how to put it
..
."

 
          
"You
think I'm a wild man?" he suggested, smiling back at her.

 
          
"Well,
you're certainly not a tame man," she suddenly laughed, and there was
happy admiration in that laugh. "You've been living out of reach of the
Owners—what you call the Cold People. You've been living in spite of them;
you've dared spy on them and oppose them and strike them down."

 
          
"That's
all new to you, Miss Thompson."

           
"You're new to me, Mr. Darragh.
You're
a
stranger. Do you realize
that you're the first stranger I ever met? I've grown up without seeing any
stranger before."

 
          
He
smiled at her again, and shook his head slowly. "Let's not go on being
strangers. Let's start by using our first names. I'm Mark."

 
          
"And
I'm Brenda.
More tea?"

           
She filled his cup, and hers. Yet
another smile they shared as they sipped.

 
          
"I
have
a
feeling that I'm not such a
big success with Orrin Lyle as I seem to be with you," he ventured.

 
          
"Orrin
doesn't like to have anybody oppose
him,
he's not used
to it."

 
          
"I'm
used to it, but I don't like it either. I hope he and I can get along
together."
"So do I, Mark."

           
He glanced at the pane in the wall.
He could not tell whether a Cold Creature lounged there or not. "I don't
like being watched," he said. "Can we go to some other room,
Brenda?"

 
          
She
shook her head. "There's only one other room, and .they can look into
that, too.
Into every room of every one of these houses, and
into the grounds."

 
          
"It's
like being in a zoo!" he exploded.

           
"That's what it is," she
said soberly.
"A zoo.
We're kept here alive,
allowed food and other things for our support. And they study us, I
suppose."

 
          
"But to pry into this cottage.
Isn't it yours?"

           
"I'm afraid not," she told
him. "It's theirs. It's a showpiece. It's like the imitation rock den in a
bear pit in the zoos we human beings used to have." She made a gesture.
"These walls are just mockups. They're flimsy, because we don't have wind
down in this shaft. The roof has to be strong, because snow and rain do come
down from above in winter time."

 
          
"So,"
he said, "
that's
the reason for this center
post."

           
She looked at it. "Yes, that's
to prop up the rafters and riles of the roof. They're substantial, and the
stuff of the walls isn't."

           
He set down his cup. "I've told
you about how my people live. Tell me about yours. Begin at the
beginning."

 
          
"All
right," she agreed. "At least, I'll begin with what I've been told
about the beginning. The Owners . . ."

 
          
"The
Cold People," Darragh corrected her. "Don't call them Owners. They
don't own me, or you either; they just happen to have us in a box at the
moment."

 
          
"All
right, when the Cold People came on Earth, like a thief in the night, I suppose
your ancestors got away from them."

 
          
"And
yours?" he prompted. "How did they stay here and live?"

 
          
"We
were situated in a tiny town—a suburb, it was called—on the shores of a
lake."

 
          
"I've
seen the lake," he remembered.

           
"We were professors then.
Teachers, at the
State
University
."

 
          
"And probably too deep in study to appreciate the
danger."

           
She shrugged ruefully.
"Something
like
that, I suppose. It's a failing
of scientists and teachers.
First thing they knew, it was too
late.
The—Cold People, I won't say Owners again —they were wiping out
armies and cities orf- every side, hemmed in that little suburb." She
paused, gloomily reconstructing what it must have been like. "Of course,
I'm talking about my grandfather and his family and neighbors. There's nobody
alive today who remembers it. Anyway, there was nothing to do but
surrender."

 
          
Darragh
sat up so suddenly that Brenda Thompson jumped. "Surrender?" he
echoed. "How did they manage that?
A white flag or
something?"

 
          
"No;
probably that wouldn't have been understood. Dr. Lyle—that was Orrin's
grandfather—took charge. He told everybody to stand quite still, with hands up.
There were half a dozen professors and their wives and children. The

 
          
Cold
People came crawling around, wearing their armor, pointing their
ray-guns."

 
          
"I'm
interested in those ray-guns," interposed Darragh.

           
"
Ill
tell
you what I
know about them, later," Brenda promised. "We've had some
communication and understanding with the Cold People, and we've found out some
things. But let me get back to the history;
That
litde
knot of human beings was herded into a sort of a pen. There was a conference of
Cold People, talking with their tentacle-talk, and then this prison . . ."

 
          
"This
zoo," contributed Darragh.

           
"It had its beginning."

           
"And after
that?"

           
"We've lived here ever since, a
human peep-show for two generations," said Brenda, and she sounded grim
and, weary. "They built this refrigerated city of theirs around us, all
around our litde central patch of open ground here."

 
          
"And
they allowed you to build your cottages," Darragh elaborated.

 
          
They
built the cottages for us. They let us plant gardens. From up above we get
rain, and there's sunlight. It seems to be reflected down to us with lenses and
mirrors around the rim of the upper opening. And other wants are supplied, by
thrusting big bundles through the valve-panels from outside."

 
          
"I
got thrust through, the same way,
",
remembered
Darragh. "So the Cold People make your food and clothing and so on."

 
          
"Right.
They must have examined all the stuff they didn't
destroy. They supply us the way keepers used to supply captive monkeys or
rabbits."

 
          
"What
about food?" asked
Darragh.

           
"It's frozen, of course, but
that way it keeps longer. There's some kind of meatiike stuff, and bread, and
tea, and all of it is synthetic. They're masters at making chemical foods and
fabrics. We grow green things enough in our gardens to give us vitamins."

 
          
"And
you live in a zoo," summed up Darragh.

           
"In a zoo," she agreed.
"About thirty of us, the children and grandchildren of those
professors who surrendered.
The adults of the free days have all died;
nobody remembers much about freedom. And we're a zoo or an aquarium, for Cold
People to stare at."

 
          
"They
can stare, all right, whatever they use for eyes," said Darragh.
"Now, how about government?
Even ants in a hill have
that."

 
          
"We've
a committee," she told him. "Orrin Lyle sort of inherited the
chairmanship, through his father and grandfather. That's all the command there
is among us."

 
          
"And
what can the committee do?" asked Darragh.

           
"Well, communicate with the
Cold People. Orrin knows how. He can make signs with his hands, to the
creatures outside the windows; they understand, and make signs that he
understands. That way he gets us what we need, even medicine. Besides that, the
committee figures on escape plans for some future time."

 
          
Darragh
glanced at the front window. "Here comes Chairman Lyle now."

 
          
Lyle
entered without knocking. Behind him came the stocky grizzled man who had been
one of the first to speak to Darragh.

 
          
"Are
you feeling better, Mr. Darragh?" asked Lyle.

           
"I'm feeling worse," said
Darragh. "Nothing is going to make me feel better except getting out of
this rat hole."

 
          
Lyle
jerked a thumb at his companion. "This is Sam Criddle," he said.
"Vice-chairman of the town committee.
He's wanted to
hear you talk, and maybe he can help calm you down. You don't seem to realize
that you're lucky to be alive."