The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (32 page)

“But that could've been an accident,” said Orne. “What I don't like is that the stupid jerk shot off his face and told these people right off how important it is to us that a redisk planet have a peaceful outlook.”

“You're sooooo right. For once,” said Stetson. He got out of the buggy. “Come on. Give me a hand.”

Orne slid out his side. “Why're we stopping here?”

Stetson passed him the end of a tape measure. “Hold that on the edge of the road over there like a good fellow, will you?”

Orne obeyed.

The ridge road proved to be just under seven meters wide. Stetson wrote the figure in a notebook, muttered something about “lines of regression.”

They got back into the buggy, moved on down the road.

“What's important about the width of the road?” asked Orne.

“I–A has a profitable side line selling omnibuses,” said Stetson. “I just wanted to see if our current models would fit on these roads.”

Funny man!
thought Orne. He said, “I presume it's increasingly difficult for I–A to justify its appropriations!”

Stetson laughed. “You're too sooooo right! We're going to put in an additional line of nerve tonic for
R-and-R
agents.”

“Hah!”

Orne leaned back into his own corner, became lost in gloom.
I'm sunk! This smart-Aleck isn't going to find anything I haven't found. There was no real reason to call in the I–A except that things don't feel right here!

The ridge road dipped down to the right through scrub trees.

“We finally get off the high road,” said Stetson.

“If we'd kept straight on, we'd have gone down into a swamp,” said Orne.

“Oh?”

They came out into the floor of a wide valley that was cut by lines of windbreak trees. Smoke spiraled into the still air from behind the trees.

“What's the smoke over there?” asked Stetson.

“Houses.”

“Have you looked?”

“Yes I've looked!”

“Touchy, aren't we?”

The road bore directly toward a river. They crossed on a crude wooden bridge. Stetson pulled to a stop on the opposite side of the bridge, stared at the twin lines of a narrow cart track that wound along the river.

Again they got under way, heading toward another ridge.

The I–A man looked thoughtful. “Let's go over that about their government again,” he said.

Orne raised his voice above the whine of the turbine as it began to labor in the climb up the other ridge. “What do you mean?”

“That hereditary business.”

“I just said that Council membership seems to be passed along on an eldest son basis.”

“Seems to be?” Stetson maneuvered the buggy over a rise and onto a road that turned right down the crest of the ridge.

“Well, they gave me some hanky panky about an elective procedure in case the eldest son dies.”

“I see. What games do these people play?”

“I've only seen one: it's played by sixteen men in teams of four. They use a square field about fifty meters on a side with smooth diagonal ditches crossing from corner to corner. Four men take stations at each corner, and rotate the turns at play.”

“What do they do? Crawl at each other along the ditches?”

“Very funny! They use two heavy balls pierced for holding with the fingers. One ball's green and the other's yellow. Yellow ball goes first: it's rolled along the ditch. The green ball's supposed to be thrown in such a way that it smacks the yellow ball at the intersection.”

“And a great huzzah goes up!” said Stetson.

“No audience,” said Orne.

“Anyway, it seems like a peaceful game,” said Stetson. “Are they good at it?”

“Remarkably clumsy I thought. But they seem to enjoy it. Come to think of it: that game's the only thing I've ever seen them even come close to enjoying.”

“You're a frustrated missionary,” said Stetson. “People aren't having any fun: you want to jump in and organize games!”

“War games,” said Orne. “Have you ever thought of that one?”

“Huh?” Stetson took his eyes off the road momentarily. They bumped off the edge. He jerked his attention back to his driving.

“What if some smart
R-and-R
agent sets himself up as emperor on this planet?” asked Orne. “He could start his own dynasty. First thing you'd know about it is when the bombs started dropping!”

“That's the I–A's personal nightmare,” said Stetson. He fell silent.

*   *   *

The sun climbed higher.

Their road dipped into a slight hollow, slanted up to a new ridge, swung left along the crest. They could see another village on high ground in the distance. When they were close enough to see the green-and-yellow flag atop the government building. Stetson pulled to a stop, opened his window, shut off the motor. The turbine keened down-scale to silence. With the window open, the air-conditioning off, they felt the oppressive heat of the day.

Sweat began pouring off Orne, settling in a soggy puddle where his bottom touched the plastic of the seat.

“What're we doing here?” asked Orne.

“Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For something to happen,” said Stetson. “How do the natives feel about peace?”

“Oh, they think it's wonderful. The Council members are delighted by the peaceful activities of
R-and-R.
”

“Now tell me why you punched the panic button!” demanded Stetson.

Orne's mouth worked soundlessly. Then he blurted: “I told you before I wasn't sure!”

“I want to know what set you off,” said Stetson. “What was the straw that grounded the blinking rocket?”

Orne swallowed, spoke in a low voice. “They held a banquet for—”

“Who held a banquet?”

“The Council. They held a banquet for me. And … uh—”

“They served
froolap
,” said Stetson.

“Do you want to hear this?”

“Dear boy: I'm all ears.”

“You're sooooo right!” said Orne. “Well … what they served me was a stew of
porjo
tails that—”

“Porjo?”

“It's a kind of rodent that they consider a delicacy. Especially the tails. Anyway, what they did was … well, the cook just before bringing the stew in and planking it down in front of me he tied up a live
porjo
with some kind of cord that dissolved quickly in the hot liquid. This animal erupted out of the pot and all over me.”

“So?”

“They laughed for five minutes.”

“You mean they played a practical joke on you and you got mad? I thought you said they had no sense of humor?”

“Look, wise guy! Have you ever stopped to think what kind of people it takes to put a live animal in boiling liquid just to play a joke?”

“A little heavy for humor,” said Stetson. “But playful all the same. And that's why you called in the I–A?”

“That's part of it!”

“And the rest is your deep dark suspicions!”

Orne's face darkened with rage. “So I got mad and pulled a stupid boner! Go ahead! Make something out of it!”

“I fully intend to,” said Stetson. He reached under the dash, pulled out a microphone, spoke into it: “This is Stetson.”

So I've really had it!
thought Orne.

*   *   *

A humming sound came from beneath the dash followed by: “This is the ship. What's doing?”

“We've got a real baddy here, Hal,” said Stetson. “Put out an emergency call for an occupation force.”

Orne jerked upright, ogled the I–A man.

The dash speaker clanked, and the voice said: “How bad is it?”

“One of the worst I've ever seen. Put out a VRO on the First-Contact: some jerk named Bullone. Have him sacked. I don't care if he's Commissioner Bullone's mother! It'd take a blind man and a stupid one at that to call this joint peaceful!”

“You going to have trouble getting back?” asked the voice.

“I doubt it. They don't know yet that we're on to them.”

“Give me your grid just in case.”

Stetson glanced at an indicator dial on the dash. “A-8.”

“Gotcha.”

“Get that call out, man!” said Stetson. “I want a full O-force in here by tomorrow night!”

“Right away.”

The humming sound stopped.

Stetson replaced the microphone, turned to Orne. “So you just followed a hunch?”

Orne shook his head. “I—”

“Look behind us,” said Stetson.

Orne stuck his head out the open window, stared back the way they had come.

“See anything curious?” asked Stetson.

Orne felt giddy. He said, “I see a late coming farmer and one hunter with apprentice moving up fast on the outside.”

“I mean the road,” said Stetson. “You may consider this a first lesson in I–A technique: a wide road that follows the ridges is a military road. Always. Farm roads are narrow and follow the water level route. Military roads are wider, avoid swamps, and cross rivers at right angles. This one fits all the way.”

“But—” Orne fell silent as the hunter came up, passed their vehicle without a side glance.

“What's that leather case on his back?” asked Stetson.

“Spyglass.”

“Lesson number two,” said Stetson. “Telescopes always originate as astronomical devices. Spyglasses are always developed as an adjunct of a long-range weapon. I would guess that fowling piece has an effective range of probably one hundred meters. Ergo: you may take it as proved that they have artillery.”

Orne nodded.

“Now let's look at this village,” said Stetson. “Notice the flag. Almost inevitably they originate as banners to follow into battle. Not always. However, you may take this as a good piece of circumstantial evidence in view of the other things.”

“I see.”

“Now let's consider your Leader's Council,” said Stetson. “There's nothing but a civilian aristocracy. Rule one in our book says that whenever you have a situation of haves and have-nots, then you have positions to be defended. That always means armies. I'll bet my bottom credit that those gaming fields of the green and yellow balls are disguised drill grounds.”

Orne swallowed. “I should've thought of that.”

“You did,” said Stetson. “Unconsciously. You saw all of this unconsciously. It bothered hell out of you. That's why you pushed the panic button.”

“I guess you're right.”

*   *   *

“Another lesson,” said Stetson. “The most important point on the aggression index: peaceful people don't even discuss peace. They don't even think about it. The only way you develop more than a casual interest in peace is through the violent contrast of war.”

“Sure!” Orne took a deep breath, stared at the village. “But what about the lack of forts?”

“We can take it for granted that they have artillery,” said Stetson. “Hm-m-m.” He rubbed at his chin. “Well, that's probably enough. I guess you don't have to have mobile cavalry in the equation to rule out forts.”

“I guess not.”

“What happened here was something like this,” said Stetson. “First-Contact, that stoop Bullone, jumped to a wrong conclusion about these people, and he tipped our hand. The rulers of Hamal probably got together, declared a truce, hid or disguised every sign of war they knew about, and concentrated on milking us for all they could get.”

“That figures,” said Orne. He was just beginning to feel the emotional cleansing of relief.

“I think you'll make a pretty good I–A operative,” said Stetson.

“I'll make a—Huh?”

“We're drafting you,” said Stetson.

Orne stared at him. “Can you do that?”

“There are still some wise heads in our government,” said Stetson. “You may take it for granted that we have this power.” He frowned. “And we find too damned many of our people the way we found you!”

Orne swallowed. “This is—” He fell silent as the farmer pushed his creaking cart past the I–A vehicle. They stared at the peculiar swaying motion of the farmer's back, the solid way his feet came down, the smooth way the high-piled vegetable cart rolled over the road.

“I'm a left-handed
froolap
myself?” muttered Orne. He pointed at the retreating back. “There's your cavalry animal. That damn' wagon's nothing but a chariot!”

Stetson slapped his right fist into this open left palm. “Damn! Right in front of our eyes all the time!” He smiled grimly. “There are going to be some surprised and angry people hereabouts when our occupation force arrives.”

As it turned out, he was “sooooo right.”

 

MISSING LINK

“We ought to scrape this planet clean of every living thing on it,” muttered Umbo Stetson, section chief of Investigation & Adjustment.

Stetson paced the landing control bridge of his scout cruiser. His footsteps grated on a floor that was the rear wall of the bridge during flight. But now the ship rested on its tail fins—all four hundred glistening red and black meters of it. The open ports of the bridge looked out on the jungle roof of Gienah III some one hundred fifty meters below. A butter yellow sun hung above the horizon, perhaps an hour from setting.

“Clean as an egg!” he barked. He paused in his round of the bridge, glared out the starboard port, spat into the fire-blackened circle that the cruiser's jets had burned from the jungle.

The I–A section chief was dark-haired, gangling, with large head and big features. He stood in his customary slouch, a stance not improved by sack-like patched blue fatigues. Although on this present operation he rated the flag of a division admiral, his fatigues carried no insignia. There was a general unkempt, straggling look about him.