The Enemy of My Enemy (22 page)

Much had changed in the interval of centuries. But not the Tarnisi character.

After the archway, a ramp. After the ramp, a corridor. After the corridor, an enormous room. They started to cross it; it seemed to him that they were giving him covert, amused looks. He barely had time to wonder why when something seemed to move, convulsively, inside of him. He made a startled noise and a startled movement. The men laughed, stopped.

“There, you see, fellow,” the man in charge said, pointing down at a cable which lay circling around on the floor; “you step or jump — or even, I guess,
fly!
— over that, coming in, and it feels quite funny. Doesn’t it? Didn’t really hurt, though, did it? Just feels damned queer. Coming
in
. But. Don’t you try it going
out
. That’s, indeed, the most genuinely warm advice I could give you. It won’t just feel peculiar going out. It will hurt like all anguish, you see. And what is beyond question much more to the point: it won’t
work
. You can’t get out.
You
. Not us. Try it … if you like … . No? Then, good.”

The cable had an odd look, somewhat like quicksilver, somewhat like … something he had not a name for. He followed them on into the interior of the great circle formed by the cable. Behind, the light-units slowly, softly turned themselves off. Ahead was a rather hastily improvised, so it looked, cross between a lounge pavilion and a levy bivouac. “Eat here … sleep there … sanitary stall … and all on an if-and-when you like basis. Now, either excuse us or join us, for we’re about to be busy.”

He snapped his fingers, there was a quick taking of seats, and, from a microtrans which Tonoro had not till now noticed, a 3D performance in full vigor of sound and smell and action burst out upon them. It was musical, it was Lermencasi, it did not greatly interest him. But it evidently greatly interested the men. Probably all or most of them were Lermencasi, too: Commerce-L. might not mind at all making the Craftsmen’s services available to those who might have gotten on the wrong side of power in Lermencas … provided, probably, that they hadn’t gotten on the wrong side of Commerce-L.

It was the first 3D show he’d seen since leaving Pemath; although he’d sounded out the possibilities, the chances of getting permission to import micro transes had never looked good. This was one “foreign toy” on which Tarnis still frowned: Still intent as the Tarnisi were on keeping out, en masse, those who “lacked the Seven Signs,” they had no desire to admit their images — not merely into their country, but into their very homes. It occurred to Tonoro that this setup here in the old warehouse-fort might have been arranged originally not as a makeshift jail but as a sort of clandestine theater.

It was a long,
long
performance, with a cast (evidently) of thousands; dazed by the noise and clamor even after it had ceased for intermission, Tonoro stayed in his seat as the others got up, stretched, visited the stall, made themselves drinks or snacks. His reaction on hearing the voice shout,
“Down flat! Down flat!”
was instinctive. He obeyed. Went down, went flat. Wondered that no one else did. Realized that the voice had shouted in Pemathi … that, seemingly, no one else here understood. Someone had asked something in a voice of alarmed confusion. There was a thudding, cracking sound — no: not one sound, several. Now, at last, the others went down — one of them, screaming. Cautiously, Tonoro moved his head. Voices were echoing. There was blood. The others were down, all right. But not exactly flat down. In awkward heaps, at grotesque angles. The man who had been screaming now began to sob.

“Tonoro!”
The voice echoed.

“Tonoro?”
It called again and echoed again.

He cried, “Here!” — and then, having wisely or not wisely thus committed himself, he got up.

Confusion was, for a while, worse confounded. He shouted for them (whoever they were) not to cross the cable. But some already had. Some tried to cross back. That was nasty. There was a hurried search for the switch to activate all the light-units, the man with the shattered arm was — somehow — persuaded to bethink himself of this information, and then to reveal it. The others seemed all to be dead … .

He had guessed who and what it might be even before the orange glow sprang up all around and he saw Cominthal and many men standing back from the cable. Volanth were among them; he had realized it must be so when he saw the smooth stones. And saw the crushed skulls. He was somewhat regretful that the man in charge was dead, though it was not accurate to say that he had liked him. But, given time and other circumstances, he might have. No time to dwell on that. To the man now moaning on his knees he said, rapidly, “The cable. How is it crossed safely?” The man wept in the grief of pain and the shock of fear; shook his head.

“If they don’t get in soon they may break the other arm, you know — ”

“Belts! It’s the belts!” he cried in a frenzy of concern. The belts — he pointed to his waist. Quickly, Tonoro stripped three of them from the heedless dead, ran to the cable. They felt rather heavier than they should, but, looping one around himself, he had no time to reflect on what that might mean. The old, groined roof sent back the echo of his pounding feet, as it had sent back in days of old the noise of the captains and the shouting of ancient wars. He girded two of the men inside the circle, and together they crossed over. He felt no more than a twinge, stripped off his and the others’ belts, passed them across to those still inside. One, a middle-aged Volanth with a strong face, evidently not understanding, failed to put on the belt and — even as Tonoro and the others cried out warning — passed safely over with it held in his hand. Evidently it was all in the belt, and not in how or where it was worn.

“Let’s get away from here,” Cominthal said — then added a word or two in the Volanth tongue. The last man out nodded, put his hand in the pouch by his side, hefted the stone a moment, then threw back his arm, gauging with his eye the man with the shattered arm.

Tonoro caught hold of the thrower’s hand. Said, “No.”

Cominthal said, “We can’t take him with us and we can’t have him getting out to sound an alarm. Really, if he merits a kindness, this is it.”

But, in the end, they didn’t do him that kindness. They merely took his belt away. They left him there among the bodies, the blood, drinks spilled and unspilled, food scattered and unscattered. He clutched his hand and stared. And, just as they passed from sight, they heard the 3D drama spring back into gaudy life, saw it burst into bouncy sight once more.

The intermission was over.

• • •

“How did you learn Pemathi?”

“I learned all of it I wanted to — one phrase. How? I asked.”

“How did you know where I was?”

Cominthal’s mouth stretched briefly into a one-sided smile. “I never let you out of someone’s sight since we last met … . Tell me it all, my uncle’s son.”

He listened, grim, intent, to his cousin’s account of what had passed between him and the two emissaries of Lermencas, and to his, Tonoro’s, conjectures of what would now have to be the Lermencasi plans. “ ‘Move immediately against the Quasi and the Volanth,’ ” he repeated. “Yes — but when? How much ‘immediately’? Now? Tomorrow? We have to know. I am sure that you are right so far. So be right a bit further. You know the foreign minds. Eh?”

Tonoro said, “I can extrapolate, make educated surmises. I can’t make
gorum
, you know. I can’t prophesy. But … . Now? I don’t think quite now. In order for them to overcome the suspicion and prejudice the Tarnisi have toward foreigners they’ll have to devise something very huge and special in the way of lies. Otherwise neither Lords nor Guardians nor anyone else will consent to Lermencasi participation. It won’t matter that those two, Sarlamat and Mothiosant, and the other Craftsmen clients here, are still posing as Tarnisi. In order to wipe out Quasi and Volanth — ”

Cominthal seized his wrist. “You think that? Wipe us out?”

“As near as they can.”

“Who’ll be their slaves, then?”

“Labor? They can import it, by contract. Pemathi, perhaps, Why not?”

His cousin said, “Go on.”

They had left the old fort-warehouse, the Volanth carefully retrieving their thrown stones for future use; this time they proceeded through the gates and not by notched log-ladders as they had entered. The present moment found them far enough away, in the sub-basement of a mean inn catering exclusively to lacklanders … most of whom, in this case, were actually Quasi who had succeeded in “passing.” Broken furniture and rubbish of all sorts clogged the crowded cellar. A gilded mirror with a crack in it lay propped in such a way that its reflection wavered and trembled incessantly. The light was very low and dim, the switch lay in Cominthal’s hand so that at the first alarm he could plunge the room in darkness.

“It’s appropriate, I suppose,” Tonoro went on, “that foreign assistance will be used by the Tarnisi against the Volanth. They loath and fear the foreigners — but they loath and fear the Volanth even more. So their most basic bigotry will be their undoing … . Which would do us no good. No — I can think of only one thing which would force the Tarnisi into a foreign alliance. And that’s for them to get a hint of the truth.”

“That we’re plotting against them?”

“Yes. It would send them so near mad with rage and fear that the Lermencasi could lack human form and not just the Seven Signs and they’d still go along with them. But they can’t work up a presentation immediately. As yet they have no proof in hand about the Bahon and they certainly won’t want to admit the intentions and endeavors of the Lermencasi — Besides, the fact that a trickle of the truth about an indirect link between Lermencas and the Guardians has gotten out is going to make things even more difficult. So they’ll have to take a while to fix up a fake case with fragments of fact.

“The question is,
How long a while?
It’s a qualified immediacy, and that’s as close as I can say. And all else that I can say is: They are going to move fast and therefore
we
are going to have to move faster.”

Cominthal got to his feet. His reflection danced and trembled in the broken mirror. “We have already begun to move,” he said.

• • •

Bishdar Shronk made growling noises as he listened. From time to time he turned to the maps and charts and then returned, restlessly, still growling, to his seat. Bearlike man, huge of head and trunk, seamed and weathered face, abrupt, loud, suspicious. Bishdar Shronk. Bahon.

“A bad time,” he said, and growled. “We hadn’t thought to have to move this soon. The ground is not prepared for it, the people are not prepared — either here or at home. Before — ” He flung his bristly paw of a hand at the charts, the maps. “Before, it was a matter of preparing the ground. A long process. Working with the oppressed to overthrow the oppressors. A certain number involved, no more. Tarnis is not greatly populated.” He grunted, flipped his hand back, shifted his bulk.

“But now!” he exclaimed, in a low roar. “Now Lermencas enters in! Or, Commerce-Lermencas, which is the same thing … . The United Syndicates of Baho are not surprised, we knew it was inevitable. Not content with their illegal seizure of the Archipelago of Ran — But I am sure you know their wretched history. The problem is
now
. The United Syndicates cannot yet fully mobilize our forces. Also, present planetary polity here on Orinel rules out open involvement of one nation in the affairs of another. What, then — ”

He mused a moment, growling. Then he thumped his fists on the table. “Everything indicates that we must make a lightning move — arm the Volanth — hurl them at the ruling class — destroy the power of that class before Lermencas can move, itself. But — ”

“But with what would one arm the Volanth?” Tonoro broke in.

“Exactly … rrrr … . With what? Leeri? Fire-charges? How soon could they be trained?”

Cominthal began a passionate argument about arming the Quasi instead. “Time would be wasted trying to train the Volanth in the use of modern armament,” he concluded. “They’re a primitive horde, they hunt by slinging rocks at small game. But the Quasi — ”

Bishdar Shronk growled a negative. “Too few, too few,” he said. “Also, the Volanth, besides being so much more numerous, are the more notoriously oppressed. The polity of the situation requires that argument for support be on the side of the majority of the populace. Everyone knows about the Volanth. If we are to act, it must be for them and with them and through them. The Quasi are a fraction. If only there were more time — education would logically begin with that fraction, it forms a link between two worlds — but time there is not, and even if we put fire-arms in the hands of every adult Quasi, it would not be enough.”

And Tonoro said, “Not firearms and not the Quasi.” It was as though he were thinking aloud. “But hands, yes. Hands and arms — ” He rose, his heart filled with a necessary terror which was not devoid of exaltation. He spoke and they listened. He spoke and they looked each at the other. He finished speaking. They nodded. And they began to move, faces both animated and grave.

“It might do it,” said Bishdar Shronk, making yet another trip to the maps. “It should do it,” he amended. He nodded slowly, deeply, his blunt mouth pursed. “I’ll send the signal — ”

Cominthal’s body slouched as though he were about to fall, but it was not weakness which posed him. He straightened up. He glared. “ ‘Might,’ ” he repeated. “ ‘Should’ … . You. You two. Listen. If it fails, one of you can go back to Baho and the other one to Pemath — or anywhere else. But I have no place to go. None of us have any place to go. Except here,
here
. We’re fighting for our lives and no one is going to give us a choice of surrender, you know that? ‘Might.’ ‘Should.’ Don’t say those words, do you hear? Don’t say them!

“It
must
do it!”

• • •

The Pemathi on duty in Tarnis Port — which was a port, pure and simple, and not a city to itself as ports elsewhere so often were — had processed the incoming Lermencasi freighter with his usual care, but with a shade more interest than usual. For one thing, it was not a scheduled freighter; this was most unusual — in fact, it had never happened before to him — but the clerk of the Commercial Deputy had advised him, (unofficially, but most sincerely) that there were certain to be an unknown number of such at any time for the present. And told him, straightforwardly, to make no fuss. Something out of the ordinary was clearly going on, but the port duty man did not much care. In less than a year he was due to go on leave; his mind was on the piece of ground in the Hills of Tor which his brother was going to buy for him — with his, the duty man’s money — if he liked its looks. Retirement was ten years off, but this would be time enough to build the house so that it would be ready and waiting when the time to dwell in it came. It would be built in the old-fashioned, rural Pemathi way, by the entire family and most of the clan, whenever there was time to spare from other work. Months might go by before the cellar was all dug out. Weeks would likely elapse between the laying of one course of stone and the laying of another. The brother would on occasion disburse a little money to buy a little food or drink or
kip
— a very little — for the pleasure of the builders. He might take a score of fortnights to cheapen the price of a beam. But the house would be done in time enough. The owner would not have paid any of his kinsmen a ticky for labor and it would not occur to him that he should. And any of his kinsmen who desired to would simply move in to share the house with him and it would not occur to him that they should not.