The Florians (13 page)

“The similarity had struck me,” I murmured. “Everything grows big on Floria...it puts entirely new meaning into the phrase ‘growing old.'”

“You think...,” she began.

I interrupted quickly. “No, it's not just a matter of getting old. It's a matter of living a sedentary life. The people on the mainland are active—all of them. Everyone is involved in labor, in making things. They manage to strike a kind of balance. But here...the people who stay here, devoting their lives to the conservation and management of the legacy of Earth...they can't balance it out. They're completely at its mercy. Like the things in the mud, there's no limitation on the ways of their growth...except that human bodies aren't geared to put on mass indiscriminately....

“It's obscene,” she said.

I shook my head slowly, forgetting that it was dark and that the gesture conveyed no meaning. “It's normal,” I said. They've grown accustomed to it. They're martyrs to it. It's their price...the price they pay for assuming the burden of imitating God. These people have no problems...they say. And they mean it. They've absorbed this into the manner of their living...so far….”

“But how much longer?” she asked. “If it's still getting worse....”

And that, of course, was the big question.

I didn't attempt to answer it. You can't answer questions like that when you're crouching in the dark and whispering. “Come on,” I said, instead. “Let's find the door.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

It wasn't locked.

They weren't expecting burglars. They had built the place like a fortress, to withstand bombardment and siege, but they hadn't bolted the door. Maybe they didn't expect the revolution so soon. Maybe they were in for a big shock before too much water had flowed under the metaphorical bridge.

As the door clicked behind us we paused to accustom our eyes to the light. It seemed as if it had been dark forever. We were standing in a short hallway illuminated by a naked electric bulb set in the wall at the foot of a narrow staircase leading off to the right. I moved forward to peer up the stairs, and saw that the corridor at the top was also lighted.

“Must have money to burn,” I muttered. “Wasteful.” Again, I supposed, it was a matter of status symbology. Here, if nowhere else on Floria, the clothing of night had been banished.

I glanced briefly along the corridor at the doors farther along, and then began to climb the staircase. Karen came after me, and whispered, “Where are we going?”

“Exploring,” I replied. “I'm going to find that room under the roof with the bright light burning. It was still on when we came along the side of the building, though most of the others had been switched off.”

“It might only be another fat lady reading in bed,” she said.

“Not on the fifth floor,” I pointed out. “People built like that don't climb stairs.”

She shrugged, obviously being unable to supply a reasoned alternative. Actually, from here on in we were playing it strictly by ear. The object of going to look for the light was really a fake, just to help keep up the illusion that we knew what we were doing.

The staircase doubled back at each floor, and from every landing corridors extended away in either direction. Each one extended into darkness, for the lights which burned permanently were apparently intended primarily to light the staircase itself.

The top floor was, as I'd guessed, the fifth. We made our way carefully away from the stair head, feeling in more imminent danger as we moved between doors behind which were supposedly occupied rooms. It didn't take long to find the one we were searching for, because the door was slightly ajar, allowing a tall, thin beam of light to cut across the deep shadow of the corridor. As we approached, we could hear the sound of voices within.

Tiptoeing so lightly as not to make the slightest sound, we made our approach. I found that there was sufficient gap at the hinged edge of the door to peep through. I moved to do so, simultaneously extending my hand back to catch Karen and warn her to be still. As I touched her hand I felt her draw the iron bar from her belt. I wanted to tell her to put the damn thing away, but I daren't make a sound—and in any case, once I realized who and what was in the room my mind was on other things.

The
who
was interesting enough. It was Arne Jason in earnest conversation with a young man I hadn't seen before. But the
what
was far, far more interesting...because while Jason was leaning over the young man's shoulder, the young man was manipulating the controls of a radio transmitter.

So it was not just a matter of leaving certain technological toys undiscovered, I thought. The Planners had their privileged methods.
This
was how Jason had found out about us...he may even have picked up our signal from orbit but decided to let it go unacknowledged. And this was how information had traveled so much faster than the express train so that Jason had been on hand at Leander to meet us. Agents of the Planners moved in mysterious ways—ways which were mysterious, at any rate, to the people who were being manipulated.

“Why don't you leave it for tonight?” the young man was saying. “I'll let you know immediately anything comes in.”

Jason, with the edge of impatience in his voice, said, “How do you expect me to sleep? The whole mainland might be on the brink of falling in step with Ellerich and Vulgan...and all we get is silence. What's the point of an information system if they won't
use
it properly?”

“Perhaps you've overestimated the danger,” suggested the other, with more than a touch of temerity.

“I've underestimated nothing,” said Jason scathingly. “
I
know what Vulgan and Ellerich are up to even if the idiots that are supposed to be watching them don't. We have to find out how the loyalties are going to divide, and we have to know tonight, not next week or next year. We've
nothing
on the two Earthmen and I
still
don't know which way the Planners are going to jump despite the stuff I fed them. I should never have brought Parrick here...I should have dumped him in the sea and blamed Vulgan.”

Perhaps wisely, the young man failed to comment on any of this, but remained intent on his controls. It was obvious that nothing was happening and that his intense concentration was contrived. He undoubtedly wished that Jason had taken up his suggestion and gone somewhere else to worry. Nothing was likely to happen at this time in the morning that would demand instant reaction. Nothing, that is, except something completely crazy like the two missing Earthmen turning up on the doorstep to listen in at the keyhole.

I contemplated the scene within. Jason seemed like a very worried man—and maybe with good reason. But where, I wondered, were the Planners? Why weren't they gathered around a table planning like crazy? Their dynasty was on the brink of its greatest crisis, and where were they? In doubt, apparently, about what to do with Nathan as a consequence of what Jason had “fed” them. The implications of that word, I mused, might be very significant indeed. Could it be, perhaps, that the Planners
didn't actually know
how critical the situation was? Jason and his agents, it appeared, were the Planners' eyes and ears, arms and legs. If the men at the top of this aristocracy, like the men at the top of most aristocracies, were all old, all fat, all useless, then whose was the hand that
really
pulled the puppet strings here on Floria...?

As I watched Jason through the crack, that question suddenly seemed very important.

And then the giant turned, and—without warning—headed for the door. I jumped back reflexively, and there was nearly a nasty accident as Karen and I collided in the dark. Luckily, however, she was lightning fast on the uptake, and she danced back toward the bend in the corridor at top speed.

It was a long way, and had Jason come straight out he might well have seen us as we went for cover. But he didn't come straight out. As he flung the door back he turned to address some parting shot to the man at the controls. By the time he turned into the corridor we were out of sight. He was even obliging enough to turn the other way and walk away from us.

“Right,” whispered Karen, as soon as he was out of range. “Let's get in there and call the ship.”

“Wait a minute!” I hissed anxiously.

She had already pushed past me, but I grabbed her arm.

“It's all right,” she said, in a voice rather too loud for my comfort, “I won't hit him hard. I'll use the blunt end.”

I couldn't argue. There are limits to the amount of earnest debate you can engage in when you're crouching in a lighted stairwell hoping against hope to avoid discovery until you can find
something
useful and constructive to do. Calling the ship might serve no particular purpose, but it seemed like a better idea than anything I could come up with on the spur of the moment. I let her go. She went.

I came into the room a couple of paces behind her. The body seemed to hit the floor with a colossal thump, but he never managed to squeeze so much as a yelp of surprise out of his throat. She didn't waste any time going for the controls, but simply threw the crowbar at me in the fond hope that I'd catch it. She flung it, I thought, a little more aggressively than was necessary.

I caught it, and it stung my blistered hands fearfully. I looked down at it helplessly. She'd wielded it two handed, bringing it down to strike a glancing blow to the back of the young giant's head. The bar had been roughened by rust and the blow had drawn blood from his scalp.

I knelt to assure myself that no real harm had been done. He was well out, and I guessed that she must have hit him just about as hard as she could, trusting on his thick skull to hold up under the treatment. He was still alive, and the bleeding wasn't copious. I remembered the harsh treatment measured out to the back of my own head, and I couldn't muster any genuine remorse. If the game was to be played rough, adopting the role of pacifist might be something of a handicap.

Karen was holding a pair of earphones in her left hand, holding them to the side of her head, while the fingers of her right hand jabbed at the knobs on the set.

“Damn stupid way to design a radio,” she muttered. I closed the door quickly, and felt a lot safer for it.

She paused, listening hard, and then began drumming her fingers on the console. Every ten seconds or so she reached out to reverse one of the switches.

“Come on, you idle bastards,” she said urgently.

I presumed that the signal she was sending would trigger an alarm of some kind aboard the ship—an alarm sufficient to wake a sleeping crewman.

Then came success.

“Pete?” she said, her voice rising above a whisper now. “It's Karen.”

She beckoned to me, and I came closer, putting my ear close to the receiver. I heard the tail end of what Pete Rolving was saying: “...get hold of a transmitter?”

“It's the one I carry in my pants pocket,” she replied. “How the hell do you
think
I got hold of a transmitter? It's one of
theirs.
”

“I thought….”

“I
know
what you thought. All the time you've been sitting around contemplating your arse you
could
have been eavesdropping on their broadcasts.”

It didn't sound to me like the way a good spaceman should talk to her captain, and I daresay Rolving thought the same, but she didn't stop for complaints.

“Look,” she said. “I'm with Alex. We've made it to the island which is where the whole mess is being managed...or not managed as the case may be. We're pretty sure Nathan's here. I think they got Mariel but I'm not sure where. Do you know
anything?
”

“Conrad and Linda are with me,” said Rolving, not wasting any time. “Not hurt. They tried to bluster their way in and then decided to use muscle. I don't think it was planned—they just fancied their chances because they were so big and Conrad was so small. We're sealed up tight waiting for them to come knocking. So far, it's as silent as the grave. We're worried...the very least they could do is start delivering ultimatums so we know where we stand.”

“At present,” I said quickly, “
nobody
knows where we stand.”

“
That,
” said a voice from the door, “is truer than you know, Mr. Alexander.”

I turned, feeling as if something supporting my stomach had just been whipped out from under me.

It was Jason, his hand still on the doorknob.

He looked at me, and at the crowbar in my hand.

“Try me, Mr. Alexander,” he invited.

I didn't try him.

“Hello, Pete,” said Karen, speaking in a remarkably level tone. “We just got caught. Figure out their frequencies and tune in on their messages, will you? We'll call you again, if we can. Or maybe now the secret's blown they'll call you themselves.”

Throughout this speech, Jason didn't move. He just stood in the doorway and waited. Karen switched off the transmitter and laid the earphones down. We waited for the big man to make the next move. He seemed to be in no hurry.

Finally—and surprisingly—he closed the door behind him. He extended his hand, and I passed the crowbar over to him. It all seemed very civilized.

Jason looked at the weapon and peered closely at the small bloodstain. He looked down at the fallen man but made no move to check up on his condition.

“He isn't dead,” I said helpfully.

He looked at me calmly. “You've done very well, Mr. Alexander,” he said. “Very well indeed. I didn't expect this...not at all.”

He wasn't being sarcastic, but he wasn't complimenting us on our excellent showing either. I knew that somehow we'd played into his hands.

“Why did you come back?” I asked.

“I heard him fall,” Jason replied. It seemed that the luck which had brought us so far had run out very abruptly.

“What are you going to do now?” I demanded aggressively. “Drop us in the sea and claim Vulgan did it?”

“So you
did
overhear,” he purred. “You mustn't take what I said too seriously. It was an expression of...frustration. I never really contemplated killing you. Not then.”

“And now?” asked Karen.

He gestured at the man on the floor. “There are easier ways,” he said. “After this, you don't have a prayer so far as winning the Planners around to your way of thinking goes. They're going to command you to get off our world and never to come back.”

I was slightly puzzled. “Is that what you want?” I asked.

“That's what I want,” he confirmed. “Just that. That's why I didn't acknowledge your signal originally. Afterward, I realized that you'd land anyway, and that there was no way of concealing your existence. And so....”

“You thought you'd try to persuade us to leave,” I said. “You were taking two of us to see the Planners, and in the meantime you tried to hijack the ship. The Planners don't know about that, do they? In fact, the Planners probably don't know very much at all about the way you're running things in their name. I'm surprised you haven't disposed of them altogether. But you need them too much, don't you? You need the knowledge which is the key to their power. and you need them because it's they who command the loyalty of most of the men who take your orders—and most of the people in the colony, come to that. While the Planners control the people with ignorance, you control the Planners the same way. Is that it? Is that the way you play the game?”