The Florians (9 page)

“You don't like being manipulated by the Planners.”

He sighed. “There's more
to
it than that, Mr. Alexander. You know there is. It's not just the fact of manipulation, or the manner of the manipulation, but the whole philosophy that lies behind it. In the beginning, the Planners wanted to build a better world, to divert the course of history so that we wouldn't end up in the same mess as the Earth the original settlers left behind. But it's become more than that. The Planners are more than guides: they want to be gods, and they want us to be the clay they mold. We don't want that.”

“Sometimes,” I said carefully, “I think Earth would be a much better place if no one knew what a gun was.”

“I don't know about Earth,” he said, in slightly tired tones. “And I don't know about guns. But I know this. I do not want a law which forbids me to think and to know. If the law said ‘The
use
of guns is forbidden,' then I might think it a good law. If I knew what a gun was, and how it
might
be used.”

“The trouble is,” I said, “that once people know
how
to use a gun, there's no way of stopping them. You're a policeman. How many laws have never been broken because everyone feels that they're good laws? How many of the men in your cells are just rebels against injustice, and how many just want to get away with it?”

“You think the Planners are right?” be said, in a scathing voice.

I let a moment go by, and then I shook my head. “No,” I said, “I don't think they're right. But it doesn't make any difference. We didn't come here to take sides in
any
dispute. We can't. We have to deal with the colony as a whole. You must see that.”

He shook his head. “I don't think the colony is a whole,” he said. “Not anymore.”

And the ironic thing is, I thought, that it seems to have been our arrival here that has opened the breach.

CHAPTER SEVEN

After a time I managed to yield to the rhythm of the train, shutting out most of the noise and ignoring the occasional lurch. I dozed albeit very lightly. Periodically, when a strong tremor took hold of the carriage, or one of the others moved, I would open my eyes momentarily. In between such occasions, time slid by with liquid ease.

Vulgan remained alert, a long way from sleep, with his eyes always open, always moving, but the uniformed men both drifted off into sleep. I dreamed the casual dreams of semi-consciousness, bright and clear but dissolving at the slightest pinprick of a conscious thought. The dreams seemed full of the problems of relative size: they were Gulliverian dreams in which I was confronted on the one hand by giants, and on the other by dwarfs. I was enmeshed, like Alice, in a looking-glass world where the absurdity of questions was exaggerated, and innocence made stupidity out of sophistication. Why can't pigeons fly? Why are giants? Who wants to be the white knight?

My body gained, if my mind did not. I needed the rest.

When I awoke, I found myself stretched out on the seat, with the coat draped over me like a blanket. I couldn't remember whether I had thus arranged myself, or whether Vulgan had assisted me into a more comfortable position. One of the uniformed men had gone, the other had been roused. Vulgan seemed not to have slept at all. The train was slowing down.

I looked out of the window. To the side of the train it was pitch-dark, but as I craned my neck to peer along the direction in which the train was traveling I saw clusters of light up ahead. The clicking of the wheels in the gaps between sections of rail was unsteady, like the rattling of dice in a cup.

“We're pulling into Leander,” he said.

“On time?” I asked.

“Almost,” he said. “Relax. We'll get some food. Then more sleep.”

“Are we getting out?”

He shook his head. “One of the men will report in,” he said. “It will be better if we simply remain where we are.”

We cruised into the station, and gradually eased to a halt. The noise of the engine slowly died away, and the sounds of the station echoed hollowly in the relieved silence.

I looked out onto the platform. There were ten or a dozen men moving to the goods wagons which made up the bulk of the train. Obviously there was a certain amount of work to be done in exchanging cargo—that might be why there was such a long layover scheduled. Perhaps, too, we might pick up some early risers as passengers for the capital by the time we were all set to leave.

I watched a couple of people dismount from our carriage, stretch their limbs, shiver in the cold night air, and then begin to move off in the direction of the barriers thirty or forty yards up the platform. As my eyes followed them, I saw someone else—someone coming from the barriers.

It was Jason. Lucas was with him, and one other man. He was moving quite confidently and openly.

“You've got a visitor,” I said to Vulgan, with a note in my voice that was almost mockery.

He glanced out of the window, following the direction of the finger I pointed. When he looked back at me, his mouth was set hard. He just sat back and waited, saying nothing.

The second policeman came back into the compartment and offered the same news. Vulgan answered him with only a gesture, and the man sat down. When we heard footsteps coming along the corridor I was the only one who kept my eyes on the door.

It opened. Jason looked bigger, framed in the doorway, than he had before. He was noticeably more powerful than Vulgan. His mien seemed distinctly less pleasant. The folds of his face were glistening with a faint sweat despite the cold. His expression was slightly smug. Because I was the only one looking at him his gaze settled on me first.

“Hello, Mr. Alexander,” he said.

I nodded bleakly.

He turned to Vulgan. “It was good of you to locate our guest so quickly and bring him along,” he said smoothly. “We're very grateful to you.”

I'm sure that for a moment or two Vulgan was really tempted to go along with the pretense. He was scared of Jason...it showed in his face. Perhaps, even now, it would have been easy for him to go back, to cancel out his actions and ambitions. For some reason, though, I didn't find myself wishing that he would. In fact, I was almost glad when he didn't. I didn't like Jason any more than he did.

“He's coming with me,” said the police chief. “We're going to Hope Landing. It's Paul Ellerich that these people have come to see.”

Jason's eyes flickered from Vulgan to me and back again, trying to gauge the degree of common cause which might exist between us. He had no way of knowing what Vulgan had told me, or how far my sympathies might have been seduced. I wondered how he'd known we would be on the train. He
had
known—this was no part of a large-scale search.

“This is a matter for the Planners,” said Jason. “You know I have the necessary authority. You must allow Mr. Alexander to come with me. Ellerich will be notified in due course...he'll no doubt be summoned to the island.”

“This time,” said Vulgan levelly, “the Planners will have to come to us.”

I watched them as they dragged their hostilities out from hiding. I could virtually hear them stacking up the odds in their minds, adding up the situation. Whatever happened after this, the battle had been joined, at least between these two. They were three against three, but there wasn't the slightest sign of any impending violence. Jason made no move to play it tough. It wasn't his way. I realized that the Planners might well have enjoyed a measure of success in changing or controlling the ways in which people habitually thought. Jason's counterpart on Earth would have reached for a gun, and the two cops might well have been waving theirs the moment the door opened. Nevertheless, the atmosphere here didn't exactly strike me as civilized.

Jason still had cards to play. He looked at me again.

“I think you should come with me, Mr. Alexander,” he said.

And suddenly, the ball was in my court. It really hadn't occurred to me until then that this might happen. I was lodged in my corner, waiting for the two giants to argue it out, winner take all. The idea that I might be called upon to choose simply hadn't entered into my head. But I realized, then, that it really was my choice. Vulgan couldn't keep me any more than Jason could take me away.

I hesitated, wondering if there was any way I could weigh the consequences of the alternatives. There didn't seem to be anything in standing orders to cover it, and I was damned if I was going to sit there and ask myself what Nathan Parrick would do if
he
were in my place.

I did the simplest thing. I asked, “Why should I?”

“Vulgan is trying to use you,” Jason replied. “He's trying to be an opportunist...to further his own political ambitions. He's not acting in your interests, nor in the interests of the colony. I don't know what he's told you, but his real intention is to cause strife. It would be a bad mistake for you to allow yourself to be used.”

“Where's Nathan Parrick?” I asked.

“He went to the island this evening. He's with the Planners now. That's where you should be, too, Mr. Alexander. You're a scientist. Your business is with the scientists of this world, not with the bureaucrats at Hope Landing. You have nothing in common with Vulgan. I know that he's an officer of the law, but you must surely have realized that it was an officer of the law who abducted you. Vulgan is no longer operating as a policeman but as a free agent.”

All of which sounded very true. Jason had a strong case. It was true that I didn't like him, but that prejudice was immaterial. It was my job to make contact, not to start civil wars.

Vulgan was watching me. He must have seen the decision in my face.

“Wait a minute,” he said. Then, to Jason, “If your intention is to establish friendly and meaningful relations with these people,
why did your men attack their ship
?”

I didn't know whether Vulgan was guessing or whether he really knew. He must have had plenty of time before we left South Bay to send men out to the ship, and maybe they had returned—I didn't know what had passed while he was talking to the men in the station. But if it was a guess, it hit the mark. Jason was suddenly lost in the confusion of trying to estimate how much Vulgan knew, how much I knew, and what interpretation we had put on events. What he finally said was, “That's a lie.”

But I didn't believe him.

“Of course the Planners sent men to your ship,” he said quickly. “We must establish a base in the village. But this accusation concerning an attack is nonsense.”

“You didn't say anything about that before,” I pointed out. “
We
told
you
that it would be necessary to establish a base near the ship, because it couldn't be moved. But you said nothing about men having already gone out there. When we met you on the road, I saw other riders in the distance—but you said nothing about them. The messenger Harwin sent into South Bay went to Vulgan, yet you let us believe that you came in response. How
did
you know the ship had landed?”

“The Planners have an elaborate information network,” he replied. “We know everything that happens in the colony. Yes, the riders you saw
were
headed for your ship, and no, I didn't mention them. I was deliberately cautious. Wouldn't you have been, in my situation? I knew nothing about you—your purpose in coming here or the manner of your coming. I misled you. But I assure you that our intentions are in no way hostile. Your ship has not been attacked. Only you have been attacked. By Vulgan. He is the man who has exposed his determination to use you even if it means injuring you. Vulgan and Ellerich have no real understanding of the colony, the way it is organized, or the principles behind that organization. Don't be misled by the title of ‘Colony Manager' or ‘Chief of Police'—these men are of minor importance carrying out routine work. If you want to know about this colony, if you want to do anything
for
this colony, the men you must talk to are the Planners.”

Again, I had to concede that his arguments had force. Maybe the ship had been attacked, maybe it hadn't. I still didn't trust Jason. But there were other priorities. We had to be vulnerable in order to carry out our allotted task. If the colonists attacked us, it was our job to be attacked, not to fight back. The old theory that it takes two to make a quarrel isn't necessarily so, but it certainly helps to avert a quarrel if one side is ready to capitulate first and argue later. But how many sides were there here?

I had a flash of inspiration, albeit not a bright one.

“Suppose we
all
go to the island,” I said. “Let's
all
talk to the Planners.”

Vulgan didn't like the idea one little bit—and I hadn't expected him to. What surprised me, though, was the fact that Jason didn't appear to have the least enthusiasm for it either. Neither seemed to have heard that compromise is the soul of diplomacy.

There was a pause while both Vulgan and Jason looked at one another, each running possibilities quickly through, his mind. It was awkward and there seemed, to judge by their faces, not the slightest hope of resolution. I was desperately afraid that despite the Planners this situation might ultimately lead to violence. Violence arises out of frustration, and both these men seemed very frustrated.

Why on Earth,
I wondered, apologizing to myself for the inaptness of the expression,
is Jason so horrified by the idea of Vulgan coming along?
My suspicious mind couldn't help thinking that it might be because something was scheduled to happen that Jason didn't want Vulgan to know about...

And then there was a scream.

It was high-pitched, but it was undeniably a masculine scream. It contained rage, surprise, and a great deal of pain. It broke up the tripartite impasse. Jason was the first to move toward the corridor, and Vulgan followed. At first, they moved fairly casually, motivated primarily by curiosity, but then someone shouted “Arne!” in urgent tones.

Jason moved to the door at the end of the carriage with a litheness that seemed strange in one of his dimensions. I had managed to slip out of the compartment after Vulgan, before the two uniformed men, and I got down to the platform immediately behind the police chief, but several paces down on Jason.

This station was larger than the one at South Bay by a factor of three, and its layout was far more complex. Instead of being gathered tightly about a terminal the complex here was scattered about a through line with numerous sidings. There was a large apron of open concrete between the train and the bays to and from which the men were busy transferring loads. They had started on several trucks at once, and the platform was strewn with bales and boxes and wooden trolleys.

A man was lying on the platform some forty or fifty feet up the train, curled up and still moaning. One does not expect to see a man seven feet tall felled and moaning—nor, for that matter, does one expect to hear them scream—but on a world of such giants there is obviously not the same compulsion to live up to the image. They say that the bigger you are the harder you fall, and this one certainly seemed to have been laid out comprehensively.

No one was paying much attention to him. They were all looking up. I looked up, too, and saw who'd hit him...

And she saw me....

“Run!” she howled.

For a moment, I was rooted to the spot. The very last thing I'd expected to see was Karen Karelia, on top of a goods wagon, wielding a three-foot crowbar with a wicked hook at one end. That she was ready to use it was obvious. Her ankles, at least, were within the reach of the felled man's co-workers, but no one was attempting to grab her.

Perhaps it was as well that I was still for a second, because it allowed Vulgan to take an extra step forward, and so leave me, for the moment, alone and with the space to act.