Authors: James White
"I guessed as much," Martin said. "And I thought that you would want to reach your patient with minimum delay. So as not to risk compromising you with your people in the city, I thought it better to pick you up where we would not be observed. Our sensors show this area to be inhabited only by small animals."
He gestured towards the lander. "It's a small vessel, so we are unable to take your mount. But you could be attending your patient within the hour."
"Within the hour," the Keidi said, "we could all be blown out of the sky by one of the First's missiles."
Martin shivered in his lightweight suit, thinking that he had never in all his life felt so wet and miserable. Carefully, he said, "I don't think we would be shot at if we matched communications frequency and explained our intentions. Given the circumstances, the First might even feel obligated to us. But if missiles are sent against us, we can take evasive action and land you as close as is safe to the camp so that a ground vehicle can be sent to pick you up. Either way, we'll be safe and you will be there much sooner."
The Keidi was silent for a moment, then said quietly, "Is it your intention, then, to place die First and myself under an obligation to you?"
"Yes, I suppose so," Martin said, trying to stop his teeth chattering. "I mean, it wouldn't do any harm to make friends.”
"Always provided you choose them carefully," the Keidi replied, dismounting. He ran a hand through the sodden fur covering the corsa's small, cone-shaped head, and went on, "Very well, I am obligated for the ride with you. And don't worry about Brown Bag, here. I've rid den it many times and it knows its way home a lot better than I do."
Within a very few minutes they were inside the ship with the control deck's air conditioning blow-drying their wet clothing. The lander was already high above the rainclouds and Beth was trying to raise the Estate.
"Frontier Camp Eleven," she was repeating quietly, "this is Federation vessel Three Three Three Nine Five. Come in, please..."
The response, when it came, was harsh and unfriendly.
"This is Camp Eleven. Are you the intruder which violated our airspace earlier today? If so, you will withdraw immediately or risk-"
"We apologize for the intrusion," Beth said pleasantly, "and were unaware of the violation until you fired a warning shot at us-"
"A warning shot!..." began the other in an incredulous voice.
"...This is the lander of an orbiting hypership, a small vessel with no offensive armament. We carry a crew of two plus one passenger, the doctor you requested, who is being given rapid transportation to your camp. With your permission we will arrive-"
"Permission denied!" the voice responded sharply. "You will not overfly this area again, and you will be destroyed should you try to do so. Is this understood?"
"It is not understood," Beth replied, in a much less pleasant tone. "We are not hostile and our intention is simply to assist..." She broke off because their passenger was waving his hands at her, then added, "The doctor wishes to speak to you."
"Very well," the other said. "Voice code only, please."
The Keidi glanced at Martin's wrist unit and said, 'That would be a complete waste of time. I want to speak directly to the First. While you're arranging that, remember that a personal three-to-one obligation was offered to anyone helping me get to the patient quickly. Naturally, we didn't expect a couple of passing Galactics to take up the offer, but they did and they can get me there a hell of a lot faster than a corsa and your clapped-out land vehicles. So check with the First before you say or do anything you might regret.
"In the meantime," he went on, "I want a detailed report on the patient's condition. Has that jumped-up ward attendant you call a medical officer done anything for her and if so, what?"
"Maintain your present position," came the reply.
There was a long, hissing silence from the speaker, broken by Martin who said impatiently, 'That isn't necessary. They don't have radar and so won't know if we close to a distance where we can respond quickly if they decide to let us land. What do you say, Doctor?"
"You are a stranger here," the Keidi replied. "The First owns and has civilized the largest stretch of territory on this, our only temperate continent, and he maintains a screen of lookouts well beyond his borders. If they reported sighting you it could make everybody very nervous. The First has a very large, well-disciplined, and personally obligated organization, and has maintained and strengthened it by not taking chances. But he has dreams of continued territorial expansion and the return of the jobs owing after his death. In short, he dreams of founding a dynasty and that, because of some as yet undefined prenatal complications, is die reason why I was sent for."
The Keidi was slumped comfortably in the supernumerary's post ion, looking relaxed and half-asleep in the warmth of the control deck. Martin reminded himself that this was a very old, tired, and talkative Keidi, and there might never be a better chance to have questions answered.
"It seems to me that the Estate is better organized and has more amenities than your city," Martin commented, "and the First would be glad to have you. Wouldn't you be more gainfully employed, and be able to help many more patients, if you moved to the Estate?"
The doctor opened his eyes and stared at him for a long moment without speaking, then he said, "And it seems that the only thing you people want is information. Now, quite apart from the First's obligations in this matter I, personally, am obligated for what you are trying to do for me. So far you have accepted two staves from me. How many questions must I answer before the remainder of my obligation to you is discharged?"
Martin started to laugh, then changed it quickly to a cough. The Keidi might not be joking. He said carefully, "Is the value of the answer set by the questioner or the questioned? If you were to answer as many questions as there is time for before we land, would that be considered fair? And if the First isn't there, can a subordinate act in his absence?"
That is four questions," the doctor said. "Do you wish me to begin answering them?"
"Please."
"Very well," the Keidi said. "My reasons not joining the First are ethical and economic. He has obligated a number of self-styled and largely self-trained medics, but their reputations are such that his people try very hard not to return duty and obedience obligations, which would involve the risk of serious injury. If he had a fully trained, pre-Exodus surgeon on his establishment, the First would mount, and his people accept, more highrisk operations. By remaining in the city and contracting for special jobs like this one, I like to think that his soldiers will take greater care and sustain fewer casualties, so I'm doing everybody a favor. Myself included, since the discomfort, uncertainty, and personal freedom of living in the city far outweigh the tight security and severely limited choices of action offered by the First. The economic advantage is that, as a visiting specialist, I command a greater job than any member of-the First's so-called Family who may already be under a life obligation."
"I begin to understand!" Martin said excitedly. 'The tiny fraction of the original population remaining on Keida was too small to support the pre-Exodus financial structures, so you adopted an exchange and barter system. Your own specialist experience is exchanged for the First's fuel oil, out-of-season food, or whatever else you need. But that makes you a very important person back there. Quite apart from the medical service provided to your own people, you are one of the city's prime resources ..."
The Keidi held up one hand. "You may deduce the answers to your own questions if you wish, but they will still count. Well?"
"Please go on," Martin said.
"The First is certainly there," the doctor went on, "because the mother-to-be is second generation by direct descent, so he would not be anywhere else. Almost certainly the delay is due to his trying to decide whether or not to place himself under an obligation to a couple of Galactics.
"After what the Federation did to Keida," he continued, ''they do not like you people. That should not surprise you. They would like nothing better than that you leave this world alone. I'm surprised your offer of help wasn't rejected at once. The condition of the female must be serious."
"But surely they know that we want only to help," Martin protested, "that we won't insist on them honoring their obligation because, well, they have nothing we want."
'They have information," the Keidi reminded him.
Martin was silent. Over the past two decades such blind, unreasoning hostility had become completely foreign to his experience, not only among the Citizens of the Federation World but also on the planets whose intelligent and visually frightful inhabitants he had learned to understand. Some of the Teldins and the Blind Ones had displayed hostility, until the reason for it was understood and the misunderstandings in speech and behavior which had caused it were modified.
But he was forgetting that the tiny remnant of the population left on Keida was not normal people. They - were the antisocial elements, the beings who had failed to pass the very liberal requirements for citizenship, the Keidi predators-in short, the wolves who now had only other wolves instead of sheep on which to prey. They were the Undesirables.
But was this aging medic, whose cloak and staff were still dripping rainwater onto the deck at his feet, and who was trying to bring aid to an expectant mother, was he an Undesirable? And would the soon-to-be-born offspring of the First's grandchild he was visiting inherit the mother's Undesirability? And what about the descendants of all the other Undesirables on this mutilated planet?
For the first time since he had been given this ill-defined assignment, Martin felt seriously troubled. The Federation, surely the most philosophically and technologically advanced structure conceivable by mortal minds, should not be responsible for a situation which was so grossly unfair and morally wrong. Was the Federation simply the end result of major population surgery, and a refusal to even consider the fate of the Undesirables, discarded and still proliferating on their denuded homeworlds?
The answer, based on his knowledge of the induction procedures used on many worlds, was yes. But then why had he been sent here? Was it to investigate the situation and try to devise a method of separating children and grandchildren from their Undesirable elders, and somehow influence them into induction centers for testing before they became so tainted by environmental and behavioral influences as to be unsalvageable?
Surely not, Martin thought, that would be a cruel and even more undesirable answer.
The Keidi had stopped talking and was waiting for more questions.
Beth, whose thought processes paralleled Martin's to closely that he sometimes wondered if she was telepathic, said, "Judging by your friendly approach to us and the very laudable work you intend to do after what should have been a long, uncomfortable, and probably dangerous journey, I have difficulty in believing that you are an Undesirable or that-"
She broke off as the muscles around the Keidi's horn tightened suddenly into spasm. Then they relaxed slightly and he said, "You will never use that word to any Keidi. You will not use it to me again."
Red-faced with embarrassment, Beth was opening her mouth to apologize when the speaker came suddenly to life.
"Intruder, Camp Eleven," the voice said briskly. "You may proceed. Your passenger will indicate the landing area on arrival. A vehicle will await him. No others will leave the ship, nor will they appear at an open exit port. Is this understood?"
"Understood," Beth responded. "We're on our way."
When Camp Eleven was below them, Martin told the doctor that the hypership's library included physiological and clinical data on all Federation World species, and that the Keida material was instantly available if needed. But the doctor did not respond other than to point out the landing area. Plainly he was still angry at being called an Undesirable, and it seemed that the First's people did not want to speak to them either because the camp transmitter was also silent.
They were watching the vehicle carrying the doctor as it was heading toward the perimeter fence, when Beth said "I'm sorry. I had no intention of hurting his feelings. But he is old enough to have been one of the original Undesirables, and must be fully aware of the reasons why they were left behind, so I don't understand his extreme sensitivity to the use of the word. Have I messed up your contact?"