Rork! (13 page)

Ran tasted, handed back the jug with eyes as moist as his mouth. “That’s quite a drink you’ve made there, Chief,” he said, “Thanks. The Tocks ought be grateful.” The EA beamed. Ran pointed, paused, swallowed. “That’s not a generator, is it?”

Loud was the laughter of the Engineering Aide, that anyone should mistake a homemade still for a generator. Patting Ran on the back, he led him by the elbow down another ramp. “
That
— that is a generator. The other one’s on the other side. Quite a difference, hey?”

A hum, barely audible, filled the air. Compared to the generators he had briefly seen in operation on Transfer Ten, this one, Ran reflected, was like a coney to a cachalot. But he was careful to appear properly impressed. “You keep them in beautiful shape,” he said, truthfully enough. “How high can you get?”

The EA pursed his heavy lips. “Pret-ty high, if the need be. We can get up to 90,000.”

“
That
high?”

Eads nodded, ponderously.

“But you don’t get them up to that very often, do you?”

“Oh no. No necessity for it. Just when the force fields are on. And you know how often that is.”

But, Ran pointed out, he did
not
know how often that was. A discussion followed, proof was — in the most friendly fashion — sought for; and — in equally friendly fashion, though after considerable searching and fumbling, provided. During the process, the jug was applied to as often as the files. Ran left the engineering building somewhat at an angle. He thought it best to pause a while for the present.

Norna was in the room when he came up and started peeling for a shower. “Hello,” he said. “So early? What’s with your new friends?”

She mumbled something. He continued to strip. After a moment he said, “What?”

“They’re tired of me, says. Why not? Just a Wild girl, doesn’t know anything …” Her voice died away in a mumble again. For a moment he hesitated, naked, in the doorway. An urge to sit beside her, comfort her, go somewhere or do something with her, began to rise. But his head was still muzzy, he needed the shower; then he wanted very much to get onto the next step in his research. So he said nothing, went in, and let the waters play on him. She was gone when he came out to dry and dress.

• • •

An ancient astronomer, so the primerscans had reported in his childhood, ad almost nauseam, once calculated where an unknown planet must — if it did indeed exist — appear and be seen by telescope. Every eye possessing the instrument was presumably pressed to it at the moment prophesied, when, lo, the new planet swam as scheduled into ken. Although Lomar had often enough been bored into wishing the ancient never born, he now consciously reveled in the same joy.

The so-called baby computer, which was the only one Guild Station ever had, had been outmoded when it was first shipped there; but it was good enough for Ran Lomar’s present purposes. He provided it with two sets of data, he received one graph. What he had first (he scarcely knew why or how) suspected was now confirmed. The science of epidemiology would demand, and rightly so, further evidence: microbiology, control groups, so on. The science of microbiology was not represented on Pia 2. The evidence was enough for Ran Lomar.

GM: Month II, 3rd Day — Month II, 13th Day, Year 600 (New Cycle)

TF: Month III, 2nd Day 600

GM: Month IV, 20th Day — Month V, 1st Day Year 604

TF: Month V, 22nd Day 604

GM: Month III, 8th Day — Month III, 18th Day Year 611

TF: Month IV, 7th Day 611

GM: Month V, 17th Day — Month V, 27th Day Year 617

TM: Month VI, 15th Day 617

And so on, down to this very year itself. The Station’s generators were at maximum an average of ten days. An average of twenty days later, there would be an outbreak of Tock fever. The records of the Medical Aide did not indicate how long the outbreak lasted. The fever was considered to be endemic, after a fashion; it never entirely died out … presumably. No one knew for sure, no one had bothered to check. Guildsmen and their families had all received general immunization as a matter of course. It did not keep them from getting every contagious disease known in the Galaxy, but it was obvious that Tock fever was within the spectrum. Guildmen did not get it. That was enough for Guildsmen.

There was no reason to assume that the Tocks, Tame and Wild, would not respond to general immunization. But the IM, the immunity agent, was prepared a wilderness of light years away, on the other side of the Galaxy; it was costly, it was precious. With population control, the Medical Service knew just how much IM it had to make — it made that much, and no more. There wasn’t any reason to favor the Tocks over the Chickers, the Two Tribes, Redhaired People, or Poor Greens, or any of the other have-not nations which did not receive the benefits of Medical Service. No reason which would prevail, that is, in the present stasis-oriented society. If a pressure group of sufficient strength were to be organized now, pointing out not such bootless considerations as “humanity” or “mercy,” but the utility of healthy Tocks in increasing redwing production; if such a pressure group were to labor year after year, decade after unceasing decade, perhaps in a few generations it might prevail.

And by that time the Tocks might all be dead.

No … the MA, immersed in his mosses, mushrooms, and other items of his botanical hobby, had not bothered to put down the duration of any outbreak of the disease. But it was perfectly clear that each outbreak occurred approximately twenty days after the generators had ceased to be on maximum.

The generators were on maximum only in order to put up and keep up the force fields.

And the force fields were put up only to keep out the rips when the rips swarmed.

Therefore, it was neither that men spread the disease among the rorks nor that the rorks contracted it from men, it was obvious that
Tock fever was spread by the rips!

Lomar got up from the chair in which he had been examining the chart, and walked away from the computer, trembling with eagerness and with ideas. He now posessed a mere skeleton of knowledge, so to speak, about the source of the plague which was running the Tocks and decimating the rorks — but more information would probably be of little use to him. He was no better than the means available to him. Dimly, he remembered stories about ancient plagues, mosquito-borne, on Old Earth. The mosquitoes bred in marshy ground, stagnant pools, and when these were dried out or covered with oil so that the larvae died (could that have been the origin of the old proverb about “spreading oil on troubled waters”?), the plague had vanished. Doubtless there had been more to it than that. Probably serums and other prophylactic medicines had been developed.

But surely this must be basic:
Destroy the main source and the disease will diminish.

The rips, then, had to be destroyed. And this was the year to do it, after the all but inexplicable swarming was over, when most of them had died and the survivors were not only fewer but — as he had himself observed — sicker and weaker. But most of them were in Rorkland, where men dared not go. How could the thing be done? — if it were to be done at all? Yes, done it must be. And for all his thinking on the matter, he could come up with no other solution than this:

The rorks had as much to gain from the extirpation of the disease as men had; therefore men and rorks ought to work together on the task … therefore, men and rorks
must
work together on it. And it was up to him. No one else could do it. But how even
he
could do it, this was what he could not see.
He
knew that the rorks were basically peaceful, yet how could he convince others? The very name was a synonym for fear, for hatred, loathing, cruelty. Why, what was it that the Guildsmen said to each other even in their moments of greatest relaxation?
Dead rorks
!

No … such a cooperation was inconceivable … except to him.

• • •

He should have liked at least to have talked about it with Norna, but one afternoon, coming up for air, determined to make an effort to wrench himself away from his preoccupation and go somewhere with her, he looked for her and found that she was gone.

“Well, you know,” said somebody’s wife, “
I
liked her and I tried to make her feel comfortable, but, well, not many did. You know how things are here. Stuffy. Fossilized. And some of the others …
most
of the others, I guess … oh, they are just so scornful and petty, it makes me furious. After all, it isn’t as though her mother were a
tame
Tock!”

After all.
… He could see it plainly enough. And couldn’t discount his own blame in the matter, his recent indifference, preoccupation with his work, taking her for granted … using her as a mere commodity…. Ran Lomar was not much used to self-criticism, it was not a characteristic of his age and society. But he could not escape it now. That is, not altogether. But neither could he keep it up for long.

Said the old Cap, after telling him that batch 490 had been removed from the curing sheds and was ready to bale and that every other batch had accordingly been moved along one shed; the old Cap said, “Well, and I’m not surprised, yes. Blood will tell. Her father I knew him well, Old Guns, but her mother was a Tocky gal and when you come right down to it why what is she herself, yes, but a Tocky gal? Good morning, yes! So it’s natural she goes native, off to Tockytown. Wild, Tame, North, South, what’s the difference?”

Ran was minded to follow her, apologize, reason, argue, try to bring her back. But the road to Tockytown led past his quarters and he stopped to change his clothes and get rid of the thick and bitter odor of the curing shed. Someone was in his room, someone humming.

“You’re back!” he called out. “I’m glad!”

“I’m glad, too,” she said. “And glad that you’re glad.”

“Lindel,” he said.

She was sitting cross-legged on his bed, face in hands. She nodded. “Yes … Lindel. Did you know I’d be back? I thought that you’d get tired of her. I had a Tocky boy for a lover once. He was always ready, willing, and able. Not to say, eager. But there was nothing else. How could there be? So … well, I did mind, of course. How can I say that I didn’t mind? But I waited, and I’m glad. Are you? Are you really? Are you really glad?”

He sat down beside her and lifted his arm and she fitted under it against him so very neatly. He told her that he was really very glad and then, presently, he showed her how much. It was very pleasant having her back, the temptation to let everything slide was strong, and so he yielded, and so the long slow days went on, unvexed.

Until the coming of the Wild Tocks.

• • •

The SO had sent for him, and was standing with set face, on the platform of the Reception Hall, commonly called the Powwow Room. Ran had been there only once before, and though he had little liking for ceremonious settings, was mildly impressed by the faded gold decor and the murals done by a long-forgotten artist. The Wild men, milling around uneasily, stopped talking for a moment at Ran’s entrance; then began again, but in a lower key.

Ran, at a glance, recognized Jun Mallardy and beak-nosed old Hannit; but then the SO was talking to him in a low voice.

“I should have paid more attention to what you told me, it seems,” said Harb. “But I’ll apologize another time. These — ” he inclined his head towards the Wild Tocks “ — have been jabbering and muttering ever since their boats beached this morning, so I have an idea by now what it’s all about. Now let’s get it done officially and, I hope, completely.”

There was no hint of the old queen in his manner now, and, not for the first time, Ran marveled how his superior could turn himself inside out and then back again … of course he was never quite sure which was inside and which was outside … but this was no time for speculation. Harb’s right foot moved slightly over the surface of the pale green carpeting, came down, lightly but firmly. Somewhere the sound of a gong rang out. The moving and mumbling ceased.

“I won’t play word games with you,” Harb said. “You haven’t all come here just to buy hack blades or sulphur. You want to talk to me. I’m here, and I’m listening.”

Jun Mallardy cleared his throat loudly and spat on the rug. The act was not contemptuous or defiant, he had wanted to spit and nothing in his habits or background told him not to. He lifted his long, thin face, thrust out his sparse and wiry black beard.

“Old Man’s dead,” he said succinctly, “and I’m Mister now — ”

Owelty interupted him. “The Mister you be’s in Mal-lardy’s Country, but Dominis be’s the olderst here.”

His words were met with grunts of approval. Jun scowled, but kept silent. Old Dominis combed his great white mane, nodded and nodded. After a moment he said, bluntly, “My ass be’s too old and thin for such a long seagoing as this. Only for it’s maybe’s our doom otherwise, I’s stayed at home by my firestone in Dominis’ Camp, hears. Guildsmen!” His voice, surprisingly deep, rose now in a great cry.

“Guildsmen! We’s aksed you and aksed you for more guns, more guns-makings, and it’s always
‘No’
ye says! Be’s right?”

His fellows growled and nodded. Harb’s face did not change. “But now it’s no more time for ‘No,’ hears. Sell us what we needs, says, or we got’s to come for takes it — ”

Harb said, “Why?”

All began talking and shouting at once. Old Dominis bellowed, received silence. He pulled his white beard, looked up at them with squinting eyes. “ ‘Why?’ Here’s why. Flinders wants to comes and raids here. Flinders wants to comes and takes it all, all that be’s here — eats, clothes, metal, sulphur, women —
ahhh
…” He gestured his inability to sum up all the contents of the mooted plunder, gave a great, resonant sigh. “Flinders says, ‘Joins me, and we splits it all. Plenty’s for all, be’s,’ Flinders says … “Now, hears, Guildsmen. We loves ye not. We gots no cause to. But, sure as Pi’ Sol shines, we loves Flinders less. We wantsn’t to raid with him. We trustsn’t him, no, not the length o’ his foreskin. Can we takes what ye’s got, if we raids? May’s be. Can we get blowns to bloody Hell? May’s be. We wins, says — then? Ah, then, Flinders be’s chief Mister of us all. That be’s bad, hears.
Ohhhh
— ” again the deep note, resounding in his chest.