Rork! (14 page)

He cried aloud their distrust, their scorn of Flinders. It was plain that he and all those with him would rather, infinitely rather, not ally themselves with him for any cause; certainly not for the chancey cause of raiding the Guild Station. But, he continued, in a more subdued tone, but they might have to. Flinders plotted and Flinders planned. Flinders whispered, Flinders was persuasive. Should he, when he thought his time was ripe, decide to strike a blow, many of the clans might willingly go with him.

And then the others would have no choice.

Let not the Guildsmen think, old Dominis warned, to come into Wild Tockland and punish Flinders themselves. No clan would tolerate that interference. No…. Flinders was a Wild one and it was the other Wild Ones who would see to him. But they could only do this if the Guild Station would put them, the contra-Flinders people, in a position of armamental superiority over the pro-Flinders clans. The uncommitted would remain at least uncommitted.

If not … if Flinders was not put down, and soon, there would remain no uncommitted clans — and the opposing clans would no longer stand firm: all, all would be obliged to throw in their lot with the hostiles.

“It be’s your choice,” concluded the Mister Dominis.

Then the others had their say, and they said the same thing. During all this, Tan Carlo Harb had not moved. When the last man had spoken and there was a silence, then spoke Harb.

“Have you done your trading yet?”

Old Dominis shook his snowy head. “No, we’s not. We wants to hears, does we gets what we wants? And how much gots we to pays?”

Harb nodded, curtly. “Do your trading. If I give you metal and sulfur — I say
if
— ” He interrupted an excited babble of talk, “if I do, it will cost you nothing. It would be worth it to us.” Then he let the talk have its out. Heads were shaken, heads were nodded, heads were brought together and talk muttred.

Finally, the old man had one more question. “When tells ye?”

“Tomorrow,” said Harb. And walked out without further word or glance. Ran followed him.

• • •

To Ran, when they were alone, Harb said, “Here it is, briefly. Of course there is no chance of their breaching our defenses. Or of starving us out. But they might just wipe up and wipe out our own Tocks, the Tame Tocks, for fun or in frustration. And in that case, we would have to retaliate. The result might be that no Tocks would be left, Wild or Tame, to speak of. I shouldn’t like that myself. And — I can assure you — the Directorate would like it even less.

“
Depopulation.
That’s not a nice word. My career, such as it is, would be over, thump, done, thump, finished. Such as it is, it’s the only one I’ve got, and I’ve got other plans for its conclusion than retirement on quarter-pay. Can you imagine me
— me
? — a beachcomber? Why, not to satisfy the mad greed of any savage chieftain. Flinders. That’s the one who wanted to hold you for ransom, correct? Yes. I’ve heard of him. On the face of it, Flinders must go. But. Oh, my aching lights and liver, but. Who knows what the consequences of arming more of these barbarians might be. Who? You. You’ve lived among them. Well?”

And Ran said, “Well, indeed. This might be just the opportunity I’ve been looking for. We have until tomorrow, haven’t we? I believe that I have rain checks on several drinks at The Residence. Let’s go and turn them in. And talk. And talk and talk.”

Harb looked at him. Hard. He said, “Very good. We’ll do that. But don’t forget who I am, boy. In one classical phrase —
We are not amused.
”

They had the drinks and they talked; they talked on, drinks forgotten. And finally, eyes rimmed red from lack of sleep, Harb said, “All right … All right … I’ll authorize it. You’ve persuaded
me.
Now let’s see you persuade the Tocks. If they go for it, if it does nothing else, it should certainly take their minds off feuding and raiding. And after you persuade the
Tocks,
let’s see you persuade — We’ll see. I laughed at you once. I’m not at all in a laughing mood now.”

Neither were the Wild ones. They had done their trading and now they wanted to hear the decision. Gaunt, grim, weather beaten, violent of expression, they seemed wildly out of place amidst the elegant little niceties of the Powwow Room; and, not only were they not impressed by them, they were not even aware of them.

Once again Harb toed the button under the carpet, once again the sound of the gong, again the sullen silence fell. The eyes looking up at Harb from under shaggy brows and ill-cut hair were like wolves’ eyes, but the wolves were not eyeing a lamb, they were eyeing some creature at least as strong as themselves. Not one that they loved, for wolves love only wolves (and that not often); but one whose powers they, however grudgingly, respected.

Harb said, in the same flat tones he had used yesterday, “I am giving orders for the issue to you of soft scrap metal and sulphur — ”

One word arose from the assembled clan leaders and delegates, spoken as one by many throats.

“Guns …”

It was not a shout; in its soft and gloating intensity it was more frightening than any shout. And their eyes gleamed.

Harb did not even seem to be waiting. If he had paused, his manner seemed to say, it was because he wished to pause. And now he wished to speak. Almost like children caught in error, the Wild men avoided his eye.

“But I want something for it. More than taking care of the Mister Flinders. Oh, he is to be taken care of. First things first. But after that I want something else. This man you know,” Ran stepped forward, “he lived among you last season. Listen to him.”

Obviously, they had no wish to listen to him. Obviously they wished only to take their gun-makings and be off. But they did listen. They listened without interruption. Guildsmen would have laughed, but these Wild men did not. Almost, Ran wished that they would … laugh or protest or something besides standing there and just look-mg at him, their eyes like pools of night.

He talked to them about the fever. He hadn’t realized that he knew so much about it. How it came on suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. A man might be sitting beside his firestone feeling well as ever, then start to get to his feet and be unable to rise without help. The inner fire that wasted, the chills that followed, the trembling of the limbs, the long weeks of enforced inactivity, and sometimes longer, and, sometimes, death…. The crops that rotted for lack of tending and gathering, the fishing craft lying idle for lack of crews, the famine which then lay great upon the land.

“You complain that we don’t give you medicine. And your complaint is not unjust. But, just or unjust, we still can’t give you medicine. It has to be made too far away and there isn’t enough and there never will be. But I can tell you how to wipe out the fever. And if there is no fever, there is no need for medicine.”

They stood silently, but at least not impatiently. Someone said, “Tells.”

Ran took a deeper breath. “You know how Flinders’ men killed Old Guns and captured his daughter and me. You know that we escaped. Maybe you don’t know how we got here, back to the North, to Guild Station. Shall I tell you? We came through Rorkland. All the way.”

He had them, now; had their undivided attention. He told them he had talked with the rorks, and he was believed. He told them that the rorks had men living among them, and he was believed. That both these men and the rorks themselves suffered from the so-called Tock fever. And he was believed. Had he told them that the rorks could fly or that they guarded great treasures of gold and jewels, he would have been believed, for he was touching on the deep spring of legend, as much truth to them as the bleak facts of their grim, bleak lives.

Next he spoke about his suspicions concerning the source of the fever, and how it invariably followed the swarming of the rip who contaminated the land. “Kill off the rips,” he said, “and we kill off the fever. That’s it.” Slowly, slowly, they nodded; but their eyes never left him, and in their eyes and on their faces was an unspoken question.

“You want to know
how
? I can tell you this: We cannot do it alone. The rorks have always been our enemies, but sometimes it is possible to work awhile with an enemy, against an even greater enemy. Aren’t you working with us against Flinders? Isn’t the fever a greater enemy to you than the rorks are? You can
see
a rork, you can shoot it or kill it with a pike. Can you see the fever? Can you hear it rorking? And in the same way, the fever is a greater enemy to the rorks than you are or than we are.

“I don’t know for certain if we and the rorks can work together to destroy the rips and destroy the fever that they spread. But we can try. We have to try. Take your gun-makings and make your guns. Take care of Flinders. And then let me try to arrange a powwow with the rorks about this. If they are willing, then you’ll have to be willing, too.

“That’s our price.”

It was Jun who finally broke the troubled silence. “And if we says, ‘No’?”

A little, scornful
huh
of breath broke from Lomar’s mouth, unsummoned. “Do you know why I’m here?” he demanded. “I’m here for redwing. Do you know why the whole Station is here? It’s here for redwing. Do you think — listen — you say that you don’t love the Guild. Well enough. And now ask yourselves,
Does the Guild love you?
Yes, you bare your teeth and laugh at the notion! It
is
silly, isn’t it?

“So sum it up. The Guild needs you only for redwing. But you need the Guild in order to stay alive. If we don’t lick the fever and stamp it out, production of redwing will drop to nothing. And when
that
happens, the Guild Station here will be closed down without a qualm.

“And you will be left here by yourselves and to yourselves. And you do remember —
don’t you?
— exactly what happened the last time this planet was abandoned?”

Had they dared, they would have leaped upon him then and there and torn him to pieces. He saw it in their widened eyes, naked teeth, flaring nostrils; the convulsive movements of their hands and bodies. Oh, yes. They remembered. But they did not dare. And at length, old Dominis spoke. “It’s a mad scheme, be’s,” he said. “But if you risk it, we s’ll risks it, too.”

That was the crux of it. The Wild Tocks had no confidence that men could work with rorks. The threat of abandonment was potent … almost too potent … the mere mention of it had roused to life hatred which was never altogether still. But, without even realizing it, Ran had touched upon a greater point than he had hoped for.
If
you risks it, we s’ll risks it, too.
The Wild ones thought the Guildsmen all soft. If Ran Lomar, who had passed through all Rorkland, as no Wild man had ever done; if he would risk it again, they dared not refuse the risk.

In the testing, their survival meant less to them than did their pride.

So much for now for the Wild ones; Ran’s scheme, if it would work at all, would require the Tame Tocks’s aid as well. It would require every person possible. Never at any time had the Guild Station dealt with the Tame Tocks as equals; there had not ever been any “advisory council” drawn from among them, or anything like that. But from time to time the whole number of them had been summoned to hear what the Guild Station wished them to hear and to obey. More often than not the instructions thus delivered had been conspicuous failures: You are not to prostitute your women. You are not to hold big drunks. You must bring in more redwing. Clean up around your houseys. Once or twice the exhortation had proved successful: You must bury your dead in deeper graves so that the rips cannot get at them. You are not to put mud on your weed to make it weigh more before you sell it.

So, now, at the Station Officer’s “invitation,” the tattered horde came sweeping in from all of North Tockland. The continued presence of their Wild cousins after trading was over had not escaped notice; usually the fierce Southern men departed the instant commerce was concluded. The Tame Tocks did not come obediently, nor did they come with intentions of disobedience. They came because coming was an occasion. And they were curious, too. Who knew what strange new thing was now to be demanded of them? The prospect did not dismay or discourage them. Whatever it was, certainly they would make a stab at it, if only for the novelty.

This conclave, however, was from its beginning different from the others. For one thing, there were Wild Tocks present, in front of the platform erected and hastily carpeted in the open space set aside for the gathering. Bold, brave, savage-looking men, with matchlocks, some of them. The Northern Tocks eyed the Southern ones with mixed emotions — admiration, fear, suspicion, resentment. And the Southerners, when they eyed them back at all, showed either indifference or contempt. New, too, to the occasion, was Ran Lomar, the “real Man from Old Earth.” Aside from his impressive origin, the story of his escape from the wicked Old Mister of the Crag and his passage through Rorkland had made him an almost numinous figure.

The salty scent of the white-waved seas was on the breeze as it had been when Lomar first set foot on this almost lost world months (it now seemed years) ago. He thought of that as he rose to speak after the SO’s brief opening words. He had wanted no more, at that time, than to be left alone to roam around; to remain uncommitted. He had not been allowed to be left alone, nor permitted to remain uncommitted. Roamed? Yes, he had roamed, all right….

Now, gazing at the sea of faces — dirty, often half-toothless, vacant, vapid, unknowing, stupid, unlearned and perhaps unteachable — he felt his previous certainty ebb, his excitement turn sour. What could he hope to do with these people? To say that it was not their fault that they were as they were was merely to state a gigantic non sequitur. A sudden wave of indifference swept over him. He did not care at all. What was it all to him? — Guild, Station, redwing, rorks, rips, Tocks? If the scheme failed, then it failed. The doom of Pia 2 was not his own doom. There were other worlds to remain unconquered by.

Feeling cool and calm and almost careless, he began to speak. Without thinking about it, he reversed the order of his remarks from what it had been when he addressed the Wild men.

“We Guildsmen built this Station here only to get redwing,” he said. “We no longer get as much as we want, and each year we get less. Pretty soon, at this rate, we’ll get none at all. And when that happens, we shall all go away.”

The crowd stirred uneasily. It had felt an intimation of mortality, but no more. “Do you understand? We shall all go away. None of us will be left. None of us will come back. No one else will come back. No store to sell you things. No force fields to defend you from the rips. The Wild ones have guns. You have no guns. We will leave you none. We will leave you nothing. And the Station will fall in on itself, like an old housey in the rains.
We will not be here again….
”

A moan swept through the crowd. “Do you remember what happened the last time the men went away from here? It will happen again.
Be silent!
” The clamor stopped for an instant, then the moan began again.

He himself was silent a moment. Then he told them about the fever, how it was helping to kill them off, making them fewer and weaker, unable to bring in the required redweed; told them how he had learned of the spread of the fever by the rips. And told them, finally, that their salvation rested on two things and two things only.

“One. The rips must be wiped out.” He needed not to labor on this point. They were already convinced. Probably they would have been convinced even if the question of the fever had never entered into the matter. Almost, he could read their minds.
The Men have guns, it will be easy.
“It will
not
be easy!” he shouted. They jumped, startled, sank back, abashed and astounded. And so he passed on to the next and last and greatest matter.

The knowledge that they would have to penetrate Rorkland left them speechless. And the fact that they would, in all probability, be working with the rorks left them stunned. He told them that the rorks could speak; they believed him. They could put nothing past rorks. He told them that their lost children had often not died at all, had certainly not been killed by rorks, were — many of them — now living peacefully with rorks — almost, they believed him. He had only to show them. But — to
work
with the rorks? To enter safely, to remain safely, to emerge safely —

While the Wild ones looked on scornfully, or looked away indifferently; while Tan Carlo Harb sat, impassive, in his seat; a wave of noise spread over the crowd, and Lomar let it spread. At length one Tock thrust his way forward. Many started to follow him, but Ran gestured them back.

It was his former guide. He hesitated, then pressed on, fumbling at his bosom. “Mist Ran…. You know….” The words came babbling forth from him.

He had a charm. He drew it forth, held it up. It was safe for him to enter Rorkland, and enter it he would — there followed many brave words amounting to the fact that wild rorks could not drag him there alone, but if the Wild Tocks and the Guildsmen (armed) would go,
then
— and so forth. But. There were others who had charms. All would go. Heads were nodded vigorously, bosoms were searched, charms produced, those nearby turning to look and nod as if they had never seen such things before.
But —

What of those who had no charms?

And most did not.

Lomar opened his mouth, intending to assure Rango, to assure them all, that charms were not necessary. Without having said a word of the sort, he closed his mouth, and allowed the general tumult to melt, and thought rapidly. Such assurance would be useless. Rorks were deadly, rorks were dangerous, rorks were demons. They all
knew
this. Rational argument, appeal to his, Lomar’s own contrary experience, producing the foundlings: all, all would be useless.

Behind him he heard Harb’s voice, low, challenging, even — damn him! — amused. “Let’s see what you do with
that,
cute ….”

What he did with it was this. “Step aside, you Tocks. Make way, there. Don’t prevent the ladydoctors from coming forward. Don’t you see that they want to talk to us? Let the ladydoctors
through,
I say.
Move!
”

There were several score of these canny hags in practice. Half witch women, half herbalists, peddlers of potions and poisons. What they had been thinking, no one would ever know. But now, at Lomar’s words, they raised their heads like so many snakes, peering anxiously around them. What! Ladydoctors were coming forward? Ladydoctors wanted to speak? Oh! And ho! And help me up and let me by! The crowd, looking all around and ready enough to make way, was soon enough given its chance.

There were withered old crones, hobbling on two sticks, and buxom hussies only just beginning to rot a bit along the seams. There were muttering beldames, thoroughly convinced of their own powers, and shrewd-eyed traders out for the main chance and the last chit; some were sad, some were bold, some suspicious, some eager. Whatever they were and however they were, soon enough they were all up in front, pressing close upon the rather uncertain Wild men.

Right up in front. All of them. Just where Lomar wanted them to be.

“Do you want the Men to go away?” he asked, in loud and ringing tones. “Do you want all the Tocks to die of fever?” And, taken utterly unawares, the women began to protest, rolling their eyes and beating their bosoms; but he cut them short. “You don’t! Good! You
will
make the charms, then — won’t you?”

Yace! Yace!
They would, of course they would! And such charms, too, prepotent and powerful — Again he interrupted. “Enough for all …
won’t
you?” Too late, the sorceresses began to perceive that a trap had been laid for them; perception overtaking mere suspicion. Enough charms for all? Well, this was something else, now. Charms did not grow on stalks like redwing. They required careful preparation, rare ingredients, and — oh, yace! oh, yace! — costly care. … He caught up the words, he cried them aloud, he scorned and defied them. Exercising talents for commerce which would have both astounded and delighted his instructors at the Guild Academy, he beat them down and down and down. And when they showed signs of balking, he informed them that the crowd might turn into a mob. The crowd, of course, immediately showed signs of doing so. And the ladydoctors capitulated, en bloc.

As he had known they would.

• • •

And now Ran had to determine the final question. Guild Station, Wild Tocks and Tame, all had agreed. Would the
rorks
agree?

• • •

Dominis, Mallardy, the other Misters and their crews, had departed, taken to water for their distant homes. With them had gone the makings for guns and gunpowder sufficient — Ran hoped — to put an end to Flinders forever. The ladydoctors and their apprentices toiled betime and overtime at making charms enough for all the able-bodied males in North Tockland. The Guildsmen, mostly, shook their heads, snickered, doubted, and — inevitably — shrugged, turned to their drinks. The conventional toast, however, seemed to lack something of its usual surety.

On this trip to Last Ridge, Ran went by skimmer. “It’s a harebrained plan, cute,” the SO said, watching him pull his pack out. “Fortunately,
I
make up the official reports, and if these lovable old monsters of yours turn you into a human shish kebob, well, I shall cry my eyes out without letting one tear drop onto the pages. You understand. For pity’s sake, boy, be
care
ful!”

Ran grinned. “You’re fond of the classics. Do you remember this line? ‘It is a far, far better thing I do now, than I have ever done — ’?”

The SO said, stiffly, “We are not amused.” His large, expressive face worked a bit. Then he was off. Ran waved him into a distant speck, and, when he turned around, Tun was there.

“I seem full of great quotations today,” Ran said, in greeting. “How about this one? ‘Take me to your leader’.” The rorkman surveyed him with his familiar, strange smile. He touched Ran’s arm, gently. The cast skin he had worn was gone now, unneeded in the warmer weather, and he was dressed in nothing but loincloth and leggings to protect against the whip grass. Of course he had no leader, the concept was apparently unknown in Rorkland. They walked together, slowly, and Ran talked.

Ran talked. Tun said nothing, or next to nothing. Now and then, as on their previous tour, he stopped and sat and faced the sun. From time to time he made some slight gesture. He walked like a man. But when they came to a stream or pool, he crouched on all fours, like a rork, and lapped the water. He accepted the food Ran offered with grave courtesy. Occasionally he sang a bit of a song that once must have been totally human; its very tonality now rang alien in Lomar’s ears.

When they were still a long way from Hollow Rock they could see its curiously convoluted spire; then coming closer but still not close, Ran could see the rorks and their men moving about at its base. There were quite a number of them, and he did not ask how they came to be there. It was not likely he was finding, coincidently, some regular assembly or rendezvous. Had those occasional little gestures of Tun’s conveyed some message to someone or something which for any reason did not care to come into view just yet? Had the near-naked man possession of those supranormal powers which human normality, still striving, had yet to achieve?

“Come, Ran’
k
,” said Tun, placing one hand on his shoulder. No introductions were made, no one seemed surprised or particularly pleased or displeased to see him. He was close enough to the rorks now to hear the gizzard stones grinding inside of them, a curious noise which, he felt ought to make him uneasy. He did not know why he felt it should, or why it didn’t.

“In the Cold Time,” he said, coming to the burden of the matter at once, “I passed through your land in peace. Now I have returned to it in peace, and this is why. I have learned that the shaking fever which attacks men and rorks alike is spread by the animals we call rips. They must be destroyed if we are all to be well again. If it is not done this year, when they are few and weak, it will have to wait more years until after they have swarmed again. My people, North and South, are willing to work with you. I have come to propose a powwow — that is, that in fifty days, we each send fifty of our number to meet at the great hill with two peaks, Tiggy’s Hill, in the far South. We will all come there in peace. And in peace, we will talk of this.”