THE young warrior was stretched out on the hard, unyielding ground. There was no shade. The burning sun scorched the arid land. The cattlelike hondari shuffled around slowly, without energy, searching out the sparse clumps of brown grass. Yellow dust hung in the still air like an unmoving grainy cloud.
The warrior was on his back, just resting. His head was supported by a special wooden stool under his neck. The purpose of this was to avoid disturbing his elaborate hairdo. The hair was long, coiled into ringlets, and greased with a dull red dressing.
The warrior did not move. Every fold of his dusty loose-fitting cloak was artfully arranged. The garment was the same color as his hair.
His spear was on the ground beside him. It had an iron point and a wooden shaft. It was as long as he was.
The dry air buzzed with flies. They were big ones, drawn by the hondari herds. They were also attracted by the grease in the warrior’s hair.
A fly landed on the warrior’s forehead. It poked around for a moment and then walked down across his open eyeball.
The warrior blinked his eye, once. Otherwise, he did not move. It was beneath his dignity to notice a fly. Besides, a rapid movement would have disturbed the symmetry of his cloak.
“How about that,” Alex Porvenir said with admiration.
Martin Ashtola wiped the sweat from his forehead. He was not much impressed. “I’m sure there is considerable potential in these people,” he said. “But these men seem so—what is the word? Foppish?”
Alex Porvenir tugged at the brim of his hat to shield his face from the glare of the reddish sun. He fished out his pipe, filled it with hopefully moist tobacco, and took a long time lighting it. He resisted the impulse to lecture the younger man. “The Kwosa are vain. Also arrogant, proud, and stubborn—among other things. But don’t sell them short until you know them.”
Martin Ashtola shrugged. “You’re the expert.” His tone was faintly insulting. He resented his own lack of authority and his irritation showed. “I hope your plan is a good one. These people aren’t much use to us the way they are. All they’re interested in is cows—cows and their own beautiful bodies.”
Alex wasn’t certain whether or not he was glad that Martin was speaking English. He occasionally had euphoric visions of Martin with a spear sticking in him. “As a matter of fact,” he said gently, “Caravans was at one time at a loss as to what to offer the Kwosa in trade. They are very self-sufficient; it’s one thing that makes them independent. They have to move with their herds of hondari, so they don’t go in much for bulky possessions. It was hand mirrors that turned the trick. They like to admire themselves.”
The younger man did not respond. He wasn’t interested in the business problems of Caravans and he didn’t give much of a damn about the psychology of the Kwosa. His blue UN Observer’s uniform was getting stained with sweat. He wanted to get back to the ship and talk about Plans. He was very big on Plans. “What do we do now?”
Alex puffed on his pipe. “Wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“Wait until our friend finishes his siesta.”
“And then?”
“Then we tag along with him as long as he doesn’t object. He knows that the sky traders are peculiar people; he’ll make allowances.”
“What will he do?’
“Take the herd to water. Then graze them back to camp where they can be guarded at night. If there’s a raid, it will likely come after dark. Besides, camp is where the girls are. He’s not all duded up for nothing, you know.”
“Why go through all that? You’ve seen it a hundred times.”
Alex smiled. “Yes, but you haven’t.”
“I didn’t come here to study these people.”
“Why did you come? It certainly wasn’t at my invitation,” Alex wanted to say. He said: “You can’t report on my plan unless you know what it is. I can’t tell you my plan until you understand the Kwosa.”
Martin Ashtola sighed. This wasn’t going the way he had figured at all. “Can’t we stir Sleeping Beauty into a little action?”
“I wouldn’t advise it. He’ll get up in his own good time. Surely I don’t have to remind you about the law. We can’t interfere with these people against their will and contrary to their own best interests. He’s perfectly happy and doing his job. Let him alone.”
The two men waited. Alex Porvenir was patient; he was used to this. He enjoyed being out in the open, hot as it was. It restored him. Martin Ashtola was fretful and decidedly uncomfortable. He was accustomed to the comforts of Earth.
The red sun of Lalande, more than eight light-years from the sun Earth knew, dipped slowly toward the flat horizon. Short shadows striped the grassy plain.
Quite suddenly, the warrior stood up. He did it in one fluid motion. He patted his cloak into place and picked up his spear.
He whistled, sharply. The whistle was shrill between his carefully filed teeth.
The hondari herd strung out and began to move. Horns tossed in the sunlight. The dust grew thicker.
The warrior smiled proudly. “Are they not beautiful?” he asked in the liquid language of the Kwosa.
“They are hondari,” Alex said in the ritual response. “They are beyond beauty.”
Martin Ashtola, of course, did not understand what the man had said. He did not, in fact, share in the mystique of the cows. Although livestock were extinct on Earth, except in the zoos he had never bothered to visit, he had no romantic notions about animals. He was a very civilized man.
Alex himself was not unduly thrilled by the hondari herds. They were skinny beasts, all bones and leather. But he understood the feeling that the Kwosa had for the hondari. If he could not share it, he could nevertheless appreciate it.
To the Kwosa, the hondari were beautiful.
That was enough.
The two men paced along in the choking yellow dust, following the warrior who followed his herd. Alex could almost smell the water that waited for them.
It was old, he thought. Old for Lalande II, older still for Earth. A man and his herd. Heat, dust, the promise of water. A camp waiting, and food, and women. A spear in your hand, confidence in your heart. Sometimes, the old ways had value. He could have been a Kwosa, rather than what he was. . . .
He shook his head. There was no way to erase his own heritage even had he really wanted to do so. He was an outsider here, as always—
He concentrated on just keeping up with the herd.
The animals were lowing now. They knew the trail. They knew where the water was.
When they reached the shallow stream, the hondari were positively well-mannered. Alex was always surprised by their orderly behavior. There was no stampede, no crowding. According to some invisible status heirarchy, the animals fanned out along the bank and waded in to drink. When the first ones had finished, the second line went in.
After all the hondari had swallowed their fill, the men could drink. They got as far upstream as possible, waded in, and submerged their heads in the water. That is, that was the procedure for Alex and Martin Ashtola. The warrior was far more dainty, not wishing to disturb his hairdo. He simply scooped up water in his hands and sipped. He didn’t need much.
The water was not cold but it was cool. It even seemed reasonably clean, but Alex took a pill to be on the safe side. The wetness from his dripping hair felt great against his sunburned neck.
The warrior whistled. The herd moved out, headed back for camp. It was a long way, but the animals were livelier now.
The warrior walked proudly, admiring his own shadow on the land. He carried his spear as though it were a feather. His eyes were alert and watchful. His attitude said plainly that he could handle anything, and would welcome the opportunity.
Alex was not quite so filled with energy, but he felt pretty good. The water had helped, and the sun was losing some of its impact now.
He watched Martin Ashtola out of the corner of his eye.
The younger man was bushed, but he was through complaining. That was a healthy sign.
Alex let it all sink in, savoring it. The patient herd, the warrior, the fading sun, the tough grass. There was a small breeze now and the dust was not so bad.
Alex knew a kind of peace. He was attracted by this life. It was hard, direct, simple, and rewarding. It was free of doubts.
Or perhaps it was only free. . . .
He studied his companion and he willed his silent thoughts.
Watch. See. Feel. Understand.
* * * *
The great lightship hung in orbit, suspended in the blackness that surrounded Lalande II. The symbol of the laden camel on its bow marked the ship as belonging to Caravans, Unlimited. The camel seemed to be looking down, down into the night, down to where the dusty trails wound across the arid plains. . . .
Alex Porvenir poured himself a libation of Scotch, sat back in his comfortable chair, and thought about Martin Ashtola.
He could thank the Others for Martin Ashtola.
When he and Tucker Olton had discovered the tracks of an alien civilization fooling around with the Lupani on Sirius XI, they had opened a real can of worms. Alex had known that things would never be the same again, but he hadn’t expected Martin Ashtola.
It was all perfectly logical, though.
Earth was a strange world, a planet of vast technological expertise that had somehow lost its heart and its vision. With a universe before it, it had elected to contemplate its own rather humdrum navel. There were reasons, of course, but then there are always reasons.
The exploration of the universe had been left in the hands of private trading companies. The UN set up an ET Council that hemmed them in with rules and regulations; the UN was determined that there would be no exploitation of native peoples on other worlds. There was one rule that was never broken: No tax revenues were “squandered” in space.
So far, so good.
The trading companies like Caravans managed to make enough of a profit to keep them going, working the interstellar trade routes through the gray wastes of not-space. They did it by searching out products that were unavailable on Earth and setting up an elaborate marketing and advertising network. It wasn’t easy. You had to find the product first. You had to ensure a stable supply. You had to transport it. And you had to make the consumers want it; the costs were literally astronomical, and a few mistakes could put you out of business.
It worked. The integrity of the lifeways of other peoples was respected, and if the regulations were sometimes bent a little it was never to the detriment of native cultures.
And Earth had a toehold in space. . . .
But then it happened, the thing that Alex had always both anticipated and feared.
On the world of Arctica, among a people called the Lupani, the traders met the Others. Not exactly met them, perhaps, but received their calling card. Another civilization, an alien civilization, operating in space. The Others—whoever or whatever they might be. Manipulating cultures ruthlessly, changing them, moving them like pawns in some mysterious galactic game of chess.
They had a plan, a design of some sort.
And it could only be aimed, ultimately, at Earth. There was no other civilization that had ventured outward to the stars.
That altered the situation. When the report reached Earth, there was a kind of hysteria for a few weeks. It was not comfortable to be a target of unknown forces.
But there was no immediate danger.
There had been no overt threat.
And whatever might happen was far in the future—
And the tax money was needed at home—
And so the response Earth made was Martin Ashtola and his counterparts on other ships.
It was not a very heroic or imaginative response. But it was so inexpensive.
Just send an Observer out on each trading ship. Give him a title and a nice uniform. It created a kind of instant space navy, and it cost almost nothing.
There was only one small problem.
What did the Observer do?
Well, he would observe, obviously. He would report back. He would Keep In Touch, within the dubious limits of interstellar communications.
But beyond that?
Earth had no plan of action, really. It did not even have the data upon which a realistic plan might be based. Instead, the UN ET Council had what amounted to a gut reaction, a vague conviction. It was never stated in so many words. It consisted of a feeling. Its essence was the notion that Earth needed allies, and the stronger the allies were the better.
It was absolute nonsense, of course.
But the human animal was only sporadically rational, to say nothing of wise. He had a tendency to flounder around a bit.
And there was the awkward fact that the basic law under which the trading companies operated prohibited overt cultural manipulation without the consent of the peoples involved.
Martin Ashtola was not frustrated without cause.
Neither was Alex Porvenir.
But Alex had been at this game for a long time. He had seen what there was to see. He knew what he was doing. And he had a few ideas of his own.
That gave him a certain advantage.
He stood up and lit his pipe.
A tall man, Alex. Tall and lean and hard. He was pushing fifty now, but he had taken care of himself. There was some gray in his hair—Helen said that he looked distinguished when she wanted to needle him a little—but his sharp brown eyes were not the eyes of an old man. He still had a stubborn jaw and there was nothing wrong with his reflexes.
His brain still worked, too.
He hoped that he had enough left in the tank for the job ahead.
If not—
* * * *
The lightships of Caravans did not operate according to some grand design. Martin Ashtola was a complicating factor, a nuisance, but he was not responsible for the visit to Lalande II.
The problem was a simple one. Alex Porvenir had spent a lifetime untangling similar snarls.
The Kwosa were a seminomadic people, shifting about within their territory according to the requirements of the hondari herds. Herders of large stock animals tended to be much alike wherever they were found. Herds were always tempting targets; they were relatively easy to rustle and a man could become wealthy or a pauper overnight. The hondari had to be herded by warriors for protection; there was an endless cycle of raid and counterraid between neighboring tribes. The men were proud, tough, and vain. They had to be. It was a strongly male-oriented society. The women had little to do; they did not need to labor perpetually as they did among farming tribes. They had a notable lack of economic power, since the hondari herds were owned and controlled by the men.
Sex was the great pastime of the Kwosa. It was almost as important as raiding or admiring the hondari. The young men strutted and made themselves beautiful. The girls gasped at the bravery of the warriors and made themselves readily available.
The elders took care of the government when they were old enough to want to slow down a trifle. There came a time, even for a Kwosa, when a nice bloody spear fight or an all-night dance seemed somewhat less than a euphoric prospect.
It was a pleasant system. Alex liked the Kwosa. More important, the Kwosa like the Kwosa. Unlike most peoples, they were enchanted with their way of life. They had no desire to change. In their view, it was madness to meddle with perfection.
Nomadic peoples have little in the way of bulky property. They are limited by what they can carry around with them. At first glance, the Kwosa had seemed unlikely prospects for the traders of Caravans.
However, they did have something. They had immense pride and vanity. They went in heavily for bodily adornment, and they were perfectionists.
As with many pastoral peoples, there was a special caste among the Kwosa. The caste was known as the Obo, and its members—male and female—were artisans. The Obo made the things that the Kwosa needed, the artifacts that the warriors had no time to produce. Basically, they were smiths. They smelted the iron for the essential spears. But the Obo made other things as well—leather straps and small iron pots and milking bags.
And jewelry.
Handcrafted jewelry for the most demanding customers in their sector of the universe.
Coils of fine wire, worn on arms and legs. Exquisite rings, necklaces, bangles for the ears. Feathered crowns crisscrossed with a delicate filigree of shining metal strands. . . .
It was the jewelry that Caravans wanted.
Jewelry designed for dancing warriors that almost sold itself on a crowded Earth that knew nothing but mass production.
And the jewelry was getting scarce.
Why?
The reason was not complicated. The Kwosa had been hard-hit by raids. The hondari herds had been depleted. The people were not starving, but they were up against a dwindling food supply. They did not kill their precious hondari for meat, of course, but they depended upon them for their staple foods of milk and blood. (They made careful incisions in the hondari throats and drained off a cup of blood every few days.) Less food meant fewer Obo. Fewer Obo meant less jewelry.
Simple. It was a cyclical thing. The Kwosa were in no danger of extinction. In time, the balance would be restored.
But Caravans could not wait for generations. It had a waiting market. A few years, yes. A decade or two if necessary; they could take up the slack with other products.
They needed that jewelry, and the sooner the better.
Alex could handle the problem, or thought he could. (You could never be sure in this business.) But he needed freedom to act.
It was a lot tougher with Martin Ashtola looking over his shoulder. Alex had a double problem to solve. He had to restore the Obo production to its former level. And he had to convince Martin Ashtola that he was responding to the threat of the Others. . . .
Alex shook his head.
“Deliver me from Observers,” he muttered.
He went to see Helen. She would understand. Understanding, she would make him forget.
For a while.
* * * *
Tucker Olton held up the tube of bright red liquid that the lab boys had concocted. It looked very much like blood, except that the texture was too thin and the stuff lacked the darkness of true blood.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Alex Porvenir said with a sly grin.
“It looks like Exhibit A,” Tucker Olton said. “In your sanity trial.”
“Come now.” Alex fired up his pipe, which was as foul-tasting as ever. “You’ve lost your faith in the old man.”
“You really think you’re going to palm this off on Ashtola?”
“I know I am. Getting it into the hides of the Kwosa will be the real trick.”
“I’m not worried about that. Even as the junior partner in this team I think I could figure that one out. The Kwosa have this thing about bravery. They’ll love shots just so they can show that pain doesn’t bother them. That’s why you’re using syringes instead of some more modern method.”
“That’s one reason. The other is that we can teach the Kwosa to administer shots themselves. It doesn’t take much in the way of special equipment or training.”
“Okay, okay. But you can’t sell Ashtola on this stuff. He isn’t a complete fool.”
“No, not a complete fool. He is, however, essentially a politician. He doesn’t know anything.”
“He knows there ain’t no such animal.”
“Does he? Want to bet?” Alex took the tube of red liquid from Tucker’s hand. He held it up admiringly to the light. “Do you know what this is?”
“Not exactly, no. But I could—”
“I’ll tell you what it is. It is Serum 247-B.”
“Serum 247-B? What the hell is that?”
Alex puffed on his pipe. “You don’t remember your history, Tuck. Serum 247-B was one of the last weapons created by the Biological Warfare Division of the Allied Armies in the Final War. It was never used. But all lightships carry a contingency supply for extreme emergencies.”
“That’s news to me, and I’ve been on a lightship with you for a lot of years. What does it do?”
“It subtly alters the endocrine system in such a way that it ultimately produces a psychologically superior fighting man. In short, a kind of superman. And it breeds true.”
Tucker Olton stared at him. “You’re telling me—”
“I assure you that it’s the absolute truth.”
Tucker Olton continued to stare at the older man. “Alters the endocrine system? How does that affect the genes?”
“It produces what might be termed a consistent and quite predictable mutation shift.”
There was a long silence. Finally, Tucker Olton snorted—more in relief than anything else. “Alex, that is pure fantastic unadulterated fast-flowing crud. You know damned well it is.”
Alex chewed on his pipe stem. “Serum 247-B. Had you going for just a minute there, didn’t I?”
Tucker flushed. “I don’t pretend to know everything. It’s a defect of your teaching. It almost sounded reasonable at first.”
Alex smiled. It was not a warm smile. “Look, friend. I know it’s balderdash. You know it, because you’re an intelligent man and have some scientific background. But Ashtola won’t know it—not until it’s much too late and we’re light-years away from this place. If I can snow you a little I can bury him in an avalanche of fancy-sounding verbiage. It will work because he is what he is. He’ll think it’s just something he hasn’t heard about, and he will never admit ignorance. It isn’t his nature, believe me. He’ll recognize good old Serum 247-B, despite the fact that it doesn’t exist. He’ll think the whole scheme is A Wonderful Plan. He may even try to get me a medal.”
“That tube of red gunk won’t solve our problem, though. It won’t make more Obo.”
Alex refilled his pipe and lit it. “Want to bet? You see, we’re going to administer a slightly different version to the hondari herds too.”
“Serum 247-C, I suppose?”
“How did you know? You probably don’t remember, but in experiments some years ago at the Cuthbert Pomeroy Gundelfinger Institute of Veterinary Medicine they were able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt—”
Tucker Olton threw up his hands. “Enough, already! I give up. Alex, you’re going to be in some very hot water before this thing is over.”
“I’ve been there before.” Alex Porvenir looked at his associate with worried affection. “You may be in there with me, Tuck. That’s why I think it is best if you don’t know too much about what I’m really doing. For the present, I suggest you believe without reservation in the miraculous warrior-creating qualities of Serum 247-B.”
“And Serum 247-C?”
“Certainly. Mighty warriors must have brave and ferocious hondari. Right?”
“Sure makes good sense to me.”
Alex puffed on his pipe. “Trust me this once, Tuck. There’s a lot at stake. Will you help me?”
Tucker Olton did not hesitate. “Of course,” he said.
And that was that.
* * * *
A child was born.
As the red sun beat down on the mud-and-dung plastered dome that was a Kwosa hut, a sweating woman crouched down and clutched her husband’s spear that had been driven into the hard-packed dirt floor. It was the only occasion on which she could touch the spear of a man.
There was a small fire burning and it was very hot and smoky. There were no windows in the hut. There was one other person inside the structure, an old toothless woman who clucked knowingly and bustled about with an air of great importance.
Outside, unsheltered from the blazing sun, the men lounged around in little groups. They did not look at the hut. They gazed at the distant hondari herds. They talked about raids and the things that made the hondari beautiful. There was no way to tell which man was the woman’s husband; his behavior was the same as all the others.
The swollen woman was in considerable pain. The child inside her was not coming easily. He was violent and kicking and stubborn. That was good.
He would be a boy.
Her face was contorted. The sweat poured from her body. She felt as though she were being torn apart.
She moaned a little. She did not cry out.
Her fingers contracted on the spear shaft until she thought she would splinter the wood. She tried to relax her grip. The spear must not be damaged.
The child emerged, slowly, encased in slime.
The old woman went into action. She was quick and efficient, despite her age. She had been through this many times.
In a matter of minutes the cord was cut and the sputtering infant was washed. Mother and child rested on the hide bed.
The old woman went to the door and gave a signal. The child’s father detached himself from his group and entered the hut. He did not hurry. He kept his dignity. He tried to appear casual.
He permitted himself a brief smile when he saw that his child was a male. The Kwosa could use warriors.
He said nothing to his wife. That was the highest approval he could give.
He yanked the spear from the floor. Carefully, he placed it under the bed. The first day was important. The child could use all the help he could get.
He went back outside to study the remote hondari. He did not speak. In time, he would say what there was to say. In the meantime, the other men would not press him.
The Kwosa named their children on the fourth day. It was dangerous to give a name too soon. So many infants did not survive and it was best not to speak of them. That was easier when they had no name.
On the second day, two men from Caravans arrived at the hut. They stuck a needle into the baby’s bottom and gave him an injection of bloodred fluid.
The baby whimpered a little but did not cry.
That was very good.
The father was proud of his son. He would give him a good name.
* * * *
The Kwosa were not a people much given to group ceremonials. Dispersed and mobile as they were, there were few occasions when large numbers of people could get together for ritual observances.
There were a few important rites, however.
Like so many pastoral warrior societies, the Kwosa had an age-set system. As such organizations went, it was a fairly elaborate one. Each year, early in the summer when the grass was good and the herds could be bunched, all of the boys who had reached seventeen years of age were initiated into the warrior grade. At that time, they were circumcised and given their first man-sized spears. They were not yet full-fledged warriors, but they were no longer boys either.
Every four years all of the junior warriors—including those who had been circumcised that same year—moved up a notch, as did the groups senior to them. In time, a man served in all the warrior sets and advanced to the status of an elder.
The system was made to order for Alex Porvenir’s plan—or perhaps it would be more correct to say that his plan was neatly designed to fit the system.
Caravans was in luck that the annual initiation was only three months away. Normally, even that span of time would have been much too long to wait; the logistics of interstellar trading made it mandatory to keep on the move. But the Kwosa were a crucial test case. Even though the Others had shown no interest in them as yet, the Others changed all the rules.
Caravans had to wait.
Martin Ashtola saw to that.
And wait they did—
Waited through the rains of spring, waited while the grass grew and the water filled the dry arroyos. . . .
Waited for boys to become men.
* * * *
“It’s barbaric,” Martin Ashtola said.
“Yes,” agreed Alex Porvenir.
“It gives me the creeps.”
“Relax. You don’t have to go through it.” Alex Porvenir stuffed his pipe and lit it. He could feel his own blood racing to the pounding of the drums. “You wanted warriors. This is where you get them.”
There were some thirty boys about to be initiated. There should have been nearly fifty.
They were trying hard not to look like boys. They were naked and their bodies were painted vertically with alternating white and crimson stripes. They stood straight, rigid, their hands at their sides. They did not move a muscle.
They faced two elders, one of whom held a hammer and a small chisel.
Beyond the two elders, a third man waited with an iron knife in his hand.
Behind the boys, the gathered Kwosa danced. The drums thudded and the rattles clacked. The warriors glittered with decorations as they leaped and twisted, showing off their beauty to the young women who moaned and grunted with ecstatic appreciation. The elders leaned on their spears and watched—and remembered.
Children stayed in their huts and watched from a distance. This was no place for children.
The red sun was low in the sky, but there was still plenty of light. There had to be.
The time had come.
The man with the iron knife lifted it toward the sun. The blade glinted dully.
The first boy stepped forward without hesitation. In a firm voice he announced his name and the name of his father. He walked to the two elders and lay down in the dirt, face up. He opened his mouth.
The elder with the hammer and chisel worked speedily. He wasted no motion. He knocked out an incisor tooth on the right side of the boy’s lower jaw and then an incisor on the left side. Blood spurted from the boy’s mouth. He swallowed what he could. He made no sound.
Sometimes, jaws were broken in that operation. It was never done on purpose, but it could be a good sign if the boy did not cry out. It was a test of character.
The second elder crouched down over the prostrate boy. He stuck a needle in the boy’s left shoulder and rammed the plunger home. That was nothing.
“Serum 247-B?” whispered Martin Ashtola.
Alex nodded and puffed on his pipe. “Our little contribution to the ceremony,” he said. “It will always be done now that the tradition is established.”
The boy got to his feet. He swayed a little and spat out blood. He walked to the man with the knife. He lay down in the dirt again, face up. He spread his legs. He did not close his eyes.
The man cut him swiftly. There was considerably more blood.
The boy who was no longer a boy got to his feet. He had new crimson stripes now, on his chest and on his legs. He walked under his own steam back past the waiting boys. He did not look at them. In truth, he could hardly see.
His father came to him and covered his naked body with the cloak of a warrior. He pressed a heavy spear into his son’s taut hand.
The new warrior marched with a nearly steady pace back to the hut where his mother was waiting.
Even warriors needed a mother sometimes, and this was emphatically one of the times.
The man with the bloody knife lifted it again toward the sun.
The second boy stepped forward.
“My God,” said Martin Ashtola.
Alex Porvenir smiled grimly. “Only twenty-eight more to go,” he said.
The drums continued to throb and the dancers strutted their stuff.
The elders nodded to one another, remembering many things. It was good to become a warrior.
* * * *
The Caravans’ lightship had left the system of Lalande far behind. It flashed through the gray wastes of not-space.
Martin Ashtola had filed his first field report—which would not be received by the UN ET Council for many months after it was relayed from normal space—and he was quite well pleased with himself.
Alex Porvenir had filed a decidedly different report to Caravans. Carlos Coyanosa, the senior company representative on board, had already seen it. He was not happy about it. Alex was singularly unworried. Carlos was always upset by the actions that Alex took. He was a good man but he had no imagination.
Martin Ashtola did have a few nagging doubts.
“You’re absolutely sure it will work?” he asked.
“Serum 247-B has never failed,” Alex replied truthfully.
“Then we’ve really done something, haven’t we? We’re one up on them, and that’s for sure.”
“We’ve made us some warriors,” Alex said. He was careful to speak the literal truth.
“It seems odd. I confess that I expected to see some sign of them on Lalande II.”
“The Others?” Alex, one of the few men who had actually seen their traces on Arctica, found himself accepting the fact of their existence with composure.
“Of course. If we only knew more about what they were up to, how they thought! It’s difficult operating in the dark, as it were. What are their plans for the Kwosa?”
Alex eyed the younger man. He looked quite natty in his clean blue uniform. Ah, the thin blue line, Alex thought. Here he stands, one man alone, saving Earth from the slavering hordes. “You have an awesome responsibility.”
“It’s funny we didn’t run into them.”
“Not really, Ash.” Alex took a deep breath. He had to educate this man, however painful it was. He would wake up soon enough, and then the fur would fly. “It’s only natural to expect to find Them everywhere, once we made the initial encounter. But it won’t work that way. The universe is enormous, my friend, and the worlds in just our own little galaxy are beyond counting. We traders operated in space for a very long time before we even knew that They existed. It could be centuries before our paths cross again. They may not have any plans for the Kwosa at all.”
“We can’t act on that assumption! And even if we did, we’ve gained an advantage. We’ve made a move. We’ve done something for the Kwosa they couldn’t do for themselves. We’ve turned them into magnificent warriors, and they’ll be on our side when the showdown comes.”
Hondari dung, Alex thought. “You think we did the right thing, then?”
“I’m certain of it. We have to act. We can’t just sit back and wait.”
“Yes, we must act. But there are actions and then there are actions. We are not gods, Ash. We have no private pipeline to the Ultimate Truth. We are entitled to make our own mistakes, and we’ve made plenty. But are we entitled to make decisions for other peoples?”
“You mean the Kwosa?”
“Among others, yes.”
“Don’t think I’m insensitive to the rights of native peoples! I’m here to protect them.”
“Against the nasty old exploiting trading companies?”
“Well, I didn’t mean that.”
The hell you didn’t.
“Look, Alex, I know your record—and that of Caravans. It’s a very good one.”
“Thank you.”
“We did nothing to the Kwosa that they wouldn’t want done. We know what’s best for them. They want to be warriors.”
“They also liked things the way they were. In fact, the Kwosa are among the few truly contented people I have ever known—and I have known a few.”
“Serum 247-B won’t hurt anyone.”
“Perhaps not.” Alex permitted himself a small smile. “I notice that you didn’t volunteer to take any.”
Martin Ashtola threw up his hands. He didn’t understand this man at all. “That’s totally different.”
“Why?” Alex Porvenir asked quietly.
Martin Ashtola turned on his heel and left the room.
* * * *
“Maybe you’d better explain,” Tucker Olton suggested gently. “If I’m going to be in the line of fire, I’d like to know what in the hell I’ve been up to.”
Alex Porvenir poured himself some Scotch and took a long drink. He was tired and it was hard for him to look back. It was tough enough to make the decisions he had to make, year after year. It was tougher still to live with them afterward. He had no illusions about his own infallibility. He simply tried to do the best he could.
“Where do we start, Tuck? And please don’t say at the beginning.”
Tucker Olton shrugged. “As I see it, we had two basic problems with the Kwosa. Three, if you count Martin Ashtola. First, we were faced with a product loss because the Obo caste was declining in numbers and turning out less jewelry. Second, there was the long-range problem of the Others and how they might be countered or checked. Exactly what did we do?”
“We turned to good old Serum 247-B.”
“Don’t start that again.”
Alex stiffened his drink and lit his pipe. The pipe was sour, as usual. He smoked it anyhow. The Scotch sweetened it some. “We might as well call it Serum 247-B. It sounds impressive and it’s as good a name as any.”
“Call it anything you like. What is it, and what does it do? Or is it just a smokescreen for Ashtola?”
“Pretty good pun there. Congratulations. You’re learning.”
“Please, Alex.”
“Okay. Sorry. The red gunk we used in the shots is chemically complex but medically simple. It consists of inoculations against basic childhood and adult diseases, periodic-releasing antibiotics, and long-term vitamins. That’s all. It will not protect against every known disease, of course, but it will hit the most common Kwosa ailments. It will also help in recovering from wounds, including infections from a dirty circumcision knife.”
“No super warriors?”
“Nope. It won’t do a thing in that direction. It will not change the Kwosa one damned bit.”
“How does that solve our product problem?”
“You’re not thinking, Tuck. It won’t create any super warriors but it will result in more warriors—and more Kwosa generally. We did essentially the same thing with the hondari herds. More Kwosa, more Obo. More Obo, more jewelry. We’ll get our product back.”
Tucker Olton nodded slowly. “I hadn’t thought of attacking it from that angle.”
Alex took a long swallow from his drink. He was feeling a shade better. “Our basic problem with the Kwosa was population decline. It was caused by raiding, as you know—a loss of hondari and a loss of fighting men. The cycle would adjust itself in time, but we speeded it up a little. Instead of providing the Kwosa with new defensive tactics or new weapons, we cut down on infant mortality and increased the survival rate from combat wounds. We also reduced hondari losses from natural causes, thereby increasing the herds. The Kwosa will do fine. They’ll be there long after you and I are dead and gone.”
“And the Others? Do we just forget about them?”
“No. That would be a fatal mistake.”
“But we left the Kwosa just as we found them.”
“I think that’s precisely the point.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow that.”
Alex cleaned out his pipe, after a fashion, and tamped in another load. He lit it evenly for a change and blew out a small cloud of smoke. “Look, Tuck. What do we know about the Others, leaving aside all the hysterical blather? We know that they represent an alien civilization, the only one besides our own that seems to be operating in space at the present time. We know that they tried to change the Lupani on Arctica—change them in a way that was not in the best interests of the Lupani themselves. That’s all we have to go on. Presumably, they are trying to change other cultures elsewhere. It makes sense to assume that they have a plan of some sort; they’re not doing it just for the hell of it. The plan involves altering cultures according to some kind of a master design.”
“I’ll buy that. There’s no argument. And so?”
“And so our course of action is plain enough even for us to see—and we will come to see it eventually. We may be stupid occasionally, or even frequently, but we are not stupid all the time.”
“I must be in my stupid phase. I don’t see any howlingly obvious solution.”
“Try this one, by way of an interim policy. We know they want to change things—change them by interference, not by way of natural development. Okay. If we come across their work, as we did on Arctica, we try to undo it. We restore the original culture, unless there is some compelling reason for not doing so. That counters their plan, whatever it is. If we deal with untouched lifeways, as we usually do, we don’t change them except in very minor ways. We leave them as they are and trade with them as we always have.”
“Business as usual?”
Alex sipped his drink. “We have to keep Caravans and the other trading companies afloat. They are our eyes in space, our only way of knowing what goes on in our own universe. What we don’t do is to go off half-cocked on some nutty scheme of galactic tinkering—at least not until we know almost infinitely more than we do now.”
“You’ll never sell Ashtola on that. He wants action.”
“He’s human. He can learn. There are a lot of people like Martin Ashtola who are going to have to think this thing through to a sane conclusion. They’ll get there, given enough time. They’ll get there, or Earth isn’t worth bothering about. I hate to mention it, but there are ethical considerations involved. And morality has a way of being practical, sometimes.”
“I wish you’d spell that out.”
“I intend to. You’ll get sick of hearing it—and so will a lot of other people before I’m through. Let’s go back to the analogy of colonialism.”
“Again?”
“One more time. It’s an instructive example. On Earth, back in the bad old days, colonialism occurred when there was a radical power imbalance between political and geographical units. The technologically superior units moved in and took over the administration of the so-called undeveloped units. Because they were so powerful—relatively—they believed that they were intellectually and morally superior as well. They justified their actions with some very noble-sounding philosophies.”
“I’ve heard all that before, Alex.”
“Maybe you haven’t heard this. The colonial powers weren’t devils. They were not guilty of all the diabolical evils attributed to them. If it hadn’t been for colonialism, some of our friends sitting in judgment today on the UN ET Council wouldn’t be there. The wicked colonialists generally did the best they could, given the times and the attitudes and the usual fallibility of human beings. But they were guilty of one monstrous crime. And that, oddly enough, was paternalism. It was the doctrine of Father Knows Best—and its inevitable corollary, Other People Are Children.”
“I think I see where you’re going.”
“Yes.” Alex puffed on his pipe. “Either we learn from the past or we are nothing. That’s the one mistake we cannot afford to make in space. Paternalism. It’s so easy for us to fall into the habit of thinking that we should make basic decisions about the lifeways of other peoples who are not in a position to know what is going on. I tell you, we don’t know everything—not with all our sciences and computers and technology. Neither do the Others, whoever or whatever they are.”
“Do we just plead ignorance, then? If it is wrong to use other peoples as pawns, what happens if we become pawns ourselves?”
Alex drained his final drink. “We won’t. We’re not just sitting on our ethical butts as long as Caravans continues to function. We can undo what the Others do. We can help people by permitting them to go their own way. The true confrontation is centuries in the future. If we conduct ourselves properly and do the best we can, we will end up with partners rather than pawns. Which would you rather have when the chips are down? You know, the Kwosa is a pretty damned good fighting man just as he is.”
“I hope you’re right, Alex.”
Alex Porvenir nodded. The old doubts crept into his mind again. “That makes two of us,” he said slowly. “That makes two of us.”
* * * *
Later, Alex turned to Helen and touched her shoulder.
“Do I look like a crazy old man to you?” he asked.
“I can’t see you.”
“You can remember.”
Helen kissed him sleepily. “A little crazy, dear. A little old. Definitely a man. You’ll do, love. Don’t worry. Go to sleep.”
Alex closed his eyes.
* * * *
Later still, the Caravans lightship emerged from the grayness of not-space.
The universe took her in, absorbed her—a universe of vastness and color and life.
Against the scale of space, the little ship with its incongruous symbol of a laden camel was nothing. It was less than a grain of sand in the desert.
And yet it counted for something, that ship. It counted because of what it was and what it carried.
Fears, hopes, dreams—
Imperfections and a spark of something better—
Yes.
In a wilderness of stars, it would do.
It made a difference.