The days passed and the training went on, boring and repetitious as each man tried to hammer into the obdurate head of an Albert just enough about his own particular section of machinery so that he could run it capably and call for help in case of emergencies. And, though every man on Fruyling's World disliked every moment of the job, the job was necessary, and went on: though they, too, were slaves to a great master, none thought of rebelling. For the name of the master was necessity, and economic law, and from that rule there are no rebels. The days passed evenly and the work went slowly on.
And then the training was finished. The new Alberts went on a daily work-schedule, supervised only by the spy-sets and an occasional, deliberately random visit from a master. The visits were necessary, too: the Alberts had not the sophistication to react to a spy-set, and personal supervision was needed to convince them they were still being watched, they still had to work. A master came, a master saw them working: that, they could understand.
That—and the punishments. These went under the name of discipline, and had three grades. The Belbis beams administered all three, by means of a slight readjustment in the ray. It was angled as widely as possible, and the dispersed beam, carefully controlled, acted directly on the nervous system.
Cadnan, troubled by Marvor's threats and by his own continuing thoughts of Dara, was a trifle absent-minded and a little slower than standard. He drew punishment twice, both times in the first grade only. Albin administered both punishments, explaining to his partner Derbis that he didn't mind doing it—and, besides, someone had to.
Sometimes Dodd thought of Albin giving out discipline, and of all of his life on Fruyling's World, in terms of a sign he had once seen. It had been a joke, he remembered that clearly, but it was no more a joke now than the words which flashed nearly ignored at the back of his mind. Once or twice he had imagined this new sign hanging luridly over the entire planet, posted there in the name of profit, in the name of necessity, in the name of economic law.
Everything not compulsory is forbidden
The Alberts had to be trained. The Alberts had to be disciplined. The men had to work with them. The men were forbidden to leave the planet.
And who were the slaves?
That, Dodd told himself cloudily, was far from an easy decision.
Everything not compulsory was forbidden. Even the parties were forbidden ... though it was always possible to find one. Dodd had avoided them completely, afraid now of another breakdown, this time in public. He had not seen Greta or called her (though he had her number now): he had stayed alone as much as possible.
He had no idea what had happened to him: and that added to his fright and to his fear of a recurrence.
But Albin, he knew, was having his fun, and so were others. The older men, it seemed, devoted themselves to running the place, to raising their families and giving good advice, to keeping production up and costs down.
The younger men had fun.
Dodd had thought of marriage. (Now, it was no more than a memory, a hope he might once have had. Now, the end had come: there was no marriage. There was no life. Only the idea of hope remained.) He had never had the vestige of a real female image in his mind. Sometimes he had told himself to be more out-going, to meet more women—but, then, how did a man meet women?
He had fun.
And Dodd had never enjoyed that particular brand of fun—Albin's brand.
There was a Social, an acceptable party that would get him into no trouble, in Building One. Dodd felt like lying down and letting the day drain out of him into the comforting mattress there in his room. He felt like relaxing in his own company—and that, he saw suddenly, was going to mean drinking.
He could see the future unroll before him. He could see the first drink, and the tenth. Because drink was an escape, and he needed some escape from the world he was pledged to uphold, the world of slavery.
He could not afford to drink again.
So, naturally, he was getting ready to go to the Social. Albin would be there, undoubtedly, some of the older men would be there—and a scattering of women would be there, too. (He remembered himself thinking, long ago before such a party: Tonight might be the night.) He shaved very carefully, faithful to memory, dressed in the best he could find in his closet, and went out, heading for the elevator.
Tonight might be the night—but it made no difference, not any longer.
The trip to Sub-basement took a few whooshing seconds. He stepped out into a lighted, oil-smelling underground corridor, took a deep breath and headed off through gleaming passages toward another elevator at the far end. Before he reached it he took a turning, and then another: after a magnificently confusing trip through an unmarked labyrinth, he found the elevator that led him up into the right section of Building One. That was no special feat, of course: people had been doing the like ever since the first housing-project days, on pre-Confederation Earth. Dodd never gave it a second thought: his mind was busy.
The phrase had floated to the forefront of his brain again, right behind his eyes, lighting up with a regularity that was almost soothing, almost reassuring.
This is the end.
This is the end.
This is the end.
When the elevator door slid open he was grim-faced, withdrawn, and he stepped out like a threat into a cheerful, brightly dressed crowd of people.
Here he is! someone shouted. "I told you he'd be here ... I told you...." Dodd turned but the words weren't meant for him. Down the corridor a knot of men and women was surrounding a new arrival from somewhere else, laughing and talking. As he stepped forward, his eyes still on that celebration, a pathway opened up for him; he was in sober black and he went through the corridor like a pencil-mark down paper, leaving an open trail as he passed.
A girl stopped him before he reached the door of the party room. She stepped directly into his path and he saw her, and his expression began to change, a little at a time, so that his eyes were, for long seconds, happier than his face, and he looked like a young bull-terrier having a birthday party.
Am I in your way? the girl said, without budging an inch. She was dressed in a bright green material that seemed to fade so near the glowing happiness of her face. Her hair was brown, a quite ordinary brown, and even in that first second Dodd noticed her hands. They were long and slim, the thumbs pointed outward, and they were clasped at her breast in a pose that should have been mocking, but was only pleasant.
He couldn't think of anything to say. Finally he settled on: "My name's Dodd," as the simplest and quickest way of breaking the ice that surrounded him.
Very well, then, Mr. Dodd, the girl said—she wouldn't go along with polite forms—"am I in your way? Because if I am, I'm terribly sorry."
You're not in my way at all, Dodd said heavily. "I just—didn't notice you." And that was a lie, but there was nothing else to say. The thousands of words that arranged themselves so neatly into patterns when he was alone had sunk to the very bottom of his suddenly leaden mind, almost burying the flashing sign. He felt as if he were growing extra fingers and ears.
I noticed you, the girl said. "And I said to myself, I said: 'What can a person as grim as all that be doing at a Social as gay as all this?' So I stopped you to see if I could find out."
Dodd licked his lips. "I don't know," he said. "I thought maybe I'd meet somebody. I just thought I'd like to come."
Well, the girl said, "you've met somebody. And now what?"
Dodd found some words, not many but enough. "I haven't met you yet," he said in what he hoped was a bright tone. "What's your name?"
The girl smiled, and Dodd saw for the first time that she hadn't been smiling before. Her face, in repose, was light enough and to spare; when she smiled, he wanted smoked glasses. "Very well," she said. "My name is Fredericks. Norma Fredericks. And yours is—"
Dodd, he said. "John Dodd. They call me Johnny."
All right, John, she said. "You haven't been to many Socials, have you? Because I'd have seen you—I'm at every one I can find time for. You'd be surprised how many that is. Or maybe you wouldn't."
There was no answer to the last half of that, so Dodd backtracked, feeling a shocking relief that she hadn't been to the party at which he and the other girl (whose name he could very suddenly no longer remember) had made fools of themselves. He gave her an answer to the first half of her question. "I haven't been to many Socials, no," he said. "I—" He shrugged and felt mountainous next to her. "I stay by myself, mostly," he said.
And now you want to meet people, Norma said. "All right, Johnny Dodd—you're going to meet people!" She took him by the arm and half-led, half-dragged him to the door of the party room. Inside, the noise was like a blast of heat, and Dodd stepped involuntarily back. "Now, that's no way to be," Norma said cheerfully, and piloted him somehow inside, past a screaming crew of men and women with disposable glasses in their hands, past an oblivious couple, two couples, four, seven—past mountains and masses of color and noise and drink and singing horribly off-key, not bothersome at all, loud and raucous and somehow, Dodd thought wildly, entirely fitting. This was Norma's element, he told himself, and allowed her to escort him to a far corner of the room, where she sat him down in a chair, said: "Don't go away, don't move," and disappeared.
Dodd sat stock-still while the noise washed over him. People drifted by but nobody so much as looked in his direction, and he saw neither Albin nor that other forgettable girl, for all of which he was profoundly grateful. He hadn't been to a Social since his last mistake, and before that it had been—almost two years, he realized with wonder. He'd forgotten just how much of everything it could be. He devoted a couple of minutes to catching his breath, and then he just watched people, drifting, standing, forming new combinations every second. He thought (once) he saw Albin in the middle of a crowd near the door, but he told himself he was probably mistaken. There was no one else he recognized. He didn't grow tired, but sitting and watching, he found, was exhilarating enough.
In another minute, he was sure Norma wasn't going to come back. Probably she had found someone else, he told himself in what he thought was a reasonable manner. After all, he wasn't a very exciting person: she had probably started off to get him a drink or something, with the best of intentions, and met someone more interesting on the way.
He had just decided that, after all, he couldn't really blame her, when she appeared at his side.
The punch, she announced, "is authentic. It is totally authentic. One glass and you forget everything. Two, and you remember. Three—I don't know what happens with the third glass yet. But I'm going to find out."
He looked at her hands. She was holding two disposable glasses, full of purple liquid. He took one from her and got up. "Well," he said, "cheers."
Also down the hatch, she said. "And any other last year's slang you happen to have around and want to get rid of." She lifted the glass. "Here's to you, John Dodd," she said, and tipped the glass at her lips—just that. He had never before seen anyone drink in just that way, or drink so quickly. In seconds, before he had taken a sip (he was so amazed, watching her), the glass was empty. "Whoosh," she said clearly. "That ought to hold me for at least six minutes."
Then she noticed that he hadn't started his own drink yet, so he took a cautious sip. It tasted like grape juice, like wine, like—he couldn't identify the ingredients, and besides he was watching her face. He took another sip.
That's the way, Norma approved. "Soon you'll be drinking with the big boys."
And whether she was making fun of him or not hardly mattered. He felt careless: maybe the drink had done it. "Why did you pick me?" he heard himself say. "Why did you stop me, out of all those people?"
She hesitated, and when she spoke it sounded like the truth, perhaps too much like the truth to be true. "You looked like a puppy," she said seriously. "Like a puppy trying to act fierce. Maybe I've always had a weakness for dumb animals: no offense meant, John Dodd."
The idea of being offended hadn't occurred to him, but he tried it out experimentally and discovered he didn't like it. Before he could say anything, though, Norma had become energetic again.
Enough analysis, she said abruptly, so strongly that he wasn't sure what she meant by the words. "Sit down—sit down." He felt for the chair behind him and sat. Norma cast a keen eye over the nearby crowds, spotted an empty chair and went off for it. "Later," she told him, when she had placed herself next to him, "we can join the crowd. For now, let's get—let's get better acquainted. Johnny."
That's the first time you've called me Johnny, he said.
So it is, she said. Her face was a mask: and then it lightened. "What do you work at, Johnny?"
I'm in Building Three, he said: it was easier to answer her than anatomize the confusions he felt. "I work with smelting and quality control—you know." He took another sip of his drink, and found to his surprise that it was more than half gone.
With the Alberts, she said. "I know."
He thought he read her look correctly. "I don't like it either," he told her earnestly. "But somebody has to do it. I think—"
You don't have to get defensive, Norma said. "Relax. Enjoy yourself. Join the party. Did I look at you as if you were a murderer of small children?"
I just—don't like it, he said carefully. "I—well, there isn't anything I can do about it, is there?"
I wouldn't know, she said, and then (had she made a decision? He couldn't tell) she went on: "I'm in Psych, myself."
Psych? You?
Psych, me, she said. "So I'm every bit as responsible as you are. And maybe the reason there's nothing to do is—is because it's already been done."
Already been done? Dodd swallowed the rest of his drink in one gulp and leaned toward her. Norma looked down at her own empty glass.
There are rumors, she said. "Frankly, I'd rather they didn't get around. And if I hadn't had too much to drink—or something—I wouldn't even be mentioning them. I'm sorry."
No, he said, surprising himself. "Tell me. What rumors?"
Norma kept her eyes on her glass. "Nothing," she said, in a new, strained voice.
Dodd remained in the same position, feeling more tense than he could ever remember having felt. "Tell me," he said. "Come on. If you've gone this far—"
I suppose I have, she said. "I suppose I've gone too far now, haven't I?"
You've got to tell me.
Yes, she said. "It's—they say the Confederation knows. I mean knows what we're doing here. Officially. Everything." She dropped the glass then and Dodd stooped ridiculously to pick it up: it lay between their chairs. He felt the blood rushing to his head. There was pounding in his temples. He got the glass and gave it to her but she took it absently, as if she hardly noticed him. "Of course, it's just a rumor," she said in a low voice.
The people know, Dodd said. "It's out. It's all out. About the slavery. Is that what you mean?"
She nodded. "I'm sorry."
But it's important— he began, and stopped. He looked at his glass, still empty. He took a breath, began again. "I work with them. I'm part of it. It's important to me."
Just as important to me, Norma said. "Believe me, Johnny. I'm responsible, too."
But you're in Psych, he said. "That's—morale. Nothing more than morale, as far as I know—"
She raised her head and looked him full in the face, her eyes like a bright challenge. Her face was quite sober when she spoke. "I'm in Psych, but it's more than morale, Johnny. We're—always thinking up new ways to keep the little Alberts in their place. Put it that way. Though nobody's really come up with an improvement on the original notion."
The original notion?
Now her smile gave light and no heat, a freak of nature. "The original specific," she said. She paused for a second and the mockery in her voice grew more broad. "That old-time religion," she said, drawing the words out like fine, hot wire. "That old-time religion, Johnny Dodd."
The work went on, for Cadnan as well as for the masters. Days passed and he began to improve slightly: he received no further discipline, and he was beginning to settle into a routine. Only thoughts of Dara disturbed him—those, and the presence of Marvor, who was still apparently waiting to make good his incomprehensible threat.
Marvor had said he was going to leave, but he still appeared every evening in the same room. Cadnan had hardly dared to question him, for fear of being drawn into the plan, whatever it was: he could only wait and watch and wish for someone to talk to. But, of course, there was no one.
And then, one day during the first part of his working shift, a master came into the room, the very master who had gone with Cadnan through his training. "You're Cadnan?" he asked.
Cadnan said: "I am Cadnan."
The master beckoned through the open door of Cadnan's working-room, and two more masters appeared, strange ones, leading between them an elder. The elder, Cadnan saw at once, had lived through many matings: the green skin of his arms was turning to silver, and his eye was no longer bright, but dulling fast with age. He looked at the working-room and at the young Albert with blank caution.
This one is called Gornom, the master said. "He'll be with you when you work. He's going to help you work—you can teach him all he has to know. Just make sure you don't let him handle the buttons until we give you the word. All right?"
Cadnan understood. "All right," he said, and the three masters left the room without more words. The door shut behind them and Gornom visibly relaxed. Yet there was still wariness behind the old eye. "I work in the field," he said after a second. "I am good worker in the field."
Cadnan knew from gossip about the field: that was the place where the metal lay. Alberts worked there, digging it up and bringing it to the buildings where Cadnan and many like him took over the job. He nodded slowly, bending his body from the waist instead of from the neck like the masters, or Marvor. "If you are in the field," he said, "why do you come here? This is not a place for diggers."
I am brought here, Gornom said. "I am an elder many times. What the masters say, I do. Now they say I come here, and I come."
Cadnan looked doubtful. "You are to work with me?"
So the masters say. That was unanswerable, and Cadnan accepted it. He flicked a glance at the TV screen which showed him the smelting process, and leaped for the buttons. After a few minutes of action he was finished: there was a slight breathing-space.
I am to tell you what to do, he said.
Gornom looked grave. "I see what it is you do," he said. "It is a lesson. When you act for the masters, the great machines obey you."
It is true, Cadnan said.
This is the lesson, Gornom said slowly, as if it were truly important. "We are shown the machines so that we may learn to be like the machines. When the master tells us what to do, we are to do it. There is nothing else."
Cadnan thought about that. It made sense: it made a structure he could understand, and it made the world a less confusing place. "You have said a truth," he judged at last.
It is one of many truths, Gornom said. And that was an invitation, Cadnan recognized. He hesitated no more than a second.
Where may I learn the others? But Gornom didn't answer, and Cadnan's breathing-space was over. He had to be back at the board, pushing buttons, watching carefully. Gornom stood behind him, peering over his shoulder with a cloudy eye. Neither said a word until the new spell of work was over. Then Cadnan repeated his question.
It is not for all, Gornom said distantly. "One must be chosen."
You have come to me, Cadnan said. "You have been sent to me. Is this what you call chosen?"
It was the right answer, perhaps the only right answer. Gornom pretended to consider the matter for a minute, but his mind was already made up. "We are above you, on the floor over yours," he said. "When our work is finished I will take you there."
Cadnan imagined a parade of new truths, a store of knowledge that would lay all his questions to rest and leave him, as after a meal, entirely satisfied. He went back to work and contemplated the first of the truths: he was to be like the machine. He promised himself he would try to imitate the machine, doing only what the masters ordered. And for the rest of that day, indeed, life seemed to make perfect calming sense.
But, after all, Gornom was only an elder and not a master. He could be wrong.
The doubt appeared at the end of the day, but by then Gornom had the younger Albert in tow. They took the elevator up one flight and went to Gornom's room: the novelty of all of this excited Cadnan so that he nearly forgot his new doubts. They shrank perceptibly without disappearing altogether.
Gornom opened the door of the new room. Inside, Cadnan saw six elders, sitting in a circle on the floor. The circle, incomplete, was open toward the door, and all six big eyes were staring at the newcomers. The floor was nearly bare: the leaves had been brushed into mounds that lay in the corners.
Without a word, Gornom sat in the circle and motioned Cadnan to a place beside him. Moving slowly and uncertainly, Cadnan came forward and sat down. There was a second of absolute silence.
One of the other elders said: "You bring a new one to us?"
I bring a new one, Gornom said.
The other elder, leaning forward from the waist, peered at Cadnan. His eye was larger than normal, and glittering cold. Cadnan, awestruck, neither spoke nor moved, and the elder regarded him for a time and then said abruptly: "Not all are called to the truth."
He has been called, Gornom said. "He has been chosen."
How is he chosen?
Gornom explained. When he had finished, a silence thick as velvet descended upon the room. Then, very suddenly, all the elders spoke at once.
May the masters live forever.
Cadnan, by this time, was nearly paralyzed with fright. He sat very still. The elders continued, in a slow, leaden chorus:
"May the masters live forever. May the words live forever.
" "May the lessons live forever. May the truths live forever.""
"Then the velvet silence came down again, but the words rang through it faintly until Gornom broke the spell with speech.
The young one has come to learn. He has come to know the truths. He looked around at the others and then went on: "His name is Cadnan. He wishes to have your names. Let him have your names."
The elder who had spoken first identified himself as Lonak. The others gave their names in order: Dalor, Puna, Grudoc, Burlog, Montun. Cadnan stared with fascinated eyes at Puna, who was older than anyone he had ever seen. His skin was nearly all white, and in the dim room it seemed to have a faint shine. His voice was very high and thin, like a wind sighing in tall tree-branches. Cadnan shivered, but didn't take his eye from Puna until, as if at a signal, all the elders rose. Awkwardly, then, Cadnan rose with them, again confused and still frightened.
He saw Gornom raise his hands over his head and chant: "Tall are the masters."
All the others repeated the words.
Wise are the masters.
Cadnan, this time, repeated the phrase with the elders.
Good are the masters.
When the antiphon had been delivered Gornom waited a full second and then fell prostrate to the floor. The others followed his example, except for Cadnan, who, afraid to let himself fall on bare metal, crouched down slowly instead.
Weak are the slaves, Gornom whispered.
The answer was a whisper, too.
Small are the slaves.
The others whispered.
They are like small ones all the days of their lives, and only the masters are elders.
The masters are elders.
As the machine obeys, Gornom said, "so the slave obeys. As the tree obeys, so the slave obeys. As the metal obeys, so the slave obeys. As the ground obeys, so the slave obeys."
So the slave obeys.
Then there was silence again, not as profound as before. Through it, Cadnan could hear the others whispering, but he couldn't quite catch their words. He was later told what praying was, though he never had a chance to practice it.
And then everyone returned to the original circle, and squatted. In what was almost a normal tone Gornom said: "Here is our new one. He must be told."
Puna himself rose. "I will tell him." And Cadnan, frightened by the very look of the elder, could do nothing but follow him as he beckoned and went to a corner near a mound of leaves. The others, scattered, were eating. Cadnan picked up a leaf, but Puna took it gently out of his hand.
We do not eat until it is over, he said quietly.
Cadnan accepted this without words, and Puna told him the legend. During the entire tale, Cadnan, stock-still, didn't even think of interrupting. At first his attention wandered to the leaves, but as Puna's voice went on he listened more and more closely, and even his fright began to leave him under the legend's fascination.
"Long ago, the masters come to the world, sent by the Great Elder. We are no more than children. We do not work, we do nothing except eat and sleep and live out our lives in the world. The Great Elder makes us the gift of talking and the gift of trees, and he makes the rules of the trees. Then he does nothing more for us. First we must become more than children, more than small ones.
" "For this he sends the masters. The masters are good because they show us work and give us machines that have power. Our power is over the masters because of the machines. But we may not use such power. They are elder to us: they are wiser than we are. Only when we become so wise we use power against them, and in that day master and slave are one. In that day the Great Elder returns to his small ones.
" "In this time there is the work, and the work makes us always more like the masters. We live in the buildings like masters. We work with machines like masters. We do what the masters say. Soon we are all the same. No one can tell when we are like masters in all things. We know of it when the Great Elder returns to us. All must watch and wait for that day. In this time, we only remember and tell ourselves the truths over and over. There are many truths and some I can not speak. Here are the others:
" "The masters are our elders. The machines are under obedience to us while we obey the masters.
" "The Great Elder wishes our obedience to the masters. If we disobey the masters the machines and the trees will not obey us, and there will be no more work and no small ones. For this is the order of the world: some obeying and some to be obeyed. It is visible and plain. When the chain is broken all the chain breaks.""
"Puna paused, and then repeated the last sentence.
When the chain is broken all the chain breaks.
It is true, Cadnan said excitedly. "It is true. Yet there is more truth—"
There is, Puna said soberly. "We meet again in five days' time. I can count five days, and so the others will know, and you will know. At this next meeting you will be told more truths." His smile was thin and distant. "Now eat."
Cadnan reached numbly for a leaf and, without thinking, began to nibble. The world had been set in order: he had no more questions now. Instead, he felt empty spaces, waiting to be filled with the great knowledge of Puna and of Gornom and all the others, at the next meeting.
And at other meetings, after that....
He put that thought away: it was too much and too large. The one certain thing was that in five days' time (whenever that was) he would know more. In five days they would all meet again.
He hoped five days was not too long.
As matters turned out, of course, he need not have worried. The meeting he was waiting for never happened.
And, after that, there were no more meetings at all.
PUBLIC OPINION THREE
Being excerpts from memo directives sent between executives of Associated Metallic Products, Ltd., a corporation having its main offices within Dome Two, Luna City, Luna, and associated offices on all three inhabited planets, the memo directives being dated between May fourteenth and May twenty-first, in the Year of the Confederation two hundred and ten.
TO: John Harrison
FROM: Fredk. Ramsbotham
RE: Metals supplies & shipment
It having come to my attention that the process of metals shipment is in danger because of a threat to the materials and procurement divisions of AMP, Ltd., I wish to advise you, as current Chairman of the Board, of the nature of the emergency, and request your aid in drawing up plans to deal with it.
According to reports from our outside operatives, and such statistical checking as we have been able to use in a matter of this nature, there exists a strong possibility that present procurement procedures regarding our raw materials may at any moment be abrogated by act of the Confederation government. The original motive for this action would seem to be a rising tide of public unrest, sparked apparently by chance disclosure of our procurement procedures. That the public unrest may very soon reach the point at which Confederation notice, and hence Confederation action, may be taken is the best judgment both of our outside operatives and of our statistical department.
In order to deal with this unprecedented emergency, it would be advisable to have your thoughts on the matter. With these in hand....
TO: Fred Ramsbotham
FROM: John Harrison
RE: Your memo May 14
My God, Fred, I haven't seen such a collection of verbiage since Latin class. Why not say what you mean? People are calling the setup on Fruyling's World slavery, and slavery is a nasty word.
Let's get together for a talk—and what's with the high-sounding guff? You sound sore about something: what?
TO: James Oliver Gogarty
FROM: Leonard Offutt
RE: Statistical findings
... The situation is serious, J. O., and there's no getting around it. If the Government has to take action there's only one way (given current majorities) they're going to be able to move, and that's to declare Fruyling's World a protectorate, or some such (get your lawyers to straighten out the terminology: in plain and simple English, a ward of the state), and "administer" the place for the best interests of the natives.
Get that: the natives.
Never mind us, never mind AMP, never mind the metals we need.
No, the Government will step in and take all that away from us in the interests of a bunch of silly green-looking monsters who can barely talk and can't, as near as I can see, think at all.
Statistics doesn't give us much of a chance of heading them off. As a matter of fact, any recommended course of action has better than a 50% chance of making matters even worse. And if you don't think they can be worse, take a look at the attached sheet, which....
TO: John Harrison
FROM: Fredk. Ramsbotham
RE: Your memo May 15
Have you never heard of the Confederation impounding records? Or these memos, for instance?
TO: Fred Ramsbotham
FROM: John Harrison
RE: Your memo May 15
Have you never heard of AMP burning them, you silly damn fool?
Now let's get together for a talk.
TO: James Oliver Gogarty
FROM: Gregory Whiting and staff
RE: Your memo May 17
Pressure put on Confederation executives and members of the Senate might convince the Confederation that, without a fight, Fruyling's World would not surrender to Confederation control.
It might not be advisable to begin such a fight. Even with modern methods of transport and training, the weapons gap between the Confederation and Fruyling's World is a severe handicap. In other words, J. O., if it came to a showdown the people here don't think we stand a fair chance of coming out on top.
You'd better rethink your position, then....
TO: James Oliver Gogarty
FROM: John Harrison
RE: Fruyling's World
Interoffice guff says you're planning definite moves on your own, J. O., and against some opposition.
I'm still Chairman of the Board around here, and I intend to use power if I have to. The best advice I can get tells me your plans are unadvisable.
Get it through your head that this has nothing to do with the Board elections. This is a serious matter. I can stop you, J. O., and don't think I won't if it comes to that. But I don't want to make threats.
There must be something we can do—but we're going to have to devote more thought to the whole matter first.
TO: James Oliver Gogarty
FROM: Leonard Offutt
RE: Statistical findings
Chances of such pressure succeeding are, according to derived figures, 37%. Chances of the pressure leading to actual attack on Fruyling's World (see attached sheet) are 58%.
We cannot advise....
TO: Fredk. Ramsbotham
FROM: James Oliver Gogarty
RE: Attached statistical findings
... Of course it's a risk, Frederick, but we're in the risk-taking business, and we always were, as your father used to say, and mine too. Between us, John is a cautious old man, and the rest of the Board is beginning to appreciate that. By next year the entire situation may have changed.
I'm asking for your support, then, as a matter of practical politics. In a risky matter like this one, support can make all the difference between....
TO: James Oliver Gogarty
FROM: John Harrison
RE: My memo May 19
J. O., I mean it.
Now lay off.
TO: Williston Reed
FROM: John Harrison
RE: Current memo series
As you know, I'm keeping you up to date whenever I have a minute between appointments: a publicity chief ought to know everything, inside as well as public-issue material, if only so he can be conscious of what to hide. I've tried to work with you as well as I can, and if there are delays in reporting, you'll understand that pressure of other duties....
... The story behind all of this is simple enough. The takeover Gogarty and Ramsbotham have been trying to pull is interfering with practical business. Frankly, AMP'S competitors are happy enough to jump in and stir the pot: I think they've been buying up Senators here and there (for which there is, God knows, enough precedent; the entire Senate hasn't been bought since the Dedrick mutiny forty years back but you don't need the entire Senate if you have a few key men, and I've always thought Dedrick's lawyers were wasteful), and beyond what the competition's been active in, there are always the fanatics. Freedom for all—you know the sort of thing.
Now the big danger is that if R. and G. succeed in keeping things messed up the rest of the metals boys will step in, push the government into the right moves, and kill Fruyling's World deader than Dedrick himself. Which (according to the statistical breakdown) won't put us into the bankruptcy courts, but will slide us from a first-or-second spot to a ninth-or-tenth one. The big question is whether you'd rather be a small frog in a big puddle or the reverse. Me, I'd rather be a big frog in a big puddle than any other combination I can think of, and in spite of everything I think I'm going to go on being just that.
Fruyling's World has been around for a long time, but the current AMP fight gives the competition the opportunity they need, and they're pushing it. If we can weather the storm....
Well, I'm being gloomy. Of course we can weather the storm. I'll swing Gogarty back, and that will leave Ramsbotham nowhere to go....
TO: John Harrison
FROM: Fredk. Ramsbotham
RE: Fruyling's World
... Support of the suggestion put forward by Mr. Gogarty at the last Board meeting was not, believe me, given without grave consideration.
Now that the matter has been decided, I hope we can all pull together like team-mates, and "let the dead past bury its dead". I'm sure that....
TO: Fred Ramsbotham
FROM: John Harrison
RE: Your memo May 21
I'm worrying a little more about burying some of the currently living—our own men on Fruyling's World.
I've got to ask you to reconsider....
TO: All news services, for immediate release
FROM: Williston Reed
As almost his first act on taking his position as Chairman of the Board of Associated Metallic Products, Ltd., Frederick Ramsbotham today issued a statement of policy regarding "interference by Confederation governmental officials" in what he termed the "private business of AMP."
Mr. Ramsbotham, whose recent election came as a surprise to many shareholders, has stated his intention of "remaining firm in continuance of present policies" regardless of what he described as "threats" from Confederation officials.
He states that his duty to shareholders of AMP must include protection of the private and profit-making enterprise being carried on at Fruyling's World, and that such private concerns are not "the business of public government."
As former Chairman of the Board, John Harrison was asked to comment on the position taken by Mr. Ramsbotham. Mr. Harrison stated that he disagreed with the particular stand taken by Mr. Ramsbotham in this matter, but sympathized with his strong feelings of duty toward the shareholders of the concern.
Confederation response was reported to be "immediate and strong" by sources high in the government, but as yet no final word has been received regarding what action, if any, is contemplated....
TO: Fredk. Ramsbotham
FROM: John Harrison
SUBJECT: The daily paper
Now you've torn it.
Unless you think we can make money selling weapons to be used against our own people on Fruyling's World.
I've sold out my shares as of this morning, Fred. I'm through. I think you are, too—whether you know it or not just yet.
That old-time religion.
Dodd heard the words echoing in his mind that night, and the next night, and the next. All that she had said:
We set up a nice pie-in-the-sky sort of thing, all according to the best theory, just the thing to keep the Alberts happy and satisfied and working hard for us. It started right after the first setup here, and by now I guess the Alberts think they invented it all by themselves, or their Great Elder came down from a tree and told them.
It's horrible, he had said.
Of course it is. There was a silence. "But you said it yourself: what can we do? We're here and we're stuck here."
But—
Norma didn't want to argue, but the argument went on in Dodd's mind, and it still continued, circling in his mind like a buzzard. There was nothing he could do about it, nothing Norma could do about it. He avoided even the thought of seeing her for a few days, and then he found himself making an excuse to go over to Building One. He met her there, after lounging about for hours.
And what she had disclosed to him, what they spoke of, made no difference that he could see in what he felt.
He was happy. Slowly he realized that he had hardly ever been happy before.
He even forgot, for a time, about the rumors, the threat of Confederation troops that had hung over her words like a gray cloud: all he could think of was Norma, and the terrible thing in which they were both bound up.
He told himself grimly that it would never have bothered Albin, for instance. Albin would have had his fun with Norma, and that would have been that.
But it bothered Johnny Dodd.
He was still worrying over it, and in spite of himself finding happiness, when the escape came, and the end.
There's nothing to be done about it. Dr. Haenlingen delivered the words and sat down rigidly behind her desk. Norma nodded, very slowly.
I know that, she said. "I started out—I started to do just what you wanted. To talk to him, draw him out, find out just what he did feel and what he planned."
And then something happened, Dr. Haenlingen said tightly. "I know."
Norma paced to the window and looked out, but the day was gray: she saw only her own reflection. "Something happened," she murmured. "I—guess I had too much to drink. I wanted to talk."
So I understand, Dr. Haenlingen said. "And you talked. And—whatever his situation—you managed to increase his tension rather than understand or lessen it."
Norma shook her head at the reflection. "I'm sorry."
I have often found, Dr. Haenlingen said, "that sorrow following an action is worse than useless. It usually implies a request to commit the same action again."
But I wouldn't— Norma said, turning, and then stopped before the calm gaze of the old woman.
No? Dr. Haenlingen said.
I'll try to—
Dr. Haenlingen lifted a hand and brushed the words aside. "It doesn't matter," she said. "I am beginning to see that it doesn't matter."
But—
All we can do now is wait, Dr. Haenlingen said. "We are—outplayed."
There was a little silence. Norma waited through it without moving.
Would you like to have a lesson in psychology? Dr. Haenlingen said in the graying room. "Would you like to learn a little, just a little, about your fellow man?"
Norma felt suddenly frightened. "What's wrong?"
Nothing is wrong, Dr. Haenlingen said. "Everything is moving along exactly as might have been predicted. If we had known what the Confederation planned, and exactly the timetable of their actions ... but we did not, and could not. Norma, listen to me."
The story she told was very simple. It took a fairly long time to tell.
Slavery takes a toll of the slaves (as the Confederation was beginning to find out, as the idealists, the do-gooders, were beginning, however slowly to realize). But it takes a toll of the masters, too.
The masters can't quite rid themselves of the idea that beings which react so much like people may really (in spite of everything, in spite of appearance, in spite of laws and regulations and social practices) be people, after all, in everything but name and training.
And it just wouldn't be right to treat people that way....
Slaves feel pain. In simple reciprocity, masters feel guilt.
And because (according to the society, and the laws, and the appearances, and the regulations) there was no need for guilt, the masters of Fruyling's World had, like masters anywhere and any time, buried the guilt, hidden it even from themselves, forbidden its existence and forgotten to mention it to their thoughts.
But the guilt remained, and the guilt demanded.
Punishment was needed.
They're going to fight, Dr. Haenlingen said. "When the Confederation attacks, they're going to fight back. It's senseless: even if we won, the Confederation fleet could blockade us, prevent us getting a shipment out, bottle us up and starve us for good. But they don't need sense, they need motive, which is quite a different thing. They're going to fight—both because they need the punishment of a really good licking, and because fighting is one more way for them to deny their guilt."
It seems complex, Norma said.
Everything is complex, Dr. Haenlingen said, "as soon as human beings engage in it. The action is simple enough: warfare."
We've got to stop them—
Dr. Haenlingen went on as if she hadn't heard. "The action serves two different, indeed two contradictory purposes. If you think that's something rare in the actions of mankind, you must be more naive than you have any right to be."
We've got to stop them, Norma said again. "Got to. They'll die—we'll all die."
There is nothing to do, Dr. Haenlingen said. "We are outplayed—by the Confederation, by our own selves. We are outplayed: there are no moves left. There is nothing I can offer, nothing anyone can offer, quite as attractive as the double gift of punishment and denial." Shockingly, for the first time, the old woman sounded tired. Her voice was thin in the gray room. "Nothing we can do, Norma. You're dismissed: go back to work."
But you can't just give up—you can show them there aren't any real reasons, show them they're not being rational—
Oh, but they'll be rational, Dr. Haenlingen said in the same still voice. "Wait for the rumors to start, Norma. Wait for them to begin telling each other that the Confederation is going to kill them all anyhow, take them back and hang them as war criminals—"
That's ridiculous!
Perhaps.
Then—
Rumors during a war are almost always ridiculous. That fact makes no difference at all. They'll be believed—because they have to be believed.
Norma thought. "We can start counter-rumors."
Which would not be believed. They offer nothing, nothing that these people want. Oh, yes, people can be changed— Dr. Haenlingen paused. "Given sufficient time and sufficient equipment, it is possible to make anyone into anything, anything at all. But to change these people, to make them act as we want—the time required is more than ten years, Norma. And we haven't got ten years."
We've got to try, Norma said earnestly.
What we have got, Dr. Haenlingen said, "is more like ten days. And there is nothing to do in ten days. The people have spoken. Vox populi...." The eyes closed. There was a silence Norma waited, astonished, horrified. "Perhaps it is necessary," Dr. Haenlingen's voice said. "Perhaps ... we must wait. Ich kann nicht anders...."
What? Norma asked.
Martin Luther, Dr. Haenlingen's voice said, remote and thin. "It means: 'I can do nothing else.' He wrote it as his justification for a course of action that was going to get him excommunicated, perhaps killed."
But—
Dr. Haenlingen said nothing, did nothing. The body sat behind its desk in the gray room. Norma stared, then turned and fled.
The mixture of feelings inside Cadnan was entirely new to him, and he couldn't control it very well. He found himself shaking without meaning to, and was unable to stop himself. There was relief, first of all, that it was all over, that he no longer had to worry about what Marvor might have planned, or whether Marvor were going to involve him. There was fright, seeing anyone carry through such a foolhardy, almost impious idea in the teeth of the masters. And there was simple disappointment, the disappointment of a novice theologue who has seen his pet heretic slip the net and go free.
For Cadnan had tried, earnestly, night after night, to convert Marvor to the new truths the elders had shown him. They were luminously obvious to Cadnan, and they set the world in beautiful order; but, somehow, he couldn't get through to Marvor at all, couldn't express the ideas he had well enough or convincingly enough to let Marvor see how beautiful and true all of them really were. For a time, in fact, he told himself with bitterness that Marvor's escape had really been all his own fault. If he'd only had more talks with Marvor, he thought cloudily, or if he'd only been able to speak more convincingly....
But regret is part of a subjunctive vocabulary. At least one writer has noted that the subjunctive is the mark of civilization. This may be true: it seems true: in Cadnan's case, at any rate, it certainly was true. Uncivilized, he spent little time in subjunctive moods. All that he had done, all that Marvor had done, was open to him, and he remembered it often—but, once the bad first minutes were past, he remembered everything with less and less regret. The mixture, as it stood, was heady enough for Cadnan's untrained emotions.
He had tried to talk to Marvor about the truths, of course. Marvor, though, had been obstinately indifferent. Nothing made any impression on his hardened, stubborn mind. And now he was gone.
Dara had the news first. She came into their common room at the end of the day, very excited, her hands still moving as if she were turning handles in the refinery even after the close of work. Cadnan, still feeling an attraction for her, and perceiving now that something had disturbed her, stayed where he was squatting. Attraction for Dara, and help given to her, might lead to mating, and mating was against the rule. But Dara came to him.
Do you know what happens with Marvor? she said. Her voice, always quiet, was still as sweet to Cadnan as it had ever been. "He is gone, and the masters do not know where."
The mixture of emotions began: surprise and relief first, then regret and disappointment, then fear, all boiling and bubbling inside him like a witch's stew. He spoke without thinking: "He is gone to break the chain of obedience. He is gone to find others who think as he thinks."
He is escaped, Dara said. "It is the word the masters use, when they speak of this."
It happens before now, Cadnan told her. "There are others, whom he joins."
Dara shut her eye. "It is true. But I know what happens when there is an escape. In the place where my work is, there is one from Great Bend Tree. She tells me of what happens."
Dara fell silent and Cadnan watched her nervously. But he had no chance to speak: she began again, convulsively.
When this other escapes it is from a room of Great Bend Tree. Cadnan nodded: he and Dara were of Bent Line Tree, and hence in a different room. The segregation, simple for the masters, was handy and unimportant, and so it was used. Cadnan thought it natural: every tree had its own room.
Do they find the one who escapes? he asked.
They find him. The masters come in and they punish the others from the room.
Precedent was clearly recognizable, even though it made no sense. Those who had not escaped surely had no reason to be punished, Cadnan thought. But what the masters had done to Great Bend Tree they would do to Bent Line Tree.
Everyone would be punished.
With a shock he realized that "everyone" included Dara.
He heard himself speak. "You must go."
Dara looked at him innocently. "Go?" she said.
You must go as Marvor has gone. The masters do not take you for punishment if you go.
There is nothing for me to do, she said, and her eye closed. "No. I wait for you, but only to tell you this: there is nothing I can do."
Marvor is gone, Cadnan said slowly. "You, too, can go. Maybe the masters do not find you. If you stay you are punished. If you go and they do not find you there is no punishment for you." It amazed him that she could not see so clear a point.
Then all can go, she said. "All can escape punishment."
Cadnan grunted, thinking that over. "Where one goes," he said at last, "one can go. Maybe many can not go."
Her answer was swift. "And you?"
I stay here, he said, trying to sound as decisive as possible.
Dara turned away. "I do not listen to your words," she said flatly. "I do not hear you or see you."
Cadnan hissed in anguish. She had to understand.... "What do I say that is wrong? You must—"
You speak of my going alone, she said. "But that is me, and no more. What of the others?"
Marvor, Cadnan said after a second. "He is to come and aid them. He tells me this. We join him and come back with him, away from here, to where he stays now. Then none of us are punished." He paused. "It will be a great punishment."
I know, Dara said. "Yet one does not go alone."
Her voice was so low that Cadnan could barely hear it, but the words were like sharp stones, stabbing fear into his body. For the first time, he saw clearly exactly what she was driving at. And after a long pause, she spoke again.
Where one goes, two may go. Where Marvor goes, two may follow, one to lead the other.
One goes alone, Cadnan said, feeling himself tremble and trying to control it. "You must go."
It seemed a long time before she spoke again, and Cadnan held himself tightly, until his muscles began to ache.
We go together, she said at last "Two go where one has gone. Only so do I leave at all."
It was an ultimatum, and Cadnan understood what was behind it. But an attraction between Dara and himself ... he said: "There is the rule of the tree," but it was like casting water on steel.
If we leave here, Dara said, "why think of a smaller rule?"
Cadnan tried to find words, but there were no words. She had won, and he knew it. He could not let Dara stay behind to draw a great punishment, possibly even to die, to be no more Dara. And there was no way of forcing her to go and escape that fate—no way except to go with her.
We must wait until they sleep, Dara said in a sudden return to practicality. "Then we go."
Cadnan looked around at the huddled, vaguely stirring forms of his companions. Fear was joined by a sort of sickness he had never known before. He was a slave, and that was good—but once outside where would he find work, or food, or a master? Where there was no master, Cadnan told himself, there was no slave: he was nothing, nameless, non-existent.
But there was neither word nor action for him now. He tried once more to argue but his words were parried with a calm tenacity that left no room for discussion. In the end he was ready to do what he had to do—had to do in order, simply, to save Dara. There was no other reason: he needed none.
He had heard of the attraction of male for female, though some did not experience it until the true time of mating. He had not until that moment known how strong the attraction could be.
The waiting, though it seemed like positive days, didn't take long. The others in the room fell asleep, by habit, one by one, and soon Dara and Cadnan were the only ones left awake. Neither was tempted to sleep: their own terror and their decision kept them very effectively alert.
Cadnan said: "If the masters see us?"
Dara turned on him a face that seemed completely calm. "They do not see us," she said flatly. "Now do not speak."
They rose and, silently, went to the door. The door opened just as quietly, and shut once again behind them.
The corridor was filled with watching eyes, Cadnan felt: but there were no masters in evidence. They stood for a second, waiting, and then Dara started down toward the big room at the end, her feet silent on the floor, and Cadnan followed her.
No masters were visible. There should have been guards, but the guards might have been anywhere: one escape had hardly served to alert a lazy, uninterested group who performed their duties out of no more than habit. Wherever the guards were resting, they were not in the corridor: everything went smoothly. It was smoother than Cadnan was willing to believe.
Soon, though, they were actually in the great lobby of the building. It, too, was dark and empty. They stood dwarfed by the place, the gigantic doors that led to freedom no more than a few feet away.
Cadnan kept telling himself that where Marvor had gone he, too, could go. But Marvor had had a plan, and Cadnan had none.
Yet they were safe—so far, so far. They walked toward the door now, a step at a time. Each step seemed to take an hour, a full day. Dara walked ahead, straight and tall: Cadnan caught up with her, and she put out her hand. There was no more than an instant of hesitation. He took the hand.
That pledged them to each other, until the time of mating. But what was one more law now?
Another step. Another.
Cadnan, in the silence, was suddenly tempted to make a noise, any sort of noise—but it seemed impossible to create sound. The quiet dimness wrapped him like a blanket. He took another step.
Mating, he thought. If the chain of obedience was broken would the trees refuse to obey, in their turn? Puna had said so, and it was true. And if the trees refused to obey there would be no mating....
Yet Dara would be safe. That was the important thing. One thing at a time.
Another step.
And then, at last, the door.
Cadnan pushed at it, and it opened—and then there was sound, plenty of sound, more sound than he could have imagined, sound to fill the great lobby, to fill the entire building with rocking, trembling agonies of noise!
There was an alarm-bell, to be exact, an alarm-buzzer, combinations and solo cadenzas. The guards were, after all, no more than dressing: the automatic machinery never slept, and it responded beautifully and with enthusiasm.
Cadnan and Dara ran crazily out into the darkness. The building fell behind them and the jungle was ahead: still they ran, but Cadnan felt the ground, bumpy instead of smooth, and stumbled once, nearly falling. He saw Dara ahead of him. Getting up and beginning again was automatic: panic beat at him. The noise grew and grew. His feet moved, his heart thudded....
And then the lights went on.
Automatic sweep searchlights were keyed in. The machinery continued to respond.
Cadnan found himself suddenly struck blind: ahead of him, Dara made a single, lonely, terrified sound that overrode all the alarms.
Cadnan tried to shout: "We must run! In the dark the masters cannot see—"
But, of course, by then it was too late to move.
The masters were all around them.
The escape was over.
Of course there was Norma, Dodd told himself.
There was Norma to make everything worth-while—except that Norma needed something, too, and he couldn't provide it. No one could provide it, not as long as no one was allowed off-planet. And it was quite certain, Dodd told himself gloomily, that the restrictions that had been in force yesterday were going to look like freedom and carefree joy compared with the ones going into effect tomorrow, or next week.
If, of course, there was going to be a tomorrow ... that, he thought, was always in doubt. He managed sometimes to find a sort of illusory peace in thinking of himself as dead, scattered into component atoms, finished, forever unconscious, no longer wanting anything, no longer seeing the blinking words in his mind. Somewhere in his brain a small germ stirred redly against the prospect, but he tried to ignore it: that was no more than brute self-preservation, incapable of reasoning. That was no more than human nature.
And human nature, he knew with terror, was about to be overthrown once more.
It was only human, after all, to find the cheapest way to do necessary work. It was only human to want the profits high and the costs low. It was only human to look on other races as congenitally inferior, as less-than-man in any possible sense, as materials, in fact, to be used.
That was certainly human: centuries of bloody experience proved it. But the Confederation didn't want to recognize human nature. The Confederation didn't like slavery.
The rumor he'd heard from Norma was barely rumor any more: instead, it had become the next thing to an officially announced fact. Everyone knew it, even if next to no one spoke of it. The Confederation was going to send ships—had probably sent ships already. There was going to be a war.
The very word "war" roused that red spark of self-preservation. It was harder, Dodd had found, to live with hope than to live without it: it was always possible to become resigned to a given state of affairs—but not if you kept thinking matters would improve. So he stamped on the spark, kept it down, ignored it. You had to accept things, and go on from there.
It was too bad Norma didn't know that.
He'd tried to tell her, of course. They'd even been talking, over in Building One, on the very night of the near-escape. He'd explained it all very clearly and lucidly, without passion (since he had cut himself off from hope he found he had very few passions of any kind left, and that made it easy); but she hadn't been convinced.
As long as there's a fighting chance to live, I want to live, she'd said. "As long as there's any chance at all—the same as you."
I know what I want, he told her grimly.
What? she asked, and smiled. "Do you like what you're doing? Do you like what I'm doing—what the whole arrangement is here?"
He shrugged. "You know I don't."
Then get out of it, she said, still smiling. "You can, you know. It's easy. All you have to do is stop living—just like that! No more trouble."
Don't be sil—
It can be done, she went on flatly. "There are hundreds of ways." Then the smile again. "But you'd rather live, Johnny. You'd rather live, even this way, being a slaver, than put an end to it and to yourself."
He paused. "It's not the same thing."
No, she said. "This way, you'd have to do the killing yourself. When the ships come, you can let them do it for you, just sit and wait for someone to kill you. Like a cataleptic. But you won't, Johnny."
I will, he said.
She shook her head, the smile remaining. Her voice was quiet and calm, but there was a feeling of strain in it: there was strain everywhere, now. Everyone looked at the sky, and saw nothing: everyone listened for the sound of engines, and there were no engines to hear. "Catalepsy is a kind of death, Johnny. And you'll have to inflict that much on yourself. You won't do it."
You think I— He stopped and swallowed. "You think I like living this way, don't you?"
I think you like living, Norma said. "I think we all do, no matter how rough it gets. No matter how it grates on the nerves, or the flesh, of the supersensitive conscience. And I know how you feel, Johnny, I do—I—" She stopped very suddenly.
He heard his voice say: "I love you."
There was a silence.
Johnny, she said, and her hands reached out for him blindly. He saw, incredibly, tears like jewels at the corners of her eyes. "Johnny—"
It was at that moment that the alarm-bell rang. It was heard only faintly in Building One, but that didn't matter. Dodd knew the direction, and the sound. He turned to go, for a second no more than a machine.
Norma's voice said: "Escape?"
He came back to her. "I—the alarm tripped off. This time they must have tried it through the front door, or a window. The last one must have tunnelled through—"
He had to leave her. Instead he stood silently for a second. She said nothing.
There are spots the steel's never covered, he said. "You can tunnel through if you're lucky." A pause. "I—"
It's all right, Johnny, she said.
Norma—
It's all right I understand. It's all right.
Her voice. He hung on to it as he turned and walked away, found the elevator, started away from the room, the Building where she was, started off to do his duty.
His duty as a slaver.
The night was long, so long it could have been the night before the end of the world, the universe drawing one last deep breath before blowing out the candles and returning, at last, to peace and darkness and silence. Dodd spent it posted as one of the guards around the two cells where the Alberts were penned.
He had plenty of time to think.
And, in spite of Norma, in spite of everything, he was still sure of one thing. Because he was a slaver, because he acted, still, as a slaver and a master, hated by the Confederation, hated by the Alberts, hated by that small part of himself which had somehow stayed clean of the foulness of his work and his life, because of all that....
It was going to be very easy to die.
PUBLIC OPINION FOUR
Being an excerpt from a directive issued by the Executive and his Private Council, elected and confirmed by the Confederation, and upheld by majority vote of the Senate: the directive preserved in Confederation Archives, and signed under date of May 21 in the year two hundred and ten of the Confederation.
... It is therefore directed that sufficient ships be fitted out with all modern armaments, said fitting to be in the best judgment of the competent and assigned authorities, and dispatched without delay toward the planet known as Fruyling's World, both to subdue any armed resistance to Confederation policy, and to affirm the status of Fruyling's World as a Protectorate of the Confederation, subject to Confederation policy and Confederation judgment.
An act of this nature cannot be undertaken without grave thought and consideration. We affirm that such consideration has been given to this step.
It is needless to have fear as to the outcome of this action. No isolated world can stand against, not only the might, but the moral judgment of the Confederation. Arms can be used only as a last resort, but times will come in the history of peoples when they must be so used, when no other argument is sufficient to force one party to cease and desist from immoral and unbearable practices.
In accordance with the laws of the Confederation, no weapons shall be used which destroy planetary mass.
In general, Our efforts are directed toward as little blood-shed as possible. Our aim is to free the unfortunate native beings of Fruyling's World, and then to begin a campaign of re-education.
The fate of the human beings who have enslaved these natives shall be left to the Confederation Courts, which are competent to deal in such matters by statute of the year forty-seven of the Confederation. We pledge that We shall not interfere with such dealings by the Courts.
We may further reassure the peoples of the Confederation that no further special efforts on their part will be called for. This is not to be thought of as a war or even as a campaign, but merely as one isolated, regretted but necessary blow at a system which cannot but be a shock to the mind of civilized man.
That blow must be delivered, as We have been advised by Our Councillors. It shall be delivered.
The ships, leaving as directed, will approach Fruyling's World, leaving the FTL embodiments and re-entering the world-line, within ten days. Full reports will be available within one month.
In giving this directive, We have been mindful of the future status of any alien beings on worlds yet to be discovered. We hereby determine, for ourselves and our successors, that nowhere within reach of the Confederation may slavery exist, under any circumstances. The heritage of freedom which We have protected, and which belongs to all peoples, must be shared by all peoples everywhere, and to that end we direct Our actions, and Our prayers.
Given under date of May 21, in the year two hundred and ten of the Confederation, to be distributed and published everywhere within the Confederation, under Our hand and seal:
Richard Germont
by Grace of God Executive
of the Confederation
together with
His Council in judgment assembled
all members subscribing thereto.
The room had no windows.
There was an air-conditioning duct, but Cadnan did not know what such a thing was, nor would he have understood without lengthy and tiresome explanations. He didn't know he needed air to live: he knew only that the room was dark and that he was alone, boxed in, frightened. He guessed that somewhere, in another such room, Dara was waiting, just as frightened as he was, and that guess made him feel worse.
Somehow, he told himself, he would have to escape. Somehow he would have to get to Dara and save her from the punishment, so that she did not feel pain. It was wrong for Dara to feel pain.
But there was no way of escape. He had crept along the walls, pushing with his whole body in hopes of some opening. But the walls were metal and he could not push through metal. He could, in fact, do nothing at all except sit and wait for the punishment he knew was coming. He was sure, now, that it would be the great punishment, that he and Dara would be dead and no more. And perhaps, for his disobedience, he deserved death.
But Dara could not die.
He heard himself say her name, but his voice sounded strange and he barely recognized it. It seemed to be blotted up by the darkness. And after that, for a long time, he said nothing at all.
He thought suddenly of old Gornom, and of Puna. They had said there was an obedience in all things. The slaves obeyed, the masters obeyed, the trees obeyed. And, possibly, the chain of obedience, if not already broken by Marvor's escape and what he and Dara had tried to do, extended also to the walls of his dark room. For a long time he considered what that might mean.
If the walls obeyed, he might be able to tell them to go. They would move and he could leave and find Dara. Since it would not be for himself but for Dara, such a command might not count as an escape: the chain of obedience might work for him.
This complicated chain of reasoning occupied him for an agonized time before he finally determined to put it to the test. But, when he did, the walls did not move. The door, which he tried as soon as it occurred to him to do so, didn't move either. With a land of terror he told himself that the chain of obedience had been broken.
That thought was too terrible for him to contemplate for long, and he began to change it, little by little, in his mind. Perhaps (for instance) the chain was only broken for him and for Marvor: perhaps it still worked as well as ever for all those who still obeyed the rules. That was better: it kept the world whole, and sane, and reasonable. But along with it came the picture of Gornom, watching small Cadnan sadly. Cadnan felt a weight press down on him, and grow, and grow.
He tried the walls and the door again, almost mechanically. He felt his way around the room. There was nothing he could do. But that idea would not stay in his mind: there had to be something, and he had to find it. In a few seconds, he told himself, he would find it. He tried the walls again. He was beginning to shiver. In a few seconds, only a few seconds, he would find the way, and then....
The door opened, and he whirled and stared at it. The sudden light hurt his eye, but he closed it for no more than a second. As soon as he could he opened it again, and stood, too unsure of himself to move, watching the master framed in the doorway. It was the one who was called Dodd.
Dodd stared back for what seemed a long time. Cadnan said nothing, waiting and wondering.
It's all right, the master said at last. "You don't have to be afraid, Cadnan. I'm not going to hurt you." He looked sadly at the slave, but Cadnan ignored the look: there was no room in him for more guilt.
I am not afraid, he said. He thought of going past Dodd to find Dara, but perhaps Dodd had come to bring him to her. Perhaps Dodd knew where she was. He questioned the master with Dara's name.
The female? Dodd asked. "She's all right. She's in another room, just like this one. A solitary room."
Cadnan shook his head. "She must not stay there."
You don't have to worry, Dodd said. "Nobody's doing anything to her. Not right now, anyhow. I—not right now."
She must escape, Cadnan said, and Dodd's sadness appeared to grow. He pushed at the air as if he were trying to move it all away.
She can't. His hands fell to his sides. "Neither can you, Cadnan. I'm—look, there's a guard stationed right down the corridor, watching this door every second I'm here. There are electronic networks in the door itself, so that if you manage somehow to open it there'll be an alarm." He paused, and began again, more slowly. "If you go past me, or if you get the door open, the noise will start again. You won't get fifteen feet."
Cadnan understood some of the speech, and ignored the rest: it wasn't important. Only one thing was important: "She can not die."
Dodd shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said flatly. "There's nothing I can do." A silence fell and, after a time, he broke it. "Cadnan, you've really messed things up. I know you're right—anybody knows it. Slavery—slavery is—well, look, whatever it is, the trouble is it's necessary. Here and now. Without you, without your people, we couldn't last on this world. We need you, Cadnan, whether it's right or not: and that has to come first."
Cadnan frowned. "I do not understand," he said.
Doesn't matter, Dodd told him. "I can understand how you feel. We've treated you—pretty badly, I guess. Pretty badly." He looked away with what seemed nervousness. But there was nothing to see outside the door, nothing but the corridor light that spilled in and framed him.
No, Cadnan said earnestly, still puzzled. "Masters are good. It is true. Masters are always good."
You don't have to be afraid of me, Dodd said, still looking away. "Nothing I could do could hurt you now—even if I wanted to hurt you. And I don't, Cadnan. You know I don't."
I am not afraid, Cadnan said. "I speak the truth, no more. Masters are good: it is a great truth."
Dodd turned to face him. "But you tried to escape."
Cadnan nodded. "Dara can not die," he said in a reasonable tone. "She would not go without me."
Die? Dodd asked, and then: "Oh. I see. The other—"
There was a long silence. Cadnan watched Dodd calmly. Dodd had turned again to stare out into the hallway, his hands nervously moving at his sides. Cadnan thought again of going past him, but then Dodd turned and spoke, his head low.
I've got to tell you, he said. "I came here—I don't know why, but maybe I just came to tell you what's happening."
Cadnan nodded. "Tell me," he said, very calmly.
Dodd said: "I—" and then stopped. He reached for the door, held it for a second without closing it, and then, briefly, shook his head. "You're going to die," he said in an even, almost inhuman tone. "You're both going to die. For trying to escape. And the whole of your—clan, or family, or whatever that is—they're going to die with you. All of them." It was coming out in a single rush: Dodd's eyes fluttered closed. "It's my fault. It's our fault. We did it. We...."
And the rush stopped. Cadnan waited for a second, but there was no more. "Dara is not to die," he said.
Dodd sighed heavily, his eyes still closed. "I'm—sorry," he said slowly. "It's a silly thing to say: I'm sorry. I wish there was something I could do." He paused. "But there isn't. I wish—never mind. It doesn't matter. But you understand, don't you? You understand?"
Cadnan had room for only one thought, the most daring of his entire life. "You must get Dara away."
I can't, Dodd said, unmoving.
Cadnan peered at him, half-fearfully. "You are a master." One did not give orders to masters, or argue with them.
But Dodd did not reach for punishment. "I can't," he said again. "If I help Dara, it's the jungle for me, or worse. And I can't live there. I need what's here. It's a matter of—a matter of necessity. Understand?" His eyes opened, bright and blind. "It's a matter of necessity," he said. "It has to be that way, and that's all."
Cadnan stared at him for a long second. He thought of Dara, thought of the punishment to come. The master had said there was nothing to do: but that thought was insupportable. There had to be something. There had to be a way....
There was a way.
Shouting: "Dara!" he found himself in the corridor, somehow having pushed past Dodd. He stood, turning, and saw another master with a punishment tube. Everything was still: there was no time for anything to move in.
He never knew if the tube had done it, or if Dodd had hit him from behind. Very suddenly, he knew nothing at all, and the world was blank, black, and distant. If time passed he knew nothing about it.
When he woke again he was alone again: he was back in the dark and solitary room.
The office was dim now, at evening, but the figure behind the desk was rigid and unchanging, and the voice as singular as ever. "Do what you will," Dr. Haenlingen said. "I have always viewed love as the final aberration: it is the trap which lies in wait for the unwary sane. But no aberration is important, any more...."
I'm trying to help him— Norma began.
You can't help him, child, Dr. Haenlingen said. Her eyes were closed: she looked as if she were preparing, at last, for death. "You feel too closely for him: you can't see him clearly enough to know what help he needs."
But I've got to—
Nothing is predicated on necessity but action, Dr. Haenlingen said. "Certainly not success."
Norma went to the desk, leaned over it, looking down into the still, blank face. "It's too soon to give up," she said tensely. "You're just backing down, and there's no need for that yet—"
You think not? The face was still.
There are lots of rumors, that's true, Norma said. "But—even if the worst comes to the worst—we have time. They aren't here yet. We can prepare—"
Of course, the voice said. "We can prepare—as I am doing. There is nothing else for us, not any more. Idealism has taken over, and what we are and what we've done can go right on down the drain. Norma, you're a bright girl—"
Too bright to sit around and do nothing!
But you don't understand this. Maybe you will, some day. Maybe I'll have a chance—but that's for later. Not now.
Norma almost reached forward to shake some sense into the old woman. But she was Dr. Haenlingen, after all—
Norma's hand drew back again. "You can't just sit back and wait for them to come!"
There is nothing else to do. The words were flat, echoless.
Besides, Norma said desperately, "they're only rumors—"
She never finished her sentence. The blast rocked the room, and the window thrummed, steadied and then suddenly tinkled into pieces on the carpeted floor.
Norma was standing erect. "What's that?"
Dr. Haenlingen had barely moved. The eyes, in dimness, were open now. "That, my dear," the old woman said, "was your rumor."
My—
The blast was repeated. Ornaments on the desk rattled, a picture came off the far wall and thudded to the carpet. The air was filled with a fine dust and, far below, Norma could hear noise, a babel of voices....
They're here! she screamed.
Dr. Haenlingen sat very still, saying nothing. The eyes watched, but the voice made no comment. The hands were still, flat on the desk. Below, the voices continued: and then Dr. Haenlingen spoke.
You'd better go, the calm voice said. "There will be others needing help—and you will be safer underground, in any case."
But you— Norma began.
I may be lucky, Dr. Haenlingen said. "One of their bombs may actually kill me."
Her mouth open in an unreasoning accession of horror, Norma turned and fled. The third blast rattled the corridor as she ran crazily along it.
Dodd stayed on his post because he had to: as a matter of fact, he hardly thought of leaving, or of doing anything at all. Minutes passed, and he stood in the hallway, quite alone. The other guard had spoken to him when Cadnan had been picked up and tossed back into solitary, but Dodd hadn't answered, and the guard had gone back to his own post. Dodd stood, hardly thinking, and waiting—though he could not have said what for.
This is the end. He had hit Cadnan: in those few seconds he had acted just as a good slaver was supposed to act. And that discovery shocked him: even more than his response during the attempted escape, it showed him what he had become.
He had thought the words he used had some meaning. Now he knew they had next to none: they were only catch-phrases, meant to make him feel a little better. He was a slaver, he had been trained as a slaver, and he would remain a slaver. What was it Norma had said?
You'd rather live....
It was true, it was all true. But there was (he told himself dimly) still, somewhere, hope: the Confederation would come. When they did, he would die. He would die at last. And death was good, death was what he wanted....
No matter what Norma had told him, death was what he wanted.
He was still standing, those few thoughts expanding and filling his mind like water in a sponge, when the building, quite without warning, shook itself.
He heard the guard at the end of the corridor shouting. The building shook again, underneath and around him, dancing for a second like a man having a fit. Then he caught the first sounds of the bombardment.
Norma! He heard himself scream that one word over the sounds of blast and shout, and then he was out of the corridor, somehow, insanely, running across open ground. Behind him the alarms attached to the front doors of Building Three went off, but he hardly heard that slight addition to the uproar. God alone knew whether the elevators would be working ... but they had to be, they had to stand up. After he found Building One (he could hardly trust the basement levels, choked by panic-stricken personnel from everywhere) he had to get an elevator and find Norma.... He had to find Norma.
Overhead there was a flash and a dull roar. Dodd stared before him at a tangled, smoking mass of blackness. A second before, it had been a fringe of forest. Smoke coiled round toward him and he turned and ran for the side of Building Three. There were other sounds behind him, screams, shouts....
As he passed the Building the ground shook again and there was a sudden rise in the chorus of screams. He smelled acrid smoke, but never thought of stopping: the Building still stood gleaming in the bombardment flashes, and he went round the corner, behind it, and found himself facing the dark masses of One and Two, five hundred feet away over open ground.
As he watched there was a flash too bright for his eyes: he blinked and turned away, gasping. When he could look again a piece of Building Two was gone—looking, from five hundred feet distance, as if it had been bitten cleanly from the top, taking about four floors from the right side, taking the topmast, girders, and all ... simply gone.
But that was Building Two, not Building One. Norma was still safe.
She had to be safe. He heaved in a breath of smoky air, and ran.
Behind him, around him, the bombardment continued.
PUBLIC OPINION FIVE
Being an excerpt from Chapter Seven of A Fourth Grade Reader in Confederation History, by Dr. A. Lindell Jones, with the assistance of Mary Beth Wilkinson, published in New York, U. S. A., Earth in September of the year one hundred and ninety-nine of the Confederation and approved for use in the public schools by the Board of Education (United) of the U. S. A., Earth, in January of the year two hundred of the Confederation.
... The first explorers on Fruyling's World named the new planet after the heroic captain of their ship, and prepared long reports on the planet for the scientists back home in the Confederation. The reports mentioned large metallic deposits, and this rapidly became important news.
The metallic deposits were badly needed by the Confederation for making many of the things which still are found in your homes: such useful objects as cleaners, whirlostats and such all require metal from Fruyling's World.
Of course, there were not many explorers on the new planet, and it was a hard job for them to dig out the metal the Confederation needed.
But the planet had natives on it already. The natives were called Alberts, and here is a picture of them. Aren't they funny-looking?
The Alberts were happy to help with the digging in exchange for some of the good things the explorers talked about, because they didn't have many good things. But the explorers built houses for them and gave them food and taught them English, and the Alberts dug in the ground and helped get the metal ready to ship back to the Confederation.
... The following list of Review Questions may be helpful to the instructor:
1. Why is Fruyling's World called by that name? After whom was it named?
2. What is so valuable about Fruyling's World?
3. Who helps the explorers dig up the metal?
4. Why do they help?
For Cadnan, the time passed slowly.
Consciousness came back, along with a thudding ache in the head and a growing hunger: but there were no leaves on the smooth metal of the floor, and the demands of his body had to be ignored. His mind began to drift: once he heard a voice, but when he told himself that the voice was not real, it went away. He found his hands moving as if he were pushing the buttons of his job. He stopped them and in a second they were moving again.
Then the room itself began to shake.
Cadnan had no doubts of his sanity: this was different from the imaginary voice. The room shook again and he wondered whether this were some new sort of punishment. But it did not hurt him.
The rumbling sound of the bombardment came to him only dimly, and for brief seconds. To Cadnan, it sounded like a great machine, and he wondered about that, too, but he could find no answers.
The rumbling came again, and sounded nearer. Cadnan thought of machines shaking his small room, perhaps making it hot as the machines made metal hot. If that happened, he knew, he would die.
He called: "Dara." It was hard to hear his own voice. There was no answer, and he had expected none: but he had had to call.
The rumbling came again. Surely, he told himself, this was a new punishment, and it was death.
There was only one thing for him to do. He sat crosslegged on the smooth floor as the rumble and the other sounds continued, and in opposition to them he made his song, chanting in a loud and even voice. He had learned that a song was to be made when facing death: he had learned that in the birth huts, and he did not question it.
The song was necessary, and his voice, carrying over the sounds that filtered through to him, was clear and strong.
"I am Cadnan, I am Cadnan of Bent Line Tree, I work for the masters, I push buttons and the machine obeys me, I push buttons when the masters say to do it. My song is short. I am near the dead. I have broken the chain, the chain of obedience. I do not want to break this chain. I must break it. Dara says I go. If I do not go then Dara does not go. Dara must go. I break the chain. For this I am near the dead and the room shakes. It is my death and my song. I am Cadnan and Bent Line Tree and I work.
"After the song was over, he remained sitting, waiting for what had to come. The rumbling continued, and the room shook more strongly. For some seconds he waited, and then he was standing erect, because he could see.
The door, sprung from its lock by the shaking of the building, had fallen a little open. As Cadnan watched, it opened a bit more, and he went and pushed at it. Under a very light shove, it swung fully open, and the corridor, lights flickering down its length, stood visible. As Cadnan peered out, the lights blinked off, and then came on again.
The rumbling was very loud now, but he saw no machines. He went into the corridor in a kind of curious daze: there were no masters anywhere, none to watch or hurt him. He called once more for Dara, but now he could not hear himself at all: the rumbling was only one of the sounds that battered at him dizzily. There were bells and buzzes, shrieks and cascades of brutal, grinding sounds more powerful than could be made by any machine Cadnan could imagine.
He started down the corridor: the masters had taken Dara in that direction, opposite to his own. Suddenly, one of his own kind stood before him, and he recognized a female, Hortat, through the dusty air. Hortat was staring at him with a frozen expression in her eye.
What is it? she asked. "What happens?"
Cadnan, without brutality, brushed her aside. "I do not know. The masters know. Wait and they tell you." He did not consider whether the statement were true, or false, or perhaps (under these new circumstances) entirely meaningless: it was a noise he had to make in order to get Hortat out of his way. She stood against the corridor wall as he passed, watching him.
He went on past her, moving faster now, into the central room from which corridors radiated. The lights went off again and then came on: he peered round but there were no masters. Besides, he thought, if the masters found him the worst they could do would be to kill him, and that was unimportant now: he already had his song.
In a corridor at the opposite side of the central room he saw a knot of Alberts, among whom he recognized only Puna. The elder was speaking with some others, apparently trying to calm them. Cadnan pushed his way to Puna's side and heard the talk die down, while all stared at the audacious newcomer.
I am looking for Dara, Cadnan said loudly, to be heard over the continuous noise from elsewhere.
Puna said: "I do not know Dara," and turned away. Another shouted:
Where are the masters? Where is work?
Cadnan shouted: "Wait for the masters," and went on, pushing his way through the noise, through the babbling crowd of Alberts. There were no masters visible anywhere: that was a new thing and a strange one, but too many new things were happening. Cadnan barely noticed one more.
At the front of his mind now was only the thought of Dara. Behind that was a vague, nagging fear that he was the cause of all the rumbling and shaking of the building, and all else, by his breaking of the chain of obedience. Now, he told himself, the buildings even did not obey.
Then he heard a voice say: "Cadnan," and all other thought fled. The voice was hers, Dara's. He saw her, ahead, and went to her quickly.
She had not been hurt.
That fact sent a wave of relief through him, a wave so strong that for a second he could barely stand.
The door opens, she said when he had reached her, in a small and frightened voice. "The masters are not here."
They return, Cadnan said, but without complete assurance. In this barrage of novelty, who could make any statement certain?
Dara nodded. "Then we must go," she said. "If they are not here, then maybe they do not hear the noise when we open the door: and there is much noise already to hide it. Maybe they do not see us."
And if they do?
Dara looked away. "I have my song," she said.
And I have mine. It was settled.
As they headed toward the big front doors others followed, but there was no use bothering about that. When Cadnan opened the door, in fact, the others fell back and remained, staring, until it had shut behind them. There was the great noise of bells and buzzers—but that had been going on, Cadnan realized, even before they had begun. Outside, the spot-lights seemed weaker. There was smoke everywhere, and ahead the forest was a black and frightening mass.
He looked at Dara, who showed her fear for one instant.
I am also afraid, he told her, and was rewarded by a look of gratitude. "But we must go on." He took her hand.
They walked slowly into the smoke and the noise. As they reached the edge of the forest, the sound began to diminish, very slowly; and, ahead of them, through the haze and beyond the twisted trees, the sun began to rise.
They walked for a long while, and by the time they had finally stopped the noise was gone. There was a haze over everything, but through the haze a morning sun shone, and a heavy peace hung over the world.
There were trees, but these were neither like Bent Line Tree, for mating, nor for food. Perhaps, Cadnan thought, they were for building, but he did not know, and had no way to know until an elder showed him.
And there were no elders any more. There were neither elders nor masters: there was only Cadnan, and Dara—and, somewhere, Marvor and the group he had spoken of. Cadnan peered round, but he saw no one. There were small new sounds, and those were frightening, but they were so tiny—rustles, squeaks, no more—that Cadnan could not feel greatly frightened by them.
The green-gray light that filtered through the trees and haze bathed both Alberts in a glow that enhanced their own bright skin-color. They stood for a few seconds, listening, and then Dara turned.
I know these sounds, she said. "I talk to others in our room, and some of these work outside. They tell me of these sounds and this place: it is called a jungle."
Cadnan made a guess. "The trees make the sound."
Small beings make it, Dara corrected him. "There are such small beings, not slaves and not masters. They have no speech but they make sound."
Cadnan meditated on this new fact for a short time. Then Dara spoke again.
Where is Marvor? The time of mating is near.
Cadnan saw her meaning. It was necessary to find Bent Line Tree, or some like it, and advising elders, all before the time of mating. Yet he did not know how. "Maybe masters come," he suggested hopefully, "and tell us what to do."
Dara shook her head. "No. The masters kill us. They do not lead us any more. Only we lead ourselves."
Cadnan thought privately that such an idea was silly, almost too silly for words: how could a person lead himself? But he said nothing to Dara, not wanting to hurt her. Instead, he pretended, helplessly, to agree with her: "You are right. We lead ourselves now."
But we must know where Marvor stays.
That sounded more reasonable. Cadnan considered it for a minute. Wherever Marvor was hiding, it had to be somewhere in the jungle. And so, in order to find him, they had only to walk through it.
And so they set out—on a walk long enough to serve as an aboriginal Odyssey for the planet. The night-beasts, soft glowing circles of eyes and mouths which none of their race had ever seen before: the giant flesh-eating plants: the herd of bovine monsters which, confused, stampeded at them, shaking the ground with their tread and making the feathery trees shake as if there were a hurricane: all this might have made an epic, had there been anyone to record it. But Cadnan expected no more and no less: the world was strange. Any piece of it was as strange as any other.
Once they came across a grove of food-trees, and ate their fill, but they saved little to take with them, being unused to doing their own planning. So they went on, hungry and in the midst of dangers scarcely recognized, sleeping at night however they could, travelling aimlessly by day. And after a time that measured about three days they stopped in a small clearing and heard a voice.
Who is there?
Cadnan, frightened by the sudden noise, managed to says "I am Cadnan and there is one with me called Dara. We look for Marvor."
The strange voice hesitated a second, but its words, when it did speak, were in a tone that was peaceful enough.
I know of Marvor and will take you to him. It is not far to where he stays.