After the first rush of battle, matters began to quiet a little. Against tremendous odds, and in a few brief hours, the armaments of Fruyling's World had managed to beat off the Confederation fleets, and these had withdrawn to reform and to prepare for a new phase of the engagement.
In the far-off days before the age of Confederation, war had, perhaps, been an affair of grinding, constant attack and defense. No one could say for sure: many records were gone, much had been destroyed. But now there was waiting, preparation, linked batteries of armaments and calculators for prediction—and then the brief rush and flurry of battle, followed by the immense waiting once more.
For Dodd, it was a time to breathe and to look around. He had enough work to do: the damage to Building Three, and the confusion among the Alberts, had to be dealt with, and all knew time was short. Very few of the Alberts had actually escaped—and most of those, Dodd told himself bitterly, would die in their own jungles, for lack of knowledge or preparation. Most, though, simply milled around, waiting for the masters, wondering and worrying.
Norma was safe, of course: after a frantic search Dodd had found her below-ground in the basements of Building One, along with most of the Psych division. Without present duties forcing them to guard or maintain the Alberts, the Psych division had holed up almost entire in the steel corridors that echoed with the dull booms of the battle. He'd gasped out some statement of relief, and Norma had smiled at him.
I knew you'd be safe, she said. "I knew you had to be."
And of course she was right. Even if what she said had sounded cold, removed—he had to remember she was under shock, too, the attack had come unexpectedly on them all. It didn't matter what she said: she was safe. He was glad of that.
Of course he was, he thought. Of course he was.
Even if the things she said, the cold-blooded way she looked at the world, sometimes bothered him....
And, a day later, when everyone was picking up the scattered pieces of the world and attempting, somehow, to rig a new defense, she'd said more. Not about herself, or about him. Tacitly, they knew all of that had to wait for a conclusion to the battle. But about the Alberts....
Of course they're not disloyal, she told him calmly. "They don't even know what disloyalty means: we've seen to that. The masters are as much a part of their world as—as food, I suppose. You don't stage a rebellion against food, do you?"
Dodd frowned. "But some of them have escaped."
Wandered, you mean. Just wandered off. And—oh, I suppose a few have. Our methods aren't perfect. But they are pretty good, Johnny: look at the number of Alberts who simply stayed around.
We're making them slaves.
No. She shook her head, violently. "Nobody can make a slave. All we've done is seize an opportunity. Think of our own history, Johnny: first the clan, or the band—some sort of extended family group. Then, when real leadership is needed, the slave-and-master relationship."
Now, wait a minute, Dodd said. Norma had been brain-washed into some silly set of slogans: it was his job to break them down. "The clan can elect leaders—"
Sure it can, she said. "But democracy is a civilized commodity, Johnny—in a primitive society it's a luxury the society can't afford. What guarantees have you got that the clan will elect the best possible leader? Or that, having elected him, they'll follow him along the best paths?"
Self-interest—
But again she cut him off. "Self-interest is stupid," she said casually. "A child needs to learn. Schooling is in the best interest of that child. Agreed?"
Yes, but—
Did you ever hear of a child who liked school, Johnny? she asked. "Did you ever hear of a child who went to school, regularly, eagerly, without some sort of force being applied, physical, mental or moral? No, Johnny, self-interest is short-sighted. Force is all that works."
But— He was sure she was wrong, but he couldn't see where. "Who are we to play God for them?" he said at last.
They need somebody, Norma said. "And we need them. Even."
She seemed harder now, somehow, more decided. Dodd saw that the one attack had changed a lot—in Norma, in everyone. Albin, for instance, wasn't involved with fun any more: he had turned into a fanatical drill-sergeant, with a squad of Alberts under him, and it was even rumored that he slept in their quarters.
And Norma ... what had happened to her? After the fighting was over, and they could talk again, could relax and reach out for each other once again....
She had become so hard....
One new fear ran through the defenders. The Alberts who had escaped might return, some said, vowing vengeance against the masters....
Cadnan had learned much in a very short time. Everyone was hurried now, as the time of mating approached more and more quickly and as the days sped by: knowledge was thrown at Cadnan and at Dara in vast, indigestible lumps, and they were left to make what they could of it, while the others went about their normal assigned work.
He learned about the invasion, for instance—or as much about it as Marvor, the elders and a few other late arrivals could piece together. Their explanations made surprisingly good sense, in the main, though none of them, not even Marvor, could quite comprehend the notion of masters having masters above them: it appeared contrary to reason.
Cadnan learned, also, the new trees in this new place, which the elders had found. There were food trees nearby, and others whose leaves were meant for building, and there were also trees of mating like his own Bent Line Tree. No one could tell Cadnan where Bent Line Tree itself might be: and so he became resigned to his first mating with a new tree, which the elders had called Great Root Tree. It was not truly right, he told himself, but there was nothing to do about it.
The life in the jungle made Cadnan uncomfortable: he was nothing larger than himself, and he felt very small. When he had masters, he was a part of something great, of the chain of obedience. But here, in the jungle, there was no chain (and would the trees obey when their time came?) and each felt himself alone. It was not good to feel alone, Cadnan decided; yet, again, there was nothing he could do. It mattered for a time, and then it ceased to matter.
The time of mating came closer and closer, and Cadnan felt his own needs grow with the hours. The sun rose, and fell, and rose again.
Then the time came.
It was dark. There were others near them, but they were alone. Cadnan knew Dara was standing near him in the darkness, though he saw nothing. He heard her breath coming slowly at first, and then a little faster. He did not hear his own, but that was no matter. There was a sound from a small night-animal, but it did not come near. He stood with Dara near to Great Root Tree: if he put out his hand, he could touch it.
But he kept his hand at his side. Touching the tree, at that moment, was wrong. There were the old rules, the true rules, and to think of them made him feel better.
Dara said nothing: it was not necessary for her to speak. They knew each other, and the attraction was very strong. Cadnan had felt the attraction before, but until that moment he had not known how strong it was. And then it grew, and grew.
Still they did not move. Darkness covered both, and there was no more sound. The very feeling of the presence of others disappeared: there was nothing but Cadnan, and Dara, and Great Root Tree.
It called to him, but not to him alone. He knew what he had to do. He felt the front of his body growing warm and then hot. He felt the first touch of the liquid.
He touched Dara: their fronts touched. That alone was more than Cadnan had ever imagined yet it was not enough. Still there was more he was called on to do: he did not think about it, or know of it until it was done. He moved against Dara, as she against him: he was not himself. He was more and less, he was only the front of his body and he was Great Root Tree, he was all trees, all worlds....
When he stepped back it was like dying, but he could not die, since there was more for him to do. He stood still, very close to Dara, and, remaining close, he went to the tree. It was not far and both knew the path, but it seemed far. Cadnan could feel the mixed liquids on his front, his and Dara's: Great Root Tree seemed to call these liquids to itself, and himself and Dara with them.
They walked to it. In the darkness they could not see it, but they knew the tree: they had spent time knowing it before that night. Cadnan reached out a slow hand and touched the back of the tree, almost as smooth as metal, with only minute irregularities throughout its surface. Once again a long time seemed to pass, but it was not long.
Then he was against the tree while Dara stood behind, waiting. He pressed himself against the bark and he felt himself becoming part of Great Root Tree, becoming the tree itself; and this lasted for all time and no time, and he was separated from it and saw Dara come to where he had pressed, and move delicately and then fiercely upon the bark; then he saw nothing but heard her breathing faster and faster, and all sound stopped ... there was a long silence ... and then her breathing began again, very slowly, very slowly.
She returned to Cadnan and took his hand. It was finished. Soon the tree would bud with the results of the liquids rubbed on it: after that, there would be small ones, and Cadnan would be an elder. All of this was in the future and it was very dim in Cadnan's mind, but everything was dim: he lay on the ground and Dara lay near him, both very tired, too tired to think of anything, and he felt himself shaking for a time and his breath hissed in and out until the shaking stopped.
Dara, too, was quiet at last. The darkness had not changed. There was no sound, and no motion.
It was over.
When the Confederation forces reformed, they came on with a crash. Dodd had heard for months that Fruyling's World could never stand up to a real assault: he had even thought he believed it. But the first attack had bolstered his gloomy confidence, and the results of the second came not only as a surprise but as a naked shock.
The Alberts in spite of a few fearful masters, had been issued Belbis tubes and fought valiantly with them; the batteries did everything expected of them, and the sky was lit with supernal flashes of blinding color throughout one hard-fought night. Dodd himself, carrying a huge Belbis beam, braced himself against the outer wall of Building One and played the beam like a hose on any evidence of Confederation ships up there in the lightning-lit sky: he felt only like a robot, doing an assigned and meaningless job, and it was only later that he realized he had been shivering all the time he had used the killing beam. As far as he could tell he had hit nothing at all.
The battle raged for six hours, and by its end Dodd was half-deafened by the sound and half-blinded by the sporadic rainbow flashes that meant a hit or a miss or a return-blow, lancing down from the ships to shake buildings and ground. At first he had thought of Norma, safe in the bunkers below Building One. Then she had left his mind entirely and there was only the battle, the beginning of all things and the end (only the battle and the four constant words in his mind): even when the others began to retreat and Dodd heard the shouted orders he never moved. His hands were frozen to the Belbis beam, his ears heard only battle and his eyes saw only the shining results of his own firing.
There was a familiar voice—Albin's: "... get out while you've got a chance—it's over...."
Another voice: "... better surrender than get killed...."
The howls of a squad of Alberts as a beam lanced over them, touching them only glancingly, not killing but only subjecting them to an instant of "punishment"; and the howls ceased, swallowed up in the greater noise.
A voice: "... Johnny...."
It meant nothing. Dodd no longer knew he had a name: he was only an extension of his beam, firing with hypnotized savagery into the limitless dark.
Johnny....
He heard his own voice answering. "Get back to the bunker. You'll be safe in the bunker. Leave me alone." His voice was strange to his ears, like an echo of the blasts themselves, rough and loud.
Dawn was beginning to color the sky, very slightly. That was good: in daylight he might be able to see the ships. He would fire the beam and see the ships die. That was good, though he hardly knew why: he knew only that it pleased him. He watched the dawn out of a corner of one eye.
Johnny, it's all over, we've lost, it's finished. Johnny, come with me.
Norma's voice. But Norma was in the bunker. Norma had caused the battle: she had made the slaves. Now she was safe while he fought. The thought flickered over his mind like a beam blast, and sank into blackness.
Johnny, please ... Johnny ... come on, now. Come on. You'll be safe. You don't want to die....
No, of course he didn't. He fired the beam, aimed, fired again, aimed again. He could die when his enemies were dead. He could die when everyone who was trying to kill him was dead. Then he could die, or live: it made no difference.
He fired again, aimed again, fired....
Johnny, please.... The voice distracted him a little. No wonder he couldn't kill all the ships, with that voice distracting him. It went on and on: "Johnny, you don't have to die ... you're not responsible.... Johnny, you aren't a slaver, you just had a job to do.... Killing isn't the answer, Johnny, death isn't the answer...."
The voice went on and on, but he tried to ignore it. He had to keep firing: that was his job, and more than his job. It was his life. It was all of his life that he had left.
Dr. Haenlingen had told her she was too close to see properly, and, of course, she was. Perhaps she knew that, in the final seconds. Perhaps she never did. But that Dodd, who wanted to die and who considered death the only proper atonement for his life, could have displaced that wish onto the Confederation, onto his "enemies," and so reached a precarious and temporary balance, never occurred to her. And if it had, perhaps she could have done nothing better ... time had run out.
Time had run out. Johnny Dodd's enemies wanted him dead, and so he had to kill them (and so avoid killing himself, and so avoid recognizing how much he himself wanted to be dead). But the balance wasn't complete. There was still the guilt, still the terrible guilt that made it right for the Confederation to kill him.
The guilt had to be displaced, too.
Norma did what she could, did what she thought right. "You don't have to die," she told him. "You're not responsible."
That was what he heard, and it was enough. He hadn't made the Alberts into slaves. He hadn't made the Alberts into slaves.
But he knew who had. Long before, it had all been carefully explained to him. All of the tricks that had been used....
Of course, Dodd thought. Of course he wasn't responsible.
He felt an enormous peace descend on him, like a cloak, as he turned with the beam in his hand and smiled at Norma. She began, tentatively, to return his smile.
The beam cut her down where she stood and left a swathe of jungle behind her black and smoking.
Dodd, his job completed, dropped the beam. For one instant four words lit up in his mind, and then everything went out into blankness and peace. The body remained, the body moved, the body lived, for a time. But after those four words, blinding and bright and then swallowed up, Johnny Dodd was gone.
He had found what he needed.
This is the end.
PUBLIC OPINION SIX
From A Cultural Record of Fruyling's World
Personal Histories of the Natives (called Alberts)
As Dictated and Preserved on Tape by Historical Commission HN3-40-9
Subject (called) Cadnan
... Dara is dead in the returning, when new masters come to us and say the fighting is over. It is an accident which kills her, a stumble, they say, against a plant which is dangerous to animal life and to our kind. The accident is over and Dara is dead, and we return.
I find Marvor after the fighting, once only, and I ask him what it is that is so important about this fighting. The Confederation—the masters we now have—are only masters like the ones we know. Marvor looks at me with a look as if he, too, is a master.
Freedom is that important, he says. "Freedom is the most important thing."
I know that Marvor is not right, because I know the most important thing: it is the dead. For me Dara is most important, and I remember Puna, who is dead in the fighting: the rest does not matter. I say this now, knowing that the talk-machine hears me and that the Confederation hears me.
I say: "Can freedom make me feel happy?"
Marvor looks more like a master. "Freedom is good," he says.
And yet Dara is dead, I say. "And others are dead. How do I feel happy when I know this?"
In freedom, Marvor tells us, "Dara would be safe, and the others."
Yet it is freedom that kills them, I say.
Marvor says: "Not freedom but the war. The fight against our masters here, the old masters, to make them give us freedom."
I say: "Do not our old masters have freedom?"
They do, Marvor says, "now."
This puzzles me. I say: "But they have freedom at all times. They have what they want, and if freedom is a good, and they want it, then they have it."
Marvor says: "It is true. They have freedom for themselves."
Yet these other masters tell them what to do, I say, "and fight them to make them do it. This is not the freedom you tell of."
Marvor says: "There is a difference."
I do not see this difference, and he can not tell it to me though he tries hard. But I think maybe the new masters can tell me what it is. Marvor is going to what they call a school and I also go. This is a place where masters tell things, and we must remember them. Remembering is not hard, but we must think also, and do work. It is not enough to ask a question and find an answer. It is necessary to find our own answers.
A master asks us to count, and then to do things with the numbers we use in our counting. This is called arithmetic. We must do things with the numbers every day, and if we do not the masters are not happy with us. This arithmetic is hard: it is all new. Yet if I do it right I do not find more food or a better place or any thing I want. I do not see what is the use of this arithmetic.
But the use does not matter. The master tells me a use. He says arithmetic and all of the things in the school raise the cultural level. I do not know what a cultural level is or if it is good to be raised. The masters do not care whether I know this. They make me do what they want me to do.
And it is not simple like pushing buttons and watching a machine. It is not simple like all the things I do since I am small Cadnan. It is hard, very hard, and all the time it is more hard.
Every day there is a school. Every day there is hard work. Marvor says that freedom means doing for yourself what you want and deciding right and wrong. I say freedom is bad because the masters know right and wrong and we do not. Others say with me: there are some who know the old truths and think it is better when we, too, can understand right and wrong.
But the masters say what we have is freedom. I say it is not so. The masters tell us what to do: they tell us to do arithmetic, to do all other school things, and we do not do for ourselves what we want. We do not do anything for ourselves, but always the masters tell us.
This is the same as before the fighting. It is always the same. A master is a master.
But the old masters were the best. I remember the old masters and the old work, and I want this time to come again. I want the old work, which is easy, and not this new work, which is hard. I want the old slavery, where we know right and wrong, and not the new slavery, where only the masters know and they say they cannot tell us.
If I am free, if I can decide for myself what it is that I want, then this is what I decide.
I want the old masters back again.
I, Cadnan, say this.
PUBLIC OPINION SEVEN
From the speech of Dr. Anna Haenlingen
Before the High Court (Earth) of the Confederation
Preparatory to the Passing of Sentence
... The attorneys for the Confederation government have called our position cynical, and my own attorneys have attempted, without success, to refute this charge. As head of the Psychological Division on Fruyling's World previous to the unjustified intervention of Confederation force in the affairs of that world, I feel it incumbent on me to define a position which even our own advocates do not seem to understand.
I bear a good deal of the responsibility for conditions on Fruyling's World, and I have not shirked that responsibility. I found the natives of that world in a condition of slavery, due to the work of my predecessors. I maintained them in that slavery, and made no move whatever to free them or to mitigate their status.
This is, in truth, a cynical position. I do not believe, and I have never believed, that freedom is necessarily a good for all people at all times. Like any other quality, it can be used for good or for ill.
In the contact between any barbarian people and any civilized people, some species of slavery is necessary. The barbarian does not know that he is a barbarian, and the only way to convey to him the fact that he stands at the bottom of a long ladder—a ladder so long that we have by no means reached its end, and have perhaps not yet seen its midpoint—is to force him to make contact with elements of civilization, and to utilize continuous force to keep this contact alive and viable.
The alien—the barbarian—will not of himself continue contact in any meaningful manner. The gap is too great between his life and that of the civilized person, and a disparity so great becomes, simply, invisible. Under conditions of equality, the civilized person must degenerate to barbarian status: his mind can comprehend the barbarian, and he can move in that direction. The barbarian, incapable of comprehension of the civilized world, cannot move toward that which he cannot see.
In order to bring him into motion, slavery and subjection appear necessities. There has been no civilization of which we have record which has not passed through a period of subjection to another, more forceful civilization: the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, all the great civilizations of which there is available record have passed through a period of slavery. Nor is this accidental.
Some force must be applied to begin the motion toward civilization. That force—disguise it how you will—is slavery. It is clearly the attempt to make another person do what he would not do, does not wish to do, and sees no personal profit in doing, under threat of punishment. It is subjection. That subjection is all we mean by slavery.
And slavery is a necessity.
Perhaps we were wrong: perhaps the slavery which was dictated to us by the conditions which prevailed upon Fruyling's World was not the best sort available. But freedom is not, in any case, the answer. A man may die as the result of too much oxygen: a culture, likewise, may die of too much freedom.
I have no fear of the sentence of this court. My death is unimportant, and I do not fear it. I might fear that my work be left undone, were I not certain that, under whatever name, the Confederation will find it necessary to maintain slavery on Fruyling's World.
Of this, I am quite sure.
From the Report of Genmo. Darad Farnung, Commanding Confederation Expeditionary Force, 3rd Sector From Base of Occupation, Fruyling's World (NC34157:495:4)
... In the three planetary months (approx. ninety-two Solar days) since occupation of this world, no serious incidents have been reported. The previous "rulers" of this world have been transshipped to Earth for disposal there by Confederation governmental process. With the introduction of fully automated machinery, the world's primary resources are being utilized for the good of the Confederation without the introduction of any form of slavery or forced labor whatever....
... Regarding education and aid as involving the native population, the initial shipments of teachers, investigators and experts in xenopsychology have enabled the occupation force to begin a full educational program for the benefit of the natives. This program has been accepted by the natives without delay and without any untoward incidents, and reports to the contrary are assumed to have been initiated by disaffected personnel. The program of education in a democratic and workable form of government for these natives is, and must remain, one of the shining examples of the liberative effects of Confederation doctrine and government, and should provide a valuable precedent in future cases....
... Reports that the profits of the major business of this world, since the introduction of automated machinery and experts for the repair and upkeep thereof, have decreased to the vanishing point should not be taken as serious: this is assumed to be merely a temporary hardship due to the transfer workload from the natives to the automated structure.... Since the only alternative is the placement of the workload on enslaved natives of this world, the temporary rise in taxes due to the loss on essential product profit should be taken as a needed and welcome sacrifice in the name of liberty by the peoples of the Confederation....
... A list of further urgent materials, together with a list of specialties now urgently required in order to maintain full production here, and a revised schedule of budgetary requirements to include these additional requisitions, is hereby appended....
The End