Anthropol, p.12
Anthropol, page 12
“Sure. Then they’ll get the information they want and send you back here.”
“Once I’m there, I might have a chance of escaping….”
“Rosid heard you were ready to break.”
“Break! Go to Pluto,” she snapped at me. “If I leave, it will be because I want to. These primitives can’t break a Gal-Mil officer.”
I said, “If you get out, it’ll be because I take you. Face it, Lori. You haven’t got the strength to escape if they turned their backs on you.”
“Nor will you in a week.”
“We have two weeks at the most to get from here to the seaport.” I said. “Can you hang on that long?”
“Aries! I can hang on longer than you, Anthropol!”
“Save the inter-agency fight for later,” I said. I glanced around. “Now let’s shut up. We’re being stared at.”
We both turned to eating. The gruel tasted better than it smelled, but not much. The kaf was bitter but strong enough to give me a momentary lift. Overhead a single naked light bulb had been turned on; outside it was dark. The bugs flocked to the light and spun away to fall in our food.
“Let’s go wash and get some sleep. Dawn comes soon enough,” Lori said.
I followed her to the doorway. A wide-mouthed tube with steam curling from it accepted our eating equipment. After Lori tossed hers into the tube, it took a good ten seconds for the sound of water splashing to come back. I wondered what the poor devils buried down below in the kitchens must look like, and what kind of crime it took to get put down there.
I asked Lori as we walked slowly to the dormitory building. “Disobedience,” she said. “Any refusal to obey a guard, or sometimes, when they’re shorthanded, just obeying slowly.” Her voice was losing its former vigor, but she had enough spirit left to add with heavy sarcasm, “Or trying to escape.”
Those were the last words she said that night. Her cot was three down from mine. She flopped down on it, her eyes closed, and she was asleep. She had forgotten about washing away the day’s filth.
I saw that the cot next to her was empty. I appropriated it. If anyone noticed in the dim light that glowed weakly from above, there was no comment made. I followed Lori’s lead and shut my eyes. I had long ago learned a number of tricks to help me get sleep when I needed it. This night I had to use every one of those tricks before I finally dropped off, all of the questions churning through my mind still unanswered.
XV
SOME OF THOSE answers I got in the morning. A raucous alarm bell blasted us from our cots with the first light. I sat up, startled by the noise. People were rolling to their feet and staggering down the aisle toward the washroom. Lori was one of them and I fell in behind her. Each person stood a moment under the tepid shower before staggering on to the line of washbasins. Some stopped there and made vague efforts at brushing their teeth or combing their stubby hair; others simply walked on and outside.
The shower helped waken me a little; more, it washed off the sweat from the hot night’s sleep. I followed Lori through it and took the basin next to hers.
Her voice was low but sharp. “Don’t be so attentive. No one here cares, but one of the guards might notice.”
“One of the guards will help us,” I said softly. “A female named Draca.”
Lori made a face, but she said nothing. I stayed away from her during the morning meal — which was a repetition of the previous night’s menu — but when the guards herded us onto the trucks, I managed to position myself so that I was put with her. I asked her which guard was Draca.
“The biggest one,” Lori said. She moved a little away from me, turned and faced the slatted wall that made up the side of the truck. Reaching out, she grasped a slat with each hand. When the truck started, I understood why.
My work had carried me to many planets, among many peoples representing the total spectrum of social structure. A lot of times the work had been unpleasant; sometimes, dangerous. But I always had the knowledge that it was temporary to sustain me. Sometimes only that knowledge kept me going.
It was the same now. Before my first day in the joy-labor camp was half over, I knew that I had to keep uppermost in my mind the thought that this too was temporary — very temporary. Otherwise, I realized, it wouldn’t be long before I either tried to rebel — which would cost me my life — or turned into one of the half-zombies my fellow workers had become.
We were packed into the truck solidly. Those of us at the sides were the most fortunate; we had something to cling to as the jouncing vehicle rattled through the forest on an incredibly rough track. The others were forced to brace themselves, shouder to shoulder or back to back. Occasionally someone fell. If they couldn’t get back up by themselves, they lay helplessly, taking the bruising shocks of the roadbed with every heave of the rough flooring.
We went through thick forest, across shallow swamps, down into steep-sided hollows and up onto already sun-seared flats. Every meter of the five or so kilometers we traveled was bone-jarring. By the time the heavy tank-truck came to a stop in a huge clearing, I felt as if I’d already done a day’s work. I wobbled to the ground when it was my turn to get out.
The door to the cab opened and a tall, thick-bodied guard stepped out. “To your jobs!” she shouted. “Move! Do you expect to waste half the day?”
Those around me melted away. I remained where I was, watching the workers move toward the edge of the clearing. The entire area had obviously been forest not too long ago. Now the trees had been cut back to form a roughly circular space about a hectare in size. The center of the clearing was filled with two piles of logs: one pile was made up of tall and very thick-butted trees that had been felled, trimmed, and peeled; the other was made up of much smaller logs also trimmed of their branches but not peeled.
I watched as some of the workers began hacking and sawing at standing trees while others worked at trimming branches and still others at peeling bark. The tall trees got a lot less gentle handling than did the short ones, I noticed. I was amazed at the primitive tools being used — ancient hand axes and saws — tools that I had last seen in a museum, in a display of pre-Inundation culture.
The big guard came alongside me. She carried a metal rod and when she prodded me with the tip, I felt a light jolt of electricity run through me. I jumped.
“Get to work!” Her stiff movements reminded me of Rosid.
“Your indulgence, dwamna,” I said quickly. “This is my first day. I have no assigned task as yet.”
She prodded me again, then she glanced quickly around. The other guards were near the workers, watching and now and then prodding a low-moving one. My guard said, “I am Draca.”
“Vernay,” I answered quickly.
She nodded. “When I prod you, do not misunderstand. But we can take no chances. I will keep the charge low.” She made a face. “Don’t do anything to make another guard prod you. Some turn their power up high. They like to see the tired bodies jerk.”
I nodded. She said, “Walk with me slowly. I will try to give you work that isn’t too tiring. Maybe you will still have strength enough after six days to make your escape attempt.”
“Six days?”
“You haven’t been told? Every ten days, there is the day of rest. It will be your only opportunity. The next one comes six days from now. After that, you would have to wait ten days more.”
Sixteen days — and I had fourteen at the most. I nodded. “You know I’m to take Captain Lori with me?”
“I know. If you fail, we must destroy her — and you too. We cannot risk having either of you talk to the Igaz in the hopes of getting out of this place.”
It was said matter-of-factly, and with as much emotion as she might use to ask for a cup of kaf. We were nearing the guards at the edge of the clearing now. Draca said softly, “I will speak to you more later.” She raised her voice, and went on with instructions.
“Listen carefully, omul. The long slim logs are prual wood. They are very tough, fire resistant, and can be treated without fear of harming them. But the smaller logs, handle carefully! They are frun wood.”
Frun wood, the most delicate, highly prized wood on Ujvila. Treated correctly, it made furniture and wall paneling of incredible beauty, having a radiant inner glow that actually gave light in a darkened room. Its grain was never the same for more than a few centimeters. I had seen pieces whose complicated sworls and curves and spins outdid anything an artist might paint. Only the most highly placed could afford frun wood in any amount.
“The Kalauz owns the rights to the world’s frun wood,” Draca told me. “To injure a piece is to strike at the Kalauz — and to receive punishment accordingly.”
“I’ll remember,” I said. I saw Lori not far away. She and a scarecrow of a man were astraddle a frun log, delicately trimming its branches with tiny-bladed hand saws. Draca started toward them.
“Look at the thin one,” she said loudly. “His hands are beginning to shake.”
One of the nearby guards laughed. “If he makes a slip, he can do his shaking on kitchen duty.”
Draca’s effort to answer the laugh with one of her own was obvious. She said to me, “To work in that steam is slow death. I will see what I can do.” Again she raised her voice. “You, take your palsy to the prual trunks and trim those for a while.”
He looked almost grateful as he crawled from the frun log. As he passed us, Draca took his saw and handed it to me. She said, “Get Captain Lori to answer your questions. But don’t talk too much or the other guards will give you trouble.”
I thanked her with a nod and joined Lori. Draca called out, “You, female. Show this new one how to do the work. And tell him his quota.”
Lori paused in her sawing and carefully held the saw away from the tree before she lifted her head and nodded, looking at me. “With prual logs, it doesn’t matter. They’re taken to the mill and squared and then sawed into planks for building. But the slightest scar on a frun log means that the entire layer — the depth of the scar — has to be peeled away.”
She set her saw daintily into the cut she had started. The blade was held parallel to the trunk and just above the smooth surface of the paper-thin bark. Her movements were quick but as accurate as those of an artist. The branch she was trimming off she held in her free hand, pulling gently to keep the saw from binding but not so hard that there was a chance of the butt of the branch tearing from the trunk at any time.
“Try it,” she said.
I followed her pattern. The hardest part was getting the saw cut started at the base of the branch. The result had to be a smooth surface without any branch sticking up at all. I did an adequate job but I was sweating violently before I was through and every muscle trembled from tension.
Draca came over. “Good enough,” she said. “But don’t be so slow, omul. You’ll never make your quota!” She went away.
Lori said, “The quota is two logs trimmed and piled by noon meal, and two more by stopping time.”
I glanced at the frun logs lying around us, some still in the net cradles used to lower them to the ground once they had been cut. It seemed to me that every one had at least a hundred branches. Fortunately most of them were small except near the butt. I learned how to trim the little ones with a few strokes of my saw. The bigger ones caused the trouble. For all the delicacy of the wood, they were tough and wiry.
Lori and I worked in silence for a good hour. I stopped and stood up, stretching tension-cramped muscles. I heard twigs crackle under a heavy foot, but before I could turn the metal tip of a rod caught my bare ribs and a violent jolt of electricity jerked me half off my feet.
I caught my balance and turned to meet the joy-filled eyes of a squat, hard-faced guard. She reminded me of Potkil. Her voice had the same harshness. “Do your resting at mealtime, omul!”
I could have taken it and gone back to work in silence. But the concentration needed for sawing the branches had built too much tension in me. For the first time since coming to Ujvila, I forgot my role of subservient Ujvilan male.
I said, “These are the trees of the Kalauz. That means they’re to be treated with the greatest care. Human muscles can stand only so much strain before they lose their control. Have you asked the Kalauz if she’d prefer to have perfect trees or if she’d prefer you to get your pleasure by using that rod?”
Her hard face turned as red as Lori’s tortured skin. I saw heads come up around me. I hadn’t bothered to keep my voice down. Lori’s gasp registered on my ears but I ignored it. The guard raised her rod threateningly.
I said, “Don’t be a fool, dwamna. To force anyone beyond endurance is to risk injuring the precious wood. You know that.”
Draca came hurrying over, flanked by two other guards. She said quickly, “This one is new. He doesn’t yet understand….”
I was wound up and I knew I had gone too far. It was plunge on now — I had no other choice. I snapped, “I understand. But does the dwamna here? I was the confidant of Potkil herself. How does this dwamna know whether or not the Kalauz herself sent me to see how her frun trees are handled?”
The guard still held her rod high but she made no move to use it. Her face had lost its redness; I could see uncertainty in her eyes. It was the biggest bluff I had ever tried to run — and I knew that to fail in it now meant at the very least persecution; at the most it meant the living death of the subterranean kitchen.
I went on. “Making quota is my concern. If I fail, then you have the right to punishment, dwamna. You do not have that right because I take precautions with the property of the Kalauz.”
I left it there. The guard’s expression was both uncertain and wary. Obviously, she wanted to jab a full charge from her rod into my hide. But I knew that more than one joy-labor camp guard had become an inmate because of mistakes; Potkil had told me of three cases during one of her rare bursts of chatter.
The rod lowered. The guard started away, Draca talking to her in low tones. I straddled my tree and began sawing again. Lori whispered, “I don’t know whether you’re an idiot or a brave fool, Vernay.” She spoke in Intragal.
I said, “It was try the bluff or be persecuted. I have too much to do to waste time having a guard like that bothering me.” It was said steadily enough, but inside I was shaking. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much risk I had taken.
Nothing more happened. Soon a siren announced the noon meal. It came from large metal cylinders strapped to the sides of the trucks — a doughy bread-like substance we washed down with bitter kaf. The guards had their own food and they ate it in the coolness of their truck cabs. Except for Draca. She seemed delegated to watch duty and she carried a thermos and mug to a shady log and seated herself where she could watch us as we ate. I was a little surprised when I saw her take a pill from her belt purse and drop it into her kaf.
I said to Lori, “Are all Neos afflicted with stomach trouble?”
“Wouldn’t you be, with the kind of tension they face?” she demanded. She was silent a moment. Then she said, “Watch Denil, the guard you talked back to. She killed a man yesterday for spitting on the ground after she ordered him to speed up his work.”
“I’ll watch her,” I said. “But right now, tell me how this operation works. Tell me everything you can.”
My rebellion seemed to have heartened her. At least she didn’t waste time arguing about the hopelessness of our being able to escape. She said, “We’ve been in this one clearing since I arrived. We cut and trim and peel and stack logs for ten days. Then there’s the day of rest. When we come back after it’s over, the piles of logs are gone.”
“Gone where? How?”
“To the mills at Malan,” Lori said. “I’ve never seen it done, but I understand they’re taken away by big helicopters. There’s no other way to get them out of this swamp.”
“No chance of walking out at all?”
Lori made a snorting sound. “You saw what we came over in the trucks. And that’s the driest part. They say that in some places the water is five meters deep and thick with savage fish and reptiles. If you can figure a way through that, there are the swamp flowers.” She looked ill. “Last week, a woman tried to escape to keep from being stabbed with a guard’s rod. Some of us were felling frun trees close enough to see what happened. She fell into a swamp flower. It ate her.”
I didn’t ask for further details; I didn’t want them right now. I said, “The way the frun logs have to be handled, the helicopters must be specially equipped.”
Lori nodded. “Padded slings pick them up and only a few go at a time — three at the most, I understand. And only three prual logs can be hauled at once.”
After the meal, I understood why. The frun logs were so light that Lori and I alone were able to pack the trimmed ones to the pile in the center of the clearing; they were so light that an air-truck type of helicopter should be able to lift and carry fifteen or twenty. But they were also delicate. We handled each one as though it were a thin shelled egg, cradling it in the palms of our hands and setting it down precisely a half meter from its nearest neighbor with all the care an archeologist gives precious pottery.
The prual logs were something else again. No two men nor a dozen could haul one from the trimming area to the pile in the clearing. Each log was roughly a third of one of the great trees in length; in thickness the butt end was more than two meters while the top was a full meter through. And they were as tough as they were heavy. Cranes attached to the snouts of the trucks jerked them rudely from the ground, swung them about and dropped them carelessly on the huge pile.
That night I lay awake trying to visualize the way an air truck would carry the logs from the clearing to the mills at Malan. Just as I fell asleep I realized that there was only one way the job could be done — unless a special type of helicopter was used. And I was sure I had seen all of Ujvila’s transportation devices.
My next problem was to figure a way for Lori and me to get a free ride to Malan. The answer came to me by midday. But it wasn’t a very good answer. By my most optimistic calculations, it gave us one chance in ten of reaching Malan alive.
