Anthropol, p.3
Anthropol, page 3
I said, “They used their usual tactics to get information, I suppose?”
I had supposed right. Gal-Mil’s philosophy is almost opposite that of Anthropol. Where we try to establish contacts through cooperation, through evolutionary methods, they prefer the go-in-and-take-over system. The result is usually chaos for a period — usually a long one. Ultimately the native population returns to power; but more often than not a resentment has developed which lasts for generations. And I know cases where after five centuries, the Federation is still a term that brings an automatic hate response to some peoples. They, of course, are always potential deserters to one or another of the Freebooter groups.
But the Federation permits both Anthropol and Gal-Mil’s approaches to solving problems of hostile populations — depending on the circumstances. The Council majority isn’t in sympathy with Gal-Mil’s high-handed and often violent tactics, but like any other political body, it is controlled as much by lobbyists and expediency as it is by logical or humanitarian concepts.
As a result, when Gal-Mil went to Ujvila, sent crews down to bring back a cross-section of the population, and then ran their prizes through interrogation procedures, they were only mildly censured by the Council. Their results were too illuminating.
“It was that raid on Ujvila that brought back the man you worked with in Conditioning,” the Chief said. “Our monitors happened to pick up some of the Gal-Mil transmissions sent by their expedition. So when they sent their report to the Council, I was ready to move in and demand a hand in the affair.” His lips split in what passed for a smile. “As usual, Gal-Mil tried to cut us out. They wanted to handle the whole rehabilitation procedure themselves.”
“But we made the first contact,” I protested.
“That was the basis for my initial argument,” the Chief said. “I can’t say I got everything I wanted, but at least we haven’t been written out of the rehabilitation plans.”
After I heard what our role was, in some ways I wished we had been written out. I was to be the only Anthropol rep on Ujvila — and only because I had been so thoroughly conditioned. The entire plan was under the control of Gal-Mil. That meant I was under the authority of a Gal-Mil officer and was required to follow his instructions. The only other concession made to Anthropol was to allow them to have their own communication ship in orbit above Ujvila. But it was tied into a communication system set up by Gal-Mil and so had no authority of its own. Even so, it would be of some value to me. I could get a message to the Chief if I had to. I had a complaint channel open to me if I thought Gal-Mil was going too far or too fast. Gal-Mil, of course, would hear everything I reported; but without our ship involved, I knew that nothing I might transmit would ever get past the Gal-Mil communication system. So, little as it was, having our own ship up there gave me a certain amount of confidence.
I almost lost it when I was called to Gal-Mil headquarters for another briefing. Going from the fairly relaxed atmosphere of Anthropol to the aseptic rigidity of Gal-Mil was almost like moving into an alien culture. Not even the attractiveness of the female colonel who led me to the briefing helped. I prefer my women out of uniform and with soft, warm voices; but beyond the obvious characterizing differences, it was hard to tell the sex of a Gal-Mil officer. They are all trained in the same pattern, indoctrinated in the same ways. And since they have no more discrimination on the basis of sex than does Anthropol, Gal-Mil has a large number of feminine members.
In fact, the General who briefed me was also a woman. Her aide was a man with a ramrod for a spine and a military manual for a brain. Whenever the General needed a rule quoted, he supplied it. I tried levity twice to kind of lighten the situation. The General’s response was a frosty smile; the aide gave no indication that he even comprehended what I was trying to do.
The gist of my briefing was simple enough: Gal-Mil had established a communication center in an isolated area not too far from Fovarosh, the capital of the planet. Precisely where it was located was none of my affair. When I needed to know, I would be told by the Gal-Mil officer already established on Ujvila. And there went my opportunity to make use of our communication ship without first going through a Gal-Mil screening.
Gal-Mil had a number of personnel already on the planet. Two had been discovered — and had disappeared. The remainder (How many wasn’t my business either.) had established themselves successfully, at least so far. From the information obtained from them and earlier from the liberated — a Gal-Mil term for “kidnapped”–Ujvilans, it seemed that there was an anti-Igaz political movement. Over the centuries there had been a number of them; all had been destroyed. This group, called the Neo-Politicos, had lasted longer than the others; in fact, they were now in their second generation.
And here is where the Chief’s persuasion and power showed: Gal-Mil had wanted to move in and take over the Ujvilan government by force. But the Chief had argued for a try at generating the take-over from the inside, that is, through the Neo-Politicos. Experience had shown us that, almost always, when a native group ousted another native group — politically or by revolution — the result was a far happier population than when the force was imposed from the outside.
But the General informed me, there was a time limit on the Chief’s approach. If it hadn’t succeeded in a quarter of an Ujvilan year, then Gal-Mil’s methods would be used. Since I was the only Anthropol representative on Ujvila, it was up to me to see that the Neo-Politicos succeeded in taking over, and within the quarter year. But a fifth of the time had already passed, since Gal-Mil had got their personnel on the planet while I was still in Conditioning.
I said, “What assurances does Anthropol have that your men will cooperate rather than try to sabotage our efforts to get the take-over generated from the inside?”
It wasn’t a politic question. My first answer was a frosty stare from the General and a stifled gasp from her aide. Then the frost went away. “Fair enough,” the General admitted. “Considering the rivalry between Anthropol and Gal-Mil, you have a right to that question.
“The answer is that our personnel is instructed to give you all possible cooperation until the deadline. Then — if you haven’t succeeded — we begin direct operations.”
“Direct operations” is another Gal-Mil euphemism. It means, “Move in by force.”
I said, “How do I make contact with the Neo-Politicos?”
She informed me that they had a learning tape prepared for me. On it was all the information I would need. That ended the interview. The aide conducted me to the learning room. I was put under and subjected to the tape. When I came back to the world, I wasn’t sure I had learned very much. I did, however, have some contacts on Ujvila; I had my instructions for procedure; and I had had my path smoothed for me to some extent.
When I returned to the Chief on my way to the shuttle that would take me out to the waiting ship, I said, “I don’t know too much, but I got promises of more cooperation than I ever expected.”
“For a good reason,” the Chief said. “Out of all the garbage that came from interrogating the Ujvilans and that came from the Gal-Mil personnel reports from the planet, the word ‘alien’ keeps popping up. An alien take-over has Gal-Mil worried enough to agree to cooperate with us.”
“What alien culture has the technology to move in on a planet under Federation surveillance?” I demanded. “And for that matter, did you ever find records of any aggressive enough to try it?”
The Chief shook his head. “I agree. But I read the reports and listened to the interview tapes, and the concern is there. It may all be based on the suspicion by the totalitarian mind directed at anything not conforming to their concepts of what is normal — and I include Gal-Mil along with the Ujvilan government — or it may have some basis. Personally, I think it’s the first. But I haven’t said so, not as long as the worry works to our advantage.”
He rose to shake my hand. “This is a tricky assignment, Vernay. It’s the kind you might not come back from. The probabilities aren’t very much in your favor, especially when you have to fight Gal-Mil as well as the Ujvilans.”
“I’ve fought Gal-Mil before and survived,” I said. “I know a lot of their tricks.”
“Keep talking to yourself that way and you might be all right,” he said, and went back to his desk.
I went out to the shuttle to begin my trip to Ujvila. As we pulled up toward the waiting ship, the Earth looked particularly beautiful.
IV
POTKIL and I squatted shoulder to shoulder in the same thick shadow. She was silent, but I needed no words from her to know that huddling this close to an omul — a male — was not to her taste. The feeling was mutual. I had no desire to share even the same air with Potkil. But neither of us had any choice tonight. When she requested a male assistant for a high security assignment, she’d got me.
I wasn’t too surprised. The preferential treatment I’d received in the two Earth months since my coming to Ujvila obviously indicated that someone fairly high up in the Igaz was a Gal-Mil operative. I’d even been given the semi-military rank of seged, which gave me a status somewhere between the scrubmen who cleaned the government buildings and the lowest order of free (non-criminal) female. The deep brown color of my coveralls proclaimed my rank.
But I wasn’t wearing them tonight. Both Potkil and I were in the ugly dun-colored clothing that set us off as free but without rank. It was a protective coloration in this part of the city. It was a neighborhood of low-ordered working people, so low that the official superiority of the female was seldom displayed; here the men moved on an almost equal footing with the women of their own class.
I was tired of squatting in the recessed doorway that protected us from a possible passerby. The night was dark with thick clouds and the streets were unlighted except for an occasional glow from a window in one of the dwellings. I needed to stretch before my muscles began to cramp.
I spoke softly from the side of my mouth, barely moving my lips and controlling the volume of my voice so that the sounds carried barely to Potkil’s helmet-covered ear. “It is close to time to move, dwamna.”
“The time will be when I so decide, omul.” She made the simple word “omul” into an epithet. Her voice was as low as mine but it slashed at me with all the arrogance the years of being unlovely and unlovable, of fighting to rise above her original class had built into her.
I gave the stock answer, “Forgive, dwamna.”
Despite my six months of conditioning, I found elements of Ujvilan culture hard to stomach. It wasn’t a matter of my being outranked by a female; it was what Potkil represented, not her femaleness, that bothered me. I would have felt the same had she been male or a bisexual Libran or an asexual Cygnan, human or alien, Freebooter or Federationist.
And what Potkil represented was a mirror of the level of Ujvilan culture that ran the planet. She represented totalitarianism in some of its most vicious aspects. But right now she represented an immediate threat to the six months of conditioning I had undergone and to the two months of nerve-wrenching existence here. Now I was in a position to make the contacts that marked the first major step in my mission on the planet. I had finally received an order from Gal-Mil. I was to come face to face with the leader of the Neo-Politicos and to try to work out with him Anthropol’s plan for a peaceful take-over of the Igaz.
But here Potkil squatted, a thick-bodied toad, while the precious time dribbled away. I had no watch, but I knew from the distant quarter hour chimes that we had already passed the time when we were supposed to leave here and begin tonight’s mission.
I couldn’t understand her continuing to delay. It was probably the most important assignment of Potkil’s career. Already a ranking officer in the Igaz-rendor, the government police force, if she succeeded tonight she had been promised a promotion to head of that force. And that would mean a status of Officer Second Glass, only one level below that of First Officer Elna, and as high as the low-born could rise.
I tried again. “Dwamna, if our quarry should escape …”
This time she didn’t take offense. She sounded almost amiable, as close to amusement as she was capable of. “Had we followed the original plan, I’m sure the quarry would have escaped, omul. But the plan has been changed. So has the night’s goal.”
The thick, hot night contracted into a heavy lump and hit me at the beltline. Changed! Changed how? The original plan had seemed difficult enough. And we had gone over it time and again to make sure that everyone involved knew his role perfectly. And now, with the minutes sliding into eternity, Potkil threw aside those long hours of labor.
Or had she? I had the sudden feeling that I might be the real quarry of this mission; that everyone else connected with it had been briefed on the change but me.
I said quickly, “I am no longer to go to Horty’s saloon, pretend to get drunk, and start a fight with the rendor there?”
“There has been no change in that part of the plan,” she said.
“But then what — ”
“Do not interrupt, omul! It is not your place to expect an explanation, only to obey orders. But I will tell you this much; had the original plan worked, you would have given a password during your fight that would have let the suspected Neo-Politicos in Horty’s think you were one of them and then they would have tried to rescue you from the rendor. You remember that much, I presume?”
I ignored her sarcasm. I remembered that much and more. Once I had given the password that Potkil’s fantastically efficient spy system had learned, every Neo-Politico in Horty’s would have identified me as one of them and so come to my aid. And while they were helping me escape from the rendor, pictures would be taken of them and tiny signaling devices attached to their clothing. Potkil’s theory was that between the identifying pictures and tracing those wearing the signaling devices to their homes, we might round up a good-sized chunk of the central core of the Neo-Politico movement. And she would have been right. From the little information I had been given by Gal-Mil, the capital was the center of Neo-Politico activity and Horty’s saloon, buried here in a low working-class district, was one of their central meeting places.
Potkil had long suspected Horty’s place; now she was out to prove her suspicions.
She said, “Much of the plan will go on as before. But you will not simply stagger to the bar and demand of Horty a double krish for a thirsty man. Instead you will demand a double krish of high quality, of the kind with pits in it.”
“I do not understand the difference,” I risked saying.
“Nor does it matter whether you understand or not.” But a second time she relented. “I learned only very recently that those particular words are more than just an identification of one as a Neo-Politico. They are an announcement that the speaker has a message of vital importance and is to be taken to the filthy rebel who leads them — to their head himself!”
I wanted to see the head of the Neo-Politicos, but not this way, not leading Potkil and her trained two-legged animals, the Igaz-rendor, to him.
I said, “Do I understand that when I am rescued from the rendor in Horty’s I won’t just be taken to a place of safety and turned loose but I’ll be taken to Neo-Politico headquarters?”
“That is my information,” she said.
I couldn’t argue with her. Potkil’s spy system was skilled in feeding her all the rumor and fact possible to learn. But it was Potkil’s own innovation that had made the mixture of information useful in the fight against the Neo-Politicos. She had everything run through primitive but efficient computers. By a process of iteration, with all variables but one held as constants and changed each time, she managed to come up again and again with solutions to problems that had plagued the Igaz. Since my coming to Ujvila, I knew of a dozen fairly high up Neo-Politicos who had been caught and proved guilty — two of them from Potkil’s own department.
But tonight Potkil had outdone herself. Because if she succeeded in capturing the head of the Neo-Politicos, the others would have no choice but to run and hide. And when they did, I knew she would have nets waiting for them to tumble into.
Nor was there much chance that she had erred. Potkil was too careful, too painstaking a worker: a sexless machine in a grossly feminine body; a compassionless entity with room inside herself for only one love — her Kalauz.
“That is why we wait,” Potkil said. “My Igaz-rendor are setting up a ring of cars with scanners in them. You will be wearing a tracking device. It will lead us to the very heart of the Neo-Politicos.”
“But what if they have their own pick-up scanners?” I demanded. “Then they will sense my device and know I am no more than bait.”
“Hardly. The device is silent now. But at the proper time — when you are taken from the saloon — I will activate it by remote control.”
She rose. “It is time to go.”
I stood up beside her. I was of average height, tall but not too tall for an Ujvilan male, but Potkil towered over me. I didn’t like what I was going to have to do next, but Potkil’s change in plan had given me no choice. As I rose, I worked a sliver of plastic from the front seam of my coveralls. I staggered a little, as a man who has squatted too long will, and I half brushed against Potkil’s loose blouse. My hand touched the plastic, colored the same as the cloth of her clothing, to the rear of her blouse. It clung, invisible in the heavy darkness, and too light for her to feel.
“Forgive, dwamna.”
“Repeat your procedures!” she snapped at me.
I said, “I am to proceed slowly down Enfil Street while you go down Draca Road. When I reach Kurva Street, I cross it and enter Horty’s saloon. I pretend to be quite drunk and I stagger to the bar and address the man there. I demand a double krish, not the cheap stuff but that of high quality, with pits in it. When I am served, I will show my money. Because of its being more than a working man should have, the rendor will come from the stations at the rear of the room and demand to know where I got so much. Then I am to say, ‘I am an honest working man with a thirst.’ That is the signal that I am in need of assistance.”
