To the Stars Trilogy Part 39

"Sure matter here!" w.i.l.l.y said and slapped his knee and all of the men laughed aloud at this. Jan smiled, not quite sure what the joke was.

"Just hope you is tellin' the truth," w.i.l.l.y said, and one of the men shouted "Amen!" very loud. "Jes hard to believe, that's all. I think you. better talk to the Preacher. He kinda talk your language. He'll tell us what is what."

Jan was led from the room by the men, still carrying their guns. The weapons were all old and worn, museum pieces. They entered another room in the house, a bed-room where small black children sat on the patched quilts of a bed. They and an old and white-haired woman followed their pa.s.sage in staring silence. There was an exit here, a rough-edged hole that had been chopped through the wall. It led into a covered pa.s.sage to another house. When they had pa.s.sed through four separate dwellings in this manner Jan realized that the houses must all be connected like this, making one extended building. They finally came to a closed door on which w.i.l.l.y knocked lightly.

"Come in," a voice called out. Jan was hustled through the door into an extensive, book-lined room. The differ-ence from the other quarters he had seen was striking. This could well have been his old tutor's study at universi-ty, resembling it in more ways than one. The desk was thick with paper and opened books, there were framed drawings on the walls, and even a globe of the world. Soft chairs and there, behind the desk, the tutor himself slumped back comfortably in his chair. A black man,just like all the others.

"Thank you, w.i.l.l.y," he said. "I gonna talk to this here Jan by m'self."

"You be all right..."

"Sure will. Jus leave a man outside so's I can give a shout needs be."

When the door had closed the man rose to shake hands with Jan. He was middle-aged with a full beard and long hair, both shot through with gray. His clothing was dark and conservative, well suited to the clerical dog collar.

"I'm Reverend Montour, Mr. Kulozik. It is my very great pleasure to welcome you here."

Jan shook his hand and could only nod his thanks. All traces of patois had vanished and the Reverend spoke with an easy and cultivated voice.

"Sit down, please do. May I offer you a gla.s.s of sherry? It's a local wine and I think that you will find it enjoyable."

Jan sipped the sherry; it was quite good, and looked around the room.

"You'll pardon me for staring," he said. "But it's been years since I have been in a room like this. I admire your library."

"Thank you. Most of the volumes are centuries old and quite rare. Every page has been absorption preserved."

"Wrecker books, really? May I? Thank you." He put his gla.s.s down and stepped up to the shelves. The bind-ings were worn and heavily repaired, and many of the t.i.tles obliterated. Reaching up, he took down what looked like the soundest one and opened it carefully to the t.i.tle page. It was ent.i.tled The Middle Ages 395-1500. He turned the page carefully and on the back read "Copyright, 1942."

When he spoke he had trouble keeping the reverence out of his voice. "This book... it's over five hundred years old. I didn't know anything like this existed."

"They do, I a.s.sure you, and there are many more like it. But I can understand your feelings. You are British, I take it?"

Jan nodded.

"I thought so. The accent and that term, the Wreck-ers. I understand it is in common usage in your country.

You must understand that I have these books because of the varying paths that were followed during the period that historians call the Retrocession. At that time the different countries and areas of the world suffered the same declining fate, but they accommodated to it in differ-ent ways, usually following the existing social divisions. Great Britain, traditionally a cla.s.s-orientated society, uti-lized its historical cla.s.s system to consolidate the rigid societal structure that still exists today. The ruling elite had never been happy with education for the ma.s.ses and were only too relieved when physical circ.u.mstances did away with that necessity. But restriction of education and information, once begun, has no end. I understand that most British citizens today have no idea of the true nature of history or even of the world they live in.

Is that true?"

"Very much so. My accidental discovery of this fact was the beginning of a chain of events that, well, brought me to this room."

"I understand. Conformity must be most intellectually oppressive under a system such as yours. History followed a completely different course here, since there are many roads to tyranny. America, without a cla.s.s system, has traditionally subst.i.tuted a system of vertical mobility based for the most part on money.

It was always a truism here that it was not your lineage but your bank account that determined your status. With the exception, of course, of the physically visible minorities. Irish, Polish, Jews, tradi-tionally rejected minorities, were a.s.similated after the first few generations because their racial types permitted them to merge with the general population. Not so the dark-skinned races who, once firmly planted at the bottom of society, were forced to stay there by the repeated cycles of physical and educational deprivation. This was the situa-tion existing when the Retrocession began, and it ended with this country as you see it now."

He reached for the sherry decanter. "Your gla.s.s is empty; I'm afraid I am being a bad host."

"Yes, please, not too much. And do go on. I have been for years on a planet that must be the cultural wasteland of the universe. Your words, conversation like this, you can't understand how I feel ..

"I think I do. I know I felt the same way myself when I opened my first book. It was that same thirst for knowl-edge that led me to this room, to the position that I have today. I wanted to know just why the world was the way it was. I had good reason to hate it-but I also wanted to understand it. As I said, the Retrocession just increased the traditional divisions.

Your pol!ce state in Britain came about through an excess of kindness, an attempt to see that everyone had at least the minimum needed for exis-tence, the food to stay alive if nothing else. But once the state controls everything, why the men who control the state have absolute power. They do not relinquish it easily as I imagine you have found out. A completely different course was followed here. The American tradition has been to declare that the needy are really slackers and that the unemployed are that way because they are naturally lazy. The Retrocession saw the complete victory of laissez faire, which is simply inst.i.tutionalized selfishness carried to the extreme. It is amazing, the nonsense that people will believe when it is in their own interest. There were actual-ly adherents then of an intellectually bankrupt theory called monetarism, which enabled the rich to get richer, the poor to get poorer, by applying a completely disproven economic theory in place of intelligence."

Montour sighed at the thought, then sipped a little of Ihis sherry.

"So the obvious happened. When the food and ener-gy began to run out the rich first kept most of it, then all of it. After all, this had always been national policy during the years leading up to the collapse when America con-sumed most of the world's petroleum, caring nothing for other countries' needs. So who can blame individuals for following the same course? Any country that permits its citizens to die for want of medical attention simply be-cause they cannot afford it, becomes a nation in moral trouble. There were riots, killing, and more riots. Guns and weapons were everywhere and they still are. The end product was a nation divided, with the browns and the blacks living as you see them, in ghettos surrounded by barbed wire. Here they grow a certain amount of food on their own, or go out to earn a bit by laboring at the menial at have not been mechanized. They die in infancy J(~b5livteh brutally short lives. The benefits of technological society do not trickle down to them at all. Unlike your country there is no attempt to conceal the history of their physical status from them. The oppressors want the oppressed to know just what happened to them. So they will not be so foolish as to try it all over again some day. So~do you wonder at our interest in this rebellion of the planets? We look forward to it spreading to Earth."

Jan could only nod and agree.

Please excuse my rudeness for asking, but I don't understand why the ruling powers permitted your educa-tion."

Montour smiled. "They didn't. My people originally came to this country as slaves. Completely without educa-tion, torn from their roots and culture. What we have achieved since that time was done despite the position our masters had p!aced us in. When the breakdown began we had no intention of giving up what we had so painfully achieved. We matured as a people even as we were being oppressed as a people. If they took away everything ex-cept our intelligence-why then we would have to rely on our intelligence alone. In doing this we had the opportu-nity to emulate the example of another oppressed minon-ty. The Jews. For millennia they kept their culture and their traditions alive through religion and respect for learning. The religious man, the educated man was the honored man. We had our religion, and we had our professors and educators. Under the pressure of circ.u.m-stance the two became amalgamated. The brightest boys are now honored by being permitted to enter the ministry when they come of age. My formative years were spent in diose streets. I speak the ghetto language that has developed since we were cut off from the mainstream of life. But I have learned the language of the oppressor as well, as part of my education. If salvation does not come in my genera-tion I shall pa.s.s on my wisdom to those who follow after me. But I know-I have faith-that it will come some day."

Jan drained the last of the sherry and put the gla.s.s down, waving away the offer of more. The rapid pa.s.sage of events had left him dazed; his mind was almost as tired as his body, his thoughts turning around and around. What crippled lives people were forced to lead. The proles in Britain were at least fed and protected like cattle-as long as they accepted this cattlelike role. While the people here in the black ghettos of America had no such com-forts, they 'did at least know who they were and what they were. But along with this knowledge was the fact that they were forced to live in a state of constant rebellion.

"I really don't know which system is the worse to live under," Jan said. "Yours or mine.

"No system of oppression should be condoned. And there are far worse ones in the world. The great socialist experiment in the Soviet Union was always hampered by the Czarist heritage with its obscene bits of madness like internal pa.s.sports and labor camps. Whether the state there would have withered away in the end as Marx predicted we will never know. By the time of the Retroces-sion they still had not industrialized their basically peasant economy. It was an easy slide back to an almost feudal culture.

Many died, but many have always died in Russia. The commissars and upper echelon party leaders took the p lace of the n.o.bility. The t.i.tles might be different today, an of the Czars transported ahead in time would feel right at home there now.

"The rebellion must spread to Earth," Jan said.

"I agree completely. We must work for that day...

The door was suddenly flung open and w.i.l.l.y stood there, gasping for breath, a gun in each hand.

"Trouble," he said. "Bad trouble. Worst I ever seen.

Nine.

"What happining?" Montour asked, shifting his speech quickly into the demotic.

"Dey's all around. More of the bolly dogs I never seen. Right around New Watts, shooting at anything moves. Wid big heat guns to burn dere way in..."

His words were interrupted by the distant r9ar of fusion cannon, overlaid with the sharp crackling of gunfire. It was loud, close by. A hard knot of fear formed in Jan's middle and he looked up and saw both men were looking at him.

"It's me they want," he said. Reverend Montour nodded.

"Very possibly. I can't remember the last time they raided in strength like this."

"There's no point in running any longer. Those fu-sion guns will burn these old buildings flat. I'm going to give myself up."

Montour shook his head. "We have places where you can hide. They put the fires out as they advance.

They just use the guns to burn their way in."

"I'm sorry. No. I've seen too many people killed recently. I can't be responsible for any more deaths.

I'm going out to them. I will not change my mind."

Montour stood for a moment, then nodded. "You are a brave man. I wish we could have done more for you." He turned to WiIlY. "Leave dem guns here and show this gen mum where the bolly dogs at."

The two pistols thudded to the floor. Jan took the scholar's hand. "I'll not forget you," he said.

"Nor I, you." Montour took a spotless white handker-chief from his breast pocket. "Better take this.

They tend to fire first."

w.i.l.l.y led the way, muttering angrily to himself, through pa.s.sageways and connecting buildings. They had to move aside as two gunmen ran by, dragging a third man whose clothes were soaked with blood. No end, Jan thought, no end ever.

"f.u.c.kin' bolly dogs jes out dere," w.i.l.l.y said, pointing to a door, then turned and hurried back the way they had come.

Jan shook out the folds of the handkerchief and stood to one side of the door as he eased it open. A burst of rocket slugs tore through it, screaming away down the hallway behind him.

"Stop shooting!" he called out, waving the white cloth through the gap. "I'm coming out."

A shrill whistle blew and the sound of firing began to die away. An amplified voice called out. "Open the door slowly. Come out, one at a time. Hands on your head. If your hands aren't there, if I see more than one man, I'm going to fire. All right-now."

Jan laced his fingers together on top of his head and eased the door open with his toe, then walked slowly -forward to face the ranked police officers. They were impersonal as robots behind their riot masks and shields; every weapon was pointed at him.

-."I'm all alone," he said.

"That's him!" somebody called out.

"Silence," the sergeant commanded. He holstered his weapon and waved Jan to him. "Nice and easy, that's the way. Everson, get the car up here."

He seized Jan's right arm with a practiced motion, - pulling it down behind his back to lock the handcuffs to his wrist. Then the cuffs on his other wrist. His fingers dug deep into Jan's arm as he pulled him forward.

- The blackened ground was still warm as they walked through the gap in the wire to the waiting patrol car. The sergeant held Jan's head down as he pushed him into the back, then climbed in after him. There was the scream of rubber as the driver gunned the vehicle forward.

They rode in silence. Jan was defeated, empty even of words, knowing full well what was in store. Since he came originally from Earth, Security was sure to think hini one of the leaders of-the rebellion. They would take his mind apart looking for evidence. He knew what men looked like after treatment like that.

Death would be a release.

As the car drew up before an official building the - door was pulled open; the sergeant pushed Jan through it. A uniformed officer held each arm securely as he was -hurried through the entrance and into a waiting elevator. Jari was too emotionally exhausted to notice or care where they were going. There had been too much killing, run--ning. It was over at last. They dragged him into a room, slammed him into the chair. The door opposite him opened slowly and he looked at it with dull and unseeing eyes.

Thurgood-Smythe came in.

All of the fatigue, the despair, everything was washed away by a red surge of hatred.

"You've led us quite a chase, brother-in4aw," Thurgood-Smythe said. "Now if you will promise to behave yourself I'll have those handcuffs taken off. You and I must have a serious talk."

Jan had his head down, eyes lowered, shaking with rage, his throat too tight to speak. He nodded.

"Good," Thurgood~Smythe said, mistaking the emotion for fear. "I won't hurt you, you can take my word for that:'

The cuffs clicked free and Jan rubbed the marks on his wrists, listening as heavy footsteps receded. But he could wait no longer. A harsh sound was torn from his throat as he hurled himself at his tormentor.

Their bodies crashed together, Thurgood~Smythe went over and down with Jan straddling him, his arched fingers reaching for his throat. But Thurgood-Smythe had seized his wrists and was holding him at bay. Jan leaned his weight forward, pressing down, his nails clawing into Thurgood-Smythe's face, his thumbs sinking into the sockets of his eyes. Thurgood-Smythe cried out hoa.r.s.ely-just as hands grabbed at Jan's shoulders, a foot thudded into the side of his neck knocking him away, other hard boots crushing into his body.

"That's enough Thurgood-Smy the said. "Put him into the chair and get out." He groped behind him for a chair, found it, eased into it. The gun in his hand aimed steadily at Jan. For long seconds the only sound in the room was their hoa.r.s.e breathing. "I won't have that re-peated," Thurgood-Smythe finally said. "I have some im-portant things to tell you, important for all of us, but I still will not hesitate to shoot you the instant you move in this direction. Do you understand?"

"I understand that you killed my friends, murdered Sara before me...

"What is done is done. Your mewling about it or feeling sorry for yourself will not change it...

"Kill me and have it over with. Your cat and mouse game doesn't interest me. When we parted you told me to work or be destroyed. I've ceased work, other than to work for the overthrow of you and people like you. Get it over with."

"Such a rush for annihilation:' Thurgood-Smythe smiled slightly and pushed a runnel of blood from the corner of his mouth; his face was torn and bruised, blood welling from the sockets of his eyes. He ignored the pain; the gun did not move at all from its target. "Not quite like you. "I've changed. You saw to that."

"Indeed you have. And matured as well, I sincerely hope. Enough to sit and listen to what I have to say.

I've come a long way since last we met. Now I sit on the United Nations council and act as liaison chief between global security and s.p.a.ce defenses. The UNO itself is just a toothless debating society, since there is no shared power -in this world-no matter what the propaganda in the papers says. Every country is a law unto itself. However there are committees to handle international trade agree-ments as well as the s.p.a.ce program. s.p.a.ceconcent in California is a truly international, and until recently, an interplanetary organization. We both know that it is slightly reduced in size these days.

Since there is little feedback between s.p.a.ceconcent and the various countries that prof-it from its enterprises, my position is both a secure and a powerful one. A most responsible position, as your sister eeps telling me. She is very fit, by the way, I thought you would want to know. My work is so responsible that I report to no one at all about security matters. That means I can do exactly what I want with you. Exactly."

"Do you expect me to plead for mercy?"

"You misunderstand, Jan, please hear me out. Every-thing has changed in the last few months. As you know our forces have been defeated, driven from every planet that Earth settled. These are drastic times and they call for drastic measures. Therefore all charges against you have been dropped. You are a free man, Jan, with all the rights of a free citizen."

Jan laughed. "Do you really expect me to believe that? The next thing will be you asking me to go to work for you.

"You are being prescient. I did have something like that in mind. I have a job that is perfectly suited to your background and experience." He hesitated a moment, enjoying the drama of the occasion.

"It is quite an important job for you to undertake. I want you to contact some resistance people here on Earth. As a liaison man for me."

Jan shook his head slowly. "Do you really think that I would betray them}o you? What a sick creature you are."

"My dear Jan, 1 can understand your att.i.tude, it is a reasonable one under the circ.u.mstances. But hear me out, please. I am going to tell you things about myself that you have never known or suspected.

Remember, we were friends once. Perhaps we can be so again after you hear what I have to say. Like you, as a young man, I became intrigued about the world and how it was run. Since I had no resources other than my ambition I knew I would have to make my own way. Like you I became disgusted when I discovered the sort of lives we were leading. Unlike you, I joined the forces of oppression rather than attempt to fight them. Sort of burrow from within, you might say...

"Sorry, you dirty son of a b.i.t.c.h, but it won't wash. I've seen you at your work, seen how you enjoy it."

"I am rather good, aren't I? But it is all protective coloration. I saw that Security was the real force in control of the world-so I determined to run Security. To do this I had to outdo all my rivals, to be the best at my chosen task. It was not easy but it was worth it, and I achieved two goals at the same time. I rose to power by being the most reactionary of all. No one had ever doubted me. Nor have they ever understood that by operating in this manner I was Increasing oppression and therefore the forces of resistance. I am proud to feel that this policy created the climate that fostered the present rebellion. Since the plan-ets are free my work has succeeded."

Jan shook his head. "No, that is impossible to believe."