11

MATT CAME UP with a cloth over one arm. “I’m serving no Antigands.”

“You served me last time,” Harrison reminded.

“That may be. I didn’t know you were off that ship. But I know now.” He flicked the cloth across one comer of the table, brushing away imaginary crumbs. “No Antigands served by me.”

“Is there any other place where we might get a meal?”

“Not unless somebody will let you plant an ob on them. They won’t do that if they know who you are but there’s a chance they might make the same mistake as I did.” Another flick across the corner. “I don’t make them twice.”

“You’re making one right now,” announced Gleed, his voice hard and edgy. He nudged Harrison. “Watch this.” His hand came out of a side pocket holding a tiny gun. Pointing it at Matt’s middle, he said, “Ordinarily I could get into trouble for this, if those on the ship were in the mood to make trouble. But they aren’t. They’re more than tired of you two-legged mules.” He motioned with the weapon. “So start walking and fetch us two full plates.”

“I won’t,” said Matt, firming his lips and ignoring the gun.

Gleed thumbed the safety-catch which moved with an audible click. “It’s touchy now. It’d go off at a sneeze. Get moving.”

“I won’t,” said Matt.

With unconcealed disgust, Gleed shoved the weapon back into his pocket. “I was only kidding you. It isn’t loaded.”

“Wouldn’t have made the slightest difference if it had been,” Matt assured. “I serve no Antigands and that is that.”

“What if I’d lost control of myself and blown several large holes in you?”

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“How could I have served you then?” asked Matt. “A dead person is of no use to anyone. It’s time you Antigands learned a little logic.” With which parting shot he meandered off.

“He’s got something there,” offered Harrison, patently depressed. “What can you do with a corpse? Nothing whatever. A body is in nobody’s power.”

“Oh, I don’t know. A couple of stiffs lying around might sharpen the others. They’d become really eager.”

“You’re thinking of them in Terran terms,” Harrison said. “It’s a mistake. They are not Terrans no matter where they came from originally. They are Gands.”

“Well, just what are Gands supposed to be?”

“I don’t know. It’s a safe bet they’re some kind of fanatics. Terra exported one-track-minders by the millions around the time of the Great Explosion. Look at that crazy crowd on Hygeia, for instance.”

“Ah, Hygeia. That was the only time I’ve ever strutted around wearing nothing but a dignified pose. I was looking forward to seeing Shelton and Bidworthy in their birthday suits. But those two heroes both lacked the guts.” He chuckled to himself, went on, “Those Hygeians think that complete nakedness creates real democracy, as distinct from our fake version. I’m far from sure that they’re wrong.”

“The creation of an empire has also created a cockeyed proposition,” mediated Harrison. “Namely, that Terra is always right while more than sixteen hundred planets are invariably wrong. Everyone is out of step but Terra.”

“You’re becoming kind of seditious, aren’t you?”

Harrison offered no reply. Gleed glanced at him, found his attention diverted elsewhere, followed his gaze to a brunette who had just entered.

“Nice,” approved Gleed. “Not too old, not too young. Not too fat, not too thin. Just right.”

“I know her.” Harrison waved to attract her attention.

She tripped lightly across the room, took a chair at their table. Harrison made the introduction.

“Friend of mine, Sergeant Gleed.”

“Arthur,” corrected Gleed, guzzling her with his eyes.

“Mine’s Elissa,” she told him. “What’s a sergeant supposed to be?”

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“A sort of over-above under-thing,” said Gleed. “I pass along the telling to the fellows who do the doing.”

She viewed him with frank surprise. “Do you mean that people actually allow themselves to be told?”

“Of course. Why not?”

“They must have been born servile.” Her gaze shifted to Harrison. “I’ll be ignorant of your name forever, I suppose?”

Flushing slightly, he hastened to repair the omission, adding, “But I don’t like James. I prefer Jim.”

“Then we’ll let it be Jim. Has Matt tended to you two yet?”

“He refuses to serve us.”

She shrugged soft, warm shoulders. “It’s his right. That’s freedom, isn’t it?”

“We call it mutiny,” said Gleed.

“Don’t be childish,” she reproved. She stood up, moved away. “You wait here. I’ll see what Seth says.”

“I don’t understand this,” admitted Gleed when she had passed out of earshot. “According to that fat fellow in the delicatessen, their technique is to give us the cold shoulder until we run away in a huff. But she’s . . . she’s—” He stopped while he sought around for a suitable word, found it and said, “She’s un-Gandian.”

“Not so,” Harrison contradicted. “They’ve the right to say, “I won’t’ any way they like. She’s practicing it.”

“By gosh, yes. I hadn’t thought of that. They can work it backward or forward, whichever way they please.”

“That’s right.” Harrison lowered his voice. “Here she comes.”

Resuming her seat, she primped her hair and said, “Seth will serve us personally.”

“Another traitor,” remarked Gleed, grinning.

“On one condition,” she went on. “You two must wait and have a talk with him before you leave.”

“It’s cheap at the price,” Harrison decided. Another thought struck him. “Does this mean you’ll have to wipe out several obs for all three of us?”

“Only one for myself.”

“How’s that?”

“Seth’s got ideas of his own. He doesn’t feel happy about Antigands any more than anyone else does.”

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“And so—?”

“But he has the missionary instinct. He doesn’t agree entirely with the habit of giving all Antigands the ghost-treatment. He thinks it should be reserved only for those too stubborn or stupid to be converted.” She smiled at Gleed, making his top hairs quiver. “Seth thinks that any really intelligent Antigand is a would-be Gand.”

“What is a Gand, anyway?” asked Harrison.

“An inhabitant of this world, of course.”

“I mean how did they get that name? From where did they dig it up?”

“From Gandhi,” she said.

Harrison looked blank. “Who the deuce was he?”

“An ancient Terran. The one who invented The Weapon.”

“Never heard of him.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she remarked.

“Doesn’t it?” He was irritated by this confidence in his ignorance. “Let me tell you that in these days we Terrans get as good an education as—”

“Calm down, Jim,” she advised, making it more soothing by pronouncing it, “Jeem.” She patted his arm. “What I mean is that it’s highly likely that he’s been blanked out of your history books. He might have given you unwanted ideas, see? You couldn’t be expected to know what you’ve never been given the chance to learn.”

“If you’re saying that Terran history is censored, I don’t believe it.” “It’s your right to refuse to believe. That’s freedom, isn’t it?”

“Up to a point.”

“To what point?”

“A man has duties. He has no right to refuse those.”

“No?” She raised tantalizing eyebrows, delicately curved. “Who defines those duties—himself or somebody else?”

“His superiors most times.”

“Superiors,” she scoffed with devastating scorn. “No man is superior to another. No man has the slightest right to define another man’s duties. If anyone on Terra exercises such impudent power it is only because idiots permit him to do so. They fear freedom. They prefer to be told. They like to be ordered around. They love their chains and kiss their manacles. What men!”

“I shouldn’t listen to you,” protested Gleed, chipping in. His leath-

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ery face was flushed. “You’re almost as naughty as you’re pretty.” “Afraid of your own thoughts?” she jibed, ignoring his lopsided compliment.

He went redder. “Not on your life. But I—” His voice tailed off as Seth arrived with three loaded plates and dumped them on the table.

“See you afterward,” reminded Seth. He was medium-sized, with thin features and sharp, quick-moving eyes. “Got something to say to you.”

Seth joined them shortly after they’d finished their meal. Taking a chair, he wiped condensed steam off his face, looked them over calculatingly.

“How much do you two know?”

“Enough to fight over it,” put in Elissa. “They are bothered about duties, who defines them and who performs them.”

“With good reason,” Harrison counter-attacked. “You can’t escape them yourselves.”

“Is that so?” said Seth. “How d’you make that out?”

“This world runs on some strange system of swapping obligations. How would any person cancel an ob unless he recognized it as his duty to do so?”

“Duty nothing,” declared Seth. “Duty hasn’t anything to do with it. And if it did happen to be a matter of duty every man would be left to recognize it for himself. It would be outrageous impertinence for anyone to remind him, unthinkable that anyone should order him.”

“Some guys must make an easy living,” interjected Gleed. “There’s nothing to stop them that I can see.” He studied Seth briefly before he asked, “How can you cope with a citizen who has no conscience?”

“Easy as pie.”

Elissa suggested, “Tell them the story of Idle Jack.”

“It’s a kids’ yarn,” explained Seth. “All children here know it by heart. It’s a classic fable like . . . like—” He screwed up his face. “I’ve lost track of the Terran tales the first-comers brought with them.”

“Red Riding Hood,” offered Harrison.

“Yes.” Seth seized upon it gratefully. “Something like that one. A nursery story.” He licked his lips, began, “This Idle Jack came from

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Terra as a baby, grew up in our new world, gained an understanding of our economic system and thought he’d be mighty smart. He decided to become a scratcher.”

“What’s a scratcher?” asked Gleed.

“One who lives by accepting obs but does nothing about wiping them out or planting any of his own. One who takes everything that’s going and gives nothing in return.”

“We’ve still got “em,” said Gleed.

“Up to age sixteen Jack got away with it all along the line. He was only a kid, see? All kids tend to scratch to a certain extent. We expect it and allow for it. But after sixteen he was soon in the soup.”

“How?” urged Harrison, more interested than he was willing to admit.

“He loafed around the town gathering obs by the armful. Meals, clothes and all sorts for the mere asking. It wasn’t a big town. There are no big ones on this planet. They are just small enough for everybody to know everybody—and everyone does plenty of gabbing. Within a few months the entire town knew that Jack was a determined and incorrigible scratcher.”

“Go on,” said Harrison impatiently.

“Everything dried up,” responded Seth. “Wherever Jack went people gave him the, “I won’t.’ He got no meals, no clothes, no company, no entertainment, nothing. He was avoided like a leper. Soon he became terribly hungry, busted into someone’s larder one night, treated himself to the first square meal in a week.”

“What did they do about that?”

“Nothing, not a thing.”

“That must have encouraged him some, mustn’t it?”

“How could it?” asked Seth with a thin smile. “It did him no good. Next day his belly was empty again. He was forced to repeat the performance. And the next day. And the next. People then became leery, locked up their stuff and kept watch on it. Circumstances grew harder and harder. They grew so unbearably hard that soon it was a lot easier to leave the town and try another one. So Idle Jack went away.”

“To do the same again,” Harrison prompted.

“With the same results for the same reasons,” Seth threw back at

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him. “On he went to a third town, a fourth, a fifth, a twentieth. He was stubborn enough to be witless.”

“But he was getting by,” Harrison insisted. “Taking all for nothing at the cost of moving around.”

“Oh, no he wasn’t. Our towns are small, as I said. And people do plenty of visiting from one to another. In the second town Jack had to risk being seen and talked about by visitors from the first town. In the third town he had to cope with talkers from both the first and second ones. As he went on it became a whole lot worse. In the twentieth he had to chance being condemned by anyone coming from any of the previous nineteen.” Seth leaned forward, said with emphasis, “He never reached town number twenty-eight.”

“No?”

“He lasted two weeks in number twenty-five, eight days in number twenty-six, one day in twenty-seven. That was almost the end. He knew he’d be recognized the moment he showed his face in number twenty-eight.”

“What did he do then?”

“He took to the open country, tried to live like an animal feeding on roots and wild berries. Then he disappeared—until one day some walkers found him swinging from a tree. His body was emaciated and clad in rags. Loneliness, self-neglect and his own stupidity had combined to kill him. That was Idle Jack, the scratcher. He wasn’t twenty years old.”

“On Terra,” remarked Gleed virtuously, “we don’t hang people merely for being shiftless and lazy.”

“Neither do we,” said Seth. “17Ve give them every encouragement to go hang themselves. And when they do it’s good riddance to bad rubbish.” He eyed them shrewdly as he went on, “But don’t let it worry you. Nobody has been driven to such drastic measures in my lifetime, leastways, not that I’ve heard about. People honor their obs as a matter of economic necessity and not from any sense of duty. Nobody gives orders, nobody pushes anyone around, but there’s a kind of compulsion built into the circumstances of this planet’s way of life. People play square—or they suffer. Nobody enjoys suffering, not even a numbskull.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” agreed Harrison, much exercised in mind.

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“You bet I’m right,” Seth assured. “But what I want to talk to you two about is something more important. It’s this: what is your real ambition in life?”

Without hesitation, Gleed said, “To ride the spaceways while remaining in one piece.”

“Same here,” Harrison contributed.

“I guessed that much. You’d not be in the space service if it wasn’t your choice. But you can’t stay in it forever All things come to an end. What then?”

Harrison fidgeted uneasily. “I don’t care to think of it.”

“Some day you’ll have to,” Seth pointed out. “How much longer have you got?”

“Four and a half Earth-years.”

Seth’s gaze turned to Gleed.

“Three Earth-years.”

“Not long,” said Seth. “I didn’t expect you’d have much time left. It’s a safe bet that any ship penetrating this deeply into space has a crew composed mostly of experienced old-timers getting near to the end of their terms. The practiced hands usually are chosen for the awkward jobs. By the day your boat lands on Terra it will be the end of the trail for many of them, won’t it?”

“It will be for me,” admitted Gleed, none too happy at the thought of it.

“Time, time, the older you get the faster it goes. Yet when you leave the service you’ll still be comparatively young.” He put on a faint, taunting smile. “I suppose you’ll buy yourself a private space-vessel and continue to roam the cosmos on your own?”

“Don’t talk silly,” snapped Gleed. “A Moon-boat is the best a very rich man could afford. Puttering to and fro between a satellite and its primary is no fun when you’re used to Blieder-zips across the galaxy. The smallest space-going craft is far beyond reach of the wealthiest. Only governments can foot the bill for them.”

“By “governments’ you mean communities?”

“In a way.”

“Well, then, what are you going to treat yourself to when your space-roaming days are over?”

“I’m not like Big Ears here.” Gleed jerked an indicative thumb at Harrison. “I’m a trooper and not a technician. So my choice will be

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limited by my lack of qualifications.” He scratched his head and looked wistful. “I was born and brought up on a farm. I still know a good deal about farming. So I think I’d like to get a small one of my own and settle down.”

“Think you’ll manage to do it?” asked Seth, watching him intently.

“On Falder or Hygeia or Norton’s Pink Heaven or some other planet. But not on Terra. My savings won’t extend to that. I couldn’t find half enough to meet Earth costs.”

“Meaning you can’t pile up sufficient obs?”

“I can’t,” agreed Gleed lugubriously. “Not even if I save until I’ve got a white beard four feet long.”

“So that is Terra’s reward for a long, long spell of faithful service —forego your heart’s desire or get out?”

“Shut up!”

“I won’t,” said Seth. “Why do you think four million Gands came here, Doukhobors and Naturists to Hygeia, Quakers and others to all their selected haunts? Because Terra’s reward for good citizenship has always been a peremptory order to knuckle down or get out. So we got out.”

“It was just as well, anyway,” Elissa interjected. “According to our history books Terra was badly overcrowded. We went away and relieved the pressure.”

“That is beside the point,” reproved Seth. He continued with Gleed. “You want a farm. You can’t have it on Terra much as you’d like it there. Terra says, “No—get out!’ So it has to be some place else.” He waited for that to sink in, then, “Here, you can have one for the mere taking.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that!”

“You can’t kid me,” said Gleed with the expression of one yearning to be kidded. “Where are the hidden strings?”

“On this planet any plot of ground belongs wholly to the person in possession, the one who is making actual use of it. Nobody disputes his claim so long as he continues to use it. All you need do is look around for a suitable piece of unused territory—of which there is plenty—and start using it. From that moment it is yours. Immediately you cease to use it and walk out it is anyone else’s for the taking.”

“No!” said Gleed incredulously.

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“Yes!” insisted Seth. “Moreover, if you look around long enough and strike really lucky you might stake first claim to a farm somebody else has abandoned because of death, illness, a desire to move elsewhere, a chance at something he liked better, or any other excellent reason. In that case, you would acquire ground already part-prepared together with farmhouse, milking shed, barns and all the rest. And it would be yours, all yours.”

“What would I owe the previous occupant?” Gleed asked.

“Nothing. Not an ob. Why should you? If he isn’t buried he has left for the sake of something else equally free. He can’t have the benefit both ways, coming and going.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me. Somewhere there’s a snag. Somewhere I’ve got to pour out hard cash or pile up a lot of obs.”

“Of course you have. You start a farm. A handful of local folk help you to build a house. They dump heavy obs on you. The carpenter wants farm produce for his family for the next two years. You give it, thus getting rid of that ob. You continue giving it for a couple of extra years and thereby plant an ob on him. The first time you want fences mended, or some other suitable task done, along he comes to wipe out that ob. And so with all the rest including the people who supply your raw materials, your seeds and machinery, or do your trucking for you.”

“They won’t all want milk and potatoes,” Gleed said.

“Don’t know what you mean by potatoes. I’ve never heard of them.”

“How can I settle accounts with someone who may be getting all the farm produce he wants from elsewhere?”

“Easily,” replied Seth. “A tinsmith fixes you up with several churns. He doesn’t want food. He’s getting from another source all the stuff he needs. His wife and three daughters are overweight and dieting. The mere thought of a load from your farm gives them the holy horrors.”

“Well?”

“But this tinsmith’s tailor, or his cobbler, have got obs on him and he’s not found the chance to cancel them. So he transfers them to you. As soon as you’re able, you give the tailor or cobbler whatever they require to satisfy the obs, thus doing the tinsmith’s killing

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along with your own.” Giving his usual half-smile, he added, “And everyone is happy.”

Gleed stewed it over, frowning in thought. “You’re tempting me. You shouldn’t do that. It’s a punishable crime to try to divert a spaceman from his allegiance. It’s sedition. Terra is tough with sedition.”

“Tough my eye!” Seth sniffed contemptuously. “We have Gand laws here.”

“All you need do,” suggested Elissa, sweetly persuasive, “is say to yourself that you must return to the ship, that it’s your bounded duty to do so, that neither the ship nor Terra can get along without you.” She tucked a curl away. “Then be a free individual and say, I won’t.’“

“They’d skin me alive. Bidworthy would preside over the operation in person.”

“I don’t think so,” contradicted Seth. “This Bidworthy—whom I presume to be anything but a jovial character—stands with you and the rest of your crew at the same junction. The road before him splits two ways. He has to take one or the other and there’s no third alternative. Sooner or later he’ll be hell-bent for home eating his top lip as he goes, or else he’ll be trundling around in a truck delivering your milk—because deep down inside himself that’s what he’s always wanted to do.”

“You don’t know Ruthless Rufus,” mourned Gleed. “He uses a lump of old iron for a soul.”

“That’s funny,” remarked Harrison. “Until today I’ve always thought of you in the same way.”

“I’m off duty,” replied Gleed, as if that explained everything. “I can relax and let the ego zoom around outside of business hours.” Shoving back his chair, he came to his feet. His eyes were stubborn and his jaw firm. “But I’m going back on duty—right now.”

“You’re not due before sundown tomorrow,” Harrison protested.

“I don’t care. I’m going back all the same.”

Elissa opened her mouth, closed it as Seth nudged her. They sat in silence as Gleed marched determinedly out.

“It’s a good sign,” commented Seth, strangely self-assured. “He’s been handed a wallop right where he’s weakest.” Chuckling low down, he turned to Harrison. “What is your ultimate ambition?”

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Harrison also came to his feet, deeply embarrassed. “Thanks a lot for the meal. It was a good one and I needed it.” He made a feeble gesture toward the door. “I’m going to catch him up. If he’s returning to the ship I think I’d better do the same.”

Again Seth nudged Elissa. They said nothing as Harrison made his way out, carefully closing the door behind him.

“Sheep,” decided Elissa, disappointed for no obvious reason. “One follows another. Just like sheep.”

“Not so,” said Seth. “They are humans animated by the same thoughts and the same emotions as were our forefathers who had nothing sheeplike about them.” Twisting around in his chair, he beckoned to Matt. “Bring us two shemaks.” Then to Elissa, “We’ll drink to sedition. My guess is that it won’t pay that ship to hang around too long.”

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Chapter 10 | TOC | Chapter 12