Citizen of the Galaxy (16 page)

“I will, Father.” Thorby was pleased at the prospect of entering the mysterious shrine -- he was sure that half of his relatives had never visited it -- but he was surprised at the comment. Could a former fraki be eligible for command? It was legal for an adopted son to succeed to the worry seat; sometimes captains had no sons of their own. But an ex-fraki?

Captain Krausa was saying, “I haven't given you the attention I should, Son . . . not the care I should give Baslim's son. But it's a big family and my time is so taken up. Are they treating you all right?”

“Why, sure, Father!”

“Mmm . . . glad to hear it. It's -- well, you weren't born among the People, you know.”

“I know. But everybody has treated me fine.”

“Good. I've had good reports about you. You seem to learn fast, for a -- you learn fast.”

Thorby sourly finished the phrase in his mind. The Captain went on, “Have you been in the Power Room?”

“No, sir. Just the practice room once.”

“Now is a good time, while we're grounded. It's safer and the prayers and cleansing aren't so lengthy.” Krausa paused. “No, well wait until your status is clear -- the Chief is hinting that you are material for his department. He has some silly idea that you will never have children anyway and he might regard a visit as an opportunity to snag you. Engineers!”

Thorby understood this speech, even the last word. Engineers were regarded as slightly balmy; it was commonly believed that radiations from the artificial star that gave Sisu her life ionized their brain tissues. True or not, engineers could get away with outrageous breeches of etiquette -- “not guilty by reason of insanity” was an unspoken defense for them once they had been repeatedly exposed to the hazards of their trade. The Chief Engineer even talked back to Grandmother.

But junior engineers were not allowed to stand power room watches until they no longer expected to have children; they took care of auxiliary machinery and stood training watches in a dummy power room. The People were cautious about harmful mutations, because they were more exposed to radiation hazards than were planet dwellers. One never saw overt mutation among them; what happened to babies distorted at birth was a mystery so taboo that Thorby was not even aware of it; he simply knew that power watchstanders were old men.

Nor was he interested in progeny; he simply saw in the Captain's remarks a hint that the Chief Engineer considered that Thorby could reach the exalted status of power watchstander quickly. The idea dazzled him. The men who wrestled with the mad gods of nuclear physics held status just below astrogators . . . and, in their own opinion, higher. Their opinion was closer to fact than was the official one; even a deputy captain who attempted to pull rank on a man standing power room watches was likely to wind up counting stores while the engineer rested in sick bay, then went back to doing as he pleased. Was it possible that an ex-fraki could aspire to such heights? Perhaps someday be Chief Engineer and sass the Chief Officer with impunity? “Father,” Thorby said eagerly, “the Chief Engineer thinks I can learn power room rituals?”

“Wasn't that what I said?”

“Yes, sir. Uh . . . I wonder why he thought so?”

“Are you dense? Or unusually modest? Any man who can handle firecontrol mathematics can learn nuclear engineering. But he can learn astrogation, too, which is just as important.”

Engineers never handled cargo; the only work they did in port was to load tritium and deuterium, or other tasks strictly theirs. They did no housekeeping. They . . . “Father? I think I might like to be an engineer.”

“So? Well, now that you've thought so, forget it.”

“But --”

“ 'But' what?”

“Nothing, sir. Yes, sir.”

Krausa sighed. “Son, I have obligations toward you; I'm carrying them out as best I can.” Krausa thought over what he could tell the lad. Mother had pointed out that if Baslim had wanted the boy to know the message he had carried, Baslim would have put it in Interlingua. On the other hand, since the boy now knew the Family language perhaps he had translated it himself. No, more likely he had forgotten it. “Thorby, do you know who your family is?”

Thorby was startled. “Sir? My family is Sisu”

“Certainly! I mean your family before that.”

“You mean Pop? Baslim the Cripple?”

“No, no! He was your foster father, just as I am now. Do you know what family you were born in?”

Thorby said bleakly, “I don't think I had one.”

Krausa realized that he had poked a scar, said hastily, “Now, Son, you don't have to copy all the attitudes of your messmates. Why, if it weren't for fraki, with whom would we trade? How would the People live? A man is fortunate to be born People, but there is nothing to be ashamed of in being born fraki. Every atom has its purpose.”

“I'm not ashamed!”

“Take it easy!”

“Sorry sir. I'm not ashamed of my ancestors. I simply don't know who they were. Why, for all I know, they may have been People.”

Krausa was startled. “Why, so they could have been,” he said slowly. Most slaves were purchased on planets that respectable traders never visited, or were born on estates of their owners . . . but a tragic percentage were People, stolen by raiders. This lad -- Had any ship of the People been lost around the necessary time? He wondered if, at the next Gathering, he might dig up identification from the Commodore's files?

But even that would not exhaust the possibilities; some chief officers were sloppy about sending in identifications at birth, some waited until a Gathering. Mother, now, never grudged the expense of a long n-space message; she wanted her children on record at once -- Sisu was never slack.

Suppose the boy were born People and his record had never reached the Commodore? How unfair to lose his birthright!

A thought tip-toed through his brain: a slip could be corrected in more ways than one. If any Free Ship had been lost -- He could not remember.

Nor could he talk about it. But what a wonderful thing to give the lad an ancestry! If he could . . .

He changed the subject “In a way, lad, you were always of the People.”

“Huh? Excuse me, Father?”

Son, Baslim the Cripple was an honorary member of the People.”

“What? How, Father? What ship?”

“All ships. He was elected at a Gathering. Son, a long time ago a shameful thing happened. Baslim corrected it. It put all the People in debt to him. I have said enough. Tell me, have you thought of getting married?”

Marriage was the last thing on Thorby's mind; he was blazing anxious to hear more about what Pop had done that had made him incredibly one of the People. But he recognized the warning with which an elder closed a taboo subject.

“Why, no. Father.”

“Your Grandmother thinks that you have begun to notice girls seriously.”

“Well, sir. Grandmother is never wrong . . . but I hadn't been aware of it.”

“A man isn't complete without a wife. But I don't think you're old enough. Laugh with all the girls and cry with none -- and remember our customs.” Krausa was thinking that he was bound by Baslim's injunction to seek aid of the Hegemony in finding where the lad had come from. It would be awkward if Thorby married before the opportunity arose. Yet the boy had grown taller in the months he had been in Sisu. Adding to Krausa's fret was an uneasy feeling that his half-conceived notion of finding (or faking) an ancestry for Thorby conflicted with his unbreakable obligations to Baslim.

Then he had a cheerful idea. “Tell you what. Son! It's possible that the girl for you isn't aboard. After all, there are only a few in port side purdah -- and picking a wife is a serious matter. She can gain you status or ruin you. So why not take it easy? At the Great Gathering you will meet hundreds of eligible girls. If you find one you like and who likes you, I'll discuss it with your Grandmother and if she approves, well dicker for her exchange. We won't be stingy either. How does that sound?”

It put the problem comfortably in the distance. “It sounds fine. Father!”

“I have said enough.” Krausa thought happily that he would check the files while Thorby was meeting those “hundreds of girls” -- and he need not review his obligation to Baslim until he had done so. The lad might be a born member of the People -- in fact his obvious merits made fraki ancestry almost unthinkable. If so, Baslim's wishes would be carried out in the spirit more than if followed to the letter. In the meantime -- forget it!

They completed the mile to the edge of the Losian community. Thorby stared at sleek Losian ships and thought uneasily that he had tried to burn one of those pretty things out of space. Then he reminded himself that Father had said it was not a firecontrolman's business to worry about what target was handed him.

When they got into city traffic he had no time to worry. Losians do not use passenger cars, nor do they favor anything as stately as a sedan chair. On foot, they scurry twice as fast as a man can run; in a hurry, they put on a vehicle which makes one think of jet propulsion. Four and sometimes six limbs are encased in sleeves which end in something like skates. A framework fits the body and carries a bulge for the power plant (what sort Thorby could not imagine). Encased in this mechanical clown suit, each becomes a guided missile, accelerating with careless abandon, showering sparks, filling the air with earsplitting noises, cornering in defiance of friction, inertia, and gravity, cutting in and out, never braking until the last minute.

Pedestrians and powered speed maniacs mix democratically, with no perceptible rules. There seems to be no age limit for driver's licenses and the smallest Losians are simply more reckless editions of their elders.

Thorby wondered if he would ever get out into space alive.

A Losian would come zipping toward Thorby on the wrong side of the street (there was no right side), squeal to a stop almost on Thorby's toes, zig aside while snatching breath off his face and heart out of his mouth -- and never touch him. Thorby would jump. After a dozen escapes he tried to pattern himself after his foster father. Captain Krausa plowed stolidly ahead, apparently sure that the wild drivers would treat him as a stationary object Thorby found it hard to live by that faith, but it seemed to work.

Thorby could not make out how the city was organized. Powered traffic and pedestrians poured through any opening and the convention of private land and public street did not seem to hold. At first they proceeded along an area which Thorby classified as a plaza, then they went up a ramp, through a building which had no clear limits -- no vertical walls, no defined roof -- out again and down, through an arch which skirted a hole. Thorby was lost.

Once he thought they must be going through a private home -- they pushed through what must have been a dinner party. But the guests merely pulled in their feet.

Krausa stopped. “We're almost there. Son, we're visiting the fraki who bought our load. This meeting heals the trouble between us caused by buying and selling. He has offended me by offering payment; now we have to become friends again.”

“We don't get paid?”

“What would your Grandmother say? We've already been paid -- but now I'll give it to him free and hell give me the thorium just because he likes my pretty blue eyes. Their customs don't allow anything as crass as selling.”

“They don't trade with each other?”

“Of course they do. But the theory is that one fraki gives another anything he needs. It's sheer accident that the other happens to have money that he is anxious to press on the other as a gift -- and that the two gifts balance. They are shrewd merchants, Son; we never pick up an extra credit here.”

“Then why this nonsense?”

“Son, if you worry about why fraki do what they do, you'll drive yourself crazy. When you're on their planet, do it their way . . . it's good business. Now listen. We'll have a meal of friendship . . . only they can't, or they'll lose face. So there will be a screen between us. You have to be present, because the Losian's son will be there -- only it's a daughter. And the fraki I'm going to see is the mother, not the father. Their males live in purdah . . . I think. But notice that when I speak through the interpreter, I'll use masculine gender.”

“Why?”

“Because they know enough about our customs to know that masculine gender means the head of the house. It's logical if you look at it correctly.”

Thorby wondered. Who was head of the Family? Father? Or Grandmother? Of course, when the Chief Officer issued an order, she signed it “By Order of the Captain,” but that was just because . . . no. Well, anyhow --

Thorby suddenly suspected that the customs of the Family might be illogical in spots. But the Captain was speaking. “We don't actually eat with them; that's another fiction. You'll be served a green, slimy liquid. Just raise it to your lips; it would burn out your gullet. Otherwise --” Captain Krausa paused while a Losian scorcher avoided the end of his nose. “Otherwise listen so that you will know how to behave next time. Oh yes! -- after I ask how old my host's son is, you'll be asked how old you are. You answer 'forty.' “

“Why?”

“Because that is a respectable age, in their years, for a son who is assisting his father.”

They arrived and seemed still to be in public. But they squatted down opposite two Losians while a third crouched nearby. The screen between them was the size of a kerchief; Thorby could see over it. Thorby tried to look, listen, and learn, but the traffic never let up. It shot around and cut between them, with happy, shrill racket.