The Fury Out of Time (17 page)

“Will he come here?”

“Who knows? He travels where he is needed, but he is not likely to be needed to act on a simple petition. Probably he will send a message.”

“Would I be able to see him if he came here?” He had shocked her again, so he changed the subject. “Do you mind if I call you Wilurzil?”

“Why do you wish to call me that?”

“I like it better than Languages 9-17.”

“But Languages 9-17 is my name! There are many wilurzils—”

“I know. I just happen to like Wilurzil better.”

Karvel received a name of his own. He became Languages 20-249, the lowest number in the lowest classification. It carried no distinction and few privileges, and the wearing of a beard was not one of them. Because of this Karvel made his own modest contribution toward the rupture of the city’s social structure—for he was wearing a beard. It was his own, and no amount of protest could halt its growth. He had left his razor in the U.O., and Dunzalo’s otherwise ample resources were unequal to the task of supplying him with one. As the beard grew, the few Dunzals with whom Karvel came into close contact began to call him after a nickname of their own invention, which he painfully translated as “Little Fuzzy One.”

During the next few days, while Marnox ranged far making futile inquiries, Karvel found himself forced into a decision. He did not know where he would go, but he had to leave.

And he would have to walk. He had reluctantly abandoned the idea of stealing a plane. Dunzalo might take little note of a missing Languages 20-249, but it would stir up all kinds of tiresome complications over a missing aircraft; and in any event Karvel could not get himself checked out on the weird keyboard controls without arousing suspicion.

He donned the native dress to make himself less conspicuous, and at every opportunity he went exploring. Bearded scholars paced the maze of corridors and ramps, engaged in endlessly ruminative discussions but never in arguments unless their beards were of equal length. They ignored the illegally bearded Karvel. He thought their status symbols ridiculous until he remembered the university ceremonials of his own time, and the colored robes by which professors flaunted their rank.

So large was the city, and so complicated its layout, that in three days of search Karvel made no progress at all in finding his way to an exit.

In three days of English lessons, Wilurzil proved herself a linguistic genius. There was no other way to account for the progress she made in the face of Karvel’s inept teaching. No matter how carefully he expounded a point, her incisive questions soon had him muttering profanely that Haskins should have sent a linguist.

During the fourth lesson, while he was vainly attempting to explain the subtle distinction between
I walk, I am walking,
and
I do walk,
it occurred to him that a textbook would be an immense help. He decided to make one for her, but he had no words with which to ask for pencil and paper.

Neither had he learned a word for
write.

He traced words in the air and on the floor, he described the nature of the U.O.’s messages, he explained and demonstrated to the extreme limit of his vocabulary and imagination, and finally it dawned on him that Dunzalo had no written language. Wilurzil only vaguely comprehended what it was.

“The silent speech,” she said. “They say that the Overseer uses it.”

And how did the university city preserve its accumulated wealth of human knowledge? In books, naturally. Talking books. Even the city’s records were voice-recorded.

“I walk, I am walking, I do walk,” he said resignedly.

Somewhere in the distance a gong sounded, and continued to sound. Wilurzil sprang to her feet and whispered an unfamiliar word.

Her obvious terror alarmed him. He opened the door and looked out, and above the deep reverberating
boom
of the gong he could hear distant shouts.

Marnox sprang into view at the end of the corridor. “The Galds!” he shouted. “Hurry!”

Wilurzil seized his arm. “The Galds have come for you. You must hide!”

Karvel jerked free and sprang to a storage bin for his equipment. He knew at once that he had a decision to make, and while he strapped on his pack and slung his rifle his mind worked anxiously.

He wanted to go to Galdu. He
had
to go there.

The Galds had come to capture him.

What could be simpler than to outwit the Dunzals, and give himself up?

And yet, though he had to go to Galdu, he did not want to go there
as a prisoner.
Probably a prisoner would command no more attention in Galdu than a Languages 20-249 did in Dunzalo. As long as he enjoyed even a limited freedom of movement, his mission had a glimmer of a chance. If he were to be thrown into a dungeon and forgotten, it would have none at all.

His mind made up, he let Wilurzil hurry him away.

The Galds were upon them before they reached the ramp. Marnox attempted to fend them off, and was flipped with the prettiest wrestling trick Karvel had ever seen. Karvel drove his rifle butt into the chin of one Gald, smashed another in the groin, and fired a shot past the ear of a third. The report rang out thunderously, and the Galds fled in terror toward the top of the tower. Wilurzil, equally terrified, darted off in the opposite direction. Marnox stared up at Karvel in stupefaction. The gong continued to boom gloomily.

Karvel stepped over an unconscious Gald and calmly strolled away.

The lower corridors were jammed. The nonbearded were attempting to reach the towers where they might be of some use; the bearded were in frenzied flight to the depths of the city. Arms flailed, beards were torn off, and the crowd surged back and forth in search of exits. The din was tremendous.

Karvel pushed through to the park and stood there for a moment, watching a large aircraft hover over the city. He could hear gongs booming on all sides. He circled the park until he found an exit that led into a deserted corridor, and followed it. A few nonbearded men passed him, hurrying toward the center of the city.

He strolled on. The noise of battle and flight receded into the distance, and soon he could hear nothing but the ubiquitous alarm gongs. The corridor divided, intersected others, turned, turned again. It led him into an enormous, vaulted room in which he counted twenty exits. He selected the one directly opposite, and kept going.

An hour later he stood at the mouth of a tunnel, looking out across a park at the city’s undulating fields. An unmanned machine worked on in ignorance of the invasion, making unerringly straight furrows.

Karvel followed the city’s outer wall for a short distance and seated himself in a fluted recess. A tree rendered the position invisible from above, and from the ground unless someone came within a few feet of him. He made himself comfortable and waited to see what would happen next.

When darkness fell he was still waiting incredulously. The Galds had achieved complete surprise, terrorized the city, and sucked its defenders up into the towers. They needed only a coordinated assault on the unmanned perimeter to take possession of the city. That assault never came.

He wondered if they were equally inept in their own defense. If the people of Dunzalo decided to retaliate—but he could not imagine Bluebeard planning an invasion. Given a few hundred adventurous men with a solid grudge against Galdu, Karvel thought he could capture the city.

Or at least the U.O.

He got to his feet and looked about. In the darkness the city gleamed with a ghostly phosphorescence. He hurried through the park to escape the effused halo of light, and then set off at an easy, plodding pace across the newly plowed ground.

The forest was less than ten miles away, and he had all night in which to reach it

Chapter 4

The Council of the Unclaimed People had been in session since early morning; it was now midafternoon, and Karvel, pacing restlessly at the far end of the cavern room, watched the proceedings with a deepening sense of panic.

Their speech was garnished with unfamiliar words and further confused by the fact that several councilmen spoke at once in an incessant, echoing hullabaloo. Eventually, though, Karvel was able to unravel enough of the discussion to know what it was that troubled them.

These green-skinned people could have pursued a gnat through their forest in the dark, but they were inherently unable to cope with a complicated mental problem.

Bowden Karvel represented a highly complicated mental problem.

As Unclaimed People they had a venerable tradition of extending refuge to all who desired it. Always in the past the refugees had been misfits, whose mere act of escaping automatically made them outcasts. Their cities would not want them back, and would not accept them if they attempted to return. They were Unclaimed People.

Bowden Karvel was not unclaimed. Not just one city, but two, were claiming him with a vehemence entirely beyond the experience of these simple forest men. Galdu had already petitioned the Overseer about him. Now Dunzalo had demanded Karvel’s return, and threatened to make its own appeal to the Overseer.

The Unclaimed People were confronted with a problem that had never occurred before in all of their history: Could a person who was claimed become an Unclaimed Person?

Tiring of his pacing, Karvel went to the grill and helped himself to a generous serving of cakes and a bowl of the fruit drink. He still hadn’t been able to identify the strong, vaguely familiar flavor of the cakes, but after his ordeal with Dunzalo’s mush they tasted delicious and made a highly satisfying impression on the stomach.

But his anxiety blunted his hunger. He had come to the forest seeking help rather than a refuge. He was unlikely to receive either.

Abruptly the Chieftain stood up. The debate stopped immediately, and the Unclaimed People crowded in from outside or from the depths of the cave and waited in hushed expectation. Someone touched Karvel’s arm, and whispered to him, and he stepped forward and stood facing the Chieftain.

“Our decision is that you must leave,” the Chieftain announced.

“Am I permitted to inquire as to why?” Karvel asked.

“You are claimed. Therefore you cannot become an Unclaimed Person.”

“You have not yet permitted me to plead my own case. May I do so now?”

The Chieftain hesitated. The Council stirred restlessly. All of them looked surprisingly young. Either they did not show their age because of their superb physical conditioning, or they did not live as long as the city people. Their indecision, too, seemed youthful. They were not governed by a senile reluctance to act, but by doubt as to what their action should be.

“May I speak now?” Karvel asked again.

The Chieftain seated himself resignedly. “Speak, then.”

“I do so with a question,” Karvel said. “On what basis do these cities of Galdu and Dunzalo presume to own me?” He pivoted slowly, meeting the eyes of each member of the Council. “I was not born in either city. I was not acquired in lawful trade by either city. By what right am I claimed?”

Again he regarded the councilmen searchingly across an uneasy silence. “The right of possession? Galdu never possessed me. I was for a time the guest of Dunzalo, but Dunzalo did not rightfully own me and does not now. Your laws and customs are strange to me, for I come from afar. I ask for instruction. Do you not, on occasion, send a messenger or emissary to nearby cities?”

“On occasion,” the Chieftain admitted.

“When that messenger or emissary arrives at his destination, does he then become the property of the city to which he is sent?”

Again there was silence. Karvel smiled. “I am an emissary from my people to yours. I have come an enormous distance, I have suffered a perilous journey, and my mission is of utmost importance to both of our peoples. I cannot fulfill that mission if, wherever I go, I am claimed as property. I ask to be instructed as to your laws and customs. By what right do these cities claim to own me?”

“That is not for us to decide,” the Chieftain said.

“My mission concerns the Unclaimed People as well as the cities. I ask now—”

“No!” The Chieftain sprang to his feet. “Who owns you is no concern of ours. As long as you are claimed you cannot become an Unclaimed Person. Therefore you must leave.”

He turned abruptly, and walked away. The councilmen drifted off, the room began to empty. Karvel hesitated for a moment, getting his disappointment firmly in hand, and then he picked up his equipment and marched toward the exit.

He had won a partial victory. The Unclaimed People were evicting him from their forest, but they were not presuming to decide the claims. He must leave, but at least they had left him free to go.

Unfortunately the victory was meaningless. He had no place to go.

A few aircraft were parked around the edge of the shaded clearing. Paths converged from all directions, some wide roads, some narrow, a few so infrequently used that trailing vines blurred their shape.

As Karvel hesitated a plane broke through the leaves and settled slowly. He recognized Marnox at the controls and Wilurzil beside him. Hurriedly he turned into one of the lesser paths and placed a curtain of vines between himself and the clearing.