Imperial Stars 3-The Crash of Empire (25 page)

"You're not organized to send messages direct. I know. We used to think it was our instruments, but we ran into it no matter how we redesigned."

"Instruments?"

Chugren pulled up the sleeve of his robe. Strapped to his upper arm were two rows of small black metal boxes. "We weren't born Masters. We use machines— like a person uses a mill instead of a pestle to grind his grain—to do the things a Master does with his mind. Only we can do them better that way. That's how we were able to surprise your Masters last night and capture them."

Dahano grunted in surprise.

"You see," Chugren said, "there aren't any Masters and slaves where I and my men come from. Any man can be a Master, so no one can enslave anyone else. And of what conceivable use is a slave when you can have anything you want just by making it?"

Dahano shook his head. "We have thought on that."

Chugren's nod was grim. "We thought about it, too. We've been watching this world from our . . . our boat . . . for weeks. We couldn't understand what your Masters wanted. They didn't eat your grain or cattle, they didn't take you for personal servants—they never took you to their city at all. Not even your women. Why, then?"

"For pleasure. We thought on it for a long time, and there is no other answer." Dahano's eyes were sunk back in their sockets, remembering Borthen's body hanging on its frame in the village square. "For pleasure."

Chugren grimaced. "That's the conclusion we reached. They won't come back here . . . re-education or no re-education . . . sick or well, Dahano—ever."

Dahano nodded to himself, staring off at nothing. "Then it
is
true—you're here to free us."

"Yes." Chugren looked at him with pity in his eyes. "You've gotten out of the habit of believing what a Master tells you, haven't you?"

"If what he says is not another of his commands, yes. But I don't think you are like our Masters."

"We're not. We come from a world called Terra, where we have had masters of our own, from time to time. But not for a long time, now. We're all free, and one of the things a free man does is to pass his freedom on to anyone who needs it."

"Another world?"

Chugren spread his hands. "See? There are some things I can't explain. But— You see the stars in the sky. And you see the sun. Well, this world is part of your sun's family. All those stars you see are suns, too—so far away that they look little. But they're as big as yours, and each of them has worlds in its family, some of them pretty much like yours. Some of them have people living on them. We have a boat that lets us travel from one to another,"

Dahano thought about that. When he decided he had it clear in his mind, he asked: "Other people. Tell me—what do you look like when you don't resemble Chugren? Do you look like us? Does everyone?"

Chugren smiled. "Not too different. I can show you." He stood up and touched his arm to his body. His robe flowed into different colors and two parts, one of which loosely covered his legs and hips while the other hugged his upper body, leaving his arms bare. He changed his face, and the color of his hair and eyes.

He was shorter than the usual person, and the shape of his ears and eyes was odd. His hands were too broad.

He looked a good deal like a usual person or Master, except that he was possibly physically stronger, for he looked powerful. Not too different.

Still, Dahano said, "Thank you," rather quickly. It was unsettling to look at him, for anyone could see at a glance that he was not born of any female person on this world.

The Terran nodded in understanding, and was Chugren again. "You see why I didn't come here as myself?"

Dahano could picture it. The villagers would have been frightened and upset. More than that, they would never have dared listen to him.

But there was something else Dahano wanted to clear up. He returned to his point: "Other worlds and other people. Tell me, have you ever been to the world where our Heaven People live?"

"Heaven People?" Chugren frowned, and Dahano knew he was trying to grasp the meaning from his mind.

"The souls of our dead persons," Dahano explained. "I had thought at first that you might be one of them, but I can see you aren't. I thought perhaps, in your boat, you might have visited them." He stopped himself there. A person does not inflict his grief on those who have no share in it.

But his mind had welled up, and Chugren saw his thought. He shook his head slowly. "No, I'm sorry, Dahano. I didn't meet your son."

Dahano looked down. "At least there will be no more." He thought of all the persons who had burned because of the Masters, and all the souls that had gone into the sky. Somewhere, on one of those worlds Chugren spoke of, there were many persons who had waited for this day to come. It was good to know that they had a home much like this world, which only the Masters had spoiled. It was good to know that some day his own soul would be there with them, and that he would be with his son again.

He remembered the long hours with Borthen, passing on to him the old ways he had learned from his father—the ways of having land of a person's own, and a house, and cattle; the remembered things, saved and kept whole from the days before the Masters were here, coming suddenly from their one village in the faraway mountains.

Many things had been lost, but they were only unimportant things that would be of no use; persons' names, and the memory of persons' lives. A person lived, died, and his sons remembered him for their lives, but then he began to fade, and his grandsons might never remember him.

The important things had lived on. Dahano knew that had been a great effort. There were always persons who were willing to let themselves forget, and simply live out what lives they had. But always there were persons who would not forget; who waited for the day when the villagers could claim the world for their own again, and need to know how to live without anyone's commanding them.

So, in all the villages, fathers taught their sons, and the sons remembered.

Dahano's face wrinkled in grief as he thought of his dead son. Borthen had remembered—perhaps too well. He had still been a young man, with a young man's fire in his blood. So he tested Chugren's power, and Chugren—the old Chugren—had commanded him to die for not tending the cattle properly.

Two more days—two more days of patience, Borthen, and I would have my son. I would not be alone. Some day you would have been Headman.

Dahano raised his eyes slowly. There were things to be done, and he was Headman in this village.

"What are you going to do?" he asked Chugren. "Are you going to make us all Masters?"

Chugren shook his head. "No. Not for a long time. And then it's going to be your own people who make themselves Masters. That's why, at first, we weren't going to let you know that anything had happened to Chugren and his fellows. What do you think would happen if we simply went to all the villages and told the people they were free?"

"If you went as you really are?"

"Yes."

"The people would be frightened. Many of them wouldn't know what to do. And afterwards I don't think they'd be happy."

"They'd know somebody came down from the sky and simply gave them their freedom."

Dahano nodded. "It would never be their freedom. It would be a gift from someone else who might come to take it back some day."

"That's why we've got to go slowly. Today Chugren came to this village and cleaned it up. In a few days, he'll come back and do something else to make things better. One by one, the old Masters' rules will be eliminated, and in a few months, everyone will be free. Some people will wonder what made the Masters change. But it won't have been sudden, and in a few generations, I think your people will have invented a hero who made the Masters change." Chugren smiled. "You, perhaps, Dahano. And then one day the Masters will go away, and their city'll burn to the ground, and that'll be the end of it."

"We'll be free."

"You'll be free, and you'll have your pride. You'll grow, you'll learn—a little faster than you might have, perhaps, and you'll spend less time on blind alleys, I can promise you—and when you have grown enough, you'll be Masters. Without more than a friendly hand to help. I don't think you'd really like it if we gave you everything, and so left you with nothing."

"A friendly hand—yes, Chugren." Dahano stood up. "That's all my people want." He felt his back straighten, and his head was up. "No more commands. No more Masters coming to give orders. No more working in fields which do not belong to anyone, doing what you do not wish to."

"I promise you that, Dahano."

"I believe you."

Chugren smiled. "On my world, friends clasp hands."

"They do the same here."

They stepped toward each other, their arms outstretched, and shook hands.

It was three days later, again in the early morning, when Chugren returned to the village square. Dahano, waiting in his doorway, saw the surprise on the faces of the villagers waiting to go out to the fields. None of the Masters had ever come this often. As Chugren beckoned to him and Dahano moved forward, none of the villagers made a sound.

They might not know what was happening, Dahano thought, but they could feel it. Freedom had an excitement that needed no words to make itself known.

He stopped in front of Chugren and bowed. "I hear, Chugren," he said, a faint smile just touching the corners of his mouth too lightly for anyone but Chugren to see.

"Good," Chugren answered harshly. Only Dahano saw the twitch of his eyelids. "Now—it's almost time for the next planting. And this time you're going to do it right. You're wearing out the land, planting the same fields year after year. Furthermore, I want to see who the lazy and stupid ones among you are. I want every family in this village to take a plot of ground. I don't care where—take your pick—as long as it's fresh ground. The plot has to be large enough to support that family, and every family will be responsible for its work. It's not necessary to follow the old working hours, so long as the work's done. Nobody will work anyone else's plot. If a person dies, his plot goes to his oldest son. Is that clear?"

Dahano bowed deeply. "I hear, Chugren. It will be done."

"Good. See to it."

"I hear."

"If the plot is too far away from the person's house, I will give him a new house so he doesn't waste his time walking back and forth. I'll have no dawdling from you people. Is
that
clear?"

"I hear, Chugren." Dahano bowed again. "Thank you," he whispered without moving his lips. Chugren grunted, winked again, and went away. Dahano turned back toward his hut, careful not to show his joy.

They were free of the fields. In every village this morning, the Masters had come and given their particular village this freedom, and the days of getting up to go to work at the Masters' commands were over.

There was a puzzled murmur coming from the crowd of villagers. One or two persons stepped forward.

"Headman—what did he mean? Aren't we to go out this morning?"

"You heard what he said, Loron," Dahano answered quietly. "We're to pick out plots of our own, and he'll give us houses to go with them."

"But, Headman—the Masters have never done this before!" The villagers were clustering around Dahano now, the bewildered ones asking him to explain, the thoughtful ones exchanging glances that were slowly coming alight.

It was one of those—Carsi, who'd never bent his head as low as some of the others—who shouted impatiently: "Who cares what or why! We're through with herding together in these stables. We're through with plowing Chugren's fields, and
you
can stay here and talk but
I'm
going to find my land!"

Dahano stepped into his hut with a lighter heart than he ever remembered, while outside the villagers were hurrying toward their huts, a great many of them to pack up their bundles and set out at once. Then he heard Gulegath stop in the doorway and throw his bitterness in before him.

"I think it's a trick!"

Dahano shrugged and let it pass. In a few weeks, the youngster would see.

"I suppose you think it's all wonderful," Gulegath pressed on. "You forget all of his past history. You discard every fact but the last. You don't stop to see where the poison lies. You bite into the fruit you think he's handed you, and you say how good it tastes."

"Do you see what his trick is, Gulegath?" Dahano asked patiently.

"If there's no trick," Gulegath answered, "then there's only one other explanation—he's afraid of us. Nothing else fits the evidence as I see it. He sees that his days are almost over, for some mysterious reason, and he's trying to buy his life. Somehow, that seems ridiculous to me."

"Perhaps," Dahano answered shortly. He didn't like Gulegath's gnawing at him like this. "But in the meantime, will you please go out and see where the new plots are, so I'll know where my village is?"

Grow older soon, Gulegath, Dahano thought. How much can my patience stand? How much longer will I have to watch you this closely? Grow wiser, or even these Masters might not let you.

He thought of telling Gulegath all of the truth. It might help. But he decided against it. If he told him, the youngster would surely react in some unsettling manner.

Dahano sat in his doorway, looking out at the great empty spaces where the village huts had been, and beyond them at the old fields losing their shape under the rain that had been pounding them steadily for hours each day. That, too, was not by accident, he guessed.

He looked around. Here and there the old huts were still standing—or rather, new houses stood where families had decided to stay. Straight roads stretched out in the directions of the farms.

Dahano smiled to himself. This is freedom, he thought. New, large houses, each set apart. The cattle barn gone, and the herds divided. The granaries taken away, and each house with its own food store until the new farms can be harvested.

And that is the best freedom of all. We have houses, but we would sleep in the open. We have food, but we would go hungry. Chugren has given us our last new lengths of cloth, but we would go naked. For we have freedom—we have our land that no one can take from us, and we live without the Masters' laws.