Mutiny in Space (17 page)

“As for our own men, that’s your task, Cane. I expect they will jump at the chance. After all, what were they before? Now they can be aristocrats, oligarchs, directors. It means great responsibilities, stern self-sacrificing conduct, hard work. But it will be done.”

Eventually, after more of the same, more “Yes sirs” punctuating the perambulations, Jory and O-Narra got away.

It was late afternoon. Somewhere a gong sounded, voices murmured faintly and rhythmically. The smoke of cooking fires rose thinly on the cooling air.

To O-Narra, Jory said, “Was this what you had in mind?”

Clear green eyes sober in her pale, heart-shaped face, she made with her hand the gesture of negation. “Sword-Narra is dead, and I am glad of it,” she said. “I would not want her to come to life once more. And you — the father of my child which is to be?”

He took her hands. “I have no desire to be Sword-Jory,” he said. “No desire at all.”

• • •

Levvis rejected the idea entirely. “All’s I want to do is sit on the banks of that river,” he said, “and build my boats. Seems as though I’ve always wanted something like that, but I never knew it before. Well, I know it now, and that’s it. I got no intention of becoming a member of any ruling class. I’ll give the old man a free boatride. But that’s all I’ll do for him.”

Mars said he was with Levvis. “A man who can use his hands can make out real good here, Jory. I’ve got lots of notions, and if I fiddle around with them, why, I guess some of them ought to come out real good. Do you know what? Do you know these people have never even heard of either windmills or water-wheels? Remember how many of both there were back there on Regius Two, in the Lace Pattern? I always got a kick out of hanging around and watching how they worked. Now I can make them, myself. No politics for me, I guess.”

Crammer said, “I’m still a Guildsman. I take orders. As far as I know, Captain Rond is still the Captain. I’m not interested in piddling around with toys. Somebody has to run this place and I think the Captain’s notions of how to run it are just fine. And if he’s willing to let me share the rule, why shouldn’t I take him up on it? Why should we let our race become absorbed by these midgets? Yes, First Officer — tell Captain Rond that I’m with him. All the way. All the way.”

And Duston stood there with his head bowed a long time. Finally he said, “I don’t know. The notion of living in a castle and running things my way seems kind of exciting. But … I can’t forget old Locky’s last words about seeing that the farmers here got a break. He said they should be able to own their own land. That’s fair enough, isn’t it? I guess I’ll just wait and see. What kind of a deal the farmers will get — that is what will make up my mind for me. I’ll just wait and see.”

Jory had some trouble finding Storm, located him at last as he came back from a one-man mountain climbing expedition. His reaction was simple.

“I joined for the adventure. I always said so, and I never claimed differently. If the skipper’s scheme is for me to sit in an office and do desk work, nix. I’d sooner build me a raft and just drift out to sea and see where I came ashore and was was doing there, wherever it is, in the way of excitement. But if this new notion will keep me active, then I might take
him
up on it. Yes, I might very well take him up on it….”

Sire Jahan, the small equerry, was as cordial as ever. He listened to Jory’s request for a meeting with the King; then said, “I will present your request as soon as the great council is over. To present it now would be impossible. The Holy Presence has retired to prepare himself for the event. And no one may interrupt his fasting, his meditation, or his prayer.” He bowed, in the room with the dim blue tapestries upon the ancient walls.

Someone was waiting to see Jory when he returned to his quarters. Nelsa …

He had almost forgotten her. It was plain that she had not forgotten him. “I am still waiting, Giant, for questions to be answered,” was her greeting.

“Questions cannot be answered, Nelsa, before they are asked,” he said.

She smiled her quick smile, but there was something impatient in her expression. “Let us not play with words, then,” she declared. “Are you willing for me to be one of your wives?”

“I am, Nelsa.”

“Would your leader include me and my outlaws in his new class of rulers?”

Jory hesitated.
“I
don’t know,” he admitted. “But I know
him
. I am inclined to doubt it.”

“You have given me one straight answer, Giant, and an answer which is no answer at all. So now hear
my
answers. I will be your wife among other wives if things are to be no more as they were before. Or, I will accept a share in your Captain’s way of rule. But I will not bow down to a new caste which would exclude me as the former one did. Nor will any of the women of the forest. Now you have my own answers. Perhaps there will be other questions to fit my answers, at the great council. Until then — Giant, farewell.”

She left him troubled and uncertain. But O-Narra was there to comfort him.

• • •

Meanwhile, the ferment continued, with new elements coming to the surface. Or, at least, elements which had not been perceived before. A priest of the woods came forth and declared that he was in communication with the collective over-soul of the people of the land and that, according to information received, only the complete immolation of the surviving Sword-Ladies — as a sacrifice of atonement — could save the land. There were those who listened … but, so far, none who acted … so far. Another faction, and a not inconsiderable one, wanted Mukanahan and his courtiers to revive the pre-Keeperate system of government; the O-Ban to become Ban once again, with direct male rule as it had been a thousand years before. And (so both O-Narra and Nelsa revealed) there were those among the outlaws who saw no reason why they themselves should not simply exchange all-black armor for red-and-black, restore the rule of women — but with different women (namely, the outlaw women) doing the ruling.

And there was also a fourth new element.

“Of
course
, they were wrong!” a familiar voice was saying, as Jory came into Rond’s courtyard. That is, it had been familar, but for the moment he couldn’t seem to place it. “Of
course
, they were wrong. It didn’t take them long to find that out.”

“That’s for sure!”

“Boy, is it ever — !”

These two other voices he could not remember ever having heard. Three voices, not of the pettyboat group, but speaking their own language — it could only mean one thing —

Not all the men aboard
Persephone
had perished!

Jory stayed right where he was, silent, listening.

“… the madness of crowds, the psychology of contagions … not right …” The hauntingly familiar voice went on, its tones now low and confidential, now high and eagerly persuasive. “… easy to understand … past is done with and … new start to … need every man … thicker than water …”

Jory felt a cough coming, and moved on. It came, and he was grateful for it, for it gave him a chance to mask his feelings. He didn’t move away when a tall figure slapped him on the back, and if his flesh twisted a bit, why, that might have been nothing but the spasm of the cough.

Rond’s face was shining, and he launched into talk while Jory was still clearing his throat. “ — a stroke of extraordinary luck, Mr. Cane! Three more men to help us in the heavy tasks which lie ahead of us, three of our own men, we must after all consider them our own men despite the errors of the past, in which they appear to have been more sinned against than sinning. In the case of” — his voice never paused, as if he wished to give Jory no chance to interrupt — “Fourth Officer Hanks Andar, why, Mr. Andar had been on double-duty all night and naturally wishing to get as much rest as possible he had turned off the wall-communicator and being naturally a heavy sleeper anyway he heard nothing and knew nothing of the mutiny until it was an accomplished fact and the pettyboat had already left; while in the case of Guildsmen Torry and Shore, they were unable to assert themselves against the mutinous majority, and this is not to be wondered at, because we all understand what the Pre-T called the madness of crowds and the psychology of contagious excitement, mass hypnotism, mass delusion — you know, Mr. Cane, it’s easy to understand how it could have happened, the past is over and done with now and the future is only here, here where we have to make a new start to begin the work of reconstructing society and government. You see that, I’m sure, as well as I do; you see that we’ll need every man, every real man, that is, the native men being of inferior genes and stunted in mind as well as body, and much as we may like them we must regard them as children to be instructed and not as partners — no, no, not as partners, impossible — blood is after all thicker than water, and …”

He went on and on. Everyone looked at everyone else. But only Rond was speaking.

Fourth Officer Hanks Andar — Jory barely knew him, had never met him before the last journey of the
Persephone
. A fourth officer was never much, anyway, and Andar had seemed a little bit less than that. A fourth officer was usually very young, too, and Andar must have been in his thirties. He couldn’t have been over twenty-one when he got his first commission, and to have remained in the same low grade for at least ten years indicated a basic flaw in character. A man could be unsuited for life in the Guild service and still be a good man — but if a man, thus unsuited, didn’t realize it and get out early, then he couldn’t be a very good man.

Andar was tall, but unlike most tall men who either held themselves erect or else tended to stoop, he did neither: he seemed to bend backward, his eyes looking down in order to look most men in the eyes, and as a result they were always open wider than seemed natural. A perpetual look of something like surprise was on his face, but it was not an ordinary sort of look. It was the expression an adult might assume in order to express disapproval of the doings of a child, it was a look which might have been intended for earnestness by a man who — fearing disbelief of others — assumed it to mask his real emotions, not trusting them to carry him through. His teeth were long and thin and yelow and always visible, because Andar was always talking. And this was why, though Jory had seldom spoken with him, his voice had seemed so familiar.

The story of the Fourth Officer might be true. It might be only partly true. It might be not at all true. The key to Andar, Jory suddenly decided, was that he never really believed anyone would believe him, and from his anxiousness to always be believed in everything, he had ceased to be believable in anything.

As for the two guildsmen, Torry and Shore, although he didn’t know them as individuals, Jory was sure he recognized them as types. Torry would always have a deal going. If he was in a personal service section, he would be glad to provide that service after, before, and in-between regular hours … for a price. If there was a game going anywhere, Torry would be the “house” — spaceman win, spaceman lose, the house never lost — not when Torry or the Torry-type was the house. Torry would always know who had greensleeve to sell and who wanted greensleeve badly enough to pay well for it. It would have been no surprise to learn that he had been on the ramp when everyone on the ramp had been taken off in midair, because, it could be depended on, Torry would land on his feet.

And Shore would be the most regulation of men, one fine hair short of obsequious; acquiescent, obedient, yours but to command — if you were an officer. Dutiful beyond the call of duty in all things. In all
little
things. But Shore would not be exclusively an officer’s man-not he. Shore would have no desire to hear the ancient, mocking little song,

from his shipmates’ lips. He would butter his officers till they shined — and then would slip away to slang, scorn, mock, and mimic them for the amusement of his mates — that would be Shore.

Why, then, was Rond so pleased? Was it because he felt so uncertain and insecure that he was ready to clutch at any and every straw of reassurance? Did he want these three men, did he
need
these three men, to balance the dubious loyalty (as he very possibly might now regard it) of those of the pettyboat crew who hadn’t wanted to leave planet Valentine while leaving it was still possible?

“… as for discipline, Mr. Cane,” Rond went on, quickly, almost feverishly, “discipline is often what the commanding officer chooses to make it — based on the immediate situation, of course, based on the immediate situation, whatever that may be — and in my opinion, and you’ll have to admit I must be the best judge of that, and in my opinion,
discipline begins as of now
. In many ways these men, this officer and these men, were not to blame. Insofar as they were, I chose to overlook it. Whatever divided us in the past, it no longer exists. They are to be readmitted without prejudice. They will join us in command — in rule. Their blood is our blood; it is superior blood. We mustn’t forget, Mr. Cane, that we are all ancestors. Why don’t you say something, Mr. Cane?” He concluded finally, and not a little fretfully.

Andar said, “Yes, come on, come on in, the water’s fine, and we’re all in it together. We’re the new ruling class, we — ”

And Shore said, plaintively, “I hope the First Officer don’t intend to hold no grudges.”

Torry said nothing, but, then, Torry wouldn’t. Torry would still be sniffing the air.

Jory said, dryly, “How is it you’re still alive?”

Rond, Andar, and Shore burst into talk simultaneously. But Rond won out. “ — proves it, that proves it, you see! The mere fact of their not having been aboard the ship at — at the end —
proves
their difference from the other men! They left because they couldn’t put up with that mad brute, Darnley, any longer. They left in order to throw in their lot with us. They had no part in any of his excesses, they’ve assured me so.”