Council. They only waited now, leaning forward in
their seats, to catch the Primate's every word. Charlie breathed in
deeply.
"In a civilization such as our own, fashioned
within the realm of compassion, we can be just, or by our actions,
be forgotten in the dust of Time. As we judge this stranger to our
world, so will the conscience of Time note and remember us."
Turning as he looked down, directly facing Charlie
again, the Primate spoke, in a gentler tone.
"After your defense of the pink Safronette against
the black Prator that pursued it, the Council has need for no
further evidence. It is the opinion of this Council you have full
right to every freedom on this planet. You are civilized."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Three
Duplicates
Despite the resounding surge of impulses and
general motion throughout the Rotunda that came with the Primate's
unanimous Council decision, Charlie found words to express his
feelings, even in the great excitement of the moment.
"Thank you—" Charlie almost shouted to be heard
above the swelling waves of approval from the crowds, "thank you
very much, Mr. Bin!"
The Primate smiled, nodding to Charlie. With a
motion of his hand he added:
"You are free to go now, wherever you wish, as a
fellow member of our society."
Then the Primate turned, and followed by the six
other members of the Council, he entered the tunnel behind the high
bench. As though this were a signal for the last release
of restraint, the great mass of people increased
their first ovation for Charlie, and as he hurried up the long
aisle, free, he held the pink safronette with both hands. As people
on either side smiled and nodded to him, others reached out and
gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. Charlie felt fine, and
mist or no mist, the Barrier World was a pretty nice place, and the
aliens very fine people.
Hardly had he reached the outside
end of the aisle tunnel, when he stopped, glancing back, as he got
the impulse above the noise of the crowds. Then he saw Dondee
waving both arms as he ran toward him. Then behind him came
another
Dondee, and a
tall alien woman.
"Charles! Charles—I knew you'd win! Hey, I want you
to meet my mother, Elstara Bin."
Charlie put out his hand to the tall and smiling
stately woman who had just come up to them.
"And this is Biri Biri Bin," Dondee added. "My
duplicate!"
As they shook hands, Charlie looked from Biri back
to Dondee, then back again at the girl.
"She sure is your duplicate!" Charlie said. "She
looks exactly like you."
Dondee quickly explained that the handshake was the
way people made greetings in Arizona, as Biri and Elstara Bin took
turns with their form of greeting, by placing a hand on either side
of Charlie's neck, and greeting him.
"If you didn't dress a little bit different, I'd
never have known you from Dondee," Charlie told her. "Biri Biri Bin
..." he repeated. "It's a name, a name like music!"
Biri, with the same prankish look on her face as
Dondee, looked Charlie over curiously, without the slightest
reserve, and asked all sorts of questions about his clothes, the
star- wheel spurs, and his world.
"You must, of course, stay with us at our spiral,
Charles," said the Primate's wife. Both Dondee and Biri insisted
that their father and I offer you our home. We'd all like to have
you, Charles, for as long as you wish."
"Thanks, ma'am," Charlie said, even as Biri jumped
around between her mother and him. Seeing Dondee link his arm in
Charlie's Biri did likewise, while to Charlie they both seemed more
and more with every passing moment, to be duplicates of each other.
They even thought alike a lot, in the questions they fired at
him.
"I'd like staying at your house most of all,"
Charlie said, "since I already know Dondee, ma'am."
Charlie now forced himself not to think of the
past, or the home that was forever fighting for prominence in his
mind. He must not spoil this very fine day by worrying about Earth
... at least, not while he was around the Bins. They were trying
very hard to make him welcome and, besides, Earth was something he
could share with no one on this planet. No one, except Navajo. Good
old Nav. He was from Arizona, too.
"Dondee," Elstara Bin asked, "where did you say
Charles's animal was?"
"Oh," Dondee said airily, "he's just down the road
a piece."
To Mrs. Bin's consternation, Biri quickly
explained: "That's one of the things Charles taught him. From
Arizona!"
"Yes, ma'am," Charlie admitted.
"Or if you really want to know, mother," Dondee's
impulse elaborated, "Navajo is waiting for Charles. I had him
brought from the animal yards and he's downstairs right now, on our
bottom tier. Waiting for Charles! I sort of figured Charles might
be coming to live with us."
Charlie was so glad of the news he suddenly wanted
to do something nice for Dondee, to show his appreciation.
"Thanks, Dondee. Thanks a lot for looking out for
Navajo. He's my best friend."
Charlie caught the brief but wistful impulse that
passed back and forth between Dondee and Biri, as they both looked
at him in silence.
"One
of
my three best friends!" Charlie corrected. "You and Biri are the
other two."
Both of them smiled happily, holding Charlie's arms
closer as they walked along.
"Ever since you were celled for trial, Charles,
Dondee has been working with his father, with Biri's full backing,
to sway his decision in your favor. Though death is an outmoded
penalty in our world, still they weren't sure in your case, so they
used every means they could dream up to influence their father.
Both even promised never to slide down the spiral rail again, and
never to fight each other, if you could be found to be at least
partly civilized, and given your freedom," Elstara Bin told
Charlie. "So, in spite of your natural compassion, which all our
world now knows, these two duplicates were already decided in your
favor long ago, Charles.”
Charlie, holding on to both Biri's and Dondee's
arms, locked in his, felt that their friendship was the true kind,
no matter how reserved he might still feel to all the grown up
aliens. He could never feel that way with Biri and Dondee. It
wasn't their fault he was here, anyhow. And now that he was, they
were doing everything they knew how to make it right for him, to
make him feel like he was their own brother . . . their
duplicate.
As they all entered one of the great circular
airlifts for the quick run into the Capitol City again, Charlie
smiled happily at both Dondee and Biri. They had jostled their way,
somewhat rudely, around several other people in the great airlift,
so as to stand right up close beside him. No matter what the future
might hold, even with the hope for escape that could never die,
Charlie knew somehow that he could always count on Dondee and his
duplicate. They were his friends.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Lancer
Days passed swiftly for Charlie at first, for
Dondee and Biri never gave him any time to brood, or to remember.
And their great fondness for Navajo only made them all the closer
to Charlie. They would talk to Navajo, watch his ears move alertly
at their caressing impulses, and in the weeks that passed Charlie
taught both of them how to ride. They learned to ride as well as
Charlie—Indian style, bareback.
But like the everlasting mists that hung high in
the heavens above their world, so the strange inland city life hung
down over Charlie. Biri and Dondee, never having lived in clear,
free, open sunshine, couldn't miss it. Charlie did. He was still a
country boy, a boy of the open ranges, the broad flat desert, and
the high craggy mountains.
r
He still longed to go back to country living, to
living again on the surface . . . even a misty surface.
And in a roundabout way, though not even Dondee and
Biri would talk much about it, Charlie found that all the people of
the alien world hoped some day to live out on their own land
surface. But—first, they were waiting, waiting for something to
happen, something that would change their surface and give them the
pure light from the Sun above them. And try as he could, Charlie
could never quite get the whole story, and all he ever managed to
find out was that, in some mysterious way, it was connected with
the Star Project.
At first he had only suspected a connection between
their moving out to live on the surface and the Star Project, but
he was more and more sure of it as time passed. The Star Project
concerned the missions to Little Star, his own Earth, while their
surface change was a purely local affair of their world. There
couldn't be a connection ... and yet?
Charlie felt they had the right to a secret in
their own land, even from him, though he was now one of them. He
felt that he didn't have the right to press the answer from Biri
and Dondee, taking advantage of their close friendship. In time, if
they ever wanted to, they would tell him.
When Charlie had just about reached the point where
he felt he could no longer put off his own feelings about wanting
to live on the surface, out in the open spaces, the big day came.
He had been, along with Dondee and Biri, up on the surface with
Navajo, teaching his friends to ride. The season of the Sun
Festival had arrived. Charlie had heard about it
but had shown little interest in it. Then Dondee
and Biri informed him that their Sun yacht, the Lancer, had
arrived. It was to be their entry. They would race it, in the main
event of the Sun Festival, the once-a-period event that was the
great annual holiday.
The day of days had come, the day when all people
on the great Barrier had a chance to make the trip and see the
thing they most wanted to see. It was the day they saw the
Sun.
In the past, few of their population had been lucky
enough to make the trip, and only during the past year had hundreds
more of the great space islands been put into orbit about their
world. Since the Sun Festival ran for several days, and each person
could spend only one day aloft, all the population would have a
chance to see the Sun, this year for the first time in their
history.
Far above the Hi Fi Winds, in the thin atmosphere
beyond the first dense layer of the surrounding Barrier, the sky
islands were stationed in permanent orbit. These space platforms
were now ready and in place. And despite his own feelings for
another far-off world, Charlie couldn't help but give in and forget
for the moment his own homeland. He gladly accepted Dondee's and
Biri's offer to share in skippering the Lancer.
"I never knew too much about boats, Dondee, but
I'd sure like to go along." "Oh, you'll love it, Charles!" Biri
threw in. "You can see the Sun every minute of the time!" "It's
Biri's first time this year, Charles," Dondee informed
him. "She never went before, since only one member
of a family could go, even the Primate's, and I was the lucky
one."
"You mean," Charlie began, "you've never
even—"
"No, Charles," Biri said, "I’ve never seen the
Sun."
Charlie, feeling a great sympathy for Biri, always
bright and happy, watched her now as she petted the pink safronette
he had given her after the trial.
"She is a lucky young lady," the Primate sent the
word from across the great living room of their tower sitting
quarters. "Many people, through one circumstance or another, will
never see our Sun. You see, Charles, this is the first period that
we've been able to master the tremendous task of putting
fully-equipped platforms into operation. As you may have heard,
till recently we had to take turns for the Sun Festival."
"It is, Charles," added Elstara, from the lounge
chair near the Primate, "the most celebrative time of the year. You
must forgive us, if perhaps we seem to almost worship the Sun's
pure light. It is our greatest luxury."
"I think I know how you feel," Charlie replied. "I
really do, ma'am."
"Is it true, Charles, that the Arizona Sun—I mean,
the light from our same Sun here, shines so hard that—that 'folks'
have to keep covered? That it shines for every day of all the whole
period long?"
"Sure, Biri. It shines so hard," he said, still
smiling at her use of the word "folks," "that they all get
burned—like me!"
Biri and Dondee, for the hundredth time, held
Charlie's arms out, running their fingers lightly over his tanned
skin, as though wishing some of the Sun's magic would rub off on
them.
"Oh Charles—it's, it's so wonderful! To be really
and truly burned by the Sun," Biri said.
"Dondee—" Biri sent the impulse across the room to
her brother, "let's show Charles what we used to do—when we were
small, long ago!"
Charlie then followed their glances to the other
side of the room, where Primate and Mrs. Bin were quietly arguing
over a new program now showing on the telecron screen.
"Darda, there is absolutely
no
comparison between
the two— why, only last week the same thing happened on another
program."
"I can't accept that," the Primate told his wife,
"it's not a parallel case."
"Father," Dondee whispered to Charlie, "always says
it's not a parallel case, when mother says something to prove her
point!"
Seeing that their parents were well engrossed in
the program, they both beckoned to Charlie to follow them out onto
the center hallway of the tier. Biri ran her hand round and round
over the smooth surface of the upper end of the balustrade. Then
all three looked down the center pit with its occasional safety
nets, way down through the eighteen tiers of the long, spiralling
stairwell.