Enemies of the System (4 page)

There Are No Free Launches

The slogans glowed in enticing colors, smoldering into darkness again as soon as the bus had passed.

Suddenly, they were propelled back into daylight. As the rock fell away and the road ceased to curve, the tourists found themselves traveling over a tremendous plain. Its extent was emphasized by the cliff now falling behind them, and the still-distant plateau in the mists. The floor of the plain—ugly, barren and broken—was dotted with rocky debris which rose in mounds. Now and then, a sluggish river could be glimpsed.

“We have entered the Great Rift Valley,” Constanza said. “The Gorge is far ahead of us. In this area, and all the way to the Starinek Ocean away to the west, are contained most of the creatures populating Lysenka II. The rest of the planet is almost entirely empty, except for indigenous spiders and a few winged insects. Don't forget that solar physicists and geognosticians tell us that this world is a very long way behind our worlds in development. Which is no doubt why it is the last refuge of capitalism.”

There was some laughter at this sally. Although most of the tourists had no way of knowing what exactly capitalism was, the word had retained smutty connotations over the ages.

“That's the River Dunder we can see occasionally over to your left. It is not large as rivers on this planet go. On the other hemisphere is a river surveyed from the air which is almost twice as long as the River Amasonia on Earth. The Dunder flows over the ancient rift valley in which we now find ourselves. It is a river with many fish in the equivalent of an early Carboniferous Age development. The experts tell us that it is some 3,130 million years since Lysenka II become cool enough to allow the steam in the atmosphere to condense as rain. Now over to your right you can see if you turn your heads another grove of horsetails. Trees very like them once flourished on Earth.”

“I think she plans to send us to sleep,” Kordan said in a low voice to Sygiek.

“We can sleep at refreshment-time. Isn't this a fine road our people have built? We could conquer any planet in the galaxy.”

“I have never entirely understood why we have not expanded our sphere of influence in space.”

“‘Utopia is an attitude, not a dimension,' if I may quote.”

“All the same … Of course, I don't question …”

The superb road unwound before them, hour after hour. When it ran beside the River Dunder, more game was sighted, most of it fleeing for cover. The other three buses had disappeared into a tan distance which quivered in the noon heat.

Rubyna Constanza had taken a break from her commentary. Now she was back again, smiling prettily as before.

“You will have noticed many more animals beside the river. Mostly they catch fish, or they prey on those who catch fish. They are very clever at concealment. The brave system workers who built this road have tales to tell of their viciousness. Those workers and the soldiers who defended them were the only members of our people ever to be allowed weapons on Lysenka II—with the exception of the garrison that permanently defends Peace City, of course.

“As I expect you all understand,” and she gave them a beautiful smile as reward for that understanding, “perhaps the most remarkable event in the entire history of Lysenka, from the point of view of
homo uniformis
, was the arrival here of a colony ship from Earth, 1.09 million years ago in the past, in bitter pre-utopian times on our home planet. In those far-off days, before our culture was established worldwide, and before the science of cratobatics was developed, fifty light years was a challengingly long distance. The colony ship was not heading for the Lysenkan system but for another system even farther away. However, something went wrong with the primitive drive, and the ship came down on this planet.” She extended her hand forward, pointing through the front window. “It made a forced landing somewhere ahead there, not so many kilometers from the Dunderzee Gorge. That colony ship belonged to the now defunct
homo sapiens
capitalist system called America. It contained not less than—”

She stopped, gasping and staring through the window.

“Oh, sygygys! Look!”

Already most of the passengers were looking. There was an obstacle of some kind on the road ahead. As the bus plunged nearer, it could be seen that there was a slash right across the smooth surface, where the road had crinkled and collapsed.

The control systems of the bus were already automatically in operation. Its perceptions began to slow the heavy vehicle some milliseconds before the humans could respond. Brakes bit, squealing.

Momentum carried the bus forward toward the gap. Regentop flung herself into Takeido's arms. As the guide rushed shrieking toward the rear of the vehicle, Dulcifer grabbed her and held her close. Sygiek reached voluntarily for Kordan's arm. Some passengers screamed. Tires burned across the tarmac as the bus slewed sideways—and slid toward the obstruction.

The gap was no more than a meter and a half wide. The bus slid nearer, inertial systems bringing it almost to a halt. Then the front skirt went over the edge. The whole body tipped, teetered, and fell.

It crashed on to one shoulder, rolling till it settled on its side with a high rending sound. The passengers were flung into heaps along the right-hand side of the bus.

Dulcifer was among the first to recover. He saw that Constanza was unhurt and then began calling in a firm voice, saying that the danger was over and that everyone should climb out who could manage to do so. From the back of the bus, an older man, an underwater hydraulics technician called Lao Fererer, shouted out that he had the emergency exit open and would help anyone who needed help.

“My knee—it's so painful I don't dare move,” gasped Kordan.

“Try,” said Sygiek. She bit her bottom lip to stop it trembling.

One by one, helping and encouraging each other, the passengers climbed out. They gathered together on the road or sat dazedly on its verge. There was a little blood, but nobody was seriously hurt.

They looked about them, shocked by the unexpected accident, stunned by the heat outside the air-conditioned bus. Kordan, Lao Fererer and the woman with him, an interplanetary weather co-ordinator called Hete Orlon, and one or two other passengers, climbed to the upper side of the bus to gain a vantage point from which to survey the territory. It did not appear promising. Despite the great distances, the sunlight gave everything a cottony aspect, making seeing difficult and contributing to a dismal feeling of claustrophobia.

A thunderous silence reigned, punctuated by the ticking of the metal of the bus. A herd of two-legged animals, shaggy-maned and blunt of snout, gazed at them from a distance of a hundred meters. All stood in more or less identical poses of alertness. In the river, things swam, turning their seal-like heads toward the scene of the crash. Everything waited. Movement hung suspended in the damp, leathery air.

“Welcome to Lysenka II,” said Ian Takeido. He laughed, but nobody else did.

IV

Kordan climbed down to stand with sober face beside Sygiek. The ongoing nature of a land vehicle; the whisper of air-conditioning; the long-familiar experience of hearing a voice electronically transmitted; listening to mildly tedious lectures; promise of an hospitable destination; all those things had vanished which, while they existed, had shielded the tourists from the understanding that they were but specks on an alien face, a long way from the System, vulnerable.

Rubyna Constanza brushed down her red uniform and said, with a tolerable imitation of her official voice, “Please do not stray too far from the bus. There is no cause for alarm. We shall be missed when we do not rendezvous at the Gorge with the other buses. Although the radio is not working, they can phone to Unity by land-line, and Air Rescue will come out immediately.” As an afterthought, she added, “Normally, the bus itself is in constant radio contact with Unity …”

“How many E-hours is all that going to take?” asked a fair-haired woman, a seasons technician with great experience of the Saturn micro-system. “It will be dark in another seven hours, won't it? What happens if no one has arrived by then?”

“We've still eight or nine hours of daylight, haven't we?” another voice asked.

These questions were never answered.

A row of dark heads appeared over the roadside embankment. Heads and shoulders, eyes, low brows. Scrutinizing the group of tourists. Regarding the wrecked bus. Nobody moved. Metal crackled.

Those dark heads and withered unimaginable faces had such a petrifying effect on the tourists that tides of time seemed to drift by like the clouds overhead. Then one of the animals hopped up from the bank and stood alertly on the highway. It took another leap, bringing it almost under the trailing skirt of the LDB. It curled back its lips and showed grey teeth.

The tourists shrank away, closing ranks. They were confronting something which filled them with an overwhelming sense of dread. The unknown had hitherto formed no part of their existence; everything that was regimented and comfortable quailed before this demon. Its darting gaze, its stance, challenged the rules they lived by.

“Look …” began Kordan. But he had nothing to say.

The animal was 1.5 meters high. It remained where it was, in a crouch, content, master of the situation. Two of its fellows scrambled up the bank and joined it, standing slightly in its rear. The three of them waited, teeth bared, snouts twitching. The tourists could hear their continual sniffing, and the rasp of their nails on the road surface.

Roughly human-shaped, the animals possessed disproportionately long arms and large paddle-like front paws, which hung to the ground. Their feet were flat and almost round, and studded with calluses. The faces were startling, the sandy flesh contorted into whorls; the effect was of a cross between man and mole, with deep-sunk little eyes set behind an armored nose, and bristling hair covering most of the skull. The bodies were covered with patchy fur.

Hete Orlon began to sob.

“The Id!” exclaimed Takeido, not without relish.

Far from showing fear, the mole-creatures evinced signs which could be interpreted as eagerness to get at the tourists if only they knew how. The tourists watched as more creatures came swarming up the embankment. A dozen of them climbed nimbly up, to stand behind their leader. Their confidence was growing. They dared to look away from the tourists, grunting to each other and licking their furry lips.

Some sort of decision was arrived at between them. The leading mole-creature took a step forward, raising a paw at the same time. As he did so, a well-aimed boot struck him squarely in the muzzle.

With a cry, the creature clutched at his face. Blood burst from under his paw. He swung round, blundering among his companions. With one accord, they all turned. With one accord, they all ran, jumped and fled down the bank. In a moment, they were gone. The cottony landscape appeared deserted again.

Vul Dulcifer walked forward and retrieved his boot. He sat on the grey road surface, pulling it on methodically. His rough features betrayed no expression.

The tourists found their tongues again. The spell was broken.

They spread out across the road, peering anxiously through the thick light, arguing amongst themselves as to whether Dulcifer's violent action was justified. Had the animals been merely curious?

“It was a moment for individual action, comrades, not a committee meeting,” said Dulcifer. He remained sitting in the road, looking at them.

Among the party was a general purposes doctor, a silent man called Lech Czwartek, who was noticeable because he alone of the party wore a small goatee beard. He spoke now, addressing his remark to Dulcifer.

“You realize that you have now convinced those animals that we are hostile?”

Unmoved, Dulcifer said, “We
are
hostile.”

However debatable Dulcifer's action, the group felt encouraged. Some of them climbed back on the side of the bus. Others stood on the bank, watching for signs of movement.

Kordan raised his arms and said in a commanding voice, “Listen to me. It is best that we form a leadership group to co-ordinate action. We should debate whether to set fire to the bus, in order to keep off the beasts until help arrives.”

“There's food and drink and shelter in the bus,” protested one woman, a dark-faced unionist leader from Mercury Second Station.

“We'll need to sleep in it tonight, if help does not arrive,” said another.

“That's defeatist talk,” said a third.

“Speak according to the rules of debate,” said Kordan. “You will all get your chance. Sygiek 194 and I will hear all your points in turn, then we decide on a co-ordinated line of action. We must remain organized … Unity Breeds Immunity.”

In the long debate that followed, everyone stated his point of view, some timidly, some defiantly. From all this, Dulcifer stood aside, arms akimbo, looking toward the river. Leaving the group about Kordan, Sygiek went over to him and said, “You are sensibly watching for danger, Vul Dulcifer. We should post look-outs before talking. The next pack of beasts may prove less timid than the last.”

“There are only so many boots to go round.”

“It is questionable wisdom to allow wild beasts on a planet with innocent holiday-makers.”

“It's their planet.”

“Not any more.”

“Millia Sygiek, while your friend Kordan is making his speeches, I want to go down this embankment and look around. My belief is that these mole-like creatures undermined the road and wrecked our bus.”

“Deliberately?”

“That we may be able to establish. Come down with me and see.”

The embankment was steep. He ran down, digging his heels in as he went. As she followed him, and they slithered down to the level of the nearby river, Kordan called her name. She did not look back.

Kordan came to the edge of the highway and called, “Where are you two going? We must not split up. Remain united!”