Enemies of the System (9 page)

Sygiek hung her head, aware that his words had unexpectedly brought tears to her eyes. She looked surreptitiously round at her companions, filthy and abject, at the alien hunters, painted to look alarming, at the wooden masks of the sentries, at the whole meager tan scene.

Ignoring Kordan, she said to Dulcifer, “A sudden recollection … Why should I remember that? Of course I was an exobirth, brought up for my first ten years in the crèche of the country town of Akrakt. I was always in trouble. I had no friends among all the hundreds of my siblings. The machines used to down-rate me and I was punished. I spent many hours alone in the dormitory during the day, just looking out of the window. Outside was an old peach orchard. I don't know why I tell you this.”

“Well, let's find out,” said Dulcifer. “Go on.”

“There was some local planning dispute, I believe. So the old peach orchard remained at the back of the crèche. I thought the neglected trees very beautiful … There were two women who worked in the crèche, prole women. They were large and shapeless. One, I remember, had black hair which was tied to hang down her back like a horse's tail. They liked to walk in the derelict orchard. I must once have known their names. I used to envy the women. They walked so close, heads together, talking, half-smiling. How I used to wonder if they were sisters, and what they talked about …

“And they would stand under the trees and lift their fat bare arms and pluck the golden fruit. They used to gather it in their arms and eat with the juice running down their chins, laughing. Not pleasant, really—but to me then, as a lonely child, so pleasant, so very pleasant. They were so happy and in such communion. Do you see what I mean?”

“You should have called to them,” Dulcifer said. “They would have liked your company. They would have given you peaches.”

“I never had the courage to call to them. I kept my window closed.”

“It's hard to ask for what we want most, isn't it?” He regarded her almost shyly.

She kicked the ground at her feet and did not reply.

They had halted at the bridge to allow the chief hunter to transfer his captives officially to the sentries. First went the spitted boar.

The transaction took place as a slow ceremony. The commander of the sentries, a sturdy man with bow legs and a head thrust forward from rounded shoulders, gave a salute of thanks. The chief returned it, touching the skull on his head. Then the prisoners were prodded across the bridge. The hunters stayed on their own side, stiff and watchful.

As they crossed the bridge, Takeido looked back and gave the chief a mocking salute of farewell. The chief did not respond.

So they arrived under the towering cliff, its face pocked with entrances. From one hole, a stream gushed, falling free to splash among rocks and feed the river. To other holes, ladders led. There was very little activity, the sentries at the cave-mouths always expected. In the graying light, the place presented a dismal appearance; to the utopians, accustomed to their graceful pyramidal cities, it looked like a rats' warren, awaiting extermination.

The prisoners' bonds were cut. They were driven by the sentries to climb one of the ladders. It was about seven meters high, and groaned and swayed as they climbed. A guard at the top hauled them one by one into the mouth of the cave.

VIII

They were made to squat at the entrance of the cave, as if in preparation for a long wait.

They had the outside world to sit and look back on as they rested. An uncomforting place it was: the ruinous landscape was now loaded with grey; it was that time of evening when the brightness in the sky merely accentuated the darkness gathered on the ground. The hunters who had captured them were allowed over the bridge. As they trundled across, round-shouldered and no longer alert, the chief removed the skull from his head to swing it at arm's length with a thumb hooked in one eye-socket.

A pack of mongrels was unleashed to patrol the cliff-foot; the melancholy howling of the creatures reinforced a general desolation.

Yet, forbidding as it was, all this formed part of a world the captives knew. As such, it appeared desirable in comparison with the dark warrens into which the tunnel behind them led. Noises and odors were wafted to them from that direction on a clammy wind; none was appealing.

“You don't need reminding that we are in deep trouble,” said Kordan, speaking in a low voice. “Without consulting me, you attacked the guards and were inevitably defeated. Such undisciplined behavior has lessened our chance of reaching any form of agreement with these savages. What you hoped could be gained by it, I can't imagine.”

It was the youngest member of the party, Ian Takeido, who answered him. “Without disrespect, Utopianist Kordan, that is exactly your problem—being unable to imagine. Imagination is necessary for control of the outside world.” He closed his eyes tightly as he spoke. “When any new thing is presented to our senses, it is only with the aid of imagination that we can appreciate to which value-group it belongs and rank it accordingly. Reason alone is not sufficient. I daresay you would agree with me there, Che Burek?”

“To put it bluntly, no,” said Burek. “I think you are a bit of an intellectual prig, comrade, and I can't see that imagination will get us home.”

“He's not a prig!” exclaimed Constanza, putting an arm defensively round Takeido. “Even if he does say some indiscreet things.”

“Perhaps, Utopianist Takeido, you will be good enough to imagine us back to the safety of Unity,” Kordan said, smiling thinly as if in pain.

“Imagination is not a trick but a principle of life,” Takeido answered, biting at his knuckles. “What we should determine, whilst there is time, is to what category these creatures belong.”

“That's intellectual rubbish,” said Burek. “Remember the old saying, ‘It doesn't matter if the honey does not forgive the bear.' The point is that
they
decide in which category
we
belong—protein category, most likely.” He leaned back contentedly against a rock, folding his arms.

“That sort of defeatist answer proves my point,” said Takeido, his eyebrows moving rapidly up and down with nervousness. “Our image of these savages has been
ad hoc
all along. First as animals, then as capitalists, now as cannibals. I'm sorry you choose to disagree with me and insult me, Utopianist Burek, because in fact I take my cue from something you said when we were waiting at the bridge, about the story of Lysenka II being, not a story of defeat, but a fable of triumph. If only our imagination will permit us to encompass a few millennia, we may perceive that these beings are in a super-category above animal, capitalist, cannibal, a super-category not unlike our own. They also are trapped on an alien planet—a planet that can never cease to remain alien however long they or their descendants exist here. So we can find common cause with them. We
all
need to get off Lysenka II. With that cause established—and communication must be possible—we become allies rather than enemies and can negotiate with them. In exchange for our freedom, the system agrees to settle Lysenka's human tribes on Earth.”

Sygiek clapped her hands. “Brilliant deductions. I said reason was needed.”

“Brilliant imagination,” said Kordan. “And nothing more. We have been accustomed all our life to what you call negotiation; it is our directing principle. Do you think these barbarians, on their uncompromising world, will understand such a concept? I doubt it! For them, it must inevitably be a quick meal today rather than rescue next year.”

“You will accept nothing you do not think of yourself,” said Constanza angrily.

Dulcifer and Sygiek remained outside the discussion which then took place. He put his arm round her blistered shoulder and she leaned against his comforting bulk. After a while, he said in her ear, “When we attacked the hunters at the pool, why did you not use your gun? You could have killed all five of them. I'm sure killing is not against your principles as it is Kordan's.”

“Yes, I would have used the gun,” she said, so quietly that he alone could hear. “Only I do not possess it any more. I must have lost it—or somebody stole it from me.”

They sat and looked at each other. He dropped his gaze first, sighing wearily. Then he looked up again, grinned, and said, “Peach trees!”

From the gloom of the tunnel, three savages emerged. One collected the boar from the custody of the guards, shouldered it, and disappeared again, bent double. The other two carried staves with which they prodded the prisoners to their feet. They bowed with an uncouth courtesy before searching them. This search was carried out perfunctorily.

“We wish to go before your praesidium,” said Kordan. “We have no intention of harming you. Do you understand?”

The guards took no notice. They saluted the sentries at the tunnel-mouth and motioned with their staves for the tourists to walk before them into the darkness. Constanza clung to Takeido as they went, for it was wet underfoot. Cold drops of water came winging down from the roof and splashed on their heads. Shelves of fungi grew on outcrops of rock to one side. They staggered along unsurely.

“Oh, powers, this is all a nightmare!” groaned Kordan. “How I long for the safety of the Academy again!”

Somewhere ahead, a light burned. At closer quarters it proved to be a rough lamp, either of stone or pottery, marking a sharp bend in the tunnel with its uneasy flame. Past the bend stood a wooden stockade. The gate in the middle of the stockade was closed from the inside. Sentries in helmets looked curiously down at the prisoners from a platform set behind the barrier. No move was made to open the gate.

“Now what are we waiting for?” Sygiek demanded of the escort. She received no answer. The escort stood impassively, letting water drip over their skulls and down their cheeks.

Sygiek shivered. She was tired and cold. On the gate of the stockade was emblazoned one of the bogey-man faces. She turned away from it in loathing and said to Kordan, “Why don't they answer me? They have a language.”

He laid a hand affectionately on her arm. “They will have their instructions. They may attach some significance to waiting before entrances which means nothing to us. If they have been told not to speak, they do not speak. For all our respect for language, you and I would do the same. Looking at these creatures, I can't help thinking about this whole amazing paradox of the recession of the Lysenkan colonists into kinds of animals. I believe that language is the key to the mystery.”

“Why do you say ‘amazing paradox'? Without suitable structural social context, people decline. That's a truism.”

Standing huddled together in the semi-darkness as they were, they found any conversation tended to become general. Constanza agreed with Sygiek. “Quite so. The organization withers, the individual is left. Then anarchy follows. The Lysenkan menagerie forms a perfect illustration of the truth of system doctrine.”

Kordan shook his head. “Without wishing to argue against doctrine, I must point out that it was inevitably by breaking new ground, by forming new tribes, new tongues, new societies, that
homo sapiens
developed in the first place. Let me explain that such a reversion from manhood to animalhood as we witness on Lysenka runs contrary to evolutionary law as explicated by K. V. Hondaras over two thousand years ago. That is why I speak of a paradox.” He paused and then said hesitantly, “Accepting official explanations, I could scarcely believe that the colonists could have degenerated into those various forms we saw with our own eyes.”

They fell silent, listening to the water drip into the mud underfoot, until Constanza said, “Did you believe that what you saw was some kind of propaganda-trick?”

Takeido said, “Excuse me, but the means of evolution are well understood. Duplicate genes provide spare copies in which changes can be accumulated. For an alien strain on Lysenka, changes would be rapid, and the human stock would respond rapidly to natural selection. Where's your difficulty?”

“Ah, but what of social selection? These people we're talking about may have been capitalists but they had comparatively high social organizations. For pre-utopian days.” Kordan hesitated, then plunged in as if deciding that he must talk. “We have spoken all along of these unfortunates in terms of
function
, as protein-eaters, or capitalists, or colonists. But when their starship crash-landed here, they were bereft of function in that sense. They became passive, malleable, in an evolutionary sense. Reduced to bare existence, they would have been forced by the sterility of Lysenka II to spread out thinly in order to survive on what food there was, digging roots, picking berries, searching for insects under stones … They would be Gatherers, not Hunters, at first. I can imagine that it would take only one generation for them to revert to complete primitivism. Those who could not or would not revert would die off.”

Burek grunted, “… Or hold the ship and its supplies against all comers and survive that way …”

“A wasting asset,” said Dulcifer.

“‘As the teat grows thinner, the kid sucks with greater vehemence,'” Burek replied.

The sentries had disappeared from the top of the stockade, but still there was no move to open the gate. The prisoners leaned against the damp rock walls, and Kordan said, “Let me make my point, please. Degeneration is not the same as mutation. How did these people become animal? By renouncing their humanity: an involuntary process. And how was that done? Because they lost the one basic art which makes us
homo uniformis
and which made them human, the art of language. From his animal forebears,
homo sapiens
inherited the frozen vocabulary of instinct, and developed it over the millennia into a complex mode of expression whereby he could control, firstly, himself, and then the world. Expression. What does language express? Language is transitive. Between total language and the nature of the cosmos lies a close relationship; indeed, according to Hondaras, mind is the high-point of cosmos, and man the expression of its emergent characteristic. Mind's vehicle is language. In the End will be only the Word.”