F Paul Wilson - LaNague 02 (4 page)

           
“Why’d they
stop wandering?”

           
“Don’t have
to any more. All they’ve got to do is sit around meditating and carving their
little statues.”

           
“Eh?”

           
“That’s
right. Little statues. But you won’t see any around here. Some company in the
city buys them up as fast as the Vanek can turn them out and sells them as
curios all over Occupied Space. ‘Handmade by alien half-breeds’ I believe the
ads run.”

           
“You know,”
Junior said, straightening up, “I think I’ve seen one or two in gift shops.” He
had a vague memory of oddly grained wood carved into intricate and bizarre
landscapes and tableaux. He also remembered the price tags.

           
“Then you
realize why the Vanek have no financial worries.”

           
“Why do
they beg, then?”

           
Heber
shrugged. “It’s somehow mixed up with their religion, which no one really
understands. Mostly it’s the old Vanek who do the begging; I guess they get
religious in their dotage just like a lot of humans. You heard him say, ‘Wheels
within wheels’ after you gave him some coins, didn’t you?”

           
“Yeah,”
Junior replied with a nod. “Then he said, ‘bendreth,’ or something like that.”

           
“Bendreth
is the Vanek equivalent of ‘sir’ or ‘madam.’ They say that to just about
everybody. ‘Wheels within wheels,’ however, has something to do with their
religion. According to tradition, a wise old Vanek philosopher with an
unpronounceable name came up with the theory that the universe was a
conglomeration of wheels: wheels within wheels within wheels within wheels.”

           
“Wasn’t too
far wrong, was he?”

           
“No, I
guess not. Anyway, he managed to tie everything – and I mean everything – into
the workings of these wheels. Got to the point where the only answer or comment
he could make about anything was ‘Wheels within wheels.’ It’s a pretty
fatalistic philosophy. They believe that everything works out in the end so
they rarely take any decisive action. They figure the wheels will turn full
circle and even things up without their help.”

           
He paused
for a breath, puffing out his cheeks as he exhaled it. “Did you notice the
cracks in the begging bowl, by the way?”

           
Junior
nodded. “Looked like it had been broken and then glued back together again.”

           
“That’s
part of the religion, too. You see, that old philosopher went to a banquet once
– this was in the ancient days when the Vanek were a rather lusty and barbaric
race – and the chief of this particular tribe sought to question him on his
philosophy. Of course, the only answer he could get was ‘Wheels within wheels,
bendreth.’ This annoyed him but he contained his anger until they all sat down
at the eating table. During the meal it is said that the old philosopher
uttered his favorite phrase over 250 times. Finally, the chief could take no
more and broke a heavy earthen salad bowl over the old man’s head, killing him.
So now all Vanek beggars carry an earthen salad bowl that they have broken and
then repaired as a sign that the philosopher did not die in vain.”

           
Junior shook
his head in wonder. “Sound like strange folk. How do the local Terrans get
along with them?”

           
Heber shot
him a sidelong glance, then answered. “I guess ‘get along’ is about the only
way you could put it,” he admitted. “There’s no animosity between the two
groups but there’s certainly no friendship either. The Vanek are not easy
people to warm up to. They float in and out of town and have no effect on the
rest of us. Some of the city folks have been making noises about Terrans
discriminating against the Vanek and I suppose there are plenty of instances
where it happens, but it’s a passive thing. When you come down to it, most
Terrans around here just don’t have any respect for the Vanek because the Vanek
don’t care about respect and consequently do nothing to engender it.

           
“And it’s
not racial antagonism as many outsiders might think.” Again, the sidelong
glance at Junior. “The fact that the Vanek are partially alien has nothing to
do with it. That’s a minor difference. It’s other differences that cause problems.”

           
“Like
what?” Junior asked on cue.

           
“For one
thing, there’s no first person singular pronoun in the Vanek language. Some of
the early anthropologists at one time thought this was a sign of group
consciousness, but that was disproved. It’s just that they don’t think of
themselves as individuals. They’re all one on the Great Wheel. It makes it hard
for Terrans to relate to them as individuals and thus it’s hard to respect them
as individuals.

           
“And
there’s more. The people around here are hard workers. They sweat their guts
out trying to get a living out of the ground, and here are these skinny Vanek
sitting around all day whittling wood and making a fortune. The local Terrans
don’t consider that an honest day’s work.”

           
“So it
comes right back to lack of respect again,” Junior said.

           
“Right! But
try to convince the legislators in the capital about that! They’re getting
together some sort of a bill to combat the so-called discrimination against the
Vanek and it looks like it’ll pass, too. But no law’s going to make a Terran
respect a Vanek and that’s where the problem lies.”

           
He kicked a
stone out into the middle of the street. It was a gesture of disgust. “Damn
fools in the capital probably don’t even know what a Vanek looks like! Just
trying to make political names for themselves.”

           
“Well,”
Junior began, “equality–”

           
“Lip-service
equality!” came the angry reply. “A forced equality that might well cause
resentment on the part of the Terran locals. I don’t want to see that. No, Mr.
… Finch, wasn’t it?” Junior nodded. “No, Mr. Finch. If equality’s going to come
to Danzer and other places like it, it’s gotta come from the locals, not from
the capital!”

           
Junior made
no comment. The man had a good point – an obvious one to Junior – but Junior
couldn’t decide whether it was sincerely meant or just an excuse to oppose some
legislation that happened to interfere with his racial prejudices. He noted
that Heber made no alternative proposals.

           
Heber
glanced at the sun. “Well, time for me to get back to work,” he said.

           
“And just
what is it you do, if I may ask?”

           
“I’m the
government in town, you might say – mayor, sheriff, judge, notary, and so on.”
He smiled. “Nice to have met you, Mr. Finch. Hope you enjoy your stay around
here.”

           
“Nice to
have met you, Mr. Heber,” Junior replied.

           
And he
meant it… with only a few reservations. Heber was an outwardly pleasant and
garrulous type but Junior wondered why he had taken so much time to explain the
Terran-Vanek situation to him. Politics, maybe. If enough outsiders could be
turned against the pending antidiscrimination bill, maybe it wouldn’t pass.
Whatever his reasons, Heber had been highly informative.

           
Junior
forced himself to his feet and walked across the street to the general store. A
land-rover passed close behind him as he crossed. Ground transportation was the
rule here, probably because flitters were too expensive to buy, run, and
service. Heber was right about the hard work involved in living off the land on
Jebinose, and the rewards were minimal. The farmlands, for all intents and
purposes, were economically depressed. That would help explain a part of the
poor Terran-Vanek relations: the local Terrans were in control as far as
numbers and technology were concerned, and they owned all the businesses; but
the Vanek held a superior economic position solely through the sale of their
carvings. The situation was tailor-made to generate resentment.

           
Junior
found himself indifferent to the conflict. It was unfortunate, no doubt, that
there had to be friction between the two races, but if these Vanek were as
fatalistic as Heber said, then why bother with them?

           
He
approached the general store building. The foodstuffs and supplies piled out
front in their shiny, colorful plastic or alloy containers struck an odd
contrast to the weather-beaten wood of the store. All the buildings in Danzer
were handmade of local wood. Prefab probably cost too much.

           
A
hand-lettered sign proclaiming that Bill Jeffers was the proprietor hung over the
doorway and Junior’s nostrils were assailed by a barrage of odors as he passed
under it. Everything from frying food to fertilizer vied for the attention of
his olfactory nerve.

           
His pupils
were still adjusting to the diminished light of the store interior when Junior
bumped into someone just inside the door. Straining his eyes and blinking, he
saw that it was a young Vanek.

           
“Sorry,” he
muttered to the robed figure. “Can’t see too well in here just yet.” He
continued on his way to the main counter in the rear, unaware of the intense
gaze he was receiving from the Vanek.

           
“Yes, sir!”
said the burly bear of a man behind the counter. His two huge hands were
resting palms down on the countertop and his teeth showed white as he smiled
through an unruly black beard. “What can I do for you?”

           
“I’d like
something to eat. What’s on the menu?”

           
The big man
winked. “You must be new around here. You don’t get a meal here, you get the
meal: local beef, local potatoes, and local greens.”

           
“All right
then,” Junior said with a shrug. “Serve me up an order of the meal.”

           
“Fine. I’m
Bill Jeffers, by the way,” he said, wiping his right hand on the plaid of his
shirt and then jabbing it in Junior’s direction.

           
Junior
shook hands and introduced himself.

           
“Staying
around here long, Mr. Finch?”

           
Junior
shook his head. “I doubt it. Just wandering around the area.”

           
These
rurals, he thought. Nosy. Always the unabashed questions about who you were and
how long you were staying. Junior was used to people obtaining this sort of
information in a more indirect way.

           
Jeffers
nodded at Junior, then looked past him. “What’ll it be?”

           
“The meal,
bendreth,” said a high-pitched, sibilant voice behind him.

           
He turned
and found himself facing the Vanek he had accidentally jostled on his way in.

           
“Hello,” he
said with a nod.

           
“Good day,
bendreth,” replied the Vanek.

           
He had a
slight frame, smooth grayish skin with a hint of blue in it, and piercing black
eyes. There was an indigo birthmark to the left of midline on his forehead.

           
“How are
you today?” Junior asked in a lame effort to make conversation.

           
Despite his
years with IBA and its myriad contacts throughout Occupied Space, he had never
been face to face with an alien. Although most of the Vanek were thought to
carry traces of human genetic material, they were, in every other sense, true
aliens. And here was one now, standing next to him, ordering lunch. He wanted
desperately to strike up a conversation, but finding a common ground for
discussion was no easy matter.

           
“We are mostly
well,” came the reply.

           
Junior
noted the plural pronoun and remembered what Heber had told him. It was gauche
to bring it up, but it might help to open a conversation.

           
“I’ve heard
that the Vanek always use the word ‘we’ in the place of ‘I’,” he said, cringing
and feeling like an obnoxious tourist. “Why’s that?”

           
“It is the
way we are,” came the impassive reply. “Our teachers tell us that we are all
one on the Great Wheel. Maybe that is so. We do not know. All we know is that
we have always spoken thus and no doubt we always shall. There is no Vanek word
for the single man.”

           
“That’s too
bad,” Junior said with obvious sincerity, and then instantly regretted it.

           
 
“And why do you say that, bendreth?” The Vanek
was showing some interest now and Junior realized that he would have to come up
with a tactful yet honest answer.

           
“Well, I
was always raised to believe that a race progresses through the actions of
individuals. The progress of the Vanek, in my estimation, has been terribly
slow. I mean, from what I can gather, you’ve gone nowhere in the past few
centuries. Maybe that’s the result of having the word ‘I’ absent from your
functional vocabulary. I hope I haven’t offended you by what I’ve just said.”

           
The Vanek
eyed him narrowly. “You needn’t apologize for speaking what you think. You
may–” His words were cut short by the arrival of the meals: steaming mounds of
food on wooden slabs. Each paid for his portion in Jebinose script and Junior
expected the Vanek to follow him to one of the small tables situated in the
corner to their left. Instead, the alien turned and walked toward the door.