If this is the Garden of Eden—where are the snakes? What happens when the business of planet-conquering just doesn't go according to the book. . . . James P. Hogan's most recent longer works include Mission to Minerva, a new novel in the "Giants" series coming out later in 2005, and Kicking the Sacred Cow, a nonfiction review of science's most treasured orthodoxies and the challenges to them, released July 2004.
The far-space exploration vessel Hayward Kermes, operated by the Kermes-Oates Restructuring consortium on license from the Sol Federation to promote cultural advancement among the outer regions, blipped back into 3-space two months ship's time after leaving the fitting-out station above Ganymede. It entered the Horus system, and four days later took up a parking orbit over the star's second planet, Lydia.
As stated in the preliminary report beamed back by the reconnaissance ship Oryx three years previously, Lydia was a warm, Earthlike world with two moons, slightly smaller than Earth but with a surface closer to three-quarters water rather than five-sixths. It had five major continents, spread across greater extremes of tropical, desert, temperate, mountain, and polar climates. Pictures obtained from orbit and lower-altitude probes confirmed Lydian habitats ranging from village communities to moderate-sized towns that exhibited colorful and picturesque architecture rendered in wood, brick, adobe, or stone, according to the locality, with spectacular central buildings in some areas, suggestive of religious or imperialistic societies. Technology did not appear to have progressed beyond primitive or early agricultural in any area. Of the Oryx itself, there was no sign. Its preliminary assessment was the last to be heard from it.
Lydian skies could be spectacular, mixing a palette that ventured from the palest of streaky greens unveiling the sun at daybreak, to full-bodied violets, lilacs, and lavenders that turned the western clouds into towering castles of light in the evening. One of the biologists with the Kermes had put forward a theory attributing the displays to photodissociation in the upper atmosphere of exotic molecules produced by the planet's lush and varied flora, which made even the tropics of Earth seem unassuming in comparison. The biologist had been challenged by the mission's head physicist and head climatologist, both of whom claimed the subject as belonging rightfully to their domain, and a motion was already being filed back on Earth for the issue to be brought before a scientific arbitration court.
Chelm was seldom drawn into such things. As an archeologist, his field was more self-contained and defined, and territorial disputes with other disciplines tended to be rare. Colleagues warned him that invisibility equated to obscurity, and having a low political profile was tantamount to committing career suicide. Wilbur Teel, his section head, would come poking around, looking for possible areas of overlap that could be used to pick a fight with the linguists or paleo-sociologists, maybe, and hinting that Chelm could help his future promotion prospects by taking a more aggressive stance himself. Chelm sometimes wondered if perhaps he was too accepting and passive. But the thought of a future supposedly broadened by getting involved in the perennial rivalries and infighting that went on among the upper administrative echelons back on Earth simply didn't excite him. He wasn't, he supposed, if he was honest with himself, really that competitively disposed by nature—not that he would have admitted it to the ship's psycho-counselor. The fact of the matter was that he liked his work and its challenges, especially when it took him out in the field and among the natives. Times like right now, for instance . . .
He sat on the end of one of the log pilings supporting the boat dock that formed the lower level of Ag-Vonsar's house, watching the old man scrape an upturned wherrylike craft that had been hauled up for cleaning and repair. The house was built on stilts like the rest of the settlement at the bottom end of the lake, with storage space immediately overhead, the general living area above, and sleeping rooms above that again. The houses were all interconnected by stairways and bridges to form what was essentially a village over the water. The workmanship was rich, ornate, and precise, bringing to mind a combination of ancient Mesoamerican pattern work and colorful Chinese intricacy. Besides making boats, Ag-Vonsar also constructed sluice gates for the system of water channels and locks that irrigated the surrounding area and allowed the level to be controlled during the season when the river feeding the lake was in flood. The dry dock and shop that he maintained for this heavier work were part of a boatyard built along the shore.
What had first attracted Chelm's interest to this place was a long, low, square-formed block protruding from a hillside and into the water to provide a breakwater and jetty bounding the upper end of the yard. He had assumed it was cut natural rock, until closer examination showed it to consist of an artificial material similar to concrete. Some Lydian structures, such as temples, aqueducts, and bridges in cities and other locations that Terran exploration teams had visited did, it was true, use forms of concrete. But the type was invariably reminiscent of the kind the Romans had developed: tough, virtually immune to demolition in some instances, deriving strength from the filiform binding of carefully blended minerals. The block at the upper end of the lakeside yard, however, was of coarser composition, reinforced internally by metal ties in the style of Terran patterns that had come into use millennia later—as if the arrival of heavier industry had rendered the earlier reliance on finer-grain chemistry superfluous. Could it be that an advanced culture had existed at one time on Lydia, and then vanished practically without trace? If so, what kind of calamity could have overtaken it?
This was the kind of once-in-a-lifetime occurrence that sent an archaeologist's blood racing with excitement, and—unless Chelm was truly missing something—relegated such alternatives as chairing a peer review committee in some academy or university, or becoming a familiar face on the academic social and cocktail-party circuit, to the depths of irrelevancy and tedium.
And then had followed the seismic images showing broken outlines of even more massive and extended structures deeper down. The mission's steering group had higher priorities than archeological searches, however, and the possibility of even a pilot excavation was on hold indefinitely at that stage. Chelm had made overtures to see what the chances of recruiting native labor might be. The Lydians seemed amiable and willing enough in principle—but he had to be careful of the ship's sociologists and psychologists, who considered any activity of that nature to be part of their turf.
"They suggest structures like levees," Chelm said. "As if this might have been part of the river before the lake formed. They look like bits of levees."
"Levees?" Ag-Vonsar repeated, without looking up. The exchange took place via the transvox channel in Chelm's wristpad, but the process had become so familiar that he barely registered it. He was making an effort to learn the local Lydian tongue, but the number of languages identified already, each with endless dialects, made it a daunting business. The transvox was trained primarily in the speech of a region about the size of Europe's Iberian province, centered on a city called Issen, fifty miles or so from the lake settlement. Landers from the Hayward Kermes had established a Terran surface base just outside Issen.
"Artificial embankments built along the sides of rivers," Chelm said. "To stop them flooding over low-lying land."
Ag-Vonsar peered at the strip of the boat's underside that he had cleaned, running a finger along a seam that was showing signs of opening up. He had a surprisingly muscular and well-contoured body for what Chelm judged from his grizzled, crinkly hair, craggy features, and veined hands to be by Terran standards sixty or even seventy-plus years of age. As with most Lydians, his skin had the hue and tone of polished walnut. He wore a loose, red, knee-length tunic with a pouched leather tool belt, and laced boots of a soft material that looked like suede or felt. The doctrine that had once been taught of species developing uniquely, as never-to-be repeated accumulations of accidents, had long been discredited and forgotten. Genetic codes seemed to be universal—the reasons why were still not understood, and hotly debated—expressing themselves similarly in similar environments, and the missions probing ever farther from Earth were no longer astounded to find Earth-like life on Earth-like planets.
"Why would you stop the water that brings life to the crops?" Ag-Vonsar asked finally. "Tame the waters, yes—like the wild horse. But you would kill the horse. Then it can no longer work for you."
"The floods caused a lot of damage to the towns," Chelm pointed out.
"Then they built their towns in the wrong places. The floods deliver the silt that revives the fields. And the darvy fish that hatch in the early spring when the floods come eat the eggs of the shiver-fever fly. So it seems that your levees would bring sickness as well."
There really wasn't any arguing with that. Chelm smiled and looked away at the hills tumbling down to the upper reaches of the lake in forested folds and rocky outcrops decked with necklaces of waterfalls and streams. A group of egani—ponderous, buffalo-like creatures with shaggy hair the color of an Irish setter—had come down to drink on the far side. The Lydians seemed to have it all figured out. The water here seemed corrosive to metals, eating away the reinforcement bars in the concrete slab to leave little more than stains and residues in the surrounding matrix. Ag-Vonsar used no metal fastenings in his boats, Chelm had noticed, the parts being joined by precise-fitting wooden dowels and pins. The same seemed to be true of the houses and other constructions forming the settlement. Ag-Vonsar said that the woods used for the houses were of a mix selected to repel the local varieties of bug pests.
The opening bars of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik sounded tinnily from the unit on Chelm's wrist. He turned it toward himself and pressed the Answer stud on the band. The inch-square screen showed the face of Praget, calling from the folda-cabin set up as the local field camp on a rise below the end of the lake, where the flyer was parked.
"We're about ready to head back," Praget said.
Chelm looked at the old man. "The flyer is leaving. I need to get back."
"Moishina will take you," Ag-Vonsar said, and then louder, directing his voice upward at the house, "Moishina. Our guest is leaving. Will you take him back to the shore?"
"Yes, of course."
"Okay, I'll be right over," Chelm said to the face on his wristpad. Moishina was Ag-Vonsar's granddaughter. Chelm had left her unpacking and sorting the items he had brought back from some digging farther up along the lake. The family let him use a bench in the lower part of the house. He preferred working there on his own, away from the stifling filtered and conditioned air of the cabin. It was supposed to be "safer" than prolonged exposure to the raw unknowns of the Lydian environment—but the ones who seemed to be sick all the time were those who stayed cooped up in the base. In any case, some kind of soil microorganism had developed a partiality for the plastic that the folda-cabin was made from and eaten through the floor, with the result that the place was overrun by insects.
"Do you know when you will be back?" Ag-Vonsar asked Chelm.
"Well, there are some routine chores I have to take care of back at the base. Not tomorrow, but probably the day after."
"I may not be here. I am due to journey into Issen on business shortly, but the day has not been fixed yet. If I have gone, your work space will still be available, naturally."
"You're sure it's not an imposition?"
"You are always welcome among our family, Stanislow Chelm from Earth."
Chelm thought for a moment. "You know, we could take you there right now if it would help. There's plenty of room in the flyer."
Ag-Vonsar smiled thinly. "I thank you, but I will not be alone. And we prefer our own ways of traveling."
"If you want to contact me while you're in Issen, just have someone enter my name into the Terran comnet. It will find me."
"What is this 'comnet'?"
"Just ask any Terran."
"I will remember. . . . Moishina! Are you taking a bath up there? Stanislow's people are waiting."
"Coming. I was just cutting some flowers for Quyzo." Moishina appeared at the top of the stairs as she spoke. Chelm guessed her to be in her twenties. She had the brown, sharply angular features that were typical of Lydians in these parts, and straight, black hair that fell halfway down to the waistband of the short saronglike garment that she was wearing. The stairs were steep and narrow but she descended them nimbly, facing toward them like a ladder, one hand sliding on the guide rail, the other holding a bunch of brightly colored blooms with the stems wrapped in leaves.
As she reached the bottom, the voice of Moishina's nephew Boro called from above, saying something that Chelm's transvox channel didn't catch. "Then tell him to hurry up!" Moishina called back. Boro called out again, shouting this time. A figure that had been approaching across the connecting bridge from one of the other houses—another boy, maybe about ten—broke into a run. A woman's voice came from somewhere, telling them in tones that would have been unmistakable anywhere, in any language, on any planet, to be quiet. Boro came scampering down as Moishina moved toward a boat moored at some steps leading down from the dock. "A couple of extra passengers," she explained to Chelm, intoning it in a way that seemed to ask if that was okay with him.
"Sure." Chelm shrugged. It was their boat, after all. He followed her, stepping down inside and sitting himself on the center cross-board facing aft. Moishina gave him the flowers to hold while she took up the oar and remained standing in the stern. Boro's friend arrived, climbing aboard behind Boro after expertly untying the mooring line behind him, and the two boys squeezed past Chelm to crouch in the bow. Ag-Vonsar raised a hand in farewell as Moishina pushed the boat away from the dock. She propelled the craft deftly with a rhythmic sculling motion, evoking lithe, supple movements of her body. Chelm had to make a conscious effort to stop himself staring. The boys chattered behind him, trailing their hands in the water. One of them almost caught a fish, and then lost it.
"Quyzo. Is that one of the spirits?" Chelm asked, as Moishina turned the prow shoreward. The Lydians had a spirit for just about everything. Mountain passes, waterfalls, dells in the forest, each one had a shrine to the dedicated being who safeguarded travelers entering its domain, dispensed good fortune or bad, or danced capriciously over the world in the form of the elements. Ag-Vonsar had told Chelm about the Fessym—mountain sprites who teased the land into crying tears of laughter, producing the springs that made the river that fed the lake. Chelm had asked him out of curiosity if he really believed magical spirits existed.
"It doesn't matter," Ag-Vonsar had replied. "People should live their lives as if they do, anyway."
"Quyzo lives in the lake," Moishina confirmed. "But he watches over the whole valley. So the village is his family."
"Is he a happy spirit, do you think?" Chelm asked.
"Oh yes, very much. He catches stars to make the water sing and sparkle. You can see them in the lake at night."
They tied up at a wooden jetty below the jumble of slipways and painted roofs that constituted the yard. Boro and his friend disappeared along the shore in the opposite direction; Moishina walked with Chelm up the rock steps that led toward the rise where the Terran field camp was situated. They came to Quyzo's shrine on the way. It did indeed convey the impression of him as a cheerful little fellow, perhaps somewhat inclined toward the mischievous: a finely worked, abstract sculpture of variously tinted stones, set in a rocky niche above a running pool and gazing out at its lake abode over a low stone parapet smothered in flowers. Lydian artists never tried to depict the actual likenesses of their spirits.
Some figures were sitting on the rocks beside the terrace in front of the shrine. It was only when Chelm and Moishina had approached to within a few yards that Chelm realized from the empty expressions on several of the faces, and the simple, guileless smiles on others, that the group was partly made up of jujerees, probably being taken on an outing. The nearest English translation was "child-people." They were harmless and incapable of malice, having reverted to a condition of infantile trust and dependency, greeting each new experience with the awe and delight of eyes beholding the world for the first time. The Lydians didn't seem to know what caused the affliction, but the Kermes' Principal Medical Officer guessed it to be a genetic condition. There were moments, such as when the petty jealousies and rivalries of life at the base got to him, or some particularly inane and exasperating edict came through from Earth, when Chelm came close to envying them.
Moishina unwrapped the flowers she had brought and placed them in one of the vases along the parapet, picking out the previous withered occupants and dropping them in a receptacle to one side, provided for the purpose. She fell silent for what Chelm assumed was a quick prayer or moment of reflection, and then turned toward one of the women minding the jujerees, who had come over. "Forgive me if I intrude," the woman said.
Moishina smiled. "Not at all."
"I just wanted to say welcome to the Terran. I have seen them at their work up above, but never spoken with one."
"Stanislow Chelm," Moishina said, extending a hand to introduce him.
"My name is Norelena. We have come from Veshtor, over the hills to the east, to bring our charges here to see the valley and the lake." Norelena's voice dropped to a more confidential note, as if confessing the true reason for wanting to talk with them. "And you have to take a break from them sometimes—otherwise I'm sure you'd end up the same way."
Moishina chuckled. "I can imagine it."
Chelm sensed a movement nearby him and turned. One of the jujerees, who had previously been gazing rapturously at the lake and the mountains, had stood up and moved over. He was lighter-skinned than most of the Lydians that Chelm had met, with rounder eyes and less angular features. On Earth, appropriately dressed, he wouldn't have looked out of place on a typical street. Chelm did his best to act naturally and mustered a grin. "Hi."
The child-person grinned back. His eyes were depthless as they looked into Chelm's, interrogating him as if he were a new sight to be analyzed and registered, but conveying no hint of any shared thought or percept that could enable communication. And yet, just for an instant, Chelm had the feeling of something searching, reaching out toward what some instinct said should be there, but not knowing how to recognize it if it were.
And then the jujeree's gaze fell to the Sol-Federation Exploration Division emblem on Chelm's lapel—a gold-on-blue spiral motif with flashes, representing the galactic structure and unleashed energy. His face widened into a smile. "You like the badge, eh?" Chelm said. The jujeree didn't speak, but reached out to touch the embossed metal surface. It seemed to fascinate him. "Here, you can have it." Chelm unpinned the badge and pressed it into the jujeree's hand. The eyes looked at it, then up at Chelm once again. Chelm nodded encouragingly.
"It's yours," Norelena told her charge. "You can keep it." She glanced at Chelm. "Thank you so much . . . Stanislow Chelm. You have no idea what such things mean to them." Moishina was staring too, as if seeing him in a new light.
On the top of the rise higher up behind the shrine, Chelm could see the team standing around the flyer, obviously waiting for him. He picked out Praget, making impatient gestures and waving down toward the terrace. Praget's arm came up to let the other hand stab at his wristpad, and a moment later the call tune sounded from Chelm's unit. "Okay, okay, I'm coming up now," Chelm said before Praget could start.
"Well, hurry it up. What have you got going down there, a union meeting? The rest of us would kinda like to get back sometime between now and the next ice age."
"On my way," Chelm said again, and snapped the call off. He was about to bid his farewells, when he noticed the jujeree staring at the wristpad. Chelm shook his head. "Uh-uh. Sorry, but that's different. I can't let this go."
"Mozart," the jujeree said.
Chelm blinked in astonishment and looked from Moishina to Norelena. "Where in hell did he learn that?"
"What does it mean?" Moishina asked.
"That bit of music that it played. Mozart was the person who wrote it. But that was hundreds of years ago, back on Earth."
Moishina looked perplexed. "I don't know. . . ." She faltered. "There have been Terrans all over Lydia for a while now. I suppose it's amazing how such things can be picked up."
Although the Lydians showed no hostility toward the Terran presence—indeed, they seemed to have little concept of such things—Issen Base, with its lander pads, situated five miles outside the city, had been "secured" inside a double-layer chain-link fence protected by sensors, surveillance, and guards. Regulations and routine procedure required it. When the Principal Medical Officer, after conferring with the Scientific Advisory Committee, declared the base to be also microbially "safe," the facility began expanding and taking on additional comforts as more administrators and officers, along with their staffs, tired of more than two months of being in the ship, began moving down to the surface.
Chelm sat in front of Wilbur Teel's desk, staring out through the window of the cubicle appropriated by Teel as his office in the blandly rectilinear assemblage of prefabricated modules that officialdom in a dazzling flash of creativity had designated "Block 3." Teel was turned toward one of the screens, taking a distress call from Chuck Ranneson in the Cultural Exchange Center, set up in the city to give the Lydians a preview of the benefits they stood to enjoy from being subsumed into the Sol Federation economic system.
"What do you mean, not interested?" Teel challenged. "Are you telling me you can't even give the things away? You're supposed to be a sales negotiator. How do you think this is going to look on your review?" A routine ploy in the opening up of new worlds was to distribute portable screenpads to the natives with a chart of easy-to-use icons to whet their appetites. The assortment of included games and advertisements was designed for appeal to the younger set.
"They're not interested in talking to people on the other side of the planet, or watching things happen on Earth or anyplace else," Ranneson answered. "They don't see the point of it. They say their . . . I'm not sure what you'd call it; the best the transvox could come up with was 'awareness circle' . . . isn't shaped by what happens on the other side of the planet."
"There have to be kids there. Have you shown them the games and the movies?"
"They laugh at them. A bunch that I talked to couldn't see why people would want picture-lives when they can live real ones. But they thought things like that might be something to amuse . . . what do you call those smiley-face retards? Jujerees."
"What about the merchandising catalog? Look at what we're offering: fingertip-control environments and appliances; modern transportation systems; planned health care and psychiatry; entertainment in the home. . . . I thought you knew how to sell things, Ranneson. Maybe we should think about relocating you to a clerking slot up in the ship. . . ."
Outside, just inside the gate, a work crew was setting up an isolation-and-decontamination tent that the ship's legal counselor had insisted on, even though the doctors deemed it unnecessary. Although he thought the chances would be slim, Chelm had put in for approval to move his quarters out of the base. He had mentioned the thought to Ag-Vonsar, who had arrived in Issen on his planned visit, and Ag-Vonsar had said he would introduce Chelm to a friend who could arrange accommodation. Out of curiosity, Chelm had arranged to go into Issen and meet them anyway later that day. Even if nothing came of it, it would be an excuse for spending an afternoon away from the base.
"Okay, where were we?" Teel had finished his conversation with Ranneson and was ready to continue. Chelm switched his attention back from the window. Teel had a long, pallid face made up of furrows that arched from the forehead to hang vertically at the jowls, putting Chelm in mind of the lines of a Gothic cathedral. He seemed born to endure all the woes and afflictions that could beset a man, venting the resulting biliousness on his subordinates with a relish that, in unguarded moments, came close to revealing a capacity for enjoying at least that aspect of life.
"Scraping the barrel of the budget," Chelm answered.
"Right. . . . Look, you know as well as I do that archeology isn't exactly what you'd call high on our list of priorities. A mission like this only has so much in the way of resources. The things that advance our primary objectives get first bite: economic reform; geology and resource prospecting; introduction of an energy and transportation infrastructure, political restructuring. . . ."
"But there's symmetry down there. It's clearly geometric. Those patterns didn't form by themselves through any accident." Chelm was referring to the latest series of ground-penetration radar scans taken from orbit, which had revealed what could have been the remains of vast structures or engineering works extending sometimes for miles beneath tracts of what were now jungles and deserts.
Teel shook his head. "You still don't grasp it, do you, Chelm? We're in the business of creating new worlds, not digging up old ones. The potential returns are huge for opening up a backward place like this. Twenty years from now it will be as profitable and progressive as the Los Angeles-San Diego Strip. And they have no concept of effective political organization here. No military. When we've appointed regional governors and set up local systems of provincial administration and control, the markets for defense and security alone will be worth tens of billions. Investors are already lining up back on Earth to get in on a share of Lydia."
Chelm hadn't seen anything on Lydia—apart from the armed Terran guards watching the perimeter fence—that anyone might need to be defended against. Before he could put the thought into words, however, Teel rose from his chair and came around the desk to stand looking out of the window, as if in his mind he could already see a complex of office towers, malls, and freeway bridges replacing the arches, alleys, temples, and domes of Issen's center, and the hills behind cleared and cut into leveled industrial terraces. He went on, "Now, those are the people who have to come first: the ones in charge of the enterprises that the consortium is interested in. And we have to back them, because the consortium generates not only our direct funding but also our political support. Now, if you were to help us keep them sweet, then who knows? Anything might happen. Maybe, even, brighter prospects for archeological research. But you have to learn to play the game."
"I'm not sure I know what you mean," Chelm said, although he did, perfectly well.
Teel sighed and turned from the window. "We've been through this over and over. I'm talking about your general attitude and refusal to fit in with the system. If you want to run your own life and professional career into a dead end, it's your business, and frankly I don't care. But when it affects the performance of my section, that's something else."
"But you've just told me that nobody's interested in what I do," Chelm protested. "What else is it you want?"
"That's for you to figure out."
Chelm turned up his palms helplessly. He had never been able to play these kinds of games. "You're losing me. I put in the requisitions for what I need. They were thrown out. You obviously endorse that decision. What more am I supposed to do?"
"What you're supposed to do is understand the politics of scratching other backs if you want them to scratch yours. Nobody's going to be interested in supporting your agenda unless it helps advance theirs too. Is that simple enough? What you have to do is get more involved in what's going on around here and develop a nose for opportunity." Teel stamped across to the desk and picked up a piece of paper that had been lying in the center. It was Chelm's application to be billeted in the city. He wheeled about, brandishing it aggressively. "But what do we get? Instead, you want to run away and hide from what's going on. Do you really think that's the way to build the right kind of relationships with the people here who can get you what you want?" He tore the offending document in two, then again, and dropped the pieces into the disposal unit. "No way, Chelm. You need to learn how to become a functioning member of the team here first, before you even think about something like this. Request categorically denied."
Chelm had booked a ride into Issen with a utility shuttle bus running personnel and sample wares to the Cultural Exchange Center. But he always found confrontations like this one with Teel unnerving. On leaving Teel's office, he popped a tranquilizer from his medical pouch and went over to the rest lounge in the Lab Block to calm down. Thankfully, it was empty. While he sat savoring the moment of solitude and feeling the pill kick in, he checked his mail via his wristpad. Among the items listed, he saw that a communication had come in from Ursula, his fiancZe for more than three years now, back on Earth. He selected it and tapped in the code to download from the ship.
Ursula was tense and edgy as always, like an overwound spring about to fly off its mounting. Chelm put it down to interactions between the medications she took for executive stress syndrome, high blood pressure, neuronal hypersensitivity complex, and emotional oscillatory metabolic reaction, but Ursula insisted that it simply reflected the heightened activity that came with the lifestyle of a high-achieving professional. The latest scandal back home was that the drug mandated for trans-System travelers following the cosmic radiation sickness panic had been shown to be worthless despite the miraculous success rates claimed for it, and the whole episode was unraveling as a gigantic fraud. The legal and medical associations and involved government departments were all claiming innocence and blaming each other, while the Sol Fed health secretary, having promised full investigation and exposure of the culprits, had resigned following revelations of massive family stockholdings in the prime corporation raking in the take. A Titan Liberation Alliance nuke was believed to have taken out the Federal Security Agency's orbiting bombardment station there, and construction contractors on Mars had put a moratorium on further work and were organizing protest boycotts of supply ships in response to a forty percent hike in insurance rates.
Closer to home, Ursula's rival for a big promotion opportunity was out of the running, having suffered a breakdown following the failure of a hostile takeover bid that he had masterminded—which was good news; Ursula needed the extra money that the position would bring to cover the deferred loan she had taken to pay off the called-in option on the Sirius-B transmutator scheme that hadn't worked out. Two militant atheist sects were waging legal battles and disrupting each other's meetings in a dispute over whose were the correct reasons for not believing in a God. California was going ahead with banning home cooking on the grounds that nutrition needed to be regulated and should be dispensed by licensed professionals. Chelm's nephew Toby had gotten his medical certificate and permit to ride a pedal cycle. Sister Celia had suffered traumatic shock after falling off a barstool from disorientation caused by the lighting, but she was expected to recover. Oh, and yes, did he have any idea yet when he would be coming home? She had found a bigger house with gorgeous landscaping, domestic robotics throughout, Olympic-equipped exercise room, and a full VR simulation deck, but the loan would be more than she wanted to take on by herself—especially with this Sirius-B business. . . .
At that moment, the door slid open and Jen from the exopsychology section came in. "Hi, Stan," she greeted, going across to the autochef to punch in the code for a straight black coffee, and reconfirming it without waiting for the health warning to appear in the window. Since just about everything came with health warnings; their effective information content was close to zero.
Jen was one of the few people that Chelm felt at ease with. She was open and honest by nature, good at what she did because she liked it, and uninterested in cultivating faked imagery and "style," all of which added up to a fair guarantee that she would never rise far on the generally accepted scale of recognition and success. But the most delightful thing was that she cared about as little as Chelm did—if that were possible; and she harbored fewer inhibitions about saying so.
"Oh-oh." She took in Chelm's strained look and dropped the everything-going-well-with-the-world smile that she had been wearing. She had wavy red hair cut short, and a freckly, snub-nosed face to which smiles came easily. Her ancestry, she had told Chelm once, was from a Celtic people who had inhabited central Turkey in Roman times. "You look like your face was hung on you to dry. Dare I ask? Would the problem be something that begins with tee and ends with el?"
"You're uncanny. How do you do it?"
"Oh, it's a gift that I have. They didn't put me in the shrink shop for nothing. So . . . what's he done now?"
"Given me all the reasons why I can't have what I need to do my job; then more or less told me it's my fault for not knowing how to get them. What's so infuriating is that I'm sure I'm onto something big, and he knows it. He's reveling in the power trip."
Jen nodded knowingly. "It's the same old story. He wants you to fight for it."
"If that was my way of doing things, I'd have joined the security forces. Tell me, Jen, is there really no other way of relating to other human beings other than antagonism and confrontation? Everyone trying to screw everyone else first all the time. No trust, no integrity. Or is there simply something wrong with me? I'd really like to know."
Jen took a moment to sip her coffee before answering. "There are other ways. At least, there used to be, so I believe. But we seem to have created a culture that excludes them."
"Not everyone feels that way—you and I don't, for instance," Chelm pointed out.
"Yeah, right. And how much of the world takes any notice of what people like us think? Let's be honest, Stan. We're the sheep, and the wolves have taken over. Maybe it's some kind of inevitable, natural law, like the one about bad money and apples."
"God, I wish I could say you were wrong. But . . ." Chelm shook his head. "At least it doesn't seem to have affected the Lydians yet."
Jen made a face. "Don't speak too soon. I heard this morning that if Yassik doesn't come around and start playing ball soon, some of the Directorate are pushing for just going in and imposing a hard-line, military style. Investors are getting impatient. The argument is that there's nothing to stop us, so why mess around? Lydia doesn't have a single militarized state, let alone any capability to defend the planet.
Yassik was the ruler of the surrounding area, which he governed from Issen city.
The usual pattern in Terran programs of planetary "cultural advancement" was to recruit native rulers who could be relied on to manage the local populations in ways that kept order and served Terran interests. In return for cooperation, the Terrans guaranteed wealth and prestige, military assistance in the elimination of foreign rivals, and help with security and civil control at home. Not a bad deal for the typical shakily ensconced nabob or ambitious upstart. The problem with Yassik was that he seemed anything but insecure or ambitious, and had been unresponsive to attempted bribes, flattery, grandiose promises, and the other routine approaches.
It took Chelm a few seconds to absorb the ghastliness of what Jen was saying. Was it really about to come down to this: unprovoked aggression and military occupation to exploit an inoffensive and defenseless planet? Jen had said on a previous occasion that greed and power-lust could become addictions, stimulating the same neural chemistry as hard psychotropic drugs. "We don't have that kind of firepower, surely," he said, more to convince himself. "Just this mission. . . . A whole planet? Even if it's wide open."
Jen shrugged. "So call in backup from Earth. They could be here in under three months. You know as well as I do how easily a pretext can be concocted for the folks back home."
Chelm looked at her glumly. "Well, thanks for really making my day complete, Jen. As if it wasn't bad enough already with—" A peal of squeaky Mozart from his wristpad interrupted. "Excuse me." He took the call.
"Dr. Chelm. Shuttle bus driver here. We need you out here, sir. Departing in ten minutes."
"I'm on my way." Chelm clicked the call off. "I have to go. I'm taking a break this afternoon. Going into town. Strictly unofficial."
"Playing hooky, eh?"
"I think I need it." Chelm winked. "Promise you won't tell teach?"
"How could I? I never heard a thing."
The road into Issen followed the bank of a river with steep, rocky banks, winding its way between hills planted in rows of small trees reminiscent of Mediterranean olive fields and vineyards, with open pastureland above. Houses huddled along the valley bottom among orchards and gardens watered by systems of interconnected ponds that reminded Chelm of the irrigation scheme he'd seen around the lake settlement. As at the lake, the designs were intricate and lavish with ornamentation, and yet carefully balanced—as if pleasing the eye and harmony with the surroundings were as important as function, warranting every bit as much thought and effort. For Chelm, this was a revolutionary concept. It flew in the face of all the accepted principles of cost-effectiveness. And yet, thinking about it, he was unable to come up with good reason why the practices he was familiar with should be considered a better way of utilizing the vastly superior wealth that he was assured his own culture possessed, if the result was the stark, styleless, but eminently practical configuration of blockhouses that made up the base he had just left.
The contrast became even more marked at the outskirts of the city itself, where the bus left the river at a lock gate that also served as a swing bridge. The buildings clustered closer and higher, eventually linking together across the streets in a bewilderment of connections and bridges, among which narrow alleys and stairways twisted their way out of sight on mysterious errands to hidden reaches of the city. Although alive with the bustle of shops, stalls, and crowds going about their daily business, the surroundings were well kept and clean. This was even more so in the central precinct, where the architecture took on more grand and imposing proportions, boasting minarets and columned frontages facing terraced plazas, and animal traffic was excluded. It could have been pieces of ancient Athens, Rome, and the Arabian Nights all blended together incongruously. To one side, across a square bounded by a canal and walled gardens, a new construction of high arches and onion-shaped domes was nearing completion amid a labyrinth of ramps, scaffolding, and ladders. Rendered in orange and green, it in some ways suggested the former Taj Mahal—before its destruction in a federal air strike during the Indian and South Asian Uprising against the Terran central authority. The stepped bridge connecting the square to the far side of the canal, where several tiers of buildings rose below a line of figures cut into a cliff face, added a dash of Venice to the mix.
The bus halted by several other vehicles that were parked outside of the building that one of Yassik's ministers had made available for the Terrans to use as their Cultural Exchange Center—a three-story affair of protrusions, gables, and balconies, rising to a riot of blue-tiled roofs and turrets. The Terrans had draped the outside with plastic sheeting to confine the air from the conditioning and filtering plant that they had installed, and hooked up a mobile fission generator for power. Chuck Ranneson was on the steps in front with one of his assistants, plugging to passersby through a megaphone, while a screen set up behind him showed a commercial clip for an Australian amusement park, but the only attention being paid was from a small audience of curious young children. Chelm avoided them and crossed over the street to where he had already spotted Ag-Vonsar waiting as promised. With him was a man with a short, tousled beard, clad in a gray, knee-length tunic and a dark brown cloak with the hood thrown back. Ag-Vonsar introduced him as Osti, who had space available that Chelm might find suitable. They crossed the river in the center of the city, which seemed to be devoted to public and administrative buildings, and from there came back into the peripheral area.
Chelm was impressed by the brisk, powerful pace that Ag Vonsar was able to maintain—without benefit of aging retardants, energy boosters, or exercise machines. Or perhaps he had not yet learned to judge a Lydian's years. Very soon, he had lost all sense of direction in the maze of alleys, squares, bazaars, and arcades. He felt himself becoming strangely euphoric. The scents of the blooms in vendors' displays and window planters along the streets blended with the odors of fruits and strange foods being cooked on curbside stalls and in open shops to produce a constantly changing background of exotic aromas that made him heady. His two companions kept up a commentary on curiosities and points of interest that they passed, but Chelm was too absorbed by the hubbub of voices and sounds punctuated by peculiar music, the patterns and the colors, the unintelligible signs and banners, and the curious faces turning to watch him wherever they went, to more than half listen. It was as if the vibrancy and vigor around him on every side had energized a part of his being that had been dormant throughout what, up until now, he had called life.
Osti was a potter, and the place they eventually brought Chelm to consisted of two rooms above his workshop, approached from the rear via stairs from an alley descending erratically through a tangle of interconnected architecture. Two sons had lived there previously, but the older one had moved out to start a family of his own, whereupon the other had left for the coast to seek adventure at sea. The interior was open and airy, with windows at the front and a small balcony overlooking a cobbled court that led down to a quay by the river. All the essential furnishings were there—even a countertop built along one of the walls, which would make a good desk and worktable. It was ideal. Chelm found himself wishing that he hadn't let his curiosity bring him here. The thought of having to go back to the base was almost painful.
The rooms had been recently cleaned, and there was a scent in the air from a vase of flowers beaming color in one of several niches built into the walls. Somehow, Chelm couldn't see this as the work of Osti or Ag-Vonsar. But the question was answered almost immediately, when Ag-Vonsar's granddaughter Moishina came in carrying a flask in a wicker container, and a dish of hot, spicy-smelling food that she had brought from somewhere. "Our lives come together again—yours from Earth, mine in Lydia," she said, in one of the peculiar Lydian forms of greeting. "The cupboard was left empty, so I went to get something. This is called kinzil. And some wine."
"You needn't have . . . but it's appreciated," Chelm said.
"But it would be unforgivable to invite someone under one's roof without offering food." Moishina sounded surprised, as if stating something that was well-known.
"And the flowers? Are they for another spirit too?"
"No, for you. To brighten your new home. Companions for you, you see."
"It's not my home yet," Chelm cautioned. "And might not be at all. There could be a problem getting approval at the base." He couldn't bring himself to say that it had already been refused outright. There might still be an angle.
"You have to have permission for where you live?"
"The place needed opening up and airing anyway," Osti said. "We are grateful to you, Moishina." He looked at Chelm. "How long will it take before you know? . . . Not that there's any hurry."
"A couple of days, maybe." Chelm gazed around again, for a moment savoring the feeling of acting like a serious buyer. Then he looked back at where Osti and Ag-Vonsar were standing. "Out of interest, if I did get clearance, how much would we be talking about?"
Ag-Vonsar made a brushing-away motion in the air. "Ah, don't worry, Stanislow Chelm. We can talk about that at the appropriate time."
"Really. I'm curious."
Osti looked a little awkward and pursed his mouth. "Oh, I had been thinking of around, say, ninety zel for a week. Or we could make it by the greater-moon month."
Chelm was thrown off-balance. He had done some checking around, and from what he could make out, the figure was substantially below the going rate. His first impulse was to actually offer more, to bring it up to what seemed fair. . . . But then, on the other hand, he couldn't be sure that all his impressions were accurate. And in any case, he didn't want to come across as a pushover—especially since he was still feeling sore after his run-in with Teel. So in the end, he merely nodded vaguely.
"You are too generous," Osti said.
The meal was like a pita bread with a filling of meat and vegetables; the wine somewhat on the dry and tangy side, but Chelm decided he could get used to it. They talked about Osti's sons and some of the antics they had gotten up to here, the news from Ag-Vonsar's part of the world, and things for Chelm to do and see if he did end up moving into Issen. Ag-Vonsar and Osti were curious about Chelm's interest in the past history of their planet's cultures. Chelm got the impression that such a concept was new to them. A civilization in its early stages wouldn't have developed much concern about unearthing the past, he supposed—which was galling, since precisely for the reason that it was young, it would be in a position to preserve priceless information about its roots that could only be recovered with so much effort later—and incompletely at that.
"You should talk with some of the nejivan," Ag-Vonsar said. "They preserve knowledge of the ways of past ages. They would be able to help you. I will inquire for you." The nejivan were a caste of priest-judges, as far as Chelm had been able to make out, who served in the temples and courts, officiated at such ceremonies as marriages and funerals, and provided the society's foundation of law and teaching generally. They probably wouldn't have much that bore directly on Chelm's area of interest, but Ag-Vonsar had made the offer in good faith. Chelm accepted it, and thanked him.
Then Chelm checked with the Cultural Center for the schedule of transportation back to the base, and declared reluctantly that he would have to be leaving. Ag-Vonsar and Osti had business to attend to elsewhere. Moishina said she would take Chelm back across the city to the Center.
They took a different route this time, through a garden of pools and cataracts, where the rocks had been exquisitely carved into animal forms, then along the river past docks and wharves surrounded by boats. People who wanted to be invisible could lose themselves permanently in a place like this, Chelm thought to himself. No scans, ID profiles, or registration with any authorities required; Lydian doctors were surprisingly skillful, and would easily be able to remove the implanted microchips that most Terrans possessed—in some cases mandated—that could be tracked to within a few feet by satellites. Which brought to mind the still-unsolved mystery of the vanished Oryx.
"Tell me," he said to Moishina, "do you know of other Terrans ever having been here? Another ship like ours, that came . . . it would have been around five of your years ago?"
"I have heard of such questions being asked. But no. I'm afraid I have no answers that I can give you."
But the ship had been in orbit over Lydia. That didn't prove it had sent down landers, of course. But having come this far, what reason could there be for it not to have done so? Then again, there was nothing that said they had to have chosen the same area to land in. All the same, from what Chelm had seen of the way things worked here, it would be strange if any news hadn't reached Issen during all that time.
They came to an open market exhibiting wares of every description, with musicians and street entertainers playing to small crowds among the stalls. Seeing the vendors and buyers haggling reminded Chelm of the uncertainty he had felt about dealing with Osti. "I wondered if I was being too easy," he said to Moishina. They had stopped for a moment to look at a stall hung with pictures and tapestries.
"You were gracious to agree," she replied. "We were impressed."
Chelm felt relieved. "I thought the expected thing might be to offer him less. But the figure seemed low anyway. And in any case, somehow it wouldn't have felt right . . . as a guest, not knowing this world well yet."
Moishina frowned, evidently puzzling over what he had said. "Why would you want to offer him less?" she asked.
"Force of habit, I guess," Chelm replied, with a shrug. "Business is business. I know it was a good rate to begin with, but . . ." He let the rest hang, seeing that she wasn't following. "Well, isn't that what you do here?"
She shook her head. "No. . . . You always give a little more, ask a little less. That is the way we are taught. You must return more to the world than you take. Otherwise, how could it feed us all?"
It was then that Chelm registered the exchange that was going on between the stallholder and a prospective customer who had taken a liking to a carved wooden relief showing boats passing under a bridge.
"I'll tell you what. I'll give you eight zel," the buyer said.
"Do I look as if I'm hungry or incapable of managing my affairs? Five would be quite sufficient. . . . Very well, make it five and a half."
"And do I look so tattered and ragged that I need to rob a trader who brings us such fine works? It is surely worth seven. Any less, and you can keep it."
The buyer was insisting on the higher price, and the seller was trying to bid it down. Chelm looked at Moishina perplexedly. "I don't understand. They're both trying to give money away."
"Yes," she agreed. And then, as if to explain, "As much as they can afford to, at least."
Which didn't explain anything. "You mean people don't try to get more of it?" Chelm asked, becoming increasingly bewildered.
"Why would they want more than provides for their needs?" Moishina replied. "Getting it would just take time out of their lives, which they would rather spend doing the things they want."
"But wouldn't more money mean they could buy more of what they want?"
Moishina shook her head. She seemed to be having as much trouble understanding Chelm. "Money is necessary for fulfilling obligations that you would prefer not to have. Needing more means being less free." She thought about it some more, as if trying to make sense of how it could be any other way. "On Earth it is not the same?"
"Not at all. It would be considered inefficient. Impossibly inefficient."
"So, what is efficient?"
"Being profitable. Making as much from a deal as you can."
"As much what?"
"Money." Chelm waited, saw that he still hadn't gotten through, and elaborated. "Buy low and sell high. It's really very simple. The bigger the difference, the more you get to keep. So everyone makes a living."
Moishina rubbed her brow with a knuckle. She was obviously having a hard time with this. "So that is the way you are taught? On your world, everyone takes as much as they can, and gives as little in return as they can get away with? But if everyone is trying to take from you, you would have to protect yourself. Is that why the Terrans have built the fence around their base?" Chelm recalled that he had seen nothing resembling a lock or bar on the door into the rooms that Osti had shown him. All of a sudden, a lot of things that he had always taken as self-evident didn't seem so obvious anymore.
"It's the way to create wealth for investing in better things," was the best answer he could come up with.
Moishina seemed to take a long time thinking through what that meant, and then shook her head again. "I don't think that Quyzo would be very happy in that world at all," she replied.
It was two days later when Chelm received a summons to Teel's office. He arrived to find that Carl Liggerman, the mission's Chief Security Officer, was there too. Liggerman was a heavy, thickset man, with close-cropped black hair, a permanently blue chin, and pugnacious, beetle-browed features. He suspected everyone and everything, was devoid of humor, and Chelm had always found him intimidating to the point of devastating. Chelm had no idea what transgression might have prompted a confrontation with the two of them in concert. Surely it couldn't be his unauthorized jaunt into Issen, which would have warranted a rebuke from the section head at most. He steeled himself for the worst. Their manner, however, came close to being conciliatory.
Teel began. "When we talked before, I said that by showing more awareness of the mission's priorities, you might do yourself a favor when it comes to getting support for your own objectives. Specifically, it's possible that the questions you've been raising with regard to archeological research could be reviewed in a more favorable light."
"Oh?" Chelm was immediately suspicious and responded neutrally.
Liggerman leaned forward to take it, as if Teel were mincing around the subject. "The big problem we've got out there right now is that Yassik doesn't understand progress and can't recognize an opportunity when it's being waved under his nose."
"Utterly uncooperative," Teel said.
Liggerman continued, "When we've run into this kind of situation before, there have always been rivals or disaffecteds of some kind that we could install, from at home or abroad, who would see things more realistically." He made a resigned gesture in the general direction of the city. "But in Lydia, we haven't been able to identify anyone who would fit that role. The ones we've approached either act like they don't understand, or they pretend they're not interested. What it has to mean is that they're holding off until they get a better handle on why we're here and what's in it for them—and that's not altogether a dumb move. But we've got a ball to get rolling. We don't have time to sit around admiring the scenery until they decide to show their hands."
Chelm nodded that he understood, at the same time asking with his expression what any of this had to do with him. Teel chimed back in. "You seem to have developed a closer rapport with some of the Lydians than most of us, Chelm. Even—and I don't mind saying it—the professional ethnic psychologists. That could make you the ideal person to sound the Lydian situation out for us." He paused for a moment to let Chelm digest that. "You see my point? Maybe you could get them to open up and be more forthcoming; find out who and where the potential movers are. Then it's just a case of dealing with the more ambitious ones and seeing what motivates them. Everyone wants something. There's always an angle, eh?"
Chelm could see the picture now. The mission's program was stalled because the people who were supposed to do the political groundwork had failed to recruit the native leadership and were getting nowhere trying to find a more "responsive" element that could be used to foment trouble as a pretext for Terran intervention. Teel had seen a possible opportunity for his department to reap big credits with the ship's Directorate, which in due course would be communicated to Kermes-Oates Restructuring and the authorities back home. The deal for Chelm, as Teel had said, would be a more receptive attitude toward his work. There was more too, he realized as he leaned back to consider the proposition. Liggerman voiced it.
"Naturally, this would make a big difference to the application you filed to move into the city. With your leads and contacts, it would be the perfect place to be based for collecting the kind of information we want. So there it is. How long do you need?"
There really wasn't anything to think about. In his mind, Chelm was picturing the two rooms above the pottery workshop already. In any case, what did the alternative have to offer? "I can give you an answer right now," he replied. "Okay, I'll take it."
Chelm's clearance came through later that same day. Within hours he was packed and ready to go. His quarters in the base had already been claimed by a Kermes-Oates development planner from the ship, who cited her work as requiring her to be in proximity to the city. She was drafting an outline proposal for the first phase of restructuring and listing the sites to be scheduled for demolition. But it was equally an instance of anyone who had the right authority or pull getting themselves a posting down on the ground. For those who didn't, it worked the other way. Chuck Ranneson, as Teel had threatened, was consigned back up to a ship-bound job to make room for one of Liggerman's aides to move down.
Chelm moved out to his new abode the first thing next morning. He was even able to arrange for his pay to be issued in Lydian zel. The Lydians had supplied a list of Terran products and equipment that they required, presumably out of curiosity or for evaluation, and which they insisted on paying for. Hence, the Terran administrators found themselves flush with Lydian currency that they were happy to dispose of. Presumably some system of regularized currency exchange would follow. Chelm wasn't really an expert on such things, but in the meantime it meant that he had the wherewithal to do some shopping.
Jen was at the Cultural Center in Issen that morning and took a couple of hours off to come and see Chelm's new abode, immediately falling in love with it. They went out together for some household items and comforts to make the rooms homey, in the process making some headway in getting to know the neighborhood better. Chelm explained to Jen about the custom of always trying to give a little more and take a little less, which she laughed at delightedly and thought was wonderful. Nevertheless, they emerged as patsies when it came to Lydian bargaining, somehow ending up with a lamp, some towels, and a serving dish that they had allowed to be foisted on them for nothing as "welcoming gifts" to the alien.
"How did you get approval to move out?" Jen asked when they got back, obviously taken by the thought of trying something similar. "Do you think it might work for me too if I applied?"
"It couldn't hurt to try, I guess," Chelm told her. He tried not to sound too hopeful. Going into the deal he had struck with Teel and Liggerman would have spoiled the day. "Maybe I just got lucky."
The next day, Chelm was visited by a young man in a yellow robe and hooded green cloak who introduced himself as Troim, an acolyte of a high nejivan called Xerosh. Xerosh had heard word of Chelm's interest in Lydia's past ages—presumably from Ag-Vonsar—and humbly offered to share what knowledge he possessed. And in any case, he wished the honor of meeting the traveler from afar who had come to live in their city.
Troim took Chelm into the center of Issen, arriving at a large building of stone with inlays of what looked like polished marble, set atop steps that converged toward high doors framed by a triangular architrave bearing reliefs of human forms and supported by pillars. The building was a peculiar mixture of designs, with lower walls sloping back like the base of a pyramid, a stepped, ziggurat-style center portion, and the top part culminating in a large, silvery dome. Inside, they passed through a succession of arched and columned halls, carrying a continuous flow of people coming and going, that seemed to combine the functions of temple, public forums, and city offices. A broad central stairway took them up to an overlooking gallery behind balustrades, from which corridors diverged in several directions. They found Xerosh in a chamber along one of these, poring over charts laid out on a table set among shelves crammed with manuscripts and bound volumes.
Chelm had pictured a patriarchal, Moses-like figure, with flowing white hair and a beard. Xerosh was wearing a robed tunic similar to Troim's, with a dark red cloak and the addition of a thick, braided belt and a silver medallion hanging from a cord about his neck. Otherwise, he was fiftyish, maybe, clean-shaven with dark, cropped hair, and square and stocky in build. He had smooth, rounded features that carried fewer lines than his years should have produced, and large, deeply intense, dark brown eyes.
"Xerosh, Kal-nejivan of Issen," Troim said, addressing him. "Stanislow Chelm, archeologist-scientist from Earth."
Xerosh extended his hands. "Our world is yours. May life return to you what you give to life. Welcome to Issen."
"You are too generous." Chelm gave the standard Lydian response.
"Thank you, Troim. You may leave us," Xerosh said. The acolyte bowed his head toward Xerosh and Chem in turn, and departed. The two men exchanged formalities and politenesses for a while, Xerosh asking Chelm about the differences between Lydia and Earth, and the impressions he had formed since arriving. Finally, he came to the subject of Lydia's past, and how could he be of assistance?
Chelm tried to convey the idea of archeology and its purpose. Was there anything along the lines of a museum in Issen, which might start him in the right direction? His transvox channel had trouble finding a Lydian equivalent to the word. "A place where things are preserved that have survived from long ago," Chelm said. "So the story of the people who lived then can be reconstructed."
"Ah, yes. We have stories of long ago," Xerosh replied.
He conducted Chelm back to the gallery with the balustrade, and from there to a rear stairway leading down—smaller than the one Chelm had ascended with Troim. A passage brought them to a space that seemed to form a rear vestibule into the building. The way from the interior—through which they had just emerged—was flanked on either side by massive square pillars, tapering upward, carved with intricately interwoven linear designs. Xerosh turned and motioned for Chelm to look up at the tablet set into the wall across the space above, between the pillars. It must have been fifteen to twenty feet long, of a smooth, dark rock, almost black, and was inscribed all over with depictions of stylized human forms involved in undecipherable events; animals, artefacts, and enclosed spaces with apertures, that could have been fixed constructions or vehicles; and patterns of signs and symbols written in rows above and beneath, and interwoven among the scenes to divide them into what looked like a narrative series.
"This tells the story from the earliest times, when the world and the sky were born from the thoughts of the spirits, and only the animals walked the land," Xerosh said. Staring up at the tablet as if reading, he recited, "And then there came giants, who rode upon stars and possessed powers beyond those known to men. They could turn night into day. They commanded fire from rocks, that shaped matter into whatsoever form they desired. They imprinted their will into the very designs that cause living things to grow. Neither distance nor time, nor vastness nor minuteness, nor limits of memory or thought, were impediments to their knowledge. Yet their hearts burned with covetousness and rage, and they fought ferocious battles that laid waste the earth to possess that which cannot be possessed, and as the Dark Gods they perished. And the spirits created mankind to spread and multiply, to restore and heal and tend the world; and so have we been entrusted."
Chelm waited a moment and then nodded solemnly. It sounded like the typical creation myth of a primitive culture—interesting for the cultural anthropologists, maybe, but not exactly his line. Of course, he wouldn't have been ill-mannered enough to say so, and thought up a few questions to ask for form's sake. This only seemed to encourage Xerosh, however, who answered them, and then confided, "There's more."
Chelm followed him out through the rear portico and along a tree-lined terrace to more stairs, which descended to a side entrance to another building. The surroundings here were plainer and less spacious than the imposing public halls and galleries of the building they had just left, suggesting more of a workaday environment. They passed through a library; a room like a large office, where somewhere between a half dozen and a dozen people were writing and copying, and two operating what looked like a hand-driven rotary press—a surprise to Chelm; and then two rooms each containing a central worktable, side benches bearing charcoal burners and retorts, and lined with shelves of bottles and glassware, that could have been some kind of laboratory, a pharmacy, or an alchemy shop. Beyond this, they emerged into a cloister bordering a garden enclosed by high walls and filled with rows of closely spaced shrubs and small trees, herbs, flowers, and plants of every kind. The emphasis seemed to be on variety, with just a few specimens of each kind. A local stream had been captured to create a pond in the center, and from the twittering and movement, it appeared that the place was popular with the city's community of birds. Several figures were at work here and there, tending, watering, and weeding.
"This is just a small establishment that we keep in the city to try new ideas and consolidate our repository of learning, you understand," Xerosh said. "The original knowledge comes from the experience and wisdom of people everywhere, passed down over time." Chelm didn't really follow, and looked back questioningly.
Xerosh explained, "Another story that goes back to the ancient times of our race is of how the magic that exists within plants was studied and put to use. In the beginning, they provided just simple foods. As knowledge was gained over the ages, they came to be recognized as gifts from the spirits, which would ease cares and pain, bring sleep and new life to souls weary from toil, heal the sicknesses of body and of mind, and open the inner eyes of the soul to the purpose of life. The Dark Gods, too, sought these things, but they looked for them in the forces that are outside, not the soul that dwells inside, and the fruits of the seeds they sowed were violence and fear, the lust to compel others and possess all. They believed they would be as the spirits that had created the world. But the spirits let them destroy themselves, and the world was begun once more."
They were now walking along a path between some beds containing seedlings. Chelm couldn't but think how strange it was that a world as far-flung as this should have evolved its own version of the Fall legend, practically universal among the cultures of Earth. But what Xerosh was saying about the ways of life since was too idyllic. From what Chelm knew of human nature—and the natures of all the humanlike species that Terran expansion had encountered—the impulse toward power and personal aggrandizement, and readiness to resort to force in order to achieve them, were too powerful not to have asserted themselves.
"But the people of Issen and the lands around obey the laws of Yassik," he pointed out. "How does Yassik come to exercise that authority? Wasn't the office that he holds as ruler established by predecessors who fought and disputed at some time? It had to be, surely."
Xerosh didn't quite seem to understand. "The people obey Yassik because he accepts the burden of taking responsibility." He went on to describe a system whereby the villages and other communities sent representatives to an assembly that met every two years to proclaim the ruler. The ruler then offered ministries and other official positions to selected individuals to form the governing body. It sounded like a rudimentary form of a republic—but a surprisingly enlightened one, nevertheless, for the planet's level of technical development.
"What about his rivals for the position, or others who might want to impose a different system?" Chelm persisted. "How would they achieve their objectives? Isn't some kind of confrontation inevitable? When all else fails, that leads to conflict. Then only superior strength will prevail."
Xerosh frowned while he turned this over in his mind. "You make it sound as if others would want his position," he observed finally.
"Well, yes, after all, isn't that the universal . . ." Chelm stopped as he saw that Xerosh wasn't following at all. "Are you telling me they wouldn't?"
"No. Not if given the choice . . ." Xerosh eyed Chelm uncertainly, as if hesitating to state the obvious. "Ruling the land is a wearying and unnerving task, filled with responsibility and worries. It takes great fortitude, character, and dedication to serve the people. Not all of those asked are willing to accept."
Chelm felt his whole foundation of reality shift again. It was like the time in the marketplace, with Moishina. "You mean it isn't something that's forced on the people?" he said.
Xerosh shook his head, evidently mystified. "The people are grateful. They know that for two years Yassik will have to pass judgments, make decisions, and that he will give of his best. And so they are sympathetic and supportive, and they do what they can to make his term easier. Abuse of a public office would be the worst of crimes . . . Why do you look at me so strangely, Stanislow Chelm? Are our ways somehow in error, do you think?"
Just at that moment, Chelm could only shake his head mutely. In error? Just the converse! In one simple statement, Xerosh had undermined the rationale that had been taken as the axiomatic, unavoidable root of just about all of Earth's troubles for thousands of years. Somewhere, once, Chelm had heard it said half-jokingly that anyone who wanted the job of President of the Sol Federation shouldn't be allowed to have it. Ambition for power should be its own automatic disqualification. Now something else that had always seemed unquestionable was being turned on its head. Suddenly, it felt as if what Xerosh was saying was the only thing that made sense. Small wonder that the mission was having no luck finding opponents and power rivals to install in Yassik's place.
Yet nothing in life was ever that simple or easy. "Your way is not in error," Chelm replied at last. "But there will still be people who feel differently, whose compulsion is to command and control the lives of others, to take and not to give. And they will find ones who will help them. Wolves will emerge in the flock. What do you do then?"
Xerosh stopped walking and thought for several seconds. Then he nodded, beckoned, and led the way along a side path running through a grove of mixed trees bright with blossoms and fruits. "Yes, it is so," he agreed. "When a wolf appears, the other animals must become wolves too; unless the wolf can be tamed." They came to a shrub about five feet high, with a maze of twisty branches something like a monkey puzzle tree, leaves of bright green and orange, and small, purple berries hanging in clusters. Xerosh stopped and gestured toward it. "In our world, such people find the answer to their desires here. It is called the Tree of Dreams."
Hallucinations of grandeur, Chelm interpreted. It was Xerosh's way of saying that Lydian culture had become immune to such perturbations, and the only recourse left for those harboring such cravings was escape into drug-induced fantasizing. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have thought that the problem could be solved that conveniently; but who was he to argue with someone who lived here that it couldn't be so? He left it at that.
That evening, Xerosh attended a meeting of the Inner Chamber of Issen's Governing Council. Yassik was present, along with his senior ministers and advisors. They gathered in the debating room at the rear of Yassik's official residence, across the square from the building in which Xerosh had first met Chelm earlier.
"My observations agree with what the boatbuilder, his granddaughter, and others say," Xerosh informed them. "Rapacity and the hunger to subdue might be what drives the Terran federation, but it is not a universal trait in all Terrans. The voices of those who would dissent are not heard. To adjudge guilt equally would be to commit a grave injustice."
"Are we not, then, guilty of injustice before?" Yassik asked.
"That was not your decision, Yassik," one of the ministers said. "It happened before your appointment."
"All responsibilities of the office I hold are my responsibilities," Yassik reminded them.
"The flower cannot return to the seed, nor the hatchling into the egg. It is done."
"But the flower produces a new seed, and the bird, a new egg. If we have learned more, we can be wiser this time. What was done cannot be repeated. Justice requires that we be more selective. But how?"
There was a long silence. Eventually, Xerosh spoke. "I talked with Stanislow Chelm about his decision to move into our city. It seems there is a broader pattern. The envy that Terrans are conditioned to feel produces rivalry among them for accommodation down on the ground. They also measure status by their ability to command the services of others. I think there might be a way. . . ."
Jen called Chelm the next morning with glum news. Not only had her application to move out of the base been rejected, but she was being reassigned to a position back up in the ship. Apparently, exopsychology didn't figure strongly enough in the mission's current planning to warrant her continuing to use base accommodation that was needed for others whose work was more pertinent. In reality, of course, it was just another part of the jostling by higher officers and administrators for a place—literally—in the sun.
Granting her request would have freed up the space just as effectively, but that was ruled out on account of a further development. Even the professional paranoids had gotten it into their heads by this time that the Lydians represented no threat and the environment was wholesome, and partly as a consequence the competition for surface assignments had taken on a new dimension. Prefab modules within the base area were regarded as mundane, and the new status symbol among the upper echelons was to be able to boast a real native-built house outside. And the Lydians, as always, were cheerfully obliging. In fact, they seemed to encourage the fad by taking Terrans to see places that they thought would appeal to them. Some said the Lydians had instigated the idea in the first place. Practically the entire Directorate and their wives moved into a group of villas on a hillside about a half mile from the base. Anyone of department-head level or above needed at least a three-room chalet or one complete level of a multistory town abode. It followed that to confer a comparable privilege on someone of Jen's lowly standing was unthinkable. The mission was effectively dividing into two castes, the privileged and the empowered down on the surface, and second-class citizens removed to orbit. Chelm's, of course, was a special case that it was convenient to forget about.
However, living without things like computer-managed kitchens and household inventories, self-regulating environments, and shipboard services that had been taken for granted did not come as easily as the newcomers would have thought, had they thought about it at all. Creating an edible meal from an assortment of strange liquids and powders, raw vegetables, and pieces of dead animals was something that few Terrans from the professional classes had ever contemplated, let alone practiced or mastered. What did one do with dirty clothes without a laundry machine, when laundry, by that definition, is something a machine does? And then there were all those endless things that needed fixing or cleaning, adjusting or restocking, that made existence impossible without a maintenance crew to call on.
Again, the Lydians came to the rescue. They had been thinking about things the Terrans had been saying, and they agreed it was only right that they should pay for all the things from Earth that they stood to gain. In the absence, as yet, of a currency exchange system, they offered their services as domestic help for their new neighbors. This rapidly caught on as the indispensable mark of having any status at all among the Terrans, and the bragging at cocktail soirees thrown to show off a newly possessed mansion, or across the dinner table of an apartment overlooking the river in Issen, centered around the number of native cooks, maids, stewards, and gardeners that the household commanded. Even the security people were persuaded that the Lydians possessed no weapons apart from those used for hunting, which were easily spotted, and began allowing them into the base to perform their duties—albeit after the standard ritual of scanning and screening. It was not long before even the most jaundiced, lower-echelon occupier of a prefab single module had a part-time Lydian domestic to rustle up a change from the routine autochef fare, or send ostentatiously on errands as visible affirmation of respectable standing—superior, at least, to those banished in the dreary confines of the ship.
The security procedures looked for knives and axes—guns, had there been any—and other potential implements of violent assault of the kind that security-trained minds envisaged. What they didn't take into account were the various exotic delicacies that the Lydian cooks brought to titillate the appetites of their new employers, or the ingredients that went into their preparation. In particular, nobody paid attention to an essence distilled from the juice of a pale red berry, picked before it turned purple, and combined with an extract from a certain seed, that could be blended into a sauce or garnish, cooked with the stuffing of a fowl, added to a compote of fruits, or introduced into a dish in a dozen other ways. The berry came from a twisty-branched shrub that Lydians called the "Tree of Dreams."
There were exceptions, of course. Not every Terran who dwealt down on the surface was of a disposition that would be found threatening. Some were decent enough people in themselves, caught up in a way of life that was not of their choice or making, and which they couldn't change. But after a week or so, a telling measure of which kind was which could be had from the way they spoke to and treated their Lydian housekeepers. In effect, the servants became the judges of their masters.
An evening meal was the best time, allowing the potion all night to work, after which the victim would awake a changed person. The effect was irreversible.
The first Chelm knew of it was when Jen called him from the ship early one morning. "Stan, thank God you're okay. What's going on down there?"
"What do you mean?"
"You don't know?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Something's happened to . . . it seems, just about everybody down on the surface. Some kind of sickness. I managed to raise two people at the base, but they were just shift operators in the com room and not making much sense. People up here are getting a lander ready to come down."
"Did you try anyone here in the city—at the Cultural Center?"
"I was more concerned about you first."
"I'll try and raise someone there. Will you be coming down too?"
"I'm not sure yet. Yes, if I can. I'll call you back when I know."
"Later."
Chelm called several numbers at the Center, finally getting through to a secretary. She, a couple of technicians, and a security guard had come out on an early shuttle bus, and other than the driver were the only ones to have shown up. They hadn't been able to make any more sense of what had happened back at the base than Jen had. "We need to get back there," Chelm said. "Can you guys pick me up here in the bus?" The secretary took a moment to check with the others.
"Sure," she replied. "Where are you, exactly? Give me some directions."
The first strange thing to strike Chelm as the bus approached the base was the number of Lydians both inside and outside the perimeter fence, along with a collection of mounts and carriages of various kinds that many of them had presumably arrived in. The gate was wide open, and the only guards he saw were standing in a huddle to one side, looking bewildered and very much out of things. As the bus maneuvered its way through the throng, he saw numerous nejivan robes and other symbols of office among the Lydians present. This was not some street crowd that had wandered in out of idle curiosity. And then he spotted Xerosh and his acolyte Troim with a group standing near the entrance to the Admin Block. "Can you drop me off here, driver?" Chelm called to the front.
Xerosh saw Chelm coming across and turned from saying something to the others who were with him. "The spirits have willed us a new morning, Stanislow Chelm," he greeted.
"Use it well." The responses had become automatic. "What's going on?"
Xerosh raised his arm and made a sweeping gesture that took in the activity going on within the base, the city in the distance, and the rest of the world beyond. "You are free," he announced.
"Free from what?"
"From everything that has enslaved you. To become all the things you have always wanted, and are capable of. The wolves who preyed upon your life will do so no more."
Before Chelm could reply, some Lydians emerged from the Admin Block, shepherding a group of Terrans, almost as if they were under guard. Chelm recognized Teel, Liggerman, others . . . all from managerial or administrative grades. He stepped forward toward Teel, intending to get some kind of explanation . . . but then slowed when he saw that Teel was not behaving normally. Teel's face had a distant, ecstatic expression as he came out into the sunlight. He stopped to gaze at the sky, the mountains rising in the direction away from the city, and two birds perched on the boundary fence, squawking at each other. Chelm looked at his face. It was empty but happy, like a child's. Behind Teel, Liggerman was looking equally blissfully imbecilic, moving his head this way and that to take in the base as if he had never seen it before. Chelm turned demandingly toward Xerosh; but the emotions boiling up inside him were so turbulent and confused that he could find no coherent words to string together.
"We will take care of them now," Xerosh said quietly.
And then the call tune sounded from Chelm's wristpad. It was Jen at last. "Okay, Stan, I'm on my way," she said. "We're detaching from the ship in about ten minutes' time. See you soon. . . . Stan? Is everything okay there?" She had seen that Chelm had turned his face away and wasn't listening.
For Teel was stretching a hand out toward the unit. His eyes met Chelm's. Just for an instant, a spark of recognizing something familiar flickered in them. "Mozart!" he exclaimed.
After the lander arrived, Chelm and Jen rode with Xerosh and some of his company back into the city. On the way, Xerosh proposed his plan. With the help of the technicians aboard the ship, a message would be sent to Earth, advising that the early report from Oryx had overstated Lydia's potential for development, and the planet did not warrant further effort. The message would say that information had been found showing that the Oryx had departed to continue its survey elsewhere, and the present mission would follow in the direction of the galactic sector it had indicated. The Hayward Kermes would then be sent off unmanned, under programmed control, to lose itself among the stars in the same way as had been done with the Oryx.
Chelm's mind was still in such a whirl from the morning's happenings that they had arrived at their destination before it dawned on him that there would have been no technicians available to set up the departure of the Oryx. Its entire complement had been absorbed into Lydia's population of jujerees—the child-people. So who had done it?
Xerosh seemed to have been expecting the question. "That is one of the things we have brought you here to have answered," he said.
They were at another building near the city center, but an inconspicuous one this time, plain in style and obscured by others. Xerosh and his companions took them down deep below ground, then through a series of dark corridors that passed by many doors. They stopped at one and entered. Inside, Xerosh flipped a switch to bring on the lights. Chelm gaped up at them.
Electric?
And then he looked around. There were glass cases containing oddly styled but mostly recognizable racks of electronic assemblies, vacuum-tube chassis, and switchgear; chip and crystal arrays, cableforms, circuit cards, capacitor banks; coils, motors, transformer windings; input panels and screens. . . . Many items were old, broken, incomplete, or corroded, others seemingly repaired and restored, while some looked in working order. An opening to one side revealed part of an adjoining hall that appeared dedicated to engines and machines. Jen was looking as stunned as Chelm felt.
"Yes, we have our museum that preserves things from long ago," Xerosh said. "When we met, I told you, Stanislow Chelm, that the function of the nejivan is to act as custodians of ancient knowledge. It is amusing that Terrans took our culture to be young and primitive. Like the Terrans, our distant ancestors found that knowledge can accumulate very quickly and cheaply. But finding the wisdom to use it well takes longer. There are aeons left for the universe. We can afford to wait until the time is right." The priest turned to look at them. His gaze was kindly, deep, and not without a hint of mirth. "In the meantime, as I said, you are free."
The full meaning was going to take a long time to sink in. Chelm looked at Jen, his mind grappling for something even halfway sensible to say. "You still like the thought of the place over the pottery shop?" was all he could manage in the end.
"You mean I don't have to put in an application, file a priority statement, and ask permission?"
Chelm shook his head. And it was only then that the realization really hit him that yes, it was true. He grinned—maybe the first honest, open, totally carefree grin in his life.
"No, Jen," he answered. "Never again."