Chapter 25
At Grimes’s insistence the party then went to the fields to watch the progress of the harvest. Laura McReady did her best to dissuade him but at last, sullenly, gave the necessary orders to the trishaw drivers. On the ride out they passed, bound in the opposite direction, a steady stream of large, steam-driven trucks bound for the threshing floors in the village.
Having observed the nature of the cargoes of these vehicles Grimes asked, “Why don’t you thresh on the spot and just bring the grain in?”
“Why should we. Your Excellency?” asked Mrs. McReady. Then she condescended to explain. “The straw and the husks are . . . processed. They, too, have nutritional value. You, yourself, have just sampled some of the food made from such materials.”
“Oh,” said Grimes. “So that was origin of the sludge we tasted. I thought that it came from something worse.”
“Why should we waste good organic manure?” countered the woman.
Grimes pursued the subject.
“So your slaves get the husks and you get the grain. For export.”
“Not slaves. Your Excellency. Indentured labor.”
“Mphm.”
They came to one of the fields, to where a line of steam trucks was awaiting cargo. They dismounted and watched for a short while the huge-wheeled handcarts being pushed in from the slowly receding line of reapers, each piled high with golden, heavy-headed stalks. Men and women, sweating in the afternoon sun, naked save for brief loincloths, tipped the loads out onto the road and then, gathering up huge armfuls of grain-bearing straw, staggered up ramps to the truck beds to restow the harvest. Human beings, thought Grimes, reduced to the status of worker ants. . . . But worker ants do , not toil under the watchful eyes of overseers. And these overseers, men and women bigger and tougher-looking than the common laborers, were armed with whips, short-handled but with at least two meters of lash. Usually they just cracked these threateningly while shouting in high-pitched voices—and then Grimes shouted in protest when one of the overseers drew a line of blood on the sweating back of a frail girl.
“The lazy little bitch,” said Laura McReady, “deserved it. Look at the load she’s carrying!”
“Even so . . .” protested Grimes.
“Your Excellency, you are the Governor. Before you became Governor you were a spaceman. With all due respect to you, what do you know of the management of a large agricultural enterprise?”
“Very little,” admitted Grimes. “But I’m learning. And I don’t like what I’m learning, Mrs. McReady.”
“We all have to learn unpleasant lessons, Your Excellency.”
And I shall be teaching some, I hope, thought Grimes.
He led the way onto the field itself, walking between the furrows, his feet sinking into the soft soil. The incoming handcarts swerved to avoid him—or to avoid Laura McReady, who was walking close behind him. Her they knew but they would not know the new Governor. He came up to the line of reapers, stooped and sweating as they wielded their flashing sickles. He heard the cracking of the overseers’ whips and their shouted orders. He saw a woman, not young, one of the gatherers, straighten up briefly from her labors and stand there, her face turned up to the uncaring sky. For some reason (and who could blame her? thought Grimes) she was weeping quietly.
She stood in tears amid the alien corn . . . Where did that come from? Not that it mattered. What did matter was that a woman was standing there, in tears, the helpless victim of a harsh economic system and of political hypocrisy.
“Su Lin,” he said, “will you ask her what is wrong?”
“What does it matter. Your Excellency?” asked Laura McReady.
“It does to her, madam.” said Grimes.
Su Lin went up to the woman and, in a soft voice, spoke to her in her own language. The answer came in a rather unpleasant whining voice, punctuated by sobs.
“She says. Your Excellency.” Su Lin told him. “that her husband was promoted to threshing floor foreman. Now he has no time for her. He has taken up with one of the girls working under him.”
“You can’t blame me for that,” said Laura McReady smugly.
Grimes ignored this.
“Tell her,” he said to Su Lin, “that I am sorry. Very sorry.”
And what the hell good will that do? he asked himself.
And what the hell good will that do? Mrs. McReady, to judge from the expression on her face, was obviously thinking.
She asked, “And now have you seen enough, Your Excellency?”
“For the time being,” said Grimes.
“Then may I suggest that we return to the manor house?” She added, without enthusiasm, “You and Captain Sanchez will be dining with us. of course.”
“Thank you,” said Grimes. “And Su Lin?”
“Your servant. Your Excellency, will be able to take a meal with our own domestic staff.”
And make sure that you keep your pretty ears flapping, Su, thought Grimes.
Following the line of furrows they made their way back to the waiting trishaws.