Promised Land (6 page)

‘Charlot will be angry.'

‘Sure he will,' I said. ‘So what?'

She didn't feel the need to answer that one.

‘Surely it would be easier to locate the forest people using a helicopter,' she said.

I shrugged. ‘If they don't give us a copter there's not much we can do except walk,' I said. ‘But don't be too quick to put it down to natural cussedness. Take a look at the trees around you.'

She looked. She didn't see anything significant.

‘They don't have leaves,' she said finally.

‘Too true they don't,' I told her. The trees were equipped with membranous drapes mounted on rubbery branches. To increase their photosynthetic activity they extended the drapes like the pages of a book. ‘That trick wouldn't work if the trees were more densely packed,' I pointed out. ‘This is open country, but it's probably as close as those trees can grow without having things get in their way. In a jungle, things have to be done differently. All available space has to be used to maximum effect. I think we'll find that inside the rain forest those membranes will be arrayed horizontally rather than vertically. The trees will be like giant umbrellas. The canopy will be just that. I'll lay odds that from up top the jungle is just an expanse of solid green.'

She tried to visualise it.

‘What will it be like inside,' she asked. ‘On the ground?'

‘Dark,' I said.

‘And we have to walk around in there for more than a week?'

‘Probably be more comfortable,' I said. ‘You sleeping well?'

She shook her head, knowing already what I was about to say.

‘Circadian rhythms disturbed by the short day,' I said, going ahead anyway. ‘In there we might be able to get back to a twenty-four-hour cycle.' This was distinctly optimistic. For one thing there's dark and there's a pitch black, and there's a big difference. For another, all the rest of the party were attuned to a seventeen-hour day, and wouldn't appreciate our wanting to switch to twenty-four for our own convenience.

‘Anyway,' I continued, ‘I wouldn't worry about little things like walking around in the dark if I were in your position. I'd be much more disposed to worry about all the difficulties which this lot might yet think to throw at us.' And that, of course, was sheer pessimism, just to even the score.

‘I don't like this world,' she said feelingly.

‘That's the expanding civilised universe for you,' I said, with my customary fatalism. ‘This is what worlds are like these days. What do you expect? Your brother didn't like it either. He always used to prefer the rim, and he always liked to deal with the natives direct. He wasn't a man-hater by any means, but he despised the second-stage invaders—the exploiters and the moneymen and the politicians. He liked things simple, not packed and predigested to some fancy recipe. You know the syndrome—primitive man against the elements. The archetypal Western hero.'

‘Yes,' she said, ‘I know.'

I didn't often talk to her about her brother. It was an uncomfortable issue, ever since the charming discussion we'd had in New York Port about whether or not and to what degree I'd been responsible for his death.

‘You felt the same way,' she said, after a few moments' silence.

‘Not a lot,' I claimed. ‘Mythical man was never my type. I'm no romantic—the hell with Rousseau and the back-to-the-trees boys. I like to spend what I make, and make what I spend. We couldn't do either very well while we were bouncing around on the rim. Sure, sharks bite and I don't like them. But they swim where the pickings are and they're just a hazard of the waters. There's no point in hating them for it. These days, the universe is shrinking so fast that you have to live with everybody whether you like it or not. You can't find a garden world on which to live out your days. Paradise is a marketable commodity now, and the companies move in, slap on a hefty slice of cosmetic streamlining and start the auction. They're so good at it, it doesn't even take them a year any more. Instant fairyland—just add money. Sure it's in lousy taste—who ever made money out of aesthetic sensibilities? You can't hide any more. Not anywhere. You have to live where the people live. Compared to the companies the
Zodiac
mob are a bunch of stone-age savages. They haven't anything like the technology that someone like Caradoc can bring to bear. But how long do you think the rain forests are going to last? How long before the colonists have it all? Do you seriously think that the human race is going to leave a single galactic stone unturned? Like hell. So that's the way it is. And you have to live with it. I don't hold it against anybody, and I'm sure as hell not going to spend my time running away from it all to find skinny patches of sand where I can bury my head and pretend to be an ostrich. Okay?'

‘Fine,' she said. ‘Just fine. You really love people and the great human dream. You're a part of it all. I bet you just love New Alexandria too.'

‘Best of all,' I assured her.

‘But you like aliens?' she probed. ‘You really do like aliens?'

‘Sure I do. Some of them. But it's only prejudice. Hell, everybody has prejudice. Ninety percent of people are as proud as can be about their prejudice. Can't I have a little bit as well? I'm only human, when all said and done. I like aliens. I can approach an alien with a clean slate. I don't know anything about him, and I can judge exactly what I see. I can estimate him as I find out what he does and says. But I can't approach a man that way. I know far too much about him already to take him as he comes. Whatever he says, I daren't take on the level. Whatever he does, I have a whole range of possible motives for him. I know men too well, because I am one. I don't like that. I'm a simple man, and I like to be dealing with what I'm seeing and feeling at a particular moment. I don't like to be carrying around a whole bibleful of preconceptions and qualifications that I have to dump on every moment that passes. It squashes the moments dead, see?'

‘It doesn't make sense,' she said.

‘It makes sense to me,' I told her.

‘Do you like the Anacaona?' she asked.

‘How do I know?' I complained. ‘Do I have to tag everything I see with plus or minus? I don't know anything about the Anacaona. I gave one a ride in my car once. That's all.'

‘What about the
Zodiac
people?'

‘You have to be joking. The
Zodiac
bunch are completely unlovable. They're going to extremes to make themselves that way. Who am I to argue? If they want to be the biggest bastards in the galaxy, who am I to stand in their way? I think they're making a good job of it. I don't say I haven't known worse people, because I've known people who tried harder. But I concede the
Zodiac
s the proper fruit of their labours. No, I don't like them and I don't want anything to do with them. Now wouldn't they just love that?'

‘You don't think that their idea of Promised Land makes sense?'

‘Sense?' I queried. ‘I didn't say anything about sense. Certainly it makes sense. It's one of the most sensible things I've ever come across. You tell me that the great human surge of conquest, civilisation and culture isn't the Promised Land syndrome. You tell me that New Alexandria isn't playing Promised Land with all creation. You tell me that New Rome isn't playing ideological Promised Land. You tell me that Penaflor and the company belt aren't playing commercial Promised Land. You tell me that the Engelian Hegemony aren't playing Communist Promised Land. The
Zodiac
people are by far and away the most sensible of the lot. They don't want the whole universe. They only want one world. Isn't that more sensible? You always stand a better chance with a narrow mind. It's a fact of life.'

‘But you don't hate,' she said, with more than a trace of sarcasm. ‘All that and you don't hate. You can mix your venom with all kinds of assurances that you have to live with it all, that it's the way of things and you have to like it.'

‘I don't have to like it,' I said. ‘I don't have to like it at all.'

‘And you don't,' she said. ‘Sure, you don't hate people. You have to live with them, don't you? But you hate having to live with them. What's the difference?'

‘The difference,' I said, ‘is where the hate goes. Nobody else gets hurt by mine. Not by the hate, nor by any crazy ideas I might have like Promised Land.'

‘You get hurt,' she said.

‘No I don't,' I told her.

‘You've set yourself up all alone,' she persisted. ‘You've cut yourself off from the whole universe just because other people think it's their playground.'

‘That's right,' I said. ‘I'm the original alienated man.' I spat out the vital word as if I were spitting acid.

And I'm not alone, I added. Silently. Never again alone.

Two years on Lapthorn's Grave had turned me right off the galaxy and life in general. I never was one for the joys of spring and the spirit of adventure, unlike Lapthorn, but I really had sat fairly comfortably in my chosen slice of life. It was only since coming back that things had achieved their present dark conformation.

Not since you came back, said the wind. Since you went away. You're still living in the shadow of Lapthorn's Grave. If you want to come out of it, you can.

Thanks a lot, I said. Everybody wanted to welcome me back to humanity. I wondered why.

Linda found us again
about dusk. She had an Anacaon with her. I was still at the stage where they all looked pretty much alike to me, but when I subjected this one to close scrutiny I figured that I would have little enough difficulty remembering him. He had sharp eyes and a lantern-jawed hungry look that seemed quite out of place in a member of such a delicately formed people.

He was slender, like all of his race, and almost seven feet tall, which was a shade above the average for the adult male. He wore a kind of skirt of soft grey material, and an undergarment of similar cloth which was visible at the shoulders. Instead of a jacket he had a strange rigid garment like the breastplate from a suit of armour, made of something hard and chitinous. It was basically grey in colour, but it had some kind of a weird pattern on it—a sulphur-yellow cloud with an uneven purple border. It didn't look like a work of art—more like one of nature's accidents.

‘This is Danel,' said Linda. ‘He knows the forest as well as anyone, and he says that he can contact the wild Anacaona without any trouble.'

‘Good,' said Eve. ‘We'll be very grateful for his help.'

Danel was looking around absently while this exchange was going on.

‘Does he speak English?' asked Eve, observing his lack of attention.

‘No,' she said. ‘But I can make myself understood in his dialect. He says that his brother and sister must come with us—his brother speaks good English and his sister can manage simple conversation. I don't know how much Danel understands of what we say, but he never speaks any English.' She glanced sideways at the alien as she made this last remark, as if she mistrusted his claim to speak only his own language.

Danel didn't bat an eyelid.

‘Why should he lie about it?' I asked.

‘He wouldn't,' said Linda. ‘Anacaona don't lie. He just doesn't say anything at all about it, and one can never be sure how much to assume. The Anacaona are a very difficult people to understand.'

I thought at the time she was making excuses for her own failure to understand, but I misjudged her. The Anacaona really were a very difficult people to understand.

Linda and Danel exchanged a few chopped phrases in the click-and-whisper of the Anacaon tongue, and then Linda redirected her attention to us.

‘Danel is a spiderhunter,' she said. ‘He wants you to know that you will be safe in the forest with him. Otherwise he would not take his sister.'

This calm pronouncement caused me a twinge of fear. This was the first official indication we'd had that the forest wasn't a nice place to go walking. I'd expected it, of course, but it was still not very nice to be right.

‘He hunts spiders,' I said calmly, knowing that there was more to come. ‘What sort of spiders?'

‘They weigh about two tons,' she said.

‘That's what I thought,' I said. ‘Common, are they?'

‘No.'

‘That's a relief.' This interjection came from Eve.

‘But I'll bet they eat people,' I said.

‘If they get the chance,' said Linda.

‘Yet the powers-that-be still insist we go in there without weapons?' I said.

‘I'm afraid so. But you'll be in no danger.'

‘Thanks for the promises,' I said. ‘I only hope your people at the top realise how annoyed Titus Charlot will be if two of his hirelings end up cemented to a spider web.'

‘They don't build webs,' said Linda.

‘Thanks,' I said again. ‘I was speaking figuratively.'

‘Danel has a gun,' said Linda. ‘He also carries an axe, which is the approved instrument for killing them. Max will be armed as well. I don't think you need worry too much.'

‘What about the others?'

‘Micheal usually hunts with Danel. He carries a musical instrument—'

‘Don't tell me,' I interrupted. ‘Music has charms to soothe the savage breast. He's a small-town Orpheus, right?'

‘Very much so,' she countered serenely. ‘The music can attract the spiders or hypnotise them. Micheal holds the spiders in thrall while Danel kills them with the axe. It's almost a ritual.'

‘What part does little sister play?' I asked. ‘Is she the live bait?'

‘Don't be ridiculous,' said Linda. ‘Danel and Micheal aren't hunting this trip. Mercede wants to go with them and they see no reason why not. That should reassure you with regard to spiders.'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘Let's not worry any more in public. Danel looks bored stiff. What do we do now? I don't suppose this dead end has a four-star hotel, so where do we get some sleep before the big safari?'

‘We'll stay with Danel,' she said.

Max Volta-Tartaglia had come up behind her while she was speaking.

‘Not me,' he said. ‘I've got other plans.'

Linda gave him a dirty look, as if she thought he had a duty to go look at her prize Anacaona in their natural setting. He walked away again, completely unconcerned. He didn't invite Eve and myself to share his other plans. I think I would rather have gone with Danel anyhow.

Danel's house was a crude wooden affair, as were the forty or so others which stood near it. What the Anacaona knew about architecture they had obviously learned putting up buildings for the humans. There was no difference whatsoever between shanties
Zodiac
-style and shanties native-style. Outside, the Anacaon dwellings looked faintly ludicrous. Inside, they looked extremely ludicrous.

Imagine an Anacaon in your own front room and you have some idea of the effect that these people were trying to create. There was hardly any evidence of their own racial identity outside their own bodies. They were living human lives.

In the house we met Micheal and Mercede—even the
names
were human, or as nearly so as made no difference—and one or two of the older generation, who also had human names, human mannerisms, and who spoke perfect English.

I understood very little of what went on that night. There was a great deal of talk, before, during and after the lavish meal which they gave us. It seemed to me that the older people were finding themselves to be more human than they wanted themselves to be, but were trying to get along with it, while the younger were pretending to be less human than they were without quite knowing how. This may seem to be a very complicated impression to gain from a fairly simple situation which I admit to not understanding. It is indeed possible, if not probable, that I read this into the situation rather than observing it. I was never sure about the Anacaona. I knew all about the decay of the
Zodiac
slave system in the wake of pressure from New Rome, and I was well aware of the fact that cultures can be stranded in acquired characteristics which they don't know how to renounce after such a critical change. But there was always something beyond that in the Anacaon problem. Their grotesquely garish humanity served only to accentuate the fact that they were very alien.

They talked a lot, about themselves, about the
Zodiac
people, about recent history and about problems. They were easier with us than were the people of the
Zodiac
, because it did not mean so much that we were outworlders. Eve and I were less alien to the Anacaona than we were to Commander Hawke and Linda Petrosian.

For the three younger people Micheal, naturally enough, was spokesman. Danel had little enough to say and offered hardly any comments for translation. Mercede was a little more forthcoming, but was largely content to echo and agree with the younger of her brothers.

I liked Micheal. He was shorter than Danel, but still a good deal taller than me. He was an intelligent man—or youth, as he seemed to be in Anacaon terms—but he seemed to have some difficulty in defining himself. He could talk about external events and things, but not about what he himself did or wanted to do.

He was curious about the star-worlds, and he prevailed on me to talk a little more than I would have liked about my own past. I hated descending to the level of traveller's tales and anecdotes of long-lost experiences, but the questions forced a lot of conversation out of me. For this reason, I paid far less attention to the progress of the evening than I would have if I had found any direct opportunity to learn something.

As it was, the whole content of the night proved instantly forgettable apart from the tenuous impressions I've already mentioned.

It was very late when we finally got to bed. I didn't sleep immediately—my daily rhythm was probably more adaptable than Eve's, but even so Circadian rhythms can't be chopped and changed arbitrarily. I wasn't tired, and that was that. I swapped a few idle observations with the wind.

I wish I could sleep now, I said. I'm damn sure I won't be able to sleep easy out in the forest with no gun and no caller.

Coward, he said. It was a joke.

Perhaps I could lift a gun, I said pensively.

No chance, he predicted. I was inclined to agree with this assessment. The
Zodiac
s were playing the game seriously. Nobody was going to leave anything lying around.

Danel's probably reliable, the wind reassured me. And you know that jungles aren't dripping with danger Tarzan-style. Nothing ever happens in the jungle.

People get ill, I said. Also there are insects. The little things are always far more bothersome than the big boys. And we don't even have our own medical kit.

Well...he said.

Well what? I demanded. What don't I want to hear this time?

I can cure insect bites, discourage leeches and keep you free from all parasitic infections, ecto- and endo-, he said.

You and Doc Miracle's Wonder Drug both, I commented drily.

Never say I didn't offer, he said.

I won't, I promised. And you're on. I've given up throwing fits. If you can pull enough tricks with my autonomic nervous system to keep me healthy, go ahead. Boost the talents of my bloodstream all you want. You have official permission to keep me in good health. Hell, why not? You're doing it anyway, aren't you? I do realise that I haven't had so much as a cold in the head since Lapthorn's Grave, and my staying power is better than it has any right to be at my age. So never say that I was ungrateful, okay?

I don't expect you to be grateful, he said. I know you don't like it. I know how attached you are to your own body. I wouldn't do anything you wouldn't do if you could, believe me.

I think I do, I said, generously.

The tone of the monologue is correct in suggesting that I had lost tension since we had last argued this particular point. The usefulness of the wind was beginning to be exploited. We were becoming more one than two. I could still call my body my own, but I had to credit certain aspects of its performance to the wind. At one time I had considered this to be an all-out assault on my individuality, but I was coming round to a different point of view. We could be two-in-one. We could be an individual together.

Maybe it doesn't make theoretical sense. But it made practical sense.

How are you with two-ton spiders? I asked him, on a whimsical last note before seeking the swathes of sleep.

Can't stand them, he said. Furry spiders are nice when they're little, but they shouldn't ever be allowed to grow up.

He claimed he hadn't got a sense of humour.