The Past Through Tomorrow (58 page)

Four weeks and no word. Four weeks and no sun, no moon, no stars, no dawn. No clean crisp breath of morning air, no life-quickening beat of noonday sun, no welcome evening shadows, nothing, nothing at all to distinguish one sultry, sticky hour from the next but the treadmill routine of sleep and work and food and sleep again—nothing but the gathering ache in his heart for the cool blue skies of Terra.

He had acceded to the invariable custom that new men should provide a celebration for the other clients and had signed the Squeezer’s chits to obtain happywater—
rhira—
for the purpose—to discover, when first he signed the pay book, that his gesture of fellowship had cost him another four months of delay before he could legally quit his “job.” Thereupon he had resolved never again to sign a chit, had foresworn the prospect of brief holidays at Venusburg, had promised himself to save every possible credit against his bounty and transportation liens.

Whereupon he discovered that the mild alcoholoid drink was neither a vice nor a luxury, but a necessity, as necessary to human life on Venus as the ultraviolet factor present in all colonial illuminating systems. It produces, not drunkenness, but lightness of heart, freedom from worry, and without it he could not
get to sleep
. Three nights of self-recrimination and fretting, three days of fatigue-drugged uselessness under the unfriendly eye of the Pusher, and he had signed for his bottle with the rest, even though dully aware that the price of the bottle had washed out more than half of the day’s microscopic progress toward freedom.

Nor had he been assigned to radio operation. Van Huysen had an operator. Wingate, although listed on the books as standby operator, went to the swamps with the rest. He discovered on rereading his contract a clause which permitted his patron to do this, and he admitted with half his mind—the detached judicial and legalistic half—that the clause was reasonable and proper, not inequitable.

He went to the swamps. He learned to wheedle and bully the little, mild amphibian people into harvesting the bulbous underwater growth of
Hyacinthus veneris johnsoni—
Venus swamproot—and to bribe the co-operation of their matriarchs with promises of bonuses in the form of “thigarek”, a term which meant not only cigarette, but tobacco in any form, the staple medium in trade when dealing with the natives.

He took his turn in the chopping sheds and learned, clumsily and slowly, to cut and strip the spongy outer husk from the pea-sized kernel which alone had commercial value and which must be removed intact, without scratch or bruise. The juice from the pods made his hands raw and the odor made him cough and stung his eyes, but he enjoyed it more than the work in the marshes, for it threw him into the company of the female labor clients. Women were quicker at the work than men and their smaller fingers more dextrous in removing the valuable, easily damaged capsule. Men were used for such work only when accumulated crops required extra help.

He learned his new trade from a motherly old person whom the other women addressed as Hazel. She talked as she worked, her gnarled old hands moving steadily and without apparent direction or skill. He could close his eyes and imagine that he was back on Earth and a boy again, hanging around his grandmother’s kitchen while she shelled peas and rambled on. “Don’t you fret yourself, boy,” Hazel told him. “Do your work and shame the devil. There’s a great day coming.”

“What kind of a great day, Hazel?”

“The day when the Angels of the Lord will rise up and smite the powers of evil. The day when the Prince of Darkness will be cast down into the pit and the Prophet shall reign over the children of Heaven. So don’t you worry; it doesn’t matter whether you are here or back home when the great day comes; the only thing that matters is your state of grace.”

“Are you sure we will live long enough to see the day?”

She glanced around, then leaned over confidentially. “The day is almost upon us. Even now the Prophet moves up and down the land gathering his forces. Out of the clean farm country of the Mississippi Valley there comes the Man, known in this world”—she lowered her voice still more—“as
Nehemiah Scudder
!”

Wingate hoped that his start of surprise and amusement did not show externally. He recalled the name. It was that of a pipsqueak, backwoods evangelist, an unimportant nuisance back on Earth, the butt of an occasional guying news story, but a man of no possible consequence.

The chopping shed Pusher moved up to their bench. “Keep your eyes on your work, you! You’re way behind now.” Wingate hastened to comply, but Hazel came to his aid.

“You leave him be, Joe Tompson. It takes time to learn chopping.”

“Okay, Mom,” answered the Pusher with a grin, “but keep him pluggin’. See?”

“I will. You worry about the rest of the shed. This bench’ll have its quota.” Wingate had been docked two days running for spoilage. Hazel was lending him poundage now and the Pusher knew it, but everybody liked her, even pushers, who are reputed to like no one, not even themselves.

Wingate stood just outside the gate of the bachelors’ compound. There was yet fifteen minutes before lock-up roll call; he had walked out in a subconscious attempt to rid himself of the pervading feeling of claustrophobia which he had had throughout his stay. The attempt was futile; there was no “outdoorness” about the outdoors on Venus, the bush crowded the clearing in on itself, the leaden misty sky pressed down on his head, and the steamy heat sat on his bare chest. Still, it was better than the bunk-room in spite of the dehydrators.

He had not yet obtained his evening ration of
rhira
and felt, consequently, nervous and despondent, yet residual self-respect caused him to cherish a few minutes clear thinking before he gave in to the cheerful soporific. It’s getting me, he thought, in a few more months I’ll be taking every chance to get to Venusburg, or, worse yet, signing a chit for married quarters and condemning myself and my kids to a life-sentence. When he first arrived the women clients, with their uniformly dull minds and usually commonplace faces, had seemed entirely unattractive. Now, he realized with dismay, he was no longer so fussy. Why, he was even beginning to lisp, as the other clients did, in unconscious imitation of the amphibians.

Early, he had observed that the clients could be divided roughly into two categories, the child of nature and the broken men. The first were those of little imagination and simple standards. In all probability they had known nothing better back on Earth; they saw in the colonial culture, not slavery, but freedom from responsibility, security, and an occasional spree. The others were the broken men, the outcasts, they who had once been somebody, but, through some defect of character, or some accident, had lost their places in society. Perhaps the judge had said, “Sentence suspended if you ship for the colonies.”

He realized with sudden panic that his own status was crystallizing; he was becoming one of the broken men. His background on Earth was becoming dim in his mind; he had put off for the last three days the labor of writing another letter to Jones; he had spent all the last shift rationalizing the necessity for taking a couple of days holiday at Venusburg. Face it, son, face it, he told himself. You’re slipping, you’re letting your mind relax into slave psychology. You’ve unloaded the problem of getting out of this mess onto Jones—how do you know he
can
help you? For all you know he may be dead. Out of the dimness of his memory he recaptured a phrase which he had read somewhere, some philosopher of history: “No slave is ever freed,
save he free himself
.”

All right, all right—pull up your socks, old son. Take a brace. No more
rhira—
no, that wasn’t practical; a man had to have sleep. Very well, then, no
rhira
until lights-out, keep your mind clear in the evenings and
plan
. Keep your eyes open, find out all you can, cultivate friendships, and watch for a chance.

Through the gloom he saw a human figure approaching the gate of the compound. As it approached he saw that it was a woman and supposed it to be one of the female clients. She came closer, he saw that he was mistaken. It was Annek van Huysen, daughter of the patron.

She was a husky, overgrown blond girl with unhappy eyes. He had seen her many times, watching the clients as they returned from their labor, or wandering alone around the ranch clearing. She was neither unsightly, nor in anywise attractive; her heavy adolescent figure needed more to flatter it than the harness which all colonists wore as the maximum tolerable garment.

She stopped before him, and, unzipping the pouch at her waist which served in lieu of pockets, took out a package of cigarettes. “I found this back there. Did you lose it?”

He knew that she lied; she had picked up nothing since she had come into sight. And the brand was one smoked on Earth and by patrons; no client could afford such. What was she up to?

He noted the eagerness in her face and the rapidity of her breathing, and realized, with confusion, that this girl was trying indirectly to make him a present. Why?

Wingate was not particularly conceited about his own physical beauty, or charm, nor had he any reason to be. But what he had not realized was that among the common run of the clients he stood out like a cock pheasant in a barnyard. But that Annek found him pleasing he was forced to admit; there could be no other explanation for her trumped-up story and her pathetic little present.

His first impulse was to snub her. He wanted nothing of her and resented the invasion of his privacy, and he was vaguely aware that the situation could be awkward, even dangerous to him, involving, as it did, violations of custom which jeopardized the whole social and economic structure. From the viewpoint of the patrons, labor clients were almost as much beyond the pale as the amphibians. A liaison between a labor client and one of the womenfolk of the patrons could easily wake up old Judge Lynch.

But he had not the heart to be brusque with her. He could see the dumb adoration in her eyes; it would have required cold heartlessness to have repulsed her. Besides, there was nothing coy or provocative in her attitude; her manner was naive, almost childlike in its unsophistication. He recalled his determination to make friends; here was friendship offered, a dangerous friendship, but one which might prove useful in winning free.

He felt a momentary wave of shame that he should be weighing the potential usefulness of this defenseless child, but he suppressed it by affirming to himself that he would do her no harm, and, anyhow, there was the old saw about the vindictiveness of a woman scorned.

“Why, perhaps I did lose it,” he evaded, then added, “It’s my favorite brand.”

“Is it?” she said happily. “Then do take it, in any case.”

“Thank you. Will you smoke one with me? No, I guess that wouldn’t do; your father would not want you to stay here that long.”

“Oh, he’s busy with his accounts. I saw that before I came out,” she answered, and seemed unaware that she had given away her pitiful little deception. “But go ahead, I—I hardly ever smoke.”

“Perhaps you prefer a meerschaum pipe, like your father.”

She laughed more than the poor witticism deserved. After that they talked aimlessly, both agreeing that the crop was coming in nicely, that the weather seemed a little cooler than last week, and that there was nothing like a little fresh air after supper.

“Do you ever walk for exercise after supper?” she asked.

He did not say that a long day in the swamps offered more than enough exercise, but agreed that he did.

“So do I,” she blurted out. “Lots of times up near the water tower.”

He looked at her. “Is that so? I’ll remember that.” The signal for roll call gave him a welcome excuse to get away; three more minutes, he thought, and I would have had to make a date with her.

Wingate found himself called for swamp work the next day, the rush in the chopping sheds having abated. The crock lumbered and splashed its way around the long, meandering circuit, leaving one or more Earthmen at each supervision station. The car was down to four occupants, Wingate, Satchel, the Pusher, and Jimmie the Crocker, when the Pusher signalled for another stop. The flat, bright-eyed heads of amphibian natives broke water on three sides as soon as they were halted. “All right, Satchel,” ordered the Pusher, “this is your billet. Over the side.”

Satchel looked around. “Where’s my skiff?” The ranchers used small flat-bottomed duralumin skiffs in which to collect their day’s harvest. There was not one left in the crock.

“You won’t need one. You goin’ to clean this field for planting.”

“That’s okay. Still—I don’t see nobody around, and I don’t see no solid ground.” The skiffs had a double purpose; if a man were working out of contact with other Earthmen and at some distance from safe dry ground, the skiff became his life boat. If the crocodile which was supposed to collect him broke down, or if for any other reason he had need to sit down or lie down while on station, the skiff gave him a place to do so. The older clients told grim stories of men who had stood in eighteen inches of water for twenty-four, forty-eight, seventy-two hours, and then drowned horribly, out of their heads from sheer fatigue.

“There’s dry ground right over there.” The Pusher waved his hand in the general direction of a clump of trees which lay perhaps a quarter of a mile away.

“Maybe so,” answered Satchel equably. “Let’s go see.” He glanced at Jimmie, who turned to the Pusher for instructions.

“Damnation! Don’t argue with me! Get over the side!”

“Not,” said Satchel, “until I’ve seen something better than two feet of slime to squat on in a pinch.”

The little water people had been following the argument with acute interest. They clucked and lisped in their own language; those who knew some pidgin English appeared to be giving newsy and undoubtedly distorted explanations of the events to their less sophisticated brethren. Fuming as he was, this seemed to add to the Pusher’s anger.

“For the last time—get out there!”

“Well,” said Satchel, settling his gross frame more comfortably on the floorplates, “I’m glad we’ve finished with that subject.”