Tunnel in the Sky (34 page)

   
“That's it. Space-time distortion, but I'm no mathematician.”

   
“Fluxion,” said Mac.

   
“Whatever that is. They've been fishing for you ever since. As I understand it, the wave front messed up their figures for this whole region. Incidentally, brother, when you go back-”

   
''I'm not going back.”

   
“Well, even on a visit. Don't sign a waiver. The Board is trying to call it an 'Act of God' and duck responsibility. So let me put a bug in your ear: don't sign away your rights. A friendly hint, huh?”

   
“Thanks. I won't- well, thanks anyhow.”

   
“Now how about action pix for the lead stories?”

   
“Well . . . okay.”

   
“Spear,” said Mac.

   
“Yeah, I believe you had some sort of spear. Mind holding it?”

   
Rod got it as the great Ellie joined them. “Wonderful!” she breathed. “I can feel it. It shows how thin the line is between man and beast. A hundred cultured boys and girls slipping back to illiteracy, back to the stone age, the veneer sloughing away . . . reverting to savagery. Glorious!”

   
“Look here!” Rod said angrily. “Cowpertown wasn't that way at all! We had laws, we had a constitution, we kept clean. We-” He stopped; Miss Ellens wasn't listening.

   
“Savage ceremonies,” she said dreamily. “A village witch doctor pitting ignorance and superstition against nature. Primitive fertility rites-” She stopped and said to Mac in a businesslike voice, “We'll shoot the dances three times. Cover 'em a little for 'A' list; cover 'em up a lot for the family list-and peel them down for the 'B' list. Got it?”

   
“Got it,” agreed Mac.

   
“I'll do three commentaries she added. “It will be worth the trouble.” She reverted to her trance.

   
“Wait a minute!” Rod protested. “If she means what

   
I think she means, there won't be any pictures, with or without actors.”

   
“Take it easy,” Evans advised. “I said you would be technical supervisor, didn't I? Or would you rather we did it without you? Ellie is all right, brother. What you don't know- and she does- is that you have to shade the truth to get at the real truth, the underlying truth. You'll see.

   
“But-”

   
Mac stepped up to him. “Hold still.”

   
Rod did so, as Mac raised his hand. Rod felt the cool touch of an air brush.

   
“Hey! What are you doing?”

   
“Make up.” Mac returned to his gear.

   
“Just a little war paint,” Evans explained. “The pic needs color. It will wash off.”

   
Rod opened his mouth and eyes in utter indignation; without knowing it he raised his spear. “Get it, Mac!” Evans ordered.

   
“Got it,” Mac answered calmly.

   
Rod fought to bring his anger down to where he could talk. “Take that tape out,” he said softly. “Throw it on the ground. Then get out.”

   
“Slow down,” Evans advised. “You'll like that pic. We'll send you one.

   
“Take it out. Or I'll bust the box and anybody who gets in my way!” He aimed his spear at the multiple lens.

   
Mac slipped in front, protected it with his body. Evans called out, “Better look at this.”

   
Evans had him covered with a small but businesslike gun. “We go a lot of funny places, brother, but we go prepared. You damage that recorder, or hurt one of us, and you'll be sued from here to breakfast. It's a serious matter to interfere with a news service, brother. The public has rights, you know.” He raised his voice. “Ellie! We're leaving.”

   
“Not yet,” she answered dreamily. “I must steep my-self in-”

   
“Right now! It's an 'eight-six' with the Reuben Steuben!”

   
“Okay!” she snapped in her other voice.

   
Rod let them go. Once they were over the wall he went;back to the city hall, sat down, held his knees and shook.

   
Later he climbed the stile and looked around. A guard was on duty below him; the guard looked up but said nothing. The gate was relaxed to a mere control hole but a loading platform had been set up and a power fence surrounded it and joined the wall. Someone was working at a control board set up on a flatbed truck; Rod decided that they must be getting ready for major immigration. He went back and prepared a solitary meal, the poorest he had eaten in more than a year. Then he went to bed and listened to the jungle “Grand Opera” until he went to sleep.

   
“Anybody home?”

   
Rod came awake instant!y, realized that it was morning- and that not all nightmares were dreams. “Who's there?”

   
“Friend of yours.” B. P. Matson stuck his head in the door. “Put that whittler away. I'm harmless.”

   
Rod bounced up. “Deacon! I mean 'Doctor.'“

   
“'Deacon,'“ Matson corrected. “I've got a visitor for you.” He stepped aside and Rod saw his sister.

   
Some moments later Matson said mildly, “If you two can unwind and blow your noses, we might get this on a coherent basis.”

   
Rod backed off and looked at his sister. “My, you look wondeful, Helen.” She was in mufti, dressed in a gay tabard and briefs. “You've lost weight.”

   
“Not much. Better distributed, maybe. You've gained, Rod. My baby brother is a man.”

   
“How did you-” Rod stopped, struck by suspicion. “You didn't come here to talk me into going back? If you did, you can save your breath.”

   
Matson answered hastily. “No, no, no! Farthest thought from our minds. But we heard about your decision and we wanted to see you-s o I did a little politickmg and got us a pass.” He added, “Nominally I'm a temporary field agent for the service.

   
“Oh. Well, I'm certainly glad to see you . . . as long as that is understood.”

   
“Sure, sure!” Matson took out a pipe, stoked and fired it. “I admire your choice, Rod. First time I've been on Tangaroa.”

   
“On what?”

  
 
“Huh? Oh. Tangaroa. Polynesian goddess, I believe. Did you folks give it another name?”

   
Rod considered it. “To tell the truth, we never got around to it. It . . . well, it just was.”

   
Matson nodded. “Takes two of anything before you need names. But it's lovely, Rod. I can see you made a lot of progress.

   
“We would have done all right,” Rod said bitterly, “if they hadn't jerked the rug out.” He shrugged. “Like to look around?”

   
“I surely would.”

   
“All right. Come on, Sis. Wait a minute- I haven't had breakfast; how about you?”

   
“Well, when we left the Gap is was pushing lunch time. I could do with a bite. Helen?”

   
“Yes, indeed.”

   
Rod scrounged in Margery's supplies. The haunch on which he had supped was not at its best. He passed it to Matson. “Too high?”

   
Matson sniffed it. “Pretty gamy. I can eat it if you can.

   
“We should have hunted yesterday, but . . . things happened.” He frowned. “Sit tight. I'll get cured meat.” He ran up to the cave, found a smoked side and some salted strips. When he got back Matson had a fire going. There was nothing else to serve; no fruit had been gathered the day before. Rod was uneasily aware that their breakfasts must have been very different.

   
But he got over it in showing off how much they had done- potter's wheel, Sue's loom with a piece half finished, the flume with the village fountain and the showers that ran continuously, iron artifacts that Art and Doug had hammered out. “I'd like to take you up to Art's iron works but there is no telling what we might run into.”

   
“Come now, Rod, I'm not a city boy. Nor is your sister helpless.”

   
Rod shook his head. “I know this country; you don't. I can go up there at a trot. But the only way for you would be a slow sneak, because I can't cover you both.”

   
Matson nodded. “You're right. It seems odd to have one of my students solicitous over my health. But you are right. We don't know this set up.

   
Rod showed them the stobor traps and described the annual berserk migration. “Stobor pour through those holes and fall in the pits. The other animals swarm past, as solid as city traffic for hours.”

   
“Catastrophic adjustment,” Matson remarked.

   
“Huh? Oh, yes, we figured that out. Cyclic catastrophic balance, just like human beings. If we had facilities, we could ship thousands of carcasses back to Earth every dry season. He considered it. “Maybe we will, now.

   
“Probably.”

   
“But up to now it has been just a troublesome nuisance. These stobor especially- I'll show you one out in the field when- say!” Rod looked thoughtful. “These are stobor, aren't they? Little carnivores heavy in front, about the size of a tom cat and eight times as nasty?”

   
“Why ask me?”

   
“Well, you warned us against stobor. All the classes were warned.”

   
“I suppose these must be stobor,” Matson admitted, “but I did not know what they looked like.”

   
“Huh?”

   
“Rod, every planet has its 'stobor' . . . all different. Sometimes more than one sort.” He stopped to tap his pipe. “You remember me telling the class that every planet has unique dangers, different from every other planet in the Galaxy?”

   
“Yes. . .”

   
“Sure, and it meant nothing, a mere intellectual concept. But you have to be afraid of the thing behind the concept, if you are to stay alive. So we personify it . . . but we don't tell you what it is. We do it differently each year. It is to warn you that the unknown and deadly can lurk anywhere . . . and to plant it deep in your guts instead of in your head.”

   
“Well, I'll be a- Then there weren't any stobor! There never were!”

   
“Sure there were. You built these traps for them, didn't you?”

       
*
   
*
   
*
   
*
   
*

   
When they returned, Matson sat on the ground and said, “We can't stay long, you know.

   
“I realize that. Wait a moment.” Rod went into his hut, dug out Lady Macbeth, rejoined them. “Here's your knife, Sis. It saved my skin more than once. Thanks.”

   
She took the knife and caressed it, then cradled it and looked past Rod's head. It flashed by him, went tuckspong! in a corner post. She recovered it, came back and handed it to Rod. “Keep it, dear, wear it always in safety and health.”

   
“Gee, Sis, I shouldn't. I've had it too long now.”

   
“Please. I'd like to know that Lady Macbeth is watching over you, wherever you are. And I don't need a knife much now.”

   
“Huh? Why not?”

   
“Because I married her,” Matson answered.

   
Rod was caught speechless. His sister looked at him and said, “What's the matter, Buddy? Don't you approve?”

   
“Huh? Oh, sure! It's . . .” He dug into his memory, fell back on quoted ritual: “'May the Principle make you one. May your union be fruitful.'“

   
“Then come here and kiss me.”

   
Rod did so, remembered to shake hands with the Deacon. It was all right, he guessed, but- well, how old were they? Sis must be thirtyish and the Deacon . . . why the Deacon was old- probably past forty. It did not seem quite decent.

   
But he did his best to make them feel that he approved. After he thought it over he decided that if two people, with their lives behind them, wanted company in their old age, why, it was probably a good thing.

   
“So you see,” Matson went on, “I had a double reason to look you up. In the first place, though I am no longer teaching, it is vexing to mislay an entire class. In the second place, when one of them is your brother-in-law it is downright embarrassing.”

   
“You've quit teaching?”