Empire of Two Worlds

Ten

“Don’t be fooled by the Rotrox, Klein. They’re technically proficient savages, that’s all. They’re tribal, like the Killibol nomads, not city-dwellers like us.”

I had been expressing my concern at the speed with which Bec had been pushing himself in his position in the new Administration of Rheatt. The Rotrox, I thought, would resent the way he was taking matters into his own hands and running things the way they should be run.

“They look city-style to me,” I replied.

“Nah. That’s because they’re disciplined and like pushing people around. These covered mazes they build look impressive but in essence they’re only like the earthen warrens those little animals out on the plain dig. They wouldn’t have a clue how to organise a complex city like Klittmann; they don’t even understand factory organisation. Take it from me, Klein, in the Basement they’d be punks, third-raters.”

A Rheattite secretary placed another scroll in front of him. It was covered with the flowing native writing, which Bec wasn’t proficient in yet. The secretary read it out to him while he followed the text as best he could. Finally he nodded and stamped his seal on it with a thump.

“Oh, they’ve got the ideas,” he continued, “they just haven’t got the experience. You see, up on Merame they have a natural tribal obedience. Every young Rotrox is trained to accept the tribal order and to put his nation before everything else. They make war with other tribes, but apart from that there’s little conflict. No internal tension. Consequently they haven’t sharpened their wits on one another the way we have.” He chuckled. “Imnitrin wouldn’t last five minutes on Mud Street. Even here in Rheatt they were floundering. Believe me, we’re the best thing that could have happened to them, and they know it.”

Maybe Bec’s right, I thought. The Rotrox idea of empire was a submissive population and massive tribute in raw materials, goods and slaves. But having once destroyed Rheatt’s will, they hadn’t known how to ensure that their orders were carried out. Bec had leaped instantly into this vacuum.

The Rheattite secretary left the room. He hadn’t been able to read the document too easily, either, because the light in Bec’s office was kept low enough to be comfortable for us Klittmannites without the use of dark goggles.

I had just returned from setting up a small factory about fifty miles away. It was the first of many such projects Bec had in mind. This one was only meant to turn out ammunition for our Hackers, Jains and smaller repeaters. In a few weeks the sloop would be fully operational again.

The Rheattites were new to the idea of factory production. They did everything on a one-off, artisan basis. But I was satisfied I had done a good enough job with the resources available. Things would really get rolling once we set up the production of machine tools. Bec had promised the Rotrox Jains and Hackers of their own.

Harmen was still down there, supervising quality control. His services had been invaluable: his technical knowledge was greater than anybody else’s. I wasn’t even sure what the HE formula was for the cartridges and shells, for instance. The old alk wasn’t really interested in our schemes, of course, but Bec always managed to persuade him to co-operate somehow.

Apart from Harmen’s technical expertise, Bec and I were on our own. Grale, Reeth and Hassmann had taken the sloop back to Blue Space Valley. Their presence there, Bec pointed out, would still be our trump card for some time to come.

“I don’t know why,” I said, “but it just gives me a funny feeling to be giving orders to these big Meramites. I wouldn’t like it if I was them.”

Bec shrugged. “They don’t see it that way. Ostensibly I’m not the boss around here yet. Imnitrin’s the governor and we’re only part of his staff, I’ve told you, the Rotrox are trained to take orders; and we’re acting in Imnitrin’s name, not our own. Later, when we come into our own, then we might have trouble. But we’ll handle it.”

He bent over some of his private notes. “Right now our main problem is to give the Rheattites some feeling of stability. Now they’re getting Blue Space again they might get an upsurge of rebelliousness and Imnitrin will start trampling on them again. That will only set us back.”

“Imnitrin has demanded a million slaves right away. Can’t we persuade him to cut down that figure?”

“He wouldn’t understand. Besides, his masters on Merame are impatient to see the Rotrox tribe become a race of warriors who don’t have to work for their living. We’ll get the million by transporting entire communities from outlying districts. That way it won’t be noticed so much. We can always put around the idea that anybody sent to Merame is going to come back after a term of service.”

“Who’s going to swallow that?” I wanted to know.

“Don’t be hasty; maybe we can even arrange it in time. All the Rotrox care about is results. They like success when they see it, and that’s what we’re giving them.”

“I never thought I’d see you soft-pedalling anybody,” I said, grinning.

Bec smiled tightly. “I learned quite a lot from those old books Tone got from Harmen. They called it statecraft: the art of manipulating society. You know something, Klein? I think I like it here. There’s room to manoeuvre. Klittmann was like being in a pressure chamber!” He laughed. “Anyway, that brings me to another matter I want you to attend to.”

He paused. “I’ve found out something interesting. It seems the Rheattites had a National Leader called Dalgo, who got wiped out during the first wave of the Rotrox assault. His wife’s still alive and living here right under our noses. Apparently she’s still something of a symbolic figure for the Rheattites. She could exert a lot of influence.”

“Why haven’t the Rotrox killed her?” I asked.

He frowned. “You’d expect them to, wouldn’t you? Anyway, go and see her, Klein. Maybe we can make some use of her.”

The Lady Palramara lived in one of the green towers that dotted the capital plain of Rheatt — the Rheattites called the place by a name that meant simply “parkland”. By now the Rotrox corridors had overgrown Parkland, tentacling out and trampling down its beautiful gardens, squeezing it tight like some monster.

The Rotrox always preferred to build an enclosed corridor rather than an open road. My Rotrox driver took me in my private runabout through the maze of corridors. We came out by a side exit and there, a short distance away over the springy turf, was the tower, rising tall and slender for about a hundred feet.

I told the driver to wait and walked to the oval doorway at the base of the tower. Inside, it was all green shadow. I stepped in and felt myself being lifted up, passing through a confusion of light and shade, all green. Shortly the elevator came to a stop and a panel slid aside.

“Please enter,” a cool, musical voice said. “I have been told to expect you.”

I walked slowly into the room at the top of the green tower. It was the most beautiful room I had ever seen. It was not large, yet it gave an impression of spaciousness and airiness. The contours were all rounded, the windows broad and graceful. The walls were a pale green. The furniture and ornaments were of a darker green and of a light, glowing mauve which matched the eyes of the woman standing there.

The room I saw only in a secondary, incidental way. My eyes locked immediately on the Lady Palramara.

All Rheattite women are graceful; but she was graceful and something else with it. She didn’t run to skinniness like a lot of her countrywomen: her green flesh was full and round, and soft. Her face was gentle and kind, with stunning liquid eyes, the pupils wide from heavy use of Blue Space.

Straight away you knew she had containment: self-reliance. She was sad, but not beaten. The flowing mauve gown she wore accentuated her curves and made you notice every movement.

“You are one of the men from the unknown world, are you not?” she asked calmly. “Servants of the Rotrox?”

I tore my eyes away from her to case the room. You couldn’t put assassination past someone in her position, especially as she was a woman. I’d come across women carrying a gun for some guy before. I stepped to the window and peered out at the landscape with its odd mixture of Rheattite and Rotrox architecture.

“The light is bright for you?” she asked. “I have heard about your sensitivity. Perhaps I can be more hospitable…”

She moved to a table and did something there. The window panes suddenly shimmered and took on a sepia cast. The room was only slightly dimmer, but the quality of the light had changed somehow. I risked lifting my goggles and found that I could see without discomfort.

“Is that convenient?” she asked. “The light is adequate for me also at this level. It is a matter of selecting the right frequencies.”

I smiled at her, putting the goggles in my pocket. “That’s a neat trick.”

“Merely one more aid to creating a pleasant mode of living.” She moved to the other side of the room as if to get a better look at me, leaning back and resting her hands on a ledge.

“That matters a lot to you people, doesn’t it?” I said. “Making beautiful surroundings. Making life beautiful.”

“Better than conquest and domination. Unfortunately some qualities are always developed at the expense of others. We failed to defend ourselves against the ravages of the Rotrox, What is it you want with me?”

“I’ll be frank, Lady. Rheatt is conquered and you’ll just have to accept that. But we might be able to make things a lot easier on your people than they would otherwise be. I’m not too fond of the Rotrox myself, but we have to co-operate with them for reasons of our own. We don’t want to see your way of life destroyed if we can avoid it. According to what we hear you’re still a person who commands respect in Rheatt. Maybe you could help us. We could give you some official position. It would help the people feel safe again. In return you could help us put through the programme we want.”

“You think the Rotrox would allow that?” she said sharply.

“I believe so. They’ve accepted everything else we’ve suggested.”

“You misunderstand. A woman does not hold official positions in Rheatt, or on Merame. My influence, if I have any, is not of that kind. I cannot take my husband’s place, especially while he still lives.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “I thought your husband was killed at the outset of the war?”

Her liquid eyes seemed to look through me. Then she turned away, gazing through the wide windows. I wondered if she was always as charged on Blue Space as she seemed to be right now. The drug had the property of turning even tragedy into a poetic experience. I reflected that she was probably making things bearable for herself that way.

She began to speak in a low, detached voice. “They came at the beginning of summer. For us, it was a summer war. Big cylinders of aluminium and copper descending from the sky, shining in the sun. What was there for me to do? You clearly do not understand a woman’s role on our world. I stayed here in this room, rearranging the ornaments on successive days to create pleasing variety, as was the custom. Outside, through this window, I saw my husband’s aircraft crash to the ground.”

“But he didn’t die?”

“Many believe him to be dead, but he survived, though injured. The Rotrox dragged him from the wreck and took him to Merame, where they keep him prisoner. Once every thirty days they show him to me on television, though he does not know it.” She gestured to a circular screen in the corner. “Sometimes they torture him before my eyes.”

“And you watch?” I said, amazed.

“What should I do? If I do not watch, it takes place just the same. The Rotrox by tradition are not kind to the defeated. If you want to help me, make them release my husband.”

I shook my head dumbly. “I don’t think I can arrange that. He’s the National Leader.”

“No, of course you cannot.” She looked at me again in a glazed, gentle way. “You see how helpless I am. I hope you will make life easier for Rheatt, but you see that I cannot help you.”

So that seemed to be all there was to it. I didn’t want to leave that room, but I couldn’t think of a good excuse for staying. Reluctantly I made to go.

At the door she stopped me. “Nevertheless your… plans interest me. If you want to bring me news or if you have questions, you are welcome.”

Something in me quickened as I heard the invitation. I nodded, and left.

I couldn’t get the Rheattite woman off my mind. All the women I’d known in Klittmann had been hard and brittle. She was different: she had qualities I hadn’t met in women before.

I did go back. Then I started visiting her regularly. We talked for hours on end. I told her all about Klittmann and how we had come to arrive on Earth. But I never talked much about Becmath; the tool doesn’t want to talk about the hand that guides it.

In return she talked about her life before the Rotrox came. It sounded real good: easy, pleasant and fulfilling, with none of the strain and neurotic striving of Klittmann. I guess I wouldn’t have fitted in there — I was too set in my attitude to turn soft now — but just the same the time I spent up in that beautiful green room came to be the best part of the day.

For a long time I didn’t touch her. I’m not sure why — there was nobody to stop me and nobody she could have complained to. It’s just that it was a new experience being with a woman like her. But often she was blocked almost out of her mind with Blue Space and my chance came.

She was taking the stuff more and more heavily, I knew she was way over the norm: most people just took it occasionally. One night she passed out in mid-sentence. I picked her up off the floor. The blood surged through me as I held her there in my arms. I carried her down some recessed steps into a bedchamber below the main room.

I knew she would be all right. Blue Space didn’t do anybody any real harm. I laid her down on the sleeping couch. She stirred and opened her eyes, staring up at me with big, sleepy eyes. I realised she wouldn’t really be aware of who I was, that she might even confuse me with her husband, I struggled with the temptation for a moment, then gave way to my urges.

I sank down on her, falling into a soft, warm bed of delight.

When I told Bec that the National Leader was still alive on Merame he listened to me, shaking his head with incredulity, and said: “Those klugs certainly know how to be vindictive.”

Later he asked me where I was getting to in the evenings, so I told him.

He stroked his chin. “And the old man’s up on Merame, eh? Tell you what, Klein, how would you like me to get Imnitrin to put a bullet in him for you?”

I had known how far my feelings for Palramara were going when I had started hoping that word would come through that that poor klug, Dalgo, would turn up dead. “It sounds like a good idea,” I said immediately. But my voice was weak.

“Of course, he’ll probably make it something slower. It’s traditional.” Bec meaningfully scratched his side where the pincers had bitten into his flesh.

I didn’t speak for a long moment. “Let it go, Bec,” I said eventually. “Do me a favour. Leave things as they are.”

“Sure, Klein. Anything you say.”

He didn’t refer to it again. We were pretty busy setting up organisations staffed mostly by Rheattites with some token supervision by Meramites; though the big grey men didn’t actually do very much. We had pulled Reeth out of Blue Space Valley to help train Rheattite technicians to make Klittmann-type armaments. Already we had a workshop-style pilot scheme going. Now we were ready to expand into what would eventually be a full-scale factory.

Bec was convinced that once guns started rolling off the production line and into Rotrox hands we would finally have gained their full confidence. Any suspicions they might still have about our intentions would be dispelled; and even better, we could jointly set a tentative date for the invasion of Killibol — which was the Big Thing Bec was aiming at.

Already Bec tended to stay more and more in his office, sending me out to do the spadework. I gained a wealth of experience that way. As usual Bec was quick to latch on to technical gimmicks and he was setting up a television network that enabled him to watch practically everything in Rheatt. Wherever I went Bec’s television face was there to give me guidance.

Setting up the factory was a big job. Bec sent me out to supervise all of it, with Reeth and Harmen. The place was to be guarded by Rotrox warriors to ensure that none of the products got into the wrong hands, and otherwise was to be managed solely by Rheattite technicians, members of the new élite that Bec planned for the Rheattic nation. The factory was about fifty miles away from Parkland. I spent about four weeks there getting things running smoothly and sorting out the discipline a factory needs. At the end of it the Rheattites had begun to cotton on, but I was exhausted.

When I arrived back in Parkland Bec wasn’t in his quarters. I went straight over to Palramara’s tower, more than ready to relax in my favourite location on the planet Earth. The elevator took me smoothly up through green shadows, like passing through water. I stepped into the room with the big windows.

Bec was there, lounging on a couch under one of the windows. He was naked to the waist: his shirt and boots were strewn across the other end of the room. Palramara was there, too. She had seen me come in but she didn’t look at me, simply turned away and gazed out of the window.

The situation was spelled out clearly enough. It didn’t need any speeches. “How long have you been here?” I demanded bluntly.

“Just a couple of weeks, on and off. Ever since I decided to take a look at this dame.” Bec scratched his hairy chest. “I found out why the Rotrox didn’t bump her off, Klein. It seems they have a tradition: the conqueror gets the use of the conquered chieftain’s wife. Cute, isn’t it? Naturally, Imnitrin doesn’t care for Earth females so he just let her be.”

“And why should that bring you in?” I said harshly.

“Why, I’ve got Imnitrin’s job now. You did a fine job on the factory, Klein. When the Hackers started rolling off the production line Imnitrin took the first batch home to Merame to show the Tribal Council. He never liked it much on Earth anyway and he persuaded them to appoint me Governor in his place. So the tradition devolves on me. I have to do my duty now I’m practically a member of the Council of the Rotrox.”

“Oh, sure,” I sneered. “You were always big on tradition, weren’t you?”

Bec smiled unpleasantly. “She’s not too badly off. Look at it this way, she could have got Imnitrin.” Unconcernedly he drank from a goblet. “O.K., Klein, I’ll see you in the morning. Be at the office early, we’ve a lot of work on hand.”

The blood seemed to be drumming in my head. The gun in my holster was itching to leap into my hand. If it had been anybody else, Grale or even Reeth, I would have shot him down without a thought. As it was I was paralysed. I stood there glaring. Then without another word I walked out.

I reported early next morning, just as Bec said. He was already there. He nodded to me as I came in. The television screens that lined one wall of his office were all alive, mostly showing deserted scenes in various parts of Rheatt and at the new factory; we hadn’t inaugurated a night shift yet.

“Klein,” he said, “I’ve been thinking we ought to set up a training school for young Rheattites—”

“Cut it out,” I interrupted. “Find another whipping-boy. I’ve quit.”

He looked at me sourly. “You’re quitting, Klein? Where’re you gonna quit to?”

“I’ll worry about that. This is just to tell you. Maybe Grale’s more your man anyway.”

“Maybe he is at that. He’d know better than to lose his head over a woman.”

I looked him straight in the eye. I knew he could feel my hatred. “You did it on purpose, didn’t you?” I accused.

“What is it you want? Girls? You can have all the girls you want. I’ll get you plenty. You can have anything you want here in Rheatt, provided it’s only a one-way trade. You’re too important to me to let anything go worming into your guts. I need your undivided energy, and that means nobody goes changing your mind about anything or turns you soft.”

“Who’s going soft?” I challenged.

He snorted softly. “The Klein I first knew in Klittmann would have had Dalgo bumped off without a qualm. I knew then that you had something else besides our Big Project on your mind.”

“Project?”

“You know what I mean. What we’re doing here in Rheatt is only our platform for the real operation. Neither Rheatt nor the Rotrox are of much interest to me: they don’t have the right qualities, they’re weak punks, klugs. Killibol’s the world, the world we’re going to transform. It’s like a bomb waiting to be let off. We’re going to release all the energies pent up in those cities. We’ll make a society, an empire, where almost anything will be possible….”

His oddly glittering eyes met my sullen stare, meeting the hatred and beating it down. He seemed to know that I found this vision of his irresistible. It was the idea of working for something bigger than yourself, something that would outlast you and be permanent. Bec also knew that I was the only one of the mob who understood this idea.

“It has to be this way, Klein,” he said. “It’s a matter of destiny. If you want a part in it then you have to belong to me, not to that woman in the tower. It’s too big a job for that. I don’t want any emotional entanglements. You can have girls but they can’t have you. Have fun, but your feelings can go in only one direction.”

“Did you have to do it this way?” I said, still surly.

“Why not, it’s as good as any other. Don’t tell me you’re going to fold up like a sack of water?” He gazed at me curiously. “It’s a funny thing, you get guys who are brave in the face of bullets, grenades, cops, anything you can name, but they haven’t got what it takes when something hits them in the gut like this. Don’t tell me you’re one of those hollow men. I hope I know character better than that.”

“I can take it.”

“I thought so.” Bec was silent for a moment. Then he cocked his head, looking at me slyly. “Tell you what I’ll do, Klein. You can have the woman back. Go on, take her. Only you’ll be out of it, like you just said. You’ll have quit. You’ll live out your life here in Rheatt and nobody will bother you. I’ll do the job on my own. Nothing can stop me now, anyway.”

I gave a deep sigh. “You know me better than that.”

“I think so.”

For a moment he looked at me with what might have been sympathy. I remembered Gelbore, the girl on the raft with us. I wondered when Bec was going to stop making emotional demands of me.

I didn’t try to see Palramara after that. Bec, however, continued visiting her regularly.