Son of the Tree

XII

Harry had been speaking to him. Joe suddenly became aware of his voice. «–You see, Joe, this is a wonderful thing we're doing out here, a wonderful world. It's busting open with high-grade ore, timber, organic produce, manpower. I've got a picture in my mind, Joe–Utopia.

«There's a good bunch of lads behind me, and we're working together. They're a little rough yet but they see this world the way I see it and they're willing to take a chance on me. To begin with, of course, I had to knock a few heads together but they know who's boss now and we're getting on fine.» Harry looked fondly over the crowd of Ballenkarts, any one of whom could have strangled him with one hand.

«In another twenty years,» said Harry, «you won't believe your eyes. What we're going to do to the planet! It's marvelous, I tell you, Joe. Excuse me now, for a few minutes. There's affairs of state.» He settled himself into his chair, looked from Mangs to Druids.

«We might as well talk it over now. I see it's all fresh and ripe in your minds. There's my old friend Hableyat.» He winked at Joe. «Foxy Grandpa. What's the occasion, Hableyat?»

Hableyat strutted forward. «Your Excellency, I find myself in a peculiar position. I have not communicated with my home government and I am not sure as to the extent of my authority.»

Harry said to a guard. «Find the Magnerru.» To Hableyat, «Magnerru Ippolito is fresh from Mangtse and he claims to speak with the voice of your Ampianu General.»

From an archway to the side a Mang approached–a sturdy square-faced Mang with the brightest of black eyes, a lemon-yellow skin, bright orange lips. He wore a scarlet robe embroidered with a border of purple and green squares, a cubical black hat.

Erru Kametin and the other Mangs of his party bowed deeply, saluting with outflung arms. Hableyat nodded respectfully, a fixed smile on his plump lips.

«Magnerru,» said Prince Harry, «Hableyat wants to know the extent of his freedom to make policy.»

«None,» rasped the Magnerru. «None whatever. Hableyat and the Bluewaters have been discredited in the Ampianu, the Lathbon sits with the Redbranch. Hableyat speaks with no voice but his own and it will soon be stilled.»

Harry nodded. «Then it will be wise to hear, before his demise, what his views are.»

«My Lord,» said Hableyat, his face still frozen in its jovial mask, «my words are trivial. I prefer to hear the enunciations of the Magnerru and of the two Arch-Thearchs we have with us. My Lord, I may state that the highest of Kyril face you–Arch-Thearchs Oporeto Implan and Gameanza. They will ably present their views.»

«My modest residence is thick with celebrities,» said Harry.

Gameanza stepped forward with a glittering glance for the Magnerru. «Prince Harry, I consider the present atmosphere unsuited to discussion of policy. Whenever the Prince desires–the sooner the better–I will communicate to him the trend of Druid policy together with my views in regard to the political and ethical situation.»

The Magnerru said, «Talk to the dry-mouthed slug. Listen to his efforts to fix the slave system on Ballenkarch. Then send him back to his fetid gray world in the hold of a cattle ship.»

Gameanza stiffened. His skin seemed to become brittle. He said to Harry in a sharp brassy voice, «I am at your pleasure.»

Harry rose to his feet. «Very well, we'll retire for half an hour and discuss your proposals.» He raised a hand to the Magnerru. «You'll have the same privilege, so be patient. Talk over old times with Hableyat. I understand he formerly occupied your position.»

Arch-Thearch Gameanza followed him as he jumped from the dais and left the hall and after moved the Arch-Thearch Oporeto Implan. Margaret waved a casual hand to Joe. «See you later.» She slipped away through another door.

Joe found a bench to the side of the room, wearily seated himself. Before him like a posed tableau stood the rigid Mangs, the exquisite wisp of flesh that was Elfane, Hableyat–suddenly gone vague and helpless– the Ballenkarts in their gorgeous costumes, troubled, confused, unused to the bickering of sharp wits, glancing uneasily at each other over heavy shoulders, muttering.

Elfane turned her head, gazed around the room. She saw Joe, hesitated, then crossed the floor, seated herself beside him. After a moment she said haughtily, «You're laughing at me–mocking me.»

«I wasn't aware of it.»

«You've found the man you were seeking,» she said with eyebrows arched. «Why don't you do something?»

Joe shrugged. «I've changed my mind.»

«Because that yellow-haired woman–Margaret–is here?»

«Partly.»

«You never mentioned her to me.» «I had no idea you'd be interested.»

Elfane looked stonily across the audience hall. Joe said, «Do you know why I changed my mind?»

She shook her head. «No. I don't.»

«It's because of you.»

Elfane turned back with glowing eyes. «So it was the blonde woman who brought you out here.»

Joe sighed. «Every man can be a damn fool once in his life. At least once.»

She was not appeased. «Now, I suppose, if I sent you to look for someone you wouldn't go? That she meant more to you than I do?»

Joe groaned. «Oh Lord! In the first place you've never given me any reason to think that you–oh, hell!»

«I offered to let you be my lover.»

Joe eyed her with exasperation. «I'd like to...» He recalled that Kyril was not Earth, that Elfane was a Priestess, not a college girl.

Elfane laughed. «I understand you very well, Joe. On Earth men are accustomed to having their own way and the women are auxiliary inhabitants. And don't forget, Joe, you've never told me anything–that you loved me.»

Joe growled, «I've been afraid to.»

«Try me.»

Joe tried and the happy knowledge came to him that, in spite of a thousand light-years and two extremes of culture, girls were girls.

Priestesses or co-eds.

Harry and the Arch-Druid Gameanza returned to the room and a set expression hung like a frame on the Druid's white face. Harry said to the Magnerru, «Perhaps you will be good enough to exchange a few words with me?»

The Magnerru clapped his hands in repressed anger against his robe, followed Harry into the inner chambers. Evidently the informal approach found no responsive chord in him.

Hableyat settled beside Joe. Elfane looked stonily to one side. Hableyat wore a worried expression. His yellow jowls hung flaccid, the eyelids drooped over his eyes.

Joe said, «Cheer up, Hableyat, you're not dead yet.»

Hableyat shook his head. «The schemes of my entire life are toppling into fragments.»

Joe looked at him sharply. Was the gloom exaggerated, the sighs over-doleful? He said guardedly, «I have yet to learn your positive program.»

Hableyat shrugged. «I am a patriot. I wish to see my planet prosperous, waxing in wealth. I am a man imbued with the culture of my world; I can conceive of no better way of life, and I wish to see this culture expand, enriching itself with the cultures of other worlds, adapting the good, overcoming the bad.»

«In other words,» said Joe. «You're as strenuous an imperialist as your military friends. Only your methods are different.»

«I'm afraid you have defined me,» sighed Hableyat. «Furthermore I fear that in this era military imperialism is almost impossible–that cultural imperialism is the only practicable form. A planet cannot be successfully subjugated and occupied from another planet. It may be devastated, laid waste, but the logistics of conquest are practically insuperable. I fear that the adventures proposed by the Redbranch will exhaust Mang, ruin Ballenkarch and make the way easy for a Druid religious imperialism.»

Joe felt Elfane stiffen. «Why is that worse than Mang cultural imperialism?»

«My dear Priestess,» said Hableyat, «I could never argue cogently enough to convince you. I will say one word–that the Druids produce very little with a vast potentiality–that they live on the backs of a groaning mass–and that I hope the system is never extended to include me among the Laity.»

«Me, either,» said Joe.

Elfane jumped to her feet. «You're both vile!»

Joe surprised himself by reaching, pulling her back beside him with a thud. She struggled a moment, then subsided.

«Lesson number one in Earth culture,» said Joe cheerfully. «It's bad manners to argue religion.»

A soldier burst into the chamber, panting, his face twisted in terror. «Horrible–out along the road. Where's the Prince? Get the Prince–a terrible growth!»

Hableyat jumped to his feet, his face sharp alert. He ran nimbly out the door and after a second Joe said, «I'm going too.»

Elfane, without a word, followed.

Joe had a flash impression of complete confusion. A milling mob of men circled an object he could not identify–a squat green-and-brown thing which seemed to writhe and heave.

Hableyat burst through the circle, with Joe at his side and Elfane pressing at Joe's back. Joe looked in wonder. The Son of the Tree?

It had grown, become complicated. No longer did it resemble the Kyril Tree. The Son had adapted itself to a new purpose–protection, growth, flexibility.

It reminded Joe of a tremendous dandelion. A white fuzzy ball held itself twenty feet above the ground on a slender swaying stalk, surrounded by an inverted cone of flat green fronds. At the base of each front a green tendril, streaked and speckled with black, thrust itself out. Clasped in these tendrils were the bodies of three men.

Hableyat squawked, «The thing's a devil,» and clapped his hand to his pouch. But his weapon had been impounded by the Residence guards.

A Ballenkarch chieftain, his pale face distorted, charged the Son, hacking with his saber. The fuzzy ball swayed toward him a trifle, the tendrils jerked back like the legs of an insect, then snapped in from all sides, wrapped the man close, pierced his flesh. He bawled, fell silent, stiffened. The tendrils flushed red, pulsed, and the Son grew taller.

Four more Ballenkarts, acting in grim concert, charged the Son, six others followed. The tendrils thrust, snapped and ten bodies lay stiff and white on the ground. The Son expanded as if it were being magnified.

Prince Harry's light assured voice said, «Step aside... Now then, step aside.»

Harry stood looking at the plant–twenty feet to the top of the fronds while the fuzzy white ball reared another ten above them.

The Son pounced, with a cunning quasi-intelligence. Tendrils unfurled, trapped a dozen roaring men, dragged them close. And now the crowd went wild, swayed back and forth in alternate spasms of rage and fear, at last charged in a screeching melee.

Sabres glittered, swung, chopped. Overhead the fuzzy white ball swung unhurriedly. It was sensate, it saw, felt, planned with a vegetable consciousness, calm, fearless, single-purposed. Its tendrils snaked, twisted, squeezed, returned to drain. And the Son of the Tree soared, swelled.

Panting survivors of the crowd fell back, staring helplessly at the corpse-strewn ground. Harry motioned to one of his personal guard. «Bring out a heat-gun.»

The Arch-Thearchs came forward, protesting. «No, no, that is the Sacred Shoot, the Son of the Tree.»

Harry paid them no heed. Gameanza clutched his arm with panicky insistence. «Recall your soldiers. Feed it nothing but criminals and slaves. In ten years it will be tremendous, a magnificent Tree.»

Harry shook him off, jerked his head at a soldier. «Take this maniac away.»

A projector on wheels was trundled from behind the Residence, halted fifty feet from the Son. Harry nodded. A thick white beam of energy spat against the Son. «Aaah!» sighed the crowd, in near-voluptuous gratification. The exultant sigh stopped short. The Son drank in the energy like sunshine, expanded, luxuriated, and grew. A hundred feet the fuzzy white ball towered.

«Turn it against the top,» said Harry anxiously.

The bar of energy swung up the slender stalk, concentrated on the head of the plant. It coruscated, spattered, ducked away.

«It doesn't like it!» cried Harry. «Pour it on!»

The Arch-Thearchs, restrained in the rear, howled in near-personal anguish. «No, no, no!»

The white ball steadied, spat back a gout of energy. The projector exploded, blasting heads and arms and legs in every direction.

There was a sudden dead silence. Then the moans began. Then sudden screaming as the tendrils snapped forth to feed.

Joe dragged Elfane back and a tendril missed her by a foot. «But I am a Druid Priestess,» she said in dull astonishment. «The Tree protects the Druids.. The Tree accepts only the lay pilgrims.»

« Pilgrims!» Joe remembered the Kyril pilgrims–tired, dusty, footsore, sick–entering the portal into the Tree. He remembered the pause at the portal, the one last look out across the gray land and up into the foliage before they turned and entered the trunk. Young and old, in all conditions, thousands every day.

Joe now had to crane his neck to see the top of the Son. The flexible central shoot was stiffening, the little white ball, swung and twisted and peered over its new domain.

Harry came limping up beside Joe, his face a white mask. «Joe–that's the ungodliest creature I've seen on thirty-two planets.»

«I've seen a bigger one–on Kyril. It eats the citizens by the thousand.»

Harry said, «These people trust me. They think I'm some kind of god myself–merely because I know a little Earth engineering. I've got to kill that abomination.»

«You're not throwing in with the Druids then?»

Harry sneered. «What kind of patsy do you take me for, Joe? I'm not throwing in with either one of 'em. A plague on both their houses. I've been holding 'em off, teasing 'em until I could get things straightened out. I'm still not satisfied–but I certainly didn't bargain for something like this. Who the hell brought the thing here?»

Joe was silent. Elfane said, «It was brought from Kyril by order of the Tree.»

Harry stared. «My God, does the thing talk too?»

Elfane said vaguely, «The College of Thearchs reads the will of the Tree by various signs.»

Joe scratched his chin.

«Hmph,» said Harry. «Fancy decoration for a nice tight little tyranny. But that's not the problem. This thing's got to be killed!» And he muttered, «I'd like to get the main beast too, just for luck.»

Joe heard–he looked at Elfane expecting to see her flare into anger. But she stood silent, looking at the Son.

Harry said, «It seems to thrive on energy... Heat's out. A bomb? Let's try blasting. I'll send down to the warehouse for some splat.»

Gameanza tore himself loose, came running up with his gray robe flapping around his legs. «Excellency, we vehemently protest your aggressions against this Tree!»

«Sorry,» said Harry, grinning sardonically. «I call it a murderous beast.»

«It's presence is symbolic of the ties between Kyril and Ballenkarch,» pleaded Gameanza.

«Symbolic my ankle. Clear that metaphysical rubbish out of your mind, man. That thing's a man-killer and I won't have it at large. I pity you for the king-size monster you've got on your own rock–although I suppose I shouldn't.» He looked Gameanza up and down. «You've made pretty good use of the Tree. It's been your meal ticket for a thousand years. Well, this one is on its way out. In another ten minutes it'll be an acre of splinters.»

Gameanza whirled on his heel, marched twenty feet away, where he conversed in low tones with Oporeto Implan. Ten pounds of explosive, packed with a detonator was heaved against the Son's heavy trunk. Harry raised the radiation gun which would project trigger-frequencies.

On sudden thought, Joe jerked forward, caught his arm. «Just a minute. Suppose you make an acre of splinters–and each one of the splinters starts to grow?»

Harry put down the projector. «That's a grisly thought.»

Joe gestured around the countryside. «All these farms, they look well taken care of, modern.»

«Latest Earth techniques. So what?»

«You don't let your bully-boys pull all the weeds by hand?»

«Of course not. We've got a dozen different weedkillers–hormones...» He stopped short, clapped Joe on the shoulder. «Weed-killers! Growth hormones! Joe, I'll make you Secretary of Agriculture!»

«First,» said Joe, «let's see if the stuff works on the Tree. If it's a vegetable it'll go crazy.»

The Son of the Tree went crazy.

The tendrils twined, contorted, snapped. The fuzzy white head spat chattering arcs of energy in random directions.

The fronds hoisted to a grotesque two hundred feet in seconds, flopped to the ground.

Another heat projector was brought. Now the Son resisted only weakly. The trunk charred; the fronds crisped, blackened.

In minutes the Son of the Tree was an evil-smelling stump.

Prince Harry sat on his throne. The Arch-Thearchs Gameanza and Oporeto Implan stood with pallid faces muffled in their cowls. The Redbranch Mangs waited in a group to the side of the hall in a rigid system of precedence–first the Magnerru in his chased cuirass and scarlet robe, then Erru Kametin and behind him the two proctors.

Harry said in his light clear voice, «I haven't much to announce–except that for some months now there's been a widespread uncertainty as to which way Ballenkarch is going to jump–toward Mang or toward Kyril.

«Well,» he shifted in his seat, put his hands along the arms of his throne, «the speculation has been entirely in the minds of the Druids and the Mangs, there was never any indecision here on Ballenkarch. Once and for all we will team up with neither planet.

«We'll develop in a different direction and I believe we'll end up with the finest world this side of Earth. Insofar as the Son of the Tree is concerned I hold no one personally responsible. You Druids acted, I believe, according to your best lights. You're victims of your beliefs, almost as much as your Laity.

«Another thing–while we won't enter any political commitments we're in business. We'll trade. We're building tools–hammers, saws, wrenches, welders. In a year we'll start building electrical equipment. In five years we'll have a spaceyard down there on the shore of Lake Alan.

«In ten years we'll be running our cargo to every star you can see in the night and maybe a few more. So–Magnerra, you can return and convey my message to your Ampianu General and the Lathbon. As for you Druids I doubt if you'll wish to return. There might be quite some turmoil on Kyril by the time you'd arrive.»

Gameanza asked sharply, «How is that?»

Harry's mouth twitched. «Call it a guess.»

From Harry's private sundeck, the water of Lake Alan glowed in a thousand shades of sunset. Joe sat in a chair. Beside him sat Elfane, in a simple white gown.

Harry paced up and down, talking, gesticulating, boasting. New reduction furnaces at Palinth, a hundred new schools, power units for the new farmer class, guns for his army.

«They've still got that barbarian streak,» said Harry. «They love fighting, they love the wildness, their spring festivals, their night fire-dancing. It's born and bred into 'em and I couldn't take it out of 'em if I tried.»

He winked at Joe.

«The fire-breathers I send out against the clans of Vail Macrombie–that's the other continent. I kill two birds with one stone. They work off all their belligerence against the Macrombie cannibals and they're gradually winning the continent. It's bloody, yes–but it fills a need in their souls.

«The young ones we'll bring up differently. Their heroes will be the engineers rather than the soldiers and everything should work out about the same time. The new generation will grow up while their fathers are mopping up along Matenda Cape.»

«Very ingenious,» said Joe. «And speaking of ingenuity where's Habbleyat? I haven't seen him for a day or so.»

Harry dropped into a chair. «Hableyat's gone.»

«Gone? Where?»

«Officially, I don't know–especially since we have Druids among us.» Elfane stirred.

«I'm–no longer a Druid. I've torn it out of me. Now I'm a»–she looked up at Joe–»a what?»

«An expatriate,» said Joe. «A space-waif. A woman without a country.» He looked back to Harry. «Less of the mystery. It can't be that important.»

«But it is! Maybe.»

Joe shrugged. «Suit yourself.»

«No,» said Harry, «I'll tell you. Hableyat, as you know, is in disgrace. He's out and the Magnerru Ippolito is in. Mang politics are complex and cryptic but they seem to hinge a great deal on prestige–on face. The Magnerru lost face here on Ballenkarch. If Hableyat can perform some remarkable feat he'll be back in the running. And it's to our advantage to have the Bluewaters in power on Mangtse.»

«Well?»

«I gave Hableyat all the anti-weed hormone we had– about five tons of it. He had it loaded into a ship I made available to him and took off.» Harry made a whimsical gesture. «Where he's going–I don't know.»

Elfane hissed softly under her breath, shivered, looked away out over Lake Alan, pink, gold, lavender, turquoise in the sunset. «The Tree.»

Harry rose to his feet. «Time for dinner. If that's his plan–to spray the Tree with hormone–it should be quite a show.»