Son of the Tree

I

A BRIGHT penetrating chime struck into two hundred minds, broke two hundred bubbles of trance.

Joe Smith awoke without drowsiness. He was constricted, shrouded like a cocoon. He tensed, he struggled, then the spasm of alarm died. He relaxed, peered intently through the darkness.

The air was musky and humid with warm flesh–flesh of many men, above, below, to right and left, twisting, straining, fighting the elastic mesh.

Joe lay back. His mind resumed a sequence of thought left off three weeks ago. Ballenkarch? No–not yet. Ballenkarch would be further on, further out in the fringes. This would be Kyril, the world of the Druids.

A thin ripping sound. The hammock split along a magnetic seam. Joe eased himself out onto the catwalk. His legs were limp as sausages and tender. There was little tone in his muscles after three weeks under hypnosis.

He walked the catwalk to the ladder, descended to the main deck, stepped out the port. At a desk sat a dark-skinned youth of sixteen, wide-eyed and smart, wearing a jumper of tan and blue pliophane. «Name, please?»

«Joe Smith.»

The youth made a check on a list, nodded down the passage. «First door for sanitation.»

Joe slid back the door, entered a small room thick with steam and antiseptic vapor. «Clothes off,» bawled a brassy-voiced woman in tight trunks. She was wolf-lean–her blue-brown skin streamed with perspiration. She yanked off the loose garment issued him by ship's stores–then, standing back, she touched a button. «Eyes shut.»

Jets of cleansing solutions beat at his body. Various pressures, various temperatures, and his muscles began to waken. A blast of warm air dried him and the woman, with a careless slap, directed him to an adjoining chamber, where he shaved off his stubbly beard, trimmed his hair and finally donned the smock and sandals which appeared in a hopper.

As he left the room a steward halted him, placed a nozzle against his thigh, blew under his skin an assortment of vaccines, anti-toxins, muscle toners and stimulants. So fortified, Joe left the ship, walked out on a stage, down a ramp to the soil of Kyril.

He took a deep breath of fresh planetary air and looked about him. A sky overhung with a pearly overcast. A long gently-heaving landscape checked with tiny farms rolled away to the horizon–and there, rising like a tremendous plume of smoke, stood the Tree. The outlines were hazed by distance and the upper foliage blended with the overcast but it was unmistakable. The Tree of Life.

He waited an hour while his passport and various papers of identification were checked and countersigned at a small glass-sided office under the embarkation stage. Then he was cleared and directed across the field to the terminal. This was a rococo structure of heavy white stone, ornately carved and beaded with intricate intaglios.

At the turnstile through the glass wall stood a Druid, idly watching the disembarkation. He was tall, nervously thin, with a pale fine ivory skin. His face was controlled, aristocratic–his hair jet-black, his eyes black and stern. He wore a glistening cuirass of enameled metal, a sumptuous robe falling in elaborate folds almost to the floor, edged with orphreys embroidered in gold thread. On his head sat an elaborate morion built of cleverly fitted cusps and planes of various metals.

Joe surrendered his passage voucher to the clerk at the turnstile desk. «Name please.» «It's on the voucher.»

The clerk frowned, scribbled. «Business on Kyril?»

«Temporary visitor,» said Joe shortly. He had discussed himself, his antecedents, his business, at length with the clerk in the disembarkation office. This new questioning seemed a needless annoyance. The Druid turned his head, looked him up and down. «Spies, nothing but spies!» He made a hissing sound under his breath, turned away.

Something in Joe's appearance aroused him. He turned back. «You there»–in a tone of petulant irritation.

Joe turned. «Yes?»

«Who's your sponsor? Whom do you serve?» «No one. I'm here on my own business.»

«Do not dissemble. Everyone spies. Why pretend otherwise? You arouse me to anger. Now–whom, then, do you serve?»

«The fact of the matter is that I am not a spy,» said Joe, holding an even courtesy in his voice. Pride was the first luxury a vagrant must forego.

The Druid smiled with exaggerated thin-lipped cynicism. «Why else would you come to Kyril?»

«Personal reasons.»

«You look to be a Thuban. What is your home world then?»

«Earth.»

The Druid cocked his head, looked at him sidewise, started to speak, halted, narrowed his eyes, spoke again. «Do you mock me with the child's myth then–a fool's paradise?»

Joe shrugged. «You asked me a question. I answered you.»

«With an insolent disregard for my dignity and rank.»

A short plump man with a lemon-yellow skin approached with a strutting cocksure gait. He had wide innocent eyes, a pair of well-developed jowls and he wore a loose cloak of heavy blue velvet.

«An Earthman here?» He looked at Joe. «You, sir?»

«That's right.»

«Then Earth is an actuality.» «Certainly it is.»

The yellow-skinned man turned to the Druid. «This is the second Earthman I've seen, Worship. Evidently–»

«Second?» asked Joe. «Who was the other?»

The yellow-skinned man rolled his eyes up. «I forget his name. Parry–Larry–Barry...»

«Harry? Harry Creath?»

«That's it–I'm sure of it. I had a few words with him out at Junction a year or two ago. Very pleasant fellow.»

The Druid swung on his heel, strode away. The plump man watched him go with an impassive face, then turned to Joe. «You seem to be a stranger here.»

«I just arrived.»

«Let me advise you as to these Druids. They are an emotional race, quick to anger, reckless, given to excess. And they are completely provincial, completely assured of Kyril's place as the center of all space, all time. It is wise to speak softly in their presence. May I inquire from curiosity why you are here?»

«I couldn't afford to buy passage farther.»

«And so?»

Joe shrugged. «I'll go to work, raise some money.»

The plump man frowned thoughtfully. «Just what talents or abilities will you use to this end?»

«I'm a good mechanic, machinist, dynamist, electrician. I can survey, work out stresses, do various odd jobs. Call myself an engineer.»

His acquaintance seemed to be considering. At last he said doubtfully, «There is a plentiful supply of cheap labor among the Laity.»

Joe swung a glance around the terminal. «From the look of that truss I'd say they were pretty shaky on the slide-rule.»

The other pursued his lips in dubious agreement. «And of course the Druids are xenophobic to a high degree. A new face represents a spy.»

Joe nodded, grinned. «I've noticed that. The first Druid I see raked me over the coals. Called me a Mang spy, whatever that is.»

The plump man nodded. «It is what I am.»

«A Mang–or a spy?»

«Both. There is small attempt at stealth. It is admitted. Every Mang on Kyril is a spy. Likewise with the Druids on Mangtse. The two worlds are striving for dominance, economic at the moment, and there is a great deal of rancor between us.» He rubbed his chin further. «You want a position then, with remuneration?»

«Correct,» said Joe. «But no spying. I'm not mixing in politics. That's out. Life's too short as it is.»

The Mang made a reassuring gesture. «Of course. Now as I mentioned the Druids are an emotional race. Devious. Perhaps we can play on these qualities. Suppose you come with me to Divinal. I have an appointment with the District Thearch and if I boast to him about the efficient technician I have taken into my service...» He left the rest of the sentence floating, nodded owlishly at Joe. «This way then.»

Joe followed him through the terminal, along an arcade lined with shops to a parking area. Joe glanced down the line of air-cars. Antique design, he thought –slipshod construction.

The Mang motioned him into the largest of these cars. «To Divinal,» he told the waiting driver.

The car arose, slanted up across the gray-green landscape. For all the apparent productivity of the land the country affected Joe unpleasantly. The villages were small, cramped and the streets and alleys glistened with stagnant water. In the fields he could see teams of men-six, ten, twenty–dragging cultivators. A dreary uninspiring landscape.

«Five billion peasants,» said the Mang. «The Laity. Two million Druids. And one Tree.»

Joe made a noncommittal sound. The Mang lapsed into silence. Farms below–interminable blocks, checks, rectangles, each a different tone of green, brown or gray. A myriad conical huts leaking smoke huddled in the corners of the fields. And ahead the Tree bulked taller, blacker, more massive.

Presently ornate white stone palaces appeared, huddled among the buttressed roots, and the car slanted down over the heavy roofs. Joe glimpsed a forest of looping balustrades, intricate panels, mullioned skylights, gargoyles, columns, embellished piers.

Then the car set down on a plat in front of a long high block of a structure, reminding Joe vaguely of the Palace at Versailles. To either side were carefully tended gardens, tessellated walks, fountains, statuary. And behind rose the Tree with its foliage hanging miles overhead.

The Mang alighted, turned to Joe. «If you'll remove the side panel to the generator space of this car and act as if you are making a minor repair I believe you will shortly be offered a lucrative post.»

Joe said uncomfortably, «You're going to a great deal of effort for a stranger. Are you a–philanthropist?»

The Mang said cheerfully, «Oh no. No, no! I act as the whim moves me but I am not completely selfless in my acts. Let me express it this way–if I were sent to do an unspecified repair job I would take with me as wide a variety of tools as I was able.

«So, in my own–ah–mission I find that many persons have special talents or knowledges which turn out to be invaluable. Therefore I cultivate as wide and amicable an acquaintanceship as possible.»

Joe smiled thinly. «Does it pay off?»

«Oh indeed. And then,» said the plump man blandly, «courtesy is a reward in itself. There is an incalculable satisfaction in helpful conduct. Please don't consider yourself under obligation of any sort.»

Jim thought, without expressing himself aloud, «I won't.»

The plump man departed, crossed the plat to a great door of carved bronze.

Joe hesitated a moment. Then, perceiving nothing to be lost by following instructions, he undamped the side panel. A band of lead held it in place like a seal. Joe hesitated another instant, then snapped the band, lifted the panel off.

He now looked into a most amazing mechanism. It had been patched together out of spare parts, bolted with lag screws into wooden blocks, bound to the frame with bits of rope. Wires lay exposed without insulation. The forcefield adjustment had been made with a wooden wedge. Joe shook his head, marveling. Then recollecting the flight from the terminal, he sweated in retrospect.

The plump yellow-skinned man had instructed him to act as if he were repairing the motor. Joe saw that pretense would be unnecessary. The powerbox was linked to the metadyne by a helter-skelter tubing. Joe reached in, pulled the mess loose, reoriented the poles, connected the units with a short straight link.

Across the plat another car landed and a girl of eighteen or nineteen jumped out. Joe caught the flash of eyes in a narrow vital face as she looked toward him. Then she had left the plat.

Joe stood looking after the sapling-slender form. He relaxed, turned back to the motor. Very nice–girls were nice things. He compressed his lips, thinking of Margaret. An entirely different kind of girl was Margaret. Blonde in the first place–easy-going, flexible, but inwardly–Joe paused in his work. What was she, in her heart of hearts, where he had never penetrated?

When he had told her of his plans she had laughed, told him he was born thousands of years too late. Two years now–was Margaret still waiting? Three months was all he had thought to be gone–and then he had been led on and on, from planet to planet, out of Earth space, out across the Unicorn Gulf, out along a thin swirl of stars, beating his way from world to world.

On Jamivetta he had farmed moss on a bleak tundra and even the third-class passage to Kyril had looked good. Margaret, thought Joe, I hope you're worth all this travail. He looked at where the dark-haired Druid girl had run into the palace.

A harsh voice said, «What's this you're doing–tearing apart the air-car? You'll be killed for such an act.»

It was the driver of the car the girl had landed in. He was a coarse-faced thick-bodied man with a swinish nose and jaw. Joe, from long and bitter experience on the outer worlds, held his tongue, turned back to investigate the machine further. He leaned forward in disbelief. Three condensers, hooked together in series, dangled and swung on their connectors. He reached in, yanked off the extraneous pair, wedged the remaining condenser into a notch, hooked it up again.

«Here, here, here!» bellowed the driver. «You be leaving your destructive hands off a delicate bit of mechanism!»

It was too much. Joe raised his head. «Delicate bit of machinery! It's a wonder this pitiful tangle of junk can fly at all.»

The driver's face twisted in fury. He took a quick heavy step forward, then halted as a Druid came sweeping out on the plat–a big man with a flat red face and impressive eyebrows. He had a small hawk's-beak of a nose protruding like an afterthought between his cheeks, a mouth bracketed by ridges of stubborn muscle.

He wore a long vermilion robe with a cowl of rich black fur, an edging of fur along the robe to match. Over the cowl he wore a morion of black and green metal with a sunburst in red-and-yellow enamel cocked over one temple.

«Borandino!»

The driver cringed. «Worship.» «Go. Put away the Kelt.»

«Yes, Worship.»

The Druid halted before Joe. He saw the pile of discarded junk, his face became congested. «What are you doing to my finest car?»

«Removing a few encumbrances.»

«The best mechanic on Kyril services that machinery!»

Joe shrugged. «He's got a lot to learn. I'll put that stuff back if you want me to. It's not my car.»

The Druid stared fixedly at him. «Do you mean to say that the car will run after you've pulled all that metal out of it?»

«It should run better.»

The Druid looked Joe over from head to foot. Joe decided that this must be the District Thearch. The Druid, with the faintest suggestion of furtiveness in his manner, looked back over his shoulder toward the palace, then back to Joe.

«I understand you're in the service of Hableyat.»

«The Mang? Why–yes.»

«You're not a Mang. What are you?»

Joe recalled the incident with the Druid at the terminal. «I'm a Thuban.»

«Ah! How much does Hableyat pay you?»

Joe wished he knew something of the local currency and its value. «Quite a bit,» he said.

«Thirty stiples a week? Forty?»

«Fifty,» said Joe.

«I'll pay you eighty,» said the Thearch. «You'll be my chief mechanic.» Joe nodded. «Very well.»

«You'll come with me right now. I'll inform Hableyat of the change. You'll have no further contact with that Mang assassin. You are now a servant to the Thearch of the District.»

Joe said, «At your service, Worship.»