One of the essential problems in engineering a religion for any species is to recognize and refrain from inhibiting those self-regulating systems in the species upon which the species’ survival depends.
It already was beginning to grow hot in Pitsiben when Orne and Stetson emerged onto the cobblestone street. The green and yellow flag drooped limply from its mast atop the guesthouse. All activity seemed to have taken on a slower pace. Groups of stolid Hamalites stood before awning-shaded vegetable stalls across from the guesthouse. They gazed moodily at the I-A vehicle parked at the guesthouse doorway. The go-buggy was a white basic two-seater teardrop with wraparound window, a turbine in the rear.
Orne and Stetson got in, fastened their safety belts.
“There’s what I mean,” Orne said.
Stetson started the turbine whining up to power level, engaged the clutch. The buggy bounced several times on the cobbles until the gyro-spring system took hold. It made a neat, flat turn past the vegetable stalls.
Stetson spoke over the turbine sound: “There’s what you mean what?”
“Those dolts back there. Any other place in the universe they’d have been around your go-buggy ten deep, prying under the rear vents at the turbine, poking underneath at the suspension. These jerks just stand around at a distance and look gloomy.
“No froolap,” Stetson said.
“Yeah!”
“Why do you think they do that?”
“I think they’re obeying orders.”
“Why couldn’t they just be shy?”
“Forget I mentioned it.”
“I see by your reports that there are no walled villages on Hamal,” Stetson said. He slowed the buggy to maneuver between two of the low pushcarts. The farmers gave the buggy only a passing glance.
“None that I’ve seen,” Orne said.
“No military drill by large groups?”
“None that I’ve seen.”
“And no heavy armaments?”
“None that I’ve seen.”
“What’s this none-that-I’ve-seen kick?” Stetson demanded. “Do you suspect them of hiding something?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because things don’t seem to fit on this planet. And when things don’t fit there are missing pieces.”
Stetson took his attention from the street, shot a sharp glance at Orne. “So you’re suspicious.”
Orne grabbed the door handle as the go-buggy swerved around a corner, headed out onto the wide ridge road. “That’s what I told you right at the beginning.”
“We’re always simply delighted to investigate R&R’s slightest suspicions,” Stetson said.
“It’s better for me to make a mistake than it is for you to make one,” Orne growled.
“You will have noticed that their construction is almost entirely of wood,” Stetson said. “At their technological level, wood construction leans to the side of peace.”
“Provided we know what all this means…” Orne gestured at the countryside “…in technological level.”
“Is that what they’re teaching you now at dear old Uni-Galacta?”
“No. That was my own idea. If they have artillery and mobile cavalry, stone forts would be useless.”
“What would they use for cavalry?” Stetson asked. “According to your reports, there are no riding animals on Hamal.”
“So I haven’t found any… yet!”
“All right,” Stetson said. “I’ll be reasonable. You spoke of weapons. What weapons? I haven’t seen anything heavier than those fowling pieces carried by their hunters.”
“If they had cannon that’d explain a lot of things,” Orne said.
“Such as the lack of stone forts?”
“You’re damn right!”
“An interesting theory. How do they manufacture the fowling pieces, by the way?”
“They’re produced singly by skilled artisans. It’s a sort of a guild.”
“A sort of a guild. My!” Stetson pulled the go-buggy to a jolting stop on a deserted stretch of the ridge road, shut down the turbine.
Orne stared around him in the silence. It was hot and peaceful. A few hopping insects braved the ridge road’s dusty tracks. Orne experienced the disturbing sensation that he had been in just this situation under these precise circumstances before, that he was repeating his life, caught on a circular track from which there was no escape.
“Did First-Contact see any sign of cannon?” Stetson asked. “You know he didn’t.”
Stetson nodded. “Mmmmmm, hmmmmm.”
“But that could’ve been accident or design,” Orne said. “The stupid schlammler shot off his face the first day and told these people how important it is to us that a redisc planet have a peaceful society.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I’ve heard the recording.”
“Then you’re sooooo right,” Stetson said. “For once.” He slid out of the buggy. “Come on. Give me a hand.”
Orne got out of his side. “Why’re we stopping?”
Stetson passed him the end of a tape measure. “Hold the idiot end of this at the edge of the road over there like a good fellow, will you?”
Orne obeyed. The plasteel clip at the end of the tape felt cool and dust puffed up between his fingers. The place smelled of earth and musty growing things.
The ridge road proved to be just under seven meters wide. Stetson announced this fact, writing the figure in a notebook. He muttered something about “lines of regression.” They returned to the go-buggy, set off once more down the road.
“What’s important about the width of the road?” Orne asked.
“I-A has a profitable sideline selling omnibuses,” Stetson said. “I just wanted to see if our current models would fit these roads.”
“Funny man!” Orne growled. “I presume it’s increasingly difficult for I-A to justify its appropriations.”
Stetson laughed. “You’re sooooo right! We’re going to put in an additional line of nerve tonic for R&R agents. That should get us out of the red.”
Orne leaned back into his corner, sank into gloom. I’m done for. This smart ass chief operative isn’t going to find anything I didn’t find. There was no real reason for me to call in the I-A except that things don’t fit here.
Stetson turned the go-buggy as the ridge road dipped down to the right through scrub trees.
“We finally get off the high road,” Stetson said.
“If we’d kept straight on we’d have gone down into a swamp,” Orne said.
“Oh?”
The road took them out onto the floor of a wide valley cut by lines of windbreak trees. Smoke spiraled into the still air from behind the trees.
“What’s the smoke over there?” Stetson asked.
“Farmhouses.”
“You’ve looked?”
“Yes! I’ve looked!”
“Touchy, aren’t we?”
The road took them directly toward a river, crossed it on a crude wooden bridge with stone abutments.
Stetson pulled to a stop on the far side of the bridge, stared at the twin lines of a narrow cart track that wound along the riverbank.
Again they got under way, heading toward another ridge.
There were stiled fences beyond the ditches which flanked their road. “Why do they have fences?” Stetson asked.
“To mark their boundaries.”
“Why stiles?”
“To keep out the swamp deer,” Orne said. “It’s reasonable.”
“Stiled fences for boundaries and swamp deer,” Stetson said. “How big are the swamp deer?”
“Lots of evidence—books, stuffed specimens and the like—to show the biggest of them get about half a meter high.”
“And wild.”
“Very wild.”
“Not a very good suspect as a cavalry animal,” Stetson said.
“Definitely ruled out.”
“That means you looked into it.”
“Thoroughly.”
The I-A man pursed his lips in thought, then: “Let’s us go over that about their government again.”
Orne raised his voice above the whine of the turbine as the buggy began to labor in the climb up to another ridge. “What do you mean?”
“That hereditary business.”
“Council membership seems to be passed along on an eldest son basis.”
“Seems to be?” Stetson maneuvered the buggy over a steep rise and onto a road that turned right down the crest of the ridge.
Orne shrugged. “Well, they gave me some hanky-patanky about an elective procedure in case the eldest son dies and there’s no other male heir.”
“But definitely patriarchal?”
“Definitely.”
“What games do these people play?”
“The children have tops, slingshots, toy carts—but no war toys that I can recognize.”
“And the adults?”
“Their games?”
“Yes. I’ve seen one that’s played by sixteen men in teams of four. They use a square field about fifty meters to the side. It has smooth diagonal ditches crossing from corner to corner to corner. Four men take stations at each corner and rotate turns at play with…”
“Let me guess,” Stetson said. “They crawl ferociously at each other along those ditches!”
“Very funny! What they do is they use two heavy balls pierced for holding with the fingers. One ball’s green and the other’s yellow. Yellow ball goes first; it’s rolled along the diagonal ditch. The green ball’s supposed to be thrown in such a way that it smacks the yellow ball at the intersection.”
“And it never hits the yellow ball.”
“Sometimes it does. Speed’s erratic.”
“And a great huzzah goes up when they hit,” Stetson said.
“No audience,” Orne said.
“None at all?”
“None that…”
“I’ve seen,” Stetson chimed in. “Anyway, it appears to be a peaceful game. Are they good at it?”
“Remarkably clumsy, I thought. But they seem to enjoy it. Come to think of it, that game’s one of the few things I’ve ever seen them come close to enjoying.”
“You’re a frustrated missionary,” Stetson said. “People aren’t having fun; you want to jump in and organize games.”
“War games,” Orne said. “Have you thought of that one?”
“Huh?” Stetson took his gaze off the road momentarily. The buggy swerved, bumped along the road’s edge. He jerked his attention back to driving.
“What if some smart R&R type set himself up as emperor on his planet?” Orne asked. “He could start his own dynasty. First thing you’d know about it would be when the bombs started dropping or people started dying from causes unknown.”
“That’s the I-A’s personal nightmare,” Stetson said. He fell silent.
The sun climbed higher as the ridge road wound on past rocky embankments, far vistas of farmlands, passages of sparse bushes and squat, bulbous trees.
Once, Stetson asked: “What about Hamal’s religion?”
“I looked for clues there,” Orne said. “They pray to the Overgod of Amel, monotheistic. There was a book of common prayers in the Tritsahin lifeboat. They have a few wandering hermits, but as near as I can make out the hermits are spies for the Council. About three hundred years ago, a holy man began preaching a vision of the Overgod. There’s a cult of this visionary now, but no evidence of religious friction.”
“Sweetness and light,” Stetson said. “A priesthood?”
“Religious leadership stems from the Council. They appoint votaries called ‘Keepers of the Prayer.’ Nine-day cycle of religious observance seems to be the pattern. There’s a complex variation on this involving holy days, something called ‘Relief Days’ and they observe the anniversary of the date when the visionary, name of Arune, was transported bodily into heaven. The Priests of Amel have sent a Temporary Dispensation Missive and you can expect the usual conferences, I’m sure, with a subsequent pronouncement proving that the Overgod watches over the least of His creatures.”
“Do I detect a note of sarcasm in your voice?” Stetson asked.
“You detect a note of caution,” Orne said. “I’m a native of Chargon. Our prophet was Mahmud, who was duly verified by Amel’s priesthood. Where Amel is concerned, I walk softly.”
“The wise man prays once a week and studies Psi every day,” Stetson murmured.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Their road dipped now into a shallow depression between hills, crossed a small brook and slanted up to a new ridge where it swung left along the crest. They could see another village on high ground in the distance. When they were close enough to make out the green and yellow flag atop the government building, Stetson pulled to a stop, opened his window, shut off the engine. The turbine rotor keened downscale to silence. With the window open, the air conditioner off, they felt the oppressive heat of the day.
Sweat began pouring off Orne, settling into a soggy puddle where his bottom touched the seat’s plastic depression.
“No aircraft on Hamal?” Stetson asked.
“Not a sign of them.”
“Strange.”
“Not really. They have a superstition about the dangers of leaving the ground. A result of their narrow escape from space, no doubt. They’re just a bit antitechnology—except in the Council where they’re more sophisticated about man’s toolmaking propensity.”
“Black-gang syndrome,” Stetson muttered.
“What?”
“Technology is dangerous to sapient creatures,” Stetson said. “Lots of cultures and subcultures believe this. There are times when I believe it myself.”
“Why’ve we stopped here?” Orne asked.
“We’re waiting.”
“For what?”
“For something to happen,” Stetson said. “How do the Hamalites feel about peace?”
“They think it’s wonderful. The Council is delighted by the peaceful activities of R&R. The common citizenry has a response pattern indicating a rote answer. They say: ‘Men find peace in the Overgod.’ It’s all very consistent.”
“Orne, can you tell me why you punched the panic button?” Stetson demanded.
Orne’s mouth worked soundlessly, then: “I told you!”
“But what set you off?” Stetson asked. “What straw grounded the blinking rocket?”
Orne swallowed, spoke in a low voice: “A couple of things. For one, they held a banquet to…”
“Who held a banquet?”
“The Council. They held a banquet to honor me. And… uh…”
“They served froolap,” Stetson said.
“Do you want to hear this or don’t you?”
“Dear boy, I’m all ears.”
Orne glanced pointedly at Stetson’s ears, said: “I hadn’t noticed.” Then: “Well, the Council banquet featured a stew of porjo tails that…”
“Porjo?”
“It’s a native rodent. They consider it a delicacy, especially the tails. The Tritsahin castaways survived at first on porjo.”
“So they served it at this banquet.”
“Right. What they did was—well, the cook, just before bringing me my bowl of stew, tied a live porjo with some kind of cord that dissolved quickly in the hot liquid. This animal erupted out of the pot all over me.”
“So?”
“They laughed for five minutes. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen Hamalites really laugh.”
“You mean they played a practical joke on you and you got mad, so mad you pushed the panic button? I thought you said these people have no sense of humor.”
“Look, wise guy! Have you ever stopped to think what kind of people it takes to put a live animal in boiling liquid just to play a joke?”
“A little heavy for humor,” Stetson agreed. “But playful all the same. And that’s why you called in the I-A?”
“That’s part of it!”
“And the rest?”
Orne described the incident of the pratfall into the pile of soft fruit.
“So they just stood there without laughing and this aroused your deepest suspicions,” Stetson said.
Orne’s face darkened with anger. “So I got mad at the porjo trick! Go ahead, make something of it! I’m still right about this place! Make something out of that, too!”
“I fully intend to,” Stetson said. He reached under the go-buggy’s instrument panel, pulled out a microphone, spoke into it: “This is Stetson.”
So I’ve really had it, Orne thought. His stomach felt empty and there was a sour taste at the back of his throat.
The humming sound of a space-punch transceiver came from beneath the instrument panel, followed by: “This is the ship. What’s doing?” The voice carried the echo flatness of scrambler transmission.
“We have a real baddy here, Hal,” Stetson said. “Put out a Priority One emergency call for an occupation force.”
Orne jerked upright, stared at the I-A operative.
The transceiver emitted a clanking sound, then: “How bad is it, Stet?”
“One of the worst I’ve ever seen. Put out a VRO on the First-Contact, some schlammler by the name of Bullone. Have him sacked. I don’t care if he’s Commissioner Bullone’s mother! It’d take a blind man, and a stupid one at that, to call Hamal peaceful!”
“Will you have any trouble getting back?” the voice from the speaker asked.
“I doubt it. The R&R operative has been pretty cagey and they probably don’t know yet that we’re on to them.”
“Give me your grid just in case.”
Stetson glanced at an indicator on his instrument panel. “A-Eight.”
“Gotcha.”
“Get that call out immediately, Hal,” Stetson said. “I want a full O-force in here by tomorrow!”
“Call’s already on its way.”
The humming of the space-punch transceiver fell off to silence. Stetson replaced the microphone, turned to Orne. “So you just followed a hunch?”
Orne shook his head. “I…”
“Look behind us,” Stetson said.
Orne turned, stared back the way they had come.
“See anything curious?” Stetson asked.
Orne fought down a sensation of giddiness, said: “I see a late-coming farmer and one hunter with apprentice moving up fast on the outside.”
“I mean the road,” Stetson said. “You may consider this a first lesson in I-A technique: a wide road that follows the ridges is a military road. Always. Farm roads are narrow and follow the water level routes. Military roads are wider, avoid swamps and cross rivers at right angles. This one fits all the way.”
“But…” Orne fell silent as the hunter came up to them, passed their vehicle with only a casual side-glance.
“What’s the leather case on his back?” Stetson asked.
“Spyglass.”
“Lesson number two,” Stetson said. “Telescopes originate as astronomical devices. Spyglasses are developed as an adjunct of a long-range weapon. I would guess those fowling pieces have an effective range of about one hundred meters. Ergo: you may take it as proved that they have artillery.”
Orne nodded. He still felt dazed with the rapidity of developments, unable as yet to accept complete sensations of relief.
“Now, let’s consider that village up ahead,” Stetson said. “Notice the flag. Almost inevitably flags originate as banners to follow into battle. Not always. However, you may take this as a good piece of circumstantial evidence in view of the other things.”
“I see.”
“There’s the docility of the civilian populace,” Stetson said. “It’s axiomatic that this goes hand in glove with a powerful military and/or religious aristocracy which suppresses technological change. Hamal’s Leader Council is nothing but an aristocracy, well versed in the use of religion as a tool of statecraft and in the use of spies, another inevitable development occurring with armies and warfare.”
“They’re aristocrats, all right,” Orne agreed.
“Rule one in our book,” Stetson said, “says that whenever you have a situation of haves and have-nots, then you have positions to be defended. That always means armies, whether you call them troops or police or guards. I’ll bet my bottom credit those gaming fields of the green and yellow balls are disguised drill grounds.”
Orne swallowed. “I should’ve thought of that.”
“You did,” Stetson said. “Unconsciously. You saw all of the wrongness here unconsciously. It bothered the hell out of you. That’s why you pushed the panic button.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Another lesson,” Stetson said. “The most important point on the aggression index: peaceful people, really peaceful types, don’t even discuss peace. They have developed a dynamic of nonviolence in which the ordinary concept of peace doesn’t even occur. They don’t even think about it. The only way you develop more than a casual interest in peace as we conceive of it is through the recurrent and violent contrast of war.”
“Of course.” Orne took a deep breath, stared at the village on the high ground ahead of them. “But what about the lack of forts? I mean, no cavalry animals and…”
“We can take it for granted that they have artillery,” Stetson said. “Hmmmmm.” He rubbed his chin. “Well, that’s probably enough. We’ll undoubtedly discover a pattern here which rules mobile cavalry out of the equation prohibiting stone forts.”
“I guess so.”
“What happened here was something like this,” Stetson said. “First-Contact, that schlammler, may he rot in a military prison, jumped to a wrong conclusion about Hamal. He tipped our hand. The Hamalites got together, declared a truce, hid or disguised every sign of warfare they knew anything about, put out the word to the citizenry, then concentrated on milking us for everything they could get. Have they sent a deputation to Marak, yet?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll have to pick them up, too.”
“It figures,” Orne said. He began to feel the full emotional cleansing of relief, but with odd overtones of disquiet trailing along behind. His own career was out of the soup, but he thought of the consequences for Hamal in what was about to happen. A full O-force! Military occupation did nasty things to the occupiers and the occupied.
“I think you’ll make a pretty good I-A operative,” Stetson said.
Orne snapped out of his reverie. “I’ll make a… Huh?”
“I’m drafting you,” Stetson said.
Orne stared at him. “Can you do that?”
“There are still a few wise heads in our government,” Stetson said. “You may take it for granted that we have this power in the I-A.” He scowled. “And we find too damned many of our operatives this way—one step short of disaster.”
Orne swallowed. “This is…” He fell silent as the farmer pushed his creaking cart past the I-A vehicle.
The men in the go-buggy stared at the peculiar swaying motion of the farmer’s back, the solid way his feet came down on the dusty roadbed, the smooth way the high-piled vegetable cart rolled along.
“I’m a left-handed froolap!” Orne muttered. He pointed at the retreating back. “There’s your cavalry animal. That damn wagon’s nothing but a chariot!”
Stetson slapped his right fist into his open left palm. “Damn! Right in front of our eyes all the time!” He smiled grimly. “There are going to be some surprised and angry people hereabouts when our O-force arrives tomorrow.”
Orne nodded silently, wishing there were some other way to prevent disastrous military excursions into space. And he thought: What Hamal needs is a new kind of religion, one that shows them how to balance their own lives happily on their world and to balance their world in the universe.
But with Amel controlling the course of every religion, that was out of the question. There was no such religious balancing system—not on Chargon… not even on Marak.
And certainly not on Hamal.