The Rival Rigelians

IX

Though he was not aware of the fact, Taller Second was a near duplicate of his grandfather, the Khan of all the People who had first greeted the Earthmen upon their original arrival in Tula. Taller Second was a large, very handsome man, born with the air of command, even in his youth, Now, in the uniform of a field officer, he strode through the portals of the hospital, the second largest of the new buildings springing up throughout the city. Even in his own memory, Tula had more than tripled in size. Its growth had not necessarily coincided with beautification. Primitive pyramids stood cheek to jowl with rearing distribution centers or office buildings. Community adobe structures, once inhabited by families belonging to the same clans, adjoined modern apartment buildings going up for the rapidly evolving New Class, the bureaucrats of the State.

Within the building, he looked about. It had been some time since he had been here. However, he remembered his way.

Though he was the son of Reif and high in the ranks of the Tulans, he was little known in the hospital and his passage drew small attention. He strode down one corridor, through a heavy door, down another corridor, to bring up finally before a guarded portal.

The guard wore a highly decorative tunic and kilts, the design of which was unfamiliar to Taller, and, somehow, in its finery, repugnant. The other came to attention, his carbine held athwart his chest.

He snapped briskly. “It is forbidden to enter the private chambers of the lady of Number One.”

Taller looked at the man. He said, finally, “Soldier, do you know who I am?”

The other looked straight ahead. “Yes, sir.”

“Are you sure, soldier?”

“Yes, sir. You are Taller Second, son of the Khan of all the People.”

Taller looked at him levelly. “Then, soldier, if I were to ignore you and pass through this door, what would you do?”

There was a pleading element in the other’s expression, even as he tried to stare straight ahead. The carbine slumped in his hands. He said, “Sir, it is by command of Number One that I am posted here.”

“I didn’t ask you that,” Taller said.

“No, sir.” The other was bewildered.

Taller breathed deeply. He said, “As it is, I am here by invitation, soldier. Go through whatever routine is standard to take me…to take me to the lady of Number One.”

In obvious relief, the guard retreated through the door in question, to return almost immediately.

He came to the salute. “Enter the quarters of the lady of Number One, Taller, son of the Khan.”

Taller grunted and passed the other.

Inside, he looked about, his eyebrows rising. He had never been here before, although he had heard rumors of the inner-most sanctum of Doctor Isobel Sanchez. Being only two generations away from a primitive background, he was poorly prepared to confront the ultra-modern furnishings, art work and atmosphere of Earth.

A serving girl scurried up, her eyes averted, an all but cringing quality in her approach. She was bare-footed, bare above the waist, and her physical qualities were undeniable, indeed; she had obviously been selected for them. She wore nothing save a mini-kilt.

“My lord,” she said. “The Doctor awaits you.” She began to turn to lead the way. Taller said, “A moment.” She hesitated and there was a fearful quality. He looked at her, at her bare bosom, which was superb. The Tulan people were not so far from their primitive past but that they still held to the simple modesty. Taller had never seen a woman’s nipples before. Taller said, “You are of the People?”

“Yes, lord.”

“Do not call me lord. Such is not a term of address to be used to a son of the People. My father is Khan, but the office is elective. Some day I may, in turn, be Khan, but only if the People so decide. We have no lords amongst the People, as you should know.”

The girl was apprehensive. Taller was not a man to be stood up to by a wisp of a girl. She said, her eyes down, “But, sir, it is the Doctor’s orders that I entitle all her guests lord.”

“Why do you go without proper garments?” The girl was miserable. “It is the orders of the Doctor.” He looked at her for a long moment, grimly. Finally, “Take me to her.”

Isobel Sanchez had been reclining on an Etruscan type lounge. Upon his entry, she came to one elbow and shrugged into a jacket which was, however, so diaphanous that it concealed her figure little better than the serving girl’s who bowed him in and then quickly bowed herself out.

Taller looked at Isobel Sanchez for a moment, then after the girl. His gray eyes came back to the Earthwoman.

He said, “Why is she so attired?”

Isobel tinkled a laugh. “Because I find it amusing. I call the dress Cretan Revival.”

“Cretan?”

“A very old people of First Earth. They developed one of the highest civilizations.”

“And became shameless?”

She had come to her feet and now she approached him, amusement in her eyes. “It is an elastic term, Taller. Would you like a drink?” She motioned to a golden ewer. “I have been experimenting. I found in the Pedagogue’s archives an account of an old…very old…beverage called absinthe.”

Without waiting for his answer, she took up the ewer and poured a greenish liquid from it into two glasses.

He watched her impassively as she went through the ceremony of putting a lump of sugar, on a spoon, above each of the glasses in turn, and then pouring cold water from another jar over the sugar until it dissolved away into the absinthe.

Her figure was rather clearly revealed through the all but transparent clothing she wore. Taller had known this woman all his life, though he had come little in contact with her. So far as he could remember, she had looked like this always. Perhaps she was a shade more lush, an inconsequential, more slack about the mouth, a touch more empty in the eyes—but largely she was the most beautiful woman he could ever remember having seen.

She turned and handed him the glass and stood there, before him, her lips slightly parted.

He drank and didn’t like the taste, but said nothing.

Isobel Sanchez looked at him mockingly. “I believe this is your first visit here, Taller.”

“Yes. Why did you summon me?”

She sipped at her drink and looked up into his eyes and her own were still mocking. “But you are one of our most important officers.”

He frowned at her.

She said slowly, “And I am the planet’s leading…doctor. And this is my hospital.”

Taller said, “Outside is your hospital, but these are your private quarters. And you are the woman of Number One, Joe Chessman.”

She made a pout. “Joe is too busy these days. I seldom see him. When I do, he is always talking about his work. So far as the hospital is concerned, it is no longer necessary for me to do drudgery. My doctors handle that. If something important comes up that they don’t understand, they can come to me.” She added languidly, “If I have the time. But with you…”

He still frowned.

She put her glass down and looked into his eyes again, and now hers were slumberous. “I think I should give you a personal…examination.”

His mouth was suddenly dry as she came into his arms.

Steve Cogswell sat at a table in a village square. Two Tulan guards bearing rifles flanked him. He alone was seated. Before him stood a long line, patiently, stolidly. Most of the petitioners were men, but not all.

He rubbed a hand around the back of his neck, in thorough weariness, and said, “All right, who’s next?”

Before the table and slightly to one side, the apprehensive nonentity who was the village head man read from a paper. The next in line stepped forward.

“All right,” Cogswell sighed. “What’s your crab?”

The newcomer was in his middle years. There was a stupid, dull quality in his face. His body was obviously strong, but bent with the years.

He rumbled. “You have taken my land.”

Cogswell shook his head. “You don’t understand. I have taken nothing from you. I merely represent the State. The State, itself, has actually taken nothing from you, in reality. The land still belongs to you, to you and all the others who work it.”

“I had ten hectares. It was my father’s before me, and his father’s. My sons and I worked it.” He held out grimy hands, worn with toil, the nails broken. “We worked it with our hands and earned our living. Now you have taken it.”

Steve Cogswell took a deep breath.

“Look, man. Your land and all the other land in this vicinity has been amalgamated, joined together. You’ll work it in common. It will be easier. You won’t have to work from morning till night. You’ll put in six or eight hours a day, no more. We’re bringing in fertilizer; soon there will be tractors, other machinery. Using a third the amount of labor, you’ll be producing more agricultural products. We’re not taking anything from you, we’re giving you something.”

“They tell me that my house is to be destroyed. That it is to be cleared away, so that this new machinery can have room. It is my house, where I was born, where my sons were born.”

“I know. I know,” Cogswell growled. “And your father, and his father before him. I’ve heard the story a thousand and one times. How many rooms were there in this house?”

The petitioner looked at him blankly. “One room above for we of the family, one room below for the animals. As all houses in this region.”

Cogswell looked at the village headman. “Hasn’t it been explained to everyone that they will be moved into the village? That new apartments with several rooms apiece, and bathrooms and kitchens, will be provided?”

The headman said, “All have been told this, but thus far few of these apartments have been built. Even those who have been provided with such apartments, do not like them, Man from First Earth. They like their old homes, the houses such as their ancestors have always lived in.”

Steve Cogswell closed his eyes in pain. “What’s wrong with the new apartments? They’re sanitary. They’re comparatively spacious. We’re introducing gas stoves. What in the name of Holy Jumping Zen do these cloddies want?”

The headman said unctuously, “Man from First Earth, they want what they are used to. When a family moves into one of the new apartments, they pull down the interior walls so that the whole house can be one room. They are not used to the home being many rooms, it prevents the family from being one. This new soap that comes from the new industrial centers, the growing cities. We are not used to this soap. It is not well that the people wash themselves all the time, such as you suggest. Only on feast days, on holy days did we bathe in the past.”

“Yes,” Cogswell muttered bitterly. “I remember the smell.”

He looked back at the farmer. “Listen,” he said, “the world changes. It changes for the better.”

“I do not want these changes. Already one of my sons has left the village and gone to Tula to work in the new projects. He should be here with the rest of us, working the fields, tending the animals. It is not…”

Cogswell held up a hand. “Look. That’s the point. The changes we are making will make it possible to release workers from the fields so that they can get positions in the new industries. Everybody will profit by these new industries. You’ll have more and better food; there’ll never be famines again. You’ll have better clothes, better transportation, better medicine.”

“We do not want these things,” the other said stubbornly. “We want to continue in the old way. We want our land. It is our land. It is not yours to take.”

“I’m not taking it,” Cogswell snapped impatiently. “Zen! Can’t you understand? The State is taking it.”

“I do not understand about this State of which you talk. I am a simple man. I do not want you to take my land. Where will my sons bring their wives when they are of age to wed?”

“The State is everybody,” Cogswell told him. “When your sons marry, they’ll be given apartments here in town. Each day they will be driven out to the farmland to work. They’ll live in luxury, compared to the way you always have. Holy Zen, man! Can’t you see this is for your own good?”

Without waiting for an answer, Cogswell looked at the headman. “Who’s next? I’m getting tired of these cloddies! Over and over again, the same confounded drivel!”

The peasant hadn’t stirred. He was breathing deeply now.

He pressed closer to the table behind which the Earthman sat.

“The land is ours!”

Cogswell leaned forward too, his face red with anger. “The land is now the State’s, whether you like it or not!”

The two guards, bored with the monotony, moved too slowly. They hadn’t expected action.

The knife came from nowhere, concealed perhaps in sleeve or jerkin folds.

The guards clubbed their rifles, struck again and again. Beat the man to the ground and senseless. Beat him long after consciousness was gone.

Not that this made any difference to Steven Cogswell, once of New Chicago in a land far, far from Texcoco. Already, his body was growing cold.

A deep sigh went through the long line of farmer petitioners. The headman, his eyes popping horror, was terrified. Word of the brutality of the new police was spreading throughout the countryside.

Down the long palace corridor strode Barry Watson, Dick Hawkins, Natt Roberts, the aging Reif and his son Taller, now in the prime of manhood. Their faces were equally lined from long hours without sleep. Half a dozen armed Tulan infantrymen brought up their rear.

As they passed Security Police guards, to left and right, eyes took in their weapons, openly carried. But such eyes shifted and the guards remained at their posts. Only one sergeant opened his mouth in protest. “Sir,” he said to Watson, hesitantly, “you are entering Number One’s presence armed.”

“Shut up,” Natt Roberts rapped at him.

Reif said, “That will be all, sergeant.”

The Security Police sergeant looked emptily after them as they progressed down the corridor.

Together, Watson and Reif motioned aside the two Tulan soldiers who stood before the door of their destination, and pushed inward without knocking.

Joe Chessman looked up wearily from his map and dispatch-laden desk. For a moment his hand went to the heavy military revolver at his right but when he realized the identity of his callers, it fell away. Isobel Sanchez, as always, lush, sat in an easy chair on the far side of the room, her face petulant, a drink in her hand.

She grunted contemptuously. “Another big crisis, without doubt. I tell you, I’m getting tired of being cooped up in this place.”

“What’s up now?” Joe Chessman said, his voice on the verge of cracking.

The men hadn’t even bothered to look at the woman. Their eyes were on Chessman. Barry Watson acted as spokesman.

“It’s everywhere the same. The communes are on the fine edge of revolt. They’ve been pushed too far. They’ve got to the point where they just don’t give a damn. A spark and all Texcoco goes up in flames.”

Reif said coldly, “We need immediate reforms. They’ve got to be pacified. An immediate announcement of more consumer goods, fewer State taxes, above all a relaxation of Security Police pressures. Given immediate promise of these, we might maintain ourselves.”

Joe Chessman’s sullen face was twitching at the right corner of his mouth. Taller Second made no attempt to disguise his contempt at the other’s weakness in time of stress.

Chessman’s eyes went around the half circle of them. This is the only alternative? It’ll slow up our heavy industry-planned program. I wanted to concentrate everything on steel. Otherwise, we might not catch up with Genoa as quickly as we figured.”

Barry Watson gestured with a hand in quick irritation. “Look here, Chessman, don’t we get through to you? Whether or not we build up a steel capacity as large as Amschel Mayer’s isn’t important now. Simple survival is. Everything’s at stake.”

“Don’t talk to me that way, Barry,” Chessman growled truculently. “I’ll make the decisions. I’ll do the thinking around here.” He looked at Reif in speculation. “How much of the Tulan army is loyal—to me?”

The aging Tulan looked at Watson before turning back to Joe Chessman. “All of the Tulan army is loyal—to me.”

Evidently, Joe Chessman hadn’t picked up the final two words, or, if so, he ignored them. “Good!” he said. He pushed some of the dispatches on his desk aside, letting them flutter to the floor. He bared a field map. “If we crush half a dozen of the local communes…crush them hard! Then the others…”

Watson said very slowly and so low as hardly to be heard, “You didn’t bother to listen, Chessman. We told you, all that’s needed is a spark.”

Isobel said, “Joe, honey, you don’t have to take that tone of voice from Barry.” She sloshed some more fluid into her glass from a decanter on the small table next to her.

They all ignored her.

Joe Chessman sat back in his chair, looked at them all again, one by one. Re-evaluating. For a moment, the facial tic stopped and his eyes held the old alertness.

“I see,” he said. “And you all recommend capitulation to the demands of these potential rebels?”

“It’s our only chance,” Hawkins said. “We don’t even know it’ll work. There’s always the chance if we throw them a few crumbs they’ll want the whole loaf. You’ve got to remember that some of them have been living for twenty-five years or more under this pressure. The valve is about to blow.”

“I see,” Chessman grunted. “And what else? I can see in your faces there’s something else.”

The three Earthmen didn’t answer. Their eyes shifted.

Joe Chessman looked to young Taller and then to Reif. “What else?” he demanded.

“We need a scapegoat,” Reif said without expression.

Joe Chessman thought about that. He looked at Barry Watson again.

Isobel said petulantly, “What’ya mean, a scapegoat?”

“Shut up,” Chessman growled.

Watson said, “The whole Texcocan State is about to topple. Not only do we have to give them immediate reform, but we’re going to have to blame the past hardships and mistakes on somebody. Somebody has to take the rap, be thrown to the wolves. If not, maybe we’ll all wind up taking the blame.”

“Ah,” Chessman said. His red-rimmed eyes went around them again, thoughtfully. “We should be able to dig up a few local chieftains and some of the Security Police heads. Or, would it be better to drag some of the old rebels out of the concentration camps and give them a big public trial? Accuse them of sabotaging the State’s plans.”

They shook their heads.

“What’s all this about?” Isobel said petulantly. “What’re you all talking about so grimly. Let’s all have a nice big drink. It’s too glum around this damn palace.”

“It has to be somebody big,” Natt Roberts said thickly. “A few of my Security Police won’t do it.”

Joe Chessman’s eyes went to Reif. “The Khan is the highest ranking Texcocan of all,” he said, finally. “The Khan and some Security Police heads would satisfy them.”

Reif’s face was as frigid as the Earthman’s. He said, “I am afraid not, Joseph Chessman. You are Number One. It is your statue that is in every commune square. It is your portrait that hangs in every distribution center, every messhall, every schoolroom. You are the Number One—as you have so often pointed out to us. My title, Khan of all the People, has become meaningless.”

Isobel shrilled. “Joe! Call your guards!” Joe Chessman spat out a curse, fumbled the gun into his hand and fired before the Tulan soldiers could get to him. In a moment they had wrested the weapon from his hand and had his arms bound. It was too late.

Reif had been thrown backward two paces by the blast of the heavy calibered gun. Now he held a palm over his belly and staggered to a chair. He collapsed into it, looked at his son, let a wash of amusement pass over his face, said, “Khan,” meaninglessly, and died.

Isobel, squealing dismay, scurried from her chair and to his side. She knelt, her hands went out, suddenly professional.

She looked up, a strangeness in her eyes. “He’s dead,” she said.

Natt Roberts shrilled at Chessman: “You fool! We were going to give you a big, theatrical trial. Sentence you to prison, and then, later, claim you’d died in your cell and smuggle you out to the Pedagogue,”

Watson snapped to the guards. “Take him outside and shoot him!”

Isobel, her eyes wide, put the back of her hand to her mouth. “Barry!” she squealed.

The Tulans began dragging the snarling, cursing Chessman to the door.

Taller said, “A moment, please.”

Watson, Roberts, Hawkins and Isobel Sanchez looked at him.

Taller said, “This, perhaps, can be done more effectively.”

His voice was completely emotionless. “This man has killed both my father and grandfather, both of them Khans of Tula, elected heads of the most powerful city on all Texcoco, before the coming of you from First Earth.”

The guards hesitated. Barry Watson detained them with a motion of his hand.

Taller said, “I suggest you turn him over to me, to be dealt with in the traditional way of the People.”

“No,” Chessman said hoarsely. “Barry, Dick, Natt. Send me back to the Pedagogue. I’ll be out of things there. Or maybe Mayer can use me on Genoa.”

They didn’t bother to look in his direction. Roberts muttered savagely, “We told you, all that was needed was a spark. Now you’ve killed the Khan, the most popular man on Texcoco. There’s no way of saving you.”

Isobel’s eyes were darting. They were narrowed and speculative.

Taller said, “None of you have studied our traditions, our customs. But now, perhaps, you will understand the added effect of my taking charge. It will be more…profitable. This manner of using the downfall of this…this power-mad murderer.”

Chessman said desperately, “Look, Barry, Natt. If you have to, shoot me. At least give me a man’s death. Remember those human sacrifices the Tulans had when we first arrived? Can you imagine what went on in those temples? Barry, Dick—for old time’s sake, boys!”

Barry Watson said to Taller, “He’s yours. If this doesn’t take the pressure off us, nothing will.”