Anthropol, p.13
Anthropol, page 13
XVI
THE MORE I thought of our prospects of going by air to Malan, the more I wondered if there wasn’t a way out on foot — through the swamp. Everybody spoke of it as an impossibility. But had anyone actually ever tried it?
The answer came in mid-afternoon. Lori and I were well back in the forest, in an area of newly felled frun trees. Near us, one of the other trimmers stopped his work and straightened up as I had done the day before. A guard came out from behind a tree, her rod held high.
“Back to work, omul!”
I could see his eyes. They were burning bits of black coal in his sun-scorched, emaciated face. His hands shook from tension and the muscles around his mouth began to twitch as he fought to hold back words. But either the strain had grown too great or my rebellion of the day before had made him bold.
The man cried, “Az ordognek Magaval!”
It was a curse that would have delighted our Anthropol linguists; it was almost pure, ancient Magyar. But the guard obviously wasn’t interested in archaic forms. “Fostos omul!” she hissed. Her rod darted out at him like a rapier.
The man stumbled back. The heel of his sandal caught on the trunk of the tree he had been trimming. The bark tore. The guard’s voice rose to an unintelligible scream. The man twisted away from the rod stabbing at him and began to run in wild, mindless panic.
A sodded path lay clear and open to his left. Straight ahead was a black patch of swampy ooze. Blindly he ran straight for the swamp, the guard close behind. Mud caught him up to the ankles. He half fell sideways, toward a patch of heavy leaves that looked like oversized water lily pads. The guard stopped at the edge of the ooze. Suddenly the man screamed.
I was standing, trimming saw in my hand. When I saw the cause of his scream, I started forward. Lori said sharply, “Stay where you are! It’s too late to help.”
I saw what she meant. A long tendril had risen from between the sprawling lily-like pads and wrapped itself around the man, pinning his arms. With a sudden jerk, he was hauled full-length across one of the big leaves. It folded around him, the way cabbage is folded around stuffing by an Ujvilan cook. He disappeared completely. His scream stopped. The rolled up leaf disappeared under the water it had been resting on. A few bubbles perforated the dark surface.
The guard swung around. “Back to work, all of you!”
Lori said, “That was a swamp flower having its lunch.”
I didn’t answer. There was nothing to say. Nor was there much to think about at the moment. My choice of escape routes had become all too obvious — it was ride the air-truck or not go at all.
That night I was half asleep when a guard loomed in the dormitory doorway. “Is there one called Vernay here?”
Someone muttered a curse at her for disturbing our sleep. I shook myself and stood up. The guard said, “There is some irregularity about your entry record. Come with me.”
Beside me, Lori whispered, “The guard Denil has figured a way to get even with you.”
I didn’t answer but walked to the door. Groggy from being jerked out of my doze, I didn’t recognize the guard until we were well into the compound. Then I saw that it was Draca. She stopped in a patch of darkness.
“Five nights from this one is beginning of the rest time. Have you a plan yet?”
“You woke me up to ask that?”
“It is important. I have been in contact with the Malan branch of our organization. The Igaz has tripled its forces. Everywhere the hunt for Neo-Politicos has been intensified. The Igaz has become so watchful that Rosid fears the great plan may not work. Your help or Captain Lori’s may be needed soon. The operation is to start!”
I didn’t like that bit about Rosid’s considering help from Lori. I said, “I have a plan. But it’s pure guesswork based on the way the air-trucks carry the logs to Malan.”
“The air-truck grapples them to its belly and flies them away,” she said. “How else would it carry them?”
“But how are they carried? Crosswise to the body of the helicopter? Lengthwise to it? I understand three logs go at once. Why three?”
“Because even the biggest air-trucks can lift only three prual logs, and the smaller ones that carry the frun logs have cradles for only three. But I do not see why you need to know all this.”
I said, “I need to know a lot more. About the procedure during the rest time. About how the pilots lift the logs. About the number of men in each air-truck.”
She answered my questions and others that I asked. Finally, she sent me back to bed. “If anyone asks, tell them it was a mistake. Curse us for our stupidity — but not too loudly.”
Apparently no one had been concerned enough about me to stay awake. Not even Lori. But now I couldn’t sleep, as badly as I needed the rest. I lay thinking of what Draca had told me, trying to fit my plan into the pattern of existence here.
Rest time, I had learned, was a euphemism for an orgy — or as much of an orgy as the bone-weary, dying workers could manage. It began after work the night before the rest day. You had your choice that night: you could eat the usual slop or you could drink a kind of cheap, sour mash liquid. Most people chose to drink.
It was vile stuff, Draca had told me. And it was doctored so that weariness of both body and mind were temporarily sloughed away. The drinker felt strong. And he continued to feel that way as long as he — or she — kept enough of the liquor in his system. Strong enough to fight, to run around shouting, to make love, to kill sometimes. But at sundown of the rest day itself, the liquor was taken away. Within an hour every drinker lay exhausted — in his bed if he was lucky enough to be near it; on the ground otherwise. And the next morning it was work as usual — work for bodies that had burned up a month’s energy in one twenty-four hour burst.
The wise ones, Draca said, learned to eat as usual and then drink in moderation, if at all. But many simply lived for rest days, not caring that half a dozen such periods meant that their bodies would be used up and they would most likely collapse and die in the middle of their seventh or eighth drinking bout. But then, I thought, what else did most of them have to live for anyway?
My interest in the rest day was that discipline was lax. The guards simply shut themselves away in their cooled quarters and let the workers run riot until the period was ended.
• • •
The next morning I managed to ask Lori, “What do you do on rest days?”
Her look was scathing. “I don’t turn myself into an animal, if that’s what you’re hoping, Vernay. I use the time to rest, to try to get back some of my strength.”
At least she had retained that much desire to live, I thought. I said, “This next rest time you won’t get the chance to sleep.”
“We’re going to escape, I suppose.” She was mocking.
“Yes.”
“How? Do we walk out or fly?”
I acted as if her question had been serious rather than sarcastic. “We fly,” I answered. A guard came toward us and I stopped talking. But I saw that I had succeeded in doing what I wanted — arousing Lori’s curiosity.
That helped sustain her for the rest of that day and the next. But after that I could see the weariness creeping back, the hopelessness settling into her mind again.
• • •
The last night before rest time would begin, I left my bunk and knelt beside Lori’s. I whispered, “Awake?”
“Go away.”
I kept my voice barely audible. “I have to talk to Draca. She’s on outside duty tonight. If a guard comes in to check, cover for me.”
“What do I do?” she demanded savagely. “Tell the guard you’ve gone sleepwalking?”
“Tell them I’m in your bed for all I care,” I snapped. “But cover for me.” I got up and moved away. My anger was gone by the time I reached the door and stepped out into the thick, still night air. If I’d been here as long as she had, I doubted if I’d let myself believe in the possibility of escape — especially when that possibility was dependent on someone I considered a member of a bumbling organization. I knew that part of Lori’s trouble was the way she regarded Anthropol — and thus regarded me. That wasn’t her fault either: Gal-Mil indoctrination saw to it that she had nothing but contempt for the “peace” lovers, as we were sometimes called.
Outside I stood in shadow and waited. Ultimately the guard on night patrol would pass me on the way to checking the dormitory. That guard was supposed to be Draca tonight.
It was, but by the time she arrived I was barely awake enough to be aware of her. The sound her bootsole made on gravelly dirt woke me from a doze. I straightened up and waited until I was sure who the guard was. Then I whispered, “Draca.”
She stopped. “Vernay! I was going in to talk to you. The Igaz has found some of our members in the capital. Sooner or later one of them will talk.” She said it matter-of-factly, without excitement.
“We’re leaving tomorrow night,” I said, trying to make my voice light. “By air, of course. I have the tickets.”
She had no humor in her. “Just be sure of yourself. You’ll get no second chance.” For the first time I realized how like Rosid’s her voice was in its lack of expression. And I thought how dedicated these Neos were — allowing themselves virtually no emotional outlets. No wonder they needed pills. I asked, “How much help can you give us tomorrow?”
“I’ll do all that I can,” Draca said. In the thick darkness, her eyes seemed to glow as if some inner fervor had been lighted. “We are too close now to fail. Whatever the consequences, I will do what I must to help. Despite the Igaz, the plan is now in operation.”
I appreciated her willingness to be a martyr. But that kind of attitude could breed fatal mistakes. I said, “Don’t risk getting caught. Even if we do get away and you’re made to talk — ”
She didn’t give me an opportunity to finish my warning. “I will not talk, Vernay. I have a quicker method of dying.” She sharpened her voice. “Quickly, what must I do tomorrow?”
“When the air-trucks come for the logs, Lori and I have to be waiting,” I said. “That means we stay behind when everyone leaves the clearing for camp. We’ll need some food, some kaf, and maybe some clothing.”
Draca didn’t hesitate. “I can arrange everything but the clothing. I have no way of getting that for you. Look for me tomorrow at the midday meal, not before.” She turned and continued on her rounds. I went back to bed.
Lori was doing a fine job of covering for me — she was sound asleep.
• • •
I said nothing at all to Lori the next morning. Only after I had a chance to talk to Draca did I tell Lori what I had in mind for us. Draca came with two other guards to do relief duty for a trio that had been working under the pressure of forcing their crews to meet their quotas by loading time. The three tired ones went off in a small, enclosed car. Draca waited until Lori and I were back trimming before she managed to work her way to me.
She spoke quickly. “You will find the food in that small stand of uncut prual trees to your left and behind you. Hide in the thicket between the trees at leaving time. I will create a diversion.”
I continued trimming, not indicating that she had been talking to me. She whispered, “Serenchey,” and moved away, shouting at a worker who had conveniently slowed his axe swings.
Lori paused briefly to glance at me. “What was that all about?”
“She was wishing us good luck,” I said. “Now listen carefully. At leaving time, Draca will divert attention to herself. Then we make a run for it — into that thicket between those prual trees behind me.”
“And then?”
I caught a glimpse of movement from the edge of my vision. “Later. Here comes Denil.”
The hard-faced guard had been looking for an opportunity to get back at me ever since my outburst against her. But so far she either hadn’t found a good opportunity or she was afraid that I hadn’t been bluffing — that I was a spy for the Kalauz. Usually, her attitude toward me was one of undisguised hatred and obvious frustration. But as she came up now I could sense the smugness clinging to her.
“There’ll be no resting your muscles today, Vernay.” Her voice was thick, almost gloating. “Word has come from Malan. Two frun logs were injured in shipment. That means there must be two above your quota on the pile before leaving time.”
I glanced at the logs Lori and I had left to trim. “I can manage one extra,” I said.
“I said two, omul!” Her rod came up. I saw her left hand manipulate the control, increasing the charge.
I didn’t stop to ask her what information she’d got that changed her attitude toward me. I ducked. Her jabbing rod missed me. It went back and shot forward again. I was astraddle the log and when I tried to duck again, the heel of my sandal caught in a pile of trimmings. I tried to catch my balance and fell onto the tip of the rod.
The vicious jolt of electricity sent a cry bursting from me. I went backward, my arms flailing. The sharp edge of my trimming saw came down on the delicate skin of the log, cutting into it deeply. Denil’s curse had a ring of triumph in it.
“The kitchen for you, Vernay — after you trim three extra logs!”
And she came at me again, rod jabbing. I was on the ground, on the far side of the log. I rolled. She caught me again and the power of the charge almost paralyzed me. I did the only thing I had strength for — I curled into a ball and lay quaking like a frightened animal.
Denil managed to jolt me twice more. I don’t know what would have happened if Draca hadn’t managed to come over and stop Denil. I could hear their angry voices but I couldn’t make out the words through the ringing in my head. The voices faded and then hands lifted me. It was Lori.
The paralysis was leaving me. I managed to say, “Get back to work. One of us in this condition is bad enough.”
“I was ordered to restore you,” she said. “Sit still.” Her fingers began massaging, bringing life back to shocked muscles. Her voice was soft, almost pitying. “I’ll give you credit for courage, Vernay. But now you know — you can’t beat the system.”
“I’ll beat it,” I said. My throat ached with the effort of talking. “I’ll beat it — or die trying.”
“And take me along with you,” she said sourly.
It was time to tell her something I had wanted to keep to myself. “You either take your chances with me or you’ll be executed,” I said. “If I hadn’t come here, Rosid would have had you killed by now.”
Lori took it with something of her old Gal-Mil attitude. “In that case, we’d better get to work. We have three extra logs to trim.”
Three extra logs and less than two hours before leaving time. If I had been an Ujvilan of the almost constantly hungry lower classes or if I had had to live very long in a joy-labor camp, I wouldn’t have had the physical resources to fight off the residue of Denil’s attack. As it was, I managed to stagger back to work. I picked up my saw, took a deep breath, and tried to steady my still shaking muscles.
I wondered what would happen if I didn’t make the extra three log quota by leaving time.
XVII
I COULD TELL within minutes that I would miss the quota by two logs. Lori worked as swiftly as she could but without my help the first hour, she was barely able to keep to our normal schedule. I finally recovered enough to be of some use, and as the leaving call came, I had managed one extra log.
Lori straightened up, pressing against the kink in her back muscles. I followed suit, mopping the sweat from my eyes with my forearm. I glanced toward the trucks being readied for loading. Most of the workers were hurrying toward them instead of moving at their usual exhausted shamble. Tonight promised temporary relief and they were eager for it, even though most of them knew that a day and a half from now they would be dangerously nearer death.
I said, “Denil is coming. Move toward the truck.”
“What are you going to do, fight her?”
“If I have to,” I said.
Lori stayed where she was. “Then you’ll need help, Anthropol.”
I grinned a little despite the tension I could feel building inside me. Despite proof time and again, Gal-Mil personnel refused to believe that Anthropol people could fight when they had to — that we were, if anything, better trained in hand-to-hand combat than they. We seldom had weapons to depend on.
As Denil moved our way, I saw Draca break off from the edge of a group of workers pushing their way onto a truck. Her long stride carried her alongside Denil just as they came in range of our hearing. Draca said, “It’s rest period. Let it go until after they return to work.”
Denil’s voice was harsh. “I gave my order. It must be obeyed.”
She came to the edge of our work area and began stepping carefully through the tangle of trimmed branches scattered about. Draca cried suddenly, “Snake — chorgekidyo!”
There were half a dozen kinds of snakes in the Ujvilan jungle, but only the chorgy, as most people called it, was truly deadly. It was about the size of an Earth fer-de-lance, with the flat head of a cobra and the speed of a king snake. Wattles at its neck, if a snake can be said to have a neck, gave off a rustling, rattling sound as the chorgy slithered through the brush.
I had heard no telltale rattling. Denil didn’t either, because there wasn’t any. But she didn’t wait to make sure. She leaped back and sideways. Draca leaped at the same time and cried out in apology as the tip of her rod struck Denil. Obviously Draca had the full charge on — Denil screamed and fell heavily to the ground. I could see that she was out.
Draca snapped, “As soon as everyone takes their eyes away from this spot, run!” Scooping up the smaller woman, she started for the trucks.
“Quickly,” she bawled. “Make way. Accident.”
A guard popped out of a truck cab. “In here. We’ll lead the way out. What happened?”
“She jumped to avoid a chorgekidyo and caught herself with the tip of her rod — the juice turned on full,” Draca cried over the sounds of the excited workers.
