The spark of revolution is more likely to come from ordinary things, like family or food, than it is to come from deep philosophical thought. That is the tinder, not the spark.
From: Elementary Societal Psychodynamics.
2089. James R. Grey (ed).
New Harvard Library (Pub.)
It was dark, and Ji was dressed all in black. He'd moved so quietly that Abret hardly heard him. It was obvious that the night jailor hadn't heard him at all. Ji had his keys. He opened the cell as quietly as possible.
"Are you ready, foreign devil?" he asked quietly.
Abret stood up. "As I'll ever be."
Abret knew he'd agreed to this. Now he was determined to try. How close they might get to Derfel was another matter. At least Abret knew he could die free and fighting.
Naked and cold, he walked out of his cell and down the passage, stepping over the fallen body of the jailor, and following his human guide up the passages. Ji at least knew where they had to go. Abret knew what he had to do if they got there. He played all the possibilities in his mind. Escape after that might not be possible, but at least he would not go mad behind the bars. After all, death was inevitable. It might as well be quick. And what had these humans—be they ever so vile at times—done to deserve Derfel?
They rounded the corner. There, coming towards them, were a group of the brown-uniformed guards. Already, it seemed, they had lost! He half-turned, only to hear voices behind him. And then he realized that the brown-uniformed ones were not aiming those weapons at him. They had stepped aside and were standing rigidly, weapons shouldered, a hand across the weapon in what was plainly some ritual gesture.
Feeling as if his legs might suddenly fail him, Abret walked on past, waving vaguely at them.
"What happened?" he asked, once they were around the next corner.
"They believe you to be the Great Leader," said Ji. "I did when I first saw you. The Great Leader does as he wishes."
For a moment Abret was insulted. He didn't look a bit like Derfel! Did all aliens look alike to them? Well, he'd struggled with telling the humans apart at first. On the positive side, they were still free. There was a remote—very remote—chance, that he could recover his suit and win free to the lifecraft. It could only go better . . . if he took brave steps.
"Where are those who command?" he said, amazing himself with own audacity.
Ji looked him in puzzlement. "Those who command?"
"Those who command the ones in brown," explained Abret.
"The officers? General Su-Jin commands the night-staff of the presidential guard."
"Let us go and see him."
"Are you mad too?"
"No. I want us to succeed. I will tell him to put his guards on the outside."
The black-clad Ji smiled. It was the first smile that Abret had ever seen from the grim-faced man. "You must say 'send all the guards to defensive positions in Perimeter One.' The Great Leader speaks our language better."
It suddenly occurred to Abret to be suspicious. "How do you know all of this? How do you do all of this?"
Ji shrugged. "Because I am a senior agent in the secret police. I have worked for the Great Leader for many years . . . until I brought my daughter to see the new Great Leader. She begged."
His face set hard again. "They are used to seeing me in these clothes here. I come to report my work at night."
The general, in his brown uniform spattered with red braid, did not seem surprised at the instruction, or Abret's company, or his state of undress. "It will be done immediately, Beloved Leader," he said holding his one hand rigidly, flat palm out from his odd headgear.
Abret did not risk saying any more. He just nodded and turned and left. He allowed Ji to lead him to an empty room a little farther up the passage. "We will give them five minutes," said Ji.
In the narrow gap between the two buildings Lani watched as the briskly trotting squads of brown uniformed soldiery headed past. "Something has stirred them up," she said.
"Us, I imagine," said Howard quietly, at her shoulder.
Lani smiled. "If it is us, they're going the wrong way."
"Lucky that," said one of the uThani with a flash of teeth in the darkness. "We would never get through all of this lot. Not without a whole tribe."
"Many. Lot of beads and trinkets to sell," said the other with a chuckle.
They moved out, a little later, down deserted passages, until they came to an ornate, heavily carved door . . . with two dead men beside it.
Ji and Abret had proceeded down the empty corridors to the guarded double door. The guards blinked at Abret, one stopping in mid-salute. Ji kept walking and then, just as the guard on the left started to raise his weapon, lashed out.
To Abret it seemed impossible. You could not kick one man in the throat and knock the weapon from the other's hand that fast. And the blow that Ji followed that up with—an upward strike with the heel of his hand at the man's nose, dropped him. Ji leapt on the fallen throat-kick victim. The gasping man gave a half strangled shriek.
Abret tugged at the door handle, and the huge doors swung open. He and Ji bundled inside.
But they had not been quick or quiet enough.
Derfel was on the far side of the room. He held a terrified looking little human in front of him, his arm around her throat. He held a laser-pistol in the other hand. "You! How did you get here?" he demanded. "My guards will be here any moment."
The small human squirmed, "Papa?" Her voice was full of fear . . . and hope.
"Yes, little flower. It is me," said Ji. "Let her go, foreign devil."
"Come any closer and I'll shoot her."
The door pushed open. "Just in time," said Derfel.
"Actually," said the black-faced entrant, in Miran: "a little late."
Others came in behind him. Humans. Black from head to toe, except that one carried a bronze head under his arm. A head that Derfel had so boldly severed.
"Kretz?" said Abret, incredulously.
The blackened face smiled. "Nice to see Miran faces, even if it is not good to see you pointing weapons at each other. I've come to take you back to our spacecraft. Selna is getting a little anxious to go home."
Kretz took in the scene, and read the situation as best as he could. Derfel could still kill them. By the look in his eyes he was definitely off the edge of sanity.
He stepped forward as confidently as he could.
"Keep back or I'll shoot!" said Derfel. "I mean it."
Kretz looked at Derfel. Then at the wide-eyed little human female he held and the other humans. "He is threatening to kill."
"Can he?" asked Howard.
For an answer Kretz said: "Spread out."
"Stand still!" snarled Derfel—in Miranese, which no one but Abret and Kretz understood.
"I mean you no harm," said Kretz, as calmly as he could, while slowly raising the barrel of the automatic shotgun. "If you don't want to go, we'll just take Abret."
"And the human you're holding, and my suit," said Abret.
Derfel showed no sign of moving or cooperation. "My people will be here soon. You are right in the middle of my kingdom. You can't get away."
"I sent them away. They thought I was you," said Abret. "Now, let that little human go, Derfel. She's done you no harm."
The man who had been there with Abret said something in a foreign language.
Derfel looked at him and answered in the same tongue.
"What did he say?" asked Kretz, warily, wondering if he should be covering this man as well.
"Ji told him to let his child go. Derfel said he'd let the child go if Ji dealt with us," said Abret.
While Derfel's attention had been on the black-clad Ji, Nama-ti had been sidling farther around the room. He was very close to Derfel and the girl now. He said, very quietly in uThani, "Distract him, Dandani. I'll get the girl-child."
Kretz found it an odd way for learning their language to pay dividends. A quick glance showed him the scar-faced uThani had an arrow on the string and was nearly at the opposite flank. "Hey, you with ugly face," said Dandani loudly—in English—"why you no come fight me, one-one? You have face like Carpincho's ass." It was a huge pity that Derfel's translator couldn't do English, thought Kretz.
As Derfel turned, Nama-ti dived, grabbing the girl and wrenching her down. Forewarned, Kretz fired first. He barely beat Lani.
An arrow . . . A flung bronze head, and a screaming man called Ji.
It happened fast.
But not fast enough for Nama-ti. The brief dying convulsion of Derfel's hand sent a lightbolt to strike his forearm. The uThani's hand was half severed. He screamed.
One of the flyboys, slow to react to the violence, was quick enough now. He had a tourniquet on Nama-ti's arm, and a syringe in his hand, while the others were still almost stock still.
Ji held his daughter. The child stared not at him, but at the bronze head. She kept saying something over and over.
Lani was the first to come to terms with the situation. They were all a bit shocked. Amber looked as if she'd faint any moment and that flygirl of hers was not looking much better. Someone had to take charge.
"We need to move out," she said. "I can hear them coming."
"No," said Kretz, decisively. "We need to buy more time. Hide. Pull the bodies in from outside too. There is a room in there. Cover Derfel with that bedding." He turned to the other Miran and said something in a foreign language.
The other alien gaped at him.
Abret was shocked by the suddenness, by the violence. By Kretz. Mild mannered Kretz, what he'd done and what he now said. "Abret, you will meet them at the door and tell them to leave you alone. I hope that your Transcomp has that much of the language."
"Me?" Abret knew that was a stupid thing to say. But right now, with aliens pulling dead bodies past him in the aftermath of the killing, he felt stupid.
Kretz shook him. Hard. "Others thought that you were him earlier. To them we probably all look alike," said Kretz, hauling bedclothes over the dead Miran. "I found humans hard to tell apart at first. You owe them, Abret. They've risked their lives to rescue you."
Ji had sat up, still holding his daughter to his chest. She was still saying over and over again that the ancestor himself had come to save her. "What is happening?" he asked. "Who are these people?"
"These are friends who have come to rescue me. I am going to pretend to be the Great Leader." Without knowing why he did so, Abret patted the man on his shoulder. "We will get you and your daughter away too, if we can."
Ji nodded, spoke in the rapid-fire local language to the girl child, and gave her the bronze head. "Lie down, child. The ancestor is with you. Hide him under the bedclothes too." He turned to Abret. "She must be here. Tell them they interrupt your pleasure. Tell them to go back to the first perimeter."
The palatial bathroom was big but it had never been intended for this many people. Nama-ti was in the huge empty bath itself, having his partially severed hand attended to. He was not really conscious, after whatever it was that they'd injected him with. Amber had her head between her knees and was being patted by her flygirl. Lani stood with the others, including the grim-faced local, at the door. Waiting.
Then she heard the sound of the doors being opened. The other alien said something. The girl said something that sounded hysterical. The alien kept repeating himself.
There was the sound of the door closing.
The local man, Ji, was first out. It was just as well, because the girl was trying to brain Kretz's alien friend with the bronze head, and screaming at him.
Ji managed to take it from her and hold her. "Have you guys got a tranquilizer?" asked Lani, looking at the remaining flyboy with his as yet unused burp-gun.
He nodded. "Better check it out with the local man first though. He's scary."
Lani turned to Kretz. "Get your buddy to sling the language for us, Kretz. We've got something to tranquilize the kid. We can't have her screaming while we're getting away. Although her screams probably convinced the guards."
Kretz routed the message through Abret, and to the black-clad local.
Abret couldn't blame the little alien for her attack. If he had grasped it right she was an adolescent human female. Whatever else was different between the two species, the concept of adolescence was similar. He would cheerfully have killed Derfel for that alone. Ji still apologized to him. "She is distraught, foreign devil."
Abret pointed to Kretz. "My friend say they have something to help. Like the thing they give to wounded man. Can they give?"
Ji nodded. "I would be glad. So would she, if she was herself. She does not seem too rational, telling the guards that the ancestor would come and save her." He pointed at the head. "It is an object of great reverence here."
"Good. I will tell them to give it to her. Then we can see about escaping."
Ji sighed. "I do not think that is possible. There is nowhere in the Workers Paradise to hide. But I have done what I needed to do. Thank you. You are a creature of honor, even if you are a foreign devil."
As the young human was injected, Abret conveyed the gist of this to Kretz. "He got me out of jail. And . . . I feel a debt, Kretz. A debt of honor. One of us did this to his daughter. He says nowhere here is safe for them. Is there anywhere else we can take them?"
Kretz nodded. "I'll ask Howard. He is a good human. The people of his habitat are odd, but they were very kind to a stranger in their midst."
Kretz turned to the huge human and spoke.
Howard nodded, and replied.
Kretz turned to Abret. "He says yes. He has quoted his holy book at me. They take the belief in a noncorporeal being quite seriously."
Abret nodded thankfully. "I gather around here they would become noncorporeal beings quite quickly, if they stayed. The only problem is that we have still have is just how to get out of there."
"Leave it to them. Especially the big human and the one with the reddish head filaments . . . oh, they're black right now. That one." He pointed. "They are even more ingenious than Miran, Abret. And I know you were badly frightened and treated by these aliens, but some of them have been very good to me. They have kept me alive and helped me to reach you, at great risk and hardship to themselves."
Abret nodded. "I'm beginning to accept that it depends on which one you meet, Kretz."
Kretz looked thoughtful. "In these microcosms things are more concentrated, but maybe that applies to Miran too," he said. "I mean, look at Derfel. Anyway, I'd better do a Transcomp transfer of their language to your unit. I warn you, the language is quite bizarre."
"This one is too. I suppose," Abret said, his face working with distaste, "we should see if Derfel's unit is intact. He did one thing right. He started to learn the language and immerse himself in their culture right away."
"And we'd better look for your suit," said Kretz. "Or you'll stay immersed in it forever. And you need some Miran food, soon, by the looks of you."
"And hormone supplements. But there are some packs on the lifecraft."
"The best I think we can do, is to leave quietly and neatly and take the body with us," said Lani.
Amber shuddered. "Why, Lani?"
"Remember what happened when Howard disappeared?" said Lani.
Amber nodded.
"If I read this lot right, they're going to get very upset when they find a dead 'Great Leader.' One of these brown uniforms will call himself boss and kill a fair number of people. But if the Great Leader just disappears . . . Well, he might come back. I think that will slow them down in their response, if nothing else."
"There is quite a bit of blood and damage, Lani," said Zoë.
Lani smiled. This was her element. "For a forensic team, yes. For this lot—nothing we can't deal with. Turn that mattress over. We'll wrap the body in the sheet."
"It seems a crazy lot of hard work to me," said Amber. "And you'll have to deal with the other bodies too."
"I think we should do it. It won't be our problem, but why should we leave a purge behind us?"
"You're getting a bit more sensitive about this sort of thing than you used to be," said Amber with a smile.
Lani shrugged. "A side effect of living with Howard."
Amber grimaced. "I can believe that. He was on at me about the morality of vat-protein which we vivisect and never allow the joy of a full life and the respect of a quick merciful death. Look, why don't we ask the local boy?" She jerked a thumb at Ji, who was sitting with arm around his child. "We can get Kretz and his friend to translate."
As it turned out Kretz was by now capable of doing the translation alone. And the austere-faced Ji smiled. Pointed at the head.
"He says it is very good idea. And if you do it right, with that thing, then everyone will be too frightened to do anything. His daughter was screaming to the ancestor to save her from the foreign devil—and people here believe in the ancestors. He says that the people believe the foreign devils will come to free them. Yet they also believe that the ancestor will protect them from foreign devils. On their holiday—the Great Leader's birthday—the Ancestor would speak, and urge them to greater endeavor to build the workers' paradise."
Amber looked at the head. There were a couple of severed wires hanging out of the neck. She pulled on them and produced a speaker.
Zoë plainly recognized the device too. "I'll be damned . . ."
"No. They have been," said Amber grimly.
Kretz continued. "He also wants to know: How can we get out of the palace of the Great Leader? He says Abret must give orders."
"I think we can just leave by hitching a ride on the pipe-checkers on the main arterial. Hell. Tell him there is a secret passage." She pointed at the screen. "Here."
Ji listened—and replied.
"He says we must go quickly before the changing of the guard at midnight. And he says can we let him out of the passage to collect his family, once he is beyond the walls?"
"His family?" asked Lani, puzzled.
"Howard has promised them sanctuary," explained Kretz. "They'd want to ask him and his daughter questions, if they just suddenly reappeared."
Amber nodded. "Besides, I think that she needs counseling. I think I probably do too! But isn't it going to be a bit obvious if they just disappear? Isn't someone going to give the alarm if they hear anything? This lot must live in crowded quarters."
Kretz translated. Ji shook his head and replied. "People disappear. At night always. No one will say anything or look in case they are taken too."
Amber pulled a face. "I thought Diana was in trouble, politically."
Zoë said quietly. "Yes. We're going to have to intervene, somehow. Or do we just leave them to starve and kill each other? It goes against Icaran philosophy to have anyone 'nanny' anyone else, but without some help these guys are . . ." She shook her head. "We need to point them in the right direction at least, not rule their lives."
"I would say that it was their accepting that someone could rule their lives that got them into this trouble in the first place," said Lani grimly. "Come on. Let's do a quick and dirty clean up and move out. We can leave them that piece of brass as a souvenir." She pointed at the head.
"How about putting it on that throne that we saw on the vid? It's on our way."
"Sure. And I've a pretty evil idea. We'll put a radio unit in it. They're used to listening to the talking head . . ."
The head and its radio unit were left on the golden throne.
Howard had enough to carry, what with Nama-ti on his back, and one end of the bed-clothes shroud that had three bodies in it.
Half an hour later, Ji brought a frightened looking woman and three children to the door of the arterial. With him came Abret's former jailor with his own wife and child. The woman saw the tranquilized girl, and gave an inarticulate cry and ran to hug her. She turned from her child to look at all of them, the tears streaming down her beaming face and said something that needed no translation.
Ji said something and pointed to Howard. She bowed reverentially to him. Howard wondered just what was being said, and just quite how he was going to explain all of this to the Council of Elders. Then he looked at the tranquilized sleeping girl and decided that the council would just have to get used to it. He hoped the Miran lifecraft could cope with this load, or, if it couldn't, that they could ferry them to-and-fro.
Abret and Kretz were wrestling with the logistics too. "We'll have to do several trips, Kretz."
"We can hardly do anything else. We owe them. We are honor-bound to pay them back," said Kretz.
Abret nodded. It was such a psychologically soothing thing to be back with another Miran, a sane and pleasant one. "Yes. It's a concept they seem to understand too—and expect of us. It is strange how similar, in that aspect, the cultures are."
"Not really," said Kretz. "Thinking about it as an animal behavioralist, I suppose understanding an obligation is the cornerstone of any intelligent species' ability to act as a social unit. There isn't really any way out of it, if you want your social unit to function."
"There are always a few that try," said Abret, thinking of a few individuals.
"Inevitably," agreed Kretz. "I bet humans have them too, and like them just as little as we do."