Back | Next
Contents

IV

There were eight of them: Churchill, Sarvant, Lin, Yastzhembski, Al-Masyuni, Steinberg, Gbwe-hun, and Chandra.

These, together with the absent Stagg and Calthorp, were the ten survivors of the original thirty that had left Earth eight hundred years ago. They were congregated in the large recreation room of the building in which they had been kept prisoners for six weeks. They were listening to Tom Tobacco.

Tom Tobacco was not his birth-name. What that was, none of them knew. They had asked, but Tom Tobacco had replied that he was not to mention it or hear it spoken. As of the day he had become Tom Tobacco, he was no longer a man but a dim. Apparently dim was the word for demigod.

"If affairs had gone normally," he was saying, "it would not be me talking to you but John Barleycorn. But the Great White Mother saw fit to end his life before Planting Rites. An election was held, and I, as chief of the great Tobacco frat, took his place as ruler of Deecee. And so I will be until I am too old and feeble—and then what will be will be."

In the short time that the starship personnel had been in Washington, they had learned the phonology, morphology, syntax, and basic vocabulary of standard Deecee speech. The machines in the laboratory of the Terra enabled them to speak Deecee with fluency although they could not utter the phonemes exactly as a native would, and probably never would. The structure of English had changed much; there were some sounds that had never been in English or even in its Germanic parent speech; there were many words that had come into being from unknown sources; a combination of stress and tone played an important part in meaning.

Moreover, the lack of knowledge of Deecee culture impeded understanding. To add to the trouble, Tom Tobacco himself could not speak standard Deecee with much ease. He had been born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, the southernmost city of the nation of Deecee. Nafek, or Norfolkese, differed as much from Wazhdin, of Washingtonese, as Spanish from French, or Swedish from Icelandic.

Tom Tobacco, like his predecessor John Barleycorn, was a tall, thin man. He wore a brown plug hat, a breastplate made of stiff brown cloth in the shape of tobacco leaves, a brown cloak, a greenish kilt from which hung a two-foot-long cigar, and brown calf-length boots. His long hair was brown, his purely decorative spectacles were brown-tinted, and a big brown cigar was stuck in his tobacco-stained teeth. While he talked, he pulled cigars from a pocket in his kilt and passed them around the group. Everybody except Sarvant accepted them and found them excellent.

Tom Tobacco blew out a thick cloud of green smoke and said, "You will be released as soon as I leave. Which will be soon. I am a busy man. I have many decisions to make, many papers to sign, many functions to attend. My time is not my own; it belongs to the Great White Mother."

Churchill puffed on his cigar to allow himself time to think before speaking. The others were all talking at the same time, but when Churchill spoke they were silent. He was the first mate of the Terra, and now that Stagg was gone he was not only the official leader but, by force of his personality, the real one.

He was a short stocky man with a thick neck, thick arms, and thick legs. His face was babyish but at the same time strong. He had thick curly red hair and a reddish complexion with a light sprinkling of freckles. His eyes were round and clear blue as a baby's; his nose was short and round. Yet, if he had at first glance all a baby's helplessness, he also had a baby's ability to command those around him. His voice, completely at variance with his appearance, boomed out richly.

"You may be a busy man, Mr. Tobacco, but you are not so busy you can't at least tell us what is going on. We've been prisoners. We've not been allowed to communicate with our captain or with Dr. Calthorp. We have reason to suspect they may have met with foul play. Yet, when we ask about them, we're told that what will be will be. Very fine! Very comforting!

"Now, Mr. Tobacco, I demand that we get answers to our questions. And don't think that just because you've guards stationed outside the door, we couldn't tear you apart right now. We want answers, and we want them now!"

"Have a cigar and cool off," said Tom Tobacco. "Certainly, you're mystified and infuriated. But don't talk of rights. You are not citizens of Deecee, and you are in a very precarious situation.

"However, I will give you some answers; that's why I came here. First, you will be released. Second, you will be given a month to fit into the life of Deecee. Third, if, at the end of the month, you show no promise of becoming a good citizen, you will be killed. Not exiled, but killed. If we escorted you across the borders to another country, we would be increasing the population of our enemy states. And we've no intention of doing that."

"Well, at least we know where we stand," Churchill said. "That is, in a vague way. Do we get access to the Terra? The results of ten years of unique study are in that ship."

"No, you do not. However, your personal property will be returned to you."

"Thanks," Churchill said. "Do you realize that except for a few books, we had no personal property? What will we do for money while we're looking for jobs? Jobs we may not be able to get in this rather primitive society."

"I really can't say," replied Tom Tobacco. "After all, we've allowed you to keep your lives. There were those who didn't want to give you even that."

He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. A man with a small bag in his hand appeared.

"I must go now, gentlemen. Official business. However, in order that you may not break the laws of this blessed nation through ignorance, and also to remove any temptation to steal, this man will enlighten you about our laws and loan you enough coin to buy food for a week. You will repay it after you have jobs—if you have jobs. Columbia bless you."

An hour later, the eight men stood in front of the building out of which they had just been escorted.

Far from being elated, they felt a trifle dazed and more than a little helpless.

Churchill looked at them, and, though he felt as they did, he said, "For God's sake, buck up! What's the matter with you? We've been through worse than this. Remember when we were on Wolf 69 III, crossing that big Jurassic-type swamp on a raft? And the balloon-creature upset us and we lost our weapons in the water and had to make our way back to the ship unarmed? We were far worse off then, and we didn't look nearly so woebegone. What's happened? Aren't you the men you used to be?"

"I'm afraid not," Steinberg said. "It's not that we've lost our courage. It's just that we expected too much. When we were landing on a newly discovered planet, we expected the unexpected and the disastrous. We even looked forward to it. But here, well, we anticipated too much—plus the fact that we are helpless. We're unarmed, and if we run into a bad situation, we can't just shoot our way out and make our way back to the ship."

"So you're going to stand around and hope everything's turned out all right?" Churchill said. "For God's sake! You men were the cream of the crop of Earth, chosen out of tens of thousands of candidates because of your I.Q., your education, your ingenuity, your physical hardihood. And now you're marooned among a people who haven't the knowledge you have in your little finger! You men should be gods—and you're mice!"

"Knock it off," Lin said. "We're still suffering from shock. We don't know what to do, and that's what is scaring us."

"Well, I'm not going to stand around until some kind soul comes along and takes me in hand," Churchill said. "I am going to act—now!"

"And just what are you going to do?" Yastzhembski asked.

"I'm going to walk around Washington until I see something that calls for action. If you men want to come with me, you can. But if you want to go your own ways, that's all right, too. I'll be your leader, but I won't be your shepherd."

"You don't understand," Yastzhembski said. "Six of us don't even belong on this continent. I would like to return to Holy Siberia. Gbwe-hun wants to go back to Dahomey. Chandra, to India. Al-Masyuni, to Mecca. Lin, to Shanghai. But that seems impossible. Steinberg could conceivably get back to Brazil, yet, if he did, he'd find nothing but desert and jungle and howling savages. So . . ."

"So you have to stay here and do as Tobacco suggested—fit in. Well, that's what I'm going to do. Anybody coming along?"

Churchill didn't wait for more argument. He began walking down the street and did not look back once. When he had turned a corner, however, he stopped to watch a bunch of naked little girls and boys playing ball in the street.

After perhaps five minutes, he sighed. Apparently no one was following him.

He was wrong. Just as he turned to go on, he heard someone calling to him. "Hold on a minute, Churchill."

It was Sarvant.

"Where are the others?" Churchill said.

"The Asiatics have decided to try to get back to their homelands. When I left they were still arguing about whether they should steal a boat and cross the Atlantic, or steal deer and ride up to the Bering Strait, where they'll cross on boat to Siberia."

"I'll give them credit for the greatest guts in the world—or the most stupid brains. Do they really think they can make it? Or that they'll find any better conditions there than here?"

"They don't know what they'll find, but they're desperate."

"I'd like to go back and wish them good luck," Churchill said. "But I'd just end up trying to argue them out of the idea. They are brave men. I knew it when I called them mice, but I was just trying to arouse them. Maybe I succeeded too well."

"I gave them my blessing, even if most of them are agnostics," Sarvant said. "But I fear their bones will bleach on this continent."

"What about you? Are you going to try for Arizona?"

"From what I saw of Arizona while we were still circling Earth, I'd say there's not only no organized government there, there are almost no people. I would try for Utah, but it doesn't look much better. Even the Salt Lake is dried up. There's nothing to go back to. It doesn't matter. There is a lifetime of work here."

"Work? You don't mean preaching?"

Churchill looked incredulously at Sarvant as if seeing his true character for the first time.

Nephi Sarvant was a short, dark, and bony man of about forty. His chin jutted out so far it gave the impression of curving upwards at its end. His mouth was so thin-lipped it was only a thread. His nose, like his chin, was overdeveloped. It hooked downwards as if trying to meet the chin. His crewmates said that in profile he looked like a human nutcracker.

His large brown eyes were very expressive and just now seemed to glow with inner light. They had glowed often during the star-trip when he had extolled the merits of his church as the only true one left on Earth. He belonged to a sect known as the Last Slanders, the strictly orthodox core of a church that had undergone the suburbanization most churches had experienced. Once thought a peculiar people, the members of this sect now could be distinguished from other Christians only by the fact that they still attended their church. But the spiritual fires had died out.

Not so the group to which the Sarvant belonged. The Last Slanders had refused to adopt the so-called vices of their neighbors. They had collected in a body at the city of Fourth of July, Arizona, and from there had sent out missionaries to an indifferent or amused world.

Sarvant had been chosen to be a crew member of the Terra because he was the foremost authority in his field of geology. He had been accepted only after he had promised not to proselytize. He had never explicitly made an attempt to convert. But he had offered to others the Book of his church, asking only that they read. And he had argued with the others about the authenticity of the Book.

"Of course I mean to preach!" he said. "This country is as wide open to the Gospel as it was when Columbus landed. I'll tell you, Rud, that when I saw the desolation of the Southwest I was filled with despair. It seemed that my church had vanished from the face of the Earth. And if that were true, then my church was false, for it was supposed to be eternal. But I prayed, and at once the truth came to me. That is—I still exist! And through me the church can grow again—grow as it never did, for these pagan minds, once convinced of the Truth, will become as the First Disciples. The Book will spread like a flame. You see, we Last Slanders could make little headway among Christians because they thought they already had the true church. But the true church meant little more to them than a social club. It wasn't a way of truth and life, the only way. It . . ."

"I get your point," Churchill said. "The only thing I have to say is, don't implicate me. Things are going to be tough enough. Well, let's go."

"Go where?"

"Someplace where we can trade these monkeys suits in for native clothes."

They were on a street called Conch. It ran north and south, so Churchill felt that if they followed it south it would bring them eventually to the port area. Here, unless things changed very much, there would be more than one shop where they could trade their clothes and perhaps make a little profit in the bargain. In this neighborhood, Conch Street was a mixture of well-to-do residences and large government buildings. The residences were set far back on well-tended yards and were of brick or cement. Single-storied, they presented a broad front, and most of them had two wings at right angles to the front buildings. They were painted in many colors and various designs. Every one had a large totem pole in front of it. These were, for the most part, of carved stone, since wood was reserved for shipbuilding, wagons, weapons, and stove fuel.

The government buildings were set close to the street and were of brick or marble. They had curving walls and were surrounded by roofless porches with tall pillars. On top of each dome roof was a statue.

Churchill and Sarvant walked on the asphalt pavement—there was no sidewalk—for ten blocks. Occasionally, they had to step close to the buildings to avoid being run over by men furiously riding deer or driving carriages. The riders were richly dressed and obviously expected the pedestrians to jump out of the way or get trampled. The carriage drivers seemed to be couriers of one type or another.

Abruptly, the street became shabby.

The buildings presented a solid front except for alleys here and there. They were evidently government buildings that had been sold to private agents and had become little shops or tenements. Naked children played in front of them.

These were not nearly as clean as those they had just passed.

Churchill found the shop he was looking for. With Sarvant at his heels, he entered. The inside of the shop was a small room crowded with clothes of every kind. The store window and the cement floor were dirty; the odor of dog excrement filled the shop. Two dogs of indeterminate breed tried to put their paws on the two men.

The owner was a short big-paunched double-chinned bald man with two enormous earrings of brass. He looked much like any shopkeeper of his breed of any century, except that he had the cervine stamp of the times on his features.

"We want to sell our clothes," Churchill said.

"Are they worth anything?" said the owner.

"As clothes, not much," Churchill replied. "As curios, they may be worth a great deal. We are men from the starship."

The owner's little eyes widened. "Ah, brothers to the Sunhero!"

Churchill didn't know all the implications of the exclamation. He knew only that Tom Tobacco had casually mentioned that Captain Stagg had become a Sunhero.

"I'm sure that you could sell each article of our clothing for quite a sum. These clothes have been to the stars, to places so distant that if you were to walk there without stopping to eat or rest it would take you halfway through eternity. The light of alien suns and the air of exotic worlds are caught in the fibers of these suits. And the shoes still bear the traces of earth where monsters bigger than this building have walked like earthquakes."

The shopkeeper was unimpressed. "But has the Sunhero touched these garments?"

"Many times. Once, he wore this jacket."

"Ahhh!"

The owner must have realized that he was betraying his eagerness. He lower his eyelids and stiffened his face.

"This is all very well, but I am a poor man. The sailors who come to this shop do not have much money. By the time they get past the taverns, they are ready to sell their own clothes."

"Probably true. But I'm sure you have contacts who can sell these to wealthier patrons."

The owner took some coins from the pocket on his kilt.

"I'll give you four columbias for the lot."

Churchill motioned to Sarvant and started to walk out. Before he reached the door, he found the owner blocking his way.

"Perhaps I could offer you five columbias."

Churchill pointed to a kilt and sandals. "How much are those worth? Or I should say, how much are you charging for them?"

"Three fish."

Churchill considered. A Columbia was roughly equal to a five-dollar bill of his time. A fish was equal to a quarter.

"You know as well as I do that you'll be making a thousand-percent-profit off us. I want twenty columbias for these."

The owner threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of despair.

"Come off it," Churchill said. "I'd go from house to house on Millionaire's Row and peddle these. But I haven't the time. Do you want to give us twenty or not? Last offer."

"You're snatching the bread from the mouths of my poor children . . . but I'll take your offer."

Ten minutes later, the two starmen stepped out of the shop. They wore sandals and kilts and round hats with floppy brims. Their broad leather belts held sheaths with long steel knives, and their pockets contained eight columbias each. They held bags in their hands, and in these bags were rainproof ponchos.

"Next stop, the docks," Churchill said. "I used to sail yachts for the rich during the summers when I was working my way through college."

"I know you can sail," Sarvant said. "Have you forgotten that you commanded that sailing-ship we stole when we escaped from prison on the planet Vixa?"

"I forgot," Churchill said. "I want to size up the chances for getting a job. Afterwards, we'll start sniffing around. Maybe we can find out what's happened to Stagg and Calthorp."

"Rud," Sarvant said, "there must be more to this than just getting a job. Why boats particularly? I know you well enough to know you're operating on more than one level."

"O.K. I know you're no blabbermouth. If I can find a suitable ship, we'll get hold of Yastzhembski's boys and take off for Asia, via Europe."

"I'm very glad to hear that," Sarvant said. "I thought you'd just walked out on them, washed your hands of them. But how will you find them?"

"Are you kidding?" Churchill said, laughing. "All I have to do is ask at the nearest temple."

"Temple?"

"Sure. It's evident that the government'll be keeping an eye on us. In fact, it's had a tail on us ever since we left our prison."

"Where is he?"

"Don't look around now. I'll point him out to you later. Just keep walking."

Abruptly, Churchill stopped. His way was barred by a circle of men kneeling on the road. There was nothing to keep Churchill from walking around them. But he stopped to look over the shoulders.

"What are they doing?" Sarvant asked.

"Playing the twenty-ninth century version of craps."

"It's against my principles even to watch gambling. I sincerely hope you're not planning on joining them."

"Yes, I think that's exactly what I'm planning on doing."

"Don't, Rud," Sarvant said, putting his hand on Churchill's arm. "Nothing good can come of this."

"Chaplain, I'm not a member of your parish. They probably abide by the rules. That's all I want." Churchill took three columbias out of his pocket and spoke loudly. "Can I get into this shoot?"

"Sure," a huge dark man with a patch over one eye said. "You can play as long as your money lasts. You just get off the ship?"

"Not so long ago," Churchill said. He sank to his knees and laid a Columbia on the ground. "My turn for the bones, eh? Come on, babies, Poppa needs a pocketful of rye."

Thirty minutes later a grinning Churchill walked toward Sarvant with a handful of silver coins. "The wages of sin," he said.

He lost his grin when he heard a loud shout behind him. Turning, he saw the dice players walking toward him. The big one-eyed man was yelling at him.

"Wait a minute, buddy, we got a couple of questions!"

"Oh, oh," Churchill said out of the side of his mouth. "Get ready to run. These guys are poor losers."

"You didn't cheat, did you?" Sarvant said nervously.

"Of course not! You ought to know me better than that. Besides, I wouldn't take a chance in that rough bunch."

"Listen, buddy," the one-eyed man said. "You talk kinda funny. Where you come from? Albany?"

"Manitowoc, Wisconsin," Churchill said.

"Never heard of that place. What is it, some small burg up north?"

"North by west. Why do you want to know?"

"We don't like strangers that can't even talk Deecee straight. Strangers got queer tricks, especially when they are shooting craps. Only a week ago we caught a tar from Norfolk who was using magic to control the dice. We knocked his teeth out and threw him off the dock with a weight around his neck. Never saw him again."

"If you thought I was cheating, you should have said something while we were playing."

The one-eyed sailor ignored Churchill's remark and said, "I don't notice no frat mark on you. What frat you belong to?"

"Lambda Chi Alpha," Churchill said. He put his hand on his knife-blade.

"What kind of lingo is that? You mean the Lamb frat?"

Churchill could see that he and Sarvant would be considered lambs for the slaughter unless they could prove they were under the protection of some powerful frat. He didn't mind telling a lie in a situation like this if it got him out of it. But a resentment that had been building up for the past six weeks broke into a sudden fury.

"I belong to the human race!" he shouted. "And that's more than you can say for yourself!"

The one-eyed sailor turned red. He growled, "By the breasts of Columbia, I'll cut your heart out! No stinking foreigner can talk that way to me!"

"Come on, you thieves!" Churchill snarled. He pulled his knife from its sheath and at the same time shouted at Sarvant, "Run like hell!"

The one-eyed sailor had also pulled his knife and came at Churchill with the blade. Churchill threw the handful of silver coins in the man's eyes and at the same time stepped forward. The palm of his left hand struck outwards against the wrist of the other man's knife-hand. The knife fell, and Churchill sank his blade into the bulging paunch of the sailor.

He withdrew the knife and stepped back, crouching, to face the others. But they knew dirty fighting as well as any sailor. One of them picked up a loose brick from a pile of rubble and threw it at Churchill's head. The world grew dim, and he was vaguely aware that blood was streaming over his eyes from a cut on his forehead. By the time he regained his senses, he found his knife taken away and his arms gripped by two strong sailors.

A third, a short skinny fellow with a broken-toothed snarl, stepped up and shoved his blade straight at Churchill's belly.

 

Back | Next
Contents
Framed