Dancers in the Afterglow (11 page)

Two figures climbed out of the flyer, one familiar and the other much less so. They quickly grabbed bags like large suitcases from the hatch, then ran. clear while the flyer sped away.

This
was
unusual, and noticed by some of the people working in the fields. One was dispatched to fetch Yuri.

Yuri was in the woods with a small group testing a couple of makeshift stone axes—sharp, flat stones tied to sticks with antelope hide that had been soaked, tied, and allowed to dry. They worked, although slowly and with a great deal of muscle power, for chopping trees.

A woman ran up to him excitedly. "Yuri! Yuri!" she yelled, then halted, getting her breath.

"What's the matter?" he responded, concerned. "Somebody hurt?"

She shook her head and gasped for breath.

"Some men—some Machists—'have landed in the diamond! To stay, it looks like!"

He frowned. "How many?" he prodded.

'Two, we think," came the reply. "They unloaded some cases and went into the funny building. And that's not all! Only one of them looked like the old soldiers! The other looked different, dressed different!"

Yuri stopped the chopping. "Let's go see what's up," he suggested, and they all followed him like obedient sheep.

The sun was still up, but already he could see differences in the diamond. Lights burned in the old guard shack—and in the other building as well.

Many of the tribe were there, but keeping then: distance, waiting for him. Genji cleared his way, and those with him joined the rest of the group. He continued to walk across the diamond, past the now covered pit toilet, and up to a position between the two buildings. The protective fence around both was still up, he noted. There was no reaction to his presence at the start, which didn't surprise him but did serve to unnerve him slightly.

The door to the strange building opened suddenly, and a puzzling figure stood there. He looked like an older man, with thin, carefully clipped white hair and a broad, snow-white mustache. He had a ruddy complexion, and was dressed in a casual outdoorsman's outfit such as might have been sold in the old days on the boardwalk of Lamarine.

The old days, Yuri thought suddenly to himself. How quickly it becomes the old days.

The man's face was gentle and kindly, and his blue eyes sparkled. "Well! Hello!" the stranger called out to Yuri, in a rich, friendly, grandfatherly voice. "Come on over! You must be the leader of the group!"

He approached cautiously, one eye on that glowing fence.

Suddenly the old man snapped his fingers. "Of course! Of course! The fence! Hold on a moment!" He went back inside and suddenly the area of the fence in front of the door went off. Then he was back.

"Come in! Come in!" the stranger invited. "We have much to talk about!"

Yuri approached the open door, and the old man stepped back to allow him to enter.

It was much the same as when they'd built it, although the air inside was cooler and not at all humid. The place had air conditioning! It had been so long since he'd experienced it that Yuri almost shivered in the chill.

There had been other changes, too, Yuri noticed. The barren stage area was raised still higher; there was a comfortable-looking chair to one side, as well as some mystifying electronic gear in two portable consoles.

And books and recordings. Lots of them. They lined one side of the building. The contents of those other boxes they'd stored unopened their first day here, Yuri guessed.

"Who are you?" Yuri asked the stranger.

The old man shrugged good-naturedly. "What are names, anyway? You might say a supervisor, a trainer, a teacher, or, more to the point, your ticket to a better life. For a while, anyway, let's use the name Ponder. It fits, as you shall see."

Yuri was puzzled. "You're human," he noted.

Ponder smiled. "That term, as you will discover, has little relevance, but if you want to apply it in the most basic biological sense, then, yes, Ponder's human. Why? Does that surprise you?"

"All of this surprises me," Yuri replied.

Ponder smiled. "Why not invite the others to come in? You'll find there's room here without much crowding. Then we can all get to the explaining stage."

They sat in silence, the cushions now uncomfortably soft for them; the air conditioning felt strange. Ponder sat in the chair next to the dais; the guard, who now put in an appearance, took up station at the door. He had a small wand or baton with him, but no weapon.

Ponder looked the captives over with satisfaction.

"Well, now, let's first get
really
comfortable," he suggested, and reached into a box, pulling out small packages. "These aren't really good for body and health, but occasionally they're a treat." He passed them down each row. The prisoners unwrapped them, finding chocolate and confection bars inside. Only Yuri noted that all were of Ondinian manufacture; the rest were as excited as schoolchildren. They ate them joyfully, sloppily, and were soon wearing chocolate and goo on their faces and occasionally on other parts of their bodies. Nobody seemed to care.

Next Ponder passed out bottles of what proved to be natural orange drink. After so long with nothing but spring water, the taste was incredible.

"Now that you've all been refreshed," Ponder began, his voice filling the building, "let us begin."

He got up, started pacing slowly in front of the stage, noting the eyes following him. "By now you've probably concluded that the mean old Machists had tossed you out into the wilderness and promptly forgotten about you. Be assured that it is not so! Something on this scale takes time to set up, and personnel to accomplish. Well, now the waiting's over. You are about to embark on a process which might startle, amaze, and alter your perceptions of yourself and your role in a civilized society. We hope so. The end result is up to you, not us. It may be very short, or very long, or indefinite. That's up to you and you only. Participation in this program is required, but it has no time limit. It will take as long as it will take."

He paused, noted that they were listening attentively, curiously, but with just the slightest apprehension. That was good. Normal.

"First, let's go into what this is all about—not just this camp, or this program, but the whole thing.

"A very long time ago," Ponder began, "a great race reached the stars. But, before it did, it developed on its own mother world a system and a society that was unbelievably wonderful. When it broke the bonds of its birth and went faring into the galaxy, it discovered other thinking, rational beings like itself, other races, other forms. This ancient race went to embrace them as brothers, but discovered to its horror that the other races feared them, treated them as enemies, regarded them as monsters. Their reactions were animalistic; a great shock to a race that had long ago abandoned any trace of animalism.

"Soon, this race found itself in a shooting war it neither started nor asked for. Technologically more advanced than its adversaries, it conquered them. But what to do now?" Ponder threw up his hands in despair. He was a good lecturer.

"The only thing possible," he answered himself, "was to teach the conquered people how to become a part of the wonderful new civilization of the first race, to teach them the joys of lif e and to rid them of the animalistic behavior the conquerors had dreamed of beating, but had been unable to beat on their own.

"Oh, there were doubts. Doubts that such a vast project could succeed. And it took a long time, and a lot of mistakes were made, but it worked! It worked!" His eyes shone with fire. "A true interstellar brotherhood of unrelated races was forged. And, as this new combined culture expanded still further, it began to discover its uniqueness in the universe, and its mission. Every time they met a new race, the reaction was the same. War. They came to expect it. And, after victory, they faced a new set of challenges, for each race was different, and had to be handled differently. But our system has worked! There are now over
fifty thousand
races to the Machist Association, some very human in appearance, some extremely, wildly different—outside. Inside, they are one."

"And now it's our turn," someone in the back said less than enthusiastically.

Ponder smiled. "Yes, now it's .your turn. And, to rid you of those psychological illnesses you are only vaguely aware of in your dreams, emotions, and the writings of your poets and philosophers, we had to start at the beginning again. On some primeval planet your ancestors developed from the great apes of the forests. So to this state have you been returned."

"Humanity's come a long way from the ape stage," someone objected.

Ponder smiled. "Oh,
has
it now? Look how easily you returned to that state. Remove the artifacts, the machines, and the soft products of what you call civilization and you revert easily to a pack of wild apes. A serious look at one another in this room will show you just how weak and thin your veneer of civilization really was." They shifted uncomfortably and murmured a little. What the old man was saying came a little too close. They were becoming introspective and self-conscious about their past few months' living.

Ponder reached over and picked up a stack of newspapers. "These are a collection of newspapers from the week before Ondine fell. And these," he grabbed another stack, "are the same week's papers from so-called civilized Authrarium.. Anybody here from Authrarium?"

They looked at each other, but no one spoke.

"Anyone ever
been
there?"

A few people nodded assent.

"Well, they'll tell you, those who have, that it's a pretty typical human world, supposedly the best humanity can do. Let's see . . ." He leafed through a newspaper.

"The city served by this paper has a population of twenty-three million, crowded but not above average these days. We look through and we find suicides at the rate of five or six percent a year. Suicides! That's over a million people in that city taking their own lives each year! A million!"

He rummaged through the papers some more.

"Well, let's see. They appear to average about two to three hundred murders a week judging from the sample, and there are loads of other crimes. We still have rapes there, it seems. And thefts by the score! The papers don't even mention them anymore unless they're big or fancy or flashy!" He turned back and faced them, leaning against the stage.

"Ondine's much better, of course. But not much. Suicides, for example, are much higher here—so much so that a
lot
of technology was devoted to preventing them."

 
He sighed. "So what do we have? A society with all the nice things technology has to offer, and people still acting like animals. Even in economics—the strongest, fastest, cleverest get the fat of the land, while the bulk of humanity exists on the dole, rotting in little stamped-out prefab apartments while a huge amount of government is devoted to keeping them fed and entertained with televisors, happy drugs, and the . like. Unproductive, unhappy, directionless, and who cares? So they kill themselves, or they react against society by stealing, mindless violence, and whatnot Hell! You have it better living like apes!"

 
"It wasn't all that bad," Moira objected.

Ponder grinned bitterly. "Spoken like a true member of the elitist class. But, we'll see as we go along. We'll see . . ." His voice changed as it trailed off. He seemed lost in thought for a minute. Then, suddenly, he looked up at them.

"We'll begin a closer examination tomorrow. Nothing will interfere with your lives here. Work at staying alive, then come here. Here we will address ourselves not to the externals, to the technological face of civilization, but to what's inside each of you."

He stopped for a moment, then looked and sounded slightly apologetic.

"I regret to say that the process is not an easy one. That's why a guard is here." He nodded at the soldier standing at the door. "The wand he has is a trigger. Each of you wears a silver necklace. That wand can trigger the necklace. The guard knows the system we will use, and what has to be done. Ponder can't stop the guard, or influence the guard's actions in any way. It is a tool that, regrettably, sometimes needs to be used, and the guard's orders are explicit on when and how to activate it. Please keep this in mind. That's all for now, until tomorrow. You will be called through the necklaces; it won't hurt you, just give you an irritating tingle. When you feel it, come here immediately. The energy field will begin to tighten moments later and it will become increasingly painful. As an early warning, a loud whistle atop this building will sound one minute before the field begins to narrow. If you come fast, you will escape any discomfort. That is all."

Most sat still for a few minutes, and Ponder let them. Then he announced once more, "That's it for tonight Please leave now!"

Some people got up and left, grumbling as the hot, humid air hit them once again. A few continued to sit. Ponder pointed at one.

"Go!" he ordered, and at the same time the guard pointed his wand at the man. He cried out in sudden pain.

"Go!" Ponder ordered again, and he went, quickly. The rest cleared out.

Ponder was satisfied. It looked like a fine, malleable group, intelligence generally above normal, he thought, which was good. The smarter ones were easier, and they would condition quickly.

The group didn't return immediately to their huts of leaf and stick, although it was after dark. Instead, they sat around in small groups, talking about what they had seen and heard.

Around Yuri sat Moira, her two sycophants, and, surprisingly, Azure. She continued to act friendly toward Yuri, continued to treat him with respect and even some gratitude, but she rejected his advances and had not gone to bed with him since that night in the hotel. It hurt him, not so much that she wouldn't have sex with him as that she would have sex with almost everyone
but
him. She treated him like a wise older brother, or father.