Is That What People Do? (11 page)

So he moved cautiously through the tangled jungle growth, a silent, tawny shape blending into the jungle browns and greens. When he reached the vicinity of the ship, he crawled through the dense undergrowth until he could peer down on the sloping beach.

The pioneers had finally come out of their ship. There were several dozen men and women and a few children. All were dressed in heavy black cloth and perspiring in the heat. They had ignored his gift of local fruit. Instead, an aluminum table had been spread with the spaceship’s monotonous provisions.

On the periphery of the crowd, Danton saw several men with rifles and ammunition belts. They were evidently on guard, keeping close watch on the jungle and glancing apprehensively overhead at the darkening sky.

Simeon raised his hands. There was immediate silence.

“Friends,” the military leader orated, “we have come at last to our long-awaited home! Behold, here is a land of milk and honey, a place of bounty and abundance. Was it not worth the long voyage, the constant danger, the endless search?”

“Yes, brother!” the people responded.

Simeon held up his hands again for silence. “No civilized man has settled upon this planet. We are the first and therefore the place is ours. But there are perils, my friends! Who knows what strange monsters the jungle hides?”

“Nothing larger than a chipmunk,” Danton muttered to himself. “Why don’t they ask me? I’d tell them.”

“Who knows what leviathan swims in the deep?” Simeon continued. “We
do
know one thing: There is an aboriginal people here, naked and savage, undoubtedly cunning, ruthless and amoral, as aboriginals always are. Of course we must beware. We will live in peace with them, if they will let us. We will bring to them the fruits of civilization and the flowers of culture. They may profess friendship, but always remember this, friends: No one can tell what goes on in a savage heart. Their standards are not ours; their morals are not ours. We cannot trust them; we must be forever on guard. And if in doubt,
we
must shoot first! Remember Lan II!”

Everybody applauded, sang a hymn, and began their evening meal. As night fell, searchlights came on from the ship, making the beach bright as day. The sentries paced up and down, shoulders hunched nervously, rifles ready.

Danton watched the settlers shake out their sleeping bags and retire under the bulge of the ship. Even their fear of sudden attack couldn’t force them to spend another night inside the ship, when there was fresh air to breathe outside.

The great orange moon of New Tahiti was half-hidden by highflying night clouds. The sentries paced and swore, and moved closer together for mutual comfort and protection. They began firing at the jungle sounds and blasting at shadows.

Danton crept back into the jungle. He retired for the night behind a tree, where he would be safe from stray bullets. This evening had not seemed the time for straightening things out. The Hutters were too jumpy. It would be better, he decided, to handle the matter by daylight, in a simple, straightforward, reasonable fashion.

The trouble was, the Hutters hardly seemed reasonable.

In the morning, though, everything looked more promising. Danton waited until the Hutters had finished their breakfast, then strolled into view at the edge of the beach.

“Halt!” every one of the sentries barked.

“That savage is back!” called a settler.

“Mummy,” cried a little boy, “don’t let the nasty bad man eat me!”

“Don’t worry, dear,” the boy’s mother said. “Your father has a rifle for shooting savages.”

Simeon rushed out of the spaceship and glared at Danton. “All right, you! Come forward!”

Danton stepped gingerly across the beach, his skin tingling with nervous expectation. He walked to Simeon, keeping his empty hands in sight.

“I am the leader of these people,” Simeon said, speaking very slowly, as if to a child. “I the big chief fella. You big fella chief your people?”

“There’s no need to talk that way,” Danton said. “I can hardly understand you. I told you yesterday that I haven’t any people. There’s just me.”

Simeon’s hard face grew white with anger. “Unless you’re honest with me, you’re going to regret it. Now—where is your tribe?”

“I’m an Earthman,” Danton yelled. “Are you deaf? Can’t you hear how I talk?”

A stooped little man with white hair and great horn-rimmed glasses came over with Jedekiah. “Simeon,” the little man said, “I don’t believe I have met our guest.”

“Professor Baker,” said Simeon, “this savage here claims he’s an Earthman and he says his name is Edward Danton.”

The professor glanced at Danton’s
pareu,
his tanned skin and callused feet. “You are an Earthman?” he asked Danton.

“Of course.”

“Who carved those stone statues up the beach?”

“I did,” Danton said, “but it was just therapy. You see—”

“Obviously primitive work. That stylization, those noses—”

“It was accidental, then. Look, a few months ago I left Earth in a spaceship—”

“How was it powered?” Professor Baker asked.

“By a GM subspatial torque converter.” Baker nodded, and Danton went on. “Well, I wasn’t interested in places like Korani or Heil V, and Hedonia seemed too rich for my blood. I passed up the Mining Worlds and the Farming Worlds, and had the government ship drop me here. The planet’s registered as New Tahiti, in my name. But I was getting pretty lonely, so I’m glad you folks came.”

“Well, Professor?” Simeon said. “What do you think?”

“Amazing,” Baker murmured, “truly amazing. His grasp of colloquial English bespeaks a fairly high level of intelligence, which points up a phenomenon frequently met with in savage societies, namely, an unusually well-developed power of mimicry. Our friend Danta (as his original, uncorrupted name must have been) will probably be able to tell us many tribal legends, myths, songs, dances—”

“But I’m an Earthman!”

“No, my poor friend,” the professor corrected gently, “you are not. Obviously you have
met
an Earthman. Some trader, I daresay, stopping for repairs.”

Jedekiah said, “There’s evidence that a spaceship once landed here briefly.”

“Ah,” said Professor Baker, beaming. “Confirmation of my hypothesis.”

“That was the government ship,” Danton explained. “It dropped me off here.”

“It is interesting to note,” said Professor Baker in his lecturing voice, “how his almost-plausible story lapses into myth at various crucial points. He claims that the ship was powered by a ‘GM subspatial torque converter’—which is nonsense syllabification, since the only deep-space drive is the Mikkelsen. He claims that the journey from Earth was made in a matter of months (since his untutored mind cannot conceive of a journey lasting years), although we know that no space drive, even theoretically, can achieve that.”

“It was probably developed after your people left Earth,” Danton said. “How long have you been gone?”

“The Hutter spaceship left Earth one hundred and twenty years ago,” Baker replied condescendingly. “We are mostly fourth and fifth generation. Note also,” Baker said to Simeon and Jedekiah, “his attempt to think up plausible place-names. Words such as Korani, Heil, Hedonia appeal to his sense of onomatopoeia. That there are no such places doesn’t disturb him.”

“There are!” Danton said indignantly.

“Where?” Jedekiah challenged. “Give me the coordinates.”

“How should I know? I’m no navigator. I think Heil was near Bootes, or maybe it was Cassiopeia. No, I’m pretty sure it was Bootes—”

“I’m sorry, friend,” said Jedekiah. “It may interest you to know that I’m the ship’s navigator. I can show you the star atlases and charts. Those places aren’t on them.”

“Your charts are a hundred years out of date!”

“Then so are the stars,” Simeon said. “Now, Danta, where is your tribe? Why do they hide from us? What are they planning?”

“This is preposterous,” Danton protested. “What can I do to convince you? I’m an Earthman. I was born and raised—”

“That’s enough,” Simeon cut in. “If there’s one thing we Hutters won’t stand for, it’s backtalk from natives. Out with it, Danta.
Where are your people?”

“There’s only me,” Danton insisted.

“Tight-mouthed?” Jedekiah gritted. “Maybe a taste of the black-snake whip—”

“Later, later,” Simeon said. “His tribe’ll come around for handouts. Natives always do. In the meantime, Danta, you can join that work gang over there, unloading the supplies.”

“No, thanks,” said Danton. “I’m going back to—”

Jedekiah’s fist lashed out, catching Danton on the side of the jaw. He staggered, barely keeping his footing.

“The chief said
no backtalk!”
Jedekiah roared. “Why are you natives always so bone-lazy? You’ll be paid as soon as we unload the beads and calico. Now get to work.”

That seemed to be the last word on the subject. Dazed and unsure, much like millions of natives before him on a thousand different worlds, Danton joined the long line of colonists passing goods out of the ship.

By late afternoon, the unloading was done and the settlers were relaxed on the beach. Danton sat apart from them, trying to think his situation through. He was deep in thought when Anita came to him with a canteen of water.

“Do you think I’m a native?” he asked.

She sat down beside him and said, “I really don’t see what else you could be. Everyone knows how fast a ship can travel and—”

“Times have changed since your people left Earth. They weren’t in space all that time, were they?”

“Of course not. The Hutter ship went to H’gastro I, but it wasn’t fertile enough, so the next generation moved to Ktedi. But the corn mutated and almost wiped them out, so they went to Lan II. They thought that would be a permanent home.”

“What happened?”

“The natives,” Anita said sadly. “I guess they were friendly enough, at first, and everyone thought the situation was well in hand. Then, one day, we were at war with the entire native population. They only had spears and things, but there were too many of them, so the ship left again and we came here.”

“Hmm,” Danton said. “I see why you’re so nervous about aboriginals.”

“Well, of course. While there’s any possibility of danger, we’re under military rule. That means my father and Jedekiah. But as soon as the emergency is past, our regular Hutter government takes over.”

“Who runs that?”

“A council of Elders,” Anita said, “men of goodwill, who detest violence. If you and your people are really peaceable—”

“I haven’t any people,” Danton said wearily.

“—then you’ll have every opportunity to prosper under the rule of the Elders,” she finished.

They sat together and watched the sunset. Danton noticed how the wind stirred her hair, blowing it silkily across her forehead, and how the afterglow of the sun outlined and illuminated the line of her cheek and lip. He shivered and told himself it was the sudden chill of evening. And Anita, who had been talking animatedly about her childhood, found difficulty in completing her sentences, or even keeping her train of thought.

After a while, their hands strayed together. Their fingertips touched and clung. For a long time, they said nothing at all. And at last, gently and lingeringly, they kissed.

“What the hell is going on here?” a loud voice demanded.

Danton looked up and saw a burly man standing over him, his powerful head silhouetted black against the moon, his fists on his hips.

“Please, Jedekiah,” Anita said. “Don’t make a scene.”

“Get up,” Jedekiah ordered Danton, in an ominously quiet voice. “Get up on your feet.”

Danton stood up, his hands half-clenched into fists, waiting.

“You,” Jedekiah said to Anita, “are a disgrace to your race and to the whole Hutter people. Are you crazy? You can’t mess around with a dirty native and still keep any self-respect.” He turned to Danton. “And you gotta learn something and learn it good.
Natives don’t fool with Hutter women!
I’m going to impress that little lesson on you right here and now.”

There was a brief scuffle and Jedekiah found himself sprawled on his back.

“Hurry!
” Jedekiah shouted.
“The natives are revolting!”

An alarm bell from the spaceship began to peal. Sirens wailed in the night. The women and children, long trained for such an emergency, trooped back into the spaceship. The men were issued rifles, machine guns, and hand grenades, and began to advance on Danton.

“It’s just man to man,” Danton called out. “We had a disagreement, that’s all. There’s no natives or anything. Just me.”

The foremost Hutter commanded, “Anita, quick, get back!”

“I didn’t see any natives,” the girl said staunchly. “And it wasn’t really Danta’s fault—”

“Get back!”

She was pulled out of the way. Danton dived into the bushes before the machine guns opened up.

He crawled on all fours for fifty yards, then broke into a dead run.

Fortunately, the Hutters were not pursuing. They were interested only in guarding their ship and holding their beachhead and a narrow stretch of jungle. Danton heard gunfire throughout the night and loud shouts and frantic cries.

“There goes one!”

“Quick, turn the machine gun! They’re behind us!”

“There! There! I got one!”

“No, he got away. There he goes...But look, up in the tree!”

“Fire, man, fire!”

All night, Danton listened as the Hutters repulsed the attacks of imaginary savages.

Toward dawn, the firing subsided. Danton estimated that a ton of lead had been expended, hundreds of trees decapitated, acres of grass trampled into the mud. The jungle stank of cordite.

He fell into a fitful slumber.

At midday, he awakened and heard someone moving through the underbrush. He retreated into the jungle and made a meal for himself out of a local variety of bananas and mangoes. Then he decided to think things over.

But no thoughts came. His mind was filled with Anita and with grief over her loss.

All that day, he wandered disconsolately through the jungle, and in the late afternoon heard again the sound of someone moving through the underbrush.