The Loafers of Refuge (14 page)

“This is a blessing beyond price!” exclaimed Nyyub. “The time towards which we have laboured these uncounted years draws near.”

“True, but dark also draws near, and I must be getting home,” said Carey with a smile. He rose to his feet. “Look after this bag of bones until tomorrow, and I’ll take her home in the buggy.”

“Bag of bones, indeed!” Doreen attempted to raise herself in the bed and looked for something to throw. Carey left, chuckling. She was fast returning to normal.

Carey and Timmy brought her home next day and Maud promptly put her back in bed. By the end of the second day she was chafing at her mother’s control, and Maud reluctantly let her get out of bed on the fourth. In less than a week she was back in school, none the worse except for being a trifle thinner.

And she was a Controller.

It was time to see if the crazy idea she had reached some months before, when she had told Carey she wanted to work closely with the breshwahr, could be put into effect. She had
had no success, that time she had tried to communicate with the intelligent trees, but she hadn’t been a Controller then.

It was such a pleasure to sit in class while Mrs Marble gave one of her interminable talks about politics on faraway Earth, and talk to Micka in Loafertown.

I must goy Doreen. Timmy wishes my undivided attention while we try to teach Sanda to fly. I must give him all my mind.

Doreen said goodbye reluctantly, and brought her attention back to Mrs Marble. Actually, the teacher had been very good to her, reviewing and assigning work to cover the period she had missed when she took the initiation. With one or two exceptions the other teachers had been equally good, and it would be only her fault if she failed a course.

“—psychosis of a kind and in a mass such as to be something new in world history,” the stout, greying Government worker’s wife was saying. “Every large block of flats has a resident psychist now, along with the usual staff of medical men. In addition, an estimated billion people who can afford private treatment crowd the offices of the independent practitioners every year, some of them’ taking regular series of treatments which last for many months. Several leading sociologists have expressed a fear that world order would be upset if a new outbreak, such as that religious protest movement of eighty Eryears back, should unleash the frustrations so deeply ingrained in the average human being.”

A hand went up. “But Mrs Marble, isn’t the tremendous number of people leaving Earth every week tending to relieve the psychosis? I mean, every week they’re discovering a new habitable planet somewhere, and …” the speaker, a brunette better liked for her looks than her intelligence, fluttered her hands helplessly, then struggled on, “I mean, right here on Refuge we used to get two ships a year for each of the ten towns. Now it’s up to four ships a year and they say it’s going higher. That’s a lot of
people.
I mean, there’s over a hundred planets, and …”

“That’s true, Judy, it’s a lot of people,” said Mrs Marble,
smiling. Doreen, whose attention had been caught by the discussion, thought the smile looked rather sad. Whether it was for the situation on Mother Earth, or Judy’s inability to comprehend, was a moot point. “But numbers are a matter of comparison.” She sat down at her desk and activated the tri-D master. “So let’s do a little comparing. Now each ship carries an average load of six hundred and fifty people. We get four ships a year for each of ten towns. We’ll assume Refuge is an average world, though actually we’re one of the older colonies and can take more people each year than the newer ones. Now if each of the ten towns gets six hundred and fifty people four times a year, and there are an even hundred habitable planets …” The figures unfolded on the students’ screens as she rapidly drew them in. “A total of two million, six hundred thousand a year, Judy. That is approximately enough to keep the population of Madagascar stable. And you haven’t touched the Earth’s population centres, such as Amazonia. No, I’m afraid some other solution will have to be found.”

“What I can’t understand,” broke in an eager boy, “is why they have that Call. I’d think
everyone
would want to get away from that crowded place and to a new world, but they still have to draft nine out of ten people!”

“Eight out of ten,” corrected Mrs Marble. “That situation is steadily improving. More people volunteer each year. They
must
maintain the Call, though, in order to provide new worlds with enough doctors, jurists, botanists and those others whose extensive training provides them an adequate income. They are quite happy on Earth. Most volunteers are low-paid, semi-skilled workmen who feel they have very little to lose. A balance must be maintained.”

The discussion went on, but Doreen found her interest waning. The prime points had been made. Earth was too crowded, and the colonization programme, while helpful at feeding those hungry billions, was not a complete solution. There was only one answer which would adequately serve, and it had not been discussed because it was an old and worn-out topic. Earth scientists had been working since the day the matter-transmitter was perfected to devise a method of
sending living beings through the nothingness and timelessness that was sub-space, and had not yet succeeded. A living creature went in, a dead creature came out, and it had been that way for forty years.

But plants could be sent through the transmitters without harm. And the breshwahr were plants.

Plants, no more and no less. There were many structural differences between them and any other known tree, true, but their basic form was the same. She had received permission to carry away a part of the breshwahr Earl Kronstadt had cut down last spring, and had examined the wood under a microscope. It had been obvious that the breshwahr wall structure was of the gymnosperm type, with extensively developed tracheal elements. These “vessel” cells were so thickly scattered throughout, the wood that they weakened the structure, but permitted very fast internal movement of liquids. Another major oddity was the extensive development of the plasmodesmata strands, a cell-by-cell network of them so intense they all but constituted a nervous system. Nothing she found explained the breshwahr’s intelligence, however, or gave her any indication whether her idea would work.

It had seemed a crazy inspiration at the time, but it was her own, she alone had thought of it, and she hugged it to herself and told no one. Carey, darn his amiable hide, was and always had been the brains in the family. It was time little sister showed what she had to give … if anything.

Carey was out of school and the farm did not require much of his time in the winter. He readily agreed to ride up to the Sweetwater with her and spend a weekend with the Harpers and the Sweetwater Loafers.

I
T WAS A
cool, crisp day, with the temperature running under forty on the Fahrenheit scale, but Sam Harper’s face, when they found him, was shining with a light sweat. He was busily building a house. Very few colonists built on less than three crops, but Sam’s first venture into agriculture had paid off so handsomely he had bought all but the expensive finishing timber and the bathroom fittings out of a single harvest. If his books paid off as well he was on his way to becoming comparatively wealthy.

He greeted Carey with a strong handshake and Doreen with an affectionate hug. “I didn’t believe it when Brixta told me, but I guess it’s true,” he said when he released her and stepped back. “It
was
possible for you to lose weight.”

Doreen made a half-hearted swing at him, laughing despite herself.

“Brixta is now Chief of the Sweetwater Clan,” went on Harper. “The old Head Councillor died a few weeks back. I’m told it’s unusual for a young man to be chosen chief unless its hereditary, but apparently Brixta has a lot on the ball. The old chief died childless, so—”

“Yes, I know Brixta. A very forceful man. So word of Doreen’s initiation has already reached the Sweetwater clan.”

“Farther than that. A young Controller left on
havasid
recently, to spend a year in the High Forest with the Loafers there, and he is carrying the word to all the upland clans. You and Doreen will soon be very famous.”

Sam Harper had picked up a lot of Loafer knowledge in a very short time. “I wish we could eliminate havasid by making it unnecessary,” said Carey soberly. “I suppose it’s good experience for the young Controllers, but it would be so
much faster and easier if they could perfect telepathy to the extent of using words.”

“They’ll get there some day,” said Sam cheerfully. “Little Micka made it. Now let’s go have a hot cup before you start helping me with the heavy lifting.”

Carey had not volunteered for any work, but he grinned and went after the coffee. It would be far from the first house he had helped build.

“I think it would be smart to contact Brixta before you attempt to talk to the breshwahr, Sis,” Carey said over the coffee.

“Yes, I suppose I’d better,” agreed Doreen. “I don’t want to violate any taboos; I’ll ride on up there first and ask for help.”

She chatted with Cassie a moment, then remounted for the short ride to the village as Sam and Carey returned to the job of housebuilding. Carey and Timmy had described the luxuriance of the food plants in this community, but she was amazed, as she rode inside, to observe the number of plants still bearing edible fruit. These people harvested and preserved the bulk of their summer produce, but apparently they had some method of holding back certain plants so that they ripened in the late fall and the fruit remained on the plant during the cold months. Except during the spring they had some fresh fruits and vegetables all year long.

She found Brixta without trouble and he hailed her in friendly fashion. She explained her errand without discussing the ultimate aim of her research, and he nodded sympathetically. It was he who had given her permission to remove a part of the dead breshwahr and take it into the school lab for study. The rest of the tree had been cut into very small fragments by the Loafers and buried in the same grove so that the remaining breshwahr might feed off their fallen comrade.

“We seek always more knowledge, and while it is true that we work primarily with the breshwahr and other plants it is no less true that we seek and share knowledge of any sort,” said Brixta. “I will ask an old Controller to work with you and guide you in your first contacts. If you learn things of
value which we do not know,” and he smiled slightly, “we ask only that you share with us.”

“I do not know what I will find,” said Doreen honestly, “but I ask you to keep in mind that it was our Earth science, not the Loafer’s knowledge, which discovered that the trees needed a trace of boron salts to restore their dying intelligence.”

Brixta’s face sobered. “That is true, little sister, and I stand reproved. Your great science is a thing which we do not understand, but its wonders are many and its works mighty. Now let me see if old Harenta has time in which to aid you.”

In a few moments he was introducing her to a very small old man with thin white hair and a roguish smile. “My grandchildren have grandchildren as old as you, little red hair,” he said after the formalities. “Still, I am not too old to learn more, and if you teach me while I teach you we shall both benefit.”

“There is a child of eight among the Lindorn who knows more now than we shall probably ever learn between us,” said Doreen soberly.

“That is true, but it is not an excuse to stop working ourselves,” said the old man cheerfully. “If you are ready let us go into my home and I will start coaching you on how to contact the breshwahr.”

When Doreen left the village just before dark her head was spinning with the amount of breshwahr lore she had acquired and with the effort she had made to follow his careful instructions on speaking directly to the intelligent trees. He had assured her that it became quite easy with practice, but it did not sound easy.

Dinner was on the table at the Harper home, and she was ravenously hungry. The fruits she had eaten with Harenta barely pacified a stomach accustomed to meat. Cassie, face flushed from working over the stove which both cooked their food and heated the small house, hovered over both her young guests solicitously and tried to make them eat more. Jeannie, a shy child who obviously adored her stepfather and hung on his every word, persuaded Doreen to play small-girl games with her after dinner, and Harper called Willy
Miller—they were still not on good terms with Kronstadt—to bring his family and come down for the evening.

The two Miller children joined Doreen and Jeannie in their games and the four of them put on coats and went outside, to play in the clear moonlight. The adults talked and gossiped until midnight, when the Millers reluctantly decided it was time to put their small ones to bed.

When Doreen came inside a pallet had been spread on the floor by the stove, but Gassie motioned with her head that she was to sleep in the bedroom with her. When she attempted to protest Sam Harper put a hand in contact with her backside with a ringing slap. “No impertinence from you, young lady. You’re still not on the healthy list and you’re going to sleep in a nice warm bed. Carey and I will be fine here.”

She surrendered meekly and undressed and got into bed with Gassie. But she had her revenge for arbitrary treatment, for Cassie asked about her intention of working with the breshwahr trees and she kept the older woman awake two more hours talking about her plans. She stopped when she realized that Cassie, despite her honest interest, had fallen asleep.

The Harper household arose to a late breakfast, and Harenta was at the door before they finished eating, Sam and Carey returned to their labour immediately after breakfast, while Harenta led her to the particular tree he had selected for her first contact.

“There is something you must understand, little sister,” the old man said gravely as they entered the woods. “The breshwahr are not like ourselves in living separate lives. They are individuals, but they share a certain portion of their thoughts. When you speak with one you speak with him in particular, but on a weaker level you speak to all breshwahr. You will feel the presence of the others but you must take no heed of it.”