The Florians Read online

  “No,” I told him.

  “Then what do you have in mind?”

  “I think I can make the Planners see reason.”

  He began to laugh, to make the proposition look foolish. But he knew that I wasn’t playing the fool. It was no laughing matter.

  “You can’t,” he said.

  “Watch me,” I countered. Our stares remained locked together.

  “I think you should remember that I have the little girl,” he said finally.

  I knew we’d arrived at the last card he had to play. This was the ultimate insurance he had. He still thought he could force a deal, even if we didn’t want to make one.

  I decided it was time to stop playing hard. I wasn’t getting anywhere, and I was showing off my dislike rather than using my head. I let myself weaken outwardly.

  “I’ll think it over,” I said. “But I need some sleep. I’d also like to talk to Nathan. I’ll put your points to him...but any decision we come to has to be a joint decision, not mine.”

  He read into that exactly what he was supposed to read into it: the implication that I was about to change my attitude, but wanted to duck responsibility for it. His smile widened.

  “Of course,” he said. “I must find rooms for you both. You’re very tired. You can sleep as long as you like. I’ll take care of everything...bringing the Planners up to date, arranging for you to see them. And I’ll arrange for you to confer with Mr. Parrick beforehand. I’m sure that everything can be settled amicably, if you’ll only weigh the arguments carefully.”

  “So am I,” I said—and I couldn’t help just a slight note of malice creeping back into my voice. “So am I.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “You’re a pair of bloody fools,” said Nathan, with feeling. “Just what the hell do you think you’ve been playing at?”

  “Well,” I said philosophically, “to put it crudely, it all seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  He was angry, and comments like that weren’t likely to cool him down any. “You’ve undone everything I’ve achieved here. While I’ve been working my guts out trying to convince these people that our intentions were one hundred percent pure and noble—and that hasn’t been easy in view of the fact that they think I’m the devil’s cousin—you’ve been running loose like a pair of cowboys beating people up.”

  “They said the same to David after the Goliath incident,” said Karen, facing me but directing the comment to no place in particular.

  “Take it easy, Nathan,” I told him.

  “Easy! Can’t you get it into your head that it isn’t easy. It’s damned difficult. You were told to avoid intimidating people at all costs. You were told to cooperate, to capitulate, to provide living proof of the fact that we came with no hostile intentions. You knew we were coming into a touchy situation and you’ve done just about everything in your power to aggravate it. If this mission fails it’s down to you two and no one else. You could have blown the whole damn thing!”

  “I’m glad you think there’s still an ‘if,’” I said, trying hard to soothe him now.

  “Look,” Karen interrupted. “You don’t understand.”

  I put my hand on her arm. “I think,” I murmured, “that we’ll find he understands perfectly. Jason may think he’s being super-clever, but he’s only a dilettante...an amateur Machiavelli. He might have the Planners fooled, but he hasn’t fooled Nathan.” I looked at Nathan for confirmation of this.

  “He hasn’t even got the Planners fooled,” said Nathan, with tired sarcasm. “They’re not idiots either. We had it all working. Buckland and I had an understanding...we could have made a friendly contact with a successful colony. You simply have no idea how much that might mean back on Earth.”

  “In political terms,” I said.

  “In political terms. Of course it’s a matter of politics. You know that.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I asked.

  His gaze was angry enough to suggest that he didn’t think he had.

  “Problems of co-adaptation,” I said. “What the ship is equipped to deal with. What we came here for...apart, of course, from all the political reasons.”

  Now the anger began to fade. “You found out what’s causing the unnatural growth?”

  I shook my head. “You don’t solve scientific problems like Sherlock Holmes,” I told him. “It’s not enough to look at the clues and then point out the murderer. But I know what kind of problem it is...and I know how serious it is. That’s exactly what the Planners—and Jason—don’t know. And what’s more important is the fact that they don’t know they don’t know, if you see what I mean.”

  “They think they have a different kind of problem? A trivial one?”

  I nodded.

  “But the one they have is a killer?”

  I nodded again. I still had to wait for a few moments while he changed mental gear.

  “All right,” he said. “Not that it makes any difference to the cowboy act, but go on. Let’s hear it.”

  Satisfied that we could now talk sensibly I shook my head. “No time,” I said. “There are much more important things to discuss. Like what are we going to do about Jason? He has Mariel, and he’s not going to be pleased when I go before the Planners and show them six good reasons why they need us here desperately. He wants us out—we’re upsetting his Machiavellian apple-cart. The peasants are restless and things are getting stirred up at home base as well. He thinks he’s losing an empire, and he’s going to turn vicious. I want to hear some answers from you about how we’re going to look after ourselves when things blow up.”

  “Jason is the Planners’ problem, not ours.”

  “He has Mariel.”

  Nathan went to the window and looked out at the calm, quiet sea. I stood up and followed him. Without turning around, he said, “We’re on Floria, not on Earth. If Jason has committed—or intends to commit—any crimes, then they’re Florian crimes, and it’s for the Florians to take what action is necessary. Despite what you two seem to think we didn’t come here as a party of commandos.”

  “It isn’t the Florians he’ll be issuing ultimatums to,” interposed Karen. “It’s us.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Nathan, “but our hands are tied. Our job is to talk to the Planners. It’s up to them to handle Jason.”

  “Why is it our job to talk to the Planners?” demanded Karen angrily. “Because they think they run this world? Why isn’t it our job to deal with Jason, who really runs things—or with the people on the mainland, who want to run things? Everyone here’s a self-elected spokesman for his planet...only they all want different things from us. So why the Planners? How do we decide that it’s them we should be talking to and not the others?”

  Nathan turned back from the window to confront us both.

  “I’ll not give either of you a string of diplomatic phrases,” he said. “I could set out half a dozen moral reasons for not allying ourselves with Ellerich and Vulgan, or with Jason. But the simple fact is that we deal with tho Planners because the Planners have what we need. That’s all there is to it.”

  “And what do we need?” I asked quietly.

  “A better world. Floria. A world where the cruel and bloody history of Earth might not be repeated. We need Floria, and we need it the way that the Planners are trying to shape it, not the way that Jason thinks he runs it or the way that Ellerich wants to take it over. We need a Utopian dream, however far from fulfillment. As an advertisement. As a lure. To get space travel going again as a successful political concern.”

  “We can’t use Floria as a lure,” I said slowly. “They won’t let us bring any more colonists here.”

  “We don’t have to bring any more colonists here,” he said. “The example is enough. What can be done here can be done elsewhere. Handled right, one big success could offset a dozen failures. It’s the dream that has to be kept alive, you see...the myth. That’s how political games are won. Not with facts, with promises. With good pub
lic relations work. If we can build up this world as evidence of the fact that there are new lives to be made out here, new worlds to be conquered, we can begin to win the slogan war again. That’s why I’m here, you see. It’s my job to make certain that the reports we take back tell a very different story from the ones Kilner submitted. That’s why we deal with the Planners, no matter how ugly they are or how much you might disagree with the methods they use to achieve their ends.”

  “That’s great,” I said, with slight distaste. “But there’s just two things wrong. One is that this colony won’t be successful in any degree whatsoever unless we can help them beat their growth syndrome. And the second is that they might not be able to handle Jason.”

  “I didn’t say that it was easy,” said Nathan calmly. “But if we keep our heads from now on, we have a chance. If we keep our heads. As for the first of your thorny points, let’s not underestimate you, Alex, and the abilities of your staff. Kilner helped the other colonies...you can help this one. If a solution is humanly possible, you’ll find it, and the Planners will use it. On the second point, well...let’s not underestimate the Planners, either. They know about Jason. And I don’t just mean that they have their spies to tell them what he’s up to. Their ancestors knew about the inevitability of people like Jason, about the inevitability of the situations which breed people like Jason. People who set out to control history don’t usually need lessons in it.”

  “While we’re not underestimating people...” I said. “How about not underestimating Jason?”

  “All right,” he said, “let’s not underestimate Jason. He’s a determined man. I don’t believe that he’s acting very cleverly, but he knows what he wants even if he doesn’t quite know how to get it. He might threaten Mariel. He might do something else equally stupid. But the vital thing for us to do is nothing. We cannot act like bulls in a china shop.”

  “If we hadn’t acted as we did,” I said patiently, “I might never have got here. Jason as good as told me that if I’d surrendered to him at Leander I might have been tucked away somewhere with Mariel—and that’s certainly what would have happened to Karen. Giving Jason more hostages would be pointless, and could be downright dangerous...because if I hadn’t gone on the run and come here under my own steam I might never have got into a position where I could explain to anyone exactly how much trouble this colony is in. We’re not just here on a glorified public relations exercise—we’re here to try and put some substance on that dream you want to sell. We can’t simply be content to adopt a totally negative role. Maybe we shouldn’t have knocked a man out to get at the radio. Maybe Karen overreacted at the Leander station. But these things have always got to be decided on the spur of the moment, and sometimes a positive attitude is necessary.”

  “Forget it,” said Nathan, sighing heavily. “It’s all in the past. You’ve had your fling, and maybe no damage has been done. If you can make the Planners see it your way, maybe things have worked out right. But please...from now on, we play it my way. All right?”

  “I don’t know,” I said stubbornly. “I’m still scared of Jason.”

  And at that moment, the door opened, and in he came. I don’t know if he heard what I said or not. He showed no trace of emotion on his face. He simply said, “The Planners will see you now.”

  But as I walked past him, I could see the threat glittering his eyes.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  They were seven.

  They were distributed haphazardly about the room rather than being grouped in the manner of a court or jury. Such grouping would have been impossible. I had expected to find them all old (old, that is, by the standards of this world) and all in the grip of the uncontrolled, quasi-cancerous tissue-growth. But only three—two women and one man—wore bodies which had run completely out of control. These three reclined on couches equipped with tiny wheels. Each of the three had lost all the powers of self-locomotion save one. They could not crawl, nor lift their heads, but the use of their hands remained. While they kept control of their hands, and could continue to use their senses, they retained some essential humanity. When that was gone...but they seemed, in any case, to be close enough to death.

  Of the others, two were clearly losing the fight. They were both men. Both, I think, could have walked—but no great distance. They sat in conventional chairs rather than accepting in advance the need to become recumbent. The remaining two—one man, one woman—were still robust and healthy. The woman, by my estimate, was in her early thirties. The man was the youngest of them all, perhaps no more than twenty-five.

  Nathan had already tried to warn me in advance as to which might be sympathetic and which set hard against us. Those he thought he could count on were Edward Buckland—one of the middle-aged men—and Ewan Rondo, the youngest of the seven. The most powerful opposition came from one of the women—Ruth Alcor—and the younger woman would probably back her. The third woman, however, whose name was Viana Calmont, was probably the most influential voice within the group, and she had given no indication at all—so far as Nathan had been able to detect—of where she stood.

  We were not offered seats, but left to stand. Jason waited behind us, beside the door. There were some preliminaries.

  Nathan introduced us by name, but the Planners did not introduce themselves. I was hoping that I would be allowed to make a simple statement, but the Planners wanted things done their way. The youngest man—Rondo—was, apparently as a matter of form, their question-master, and there was something of the attitude of prosecuting counsel in the way he began. Nathan had said that this one was sympathetic, but I guessed that that was in his personal capacity. It seemed to be his duty now to play devil’s advocate.

  “You’re a scientist?” he asked. “And you came here in order to give us advice, and perhaps assistance, with any problems which fall within your intellectual province?”

  “Yes,” I said, knowing there was more to come.

  “You do not seem to have conducted yourself like a scientist.”

  “That depends on your expectations,” I replied. “Scientists on Earth don’t function in quite the same way as scientists here.” As I said this, my eyes ran over the whole group. “You practice science in a covert manner. It is the business of an elite. In being kept secret, it has become sacred.”

  “You don’t approve?” probed Rondo.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But that doesn’t matter.”

  “You realize that your presence here represents a threat to our aims? You know that your arrival has precipitated a crisis, and that your actions have helped compound that crisis?”

  “We have already agreed,” said Nathan, interrupting smoothly, “that the crisis was inevitable. It is the product of history, and our arrival has done no more than reveal it prematurely. Our actions have made no significant difference.”

  “We are talking not so much about a political crisis as a crisis of values,” said Rondo. “Rebellion against our rule—a rule which is purely theoretical, as we have no legal power—is a product of the social circumstances of the colony. But that rebellion is really immaterial. It hardly matters who is in nominal control of everyday events. It is merely a matter of labeling. What does matter, however, is the prospect of a rebellion against the values we have tried to inculcate and maintain in this colony. And your actions—the very assumption under which you act—represent a threat to those values. When challenged, you react violently. You invade our home, secretly, and import violence with you. This is intolerable.”

  “We have been violently used ourselves,” I said. I was about to go into detail, but I was conscious of Jason at my shoulder. It was not the time for accusations. It was better to wait...there was another way.

  “This is the whole trouble,” said Rondo. “You arrive, and violence flares up. With you, violence breeds violence, and the whole situation becomes aggravated, inflamed. That is what we want to avoid at all costs. It is not violence per se which we are trying to eradicate
from this culture, but the syndrome by which violence breeds more violence, and quarrels become wars. Our aim is to isolate acts of violence from the inflammatory consequences which are inevitable in your way of thinking.”

  The one thing that could not be said was: That’s impossible. That was exactly what they were trying to fight with all the means at their disposal—the acceptance of what they considered to be our way of thinking as natural, rational, and inalterable.

  I remained silent, waiting.

  The crucial question came.

  “Can you offer us any reason why, in view of the dangers implicit in your presence here, we should tolerate you?”

  “Because you need us,” I said. “You need us far more than you fear us.”

  I heard the quick intake of breath behind me, and it made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

  “Why?” demanded Rondo, his voice like the lash of a whip.

  “You fear us,” I said, “because we may corrupt you. But if we can do that—if our mere presence here is enough to send all your generations of cunning, considered planning to perdition—then what do you really have as a result of your generations of work? What have you really achieved, if what you have can be sustained only in artificial conditions? Violence is already here, as you know...and the men who would use it to breed more violence, the men who would exploit violence for their own ends...they’re here, too. The products, I think you said, of history. Perhaps our presence will help them...except that we are already committed to helping you.

  “And you need that help. You need it most of all because you do not know how desperately you need it. If I were to say now that this colony faces a danger of extinction within two or three generations, you would not believe me. Perhaps you would be right. I don’t know enough, at present, to say any such thing. But I will say this. You have no concept of the nature of the force which has you in its grip. You do not know the extent or the nature of your danger, because you are too close to it. You have not the objectivity to know what is happening to you.