Brightsuit MacBear (15 page)

Chapter XV: The Revolt of the Feebs

“What?” Mac and Pemot had spoken at the same time.

“How c-could you b-be so obtuse?” asked the captain. “If we d-did as you suggest, foul alien c-creature, what would our feebs do? There would be no useful emp-p-ployment for the surplusage of them. They would have to be ah-ah-eliminated.”

He peered down at the lamviin. “Do you call this humane?”

Mac looked forward, over row upon row of starving, exhausted, sore-covered feebs, and wondered if some fates weren’t in fact worse—and less humane—than death. “Job security,” he muttered.

“You’re saying—” Pemot ignored Mac and concentrated on the captain. His speech was as deliberate as the boy had ever heard it, slow and distinct. “You’re saying that the foundation on which your entire civilization bases itself is involuntary servitude?”

“We did not say this.” The captain was a picture of indignant virtue. “On the contrary, extraplanetary indecency, what we have said is that their only reason for being is to do precisely as they are told, whenever they are told.”

He glanced from side to side to make sure he wasn’t overheard by any of his crew or officers. “Is it not so everywhere?”

“Not where I come from,” Mac answered, “unless you take my grandfather’s opinions seriously.”

“Nor, any longer, upon my own native planet,” Pemot added. “Nor was it ever, insofar as careful studies can discern, among the taflak, whose culture I’ve come to know extremely well and with whom I’ve been living for the past several—”

An expression of utter revulsion swept across the man’s unshaven features. “Taf-what? You mean to say…you mean to look us straight in our face and tell us that you have been living—wallowing—among the snake-eyes? And now, you…you—”

“Misbegotten monster,” Pemot supplied.

“Misbegotten monster, now you dirty our deck with your filth-contaminated feet? Why, you miserable, low-living, excremental, belly-crawling, leaf louse-ridden—”

“My turn,” Mac interrupted. “Slime-sucking scumballs?”

“Why, I ought to—”

Pemot turned to his friend. “Well, MacBear, if we’ve accomplished nothing else this morning, at least we’ve managed to provoke him into speaking in the first person singular for the first time.”

Mac opened his mouth but was interrupted by the now purple-faced Captain j’Kaimreks, who’d taken two slow steps forward and lowered his voice by an octave. “We have got a saying, ugly thing, in Securitas that the only good snake-eyes is a dead snake-eyes. Now, we calculate that this saying applies as well to snake-eyes lovers!”

For the first time, he pulled his hand from his tunic—and reached for his weapon.

Mac was faster with the Borchert & Graham.

This time the plasma pistol had a full charge. Five million watts, concentrated into a blinding pinpoint of fury, struck the man in the torso, enveloped him briefly in searing blue-white flames, and hurled him backward across the deck where he fell, a smoking wreckage of a human being. Little was left of him from the belt up.

Meanwhile, Pemot, watching their backs, had drawn and leveled his old-fashioned chemical-powered projectile weapon at the overseer nearest the flamethrower.

“I’d not advise it, sir.”

The overseer took one look at the enormous muzzle of the gun—and at the nine-legged monster pointing it at him—and leaped over the rail into the Sea of Leaves.

The other officers followed his example.

Weapon still in hand, the Sodde Lydfan strode forward to a crude plank bridge connecting the aftermost section of the idle crankapillar to the next section ahead of it in line. His companion, meanwhile, somewhat surprised by his own actions, had crossed the deck to examine the smoking remains of the late Captain j’Kaimreks, having first put them out with a bucket of water standing beneath the canopy.

“Some pistol my daddy left me.” As Mac muttered to himself, he wondered why he was unable to feel much of anything else at the moment. At least he didn’t feel sick to his stomach any more. “Hey, Pemot—take a look what I’ve got!”

When he looked back, the lamviin—who’d lived for a while in the North American west and knew something of its legendary customs—saw, to his horror, that Mac was holding up the captain’s hair as if it were a Comanche trophy.

“You put that down this minute! I greatly fear what all this violence must be doing to your—”

“My poor, tender little psyche? But it’s
fake
, Pemot. It’s made out of dyed moss! And, come to think of it, didn’t you notice? When the captain grabbed for that blunderbuss of his, whatever it was, he did it with his left hand!”

One set of feet on the plank, Pemot paused. “No, MacBear, as a matter of fact, I hadn’t noticed. However I did notice his decided stutter which, among you human beings, is sometimes thought to be a symptom of suppressed left-handedness. Captain Tiberius j’Kaimreks was a left-handed baldy. In short, a feeb. Now I suggest you come here and let me show you something.”

The boy crossed a diagonal this time and met his friend at the bridging plank. “Like what?”

“I beg you to keep your voice down for the moment. I’m not accustomed to examining people as if they were cattle, and this is embarrassing enough as it is.”

The lamviin assumed what Mac was certain were his most formal lecture-hall intonations. “Observe, first of all, that, despite the racket and destruction, none of the slaves aboard this contraption has so much as turned around to see what happened.”

Squinting down the line, Mac saw Pemot was correct: not one of the men had moved. “Are they drugged?” he asked.

“Being human, you’d be a better judge of that than I. But recall: ‘When compliance is not required, you will do nothing.’ That’s exactly what they’re doing. Nothing. Notice also this first one on the right; take a hard look at his scalp.”

Mac stepped forward and, holding his nose, bent down over the unmoving feeb. He was covered with old scars, bruises, and open wounds from the overseer’s whip, and had an ugly, puckered empty socket where his left eye should have been.

“Well, I’ll be—his head’s been shaved!”

“Indeed it has, or chemically depilated, and recently. They won’t wash their slaves, they won’t wash themselves, but they’ll do whatever they must to maintain their illusions. Some feebs, it would appear, are more unequal than others.”

“I guess so. It’s kind of scary, him sitting there like that, as if we didn’t exist.”

He addressed the seated figure. “Um, excuse me…”

Mac’s lame opener produced no visible result. The feeb didn’t seem to be drugged, asleep, or in a trance, but just indifferent. He sat slumped on his bench, facing the crank which had reduced his hands to ground meat, breathing and sweating. His eyes were open, and the look on his face was composed and intelligent.

Overcoming revulsion, Mac bent further and shook the feeb’s sunburned shoulder.

Skin peeled away at the boy’s touch.

The feeb looked up. “You no officer…” The statement almost amounted to a complaint.

“Meebe you new cap’n? Lost tracka who’s cap’n now. My body is but a tool of your mind.”

He flinched.

“I will obey promptly and without question.”

He flinched again.

“
No!
” Mac’s voice was harsh. “I’m not the captain. The captain’s dead. There isn’t any captain, and won’t be, ever again!”

The feeb assumed a hurt expression, sniffed, and a tear began to form in his one good eye. “No cap’n? Who gonna feed us? Who gonna tell us go an’ stop? You gonna tell us?”

Once again, he cringed.

“I have no bargain with authority except to expend my life in its service.”

“My dear fellow,” Pemot put in. “There’ll be no one to tell you what to do from now on. You’re free, don’t you understand what I’m saying. Free to feed yourself, or starve, or to do anything else within your power that you want to do. You’re free.”

The feeb didn’t answer, but turned his eye back to the work-polished crank and sat motionless and dejected. Mac noticed, now, in addition to the overseer’s whips and flamethrowers, each car had its own huge, long-handled brake lever.

“I don’t think you understand.” It was Mac who tried this time, his voice becoming a bit hysterical with the attempt. “Up there in the sky is a great big starship from the Galactic Confederacy. It won’t let Securitas or any other nation-state own your body or tell you what to do, ever again. You’re free—you don’t have to be a slave anymore!”

“No slave in Securitas,” the feeb protested. “Slavery against law. It is the splendid opportunity of every individual to make of his life a willing gift to authority.”

He grimaced and fell silent.

“I do believe,” offered Pemot, “the joy of sudden liberty’s pummeled him into insensibility. After all, recall the accident in the Little Bang universe, the shift backward in time. These people—their ancestors, I mean—have been here on this world for thousands of years. For as long as the rest of human history’s lasted on Earth. The poor fellow’s suffering monumental culture shock.”

Mac shook his head. “Pemot,” he argued, “something else is going on here. Something worse. You know, when we first saw this machine, I wondered where the steering mechanism was. I just realized it was the captain’s megaphone. This thing’s steered by voice command, answered by differential braking at each of these cars.”

“Is that somehow relevant,” inquired Pemot, “to the situation we find ourselves in?”

“Yes. If I’m right about the psychology involved, we won’t be taking any ride to the north pole in this machine. Not unless we want to become feeb drivers.”

Mac recognized the puzzled expression in Pemot’s fur. Look, you scared off all the spark plugs—the overseers. I shot the steering wheel—Captain j’Kaimreks. And now the motor—this slave—doesn’t seem enthusiastic at all about being allowed to steer himself. He’s a part of the whole machine, Pemot, his existence is justifiable—to him—only insofar as it serves the whole. It’s sickening, but that’s the way it is.”

He turned back to the feeb. “If nobody tells you what to do, are you just going to sit here in the sun and peel to death?”

A long pause followed, during which the feeb appeared to be exerting an enormous mental effort. Mac and Pemot waited until his features became normal again.

“Nah.” The feeb sighed. “Officers don’ come back, feebs hafta ’lect new officers like b’fore. Hurt head. My only reason for being is to do precisely as I am told.”

He flinched, brightened for a moment and smiled.

“New officers choose us new cap’n! We go! His authority is metaphysically unquestionable. My existence is justifiable only insofar as I serve him!”

A final flinch and he fell silent.

Mac straightened and turned away, his stomach not behaving well again, regained the quarterdeck aft, and began a slow descent to the ramped boarding plank.

Following his human friend, Pemot spoke first, his voice subdued and unsteady. “I must say, MacBear, this is a most depressing turn of events. I suppose some social scientist somewhere knows precisely how many times one must repeat a slogan, beginning at what tender age, until it produces a state of voluntary slavery. I daresay even the late Captain j’Kaimreks was, to some extent, a victim of the process.”

Mac turned. “You’re the only social scientist around here, Pemot. And people worry about physicists!”

Pemot was horrified at his companion’s accusation but knew enough to control his reaction. “Nonetheless, my friend, some responsibilities exist in the life of a sapient being that no excuse can justify abrogating. It puts me in mind of an old Fodduan saying: ‘
Ro gra fins ko vezamoh ytsa mykodsu yn tas gadsru al ys
.’”

Mac looked up from tying on his moss-shoes. “Which means?”

“Idiomatically, ‘Anyone requiring persuasion to be free doesn’t deserve to be.’”

The boy stood up. “Oh yeah? Well it reminds me of an old Confederate saying.”

“Yes?”

“It sure does: ‘If voting ever threatened to change anything, they’d outlaw it.’”

“Mmm. Indeed.”

They’d just reached Pemot’s sand-sled when they saw the screwmaran approaching.

Chapter XVI: The Screwmaran

Someone once said “small is beautiful.”

He was wrong.

There seemed to be no end, Mac thought, to low-grade technology and labor-intensive wonders out here on the Sea of Leaves. The Antimacassarite screwmaran was swifter than the crankapillar—about seven miles an hour to the Securitasian vessel’s five—and had been somewhat closer to begin with, having approached unobserved while he and Pemot were preoccupied with the late Captain j’Kaimreks.

The vessel’s name, which his implant supplied along with her nationality, was descriptive. The vehicle resembled the shanks of a pair of stubby, steep-threaded wood screws, counterrotating side by side, connected—to continue the nautical terminology the Securitasians had preferred—at her double bow and stern by what, for want of better words, might have been called a flying forecastle and quarterdeck. She was powered by about the same number of slaves as the
Intimidator
, not sitting at their backbreaking labors, but marching for eternity around a set of stair steps cut into the angled sides of her threads.

At once, Mac could see why the screwmaran was faster. She consisted of little more than a pair of giant propellors. No complicated gearing system wasted the energies of her crew by taking them around right angles. Also, her design made more efficient use of their weight and of the stronger muscles of their legs.

He didn’t doubt for a minute—although with his olfactory capacities overcome by the
Intimidator
, he couldn’t tell just yet—that she smelled the same.

Preparing themselves for another confrontation with the First Wave colonists, he and Pemot sat down near the lamviin’s sand-sled, waiting for them to arrive.

“You’d think,” the boy observed as he and Pemot watched the odd vehicle approaching, “with an advantage like that—”

“An advantage like what?” The lamviin sounded irritable.

“The several thousand years’ retroactive head start you told me about. You’d think these colonists should be way ahead of the rest of humanity by now. But they’re not, are they? And anyway, what’re you so ticked off about?”

“Ticked off? You accuse me of harboring parasites?”

Mac laughed. “I could well believe it—and give myself a close inspection, too—after a few minutes aboard one these machines. No, I’m just wondering what you’re so upset about.”

The lamviin sighed.

His fur seemed to relax.

“MacBear, my fine unfurry friend, as long as I’ve been on this planet, I’ve remained within the confines of Confederate settlements or taflak villages, eschewing the First Wave population. I might offer several excellent reasons, but our most recent exploit’s a good example of why I’ve pursued such a policy.”

“Sounds sensible to me. I could tell you don’t much like being called a mutated spider.”

“Or being compelled, in self-defense, to employ deadly violence. Still, what I’ve managed to learn of Antimacassarite culture leads me to believe it similar to my own. My greatest fear is that, despite my Uncle Mav’s painstaking tutelage, I may be vulnerable to its blandishments. And this unfortunate world, like others settled by the First Wave—much like your own Earth’s early history—has always been subject to cyclic collapse. It’s seen countless civilizations struggle into being, blossom to maturity, waste their hard-won substance on war or internal conflict, only to pass out of existence.”

“Pretty depressing,” the boy replied, trying to raise one eyebrow. “Why do you stick around?”

“Because there’s something here to learn, I think. Also, I enjoy the company of the indigenous sapients. Majesty’s unique, for all its tragedy, differing, at least in Confederate experience, from all previous lost colonies. And, I might add, as a native of Sodde Lydfe, I can appreciate that difference.”

Mac nodded. “The taflak.”

“Precisely. My native Sodde Lydfe is inhabited by its own sapient population, and,
feu Pah ko sretvoh
, was never discovered by the First Wave. Although its technology’s unsophisticated in comparison with yours, it’s scientific and progressive, and its relationship with the Confederacy is, for the most part, as an equal.”

He sighed again. “The
taflak
haven’t been left alone. The planet’s first human inhabitants were intolerant, and remain so, as you’ve seen. Thus the taflak have been required to fight for their existence since the First Wave arrived. Themselves scarcely changing, millennium to millennium, they’ve witnessed the whole sorry spectacle of human civilization; and in this regard they’re far from primitive, for they enjoy many clever and cynical sayings about the follies of humankind.”

“It sounds to me,” the boy suggested, with a close, observing eye on his friend, “like maybe you’re getting a bit cynical about human beings, yourself, Mr. Xenopraxeologist.”

The lamviin splayed all three hands, a gesture of denial among Sodde Lydfans. “Humans on this planet, MacBear. Sapients who stubbornly—proudly—remain primitive, even by the standards you or I, with our respective disadvantages, have grown up with. And in a different meaning of the word than applies to the taflak. Humans who were still politically divided, despite their vast and terrible experience, when the Confederacy rediscovered them.”

Mac remembered reading about that somewhere, and keyed his implant. Securitas, the nation-state they’d rubbed elbows with already, was, according to the brochure, a stern, paternalistic dictatorship emphasizing discipline and tradition. “But not personal hygiene,” Mac murmured aloud.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing—just talking to myself.”

The other, Antimacassar, was a welfare state, determined to care for its subjects if it had to kill them in the process; a culture, Mac thought, in which his grandfather, dissatisfied with the live-and-let-live Confederacy, might have been happy. It did sound rather like what little he knew of civilization on Sodde Lydfe.

And, in one respect, the rediscovery of Majesty, the arrival of starships and people from the outside galaxy had changed nothing. Both forever-warring political entities still existed, along with their centuries-old rivalries and hatreds.

Mac told Pemot what the implant had to say.

“True enough, as far as it goes,” Pemot explained. “But now the First Wavers complain no one cares about the old, important issues anymore. The rulers of Securitas and Antimacassar resent being eclipsed by a new, more vital and productive culture as the First and Second Wave populations begin to mingle.”

“Yeah?” Mac pointed at the arriving machine. “Well it looks like it’s our turn to mingle, now.”

The new moss-negotiating machine hove to, bow to broadside, a few hundred cautious yards from the immobilized crankapillar. Flamethrowers on the screwmaran’s flying forecastle were aimed at the Securitasian vessel, their pilot lights flickering. Meanwhile, a detachment of several dozen figures, men and women, armed and uniformed, swarmed down the threads of the screwmaran, stopped in her shadow to tie on moss-shoes identical to those Mac thought he’d invented, and broke into two groups, each headed in separate directions.

The first group, their old-fashioned bayonetted long arms at the ready, jogged toward the crankapillar, running up her boarding plank, moss-shoes and all. Shouting could be heard—not from the dispirited and quiescent feebs, Mac thought—but no shots of any kind were fired, and he assumed the strange vessel had now been claimed by the victorious forces of the nation-state of Antimacassar.

The second and smaller group, consisting of perhaps a dozen individuals (if “individuals,” Mac thought, was what you called people all wearing the same clothing), approached the pair of extra-Majestan travelers and their sand-sled at a more leisurely rate, their antique weapons carried across their brass-buttoned chests, and paused a few feet away. The military uniforms of Antimacassar were charcoal gray, and much neater than the bottle green of Securitas.

Mac hoped that, somewhere in the deep sea moss, Middle C was taking this all in.

A tall, attractive, but severe-faced young woman, carrying a flap-holstered pistol, but no long arm, stepped forward, removed her cap, and saluted them. “Good day to you both, gentlebeings, I am Leftenant Commander Goldberry MacRame, Third and Security Officer of the A.L.N.
Compassionate
, a frigate of Her Imperial Kindness’ Leafnavy of the Antimacassarite Government-in-Exile. Might I be so intrusive as to inquire whether you are responsible for having disabled this pirate machine, and, if so, whether you accomplished this by yourselves?”

Still at stiff attention, she nonetheless glanced side to side, as if fearful that, in fact, they hadn’t done it alone. Where, Mac could tell she was thinking, was the rest of their force hiding? If that’s what’s bothering her, he thought, she’s asked the wrong question: yes, of course she might
inquire
.

“I do believe,” Pemot whispered to his companion, “given the somewhat spectacular consequences of your recent diplomatic efforts aboard the
Intimidator
, that I’ll do the talking this time, provided you’ve no objection.”

Mac looked down at Pemot, and shrugged.

Pemot blinked, made a throat-clearing noise in his nostrils, and stepped forward. “How do you do, Leftenant Commander. I’m Epots Dinnomm
Pemot
, a lamviin of the planet Sodde Lydfe and of the University of Mexico. This gentlebeing is my associate, Mr. MacDougall Bear, a human being like yourself, late of the starship
Tom Edison Maru
. I’m afraid we are, indeed, responsible for what happened here”—he held up all three arms—“er, single-handedly.”

Someone in Supply had failed, Mac thought, to issue Leftenant Commander MacRame a sense of humor. Without so much as a chuckle or a grin at Pemot’s joke, she nodded.

“I wonder,” she asked, “whether you would mind telling us in some detail how this, er, achievement, came about.…But I suspect that both of you would be more comfortable onboard
Compassionate
, and I am certain that my commanding officer will be interested to hear what you have to tell us, as well.”

Pemot blinked and tipped his carapace. “Why, this is uncommonly generous of you, Leftenant Commander, most magnanimous indeed. And of course we’d be delighted. We are, as you see, travelers, at somewhat of an inconvenience at the moment, and hoping to obtain transport to Geislinger.”

The Leftenant Commander nodded. “I should like very much to be of assistance to you, Doctor Pemot,” she replied, “but naturally my commanding officer will have something to say about that.”

“That,” Pemot answered, tipping his carapace in yet another bow, “is entirely understandable. I assure you, whatever can be contrived will be more than satisfactory.”

Mac leaned down and whispered. “She sounds just like you, Herr Doktor Professor Pemot. Polite as all get-out, aren’t they?” He looked up at the woman.

She raised a single eyebrow.

“Yes,” the lamviin whispered back, “as a matter of fact, they are. Which, unless I miss my guess entirely, means we’re in greater danger than ever before.”

“I give up.” Mac laughed aloud. “I thought you were going soft on me or something.”

“Not,” the lamviin answered, “bloody likely.”

With half of her detachment taking up the rear, they followed the woman back to the screwmaran.

As they made their way across the open space between the two vessels, Pemot towing his sand-sled behind him, a tremendous
whoosh!
and a wave of hot air blasting from the direction of the
Intimidator
almost knocked them off their feet.

At the same time, they heard a hundred-throated cheer from the direction of the
Compassionate
.

The Securitasian vehicle was soon enveloped in flame, with greasy black smoke rising to the overcast above. A column of uniformed Antimacassarites began winding, antlike, from the burning wreckage, some carrying boxes and bundles salvaged from the crankapillar, others towing makeshift wicker rafts of feebs who, without moss-shoes, were helpless to escape even if they’d been motivated to.

Quite a spectacle, Mac thought. Down deep inside, he’d always been fond of fires and explosions but was unaware he shared this vice with the majority of the human race.

Meanwhile, Pemot commented to Leftenant Commander MacRame on “the tragic waste represented by destroying an admittedly slower but perfectly serviceable vehicle.”

“Worse luck,” the Leftenant Commander complained. “None of us will enjoy any gain from this unhappy ship. Securitasians are useless as prizes unless newly commissioned.”

“I get it.” Mac’s guess was conversational. He’d been impressed, despite himself, with the pretty Antimacassarite officer and had been trying to think of something to say. “Too much work to clean them up?”

“Oh, never fear, boy. We always have plenty of workers available for that.”

She indicated the Securitasian feebs being dragged back to the
Compassionate
.