Enemies of the System (10 page)

Sygiek said, “Despite the orthodoxy of K. V. Hondaras's work, this speculation is still contentious.”

“We rightly label all speculation contentious,” Kordan replied. “Yet here and now we are forced into a speculative posture. What is sure is that the stranded colonists were faced with disorientation, complete mental disorientation. Time was wrong; the earth failed them. They would have run up against an immutable law which all societies prefer to forget as they become sophisticated: that there is not only no civilization but practically no basis for life where there are no crops. Those tragic colonists planted their grain. It rotted in the ground. Fertilizers had no effect. The land, the time, was against them.”

He stared up at the distant roof of rock. It was barely visible in the gloom. Only one or two stalactites showed, like distorted stars.

“No doubt they turned to magic when science failed. Magic and incantation take us back to the roots of language and the power of repetition. But magic also failed. The cosmos was shown to be defective.”

He pursed his lips. “Try to imagine what they were up against. Human experience proved insufficient to counter their new inhuman experience. They were driven back to instinctual behavior—the subsistence-level of thinking of the Gatherer—and instinct is ultimately the enemy of language. That one unique feature, the pact between the codes of language and the cosmos, was broken for the first time in the history of mankind. In the resulting anomic situation, genetic equilibrium would be disrupted, and the way laid open for regression to animal modes. We are fortunate in that at least we have fallen into the hands of a group which has managed to retain some humanity. It may be such a group as Burek postulates, which managed to hold the original ship and so retain more firmly than other groups old values, including language.”

Takeido was shivering with cold. Clutching his upper arms, he said, “Don't be so optimistic. I take a gloomy view of the symbolism of this dark tunnel they have led us into.”

Dulcifer had been leaning against the tunnel wall, scarcely bothering to listen to the talk. Now he seized on a point that Kordan had made earlier. Wiping the moisture from his face, he looked closely at the other and asked, “Which are you going to believe, then, Kordan? The official line as laid down by K. V. Hondaras, or the evidence of your own eyes?”

“It is a test, isn't it? Perhaps that's why this planet is closed to all but the privileged—it's a world which doesn't fit into our system. Perhaps that's why it's
open
to the privileged—they can be tested …”

Then Kordan looked around and said no more, gnawing anxiously at his lower lip.

“Aren't you going to give me an answer, you who are so fond of answers?” said Dulcifer, mockingly. “Put it into language for us. ‘Never think what cannot be said.'”

“Are you a provocateur or something? Leave him alone,” Burek said, giving Dulcifer a shove. “Maybe Kordan prefers not to say what cannot be thought. What he tells us is interesting, as far as I understood it, and I don't see why philosophy should cover all contingencies of reality, else philosophy and reality would be indistinguishable—and plainly that was never intended.”

“Who's to say what's intended any more?” Takeido muttered. They stood there in the mud, occasionally lifting a foot. At last the bolts on the stockade gate were withdrawn, and the escort stepped smartly forward to drive its party through. Once they were in, the gate was closed behind them.

Mud still lay thick underfoot, though there was an encouraging light ahead. Planking and logs had been laid in the mud. From this main tunnel, side tunnels branched. As they went ahead again, picking their way, the darkness became less intense. At last, the tunnel opened into a large chamber, which was well lighted. To one side of this chamber, a cage built of wood had been set up. The guards forced their prisoners into the cage and secured it shut.

IX

Trapped under the epidermis of an alien planet, surrounded by a savage species the more terrible for resembling men, threatened by all manner of fates, the six weary utopians enjoyed the luxury of Biocom: they controlled their thoughts and allowed their unified nervous systems to calm them. There was room in the cage for them all to sit, and it was dry. So they sat down, rested, and awaited events.

When their eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, they gained a better impression of the cavern to which they had been brought. It was lit by a few flambeaux standing out from the rock at intervals, and by a fire which burned on a stone in the middle of the enormous space. There were two other, much dimmer, sources of light.

Firstly, on the far side of the cavern, a hole overhead gave a glimpse of the sky. In the general confusion of shadows and structures which filled the area, this hole was not immediately apparent. Once they perceived it, the prisoners realized with dismay that the outside world was almost as dark as the world inside, and that Lysenka II was already turning toward its lengthy night period.

Secondly, also on the far side of the cavern, a large building stood. Upon the steps of this building, a number of candles burned, casting the shadows of its columns into the interior. The building was circular in ground plan, and roofless. Its elegance set it at variance with the general roughness of its surroundings. Between its colonnades, a shadowy metal mass could be observed, as well as a ladder-like structure pointing to the hole in the roof above. Puzzle as they might, the prisoners could not make out the function of this building, although as time passed, a number of savages took up candles from the steps, went inside, and paraded formally round.

When the small patch of sky was entirely dark, many more people entered the cavern. They came in quietly, and paraded in little groups. All were roughly clad. There were babies and small children among them, none of whom uttered a sound. The cave-dwellers flocked in from various entrances. Opposite the cage was a tunnel mouth, down which the flow of torches could be seen for some while before their bearers reached the central chamber.

The company made a slow promenade of the cavern, each group halting when it got to the cage to look in at its inhabitants. Instinctively, the utopians rose to their feet and stared back. The cave-dwellers appeared reserved, even respectful, but their dark faces were expressionless. Then they moved on, and went through complicated charades, almost as if performing a dumb-show; the meaning of this performance was lost on the watchers.

Following the dumb-show came a massed entrance into the far building. The cave-dwellers could be seen among the pillars, rubbing the complex metal structures with their hands. There were strange cries. Gongs and trumpets sounded.

After this ceremony, the atmosphere became more relaxed. Family groups assembled round the central fire. An aged woman in a flowing gown emerged from the shadows and related, with plentiful gestures, what sounded like a long dull story.

“The father and the mother perform sexual intercourse, after which the child is born from inside the mother's body,” said Burek, looking up from a reverie. “I saw a reconstruction of the event in a visionshow, and it must have been extremely painful, except that, as the saying has it, ‘The cow expects nothing but what happens to cows.' You see these primitives also keep their children with them because they have no experts to teach them to grow adult properly, as with us. The whole science of adoleschematics has not been invented as far as these wretches are concerned.”

“Some of them are eating now,” said Constanza. “At least we are not on their menu tonight. Rescue must arrive by morning. Why are the squads taking so long?”

From a side-tunnel, platters of steaming food were emerging, carried by women in aprons. They were accompanied by a man with a big bag slung about his belly. He took tokens of some kind from everyone who accepted food. The watchers could not understand the meaning of this.

Takeido sniffed. “Cooking smells good. Do we get any?”

“Inevitably, they are eating animal or else their fellows,” said Kordan. “Such a diet would make us ill.”

“I would try it,” said Takeido. “Terror makes you hungry. I must eat or sit and scream.”

“I have eaten animal and come to no harm,” said Dulcifer.
Sotto voce
, he added in Sygiek's ear. “And I fancy you had to do so as part of your USRP training.”

She silenced him by putting her fingers over his mouth.

When the food scraps were being cleared away, the comparative quiet of the cavern was broken by the entry of capering animals.

Two of them rushed in, followed by cave-dwellers with whips, which they cracked vigorously. These animals were immediately recognized as carnivores. The shape of their skulls was predetermined, not by cortical development, but by the large lower jaw, to which the rest of the head appeared subordinate. Fearsome fangs were in evidence, as the creatures snarled at their tormentors. Their bodies were lean, most of the musculature and weight going into shoulders, forelegs and hindlegs. For all their animality, and their spotted hide, the basic human form was apparent—most apparent when they pranced on their hindlegs. Garments had been tied round their necks and on their heads by their tormentors, increasing the effect of cruel parody.

The leopard-like animals were driven round in a circle by their tormentors. The onlookers, sitting cross-legged with their children, clapped their hands and chanted monotonously. The chant rose to a crescendo. Gongs sounded again. With strange automatic gestures the tormentors dropped their whips, drew long swords and rushed in on the animals. Crying piteously, the leopards tried to escape. Their hindlegs had been shackled. After one or two thrusts they collapsed, writhing, and their bodies were seized and lifted high. Blood flowed. More chanting.

Everyone rose. The killers led a procession round the whole cavern area and then into the pillared building. They fell silent.

A tall man dressed in what aspired to be a uniform, with gloves, long boots, and a transparent helmet over his head, appeared from the darkness at the rear of the temple. He stood silent while the dead beasts were laid upon the stone before him. He dipped his hands in their blood. Then he strode over to the shadowy blocks of metal, where several attendants, also dressed in vestigial uniforms, waited. All began to rub and prod the arrangements of rods and casings. The audience took up a low chant.

The tall man walked to a chair placed beside the metal arrangement. Deep drums throbbed. Their beat grew more deafening. The tall man pulled a lever. Faster beat the drums. The seat tipped back, turning into a couch. The drums thundered, the audience screamed at the top of its lungs. Back went the couch, up went the arm of the rider. The noise died to a whisper, the ghost of a whisper. The finger on the end of the arm pointed up, up into the murk, to the patch of open sky. The clouds had rolled away.

In that patch of sky, one star burned.

The ceremony was suddenly over. The magic was done. The tall man climbed from his couch. Children started crying and running amid the throng, as everyone began to go home.

“I never thought to see …” Kordan said. “Ritual … it was a primitive
ritual
—forms of conduct fixed and repeated, the satisfaction of pattern reinforcing lifestyle.”

“You could be right,” said Dulcifer. “I've watched Venusian desert-skimmers performing the same meaningless acts over and over. Presumably they reinforce the image of themselves as desert-skimmers that way.”

“Why should they put on such a performance for us?” asked Sygiek.

“There you show your lack of that imagination I spoke of before we came in here,” said Takeido excitedly. “They are doing it for themselves—we don't come into it. Not yet. I believe Kordan to be substantially correct. I had forgotten the word even:
ritual
. Performing the same acts over and over, reinforcing an image. Man's distant ape ancestors on Earth may have had to perform such meaningless acts over many generations before they became human.”

“But these are not meaningless acts, Ian Takeido,” said Kordan. “For us, certainly not for them. Now I ask
you
to exercise your imagination. Imagine that capitalist ship over one million years ago. Imagine its survivors forced into various ecological niches in order to survive, losing language and human identity. How many creatures have spread and multiplied across Lysenka, surviving the impoverished Devonian? Several million? I don't know. But we have the evidence of our eyes that one of those unfortunate groups—and it may be small, may consist of no more than a couple of hundred individuals—has managed to maintain its humanity more or less intact, using hierarchy and ritual to reinforce its distinctness from the creatures on which it must prey.”

“You speak almost with compassion, Jerezy Kordan,” said Burek.

“It's no good being sympathetic to these monsters, Utopianist Kordan,” said Constanza. “They certainly aren't sympathetic to us. If they don't rape or kill us tonight, they will in the morning. They are animals. They have not fed us. They have not given us water. Soon we're going to have to use this cage as a latrine, which is disgusting.

“Even if what you say is true—and personally I don't give a fig what happened in the past—you are only talking about an extension of the illegal capitalist system, aren't you? Surely our basic utopian beliefs are put to the test right here. If all the rest of the colonists went under and just this human group survived to prey on the rest, then these are the exploiter class, the bourgeois rabble of Lysenka, and there is more reason to eliminate them than all the rest. Here is the ideological enemy. When we are rescued, they will all be shot.”

Silence fell.

“An unexpected speech from you, Comrade Constanza,” said Burek, in his deep, rather mocking voice.

“Oh, I know you think I'm just a fool. I think that you are one more élitist bore, Utopianist Burek, and I'm vexed that I am now forced to make water in your presence. Turn your backs, all of you.”