In Solitary (6 page)

‘Cave,’ breathed Endrod deeply. ‘I have him at last.’

Opanion offered nothing, for the Chief Librarian suddenly went into the Soal position of deep concentration with the head pulled deep down between the equivalent of the human clavicles. Opanion waited patiently for Endrod to come out. Finally the Chief Librarian surfaced again.

He said, ‘Who is conducting the search for the fugitives?’

‘Kaltan, head of the Ostraylean military,’ answered Opanion.

‘That’s good,’ continued Endrod. ‘He is a particular friend of mine being from the same string of eggs.’ The Soal females laid a string of capsule-shaped eggs once every three tours. These were left in a public room to be visited by various males who pierced one of the leather-shelled eggs at random, fertilizing it. Thus several Soal might have the same mother but different fathers. The male cared for the egg during the period prior to hatching and the mother played no more part in the welfare of her offspring. It was only during reproduction that the Soal discriminated between their sexes. At all other times the gender was disregarded. Endrod was a male and Opanion a female but apart from their hidden sexual organs, there was no physical difference between them. No Soal would take gender into account when considering anything but the laying
and fertilizing of eggs. Comradeship was not unknown amongst them, but romantic love was. The Soal considered the human males and females as two entirely different species – they felt more comfortable with that idea, though they knew it to be untrue.

Endrod said, ‘I want you to go to him and ask him to delay the search for the natives until I arrive there. The Klees of Ostraylea is still here, for the annual conference is not yet over. I will ask leave of absence to join him in his homeward journey tomorrow. It is a long time since I visited the southern hemisphere so there will be nothing suspicious in my request. Now you go.’

Opanion left to make preparations for his trip. Endrod made his way to his own chambers.

Once in his rooms he took a favourite crossbow from the wall upon which it hung to serve as an ornamentation and then called for a junior librarian to accompany him upon a long hunting trip.

The annual Conference of the Klees was nearing its close and the twenty-four Klees had once again given a majority vote in favour of allowing those humans that were alive to remain so – apart from any law-breakers amongst them. It was a small insurance against an accident of the future. The majority vote was becoming smaller each year, however, and the Klees of Brytan, the leader of the moderates, feared that the extremists would soon gain fuller support. It was argued by the latter group that humans were wasteful, in that they devoured flesh by the pound, whereas a Soal would make a decaying piece of meat last until the maggots finally consumed it. Humans also required constant surveillance to prevent revolt and this was an exhausting task for the Soal military, whose numbers were decreasing rather than growing. The Soal race, as a whole, was shrinking because of sexual indolence. Reproduction was a duty, not a pleasure, and duties were becoming distasteful things that wasted valuable relaxation time.

Soal public opinion held that the Earth was a safe little nest, and nothing could possibly harm them, except perhaps the internal problems created by humans. Destroy the humans, and all would be placid and unruffled security. Why bother keeping numbers at their maximum if it was unnecessary?
Of course there would need to be a minimum population for the species to perpetuate – but the actual figure could be decided upon when the numbers fell nearer to danger level. It was only by skilful oratory that the Klees of Brytan had managed to persuade the majority of the other Klees that the slaughter of humans was not a course to embark upon at that time.

The world was segregated into twenty-four sections between latitudes 60° North and 6o° South. Each segment was of the same size, and whether it consisted of water or of land was of no consideration. The Klees of Brytan was no less important than the Klees of Central Aysea, even though the latter’s territory consisted entirely of continental land mass and the Klees of Brytan had included in his area many thousands of useless acres of ocean. In fact, policing was more difficult work for the Klees of Brytan as humans were permitted to live only on small islands and wasteland.

The land outside the 60° latitudes, the poles, part of Kanadar, Skandanayvea and Usser, was not under the direct control of the Klees, but those who had territories that bordered these places helped to police them for any humans that might be forming bands. Like the Soal, humans had an inherent magnetism that drew them together.

The main item on the agenda for the conference was the fracture of one of the spars on the Ostraylean mushroom tower. The Klees of Ostraylea required consent to gather humans to repair the damage. Asked why the humans were needed he said that though much of the work could be carried out by machines, certain tasks required the dexterity, strength and intelligence of a human. In the network of towers which maintained a fairly constant temperature over the surface of the Earth, a single tower was highly important; Soal could live for only a short time in varying temperatures. As part of a network, each tower was in itself a keystone, but they also did another job – a far more important one which was revealed only to Soal of a certain rank. Like humans the Soal placed little trust in each other as individuals. Endrod had proved untrustworthy in once giving the secret to a human in the hope that the human would have to die. Instead the knowledge was wiped
clean from both their minds and Endrod was left with an intense hatred for the humans who he knew had been responsible for his demotion.

There was a sail, a long way off on the horizon,
cutting across the blue water like the dorsal fin of a giant fish. We watched it, running with the wind, and envied its helmsman the freedom and joy of reckless speed.

This was a different ocean from the one we had known – the water was of a blue glass and seemed as if it would shatter when a stone was tossed onto its surface. There was a tide but no mud – just a bed of jagged rocks and sand.

When the water was full, up to the lip of the island, we could bathe in it and watch the fish – fish of many shapes and colours – darting about amongst a hard, multi-hued rock which grew like a plant beneath the water.

Stella was enthralled with our new environment and I could see that Fridjt did not dislike it either. We still had to dodge the Soal whenever they came near to the island, but it was so easy to hide amongst the foliage which covered the land. In any case, the Soal did not seem to be interested in thorough searches for they never went overhead at all; they just skirted the beaches. There was evidence of human occupation on the island, but the owner of the house and other human artifacts was not present. We suspected that since the possessions appeared to have been recently in use that the owner was away – probably it was the mating period in this part of the world.

There was one particular type of tree, the most prevalent variety, which fascinated me. It grew large nuts which contained a liquid that was delicious to drink; Stella called the tree a palm. (Stella, I had since learned, was quite knowledgeable about the Old World before the Soal. The
women, it seemed, passed on stories of the Old World to their daughters and in this way retained a small amount of our history. There would have been no point in telling the stories to a son – men had no one to whom they could retell the tale, since it was the mothers that kept the children.)

Fridjt continually remarked that the air was clean and fresh on the island, something that did nothing to enhance the place as far as I, a breather of what Stella called ‘the foul atmospheres of the Soal muck pits’, was concerned. Once, she caught me deeply inhaling the delightful fumes from a rotting fish that I had found on the beach, and she became quite angry, abusing my mother and calling me a ‘Soal shitsmeller.’ She terminated her vicious verbal attack with a slap. After that episode I tried to cure myself of the habit.

After a time it became obvious to the three of us that the sailing craft, a very sleek vehicle that seemed to ride the air some two or three centimetres above the water, was heading towards the island. Man is at his most beautiful cutting through the air in one of his own creations. This man was sitting at the rear of his craft managing the steering mechanism. As the craft drew closer we hid in the foliage, for the occupant would attempt to kill us if we confronted him directly, on his own territory.

‘I shall hold him,’ said Fridjt, ‘while you try to talk him into our way of thinking. If it seems useless, we shall have to kill him.’

‘Or her,’ I corrected.

‘Him,’ said Stella, emphatically, nodding towards the boat.

The man, and it was a man, was standing up in the craft now and we could see that our earlier viewing of the boat’s capabilities had resulted in illusions: it did not ride above the waves but instead skimmed their crests. It gave me a peculiar sensation in my stomach to watch the voyager hopping from wave-top to wave-top and my single experience of a ride on the ocean’s surface as a boy left me in no doubt as to how I should feel as a passenger in the craft.

As the boat skipped over the submerged white wall, from the waves to the calmer water close to the island, the new comer swiftly dropped the sail and glided
in, with the momentum, to slide onto the sand. Jumping out he secured the craft by pulling it up the beach. Then he turned and began to walk towards us. We noticed he was limping and one eye had a huge dark swelling beneath it; mating wounds, I had no doubt.

We waited by the path that led to his primitive dwelling, the tension high between us. We heard him pushing the fronds of the larger plants aside as he walked and he was grumbling about something to himself. Suddenly he stopped and looked about him curiously. My heart began to race. He suspected something and he was a big man, almost as large as Fridjt; also a weapon hung from a thong at his waist: a piece of hard wood studded with sharp teeth along each edge. He would be a difficult man to take on in an open frontal attack.

However, after a grunt he continued down the overgrown path, slightly more cautiously than before. I hugged the shadowy, dark floor of the jungle and waited until I heard him pass – then a gargle fell on my ears and looking up I saw Fridjt had him by the throat from behind and was trying to pull him down.

The islander was immensely strong and Fridjt hung on to the man’s neck with his full weight off the ground for a few seconds, while the pair of them swayed on the jungle track. Then, as the islander tried to prise open Fridjt’s fingers, he fell to the floor with the mudwalker on top. There was a brief struggle, but mating had left the man weak and by the way his eyes suddenly widened I could tell that Fridjt had gripped him by the testicles and was applying pressure.

‘No!’ he shouted.

‘Not crush – kill me first.’ His dialect was strange but we understood the words.

Stella answered. ‘No one will hurt you if you do as I tell you.’

I glanced at Stella quickly. How easily she assumed the role of leader, without really having anything else, no physical strength or powerful mind, to offer.

‘Get his weapon Cave,’ grunted Fridjt, the exertion evident in his voice. They were obviously a match for each other. I quickly bent down and yanked the strange dagger from the islander’s waist, snapping the thong.

‘Get that cord around his hands,’ snapped Stella. I did as
I was told, though he struggled violently under Fridjt’s adhesive grip. Once we had him tied we sat him against one of the trees and Stella spoke to him in a soothing voice.

‘We won’t hurt you, as long as you don’t try to attack us,’ she said gently.

‘We will die,’ he sniffed back at her, his broad face sullen. ‘We will all die when Soal catch us together.’

I said, ‘They won’t. We’ll hide in the plants.’

He found this rather funny and laughed.

‘Jungle will not hide us. They can see through Jungle with their machine.’

We all looked at one another and I wiped a brow suddenly wet with perspiration. We had trusted that the leaves would conceal us: viewers had not been used on the mud. We had been an ace away from discovery. The Soal obviously thought that all humans in this area would be mating at that time and only made cursory inspections of the beaches.

‘We mustn’t make another mistake like that,’ said Stella thoughtfully. ‘But if you do get caught together, any of you, then I suggest you start fighting each other immediately. The fight would have to terminate with one of you dying, of course, otherwise the Soal will know you are not serious. Therefore I suggest the fight is in earnest. That way one of you will live.’

I nodded, being the weakest man, to show that I accepted this as the only sensible action in such circumstances, though I was virtually agreeing to throw my life away.

I swallowed and finished off her little speech.

‘The Soal will be told by the survivor that the other man was trespassing. But what about you? Shall we start becoming amorous or what?’

Stella answered swiftly. ‘That would not work. I take my chances the same as you two – and I warn you now, I fight dirty.’

We protested but she insisted that it was the only way to handle an emergency.

‘However, these are extreme measures – for use only in the last ditch. For now we must find a place to hide out, where the Soal can’t see us.’

There was a noise on the ground behind us.
We had forgotten our captive and he was now on his feet. We watched him warily, Fridjt especially, and waited to see if he would make a run for it. Instead he spoke.

‘I will show you place,’ he promised.

His eyes were wide apart on his broad clean-shaven face – deep brown eyes above flaring nostrils. It was, even taking into account my limited experience of my fellow humans, a most dishonest face.

‘Don’t let him loose,’ I warned. ‘He’ll butcher the lot of us.’