Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales (37 page)

A healthy discussion ensued, as they hurried onwards.

When they reached a mountain pass, they came across more of the enemy emerging from huts with whirling arms that had come down from the gathering of rain-clouds. The green and brown warriors carried guns the boy had never seen before and looked more like wooden figures from a sacred gate come to life than they did flesh and blood men. Clearly the enemy were not interested in debate, for they swooped on the village in a silence interrupted only by the roar of their weapons.

The youth and his bride hid in a cave and they stayed there for two days before venturing out again. He went down to the ruined village to see if anyone was left alive. Unhappily they were all dead.

At the time of the attack the great shaman had been caught in the middle of some wonderful rhetoric, for his blackened jaw was still wide open. When the youth sorted through his smouldering bones, in the haze of a smoky afternoon, he found they were cracked in many places. Although he had never smoked opium, the boy was able to read these divine messages easily, and predict the future of the tribe.

In the evening, it rained, sizzling upon the hot earth.

 
Travel the world, meet interesting people and I’ll fill in endless forms for no particular reason.
Bureaucracy, the bane of any traveller’s life.
Also a dangerous weapon of control.

‘They’re not supposed to discriminate,’ said the angular man to my left, ‘but they do. Yes sir...’ His voice trailed off in bitter resentment. There were three of us, humans, sitting together—the idiotic herd instinct. Moreover, we had been together for nine units, and I knew the whole orchestral range of his indignation, from the low whine to the high, heated complaints. I was sweating. The temperature of the room was very uncomfortable. You had to admit those Spicans had it all weighed up. This was acceptable heat for most races. Not for us, though, and that was the main reason for it being set so high.

The woman said, ‘Discriminate? I’ve been here thirteen times.’

Here
was the location of the only Spican bureau in the Affiliation—the moon of a remote planet that circled Algol.

‘But I’ll get past them,’ she muttered, tight-lipped. She was thin and brittle and, I guessed, touching seventy Earth years.

‘They won’t keep me out. I’ve been to all sorts of places they’ve not even heard
of
.’

I stared at the oval doorway through which I would pass within the next few units. Inside that chamber was a Spican. Not many people have seen a live Spican, let alone talked to one. They were humanoids, a lot like us...or maybe not. Physically Earthmen and Spicans were compatible. That was the main source of their dislike for us.
Our physical compatibility.
Mentally, spiritually, we were galaxies apart. The clerks in the outer chambers were all Alterians, Spican employees with a flair for petty bureaucracy. My God, did they have a gift for that little game! They could drive a man up the concave walls and halfway to insanity with their endless cards, disks, tapes, and
I’m
afraids.

‘I’m afraid you haven’t the required seal on your application, sir. You’ll need to have this reprocessed.’

‘I’m afraid the clerk you spoke to previously has now left our employ. Could you begin again?’

Greasy, oil-blue excuse for a smile.
The snapper showing a band of hard bone.

Lost cards. Lost tapes. Lost identity.
Signatures from inaccessible officials.
Excessive quarantine periods.
Stringent medicals. Monetary investigations. Family history. The works.

The salesman stood up, his rumpled, soiled clothes at variance with his expensive luggage. He walked over to a free window and impatiently rapped on the screen. Behind the screen the clerk stood up and, without giving any indication of having heard or seen, moved out of our range of vision. The salesman loosened his collar, shrugged, and dropped down heavily onto the purposely hard, lumpy benches that were so low to the floor that an average Terran’s knees almost dislocated his jaw when he used them.

‘See what I mean?’ he said. ‘Bastards.
Ignorant as hell.
Make a fuss and they’re all over you with their slimy apologies. But you still don’t get anything done faster.’

‘Patience, pal,’ I said.

‘Patience, shit!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve just about had enough! Anybody else says patience to me, I’ll punch a few noses—or whatever,’ he snarled, glaring round at the other members of the Affiliation. A Miran coughed in the silence that followed.

‘Settle down, chum,’ I said softly. ‘You’re frightening the lady.’

‘Like hell he is,’ the lady in question cackled. ‘I just wanna see him break a few things.’

I said quickly, ‘
None
of us will get to Spica’s worlds that way. We’ll all get canned.’

‘That’s just what these guys want, right?’ said the salesman, now taking my advice and calming down. ‘Well, they’re not
gonna
get it—not from me. I’ll get past immigration if it kills me.’

‘Dead ones don’t get in any quicker than live ones,’ muttered the old lady. The salesman took no notice of this advice.

‘Get in,’ he said, ‘that’s all they told me at head office. “Get in there and sell,” they said.’ He looked at me with stricken eyes, and I suddenly pitied him.

‘How the hell can I sell when they keep me away from my customers?’

I nodded. He was right. He would never get to a Spican world. But I would. The infinite delaying tactics employed by the Spicans couldn’t stop Alex Clay. I was no grit-eyed salesman or kitsch-loving tourist sponging up ethnic origins and alien cultures in order to drench my penurious relatives. The machine wasn’t built that didn’t grind to a halt when my spanner landed in its guts. G-time was seventeen units. I stood up and strode toward the oval doorway leading to the inner chamber. I heard the salesman behind me say, ‘Now where the hell does he think...?’ An Alterian stepped in my path. He was a full head shorter than I.

‘You can’t—’ he began.

‘Oh but I can. You see
,
I’ve waited ten units. I’m entitled.’

His eye glanced around nervously.

‘No violence,’ he said flatly.

I smiled.
‘Of course, no violence.
I’m merely telling you the law. We’re on Spican soil—here in this immigration office—and I’ve waited ten units. I am now entitled to an audience, under Spican law,’ I finished softly. His snapper came open involuntarily, and he closed it, using his claw. He stared for a while, then said, ‘Wait here,’ and passed into the oval.

A short time later he was back, and under the incredulous stares of my erstwhile companions, I entered the inner chamber.

‘You quote Spican law to me?’

A tall, elegant creature was standing with his back to me, gazing through the transparent wall over the silent landscape of the moon. It was dusk outside and still. The only light, a purple glow from a cluster of house-high rocks nearby.

‘I do,’ I replied quietly.

He turned to face me then. We were about the same height, and I am tall for a Terran, but his build was better proportioned than my own. He was also very handsome.

‘And who are you?’

‘Alex Clay.
I’m a Terran engineer.’

‘I’m aware of your planet of origin—only two races that answer to the pattern of the human form, and you are no Spican. I believe that’s what you call us?’ His accent was a peculiar mixture of rounded vowels and clipped word endings.

‘You know very well what we call you,’ I replied. I laid my identisc on a polished slate table before him. He made no move toward it, his hands clasped behind the multifold cloak.

‘How do you know of our laws?’

I glanced around the chamber. It was tastefully decorated with bright metallic centripetals that covered the walls and ceiling. ‘Nice place.’

‘Answer my questions,’ he said.

I snapped, ‘I don’t have to answer questions of that nature. I won’t be intimidated by some petty official.’

He flushed at this and seemed about to palm an eyeswitch.

‘And calling your minions won’t help you this time,’ I anticipated. ‘I’ve had enough of their brand of intimidation, too.’

He hesitated, and finally his hand fell back to his side. ‘I am asking you now, as a polite inquiry. How did you know that under Spican law an official must admit a suppliant to his presence after ten units?’

‘I was told,’ I replied. ‘Now that I’m here, I shall inform you in your official capacity that I intend to emigrate to a Spican world.’

‘Which one?’ He sounded sure of himself. Sure that no matter what passed between us, I would never make it.

‘Alca-s.’ I pronounced it perfectly, softly hissing the end of the word.

He winced. ‘You’ll have to do something with that after-s,’ he replied, destroying my illusions. ‘It grates.’ He continued, ‘
We
don’t have much call for engineers. In fact I think we are fully employed.’

‘How the hell do you know?’ I replied quickly, sitting down on the cushion. ‘You don’t know my discipline.’

‘Starship maintenance?’ He looked away from my eyes. ‘Well, you didn’t think I’d see you without looking at your personal file, did you?’

‘I’d have been disappointed had it been otherwise,’ I answered. ‘Do they have any trees on Alca-s?’ This time I didn’t attempt a correct pronunciation.

‘Trees?’ He looked offended at the word.

‘Yes, tall organic structures composed of wood.’

His voice turned cold. ‘I don’t see the connection—’

I interrupted. ‘It’s a protest on my part,’ I said. ‘Forested planets produce an administrative mechanism based on paper. Even after the paper’s gone, the administrative blocking techniques live on. Paper is manufactured from wood,’ I explained.

‘I know about paper,’ he nodded seriously. ‘I still don’t see.’

‘The Alterian worlds are forested. That’s why they suit your purposes— why you use Alterians as clerks in your immigration offices.’ His eyes began to register intelligence. The
irises
were
a soft mushroom gray
. ‘It’s a sickness, really—Terra has it, always will have. The bogging bureaucrats.’

He nodded and I could see he was following my argument.

‘You use it to keep us out,’ I said. ‘You need the Affiliation for the security of its economy, for the trade. But under Affiliation law you have to accept immigrants as part of the package deal.
The right of free passage for all member worlds.
Yes?’

‘Yes,’ he said. He walked to the far side of the chamber and washed his hands in a moonshaped dish. Symbolic?

‘Do you work for the government, Clay?’

‘The Affiliation of Worlds?’ I said.

‘You know what I mean.
The government of Terra.
Your own government.’

‘I used to, once upon a time,’ I said, aware of what was in my personal history—the recorded part, that is. ‘I was an engineer on their solar freighters as a young man. Later I graduated to starships and left Earth for good. I haven’t been back in
..
.
nearly
five megaunits.’

He rubbed his hands into each other. He said, ‘
You
’re suddenly being very co-operative. Why the change of tactics?’