Worlds Apart (14 page)

The people on the ship had taken their name from it. They called themselves Clades, to rhyme with blades.

Toni's arms were too sore to move. Pertwee stripped the wet ket from her and eased on a shirt and slacks which had been packed in case they struck a colder climate. The temperature was lower in the Clades than they were used to.

"Yes," Pertwee agreed, dropping his voice. "If we could only get word to Lemon . . . I wonder if there's anything we could do that would give us a chance to escape?"

He closed one eye slowly at Toni, hoping she would understand. He took it that the Clades would be able to amplify the sounds in the cell and hear what he was saying.

"If either of us gets a chance, Toni," he whispered, "we'll make stra/ght for Lemon. and tell them there what these people are like. Agreed?"

"Of course," said Toni quietly. "These Clades are fools. They could have got what they liked from me if they had gone another way about it. Now, no. I'd die before I let them beat me."

Pertwee wanted to tell her she had done splendidly, but didn't dare. Any suggestion to the Clades that he was surprised at how Toni had withstood their efforts would merely encourage them to start again right away. So he was silent, and hoped Toni would understand.

The end of this was all too obvious. So obvious that he refused to think of it. If he decided now the whole thing was hopeless, what else could he expect but that everyone along the line would decide the same thing? But if he stuck to the idea of somehow getting word back to Lemon of what the Clades were like, he might do that and be able to turn the next part over to someone else.

"Surely humans on Earth weren't all like this?" Toni wondered, gently exercising her arms and trying to ignore the pain.

"No," said Pertwee. "This sort of thing only happened occasionally. We might have guessed -- you see, Toni, after the Mudis left Earth long ago, no one would know how much time there was left, but it was far too late to do anything for Earth then. So if any sort of order was to be kept on Earth and Mars and Venus, the military would have to take over. The army, the soldiers -- no, we've never had anything like that here, so I can't explain it to you. Anyway, apparently the military did take over, to the extent we see here."

"People have acted like this before? A lot of them at once?"

"Often, I'm afraid. And always in the same general pattern. Toughness, uniformity, everyone having to think and act and talk alike, having the same aims and pleasures and hates. Women subordinated, because women aren't so good as soldiers."

"But they're not subordinated. Lieutenant Fenham and that devil Barton are officers -- "

"Yes, but they have to submerge femininity. Dress like men, act like men -- like soldiers, rather. Never show a sign of weakness. Be tougher than men, in fact, in case they're not tough enough. I think you'll find the rest of the women are subordinated. That's the usual pattern -- child-bearing cattle -- "

"You could call us that in Lemon, couldn't you?"

"Not exactly. If sex is all sex and no reproduction, it's bad -- one kind of decadence. If it's all childbearing and no sex, it's bad too -- another kind of decadence. Well, if the Clades follow the pattern, sex among them will be duty. No frills, no sublety. Just conception after conception, no nonsense."

As he spoke, Pertwee was carefully reviewing all they had said. They were handing out information, of course; very little, as far as he could see, that would do the Clades much good, however. And he thought the idea of letting one of them escape was neatly planted.

Very likely, of course, they would refuse to bite. But if he and Toni continued to be stubborn, the Clades might well decide to try something else. After all, they probably didn't want to ill-treat the two Mundans too much. For all they knew, the Mundans might be very powerful, ready and willing to take offense and capable of exacting retribution. Expediency was an important part of Clade politics.

If they tried something else, Pertwee's suggestion was as good as any.

Toni and Pertwee didn't talk any more. Toni was taking her cue from Pertwee, and he was thinking, not talking. He was wondering about the Clades. How deeply-rooted was their militarism? How strong was it, how fanatic?

Autocracies, dictatorships, militarist empires of all kinds, no matter how small, were built on inhumanity. Administered by human beings, they were at least partly inhuman. Humanity, the softer, tenderer feelings, would try to break through.

How difficult was it for them, among the Clades, to break through? It could be anything from mildly undesirable to impossible. The Clades might turn out to be eternal, implacable enemies of the Mundans. Or they might be indistinguishable from the people of Lemon after a few years of freedom.

But Pertwee had to give up trying to guess. That was all it could be at the moment -- a guess.

VI

1

For the first time since they had entered the ship, Toni and Pertwee had a chance to talk to each other freely.

The ship had landed and all around it Clades were exercising. Up by the bows, a squad of men in full uniform was being drilled, moving quickly, jerkily, neatly, as one man, Toni watched fascinated. At the stern men in shorts were swinging on a bar which had been run out from the ship. They turned somersaults, pulled themselves up to sit on the bar, lay along it, hung underneath it, dropped to the ground and leaped back again -- all with the same precision and uniformity of the other squad at drill.

Over to the left a score or so of women were bending, stretching, jumping, swinging their arms. Toni didn't pay them much attention after one puzzled glance. They wore the plainest black trunks and white shirts, and they were indefinably ugly. Their bodies were slim and firm, they were clean, their skin glowed -- but nevertheless few of them could be called attractive.

"They're inferior beings," Pertwee murmured. "How could they be attractive?"

"I hate Phyllis Barton," said Toni, "but she isn't ugly."

"She's not inferior."

Toni shook her head impatiently. She didn't understand. If it was true that these women were carried only as machines to produce children, why not make a good job of it? Why not be beautiful, so that men would want them? Why not enjoy sex?

"Tenderness and gentleness have been cut out," said Pertwee. "Soldiers can't be tender. Hence love disappears too. Hence -- "

"But you can't legislate love out of existence!" exclaimed Toni.

"You can stop everybody showing any sign of it. Soon some at least will stop feeling it. That's what happens with pretense. It becomes reality."

There were more women further over, but these were the women who mattered -- the women in uniform. Toni looked at them a little more closely. There was no doubt of it, these were the girls who had anything -- intelligence, talent, courage, drive. And fortultously, perhaps, they turned out to be the girls who had any beauty too. Apparently when a girl was useful she was allowed to have a certain amount of pride in herself; if she couldn't make herself sexually attractive, at least she could make herself smart as a female soldier.

This group, which included Phyllis, was exercising under Fenham. The girls wore the slacks and shirts of their uniform, presumably to show at all times that they weren't animals like the other women.

There were other groups. But Toni and Pertwee, apart from a guard of two impassive Clades, were free to do as they wished. The guard went with them, silent but not interfering in any way.

"I think," said Pertwee in a low voice, "you're meant to escape now."

His hand tightened on her wrist as she jerked involuntarily. "Don't alarm the guard," he warned her.

"But -- "

"It's the obvious move. They were prepared to drag the whereabouts of 'Lemon from us by torture and still are. But they don't want to treat us so badly that Lemon would have to take reprisals -- "

"I don't understand that either. If they're going to subject our people, what does it matter what they do to us?"

"They don't know what Lemon is like, Toni. If they knew, we wouldn't matter. They'd torture us to death if necessary, then throw us out of the nearest lock. But Lemon may be big and powerful, for all they how."

He began to walk with Toni, ignoring the guard. They followed, but not too closely.

"Since there's no real hurry, as good a way as any of finding our settlement would be to let one of us go. We'd go to Lemon to warn them about the Clades, of course . . . "

He explained patiently. Toni wasn't very quick on the uptake when things like that were concerned. They were outside her experience, and imagination wasn't her strong point.

"But why me?" she demanded. "Why would they let me escape, and not you?"

"Oh, several reasons. One, you're a girl. Inferior, easier to follow, less likely to realize you're being followed -- you know how they regard women. Two, you know nothing from experience about them and their methods. I know a little."

The guards came closer, and he stopped.

None of the groups at exercise paid the least attention to them. Pertwee wandered further and further from the ship, wondering if the two Clades would protest, becoming more and more certain that Toni would be allowed to escape if the circumstances made it at all possible.

The trouble was that though they and the Clades were more than willing to co-operate in this, neither party would allow the other to suspect the pretense.

"Shake them off first," said Pertwee quietly, "and then make straight for Lemon. Tell them everything that has happened."

"But what about you?"

"I have to take my chance. You see, there won't be any question of letting us both go. They're going to permit one of us to go, but not both in any circumstances. So -- "

There was a cry. One of the guards had tripped in the tough bracken, and the other had turned to help him.

It was less subtle than Pertwee had expected, but it wasn't up to him to quarrel with the Clades' methods of letting one of them escape. He seized Toni's wrist and they ran.

"Stop!" the guard shouted, but not until they were well away. "Stop, or I fire!"

"Separate!" gasped Pertwee.

They had to co-operate with the Clades all the way in this. If they wanted to the Clades could recapture them both in the next five minutes. The thing to do was to allow them to recapture the one they wanted, spectacularly, and let the other somehow slip through their fingers.

Pertwee went left, Toni right. To the left was a ridge of rock, and Pertwee made for the corner. The bracken was often waist-high; it seldom afforded a real obstruction, but it did a lot to hide an escape such as this. Pertwee bent double and ran.

There was shouting behind him, shouting and something he hadn't heard for years -- the cracking of shots. He heard the sound of a motor, and wondered if the Clades had a plane or helicopter. But it could only have been a ground vehicle.

He reached the rock, wheeled and ran behind it so that he could make a mile or two upright, without being visible from the Clades. He was impatient. Why didn't they take him? Toni could run like a deer. She must be far enough away by this time for them to be able to pretend they had lost her.

On and on he went. The shouts faded; so did the sound of the motor. He got his second wind and went on doggedly. The first shadows of dusk spread around him. There came a time when he could stand erect and see the horizon all round, but not the great bulk of the Clades.

At last he realized they had retaken Toni and let him go free. He staggered as the thought struck him. He had been so sure that there was nothing he could do, that it all depended on Toni. But the responsibility was his after all.

And Toni, beyond any doubt, was back on board the Clades, perhaps being punished, as part of the pretense, for his escape.

1

Pertwee crawled cautiously through the bracken, estimating the wind.

There was hardly ever a strong wind on Mundis, by Terran standards. The air was in constant but not organized, united motion. Only occasionally, as at the moment, did conditions combine to produce a light breeze. The rain, when it came in two hours or so, would for once come down at an angle.

The Clades tracking him knew exactly where he was, of course. He couldn't see them, but he was perfectly prepared to believe that they were better trackers than he. They couldn't very well be worse. On Mundis he had never tracked anyone or anything.

He tried to keep his thoughts away from Toni. His escape had been so easy: it was difficult to remember that Toni's would have been absolutely impossible.

The breeze was moving. It was turning slowly and evenly. On the realization he took out a box of matches and struck one. The breeze wasn't enough to blow it out, though it guttered and flickered wildly.

Pertwee dropped it and crawled away from it as fast as he could. Presently he stopped. The match had gone out. He lit another philosophically. Range fires would start spontaneously, and twice on their journey he and Toni had started fires despite their care to avoid it. But when one tried to do it, it wasn't nearly so easy.

His heart was pounding, and he broko a match clumsily in his nervousness. His memory produced vivid pictures of fire warning posters from his childhood, and he remembered his older brother Harry talking ironically about how to start a fire: Fill the furnace with old damp newspaper and wet sticks and ashes, and throw a stubbed-out cigarette end on top. The fire would immediately blaze up and if precautions weren't taken at once it would be a job for the firemen . . .

Harry was dead long ago.

Pertwee dropped the third match and watched it carefully, anxiously. The tendrils round it blackened. Of course, since he was watching over it, it caught and blazed rapidly, and he had to scuttle through the bracken at top speed to get ahead of the bIaze.

In case they could still see him he didn't head for the wood yet. He moved along parallel to it, into the wind.

A shout told him the fire had been seen, and had put an end for the moment at least to the pretense that he was alone on the Mundan moor. He halted for a moment to look back cautiously. The Clades were erect, six of them -- there were probably more at other points of the compass, though -- shouting and running towards him. But as he watched the flame cut them off.