The Rebel Worlds

She laid a hand on his shoulder. That was her way; she liked to touch people she cared about. “You’re no Imperial, Dominic,” she said. “You belong with us.”

“Be that as it may—” he said, confused.

“Why do you stand with Josip? You know what he is. You’ve seen his cronies, like Snelund, who could end by replacin’ him in all but name. Why don’t you join us, your kind?”

He knew why not, starting with the fact that he didn’t believe the revolution could succeed and going on to more fundamental issues. But he could not tell her that, on this suddenly magical day. “Maybe you’ll convert me,” he said. “Meanwhile, what about language lessons?”

“Why, ’course.”

Flandry could not forbid his men to sit in, and a number of them did. By straining his considerable talent, he soon disheartened them and they quit. After that, he had Kathryn’s whole notice for many hours per week. He ignored the jealous stares, and no longer felt jealous himself when she fell into cheerful conversation with one of the troop or joined a campfire circle for singing.

Nor did it perturb him when Chief Petty Officer Robbins returned from an excursion with her in search of man-edible plants, wearing a black eye and a sheepish look. Unruffled, she came in later and treated Robbins exactly as before. Word must have spread, for there were no further incidents.

Flandry’s progress in his lessons amazed her. Besides having suitable genes, he had been through the Intelligence Corps’ unmercifully rigorous courses in linguistics and metalinguistics, semantics and metasemantics, every known trick of concentration and memorization; he had learned how to learn. Few civilian scientists received that good a training; they didn’t need it as urgently as any field agent always did. Inside a week, he had apprehended the structures of Thunderstone’s language and man’s pidgin — no easy feat, when the Didonian mind was so absolutely alien.

Or was it? Given the basic grammar and vocabulary, Flandry supplemented Kathryn’s instruction by talking, mainly with Cave Discoverer. It went ridiculously at first, but after weeks he got to the point of holding real conversations. The Didonian was as interested in him and Kathryn as she was in heesh. She took to joining their colloquies, which didn’t bother him in the least.

Cave Discoverer was more adventurous than average. Heesh’s personality seemed more clearly defined than the rest, including any others in the party which incorporated heesh’s members. At home heesh hunted, logged, and went on rambling explorations when not too busy. A

Aside from educational duties, none of them linked indiscriminately. Why waste the time of a unit that could make part of an outstanding entity, in junction with units less gifted? The distinction was somewhat blurred but nonetheless real in Thunderstone, between “first families” and “proles.” No snobbery or envy appeared to be involved. The attitude was pragmatic. Altruism within the communion was so taken for granted that the concept did not exist.

Or thus went Flandry’s and Kathryn’s impressions. She admitted they might be wrong. How do you probe the psyche of a creature with three brains, each of which remembers its share in other creatures and, indirectly, remembers things that occurred generations before it was born?

Separately, the nogas were placid, though Kathryn said they became furious if aroused. The krippos were excitable and musical; they produced lovely clear notes in intricate patterns. The rukas were restless, curious, and playful. But these were generalizations. Individual variety was as great as for all animals with well-developed nervous systems.

Cave Discoverer was in love with heesh’s universe. Heesh looked forward with excitement to seeing Port Frederiksen and wondered about the chance of going somewhere in a spaceship. After heesh got straight the basic facts of astronomy, xenology, and galactic politics, heesh’s questions sharpened until Flandry wondered if Didonians might not be inherently more intelligent than men. Could their technological backwardness be due to accidental circumstances that would no longer count when they saw the possibility of making systematic progress?

The future could be theirs, not ours. Flandry thought. Kathryn would reply, “Why can’t it be everybody’s?”

Meanwhile the expedition continued — through rain, gale, fog, heat, strange though not hostile communions, finally highlands where the men rejoiced in coolness. There, however, the Didonians shivered, and went hungry in a land of sparse growth, and, despite their krippos making aerial surveys, often blundered upon impassable stretches that forced them to retrace their steps and try again. It was here, in High Maurusia, that battle smote them.

XII

The easiest way to reach one pass was through a canyon. During megayears, a river swollen by winter rains had carved it, then shrunken in summer. Its walls gave protection from winds and reflected some heat; this encouraged plant life to spring up every dry season along the streambed, where accumulated soil was kinder to feet than the naked rock elsewhere. Accordingly, however twisted and boulder-strewn, it appeared to offer the route of choice.

The scenery was impressive in a gaunt fashion. The river rolled on the parry’s left, broad, brown, noisy and dangerous despite being at its low point. A mat of a

“Damn it, sir, why do we take for granted we’ll turn ourselves in at Port Frederiksen without a fight?” Havelock was protesting. “This notion our case is hopeless, it’s encouraging treasonable thoughts.”

Flandry refrained from saying he was aware of that. Havelock had been less standoffish than the rest; but a subtle barrier persisted, and Flandry had cultivated him for weeks before getting this much confidence. He knew Havelock had a girl on Terra.

“Well, Ensign,” he said, “I can’t make promises, for the reason that I’m not about to lead us to certain death. As you imply, though, the death may not necessarily be certain. Why don’t you feel out the men? I don’t want anyone denounced to me,” having a pretty fair idea myself, “but you might quietly find who’s … let’s not say trustworthy, we’ll assume everybody is, let’s say enthusiastic. You might, still more quietly, alert them to stand by in case I do decide on making a break. We’ll talk like this, you and I, off and on. More off than on, so as not to provoke suspicion. We’ll get Kathryn to describe the port’s layout, piecemeal, and that’ll be an important element in what I elect to do.”