Virgin Planet Page 4

  The bolt gave way. Valeria threw the door open. Davis stumbled out, got a foot in a stirrup and swung himself aboard. Valeria mounted another bird at his side, Barbara took the lead. They jogged toward the broken gate, where Claudia and a few guards still smote forlornly at a ring of enemies. The orsper’s pace was not so smooth as a horse’s, and Davis was painfully reminded that a mounted man does well to wear tight pants. This silly kilt was no help. He stood up in the stirrups, swearing.

  Someone ran from the Big House. “Help! Ohhh—” Davis glimpsed Elinor’s face, blind with terror. He leaned over, caught her wrist, and whirled her toward a spare orsper.

  “Get that pantywaist out of here!” yelled Valeria.

  Elinor scrambled up. Barbara freed her ax and broke into a gallop. Willy-nilly, Davis followed.

  A band of women stood before them. A bolt hummed maliciously past his ear. Barbara’s orsper kicked with a gruesomely clawed foot. Davis’ mount stumbled on something. Valeria leaned over and swung at a shadowy form, sparks showered.

  Then they were out of the melee, on the street, into the fields and the forest beyond.

  VII

  Davis woke up after eclipse. For a moment he knew only one pulsing ache, then memory of his all-night ride came back and he gasped.

  Barbara, crouched over a little smokeless fire, preparing a meal from what supplies and equipment had been in the saddlebags, smiled at him. “How are you?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. Oof!” Davis crawled from his bedroll. His legs were so sore from standing as he rode that he didn’t think he would ever walk again.

  Dousing his head in a nearby spring helped, and he looked around. They had come a goodly ways from Freetoon, into a tall country of ancient woods and steep hillsides. Northward the land climbed higher still, with snow on the peaks. The day was clear and windy, sunlight spilled across green slopes and Minos brooded remotely overhead. Ay was a searing spark to the east, daily overtaking the closer sun.

  “Bertie!”

  Davis lurched to his feet as Elinor came from the forest, sleeking back her long hair. She fell into his arms and kissed him.

  “Bertie, you saved my life, oh, I’m so grateful . . . do you know, Bertie, I believe you’re a Man!”

  “You might come slice your Man some bread,” said Barbara acidly. “Why did you bring her, Davis? Of all the useless—And good women are dead back in Freetoon!”

  Valeria strolled into sight, crossbow on her shoulder and a plump bird in one hand. “Hell,” she drawled, “all we need to do is leave the Dyckman beast here. Let her make her own way back.”

  “I’ll die!” screamed Elinor. “There are jacklins in these woods! I’ll be killed! You can’t—Bertie!”

  “Keep out of this, Davis,” snapped Valeria.

  He blew up. “I’ll be damned to Evil if I will!” he roared. “I’ve been pushed around long enough!”

  In his present mood, he would have welcomed an excuse to clip that coppertopped hellion on the jaw, but Barbara intervened just as Valeria pulled a knife. “Enough out of all of you,” she said. “We have to stick together. Davis, if you insist, we’ll let this . . . Elinor come along till we reach some town. Now sit down and eat!”

  “Yes, ma’m,” said Davis meekly.

  The food was strengthening, it seemed to give him back his manhood. Now that he was out of that filthy jail, he ought to start exercising some choice. He would have given much for a cup of coffee and a cigaret, but neither being available, he opened the council. “What are your plans?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Valeria. Both Whitleys had calmed down as fast as they’d flared up, though Elinor remained tactfully inconspicuous. “Last night I only thought about getting away.”

  Davis tugged his beard. It itched. “Just what will happen at Freetoon?” he asked. “No massacres, I hope.”

  “Oh, no,” said Barbara. “There’ve been conquests before. As far as the lower castes are concerned, it’s only a change of bosses. And some of the soldiers will take a fresh oath to the new Udall—Damons, Burkes, Hausers—” She snorted the names. “But families like us, who don’t switch loyalties so easily, have to be killed. Though I imagine a lot of our sort got away into the woods. Outlaw life—” She shrugged, woefully.

  “All right,” said Davis. “But what do you want to do? Claudia and her daughters are most likely dead now. You haven’t got any chief to be loyal to.”

  The cousins stared at him and each other, as if suddenly bewildered. It was a moment before Valeria said savagely:

  “Well, the powers of your ship aren’t going to be used for Bess Udall of Greendale! Not after she killed barracks mates of mine.”

  Davis nodded, thinking his own thoughts. If Bess got her hooks on him, the situation would return to what it had been. He wouldn’t lift gravs for her without a spear at his back and strict orders to destroy some town which Union law said he must die rather than bombard. He might well be tortured by way of inducement.

  Therefore he must recapture his boat, somehow, despite all the guards the victorious allies would mount over it . . . big joke!

  Barbara looked at the northern ranges. “We’ve scant hope of finding help this side of Smoky Pass,” she said. “But nobody’s crossed the mountains for, oh, generations. They say there arc some strange folk living over there. If they’d help . . . we could promise them die loot from the enemy—”

  “Wait a minute!” Davis’ brain whirred. He was not forbidden by law to use violence against primitives, if it would save himself or rectify an obviously bad turn of affairs. But he doubted that a Coordinator board would see eye to eye with Barbara on what constituted rectification. “Look, look here,” he stammered. “Wasn’t there a message already sent to this, uh, holy Ship of yours?”

  “To the Doctors? Yes,” said Valeria. “They would decide—”

  “Ah, ha!” Whoever these mysterious Doctors were, they knew enough science to operate a parthenogenesis machine. He’d have a better chance of convincing them of the truth than anyone else. And they could order his boat returned to him!

  “Let’s go to the Doctors,” he said quickly. “They have the final disposition of the case anyway, and we’d be safe there.”

  “We can’t!” said Valeria, quite aghast. “Barbara and I are only Maidens. And you—the Ship is sacred to Father!”

  “But I’m a man,” argued Davis. “Or a monster, if you insist. The rules don’t apply to me.” He glanced at Elinor. “You’re an initiate, aren’t you?” She nodded eagerly. “All right. You can escort me through the taboo area.”

  It took a good deal of wrangling. Being roared down out of bigger lungs was a salutary new experience for the Whitleys. Eventually they agreed, reserving the right to find allies if the Doctors, who seldom mixed in politics, would not order Freetoon liberated. The meaning of “liberation” in such a context was vague to Davis, but the poor lost kids needed something to hope for.

  “We’ll have to continue north,” said Valeria. “Over Smoky Pass and down through the valleys on the other side to the coast . . . because the Holy River route, all this region, will be full of people hunting you, Davis. Once we reach the coast, we can maybe get passage with the sea-dwellers, back to the Ship at Holy River mouth.”

  The prospect looked strenuous, thought the man dismally.

  At least it was summer. The Atlantean seasons were due only to the eccentricity of Minos’ orbit, but he had gathered that hereabouts the variation of weather was considerable. A satellite always facing its primary: permanent tidal bulge, terrific mountains on the inner hemisphere and mostly ocean on the outer . . . oh, well.

  He remembered an item. “Do you have a sewing kit?” he asked. “I’ll need a, uh—” he blushed—“special garment.”

  “I’ll make it for you,” said Barbara helpfully. “Just let me get the measurements.”

  Davis’ ears glowed cadmium red. “No, thanks! You wouldn’t understand.”

  Elinor, who ha
d picked up a little self-confidence, piped: “This trip will take just weeks, won’t it? But the Freetoon couriers will have reached the Ship pretty soon. The Doctors will send word back. Why, we may meet one of their legates!”

  “That’s all right,” said Valeria.

  “Just so we don’t fall into Greendale hands.” She drew a finger across her throat.

  “Must you?” said Elinor faintly.

  Davis glanced up at Minos. The big planet 5000 Earth masses, was almost half full, its amber face blurred by a crushingly thick hydrogen atmosphere, cloudy bands of dull green and blue and brown, dark blots which were storms large enough to swallow Terra whole. He shivered., It was a long, lonesome way home; the Service wouldn’t visit Delta of its own accord for decades, and he didn’t think he could survive that long. Why, missing his anti-geriatric treatments would alone cut his life down to a lousy century! In short, me hoy, you’ve got no choice. You’re jolly well on the Whitley team.

  He looked at the cousins and then at Elinor; she smiled back at him. It could be a lot worse, he reflected. One man alone with three beautiful girls—if he couldn’t make a good thing out of that, he didn’t deserve to . . .

  Some days later, Davis Bertram shivered on the heights of the Ridge with Elinor.

  It had been a cruel trek, through the forests and then up over the glaciers to this pass. Davis wanted to help with the twins’ pot-hunting, at least—he soon mastered the spring-powered repeating crossbow—but Valeria told him coldly that he walked too loud. Maybe that had been the worst of the situation, the feeling of uselessness. He had always before taken the lead while women watched and made admiring noises.

  However, as they rested atop Smoky Pass, in a mordant wind and whirl of dry snow, Elinor shared his ragged cloak.

  The range dropped even more steeply on its north side than the southern approach. Davis looked across a downward-rolling immensity of green, veined by rivers, here and there the flash of a lake, and wished for his paints.

  “I don’t see any signs of man . . . uh, woman . . . down there,” he said, “but there must be some. Haven’t you any idea what the people are like? Seems you’d all meet at the Ship.”

  “Oh, no,” replied Elinor. “You see, Bertie, each town sends its own parties to be fertilized. It’s seldom that two groups are at the Ship at the same time, and even if they are, they don’t talk to—Oh, I mustn’t say more. But it’s thrilling” She clasped her hands. “And safe. Nobody would dare attack a party going to or from the Ship. If anyone did, why, the Doctors would refuse to fertilize that whole town forever after.”

  Which would be one form of excommunication that really worked, thought Davis. He gave Elinor a sidelong glance. Her nose was frostbitten and peeling, she had lost weight, but she was still an interesting lesson in solid geometry. And he wanted a lot more information from her, whether it was taboo to non-initiates or not. He was going to enjoy persuading her.

  Meanwhile, though, they had to get down where it was warm.

  Later he remembered the next two days only as a nightmare of struggle. He could hardly believe it when they reached timberline and the nearly vertical descent began to flatten.

  This was a conifer forest, trees not unlike jack pines though the smell was different, sweeter and headier. The ground was thick with brown needles, the orsper footfalls a muted pad-pad. They saw only small birds, darting red and gold between bluish-green branches, but there was spoor of big game.

  Even Davis could see how worn the orspers were. No choice, they had to rest.

  At the end of the day, they reached a king-sized lake. It blinked amiably in the low sunshine, reeds rustled on the banks and fish leaped in die water. “We couldn’t find a better campsite,” said Barbara.

  “Skeeterbugs,” said Valeria.

  “Not this early in the year.”

  “Yeh? See here, rockhead, I’ve seen them when—”

  There were no skeeterbugs that night. This did not improve Valeria’s temper.

  In the morning, both Whitleys went out afoot after game. Davis and Elinor were to watch the camp and try for fish: there were hooks and lines in the saddlebags. It was a cool, sun-drenched day and a flock of birds with particularly good voices were tuning up nearby. Davis’ grin spread.

  “What are you so happy about?” Elinor looked grumpily up from scouring the utensils.

  “At having you all to myself,” admitted Davis candidly. He knew her type. “Let’s take a stroll.”

  “Bertie! No!” Elinor pouted. “I’m so tired.”

  “As you wish.” Lie sauntered off. In a moment she pattered after him. He took her hand, squeezing it rather more than necessary.

  “Bertie! Bertie, be careful, you’re so strong—”

  Davis wandered along the lakeshore, eyes alert for a secluded spot. He was in no hurry: all day before him, and he was going to enjoy the fishing too.

  “You’re a brave little girl, Elinor,” he said. “Coming all this way and—” he paused, took a deep breath, and prepared the Big Lie—“never a complaint from you.”

  “I could complain,” she said bitterly. “Those awful Whitleys. Skin and bones and nasty red hair and tongues like files. They’re just jealous.”

  It might have been profitable to agree, but for some reason Davis couldn’t backbite Barbara. “I hope the worst is over,” he said. “You ought to tell me what to expect when we reach the Ship.”

  “I can’t, Bertie. I mustn’t. Nobody who’s been there is allowed to talk about it to anyone who hasn’t.”

  “But I’m a Man,” he argued. “You do believe that, don’t you?”

  “Yes . . . you must be . . . even if your whiskers tickle.”

  Davis stroked his short yellow beard patriarchally. “Well, then,” he said, “since the Doctors are only filling in for men . . . I mean . . . Sunblaze!” He backed up and started over. “What are they like, the Doctors?”

  “I can’t—” Davis stopped for some agreeable physical persuasion. “I mustn’t—Mmmmm! Bertie!” After a while: “I really cant say. They have this big beautiful town, with the Ship in the very middle. But I never saw a Doctor’s face. They’re always veiled. Bertie, please! I mustn’t tell you anything!”

  “I can guess. The, uh, fertilizing rite—it involves a machine, doesn’t it? A lot of tubes and wires and things?”

  “If you know that much,” said Elinor, “yes.”

  Davis nodded absently. The picture was taking shape.

  Three hundred years ago, the hyperdrive was new and colonization more art than science. You couldn’t trust an apparently Earthlike planet; chances were its biochemistry would be lethal to man. It was rare good luck to find a world like Atlantis. Therefore doctrine enjoined caution. First the planet was thoroughly surveyed. Then an all-male party landed, spent two or three years building, analyzing, testing in detail. Finally the women came.

  Somewhere in the Service archives of three centuries back lay a record of a female transport with a female crew; you didn’t mix the sexes on such a journey unless you wanted trouble. Judging from names, its complement had been purely North American. The ship was bound for a new colony, but vanished. A trepidation vortex, of course, perhaps the same one he had managed to avoid. That was back before anybody knew of such a thing.

  The Ship had not been destroyed. It had been tossed at an unthinkable pseudovelocity across hundreds of light-years. The hyperdrive must have been ruined, since it didn’t return home. It must have emerged quite near Delta Capitis Lupi, or it would have drifted endlessly at sublight speed till the women died.

  Pure good fortune that Atlantis was habitable. But probably the ship had been wrecked in landing, because it seemed never to have lifted gravs again. And there they were, cut off, no way to call for help and no way to get back.

  They had little machinery, no weapons, scant technical knowledge. They did their best—discovered what the edible grains and domesticable fowl were, located mines and established crude smelters, named
the planets and moons in classical tradition—but that was all, and their knowledge slipped from them in a few illiterate lifetimes.

  But in the first generation there must have been a biochemist. The thought of aging and dying, one by one, with nobody to help the last feeble survivors, was unwelcome. Human parthenogenesis was an ancient technique, though little used. The biochemist had taken what equipment was in the ship to make such a machine.

  The right chemicals under the right conditions would cause a single ovum to divide. Once that process was initiated, it followed the normal course, and in nine months a child was born, genetically identical with the mother.

  “Three hundred years of virgin birth!” mumbled Davis. “An appalling situation. It will have to be remedied.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Elinor.

  “You’ll find out,” he grinned.

  They had come to a little bay, with soft grass down to the water’s edge, rustling shade trees, the mountains looming titanic above.

  Flowers blossomed fiery underfoot and small waves chuckled against the shore.

  It was, in short, an ideal spot for a seduction.

  Davis planted his fishing pole in a forked twig, laid aside his weapons, sat down, and extended an invitational arm. Elinor sighed and snuggled up to him.

  “Just think,” she whispered. “The first Man in three hundred years!”

  “High time, isn’t it?” said Davis thickly.

  “Ah . . . your kilt . . . what’s the matter?”

  “Never mind.” Davis gathered her in. Their necking became furious. He fumbled at her belt buckle. She closed her eyes, breathing hard. His other hand slid up her thigh.

  Something roared behind him.

  Davis leaped a meter in the air from a prone position. Elinor screamed.

  The thing looked like a saw-beaked, penguin-feathered seal, but bigger. It had swallowed his hook and was quite indignant. The flippers shot it up on the shore and over the grass at express speed.

  Elinor tried to get to her feet. The fluke-like legs batted out. She went rolling and lay still. Davis clawed for his ax. He chopped wildly, saw blood run, but the damned soft iron wouldn’t bite on that thick skull.