More Than Superhuman Page 3

  Miliss said urgently, 'Tell me what your second insight Is.'

  When he had told her, she said, 'But that's ridiculous — what good does that do me?'

  Jaer must have recognized her logic. He stood very still.

  After a long pause he said slowly, 'But I did get both thoughts in your presence, so someone knows I'm here.'

  His manner showed unease. The implication of danger was visibly penetrating his awareness. Miliss sensed her advantage.

  She said, 'What is so meaningless about these insights is that I detect that your purpose in arresting me was entirely personal. You saw a possibility of challenging the throne and simultaneously obtaining me as a mistress — '

  'Silence, woman.' Jaer sounded alarmed. 'I have never desired the throne — that's treason. I'd better leave before I damage you and ruin my case against you in court. But don't think I'm through with you.'

  The light winked out. Quick steps sounded. A metal door clicked open and clanged shut.

  She heard him retreating along a corridor. And realized that she was almost as shaken as he.

  That second insight, she told herself, is absolutely mad....

  But for the first time in many years she slept poorly.

  IV

  The next day.

  Shortly after sunrise the council members began cycling up to the meeting place at the beginning of the slickrock range, seven miles west of Nunbrid. By the time Rocquel arrived on his new motorbike, Dav and eight Jana males of high rank were already there. The human sat on his bike off to one side, but the Jana nobles were impatiently gunning their motors, visibly anxious to get started on their hazardous meeting-in-motion.

  Rocquel was greeted by a number of insulting but quite good-natured comments about his overweight machine. He responded with well-placed sneers about overcautious small-bike riders. But he was curious. There had been changes in design during his absence. Wheeling around with the casual daring of an expert cyclist, he made quick, searching examination of the mount of each council member to see what time and manufacturers had wrought.

  As always for slickrocking, all the motorcycles were small, tough, and light. But Rocquel noticed that three of the bikes were smaller than he remembered — not more than l00cc., perhaps even 90 or 80 — compared to his 175cc. machine.

  He questioned the three owners about it. He was still getting boastful replies when Jaer Dorrish and a sly-eyed air-force officer roared up and charged their metal steeds up the first incline.

  Jaer yelled, 'Meeting called to order — '

  A number of nobles uttered wild cries, gunned their motors, and took off in pursuit of the latecomers.

  Dav brought up the rear.

  Moments later everyone was in motion, and the meeting. of the supreme council of Jana was in session.

  In the old days — before the machines — a king had held his council meetings while riding a tamed, high-backed Mesto-beast. The Mestos were dangerous, cunning creatures, always looking for an opportunity to upset their riders, and Mesto-riding was, accordingly, considered great fun. But a Mesto simply could not cover the distances or go over the rough and beautiful slickrock country.

  At first the nobles climbed steadily, strung out unevenly, bobbing up and down over domes, knobs, and ridges, skipping at a good clip over the almost glass-smooth, steel-hard Straights. Rocquel, coming up from behind, kept edging up to Jaer and finally had his bike racing along parallel to the bright green machine of the big male.

  'What's on the agenda?' he yelled.

  Jaer's answering cry brought up the subject of Miliss. He made a slashing gesture with one hand, cutting the air with it as if it were a blade, then showed his teeth in a grimacing smile.

  He shouted, 'I propose that this woman be put to death.'

  'On what grounds?' Rocquel roared back, surprised.

  Jaer's suggestion was discourteous in view of the fact that Dav was at the council meeting. Or was it possible that Jaer had not yet seen Dav? As the day dragged by, Jaer's unawareness of Dav began to seem less and less a coincidence. But Jaer's intentness on Miliss and on the new law might have accounted for his attitude toward Dav.

  * *

  Dav anticipated a crisis as soon as he was told what was on the agenda, and the nature of the new law.

  The law itself required no special explanation for him. It was he who had proposed the idea of a constitutional monarchy to a resistant Rocquel. The very next day — a year ago — the powerful Jana leader had gone off on a religious hegira.

  Now he was back, acceptant.

  Mentally, Dav triggered a thought amplifier. It in turn channeled power into a relay that blazed one of the Symbols.

  The Symbol of a constitutional monarchy.

  That done, he considered with mirthless good humor — the proposal to execute Miliss. Ironic that Jaer was planning to put on trial a person already doomed.

  Should Jaer be told?

  But when Dav finally joined the group, the crisis came so rapidly that there was no time to mention anything.

  The council members stopped in front of a big cave, at the 9,000-foot level. Here the great nobles of Jana sat on bikes with engines idling while they gulped breakfast.

  Rocquel was aware of an ugly, throaty sound from Jaer. He spun around and saw Dav easing his bike into the clearing. Dav came to a full stop

  Beside Rocquel, Jaer let out a bellow and gunned his motor.

  * *

  That night Rocquel described the day to Nerda, then asked curiously, 'What do you think happened to Jaer? You know more about what Dav can do than anyone.'

  Conversations between them were not common. She was not required by law or custom to speak to him as long as she performed her wifely duties. He was not surprised when she did not reply. But he deduced from the thoughtful expression on her face that she was considering the matter and would eventually give him an answer.

  Yet it was morning before she answered.

  'A symbol,' she said then, 'as Dav has described it, represents a real thing or thought. It is not itself the thing or the thought —'

  Rocquel waited, uneasily aware that he was being presented with a concept that might be too subtle for a Jana noble — too subtle even for himself, despite his past year of indoctrination.

  Nerda continued, 'When the Symbol representing constitutional monarchy is finally a part of the thinking of millions of Janae, the force of it in all those minds will maintain such a system for decades under normal circumstances — or at least until another Symbol replaces it, which, of course, is happening very rapidly with Dav and Miliss forcing us into civilization.'

  Rocquel felt helpless before her explanation. She seemed to understand what she was saying, and he didn't.

  We males of the nobility are really no. longer a part of what is happening....

  It was discouraging, but he persisted.

  'What I saw,' he said, 'was Jaer's motorcycle stop — not short — but as if it ran into an elastic wall that took the full force of his forward impetus and gently flung him back. He ended up on the ground. But he was not hurt.'

  'He struck the Symbol,' said Nerda. 'These Symbols have become progressively more violent in their reaction. The most violent so far is the Symbol of a constitutional monarchy.'

  He said, 'You say the Symbol. But what was the force involved?'

  'The force of the Symbol.' Her expression showed her awareness of his bewilderment. 'Don't you see?' she urged. 'All those millions of people who believe.'

  What Rocquel was seeing was that he had made a mistake in asking for her opinion. He wanted to say that nobody yet believed in the new law. It would not even be publicly announced until later this morning. But his awful feeling leaped past that idea to the more personal awareness that he had lowered himself in her eyes. He recalled with a sinking sensation the Jana-male conviction that if a female even once gained a genuine advantage over her husband, it was the end of their relationship. Nothing the male did after that could rep
air the damage.

  Fighting for recovery, he nodded and said aloud, 'I see. Your many conversations with Dav have been very educational and valuable for both of us. I congratulate you. It's a difficult concept.'

  He divined from an odd look in her eyes that she saw through his verbal stratagem.

  She said slowly, 'We mustn't expect too much from a constitutional monarchy in terms of change in the passions. Rule of law merely regulates a society in a more orderly fashion than absolutism. An accused individual is no longer subject to arbitrary judgments but is allowed time by the courts to defend himself within the frame of the law. Yet in the end he may pay the same penalty.' She concluded: 'And so, to answer your question of last night — I believe we shall see how Jaer was affected by the way he allows the trial of Miliss to be conducted.'

  Rocquel, who was still striving for recovery from his fateful error in having this discussion with her at all, said in his most matter-of-fact voice, 'What I'm curious about is the nature of the charges he intends to level against her — '

  * *

  Those charges surprised Dav more than Rocquel, who still nursed memories of his year away. He had learned something about humans during his absence, and could even control a certain Symbol himself — without, he realized, really understanding it.

  Miliss was accused of being an enemy alien, illegally resident on Jana; spying for an invading alien force from space; conspiring to pretend to be a member of a decadent race when in fact she was a member of a superior, dominant race set down among primitives.

  She was also charged with harboring criminal intent

  Dav scanned the headlines unbelievingly, standing in the rain in front of a newsstand. Janae in colorful raincoats drifted past him as — directed by a guide sentence on page one — he turned to the editorial page. There he read in the language of Low Jana:

  + +

  In an unprecedented action, the government today challenged the right to live on this planet of the two relics of an older civilization. Almost melodramatic charges of conspiracy were leveled at the couple, but only the woman has been arrested.

  We propose to leave to the courts the resolution of the legal tangle implicit in this arrest, but find ourselves thoughtful about the matter on a strictly theoretical basis.

  Explorers have recently found isolated tribes of Janae still living in stone-age cultures. Contact with our superior civilization was inacted as a depressant on the aspirations and mores of the backward peoples, and they have seemed unable to recover as a group.

  Until today's governmental action, we have known a reverse condition with the two human beings resident on Jana. They represent an older culture — one that apparently had virtually died out for reasons never analyzed. Such a decadent culture, even though it had clearly attained heights of scientific achievement far in advance of what is available on Jana, has not acted as depressant on spirit of the Janae.

  Matters to be adjudicated by the courts include the following: Are Dav and Miliss representatives of a superior culture that is merely pretending to be decadent, so that the normal depressant impact, upon an inferior culture is avoided? If so, does their, presence here come under the heading of an alien conspiracy? And can such a purpose be interpreted as an invasion?

  + +

  The account was perceptive. It indicated the presence of a highly intelligent professional class already in existence in Nunbrid and hundreds of other cities. The lower-class Janae had clearly matured more rapidly that their hereditary rulers. Yet the tone of the editorial was neither inflammatory nor antagonistic. In fact, it showed respect for the government and awareness of the meaning of the new law.

  Dav's own thought ceased at that point. He had been aware that passersby were glancing at him. Now, suddenly, one big male stopped, uttered an explosive oath, and lifted an arm threateningly, as if to strike.'

  Dav shrank back involuntarily. The male grew instantly contemptuous and kicked at him. Dav, alert now, dodged with easy skill but dropped his newspaper. The big fellow scooped it up from the wet sidewalk and pounded the soggy sheets.

  He roared, 'You've got to be nothing. You're the last of a vanished race. A nothing! A nothing!'

  Dav retreated. He found a side street, slipped into its darker, damp distances; heading for home. As he approached the edge of the city, he heard a sound in the night ahead of him, a swelling murmur of ugly voices. Then, out in the open spaces between himself and his house, he saw a huge crowd carrying torches.

  Startled, Dav withdrew from the open area and headed for a small house on a nearby street. The place was actually a secret entrance to the big white mansion. Long ago, when Jana had been more primitive, unpleasant incidents had occurred. The secret access had often proved useful.

  He made his way safely through the connecting tunnel to the big house, and from its interior gazed out at the crowd through a viewplate. The plate magically dissolved the night and the rain, showing a dull day-view of the large grounds in front of the house.

  At first look the mob seemed even huger than he had estimated. Dav shook his head sadly. The pattern was the same as it had once been on old Earth. At the top was the hereditary hierarchy. Next came a law-abiding middle class of people. At the bottom seethed the vast mass of the unthinking.

  The hierarchy was semipsychotic, murderous, subjective. And the middle class was still relatively new and unaware of its future power. The mob was completely duped.

  Dav observed with relief that several hundred troops patrolled an area between him and the angry crowd. An officer spoke through a loudspeaker system, addressing the mob.

  'Go home. The rule of law shall prevail. Go home. If these people are spies, they will be judged by the law. Go home — '

  The frequently repeated admonition began to have its effect toward midnight. Dav saw that there were fewer people outside, and more were drifting back toward the city. But it was nearly two in the morning before, feeling that the danger was over, he went to bed.

  Lying there, he rejected the accusations against Miliss and himself with little more than a moment's consideration.

  It was true, as the newspaper editorial had pointed out, that primitives had in the past suffered psychic and racial disaster as a result of being exposed abruptly to a superior culture. And, conceivably, somebody might mercifully evolve a more systematic approach to the problem.

  But the mentors would know. That had to be. It would be absolutely ridiculous if Miliss and he weren't aware of their own realities.

  All these hundreds of years of ignorance on so vital a point?

  Impossible.

  The truth was that simple — and obvious. Nearly four hundred empty years made a weight of time in his mind that no words and no Jana accusation could penetrate.

  He had no trouble sleeping.

  V

  Rocquel had stayed in the palace communications center during the period of threat against Dav. Several times he spoke directly to the commanding officer of the troops patrolling the grounds.

  At last, weary and a little guilty at having been out late again, he went to his apartment. The bedroom was dark as he entered — and he had an instant, awful intuition.

  He flicked on the light and stood confused and shaken. Nerda was in bed, undressed under the sheets. Her eyes were closed. Her breathing came with the regularity of sleep.

  Rocquel's thought flashed back to their conversation of the morning and to his sudden feeling that he had ruined himself with her. His inability to grasp the meaning of the Symbol idea troubled him again.

  Standing beside his sleeping wife, he visualized the repercussions of her rebellion if it were ever found out. His absence had shaken the throne, and he had returned too recently to have fully recovered his power and position. He had divined an uneasiness in the nobility — it would take a little while before those suspicious, violent beings were reassured that the new law was not a direct threat.

  And if they found out that he was so weak that he could not
control his wife — Instantly an old impulse propelled him toward her sleeping body. His hands and jaws clenched with the automatic effort that would shove her in a single thrust out of the far side of the bed.

  He poised before the act, suddenly gripped and held by a thought and feeling new to him.

  He had been about to act on the Jana-male attitude. But was Nerda justified in her rebellion? Was the old way the way women should be treated? Had his analysis of her reason for what she had done been accurate?

  A flash of an old male paranoia darkened his face and mind the absolute conviction that Nerda was doing this because another male had gotten to her:

  Dav, the human?

  Some portion of Rocquel's mind recognized the total irrationality of the thought — recognized that if it were true, Jana females would not associate with males of their own free will, they obviously did not betray their husbands. He was also aware that Dav, who had an unlimited sense of personal responsibility, would not have taken advantage of the queen's year of 'widowhood'.

  The recognition and awareness were not enough for his fevered brain, alive with brutal images.

  He had to know.

  He turned and walked out of the room. Within minutes he was part of a motorcycle army unit roaring through the night streets of Nunbrid toward the military prison where Miliss was confined.

  The long, bleak concrete corridors of the prison echoed to his footsteps and those of his guards. The light carried by the prison's officer-of-the-night was bright enough, but it cast wavering shadows.

  In that uneven brightness, Rocquel noted the gray drabness of this prison world, and some of the singleness of his purpose softened. The thought came to him that Miliss had been held here now for several days and that this was wrong.

  He could no nothing about it under the new law, but within himself he felt a deep anger against Jaer.

  The rage was brief. It ended as they reached Miliss' cell — and there she was. Rocquel went in alone, his guards retreating, waiting.

  Their first moments together were ordinary. Miliss' surprise and pleasure when she recognized him, then her puzzlement that he should come at so late an hour, gave him his opening.