Far Frontiers Part 17

One looked to the horizon, frowning as though it helped her see farther. "Are they native?" she asked nervously.

Before Deighton could form a reply, Ms. Peirez retorted scathingly: "Honestly, Iris. You sound like some tourist. The sentry fields have been in place for fifty years. The terran biomes were sterilized and seeded before you were born."

"Demeter's wildlife is closely monitored," Deighton said more gently. "As is ours. You are all aware of The Plan."They nodded, several impatiently. Deighton wasn't surprised. It rarely mattered to recruits or, frankly, to politicians on either world that all of the Earth-species so carefully installed on Demeter were being very gradually biogeneered to fit in with the native life-forms already successful here, a deliberate convergent evolution. The Plan was not part of the colony's present; it belonged to the futures of their progenies' progeny. Fair enough, Deighton thought, since their willing ignorance simply made it easier for those in charge of The Plan.

The Plan's intent was simple: to ultimately blend what humanity had brought-and what humanity was- with Demeter's own. The Plan's purpose was equally plain, if less broadly announced: to ensure both would survive when, not if, the sentry fields dropped.

In the meantime, in their lifetimes and those immediately to come, the two biological heritages would not mix. Deighton tipped a few of the yellow squirming things into his hand, watching them worry their heads into the deep creases of his palm. "Wireworms," he identified for them. "'The larval stage of click beetles. Those have likely been in the soil here for a couple of years. Nasty. They'd have fed on the germinating seed as well as shredding the stems of the seedlings." He tipped the sieve back on to the soil. "We'll notify the pest manager to spray this area with parasitic nematodes. And it would be wise to use coated seed next year. Should be okay."

The recruits smugly entered the existence of wire-worms here and now into their belt comps. There was a smile on more than one weary face. But Mr. Redding looked decidedly anxious. "Yes?" Deighton prodded.

"Even when Demeter gets auto samplers, they don't get into the soil that deep," the recruit said earnestly. "I know. My parents have a farm in Northumberland. How can we test for these things?"

"Good point." Deighton shared his approval with the entire group. Not a bad day at all for a change. He reached into his own backpack and pulled out a potato. "See this? It's the latest in automatic samplers. Put it in the hole," he ordered, "and record its location." He winked. "You see, wireworms aren't easy to spot with electronics and meters. But they love tunneling into potatoes."

There were no complaints as they started toward the next sampling site. Deighton led the way with a sense of elation that had everything to do with hope. He hadn't had such a successful day in far too long.What he hadn't told Ms. Peirez, what none of these recruits or any others would be told, was how tenuous their hold on this world was. Nothing stayed the same that lived, a principle truer here than anywhere. Those who lived on Demeter would have to stay intimately aware of its life, remain in touch with the plants, animals, and microorganisms that sustained the world.

Technology alone couldn't do it, being designed to resist change rather than prepare for it. The knowledge to recognize and survive change was safe on Earth, stored in millions of minds, but here? Deighton found it all to easy to imagine it fading away, stored in sterile unchanging databases, romanticized in folktales, tucked into jokes told in city nightclubs, "What does a farmer wear to dinner..

Deighton gripped today's small success tightly.

Funny how the world went, Deighton thought. On the same day as his first victory with this batch of recruits, here arrived the end of all his work, standing in a pair of polished cowboy boots; a polite young disciple, so innocent of harm that the wound he was causing refused to splatter him with blood.

My life's blood? I'd love to plow him one. "Why didn't Xiochung come and tell me himself."

A sigh and look that suggested the messenger was perhaps less innocent than Deighton imagined. "You'd have hit him."

Deighton considered the idea. "Yeah." He paused. "So the rumors are true. Inters.p.a.cial's stopped funding the Induction Center. They'll pa.s.s recruits straight to a.s.signments without local training-with only what they can stuff into their heads before leaving Earth." As if that was worth anything.

"You knew it was likely, Mr. Deighton," the messenger said with a hint of regret in his mild voice. He was noninimigrant track, a meticulously neutral civil servant who thought no one noticed the treats he always had in his pockets for the heavy horses. "The Center's a major headache for Inters.p.a.cial. They could fill all the s.h.i.+ps they have with paid-up recruits, ready to come, but we make them wait while we take each group through here. That's a third of a year delay- worse, the Center can only handle a max of ten s.h.i.+ps at a time. People on Earth? Theyjust don't see any purpose to what you do here."

Deighton growled: "Don't forget the other end."

"I don't, sir. Senior Ag-tech Brandon and others on Demeter's Settler Council are agitating for more bodies as fast as Inters.p.a.cial can s.h.i.+p them here."

"If they'd let us expand when-" Deighton ground his teeth together. There'd been no local support for additional Induction Centers; a decision he'd naively a.s.sumed due to lack of funds. Now he suspected he saw the results of a pent-up demand building over years and a lack of political will to resist.

The messenger held out a thick sheaf of paper with a disk limpeted to it with tape. "I was told to give you these, Mr. Deighton. This is the shut-down procedure. The forms you'll need to finalize the administration-" He paused, squinting at Deighton's barley-dusted coveralls and skin, and turned the sheaf over to protect the precious disk. Deighton took it as though it could bite. "Will you need any help, sir?"

"No. Thanks. As you said, I knew it was likely." Deighton politely saw his fate out of the trailer, then balanced the paperwork, electronic and otherwise, on the top of a barely stable tower of reports. His thick fingers tugged one out seemingly at random. The impatient Ms. Peirez.

Seemed she would get her wish.

The messenger's delivery wasn't secret. News spread through the Center faster than the wind-encouraged by unsubtle broadcasts from people-hungry Demeter Town. Within the hour, the recruits had tossed their bags and other belongings into the back of the bus that had brought them from the s.p.a.ceport. As they abandoned the Center, the staff stood and watched, looking more confused than distressed, left behind by events and hoping for a revelation. Only the ag- techs had been oblivious; their schedules turned with climate and ripening grain rather than the comings or goings of others.

This was, Deighton mused, Demeter 's first rebellion. What a shame for Inters.p.a.cial and the colonist-recruits that rebellion was part of nature, and The Plan took nature thoroughly into account.Deighton patted his pocket, ensuring the safety of the disk. The messenger for Xiochung had thought it procedures, perhaps an electronic version of the mess of paperwork he'd been a.s.signed to dump on Deighton's lap.

It was, in fact, a code set. There were seven individuals, four on Demeter and three on Earth, who possessed it. Deighton a.s.sumed there were other sets, for other situations. Only this one mattered to him.

There was a room beneath the horse barn, small enough to be mistaken for an old- fas.h.i.+oned root cellar by anyone who had grown up on a planet with such things. Deighton walked by the stalls, patting favorites, before he quietly took out his keys and unlocked the door.

The room was a kaleidoscope of present and past, as was the colony itself. Inside was a simple chair, made from bamboo and straw grown in Demeter's welcoming soil. On the floor was a braided rug, an artifact Deighton had brought with him from Earth, unraveled at the edges where generations of puppies had worried at the fabric. The walls were cluttered with images he'd brought as well, having taken the time to visit his grandparents one last time before boarding the s.h.i.+p. There were photographs of farmers, uniform in their crinlded eyes and easy stance.

Deighton remembered how some had been portraits in frames, others cutouts pinned with round- headed tacks. His grandmother had overlapped and linked the latter together with farming cartoons and articles in yellowed, fragile newsprint. She'd had a cl.u.s.ter devoted to tractors and combines; another to children and livestock.

There was a crate that served as a table. On it was a chipped mug, still containing the remains of coffee, a curdled circle of milk floating on top, left from his last visit. There was a second door, marking the entrance to a storeroom designed for potatoes and currently filled with boxes of auto samplers intercepted before they reached the city. There was a time and a place for everything in The Plan.

Deighton sat in the chair, planted his feet in their big boots on the old rug, put his elbows on his knees, and dropped his face into his hands. He drew a deep slow breath in through his nose, savoring the combination of horse, hay, and human sweat.

With the code set, he had his orders, he reminded himself, and couldn't disagree. He had read of apocalypse and found he could imagine it better than most authors-yet had never found the words to express it himself. Others had. The Plan's true goal had nothing to do with frontiers and everything to do with home. No one but those most intimately involved knew the Earth'stime as that home now had a limit, that within the seeable future Demeter wouldn't be the farthest frontier. It would be all there was.

Up came his head, detennination firmly written on every crease in his skin. It was time.

Deighton lifted the coffee mug from the crate, setting it carefully on the floor away from his feet. Then he tilted back the crate itself. It moved smoothly on the hinges that held it to the floor along one side and stayed tipped when he released it. There was a single green-and-brown lever underneath, with a slot to one side to receive the code disk.

Deighton dropped in the disk, then wrapped his big smelly hand around the lever. He took a moment to look around the room, meeting the eyes, and he imagined, approval, of the generations of dirt farmers that looked down at him. Then he pulled the lever back with one smooth jerk.

Only when it was done, did his hand tremble.

There were 167 satellites...o...b..ting Demeter Each had an extra chip hardwired by hand into the transmitter/receiver; it didn't appear on any spec sheet or plan. The prep crews had installed them. What the chips did was simple enough. First, pa.s.s along the signal, then fly The only rain that fell the next day was water~ Without incoming positioning data, the great farming machines obeyed their failsafes and shut down wherever they happened to be. Jockeys found themselves stranded in the middle offields, including a very puzzled letter writer. Warehouses and s.h.i.+pping points were ordered shut down as well, untilfood distribution could be reorganized to meet the crisis. The Demeter Settler Council and Inters.p.a.cial urged calm. But every satellite remained silent, so every piece of automated equipment remained still. Inters.p.a.cial promised replacements within two months.

In the meantime, every able-bodied person was to report for service in the fields. The crops had to be tended-ripe ones harvested before they spoiled. The Induction Center was to plan and coordinate the efforts of all. New Centers were being organized as quickly as possible to disseminate knowledge and tools. Demeter surged with optimism, determined to successfully overcome its first crisis.Deighton leaned in the shadow of the gate, the sun-etched lines around his eyes and nose deeper than usual. The sleeping giants in the fields were being wrapped in protecfive sheeting by equally silent agtechs, but that was the only sign of peace. Behind him, the Center was a hive abuzz with tractors and trucks, combines lurching in unpredictable directions as the staff hurried to learn how to drive them in advance of their students' return. Chickens wisely took to the back corners of stalls.

When the first load of recruits climbed out of their bus and stood blinking uncertainly, Deighton recognized his cla.s.s of only yesterday. From the look of them, there're been enough time for some serious beer sampling before the uncomfortable ride back.

He grinned, then cupped his big hands around his mouth and bellowed: "Don't just stand there-there's work to be done! What do you think this is? Home?"

SET IN STONE.

by Andre Norton

Andre Norton has written and collaborated on over 100 novels in her sixty years as a writer, working with such authors as Robert Bloch, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mercedes Lackey, and Julian May. Her best known creation is the Witch World, which has been the subject of several novels and anthologies. She has received the Nebula Grand Master Award, the FritzLeiber Award, and the Daedalus Award, and lives in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where she oversees a writer's library.

If some mad G.o.d had deliberately set out to create a planet utterly alien from all that was normal to the crew of First-tn Scout S-9, he or she could not have been more successful than with this one. A man had to force his offworld eyes to report matters that brain patterns found too grotesque to believe.

A dull throb was spreading down from Kannar's temples, reaching out for room in neck and shoulders. This place was just wrong; yet, along the starways, one could never rightfully judge anything, no matter how it appeared- "Get scruffmg, you Gart!"

That sharp mind-beam smote like a blow, though it was a prodding he had come to expect during the past three years. Yes, he was a Gait. Not many of them could be left by now, as Garthold had long since been wiped from the maps. As for his kind, they were the least blessed of all their kin.

Kannar no longer grasped at memory, which grew-mercifully-ever fainter with each recall.

Fifteen planet years ago... The young man plodded along through the dense gray sand, weighed down by his heavy pack but careful to avoid the thick pad-patches of yellow-green growth. Fifteen cycles past, he had been at Herber, a child selected by rigorous testing intended to prove his fitness for special service to Garthold's need.

Two h.e.l.lish days and a burning, blood-filled night had put an end to that life, though some Veep among the invaders did think to keep Kannar and some of his fellows alive for use in "experiments." More trials were visited upon them by their new masters, during which many died, while others were rendered mindless and thrown into the Pits. What quality the alien over- seers believed Kannar possessed had brought him into the Quasing Exploration Service-not, of course, as an equal, but rather as a living test-beast for the unknown perils of distant worlds.

The boy's thick gray skin itched now, as it had ever since Captain O'ju had ordered him to gather a liverred growth for the science officer using his bare hands. His masters had given Kannar no treatment for the fiery result; they had merely watched its progress detachedly, as yetanother investigation.

"You d.a.m.ned dirtworm-gun it! We want to get this crawler going before dark!"

As that order rang in Kannar's head, he could see below him the land vehicle in question, its curved nose almost touching one of the standing rocks. No trees graced this world of Henga, or at least the Scouts had observed none during any of the preliminary flybys; but rising upright in rough circles which, in places, cl.u.s.tered thick together, were the stones.

Those formations had presented the planet's first great mystery. Though to the eye they were only crude pillars of a granitelike stuff, they could not be touched, nor even approached closely enough for any to attempt to set hand upon them. They were, it seemed, impregnably s.h.i.+elded by some unknown force against close examination.

Kannar did not quicken his pace. He knew too well that nothing he could do might protect him from the vicious attentions of O'ju waiting for him down there. The accident with the crawler would, of course, be blamed on him, and then...

Overhead, the green-fired orb of the small sun was now close to the broken line of the horizon, and the slate-colored sky had begun to darken. Even as no trees grew here, neither did any birds or flying things soar aloft-in fact, the sole life-form that seemed to have been grudgingly bestowed upon Henga was a variety of malignant vegetation.

The youth drew up beside the land transport and grounded his pack on the sand thick underfoot. The captain, always careful of his tools (human and otherwise), waited until that storage bag was safe; then, wielding his laser like a club, he aimed a blow at its bearer.

Kannar dodged as best he could, stumbling backward toward the stone against which the crawler was now nuzzled. He struck against something he could not see that gave a little on contact with his body, then pushed him away. The combination of that shove, the irritation of his skin, and the throbbing in his head broke through the control he had held so firmly. For a moment, the scene around him wavered; then he could clearly see the weapon threatening him in O'ju's heavy-gloved fist. No longer was the gun held for use as a bludgeon-now it faced him muzzle-end first, the inescapable death-dealer it had been cast to be.

The laser grew in the boy's sight, looming larger as his superior approached. Why didn't O'ju simply fire? Certainly his captive slave possessed no defense.

Defense-?

Through the pulsing pain in Kannar's head a thought struck. The fear that had held himmotionless, an easy target, suddenly gave way to a clear memory of his half-forgotten life and the training that had protected him in the past. He was Gail!

Moving in one of his old defensive tricks, the youth landed belly-down in the sand, partway under the stalled crawler. Blinding fire burst around him; then there was darkness.

"Scout Six, to the fore!"

Kannar lifted his head an inch or so. The effort was almost more than he could sustain.

"Scout Six, report!"

The order was a further goad. That voice from the impenetrable blackness-the Scouts must be on night maneuvers.

"Scout Six in, sir," the boy mouthed through the grit that masked his face. He tried to lever himself higher and pierce the stifling night by sheer force of will. Unable to see, he tried to listen, to catch more speech or any identifying sound.

Then he began to cough. It was as though the dark had invaded his throat and was striving to reach his lungs. One bout of the chest-racking spasms left him weak and gasping until he felt that no more breathable air remained to him. Kannar flailed out in near panic, fighting to beat away the smothering blackness, but his weak efforts were futile, and he ceased to struggle and sank into oblivion once more.

Yet even his inner night was without peace, lit by a fitful lightning of dream-flashes and broken bits of memory that skittered away whenever he tried to focus upon them. The boy whimpered and huddled in upon himself, seeking forgetfulness again.

When the young Scout roused the second time, it was into real night-dark, not the curtain that had been drawn across his mind before. The first of Henga's three pale moons was climbing the sky, and there were stars-stars!

Though still aware of a heavy stench that made him gag, he had awakened clearheaded enough to know where he was and to realize the source of his lungs' torment. He managed todrag himself upright. Within arm's reach was one of the thick patches of moss, and in the reduced light, he could see the sparks that arose from the mat of vegetation.

Even that poor illumination showed Kannar more: a body-or rather a portion of body, for the head and shoulders of that sprawl of flesh and bone had been reduced to blackened rags melted into the sand on which it lay. O'ju. But-who had turned a laser on him? The boy clenched one of his own scaly hands reflexively. A gun was lying on the ground almost within reach, yes, but he had certainly not dropped it!

Suddenly the Scout froze. There had been movement close to him-the motion of something small, perhaps only a little larger than his two hands clasped together. As it neared the phosph.o.r.escent plant-stuff, he could see its form more and more clearly.

The creature had eight legs, the two at its fore-end being held aloft and tipped with large claws. Its body shared the puffy plumpness of the moss and was a dull gray, near the color of the sand across which it was scuttling. It made a detour around the dead but seemed to be following a purposeful course.

Then it halted by the laser. Both fore-claws swung down and fastened upon the weapon, which was raised until it rested on the round back of the thing. Task am parently completed, the being swung about and headed back the way it had come.

Kannar drew a deep breath, wrenching his mind back with an effort from the curious action he had just witnessed to the ugly scene at hand. He could do nothing for O'ju, and repair of the crawler was beyond his skill. No Gart had ever been allowed knowledge of Quasing technology. But the youth was aware that the land vehicle sent out some type of signal to guide searchers, and that sooner or later the surviving Scouts would make a flyby from their camp.

They would find a dead man, the second-in-command of their mission, an inert crawler, and-a Gart. To them, the answer would be very simple.

The boy licked dry lips, then spat grains of sand. Many ingenious forms of death had been invented by his masters-even death-in-life. He could not hope for a clean ending if he remained to be found.

The creature with its perilous burden could still be seen, heading toward a wider s.p.a.ce between two of the rocks; it was plainly seeking what it considered a safe place. The Scout made a swift decision. What might be a haven for one born of Henga could be a lethal trap for an offworlder, but perhaps the ending he could find there would be quick. The youth was bleaklyconvinced that a death of this world was infinitely preferable to any the s.h.i.+p's crew would deal him.

The native had crawled between a pair of the stone pillars, keeping an exact distance from both. The off-world boy was considerably larger than his guide, and the field of power generated by the rocks might well repel him. He could only test it.

Doggedly, Kannar moved forward on his hands and knees, his out-suit crunching on the sand. With every breath he drew, he expected to be smitten by some force beyond his comprehension.

But the opposition he feared did not come. Instead, once he had pa.s.sed completely through the portal-pillars, he came into a place where there was more light and a feeling of freshness in the air. The boy reached what was roughly the center of that uneven circle and hesitated. At last he hunkered back on his heels and strove to scan all the surrounding rocks with a slow turn of his head, a crouching s.h.i.+ft round and round. Nothing he could see differed from what was before him at every view: the silent stones deep-rooted into the sand. But the being he had followed, though the weight of the laser was plainly sapping its strength, was still going purposefully forward.

Now it faced the most ma.s.sive of the rocks, and there it laid the weapon upon the ground, seeming to have accomplished a set mission. As Kannar watched, unsure of just what was taking place, he saw a movement at the foot of every stone within his range of sight. More of the puff- bodied creatures rose from the sand in front of those pillars. As the first native stood a little to one side, each of the newcomers advanced in turn. None of them attempted to raise the gun, but rather sc.r.a.ped their forelegs across it length- and width-wise, the tips of their claws grating on the metal of the offworld weapon.

The late arrivals trailed away discreetly and vanished as they had appeared; however, the creature who had delivered the laser remained where it was. The young Scout saw no signal given, heard no sound break the ever-noiseless night, but the burden-bearer now began to dig.

Throwing goodly clawfuls of sand from side to side, it worked with such speed that, in a short time, a hole appeared. Into that opening it purposefully tumbled the laser, then covered the weapon with the same haste. An instant later- Kannar caught his breath. The stone before which the gun had been entombed began to glow, and- though he was certain nothing like this had been there before-a line of some sort of crystals appeared, zigzagging down the rough sideof the pillar. The glittering bits shed a soft light, too, and their radiance grew brighter with every second.

The creature gave a sudden spring forward, plastering its full body-length against the rock and across the crusting of crystals. The watching boy became aware of a new scent in the air; unlike any he had encountered on this world, yet the odor was pleasant, and deep memory stined within him. Holiday-feasting- well done! Why did he now think of a trophy award?

His hand reached forward instinctively, but he was not close enough to touch the pillar, even if such contact were allowed. The native being had dropped from the stone, and the vein of mineral formations was fading fast. Then the limited light around him began to fail, as well, until the dark ruled utterly. Unbearable fatigue descended upon Kannar, and he slept.

The Scout awoke suddenly. Light had come again- the light of day-and-sound. A flyby. The search pattern might not take the s.h.i.+p directly over this stone circle. A flyer had gone down during the first general exploration, and the theory had been offered that the protection surrounding the rocks might also extend into the air above. But, if that hope failed, the rock ring afforded no place to hide.

The boy swallowed, painfully aware of a dry throat and the pinch of hunger. The others need only leave him where he was, and their purpose would be fulfilled: another Gait would be accounted for, and with very little effort on their part.

Kannar could see between the stones clearly. The crawler still stood, nose pressed to one of them, and nearby lay the splotch that had been O'ju. The flyer was setting down well away from that point. Three men emerged from the cargo door, rendered clumsy by heavy protect-suits.

Each carried not a laser but a blaster, and they advanced in a broken pattern as though to discourage or e~'ade attack.

There was nowhere to run now, the youth knew. The strength that had sustained him through his years of being a Gait in bondage was gone. He could do no more than wait and hope he would die quickly.

A crackle sounded in the earphone he still wore. Captain O'Lag had reached the land vehicle and looked upon what lay beside it. The harsh stridency of his voice seared Kannar as hiscommander voiced the filthy destiny due a Gait.

"No laser." That was O'Sar, the science officer.

But O'Lag was no longer studying the stalled machine and the corpse at its base. His bulging eyes burned yellow with rage as his gaze swept through a gap in the stone circle, pinning the boy to the spot like an insect specimen on a board. The captain stopped his volley of curses almost in mid-word, and his blaster s.h.i.+fted as he sighted through that opening at Kannar.

On impulse, the Gait abandoned his hugging of the sand to pull himself upright and face his superior who stood outside the ring of rocks. It did not become one who had been Second Cadet Officer at Herber to cower before the enemy. Sometimes how a man dies matters, and death would be swift and sure when O'Lag pressed the b.u.t.ton- Fire came. So blinding was the flash that Kannar staggered back, though he did not fall. He heard sizzling in his earphone, then such cries as brought back nightmare memories of the invasion of his own world.

Fire had come-yet he was not consumed! The youth blinked, fought against the brilliance that seemed to cloak his eyeb.a.l.l.s. Though the shrieks had died away, he could now smell the stench of cooked flesh, the acrid tang of metal heat-seared. But he still stood-lived- and soon he began to see again, at first as if through a mist, then without hindrance.

No blaster-b.u.m was visible on the stones facing him, between two of which O'Lag had fired; no reek of death any longer poisoned the air. Without the circle, however, lay two crumbling forms, their ash mixing with the sand, and the crawler with a great hole melted into it.

It looked-Kannar rubbed the back of one hand across his eyes and cleared his vision enough to see true-it looked as if the captain had aimed not at a trapped Gait but had rather turned his weapon against his own men and their machine.