The Mantooth Part 40

Dr. David Rawlings, cell biologist, spoke first, a strongly built, intense black man in his mid thirties. Apparently the least abashed of the company, he a.s.sumed the role he had chosen for himself, and which the others now expected and took for granted.

'Well,' he said, moving to stand at the fore of the group. 'I suppose first we should tell you something of ourselves.' And without the wasted words of diplomacy, he did.

'You see before you the surviving crew members of Virgo II, the manned exploration of Mars. Two years into the flight, and not yet two-thirds of the way there, we received a delayed signal from earth, and at an undesignated interval. The b.l.o.o.d.y butchers who called themselves our leaders had finally done it: missiles and satellite stations vomiting their nuclear death, and pounding the cities flat.

The emotions of those conscious---most of us were in a suspended state, so as not to age unnecessarily during the voyage---I can't imagine.

But Stenmark, and the Doc, and poor dead Rene' Christian, well, they had to do something.

'So they turned the s.h.i.+p about, and upon returning to Earth engaged in a high orbit around it, and tried to make contact, with anybody. No one there. Even the orbiting agri-colonies and Moon bases hadn't been spared. The latter might have been construed as some kind of military threat, to the sick and paranoid, but to kill innocent civilians, farmers for Christ's sake, just to be sure all was ended..... The worst you can think of us isn't bad enough, Kalus, if you look at what we did to each other in the end. Maybe we ?common people' of the superpowers didn't take an active part in the destruction; but we sure as h.e.l.l sat on our a.s.ses, and let the presidents and the generals make it inevitable.' He subdued, or at least restrained, his rising pa.s.sion.

'But that's neither here nor there. Or anywhere, now. That world is gone, and will never return.' He sighed bitterly.

'Back on the s.h.i.+p, Christian lost her mind when she saw the devastation, and knew that her husband and son were dead, like all the others. She couldn't live without them, and so she killed herself.

That left only Stenmark and Doc McIntyre to try and decide our fate.

The best they could do, under the circ.u.mstances, was to re-rig the entire s.h.i.+p---computer, cryogenics, life-support, everything---for a vastly different purpose than what they'd been designed for. Their new function was, simply, to hold us all in suspension, retain the high orbit, and wake us all when, hopefully, it was safe to return to the surface.

'It's no coincidence that you, Sylviana, and William---you haven't met him yet---came out of suspension at approximately the same time we did. A German scientist named Krause had been advocating a common de-suspension date, in the event such a travesty ever occurred.

He was considered a black pessimist at the time, and partly insane. But your father, and Sten, and possibly others, took his advice, and set the ?wake up call' for exactly ten thousand years from the first day of Armageddon, hoping that would give the planet enough time to heal itself, and support recognizable life-forms once more.

'So the rest of the crew, myself included, came back from our little nap to find our world ravaged, Christian dead, and the Commander aged twenty-five years. The poor compa.s.sionate b.a.s.t.a.r.d had kept himself conscious all that extra time, making sure the orbit wouldn't decay, that the converted solar panels and other adjustments he'd made would hold up. Probably would have died for us if he thought it would help.....

'You've seen the worst in us, Kalus. But that d.a.m.n Swede over there . .is the best. And a lot of others like him paid the same price as the political cowboys, and blind hedonists who elected them. Death.

'So. That's the long and short of it. We dealt with our feelings and our fears as best we could, and landed here, for a variety of reasons, just over a year ago. We found William underground, and apparently you found us. So maybe our efforts aren't entirely futile. And who's to say, there may be others scattered around the planet, each feeling as isolated and cut off as we do.'

He concluded as frankly as he had begun. 'But now I'm heartily sick of standing here and telling you our troubles, and I should hope you're as tired of hearing them. Apologies to the meek, and you see the kind of ?Earth' you've inherited. We'll let the customary interval of moody silence pa.s.s, and then we'll begin our scientific questioning.' With that he moved off and sat on the hard ground, leaving the raw taste of truth, accepted willingly or not, in the mouths of those around him.

Just as he had said, an interval of silence ensued. Then, to the surprise of all, Kalus rose without prodding and moved to stand before them.

'This will not be easy for me,' he said. 'But I begin to see that it is important, if only for myself. I feared at first that you would think me a mindless animal. But I see now that isn't true.

Kataya told me not to be ashamed of what I am, and inside, in the heart of me, I'm not. I am proud. Because I survived for twenty-two years a world that would kill most of you in a week. That is not said to hurt you, and I begin to see that you are strong in other ways. It is only the truth. Here on the Island there is shelter from predators---there are no giant spiders or lizards---and you have the knowledge to bring food from the land without killing. My people have none of these things.

'We call ourselves the hill-tribe. Yes we, Sylviana, I will not renounce them.' She started to glare at him, then colored when she saw others (including Kataya) watching her, and looked away.

'We live in a cave of many entrances, in the heart of the Wild, with enemies all around us. We survive by being shrewd and fiercely determined, and by showing any creature that comes too close there is a high price to pay for thinking us weak and afraid.

'But we are not cruel, if we can avoid it, and do not kill without need. If there was some way we could live in peace and well-fed contentment, we would throw away our spears and never kill again. But no one has ever shown us how to do this, if such a way exists.'

A gleam came into his eyes such as Sylviana had not seen for many months: when he first looked out from the smaller cave, and beheld the power and majesty of the Mantis. 'Go ahead,' he told them, almost defiantly. 'Ask me any question. Thank you Kataya, and David Rawlings. You have made me feel strong and unashamed.'

At this there was another brief s.p.a.ce in which the company felt reluctant to speak. But it did not last. Their desire to know, and to touch new life, was stronger than their natural timidity.

'Yes, I have a question,' said a woman. 'You say that your people have no spoken language.' (Sylviana had told the doctor, who in turn had pa.s.sed it on to the others). 'And yet you have a name.

How is that?'

'My people all have names, but no sounds to go with them. My name is a sign made with the hands, or a figure drawn in the dirt, so that I can be identified to others at need, such as during a hunt. The Machine called me Kalus, to my mind as well as my ears, just as it gave names to all the elements of my world. I have always wondered how this was done.'

Brus.h.i.+ng over this last information, which none understood and which they could always come back to, they asked several more questions about the hill-people, until one of the younger men produced a greaseboard and marker, and approached him.

'Your sign, the one that identifies you. Could you draw it?'

Kalus took the board, and after being shown how to use it, drew a straight line, horizontal, then a long curving tooth like a saber at the end of it, pointing downward.

'This represents the upper jaw of the hill-cat, one of the greatest hunters of our world. My first father made it for me, hoping that I would be as fierce and cunning. All our names our similar. When he was killed by a bear. . .I drew it in anger on the ground, then with my foot blurred away the sharp point, to show that I was no great predator, but only a man. Like this.' He smeared the lower half of the tusk, leaving only a squarish root. 'That has been my mark ever since.'

'The MANtooth,' said Sylviana suddenly, and much to her own consternation. But half embarra.s.sed, half proud in spite of herself, she pushed on. 'The Machine called you the Mantooth.'

'Yes,' he said simply. 'And that is what I am.'

'This machine---' began another.

'No, no, we'll come back to that later,' said Rawlings.

'Your ?first father', Kalus. What did you mean by that?'

'Barabbas is my father now. I think it is what you would call adoption, though to us it is much more than that. The adopted sons of a childless leader are more dear to him.....' He stopped as emotion swelled in his throat, and he realized with a sudden pang the truth of these words. 'Barabbas is my father now.'

'Barabbas,' replied Rawlings thoughtfully. 'Surely that's not a name given by a machine.'

'Yes. In fact it is. But I too have always thought it strange, and somehow appropriate, since I learned of the Barabbas in your Bible.'

'It's not MY Bible,' said Rawlings quickly. 'But still, how do you mean that?' Kalus pondered for a moment, trying to think how to express it.

'It wasn't Barabbas' fault: that he was freed, and Jesus crucified. He was only trying to survive. And who can say what his ?crime' was that he should have been imprisoned by the Romans, who seem to me among the greatest criminals of history. And yet for the simple fact of his presence on that day, and his desire to live rather than die in agony, he is branded a villain and hated, by those who need such symbols of hate, and love. Surely Jesus did not hate him.'

At this all were quietly stunned. For until that moment they had retained the subconscious arrogance that Sylviana first experienced, and to which she had lately returned: the belief that a rough man without education could not think or feel as they did, could not possess the same soul, or depth of feeling.

They were wrong.

'Well said,' came a voice. And for the rest of the afternoon the questions were not asked as from adult to child, from superior beings to inferior, but as from man (and woman) to man. Sylviana could only watch and listen, and tell herself in vain she didn't love him.

Because she had been stung by the affection he showed Kataya, and refused to admit she was afraid of losing him.

Chapter 41