Part-1
Miles Gilbert the away him, its of red and orange in the and, in places, with the natural yellow of the of Kwannon. The a slow to the left, and Gettler Alpha came into view, a of red with an of two at arm's length, on the by the western horizon. In another of hours it would be set, but by that time Beta, the planet's G-class primary, would be at its hottest. He at his watch. It was 1005, but that was Galactic Standard Time, and had no to anything that was in the local sky. It did mean, though, that it was five minutes of two hours to 'cast-time.
He on the screen in of him, and Harry Walsh, the news editor, looked out of it at him from the office in Bluelake, across the continent. He wanted to know how were going.
"Just about finished. I'm going to look in at a more native villages, and then I'm going to Sanders' to see Gonzales. I I'll have a personal from him, and the final situation-progress map, in time for the 'cast. I take it Maith's still to the at twelve-hundred?"
"Sure; he was always agreeable. The Army wants publicity; it was Government House that wanted to on it, and they've that up now. The story's all over the place here, native city and all."
"What's the in town, now?"
"Oh, it's still going on. Some disorders, mostly just unrest. Lot of that have into if the police hadn't them up in time. A of shootings, some sleep-gassing, and a of arrests. Nothing to worry about—at least, not immediately."
That was about what he thought. "Maybe it's not to have a little trouble in Bluelake," he considered. "What out here in the country the Government House can't see, and it doesn't worry them. Well, I'll call you from Sanders'."
He the screen. In the seat in front, the native pilot said: "Some up ahead, boss." It like two voices speaking in unison, which was just what it was. "I'll have a look."
The pilot's hand, long and thin, like a squirrel's, up and the fifty-power on their arm. Miles looked at the screen-map and saw a native village just ahead of the of light that marked the position of the aircar. He spoke the native name of the village aloud, and added:
"Let there, Heshto. I'll see what's going on."
The native, still looking through the glasses, said, "Right, boss." Then he turned.
His skin was blue-gray and looked like rubber. He was humanoid, to the of being an biped, with two arms, a on top of shoulders, and a that housed, among other oddities, four lungs. His wasn't human. He had two in front, close for vision, but that was a common of life everywhere. His mouth was for eating; he through and outlets, one of each on either of his neck; he talked through the and had his and organs in the intakes. The car was air-conditioned, which was a mercy; an Kwann through his skin, and himself with like an lab. But then, Kwanns didn't come any closer to him than they help when he was and sweated, which, lately, had been most of the time.
"A V and a of air cavalry, around," Heshto said. "Making sure nobody got away. And a car at a of hundred and another one just at level."
He rose and to the seat next to the pilot, the that were for his own eyes. With them, he see the air cavalry—egg-shaped just big for a seated man, with and and a of machine gun in front. A of them up for a look at him and then again, having the Kwannon Planetwide News Service car.
The village was to have been an in a textbook—fields in a for a of hundred yards around it, dome-thatched mud-and-wattle a with against it, their high to provide for archers, the open gathering-place in the middle. There was a big at one end of this, the khamdoo, the of the adult males, off limits for and children. A small was in of it; fifteen or twenty Terran air cavalrymen, a of men from the Second Kwannon Native Infantry, a Terran second lieutenant, and a dozen natives. The of the village population, about two hundred, of and all ages, were up on the of the gathering-place, most of them looking up at the two which were them with their guns.
Miles got to his as the car off and the of the landing-feet took up the weight. A blast of air him when he opened the door; he got out and closed it him. The second had come over to meet him; he his hand.
"Good day, Mr. Gilbert. We all you our thanks for the warning. This would have been a if we hadn't it when we did."
He didn't try to make any disclaimer; that was nothing more than the exact truth.
"Well, lieutenant, I see you have in hand here." He at the line-up along the of the plaza, and then at the group in of the khamdoo. The village in a shirt; the shoonoo, a of and nothing else; four or five of the village elders. "I take it the word of the didn't this far?"
"No, this still don't know what the flap's about, and I couldn't think of anything to tell them that wouldn't be than no at all."
He had noticed and in the fields, and the plastic the from traders, when the had the at work. And the didn't have a fire-dance or any other special on. If he'd about the swarming, he'd have been to make magic for it.
"What time did you here, lieutenant?"
"Oh-nine-forty. I just called in and reported the village occupied, and they told me I was the last one in, so the operation's finished."
That had been work. He got the lieutenant's name and unit and mentioned it into his memophone. That had been a little under five hours since he had General Maith, in Bluelake, that the labor-desertion from the Sanders had been the of a swarming. Some wouldn't have been able to a off the ground in that time, let alone on objective. He said as much to the officer.
"The way the Army responded, today, can make the people of the Colony a more for the future."
"Why, thank you, Mr. Gilbert." The Army, on Kwannon, was more used to than praise. "How did you spot what was going on so quickly?"
This was the hundredth time, at least, that he had been asked that today.
"Well, Paul Sanders' labor all comes from villages. If they'd just wanted to go home and the end of the world with their families, they'd have been away in small for the last of hundred hours. Instead, they all out in a bunch, they took all the food they and nothing else, and they didn't make any trouble they left. Then, Sanders said they'd been out in the ground and and around them for a of days, and on the job. Saving their for the trek. And he said they had a among them. He's the who started it. Had a from the Gone Ones, I suppose."
"You mean, like this here?" the asked. "What are they, Mr. Gilbert; priests?"
He looked at the lieutenant's collar-badges. Yellow for Third Fleet-Army Force, Roman IV for Fourth Army, 907 for his regiment, with C under it for cavalry. That had only been on Kwannon for the last two thousand hours, but somebody should have him than that.
He his head. "No, they're magicians. Everything these Kwanns do magic, and the are the professionals. When a native into something serious, that his own do-it-yourself magic can't with, he goes to the shoonoo. And, of course, the all the magic for the as a whole—rain-magic, magic for the village and the fields, that of thing."
The his on a handkerchief. "They'll have to along somehow for a while; we have orders to up all the and send them in to Bluelake."
"Yes." That hadn't been General Maith's idea; the had on that. "I it doesn't make more trouble than it prevents."
The was still his and looking across the gathering-place toward Alpha, above the huts.
"How much do you think this is going to get?" he asked.
"The heat, or the native troubles?"
"I was about the heat, but both."
"Well, it'll hotter. Not much hotter, but some. We can storms, too, twelve to fifteen hundred hours. Nobody has any idea how they'll be. The last was ninety years ago, and we've only been here for sixty-odd; all we have is from memory from the natives, and exaggerated. We had right after a year ago; they'll be much this time. Thermal convections; air to when it dark, and then up again in double-sun daylight."
It was beginning, now; starting to a little after Alpha-rise.
"How about the natives?" the asked. "If they can any than they are now—"
"They can, and they will. They think this is the end of the world. The Last Hot Time." He used the native expression, and then it into Lingua Terra. "The Sky Fire—that's Alpha—will up the whole world."
"But this every ninety years. Mean they always this way at periastron?"
He his head. "Race would have itself long ago if they had. No, this is something special. The of the Terrans was a sign. The Terrans came and to the world; this a that the Last Hot Time is at hand."
"What the is oomphel?" The was the of his with one hand, now, and trying to his from his with the other. "I that word all the time."
"Well, most Terrans, the old Kwannon hands, use it to trade-goods. To the natives, it means any product of Terran technology, from paper-clips to spaceships. They think it's ... well, not supernatural; would be closer to their idea. Terrans are natural; they're just a different of people. But isn't; it isn't to any of the laws of nature at all. They're all positive that we don't make it. Some of them think it makes us."
When he got in the car, the native pilot, Heshto, was in his seat and at the of along the of the gathering-place with disdain. Heshto had been at one of the Native Welfare Commission schools, and post-graded with Kwannon Planetwide News. He speak, read and Lingua Terra. He was a as as long and fractions. He that Kwannon was the second of the Gettler Beta system, 23,000 miles in circumference, on its once in 22.8 Galactic Standard hours and making an around Gettler Beta once in 372.06 days, and that Alpha was an M-class with an period of four hundred days, and that Beta around it in a long every ninety years. He didn't there was going to be a Last Hot Time. He was an intellectual, he was.
He started the contragravity-field as soon as Miles was in his seat. "Where now, boss?" he asked.
"Qualpha's Village. We won't let down; just circle low over it. I want some views of the ruins. Then to Sanders' plantation."
"O.K., boss; tight."
He had the car up to ten thousand feet. Aiming it in the map direction of Qualpha's Village, he let go with he had—hot jets, rocket-booster and all. The came out of the toward them.
Qualpha's was where the trouble had out, after the bug-out from Sanders; the hadn't been able to there in time, and it had been burned. Another village, about the same south of the plantation, had also gone up in flames, and at a dozen more they had the themselves into and had had to sleep-gas them or them with concussion-bombs. Those had been the villages to which the from Sanders' had themselves gone; from every one, had gone out to villages—"The Gone Ones are returning; all the People go to them at the Deesha-Phoo. Burn your villages; send on the word. Hasten; the Gone Ones return!"
Saving some of those villages had been touch-and-go, too; the runners, with hours lead-time, had there ahead of the troops, and there had been at a of them. Then the Army landing at villages that couldn't have been in hours by messengers. It had been stopped—at least for the time, and in this area. When and where another would out was anybody's guess.
The car was and altitude, and ahead he see thin above the trees. He moved the pilot and his glasses; with them he the of the village. He called Bluelake, and then put his to the view-finder and in the view.
It had been a village like the one he had just visited, mud-and-wattle around an gathering-place, stockade, and beyond. Heshto the car to a hundred and came in on helped by an occasional of the cold-jets. A of the still stood, and one of the hadn't fallen, but the of the were flat. There wasn't a soul, or parahuman, in sight; the only thing was a small black-and-gray some that had been in the fields, in of something tasty. He got a view of that—everybody liked animal pictures on a newscast—and then he was the over the still-burning ruins. In the of every he see the of something like a or a nuclear-electric or a or a machine. He how the Kwanns such possessions. That they had them him. But the Last Hot Time was at hand; the whole world would be by fire, and then the Gone Ones would return.
So there were on the plantations. Paul Sanders had been lucky; his Kwanns had just up and left. But he had always along well with the natives, and his house was a and he had of armament. There had been other who had the mistake of the of their native labor and of in houses. A of them weren't around, any more, and their were ruins.
And there were on which the had the plants and the which upon them. They the Terrans were using the to make magic. Not too off, at that; the properties of Kwannon had opened a major in and a dozen technologies. New of oomphel. And in the south, where the and trees were in the heat, they were starting and in them in hecatombs. And to the north, they were into the mountains; great there, too, and the Terran and radio beacons.
Fire was a common to all these frenzies. Nothing without assistance; the way to on the Last Hot Time was People.
Maybe the ones who died in the and the were the lucky ones at that. They wouldn't live to be by when the Sky Fire as Beta into the long toward apastron. The wouldn't be the lucky ones, that was for sure. The magician-in-public-practice needs only to make one mistake he is done to some death by his clientry, and this was going to turn out to be the biggest magico-prophetic in all the long history of Kwannon.
A minutes after the car south from the village, he see contragravity-vehicles in the air ahead, and then the and of the Sanders plantation. A more was in the fields, and there were of balloon-tents, and field-kitchens, and a whole park of equipment. Work was going on in the klooba-fields, too; about three hundred were open the six-foot and out the biocrystals. Three of the airjeeps, each with a pair of machine guns, were them, but they didn't to be having any trouble. He saw Sanders in another jeep, and had Heshto put the car alongside.
"How's it going, Paul?" he asked over his radio. "I see you have some help, now."
"Everybody's from Qualpha's, and from Darshat's," Sanders replied. "The Army had no place to put them, after they themselves out." He laughed happily. "Miles, I'm going to save my whole crop! I I was out, this morning."
He would have been, if Gonzales hadn't those Kwanns in. The was to wither; if left unharvested, the would die along with their and into worthlessness. Like all the other planters, Sanders had started no new since the weather, and would start none until the of the was over. He'd need every he sell to him over.
"The Welfarers'll make a big forced-labor out of this," he predicted.
"Why, such an idea." Sanders was scandalized. "I'm not them to eat."
"The Welfarers don't think ought to have to work to eat. They think ought to be they do anything to earn it or not, and if you try to make people earn their food, you're of economic coercion. And if you're in for and want them to work for you, you're an and you ought to be as a class. Haven't you been trying to a on this planet, under this Colonial Government, long to have that out, Paul?"
Brigadier General Ramón Gonzales had taken over the first—counting from the landing-stage—floor of the house for his headquarters. His company had out and four rooms into one, and moved in screens and and and to have the main of Planetwide News. The place had the of a newsroom—a after a big has and the 'cast has gone on the air and everybody—in this case about twenty Terran officers and non-coms, women—standing about screens and and about a follow-up ready.
Gonzales himself was in Sanders' business-room, with his off and his open. He had black and black and mustache, and a that well with his Old Terran Spanish name. There was another officer with him, younger—Captain Foxx Travis, Major General Maith's aide.
"Well, is there anything we can do for you, Miles?" Gonzales asked, after they had and sat down.
"Why, I have your final situation-progress map? And would you be to make a on audio-visual." He looked at his watch. "We have about twenty minutes the 'cast."
"You have a map," Gonzales said, as though he were walking from one word to another. "It the as of the moment, but I'm some minor may have in while marking the positions and times for the phases of the operation. I a copy to Planetwide along with the one I sent to Division Headquarters."
He about that and nodded. Gonzales was up his and on his and sidearm. That told him, the spoke again, that he was to the audio-visual and statement. He called the studio at Planetwide while Gonzales was himself in the and told them to set for a recording. It only ran a minutes; Gonzales, speaking without notes, gave a of the operation.
"At present," he concluded, "we have every native village and every and trading-post two hundred miles of the Sanders occupied. We that this has been definitely stopped, but we will continue the for at least the next hundred to two hundred hours. In the meantime, the in the villages are being put to work for themselves against the storms."
"I hadn't about that," Miles said, as the returned to his chair and up his drink again.
"Yes. They'll need something than these when the start, and on them will keep them out of mischief. Standard megaton-kilometer shelters, earth and construction. I think they'll be for anything that at periastron."
Anything designed to the heat, blast and of a bomb at a ought to up under what was coming. At least, the effects; there was another to it.
"The Native Welfare Commission isn't going to take to that. That's to be their job."
"Then why the haven't they done it?" Gonzales angrily. "I've viewed every native village in this area by screen, and I haven't one that's with anything than those storage-bins against the stockades."
"There was a project to provide for the set up ten years ago. They one year about how the to the Terrans' here. According to the older natives, they got into those storage-houses you were mentioning; only about one out of three in any village survived. I have told them that. Did tell them, repeatedly, on the air. Then, after they that were needed, they another year over who would be for them. Your here, General Nokami, offered the services of his officers. He was that this was a and not a project."
Ramón Gonzales swearing, then for the interruption. "Then what?" he asked.
"Apology unnecessary. Then they did a designed, and started teaching some of the students at the native how to them, and then the told them it was no good. It was a shelter; the said there'd be in of and who got in one of those would be like a rat."
"Ha, I of that one." Gonzales said. "My are going to be up eight above the ground."
"What did they do then?" Foxx Travis wanted to know.
"There the rested. As as I know, nothing has been done on it since."
"And you think, with a record of non-accomplishment like that, that they'll General Gonzales' action on purely grounds?" Travis demanded.
"Not grounds, Foxx. The general's going at this the way. He actually what has to be done and how to do it, and he's going right ahead and doing it, without a dozen and round-table and a and equal to up for him. You know as well as I do that that's undemocratic. And what's worse, he's making the them themselves, they want to or not, and that's labor. That me; has started the about those Kwanns from Qualpha's and Darshat's you here and Paul put to work?"
Gonzales looked at Travis and then said: "Not with me. Not yet, anyhow."
"They've been at General Maith," Travis said shortly. After a moment, he added: "General Maith supports General Gonzales completely; that's for publication. I'm to say so. What else was there to do? They'd their villages and all their food stores. They had to be somewhere. And why in the name of should they around in the Government native-type while Paul Sanders has fifty to a hundred thousand sols' of on him?"
"Yes; that's another thing they'll about. Paul's making a profit out of it."
"Of he's making a profit," Gonzales said. "Why else is he a plantation? If didn't make profits, who'd biocrystals?"
"The Colonial Government. The same way they those storm-shelters. But that would be in the public interest, and if the Kwanns weren't public-spirited to do the work, they'd be to—at about what like Sanders are paying them now. But don't you that profit is and and selfish? Not at all like a salary-cum-expense-account from the Government."
"You're right, it isn't," Gonzales agreed. "People like Paul Sanders have ability. If they don't, they don't in business. You have ability and people who don't you for it. Your very is a to them."
"That's right. And they can't admit your ability without their own inferiority, so it isn't ability at all. It's just dirty and selfish ruthlessness." He for a moment. "How did Government House out about these Kwanns here?"
"The Welfare Commission had people out while I was still setting up headquarters," Gonzales said. "That was about oh-seven-hundred."
"This isn't for publication?" Travis asked. "Well, they know, but they can't prove, that our for moving in here in is false. Of course, we can't our now; that's why the situation-progress map that was prepared for is as to the phases. They do not know that it was you who gave us our warning; they that to Sanders. And they are that there was any swarming; according to them, Sanders' are for pay and conditions, and Sanders got General Maith to use to the strike. I wish we give you for us onto this, but it's too late now."
He nodded. The was that a of had been sent in to a small detail under attack by natives, and that more had been sent in to re-enforce them, until the whole of Gonzales' had been committed.
"That an hour, at the start," Gonzales said. "We two native villages burned, and about two dozen casualties, we couldn't our full in soon enough."
"You'd have more than that if Maith had told the the truth and orders to act. There'd be a hundred villages and a dozen and burning, now, and Lord how many dead, and the would still be about he was in ordering troop-action." He mentioned other occasions when something like that had happened. "You can't tell that of people the truth. They won't it. It doesn't agree with their preconceptions."
Foxx Travis nodded. "I take it we are still talking for nonpublication?" When Miles nodded, he continued: "This whole is baffling, Miles. It that the government here all about the weather they at periastron, and had plans for them. Some of them excellent plans, too, but all on the that the would co-operate or at least not obstruct. You see what the actually is. It should be to that the of these is the government is trying to do to the of the Terran colonists, the production of Terran-type food without which we would all starve, the without which the Colony would perish, and the themselves. Yet the Civil Government will not act to stop these native and which and here, and when the Army to act, we must use every of and or the Civil Government will prevent us. What these people?"
"You have the whole history of the Colony against you, Foxx," he said. "You know, there was any Chartered Kwannon Company set up to the of the planet. At first, nobody that there were any exploiting. This was just a scientific curiosity; it was and is still the only of a with a native population of beings. The people who came here were scientists, mostly and para-anthropologists. And most of them came from the University of Adelaide."
Travis nodded. Adelaide had a Federation-wide for left-wing neo-Marxist "liberalism."
"Well, that the political and social of the Colonial Government, right at the start, when study of the was the only of the Colony. You know how these in a government—or any other organization. Subordinates are always for their agreement with the views of their superiors, and the always to the top and the under or out. Well, the Native Affairs Administration the that the Government dog, and the Native Welfare Commission is the big in the tail."