Part-4
When Clarey came home from Barshwat, Embelsira said nothing more about her suspicions, but him and prepared a special supper for him. Afterward, he if making love to an Earth girl be as pleasant. He how it would be to make love to Han Vollard.
The days passed and he about Han Vollard. After much persuasion, he to give a series of at Zrig, but only on condition that Rini played with him and had one each performance. He was embarrassed at having so his teacher, but Rini unperturbed.
"My technique's still than yours will be," he said. "It's this new of yours that 'em. I it's spreading; it's as as Barshwat. You should see the angry Irik about it!" Rini chuckled. "And he hasn't the least idea it started right here in his own home village that he's always at for being so backward!"
Clarey and the boy on the neck. If it Rini to think Clarey had a new than that Clarey played than he did, Clarey had no objection.
Clarey was offered the post of at Zrig, but Embelsira didn't want to Katund, and, when he about it, he didn't want to either. So he the job and didn't the to Headquarters.
As he more sure of himself and his position, he allowed his to show. He and Embelsira moved into a larger dome. Instead of sending to Zrig or Barshwat for the furnishings, they local talent. Tavan, the carpenter, them some pieces with that said was the equal of anything in Barshwat. A nephew of Hanxi's painted murals; Embelsira's mother and in water-tones. The the showplace. Clarey he now had a position to keep up, but sometimes it him when perfect asked to see the place.
He was to against Malesor as but declined. He didn't want to be into prominence. Trouble was, as he popular, he also animosity. There were the girls who he should have married them of Embelsira, and their mothers and husbands. A of people Clarey they he should have his house differently, differently, his money differently.
A man can live by everyone, he discovered, but he can't be liked by some without himself by others.
Matters came to a in his fourth there. He of it as spring, although on Damorlan the had no identities; they into one another, without its being very or very cold, very rainy or very dry. The he called this time of the year was that it to perfection.
It was less perfect that year. Because it was then that Rini's Irik came from Barshwat, after a six years' absence. He was very much the city man, more so than anyone Clarey had in Barshwat itself. His were than his villagers', and his from one color to another. He a great of jewelry and perfume, neither of the best quality, and the of his were divided.
Clarey this in detail to Embelsira the night Irik put in his at the Furbush. "You should have the little horror!"
"That's the way city men dress," Embelsira told him. "It's fashionable."
"But, dear, I've been to Barshwat."
"You don't have an for clothes. You notice when I put on anything new. And I think it's to take a to Irik just you don't for the way he dresses."
"It's more than that, Belsira." And yet how he to her what he couldn't himself, that Irik was vain, stupid, hostile; hence, dangerous?
"I to you, Balt," Embelsira said demurely, "that there was me and Irik, it all ended six years ago."
Clarey gave a start and then a smile. "I you, dear." And he her nose.
Irik in the Furbush every of his in Katund. He had and he them generously. He everything—the government, taxes, modern music, and Earthmen, he to in some way for the modern music, or at least its popularization. "Barbarians—slept through my concerts."
"But people are always asleep concerts, Irik," Malesor pointed out reasonably. "And how you to good music? What do you for Earthmen's opinions as long as your own people like your music?"
Irik hesitated. "But the Earthmen have taken up the new of music; they that. And—a of people to think that whatever's is good, so the Earthmen like fashionable."
Hanxi his ears. "Fashions change. Well, who's to have his refilled?"
"But the Earthmen will keep on setting the fashions," Irik snarled. "Many people think the Earthmen know everything, just they're and have sky cars."
"Well," Malesor said, "the sky prove they know something we don't. Better to your music, boy."
The little bar-parlor with and Irik's a red. "They don't know anything about music and they don't know about machinery. We might them yet. A friend of mine Guhak, the who that new for the car a years ago."
"We know about that brake," Piq observed. "It stops a car so good, the are twice as late as they used to be, and you couldn't say they were on time."
Everybody laughed again. Irik with anger. "Guhak has a car that doesn't need to go on tracks. It can it wants it wants. And one car will be able to go than three teams."
"That I'll when I've on it," Kuqal grinned. "Even the aren't that fast." The others their thumbs and nodded—except Clarey, who was out of the conversation. He his and said nothing.
"You're clods!" Irik raged. "If the Earthmen can have that go through the sky without why shouldn't we have that on the ground the same way? Have we tried?"
"Doesn't to me it's the effort," Malesor said. "Our can us where we're going as fast as we need to go already, why bother?"
"Whatever an Earthman can do, we can do better! Soon Guhak will his ground on the road. After that, it'll only be a step to that go in the sky. Then we'll out where the Earthmen come from and why they're here. We'll be as powerful as they are. We'll of them and their music."
The was silent, for the as Clarey put his on the table. If he it an longer, he was he would it. One or two of the men looked at him out of the of their eyes. Malesor spoke: "In the place, you don't know how powerful Earthmen are. In the second place, who wants to be powerful, anyway? The Earthmen haven't done us any and they're a good thing for the economy. My in Zrig tells me one of 'em come into his store a months ago and out his whole stock, every of cloth. Paid twice what it was worth, too. Live and let live, I say."
The others restlessly.
"If there are of doing better," Rini suggested, "why shouldn't we have them, too?" His toward Clarey's and then as away.
Irik his and looked directly at Clarey for the time. "You're silent, stranger. What do you think of the Earthmen?"
Clarey up his drink, the and set the on the table. "I don't know much about Earthmen. An ugly-looking lot, true, but there doesn't to be any in them. Of course, in Barshwat, you know a more about them than I do."
"I that," Irik said. "You have an aunt in Barshwat."
Clarey allowed himself to look he said courteously, "I'm you me and my family so interesting. Yes, it so I do have an aunt there, but she's in years and doesn't around the the way the children do."
Irik's darkened. "What is your aunt's name?"
This time looked surprised. The question itself was not too out-of-the-way, but his was.
"She's a great-grandmother," Clarey said. "She would be too old for you. And I you it's difficult to part her from her money. I've tried."
Everybody laughed. Irik was furious. "I that your aunt very close to Earth Headquarters!"
Somebody must have him on one or more of his to Barshwat, Clarey realized. "If the Earthmen to themselves in the best of Barshwat, then my aunt live near them. She's not the type to a move into the neighborhood."
"Perhaps she has more than neighborhood in common with Earthmen."
The room was very again.
"She sometimes go to sleep at concerts," Clarey conceded.
Irik opened his mouth. Malesor up a hand. "Before you say anything more against the Earthmen, Irik," he advised, "you out more about them. Their move and higher than ours. Maybe their do, too."
No one looked at Clarey. Malesor had a showdown, he knew, but this was the of the end. And he had a who was responsible—innocently perhaps, not. Love not always trust. And when he told Embelsira what had in the Furbush, she, too, couldn't meet his eye. "That Irik," she said, "I liked him."
"I wonder how he so much about me."
"Rini him very often," she babbled. "He must have told him you were for the new music. That would make him you. Rini to Irik, he's always been of him. But the whole thing's silly. How you possibly make over the world's music, if you were—" Her voice ran down.
"An Earthman?" he coldly. "I you around telling your suspicions, and Rini that to Irik, too?"
"I didn't tell anybody!" she indignantly. "Not a soul!" She met his eye. "Except Mother, of course."
"Your mother! You might as well have published it in the District Bulletin!"
"You have no right to speak of Mother like that, if it's true!" Embelsira to sob. "I had to tell her, Balt—she why there weren't any ones."
"You could've told her to mind her own business!" he snapped, he catch himself. Five years, and he still slips. It was her business. On Damorlan, it was a woman's not only to have children but to see that her children had children and their children had children.
He himself look and self-reproachful. "I have a to make, Belsir. I should have told you when I married you. I can't have children."
"I of such a thing! Everybody has children—unless they're not married, of course," she added primly.
"It's an sent by the gods."
"The gods would do anything like that!" she confidently.
How she is, he thought, and, then, angrily, how I am! He had stopped to think about it, but he of no married who had not at least one offspring; he and Embelsira were the only ones. It hadn't to the X-T that a were the same might have different handicaps. Apparently there was no such thing as on Damorlan.
"Are you an Earthman, then, Balt?" she asked timidly.
She had spread the news around, him, the work Earth had been doing, more than that—and she hadn't been sure to with. But it was too late for recriminations. He had to what little he could—time, maybe; that was all.
"Are you going to tell?" he asked.
She hesitated. "Do you you don't my people any harm?"
"I swear," he said.
"Then I not to tell," she said.
He her. After all, he thought, it isn't a lie. I don't her people any harm. Besides, sooner or later, her mother will it out of her, so she won't be her part of the bargain.
The next time he to Barshwat he he would be followed. He to shake the or off, but he couldn't be sure he'd succeeded.
He the looking out of the window with an of melancholy. If there had been any Earthwomen on Damorlan, Clarey would have he'd been in love.
"Things are taking a turn, Clarey," Blynn said. "There have been of from the natives. Get any hint of it?"
"No," Clarey said, taking his chair, "not a whisper."
The sat heavily. "Katund's too out of the way. We should've moved you to a city once you'd got the of things. But you do go to Zrig occasionally. Haven't you anything there?"
"Only that an Earthman out a cloth merchant's entire stock at one blow."
Blynn weakly. "Maybe it was an thing to do, but the fabric's stuff."
He his nose reflectively. "Fact is, I've been rumors. They say some named Kuhak's a ground car that can without tracks."
Clarey almost said "Guhak," but himself in time. "Nonsense," he scoffed. "The more I know of them, the more I am they got as as the chains."
"But they did, no around that. This is what Earth's of, you know," he Clarey—unnecessarily. "This is why you were sent here. And, if the rumor's true, it looks as if you weren't needed at all. I got the news by myself."
"But why should it be that upsetting?" Clarey to laugh. "You look as if it were the end of the world."
The gave him a long, level look. "I that in the of taste."
Clarey stopped laughing.
"Remember," the Clarey, again unnecessarily, "this is the way we ourselves got started."
"But the Damorlanti don't have to move in the same direction. They may look and act human, but they don't think human."
The his hands his and sighed. "There have been articles against us in the paper, and we go out in the people—natives, I mean—make and sometimes at us. And what have we done to them? Carefully our own business, all cultural for purposes, paid them much more than the going price for their goods, and gave them one or two on health and sanitation. As a result, they're to us."
"But if you send a report, it'll the staff ship in ahead of time. Maybe the whole thing'll over. This way, you're not it a to."
The his lip. "Well," he said, "I might as well wait and see if the rumor's I report it."
Clarey to Katund. The months by. The in the Furbush had vanished, and not as many people stopped and when they came to the library. But there wasn't any until the Clarey was walking home after late night at the library and a him the shoulder-blades. "Dirty Earthman!" a voice called, and of off.
He didn't mention the to Embelsira, not wanting to worry her, but the next he to the Village Dome and Malesor. "Very bad," the muttered. "Very bad. Whoever did it will be punished."
"You won't be able to catch them," Clarey said, "and there'd be no point in punishment, anyway. Look at it like this, Mal. Suppose I had been an Earthman, don't you see how this would be, not for me but for you? Can't you the results?"
Malesor nodded. "The Earthmen's do go and faster, then?"
"And maybe deeper," Clarey agreed, not to notice that it had been a question. "After the way Irik talked, I couldn't help over to the when I was in Barshwat and an Earth ship come. You've no idea how powerful a thing it was. Anyone who has power in one direction is likely to have it in another."
"I wonder if the Earthmen always had power," Malesor mused, "if they weren't like us once. If, time, we couldn't be like them...."
Clarey didn't say anything.
Malesor's gray. "You we might not be time?"
Clarey his ears. "Who can tell what's in the mind of an Earthman?"
Malesor looked directly at him. "Why do you tell me this?"
"Because I'm one of you," Clarey said stoutly.
Malesor his head. "You're not. You can be. But thanks for the warning—stranger."
Never identify, the had said. You'll be able to the you're trying to play. He was talking only of the stage, Clarey told himself angrily, as he left the Dome.
Reports in from the cities. Earthmen had been twice in Zrig, more often than that in Barshwat. Clarey got an from his aunt. "Watch out for yourself, Nephew," she warned. "They may take it into their to attack all foreigners. Remember, come what may, you'll always have a home with me."
Then open. A group of Earth Headquarters in Barshwat. The Earthmen them with a which the without them; that is, it was to work that way. However, one of them his on the when he fell, and he died the next day.
The people of Vintnor were aroused. They around Earth Headquarters that said, "Go home, Earth murderers!" The of Barshwat called upon Colonel Blynn. The to his men from the planet. "I'm under orders, old chap," he said, "but I'll report your to Earth."
"It isn't a request," the said.
Colonel Blynn and said, "We'll it as one, shall we?"
Clarey what happened, the gave a report of the to the Barshwat Prime Bulletin. He also got a from his aunt the as as if she had been there herself. The Barshwat Prime ran a series of calling upon all the nations of Damorlan to against the Earthmen; it was that counted, it said, than technology. Malesor a how against weapons. He read it in the Purple Furbush he sent it to the of the Barshwat Prime, which was lucky, the Prime printed it, although the Dordonec Bulletin ran a copy.
However, the Barshwat Prime did print from in different countries. All of them support. It also printed a from an in Katund which that there was an Earth in that village, as a Damorlant, and it was this who was personally for the of taste on the whole planet. But the Bulletin to this as an from the fringe: "It would be as easy to a as one of us as an Earthman. And, although we not the of music in our culture, it is likely that Earth would be attempting to purposes through that art. No, the in taste part of the in public which has left us an easy prey."
Irik to Barshwat to help riot, but he left the Katundi that Clarey was, if not actually an Earthman, at least a traitor. When he came into the Furbush, got up and left. Nobody the branch library any more. The readers to the main library at Zrig, and, since the was expensive, their books were and they had to pay fines. Sometimes they returned the books at all and had to be sent from the city. Finally the at Zrig a that only those the city limits take books out; all others in the had to read them on the premises. The Katundi that on Clarey, too. One night they into his library and all the best-sellers.
A of days later, he came home and all the of his broken. Best-sellers are often disappointing, he thought. He a note from Embelsira, saying, "I have gone home to Mother."
He she him to go after her, but he her a note saying he was going to see his aunt who was by all the riots, and put it in the mail, so she wouldn't it too soon. He packed his with his most and he took his under his arm.
When he Barshwat, he had some through the in of Earth Headquarters. All the were up and the garbage hadn't been for a length of time. Just as he the door, a familiar voice called, "That's the Earth spy!"
"Don't be silly!" another voice said. "He's one of us!"
"But a traitor!" another voice. "Otherwise why go in there?" Stones against the door, by of "Spy!... Traitor!... Fool!" the last to each other, than Clarey.
Blynn was and anxious-looking "I've been when you'd up. Afraid maybe they'd got you—"
"I'm all right," Clarey interrupted. "But what are we going to do?"
Blynn laughed without stopping for a full minute. "Do? I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to tight and wait for the staff ship."
Two months later the staff ship came. Blynn for the and the to come in a closed ground car.
"But why?" the general's voice over the com-unit. "I we didn't want them to know about ground cars—"
"They know," Blynn said crisply. "They've got one of their own now, maybe more. Crazy-looking thing, but it works. You'll see it Headquarters when you here. The on the 'Earthmen, Go!' Form emphatic."
Han Vollard into Headquarters, ablaze. "Why didn't you send a report trouble started? How you allow an to happen?"
Neither Blynn Clarey said anything.
"Very thing," Spano declared. "Maybe it them so they didn't know it was building."
"You and Blynn over to the ship right away for deep-probing," Han Vollard ordered, as to speak at once. "It's the only way I'll be able to a report."
After the results came through, her anger was cold, searing, unwomanly. "You a year ago that were to go and you didn't mention it on the tapes! I have of you for this."
"If only that were all there was to worry about," Clarey wistfully.
She on him. "Stop sorry for yourself!" The of in that dark was more than anything that had yet.
"I'm not sorry for myself," he said. "It's the Damorlanti I sorry for."
"You sorry for them you identify with them. That makes you sorry for yourself."
She his as she he did or said, but their wasn't at now. "What are you going to do?" he himself to ask.
"The will have to be on Earth. Unless you what's going to to you? That's simple—you'll go with us. Blynn will here, orders."
The saluted.
"But I I was going to here ten years," said Clarey.
"Five to ten years," she corrected. "Apparently five was enough—" She cut herself short. "What's the with me?" she exclaimed. "I've been myself think in the same way you do."
Suddenly, almost frighteningly, she smiled. "Clarey, you did the job we sent you out to do! You did it than we expected! What me off was that we sent you out to act as an observer. Instead, you a catalyst!"
She his hand and it warmly. "Clarey, I apologize. You've done a job!"
He his hand from her grasp. "I didn't act as a catalyst! It would have anyway." His voice in his own ears—a voice for reassurance.
And she was a woman; she had instincts; she him. "It would have anyway," she said soothingly, "but it would have on for years, cost the billions."
"And now," he whispered, still unable to that the thing had happened, "will you ... of on Damorlant?"
She and herself into a chair, her and and contented-looking. "Come, Clarey, we're not that ruthless. Some of will be out. We just the whole thing more to to your patriotism."
The beamed. "So has out all right, after all? I it would. I always had the in you, Clarey."
She was planning. "We'll some of accident.... I have it! You died saving your aunt from the flames."
"What flames?"
"The of the fire that her house. She died of the local of shock. Embelsira will be rich, so she'll want to the story. She'll be able to herself another husband; she'll have children. She'll be off, Clarey."
He looked at her, his out of his eyes.
"Oh, I don't it that way, man! All I meant was that you're a being; she's not. I'm not saying one is than the other. I'm saying they're different."
"But I less different with her, with the Damorlanti, than with anyone on Earth," he said.
She walked across to the window and looked out at the Damorlanti below. "Most of us are in our world," she said at last, "but couldn't if we were allowed to there."
"Damorlan wasn't a world."
"But it will be," she said.
