Pebble in the Sky Read online

  But Pola whispered in horror, “You’ll take him to the Ancients.”

  “What for? He’s no good to them, and he’s worth a hundred credits to me. If you wait for the Outsiders, they’re liable to kill the fella before they find out he’s fever-free. You know Outsiders—they don’t care if they kill an Earthman or not. They’d rather, in fact.”

  Arvardan said, “Take the young lady with you.”

  But Natter’s little eyes were very sharp and very sly. “Oh no. Not that, guv’ner. I take what you call calculated risks. I can get by with one, maybe not with two. And if I only take one, I take the one what’s worth more. Ain’t that reasonable to you?”

  “What,” said Arvardan, “if I pick you up and pull your legs off? What’ll happen then?”

  Natter flinched, but found his voice, nevertheless, and managed a laugh. “Why, then, you’re a dope. They’ll get you anyway, and there’ll be murder, too, on the list. . . . All right, guv’ner. Keep your hands off.”

  “Please”—Pola was dragging at Arvardan’s arm—“we must take a chance. Let him do as he says. . . . You’ll be honest with us, w-won’t you, Mr. Natter?”

  Natter’s lips were curling. “Your big friend wrenched my arm. He had no call to do that, and I don’t like nobody to push me around. I’ll just take an extra hundred credits for that. Two hundred in all.”

  “My father’ll pay you—”

  “One hundred in advance,” he replied obdurately.

  “But I don’t have a hundred credits,” Pola wailed.

  “That’s all right, miss,” said Arvardan stonily. “I can swing it.”

  He opened his wallet and plucked out several bills. He threw them at Natter. “Get going!”

  “Go with him, Schwartz,” whispered Pola.

  Schwartz did, without comment, without caring. He would have gone to hell at that moment with as little emotion.

  And they were alone, staring at each other blankly. It was perhaps the first time that Pola had actually looked at Arvardan, and she was amazed to find him tall and craggily handsome, calm and self-confident. She had accepted him till now as an inchoate, unmotivated helper, but now—She grew suddenly shy, and all the events of the last hour or two were enmeshed and lost in a scurry of heartbeating.

  They didn’t even know each other’s name.

  She smiled and said, “I’m Pola Shekt.”

  Arvardan had not seen her smile before, and found himself interested in the phenomenon. It was a glow that entered her face, a radiance. It made him feel—But he put that thought away roughly. An Earthgirl!

  So he said, with perhaps less cordiality than he intended, “My name is Bel Arvardan.” He held out a bronzed hand, into which her little one was swallowed up for a moment.

  She said, “I must thank you for all your help.”

  Arvardan shrugged it away. “Shall we leave? I mean, now that your friend is gone; safely, I trust.”

  “I think we would have heard quite a noise if they had caught him, don’t you think so?” Her eyes were pleading for confirmation of her hope, and he refused the temptation toward softness.

  “Shall we go?”

  She was somehow frozen. “Yes, why not?” sharply.

  But there was a whining in the air, a shrill moan on the horizon, and the girl’s eyes were wide and her outstretched hand suddenly withdrawn again.

  “What’s the matter now?” asked Arvardan.

  “It’s the Imperials.”

  “And are you frightened of them too?” It was the self-consciously non-Earthman Arvardan who spoke—the Sirian archaeologist. Prejudice or not, however the logic might be chopped and minced, the approach of Imperial soldiers meant a trace of sanity and humanity. There was room for condescension here, and he grew kind.

  “Don’t worry about the Outsiders,” he said, even stooping to use their term for non-Earthmen. “I’ll handle them, Miss Shekt.”

  She was suddenly concerned. “Oh no, don’t try anything like that. Just don’t talk to them at all. Do as they say, and don’t even look at them.”

  Arvardan’s smile broadened.

  The guards saw them while they were still a distance from the main entrance and fell back. They emerged into a little space of emptiness and a strange hush. The whine of the army cars was almost upon them.

  And then there were armored cars in the square and groups of glass-globe–headed soldiers springing out therefrom. The crowds scattered before them in panic, aided in their scramblings by clipped shouts and thrusts with the butt ends of the neuronic whips.

  Lieutenant Claudy, in the lead, approached an Earthman guard at the main entrance. “All right, you, who’s got the fever?”

  His face was slightly distorted within the enclosing glass, with its content of pure air. His voice was slightly metallic as a result of radioamplification.

  The guard bent his head in deep respect. “If it please your honor, we have isolated the patient within the store. The two who were with the patient are now standing in the doorway before you.”

  “They are, are they? Good! Let them stand there. Now—in the first place, I want this mob out of here. Sergeant! Clear the square!”

  There was a grim efficiency in the proceedings thereafter. The deepening twilight gloomed over Chica as the crowd melted into the darkening air. The streets were beginning to gleam in soft, artificial lighting.

  Lieutenant Claudy tapped his heavy boots with the butt of his neuronic whip. “You’re sure the sick Earthie is inside?”

  “He has not left, your honor. He must be.”

  “Well, we’ll assume he is and waste no time about it. Sergeant! Decontaminate the building!”

  A contingent of soldiers, hermetically sealed away from all contact with Terrestrial environment, charged into the building. A slow quarter hour passed, while Arvardan watched all in absorbed fashion. It was a field experiment in intercultural relationships that he was professionally reluctant to disturb.

  The last of the soldiers were out again, and the store was shrouded in deepening night.

  “Seal the doors!”

  Another few minutes and then the cans of disinfectant which had been placed in several spots on each floor were discharged at long distance. In the recesses of the building those cans were flung open and the thick vapors rolled out and curled up the walls, clinging to every square inch of surface, reaching through the air and into the inmost crannies. No protoplasm, from germ to man, could remain alive in its presence, and chemical flushing of the most painstaking type would be required eventually for decontamination.

  But now the lieutenant was approaching Arvardan and Pola.

  “What was his name?” There was not even cruelty in his voice, merely utter indifference. An Earthman, he thought, had been killed. Well, he had killed a fly that day also. That made two.

  He received no answer, Pola bending her head meekly and Arvardan watching curiously. The Imperial officer did not take his eyes off them. He beckoned curtly. “Check them for infection.”

  An officer bearing the insignia of the Imperial Medical Corps approached them, and was not gentle in his investigation. His gloved hands pushed hard under their armpits and yanked at the corners of their mouths so that he might investigate the inner surfaces of their cheeks.

  “No infection, Lieutenant. If they had been exposed this afternoon, the stigmata would be clearly visible by now if infection had occurred.”

  “Umm.” Lieutenant Claudy carefully removed his globe and enjoyed the touch of “live” air, even that of Earth. He tucked the ungainly glass object into the crook of his left elbow and said harshly, “Your name, Earthie-squaw?”

  The term itself was richly insulting; the tone in which it was uttered added disgrace to it, but Pola showed no sign of resentment.

  “Pola Shekt, sir,” she responded in a whisper.

  “Your papers!”

  She reached into the small pocket of her white jacket and removed the pink folder.

  He took it,
flared it open in the light of his pocket flash, and studied it. Then he tossed it back. It fell, fluttering, to the floor, and Pola bent quickly for it.

  “Stand up,” the officer ordered impatiently, and kicked the booklet out of reach. Pola, white-faced, snatched her fingers away.

  Arvardan frowned and decided it was time to interfere. He said, “Say, look here, now.”

  The lieutenant turned on him in a flash, his lips drawn back. “What did you say, Earthie?”

  Pola was between them at once. “If you please, sir, this man has nothing to do with anything that has happened today. I never saw him before—”

  The lieutenant yanked her aside. “I said, What did you say, Earthie?”

  Arvardan returned his stare coolly. “I said, Look here, now. And I was going to say further that I don’t like the way you treat women and that I’d advise you to improve your manners.”

  He was far too irritated to correct the lieutenant’s impression of his planetary origin.

  Lieutenant Claudy smiled without humor. “And where have you been brought up, Earthie? Don’t you believe in saying ‘sir’ when you address a man? You don’t know your place, do you? Well, it’s been a while since I’ve had the pleasure of teaching the way of life to a nice big Earthie-buck. Here, how’s this—”

  And quickly, like the flick of a snake, his open palm was out and across Arvardan’s face, back and forth, once, twice. Arvardan stepped back in surprise and then felt the roaring in his ears. His hand shot out to catch the extended arm that pecked at him. He saw the other’s face twist in surprise—

  The muscles in his shoulders writhed easily.

  The lieutenant was on the pavement with a crashing thud that sent the glass globe rolling into shattered fragments. He lay still, and Arvardan’s half-smile was ferocious. He dusted his hands lightly. “Any other bastard here think he can play patty-cake on my face?”

  But the sergeant had raised his neuronic whip. The contact closed and there was the dim violet flash that reached out and licked at the tall archaeologist.

  Every muscle in Arvardan’s body stiffened in unbearable pain, and he sank slowly to his knees. Then, with total paralysis upon him, he blacked out.

  When Arvardan swam out of the haze he was conscious first of all of a wash of welcome coolness on his forehead. He tried to open his eyes and found his lids reacting as if swinging on rusty hinges. He let them remain closed and, with infinitely slow jerks (each fragmentary muscular movement shooting pins through him), lifted his arm to his face.

  A soft, damp towel, held by a little hand . . .

  He forced an eye open and battled with the mist.

  “Pola,” he said.

  There was a little cry of sudden joy. “Yes. How do you feel?”

  “As if I were dead,” he croaked, “without the advantage of losing pain. . . . What happened?”

  “We were carted off to the military base. The colonel’s been in here. They’ve searched you—and I don’t know what they’re going to do, but—Oh, Mr. Arvardan, you shouldn’t ever have struck the lieutenant. I think you broke his arm.”

  A faint smile wrenched at Arvardan’s face. “Good! I wish I’d broken his back.”

  “But resisting an Imperial officer—it’s a capital offense.” Her voice was a horrified whisper.

  “Indeed? We’ll see about that.”

  “Ssh. They’re coming back.”

  Arvardan closed his eyes and relaxed. Pola’s cry was faint and far-off in his ears, and when he felt the hypodermic’s thrust he could not gather his muscles into motion.

  And then there was the wash of wonderful soothing non-pain along his veins and nerves. His arms unknotted and his back released itself slowly from its rigid arch, settling down. He fluttered his eyelids rapidly and, with a thrust of his elbow, sat up.

  The colonel was regarding him thoughtfully; Pola, apprehensively, yet, somehow, joyfully.

  The colonel said, “Well, Dr. Arvardan, we seem to have had an unpleasant contretemps in the city this evening.”

  Dr. Arvardan. Pola realized the little she knew about him, not even his occupation. . . . She had never felt quite like this.

  Arvardan laughed shortly. “Unpleasant, you say. I consider that a rather inadequate adjective.”

  “You have broken the arm of an officer of the Empire about the performance of his duty.”

  “That officer struck me first. His duty in no way included the necessity for grossly insulting me, both verbally and physically. In doing so he forfeited any claim he might have to treatment as an officer and gentleman. As a free citizen of the Empire, I had every right to resent such cavalier, not to say illegal, treatment.”

  The colonel harumphed and seemed at a loss for words. Pola stared at both of them with wide, unbelieving eyes.

  Finally the colonel said softly, “Well, I need not say that I consider the whole incident to have been unfortunate. Apparently the pain and indignity involved have been equally spread on both sides. It may be best to forget this matter.”

  “Forget? I think not. I have been a guest at the Procurator’s palace, and he may be interested in hearing exactly in what manner his garrison maintains order on Earth.”

  “Now, Dr. Arvardan, if I assure you that you will receive a public apology—”

  “To hell with that. What do you intend doing with Miss Shekt?”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “That you free her instantly, return her papers, and tender your apologies—right now.”

  The colonel reddened, then said with an effort, “Of course.” He turned to Pola. “If the young lady will accept my deepest regrets . . .”

  They had left the dark garrison walls behind them. It had been a short and silent ten-minute air-taxi ride to the city proper, and now they stood at the deserted blackness of the Institute. It was past midnight.

  Pola said, “I don’t think I quite understand. You must be very important. It seems silly of me not to know your name. I didn’t ever imagine that Outsiders could treat an Earthman so.”

  Arvardan felt oddly reluctant and yet compelled to end the fiction. “I’m not an Earthman, Pola. I’m an archaeologist from the Sirian Sector.”

  She turned on him quickly, her face white in the moonlight. For the space of a slow count to ten she said nothing. “Then you outfaced the soldiers because you were safe, after all, and knew it. And I thought—I should have known.”

  There was an outraged bitterness about her. “I humbly beg your pardon, sir, if at any time today, in my ignorance, I affected any disrespectful familiarity with you—”

  “Pola,” he cried angrily, “what’s the matter? What if I’m not an Earthman? How does that make me different from what I seemed to you to be five minutes ago?”

  “You might have told me, sir.”

  “I’m not asking you to call me ‘sir.’ Don’t be like the rest of them, will you?”

  “Like the rest of whom, sir? The rest of the disgusting animals that live on Earth? . . . I owe you a hundred credits.”

  “Forget it,” said Arvardan disgustedly.

  “I cannot follow that order. If you’ll give me your address, I will send you a money order for the amount tomorrow.”

  Arvardan was suddenly brutal. “You owe me much more than a hundred credits.”

  Pola bit her lip and said in lowered tones, “It is the only part of my great debt, sir, that I can repay. Your address?”

  “State House,” he flung at her across his shoulder. He was lost in the night.

  And Pola found herself weeping!

  Shekt met Pola at the door of his office.

  “He’s back,” he said. “A little thin man brought him.”

  “Good!” She was having difficulty speaking.

  “He asked for two hundred credits. I gave it to him.”

  “He was to ask for one hundred, but never mind.”

  She brushed past her father. He said wistfully, “I was terribly worried. The commotions in the
neighborhood—I dared not ask; I might have endangered you.”

  “It’s all right. Nothing’s happened. . . . Let me sleep here tonight, Father.”

  But not all her weariness could make her sleep, for something had happened. She had met a man, and he was an Outsider.

  But she had his address. She had his address.

  10

  Interpretation of Events

  They presented a complete contrast, these two Earthmen—one with the greatest semblance of power on Earth, and one with the greatest reality.

  Thus the High Minister was the most important Earthman on Earth, the recognized ruler of the planet by direct and definite decree of the Emperor of all the Galaxy—subject, of course, to the orders of the Emperor’s Procurator. His Secretary seemed no one at all, really—merely a member of the Society of Ancients, appointed, theoretically, by the High Minister to take care of certain unspecified details, and dismissable, theoretically, at will.

  The High Minister was known to all the Earth and was looked up to as the supreme arbiter on matters of Custom. It was he who announced the exemptions to the Sixty and it was he who judged the breakers of ritual, the defiers of rationing and of production schedules, the invaders of restricted territory and so on. The Secretary, on the other hand, was known to nobody, not even by name, except to the Society of Ancients and, of course, to the High Minister himself.

  The High Minister had a command of language and made frequent speeches to the people, speeches of high emotional content and copious flow of sentiment. He had fair hair, worn long, and a delicate and patrician countenance. The Secretary, snub-nosed and wry-faced, preferred a short word to a long one, a grunt to a word, and silence to a grunt—at least in public.

  It was the High Minister, of course, who had the semblance of power; the Secretary who had the reality. And in the privacy of the High Minister’s office that circumstance was quite plain.

  For the High Minister was pettishly puzzled and the Secretary coolly indifferent.

  “What I don’t see,” said the High Minister, “is the connection of all these reports you bring me. Reports, reports!” He lifted an arm above his head and struck viciously at an imaginary heap of paper. “I don’t have the time for them.”