Planet of the Damned - Harry Harrison (best books to read for beginners txt) 📗

the Disan people not to listen to the magter. It explained that the magter had started a war that could have only one ending—the destruction of Dis. Only if the magter were thrown down and their weapons discovered could there be any hope.

"Are these words true?" Ulv asked.

"Yes," Brion said.

"They are perhaps true," Gebk said, "but there is nothing that we can do. I was with my brother when these word-things fell out of the sky and he listened to one and took it to the magter to ask them. They killed him, as he should have known they would do. The magter kill us if they know we listen to the words."

"And the words tell us we will die if we listen to the magter!" Ulv shouted, his voice cracking. Not with fear, but with frustration at the attempt to reconcile two opposite points of view. Up until this time his world had consisted of black and white values, with very few shadings of difference in between.

"There are things you can do that will stop the war without hurting yourself or the magter," Brion said, searching for a way to enlist their aid.

"Tell us," Ulv grunted.

"There would be no war if the magter could be contacted, made to listen to reason. They are killing you all. You could tell me how to talk to the magter, how I could understand them—"

"No one can talk to the magter," the woman broke in. "If you say something different they will kill you as they killed Gebk's brother. So they are easy to understand. That is the way they are. They do not change." She put the length of plant she had been softening for the child back into her mouth. Her lips were deeply grooved and scarred from a lifetime of this work, her teeth at the sides worn almost to the bone.

"Mor is right," Ulv said. "You do not talk to magter. What else is there to do?"

Brion looked at the two men before he spoke, and shifted his weight. The motion brought his fingertips just a few inches from his gun. "The magter have bombs that will destroy Nyjord—this is the next planet, a star in your sky. If I can find where the bombs are, I will have them taken away and there will be no war."

"You want to aid the devils in the sky against our own people!" Gebk shouted, half rising. Ulv pulled him back to the ground, but there was no more warmth in his voice as he spoke.

"You are asking too much. You will leave now."

"Will you help me, though? Will you help stop the war?" Brion asked, aware he had gone too far, but unable to stop. Their anger was making them forget the reasons for his being there.

"You ask too much," Ulv said again. "Go back now. We will talk about it."

"Will I see you again? How can I reach you?"

"We will find you if we wish to talk to you," was all Ulv said. If they decided he was lying he would never see them again. There was nothing he could do about it.

"I have made up my mind," Gebk said, rising to his feet and drawing his cloth up until it covered his shoulders. "You are lying and this is all a lie of the sky people. If I see you again I will kill you." He stepped to the tunnel and was gone.

There was nothing more to be said. Brion went out next—checking carefully to be sure that Gebk really had left—and Ulv guided him to the spot where the lights of Hovedstad were visible. He did not speak during their return journey and vanished without a word. Brion shivered in the night chill of the air and wrapped his coat more tightly around himself. Depressed, he walked back towards the warmer streets of the city.

It was dawn when he reached the Foundation building; a new guard was at the front entrance. No amount of hammering or threats could convince the man to open until Faussel came down, yawning and blinking with sleep. He was starting some complaint when Brion cut him off curtly and ordered him to finish dressing and report for work at once. Still feeling elated, Brion hurried into his office and cursed the overly efficient character who had turned on his air conditioner to chill the room again. When he turned it off this time he removed enough vital parts to keep it out of order for the duration.

When Faussel came in he was still yawning behind his fist—obviously a low morning-sugar type. "Before you fall on your face, go out and get some coffee," Brion said. "Two cups. I'll have a cup too."

"That won't be necessary," Faussel said, drawing himself up stiffly. "I'll call the canteen if you wish some." He said it in the iciest tone he could manage this early in the morning.

In his enthusiasm Brion had forgotten the hate campaign he had directed against himself. "Suit yourself," he said shortly, getting back into the role. "But the next time you yawn there'll be a negative entry in your service record. If that's clear—you can brief me on this organization's visible relations with the Disans. How do they take us?"

Faussel choked and swallowed a yawn. "I believe they look on the C.R.F. people as some species of simpleton, sir. They hate all offworlders; memory of their desertion has been passed on verbally for generations. So by their one-to-one logic we should either hate back or go away. We stay instead. And give them food, water, medicine and artifacts. Because of this they let us remain on sufferance. I imagine they consider us do-gooder idiots, and as long as we cause no trouble they'll let us stay." He was struggling miserably to suppress a yawn, so Brion turned his back and gave him a chance to get it out.

"What about the Nyjorders? How much do they know of our work?" Brion looked out the window at dusty buildings, outlined in purple against the violent colors of the desert sunrise.

"Nyjord is a cooperating planet, and has full knowledge at all executive levels. They are giving us all the aid they can."

"Well, now is the time to ask for more. Can I contact the commander of the blockading fleet?"

"There is a scrambler connection right through to him. I'll set it up." Faussel bent over the desk and punched a number into the phone controls. The screen flowed with the black and white patterns of the scrambler.

"That's all, Faussel," Brion said. "I want privacy for this talk. What's the commander's name?"

"Professor Krafft—he's a physicist. They have no military men at all, so they called him in for the construction of the bombs and energy weapons. He's still in charge." Faussel yawned extravagantly as he went out the door.

The Professor-Commander was very old, with wispy grey hair and a network of wrinkles surrounding his eyes. His image shimmered, then cleared as the scrambler units aligned.

"You must be Brion Brandd," he said. "I have to tell you how sorry we all are that your friend Ihjel and the two others—had to die, after coming so far to help us. I'm sure you are very happy to have had a friend like that."

"Why ... yes, of course," Brion said, reaching for the scattered fragments of his thought processes. It took an effort to remember the first conflict, now that he was worrying about the death of a planet. "It's very kind of you to mention it. But I would like to find out a few things from you, if I could."

"Anything at all; we are at your disposal. Before we begin, though, I shall pass on the thanks of our council for your aid in joining us. Even if we are eventually forced to drop the bombs, we shall never forget that your organization did everything possible to avert the disaster."

Once again Brion was caught off balance. For an instant he wondered if Krafft was being insincere, then recognized the baseness of this thought. The completeness of the man's humanity was obvious and compelling. The thought passed through Brion's mind that now he had an additional reason for wanting the war ended without destruction on either side. He very much wanted to visit Nyjord and see these people on their home grounds.

Professor Krafft waited, patiently and silently, while Brion pulled his thoughts together and answered. "I still hope that this thing can be stopped in time. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I want to see Lig-magte and I thought it would be better if I had a legitimate reason. Are you in contact with him?"

Krafft shook his head. "No, not really in contact. When this trouble started I sent him a transceiver so we could talk directly. But he has delivered his ultimatum, speaking for the magter. The only terms he will hear are unconditional surrender. His receiver is on, but he has said that is the only message he will answer."

"Not much chance of him ever being told that," Brion said.

"There was—at one time. I hope you realize, Brion, that the decision to bomb Dis was not easily arrived at. A great many people—myself included—voted for unconditional surrender. We lost the vote by a very small margin."

Brion was getting used to these philosophical body blows and he rolled with the punches now. "Are there any of your people left on this planet? Or do you have any troops I can call on for help? This is still a remote possibility, but if I do find out where the bombs or the launchers are, a surprise raid would knock them out."

"We have no people left in Hovedstad now—all the ones who weren't evacuated were killed. But there are commando teams standing by here to make a landing if the weapons are detected. The Disans must depend on secrecy to protect their armament, since we have both the manpower and the technology to reach any objective. We also have technicians and other volunteers looking for the weapon sites. They have not been successful as yet, and most of them were killed soon after landing."

Krafft hesitated for a moment. "There is another group you should know about; you will need all the factors. Some of our people are in the desert outside of Hovedstad. We do not officially approve of them, though they have a good deal of popular support. They are mostly young men, operating as raiders, killing and destroying with very little compunction. They are attempting to uncover the weapons by sheer strength of arms."

This was the best news yet. Brion controlled his voice and kept his expression calm when he spoke. "I don't know how far I can stretch your cooperation—but could you possibly tell me how to get in touch with them?"

Kraft allowed himself a small smile. "I'll give you the wave length on which you can reach their radio. They call themselves the 'Nyjord army.' When you talk to them you can do me a favor. Pass on a message. Just to prove things aren't bad enough, they've become a little worse. One of our technical crews has detected jump-space energy transmissions in the planetary crust. The Disans are apparently testing their projector, sooner than we had estimated. Our deadline has been revised by one day. I'm afraid there are only two days left before you must evacuate." His eyes were large with compassion. "I'm sorry. I know this will make your job that much harder."

Brion didn't want to think about the loss of a full day from his already close deadline. "Have you told the Disans this yet?"

"No," Krafft told him. "The decision was reached a few minutes before your call. It is going on the radio to Lig-magte now."

"Can you cancel the transmission and let me take the message in