James White - Federation World

On the way back the vehicle lurched and bumped several times, rolling one of the Keidi against his damaged shoulder. He mentioned it to Beth, who said crossly that gravity repulsion vehicles were designed to maintain a fixed distance above the land or road surface, and that it was the ground that was lurching. A few minutes later he heard her telling the doctor that there wasn’t time to unload his casualties and that, with the exception of her life-mate, they should remain in their vehicles until they were off-loaded at the nearest safe induction center. The First, who was still on the transport’s frequency, did not agree.

“They must be brought here!” the Keidi leader said firmly. “Many of their parents are with me and it is wrong to separate them. I insist.”

“But the radiation level in your area is dangerously high,” Beth protested, “and they are young people. They are anesthetized, unable to move, and many of them are injured, and this will complicate and delay the transfer. Unprotected and in the open, they could take only a few minutes exposure without the probability of serious gene damage.”

The First did not reply for a moment, during which Martin was being lifted and pushed through the personnel entry port. When he reached his control console, he saw that Beth was already lifting their transport with one of the hypership’s tractors, The direct vision panels showed only the receding top of the cloud layer.

Around them the Keidi trainees were asleep amid the self-created wreckage of the furniture. The doctor glared at Martin disapprovingly, but could not say anything because of the mask pressed tightly against his speaking horn.

“Land your vessel as close as possible to the entrance of my building,” the First went on suddenly, “and open all entry points. Older members of my Family, those who are too old to worry about further offspring, must be transmitted back to the entrance. They will remove the other casualties from inside your vessel. My own medics will attend the injured, but the doctor may advise if there are special cases. During the transfer the doctor and your life-mate will not try to assist my people in any way and will remain out of sight at all times.

“It is for their own safety,” the First explained harshly. “The feelings of Keidi parents for their offspring are strong and not always logical, and the way the young trainees were rescued has given rise to intense anger and hostility toward both of them. Do you understand your instructions?”

“Do you understand,” Beth said angrily, “that your young Keidi, the ones you feel so strongly and illogically about, will still be at risk. We can take them to another center and send them to you later when…”

“Do as he says,” Martin broke in sharply. “We must think of our obligations.”

He had been thinking about little else since returning to the transport, and hoping that the pain he felt with every breath would not affect his clarity of thought. He had even more time to think as he watched the screen showing the small, limp, and strangely, no longer alien bodies of the trainees being off-loaded. The operation was so fast and well-organized that he doubted whether any of the children were placed at risk, although the same could not be said for the elderly adults who had volunteered, or been told, to make several return trips. Was it a display of bravery and selfless devotion to the children, or of blind obedience to their First Father?

The Keidi leader had influenced the conduct of this assignment from the time, a few minutes after entering planetary atmosphere, his people had fired on their lander. Because of their desire to obtain information and be helpful both to the doctor and the First in the medical emergency involving his granddaughter, they had become personally involved with him and had come off a very bad second best. They had regained the initiative, briefly, during the escape from Camp Eleven, but since then the First had quickly regained control of the situation by maneuvering them into a position where he was running things-the two off-worlders as well as the whole population of his soon to be contaminated and desperately endangered planet-exactly as he pleased.

Although Martin had never been quite sure of what constituted evil in a human being much less an extraterrestrial, he did not think that the First was a completely bad person. He was a brilliant politician, organizer, and tactician, an inspiring leader who had a great dream for the future of his people, and he had the ability combined with the ruthlessness to make that dream come true even after his death. But now, because of the coming of the off-worlders, the entire population would forget their earlier fear and distrust of him and would instead look on him as the greatest benefactor in their history, never considering that for the majority of them-those who were not of his inner Family-the dream would become a nightmare, a future of near slavery.

He was also, as were many of the people he had gathered around him, completely and utterly Undesirable.

More than anything else, Martin wished that his friend Skorta, the Master of Education, and the other Masters of Teldi were here to advise and support him. The Keidi people, the old and very young, the Undesirables and the potential Citizens alike, were not his property in the Teldin sense of the word, but the time had come to grasp his Master’s sword and assume ultimate responsibility.

The time had come, Martin thought sadly, to stop the First from doing even more damage, to end the playing of his planetary power game by removing him and his group of handpicked Undesirable followers from the board.

“I am troubled, off-worlder,” the doctor said suddenly.

Having made a decision which he would probably regret for the rest of his life, not because he thought it wrong but because others with influence over his future career would think so, Martin welcomed the interruption. By giving him something else to think about it decreased the temptation to change his mind.

“The First does not like me and no longer wants me in his Estate,” the Keidi went on. “This does not trouble me because the feeling is mutual. But I hear your life-mate telling the people in the centers that the doors of the matter transmitter rooms are now open, and that they should prepare themselves for transfer to the north and south continents. The people of my city will be confused and frightened by this and worried about what is to come. Will you be able to send me back to them?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Martin said, thinking that the subject had not changed after all. “But not until we know their new location. You may have to wait a few days.”

“I am obligated beyond the possibility of discharge,” the doctor said, “and I have come to realize that the whole of Keida is obligated to your life-mate and yourself. The First will doubtless try to misdirect the discharges toward himself, but my people will be told the truth.

“However,” he went on, “I have had sufficient experience as a healer to know when another person is troubled, even when he is a being of another and visually repugnant species, and I would like, if it is possible, to discharge a small part of my obligation to you. I think that you are troubled. Is there a burden other than your recent hurts that you would like to share with me?”

This is ridiculous, Martin thought wildly as he stared at the leathery, alien features and into the puckering, widely flared mouth of the other’s speaking horn. He had always had a clear idea of what a concerned and trusted psychiatrist or a father confessor should look like, but this was certainly not it.

He surprised himself by saying, “There is a burden, Doctor. I am about to do something very wrong for what I believe are the right reasons. That is what troubles me.”