Lloyd Biggle Jr. - The World Menders

It was easier, because he no longer had the bread to carry. Again he was an object of curiosity, but there were few pedestrians about and no cavalry, and no one hindered him. He descended the hill, passed the suburb, and abruptly came upon the kru’s army, rank upon rank of mounted soldiers drawn up on either side of the highway, silently awaiting battle. He passed through it, expecting a rain of spears at any moment, but the soldiers sat with spears poised and made no movement.

Spread out on a distant hillside were the olz. They looked like a formidable army until he approached, and then they looked like olz. A messenger, one of the IPR agents, had told them to halt, so they stood indifferently in the hot sun awaiting another order. Farrari worked his way among them to where one of the agents stood. The agent arched an eyebrow inquiringly; Farrari shrugged. Even had they been able to talk he would have had little to say. He had marched an army on Scorv, he had made a miraculous and dramatic reappearance before kru and priests and nobility, and he seemed to have accomplished nothing.

Now he did not know what to do. He was still reluctant to turn back while there remained a possibility that the ol presence might force the rascz to think, but if he waited too long there was every likelihood that the army would charge and very effectively resolve the stalemate. He did not know what to do. The agent, too, was puzzled. He looked about perplexedly, having just worked it out for himself that nothing was happening and they couldn’t stay there forever.

They heard the clicking beat of gril hooves. It was a durrl, final proof, Farrari thought gloomily, that his plea had failed. Immediately he brightened, of course they’d send a durrl, who else could talk with the olz?

The durrl brought his gril to a halt. Farrari resigned himself to an interminable address in two languages because a blast of oratory concerning the kru’s redressment of just grievances would not find enough words in o/ to properly get started. He was also prepared to be amused.

The durrl leaned forward and said something. Abruptly the olz in the front rank turned, those behind them turned, and before Farrari could quite comprehend what had happened his army had done an about face and was marching away, he along with it. The durrl wheeled and rode toward Scory without a backward glance. Farrari was sorely tempted to turn the olz toward Scory again, but he feared that rasc patience might have a breaking point.

At dusk the IPR agents halted the march. Farrari left them in charge of his olz and continued south where a platform picked him up as soon as darkness fell. He was back at base before morning. Base already had the news, and Jorrul and the coordinator were seated in one of the conference rooms discussing it. They’d left word for Farrari to join them.

“The rascz know something we don’t know,” Jorrul announced bluntly.

“Or understand something we don’t?” Farrari suggested.

Coordinator Paul nodded. “They’ve had considerable more experience with the olz than we have. You produced the illusion of a revolution, but evidently the rascz know that the olz won’t revolt. When we study the events of the past few weeks, we’d best start by trying to understand that.”

“You study the events of the past few weeks,” Farrari said. “I’m going to revert to a Cultural Survey Advanced Trainee.”

Jorrul snorted. “There’s no future in that. If I’ve heard you say it once, I’ve heard it a dozen times: the olz have no culture.”

Farrari got to his feet and strode to the observation window. The first light of dawn was touching the bleak mountain landscape. The mountains wore encircling mantles of dusky yellow quarm leaves, and there were, even in midsummer, snowcaps on the highest peaks. He wondered if JPR had chosen this particular location for some obscure psychological purpose: certainly the view was no more formidable than IPR’s problem on Branoff IV.

“The olz have no culture,” Farrari repeated slowly. “If I’ve said it that many times, I should have given some thought to what it meant.”

“Just what do you mean by that?”

“The olz have no culture. Neither do the grilz nor the narmpfz.”

“So? Grilz and narmpfz are animals. You’re expecting animals to produce a culture?”

“No,” Farrari said. “But people should.”

The history section appropriated all the teloid projectors not in use, set up batteries of them wherever space permitted, and operated them continuously with changing shifts of carefully briefed volunteers. As section chief Wally Hargo remarked, IPR had been on Branoff IV long enough to take a lot of teloids.

“Any progress?” Farrari asked him.

Hargo shook his head. “There’s no way to speed up a teloid projection, and we wouldn’t if we could. Whatever we’re looking for is going to be hard to find even if it’s there, which it probably won’t be.”

Peter Jorrul hobbled in using a cane and thundered, “Which one of you miscreants stole my teloid projector?”

“Hargo,” Farrari said. “But you can use it any time you like if you don’t mind looking at his teloids.”

“It isn’t enough that this place is infested with super-specialists,” Jorrul grumbled. “You two have to run a super-teloid production.”

“You’re looking fine,” Farrari told him. “All you needed was a few weeks away from base.”

“Away from the food at base. I can’t let myself be seen, no rasc walks with a cane, but at least at my headquarters I can eat. What are you two looking for?”

“Insurrections,” Farrari said. “In the plural? In Scorvif?” Farrari nodded.

“No wonder you need so many projectors. There haven’t been any.”

“But there have, only the records aren’t easy to come by because they aren’t the sort of thing the rulers of Scorvif would want commemorated. Others might get the same idea. We don’t expect to find relief carvings, for example, depicting the glorious victory of the kru Vilif over the crass insurrectionists.”

“You don’t expect to find it, but you’re looking for it anyway?”

“We’re looking for something much more subtle, but we don’t expect to find that, either.”

“What makes you so certain that whatever it is you don’t expect to find is there?”

“We’re certain that there have been insurrections,” Hargo said. “Take any absolute monarchy and mix in a nobility with no responsibilities, a powerful priesthood, a first-class army, and a closed order of civil servants, and you have four potential areas in which insurrection can develop. At intervals that combination would have to produce an uprising.”

“So why didn’t anyone notice the possibility before?”

“Until Farrari tried it himself, there was no evidence that it’d ever happened. Now we know it has, because of the way the rascz reacted.”

Jorrul turned to Farrari. “The way they reacted to the olz?”

“Yes. Anyone plotting revolution in this land would be bound to look longingly at the olz—they’re such an obvious weapon, so easily available, so numerous, so willing to do what a rasc tells them, any rasc. Once such an uprising started, every durrl in the area would have to be eliminated immediately because he and his establishment would pose a threat to the control of the olz. A word from a durrl and the olz would turn in their tracks and go home. The fact that the durrlz and everyone connected with them ran at the first hint of an ol uprising could only mean that this has happened often enough for the durrlz to develop an instinctive reaction to it. If they don’t run, they get their throats cut. And, of course, it isn’t the olz they’re running from, it’s the rascz responsible for the uprising. The same applies to the conduct of the army, which ranged all about and through the olz but made no move at all to attack them or turn them back. They know their olz, and they know the olz wouldn’t march on Scory unless someone was telling them to. That was why they ignored the olz but immediately attacked the two assistant durrlz. They were looking for the treacherous rascz who were giving the orders only the rascz.”