Mack Reynolds - Brain World

Dorn Horsten said, “What do you plan to do with us?”

It is now out of the hands of we whom you once called the Brahmins of the Dawnworlds. To carry on the similes of your Academician Count Felix Fitzjames, there are three ancient castes on our worlds, the Brahmins, whom I represent, the Kshatriyas, who were originally our ruling class and warriors, and the Sudras, the working class. It was long ago that these castes were formed, long, long ago, but still we keep our ancient traditions .

“What do you mean, it’s out of your hands, out of the hands of you Brahmins?” Lee Chang wavered.

You will be turned over to the Kshatriyas for their annual ceremonies.

“What annual ceremonies?” Ronny demanded.

But suddenly all three realized that the intelligence that had been communicating with them telepathically had withdrawn. They stared at each other, aghast.

Through all this, the two dogs had been stretched out on the floor, Boy growling low in his throat, all but inaudibly. Now he said, “What was all that, Boss? I seemed to be hearing somebody talking—in my head.”

“Me too,” Plotz said, a worried whine in her voice.

“We all heard it,” Ronny told them. “They can evidently communicate, no matter what the language, with any intelligent life form.”

“What do we do now?” Dorn said.

“What can we do?” Ronny said. “All we can do is wait and see what happens.”

LeeChang said, not very convincingly, “I could probably pilot this spacecraft. We could take off and rejoin the Alexander Hamilton .”

“No,” Ronny told her. “I doubt if they’d let us. Besides, our mission isn’t finished. Somehow, we’ve got to keep them from sending out their fleet to polish off United Planets.”

He took his communicator from his pocket, activated it and said into the screen, “Ronald Bronston, calling Captain John Fodor of the Space Forces Cruiser Alexander Hamilton .”

The captain’s face faded in immediately. “Supervisor Bronston,” he said. “Are you all right?”

“We’re still alive,” Ronny said laconically. “We’ve made contact with the people we came to see. Are you okay, up there?”

“Yes. Everything is routine.”

“Wizard. Carry on, then. We’ll contact you, as arranged, within another six hours.”

He switched off the communications device and thought about it for a minute, then switched it back on again and flicked a stud. “Ronald Bronston, calling Irene Kasansky” he said.

Irene’s face faded in and when she saw who it was turned apprehensive. “Ronny,” she said. “Are you three all right?”

“Well, so far we’re still with it. Is the old man available?”

Ross Metaxa’s face, tired and moist of eye as always, took the place of Irene’s in the small screen. He looked at Ronny questioningly.

Ronny said, “It looks bad, sir. Briefly, the others got here first. We’re in their ship. They’re missing. We’ve been contacted by one of the, uh, Brahmins. It doesn’t look as though they’re going to let us go this time.”

“What are their plans for United Planets?”

“I don’t know.”

“Should I recommend to the President that the Space Forces fleet be mobilized?”

“Certainly not yet. Not while we’re still here and working on it. I told Fodor that if they did us in, he should recommend it, but it won’t do any good. The last time I was here I saw one of their spacecraft. It was a hundred times the size of the largest spacecraft we’ve got. And it was even able to turn itself invisible. We’re scheduled to be turned over to their soldier caste for something they call their annual ceremonies. It doesn’t sound so good.”

“All right, Ronny,” his superior sighed wearily. “Do what you can.” His face faded.

The three stared at each other some more without words. There was nothing to say.

Lee Chang said finally, “Should I check out the ship’s galley? We could eat something before whatever comes next.”

“I couldn’t eat anything,” Ronny said.

“I could,” Boy said, giving the Chinese girl a couple of wags. “I can always eat something.”

“Chowhound,” Plotz said, with the nearest thing to a sneer she could put over, but she too got up to follow Lee Chang.

But it was then that a voice came into all of their minds. The Brahmin’s had been calm, gentle, and in accord with the fact that he was a scholar. This voice had a ring of command.

You will leave the space vessel.

Ronny looked at Lee Chang and then Dorn and came to his feet. He said, “I doubt that disobeying would make much sense. Not to speak of physically resisting.”

They stood, too, wordlessly, and followed him, the two dogs coming along behind.

Boy growled, “By the way, Boss, that conditioning of mine, not to bite people, applies only on Einstein.”

Ronny said, “Well, don’t try it.”

At the top of the gangplank he looked out. Below were nine Dawnmen. Eight of them were drawn up in a squad, the other, obviously in command, was out in front. All were somewhat over six feet in height and all in the vicinity of one hundred and ninety pounds. All were golden of skin, dark cream of hair. They could have been brothers, so similar were they. Not exactly twins, but very similar, including the officer. All were clothed in identical shorts, nothing else, and all wore sandals.The eight bore what looked like Neptune’s trident, of mythology. Their leader carried a swagger stick.

Ronny wasn’t deluded. They might not look very efficiently armed, or dangerous, but he knew better. He started down the gangway and was followed by the others.

He marched up to the officer and said, “Okay. What do you want?”

The officer turned and looked at his men, without speaking. Evidently, he didn’t have to speak. Four of them stepped forward briskly a few paces, then snappily executed a left face and started marching off.

Into the minds of the three Earthlings and their dogs came the order, Follow .

They fell in behind the four.

Behind them, they could hear the remaining four take their place in the march. The officer strode to one side.

Dorn said to Ronny, “Was this the way they dressed the last time you were here?”

“Yes.”

“I get the impression that the climate is always the same. No seasons. Always perfect. They must have unbelievably competent climatic engineers.”

“They’ve got unbelievably competent everything,” Ronny said sourly. “I wonder where in the hell we’re being taken.”

Boy, trotting along beside Ronny, had been sizing up the Dawnmen. He gave a couple of pants and said, “The way they dress, you could really get in a nifty bite on the calf of a leg.”

“Shut up,” Ronny said.

Into their minds came another message. What kind of an … animal is that ?

Ronny wondered why the Dawnmen ever asked questions. If they could read his mind, and memory, they could find the answer to any question they might want to ask. Well, perhaps it was simpler, or faster, or whatever. Or possibly only the Brahmins could read memory.

He said, “It’s a dog. On Earth and on most of the humanity-settled planets, we keep them as pets.”

Pets?

It seemed that the Kshatriyas, even the officers, weren’t as astute as the Brahmins. The Brahmin who had contacted them would have been able to dig out man’s relationship to his pets with no difficulty. But then, that made sense. The Brahmins were the brains of the Dawnworlds, the Kshatriyas were the soldiers. The Dawnmen Ronny had seen on his first visit were Sudras and hadn’t communicated with him at all; in fact, they hadn’t even seemed aware of his existence.