Mack Reynolds: The Space Barbarians

He went back into the living room and sat himself again at the communicator. He thought about it for a long moment, then finally reached out and dialed.

A robotlike voice said, “Security limitations. Priority of M-3. If you wish this tape, please present your ID credit card.”

John put the credit card in the slot and waited, unconsciously holding his breath.

The screen lit up, and he stared at it. Finally, he reached out and took up paper and stylo and began to sketch clumsily. It took him a full ten minutes.

He dialed again, and again the card was required. He took further notes and further sketches. At long last, he settled back into the chair and thought it all through with careful deliberation. But then, he didn’t have much time. He had no way of knowing when DeRudder might return.

He flicked the library bank switch off and activated the videophone switch. He thought for another deliberate moment, to be sure of memory, then carefully dialed. This, now, was the crucial point. The credit card was still in the slot.

The screen lit up.

John said, “This is John, Sachem of the Hawks. Quickly, let me speak with Don of the Clarks.”

Within moments, Don of the Clarks was there, his face expressing jubilation.

“John! We did not expect you so soon!”

John spoke quickly, urgently. “We were picked up by one of their vehicles of the sky. I am in the longhouse of Samuel of the DeRudders. He does not know I have his card of identity that all those of Beyond must carry. Nor does he know that you are in possession of a captured communicator through which they speak long distances. Now, here is the immediate information. I have been able to locate the city plans. Here is a sketch I have made of the sewers that lead into the river.”

John held the sketch he had made earlier to the screen.

Don of the Clarks twisted his head and barked instructions.

Agonizingly long moments later, John took that sketch away and substituted the second he had made.

While it was being copied, he hurried through various questions with Don of the Clarks.

At last they were through, and Don’s face again fully occupied the screen.

John, Supreme Raid Cacique of the Loch Confederation, said, “We must not waste time. At any moment, I may make some great mistake and reveal all. Send the messengers to the Highland Confederation and to the Confederation of the Ayr. The time of action is soon to be upon us.”

John of the Hawks spent the next several days in a round the clock accumulation of knowledge of the ways of the newcomers from Beyond. Sometimes he was accompanied by Sam DeRudder, but in surprisingly short order, he was able to find his own way about New Sidon, and he preferred to be alone. It was obvious that DeRudder had something in mind in regard to John beyond what had originally been the case, but thus far he hadn’t brought up the question. And as far as John was concerned, so much the better. As it was now, he had the time and opportunity to check out a hundred items that would endlessly profit his long term plans.

There was much that surprised as well as interested him.

He found, for instance, a considerably larger number of Caledonians among the citizens than he had expected, nor were all of these women, children or elderly or defeated elements. He could tell himself, in contempt, that the combat age men he witnessed attending schools, working on the construction of buildings or otherwise participating in the economy of the city were slinks who should have been up in the hills fighting the invaders. However, inwardly he realized that it wasn’t just that. There was something in the air that would appeal to the type of clannsman with an inquisitive turn of mind. There was so much new and fascinating—tools, weapons, ways of doing things.

He did what there was to be done in the way of checking out the city’s defenses and was pleased to find what he had suspected. The military was actually a secondary thing as far as United Interplanetary Mines and the Sidonians were concerned. There was possibly one soldier among the invaders from Beyond for each four civilians. Immediate complete conquest of the planet wasn’t so important as getting on with its exploitation. The soldiers were a necessary evil, not an end.

And the city defenses indicated that the invaders had made the most basic of all military mistakes—they underestimated the enemy. The walls were strong enough against raiders, equipped with carbine, claidheammor and skean; the gun emplacements at each of the four corners of the city walls would have decimated horse mounted clannsmen. However, the defense authorities obviously never expected to be attacked by forces armed with more sophisticated weapons.

He didn’t spend all his time wandering the streets of the city and gawking at constructions and equipment previously unknown to him. In fact, the greater part of his time was spent in DeRudder’s apartments, leaning over the communicator screen.

That first evening, Sam DeRudder had taught him still another use of the device. In the library banks were not only the tapes of books, but an endless variety of films depicting life as it was to be found on a thousand and more worlds. And where fact left off, fiction took over, so that he was even able to run and rerun shows pertaining to the ancient Picts and Scots of whom Nadine Pond had told him.

Above all, he was fascinated by the Scotland of the present. His ancestoral home was so far and beyond anything he could ever have imagined but a week ago that it was like a fairyland. Surprisingly enough, particularly in the smaller communities, he could still see racial characteristics that pertained to his own people. Perhaps these far cousins of his were not quite the same size as the clannsmen of Caledonia, but the light complexions, the craggy faces, the eyes were all there. He couldn’t quite analyze the strange tightening of his heartstrings.

After a surreptitious check up on sewer outlets one evening, he returned to the apartment, to find Sam DeRudder there with another.

John entered the living room and came to an abrupt halt, his eyes bugging. He blurted, “ Mister of the Harmons !”

Harmon looked up from where he sat on a comfort chair and said, “The name is Milton, John. Milton Harmon. Milt to my friends—such as they are.”

Sam DeRudder came over from the autobar, drinks in hand. He proffered one to Harmon. “That’s right—you two haven’t seen each other since John’s coming to New Sidon.”

John blurted, “But… but you wear not the robes of the followers of Krishna.”

Harmon’s aging over the past few years had softened considerably his sourness of expression and acidity of voice. He said, and there was a far wistfulness somewhere, “And I am not always sure, John, that I appreciate Sam’s giving me the antidote at the end of my decade rather than letting me take the booster dose.”

“Antidote?” John still flabbergasted, looked from his old enemy back to DeRudder.

Sam DeRudder, amused, handed John the second drink and headed back for the bar to dial himself one. He said, “Take that. You look as though you need it.”

And then, from the bar, “You’ve been assimilating fast these last days, John, but you simply haven’t had the time to pick up all aspects of life beyond Caledonia. You might spend a couple of hours at the communicator checking out soma.”

John was bewildered. “I don’t understand.” He looked at Harmon, as though accusingly. “You mean, you are no longer a worshipper at the Shrine of Kalkin, the false religion against the Holy?”

Harmon said ruefully, “I wouldn’t state it exactly that way.”

Sam DeRudder returned with his drink. “Briefly, John, when soma first came on the scene, the League took a tolerant view, as usual in matters pertaining to religion. However, there were dangerous aspects to the use of soma, which you’re fully aware of and I needn’t go into. League Canons now provide that the initial dosage of soma may not be effective for more than a decade. At that point, they who have taken it have two courses. They may take their booster dose and, ah, continue to follow the path of Lord Krishna. Or they may take antisoma and return, well, to the land of the living.”