Fritz Leiber - The Science Fiction Anthology

“Of course,” Extrone said. “But you should have spoken to me about it, when you discovered the farn beast in our own system.”

“I realize that, sir. That is, I had intended at the first opportunity, sir....”

“Of course,” Extrone said dryly. “Like all of my subjects,” he waved his hand in a broad gesture, “the highest as well as the lowest slave, know me and love me. I know your intentions were the best.”

Ri squirmed, his face pale. “We do indeed love you, sir.”

Extrone bent forward. “ Know me and love me.”

“Yes, sir. Know you and love you, sir,” Ri said.

“Get out!” Extrone said.

“It’s frightening,” Ri said, “to be that close to him.”

Mia nodded.

The two of them, beneath the leaf-swollen branches of the gnarled tree, were seated on their sleeping bags. The moon was clear and cold and bright in a cloudless sky; a small moon, smooth-surfaced, except for a central mountain ridge that bisected it into almost twin hemispheres.

“To think of him. As flesh and blood. Not like the—well; that—what we’ve read about.”

Mia glanced suspiciously around him at the shadows. “You begin to understand a lot of things, after seeing him.”

Ri picked nervously at the cover of his sleeping bag.

“It makes you think,” Mia added. He twitched. “I’m afraid. I’m afraid he’ll.... Listen, we’ll talk. When we get back to civilization. You, me, the bearers. About him. He can’t let that happen. He’ll kill us first.”

Ri looked up at the moon, shivering. “No. We have friends. We have influence. He couldn’t just like that—”

“He could say it was an accident.”

“No,” Ri said stubbornly.

“He can say anything,” Mia insisted. “He can make people believe anything. Whatever he says. There’s no way to check on it.”

“It’s getting cold,” Ri said.

“Listen,” Mia pleaded.

“No,” Ri said. “Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn’t listen. Everybody would know we were lying. Everything they’ve come to believe would tell them we were lying. Everything they’ve read, every picture they’ve seen. They wouldn’t believe us. He knows that.”

“Listen,” Mia repeated intently. “This is important. Right now he couldn’t afford to let us talk. Not right now. Because the Army is not against him. Some officers were here, just before we came back. A bearer overheard them talking. They don’t want to overthrow him!”

Ri’s teeth, suddenly, were chattering.

“That’s another lie,” Mia continued. “That he protects the people from the Army. That’s a lie. I don’t believe they were ever plotting against him. Not even at first. I think they helped him, don’t you see?”

Ri whined nervously.

“It’s like this,” Mia said. “I see it like this. The Army put him in power when the people were in rebellion against military rule.”

Ri swallowed. “We couldn’t make the people believe that.”

“No?” Mia challenged. “Couldn’t we? Not today, but what about tomorrow? You’ll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the alien system!”

“The people won’t support them,” Ri answered woodenly.

“ Think. If he tells them to, they will. They trust him.”

Ri looked around at the shadows.

“That explains a lot of things,” Mia said. “I think the Army’s been preparing for this for a long time. From the first, maybe. That’s why Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from learning that he was getting ready to invade them, but more to keep them from exposing him to the people. The aliens wouldn’t be fooled like we were, so easy.”

“No!” Ri snapped. “It was to keep the natural economic balance.”

“You know that’s not right.”

Ri lay down on his bed roll. “Don’t talk about it. It’s not good to talk like this. I don’t even want to listen.”

“When the invasion starts, he’ll have to command all their loyalties. To keep them from revolt again. They’d be ready to believe us, then. He’ll have a hard enough time without people running around trying to tell the truth.”

“You’re wrong. He’s not like that. I know you’re wrong.”

Mia smiled twistedly. “How many has he already killed? How can we even guess?”

Ri swallowed sickly.

“Remember our guide? To keep our hunting territory a secret?”

Ri shuddered. “That’s different. Don’t you see? This is not at all like that.”

With morning came birds’ songs, came dew, came breakfast smells. The air was sweet with cooking and it was nostalgic, childhoodlike, uncontaminated.

And Extrone stepped out of the tent, fully dressed, surly, letting the flap slap loudly behind him. He stretched hungrily and stared around the camp, his eyes still vacant-mean with sleep.

“Breakfast!” he shouted, and two bearers came running with a folding table and chair. Behind them, a third bearer, carrying a tray of various foods; and yet behind him, a fourth, with a steaming pitcher and a drinking mug.

Extrone ate hugely, with none of the delicacy sometimes affected in his conversational gestures. When he had finished, he washed his mouth with water and spat on the ground.

“Lin!” he said.

His personal bearer came loping toward him.

“Have you read that manual I gave you?”

Lin nodded. “Yes.”

Extrone pushed the table away. He smacked his lips wetly. “Very ludicrous, Lin. Have you noticed that I have two businessmen for guides? It occurred to me when I got up. They would have spat on me, twenty years ago, damn them.”

Lin waited.

“Now I can spit on them, which pleases me.”

“The farn beasts are dangerous, sir,” Lin said.

“Eh? Oh, yes. Those. What did the manual say about them?”

“I believe they’re carnivorous, sir.”

“An alien manual. That’s ludicrous, too. That we have the only information on our newly discovered fauna from an alien manual—and, of course, two businessmen.”

“They have very long, sharp fangs, and, when enraged, are capable of tearing a man—”

“An alien?” Extrone corrected.

“There’s not enough difference between us to matter, sir. Of tearing an alien to pieces, sir.”

Extrone laughed harshly. “It’s ‘sir’ whenever you contradict me?”

Lin’s face remained impassive. “I guess it seems that way. Sir.”

“Damned few people would dare go as far as you do,” Extrone said. “But you’re afraid of me, too, in your own way, aren’t you?”

Lin shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I can see you are. Even my wives are. I wonder if anyone can know how wonderful it feels to have people all afraid of you.”

“The farn beasts, according to the manual....”

“You are very insistent on one subject.”

“... It’s the only thing I know anything about. The farn beast, as I was saying, sir, is the particular enemy of men. Or if you like, of aliens. Sir.”

“All right,” Extrone said, annoyed. “I’ll be careful.”

In the distance, a farn beast coughed.

Instantly alert, Extrone said, “Get the bearers! Have some of them cut a path through that damn thicket! And tell those two businessmen to get the hell over here!”

Lin smiled, his eyes suddenly afire with the excitement of the hunt.

Four hours later, they were well into the scrub forest. Extrone walked leisurely, well back of the cutters, who hacked away, methodically, at the vines and branches which might impede his forward progress. Their sharp, awkward knives snickered rhythmically to the rasp of their heavy breathing.