Savage Planet

Savage Planet.

by Barry L. Longyear.

Armath squatted in the snow as his deep red eyes studied the two-tracked vehicles in the valley below. The wind gusted, causing a light rain of fine snow to fall upon his broad, hairy back. As two creatures emerged from one of the vehicles, Armath drew back his lips, exposing gleaming white fangs. A low growl issued from his throat and he pawed the snow with dagger-tipped fingers.

"Hey, Charlie! Bring the caps!"

A third creature emerged from one of the vehicles, it walked over to the other two and handed something to them. The first two stooped over and dug at the snow while the third watched them. Armath looked at the marks the vehicles had made over the floor of the valley. Twenty times the vehicles had stopped, and as many times the creatures had emerged, buried something, then climbed back into the roaring metal carts. The two stood, waved at the one vehicle, then the three of them climbed into the second. The carts roared to life, then moved away.

Armath"s heavy black brows wrinkled as the carts kept going instead of following the pattern that had been established. He waited a moment longer, then rose on his four walking legs, shook his heavy mane to free it from the acc.u.mulation of snow, and began walking toward the most recent burial site. His eyes darted left and right, instinctively searching for darkness against the snow. Halfway down the slope, he spotted another male. Armath reared up, bellowed and held out his arms, fingers and claws extended. The other male reared up and returned the bellow. They both came down together and altered their paths slightly to avoid meeting.Armath"s new course took him away from the nearest burial site, and he chose another. As he approached it, he saw the other male squatting at one of the first sites, and clawing at the snow. He turned back to see the disturbed area, marked with a tiny orange flag. Five paces from the flag, the snow around Armath seemed to erupt with an ear-shattering slam. He fell to the shaking snow, covered his eyes, and howled as lumps of ice struck his back. When the ice stopped falling, Armath uncovered his eyes and stood, his ears ringing.

The tiny orange flag was gone. Cautiously he approached the site and saw a hole that extended deep into the snow, through the frozen soil, into the hard rock beneath. He frowned and looked toward another site. It too was nothing but a hole. Armath turned to look at the other male and saw him crumpled next to the site he had been investigating. Armath growled, then fell silent as he padded toward the other male. He was lying on the snow, his back toward Armath, the wind blowing back his long black hair, showing the gray skin beneath.

Armath halted the customary four paces away. "You!" The male did not move. "You!" Armath bellowed. Still nothing. Armath traversed a circle, four paces from the reclining figure, until he came to the male"s other side.

Armath looked down at the hole in the snow. It too went all the way to the rock of the valley floor. He looked up at the other male and howled. His face was missing.

On the liner to Bendadn to accept his post of chair of the Bendadn School Department of History, Michael studied two texts on the planet and its population. The Benda had evolved to dominate other lifeforms, and had been at the brink of their Iron Age, when RMI put down its ships and missionaries preaching the creed of the bountiful G.o.d of multiplanetary corporate domination. Earth was signatory to neither the Ninth Quadrant Council of Planets, nor the United Quadrants. However, both bodies had made clear to RMI that invading Bendadn with a combination of money and mercenaries would incur opposition by the combined armed forces of both organizations. Michael picked up the senior high-school text that was RMI"s secret weapon: Manifest Destiny- A History of Human Expansionism.

Michael again opened the text and leafed through it. He had finished reading the thing eight days before, and it still hadn"t changed. Michael shook his head. Some fantasy writer must have collaborated with anadvertising copywriter to produce Manifest. Certainly no historian had anything to do with it. It was a simplistic, highly romanticized, overblown account of the human expansion into s.p.a.ce, ignoring the warts and highlighting the invincible, inevitable nature of human force. The message was clear: humanity, because of its nature and tradition, was meant to rule. Willing subjugation meant peace and prosperity; resistance meant destruction. Michael closed the text with a snap. "What drivel."

He leaned back on his couch and closed his eyes. At first he"d refused to take the top history post, but as the good Mr. Sabin had pointed out, "you"re selling your professional soul for eleven hundred a month; why not sell for twenty-five hundred? It"s the same soul in either case." A good point, thought Michael. Whether or not my soul is for sale is the concern of principle; how much is only the concern of economics and bargaining.

The crime is no more severe by being a high-ranked flunky rather than a middle- or low-ranked flunky. Michael nodded. The good Mr. Sabin had a definite way with words.

Michael closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. Then he shook his head.

Opening his eyes, he leaned his head against the back of the seat. No one who has sold out has a right to be bitter, he thought. Why am I doing this? As the good Mr. Sutton replied when asked why he robbed banks: "That"s where the money is." He nodded and tried to sleep. Recognize it, accept it, and to h.e.l.l with it.

A week to Bendadn, and Michael Fellman parked his water wagon and headed toward the ship"s lounge for the first time. He had played with a vague thought of using his experience on Bendadn as an excuse for turning over a new leaf, but as the trip and his studies of Manifest dragged on, his resolve wore as thin as the cliche. As he slouched in an overpadded booth sipping his fifth Martini, he had to admit that Rolf Mineral Industries allowed one to sell out in style.

"Mind if I join you?"

Michael looked up and made out the face of Jacob Lynn, RMI"s Project Manager for Bendadn. The man who would be the top RMI man on the planet. Michael held out a hand. "Be my guest, sahib."

Lynn raised his eyebrows, then laughed as he sat and placed his drink on the table. "You ivory-tower hypocrites really kill me." He sipped at his drink, then laughed again as he lowered it to the table."Perhaps you could share the cause of your amus.e.m.e.nt, Mr. Lynn."

His face in smiles, but his eyes colder than RMI steel, Lynn leaned back and studied Michael. "I"ve been wandering around the lounge listening to some of you old mossbacks b.i.t.c.hing and whining about life in general, and their own places in it in particular."

Michael nodded. "And, Mr. Lynn, you are pleased with your place in this universe?"

"Yes." He nodded and sipped again from his drink. "There are still things that I want, but now that I"ve made my peace with reality, I know I"ll get most of them." He smiled and waved a hand in the direction of a booth full of graying instructors working hard with the free booze, trying to forget its price. "Look at them. For the first time in their lives they are being practical. But all they can do is pickle their heads to try and ease the pain of growing up."

"You seem to take a perverse pleasure in their distress, Mr. Lynn."

Michael sipped again at his Martini. "Particularly when they in all likelihood don"t even understand why they are unhappy."

Lynn nodded, then faced Michael. "But you understand it, Fellman.

That"s why you"re the biggest hypocrite in the bunch. And, yes, I do enjoy it." Lynn finished off his drink and motioned to a steward for a refill. "The reason isn"t too hard to understand, Fellman. When I left the university, after having you dream merchants stuff my head with nonsense for four years, reality slammed me right in the face. Every ideal you people implanted in my skull was a program for disaster. You didn"t teach me what I had to do to survive in reality as it is. No, you and your fuzzy-headed colleagues taught me what you thought really should be."

Lynn laughed, then took his fresh drink from the steward. "And here you all are, putting should be on the back burner while dancing to the tune of what is-if you"ll pardon the mixed metaphor." He nodded and grinned. "I once had an instructor who was very picky about mixed metaphors. Now she"s working for me as a secretary."

Michael raised his eyebrows, then finished off his drink. He lowered the gla.s.s, then frowned. "Tell me, Mr. Lynn. Why do I get the feeling that you want me to argue with you; to tell you that ideals are still important?"

"You"re drunk.""Which does not answer the question."

Lynn looked for a moment at the overhead, then brought his glance down to look at Michael. "Maybe I"d like to see you put up at least a little fight; something to tell me that those years I wasted in and after college were worth something. You know, when I finally made my peace with reality and got with the program, I felt guilty-like I was betraying myself.

I didn"t stop feeling guilty until I saw you characters being frozen out of teaching positions, and finally hopping on the RMI bandwagon." He shook his head. "And all the time the truth was staring me right in the face."

"Truth?"

"Biology. Any lifeform faced with the circ.u.mstances of its environment must either adapt to those circ.u.mstances, or perish."

"And you have adapted?"

Lynn nodded. "And so have you, finally. And there really wasn"t any choice, was there? Powerful blocs of capital, labor, and governmental force are the circ.u.mstances of our environment, and those blocs aren"t ruled by foggy ideals, Fellman, but by pragmatics."

Michael shrugged. "I still have the feeling that you expect some kind of protest from me."

Lynn curled his lip. "Don"t you just make yourself the least little bit sick? Where are all those ideals you and your bunch held so dear?"

Michael motioned for another drink. "They went the way of the snail darter and the dodo, Mr. Lynn. As you put it, I have adapted." Lynn narrowed his eyes and stared at Michael for a moment, then he left his half-finished drink on the table, stood and walked quickly from the lounge.

Michael took his fresh drink from the steward and gulped it down. As he held the gla.s.s in his hand, he glanced at the door through which Jacob Lynn had disappeared. He looked back at his gla.s.s and nodded. "Of course, some of us adapt better than others." He studied the gla.s.s until it shattered in his hand.

Armath squatted sullenly as his wives moved away from the eating fire.

He watched Nanka, his head wife, as she went to the edge of the forest andbrought back an armload of wood for the fire. He studied her short golden fur, her sleek flanks and gracefully arched back. He scratched at the long black fur on his shoulder. "Need not burn all wood in forest, wife. The eating is done."

Nanka tossed her head to one side, added another stick to the fire, then dropped the wood at the fire"s edge. Armath frowned, then folded his arms. "You not speak."

Nanka squatted by the fire. "Husband. I speak for your wives. Our Tueh is almost ended-"

"Stop!" Armath reared back, then settled to the fire under Nanka"s unblinking stare. "Hear no more of this, wife."

"Must talk, Armath. Your duty to your wives-"

"No!" Armath growled, then swiped at the snow with a clawed hand.

"No talk! Enough!"

Nanka studied her husband for a moment, then looked down at the fire.

"Last Tueh season, when you saw the male killed in the valley, then the teachers came. This started. Armath, you sired only six females last season. This season you have sired none. Is our Dishah to die, Armath?"

Armath scratched at his shoulder and frowned. He lowered his hand, then brought up both hands and folded his arms. "The school, Nanka. You have not seen it. You do not understand."

"The school." Nanka nodded, then drew her left arm down her flanks.

"You get from this school what your wives exist to give you?"

Armath lowered his head and shook it. "No. You no understand the school... It..." He shook his head again. He looked up at Nanka. "Join the others. I talk no more." As she rose and loped off toward the edge of the forest, Armath looked back to the fire. The little gray human and his a.s.sistants had been teaching at the big houses for three winters. The Benda males would watch, listen and hear of the mighty human advance through s.p.a.ce-a huge rock reeling down a steep hill, with other races nothing but feeble blades of gra.s.s. Armath looked up from the fire to see his wives talking together at the edge of the forest. He rose, shook his headand moved away from them to seek the solitude of the frozen river.

At his unit in the lavish instructors" complex, Michael Fellman put down his history of the Roman Empire, removed his gla.s.ses and rubbed his eyes. He looked at his watch, noted the time, then mentally calculated the remaining Bendadn minutes left before his self-appointed happy hour.

He looked at the bottle on his clothes dresser, then stood. "To h.e.l.l with it."

He went to the dresser, uncapped the bottle, and poured a gla.s.s full of straight gin. Returning to his chair, he sipped at the drink, closed his eyes, and let the familiar taste of juniper berries fill his mouth. He smiled, remembering that he had taken to drinking Martinis in an effort to curb his drinking. Michael had hated the taste of gin-once, long ago. Since then he had acquired a taste for the stuff. He raised his gla.s.s to take another sip, then the chimes sounded.

He stood, went to the door and opened it. Standing outside, his overcoat collar hunched against the cold, stood a frowning Dale Stevenson.

"Oh, it"s you. Won"t you come in? I was just about to have a drink."

Stevenson nodded, then walked through the door. "Doctor Fellman, I"ve come about something pretty important."

Michael closed the door, then moved back to his chair. "You can dispose of your own coat." He sipped at his drink as Stevenson removed his coat and tossed it on a chair. Stevenson pulled up his sweater as he turned and withdrew a large envelope that had been hidden there. "What have you got there, Dale?"

Stevenson held out the envelope, then walked to the dresser and poured himself a generous quant.i.ty of gin. "Something I want you to read."

Michael weighed the thing, then chuckled. "What is it? Your rough draft on the history of human conquest?"

Stevenson took a chair across from Michael, reached out a hand and tapped the envelope with his finger. "It"s a confidential RMI report. It"s a biological study that was done on Bendadn by the company five years ago."

Michael shrugged. "I have no interest in biology. And what are you doing with a confidential report? We"re not exactly in the inner circlearound here."

Stevenson took a gulp of his drink, twisted his face up until the fumes cleared his lungs, then lowered his gla.s.s. "I had it stolen from Lynn"s office."

Michael raised his eyebrows. "How very imaginative of you, Dale.

Would you mind informing me why you placed both of our positions in jeopardy in this manner?"

Stevenson lowered his gla.s.s after his second gulp, then nodded.

"Doctor, do you know anything about the s.e.xual habits of the Benda?"

"Not a thing."

"Didn"t you wonder why males are the only students?"

Michael frowned. "The black-haired ones? I had no idea they were all male. I had supposed that the blonde ones were on a lower social scale-you know, something racial."

Stevenson shook his head, finished his drink, then stood and went again to the dresser. As he poured, he talked. "The Benda are all females at birth."

"Interesting, but how do they reproduce?"

Stevenson took his drink and resumed his seat. "It"s all in the report.

When they are young, all during their growing-up years, they have compet.i.tions, fights, and eventually combats to determine a pecking order of sorts. The ones who wind up on top become males. They then form a harem of females around each male. That"s what they call a Dishah. That"s the family unit on Bendadn." Stevenson paused as he took a long pull at his drink.

Michael looked at the envelope on his lap. "I suppose it"s of some interest to someone, but why a confidential report on it-and, I might add, why did you steal it?"

"In college I had a minor in evolutionary biosystems. It"s a hobby, I guess. That"s why the Benda interested me in a biological sense. Because of their method of reproduction and the social organizations that weredetermined by it, it is almost impossible that the Benda evolved to become a sentient, time-binding race." Stevenson shook his head. "That"s why my ears perked up when I overheard a couple of clerks talking at the executive complex about a proposed update on this report. To make a long story short, I heard enough to prompt me to spread around a few credits to get a copy."

Michael shrugged. "I only hope your dedication to history is as commendable as your interest in biology." He tossed the envelope onto his coffee table. "However, it"s just not my subject."

Stevenson studied Michael for a moment. "Doctor, there"s only two things you have to know about that report. The first is that males in this race are determined by conquest. Females are determined by being dominated."

"I know, the compet.i.tion thing-"

"The other thing you should know is that the Benda look upon our little history course as a form of compet.i.tion."

"What are you talking about?"

"Every reproducing male within RMI"s claim area is in a position to compare his race"s history with that of another race-that towering monument of lies called Manifest Destiny."

Michael sighed. "I still don"t see what you"re driving at, Dale. None of us are happy with the texts, but we knew what the job was when we took it."

Stevenson put his gla.s.s on the coffee table, stood and put on his coat. "I guess I misread you for all these years, Doctor. I"m sorry to have taken up your time."

Michael stood and faced Stevenson. "What do you mean?"

"You"re rather a cynical character now, aren"t you, Doctor?"

Michael sighed again and held out his hands. "Whatever does any of this have to do with me?"

Stevenson shook his head. "When a Benda male recognizes he isdominated, he reverts and becomes female again. What do you think will happen to the Benda after all the reproducing males have reverted?"

Michael"s eyes widened. "Come now, Dale, I can"t believe that."

Stevenson pointed at the coffee table. "Then, Doctor, I suggest you break your rule and read something in biology! I think you"ll find it has a lot to do with the history you"ve been teaching."

"How?"

"In that report is an outline for Manifest Destiny." Stevenson opened the door. "RMI is having us-you, me and the others-the company is having us teach an entire race to death!" Stevenson walked through the open door, slamming it behind him. Michael picked up the envelope, pulled the report from it, then sat down and turned to the first page.

Jacob Lynn looked up in surprise as Michael Fellman burst into his office unannounced. Lynn"s secretary followed in the historian"s wake. "I"m sorry, Mr. Lynn, he just walked right past me, and-"

Lynn waved a hand. "It"s all right." The secretary scowled at Michael, then turned and left, closing the door. "Now, Fellman, what"s this all about?"

Michael took a bound sheaf of papers from under his arm and dropped it on Lynn"s desk. "That."

Lynn raised his eyebrows as he read the t.i.tle on the report, then he looked at Michael. "Where did you get this?"