Anarchaos

II

The hatch was opened, and we three passengers stepped out onto the mesh-sided elevator which would lower us to the ground. Beside me, the missionary blinked and whispered, “Oh, dear! Oh, dear me!”

He was right to be awed. It would take the most intrepid of missionaries not to be awed by his first sight of Anarchaos.

Above us, Hell stood at its perpetual zenith, a swollen red sun, huge and ancient, in the flushed fury of its long decline. Its light was red, rust-red, tingeing everything it touched: the shuttle ship we’d just departed, this elevator and its mesh housing, the flat and nearly empty expanse of the landing pad, the customs and administration shacks across the way, and the distant towers of the city of Ni. So long as Hell stood in the sky, there would be no color here but the shades of red.

The elevator descended, and we were met at the bottom by a slender young man in the uniform of the Union Commission; Anarchaos having no government of its own, the UC maintained a staff at the landing pad here for the assistance and advice of visitors.

“Come this way, please,” he said, without that facile smile of impersonal good fellowship for which the UC is famous; Anarchaos, I suppose, made even official smiles impossible to retain.

We followed him toward the shacks. Behind us, our luggage was being unloaded by other UC men and piled onto a mechanized cart, which buzzed by us before we reached the edge of the pad.

How dreary this world was; walking along with the others I felt weighted down, morose, lethargic. Only with the greatest difficulty could I keep my sense of urgency and feeling of purpose. Already, it seemed, Anarchaos was draining me, sapping my strength.

Our guide led us to a small wooden building, marked on its door ORIENTATION, and motioned us inside, where we found several rows of seats facing a raised platform at the far end.

“Sit anywhere, gentlemen,” he said, and walked down the room and onto the platform. Facing us there he said, “My task, gentlemen, is to acquaint you with some few of the facts of Anarchaos.” And he proceeded to tell us several things which I for one already knew.

That Anarchaos was the only planet circling its sun. That it always showed the same face to its sun, as Earth’s moon shows ever the same face to Earth, so that here there was no night or day in the Earthly sense that I was used to; the city of Ni, for instance, lived in perpetual noon, Hell motionless and unchanging directly overhead. That the planet’s orbit was almost precisely circular, so that there were no seasons here. That humans had colonized it eighty-seven years ago and were to be found only along a narrow band north and south along the sunward face, with Moro-Geth the city farthest to the west and Ulik farthest to the east; at Moro-Geth, Hell stood forever in the attitude of mid-morning, while at Ulik the day was frozen at mid-afternoon. That the night side of the planet was dead and cold and no place for men. That the planet had a deep atmosphere, which constantly drained Hell’s heat to east and west, dissipating most of it on the frigid night side, leaving the day side temperatures well within man’s capacity; at Ni it was Fahrenheit eighty-five degrees and at Moro-Geth and Ulik approximately sixty degrees.

And more, about the humans here; their “society,” if that’s the word for it.

That they had no native government but were maintained entirely by the Union Commission. That they were total anarchists, and yet managed to maintain cities. That they were idealists of nihilism, and yet pragmatic and practical. That individuals should be approached with utmost caution, as nearly anything was liable to give offense. That as there were no laws there was statistically no crime, which merely meant that cheating, stealing, killing and so on were not considered crimes here, or even socially unacceptable.

“Finally,” he said, “I wish to tell you gentlemen that the sun and planet here have been misnamed. It’s the planet that should be called Hell, because its citizens are devils. You’re safe from them here, on Commission territory, but once you go outside the gate you are totally on your own. Each major city has a Commission embassy where it is theoretically possible for off-worlders to take refuge in case of trouble, but I wouldn’t depend upon it. According to the most recent report on the subject I’ve seen, seventy-two per cent of off-world visitors here in the last ten years disappeared without trace and are presumed to have been murdered. My urgent advice to all three of you is to get right back on that shuttle and return at once to Cockaigne. As I remember it, Cockaigne is a beautiful place, very friendly and completely safe. The tall blonde girls of that world are noted throughout the Union. Will you go?”

He looked at each of us in turn. The missionary blinked and gulped, but stood his ground. The functionary gave him the defiant glare of the petty authoritarian. I, when it came to my turn, merely met his gaze and shook my head.

He shrugged. “Very well. It’s my job to warn you, and you’ve been warned. Just remember; statistically, less than one visitor in three survives. It’s possible one of you will live to get off this planet again, but extremely unlikely that more than one will.”

There was a table behind him on the platform. He went to it now, picked up a needle mike, and said, “I’ll ask each of you to give his name, home world, purpose in coming here, expected duration of stay, and name and address of whoever you want notified in the event of your death or disappearance. This is for the record, so please speak distinctly.”

He extended the mike toward the missionary, who said, in a high and somewhat shaky voice, “My name is Brother Roderus, Capeline Order, and my home world is Vicon. I am here as a missionary, to bring converts to the true faith and to establish a Capeline monastery here. I am expected to stay for three years. In the event of… of anything happening to me, notification should go to the Abbot, Capeline Monastery, New Augustus, Wainwright, Vicon.”

The functionary was next: “William zi Mandell, of Cockaigne, employed by Roth Brothers Data Corporation. One of our ZT series computers was leased by a certain Allied Furriers of Ulik, who are now over a year deficit in their rental payments. I have been assigned to go to Ulik and either collect the rental due or reclaim the machine. I expect to be here a week, perhaps two. Earth Standards Terms. In the unlikely event of my death or disappearance, my home office should be contacted: Roth Brothers Data Corporation, Scottsville, Sedalia, Cockaigne.”

Then the needle was pointed at me. I said, “Rolf Malone, of Earth. I’m here as a tourist, for an indefinite period, probably no longer than six months. There’s no one to notify in case anything happens to me.”

He continued to point the needle at me a few seconds longer, as though unwilling to believe I was finished, then shook his head, put the mike back on the table, and said, “Now I’ll try to talk specific sense to you. Brother Roderus, missionaries aren’t wanted on Anarchaos, please believe me. You’ll gain no converts. By your manner, I suppose it’s unlikely you’ll give offense to any of the locals, so you’re safe in that respect, but you aren’t safe from bullying, and on Anarchaos bullying frequently ends in bloodshed. Unless you’re determined on martyrdom, I strongly advise you to go back to Vicon.”

The missionary looked frightened but game; that is to say, foolish. “I’ll stay,” he said. “I’ve been sent. I’ll stay.”

The UC man shrugged fatalistically and turned to the computer renter saying, “Mr. Mandell, I assume this is the first time your company has had dealings with anyone on this planet.”

Mandell nodded curtly. “It is.”

“You can’t rent or lease property here, Mr. Mandell; you can only sell it. Allied Furriers has stolen your computer. If you go to them and demand your fees, they’ll laugh in your face. If you try to repossess the machine, they’ll kill you. This isn’t a possibility I’m telling you, this is a certainty.”

Mandell didn’t think so. “Kill me?” he asked. “You’re being melodramatic.”

“Mr. Mandell, please. We can put you up temporarily. Send a message to your home office; ask them to contact the Commission and get the legal and economic situation here. Once your company understands the peculiar problem of Anarchaos, I’m sure they’ll recall you.”

“Nonsense.” Mandell’s spine was getting straighter and straighter, his voice stiffer and stiffer, his expression more and more severe. “I’m a businessman,” he said, “and I’m here to discuss a business transaction.”

“I can’t stop you from leaving here,” the UC man told him, “any more than I can protect you if you do.”

“I’ll need no protection. Is that all?”

The UC man spread his hands. “Yes, that’s all. You and Brother Roderus can go to the customs shack across the way and pick up your luggage now. Mr. Malone, I’d like you to stay a moment longer, if you would.”

The other two looked at me curiously as they left. Once the door was closed behind them I said, “You can’t stop me either, you know.”

“I know that. Mr. Malone, there are no tourists on Anarchaos.”

“There’s me. I’m a tourist.”

“No. Customs at Valhalla reported you carrying a surprising assortment of weapons, for which you had no believable explanation.”

He waited for me to say something, but I had nothing to say. I sat there, and looked at him, and waited.

He grimaced, and half turned away, and then turned back to glare at me again; I was beginning to anger him. People get angry at what they don’t understand; they always have.

“You can’t beat these people, Malone. You’re on their ground, playing by their rules.”

“No rules,” I said. “There aren’t any rules here.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“No. This is my first time off Earth.”

“You won’t tell me what it is? Unofficially. I give you my world not to use whatever you tell me.”

“I have nothing to tell you. I’m a tourist.”

He made a quick gesture: anger, bafflement, defeat. “Go on, then,” he said. “Kill yourself.”

“See you later,” I said, as I started for the door.

“No you won’t,” he said after me. “You’ll never make it back.”