The Eye of the Heron

3

The two human settlements on the planet Victoria were six kilometers apart. There were, so far as the inhabitants of Shantih Town and Victoria City knew, no others.

A good many people had work, hauling produce or drying fish, which took them from one settlement to the other frequently, but there were many more who lived in the City and never went to the Town, or who lived in one of the farm-villages near the Town and never from year’s end to year’s end went to the City.

As a small group, four men and a woman, came down the Town Road to the edge of the bluffs, several of them looked with lively curiosity and considerable awe at the City spread out beneath them on the hilly shore of Songe Bay; they stopped just under the Monument Tower—the ceramic shell of one of the ships that had brought the first settlers to Victoria—but did not spend much time looking up at it; it was a familiar sight, impressive by its size, but skeletal and rather pitiful set up there on the cliff-top, pointing bravely at the stars but serving merely as a guide to fishing boats out at sea. It was dead; the City was alive. “Look at that,” said Hari, the eldest of the group. “You couldn’t count all those houses if you sat here for an hour! Hundreds of them!”

“Just like a city on Earth,” another, a more frequent visitor, said with proprietary pride.

“My mother was born in Moskva, in Russia the Black,” a third man said. “She said the City would only be a little town, there on Earth.” But this was rather farfetched, to people whose lives had been spent between the wet fields and the huddled villages, in a close continuous bind of hard work and human companionship, outside which lay the immense, indifferent wilderness. “Surely,” one of them said with mild disbelief, “she meant a big town?” And they stood beneath the hollow shell of the space ship, looking at the bright rust color of the tiled and thatched roofs, and the smoking chimneys, and the geometrical lines of walls and streets, and not looking at the vast landscape of beaches and bay and ocean, empty valleys, empty hills, empty sky, that surrounded the City with a tremendous desolation.

Once they came down past the schoolhouse into the streets they could entirely forget the presence of the wilderness. They were surrounded on all sides by the works of mankind. The houses, mostly row-built, lined the way on both sides with high walls and little windows. The streets were narrow, and a foot deep in mud. In places walkways of planking were laid over the mud, but these were in bad repair, and slippery with rain. Few people passed, but an open door might give a glimpse into the swarming interior courtyard of a house, full of women, washing, children, smoke, and voices. Then again the cramped, sinister silence of the street.

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” sighed Hari.

They passed the factory where iron from the Government mines and foundry was made into tools, kitchenware, door latches, and so on. The doorway was wide open, and they stopped and peered into the sulfurous darkness lit with sparking fires and loud with banging and hammering, but a workman yelled at them to move on. So they went on down to Bay Street, and looking at the length and width and straightness of Bay Street, Hari said again, “Wonderful!” They followed Vera, who knew her way about the City, up Bay Street to the Capitol. At the sight of the Capitol, Hari had no words left, but merely stared.

It was the biggest building in the world—four times the height of any common house—and built of solid stone. Its high porch was supported by four columns, each a single huge ringtree trunk, grooved and whitewashed, the heavy capitals carved and gilt. The visitors felt small passing between these columns, small entering the portals that gaped so wide and tall. The entry hall, narrow but also very high, had plastered walls, and these had been decorated years ago with frescoes that stretched from floor to ceiling. At the sight of these the people from Shantih stopped again and gazed, silent; for they were pictures of the Earth.

There were still people in Shantih who remembered Earth and would tell about it, but the memories, fifty-five years old, were mostly of things seen by children. Few were left who had been adults at the time of the exile. Some had spent years of their lives in writing down the history of the People of the Peace and the sayings of its leaders and heroes, and descriptions of the Earth, and sketches of its remote, appalling history. Others had seldom spoken of the Earth; at most they had sung to their children born in exile, or to their children’s children, an old song with strange names and words in it, or told them tales about the children and the witch, the three bears, the king who rode on a tiger. The children listened round-eyed. “What is a bear? Does a king have stripes too?”

The first generation of the City, on the other hand, sent to Victoria fifty years before the People of the Peace, had mostly come from the cities, Buenos Aires, Rio, Brasilia, and the other great centers of Brasil-America; and some of them had been powerful men, familiar with stranger things even than witches and bears. So the fresco painter had painted scenes that were entirely marvelous to the people now looking at them: towers full of windows, streets full of wheeled machines, skies full of winged machines; women with shimmering, bejeweled clothes and blood-red mouths; men, tall heroic figures, doing incredible things—sitting on huge four-legged beasts or behind big shiny blocks of wood, shouting with arms upraised at vast crowds of people, advancing among dead bodies and pools of blood at the head of rows of men all dressed alike, under a sky full of smoke and bursting fire … . The visitors from Shantih must either stand there gazing for a week in order to see it all, or hurry on past at once, because they should not be late to the Council meeting. But they all stopped once more at the last panel, which was different from the others. Instead of being filled with faces and fire and blood and machines, it was black. Low in the left corner was a little blue-green disk, and high in the right corner was another; between and around them, nothing—black. Only if you looked close at the blackness did you see that it was flecked with a countless minute glittering of stars; and at last you saw the finely drawn silver space ship, no longer than a fingernail-paring, poised in the void between the worlds.

At the doorway beyond the black fresco two guards stood, imposing figures, dressed alike in wide trousers, jerkins, boots, belts. They carried not only coiled whips stuck in their belts, but guns: long muskets, with hand-carved stocks and heavy barrels. Most of the Shantih people had heard of guns but never seen one, and they stared with curiosity at them.

“Halt!” said one of the guards.

“What?” said Hari. The people of Shantih had early adopted the language spoken in Victoria City, since they had been people of many different tongues and needed a common language among themselves and with the City; but some of the older ones had not learned some of the City usages. Hari had never heard the word “Halt.”

“Stop there,” the guard said.

“All right,” Hari said. “We’re to wait here,” he explained to the others.

The sound of voices making speeches came from behind the closed doors of the Council Room. The Shantih people presently began to wander back down the hall to look at the frescoes while they waited; the guards ordered them to wait in a group, and they came wandering back. At last the doors were opened, and the delegation from Shantih was escorted by the guards into the Council Hall of the Government of Victoria: a big room, filled with grayish light from windows set up high in the wall. At the far end was a raised platform on which ten chairs stood in a half-circle; on the wall behind them hung a sheet of red cloth, with a blue disk in the middle, and ten yellow stars around the disk. A couple of dozen men sat here and there on the rows of benches, facing the dais. Of the ten chairs on the dais, only three were occupied.

A curly-headed man who sat by a little table just below the dais stood up and announced that a delegation from Shanty Town had asked permission to address the Supreme Plenum of the Congress and Council of Victoria.

“Permission granted,” said one of the men on the dais.

“Come forward—no, not there, along the side—” The curly man whispered and fussed till he got the delegation where he wanted them, near the platform. “Who is the spokesman?”

“Her,” said Hari, nodding at Vera.

“State your name as listed in the National Registry. You are to address the Congressmen as ‘Gentlemen’ and the Councillors as ‘Your Excellencies,’” the clerk whispered, frowning with agitation. Hari watched him with benign amusement, as if he were a pouchbat. “Go on, go on!” the clerk whispered, sweating.

Vera took a step forward from the group. “I’m Vera Adelson. We came to discuss with you our plans for sending a group north to start a new settlement. We hadn’t had time the other day to talk the matter over, and so there was some misunderstanding and disagreement. That’s all settled. Jan has the map that Councillor Falco asked for, we’re happy to give you this copy for the Archives. The explorers warn us that it’s not very accurate, but it does give a general idea of the country north and east of Songe Bay, including some passable routes and fords. We cordially hope that it may be of use to our community.” One of the men held out a roll of leafpaper, and the worried clerk took it, glancing up at the Councillors for permission.

Vera, in her trouser-suit of white treesilk, stood quiet as a statue in the gray light; her voice was tranquil.

“One hundred and eleven years ago, the Government of Brasil-America sent several thousand people to this world. Fifty-six years ago, the Government of Canamerica sent two thousand more. The two groups have not merged, but have cooperated; and by now the City and the Town, though still distinct, are deeply interdependent.

“The first decades, for each group, were very hard; there were many deaths. There have been fewer, as we learned how to live here. The Registry has been discontinued for years, but we estimate the population of the City as about eight thousand, and the population of Shantih, at our last count, was four thousand three hundred and twenty.”

There was a movement of surprise on the benches.

“Twelve thousand in the Songe Bay region is all the area can feed, we think, without over-intensive farming and a constant risk of famine. So we think it’s time for some of us to move out and start a new settlement. There is, after all, a good deal of room.”

Falco, up on his Councillor’s chair, smiled faintly.

“Because the Town and City haven’t merged, but still form two separate groups, we feel that a joint attempt to make a new settlement would be unwise. The pioneers will have to live together, work together, depend on one another, and, of course, intermarry. The strain of trying to keep up two social castes, in such a situation, would be intolerable. Anyhow, those who want to start a new settlement are all Shantih people.

“About two hundred and fifty families, some thousand people, are considering going north. They won’t go all at once, but a couple of hundred at a time. As they go, their places on the farms will be filled by young people who stay here, and also, since the City is getting rather full, some City families may want to move out onto the land. They will be welcome. Even though a fifth of our farmers go north, there should be no drop in food production; and of course there’ll be a thousand less mouths to feed.

“This is our plan. We trust that by discussion, criticism, and mutual striving toward truth, we may arrive together at full agreement on a matter which concerns us all.”

There was a brief silence.

A man on one of the benches got up to speak, but sat down hastily when he saw Councillor Falco was about to speak.

“Thank you, Senhora Adelson,” Falco said. “You will be informed of the Council’s decision concerning this proposal. Senhor Brown, what is the next item on the agenda?”

The curly clerk made frantic gestures at the Shantih people with one hand while trying to find his place among the papers on his desk with the other. The two guards came forward briskly and flanked the five townspeople. “Come on!” one of them ordered.

“Excuse me,” Vera said to them, gently. “Councillor Falco, I’m afraid we’re misunderstanding one another again. We have made a decision, a tentative one. We wish now, in cooperation with you, to make a definite one. Neither we, nor you, can decide alone upon a matter which concerns us all.”

“You misunderstand,” Falco said, looking at the air above Vera’s head. “You have made a proposal. The decision is up to the Government of Victoria.”

Vera smiled. “I know you’re not used to women speaking at your meetings, maybe it would go better if Jan Serov speaks for us.” She stepped back, and a big, fair-skinned man replaced her. “You see,” he said, as if continuing Vera’s sentence, “first we have to settle what we want and how to do it, and then when we’ve agreed on that, we do it.”

“The topic is closed,” said bald Councillor Helder, at Falco’s left on the dais. “If you continue to obstruct the business of the Plenum you must be forcibly removed.”

“We aren’t obstructing business, we’re trying to get it done,” Jan said. He didn’t know what to do with his big hands, which hung uneasily at his sides, half-closed, wanting the handle of an absent hoe. “We have to talk this business over.”

Falco said very quietly, “Guards.”

As the guards pressed forward again, Jan looked in perplexity at Vera, and Hari spoke up: “Oh, now, calm down, Councillor, all we want is a bit of sensible talk, you can see that.”

“Your Excellency! Have these people taken out!” shouted a man from the benches, and others started calling out, as if they wanted to be heard doing so by the Councillors on the dais. The Shantih people stood quiet, though Jan Serov and young King stared rather wide-eyed at the angry, shouting faces turned toward them. Falco conferred a moment with Helder, then signaled one of the guards, who left the hall at a run. Falco raised his hand for silence.

“You people,” he said quite gently, “must understand that you aren’t members of the Government, but subjects of the Government. To ‘decide’ upon some ‘plan’ contrary to the Government’s decision is an act of rebellion. To make this clear to you, and the rest of your people, you’ll be detained here until we are certain that normal order is restored.”

“What’s ‘detained’?” Hari whispered to Vera, who said, “Prison.” Hari nodded. He had been born in a prison, in Canamerica; he didn’t remember it, but he was proud of it.

Eight guards now came shoving in and began to hustle the Shantih people to the door. “Single file! Hurry up now! Don’t run or I’ll shoot!” their officer commanded. None of the five showed the least sign of trying to run, resist, or protest. King, shoved by an impatient guard, said, “Oh, sorry,” as if he had got in the way of someone in a rush.

The guards bundled the group out past the frescoes, under the columns, into the street. There they stopped. “Where to?” one asked the officer.

“Jail.”

“Her too?”

They all looked at Vera, neat and delicate in her white silk. She looked back at them with tranquil interest.

“The boss said jail,” the officer said, scowling.

“Hesumeria, sir, we can’t stick her in there,” said a little, sharp-eyed, scar-faced guard.

“That’s what the boss said.”

“But look, she’s a lady.”

“Take her to Boss Falco’s house and let him decide when he gets home,” suggested another, Scarface’s twin, but scarless.

“I’ll give you my word to stay wherever you decide, but I’d rather stay with my friends,” said Vera.

“Please shut up, lady!” the officer said, clutching his head. “All right. You two take her to Casa Falco.”

“The others will give their word too, if—” Vera began, but the officer turned his back on her and shouted, “All right! Get going! Single file!”

“This way, senhora,” said Scarface.

At the turning Vera paused and held up her hand to salute her four companions, now far down the street. “Peace! Peace!” Hari shouted back, enthusiastically. Scarface muttered something and spat thickly aside. The two guards were men Vera would have been afraid of if she had passed them in a City street alone, but as they walked now, flanking her, their protectiveness of her was evident even in their gait. She realized that they felt themselves to be her rescuers.

“Is the jail very disagreeable?” she asked.

“Drunks, fights, stink,” Scarface replied, and his twin added with grave propriety, “No place for a lady, senhora.”

“Is it any better place for a man?” she inquired, but neither answered.

Casa Falco stood only three streets from the Capitol: a big, low, white building with a red tile roof. The plump housemaid who came to the door was flustered by the presence of two soldiers and an unknown senhora on the doorstep; she curtseyed and panted and whispered, “Oh, hesumeria! Oh, hesumeria!”—and fled, leaving them on the doorstep. After a long pause, during which Vera conversed with her guards and found that they were indeed twin brothers, named Emiliano and Anibal, and that they liked their work as guards because they got good pay and didn’t have to take any lip off anybody, but Anibal—Scarface—didn’t like standing around so much because it made his feet hurt and his ankles swell—after this, a girl entered the front hall, a straight-backed, red-cheeked girl in sweeping full skirts. “I am Senhorita Falco,” she said, with a quick glance at the guards, but speaking to Vera. Then her face changed. “Senhora Adelson, I didn’t recognize you. I’m sorry. Please come in!”

“This is embarrassing, my dear, you see, I’m not a visitor, I’m a prisoner. These gentlemen have been very kind. They thought the jail had no place for women, so they brought me here. I think they have to come in too, if I come in, to guard me.”

Luz Marina’s eyebrows had come down in a fine, straight line. She stood silent for a moment. “They can wait in the entrance here,” she said. “Sit on those chests,” she said to Anibal and Emiliano. “Senhora Adelson will be with me.”

The twins edged stiffly through the door after Vera.

“Please come in,” Luz said, standing aside with formal courtesy, and Vera entered the hall of Casa Falco, with its cushioned wooden chairs and settees, its inlaid tables and patterned stone floor, its thick glass windows and huge cold fireplaces, her prison. “Please sit down,” said her jailer,. and went to an inner door to order a fire laid and lighted, and coffee brought.

Vera did not sit down. As Luz returned toward her she looked at the girl with admiration. “My dear, you are kind and courteous. But I really am under arrest—by your father’s order.”

“This is my house,” Luz said. Her voice was as dry as Falco’s. “It is a house hospitable to guests.”

Vera gave a docile little sigh, and sat down. Her gray hair had been blown about by the wind in the streets; she smoothed it back, then clasped her thin, brown hands in her lap.

“Why did he arrest you?” The question had been suppressed, and shot out under pressure. “What did you do?”

“Well, we came and tried to talk with the Council about plans for the new settlement.”

“Did you know they’d arrest you?”

“We discussed it as one possibility.”

“But what is it all about?”

“About the new settlement—about freedom, I suppose. But really, my dear, I mustn’t talk about it with you. I’ve promised to be a prisoner, and prisoners aren’t supposed to preach their crime.”

“Why not?” said Luz disdainfully. “Is it catching, like a cold?”

Vera laughed. “Yes!—I know we’ve met, I don’t know where it was.”

The flustered maid hurried in with a tray, set it on the table, and hurried out again, panting. Luz poured the black, hot drink—called coffee, made from the roasted root of a native plant—into cups of fine red earthenware.

“I was at the festival in Shanty Town a year ago,” she said. The authoritative dryness was gone from her voice; she sounded shy. “To see the dancing. And there were a couple of times you spoke at school.”

“Of course! You and Lev and all that lot were in school together! You knew Timmo, then. You know he died, on the journey north?”

“No. I didn’t. In the wilderness,” the girl said, and a brief silence followed the word. “Was Lev—Is Lev in jail now?”

“He didn’t come with us. You know, in a war, you don’t put all your soldiers in the same place at once.” Vera, with recovered cheerfulness, sipped her coffee, and winced very slightly at the taste.

“A war?”

“Well, a war without fighting, of course. Maybe a rebellion, as your father says. Maybe, I hope, just a disagreement.” Luz still looked blank. “You know what a war is?”

“Oh, yes. Hundreds of people killing each other. History of Earth at school was full of them. But I thought … your people wouldn’t fight?”

“No,” Vera agreed. “We don’t fight. Not with knives and guns. But when we’ve agreed that something ought to be done, or not done, we get very stubborn. And when that meets up with another stubbornness, it can make a kind of war, a struggle of ideas, the only kind of war anybody ever wins. You see?”

Luz evidently did not.

“Well,” Vera said comfortably, “you will see.”