Zone Yellow

Chapter 16

It took a few minutes to get settled and pull homemade chairs up to the slabs-with-the-bark-on table and to get everybody calmed down enough to talk sense―or what had to pass for sense in a milieu devoid of familiar certainties.

“So you two bachelors raised Baby from a pup,” I commented. “I’d say you did a good job; she’s a nice kid.”

“I must protest,” Swft put in, not very heatedly. “You must show respect for Her Highness.”

“We’ll have to skip all that for now, General,” I told him. “What do you make of the situation?”

“From the disruption of conditions in the Skein,” he stated, “I must conclude that on this once-sacrosanct phase, the Two-Law people have prevailed, and the Noble House has fallen. The Jade Palace is in the hands of its enemies. Now,” he went on without pause, “it appears obvious that we must penetrate the City and the Royal Enclosure itself, and after proper preparation, present Her Highness to the populace as proof of the deception on which those Two-Law folk have based their usurpation.”

“Swell,” I commented. “I hope you have it all worked out just how we’re going to do that―and why we humongs should stick our necks out.”

“To put an end to the invasion,” Smovia answered my question. “It’s in our interest to restore the old regime, even if it didn’t deserve to be preserved for its own sake.”

“By which you imply that it does,” I interpreted. “Deserve to be preserved, I mean. Tell me why.”

“We’ve told you about the town,” Andy put in. “Used to be a nice place: well-tended cottages with fruit trees all around, and the people lived well, and peacefully. Then this Grgsdn bunch came along with their dopey Two-Law propaganda, and everybody became dissatisfied and began to quarrel over the distribution of the town’s food supply. It all seemed to devolve on the continuity of the Noble House. With no heir, there’d be no Governance to see to an equitable distribution. The whole system was based on mutual confidence in the honesty of the other fellow, and the idea of “sometjiing for nothing” was like a slow poison: everybody was still eating well, but they started to worry, afraid somebody else was slacking on the job, but getting more than his share. Now everybody’s starving, and the Killing came, and now it’s chaos: a few hundred survivors of the three thousand villagers before the Two-Law business started, all divided into factions, each group embattled in its own little precinct, all concentrating on grabbing what they can of somebody else’s harvest, and no relief in sight. There are still organized troops in the capital, but the Governance seems paralyzed; most of the Royal officials refuse to cooperate with Grgsdn, and he can’t kill them, because without them, what little order that remains would collapse.”

“What makes you think the mere existence of a child heiress will make any difference?” was my next question. Swft and Smovia both spoke at once.

“The people are basically loyal to the old order―”

“These are decent folks: they’ve just lost their bearings. Once they see a clear path of duty, they’ll follow it.” Smovia said that, and Swft let it stand.

“First,” Andy contributed, “we need to get the rumors started that Grgsdn kidnapped the princess and held her in captivity, and she’s just now escaped.”

I looked at Minnie, or Baby, or Her Highness as Swft would have it. “What do you think, dear?” I asked her. She gave me that impish grin.

“I think it would be lovely to be a real princess,” she told me. She looked warmly at Helm. “Candy told me all about a place called Oz, and about Princess Ozma. I want to be like her.”

“I can’t blame you for that, my child,” I told her. “But we don’t have any magic. All we have is science.”

“No problem,” Smovia spoke up. “Science can do everything magic was ever supposed to do, and more.” He stood, a wiry, aging fellow with scrag-gly whiskers and a light in his eyes.

“Let’s do it!” he urged. “I want to see these people free and happy again, and I want to live to see Baby wearing regal robes, too!”

“It appears to be the most effective way to end the invasion,” I conceded without enthusiasm.

“The only way!” Swft supplied. “I have hesitated to tell you, Colonel, but Grgsdn has a scheme to open hundreds of new transfer depots and to overwhelm your world with an innumerable horde. That plan must be stopped before it comes to fruition!”

“You haven’t told me how it happens that our friends here experienced nine long years while you and I passed only a few hours,” I told Swft. He twitched his nose.

“You must understand, Colonel,” he said as if the words tasted bad in his mouth, “that the synchronicity of events is a variable not yet completely understood.”

“How much time has passed at home while we’ve been fumbling our assignment out here in the boondocks?”

“I haven’t the remotest idea,” Swft told me as if scoring a point. “The displacement is dependent on a number of variables, none of which has been controlled. It might be a moment―or a century.”

I thought of Barbro and Manfred―all the people I loved―all dead of old age long ago.

“Perhaps no discrepancy at all, of course,” Swft was rambling on. “We can only wait and see.”

We made our preparations to set out at dawn. They didn’t amount to much: just packing up a few days’ rations, mostly a kind of pemmican made of pounded nuts and berries and a little squirrel-meat―pretty good as hard rations. We added fresh stuff from the supply bins filled by the old boys, while talking about how to spring Baby’s identity on the villagers. We decided that Swft would play her father or guardian, and we humongs―humans; Swft had stopped calling us monkeys a long time ago―would be his captives, brought in from the New Province as technical experts―long live the Two-Laws! We were turncoats, freely cooperating out of of sheer sympathy for the Noble Folk. We’d keep Smovia’s vaccine in reserve at first. And I had my vial of the pure virus well-hidden in my belt-box.

The road, such as it was, that ran north toward town ran only a few rods from the hut. We settled down to a steady two miles per hour. Helm and Smovia, in spite of their starved look, were both tough and in condition, and I let them set the pace. Baby kept up with no trouble, and had energy enough left over to make side excursions into the fields to pick wildflowers, which she presented to Unca Mobie, who fashioned them into a wreath with which he crowned her. She laughed and danced along beside us, as carefree as a ten-year-old ought to be.

We came upon a little group of Ylokk emerging from the woods. They halted and conferred when they saw us. Swft told us to look submissive and otherwise ignore them. One of the strangers came toward us, did a complicated head-ducking number, and spoke to Swft. He barked a one-syllable answer and turned to snarl at us:

“These are Two-Law scum. They want to know what you are. I told them to tend to their duties. Play up to me, hurry on, now!” He cuffed Smovia, who crouched, miming terror.

“Don’t try that on me, Rat!” Helm snapped. I told him to shut up and look subservient. He tried, and succeeded in looking as if he had a bellyache.

I saw a movement in the woods off to the left ahead, and a man―not a rat―pushed out into view. He was a big, beefy fellow with a mean expression. There was another smaller man behind him, then a woman. They carried baskets filled with fat red berries and other stuff. All three humans were youngish and well-dressed―or had been. Their clothes were torn and dirt-stained, and their feces hadn’t been washed or shaved lately. The woman’s hair was done up in a scraggly knot with a stick through it. The first man seemed to notice us―or the departing Ylokk―suddenly, and ducked back, waving the others back, too. They didn’t go far, just about half out of sight.

We watched the rats. We were strung out on the road, but the ragged people paid no attention to me or the other two men―but didn’t let Swft out of their sight, ducking around intervening trees and shrubbery to keep him in view. For his part, the General acted as if he hadn’t noticed them, but I wasn’t fooled. He was too sharp to miss all that play-acting right in front of him.

“Who are they?” I asked him. He did a little, “Eh, what’s that?” number and turned to stare after the departing bank of Ylokk, now a hundred yards away down the road. “I told you,” he said.

I waved that away. “Don’t kid me, Swft,” I urged.

It was his turn to pooh-pooh me. “Bands of the rascals roam freely,” he said, sounding sad. I grabbed his arm and pointed to the “hiding” humans. He turned on me fiercely. “I told you, Colonel, you must conduct yourself with circumspection!”

“I’m going to talk to them, General,” I said. I told Smovia and Andy to stay put, and in spite of Swft’s objection went over to the three people, who were staring at me with blank expressions.

“Here,” the burly fellow blurted. “What―?” The woman nudged him and he subsided, looking indignant.

“Hi,” I greeted them. “What’s happening? I just got here. It looks as if you’ve had a rough time.”

Face to face, the men’s whiskers looked like about a week’s growth. I had a feeling they’d been in the woods the whole time. Their hands were rough, callused and chapped, with dirt engrained in the pores and under the clipped nails.

“M’sieur,” the big fellow said carefully, and took a hard grip on my arm.

“C’est dangereus,” I think he said. He spoke French, but with a Swedish accent. He was urging me toward the nearest clump of underbrush, questioning me urgently, I gathered, and he kept glancing toward Swft.

“That’s General Swft,” I told him. That was all I thought he’d understand. If he did, he didn’t show it.

“Who are you people?” I insisted. He seemed to confirm the assumption of English-speaking tourists everywhere: that anybody could understand plain English, if spoken loudly enough. The ragged fellow frowned and said in badly-accented English:

“Like you―slaves.”

Swft came over and told me sternly, “You can’t fraternize with these trash.”

“They’re people, like me,” I told him. “What are they doing here? How did they get here?”

The three strangers seemed intimidated by Swft; they drew back, watching him closely, especially the big guy. Swft kept his distance and told me, in Swedish, to get back on the road and ignore these people. He kept glancing off toward the band of Ylokk, almost out of sight around a bend. “Hurry!” he urged me.

Smovia and Andy had come over and were talking excitedly to the strangers. Helm knew French well―or at least he talked fast―and Big Boy seemed to understand him. He turned to me. “They’re slaves, Colonel,” he told me. So much for linguistic facility. I nodded, and asked the woman how they’d got here. She replied that they’d walked out from town, “as usual.”

“I mean to this A-line,” I amplified, impatiently.

“In a big box,” the smaller man spoke up. “The rats jumped us―Marie and me―back in Goteborg and herded us inside a big lift-van, and held us for two days―along with ten other people they’d waylaid on the street. Then they opened a door and we came out―here. Gus came along the next day.”