Chapter 28
ANOTHER day of frenetic activity passed. Beyond the borders of the Estate, in spite of the urgings, pleadings, and repeated descriptions of the effects of radiation poisoning, there were areas where the evacuations were not going smoothly. Instead of the First there were many Firsts who, while possessing the authority, were more used to government by committee.
There was little that the doctor could do about this. He had been obeyed without question by his own people. In the towns and settlements where he was known and respected, they obeyed him, reluctantly and with much argument. But in the outlying districts he was just a Keidi voice warning of dreadful things to come-a voice which inspired fear but not always belief.
When Martin tried to intervene in support of the doctor, that caused even more arguments, dissension, and delays. The dislike and distrust felt for Galactics all over Keidi came close to being a planet-wide psychosis. And the dissension was beginning to spread to the hypership.
“Group Eighty-eight has wasted too much time,” said Martin impatiently. “That cloud, as you can see from the figures, is a particularly dirty one. It will cross their path half a day before they are able to reach shelter, enough time to give the very young Keidi a lethal dose and render the adults sterile. They must be redirected to Center Twelve-twenty-seven, now. Even then it will be a very close thing.”
The doctor’s speaking horn swung round angrily. “Off-worlder, I have only just succeeded in getting that group moving, and now you want me to tell them to move in what is nearly the opposite direction! There will be disorganization, argument, and more delay. Twelve-twenty-seven is being threatened by fallout from Burst Five, and the delay will mean that they face the same danger going there.”
“Not if they decide quickly and turn back at once,” Martin said. “I think another nonmaterial show of force is indicated, to help concentrate their thinking.”
“No!” the doctor said. “Give me credit for understanding my people’s thinking better than a meddling off- worlder. Sudden terror could just as easily cause them to scatter in all directions, or not move at all.”
Trying hard to control his anger and impatience, Martin said, “There are five other groups in much the same position as Eighty-eight, but for different reasons. We could lift them out, if the transports are ready.”
He looked at Beth, but before she could reply the doctor said, “Off-worlder, the First tried to explain it to you and now I will try. We do not want, but we are forced to accept, your help. But we must also be allowed to help ourselves. Since the Exodus took away our population and skimmed oft the finest layers of our culture, the Keidi who remained have become a backward, angry, and very proud people. Any attempt, however well meant, to force all but the minimum of assistance on them, or to impress them with the scientific marvels of the Federation, will have negative results. This, the First’s dreams of conquest and unification, the premature detonation of his nuclear devices, and everything that has occurred as a result, is our problem. Do you understand that, off-worlder?”
The Keidi sat within arms reach, but he seemed suddenly to be miles away.
Beth looked worriedly from the doctor to Martin and said, “The first transport is ready to launch. It is untested, but testing is a formality because the fabrication module’s self-inspection system is…”
“But you are a healer,” Martin said, ignoring her. “Surely it is your duty to save lives?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, “that is why I wanted to help you. But I have found that a patient who wants to survive will aid the healing process, and live longer, than one who has no incentive for continued survival. The loss of pride and self-respect destroys the will to benefit from the healing.”
“I don’t accept that,” Martin said, “especially in the present situation. Pride is no protection against radiation poisoning, and what about your people who are too young to have learned about pride?”
“Don’t be stupid, off-worlder,” the Keidi said. “There are exceptions, naturally. I was simply making the point that too much help can be worse than…”
Beth pointed at the attention light blinking unnoticed on Martin’s console and said, “The First is calling you.” The Keidi leader was staring out of the screen at him, his speaking horn twitching with impatience. The First began speaking without giving Martin time to talk. “Off-worlder, we must negotiate. We have duties and obligations which must be exchanged without delay or misdirection on either side. I shall bind myself, by the continuing respect of my people and by the parental duty of a First Father to his Family, to discharge my obligations fully, without omission or deliberate misunderstanding, to your satisfaction. You must bind yourself and the members of your organization by whatever personal, legal, or nonmaterial authority that you honor, to do likewise.”
“What…” began Martin. “This is not the time for complex negotiations. We’re very busy here right now, as you can see from your repeater screen. If you’re worried about something, don’t be. You are in no danger and the remaining groups of your special family are making good progress toward your center. Please, let’s discuss this later.”
“We will discuss it now,” said the First, “or my remaining family will not join me, and few indeed will be the other Keidi who reach any of their designated centers.”
Beth and the doctor had swung around to stare at the screen. Martin wet his lips and said quietly, “Explain.”
There were many Keidi crowded around and behind the First, but none of them made a sound as he said, “Off-worlder, I have been considering your earlier words to me about overcrowding and your means of relieving it, and the real meaning of these words so far as my Family and myself are concerned. I have decided that you intend to use the center’s matter transmitters to split up my family and organization and scatter it to centers all over the north and south continents.”
Too quietly for the doctor to hear her, Beth said, “So that’s why you weren’t worried about letting his special people into one center. A neat, but nasty, solution.”
“The idea had occurred to me,” Martin said softly.
Concentrating Keida’s proven Undesirables-they had been unknowingly nominated as such by the First- into one center, then scattering them so thinly among the more normal Keidi that their ability to reorganize and regain control would have been lost, had been a very attractive idea. After all, on a planetary scale that had been the primary purpose of the induction centers, as well as to filter out potential non-Citizens like Beth and himself. But it had been a nice, simple, and too uncertain solution which he had been reluctantly obliged to discard.
To the First he said, “I do not intend to split your family. Your fears are groundless.”
“That,” the First said harshly, “is the expected reply, a piece of verbal misdirection aimed at rendering my people more amenable until the treachery is accomplished. You must bind yourself to those words, completely and without any possibility of later argument or modification, as I have bound myself to mine. You must do this now.”
“Or else?” asked Martin,
“Your evacuation,” the First replied, “will become an ever greater shambles than it is now.” “Explain,” Martin said again,
In order to allay his people’s distrust and suspicions regarding the Galactics’ intentions, the First explained, he had told them that they should proceed toward their assigned centers only so long as he was able to report it safe to do so. He was in constant communication with them and they with each other, and if he signaled that the centers were not, in fact, radiation shelters but a cunning trap devised by the off-worlders to gather them together for easy execution, few indeed were the refugee groups who would not immediately halt or go somewhere, anywhere, else. If advanced technology was used to blank out or otherwise interfere with the First’s continuing signals of reassurance, his people would then know that the off-worlder’s treachery was a fact and act accordingly, by spreading The news to the other, non-Family groups.
“If you were to blank all Keidi-operated radio transmitters,” the First added, “I suspect that your own ship- directed rescue plans would be seriously hampered. Is this not so?”
For a moment Martin was too angry to speak, then he said, “Those nuclear detonations were a fact, not an off-worlder trick. You know the effects of massive radiation exposure on unprotected people. Will you risk killing a large proportion of your present and future population for selfish, political gain? And for a personal reassurance which you have already received?”
“The majority of my people are post-Exodus second and third generation,” the First said slowly, “and have no
