Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail

must.”

“Perhaps. We think not. We hope not. But our way is the only possible way.”

“But it isn’t!” I protested. “Your goal can be achieved. The potential is here. How many—ah, Wild Ones are there now?”

“We prefer Free Tribes,” the first woman told me. “There are between thirty and forty thousand worldwide. That is an estimate, of course—our communication lines are primitive.”

Thirty to forty thousand! What an army that would make! If only… “Such a force could infiltrate and take the major cities, cripple the industry and transportation network, and destroy the balance of Medusan control.”

“How? Ten thousand near-naked savages, most of whom think even a flashlight is magic and who have never seen a light switch or things made of steel and plastic?”

“I believe it can be done, with training. I believe it can be done because I believe in the possibility of self- controlled body malleability. That is what I am looking for here.”

They remained silent—as if thinking about what I just said. They didn’t seem very surprised one way or the other about my assertion of controlled malleability. Finally the first woman said, “Foolish one! Do you not think your idea has not been thought of before? From the start it was the only reasonable course. But at the beginning we were disorganized, scattered refugees, without the numbers or abilities. An entire generation was mercilessly hunted all over the planet, and it learned how to survive—but in the wild. The next generation was born here and had nothing but what seemed like fanciful tales of magic. The generation after that, the current one, feels no kinship whatever to the city dwellers—they are demons. Now we have the numbers, but not the will. We built the culture that keeps them alive and holds them together, but it is a primitive one. If we had ten thousand, perhaps even five thousand, people like you four, perhaps we could do it. But the gap between your cultures and your minds and theirs is too great.”

I was not prepared to concede the point, but I was very interested in the implications of what she said. “Then controlled malleability is possible.”

They didn’t answer me; instead, the second woman asked, “Well, what are we to do with you, then? You will never fit into this culture. You will never accept it, and your efforts will bring the others down upon it. You cannot return to the cities. So for now, you will have to stay with us as our guests—but you will not disrupt the people or their customs or beliefs, understand? Until we decide what to do with you you are welcome to our hospitality. But we are perfectly willing, and capable, of terminating you as well. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “I think we do.”

“Then, for now, this audience is finished.” With that intonation a small boat appeared from the left inside the cave, showing just how you did get to the other side and in and out. The underground river, diverted through here, was apparently deep and navigable. The craft was basically a wooden rowboat, with a separate and overlarge tiller. Inside sat a tall, stately-looking woman. “Get in—all of you,” she commanded.

I looked at the other three, then complied. There was no use in pressing anything with the Elders right now, and time was needed to find the information I sought.

Fortunately the current was with us in this direction, so the oars were secured and the pilot let the river take us with it. We left the cavern, then went around a fairly sharp bend, and came to another landing, but didn’t stop there. We passed several more such landings, with tunnels leading off in both directions, before we reached the one the pilot wanted. She tied off the boat with a rope, then jumped out and helped us up onto the rocky floor. We were led back along a narrow cave that seemed mostly natural, but which opened into a fairly large chamber. By torchlight we could see it contained a thick floor of some strawlike material, a few crude handmade wooden chairs, a small writing desk but nothing to write with, and very little else. It did, however, have a crude water system; a streamlet issuing from a small rock fissure was channeled into and along a trough. The stream was pretty swift, and it exited through another small fissure at the other end of the room. Just before that exit point was a crude, hand-rubbed toilet top.

“The water is fresh and pure,” our guide explained. “The current is swift enough so that waste products will be swiftly carried away. Food will be brought to you shortly, and regularly. Please stay here until the Elders decide what to do with you. Swimming in the river is not recommended, however. The river’s eventual outlet is the larger waterfall in the courtyard, and the drop is more than forty meters into stone.” With that, she turned and was gone.

Bura looked after her for a moment, then turned to me. “I gather we’re prisoners, then?”

“Looks like it,” I had to admit. “But these people know what I want to know. However, maybe they’re right. Maybe we can’t make our revolution. But I still want to know how to change my form to suit me at will. Whether we can build an army or not, that knowledge would sure increase our options.”

Ching looked around and shook her head. “I knew we should have just stayed in the forest. They’re gonna let us rot here until we’re as old as they are.”

I went over to her, hugged her, and gave her a small kiss. “No they won’t. For one thing, they just don’t know what to do with us right now. Give them some time. I don’t think they want to be like TMS and the city people, and that’s just what they’d be like if they killed us. Besides,” I added with a wink, “if we got out of the Rochande sewers, what’s this place?”

It quickly developed that Ching’s fears were grossly misplaced. While we were, in fact, being held prisoner, our time was not to be wasted in some dank cell inside a mountain but in what proved to be quite an education for all of us. And the food was good—an odd sort of fishy-tasting mammal as a main course, but supplemented with good fresh fruit and the tastiest edible leaves. A very small portable power plant from the old days still worked; it was used for a small hydroponics setup entirely within the mountain that fed the staff. What else it might power I didn’t know.

We were regularly visited by various people who knew an awful lot about Medusa and its history and ways; they brought with them bound hard copies of much computer data now denied the citizens of Medusa’s cities, not to mention large, laboriously handwritten chronicles of the Wild Ones—sorry, the Free Tribes—and their customs.

The first Lord of Medusa to close off the society was a former naval admiral named Kasikian, who had led an abortive and hushed-up coup attempt at Military Systems Command. A lifelong career military man, and a strong disciplinarian, this civilized worlder, born and bred to command, had taken charge on Medusa. He had started out organizing the small freighter fleet, having been given the job by virtue of his vast experience. But he eventually drew to him a number of other military types, plus a lot of disaffected, and this time his coup d’etat worked flawlessly. After a period of consolidation, Kasikian began reorganizing Medusan society along military lines, with strict ranks, grades, and chains of command. He was an efficient organizer no matter what his political ideas may have been; it was he who modernized and expanded the industries of Medusa, and he who built the space stations that now circled all four Warden worlds. Ironically, his effect was most dramatic on Cerberus,- which was transformed from a primitive water world to an industrial giant that took what Medusa produced and made it into whatever the Diamond needed.

But after two coup attempts against him, Kasikian became increasingly paranoid, and so was born of his fears and Cerberan computer skills the original monitor system. The society was even more rigidly structured and controlled in military fashion. As a final gesture, realizing he could never extend total control over the people unless they were consolidated in the key cities and kept there, he ordered the pogrom: those who would not commit themselves fully to his system and his government and come into the cities were to be ruthlessly exterminated.

The Elders had explained that less than a thousand survived the bloodbath that followed, most fleeing to a few key pre-prepared places such as the one we were now in, places that had been erased from the records and were, to all outward appearances, just new, small primitive enclaves. Still, Kasikian ordered those few escapees ruthlessly hunted down, no matter what the cost, and he became so obsessed with that mission that he was careless at home. A young officer who was an aide to one of the admiral’s top associates managed to get him as he relaxed in his luxurious command quarters and kill him.

But this young officer, motivated by idealism and revulsion for bloodshed, became pretty bloody himself as he and his followers hunted down and executed all those in the top five grades of the admiral’s government. By the tune Tolakah, new Lord of the Diamond, felt secure, his hands were as bloody as the admiral’s—and he not only grew as paranoid, but was soon seduced by his power. The other Lords, particularly Cerberus’, used his paranoia and love of power for their own ends. They needed what Medusa put out, and the system there suited them just