"This is the lot, garthmaster. Why should I hold back my wares?" The cargomaster of the space freighter balanced lightly, his fists resting on his hips, a contemptuous light in his eyes. Beside the would-be customer he was wire-slim and boyish in appearance.
"For forest biting, for fieldwork, you bring such as these?" His contempt was as great, but divided between the spaceman and his wares.
"Men who still have something to bargain with do not sign on as labor, as you well know, garthmaster. That we bring here any at all is something to marvel at."
The settler himself was quite different from the miserable company he now fronted. In an age when most males of Terran descent, no matter how remote from the home planet that strain might be, eradicated facial and body hair at its first appearance, this hulking giant was a reversion to primitive times. A fan of dense black beard sprayed across his barrel chest masking his face well up on the cheekbones. More hair matted the backs of his wide hands. As for the rest of him, he was gray—his coarse fabric clothing, his hide boots, the cap pulled down over more bushy hair.
His basic speech was guttural, with new intonations, and he walked heavily, as if to crush down some invisible resistance. Tall, massive, he resembled one of the trees against which he and all his kind had turned their sullen hatred, while the men before him seemed pygmies of a weaker species.
There were ten of those, still shaken by the process of revival, and none of them had ever been the garthmaster's match physically. Men without hope, as the cargomaster had pointed out, were labor-signers. And by the time they had reached that bottom in any port, they were almost finished already, both physically and mentally.
The settler glowered at each, his eyes seeming to strip the unfortunate they rested upon in turn, measuring every defect of each underfed body.
"I am Callu Kosburg—from the Fringe. I have forty vistas to clear before the first snow. And these—these are what you offer me! To get an hour's full labor out of any would be a gift from the Sky!" He made a sign in the air. "To ask a load of bark for such . . . it is a sin!"
The cargomaster's expression was serious. "A sin, garthmaster? Do you wish to accuse me of such before a Speaker? Here—now? If so, I shall bring forward my proof—so many credits paid for sign-on fees, cost of transportation, freeze fees. I think you will find the price well within allowed bounds. Do you still say 'sin,' Garthmaster Kosburg?"
Kosburg shrugged. "A manner of speaking only. No, I make no charge. I do not doubt that you could bring your proof if I did. But a man must have hands to help him clear—even if they are these puny crawlers. I will take this one—and this—and this." His finger indicated three in the labor line. "Also—you." For the first time he spoke directly to one of the laborers on view. "Yes, you—third man from the end. What age have you?"
Naill Renfro realized that demand was barked in his direction. His head was still light, his stomach upset by the concoction they had poured into him. He struggled to make a sensible answer.
"I don't know—"
"You don't know?" Kosburg echoed. "What sort of an empty head is this one, that he does not even know how many years he has? I have heard much foolishness spoken here by off-worlders, but this is above all."
"He speaks the truth. According to the records, garthmaster, he was space-born—planet years do not govern such."
Kosburg's beard rippled as if he chewed his words before spitting them out. "Space-born—so . . . Well, he looks young enough to learn how to work with his hands. Him I will take, also. These are all full-time men?"
The cargomaster grinned. "For such a run—to Janus—would we waste space on less? You have the bark ready for loading, garthmaster?"
"I have the bark. We shall put it in the loading area. To be on the road quickly, that is necessary when one travels to the Fringe. You—before me—march! There is unloading to be done—though by the looks of you, not much will pass by your muscles this day."
The spaceport of Janus was a cluster of prefabs about the scorched apron of the landing field, having the strangely temporary look of a rootless place, ugly with the sterile starkness of the Dipple. Urged by a continuous rumble of orders, the laborers hurried to a line of carts. Their cargoes, unwieldy bundles of silvery bark, were being transferred by hand to growing stacks carefully inspected by a ship's tally-man.
"This—goes there." Kosburg's simple instructions were made with waves of his hand indicating certain carts and the bark piles. Naill looked up at the man standing in the nearest wagon, balancing a roll of bark to hand down.
He was a younger edition of Kosburg. There was no mistaking they were father and son. The beard sprouting on his square thrust of chin was still silky, and the lips visible above it pouted. Like his father, he was dressed in heavy, ill-fitting gray clothing. In fact all the men working along that line of rapidly emptying wagons presented a uniformity of drabness that was like some army or service garb.
But Naill had little chance to note that, for the bundle of bark slid toward him and he had just time to catch it. The stuff was lighter than it looked, though the size of the roll made it awkward to manage. He got it to the stack safely in spite of the unsteadiness of his feet.
Three such journeys brought him back to an empty cart. And he stood still, with a chance to look about him.
Two heavy-shouldered, snorting beasts were harnessed to each of the wagons. Broad flat hind feet and haunches were out of proportion to their slim front legs, which ended in paws not unlike his own hands. They sat back on those haunches while, with the hand paws, they industriously scratched in the hairy fur on their bellies. In color they were a slaty blue with manes of black—a dusty black—beginning on their rounded, rodentlike skulls, and running down to the point end of their spines. They had no vestige of tail. Wide collars about their shoulders were fastened in turn to the tongue of the cart by a web of harness, but Naill could see no control reins.
"In!" Kosburg's hairy hand swept past his nose. And Naill climbed into the now empty wagon.
He settled down on a pile of rough sacking, which still gave forth the not unpleasant odor of the bark. Two of his fellow immigrants followed him, and the back of the cart was locked into place by the garthmaster.
The son, who had not uttered a word during the unloading, occupied the single raised seat at the front of the wagon. Now he raised a pole to rap smartly in turn the two harnessed scratchers. They complained in loud snorts, but moved away from the port strip, their pace between a hop and a walk, which made the cart progress unevenly in a fashion not comfortable for passengers. One of the men was promptly and thoroughly sick, only managing to hang over the tailboard in time.
Naill studied his companions dispassionately. One was big, even if he was only a bony skeleton of the man he must once have been. He had the greenish-brown skin of a former space crewman and the flat, empty eyes of one who had been on more than one happy-dust spree. Now he simply sat with his shoulders planted against the side of the cart, his twitching hands hanging between his knees, a burned-out hulk.
The one who had been sick still leaned against the tailboard, clawed fingers anchoring him to that prudent position. Fair hair grew sparsely on a round skull; his skin was dough-white. Naill had seen his like before, too. Some skulker from the port who had signed on for fear of the law—or because he had chanced to cross a powerful Veep of the underworld.
"You—kid—" The man Naill watched turned his head. "Know anything about this place?"
Naill shook his head. "Labor recruiter said Janus—agriculture." In spite of the jiggling process of the cart, he ventured to pull himself up, wanting a chance to see the countryside.
They were following a road of beaten bare earth, running between fenced fields. Naill's first impression was of somberness. In its way this landscape was as devoid of color and life as the blocks of the Dipple.
The plants in the fields were low bushes set in crisscross lines, while the fences which protected them were stakes of peeled wood set upright, a weaving of vines between them. Mile after planet mile of such fields—but, in the far distance, a dark smudge that might mark either hills or woodland.
"What's all that?" The man had moved away from the tailboard, edging around to join Naill.
Naill shrugged. "I don't know." They might be companions in exile here, but he felt no liking for the other.
Small but very bright and knowing eyes surveyed him. "From the Dipple, ain't you, mate? Me—I'm Sim Tylos."
"Naill Renfro. Yes, I'm from the Dipple."
Tylos snickered. "Thought you was gonna get yourself a new start off-world, boot? The counters don't never run that way 'cross the table. You just picked yourself another hole to drop into."
"Maybe," Naill replied. He watched that smudge at the meeting of the drab, unhappy land with a sky that carried a faint tinge of green. Suddenly he wanted to know more about that dark line, approach it closer.
The hop-shuffle of the animals drawing the wagon was swift. And the group of five wagons, their own the leading one, was covering ground at a steady and distance-eating pace. Sim Tylos with a lifted finger indicated the driver of their own cart. "Suppose he'll talk a bit?"
"Ask him."
Naill let Tylos pass him but did not follow when the other took his stand behind the driver's seat.
"Gentlehomo—" Tylos's voice was now a placating whine. "Gentlehomo, will you—"
"Whatcha want, fieldman?" The younger Kosburg's basic was even more gutturally accented than his father's.
"Just some information, gentlehomo—" Tylos began. The other cut in: "Like where you're goin' and what you'll be doin' there, fieldman? You're going right on to the end of the fields—to the Fringe, where like as not the monsters'll get you. And what you'll be doin' there is good hard work—'less you want the Speaker to set your sins hard on you! See them there?" He flicked the end of his encouragement pole at the bushes in the fields. "Them's our cash crop—lattamus. You can't set out lattamus till you have a bare field—no shoots, no runners, nothin' but bare field. And on the Fringe getting' a bare field takes some doin'—a mighty lot of axin', and grubbin', and cuttin'. We aim to get us some good lattamus fields 'fore you all go to account for your sinnin'.
" 'Course"—young Kosburg leaned over to stare straight into Tylos's eyes—"there're some sinners as don't want to aid the Clear Sky work—no, they don't. And them has to be lessoned—lessoned good. My sire back there—he's a good lessoner. Speaker puts the Word on him to reckon with real sinners. We're Sky People—don't hold with killin' or such-like off-world sinnin'. But sometimes lessonin' sits heavy on hard-hearted sinner!"
Though his words might be obscure, his meaning was not. There was a threat there, one that young Kosburg took pleasure in delivering. Tylos shrank back, sidled away from the driver's seat. Kosburg laughed again and turned his back on the laborer. But Tylos now stood as still as the jolting of the wagon would let him, staring out over the countryside. When he spoke again, it was in a half whisper to Naill.
"Nasty lot—not by half, they ain't. Work a man—work him to death, more'n likely. This here's a frontier planet—probably only got one spaceport."
Naill decided the little man was thinking aloud rather than taking him into his confidence.
"Got to play this nice and easy—no pushing a star till you're sure you got a line on the comet's tail—no fast movin'. This lessonin' talk—that ain't good hearin'. Think they has us all right and tight, does they? Let 'em think it—just let 'em!"
Naill's head was aching, and the lurching of the cart was beginning to make him queasy. He sat down, across from the still-staring ex-spaceman, and tried to think. The agreement he had signed in the labor office—it had been quite detailed. So much advance—Naill's memory shied away violently from the thought of how that advance had been spent—so much for expenses, for shipment to this world. He had no idea of the value of the bark that Kosburg had paid for him, but that could be learned. By the agreement he should be able to repay that—be a free man. But how soon? Best settle down and learn what he could, keep eyes and ears open. The Dipple had been a static kind of death; this was a chance at something . . . what he had no idea, but he was hoping again.
Duan Renfro had been a Free Trader, born of a line of such explorers and reckless space rovers. Though Naill could hardly remember his father, some of the abilities of that unsettled and restless type were inherited qualities. Malani Renfro was of a frontier world, though one as far different from Janus as sere autumn was from spring. She had been third generation from First Ship there, and her people had still been exploring rather than settling. To observe, to learn, to experiment with the new, were desires which had lain dormant in Naill growing up in the vise of the Dipple. Now those needs awoke and stirred.
When they stopped for a meal of gritty bread and dried berries, Naill watched the beasts munching their fodder. The driver of the second cart was small and thin, a seamed scar of an old blaster burn puckering the side of his head, plainly another off-world laborer.
"What do you call them?" Naill asked him.
"Phas." His answer came in one word.
"Native here?" Naill persisted.
"No. They brought 'em—First Ship." He pointed with chin rather than hand to the Kosburgs.
"First Ship!" Naill was startled. He tried to remember the scant information on Janus. Surely the settlers had been established here longer than one generation.
"Came in twenty years ago. These Sky Lovers bought settlement rights from the Karbon Combine and moved in. Only the port's free land now."
"Free land . . . ?"
"Free for off-worlders. Rest's all Sky Lovers' holdings—family garths—pushing out a little more each year." Again his chin pointed, this time to that dusky line on the horizon. "Gotta watch yourself 'round these phas. Look peaceful but they ain't always—not with strangers. They can use them teeth to crack up more'n a borlag nut, do they want to."
The teeth were long and white, startlingly so against the dark body fur of the animals, and very much on display. But the phas themselves appeared to be completely absorbed in eating and paid no attention to the men.
"Holla!" Kosburg, the elder, bellowed enough to excite even the phas. "Get them animals ready to move out. You"—his wave put Naill in motion back to his own wagon—"climb up."
As the afternoon wore on, the supply of lattamus bushes dwindled in the roadside fields. Here and there were patches of grain or vegetables, the fences about them of a lighter shade, as if they had weathered for only a short space of time.
And always that dusky shadow crept toward them . . . or that was the way Naill felt it moved—a shadow advancing toward the men and carts, not men and carts creeping up to it. Now it was clearly a dark wall of trees, and here were evidences that it had not been dispossessed easily. Vast stumps stood in the fields, some of them smoking as if eaten by fires kept burning to utterly destroy them. Naill had a vision of the labor needed to win such a field from virgin forest, and he drew a deep breath of wonder.
He tried to put together what he knew or could guess about the garths and the men who worked them. Clothing, carts, the allusions in the speech of both Kosburgs and that of the laborer-driver led Naill to believe that this was a sect settlement. There had been many of those through the centuries after the first Terrans ventured into deep space and began their colonization of other worlds. Groups knit together by some strong belief sought out empty worlds on which to plant their private utopias undisturbed by "worldly" invaders. Some had become so eccentric as to warp life on them into a civilization totally alien to the past of the first settlers. Others liberalized, or dwindled forgotten, leaving only ruins and graves to mark vanished dreams.
Naill was uneasy. Farm labor would be backbreakingly hard. He had expected that. A fanatical belief was something else, a menace which was, to his mind, worse than any natural danger on a strange planet. The Free Traders were also free believers, their cosmopolitan descents and occupations making for wide tolerance of men and ideas. The guiding spirit of Malani's kindly home world had been recognized by the worshipers there as a gentle and benevolent Power. The narrow and rigid molds that some men cast their belief in a Force above and beyond theimselves were as much a peril to a stranger in their midst as a blaster in the hands of an avowed enemy. And now that sinister talk of "lessoning," which young Kosburg had used earlier, struck home to Naill.
He longed passionately for a chance to ask questions. But again such inquiries as he wanted to make might well bring down upon him the very attention he wished least to attract. Those questions—concerning religion and purpose—were oftentimes forbidden, even to the followers within the mold of a fanatical community. No—better to watch, listen, try to put the pieces together for himself now.
The wagon turned from the road into a narrower lane and then passed the gate in a stake wall higher than any field partition, one that might have been erected as a defense rather than to mark a division between one section of land and the next. And their arrival was greeted by baying.
Hounds—enough like the Terran animals that had borne that designation to be named so—a half dozen of them, running and leaping behind another and lower fence, were slavering out their challenge to the newcomers. Naill watched that display. What menace, living in the shadow of the now plainly visible forest, moved the garth dwellers to keep such a pack? Or—there was a chill between his shoulder blades, creeping down his spine—were those guards to keep workers like himself in line?
The carts pulled on into a hollow square, surrounded by buildings, and Naill forgot the hounds momentarily to gape at the main house of the garth. That—that—thing—was fully as tall as two stories of the Korwar Dipple, but it was a single tree trunk laid on its side, with windows cut in two rows, and a wide door of still-scaled bark. Why—the stumps he marveled at in the fields were but the remains of saplings compared to this monstrosity! What kind of trees did make up the forests of Janus?