Dumarest 33 - Child of Earth (9 page)

“Yes, sir. A little. An old man taught me in exchange for food.” He added, “He had some books but those who killed him burned them for fuel.”

“They murdered him?”

“They thought he had things of value!”

“I see.” The captain drew in his breath. “You’ve had a hell of a life. But it could change. Are you willing to work hard? To learn?” As Dumarest nodded he added, “Damn it! I’ll take a chance! You can work your passage. Ride with us as crew. It will be a restricted life and it won’t be easy. But, at least, you won’t starve. Report to Dorph, the steward. You’ll find him in the salon.”

Shandaha said, “So that was the beginning. Was it a happy time?”

“Why don’t you find out?”

“I’d prefer you to tell me.”

“And if I don’t?”

“From an ignorant and frightened boy who couldn’t even recognize a ship when he saw one you have progressed far. Far enough, surely, to recognize the advisability of cooperation. I ask you again. Was it a happy time?”

Dumarest remained silent, taking his time. There had been none of the previous ritual. No soothing drink or attached electrodes sprouting from an electronic machine. Both had been unnecessary, direct contact had been enough. Why had Shandaha chosen to reveal that facet of his power? Why, now, was he displaying impatience, the hint of a threat? Nothing seemed to have changed. The man and the room was as he remembered, the chairs, the table, the decanter glowing with emerald wine. Deliberately he filled two goblets and handed one to his host.

Lifting his own he said, “To harmony.”

“I asked a question, Earl. Answer it.”

Dumarest caught the hint of impatience that, too easily, could lead to anger. Even so he drank then, lowering the goblet, stared directly at his host.

“No, it was not a happy time. Not at first. The steward had a sadistic bent and enjoyed describing to me exactly
what happened to those evicted into space. What would happen to me if I crossed him in any way. My eyes bulging from their sockets. The lungs spewing from by chest to hang like balloons from my mouth. The ruptured skin. The boiling blood. The ghastly pain.”

“He lied.” Shandaha sipped at his wine. “That is not how men die in the void.”

“I know that now. I didn’t then.”

Dumarest drew in his breath, remembering another time, another place when he had faced the frigid, mindnumbing vastness of the universe. A thing he had been forced to do; an experience he would never forget.

Shandaha, watching him, said, “The others?”

“Weren’t as bad but they were bored and I provided amusement. They teased me. I know now it was little more than a form of hazing. A ritual inflicted on most apprentices and novices. Cruel but basically harmless. But I was a boy, ignorant as you reminded me, helpless, insecure, terrified. No, it was not a happy time.”

“And then?”

“Most of what I did was to clean. The salon, cabins, the steward’s domain. Then I expanded into that of the handler, to the caskets in the hold, the hold itself. Zander was the engineer. One day he asked me to help him. He was busy with the generator and wanted it cleaned and checked for corrosion. Signs of failing insulation or extended wear. Basically it was routine maintenance. We talked as we worked, him telling me what to do and me doing it. Dorph, the steward„ came in while we were at it. He didn’t like me helping the engineer. There was an argument that grew ugly. The captain intervened. After that things weren’t as bad.”

“You had made a friend.” Shandaha sipped more wine. “Did he teach you about engines?”

Dumarest leaned back, remembering the talk of components, the physics governing the establishment of the Erhaft field, the need for care, the danger if the field should collapse. A peril he had known and remembered too well.

“The engineer,” mused Shandaha. “The navigator too.”

“Yes.”

“The steward? No, he would not have been friendly. Yet what could he teach you aside from some basic first aid? Some medical techniques, perhaps. The use of a hypogun. The loan of a book on anatomy. How to attend to the needs of passengers. To prepare basic and simple meals. The handler? No. He could teach you even less.”

“You seem to have a tendency to underrate the abilities of others,” said Dumarest. “As you did Chagal. Because he hesitated to kill does not make him weak. Any fool can kill. It takes skill, knowledge, care and understanding to keep the sick alive and restore them to health. It also takes skill to keep a ship happy, the passengers content. The handler was a mine of information.”

“How could he be?”

Dumarest extended his hand. “Touch me and learn!”

“No. Tell me!”

Another command and one to be obeyed but Dumarest took his time doing it. Deliberately he concentrated on the past, searching his memories, seeing again the wizened face of the handler, the gleam of humor in Jesso’s eyes.

“Mostly the handler is in charge of the hold,” he explained. “He has to check the cargo, stack and restrain it and make sure the weight is evenly distributed. The caskets need regular maintenance and operating them is the handler’s responsibility. He also has to monitor those wanting to ride Low. He collects the passage money and does his best to make sure those wanting to travel are healthy enough to make it. No blame if they don’t but you can do without the clearing up.”

“Routine work,” said Shandaha. “Anyone of average intelligence could handle it. Is that all he taught you?”

“No.” Dumarest paused then added, “As I said it takes a special skill to keep a ship and passengers happy. Sometimes the steward has it or sometimes a specialist is hired. On the ship I was on, Jesso, the handler had it. He worked in the salon, at the table, entertaining the passengers. Gambling,” he explained. “Usually with cards. He was good at it.”

“And he taught you?”

“Yes.”

“A man of unusual talents.”

One who had been a friend. Dumarest saw his face, heard his voice, watched his hands as they moved over the table deftly manipulating the cards. Beginning with the basics, enjoying teaching a willing pupil, demonstrating the only safe way to cut a deck by drawing out the middle, setting it on the top, then cutting and stacking the cards.

The beginning of grueling lessons to gain hard-learned skill and hard-won ability. To know how to recognize markings, top and bottom dealings, forcing and hiding. How to read other players. To tell the genuine from the false. To sense a bluff.

To recognize a manipulator. A cheat. A sensitive. A coward.

Dumarest blinked and stared at a familiar room, goblets holding the dregs of lambent wine, the decanter glowing with emerald luminescence. The remembered face dissolved into the mists of time. A personal memory divorced from Shandaha’s influence. Yet it had seemed as real as if he had stepped back in time, as the goblet seemed real, the table, the room, the face and figure of his host.

“Interesting,” said Shandaha. “You seem to have had a most unusual education. One that has given you a variety of peculiar ideas.”

“About peculiar situations? Peculiar people?” Dumarest reached for his goblet, lifted it, studied the wine it held then drank and set down the empty container. “People like you, perhaps? I think you read my mind and didn’t like what you found. I didn’t think you would. Did you also learn that, aside from recognizing cheats and liars, I was also taught how to make a man betray himself?” Pausing he added, “A man—or a thing.”

“You go too far!”

“How far is too far?” Dumarest was blunt. “This is your game, Shandaha. Your rules—if there are any rules at all. Are we in an arena? Are you waiting for my attack? Poised to parry and attack in turn? Is this what it’s all about?”

“Chagal explained—”

“The doctor is not himself. You claim only to want entertainment by experiencing my memories. If we are to play then let the game be fair. You know I cannot lie yet you insist that what I remember could not have happened. So was it all a dream? Is it still a dream? Is all this merely an illusion.”

A question unanswered. Instead Shandaha said, “Oblige me, Earl, be so good as to pour us both more wine.” He waited until the goblets were full. “Why do you think your memories displease me?”

“Perhaps not my memories. Perhaps simply the truth.”

Dumarest waited until his host had sipped the wine, then lifted his goblet and drank and wondered if what he tasted was what the glass contained. “I once knew a woman who, when a young child, was sold to a religious order. She was fed and clothed and housed and was convinced she had lived a life of sublime luxury. The truth was the very reverse. The clothing was rags, the food rubbish, the shelter bleak. She had been conditioned, hypnotized, programmed to believe in a created illusion. Have I?”

“I have not lied to you.”

But if he had not lied he could still have hidden the truth. Dumarest remembered an incident in which to have told the bare truth would have cost him his life and to have lied the same. He had survived by treading the thin semantic path between truth and falsehood.

He said, “What is a lie? Would you believe I have the ability to walk on water? I assure you that I speak the simple truth.”

“Water,” said Shandaha. “You play a game, Earl. All can walk on water—if that water is ice. Your point?”

“Apparent lies can be the truth. Truth made an apparent lie. As apparent logic can be manipulated to prove anything you want.”

“If we syllogise,” agreed Shandaha. “To form a logical argument using three propositions; two premises and a conclusion that follows necessarily from them. As you have just demonstrated. Men can walk on ice. Ice is frozen water. Therefore men can walk on water. You wish to give another example?”

“A cat has one tail more than ‘no cat’. No cat has nine tails. Therefore a cat has ten tails.” Dumarest added, “I assume you can recognize the flaw in that particular syllogism?”

“A test, Earl?” Shandaha sipped at his wine. “The term ‘no cat’ has been used in different contexts to gain a false conclusion. Clarify the premises and the falsity is made apparent. If we choose to syllogise it is essential that the two premises be accurate if the conclusion is to hold any value. I assume you know that. I also assume that you have a reason for raising the subject. I hardly think that you can have a strong interest in what, basically, is an intellectual game?”

Dumarest said, “One game is much like another. The object is, simply, to win. How to win can be a variable.” He added, “I assume my memories no longer entertain you.”

“No, Earl. Bore me a little, perhaps, as Chagal’s did. Childhood can be a barren time though yours, I admit, is
stranger than most. Perhaps a little too strange. Memories can become distorted, laced with wishful thinking, dreams and illusions induced by hardship and deprivation. Later events could help to fashion a blend of truth and imagination born of reality and hallucination.”

“You are saying?”

“I offer you a suggestion. I have claimed that your experiences could not belong to your early years on this planet. You insist they did. But was it this planet at all? How can you be positive that you were born on Earth?”

“I am certain of it.”

“Think about it, Earl. We have spoken of syllogisms. Don’t fall into the common error of those who need to believe so strongly they deny the existence of negative proof.”

“Such as?”

“Earth is a harsh world,” said Shandaha. “You were born on a harsh world. Therefore you were born on Earth. Is that what gives you such conviction?”

“I have memories.”

“You were very young.”

“Old enough to remember,” insisted Dumarest. He felt the familiar prickle of his skin that warned of the proximity of danger. Shandaha was too confident, too assured—a gambler certain he held the winning hand. But what game was he playing? “The moon. The terrain all scarred and torn by ancient wars. The scattered ruins of bygone ages. Damn it, man! I remember!”

“Yes,” said Shandaha. “So you claim. Now tell me, Earl how far did you ever travel from your village?”

“What?” Dumarest frowned, thinking, remembering. His host did not wait for an answer.

“A young boy. Physically weak, barefoot and forced to cover rough terrain. Five miles out and the same back? A full day’s effort. You agree?”

“So?”

“In total, assuming your people stayed in the same area and that you took a different route every day, you would have covered an area of less than a hundred square miles. In that area you claim to have seen the scars of ancient wars and the scattered remains of bygone civilizations. You claim that Earth, the planet of your birth, is so scarred. Am I correct?”

Dumarest said, stubbornly, “I know what I remember.”

“That is the puzzle.” Shandaha lifted the decanter, filled the goblets, handed one to Dumarest. The act of a gracious winner. “The terrain all scarred and torn by ancient wars. The scattered ruins. How could you have seen them, Earl? Such things could only be seen from space and you didn’t even know what space was. So how could you describe what you had never seen?”

He smiled over the rim of his goblet. The winner of a game that Dumarest, as yet, knew nothing about.