Monitor

  Monitor

  Chad Oliver

  Caravans, Unlimited, Story #4

  First published in Continuum 4, edited August 1975 by Roger Elwood.

  The young warrior was stretched out on the hard, unyielding ground. There was no shade. The burning sun scorched the arid land. The cattlelike hondari shuffled around slowly, without energy, searching out the sparse clumps of brown grass. Yellow dust hung in the still air like an unmoving grainy cloud.

  The warrior was on his back, just resting. His head was supported by a special wooden stool under his neck. The purpose of this was to avoid disturbing his elaborate hairdo. The hair was long, coiled into ringlets, and greased with a dull red dressing.

  The warrior did not move. Every fold of his dusty loose-fitting cloak was artfully arranged. The garment was the same color as his hair.

  His spear was on the ground beside him. It had an iron point and a wooden shaft. It was as long as he was.

  The dry air buzzed with flies. They were big ones, drawn by the hondari herds. They were also attracted by the grease in the warrior’s hair.

  A fly landed on the warrior’s forehead. It poked around for a moment and then walked down across his open eyeball.

  The warrior blinked his eye, once. Otherwise, he did not move. It was beneath his dignity to notice a fly. Besides, a rapid movement would have disturbed the symmetry of his cloak.

  “Howaboutthat,” Alex Porvenir said with admiration.

  Martin Ashtola wiped the sweat from his forehead. He was not much impressed. “I’m sure there is considerable potential in these people,” he said. “But these men seem so—what is the word? Foppish?”

  Alex Porvenir tugged at the brim of his hat to shield his face from the glare of the reddish sun. He fished out his pipe, filled it with hopefully moist tobacco, and took a long time lighting it. He resisted the impulse to lecture the younger man. “The Kwosaarevain. Also arrogant, proud, and stubborn—among other things. But don’t sell them short until you know them.”

  Martin Ashtola shrugged. “You’re the expert.” His tone was faintly insulting. He resented his own lack of authority and his irritation showed. “I hope your plan is a good one. These people aren’t much use to us the way they are. All they’re interested in is cows—cows and their own beautiful bodies.”

  Alex wasn’t certain whether or not he was glad that Martin was speaking English. He occasionally had euphoric visions of Martin with a spear sticking in him. “As a matter of fact,” he said gently, “Caravans was at one time at a loss as to what to offer the Kwosa in trade. They are very self-sufficient; it’s one thing that makes them independent. They have to move with their herds of hondari, so they don’t go in much for bulky possessions. It was hand mirrors that turned the trick. They like to admire themselves.”

  The younger man did not respond. He wasn’t interested in the business problems of Caravans and he didn’t give much of a damn about the psychology of the Kwosa. His blue UN Observer’s uniform was getting stained with sweat. He wanted to get back to the ship and talk about Plans. He was very big on Plans. “What do we do now?”

  Alex puffed on his pipe. “Wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “Wait until our friend finishes his siesta.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we tag along with him as long as he doesn’t object. He knows that the sky traders are peculiar people; he’ll make allowances.”

  “What will hedo?’

  “Take the herd to water. Then graze them back to camp where they can be guarded at night. If there’s a raid, it will likely come after dark. Besides, camp is where the girls are. He’s not all duded up for nothing, you know.”

  “Why go through all that? You’ve seen it a hundred times.”

  Alex smiled. “Yes, butyouhaven’t.”

  “I didn’t come here to study these people.”

  “Whydidyou come? It certainly wasn’t at my invitation,” Alex wanted to say. He said: “You can’t report on my plan unless you know what it is. I can’t tell you my plan until you understand the Kwosa.”

  Martin Ashtola sighed. This wasn’t going the way he had figured at all. “Can’t we stir Sleeping Beauty into a little action?”

  “I wouldn’t advise it. He’ll get up in his own good time. Surely I don’t have to remindyouabout the law. We can’t interfere with these people against their will and contrary to their own best interests. He’s perfectly happy and doing his job. Let him alone.”

  The two men waited. Alex Porvenir was patient; he was used to this. He enjoyed being out in the open, hot as it was. It restored him. Martin Ashtola was fretful and decidedly uncomfortable. He was accustomed to the comforts of Earth.

  The red sun of Lalande, more than eight light-years from the sun Earth knew, dipped slowly toward the flat horizon. Short shadows striped the grassy plain.

  Quite suddenly, the warrior stood up. He did it in one fluid motion. He patted his cloak into place and picked up his spear.

  He whistled, sharply. The whistle was shrill between his carefully filed teeth.

  The hondari herd strung out and began to move. Horns tossed in the sunlight. The dust grew thicker.

  The warrior smiled proudly. “Are they not beautiful?” he asked in the liquid language of the Kwosa.

  “They are hondari,” Alex said in the ritual response. “They are beyond beauty.”

  Martin Ashtola, of course, did not understand what the man had said. He did not, in fact, share in the mystique of the cows. Although livestock were extinct on Earth, except in the zoos he had never bothered to visit, he had no romantic notions about animals. He was a very civilized man.

  Alex himself was not unduly thrilled by the hondari herds. They were skinny beasts, all bones and leather. But he understood the feeling that the Kwosa had for the hondari. If he could not share it, he could nevertheless appreciate it.

  To the Kwosa, the hondariwerebeautiful.

  That was enough.

  The two men paced along in the choking yellow dust, following the warrior who followed his herd. Alex could almost smell the water that waited for them.

  It was old, he thought. Old for Lalande II, older still for Earth. A man and his herd. Heat, dust, the promise of water. A camp waiting, and food, and women. A spear in your hand, confidence in your heart. Sometimes, the old ways had value. He could have been a Kwosa, rather than what he was… .

  He shook his head. There was no way to erase his own heritage even had he really wanted to do so. He was an outsider here, as always—

  He concentrated on just keeping up with the herd.

  The animals were lowing now. They knew the trail. They knew where the water was.

  When they reached the shallow stream, the hondari were positively well-mannered. Alex was always surprised by their orderly behavior. There was no stampede, no crowding. According to some invisible status heirarchy, the animals fanned out along the bank and waded in to drink. When the first ones had finished, the second line went in.

  After all the hondari had swallowed their fill, the men could drink. They got as far upstream as possible, waded in, and submerged their heads in the water. That is, that was the procedure for Alex and Martin Ashtola. The warrior was far more dainty, not wishing to disturb his hairdo. He simply scooped up water in his hands and sipped. He didn’t need much.

  The water was not cold but it was cool. It even seemed reasonably clean, but Alex took a pill to be on the safe side. The wetness from his dripping hair felt great against his sunburned neck.

  The warrior whistled. The herd moved out, headed back for camp. It was a long way, but the animals were livelier now.

  The warrior walked proudly, admiring his own shadow on the land. He carried his spear as though it were a feather. His eyes were alert and watchful. His attitude said plainly that he could handle anything, and would welcome the opportunity.

  Alex was not quite so filled with energy, but he felt pretty good. The water had helped, and the sun was losing some of its impact now.

  He watched Martin Ashtola out of the corner of his eye.

  The younger man was bushed, but he was through complaining. That was a healthy sign.

  Alex let it all sink in, savoring it. The patient herd, the warrior, the fading sun, the tough grass. There was a small breeze now and the dust was not so bad.

  Alex knew a kind of peace. He was attracted by this life. It was hard, direct, simple, and rewarding. It was free of doubts.

  Or perhaps it was only free… .

  He studied his companion and he willed his silent thoughts.

  Watch. See. Feel. Understand.

  * * *

  The great lightship hung in orbit, suspended in the blackness that surrounded Lalande II. The symbol of the laden camel on its bow marked the ship as belonging to Caravans, Unlimited. The camel seemed to be looking down, down into the night, down to where the dusty trails wound across the arid plains… .

  Alex Porvenir poured himself a libation of Scotch, sat back in his comfortable chair, and thought about Martin Ashtola.

  He could thank the Others for Martin Ashtola.

  When he and Tucker Olton had discovered the tracks of an alien civilization fooling around with the Lupani on Sirius XI, they had opened a real can of worms. Alex had known that things would never be the same again, but he hadn’t expected Martin Ashtola.

  It was all perfectly logical, though.

  Earth was a strange world, a planet of vast technological expertise that had somehow lost its heart and its vision. With a universe before
it, it had elected to contemplate its own rather humdrum navel. There were reasons, of course, but then there are always reasons.

  The exploration of the universe had been left in the hands of private trading companies. The UN set up an ET Council that hemmed them in with rules and regulations; the UN was determined that there would be no exploitation of native peoples on other worlds. There was one rule that was never broken: No tax revenues were “squandered” in space.

  So far, so good.

  The trading companies like Caravans managed to make enough of a profit to keep them going, working the interstellar trade routes through the gray wastes of not-space. They did it by searching out products that were unavailable on Earth and setting up an elaborate marketing and advertising network. It wasn’t easy. You had to find the product first. You had to ensure a stable supply. You had to transport it. And you had to make the consumerswantit; the costs were literally astronomical, and a few mistakes could put you out of business.

  It worked. The integrity of the lifeways of other peoples was respected, and if the regulations were sometimes bent a little it was never to the detriment of native cultures.

  And Earth had a toehold in space… .

  But then it happened, the thing that Alex had always both anticipated and feared.

  On the world of Arctica, among a people called the Lupani, the traders met the Others. Not exactlymetthem, perhaps, but received their calling card. Another civilization, an alien civilization, operating in space. The Others—whoever or whatever they might be. Manipulating cultures ruthlessly, changing them, moving them like pawns in some mysterious galactic game of chess.

  They had a plan, a design of some sort.

  And it could only be aimed, ultimately, at Earth. There was no other civilization that had ventured outward to the stars.

  That altered the situation. When the report reached Earth, there was a kind of hysteria for a few weeks. It was not comfortable to be a target of unknown forces.

  But there was noimmediatedanger.

  There had been noovertthreat.

  And whatever might happen was far in the future—

  And the tax money was needed at home—

  And so the response Earth made was Martin Ashtola and his counterparts on other ships.

  It was not a very heroic or imaginative response. But it wassoinexpensive.

  Just send an Observer out on each trading ship. Give him a title and a nice uniform. It created a kind of instant space navy, and it cost almost nothing.

  There was only one small problem.

  What did the Observerdo?

  Well, he would observe, obviously. He would report back. He would Keep In Touch, within the dubious limits of interstellar communications.

  But beyond that?

  Earth had no plan of action, really. It did not even have the data upon which a realistic plan might be based. Instead, the UN ET Council had what amounted to a gut reaction, a vague conviction. It was never stated in so many words. It consisted of a feeling. Its essence was the notion that Earth needed allies, and the stronger the allies were the better.

  It was absolute nonsense, of course.

  But the human animal was only sporadically rational, to say nothing of wise. He had a tendency to flounder around a bit.

  And there was the awkward fact that the basic law under which the trading companies operated prohibited overt cultural manipulation without the consent of the peoples involved.

  Martin Ashtola was not frustrated without cause.

  Neither was Alex Porvenir.

  But Alex had been at this game for a long time. He had seen what there was to see. He knew what he was doing. And he had a few ideas of his own.

  That gave him a certain advantage.

  He stood up and lit his pipe.

  A tall man, Alex. Tall and lean and hard. He was pushing fifty now, but he had taken care of himself. There was some gray in his hair—Helen said that he looked distinguished when she wanted to needle him a little—but his sharp brown eyes were not the eyes of an old man. He still had a stubborn jaw and there was nothing wrong with his reflexes.

  His brain still worked, too.

  He hoped that he had enough left in the tank for the job ahead.

  If not—

  * * *

  The lightships of Caravans did not operate according to some grand design. Martin Ashtola was a complicating factor, a nuisance, but he was not responsible for the visit to Lalande II.

  The problem was a simple one. Alex Porvenir had spent a lifetime untangling similar snarls.

  The Kwosa were a seminomadic people, shifting about within their territory according to the requirements of the hondari herds. Herders of large stock animals tended to be much alike wherever they were found. Herds were always tempting targets; they were relatively easy to rustle and a man could become wealthy or a pauper overnight. The hondari had to be herded by warriors for protection; there was an endless cycle of raid and counterraid between neighboring tribes. The men were proud, tough, and vain. They had to be. It was a strongly male-oriented society. The women had little to do; they did not need to labor perpetually as they did among farming tribes. They had a notable lack of economic power, since the hondari herds were owned and controlled by the men.

  Sex was the great pastime of the Kwosa. It was almost as important as raiding or admiring the hondari. The young men strutted and made themselves beautiful. The girls gasped at the bravery of the warriors and made themselves readily available.

  The elders took care of the government when they were old enough to want to slow down a trifle. There came a time, even for a Kwosa, when a nice bloody spear fight or an all-night dance seemed somewhat less than a euphoric prospect.

  It was a pleasant system. Alex liked the Kwosa. More important, the Kwosa like the Kwosa. Unlike most peoples, they were enchanted with their way of life. They had no desire to change. In their view, it was madness to meddle with perfection.

  Nomadic peoples have little in the way of bulky property. They are limited by what they can carry around with them. At first glance, the Kwosa had seemed unlikely prospects for the traders of Caravans.

  However, theydidhave something. They had immense pride and vanity. They went in heavily for bodily adornment, and they were perfectionists.

  As with many pastoral peoples, there was a special caste among the Kwosa. The caste was known as the Obo, and its members—male and female—were artisans. The Obo made the things that the Kwosa needed, the artifacts that the warriors had no time to produce. Basically, they were smiths. They smelted the iron for the essential spears. But the Obo made other things as well—leather straps and small iron pots and milking bags.

  And jewelry.

  Handcrafted jewelry for the most demanding customers in their sector of the universe.

  Coils of fine wire, worn on arms and legs. Exquisite rings, necklaces, bangles for the ears. Feathered crowns crisscrossed with a delicate filigree of shining metal strands… .

  It was the jewelry that Caravans wanted.

  Jewelry designed for dancing warriors that almost sold itself on a crowded Earth that knew nothing but mass production.

  And the jewelry was getting scarce.

  Why?

  The reason was not complicated. The Kwosa had been hard-hit by raids. The hondari herds had been depleted. The people were not starving, but they were up against a dwindling food supply. They did not kill their precious hondari for meat, of course, but they depended upon them for their staple foods of milk and blood. (They made careful incisions in the hondari throats and drained off a cup of blood every few days.) Less food meant fewer Obo. Fewer Obo meant less jewelry.

  Simple. It was a cyclical thing. The Kwosa were in no danger of extinction. In time, the balance would be restored.

  But Caravans could not wait for generations. It had a waiting market. A few years, yes. A decade or two if necessary; they could take up the slack with other products.

  They needed that jewelry, and the sooner the better.

  Alex could handle the problem, or thought he could. (You could never besurein this business.) But he needed freedom to act.

  It was a lot tougher with Martin Ashtola looking over his shoulder. Alex had a double problem to solve. He had to restore the Obo production to its former level. And he had to convince Martin Ashtola that he was responding to the threat of the Others… .