Nidorian 02b
(1956)*
Astounding Science Fiction – August 1956
Randall Garrett & Robert Silverberg
(as Robert Randall)
The shortfiction stories The Chosen People, The Promised Land, and False Prophet were expanded in a fix-up titled The Shrouded Planet(1957)
-
But why were the Earthmen working at setting up that School ... what were they seeking to gain in their manipulations of the people of Nidor ...?
They were having something of a ceremony. Out on the lawn in front of the main building of the Bel-rogas School of Divine Law, they were celebrating the school's anniversary. On this date, sixty-one years before, the Earthmen had come down from the sky to help bring the Law to the people of Nidor.
Sindi geKiv Brajjyd, who was in her first year of study at the school, stood in the shadows of the stable behind the great building and watched the multitude out front. All she could think of was the way they were crushing the grass on the lawn. It seemed a silly and overly sentimental thing, all this speech-making.
She patted the smooth flank of her deest. "There, boy," she said, "I'm bored, too." The graceful animal snorted and nosed up against the hitching post as if he were anxious to be almost anywhere else but where he was.
That was the way Sindi felt too, she decided, as her sharp eyes picked out the earnest face of her father. He was seated out front. Kiv, like a good alumnus and responsible leader of Nidorian society, had, of course, come to Bel-rogas to take in the festivities. Right now he was watching the speaker as if he were the Great Light Himself.
As a matter of fact, the speaker actually was Grandfather Drel peNibro Brajjyd, the current Brajjyd representative on the sixteen-man Council of Elders. Grandfather Drel peNibro had succeeded to the Nidorian ruling body some ten years earlier, on the death of the venerable Bor peDrogh Brajjyd. Sindi could still remember the gnarled, silvered old man who had headed their clan in the years before the accession of Drel peNibro. She had seen Grandfather Bor peDrogh preside over an important religious function only a few weeks before his death. That had been when she was seven.
Grandfather Drel peNibro was a pompous, somewhat self-important old man who loved making speeches at ceremonial occasions. Sindi was aware of her father's private opinion of him—that he was a tradition-bound, unintelligent old man who had succeeded to the Council solely because he had outlasted all of the deserving contenders. Kiv, who was a priest in Drel peNibro's entourage, had let that opinion drop once, and had done his best to cover for it. But Sindi had noticed it, and it formed part of her mental approach toward the Nidorian Grandfather-hood that constituted the Council.
Sindi watched Drel peNibro from the shelter of the deest stable. He was wearing the full formal regalia of a Council member, a flamboyant outfit which seemed to Sindi a fairly silly affair and yet somehow still terribly impressive. His voice floated to her through the quiet air of the Nidorian midafternoon.
"This noble day," he was saying, and then his voice drifted away for a moment. In the distance, Sindi heard the chuffing of the Central Railway Extension that ran the five miles from the Holy City of Gelusar to the Bel-rogas School.
Then his voice became audible again. Sindi managed to catch him as he said, "... Is our duty to express gratitude toward our benefactors. And yet we cannot do it directly. For whatever benefits the Earthmen have brought us, these sixty-one years, are creditable, not to them—let me make that clear, not to them, but to the Agent of their arrival on our soil."
The Elder looked upward. The assembled multitude followed suit, and Sindi found herself doing the same thing. She scrutinized the iron-gray cloud layer which partially obscured the Great Light, but which failed to hide His effulgence completely from view.
Then Grandfather Drel peNibro Went on. "The Bel-rogas School," he 'said, "in its sixty-one years of bringing the Law to the young people of Nidor, has served as an incalculably valuable—"
Sindi strained to catch the Elder's words, which were competing with the harsh breathing-sounds of the deest and the distant drone of the railway. As she leaned forward to hear better—because, though she was too independent a girl to take part willingly in any such foolishness as the anniversary ceremony, she was far too curious about everything to let a word of it escape her ears—as she leaned forward, a new voice came from directly behind her, startling her.
"Sindi? What are you doing here?"
She whirled and saw a tall, grave-looking man dismounting from a deest and reaching for a hitching rope. He was pale-skinned, dark-eyed, and bearded. He was Smith, one of the Earthmen who guided the operations of the Bel-rogas School.
"Hello, Smith," Sindi said uncertainly.
Smith drew a cloth from his pocket and wiped his face. He was sweating heavily, as most of the Earthmen did in Nidor's moist air. Sindi saw that his deest was near the point of exhaustion. Obviously, Smith had had a long, hard ride from somewhere.
"Why aren't you out there listening to the Grandfather?" Smith asked. His voice was kind and gentle, like those of all the other Earthmen. "All of the students belong out there, you know. You should be with them."
Sindi nodded absently. "My father's out there, too," she said.
Suddenly Smith moved very close to her, and she became conscious of his curious Earthman odor. His eyes were weary-looking, and his beard needed combing. He looked at her for a long time without speaking.
"Tell me," he finally said, "why you aren't out there with everyone else. Why aren't you with them?"
Sindi slowly rubbed her hand back and forth over her deest's flank. "Because," she said thoughtfully, not wanting to get into any more trouble than she was already in. "Just because."
"That's not enough of a reason," the Earthman said. Suddenly Sindi felt terribly small and young next to him.
"It bored me," she said. "I just didn't want to have to sit out there all day and listen to—" she paused, horrified at herself.
"And listen to the Elder Brajjyd," Smith completed. He smiled. "Ah, Sindi, how your father would like to hear you say that!"
She shot a panicky glance at him. "You wouldn't tell him, would you? I didn't mean anything by it! Smith ... Smith—-"
"Don't worry," Smith said. He reached out and patted her shoulder, caressing the soft golden fuzz that covered it. "Suppose you go over now and take part in the rest of the ceremony, and let me worry about the secrets to keep."
"Thanks, Smith," she said levelly, all fear suddenly gone. "I'll go out and hear what the Elder has to say." She thumped her deest fondly, smiled at the Earthman, and walked toward the crowd.
Very carefully she tiptoed across the lawn and unobtrusively melted into the crowd. The Elder Brajjyd was still speaking. His powerful voice rang out clearly and well.
"You see the products of this school around you," the Elder said. "The most valuable members of our priesthood; the leaders of our society; our most brilliant minds—we may trace them all to the Bel-rogas School of Divine Law. I regret," said the Elder sadly, "that I, myself, was unable to attend the school. But before many years elapse, I think it is fairly safe to say, the Council of Elders will be constituted almost totally from among the graduates of Bel-rogas.
"I see among you today, in this very gathering, men who will undoubtedly hold Council seats one day. From my own clan alone I see several—there is that brilliant Bel-rogas alumnus, Grandfather Kiv peGanz Brajjyd, now one of the most valued members of my staff, and there are others here as well. And to whom do we owe this? To whom—"
The Elder's voice grew louder and more impassioned. Sindi threaded her way through the close-packed audience, searching for her father. She tried to remember where he had been sitting when she saw him from the stable, and headed in that general direction. The assembled Nidorians were sitting quietly and drinking in the Elder's words. He launched into a long quotation from the Scripture, which Sindi, almost as a reflex, recognized as being from the Eighteenth Section. As the Elder began to unfold the complexities of the quotation Sindi caught sight of Kiv again. There was an empty seat at his left where, no doubt, she had been expected to be sitting.
She edged through the narrow aisle and slid into the seat. Kiv nodded his welcome to her silently; he had no intention of competing with the Elder.
"Thus, as it is said in the Scripture," the Elder went on, " 'Those beloved of the Great Light shall hold tomorrow in their hands.' We must never forget this, my friends. May the Great Light illumine your minds as He does the world."
Drel peNibro stepped from the rostrum and took his seat. The assembly relaxed, easing the long tension built up while the Elder was speaking. Kiv leaned over to whisper to Sindi.
"Where have you been?" he asked harshly. "I've been expecting you all afternoon. You said you'd meet me for midmeal!"
"I'm sorry, Kiv," she told him. "I was busy in the labs and couldn't get free till just now."
"In the labs? On Commemoration Day? Sindi, if you're—"
"Please, Kiv," she said in annoyance. "I came as quickly as I could. Have I missed much?"
"Only the Elder Brajjyd's speech," Kiv said in a tone of heavy sarcasm. "He mentioned me. Apparently I'm back in his good graces for a while, no thanks to you."
"Father! You know I didn't mean to seem disrespectful, that day that I didn't give the grandfather the proper salute. It was only that I was late for classes, and—"
"Forget it, Sindi," Kiv said. "The Elder seemed quite upset about it at the time, but perhaps he's forgotten it. Meanwhile, I've brought someone I'd like you to meet." He gestured to a strange man sitting at his left.
"This is Yorgen peBor Yorgen," Kiv said. "Yorgen peBor, this is my daughter, Sindi geKiv."
"Pleased, I'm sure," Yorgen peBor said, in a not-very-enthusiastic tone. Sindi muttered some similar sentiment.
"You may know Yorgen peBor's father," Kiv continued. "The Grandfather Bor peYorgen Yorgen. And you're aware who his father is, aren't you?"
Kiv's tone of voice left little doubt.
"The Elder Grandfather Yorgen peYorgen Yorgen, of course," Sindi said.
"Yorgen peBor, here, is his son's son. I'd ... I'd like you two to get to know each other well, Sindi." Kiv smiled. What was on his mind was perfectly plain.
Rahn, Sindi thought, half-despairingly. Rahn ... I won't forget you, anyway.
"Certainly, father," she said aloud, concealing her distress. "I'm sure Yorgen peBor and I will get along splendidly."
"I'm sure also," Kiv said. He gestured with his hand at the speaker's platform. "That's not Grandfather Syg going up there to speak, is it? Why, he was teaching here when I was going to the school!"
"That's who it is, none the less," said Sindi, watching the aged figure climb painfully to the rostrum. The old man, speaking in a dry, withered voice, made some rambling prefatory remarks and embarked on a discussion of die wonderful past of Bel-rogas and the promise the future held. Sindi sat back glumly and contented herself with surreptitiously scrutinizing Yorgen peBor out of the corner of her eye.
So Kiv was going to marry her off, eh? His motivation in arranging such a match was perfectly transparent: Yorgen peBor was of the highest linage, directly descended from the great Lawgiver, Bel-rogas Yorgen. Yorgen peBor's father was the Uncle of Public Works, a pleasant and well-salaried position to hold, and his father's father was the oldest and most respected member of the Council of Elders. Certainly a marriage into that clan would be advantageous for Kiv as well as Sindi.
But yet—
She examined Yorgen peBor, sizing him up as a prospective husband. He was big, not especially handsome in Sindi's eyes, though far from plain, and rather stupid-looking in a genteel sort of way. He promised a dull but pleasant kind of existence.
She thought of Rahn—penniless Rahn, whose father was a pauper. Oh, well, she thought. We could never have managed it anyway. Too many factors stood in the way of their marriage. And now, the biggest and bulkiest factor was Yorgen peBor Yorgen. With a marriage all but arranged, Sindi didn't dare tell her father she didn't like the idea.
She searched the crowd anxiously for Rahn, as Grandfather Syg droned on and on. I'd like to see him once more, she thought. Just once.
She glanced at her father, suppressed a little snort of rage, and sat back to hear what Grandfather Syg had to say. Yorgen peBor Yorgen appeared incredibly bored with the whole thing.
Smith stood beside Sindi's deest, his hand across the neck of the sleek animal, watching the ceremony with a slight smile on his face. He was still perspiring heavily.
Sixty-one years since the Earth-men had come. It was a magic number, sixty-one. Take three threes. To each, add one—making a total of three ones. That gives three fours. Multiply them together. Four to the third power—four cubed. Subtract three. Sixty-one.
Such is the power of numerology, Smith thought.
Someone stepped up beside him, shadowless in the suffused light that came from Nidor's skies.
Smith turned and grinned.
"What's up, Harry? You look worried."
The other Earthman, a tall, lean, hard-faced man with dark hair and greenish-gray eyes, nodded.
"I am," he said in English. "I've just come from Jones, and he's determined to go through with it. He says it's anthropologically justified, and you know Jones—anthropology all the way."
"He's going to do it, eh? A public retirement. Well, I hope it'll be an impressive ceremony," Smith said. "We're going to miss him here."
The other Earthman smiled. "He won't actually be gone, ...
allforjesus2001