Brian Stableford - Hooded Swan 3 - Promised Land

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Brian Stableford

Promised Land

New Alexandria is not the ideal world for an uncultured slob to be stranded on. It's not so much that its

population consists almost entirely of bespectacled bibliophiles who are deeply into the philosophy of civilization and

temperance, but rather the fact that those inhabitants who do not fit into this category feel somehow ashamed of the

fact. Everybody on New Alexandria apologizes too much. Everywhere you go you can find intellectual lightweights

soldiering on under a burden of ersatz education and carefully fashionable good taste.

Personally, I wouldn't mind it so much if they were all getting a big kick out of it, but the glumness which lies

just beneath the hypocrisy really puts my back up. Every time I went out to have a drink in Corinth I got edgy. I

usually had to take Nick or Johnny along with me in case my sorrows ended up drowning me instead of vice versa.

I had a lot of spare time to fill in on New Alexandria after the Rhapsody business, and Corinth was the nerve

center of Charlot's theater of operations. Charlot had a lot of work to catch up on following the Rhapsody catastrophe.

I think his pride had been a little bit hurt by the outcome of that affair—not a single one of the famed wonder-worms

had survived the rigors of contact with humanity, and yet another agent of destruction was temporarily lost to galactic

society. Ripped off from their cozy little cave, the worms had shown a healthy interest for a matter of days, and then

decided the whole thing wasn't worth it, curled up their metaphorical toes and retired gracefully into protoplasmic goo.

Who could blame them? Not me, that's for sure. I was secretly gleeful. Secretly because it would havebeen less than

diplomatic to gloat while Charlot was in a bad mood.

In any case, my name was mud. Charlot had elected to believe that at least some part of the blame for the

whole mess was mine. The sad fate of his prize specimens had soured any sympathy which might have lingered on

from the moment when we had stood together facing the wrong end of Bayon Alpart's powergun. Charlot's answer to

the bad mood, apparently, was to throw himself wholeheartedly into his work and forget all about his wonderful little

toy, theHooded Swan. I was left kicking my heels, but Nick and Eve had other jobs to do back on Earth, where the

number two super-ship (theSister Swan) was having her teething troubles. They took Johnny back with them a couple

of times, as consultant engineer, but because this baby really was going to be Eve's ship they had no use for me. I

wished her well of her new opportunity. It can't have been much fun for her to have lost her first ship to me at the last

moment—especially such a ship as theHooded Swan, and to such a cynical reprobate as myself. I wasn't much

interested in the sister ship, anyhow. My attachment to theHooded Swan was personal, and I couldn't help but think

of theSister Swan as a rival.

There was nothing for me to do but bum around in Corinth, alone or with whoever was available. I didn't get

particularly bored. Every minute of the two years which I owed Charlot that didn't involve me putting my neck into

some version of the lion's mouth was profit as far as I was concerned. I was perfectly content to kick my heels

forever—until freedom day, anyway. My debt to the Caradoc Company was being discharged at about thirty a day,

which was damn good money for no work.

I knew it couldn't last, of course. Charlot would inevitably get around to thinking up some small favor I could

do him, and it would probably have a nasty touch to it, just to pay me back for the imagined wrongs I'd perpetrated on

Rhapsody and in the Halcyon Drift. Every day I expected to be presented with some crazy commission for hunting up

irrelevant information in some hellhole, or asked to go and break some record.

The waiting got to Johnny, while he was actually around. So much so that he wasn't really very good

company. I lived in hope that months of constant association with yours truly must inevitably result in some kind of

intellectual contamination, and that he might gradually get less eager and more sane. But no results were showing up

as yet. The kid had an imaginary bomb up his backside and he couldn't sit still without suffering all kinds of

psychosomatic disorders. This led me to seek company elsewhere, and I developed an acquaintance with a policeman

named Denton who never seemed to have any work to do. He was one of these guys with a penchant for hanging

around, easy to talk to and at least part of the way to being a thoroughly good bloke. My checkered past hadn't really

been conducive to my forming beautiful relationships with the representative of the law, but at this point in time I had

a crystal-clear conscience, and fraternization seemed almost natural.

Once or twice, though. I couldn't help feeling the urge to get clean away from the whole Corinth scene. I

wasn't restless, just a little claustrophobic. One bad day while Nick was on Earth and Eve was somewhere else entirely,

Johnny started talking about gambling. I tried to explain to him that nobody but an idiot would play cards with New

Alexandrians, but he couldn't grasp my point. It isn't that they cheat, of course, but they have a keen sense of

probability and they don't know how to play anything badly. Gambling is an exercise in separating fools from their

money, and the only fool abroad in Corinth just then was Johnny Socoro himself. But he couldn't accept that. He kept

talking about luck, and if there's one thing I can't stand it's someingenu giving me lectures on runs of luck and the

inadequacies of logic.

I borrowed one of Charlot's fleet of staff cars and lit out for the hills. Theoretically, I was supposed to check

with Charlot before leaving the neighborhood, but of course I didn't bother. By similar theory, I didn't have any right to

appropriate the car. But I've never been a devout believer in sticking too close to the approved mode of behavior.

People don't expect it of me—everybody knows that I'm thoroughly bloody-minded. I have a reputation to keep up.

It was late spring, and the weather was just turning beautiful. I'm no romantic but I can appreciate the look of

greenery and the delicacy of flowers, especially after I've been given a hard time. And I had. For two years and more.

The car was a Lamoine 77 and rode with just a hint of vibe even when she was cruising. I like a car which lets

me know I'm traveling—who wants to labor under the delusion that he's sitting in a baby carriage? I pushed her along

at one-forty, which was just beyond her most comfortable speed. I like to push. And what the hell—it wasn't my car.

I liked the country, and I figured after a couple of hours that I'd like it a lot more if I forgot about the road.

Roads are boring. I cut to eighty and moved her out into the open, and then amused myself bouncing bushes and

hurdling hills for a while. It felt really good to bowl along, with the wheel in my left hand and the gearshift in my right. I

was deliberately rough with the stick. I guess I was joyriding like a kid, but it beat drift-diving and warren-crawling as a

way of spending time. You can stand a little self-indulgence occasionally, I figure. Also, I was staying sober and

getting a clean, fresh kind of high out of the wind and the sun and the smell.

There were miles and miles of open parkland. Once I'd lost the road it was easy not to find it again. New

Alexandria is a garden world—clean cities and tidy, inoffensive countryside. Very carefully planned to look virgin, like

a whore with a strong streak of vanity. They'd subjected the hills to artistic cosmetic landscaping. The New

Alexandrian character demands that a sticky finger be intruded into every possible pie.

Evening began to creep up, and it felt truly pleasant. I'm not too fond of brightness, and the gentle gray of

twilight always turns me on a lot more than the glare of noonday. The airstream grew cold around me, but I didn't put

the hood up, or even the screen. It was doing me no harm.

I wasn't really thinking about turning for home—the idea of night driving seemed attractive—when the sky

began to darken. In fact, I wasn't really thinking about anything at all. I was at peace with existence, which is

somewhere I don't often find myself. I wasn't even trying to remember how long it had been since I'd enjoyed leisure

time so much, and I guess my old friend the whispering wind was luxuriating in the feeling as well, because he never

said a word.

Then I saw the girl.

She was running, and the moment I saw her I knew that she wasn't inspired by the joys of spring. There was

someone after her. I couldn't see them at first, because there was a hill in the way. I put my foot on the brake to slow up

while I put my mind back into gear and considered the situation.

There were two men chasing her. They didn't seem to be in anywhere near the hurry she was in. I couldn't

read anything into their faces or their manner, but it was a long way in dim light. The idea of rapists on New Alexandria

struck me as being pretty incongruous, but I couldn't immediately think of any other reason why a girl should be

fleeing two men.

—Well, said the wind.

Well what?

—Well, do something.

I'm going to, I assured him. No rush. She's got a good fifty yards in hand and they aren't even trying to peg it

back. They're letting her run herself into the ground.

All of which was sweetly reasonable. No charging forward for Grainger. This was the kind of thing I'd learned

not to rush into. I've never been a great fan of the hero who is always on the lookout for damsels in distress. The idea

of knight errantry is wholly repulsive to my pragmatic and ungentlemanly character.

The girl saw me, but she didn't instantly recognize me as a godsend. Rather the reverse, in fact, because she

swung aside so that she was running diagonally away from both me and her persecutors. This struck me as being an

illogical move. I could overtake her in ten seconds flat and she must have known that. Apparently, she was scared of

everybody and suffering from panic. This impression served to reinforce my theory that her pursuers intended her no

good. I eased off the brake and let the Lamoine ooze forward at a fast dawdle. The two men saw me as well. They,

apparently, adopted a more rational approach to life.They knew that I had the key card. One of them stopped altogether

and the other slowed from a jog-trot to an amble and began waving to me. Nobody seemed to think that I was on the

side of the angel, despite my hesitancy about rushing in like a fool.

I resolved to give everybody a shock. I swung the car to head for the two men, and stamped on the jerk stud.

The Lamoine went four feet up into the air on a quick blast, and shot forward in a long arc at seventy-five climbing

toward a hundred. She bounced on air billows all the way, swayed like a haunted drunkard and screamed.

They decided that I wasn't very friendly, and ducked. I missed them both by yards—which was perhaps

fortunate as murder isa priori evidence of carelessness and a lack of diplomacy—but to hear them howl you'd have

thought there were only millimeters to spare.

I U-turned and gentled her back to a smooth flow at the regulation four inches above the grassblades. The

girl was looking back over her shoulder, and she didn't seem too reassured by my cavalier treatment of the bogeymen.

I realized that she was very scared indeed. She didn't stop running. It never occurred to me then that she might be ten

times as scared of me as she was of them, but this was, in fact, not unlikely.

I reined in beside her.

"It's okay!" I yelled—though there was really no need to shout. "I'm on your side."

She shied away and I curved through the air after her.

"Save it, kid," I called. "Calm down and let's talk it over. Don't worry aboutthem."

She twisted her body to get a good look over her shoulder at my face. The contortion proved too much for

the stability of her headlong flight, and she fell over. By the time she was fit to get up, I was out of the Lamoine and

beside her. Now she was finally convinced that she was caught, she thought better of bolting again, and allowed

herself to collapse back on to the ground, panting fit to burst and beginning to cry.

She was small and thin. She wasn't human but she was very humanoid. I wasn't familiar with her racial

characteristics. I had never encountered one of her kind before. Her skin was golden-brown and looked moist. Her

eyes were big and orange. Her hands seemed to be very contortive—her fingers were tentacular and retractable.

Beneath her clothing there looked to be some kind of ridge pattern on her back. She had no hair.

"It's okay," I told her, much more gently this time. I wondered whether she spoke any English at all. But I

didn't know what other language to try, and I didn't feel like doing a quick run through all the reassuring noises in my

repertoire.

The other two were up on their feet again and a-coming fast. I wondered whether I ought to try and get the

girl into the car and flit away into the gathering night, as I was outnumbered. But I decided that she might start an

embarrassing struggle, so I elected to wait. Besides which, they were only medium-sized New Alexandrians and I

prided myself that as a nasty and brutal outworlder I could probably scare them unconscious if I snarled. I'm not big

and hard by any means, but I could put on a convincing act for such as these.

"Well," I said, as they pulled up a few yards away and looked at me balefully, "what doyou want?"

One of them—a black-haired man with pale skin and gold-rimmed spectacles—waved a manicured fingernail

at the Lamoine. "That's one of our cars," he said, as if expecting an explanation.

"You could have killed us, you crazy bastard," said the other—a more typical and more commendable reaction, I

thought. "So?" I said, to both of them.

"It's that pilot," said the second man. He was a typical nondescript New Alexandrian intellectual second-class

citizen. A menial. A hireling. He was pale-brown and small-featured. I didn't know him from Adam, but my notoriety on

the planet, and in Corinth particularly, permitted me to be recognized by a great many of the local peasantry.

"My name," I said to him coldly, "is Grainger." I deliberately loaded my voice with loathing.

"We only want to take her back," said the pale-skinned man.

"Back where?"

"The colony."

"He doesn't know about the colony," supplied the other.

"Welltell him then," said the man with the spectacles, "if he's such a good friend of yours." He was annoyed.

"I don't know what you must think about this," began the man who had recognized me, "but we certainly

didn't mean the girl any harm."

"Well now," I said, "what doyou reckon?" I addressed myself to the girl. She just crouched there, showing no

inclination to rise, but her eyes flickered back and forth from them to me. I couldn't read a thing from her expression.

Alien faces are almost always opaque, no matter how human they appear. It takes a long time before you can learn to

read them.

"She doesn't speak English," said the Caucasian.

"My name's Tyler," said the other, touching the pale man on the arm to bid him be silent while he tried a little

tact "I work for Titus Charlot."

"So do I," I said. "He doesn't send me out to terrorize little girls."

"The girl's part of a colony of aliens that Charlot is looking after. She got out tonight and decided to take a

run around. She's only a child, she doesn't know any English, and people back at the colony were worried about her.

We came out to find her, but she ran away from us. We should have brought a couple of the Ana-caona with us, but it

didn't occur to us at the time. We don't want to hurt her. We only want to take her home. Do you think that you could

give us a lift back to the colony in the car?"

"She doesn't know what she's doing," murmured the other man.

"This colony," I said. "I suppose it's really a research establishment?"

"It's not a bloody concentration camp," said Tyler. He seemed to be quite offended by the idea. "These

people aren't experimental animals. They're working with Charlot. They're scientists."

"And you're atomic physicists?" I suggested.

"We're administrative staff. We keep the bloody project going. There are problems, you know, maintaining

colonies of offworlders. Or do you always reach for your ray gun whenever you see an alien? Never met one outside

its natural environment before?"

The sneer was so totally unwarranted that I got quite angry about it. The pale man looked a bit disgusted, as

he had every right to after Tyler's unspoken demand to be allowed to handle things.

"Where is this colony?" I snapped.

"Couple of miles back," said Tyler.

"She gave you a good run, then."

"Look," said Tyler, losing his patience visibly. "There was no harm in the kid taking a walk. But we can't let

her wander around out here on her own. We have to look after these people. Lanning and me— we're supposed to see

that things run smoothly. Charlot'll have our heads if there's any trouble at the colony, especially if it involves the

child. Sure she's scared. But that isn't our fault. We're only doing our job and we haven't time to fool around. Now, we

don't want to hurt her, we only want to get her home. If you don't want to give us a lift, fine, but will you please stand

out of my way so I can get on with doing what I'm paid to do."

"Does she want to go with you?" I stalled.

"None of us can ask her, can we?" said the other man—presumably Lanning. "We don't speak her language."

"You're in charge of running the colony and you don't speak her language?" I said incredulously.

"They all speak English," said Tyler. "Except some of the kids. Hell, man, you know what kids are like. They

like to give a bit of trouble. Well, okay, nobody's going to turn her over their knee, unless her daddy does it. But she

has to go home. I'm taking her back, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."

He stepped forward, and I didn't budge an inch.

Mr. Tyler would never have won prizes for diplomacy. Quite the reverse. But he didn't have it in him to force

his own way. He was just as tall and heavy and muscular as I was, but he hadn't had the practice. He wasn't a fighter.

A bully perhaps, but not a fighter.

"Look," said Lanning, as Tyler and I stood toe to toe sizing each other up. "There's no sense to all this. I

mean, look at us. We aren't thugs. We aren't rapists."

I looked at him, as he so kindly invited me to. He was right. He wasn't a thug. It didn't endear him to me,

though. They obviously weren't the type any man would hire to do his dirty work for him, so they were probably

absolutely on the level. But they'd stirred me up somewhat, and I'm naturally stubborn anyhow.

"You can check with Charlot back at the camp," said the pale man. "We've got a call circuit with priority. He'll

tell you it's all okay."

That decided me. I didn't want to be brought on the carpet before Charlot so he could tell me off while

Lanning and Tyler had a quiet chortle.

"I don't think I want to give you boys a lift," I said.

"What about the girl?" said Tyler, in a low voice.

"That's different," I said. "I don't mind helping out a lady."

They couldn't think of anything to say.

"I came out for a pleasure cruise," I said pensively. "I guess the young lady must have stepped out to sample

the evening air for similar reasons. You morons are spoiling her good time. You can reassure everyone back at the

camp that she's in good hands, and I'll have her home within a couple of hours."

"You can't do that," said Lanning.

"Watch me," I said.

He was already taking a caller out of his pocket. He was going to report me to the colony, who would

presumably use their priority circuit to alert Charlot. But I was too late changing my mind. I'd already declared my

intentions. Perhaps I shouldn't interfere. But I wanted to, and I had.

"Now just you wait a minute," said Tyler, who had not yet recognized the inevitable.

"Did you speak?" I said pleasantly, looking him in the eyes and smiling. I hope I looked really evil. He backed

off a step, pleasing me immensely in the process.

"There's no need for that," said Lanning. "You just do what you want to, Mr. Grainger. We'll tell everybody

concerned that the girl is safe with you. Everything will be fine."

"That's right," I said, ignoring his sarcasm. "Everything will be fine."

I offered a hand to the girl. She'd calmed down a lot while we three were acting out our little farce. I think she'd

gathered that I wasn't in total harmony with her oppressors. She watched Lanning and Tyler turn away. I reached out a

hand to her, and she let me help her up. That's a language anyone can understand. I ushered her gently into the front

passenger seat of the La-moine. I took my time moving around into the driver's seat. Tyler was watching me from a few

yards away. Lanning was talking rapidly into the caller.

Before I started the car again, I paused and looked around at the deepening night. I drew an appreciative

breath and used my face to try and indicate my enjoyment to the girl. Then I smiled.

She smiled back. She was obviously used to the company of humans. She knew what I meant.

After all, I thought, even Titus Charlot smiles.

Sometimes.

I rolled the Lamoine around at eighty or ninety for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour while she settled down

to the conclusion that everything was pretty much okay.

I tried her with "What's your name?" and "Where were you going?" but it was obvious that she didn't know

even that much English. I didn't bother to descend to the "Me Tarzan, who you?" level of attempted communication,

and the fancy sign language which works so well in all the soap operas has never appealed to me as a way of getting

along. I was quite happy failing to communicate. Nobody needs small talkthat badly.

—You're a defeatist, accused the wind.

I'm practical, I assured him—not only silently but without moving my lips. I didn't want the young lady to get

hold of the idea that I was the kind of filbert who talks to himself.

—That has to be a joke, he said, after the way you went banging in and casually picked her up, not knowing

who she is or what she was up to.

You know me, I told him. My sympathies are always with the guy who's dodging the gorillas. Damsels, I

admit, are not really my line in romantic comedy— not as young as this one, anyhow—but I can always be persuaded

to make an exception by some representative of the scum of the earth trying hard to get on my wick.

Hedid know me, of course, and he was getting to the stage where he didn't bother to criticize me too much. I

mean, there comes a point when criticism just defeats its own object. I'm impulsive and I'm perverse and I don't mind a

bit. And the wind, by virtue of his position, just had to live with it, exactly as I was having to live with him. As time

went by, we made a muchbetter job of it. By this time, I think, we were well past the loathing and repulsiona la Grainger

and the hauteur and intimidationa la wind. We were getting to be just good friends. We had reached the stage where I

quite appreciated his tired wisecracks and he didn't mean them seriously.

One thing I liked was that he was no kind of a backseat driver. Not in the literal sense, that is. He didn't tell me

how to fly, whether I was in deep space or a handspan off the ground. A parasite who can respect his host's

professional expertise can't be all bad.

We didn't manage much of a joyride. I was pointing vaguely back toward the suspected direction of the

colony, having no real intention of running the kid around till all hours, when I heard a horribly familiar sound. It was

the wailing of a siren.

"Hell," I said pensively, and a little fatalistically. "The fun's over, folks."

The girl looked at me strangely with her big orange eyes. Her face looked tragically sad, but that was purely

illusion. She might have learned to smile, but she sure as hell hadn't learned to play Hamlet yet. For all I knew, she

might be as happy as a skylark.

I made a wry smile, but she didn't return it.

"It's the cops," I told her, speaking softly and maintaining my rueful grin despite the fact that she didn't seem

able to figure it out.

I pulled the Lamoine to a full stop and stepped out. The police were using a flipper, not a car, so it was

probably a special consignment, not a regular patrol. I wasn't really worried—not because I imagined that they would

understand, but because I was pretty confident that Charlot would bail me out of any trouble short of mass murder.

The cop from the passenger seat dropped to the ground from the hovering flipper and came over. Cops have

two styles of movement. They either swagger with a kind of free-dance interpretation of a Texan drawl, or they stride

purposefully like a second lieutenant with an inflated ego.

This one strode.

He got quite close before I recognized him as my old buddy Denton.

"Jesus," I said. "They even put you to work, hey?"

"Hello, Grainger," he said. "You're in trouble. Item: one stolen car. Item: one abducted girl. Yep, it's all here."

"I admit it," I said. "I am now and always have been in complete personal control of all organized crime on this

world and two hundred others. What are my chances of bail?"

It wasn't very funny. Sometimes I'm a distinct failure when it comes to raising a laugh.

"The girl has to go back in the flipper," said Denton. "I have to drive you back to Corinth in the car."

"Okay," I said, with more than a hint of sullenness. "Carry on. Don't mind me."

He walked around the car and yanked the far door open. He gestured to the girl to step out. She didn't move.

He took her gently by the arm, but didn't pull. She got the message, and stepped into the road. He led her with

consummate gentleness over to the flipper. She looked up at the machine, which was humming sulkily as it hung

suspended in the air. She didn't want to get up into it, but she was beyond arguing by now. I think she'd had enough

and wanted to go home. I couldn't blame her. Denton lifted her by the waist and she took his seat beside the pilot. The

pilot strapped her in while his erstwhile companion sealed the door.

The flipper rose into the sky again.

I waved.

"Goodbye," I said levelly, keeping an eye on the cop. "It was nice meeting you. We must do it again

sometime."

Denton planted himself squarely in front of me and shook his head tiredly.

"Okay, lover boy," he said. "Let's go home and explain to Daddy."

"Is Charlot mad?" I asked him. "Or do you mean the chief of police?"

"I mean Charlot," he said. "This is too big for the poor old chief."

It figured. Nothing moved in Corinth without Charlot's seal of approval. I had a nasty feeling that old though

he was he could rip a leatherbound copy of the Statutes of New Rome in half with his bare hands.

"I suppose you're going to insist on driving," I said.

"Orders," he replied.

"Typical," I commented. "It's no way to treat an honest man, you know."

I was still trying to capture a whimsical mood.

"What's an honest man doing in a stolen car?" he wanted to know.

"Borrowing it," I told him.

"Ibelieve you," he assured me, "but it's not my car."

We took up our assigned positions within the Lamoine and he slid her into gear, taking off with a nasty jerk.

"Clumsy," I commented. That killed any possible conversation for at least twenty miles.

"Do I take it correctly," I said finally—to break up the silence—"that I am not actually under arrest: You are, I

assume, taking me home solely in the interests of serving the community, as you would assist, say, a lost kitten or a

stray alien?"

"I'm just tidying up," he told me.

"Sweeping the dust under the carpet," I said humorlessly. "Who was the girl and why were the two guys

chasing her and what the hell would you have done?"

He turned to look at me soberly. "Theytold you who she was and why they were chasing her," he said,

cop-fashion. Then he added: "Probably something like you. Only I'd have been a damn sight smarter getting her home.

I wouldn't have waited for the trouble to catch up." That was just because he knew me. I think he'd have given anyone

else the usual line—the I-got-a-job-to-do, honest-cop-taking-home-a-steady-wage-to-wife-and-kid line. Cops almost

always pretend that theydon't know nothing from nothing and they don't much care. I could never be a cop.

I didn't think it was necessary to explain, and I was dead certain that there was no point in protesting. He

knew me. We both knew what had happened. I didn't ask him any silly questions about what was going to happen.

Less than half an hour later I was able to ask my questions of the guy withall the answers.

"I don't pay you to act like a crazy kid," he said, deliberately vulgarizing his language to add to the weight of

his sneer."You don't payme at all," I said.

"I payenough," he said. "I'm doing you no disservice by rescuing you from the unfortunate situation in

which you found yourself after Caradoc picked you up in the edge of the Drift. I know that you consider that situation

quite unjust, but it's the one you have to live with. I know that you don't like me. But you're a reasonable man. Is it too

much to ask of you that you cooperate with my men instead of interfering with them just for the hell of it?"

"I'm sorry I borrowed one of your cars without asking," I said evenly.

"I don't care about the car," he said, rising snappishly to the bait—which surprised me somewhat. "I'm talking

about the girl."

"Titus," I said, in the warmest possible tones, "if you were riding in your car and saw a very small girl being

chased by two not-very-small men who didn't look a bit like sterling citizens, what wouldyou do? Would you really

entrust her to their care on their mere say-so?"

"Why didn't you take them all back to the colony?" he said. "That's what they wanted you to do."

I considered suggesting that they might have hit me over the head once I turned my back on them, but

decided that it was not a wise tack to take. I decided to tell the truth.

"I didn't like them," I said.

He sighed. "You're more trouble than you're worth," he said.

"I couldn't agree more," I said. "Shall I pack my bags?"

"No," he said.

I shrugged. "Up to you," I commented.

"Look," he said. "You know perfectly well what kind of work I do. I synthesize patterns of thought. I work

with a lot of aliens over a long period of time with a large staff. There are half a dozen colonies on New Alexandria. The

people live here. They have their homes and their families and their children here. They need a certain amount of

looking after. I don't put them in prison camps or on reservations, but they do live together, and to them this is an alien

world. The girl was born here, but her parents come from Chao Phrya. She doesn't even speak English, because she

isn't concerned with the project. She knows hardly anything about the world except that she's a stranger here. Her

education is in the hands of her own people. It was forthem that Tyler and Lanning went out to fetch her home. Tyler

and Lanning are troubleshooters out at the colony. They do lots of odd dirty work. They have a difficult job to do. It

isn't made any easier by interference from disinterested parties with some kind of warped quixotic streak. Will you

please, in future, leave my staff alone.

"That's all."

I wanted to tell him to go to hell, but I thought that the time had come for a little graceful retirement. We

parted on not the best of terms, but we had never really reached the best of terms. We'd been at war ever since the

party at Hallsthammer.

I accepted everything he said, of course. It was none of my business. Why should I even suspect that he was

lying? I could have asked to look around his Anacaon colony, but he'd probably have told me to drop dead, and it

wouldn't have told me that he had anything to hide.

I have a suspicious mind, but it wasn't always up to coping with Titus Charlot's brand of deviousness.

After that incident, I decided that irresponsibility was definitely no longer the in thing. I elected to devote

myself to more mature and approved pursuits, such as improving my mind and occasionally partaking (always

judiciously) of a little intoxicating liquor. I found that my mind could still react favorably to a little improvement. It was

more than two years since I'd been able to devote serious time to reading. I'd been too flattened back on Earth before I

joined the delArco outfit to do anything except square-eye the HV.

The wind approved thoroughly of my getting deeply into a printed-word bonanza, although his tastes in

literature weren't mine by any means. It probably speaks well for my general mood that I compromised instead of

having it all my own way. If, that is, you call 80/20 a compromise rather than a concession.

I knew that the peace couldn't last long, but I didn't expect it to be broken in quite the way it was.

I was lying on my bed in the late afternoon when there was an insistent knocking at my door. I couldn't be

bothered to get up, so I simply yelled out an invitation to enter.

I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

It was the cops, and there were three of them. That seemed to me to be overdoing things. My old friend

Denton was with them (naturally), and he came to talk to me while his buddies stood about flatfooted and looked

around suspiciously.

"Where have you been all day?" demanded Denton. I’d already gathered that it wasn't a social call, but he

was making sure I retained no illusions. He was still striding instead of walking like normal people, and he talked like a

cheesegrater.

"I didn't do it," I said. "Whatever it was."

"Never mind the patter," he whipped back. "Just answer the questions."

"Honest," I said, whimsically stubborn, "I distinctly remember not doing it and I've got six witnesses who

didn't see me."

"Get up," he said. "Let's go."

"To the station?" I inquired. "Or are we still cutting out the middleman?"

"Charlot," he said, succinctly.

"Poor old desk sergeant," I commented. "Never gets in on any of the fun."

Denton took the book out of my hand as I eased myself off the bed. He closed it without glancing at it and

threw it on to the pillow.

"You lost my place," I said.

"This isn't funny," he said. "This time it'sreal trouble."

"What's up?" I wanted to know.

"You answer my questions first."

"I've been here all day. Also most of the week, except a couple of evenings I've been down the street to the

bar and the store, for most of which time my alibi is you. I've got no witnesses for this afternoon, but people see me all

the time when I'm outside and at most mealtimes. I haven't touched any of the cars and I haven't committed any other

crimes except kicking slot machines and being rude to robots. Now who killed whom?"

"Have you see the girl you picked up in the Lamoine last week?"

"No."

"Did you see her at any other time than the one you gave her the ride?"

"No."

"Have you been in communication with any Anacaon?"

"No."

"Right," he said, reaching under his lapel to switch off his concealed recorder. "You're probably clean. You

can stop being a suspect and join the good guysjust as soon as Charlot is convinced." He stepped back, and one of

his cronies opened the door. Denton went out, and I followed him. The other two didn't join us.

"Are they going to search my room?' I asked incredulously.

"That's right."

"Hell's bloody wheels. What have I done to deserve all this attention?"

"Played the boy scout when you shouldn't have. You've put yourself on the spot. That girl has disappeared.

People think you might have something to do with it, as you haven't been much in evidence lately."

So much for the quiet life.

Charlot was blazing mad, but not much of it was directed at me. He, at least, thought I was clean. It's nice to

know that someone has faith in you. Denton, it seemed, was just eliminating me for the record.

"How did she do it?" asked Charlot, more of Denton than of me. "How did she get on board a ship at the

port? How can two aliens smuggle themselves offNew Alexandria?"

"Where did they go?" I asked.

"I don't know," he snapped. "We haven't even found out where they wentfrom yet."

"Who was the other one?" T asked.

"One of the women on the project. Not an important part of it. She didn't work with us. She was concerned

with administrative liaison. If I find out that you hadanything to do with this, Grainger, I'll break you."

"You know I didn't," I told him.

He nodded. He was just letting off a little steam. Even Titus Charlot got steamed up. Sometimes.

But for what? I wondered.

"Pardon me," I said, "but what's the big flap all about? These Anacaona are free agents, aren't they? There's

nothing to stop them leaving New Alexandria, is there?"

My suspicious mind began to awake at last.

"This is kidnap," put in Denton. "The woman wasn'tthe girl's mother. She had no right to take her away. And

wherever they are they've gone in secret."

"Even so," I said, "are we just concerned about the inconvenience, or what? Why is there such a panic on?"

"I've got years of work tied up in that girl," said Charlot. "It'll set the project back half a lifetime." He was

talking half to himself, half to me.

"Oh great," I said. "She was just a little girl, was she? Tyler and Lanning only wanted to take her home before

it got late, huh? You bastard. What in hell are youdoing out at that colony?"

"Don't be a fool," he said. "The girl is important because I've been conducting a careful and unobtrusive

study of her development since the day she was born. A lot of the effort of the colony is going into making the study

as complete and as unobtrusive as possible. You know full well that to achieve the kind of synthesis I'm trying to form

I need more than knowledge. I needempathy. The Anacaona are very difficult people to understand. We encounter

difficulties in translation. The programming of the whole project is threatened if we can't find the core of an

understanding. I was looking to that girl to provide me with that core. We haven't interfered with her in any way at all.

The whole point of the study would have been defeated if we had. We need that girl."

It didn't sound too convincing to me. I had the feeling that I wasn't getting the whole truth.

"It's still kidnap," said Denton, trying to help out— feeling, no doubt, that we'd been sidetracked into

irrelevancy.

"The Laws of New Rome allow anybody to leave any world for any reason they choose," I said.

"Not with somebody else's child they don't," he said.

"You want to go after her," I said, suddenly realizing why I'd been roped into the heart of the operation.

"You're just hanging about until you find out which ship she left on and where she's bound."

"We have a good idea already where she's bound,"said Charlot, "but it would be best to stop her before she

gets there, if possible."

"Why?" I asked. "Wherever she lands, she’ll still be a criminal, if you can prove kidnap."

"Not on Chao Phrya," said Charlot "The authorities there are uncooperative."

"Notagain," I complained, despairingly. "Not another LWA world?"

"Not quite," he said. "Not from our point of view. From theirs. The situation on Chao Phrya is difficult and

complicated. It won't be easy dealing with them."

"And you want me to help."

"I may need more than help," he said. "If the woman and Alyne—that's the child—reach Chao Phrya, you

might have to go down and fetch her on your own. I don't think they'll let me land."

"Why?" I asked, fascinated. "What did you do?"

"A diplomatic failure," he said obliquely. "That's not important at all. What is—"

He was interrupted by the bleeping of his desk phone. He paused to answer it. He listened intently for several

moments—the call-circuit was tight-beamed so I couldn't hear what was coming out of the speaker. I watched Charlot's

face turn grim, and I could imagine his teeth grinding. Something was upsetting him, and I could see that someone was

going to suffer for it. I got the crazy notion that the bogeys might have found something in my room, but I quashed it.

Who would want to frame me?

Eventually, he switched off the circuit, and he looked up at us again. He waited a moment or two, stony-faced,

and then he spoke.

"You were right," he said to Denton. "They had inside help. Tyler's missing too.Tyler, the damn fool. I’ll make

damn sure he never gets to spend it, wherever he is."

"He'll head for Penaflor," I suggested helpfully. "They don't like New Alexandrians on Penaflor."

Charlot ignored me. He didn't change his expression, nor did he inject anything into his voice, but I'd never

before seen him radiate such powerful emotion."Wherever he is," he repeated.

He turned to Denton. "Find him," he said. And then, to me: "TheHooded Swan lifts in two hours. Get ready.

Socoro's on board. The captain and I will join you as soon as possible."

"Nick's on Earth," I said.

"I know that," he said testily. "Miss Lapthorn will be acting captain. You didn't think you'd get the job, did

you?" The nastiness in his voice was quite unimportant and unnecessary. The news was enough to curlme up.

Denton left with me.

"How come you get in on all the big secrets?" I asked him. "Are you really the chief of police masquerading

as a hireling?"

"No," he said. "I'm Charlot's bodyguard."

"Bloody hell," I said. "I didn't even know he had a bodyguard. Does he need one?"

"Not much," said Denton. "At least, he doesn't think so. But while he's on planet he has to be looked after.

Same applies to all the other top library personnel. New Alexandria values its people very highly."

"But you only guard him when he's here?"

"I'm a cop," he said, "not a private bodyguard."

"Strikes me," I said, "that he's an awful lot more vulnerable offworld than on."

Denton shrugged. "We can only do so much. He doesn't like his body being guarded. In a way, it's a bum job,

because he won't let me close enough to be effective, but if somebody bumps him off while I'm standing around on the

wrong corner, I carry the can."

"Great," I said. So that was why he spent so much of his time helping walls to stand up straight.

Then another thought struck me. "Say," I said. "Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that there was

something going on at that colony. Something against the Law of New Rome? Where are you then?"

"You're imagining things," he said.

"You mean that Charlot is above the law?"

"That's not what I mean at all."

"Now there," I said, "is what I call hypocrisy. Do you mean to say that if I gave you evidence that Charlot

was breaking the law, you'd act?"

"Show me the evidence," he stalled.

"I might just be able to do that," I said. "There's something about this kidnap business that smells. It makes

no sense."

"Yeah?" said Denton, not sounding too convinced, or even interested. "Well, I tell you what, I'll buy you a

drink the night you get back from Chao Phrya, with or without the girl. And you can tell me what happened. And then

we'll see who gets to say 'I told you so.' Okay?"

"You reckon that Charlot's told us the story straight?"

"That's what I reckon."

"Okay," I said. "It's a deal." I chalked up the date in my mental agenda. I don't often get a chance to say "I

told you so" to a cop.

All cops with purposeful strides are optimists.

If I were asked to prepare a list of lady captains I have known and loved, the list would not be very long. In

fact, I would be hard pressed to come up with any candidates at all. This does not mean that any fair-minded man (or

woman) would automatically name me as male-chauvinist-pig-of-the-year. I am myself a fair-minded man, and I assess

captains on their ability to captain. Personally, I am a good captain. Eve Lapthorn as a captain was a joke. A poor joke.

If he hadn't been angry, I think Titus Charlot would have enjoyed the jump from New Alexandria to Chao

Phrya. As it was, nobody was happy in the control room, and Johnny was only happy because he wasn't in the control

room. I have rarely seen anyone look quite so uncomfortable as Eve did as she passed out routine orders for the lift.

To make the best of the situation for both of us she should have gripped it hard in both hands and maintained a

poker-face, but she wasn't up to it. She let her uneasiness and her reluctance show. It helped me to stay irritated. Eve

always had a tendency to get on my nerves by virtue of her having been related to the late and much-lamented

Lapthorn who had been my friend and partner whenI had been a captain.

Failing the stone-faced approach, I reckoned that the best thing she could do was to turn down the job. She

wasn't tied to Charlot by a slave-chain, and she sure as hell didn't need the money. But I think she regarded it as some

kind of challenge, issued not only by Charlot but also by me. Personally, I don't think people should accept challenges

which they aren't up to answering, but other people just don't have my keen sense of probability and responsibility in

these matters.

The atmosphere aboard theHooded Swan was, as usual, very strained. Perhaps even more so than usual.

In all honesty, I can't say that I remember theHooded Swan as ever having been a happy ship. I enjoyed

flying her. I loved sitting inside the hood. But you can never quite forget what's going onbehind the control cradle

when trouble is just as likely to start there as outside. Every time I grooved her, no matter when or where, I always had

to come back to that same air of simmering mistrust and hostility. It didn't even matter whether or not Charlot was there

in person. He wasalways there in spirit.

While I was lifting theSwan from Corinth port, I was thinking seriously that the best trip I'd ever taken in the bird was

the lunatic drive back through the Halcyon Drift after plundering (or failing to plunder) theLost Star. It had been

deadly dangerous and extremely painful, but at least it had been the bird and the wind and myself united against the

forces of nature, instead of the wind and myself separately suspended in a sea of negative feeling, which was what I

would inevitably find when I had set her in a groove for Chao Phrya. I inspected the charts with all my usual care and

precision, and plotted a perfect minimum groove. I almost wished that I had a couple of clouds to nurse her through or

a close passage where she might get sucked out of the groove or fluttered within it. But there was nothing but nothing

in between New Alexandria and Chao Phrya. There was a lot of it, because Chao Phrya was a long way from the core,

but we didn't have to go anywhere near the galactic heart or the frayed fringes of starspace. It was all very nice and

safe and boring.

Eve had a cup of coffee ready for me when I peeled off the hood and left the Swan to make her own way at a

furious, but quite safe, fifty thou. Charlot wanted all possible speed, but at fifty thou we could outrun anything in the

galaxy and still have hours in hand when we got to Chao Phrya, thirty hours' start or no thirty hours' start. I thanked

her kindly, and didn't make any sarcastic remarks about captains doubling as tea-girls.

"What's the ETA?" demanded Titus. "Nineteen hours and a bit, I guess," I told him. "I can give you the

nearest half-second if you like."

"What about theWhite Fire?" asked Johnny, his voice emanating from the open speaker over the cradle. The

White Fire was the ship on which the woman and the girl were travelling.

"She can't possibly reach the system until four hours after we make the drop," I said. "No trouble at all."

Charlot laughed humorlessly.

"You're expecting trouble?" I asked him.

"Perhaps," he said.

"Don't you think you'd better tell us about it?" said Eve, trying to sound as if she was in charge.

"Chao Phrya is a difficult world to deal with."

"So you've said," I said drily, remembering that he waspersona non grata there.

"Why?" asked Eve.

"TheZodiac families are unfriendly," he said. "Go on," I said, as he paused. "Tell her the rest. Tell her Chao

Phrya is LWA."

"Chao Phrya isnot covered by the principle of Let Well Alone," said Charlot acidly. "The Law of New Rome

applies on the surface. It's simply that the people who colonized the world don't like outworlders coming in. They

permit no further immigration. Except for half a dozen representatives of New Rome they won't even allow embassies

from other worlds. They won't trade, they won't even communicate unless they're forced to."

"Nobody's forced to communicate," I put in.

"Be quiet," said Eve. "Let's hear this." She was gaining confidence, but she obviously lacked enthusiasm. But

I did as I was told.

"The law requires that the spaceport carry out certain duties with respect to ships in orbit," said Charlot. "There are

certain circumstances under which they cannot refuse permission to land. As time does not permit us to get the full

force of the law behind us before theWhite Fire gets into the system, there may be trouble here. But the restriction

should apply equally to both ships. We should both be in orbit when the legal apparatus does manage to get the

appropriate messages through to Chao Phrya."

"Optimist," I commented.

Nobody took any notice.

"The reason that the people of Chao Phrya adopt these awkward conventions with respect to outworlders is

because they are neurotic isolationists," said Charlot. "Not one of them has ever left the planet. They have no ships of

their own except theZodiac, and that's a shrine now, not a ship. They built the port solely to control all communication

with the outworlds."

"How can theyall be neurotic?" asked Eve.

"Simple," I said, jumping in to steal Charlot's big line. "TheZodiac was a generation ship."

Eve didn't understand. Johnny didn't say a word, but I knew he was still listening, and that he didn't

understand either.

"Promised Land," I said, my voice reflecting my distaste.

"What?"

"Before Spallanzani invented the phase-shift, and long before mass-relaxation, they had spaceships powered

by something they called the thrust-cycle process," I told her. "You probably know them under the name 'tumblers'—if

they teach you any sort of theory at school these days you'll know why. There was space travel before this new and

enlightened age of high velocities, you know."

"Subcee drive," she said. "But..."

Charlot took over the explanation again. He was better at it anyway. "It took theZodiac four hundred and

eighty years to travel from Earth to Chao Phrya. They couldn't travel at anythinglike light-speed. Chao Phrya was in

the fifth system which they searched for habitable worlds. They turned down two worlds where they could have

survived, because they weren't looking for survival. They were looking for a garden of Eden. A paradise planet. A

Promised Land. During all the time that the people lived on that ship—nineteen generations—they supported

themselves with promises. They weren't living for themselves at all, but for their descendants. The only purpose in

their lives was to give their children a perfect world. That purpose had to be strong. Living aboard a generation ship is

not a good life. Eventually, they found that world, and their children inherited it. But the children also inherited the

sense of purpose. Inevitably, their attitude to Chao Phrya was the same as their ancestors'. It was the Promised Land.

Sacred Soil. Marked down to them and to no others; all they were entitled to want and need for all eternity. It's a

common syndrome. It wears off, but not for several generations. In a way, the children of theZodiac were immensely

fortunate in that the world they finally found was still undiscovered. It was well within the rim. But civilization had

gone toward the heart, ignoring a lot of worlds en route. Chao Phrya was discovered by the galactic civilization only

forty years ago—less than a century after theZodiac had landed.

"Perhaps you can imagine the reactions of the children of theZodiac. They had a tradition of twenty-two

generations of sacrifice. Now here were these people flitting about the stars with virtually no effort at all, calmly

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BrianStablefordPromisedLand1NewAlexandriaisnottheidealworldforanunculturedslobtobestrandedon.It'snotsomuchthatitspopulationconsistsalmostentirelyofbespectacledbibliophileswhoaredeeplyintothephilosophyofcivilizationandtemperance,butratherthefactthatthoseinhabitantswhodonotfitintothiscategoryfeelsomeh...

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Brian Stableford - Hooded Swan 3 - Promised Land

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