VIII: SIXDAY MORNING
Several rodents crossed the gravel street. I said, "These toothies are a problem, aren't they?"
Rasmussen wore a mottled green and brown sack and stockings gartered above his knees. An eyeshade projected from his forehead. "Not so many as once," he panted. "Sometimes gnawed down houses."
Rasmussen carried a firearm on a strap over his shoulder. I carried the hisser, the robotic, and a pack containing many items often useless but sometimes essential. Joe's Sun glinted into our eyes through cracks in the wall ahead and sparkled on puddles of rainwater.
"Betty Toal lives here," Rasmussen said. He struck his stick against a door in a long, log structure with identical doors spaced at ten-meter intervals. He tried the handle and said, "Not home. Probably has gone to her garden."
We walked on down the street. I said, "An air hunt will be best. It's a good way with large animals."
Rasmussen said, "Saw the wrecked jetcopter at the field? The shuttle would be a poor way to hunt."
"No aircraft on the whole planet? Well, then, a car."
Rasmussen pointed to a man passing on a muscle-powered vehicle. "Have tricycles, but am too old to pedal. Ride a tractor to likely places. Then will be afoot. Mine are flat."
"On foot!"
An uncanny contrivance, such as I had never imagined possible, waited near a wide gate. It had twelve wheels, four small ones in front and in back, and four large, lugged ones in the center. A confusion of rods and bars connected the lugged wheels to double cylinders on either side. Smoke puffed from a pipe atop the round body of the vehicle.
A tired, worried, red-haired man stood on a rear platform and adjusted levers. Although he contrasted completely with the standard Maggiese, he seemed familiar, I then realized that here was a man resembling me.
A woman, dressed in a costume like Rasmussen's, sat in one of the front seats. The old hunter sighed and said, "Fine weather, Betty Toal."
Toal smiled and said, "Low, Rasmussen. Low, Kinlock."
"Why break Ordinances," Rasmussen cried, "until must be deported? Ypsilanti is a fine man. Must go to this extreme? Reconsider the marriage. Let me try to use any influence may have, to re-instate you."
"No, I'm leaving," Toal said.
"Are you all right, Toal?" I asked. "I apologize for causing you trouble. If there—"
"No, no, Kinlock. It was deliberate on my part."
Rasmussen said, "Must not change your Maggiese accent. Even if you go, must remember our ways."
"People out there don't speak Maggiese, and I'm going to stop it. I've been practicing for a year."
Rasmussen said, "At least, Betty, do not make this hunt. Shot pigs, but this is the Hog. Must stay."
"I'm going with you."
"Ordinance 36 forbids male aliens and Maggiese females to ride in the same tractor."
"I no longer obey Ordinances."
Rasmussen puffed out his cheeks and expelled air in an irritated hiss. He glowered at Toal and me and said, "Cannot insure the safety of either. Climb aboard, then, Alien Kinlock."
Toal moved over in the back seat. I heaved my weapons and pack to the platform. Rasmussen took the front seat. I followed him up the short ladder and sat beside Toal. Her elbows were nude, but leather stockings concealed her knees and ankles.
"This is a tractor?" I said. "What is it?"
"Steam engine," Toal answered. "Burns crude oil. Water is carried in this tank around the boiler. The steam pushes the pistons, and the rods turn the wheels."
I shook my head in amazement and wondered why no one had invented a steam engine before.
The red-headed man, who wore a Farmer brooch, walked alongside. "Dominant, the tractor has full steam," he said. "Fire is on automatic."
Rasmussen sneered at the Farmer. "Hope, Yuko, no more failures occur. Your work has been poor."
Yuko touched his forehead with extended fingers and stepped back. Rasmussen pulled a lever and gripped the steering wheel. With a slow chugging noise, the tractor crept forward and, at a rapidly increasing speed, moved through the gate and a gap in the outer defenses.
"Rather noisy!" I yelled.
"Yes!" Toal screeched. "The Hog will hear us miles away!"
"What are miles?"
"A mile is 5,280 feet!"
"I see!"
Trailing a plume of steam, the tractor puffed somewhat majestically along a dirt road. Toal began a question and answer game, conducted in shouts, about things and affairs in the Explored Galaxy. She asked about tridie, the ultrabrain, astraplanes, and Galactic Government. She asked for more information about marriage customs and about the reasons for women's fashions always concealing elbows, knees, and ankles while often providing scant cover elsewhere. Some of her questions were difficult to answer.
The tractor now rumbled through a woodland, rank with gnarled trees crowned by gray-green leaves, and abruptly rolled into open ground with a small, walled village in the center. Rasmussen stopped the tractor. The torsos of several men appeared over the top of the wall. They looked odd, for a moment, since two were bony, and one had black hair.
Rasmussen yelled, "Have you seen the Hog?"
A skinny man said, "Fine weather, Dominant. Heard him at 25:30 toward the swamp."
Rasmussen steered the tractor along a road that circled the wall. Nausea from the vehicle's motion crept over me. The ride was especially disconcerting, since the four leading wheels pivoted under the seats and gave an illusion that the tractor was leaving the road on curves.
"What is that place?" I shouted. "I thought Joetropolis was the only town!"
"Young Farmer School!" Toal yelled.
"What's it for?"
"Young Farmers come here for training when they're five! At twenty-two, they're sterilized and go back to Joetropolis!"
I shuddered. "This perfect democracy is a bit harsh!"
"The people vote for Ordinances!"
"Farmers don't vote!"
"No, but their parents do! Suppose it is horrible!" Toal admitted.
Rasmussen turned to us, leaving the tractor to find its own way along the twisting road. He said, "No need to discuss customs with the alien!"
"Watch it!" I yelled.
Rasmussen rotated and steered the tractor away from a jumble of boulders. I perspired against the wind of our motion. Toal said, "Children can choose to be deported! Their parents advise them! The parents can be sterilized and stay here, or they can become aliens and be deported with the child! Must not have other children if one is suspected of being a Farmer! Must wait five years!"
Rasmussen brought the quaking machine to a halt on the crest of the highest hill yet encountered. The cultivated fields were behind us. Here, stumps covered the slopes, but young trees had been planted in rows to replace the vanished forest. Silence rang in my ears. Then I heard calls and whistles from unknown wildlife.
Stiffly, the fat hunter descended to the dirt track. Pulling my sunhat down and lowering the screen against the increasing heat and glare, I followed. I wore my lightest oversuit, but it seemed as heavy as frigid zone garb. The only blessing of the environment was that no insects or related pests were in evidence.
Rasmussen walked to a patch of plants with round, purple-veined leaves and yellow stems. He pointed with his carved stick and began a lecture. "On the western skyline, the sea. There, the cliffs. That silver thread, inland about three miles, the waterfall into the Baby Maggie River. Three hundred yards wide, full of rocks and currents. Misty cloud in the east is the Joe Junior Swamp, where the cliffs end. Swamp extends along the coast ten miles." He extended both arms and proclaimed, "Joe Nordo chose this protected peninsula to settle. Ocean full of reefs, flesh-eating fish, reptiles, currents."
I asked, "Then how did the hogs come in?"
"That gap in the cliffs. Caused by an earthquake ten years ago. Three years ago, His Perfectness suggested the landslide be used to bring timber. Pontoon bridge was floated across the river. Farmers began leveling the landslide to make a road. One night, the hogs came down the path. Sank many pontoons in crossing. Ate two Minimums and one Dominant who were stationed there."
Moving back to the tractor, Rasmussen said, "Walled the gap and removed the bridge. Hogs ravaged the land. These three years have been the worst, since the grizzly apes—" He heaved himself into the seat. "Must move on. Cannot hunt all day and camp here."
I climbed up beside Toal. "What about apes?" I said, but the old man started the tractor, and the noise smothered my question.
Rasmussen steered downhill, and, at the bottom of the slope, pulled a lever to its limit. The puffing of the machine became a throbbing blast as speed increased. "What are grizzly apes?" I shouted at Toal.
"The apes were all killed in Joe Nordo's time!" Toal screamed. "Threw rocks and hit people with clubs!"
"GG doesn't like that!" I said. "You can't exterminate an intelligent species! You're supposed to negotiate with them!" I put my hand on Rasmussen's shoulder and bellowed, "Please slow it down!"
The old man awarded me a deadly glance. The steam engine's wild panting subsided, and the tractor crept along the road, which had dwindled to tracks sometimes covered by red-tinged grass.
I said, "I hear that Joe Nordo wiped out some intelligent apes."
Rasmussen said, "Betty Toal, no reason to teach this alien history. Killing the apes was necessary. A menace."
"So's the Hog," I said, "but I don't fully believe the Jury's claim that he has no intelligence. He's been clever enough to avoid being killed for three years."
Rasmussen braked the tractor so quickly that I fell across the front seat. He growled, "Hogs killed my first wife and two sons. Killed nearly all my old friends. Am the oldest man left on the planet."
Toal said, "Killed my parents. Everyone in Joetropolis lost friends or relatives to the hogs." Tears welled from her blue eyes and slid down her brown cheeks. "More horrible," she sniffed, "that most were eaten. Why should you care for the Hog, Kinlock? Hunting is your business. Get a large fee for destroying him."
"Shall return?" Rasmussen snarled.
Toal produced a square of white cloth, wiped her eyes, and then blew her nose. "No," I sighed wearily. "Show me the Hog—any range up to two thousand meters—and I'll kill him."