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Roy Glashan's Library
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Astounding Science Fiction, Apr 1946, with "Swamper"
The peasant type clings to old ways in the face of any new advance—and, in time, there will be the dull, unchanging peasant type even on other worlds. Like the Swamper...
THE swamp ahead of him was thinning out. Johnson could feel the churning treads of his mud-skeeter bite spasmodically at chunks of solid bottom as he gunned the wallowing machine through the thick green ooze. The worry that had been gnawing, wormlike, at his mind these last seventy periods squirmed up in full strength as he noticed how much even this part of diked swamp had lost water level. His eyes flickered over the exposed shoots of good swamp herbs, drying and rotting for lack of water, The dank musty smell of those fine herbs going to waste made the back of his throat ache.
As the last thinning edges of the swamp slid by, he felt the treads catch firm ground, and the nose of the skeeter began to lift pushing its blundering way through the drooping vegetation. He didn't say anything to Martha or the two kids as the skeeter clanked higher onto dry
ground and the treads began to chew the mangled trailing vines from their metallic teeth. Ahead of them was the last dike that separated Deep Swamp from the outpost town of Dry Point. He wondered what Donavan would say when he saw the pelts and the herbs he had brought in to trade for provisions. He knew the vitamin herbs weren't good. And he knew the swamp-mink pelts were worse. There wasn't even a third of the pelts that had a good rich deep green fur. But a man had to do the best he could what with the water going down and down.
The skeeter was bouncing and banging heavily now on the hard dry ground and he waited for the first ray of sunlight to dart, lancelike, down through the interlacing branches overhead, down into the swamp with its comfortable mist-shrouded semidarkness. The sun had always given him an uneasy feeling. The sun was so bright and clear and hot. If only prices would be right and Mac Donavan would stake him for some fresh provisions.
Without warning, blinding and stinging, light burst into the open cockpit of the mud-skeeter as swamp edge fell behind. Joe Johnson blinked his eyes against the rising clouds of hot dry dust. He heard little Mary Anne give a frightened cry as she jumped to cling to her mother. Mary Anne was only three. She had never seen the sun direct before. Martha told her not to look up into the big light overhead and yanked Little Joe back into the. skeeter. Little Joe had been to town before and he wanted to jump out and play in the dust.
Johnson squinted his eyes against the glare of the sun. It hurt his eyes and made his skin feel dry. The circle of fog-dissipators surrounding sun-baked Dry Point had always seemed like magic to him and more so now because it had been over three hundred and twenty sleeping periods since last he had come to town for supplies.
The machine grunted its way slowly up the rise of the long dike that stretched away kilometer after kilometer to either side of him, and he saw the familiar sun-bleached sign:
DRY POINT Pop. 421.
He gunned the engines and the nose of the skeeter dipped over, and down into the one narrow street lined with the small one-story buildings that looked parched and thirsty with their cracked paint puffed up into dried and broken blisters. The clanking treads were beginning to make hollow plopping noises in the deep dry dust. It had been a long trip. Now that the trip was almost over he felt that gnawing worry bite at his heart again. He tried to tell himself that maybe things would go all right after all and maybe Donavan might know why his swamp was losing so much water level. If he got drained out another four meters—the Swampanese and the mink and the herbs would die like tadpoles in a puddle. But
his people never had been people to borrow money, and he didn't have any security to offer anyhow—except the swamp farm. His dad's ghost would float up from his grave if he knew credits were ever borrowed on the farm. But if the takings didn't bring in enough he'd have to think of something. Martha was needing things and kids had to have medicine every once in a while.
It was the silence he noticed first. And then the emptiness. And then the boarded up windows. As the skeeter rumbled down the street, despite the heat, Johnson felt a slow chill settle down his back. The street was deserted. There were no swampers sitting under the tattered green sidewalk awnings, drinking and gambling and gossiping. No mud-skeeters snorted and clanked up and down the dusty street. Dry Point looked like it was dead. Like a ghost town.
He felt Martha's anxious eyes searching his face. "What's wrong, Joe?" she asked in her low quiet voice as she tried to keep Little Joe from excitedly jumping out of the skeeter.
"Don't know," he said. "I don't know yet. Gonna see Mac. He oughta know something." He squinted against the blinding clouds of dust and finally made out the Trading Post sign swinging slowly in the faint breeze. He wished he could think of something else to say to Martha but he couldn't think what it could be. Martha had been looking forward to this trip. Martha didn't get into town very often to look at all the pretty city-made things. He knew it got lonesome for Martha out in the swamp with no one for her to talk and gossip with. He had figured this trip would do her good. She could sit under the awnings with the other swamp women who had come to town to visit and gossip while their men did the trading. Women liked those things. Even Martha. And now something was wrong. Maybe they had stayed out in Deep Swamp too long.
He swung the skeeter up under the sign, pulled back on the brake handles and locked them as he switched off the engines. He put on his shapeless hat and loose-limbed, climbed down to begin examining the worn treads with care. The treads were still wet from the long trip through the dripping swamp and with thick, work-hardened fingers, Joe Johnson took his time scraping away the hot mud and the caked Dry Point dust. He wasn't a man to waste motion. His tall lanky body had poled too many weary kilometers through the misty depths of his swamp farm in his wooden floater, bartering with the Swampanese natives for deep-bottom herbs, and then tending his own swamp-mink traps, to not know how to save waste motion. Equipment was expensive this far west on Venus. A man had to take proper care of what he owned.
He straightened up, wiping his hands on his patched green jumpers, and noticed that even the Swamp End Hotel, right across the street, was closed. Boarded
up tight as a sprung mink trap. He couldn't put things off any longer. He had to do it. He dreaded going in to ask Mac what he had to ask him.
"Martha?" Joe looked up at her. Martha had a pin in her mouth. She was tying a bright blue ribbon in Mary Anne's blond hair. "You comin', Martha?"
It was nice married to Martha. Her eyes were—you never could quite catch them. Her eyes were mostly silent and quiet and away as if she was thinking about something nice all the time. Martha only looked at you direct when she had something to say—and then her eyes were warm, rich and brown, expressing the seldom used words in a steady sort of way. Martha never complained. Except to tell him not to work so hard. She never bothered a man when he didn't need bothering. She only talked plenty when she was answering Little Joe and Mary Anne with their endless childish questions—and that gave him plenty of time for thinking. He had been doing plenty of thinking lately.
"You go ahead, Joe," she said gently. "You've always been a good man. Everybody in swamp knows that. If something's wrong, I guess they know you'll figure a way how to fix it."
The dust made Joe's eyes smart. "Guess I'll take the herbs and pelts into Mac now."
He moved around to the forward locker where the tightly packed bundle of pelts and the box of dried herbs were stored. He could hear
Martha giving Little Joe instructions. "Stay with your dad. Don't bother him with questions. Keep ahold of Mary Anne's hand. You can let her play in the dust if she wants to, but don't let her put anything into her mouth. When you get hungry come back. I've got some fixings I made this waking." Then louder, he heard her call: "Joe—I put two jars of that swamp-root tea I made for Mrs. Donavan in with the pelts. Give them to Mr. Donavan and tell him it will be good for his wife's damp pains—and ask how his dad is feeling now."
The kids climbed down. Joe watched them. Little Joe was almost nine and getting rangy. He was bubbling with excitement, but he didn't forget to be big brother enough to help Mary Anne down from the skeeter and hold tightly to her pudgy fingers. Little Joe had Martha's dark brown eyes, but Mary Anne got her eyes from him. Deep, deep green—green as swamp water. And Johnson could see her eyes were bigger than usual. This was her first trip to town. He watched them scamper around behind him and felt them cling to his long legs. He looked up at Martha.
Joe's throat was tight. "I sorta thought you might want to go in and look at the pretty things, Martha. Maybe you need something."
"No," her voice was soft, "you go ahead, Joe. I'll just sit in the sun awhile." She smiled one of her little smiles at him. A smile just like the shy smile she had had for him on the period he had paddled all the way over to her dad's small swamp farm on their marrying day. "You go ahead, Joe."
"Maybe I'll get the kids something—if prices are right." He knew the prices couldn't be right. Not with these pelts he was bringing in. The herbs wouldn't bring much. And he had to get provisions and petrol and medicine and a lot of things.
Expertly, he swung the heavy bundle to his shoulder and with the kids whooping at his heels he stalked into the post.
The semidarkness was cool and refreshing. The six long counters were packed and jammed, overflowing with a disordered jumble of city-made things. Blanketing everything was the dry yellow dust that whirled constantly through the open doorway.
The strange smells and the bright colors made Little Joe quiet down in fascinated awe. Mary Anne's wide green eyes hardly ever blinked so intense was her wonder.
"Don't touch nothing," he said, and the words were a pain, as Mac Donavan waddled toward them, his fat red face grinning despite the drops of perspiration that dripped from his chins, soaking his blue workshirt. He was as bald as a turtle egg.
"Joe—you old mud-eater!" His soft seeming hand closed with surprising strength on Johnson's calloused fingers. "Glad to see you. I was getting sorta worried about you staying out in Deep Swamp so long, out of touch with everything. How's Martha? Got any more kids?" He looked down at Mary Anne, who was half hiding behind and half clinging to Little Joe's square-set legs. "Well, well—where did you come from, Green Eyes? Never saw you before. Here—" He pulled out two pieces of candy and squatting laboriously, he held them out.
Little Joe put an arm around Mary Anne. They both backed up a step. Little Joe's mouth worked as if he were swallowing liters of saliva. But he didn't put out his hand. He stood there holding Mary Anne, whose big green eyes stared at the candy in childish innocence. She didn't know what candy was.
Johnson felt a guilty hurt sweep through him. It was rough some of the time, teaching your kids to" stand on their own hind legs and to not take nothing that hadn't been worked for. But it warmed him to see Little Joe stand and take it.
Mac grunted himself to his feet. He placed the candy on a low counter. "Tell them they can have it, Joe, or your boy is going to drown in his own spit."
"He can buy his own candy after you grade the pelts," said Johnson roughly. "He's got about a dozen of his own in here from his own traps." He walked into the weighing room and swung the bundle down by the scales. He whipped out a sharp skinning knife and cut the thongs. "Got some swamp-root tea for your Missus. Martha made it. How's your old man?"
Mac looked away from Johnson a moment before he bent his head and began to sort the pelts into three piles—good, average and not-so-good. "Dad went Earth," he said without raising his head. "He couldn't stand to see the swamps going. 'Bout broke his heart."
Johnson stood still. There wasn't a sound except for Mac's heavy breathing. He forced the question slowly, "The swamps going—?"
Mac Donavan raised his head. The soft smile was gone. His lips tightened over his teeth, but his eyes seemed as dead as wet ashes. "I sort of had a hunch, Joe, that you didn't know what's been going on around here. I told you last time you should of bought new tubes to repair your Video. A man can't afford to stay out in swamp as long as you do and not keep in touch with things. Maybe since your family is the oldest swampers in these parts you could of done something with them. They might have listened to you, Joe. But now it's too late." He pulled out a wet handkerchief, wiped his fat face and blew his nose.
"The swamp—?"
"Finished!" Mac waved his hand. "They all sold out. What swampers ain't left yet, are fixing to leave right soon. Some city fellow from Earth came in and bought them all out. He's draining the swamps he already bought with some sort of a water-vaporizing contraption. That's where all the water is going. And when all the water is gone he's going to bring in city workers with machines and harvest the herbs by the ton. And they don't need wild swamp-mink fur any more. Some smart-Aleck started breeding and raising them under scientific care and gets better pelts than you got here."
"But why did the swampers sell out? Where will they go? People can't just up and leave the swamp they was born and raised on. Why they'll—"
"Don't know, Joe, except he started feeding them guff about what a hard life swamp life is and how nice it is in the city. He started selling bright stuff to the women at prices he said they could get in the city and telling them about sending their kids to city schools. Anyhow, he did it. Your farm is the only farm he ain't got. But he'll get it. When he drains all the others you'll be hurting for water level. How's it been going out your way?"
"We get along," said Johnson slowly.
"Been drained out any?"
"A little."
"How much?"
"About two meters."
Mac whistled, and looked down at the pelts. Mechanically, he began to sort them again. "You and Martha can't go on that way. Joe."
"Maybe so—maybe not. But I been diking all around my place now for seventy periods. Ever since I started hurting for level. Holding pretty good too." Absently, he stared at the three piles
of pelts. The not-so-good was the biggest.
"These ain't so good, Joe."
"I know." He felt his jaw clench. "I ain't going to sell."
Mac's fat fist slammed the counter. "What's going to happen, Joe ?" How's all this going to end ? You can't go on like this. If all you swampers had held out together, then it might be different. But even if he had been able to buy a few swamps and started dissipating the water it would ruin those that tried to hold out. That water would settle. In another four hundred periods the swamps will be dry and he'll be scooping in all those vitamin herbs by the ton. The swamp minks will die off. All the places here in Dry Point are either closed or they're closing down. This town is finished—dying!"
"I ain't going to sell my swamp."
Mac's voice became louder. "Joe, listen to me. For Martha's sake. And the kids. Why don't you take the credits before he ruins you? I can't pay you much for these pelts. They can't compete any more with those commercially bred furs.—and these here herbs won't buy you provisions for a hundred periods."
Like a retreating wave, Mac's outburst subsided. He wiped his face with his soggy handkerchief. "I'm sorry, Joe." He swallowed. "Things are different from your dad's time and my old man's. Me and the Missus are going to have to leave, too. That city fellow said those scientific workers that'll come, will laugh at me if I tried to sell them any of the junk I sell you swampers." He looked around his store. "I always thought the stuff I sell was pretty good. But maybe those workers would think it was just junk like he called it. So now I got to figure how to get rid of this stuff somehow." He busied himself weighing the pelts. "Maybe I'll go Earth. Always did want to see that place and some big buildings just like on the Video. Don't know what me and the Missus will do in one of those places though."
Johnson hitched the belt of his jumpers tighter. "What about the Swampanese? What's going to happen to them? Take away their swamp water and they'll die."
I asked him about that. He said he didn't think Swampanese were people. Called them underwater monstrosities."
"WHAT?" The word was loud and sharp. Johnson was startled to realize that it had been himself who blurted it. "Underwater monstrosities he calls them? And he don't think they are people? What does he know about the Swampanese? Those people been here in their swamp waters lone; before the first Earth man ever set ship to this planet. My granddad was the first man to ever work out a system of slap-talk with them." Joe's voice had risen to a roar. He-realized he was clenching the edge of the counter with a grip that made his fingers hurt. "What's he going to do with them? Let them drown in the air? That's murder!
He can't murder a whole race of people!"
"But, Joe—those city people don't look at it like we do. They don't know the swamps. He said that it they had a recognizable culture that maybe he and the courts could do .something for them. He said he didn't see how people could read and write and all that stuff and live under the water." Mac's voice became grim. "But he did say he planned to take some of them and ship them to Earth where he would put them on display in an aquarium or something like that."
"Display—" Johnson could feel his teeth grinding. "If he takes those people away from the swamps they always lived in, they'd go crazy. They'd die. They'd die like tadpoles." Joe Johnson slammed his two gnarled fists together and began walking up and down the aisle.
"'Why couldn't we all chip in and buy them a section of swamp of their own ? Make sort of a reservation. I could dike it up good for them and watch the water level?"
"You got any credits, Joe?"
"No, but—"
"Neither has anyone else that would see it your way. Anyhow, if you tried to borrow money to buy a reservation—"
"I'll give them my own swamp."
"Ain't big enough for all those Swampanese. Joe. And if you did borrow on your own farm—how you gonna pay it back? How you gonna pay even the interest ? Those credit fellows want to make credits off their credits. You can't do it that way."
"Where is this city fellow?"
"Konsello?" Mac shook his head. "He's up the street a piece. Won't do you any good. What you want to see him for?"
"There's more than one way to bait a swamp-mink trap." Johnson jammed his hat on his head. "You go ahead and figure what 1 got coming. And also Little Joe. When I get back I'll pick up what I got enough to pay for. And something for Martha. A bright red hair ribbon if you got one. She likes red."
Johnson strode out of the weighing room into the show room. He saw two tiny noses pressed hungrily against two different show cases. Little Joe was looking at skinning knives and mink traps. Mary Anne was fascinated by the dolls with removable jumpers. Johnson felt a long forgotten longing. He remembered when his own dad used to bring him in here when Mac's dad ran the place. He remembered when he had saved his own skimpy pelts two whole seasons so he could buy his own first set of traps. And his first sharp skinning knife. It almost gave him a lump in his throat.
He went out the door. The kids didn't see him go. Stepping into the hot blazing sunlight he saw Martha still sitting in the skeeter. She shouldn't sit there too long. Might make her sick. But Martha always knew what she was doing. As he walked toward the machine
he saw her sewing another patch oh Little Joe's extra jumper. Whatever credits he had coming he'd have to stretch them somehow to get the kids some clothes. Martha didn't look up as he passed her and he didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say. He had to do some thinking.
His mud-boots scuffed up choking clouds of dust. The empty street didn't seem right. He remembered hearing about other Venus frontier towns when the planet was first opened for colonization. Some of them had been big and booming towns. And he remembered how his dad talked about those towns turning, almost overperiod, into dead ghost towns when the business, or the reason for the town's life had died or moved on, sucking the life out of the place. Surely this couldn't happen to Dry Point! Or the swamps! The swamps had always been here. And the Swampanese with their underwater way of life—they had always been here. It just didn't seem right to drain the swamps. He had to think of something. He felt his mind turning the problem over and over and coming up with no answers.
Dry Point looked like it was dying. Most of the places were closed and boarded up. Only two bars and one restaurant were still open.
On an impulse, he pushed through the swinging doors of MIKE'S MODERNS BAR AND BUFFET and looked around. The place was empty except for the bartender who set up a glass, and said, "What'll it be, swamper?"
Automatically, Joe's right hand went down into his pocket. It came out empty. He felt his tongue twitch, but he said, "Nothing." He walked closer to the bar. "Seen Adams, or Walker, or Vorseen, lately?"
The bartender began polishing the bar with a dirty rag. "They all left couple of periods ago. Sold out to that Konsello fellow. Seems like they made deals with him."
"Thanks," said Joe, and turned to go.
"Wait a minute." The bartender reached for a bottle on the plasteen shelf behind him. "Have one on the house. I'll be leaving pretty soon myself." The neck of the bottle made a tiny ringing noise as it touched the rim of the glass.
Johnson listened to the liquid trickle with wet splashing gurgles into the glass until it reached the* top and stopped. The heady smell of the whiskey in his nostrils brought the saliva popping into his mouth. He looked at the filled glass and his body tightened for a moment and then relaxed. "No thanks," he said.
"O.K.," said the bartender and drank it himself.
The swamper turned and pushed through the doors to the hot street. His throat was parched and dry. Must have swallowed some dust, he thought. If Adams and Walker and Vorseen had left already, then that meant he was the last swamper. Whatever slim chance the Swampanese would have was now up to him. And if he didn't think of something soon the Swampanese would die. Like tadpoles.
He searched for Konsello's sign. He couldn't miss it. It was big enough. The sun hadn't even bleached the lettering yet.
RECLAIMING ENTERPRISES
G. B. Konsello, Exec.
He walked over and hesitated before going in. He looked down the street at Martha. She must have been watching him because she waved once. He couldn't see her face clearly, but he guessed she must have smiled. Without returning the wave he turned and entered.
The office was shiny and cool, lie could hear the hiss of an air-conditioning unit somewhere. Joe took off his hat and looked at the broad back of a man who was sticking colored pins into a swamp map on the wall. The office was full of the smell of new paint and there were many overstuffed things to sit on. Unconsciously, Joe began to rub one foot against the other to scrape off mud that wasn't there. He cleared his throat.
The man turned. Everything about the man seemed to be big and solid. Face, head and hands. He was big shouldered with a full chest like a petrol barrel. But Johnson didn't like his face. His face seemed full of a bitter arrogance.
"Hello," he said, in a voice that had the timber of a man who was accustomed to issuing orders he expected to be obeyed. "My name's G. B. Konsello. Haven't met you before. What can I do for you?"
"My name's Johnson."
"Oh—Johnson!" A frown creased the broad forehead for an instant. His oil-black eyes frisked the swamper. "You're that fellow way out in Deep Swamp. I've heard talk your family was the oldest family around here. Sit down—" His big hand made a sweeping gesture. "I've been wondering how I was going to get a chance to deal with you. Have a cigar—"
Johnson ignored the extended box of cigars. "Did you say my family was?" he asked in a tight voice.
Studying the swamper, Konsello held the cigars out for five more seconds. "Johnson!" He snapped the lid of the box shut and put them away. "I must be blunt. You swampers are finished here on Venus. You're too far behind the times. Sooner or later, civilization always catches up with the frontier and the frontier is a frontier no longer. You've served your purpose, and now civilization is extending this far west. I am going to drain these swamps and collect the herbs in a more businesslike way. Dry Point will be torn down and a more modern industrial town will be erected. I have leased this land from the Old Earth Agency. I am prepared to offer you a fair price for your land."
Johnson shook his head. "What's going to happen to the Swampanese when you drain away their water?"
Konsello's frown deepened. "Some sort of plan will be made to transport as many as will be economically "possible to Earth where an aquarium arrangement of some sort will be set up. How much do you want for your land?"
"Mr, Konsello"—Johnson turned his hat slowly in his hands—"I never was much with words. But that don't seem right to me for you to take those swamps away from the Swampanese and put them in a strange place. I don't think they could stand it. Those people are people just like us. They have feelings like—"
Konsello snorted. "Do you call those underwater monstrosities people?"
A deep red began to mount up the back of Johnson's neck. The words came out with effort. "Mr. Konsello, I know how I feel about my own swampland. A man gets to love his own land. My dad's father lived out there and my dad buried him there. I buried my own dad out there, too." He waved his hand. "A man can't just up and leave what's always been his." He leaned forward earnestly. "Maybe I could leave if I had to, because maybe I could understand the reason why I had to leave. But those Swampanese couldn't ever be explained to. Slap-talk ain't that fancy as a language. And they've always lived there. They'd die off like tadpoles in a strange—"
Impatient, Konsello got up and stepped from around in back of the desk.
"I don't know about that, Johnson. This is the last big swamp left on Venus and when all the others swamps were drained this question was never brought up. No one ever considered them as having intelligence as we know it, and draining the swamps proved to be a profitable venture. Why should this be an exception? And your father never did buy the land in the first place. You don't even legally own that land, Johnson."
"But my family has always lived there. It's our swamp. We diked it and took care of it and learned to make friends with the Swampanese. We gave them a chance."
"I'm sorry. I must make a profitable showing. I've been a captain on a spacetug all my life running ore. But now the medics say I'm no good. Too much canned air and all that." He looked up at the ceiling, and for an instant, the bitterness seemed to leave his broad face. Then without looking at Johnson he moved behind the desk, sat down and picked up a stylo. "I saved my money, swamper, for the day they would throw me out and ground me. They gave me this chance. I'm going to make the best of it. How much?"
"How many credits would it cost to set up a place—sort of a reservation for the Swampanese to live on, Mr. Konsello? I'll give in my swamp for nothing."
"More than you could ever get together. I need those vitamin herbs now. Some day, some laboratory will discover a way to make it synthetically and this swamp country will be worthless. But right now, Venearth Laboratories will buy as much as I can ship them. By the ton. So I'm going to drain the swamps. How much for your land?"
"Then there ain't any chance of making some kind of a deal with you to save the Swampanese here on Venus?"
"No."
Johnson took a long breath. He looked down studying the worn toes of his mud-boots. "You never been in the swamps or never saw a Swampanese did you, Mr. Konsello?"
"No."
Taking another long breath, Johnson said, "I'll make you a bargain. If you come out to Deep Swamp—maybe I'll do it."
"I don't have to make any bargains. I've got to have that land regardless of what your decision may be. If you force me to, I can lake the necessary legal steps to rake it to court and the court costs will come out of your sales price in the long run. But I don't prefer to do business that way." He looked at Johnson narrowly. "I have wanted to make an inspection trip through swampland in the hands of an experienced guide to inspect herb concentrations, depth of water and a few other details. I have heard the swamps are dangerous to the inexperienced. I would be glad to pay you for your services."
"Mr. Konsello"—Johnson's big hands closed like a vise on his
tattered hat—"to take you on a personally conducted tour through my swamp will be pay enough."
Konsello's eyes shot down to the tightly clenched hands and the knuckles, showing white. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then snapped it shut like a trap. He moved his massive bulk around the desk until he stood squarely in front of Johnson. Their eyes locked.
"Look here, swamper. If you think—" said Konsello, and let the sentence trail off into a flat silence.
For the space of three heartbeats, neither man moved. Then unexpectedly, Konsello let out a snort. He began to laugh as he moved to his desk and took out a shoulder holster complete with blaster. He slipped into the harness and snuggled it around him with the ease of a man accustomed to wearing it. Yanking out the weapon he checked the fuses and rehung it. He pulled a sun helmet out of a locker and said, "Let's see your swamp, swamper." He went out.
Without hurrying, Johnson put on his hat, walked through the door and turned toward the mud-skeeter and the trading post. The two men shuffled through the dust in silence, past the mud-skeeter. Martha only looked up briefly and returned to her sewing.
As the men clumped into the trading post, Little Joe started whooping and came dashing up waving a brand new skinning knife in his right hand, and dragging half a dozen shiny mink traps with the other. The whooping died suddenly as he saw the stranger behind his father. His lean face went blank.
"Where's Mary Anne?" Big Joe's voice had the sharp edge to it that Little Joe knew so well. He knew his father was in no mood for play. He knew his father had serious things on his mind. Things more important than the new knife and the new traps.
Without a word he let the chains of the mink traps slip to the floor with a metallic crash and raised his hand to point into the other room.
Joe Johnson started toward the inside room and halted in mid-stride. He turned. "Let me see that knife and those traps, Little Joe." He honed the knife against his hard palm and tested the pans and the springs of the traps. "Those look plenty good to me, Little Joe," he said gruffly. "You must have had some good pelts in there or you outtraded Mac." He swung off into the other room as he saw the boy's eyes brighten, and then, whooping again, he scooped up the traps and scrambled out the door to show them to Martha-Johnson was glad he hadn't been too busy to notice the new things Little Joe traded for his first .pelts. He remembered that time, so long ago, when he had brought in his own first pelts and his dad had been too busy to notice. The knife hadn't seemed so sharp after that. And the traps not so tight.
He heard Konsello following him
as he walked in to rind Donavan squatting on the floor with Mary Anne. He was trying to show her how to fit a mama and papa doll outfit into a toy floater about a meter long. The dolls wouldn't sit up right, and Mary Anne, her pink face smeared with candy, was chortling with glee as she waited to put in the two babies.
"How much I got coming, Mac?" Johnson tried to take the sharpness out of his voice.
Donavan looked up smiling. As he saw Konsello, the smile died. Breathing heavily, he forced himself to his feet while Mary Anne continued to chortle over her dolls. "Got it all packed on the weighing counter. I sorta figured out what you'd want from what you always take. Found a red hair ribbon and some other stuff. Pelts were better than I first thought."
Johnson walked over and hefted the bulky package. "Those pelts weren't that good, Mac. You know I don't—"
"All right. Joe. Call it a loan. You can send it to me if you make out all right. Here's the ribbon for Martha."
Johnson took the ribbon and put it into a pocket of his jumpers. "You and the Missus might be gone next time I come in?"
"Maybe. But we won't be leaving for awhile yet. Tell Martha good-by anyhow though."
Johnson shouldered the package and started for the door with Mary Anne toddling after him firmly clutching the dolls and the floater.
"Hold on." Konsello broke in with his brittle arrogant voice. "I can guess what you men think of me. But it doesn't matter. Why don't you think of your kids, Johnson? You can't give them a decent education here in the swamps. Send them to a city school and they'll really learn something."
Johnson eyed him coldly. "Martha and me and the kids get along. The kids can't learn nothing in a city school about how to run a swamp farm. My dad didn't go to school and his dad neither. Martha and me teach Little Joe and Mary Anne what they need to know and we bring them up right, to not take nothing that they didn't work for."
"The city's got a lot to offer you can't get in a swamp."
"Martha and me got happiness. That's a lot more than a lot of you city people got. Martha wants me and I want Martha and we both want our kids. And the swamp. Come on, Mary Anne."
Out in the hot dusty street once again, he packed the bundle into the forward locker and swung Mary Anne up beside Martha and Little Joe in the back seat. Ignoring Konsello, he climbed into the driver's seat, kicking the motors into life. He felt the vehicle lurch as the city man's weight settled into the starboard seat beside him. Gunning the throttle, he pulled back on the left brake handle and the right tread walked the skeeter around in a tight circle throwing clouds of dust down the deserted street. As he pushed both brake handles up into free, he saw Mac
Donavan waddle out into the sunlight. The trader didn't wave. He just stood there and watched them go.
In minutes they were nosing up over the dike and pushing through the first vegetation fringing swamp edge. Finally, when the comfortable semidarkness swallowed them he stopped the skeeter long enough to reach in his jumpers and give the hair ribbon to Martha. "Thought this might look right pretty, Martha, if you twisted it in your hair like you used to do that other one."
Martha held it up and looked at it. "It's pretty, Joe, but you should have got yourself something." She folded it carefully and put it into her sewing bag. "I better put it away for now so it don't get wet from the tree drippings."
Johnson released both handles and the treads plowed into the green ooze. Slowly, the swamp began to slide by. Cool, green, semidark and quiet except for the throbbing of the engines and the slosh of the revolving treads.
Four hours crawled by and there was no conversation except for the excited chatterings of Little Joe and Mary Anne retelling all the things they had seen in town. Occasionally, Johnson glanced at Konsello but offered no comment. The big man was hunched down in his seat silent, but watchful and alert. His narrow eyes were taking in the water level and what other things that were of interest to him.
The water, dripping from the low-hanging tree limbs, was beginning to soften up his sun helmet and he took it off and put it under his knees.
When the swamp deepened and the skeeter began to float smoothly over the quiet green waters, Johnson stopped the machine and let Martha break out a box of small dried salted fish along with a few shoots of young herb roots. Konsello accepted his share with a brief nod, and they ate in silence. When the food was finished the two kids snuggled up to Martha and were soon asleep.
Johnson drove on, hour after uneventful hour, until finally he heard Konsello snoring beside him. The dim light was beginning to fade into a deeper gloom and he pushed the aged machine to the limit. He had to make his place in Deep Swamp before complete dark. It was death above water level, in the open, after blackout. He knew what it meant if the dark-flies caught a man and stung him, laying their eggs deep down in the warm flesh. That turned a man into a walking food supply for the young dark-flies and it was a long and painful death. Venus, with her slow revolution, wouldn't turn this part of her body to the sun for another sixty-two hours.
The homing light, bobbing slowly in the gloom, was like a beacon saying he was welcome home. He felt the skeeter pull up the rise of his own dike, and as he broke the photobeam, his Bailey hut ahead lighted up and the doors swung
open. He lumbered up the ramp and inside.
Almost automatically, Martha and the kids woke up. Johnson shook Konsello awake and they climbed down into the storage room and went into the combination living room and adjoining kitchen. With a nod for good night to Konsello, Johnson went into the bedroom to sleep while Martha put the kids to bed and fixed a place for Konsello to sleep on the couch in the living room.
Johnson took off his mud-boots, and without removing his jumpers he lay down and closed his eyes. He could hear the night swamp sounds begin to filter in through the metal walls. It was good to be home. Back in the swamp. His own swamp. And now that he had Konsello out here, how was he going to make him see that it wasn't right to drain the swamps and kill everything in it? He had to think of something.
Almost instantly, it seemed, he was awake. But he must have slept a long time, he thought, as Martha wasn't beside him. He could hear the rumble of Konsello's arrogant voice from the living room. He walked out and saw the big city fellow sprawled out in his own chair that nobody ever sat in but him. He had Little Joe and Mary Anne sitting at his feet. He was telling them about an adventure in deep space when an outlaw ship had tried to hijack his cargo. Little Joe's eyes were shining, and because her big brother was interested, Mary Anne was listening too, although she didn't know what a spaceship was. Johnson's hands clenched. The city fellow was walking in here taking over like he owned the place. Like he was trying to take over the swamps.
Stalking past the group, he mumbled a curt greeting and went out to the kitchen, where Martha quietly fixed him breakfast. When he had finished and pushed the vessels away he opened the bundle from Donavan and sorted the contents. There was more here than he had imagined: Medicine, canned goods, spare tubes, sparkplugs, fishhooks, line, whetstone, new boots and many other things he had been needing.
When he looked up he noticed Martha had the new ribbon twisted in her hair the way he liked and he told her it looked pretty, and she smiled and brought him his empty pipe and gave him some tobacco she said she had traded Mac for some preserves she had put up. When he had got the pipe going good, Johnson went out to the storage room and began to work on the motors to the skeeter. He worked steadily, and Martha brought dinner and supper out to where he was working. When he finally did come back into the living room he was tired and heard Martha and the kids laughing at something the city fellow was saying.
Konsello looked at him with his sardonic smile. "It must get pretty dull and lonesome for Martha out here in nowhere."
"You mind your own business."
Johnson found himself a place to sit down and rest.
"When you going to take me out into that big bad swamp of yours? An old spaceman gets a little cramped in here."
"Soon as it gets light."
"Then you going to tell me all about the swamps."
"I can talk better out there."
"Think you can talk me out of taking over your land?"
"Maybe."
And so it went, the waking period drifted into a sleeping period, and~ another waking, and another sleeping. Johnson didn't do much talking or spend much time in the living room with Konsello and the kids. He kept doing the jobs he had to do. Finishing up the overhaul on the skeeter. Fixing up some traps that needed tightening. Working on some mink pelts that were too fresh to trade, And all the while, Konsello sat in his chair and talked to the kids, telling them about spaceships and big cities.
When the soft light came, bringing the final waking, everything was ready. Johnson packed extra petrol into the forward locker of the skeeter and slipped a long knife into his jumpers. He climbed into the cockpit as Konsello came out carrying Mary Anne, with Little Joe tagging at his heels. Little Joe was shouting something Konsello had taught him: "Seal the port lock, blast off and all men into battle . gear!"
After Martha had stowed some food aboard, the city man handed Mary Anne over to her and climbed heavily into the skeeter. "Nice bunch of kids you got there, Johnson. You'll all be much happier in the city. Send that boy of yours to a real school and he'll be able to get himself a decent job instead of grubbing his life away in all this muck around here. He might even make a spaceman."
Johnson grunted, and kicked on the motors as he caught a look from Martha. Martha was looking at him. Her face was strained. She came over to him. She looked up at him and put her hand on his arm.
"Joe," she said softly, "what you going to do?" Her eyes were wide and brown and troubled. "You'll be careful, won't you?"
He reached down and patted her cheek. This wasn't like Martha. What was she thinking? He began to check his meters on the instrument panel.
Konsello's rasping voice broke in. "Well, do we start, or don't we?"
Stepping on the throttle, Johnson listened carefully to the wheezy old engines as they warmed up and checked the manifold pressure. When he was satisfied, he nodded to Martha to open the doors.
The heavy skeeter walked clumsily down the slanted ramp until it splashed into the water and floated, bobbing slowly on the smooth green surface. Some water birds fluttered out of the way.
All around them the trees writhed upward into the ever
thickening mist that swirled up from the water until their twisted arms interlaced into a roof like the roof of an enormous cathedral made of green marble. Narrow canals, cutting open swaths through the choked vegetation, radiated out from the Bailey hut like the spokes of a gigantic wheel and murmuring echoes of the waves the skeeter had started, bounced back with soft gurgling voices as if the quiet swamp waters resented being disturbed.
Konsello looked around. "So this is the terrible deep swamp." He yawned. "I think you swampers build up the danger of swamp life just to make conversation. If you really wanted to know what excitement can do to you, you should try kicking yourself around among the planets. But down in here"—he waved his hand carelessly—"it just gives me a cramped, choked-up feeling with all these half-dead trees with their roots sticking out of the water and standing around wrapping themselves around each other as if they didn't have the strength to hold themselves up without help. When I drain away the water and put in fog-dissipators it will make a big improvement."
Johnson sent the Skeeter splashing down the canal on the left. "Maybe that's the way you look at it, Mr. Konsello," he said and felt the anger sweeping into his voice. "But didn't you ever think maybe us swampers like it this way?" He gunned the motors savagely and the booming backfires
caused the birds to screech dismally and flap hurriedly deeper into the swamp. "Where you want to go first?"
"I want to see some of these Swampanese and how they live."
Johnson gave him an odd glance. "How they live—?"
"Sure," said Konsello, making himself comfortable in the seat. "And I want you to explain to them about the plans I have for their future when I drain away the water. If they are as civilized as you say they are"—he paused and gave the swamper an amused smile—"they will realize I am acting in their favor. Although nothing compels me to. // you can really talk to them."
"I can talk to them all right," said Johnson grimly. He shifted the skeeter into higher gear and the deep treads began to dig more swiftly into the water. "But swamp talk never was a fancy language for explaining complicated things. It works all right for trading and bartering. I guess you don't know much about the swamps, do you, Mr. Konsello?"
"The swamps?" Konsello made a scornful sound. "I've been a spaceman all my life. The true life for a red-blooded man." He rubbed his big hands together. "Adventure and excitement with danger thrown in every minute of it. That's what makes a man's blood tingle. But this swamp stuff with the quiet waters all around and the half-dead trees and catching little minks in traps—bah! I'd go crazy in no time locked up down here.
A spaceship might be pretty crowded, but at least a man can move it and himself around."
"You mean if you take a man out of his own environment and put him in another one he don't like it?"
"That's natural."
"What about what you're trying to do to the Swampanese?"
"Look, Johnson, that's different. Don't try to talk me out of it on that angle. In space there's excitement and danger—"
"There's things under this water that ain't so nice."
"Rubbish!" Konsello laughed, and whipping out his blaster shot from the hip, sending a hot blasting needle of energy roaring up into the trees. A thick limb fell with a watery crash. "Nothing in this half-dead swamp could stand up :«gainst this thing for five seconds. When I was a lad on my first planet-fall liberty I had already killed a man. In those days it was considered a dull trip if we didn't get holed by a meteor or if a tube didn't blow or a hijacker didn't try to get your cargo. I remember once, just about turnover time, on the Mars run when—"
As the skeeter continued, chugging its way deeper into swamp, Johnson listened to Konsello's boastful stories of far-away planets and long-dead space battles with only half a mind. His previous worry, about the falling water level, now seemed only a small part of the uncertainty that filled his brain. It wasn't merely a question of trying to hold water. It was more of a job trying to find a way to fight man-made rules, and laws and technicalities. Johnson knew he didn't know much about the way those big courts worked. Hadn't Konsello said those courts could force him to sell his swamp land and he'd have to pay the salaries of the men that would take away his swamp? There wasn't going to be any simple way out of this.
He glanced at Konsello seeing the arrogant tilt to the big man's head and a sudden idea swirled up before he could stop it. Suppose Konsello didn't make it back from this trip? Accidents happened all the time in swamp. How easy it would be to just—No—he fought the idea. Murder was murder no matter how it happened. The thought was insistent. Now wait—think a moment—no one would ever know. The swamps always kept their secrets, didn't they? And he was going to kill off all the Swampanese, wasn't he?
Abruptly, Joe Johnson noticed the palms of his hands were sweating. The brake handles were slippery in his grip. He could feel himself begin to tremble and shake all over. A tremendous tension was clutching him as if a conflict of wills were going on way down deep inside of his mind below the level of conscious thought. He felt sick. He had never considered killing another human before. Even the slight thought of it, put a tight constricting pressure on , his chest, stopping his breathing as if an iron band had been clamped around his lungs. But he couldn't let Konsello go back to Dry Point now with plans on ruining the swamp, could he? "Johnson!"
The city man was shaking him. "What's the matter with you? Are you blind? You almost hit that tree root. Where are going now? It's getting awfully thick in here."
Shaking off the hand, Johnson said thickly, "I know where I'm going, Konsello. You do the riding. I'll do the piloting."
Silent, the big man settled back into his seat. He began to watch Johnson through half-closed eyes as the swamper continued to send the skeeter plunging ahead, deeper and deeper into the thickening swamp.
Overhead, the green roof was coming lower and lower with each passing minute. The trees seemed to be marching up closer and reaching out twisted arms that they wrapped tightly around their brothers. The channel of clear water had narrowed until now the machine could hardly get through.
Johnson pulled back suddenly on the brake handles. He let the skeeter drift to a stop against a tree trunk, shutting off the engines.
"Now what?" asked Konsello in a low voice.
Standing up, Johnson pointed over the side. "Down there. In that."
Konsello peered over the side and saw a hollowed-out wooden shell about five meters long. "That
flimsy thing?'* he exploded. "What's the idea?"
"You want to see some Swampanese," said Johnson softly. "They're farther down in deep swamp. The skeeter can't get through that far." Picking up the food, he climbed down to the floater. So smooth was his motion, that the small craft hardly rocked. He worked his way to the far end, picked up a paddle and sat down facing Konsello. "You better grab onto the gunwales when you get in and be sure to walk in the middle. These things tip easy if you don't know how. Can you swim, Konsello?"
For a moment, he thought Konsello hesitated. Then he saw the big man make a slight motion with his shoulders as if shrugging off a sudden thought, and then climb heavily over the side and down into the floater.
His weight pushed the craft deep into the water. He turned, and with perfect balance, as if he had stepped into floaters all his life, he took three smooth steps forward and sat down looking at Johnson. "I never did have to try to swim, swamper, but if this gadget should"—he paused meaningly on the word—"accidentally tip over—don't worry about me. I'll start learning right away. Let's go."
Turning around and facing front, Johnson dug his paddle, swamp-style, into the water from the bow and pulled the floater forward through a small opening between the arching tree roots. Ahead of him, the narrow path of cleared water was like a long twisting silver-green mirror, reflecting the tangled pattern of interlocked vines and branches and leaves that interlaced themselves into a solid roof over their heads, almost blocking out the dim light that did manage to filter through.
Frequently, Johnson bent low to avoid the occasional vines that hung down. Once he picked up the heavy cutting knife and with a single flick of his powerful wrist cut through a vine as thick as his ankle.
"Why don't you let me clear those things away the easy way?" asked Konsello from the stern. "Like this!" He pulled out his blaster and sent a searing beam of destruction racing ahead of the floater.
The muzzle blast of the weapon was like a thunderclap. It made Johnson's ears ring. The returning echoes rumbled deafeningly. Branches fell by the dozen.
"See how easy?" laughed Konsello and blasted another white-hot beam ahead of them.
"Put that thing away. It hurts my ears." Johnson gripped the sharp knife tightly. "I been clearing them away a long time like this. I guess I can go on doing it this way if I want to."
Konsello shrugged and holstered the blaster. "That's what's wrong with you swampers. You do everything the hard way."
Gritting his teeth, Johnson picked up the paddle again. He noticed his hands were trembling. He didn't like the feeling that was
growing steadily inside of him. Why should he try to explain to this city fellow that you had to know how to cut those branches carefully, exactly through the notch, or the stuff would sprout and plug the whole passage in again in three periods?
He gripped the paddle tighter and tried to send the floater surging ahead faster and faster. He had to get this boiling-up feeling, or whatever it was, out of himself or he felt he would explode. If this were hate, he thought, he didn't like it. He had never felt hate before. Life in the swamps didn't teach a man to hate. It took other humans to teach you that. A man couldn't hate the swamps and the animals that only tried to defend themselves against man. Their actions were normal for where they lived and ate and fought and died. Survival of the fittest. The quick and the dead. And in the swamps—the slow ones were the dead ones. And now every instinct within him was telling him to kill this man. Was this what Martha had been afraid of? Johnson tried to fight the idea down.
Suddenly the tunnel widened into a deep quiet pool. Johnson back-watered until he brought the floater to a dead stop. He studied the smooth gleaming surface carefully, and then began to pull the floater as swiftly as he could manage the long way around the edge.
"Why not make it easier and go across the middle?" put in Konsello sarcastically.
Johnson didn't take the time to reply. He was watching the quiet surface for the slightest sign of motion. He slipped the floater into a tunnel on the far side just as the waters seethed as if something big and ponderous were moving beneath the surface.
Konsello gestured with his thumb over his shoulder. "If that's one of your Swampanese friends, why don't you stop and introduce me?"
"That was no Swampanese," said Johnson grimly. "And it wasn't any friend. I'm taking you where you want to go." He bent to his paddling.
An hour later, Johnson let the floater drift to a stop in a small shallow pool. He leaned over the side and began slapping the surface of the water in an odd rhythm. He varied the quality of the sound by changing constantly from a cupped hand to the flat of his outstretched palm. He leaned back and waited.
The first warning he had of disaster was a rocking jolt of the floater and Konsello's big voice in a shout, full of alarm. He jerked around to see the city man jumping to his feet, whipping out his blaster. Johnson yelled: "Sit down, you fool! Do you want to tip us—" and as the weapon leveled in his direction, acting purely on reflex, he flung himself forward and down. Just in time to feel the hot blast sizzle over his shoulder and to hear the barking roar of the discharge.
The incoming sensations were racing across the surface of his
brain at top speed and he heard Konsello say, "That thing out there tried to climb into the boat behind you." He pointed the blaster just off the port side and pulling the trigger, began to streak repeated blasts, stinging needles of white-hot energy, down into the water.
A single glance at the green body floundering over and over in the water was enough. Billowing clouds of white steam were puffing upward like expanding mushrooms. "Konsello!" he shouted. "For your life, stop!" The floater began to rock dangerously as Johnson stumbled his way hastily aft where he grabbed Konsello's blaster arm. "Put that thing down, you fool!"
"No!" Konsello jerked with all his massive strength, and the weapon went off, roaring itself to life like a thunderbolt. The white-hot beam, crackling and ripping, tore across the floater, slicing it in two. Instantly, they were splashing in the water.
Konsello went down and came up gasping and strangling. Johnson grabbed him by the collar holding him up.
The city man knocked Johnson's supporting hand away and seized a piece of the wreckage that floated to the surface. "I don't need any help from you, swamper." He began to splash away clumsily, working his way over to the exposed tree roots.
Johnson watched him only an instant and then snatching a breath, he slipped beneath the surface looking for what he dreaded to find. He found it. A dead Swampanese.
Grim, Johnson pulled the still twitching figure over to the tree root where the city man was now resting himself. "See what you've .done?" he said bitterly. "You shot a Swampanese. You killed her."
"Her?" Konsello sucked in his breath. He looked down at the figure the swamper held in his arms beneath the surface.
Johnson didn't say anything. The rage and hurt inside of him gave him a lump he couldn't swallow. The limp figure was beautiful for a Swampanese female. Slim bod}", head and arms and legs all covered with soft green fur. Her large eyes, so necessary to pick up the feeble light in deep water were still open, staring sightlessly upward. "Just because she breathed water in through her mouth and out through her throat gills didn't keep her from having sense and feelings in her own way. She could take a mouthful of water in her cheek pouches and come out of the water and walk around on dry land awhile just like I can take a lungful of air and swim down under the water." He moved his hand under the water and closed the staring eyes. "Somebody in swamp loved her in his own way—and you killed her." He removed his right hand and began to slap the water.
"What're you doing?"
"Talking slap-talk. I got to get somebody here to take her to whoever she belongs to."
"Now wait a minute. I killed her. It was a mistake. But if you
start calling these people around here we're liable to be in for trouble. Why don't you just let the body drift in the water and let's get out of here?"
"You killed her, Konsello."
"You and I are two humans. What does it matter? These people will all be gone soon. I have my life to think of. How do I know what they will do? I say let the body drift."
Johnson continued to slap the water. "I don't know much about city ways, Konsello. But to leave her here like this wouldn't be right. I ain't going to swim off like that when we humans did something wrong. I'm going to stay here until it's made right. If you want to leave—start swimming."
"Now wait. I'll make you a bargain. I'll let you keep your swampland. I can't get back by myself!"
"I'm staying here. The floater is gone. Your blaster is gone. Everything's gone. You start figuring, Konsello."
"Then I'll find my way back alone. I can find my way back along that channel to that machine of yours. I can figure out how it works. I'm not staying here!"
"You couldn't get back, alone, before the dark comes. Then the dark-flies would fill you full of eggs in no time at all. That's a nasty way to die, Konsello. We got to go under."
"Under?"
"Under the surface if I can slap-talk them into letting us use one of their food places. I been stuck in swamp before after the dark and those places they got down there got air in them."
There was a silence until Konsello gave a derisive snort. "You can't scare me, Johnson, with this swamp of yours. I've been in spots before. You can't afford to let anything happen to me. I put everything on record I'd go into swamp with some swamper. They can find out it was you. If I don't come hack you'll get into serious trouble. That makes it your problem."
Johnson nodded his head at the pool before them. "Here's trouble now." He watched the dark-green shapes that were beginning to swirl into the pool, threshing the water into a jumbled mast of green bodies and frothy waves. A webbed hand raised above the roiling surface and slapped briefly.
"What was that?" demanded Konsello.
Johnson slapped an answer before he replied, "They just asked if the soft one had been made dead and I told them yes, and that you did it."
Konsello pulled himself up indignantly. "Now look here!" he said as another webbed hand raised up and slapped. "Find out what they intend to do. I'm a big man in certain places on Earth!"
"You're in swamp now," replied Johnson wearily. "They just said that if you killed her—the Council rules they are going to take you with them."
"Where can they take me?" The city man's voice suddenly choked, "They'll drown me." His fingers began to twitch. He grabbed Johnson's arm. "Listen to me, Johnson. You got to do something. I never been afraid of death. I never been afraid to die when my time came if it was in a crack-up or in a fair fight. But I don't want to die down there underneath that slimy green water."
As Johnson continued to just look at him, the big man began to shake the swamper violently. "You've got to listen to me. If I don't get back you'll get into a lot of trouble. Think of Martha! Think of your kids! You can keep your farm. I'll figure out a way to dike it. But talk to them. Tell them I didn't mean to do it. Tell them—"
Johnson felt numb. His mind seemed to be working in slow motion. The man's pleas merged themselves into a meaningless jumble of sounds, dim and far away. His reason asked him: "This is what you wanted—didn't you? It was Konsello's own fault, wasn't it? Now the Swampanese will take Konsello away and deal with him in their own way. That's swamp justice, isn't it? And now the swamps and everything in it would be safe, wouldn't they?"
Like in a dream, Johnson watched one of the Swampanese swim toward him under the water and pull the limp figure of the dead female from his arms. His mind was acting as if it were remote and detached from his body with no control over its movement. Unresisting, he watched three of the green figures climb out of the water to grab
Konsello and drag him, fighting and struggling, down beneath the surface. Slim green shapes swarmed around the writhing city man and took him deeper and deeper making the quiet water swirl and bubble until he could see nothing.
Finally, the waters subsided and smoothed out into the mirror-like surface that was the usual quiet of deep swamp. Konsello and the Swampanese were gone. He looked at the reflection of his own image and the half-dead interlacing trees overhead. Two minutes later he thought he heard splashing, and a faint scream from somewhere farther down the channel.
"Now," he thought, "it is done." He watched a single piece of underwater vine, ripped from the bottom, float slowly to the surface where it began to revolve lazily. Johnson focused his eyes on it. Darkness would come in three more hours. He would be a living, tortured food supply for the dark-flies if he didn't get back under cover before then. Alone now, in the time left, he could easily swim back to the skeeter and to Martha and the kids. He could make it. Then when the next light came he could go into Dry Point and explain.
But should he go off and leave Konsello like this? The city man might still be alive. Would it be right? Could he desert a man, no matter what sort of a man he was ? That would be almost like murder, wouldn't it?
Like the slow turning of the floating weed, the question turned over and over inside of him. There was
a chance the Swampanese hadn't, or wouldn't, drown him right away. That scream he had heard might mean they were taking him to one of those underwater hothouses where they raised food plants that manufactured their own air. If Konsello were alive at this minute, he wouldn't be much longer unless something were done about it.
Johnson sighed. He climbed out of the water and began removing his heavy wet jumpers. No matter which way he tried to figure things out, the answer always came back the same. He had lost the swamps! There would be other Earth men to take Konsello's place. And if he did manage, somehow, to save Konsello's life—he knew the big city man would never forgive him for not putting up a struggle when the Swampanese grabbed him.
Unexpectedly, an alarming doubt stung him. Would it be possible to explain to the natives with crude slap-talk that if they ever harmed a human the plans for saving some of them in an aquarium would never be carried out? Could he explain how ruthless the human race could be when an alien culture harmed one of their own?
Stripped to his underclothes, he tied the jumpers to a tree root and marked the spot in his memory. If the Swampanese didn't turn against him for trying to interfere, and if he came out of this alive, he wanted those jumpers back. Martha had spent too many hours sewing and patching, trying to keep them neat and wearable.
Deeply and slowly, he began to inhale and exhale, charging his body with as much fresh oxygen as possible. Johnson closed his eyes to make them sensitive to the dim light of deep water while he breathed in and out for a full three minutes. Then careful to not take too big a last breath, he dived smoothly into the slimy green water.
It was cool and dark down here, The pressure began to squeeze relentlessly on his chest and eardrums as his powerful arms and legs pulled and pushed him deeper. The first wisps of underwater vegetation touched his chest and he opened his eyes as wide as possible, letting out a small bubble of air. He almost had bottom now.
Trailing the Swampanese to where they took Johnson, or his body, was going to be a difficult problem. Every ounce of swamp lore he possessed was going to be strained to the utmost during the next few minutes. Just faintly, he could pick up the torn and disturbed pieces of the vines and plants that had been displaced by threshing webbed hands and feet. He followed the trail swiftly, letting out an occasional bubble of air until his aching lungs gave him the signal he should surface for a fresh supply.
Closing his eyes, Johnson pulled up, and with eyes still closed, floated there filling his tired lungs with fresh air. Then down again, picking up the trail, swimming, surfacing, resting, breathing and down again.
The minutes dragged by. "What a terrifying ordeal," came his grim
thought, "Konsello, if he were still alive, must be suffering with the Swampanese dragging him, half-drowned, along with them under the dark waters and then taking him to the surface to let him have a quick breath and then pulling him under again."
He remembered about one time when he was a kid and had caught a bright colored fish he wanted to take home alive to put into his fish bowl and having nothing to put it in he had carried it across swamp in his bare hands, sticking its head in an occasional pool to let it breathe awhile, and then on to the next pool, and the next, until he got it home, and when his father saw him and was so angry and had taken him out into the swamp and held his head under the water until he strangled telling him that would teach him how the swamp creatures felt about their kind of breathing. The memory was still painful.
Abruptly, in the green waters before him, a round dome reared up from the bottom. Johnson knew what it was, and the trail led straight here. There was a chance Konsello was still alive. He still had swimming air so he swam down, searching for the small round opening until he found it. He pushed smoothly into the narrow dark shaft and pulled himself forward and up, watching the black water begin to lighten up with an odd purplish tint. His head broke the surface. He had been in one of these things before, but he didn't like it. The air was heavy and thick and moist with a stink that made his stomach retch.
When his eyes had adjusted themselves to the light he saw he was floating in a pool about ten meters in diameter and the curving circular walls of mud and cunningly interwoven twigs swept up into a dome over his head. Straight ahead of him was a sloping beach covered with thin leafy plants glowing with an inner purple fire. Sprawled motionless at the water edge was the body of Konsello.
Johnson swam to the beach and crawled out., rolling Konsello over on his back. Opening one of the closed eyes he saw the pupil contract and felt the figure move slightly. Then after making sure Konsello hadn't swallowed his tongue, the swamper rolled the body over on its stomach and began giving artificial respiration.
Little by little the small amount of water in the city man's lungs trickled out his mouth and in fifteen minutes he began twitching. Soon the lungs were heaving and coughing of their own accord. Finally, Johnson turned him over and pulled him up to a sitting position. The man opened his eyes.
"Johnson!" Konsello managed hoarsely. "Thank God!" His wheezy voice boomed in the constricted place. "Where am I ? My lungs are on fire!" He began coughing violently, and as he seemed to gain strength he clenched his hands. "Those devils tried to drown me. I'll drain every last drop of water they got and let those devils suffer what they did to me. Where am I?"
"This is where they raise some of their food supply," said Johnson quietly.
"Food supply—eh?" Despite his weakness, he forced himself to his feet and began stumbling among the glowing plants, ripping them up with both hands. "I'll show them they can't try to drown me and get away with it—pulling me along until I'd strangle and then let me up for one tiny little breath time after time until I passed out. I don't remember them bringing me here."
"You better stop ruining their plants. You want to make them more mad when they come back?"
Konsello stopped his destruction as if he had been struck. "What do you mean—they coming back here? Let's get out of here!"
"We can't! Unless they let us. We got to stay here until the light comes. It's death in the dark."
"Now listen, swamper. If you don't get me out of this you'll suffer. When they grabbed me you didn't even try to—"
Without warning, a green thing walked up out of the water. It's webbed feet stepped surely like a man. But the arms didn't have the smooth swinging cadence of a biped used to walking on dry ground. The huge eyes were squinting against the glare of light from the plants and the cheek pouches bulged with a supply of water, the used part of which trickled fitfully out through the throat gills that showed red when they opened, letting the liquid seep into the soft green fur still dripping with moisture. The strange creature moved among the food plants inspecting the damage Konsello's rampage had caused. Then it slipped back into the water and raised a webbed hand to begin slapping the water.
When the thunderous pounding had stopped, Johnson twisted toward Konsello. "He says all the Swampanese know I am their friend. That I must go. But you have killed his young her, and he is of this place, The Council has
decided your penalty to be that you will stay here to take care of the air-breathing plants. When the Council decides it necessary, you will be taken to other food places to harvest or plant a crop as needed. That, the Council has decided."
Konsello exploded. "Their Council has decided? They can't do that to me! They don't know how big our civilization is. That proves what dumb, ignorant savages your friends are. You got me into this, swamper!"
"I didn't make all this trouble. And because they left the decision up to a council proves they got a civilization."
"Bah! I'll tear this place to bits with my bare hands."
"I don't think you should, Konsello," said Johnson unsmiling. "Do you realize this place is ten meters under the water? Do you realize this is the only bubble of air around here that is keeping you alive? Both from the water down here and the dark-flies above?" As he saw Konsello's face turn white he went on relentlessly, "Do you realize that if you did tear this place apart what would happen when all that water came pouring in here and the air started to bubble out?"
Stunned, Konsello shot a look up at the dome overhead and then down at the small pool of water which was rapidly filling with the slim green shapes of more and more Swampanese. When the full realization dawned on him of where he was. like a giant tree with its roots finally eaten away at a river's edge, he toppled over into the muddy dirt.
He had covered his face with his hands, and his body began to shake and quiver uncontrollably. "Get me out of here, Johnson. I can't stand it. I'd go crazy with all that water crushing down on me." There was a mounting hysteria in his voice as it cracked on the last word.
"What's the difference? You'll still have your life. You were going to do the same thing to the Swampanese, taking them away and putting them in a little bubble of water surrounded by a lot of air. How do you think they would feel ? Don't you think they might go crazy, too? That Swampanese that slap-talked to me said the Council had decided your penalty and I can't light the entire Council!"
Konsello was obviously trying to control himself, but without success. "What am I going to do?" he asked, and his voice had that breathless quaking sound of a man just hanging desperately over the edge of a sheer drop into utter panic. "I've never been a coward. But I couldn't stand being penned up down here. You got to think of something. I didn't know the swamps were like this. I'd pay anything to get out of here."
Johnson looked down at the big man quivering at the edge of the purple glowing plants. A big man with an abject terror of being closed in by a lot of water, and then he thought of the Swampanese swimming, horror-stricken, around in a lot of tiny tanks of water surrounded by miles of air somewhere on Earth. It seemed to be a swamp justice, but yet if this man died
there would be more men coming to drain the swamps. Nobody on Earth seemed to know anything about the swamps and now they would soon be coming in droves. What if—?
The solution slid into his mind so easily and quietly that for an instant he didn't know he had it. "Konsello!" he blurted, and jerked the man to a sitting position, "how much influence you got on this project?"
"It's all mine now, so long as I keep up the payments."
"Once you sell all the herbs and the swamp is gone you won't make any more profit. Is that right?" He went on talking as rapidly as the idea formed in his brain. "If I can slap-talk the Swampanese into letting you go will you promise to dike up a big chunk of Deep Swamp for them to live in and then keep this place running sort of like an exhibition place to show all those Earth people what the swamps used to be like before they were drained ? We can even fix up ways for people to come down and see places like this. They'd pay credits to see this, wouldn't they?"
Shaken as he was, Konsello's eyes narrowed. "If this were handled right it would bring in a lot of credits for a long time. A steady income. Something I've always wanted." His voice steadied. "I could even bring my wife and kids here. I could appoint you caretaker and guide and—" he broke off. "Quick, see if you can get them to agree!"
"One more thing. How about letting Mac Donavan keep his trading post just like it is ? Earth people might like to buy swamp things for souvenirs." Johnson waited for the big city man's nod, then hurried over to squat at the edge of the water. He leaned over and began slapping slowly and carefully. It took a long time and when he finished, beads of perspiration were running down his face. He waited. "Slap-talk never was fancy. Don't know if I got it all across."
The hollow chamber became utterly quiet except for the muffled breathing of the two men. The air seemed close and moist. Suddenly, a webbed hand shot up and slapped violently.
"What did they say?" demanded Konsello nervously.
Johnson's shoulders drooped. "They said—NO! They're more angry than ever since I had to explain you are the one draining all the water. They don't trust you'll keep the bargain.
Konsello cracked. He jumped to his feet raving and shouting, hurling insult at the unhearing Swampanese. He began kicking and stamping among the unresisting plants.
Johnson sat motionless a long time, watching the big man's senseless fury, until deliberately he got up and walked over grabbing him by the shirt collar. He pulled Konsello's face up close, within inches of his own. "I'm going to try one thing more. I'm going to try to put up a security that you will keep your promise." He twisted the collar tight. "But if you break your
promise—I'll rind you no matter where you go." He flung the man away from him and returned to his slap-talk. It was short and brief.
Even as he finished, the answer came. The hand slapped, and was gone. The waters swirled with motion and the Swampanese disappeared.
"Well?" asked Konsello.
"You got your life," he said wearily. "They'll let us stay here until the light and then help us back to the skeeter. When we get hungry we can eat some of their plants."
"But what made them change their minds so quickly? What did you offer as security I'd keep my word?"
"Martha and the two kids. I told them they knew where we lived, and Martha and the kids are alone most of the time. I told them it made sense that with their lives hanging over my head—I was bound to see you keep your promise. Those people got a lot of brains."
"Don't worry." The city man put out his hand and gripped the swamper's shoulder. "We'll both make more credits out of this exhibition idea when it is fully developed, than either of us ever made before." He smiled. "Anyhow, if you weren't such a dumb swamper, you'd know a spaceman never breaks his word."
Johnson grunted. "If you weren't such a dumb spaceman—you wouldn't be here!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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