ordon ,. Dicksoa


She turned back to Bart.

"Pier and promise you, Bart," she said, "whatever you ha
say to us, we 11 keep to ourselves. We won't tell anyone of anythi
you say; and of course, we trust you to do the same with what
tell you. Isn't that right, Pier?"

She looked at her husband again. Pier sighed.

"Yes. Yes .... "he said. "Bart, honor is a great thing toth0s
of us who are Lords. I give you my word of honor that whatever)
may tell me about yourself will not be told by me to anyone else.
also promise that I'll not act upon what I hear from you, in
official capacity as one of the Three and under my responsibilitJl


Bart's thoughts were tumbling over each other in his mind.
felt at once a great elation and a great wariness. What he
hearing was far more than he had ever expected to hear and ale
more than he could trust. He had found himself coming to like
and Marta. But there was no guarantee in that which meal
could trust them. And while their attitude seemed to bode well
his ideas, he still had no idea just what they were
seeking.

Not yet, said his inner, cautious soul. Not completely, y
Perhaps eventually.

"Are you satisfied, Bart?" Marta asked.

"Yes," be said, knowing that his naturally expressionless
would not give away the lie.

"Then, I'll ask you again. How much about yourself have l
guessed from what's been said here?"

"I've guessed," said Bart, "that the Lord and the Lady arer
interested in me than they might be if they were only conce
with me as a possible house servant."
"Vincent, all over again," murmurred Mart& "Bart, you've
to do better than that. I want you to tell me the most
guessed, not the least."

She had him cornered. .

"My greatest guess," he said slowly, "is that for some

you seem to he interested more in me, as me, than as one of
slaves, in any possible slave capacity.'"

"Of course," said Marta. "Tell him, Pier."
"Tell him what, my dear?"
"Tell him everything."

"No," said Pier slowly, and his voice deepened. His daA
were steady on Bart under the gray, straggly eyebrows. "I'm so

rite EAR?'tt LOROS lit

r love, but not everything, yet. He still has to prove himself to the
0rld we live in. He's only one person, and healthy. We're two,
and no longer young. He might live anywhere. Here is the only
place we can survive; and we have a right to defend the safety of our

position here. You'll have to wait--wait a little, Marta."

"At least tell him--"

"I'll decide what to tell him," said Pier. "I'm one of the Three;
an61 know things I've not even told you, who are closest to my
heart--things I've not told any living soul. There are things that
hae to wait for the proper moment for their telling; and a lot that
you'd like to have me tell Bart hasn't yet come to its moment."

,H,e stopped, still looking at Bart, then went on.

I thiik Bart understands. I think, too, he's got his own matters
about which he waits for the proper moment for telling us. Am I
right, Bart?"

"Yes," said Bart. He felt an admiration for the small, old man
bore him. "I have. I trust you, Lord and Lady, but there are
things I can't say because they involve others besides me."

"lut--," began Marta, then checked herself. Once more she
looked at Pier.

"Bart's hesitation to be completely open with us, and ours to be
completely open with him, needn't stop us from going ahead with
what you and I planned for this moment," Pier said to her. "After
all, this is only our first talk. He doesn't know us yet; as we don't
fully know him. But we do know enough to tell him some things
d do what we had decided to do for him first."

Ihrt's inner ears pricked up at the "for him." He was tempted to
Mng up the subject of Emma, but reason told him not to push his
luck until he knew more of what these two extraordinary people had
in mind.

"Then it's all right," said Marta, "to let him go on just the way
he has so far? If he goes on without knowing any more than he does
0w it'll be cruel to him and shameful for us. '

"Sometimes cruelty and shame can't be avoided," said Pier.

".Mr you're right. Bart, listen to me."

"Yes, Lord."

"Many things I'm not going to explain to you now. For now, it's
t0ugh for u to know that Marta and I once took an interest in the
ng man who later became your father. Because of that interest
-while we were still careful not to break any of the laws of our
I-World, here--were able to help him considerably. Because
're your father's son, and if you continue to show you deserve it,

!i8
	Gordon R. Dickson

we'll try to help you in the same way."

"I see. Thank you, Lord and Lady."

"You don't have to thank us--" Marta checked herself. "You'll

be giving us something in return."
"What, Lady?"
She smiled.

"Nothing, I think, you'll hesitate about giving," Marta said.
"But I should let Pier handle this part of it. Go on, dear."

"Bart," said Pier, "you're a slave. Even'as one of the Three
Who Command, I can't change that. There are only three classes
here in the Inner World. Ourselves, who are born to be its rightful
rulers, the Hybrids, who are born with a part of our bloodline but
in whom the slave blood of one parent bars them forever from being

Lords--and all else, who are slaves as you are."

Bart nodded.

"Yes," said Pier, "I'd assumed you'd understood that much. I
just wanted to make it very clear that the are limits to what my
Lady and I can do for you--but, at the same time, what we can do

is considerable. There are slaves and slaves."
"'Like Chandt?" said Bart.
Pier frowned.

"You should never speak to me or any other Lord or Lady

without being spoken to first," he said.

But then he, too, smiled.

"However," he went on "here in the privacy of our own home,
you're absolved from that rule. Yes, like Chandt. Chandt's a
special kind of slave, and specially favored because only one of that
kind is needed. Also he's required to be in a position of authority

over a large number of other slaves."

"Including me," said Bart.

"Yes," said Pier. "But I'll speak to him. After that, he'll still

have the authority, but he'll use it with restraint, in your case."
"Thank you, Lord," said Bart.

"You're not a Steed by accident, you know, or by reason of your
size and strength alone," Pier went on. "There're advantages to
being a Steed, as you'll find out. For one thing, you'll get more
respect and obedience from other slaves than you would in any
other position you could hold among them. Part of this is because
they believe--with some reason--that the Steeds are specially
favored by us Lords. But there are other advantages that'll be useful
to you as well as to my Lady and myself. You'll find out about
those, as occasions involving them come up."

THE EARTH Z, ORDS
	i!9


He broke suddenly into a warm smile.

"And while I'm on the subject," he said, "forgive me if you can
for having ridden you such a distance that first day. It's not that I'm
not aware of the effort and discomfort of carrying one of us in a
chair. The original intent was frankly punitive: one more way to
make humans suffer as they'd made our ancestors suffer. Later it

became a way of showing off, as it were..."

He interrupted himself.

"But that's beside the point, now," he said. "The important
thing is that I knew what I was doing to you and wouldn't have done
it if it hadn't been necessary. I had to show you off all over the Inner
World, the way any one of us with a new Steed would have shown
him off; and also I had to show that I was indifferent to the pain and
effort you felt as a result; so that no one should suspect [ intend to

favor you--as they'll see me doing later on."

"I understand," said Bart.

"I thought you would," answered Pier. "And you'll understand,
consequently, if in public--for no apparent reason you can see or
understand--I seem to treat you with deliberate harshness for a
while, yet. The reason will always be the same; to avert suspicion of
any favoritism toward you by me or my Lady."

"You don't understand what's meant when my Lord speaks of
himself as one of the Three Who Command, do you?" put in Marta
to Bart.

"No, Lady." Bart shook his head.

"Here in the Inner World, we rule," said Marta. "But we've got
out own rulers. From among ourselves we elect, for life, Three
Who Command us generally. Sitting as a body, they resolve
disputes and make all the decisions that affect the Inner World as a
whole. The Three are the Emperor, who is in authority even over
the two who Command with him--the Regent, and the Librarian.
Pier's the Librarian. As such, he has some powers and freedoms
even the Emperor doesn't have--particularly so far as the Library's
concerned. So, what'd be only a minor bit of favoritism for the

average Lord or Lady would be scandalous in his case."

"Oh," said Bart.

"I want you to understand that, because 1 want you to understand
how much he's risking to give you the help you'll be given," she
said. "He's doing this not only for your own sake, but for me,
because he knows how much it means to me to help you. So, if he's
hurt by it, both you and I are going to have to share the blame--not
that that'll help, because he'll have to face the other Lords as if the

responsibility was his alone."

"I see," said Bart.

He looked at both of them.

"I appreciate what you want to do for me," he said slowly. "I
don't understand, but I'm grateful. Only, I'd like to know more
about why you're doing it."

"You'll find out soon enough," said Pier. "Just as soon as it's
safe to tell you. Meanwhile, I'll tell you this much. You're a Steed
because, as I said, it's a useful job for you to have. But, also as I
said, I'll be talking to Chandt and making sure he understands that
while you're still one of his corps, your primary duty is going to b¢
to wait on my pleasure here; or go back and forth between me and
my Lady with messages and perhaps other things. Now, you'll
remember all this, what I'm telling you now?"

"I've got a good memory, Lord," said Bart.

"I'd expected as much." Pier nodded. "All right, your duties,
then, are going to leave you free to move about the Library and en
the Inner World in general, if necessary. If questioned you can
always tell whocver's questioning you that you've been sent on
some errand by me. Refer them to me. I'll take care of it from that
point on."

He paused to stare piercingly at Bart. Bart nodded.

"Good. Now, in the Library itself, I want to give you as much
opportunity as possible to take advantage of what's there. If you're
the sort of person we think you are, you won't waste any time
making use of that. Slaves who work in the Library and slaves of
supervisory rank--like Chandt--are allowed to make some limited
use of the Library facilities. If I were to create some excuse to grant
you that kind of privilege, it'd attract attention. Steeds aren't

thought of as the type of human who's interested in books."
Bart could believe that.

"So we need an excuse to give you the freedom of the stacks and
the freedom to carry off for reading any book you want. There's a
way. You can have been sent by me to pick out a book and bring it
to me in my office. Also we need a place of privacy for you where
you can read without people knowing you're doing that. It'won't do
to have you sitting down in the rest quarters for slaves and have the
other slaves who come in while you're there find you reading all the
time. So, to answer both problems, I've ordered a small alcove
partitioned off in my office, on the excuse that I need you at my
beck and call to run errands for me. It should be finished by now."

Bart stared at the small, old man. Pier's authority evidently was

considerable, and a good deal more than Bart had assumed before.
He had been in that same office only a few hours past, when he had,
as ordered, picked up Pier and carried him home; and there had
been no sign of an alcove, then, or preparations to build one.

"My official reason for the alcove is that I don't wish to be
reminded of your presence all the time, but I do want you at hand.
It'll be assumed that you don't understand our true language, so
anyone of rank visiting me in the office will believe they can speak
freely." Pier frowned again. "We'll have to guard the fact you do
understand. I think you can imagine how my guests would feel,
having some of their more private utterances overheard and
understood by a slave."

"Yes," said Bart--and was careful to keep out the note of irony
that threatened to creep into his voice.

"So," said Pier, looking for a moment at Marta. "I think that's
all for now. Jon, outside, will show you around our quarters here,
so you'll have some idea of how they're laid out. Then he'll show
you the route from your Steed quarters to both here and to the
Library."

Bart did not offer to explain at he already knew at least two
routes to the dormitory and was fairly confident, from what be had
seen so far of the Inner World, that he could find a more or less
direct route from here back .to the Library by himself---even though
in his trips with Pier he had been led on roundabout inspection
tours--using the map he had built in his head from his earlier
movements around the Inner World. But .Ion might have things to
show him he had not suspected; and in any case there were a great
many questions about the Library and the Inner World in general he
still wished to ask the young manwnot the least being some
queries dealing with Pier's status among his fellow Lords.

"Yes, Lord," he said. "Was there anything in particular you

wanted me to study, using the books in the Library?"

Pier raised his eyebrows.

"Don't be ungrateful, Bart," said Marta. "We assumed you'd
want to read the books in the stacks at the Library. Pier's simply
making it safe and easy for you to do so."

"You might start out, of course," said Pier. "by looking at maps
of the Inner World, so as to familiarize yourself with the ways
around in it."

Bart did not see him move. But the other must have made some
kind of signal, for with the last of his words the door opened and
Jon stepped in.

Gordon pounds Dickson

"y L,o and Lay?" he asked. "You called?"'

"You can take Bart away, now," said Pier. "Show him around
this home of ours, and the direct routes from the Library to here, as
well as from th dormitory to the Library.. Tell him anything he

needs--or wants--to know."

"Yes, Lord," said Jon.

He stood aside and Bart moved past him toward and through the
entrance. He noticed that the door stayed open behind him; and so,
once he was through it and outside the room, he turned to look back
at Pier and Marta.

"Thank you, Lord and Lady," he said.

Neither of the small people responded. The door closed.

chapter
eleven


"PAoLO DOESN'T WAIt]" [0 fight you," said Chandt. He spoke
with careful articulation, for the drink was already beginning to
affect him.

For two weeks after speaking to Pier and Maria, Bart had seen
nothing of the Master of the Steeds, beyond an occasional glimpse
of him going about his duties in the domain of the Steeds. Then
abruptly he had appeared in Bart's dormitory when Bari had just
returned there from the Library and taken Bari off with him. Now,
they were sitting in the private eating and drinking area of the
Steeds, with tall glasses of the sweet, weak local beer in front of
them. As with the first time Chandt had brought Bart here, they
had the place to themselves. Bart wondered whether this was
because of the times that Chandt picked to bring him here, or
whether some sort of message that he was coming had cleared
ordinary Steeds out of the room.

In either case they had been alone here except for the serving
man for three glasses now, and Surprisingly, already Chandt was
beginning to show the effects of alcohol. Bart noted the slightly
slurred speech, the short-focused gaze, with suspicion.it did not
seem possible that someone of Chandt's size, let alone in
Chandt's magnificent physical condition, could be honestly affected
by drink so strongly and so quickly. It was true, he had
known some men who were hit hard and quick by alcoholwbut
never this quickly, nor had they been someone like Cbandt.

Nonetheless, Chandt was indeed beginning to look and sound
drunk, to the point that the statement he had just made had a
faintly challenging note to it, a near-pugnaciousness of the sort a
drunk might show.

"Oh, I don't think so," said Bart.

Chandt's black eyes bored into him.

"You think I don't know when a man does not want to
fight--particularly one of my own men?" he said, and drank. His

	124
	Gordon R. Dickson


gaze wandered off toward another part of the room. There was a
pause before he went on, almost to a change of subject•

"Paolo's all right," he said. "Some of the dormitory Leaders
• . . they think of fighting anyone. Even me."

He laughed, shortly and harshly; and drank again.

"Some have tried," he said. "Yes, some tried to fight me. Not
many, but some•"

His mind seemed to wander.

"Some..." he said again. His eyes focused once more on
Bart. "You would try, maybe."

Bart shook his head.
"I don't want to fight anyone," he answered.

It was a small disappointment. He had somehow expected
Chandt to understand, even where others did not. But the other
man's attitude had been no different from that of most people Bart
had encountered.

It was strange, Bart thought, how people--essentially men, but
some women too--could not think of unusual strength as being
otherwise than a blessing. It never seemed to strike them that it
could be a curse as well. There was no pleasure in winning when
you knew that the dice were loaded in your favor by nature.
Strength that had been earned by some great labor might be
different; but Bart's had simply been visited on him from birth

and he had never been able to take any particular pride in it.
But Chandt was talking again.

"You know," he was saying, his dark eyes squinting a little as
if to keep Bart in focus, "you may be telling me the truth. There
are some who'd not care to be even Master of the Steeds. There
are those like Paoio--but you're not like Paolo.'"

Chandt shook his head as if to shake shadows clear of it.
"Never mind," he said. "What you are is specially favored;
and that is something you and I have got to come to an
understanding on. You're not the first Steed, you know, for whom
someone more than a slave has come to me and wanted me to give
that Steed special privileges. In the centuries I've been what I am,
there've been a number who asked." "

He stopped and stared for a moment across the table at Bart.
"When those who asked were agreeable to me, I agreed," he
said, "--provided there was nothing unnatural involved. They
can have their men or their women, whichever they prefer; as can
my Steeds. I don't interfere ordinarily. But a fighting man is not
to be made a toy of, to be put on soft cushions and cozied up to

THE EARTH LORDS
	125


and made love to. It spoils him for what he should be. And my
Steeds are not for spoiling. In those cases, where I did not like
what was asked, I went to the Emperor--and the Emperor always

understood, because he knows what the Steeds are for."
Chandt paused to drink and look again at Bart.
"You know what the Steeds are for?" he asked.
"No," said Bart.

"They are for the protection of three things," said Chandt.
"For the protection of the Inner World, if that should ever become
ncessary. But more important than that, they are for the
protection of the Lords against all else, such as a rising of the
slaves; and beyond that they are for the protection of the Three
Who Command. But last and most of all, and beyond those three
things--above all else--they are for the Emperor, whoever he
may be."

"The Emperor?" Bart said. "You mean, even against the other
Lords?"

"I mean even against the other two of the Three Who
Command, if necessary," said Chandt. "The Emperor holds in
his living body the spirit of him who ruled aboard that which
brought them to this Earth from beyond the moon. Most Steeds
know this but don't understand it. If the time comes, they will
have to understand, then. But someone like you, whom I've been
asked to treat as only partly one of the Emperor's Steeds, needs to

understand it from this moment."

He paused. Bait said nothing.

"The Emperor is your final responsibility," Chandt said. "in
the end, only your loyalty to the Emperor counts. Do you
understand that?"

"Yes," said Bart. "I understand that."

"If necessary, for the Emperor, you will do anything. You will
kill anyone. You will kill me, you will kill the one who has asked
for special favors for you, if you are ordered by the Emperor or in
the Emperor's name. You understand that? No matter what you
owe anyone else, no matter who you care for, as long as you are a
Steed, you belong only to the Emperor."

"Yes," said Bart.

"'And you accept that--that duty, that honor, that obligation,"
said Chandt. "You agree to and understand and accept?"

"You don't need to keep hammering it home," said Bart. "I
understand what you're trying to tell me--that I'm the Emperor's
man first and foremost, no matter what."

	126
	Gordon R Dickson


"Good," said Chandt.

He sat back in the booth, reached for his glass and drank
deeply, almost draining it.

"Good," he said again.

He pushed the glass away. The signals were plain that the
Master of the Steeds was through drinking and about to get to his
feet. But Bart had questions of his own.

"Who are the Three Who Command?" Bart asked. He had
already been told by Marta, of course, but Chandt had no way to
know that Bart knew, and it was a natural question to follow what
the Master of the Steeds had just said. And it might be a good
lead-in to get him more information about who stood where,
down here.

Chandt stared at him for a moment, as if testing the question for
sarcasm or insult.

"The Three Who Command," he said, "are the Emperor, the
Regent and the Librarian. As one of them dies, a new one is
elected by the Lords, for life. Until now it's never been one of the
Three who asked me for special use of one of my Steeds. Do not
think because it is the Librarian who speaks up for you that it
makes any difference: You are still a slave and one of my Steeds,
that is all."

"What I am, I am," said Bart, meeting the other's gaze.
Chandt stared at him again for a long moment.

"That was a good answer," he said. "Almost a Mongol could
have said that. But there are no Mongols anymore."

"There are a great many Mongols in central Asia," said Bart.

Chandt's face did not change, but his eyes narrowed between
their lids until they were mere slits of darkness in his round face.

"You are a liar!" he said; and though his voice got no louder, it
was blurred by a fury that overrode the drink in him. "They are
dead, all dead--like me[ If they were not dead, they would have
conquered the world, long since. Yes, even this Inner World they
would have found and conquered. They are dead!"

Bart had spent nearly all of one of the days since he had become
an inhabitant of the Librarian's territory learning his way around
the Library. In the process he had run across a book in English,
titled The Life of Jengh& Khan. Translated from the Chinese by a
Robert Kennaway Douglas. He had put aside his general search of
his surroundings to read that book and learn more about what
Chandt claimed to be. His mind was full of its facts now.

The only battle that came close to fitting what Chandt had said

	TIt RTlt LORDS
	127

before about his death had been the Battle of Mohi, fought April
11, 1241, on the banks of the River Sajo in Hungary. The
international Christian army had been made up of Hungarians,
Germans, Croats and five hundred French Knights Templar.

That Christian army, as in all other conflicts between the West
and the Mongols, had been muted. But it had been a remarkably
bloody battle in which many Mongols perished, which was not the
usual case. The Mongol expedition that engaged in that battle had
been commanded by Ghengis's grandson Batu (who was later to
establish the Golden Horde in Russia); and Batu had been assisted
by an experienced general.
That general was Subotai, who was famous in his own right. He
had commanded under Ghengis himself; and he was an "Oflock"
or "Eagle' '--one of nine chief princes created by Ghengis. But in
spite of Subotai's help and Batu's own budding genius as a
commander, the battle was one that gave the Mongols their
accustomed victory only at a heavy price in Mongol lives.

"Do you know the name of the place where you were killed?"
Bart asked now.

"The name?" Chandt swayed a little where he sat. "What
difference does a name make? It was by a river in the West. What
mattered was that Mongols died. I died."

"'Why do you suppose,,' said Bart, "that of all people the Lords
decided to revive you to he Master of their Steeds?"

"Who else?" Chandt growled. "I was of the tribe of the great
Khan himself. How could they do better than to bring back to life
Chandt, who was first a Mongol and second, knew more about
steeds, beast or human, than anyone?"

"Yes," said Bart, "that tribe that both you and the Great Khan
belonged to. What was the name of it?"

Chandt's eyes wandered away from Bart, to rest on a far wall of
the room.

"The name of the tribe? My tribe?" he said. "The name of my

tribe is sacred to Heaven. I don't tell Steeds the name of my tribe."
"Was it "Borjigin'?" asked Bart.

"Perhaps . . ." Chandt still watched the distant wall.

"It was Borjigin--'the Gray-eyed Ones'--that was the name of
the tribe in which the Great Khan was born. And his name

'Ghengis Khan' was Chinese for 'Perfect Warrior,' isn't that tree?"
"Perhaps," said Chandt, almost to himself.

"What was the real name, the tribal name of the Great Khan?
Can you remember that?"

128 Gordon R. Dicln

Chandt looked back at him.

"Do you think I don't know the name of him who was of my
tribe and the greatest warrior the world has ever seen? Of course I
know his real name. It was Temuchin."

"Of course it was," said Bart. "But tell me, then, what was the
word for 'arrow' in your language? Certainly no Mongol, a people

of the bow, would ever forget the word for arrow."

Chandt's head had sunk on his chest.

"Some other time," he muttered. "Some other time I'll tell you
that."

"There was a former enemy of the Great Khan whom the Great
Khan renamed after the Great Khan conquered him," Bart went on
unyieldingly. "The Great Khan renamed him 'Jebei' so that later
he became 'Jehei Noyon,' which would mean 'Prince Arrow.'
Could 'jebei' be the word for 'arrow' in your native tongue?"

Chandt lifted his head slowly and stared at Bart. He got heavily
to his feet.

"Why do you ask me questions like this?" he said thickly. "Has
someone put you up to this, seeking to attack me? Is it that you seek
to weaken my loyalty to the Emperor, by reminding me of those
who once held my loyalty? Of my clan? My people? How could you
know all this? Have you been with those free-thinkers among the
young Lords who have always clustered about the Library? Well, it
won't work."

"Ho one put me to anything," said Bart, looking up at the other
man swaying above the table.

"I am drunk," said Chandt, "yes. But your purpose has not
escaped me. I see how you try to make me doubt what I know to be
true." He paused for only the shortest of times, as if gathering
himself for a leap. "If you could prove to me--if, I say," he said
thickly but quickly, "you could prove I had been lied to--if my
people were not dead, and I not dead, and the Lords not what they
say they arc--then I would pull these walls Oown around them. But
there is no way they can have lied. What I know is the truth. Talk to
me no more like thismand remember, if I call on you in the
Emperor's name, you abandon any loyalty you have to anyone else
and answer immediately like the Steed you are--to me."

Bart watched the other man's broad back weave its way between
the square tables and out of the room. His probing for information
had certainly hit a sensitive spot in Chandt; but he had not intended
quite as much as the other had implied, at the end. And certainly it
looked robe a dangerous avenue to seek information on. But what

	THE EARTH LORDS
	129


was this about free-thinking young Lords and the Library? It was
certainly another thing to find out about, if he could only find some
avenue to the information.

Jon Swenson, he had discovered after leaving that first private
interview with Pier and Marta, was useless as a source of important
information. He knew nothing of any slave in the Guettrig
household who had resembled Bart's. father--hardly surprising,
since Bart's father must have left the Inner World long before
Swenson came into it. The very fact Lionel had once been in the
Inner World and gotten away--perhaps with the help of Pier and
Marta--however, hinted that there was some secret way out.

A slave would hardly be allowed to depart by the way of the
mine; unless he had been under the control of a trusted Lord or
Lady who was also going into the outer world--and maybe not
even that was allowed.

In fact, generally speaking, Swenson had nothing to offer Bart at
all by way of information except a knowledge of the geography of
the Inner World, plus an acquaintance with the general workings of
the Library and the household of Pier and Marta. He was more than
willing to talk, but as far as having anything to say that Bart could
find useful, the young slave's conversation was a waste of time.

Chandt, on the other hand, obviously had a great deal he could
tell. Equally obviously, be had no intention of doing so. Not yet, to
Bart, at least.

That left the Library itself as a source of information; and other
slaves who might be more knowledgeable than Jon and more
communicative than Chandt.

Bart got to his feet and left the Steeds' Recreation Center
himself. He headed for the general Recreation Center, the one for
all slaves, to which Paolo had taken him for their earlier talk. Paolo
had promised to be there this evening, and Bart had made it a
promise on his part, not expecting Chandt to show up and demand
his time as he had; but then, the time had not been all that long, and
chances were that Paolo was still there--he liked his evenings in
the Recreation Center.

So there should be plenty of time to find Paolo and, more to the
point, Lorena, with word of Emma.

When he got to the Center, be passed in through the doorway and
stepped to the side, out of the traffic and watching the crowd. The
place seemed to be swarming with slaves, and Bart saw now a
number of faces that he recognized from having seen them during
his time here in the Inner World. He had put in several hours every

	130
	Gordon R. Dickson


day carrying Pier about the working areas of the Inner World, and
he supposed that in those rounds he would eventually see almost
everne in the total population of the place.

He really knew none of them to speak to--slaves spoke only on
their Masters' business, outside of their free time and living
spaces--and it seemed that most slaves avoided Steeds when they
could, anyway. Besides, he had made no effort to strike up an
acquaintanc with any of them; that would only make him more
conspicuous--something he wanted to avoid if at all possible.

He was grateful for the special luck that had made him a favorite
of, and the property of, Pier Guettrig. The Librarian, unlike many
of his fellow Lords and Ladies, was not afflicted with the fancy to
dress up his personal Steed in some sort of flashy uniform or livery.
A Steed usually stood out from the other slaves in any case, heing
usually shiftless unless on some special duty, or off-duty altogether
rebut even then they often stood out; but livery would ensure that
anyone noticing Bart doing something unusual would he able to
identify exactly which Sted had aroused his notice.

On Barf's right wrist now, secured there by a leather hand
stained black, was a device with a face something like that of a very
small clock, except that instead of a ring of numbers, its visible
surface was covered with dots of some material like glass, which,
on a signal sent by the Stecd's Lord, could glow with an assortment
of different colors. Each color was a signal to the Stecdmand at the
very top of the face was a single isolated bulb which simply ordered
the Steed to report to his owner for orders.

With this, his size and his shirtlessness to identify him as a
Steed, Barz made his way easily through the crowd of slaves in the
room--no one of them would he eager to impede his way, or that
of any Steed. And although the yellow lights in this room were
rather dim, it seemed that no one had any trouble telling what he
was. No one seemed to recognize him individually, though, which
he supposexi was the best he could hope for.

Paolo had enlightened him on the social layers of the slave world;
and it was a fact that the presence of any Stcw.d in these rooms was
somewhat unusual, and attracted attention. Other slaves seemed to
share the assumption that the Ste.ds had other, much more
luxurious recreation rooms of their own--so a Steed in this place
was at least noticed. But there was no help for that; Paolo liked it
here, and it was the only place where a Steed could associate with a
non-Steed slave.

It was in the third of the three dining rooms he investigated that

	THE EARTH LORDS
	131

he spotted Paoio's bulk--as dormitory Leader, Paolo had some
specific hours off, during which he was often to be found here,
wearing other clothes than the rather simple uniform his owner
required him to wear during work. This was convenient not only for
Paolo but for Bart in this moment. Paolo was sitting in one side of a
corner booth against the wall, with Lorena sitting facing him. Paolo
had his back to the room, but Lorena saw and recognized Bart by
the time he had crossed half the width of the room on his way
toward the booth.

Bart saw, but because of the noise of the crowd, did not hear
what Lorena said as she leaned forward and spoke to Paolo. In any
case, Paolo did not turn his head in Bart's direction until Bart
reached the booth. Then, at last, he turned it enough to look up into
Bart's face.

"Lorena thought you might come by tonight," Paolo said. It

seemed that he almost grunted the words.

"Oh? Why?" asked Bart.

Paolo had not asked him to sit down and Bart's constant alertness
to possible danger made him suspicious now that there might be
some reason for the invitation being withheld.

"Lovers' instinct," said Paolo, still not moving; and laughed
heavily.

"Don't let him torment you, Bart," said a familiar voice, and
Emma's face appeared as she leaned forward and looked around
Paolo's thick body at Bart. She had been sitting back in the corner
and the position of the booth, plus Paolo's size, had effectively
been hiding her from the sight of everyone else in the room,
including Bart.

"Emma!" he said happily. He cupped his hand about the point
of Paolo's shoulder, with his thumb pressing into the nerve in the
middle and at the very top of the artn.

"Up," he said, "and let me sit down."

Paolo rose suddenly, swearing softly under his breath; and Bart
took off' the pressure of his thumb.

"Damn you," said Paolo between his teeth. "Where did you
learn a trick like that?"

He rubbed the area of the nerve point.

"You've been taking lessons from that devil Chandt!" he said as
be sat down on the opposite seat of the booth, beside Lorena.

"No." Bart slipped into the space the other had vacated, sitting
down beside Emma. :'From a much better man than that and a long
time ago. Emma--you're all right!"

	132
	Gordon R. Dickson

"Of course ]'m all right," said Emma. "But Bart, how arc you
ever going to forgive me?"

"Forgive you?" Bart stared at her. "Forgive you for what?"
"For getting you into this awful place!"

"You didn't get me here," Bart said, puzzled. "I came here on
my own."

"But only because you trusted me!" said Emma. "And I
promised you something that wasn't true. You remember you asked
me if Arthur had anything to do with the Scottites, and I told you he
didn't--but he did. And because you trusted me, you've ended up
here."

"Don't be ridiculous!" growled Bart. "I was coming this way
looking for my relatives, remember.'? I would have followed any
lead. Besides, I'm always cautious, just as cautious as if I'd known
that mine was run by Scottites--and it didn't save me. They caught
me in a net nobody could have dodged and chained me up anyway.
Now, this is one thing you're not going to take on yourself. I was
caught in spite of myself, and I was trying to escape when I fell into
an underground river and it brought me to the Inner World. So,
that's all there is to it."

"Perhaps," said Emma, gazing at him. "Anyway, you look all
right--in fact, you're much better looking without your beard."

"I couldn't have one down here if I wanted it, evidently," Bart
said. "Beards are for Lords alone. But it's marvelous to see you.
You look just the same as ever."

"Why should I look different?" said Emma. She leaned toward
him and raised a soft, small hand to touch him, fleetingly, on his
right cheek. But indeed he was right. The slave tunic she wore was
the only difference, shorter in the skirt and sleeves, cut lower in the
neck than anything he had ever seen on her before. But the dress
had no power to change her. Her blond hair was drawn back as
always into a bun, her round face was as calm and unchanged as
ever, except that now it was lit up by her warm smile.

She looked, thought Bart, as if not she, but everything else

around her was unreal and out of place.

"No," he said, "you wouldn't."

It took all his willpower, as always, to keep from putting his arms
around her. Only the knowledge that she would not want him to do
so, here and now, made him keep them still at his side.

"Of course, you wouldn't be," he repeated. "I should have
known."

"What the Lord has made me," said Emma, "is what I am.

Nothing on Earth has power to change that. Bart, you've lost
weight."

"I'm gaining it back," said Bart. "Anyway, that's not important.
What's important is you--'"

He had been speaking to her automatically in her native English.
Now out of the corner of his eye, he saw Paolo and Lorena,
watching and listening.

"Come on with me," he said, taking her hand and starting to get
up. "We'll go some place we can talk privately."

"That's right, be an idiot!" said Paolo. Bart stopped and looked
at the other man.

"Don't you know," Paolo went on, "if you two go out across
that floor, hand in hand like that there, the fact that the both of you
make a pair is going to be something half the slaves in the Inner
World can learn at any time by asking about either one of you.
Slaves watch slaves. Anything there's to know about some other
slave may be worth selling to someone at one time or another. But
go ahead, if you want to."

"'They already know we're together here in this booth," said
Bart.

"You think so?" said Paoio. "Think again. Your Emma there
came in by herself and sat down in this booth and had something to
eat. Before she was done, Lorena happened by and sat down
opposite her--just like for a chat. Your Emma was sitting back in
the booth there, on her side of it, out of sight of everyone outside
unless they came right up to it and looked in. Nobody did, because
I came in about then and sat down opposite Lorena. Most of those
out there know who I am and that I'm a Steed. They wouldn't come
calling on a booth where I sat without being invited, let alone on
one where I was sitting with a woman. Since Emma first came in to
eat, this place has filled up. Only the server on this table knows
she's here; but he knows me, too, well enough not to go talking

about me and anyone with me to somebody else."

He paused.

"Well?" he said. "I thought you two were leaving."

"You're right," said Bart, settling back. "And thanks. And
forgive me for moving you out of the booth that way. I owe you both
a lot for finding Emma and bringing her here for me."

"That's better," said Paolo. Then he grinned. "But it's all
right. Any time. I like you and Lorena likes this one of yours. You
got to show me what you did to my shoulder, though."

I'll do that," said Bart. "And a few more such tricks, if you

want. But right now--forgive me--I want to talk privately to
Emma; and since we have to do our talking right here, we're going

to have to do it differently than I first thought."

He turned to Emma.

"Emma," he said in a tongue he was more than ordinarily sure
neither Paolo nor Lorena could understand, "remember when we
were children?"

When they had been young, in settlement with the little
school where they had met, they had concocted a need for a private
language between them. One that they could expect most of their
classmates and many of the adults around them could not understand.
So he had taught Emma the Algonquian Cree tongue that he
had learned in his first years of life with his mother's people.
Emma was intelligent and young, quick to learn, and--in a
settlement dominated by mtis--she had already picked up a word
or two of the Indian tongues heard locally. She was soon almost as
fluent in Cree as he was; and to further confuse listeners who might
know the language, they gave fanciful names to the places and
people they talked about. The school teacher was 'Woodpecker' for
his sharp nose; Bart's father was 'Owl' for his wisdom and
mysterious powers--and so forth.

"Yes--," she began in that language; but he was already going
on in it, himself.

"You're really all right, though?" he was demanding. "They
haven't done anything to you?"

"What would they be likely to do to me, except put me to
work?" she answered. "They've done that. Don't look so fierce.

It's not a bad job, at all."

"Oh? What is it?"

"If you give me a chance, I'll tell you. Bart, my dear, I really am
all right; and the job they've given me is a perfectly ordinary one.
Arthur must have told them I kept the books at the store, because
they've given me a sort of bookkeeper job. 1 check all kinds of
figures sent in from various--I'll have to say it in English--
'departments' of the Inner World. Statements of things used or
needed, supplies--matters of that sort. It's really just like being
back in the store, except I do it all day long, instead of in my spare
time. Poor Arthur, though."

Somehow, Bart had known that the problem of Arthur's

difficulties would find its way into the conversation.

"What have they done to Arthur?" he asked.

"I suppose because they knew he was a storekeeper, they've put

him to we in hir supy dpnt. H h o ep ck o
cein ndables, estimate how much t'll d in ti to
oer it shipd in fo they run out, and me out the o.
He's tibly afraid 'll make a miste of some kind au the
oth e the have told him he could aten of" en kill
if he w ng and the Inner World run o of mething
u of his e."

"He's a slave like all t st of us, then?"

"Y. And he su they going to put him in some
survi sition. Of coup, like eye,one rise in the ur
rid, en among the Scottites, he didn't have y idea the Inner
World existed, much less what it was like he. If he'd known he
going to a slave he'd never have come. He thought he
getting a promotion to the Scottite headque."

"Yes," id B, "I see how he uldn't like ing a slave.
But to bring u along with him into the me p...'"

" fair, B. He didn't know. And he could hly le his
sister hind, alone d defenls"

"fenls!" pl B. "You've taken of him,
instead of &e other way und, ever since ur baby ie
song enoch to tdle after him["

"In some , a," said Emma. "But u know what I
meana ung unmi man living alone out he in the
s. If I didn't get mied almost immediately in ff,
none of the decent men uld have anythi to do wi me.
sid, it d e a m's stngth to do a cen amount oft
, nning a sto."

"I sup ," id B gdgingly; he h to mit s
right on th ints. An uned m, living ane, and en
if not picully ung anymore, h no or phce in ftier
civilition. A wide, or en a wife with a hband who ay
from me on long tri ly all t tick,most anything b
that immediately entity, a single man acae.
But Emma, living one, d in spRe of ople lik
r aM uld st by r in fe of t initle gip, ld
h en. Her suion uld have m it diffict for to
sufully n a sty, will t only us of mble
lf-sup on to h. AI, fight at th i a
in unt of frly avy ysical lr ui in
gokping; aM Emma, though g for r si, lf.

"Ay," id B, "t m is, u' n. I'm ng

	136
	Crdo £

to find a way to get the two of us out of here."

"And Arthur."

"And Arthur. Of course."

"But what've they got you doing, Bart?"

"I'm a Steed. You've been down here long enough to know what
that is?"

Emma laughed, then sobered.

"Yes," she said. "I'm sorry | laughed, Bart. It was just
thought of one of those funny little men perched up on your
shoulders like a child with a beard."

"| suppose it does make a funny picture," said Bart.

"No, it doesn't at all," said Emma. "It was wrong of me to
laugh. Carrying someone, bent over like that with the weight of the
man and the chair together, has to be painful. How you see where
3u're going, I've no idea."

"It's a little hard the first day," said Bart. "But after that it's not
bad. I've got to talk to you in more privacy than this, though. It
turns out my rider-owner's the Librarian, one of the three elected
officials among the Lords. So we may he lucky. But how do I go

about seeing you alone?"

Emma frowned.

"I don't know if 0u should try," she said. "We were talking
about this, Lorena, Paolo and I, before you got here. It's


"Dangerous? In what way?"

Emma turned to look across the table at the other man and
switched back to English.

"Paolo, you tell Bart why it'd be dangerous for him and me to

try to see each other privately."

Paoio grunted.

"Maybe," he said. "First, who's this Arthur?"

"My brother," answered Emma. "You see--"

"Look," Bart interrupted, speaking to the dormitory Leader. "I
know it's uncomfortable having people talking in front of you in a
language you don't understand. But believe me, what we were
tlking about had nothing to do with--we didn't say a word about
'you two. 'were ort3" t|king about ourselves.'"


you and [. So that brouRht Emma here into it. Now, a| of a sudden,
'e.-,e..' A,-,wex'ecr,j x. e., fool n I w'nt to te sure l"

not making a fool of myself now."

"I promise you," said Barn, turning to look a mesage at Emma,
"and Emma here will promise you, too, that her brother's not

going to be told a thing aboutany'of us, by any of us."
"Emma?" Paolo looked at her.

"If Bart thinks we shouldn't say anything to Arthur, then we
won't," she said.

But her glance at Bart emphasized the fact that Arthur was not to
be lefl out of their plans in the long run.

chapter
twelve


"Just TO PUT your mind at rest," said Bart to Paolo, "what
Emma and I talked about was what had happened to the two of us
down here. I told her I was a Steed and she told me she was a
bookkeeper. She also told me her brother's been put to work in
Supply, wherever or whatever that is." ,

"If it was just that," said Paolo, "why didn't you say it in plain
English or plain French?"

"Paolo[" said Lorena. "Can't you understand? No you can't,
can you? Because you've never been in love. People in love who
haven't seen each other for some time sometimes want to say a few
things without the whole world knowing."

Paolo grunted, plainly not convinced, but willing to let the
argument go, for the present.

"Now," said Bart,-"let me ask you something. What makes
you think it'd be important to anyone that Emma and I make a
pair?"

"One hell of a lot of experience down here, that's what makes
me think it!" said Paolo. "You came in and landed in some kind
of soft spot--just being made one of the Steeds was luck enough;
but you seem to have something else going for you. I don't know
what yet, but Chandt says I'm to let you go from any exercise hour
or dormitory duty you want off, when you tell me you need to be
someplace else. You've got some line to something and I'll find
out sooner or later what it is."

"The Librarian likes me," said Bart. "Why, I'm not really
sure myself. But he does; and he seems to have a lot of power."

"He's got that, all right," said Paolo. "'So that's what's
making you so special! The Emperor's word rides over anything
else; but there's talk the Librarian knows things no one else does
and even the Emperor has to listen to him on some things. But
you're maybe going to find it's not all gravy being a favorite of
someone with that much power. Little people like us here at this
table can get crushed real easy between a couple of large stones

	rltF, K4RTH LORDS
	139

like two of the Three Who Command."

"If the Emperor rules and the Librarian keeps the Library and
knows things not even the Emperor knows, what does the Regent
do?" Bart asked.

Paolo gave a short, snorted laugh.

"Nothing," he said, "but stands there waiting to step into the
Emperor's place if anything happens to the Emperor and there's

no one else elected yet to take his place."

He stared at Bart.

*'Don't let that make you forget not to walk softly around him,
too," Paolo said. "He's still one of the Three Who Command
and only the Emperor and the Librarian don't have to do what he
tells them."

Bart nodded.

"All right," he said. "Back to what I asked you before. What
makes you take it so seriously that somebody might ask if Emma
and I make a pair, and that someone else might tell them we do?"

"Man," said Paolo, "it's easy to see you haven't been reborn
for more than a few days. You're going to find out how things
really are, here."

"Tell me, then," said Bart, "how are they?"

"I will. Count up," said Paolo, holding up three thick fingers.
"There are about three thousand full-blooded Lords and Lady
Lords, counting from the youngest baby to the oldest of them.
There's maybe fifteen hundred Hybrids, because they only keep
the best of the half-breeds, and of those, many work outside; and
five hundred Steeds. Call it a round five thousand. But there's
fifteen thousand slaves. You got to he crazy to think the Lords
never worry about the slaves making a revolt, when the slaves
outnumber everyone else, including the Steeds, put together, three
to one."

Bart nodded. To himself he had to admit that he had been
singularly blind. Of course, a governing class like the Lords would
have to worry about their slaves, no matter how well the two
classes seemed to get along on the surface.

"So?" said Paolo. "So that means they try to keep watch for
any signs of something that might lead to trouble from the slaves,
all the time. And it's not easy. They can put those magic boxes
that they talk over and listen over and see each other on all over the
place; but slaves can still whisper to each other where they can't be
heard, and make plans. So what do the Lords do? You tell me?"

"I've got no notion," said Bart.

dn R. icn


to find a way to get the two of us out of here."

"And Arthur."

"And Arthur. Of course."

"But what've they got you doing, Bart?"

"I'm a Steed. You've been down here long enough to know what
that is.'?" •

Emma laughed, then sobered.

"Yes," she said. "I'm sorry I laughed, Bart. It was just the
thought of one of those funny little men perched up on your
shoulders like a child with a beard."

"I suppose it does make a funny picture," said Bart.

"No, it doesn't at all," said Emma. "It was wrong of me m
laugh. Carrying someone, bent over like that with the weight of the
man and the chair together, has to be painful. How you see where
you're going, I've no idea."

"It's a little hard the first day," said Bart. "But after that it's not
bad. I've got to talk to you in more privacy than this, though. It
turns out my rider-owner's the Librarian, one of the three elected
officials among the Lords. So we may be lucky. But how do I go

about seeing you alone?"

Emma frowned.

"I don't know if should try," she said. "We were talking
about this, Lorcna, Paolo and I, before you got here. It's


"Dangerous? In what way?"

Emma turned to look across the table at the other man and
switched back to English.

"Paolo, you tell Bart why it'd be dangerous for him and me to

try to see each other privately."

Paoio grunted.

"Maybe," be said. "First, who's this Arthur?"

"My brother," answered Emma. "You see--"

"Look," Bart interrupted, speaking to the dormitory Leader. "I
know it's uncomfortable having people talking in front of you in a
language you don't understand. But believe me, what we were
talking about had nothing to do with--we didn't say a word about
you two. We were only talking about ourselves."

"This Arthur," said Paolo. "I want to know what he's got to do
with everything. I did you a favor because we had an agreement,
you and I. So that brought Emma here into it. Now, all of a sudden,
there's somebody called Arthur in it, too. I've managed to live all
these years down here by not being a fool and I want to be sure I'm

EARTH LORDS 137


not making a fool of myself now."

"I promise you," said Bart, turning to look a message at Emma,
"and Emma here will promise you, too, that her brother's not

going to be told a thing about any'of us, by any of us."
"Emma?" Paolo looked at her.

"If Bart thinks we shouldn't say anything to Arthur, then we
won't," she said.

But her glance at Bart emphasized the fact that Arthur was not to
be left out of their plans in the long run.

140 Cordon R. Dickn

"What they'd like to do," said Paolo, "of course, is send spies
in among the slaves. But down here everybody knows everybody
else. Sure, they could produce a fresh slave saying he's just
nevborn and the slave could really be a spy for them; but where're
they going to get the spy they can trust? The only one they could
trust would be a Hybrid; but everybody knows every Hybrid from
the time they're born on up--if they're let live. So, what do they
do?"

"I just said I didn't have any notion," answered Bart.

"They just don't take chances, that's what they do," Pao]o
said. "Any suspicion--any suspicion at all that a slave's a
potential troublemaker--any reason for suspecting anything--
and that slave's gone. [ mean dead. Dead and gone down that river
they pulled you out of and brought you back to life."

"Are you trying to tell me," said Ban, "'that the simple fact
that people think Emma and I are close would be reason enough
for the Lords to have us kil|ed--or do they do their own killing?"

"Sometimes," said Paolo. "Mostly we do it for them, we
Steeds. It's pan of our job. You're going to find there's a lot of
things we do you'd never suspect. But you're right. That's exactly
what I've been trying to tell you. Now, suppose you're a slave who
wants something from the Lords, or who's about to be in trouble
with them himself, or is in trouble with them, already?"

"You mean a slave like that could buy himself out of trouble or
get what he wants just by saying Emma and [ are getting together
to plan a revolt against the Lords, whether it was true or not?"

"If you were a Lord, and slaves as easy to get as they are, would
you take the chance of waiting around to see, or checking?" said
Paolo.

"Probably not," said Bart.

"Bart[" said Emma. "Of course you'd check first before you
did anything to anyone. You can't tell me that about yourself."

"If I was a Lord, I might not," said Bart. "Paolo's right. Or,
maybe not. Paolo, if just being seen together's good enough to
accuse somebody of planning a revolt, hgw's it happen you and
Lorena are still around?"

"We've been here long enough so that we've each been given
permission,, said Paolo. "Seems like the Lords have some way
of deciding you're not the kind to start a revolt--and I'm not.
Neither's Lorena. Anyway, we've both been told, a long time ago,
we could make friends or whatever. Not that it'd be exactly safe
for even us if we started suddenly meeting with a gang of about a

rlt pounds R?'lt LOROS


dozen other old hands and whispering to each other so nobody
else around could hear."

"Who do you get permission from?" asked Bart.

"You get it from your Lord, because when he gives it, he takes
on the responsibility of you going bad," said Paolo. "Matter of
fact, what happened to me was Chandt put in a good word for me
to somebody and it went up and around and came back down to
me from my own Lord. Maybe you can deal direct with the Lord
Librarian; but you'd better wait awhile. It's not just him. He's got
to convince the other Two Who Command that it's a safe bet."

"All right," said Bart. But he was thinking that very probably
he would not be waiting anywhere near as long a time as Paolo had
in mind.

"So," he said, "'how do I go about seeing Emma? Only when
you two are able to act as chaperones?"

"What's a chaperone?" asked Paolo. "Never mind, I figure I
know what you mean. That's right, pretty much so for the first few
months. Then you can start meeting with just one of us there, and
finally, maybe, you can ask your Lord and get permission to meet
by yourselves."

"Hmm," said Bart.

Emma put a small hand on his arm.

"If we have to be patient, Bart..." she said.

He looked sideways and down at her. His heart seemed to move
in him, looking at her. She was so small, to be here in this
unnatural place. They could not know it--Lords, Hybrids and
slaves alike--but any of them who tried to take advantage of that
smallness would find Bart's own hands, which were anything but
small, to deal with. After which they would never try to take
advantage of anyone or anything again.

"Don't worry," he said to her gently, "'I'll go slowly and
carefully. Even if it keeps us apart, I won't rush things."

"I know you won't," said Emma, patting his arm momentarily,
like an adult approving a child who had just promised to be
good. He smiled at her and she smiled back.

In the end the four of them decided that they would meet on a
signal passed by Bart to Paolo, or from Emma to Lorena; and
from Lorena to Paolo or vice versa. It was a clumsy arrangement,
but even Bart had to admit it was about the only one that could be
made under the present circumstances.

Bart looked across the room at the clock again.

"I've got to get back to the Library," he said.

142 Gordon R. Dickson

Emma also thought it was time she was leaving and Lorena
started to go with her. Paolo, however, wanted to sit and drink for
some time yet. His particular Lord was a late riser in the morning,
even on those mornings when he did call for Paolo to carry him;
and these had grown infrequent as that Lord--who was a good
deal older even than Pier--spent more and more of his time in his
own quarters. But Paolo did not want to drink alone. With a small
sigh, Lorena sat back down in the booth.

"Better go out separately," Paolo told Bart and Emma. "You
first, Bart."

Bart got up regretfully.

"Be careful, Emma," he said. "Good night."

"I will. You too. Goodnight, dear," said Emma.

Bart got up from the booth, but just as he was about to turn, a
question occurred to him.

"By the way," he asked. "Lorena, what work do you do?"
"Her?" Paoio answered for her, even as he was looking across
the room to flag down the server for another drink. "She scrubs
floors--things like that."

"I'll see you by tomorrow evening," said Bart and left the
Recreation Center.

In the past few days of exploring during the free daytime hours
his work for Pier afforded him, he had been able to fill out his
mental map of the Inner World. The place consisted, he now
knew, of an outer ring of excavations or caverns which were, as
one went around in a circle, living quarters for slaves, Hybrids,
and finally for the Lordly class itself.

Within that ring were the recreational centers for the various
classes, storerooms, offices, machine shops and other working
areas, which in turn surrounded a core area of special workrooms,
which seemed populated almost exclusively by Hybrids, Lords and
Ladies at incomprehensible work in what seemed to he laboratories
and workrooms.

This last area, because he had seen so few slaves in it, he had
barely penetrated. Since slaves were so scarce there, he had
suspected that his own presence might be particularly noticeable.
But the urge to explore it further itched in him; and he reasoned
that, at this time of the evening, when the corridors around him
were filled With slaves, Hybrids and even Lords out on recreational
purposes, he should find the labs and workrooms fairly deserted.

Also, his most direct route back to the Library would lie right
through the center of this core area.

	THE F, ARTH LORDS
	143


He gave in to the impulse and headed down the corridor toward
it, automatically giving way to the Hybrids and Lords he encountered,
and hardly noticing that most of the other slaves who were
not Steeds gave way to him.

However, when he reached the core area, he was surprised to find
the workrooms apprently nearly as full of busy people as they had
been in the daytime. It was finally beginning to sink into him that,
whatever else the Hybrids, Lords and Ladies might be, they were
not idle. Having committed himself to explore, however, he
continued down the corridors, which all seemed like the spokes of a
wheel radiating from some central spot in the core area.

It was an exploration with all of his nerves alert for any
contingency. More than a few of those he passed in the corridors,
or near the open doors of the rkrooms, glanced at him. Still, as
long as Bart kept walking down the corridors with a reasonable
speed and a purposeful air, no one offered to question what he was
doing there. He had purposely not donned a shirt for his evening
with Paolo in the Recreational Center, and so he was now dressed
as was appropriate for a Steed on some duty.

But as soon as he slowed and tried to get a longer look in some
doorway or other, someone in that room was almost certain to turn
and look at him inquisitively. Little by little, he was moving toward
the exact center of the core--the center of the Inner World itself.

Up until now, he had neither been questioned nor stopped. But
he came at last to the end of a final corridor, which was almost
taken up by a pair of very large doors, wide enough to let six people
through abreast. The doors were closed, however, and before them
stood a man who was obviously a Steed, though not one of Bart's
dormitory. He was wearing a uniform-like red jacket and kilt. He
had obviously been chosen in part for his size and impressiveness;
for he stood close to six and a half feet in height, at Bart's estimate.
And he was carrying a weapon.

This armed guard stood before the doors, barring entrance with
something that looked rather like a lumpy rifle, with a miniature
half-moon-shaped axebead affixed at its muzzle end where a
bayonet might have been fitted on a military long gun.

The impression was reinforced when, as he got closer, the man
swung the object down into horizontal position, aimed at Bart; for
the small axebead glinted like silver in the overhead lights of the
corridor. Bart stopped with what was clearly a razor-sharp endedg
as well as bottom edge a foot from his chest.

"I'm Bart Dybig, slave to the Lord Librarian," he said to the

Gordon R. Dickson


man. "I've got an imperative message to him from his Lady."

The weapon, however, stayed pointed at him. The guard
frowned.

"You can't go in here," he said. "No human passes this door
unless one of the Lords takes him in. Who'd you say you were?"

"A slave of the Lord Librarian," repeated Bart. He was
beginning to feel the first twinges of regret that he had identified
himself so readily. Still, Pier had said Bart should use the
Librarian's name as a passport and Pier was one of the Three Who
Command. "Let me through or I'll have to report you to my


"Report all you want!" said the big man. His voice, surprisingly,
was a reedy harsh tenor that seemed at once threatening and too
small for the rest of him. "My orders are my orders and you can't
go through here without a Lord taking you."

"All right," said Bart. He was just as glad to make his escape
without further trouble. He turned and started back the way he had
come.

"Wait a minute!" called the guard. "Wait, I say!"

Bart, however, reasoning that part of the man's orders must be
that he was not to leave his post at the door under any circumstances,
merely increased his speed, and soon lost himself among
the people passing to and fro from the other rooms and the
intersecting corridors, farther out.

He turned left at the first cross tunnel encountered, heading back
toward the Library.

As he went, he tried to puzzle out what lay. behind the doors the
guard had stopped him from passing. His one point of reference
was his mental map of the Inner World--that, at least, should give
him some idea of the size of the room behind those great double
doors.

Checking his memory now, he suddenly realized that the space
beyond the double doors could only occupy the space at the end of
the room, one end of which he had carried Pier through on that first
day Bart had worn the chair--the room with the pipes running its
length from the even farther end of the room where the great shiny
column had risen from some lower level.

There could be no doubt about this, since he and Pier had
stepped almost directly from that pipe-filled room into the Library;
and from where be had faced the guard just now the Library was on
a direct line--ignoring stone walls and other obstacles--no more
than three hundred feet away. His way to it now was longer than

THE MRrtt LORDS
	145


that only because he had to take a circuitous route to it through the
corridors.

But of course, he remembered, the pipe-filled room was one
level up from the general level of the Inner World, since the
ordinary main floor of the Library, on which Pier had his office
back to the side of stacks, was also one level up. That meant the
Library stacks must share the wall behind them with the great
chamber where the massive column had been visible--that room
the guard would not let him into just now.

He was abruptly reminded of how the slaves talked about some
great weapon with which the Lordly class was intending to destroy
the surface world and all of humankind. He still could not believe
in such a weapon; but he had been impressed in spite of himself by
the lighting and the ventilation down here, the means of talking,
listening and sending animated pictures of themselves back and
forth over distances, used by the Lords and Hybrids--as well as a
host of other things that as far as Bart knew were unknown in the
world above.

The weapon talk had to be nonsense--but something had to be
going on here that explained the very exfstence of such a place.

He began to climb the stairs leading to the main entrance of the
Library.

The first maxim his father had impressed on Bart's young mind,
from the moment Bart had come to live with Lionel after leaving
the tree encampment on his mother's death, had been "find the
reason!"

There was, Lionel had explained, always a reason behind every
situation and every human action. Look for it, find it, he had told
Bart; and you'll find you have a better grasp of the problem than
those who've themselves involved in it and who've studied it hard
and long for a solution.

The most difficult part of finding the reason, his father had
explained to Bart, was to find the right question to ask oneself.
Once that much was done, often the answer came quickly.

In this case, Bart already had the question formulated in his
mind. It was--why should something such as this Inner World exist
in the first place.'? Its existence made no sense; and the explanations
he had been given for its creation were flatly unbelievable.
So--why the Lords, why the Hybrids, why the slaves and the
organization of the community to which they belonged7 If he could
uncover the answer to that Why? he felt he would he more than
halfway to understanding the whole situation he and Emma faced.

	146
	Goedon g. Didtson

The Lords, themselves, Bart thought, must know the true
answer. But, on second thought, if they did, how could a
community like this endure this long, develop these kinds of
mechanical marvels, and make this kind of progress, without some
Lord, in one of the generations that must have gone by since the
community was begun, giving away the secret?

Was it possible that the Lords themselves were the dupes of a
plan made many generations before this present one?

But that could not be. No such secret plan could exist without
someone along the descending stairs of the generalious breaking
the code of silence and letting the secret out into the world at large.
Whether they had come from some woorld beyond the moon--and
he did not for a moment believe such a wild story--or not, they
were human enough to make children with human partners; and in
other ways human enough so that the secret would have been bound
to be given away by some one of them for personal or other reasons.

All right, he said to himself, trying to think as his father had
taught him to think--if they can't but they do, there has to he a
third choice, somewhere. There had to be a secret. Who would
know it? Perhaps only some of them knew--perhaps only one in
each generation?

Of course--the Emperor. He would be the one to know; and his

position and power would depend upon his keeping the secret ....
Maybe.

It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that somewhere along
the line an aliuistic Emperor would be elected, who would refuse
to carry on with the lie.

On the other hand, it was not impossible that no such Emperor
had cropped up--at least, yet.

But now he was guessing. And guessing was not the way to solve
problems--another maxim of his father's.

Nonetheless, he had come up with a third alternative; and it was
one that showed more possibilities than the self-canceling other two
possibilities he had been going back and forth between, a moment
before.

Someone, or some several ones--but in the case of secretkeeping
it was usually better the smaller number who knew, so one
was the most likely possibility--in the Inner World must know the
reason this place was created and to what end it was aimed. A
hiding place for small people was too simple an answer; particularly
when you considered that the small people were mechanical

THE EARTH LORDS 14


wizards and must control enormous wealth, piled up over a period
of generations.

He had reached the Library's main entrance. Now, he made his
way back through the stacks to the door of Pier's office. Putting the
key Pier had given him into the lock, he turned it halfway.
Immediately, a small panel above it glowed with an amber light.
That wauld be a signal that Pier was in there, but that he had no
objection to Bart entering at this time.

Bart turned his key the rest of the way and opened the door. Pier
was seated at his desk, immersed in what looked like the pages of
an enormous ledger. He paid no attention to Bart. Closing the door
softly behind him, Bart made his way silently across the carpet into
his own alcove. Pier's head did not lift to look at him as he passed.

Bart sat down in his chair before the desk. Facing the walls on
three sides of him,it was possible to feel himself private and apart.
The silence in which Pier worked reinforced that feeling. Bart
frowned at the corner ahead of his desk where the two original walls
of Pier's office came together.

When one mystery is joined by another mystery in the same place
and time, he told himself, the chance the two are connected rises
considerably ....

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door to Pier's
office opening. He turned his head--he was wary of actually
turning about in his chair and being discovered trying to find out
who had entered--but the angle of the wall set up to make his
alcove blocked his view of the door. He heard voices speaking in
the Latin tongue of the Lords and a moment later his curiosity had
satisfaction thrust upon it.


It was Pier's voice calling him. The Librarian, Bart had learned,
was known for his polite and gentle treatment of his slaves; but
there was in his voice now a distant, impersonal note that offset the
use of Bart's first name and in which Bart read a warning that now
was not the time for him to betray any special relationship with the
other.

He rose immediately and stepped into the room. T, other
Lords were there, and Bart felt a sudden recognition on seeing
them, though he could not remember where he might have seen
them before. The two looked at him with a disquietingly penetrating
interest, as if they, too, remembered him from some previous
meeting.

148 Cordon . Dickson

"Brt," said Pier again, as Bar made his appeuance, "I cm't
be needing you to carry me home this evening. You're free until

tomorrow, when I'll want to see you at my home."

"Yes, Lord," said Bart.

The words he had heard were all too obviously a dismissal. He
backed away, on his best slave manners, toward the door, which
opened behind him to let him out and then closed once more
automatically. He took two steps toward the front of the Library
and the corridor beyond that would take him out into the public
ways of the Inner City againkand stopped.

He had just remembered where he had seen the two before. They
had been the two who had been with Pier in that moment of
consciousness Bart remembered after his blacking out in the
underground river and before he had'waked in the Steed dormitory.

They had to be the Emperor and the Regent. He had no proof,
but he was sure of that. The Three Who Command were now joined
together in conference.

chapter
thirteen


HE WENT ON OUt of the Library so wound up in his thoughts he
almost blundered into a Lord on foot, with a female Hybrid for
companion, who were on their way in through the entrance. Bart
woke in time and stepped aside. The near collision made him
realize that in spite of his determination to remain coolheaded
about all this, emotion had crept into the matter. In the office a
moment past, he had not been able to avoid thinking of Pier as
someone who was to be defended against the other two as
attackers. The image of all three Lords was burned in his
memory, now, as he went away down the stairs to the main level
corridor.

There was a certain unconscious arrogance about all the Lordly
class, even those as ordinarily gentle and considerate as Pier and
Marta. It had been with something more than that, however, it
seemed to him now, that those other two had glanced at Bart.

Both were considerably younger than Pier. Neither, thought
Bart, was more than ten years older than himself. In fact their
youthfulness, in contrast with the age of Pier, had been striking.
These were men in the full vigor of their lives.

Also, they had something additional in common besides their
age. They were dressed in the same style, though not in the same
colors and fabrics, wearing jacket and skin-tight leg coverings
which could have been either stockings or trousers, so that they
looked like something out of a Renaissance painting. Though the
colors of their clothes differed, all they wore was dark, and the
fabrics were adorned and decorated with jewels .to the point of
ostentation. It seemed to Bart very nearly as if they had
deliberately dressed so, to make Pier in his long, unadorned office
robe seem drab and insignificant by comparison.

But when Bart had glanced from the newcomers to his Lord, he
had seen a surprising thing. For Pier, standing behind his desk,
had straightened up. His wisp of white beard barely brushed the
high collar of his robe in front instead of having its hairs splayed

	150
	C, oMon R. Dickson


out by the collar's upper cdga. Far from being dominated by
comparison with the other two, Pier in the floor-length robe of
earth-brown made the others seem gaudy and juvenile by comparison.

Them was one thing more Bart had noticed, and which the
shorter of the two incoming Lords had to a greater degree than any
of their kind Bart had seen before. It was an attitude Bart
recognized, for he had seen it often enough in the years when
Louis Riel had been active and Bart's father close to him.

]t was the air of accustomed authority. An authority on the part
of the shorter of the two newcomers that was arrogant to the point
where it almost--but not quite--seemed ready to dare try
commanding Pier. Aside from this, so strong was the similarity in
appearance and attitude between the two entering that they could
have seemed brothers; and yet, physically they were different
enough.

The taller one did not radiate the impression of power that the
shorter one had. Which was strange, for physically, the taller one
had been impressive, as Lords went. Almost tall enough that,
except for his clothing and his small chinbeard--in this place
where beards were only allowed on the Lordly class--be could
have been taken for a Hybrid. His hair was slightly curly and
reddish-gold. Below it his face was handsome, in a fine-boned
way, with a straight nose, blue eyes that were almost feverishly
bright and two even rows of very white, regular teeth that attracted
attention when he smiled.

The shorter and more impressive one was normal height for a
Lord--several inches short of five feet, perhaps--but had disproportionately
wide shoulders. Other than that, he was slim, almost
to the point of being starved-looking, with straight black hair,
black eyebrows, and a narrow face, the olive skin of which seemed
stretched tight over the bones. He had not smiled at any time while
Bart was watching him; and did not look as if he was likely to,
often. His glance was as aware as the glance of a hunting cat.

The two had already come to a stop in the office when Bart had
first seen them, so Bart did not know if they had walked side by
side, or in file; although they were together in the room, the
dark-haired one was a little in advance of the other. The position
may have been as unconscious as the arrogance of the individual;
but it was not accidental. This one was the leader, the superior of
the two.

This, said Bart's woods-born instinct, sniffing at the memory of

THE KARTH LORDS 151

the dark-haired man like a wild animal, was the one to fear. There
was only one person he could be. The Emperor. The taller,
curly-haired one with him would be the Regent. Bart felt the need
to know more about both of them; and not only about them, but
about their whole structure of authority.

Somehow, he told himself, he must find some channel of access
to more information; not only about the Lords, but also about that
room he had been stopped from entering, a short while ago. From
what he had encountered so far, the slaves were all about as
useless in this respect as Jon Swenson had been. Their stories
were wild and the details of them did not confirm each other.
Obviously they were the result of hearsay repeated over and over
and embroidered upon until it approached the level of legend.

It was not legend Bart wanted, but facts. Chandt probably could
give these to him, but almost certainly would not. The only other
possibility was Paoio.

Reaching the slave Recreation Center, Bart went in and began to
search for his dormitory Leader. The last he had seen of the other,
Paolo had been determined to do some serious drinking. The time
that had gone by since then was too short for Paolo to have gotten
drunk enough for bed, but perhaps long enough for the dormitory
Leader to have become a little less cautions in how he answered
Bart's questions. Asking Paolo for the information Bart wanted
was not an ideal situation; but there was no one else he could trust
to any extent--not that he could trust him that much--and who
-also might know some of the answers he needed.

Paolo was no longer in the corner booth where Bart had left him
with Emma and Lorena. He found the other finally in the
innermost room of the Recreation Center. It was a room constructed
to look something like a frontier tavern with trestle tables
and benches. Time and the custom of the world aboveground had
evidently made it essentially an all-male enclave. Paolo was with
halfa dozen other men, all of them drunk enough so that their talk
made little sense and they roared with laughter at simpleminded
jokes they would have sneered at, sober.

Bart tapped Paolo on the shoulder. Paolo ignored the tap until
Bart thumped his shoulder with enough force to have roused the
other man's anger if he had not been full of drink.

"'Hey!" shouted Paolo, looking up to him. "It's Bart! Sit down
and have a drink, Bart! Hey, server--"

He threw a thick arm around Bart's waist and pulled him to the
edge of the round table around which the party was seated.

"Listen, all of you!" shouted Paolo, jerking Bart against his
shoulder in a one-armed hear hug. "I want you all to meet Bart,
here! He's a cetriol, but I like him!"

The talk and laughter died for a moment around the table as all
eyes there focused on Bart, then broke out again.

"Hey, cetriol!" called a young, white-blond-haired man at the
table. The word, Bart knew--he had a small knowledge of Italian
from his father and had also heard that particular word used in this
manner by a fellow track-hand during a short period in which he
had worked with a railway road gang--meant "cucumher" in
English, and implied stupidity, among other things. Paolo, however,
had used it jokingly, not the way this man was using it. "Buy us
all a drink, cetriol!' It was a verbal sneer, since money was not

used in the Inner World.

"Hey!"

Paolo leaned his vceight forward on the table with his thick
forearms among the glasses. The talk and laughter slowly died as
the others stared at the sudden absence of humor from his face.

"I said I like him!" said Paolo slowly. "I like him hetter than 1
like anyone at this table."

His gaze went around, deliherately to each one of them. One by
one, they avoided his eye.

"I call my friend cetriol," said Paoio, still in that slow, distinct

voice. "That's me. Don't none of you call my friend cetriol."
The silence around the table was absolute.

"'Paolo,'" said Bart, speaking quietly into the round ear beside
him with the thick, stiff tiny spears of black hair sprouting here and
there in it, "I need to talk to you by yourself, for a moment."

"Sure. Let's go." Paolo stood up suddenly and drunkenly,
blundering against the edge of the table. Glasses rocked and drink
splashed out, here and there; but still none of the others moved or
spoke. "I don't like it so much around here, anymore."

He let Bart lead him to a small, empty and isolated table across
the room. The server Paolo had called had followed them over.

"I'll have beer," Bart told the white-aproned male slave, in his
late sixties to judge from the lines in his cadaverous face. "Give
Paolo whatever he's drinking."

"You hetter have something more than beer, you going to drink
with me," grunted Paolo.

The server had already gone off to fill Barf's order. "Beer will
do," said Bart. "I haste to wait on the Lord Librarian early
tomorrow. ' '

Neithm" man id ahing mo undi t apron sla had

ught tir oMe d left. en Bm ske again.

"olo, I n to kn me things."

"You t to know t much, ,thm's ur trouble,"

olo, sluing m his all gl. It s a loud slu, but
not the lel of liquid in t gl had fallen only slightly when
olo put it dn in.

"Go on," olo d, "u' the o who's talking."

"I n m kn h to get to ple ound he," Bm id.
"Whm I n right n js me Hybrid 1 c sit dn d k

me qutions of. Tell , h do I get in touch with a Hybrid?"
"Hybrid?"

lo s at him.

"You' cry." o st to get up, then nk back on his
t Run. "All right, m u' t cy, ju ignorant. Whm
do u t m talk to a Hybrid for?"

"u may a Hybrid c roll me me things no slave
," mid B. "Some in this Inner World this got to
a Hybrid who c tell me m [ nt to kn.
put me in tch wi c't sr , may he c str me to
anoer Hybrid who .'"

Paoio nd, sitting back in the th.

"You' ignont, [ ," he id. "'Not ¢y, then. Lisn to
me, B. I can't put u in touch with a Hybrid like that. NoSy


"After all the u tMd me you've n he?'" B id.
"You seem m get in touch with anne el you nd to."

"The's one thing I don't ne to in touch with, d that's
any Hybrid," said Paolo. "You got to understand, Bin. They're
just like Lords to u and me. Whm you're king is like king me
to find you a you can sit down and talk to. B, no Hybrid's
going to sit and talk to a slave["

"May not whe other ople can e,'" id Ban, "but
the's got to it a minute. How aut tho Hybrids who
te a fancy to some panicul sla? The's got to talk going
on tween Hybrid and slave when they' in d together["

"Not anything imnant y of us'd hear tell aut. Not the
kind of getting ans u've got in mind. You want me to int
u out some of the men or men Hybrids who'd like to te a
St home with them7 I can do it, if that's the kind of thing u
flt."

"You know that's not whm I run," mid Bin. "When I id I

wanted to talk, I didn't mean by being taken up as some kind of
bedroom pet. You really mean to tell me that there's not one
Hybrid m the Inner World who'd be willing to talk one-on-one with
a slave'?."

"If there was, I'd have heard about it by now," said Paolo.
"This here's a little place, when you get to know it. Nothing goes
on everybody doesn't get to know about, sooner or later. There's


He paused a split-second and focused on Bart again, more
strongly. "And remember what I told you awhile ago--any slave
wanting to a.k questions will look suspicious. Slaves shouldn't b¢
asking about things.'"

"That's so?" said Bart. "Then maybe you can answer all my
questions. To start off with, there's a part of this Inner World that
has the doors to it guarded by Steeds. What's inside those doors?"
"How'd I know?" said Paoio. "Those are Lords' secrets."

"I was looking for my own Lord," Bart went on, ignoring his
answer, "when I came across one of those doors. The Steed
guarding it wasn't from our dorm. He said no slave could go in
unless a Lord took the slave in. That's got to mean some slaves have
gone in there; and they're got to've seen and know what's there. So
how is it you don't know?"

"Did that Steed say anything to you about a slave ever coming
back out?" retorted Paolo. "You're right about one thing. If one
ever did come out again, by now I'd know what he'd seen. All that
means is that any slave that goes in there doesn't come back--


Bart stared at the other.

"You don't believe that!" he said.

"Sure, I beliewe it. You're the one doesn't," said Paolo, "and
you know why? Because you're so new and ignorant down here,
you still think things got to be like they were in the upper world.
Wll, what I got to tell you is, you'll learn. You'll learn the
difference. We're all dead down here to begin with. You think it
matters to the Lords that they put one or a lot of us back where they
got us frown?"

"All right," said Bart. Inwardly, he began to despair about
learning what he needed from Paolo. "But I still think you know
more about what's in the room behind those doors than you're
telling me."

He scared Paolo in the face.

"And you can't change my mind on that," he added.

TIE FRTI IRDS
	155


Paolo's face contorted. He jerked up one fist as if to slam it down
on the tabletop between them. But the fist checked and wavered in
midair and then sank quietly down to the wooden surface below.

"So you got to know what's in the room behind those doors?"
he said in a fierce, strained whisper, his face leaning close toward
Bart's. "You got to know, do you? All right, I'll tell you what's
there--the Old Man himself."

"Old man?" Bart found himself whispering in response.
"The Old Man himself, I tell you," whispered Paolo. "Old
al-Kebir himself, all his thousands of years old, showing the rest of
them how to build the thing that's going to destroy the upper, living
rld and everything on it! You never heard of anything like that, I
suppose? You never heard talk of anything to kill the world and
everyone on it, but us down here?"

"The slaves talk," said Bart, "but they don't make much sense.
AI-Kebir, who's he?"

"He was the one who brought them all here, thousands of years
ago. Some king or other treated them all bad, and al-Kebir svmre
he'd smash the rid, smash all the human people like you and me.
He brought himself and the rest out of slavery, one by one. He
started the Inner World; and he's been all these years showing the
Lords how to build the thing to destroy the whole Earth with. He
and that thing, that's what's behind those guards and those doors;
and keep your voice down. Because I already told you enough to get
you killed."

Bart stared at him.

"You can't believe that, Paoio--about someone thousands of
years old being still alive and telling people how to build something
that can destroy the Earth!"

"I tell you it's the truth!" whispered Paolo. "Is it any more for
you to believe than your being raised from the dead to work down
here?"

"I don't believe I was raised from the dead," said Bart.

Paolo sat staring at him for a long moment. Then he sighed
heavily and straightened up, sitting back a table's width across
from Bart now. He spoke, no longer in whispers, but in a low voice.

"I might're known," he said heavily. "Bart, I've done for you
more than I ever done for anyone in my life. That's because you're a
loner, like me. You're my paisan. I never had one before, in all my
life. But--I told you my mother was a witch--I can smell what you
are. That's all I ever had, being able to smell what's in people. That
and these--"

Gordon . Dickson

He laid out his stubby, heavy fists on the table, side by side.
"'We could have had a lot of good years down here," he went on,
"even the way this place is; and you'd've had your Emma and I got
Lorena. But you're bound to bust it all up. You're bound to try
doing something that can't be done and get yourself killed. Maybe
get me and others killed with you. I wouldn't do that to you."

"I won't get you killed," said Bart, feeling guilty in spite of the
fact his mind told him he was guilty of nothing. "| promise
you--"

"Don't make me no promises," said Paolo. "I tell you I can
smell it. I know. Chandt's been talking to you about me, hasn't he?
He say I was afraid to fight you?"

Bart would willingly have lied to make the situation better, but
with Paolo staring at him as be was and speaking in such a voice, he
could not.

"Yes," he said.

"It ain't true," said Paolo, still in that low voice that was so
unusual for him. "I'm not afraid to fight any man there is. I'm not
even afraid of him, Chandt, in spite of knowing he'll kill me. I can
smell that, too. The day I go up against him, he'll kill me. Bare
hands against bare hands, he'll kill me. But still I ain't afraid of
him. He knows that. But he can't let himself think I'm not afraid
because of that Mongol way of looking at things be has. Hc's got to
feel there's no one in the surface world or in the Inner World who
wouldn't be afraid of him. Else he couldn't live with himself. He
thinks he's the last Mongol there is; so hc's got to be wat all the
Mongols were to everybody else."

"You don't like him," said Bart.

"'No," said Paolo. "I don't like him. He likes you, though.
He'd like you for a paisano, just the way I do, but I can have you for
one and he can't; because being the only one of his kind the way he
is, he ain't allowed no friends."

Paolo looked across the table at Bag, strangely.

"That's why he'll kill you, too, at last, just like he'll kill me.
Because you don't fit the world the way he has to have it."

Paolo reached out for his glass almost blindly, lifted it, and
drank from it--a full swallow this time. He set the glass back down
on the table and sat staring at it.

"I done my best to save you," he said, his eyes still on the glass.
He stayed as he was, staring at the glass. It was almost as if he
had forgotten Bart was there. Bart pushed back his chair and got to
his feet; but still Paolo did not look up.

LORDS
	157


"I promise you," Bart said to him, "neither you nor Lorena, nor

Emma nor anyone else is going to be hurt because of what I do."
He put a hand on one of the thick shoulders, but it was like
touching a stone statue. Bart left him.

He went back to the dormitory. He had a name now--alKebir
or el-Kabir. It sounded Arabic; and somewhere in the Library,
thanks to Pier and the freedom he had given Bart, he ought to be
able to run down something on that.

chapter
fourteen


THE oLrrR ROOM of the Library was lit and open twenty-four
hours a day. Bart had picked an evening several days after his
encounter with the Emperor, here, to begin his search of the
Library itself. Though there were still people about, they were
fewer than during the days.

A stack slave slept in a chair behind the desk, but the rest of the
room was empty of life. At the moment Bart stepped onto the
interior carpet, he heard footfalls approaching through the stacks,
with their uncarpeted floors; and a moment later there came into
view three Hybrids.

Two of them were unremarkable, dark-suited men in their
thirties, one with thinning brown hair, one with a mop of faded
blond above a round face. But the third, walking between the
other two, was a narrow-waisted, broad-shouldered man with a
swarthy skin, a sharp nose and astonishingly bright blue eyes.

Bart had never seen this particular Hybrid before, to his
knowledge; but something about him riveted Bart's attention. In
spite of the fact Bart did not know him, there was something
familiar about him. It was as if Bart felt he should recognize him.
As if he had known him, even though Bart kaew he had not.

At the same time Bart became conscious that he had halted
directly in front of the doorway, toward which the three were
headed.

Hastily, he stepped aside. The two Hybrids on either side of the
one who had attracted Bart's attention merely glanced at Bart as
they approached and passed. But Bart became suddenly aware that
the third man's bright blue eyes were concentrating on him with
an intensity that made him uncomfortable. Here was not a man,
like Chandt, who was responding as someone with an authority to
maintain. The feeling that reached Bart was merely one of
curiosity. But it was a curiosity as blinding as a mirror with the
full sun reflected in it, and as sharp as the end of a needle.

Then the three passed him, and the one with the blue eyes took

his gaze off Bart and looked ahead, putting a hand on one
shoulder of each of his companions. He herded them before him,
out the door. Bart felt a strange desire to follow, to find out more
about him. Then he remembered what he was here to do, put the
feeling from him, and continued on past the circular desk area
with its sleeping slave, on into the stacks.

In the time that had passed since Pier had given him the
freedom of the Library, Bart had been using some of his free time
to explore it. He had had vague notions of trying to find
information that might help him to escape from this Inner World,
but had really had little idea of exactly what to look for. But now,
a few days ago, Paolo had given him a name. That, combined with
the dead end he had seemingly come up against in his physical
exploration of the corridors, had led him back here. It might he
that it would be his mind rather than his body that got them out of
here.

What he needed was something that would tell him of the
history of the Lords, and of the Inner World itself. The name of
this legendary ai-Kebir might be the key his researches needed.

At first he had been baffled, for while the Library held a
considerable section of histories of the world and its various
peoples, in various languages, all of these were perfectly straightforward
accounts of the past as he had learned about it from his
father and his own reading. The Lords seemed to work hard at
bringing copies of as many of the world's books as they could
reach to their own Library, but none of them seemed to reference
the Lords or their World. Still, he scanned the pages of those
histories he had never read before, in search of some reference,
however slight, to any people like the Lords, or to a vessel that
might have brought them here from somewhere "beyond the
moon," but found nothing.

He could not believe it. It was not possible that a race or group
like the Lords, who were so capable, rich and welborganized that
they could produce something like this Inner World, would not
have some sort of written history, or books that at least referred to
that history. If nothing else, there would have been records for as
vast an undertaking as the building of the Inner World. Not to
speak of all the devices that they had come up with, using
electromagnetic forces or whatever--he checked himself in
midthought.

Of course. Records. Somewhere here in the Library there had
to be records of work done, money spent, and probably as well of

people born and buried during the time of this Inner World.
Records that would at least put him on the track of how this place
with its three classes had come to be, unknown to the outside
world and buried underground off in a part of the world which
most of the world's peoples took to be howling wilderness.

In fact--and his hopes shot skyward for a moment--it was
even possible that in finding such records he would find architectural
plans of the Inner World itself, complete with some lightly
guarded secret exit.

He checked the wishful thinking. A find like that would be
almost too good to be true. He would be content to get any kind of
a handle on the mystery that surrounded him, any kind of lead to
the understanding that would point him to where he could learn
more.

So he had begun his search for the records section of the
Library. He could, of course, have asked someone there, from
Pier on down to one of the stack slaves whose duty was fetching
books for those who did not go back after them. But it could be
dangerous to let anyone else know that he was interested in such a
section, even if such a question turned out to be harmless.

Which it could hardly he, he had thought, remembering that
none of the Hybrids or Lords he had listened to or followed had
asked for that particular section in all the time he had been here.

So it had been a matter of his starting at the lowest floor of the
Library at its farthest back corner, and simply searching each level
completely as he moved up through them, until he might come to
the section where such records were kept.

It had been a slow job so far, made slower by the temptation to
stop and look into interesting books or papers as he went--books
and papers which plainiy were not what he was looking for, but
which might tell him things he might need to know. Moreover, he
had been infected by the pleasure of reading early in life, and he
found it difficult to shake that off now.

His father had been a constant supplier of books. Lionel had
made a habit of asking anyone with whom he made friends to buy
books for him, whenever that person got to a place where books
were sold. The result for young Bart had been that it seemed that
every day brought some newcomer to their door to deliver one or
more books that Lionel had asked him to get.

The result was that Bart had come to mirror his father's appetite
for the written word. It was an odd addiction for a woods-horn,
mixed-blood man to have, on the wild western frontier of Canada

THE EAI'H LORL 161


in the middle years of the nineteenth century; it was not that
people did not like to read, but that few of them ever learned how,
and those who did learn had only infrequent access to reading
materials.

Moreover, Bart had seen tint-hand the effect his father's habit of
burying himself away with his books had had on the man's
reputation; and so he had tried to draw as little attention as possible
to his own reading. That fit, anyway, with his desires not to stand
out from the crowd.

Pier had been kinder to him than the old Lord had realized, in
giving him the run of the stacks.

So he had persevered in his search with occasional hesitations, as
he gave in to the temptation to look into some book with a
particularly interesting-sounding title. In spite of these interruptions,
however, he had continued to make his way up the levels of
the stacks, until now he was on the main level of the Library where
the main desk and Pier's office was. This night he began about
halfway back ihrough the stacks on that level, and he had only been
searching for about an hour and a half when he finally found the
section he had been seeking all along.

It was in a side room off the main area of that floor's stacks, a
side room he had never before known existed. The nearer shelves
were stacked with piles of books and papers almost haphazardly;
and his first assumption was that these were Library materials
stored temporarily, pending collation and assignment to their
proper position on the shelves.

He began by examining the papers near the entrance. They were,
as he had half suspected from the look of them, loose records of all
kinds--memos, orders, supply lists. All kinds and sorts of
different paperwork, tied with string into bundles about four inches
thick. When he went farther in, however, the bundles of paper gave
way to bound volumes; and, opening these, he found that they were
merely collections of the same sort of business papers that made up
the bundles he had just passed, but of an earlier date.

He could see the end of the side room, now, only a dozen feet
from him, putting a limit to the shelves and their contents. All
bound books, almost undoubtedly more bound records. There
might be information here he could use, but it would take days of
searching through the papers to find it. He could start that search
tonight; but it was getting to the time for him to head back to the
dormitory if he wanted anything like a full night's sleep. Probably
there was no point in looking any farther into the matter for now.

C, oMon I Dickson


So he told himself; but a small devil of persistence that had been
part of him as long as he could remember prodded him on to the
very end of the room; and this time it paid off. For he came upon
the last six feet of shelves, which, from floor to ceiling, were filled
with what seemed to be identical copies of a single title. He was
looking at several hundred of them. They were bound in soft, dark
leather, with covers so oversize that their open ends almost flopped
together in spite ,of the thickness of the volume they enclosed. On
each front cover where a title might ordinarily be, there was only a
strange sort of scrawl in gold that baffled him for a minute before he
recognized it as Arabic script:


Bart's father had been interested, among other things, in the
writings of the twelfth century Jewish philosophcx, Moses Maimonides
and had secured a copy of Maimonides' Book of Commandmerits,
written in the original Arabic. As a young boy, fresh from
the Cree camp, Bart had been fascinated by the Arabic script and
his father had taken the time to show him how to spell out a few
short, common words. The Library, Bart knew, had a large supply
of foreign dictionaries, but the temptation to puzzle this out on his
own made him search his memory until he began to make sense of
it.

The first part read "'Kinaab"--no, it was "Kitaab"--which
meant, in English, simply "Book." The second part was even
easier--it began with the article "el," or "al"--which was joined
to the beginning of the noun it modified. That noun.., for a
moment it frustrated him; and then he had it, feeling fortunate that
it contained two of the same lette as the first word he had spelled
out--that made it easier to recognize. It was a common word,
which was why he could recognize it at all. It read Kebir, which
meant "Large'.' or perhaps, "the Large One." Or "the Great."

So the whole thing read "Book The Large One." And he knew
well enough how foreign grammars could differ from that of
English or French--he must be missing something, some rule of

	THE EARTH LORDS
	163


	the language, that would tell him how to add something more to the

	phrase, to make more sense of it. He could guess that a more

	proper translation would read, "THE LARGE BOOK"--or,

	wait--"The Book of The Large One" was also a possible reading.

	But for the moment it was not the exercise in [ranslation that

	transfixed him, but the fact that "al-Kebir" had been the name

	Paolo had whisperel to him, that evening not long ago.

	He took one of the copies from a middle shelf and opened it to its

	first page--it began with its text immediately, without flyleaves or

	title pages, and despite the Arabic text on the cover, it was

	written--apparently handwritten--in clean, clear script of a late

	medieval Latin.

	"De origine et via qua adhanc mundum advenimus nihil

dicabo
	" the first sentence began.

"Of our origin and the means by which we came to this world, as
well as the fate of many of us in the moment of our arrival," his
mind translated into English, "I will say nothing, lest the information
turn out to be of use to those who should not know such things.

"Suffce it to say that a number of us were left scattered and

helpless upon a part of this earth called Sicily, where we one and all
fell into the hands of various local inhabitants of the lowest origin,
brutish by nature and lacking in all but the simplest intelligence.
Inhabitants, moreover, who were incapable of recognizing in us the
superior beings we were, but instead took us under their control and
treated each of u# as if we were little better than the beasts they fed
on or forced to work their fields; for without exception they were
peasants of the lowest order..."

Bart forced himself to tear his eyes from the text and close the
book. It was plainly an autobiography written by that same
unbelievable character Paolo had whispered about as being in the
great guarded central room of the Inner World--the man supposed
to be in charge there and thousands of years old.

Well, the book was written in medieval Latin, which, if it was the
original language in which the story was told, effectively disposed
of the idea that al-Kebir was thousands of years old. Bart frowned
briefly in thought. Since al-Kebir seemed to he the name of this
person, and this was his autobiography, it followed that the Arabic
title was best translated as "AI-Kebir's Book," or perhaps "The
Book of AI-Kebir."

Thoughtfully Bart took the book back to Pier's office, not
forgetting to watch lest someone notice him with it, and unlocked

aoo/. Dso

the door. The lights within went on automatically as the door
opened to his key. The signal light had told him that Pier was not
here.

He went into his alcove, sat down, opened the book again and
started reading ....

It was some hours later that he mused himself with a start from
the book, his reading of it sti[! unfinished. He got up and stepped
out of the alcove to check the clock on the wall of Pier's

It was almost four in the morning; and Bart suddenly realized
that he was almost snow-blind from staring at the pages, and dead
tired.

The full story of he who had called himself al-Kebir was yet to be
read by Bart; but the time in which he had at least begun his
existence was now certain. It had been in the thirteenth century;
and he had lived mainly at the Sicilian court of Frederick the
Second, Holy Roman Emperor. More than that, he had been four
feet two, or thereabouts, a dwarf with a misshapen head, a genius
and very possibly also a madman; with a black and boiling hatred in
him for the Emperor who owned him and for everyone else in the
human race who was not undersized like himself.

Also, there was no doubt that he was among the first of the
Lords, if not himself the first, on Earth.

But the final words of what he had to say about himself would
have to wait for some later time. Bart had two hours in which to try
and get some sleep before the dormitory was rocsed. He returned
the book to its place on the shelf from which he had taken it and
took himself off to bed.

The next morning he was barely roused by the voices around the
schedule pinned to the door. He rolled over and went back to sleep
so successfully that he did not wake again until nearly noon. He sat
up in alarm, then sank back in relief as he remembered that,
luckily, the day before, Pier had told him that he planned to work at
home today. He did, however, have to come to Pier's home in the
afternoon, if only to wait on his pleasure.

He brightened up, remembering that this was an evening when he
was to meet Emma, Paoio and Lorena in the slaves" Recreation
Center. They had already met on two occasions, this way. He found
the three of them now, as usual, in Paoto's favorite corner booth.

"'Just o nce" said Paolo, as Bart slid into the booth beside
Emma and across from the other two, "I'd like to get here and find
you waiting for the rest of us."

It was a grmvl, bet a friemtly growl. In fact that was the only way

THE. F.ARTH LORDS
	165


Paolo seemed to know how to speak--in a growl. It was the way he
talked to the Steeds in his dormitory. He even growled his
acknowledgment of commands from the Lordly class, Hybrids and
other superiors, like Chandt.

"Sorry," said Bart. "I was kept late at the Librarian's."
"Oh, the Library!" Paolo's harsh voice disposed of any possibility
that anything in the Library could be interesting to anyone but an
individual with strange tastes, like Bart. The upper classes naturally
all had such tastes, but a slave who liked books was grotesque to the
point of being funny to Paolo. He excused this oddity of Bart's only
because he liked him, but he prodded him about it.

"I'!! tell you about it in a minute," said Bart to Emma, in Cree.
She smiled back at him.

"Oh, for hell's sake!" said Paolo. "Are you going to start that
jibber-jabber right off the minute you get here7 Have a drink and

talk some human French or English for a few minutes first!"
He turned to Lorena beside him.

"Don't you ever start talking crazy languages around me."

"Oh, I wouldn't!" said Lorena, then looked hastily at Bart and
Emma, then as hastily looked down at the tabletop between them.

"Don't let it bother you, Lorena,'" said Emma to the other
woman. "It's natural for anyone not to like sitting and wondering if
you're being discussed in front of your face, in a tongue you can't
understand. I know how you feel. But Bart and I haven't any
choice. The only way we can get together is with you two,
according to Paolo here; and we don't want to make you listen to
things from us that'd force you to choose between reporting us to
the authorities or getting into trouble for not reporting us. If you
don't understand us, then no one can blame you."

"They'd lump us in with you anyway--the Hybrids would,
anyhow--," growled Paoio.

"Nonsense!" said Emma. "We can pro you don't understand
us. Chances are there aren't any Hybrids or Lords or Ladies who
could, either. And don't pick on Lorena, Paolo. She tries too hard
to please you, as it is."

It was typical of Emma, thought Bart, that she was already
protecting Lorena. The newcomer had taken the experienced old
hand under her wing, instead of the other way around. But given the
characters of the two women it could hardly have been otherwise.

Lorena, Emma had told Bart in Cree at one of the earlier
meetings, had had a sheltered, if not a pampered, childhood. She
had been born into a family in the southern United States; and the

Gordon R. Dickson


Civil War had put an end to the kind of life she had been raised to
expect while she was still a teenager.

It had also stripped her of all her close relatives and what little
wealth she might otherwise have had. She was an indifferent cook
and seamstress, but spoke educated French. She had a sort of pale,
fragile, brown-haired beauty and a true singing voice with good
range but little power. These were the only tools her upbringing had
provided her to survive in the world alone.

That same upbringing and her nature had also imprinted her
firmly with the notion that men would behave like gentlemen
toward her if only she behaved like a lady toward them. Valiantly,
she tried to do so, turning first for help to some distant cousins
who, to get her off their hands, pushed her into an affair with a man
who lived more by his wits than by any other means. This man had
been impressed at first by her manners and her almost desperate
desire to please him; but both attractions wore thin for him after a
while, since both were foreign to his own selfish way of thinking.

He had pushed her off on a friend. Sold her, as a matter of
fact--but she did not learn this until later, when the friend accused
her of not being worth the price he had paid for her. From then on
she drifted from one man to another in a generally northwesterly
direction, as her companions became poorer and cruder and more
inclined to try their luck farther west on the frontier regions.

She had been killed, so she believed, by robbers who held up a
stagecoach in which she was traveling with her latest gentleman.
The holdup man had decided to shoot all those on and in the coach
to cover their tracks. She had come back to life here--still the same
person with her unshakable belief that somewhere there was a man
who would care for her and protect her if only she could figure out
the proper way of pleasing him.

Consequently, she had been played with--those were Emma's
words for what had happened to her and Bart thought that they were
probably as close to the truth as any could be--by a number of
fellow slaves here in the Inner World. She lacked the intellectual
capacity to attract the attention of Hybrids or Lords. Not that
members from either of the upper classes would necessarily have
turned out to be much kinder to her if they had taken an interest in
her.

The tact was, she was a waif on anyone's doorstep; and she loved
Paolo simply because Paoio had his own rough standards of right
and wrong, and applied them to her as well as to everyone else. The
result was that the other men who still took her up from time to

time wre constrained in their handling of her by the knowledge
that a Stel nned Polo wnted Lorena --when he chose to want
her--in goo physical shape and reusonably happy. $inc the
dormitory/der was a formidable person and known as such, she
had been well-treated in the past few years by her other gentlemen.

Emma believed that Paolo, without knowing it, was in love with
Lorena. Bart privately reserved judgment on that.

In any case, the result was startling. When she and Emma were
together in public, it was Lorena who caught the eye; but Emma
dominated the attention of anyone who ventured close to the two of
them. Even smaller than Lorena, she had an absolute lack of fear
and a perfectly clear perception of the fact that not all people were
angels, matched with the determination that they could and would
behave themselves if they wished to stay anywhere close around
her; Emma cowed most of those who otherwise would have taken
almost instant advantage of someone like Lorena.

--And just as well, too, thought Bart grimly to himself. If it
came down to it, he believed he would he a good deal more capable
of defending Emma than Paolo was of Lorena. However, Emma

being who she was, the need had so far never arisen.

"I don't pick on her!" Paolo was protesting.

"Yon do," said Emma calmly. "You're just so used to doing it

that you don't know when you're about it."

Paolo stared at her, baffled into silence.

"Sorry, Paolo," said Bart. "Just let us get our jabher out of the
way first; and then we can talk any human language you want for the

rest of the time we have."

"Italian," said Paoio.

"All right," said Bart, with a glance at Emma and Lorena,
neither of which understood a word of Italian as far as he knew. "If
you insist, we'll talk Italian."

"You only know a couple of words," said Paolo gruffly, "and
no one else here but me knows it at all. Get the hell on with it, will
you?"

"All right," said Bart, "we'll make it as fast as possible."
He turned to Emma and began to talk to her in Cree, telling her
of what he had found in the side room of the Library stacks and
particularly the book apparently written by aI-Kebir about himself
and the history of the early Lords and Ladies. He was more than a
little disappointed that she took the discovery as much less than the
remarkable stroke of luck he had been considering it.

"Don't you realize?" he said to her almost angrily, "what this

could lead to? It could lead to a way out of here; and it practically
fell into my hands!"

"How could that book lead to you getting us out of here?" she
asked.

"I can use the fact that I know about it to back up my story," he
said.

"What story?"

"I'm going to talk to Pier and claim I'm a lost Hybrid, the son of
a Lord who dixt above ground after fathering me with an Indian


He did not want to use the recognizable word "Hybrid," so he
rendered the word in Cree as man-withsmallgodfor-father.
Emma looked sideways and up at him, her round face concerned.

"Why do you think you can get away with anything like that?"
she asked.

"It all depends on whether I've dug out the right picture of how
this place works," he said. "If I have, then, it'll he up to them to
prove I'm lying; and the only way they can do that is either by
proving no Lord was where I came from, at the right time to he my
fathex--and from what I can learn, there's no way they can do
that--or by asking me questions until I trip myself up by
contradicting myself. Which I won't do.'"

"Lt's take this one question at a time," said Emma. "To begin
with, what makes you think they can't look at their records--and
they keep very good records, I can testify to that after seeing their
bookkeeping here--and find that there was no Lord anywhere
around at the place and time you must have been started?"

"Because I'm not going to tell them enough to let them do a
close enough job of checking," said Bart. "All I know, I'll say, is
that I was born into an Indian tribe that was always on the move,
and when I got old enough to understand, my mother told me a
small, ugly white man had ben my father, but that she had heard
since that he had died somewhere farther west. Meanwhile, down
here I've realized that the way she described m father makes it
seem certain that he was a Lord.'"

"And what if they haven't had any Lords at all above ground in
western Canada?"

"I think they've had to have," said BarL "It's like a pack of
wolves protecting their territory, They'll have wanted to steer
people away from the whole area where this Inner World is
underground; and that job's too important to leave to Hybrids
alone. My estimate is they must have had at least several Lords up

on the surface west of Toronto about the time I was born, helping to
influence the directions in which settlersNand particularly the
railroad--moved west."

"All right," she said, "for now, I'll take that answer. How
about the other question? What makes you so sure they can't trip
you up when one of your answers doesn't match wRh another
you've given them?"

"Because all my answers will match. I'm only going to tell them
one story from the wind," he said, using their old childish personal
euphemism for the word "lie," so that even if they were being
overheard after all, and by someone who understood Cree to boot,
his meaning would be hidden. "I'll tell them the absolute truth:
how I was adopted by another white man who said I was too bright
to grow up to do nothing but hunting and fishing. I'!! tell them
exactly how it was from then on until I ended up on a chain in
Shunthead mine."

She stared almost grimly at him. He knew that she knew, but
would not say anything aloud for fear of the possible unseen
listener. Unlike most of the people in the m6tis territory where they
have lived, for whom "adopted" was generally taken to be a polite
way of explaining the presence of a natural child by another mother
than the one with which the father was living or to whom he was
married, she knew that Lionel was Bart's true parent.

Also, unlike her brother she had visitod Bart's home often,
gotten to know his father, and been told by Lionel flatly that Bart
was his actual son. In fact, Lionel had asked the little mite that she
was then to take care of Bart if anything happenexi to him. The man
h.ad spoken in all seriousness, and since the conversation had taken
place in front of Bart, the boy he was then had been both shocked
and angry. If anybody was going to take care of anybody, he
thought, it would be him caring for Emma, instead of the other way
around.

But Lionel had asked in all apparent seriousness, and Emma had
answered just as seriously.

That conversation had caused Bart a secret worry that did not
fade for a number of years. It was whether Emma really loved him.
Now, grown up, he had long since been sure she did. Only her
damnable insistence on seeing her brother taken care of first had
stood in the way of their bing married long since. But back then,
as a boy, he had been afraid for some time that she was just, with
that implacable will of hers, acting out her promise to be a
substitute for his father---even though Lionel was still alive--much

as she substituted, later, for her mother on behalf of the rest of her
family.

Now, over the lunch table, Bart launched into a picture of the
Inner World as the living result of the vision of al-Kebir. He told
Emma all about the gitab ai-ICebir and his hope that it might lead
him to the information he needed for his imposture.

He wound up with his image of the Inner World as a creation
supported by a worldwide system of investments pyramided since
the thirteenth century and overseen by a number of Lords, Ladies
and Hybrids sent above ground for that purpose.

Emma listened to him without interrupting until he was through.
Then she mentioned the one thing he had avoided talking about.

"You actually believe, then," she said, "that there's something
here in the Inner World which can destroy the world above and it's
going to be used soon?"

"Not really," he said. "I can't believe it. It's too farfetched. But
there's a large area down here that only members of the Lordly
class and Hybrids can get into and out of again alive. Also, all the
Hybrids seem to believe in such a weapon and what it can do; and
they're not a stupid bunch.'"

Emma looked thoughtful. He took advantage of her moment of
silence to do some eating, having been too busy talking to do so
until now; and she had finished her own dinner sometime since as
she sat there listening to him.

"It's true that in bookkeeping we've been warned to get ready to
start an entirely new set of books in the near future," she said
thoughtfully. "But shouldn't you make absolutely sure that there
really is such a machine before you go acting on the premise that
the whole upper world might be destroyed?"

"That's what I'm about to do," Bar said. "This is what it's all
about, this business of establishing myself as a Hybrid. As a slave,
I'd never be able to find out about this weapon, or whatever it is.
But as a Hybrid, I'll either find my way into the guarded area, or
get access to literature that describes what's there."

"You'd better not expect too much," said Emma. "You've only
read this al-Kebir's book part-way, and you said that in the
beginning he wrote himself that he wouldn't tell anything that
might he useful to people not entitled to know it. It seems to me if
he has anything to say that would help us, that book's going to he
very careful not to show it.'"

"You don't understand," said Bart. "He may not give away
anything he thinks of as a valuable secret, but there's still all sorts

	fft£ E, ARD! LORDS
	!'t'!


of things I can learn from its pages about how this place and its
people came to be."

"How do you know that what he's written down is true at all?"
said Emma.

"I don't, of course. Maybe it isn't. But even a string of lies can
tell me things once I start to get the pattern of them. Remember, I
can check what he says against the real histories of whatever time
he's writing about. He called the island where they're supposed to
have come to Earth "Sicily.' Now, that puts a limit right there as to
how far back in time he was writing it. I'!i just have to read the
book all the way through and study it--but I'll bet you 1 come up
with a whole fistful of information that can lead me on to wherever
the things I want to know actually are written down."

"And meanwhile," said Emma, "you'll be taking a chance
doing something that may get you killed."

Bart gave up. He had learned ars ago that if Emma was
determined not to be convinced about something, you could talk to
her until you fell over sideways from exhaustion and still find her

coming up with solid arguments against it.

"We'll see," he said.

"Which means you're going to do it anyway," said Emma.
"Bart, I love you, but you're the most stubborn man I ever knew in
all my born days!"

Bart refrained from ying anything about the stubbornness of
other people who might be present at the moment.

"But never mind that now," Emma was saying, still in Cree.
"There's something else I want to talk to you about, Bart. It's
Arthur."
"Yes?" said Bart warily. Experience had taught him that when
Emma started out this way, what she had to talk about was
something he would not like.

"You asked me not to tell him you were down here, or say
anything about my having seen you since you came through town

and stayed with us that night in the store. So I haven't. But Bart--"
Bart braced himself.

"You couldn't help feeling sorry for Arthur if you saw him,
nowadays," Emma said. "He's so cast down. He expected so
much from the move down here; and not only did it turn out it was
some of the other Scotties' way of getting rid of him, but he's a
s/ave, Bart! To someone like Arthur who was brought up to think of
himself as being a gentleman and the son of a gentleman, the fact
that he's now called a slave, and treated like one, is almost more

Gordon R. Dickson


than he can bear. And the job be's in! The others working there in
Stores tell him stories of how people who make mistakes get
flogged, or put to some horrible kind of death if they make a
mistake; and he's frightened to death."

"They're exaggerating," said Bart. "Office-trained slaves can't
be that easy to come by. I haven't seen any evidence of brutality.
Not that that guarantees there isn't any; but it just isn't all that
common, or that easy to trigger off, obviously."

"But Arthur doesn't know that; and he worries--you know how
he is. He's worrying himself into a sickbed," said Emma. "He's
lost weight and you ought to see his face. Bart, it could mean so
much to him if he just had some reason to hope; if he only just
knew you were down here, too, and working to get us all out!"

Bart sat, trying to think of how best to answer her, so that he
could be convincing without giving away the fact he thought
Arthur's feelings were of little importance concerned with the
chance of all three of them escaping. But to give away that would
directly attack Emma's sense of protection for her brother.

Emma stopped talking. There was a pause that showed its
uncomfortableness so plainly, that Paolo and Lorena, even without
understanding, were obviously disturbed.

"Emma, I can't," said Bart at last. "You know Arthur. What he
knows be's likely to tell someone--somewhere, sometime. And I
can't take the risk of him talking about me to the wrong person. It's
not just that he might tell them I was looking for a way out of here.
It's the fact he knows too much about me, from when we were
children."

"You mean, what you can do?" said Emma.

She was talking about his capabilities. No one but Emma knew
how he was stronger than he looked and how sharply his mind
worked when he felt himself cornered. Last of all, she knew how he
wished that he would never have to use these abilities, which
secretly he feared to display. Attacked, he became a different sort
of person with different limits; and it was what those limits might
allow him to do that frightened him. He did not know what they
were. He had never really been driven to the sort of extremes that
would have forced him to find out.
Arthur did not have Emma's sensitive perception of him. But
Arthur did remember him from when they had all been children
together, before Bart had begun to realize that to get along with
other people and not be thought some sort of freak, he would have
to shadow the capabilities of his mind and body.

	THE F.,4ETH LORDE
	173


"It's not only that," he told her now, "but A.,lhur knows about
my Pather and what sort of man he was and how he gave me slxial
training in many ways. I want to keep that information to myself
until I see the best moment to use it .... "

For a moment he was tempted to tell her how dangerous his plan
was--but what he was planning was the sort of gamble that could
only cause her to worry about what might happen to him, if she
truly realized that danger. What Arthur had been hearing from his
fellow-workers had only echoed what people like Paolo had told
Bart himself. There might not be much more of the sort of thing
than made a good horror story to tell a new slave; but there was
undoubtedly some of it; if the situation required it in the eyes of the
Hybrids and the Lords.

"Just awhile longer," he said to her. "Please, don't tell him,
don't tell anyone you ever knew me before you came here--"

A question he had been meaning to ask her came back to him
suddenly.

"Tell me," he said, "do either you or Arthur think you died
before you came down bere--that you were brought back to life by
the Lords?"

"'Of course not," said Emma. "Nothing like that ever happened
to us. Though the $cotties warned Arthur, and Arthur told me, that
most of the people down here would believe some such thing about
themselves and we'd be bet off" if we pretended we believed it,
too."

So, thought Bart, the illusion of being raised from the dd to
serve the Lords was not universal among the sln class, after all;
though it certainly seemed to be among the Steeds. He had yet to
meet a Steed who did no believe it; and even Chandt, himseJf...

"All right, then," Emma was saing sadly. "'If you rly think
it's not safe to tell him, I won't. It's just so terrible to see him fJ
way he is."

"I promise you, Emma," said Bart, "the minute it's possible
for him to know, |'!! lll you and you can pass the word to him."

"All right," said Emma; and, to relief of Paolo and Lorena,
the went back to talking in English.

chapter
fifteen


THE USUAL SIX in the morning buzz of talk about the orders, just
posted for the day on the dormitory door, woke Bart. He lay there
for a moment, listening. There were to be a couple of formations.
The latter one was listed simply as "court" with a 2:00 P.M.
assembly in the main gym of all dormitories. It was probably some
formal affair in which the Steeds would be part of the decorations
--Bart dismissed it from his mind. But the earlier one was the one
being talking about by those at the door; and the more Bart heard,
the less he liked the sound of what he was hearing.

This earlier formation was simply listed as "Clinic." What had
brought Bart sharply awake and set him to listening closely to what
was being said by those around the door was not so much the words
he heard but a definite uneasiness in the voices uttering them.

Curiously, it was an uneasiness that the Steeds radiating it
seemed to wish to pretend was not there, It was this desire to gloss
over their reaction that convinced Bart most strongly that the wise
thing for him to do would be to skip this particular formation
himself until he had time to learn more about it.

It was something of a shock, consequently, to hear Paolo's
answer, when he told the dormitory Leader he had an early duty for
the Librarian and would not be going with the others to this
"Clinic."

Paolo had grinned. He was wearing a livery tunic at the moment,
for reasons Bart did not know; but it, in face of the. shiftlessness
that was normal duty attire for Steeds, had the effect of putting a
little formal distance between him and Bart. Alone, or with Emma
and Lenora, Paolo was one kind of person; now he seemed
someone different.
"This one you don't miss, Bart," he said. "There's no excuse
lets you out of Clinic. The Lords know that, and if they forget and
schedule a Steed to a duty at that time, and he doesn't show up, it's
not his fault."

Ban felt the caution kindled in him by the atmosphere around the
door become a hard decision that he must get out of this somehow.

"You know, Paolo," he said slowly, trying to adopt the same
formality of manner without being offensive, "my Lord's one of
the Three Who Command. I think you or somebody--Chandt, if it
has to be--had better check with him before I'm kept from the duty
my Lord had in mind for me."

Paolo grinned againma little uneasily, it seemed to Bartmand
shook his head. "Not necessary this time. The rules are clear and
there's no time to check."

He slapped Ba on the shoulder.

"Don't let it get you down, Bart," he said. "It's not all that bad!

Anyway, the rules are clear and there's no time to check."

He went off, leaving Bart wondering.

There were times when argument was of valueand times when
it was useless. Bart could read in Paolo's voice and attitude that this
time was one of the latter. He found that Steeds not allowed to
eat or drink before Clinic; and there was only a short wat before he
fell in line with the rest of the Steeds in his dormitory, as far toward
the tail of the formation as he thought he could safely fit in without
drawing too much attention to the fact that he was delaying his
involvement with the Clinic as long as possible.

They were conducted in a long line--"marched" would have
been too noble a word for their straggling progress---down various
corridors and around several turns to the entrance of a large room
with several attendants. These were males, to judge by the depth of
their voices, and of ordinary adult size; but whether slaves or
Hybrids it was impossible to say, for they were completely cloaked
and hooded in white with tinted glasslike face plates in the hood to
see out of, but which prented anyone from seeing in.

The Steeds were ordered to strip. Naked, they filed into the next
room which seemed a sort of shower room, its ceiling equipped
with spray heads that rained down water on the Steeds. The water
smelled of something like eucalyptus, a medicinal smell. Then the
show heads ceased spouting; and, four at a time, the Steeds vre
admitted through a farther door to some room beynd.

Bart had meanwhile been exercising his wits for a reason to get
away from the formation. He snarled at himself internallynow for
being foolish enough to take off his clothes along with the rest.
Their clothes, their shoes and everything else they had been
carrying had been immediately gathered up by hooded figures and

carried away out of the disrobing room. Now, without clothes, he
could hardly fail to attract attention even if he could find an excuse
to leave.

He was still struggling with the problem when one of the hooded
figures in the shower room, his apparently waterproof white gown
glistening with moisture as if it had been embroidered with
diamonds, gathered Bart in with three others. They wre chosen
apparently at random, and herded together through the farther
door.

The room they entered was little more than an anteroom.
Entrances in its opposite wall gave glimpses of a separate room,
each with what looked like a couple of white-sheeted, padded
tables. The hooded man who had brought them this far left them
and went back to the shower room. For a moment they were alone,
the four of them.

"What happens here?" Bart took advantage of the temporary

privacy to ask one of the other Steeds, named Staggers.
"Nothing," answered.Staggers.

He was a heavy-bodied, brown-haired young man with an oval
face that looked like it needed a shave only twice a week. But either
he had gotten a heavier dousing from the sprinkler heads than the
rest of them, or he was sweating; and his face was pale. "They just
put you half asleep and check you over to see if there's anything a
doctor's got to do to you. It hurts a little, some of it; but not much
because you're half asleep. It's something like being drunk. You
don't feel things so much."

"Then why does everyone here act like they're not going to like
it, if that's all it is?" asked Bart.

"Well, hell!" said Staggers. "Nobody likes people poking
around their insides--even if the worst parts're something you
don't remember too well, because of being half asleep that ay."

"You're sure you're only half asleep--," Bart was beginning to
ask when he was interrupted by another hooded figure coming up to
them with a board in his hand, to the top surface of which a piece of
paper had been attached. Bart caught a glimpse of what looked like
a list of names written on the paper; and the look was confirmed a
moment later by the hooded man himself.

"Names?" he demanded. Staggers and the other two gave their
names without hesitation. Bart was last. After a moment's hesitation,
in which he had been tempted to refuse to give his name but
invoke the authority of Pier, to back up a demand he be exempted
from everything that seemed to he going on here, he complied.

The man with the list did not seem to notice the hesitation. He
was busy checking off the names of the other three, repeating them
aloud as he came to them on his sheet of paper and directing
whoever he had just mentioned to one of the farther entrances.

Having done this, however, he fell silent, scanning through the
entire list. He went through it a second time, also without saying

anything aloud. Then he looked up at Bart accusingly.
"What'd you say your name was?" he said.
"Bar Dybig."
"Spell it!"

Bart spelled it; and the man went through the list one more time.
Then he turned and called to one of the other hooded figures in the
room.

"Jules!"

The other figure turned a face plate toward him.

"What is it, Will?" The voice of the man named Jules was

deeper than that of the man with the list, deeper and more musical.
"This one's not here."

"What do you mean, not here?" said Jules, coming up. "I can
see him, right there, standing in front of you."

There was a chuckle in his deep voice. Will did not seem


"He's not on the list. Nowhere on the list."
"Are you sure?" Jules's voice was curious now.
"I've been through it five times."

A slight exaggeration, thought Bart, but Jules did not question it.
"Some mistake," he said lightly.
"You're sure?'"
"Bound to he."

"And what if it isn't?" said Will. "What if there's some reason
he's not supposed to he here?"

"Talk sense," said Jules easily. "How could a Steed not he
supposed to he here, on a Clinic day for his dormitory?"

"I don't know," said Will. "But maybe there's a reason you and
I aren't supposed to know."

"He was in the formation," said Jules.

Bart was tempted to speak up in that moment, to make his
demand that he he exempted from whatever was to he, on the basis
that he was a special slave of one of the Three Who Command and
had a duty elsewhere. An instinct told him to wait. If it should he
decided to put him through the procedure here, after all, he could
still come up with his argument later. Meanwhile, the conversation

ordon R. Dickson


between Will and Jules might take a turn that would offer an even

better moment for invoking the name of the Librarian.
"That could be a mistake," said Will.
"Ask one of the physicians."

"And I do," said Will, "then if he's supposed to be here, VII
get told off for bothering the physician when I ought to be able to
decide things like this for myself. But if he's not supposed to be
here, then I'!! get blamed for letting him get this far when his name

wasn't even on the list for today."

Jules langhd.

"I don't see you've got any choice," said Jules. "If you don't
want to send him on through you can't just turn him loose on your
own authority."

"Here," said Will, shoving the board with its paper at the other

hooded figme. "How'd you like to do it.'?"

Jules turned and went off.

"Got to get back to my own job," his voice floated back as he
went.

Will swore after him and turned. He went away from Bart and the
other three, through the entrance to one of the farther rooms with
operating tables, all but one of them occupied by the recumbent
body of a Steed. Through that same entrance Bart could see him
talking to another figure, white-gowned and hooded just as all the
personnel here seemed to be, but with an air of deference that
suggested the other was someone in authoritympossibly one of the
"physicians" Will had spoken of to Jules.

The discussion was being held beside the one empty operating
table visible in any of the rooms. As it continued, the occupant of
the other table in that paicular room was helped to sit up. He
stepped down onto his feet and one of the gowned figures led him
away, walking a little unsteadily. First one and then another of the
white-clad figures also in the room gathered together with Will and
the one be was talking to, and the conversation became general.

Sight alone only allowed Bart to guess at how the conversation
was going. But it was an almost certain guess that the conversation
was about his name not being on the list, and this gave him hope.

After several minutes, Will returned with one of the gowned
figures. The two stopped in front of Bart and the other gowned
figure held up a small white cube Bart had not noticed he was
carrying. Unexpectedly Bart's head was enveloped by a cloud of
sickeningly sweet-smelling spray. He tried to hold his breath, but it
was already too late. 'H. P.ARH LORDS


Almost instantly, his mind seemed to blur. He felt vagudy
uncomfortable but at the same time overpowered by a lassitude that
made it too much trouble to concern himself about how he was
feeling. He felt his hand taken by Will and without resistance let
himself be led forward into the operating room with the two
now-empty tables. He was led to the nearest one and ordered to
climb up on it and lie down on his back.

He did so. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the feeling
that there was something he should be saying to all these whitedressed
people around him; but it was too much trouble to
remember what that was. He was in a curious state, at once relaxed
and at the same time apprehensive--of what he had no idea. But
then there was an interruption. One more gowned figure, with what
must be a very tall and thin man in the anonymous garment,
shouldered his way into the crowd around the table upon which
Bar lay.

"Take him back!" said the newcomer.

The words were spoken in the Latin of the Lordly class and the
tones of the voice were the tones of ultimate authority. Bart was
pulled off" the table onto his feet, by Will, and led in his near
dream-state off through a door he had not passed through before,
into a room filled with fresh-smelling stacks of Steed trousers.

With the assistance of Will and another man apparently stationed
in this room, he was gotten into trousers and shoes. They were just
like the ones he had taken off, but apparently brand new. The help
was needed, for whenever he was not in the process of obeying a
direct order, his mind wandered off and he merely stood there. It
ended with Will taking him back to the dormitory and making him
lie down on his own bed. The other Steeds were not there.

"Now, you're to stay here," Will told him. "You understand?

Say 'yes,' if you understand me!"

"Yes," said Bart.

"You'll begin to feel just like you always do in about half an
hour," Will went on. "Until then, don't try to do anything, or go
any place. I mean that! Don't move from here, no matter what
happens. You have to piss, you piss in your bed. You understand
me?"

"Yes," answered Bart, with great effort. It was hard to keep
concentrating on what the other man was saying. "I stay here half
all hour."

"That's right. Every time you start to think of getting up,
remember you're supposed to stay here until you feel better. I'm

going now, but you remember that. You'll remember?"

"I'll remember," said Bart.

He watched the cloaked and hooded figure of Will leave the
dormitory. He lay there alone in the empty room, and a curiosity
came to him to look at himself in a mirror and see if he looked any
different, since he felt so different. Particularly he would like to see
his face and eyes for some reason he could not pin down just at the
moment. He was beginning to get up and go to the wall-wide mirror
that was above the washstands in the latrine in the adjoining room

when he remembered he was not supposed to leave his bed.

He lay back again.

He tried to think, but his mind would not track. It kept
wandering off like the mind of someone just on the verge of sleep.
And so, vaguely bemused at what had happened to him, but only
vaguely, because the problem was too much for his mind to grapple
with in its present state, he did indeed fall asleep.

He woke with a guilty start. But a look at the dormitory clock,
large and round in the wall above the entrance door, showed that he
had only been asleep two hours at most. Hastily, he got up, went to
the latrine to splash cold water on his face, then hurried to the

Library.

To his intense relief, no one seemed to have noticed that he had
not been there earlier; and Pier was not using his office at the
moment, so that Barf's small alcove was doubly private. Seated in
his chair, there, before his small desk surface, he tried to make
sense out of what had happened to him earlier.

The question of what the Clinic visits were really intended to
accomplish could wait for the moment. Barf's guess was that they
were in some way for the purpose of reinforeing the illusion that the
slaves had died before being brought here and returned to life by
the Lords. Perhaps also, the loyalty of the Steeds was reinforced at
the same time, creating reasons in the false memories the Steed was
given, so that he would feel that he had no choice but to live and die
to protect the Lordly class--and in particular, its commanders.

But that was a question the answer to which he could track down
later. The immediate mystery was why Bart's name had not been
on that list and why he had been let go without the treatment the


He had 8n odd feeling in the back of his head that he had been
through something like this before. The memory would not
coW, lille in his mind, ho. All that came back clearly when

	THE EARTH LORDS
	181


he tried to remember such a thing was the brief moment in which he
had awakened to see Pier and the two others--whom he now
recognized as having been the Regent and the Emperor--standing
over him. Now that he had called the scene up again out of the
warehouse of his memory, he was all but convinced that at that
time, also, the surface he had been lying on had been a clothpadded
smooth tabletop like the one they had ordered him onto this
morning.

Somehow, all these questions, like the answers to all the other
questions that concerned him and the possibility of his escape with
Emma, must eventually tie together. He had a feeling in his bones
that this would be so--at that moment there came the sound of the
door to the office opening. It had to be Pier, he thought; and he
came to his feet and out of his alcove, so that he was respectfully
standing in the alcove doorway when the door swung closed behind
the Librarian.

"Ah, Bart, there you are!" the little old man said; and Bart
thought there was a definite overtone of relief in the slightly
scratchy voice.

The older man moved forward and deposited some papers on his
own desk, then looked ove[ at Bart once more. "How are you
feeling.'?" he asked.

"Very well, Lord," Bart answered quietly; then he smiled. "But
it was a close thing."

"So I understand," Pier said. "My apologies. Someone misunderstood
his instructions. Do you know what almost happened.'?"
"I have an idea, Lord."

"I thought you might," Pier answered. "Someday I'll explain in
detail, if you like. For now I must not."

"I understand, Lord," Bart said. "For the same reason you
cannot explain some other things, as you said before."

Pier nodded, looked away, and moved to sit behind his desk,
facing the door through which he had entered. He busied himself
for a moment straightening the papers he had just put down on the
desk, then looked back up at Bart.

"I didn't expect to see you here at all today, Bart," he said,
"with Court scheduled for this afternoon. In fact, I half expected
that by this time Chandt would have you all in formation and
marching to the courtroom."

He spoke in French, the language generally reserved for use only
under home surroundings, which gave the conversation an air of

	182
	Cordon R. Dick.n

intimacy that was usually missing from the work place where all
talk was in English. "You want to get back into your alcove, do
you?"

"Not just at the moment, Lord," said Bart. "As you say, I'll
have to get back to the dormitory quickly. But I had a request to
make of you, if I might. I thought I'd come to the Library and see if
you had time to let me speak to you."

"There will be times," said Pier, smiling benignly, "when
affairs will keep me too concerned to give you time, but not often.
What is it you wanted to request?"

"I was just. going to ask, Lord--," said Bart. He tried to think
back to the way Paolo had phrased it. "--is it permissible that I
make acquaintances and meet with them privately as well as
publicly?"

"Strange," said Pier thoughtfully. "I'd completely forgotten
that I'd never specifically given you that privilege. Of course you
can, Bart. There's only a couple of people who might object to my
granting it to you--"

His face suddenly developed a stern look that Bart had never seen
on it before. The kindly old Librarian was abruptly replaced by an
individual of authority.

"--and I'm under no obligation to take their views into
consideration in this case."

He smiled at Bart, and the stern look was gone.

"I assume you have someone in mind you wish to meet?" he


There was no point in hiding the fact.

"Yes, Lord," answered Bart. "It's a female slave that I used to
know in the upper world."

Pier's eyebrows raised slightly.

"Indeed," he said. "You know, it occurs to me, Bart, that you
might come to my home tomorrow evening, after Marta and I have
had dinner."

"I--I would be honored, Lord," said Bart; the invitation--
albeit in the form of a command--was, as far as Bart had been
given to understand, completely unprecedented to come from a
Lord to one of his slaves; that much Bart had already learned about
Inner World society.

"Do you know where this female slave works?" Pier asked.

"Somewhere in bookkeeping, I understand, Lord;" said Bart.
"I'm sorry I--"

"Never mind." Pier fished a piece of blank paper toward himself

THE FMR"H LORDS I

across the desk top and wrote on it with one of those pens used in
the Inner World that carried its own supply of ink. "My Lordmark
is on the paper, here, and I've just written a short note saying that
I'd appreciate anyone in charge where the slave--what's her
name?"

"Emma Roheson, Lord."

"Emma... the last name? Spell it for me."

Bart spelled it.

"Good," said Pier, finishing his penmanship. "I've written
that-- '... where the slave Emma Robeson is kept, that they give
her over for the moment\to the slave carrying this, who is my Steed;
and under my authority as Librarian 1 order anyone so in charge of
Emma Robeson to acquiesce and aid my Steed in anything he
wishes to do with Emma Roheson. Which is by my command,' "
wound up Pier.

He handed the note to Bart.

"Oh," said Pier, as Bart backed toward the door, "and you
might bring this friend of yours along, too, so that Marta and I can
get a look at her."

He smiled at Bart again--very nearly an impish smile.

"Yes, Lord. Thank you, Lord. It will be an honor for her, too,"
was all Bart could think of to say.

He went out, and the door to Pier's office closed behind him. His
head was whirling. Among the thoughts jostling about it was that it
might he of great use to the future plans of Emma and himself, if
Pier and Marta took a liking to her. On the other hand, perhaps it
was dangerous to draw her to the attention of any of the Lordly
class, even ones as apparently kindly as Pier and Marta.

He had not failed to remember that concubines were a prerogative
of both sexes of the Lordly class, and of Hybrids, as well--this
Inner World seemed to have strong Near East social elements. If a
Lord should look at Emma and want her for his own sexual use,
there would be little Bart could do about it down here, even at the
cost of his life.

On the other hand, as far as he knew, Pier and Marta were
unusual among their fellow Lords and Lord Ladies for never having
had any concubines; and his advanced age should suggest that the
possibility of Pier's wanting Emma for himself was not too likely.

Then Bart remembered how briskly he had seen the old man
move on occasion, and his fear of a possible personal interest by
Pier in Emma rose again.

chapter
sixteen


BAItT WlNT FOitWARD enough in the stacks to see the large clock
on the wall by the main desk of the Library. It showed only eleven
minutes after eleven. Pier had been anticipating when he had
imagined that Chandt would already be getting the Steeds into
order for attendance at the Court--whatever sort of occasion it
might he. Bart estimated that with a fourteen hundred hours--
2:00 p.M.--assembly time on the schedule, he had at least two
hours of free time before he was due back at the dormitory, even
leaving him time to make whatever changes in clothing were
required.

He glanced at the open outer area of the Library. It was all but
deserted. There was one Hybrid seated there, reading in one of
the chairs, and within the circle of the desk sat Mordaunt and a
single stack slave. Possibly because of this afternoon's affair,
visitors to the Library seemed to be few; and that meant the stacks
should be all but deserted.

It would be an ideal time for him to get his hands on a copy of
the Book of al-Kebir again and finish reading it. Moreover, if the
Court ran late, he would have no chance to finish reading it later in
the day hefore he would he due to take Emma to the Guettrigs',
where they should probably be by about 7:00 P.M., that being when
his Lord and Lady usually finished their dinner. That lack of time
would he crucial, since he had decided that this should be the
night in which he tried the scheme that had been in his mind for
some time, and which a full knowledge of the Book would help
support him in the story which he hoped to make Pier and Marta
believe.

He turned, went back through the stacks to the small room
where the copies of the Book were shelved, and took one. As he
had suspected, he saw no sign of anyone else in the stacks, in the
process--not Lord, Hybrid or slave.
With the copy of the Book, he returned to Pier's office, on the
chance that the Lord might already have left it. If Pier was to he at

rite £4R'!t LOROS


the Court, he would undoubtedly need to change robes and pick
up Marta, in which case he might already have left, so as to get
them things done and also have some time for lunch before they
set out.

Bart's estimate was correct. The little light above the scratching
panel on the door that signaled that Pier was within and whether
he was available to visitors or not was dark. Taking from his tunic
pocket the key Pier had given him, Bart unlocked the door, let
himlf in and relocked the door behind him. The automatic
lighting had evidently been turned down, and only a dim
nightlight burned in the room.
By this illumination he went to his own private alcove, turned
on the working light there, and sat down, opening the book before
him. The clean Latin script of the first page looked up at him,
once again.

"0, Fratres mei--," it began.

"De origine et via qua adhunc mundum advenimus nihil
dicabo . . . "

Automatically, his mind translated the words in Latin script
hefore him into English.

"Of our origin and the means by which we came to this world, as
well as the fate of many of us in the moment of our arrival, I will say
nothing, lest the information turn out to be of use to those who

should not know such things.

"Sufftce it to say that a number of us were left scattered and

helpless upon a part of this earth called Sicily, where we one and all
fell into the hands of various local inhabitants of the lowest origin,
brutish by nature and lacking in all but the simplest intelligence.
Inhabitants, moreover, who were incapable of recognizing in us the
superior beings we were, but instead took us under their control and
treated each of us as if we were little better than the beasts they fed
on or forced to work their fields, for without exception they were
peasants of the lowest order ....

"But in time the superior intelligence of our people attracted the
attention of those who were in authority over our peasant masters,
and these--seeing value in us--took us for themselves; and this
process was repeated in time by those who were in authority over
these others; and so on, with our masters rising in rank until we all
became slaves of natives of large power in the land.

"Of all of these, there was only one who was far more powerful
than any of the rest, being no less than the ruler of an empire, known
as the Holy Roman Empire, and reaching from the north of Europe

	186
	Gordon R. Dickson


to this island of Sicily. It was this island, however, that was the
favorite seat of this particular emperor, whose name was Frederick,
after the name of the Emperor his grandfather, who had been known
as Barbarossa by reason of his red beard... "

Baxt read on, fascinated.

After this preamble, the writer had gone back to relate in greater
detail the atrocities committed upon his fellows by the humans they
had encountered, in greater detail. According to the writer, he had
been only seven years old when, with his parents and their traveling
companions, he had arrived on the oil of Sicily. In the breakup of
the group that followed, as one by one the adults were parcelled out
among the neighborhood natives, his mother's desparate desire to
keep him with her had impressed at least one of the locals. They
two were taken as a pair--his father had been killed by one of the
first few locals to come investigating them--as the narrator
believed they would all have been killed, if it had not been for one
peasant, somewhat more intelligent than the rest, who saw that live
slaves would he more valuable than dead bodies, and equally
harmless if kept apart from each other.

So he and his mother were taken, the writer went on, by a man
with no wife or family. A man Who lived off among the rocks, who
clearly had chosen the writer's mother to he a servant who could
also serve a sexual purpose. For, that night, in the man's small,
windowless hut, with no light but that from the fire under a hole in
the thatch overhead, he dragged her into the hut's one small,
odiferous bed with him, shoving the boy away so hard he went
sprawling.

The boy's mother called out to him in their own language not to
make their new owner angry, but find someplace else to sleep.
Filled with fury toward the man, but, as always, obedient to his
mother, the boy had searched around the hut and finally raked
together a pile of rags to make himself a bed on the dirt floor. On
this, he fell asleep. Later on, when the fire had died down to
embers, so that the hut was barely lit, a cry of pain from his mother
woke him. He jumped to his feet and rushed over to where she and
the man I:-y, and tried to pull his mother out of the bed. The man
leaped up in a rage and seized him.

"... I was strong," Bart read, "as all our people are strong.
More than that, I had always been half again as powerful as any of
our own people who were my age and size. But still I was only seven;
and he was a large, grown man. Though I fought back ferociously,
he dragged me across the hut, opened the door, threw me out into

the cold night, and closed the door again. When I tried to get hack
in, I found that he had barred the door from the inside. The night
was chill and a strong wind blew icily about me. The only way I
could avoid dying of the cold was to keep walking all night long.
Once I realized that this was necessary, I faced the rest of the dark
hours with determination. I would live at least until morning, if only
to pay the man hack for what he had done to my mother and myself.
In that same instant I remembered all our people who were now
virtual slaves of these creatures who called themselves humans; and
the beginning of my hatred was born--a hatred that will in time see
them all swept from the face of this earth of theirs.

"It is because of that hatred that I now write this letter to you
whom I have helped into positions of safety and comfort; so that you
will never forget what we owe these creatures; and so that you will
build and cause your children to keep building toward the day when
we can destroy them utterly.

"For to that end I have accumulated wealth and power, here at
the court of the Sultan in Fez. It is for this reason that I have adopted
their religion of the man named Mohammed; and learned to play at
their way of life, so that they think me only interested in riches and
luxuries.

"But it is for no such real reason that I have actually done what I
have done. I shall teach you how to grow even wealthier and more
powerful; haw to band together and build, aport and hidden, a
place of our own that humans do not know of. There, you will
rediscover the skills and arts of our people and create a weapon that
will end the human race. I have pledged myself to this, and now I
pledge all of you, whether you will or not. In the absence of any
other, and because by strength of mind and body I am best fitted to
lead you, I have taken on myself the responsibilities of Commander of

us all; and as Commander I order you, your children and your
childreC s children, now and in the future, to do always as l shall

tell you, in this letter and at later times.

"'But to return to my own story, which you must learn by heart,
for it is the source from which you will draw into yourselves that
same strength of my hatred, to sustain you, when necessary..."

At this point the writer began, in Bart's opinion, to come as
close as it was possible to foaming at the mouth in words written on
paper.

"... for I tell you that nothing has the power of a great hatred,
particularly when that hatred has been justified over and over again.
With a hatred such as mine you can move mountains, you can dry up

	188
	Gordon R. Dickson


the sea and cause the very earth to vanish inflame. And this is why
you must keep this letter of raine so that you may read and reread it;
and make sure your children do likewise . . ."

Bart checked himself. Fascinated by the autobiography of this
strange individual, he had started to reread the Book completely,
once more from the beginning. But now an inner alarm warned him
time was passing. He leaned back in his chair and glanced outside
his alcove at the clock in the wall of Pier's office. It stood at seven
minutes past 1200 hours, seven minutes after 12:00 '.M. He had
probably another forty minutes to read safely if he wanted to have
adequate time to return the Book, get himself to the dormitory
and take care of any preparations that would be needed for the
Court formation.

He turned hastily back to the pages, skimming forward through
those he had already read, which continued to detail the need for
hatred of the humans; then settled down to a regular reading of
what was left. He finished the book with four minutes to go of his
self-allotted time. A number of blank pages had been bound into
the end of it, and this had made it possible for him to finish his
task quicker even than he had expected.

He rose, turned out his light and left. After putting the copy
back on its shelf, he headed toward the dormitory, his head full of
the Book and its meanings. They were not easy to extract, those
meanings, for what he had just finished reading was almost as full
of wild stories as Gallard's translation of the Thousand and One
Nights.

Whatever else al-Kebir had been, he had been a stupendous
egotist and capable of the most outrageous exaggerations and lies.
The difficulty was that he was also clearly almost as intelligent and
capable as he claimed to be. Certainly, me of the things he
reported himself as doing or experiencing could not be true; but
some, at least, of them must have been fact, or else the present day
Inner World surrounding Bart could not exist, let alone remain
dedicated to this man's furious idea of a revenge against the whole
human race.

AI-Kebir's mother had soon died under the rigors of the life
forced on them by the ignorant brute that was their master, who was
apparently part owner of a small herd of goats and part anything
else at all that might gain him money or goods. Shortly thereafter,
aI-Kebir was taken from this man by another of superior standing in
the area; and so began a succession of changes through the hands of
a number of owners, each of them better off, or more powerful,

than the previous; until at last he who was to become al-Kebir--but
was at this time known by the name of Bebe, with which his first
owner had christened him---ended up in the hands of the ruler of
the island of Sicily.

Of this ruler, Be, be at first had hopes;

"... though," he wrote in his book at this point, "even for a
human, in body he was ugly and useless-appearing. He was short,
as these gangling humans go. He was also fat, even for the young
man he was when 1 first made his acquaintance, and already
beginning to lose his hair. His eyes were green and apparently
frightening to other humanswl, myself, merely found them to
reinforce his general ill-favored appearance.

"But even before I met him in person I had heard of his wisdom
and seeking mind; and I had some expectation consequently of at
last finding a human who would realize the naturally superior
endowments of our great race and in particular my own remarkable
superiority even in that context.
"Alas, he turned out to be only partly what I had hoped. It was
true he had a good mind--for a human. It was also true that he had
a truly scientific curiosity and the boldness to attempt to satisfy it.
Even before I met him, I had heard of experiments he had conducted
to discover more about how the body, mind, and that thing humans
call 'soul,' function.

"During the time I was his slave and his servant, for example, he
conducted an experiment in which he fed two prisoners a large,
identical meal and sent one to sleep, the other upon an arduous
hunt. Afterwards, he had both men killed and cut open to find out
which had done the best job of digesting the meal each had eaten. It
was, of course, as I had already deduced, the one who had slept.

"But he also had the intelligent idea of sealing a man in a large
keg which was already placed upon a set of scales so that it could be
weighed with the man in it. The man, of course, soon suffocated.
Having died, it was to be presumed that he had now lost his living
soul, which would have taken.flight from his body; and this master of
mine was eager to obtain proof of the weight of that soul, about
which so many of these humans talk.

"But, again, as I might have told him, there was no change in the
weight indicated on the scales at all, which went a good ways toward
proving that such a thing as a 'soul' had no existence in reality. 1
could go on, listing many such experiments that he made, but there
is no point in wasting paper further. There was only one of his
experiments that was of importance to you and me, 0 my brothers

190
	Cordon R. Dickson


and of that, more later.

"It is important, however, that you all understand what sort of
human he was. He was gifted with intelligence, high intelligence as
his race knew it; but aside from this he was like a naive child, merely
tinkering with the world around him in whatever direction his
current fancy took him. I had hoped that, since he had such a mind,
I might at last have found a human who would listen to me and
understand the great gift that had been given him by having such as
me dropped in his lap, as it were.

"But this was not to be--and the fault was in his basic character.
That he was lecherous and gluttonous to a remarkable degree was
beside the point. He was not self-indulgent in matters requiring work
and application; but he was blinded by his own conceit. He was of
royal extraction, but he had grown up poor and disregarded,
running loose on the waterfront of Palermo, Sicily's main port. This
situation continued until a series of inheritances brought him, first,
the Kingship of Sicily, then ultimately the authority of Emperor over
the Holy Roman Empire, that at this time consisted of Germany and
much of Europe.

"As Emperor, he challenged the Pope of the Christian Church, in
Rome, and showed his indifference to the Pope's excommunicating
him by going on a Crusade and concluding a treaty with the Saracen
leader, Sultan al-Kamil; under which there was proclaimed a
ten-year truce, ceding Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Nazareth to the
Christians, along with a corridor from Jersalem to the sea, while
giving the Moslems full rights to keep their homes and mosques in
Jerusalem.

"This was the more remarkable in that he had done all this
without a single battle. The Pope was furious at such a bloodless
achievement of what past Crusades had fought and died for. But
there was little he could do about it; and after a time he had no real
choice but to revoke the excommunication.

"All this I relate was to this man's credit, as proof of a mind with
which I might have done much. But it added up to nothing and less
than nothing because of the man's character. He was completely
self-centered, believing no one in the universe could be so wise and
discerning as himself; and, when he encountered my own superior
intellect, he simply refused to acknowledge it and treated me like
nothing more than a clever beast, who was perhaps of some use with
accounts and planning, but was essentially little more than a funny
human animal to be entertained by, laughed at, and lent out to other
sovereigns from whom he wished something in return, it is hard to

	TH£ F.ARTH lORDS
	191

believe that a greater egotist ever existed."

That description, Bart thought to himself now as he hurried to
the dormitory, might as well have pictured Bebe himself as well as
the Emperor. The man Bebe had been writing about was Frlerick
II, the grandson of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, otherwise
known as Barbarrosa--"Redheard"--and had made six expeditions
into Italy in his lifetime, in an attempt to dominate the Italian
peninsula.

Frederick Roger--Frederick II--himself, Bart had discovered
from other books in the Librarymwas indeed a remarkable, if not a
particularly lovable, person. He dug deply into mathematics and
science, entertaining himself with people like Michael Scot, the
scientist-adventurer-philosopher-astrologer and dabbler in magic.
Frederick was fascinated by questions such as the ones behind the
experiments Bebe had recounted; and with others such as whether
children raised without ever hearing human speech would speak
naturally the tongue that was spoken by Adam and Eve in Eden.

He also concerned himself with questions as to why a stick
pushed into the water appeared to have its section below the water
bent at an angle with the part above. He wrote a book on falconry,
and ornithology in general. He founded the Universily of Naples;
and himself spoke a number of languages, including Arabic. Like
his grandfather Barbarrosa, he spent his lifetime fighting the papal
establishnnt with the hope of uniting Italy and creating an actual,
unitary, functioning, Holy Roman Empire stretching from Sicily to


In the meantime, he provided th base on which Beb¢ built his
own heights of wealth and power and united those like him in what
was to end in this Inner World.

"... Of all of Frederick's experiments, the most detestable,"
Bart read, "was alarm or nursery which Frederick set up in order to
breed human curiosities. As he considered me to be one of these I
was forced to leave his court from time to time to attempt to breed
with distorted specimens of the humanity on this farm of his, in the
hope of producing even more grotesque individuals. Such was his

injence and power that he had gathered together individuals of
tha classication from all over Euipe and North Africa, a

another man might collect women or jewels,

"You cannot imagine how repugnant it was for me to interact
sexually with the son of hideous females that were assembled there
and continually added to. But, at the same time, unknown to
Frederick, a great end was served by sending me there. For it was

192 Cordon R. Dicltson

there I met those of our people who had also managed to survive.
They consisted of only six Ladies and twenty-three Lords; but they
were now where I could keep an eye on them, provide mear to make
their life easier--secretly and whenever possible--and contitue to
maintain my knowledge of their whereabouts when they were given
or lent by Frederick to other rulers and like individuals .... "

There was clearly, and no one ever denied it, thought Bart now
as he hurried toward the dormitory, a very practical side to
Frederick. He kept the most interesting of the "Naturals," as those
like Bebe were called--Bart almost paused, but then resumed his
movement toward his dormitory; he had just realized that at no time
in his book did Bebe--al-Kebir--say just what exactly it was about
himself that put him in the category of the kind of freaks that
Frederick was interested in.

True, the man was obviously very short; but that did not seem to
be the whole story. There must, Bart thought, have been some
other--and severe--abnormality about him; something unsightly
enough to excite the admiration and envy of the world, including
visitors of note. Whatever it might have been, Frederick had made
good use of it, and in effect created a market for such human
oddities--which he then offered to satisfy with the products of his
freak farm, giving away or selling the less promising children of the
sexual unions he had forced there and those adult members who
had failed to prove interesting, either because of natural disabilities
or because they had not proved of value as breeders.

TO those of sufficient importance to be supplied with something
better than a baby human grotesque, Frederick balked at selling or
giving, but was occasionally willing to lend for a short term some
of those on display at his court. In this way, Bebe found himself
several times lent out to other masters, with most of whom he did
well by adapting himself to their personal tastes. There was one,
however, he was unable to satisfy and hated above all others; so that
a good twenty pages of his book was filled with anecdotes and
diatribes against that individual. This was a Sir Hubert de Gar, a
German knight and lay-mernber (as all the knights were of that
order) in the Knights Templar.

According to Bebe's account, he had been lent to such an
insignificant individual because Frederick had some tortuous designs
that involved intrigue with the Mongols, who were just then
beginning to invade Europe; and he needed a spy on the activities of
the martial religious orders--and particularly the Knights Templar
--who were the only organization fit and ready to be the spearhead

rlt, g4R?H LORI$ 195


of Christianity's defense against them.

Intelligent and educated for his time, Frederick had been, Bart
thought; but like the Europeans of his day in general, he had
obviously vastly underestimated the superiority of the Mongol
armies over anything Europe would he able to put in their way. If it
had not been for the death of Genghis Khan himself, which caused
the recall of all the generals of his blood to choose a successor to
lead them, Europe--and Sicily along with it--would almost
undoubtedly have fallen to the Mongols.

The day came, however, when lending out Behe for brief periods
was no longer equal to the situation that had arisen. Finally, and
perhaps even with some slight sense of relief, since Be.be, if useful,
could probably be wearing on the nerves, Frederick made an
outright girl of him to the Sultan in Fez, whose kingdom lay to the
west, inland along the North African coast of the Mediterranean.

It was the sort of move Bebe was looking for. The year in the
Christian calendar was twelve hundred and forty-six and Frederick
was beginning to show his age. Behe had already prospered as a
slave of Frederick's. Under Moslem law he had rights, even as a
slave, to accumulate property and gain power. He did so; and, when
the time was appropriate, adopted the Moslem religion, with the
Dey's drunken consent, one night when the ruler was celebrating.
As a Moslem he could no longer he held as a slave by a fellow
Moslem. Therefore he was now able to free himself and improve
his position even more.

He grew wealthy; and, as slowly and quietly as possible, he
began to buy, steal, or otherwise free the other members of those he
called his own race; and establish them in positions where they
could in turn gain wealth and power.

He also drew a blueprint for their future actions, and the actions
of the generations that should follow them. The last third of the
book was given almost entirely to this.

He told them that they must build toward the construction of an
Inner Kingdom, secret and hidden from the rest of the world. To do
this, they must learn everything new that humans were discovering
and strive to get ahead of them in studies of their own. They must
strive to raise children--full-blooded if possible, but half-breeds
from their unions with humans, if nothing else was possible. In any
case, whatever children were produced in each generation must be
trained almost from the cradle and severely tested, at age eleven and
again at age seventeen; and those who did not, on being tested,
show evidence of unusual mental abilities should he destroyed.

Those who survived must mate with each other and with humans
of the highest possible intelligence. Lords and Ladies of the true
race should in turn mate with the half-breed progeny of other
Lordly individuals, those who showed promise. So that in every
way a community should be produced of unusually brilliant
individuals who would work toward knowledge beyond that of the
humans. From that knowledge they would then derive a means to
destroy the humans and their world, in payment for the cruel
treatment the true race had received from them--

Bart's mind left the subject of the Book of al-Kebir with a jolt, as
he finally stepped through the door of the dormitory, on reaching
it. The clock on the wall Within read still twenty-eight minutes
before the hour at which the Court formation had been set. But the
dormitory was deserted. On one bed, only--his own--lay a scarlet
tunic and a pair of scarlet sandals.

seventeen


DRE,ED IN SCARLET and out of breath, Bart plunged through the
wide open, huge double doors of the Court Room and checked to
a panting halt just a few steps short of Chandt, who was standing
with his back to the entrance, talking to the dormitory Leaders,
Paolo among them. Catching Bart's eye behind Chandt's back, as
the Master of the Steeds slowly turned around at the sound of
Bart's sandals on the polished floor behind, Paolo made a grimace
of warning.

Beyond Chandt and the Leaders, the Steeds of all the dormitories
were lined up in formation. The clock on the soaring
ivory-colored wall to Bart's right read two minutes to the
appointed formation time of fourteen hundred hours. Bart gulped
for breath. He had literally run most of the way after finding the
main gym of the Steeds empty. A grinning janitorial slave there
had told him how the rest had marched out of the gym fifteen
minutes before to go to the Court Room--and had given Bart
directions on how to find it.

Now he gulped air so as to speak before Chandt could.

"I was held up on an errand for my Lord--," he began.

"I gave him permission. To come as soon as he could," said
the growling voice of Paolo. Paolo had come forward out of the
group of other Leaders and now stepped level with Chandt, who
turned his gaze on Bart's immediate superior.

The two pairs of eyes, the Master's and the Leader's, locked on
each other. Both sets of eyes were dark, but Chandt's were
mountain pebbles in shadow, while Paolo's held in their black
depths a sullen fire. Chandt said nothing and the two men
continued to look at and into each other.

"Very well," said Chandt finally, without removing his gaze
from Paolo's, "put him in ranks."

	196
	Gordon R. Dickson

Paolo was forced to look away at Bart, and the moment was
ended.

"Into your place, damn you!" he said.

Bart went hastily to the lineup of men from his own dormitory,
while Chandt and Paolo once more rejoined the other dormitory
Leaders and Chandt began speaking quietly to them all again, as if
there had never been those seconds of confrontation between
himself and Paolo.

Bart had expected under-the-breath gibes from the Steeds
around him as he pushed himself into his usual place in the
formation. But this time those he joined looked stiy ahead,
ignoring him and each other, not moving--on the best behavior
he had seen among them since he had first waked up as one of
them.

Left with a minute in which to catch his breath, Bart for the first
time took a look at his Court Room to which they had all been
summoned.

It was a high-ceilinged, expansive chamber, with false windows
having cathedral tops. These were carved into the ivory-colored
material of the upreaching walls on all four sides of the room; and
what would have been their openings on an outside surface world
were filled with paintings of the kind of gardens found in tropical
or semi-tropical latitudes. Curtains of sky blue, reaching to the
ceiling, were tied back in graceful folds at each side of each of
these windows.

This much hbout the room was pleasant enough. But the ceiling
overhead was carved into gargoyles and death's-heads; and at
the far end of the room was a dais raised off the floor and covered,
top and sides, with glaringly scarlet cloth of the same color as
the tunics the Steeds were now wearing. On this sat three highbacked
chairs of dark wood, like thrones. They were carved all
over and their armrests ended in lion's heads. Half a dozen feet
in front of them stood something that was a sort of mixture of
pulpit and lectern with a platform on which a speaker's notes
might rest, at a convenient reading height for one of the Lordly
class.

But now, as Bart watched, Chandt finished speaking to the
dormitory Leaders. They went back to the heads of the formations
and Chandt moved over to stand facing all the waiting men. He
was dressed in what would have seemed a slave's simple, short
tunic if it had not been made of glittering, gold cloth, trimmed

THE EARTH LORDS
	197


with black fur around the edges of the skirt and armholes; and
he waited with an almost ominous patience until the Leaders
were back in position. When, at last, all was still and silent in
the room he spoke.

"All right!" he said. He faced them all, legs spread apart,
hands locked together behind him. The muscles stood out on his
brown arms. Under the remarkable acoustics of the room, he did
not seem to raise his voice, but it came strongly and clearly to the
ears of all of them.

"Listen to me now, all of you; and listen closely! There will
be no mistakes by any one of you today. None. You will all do
what I'm now going to tell you to do, nothing more, nothing
less.

"You understand?"

Apparently, Bart concluded, there was no answer expected to
this; for no one among the Steeds made any.

"Shortly," went on Chandt, "this room--" His extended arm
swept right and left at shoulder height before him, to indicate its
expanse. "--will be filled with Lords and Ladies. Later on, for a
short while, a few Hybrids will be allowed in, but that's
unimportant. As far as you're concerned, there will be only Lords
and Ladies here. Understand me? Answer me!'"

This time, everybody around Bart muttered "yes," so Bart
muttered along with them.

"Those of you who've never been to a Court before are going to
see the Lords--not the Ladies and the Lords, but the Lords
alone--doing some things that may seem strange to you. Remember,
no matter what they do, you're not to show you're seeing
anything out of the ordinary. You'll be given small whips. If a
Lord comes within reasonable reach of you, swing your whip at
him. I don't have to tell anyone here, I think--"

Chandt's eyes raked back and forth across the mass of them.
"--not to let the lash of the whip actually touch a Lord, unless
you've been actually told or signaled by a Lord to do that. Even
then, remember it should be as light a touch as possible. Some of
you may find yourselves faced by Lords who want you to strike
them harder than that. In that case, I leave the matter up to your
judgment, how hard the Lord actually wishes you to hit him; and
you'd better pray your judgment is right."

He paused. "Now, the slaves will pass out the whips and you'll
spread yourself around the walls of this room as if you were

soldiers standing on guard--ceremonial guard at a Court. Dormitory
l.aders, place your Steeds!"

Bart found himself positioned beside a blue curtain flankin[
one of the false windows. He felt ridiculous with the small, toylik¢
whip that a slave placed in his hand; and the began to feel more
ridiculous as the room began to fill with members of the Lordly
class. But the embarrassment he felt was lost in wonder at what he
saw. The Lord Ladies were dressed in ornate, frilly gowns, their
faces painted--no, overpainted was the only proper word' for the
makeup they wore. The Lords, on the other hand, were either in
rags or wore clothing that was expensive but cut to grotesquely
exaggerate their shortness of body and limbs. Some had artificial
hunchbacks built into their garb, or other deformities created in
them by padding in their clothing.

About twenty minutes or so after the room had started to fill
with these members of the Lordly class, there was a final arrival.
Three figures wearing identical, floor-length black gowns, but
with differing, heavy neckchains in which cloth, gold, silver
and jewels were all wound together, swept into the room. One
of them was Pier. The other two were the Emperor and the
Regent.

They walked together rapidly to the dais, ignoring all of those
around them. Moving almost in unison, they mounted the dais.
Each took off his neckchain and laid it on the seat of one of the
chairs. Then they returned to the edge of the dais, stepped down,
and moved apart, out among the crowd on the main floor of the
room.

Immediately, things began to happen. The small men and
women who had been scattered thickly about the floor of the
room, talking with each other, split into two groups. The Ladies
went to and mounted the dais, looking out over the room.
The Lords themselves became active. They began to--cavort,
was the only word that Bart could feel literally fitted their
actions.

It was as if they had all become clowns and tumblers. They
pretended to knock each other down; and the one knocked down
flipped end-over-end backward as if he had been struck by a giant's
blow. They leap-frogged over each other and walked about on
their hands. A small group made a living pyramid, four individuals
on the bottom, three standing on their shoulders, and one on
the shoulders of these. A bronze tray, a gracefully long-necked

THE EARTH LORDS


glass container with what looked like red wine in it, and three
wine glasses, were handed up to the man on top. He arranged
the vessels on the tray, filled the glasses from the container, then
did a flip off the pyramid downward to the floor, landing with
the vessels in place and the wine, even in the open glasses,
unspilled.

There were none of the Lords there, old or young, who did not
busy themselves with some contortion or exercise; and the Ladies
up on the dais pointed and giggled, some of them waving fans they
had produced from pockets in their gowns.

The whole scene would have been utterly ridiculous if it had not
been for the actual, remarkable physical skill with which all of the
Lords performed, which lent an air of grim purpose to the whole
procedure. Acts such as Bart saw being performed now were not
done, he knew, so skillfully and correctly without long and arduous
training. The very perfection of them pointed to a higher purpose
than a simple showing off by the performers.

The Steeds about the room flourished their little whips in the air
at any Lord who came close to them, the lashes whistling through
the air at a safe distance from the potential target--except in a few
rare cases, when the Lord in question moved in close and evidently
gave some order. Even then, the Steed with the whip seemed
careful to strike very lightly indeed.

But there were some rare exceptions, who evidently wanted the
real thing. One of these was the Emperor, who stopped, not once,
but several times in front of Steeds--and in each instance, Bart
noticed two things. One was that the Steeds he stopped in front of
were older than the average, which might have indicated that they
had complied at earlier Courts with the Emperor's desires. The
second was that, far from holding back, they were striking with as
much force as they could produce without moving their body from
its position.

Bart was puzzling over this and continuing to follow the Emperor
with his gaze--as were a great many in the room--when the sight
of another Lord drew Bart's attention away. The one he had just
caught sight of was Pier; and, to his astonishment, the aged
Librarian had just done two back-somersaults in midair; a very
good trick for a much younger man.

Too good. Bart was still astonished not merely at the skill these
members of the Lordly class were all showing, but the actual
physical strength many of them were revealing, when the maneu
	200
	Gordon R. Dickson

vers they executed obviously required more than ordinary power of
leg, arm, or body. These people might be small, but they were also
deceptively strong, for all that they did not ordinarily let that fact
show in everyday life.

But at the moment he was not concerned with this. His attention
was all following Pier. The Librarian had walked mvay from his two
somersaults with brisk and competent steps, as if removing himself
for others' way by moving to rite wall. But now that he had finished
his demonstration, Bart noticed that when the old man reached the
wall he leaned against it with one shoulder. It could be merely a
casual pose; but if so, it was one much more suited to a younger
man. Bart suspected that the two violent physical eecutions had
taken more out of Pier than Pier wished to have known. Pier was
clear across the wide room from him, too far for Bat to make out
such a small detail, but Bart could almost believe he could see
Pier's chest heaving under his robe.

A sudden, powerful impulse stirred in Bart, to go to the old man;
but leaving the place where he had been stationed was clearly
impossible. He could only hope that Pier had known what he was
doing; and that his body was able to stand the strain he had just put
on it.

Bart woke suddenly to the fact that he might be staring too
openly at Pier. His fixed concentration of gaze could bring attention
on the Librarian that the old man might not want. A Steed was
supposed to be concentrating on waving his whip at any of the
Lords who came close enough. He brought his awareness back to
that part of the room directly in front of him; and, as he did, he
realized something that he was suddenly angry with himself for not
noticing earlier.

Alone among the Steeds around the room, he had not had a
single Lord come close enough to him to invite even the pretense of
his using his whip.

It could be sheer chance, of course; but Bart had learned to
distrust chance as a reason. However, if it was not chance that had
caused him to be left alone this way--he could think of no possible
other cause. It was preposterous to suppose that all the Lords, from
the Emperor on down, had gotten together and agreed to avoid him.
Even if he could entertain such a .wild possibility, what would the
reason for Such avoidance be? No, it had to be chance.

Luckily, he did not have to worry about this at any length,
because already the actions on the floor were coming to a close; and
very shortly there were no Lords who were doing anything but

	rite EARTH LORDS
	201


standing, as if waiting. They had all turned toward the dais; and the
Ladies were now descending from it.

As soon as it was clear, Pier, the Emperor and the Regent
mounted the large half-disk of scarlet space.

Solemnly, they #eked up and put on their neckchains: then
turned and seated themselves each in one of the chairs, the Emperor
in the middle with Pig, on his right hand, the Regent on his left.
They stared at the crowd on the floor before them with expressionless
faces.

"Come closer!"

The voice of the Emperor echoed through the silence of the
room. The Lords and Ladies crowded together, close to the dais.
The emotional tension in the room had been growing steadily all
through the Lords' performances, even among the ring of Steeds
surrounding, for all that they could not understand the shouts and
comments in Latin. Now it sang even higher around them. It
seemed to Bart they wexe all enclosed by a feeling like that of
people locked in some small place and knowing that an explosion
there was imminent.

The smell of male sweat was thick in the room.

chapter
eighteen


Wq -rt-lL" wg all as close as they could get, the Emperor
abruptly stood up.

"Look!" he said, speaking in Latin.

He turned his back on the audience. Pier and the Regent rose
also. Each seized a handful of cloth at the side of the Emperor's
robe and pulled. The back of the robe split down the middle as
they pulled it apart, revealing the Emperor's surprisingly muscled,
naked back. A small mutter ran through the crowd; and even
Bart felt the emotional reaction that moved them. The little whips
might be toylike in appearance; but they were evidently effective
enough when used seriously. The red lines of lash-marks could be
clearly seen, crisscrossing the exposed back.

The Emperor stood for a moment, then turned again to face
them. Pier and the Regent had already reseated themselves; and
now the Emperor did so as well. His eyes glared at the audience.

"You see!" he said. "This--this and worse--our forefathers
endured daily at the hands of those animals that call themselves
humans[ What you all have just done for a little while, a few
moments since, they did daily, and all day long; making a show
and parody of themselves in order to stay alive and in the good
graces of these humans!"

The last word came out with such fury, saliva flew from the
corners of his mouth. He .was up on his feet again, suddenly; and
he came forward in two long strides, half the way from his chair to
the front edge of the dais.

"This," he said, "this fool-playing and pain might still be your
lot if it had not been for those who went before us; and particularly
Him, He who spent his life freeing Himself and others, setting us
all on the only conceivable path that honor allows us--the
pathway to power and revenge. That is why, at times chosen by
your Emperor, we relive what was once our lot--in remembrance
of him. What was his name? Tell me!" He paused.

"AI-Kebir!" said the crowd.

THE, EAR?'H LORDS
	203


"Again!" he commanded.

"AI-Kebirl"

The crowd shouted the name, this time, back at him.
"Al-gebir!"
"Again!"
The crowd roared.

A quiver ran down Bart's spine. He glanced at the Steed to his
right and saw the man, from some other dormitory, standing rigid.
There were large, circular dark areas on the cloth of his tunic under
his armpits. He looked left at a Steed from his own dormitory, and
that man was also rigid, and also showing large circles of dampness
under his arms. They, he, all of them, Lords and Steeds alike, were
caught up in the emotion of the moment and the Emperor's oratory.

"He cut our bonds and shackles from our limbs," the Emperor
went on now. "He, and He alone, fist of all, gathered the seeds of
the wealth we have grown and tended to its present fruit, that bears
His name, the weapon that will end the days of this race that calls
itself human. My brothers and sisters--we, His children, have
done as He commanded; and all has come to us in time, as He
predicted; and that time is now. Now!"

The crowd roared again, and this time it kept roaring for some
moments. He waited until the last sound had died away, and then he
spoke again, once more in ordinary, almost gentle tones, as if he
reasoned with children.

"I know," he said, "there have been times when some of you
doubted. I know that faintness of heart that can come over you
when you think of what will be, what we shall all need to do. I
know because I've felt it myself. I don't blame you for it. I don't
even blame myself. We--none of us--are forged of that immortal
metal which was in aI-Kebir. It's natural for us to wonder at times
and hesitate, after six centuries, facing the final result of what's
been that long in the building."

He paused and deliberately ran his gaze back and forth over all of
those standing bunched together below the dais.

"We all have weakness," he went oa, "and from some one of
those weaknesses, into the back of our minds, occasionally the
thought will come . . . why? Why? We already own this world. We
pull the striags of wealth and power, and nations move as we wish.
Subtly and invisibly, we move them. So why don't we simply come
forward and claim what's already ours, and enjoy what an
undestroyed world and its full native race for our servants can
provide?"

204 Gordon R. Dickson

He stopped speaking. This time the pause was a long one. When
he spoke again, a faint, hard dge had crept into his

I'll remind you all why," h¢ said. "There arc t reasons,
al-Kebir ¢d us. One is that while we may control nations, and
sieties, and even groupswe can never completely sure of
controlling individuals. And there a, even after these thirty
generations, only the few thousand of us to control the millions of
individuals who go on two legs we do, but call themselves
human. Only after their numrs have been reduced to a helple
handful from what they are now, is it going to safe for us to
only take control of those who' left. Those who've survived our
just th and our vengeai-Kebir's revenge"

e crowd shouted, but less loudly than it had a couple of times


"So have to take the slow but ceain pace such a massive
unding needs," he went on. "Sn now, '11 take the fit,
ivible step, from the qonsequences of which there'li n0
turning back. That fit step of activating the device develod he
in the Inner World fm the rk of Moaon Cadiz, over a hundd
ago. at an with al-Kebir's spirit in it, that call by
His ne.

"Sn n, '!1 tting that gat creation to its ,
generating the fit of the electromagnetic r input into the
magma 1 us, on which float the tectonic plat which ar the
surface of this rld. Slowly, infoing itself, the buildup of that
continuous r input during the next eighty to a hundd a
tnty will finally pruce velike tensions within the
magma. Tensions that will eventually destroy the always fragile
balce that psently exists in the plates. Tho forces will build to
the int whe eventually the thin shell of this planet can contain
them no longer. It will gin to cck and let through the fo
held within. With the fit breakup of the plates, the balance of
inner foes will gin their shifting, incasing the rising and
falling of the great plates themselves, as the edges of each of them

slide up and over or under the plate adjoilfing."

e Emror paused.

"'You all know this," he said. "But now the time has come to
in it."

He Iked at them and smiled.

"Up until now, the moment of staing that gat engine call
by the gat name of al-Kebir, our private doub and nderings
ha n tolerate; as re the private doub and nderings of

THE F.ARTH LORDS

those generations who stood between Him and those of us in this
room now. But from the moment of starting the engine that is He,
there'll be no more room for anything but a wholehearted devotion
to the end we will then have made inevitable."

He smiled again, and, turning, began to pace back and forth
before them on the stage, stopping after a moment once more at the
lectern. With no smile at all.

"He did His part!" the Emperor cried out suddenly, "long ago!
Now the time's come for us to do ours! It's time to unleash what we
hte chosen to call by His name. Unleash it, so it can do its part in
the century to come. And there's still much for us to do. We must
make sure that what past generations of our people have worked for
succew.ds. If al-Kebir, the machine, is to set the plates in action at
the moment of its starting, the resultant drowning of continents,
and uplifting of seabeds, the volcanoes and the killing eather--
even all of these--will he well enough, but not alone enough to
produce, the ends we want.

"You know why? All of you know why. But, once again your
silence asks me to say it again, even though all of you already know
the answer. The answer is that the world is still too full of
self-reliant societies and individuals. Close to us, on the surface
surrounding the entrance to this Inner World, are people who can
too easily live off the land about them and endure hardship. There
are too many like them, from the vast areas of Asia, Africa and
South America, to say nothing of those I mentioned above us here.

"Before the time of cataclysm comes, that self-reliance must be
drained out of them. As we preserved our strength for six hundred
years, so they must lose theirs in the next hundred and twenty years;

and we have the means to make them do it."

He paused.

"Wealth," he said, holding up two fingers, "wealth and
science--but most of all science! We must prepare the fruit for
picking. We must crowd them into cities, soften them with the
luxuries science makes possible.

"Then, all will he ready; and the moment will come, the hour
will strike! Somewhere, at one of the vulnerable points that have
been stable for millions of years, a plate will rupture; and its two
new halves be forced apart by the upweiling of the hot, inner
material from below. Then the disorder will begin to spread as
massive tectonic forces are subtracted from or added to--not just in
the area of a few hundr square miles, but all around the world.

"The sea will rush northward from the present Gulf of Mexico as

206 Gordon R. Dick, son

far as Nebraska. To our north--but safely away from our Inner
World, here, the volcanoes will explode upward through the
Alaskan ice and snowfields. The lower east and west coasts of this
continent will be drowned in the sea, as will England, as will
Japan. Volcanic ash will darken the sky. Tornadic winds will blow.
The world of humans will be destroyed.

"But that destruction must strike a humanity changed from the
one we know even now. By the time ai-Kebir bears fruit, much of
the human race must be gathered together in millions {sy their own
desires, like beasts penned for the slaughter, in great cities where
the light, the heat, the food, all such things are brought from great
distances--even from other continents.

"Suddenly, then, with the cataclysm, those things will no longer
be available. The land and the atmosphere will have destroyed the
two great carriers on which the present and future depend--the
railways and the steamships. In their millions the humans will die
of starvation and disease, those that have survived the land-shocks
and the in-flooding seas and the hurricanes.

"Then, finally, they will be ripe for harvesting by our armies,
which now exist in embryo throughout the world. These come from
tribes and small ethnic groups which we have cultivated through
intermediaries. Once al-Kebir has been set to work we will begin
the building of the great city-traps, using the bait of what science
can offer those who come to live in them. At the same time, we frill
start the building of a military tradition in our proto-armies,
furnishing them with weapons and money, raising in them the
dream of conquest and power and loot. In every way we will
prepare them for the time of conquest, when we, ourselves will
officer them."

He smiled, almost wildly it seemed to Bart, at the crowd.
"We will lead them, armed and prepared, to swoop down on the
humans that are left after the catastrophe, and enslave them. And
this will be done until the whole world is in our control; and then,
except for a necessary handful of the most faithful of them--with
their job done, these soldiers of ours will begin to die. They will
die quietly, and individually, of the slowly accumulating poison we
will have been mixing with their food over a long period of time.
For in spite of their service for us they share the guilt toward us that
is in all humans, by the very fact of their humanity. In the end, we
alone will be left with a few cowed human creatures at our feet."

He drew a deep breath and opened his arms wide as if,
symbolically, he would embrace the whole crowd beyond the dais.

THE 4RDI LORDS
	207


"So, my brothers and sisters," he said, on one great exhalation
of breath, "we will come at last to the time of our venge--that
holy duty placed upon us by Him of whom I have been speaking.
He has written it down for us to read and learn--'.., as we have
learned to hate them, they must learn to hate us. They must taste
that hate in their mouths, and know their helplessness to do anything
about it, as we have learned to do something about our hate. For as
many centuries as we have waited for revenge, they must wait. Then,
when the period of their penance has been covered, we will be free
at lost to build the ships that will take us homeward, leaving not one
of them behind alive."

He stopped, dropping his hands to his sides.

"And so," he said, "the will of Him, of ai-Kebir, which is our
will, will finally be accomplished."

He stepped back and sat down again in his chair between Pier
and the Regent. It was curious, thought Bart. This was a time for
applause, when a speech had at last ended. In the world above there
would certainly have been applause; if only polite applause, or
applause from a few in the audience.

But hen: there was no such thing. Instead, from the crowd before
the dais there was something that was like a sigh--as of tension
released, as of a difficult job done. It seemed to him that he saw a
relaxation in the grotesquely costumed figures who turned now to
each other, spreading out a little as a group.

"And now," said the Emperor, both his forearms laid out along
the arms of his chair, his sinewy hands laxly enclosing the lions'
heads at their ends, "we let in the champions among our nephews,
to show us wha they can do,"

The crowd hegan to draw back to th walls, leaving the wide
center aa of the room open. Apparently some signal had been
given which Bart had not sn; for the space had barly been
created when four men ran in, ring black trousers and white
shirts, ruffled and open at the neck. Bart recognized only one of
hem, the brilliantly blue-eyed Hybrid he had encountered at the
Library. This man was by far the largest of the four, the thr¢ with
him heing hetwcn five ft and five f¢¢ four inches in height. As a
result, the other stood out from the rest of them like a giant, though
he was certainly no taller than Bart, and peaps slightly shorter.
Also, because he was wearing a shirt without a jacket, Bart could
see that the unusual width of the blue-eyed man's shoulders was

.

natural and not a product of his tailor's art.

The four reached the center of the open space, formed a line, and

	208
	ordon R. Diclzson


bowed to those on the dais.

The Emperor waved a hand.

The Hybrid on the far right end of the line, as they faced the
dais, bowed again. The other three withdrew to the same side of
the room.on which Bart stood, but a dozen yards farther up toward
the dais. Meanwhile, the one who remained in the middle of the
floor--he was a short, physically trim man in his early twenties and
with straight brown hair worn at shoulder length--had turned
about.

Without further warning, he launched himself in a series of flips
down the room away from the dais until he had almost reached the
doorway by which he and the other three had entered.

Then, equally without warning, he began a cries of back-flips
that brought him back to his original position before the dais,
except that on the last flip he twisted his body about in midair and
landed lightly on his feet, facing the dais.

Again, oddly.to Bart's ears, there was no applause, only the sigh
of breath among the audience. The man who had done the flips
bowed once more to the dais and went to the side of the room, from
which the man who had stood next to him advanced to the room's
center.

This Hybrid launched himself into the air and made a doublesomersault
before landing once more on his feet. He stood a
moment, his chest expanding rythmically and widely, then
launched himself upward once more in a spring. This time he made
two somersaults--and almost completed a third, but was not quite
able to make it. He was off balance backward as he landed and
though he struggled to stand upright, he ended by falling backward.

He rose, bowed to the dais and retreated to the side of the room.
This time there was no sigh from the audience.

The third man came out and successfully leaped several times in
succession through the hoop made by his arms when the fingers of
his two hands were interlaced. Fie was rewarded with a small
sighing.

Last of all came the Hybrid Bart had seen before. There was
nothing which could with certainty he called a swagger to his walk
as he left the wall for the center of the open floor; but the lightness
of his step and the length and certainty of his stride had a sort of
inborn arrogance about them.

To Bart's surprise, all this confident-seeming man did was a
simple handstand. He stood there, upside down, head between his

THe, ,.ARTH LORDS
	209


arms, arms themselves neatly parallel, legs together and the toes of

his shoes extended and touching each other.

A faint sigh came from the crowd.

Baffled as to the reason for any version of applause, Bart stared at
the man for a long moment before he suddenly realized that the
other was no longer resting on the palms of his hands. Instead he
now held himself in the same upside-down position--but supported
only on the extended tips of his ten fingers.

Now Bart, for the first time, began to keep his gaze closely on
those splayed and rigid fingers with an unusual interest. This much
he had once, as a boy, been able to do himself. It was what further
the blue-eyed Hybrid might do that fascinated him now. He
watched closely; and his watching was rewarded.

Another sigh from the watching crowd signaled the further action
of the performing Hybrid. Still keeping his upheld body motionless
he had withdrawn the little fingers of both hands from the floor, so
that he now upheld himself only on eight digits.

And as Bart watched, the other man withdrew one more finger
from supporting each hand, lifting the ones next to the little fingers.
He stood upright on six fingers; thumbs, first and second fingers of
each hand.

The crowd sighed again. Bart sighed with them. It would be most
natural now for the other man to drop to the floor and stand up to
receive the Inner World applause he had certainly earned. Apparently
the crowd felt the same, for he heard the beginnings of the
most recent sigh from the crowd cut off abruptly.

The performer had moved. In fact, he was still moving.
Deliberately, finger by finger, he was shifting position. Literally, he
was walking across the floor on the six fingertips on which he
stood.

Understanding hit Bart in the pit of his stomach. What this man
was now doing was something that Bart himself could never do,
even if he trained for months or years. It was simply impossible for
even someone with his strength to support his full body weight as
the other was doing, on the unequal support of three fingers on one
hand and only two of the other, during the moment in which his
body weight was being shifted forward.

But the blue-eyed Hybrid, having finger-walked perhaps sixteen
inches of floor distance, had now dropped back onto the palms of
his hands and raised himself to his feet. His face was darkened by
the congestion of blood in it, but otherwise he showed no sign of the

	210
	Gordon R, Dick.son


terrific physical effort he had just made.

He bowed to the dais. The sighing of the crowd around the walls
was loud in the room.

"Once again," said the Emperor, smiling, "Michel Saberut has
proved himself most Lordly among our nephews. A reward will be
sent to your home, Michel; and we honor the memory of your
father." Michel Sabernt bowed once more and all three of those
seated on the dais inclined their heads in return.

"And now," said the Emperor, rising, with Pier and the Regent
standing up also on either side of him, "'Court is over."

The Lords and Ladies were already crowding toward the far
entrance of the room. Pier, the Emperor and the Regent followed
them, caught up with them, and had a way made for them through
the mass of bodies. When all were gone, Chandt walked out from
the far wall to stand in the center of the floor.

"Dormitory Leaders," he said; and his voice seemed to echo
strangely in the new emptiness of the large room, "take your Steedg
back to their proper places.'"

chapter
nineteen


MORE THAN A little out of breath, Bart entered through the double
doors of the main entrance to the Library once more. It was just
after sixteen hundred hours--4:00 P.M. The whole Court session
had taken less than an hour and a half; and less than another half
hour was all it had taken to march back to the dormitory and be
released. Along the route, Bart had gathered from his fellow
Steeds that tonight would be in the nature of a celebratory
occasion. After a Court, only those absolutely required to be on
duty, were so.

The rest of them--slaves, Hybrids and those Lords who were
up to it--would be engaged in revels, parties or social gettogethers
of one sort or another; and his fellow Steeds were
already planning their fun.

This fact, and the several hours that remained until he would
need to pick up Emma--at about seven o'clock, he estimated--
were by way of a gift from heaven, in Bart's view.

The events which had just taken place in front of his eyes in the
Court Room had gone a long way toward answering many of the
questions he had still been asking himself about the Lords and
their Inner World. He had intended to use his invitation to visit
Pier and Marta this evening to confront them with his fabricated
story of being the son of a lost Lord himself. And while he had
been worried about falling victim to holes in that story, he had
decided that it was necessary to use it quickly and hope for some
luck--or even help from the Guettrigs.

But the Court--not only the words of the Emperor, but what
he, Bart, had seen there--had changed all that; in a way, it had
changed his whole world.

It was now necessary to try to locate whatever records he could
find on the Hybrid Michel Saberut. He had not yet located any
such records in his explorations of the Library, but he had a few
hours in which to look.

Entering the Library, he found it as deserted as it had been on

212 Gordon R. DirJson

any of his late-night visits. A stack slave he did not recognize
dozed behind the main desk--either sleeping off the previous
night's entertainment, or resting himself in preparation for
tonight's.

The slave did not wake up as Bart silently passed him and
entered the stacks. Three levels .down, he turned from the stairs in
the direction of the section he hoped to find a way to enter--and
checked himself suddenly, aware of faint sounds among the
farther stacks.

These were quiet enough so that he could easily have missed
them altogether; but now that he paused and gave all his attention
to listening, he recognized them for the distant murmur of
conversation.

Quietly he moved through the aisles of the stacks on that level,
toward the sound--not directly toward it, but in a roundabout
way that would not let someone look down an aisle from the place
ahead of him, and se¢ him. Still the sounds grew plainer as he
approached their source.

Shortly the murmur resolved itself into voices, pitched low, at
the very back of the level. What was there, he already knew.

It was an iron-fenced area, with its only entrance a locked door,
which held within it the particularly valuable and special books of
the Library's collection. Even Lords did not simply walk in here
unsupervised.

Normally, withdrawing one of these special books required
summoning Pier, who himself unlocked the door and went
through it either alone or witha stack slave to carry whatever was
to be brought out, and which the Lord in question had justified his
need to see. Hybrids were not allowed to have books from this
area at all, and only two others besides the Librarian had keys to
the door. These were the Emperor and the Regent.

They two, Pier had told him, could visit the special area when
they wished without permission from Pie himself. No one else
was so allowed.

So the special collection--the "X" collection, it was called by
the Library's workers--was inviolate.

But before it, and separating it from the ordinary shelves of
books in the stacks occupying the rest of this level, was a small
open space with half a dozen chairs, interspersed with little side
tables, all built to the physical dimensions of Lords alone. In this
area, those permitted to have a book brought out by the Librarian

	THE EARTH LORDS
	213


might sit and read it--carrying one of the volumes away was not
permitted even to Lords--before sending a waiting stack slave for
Pier; and, when he arrived, handing it back to him to be replaced
in security.

Now, however, when Bart moved quietly close enough to not
only hear, but see, who was there, he did not see one or more
single Lords reading, with waiting slaves at their elbows. Now all
the chairs were occupied, rather uncomfortably, by the almost
full-sized bodies of adult Hybrids; and in addition there were at
least half a dozen other such Hybrids standing amongst the chairs;
all of them in earnest discussion.

Bart was about to congratulate himself on his luck in stumbling
on such a gathering when he realized they were only doing what
he, himself, was doing--taking advantage of the Library's
emptiness after Court. Among them, he recognized now, with a
certain sense of shock, was one man who had never been
completely out of Bart's mind since he had seen the other's act in
the Court Room.

It was the Hybrid the Emperor had called Michel Saberut--the
one who had walked on the tips of his fingers. Now, wideshouldered,
black-haired and piercingly blue-eyed as ever, he
lounged in one of the little chairs, listening to the others talk--in
conversations that mixed French and English.

Alone among all those there, he seemed to find it possible to
drape himself comfortably and casually in the undersized chair in
which he sat at an angle. He still vre only the black trousers and
ruffled white shirt he had dressed in to perform. The simpleness of
his garb and the brilliant glance of his eyes at each individual as he
or she spoke gave him a challenging, almost piratical look,
sharply in contrast to those around him, who, for the most part,
were still dressed in their ordinary working costumes sobercolored
suits on the men and long, elaborate dresses on the
women.

Michel sat, looking as strikingly different from the others as a
falcon in a flock of ducks. He was draped with one leg over a little
side table, his head a trifle on one side and his teeth showing very
whitely in the gentle smile on his swarthy face. He swung his leg
slightly, listening. So removed, he seemed, from all the rest, that
for a long moment, as he watched, Bart had thought that he might
be here more as a spectator than a participant.

But then, unexpectedly, Michel interrupted the standing Hy
Go-don R. D/ckson


brid who was speaking, a tall thin young man with straight brown
hair on a round skull above a round and somewhat sulky-looking
face.

"What was it Marcus Tuilus Cicero told us?" Michel broke in
on the other's rather strident tirade. " 'There is nothing, so
ridiculous but some philosopher has said it--' "

"Descartes said that," reinterrupted the man who had just been
speaking.

"Only about sixteen hundred years after Cicero had, Jorg," said
Michel. "In any case, the point is that you've all been chewing the
same old cud. The names we use for ourselves may be 'Liberal' or
'Textualist'--"

"The Lords and Ladies call themselves by those names, too,"
Jorg broke in again.

"But not as publicly as we do," went on Michel patiently, "and
with about as much truth. Scratch a Liberal or Textualist--
including all of us in this select little company, gathered secretly
here while everyone else is getting on their party clothes--and
you'll find a particular self-interest that makes him or her adopt the
label. Nothing is ever going to get done by any of us until we face
that fact."

"I don't know what you're driving at, Michel," said one of the
women, a slight blond in a large, flowy dress--the only one of
her sex who was seated.

"I'm driving, Yna," he turned to her, "at the fact that we're like
those insects of the upper world, who emerge from their chrysalis to
fly one summer's day, but with no mouth parts because they won't
be around long enough to feed, and who have only one purpose in
life--to breed and die. Except that unlike them, unlike slaves, and
unlike our Lords and Ladies, we Hybrids can't even reproduce
ourselves. Each one of us is a dead end in a generational sense. Our
progeny, if we have them by anyone else than one of the Lords or
Ladies, go back down among the slave class. To be quarter-Hybrid
is to be nothing. All this being so, what have we got to live for any
more than those insects--tbe one brief day of our own lives? And
so to clothe our self-interest in talk of the past and future is
meaningless."

"Speak for yourself, cousin Michel," said Jorg. "I, and some of
the rest of us here, are able to speak in larger terms than the kind of
self-interest you talk about."

Michel yawned politely behind the fingers of one hand.
"Good for you," he said. "I'm only pointing out the pointlessTHE EARTH LORDS
	215


heSS of generations of unrelated Hybrids getting together in secret
conclave like this, and under considerable danger, to talk, and do
nothing. Who knows but what we're being monitored right now, by
a spy in our midst?"

Them was an uncas stir among the gathering. Morn than one
glanced at the person closest to him or her.

"If there was such a one," said Michel, still smiling and looking
at Jorg, "wouldn't it be to his best interests in protecting himself
from discovery, that he advance only foolish ideas, so that no one
else there would think him clever enough to be a danger?"

"Michel!" Jorg's face reddened. "If you mean me, come right
out and say it. I'm not afraid of you! I'm willing to meet you any
time, with any weapon, or even without, even though I know you're
better than me with almost every one of them!"

"Calm yourself, calm yourself, Cousin Jorg," said Michel. "No
one, and me least of all, doubts your sincerity. I'm only reminding
us of one of many dangers in this sort of meeting. And when those
dangers are undertaken only to produce a lot of what's been said
many times over before, it becomes ridiculous."

"How can you call it ridiculous?" said a short, bulky man, who
was one of the ones seated, "when al-Kebir's ready to be activated
within weeks? And after that, irretrievably though far off in time,
the upper world's civilization'll be under three hundred feet of sea
water or buried in volcanic ash--and it'll be too late for anyone to
do anything after only a few more days."

"Yes," said a tall, thin young man standing behind the last
speaker, whose long neck accommodated a remarkably high,
upstanding collar, "and the Lords will inherit the Earth--what's
left of it. While we, who could have put it to good use, won't even
be needed anymore. In fact, it's been we Hybrids who've been
putting it to good use for centuries, managing the investments and
ownerships up there--except the Lords are the ones who get the
benefit from them."

"Exactly," said Michel. He looked at the stocky man who had
spoken first. "I assume when you talk about al-Kebir being
activated, you're referring to the Tectonal, Cousin Paullen, not the
ghost of our revered ancestor. Well, if we've met here to talk about
what to do about that, let's have at it--instead of rehearsing old
grievances."

"You're so clever, Michel!" said Jorg. "You tell us what you
think we ought to do."
"No, no. By all means," said Michel with a courteous wave of

216 Gordon g. Dickson


his hand. "Lt's have what the rest of you've got in mind. I'll
listen."

"So," said Jorg contemptuously, "you're quick enough to make
demands, but you haven't got anything more in the way of a
solution than the rest of us."

"I don't think so, Jorg,'" said Yna. "When Cousin Michel talks
like this it's precisely because he has some idea of his own up his
sleeve. Only he enjoys baiting us all with our own lack of a solution
first. Aren't ] right, Michel?"

"You may not always be right, Yna," said Michel managing a
sort of bow to her in spite of his seated position, "but you're never
wrong. Which is to say, in this case, you're half right. [ don't say I
have a solution, only a suggestion. Most of us want the upper world
for our phyground, undestroy; and our freedom from our revered
uncles and aunts. Vj wll, let's stm't thinking of solutions in
proportion to the problem. For example, how about destroying
al-Kebir--and I, Cousin Paullen, am speaking about the Tectonal,
not the original ghost."

A complete, dead silence followed his words. Not only that, but
Bart noticed no one moved for a few,seconds, and when they finally
did, it was only to stare wordlessly at each other.

The silence went on to the point where Jorg evidently decided
that it was his responsibility to end it.

"Michel--," he said, and his voice cracked. Michel looked
courteously at him. Jorg tried again. "Michel, are you joking--or
simply insane? Hundreds of years of work, the Lords' very reason
for existence, and you talk about destroying it?"

"Why, yes," said Michel calmly. "And as for hundreds of years
of work, nonseuse! Morton Cadiz may have been a genius--who
knows, maybe as much of a genius in his own way as the original
al-Kebir was in his--but his work was purely theoretical and he
belonged to the eighteenth century. It promised nothing until
ve--and 'we' includes we Hybrids--got to work on it with more
modern methods, after this place was created eighty years ago, at
the beginning of the present century."

He shifted comfortably in his undersized chair.

"And what if its destruction would amount tothe destruction of
a hundreds-of-years-old dream!" he went on. "AI-Kebir's ancient
dream was of personal revenge, but I don't think even the Lordly
class took the idea seriously--until our development of electromagnetic
power made it possible for us to actually reach down and play
games with the electro-gravitic currents in the magma of this

	'HE F4R'H LOROS
	2I 7

planet. This whole idea is really fairly new, after al4..

"Besides, you want to do something to convince the Textualists
among the Lords we're serious about not wanting to destroy human
civilization, and want chunks of its wealth and luxuries for our own
use above ground, isn't that right? Or was I mistaken in the reason
this meeting was called forua meeting of those of us considered to
be activists among the Hybrid Liberals?"

And he looked around at the faces staring at him, as if waiting for
an answer.

"Michel," said Yna, "you know better than this. There may be
twice the unadmitted Liberals among the Lordly class that there are
Textualists there. But the Lordly Textualists believe in a book--the
Book of our ancestor--and those who'd rather not wreck the world
above don't dare stand up and say so. What you suggest uld force
all the Lords to stand together against us. While, as it is, we're able
to talk Liberalism as much as we do only because of that hidden
majority, up top."

Michel shook his head.

"I don't see that it'd matter if all the Lords combined against
us--us and the slaves," he said. "And the Steeds are a joke,
really. Oh, Chandt is dangerous enough. But most of those
muscle-bound oafs he commands stand to gain as much as us
Hybrids and the rest of the slaves by standing against the Lords as
we have. I think that could be pointed out to them--most of them,
anyway. In any case, I also don't agree that the Lords would
immediately combine against us. I think that large, hidden majority
you talk about, Yna, would most of them heave a sigh of
relieflluietly, of course--on hearing the Tectonal had been put
out of action."

"That's a wild thought!" said Jorg angrily.

"Jorg, Jorg," said Michel, and for the first time Bart heard a
note of impatience in his voice, "everyone always assumes that his
or her enemies are monolithic in their attitudes. Actually, what
they always have been, and always will be, right down to the
moment when battle lines are drawn, are as individually different
from each other and everybody else as the one facing them."

"The Tectonal is the promise of the Book of al-Kebir come
true!" said Jorg stubbornly. "Without the Book, what're the
Lords? What's their justification for existence? To prove to
themselves what they are, they have to follow their Book!"

"Ah, yes," said Michel. "But what Book is that? It was the
Book of al-Kebir only to al-Kebir himself. The mistake you make,

	218
	Gordon R. Dickson


Jorg--and the rest of you, too--," he added, looking around at
them, "is in assuming there's only one Book; and that's the Book
you know yourself. Have you ever sat down and talked about that
book to your closest friend? If you do, you'll end up finding that he
or she seems to have read a volume that's totally different from the
one you read. The more you go on comparing notes, the more
you'll find you two disagree about specific passages and interpretations
of those passages--and about what al-Kebir actually meant,
when he wrote it."

"Michel!" said Paullen. "How can you say that?"

"Because it's fact, you dunderheads!" said Michel. "There's
only one Book for every person alive--the Book we write for
ourselves, or would write for ourselves if we sat down with pen and
paper, the way old al-Kebir did! And that's a book we make up out
of our own beliefs and fears and experiences--that book which
defines for us what we will do and what we won't, what we'll die
for and what we won't die for. It's a book that may he flavored by
one or more other books we've read, but whatever they were to the
writer, to each of us they've been bent to fit our individual picture
of things; and when the chips are down, we follow our own
text--no one else's. And you'll find that'll he true for each Lord
and Lady if you ever get the courage up to put an end to the
Tectonal! Look into yourself and see how you'd act, if word came
the thing had been smashed. Then ask yourself if any other human
below here uld react in any other way except according to his or
her own, inner way of looking at both worlds--the Inner and the
surface ones I"

"But you can't deny," said Paullen, "that the destruction of the
Tectonal would destroy the Lords' rights to consider themselves
Lords."

"Oh, Cousin!" said Michel. "Do you think that being Lords
and Ladies is all that attractive to most of them--aside from the
fact that they, too, see the advantage in not destroying a world of
which we already own a considerable chunk? Certainly, there're
some of them who revel in their power and authority; or at least rate
it highly enough so that it means more to them than anything else.
But the great majority of them . . . the surface world nowadays
doesn't enslave and torture the small or deformed, or treat them like
living toys. What wealth and power will buy in the upper world for
you and me would also buy it for the Lords and Ladies. Here, like
us, they work from the cradle to the grave. Just as it is with our
Hybrid children, theirs are taken from them and killed, not merely

THf, f, AR'tt LORDS


if they aren't bright enough, but if they're growing too big to be
considered one of their special, little race. And on top of all this,
unlike us, they have to conform to dietary laws that help ensure that
they and their children are undernourished and so likely to grow up
undersized."

He looked around at them.

"All they really have by way of a reward down here, from the
Book and the Tectonal and the ghost of aI-Kebir, is their honor and
their pride, which they wear like the medieval knight wore his
armor or the religious penitent his hair shirt. How many of them, do
you think, wouldn't give a private sigh of relief to be free to come
out into the upper world as ordinary, if undersized, people,
again?"

Jorg half turned from the circle of people, throwing his hands
wide in a gesture of helplessness.

"This is nonsense!" he said. "And it's getting us no place!"

"The rest of you feel like Jorg?" Michel asked, looking around
at them.

For a moment no one answered.

"I don't know what to think," said Paullen. "What you
suggest--it's too much all at once, Michel."

"Well!" said Yna, in brisk, businesslike tones, "whatever
anyone else fels, I think there's no more point in sitting around
here. Michel's either given us an answer to the situation, or put us
all in an impossible position. I, for one, want to get away and think
it over."

She got to her feet. Slowly the others who had been seated
followed her example. Michel was last up.

"Leave separately--and in the order we came--that's the rule!"
said Jorg hastily.

He glanced at Michel.

"That means you're last--it's what you get for always coming
late."

"Not at all." Michel waved a hand and sat down again. "I'll be
glad to be last out. The rest of you go ahead."

The others began to leave, at intervals of about two minutes.
They took the direct route down the aisles to the stairs, leaving
Bart, who was now standing off to the side and behind a double
stack, in no danger of discovery.

Jorg, Bart noticed, was one of the first; and an idea which he had
not conceived until he had heard that Michel would be the last to
leave began to build in him, like tension as a bomb ticks down

toward its moment of explosion.

The heavy-bodied Paullen was next to the last to leave. As soon
as his boots had ceased to sound on the bare, polished ,vood floor
of the stack level, Bart came forward and through one of the
openings that were spaced along each stack to allow passage from
one aisle to another. He stepped into the area before the bars
protecting the "X" collection, and stood looking down at Michel
in his chair.

"So," said Michel in French, laying the magazine he had been
glancing through down on the small table beside him, and smiling
up at Bart. "There was a spy after all. I'm afraid it won't do you
any good, though, all your listening. The Emperor and the Regent
already know all about my attitudes and beliefs--4hat's why I can't
get assignment up to the surface world. But I'm too popular among
my cousins for His Majesty to take any action against me; and the
work wouldn't get done if the Hybrids refused to help. So as long
as all I do is talk, I'm left alone."

His smile sobered a little as he examined Bart more closely.
"You're Pier's Steed, aren't you?" he said. "I'm surprised to
find you at something like this. Pier's one of us--in his own Lordly
way. I wouldn't think he'd set his Steed to spy on us, even if he
knew--which I've been sure he has, for some time--that we hold
our little secret meetings here. Or was this all your own idea for
some reason? Tell me, slave!"

"I will," said Bart. "You're right, this was all my own idea, this
listening. It was accidental, but it turned out more important than I
expected when I heard you were to leave last. As you'd expect, I
was in the Court Room with the other Steeds earlier today and saw
your performance; and I think it was more interesting to me than to
anyone else in the same room. You see, it's possible we have the
same father."

Michel got to his feet very quickly. He checked himself just short
of hitting out at Bart.

Bart had not moved. He had half expected the blow and thought
he should be able to move enough, in time, to let it slip by him. If
not--if Michel was too quick for him--he was prepared to take it,
rather than move or change the expression of his face; and now
Michel's face was so close to his own that he could feel the warm
puffs of the other's breath against his skin.

"By God, man!" said Michel softly. "I could have sworn there
was nothing you could say to me that would make me lose my
self-control. But you almost did, then! Tell me quickly--and tell

	THE EARTH LORDS
	221


me straight, for your life's sake--what gave you the notion to say a
wild thing like that? Vincent Saberut was a great and noble man.

The idea that he'd be the father of someone like you is laughable!"
"You aren't laughing," said Bart.
Michel smiled.

"I am now," he answered, "and what've you got to say to that,
my friend?"

"I say," said Bart, "that it's impossible for any living adult man
of your weight to walk on six fingers alone."

"And what," said Michel with continued softness, "has that to
do with my father? What do you know about walking on six
fingers--or my weight for that matter--which l don't believe you
could guess correctly if you wanted to?"

"I know about the finger-walking from the same source you
learned it," said Bart. "Our mutual father, whom I've seen do it.
In fact he taught me the trick and I could do it myself as a
youngster; but as I grew up I got heavier and gave up practicing, or
possibly I could still do it yet, as you do. Though I doubt it, because
I'm heavier than you."

Michel's smile broadened.

"I doubt it. Tell me, O sapient slave, how much I weigh?"
Bart looked him over.

"We're alike enough in height and general build," he said, "but
your frame's a little lighter than mine. I'd say two hundred and
forty pounds, Canadian."
The smile was suddenly gone from Michel's face.

"So?" he said, on a softly indrawn breath. "You'd make me out
that heavy, would you? I'll admit you guess weights better than I'd
have thought. And how much do you weigh yourself, then, my
friend?"

"I lost a lot of weight working in a mine the last year," said
Bart, "and I'm just now getting it back. But two-sixty would be a
good weight for me when I'm in shape.., perhaps up to
two-eighty."
"Vincent Sabemt," said Michel softly, "weighed--"

"A little over a hundred and forty pounds," said Bart swiftly.
"He was four feet, ten inches tail; wide-shouldered--you have his
sboulders--but otherwise he looked no more than wiry."

Michel stood, staring at him. After a long moment, he spoke.
"You could have looked that up," he said.

"In here?" Bart waved his hand at the shelves about them.
"Believe me, I tried. Could you have?"

	222
	ordon R. Dickson


Michel did not ansx,er for a long moment.

"No," he said at last, "I don't believe I could have."

"It's curious," said Bart. "Do you know I was going to claim to
be a Hybrid, and I'd built up all sorts of information in my head to
make the imposture work; and here it turns out I actually am a
Hybrid."

The breath went in between Michel's even, gleaming teeth in a
slight hiss.

"Are you?" he said. "Suppose you tell me a little more about
yourself first, before you start counting on the fact. You said it was
impossible for anyone to walk on his six fingers alone. Why?"

"Unless the person's got no legs, so his weight's reduced. Or
he's a freak," said Bart, "with nothing but skin and bones, and
hands like shovels having fingers to match. It's not possible even for
massively boned people like you and me, not even possible for our
father--"

"We'll call him Vincent Saberut until you've convinced me
you've the right to call him something closer, if you don't mind,"
said Michel.

Bart shrugged.

"If you want," he said. "I knew him as Lionel Dybig. What'll
convince you I know what I'm talking about?"

"You called what I did in the Court Room earlier today a trick,"
said Michel. "You still haven't explained that word, except to say
what I did can't be done. How was it then I did it?"

"As I say, with a trick," said Bart. "You only appeared to do it.
By the time you were up on the tips of all your fingers in a
finger-stand, you had the audience wanting to believe you could do
anything. So when you seemed to move forward on the fingers of
one hand, no one was watching your other hand--which was
carrying most of your weight with the heel of the palm fiat on the
floor. Even those who might have noticed it, would have ignored it.
What you were doing was marvelous enough, anyway. Besides,
where are the rules written that say you can't rest your weight on
your right hand while pretending to move forward on the fingers of
your left?"

Michel watched him with those blue eyes of his, saying nothing.
"What more do you want me to say?" Bart shrugged. "In
practice, everyone watching would go away ready to tell other
people that you'd not only walked on your fingers alone, but on
perhaps two of them from each hand, instead of three. That'd make
the story even better. But, as I say, to actually do it only with three

	THE EARTH LORDS
	223


fingers on each hand is impossible. My finger joints used to ache
for a day or two after I'd stood on them--and that was when I was
still young, with a boy's quickness to get over damage and sickness.
My father told me that he was already getting too old to do it and he
only did it on special occasions when it was absolutely necessary to
impress people who looked down on him because of his size. But
he told me once he was already beginning to suffer arthritis in those
joints from doing it even that little."

It was BaR's turn to smile at the other man.

"How about it?" he said. "Aren't your finger joints aching right
now? Don't they usually ache for several days after you do the act?"

Michel nodded--the movement of his head was slight and sl.ow,
but it was a nod.

"You know a great deal," he said, "and you weren't so greatly
wrong about my weight. Most people guess me forty or more
pounds less than that. What made you pick the weight you did?"

"You heard me doing it," said Bart. "I estimated your weight
from mine, knowing we'd share the dense bone structure of our
father."

"So you're that sure that we're half-brothers? How can you be so
sare?, '

"Your mother's name," said BaR. "It wouldn't have been Didi,
• by any chance?"

Michel stared at him for a long moment.

"No," he said tonelessly; then, "it was Diana."

Bart blinked--then understood.

"Perhaps I phrased the question wrongly," he said. "Perhaps I
ought to have asked if Vincent Saberut ever called your mother
Didi?"

"Yes!" The word came out explosively at last betw n Michel's
teeth. "No one but he ever called her that. No one living except me
knows he did."

"He mentioned her name only at the end, a number of times as
he lay dying," said BaR gently. "He was in delirium most of the

time from the infection of the bullet wound that killed him."
Michel said nothing.

"I was convinced when I saw you--and your act--at the Court,
that you were my half-brother," BaR said finally. "What do you
need to convince you? As far as I'm concerned it's not just these
things that prove our relationship. There's a hundred others--small
things. I see things about you that're like the things I saw in him. In
some of the ways you move and look. As I say, you're more like

him than I am. I see him in you."

Michel breathed out softly. His shoulders sagged and the
tightness went out of his body.

"And you," he said, "are more of a gentleman than I am.
You're right. I acknowledge the relationship. It's just the shock of
finding family after being alone all my life. My mother died when I
was still a boy; and my--our--father had already left for the
surface by that time."

He extended his hand. Bart took it. Instinctively, they both
gripped hard, then both smiled.

"No, no," said Michel, "no more tests."

They let go.

"But you'll forgive me, won't you," said Michel, "if I can't
bring myself to call you 'brother' right away? I've been alone in the
world too long."

His voice changed.

"And as I say, I barely knew Vincent," he said. "I was just old
enough to remember what he looked like, when he went out on a
mission to the surface world. I was only six years old then; and
those six years were as much as I remember of him. You had more
of him than I ever did, my friend."

"The father I knew vuld have approved of your present self, I
think," said Bart.

"Enough!" Michel shook his head. "I've admitted you're the
gentleman of the--of the family."

He took a step back and looked Bart up and down.

"We've got to get you out of those slave clothes," he said.

"I was hoping to do that but not this soon," said Bart. "You see,
I'm supposed to see Pier and Marta tonight..."

He told Michel of Pier's invitation. Michel's eyes flashed as Bart
finished.

"But excellent!" Michel said. "I'll join you on that visit,
tonight. That is--you go ahead with it as you planned, you and
this, this..."

"Emma Robeson," said Bart slowly, "and if I'm a gentleman,
she's a lady."

Michel nodded.

"You and this lady--small l, of course--," he said, "the two of
you keep your appointment as ordered. I'll invite myself to the
Guettrig's unexpectedly while you're there." His teeth showed
themselves in a momentary smile. "We'll arrange to meet at the

	THE EARTH LORDS
	225


door; and let me be the one to announce to Pier your relationship.
It'll be more believable, coming from me. Now, let's both of us get
out of here."

He started to leave the stacks.

"Just a minute," said Bart, following him. "There's things you
need to know."

chapter
twenty


BART CAUGHT UP with the other and grasped him by one elbow.

"Hold on," he said. "Didn't you hear me? Before you talk to
Pier about me and for me, you'd better understand how I feel
about things, myself. I'm not just looking forward to being a
Hybrid recovered to the fold. That whole masquerade I had in
mind was only a step toward what I really want; and that's to get
out of here, taking Emma Robeson along with me."

Michel had halted at the touch of Bart's fingers on his elbow.
Now he turned to meet Bart's eyes.

"Ah," he said, "and this Emma Robeson--anotber slave, I
assume?"

Bart nodded.

"She must mean a great deal to you."

"Yes," said Bart. They stood looking at each other, and
Michel smiled.

"Then cheer up, Brother," he said, pulling his elbow from
Bart's relaxed fingers and clapping the shoulder above them with
one hand, "because that's my goal, too, to get up into the surface
world; and I think, with what's been done to you we can all
manage it. But you'll have to trust me how to go about it, because
there's more at work down here than I could teach you in several
months, and we don't have that sort of time."

"You've got time to tell me a few things I need to know,
though," said Bart, "and you can answer a couple of quick
questions to begin with. Most of the slaves here seem to believe
they've been raised from the dead; and I've been with the Steeds
when they reported to something called a Clinic. I don't believe
anyone can be raised from the dead; but I'm ready to believe these
Clinic visits have something to do with their believing it. Am I
right?"

"Absolutely," answered Michel. "Drugs and mesmerism--
hypnosis, if you want the proper word," said Michel. "What's
the other question?"

THE EARTH LORDS
	227


"From what I've heard even you Hybrids seem to believe that
something you have down here can destroy the Earth. That I can't
believe, either, any more than I can believe in people raised from
the dead. Don't tell me that's true!"

"That, I'm afraid, is," said Michel, "though again, it's a long
story. Why don't you let me tell you about it when we've got some
time to kill."

Bart st.opped him again as Michel started once more to turn
away.

"Sorry," Bart said, "but if there is such a thing, I've got to see
it for myself. If it's actually there, Emma's not going to agree to
leave here until we've put it out of action; and I won't go without
her."

Michel gazed at him.

"You'd shame the devil himself!" he said softly. "Don't tell
her then. Even if the Tectonal reached Action Point in the next few
weeks, it would take scores of years before the geologic changes
on the surface actually begin. Meanwhile, those can be good years
for us, up in the surface world."

In the other's words Bart heard strange echos of what Paolo had
said to him the last time he had seen the dormitory Leader--

"We could have had a lot of good years down here," Paolo had
said, sober with sadness in spite of the alcohol in him at the slaves'
Recreational Center, "even with the way this place is; and you'd' we
had your Emma and I got Lorena. But you're bound to bust it all


Bart shook off the memory.

"No," he answered. "But you've already said this thing actually
exists and can do what I've heard said it can. I'll have to tell Emma
that much, when she asks--and she's bound to ask. On e she hears
she'll never agree to leave without putting it out of action. And 1
won't go without her. Besides, I thought you suggested awhile ago
to the other Hybrids, here in the stacks, doing just that?"

"Yes, but that was with their agreement and a number of them
helping," said Michel. "For you and your Emma, even adding me

into it, to try it by ourselves--"

He broke off.

"Perhaps you're more like our father than you look," he said.
"You'd better see the Tectonal for yourself. Want to? I'll show it to
you."

"I just said I did," said Bart. "How?"

"Well, first we fit you out with some proper Hybrid clothing."

228 edo . D/cks

He examined Bart from head to foot. "Some of my cloths wn't
fit too badly on you. Come on."

He led off again, and this time Bart was satisfied to follow.
Thirty minutes later, dressed in a bottle-green suit outlining one
of the shirts with a ruffled collar--all in all more flamboyant than
Bait would have chosen himself--he waited impatiently outside a
closed but impressively carved, large door, in a corridor down
which he had never been before.

"What do we want here?" he had asked as Michel had left him
to go inside alone.

"Yna Sicorro," answered Michel. "She's the only one that can
provide credentials for you. You saw her at the meeting, and I think
she came back here. If anyone comes along--Hybrid or Lord or
Lady--and asks you questions while I'm inside there, you never
heard of me. Give them your surface name and tell them you just
came down from spending most of your life up above and aren't
allowed to say anything about it--or about yourself, yet."

Bart had nodded, and watched the other vanish through the
doorway with misgivings. The corridor about him was a welltraveled
one. He felt his half-brother could have found a safer place
for him to wait than in this exposed and public location. He sweated
under the bottle-green jacket every time a Hybrid or Lord passed
by; but thankfully, none of them seemed to have the time or
curiosity to stop and question him.

After what seemed an intolerably long period, but was probably
legs than twenty minutes, Michel suddenly re-emerged, jerked his
head at Bart and headed off down the corridor. Bart took several

long strides and caught up with him.

"What--," Bart began.

"Wait until we're around the corner," said Michel. A moment
later, he turned into a small side corridor that was clear of traffic
except for a couple of figures going away in the distance. Michel
stopped, pulled Bart back against a wall and reached into one of the
pockets of his waistcoat. He came out with a three-by-two inch
square of bright green cardboard, encased in a frame of lightcolored,
varnished wood. The name Michel Saberut was printed on
the cardboard in this black letters less than an inch in height; and he
pinned it to the wide lapel of his own dark gray suit.

"And now, one for you," he said, producing a second card and
handing it to Bart. "Pin it on."

Bart stared at it, for this card also read Michel Saberut. In fact, it
was identical to the one Michel hal just pinned on himself.

THE EARTH LORDS
	229


"But it's the same!" said Bart.

"And lucky we are to have it," said Michel. "Yna can be a
handful; but she's a good person to have on your side. Still, there're
limits. I told her I'd mislaid my own card. According to the rules,
there's not supposed to be a new one issued until a special team has
searched everything and either found the original, or has proof it's
been destroyed. Yna stretched a point and gave me a duplicate on
my word that I knew I'd just set it down somewhere in my
apartments and I'd be able to find it when I had a moment to
search--but I needed to get in right now for a piece I've got to get
finished."

Seeing Bart's blank stare, he explained.

"I'm an archivist. That's my job. I told her I was working on a
piece about our present moment in history, as we archivists do all
the time. Everything was to be noted down and kept track of---one
of ai-Kebir's more sensible commandments. The only trouble is,
once I'm done with a paper, it vanishes behind the lock and bars of
the 'X' collection in the Library, and I'm not even allowed to
reread my own work. Of course, like all of us in my department, I
keep identical copies for my own files; though that's technically
against the rules. But so is issuing a duplicate badge without first
searching for the original."

"But if we go past one of those door guards together--," Bart
was beginning.

"He'll never notice anything but the shape and color of the
badge," said Michel. "People don't look, you know, ninety per
cent of the time. Of course, some people, and there's more of those
among us and the Lordly class, look more than others. But one of
your Steeds? Ha!"

He ted the way back into the busier main corridor they had left a
moment before, to put on the badges. Bart caught up with him.
Together they went some distance, and made several turns, until
they came at last into a corridor empty except for the door with its
armed guard at its dead end.

I'll talk to him, when we reach him," said Michel quietly to
Bart, while they were still some yards away. "You pay nb attention
and simply walk straight in. He won't have the nerve to call you
back, particularly since he's seen you wearing the proper shape and
color of badge .... "

The doorway they approached was not the doorway where Bart
had been denied entrance once before, nor was the guard on duty
there the one who had denied it to him. Nonetheless, the

230 Gordon R. Dickson

differences were too small to matter. Only, this time the guard
stepped aside and saluted with his odd weapon as they approached.
"Sirs!" he said, as the door opened before them.

"Ah, yes," said Michel, stopping and turning to face the man as
he and Bart reached the door. Behind the shield of his back, Bart
walked through it and kept going.

"Your name's Ebbett, isn't it?" he heard Michel's voice
diminishing in volume behind him as he moved away from it,
"--oh, no? Marquez! Of course, how could I have forgotten? l
knew I'd seen you on duty here before; and it's a relief to know it's
someone like you on guard here. Not that anyone but some
demented slave might try . . ."

Bart stopped. He was already out of effective earshot and he did
not want to make the mistake of going where he should not go
inside the door until he had Michel to guide him. To cover his
pause, he made a point of frowning extravagantly and turning
around as if just discovering Michel was not with him.

To his relief, he saw his half-brother just turning away from a
section of the workhench just inside the entrance. Michel came
toward him, one hand stuck into a side pocket of his suit coat, and
the pocket bulging more than even Michel's bunched fist should
make it do. Now, having an excus to wait, Bart also had a quite
reasonable excuse to look around him.

The room he had entered was too big to take in at one glance. In
the center of it was a huge device, which must he the Tectonal that
Michel had talked about. At first glance, it seemed to consist of a
round shape--effectively, a doughnut shape--with its bottom edge
some two or three feet off the floor. It was in motion, rotating about
the central column, a massive round shaft that rose high from the
center of the round shape. This was clearly the same shaft he had
glimpsed from a distance on the first day as a Steed, when he had
carried Pier through one end of an upper room opening on this one.
The shaft mounted to and through the ceiling far overhead. Around
the four walls of the room ran a continuous series of workhenchcs
like the one he had seen Michel coming from. Benches at which
white-coated men and women seemed to he busy with picture
screens, other desk-mounted devices and various smaller bits of
machinery or material. But these seemed almost unimportant.

Indeed, the room was truly enormous. It was several stories high
and had several acres of open floor. Bart, thinking of the interior of
factories and steamships as they had been described to him in the

	'H pounds g4RI'H LORI)S
	231

past, had expected the space to be crammed with machinery.
Instead, it seemed almost empty, although there must be close to a
hundred people in white coats busy at the benches.

The walls and the ceiling, and even the floor, were simply
polished, faintly pink, rock. But it was the TectonaJ, in the center of
the open space, that denied the room any real claim to emptiness.

It was simple but gigantic. The turning doughnut-shape itself was
perhaps eighty feet in diameter, raised from the floor by the vertical
shaft to which it seemed to be attached, although there might have
been more underneath than Bart could see from here.

This shaft shone like polished steel, and probably was, to carry
such a weight. It was a good ten feet in diameter itself; and
stretched upward until it either touched, or penetrated, the ceiting
far overhead.

Now that:he looked more closely at the doughnut shape, he saw
that a milky, semi-transparent surface covered its visible portion,
tfirough which he could barely make out what seemed to be an
endless number of fins, or sheets of shiny metal, separated from
each other by a foot or so. And the whole thing was turning about
the shaft at a speed that barely allowed the fins of metal to be seen
as separate parts, rather than one blurred mass.

Michel led Bart up to the doughnut shape and put out his hand
above the rotating milky shield enclosing the fins.

"Listen," he said--but Bart was already aware of a low-pitched
hum coming from the shield. "If it wasn't for the fact that we've
got this protecting us, you and I and everybody else in this room
vuld have lost their hearing by now."

He pointed to a rock wall nearly a hundred feet away across the
room.

"That'll be coming out in the next few days," he said, "so as to
make seating room for the ceremony. The whole Lordly class--you
didn't see all of them at Court--would have trouble fitting into this
room, big as it is, unless we add the lounge beyond--you know it,
the one with the big stained-glass window. So the wall comes out.
Then we'll have room for not only Lords and Ladies, but us
Hybrids as well. The slaves, of course, are going to have to make do
with standing in the corridors leading to here and watching the
proceedings on electroscreens."

"What ceremony?" asked Bart.

Michel looked at him with unusually intent eyes.

"You don't know?" he answered. "The Commencement. The

"I've heard of it," said Bart. "But it doesn't mean anything to

me. This thing's already running. What's going to commence?"
"'Right. It's running, and it has been, for nearly eighteen years
now," said Michel. "But it's taken that many years just to prime
the pump, so to speak."

"I suppose," said Bart, "somewhere along the way now you'r
going to xplain all this you're telling me aboutT"

"That's what we're here for," said Michel. He gestured at the
turning doughnut-shape. ,'That, Brother Bart, is the heart of the
Tectonal, at least the visible part of it. It goes up, as you see, and
down as well, but to get to what's beyond the ceiling and under the
floor below would require some dismantling upstairs and some
rather incredible excavation. So you'll have to make do with what


"I see some sort of fan. Or is it a spinning top of some kind?"
said Bart.

"Neither," said Michel. "It's a technological stirring rod for
roiling up the electromagnetic currents in the magma of the central
part of this world; and tangling them into an electric storm that'li
end up by breaking the magma out through the crust of the
continents and sea floors--"

He was interrupted by one of the white-clad workers in the room,
who had come up to them without either of them noticing. The
newcomer was a thin, sharp-faced Hybrid in his mid-forties, with
an air of authority about him.

"You're not thinking of taking this person underneath?" the thin
man said to Michel.

"Of course," said Michel soothingly. "Cousin Merk, this is
Cousin Bart Saberut, who grew up away from us all in the wilds of
the upper world; and only now's returned to take his rightful place
among us. Bart, this is our cousin Merk Jocelyn, assistant
Superintendent in the Main Machine Group and probably the
ranking person on duty here this shift. Yes, Merk, I've been
ordered to tutor Bart because he's been up on the surface nearly all
his life; and so we're just about to crawl under so I can show him
the machine's underside."

"You can't do that. We can't be responsible for what might
happen--to the machine, or him. I'm sorry, I'll have to forbid it."
"I'll write your forbiddance into the records, dear cousin," said

	THE, F4R'H LORDS
	233


Michel. "But as you can see, Yna Sicorro has already issued him a
badgem" Bart had forgotten about the badge he wore, and now
turned hi.mself slightly to make it harder for Jocelyn to read the
name on it.

"Him--badged!" exploded Merk. "When he's hardly more
than a surface savage? Are you going to keep him out from under,
or do I have to call Yna and insist that she order you personally to
do that?"

"Best of cousins," said Michel, draping an arm over the thin
man's shoulders, which the other angrily shrugged off, "now, you
and I both know you're running a bluff on us, aren't you? So, why
don't you trot back to your work and let us get on about ours?"

"You think so?" snapped Merk. "You'll see! I'm calling Yna."
He turned and stalked off, white coat flapping around his rapidly
moving legs. Michel shook his head sadly.

"Sounds like our time here may he shorter than I thought," he
said to Bart.

"Then you'd better give n a quick look under that thing, right
now, hadn't you?" said Bart. He was not sure just why he wanted
to look under the rotating apparatus, but since he had come this
far.., he looked at the machine shape. The whirling metal
flanges were completely enclosed in the milkily transparent cover,
and in spite of what he had just said, there was a strong, instinctive,
exciting feeling of danger that spread along to his nerve-ends at the
idea of crawling in underneath it. He pushed the feeling aside.

"There's time enough for that, still, isn't there?"

Michel nodded.

"I think so," he answered soberly. "Come on, then." He took
his fist out of his pocket, producing what looked to Bart like two
pairs of oversized earmuffs with a slim, carved piece coming
around from one of the ear-parts of each pair. The earmuffs seemed
to be made of some hard material, rather than soft; and they bulged
out like the bottoms of teacups. Each of these pairs was connected
to the other pair by some eight feet of flexible cord that felt--when
Bart picked it up between his fingers--like something smoother
than ordinary cord or leather, but with some kind of hard core
within, though that was also liexible.

"Put them on," said Michel, demonstrating. "Cover your


He put on one pair of the devices. The slim piece attached,
curved around until its end almost touched his lips. Bart followed

	234
	Gordon R. Dickson

his example and was surised to find that, although ey re in no
way sticky, the earmufflike parts clung over his ears like iron to a
magnet.

"Have you got them on all right? Can you hear me?" Michel
spoke to him, thinly but clearly, directly in his covered ears.

"Yes," he said, and his voice, too, sounded thin and strange in
his ears as Michel's had done.

"All right, then," said Michel's voice. "Follow me. Keep well
down and whatever you do, don't reach up to touch the shield
overhead. It ought to be perfectly safe to touch it, but let's not take
any chances. And you've got to stay close enough to me for the wire
to reach. Ready? Go!"

He got down on his back and began to pull himself with his arms,
sliding across the smooth floor, in under the edge of the machine.
Bart imitated him and followed. He had expected darkness and had
fleetingly wondered how they x,ere to see anything in any detail
underneath here in only the light that was reflected from the room
outside. But he found the space into which they crawled had its
own, if very strange, form of lighting.

There was a good foot and a little of clearance between his
upturned face and the same milky, semi-transparent shielding that
he had seen covering the spinning, vertical sheets of metal onthe
sides and above. But down here, above the shielding and below
the turning fan blades, once they were more than a few feet in from
the rim, was a network--something like a grille--of interconnected,
heavy bars that looked like copper but seemed to give off a
pale, almost moonlightlike glow.

"What's that light?" he asked Michel.

It was strange to speak into the small end of the curved part
touching his lips; even stranger to hear Michel's voice in answer,
thin and distant-sounding, but clear and understandable in his ears.

"It's a lot of things," Michel's voice answered him now, "but
it's toward the blue end of the spectrum and there's a lot of
ultraviolet--that's invisible light which is beyond the color of blue,
at the blue end of the spectrum, if Vincent taught you anything

about the spectrum of visible light--"

"He did," broke in Bart shortly.

"Ah, well, I'd have thought he might. At any rate, the ultraviolet
is so far beyond the visible end you can't see it. It's there, though,
as in natural sunlight, too, our researchers tell us. It's what gives
you a sunburn and it helps plants grow. It's in our corridor and
other lights too, because we try to make our light down here as

	THE EARTH LORDS
	235


much like natural light as possible. But there's so much of it right
here that you'd get a bad burn on your hands and face if we stayed
here half an hour or so."

"I see," said Bart, mentally filing the fact that whatever Michel
had to show him must be something that could be shown in
something less than half an hour. Not that they probably had
anything like that much time before they were rousted out from
under here.

It was only after that thought that the implications of these
people being able to produce light beyond the visible spectrum
began to impact on Bart. He had taken almost for granted their
machines for seeing and talking at a distance over wires, their
lighting and ventilating systems and everything else, so far. He had
told himself that these things were merely devices he, himself, had
not known existed. But the sudden connection between invisible
light and what his father had taught him gave him unexpectedly a
sort of yardstick by which he could measure the distance of their
accomplishments; and he was suddenly shocked to feel how. much
perhaps these strange cavern people might indeed have learned, that
humanity in the upper world did not know.

"All right," Michel's voice in his ears interrupted his thoughts,
"we stop here. Look closely at what you see above you."

Bart turned his attention to what hung a foot and a bit above his
nose.

The milky shield was the same, but what he stared at now was an
intricate interlacing of the light-shedding bars, while connecting
them and running between them were small flexible cables each of
which seemed to be sheathed in a woven network of silver wire.
Above all these, in the few empty spaces he could see, there was
only gloom, since the moonlight illumination of the glowing bars
seemed to block out further vision. No sign of the moving blades of
metal he had seen from the outside was now visible.

Tilting his head back, Bart's eyes focused on the shiny metal
surface of a round pillar of shaft--which, he suddenly realized,
was turning as the metal blades had turned and which must be the
continuation of the metal shaft he had seen reaching up to and
through the ceiling. It was about eight or ten feet beyond him,
occupying the center of the area under the doughnut shape, and in
the luminous light under the doughnut the shaft seemed to be dark
in color. The featurelessness of the metal had fooled his eye, he
realized, into not seeing the swift rotation of the shaft at first.

"I won't try to explain in any detail how the Tectonai works,"

	236
	Gordon R. Dickson

Michel's voice said in his ears. "For one thing, I'm not an engineer
in this area and for another thing it'd take far too long. Briefly--
and you'll simply have to take my word for it--the par we're lying
under is the motivational part for the shaft farther in--what I saw
you looking at just now."

"It goes down, from here?" Bart asked.

"That's right," answered Michel, "a great distance down, but
only about a third of the way to the magma that underlies the
continental plates--those are the rafts of solid, usable land that the
surface vrld lives on. The plates float on the magma; and every so
often one of them jostles up against the one next to it. Then its edge
rides over or under the edge of the other plate, and a crack's created
that lets magma boil up from the interior of the earth. The results
are volcanoes or rising or falling of the plates--so what was under
the sea a million years ago is now dry land and what was dry land a

like time ago may now be the floor of the seabed."
He paused, looking at Bart.
"You follow me so far?" he said.
"I think so," said Bart.

"Good. Well, then. Thanks to the theory of Morton Cadiz, an
eighteenth century Lord who was an early paloologist--that being
an elaborate term for a person who goes around dating the age of
rock layers by the kinds of fossils he finds in them--and the fact
w've later proved he was right, we know there are electromagnetic
currents in the magma. These don't exactly move it the way ocean
currents move the ocean waters, but they have a somewhat similar
effect. To the point that a disturbance in the pattern of these
electromagnetic flows can disturb the balance of forces in the
magma and lead to one plate trying to climb over another. You're
still following me?"

"Again, I think so," said Bart. He looked up at the turning
machinery overhead and it seemed to him he could feel the massive
forces Michel talked about, stirring, deep beneath him.

"All right," went on Ilichel. "We consequently theorized,
tested, and finally built this device called the Tectonal, which you
se around you."

"And it does what to the magma?" asked Bart.

"Well," answered Michel, "the answer to that's a bit complicated.
In layman's language, it began by sending pulses of
electromagnetic force from the lowest end of the drill, to tap it to
one of the currents of like force already down there, suck it up,
build it up, and feed it back down again--and continue this. As it

rile ,ARrH LOROS 25

continued, it took up and returned larger and larger elements of the
force, until now, after a number of years, it's pumping enough
force into the flow it touches to change it from a small current to
one much larger than it was originally, large enough to disrupt the
pattern of force flows. It is just now at about the point where that

pattern is going to give."

He paused.

"Then what.'?" demanded Bart.

"Well," said Michel's voice, "when it does, there'll be a
widespread readjustment of the pattern of forces in the magma, and
consequent widespread readjustment of the plates above it. In
short, the surface world will go through hell--some land subsiding
below sea level, other land rising abruptly; and volcanic activity all
over the place. Except here, of course, which was carefully chosen
because it was in one of the safe places."

Bart tilted his head back and fastened his eyes on the turning,
polished shaft.

"How far down does this go below usT" he asked.

"Several miles," answered Michel. "It's not the diameter you
see for more than the first few hundred feet down. After that, it
begins to narrow every few thousand feet. About half a mile short
of the end of its shaft, it's the diameter of the original drillhole--
some six inches in diameter. After that last half-mile, it comes to
an end. From there on down, the penetration through rock the rest
of the way to the magma is immaterial. I don't know enough to
explain that part of it to you, if I wanted to; but essentially, we've
energized a channel down through the rest of the plate rock into the
magma itself."

"And so this electric-whatever force of yours--," began Bart.
"Electromagnetic."

"--Electromagnetic force of yours," Bart went on, "pours
down this channel into the magma. What is magma, exactly?"

"It's rock that'd be melted to a liquid if it weren't under so much
pressure," Michel said. "When the pressure's taken off; as when it
breaks through to the surface--in a volcano, say--it does become
liquid. But even under pressure down there, it acts a lot like a
liquid. As I say, don't ask me for details. That's not my specialty.
The point is, the force does go into the magma, it does act like a
current of water flowing into the ocean and mixing with the current
already there, and altering them by the force of its thrust."

"And what you can send down is strong enough to do that?"
Bart asked skeptically.

	238
	Gordon R. Dickson


"Of course not!" said Michel. "Not by itself. But for years now,
the Tectonal's been drawing up electromagnetic forces and pumping
them back in a patterned manner--in such a way that it's finally
become strong enough to produce a... I don't know quite how to
describe it to you. Imagine a sort of whirlpool that keeps growing
until it begins to touch and bend around itself the currents it finally
reaches, incorporating them, too, into itself. It uses its own strength
to just bend, a small amount, the forces already there--and as a
result the whole balanced pattern of currents becomes unbalanced."

"All
right. The pattern is unbalanced, Then what?" Bart asked.
"Then the magma begins to push differently against the plates of
solid rock floating in it, harder than it pushed before in some
places, less hard in others. As a result, the plates begin to move.
Somewhere, the boundary between two plates breaks, releasing
even more pressure and setting the magma below free to boil up to
the surface, through a volcano, or just through a crack in the level
plate. Or the pressure is drained away from under a section of a
plate, and then that section drops--subsides, in geological terms.
For example, the whole central plate of North America between
the ranges of the Allegheny and the Rocky Mountains is destined to
sink, and the waters of the Gulf will rush in northward to cover
what once was dry surface land. Like things will happen at other
places around the globe."

"Fine," said Bart, squinting overhead at the visible section of
the turning shaft. "How do we put it out of action?"

"That's the problem," said Michel. "There's only one way of
stopping what's going to take place. That's to stop the patterning of
the force being returned to the magma, so that randomness will
return to the currents. And there's only one way to do that. It's by
stopping the turning of this shaft, jamming it in its driilhole and
breaking it off, so that its upper part will have to be withdrawn and
they'll have to fish out the broken lower part. The time involved in
doing that is time out from the continuous feed that's been kept up
for the last eighteen years and, interrupted, it'll fail to supply the
whirlpool of force below until it's self-supporting; which it should
be in a matter of weeks, now."

"Which will cause what to happen?" asked Bart.

"Which will cause the whirlpool to fall apart, the captured
currents will be lost before they're firmly caught and the project
will have to start over again. It could cost them anywhere from
twenty to fifty years just to build the Tectonal back to the position it

THE EARTH LORDS
	239


had when the breakage happened."

"Then that's what we'll do," said Bart.

"Ha!" Michel's voice came to him over the earphones, thinly
derisive. "You think it can be done--just like that? Have you any
idea of what )3u're dealing with, or what it'd take to jam the shaft?
It's not just a matter of dropping some explosives down the shaft
and triggering them off. Even if everyone in this room--and there's
a shift on duty like this twenty-four hours a day--would just stand
around and watch. To begin it, it'd take some days of work to get
the cover off the shaft, where it enters the floor. Then, since none of
us can get into the X Collection, where the plans are, we've got no
way of knowing how much space there is to introduce explosives
beside the shaft, how much it'd take to break it, how far down to
lower them, how to fuse them so that--"

His voice broke off. Bart was not surprised, for at that moment
he felt both his ankles grabbed from behind and he was unceremoniously
dragged out from under the turning shape of the Tectonal. He
saw Michel being pulled out with him.

They were brought out into the bright light of the room, where
they scrambled to their feet to face a triumphant Merk, flanked by
Yna Sicorro. Michel took off his earphones and Bart followed his
example.

"This time," Yna said to Michel, "you've gone too far."

chapter
twenty-one


SHE TURNED HER gaze on Bart and held out a hand, palm up, bent
at that emphatic sharp right angle of the wrist of which wome0
tend to be more capable than men.

"And you, whoever you are," she said to Bart. "Hand it
over--now!' '

There could be no doubt what she meant. Almost sheepishly,
Bart found himself unpinning his badge and putting it in that slim,
demanding palm.

Her fingers closed on it firmly and she turned her glare back on
Michel.

"As I say," she told him, "you've finally gone over the limits.
You know better than to do something like this. I've no choice. I'll
have to tell the Emperor about it.'"

"To be sure, dear cousin," said Michel with one of his bright
smiles, "and as far as my companion goes, let me introduce your
cousin and my half-brother, Bartholomew Saberut, son of our
mutual father, that remarkable Lord Vincent Saberut who went on
a mission up to the surface many years ago. Bart grew up there,
as a consequence; and we're just now introducing him to his heritage."

"That's
not going to help either of you with the Emperor!" said
Yna grimly. "Michel, how could you be so stupid as to pull a wild
trick like this? Everybody's always said you'd try one joke too
many some day; and it looks like this is it."

"Oh, as for the Emperor," said Michel, "have no fear, dear
cousin. Bart and 1 have an appointment to see him first thing

tomorrow morning, anyway. I'll explain it all to him, then."
"It better be some pretty tall explaining," said Yna.

"And if it doesn't satisfy him, then what?" Michel smiled at her
again. "Maybe I'll just disappear and no one-will ever see me
again--all because you had to tell him!"

"You know better than that," said Yna. "We'd never stand for
his doing anything like that. If he could do that to you and get away

	THE EARTH LORDS
	241


with it, as if you were a common slave, then he could do it to any of
us. But there's plenty of other ways he can make your life
miserable."

She watched them out the door. In the corridor outside, Michel
turned to his right and set off at a good pace like a man with no time
to lose.

"What was all that about disappearing and the fact they wouldn't
stand for it?" asked Bart in a low voice. "And who did she mean
by 'we'? That group I saw you with in the Library stacks?"

"More than that," answered Michel. This time his ready smile
was tight-lipped. "She was talking about the whole Hybrid class.
My cousins have an affection for me, god knows why. If I suddenly
turned up missing, one of them--probably Yna herself--would
request an audience with the Emperor to ask that I be found; and if I
was found dead, or couldn't be turned up at all, our Emperor would
have a neat little revolution on his hands. He wouldn't dare kill off
another Lord without powerful reason; and he can't do away quietly
with his loyal nephews and nieces, either."

"But if you simply weren't to be found--," Bart began.
"There's no such thing in the Inner World. We're a tight little
closed box here, with only two official holes to elsewhere. One is a
trash disposal, that's a crack in the rock going no one knows how
far down; but a crew's on duty there twenty-four hours a day,
including at least one Lord, slaves, and--of course--some Hybrids.
Then there's the bridge into the mine--but there's a
tvnty-four hour guard and crew on that, too. Of course, there're a
couple of secret bolt-holes, undoubtedly--one at least of which
I've got high hopes he'll be telling us all about tomorrow morning.
But every Hybrid and Lord-knows those exist, even if they don't
know their exact locations. So, a failure by him to produce me
alive and healthy would pretty well prove he'd done away with

me."

Bart nodded. Michel was setting a good pace, as they turned into
a wider, more traveled corridor.

"When did we get an appointment to see the Emperor tomorrow
morning?" Bart asked him in a low voice.

"In about twenty minutes," said Michel. He flashed Bart a
momentary, sideways grin. "There are two classes of people who
can get immediate audiences with the Emperor. Those he likes very
much, and those he dislikes tremendously. Count me among the
latter number, Brother."

242 Gordon R. Dickson

"Now, ]']1 te]] you what," he went on, but looking once
more ahead of him as he vent and speaking in a voice as low
as Butt's, "actually, what I've got to see is the Emperor's private
secretary; and I think I know where to find her. But this is
something I do better alone. So I'll leave you here, and meet
you at Pier's front door. What time are you supposed to be
there?"
"After he and his wife have dinner," answered Bart. "I figured
on nineteen hundred hours as an arrival time."

"Good enough. 7:00 P.lt. I'll see you and your Emma,
then--and remember, when we're finally closeted with Pier and
Marta, let me do the talking."

"If you think so," said Bart, with some misgivings. He
stopped, and watched Michel walk rapidly away from him, and
then vanish around a corner.

In spite of these misgivings, however, 7:00 v.r,l, found him,
with Emma, moving along a corridor pierced by entrances to
living quarters of those of more than ordinary consequence among
the Lordly class. Bart was back in his Steed's clothing.

All along the wide, tapestried, corridor walls there were, at
intervals, pairs of doors. One door was always large, ornately
carven and impressive; the other just large enough to admit a
good-sized male slave, and with a plain, brown, dark wooden
surface.

They came close to the doors to the quarters of the Librarian
and his wife; and it had been obvious from some distance that
there was no one waiting outside them. Wherever Michel might
be, he was not here as he had promised.

Bart was trying to decide whether they should wait a few
minutes at least for his Hybrid half-brother, or simply go in and
trust to his turning up eventually. He had filled Emma in on his
relationship with Michel and the events of the afternoon; and as
they approached the entrances, she was now doing the talking. As
a matter of interest to them both, she had been taking advantage of
her job in the accounting department to try and make some
estimates of the financial situation of the Inner World, and its
owners, the Lordly class.

"... I couldn't do much about getting any solid figures on
anythingparticularly without seeming to be looking for them,"
said Emma as the two of them walked up the long hall to the door
of dark, heavy wood that was the Slaves' entrance to the multiple
rooms that made up the apartments of Pier and Marta Guettrig,

	THE EARTH LORDS
	243


"but maybe there's no need to know exactly. Just a general look
at the sort of figures we're handling implies something...
unbelievable. At a guess, the Lords're so rich the figures hardly
make sense. Every one of them has to be a millionaire many,
many times over. They could probably give a million to each of
the slaves and never know the difference, as far as their general
fortunes go."

She paused as they reached the slaves' entrance and he
scratched on the panel in it provided for carrying the sound to
whoever was on duty beyond.

"Of course, most of that worth is tied up in property and
investment," Emma went on, "but it's exactly the profits on that
property and investment that pay for the continuous inflow here of
all kinds of goods--"

The door swung open and she stopped talking. A tall, erect,
gray-haired, rather angular woman, wearing a slave tunic in dark
blue, nodded to Bart and looked more than a little contemptuously
at Emma.

"They've just finished dinner," the doorkeeper said, speaking
to Bart, "earlier than usual. But the Lord told me to say you
weren't to feel you've been negligent in not getting here before
this."

She led the way; and they followed her through a series of
corridors, each more thickly carpeted and paneled than the last,
until she stopped and stood to one side of a plain, but tall door of
polished maple wood.

"They're having tea here in the dining room's side lounge,"
she said.

Bart stepped forward and scratched at the door.

"Who?" asked the voice of Pier, from somewhere over their
heads, in French.

"Bart Dybig, Lord, with a slave companion named Emma

Robeson," answered Bart in the same language.

"Come in, Bart," said the voice of Pier.

Bart opened the door and the two of them entered a room that
was so conventional and like all the sitting rooms in well-to-do
homes above ground that it suddenly brought back to Bart an
aching memory of that single parent he had known and loved. It
was a square room, filled with heavy square furniture, standing on
thick carpets; and with the many surfaces of its furniture covered
with small bits of lace, or cloth with scenes worked into it.

The only unusual touches were the smallness of the furniture,

244 Cordon R. Dickson

the heavy tapestries covering the walls, which were so common in
the rooms of the Lordly class of the Inner World, and the fact that
the lamps lighting the room had under their shades a round ball of
glass lit by dectromagnetic force.

Pier and Maria sat in dark blue, downscaled wingback chairs,
partly facing each other but essentially side by side, with a small,
lace-covered table between them on which stood a silver tray and a
tea service in white and gold china.

"Come in, Bart," repeated Pier as the door closed behind Bart
and Emma; and they both halted, as was the custom, a pace inside
the door. "Come and sit down with us. You'll find hassocks to sit
on, over at the far side of the room."

Bart went and got the hassocks, round leather creations which,
when he and Emma were seated before the two in their chairs, put
their eyes on a level with those of Pier and Marta. Close up, in the
lamplight, the makeup Maria wore was not visible, so that she
looked indeed like Pier's granddaughter, or even greatgranddaughter.
Nonetheless, she took immediate charge of the
proceedings.

"You'll have some tea," she said decidedly.

For the first time Bart noticed that there were four, rather than
just two, cups on the silver tray. It was a highly unnatural thing,
by Inner World standards--that much Bart had discovered for
himself already--for Hybrids, let alone those of the Lordly class,
to eat with slaves. In fact it was not done even to eat at the same
time that slaves were eating, in the same room. But Pier, as he had
said occasionally, made his .own rules, particularly in his own
home.

"Here you are," said Marta, handing a steaming cup on its
gold and white saucer to Emma, who seemed at the moment only
a bit larger than she was.

"Thank you," said Emma, as politely, but also as calmly as if
there was nothing unusual in taking tea with the wife of one of the
Three Who Command. She accepted the cup and sipped from it,
while Marta handed another cup to Bart. He also sipped at the
dark tea in it, but cautiously. All his life he had found that he
seemed to be able to bum his tongue on food and drink other
people swore were no more than comfortably hot. Emma, on the
other hand, could drink tea at practically scalding temperatures.

"Now," said Marta to Emma, "how long have you known
Bat't?"
	THE EARTH LORDS
	245

"Oh, we grew up together," said Emma. "From the time he
was about six years old and his father brought him in from the
Indian camp where he'd lived until then. His father insisted he go
to the little school where we were; though from that time on, I
think, Bart learned more from his father than from the teacher, in

all sorts of ways. At the same hme, "lnoun, hre "anre *co
understand why his father wanted him to unlearn being an Indian
and learn how to get along with civilized folk, instead. His father
was right."

"Oh?" Marta smiled encouragingly. "Why do you say that?"
Emma laughed.

"You'd have said it yourself, if you'd seen him, those first
few weeks. Standing apart from all the other boys and girls, refusing
to play any games and scowling at everybody and everything!"

"I didn't scowl!" said Bart, startled.

"You most certainly did. All the girls were fascinated; and all
the boys wanted to pick a fight with you, but there was a rumor
you'd try to kill them, if they got you started.--It was just as
well." Emma turned to the other woman. "Bart was strong for his
age and might have actually hurt one of the other boys, or gotten
himself hurt. After a few weeks, though, he stopped scowling and
he'd play some of the games with the rest of us at recess; but really
he always preferred being by himself."

"How interesting," said Marta, putting her cup down carefully.
"You and your brother came down here from that revolutionary
group we sponsored, didn't you?'"

"Not sponsored, my love," Pier said. "We funded and
encouraged them to a certain extent--through intermediaries,
of course--on the theory that if we did so, they'd actively
discourage exploration and exploitation of the area all
around us. Actually, we rather believed that they would
end up getting themselves killed off, and we did not care one
way or the other for their political aspirations. But in the meantime
they serve us by keeping civilization from spreading to
this part of the continent too quickly. And so they have--
along with the terrain, the weather, and other hardships, of
course."

"I understand--as well as I understand any of these
things--," said Marta with a brilliant smile at Emma, "that
some of those revolutionary friends of your brother didn't trust

Cordon R. Dickson


him too well, or else the two of you wouldn't have ended up here
with us."

"Oh, you're very right," said Emma. Her own tones were
almost an echo of Marta's and she smiled back. "I never did like
what those Scottites stood for; and I didn't realize that Arthur--
that's my brother--was working for them. In fact, I don't think
he really did much for them--he's really not very effective.
But in any case he wouldn't have paid any attention to me, of
course. ' '

"Of course," said Marta.

It was almost sickening, thought Bart, the way they could smile
at each other that way, as if they were sharing some sort of secret
knowledge. He sat back, waiting for his tea to cool and pretending
to take sips from it while Marta cross-examined Emma about her
background--and Bart's. Emma bore the examination not merely
with fortitude, but as if it was an actual pleasure to have such a
talk.

From Bart's point of view it was downright dull, if not
uncomfortable, to listen to his childhood being rehearsed this
way. Apparently Pier must have shared some of his feelings,
for the old man interrupted his wife after about ten minutes.

"My love," he said, "why don't you take Emma off to do the
rest of your conversation in one of the other lounges? I've just
remembered some business to do with the Library I want to talk
over with Bart."

"Of course, dear," said Marta, standing up immediately.
Emma rose also. "Just leave your cup there, Emma. I'll have
fresh tea brought us someplace else. Come along."

They rose to leave; but at that moment there was a scratching at
the door.

"What?" asked Pier, raising his voice.

"Your pardon, Lord," said the voice of the woman who
had escorted Bart and Emma to the room. "But Mr. Michel
Saberut is calling. He says he has business with you concerning
your present visitors."

"Hmm?" said Pier. "Marta, my dear, perhaps you and Emma
hadn't better leave us just yet."

Marta sat down again in her chair, motioning Emma to her
hassock, as Pier raised his voice.

"'Let him in!"

"My Lord, Lady," said Michel, stopping just inside the
entrance. He came forward with outstretched hands. "Uncle Pier,
Aunt Marta--it's good of you to let me drop in without warning
like this."

"You're always welcome here, Michel. You know that," said
Pier, as he and Marta each briefly grasped a hand of the younger
man. "What've you been up to now?"

"Up to, Uncle? What makes you think I've been up to
something?"

"That's usually what brings you here; or else you're about to be
up to something--oh, find yourself a hassock and sit down,
Michel!" said Pier.

"Seeing you is always reason enough for coming," said Michel
solemnly, dragging up a hassock like the ones Bart and Emma
were seated on and sitting down himself. "You've always been the
closest thing to family I ever had."

"We love u, too, Michel," said Marta, smiling warmly at
him. "But what is it this time?"

"Well, you'd hear all about it tomorrow anyway," said Michel.
"As a matter of fact, Bart and I have an appointment to see the
Emperor at 6:00 A.M. tomorrow morning about it. You see, just
this afternoon I took Bart to see the Tectonal; and Yna Sicorro
caught me at it. She's probably already passed a message on it to
His Majesty."

"You did what?" Pier's head came up sharply and suddenly.
"I took him in to see the Tectonal," repeated Michel. "You
see, Bart, whom you know as a slave, is actually a Hybrid. The
fact is, he's my half-brother, sired by Vincent Saberut after he
went up on a mission to the surface."

The words were out. Pier did not at once respond and Bart had
braced himself for any conceivable kind of reaction. But while
Marta did not even change expression, the response from Pier was
one he could never have expected.

He noticed suddenly a glitter to Pier's eyes and realized with
shock that the old man had tears in them.

"Of course," said Pier at last, looking at him. "Of course
you are. My boy, we knew it from the first moment we found
you!"

The equivalent of the explosion Bart had expected in the old

	248
	Cordon R. Dickson

man now took place in Bart, instead. He stared at Pier.

"I don't understand, Lord," was all he could manage to say.
He realized that no matter how shaken he felt inside, to his
listeners his words had seemed to come out fully controlled. Bart
had realized for a long time that he had a tendency to conceal
emotion of any kind. Now he only hoped he hadn't sounded so
flat as to seem cold or hostile.

"Naturally, you don't. How could you?" The tears were
running down Pier's cheeks now along the lines that time had
engraved there, into his sparse beard. He wiped them away with an
edge of his robe and stared at Bart with a misty smile.

"We Three Who Command," be said, "enforce the laws
evolved from the Book of aI-Kebir. But, out of necessity, we also
enforce rules on ourselves. And these are rules backed by our own
sense of honor--which must never be compromised. My honor
has compelled me, even privately, to keep from acknowledging
you for who you really were--as I would have otherwise. With
the other Two it was agreed that you shouldn't be told who you
were, until and unless you were able to recognize it for yourself."

Bart
was still tumbling mentally from this bombshell of
information. The only thing he could think of to say was a
repetition of the words he had just said. He put to one side the
fantastic puzzle of what about him had convinced Pier and the
other Two he was a Hybrid, before he had even been conscious
enough to speak.

"I still don't understand, Lord," Michel said slowly. There
was a faint, tight smile to the corners of his lips and a glitter to his
eyes, in turn, that was not at all emotional but almost malicious.
"If all the Three Who Command were convinced Bart was a
Hybrid, why was he made a slave in the first place?"

"Oh, Michel, Michel--life's never simple. You'll learn that
more and more as you get older. You know we Three have to be
unanimous in our decision on all things; except in an emergency,
when there's no time for consultation. Then the Emperor's word
alone rules over everything else. I agreed with the other Two,
although I knew the ruling was unfair; but let me tell you how it all
happened."

"Thank you, Lord," said Bart.

"Oh, call me 'Grandfather,' not 'Lord!' Your father called me
'Father' even though he was no child of mine--neither Marta nor

THE EARTH


I ever had children . . . but never mind that now. In the privacy of
this house, call us Grandfather and Grandmother!"

"If that's what you want... Grandfather," said Bart,
touched; though the word seemed to fit strangely and awkwardly

in his mouth.

"You see," said Pier, "the door by which you tried to enter the
Inner World from the mine where they had you working--and
believe me, I had no idea you were there--no idea you even
existed at that time, or I'd never have permitted you to be held
there at all--has a bridge which comes into place only if the
proper controls in the mine are moved."

He half lifted a hand as if to reach out and touch Bart, then
dropped the thin, veined fingers Uack into the lap of his brown
robe.

"Not knowing those controls were there--and how could you
have known? Not knowing they were there, you opened the door,
went through, and fell into the underground river that forms part
of our protection against unauthorized entrance. It's a fall of some
thirty feet; and the river is deep, icy, and very fast-running.
It swept you away with it, as it's swept other intruders before
you, until it came to a point where the rock around it closes
down completely, and there's no air space left at all. It's
six minutes before the speed of the current carries anything
swept into that water-filled tunnel out the other side, into an
area where the overhead rock rises again and there's air
above the surface to breathe. At that point we've got a guard
post."

"Guard Post Two," put in Michel. "The bridge is Guard Post
One."

"A Guard Post?" asked Bart.

"Yes," said Pier, "it's where the rock opens out--actually, it
opens out naturally and the opening's been improved by blasting,
and cutting out a ledge in the rock along one side of it. At that
point we've a net strung across the river to catch anything headed
downstream. Downstream--since upstream the river is for practical
purposes unreachable without a great expense of tunneling,
and it's our fresh water supply. We use the net to keep anything
that might foul the water from getting downstream to the point
where we pump it out. That includes, of course, the dead bodies
of anyone who tried to enter the Inner World from the door in the
mine."

"And after six minutes underwater they're pretty sure to be
dead, even if being banged about on the rocks hasn't finished
them," said Michel.

"That's right," said Pier, "and they always have been dead--
until you came through. Somehow you were still living,. Unconscious,
but still living."

"I swam with the current, hoping to come to some place wher
there was air," said Bart.

"You must be a powerful swimmer," said Pier. "At any rate,
the foreman of the slaves who pulled you out in the net noticed
this and got in touch with the Hybrid in charge of that duty shift.
The Hybrid woke the Lord whose responsibility was the work of
protecting the cleanliness of the water. That Lord--you may meet
him one of these days if you haven't already, his name is Jan
Rakar--recognized the possibility that you might have some
Hybrid characteristics; and this, together with the fact you'd lived
through the six minutes of water tunnel, made you a matter of
extraordinary concern.

"Jan went, as was only proper, to the Emperor; who set up a
time for we Three Who Command to examine you in strict
privacy, the following morning. Until that time you were to be
taken care of, but watched and drugged, so that you didn't wake to
find out where you were. You were transferred to a private room in
the Clinic, under a medication to keep you asleep. More was used
when you showed signs of regaining consciousness naturally.
Meanwhile, the Head of Clinic, the Lord Doctor Abu Galum,
personally examined you."

His voice hoarsened and he stopped. The glint of tears were
again in his eyes. Bart waited patiently for him to go on. After a
moment the eyes cleared, and when he spoke again, his voice was
as under control as usual.

"We Three and Dr. Lord Galum saw you in that private--and
guarded--room, early the next morning," he went on, "and one
thing had been proven by that time. You definitely had a
sufficiency of the physical characteristics that marked the Hybrids
among us--traits that could only have been inherited from one of
our own Lordly people. But none of us recognized you; and as
Librarian I had already searched the records for any mention of
you being born to one of our people who was temporarily in the
upper world--for of course we knew from the records of the
mine, when we looked, what your name was. I testified that I had

	7"HE EAR'H LORDS
	251


found no mention of you."

Once more his voice had hoarsened, but it cleared again
immediately as he went on.

"The conclusion was obvious. You were beyond all doubt a
Hybrid, but one who had grown up in the upper world, knowing
nothing of your heritage. The sores and scars from the ankle irons
on you showed that much. If you had known what you were, there
were any one of a dozen words you could have said that would
have made even those ignorant slave-crew foremen start a process
of checking up that would have brought you to our attention; and
once we knew who you were you would have been freed
immediately."

Pier shook his head sadly.

"The question, of course, became what to do with you. The
simplest solution, which the Regent suggested right away, was
simply to eliminate you. I pointed out that this might not be
contrary to law, but it certainly was to custom. If you were indeed
a Hybrid, whether you knew it or not you were a nephew to all of

us and we owed you a certain consideration."

He hesitated.

"Bart," he said, "it's going to take you a little time to
understand all this, but there are philosophical, what you might
even call political, divisions among us--even us of the Lordly
class."

"I think Bart realizes that already, Uncle," said Michel.
"Yes," Pier gazed at Bart, "perhaps he does, with you and
others to help him. In any case, it exists, Bart, with us as with
others. Our people are divided into two groups, Textualists and
Liberals. The Textualists tend to believe strongly in the exact
words aI-Kebir wrote originally in the KITAAB, although he
wrote them in a world as it existed six hundred years ago. We
Liberals--and you'd guess very quickly, if Michel hasn't told you
so already, that Marta and I are of that thinking--believe in
adjusting those original precepts in terms not only of a changed
world, but in the light of the growth of our own fortunes in that
world . . . but I don't want to get involved in telling you all that,
now. ' '

He cleared his throat, and with the effort, his small, wispy
beard twitched for a second.

"The important thing is, both the Emperor and the Regent
belong to the Textualists; and this, in addition to the difference

	252
	Gordon R. Dickson

between their generation and mine, makes us natural opponents in
many ways. When you were found, it quickly developed that the
problem of what to do with you, now you'd appeared among us,
was one of tbese. There's a natural historical swing in the thinking
of all populations between generations. When I was still relatively
young and first elected Librarian, Lordly thinking was predominantly
Liberal. The generation that followed, the one to which
Emperor and the Regent belong, swung back toward Textualism.
Now it's swinging back once more toward Liberalism, if it hasn't

already--in fact I think it may have."

He hesitated.

"I think if a vote was taken today," he said, "we'd find the
majority of my class now favor finding a way of living with the
outside world the way it is, rather than destroying it and
dominating the handful of humans who survive. But there's no
certainty; and if I was to call for a popular vote on the
subject--for which I'd need a reason, but which as one of the
Three I'm empowered to do--and the majority wasn't overwhelmingly
in my favor, I could lose most of my authority; because it
rests, in practice, on the Emperor's and the Regent's assumption
that a large number of the Lords are with me on anything I want to
do. So if I called for a vote and failed, then the other Two could
practically do what they want with the Command."

He shook his head as if to clear away from his mind the
cobwebs of a dream.

"But that's beside the point right now," he said. "I want to tell
you how matters stand with you, so you can understand why
you've been treated the way you have. When the Three of us got
together beside your anesthetized body in the Clinic--it was quite
some time after you'd been fished out; and, left to yourself, you'd
have regained consciousness and seen where you were--as I said,
the Regent's immediate proposal was to eliminate you. You'd
grown up entirely outside the Inner World, you knew nothing of
our customs, and could only be a burden and a source of trouble

among us, with your essentially human point of view."

Pier took a deep breath.

"The Emperor agreed with him. I disagreed. You have to
understand. As a Hybrid, according to the written word of
al-Kebir, you've no more rights than any other human. But over
the centuries--since the Hybrids are, after all, our own
children--a certain amount of affection on our part.., well, the

result has been for them to acquire a body of essentially unofficial,
but still effective, rights.

"I told the other Two that, under those rights, you had to be
given a chance to survive among us, who were your family; unless

there was a specific reason you shouldn't be given that chance."
Pier shrugged.

"Naturally, from that point on the disagreement progressed
along political lines; Liberal versus Textualist thinking. The other
two pointed out that by being born and having grown up outside
the Inner World, you'd never passed the tests you would normally
have had to take at age eleven and seventeen, to prove your right to
be here among us. I said that while this was true, there was no
reason you should not first be given a chance to learn about us and

the Inner World, and then take those tests."

Pier smiled.

"You have to understand," he said, "that this argument put
them between the jaws of a nutcracker. The insistence on anyone
with at least fifty per cent of our blood being tested for
survival--for fear that our Lordly strain should lose itself and be
diluted among the mass of humanity--was one of al-Kebir's
strongest precepts and as such is venerated by the Textualists, like
all his precepts. On the other hand, the mere fact that I had
opposed them on the question of your being allowed to live made

it a matter of face to them that you be destroyed."

Bart nodded.

"'Let him live, then,' " said the Emperor, " 'but if he's
worthy of being a Hybrid he'll have to prove himself, without any
help at the start from anyone. Let him begin by being a slave; and
we'll see if he even recognizes himself as something more than
that or just accepts his lot. If he decides to stay a slave for the rest
of what life is allowed him, then it'll be. plain that's all he's
worthy of.' "

"Of course I protested," said Pier. "I argued it was unfair to
make anyone of Hybrid blood serve as a slave. I asked how they
could expect you could even have the chance to question the fact
you were something more, when all our system was set up to leave
a slave with no alternative to accepting what he was. Let alone, the
regular Clinical drugging and mesmerising to create the illusion in
their minds that they had been raised from the dead to be what
they were."

Pier smiled again.

	254
	Gordon To Dickson


"They objected in turn, particularly the Regent, who of course
had agreed with the Emperor from the start that the system could
not be violated. But they knew they were trapped. You would have
to be allowed to bypass the Clinic visits. I pointed out that there
were already exceptions, such as certain former politicals and
others, like your Emma, here, and her brother, who were excused
from them. Such slaves are usually exempted because it might turn
out to be useful, once again, to use them above ground. In a
nutshell, I was bargaining for what I eventually got, which was a
grudging approval from the other Two that I might personally
make use of you as my own slave; and, under the restrictions of
honor and duty, expose you to the opportunities, only, to discover

you were something more than an ordinary human."

He stopped and watched Bart.

"I see," said Bart thoughtfully. "I'm indebted to you, Lord."
'Grandfather."

"I'm indebted to you, Grandfather." Bart was astonished at
the deep rush of gratitude in him, in spite of the questions that still
were there. He decided to bring the questions out and have done
with it. "But you went to a lot of trouble--and probably even
some risk--for me. Why should you? Just on your Liberal
principles, alone?"

"Oh no, child," said Pier. "You remember I told you your own
father called Marta and myself 'Father' and 'Mother' in the
privacy of this home. Galum, with his Clinicians and the other
Two had recognized you as a Hybrid. But secretly, I had already
recognized not only that but something more, from the moment I
set eyes on you. I'd recognized you as the son of Vincent Saberut.
You're nearly twice his size, you've strong indication of the
Indian blood in you. But to my eyes, from the start, you were
unmistakably his son; like the grandson Marta and I might have
had if it had not been for the KITAAB, and Marta's determination."

IT WAS THE last three words that caught at Ban's mind and held it.
The implications in it were strong enough so that he risked a
question even though it might threaten the personal relationship
Pier had just set up between them.

"Did you say 'Marta's determination,' Grandfather?" he
asked.

"Yes, Grandson," said Pier. "Your Grandmother is a woman
of powerful will."

He smiled a little.

"It might even have been interesting, if they'd been members
of the same generation, to see her and al-Kebir himself in
opposition on some point. But, in any case, much as she's loved
me all these years and supported me--so that otherwise I don't
know how I'd be alive today, particularly with the present
Emperor and Regentmshe's always refused to have a child. A
child by me or any concubine--not that she's ever taken concubines-"

He
turned his smile fondly for a moment on Marta and her
smile answered him. For a moment the two of them were alone in
the room.

"--Though that was her right as much as mine. But, we have
ways of preventing conception that are absolutely certain; and

Marta's made certain that not even she and I produced children."
Bart looked at him curiously.

"If I may ask--have you ever taken concubines, Grandfather?"
"I? No," said Pier. "I have to admit that there were a few
times, when I was younger, I was tempted. But the temptation was
only transient; and those who tempted me fell so far short in any
comparison with Marta, that I soon came to realize they'd only be
a source of disappointment to me in the end. Besides, as I say,
Marta had made up her mind to go childless; and that in itself
created a bond between us that shut out any real desire for
concubines in me."

e stopped talking and emed lost in his own thoughts-o
memori. B gently still the conveation back to life.

"I think," he said, "you were about to tell me why Grandmother
refused to have any children."

Pier's gaze came back to him from whatever place it had
wandered to.

"Yes, I was," he said. "Because I think it's something you
ought to know and understand, Bart; in order to understand what
your father was like, and how you came, evidently, to be born as
you were, to a native human mother. Marta told me from the very
beginning of our love that she knew the failings of her own
strength."
Bart glanced at Marta. She was seated with her hands clasped
in her lap, her face utterly calm, watching her husband.

"As a youngster," Pier went on, returning his wife's steady
gaze with an affectionate look, "she'd always wanted children and
expected to have them. But as she grew up she came to understand
she'd never be able to endure having and loving a child, when
there was the slightt danger she might have to give it up. That
she might have to hand it over to the Executioners--if for some
reason it failed in either of the examinations required of us and the
Hybrids at ages eleven and seventeen."

Momentarily, his mouth became a thin, straight line. "In spite
of the fact that the Executioners would only be doing their duty,"
he went on, "and in the gentlest way possible. For we kill these
failed children of ours as painlessly, and without their realizing
what is happening, as we can. Because we love them, Bart. In
spite of this, as I say, she realized she'd never be able to allow

such a thing to happen to a child of hers."

He looked suddenly and harshly at Bart.

"Before giving up her child, Marta would see the whole Inner
World destroyed; or leave it, and me, to take her child with her
into the upper world. Of course, if she had so left, we'd have had
to send Executioners out after them both. For al-Kebir's writing is
uncompromising on that subject: '... any who shall not qualify,
or any who aid them to qualify when they are actually unable, must

die.' "

He paused again, still looking at Bart.

"And she knew," he went on, "that, since I was already one of
the Three Who Command when we married--we'd married later
in life than most--honor would not let me either leave that post to
go with her, or refuse to concur in the orders to send the

	THE EARTH LORDS
	257


Executioners after them. I would have been one of those who killed
our own child--and her. For, find her, they almost certainly
would. Kill her and the child eventually, they possibly would: for
we'd keep sending them out until some of them succeeded. But
there's no one like Marta; and she just might have been able to get
away safely with our child. Still, it was for the pain she knew it
could end in giving me, as well as the pain it would give us both, if
we ever realized a child of ours could not pass the tests, that made

her decide to never have children."

He sighed.

"And so," prompted Bart again after a long pause, "you've

been childless all your lives."

Pier smiled gently at him.

"Not childless," he said. "We ended by having your father as a
surrogate son; and now you and Emma, as grandson and granddaughter.
Also, we've had Michel and others back to and before
your father--though none of them were ever so close to us as
Vincent was. When he made his decision and went up to the
surface, he left us desolate."

Bart tried to imagine his father, who had always seemed to him
so old and wise, as a young man named Vincent seated at the feet of
the smaller and much older figure before him. But his mind found
the image hard to form until he remembered his father's love of
learning; and the picture became conceivable, but just barely so.

"You see, we had a disagreement, your father and I," said Pier
slowly. "A long-standing argument. I believe that the duty of all of
us is to work for the Liberal point of view here, in the Inner World.
He believed that the Textualists of the gucceeding generations
would never be converted. That they would die rather than change
their beliefs .... "

Pier shook his head.

"Over the years, many other Liberals have tried as well, to bring
me to your father's view; including Michel, here." He smiled for a
second on Michel, who answered with his sudden flash of his own
white, even teeth. "But I found none of them could really change
my mind. To this day I can't believe that there isn't an innate
common sense in everne; and the problem is only that of reaching
through to it. I couldn't believe anything else, if I wanted to."

"The belief does you credit, Uncle," said Michel, "but
generation after generation we've had people like the Emperor to
deal with."

"We also have those who, while calling themselves Liberal,"

	258
	Gordon R. Dickson


said Pier, "are as.ready to find their solutions in destructive ways as
any Textualist. Over the years I've defused more than one plan to
wreck our Inner World in the name of saving the surface one. As if
two wrongs would make a right! In fact, I think I still have around
here one elaborate explosive device that its builders could hardly
wait to use; until I talked them out of that--and it. But aren't we
getting away from this business of the appointment you and Bart
have with the Emperor tomorrow? What you said sounded ominous,
Michel. I hope you haven't got Bart into any trouble."

"Not him," said Michel, "he's my half-brother after all, and
after being without a family all my life, I'm not going to lose the
one I've found. Actually, it's the Emperor who's in trouble."

"Michel, Michel!" said Pier. "What sort of wild thing are you
planning?"

"Lord--," began Michel, only to be interrupted by Pier.

"Lord?" The old man's eyes were sharp once more on him.
"What happened to 'Uncle'?"

"What I've got to tell you will, I'm afraid, carry us into areas
where your official responsibilities lie."

"Oh, Michel!" said Marta unexpectedly. "No!"

"I'm sorry, Aunt," said Michel, looking at her apologetically.
"But it has to be."

He turned back to face Pier.

"Lord," he said, "as you know I've always been of the opinion
of my father--and Bart's. You've known for some time I wanted to
leave the Inner World for the surface, but the Emperor was hardly
likely to send me up on mission. He'd like nothing better than my
escaping to the surface, if that were possible, so then he could send
the Executioners after me. But simply to turn me loose up there
might be more dangerous to his plans than keeping me here where
he can watch what I'm up to."

"I know all this," said Pier. "And you know how I'd feel about
losing you. No one has the influence with the Hybrids that you
have. I'd hoped to have your help in bringing our whole Inner
World to the point of view I've always worked for. I take it you've
concocted some scheme to he sent above? How does it involve
Bart?"

"Bart wants to go back to the surface, along with Emma and that
brother of hers, who's also a slave down here. I was planning to
take them with me when I go."

Pier stared at Bart. He was conscious, also, of Marta's gaze on
him, but refused to turn his eyes to her to acknowledge it.

THE EARTH LORDS
	259


"Is this what you really want?" Pier asked Bart. "Have you
thought of what it might be like for you down here as a Hybrid,
with Marta and I to assist you?"

"I'm sorry--" Bart had been about to follow Michel's lead and
address Pier formally as 'Lord,' but a sudden realization of the pain
this would give the old man made him stay with the newer form of
address. "--Grandfather, but the Book of al-Kebir isn't in me, as
it is in the rest of you. I have to go back; and I have to take Emma
back. She doesn't belong here."

There was a long pause, and then Pier breathed in deeply.
"You must do what you feel you should," he said unhappily. "I
can hardly have followed that rule all my life and deny it to--to
anyone else. But we had hoped, Marta and I, that we could even
bring you both into this household of ours, into jobs here that
permitted it; and then, when and if children were born to you, we

would have great-grandchildren, after all--"

He broke off.

"Forgive me," he said in a flat voice. "Age has made me weak
enough to whine. I'm ashamed of myself. Of course, if you wish to
go, and there's a means, I'll not only not stand in your way, but
help, if I can."

"The help we'll need is something beyond just getting away,"
said Michel, "but I'!i remind you you said that--after I've told you
what I plan to say to the Emperor tomorrow morning."

"Yes." Pier turned his attention to the black-clad Hybrid.
"What've you planned to say to the Emperor that'll make him let
you go?"

"Something, I'm afraid, that'll put you and me on opposite
sides of the table, Lord," said Michel, "much as I love you and
Marta. But I can't hold the Emperor guilty without, in fact, holding
all the Three Who Command guilty."

"Guilty?" Pier frowned, but as much in astonishment as affront.
"How can the Emperor or the Three be guilty of anything? The law
doesn't allow it."

"It's not law we'll be dealing with in this case," answered
Michel, "but custom, justice, and practicality. Above all, practicality,
for with all his other faults, the Emperor's a very practical
man."

"Michel," said Pier, "give me a straight answer. What is this
you're planning to confront the Emperor with, that strikes at all of
us Three, including myself?."

"You, Lord," said Michel, "are guiltless. But I know you.

Gordon R. Dickson


You'll act according to the dictates of your office; that's the only
reason you're included in this. In a word, I intend to confront the
Emperor with the fact that he had no right to make a slave out of

someone he knew to be a Hybrid, as he did with Bart."

"No right!" Pier's frown had become dangerous.

"No right under the unwritten agreement by which we Hybrids
labor all our lives for ends which are the Lords' alone," said
Michel. "He violated that unwritten agreement--the Three violated
that agreement--but it wa his will that made them do so; and

unless he makes amends, he'll have to face the consequences."
"What consequences?"

"My telling all the Hybrids what happened to Bart," answered
Michel, "and leaving it up to them to consider that if such a thing
could happen to someone like Bart, something like it could happen
to any one of them."

Pier let out the breath which evidently he had been holding all
this time. His face was angry now.

"Michel," he said. "You're threatening the Emperor--all of
us--with revolution. I warn you, think before you say any such
thing. You may believe you and your fellow Hybrids know the full
arsenal of our powers. Let me tell you, you don't. Threaten a
revolution, try a revolution, even if the slaves would join you in it,
and we could still destroy you all."

"You could--if all the other Lords were really ready to join you
in killing their Hybrid sons and daughters. But then?" said Michel.
"Then, who'd you use to get done the ,rk that sti|l has to be

done, here in the Inner World?"

Pier sat, saying nothing.

"The Emperor," went on Michel, before that pause could
become painful, "is, as I say, a very practical man. I think he'll
the wisdom of letting the four of us--myself, Bart, Emma and her
brother--go free into the upper world rather than have me say
anything to my cousins. Of course, the moment we're gone, he may
find some pretext to send the Executioners after us all, or even
simply do that secretly without pretext. But we'll take our chances
with whoever comes for us, if anyone does."

There was a long silence in the room. Finally, Pier spoke.
"You're right, Michel," he said. "This does indeed put us on
the opposite sides of the table--not only from you but from Bart
and ]mma, here. But as 1 couldn't in honor stand in your father's
way when he wished to go above, I can't stand in yours. You'll have
to do what you've dcided to do; and if called upon by the other

	THE EARTH LORDS
	261


T I may have to vote in any measures that are planned against you
as a result of that."

He dropped his head against the back of his chair for a second
and closed his eyes; then opened them and sat up, putting his arms
on the arms of the chair.

"And now," he said, "I think that's enough for this one night.
Marta and I will excuse you now, so we can get our rest."

"One moment more, please, Lord," said Michel. "That explosive
device you said you still had around the home, here, and which
I've heard you mention having before. Would you give it to us and
explain how it was to be used? You see, all of us feel we have to at
least give the world some breathing space in which people like
yourself down here, and we, above ground, can try to bring the
Textualists to their senses, or else warn the surface peoples about

the disaster that'il otherwise face them, eventually."

"No," said Pier.

"But Lord--," Michel began.

"I was against its use in the first place. I'm against it still," said
Pier. "My duty is to protect our community, not destroy it."

"I doubt we could actually destroy the Tectonal, with whatever
you've got," said Michel. "Aren't I correct.'? But to damage it
enough to put it out of order for a few months, say by breaking the
main shaft and causing it to jam in the drill-hole so that it'd have to
be fished out and replaced--that'd give time for the currents
already gathered by it in the magma below to disperse, and more
time |k)r them to be gathered back up again by a reworking
Tectonal. We could gain ten or twenty years, perhaps even thirty;
and in that time you and those who came after you could marshal
the Lords who are against destroying the surface world and enlist
them with the Hybrids in a position to put an end to al-Kebir's
ridiculous dream of revenge. Knowing that we're up there and the
secret of the Inner World can't be kept much longer, you could lead
the way for everyone down here to finally rejoin the real world
above."

"No," said Pier.

"Isn't that what you want? What you've always preached should
be our goal--reunion with the rest of the human race? I know you
don't believe that nonsense in the Book about the Lords being a
separate race from somewhere beyond the moon."

"No, 1 don't. Nor, I think does any intelligent mind, even those
who pretend to believe," said Pier. "But you remind me of some of
the Textualists at the time I gave in to the public pressure to advance

262 Gordon R. Dickson

myself as a candidate for Librarian, one of the Three. I was asked in
open debate by one of those Textualists how I'd be able to reconcile
my taking of the oath I'd have to take as Librarian with my views as
I had announced them for years about the intentions of aI-Kebir.
How, in short, could I defend the precepts of the Kitaab when my
own principles disagreed with it?"

"And how can you?" Michel's voice held a tone of unusual
interest. He stared at the old man.

"I told my questioner," said Pier, "that there was not just one
Book ofal-Kebir, there were as many different books as there were
different people who'd read it. For the experience of life and all our
teachings combine in each of us to make our own personal
Book--that bundle of beliefs by which , live; and the Book that
was al-Kebir's in each case had to conform to the individual Book
inside each reader if it was to be accepted by that reader. I did not
doubt that the Book ofal-Kebir in him would make it hard, if not
impossible, for him to reconcile what he believed he read with what
he believed I believed. But in me, there was no conflict between my
own and al-Kebir's Book that would prevent me from doing my
duty if I was elected."

"Ah," said Michel softly, "somewhere I must have heard those
words repeated... '"

He stopped, and Pier looked steadily into his eyes.

"And that," the old man said, "is why I will not give you the
means to destroy the Tectonal, even though my heart might be with
you in many ways. I am one of the Three and must defend the
Tectonal on my honor against the kind of destruction you'd bring
on it. AI-Kebir may have been half or more a madman, with his
desire to destroy the world; but the end result of what he started has
been the development here of the finest scientific work place in the
world, and the people to use it. No, I will not give you the means to
damage what we have worked for generations to build."

He got to his feet. Marta rose also; and Bart, along with Emma
and Michel, found himself also rising.

"We will say goodnight," said Pier formally--then the formality
crumbled. He looked almost beseechingly at Bart. "You and
Emma will come by at least one last time before you leave, if
leaving is what you end up doing? Can we count on seeing you that
one last time?"

"You'll see us," said Bart. "As far as I know, my father never
broke a promise and I never have either. I promise you. We'll see
you before we go."

chapter
twenty-three


THE OFFICE IN which the Emperor received Michel and Bart--
Emma had come with them but had been separated from them just
inside the main entrance and been taken to some separate waiting
room from which she had not been called in with them--was
large and businesslike. It was also almost devoid of furniture. A
thick brown rug was underfoot. The walls and ceiling were
panelled wood that was pierced by several massive, closed doors,
and Bart realized that he had gotten used to walls hung with
tapestries. The desk behind which the most important of the Three
Who Command sat was large. It held only an inkwell, a pen, and a
single piece of heavy, gray-toned paper, which had been pushed
to one side.

Aside from the desk and its chair, the room contained only a
handful of padded armchairs built to the physical dimensions of
the Lordly race. Clearly visitors of any other rank were expected
to stand. Michel led the way to just before the desk and bowed.
Bart made himself do likewise, although he was aware that his
dislike for doing so made it an awkward gesture on his part.

In any case, the Emperor paid no attention to him, concentrating
his gaze instead on Michel.

"Well, Nephew," he said in French, "it seems you've been up

to something a little worse than your ordinary tricks?"
"Worse, Majesty?" said Michel innocently.

"Come now," said the Emperor, gesturing at the paper on his
desk, "it seems you used illegal means to commit the further
illegality of introducing a slave to the room of the Tectonal,
without authority. What've you got to say?"

"Why, I hardly know what to say, Majesty," answered Michel.
"I don't want to accuse whoever reported this to you of being in
error, but I did no such thing."

The Emperor's thin, arching black eyebrows went up in
sardonic disbelief.

"You deny this?" he said.

Cordon R. Dickson

"Why yes," answered Michel. "When was it supposed to have
happened, Majesty?"

"Yesterday, as you know very well," said the Emperor. He
smiled, and it was a pleasant, if brief, smile; but Bart did not like
it, on the handsome, narrow face before him. "Come now,
Michel, I hardly thought even you would try to get out of this with
a direct lie."

"I assure Your Majesty I would never lie to him," said Michel,
"any more than I would ever take a slave into the Tectonai room,
unless duly authorized and ordered to do so. In fact, l can't
imagine why I would want to do such a thing. I was, indeed, in the
Tectonal room yesterday; but only briefly, to give my half-brother
and fellow Hybrid, here, Bart Saberut, a glimpse of the Tectonal.
Since he grew up on the surface, he'd never had a chance to see
such a thing. He was filled with wonder at the sight of it,
Majesty."

The Emperor still ignored Bart.

"Now," he said, "what sort of a story is thisT"

"Oh, it's the absolute truth, Majesty," said Michel. "A
number of Hybrids saw us there, including Yna Sicorro--"

"This report is from Yna Sicorro," said the Emperor, again
indicating the paper on his desk, "fully admitting her own fault in
letting herself be tricked by you into giving you a copy of your

badge, so that the slave could get by the guard."

"What slave, Your Majesty?"

The Emperor stared at him for a long moment, then got to his
feet behind his desk.

"Stay[" he commanded. He went out one of the interior doors,
closing it firmly behind him.

They waited. Bart had time to worry about Emma. How was
she taking all this waiting, he wondered? As he had expected, last
night after they had left the Guettrigs', ushered out separately
from Michel so that they had had no further chance to talk with
Bart's half-brother, Emma had asked him about the Tectonal.

So, he had finally told her. As he had suspected, she had been
firm about doing something to stop it. But curiously she had not
seemed as concerned as he, himself, about how they could do
this, now that Pier had refused to help them.

"The thing is," he had felt he must tell her, "I don't see how
we can do anything, now that Pier's set himself against helping us
in any way--"

THE EARTH LORDS 265


"Don't worry." Unexpectedly she had patted his arm. "We've
got some time yet.'"

Her calmness had puzzled him; but he knew her too well to
press her for an answer she was not ready to give. Sooner or later,
she would tell him whatever was behind her surprising reaction to
something he had known she would feel very strongly about.
When she was ready she would tell him.

The Emperor came back in, found another piece of paper
magically from below the top of his desk and wrote on it scratchily
for a moment, then passed it to Michel. "The date and time are in
the upper right hand corner," he said.

Frankly leaning over to read what his half-brother had been
given, Bart saw:

"We give our imperial word that all recorders have been turned
off and all conversation from this moment in this room are held in
complete privacy."

It was signed "Zoltaan--EMPEROR."

Michel folded the paper and put it slowly into a pocket of his suit.
"Thank you, Majesty," he said.

"Your thanks are beside the point," said the Emperor. "Now,
can we get down to what's actually going on, with no more
nonsensical answers from you? If you're not here to plead your side
of the incident, yesterday, why are you here at all?"

"I'd like Your Majesty's kind orders to send me on mission to
the surface, taking along my half-brother, and the slaves Emma and
Arthur Robeson."

The Emperor nodded slowly, tilting back in his chair which, to
Bart's surprise, obediently changed the angle of its back and arms
from the vertical to accommodate him.

"You know, Saberut," he said, "every so often I think about
sending you up to the surface instead of keeping you here; up to
where you'd be out of sight and hopefully out of the minds of the
less reliable of your cousins. 1 weigh the trouble you can cause me
down here with the trouble you might be able to cause me, out of
my sight up above, among your cousins there; possibly setting up
some procedure for strangling our line of supply from the surface.
Each time the answer comes up that I'm safer with you down here
where I can watch you. You're aware of all this, no doubt?"

"Why, yes, since Your Majesty asks me," answered Michel
mildly. "I'd concluded as much."

"So you're also aware that I'm not likely to send you up on

	266
	Gordon R. Dickson


mission under any circumstances. Yet here you show up, not only
with a request for mission, but to be allowed to take along someone
who presumably knows other ordinary humans up there who'll
believe what he's seen, who has deliberately been given a view of
the Tectonal itself. The question arises--why? What makes you
think that I'd be likely, particularly in view of what you did
yesterday, to suddenly let you have what I long ago decided you'd
never have?"

"I'm not surprised Your Majesty's mind finds this question
bothersome," said Michel.

"Good," said the Emperor. "Then you'll put it at ease by
answering it for me, won't you?"

I'll be happy to, Majesty," said Michel. "I make this request
of you now because it's just occurred to me that you might prefer
me up on the surface rather than talking further to my cousins down
here--particularly about the case of a Hybrid who, against all
custom, was put to duty as a slave instead of being given the rank
and position his inheritance entitled him to."

"Entitled!" exploded the Emperor, suddenly sitting straight up
in his obedient chair. But then he caught himself and leaned back
again, speaking in the same easy voice he had been speaking in a
moment before. "You certainly must understand, Saberut, there
can be only one judge of what anyone in the Inner World is entitled
to; and that's the single concerted decision of the Three Who
Command--whom I lead and direct."

"Of course, Majesty," said Michel, "just as there can be only
one judge of the fear that ifa Hybrid has been made into a slave, the
same thing might happen to any of them . . . for any reason, or by
the decision you spoke of; and the judge of that fear is the concerted
opinion of those who do the great majority of skilled and
professional work here in the Inner World. We Hybrids, ourselves.
' '

The silence in the offic after Michel finished speaking was so
complete it seemed to press down on Bart with a weight of its own.
For what seemed several actual minutes, the Emperor neither
moved, nor changed expression. Finally, he spoke.

"So," he said quietly, "there we have it at last. You'd blackmail
me into letting you go?"

"It was Your Majesty, not I," said Michel, equally quietly,
"who used the word 'blackmail.' "

"Don't split hairs with me, Saberut," said the Emperor, still in
his own quiet voice. "We both know what it is."

HE 4RTH LORDS
	267


He sat up in his chair and got to his feet. It was remarkable, Bart
thought. The ruler of the Inner World was a full head shorter than
either Michel or himself; but for all that, in this moment with his
wide shoulders, his slender-faced, bony good looks and burning
dark eyes, he seemed to loom as large as either of them. He turned
half away from them and, putting his hands together behind his
back, began to pace back and forth across the width of the room
behind his desk. It was a few seconds before Bart realized that as he
walked he was talking to himself, in the same French in which they
had been holding their conversation, his voice gradually rising until
it became understandable to both his listeners.

"... a damnable thing!" he was saying, and at that point to
Bart's astonishment he began to swear. Bart had not consciously
taken note of it until now, but he suddenly realized he had never
before heard any of the Lordly class use any religious, profane or
obscene word. He realized now that unconsciously he had assumed
that with the Book of aI-Kebir as their bible, they were neither
Muslims nor Christians, in spite of aI-Kebir's original conversion
to the Muslim faith, which, as he remembered from the KITAAB,
had been made solely for reasons of personal advantage. It occurred
to him now--though it was unimportant at this moment--that
others of those who were later to form the Lordly class could have
been nominal Christians for the same reason.

He had assumed, in fact, that the Lords and Ladies had, for
practical purposes, no religion at all; and somehow associated their
lack of expletives with that assumption.

But the Emperor was swearing now, in a rising voice, in a
language that gave him scope for highly imaginative profanities and
obscenities. It came to Bart abruptly that what he was swearing at,
while it was primarily Michel, Bart and everything connected with
them, was actually at the Inner and surface ,rlds as a whole, and
anything else that might threaten to frustrate him.

Abruptly he ceased swearing, ceased pacing, and swung about
behind his desk to stand facing them; and all at once he was talking
directly to them.

"Saberut!" he almost shouted at Michel. "You were the
brightest light among your generation of Hybrids, just as no other
Lord could touch me for intelligence. You should have been at my
side, all along, making yourself useful. Instead, you've fought me
every inch of the way, every inch of the way! With all you had, you
were a fool like the rest of them. Stupid! Stupid! These things
called humans are no more than animals! You, and our kindly old

	268
	Gordon R. Dickson


Guettrig, weeping oceans of tears over the fate of a tribe that's
spent its history in murder and in despoiling the world that was
given them!"

He gave Michel no chance to answer, and obviously wanted
none.

"Murder, wars and dirt--and still, the Liberals cry over them,
generation after generation, and pardon them all their crimes and
foulnesses. Yes, I know what you think of aI-Kebir's claim that
we're from a superior place from off this planet--and I don't
believe it any more than you do. Tell it in public that I said that and
I'll deny it. But I know, and al-Kebir knew, damn well he knew,

some such story was needed to hang his plans on.'"

He gasped, a long, indrawn breath.

"But the plans were necessary, the plans were good. Can't you
see that, you soft-minded fool? With that story the o',hers like him
swallowed his practical teachings--stay apart, take advantage,
accumulate wealth . . . and above all lea, learn more and faster
than the ordinary human animals and let only the elite live! That
was what he sold them, to one great end--that in the end there
would be only the elite, on a world they'd built themselves."

He did pause now, as if waiting for an answer, glaring at Michel
and Bart both, now. But Michel clearly had the sense to stay silent,
and Bart saw no reason to speak.

"What have they done, from the beginning, but kill and maim
each other? Steal from each other, torture and enslave each other,
inhumanely--treat each other like the lower animals around them,
that they also killed, tortured and maimed? They crowded together
in cities and bred filth and disease. They sowed plagues and the
greatest names in their histories were the greatest excuse for
slaughter of their fellow man. In all the years since aI-Kebir began
what's now the Inner World, have we ever had wars among
ourselves? Have we prized stupidity, or sickness, or let disease run
unchecked among us? Never! And meanwhile they've been up there
on the surface, killing each other by the millions, turning the rivers
into sewers, clearing the natural growth from the face of the
world--the trees, the grasses, the animals--even poisoning the sea
itself."

"And while all this has been going on, what have we been
doing? Learning! Studying! Finding out how to control even the
massive center of this world--as we'll learn to control the
hurricanes and droughts and floods they aren't able to do anything
about but die under! And with all this, there are those like you

THE EARTH LORDS 269

who'd save them by destroying us!"

He stopped. His stare was all on Michel once more, and the glass
went out of it.

"Now, Saberut," he said, calm again, "you've heard more from
me about me than any other living soul has. Well? No protests? No
argument?"

"No, Majesty," said Michel, in a completely expressionless
voice. "The Book that is in you is the Book that is in you."

"I didn't think you would have," said the Emperor contemptuously,
ignoring Michel's later words. "Let me tell you one thing
more, then, to carry off with you. I always knew what I was and
what I could do. Long before I was elected Emperor, in fact when I
was a child, I made up my mind that whatever it should turn out to
be, I'd give my life to doing the greatest thing there was to be done.
And 1 found that greatest thing. It was to deliver this world into the
hands of those who could put it to the best use. That I will do; and
here in the Inner World, or up on the surface, neither you nor
anyone else is going to get in my way!"

He stopped talking, went back to sit once more at his desk,

producing another piece of paper on which he wrote.
"Names of the slaves?" he asked, still writing.
"Emma and Arthur Robeson," answered Michel.

"You've left out one." The Emperor raised his head and looked
directly at Bart. "This one?"

"Bartholomew Saberut," answered Michel.

The Emperor's pen hesitated for a moment, and he wrote again.
"Very well, let it be Saberut," he said.
"A Hybrid."

"Yes, and we'll call him a Hybrid, too, if that's what you want,"
said the Emperor.

He wrote again and stopped. He handed the paper across to
Michel.

"You'll have to make some preparations, I suppose," he said.
"But I want you gone as soon as possible." He looked at the
timepiece on his wrist.

"It's not yet seven hundred hours. At nine hundred, be in
storeroom seven of warehouse twenty-nine. I've noted on that
paper, there, that your orders are verbal; and our people above are
commanded to accommodate you according to what you tell them.
So you can draw on our oces for funds or go to hell in your own
way."

"Thank u, Majesty," said Michel.

Gordon R. Dickson


"Get out!" said the Emperor.

Bart, coached ahead of time by Michel, backed away beside his
half-brother until they reached the door; then, hearing it open
behind them, they backed on through it and watched it close
between themselves and the man behind the desk.

"Now," said Michel, jerking his head to indicate the way out,
"we get out, as he said."

But before they went, they had to ask that Emma be produced;
and there was a small delay during which it seemed that she could
not be found. Then it was discovered that she had been sent off by
the Emperor the moment he had been told she was there.

"I hope she went to the Guettrigs'," said Bart, concerned; and
they headed for Pier and Marta's home themselves.

But it turned out when they got there that, not only had Emma
sensibly come here rather than reporting for her usual work or some
other unpredictible destination; but she was in fact having breakfast
with Pier and Marta, again an unheard-of thing. As usual, Pier was
setting his own rules in his own household. Since neither Michd
nor Bart had eaten, they were invited to join the breakfast
party--an invitation Bart hungrily accepted but Michel declined.

"We've only got a little over two hours before we're due in that
storehouse the Emperor directed us to," he said. "I've got to go
get some things from my quarters to take with me--it vn't take
long. I ought to be back in half to three-quarters of an hour. It's
safe enough for me, in any case, here in the Inner World; but
Emma's a slave, and Bart's still technically one. I'd appreciate it,
Uncle, if you'd keep them under your roof until I get back. The
Emperor's in no good temper and what he might do to them is
anyone's guess. Particularly if he could catch them wandering
around loose."

"True," said Pier, stroking his small beard. "His father, Ymro
Radetsky, was a brilliant man but had a very unstable temper; and
the boy inherited not only the strength, but the weakness. I'll watch
over them."

"Thank you, Uncle," said Michel. Bart, at Marta's urging, sat
down at the table on the hassock that had just been brought for him.

"Oh, by the way, Emma, where's your brother?"

"He's here," answered Emma.

She offered no further explanation; but a faint, transitory frown
on Pier's face was enough to tell Bart that while Emma and Bart
might be welcome at his table, that welcome did not include just
any slave, Emma's brother or not. Bart wondered fleetingly if

	THE EARTH LORDS
	271

Arthur had already begun exhibiting his usual lack of charms.

"Then, I'll be back shortly and 'll leave as soon as I get
here," said Michel. He went off.

Left behind, Bart, between mouthfuls of breakfast, gave Pier and
Marta a more detailed account of how the conference with the
Emperor had gone; since Michel had only told the older two that
permission had been granted for all of them to go to the surface.
Breakfast over, Marta took Emma off with her for some last-minute
addition to the luggage they would be carrying; and for the few
minutes that were left Bart was left alone in the sitting room
adjoining the breakfast parlor, with Pier.

"Sit down with me, my boy," said Pier, taking a chair. Bart
pulled up a hassock and seated himself. Pier's face was concerned
--almost embarrassed in its mingled look of affection and worry.

"Bart," he said with an effort, "there's something I'd like to say
to you. There's been such a short time to know you, and
particularly Emma; but our hopes were raised rather unusually
high, after all these years, and . . . vll, what I mean to say is,
neither Marta nor I want to lose touch. You will indeed be
marrying, once you get up there and off by yourselves, I understand?"

"You
can count on it, Grandfather," said Bart almost grimly.
The grimness was real enough. He had been telling himself for
some time now that he had given in to Emma's wishes all his life;
but if they ever got out of this glorified hole in the ground, there
was going to be no more nonsense about her responsibility toward
her brother standing in their way. It was ridiculous, the best part of
their lives slipping away from them ....

He was abruptly so caught up in his own emotion that he missed
something Pier was saying, and it was something the o, J man had
been trying to tell him in strongly emotional fashion.

"... if you would stay in touch," Pier was saying. "You see,
v're reconciled to never seeing you again; but it'll mean a great
deal to us to know when you're finally safe and settled; and
particularly about any children, when you have them, and their
names and so forth..."

Bart would have assured him immediately that they would keep
in touch, somehow, but Pier was going on talking, giving him no
time to break in.

"At your age, it may seem like a foolish, old-people's whim,"
he was saying, "but even though we'll never see them, either, it
would mean a great deal to us to hear about them. I mean, not only

272 Gordon R. Dickson

their names and the dates of their birth, but how they do as they
8row up . . . and so on."

"Grandfather," said Bart, finally getting a word in, "I promise
you, somehow v'll find a way--"

"Now, that's what I was going to talk about," said Pier, "the
means you could use to contact us. What you must do is write us
letters, and keep in touch with Michel. Pass them on to him. I
promise you, he'll find some way of passing them to Hybrids he
knows up on the surface, and they can pass them on from hand to
hand, or otherwise see that they're carried back down here and
delivered to us. Whoever handles them will just make sure that he
does so with a letter from some other Hybrid above who writes that
he found the letter in the possession of someone who had been
killed--"

"Killed--" began Bart.

"--The letter will merely say that, only so that any Hybrid
found carrying it by someone who shouldn't see it, would have no
way of tracing it back to you. What I mean to tell you is, merely
write the letters and entrust them to Michel. No one but the
Emperor or the Regent would dare open a letter addressed to me
personally, in any case. Most people handling it will assume it's a
perfectly correct sort of message for them to carry."

"I see. Of course," said Bart, "we'll write regularly; and if it's
possible for you to write us back--"

"Oh, we will if at all possible," said Pier. He coughed. "You
won't mind, of course, if the letters seem to be in a number of
different hands, and unsigned? You'll know by what they say, who
they come from."

"Of course," said Bart. He was still trying to think of something
more to say that would reassure Pier that such a correspondence
would be certain, when the door to the sitting room opened behind
him without any of the customary preliminary scratching, and
Michel strode in, carrying something that looked like a leather
suitcase, but with twin straps attached to one side, so that it could
possibly be carried like a shoulder pack.

"That's going to rub your shoulders raw in the first mile," said
Bart critically, looking at the burden, which Michel was carrying at
the moment by a handle in the same position as that on the ordinary
suitcase.

"We won't have to walk a mile, or even half a mile," said
Michel, putting the suitcase down and opening it, "to get to
storeroom seven of warehouse twenty-nine. I've brought some

	THE EARTH LORDS
	273


rough clothes of mine for Emma's brother. They'll do until we can
find him a regular outdoor outfit. What you're wearing, Bart, ought
to do well enough until we run into our first help station. Uncle,
ould you order Emma's brother brought in here?"

Arthur was duly brought in and outfitted in what seemed a
tweedy, knee-breeches and boots outfit like some of the easterner
hunting costumes Bart had seen orn on rare occasions by visitors
to the frontier, down in Montana.

As soon as Arthur was dressed--so immediately in fact that they
could have been suspected of waiting outside the door until he was
decently clothed--Marta and Emma appeared. Emma was dressed
in a heavy tartan wool skirt, and a thick gray sweater under a leather
jacket, clothes of which Bart heartily approved. What he did not
approve of was that she and Marta were between them lugging two
suitcases which seemed more heavy than light.

"Emma--," he began; but she cut his protest short.

"Bart," said Emma, "you take the one Marta's been carrying. I
can manage this one alone. Now, don't argue. It's not going to be
as easy for me to find things to wear---especially personal
things--out there, as it ould be for you, Arthur and Michel; and
from what I gather, I'm not likely to have the time to sit down and
make them, even if the makings were available."

"In any case," said Michel, "we've no time to argue. Not only
is the time short, but I don't trust the Emperor. He could change his
mind at any minute, and we don't want to give him the chance to set
up any barriers in our way. Add to that the fact that we're best offif
we get where we're headed before most of the day's foot traffic is
up in the corridors."

In fact, Michel hurried them out of the Guettrigs' quarters faster
than any of them, particularly Pier and Marta, were ready to see
them leave. But Bart had to admit to himself that his half-brother
was correct as far as the need not to waste time.

The suitcase Emma had given him to carry--though the larger of
the two by a good margin--was a little heavier than he would have
expected of one filled with women's clothes, but it was no real
burden to carry the short distance Michel had insisted was all they
needed to cover. In fact, after a half a hundred steps his conscience
began to bother him, and he offered to take the one Emma was
carrying, as well.

"Certainly not!" she said. "This has all my personal and
precious things. I wouldn't trust you with it. Besides, it's a lot
lighter than it looks--not like yours."

The route they followed took them by corridors that became
progressively more barren of ornamentation in the way of floor and
wall coverings and more empty of other human beings; until at last
they trudged down ways that held no one but themselves, wide
enough for seven or eight people to move abreast, but with plain
rock ceiling, floor and walls. They had also come up several levels
from the level of the normal day-to-day traffic areas of the Inner
World.

The sound of their footfalls was loud in the stillness on the hard
surface and their voices were instinctively hushed, so that they said
very little at all to each other. Even Arthur, who usually had too
much to say for the comfort of his companions, was uncharacteristically
silent.

Warehouse twenty-nine, Bart discovered, was not really a
warehouse in the above-ground sense at all, but merely a grouping
of storerooms. In spite of its relatively high number, it was no
farther than Michel had promised it to be. They came to it at last;
and to the door marked "STOREROOM SEVEN." It was a solid
door, closed by a solid, square brass lock inset in its wooden--
thick-looking, by the appearance of it--body below an ordinary
brass doorknob. Michel put down his suitcase, which he had
carried most of the way by the handle, after all, and took hold of
the knob. But when he tried to open the door, it did not budge.

"Locked," observed Bart. He examined the keyhole below the
knob. "And the Emperor didn't say anything to us about a key."

"Hmm." Michel looked at his watch. "We're a couple of
minutes early, and there could be remote, electric control of that
lock. Let's wait for the time he set for us."

They waited. At the end of a hundred and twenty seconds,
Michel tried the knob again. This time, it turned and the door
swung open before them--not without a small groan, as if such
movement was not frequent for it.

Light had gone on inside the room with the opening of the door.
But as Bart, the last to enter, stepped over the threshold, there was
another faint groan from behind him and they all turned to see the

door swinging shut. Bart immediately tried the knob.

"Locked again," he announced.

"I'm not surprised," said Michel. Arthur, however, had gone
quite pale; and his pallor was all too obvious in the stark glare from
the ceiling globes that shone over them.

"You mean we're trapped?" Arthur demanded.

No one bothered to answer him.

THE EARTH LORDS
	275


They looked about. The room was utterly bare. Walls, floor and
ceiling were all rock; the room, like the corridors outside, had
obviously been carved out--whether there had been a natural,
smaller cavity here to begin with, which had been later enlarged, or
whether every square inch of it had been excavated from the solid
stone, was impossible to tell.

"Now what?" said Michel, half to himself. "He can't mean to
lock us up in here and simply leave us to die of thirst or starvation.
He's too intelligent not to know we'd have to let other people know
we were going; and that one at least of them would be Pier, who'll
be doing some unobtrusive checking within the next tbrty-eight
hours to make sure we got off safely."

"Pier also knows which room we were sent to," said Bart. "I
suppose the Emperor would guess that he'd know that?"

"Yes. Of course!" Michel looked disgusted with himself.
"Come to think of it, Pier knows the ways out as well as the
Emperor. If there'd been anything unusual about us being sent to
this particular place, Pier would have said something at the time he
first heard that was where we'd been told to go. This must be all
right."

"It doesn't look all right to me," said Arthur.

"Hush, Arthur!" said Emma. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Oh, it's all right for you!" he said, rounding on her. "As long
as Bart thinks it's all right, it's all right for--"

"Arthur!" said Emma, the unusual tone of her voice cutting
across his and effectively silencing it, "I'd watch my tongue if I
were you!"

He stared at her, obviously stunned. It was clear he was not used
to hearing such words from her. He gave Bart a sudden quick
glance and did not try to speak again.

Bart, meanwhile, had been paying no attention. He was prowling
around the empty room, literally sniffing the air from time to time,
like an animal. The fact that he could smell the air and yet isolate
nothing to quell the tenseness inside him, did nothing to relieve him
of his uneasiness.

"What are you up to, Bart?" Michel asked finally. Clearly hisnerves
were also on edge.

"I'm not sure," said Bart.

There was nothing he could point to as evidence to confirm his
inner feeling. But he had trapped enough animals in the woods
himself so that their present situation reminded him uncomfortably
of a live trap, one designed to capture prey unhurt.

	276
	Gordon R. Dickson


"I haven't any real reason for this," he said finally, "but 1 can't
help feeling there've been other people through here in just the last
few minutes before we were let in. As I say, I've no proof; but it's
the kind of feeling I'd pay attention to if I was out in the vvxxxis
alone and got it."

"You must have some reason for thinking something like that,"
said Michel.

Bart shrugged, still prowling, more by instinct than anything
else.

"It could he the air in here has a smell my nose can't quite
identify, or something about the floor or ceiling lights. It could be
anything--"

He was interrupted by a grating sound. They all turned to its
source, the wall in the back of the room, opposite the door by
which they had entered. A section of the stone there, about three
feet wide and perhaps six inches thick, was dropping downward
into the floor to expose a corridor beyond, widening off to the right
and lit, but dimly, at long intervals, by the same sort of lighting
under which they stood at the moment. A breath of cold damp air
blew to them from the opening.

The descending slab disappeared completely into the floor. The
corridor beyond was no wider than the door itself. It stood waiting
for them.

chapter
twenty-four


"Will you step into my parlor?
Said the spider to the fly . . ."


quoted Emma, putting into words the uneasiness that now affected
all of them, whether springing from the same causes as Bart's or
brought about in them by his pacing and sniffing. None of them so
far had made any move toward the waiting tunnel.

"Nonsense!" burst out Michel in the same English in which
Emma had spoken the bit of children's verse--as the silence and
motionlessness which had followed it now began to stretch out
uncomfortably. "Our friend is capable of anything, of course. But
trying anything while we're still safely in the Inner World and
where people know we've gone makes no sense. Let's go!"

He led the way, shrugging his arms into the straps of his suitcase,
so that he now carried it for the first time like a knapsack, from his
shoulders. Bart and Emma followed him and Arthur hurried to get
ahead of his sister, whom Bart had let go ahead of him, so that the
male Robeson was now a good three places from being at the end of
the column.

They went into the tunnel.

As with the door to Storeroom Seven, the stone slab that had
descended into the floor to let them into the tunnel began closing
again, rising upward the moment Bart was through it, and it
continued up with a rumble of noise in the echoing tunnel until it
clashed at last into place against the ceiling behind them, and was
silent.

Now, there were only the loud echoes raised by their footsteps on
the stone floor beneath them as they made their way along the
tunnel. As they went, the reason for its meandering progress
became apparent. The rock through which it was driven was pierced
by fissures; and the tunnel had evidently been made by widening the
larger of these which went in the general direction at which it was
aimed.

Large cracks were visible in the side walls as they went along;
and where the tunnel had been made to follow one of these, the
crack ran down the center of the floor under foot, showing a
glimpse of darkness that promised to be bottomless, except in those
cases where a burbling and murmuring of water could be heard
from far below.

After some distance they came upon the first of a series of steps,
broad and low, carved out of the stone; and for some distance they
alternated between stretches of level tunnel and climbs of six to ten
feet.

The air in the tunnel was laden with moisture, presumably from
subterranean waters; it stood in beads on the raw stone wall, and
slowly began to work its moisture in through the warmth of their
clothing.

The tunnel was longer than any of them had expected; and Bart
became curious that Michel still wore his suitcase on his shoulders,
which must already be rubbed uncomfortably raw by the case. He
also noted that Michel was carrying both hands out of sight in front
of him; and, struck by a sudden suspicion, he pushed past beth
Arthur and Emma.

"Stay in line!" he whispered as he passed.

He caught up with Michel, and pushed past him. Now, as he
suspected, he could see that Michel's hidden hands were not
empty. One hdd a six-shot revolver, the other a heavy,
woodsman's belt knife with no less than an eight-inch blade.

Michel glanced at him. There was no need to do more than
exchange looks. Bart pressed himself against the tunnel's wet wall
and stood still until Arthur and Emma had passed him again.

"What is it?" asked Arthur, in hushed tones that nonetheless
echoed and reechoed along the tunnel.

"Nothing," said Bart out loud. He fell in behind Emma and
they continued.

The tunnel was longer than any of them had expected. It came at
last, however, to an open stretch which widened at the end to
accommodate a door very much like the one at the entrance to
Storeroom Seven. As they approached to within some two dozen
feet of the door, it swung silently open, outward; folding itself back
toward the wall upon which it was hinged, so that they looked out
on a ledge perhaps thirty feet in width, as best Bart could judge
from the section he could see through the open doorway.

The ledge seemed to be still underground, for despite the
morning hour, the space they saw beyond the lighted rock surface
was pitch dark. Beyond the ledge there seemed to be a river; it

THE EARTH LORDS 2


could be seen as a black sheen, moving a little, beyond the ledge. A
number of small rowboats and three Indian canoes were moored at
that edge, to the left, last one touching the vertical rock wall that
came down to mark the end of the ledge.

Bart's first assumption was that they were back at the river into
which he had fallen on entering the Inner World from the mine
tunnel. Though this was strange, considering that the Clinic, and
therefore the bridge and entrance he had never seen, were at the
opposite end of the Inner World from the warehouse sections. He
pushed past Arthur, Emma and even Michel, to stride hurriedly to
the water's edge.

One close look at it was enough. The current of this water was
nothing like the current of that into which he had fallen--not more
than a lazy two or three miles an hour in speed, though the water
itself, when he went down on one knee and dipped his fingers into
it, was as icy as the stream into which he remembered falling.

The current was flowing from his left to his right. He looked to
his left, at the small boats and canoes moored near the end of the
ledge.

"There's something wrong here," he said, his voice booming
strangely under the rock ceiling which here was at least fifteen to
twenty feet in height, arching out over the underground river,
"boats brought upstream normally tie up at the downstream end of
their moorage--"

A snapping sound and a shout from Michel brought Bart to his
feet and spinning around. Behind him, the door to the tunnel was
closing; and now revealed where they had been hidden by an
outcropping of rock and the opened door itself, were Chandt and
four Steeds--all dormitory Leaders, Paolo among them--each
with a blindfold now hanging loosely around his neck, each holding
one of the strangely lumpy-looking rifles Bart had first seen in the
hands of a sentry at one of the doors to the Tectonal room.

Chandt had just used the lash of a long whip to wind around
Michel's two wrists and jerk them together. The pain and the shock
had caused Michel to drop both knife and gun; and both weapons
were now skittering down the slight slope of the smooth rock to
plunge over the edge into the water and disappear.

But Michel had not been so stunned by the shock that he had not
recovered in time to grasp the lash above where it wound around his
wrist, and a jerk of his arms had pulled the whip-handle out of
Chandt's grasp. The Commander of the Steeds watched almost
philosophically as the whip-handle, clearly heavy and weighted to
serve as a weapon on its own, went skidding down the rocky incline

	280
	Gordon R. Dickson


to disappear also into the water.

Michel pulled the lash-end from his wrist and watched the weight
of the drowning handle yank the lash across the ledge and out of
sight in its turn into the dark stream.

"So," said Michel savagely, "our Emperor doesn't keep his
imperial word after all."

Chandt ignored the words. He was busy reaching into the wallet
that hung from the belt around the waist of his tunic. He produced a
rolled up sheet of heavy-looking paper, of the same gray color on
which the Emperor had written the pronouncements he had handed
to Michel, earlier this morning. Bart looked directly at Paolo, who
stood at the far end of the line from Chandt. Paolo avoided his eyes.

"You too?" said Bart. Paolo did not answer, but continued to
look away.

Chandt had his paper out now. He held it up before him and read
aloud from it in Latin as fluent as any Hybrid's, or any Lord's or
Lady Lord's.


"To our Commander of Steeds:

Three spies and members of a conspiracy under the renegade
former Lord, Vincent Saberut, who some years back fabricated a
false report of his own death while on the surface of the world,
have introduced themselves to the Inner World secretly as slaves.

These spies are Bartholomew Saberut, son of the renegade
former Lord named in the above paragraph, and two other
humans, Arthur and Emma Robeson; and these, having stolen
various important documents from the X Collection of the
Library, documents having to do in detail with the construction of
the Tectonal, are presently trying to escape with these back up to
the surface.

With them, and to be considered no more than an innocent
dupe of these spies unless proved otherwise, is our well-loved
nephew Michel Saberut. You are directed to apprehend and
return all four of these individuals to be dealt with according to
our justice. Such is the importance of the documents they have
stolen that, while every effort should be made to return the four
alive and in good health for judgment, you are authorized if
necessary, to put them to death; if that is the only way they can be
kept from going free onto the surface with what they carry.


(Signed)

Zoltaan, Emperor

THE EAR'I'H LORDS 281

Chandt reached into his waIlet, pulled out a thick wad of
papers, smiled at them and returned them to the wallet with the
letter.
"The fugitives," he said in a calm conversational tone of voice,
"clearly seem to be attempting to escape. Steeds, aim--"

The weapons, which had been held generally pointing in the
direction of Bart and the others, came up to the shoulders of the
men holding them, their muzzles aimed at the party by the water's

edge. All, that is, but one.

"Wait!" shouted Paolo.

He had stepped away from the line of his fellows and his own
weapon was up, but covering the other dormitory Leaders and
Chandt. "They're not trying to escape! What're you talking about,
Chandt? That letter sent us here to bring them back, not to shoot
them down like turkeys in a pen! Drop your slicers, every one of
you, or I'll cut you all in two!"

The other three Steeds stared at him for one long moment, then
let go of their weapons as if they were red hot.

"Now, kick them into the water!" said Paolo; and the three
obeyed.

Chandt had turned to look at Paolo. Chandt's face seemed
vaguely puzzled and concerned.

"Paolo," he said, "you're getting upset over nothing. Of course
we're not really going to shoot them. That's just the form of arrest I
have to go through..."

As he spoke, he was walking toward Paolo. Paolo's weapon
wavered for a second, and in that second, Chandt had spun about
on his left toe and lashed out with his right foot in a kick that he was
now just close enough to reach Paolo with. His toe drove into
Paolo's body, up under the ribs on Paolo's right side; and the force
of it lifted the dormitory Leader up on his toes. The weapon in his
hand whined suddenly like a lost kitten and a bright green fan of
light leaped momentarily from its muzzle, missing Chandt but
literally cutting down the three other dormitory Leaders as if the
light was something solid with a razor edge. But then the weapon
dropped from Paolo's hands, and he himself dropped to the rock
and lay still.
Chandt spun back and made a dive for the weapon Paolo had let
go, but it was already skittering across the smooth floor of bare rock
and as they all watched, it too slipped over the edge and
disappeared into the dark waters.

Chandt straightened up and turned to face Bart and the others.

	282
	Godon . Dickson


Michel began walking toward Chandt.

"Well now, Leader of Steeds and slave of an Emperor," said
Michel, "the odds are a little more even. Perhaps you'd care to try
to arrest just me, with your bare hands?"

"Michel! No!" cried Bart. "Look out! He's not just what you
think he

But Michel paid no attention to him. He was close to Chandt
now, his arms half held out before him as if inviting Chandt to
make the first move. Chandt was backing away, circling out from
the rock that had been at his side, until his back was now to the
group at the water's edge and Michel was between him and the
wall.

Realizing suddenly that Michel would never listen to him, Bart
began to sprint forward. But at the sound of a step behind him,
Chandt wasted no more time in backing up. Instead, with a
suddenness that took even the oncoming Bart by surprise, he met
Michel, on the other man's next stride toward him, in midair with
both heels lashing out in a lightning double kick at Michel's
chest.

Michel had just checked his balance after the step forward and
the powerful impact of Chandt's heels lifted him, for all his weight,
and smashed him back against the rock behind him.

His head slammed with a stomach-twisting crack against the
raw-cut rock and he slid down it to huddle without movement on
the floor.

At the same time, in what was almost a rebound from the
impact, Chandt had rolled over in midair and dropped back down
onto his feet, facing the oncoming Bart in a half crouch, one leg a
little forward of the other and his hands up at waist level and open,
waiting.

Bart stopped, checking himself so suddenly his leg muscles
creaked, but happily still a good two strides from Chandt.

For a long moment they simply stood, facing each other. Then
Chandt took a step forward--and Bart took one back.

Now it was Chandt who advanced and Bart who backed away,
circling on the ledge that had become far too narrow an open
space for Bart's liking. What Bart had suspected had been true.
Chandt was a master at what Bart and Michel's father had been
expert in--what he had called the "tricks" of hand-to-hand conflict.

"You
were sent to kill us, weren't you?" said Bart as they moved
about each other, two partners in a set dance.

EARTH LOR3S
	283


"I obey my Emperor," said Chandt.

"I'm right though, aren't I?" said Bart. "Everyone would
know that Michel had left on a mission to the upper world. You
were to kill us and get rid of our bodies. In time it would be forgotten
that we ever went, or were--except perhaps the other Hybrids
who'd known him would remember Michel from time to
time."

"You could almost have been a Mongol," said Chandt. He
smiled--and Bart found himself shocked when he saw it. "Who
was it taught youT"

"My father," said Bart, "by himself in the uppel" world when I
was growing up. The man you knew as Vincent Saberut."

"I remember," said Chandt. "I liked him. He came to me of his
own accord for teaching. Few Lords do that. The Lords and Ladies
must learn, but they're seldom eager to know, as he was."

They were still circling, Bart still backing away, Chandt advancing.
The pattern and the situation were plainly as clear to Chandt
as they were to Bart. At arm's reach, Chandt was by far the
superior, and deadly. If he could get at Bart with his arms or feet
while withholding his body, he would have the fight won. But if
Bart could get a grip on Chandt's body from some position where
the other's lethal skill could not be used, then Bart's superior
strength could make him the winner. Whoever lost would die--
because it would not be safe for either to leave the other alive; and if
Bart died, Emma and her brother would die within seconds after
Chandt reached them.

"He was a good pupil, your father," said Chandt. "One of the
best I ever had. But he was only a pupil--"

Suddenly, he was coming at Bart through the air, as he had come
at Michel.

Bart, balanced and ready, spun away from the lethal heels, which
flashed by his chest--and felt his neck barely caught a split second
later by the fingers of one hand on an outstretched arm.

For the moment, strength paid. Bart's neck and body muscles
were powerful enough that he was able to complete his spin, tearing
loose from a grip that would have held most men and been the
beginning of the end with Chandt as victor. Having spun, Bart
leaped backward again, while Chandt once more landed on his feet,
turned, and stood facing him.

"Ah!" said Chandt. It was the sort of audible, near sigh of
satisfaction a wine connoisseur might have made on first tasting a
superb vintage. He once more began stalking Bart and they circled

	284
	Gordon R. Dickson


each other at some ten feet of distance, in silence.

Behind Chandt, Michel stirred, raised his head, put his hand to
the back of it and stared at the moving forms of Bart and Chandt.

"Help me, Michel," said Bart, without taking his eyes off
Chandt. "But be careful. Very careful."

A lesser individual might have looked behind him on hearing
Bart's words. Chandt's gaze did not shift a millimeter from its
focus on Bart. But he smiled.

"Don't have to tell me that," muttered Michel, almost drunkenly,
pulling himself to his feet. "I knew what he taught, but I
thought I was strong enough--never mind."

Chandt and Bart were continuing to circle, so that Chandt was
coming around to where he could see not only Bart, but Michel
also.

"Don't get in line with me, Michel," Bart said. "Keep moving.
Try to keep behind him."

Chandt smiled again. Michel obeyed. He began to move around
behind Chandt, who to all appearances completely ignored his
presence. As he did so, the somewhat drunken look in his eyes,
which had matched the thickness of his voice when he first came to,
began to clear. He was squinting his eyes, though, and Bart
suspected that he had a headache--it was amazing that he could
move at all, after the blow he had taken.
Behind Chandt's back and out of sight of the Steed Leader,
Michel lifted his right hand and made a pushing movement forward
toward the corresponding side of Chandt's body, meanwhile lifting
his eyebrows questioningly.

Bart did not dare make any obvious acknowledgment with
Chandt's gaze sharp upon him; but after a few seconds, he lifted
his own right hand a few inches, the hand opposite the other side of
Chandt's body. He made the move as if unconsciously, all the time
keeping his gaze locked with that of the Leader of the Steeds.

He still focused on Chandt; but Michel was within his field of
vision and he waited for the other to make either another signal or
the actual move he had already signaled he was ready to make.

They had grown very close in just this short time of knowing
each other; and, even without specific evidence, Bart believed he
sensed things in Michel that other people probably no more than
suspected. First among these was the fact that, while to a casual
glance he and Michel were very much opposites--he, stolid,
taciturn and a loner, while Michel was vibrant, quick-tongued and
social to an extreme--Bart had come to feel that beneath Michel's

	THE EARTH LORDS
	285


exterior was the same sense of difference and loneliness that he
himself had always felt.

Now in this moment when everything depended on their working
together against Chandt, it seemed to Bart he could feel something
like a flow of energy back and forth between Michel and himself--
not exactly as if they could know what was in each other's minds,
but as if each could feel what the other was feeling, so that it was
almost as if they shared one body that was in two places.

He waited, therefore, for the feeling that Michel was about to
attack Chandt from the back, confident that he would know it was
coming a split-second before it came, even though Michel had in no
way signaled him. And he felt that Michel felt and understood this,
too. This circling could not go on much longer with any safety.
Chandt was the master, they were not. The longer the stalemate was
prolonged, the greater the chance that Chandt would spot some
moment of opportunity that would give him an advantage in
attacking either or both of them at once.

Then, Bart felt the impulse from Michel, and the other threw
himself at the side of Chandt's back that Was on Michel's right. In
the same moment, warned by the flow of feeling between them,
Bart leaped at the other side of Chandt from the front.

Chandt's reflexes were unbelievable. The second they were in
midair, his arms were both up before him and he was spinning
about in a movement that would have had them flying by harmlessly,
one on each side of him. But the double attack had been just a
fraction of a second too unexpected and quick for him to complete
the defensive maneuver. Michel missed him completely, but
Chandt's spin brought him into direct collision with Bart, who
grabbed him with both arms about the body and locked his hands
together behind the other man's back, setting his chin into the
hollow between Chandt's shoulder and neck.

Bart had been prepared to accept punishment from the free arms
of Chandt, once he had his hold; and he had been determined to
hold on, regardless. Nonetheless, the first blow of a fist from
Chandt between his shoulder blades felt as if the other had hit him
there with a heavy hammer. In spite of his determination, the
breath was almost driven from his body, and for a second he felt his
grip weaken--but then he tightened it once more.

A second blow bounced off the back of his head, but this time it
was no harder than the blow of a fist from any ordinary man, and a
third blow slid off his shoulder so lightly it was almost a tap.

He knew then that Michel had wisely managed to capture the

	286
	Gordon R. Dickson


arms and legs of Chandt with his own. Michel and he had achieved
what had been their only hop, gaining positions in which the
advantage of their own massive but relatively unskilled strengths
could be brought to bear on Chandt, in a situation where the Master
of the Steeds could not use his much greater skill against them.

Bart set his chin deeper in the hollow between Chandt's neck and
shoulder and strove to get the power of his shoulder muscles into
the grip of his arms. His fists were locked together against the
middle of Chandt's back. That back with its taut muscles was like
carved wood, but Bart knew if he could get the full leverage of his
arms against it, it would have to give.

• . . And slowly, it did give. He felt the lesser muscles of the
other man, rod-hard from long training as they were, beginning to
bend and give before the unrelenting pressure he was putting on
them, as Chandt's body was slowly being bent backward.

Bart reached back in his memory for something else his father
had taught him. Slowly, he closed his concentration down, shutting
out the rest of the world about him, more and more, until nothing
remained but the effort between him and Chandt. His arms
tightened. Chandt gave, bending backward until he arched at an
unnatural angle.

Bart's face was buried in Chandt's shoulder. Chandt's mouth
was only an inch or so from Bart's left ear. There was a moment in
which they stood together, hardly moving; and a faint breath,
barely strong enough to be called a whisper, sounded in Bart's ear.
"Done... well..."

Then something gave inside Chandt and he hung limply backward
in Bart's arms. Bart lowered him gently to the rock and stood
for a second looking down at him. Chandt had fallen on his side, as
if asleep. His eyes were closed, his face was like his face in sleep.

Suddenly, remembering, Bart turned to Paolo, three long steps
bringing him to the other man. He knelt beside the dormitory
Leader. Paolo lay on his side, but he still breathed, if raspingly and
shallowly. The whole lower right side of his chest was caved in and
the broken end of a white rib bone had pushed itself an inch through
the skin revealed by his torn tunic.

His eyes were open, but they focused on nothing--not even Bart,
who put his face down close to the other's. A quantity of blood had
run from his mouth and was still draining slowly in a trickle down
the slope of the ledge.

"Paolo," said Bart. Paolo paid no attention. Bart put his lips as
close to the other's ear as Chandt's had been to his.

THE EARTH LORDS
	287


"Paolo, man," said Bart softly. "Thank you. We owe you our
lives. Paolo, thank you."

For a moment Paolo's eyes cleared--or perhaps it was only
Ban's imagination. But it seemed to Bart that for a moment those
eyes focused on him. Paolo made a sound in his throat, as if he was
trying to speak, but it only came forth as a hoarse and bubbling
noise.

His eyes closed; and he stopped breathing.

Bart got to his feet, feeling very stiff and old, suddenly, as his
muscles reacted to the strains he had put them to. He was sore all
over. He turned to see Michel and the others grouped once more by

the water's edge and the moored boats, watching him.
Emma scooped up Chandt's wallet.
"This will come in useful," she said.

"We'd better go," said Bart. His voice sounded strange in his
own ears, and his skin seemed to he tingling with heightened
sensitivity to the air about him. "What about gear--was there any
here for us?"

"No," answered Michel. His voice was also altered and strange.
It was as if both he and Bart had in the last few minutes become
different men.

"We'll find some," Bart said, "somewhere downstream. We'll
find the outer world and supplies, maybe one or the other first--but

both, sooner or later."

He pointed.

"Take that biggest canoe. It'll hold us and everything we end up

carrying with us. Michel, do you know how to use a paddle?"
"Yes," said Michel.

"Then you get aboard first. Take the bow. Emma and Arthur,
you take the middle. I'll paddle at the rear and take care of the
steering."

"What do we sit on?" asked Arthur, hesitating at the edge of the
canoe, which Michel had already pulled in parallel to the ledge.
Wincing and stepping down into the very center of the frail-looking
vessel, Arthur got in. Emma followed with much less ceremony and
much better balance.

After they were all in, Bart cast off the mooring line and picked
up a paddle. In the prow of the craft, Michel also had a paddle. He
was obviously unskilled with it, but they added the impetus of their
paddling to the slow movement of the stream, which proved to
curve to the right, so that almost immediately the ledge, with its
grotesque pattern of still bodies, was left behind.

	288
	Gordon R. Dickson


After the lighting of the ledge it had seemed at first that they
were moving into utter darkness. But after a moment, to Bart's
surprise, there was a snapping noise from off to the right, and a
light mounted on the side of the tunnel came on. A brilliant swath
of light from some device perched there lit up the tunnel before
them.

The rock ceiling remained high. The air had a somewhat less
damp smell now than it had had back in the tunnel. If it were not for
the lights on the walls, Bart thought, it would have been possible to
believe that they were not moving at all, but paddling a canoe that
floated in place in an unvarying watery cavern. As they left the light
on the wall behind, however, a new one snapped on before them,
and that continued.

Eventually, the lights on the wall began to seem dimmer, and
they became aware of illumination up ahead that was overpowering
them. A little later, and it became clear that this new light was
daylight; and in a moment after that the curving bed of the
underground river turned them so that a speck of light at the left of
the tunnel ahead of them grew rapidly into a rough half-moon of
brilliance that was day.

A couple of minutes later the canoe glided out from under a moss
and pine-studded rock face into the quiet expanse of a dark blue
body of water perhaps half a mile across, with thick Canadian
forest about its shores. To their left, the shore's rocky face
descended to a shoreline only four feet above the water line, and a
few dozen yards beyond, it bulged out to hide further view of that
part of the lake, almost touching a small island that seemed so close
to the shore that at first glance it looked as if an active person could
have jumped from one to the other. Actually, the two were about
thirty feet apart, and the dark water filled the space between them.

"NOTHING IN SIGHT," said Michel up front, resting his paddle
across the bow of the canoe. "But there's got to be something,
otherwise they wouldn't have sent people this way. So we go
around the shoreline until we come to something. The only
question is--which way? Want to flip a coin to decideT"

"No. Wait a minute," said Bart. He had put his paddle in the
water and with a single strong stroke, started the canoe turning in
place upon the water, so that in the canoe they all faced back toward
the shore that had been behind them. Bart's eyes, more woods wise
than those of the others, scanned the shore. He began to paddle
toward the point where the shore was only a matter of a few feet
above the level of the lake.

"Let me take a look around ashore, first," he said.

The canoe reached the shore, and Bart grabbed the limb of an
overhanging spruce and pulled himself up onto the land. He had
brought the mooring rope with him and he tied the boat to the
spruce.

I'll be back in a couple of minutes," he said.

He walked into the woods. It was strange to feel the springy
yielding of earth, tree-needle carpeted earth, beneath him after all
these months of hard rock or soft carpet; and to smell the scents of
the Canadian northwoods forest. Plainly it was summer, here
among the mountains; and for the first time he found himself
wondering about the amount of time he had spent in the Inner
World. In the mine he had kept track in his head of the time that
had passed, as well as he could; but since awakening in the Inner
World he had been too busy--had too much occupying his
mind--to worry any longer about the time passing.

For the first time in a period too long to easily estimate now, he
not only felt freedom--he smelled and tasted it. For a moment the
thought even crossed his mind that all he had to do was keep going
and he could be free of everyone, including those he had left in the
canoe behind him.

	290
	Gordon R. Dickson


But the thought was no sooner born than the memory of Emma
blew it away like the white seeds of a dandelion in a young day's
first breeze. He began to work at what he had come up here to find
out, evidence of some sort of passage on foot through these woods.

He found sign, the faint fragment of a long-unused trail now
almost overgrown, the ashes and burnt wood-ends of an ancient
fire. He continued past the fire, and the trail led him to the shore
again--on the other side of the bulge of land that nearly touched
the small island and had hidden the further shoreline from those in
the canoe. He found an open space between the trees that grew
thickly right to the water's edge, and looked out across the lake and
down along the shore.

He turned his head and called back over his shoulder.

"Can you hear me, back at the canoe?" he yelled.

A medley of voices answered him from the distance. Only one of
them was clear. It was Emma's, and she said, "Yes. We hear you,
Bart!"

"This is the way! Paddle around between the island and the
shore!" he called back.

He waited and they came, sliding smoothly on the still water as
Michel pulled the canoe forward from his position in the bow.

As soon as he saw the canoe poke its nose around the curve of the
shore, he turned his eyes back on what they, too, ,xuid now be
seeing. About a hundred yards farther up the shore another river fed
into the lake. But this was no quiet stream like the one by which
they had arrived here; it was a surface river from high up, furious
and foam-toothed, three to five feet deep with enormous boulders
sticking their heads up out of th water that bobsledded down the
slope of the mountainside.

Here, where he stood, the water was behind the back-eddy from
that torrent, and its surface was as smooth as it had been where they
had emerged. Here, where there were no currents to toss craft
around, a small wooden dock, attached to the shore and supported
by two heavy log piles at its far end, gave mooring space to half a
dozen canoes, some of them badly in need of repair before they
might be put to any working use.

From the dock a trail, worn down to the bare rock and earth by
boot and moccasin, led up the slope to a little hollow, where a log
building too large to be a simple cabin hunched itself down in the
shelter of mountainside and pine trees. Only the ever-present
sprinkling of brown needles from the nearby trees kept the path
from complete earth-nakedness.

	THE EARTH LORDS
	291

He walked down to the dock and out on it to catch the bow rope
Michel tossed him, and pulled the canoe in, tying it up. Together
they all went up the path to the log building, opened its door, which
was on the side facing the wild river, and let themselves in.

They stepped into an interior enclosed by the same logs that
made the standing sides of the cabin. The floor was made of rounds
of tree wood, chinked with clay. There was remarkably little space
free for standing or sitting. What space there was stood opposite the
door, against th far wall of the building, and contained a short
counter behind which rose shelves loaded with a multitude of
sacked and boxed foods. A round iron stove with stovepipe sticking
straight up through the roof sat off to one end of the counter and
was encircled by a few rough chairs--made of axe-split lumber
from the look of them--around it. Some furs had been thrown over
the chairs to cushion them.

Behind the counter was a tall, bald-headed man in perhaps his
forties; and facing him from the other side were t men in the
homemade leather and fur clothing of trappers. These all turned at
the sound of the opening of the door.

".lust a minute," said the bald-headed man behind the counter,
in French. He winked broadly at the two trappers, making no
attempt to hide the wink from the newcomers. I'll be back with
you in only a moment."

He came around the counter and approached Bart and the others.
"Well, neighbors!" he called out in English, in a hearty voice.
"Didn't expect to see you until next week. Come on in back, and
make yourself comfortable!"

With his back to the two trappers, he frowned heavily at them,
then turned and led them down an aisle between the piles of barrels,
boxes, bales and other goods and through a wall made up of the
same sort of materials into a room of about the same size as the
clearing around the counter. This room, however, held another
stove, a bunk against the one small area of wall that was left
exposed. Some chests covered with furs made for more comfortable
chairs.

"Take your ease, folks!" he boomed out again in English, in
what seemed to be a voice pitched deliberately to be heard by the
trappers in what passed for the other room. I'll be with you in a

bit--not more than half an hour, say."

He turned to leave.

"Say, wait just a minute!" said Arthur. "Don't you know--"
"Shut up!" said Michel. He spoke softly, but some months of

292 Gordon R. Dickson

being a slave who did what any Hybrid told him to, had trained
Arthur. He shut up.

They took chairs and waited. There was laughter and some talk,
still in French, from the other room. Most of what was said was
indistinguishable. Bart and the others waited in silence.

At last there was the sound of feet moving across the floor, of the
door opening and closing; and a moment later, the baldheaded
man had rejoined them, dangling from one hand a liquor bottle
with a long green neck.

"Forgive me," he said. "But I have to keep up my appearance as
a trading post."

He looked at Michel.

"I didn't get a call saying anyone was coming," he said in
English. "Somebody must have been asleep at the switch. But--"
He looked at Michel. '--you're Michel Saberut, aren't you?"

"That's right," said Michel, "and this is Cousin Bart Saberut,
Vincent Saberut's son--"

"Pleased to meet you, Cousin," said the bald-headed man.
"I'm Lehrer Green. Vincent passed through here more than thirty
years ago. I was an apprentice in my second year on the job here,
then. I never knew he had a son--beyond Michel, here."

"Bart was born after Vincent left," said Michel smoothly.
"Ah," said Lehrer, accepting as unnecessary to be said Michel's
implication that Bart's father had left behind him an impregnaled
concubine. The trader held up the bottle.

"I don't know if you're interested," he said. "This is part of the
special supplies we keep on hand for just such situations as you just
ran into out there. Good brandy for the French, whiskey for the
Scots and English--even a bottle or two of vodka for the occasional
Russian. I hint I stole several bottles from the luggage of some
company supervisors who were up here inspecting; and then sell it
to them at a bargain price. They can't wait to get out of here for fear
they might have to share it with me. If either you or Bart would like
a drink, Michel--"

He glanced at Emma and Arthur.

"I assume these two are slaves?"

"Oh, yes," said Michel carelessly. He produced the original
order given him by the Emperor. "But I don't want them outfitted
as servants---at least at first. And I'd appreciate your not talking
too much about our coming through here, even to our own people.
Our mission's a little on the special and quiet side."

"You don't have to ask me!" said Lehrer. "Do you think anyone

	THE EARI'H LORDS
	2R3

would hold this post as long as I have without having discretion? No
one going through here is told about anyone else--with the
exception of my mentioning your father, which I did only because
you did, and your relationship to him. Plus the fact, I assume by
this time he's dead."

"He is dead," said Bart, a little shortly.

"At any rate, if either one of you want something to drink, I've
got some fairly good wines, too, for my own use--"

"No, thanks," said Michel. "Our business doesn't leave us time
to sit around."

"Certainly, certainly," said Lehrer, putting the bottle aside on
the top of what looked like a flour barrel. "Now what do you
need?"

"I'll let Cousin Bart tell you that," said Michel. "The first leg of
our trip is going to be through the woods, bypassing civilization.
We'll need some cash--about ten thousand dollars in Canadian
and the same in American currency, but perhaps fifty thousand in
large denomination English pounds; and about the same amount of
value in gems--small and easy to carry."

"I'll get busy right away," said Lehrer, and went off.

There was a look of shock on Arthur's face. Bart guessed that it
had been the first time the other had realized what kind of wealth
his masters commanded.

"Quick!" Michel was saying in a low voice. "Help me find it!"
"What?" asked Bart and Arthur together. Emma ignored them.
She had opened the smaller suitcase she had been carrying and
begun rooting around in it. Now, pulling out something that looked
like a map, she gave a small exclamation of satisfaction and shut it
back up in the suitcase again.

"Lehrer's call box from the Inner World--ah, here it is," said
Michel, uncovering a screen like the ones with which Bart was now
familiar. "I could kick myself for not having thought of this while
we were sitting around. I'm no engineer, but I ought to be able to
put one of these out of action temporarily . . . there!"

He had opened the box and he came up with a small metal part,
which he slipped into a trouser pocket.

"That'll hold him from getting any word in about us, if they find
what's happened to Chandt and his Steeds. But this will make him
suspicious if he tries to use the box soon; we want some kind of
interruption in communication that won't attract attention later.
Bart, can you look around outside this cabin--probably on the side
leading back to the underground river we came down on. Tbere'll

	294
	Gordon R. Dickson

be a buried wire running from the cabin here to the Inner World,
whether it goes back to the river and up the sides or bottom of it, or
along the surface until it comes to a hole drilled down into some
part of the Inner World. Find that and break it--make it seem like
it broke by accident, or because some animal chewed on it or
something--can you do that? Then I can put this piece hack in with
no danger."

"Once I find it, yes," said Bart. "I'll go look now."

He passed out through the way their host had gone, and waved to
him as he passed. The other was busily moving boxes to get at
something stacked behind them.

"I suppose you've got an outhouse out there somewhere in
back?"

Lehrer straightened momentarily to point.

"Yes. Sorry," he called. "But we couldn't risk anything less
primitive in a place like this. I did manage to put in a heating
system if you know where the switch is to turn it on--but in the
summertime like this, you won't need it. Just go straight out
back--you'll find it behind that first screen of trees."

Bart went out and turned right. This side of the building, he was
happy to see, had no windows in it. He went slowly along the
outside of the building and around a farther corner, examining the
dirt at the foundation of the house. If there was a wire running out
of there from the inside, Lehrer would want to get at it in case of
breaks or other problems--not only in the summer, as now, but in
the nine other months when the ground was frozen. That meant it
would probably exit the house just at or just under ground level, but
that there would be some mark on the building to help Lehrer locate
its exit point. Farther out in the woods, the wire could be buried
down below the likely digging range of animals; but here, the wire
should be both accessible and marked.

After a moment, his eye picked up a piece of bark off the lowest
visible log of the building. That a piece of bark might have been
broken or rubbed off a building that had been here this long was not
surprising, but this piece was almost a perfect square some three
inches on a side. On closer examination it turned out to have been
put back over the exposed bare wood with some sticky substance to
hold it there while yet making it easy to remove.

Bart did not remove it himself, but dug with his fingernails into
the loose soil, pine needles and other detritus just below it. After a
few seconds he found it, a wire coated in some flexible material of

	THE EARTH LORDS
	295


a dull reddish gray that matched with the color of the ground
around it.

A lifetime of habit snt Bart's hand to his helt for the knife he
had not worn for nearly two years. Frustrated, he looked around on
the ground, found a couple of shards of granite with sharp edges,
and started macerating the wire between them until it parted. When
it finally broke, the two frayed ends looked not unlike the ends of a
break chevxl by some small burrowing animal; and to further the
illusion, when Bart put them back in the earth, he raked in on top of
them such loose earth and pine needles as a squirrel or other such
creature might claw up while rooting for food.

He straightened and went on to the trees in the direction of the
outhouse; but once beyond them he turned to the edge of the
fast-moving river. He squatted to wash his hands in the cold water,
cleaning under his fingernails with the sharp edge of a broken dry
twig to get as much of the earth out as possible.

When he stepped back inside the building, everyone there was
gathered at the counter in the main room, near a stack of woods
clothing, blankets, and sacks. Michel and Lehrer had their heads
together over a large piece of paper spread out on the wood surface
of the counter. At the sound of the door opening, Michel looked up.
"Bart!" he called. "Come over here and look at this map!"

The map had names printed plainly on it, with the false trading
post near its center. The name "Shunthead" was plainly to be seen
not far off. Running from the trading post in the opposite direction
from the mine, however, was a chain of lakes. The first of these
was the lake the trading post was on, which was nowhere near as
small as it had seemed. They were simply on one narrow arm of it,
and the main body curled southward toward a chain of farther lakes.
On one shore of the last of these was a square marked "Fort
Shadwell."

From Fort Shadwell, a road was indicated stretching out to the
southwest, off the map; an arrow paralleling it underlined the words
"to the coast."

"What about it, Bart?" asked Michel as Bart also bent over the
map. "Does this tell us what we want?"

The question had a double meaning, for they had discussed the
direction of their going the night before at Pier's; and Bart had told
Michel that they would by no means be going southward and
coastward, but up into the woods, to sit out a winter in a cabin they
would build. By doing that they could let their trail get cold for any

	296
	Gordon R. Dickson


hunters sent by the Emperor. In the spring they would move on
again, bypassing any nearby settlements until they were far to the
east and could slip, unnoticed, into some fairly large town to take
up roles as different people.

"Looks like it ought to work fine for our purposes," said Bart.
"That's that, then," said Michel.

He folded the map up and pushed it into a pocket of the bulging
backpack at his feet. "By the way, that one's yours, Bart. I
explained to Lehrer here about my weak back."

Bart now noticed that there were three backpacks as well as a
small stack of firearms and other gear; and of the three, one was the
large one into which Michel had stuffed the map and two were
smaller--obviously for only two of the three other people--who
had to be Arthur and Emma if Michel was hinting that for some
reason he was not going to carry a pack.

This was puzzling, but it could wait to be explained once they
were well away from the post. They would not need the backpacks,
anyway, until they left the lake to head into the woods.

I'll help you get the other gear down to a canoe," said Lehrer.
"You'll want something bigger than the one you came out in. That
can wait here until some of the bunch from inside come out on one
kind of business or another."

They moved their gear and supplies down to the dock.

"I'll pack the canoe," said Lehrer, who was obviously used to
dealing with people whose experience with such things had been
minimal or none. "You may think you know how after the training
course they put you through--"

Bart and Michel exchanged significant glances.

"--but you still may learn something by seeing me do it," went
on Lehrer, continuing to work. "Just remember that a badly loaded
canoe can overturn on just a breath of wind--and that you can get
at any time. Also, remember the advice you had to stick close to the
shoreline, no matter how much of a long way around it looks,
because a real wind or a sudden rain that hides sight of any shore,

can come up in a moment..."

He continued packing.

"Well," he said at last, standing up. "There you are."

He watched as they took their places in the craft, nodding in
approval as they stepped into the middle line of it to enter, then
raised his eyebrows as Michel took the bow position and Bart the
stem.

"You're not going to have the slave paddle?" he asked, staring at

	THE EARTH LORDS
	297


Arthur. "He looks strong enough for a good day's work--"

"Not to star off with," said Michel. "I've been inside all my
life and I want to see what this feels like." With his paddle he
swung the bow of the loaded canoe away from the dock, Bart
helping a little less so that they turned to face away from the shore.

They turned their bow toward the same gap between island and land
they had passed through earlier, for their supposed route down the

lakes to the south and For Shadvll.

"Good luck!" Lchrer shouted after them. "Remember that
business of staying close to the shore!"
They saw him turn back up the dock toward his trading post as
they passed from sight around the bulge of land that came out
toward the island.

"Pull in to shore," said Emma unexpectedly, cutting shor
Michel, who was also starting to say something. Bart looked at her
in the center of the boat, where she knelt facing him. There was a
stern look on her face and she had open in front of her the small
suitcase she had carried all this way.

As Bart automatically turned the prow of the canoe toward a low
point in the bank of land alongside, she held out to him a piece of
paper from the open suitcase.

"I think [ can follow this all right," she said, "but you're the
woodsman among us, Bart. Why don't you look at it?"

As the prow touched the earth and rock of the lake shore,
Michel, looking bemused, stepped out with the mooring rope in his
hand and looped it around the lower trunk of a nearby spruce.

"Go ahead, Arthur!" said Emma, urging her brother forward
and leaving the canoe herself behind him, so that Bart unthinkingly
followed her and came ashore himself, still studying the paper she
had handed him.

It was a map; and, as she had said, not too difficult a one to
follow. The exit of the underground river, the shoreline with its
bulge out toward the tip of the island, and a rectangle with the
words trading post printed neatly beside it in English, were all
easily recognizable at the bottom of the map. They stood out
clearly in the lines of black ink in which the map had been drawn.
There, also, at the approximate equivalent of the Point where they
now stood, a dotted line led up the slope away from the lake,
roughly parallel to the shore, for a short distance to an "x" marked
lightning-struck tree stump. At that Point it turned left at an angle
marked 40 degrees and proceeded for a rather longer distance to end
at a curved line that looked the rough outline of a camel's hump.

	298
	ordon £ Dickson

Beside the hump was the legend/arge boss of rock. Looks solid but
is actually hollow. Follow directions on back of map.

Bart turned the map over and found its back half filled with a
series of sentences, set down in a neat list and numbered consecutively.

"What's this?" he asked, frowning.

"I know," answered Michel in a cold voice, "and so should
you. That bag must have the equipment Pier mentioned confiscating

from some of our earlier, more eager, cousins. Isn't that right,
Emma?"

"Yes," she said.

"You mean--" Bart broke off, suddenly aware of Arthur's
curious, sullen face, and realizing why neither Emma nor Michel

i
: were putting into plain words what Emma had carried from the


	Inner
	"But Pier was
	about

	World.

	definite

	not--"

	"'Marta is a little more practical than he is," said Emma.

	"But..." Ba's mind scrambled still in some confusion.

	"Eventually--I mean, if we follow what's here on this paper,

	Pier's got to guess what Emma carried away with her and who's

	responsible for her having it. What if he simply asks Marta?"

	Emma smiled.

	"He won't ask," she said. "He'll guess, but he won't ask. He'll

	know that if he asks, she'll tell him; and what she'll tell him is

	something he knows he mustn't hear. His honor is precious to him;

	but nowhere near as precious as Marta."

	"I suppose you're right," said Bart, staring at her. It was not the

	first time he had been made aware of the flint-hard practicality

	Emma could show under certain conditions. She and Marta were

	evidently much alike.

	"It's her grandchildren she's thinking of, you know," Emma

	reminded him, more gently. "Our children, but her grandchil
	dren."

	Bart nodded slowly.

	"Well, you're right about the map," he said. "There'll be no

	trouble following it." He stepped over to the mooring rope and tied

	it more securely around the tree trunk to which Michel had attached

	it. Then he paused for a moment and looked out across the empty

I:
lake. Untying the rope again, he waved a hand to Michel.

	..
	"Give me a hand," he said. He picked up two of the packs from

		the interior of the canoe, having to step down the steep bank and

		into the water to do it; and held them up to Michel. The latter

		nodded and took them, handing them in turn back to Emma, who

THE EARTH LORDS
	299


with Arthur's slow aid deposited them back in the trees. Within a
few minutes they had emptied the canoe; and then Bart and Michel
lifted that from the water, and it, too, was hidden.

"Let's move, then," said Bart. "It's past noon, already."
"What is it?" asked Arthur as they all, including him, began to
move away from the lake. "What's on that paper?" But no one,
including his sister, answered him; so he followed in silence.

Bart took the lead and the map. The true distances covered by the
lines of ink on the paper were not indicated there; and he was a little
surprised to find his way to the lightning-blasted tree stump
mentioned, in less than fifty yards. Looking back along the way
they had come, he chose two of the taller trees they had passed and
took a bearing that was approximately forty degrees to the left of
the line of travel they had been following up until then. He also
looked back at the way they had come, to famdiarize himself with
its appearance for the return trip.

If the tree stump was that close to the lake edge, then their
destination could not be much farther--he suddenly made the
connection in his mind. Almost certainly Lehrer Green not only
knew what was at the place to which they were headed, but
probably had some routine duties there, from time to time.
Naturally, then, it ,,uld be close to his trading post . . . or rather,
his trading post would have been set up close to it.

In any case, it meant that what the map pointed them to could not
be much farther from the stump than it had been to the edge of the
lake behind them; and, sure enough, they had covered only a little
more than the equivalent of that distance when they came out into
an open area where a number of trees had been cut down, and a
large outcropping of granite rose from the slope around it.

The outcropping was about the size of a three-story building.
Following the directions on the back of the map, Bart led them
around it to its far side, to a smaller boulder of some whitish-gray
rock that was unlike the brown granite of the outcropping itself and
did not look as if it had originally occupied the place in which they
found it.

Bart passed the map to Emma and got down on his hands and
knees searching around the base of this rock. When he found a
whitish patch on it, almost at ground level and almost between the
small boulder and the outcropping--for the two stood close enough
to touch at one point--he pressed the whitish patch inward.

It sank down into the surface of the boulder only a fraction of an
inch, but the whole part of the boulder visible above ground leaned

	300
	Gordon R. Dickson


over on its side like an egg sliced across near one end and hinged at
a single point. Revealed below it was not the buried part of the
boulder but a lighted opening equipped with steps descending
below ground level.

"Ah!" said Michel.

Bart led the four of them onto the steps and down. Emma came
last and the minute her head had descended below ground level, the
boulder righted itself over them; and they were sealed within the
tube of the staircase.

Bart counted the steps as he descended. There were a hundred
and fifty-one of them. They brought him at last to an ordinary
door-sized entrance beyond which was a well-lit room, its center
dominated by a round, polished metal shaft some yards in
thickness. It not only looked like the shaft of the Tectonal which
Bart had seen in the Inner World, it was turning like the shaft he
had seen. Its top vanished into a heavy metal cap braced with
girders that ran from it to the surrounding wait, which was also
circular, also of metal.

Bart drew a deep breath.

"Right," he said.

He led the way up to the shaft and knelt at its base, glancing at
the last lines of instruction on the back of the map. There was a thin
silver collar, nearly a foot wide, that surrounded and almost
touched the moving shaft. It extended out over the floor. Bart used
the point of the sheath knife given him by Lehrer, as part of his
aaods outfit, to pry up the edge of the collar. For a long moment it
resisted; and as he grimly increased the pressure he was putting on
the point of the knife in trying to force it between collar and floor,
he began to vnder if he was asking too much of the blade--the
directions on the back of the map had called for a screwdriver to pry
up the collar.

Then, with an almost musical sound, the entire twenty feet or so
of ring sprang free from the floor and hung loosely around the
turning shaft, being dragged along with it as it rotated. Bart got up
and walked around the shaft until he met what he was expecting--a
point where the ends of the ring came together.

Taking hold of both ends of the parted ring, he pried them apart.
They came reluctantly at first, then more easily; then stiffened to
the point where it was obvious he would never be able to spread the
ring enough to take it off the shaft. Michel came to aid him, but it
was obvious that even with Michel's help--and Arthur's as well,

THE EARTH LORDS
	301


for what it was worth--the ring could not be taken from the shaft.

They ended by propping the ring at two opposing points with a
couple of their backpacks, so that it tilted up on one side enough to
allow nearly four feet of space between it and the floor, at the point
where Emma and Michel knelt with the small suitcase open and a
rectangular package in what looked like waxed paper on the floor
beside it.

From one end of the package came what seemed to be no more
than a hair-thin thread, leading to a roll of such thread wound on a
spindle. At one end of the spindle, the thread ran to another,
identical spindle, and this to a third that Emma was now carefully
lifting out of the suitcase, while Bart held the piece of luggage open
for her.

They went on extracting more of the connected spindles. When
they finally finished emptying the bag there was a long row of
spindles laid carefully out on the floor, each one connected to the
one beyond it by a loose length of the threadlike material that
wound it. In addition, there was a small, boxlike affair with a short,
serrated, but thick piece of metal projecting from one end of
it--rather like a key with a block for a handle.

"Is that all of it?" demanded Bart, staring unbelievingly at the
fragile-looking thread and the package, which was less than four
inches thick and not even three feet in length.

"It's plenty for its purpose," answered Michel.

He took up one of the connecting lengths of thread between the
second and third fingers of his right hand. "This is brittle, but it's
got remarkable longitudinal strength. Enough so that less than the
twenty pounds of it we've got here can hold the weight of the
explosive--" He tapped the rectangular package. "--and either
you or I can hold them both and lower the package a good two and a
half miles into the tube, there."

He pointed to the girders strengthening the cap that were easily
in reach overhead.

"Then, when we've got it down as far as we want it, I set the
timer with the setpiece, here, for anything up to fifty minutes. At
the end of that time it'll trigger off the charge in the explosive--"
He pointed briefly again at the rectangular package. "It goes off,
and blows the shaft apart at that point."

Arthur made an odd sound, somewhere between a gasp and a
choke.

"And then what?" said Bart skeptically. "They pull out the

	302
	Gordon K Dickon


broken pieces down there and put a new shaft in. It may take them a
few weeks, even a month or so to make a new shaft and set it in
place--"

"You don't understand," Michel interrupted him. "This shaft
has tremendous length and weight; and it's delicately balanced. The
forces turning it are tremendous and they're coming nowadays
mainly from the magma currents below, rather than any driving
apparatus in the Inner World. After the explosion the broken pieces
will try to keep turning. The shaft'll break into dozens of pieces
and probably pierce the tube that contains the shaft in as many
pieces, or more."

"So," said Bart. "Perhaps six months to fish it all out and fix
it."

"More like a year or two," said Michel. "The whole Tectonal
will have torn itself apart. And by the time they get it replaced and
working again, the concentration of currents in the magma will
have been lost from the gathering of them that's been going on for
over eighty years. It'll take as long again--perhaps as much as a
hundred years--to rebuild such a concentration of forces again and
get back to the point the Tectonal's at now."

"A hundred years, Bart," said Emma, looking up from the open
suitcase, beside which she was still kneeling. "A hundred years for
the world to save itself."

"You can't do that!" shouted Arthur, lunging for the loop of
thread leading from the explosive package to the first spindle.
"Don't you realize what you're doing? They might let us go,
otherwise--but they'll hunt us all down like wild animals if we do
something like this!"

Michel's arm shot out, knocking the lighter man back and almost
off his feet.

"You interfere with this, and they won't have to hunt you
down," growled Michel, reminding Bart eerily of Paolo. "I'll

wring your neck like a chicken's, myself!"

He turned to Bart.

"Watch him, Bart," he said. "I know how to do this and you
don't--so it's going to have to be up to you to keep him away from
us while I let the explosive down and set the charge."

Bart avoided looking at Emma. On her part, Emma said nothing.
"Don't worry," Bart said. "I'll see he doesn't interfere."

He stood up and turned to face Arthur. But Arthur made no
effort to move from where Michel's shove had sent him. He only
stared at Bart with a maievolent hatred.

THE EARTH LORDS
	303


"You're killing us all," Arthur said, "and it's you who pretend
to love my sister!"

Bart did not answer. He kept his eyes steadily on Arthur, hearing
behind him the rustle of paper and occasional muttered bits of
conversation between Emma and Michel. The minutes slipped
slowly by.

"All ready," announced Michel's voice at last. "I've set it to
blow in thirty minutes. That should give us time to get down to the
lake and the canoe, and still let us be near when the explosive goes
off. We don't want to leave until we know that the job's been done.
That agree with your thinking, Bart? If you've some objection, I
can still change the timing on that box."

"No," said Bart. "Thirty minutes'll be fine. For one thing, I
can take us back directly instead of making the dogleg x made on
the way up by going to that tree-trunk first. Let's go."

They went, leaving the open suitcase, and the propped-up ring
still around the turning shaft. They climbed the stairs and stepped
out into the midafternoon sunlight. Bart carefully swung the fake
boulder back into place. Unbidden, the thought came to him that
the motion of setting it up was the same motion with which a
gravestone might have been raised into place. But he said nothing of
this to the others.

They had the canoe back in the water and were reloading it when
they felt the reaction of the Tectonal's breakup.

It was not the sound of the explosion itself that reached them, for
that relatively small shock would have been contained by the miles
of vertical shaft-tube and the closed room above its top end. What
they were made conscious of was the actual breakage of the great
shaft itself.

The first signal came without warning, like a sharp, momentary
rap on the soles of their feet--as if they were mice scurrying about
the rafters on the upper side of a giant's ceiling, and the giant
himself, annoyed by the sounds of their movements, had reached
up to bang with his massive fist on the ceiling's underside.

This was followed by a vibration too small to produce any visible
tremor in the surface about them, or even in their legs. A vibration
that they sensed in their eardrums more than felt, but which was
undeniably there as it rose in amplitude for perhaps a minute and a
half, and then finally fell away to silence again.

"That'll be the shaft breaking and binding against the tube, all
along its length," said Michel with satisfaction.

They climbed into the canoe and pushed off.

	304
	Gordon R Dickson


"Lookt" said Emma.

They looked back to see something like a wisp of whitish-gray
cloud, or part of a plume of smoke, ascending over the treetops
farther up the slope. It did not grow, or continue, however, but
drifted away on the slight breeze above the treetops, thinning out as
it went until it was no more than a streak of haze, quickly
disappearing.

"Let's go," said Bart again.

The others, who had stopped to watch the cloud, turned back to
settling themselves in the boat again; Bart, in the stern of the canoe,
swirled his paddle in the water, turning them so that they moved
parallel to the land, headed past the opening of the underground
river down which they had come. He intended to push on into the
main expanse of the lake before heading out at a sharp angle toward
the other shore, northward and away from the direct route to Fort
Shadwell.

"No," said Michel, plying his paddle in the prow to turn the
canoe back into the current from the entrance to the underground
river.

Bart dug his own paddle in strongly; and the canoe, caught
between two conflicting impulses, lost headway and began to drift
outward into the lake on the slow current from underground.

"What's all this?" demanded Bart harshly. Michel looked back
over his shoulder at the others.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, "but I'm going to have to go back.
I'm not going with you. Forgive me for taking you back into danger
a second time; but I didn't trust you to get by alone with Cousin
Lehrer at the trading post. He'd met me; he knew me. That saved a
lot of questions."

They stared at him in silence.

"It had to be this way," said Michel. There was a different note
in his voice. "I'll try not to put the rest of you to any risk, if I can.
If there're people--people come to check on Chandt and his
Steeds--already at the ledge by the time we get close, we'll hear
their voices well before we come around the curve into sight under
their lights. If that's the case, I'll slip overboard and swim the rest
of the way back. The current's not that strong; and once I get there,
I can hide in the water between the boats until they've taken the
bodies off; and there's a chance for me to slip out and go back the
way we callle. ' '

"Hold it," said Bart, backing his paddle against the current to
hold the craft where she was. "I'm sorry, Michel, but you've got to

THE EARTH LORDS
	305


give me a better reason than that, why we should risk taking you
back."

"I've said I'm sorry." Michel's face was unhappy. "It's just
that I can't go with you. I didn't realize it earlier, but I never could
have. I've got to go back. As I say, I hate putting the rest of you at
risk to do it. But it's too far for me to swim in water that cold; and if
I'd taken a canoe from the dock, no matter how good a reason I
gave him then, Lehrer'd have guessed the truth later on when he
heard I was back below. Two days after that, the whole Inner World
would have known--not just the Emperor and the Guettrigs--that
you were outside on your own, knowing all about us down there."

"That's not the answer I need," said Bart, still holding the
canoe in place. "I want to know why you think you have to go back.
Did you plan this from the start?"

"My God, no!" said Michel emphatically. "You wouldn't think
that of me? Pier found himself a family in you and Emma; and so
did I. You have to understand. Our father left for the surface before
I was old enough to really get to know him, and my mother died in
less than six months after that. So it seemed to me I was alone in
the vrld; and I built a sort of shell, which was me, the way
everybody knew me, and lived alone in it, until that moment when
you proved to me I wasn't alone."

"What is all this?" demanded Arthur.

"Be quiet, Arthur," said his sister.

He gaped at her. His face twisted in anger and his mouth opened.
Then he closed it again and sat silent. Michel, ignoring him and
Emma, was staring hard past them at Bart.

"'You can't imagine what it meant to me to find out I had a
brother--even a half-brother," he said. "Your being there made
my father real to me. It made me someone with a family, just like
everyone else in the world. That's why what Pier said to us last
night suddenly reached me and made sense to me. Just as he said, I
had my own self-made Book inside me. But I'd been refusing to
look at any part of it that pretended I was like other people. When I
did I saw that it was Pier I agreed with--not our father, for all I'd
worshiped the idea of him all these years. The Inner World has to
straighten itself out, or be straightened out by people on its inside."

He paused. Bart felt the need to say something, but could not
thini of the words he wanted.

"It's all right for you," Michel said. "You were born up here.
You belong here. But I belong down there; and my duty's down
there, just as Pier's is. I've got to go back. It was Pier's talk that

	306
	Cordon R. Dickson


made me see it. I'd heard it before, but now it's real. And the only
possible thing for any of us is to follow his own Book; and most of

us do. Tell me, Bart, why did Paolo do what he did?"

Bart floundered.

"Paolo?" he said. He could not dodge the question after what
his half-brother had just said to him, but it was hard to put what he
felt into words. What was worse, it triggered off a strong feeling of
guilt in him for not having recognized what was'in Paolo, earlier.

He would never forget what Paolo had done; and he could not be
sure--that was the hell of it--that in Paolo's place he would have
done as much for Paolo. Then he suddenly realized that it was not
necessarily a reciprocal matter. It was a case of the inner Book Pier
had talked about, all over again; and he was ashamed that Michel
should have recognized it before he did, himself. The feeling of
guilt lifted from him and the words he needed came.

"Michel," he said slowly, "I think--I'll never be sure, but I
think--Paolo did what he did because he was the sort of person
who ought to have lived a few hundred years ago, when the world
would have fitted him better. Laws and regulations--they didn't
mean a thing to Paolo. There'd always been laws and regulations,
there always would be. Someone would make them, arbitrary rules
that he had to obey in order to stay alive. But that's all they
were--arbitrary rules. They didn't have any meaning of themselves
for him."

He stopped to look into Michel's eyes.

"Am I making sense to you?"

"Very good sense," answered Michel. "Go on."

"All right, the rules meant nothing, except that under certain
conditions he had to obey them," said Bart. "What did mean
something to him was his own code, his own Book--and that was
very simple. Anything went; but if someone was a friend to you,
you were a friend to him. That's all there was to it--"

"'It was enough to make Lorena fall in love with him," said
Emma softly.

"And it was enough to make him go up against Chandt, the one
man he was really afraid of--and that cost him his life," said Bart
harshly.

"But he held to his Book," said Michel from the bow of the
canoe as they floated on the gently swirling water, kept in place by
the movements of Bart's paddle. "And if he had a Book and the
Emperor has one and other people--like Pier--each have their
own--you can't expect me not to have one, can you, Brother?"

	THE EARTH LORDS
	307


Bart looked at him; and in fact Michel's face seemed changed,
enough so that he seemed to be looking at a man he had never seen
before.

"I'm sorry, Ban," said Michel. "Our father believed what he
did, and you probably believe he was right. Pier doesn't. Pier
believes that people like the Emperor have to be fought inside the
Inner World, and I'm afraid, after all, it's Pier I agree with. I didn't
realize that until 1 saw Paolo die for the way he saw the world. But I
do now. That's why I have to go back."

Bart felt he should argue with this, but somehow he could think
of nothing to say that fitted at this moment.

"I just didn't realize how deeply I agreed with Pier, with what he
said at his home, just before we said goodbye to him and Marta,"
went on Michel. "It wasn't until I saw what Paolo was willing to do
that I realized I didn't have any choice with my own way of looking
at the worlds, both outer and Inner. Bart, Pier needs me back there.
All the Liberals need me back there."

"The Emperor'll kill you the minute he finds out you're back,"
said Bart.

"You're wrong," answered Michel. "The one place I'm completely
safe from him is openly living back in the Inner World. He
admitted this himself, remember? He can't even take the chance of
trumping up some kind of false charges against me so he can act,
because even true charges wouldn't be believed by the majority--
Hybrids and Lordly class alike. No, there, in the lion's mouth, I'm
safe; and there 1 can do the most damage to what he wants."

There was a moment of silence in which everyone waited for Bart
to react. He ended it, finally, with a sigh; then dug his paddle in
deeply and sent the canoe's nose forward toward the opening of the
underground river. They moved into shadow, into darkness; and as
they came into the curve, a lamp switched on on the wall of the
cave, lighting their way around the curve.

"We'll hear anybody up ahead on the ledge long before they see
this, what with the bright lights there," Michel told them.

After that, there was very little said. They reached the landing
and there was no one there but the dead. Nothing had changed. No
one had come yet. Michel get out onto the rock. He shook hands
with Bart and Emma lifted her arms to him. He reached down,
picked her up out of the canoe, and they hugged each other for a
moment, wordlessly.

Then he lifted her back down into her place in the center of the
canoe.

	308
	Gordon R. Dickson


"Goodbye," said Michel.

"Goodbye," said Bart, as he backed the canoe once more into
the current of the river that immediately began to carry them away
again downstream.

"Goodbye," said the others, even including Arthur.

They went away; and the ledge with Michel standing on it
looking after them grew smaller in the distance; then was cut off
from sight entirely as the curving of the river put a rock wall
between them and the ledge. Arthur, without being given orders,
had moved up to the front of the canoe to take up the paddle.
Somewhat to Bart's surprise, he was of some use with it. The
automatic lights on the rock walls once more lit their way out into
the sunlight.

Once out on the open lake Bart turned the canoe and, behind the
screen of the island, headed away on a slant across open water in a
move that would have worried Lehrer, who had thought of them all
as amateurs at northwoods travel. The change of direction swung
them generally more and more west until they had passed that point
of the compass and were headed north.

"This isn't the way to Fort Shadwell," said Arthur as they began
to approach the lake's farther shore.

"No," said Bart economically from the stern of the boat. He
used his paddle to swing the canoe parallel to the shore, but Arthur
dug in his own paddle and turned the bow back toward a nearby
possible landing spot.

"I thought as much," Arthur said. He produced one of the
revolvers they had gotten from Lehrer Green. He held it casually,
but it was pointed generally past Emma, in Bart's direction. At
some time he had gotten it from among the other gear in the boat.
There was a note in his voice Bart had never heard before.

"Then here's where we part company. I want a rifle, my pack,
and enough food and gear to get me on foot to Fort Shadwell. It
only ought to take me a week or so longer to get there that way than
it uld've by boat. I'll also take a third of that money Michel got

from what's-his-name--Lehrer--if you don't mind."
"Arthur," said Emma, "you're being foolish."

"That's exactly what I'm not being, sister dear," said Arthur.
"What was foolish of me was to spend all these years taking care of
you when I could have been making something of myself out on my
own. Well, now you've got this chunk of bone and muscle to take
care of you; and I give him to you freely. As Michel said back there,
we've all got our Book; and I suddenly realized what mine is."

THE EARTH LORDS
	309


He gestured with the revolver at Bart.

"You paddle into shore," he said. "Just to make sure everything
goes smoothly, I'm going to step out first and keep this gun on you
while you split up our possessions."

"You damn fool!" said Bart. "It was Emma who took care of
you all those years--mainly because you didn't have er$,h 'as¢
to take care of yourself. What are you going to do with the money?

Try to make yourself a fortune as a flash gambler?"

"Just paddle," said Arthur.

"Do what he says, Bart," said Emma. "If Arthur's determined
to go, we can't keep him."

"You're right about that," said Arthur, rising and stepping onto
the muddy shelf of land upon which the canoe had pushed its prow.
He held the revolver steady on Bart, as Bart used his paddle to
swing the canoe side-on to the shore. "Now, get busy laying out my
stuff."

Bart did so, regarding Emma with more than a touch of surprise.
She seemed unusually calm about letting Arthur leave them after all
these years of watching out for him and making a home for him.

"It's all right, Bart," she said suddenly, apparently reading his
thoughts. "Arthur had to make up his mind to leave us someday."

Good Lord, thought Bart, she must have been seeing this change
coming in Arthur for some time. Well, the man had been altered by
his time as a slave in the Inner World, and maybe even, as he said,
by what Michel had said. In no way had it made him any more
likeable; but maybe it had given him a little more common sense
and backbone. Bart finished dividing up the food and gear and
making the pack ready for Arthur. He laid the rifle and ammunition,
both for a long gun and for the revolver, on the ground beside
the pack and straightened up.

"There you are," he said to Arthur, and--disregarding the
revolver--turned his back on the man to get back into the canoe
and take his place in its stern. It was only then he saw that Emma

had moved up into the bow and taken up a paddle.

"Emma, you can't do that!" he said.

"Certainly I can. Just as well as Arthur," she replied and pushed
off from the land. She looked back at her brother. "Goodbye,
Arthur. God keep you safe."

"Don't worry about me," said Arthur, who was already putting
on the shoulder straps of the pack. "Just try to stay alive yourself
with the kind of company you keep."

Bart put his paddle in the water and helped turn the canoe back

	310
	Godon R. Didson


on its original course, parallel to this shore, which ran only about
another two hundred yards before ending in a bend which opened
on a wider stretch of lake. Arthur was left, unseen behind them.

They glided rapidly toward that open water, which widened out
into a very wide stretch of lake indeed. The trees of its far shore
were a solid line of green with the distance--Bart estimated that
straight across would be a good four to five miles. But the day was
clear and almost windless, and he was no amateur with a canoe in
any case. And he had been reading the weather as far back as he
could remember; and this time of year, under these conditions, it
was not likely that there was wind or a rain squall lurking out of
sight just over the horizon.

Now, back above ground in his own kind of country once more,
Bart's instincts were reasserting themselves. Emma, he could feel,
was indeed as good a paddler as her brother, although her keeping
up this sort of effort for the rest of the day seemed unlikely. The
sunlight sparkled along the long sheet of water before them, and the
sky was blue, with just a few free-floating high clouds of pure
white. He could smell the water, the pines, the spruce, and all the
land around the water. They smelled good.

He could feel the stretch of his arm and shoulder and back as he
pushed the paddle against the water. He could feel the muscles
working clear down his legs and the hard bulge of calf muscle
against thigh muscle as he knelt to paddle. The back of his head
warned him that those same muscles, unused this long time to
kneeling to such work, would be stiff and perhaps painful
tomorrow---or even later on today; but that did not matter.

What mattered was that he was back in his own country at last.
Arthur had miraculously removed himself as an obstacle between
Emma and himself; and now finally there was no reason they could
not settle down as they should have long ago. His solitary years
were over; over so suddenly that he could not really feel what the
new life was like.

That feeling, like the stiffness of his muscles, would come
tomorrow and in the days after. Meanwhile he felt happily, if rather
strangely, adrift, wondering about himself and Emma in the years
to come, about the world, about everything. He looked into himself
and was surprised to see how little he understood of what he saw. A
sudden chill made itself felt inside him.

"Emma?" he said to her small sturdy back, bulky in the heavy
jacket.

"Yes, Bart?" her voice floated back to him.

THE F.ARI'H LORDS
	311


"What's my Book--my Book, inside?" he asked. "I can't

seem to find any I've really got."

She laughed.

"You? Of all people?" she said. "Of course you have. Everybody
does. Don't worry, you'll find it there. You just have to wait
until you can put it into words for yourself."

She would be right, he told himself; and was comforted, in the
warm silence that followed as they paddled toward the farther shore
and to the north. She was always right.

All Sphere Books are available at your bookshop or
newsagent, or can be ordered from the following address:
Sphere Books, Cash Sales Department, P.O. Box 11,
Falmouth, Cornwall TR10 9EN.

Please send cheque or postal order (no currency), and
allow 60p for postage and packing for the first book plus
25p for the second book and 15p for each additional book
ordered up to a maximum charge of 1 pound 90 pencein U.K.

B.F.P.O. customers please allow 60p for the first book, 25p
for the second book plus 15p per copy for the next 7 books,
thereafter 9p per book.


Overseas customers, including Eire, please allow 1 pound 25 pencefor
postage and packing for thefirst book, 75p for the second
book and 28p for each subsequent title ordered.

A hidden labyrinth beneath the

where dwarfish Lords and Ladies ride humans like

horses - and plot the final downfall of mankind.

Bart Dybig is a 'Steed', but one gifted with mental and

physical abilities unsuspected by those who have
enslaved him. Soon, he vows, he will surprise the

Lords and escape to the world above - if there's a
world to go back to. For the Earth Lords are building a

y device of unimaginable power to completely
destroy mankind. Only Bart and his strange heritage

can stop them...

'Since the beginning of his career, Dickson has been
searching for new literary forms.., providing readers
with some of science fiction's finest moments'

Omni

Also by Gordon R Dickson in Sphere Books:


	The Dorsai Series:

	CHANTRY GUILD
	WAY OF A PILGRIM

	DORSAl
	THE FOREVER MAN

	SOLDIER, ASK NOT
	TIME STORM

	TACTICS OF MISTAKE
	NECROMANCER

	THE SPIRIT OF DORSAl
	MASTER OF EVERON

	LOST DORSAl
	ANCIENT, MY ENEMY

	THE FINAL

	;YCLOPAEDIA



0 7474 0242 6 SCIENCE FICTION

U.K. £3.50
AUS. $10.99
(recommended)
N.Z. $13.95
(inc. GST)

ISBN
	0-7474-0242-6




00350