The Super Barbarians Page 5

  I didn’t come much into contact with him any more. Pwill Himself had decided on returning to Qallavarra—his son being by then nearly twenty years old—that the polish an Earthly tutor was supposed to impart was wasted on him. Nowadays the young hopeful was generally away from the house, supervising various of the far-flung enterprises of the family. I’d gathered that he wasn’t very diligent in learning the business.

  He slouched now in a high-backed chair, his brilliant red satin shirt rumpled, his high black boots defiantly out-thrust across the floor, his face like thunder. Next to him, looking nervous, but trying to stand in a proper military fashion, was a young officer of the space fleet called Forrel, whom I knew to be a close friend of Pwill, Jr. He looked acutely unhappy.

  “Where—have—you—been?” Pwill roared at me. Involuntarily the three maids-in-waiting and Forrell flinched.

  I took my time over answering, coming another three paces closer. Also I bowed with extreme correctness to Over-lady Llaq, because I was of her personal retinue, and this surprised and pleased her.

  The Grand Terrace was more of a conservatory than a terrace, actually; it was mainly of white and bright blue tile, and its chief decorations were magnificent orchidlike flowers in hand-carved alabaster tubs. At present, the day being warm, it was open to the air, but at night and in cold weather big glazed screens were manhandled into place to wall and roof it in. I thought it was a pity Pwill had chosen to have his blow-up in such a pleasant part of the house.

  I said formally, having finished my bow, “With respect to Himself, it was my information that Himself and the Over-lady would be absent until sunset less an hour.”

  “Seven gods of Casca-Olla!” Pwill said half under his breath. I memorized the oath with interest; if he swore by those gods he might conceivably believe in them. Then he was bellowing again.

  “I asked where you’d been—not where you thought I was!”

  His temper was impressing everyone else, but it left me cold. I phrased my answer very carefully. “On the understanding that my services would not be required by Himself or the Over-lady until then, I put myself at the disposal of the Under-lady Shavarri for a task which could not easily be carried out except by an Earthman.”

  That fazed him all right. It also made his son take notice. He looked at me suddenly as though he had never seen me before.

  “You went to the Acre!” Pwill challenged.

  I looked as bland as I could. “I was certain that Himself would not have failed to question the gatekeeper,” I said, trying to suggest that I did actually think he might overlook the obvious. “I was punctilious in informing the gatekeeper.”

  Pwill, obviously at a loss, rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. There wasn’t anything he could accuse me of doing without looking silly; he had told Swallo he was going to be out until an hour before sunset, and I was back promptly at that time, and I had gone duly on an errand for one of his wives. He decided to make the best of a bad job.

  “Hah!” he said, and strode to his big chair next to Llaq. “Hah!” he repeated.

  Then I got the point. The reason he was so furious was not that I hadn’t been here when he returned; it was because he too had been in the Acre, and was afraid I might have seen him there! I was grateful that Marijane had thrown my cloak over my face.

  “All right!” he barked after a pause. “Shaw, I have a job for you. Since you were just now talking of a task only an Earthman could conveniently carry out, you ought to be pleased to do something different from your usual fiddling little odds and ends. It’s about time I made use of you as an Earthman instead of just another hanger-on.”

  This wasn’t like Pwill Himself at all! What could have got into him?

  His face betraying despondency, the young officer, Forrel, marched forward a pace. He said, “If Himself will permit, I ask leave to go away. This is a very personal matter and perhaps Himself would prefer to speak in private.”

  “Get back where you were!” Pwill ordered. “Don’t try and make out you don’t know—probably better than the rest of us—what this mess is about!”

  Forrell went the dark brick-color which among the Vorra indicated the counterpart of a blush, and stiffly returned to Pwill, Jr.’s side.

  “As for you, Shaw!” Pwill resumed. “If I thought you’d been at all responsible for what’s happened, I’d have had you gutted and spitted on pikes long ago. But since my son tells me you didn’t, I’ll accept that. I think he’s still capable of telling the truth occasionally. I think!” He threw a venomous scowl at his heir, who returned it with interest.

  “What do you know about—?” he continued, and stopped short, as though a word were on the tip of his tongue and he could not complete it. Llaq closed her hands on the arms of her chair and hissed between her teeth.

  “Coffee!” Pwill finished, catching the hint his wife threw him.

  Cautiously, not sure whether I had heard the word right mangled as it was by his mispronunciation, I said, “Well, it is a common drink among Earthfolk—it’s prepared from the seed of a plant, I think, which is roasted and then ground, and boiled in water to extract the flavor. It’s dark brown in color. Ah—it’s taken hot, usually, sometimes with milk and sweetening.”

  “You have drunk it yourself?” Pwill challenged.

  “Why-yes!”

  “But you can live without it?”

  “Well, of course. I haven’t had any since I came to your world.”

  He gestured at his son’s friend. “Forrel! Give me that flask!”

  His son started out of his apathy with a muffled objection, but thought better of it. Reluctantly Forrel drew an article rather like an Earthly brandy flask out of his pocket and handed it to Pwill.

  Hefting it in one hand, Pwill stared at me. “What does this—coffee—do to Earthfolk?”

  I had to hesitate; Vorrish lacked words for stimulant and other terms I needed. Compromising, I said, “When drunk very strong, it helps to stave off the need of sleep. But usually it’s merely taken as a pleasant-tasting drink after a meal, or with a light snack.”

  Pwill fumbled the cap off the flask and held it out to me. “Is that coffee?” he demanded.

  I took the flask and spilled a few drops into the palm of my hand. I sniffed and tasted it. As far as I could tell, it was black coffee, weak, rather bitter, without sugar. I said cautiously, “As far I can judge, that is coffee.”

  “Drink it!” commanded Pwill.

  An agonized cry went up from his son, who bounded to his feet. Forrell tried to restrain him, but he wasn’t to be stopped. He seemed at first to be going for his father; then he thought better of it, and caught at his mothers hand.

  “Don’t let him!” he pleaded. “That’s all there is left! Don’t let him!”

  I’d caught on. I’d taken long enough about it. Coffee was not just a simple flavored drink; it was a whole complex mixture of alkaloids, including caffein. The metabolism of the Vorra was pretty close to our own, hence we could eat each other’s food without worse than minor allergies. Usually! That was the kicker. I thought of Kramer’s wife lying fever-ridden. I thought of my own carefully-tended diet-supplementing rows of ordinary Earthly vegetables, without which I would suffer scurvy, pellagra and other deficiency diseases.

  Here was one point at which our metabolisms were different enough to cause serious trouble. Whatever coffee did to a Vorra, in the case of young Pwill it had certainly created an addiction.

  Llaq gave her son a scornful look. She would have liked to tell him what she thought of him, but people outside the family were listening. The look was definitive, though; her son knew better than to go on appealing to her. Helplessly he stared at me.

  I put the tip of my tongue between my teeth—as I would have winked at an Earthman.

  It took him one second to catch on and return to his chair, practically smiling. I tipped the flask and drained it. It was awful coffee, but innocent enough so far as I could tell.

  When I
had finished, Pwill waited a few seconds as if he expected me to drop dead. I handed the flask back calmly, and he resigned himself to facts.

  “This—son of mine,” he said, “declares that he cannot live a day without coffee now. He has spent his allowance on coffee imported from Earth, bought in the Acre without my permission or knowledge. He has spent more than his allowance. It must stop’*

  I waited. Pwill was working up to an admission, the biggest confession of failure in his life.

  At the last moment he could not manage it, and turned to his wife, who had no such qualms. She said, “Today Himself has instructed the Earthfolk in the Acre not to supply any more of this poison to my 8011.”

  My son. Not our son. This was her chief claim to influence: that she was the mother of the heir apparent. If her son was disinherited because of his addiction or some other cause, she would be disgraced and might well have to commit suicide rather than face one of her former juniors elevated to the coveted position of mother of the heir.

  “But”—oh, she was putting this cleverly—”we cannot be sure this order will be obeyed. Your people are devious and unreliable; they are cunning. And naturally they are anxious for money. You have shown us that this ‘coffee’ which is poison to my son is harmless to you. Perhaps, then, the people in the Acre will think there is no real reason to withhold it from my son. Unless they do, however—”

  Her iron self-control was not equal to finishing the phrase. On a different tack, she continued, “You know the regard the House of Pwill has for Earth; how well Himself governed your people and with what great interest in their way of life.”

  In the hope, I glossed silently, of getting at our “secret”! But I looked attentive and helpful.

  “We therefore look to you,” Llaq finished in a brittle tone, “to arrange this matter satisfactorily.”

  Begging with his eyes, her son stared at me.

  Well, this was a gift from the gods all right. The very day I decided to make myself into an Earthman with mystic powers, here I’d been handed some very genuine power.

  It must have cost the Over-lady dear to make that appeal. Only desperation could have driven her so far. I dared not push her further, or I might lose my whole advantage.

  Bowing, I. said, “I will do my utmost. As you have so elegantly stated, however, it will be hard on the people of the Acre to lose this profitable transaction. Worse, I may have to explain the actual reason behind the command Himself gave today. It would be graver still if that were publicly known. I shall have to buy the silence of prominent key individuals.”

  “I shall instruct the treasurer to give you a hundred platina tomorrow,” Pwill said in a gravelly voice. “It will be cheaper than to continue as at present. If it costs more, I shall want to know why—but you must do it anyway.”

  My heart hammering, I asked leave to go away, and was given it.

  I could hardly refrain from dancing for joy as I went to fetch my cloak and the can of “love potion” from Swallo’s office.

  CHAPTER VIII

  I FELT LIKE A completely different person. It came to this, I supposed: all my life I’d been so ingrained with the idea that the Vorra were basically superior to us (having proved the fact by beating us into the ground), that even when I was exposed to them at close quarters during my tutorship of Pwill Jr. I went on being impressed by them and honored to serve them. Glad to serve them, in fact.

  As though a bright light had been turned on in my mind, my visit to the Acre had shown me something quite different. It had revealed the Vorrà as individuals, capable of being done down by another individual who happened to be Earthly provided he was sufficiently determined. This was what the Acre was all about.

  But I was going to cut my own throat if I allowed my elation to show.

  Swallo had inspected the thing wrapped in my cloak, as I fully expected him to. I think he noticed the change that had come over me, for instead of putting some joking question, as he normally would have done, he simply handed me cloak and contents.

  Thanking him, I crossed the yard back to the family’s block and took the narrow side door leading down to my basement apartment. Although the retinue of a great house had no privileges to speak: of, at least they had privacy in their own quarters if they were lucky enough—like me—to rate a room to themselves. I proposed to spend a little time on my own, secure from intrusion, reading the slip of paper with directions for use which Kramer had given me along with the can of “potion.” And figuring out what to do next.

  Outside the door of my room, though, a heavy-set girl whom I recognized as one of Shavarri’s maids sat on the floor with her knees drawn up, scowling. At my approach she stood up quickly.

  “Steward!” she said. “The Under-lady Shavarri sent me to find you about an hour ago. She grows impatient.”

  I hesitated. Then I unwrapped the can from my cloak.

  “This is what she wanted,” I said, trying not to smile. “Tell her that instruction in its use will cost her another platinum.”

  Taking the can from me, hefting it uncertainly in her big square hands, the girl blinked. “A platinum?” she echoed. “A platinum is a great deal of money!”

  I was salaried at seven platina a month, and fairly well satisfied; a maid like her probably drew down eighty or ninety rhodia. Let her be impressed by the casualness of my request. I shrugged and made to go into my room.

  Glancing back before I shut the door completely, I saw her still hesitating. I paused, and she risked another shot.

  “I was told to bring you to the Under-lady Shavarri,” she said.

  “You’re a fine strapping wench,” I said gently. “But I don’t think you could drag me there, could you? It isn’t your fault if I prefer to come later.”

  Her eyes widened in dismay, and on that I pulled the door to.

  Having changed into house shoes and put my cloak where the tailoress would find and mend the hole scorched through the hem by the flaring magnesium bullet, I made myself a quick snack of Earthly vegetables. Normally I took my meals -with other members of the staff—Vorrish cooking, though slapdash, was quite palatable—but once a day I had to supplement my diet if I wasn’t to succumb to deficiency diseases. In the middle of sitting down to eat, I had a vision of Kramer’s wife—fever-pale, near delirium.

  I made a resolution. Tomorrow, presumably, Pwill would send me back to the Acre to try and stop his son’s supply of the deadly drug coffee. I’d take along a bagful of my choicest Earthly salads for Kramer’s wife.

  Maybe there were a few heads running to seed, too. If there were, people in the Acre would welcome them. They might not have space for gardens, but there wasn’t any reason, was there, why they shouldn’t plant in boxes of soil on the roofs of the houses? Or … was there? I frowned.

  Still, that was for tomorrow. I took from my pocket the piece of paper Kramer had given me with the can, and studied it thoughtfully. It bore instructions in English, not Vorrish, irregularly printed—I imagined, on a hand press in the Acre.

  It was the most peculiar mixture of hard sense and gobbledy gook I’d ever set eyes on. Astonished, I read:

  Efficacious securing of the lasting affection of the desired personal object depends on the conjunct operation of the one desiring and the appropriate substantial means. Employed in strict accordance with the directions, the preparation supplied will adequately serve the latter purpose. For the former, legislation in advance is not permissible.

  Contrive to administer so much of the prepared paste as will cover a thumb’s end in food or drink to the desired. Sunset is the best time. Speak consequently to him or her in terms flattering to the speaker. Indulge in all pleasant actions concomitantly. Five to ten administrations will secure a lasting result dependent upon the precise terms used.

  What in-?

  I turned the paper over, and began to understand. The other side bore what the uneducated among the Vorra might well take for a magical symbol of some kind—especially if they had b
een suitably primed beforehand by some of Kramer’s mumbo-jumbo. But I had had a pretty good education myself, and I instantly recognized diagrams of molecular structure. Two of them, side by side.

  Rather hesitantly, I tried to work out their significance. The first one, in particular, looked as though I ought to know it—got it! Aside from one branching chain springing off the main structure, this was a diagram of a drug called credulin, used to heighten suggestibility. Credulin was, in fact, a chemical equivalent of a course of hypnosis. It could also act as a truth serum under the right circumstances.

  Assuming that the altered side branch of the molecule was due to the drug having been tailored to the Vorrish metabolism instead of the human, apparently Kramer wasn’t just a phony.

  I had much more trouble working out the second diagram, and my assumption that it was a hormone derivative no better than an enlightened guess. Certainly the two drugs combined must have the effect Kramer claimed for them; I could stop thinking ‘love potion” in quotation marks and think of a love potion that actually worked. For instance: as among the majority of Earthly cultures, a mans virility was a kind of badge of honor to the Vorra. Properly employed, this potion could ensure that Shavarri became the wife to whom Pwill most readily responded. Perhaps it could be used to make certain he did not respond at all to the other wives! In which case Shavarri was going to have a tremendous stranglehold on her lord and master.

  There was a rapping at the door. I swallowed the last few mouthfuls of my meal and answered the knock. This time Shavarri had not merely sent one of her maids. Despite my good resolutions, I felt my stomach cartwheel inside me.

  I had had as little truck as I could manage with Dwerri, the whipmaster, since my arrival, partly because he hated me on principle—but then, he hated everyone!—and partly because I detested his position on the estate. Pwill was absolute lord of his tenantry and retinue, and his wives’ also, of course. Dwerri was the instrument of his authority: a brick-colored man with carefully dressed whiskers shading between dull gingery-red and brown, pale narrow eyes, arms and legs like sections cut from the bole of a tree. He stood now, eyes glinting, in the narrow passageway outside my room, passing the lash of the whip he carried as symbol of his authority between his stubby fingers. Behind him waited two of his aides, almost as stocky as himself.