These last words had a ritual sound to them and, when Jason r peated them, Naxa nodded at the correctness of this. At the same tim Jason felt that they were more than empty ritual. Interdependenc meant survival on Pyrrus, and he knew that these people stood togeth to the death against the mortal dangers around them. He hoped ti ritual would include him in that protective sphere.
“That is enough for tonight,” Rhes said. “The spotted sickness h:
weakened me, and your medicine has turned me to jelly. You will stay here, Jason. There is a blanket, but no bed, at least for now.”
Enthusiasm had carried Jason this far, making him forget the two-G exertions of the long day. Now fatigue hit him a physical blow. He had dim memories of refusing food and rolling in the blanket on the floor. After that, oblivion.
17
Every square inch of his body ached where the doubled gravity hi pressed his flesh to the unyielding wood of the floor. His eyes we gummy and his mouth was filled with an indescribable taste that can off in chunks. Sitting up was an effort and he had to stifle a groan as h joints cracked.
“Good day, Jason,” Rhes called from the bed. “If I didn’t believe i medicine so strongly, I would be tempted to say there is a miracle i your machine that has cured me overnight.”
There was no doubt that he was on the mend. The inflamed patch had vanished and the burning light was gone from his eyes. He sa propped up on the bed, watching the morning sun melt the night’s hai storm into the fields.
“There’s meat in tb~ cabinet there,” he said, “and either water or vi~ to drink.”
The visk proved to be a distilled beverage of extraordinary poten that instantly cleared the fog from Jason’s brain, though it did leave slight ringing in his ears. And the meat was a tenderly smoked joisi the best food he had tasted since leaving Darkhan. Taken together, thi restored his faith in life and the future. He lowered his glass with relaxed sigh and looked around.
With the pressures of immediate survival and exhaustion remove his thoughts returned automatically to his problem. What were the:
people really like-and how had they managed to sur~ive in the dead wilderness? In the city he had been told they were savages. Yet the was a carefully tended and repaired communicator on the wall. Ar by the door a crossbow that fired machined metal bolts; he could see ti tool marks still visible on their shanks. The one thing he needed w more information. He could start by getting rid of some of his nii information.
“Rhes, you laughed when I told you what the city people said, aboi trading you trinkets for food. What do they really trade you?”
“Anything within certain limits,” Rhes said. “Small manufactun
items, such as electronic components for our communicators. Rustless alloys we can’t make in our forges, cutting tools, atomic-electric convertens that produce power from any radioactive element, Things like that. Within reason they’ll trade anything we ask that isn’t on the forbidden list. They need the food badly.”
“And the items on the forbidden list-?”
“Weapons of course, or anything that might be made into a powerful weapon. They know we make gunpowder so we can’t get anything like large casting or seamless tubing we could make into heavy gun barrels. We drill our own rifle barrels by hand, though the crossbow is quiet and faster in the jungle. Then they don’t like us to know very much, so the only reading matter that gets to us are tech maintenance manuals, empty of basic theory.
“The last banned category you know about-medicine. This is the one thing I cannot understand, that makes me burn with hatred with every death they might have prevented.”
“I know their reasons,” Jason said.
“Then tell me, because I can think of none.”
“Survival-it’s just that simple. I doubt if you realize it, but they have a decreasing population. It is just a matter of years before they will be gone. Whereas your people at least must have a stable-if not slightly growing population-to have existed without their mechanical protections. So in the city they hate you and are jealous of you at the same time. If they gave you medicine and you prospered, you would be winning the battle they have lost. I imagine they tolerate you as a necessary evil, to supply them with food, otherwise they wish you were all dead.”