Tylos, his bucket slopping, hurried as long as he was in Lasja’s sight. Probably that scuttle would drop to a crawl as soon as he put a screen of brush between them. Since the usually taciturn Lasja seemed in an open-jawed mood, Naill determined to make the most of the opportunity to learn what he could.
“Lasja, has anyone ever bought free here?”
“Bought free?” The axman appeared to jerk out of some private path of thought. He grinned. “You needn’t wear yourself out, boy, thinkin’ ’bout that. Iffen you can shoulder a phas and trot him twice ’round the garth—then you can think of buyin’ free. This is a dirt-poor world—and Kosburg’s in an outer-Fringe holdin’. He ain’t goin’ to let loose of any pair of hands he gets. Not while they can still work, that is. You’re right puny, but you ain’t no shirk like Tylos. You do a day’s work right enough. Me—I was prisoner of war on Avalon. They came ’round to the camp and made labor offers. I took that—better than stayin’ in and goin’ mad with bein’ cooped up. When I came here—sure, I had big ideas about doin’ my time and buyin’ free. Only—this is the way of it—all the land, every stinkin’ wood-rotten bit of it, belongs to the Sky, accordin’ to their reckonin’. And only a true Believer can get rights to take up a garth. And—this is the trick star in their game—you can’t be no true Believer ‘less you was born so. They made them a pact, when they took off from that mistake of a world where they was roostin’ before, that they wouldn’t let in no disturbin’ outsiders with different ideas. So you gotta be born a Believer, you can’t up and say as how you’d like to join ’em now.
“Once here, they’ve got you tighter’n an air-lock door. You can go up against ’em and get yourself lessoned—or maybe thrown out in the woods—but they’ve got you just where it suits ’em! Now, you do that there smoothin’ down. We’d better have a fair load for the old man when he comes sniffin’ ’round.”
How far were they from the port? A good day’s travel in one of the phas-drawn carts—maybe longer on foot. And how could anyone work out an escape even if he were able to reach that single tie with space? To hire passage on a spacer would cost indeed a “treasure”; to try to work some deal with any ship’s commander to be taken on as crew would be useless. The sympathies of the officers would all be with the master one was trying to escape. And if there was no system of legal buyfree . . . Naill dug savagely with the point of his ax against the hard wood. He hated to believe that Lasja’s gloomy report was the truth, but it sounded likely.
“You take that rope.” Lasja broke into his assistant’s train of discouraging thought. “And drag out another of them logs. You can plunk it ’bout here.”
Naill put down the ax and went back into where the trees had been felled during the past two days. He was still out of the coverage of the full forest, but the mass of greenery, just beginning to wilt, was somehow refreshing. There was a different feel here to the land, smells that were aromatic, free from the taint of human living. On impulse he stripped off handfuls of silver-green leaves, their touch fur-soft against his damp skin as he held them close to his nose and drank in a spicy fragrance.
He was filled with a sudden desire to keep on going into the domain of the trees. What if a man did take to the woods? That would mean becoming an outlaw in unknown country. But was that state so much worse than garth life? His mind nibbled at that as he hunched down to knot the rope about a tree trunk. The twist of cordage cut cruelly into his shoulder on the first pull. There was resistance, too much. Naill knelt again, saw a branch had cut into a soft place in the ground and pinned the tree fast there.
With his lopping knife he set to work digging that free. Sunlight lay in ragged patches. And something blazed with leaping light where he dug. Naill clawed out loose handfuls of moist loam and uncovered what lay beneath.
He blinked. Lasja’s stories had not prepared him for this. And truly—what was it? A figure of—was it a tree?—a ball, a box, a rod the length of his palm and perhaps two inches thick, a necklace spilling a circlet of green-fire droplets on the gray soil.
Naill’s hand closed upon the rod, brought it into full sight.
He drew a deep breath of pure wonder. There had been so many years of drabness, of ugliness. And now he could not give name to what he held in his hand. The substance was cold, with the pleasant coolness of springwater cupped in a sweaty hand to be brought to a thirsty mouth. It was all light—green, gold, opaline—jeweled light. It was a form—in traceries of patterns—to entrance, to enchant the eyes. It was a fabulous wonder that was his! His!
Moved by some instinctive fear, Naill sat half crouched, looking about him. Smashed, burned—that was what Lasja said was done to such things! Sure—that was part of their narrow world. Break beauty, destroy it, as they broke and destroyed the beauty of the Forest. He had not the slightest hope of keeping the entire treasure: he had no desire to. But this rod—this tube with all its imprisoned, magic splendor—that was not going to be broken!
Lasja would be along any moment, and Naill had no doubt about the other’s reaction. He’d call Kosburg at once. Where—where was a hiding place?
He balled his fist tightly about his treasure. The woods—perhaps he could find a place of concealment there. Naill got to his feet, stole into the shadow of the trees, and saw there on the bole of one a dark hole. He thrust the tube into that hollow just as Lasja called from close at hand.
Naill leaped, kicked soil back, took up the rope to pull as the other came into view. He dared not turn his head to see how much dirt his kicks had replaced, whether he had again concealed the rest of the treasure.
“You empty-skulled lackwit!” Lasja bore down upon him. “Whatta you doin’, pullin’ out your guts that way? You got a limb caught under that thing!”
The older man went down on one knee to dig with his lopping knife, just as Naill had done before him. Then that busy arm paused. Lasja tumbled away as if he had just laid hand on a lurking jacata worm. He scrambled to his feet and grabbed Naill, propelling him away from the tree. And at the same time he gave a carrying call that would summon Kosburg. It was plain Lasja was obeying the Rule.
FOUR
SINNER
Tylos stood against the wall bunk, his hands opening and closing as if he wanted to grab and hold what was not there. He leaned toward Naill, his pale tongue sliding back and forth across his lips.
“You musta seen somethin’—you musta! Treasure—what kinda treasure, man?”
They were all herded in the bunkhouse, the dozen off-world laborers Kosburg had. And all eleven pairs of eyes were on Naill. Only Lasja was missing, kept behind as a guide. Naill hedged.
“Lasja dug it out—the tree branch was caught. I was on the rope drag and he dug. Then he pushed me out of there and called Kosburg. I saw something shining in the dirt—that’s all.”
“Why—why call Kosburg?” Tylos demanded of the company at large. “Treasure—get that down to the port, and any trader’d take it off your hands for enough to buy your passage out.”
“No.” Hannosa, never a talkative man and one of the older laborers, shook his head. “That’s where you’re off course, Tylos. No trader landing on Janus would deal with one of us—he’d lose port license if he tried.”
“Not the master, maybe,” Tylos conceded. “But don’t tell me the whole crew of every ship is gonna turn blind eye to a profitable little deal on the side. Lissen, dirt grubber, I come from Korwar—I know how much can be made outta treasure. Alien things—they bring big prices—big enough to make the cut worth while all along the line from a crewman up to the final seller in some fancy Veep place.”
Hannosa continued to shake his head. “This is a matter of belief. And you know—or ought to know—that means a complete clampdown at any port. There’ve been five treasures found in the past three years—that we’ve heard about—in this district alone. Every one of them finished the same way—destroyed under careful supervision.”
“Why?” Naill was the one to ask now. “Don’t they realize that these finds are important?”