A new building had appeared, not a makeshift affair like the huts and shelters, but square and solid, and standing apart from them. And on the open ground above, there was another flyer as well, he could now see, smaller than the one that had just landed. That must have been the one that had brought Jorff and his party. Jorff and Rakki were there, with two of Zeigler’s troopers from Serengeti, along with Enka, Sims, and a group of what must have been at least a dozen, maybe more, of Rakki’s Tribesmen lined up waiting, all carrying arms. As Keene watched, Enka shouted a command, and the Tribesmen began filing into the bus.
CHAPTER FORTY
Yobu remembered more than the younger people did of the world that had existed before times of Terror, when fire and stones rained upon the land, floods roared through the mountains, and the Long Night followed. He remembered the cattle he had tended on the vast estate of a government official who spent most of his time away in the city or out of the country, and life in the shanty village where the domestics and hired hands dwelt.
He had never been to the distant city, but the things he’d heard and seen on the TVs hadn’t struck him as appealing. Yes, there was probably more money to be made there, but that had been an obsession of younger men who wanted the chance to change their lives, or to just buy some women, clothes, liquor, and excitement from time to time. But who at Yobu’s age would have wanted to change their life, if they were reasonably content and were provided the basics to get by, and then have to start spending the little time they had left having to learn new things all over again?
The coming of the Sky People had reminded him of other things too, that had faded after the more recent and violent happenings. Their machines brought back pictures of the trucks on the road that went to places he had never heard of; the work going on at their base to the north was like the construction scenes he’d been to on occasions. But then the killing that he’d witnessed, and the appearance of an armed faction assuming power over the rest brought alive again the feelings of anger and helplessness he’d harbored toward the strangers who had built their palaces on the land that had been his people’s since the gods of the old legends created it and gave it to them, and enclosed them behind wire fences watched by armed soldiers. For a while after the Terror, he had thought that perhaps the gods were angry too at what men were making of their gift of the world, and had swept it all away. But nothing had changed. It was beginning again, already, and even Sky People who went to other worlds were unable to stop it. It troubled him.
He stood on the steps of the porch in front of Rakki’s hut, watching the warriors board the large plane that had just landed—it didn’t really resemble the planes he remembered, but he had no other term for it—and the smaller one that had brought Jorff, Leisha, and the two soldiers earlier. All were going: Rakki, Enka, Sims, and the fifteen most proficient with the guns, which meant just about all who were not youths. So Rakki would get his revenge over Jemmo at last and become ruler of the caves. And his side of the bargain would be to allow his people to be trained and recruited for war. War against whom? It could only be against the other Sky People at the base, or more who were to follow. Rakki’s warriors would be used as expendables in fighting the quarrels of others—just as it had always been before.
And what had Yobu done to stop it? Nothing. He had encouraged it. He had exhorted the warriors as he had been expected to, and told them they would find glory and show their valor in building a bigger, stronger tribe that would one day become a great nation. Anything else would have incurred Rakki’s anger, and Yobu feared that the most, for he had seen what it brought upon others. But inside, he felt shame and contempt for himself. It wasn’t those like Rakki who were responsible for injustices and the suffering that these things brought. Like any others, they were simply organisms following their nature. It was those like Yobu, who either helped them through fear, or else did nothing. And were they not following their own inner nature too?