THE POISON AND THE DAGGER
THE POISON AND THE DAGGER
I didn’t have to like it, which was a good thing, because I didn’t.
It wasn’t even the rigged examination at the center and the feeling that everyone knew something I didn’t know and seemed to understand how to spring Kit from this trap better than I did. It wasn’t the trip to Earth being imposed on us from above, to look for something that might or might not exist any longer. It wasn’t even that Zenobia was foisted on us, or that she was a total stranger, destined to spend six months in space with us and Doc.
No, the problem was that I knew there were other things going on, beyond the reach of my ears and that no one was going to tell me about them. I was a stranger in Eden, had lived there for far less than a year, if one took into account my trips out with Kit.
Perhaps Kit’s family thought I would blow up if I knew all that was going on, but I didn’t think that was it. Not this time. At least Kit himself would know that if I hadn’t blown up yet, I wasn’t about to.
I’m not going to claim any great level of maturity, but it had been some time since I thought every problem could be solved by kicking it in the appropriate—Kit would say inappropriate—place. Sometimes you needed to kick it in a lot of different places. And sometimes strategy was needed. And sometimes I had to leave the strategy to others.
Only when I told Kit that, as we flew back home at last—in our own flyer that someone had fetched from the Energy Center—he shook his head, and his lips trembled upward. His eyes were oddly tender as he smiled. Actually, Thena, I suspect there’s a lot of things we won’t have time to tell each other except in mind-talk. And that Doc and Zen won’t tell us because they can’t mind-talk us. Because most places will be bugged with cameras and sound pickups. Because the greatest authority in the world is out to get us.
I turned this over in my mind. Having the greatest authority in the world—okay one of the fifty greatest authorities in the world (no use catering to Daddy Dearest’s perception of himself particularly now that he was safely dead)—out to get me was pretty much how I’d lived my whole life. And?
He gave me that look again, the look he gives when he thinks I’m completely unreasonable and also extremely funny. Thena! And what do you think? They’ll have listening devices and they’ll have traps. He gave me a sidelong glance, suddenly serious, as though evaluating how I’d respond. Surely you realize the only reason we’re being allowed to go is that they think we’ll never come back.
I had been trying not to realize that. I know our mission is damn close to hopeless, I said, soberly, trying to sound as grown up as I knew how. I saw some of the notes Jarl left behind, but they were in my father’s possession and my father is…dead. Whether the next person knew what they meant I don’t know. And I left behind at the broomer’s lair the gems I took from my father’s study. At any rate, the ones I saw were all on how to make me which I don’t think anyone on Eden needs. There was nothing about powertrees. As for the ones they showed you in Never-Never…who knows what happened after the break-in. I know prisoners escaped and the lower levels, where you were, were flooded. So I think the chances of us finding powertree—
No, Thena. Kit sounded patient and faintly amused. No. Don’t you see? It has nothing to do with how difficult the secret of growing powertrees is. We’ll give it our best and I’d give that endeavor a good fifty-fifty chance.
Not fifty-fifty chance of my understanding any of it. He forestalled my protest. As I said, I’m just a vacuum-ship-pusher. But the chance of us bringing it back, and having the trained people on Eden decode it. These people are terrified we’ll achieve it, of course, so they’d probably give us higher odds. And that’s why they’ll make sure something happens to us en route. So we never get to Earth, much less come back. And they can say we defected.
Something…A monstrous idea formed in my mind. Sabotage? Sabotage was not a crime in Eden. But in a world as attached to the morality and rights of the individual, it seemed like they should be more moral. Like there would be a certain basic decency attaching to their decisions, like they wouldn’t simply kill us because it is convenient.
Oh, not because it is convenient, Thena. Only for the highest possible motives. They are highly moral people, don’t you see that?
I don’t know what my face showed looking back at him, but his lips twitched. They are, nonetheless. At least in their own minds and whether you believe it or not. They’re doing this for the good of the people.
The good of the people! I said. That sounds like one of Daddy Dearest’s speeches. But Kit, it’s impossible that they think it’s for the good of the people. They can’t be that stupid and there are limits to self delusion. How could starving Eden of energy be for the good of anything, except maybe the Good Men of Earth?
Very easily, Kit said. If you can put yourself in a frame of mind where you see yourself as knowing what everyone should do for their own good. If that were true, then being able to control who gets energy and who doesn’t would mean being able to encourage certain elements of society and discourage others. You would in fact be able to design a society where only the best people had power and—
It was all too easy to put myself in that frame of mind. I’d heard my father and his friends talk long enough that it was almost second nature to slip into that mode of thinking. Even after a year in Eden, I still wasn’t sure they were wrong, for that matter. Dad and his cronies were corrupt, venal and, sometimes, evil, but they were not stupid. And so many people I met seemed too stupid to stand upright and talk at the same time. Like that man who’d got in an argument with Kath during the hearing.
I could, in a way, understand wanting to encourage the…good people and discourage the others. I could even sympathize with it. But I also remembered overhearing Daddy Dearest’s policy meetings—most of the time without his knowing I was nearby. And the people that Daddy Dearest tried to encourage, half the time, were the people who were too stupid to live. They were easier to lead, you see—easier to convince of what Daddy wanted them to believe. I groaned. The good people…I said. The Good Men.
Once more, my husband gave me an amused glance. He looked vaguely feral, unshaven, wearing clothes that appeared slept in, and like he had been starved for days. This last was probably not true. Eden had no reason to ration food, and wouldn’t risk starving Kit if there was a chance of Kath ever finding out.
An unholy light danced in his eyes. Of course, he said. The good people always end up being the ones who do as they’re told. And the Good Men—by any other name—do the telling.
I suppose it could be argued those truly were the good people. Civilization could be said to consist of people willing to go along with others’ ideas. The domesticated version of humans. But this was not a philosophic debate. We were talking about real people, people I knew…my husband’s family, his friends, the place that had made him what he was. And I saw about as much chance of their going along to get along as of my growing an extra head. And—I set my jaw, remembering Castaneda—just on principle, I refused to go along.
So you’re telling me, I said, that they intend to sabotage our ship so we die in space? And you’re fine with that? You still wanted them to send us out into space? Aren’t there easier ways to commit suicide?
There would be, if I had any intention of letting them get away with it, he said, and pushed his chin forward, setting his jaw. It reminded me of when he’d been near-fatally wounded and had climbed up the side of a ship, against what must have been unbearable pain, to prevent me committing suicide by Dock Control. Afterwards he’d stared at me with that sheer stubbornness in his eyes, even while a dark stain of blood spread on the side of his suit. Now the stubborn was back, as well as a definite streak of defiance. We’re going to find all their traps and all their sabotage. We’re going to survive it. We’re going to go to Earth and come back with a way to replant powerpods. And then we’re going to make the little weasels eat it.
I wasn’t absolutely sure what he meant to have them eat: the way to make the powerpods grow? How? If in a data gem it wouldn’t be that hard to eat. Perhaps he meant the powerpods? Impossible. Those were man-sized and radioactive. It wasn’t really safe to ask, when Kit was in this mood. He’d probably come up with yet another cryptic utterance that would cost me sleep for days as I tried to figure the mechanics of it. So I just said, mildly, What have weasels ever done to you?
Which got me a puzzled look and an I don’t know. There are no weasels on Eden. Are they sort of like rabbits?
I avoided this side-rhetorical line. I’d long ago decided that my husband only introduced talk of Earth animals and his utter ignorance of them in order to make me laugh or distract me. I wasn’t in the mood to be distracted. You really think we can do it? I said. Avoid all the traps laid out for us, escape all their plotting and manage to do what the most powerful people in the world are intent on stopping us doing?
He grinned. We got here despite the Good Men.
Yes, but the Earth is larger…there’s more places to escape. Here…
Here we have Doc and Zen to help.
You trust them that much? And how will we communicate with them?
I trust them that much, he said, and gave me a smile that said not to worry my pretty head about it. We’ll manage it, Thena.
I didn’t like it. Look, my life had given me no reason at all to trust the judgment of others. In my experience, outside my own judgment and my own capacities, everyone was trying to pull one over on me.
But Kit was still smiling at me with that expression like the canary that ate the cat. Or in this case, perhaps, the Cat that thinks he can win over the bureaucrat. I glowered at him. You are the most exasperating man. I don’t have the slightest idea why I love you.
The smile curved and became wicked, in a way that made my heart skip a beat. No? Let me take a bath and I’ll remind you.