No matter explanations. When Flandry saw the grove itself, filling the sky, sunlight winking and shivering and running like flame in the crowns, he merely stood and looked. The others respected his need. For long, the whole party remained silent where it was.
When they resumed-passing through a stand of tall frond trees without even noticing-the Terran found tongue once more: “I understand your people are freeholders. That’s rare, isn’t it?”
Tembesi, who was a big stern-faced man, replied slowly: “We are not quite what you think. Early in the history of this planet, it became clear that the free yeoman was doomed. The large plantations were underselling him, so he was driven to subsistence farming, with the price of antitoxin too high for him to afford improvements. Let him have one bad year, and he must sell land to the plantation owner, just to pay for survival. Presently his farm became too small to support him, he fell into the grip of the moneylenders, in the end he was fortunate if he became a tenant rather than a slave.
“Our own ancestors were peasants whose leaders foresaw the loss of land. They sold what they had and moved here. There were certain necessities of survival as free men. First, some means of getting cash for antitoxin and tools. Yet, second, not enough wealth to excite the greed of the great lords, who could always find a pretext to dispossess their inferiors. Third, remoteness from the corruption and violence of the cities, the countryside’s ignorance and poverty. Fourth, mutual helpfulness, so that individual misfortunes would not nibble away the new community as the old had been destroyed.
“These things were found among the Trees.”
And now they left the minor forest and approached the holy grove. It was not as dark under one of the giants as Flandry had expected. The overshadowing roof of leaves twinkled, flashed, glittered, so that sunspecks went dancing among the shades. Small animals scurried out of the way, around the nearest root which heaved its gray wall up from the pseudomoss. Redbreasted fluter birds and golden ketjils darted in and out of the foilage overhead; their song drifted down through a distant, eternal rustle, that was like some huge waterfall heard across many leagues of stillness. Close to a Tree, you had no real sense of its height. It was too enormous: simply there, blocking off half the world. Looking ahead, down the clear shadowy sward, you got a total effect, arched and whispering vaults full of sun, upheld by columns that soared. The forest floor was strewn with tiny white blossoms.
Djuanda turned worshipful eyes from Flandry and said, reddening: “My father, I am ashamed that ever I wished to change this.”
“It was not an ill-meant desire,” said Tembesi. “You were too young to appreciate that three hundred years of tradition must hold more wisdom than any single man.” His gray head inclined to the Terran. “I have yet to offer my thanks for the rescuing of my son, Captain.”
“Oh, forget it,” muttered Flandry. “You helped rescue me, didn’t you?”
“For a selfish purpose. Djuanda, your elders are not quite such doddering old women as you believed. We also want to change the life of the Trees-more than you ever dreamed.”
“By bringing the Terrans!” The boy’s voice cracked loud and exultant across the quiet.
“Well… not exactly,” demurred Flandry. He glanced about at the rest. Eager Djuanda, firm Tembesi, sullen Kemul, unreadable Luang holding his arm… he supposed they could be relied on. The others, though, soft-spoken men with lithe gait and bold gaze, he didn’t know about. ,”Uh, we can’t proceed too openly, or word will get back to Biocontrol.”
“That has been thought of,” said Tembesi. “All whom you see here are of my own Tree-or clan, if you prefer, since each Tree is the home of a single blood-line. I have talked freedom with them for a long time. Most of our folk can be trusted equally well. Timidity, treachery, or indiscretion might make a few dangerous, but they are very few.”
“It only takes one,” humphed Kemul.
“How could a traitor get word to the outside?” replied Tembesi. “The next regular trade caravan is not due for many weeks. I have taken good care that no one will depart this area meanwhile. Our few aircraft are all under guard. To go on foot would require more than thirty days to the next communication center… hence, would be impossible.”
“Unless the local dispenser advanced a few pills, given a reasonable-sounding pretext,” said Flandry. “Or-wait-the dispenser is in radio touch with Biocontrol all the time!”
Tembesi’s chuckle was grim. “Hereabouts,” he said, “unpopular dispensers have long tended to meet with accidents. They fall off high branches, or an adderkop bites them, or they go for a walk and are never seen again. The present appointee is my own nephew, and one of our inner-circle conspirators.”
Flandry nodded, unsurprised. Even the most villainous governments are bound to have a certain percentage of decent people in them-who, given a chance, often become the most effective enemies of the regime.
“We’re safe for a while, I suppose,” he decided. “Doubtless Warouw will check the entire planet, hoping to pick up my trail. But he’s not likely to think of trying here until a lot of other possibilities have failed.”
Djuanda’s enthusiasm broke loose again: “And you will free our people!”
Flandry would have preferred a less melodramatic phrasing, but hadn’t the heart to say so. He addressed Tembesi: “I gather you aren’t too badly off here. And that you’re conservative. If Unan Besar is opened to free trade, a lot of things are going to change overnight, including your own ways of life. Is it worth that much to you to be rid of Biocontrol?”
“I asked him the same question,” said Luang. “In vain. He had already answered it for himself.”
“It is worth it,” Tembesi said. “We have kept a degree of independence, but at a cruel cost of narrowing our lives. For we seldom, if ever, have money to undertake new things, or even to travel outside our own land. A Tree will not support many hundred persons, so we must limit the children a family may have. A man is free to choose his life work-but the choice is very small. He is free to speak his mind-but there is little to speak about. And always we must pay our hard-won silvers for pills which cost about half a copper to produce; and always we must dread that some overlord will covet our country and find ways to take it from us; and always our sons must look at the stars, and wonder what is there, and grow old and die without having known.”
Flandry nodded again. It was another common phenomenon: revolutions don’t originate with slaves or starveling proletarians, but with men who have enough liberty and material well-being to realize how much more they ought to have.
“The trouble is,” he said, “a mere uprising won’t help. If the whole planet rose against Biocontrol, it would only die. What we need is finesse.”
The brown faces around him hardened, as Tembesi spoke for alclass="underline" “We do not wish to die uselessly. But we have discussed this for years, it was a dream of our fathers before us, and we know our own will. The People of the Trees will hazard death if they must. If we fail, we shall not wait for the sickness to destroy us, but take our children in our arms and leap from the uppermost boughs. Then the Trees can take us back into their own substance, and we will be leaves in the sunlight.”
It wasn’t really very cold here, but Flandry shivered.
They had now reached a certain bole. Tembesi stopped. “This we call the Tree Where the Ketjils Nest,” he said, “the home of my clan. Welcome, liberator.”