He drew his gun. The airlock slid open and he guided the jeep through. Springing from the jeep, he made sure he had his gun out and ready.
“You can put the blunderbuss away,” Engel whispered. “Everything’s clear.”
Kennedy looked around. “No one knows I’ve been gone? No one missed me?”
“They’ve all been sleeping like babes,” Engel said. “All except me. I’ve been sitting in my room staring at the walls all night. Where the devil did you go, Kennedy? And why?”
“That’s hardly public concern, as they say. Help me off with my suit.”
Engel assisted him as he climbed out of the bulky protective suit. Kennedy turned to the linguist and stared quietly at him for a long moment.
“I went to visit the Gannys tonight,” he said. “I spent three hours listening to a disquisition on Ganny philosophy and hearing some Ganny poetry. These people aren’t as primitive as Gunther seems to think they are, Engel.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re lying. You’ve spoken to the Gannys. You know that their language is a marvel of communication. You know about their philosophy and their poetry and their outlook on life. And you intend to sit back and let all these things be blotted from the universe forever.”
Engel’s jaw tightened. He said nothing.
“Well,” Kennedy went on, “I don’t. And I’m going to do something about it, or at least try to do something, when I get back to Earth. And while I’m here I’m going to soak up as much Ganny thinking as I possibly can. It’s good for the soul, Engel. You’ll help me.”
“I don’t want to be a party to your crazy schemes, Kennedy.”
“I want you to help me. For once in your life you can do something worthwhile. More worthwhile than making lists of intransitive verbs, anyway.”
13
Two days that were not days, two nights that were not nights, while the greater darkness of the Ganymedean night cloaked the outpost for the full twenty-four hours of the arbitrarily designated “day.” And in that time Kennedy saw the Ganny chieftain twice.
He told Engel, “You arrange with Gunther that you get assigned to take me out on my daily tour of the snow dunes and local lakes. Only we’ll go to the village instead of rubbernecking around the hills.”
Engel was unwilling. Erigel scowled and grimaced and tried to think of reasons why the idea was dangerous, but in the end he gave in, because he was a weak man and both he and Kennedy knew it. Kennedy had long since mastered the art of manipulating people en masse; now he was manipulating one single man, and succeeding at it.
He had five days left on Ganymede. He knew he had to make the most of them.
During the following day Engel came to him and told him to get ready for his daily drive. They skirted the hills and the big lake west of the camp, then swerved one hundred eighty degrees and tracked straight for the Ganny village.
They spent two hours there. The old leader explained the Ninefold Way of Righteousness to them, the essence of the Ganny moral code. Kennedy listened and memorized as much as he could—letting it soak in, because he knew it was good and workable—and occasionally glanced at Engel, and saw that the linguist was not blind to the wonders of these people.
“You see what kind of people they are?” Kennedy demanded, as they rode back to the outpost.
“Sure I see what they are,” Engel grunted. “I’ve known it from the start.”
“And yet you’ll stand by while they’re being wiped out by Terran forces who’ve been deluded into thinking they’re killing hostile alien demons?”
“What can I do about it?” Engel asked sullenly. “I’m a Corporation linguist. I don’t argue with what the Corporation wants to do. I just think about it, inside, and keep my mouth shut.”
Of course you do, Kennedy thought. The way we all do. But for once I can’t sit by and collect my check and let this thing happen. I have to stand up and fight.
He wondered what Gunther would say when he found out that the visiting public relations man was engaged in a highly subversive series of contacts with the Gannys. The little man would have an apoplectic fit, certainly.
Kennedy found out soon enough. He had been making notes of what he recalled of the old man’s talks, scribbling down his recollections of Ganny poetry and fragments of the philosophical discussions. He kept these notes hidden in his room. But on the fourth day, when he went for them to add some notes on Ganny ideas of First Cause, he found they were missing.
For a moment he felt thundering alarm. Then he thought, in a deliberate attempt to calm himself, Engel must have borrowed them. Sure. Engel borrowed them.
There was a knock on the door. Kennedy opened it.
Gunther stood there. Gripped tightly in his hand was Kennedy’s little sheaf of notes. His eyes were bleak and cold.
“Would you mind telling me what the hell these things are?” he demanded.
Kennedy struggled for self-control. “Those? Those are my notes. For my work, I mean. Research and comments to help me in my project.”
Gunther did not smile. “I’ve read them. They are notes on Ganny culture, philosophy, and poetry. You’ve been seeing the Gannys secretly.”
“And what if I have?”
“You’ve been violating a direct order of mine. This is a military-discipline base. We don’t allow orders to be violated.”
“Give me my notes,” Kennedy said.
“I’m keeping them. They’ll be sent back to Earth to the Corporation heads, as evidence against you. You’re under arrest.”
“On what charge?”
“Espionage against the Corporation,” Gunther said flatly.
Two spacemen of the outpost locked him away in a brig down below, and left him in a windowless little room. He stared glumly at the metal walls. Somehow, he had expected this. He had been risking too much by visiting the Gannys. But listening to them had been like taking drugs; for the first time he had found a philosophy that gave him hope in a world that seemed to be without hope. He had wanted desperately to spend every one of his few remaining days on Ganymede in the village.
The day passed. Night came, and he was fed and the door was locked again. Gunther was taking no chances. They would pen him up in here until the time came to ship him back to Earth.
He tried to sleep. For the past few days he had been getting along on two and three hours of sleep each twenty-four hour period, stealing out each night to visit the Gannys, and he was showing it; his feet felt leaden, his eyes stung. He had been subsisting on no-sleep tabs and catching naps at odd moments when he felt he could get away with it. But now he could not sleep.
His watch said 0330 when he heard the bolt outside his door being opened. He looked up. Maybe it was Gunther coming to extract some kind of “confession.”
Engel entered.
“I got put on guard duty,” the linguist said. “Gunther wants you watched round the clock.”
Kennedy looked at him bleakly. “Why did you come in here? To keep me company?”
“I wanted to tell you that I had nothing to do with his finding out. He’s just a suspicious man. He had your room searched while you were out, and he found your notes. I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry too, Kennedy thought. Because now I’ll go back to Earth under guard, and I won’t ever get my chance to expose things.
He said, “Did you ever go back to the village to explain why we didn’t show up for your next session?”
“No. I was afraid to.”