And now, the Krand lay innocently at anchor in Tammulcor Bay, its valuable cargo far from sight; it was simply another merchantship resting between voyages.
Kris stood for a while on the deck, while the men went below. After a few moments, Dran approached hesitantly.
"We is done it, captain!"
Kris nodded. "Yes, Dran. 'We is done it.' " He paused.
"There's no trace of the money?"
"They's never finding it," the Bronze Islander said. "Not without they takes the ship apart."
"Good," Kris said. He stared out over the rain-swept bay at the city sprawling on the mainland. "There will be fuss and fury in Tammulcor tomorrow," he said wryly, "We'll be able to hear the weeping and wailing from here, when they find out their money's not worth anything any more!"
Dran peDran laughed merrily. "This is good, captain! We is successful!"
"I hope SO," Kris said. Somehow, he found it hard to muster the enthusiasm of his little First Officer, despite the smoothness with which the bank robbery had been carried out. Only time would tell whether they would be successful in their ultimate goal—the restoration of Nidor. Only time would reveal whether or not the Way of the Ancestors could be attained once again.
Earthmen! Kris thought fiercely and spat into the water of the Bay. Devils!
Two weeks before, Kris had been in the eastern seaport of Vashcor, sitting in the office of the Secretary of the Merchants' Party, Norvis peKrin Dmorno, in the Party building—a small stone structure overlooking the sea.
From outside, the raucous cries of the fishmongers and the deep, melodious chanting of sailors killing time on the dock came drifting in, helping to build up a deceptive mood of security—deceptive because there was no security to be had on Nidor any longer.
On the walls around the office were posters which showed the intense, brooding face of Party Leader Del peFenn Vyless as reproduced in the blotchy pastels of a cheapjack printer. The Leader was off on a journey to the disturbed area around Elvisen, investigating conditions among the noisy bunch of discontented, landless ex-farmers clustered in the lowlands there. Kris was glad Del peFenn was elsewhere; he didn't mind dealing with Norvis and the others, but both Kris and Del were strong men and there was inevitably conflict between them— with Del, as the senior member of the organization, invariably coming out ahead.
In the office were two others beside Secretary Norvis. Young Ganz, Del's son, was still a boy, and yet more than a boy, actually a chunky youth with powerful arms and much of Party Leader Del's solid-hewn appearance. His eyes had the same piercing quality as the old sea captain's, and when he spoke his voice was a not dissimilar basso. Unlike his father, he had the quality of keeping his mouth shut when he had nothing to say—but he shared his father's strong anti-priesthood views completely.
Del's daughter, Marja geDel, was, in a ways more like her father than Ganz was. She had the same fiery spirit, the ability to speak her views as she saw them and—something Del peFenn didn't have—-a lush, shimmering beauty about her. Her eyes were deep and wide; the light down that covered her body was a pale, lustrous yellow. She bore herself with Del's erect dignity, but in a feminine way that was oddly pleasing.
At the head of the table sat Norvis peKrin Dmorno, the Secretary of the Party.
Norvis was a quiet man; he seldom said anything except to pass on the orders from Del peFenn. But when he did have something to say, it was important.
He was neither young nor old; he was approaching forty, but the downy hair on his face was still as golden as that of a youth's, and the lines in his face were those of experience, not age. He had been a sea captain, and a good one. Kris could remember when, as a ten-year-old midshipman aboard the Krand, he had watched Captain Norvis peKrin give his orders in a quiet, firm voice, commanding obedience but never forcing it. It sometimes seemed odd to Kris that, at that time, Norvis had been little older than he, Kris, was now.
Norvis folded his hands on the table and said: "Here's the position: we—the Party—have been losing ground steadily for nine years. A full cycle ago, we didn't exist. That means that less than five of our fourteen years of life have actually been productive. During the Great Depression our roils boomed; today, they're less than—"
Ganz peDel said, "Pardon, Secretary Norvis, but I'm confused. This is the first time I've been at a meeting of the Leader's Advisors, and—"
Norvis' face didn't change. "What troubles you, Ganz peDel?"
"Well, our father ... uh ... our Leader del peFenn—has told Marja and me something about the Great Depression, but I'm ashamed to say that I never understood it too well. How could too much food cause starvation, anyway?"
Marja geDel's smile widened as she turned to Norvis. "Father is a very emotional man; his ideas make sense, but his explanations are sometimes a little limping."
"I understand," Norvis said. "I'll try to explain." He breathed deeply —almost sighing—and looked at the soft golden fuzz on the back of his hands. "Twenty years ago, a hormone was invented by a student at the Bel-rogas School." It was the school that had been established by the Earthmen, nearly a hundred years before. "This hormone was supposed to be a great thing; it was supposed to double the per-acre yield of the peych-bean. The hormone was distributed all over Nidor. And it worked, just as the Earthmen knew it would; twice as many peych-beans were grown that year. We had more of our main crop than we could handle. Everything became worthless —clothes, made from the fiber; paper, made from the pulp; and worst of all, food—made from the fruit of the plant itself.
"The farmers had more than they could eat, but they couldn't sell it— so it never got to the cities. And the big cities starved because no one would bring them a worthless product."
"I see," Ganz said. "And my father—Del peFenn—brought us out of it."
Norvis nodded. "He organized the Merchants' Party and forced the Count of of Elders to change its ways. The food was given away to those who needed it. The rest was plowed back into the ground as fertilizer. But until the Party stabilized things, Nidor was in terrible shape. Am I light, Kris?"
Kris nodded grimly without saying anything.
"Again the Earthmen," Ganz said vindictively. "They've plundered and disturbed Nidor for six cycles—but they've done it through our priesthood. It's the priests who have sold us out to the devils!"
"Easy, Ganz," Norvis said calmly.
Kris frowned. He didn't like such ranting against the priesthood. That was the trouble with Leader Del; he had a habit of alienating the people by preaching against the Elders—and young Ganz was following in his father's steps.
"Just a minute," Norvis said, patting the air with a hand, "we're here to decide on new policy, not to vent our spleens against the Earthmen. If we have anything to say, let's make it constructive."
"Very well then," Marja said, "what's our problem?"
Norvis looked at each of them in turn. "Simply, this: we're in a rut because we haven't had an emergency. During times of trouble, people flock to the Party. When things are relatively easy, we lose members. If we're going to force the Council to return to the Way of the Ancestors, we'll have to have numbers. Therefore—"
"Therefore," Kris said, "we manufacture an emergency."
"Exactly—but how?"
Marja smiled wryly. "We've been going around the same point for weeks, now. We're stuck in a circle."
Norvis cradled his forehead in his hand. "I know. And we're not getting closer to a solution." He lifted his head. "What can we do? Use the hormone? No farmer would touch it. Start another hugl plague, as the Earthmen did sixty-odd years ago? There aren't any hugl left, to speak of." He shook his head. "No. Anything I think of is impractical, anyway, we need money to carry them out."