The Science Fiction anthology. Andre Norton
Or maybe quronos shrank when left out in the night air.
“Let’s go someplace where we can sit down. And, incidentally, just call me ‘sir’ or ‘captain.’“
“Yes, sir.”
Barnhart nodded. He had been expecting: Yes, Master, I will call you ‘captain.’
But the alien didn’t move. He finally decided that the Leader thought they could sit on the ground where they were standing.
Barnhart squatted.
The Leader squatted.
Before they could speak a muffled explosion vibrated the ground and Barnhart caught a fleeting glimpse of an unstable chemical rocket tearing jerkily into the maroon sky.
“Celebration for my arrival?” Barnhart asked.
“Perhaps so. We are putting the un-needed ones in status.”
He decided to let that ride for the moment.
“Tell me, why didn’t you recognize me before I joined you in your—ritual, Leader?”
The alien tilted his head. “What was there to recognize? We thought you were some new variety of animal. Before you xenogutted how were we to know you were rational life?”
Barnhart nodded. “But how did you so cleverly deduce that I was your Master?”
“There are one hundred of us. You were the one hundred and first. You had to be the Master returned.”
The Master had been some friendly lifeform in the Federation, obviously. Otherwise the qurono androids wouldn’t speak Galactic. Barnhart nibbled on his under lip.
“I want to find out how much you still know after the Master has been away so long,” the captain said. “Tell me, how do you communicate with the Master?”
“What for?” The Leader began to look at Barnhart oddly.
“For anything. Where’s the sub-space radio?”
The direct approach produced a rather ironic expression on the qurono’s narrow face but no answer. But if there was a radio on the planet Barnhart meant to find it. Spacemen forced to abandon their craft were required to report to the nearest Federation base as quickly as possible. Besides, he meant to see that Simmons and his Anglo stooge and all the others paid for their mutiny. But, he decided, perhaps he had better not press the matter at the moment.
Another rocket punctuated the moment of silence.
“Take me to your launching area,” Barnhart said.
The android stood up and walked. But he walked at Barnhart’s side, forcing the captain to catch his stride a half-step to let the alien lead him. He wasn’t sure if it was a mark of respect not to get ahead of the Master or an attempt to see if he knew where the launching site was located. The quronos were limited, but just how limited Barnhart was beginning to wonder.
They rounded the clump of drooping lavender trees and Barnhart saw the eight men laying on the ground in the transparent casings. Not men, but quronos, he corrected himself; in a molded clear membrane of some sort.
“They are in status,” the Leader explained, answering the captain’s unasked question.
“This is how you keep your population at one hundred,” Barnhart thought aloud, removing his glasses to rest his eyes and to get a better look at the bodies. Despite regulations he could still see better without his spectacles.
“It is how you arranged it, Master. But as you know we are now ninety and one.”
The captain put his glasses back on. “I’ll test you. Why are you now ninety and one?”
“Naturally,” the Leader said emotionlessly, “you required a whole shelter unit to yourself. We had to dispose of the ten who previously had the unit.”
Barnhart swallowed. “Couldn’t you think of anything less drastic? Next time just build a new unit.”
“But master,” the alien protested, “it takes a great deal of work to construct our units. Our lumber escapes so badly no matter how often we beat it into submission. Our work capacity is limited, as you are aware. Is it really desirable to overwork us so much?”
The captain was a little shocked. Was this humorless, methodical android really protesting a command from his Master? “How do you suppose the ten you are putting in status feel about it?” he managed.
“They would doubtlessly prefer not to be overworked. Our fatigue channels can only stand so much.”
But it wasn’t the work, Barnhart suddenly knew. It was the idea that there could be eleven houses, instead of ten. The concept of only ninety quronos and a master must be only slightly less hideous to them. They couldn’t really be so overjoyed to see him.
A third rocket jarred off, rising unsteadily but surely in the low gravity. It was a fairly primitive device—evidently all they retained from the original model supplied them by the Master.
Barnhart looked at the figures on the ground. Only seven.
“The ones in status go into the rockets!” Barnhart gasped.
“And circle in the proper orbits,” the Leader agreed.
This time he saw the quronos lifting a stiff form and taking it to the crude rocket. It looked entirely too much like a human body. Barnhart looked away.
But at the edge of his peripheral vision he saw the quronos halt and stand up their fellow in status. He glanced at his wrist. Fifteen hundred hours. The aliens began geoplancting.
Barnhart ran his tongue over his teeth, noting that they needed brushing. He came to himself with a start.
Of course. He had almost forgot.
Barnhart faced the others and joined them in geoplancting.
A hideous cry built from one plateau of fury to another.
“He’s no better than us!” the Leader screamed.
Ninth day
I have made a serious mistake.
While it was necessary for me to conform to the quronos’ ritual to get myself recognized, I should not have continued to adhere to it. Apparently by these creatures’ warped reasoning I established myself as a reasoning creature by first joining them in their routine; but when I continued to act in accord with them I proved myself no better than they are. As Master I am supposed to be superior and above their mundane routine.
At the moment they are milling belligerently outside my force-field screen. As I look into their stupid, imaginationless faces I can only think that somewhere in the past they were invented by some unorthodox Terran scientist, probably of English descent. They—
Wait.
The force field. It’s wavering. It must have been damaged when it got tramped underfoot. They are going to get in to me. It—
Barnhart watched them prepare the rocket that would blast him into an orbit circling the planet. He could see and even hear the sound that vibrated through the thin membrane in which he was encased, but he could not move a nerve-end. Fortunately his eyes were focused on infinity, so he could see everything at least blurrily.
The Leader, who seemed to have grown a few inches, wasted no time. He gave the orders and the quronos lifted him into the rocket. The hatch closed down on the indigo day and he was alone.
The blast of takeoff almost deafened him but he didn’t feel the jar—only because, he realized, he could feel nothing.
A few weeks later the centrifugal force of the spinning rocket finally nudged the latch and the hatch swung open. Barnhart was exposed to naked fire-bright blackness itself.
After a day or two he stopped worrying about that, as he had stopped fretting about breathing.
He