4

Toba Mixxax hauled on his reins. The leather ropes sighed through the sealant membranes set in the face of the car, and he could see through the clearwood window — and feel in the rapid slackening of tension in the reins — how eagerly the team of Air-pigs accepted the break.

He stared at the four strangers.

…And how strange they were. Two women, a kid and a busted-up old man — all naked, one of the women waving a crude-looking wooden spear at him.

At first Mixxax had assumed, naturally, that these were just another set of coolies taking a break in the forest, here at the fringe of his ceiling-farm. But that couldn’t be right, of course; even the dimmest of his coolies wouldn’t wander so far without an Air-tank. In fact, he wondered how this little rabble was surviving so high, so badly equipped. All they had were spears, ropes, a net of what looked like untreated leather…

Besides, he’d recognize his own coolies. Probably, anyway.

He’d been patrolling the woodland just beyond the border of the ceiling-farm when he’d come across this group — or at least, he’d meant to be patrolling; it looked as if, daydreaming, he’d wandered a little further into the upflux forest than he’d meant to. Well, that wasn’t so surprising, he told himself. After all there was plenty on his mind. He was only fifty percent through his wheat quota, with the financial year more than three-quarters gone. He found his hands straying to the Corestuff Wheel resting against his chest. Any more spin weather like the last lot and he was done for; he, with his wife Ito and son Cris, would be joining the swelling masses in the streets of Parz itself, dependent on the charity of strangers for their very survival. And there was precious little charity in the Parz of Hork IV, he reminded himself with a shudder.

With an effort he brought his focus back to the present. He stared through the car’s window at the vagrants. The woman with the spear — tall, streaks of age-yellow in her hair, strong-looking, square face — stared back at him defiantly. She was naked save for a rope tied around her waist; affixed to the rope was some kind of carrying-pouch that looked as if it was made from uncured pigskin. She was slim, tough-looking, with small, compact breasts; he could see layers of muscles in her shoulders and thighs.

She was, frankly, terrifying.

Who were these people?

Now he thought about it, this far upflux from Parz they couldn’t possibly be stray coolies, even runaways from another ceiling-farm. Toba’s farm was right on the fringe of the wide hinterland around Parz… just on the edge of cultivation, Toba reminded himself with an echo of old bitterness; not that it allowed him to pay less tax than anyone else. Even the farm of Qos Frenk, his nearest neighbor, was several days’ travel downflux from here without a car.

No, these weren’t coolies. They must be upfluxers… wild people.

The first Toba had ever encountered.

Toba’s left hand circled in a rapid, half-involuntary Sign of the Wheel over his chest. Maybe he should just yank on the reins and get out of here, before they had a chance to do anything…

He chided himself for lack of courage. What could they do, after all? The only man looked old enough to be Toba’s father, and it seemed to be all the poor fellow could do just to keep breathing. And even the two women and the boy working together couldn’t get through the hardened wood walls of a sealed Air-car… could they?

He frowned. Of course, they could always attack him from the outside. Kill the Air-pigs, for instance. Or just cut the reins.

He lifted the reins. Maybe it would be better to come back with help — get some of the coolies into a posse, and then…

Fifty percent of quota.

He dropped the reins, suddenly angry with himself. No, damn it; poor as it was, this was his patch of Crust, and he’d deserve to be Wheel-Broken if he let a gang of weaponless savages drive him away.

Full of a righteous resolve, Toba pulled the mouthpiece of the Speaker toward him and intoned into it, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

The upfluxers startled like frightened Air-pigs, he was gratified to see. They Waved a little further from the car and poked their short spears toward him. Even the old fellow looked up — or tried to; Toba could see how the injured man’s eyecups were sightless, clouded with pus-laced, stale Air.

Toba was filled with a sudden sense of confidence, of command of the situation. He had nothing to fear; he was intimidating to these ignorant savages. They’d probably never even heard of Parz City. His anger at their intrusion seemed to swell as his apprehension diminished.

Now the strong-looking woman approached the car — cautiously, he saw, and with her spear extended toward him — but evidently not paralyzed by fear… as, he conceded, he might have been were the positions reversed.

The woman shouted through the clearwood at him now, emphasizing her words with stabs of her spearpoint at his face; the voice was picked up by the Speaker system’s external ear.

“Who do you think you are, a Xeelee’s grandmother?”

Toba listened carefully. The voice of the upfluxer was distorted by the limitations of the Speaker, of course; but Toba was able to allow for that. He knew how the Speaker system worked, pretty well. Working a ceiling-farm as far from the Pole as Toba’s — so far upflux, in such an inhospitable latitude — the car’s systems kept him alive. The strongest of the coolies could survive for a long time out here and maybe some of them could even complete the trek back to the Pole, to Parz City. But not Toba Mixxax, City-born and bred; he doubted he would last a thousand heartbeats.

So he had assiduously learned how to maintain the systems of the car on which his life depended… The Speaker system, for instance. The Air he breathed was supplied by reservoirs carved into the thick, heavy wooden walls of the car. The Speaker system was based on fine tubes which pierced the reservoirs; the tubes linked membranes set in the inner and outer walls. The tubes were filled with Air, kept warmed to perfect superfluidity by the reservoirs around them, and so capable of transmitting without loss the small temperature fluctuations which human ears registered as sound.

But the narrowness of the tubes did tend to filter out some lower frequencies. The upfluxer savage’s voice sounded thin and without depth, and the resonances gave her a strange, echoing timbre. Despite that, her words had been well formed — obviously in his own language — and tainted by barely a trace of accent.

He frowned at his own surprise. Was he so startled that the woman could speak? These were upfluxers — but they were people, not animals. The woman’s few words abruptly caused him to see her as an intelligent, independent being, not capable of being cowed quite so easily, perhaps, by his technological advantage.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so simple after all.

“What’s wrong?” the woman rasped. She shook her spear at him. “Too scared to speak?”

“My name is Toba Mixxax, freeman of Parz. This is my property. And I want you out of here.”

The injured old fellow swiveled sightless eyecups at Toba. He shouted — weakly, but loud enough for Toba to hear: “Parz bastards! Think you own the whole damn Mantle, don’t you?” A fit of coughing interrupted the old fool, and Toba watched as the stronger woman bent over him, apparently asking him what he was talking about. The man ignored her questions, and once his coughing had subsided he called out again: “Bugger off, Pole man!”

Toba pursed his lips. They knew about Parz. Definitely not as ignorant as he had supposed, then. In fact, maybe he was the ignorant one. He bent to his Speaker membrane, trying to load his voice with threat: “I won’t warn you again. I want you off my property. And if you don’t I…”