Anarchaos Read online

  ANARCHAOS

  Curt Clark

  First published by

  Ace Books, Inc.

  1967

  ON A WORLD WHERE NOTHING WAS ILLEGAL, THE ONLY CRIME WAS TO BE KILLED.

  “72% OF OFF-WORLD VISITORS TO ANARCHAOS IN THE LAST TEN YEARS DISAPPEARED WITHOUT TRACE AND ARE PRESUMED TO HAVE BEEN MURDERED,” the guide told Rolf Malone. “Customs reports you’re carrying a surprising assortment of weapons, for which you had no believable explanation. Don’t try to beat these people, Malone—you’re on their ground, playing by their rules.”

  “No,” Malone said. “There are no rules here.”

  For Anarchaos was a planet where anarchy was the only law, where each man protected himself as best he could, and the weak were soon dead. Malone’s brother had died that way, and Malone had come to Anarchaos to find the man who had killed him. He knew that he was facing an entire planet of enemies.

  I

  “THOSE WHO SEE by the light of Hell are blind to evil.” Rohstock said that, in his Voyages To Seven Planets. As I rode the shuttle to Anarchaos his words circled and circled through my thoughts, the answer to a question I preferred not to ask.

  The shuttle was nearly empty: myself, two other passengers, the steward. Up front were the two pilots, of course, but I never saw them, and so they don’t count.

  There is nothing more tedious than a shuttle flight between unimportant planets, even for someone like me, his first time away from home. On a shuttle there is nothing to do, nothing to see; one merely sits in an enclosed tube and is hurtled through hyperspace from here to here, without even the sensation of motion. The only difference between an elevator and such a shuttle is the distance covered. And, of course, the time spent in the voyage.

  This one, from Cockaigne to Anarchaos, took four hours. It was the last leg of my journey, and in objective time the shortest, but subjectively it was the longest of all.

  I had left Earth five days before on a liner to Valhalla, a three-day trip filled with comfort and luxurious distraction. The customs inspection at Valhalla had taken me by surprise—after all, I was merely passing through their domain—and I had no chance adequately to hide my weapons. They were confiscated, and I was held overnight for questioning. My claim that I was simply a nervous tourist who had brought the weapons along for self-defense was, I suppose, absurd on the face of it; Anarchaos, my destination, was unlikely to attract even self-confident tourists, and the arsenal I’d been carrying was surely excessive for purposes of self-defense. Still, it was the only explanation I would give, and in any case I wasn’t planning to visit Valhalla at all, so the next morning I was—without apologies—released. The weapons were not returned; I would have to get new ones on Anarchaos.

  The trip from Valhalla to Cockaigne took seventeen hours. I was saved from boredom by a pleasant conversation with a fellow passenger in the first half of the trip, and by a long and dreamless sleep in the second half.

  But now, on this final stage, boredom had me strongly in its grip. I occupied my mind with study of the steward and the other passengers as long as I could, but they were a dull trio, offering little to excite interest or speculation. The steward was male, fairly young, of medium height and weight, blank of face, given to that invisibility or lack of personality common among those in the service occupations. The two passengers, both male, were almost equally invisible; the young, pale, nervously smiling one in the clerical collar was obviously a missionary on his way to his first post, and the older one, with his briefcase and his threadbare dignity, was surely a governmental or industrial functionary of a minor sort, traveling on his employer’s business.

  There was only one brief conversation the whole trip, and that between the steward and the missionary. The latter, asking how much longer till we reached Anarchaos, stumbled over the name, smiled apologetically, and said, “It’s a hard word to say.”

  “There’s a way to make it easy,” the steward told him. “Start to say anarchy, and midway through switch and say chaos.”

  The missionary tried it: “Anarchaos.” The apologetic smile flared again, and he thanked the steward, saying, “It certainly is a name to give one pause.”

  “I suppose they meant it that way,” said the steward. “And their sun,” said the missionary. “Do they really call it Hell?”

  “It is Hell,” said the steward.

  II

  THE HATCH was opened, and we three passengers stepped out onto the mesh-sided elevator which would lower us to the ground. Beside me, the missionary blinked and whispered, “Oh, dear! Oh, dear me!”

  He was right to be awed. It would take the most intrepid of missionaries not to be awed by his first sight of Anarchaos.

  Above us, Hell stood at its perpetual zenith, a swollen red sun, huge and ancient, in the flushed fury of its long decline. Its light was red, rust-red, tingeing everything it touched: the shuttle ship we’d just departed, this elevator and its mesh housing, the flat and nearly empty expanse of the landing pad, the customs and administration shacks across the way, and the distant towers of the city of Ni. So long as Hell stood in the sky, there would be no color here but the shades of red.

  The elevator descended, and we were met at the bottom by a slender young man in the uniform of the Union Commission; Anarchaos having no government of its own, the UC maintained a staff at the landing pad here for the assistance and advice of visitors.

  “Come this way, please,” he said, without that facile smile of impersonal good fellowship for which the UC is famous; Anarchaos, I suppose, made even official smiles impossible to retain.

  We followed him toward the shacks. Behind us, our luggage was being unloaded by other UC men and piled onto a mechanized cart, which buzzed by us before we reached the edge of the pad.

  How dreary this world was; walking along with the others I felt weighted down, morose, lethargic. Only with the greatest difficulty could I keep my sense of urgency and feeling of purpose. Already, it seemed, Anarchaos was draining me, sapping my strength.

  Our guide led us to a small wooden building, marked on its door ORIENTATION, and motioned us inside, where we found several rows of seats facing a raised platform at the far end.

  “Sit anywhere, gentlemen,” he said, and walked down the room and onto the platform. Facing us there he said, “My task, gentlemen, is to acquaint you with some few of the facts of Anarchaos.” And he proceeded to tell us several things which I for one already knew.

  That Anarchaos was the only planet circling its sun. That it always showed the same face to its sun, as Earth’s moon shows ever the same face to Earth, so that here there was no night or day in the Earthly sense that I was used to; the city of Ni, for instance, lived in perpetual noon, Hell motionless and unchanging directly overhead. That the planet’s orbit was almost precisely circular, so that there were no seasons here. That humans had colonized it eighty-seven years ago and were to be found only along a narrow band north and south along the sunward face, with Moro-Geth the city farthest to the west and Ulik farthest to the east; at Moro-Geth, Hell stood forever in the attitude of mid-morning, while at Ulik the day was frozen at mid-afternoon. That the night side of the planet was dead and cold and no place for men. That the planet had a deep atmosphere, which constantly drained Hell’s heat to east and west, dissipating most of it on the frigid night side, leaving the day side temperatures well within man’s capacity; at Ni it was Fahrenheit eighty-five degrees and at Moro-Geth and Ulik approximately sixty degrees.

  And more, about the humans here; their “society,” if that’s the word for it.

  That they had no native government but were maintained entirely by the Union Commission. That they were total anarchists, and yet managed to maintain cities. That they were id
ealists of nihilism, and yet pragmatic and practical. That individuals should be approached with utmost caution, as nearly anything was liable to give offense. That as there were no laws there was statistically no crime, which merely meant that cheating, stealing, killing and so on were not considered crimes here, or even socially unacceptable.

  “Finally,” he said, “I wish to tell you gentlemen that the sun and planet here have been misnamed. It’s the planet that should be called Hell, because its citizens are devils. You’re safe from them here, on Commission territory, but once you go outside the gate you are totally on your own. Each major city has a Commission embassy where it is theoretically possible for off-worlders to take refuge in case of trouble, but I wouldn’t depend upon it. According to the most recent report on the subject I’ve seen, seventy-two per cent of off-world visitors here in the last ten years disappeared without trace and are presumed to have been murdered. My urgent advice to all three of you is to get right back on that shuttle and return at once to Cockaigne. As I remember it, Cockaigne is a beautiful place, very friendly and completely safe. The tall blonde girls of that world are noted throughout the Union. Will you go?”

  He looked at each of us in turn. The missionary blinked and gulped, but stood his ground. The functionary gave him the defiant glare of the petty authoritarian. I, when it came my turn, merely met his gaze and shook my head.

  He shrugged. “Very well. It’s my job to warn you, and you’ve been warned. Just remember; statistically, less than one visitor in three survives. It’s possible one of you will live to get off this planet again, but extremely unlikely that more than one will.”

  There was a table behind him on the platform. He went to it now, picked up a needle mike, and said, “I’ll ask each of you to give his name, home world, purpose in coming here, expected duration of stay, and name and address of whoever you want notified in the event of your death or disappearance. This is for the record, so please speak distinctly.”

  He extended the mike toward the missionary, who said, in a high and somewhat shaky voice, “My name is Brother Roderus, Capeline Order, and my home world is Vicon. I am here as a missionary, to bring converts to the true faith and to establish a Capeline monastery here. I am expected to stay for three years. In the event of…of anything happening to me, notification should go to the Abbot, Capeline Monastery, New Augustus, Wainwright, Vicon.”

  The functionary was next: “William zi Mandell, of Cockaigne, employed by Roth Brothers Data Corporation. One of our ZT series computers was leased by a certain Allied Furriers of Ulik, who are now over a year deficit in their rental payments. I have been assigned to go to Ulik and either collect the rental due or reclaim the machine. I expect to be here a week, perhaps two. Earth Standards Terms. In the unlikely event of my death or disappearance, my home office should be contacted: Roth Brothers Data Corporation, Scottsville, Sedalia, Cockaigne.”

  Then the needle was pointed at me. I said, “Rolf Malone, of Earth. I’m here as a tourist, for an indefinite period, probably no longer than six months. There’s no one to notify in case anything happens to me.”

  He continued to point the needle at me a few seconds longer, as though unwilling to believe I was finished, then shook his head, put the mike back on the table, and said, “Now I’ll try to talk specific sense to you. Brother Roderus, missionaries aren’t wanted on Anarchaos, please believe me. You’ll gain no converts. By your manner, I suppose it’s unlikely you’ll give offense to any of the locals, so you’re safe in that respect, but you aren’t safe from bullying, and on Anarchaos bullying frequently ends in bloodshed. Unless you’re determined on martyrdom, I strongly advise you to go back to Vicon.”

  The missionary looked frightened but game; that is to say, foolish. “I’ll stay,” he said. “I’ve been sent. I’ll stay.”

  The UC man shrugged fatalistically and turned to the computer renter saying, “Mr. Mandell, I assume this is the first time your company has had dealings with anyone on this planet.”

  Mandell nodded curtly. It is.”

  “You can’t rent or lease property here, Mr. Mandell; you can only sell it. Allied Furriers has stolen your computer. If you go to them and demand your fees, they’ll laugh in your face. If you try to repossess the machine, they’ll loll you. This isn’t a possibility I’m telling you, this is a certainty.”

  Mandell didn’t think so. “Kill me?” he asked. “You’re being melodramatic.”

  “Mr. Mandell, please. We can put you up temporarily. Send a message to your home office; ask them to contact the Commission and get the legal and economic situation here. Once your company understands the peculiar problem of Anarchaos, I’m sure they’ll recall you.”

  “Nonsense.” Mandell’s spine was getting straighter and straighter, his voice staffer and stiffer, his expression more and more severe. “I’m a businessman,” he said, “and I’m here to discuss a business transaction.”

  “I can’t stop you from leaving here,” the UC man told him, “any more than I can protect you if you do.”

  “I’ll need no protection. Is that all?”

  The UC man spread his hands. “Yes, that’s all. You and Brother Roderus can go to the customs shack across the way and pick up your luggage now. Mr. Malone, I’d like you to stay a moment longer, if you would.”

  The other two looked at me curiously as they left. Once the door was closed behind them I said, “You can’t stop me either, you know.”

  “I know that. Mr. Malone, there are no tourists on Anarchaos.”

  “There’s me. I’m a tourist.”

  “No. Customs at Valhalla reported you carrying a surprising assortment of weapons, for which you had no believable explanation.”

  He waited for me to say something, but I had nothing to say. I sat there, and looked at him, and waited.

  He grimaced, and half turned away, and then turned back to glare at me again; I was beginning to anger him. People get angry at what they don’t understand; they always have.

  “You can’t beat these people, Malone. You’re on their ground, playing by their rules.”

  “No rules,” I said. “There aren’t any rules here.”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “No. This is my first time off Earth.”

  “You won’t tell me what it is? Unofficially. I give you my world not to use whatever you tell me.”

  “I have nothing to tell you. I’m a tourist.” He made a quick gesture: anger, bafflement, defeat.

  “Go on, then,” he said. “Kill yourself.”

  “See you later,” I said, as I started for the door. “No you won’t,” he said after me. “You’ll never make it back.”

  III

  MANDELL HAD BEEN somewhat impressed by the UC man’s warnings after all; he approached me in the customs shack to ask if I intended to go to Ulik. “If so, we could travel together. There’s safety in numbers.”

  That’s what all sheep believe. I was going to Ulik, as a matter of fact, but I told him I wasn’t: “Moro-Geth is the city I want to see,” I said. “I believe that’s in the opposite direction.”

  “That fellow was right about you,” he said. “You’re no tourist.”

  There was no point arguing with him. I went on to see about my baggage.

  My luggage consisted of three pieces: two large suitcases and a knapsack. The suitcases were actually unnecessary, merely full of extra clothing and whatnot, amid which I had hoped to hide my arsenal. Now that I was weaponless, there was no point carrying all that gear with me. I arranged with the UC customs men to store my suitcases with them, packed the few essentials into my knapsack, and went on to currency exchange.

  Anarchaos, having no government, has no monetary system of its own, and therefore uses the same Union Commission paper money used in all new colonies until they’re sufficiently established to set up their own monetary system. The basic unit of this UC money is the credit, with the credit value dependent upon local standard of living. That is, the ass
umption is that one hundred credits would be an average weekly income, so the value of the credit is higher or lower depending upon the cost of living, which is itself determined to a large extent by the cost of imported goods. On different planets, therefore, the credit will be worth different amounts. The Anarchaos credit turned out to be about the equivalent of two crowns on Earth. (A second monetary unit in this system is the token. Ten tokens equals one credit.)

  I exchanged a part of my money—seven hundred credits worth—and left the rest with the UC representatives for safekeeping. I took my time, wanting to be sure that Mandell was already gone before I went outside, and when I did go through the gate to the street neither he nor the missionary was anywhere in sight.

  The ramshackle suburbs of Ni began here, stretching away toward the tall towers of the city itself in the distance. Those arches and spires, glinting ruby and saffron in the dull red glare of the sun, had a kind of feverish beauty to them, but the shacks and lean-tos in the foreground were merely scrubby, a junkyard in which people lived.

  Awaiting me were two commercial groups eager to offer me their services: chauffeurs and prostitutes. They clamored and waved their arms, all of them, out-shouting and out-gesticulating one another and yet very carefully not bumping into one another, not standing in front of one another, not causing any direct offense to one another.

  The prostitutes I had no use for, but the chauffeurs were potentially of interest. Each stood in front of his vehicle, showing it off, shouting its fine points at me, and I studied these vehicles and their drivers with a great deal of care.

  There was just about every means of land locomotion imaginable there, most of them pulled by hairhorses, native Anarchaotic beasts whose shaggy hair and rough similarity to Earth’s horses gave them their name. These I was not interested in; it was motorized transport I desired.

  Motors were fewer in number, but varied in style. One contraption of wood, with large wooden wheels and no top, seemed to have been homemade, with an electric engine from some other kind of machine mounted on a platform at the rear. Another was a small truck, the sides and top of the body cut away and a fat lumpy sofa mounted sideways in the back for passengers. There were a few fairly ordinary automobiles, some with liquid fuel engines and others with electric engines, all imports from off-planet. There was some limited manufacture here, but not of anything as large and expensive as motorized transport. Those inter-system corporations which found it to their advantage to maintain offices here—and whose towers I could see in the center of Ni—brought any such large equipment here from off-planet, unassembled. These automobiles lined up with all the other conveyances were for the most part obsolete equipment sold by one or another corporation; or, perhaps, were simply stolen property.