The Men in the Jungle Read online

  The hot, red sunlight seemed to beat at him like a physical thing as they reached the bottom of the hill and started out across the valley floor toward the small cluster of huts, with the red clay Bughill towering behind it and the cultivated fields that ringed it. Curiously, despite the heat and fatigue and the tension-creating presence of the eight ’heads he had been forced to live with for the past week, and even despite the rather poor results, this week in the countryside, this week of visiting dozens of the little hamlets in the area, speaking to the people, proclaiming the Republic, trying to dram up a real army seemed to have refreshed him, filled him with hope and a sense of the power of his charisma. No longer was he Brother Bart, the schemer, the infiltrator. Now, for better or worse, he was President Bart Fraden of the Free Republic of Sangre, proclaiming himself for all the world to see. Even though the recruits were only dribbling into the guerrilla camp in ones and twos, even though the herogyn-heads Willem was whipping into shape as an officer corps were still the majority of the People’s Army, the mere act of stumping the countryside filled him with vigor and a feeling of potency.

  Now they were approaching the outskirts of the village, and Fraden ordered the guerrillas to break ranks. They formed a casual grouping around him that looked unthreateningly random but was really an effective armed guard surrounding him. There had been more than one near-riot in a village where the primitive rumor-campaign had somehow failed to precede him.

  That, of course, was to be expected at this point, before it was possible to set up a really organized rumor mill. Without a system of regular agents, the only thing he had been able to do was send a few ’heads to a few villages to start the three rumors and hope they would beep their original form as they spread spontaneously. The three rumors were necessarily general and vague, as they had to be if they were to spread without any real guidance: the Brotherhood had raised the quotas to ten times the normal figures all over Sangre; the Killers were mighty interested in madmen; and the jungle was becoming filled with armed guerrillas.

  It was the task of the moment to speak to the villagers, connect up these seemingly spontaneous rumors, offer a plausible explanation, and transform the unrest into a Revolution.

  Now they were passing through the cultivated fields surrounding the village proper. It was late in the day, but the green, eight-legged Rugs were still in the fields, clipping grain with their pincers, stacking it in neat rows, collecting the stacks, carrying them to the Bughill where they would be threshed into grain for the villagers. No matter how often he saw the huge arthropods working in organized teams, the sight invariably unnerved him, filled him with a sense of wrongness, and something else—a feeling of potentiality he could not quite put his finger on.

  As they passed through the circle of huts into the open central area, naked children, women, trooped after them—and several score men, just back from tending the Meatanimals—stood in the center of the clearing apparently waiting for them. A good sign, Fraden thought. Word must be getting around. He studied the faces of the men: sullen, phlegmatic, but also somehow expectant and curious. They seemed to know that something was happening, something that was somehow connected with this off-worlder and his group of armed men…

  Fraden motioned to his men as he came to a halt facing the men of the village and they fanned out, forming a crescent flanking him on both sides. Women, children, old men, and some younger ones dribbled around the ends of the crescent, joined the crowd facing him. Fraden stood there silently for several minutes, counting the house—maybe eighty or so potential guerrillas and another hundred women, children, and old men—and waiting until the mutterings, the feet-shuffling, the growing intensity in the stares of the men as they studied him, told him that the curiosity of the Sangrans had reached its mediocre peak.

  “Name’s Bart, Bart Fraden,” he finally said, falling easily into the clipped, taciturn local speech-pattern. “Y’don’t know me, but I know you. I know y’questions. I know what y’been hearing. Y’hear that y’Killers are mighty interested in y’Animals that act crazy, eh? And y’hear that y’quotas are way up all over y’planet…”

  A guttural murmuring swept through the crowd. Men nodded, women and children seemed to go tense, even angry.

  “My man,” a young woman shouted. “Took my man!”

  “And mine!”

  “Ten this month from this village,” a burly man said. “Eight over y’quota!”

  “So y’Killers have been here already,” Fraden said. “They’ll be back, promise y’that! Y’Brothers, they don’t care about y’quotas any more. Y’know why?”

  There was a sullen, expectant silence. “Y’got a lot o’questions, man,” someone grunted. “Y’got some answers?”

  “Got a man who’s got some answers,” Fraden said. On cue, Lamar Gomez, one of Willem’s original ’heads, stepped forward. “Go on, Gomez,” Fraden said, “tell ’em what y’told me.”

  By now, having repeated it several dozen times in the past week, Gomez finally had his little spiel down pat. He reeled it off like a recording.

  “Name’s Lamar Gomez,” he said. “Y’Killers came to my village couple weeks ago, took ten of us—nine over y’quota. Took us t’Sade. Took us and put us in a big tank o’water, put a current through y’water. Thought the pain’d kill me. Kept it up for hours. Didn’t kill me, didn’t kill no one. But half o’us was raving nuts after couple hours o’that. Finally turned off y’electricity, took us out, took y’nuts t’dungeons under y’Palace, took me and the rest wasn’t nuts yet, put us in pens outside y’Palace. Heard a couple Killers talking then. Said they were gonna torture us all till we were all nuts, them take our blood f’something y’Brotherhood wanted. Y’Killers thought it was real funny. Said they was gonna torture y’whole planet till we was all nuts, then bleed all y’Animals dry. Well, next day they was trucking us somewhere, y’truck hit a rock, turned over, y’Killers, most of y’Animals was killed but I got away. Headed for y’jungle, met Bart here, told him what happened, and he said he was an off-worlder, knew what was happening and why they was doin’ it—”

  “And I do know!” Fraden shouted. “Could be only one thing; drag they call Omnidrene—strongest drug in the Galaxy. Know how they make y’Omnidrene? Boil down the blood of y’nuts, is how! Know how many nuts y’Brotherhood’d need t’bleed t’keep ’em all in Omnidrene? ’Bout fifteen million. Know the population of Sangre? ’Bout fifteen million too! Figure if out! They’re out t’drive y’all nuts, every last one of you! And when you’re all raving nuts, they’re gonna bleed y’t’death, they’re gonna bleed y’real slow. You’re all gonna die, but not fast You’re all gonna die one pint of blood at a time. Y’gonna have a long time t’think about what it’s like t’be dead. Only y’won’t be doin’ much thinking, ’cause y’all gonna be crazy! Every goddamned last one of you! How d’y’like that? How d’y’like y’Brotherhood now?”

  The Sangrans stood sullenly silent. There were one or two weak cries of “Blasphemy,” but the hard eyes and thoughtful scowls of the majority quickly squelched the ultraorthodox minority.

  Fraden looked out over the sullen, confused faces. Anywhere else in the Galaxy, they’d be howling for blood by now. But this, after all, was Sangre.

  “Well what’re you gonna do about it?” he roared. “Y’gonna just sit on y’asses and wait for ’em t’truck y’off and bleed you to death? Gonna stand around while they drive you nuts, torture you and kill you? Call yourselves men?”

  “Animals is what we are,” an emaciated, stooped old man shouted. “Y’Brothers rule, y’Killers kill, y’Animals do what they’re told. Natural Order!” he said righteously.

  “Natural Order?” Fraden sneered. “Natural Order is t’take ten times the quota? Natural Order is t’bleed y’all t’death? Since when is that y’Natural Order? Y’Brotherhood don’t care about Natural Order now! Why should you?”

  The Sangrans grunted, shuffled their feet, did not meet his eyes. Now he was hitting ’em where they lived
!

  “What can Animals do?” a man asked defensively.

  “Never mind what Animals can do,” Fraden said, shifting out of the local argot. “I’ll tell you what men would do. And you are men. Strip a Killer or a Brother naked and he’s no different from any of you. You all know that! I’ll tell you what men would do!”

  He whipped a wrinkled piece of paper out of a pocket, waved it over his head like a banner. The paper was blank.

  “Men would listen to what is written here and they would fight for it! They would fight the Brotherhood and kill the Killers and they wouldn’t stop fighting until their enemies were all dead and they were free! Listen! Listen! Listen to what men all over Sangre are already listening to! Listen to why the jungle is filling with armed men! Listen to what the people of Sangre are fighting for!”

  Fraden pretended to read from the soiled-scrap of paper.

  “For the past three centuries, the people of Sangre have been tortured, murdered, eaten, owned like cattle by the ruthless exploiters and sadists, the Brotherhood of Pain, aided by their inhuman, murderous lackeys, the Killers. The Sangran People have been slaves in their own land.

  “Therefore, the Sangran People hereby declare that the reign of this inhuman dictatorship is ended. The Sangran People declare that from this day forward, they no longer recognize the right of the Brotherhood to rule Sangre, slaughter the people, kill them, enslave them, bleed them to death. The time for Revolution is here!

  “To wage this heroic struggle against murder and dictatorship, the Sangran People do hereby establish the Free Republic of Sangre, with Bart Fraden as provisional President until such time as the struggle is won and free elections can be held. The Free Republic of Sangre is now the only government recognized by the Sangran People. The Killers, the Brotherhood, and all that aid them are hereby declared criminals against the Sangran People and under sentence of death.

  “The instrument of the Sangran Revolution is the People’s Army of Sangre. All able-bodied Sangrans are entitled to join the People’s Army to fight the Brothers and their henchmen under expert leadership, and will be provided with guns. Guns for all! The Free Republic calls on all Sangrans to arise and destroy the Brotherhood and the Killers! Death to the Killers! Death to the Brotherhood! Long live the Free Republic!”

  After giving the same speech off the top of his head about thirty times in the past week, Fraden was hardly surprised at the inevitable dull-eyed, foot-shuffling silence it received. After all, if these clowns understood a tenth of what he had said, it was a lot. Main thing was that it sounded more official than anything they had ever heard before, and that even these yokums could understand the part about guns and killing Brothers and Killers. The Noble Sangran People indeed!

  “Well, there’s what you can do, friends,” he said, “Think it over. And when you’ve thought it over, come to the jungle near the mountains. Don’t worry about finding the People’s Army—the People’s Army’ll find you!”

  The Sangrans watched silently as he formed his men into formation around him and marched from the village. It was always that way. Took time to sink in. But in a few days, maybe when the Killers returned and hauled away more men to Sade, a couple of them would see the light and show up in the area of the camp.

  Fraden sighed as they passed by a group of Bugs hauling in grain from the fields. A week of breaking my back, he thought, and something like forty volunteers to show for it. But the situation wasn’t hopeless, it couldn’t be. All the ingredients for a revolution were there. It just needed a final something to ignite them.

  Bart Fraden had the uncanny feeling that that something was right under his nose somewhere. He shrugged. He knew that sooner or later he would find it.

  After all, he thought philosophically, Rome wasn’t sacked in a day.

  The camp, at feast, Fraden thought, is beginning to look like it means business. He stood outside his hut, which had been built with the hull of the lifeboat forming one wall and the airlock opening directly into the interior, giving him confidential access to the ’boat. The hut had taken only a day to be knocked together and another could easily be built if he had to fly the ’boat. Willem’s hut, across the clearing by the second ’boat, had no such arrangement. It was a minor point of status that Fraden insisted on. There could be only one leader, and Willem’s peculiar relationship with the herogyn-heads tended to cloud that fact. The huts were by way of making it clear.

  The bulk of the camp was framed by the two ’boats: a cluster of huts near Willem’s that housed the herogyn-heads, another duster further toward Fraden’s hut for the volunteers, four huts with big open doorways in the center of camp making a big display of captured arms and ammunition (at this point better than three guns for every guerrilla) and small cookfires scattered randomly about the camp. Food was a sore point with Fraden. He wouldn’t tolerate cannibalism in camp, but it was a rule that was universally unpopular, and what the guerrillas ate when they were foraging was something he did not care to contemplate.

  Fraden walked toward the volunteers’ huts where about seventy men were turning out in the hot morning sum From a separate hut, four men who had been picked up by patrols in the jungle were being hustled out onto the rude parade ground formed by the semicircle of huts by sympathetic but jaundice-eyed volunteer guards. This was another little touch; recruits and potential recruits were handled strictly by other volunteers as was any contact with the villagers. Willem’s ’heads were useless, really, for anything more subtle than killing, and it would pay off in the long run to keep them isolated. Let Willem keep ’em to himself, Fraden thought. It had its dangers, but also some advantages. It kept Willem—a shadowy and somehow sinister figure at the periphery of the Revolution, while Bart Fraden was the name spread by word of mouth propaganda through contacts between the volunteers and their old villages, Fraden the President, the Liberator, the Hero of the Revolution, the Man Who… It was never too early to protect your rear, Fraden knew from long experience.

  “Morning, men,” he said as they formed up before him.

  “Morning, Bart,” they answered in unison. Another subtle touch—Willem was big on titles and “sirs,” he loved calling himself “Field Marshal,” so Fraden was “Bart” to one and all, the Man of the People.

  “Long live the Free Republic!” Fraden said.

  “Long live the Free Republic…” they chanted somewhat diffidently. A wiry young man with a heavy thatch of blond hair ushered the four new men before him. He was “Colonel” Olnay, the closest thing to a smart Sangran Fraden had yet seen, and he had plans for the kid. He needed someone to head up a propaganda and espionage section and Olnay, by sheer default, would have to be it.

  “Y’ four new men, Bart,” Olnay said, making it sound very formal.

  “Long live the Free Republic!” the four chanted heartily. Olnay had obviously been coaching them. Two more points for Colonel Olnay.

  “Long live the Free Republic,” Fraden replied perfunctorily. “Now, before I formally induct you men into the People’s Army, I want to be sure you know why you’re here and what’s expected of you. Suppose you tell me why you left your villages to join the Revolution?”

  “T’kill Killers!” one of the men shouted.

  “T’kill y’Brothers!”

  “T’save m’hide,” the squat, dark one said. “Killers took half m’village last week. Figured I might be next.” Fraden smiled. There was a man who might have something like brains! “What’s your name?” he asked the realist.

  “Name’s Guilder, President Bart Fraden.”

  “Bart, Guilder, Bart. I’m leader here simply because I’m the one who knows how to lead. I’m not some superior being in your Natural Order as the Brothers pretend to be. Remember that, all of you! We’re all equals here, that’s one of the things we’re fighting for. So happens, Guilder here is more or less right. We’re fighting to save our own skins, our own, meaning the hides of the Sangran People. That’s what Revolution is all about The Brothe
rhood is out to do us all in, so we’re out to do them in first. But don’t confuse means with ends. We’re fighting for freedom. Freedom means death to all Brothers and death to all Killers, but we’re not just fighting to kill the enemy, we fighting to win. It’s not always the same thing. You’ll have plenty of chances to kill Killers, but you’ll be under orders at all times. That means doing what you’re told, even if it seems crazy, even if it means telling lies to your own people. Once you’re in, you are in, There’s no taming back. The penalty for treason or disobedience is death. Are you with us?”

  “Long live the Free Republic!” the four men shouted, if not with quite the same unrestrained enthusiasm as before. That was the whole idea—Willem’s boys were strictly killers, and the less thinking they did the better, but these men had to be fully controlled partisan fighters, A guerrilla army that looted and raped and murdered indiscriminately was about as effective as a one-armed, blind spaceship pilot.

  “Okay, men,” Fraden said. “You’re now soldiers of the People’s Army of the Free Republic of Sangre. Colonel Olnay will issue you weapons, and you’ll be expected to see to it that they don’t fall apart by next week. Colonel, when you’re through here, I want you over by Marshal Vanderling’s hut. Got plans for you, and we might as well start in now.”

  Olnay grinned greedily as he marched the new men away, and Fraden watched them with mixed feelings. With recruitment still so damned low, he was obviously getting mostly the highly motivated mavericks like Olnay and this Guilder. It was all very well getting the cream of the crop—and a mighty raunchy crop to begin with—but when things really got rolling, what kind of Sangrans would they get then, loot-hungry, fanatic killers? Well, Fraden thought somewhat sourly, there’s ways to use that kind too…