Wheels Within Wheels Read online

  His wandering eventually brought him to the town of Danzer. It was a tiny place, the town center consisting of eight wooden buildings, a general store/restaurant among them. A few rugged-looking ground cars rolled up and down the dirt street that ran through the middle of town. On each side of the street ran a raised wooden boardwalk. Junior found a shady spot on the south side, unslung his backpack, and sat down.

  He had been walking for days and was bone weary. A cool breeze helped evaporate the sweat beading his face as he put his head back against a post and closed his eyes. And to think he had considered himself in good physical condition. That was rough terrain out there. Those gentle rolling hills that looked so beautiful from a distance were sheer torture on the upside, especially with an extra tenth of a G to work against. He could have rented a flitter or a ground car; could have bought one outright. But he hadn’t wanted to do it that way. Now he wondered if that had been such a wise idea.

  He reopened his eyes as the last drop of sweat dried and noticed a middle-aged man staring at him from across the street. The man continued to stare for a short while longer, then he stepped off the boardwalk and crossed over to Junior for a closer look.

  “You’re new around here, aren’t you?” he said in provincial tones and stuck out his right hand. “I’m Marvin Heber and I like to know everyone in Danzer.”

  Junior shook that proffered hand – it was lightly callused; not a field worker’s hand. “My name’s Junior Finch and, yes, I’m new around here. Very new.”

  Heber sat down beside him and tipped back the brim of the cap he was wearing. His face was a weathered ruddy brown up to the hatband line about two centimeters above his eyebrows. At that point the skin abruptly turned white. He was gaunt and about average height. Some of his teeth were missing – a sight Junior was not at all used to – and it appeared he had neglected to apply a depilatory cream that morning. Hardly an arresting figure, this Marvin Heber, but something in the quick, searching eyes told Junior that this man was quite a bit more than he seemed.

  “Just moving in, huh?”

  “No. Moving through, actually. I’ve been wandering around the region just to see what I can see.”

  “See anything interesting?”

  The man was nosy and did not make the slightest attempt to hide it. Junior decided to be as oblique as possible.

  “Lot of virgin land left around here,” he replied.

  Heber nodded and eyed the newcomer. “If you want to settle, I’m sure we can help you find a place.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Me, really. I was using the plural in the editorial sense.”

  Now Junior was certain this man was more than he seemed. He fumbled for something to say next and was getting nowhere when the approach of an odd-looking figure changed the course of the conversation. An elderly, spindle-armed beggar in a dusty robe came up to him and asked for alms. His skin was bluish gray and his black hair was pulled back from a high forehead and wound into a single braid that was slung in front of his left shoulder.

  Junior fished in a pocket, came up with a few small coins, and dropped them into the earthen bowl extended in his direction.

  “Wheels within wheels, bendreth,” the beggar said in high, nasal tones, and then continued his journey down the street.

  “That was a Vanek, right?” Junior asked as he watched the figure recede. “I hear they’re common in this region but that’s the first one I’ve seen close up since I arrived.”

  “As a group they keep pretty much to themselves and only come into town to buy supplies now and then. There’s always a beggar or two about, however.”

  Junior made no reply, hoping his silence would draw Heber out.

  “They spend most of their time on their reservation–”

  “They’re confined to a reservation?”

  “Confined is hardly the word, my young friend. Before the Federation would allow resettlement of this planet, the Vanek leaders were approached and asked if they objected. Their reply: ‘Wheels within wheels, bendreth.’ When asked to choose whatever areas they would like reserved – without limit, mind you – for their exclusive use, they replied, ‘Wheels within wheels, bendreth.’ So their nomadic patterns were observed and mapped out and everywhere they wandered was reserved for their exclusive use.” He grunted. “Waste of good land if you ask me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “They don’t wander anymore. And there aren’t all that many of them. Never was. Their total population peaked at about a hundred thousand planet-wide fifty standard years ago. They’ve leveled off at about ninety thousand now. Looks like they’ll stay there, too.”

  “Why’d they stop wandering?”

  “Don’t have to any more. All they’ve got to do is sit around meditating and carving their little statues.”

  “Eh?”

  “That’s right. Little statues. But you won’t see any around here. Some company in the city buys them up as fast as the Vanek can turn them out and sells them as curios all over Occupied Space. ‘Handmade by alien half-breeds’ I believe the ads run.”

  “You know,” Junior said, straightening up, “I think I’ve seen one or two in gift shops.” He had a vague memory of oddly grained wood carved into intricate and bizarre landscapes and tableaux. He also remembered the price tags.

  “Then you realize why the Vanek have no financial worries.”

  “Why do they beg, then?”

  Heber shrugged. “It’s somehow mixed up with their religion, which no one really understands. Mostly it’s the old Vanek who do the begging; I guess they get religious in their dotage just like a lot of humans. You heard him say, ‘Wheels within wheels’ after you gave him some coins, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Junior replied with a nod. “Then he said, ‘bendreth,’ or something like that.”

  “Bendreth is the Vanek equivalent of ‘sir’ or ‘madam.’ They say that to just about everybody. ‘Wheels within wheels,’ however, has something to do with their religion. According to tradition, a wise old Vanek philosopher with an unpronounceable name came up with the theory that the universe was a conglomeration of wheels: wheels within wheels within wheels within wheels.”

  “Wasn’t too far wrong, was he?”

  “No, I guess not. Anyway, he managed to tie everything – and I mean everything – into the workings of these wheels. Got to the point where the only answer or comment he could make about anything was ‘Wheels within wheels.’ It’s a pretty fatalistic philosophy. They believe that everything works out in the end so they rarely take any decisive action. They figure the wheels will turn full circle and even things up without their help.”

  He paused for a breath, puffing out his cheeks as he exhaled it. “Did you notice the cracks in the begging bowl, by the way?”

  Junior nodded. “Looked like it had been broken and then glued back together again.”

  “That’s part of the religion, too. You see, that old philosopher went to a banquet once – this was in the ancient days when the Vanek were a rather lusty and barbaric race – and the chief of this particular tribe sought to question him on his philosophy. Of course, the only answer he could get was ‘Wheels within wheels, bendreth.’ This annoyed him but he contained his anger until they all sat down at the eating table. During the meal it is said that the old philosopher uttered his favorite phrase over 250 times. Finally, the chief could take no more and broke a heavy earthen salad bowl over the old man’s head, killing him. So now all Vanek beggars carry an earthen salad bowl that they have broken and then repaired as a sign that the philosopher did not die in vain.”

  Junior shook his head in wonder. “Sound like strange folk. How do the local Terrans get along with them?”

  Heber shot him a sidelong glance, then answered. “I guess ‘get along’ is about the only way you could put it,” he admitted. “There’s no animosity between the two groups but there’s certainly no friendship either. The Vanek are not easy people to warm up to. The
y float in and out of town and have no effect on the rest of us. Some of the city folks have been making noises about Terrans discriminating against the Vanek and I suppose there are plenty of instances where it happens, but it’s a passive thing. When you come down to it, most Terrans around here just don’t have any respect for the Vanek because the Vanek don’t care about respect and consequently do nothing to engender it.

  “And it’s not racial antagonism as many outsiders might think.” Again, the sidelong glance at Junior. “The fact that the Vanek are partially alien has nothing to do with it. That’s a minor difference. It’s other differences that cause problems.”

  “Like what?” Junior asked on cue.

  “For one thing, there’s no first person singular pronoun in the Vanek language. Some of the early anthropologists at one time thought this was a sign of group consciousness, but that was disproved. It’s just that they don’t think of themselves as individuals. They’re all one on the Great Wheel. It makes it hard for Terrans to relate to them as individuals and thus it’s hard to respect them as individuals.

  “And there’s more. The people around here are hard workers. They sweat their guts out trying to get a living out of the ground, and here are these skinny Vanek sitting around all day whittling wood and making a fortune. The local Terrans don’t consider that an honest day’s work.”

  “So it comes right back to lack of respect again,” Junior said.

  “Right! But try to convince the legislators in the capital about that! They’re getting together some sort of a bill to combat the so-called discrimination against the Vanek and it looks like it’ll pass, too. But no law’s going to make a Terran respect a Vanek and that’s where the problem lies.”

  He kicked a stone out into the middle of the street. It was a gesture of disgust. “Damn fools in the capital probably don’t even know what a Vanek looks like! Just trying to make political names for themselves.”

  “Well,” Junior began, “equality–”

  “Lip-service equality!” came the angry reply. “A forced equality that might well cause resentment on the part of the Terran locals. I don’t want to see that. No, Mr. … Finch, wasn’t it?” Junior nodded. “No, Mr. Finch. If equality’s going to come to Danzer and other places like it, it’s gotta come from the locals, not from the capital!”

  Junior made no comment. The man had a good point – an obvious one to Junior – but Junior couldn’t decide whether it was sincerely meant or just an excuse to oppose some legislation that happened to interfere with his racial prejudices. He noted that Heber made no alternative proposals.

  Heber glanced at the sun. “Well, time for me to get back to work,” he said.

  “And just what is it you do, if I may ask?”

  “I’m the government in town, you might say – mayor, sheriff, judge, notary, and so on.” He smiled. “Nice to have met you, Mr. Finch. Hope you enjoy your stay around here.”

  “Nice to have met you, Mr. Heber,” Junior replied.

  And he meant it… with only a few reservations. Heber was an outwardly pleasant and garrulous type but Junior wondered why he had taken so much time to explain the Terran-Vanek situation to him. Politics, maybe. If enough outsiders could be turned against the pending antidiscrimination bill, maybe it wouldn’t pass. Whatever his reasons, Heber had been highly informative.

  Junior forced himself to his feet and walked across the street to the general store. A land-rover passed close behind him as he crossed. Ground transportation was the rule here, probably because flitters were too expensive to buy, run, and service. Heber was right about the hard work involved in living off the land on Jebinose, and the rewards were minimal. The farmlands, for all intents and purposes, were economically depressed. That would help explain a part of the poor Terran-Vanek relations: the local Terrans were in control as far as numbers and technology were concerned, and they owned all the businesses; but the Vanek held a superior economic position solely through the sale of their carvings. The situation was tailor-made to generate resentment.

  Junior found himself indifferent to the conflict. It was unfortunate, no doubt, that there had to be friction between the two races, but if these Vanek were as fatalistic as Heber said, then why bother with them?

  He approached the general store building. The foodstuffs and supplies piled out front in their shiny, colorful plastic or alloy containers struck an odd contrast to the weather-beaten wood of the store. All the buildings in Danzer were handmade of local wood. Prefab probably cost too much.

  A hand-lettered sign proclaiming that Bill Jeffers was the proprietor hung over the doorway and Junior’s nostrils were assailed by a barrage of odors as he passed under it. Everything from frying food to fertilizer vied for the attention of his olfactory nerve.

  His pupils were still adjusting to the diminished light of the store interior when Junior bumped into someone just inside the door. Straining his eyes and blinking, he saw that it was a young Vanek.

  “Sorry,” he muttered to the robed figure. “Can’t see too well in here just yet.” He continued on his way to the main counter in the rear, unaware of the intense gaze he was receiving from the Vanek.

  “Yes, sir!” said the burly bear of a man behind the counter. His two huge hands were resting palms down on the countertop and his teeth showed white as he smiled through an unruly black beard. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like something to eat. What’s on the menu?”

  The big man winked. “You must be new around here. You don’t get a meal here, you get the meal: local beef, local potatoes, and local greens.”

  “All right then,” Junior said with a shrug. “Serve me up an order of the meal.”

  “Fine. I’m Bill Jeffers, by the way,” he said, wiping his right hand on the plaid of his shirt and then jabbing it in Junior’s direction.

  Junior shook hands and introduced himself.

  “Staying around here long, Mr. Finch?”

  Junior shook his head. “I doubt it. Just wandering around the area.”

  These rurals, he thought. Nosy. Always the unabashed questions about who you were and how long you were staying. Junior was used to people obtaining this sort of information in a more indirect way.

  Jeffers nodded at Junior, then looked past him. “What’ll it be?”

  “The meal, bendreth,” said a high-pitched, sibilant voice behind him.

  He turned and found himself facing the Vanek he had accidentally jostled on his way in.

  “Hello,” he said with a nod.

  “Good day, bendreth,” replied the Vanek.

  He had a slight frame, smooth grayish skin with a hint of blue in it, and piercing black eyes. There was an indigo birthmark to the left of midline on his forehead.

  “How are you today?” Junior asked in a lame effort to make conversation.

  Despite his years with IBA and its myriad contacts throughout Occupied Space, he had never been face to face with an alien. Although most of the Vanek were thought to carry traces of human genetic material, they were, in every other sense, true aliens. And here was one now, standing next to him, ordering lunch. He wanted desperately to strike up a conversation, but finding a common ground for discussion was no easy matter.

  “We are mostly well,” came the reply.

  Junior noted the plural pronoun and remembered what Heber had told him. It was gauche to bring it up, but it might help to open a conversation.

  “I’ve heard that the Vanek always use the word ‘we’ in the place of ‘I’,” he said, cringing and feeling like an obnoxious tourist. “Why’s that?”

  “It is the way we are,” came the impassive reply. “Our teachers tell us that we are all one on the Great Wheel. Maybe that is so. We do not know. All we know is that we have always spoken thus and no doubt we always shall. There is no Vanek word for the single man.”

  “That’s too bad,” Junior said with obvious sincerity, and then instantly regretted it.

  “And why do you say tha
t, bendreth?” The Vanek was showing some interest now and Junior realized that he would have to come up with a tactful yet honest answer.

  “Well, I was always raised to believe that a race progresses through the actions of individuals. The progress of the Vanek, in my estimation, has been terribly slow. I mean, from what I can gather, you’ve gone nowhere in the past few centuries. Maybe that’s the result of having the word ‘I’ absent from your functional vocabulary. I hope I haven’t offended you by what I’ve just said.”

  The Vanek eyed him narrowly. “You needn’t apologize for speaking what you think. You may–” His words were cut short by the arrival of the meals: steaming mounds of food on wooden slabs. Each paid for his portion in Jebinose script and Junior expected the Vanek to follow him to one of the small tables situated in the corner to their left. Instead, the alien turned and walked toward the door.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “Outside. To eat.”

  “It’s too hot out there. We’ll sit at one of these tables.”

  The Vanek hesitated and glanced around. The store was empty and Jeffers had disappeared into the back. Wordlessly, he followed Junior to a table.

  Both were hungry and, once seated, began to eat. After rapidly swallowing two mouthfuls, Junior spoke around a third. “Now, what were you about to say?”

  The Vanek looked across the table at him and chewed thoughtfully. “You may be right. Once we might have said that we have progressed as far as we desire. But that doesn’t hold true any more. We Vanek have shown ourselves quite willing to accept and utilize the benefits of a civilization technologically far superior to our own. So perhaps it has not been by desire that our culture has been stagnated. Still, there is more to culture than technology. There is–”

  “Hey!” came a shout from the rear of the store. “What’s he doing over there?”