Part 2 (2/2)
Heretofore, religious bigotry had been one evil from which Thala.s.sa had been spared.
Tisseism, with its doctrine of the one and only G.o.d, the true G.o.d, ended the old religious indifferentism and comparative tolerance. Any G.o.d but Vran was but a false idol; and therefore, any other wors.h.i.+p was sinful, and imperiled the soul, not only of the idolater but of all those around him. Thus, persecution of the infidel became a religious duty.
In the beginning, the religion of Tisse marked a definite break with the old traditions; men's minds were wrenched from accustomed ruts and forced into new channels. There was, during the first four centuries of the Tissean Era, a burst of invention and progress.
Water and wind power were harnessed; a water-turbine was invented, and mountain streams were dammed to furnish the pressure to operate it. On Zabash, a crude steam turbine was invented.
Savagely persecuted at first, the followers of Tisse and his successor, Puzza, involved themselves in politics out of self-defense. They entered into conspiracies to overthrow local governments. Where they failed, they were put to death in savagely spectacular fas.h.i.+on; where they succeeded, they were a powerful faction in the new government, if they did not control it outright. In some countries the wors.h.i.+p of Vran was declared the only acceptable religion by the state.
These centuries were crowded with violence and tumult. Civil wars blazed; mobs howled in the streets and crossbow-bolts sleeted down on them; daggers were reddened in palace coups; partisan feuds smoldered and flamed. Kings were overthrown by dictators, dictators were toppled by popular revolt; democracies hardened into dictators.h.i.+ps or disintegrated into anarchy. And in every pot of violence that bubbled around the Central Sea, the religion of Tisse” was always an ingredient.
Four centuries later, the social system solidified again. With the exception of heretical splinter sects, the Creed of Puzza was the universal form of Tisseism. Its priests turned ever sterner faces upon innovation; they themselves had become the conservators of tradition. The bourgeoisie who had come into secular power during the previous four hundred years had become no less reactionary. Powerful guilds had sprung up in all the mercantile cities around the Central Sea; having gained wealth by the skills and inventiveness of their fathers, they were loath to encourage any sort of innovation which might threaten their own status. Technical improvements were suppressed or shrouded in guild secrecy. The great slave-holding n.o.bles saw the new machinery as replacing the slave-labor in which their wealth was invested. For another seven centuries the city-states and kingdoms, which were the remnants of the old Tullonian Empire, lived in the glotfm of stultifying rigidity in social conditions, actions, and thought. New ideas were ruthlessly suppressed, and the only change was in the names of the overlords.
Then, in the year 1275 of The Books of Tisse, another book was published on Dudak-and it was called The Confessions of Zaithu.
Chapter Seven
The little villages of the craftsmen-gangs around Hetaira's Central Peaks were visited regularly by the wagons and pack trains of traders, and by the occasional lone wanderer.
The traders adopted the custom of establis.h.i.+ng permanent base-camps at which they could store goods, and these in time grew into market towns. The wanderers had their rendezvous places too, where they met and exchanged news, and left messages for one another. At first such places were caves or other natural shelters, or merely stone cairns in which messages could be left. Occasionally a wanderer, crippled or immobilized by age, would make his home by one of these rendezvous-points in order to keep in touch with his life-long friends, and perhaps perform a useful service for them. The wanderers, glad of a warm place to stay, and a secure depository for their messages, and perhaps even some of their goods, happily supported these way-stations.
It became customary in many gangs for a few of their youngsters to wander for a time, meeting new people and learning new things. It was soon discovered that more could be learned by the young people going to the nearest of the wanderers' rendezvous, to stay with the resident and meet the lifelong wanderers pa.s.sing through. The youths would pay for their keep by hunting, and farming, and doing housekeeping ch.o.r.es. Soon every young Hetairan of the Central Mountain country was spending at least the time between two hot-seasons at some rendezvous. The rendezvous grew, some of them arranging with wanderers to visit at periodic intervals especially to teach. These places became libraries, museums, inst.i.tutes of technology, and eventually universities. It was at one of them that a steam-engine for propelling barges on the lakes was invented; at another, firearms were developed.
Civilization spread more slowly on the plains between the mountains and the Horizon Zone. The nomadic herders became settled ranchers, trading livestock and hides for manufactured goods through the wagon-traders. Unsuccessful ranching gangs became bandits and cattle-rustlers; the plains country was full of violent crime, and violent justice.
The Horizon Zone developed a culture similar in pattern to that of the Central Mountains, although always a few score years behind. Communities were isolated, dispersed in a narrow ribbon forty thousand kilometers around the planet. There were wanderers and wanderers' rendezvous there, too; but news travelled more slowly and less certainly.
In the Outer Hemisphere there were more nomads; the mountains and uplands were thinly peopled by gangs of hunters and farmers, and a few gangs roved around the sh.o.r.es of the Central Sea.
When the Central Mountain people of the Inner Hemisphere were working steel, the Horizon Zone had barely progressed to the use of metals, and the whole Outer Hemisphere was still Paleolithic. When the Central Mountain country had the musket in common use, and was investigating the advantages of rifling the barrels, the bow was still widely used in the Horizon Zone. As for the people of the Outer Hemisphere, it was not until the railroads were extended into their country that they emerged from the Bronze and Early Iron Age.The first railroad was the Red Lake To Sulfur River; it was seven hundred and twenty kilometers in length, single-track. Its rolling stock consisted of two wood-burning locomotives and about forty cars. There was a daily train in each direction; cannon were fired as they pa.s.sed signal-points, to warn the oncoming train to back to the nearest switch-out.
There had been no system of historical reckoning on Hetaira until then, and no need for any; but the gang that built the Red Lake To Sulfur River realized that now some method of accounting for the pa.s.sage of time, both sleeping-period to sleeping-period and season to season, would be needed. And so, with proper pomp and ceremony, when the first train left the steamboat landing at Nardavo's Town for the headwaters of the river, they proclaimed the Year One of the Railroad. [As nearly as can be determined, this corresponded with the year 2264 of the vanished Tullonian Empire, or the year 1522 of The Books of Tisse.]
Standing at the foot of the gangplank with the other pa.s.sengers who had disembarked at Nardavo's Town, Dwallo Dammando looked around the wharf curiously, examining the piles of cargo waiting to be loaded for the return trip across Red Lake. Bagged grain, and kegs of spirits; bales of furs from the mountains; barrels of refined sulfur; bales of cloth; bar iron and steel; crates of straw-packed gla.s.sware. No wonder the wagon-train gangs were cursing the Bollardo Gang and their railroad.
The luggage-wagon, drawn by a pair of toulths, came down the ramp; along with the fifty-odd other pa.s.sengers, he fell in behind it. The driver was one of the Brancanno Gang, who ran the steamboat, but he couldn't be expected to know the owners.h.i.+p or look after the safety of every box and bag and bed-roll on the wagon. It was a good idea to keep a close watch on your own belongings.
”I'm going to the market first,” the driver told them. ”Wagons there for Sweet.w.a.ter, across the isthmus, and up Crooked River. If you're taking the railroad, leave your things on the wagon; I'll take them to the platform next. Train leaves in about an hour.”
The market was an open square, surrounded by buildings of stone and brick and plank.
A few were old, most of them were new, and several were still being built. There were warehouses, and a tavern, and trading markets with open fronts and plank marquees which could be lowered on chains during the rains. Fifteen or twenty big transport wagons, with double-rows of pa.s.senger-seats atop their cargo bays, stood in the middle; some seemed to have arrived only recently, for their freight was piled beside them, and the traders were d.i.c.kering over it. One wagon had attracted a number of d.i.c.kerers; its load consisted of square wooden boxes, all painted with the glyph of the Sambro Gang, and lettered, in phonetic alphabet, Rifle Number 2, Rifle Number 3, Revolving- chambered Handgun Number 3.
”No, we won't take grain,” one of the wagon gang was saying, as Dwallo came within hearing. ”By the time we got to Sweet.w.a.ter, the toulths would have the whole load eaten.
Besides, one case of cartridges is worth a whole bin-load of grain.”
”Well, will you take an order on the Yavanno Gang for twenty loads of grain for twenty cases of cartridges?” one of the local merchants asked. ”You can trade that for anything you want, either here at Nardavo's, or at Sweet.w.a.ter.”
”Three barrels of brandy for two cases of Rifle Number Three!” another merchant shouted.The baggage-wagon rolled past and stopped. Men and women from different transport gangs detached themselves from their wagons and ran over, shouting: ”Raldarro Gang for Sweet.w.a.ter!”
”Luilloro Gang, up Crooked River; what'll you trade for a ride?”
”For Sweet.w.a.ter, Kalvanno Gang. Padded seats and good springs on the wagon!
Leaving in an hour!”
The steamboat pa.s.sengers who were taking wagons began to pull their bags and bedrolls out of the pile on the wagon. Dwallo, watching the rectangular leather-covered case and the bed-roll with his name painted on them, did not notice the shabby little fellow in the sorth-skin trunks and tattered canvas vest dart away. Suddenly, from the other side of the wagon, a voice shouted: ”Drop that bag, you thieving rogue! I'll drop you with it!”
As the fellow broke into a run, Dwallo noticed him, and saw that his third piece of luggage, the shoulder-bag that contained his trading items, was in the thief's hand. He grabbed for the heavy revolver at his hip, but before he could draw it, a rifle cracked, and the thief leaped into the air and fell dead. As he went around the tail of the wagon, another man appeared from the far side, a heavy rifle smoking in his hands. They both reached the body at the same time.
”A good shot, my friend,” Dwallo said. ”My thanks.” He stooped and retrieved the bag. ”I should have kept hold of this in the first place.”
The stranger, a man in white hoomi-leather trousers and vest, worked the lever on his rifle, picked up the empty cartridge and pocketed it, and smiled. ”For nothing, your thanks. You would have shot anyone you saw stealing my belongings. Anybody would.
See a thief and fail to shoot him, and you only encourage the breed.”
”Nevertheless, my thanks for it,” Dwallo said. ”And my hand. Dwallo Dammando,” he introduced himself.
”Koshtro Evarro,” the other said. ”You're going on the railroad? So am I.”
They fell into step, following the wagon to the railroad platform. An old man who walked with a limp, and a slender, rather tall girl came over while the luggage was being unloaded. Both wore canvas coveralls to keep their fur clean, and carried revolvers on their hips.
”It's all right to leave your stuff here,” the limping man said. ”The Bollardo Gang's responsible for it until you leave the train.”
The girl took their destinations and chalked them on the luggage, then she led the pa.s.sengers over to a table and sat down.
”Four prime toulth-hides for the trip to Nandrovvo's for the two of us?” a man asked.
When the girl agreed, he showed her a warehouse receipt, and wrote out an order on a local brokerage and storage gang. Another pa.s.senger produced a jug of brandy; the girl uncorked it, smelled it, and accepted it for pa.s.sage. Dwallo pulled a book out of his shoulder-bag and handed it to her.
”How about this, for a trip to Vallado's Village?” he asked.
”Oh, that's too much,” she protested, ”we're not robbers!” Then she looked at the t.i.tle- page. ”I thought I recognized your name when I saw it on your things. You can ride with us for nothing; we're all proud of the book your gang printed about our railroad.”
”No, take the book,” Dwallo insisted. ”I don't think you have it; we just printed it.”She looked at it again. ”The New Steam Engine Which Re-condenses Water More Efficiently, Designed by Johas Mandorgo at Needle Rock Rendezvous, as Described by the Designer,” she read. ”No, I've never heard of it. Thank you, Dwallo.”
”And here; here's a list of the new books our gang has printed this past season,”
Dwallo added. ”Take it and show it to your gang. Maybe you'll want to order some of them.”
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