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sandstone, sheathing the granites and other igneous rocks that pushed up
inside it. That's the reason the mountains seem to rise so suddenly from the
valley floor. What you'll be looking at are slabs of the valley rock broken
off and upended by the mountain rock lifting beneath it. The Exotics liked the
contrast of building the peaceful sort of homes they made, in a geologically
dramatic area like this one." "Little good it's done them," said Hal, looking
at the road alongside them. "They've ended up getting drama with a vengeance."
THE CHANTRY GUILD
87
Into the tar-black, melted-earth surface of the road, deep ruts had been
gouged. "The garrison people drove heavy machinery along these roads
deliberately to break them down," Amanda said. " It's part of their
organized plan of destruction. Bleys isn't waiting for the normal effects of
time, and the war with Earth, to manage his 'withering away' process for
Kultis and Mara. The Exotics produce nothing he needs; and the Occupation
troops he sent have all but explicit orders to keep trying to squeeze the
local people until the last one's dead." "Squeeze them?" "Well, you see the
road," said Amanda. "In addition to that kind of destruction, they've burned
down all the country homes they didn't have a use for themselves; and made the
people who had lived in them move into the nearest town or city. There,
they've made them live in row house apartments they forced them to build for
themselves, quickly and out of flimsy materials. Also, the town or city
populace is under all sorts of rationing and restrictions. Every day the
people there have to stand in line for hours for their chance to buy the
barest necessities. I mean they're deliberately forced to stand in line for
not enough of anything to go around, available from stores that can only be
open too few hours a day to supply everyone who needs things. Then, there's a
curfew at night and strict laws even about how and where you can move about in
the towns during the day-that's why we're timing this little walk to get to
the gates of Porphyry just a little before they close for the day, at sixteen
hundred hours-not much more than midafternoon, here. " "We're catching up with
someone," Hal said, pointing ahead. "That's right," said Amanda. "You'll see
more and more traffic as we get close to town. All the former off-planet
workers here-they were mainly from Ste. Marie-- Ste. Marie was a somewhat
smaller agricultural world a little farther out from Procyon than the two
planets of the Exotics. "-were shipped home; and most of the large farming
areas they operated on both Mara and Kultis are deserted now, with no Exotics
allowed to try and run them. The locals here can only get permits to go out of
their town for about three hours a dav. on certain davs. to
88
Gordon R. Dickson
farm family plots of land that're too small, or too useless otherwise, to do
them much good anyway. That's why we ran into that bunch last night, who were
undoubtedly staying out overnight, breaking curfew so they could get some real
work done on an illegal extra field, by moonlight. They just hope a surprise
housecheck doesn't turn them up missing, meantime. It's part of the game to
quarter the soldiers on the civilian populace, to the advantage of the
soldiers and a better surveillance of the populace."
They had almost caught up now with the traveler ahead of them, who was a thin,
balding man in middle age, pushing a handcart. He nodded in answer to their
greeting as they passed but said nothing, evidently saving his breath for the
job of maneuvering the wheels of the handcart amongst the ruts on the road-the
cart being too wide for the more shady edge on which Hal and Amanda were
traveling. There was nothing more than a scattering of sweet potatoes in the
bottom of the cart; but the cart itself was obviously homemade, and clumsy as
well as heavy. The man was streaming with sweat from pushing it in the sun.
"He's taking the potatoes home to eat, or to sell?" Hal asked, once they were
far enough past to be out of hearing. "Either that, or to barter with a
neighbor," said Amanda. "He'd do better to put a bunch that smal I into a
sack." "Against the law," said Amanda. "All produce, to be legal inside the
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city, must he brought in by cart, theoretically to let the gate guards inspect
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