"Piers Anthony - Bio of a Space Tyrant 02 - Mercenary" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

Rivers caught his breath. He was a larger man than Joe, and more powerfully constructed, and it was already evident that the two were not friends. But this time he backed off. "I had no call," he agreed. "I wasn't thinking."

Joe turned away, satisfied. I was to learn by experience that fights were often this way, inchoate, terminated as quickly as they began; an unwritten code among the pickers militated against extremes of violence. But at this time I wasn't aware of that; I feared there could be a continuation. I went to Rivers. "There's no offense! I didn't mean for this to happen!"

"Joe's wrong about most things," Rivers said gruffly. "This one time he's right. I owe you one, Worry." And he, too, turned away.

Why had he backed off? It had been a fairly innocent remark, and he surely felt no personal awe of Joe Hill. Rivers had accepted a spot humiliation, a certain loss of status, and that bothered me because I didn't understand his motive. Mysteries of motive are always important to me, because I encounter so few of them.

Gallows began his song, effectively changing the subject:

Hangman, hangman, slack your rope Slack it for a while I think I see my father coming Riding many a mile.

After the first refrain, the others joined in, and the song session was on.

Papa, did you bring me silver? Papa, did you bring me gold? Or did you come to see me hanging By the gallows pole?

According to the song, Papa had no money to free the victim, and neither did the mother; but the sweetheart did, and so the victim was saved. I appreciated the aptness of the song, for Gallows was the one who counted out the money for the hapless workers. Without that money they would perish.

We went on to other songs, mine included, and I felt more strongly than ever the camaraderie of this group. I knew this collection of people was essentially random, just those who had been looking for work when this job was available, but the grueling day labor and the songs by night unified it rapidly. And, of course, the subculture of the pickers spread its broader unity over all such groups.

There is no need to dwell unduly on this aspect of my life. We completed our ten-day stint, and my work improved, but I remained in debt to Joe. So when we returned to Leda on the space-bus, I told him I would take another tour with him, to repay that debt. But that was only part of the reason. The rest of it was this: I had been cast adrift by circumstance, and migrant labor gave me a home and a livelihood and companions. It wasn't much, but it was what I needed.

But I knew that eventually I would have to heed Helse's warning in the vision. There was no real future for me in this life. As a child grows out of the comfort and security of his family, I would have to grow out of this.

I took the next tour, to a bubble growing potatoes, and this was grueling work. Some of the crew overlapped that of the pepper bubble, and some were new, but the songs continued. Rivers was there, and he and Joe had another altercation, for Joe openly condemned the low wages and hard work, while Rivers said that if a man didn't like it, he was a fool not to go elsewhere.

I caught up on my debt to Joe, but I wasn't ready to leave. My replacement ID card had not yet arrived, and this was the only type of work I could obtain without it. Anyway, I still needed that migrant culture.

So it continued for months, and the people changed while the nature of the employment did not. The bad blood between Joe Hill and Old Man Rivers intensified as pickers got sick with degenerative, malnutritive, and stress-syndrome diseases and lost ability to work. The bubble-farm guards were not always aloof; sometimes they beat the pickers. Sometimes the bubble-farmers cheated the work crews, and there was very little to be done about it. Joe's talk of forming an effective migrant labor union became more strident, and Rivers's opposition more implacable, and the two fought and fought again. Somehow they always shared a job, though; they never split to separate ones. That, too, I wondered about.

Gradually the union sentiment spread, for Joe's analysis was compelling: Only unified force could bring the tyrannical bubble-farmers into line and make them improve conditions and pay for the laborers. "A strike!" Joe urged. "If all the workers refused to pick and the crops started rotting in the fields-that would bring them into line soon enough! All we want is a living wage, a bit more of the fruits of our labors!"

"All you want is to take over the power for yourself!" Rivers objected. "A corrupt union boss is the worst thing there is!" But the tide was turning against him as the unfairness of the system became more apparent to the body of the laboring force.

Joe led them in a new (though old) song:

Men of the soil! We have labored unending.

We have fed the planet on the grain that we have grown. . . . Man ne'er shall eat again, bread gained through blood of men! Who is there denies our right to reap where we have sown?

Of course, it wasn't exact, though updated for space. We were in fact reapers, not sowers. But the essence was there: that the laborer should share the fruits of his labors. I felt it, as the power of the song took me. In unity there was strength, and in strength there could be justice! We had to unify and act!

"You're crazy!" Rivers warned. "Do you have any idea what would happen if you pulled a strike? They'd bring in the goon squads and beat your heads in!" Rivers was no advocate of the present exploitation; he merely believed that what Joe was doing would make things worse, not better, for the pickers.

"Not if we outnumbered the goons-and stood together," Joe retorted.

There was no decision yet, for though the union sentiment was gaining, it was far from unanimous. Slowly the pressure increased while the work continued. Each shift of jobs brought contact with new faces, and these people were increasingly interested.

One memorable, if not critical, episode occurred after about six months. I was in a potato-bubble, part of a large crew with a number of unfamiliar faces and several new songs. I had been sleeping early, for grubbing potatoes is a dirty, wearing business. I woke early when I heard someone singing Worried Man Blues. Electrified, I bounced off my bunk and charged into the group. "That's my song!" I cried indignantly. The theft of a song was a serious business, sure provocation for a fight. I had to defend my song, or I would be in poor repute.