Free The Avengers of Carrig by John Brunner Page A

caravan master and he couldn’t very well use a communicator during a trip lasting three weeks over icy hill passes.
    “Carrig, so our social geographers inform us, is sited where it’s virtually bound to become the capital city of its continent when communications are sufficiently advanced to permit the extension of government to the coast in all directions. There will probably be several small wars first, but with luck they may be disposed of before any weapons more advanced than bows and catapults can be deployed. Unfortunately the inhabitants of Carrig already possess extremely serviceable gliders—they stretch animal-skins over a framework of light native wood, like bamboo only stiffer, and if it occurs to them to drop liquid fire or poisoned darts from them … Sorry, I’m wandering from the point. I’m trying to tell you about the here-and-now. Where was I?”
    “You were describing the location of Carrig,” Maddalena ventured.
    “So I was. I was just about to say: Fourteen is building some mountains late in its existence. There’s a good deal of continental drift still in progress, and not far north of Carrig there’s a complex geological stress system that’screated a fault area with consequent volcanic activity.
    “And the volcanic range is crawling with high-number elements. In short, simple geology is making sure that when the local people achieve nuclear technics, Carrig will have the planet’s biggest supply of reactor-fuel right on its doorstep.”
    “Slaveworld?” Maddalena said again.
    “Well, it would be a temptation for some unscrupulous gang of adventurers, wouldn’t it? And if they decided to pull the trick, they’d have their labor force right on the spot.”
    Maddalena hesitated. “But is there any evidence to suspect that someone actually has…?”
    “None at all—I’m just illustrating why this is such a sensitive area that we desperately need a substitute agent to hold the fort there. What we have managed to establish as solid fact goes like this. Carrig’s society is organized on a clan-and-totem basis—seven rival clans, plus one nominally neutral and above politics, a kind of priestly caste. In an annual contest they determine the succession by a fantastic airborne duel between men in these gliders I mentioned to you and a winged animal called a parradile, sacred because it symbolizes the qualities of kingship. The winner’s clan becomes the cabinet, so to speak, for the following year and takes over the administration down to and including the collection of taxes. In theory, anyone can have a go at the king-parradile provided he observes certain formalities, but for a long time the practice has been to restrict competition to one select champion from each eligible clan.
    “According to reliable report however, an outsider recently did go in for the contest and
won.
The story goes that he wielded a bolt of lightning! Slee, who’s our nearest surviving agent to Carrig, suspects that someone may have invented gunpowder, because there are plenty of deposits of sulfur in the volcanic region, and parradile guano is very rich in sodium and potassium nitrates—exactly what you need for a simple explosive. If he’s figured out how to make elementary bombs, or worse yet some sort of rocket missile, this outsider may be all set to launch Carrig on a war of conquest.”
    “And you want me to go and find out if this is true?”
    “Exactly,” said Langenschmidt—not without sympathy. “I wish you luck. But luck, believe me, isn’t going to be nearly enough.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    The effect of being one kind of person for twenty-five years could not be wiped out overnight. Many times in the course of the intensive instruction she had to take to fit her for the job on ZRP 14, Maddalena gave way to the old discontent, the old rebellion. The last time, however, was the time Gus Langenschmidt lost his temper and barked at her, “What the hell are you in the Corps for