Free We the Underpeople by Cordwainer Smith, selected by Hank Davis Page B

lashes seemed full of intelligence and devoid of emotion. Orson, the bear-man, followed obediently behind. He carried little Joan.

    As the child passed Elaine she tried to stay awake. She murmured, "Make me bigger. Please make me bigger. Right away."

    "I don't know how . . ." said Elaine.

    The child struggled to full awakening. "I'll have work to do. Work . . . and maybe my death to die. It will all be wasted if I am this little. Make me bigger."

    "But—" protested Elaine again.

    "If you don't know, ask the lady."

    "What lady?"

    The S-woman had paused, listening to the conversation. She cut in.

    "The Lady Panc Ashash, of course. The dead one. Do you think that a living Lady of the Instrumentality would do anything but kill us all?"

    As the snake-woman and Orson carried Joan away, Charley-is-my-darling came up to Elaine and said, "Do you want to go?"

    "Where?"

    "To the Lady Panc Ashash, of course."

    "Me?" said Elaine. "Now?" said Elaine, even more emphatically. "Of course not," said Elaine, pronouncing each word as though it were a law. "What do you think I am? A few hours ago I did not even know that you existed. I wasn't sure about the word 'death.' I just assumed that everything terminated at four hundred years, the way it should. It's been hours of danger, and everybody has been threatening everybody else for all that time. I'm tired and I'm sleepy and I'm dirty, and I've got to take care of myself, and besides—"

    She stopped suddenly and bit her lip. She had started to say, and besides, my body is all worn out with that dreamlike love-making which the Hunter and I had together. That was not the business of Charley-is-my-darling: he was goat enough as he was. His mind was goatish and would not see the dignity of it all.

    The goat-man said, very gently, "You are making history, Elaine, and when you make history you cannot always take care of all the little things too. Are you happier and more important than you ever were before? Yes? Aren't you a different you from the person who met Balthasar just a few hours ago?"

    Elaine was taken aback by the seriousness. She nodded.

    "Stay hungry and tired. Stay dirty. Just a little longer. Time must not be wasted. You can talk to the Lady Panc Ashash. Find out what we must do about little Joan. When you come back with further instructions, I will take care of you myself. This tunnel is not as bad a town as it looks. We will have everything you could need, in the Room of Englok. Englok himself built it, long ago. Work just a little longer, and then you can eat and rest. We have everything here. 'I am the citizen of no mean city.' But first you must help Joan. You love Joan, don't you?"

    "Oh, yes, I do," she said.

    "Then help us just a little bit more."

    With death? she thought. With murder? With violation of law? But—but it was all for Joan.

    It was thus that Elaine went to the camouflaged door, went out under the open sky again, saw the great saucer of Upper Kalma reaching out over the Old Lower City. She talked to the voice of the Lady Panc Ashash, and obtained certain instructions, together with other messages. Later, she was able to repeat them, but she was too tired to make out their real sense.

    She staggered back to the place in the wall where she thought the door to be, leaned against it, and nothing happened.

    "Further down, Elaine, further down. Hurry! When I used to be me, I too got tired," came the strong whisper of the Lady Panc Ashash, "but do hurry!"

    Elaine stepped away from the wall, looking at it.

    A beam of light struck her.

    The Instrumentality had found her.

    She rushed wildly at the wall.

    The door gaped briefly. The strong welcome hand of Charley-is-my-darling helped her in.

    "The light! The light!" cried Elaine. "I've killed us all. They saw me."

    "Not yet," smiled the goat-man, with his quick crooked intelligent smile. "I may not be educated, but I am pretty smart."

    He reached toward the inner gate, glanced back at Elaine