Free Enemies of the System by Brian W. Aldiss

secret member of the USRP?”
    Constanza’s hand went to her lips. “Don’t speak like that, Ian!”
    â€œI say that we are not dead yet, and that there may still be hope if we cease quarreling with each other. Remember the old saying, ‘When the frogs croak loudest, the crane strikes.’” Burek illustrated with a hard hand, jabbing sharply toward the freeway. “You are young, Ian Takeido—you don’t understand that rain isn’t the only way of getting wet.”
    â€œYou men are fools,” Sygiek said, glaring with contempt over the spiked backs of hounds. “You in particular, Takeido. Do you imagine for one moment that because you are out of the System that the system is out of you? We are its products, stamped with it through and through, as much shaped by it as these degenerate barbarians are by their environment.”
    â€œI couldn’t have uttered a harsher criticism of you myself,” said Takeido.
    Still the rain dropped down, filling the air with liquid sound. The landscape appeared to dissolve in water. Hunters, dogs, and children kept up their ceaseless activity, milling over the area, always maintaining watch in all directions. At length, the hunter chief was helped to his feet. He shook his spear above his skull-crowned head. A cheer went up, the dogs barked and whined.
    At the same time, as if the two events were connected, the downpour tapered off sharply. One of the zebras was kicked to its feet and the chief mounted unaided. Again a cheer arose. He pointed toward the six prisoners.
    More activity, more yapping from dogs and children. The tourists were made to rise to their feet. They stood dripping and dashing the last of the rain from their eyes. Willing hands pulled them down from the road, splashing through muddy water toward the spot where the chief waited.
    A long pole was brought. Hempen ropes appeared. The six were lashed to the pole in a row, with hands secured behind their backs so that they could only proceed forward in line abreast. To add to their humiliation, packs of provisions and some of the looted articles from the luggage trolley were strapped to their shoulders so that they became beasts of burden as well as prisoners.
    While this was happening, hunters and hounds alike were disappearing into the waterlogged countryside, into gulleys and scrub. Before they knew it, the forlorn knot of Utopians was again alone with its original five assailants.

VII
    A harsh order was given. The six captives were made to march forward, yoked like oxen, into the semi-desert. Yellow mud splashed about their ankles with every step. Their heads were down and they moved for a long while in silence.
    â€œThe rain will never fertilize this ground,” said Takeido. “I would love to do some soil-analysis—you would expect to find an almost total absence of micro-organisms. No doubt that was why the crops failed when the colonists first crash-landed here. Vital links in the chain of life have yet to form. What a rotten planet to pick to land on.”
    â€œWith a minimum of terraforming, this could be a good planet,” replied Dulcifer. Nobody else said anything. With their heads bent and the difficulties underfoot, they felt disinclined for conversation.
    â€œWe’ll turn this into an endless carpet of wheat in a century,” Dulcifer said. Nobody answered him.
    Time passed. The tourists lost account of it, in their increasing weariness. Their minds grew blank as every step became an effort. They gazed down at their muddied feet in dull animal pain.
    Abruptly, their captors made them change direction and halt behind a pile of boulders crowned by ferns. The hunters dismounted, whereupon their steeds fell to the soggy ground as if dead. One hunter stood guard while the other four vanished rapidly among nearby boulders.
    Minutes later, a terrible squealing sounded, followed by a deep silence. When the hunters reappeared, each held