shango
BY JOHN JAKES
Valaya was a primitive society,
yet the natives had a
way of communicating that
had the experts stumped....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"This," said chief Van Isaac, "is our new trouble spot." The older man's rodlike finger probed decisively at a violet dot placed on a thin yellow line of a circle, third out from a sun. Other dots peppered the giant glazed star map, companions of which hung on the other three walls of the chamber. "Valaya is the name of the place," Van Isaac continued. "Perhaps you know something about it."
"Not much," said the other, a thirtyish, lean man by the name of Arnold Koven. "I mean, not a great deal besides what the telefilms have screamed for the past two weeks. Revolution, slaughter, tribe against tribe." Koven placed a cigarette between his lips, and his eyes smiled with gentle cynicism. "Valaya has a Creole sound."
"You'll have no vacation, believe me," Van Isaac responded. "During the colonization, Valaya was peopled largely by residents of the Caribbean. The inhabitants have intermarried over the past sixty years, so there is a slight blue Martian strain. Valaya was seeded with sugar and tin to provide for economy, but left rather backward—by choice of the colonists." Koven moved his eyes from the star map to his superior.
"Have you localized the trouble?"