Blood Lands by Alfred Coppel

0:00This is Belie, one network, every topic, everywhere. The people of Kana refuse to abandon their forgotten world. And Kenyan is determined to discover what could make them choose isolation over the stars. Deep beneath the strange islands, something ancient has already decided who belongs on Kana and who will never leave. Bloodlands, by Alfred Koppel, that's next on the Lost Sci-Fi Podcast. There are lots of ways to support the Lost Sci-Fi Podcast and no matter how you choose to support us, we truly appreciate it. One of those ways is by buying us a coffee. A huge thank you to Tina Godby for buying us three coffees. Tina says, I cannot get enough of this show.

1:01The stories are so interesting. Your delivery is so relaxing. And looking back at old sci-fi ideas is a blast. Thank you, Tina. We appreciate the coffees and the kind words. If you would like to buy us a coffee, there is a link in the description. The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast is getting a new look. You may have already noticed our brand new podcast artwork or you'll be seeing it soon. Same great vintage science fiction stories, just a fresh new look. We hope you like it. Bloodlands first appeared in the very first issue of dynamic science fiction in December 1952. It's author Alfred Koppel began publishing sci-fi in 1947. Today's story takes us to Cona, a human colony abandoned for five centuries. When men from the stars finally return,

2:03they discover the colonists have no intention of leaving. And something very strange has happened to their world. Bloodlands by Alfred Koppel. The rendezvous was well away from the channel stinking area that had been burned by the starship's landing. Kenyan stood on the edge of a plume grove that grew down to where the tideless sea lay red and shimmering. He looked back, cursing the flatness of the island. The spire of the starship commanded a complete view of the territory. There was no place to hide. Kenyan knew that anyone who wished to do so could spy on him easily as he stood waiting for a lira to come out of a grove. Not, he told himself defensively, that there was any good reason that he should hide his doings with a lira.

3:04Affairs with native women, while not considered in the best taste, were common enough among starmen. It was simply that the mission here was one of repatriation, rather than exploitation. And all members of the expedition had been warned against forming liaisons that could conceivably become embarrassing situations when the natives were moved off Kanna. Kenyan shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other, peering through the picket of quills into the grove. He would have liked to go into the grove to meet the girl, but it was something he had never been able to bring himself to do. One didn't take chances on a planet like Kanna. One that had retrograss from technology in the legend worshipping semi-savagery. And there was that unanswered question about cannibalism. Not a lira, Kenyan thought quickly.

4:05That wouldn't be possible. After all, the mission had been on Kanna only a few days. It was only a matter of time until the riddle of the native food supply was solved. A soft rustling of the plumes warned him of her approach. Native or not, he reflected. She was a handsome thing. Odd about the red hair. They all had it, men and women alike. And the gray almost cold eyes. But there was nothing cold about her body. It was light and supple. Burnt golden by the light of the red sun. Her costume showed most of it. And Kenyan could fully appreciate the rippling play of muscles under the satiny skin as she walked. She paused at the very edge of the grove, solemn and unsmiling in the slanting light. The sunset comes, Kenyan, she said.

5:06Her greeting was always the same. A dwelling on the ending of a day, the fading of light from the sky. Kenyan unconsciously looked toward the east, where the first pale light of a star was breaking through the rusty glow of the sinking sun. Stars were pale on the edge, he thought vaguely. It filled him with a sense of distance, of vast empty spaces, of the parsecs that separated Kanna and its red star from the teeming worlds of the inner systems. Little wonder it had been lost for so long. He shivered slightly and smiled at Alira. Shall we walk by the sea? Yes. I brought something for you. A gift. Ordinarily the promise of a bubble would have brought a smile to her face. But she remained solemn, and it seemed to Kenyan, unduly aloof. Tonight you were to walk in the forest.

6:07Kenyan frowned. He had promised her, and she had remembered. In the far distance on one of the islands across the red water, a drum began to beat with a deep, budding insistence. A sense of alienage filled him, and something akin to fear. Though he knew nothing that should bring such feelings into a star man's mind. All the teeming billions of a star flung culture backed him with power and machines. There was nothing in the inhabited galaxy a star man should fear. Yet Kenyan was afraid. He knew it. Afraid of this watery world and its islands. Perhaps he was even afraid of Alira. We have walked by the sea, Alira said, still standing apart from him. And now we should walk in the plume forest.

7:07You have come here from the sky to take my people from Kanna. There was little point in denying this, Kenyan realized. And both Bofwell and Grandcourt had already announced it to the island Chieftain. Manpower was needed in the industrial combines of the inner worlds. It was wasteful to let humans rusticate on a world without commercial value like Kanna. I would take you by the hand. Alira continued, and her quaintly accented in archaic lingua spotcha. And show you why my people have no wish to go. Kenyan's eyes widened at that. No native had yet offered any of the mission's three members a reason for their reluctance to leave Kanna. This was the first apparent break in a wall of courteous passive resistance. If he, Kenyan, could be the one to convince the chiefs that they should urge their people to board the starship without coercion and bloodshed,

8:09it would be an excellent mark in his record. It could lead to better things than hurting troglonites back into the fold of the galactic state. Wait for me, Alira, he said. I will be back before the sun is fully down, and I will go with you into the forest. She smiled, showing sharp white teeth. Kenyan shuddered slightly and turned back toward the starship. Into the forest he might go, he thought bleakly, but not without weapons, and not without Bothwell and Grand Corps knowing what he was about to do and where in the service of the state. Even in the cargo holds the huge pens intended for the natives of Kanna. He could hear Grand Corps and Bothwell arguing. Bothwell, you bloody fool, you aren't even able to tell me what happened to the blasted barges. Even a thousand years in this climate wouldn't destroy them, let alone a mere 400.

9:14So where are they then? And Grand Corps in his dry and acid-tenged tones, like those of an academy professor. Obviously, my dear Bothwell, when the islands formed they were no longer needed. They simply sank them. Kenyan paused to listen. It was a perpetual argument between the older men, and one he thought both fruitless and exasperating. One, he had no wish to join. It had begun with the planetfall, and the discovery of ten thousand islands in the shallow sea that had once, according to the book, covered the entire planet of Kanna. Five hundred years ago, in the first flush of stellar colonization, Kanna had been populated with human beings from the inner galaxy. Since no land of any kind was available, and since there was a ready market for gold salts and nitrates that could be extracted from Kanna's sea,

10:16a first-stage barge culture was established, floating villages, hydroponics, and essential, and highly developed technology, and then came the interregnum, a commercial interregnum that found the products of Kanna unneeded. Trade fell off, and eventually the planet and its people were forgotten, a lost colony. It took five hundred years for the manpower of Kanna and other worlds like it to become valuable enough to send repatriation missions out to gather it up and bring it into the industrial combines. Yet the Kanna planetfall brought some surprises to Kenyan and Grand Corps in Bafwell. The missions nominal-head, the barges were gone, the inhabitants strangely changed and uncivilized. And a million islands where none had been before. Vokinism is out. Bafwell was declaring. Kanna and the Kanna son are too old to support that kind of thing.

11:20You don't know, Grand Corps said, dryly. You are a star-man, not a geologist. I'm no agronomist, either. Bellow Bafwell. But I can tell you nothing grows here but those damn feathers. They only look like feathers, Grand Corps said. You've seen stranger growths. Isolation, Vokinian, is sharpening their natural antagonisms. Isolation and failure. A failure that neither of them will face up to. He knew that in a matter of days Bafwell would blow up and order the Kanna natives hurt it into the starships holds by force. They had the weapons, but somehow Kenyan dreaded taking such a step. There were dangers on Kanna that none of the three men from the stars had yet recognized. He was sure of it. He armed himself and went up the ramp toward the bickering voices. It would be a pleasure to interrupt them.

12:27Bafwell looked up as he entered, a frown on his craggy face. Kenyan decided again as he had every day for weeks that he didn't like Bafwell. And where do you think you're going? Where indeed, murmur, Grand Corps, booted armed and armored, our young collage goes to meet his pretty savage, of course. Kenyan flushed. Since we seem to be wasting time here, he snapped with some bravado. I'm going into the forest to talk to the chief. Is that wise, Grand Corps asked Bafwell? Let him go, the big man said. When he's convinced talking on him, we'll go out with blasters and herd the trawgs into the ship. Kenyan forced down his anger and turned away. At the bulkhead he stopped, unwilling to go without asking their help and hating to do it. Please guard the command channel, he said casually. I'll report my progress by radio. Bafwell led out a hoot of course laughter.

13:33Progress. Into the forest at night with his pretty trog, and he wants to keep us informed. Kenyan turned on his heel and almost ran out of the ship. His face burning. Tam them both anyway. The sun was down and a thick dusk hung over the island. Kenyan's boots sank into the stinking, burned soil as he went, making him stumble. Like a red, unhealed scar, he thought. Typical of the improvements made by man on the worlds he exploited. Elira was still where he had left her, waiting in the shadow of the tall plumes. The drums sounded louder. Their leaden beat drifting across the darkling water of the sea from island to island. The last bloody light was fading from the sky. Without talk, Kenyan took the girls' extended hand and together they vanished into the forest and waving plumes.

14:35The night wind and drums in the forest, the feeding circle forms to greet a past man from the stars, and the anger in the throbbing beat underfoot grows dark and hungry. Wait, the plumes whisper. He is coming. Wait, the soil says. He is coming to us. Your father will care for you and feed you, and you need not go out among the stars. I will protect you. It seemed to Kenyan that they walked for hours through the darkness. He was conscious of a growing excitement in Elira, of a feeling of triumph and anticipation. He thought of grand core speculations on cannibalism among the kana people, and a sick thrill ran through him. As they reached a clearing in the forest, the drums stopped.

15:36Silence fell like a blow. Elira turned to face him, her eyes wide and dark in the shadows. He struck a match and let us hear it, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs. Elira flicked her tongue over her lips, and Kenyan noticed its sharp tip. He almost succumbed to an impulse to turn back, but the thought of Bothwell and Grand Core laughing at him held him where he was. B. Steadfast, Kenyan, Elira said. As though she had guessed his thoughts. B. Brave, and above all, B. Wise, when you meet the father. Father? She stamped a barefoot on the resilient ground, impatiently. The father, Kenyan, she said again, the great one who came to my people after yours had deserted us. There it was again, Kenyan thought.

16:36That schism between the people of kana and the rest of the inhabited worlds. Your people, my people. As though the birth of a legend of gods from space had changed the inhabitants of kana into something apart from the rest of the human race. There are no gods from space, little one. Kenyan said gently. Only more man. The father is not a man. Elira whispered. Kenyan could almost feel the mystic calm that descended on her as she contemplated the legendary past. Long ago, when the people of kana lived on the sea and were dying, the great gods came to us and fed us and made us warm. Her tone grew scornful. You would not understand me. I cannot make you understand. But the father will speak with you. I am sure. And you will know why our people must remain here for always.

17:42No, Kenyan said. One way or another, your people will come with us. You are needed elsewhere. She laughed at him. When time ends, when the red star dies, we will be here on kana. And so will every man who touched the sacred soil. She stood on tiptoes and kissed him. And Kenyan felt a stinging pain on his lips. Savage, he stepped back, wiping blood from his mouth where her sharp tongue had pierced his flesh. He struck her across the face hard and she fell. It came to him in a sickening flash of completion. Not animals, vampires. He felt his stomach heave convulsively. That descendants of civilized men could become so depraved was unbelievable. Grand Cora and Bothwell had to be warned. He keyed his pack radio with the message and waited for a response. As Illira watched him from the shadows, there was no response.

18:52Damn them. Were they guarding the channel or weren't they? He had no way of knowing. Illira laughed. The sound of it was infuriating. He drew his blaster and pointed it at her. Lead the way back, he commanded, with more confidence than he felt. For answer, she laughed again and vanished into the darkness of the thicket of plumes. Nightmare. Kenyan fired blindly, searing a path through the feathery growth. Again laughter. And then a sudden thudding rush of naked feet and hands laid roughly on him, clawing, beating. He screamed with fright, thrushing about in the grip of strong arms. Then there was a stunning pain at the base of his skull and darkness. Deep and black as the night of space itself. When Kenyan awoke, he lay naked in a clearing, lit with torches, all about a sea of faces, the people of Kanna.

20:01Someone was beating a drum very softly with an insistent and hypnotic rhythm. His bare flesh touched the ground. And for the first time, Kenyan was conscious of the peculiar texture of the soil. Smooth but warm with some kind of latent inner heat. The entire tribe of trawls was swaying, self-entranced by the drumbeats in the smoky night. Kenyan could hear their murmured chant, made endless by repetition. Wake, father, wake, father, wake, father. Kenyan tried to set up, found that he could not. Unseen, fleshy bands held him firm to the ground. Hanec stirred in him, and he suppressed it with all the power of his will and training. He twisted his head about to see if he could find a lira in the sea of faces. But she was indistinguishable from many other women.

21:08All were naked. All were swaying in their ritual chant. The very air seemed to vibrate with the beat of it. Kenyan twisted his head aside and froze with horror. Not ten meters from him a stump of a man stood upright. No, it was not a stump at all, but a native buried to the armpits in the ground. His eyes were wide open, and his mouth worked convulsively. The soil itself was pulsating slowly, as the man sank steadily downward. The man screamed, a liquid mumbling whale that broke into gibberish, a yellow erupted from the gathered trawls. Father wakes, father wakes. Kenyan eyes bulging, lay stiff, waiting for he knew not what. The sinking man raised an arm like an automaton, pointing directly at the captive. As though something had taken control of his vocal cords, something alien that found speech a clumsy thing,

22:21the man spoke in a hollow, ragged, subcultural voice. You, man from the stars, why have you come here? Kenyan could not reply. To steal my people, to take them from me, the accusing voice thundered. When their own kind deserted them, I came across parsecs of space, across the gulf between the galaxies, to live with them, and care for them. And now you think to take them away, and the buried man laughed, a hollow, booming, awful sound in the firelit forest. The trawls echoed his merciless laughter. It's a trick, Kenyan thought. It noces. Oh, I'm going mad. I thought the whole world was speaking through that man's mouth. The man swept his arms about in a wild circle. He shouted at the trawls.

23:30Eat, I feast. Join me. Eat. Kenyan struggled against the bonds that held him, panic surging in him, but the trawls did not attack him with their sucking pointed tongues. They bent over, pressing their mouths against the ground, plunging their tongues into the soil. The buried man screamed once more, and vanished, with a wet sucking noise. The whole thing leaped into focus in Kenyan's mind, like a picture forming. The soil, the earth, the islands, that was the father. A race of beings from across space, finding refuge in the shallow, warm waters of a world abandoned by the humans of the inner galaxy. Huge, plumed beasts, willing to live in a gaseous symbiosis with the man they found on Kana, giving them the blood of the land to eat, and taking in return the flesh of men.

24:42It was sickening, horrifying. Kenyan could imagine the people leaving the barges for the islands they could see rising in their ocean, and eventually, living like parasites on the blood under the tawny skin. With sick disgust raging in him, Kenyan thrushed about, fighting tooth and nail the free himself. He had to get away, out into the cold, clean, dark of space, away from this nightmare of alien and human depravity. And then suddenly, he was free. And running through the forest with the naked horde of frogs running behind him, torches blazing. The awful plumes tore at his flesh. The hot pulsing soil of the island softened to slow him. He could hear himself screaming in mixed rage and terror as he fled. He had to get back, back to warn the others, back to the starship, and cold, clean metal under his naked feet and sanity again behind him, the trawls halled, and the dark forest echoed their cries.

25:58And at last, he was running across the burn flesh of the area of the starship's landing, a ragged crater-like puckered mouth. The ground rippled and heaved in anger. Kenyan stumbled, fell, picked himself up again, and plunged into the open valve with a sobbing, rasping cry. Grand Corps and Bothwell sat in the control room, their faces white. They did not move when Kenyan stumbled into the cabin. They did not speak as he babbled his story and yelled at them to lift the ship. You've gone mad! Can't you understand what I'm saying? We must get out! When they did not respond, he took the controls himself and closed the relays. The rockets did not fire. There was a sinking sensation to the deck. Kenyan felt his sanity totter. Grand Corps took him by the arm and led him to a port near the still open valve.

27:02Look outside, Grand Corps said gently. You got my message, Kenyan said. Grand Corps nodded. Kenyan stood in the open port looking out. The sky was reddening in the east. And in the crimson light, the plumes were waving agitatedly. The ground was too close. The red mutilated mouth had closed on the ship. Kenyan remembered the buried man with a thrill of horror. The ship was sinking. In another few moments, it would be completely ingested. Kenyan was conscious of the nearness of a supernal mammoth intelligence. It hungered. Grand Corps and Kenyan stood in the open port watching the silent circle of frogs that had formed around the starship. They felt their craft sinking slowly. Down and down into the bloody living land.

28:13Next on the Lost Siphon podcast, three years away is left bill unprepared for an earth where people can send perfect artificial bodies out to live for them. When an old rival threatens the woman he still loves, bill discovers that becoming almost impossible to kill may be easier than accepting what life has become. Coffin for two, my Winston Marx.