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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18109-h.zip b/18109-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac7fabf --- /dev/null +++ b/18109-h.zip diff --git a/18109-h/18109-h.htm b/18109-h/18109-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..150ab46 --- /dev/null +++ b/18109-h/18109-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1439 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + + +<head> + + +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Graveyard of Dreams, by H. Beam Piper</title> +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + .tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: solid black 1px;} + + .right { text-align:right; margin-right: 10em;} +.sig {text-align:right; } + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; } + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Graveyard of Dreams, by Henry Beam Piper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Graveyard of Dreams + +Author: Henry Beam Piper + +Release Date: April 3, 2006 [EBook #18109] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAVEYARD OF DREAMS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Tom Owens, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="tr">Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine February +1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright +on this publication was renewed.</p> + + + +<h1>Graveyard<br /> + of Dreams</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2>By H. Beam Piper</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p class="right"><i><b>Despite Mr. Shakespeare,</b> </i></p> +<p class="right"><i><b>wealth and name are both dross compared with</b></i></p> + +<p class="right"><i><b>the theft of hope--</b></i></p> +<p class="right"><i><b>and Maxwell had to rob</b></i></p> +<p class="right"><i> <b>a whole planet of it!</b></i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p>Standing at the armor-glass front of the observation deck and watching +the mountains rise and grow on the horizon, Conn Maxwell gripped the +metal hand-rail with painful intensity, as though trying to hold back +the airship by force. Thirty minutes--twenty-six and a fraction of the +Terran minutes he had become accustomed to--until he'd have to face it.</p> + +<p>Then, realizing that he never, in his own thoughts, addressed himself as +"sir," he turned.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon?"</p> + +<p>It was the first officer, wearing a Terran Federation Space Navy uniform +of forty years, or about ten regulation-changes, ago. That was the sort +of thing he had taken for granted before he had gone away. Now he was +noticing it everywhere.</p> + +<p>"Thirty minutes out of Litchfield, sir," the ship's officer repeated. +"You'll go off by the midship gangway on the starboard side."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know. Thank you."</p> + +<p>The first mate held out the clipboard he was carrying. "Would you mind +checking over this, Mr. Maxwell? Your baggage list."</p> + +<p>"Certainly." He glanced at the slip of paper. Valises, eighteen and +twenty-five kilos, two; trunks, seventy-five and seventy kilos, two; +microbook case, one-fifty kilos, one. The last item fanned up a little +flicker of anger in him, not at any person, even himself, but at the +situation in which he found himself and the futility of the whole thing.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's everything. I have no hand-luggage, just this stuff."</p> + + + + +<p>He noticed that this was the only baggage list under the clip; the other +papers were all freight and express manifests. "Not many passengers left +aboard, are there?"</p> + +<p>"You're the only one in first-class, sir," the mate replied. "About +forty farm-laborers on the lower deck. Everybody else got off at the +other stops. Litchfield's the end of the run. You know anything about +the place?"</p> + +<p>"I was born there. I've been away at school for the last five years."</p> + +<p>"On Baldur?"</p> + +<p>"Terra. University of Montevideo." Once Conn would have said it almost +boastfully.</p> + +<p>The mate gave him a quick look of surprised respect, then grinned and +nodded. "Of course; I should have known. You're Rodney Maxwell's son, +aren't you? Your father's one of our regular freight shippers. Been +sending out a lot of stuff lately." He looked as though he would have +liked to continue the conversation, but said: "Sorry, I've got to go. +Lot of things to attend to before landing." He touched the visor of his +cap and turned away.</p> + +<p>The mountains were closer when Conn looked forward again, and he glanced +down. Five years and two space voyages ago, seen from the afterdeck of +this ship or one of her sisters, the woods had been green with new +foliage, and the wine-melon fields had been in pink blossom. He tried to +picture the scene sliding away below instead of drawing in toward him, +as though to force himself back to a moment of the irretrievable past.</p> + +<p>But the moment was gone, and with it the eager excitement and the +half-formed anticipations of the things he would learn and accomplish on +Terra. The things he would learn--microbook case, one-fifty kilos, one. +One of the steel trunks was full of things he had learned and +accomplished, too. Maybe they, at least, had some value....</p> + +<p>The woods were autumn-tinted now and the fields were bare and brown.</p> + +<p>They had gotten the crop in early this year, for the fields had all been +harvested. Those workers below must be going out for the wine-pressing. +That extra hands were needed for that meant a big crop, and yet it +seemed that less land was under cultivation than when he had gone away. +He could see squares of low brush among the new forests that had grown +up in the last forty years, and the few stands of original timber looked +like hills above the second growth. Those trees had been standing when +the planet had been colonized.</p> + +<p>That had been two hundred years ago, at the middle of the Seventh +Century, Atomic Era. The name of the planet--Poictesme--told that: the +Surromanticist Movement, when the critics and professors were +rediscovering James Branch Cabell.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Funny how much was coming back to him now--things he had picked up from +the minimal liberal-arts and general-humanities courses he had taken and +then forgotten in his absorption with the science and tech studies.</p> + +<p>The first extrasolar planets, as they had been discovered, had been +named from Norse mythology--Odin and Baldur and Thor, Uller and Freya, +Bifrost and Asgard and Niflheim. When the Norse names ran out, the +discoverers had turned to other mythologies, Celtic and Egyptian and +Hindu and Assyrian, and by the middle of the Seventh Century they were +naming planets for almost anything.</p> + +<p>Anything, that is, but actual persons; their names were reserved for +stars. Like Alpha Gartner, the sun of Poictesme, and Beta Gartner, a +buckshot-sized pink glow in the southeast, and Gamma Gartner, out of +sight on the other side of the world, all named for old Genji Gartner, +the scholarly and half-piratical adventurer whose ship had been the +first to approach the three stars and discover that each of them had +planets.</p> + +<p>Forty-two planets in all, from a couple of methane-giants on Gamma to +airless little things with one-sixth Terran gravity. Alpha II had been +the only one in the Trisystem with an oxygen atmosphere and life. So +Gartner had landed on it, and named it Poictesme, and the settlement +that had grown up around the first landing site had been called +Storisende. Thirty years later, Genji Gartner died there, after seeing +the camp grow to a metropolis, and was buried under a massive monument.</p> + +<p>Some of the other planets had been rich in metals, and mines had been +opened, and atmosphere-domed factories and processing plants built. None +of them could produce anything but hydroponic and tissue-culture +foodstuffs, and natural foods from Poictesme had been less expensive, +even on the planets of Gamma and Beta. So Poictesme had concentrated on +agriculture and grown wealthy at it.</p> + +<p>Then, within fifty years of Genji Gartner's death, the economics of +interstellar trade overtook the Trisystem and the mines and factories +closed down. It was no longer possible to ship the output to a +profitable market, in the face of the growing self-sufficiency of the +colonial planets and the irreducibly high cost of space-freighting.</p> + +<p>Below, the brown fields and the red and yellow woods were merging into a +ten-mile-square desert of crumbling concrete--empty and roofless sheds +and warehouses and barracks, brush-choked parade grounds and landing +fields, airship docks, and even a spaceport. They were more recent, +dating from Poictesme's second brief and hectic prosperity, when the +Terran Federation's Third Fleet-Army Force had occupied the Gartner +Trisystem during the System States War.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Millions of troops had been stationed on or routed through Poictesme; +tens of thousands of spacecraft had been based on the Trisystem; the +mines and factories had reopened for war production. The Federation had +spent trillions of sols on Poictesme, piled up mountains of stores and +arms and equipment, left the face of the planet cluttered with +installations.</p> + +<p>Then, ten years before anybody had expected it, the rebellious System +States Alliance had collapsed and the war had ended. The Federation +armies had gone home, taking with them the clothes they stood in, their +personal weapons and a few souvenirs. Everything else had been left +behind; even the most expensive equipment was worth less than the cost +of removal.</p> + +<p>Ever since, Poictesme had been living on salvage. The uniform the first +officer was wearing was forty years old--and it was barely a month out +of the original packing. On Terra, Conn had told his friends that his +father was a prospector and let them interpret that as meaning an +explorer for, say, uranium deposits. Rodney Maxwell found plenty of +uranium, but he got it by taking apart the warheads of missiles.</p> + +<p>The old replacement depot or classification center or training area or +whatever it had been had vanished under the ship now and it was all +forest back to the mountains, with an occasional cluster of deserted +buildings. From one or two, threads of blue smoke rose--bands of farm +tramps, camping on their way from harvest to wine-pressing. Then the +eastern foothills were out of sight and he was looking down on the +granite spines of the Calder Range; the valley beyond was sloping away +and widening out in the distance, and it was time he began thinking of +what to say when he landed. He would have to tell them, of course.</p> + +<p>He wondered who would be at the dock to meet him, besides his family. +Lynne Fawzi, he hoped. Or did he? Her parents would be with her, and +Kurt Fawzi would take the news hardest of any of them, and be the first +to blame him because it was bad. The hopes he had built for Lynne and +himself would have to be held in abeyance till he saw how her father +would regard him now.</p> + +<p>But however any of them took it, he would have to tell them the truth.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The ship swept on, tearing through the thin puffs of cloud at ten miles +a minute. Six minutes to landing. Five. Four. Then he saw the river +bend, glinting redly through the haze in the sunlight; Litchfield was +inside it, and he stared waiting for the first glimpse of the city. +Three minutes, and the ship began to cut speed and lose altitude. The +hot-jets had stopped firing and he could hear the whine of the cold-jet +rotors.</p> + +<p>Then he could see Litchfield, dominated by the Airport Building, so +thick that it looked squat for all its height, like a candle-stump in a +puddle of its own grease, the other buildings under their carapace of +terraces and landing stages seeming to have flowed away from it. And +there was the yellow block of the distilleries, and High Garden Terrace, +and the Mall....</p> + +<p>At first, in the distance, it looked like a living city. Then, second by +second, the stigmata of decay became more and more evident. Terraces +empty or littered with rubbish; gardens untended and choked with wild +growth; windows staring blindly; walls splotched with lichens and grimy +where the rains could not wash them.</p> + +<p>For a moment, he was afraid that some disaster, unmentioned in his +father's letters, had befallen. Then he realized that the change had not +been in Litchfield but in himself. After five years, he was seeing it as +it really was. He wondered how his family and his friends would look to +him now. Or Lynne.</p> + +<p>The ship was coming in over the Mall; he could see the cracked paving +sprouting grass, the statues askew on their pedestals, the waterless +fountains. He thought for an instant that one of them was playing, and +then he saw that what he had taken for spray was dust blowing from the +empty basin. There was something about dusty fountains, something he had +learned at the University. Oh, yes. One of the Second Century Martian +Colonial poets, Eirrarsson, or somebody like that:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>The fountains are dusty in the Graveyard of Dreams;</i></span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>The hinges are rusty and swing with tiny screams.</i></span></div></div> + + +<p>There was more to it, but he couldn't remember; something about empty +gardens under an empty sky. There must have been colonies inside the Sol +System, before the Interstellar Era, that hadn't turned out any better +than Poictesme. Then he stopped trying to remember as the ship turned +toward the Airport Building and a couple of tugs--Terran Federation +contragravity tanks, with derrick-booms behind and push-poles where the +guns had been--came up to bring her down.</p> + +<p>He walked along the starboard promenade to the gangway, which the first +mate and a couple of airmen were getting open.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Most of the population of top-level Litchfield was in the crowd on the +dock. He recognized old Colonel Zareff, with his white hair and +plum-brown skin, and Tom Brangwyn, the town marshal, red-faced and +bulking above the others. It took a few seconds for him to pick out his +father and mother, and his sister Flora, and then to realize that the +handsome young man beside Flora was his brother Charley. Charley had +been thirteen when Conn had gone away. And there was Kurt Fawzi, the +mayor of Litchfield, and there was Lynne, beside him, her red-lipped +face tilted upward with a cloud of bright hair behind it.</p> + +<p>He waved to her, and she waved back, jumping in excitement, and then +everybody was waving, and they were pushing his family to the front and +making way for them.</p> + +<p>The ship touched down lightly and gave a lurch as she went off +contragravity, and they got the gangway open and the steps swung out, +and he started down toward the people who had gathered to greet him.</p> + +<p>His father was wearing the same black best-suit he had worn when they +had parted five years ago. It had been new then; now it was shabby and +had acquired a permanent wrinkle across the right hip, over the +pistol-butt. Charley was carrying a gun, too; the belt and holster +looked as though he had made them himself. His mother's dress was new +and so was Flora's--probably made for the occasion. He couldn't be sure +just which of the Terran Federation services had provided the material, +but Charley's shirt was Medical Service sterilon.</p> + +<p>Ashamed that he was noticing and thinking of such things at a time like +this, he clasped his father's hand and kissed his mother and Flora. +Everybody was talking at once, saying things that he heard only as happy +sounds. His brother's words were the first that penetrated as words.</p> + +<p>"You didn't know me," Charley was accusing. "Don't deny it; I saw you +standing there wondering if I was Flora's new boy friend or what."</p> + +<p>"Well, how in Niflheim'd you expect me to? You've grown up since the +last time I saw you. You're looking great, kid!" He caught the gleam of +Lynne's golden hair beyond Charley's shoulder and pushed him gently +aside. "Lynne!"</p> + +<p>"Conn, you look just wonderful!" Her arms were around his neck and she +was kissing him. "Am I still your girl, Conn?"</p> + +<p>He crushed her against him and returned her kisses, assuring her that +she was. He wasn't going to let it make a bit of difference how her +father took the news--if she didn't.</p> + +<p>She babbled on: "You didn't get mixed up with any of those girls on +Terra, did you? If you did, don't tell me about it. All I care about is +that you're back. Oh, Conn, you don't know how much I missed you ... +Mother, Dad, doesn't he look just splendid?"</p> + + + +<p>Kurt Fawzi, a little thinner, his face more wrinkled, his hair grayer, +shook his hand.</p> + +<p>"I'm just as glad to see you as anybody, Conn," he said, "even if I'm +not being as demonstrative about it as Lynne. Judge, what do you think +of our returned wanderer? Franz, shake hands with him, but save the +interview for the <i>News</i> for later. Professor, here's one student +Litchfield Academy won't need to be ashamed of."</p> + +<p>He shook hands with them--old Judge Ledue; Franz Veltrin, the newsman; +Professor Kellton; a dozen others, some of whom he had not thought of in +five years. They were all cordial and happy--how much, he wondered, +because he was their neighbor, Conn Maxwell, Rodney Maxwell's son, home +from Terra, and how much because of what they hoped he would tell them? +Kurt Fawzi, edging him out of the crowd, was the first to voice that.</p> + +<p>"Conn, what did you find out?" he asked breathlessly. "Do you know where +it is?"</p> + +<p>Conn hesitated, looking about desperately; this was no time to start +talking to Kurt Fawzi about it. His father was turning toward him from +one side, and from the other Tom Brangwyn and Colonel Zareff were +approaching more slowly, the older man leaning on a silver-headed cane.</p> + +<p>"Don't bother him about it now, Kurt," Rodney Maxwell scolded the mayor. +"He's just gotten off the ship; he hasn't had time to say hello to +everybody yet."</p> + +<p>"But, Rod, I've been waiting to hear what he's found out ever since he +went away," Fawzi protested in a hurt tone.</p> + +<p>Brangwyn and Colonel Zareff joined them. They were close friends, +probably because neither of them was a native of Poictesme.</p> + +<p>The town marshal had always been reticent about his origins, but Conn +guessed it was Hathor. Brangwyn's heavy-muscled body, and his ease and +grace in handling it, marked him as a man of a high-gravity planet. +Besides, Hathor had a permanent cloud-envelope, and Tom Brangwyn's skin +had turned boiled-lobster red under the dim orange sunlight of Alpha +Gartner.</p> + +<p>Old Klem Zareff never hesitated to tell anybody where he came from--he +was from Ashmodai, one of the System States planets, and he had +commanded a division that had been blasted down to about regimental +strength, in the Alliance army.</p> + +<p>"Hello, boy," he croaked, extending a trembling hand. "Glad you're home. +We all missed you."</p> + +<p>"We sure did, Conn," the town marshal agreed, clasping Conn's hand as +soon as the old man had released it. "Find out anything definite?"</p> + +<p>Kurt Fawzi looked at his watch. "Conn, we've planned a little +celebration for you. We only had since day before yesterday, when the +spaceship came into radio range, but we're having a dinner party for you +at Senta's this evening."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't have done anything I'd have liked better, Mr. Fawzi. I'd +have to have a meal at Senta's before really feeling that I'd come +home."</p> + +<p>"Well, here's what I have in mind. It'll be three hours till dinner's +ready. Suppose we all go up to my office in the meantime. It'll give the +ladies a chance to go home and fix up for the party, and we can have a +drink and a talk."</p> + +<p>"You want to do that, Conn?" his father asked, a trifle doubtfully. "If +you'd rather go home first..."</p> + + + +<p>Something in his father's voice and manner disturbed him vaguely; +however, he nodded agreement. After a couple of drinks, he'd be better +able to tell them.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, Mr. Fawzi," Conn said. "I know you're all anxious, but +it's a long story. This'll be a good chance to tell you."</p> + +<p>Fawzi turned to his wife and daughter, interrupting himself to shout +instructions to a couple of dockhands who were floating the baggage off +the ship on a contragravity-lifter. Conn's father had sent Charley off +with a message to his mother and Flora.</p> + +<p>Conn turned to Colonel Zareff. "I noticed extra workers coming out from +the hiring agencies in Storisende, and the crop was all in across the +Calders. Big wine-pressing this year?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, we're up to our necks in melons," the old planter grumbled. +"Gehenna of a big crop. Price'll drop like a brick of collapsium, and +this time next year we'll be using brandy to wash our feet in."</p> + +<p>"If you can't get good prices, hang onto it and age it. I wish you could +see what the bars on Terra charge for a drink of ten-year-old +Poictesme."</p> + +<p>"This isn't Terra and we aren't selling it by the drink. Only place we +can sell brandy is at Storisende spaceport, and we have to take what the +trading-ship captains offer. You've been on a rich planet for the last +five years, Conn. You've forgotten what it's like to live in a +poorhouse. And that's what Poictesme is."</p> + +<p>"Things'll be better from now on, Klem," the mayor said, putting one +hand on the old man's shoulder and the other on Conn's. "Our boy's home. +With what he can tell us, we'll be able to solve all our problems. Come +on, let's go up and hear about it."</p> + +<p>They entered the wide doorway of the warehouse on the dock-level floor +of the Airport Building and crossed to the lift. About a dozen others +had joined them, all the important men of Litchfield. Inside, Kurt +Fawzi's laborers were floating out cargo for the ship--casks of brandy, +of course, and a lot of boxes and crates painted light blue and marked +with the wreathed globe of the Terran Federation and the gold triangle +of the Third Fleet-Army Force and the eight-pointed red star of Ordnance +Service. Long cases of rifles, square boxes of ammunition, machine guns, +crated auto-cannon and rockets.</p> + +<p>"Where'd that stuff come from?" Conn asked his father. "You dig it up?"</p> + + + +<p>His father chuckled. "That happened since the last time I wrote you. +Remember the big underground headquarters complex in the Calders? +Everybody thought it had been all cleaned out years ago. You know, it's +never a mistake to take a second look at anything that everybody +believes. I found a lot of sealed-off sections over there that had never +been entered. This stuff's from one of the headquarters defense +armories. I have a gang getting the stuff out. Charley and I flew in +after lunch, and I'm going back the first thing tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"But there's enough combat equipment on hand to outfit a private army +for every man, woman and child on Poictesme!" Conn objected. "Where are +we going to sell this?"</p> + +<p>"Storisende spaceport. The tramp freighters are buying it for newly +colonized planets that haven't been industrialized yet. They don't pay +much, but it doesn't cost much to get it out, and I've been clearing +about three hundred sols a ton on the spaceport docks. That's not bad, +you know."</p> + +<p>Three hundred sols a ton. A lifter went by stacked with cases of M-504 +submachine guns. Unloaded, one of them weighed six pounds, and even a +used one was worth a hundred sols. Conn started to say something about +that, but then they came to the lift and were crowding onto it.</p> + +<p>He had been in Kurt Fawzi's office a few times, always with his father, +and he remembered it as a dim, quiet place of genteel conviviality and +rambling conversations, with deep, comfortable chairs and many ashtrays. +Fawzi's warehouse and brokerage business, and the airline agency, and +the government, such as it was, of Litchfield, combined, made few +demands on his time and did not prevent the office from being a favored +loafing center for the town's elders. The lights were bright only over +the big table that served, among other things, as a desk, and the walls +were almost invisible in the shadows.</p> + +<p>As they came down the hallway from the lift, everybody had begun +speaking more softly. Voices were never loud or excited in Kurt Fawzi's +office.</p> + +<p>Tom Brangwyn went to the table, taking off his belt and holster and +laying his pistol aside. The others, crowding into the room, added their +weapons to his.</p> + +<p>That was something else Conn was seeing with new eyes. It had been five +years since he had carried a gun and he was wondering why any of them +bothered. A gun was what a boy put on to show that he had reached +manhood, and a man carried for the rest of his life out of habit.</p> + +<p>Why, there wouldn't be a shooting a year in Litchfield, if you didn't +count the farm tramps and drifters, who kept to the lower level or +camped in the empty buildings at the edge of town. Or maybe that was it; +maybe Litchfield was peaceful because everybody was armed. It certainly +wasn't because of anything the Planetary Government at Storisende did to +maintain order.</p> + + + +<p>After divesting himself of his gun, Tom Brangwyn took over the +bartending, getting out glasses and filling a pitcher of brandy from a +keg in the corner.</p> + +<p>"Everybody supplied?" Fawzi was asking. "Well, let's drink to our +returned emissary. We're all anxious to hear what you found out, Conn. +Gentlemen, here's to our friend Conn Maxwell. Welcome home, Conn!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's wonderful to be back, Mr. Fawzi--"</p> + +<p>"No, let's not have any of this mister foolishness! You're one of the +gang now. And drink up, everybody. We have plenty of brandy, even if we +don't have anything else."</p> + +<p>"You telling us, Kurt?" somebody demanded. One of the distillery +company; the name would come back to Conn in a moment. "When this crop +gets pressed and fermented--"</p> + +<p>"When I start pressing, I don't know where in Gehenna I'm going to vat +the stuff till it ferments," Colonel Zareff said. "Or why. You won't be +able to handle all of it."</p> + +<p>"Now, now!" Fawzi reproved. "Let's not start moaning about our troubles. +Not the day Conn's come home. Not when he's going to tell us how to find +the Third Fleet-Army Force Brain."</p> + +<p>"You <i>did</i> find out where the Brain is, didn't you, Conn?" Brangwyn +asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>That set half a dozen of them off at once. They had all sat down after +the toast; now they were fidgeting in their chairs, leaning forward, +looking at Conn fixedly.</p> + +<p>"What did you find out, Conn?"</p> + +<p>"It's still here on Poictesme, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Did you find out where it is?"</p> + +<p>He wanted to tell them in one quick sentence and get it over with. He +couldn't, any more than he could force himself to squeeze the trigger of +a pistol he knew would blow up in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute, gentlemen." He finished the brandy, and held out the +glass to Tom Brangwyn, nodding toward the pitcher. Even the first drink +had warmed him and he could feel the constriction easing in his throat +and the lump at the pit of his stomach dissolving. "I hope none of you +expect me to spread out a map and show you the cross on it, where the +Brain is. I can't. I can't even give the approximate location of the +thing."</p> + +<p>Much of the happy eagerness drained out of the faces around him. Some of +them were looking troubled; Colonel Zareff was gnawing the bottom of his +mustache, and Judge Ledue's hand shook as he tried to relight his cigar. +Conn stole a quick side-glance at his father; Rodney Maxwell was +watching him curiously, as though wondering what he was going to say +next.</p> + +<p>"But it is still here on Poictesme?" Fawzi questioned. "They didn't take +it away when they evacuated, did they?"</p> + + + +<p>Conn finished his second drink. This time he picked up the pitcher and +refilled for himself.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to have to do a lot of talking," he said, "and it's going to +be thirsty work. I'll have to tell you the whole thing from the +beginning, and if you start asking questions at random, you'll get me +mixed up and I'll miss the important points."</p> + +<p>"By all means!" Judge Ledue told him. "Give it in your own words, in +what you think is the proper order."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Judge."</p> + +<p>Conn drank some more brandy, hoping he could get his courage up without +getting drunk. After all, they had a right to a full report; all of them +had contributed something toward sending him to Terra.</p> + +<p>"The main purpose in my going to the University was to learn computer +theory and practice. It wouldn't do any good for us to find the Brain if +none of us are able to use it. Well, I learned enough to be able to +operate, program and service any computer in existence, and train +assistants. During my last year at the University, I had a part-time +paid job programming the big positron-neutrino-photon computer in the +astrophysics department. When I graduated, I was offered a position as +instructor in positronic computer theory."</p> + +<p>"You never mentioned that in your letters, son," his father said.</p> + +<p>"It was too late for any letter except one that would come on the same +ship I did. Beside, it wasn't very important."</p> + +<p>"I think it was." There was a catch in old Professor Kellton's voice. +"One of my boys, from the Academy, offered a place on the faculty of the +University of Montevideo, on Terra!" He poured himself a second drink, +something he almost never did.</p> + +<p>"Conn means it wasn't important because it didn't have anything to do +with the Brain," Fawzi explained and then looked at Conn expectantly.</p> + +<p>All right; now he'd tell them. "I went over all the records of the Third +Fleet-Army Force's occupation of Poictesme that are open to the public. +On one pretext or another, I got permission to examine the +non-classified files that aren't open to public examination. I even got +a few peeps at some of the stuff that's still classified secret. I have +maps and plans of all the installations that were built on this +planet--literally thousands of them, many still undiscovered. Why, we +haven't more than scratched the surface of what the Federation left +behind here. For instance, all the important installations exist in +duplicate, some even in triplicate, as a precaution against Alliance +space attack."</p> + + + +<p>"Space attack!" Colonel Zareff was indignant. "There never was a time +when the Alliance could have taken the offensive against Poictesme, even +if an offensive outside our own space-area had been part of our policy. +We just didn't have the ships. It took over a year to move a million and +a half troops from Ashmodai to Marduk, and the fleet that was based on +Amaterasu was blasted out of existence in the spaceports and in orbit. +Hell, at the time of the surrender, we didn't have--"</p> + +<p>"They weren't taking chances on that, Colonel. But the point I want to +make is that with everything I did find, I never found, in any official +record, a single word about the giant computer we call the Third +Fleet-Army Force Brain."</p> + +<p>For a time, the only sound in the room was the tiny insectile humming of +the electric clock on the wall. Then Professor Kellton set his glass on +the table, and it sounded like a hammer-blow.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, Conn?" Kurt Fawzi was incredulous and, for the first time, +frightened. The others were exchanging uneasy glances. "But you must +have! A thing like that--"</p> + +<p>"Of course it would be one of the closest secrets during the war," +somebody else said. "But in forty years, you'd expect <i>something</i> to +leak out."</p> + +<p>"Why, <i>during</i> the war, it was all through the Third Force. Even the +Alliance knew about it; that's how Klem heard of it."</p> + +<p>"Well, Conn couldn't just walk into the secret files and read whatever +he wanted to. Just because he couldn't find anything--"</p> + +<p>"Don't tell <i>me</i> about security!" Klem Zareff snorted. "Certainly they +still have it classified; staff-brass'd rather lose an eye than +declassify anything. If you'd seen the lengths our staff went to--hell, +we lost battles because the staff wouldn't release information the +troops in the field needed. I remember once--"</p> + +<p>"But there <i>was</i> a Brain," Judge Ledue was saying, to reassure himself +and draw agreement from the others. "It was capable of combining data, +and scanning and evaluating all its positronic memories, and forming +association patterns, and reasoning with absolute perfection. It was +more than a positronic brain--it was a positronic super-mind."</p> + +<p>"We'd have won the war, except for the Brain. We had ninety systems, a +hundred and thirty inhabited planets, a hundred billion people--and we +were on the defensive in our own space-area! Every move we made was +known and anticipated by the Federation. How could they have done that +without something like the Brain?"</p> + +<p>"Conn, from what you learned of computers, how large a volume of space +would you say the Brain would have to occupy?" Professor Kellton asked.</p> + + + +<p>Professor Kellton was the most unworldly of the lot, yet he was asking +the most practical question.</p> + +<p>"Well, the astrophysics computer I worked with at the University +occupies a total of about one million cubic feet," Conn began. This was +his chance; they'd take anything he told them about computers as gospel. +"It was only designed to handle problems in astrophysics. The Brain, +being built for space war, would have to handle any such problem. And if +half the stories about the Brain are anywhere near true, it handled any +other problem--mathematical, scientific, political, economic, strategic, +psychological, even philosophical and ethical. Well, I'd say that a +hundred million cubic feet would be the smallest even conceivable."</p> + +<p>They all nodded seriously. They were willing to accept that--or anything +else, except one thing.</p> + +<p>"Lot of places on this planet where a thing that size could be hidden," +Tom Brangwyn said, undismayed. "A planet's a mighty big place."</p> + +<p>"It could be under water, in one of the seas," Piet Dawes, the banker, +suggested. "An underwater dome city wouldn't be any harder to build than +a dome city on a poison-atmosphere planet like Tubal-Cain."</p> + +<p>"It might even be on Tubal-Cain," a melon-planter said. "Or Hiawatha, or +even one of the Beta or Gamma planets. The Third Force was occupying the +whole Trisystem, you know." He thought for a moment. "If I'd been in +charge, I'd have put it on one of the moons of Pantagruel."</p> + +<p>"But that's clear out in the Alpha System," Judge Ledue objected. "We +don't have a spaceship on the planet, certainly nothing with a +hyperdrive engine. And it would take a lifetime to get out to the Gamma +System and back on reaction drive."</p> + +<p>Conn put his empty brandy glass on the table and sat erect. A new +thought had occurred to him, chasing out of his mind all the worries and +fears he had brought with him all the way from Terra.</p> + +<p>"Then we'll have to build a ship," he said calmly. "I know, when the +Federation evacuated Poictesme, they took every hyperdrive ship with +them. But they had plenty of shipyards and spaceports on this planet, +and I have maps showing the location of all of them, and barely a third +of them have been discovered so far. I'm sure we can find enough hulks, +and enough hyperfield generator parts, to assemble a ship or two, and I +know we'll find the same or better on some of the other planets.</p> + +<p>"And here's another thing," he added. "When we start looking into some +of the dome-city plants on Tubal-Cain and Hiawatha and Moruna and +Koshchei, we may find the plant or plants where the components for the +Brain were fabricated, and if we do, we may find records of where they +were shipped, and that'll be it."</p> + + + +<p>"You're right!" Professor Kellton cried, quivering with excitement. +"We've been hunting at random for the Brain, so it would only be an +accident if we found it. We'll have to do this systematically, and with +Conn to help us--Conn, why not build a computer? I don't mean another +Brain; I mean a computer to help us find the Brain."</p> + +<p>"We can, but we may not even need to build one. When we get out to the +industrial planets, we may find one ready except for perhaps some minor +alterations."</p> + +<p>"But how are we going to finance all this?" Klem Zareff demanded +querulously. "We're poorer than snakes, and even one hyperdrive ship's +going to cost like Gehenna."</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking about that, Klem," Fawzi said. "If we can find +material at these shipyards Conn knows about, most of our expense will +be labor. Well, haven't we ten workmen competing for every job? They +don't really need money, only the things money can buy. We can raise +food on the farms and provide whatever else they need out of Federation +supplies."</p> + +<p>"Sure. As soon as it gets around that we're really trying to do +something about this, everybody'll want in on it," Tom Brangwyn +predicted.</p> + +<p>"And I have no doubt that the Planetary Government at Storisende will +give us assistance, once we show that this is a practical and productive +enterprise," Judge Ledue put in. "I have some slight influence with the +President and--"</p> + +<p>"I'm not too sure we want the Government getting into this," Kurt Fawzi +replied. "Give them half a chance and that gang at Storisende'll squeeze +us right out."</p> + +<p>"We can handle this ourselves," Brangwyn agreed. "And when we get some +kind of a ship and get out to the other two systems, or even just to +Tubal-Cain or Hiawatha, first thing you know, we'll <i>be</i> the Planetary +Government."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, Tom," Fawzi began piously, "the Brain is too big a thing for +a few of us to try to monopolize; it'll be for all Poictesme. Of course, +it's only proper that we, who are making the effort to locate it, should +have the direction of that effort...."</p> + +<p>While Fawzi was talking, Rodney Maxwell went to the table, rummaged his +pistol out of the pile and buckled it on. The mayor stopped short.</p> + +<p>"You leaving us, Rod?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's getting late. Conn and I are going for a little walk; we'll +be at Senta's in half an hour. The fresh air will do both of us good and +we have a lot to talk about. After all, we haven't seen each other for +over five years."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>They were silent, however, until they were away from the Airport +Building and walking along High Garden Terrace in the direction of the +Mall. Conn was glad; his own thoughts were weighing too heavily within +him: I didn't do it. I was going to do it; every minute, I was going to +do it, and I didn't, and now it's too late.</p> + +<p>"That was quite a talk you gave them, son," his father said. "They +believed every word of it. A couple of times, I even caught myself +starting to believe it."</p> + +<p>Conn stopped short. His father stopped beside him and stood looking at +him.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell them the truth?" Rodney Maxwell asked.</p> + +<p>The question angered Conn. It was what he had been asking himself.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't I just grab a couple of pistols off the table and shoot the +lot of them?" he retorted. "It would have killed them quicker and +wouldn't have hurt as much."</p> + +<p>His father took the cigar from his mouth and inspected the tip of it. +"The truth must be pretty bad then. There is no Brain. Is that it, son?"</p> + +<p>"There never was one. I'm not saying that only because I know it would +be impossible to build such a computer. I'm telling you what the one man +in the Galaxy who ought to know told me--the man who commanded the Third +Force during the War."</p> + +<p>"Foxx Travis! I didn't know he was still alive. You actually talked to +him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He's on Luna, keeping himself alive at low gravity. It took me a +couple of years, and I was afraid he'd die before I got to him, but I +finally managed to see him."</p> + +<p>"What did he tell you?"</p> + +<p>"That no such thing as the Brain ever existed." They started walking +again, more slowly, toward the far edge of the terrace, with the sky red +and orange in front of them. "The story was all through the Third Force, +but it was just one of those wild tales that get started, nobody knows +how, among troops. The High Command never denied or even discouraged it. +It helped morale, and letting it leak to the enemy was good +psychological warfare."</p> + +<p>"Klem Zareff says that everybody in the Alliance army heard of the +Brain," his father said. "That was why he came here in the first place." +He puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. "You said a computer like the Brain +would be an impossibility. Why? Wouldn't it be just another computer, +only a lot bigger and a lot smarter?"</p> + + + +<p>"Dad, computermen don't like to hear computers called smart," Conn said. +"They aren't. The people who build them are smart; a computer only knows +what's fed to it. They can hold more information in their banks than a +man can in his memory, they can combine it faster, they don't get tired +or absent-minded. But they can't imagine, they can't create, and they +can't do anything a human brain can't."</p> + +<p>"You know, I'd wondered about just that," said his father. "And none of +the histories of the War even as much as mentioned the Brain. And I +couldn't see why, after the War, they didn't build dozens of them to +handle all these Galactic political and economic problems that nobody +seems able to solve. A thing like the Brain wouldn't only be useful for +war; the people here aren't trying to find it for war purposes."</p> + +<p>"You didn't mention any of these doubts to the others, did you?"</p> + +<p>"They were just doubts. You knew for sure, and you couldn't tell them."</p> + +<p>"I'd come home intending to--tell them there was no Brain, tell them to +stop wasting their time hunting for it and start trying to figure out +the answers themselves. But I couldn't. They don't believe in the Brain +as a tool, to use; it's a machine god that they can bring all their +troubles to. You can't take a thing like that away from people without +giving them something better."</p> + +<p>"I noticed you suggested building a spaceship and agreed with the +professor about building a computer. What was your idea? To take their +minds off hunting for the Brain and keep them busy?"</p> + +<p>Conn shook his head. "I'm serious about the ship--ships. You and Colonel +Zareff gave me that idea."</p> + +<p>His father looked at him in surprise. "I never said a word in there, and +Klem didn't even once mention--"</p> + +<p>"Not in Kurt's office; before we went up from the docks. There was Klem, +moaning about a good year for melons as though it were a plague, and you +selling arms and ammunition by the ton. Why, on Terra or Baldur or +Uller, a glass of our brandy brings more than these freighter-captains +give us for a cask, and what do you think a colonist on Agramma, or +Sekht, or Hachiman, who has to fight for his life against savages and +wild animals, would pay for one of those rifles and a thousand rounds of +ammunition?"</p> + + + +<p>His father objected. "We can't base the whole economy of a planet on +brandy. Only about ten per cent of the arable land on Poictesme will +grow wine-melons. And if we start exporting Federation salvage the way +you talk of, we'll be selling pieces instead of job lots. We'll net +more, but--"</p> + +<p>"That's just to get us started. The ships will be used, after that, to +get to Tubal-Cain and Hiawatha and the planets of the Beta and Gamma +Systems. What I want to see is the mines and factories reopened, people +employed, wealth being produced."</p> + +<p>"And where'll we sell what we produce? Remember, the mines closed down +because there was no more market."</p> + +<p>"No more interstellar market, that's true. But there are a hundred and +fifty million people on Poictesme. That's a big enough market and a big +enough labor force to exploit the wealth of the Gartner Trisystem. We +can have prosperity for everybody on our own resources. Just what do we +need that we have to get from outside now?"</p> + +<p>His father stopped again and sat down on the edge of a fountain--the +same one, possibly, from which Conn had seen dust blowing as the airship +had been coming in.</p> + +<p>"Conn, that's a dangerous idea. That was what brought on the System +States War. The Alliance planets took themselves outside the Federation +economic orbit and the Federation crushed them."</p> + +<p>Conn swore impatiently. "You've been listening to old Klem Zareff +ranting about the Lost Cause and the greedy Terran robber barons holding +the Galaxy in economic serfdom while they piled up profits. The +Federation didn't fight that war for profits; there weren't any profits +to fight for. They fought it because if the System States had won, half +of them would be at war among themselves now. Make no mistake about it, +politically I'm all for the Federation. But economically, I want to see +our people exploiting their own resources for themselves, instead of +grieving about lost interstellar trade, and bewailing bumper crops, and +searching for a mythical robot god."</p> + +<p>"You think, if you can get something like that started, that they'll +forget about the Brain?" his father asked skeptically.</p> + +<p>"That crowd up in Kurt Fawzi's office? Niflheim, no! They'll go on +hunting for the Brain as long as they live, and every day they'll be +expecting to find it tomorrow. That'll keep them happy. But they're all +old men. The ones I'm interested in are the boys of Charley's age. I'm +going to give them too many real things to do--building ships, exploring +the rest of the Trisystem, opening mines and factories, producing +wealth--for them to get caught in that empty old dream."</p> + +<p>He looked down at the dusty fountain on which his father sat. "That +ghost-dream haunts this graveyard. I want to give them living dreams +that they can make come true."</p> + + + +<p>Conn's father sat in silence for a while, his cigar smoke red in the +sunset. "If you can do all that, Conn.... You know, I believe you can. +I'm with you, as far as I can help, and we'll have a talk with Charley. +He's a good boy, Conn, and he has a lot of influence among the other +youngsters." He looked at his watch. "We'd better be getting along. You +don't want to be late for your own coming-home party."</p> + +<p>Rodney Maxwell slid off the edge of the fountain to his feet, hitching +at the gunbelt under his coat. Have to dig out his own gun and start +wearing it, Conn thought. A man simply didn't go around in public +without a gun in Litchfield. It wasn't decent. And he'd be spending a +lot of time out in the brush, where he'd really need one.</p> + +<p>First thing in the morning, he'd unpack that trunk and go over all those +maps. There were half a dozen spaceports and maintenance shops and +shipyards within a half-day by airboat, none of which had been looted. +He'd look them all over; that would take a couple of weeks. Pick the +best shipyard and concentrate on it. Kurt Fawzi'd be the man to recruit +labor. Professor Kellton was a scholar, not a scientist. He didn't know +beans about hyperdrive engines, but he knew how to do library research.</p> + +<p>They came to the edge of High Garden Terrace at the escalator, long +motionless, its moving parts rusted fast, that led down to the Mall, and +at the bottom of it was Senta's, the tables under the open sky.</p> + +<p>A crowd was already gathering. There was Tom Brangwyn, and there was +Kurt Fawzi and his wife, and Lynne. And there was Senta herself, fat and +dumpy, in one of her preposterous red-and-purple dresses, bustling +about, bubbling happily one moment and screaming invective at some +laggard waiter the next.</p> + +<p>The dinner, Conn knew, would be the best he had eaten in five years, and +afterward they would sit in the dim glow of Beta Gartner, sipping coffee +and liqueurs, smoking and talking and visiting back and forth from one +table to another, as they always did in the evenings at Senta's. Another +bit from Eirrarsson's poem came back to him:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><span class="i0"><i>We sit in the twilight, the shadows among,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>And we talk of the happy days when we were brave and young.</i></span></div></div> + + +<p>That was for the old ones, for Colonel Zareff and Judge Ledue and Dolf +Kellton, maybe even for Tom Brangwyn and Franz Veltrin and for his +father. But his brother Charley and the boys of his generation would +have a future to talk about. And so would he, and Lynne Fawzi.</p> + +<p class="sig"><b>--H. BEAM PIPER</b></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Graveyard of Dreams, by Henry Beam Piper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAVEYARD OF DREAMS *** + +***** This file should be named 18109-h.htm or 18109-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/1/0/18109/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Tom Owens, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Graveyard of Dreams + +Author: Henry Beam Piper + +Release Date: April 3, 2006 [EBook #18109] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAVEYARD OF DREAMS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Tom Owens, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from Galaxy + Magazine February 1958. Extensive research did not uncover + any evidence that the copyright on this publication was + renewed. + + + Graveyard of Dreams + + By H. Beam Piper + + + + _Despite Mr. Shakespeare, + wealth and name + are both dross compared with + the theft of hope-- + and Maxwell had to rob + a whole planet of it!_ + + +Standing at the armor-glass front of the observation deck and watching +the mountains rise and grow on the horizon, Conn Maxwell gripped the +metal hand-rail with painful intensity, as though trying to hold back +the airship by force. Thirty minutes--twenty-six and a fraction of the +Terran minutes he had become accustomed to--until he'd have to face it. + +Then, realizing that he never, in his own thoughts, addressed himself as +"sir," he turned. + +"I beg your pardon?" + +It was the first officer, wearing a Terran Federation Space Navy uniform +of forty years, or about ten regulation-changes, ago. That was the sort +of thing he had taken for granted before he had gone away. Now he was +noticing it everywhere. + +"Thirty minutes out of Litchfield, sir," the ship's officer repeated. +"You'll go off by the midship gangway on the starboard side." + +"Yes, I know. Thank you." + +The first mate held out the clipboard he was carrying. "Would you mind +checking over this, Mr. Maxwell? Your baggage list." + +"Certainly." He glanced at the slip of paper. Valises, eighteen and +twenty-five kilos, two; trunks, seventy-five and seventy kilos, two; +microbook case, one-fifty kilos, one. The last item fanned up a little +flicker of anger in him, not at any person, even himself, but at the +situation in which he found himself and the futility of the whole thing. + +"Yes, that's everything. I have no hand-luggage, just this stuff." + +He noticed that this was the only baggage list under the clip; the other +papers were all freight and express manifests. "Not many passengers left +aboard, are there?" + +"You're the only one in first-class, sir," the mate replied. "About +forty farm-laborers on the lower deck. Everybody else got off at the +other stops. Litchfield's the end of the run. You know anything about +the place?" + +"I was born there. I've been away at school for the last five years." + +"On Baldur?" + +"Terra. University of Montevideo." Once Conn would have said it almost +boastfully. + +The mate gave him a quick look of surprised respect, then grinned and +nodded. "Of course; I should have known. You're Rodney Maxwell's son, +aren't you? Your father's one of our regular freight shippers. Been +sending out a lot of stuff lately." He looked as though he would have +liked to continue the conversation, but said: "Sorry, I've got to go. +Lot of things to attend to before landing." He touched the visor of his +cap and turned away. + +The mountains were closer when Conn looked forward again, and he glanced +down. Five years and two space voyages ago, seen from the afterdeck of +this ship or one of her sisters, the woods had been green with new +foliage, and the wine-melon fields had been in pink blossom. He tried to +picture the scene sliding away below instead of drawing in toward him, +as though to force himself back to a moment of the irretrievable past. + +But the moment was gone, and with it the eager excitement and the +half-formed anticipations of the things he would learn and accomplish on +Terra. The things he would learn--microbook case, one-fifty kilos, one. +One of the steel trunks was full of things he had learned and +accomplished, too. Maybe they, at least, had some value.... + +The woods were autumn-tinted now and the fields were bare and brown. + +They had gotten the crop in early this year, for the fields had all been +harvested. Those workers below must be going out for the wine-pressing. +That extra hands were needed for that meant a big crop, and yet it +seemed that less land was under cultivation than when he had gone away. +He could see squares of low brush among the new forests that had grown +up in the last forty years, and the few stands of original timber looked +like hills above the second growth. Those trees had been standing when +the planet had been colonized. + +That had been two hundred years ago, at the middle of the Seventh +Century, Atomic Era. The name of the planet--Poictesme--told that: the +Surromanticist Movement, when the critics and professors were +rediscovering James Branch Cabell. + + * * * * * + +Funny how much was coming back to him now--things he had picked up from +the minimal liberal-arts and general-humanities courses he had taken and +then forgotten in his absorption with the science and tech studies. + +The first extrasolar planets, as they had been discovered, had been +named from Norse mythology--Odin and Baldur and Thor, Uller and Freya, +Bifrost and Asgard and Niflheim. When the Norse names ran out, the +discoverers had turned to other mythologies, Celtic and Egyptian and +Hindu and Assyrian, and by the middle of the Seventh Century they were +naming planets for almost anything. + +Anything, that is, but actual persons; their names were reserved for +stars. Like Alpha Gartner, the sun of Poictesme, and Beta Gartner, a +buckshot-sized pink glow in the southeast, and Gamma Gartner, out of +sight on the other side of the world, all named for old Genji Gartner, +the scholarly and half-piratical adventurer whose ship had been the +first to approach the three stars and discover that each of them had +planets. + +Forty-two planets in all, from a couple of methane-giants on Gamma to +airless little things with one-sixth Terran gravity. Alpha II had been +the only one in the Trisystem with an oxygen atmosphere and life. So +Gartner had landed on it, and named it Poictesme, and the settlement +that had grown up around the first landing site had been called +Storisende. Thirty years later, Genji Gartner died there, after seeing +the camp grow to a metropolis, and was buried under a massive monument. + +Some of the other planets had been rich in metals, and mines had been +opened, and atmosphere-domed factories and processing plants built. None +of them could produce anything but hydroponic and tissue-culture +foodstuffs, and natural foods from Poictesme had been less expensive, +even on the planets of Gamma and Beta. So Poictesme had concentrated on +agriculture and grown wealthy at it. + +Then, within fifty years of Genji Gartner's death, the economics of +interstellar trade overtook the Trisystem and the mines and factories +closed down. It was no longer possible to ship the output to a +profitable market, in the face of the growing self-sufficiency of the +colonial planets and the irreducibly high cost of space-freighting. + +Below, the brown fields and the red and yellow woods were merging into a +ten-mile-square desert of crumbling concrete--empty and roofless sheds +and warehouses and barracks, brush-choked parade grounds and landing +fields, airship docks, and even a spaceport. They were more recent, +dating from Poictesme's second brief and hectic prosperity, when the +Terran Federation's Third Fleet-Army Force had occupied the Gartner +Trisystem during the System States War. + + * * * * * + +Millions of troops had been stationed on or routed through Poictesme; +tens of thousands of spacecraft had been based on the Trisystem; the +mines and factories had reopened for war production. The Federation had +spent trillions of sols on Poictesme, piled up mountains of stores and +arms and equipment, left the face of the planet cluttered with +installations. + +Then, ten years before anybody had expected it, the rebellious System +States Alliance had collapsed and the war had ended. The Federation +armies had gone home, taking with them the clothes they stood in, their +personal weapons and a few souvenirs. Everything else had been left +behind; even the most expensive equipment was worth less than the cost +of removal. + +Ever since, Poictesme had been living on salvage. The uniform the first +officer was wearing was forty years old--and it was barely a month out +of the original packing. On Terra, Conn had told his friends that his +father was a prospector and let them interpret that as meaning an +explorer for, say, uranium deposits. Rodney Maxwell found plenty of +uranium, but he got it by taking apart the warheads of missiles. + +The old replacement depot or classification center or training area or +whatever it had been had vanished under the ship now and it was all +forest back to the mountains, with an occasional cluster of deserted +buildings. From one or two, threads of blue smoke rose--bands of farm +tramps, camping on their way from harvest to wine-pressing. Then the +eastern foothills were out of sight and he was looking down on the +granite spines of the Calder Range; the valley beyond was sloping away +and widening out in the distance, and it was time he began thinking of +what to say when he landed. He would have to tell them, of course. + +He wondered who would be at the dock to meet him, besides his family. +Lynne Fawzi, he hoped. Or did he? Her parents would be with her, and +Kurt Fawzi would take the news hardest of any of them, and be the first +to blame him because it was bad. The hopes he had built for Lynne and +himself would have to be held in abeyance till he saw how her father +would regard him now. + +But however any of them took it, he would have to tell them the truth. + + * * * * * + +The ship swept on, tearing through the thin puffs of cloud at ten miles +a minute. Six minutes to landing. Five. Four. Then he saw the river +bend, glinting redly through the haze in the sunlight; Litchfield was +inside it, and he stared waiting for the first glimpse of the city. +Three minutes, and the ship began to cut speed and lose altitude. The +hot-jets had stopped firing and he could hear the whine of the cold-jet +rotors. + +Then he could see Litchfield, dominated by the Airport Building, so +thick that it looked squat for all its height, like a candle-stump in a +puddle of its own grease, the other buildings under their carapace of +terraces and landing stages seeming to have flowed away from it. And +there was the yellow block of the distilleries, and High Garden Terrace, +and the Mall.... + +At first, in the distance, it looked like a living city. Then, second by +second, the stigmata of decay became more and more evident. Terraces +empty or littered with rubbish; gardens untended and choked with wild +growth; windows staring blindly; walls splotched with lichens and grimy +where the rains could not wash them. + +For a moment, he was afraid that some disaster, unmentioned in his +father's letters, had befallen. Then he realized that the change had not +been in Litchfield but in himself. After five years, he was seeing it as +it really was. He wondered how his family and his friends would look to +him now. Or Lynne. + +The ship was coming in over the Mall; he could see the cracked paving +sprouting grass, the statues askew on their pedestals, the waterless +fountains. He thought for an instant that one of them was playing, and +then he saw that what he had taken for spray was dust blowing from the +empty basin. There was something about dusty fountains, something he had +learned at the University. Oh, yes. One of the Second Century Martian +Colonial poets, Eirrarsson, or somebody like that: + + _The fountains are dusty in the Graveyard of Dreams; + The hinges are rusty and swing with tiny screams._ + +There was more to it, but he couldn't remember; something about empty +gardens under an empty sky. There must have been colonies inside the Sol +System, before the Interstellar Era, that hadn't turned out any better +than Poictesme. Then he stopped trying to remember as the ship turned +toward the Airport Building and a couple of tugs--Terran Federation +contragravity tanks, with derrick-booms behind and push-poles where the +guns had been--came up to bring her down. + +He walked along the starboard promenade to the gangway, which the first +mate and a couple of airmen were getting open. + + * * * * * + +Most of the population of top-level Litchfield was in the crowd on the +dock. He recognized old Colonel Zareff, with his white hair and +plum-brown skin, and Tom Brangwyn, the town marshal, red-faced and +bulking above the others. It took a few seconds for him to pick out his +father and mother, and his sister Flora, and then to realize that the +handsome young man beside Flora was his brother Charley. Charley had +been thirteen when Conn had gone away. And there was Kurt Fawzi, the +mayor of Litchfield, and there was Lynne, beside him, her red-lipped +face tilted upward with a cloud of bright hair behind it. + +He waved to her, and she waved back, jumping in excitement, and then +everybody was waving, and they were pushing his family to the front and +making way for them. + +The ship touched down lightly and gave a lurch as she went off +contragravity, and they got the gangway open and the steps swung out, +and he started down toward the people who had gathered to greet him. + +His father was wearing the same black best-suit he had worn when they +had parted five years ago. It had been new then; now it was shabby and +had acquired a permanent wrinkle across the right hip, over the +pistol-butt. Charley was carrying a gun, too; the belt and holster +looked as though he had made them himself. His mother's dress was new +and so was Flora's--probably made for the occasion. He couldn't be sure +just which of the Terran Federation services had provided the material, +but Charley's shirt was Medical Service sterilon. + +Ashamed that he was noticing and thinking of such things at a time like +this, he clasped his father's hand and kissed his mother and Flora. +Everybody was talking at once, saying things that he heard only as happy +sounds. His brother's words were the first that penetrated as words. + +"You didn't know me," Charley was accusing. "Don't deny it; I saw you +standing there wondering if I was Flora's new boy friend or what." + +"Well, how in Niflheim'd you expect me to? You've grown up since the +last time I saw you. You're looking great, kid!" He caught the gleam of +Lynne's golden hair beyond Charley's shoulder and pushed him gently +aside. "Lynne!" + +"Conn, you look just wonderful!" Her arms were around his neck and she +was kissing him. "Am I still your girl, Conn?" + +He crushed her against him and returned her kisses, assuring her that +she was. He wasn't going to let it make a bit of difference how her +father took the news--if she didn't. + +She babbled on: "You didn't get mixed up with any of those girls on +Terra, did you? If you did, don't tell me about it. All I care about is +that you're back. Oh, Conn, you don't know how much I missed you ... +Mother, Dad, doesn't he look just splendid?" + +Kurt Fawzi, a little thinner, his face more wrinkled, his hair grayer, +shook his hand. + +"I'm just as glad to see you as anybody, Conn," he said, "even if I'm +not being as demonstrative about it as Lynne. Judge, what do you think +of our returned wanderer? Franz, shake hands with him, but save the +interview for the _News_ for later. Professor, here's one student +Litchfield Academy won't need to be ashamed of." + +He shook hands with them--old Judge Ledue; Franz Veltrin, the newsman; +Professor Kellton; a dozen others, some of whom he had not thought of in +five years. They were all cordial and happy--how much, he wondered, +because he was their neighbor, Conn Maxwell, Rodney Maxwell's son, home +from Terra, and how much because of what they hoped he would tell them? +Kurt Fawzi, edging him out of the crowd, was the first to voice that. + +"Conn, what did you find out?" he asked breathlessly. "Do you know where +it is?" + +Conn hesitated, looking about desperately; this was no time to start +talking to Kurt Fawzi about it. His father was turning toward him from +one side, and from the other Tom Brangwyn and Colonel Zareff were +approaching more slowly, the older man leaning on a silver-headed cane. + +"Don't bother him about it now, Kurt," Rodney Maxwell scolded the mayor. +"He's just gotten off the ship; he hasn't had time to say hello to +everybody yet." + +"But, Rod, I've been waiting to hear what he's found out ever since he +went away," Fawzi protested in a hurt tone. + +Brangwyn and Colonel Zareff joined them. They were close friends, +probably because neither of them was a native of Poictesme. + +The town marshal had always been reticent about his origins, but Conn +guessed it was Hathor. Brangwyn's heavy-muscled body, and his ease and +grace in handling it, marked him as a man of a high-gravity planet. +Besides, Hathor had a permanent cloud-envelope, and Tom Brangwyn's skin +had turned boiled-lobster red under the dim orange sunlight of Alpha +Gartner. + +Old Klem Zareff never hesitated to tell anybody where he came from--he +was from Ashmodai, one of the System States planets, and he had +commanded a division that had been blasted down to about regimental +strength, in the Alliance army. + +"Hello, boy," he croaked, extending a trembling hand. "Glad you're home. +We all missed you." + +"We sure did, Conn," the town marshal agreed, clasping Conn's hand as +soon as the old man had released it. "Find out anything definite?" + +Kurt Fawzi looked at his watch. "Conn, we've planned a little +celebration for you. We only had since day before yesterday, when the +spaceship came into radio range, but we're having a dinner party for you +at Senta's this evening." + +"You couldn't have done anything I'd have liked better, Mr. Fawzi. I'd +have to have a meal at Senta's before really feeling that I'd come +home." + +"Well, here's what I have in mind. It'll be three hours till dinner's +ready. Suppose we all go up to my office in the meantime. It'll give the +ladies a chance to go home and fix up for the party, and we can have a +drink and a talk." + +"You want to do that, Conn?" his father asked, a trifle doubtfully. "If +you'd rather go home first..." + +Something in his father's voice and manner disturbed him vaguely; +however, he nodded agreement. After a couple of drinks, he'd be better +able to tell them. + +"Yes, indeed, Mr. Fawzi," Conn said. "I know you're all anxious, but +it's a long story. This'll be a good chance to tell you." + +Fawzi turned to his wife and daughter, interrupting himself to shout +instructions to a couple of dockhands who were floating the baggage off +the ship on a contragravity-lifter. Conn's father had sent Charley off +with a message to his mother and Flora. + +Conn turned to Colonel Zareff. "I noticed extra workers coming out from +the hiring agencies in Storisende, and the crop was all in across the +Calders. Big wine-pressing this year?" + +"Yes, we're up to our necks in melons," the old planter grumbled. +"Gehenna of a big crop. Price'll drop like a brick of collapsium, and +this time next year we'll be using brandy to wash our feet in." + +"If you can't get good prices, hang onto it and age it. I wish you could +see what the bars on Terra charge for a drink of ten-year-old +Poictesme." + +"This isn't Terra and we aren't selling it by the drink. Only place we +can sell brandy is at Storisende spaceport, and we have to take what the +trading-ship captains offer. You've been on a rich planet for the last +five years, Conn. You've forgotten what it's like to live in a +poorhouse. And that's what Poictesme is." + +"Things'll be better from now on, Klem," the mayor said, putting one +hand on the old man's shoulder and the other on Conn's. "Our boy's home. +With what he can tell us, we'll be able to solve all our problems. Come +on, let's go up and hear about it." + +They entered the wide doorway of the warehouse on the dock-level floor +of the Airport Building and crossed to the lift. About a dozen others +had joined them, all the important men of Litchfield. Inside, Kurt +Fawzi's laborers were floating out cargo for the ship--casks of brandy, +of course, and a lot of boxes and crates painted light blue and marked +with the wreathed globe of the Terran Federation and the gold triangle +of the Third Fleet-Army Force and the eight-pointed red star of Ordnance +Service. Long cases of rifles, square boxes of ammunition, machine guns, +crated auto-cannon and rockets. + +"Where'd that stuff come from?" Conn asked his father. "You dig it +up?" + +His father chuckled. "That happened since the last time I wrote you. +Remember the big underground headquarters complex in the Calders? +Everybody thought it had been all cleaned out years ago. You know, it's +never a mistake to take a second look at anything that everybody +believes. I found a lot of sealed-off sections over there that had never +been entered. This stuff's from one of the headquarters defense +armories. I have a gang getting the stuff out. Charley and I flew in +after lunch, and I'm going back the first thing tomorrow." + +"But there's enough combat equipment on hand to outfit a private army +for every man, woman and child on Poictesme!" Conn objected. "Where are +we going to sell this?" + +"Storisende spaceport. The tramp freighters are buying it for newly +colonized planets that haven't been industrialized yet. They don't pay +much, but it doesn't cost much to get it out, and I've been clearing +about three hundred sols a ton on the spaceport docks. That's not bad, +you know." + +Three hundred sols a ton. A lifter went by stacked with cases of M-504 +submachine guns. Unloaded, one of them weighed six pounds, and even a +used one was worth a hundred sols. Conn started to say something about +that, but then they came to the lift and were crowding onto it. + +He had been in Kurt Fawzi's office a few times, always with his father, +and he remembered it as a dim, quiet place of genteel conviviality and +rambling conversations, with deep, comfortable chairs and many ashtrays. +Fawzi's warehouse and brokerage business, and the airline agency, and +the government, such as it was, of Litchfield, combined, made few +demands on his time and did not prevent the office from being a favored +loafing center for the town's elders. The lights were bright only over +the big table that served, among other things, as a desk, and the walls +were almost invisible in the shadows. + +As they came down the hallway from the lift, everybody had begun +speaking more softly. Voices were never loud or excited in Kurt Fawzi's +office. + +Tom Brangwyn went to the table, taking off his belt and holster and +laying his pistol aside. The others, crowding into the room, added their +weapons to his. + +That was something else Conn was seeing with new eyes. It had been five +years since he had carried a gun and he was wondering why any of them +bothered. A gun was what a boy put on to show that he had reached +manhood, and a man carried for the rest of his life out of habit. + +Why, there wouldn't be a shooting a year in Litchfield, if you didn't +count the farm tramps and drifters, who kept to the lower level or +camped in the empty buildings at the edge of town. Or maybe that was it; +maybe Litchfield was peaceful because everybody was armed. It certainly +wasn't because of anything the Planetary Government at Storisende did to +maintain order. + +After divesting himself of his gun, Tom Brangwyn took over the +bartending, getting out glasses and filling a pitcher of brandy from a +keg in the corner. + +"Everybody supplied?" Fawzi was asking. "Well, let's drink to our +returned emissary. We're all anxious to hear what you found out, Conn. +Gentlemen, here's to our friend Conn Maxwell. Welcome home, Conn!" + +"Well, it's wonderful to be back, Mr. Fawzi--" + +"No, let's not have any of this mister foolishness! You're one of the +gang now. And drink up, everybody. We have plenty of brandy, even if we +don't have anything else." + +"You telling us, Kurt?" somebody demanded. One of the distillery +company; the name would come back to Conn in a moment. "When this crop +gets pressed and fermented--" + +"When I start pressing, I don't know where in Gehenna I'm going to vat +the stuff till it ferments," Colonel Zareff said. "Or why. You won't be +able to handle all of it." + +"Now, now!" Fawzi reproved. "Let's not start moaning about our troubles. +Not the day Conn's come home. Not when he's going to tell us how to find +the Third Fleet-Army Force Brain." + +"You _did_ find out where the Brain is, didn't you, Conn?" Brangwyn +asked anxiously. + +That set half a dozen of them off at once. They had all sat down after +the toast; now they were fidgeting in their chairs, leaning forward, +looking at Conn fixedly. + +"What did you find out, Conn?" + +"It's still here on Poictesme, isn't it?" + +"Did you find out where it is?" + +He wanted to tell them in one quick sentence and get it over with. He +couldn't, any more than he could force himself to squeeze the trigger of +a pistol he knew would blow up in his hand. + +"Wait a minute, gentlemen." He finished the brandy, and held out the +glass to Tom Brangwyn, nodding toward the pitcher. Even the first drink +had warmed him and he could feel the constriction easing in his throat +and the lump at the pit of his stomach dissolving. "I hope none of you +expect me to spread out a map and show you the cross on it, where the +Brain is. I can't. I can't even give the approximate location of the +thing." + +Much of the happy eagerness drained out of the faces around him. Some of +them were looking troubled; Colonel Zareff was gnawing the bottom of his +mustache, and Judge Ledue's hand shook as he tried to relight his cigar. +Conn stole a quick side-glance at his father; Rodney Maxwell was +watching him curiously, as though wondering what he was going to say +next. + +"But it is still here on Poictesme?" Fawzi questioned. "They didn't take +it away when they evacuated, did they?" + +Conn finished his second drink. This time he picked up the pitcher and +refilled for himself. + +"I'm going to have to do a lot of talking," he said, "and it's going to +be thirsty work. I'll have to tell you the whole thing from the +beginning, and if you start asking questions at random, you'll get me +mixed up and I'll miss the important points." + +"By all means!" Judge Ledue told him. "Give it in your own words, in +what you think is the proper order." + +"Thank you, Judge." + +Conn drank some more brandy, hoping he could get his courage up without +getting drunk. After all, they had a right to a full report; all of them +had contributed something toward sending him to Terra. + +"The main purpose in my going to the University was to learn computer +theory and practice. It wouldn't do any good for us to find the Brain if +none of us are able to use it. Well, I learned enough to be able to +operate, program and service any computer in existence, and train +assistants. During my last year at the University, I had a part-time +paid job programming the big positron-neutrino-photon computer in the +astrophysics department. When I graduated, I was offered a position as +instructor in positronic computer theory." + +"You never mentioned that in your letters, son," his father said. + +"It was too late for any letter except one that would come on the same +ship I did. Beside, it wasn't very important." + +"I think it was." There was a catch in old Professor Kellton's voice. +"One of my boys, from the Academy, offered a place on the faculty of the +University of Montevideo, on Terra!" He poured himself a second drink, +something he almost never did. + +"Conn means it wasn't important because it didn't have anything to do +with the Brain," Fawzi explained and then looked at Conn expectantly. + +All right; now he'd tell them. "I went over all the records of the Third +Fleet-Army Force's occupation of Poictesme that are open to the public. +On one pretext or another, I got permission to examine the +non-classified files that aren't open to public examination. I even got +a few peeps at some of the stuff that's still classified secret. I have +maps and plans of all the installations that were built on this +planet--literally thousands of them, many still undiscovered. Why, we +haven't more than scratched the surface of what the Federation left +behind here. For instance, all the important installations exist in +duplicate, some even in triplicate, as a precaution against Alliance +space attack." + +"Space attack!" Colonel Zareff was indignant. "There never was a time +when the Alliance could have taken the offensive against Poictesme, even +if an offensive outside our own space-area had been part of our policy. +We just didn't have the ships. It took over a year to move a million and +a half troops from Ashmodai to Marduk, and the fleet that was based on +Amaterasu was blasted out of existence in the spaceports and in orbit. +Hell, at the time of the surrender, we didn't have--" + +"They weren't taking chances on that, Colonel. But the point I want to +make is that with everything I did find, I never found, in any official +record, a single word about the giant computer we call the Third +Fleet-Army Force Brain." + +For a time, the only sound in the room was the tiny insectile humming of +the electric clock on the wall. Then Professor Kellton set his glass on +the table, and it sounded like a hammer-blow. + +"Nothing, Conn?" Kurt Fawzi was incredulous and, for the first time, +frightened. The others were exchanging uneasy glances. "But you must +have! A thing like that--" + +"Of course it would be one of the closest secrets during the war," +somebody else said. "But in forty years, you'd expect _something_ to +leak out." + +"Why, _during_ the war, it was all through the Third Force. Even the +Alliance knew about it; that's how Klem heard of it." + +"Well, Conn couldn't just walk into the secret files and read whatever +he wanted to. Just because he couldn't find anything--" + +"Don't tell _me_ about security!" Klem Zareff snorted. "Certainly they +still have it classified; staff-brass'd rather lose an eye than +declassify anything. If you'd seen the lengths our staff went to--hell, +we lost battles because the staff wouldn't release information the +troops in the field needed. I remember once--" + +"But there _was_ a Brain," Judge Ledue was saying, to reassure himself +and draw agreement from the others. "It was capable of combining data, +and scanning and evaluating all its positronic memories, and forming +association patterns, and reasoning with absolute perfection. It was +more than a positronic brain--it was a positronic super-mind." + +"We'd have won the war, except for the Brain. We had ninety systems, a +hundred and thirty inhabited planets, a hundred billion people--and we +were on the defensive in our own space-area! Every move we made was +known and anticipated by the Federation. How could they have done that +without something like the Brain?" + +"Conn, from what you learned of computers, how large a volume of space +would you say the Brain would have to occupy?" Professor Kellton asked. + +Professor Kellton was the most unworldly of the lot, yet he was asking +the most practical question. + +"Well, the astrophysics computer I worked with at the University +occupies a total of about one million cubic feet," Conn began. This was +his chance; they'd take anything he told them about computers as gospel. +"It was only designed to handle problems in astrophysics. The Brain, +being built for space war, would have to handle any such problem. And if +half the stories about the Brain are anywhere near true, it handled any +other problem--mathematical, scientific, political, economic, strategic, +psychological, even philosophical and ethical. Well, I'd say that a +hundred million cubic feet would be the smallest even conceivable." + +They all nodded seriously. They were willing to accept that--or anything +else, except one thing. + +"Lot of places on this planet where a thing that size could be hidden," +Tom Brangwyn said, undismayed. "A planet's a mighty big place." + +"It could be under water, in one of the seas," Piet Dawes, the banker, +suggested. "An underwater dome city wouldn't be any harder to build than +a dome city on a poison-atmosphere planet like Tubal-Cain." + +"It might even be on Tubal-Cain," a melon-planter said. "Or Hiawatha, or +even one of the Beta or Gamma planets. The Third Force was occupying the +whole Trisystem, you know." He thought for a moment. "If I'd been in +charge, I'd have put it on one of the moons of Pantagruel." + +"But that's clear out in the Alpha System," Judge Ledue objected. "We +don't have a spaceship on the planet, certainly nothing with a +hyperdrive engine. And it would take a lifetime to get out to the Gamma +System and back on reaction drive." + +Conn put his empty brandy glass on the table and sat erect. A new +thought had occurred to him, chasing out of his mind all the worries and +fears he had brought with him all the way from Terra. + +"Then we'll have to build a ship," he said calmly. "I know, when the +Federation evacuated Poictesme, they took every hyperdrive ship with +them. But they had plenty of shipyards and spaceports on this planet, +and I have maps showing the location of all of them, and barely a third +of them have been discovered so far. I'm sure we can find enough hulks, +and enough hyperfield generator parts, to assemble a ship or two, and I +know we'll find the same or better on some of the other planets. + +"And here's another thing," he added. "When we start looking into some +of the dome-city plants on Tubal-Cain and Hiawatha and Moruna and +Koshchei, we may find the plant or plants where the components for the +Brain were fabricated, and if we do, we may find records of where they +were shipped, and that'll be it." + +"You're right!" Professor Kellton cried, quivering with excitement. +"We've been hunting at random for the Brain, so it would only be an +accident if we found it. We'll have to do this systematically, and with +Conn to help us--Conn, why not build a computer? I don't mean another +Brain; I mean a computer to help us find the Brain." + +"We can, but we may not even need to build one. When we get out to the +industrial planets, we may find one ready except for perhaps some minor +alterations." + +"But how are we going to finance all this?" Klem Zareff demanded +querulously. "We're poorer than snakes, and even one hyperdrive ship's +going to cost like Gehenna." + +"I've been thinking about that, Klem," Fawzi said. "If we can find +material at these shipyards Conn knows about, most of our expense will +be labor. Well, haven't we ten workmen competing for every job? They +don't really need money, only the things money can buy. We can raise +food on the farms and provide whatever else they need out of Federation +supplies." + +"Sure. As soon as it gets around that we're really trying to do +something about this, everybody'll want in on it," Tom Brangwyn +predicted. + +"And I have no doubt that the Planetary Government at Storisende will +give us assistance, once we show that this is a practical and productive +enterprise," Judge Ledue put in. "I have some slight influence with the +President and--" + +"I'm not too sure we want the Government getting into this," Kurt Fawzi +replied. "Give them half a chance and that gang at Storisende'll squeeze +us right out." + +"We can handle this ourselves," Brangwyn agreed. "And when we get some +kind of a ship and get out to the other two systems, or even just to +Tubal-Cain or Hiawatha, first thing you know, we'll _be_ the Planetary +Government." + +"Well, now, Tom," Fawzi began piously, "the Brain is too big a thing for +a few of us to try to monopolize; it'll be for all Poictesme. Of course, +it's only proper that we, who are making the effort to locate it, should +have the direction of that effort...." + +While Fawzi was talking, Rodney Maxwell went to the table, rummaged his +pistol out of the pile and buckled it on. The mayor stopped short. + +"You leaving us, Rod?" + +"Yes, it's getting late. Conn and I are going for a little walk; we'll +be at Senta's in half an hour. The fresh air will do both of us good and +we have a lot to talk about. After all, we haven't seen each other for +over five years." + + * * * * * + +They were silent, however, until they were away from the Airport +Building and walking along High Garden Terrace in the direction of the +Mall. Conn was glad; his own thoughts were weighing too heavily within +him: I didn't do it. I was going to do it; every minute, I was going to +do it, and I didn't, and now it's too late. + +"That was quite a talk you gave them, son," his father said. "They +believed every word of it. A couple of times, I even caught myself +starting to believe it." + +Conn stopped short. His father stopped beside him and stood looking at +him. + +"Why didn't you tell them the truth?" Rodney Maxwell asked. + +The question angered Conn. It was what he had been asking himself. + +"Why didn't I just grab a couple of pistols off the table and shoot the +lot of them?" he retorted. "It would have killed them quicker and +wouldn't have hurt as much." + +His father took the cigar from his mouth and inspected the tip of it. +"The truth must be pretty bad then. There is no Brain. Is that it, son?" + +"There never was one. I'm not saying that only because I know it would +be impossible to build such a computer. I'm telling you what the one man +in the Galaxy who ought to know told me--the man who commanded the Third +Force during the War." + +"Foxx Travis! I didn't know he was still alive. You actually talked to +him?" + +"Yes. He's on Luna, keeping himself alive at low gravity. It took me a +couple of years, and I was afraid he'd die before I got to him, but I +finally managed to see him." + +"What did he tell you?" + +"That no such thing as the Brain ever existed." They started walking +again, more slowly, toward the far edge of the terrace, with the sky red +and orange in front of them. "The story was all through the Third Force, +but it was just one of those wild tales that get started, nobody knows +how, among troops. The High Command never denied or even discouraged it. +It helped morale, and letting it leak to the enemy was good +psychological warfare." + +"Klem Zareff says that everybody in the Alliance army heard of the +Brain," his father said. "That was why he came here in the first place." +He puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. "You said a computer like the Brain +would be an impossibility. Why? Wouldn't it be just another computer, +only a lot bigger and a lot smarter?" + +"Dad, computermen don't like to hear computers called smart," Conn said. +"They aren't. The people who build them are smart; a computer only knows +what's fed to it. They can hold more information in their banks than a +man can in his memory, they can combine it faster, they don't get tired +or absent-minded. But they can't imagine, they can't create, and they +can't do anything a human brain can't." + +"You know, I'd wondered about just that," said his father. "And none of +the histories of the War even as much as mentioned the Brain. And I +couldn't see why, after the War, they didn't build dozens of them to +handle all these Galactic political and economic problems that nobody +seems able to solve. A thing like the Brain wouldn't only be useful for +war; the people here aren't trying to find it for war purposes." + +"You didn't mention any of these doubts to the others, did you?" + +"They were just doubts. You knew for sure, and you couldn't tell them." + +"I'd come home intending to--tell them there was no Brain, tell them to +stop wasting their time hunting for it and start trying to figure out +the answers themselves. But I couldn't. They don't believe in the Brain +as a tool, to use; it's a machine god that they can bring all their +troubles to. You can't take a thing like that away from people without +giving them something better." + +"I noticed you suggested building a spaceship and agreed with the +professor about building a computer. What was your idea? To take their +minds off hunting for the Brain and keep them busy?" + +Conn shook his head. "I'm serious about the ship--ships. You and Colonel +Zareff gave me that idea." + +His father looked at him in surprise. "I never said a word in there, and +Klem didn't even once mention--" + +"Not in Kurt's office; before we went up from the docks. There was Klem, +moaning about a good year for melons as though it were a plague, and you +selling arms and ammunition by the ton. Why, on Terra or Baldur or +Uller, a glass of our brandy brings more than these freighter-captains +give us for a cask, and what do you think a colonist on Agramma, or +Sekht, or Hachiman, who has to fight for his life against savages and +wild animals, would pay for one of those rifles and a thousand rounds of +ammunition?" + +His father objected. "We can't base the whole economy of a planet on +brandy. Only about ten per cent of the arable land on Poictesme will +grow wine-melons. And if we start exporting Federation salvage the way +you talk of, we'll be selling pieces instead of job lots. We'll net +more, but--" + +"That's just to get us started. The ships will be used, after that, to +get to Tubal-Cain and Hiawatha and the planets of the Beta and Gamma +Systems. What I want to see is the mines and factories reopened, people +employed, wealth being produced." + +"And where'll we sell what we produce? Remember, the mines closed down +because there was no more market." + +"No more interstellar market, that's true. But there are a hundred and +fifty million people on Poictesme. That's a big enough market and a big +enough labor force to exploit the wealth of the Gartner Trisystem. We +can have prosperity for everybody on our own resources. Just what do we +need that we have to get from outside now?" + +His father stopped again and sat down on the edge of a fountain--the +same one, possibly, from which Conn had seen dust blowing as the airship +had been coming in. + +"Conn, that's a dangerous idea. That was what brought on the System +States War. The Alliance planets took themselves outside the Federation +economic orbit and the Federation crushed them." + +Conn swore impatiently. "You've been listening to old Klem Zareff +ranting about the Lost Cause and the greedy Terran robber barons holding +the Galaxy in economic serfdom while they piled up profits. The +Federation didn't fight that war for profits; there weren't any profits +to fight for. They fought it because if the System States had won, half +of them would be at war among themselves now. Make no mistake about it, +politically I'm all for the Federation. But economically, I want to see +our people exploiting their own resources for themselves, instead of +grieving about lost interstellar trade, and bewailing bumper crops, and +searching for a mythical robot god." + +"You think, if you can get something like that started, that they'll +forget about the Brain?" his father asked skeptically. + +"That crowd up in Kurt Fawzi's office? Niflheim, no! They'll go on +hunting for the Brain as long as they live, and every day they'll be +expecting to find it tomorrow. That'll keep them happy. But they're all +old men. The ones I'm interested in are the boys of Charley's age. I'm +going to give them too many real things to do--building ships, exploring +the rest of the Trisystem, opening mines and factories, producing +wealth--for them to get caught in that empty old dream." + +He looked down at the dusty fountain on which his father sat. "That +ghost-dream haunts this graveyard. I want to give them living dreams +that they can make come true." + +Conn's father sat in silence for a while, his cigar smoke red in the +sunset. "If you can do all that, Conn.... You know, I believe you can. +I'm with you, as far as I can help, and we'll have a talk with Charley. +He's a good boy, Conn, and he has a lot of influence among the other +youngsters." He looked at his watch. "We'd better be getting along. You +don't want to be late for your own coming-home party." + +Rodney Maxwell slid off the edge of the fountain to his feet, hitching +at the gunbelt under his coat. Have to dig out his own gun and start +wearing it, Conn thought. A man simply didn't go around in public +without a gun in Litchfield. It wasn't decent. And he'd be spending a +lot of time out in the brush, where he'd really need one. + +First thing in the morning, he'd unpack that trunk and go over all those +maps. There were half a dozen spaceports and maintenance shops and +shipyards within a half-day by airboat, none of which had been looted. +He'd look them all over; that would take a couple of weeks. Pick the +best shipyard and concentrate on it. Kurt Fawzi'd be the man to recruit +labor. Professor Kellton was a scholar, not a scientist. He didn't know +beans about hyperdrive engines, but he knew how to do library research. + +They came to the edge of High Garden Terrace at the escalator, long +motionless, its moving parts rusted fast, that led down to the Mall, and +at the bottom of it was Senta's, the tables under the open sky. + +A crowd was already gathering. There was Tom Brangwyn, and there was +Kurt Fawzi and his wife, and Lynne. And there was Senta herself, fat and +dumpy, in one of her preposterous red-and-purple dresses, bustling +about, bubbling happily one moment and screaming invective at some +laggard waiter the next. + +The dinner, Conn knew, would be the best he had eaten in five years, and +afterward they would sit in the dim glow of Beta Gartner, sipping coffee +and liqueurs, smoking and talking and visiting back and forth from one +table to another, as they always did in the evenings at Senta's. Another +bit from Eirrarsson's poem came back to him: + + _We sit in the twilight, the shadows among, + And we talk of the happy days when we were brave and young._ + +That was for the old ones, for Colonel Zareff and Judge Ledue and Dolf +Kellton, maybe even for Tom Brangwyn and Franz Veltrin and for his +father. But his brother Charley and the boys of his generation would +have a future to talk about. And so would he, and Lynne Fawzi. + +--H. 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