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diff --git a/32775-0.txt b/32775-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..025a2c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/32775-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1471 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 32775 *** + + + + + THE TIES THAT BIND + + By Walter Miller, Jr. + + Illustrated by Kelly Freas + +[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science +Fiction May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that +the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +[Illustration] + +[Sidenote: _The Earth was green and quiet. Nature had survived Man, and +Man had survived himself. Then, one day, the great silvery ships broke +the tranquillity of the skies, bringing Man's twenty-thousand-year-lost +inheritance back to Earth...._] + + + "_Why does your brand sae drop wi' blude, + Edward, Edward? + Why does your brand sae drop wi' blude, + And why sae sad gang ye, O?" + "O I hae kill'd my hawk sae gude, + Mither, mither; + O I hae kill'd my hawk sae gude, + And I had nae mair but he, O._" + + --ANONYMOUS + + +The Horde of sleek ships arose in the west at twilight--gleaming slivers +that reflected the dying sun as they lanced across the darkling heavens. +A majestic fleet of squadrons in double-vees, groups in staggered +echelon, they crossed the sky like gleaming geese, and the children of +Earth came out of their whispering gardens to gape at the splendor that +marched above them. + +There was fear, for no vessel out of space had crossed the skies of +Earth for countless generations, and the children of the planet had +forgotten. The only memories that lingered were in the memnoscripts, and +in the unconscious _kulturverlaengerung_, of the people. Because of the +latter half-memory, the people knew, without knowing why, that the +slivers of light in the sky were ships, but there was not even a word in +the language to name them. + +The myriad voices of the planet, they cried, or whispered, or chattered +in awed voices under the elms.... + +The piping whine of a senile hag: "The ancient gods! The day of the +judging! Repent, repent...." + +The panting gasp of a frightened fat man: "The alien! We're lost, we're +lost! We've got to run for the hills!" + +The voice of the child: "See the pretty birdlights? See? See?" + +And a voice of wisdom in the councils of the clans: "The sons of +men--they've come home from the Star Exodus. Our brothers." + +The slivers of light, wave upon wave, crept into the eclipse shadow as +the twilight deepened and the stars stung through the blackening shell +of sky. When the moon rose, the people watched again as the silhouette +of a black double-vee of darts slipped across the lunar disk. + +Beneath the ground, in response to the return of the ships, ancient +mechanisms whirred to life, and the tech guilds hurried to tend them. On +Earth, there was a suspenseful night, pregnant with the dissimilar twins +of hope and fear, laden with awe, hushed with the expectancy of twenty +thousand years. The stargoers--they had come home. + + * * * * * + +"_Kulturverlaengerung!_" grunted the tense young man in the toga of an +Analyst. He stood at one end of the desk, slightly flushed, staring down +at the haughty wing leader who watched him icily from a seat at the +other end. He said it again, too distinctly, as if the word were a club +to hurl at the wingsman. "_Kulturverlaengerung_, that's why!" + +"I heard you the first time, Meikl," the officer snapped. "Watch your +tongue and your tone!" + +A brief hush in the cabin as hostility flowed between them. There was +only the hiss of air from the ventilators, and the low whine of the +flagship's drive units somewhere below. + +The erect and elderly gentleman who sat behind the desk cleared his +throat politely. "Have you any further clarifications to make, Meikl?" +he asked. + +"It should be clear enough to all of you," the analyst retorted hotly. +He jerked his head toward the misty crescent of Earth on the viewing +screen that supplied most of the light in the small cabin. "You can see +what they are, what they've become. And you _know_ what _we_ are." + +The two wingsmen bristled slightly at the edge of contempt in the +analyst's voice. The elderly gentlemen behind the desk remained +impassive, expressionless. + +The analyst leaned forward with a slow accusing glance that swept the +faces of the three officers, then centered on his antagonist at the +other end of the desk. "You want to _infect_ them, Thaüle?" he demanded. + +The wingsman darkened. His fist exploded on the desktop. "Meikl, you're +in contempt! Restrict yourself to answering questions!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"There will be no further breaches of military etiquette during the +continuance of this conference," the elderly gentleman announced icily, +thus seizing the situation. + +After a moment's silence, he turned to the analyst again. "We've got to +refuel," he said flatly. "In order to refuel, we must land." + +"Yes, sir. But why not on Mars? We can develop our own facilities for +producing fuel. Why must it be Earth?" + +"Because there will be _some existing facilities_ on Earth, even though +they're out of space. The job would take five years on Mars." + +The analyst lowered his eyes, shook his head wearily. "I'm thinking of a +billion earthlings. Aren't they worth considering, sir?" + +"I've got to consider the men in my command, Meikl. They've been through +hell. We all have." + +"The hell was our own making, baron." + +"_Meikl!_" + +"Sorry, sir." + +Baron ven Klaeden paused ominously, then: "Besides, Meikl, your +predictions of disaster rest on certain assumptions not known to be +true. You assume that the recessive determinants still linger in the +present inhabitants. Twenty thousand years is a long time. Nearly a +thousand generations. I don't know a great deal about culturetics, but +I've read that _kulturverlaengerung_ reaches a threshold of extinction +after about a dozen generations, if there's no restimulation." + +"Only in laboratory cultures, sir," sighed the analyst. "Under rigid +control to make certain there's no restimulant. In practice, in a +planet-wide society, there's constant accidental restimulation, +unconsciously occuring. A determinant gets restimulated, pops back to +original intensity, and gets passed on. In practice, a kult'laenger +linkage never really dies out--although, it can stay recessive and +unconscious." + +"That's too bad," a wingsman growled sourly. "We'll wake it up, won't +we?" + +"Let's not be callous," the other wingsman grunted in sarcasm. "Analyst +Meikl has sensitivities." + +The analyst stared from one to the other of them in growing +consternation, then looked pleadingly at the baron. "Sir, I was +_summoned_ here to offer my opinions about landing on Earth. You asked +about possible cultural dangers. I've told you." + +"You discussed the danger to earthlings." + +"Yes, sir." + +"I meant 'danger' to the personnel of this fleet--to their esprit, their +indoctrination, their group-efficiency. I take it you see none." + +"On the contrary, I see several," said the analyst, coming slowly to his +feet, eyes flashing and darting among them. "Where were you born, +Wingman?" he asked the officer at the opposite end of the desk. + +"Lichter Six, Satellite," the officer grunted after a moment of +irritable silence. + +"And you?" + +"Omega Thrush," said the other wingsman. + +All knew without asking that the baron was born in space, his birthplace +one of the planetoid city-states of the Michea Dwarf. Meikl looked +around at them, then ripped up his own sleeve, unsheathed his +rank-dagger, and pricked his forearm with the needle point. A red +droplet appeared, and he wiped at it with a forefinger. + +"It's common stuff, gentlemen. We've shed a lot of it. And each of us is +a walking sackful of it." He paused, then turned to touch the point of +his dagger to the viewer, where it left a tiny red trace on the glass, +on the bright crescent of Earth, mist-shrouded, chastely wheeling her +nights into days. + +"It came from there," he hissed. "She's your womb, gentlemen. Are you +going back?" + +"Are you an analyst or a dramatist, Meikl?" the baron asked sharply, +hoping to relieve the sudden chill in the room. "This becomes silly." + +"If you land on her," Meikl promised ominously, "you'll go away with a +fleet full of hate." + +Meikl's arm dropped to his side. He sheathed his dagger. "Is my presence +at this meeting still imperative, sir?" he asked the baron. + +"Have you anything else to say?" + +"Yes--_don't land on Earth_." + +"That's a repetition. No further reasons?--in terms of danger to +ourselves?" + +The analyst paused. "I can think of nothing worse that could happen to +us," he said slowly, "than just being what we already are." + +He snapped his heels formally, bowed to the baron, and stalked out of +the cabin. + +"I suggest," said a wingsman, "that we speak to Frewek about tightening +up the discipline in the Intelligence section. That man was in open +contempt, Baron." + +"But he was also probably right," sighed the graying officer and +nobleman. + +"_Sir--!_" + +"Don't worry, Wingsman, there's nothing else to do. We'll have to land. +Make preparations, both of you--and try to make contact with surface. +I'll dictate the message." + +When the wingsmen left, it was settled. The baron arose with a sigh and +went to peer morosely at the view of Earth below. Very delicately, he +wiped the tiny trace of blood from the glass. She was a beautiful world, +this Earth. She had spawned them all, as Meikl said--but for this, the +baron could feel only bitterness toward her. + +But what of her inhabitants? I'm past feeling anything for them, he +thought, past feeling for any of the life-scum that creeps across the +surface of a world, any world. We'll go down quickly, and take what we +need quickly, and leave quickly. We'll try not to infect them, but +they've already got it in them, the dormant disease, and any infection +will be only a recurrence. + +Nevertheless, he summoned a priest to his quarters. And, before going to +the command deck, he bathed sacramentally as if in preparation for +battle. + + "_Your hawk's blude was never sae red, + Edward, Edward; + Your hawk's blude was never sae red, + My dear son, I tell thee, O." + "O I hae kill'd my red-roan steed, + Mither, mither; + O I hae kill'd my red roan steed, + That erst was sae fair and free, O._" + + --ANONYMOUS + +False dawn was in the east when the slivers of light appeared once again +out of the eclipse shadow to rake majestically across the heavens, and +again the children of Earth crowded in teeming numbers from the quiet +gardens to chatter their excitement at the wonder in the sky. But this +time, a message came. The men of the tech clans who tended the newly +activated mechanisms heard it, and the mechanisms memorized it, and +played it again and again for the people, while the linguists puzzled +over the unidentified language used in the transmission. + + PROPAUTH EARTH FROM COMMSTRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACE, KLAEDEN COMM, + PRESENTS GREETINGS! + + IF YOU HAVE RECORDS, OUR USE OF ANCIENT ANGLO-GERMANIC SHOULD + MAKE OUR IDENTITY CLEAR. HAVE YOU FUELING FACILITIES FOR 720 + SHIPS OF THOR-NINE CLASS? IF NOT, WE SHALL DEVELOP FACILITIES + FROM LOCAL RESOURCES, WITH, WE TRUST, YOUR PEACEFUL + COOPERATION. THIS CADRE NOT REIMMIGRATING, BUT EN ROUTE TO + URSAN STARS. REQUEST LANDING SUGGESTIONS, IN VIEW OF OUR + FUELING NEEDS. + + REQUEST INTELLIGENCE CONCERNING PRESENT LEVEL OF TERRESTRIAL + CULTURE. OUR ORIBITAL OBSERVATIONS INDICATE A STATIC + AGRARIAN-TECHNICAL COMPLEX, BUT DETAILS NOT AVAILABLE. WE COME + IN ARMS, BUT WITHOUT ENMITY. PLEASE REPLY, IF POSSIBLE. + + ERNSTLI BARON VEN KLAEDEN, COMMANDING STRAFEFLEET THREE, + SPACESTRIKE COMMAND, IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION + + * * * * * + +So it came, repeated continuously for an hour, followed by an hour of +silence, and then by another hour of repetition. The linguists were +unable to discern meanings. Thousands of memorizers were consulted, but +none knew the words of the harsh voice from the ships. At last, the +sages consulted the books and memnoscripts in the ancient vaults, +pouring over tomes that had been buried for countless centuries. After +hours of hurried study.... + +"It is found, _it is found_, a tongue of the ancients!" a joyous cry in +the glades and the garden pathways. + +Happily, the sages recorded the linguistic structure of the forgotten +tongue on memnoscript, and gave it to a servo translator. Outmoded +mechanisms were being brought out of wraps and prepared for use. The +servos supplied a translation of the message, and the sages studied it. + +"It is badly understood," was the curious mutter along the garden +pathways. + +"Many words have no words to match them, nor any thoughts that are +similar," was the only explanation the sages could give. + +In translation the message seemed meaningless, or unfathomable. Only one +thing was clear. The sons of Man meant to descend again upon the world +of their ancestors. There was a restless unease in the gardens, and +groups of elders gathered in the conference glades to mutter and glance +at the sky. "Invite our brothers to land," was the impetuous cry of the +young, but there were dissenters. + +In the Glade of Sopho, a few thoughtful clansmen of Pedaga had gathered +to muse and speak quietly among themselves, although it was not +ordinarily the business of tutors to consider problems that confronted +society as a whole, particularly problems arising outside society +itself. The Pedaga were teachers of the very young, and deliberately +kept themselves childlike in outlook in order to make fuller contact +with the children in their charge. + +"I think we should tell them to go away," said Letha, and looked around +at the others for a response. + +She got nothing in reply but a flickering glance from Marrita, who sat +morosely on a cool rock by the spring, her chin on her bare knees. Evon +gave her a brief polite smile, to acknowledge the sound of her voice, +but he returned almost at once to absently tearing twigs and glancing up +at the bits of sky that showed through the foliage of the overhanging +trees. Iak and Karrn were whispering together at the far end of the +glade, and had not heard her. + +Letha shrugged and leaned back against the tree trunk again, sitting +spraddle-legged this time in the hope of catching Evon's eye. She was a +graceful girl, and while gracefulness is sometimes feline, Letha's was +more nearly kittenish. She was full-bodied and soft, but well-shaped in +spite of a trace of plumpness. Thick masses of black hair fell over +baby-skin shoulders in a pleasing contrast, and while her face was a bit +too round, it radiated a gentle, winning grin, and the sympathetic gaze +of gray-blue eyes. Now she seemed ready to pout. Evon remained +self-absorbed. + +"I think we should tell them to go away," she repeated a little sharply. +"They'll all be big and swashbuckling and handsome, and the children +will become unmanageable as soon as they see them. All the little girls +will swoon, and all the little boys will want to go with them." + +Evon glanced at her briefly. "It's up to the elders of the Geoark," he +muttered without interest, and prepared to return to his own +meditations. + +"And all the _big_ girls will run away with them," she purred with a +tight smile, and stretched a languorous leg out in front of her to +waggle her foot. + +Evon shot her a quick glance, held it for a moment, then looked skyward +again. She pursed her lips in irritation and glared at him. Gradually, +she forgave him. Evon was distraught. He _must_ be--because she hadn't +seen him sit still this long in years. He was _always_ doing something, +or looking for something to do. It wasn't like Evon just to sit still +and think. He was a restless, outgoing fellow, nearly always reacting +boisterously, or laughing his staccato laugh. Now he just sat there and +looked puzzledly in the direction of the sky-fleet. Looking puzzled +didn't fit his face, somehow. It was a bony brown face, slightly oily, +with a long narrow jaw that jutted forward like a plowshare under an +elastic smirk. It was a rubbery kind of a face, the kind that could +twist into horrid masks for the amusement of the young. Now it just +drooped. + +She stirred restlessly, driven to seek sympathetic understanding. + +"You wonder what it's like, Evon?" she asked. + +He grunted at her quizzically and shook his head. + +"To be one of the children of the Exodus, I mean," she added. + +"_Me?_ What _are_ you thinking of, Letha?" + +"Of your face. It looks suddenly like a nomad's face. You remind me of +an old schnorrer who used to wander through our gardenboro every year to +play his fiddle, and sing us songs, and steal our chickens." + +"I don't fiddle." + +"But your eyes are on the sky-fleet." + +Evon paused, hovering between irritation and desire to express. "It's +strange," he murmured at last. "It's as if I know them--the star-birds, +I mean. Last night, when I saw them first, it was like looking at +something I expected to happen ... or ... or...." + +"Something familiar?" + +"Yes." + +"You think he has the genemnemon, Marrita?" she asked the blonde girl +who sat on the cool rock by the spring. + +Marrita looked up from dabbling her toes in the icy trickle. "I don't +believe in the genemnemon. My great grandfather was a thief." + +"How silly! What's that to do with it?" + +"He buried a fortune, they say. If there was a genemnemon, I'd remember +where he buried it, wouldn't I?" She pouted, and went back to dabbling a +club toe in the spring. + +Evon snorted irritably and arose to stretch. "We lie around here like +sleepy pigs!" he grumbled. "Have the Pedaga nothing to do but wait on +the Geoark to make up its mind?" + +"What do you think they'll do?" + +"The Geoark? Invite the strangers to land. What else could they do?" + +"Tell them to go away." + +"And suppose they chose not to go?" + +The girl looked bewildered. "I can't imagine anyone refusing the +Geoark." + +"Maybe they've got their own Geoark. Why should they cooperate with +ours?" + +"_Two_ Geoarks? What a strange idea." + +"Is it strange that you and I should have two brains? Or were you aware +that I have one too?" + +"Evon! What a _strange_ idea." + +He seized her by the ankles and dragged her squealing to the spring, +then set her down in the icy trickle. Marrita moved away, grumbling +complaints, and Letha snatched up a switch and chased him around the +glade, shrieking threats of mayhem, while Evon's laughter broke the +gloomy air of the small gathering, and caused a few other Pedaga to +wander into the clearing from the pathways. + +"I think we should prepare a petition for the Geoark," someone +suggested. + +"About the sky-fleet? And who knows what to say?" + +"I'm afraid," said a girl. "Somehow I'm suddenly afraid of them." + +"Our brothers from the Exodus? But they're _people_--such as you and I." + +So went the voices. After an hour, a crier came running through the +glade to read another message received from the sky-fleet. + + PROPAUTH EARTH FROM COMMSTRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACE, KLAEDEN COMM, + PRESENTS GREETINGS! + + HAVING RECEIVED NO ANSWER TO OUR PREVIOUS COMMUNICATION, WE + HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LAND AT ONCE. I AM IMPOSING AN + INFORMATIONAL QUARANTINE TO AVOID RESTIMULATING POSSIBLE + RECESSIVE KULTURVERLAENGERUNG, BUT SUGGEST YOU GUARD + YOURSELVES. OUR CULTURES HAD A COMMON ORIGIN. WE COME IN ARMS, + WITHOUT ENMITY. + + ERNSTLI BARON VEN KLAEDEN, COMMANDING STRAFEFLEET THREE, + SPACESTRIKE COMMAND IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION + +This was even more mystifying than the previous one, even less +meaningful in translation. One thing was clear, however: the fleet was +going to land, without invitation. + +Embarrassed, the elders of the Geoark immediately called the tech clans. +"Can you revive the devices that speak across space?" they asked. + +"They are revived," answered the tech clans. + +"Then let us speak to our brothers from space." + +And so it was that the people of the gardens of Earth sang out: + + BRETHREN TO BRETHREN, PRESENT LOVE LOVE LOVE. + + WE WELCOME YOU TO OUR GLADES AND TO OUR PLACES OF FEEDING AND + OUR PLACES OF SLEEPING. WE WELCOME YOU TO THE BOSOM OF THE + WORLD OF BEGINNING. AFTER TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS, EARTH HAS NOT + FORGOTTEN. COME AMID REJOICING. + + THE ELDERS OF THE GEOARK + +"I'm afraid Earth will remember more than it wants to," growled Ernstli +Baron ven Klaeden, as he issued the command to blast into an +atmospheric-braking orbit. + +And there was thunder in a cloudless sky. + + "_O your steed was auld and ye hae mair, + Edward, Edward. + O your steed was auld and ye hae mair, + And some other dule ye dree, O." + "O I hae kill'd my ain father dear, + Mither, mither; + O I hae kill'd my ain father dear, + Alas and woe is me, O._" + + --ANONYMOUS + + * * * * * + +In accordance with the rules of invasion strategy for semi-civilized +planets, the fleet separated itself into three groups. The first group +fell into atmospheric braking; the second group split apart and +established an "orbital shell" of criscrossing orbits, timed and +interlocking, at eight hundred miles, to guard the descent of the first +wave of ships, while the third wave remained in battle formation at +three thousand miles as a rear guard against possible space attack. When +the first wave had finished braking, it fell into formation again and +flew as aircraft in the high stratosphere, while the second wave braked +itself, and the third wave dropped into the orbital shell. + +From the first wave, a single ship went down to land, and its +telecameras broadcast a view of a forest garden, slightly charred for a +hundred yards around the ship, with fires blazing along its edges. + +"No signs of the natives yet," came the report. "No signs of technology. +No evidence of hostility." + +A second ship descended to land a mile from the first. Its telecamera +caught a fleeting glimpse of a man waving from a hilltop, but nothing +more. + +One at a time the ships came, with weapon locks open and bristling with +steel snouts. The ships came down at one-mile intervals, the first wave +forming a circle that enclosed an area of forty-six hundred square +miles. The second wave came down to land in a central circle of fifteen +miles diameter. The third wave remained in its orbital shell, where it +would stand guard as long as the fleet was on the ground. + +In accordance with the rules of officer's conduct, Baron ven Klaeden, +who had ordered the landing, was the first to expose himself to the +enveloping conditions outside the flagship. He stood in an open lock, +sniffing the autumn air of Earth in late afternoon. It was full of +jet-fire smoke, and smelled of burning brush. The automatic +extinguishers had quenched the flames, but the blackened trees and brush +still roasted and sparked and leaked smoke across the land. Somewhere a +bird was singing through the sunlit haze. Baron ven Klaeden recognized +the sound as made by a living thing, and wondered if the recognition was +born into his bones. + +Three hundred and fifty yards to the north, a wingship towered in the +sun, its guns trained outward from the inner circle, and to the south, +another wingship. The baron glanced down at the earth beneath the +flagship. The jets had reduced to ashes something that might have been a +low wooden structure. He shrugged, and glanced across the blackened area +toward the orderly forest. Trees and shrubs, and a carpet of green turf +below, broken here and there by rain-worn rocks and clusters of smaller +fragile leafy stuff that might be food-plants. Vivid splashes of color +blossomed in the shady forest, scarlets and blues and flashes of +brilliant lemon that lived in profusion in the foliage of the shrubbery. +Some of the trees were living masses of tiny flowers, and when the wind +stirred them, petals showered to the ground in fragrant gusts. The wind +changed, and the air that breathed about the commander's face was full +of perfume. + +I feel nothing, he thought. Here is beauty and warmth, here is the home +of Man, and almost an Eden, but I feel nothing. It is just another mote +that circles a minor sun, and to me it is only an exploitable supply +dump of Nature, a place to accomplish Procedure 76-A, "Refueling Method +for Terrestroid Planets Without Facilities, Native Labor Exploitable." + +It was only a way-station on the long long road from Scorpius to Ursa, +and it meant nothing, nothing at all. It had changed too much. Millenia +ago, when the Star Exodus had burst forth to carry Man halfway across +the galaxy, things had been different. A few colonies had kept accurate +histories of Earth intact, and when the Transpace Empire had gathered +itself into social integration, nearly five thousand years ago, the +histories had been made universally available. The baron had studied +them, but from the viewpoint of the spacer, the history of Humanity had +ceased in any way to be associated with Earth after the Star Exodus. Man +was a space creature, a denizen of the interstellum--or had been, before +the War of Secession--and when history moved into space, Earth was a +half-remembered hamlet. Ven Klaeden had seen the Earth-vistas that the +historians had reconstructed for the museums--vistas of roaring +industrial cities, flaming battlegrounds, teeming harbors and +spaceports. The cities were gone, and Earth had become a carefully +tended Japanese garden. + + * * * * * + +As he stared around, he felt a lessening of the anxiety that had gnawed +at him since the analyst Meikl had predicted dire consequences after the +landing. The cultural blood of Man had diverged into two streams so +vastly different that no intermingling seemed possible to him. It would +be easy, he decided, to keep the informational quarantine. The order had +already been issued. "All personnel are forbidden to attempt the +learning of the current Earth-tongue, or to teach any Empire-culture +language to the natives, or to attempt any written communication with +them. Staff-officers may communicate only under the provisions of +Memorandum J-43-C. The possession of any written or recorded material in +the native tongue, and the giving of written material to the natives, +shall be taken as violations of this order. No sign language or other +form of symbolic communication shall be used. This order shall be in +force until Semantics section constructs a visual code for limited +purposes in dealing with the natives. Staff officers are hereby +authorized to impose any penalty ranging to death upon offenders, and to +try any such cases by summary courts martial. Junior officers authorized +to summarily arrest offenders. Effective immediately. Ven Klaeden, +Comm." + +It would keep any interchange to an absolute minimum, he thought. And +Semantics had been ordered to attempt construction of a visual language +in which only the most vital and simple things could be said. Meanwhile, +the staff could attempt to utilize the ancient Anglo-Germanic tongue in +which the messages had been exchanged. + +The baron had started to turn back into the lock when his eye caught a +flash of motion near the edge of the forest. Reflexively, he whirled and +crouched, gun flickering into his hand. His eyes probed the shrubs. Then +he saw her, half hidden behind a tree trunk--a young girl, obviously +frightened, yet curious to watch the ships. While he stared at her, she +darted from one trunk to the next closer one. She was already +approaching the edge of the blackened area. The baron shot a quick +glance at the radiation indicators on the inner wall of the airlock. The +instantaneous meter registered in the red. The induced radioactivity in +the ground about the base of the ship's jets was still too high. The +rate-of-decrease meter registered a decrement of point ten units per +unit. That meant it wouldn't be safe for the crew to leave ship for +twenty-three minutes, and that the girl had better stay back. + +"_Keep clear!_" he bellowed from the airlock, hoping to frighten her. + +She saw him for the first time, then. Instead of being frightened, she +seemed suddenly relieved. She came out into the open and began walking +toward the ship, wearing a smile and gazing up at the lock. + +"_Go back, you little idiot!_" + +Her answer was a brief sing-song chant and another smile. She kept +coming--into the charred area. + +The gun exploded in his fist, and the bullet ricocheted from the ground +near her feet. She stopped, startled, but not sensing hostility. The gun +barked again. The bullet shattered a pebble, and it peppered her legs. +She yelped and fled back into the green garden. + +He stood there staring after her for a moment, his face working slowly. +She had been unable to understand his anger. She saw the ships, and was +frightened but curious. She saw a human, and was reassured. Any human. +But was what she saw really human any longer, the baron asked himself +absently. He grunted scornfully, and went back through the lock. + +It was easier, even on the ground, to communicate with the elders of the +Geoark by radio, since both parties had set up automatic translators to +translate their own tongues into the old Anglo-German which was a +mutually recorded dead language. + +"We have neutralized a circle of land of thirty-one mile radius," ven +Klaeden reported to the elders. "If our selection of this region is +unfortunate, we are open to discussion of alternatives. However, our +measurements indicated that the resources of this area make it best for +_our_ purposes." + +"Your landing caused only minor damage, brethren," replied the gentle +voice of the Geoark. "You are welcome to remain as you are." + +"Thank you. We consider the occupied area to be under our military +jurisdiction, and subject to property seizures. It will be a restricted +area, closed to civilian population." + +"But brethren, thousands of people live in the gardens you have +surrounded!" + +"Evacuate them." + +"I don't understand." + +"_Evacuate_ them. Make them get out." + +"My translator is working badly." + +The baron turned away from the mike for a moment and grunted to the +colonel in command of ground operations. "Start clearing the occupied +zone. Get the population out unless they'll work for us." + +"How much notice?" + +The baron paused briefly. "Fifty hours to pack up, plus one additional +hour for each mile the fellow has to stump it to the outer radius." + +"My translator is working badly," the voice of the elder was parroting. + +"Look," the baron grunted at the mike. "All we want is to accomplish +what we came here for, and then get out--as quickly as possible. We +don't have much time to be polite. I invite the elders of the Geoark to +confer in my flagship. We'll try to make everything clear to you. Is +this agreed?" + +"My translator is working badly." + +"Aren't you getting anything?" + +A pause, then: "I understand that you wish us to come to the place where +the sky-fleet rests." + +"Correct." + +"But what of the welcome we have made for our brethren in the +feast-glades?" + +"I shall dispatch flyers to pick you up immediately. Unless you have +aircraft of your own." + +"We have no machinery but the self-sustaining mechanisms in the Earth." + +"Any of your population understand the mechanisms?" + +"Certainly, brother." + +"Then bring technicians. They'll be best able to understand what we +want, and maybe they can make it clear to you." + +"As you wish, brother." + +The baron terminated the contact and turned to his staff with a +satisfied smile. "I think we shall have what we need and be gone +quickly," he said. + +"The elder took it well. They must be afraid of us." + +"Respectful awe is more like it," the baron grunted. + +"I suggest the answer is in the word 'brethren,'" came a voice from the +back of the room. + +"Meikl! What are you doing in here?" ven Klaeden barked irritably. + +"You called my department for a man. My department sent me. Shall I go +back?" + +"It's up to you, Analyst. If you can keep your ideals corked and be +useful." + +Meikl bowed stiffly. "Thank you, sir." + +"Having it in mind that our only objective is to go through the +tooling-mining-fueling cycle with a minimum of trouble and time--have +you got any suggestions?" + +"About how to deal with the natives?" + +"Certainly ... but with the accent on _our_ problems." + +Meikl paused to snap the tip from an olophial and sniffed appreciatively +at the mildly alkaloid vapor before replying. "From what we've gathered +through limited observation, I think we'd better gather some more, and +do our suggesting later." + +"That constitutes your entire opinion?" + +"Not quite. About the question of recessive kulturverlaengerung...." + +"_Our_ problems, I said!" the commander snapped. + +"It's likely to be our problem, sir." + +"How?" + +"In Earth culture at the time of the Exodus, there were some patterns +we'd regard as undesirable. We can't know whether we're still carrying +the recessive patterns or not. And we don't know whether the patterns +are still dominant in the natives. Suppose we get restimulated." + +"What patterns do you mean?" + +"The Exodus was a mass-desertion, in one sense, Baron." + +A moment of hush in the room. "I see what you mean," the commander +grunted. "But 'desertion' is a pattern of _action_, not a transmittable +determinant." + +Meikl shook his head. "We don't _know_ what is a transmittable +determinant until after it's happened." He paused. "Suppose there's some +very simple psychic mechanism behind the 'pioneer' impulse. We don't +feel it, but our ancestors did, and we might have recessive traces of it +in our kulturverlaengerung lines." + +A wingman coughed raucously. "To be blunt with you, Meikl ... I think +this is a lot of nonsense. The whole concept is far-fetched." + +"What, the kult'laenger lines?" + +"Exactly." The wingsman snorted. "How could things like that get passed +along from father to son. If you people'd stop the mystical gibberish, +and deal in facts...." + +"Do you regard parent-child rapport as a fact?" Meikl turned to stare +absently out a viewing port at the trees. + +"You mean the telepathic experiments with infants? I don't know much +about it." + +"Seventy years ago. On Michsa Three. A hundred parents were given +intensive lessons and intensive practice in playing a very difficult +skill game ... before they became parents. They did nothing but play the +game for three years. Then their babies were taken away from them at the +age of one year. Brought up institutionally. There was a control +group--another hundred whose parents never heard of the skill game." + +"Go on." + +"So, when the children were ten years old, they did learning-speed tests +on all two hundred." + +"Learning the game, you mean?" + +"Right. The children whose parents had learned it came out way ahead. So +far ahead that it was conclusive. Sometime during pregnancy and the +first year, the kids had picked up a predisposition to learn the +patterns of the game easily." + +"So?" + +"So--during infancy, a child is beginning to mirror the patterns of the +parental mind--probably telepathically, or something related. He doesn't +'inherit it' in the genes, but there's an unconscious cultural +mechanism of transmittal--and it's an analog of heredity. The +kulturverlaengerung--and it can linger in a family line without becoming +conscious for many generations." + +"How? If they hadn't taught the children to play the game...." + +"If they hadn't, it'd still be passed on--as a predisposition-talent--to +the third and fourth and Nth generation. Like a mirror-image of a +mirror-image of a mirror-image ... or a memory of a memory of a +memory...." + +"This grows pedantic, and irrelevant," the baron growled. "What are the +chances of utilizing native labor?" + + "_And whatten penance will we dree for that, + Edward, Edward? + Whatten penance will ye dree for that? + My dear son, now tell me, O." + "I'll set my feet in yonder boat, + Mither, mither; + I'll set my feet in yonder boat, + And I'll fare over the sea, O._" + + --ANONYMOUS + + * * * * * + +Phase-A had been accomplished, after six months of toil. Baltun Meikl, +Analyst Culturetic of Intelligence Section stood on the sunswept hill, +once forested, but now barren except for the stumps of trees, and +watched the slow file of humanity that coursed along the valley, bearing +the hand-hewn ties that were being laid from the opening of the mine +shaft to the ore dump. Glittering ribbons of steel snaked along the +valley, and ended just below him, where a crew of workmen hammered +spikes under the watchful eye of a uniformed foreman. In the distance, +the central ring of grounded ships dominated the land. Spacers and +natives labored together, to lend an impression of egalitarian +cooperation under the autocracy of the officer class. + +"How good it is for brethren to be reunited," Meikl's native interpreter +murmured, in the facile tongue devised by Semantics Section for use by +staff officers and Intelligence men in communicating with the natives. + +He stared at her profile for a moment, as she watched the men in the +valley. Was she really that blind? Were all of them? Had they no +resistance at all to exploitation, or any concept for it? + +Meikl had learned as much as he could of the socio-economic matrix of +the static civilization of the present Earthlings. He had gone into +their glades and gardens and seen the patterns of their life, and he +wondered. Life was easy, life was gay, life was full of idle play. +Somehow, they seemed completely unaware of what they had done to the +planet in twenty thousand years. One of the elders had summed up, +without meaning to, the entire meaning of twenty millenia, with the +casual statement: "_In our gardens, there are no weeds_," and it applied +to the garden of human culture almost as well as it applied to the fauna +and flora of the planet. + +This "weedlessness" had not been the goal of any planned project, but +rather, the inevitable result of age-old struggles between Man and +Nature on a small plot of land. When Man despoiled Nature, and +slaughtered her children, Nature could respond in two ways: she could +raise up organisms to survive in spite of Man, and she could raise up +organisms to survive in the service and custody of Man. She had done +both, but the gardener with his weed-hoe and his insect spray and his +vermin exterminators had proved that he could invent new weapons faster +than Nature could evolve tenacious pests, and eventually the life forms +of Earth had been emasculated of the tendency to mutate into disobedient +species. Nature had won many bloody battles; but Man had won the war. +Now he lived in a green world that seemed to offer up its fruits to him +with only a minimum of attention from Man. Nature had learned to survive +in the presence of Man. Yet the natives seemed unaware of the wonder of +their Eden. There was peace, there was plenty. + +_This_, he thought, could be the answer to their lack of resistance in +the face of what seemed to Meikl to be sheer seizure and arrogant +exploitation by Baron ven Klaeden and his high command. In a bounteous +world, there were no concepts of "exploitation" or "property seizure" or +"authoritarianism". The behaviour of the starmen appeared as strange, or +fascinating, or laughable, or shocking to such as the girl who stood +beside him on the hill--but not as aggressive nor imperious. When a +foreman issued an order, the workman accepted it as a polite request for +a favor, and did it as if for a friend. Fortunately, ven Klaeden had +possessed at least the good sense to see to it that the individual +natives were well treated by the individual officers in charge of tasks. +There had been few cases of inter-personal hostility between natives and +starmen. The careful semantics of the invented sign-language +accomplished much in the way of avoiding conflicts, and the natives +enthusiastically strived to please. + +He glanced at the girl again, her dark hair whipping in the breeze. +Lovely, he thought, and glanced around to see that no one was near. + +"You belong to another, Letha?" he asked. + +She tossed him a quick look with pale eyes, hesitated. "There is a boy +named Evon...." + +He nodded, lips tightening. Stop it, you fool, he told himself. You +can't make love to her. You've got to leave with the rest of them. + +"But I don't really belong to him," she said, and reddened. + +"Letha, I...." + +"Yes, Meikl." + +"Nothing. I'm lonely, I guess." + +Her eyes wandered thoughtfully toward the ships. "Meikl, why will you +tell us nothing of space--how you've lived since the Exodus?" + +"We are an evil people." + +"Not so." + +She touched his arm, and looked up at him searchingly. + +"What is it you wish to know?" + +"Why will you never return to your home?" + +"To space--but we shall." + +"To the worlds of your birth, I mean." + +He stiffened slightly, stared at her. "What makes you think we won't?" +he asked, a little sharply. + +"Will you?" + +So there were leaks after all, he thought. After six months, many things +would be communicated to the natives, even under strictest security. + +"No," he admitted, "we can't go back to the worlds of our birth." + +"But why? Where are your women and children?" + +He wanted to tell her, to see her turn and flee from him, to see the +natives desert the project and keep to their forests until the ships +departed. There had been a translator set up between the Anglo-Germanic +and the present native tongue, and he had fed it the word "war". The +single word had brought five minutes of incomprehensible gibberish from +the native tongue's output. There was no concept to equate it to. + +"There is blood on our hands," he grunted, and knew immediately he had +said too much. + +She continued to stare at the ships. "What are the metal tubes that +point from the front and the sides of the ships, Meikl?" + +There was no word for "guns" or "weapons". + +"They hurl death, Letha." + +"How can 'death' be hurled?" + +Meikl shook himself. He was saying too much. These are the children of +the past, he reminded himself, the same past that had begotten the +children of space. The same traces of the ancient _kulturverlaengerung_ +would live in their neural patterns, however recessive and subliminal. +One thing he knew: sometime during the twenty millennia since the +Exodus, they had carefully rooted out the vestigial traces of strife in +their culture. The records had been systematically censored and +rewritten. They were unaware of war and pogroms and persecution. History +had forgotten. He decided to explain to her in terms of the substitute +concepts of her understanding. + +"There were twelve worlds, Letha, with the same Geoark. Five of them +wished to break away and establish their separate Geoark. There was a +contention for property." + +"Was it settled?" she asked innocently. + +He nodded slowly. + +It was settled, he thought. We razed them and diseased them and +interpested them and wrecked their civilizations, and revolutions +reduced the remains to barbarism. If a ship landed on a former planet of +the empire, the crew would be lynched and murdered. Under ven Klaeden, +the ships of the Third Fleet were going to seek out an alleged colony in +Ursa, to sell ships, tools, and services to a minor technology that was +approaching its own space-going day, in return for immigration and +nationalization rights--a young civilization full of chaotic expansion. + +"There is much you could not understand, Letha," he told her. "Our +cultures are different. All societies go through three phases, and yours +has passed through them all--perhaps into a fourth and final." + +"And yours, Meikl?" + +"I don't know. First there is the struggle to integrate in a hostile +environment. Then, after integration, comes an explosive expansion of +the culture--_conquest_, a word unknown to you. Then a withering of the +mother-culture, and the rebellious rise of young cultures." + +"We were the mother-culture, Meikl?" + +He nodded. "And the Exodus was your birth-giving." + +"Now we are old and withered, Meikl?" + +He looked around at the garden-forests in the distance. A second +childhood? he wondered. Was there a fourth phase?--a final perpetual +youth that would never reach another puberty? He wondered. The coming of +the sky-fleet might be a cultural coitus, but could there be conception? + + * * * * * + +A pair of junior officers came wandering along the ridge, speaking in +low tones and gazing down toward the valley. There was a casual exchange +of salutes as they approached the girl and the analyst. The officers +wore police armbands, and they asked for Meikl's fraternization permit, +using the spacer's tongue. + +"Deserter troubles?" he asked, as they returned his papers. + +"Nineteen last week," said one of the officers. "We've lost about three +hundred men since we landed." + +"Found any of them?" + +"Justice Section got sixty-three. The rest are probably hopeless." + +Another exchange of salutes. The officers left. + +"What did they want, Meikl?" she asked. + +"Just idle conversation. It's nearly time for the meeting with the +elders. Let's go." + +They began walking along the ridge together in the late sunlight. The +meeting was to attempt to explain to the elders of the Geoark that the +men of the fleet were not free to depart from the occupied zone. The +attempt would be fruitless, but ven Klaeden had ordered it. + +From the viewpoint of the high command, three hundred desertions out of +nineteen thousand men over a period of six months was not an important +loss of personnel. What _was_ important: the slow decay of discipline +under the "no force" interdict. A policy of "no arrest" had been +established for the ausland. If a man escaped from the occupied zone, +Justice Section could send a detail to demand his return, but if he +refused, no force would be used, because of the horrified reaction of +the natives. If he were located, a killer was dispatched, armed with a +tiny phial, a hollow needle, and a CO_{2} gun that could be concealed in +the palm of the hand. The killer stalked the deserter until he caught +him alone, fired from cover, and stole quietly away while the deserter +plucked the needle out of his hide to stare at it in horror. He had a +week in which to get back to the occupied zone to beg for immunization; +if he did not, the spot would become alive with fungus, and the fungus +would spread, and within months, he would die rather grimly. + +The real danger, Meikl knew, was not to the fleet but to the natives. +The spacers were cultural poison, and each deserter was a source of +infection moving into the native society, a focal point of restimulation +for any recessive kult'laenger lines that still existed in a peaceful +people after twenty thousand years. + +"I think Evon will be here," the girl said too casually as they entered +the forest and turned into a path that led to the glade where the elders +had assembled. + +He took her arm suddenly, and stopped in the pathway. + +"Letha--you have worked for me many months." + +"Yes--" + +"I love you, Letha." + +She smiled very slowly, and lifted her hands to his face. He kissed her +quietly, hating himself. + +"You'll take me with you," she said. + +"No." It was impossible. + +"Then you'll stay." + +"It is ... _forbidden_ ... _verboten_...." There was no word in the +tongue. + +"I can't understand.... If you love...." + +He swallowed hard. For the girl, "love" automatically settled +everything, and consummation must follow. How could he explain. + +"Letha--in your culture, 'life' is the highest value." + +"How could it be otherwise? Love me, Meikl." + +He took a deep breath and straightened. "You understand 'drama', Letha. +I have watched your people. Their lives are continuous conscious +play-acting. Your lives are a dance, but you know you are dancing, and +you dance as you will. Have you watched our people?" + +She nodded slowly. "You dance a different dance--act a different play." + +"It's not a play, Letha. We act an _unconscious_ drama, and thus the +drama becomes more important than living. And death takes precedence +over life." + +She shuddered slightly and stared into his eyes, unbelieving. + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"Can you understand?--that I love you, and yet my ... my...." He groped +for a word for "duty". "My death-allegiance to the ship-people takes +precedence? I can neither take you nor remain with you." + +Something went dead in her eyes. "Let us go to the glade," she said in a +monotone. "It's growing late." + + "_And what will ye leave to your ain mither dear, + Edward, Edward? + And what will ye leave to your ain mither dear, + My dear son, now tell me, O?" + "The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear, + Mither, mither; + The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear; + Sic counsels ye gave to me, O!_" + + --ANONYMOUS + + * * * * * + +The trouble had begun on the eighteenth day of the ninth month. A party +of unidentified men had stolen into the occupied zone during the night. +Without warning, they killed three guards, seized control of the +dispensary, raided the pharmacy, taking the entire supply of fungus +immunization serum, together with a supply of the deadly phials and +needles. They stole a flyer and departed to the south, skimming low over +the forest to avoid fire from the grounded fleet. The following day, a +leaflet appeared, circulating among the fleet personnel. + + NOTICE OF SANCTUARY + TO: ALL PERSONNEL + FROM: AUSLAND COMMITTEE + SUBJECT: FREEDOM + + 1. ANY OFFICER OR MAN WHO WISHES TO RESIGN FROM THE SERVICES OF + THE IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION MAY DO SO OF THIS DATE. + + 2. THE PROCEDURE FOR RESIGNATION INVOLVES NO FORMAL STATEMENT. + A MAN MAY TERMINATE HIS PERIOD OF SERVICE BY DEPARTING FROM THE + OCCUPIED ZONE. + + 3. ANY OFFICER OR MAN WHO ATTEMPTS TO INTERFERE WITH THE + RESIGNATION OF ANOTHER SHALL BE TRIED IN ABSENTIA BY THIS + COMMITTEE, AND IF FOUND GUILTY, SHALL INCUR THE DEATH PENALTY. + + AUSLAND COMMITTEE + +"An outrageous and preposterous bit of deviltry!" ven Klaeden had +hissed. "Get them. Make an example of them." + +In reversal of previous policy, a police party was sent to search for +the self-styled ausland committee, with orders to capture or kill on +sight. The police party hunted down and killed six deserters, dragged +eleven more back to the occupied zone, under the very eyes of the native +population. But the immunizing serum was not recovered. + +A few days later, three staff officers and a dozen officers in Justice +Section awoke with yelps in the night to pluck stinging needles from +their skins and scream for the guard to pursue the silent shadows that +had invaded their quarters. + +Five men were captured. Three of them were natives. Interrogation failed +to disclose the location of the immunizing serum. + +Muttering natives began to desert the project. The five culprits were +brought before the baron. + +"Execute them in public, with full dress military ceremony. Then close +the border of the occupied zone. No native may leave, if he has signed a +work contract." + +On the day of the execution, the natives attempted to leave en masse. +The police activity along the border approached the proportions of a +massacre. + +"We were nearly finished," raged the baron, pacing like an angry +predator in the glade. "Another two weeks, and the first ore would come +out of the crushers. They can't stop us now. They can't quit." + +Three elders of the Geoark sat like frozen statues on a mossy boulder, +tight-lipped, not understanding the colonel's tongue, disdaining to +speak in the intermediate language. + +"Explain it to them, Meikl. Make it clear." + +Pale, trembling with suppressed disapproval, the analyst bowed curtly +and turned to the girl. "Tell them," he said in the Intermedia, "that +death will come to any native who deserts, and that ten auslanders will +die for every man murdered by the renegade committee. Tell them that the +Geoark is...." He paused. There was no word for "hostage." + +He was explaining the hostage-concept lengthily, while the girl's face +drained of color. Suddenly she turned away to retch. Meikl stood +stricken for a moment, turned helplessly toward the baron. + +"_They_ understood you, damn them!" ven Klaeden snapped. "They know the +Intermedia." + +The elders continued to sit stonily on the boulder without acknowledging +that they had heard. One of them sighed deeply and spoke a few words to +the others. They nodded sadly, answered with polite monosyllables. + +"_No!_" Letha yelped, suddenly whirling, looking at the elders. + +One of them smiled and murmured a few words to her. Then the three of +them slid down from the boulder. The guard who stood at port arms a few +feet away stirred restlessly. + +The elders walked casually toward a path leading away from the glade. +The guard looked questioningly at the officers. + +"Where are they going?" ven Klaeden demanded. + +"Well, Letha?" Meikl muttered. + +"I--I don't know--" + +"You're lying, girl," the baron grunted, then to the guards: "Tell them +to halt." + +"Party, _halt_!" snapped the guard. + +The three elderly gentlemen continued toward the path, loose robes +gathered up from spindley shins. + +"_Party, halt!_" + +The elders murmured conversationally among themselves as they continued. + +"HALT, I SAID." + +"Take the one in the middle," ordered ven Klaeden. + +The guard lifted the snub-nosed shoulder weapon. There was a brief +rattling hiss. The back of the elder's robe went crimson, and he +crumpled at the entrance of the pathway. + +The other two continued on their way, their stride unbroken. + +"Shoot for the legs, you fool!" barked the baron. + +The rattling hiss came again. They fell in the shrubs, whimpering +softly. + +Meikl turned away with a choking spasm in his throat, looked around for +Letha. She had vanished from the glade. + +"Haul them to the dispensary, keep them prisoner," the baron was +growling. + +Meikl turned on him. "Now it's come to this, has it?" he snapped. "From +the beginning, they were willing--even eager, to give what we wanted. +Why did they _stop_ being willing?" + +"That's enough, Meikl!" + +"I've hardly started. You came here like a tyrant, and they served you +like a friend. You couldn't bear it. 'Brethren', they said. But there's +nothing about 'brethren' in the tactical handbooks, is there, Baron?" + +"Shut up." + +Ven Klaeden said it quietly, as if bored. He crossed slowly to stand +before the analyst and stare at him icily. + +"You speak of the unconscious inheritance of culture, analyst--the +kulturverlaengerung. And you have accused me for being a carrier of the +war plague, eh?" + +Meikl paused. The baron's eyes were narrowed, stabbing as if in judgment +or triumph. + +"Well, Meikl? Is that what we've done? Inflicted them with conflict? +Brought back the old seeds of hate?" + +The analyst drew himself up slightly. "You just killed a man, a man of +dignity," he snarled, "and you cut two others down like weeds." + +"Innocent old men." The baron's mouth twisted into a snarl. + +"They wanted nothing but to help us." + +"Yes, Meikl? And we are the barbarians, eh?" + +The analyst spoke disdain with his eyes. + +The baron straightened in sudden hauteur. "_Look down at the ground, +Analyst_," he hissed. + +Ven Klaeden's sudden change of tone impelled him to obey. His eyes fell +to the turf at his feet--moss covered sod, rich and dark beneath the +green. + +The baron kicked a hole in the moss with the toe of his boot. "Tell me +where the infection came from, Analyst," he growled. He scraped at the +hole with his heel. "And why is the dirt so _red_ right here?" + +Meikl glanced up slowly. Two men were coming through the shrubs, walking +warily along the path toward the clearing. Ven Klaeden seemed unaware. +He leaned forward to speak through his teeth. + +"I give them nothing but what they gave our fathers--their own inner +hell, Meikl--the curse they so carefully forgot. In their Eden." + +The man was mad ... perhaps. Meikl's eyes followed the men who +approached through the shrubs. One of them carried a burden--the limp +body of a girl, occasionally visible through the low foliage as they +drew nearer. One of the men was a junior officer, the other a native. +After a moment, he recognized the native.... + +"Evon!" + +As he called out, the baron whirled, hand slipping to the hilt of the +ceremonial sword he wore in the presence of the Geoark. The men stopped. +Meikl stared at the limp figure in the arms of the native. + +"_Letha!_" + +"Dead," Evon hissed. "They killed her for running...." + +They emerged from the shrubs into full view. The officer was holding a +gun. + +"Put that away!" ven Klaeden snapped. + +The young officer laughed sourly. "Sorry, baron, I'm from the +committee." + +"_Guard!_" + +"There's no one in earshot, Baron." + +"Fool!" Ven Klaeden arrogantly whipped out the sword. "Drop that gun, or +I'll blade-whip you!" + +"Easy, baron, easy. I'm your executioner...." + +The baron straightened haughtily and began a slow advance, a towering +figure of icy dignity in the sun that filtered through the foliage. + +"... but I want to take care of this one first." The renegade waved the +gun toward Meikl. "You, Baron, you can have it slower--a needle in your +official rump." + +Ven Klaeden, a figure of utter contempt, continued the slow advance with +the sword. The officer's lips tightened. He squeezed the trigger. Ven +Klaeden hesitated, jerking slightly, then continued, his hand pressing +against his abdomen, doubling forward slightly. The officer fired +again--a sharp snap of sound in the glade. The baron stopped, wrestling +with pain ten feet from the pale renegade. + +Suddenly he flung the sword. It looped in mid-air and slashed the man's +face from chin to cheekbone. He tripped and tumbled backward as ven +Klaeden slipped to his knees on the moss. + +Meikl dived for the gun. By the time he wrestled it away from the +officer with the bloody face, ven Klaeden was sitting like a gaunt +Buddha on the moss, and the body of Letha lay nearby, while a confused +Evon clutched his hands to his face and rocked slowly. Meikl came slowly +to his feet. The renegade officer wiped his face of blood and shrank +back into shrubs. + +"Get him," croaked ven Klaeden. + +Scarcely knowing why, the analyst jerked the trigger, felt the gun +explode in his fist, saw the renegade topple. + +There was a moment of stillness in the glade, broken only by ven +Klaeden's wheezing breath. The baron looked up with an effort, his eyes +traveling over the girl, then up to the figure of the child of Earth. + +"Your woman, Earthling?" + +Evon lowered his hands, stood dazed and blinking for a moment. He +glanced at Meikl, then at the girl. He knelt beside her, staring, not +touching, and his knee encountered the blade of the sword. + +"You have brought us death, you have brought us hate," he said slowly, +his eyes clinging to the sword. + +"Pick it up," hissed the baron. + +"You will never leave. A party of men is wrecking what you have done. +Then we shall wreck your ships. Then we...." + +"Pick it up." + +The native hesitated. Slowly, his brown hand reached for the hilt, and +fascination was in his eyes. + +"You know what it is for?" the analyst asked. + +The native shook his head slowly. + +Then it was in his hand, fingers shaping themselves around the hilt--as +the fingers of his fathers had done in the ages before the Star Exodus. +His jaw fell slightly, and he looked up, clutching it. + +"_Now_ do you know?" the baron gasped. + +"My--my hand--_it_ knows," the native whispered. + +Ven Klaeden glanced sourly at Meikl, losing his balance slightly, eyes +glazed with pain. "He'll need it now, won't he, Analyst?" he breathed, +then fell to the moss. + +Evon stood up slowly, moistening his lips, feeling the grip of the sword +and touching the red-stained steel. He peered quickly up at Meikl. Meikl +brandished the gun slightly. + +The low rumble of a dynamite blast sounded from the direction of the +mines. + +"You loved her too," Evon said. + +He nodded. + +The native held the sword out questioningly, as if offering it. + +"Keep it," the analyst grunted. "You remembered its feel after twenty +thousand years. That's why you'll need it." + +Some deeds, he thought, would haunt the soul of Man until his end, and +there was no erasing them ... for they _were_ the soul, self-made, +lasting in the ghost-grey fabric of mind as long as the lips of a child +greedily sought the breast of its mother, as long as the child mirrored +the mind of the man and the woman. _Kulturverlaengerung._ + +The analyst left the native with the sword and went to seek the next in +line of command. The purpose of the fleet must be kept intact, he +thought, laughing bitterly. Yet still he went. + + +THE END + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 32775 *** |