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diff --git a/32775-h/32775-h.htm b/32775-h/32775-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..40c099a --- /dev/null +++ b/32775-h/32775-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1677 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Ties That Bind, by Walter Miller, Jr. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.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: 0em; + text-indent: -4em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i1 { + display: block; + margin-left: 1em; + padding-left: 0em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 32775 ***</div> +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + +<h1>THE TIES THAT BIND</h1> + +<h2>By Walter Miller, Jr.</h2> + +<h3>Illustrated by Kelly Freas</h3> + +<p>[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.]</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>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....</i></div> + + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"<i>Why does your brand sae drop wi' blude,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Edward, Edward?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Why does your brand sae drop wi' blude,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>And why sae sad gang ye, O?"</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>"O I hae kill'd my hawk sae gude,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Mither, mither;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>O I hae kill'd my hawk sae gude,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>And I had nae mair but he, O.</i>"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">—ANONYMOUS<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>kulturverlaengerung</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>The myriad voices of the planet, they cried, or whispered, or chattered +in awed voices under the elms....</p> + +<p>The piping whine of a senile hag: "The ancient gods! The day of the +judging! Repent, repent...."</p> + +<p>The panting gasp of a frightened fat man: "The alien! We're lost, we're +lost! We've got to run for the hills!"</p> + +<p>The voice of the child: "See the pretty birdlights? See? See?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"<i>Kulturverlaengerung!</i>" 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. "<i>Kulturverlaengerung</i>, that's why!"</p> + +<p>"I heard you the first time, Meikl," the officer snapped. "Watch your +tongue and your tone!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The erect and elderly gentleman who sat behind the desk cleared his +throat politely. "Have you any further clarifications to make, Meikl?" +he asked.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>know</i> what <i>we</i> are."</p> + +<p>The two wingsmen bristled slightly at the edge of contempt in the +analyst's voice. The elderly gentlemen behind the desk remained +impassive, expressionless.</p> + +<p>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 <i>infect</i> them, Thaüle?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>The wingsman darkened. His fist exploded on the desktop. "Meikl, you're +in contempt! Restrict yourself to answering questions!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"There will be no further breaches of military etiquette during the +continuance of this conference," the elderly gentleman announced icily, +thus seizing the situation.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. But why not on Mars? We can develop our own facilities for +producing fuel. Why must it be Earth?"</p> + +<p>"Because there will be <i>some existing facilities</i> on Earth, even though +they're out of space. The job would take five years on Mars."</p> + +<p>The analyst lowered his eyes, shook his head wearily. "I'm thinking of a +billion earthlings. Aren't they worth considering, sir?"</p> + +<p>"I've got to consider the men in my command, Meikl. They've been through +hell. We all have."</p> + +<p>"The hell was our own making, baron."</p> + +<p>"<i>Meikl!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Sorry, sir."</p> + +<p>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 <i>kulturverlaengerung</i> reaches a threshold of extinction +after about a dozen generations, if there's no restimulation."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"That's too bad," a wingsman growled sourly. "We'll wake it up, won't +we?"</p> + +<p>"Let's not be callous," the other wingsman grunted in sarcasm. "Analyst +Meikl has sensitivities."</p> + +<p>The analyst stared from one to the other of them in growing +consternation, then looked pleadingly at the baron. "Sir, I was +<i>summoned</i> here to offer my opinions about landing on Earth. You asked +about possible cultural dangers. I've told you."</p> + +<p>"You discussed the danger to earthlings."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"I meant 'danger' to the personnel of this fleet—to their esprit, their +indoctrination, their group-efficiency. I take it you see none."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Lichter Six, Satellite," the officer grunted after a moment of +irritable silence.</p> + +<p>"And you?"</p> + +<p>"Omega Thrush," said the other wingsman.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"It came from there," he hissed. "She's your womb, gentlemen. Are you +going back?"</p> + +<p>"Are you an analyst or a dramatist, Meikl?" the baron asked sharply, +hoping to relieve the sudden chill in the room. "This becomes silly."</p> + +<p>"If you land on her," Meikl promised ominously, "you'll go away with a +fleet full of hate."</p> + +<p>Meikl's arm dropped to his side. He sheathed his dagger. "Is my presence +at this meeting still imperative, sir?" he asked the baron.</p> + +<p>"Have you anything else to say?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—<i>don't land on Earth</i>."</p> + +<p>"That's a repetition. No further reasons?—in terms of danger to +ourselves?"</p> + +<p>The analyst paused. "I can think of nothing worse that could happen to +us," he said slowly, "than just being what we already are."</p> + +<p>He snapped his heels formally, bowed to the baron, and stalked out of +the cabin.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But he was also probably right," sighed the graying officer and +nobleman.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sir—!</i>"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he summoned a priest to his quarters. And, before going to +the command deck, he bathed sacramentally as if in preparation for +battle.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"<i>Your hawk's blude was never sae red,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Edward, Edward;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Your hawk's blude was never sae red,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>My dear son, I tell thee, O."</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>"O I hae kill'd my red-roan steed,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Mither, mither;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>O I hae kill'd my red roan steed,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>That erst was sae fair and free, O.</i>"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">—ANONYMOUS<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<blockquote><p>PROPAUTH EARTH FROM COMMSTRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACE, KLAEDEN COMM, +PRESENTS GREETINGS!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>ERNSTLI BARON VEN KLAEDEN, COMMANDING STRAFEFLEET THREE, +SPACESTRIKE COMMAND, IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION </p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>"It is found, <i>it is found</i>, a tongue of the ancients!" a joyous cry in +the glades and the garden pathways.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It is badly understood," was the curious mutter along the garden +pathways.</p> + +<p>"Many words have no words to match them, nor any thoughts that are +similar," was the only explanation the sages could give.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I think we should tell them to go away," said Letha, and looked around +at the others for a response.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"And all the <i>big</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> be—because she hadn't +seen him sit still this long in years. He was <i>always</i> 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.</p> + +<p>She stirred restlessly, driven to seek sympathetic understanding.</p> + +<p>"You wonder what it's like, Evon?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He grunted at her quizzically and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"To be one of the children of the Exodus, I mean," she added.</p> + +<p>"<i>Me?</i> What <i>are</i> you thinking of, Letha?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I don't fiddle."</p> + +<p>"But your eyes are on the sky-fleet."</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"Something familiar?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You think he has the genemnemon, Marrita?" she asked the blonde girl +who sat on the cool rock by the spring.</p> + +<p>Marrita looked up from dabbling her toes in the icy trickle. "I don't +believe in the genemnemon. My great grandfather was a thief."</p> + +<p>"How silly! What's that to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"What do you think they'll do?"</p> + +<p>"The Geoark? Invite the strangers to land. What else could they do?"</p> + +<p>"Tell them to go away."</p> + +<p>"And suppose they chose not to go?"</p> + +<p>The girl looked bewildered. "I can't imagine anyone refusing the +Geoark."</p> + +<p>"Maybe they've got their own Geoark. Why should they cooperate with +ours?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Two</i> Geoarks? What a strange idea."</p> + +<p>"Is it strange that you and I should have two brains? Or were you aware +that I have one too?"</p> + +<p>"Evon! What a <i>strange</i> idea."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I think we should prepare a petition for the Geoark," someone +suggested.</p> + +<p>"About the sky-fleet? And who knows what to say?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," said a girl. "Somehow I'm suddenly afraid of them."</p> + +<p>"Our brothers from the Exodus? But they're <i>people</i>—such as you and I."</p> + +<p>So went the voices. After an hour, a crier came running through the +glade to read another message received from the sky-fleet.</p> + +<blockquote><p>PROPAUTH EARTH FROM COMMSTRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACE, KLAEDEN COMM, +PRESENTS GREETINGS!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>ERNSTLI BARON VEN KLAEDEN, COMMANDING STRAFEFLEET THREE, +SPACESTRIKE COMMAND IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION </p></blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Embarrassed, the elders of the Geoark immediately called the tech clans. +"Can you revive the devices that speak across space?" they asked.</p> + +<p>"They are revived," answered the tech clans.</p> + +<p>"Then let us speak to our brothers from space."</p> + +<p>And so it was that the people of the gardens of Earth sang out:</p> + +<blockquote><p>BRETHREN TO BRETHREN, PRESENT LOVE LOVE LOVE.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>THE ELDERS OF THE GEOARK </p></blockquote> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>And there was thunder in a cloudless sky.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"<i>O your steed was auld and ye hae mair,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Edward, Edward.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>O your steed was auld and ye hae mair,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>And some other dule ye dree, O."</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>"O I hae kill'd my ain father dear,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Mither, mither;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>O I hae kill'd my ain father dear,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Alas and woe is me, O.</i>"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">—ANONYMOUS<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"No signs of the natives yet," came the report. "No signs of technology. +No evidence of hostility."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"<i>Keep clear!</i>" he bellowed from the airlock, hoping to frighten her.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"<i>Go back, you little idiot!</i>"</p> + +<p>Her answer was a brief sing-song chant and another smile. She kept +coming—into the charred area.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>our</i> purposes."</p> + +<p>"Your landing caused only minor damage, brethren," replied the gentle +voice of the Geoark. "You are welcome to remain as you are."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But brethren, thousands of people live in the gardens you have +surrounded!"</p> + +<p>"Evacuate them."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand."</p> + +<p>"<i>Evacuate</i> them. Make them get out."</p> + +<p>"My translator is working badly."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"How much notice?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"My translator is working badly," the voice of the elder was parroting.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"My translator is working badly."</p> + +<p>"Aren't you getting anything?"</p> + +<p>A pause, then: "I understand that you wish us to come to the place where +the sky-fleet rests."</p> + +<p>"Correct."</p> + +<p>"But what of the welcome we have made for our brethren in the +feast-glades?"</p> + +<p>"I shall dispatch flyers to pick you up immediately. Unless you have +aircraft of your own."</p> + +<p>"We have no machinery but the self-sustaining mechanisms in the Earth."</p> + +<p>"Any of your population understand the mechanisms?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, brother."</p> + +<p>"Then bring technicians. They'll be best able to understand what we +want, and maybe they can make it clear to you."</p> + +<p>"As you wish, brother."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The elder took it well. They must be afraid of us."</p> + +<p>"Respectful awe is more like it," the baron grunted.</p> + +<p>"I suggest the answer is in the word 'brethren,'" came a voice from the +back of the room.</p> + +<p>"Meikl! What are you doing in here?" ven Klaeden barked irritably.</p> + +<p>"You called my department for a man. My department sent me. Shall I go +back?"</p> + +<p>"It's up to you, Analyst. If you can keep your ideals corked and be +useful."</p> + +<p>Meikl bowed stiffly. "Thank you, sir."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"About how to deal with the natives?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly ... but with the accent on <i>our</i> problems."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"That constitutes your entire opinion?"</p> + +<p>"Not quite. About the question of recessive kulturverlaengerung...."</p> + +<p>"<i>Our</i> problems, I said!" the commander snapped.</p> + +<p>"It's likely to be our problem, sir."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What patterns do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"The Exodus was a mass-desertion, in one sense, Baron."</p> + +<p>A moment of hush in the room. "I see what you mean," the commander +grunted. "But 'desertion' is a pattern of <i>action</i>, not a transmittable +determinant."</p> + +<p>Meikl shook his head. "We don't <i>know</i> 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."</p> + +<p>A wingman coughed raucously. "To be blunt with you, Meikl ... I think +this is a lot of nonsense. The whole concept is far-fetched."</p> + +<p>"What, the kult'laenger lines?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Do you regard parent-child rapport as a fact?" Meikl turned to stare +absently out a viewing port at the trees.</p> + +<p>"You mean the telepathic experiments with infants? I don't know much +about it."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Go on."</p> + +<p>"So, when the children were ten years old, they did learning-speed tests +on all two hundred."</p> + +<p>"Learning the game, you mean?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"So?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"How? If they hadn't taught the children to play the game...."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"This grows pedantic, and irrelevant," the baron growled. "What are the +chances of utilizing native labor?"</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"<i>And whatten penance will we dree for that,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Edward, Edward?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Whatten penance will ye dree for that?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>My dear son, now tell me, O."</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>"I'll set my feet in yonder boat,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Mither, mither;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>I'll set my feet in yonder boat,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>And I'll fare over the sea, O.</i>"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">—ANONYMOUS<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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: "<i>In our gardens, there are no weeds</i>," and it applied +to the garden of human culture almost as well as it applied to the fauna +and flora of the planet.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><i>This</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You belong to another, Letha?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She tossed him a quick look with pale eyes, hesitated. "There is a boy +named Evon...."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"But I don't really belong to him," she said, and reddened.</p> + +<p>"Letha, I...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Meikl."</p> + +<p>"Nothing. I'm lonely, I guess."</p> + +<p>Her eyes wandered thoughtfully toward the ships. "Meikl, why will you +tell us nothing of space—how you've lived since the Exodus?"</p> + +<p>"We are an evil people."</p> + +<p>"Not so."</p> + +<p>She touched his arm, and looked up at him searchingly.</p> + +<p>"What is it you wish to know?"</p> + +<p>"Why will you never return to your home?"</p> + +<p>"To space—but we shall."</p> + +<p>"To the worlds of your birth, I mean."</p> + +<p>He stiffened slightly, stared at her. "What makes you think we won't?" +he asked, a little sharply.</p> + +<p>"Will you?"</p> + +<p>So there were leaks after all, he thought. After six months, many things +would be communicated to the natives, even under strictest security.</p> + +<p>"No," he admitted, "we can't go back to the worlds of our birth."</p> + +<p>"But why? Where are your women and children?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"There is blood on our hands," he grunted, and knew immediately he had +said too much.</p> + +<p>She continued to stare at the ships. "What are the metal tubes that +point from the front and the sides of the ships, Meikl?"</p> + +<p>There was no word for "guns" or "weapons".</p> + +<p>"They hurl death, Letha."</p> + +<p>"How can 'death' be hurled?"</p> + +<p>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 <i>kulturverlaengerung</i> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Was it settled?" she asked innocently.</p> + +<p>He nodded slowly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And yours, Meikl?"</p> + +<p>"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—<i>conquest</i>, a word unknown to you. Then a withering of the +mother-culture, and the rebellious rise of young cultures."</p> + +<p>"We were the mother-culture, Meikl?"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "And the Exodus was your birth-giving."</p> + +<p>"Now we are old and withered, Meikl?"</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Deserter troubles?" he asked, as they returned his papers.</p> + +<p>"Nineteen last week," said one of the officers. "We've lost about three +hundred men since we landed."</p> + +<p>"Found any of them?"</p> + +<p>"Justice Section got sixty-three. The rest are probably hopeless."</p> + +<p>Another exchange of salutes. The officers left.</p> + +<p>"What did they want, Meikl?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Just idle conversation. It's nearly time for the meeting with the +elders. Let's go."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>was</i> 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<sub>2</sub> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>He took her arm suddenly, and stopped in the pathway.</p> + +<p>"Letha—you have worked for me many months."</p> + +<p>"Yes—"</p> + +<p>"I love you, Letha."</p> + +<p>She smiled very slowly, and lifted her hands to his face. He kissed her +quietly, hating himself.</p> + +<p>"You'll take me with you," she said.</p> + +<p>"No." It was impossible.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll stay."</p> + +<p>"It is ... <i>forbidden</i> ... <i>verboten</i>...." There was no word in the +tongue.</p> + +<p>"I can't understand.... If you love...."</p> + +<p>He swallowed hard. For the girl, "love" automatically settled +everything, and consummation must follow. How could he explain.</p> + +<p>"Letha—in your culture, 'life' is the highest value."</p> + +<p>"How could it be otherwise? Love me, Meikl."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>She nodded slowly. "You dance a different dance—act a different play."</p> + +<p>"It's not a play, Letha. We act an <i>unconscious</i> drama, and thus the +drama becomes more important than living. And death takes precedence +over life."</p> + +<p>She shuddered slightly and stared into his eyes, unbelieving.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Something went dead in her eyes. "Let us go to the glade," she said in a +monotone. "It's growing late."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"<i>And what will ye leave to your ain mither dear,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Edward, Edward?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And what will ye leave to your ain mither dear,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>My dear son, now tell me, O?"</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>"The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Mither, mither;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Sic counsels ye gave to me, O!</i>"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">—ANONYMOUS<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">NOTICE OF SANCTUARY<br /></span> +<span class="i1">TO: ALL PERSONNEL<br /></span> +<span class="i1">FROM: AUSLAND COMMITTEE<br /></span> +<span class="i1">SUBJECT: FREEDOM<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<blockquote> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>2. THE PROCEDURE FOR RESIGNATION INVOLVES NO FORMAL STATEMENT. +A MAN MAY TERMINATE HIS PERIOD OF SERVICE BY DEPARTING FROM THE +OCCUPIED ZONE.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>AUSLAND COMMITTEE </p></blockquote> + +<p>"An outrageous and preposterous bit of deviltry!" ven Klaeden had +hissed. "Get them. Make an example of them."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Five men were captured. Three of them were natives. Interrogation failed +to disclose the location of the immunizing serum.</p> + +<p>Muttering natives began to desert the project. The five culprits were +brought before the baron.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Explain it to them, Meikl. Make it clear."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"<i>They</i> understood you, damn them!" ven Klaeden snapped. "They know the +Intermedia."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"<i>No!</i>" Letha yelped, suddenly whirling, looking at the elders.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The elders walked casually toward a path leading away from the glade. +The guard looked questioningly at the officers.</p> + +<p>"Where are they going?" ven Klaeden demanded.</p> + +<p>"Well, Letha?" Meikl muttered.</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know—"</p> + +<p>"You're lying, girl," the baron grunted, then to the guards: "Tell them +to halt."</p> + +<p>"Party, <i>halt</i>!" snapped the guard.</p> + +<p>The three elderly gentlemen continued toward the path, loose robes +gathered up from spindley shins.</p> + +<p>"<i>Party, halt!</i>"</p> + +<p>The elders murmured conversationally among themselves as they continued.</p> + +<p>"HALT, I SAID."</p> + +<p>"Take the one in the middle," ordered ven Klaeden.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The other two continued on their way, their stride unbroken.</p> + +<p>"Shoot for the legs, you fool!" barked the baron.</p> + +<p>The rattling hiss came again. They fell in the shrubs, whimpering +softly.</p> + +<p>Meikl turned away with a choking spasm in his throat, looked around for +Letha. She had vanished from the glade.</p> + +<p>"Haul them to the dispensary, keep them prisoner," the baron was +growling.</p> + +<p>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 <i>stop</i> being willing?"</p> + +<p>"That's enough, Meikl!"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Shut up."</p> + +<p>Ven Klaeden said it quietly, as if bored. He crossed slowly to stand +before the analyst and stare at him icily.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Meikl paused. The baron's eyes were narrowed, stabbing as if in judgment +or triumph.</p> + +<p>"Well, Meikl? Is that what we've done? Inflicted them with conflict? +Brought back the old seeds of hate?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Innocent old men." The baron's mouth twisted into a snarl.</p> + +<p>"They wanted nothing but to help us."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Meikl? And we are the barbarians, eh?"</p> + +<p>The analyst spoke disdain with his eyes.</p> + +<p>The baron straightened in sudden hauteur. "<i>Look down at the ground, +Analyst</i>," he hissed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>red</i> right here?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I give them nothing but what they gave our fathers—their own inner +hell, Meikl—the curse they so carefully forgot. In their Eden."</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>"Evon!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"<i>Letha!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Dead," Evon hissed. "They killed her for running...."</p> + +<p>They emerged from the shrubs into full view. The officer was holding a +gun.</p> + +<p>"Put that away!" ven Klaeden snapped.</p> + +<p>The young officer laughed sourly. "Sorry, baron, I'm from the +committee."</p> + +<p>"<i>Guard!</i>"</p> + +<p>"There's no one in earshot, Baron."</p> + +<p>"Fool!" Ven Klaeden arrogantly whipped out the sword. "Drop that gun, or +I'll blade-whip you!"</p> + +<p>"Easy, baron, easy. I'm your executioner...."</p> + +<p>The baron straightened haughtily and began a slow advance, a towering +figure of icy dignity in the sun that filtered through the foliage.</p> + +<p>"... 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Get him," croaked ven Klaeden.</p> + +<p>Scarcely knowing why, the analyst jerked the trigger, felt the gun +explode in his fist, saw the renegade topple.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Your woman, Earthling?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You have brought us death, you have brought us hate," he said slowly, +his eyes clinging to the sword.</p> + +<p>"Pick it up," hissed the baron.</p> + +<p>"You will never leave. A party of men is wrecking what you have done. +Then we shall wreck your ships. Then we...."</p> + +<p>"Pick it up."</p> + +<p>The native hesitated. Slowly, his brown hand reached for the hilt, and +fascination was in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"You know what it is for?" the analyst asked.</p> + +<p>The native shook his head slowly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"<i>Now</i> do you know?" the baron gasped.</p> + +<p>"My—my hand—<i>it</i> knows," the native whispered.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The low rumble of a dynamite blast sounded from the direction of the +mines.</p> + +<p>"You loved her too," Evon said.</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>The native held the sword out questioningly, as if offering it.</p> + +<p>"Keep it," the analyst grunted. "You remembered its feel after twenty +thousand years. That's why you'll need it."</p> + +<p>Some deeds, he thought, would haunt the soul of Man until his end, and +there was no erasing them ... for they <i>were</i> 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. <i>Kulturverlaengerung.</i></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 32775 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + |