Sentinels relocatedHEADmain

1 files changed, 587 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/59376-0.txt b/59376-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2f2c1a9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/59376-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,587 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59376 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                              THE PATRIOT
+
+                        BY CHARLES L. FONTENAY
+
+             _Earth was through with war. And while it is
+           right that man have peace, it is also right that
+         he have freedom. But Mars was in slavery, and to Mars
+        Cornel Lorensse dedicated his life and his talent...._
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+              Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1955.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+_The Martianne_ is heard occasionally these days as a stirring concert
+or band selection. But there was a time when its playing was punishable
+by death--and its defiant strains challenged the harried police in
+tavern and drawing room all over the Earth.
+
+In the days just before one _marche militaire_ changed two worlds,
+Earth was weary of war, afraid of war, and desired to put behind
+it all reminders of war. The psychosociologists said uniforms of
+policemen, of postmen, of airline pilots, of lodge brethren, of
+theater ushers, were militaristic, and they were abolished. The
+psychosociologists said the march rhythm in music was nationalistic
+and instigated combative feelings, and it was banned. The scenes, the
+sounds, the sights of antagonisms between men were forbidden.
+
+The _Polonaise_, the _Marseillaise_, the _March of the Toys_, all
+suffered the same fate. Sousa's marches and Tschaikovsky's _1812
+Overture_ went the same way. _Dixie_ and the _Hawaiian War Chant_
+were treated alike. All were relegated to tape in dusty archives, and
+their sale or public performance forbidden on pain of fine and prison
+sentence.
+
+Whatever unlawful violence there might be on faraway Mars, Earth was
+through with all forms of war and its trappings.
+
+Into these circumstances, Cornel Lorensse intruded on the night of
+December 6, 2010. He pressed his thin face against the steam-misted
+window of _The Avatar_ in Nuyork and saw a piano standing idle inside.
+
+_The Avatar_ was one of those small restaurants sunk a few feet below
+sidewalk level, which catered with exotic dishes to the tastes of a
+select group. It was well-populated at this hour, and Cornel licked his
+lips hungrily at the epicurean delights unveiled at each table.
+
+He felt in the pocket of his worn coveralls. A single coin answered the
+exploration of his fingers. He was down to his last resource, and he
+was no nearer to finding the Friends than he had been when he landed.
+
+He looked again at the piano, hesitated, then went down the three steps
+to the restaurant's door, pushed it open and went in. It was his good
+fortune that Wan Ti, owner of _The Avatar_ was receiving his guests in
+person at the moment.
+
+"I'll play you a concert for a meal," said Cornel, gesturing toward the
+piano.
+
+Wan Ti's dark eyes swept over him, taking in the battered coveralls,
+the earnest face, the untrimmed blond hair, the slender hands. Wan Ti's
+yellow countenance remained bland.
+
+"I have a piano player," said Wan Ti.
+
+Cornel laughed, with a note of desperation in his tone.
+
+"Let me play one selection," he urged. "If you want to stop me then,
+you can kick me out."
+
+What Wan Ti thought could not be gauged from his expression, but he had
+not built his clientele against fierce competition by turning his face
+away from the unusual. He inclined his head slightly, and waved Cornel
+to the piano.
+
+Cornel sat down at the keyboard, brushed his hair back from his eyes,
+and flexed his long fingers. Thrusting the tantalizing aroma of food to
+the back of his mind, he played.
+
+The murmur of conversation in _The Avatar_ faltered and died as the
+fervid melody of Beethoven's _Sonata Appassionata_ filled the air.
+It was unusual music to people accustomed to hearing the more modern
+compositions of Schonberg, Harris and Westine. The comparison of
+Cornel's inspired touch to the mechanical renditions of Wan Ti's
+regular piano player was noticeable even to those who were unfamiliar
+with music.
+
+When the final movements of the _allegro ma non troppo_ faded, Cornel
+sat back and looked toward Wan Ti. The proprietor cocked an ear toward
+the rare applause, smiled and nodded slightly. Exultantly, Cornel swung
+into Chopin's _Fantasie-Impromptu_ and followed it, not pausing, with
+Liszt's _Waldesrauschen_ and Schubert's _Serenade_.
+
+The applause was just as enthusiastic, but by now the hum of voices
+and the click of eating utensils had begun to rise again. Frowning
+slightly, Cornel hunched his shoulders and began a composition the most
+musical of his audience had never heard before.
+
+Like the molten notes of the nightingale, the music floated and
+throbbed above the diners, almost a physical thing. The people in the
+restaurant paused with food halfway to their lips. They turned to see
+the artist, carefully, so that no chair would scrape. The waiters
+stopped with trays in their hands. Wan Ti stopped a newly arriving
+couple, his fingers at his lips.
+
+In the midst of the applause that roared through the room when Cornel
+had finished, a waiter tapped his shoulder.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," he said. "Miss Meta Erosine asks that you join her at
+her table."
+
+Rising and bowing to his audience, Cornel followed the man to a table
+at the rear of the room, where a woman sat with her escort.
+
+Meta Erosine's pale, heart-shaped face, with its mop of short black
+hair and luminous black eyes, was widely known on Earth, but Cornel
+had never been to Earth before. Her vibrant beauty blazed on a victim
+unprepared for it.
+
+She was clad in the cretan-can-can style just then becoming popular,
+with breasts exposed over a tight bodice and a short, ruffled skirt
+gathered in front to reveal the knees. She smoked a long-stemmed,
+tiny-bowled pipe, studded with jewels.
+
+Beside her sat a sleek, mustached young man in ruffled lavender shirt
+and pink tights, his fingers covered with rings.
+
+"Sit down and eat with me, musician," invited Meta. Somewhat dubiously,
+Cornel took a seat at her right, across the table from the beruffled
+escort.
+
+"Meta, I wish you wouldn't demean yourself by taking up with tramps and
+guttersnipes," objected her companion, wrinkling his nose.
+
+"Leave me, Passo," she ordered, waving an imperious hand. "Why should I
+sup with painted popinjays when I can adore genius?"
+
+Passo flushed and his mouth fell open. But he arose and slunk quietly
+away.
+
+"Now, musician," said Meta, leaning over the table so that her powdered
+breasts brushed the glassware, "tell me, what was that last number you
+played?"
+
+"One of my own compositions," he said diffidently. The odor of food was
+too much for him, and he leaned across the table to appropriate Passo's
+untouched salad. "Its name is _Wind in the Canals_."
+
+"It should be _Le Vent dans les Canals_," she said. "You should title
+your compositions in French--they will be more fashionable."
+
+"I don't know French," he said, munching a stick of celery. "We don't
+speak French on Mars."
+
+She laughed, a laugh like the music of his playing.
+
+"You will, my genius," she promised him. Her eyes ran over his lean
+face, his unkempt hair. "You look as though you could use shelter and
+clothing. Come home with me tonight. I shall give your genius to the
+world."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cornel never had experienced such luxury as was his in the apartment
+Meta assigned to him in her magnificent home in Jersi. He had his
+personal servant. New clothes were waiting for him. A barber cut his
+hair when he had finished a hot, scented bath, and the big bed in which
+he slept was soft as down.
+
+Meta asked no information of him until they met at a late breakfast
+the next morning. There, beautiful in translucent white negligee, she
+sipped her coffee and asked questions.
+
+"I came from Mars to get help for my people," he said. "We need guns
+and supplies, food and oxygen equipment."
+
+"You're one of the Charax rebels?" she asked.
+
+"Rebels?" He snorted. "We're free people, fighting for our freedom. We
+want self-government, we want to own our land and our homes, we want
+the right to rule our own lives."
+
+"That's guaranteed in the Constitution," said Meta.
+
+"Earth's Constitution. Mars isn't Earth. The Mars Corporation controls
+both spaceports. It owns all business and industry on Mars. It's
+milking the planet dry of resources and profits, and it's set up a
+company government that makes the people of Mars no better than slaves."
+
+He smiled a bitter smile.
+
+"Earth's government protects the freedom of Earth's people," he said,
+"but the people of Earth don't know what's happening on Mars. The Mars
+Corporation has its senators and representatives, bought and paid for,
+so the Earth government sends troops and supplies to Mars to fight the
+battles of the Mars Corporation. We aren't rebels, we're fighting for
+our just freedom."
+
+"If the Mars Corporation controls the spaceports, how did you get to
+Earth?" she demanded.
+
+"We have three battered ships hidden in the desert near Syrtis Major,"
+said Cornel. "It takes a long time for us to get fuel to take one of
+them up, but they thought it worthwhile if I could get to Earth and get
+help for my people."
+
+"Why you?"
+
+"My music is well known on Mars, and my people know that the people of
+Earth love music. Here on Earth, where there is peace and prosperity,
+people pay to hear good music and good musicians. Our plan was for me
+to give great concerts and at each concert ask the people of Earth to
+help their Martian brothers gain their freedom."
+
+"A good way to get arrested," said Meta dryly. "You'd be convicted
+of inciting military action and sentenced to prison in any court of
+Earth."
+
+"I didn't know that, but I suppose the Friends would have a way."
+
+"The Friends?"
+
+"The Friends of Mars. It's an organization of Earth people trying to
+help us. I suppose it must be a secret and illegal organization, for
+I found that the man I was supposed to get in touch with had been
+arrested, and I haven't been able to find out anything more about the
+Friends."
+
+"Such an organization would be illegal on Earth," said Meta. "Come
+here, Cornel. I want to show you something."
+
+Taking him by the arm, she led him from the breakfast room to a terrace
+overlooking a snowy valley. She moved closer to him in the chill wind
+that billowed her thin garments around her, and waved her hand at the
+scene below them.
+
+"This is Earth," she said. "Look at those mountain peaks, the blue sky
+and the white clouds. In summer, this valley is clothed with green, and
+warm breezes bring the scent of flowers to this terrace. Have you ever
+seen anything like this on Mars?"
+
+"No," he said softly. "Mars is always cold and dusty, and the sky is
+nearly black."
+
+"Cornel," she said softly, you're a great musician. Mars is rough
+frontier territory, and the frontier has no place for music. Last night
+you saw what your music could mean here.
+
+"Forget Mars. You belong to Earth."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The meteoric rise of Cornel Lorensse to fame in 2011 and 2012 now
+commands a full column in the _Encyclopaedia Terrestriana_. Brushed off
+in a single sentence in the encyclopaedia, but much discussed in that
+day, was his close relationship with Meta Erosine, his patroness.
+
+For half a decade, wealthy, beautiful Meta Erosine had been the toast
+of Earth. She was an actress, a painter, a singer, a socialite, and she
+had changed men almost as often as she changed the dresses she wore.
+Her face was familiar in newspapers and on television screens, her
+husky songs were on a million recording tapes, her colorful antics were
+the grist for magazine articles and the subject of denunciations from
+the pulpit.
+
+In Cornel she seemed to have found a vehicle for all the burning fire
+of her energy. She pushed him, she groomed him, she threw the power of
+her wealth behind him. His slender figure clad in a black velvet suit
+sat at polished pianos on a hundred stages; and for each concert, the
+auditoriums and the audiences were bigger.
+
+Meta was with him on these concert tours; and between tours he stayed
+in seclusion at the big house in Jersi, putting into music his
+memories of his native Mars. Each tour introduced to the world the new
+compositions of Cornel Lorensse.
+
+What he wrote and played was the haunting music of the deserts, the
+canals and the marches. Into his music he poured the loneliness of
+the red sands and the violence of the desert winds, the beauty of
+sable skies jeweled with enormous stars, the happiness of the helmeted
+traveler when he reaches the green valleys of the canals, the hopes
+and joys of human lovers gathered in bubble-like domes amid the chill
+wastelands.
+
+He did not, as Meta had wanted to, give his compositions French
+titles. He named them as he would have named them on Mars: _The Desert
+Wanderer_, _Swift Phobos_, _Marsh Gardens_, names that were strange to
+Earth, but were familiar themes of his own people.
+
+His melodies took music-loving Earth by storm. They burst upon a
+world in which 20th century dissonance had strangled 19th century
+romanticism, like flowers in a garden of crystal. It was Cornel
+Lorensse and those pioneer composers who avidly aped him who began the
+21st century Renaissance in music.
+
+Without shame, Cornel lived on the largesse of his patroness, for his
+growing fees and royalties all went for one purpose. He had found the
+society called the Friends of Mars, and everything that he earned he
+poured into their coffers to finance privateer space vessels able to
+elude the Mars Corporation's company-owned warships and to keep a thin
+line of supplies flowing to the Free Martian people scattered in their
+desert strongholds.
+
+Like any secret society in a hostile culture, the Friends of Mars
+maintained dissociated chapters, connected by the slenderest and most
+carefully guarded lines of communication. Cornel knew of only one
+chapter, in Nuyork, and to this he took his contributions when he was
+between concert tours.
+
+During one of those visits, late in the summer of 2012, Javan Tomlin,
+chief of the chapter, told him that all he contributed was still not
+enough for Mars to become free.
+
+"Our base of support isn't broad enough," said Javan. "Ships cost
+money, fuel costs money, supplies cost money. Guns and ammunition are
+most expensive of all, because military weapons are illegal. No one man
+can support such an operation, even when he makes the kind of money
+you're making."
+
+There were half a dozen of the Friends of Mars, besides Cornel and
+Javan, in the meeting room. The others nodded agreement at Javan's
+words.
+
+"None of us are wealthy and we can't contribute much but our time and
+work," said one of them. "The wealthy people all sympathize with the
+Mars Corporation."
+
+"That's too much of a blanket indictment," said Javan. "The Mars
+Corporation controls the spacelines to Mars, and what little
+information comes back to Earth is censored and heavily propagandized
+in their favor. Most people don't know what's happening on Mars. Our
+people need a powerful radio transmitter to broadcast to Earth, Cornel."
+
+Cornel shook his head.
+
+"What information the people of Earth get must be disseminated on
+Earth," he said. "Powerful radio equipment would take up space and
+weight needed for arms. Besides, the Mars Corporation forces have air
+power and directional finders. They'd bomb a permanent installation
+before it had a chance to send out its second broadcast."
+
+"All we can do is work and hope," said Javan gloomily. "If we had a
+fleet of about a dozen good ships, we might be able to swing it, but we
+have only two and a third abuilding."
+
+"There are three on Mars," Cornel pointed out.
+
+"One was blasted in space last week, and they're too old to lift more
+than half cargo, anyhow," said Javan. "The corporation controls the
+Earth space stations, through the government, and we have to use direct
+drive stage-rockets."
+
+Cornel left, not feeling very optimistic. At the curb outside the club,
+he looked up and down the street for a cab to take him to the heliport
+where his copter was parked.
+
+There was no cab in sight, but from a side street a little distance
+away a long black limousine swung into the boulevard, sped swiftly to
+the club entrance and halted. The back door opened and Meta leaned out,
+beckoning.
+
+"Get in, quick!" she urged. "We've got to get away from here!"
+
+Not understanding, Cornel got in. The car roared away with a burst of
+acceleration that thrust him back on the cushions beside her.
+
+"What in Saturn?" he demanded and turned to look out the rear window.
+
+A squad of police cars was converging on the club he had just left.
+Sirens screaming, they pulled up, blocking the street, and armed
+officers in plain clothes leaped out and hurried into the club.
+
+Meta put her arms around his neck and drew his head down to her lap.
+
+"They're raiding the Friends of Mars," she said, and a soothing note
+crept into her tone. "You're safe, darling. They don't know you were
+there."
+
+"But how did they know? How did you know?" he demanded, struggling
+unsuccessfully to free himself from the imprisonment of her embrace.
+The sound of the sirens had died in the distance behind them.
+
+"I told them," Meta said firmly. "Where do you think I get the wealth
+you've been living on, darling? I own a fourth of the stock of the Mars
+Corporation."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning, Cornel had disappeared. Meta was frantic. Every
+available agency was pressed into service, but Nuyork was a city of
+fifteen million people and Cornel had vanished.
+
+It was two weeks before he returned. When he did, he was gaunt and grim
+and dirty as he had been the night Meta had first seen him in _The
+Avatar_.
+
+"Darling, why did you run away?" she asked, holding him close in her
+arms.
+
+"I came back because I love you," he answered tiredly. "But I came
+back, too, because I love Mars more, Meta. I had to go away and think
+what I was to do."
+
+"It's all right now," she soothed. "You understand that the odds
+against your rebels are just too heavy. You have a life on Earth to
+live."
+
+"Yes," he said in a low voice. "But there'll be no concerts this
+season, Meta."
+
+"Cornel, you can't cancel now! The schedule's all arranged."
+
+"I shall cancel," he said firmly. "You want me to live on Earth, so you
+must let me learn about Earth. I intend to spend this winter studying
+psychosociology and terrestrial law--and composing."
+
+Her brow cleared.
+
+"If you'll continue your composing, it's all right," she said. "Next
+season's concerts can be the greatest ever. I'll pay off the promoters,
+darling."
+
+So it was done. That season the admirers of Cornel Lorensse's music had
+to content themselves with recordings. Cornel himself spent his time
+quietly at Nuyork University and at the house in Jersi.
+
+As she had said, the 2013 concert season was Cornel's greatest, right
+from the start. In part it was due to Meta's own efforts, for she spent
+tremendous sums of money and utilized her own famous personality to
+great advantage in promotional work.
+
+Across the nation, across the the world, the tour swept, snowballing
+constantly. Christmas of 2013, and Cornel Lorensse introduced a great
+new hymn, _From the Polar Caps_. New Year's Day, 2014, and _The Years
+to Come_ was introduced by radio and television at a thousand parties.
+
+There had been some quibbling at the beginning of the season, because
+the business directors of the tour had wanted to combine the drawing
+power of Cornel's name with that of well-known concert orchestras.
+Cornel insisted on using his own orchestra, built up carefully during
+his year of study. As the season progressed, it became apparent that
+Cornel's name alone was enough of a drawing card.
+
+February, March, 2014, and every network had bought into the schedule.
+When Cornel Lorensse's weekly concerts were on the air, there was
+nothing else on radio or television, anywhere in the world, except on
+the non-affiliated local stations. April passed triumphantly, and the
+final concert was scheduled for May 15 in Rome.
+
+The D'Annunzio Colosseum, built in 1971, was filled to capacity.
+Careful staging was necessary, to care for all the cameras and
+microphones of the various television and radio networks.
+
+The program was not a long one: Debussy's _Clair de Lune_, Lorensse's
+_Swift Phobos_, Beethoven's _Moonlight Sonata_, Waco's _Variations on a
+Theme by Altdown_--and the words "To be announced." It was a familiar
+phrase, and it always meant the introduction of a new composition by
+Cornel Lorensse.
+
+The concert went smoothly before--how many listeners? Fifty million? A
+hundred million? Two hundred million? On the great, brightly lighted
+stage Cornel played the concert grand with superb mastery and bowed to
+the applause, a pale, solemn figure in black.
+
+When he had acknowledged the acclamation after the Waco piece, the
+audience waited in hushed silence for his announcement of the final
+number on the program.
+
+"The composition I am about to play is the culmination of my musical
+career," Cornel said quietly into the microphones. "It is a product of
+my studies, not only of music, but of psychosociology and law.
+
+"In hypnoschool last year, I studied the effects of music on the human
+mind. It is a new field, and many of you are aware of it only through
+the fact that certain kinds of music are forbidden by law as dangerous
+to peace on Earth.
+
+"I have tried to go into it much more deeply than that."
+
+He smiled bitterly.
+
+"Most of you know that I am a Martian, one of the so-called Martian
+rebels," he said. "I think much of the appeal of my music to you has
+been its Martian quality. To the people of Earth, most of whom have
+never seen Mars, it has pictured my planet.
+
+"My latest composition will do so even more graphically, for it has
+been composed on a deliberate psychological foundation. This song will
+show Mars to you. It will show you my people, and what my people want.
+
+"I may add that I have studied the law carefully, and I can assure you
+that this composition is not military in nature.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen of Earth, accompanied by the orchestra I shall
+now play _The Martianne_."
+
+In the control rooms of the auditorium and of relay points throughout
+the world, censors, vaguely alarmed by Cornel's words, hovered with
+their fingers on cutoff keys. Then they relaxed. Cornel had told the
+truth. There was nothing of a military nature in the opening bars of
+_The Martianne_.
+
+It was a theme handled, but less competently, in some of his other
+compositions. The woodwinds began on a soft, sad note, gradually rising
+in power, like the thin winds that moaned across the Martian desert
+sands. Into this, almost inaudibly at first, crept the clear piano
+notes that marked the cautious, wondering intrusion of humanity on an
+alien world.
+
+The drums beat the construction of the domes, the horns blared the
+landing of the spaceships, the violins cried the hopes of the men
+and women who went to Mars to find a new life. It was a picture in
+music, so skilfully drawn that when the first discordance crept in,
+every listener could identify it instantly as the age-old greed of man
+seeking to subvert frontier freedoms to his own selfish ends.
+
+When the blare of trumpets and the ruffle of drums thundered into the
+final militant theme of _The Martianne_, every listener knew it bespoke
+the valiant fight of men for freedom against an oppressor.
+
+Every listener knew what he heard was music that had been prohibited
+on Earth for a decade--yet they listened. The censors, shocked,
+galvanized, started to act, to cut off the broadcast--and could not.
+The powerful music had crept insidiously into their minds, and their
+fingers were paralyzed above the keys while _The Martianne_ flamed
+triumphant through the air of Earth.
+
+When the final note had died away, Cornel stood up at his piano and
+said into the microphones:
+
+"That is the music of Mars. Remember it, people of Earth."
+
+It was a brief trial. Cornel was admittedly guilty of violating the law
+against inciting the public to military action, but because of Meta's
+influence and the temper of the people, he was not sentenced to prison.
+He was deported to Mars, freed to return to his own people.
+
+Spurred by the Mars Corporation, the Earth government acted
+quickly. _The Martianne_ was the most dangerous of any music the
+psychosociologists had banned. Its performance was prohibited on
+pain of death, possession of a tape of it was punishable by fine and
+imprisonment.
+
+But too many tapes had been home-recorded on the night of Cornel's
+last concert. Too many people remembered the basic strains, the theme
+of _The Martianne_. Laws could not confine it. It was hummed, at first
+secretly, then openly and defiantly.
+
+And too many people had hung on every televised instant of Cornel's
+trial and had heard him say, simply and earnestly, why he had violated
+the laws designed to protect the peace of Earth, why he had willingly
+endangered his life.
+
+"It is right that men should have peace," said Cornel on the witness
+stand, "but first, it is right that they should have freedom."
+
+At first secretly, then openly and defiantly, the Friends of Mars grew
+into an organization that poured the contributions of the people of
+Earth into ships and guns for the free people of Mars.
+
+Every Martian year they play it formally now, on the anniversary of the
+signing of the Mars Charter. In solemn ceremonies, the military band
+of Mars plays _The Martianne_ before the imposing edifice erected at
+Charax by Meta Erosine in memory of Cornel Lorensse, the patriot who
+died in action during the final siege of Mars City.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Patriot, by Charles L. Fontenay
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59376 ***