Draculas, p.9
Galactic Empires 2, page 9
Still—why was there no protest? The Galactics had homes and property on Voroseith. The grandchildren of the First-comers were grown and bred on this world. There were friendships, business relations, ties of many kinds by the hundreds. As a lover of the strange composite art form that was opera, Deric would suffer from the loss of new Berkeley libretti, for no one else could work as well with Marto Lihh. The Federation itself had done nothing beyond dispatching the transport. All reference to the order had been offhand, casual, as a thing that existed without question.
He could not let the Galactics depart and leave him without an answer. He pushed himself back from the rail and slid rapidly down the ramp to the room where the Earthpeople were.
Here, too, there was silence; even the children were quiet. The Galactics sat in rows on benches, facing each other across the narrow aisles. There was no talking, but groups of friends had sat down together, and occasionally there would be a smile or a nod to someone across the aisle.
As Deric entered, several heads turned in his direction. In every case, there was a friendly smile as he was recognized; several people separated themselves from their immediate groups and came over to him.
‘Deric!’ That was Morris, one of the men who had worked at the museum with him. The Galactic strode up to him rapidly, and laid his hand behind Deric’s head with a firm and friendly greeting-stroke. Deric gently touched his right hand to the Earthman’s own.
‘I thought you’d come down,’ Morris said. His face was regretful at the thought of his leaving.
Now that he was here, among them, Deric felt the strangeness of the situation even more strongly than before. He had never seen a group of Galactics before without seeing his own people among them. It felt strange to suddenly realize that this was the winnowing of all the Galactics on Voroseith—that most of these people knew each other less well than they did the individual Voroseii among whom they had lived and worked; but that, nevertheless, they were suddenly a homogeneous and segregated group by mere virtue of the fact that they were all Galactics.
It was possible to consider the entire problem as a sort of intellectual puzzle, to be evaluated in the light of the economic factors that had made the order necessary. But Morris was his friend and co-worker, so the situation became one of losing a good friend, of never seeing his family again, and of learning to remember that Day 184, GST, was no longer Susan Morris’ birthday.
‘I wanted to see you,’ Deric said. ‘I’m not sure I should be here, but—’ He stopped, not sure of his words. ‘Well…’
Morris smiled. ‘Thanks, Deric’
The other Galactics who had come up exchanged greetings with him in turn. Each of them, like Morris, reflected a regret as great as Deric’s own.
He saw Berkeley, sitting by himself at the end of a bench, his eyes somber. How does he feel? Deric wondered. He turned back to Morris. ‘I—if it’s possible, could I talk to him? You know how much I admire his work.’
‘Easily done,’ Morris said. ‘Come on.’
Deric followed his friend across the floor of the waiting room. As he passed among the seated Galactics, he could see the same traces of sadness in their eyes—sadness, but no protest, no rebellion.
Berkeley looked up at Morris’ words. ‘Deric Liss?’ He turned his eyes on Deric. ‘Of course.’ He reached out and touched Deric’s neck warmly. ‘I’ve read your Cultural History. One of the most valuable texts I’ve ever seen.’
‘Thank you,’ Deric said, his eyes glowing. Completely embarrassed, he felt his body twitch awkwardly. ‘I’ve always admired your work,’ he blurted out, conscious of the clumsiness of the statement. Following Berkeley’s compliment as it did, it sounded more like back-scratching than anything like the sincere appreciation he had intended to express.
But Berkeley smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘I’ll never have a composer like Marto Lihh to work with again,’ he said. A trace of his former brooding look returned to his face.
Deric could hold back his puzzlement no longer. He looked up at Morris and Berkeley. ‘I can’t understand this,’ he said, his voice full of uncertainty. ‘Why are you leaving? Or, if you must leave, why aren’t you…’ He let the sentence trail off. One doesn’t ask a man why he hasn’t been resentful of some injustice you’ve done him.
‘Why aren’t we displaying our famous Terrestrial aggressiveness?’ Berkeley asked, smiling.
‘Yes.’ Completely disconcerted, he said, ‘And you—a man who’s leaving everything he loves and works for. Aren’t you, at least, angry at what we’ve done?’
Berkeley shook his head. ‘Angry? Your planet’s overcrowded. There are no other habitable planets in this system, and we were all competing with you for what room there was. It’s only natural that your government has to consider the well-being of its people. After all, we are a foreign race; this is your planet, to do with as you choose. I’d say the order was a very wise move, from the point of view of your people. I’m sure the rest of us feel the same way.’
Morris nodded.
‘But the Federation…’
‘The Federation is exactly that—not an empire. You have the privileges of membership—and the rights, as well,’ Berkeley pointed out. If he himself felt a personal loss, he kept it within himself.
‘I still don’t understand. When the Ardan group seceded, the remainder of the Federation refused to allow it,’ Deric said.
Berkeley’s face clouded. ‘The Ardan Secession was an armed insurrection, born of frustrated ambition and a desire for power. It was motivated only by the Ardans’ drive to regain control of the Federation.’
‘But they were as justified in their eyes as we are in ours,’ Deric protested.
Berkeley cocked his head. ‘Perhaps—but what about the Ardan dissolutionists? Was that a sign that even all the Ardans were in agreement with their government’s policy?’
‘I don’t approve of our action, either,’ Deric replied.
Berkeley smiled. ‘You mean, it strikes you as being somewhat peremptory; and this feeling is augmented by the fact that we’re submitting to it without any action that would make it seem emotionally justified. If we fought back, you could at least feel that maybe getting rid of the quarrelsome Terrestrials was worthwhile.’
‘Yes…’ Deric admitted slowly, abashed. He had never thought it out that far.
‘But you’re not actively angry at the order,’ Berkeley went on. ‘You sympathize with us, but you don’t feel it’s an outrageous situation.’
The Galactic was right. Deric could feel himself twitching with embarrassment again. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he mumbled.
The librettist smiled again. ‘No need for that,’ he said warmly. ‘We’ve known from the very beginning that this would happen someday. We’ve accepted it, so it didn’t come as a shock.’
Deric, once again, felt his puzzlement coming to the fore. ‘But why did you come at all, then? Look at the history of the last three generations. After we were contacted by the sample ship, your people came here, settled into our culture, and began to live alongside us. More than alongside. You worked for the same goal as we—the progress of Voroseithan culture and civilization. You speak our language. Never once have you done something for the benefit of the Federation, or of Earth. It was as if—as if you were Voroseii yourselves, not as if you were foreigners at all.
‘It was difficult to believe. We expected taxes, or levies of some kind. We expected you to bring your arts and your sciences, to merge our culture with yours. But none of that happened. And now, though you are Galactics, you are nevertheless Voroseii. If you knew you would someday leave, why did you make Voroseith more truly a home than any other world could possibly be?’
Berkeley, who wrote poetry as a Voroseii would, thinking in terms of a six-tone scale, let a flicker of sorrow cross his face. ‘Yes, I imagine that would be what you’d expect. It’s what the Ardans did, when they guided the Federation. You’re right, and yet, you’re wrong, as well.’
He smiled, almost wistfully. ‘Yes, Voroseith is home to us, and we will miss it. But we were working for the benefit of the Federation, nonetheless. We had to act as though we would always live here—more than act, we had to believe we would always live here. We had to devote all our wholehearted energies to working for Voroseith. It was—’ He hesitated, and, for a moment, there was a lost look on his face. ‘It was a shock when we realized that our job was done, that Voroseith was ready to go out into interstellar space.’
‘Interstellar space?’ Deric felt his back arch in puzzlement.
Morris nodded. It’s coming. That’s why you’ve got your navy. You were working out the necessary techniques.’
‘But the Federation rules the Galaxy. Will you permit us to go out into your territory?’
Berkeley spoke again. ‘The Federation doesn’t rule anything; you can’t impose civilization by force. It’s your turn, as a member of a civilizing movement, to go out and pass on what you have to other people. Space is full of worlds, and people. Earth guides the Federation, true, but it doesn’t run it—no one does. We work with the common bond of civilization between us—but it is civilization as an abstract concept—not as a rigid, universal pattern of some kind, into which each diverse culture has to be hammered and forced, jammed into a mold for which it was never suited.’
‘We didn’t try to make you do things our way, did we?’ Morris asked.
Deric waved his arm negatively. ‘No—no, you didn’t. You learned from us, and then you became just so many more individuals working to improve our culture. You brought in a fresh approach to many problems; but it was an approach founded in the roots of our culture, not of yours.’ He stopped.
The annunciator crackled. ‘All cargo has been loaded. Passengers will please embark.’ The dispatcher’s voice lost its impersonality. Another Vorosei was saying goodbye to his friends. ‘Farewell, Earthmen.’
The seated rows of Galactics stood up, still quiet despite the shuffle of feet, the scraping of baggage as it was picked up.
‘So now we’ll be out in space beside you?’ Deric asked Berkeley.
The Galactic nodded. ‘When the groups like ours leave a world, that is the historical sign that another race is going out into the stars, civilized, to civilize.’
Deric felt a surge of pride shoot through him. ‘Then, this was a stage, like the time of the sample ship, during which we were trained.’
Morris shook his head. ‘Not trained. The sample ship was a test, true—but a test designed to measure nothing more than your ability to conceive of other races beyond your own, and your readiness to accept the fact that interstellar travel was an actuality. Why should we train you? Our culture is not superior to yours in any way—and there are far too many diverse races in space, and far too few Earthmen even remotely to justify any attempt to make you do things the way they’re done on Earth.
‘No, we were just sent here to accustom you to working beside other races. We weren’t instructors—we were co-workers.’
Most of the Galactics were already through the doors that led out to the field. Morris and Berkeley touched Deric’s neck again. ‘Goodbye, Deric,’ Morris said.
Berkeley suddenly reached into his pack and pulled out a sheaf of manuscript. ‘I wish you’d take this, Deric.’
Deric looked at the top page. ‘But—but this is the original manuscript for the Llersthein Epic!’
Berkeley nodded. ‘Take it. I’ll remember it, and nobody will really understand it, where I’m going.’
Deric looked up at the Galactic. The somber eyes looked back into his, and, though this was not truly one of his people—theoretically, the facial expressions of one race should be incomprehensible to another—Deric could read what lay in the mind behind the eyes; nor did it occur to him that there was anything remarkable about the fact that he could.
‘Thank you,’ he said, and let the position of his hands and the twist of his body tell Berkeley what emotions lay behind the words.
The two Galactics picked up their packs and swung them over their shoulders, and joined the waiting groups of their families.
Deric stayed where he was, watching them go, still trying to grasp what it was he had half-seen, half-understood. It was important, too, he knew. It explained, more than sadness, the silence that had overlaid the waiting room, the odd feeling that the Galactics were drawn apart into numerous small groups, each of them turning to his family and immediate friends.
As if they were in danger—
Fear! They were afraid! Morris, Berkeley—all of them.
He saw them reach the door and wait for their families to precede them. He coiled his muscles and slid forward in a rapid surge.
Wait!’
Berkeley and Morris turned back toward him, their faces questioning.
‘Where are you going?’ Deric asked. ‘What are you going to do?
‘I don’t know,’ Berkeley said. ‘I don’t know,’ he repeated slowly. ‘We’re being taken to Earth.’ And now Deric could plainly see the naked uncertainty in their eyes, the hesitation, the clammy tinge of fear.
‘We have to get going,’ Morris said with sudden harshness—the harshness of nerves strained to the point where they sang and vibrated, waiting for the first new burden to snap and lash back with deadly effect.
Berkeley smiled at Deric—but there were white spots along his own jawline. He laid a gentle hand on Deric’s neck. ‘I liked it here,’ he said wistfully. ‘I was born here, like my father was.’ He looked up, through the panes of the exit door, and, at that moment, the overcast finally broke, and the starlight flashed through.
Berkeley winced as though something had struck him. Then he shook himself and grinned—the fighting grin that was the Earthman’s trademark. Nevertheless, there was something haunted in his voice as he said, ‘I wonder what Earth is like.’
‘Come on!’ Morris said, and half-pushed Berkeley through the door. He raised a hand in a last farewell to Deric, and Berkeley, with Morris’ hand on his shoulder, half turned, and waved apologetically for their friend’s nervousness.
Deric looked after them, feeling the first beginnings of understanding trickle into his consciousness, knowing that the trickle would swell into a live, leaping torrent. When it came, he had better be very, very busy at some work that was unimportant enough to be spoiled by trembling hands, or clouded vision.
What was it the dispatcher had said? ‘Farewell, Earthmen?’ He shook his head in the acquired Terrestrial mannerism, turned, and slipped rapidly up the ramp to the observation platform. He watched the last of the Galactics walk into the waiting ship.
‘Farewell, Voroseii,’ he said softly, as his brothers went unprotestingly into exile.
Earth’s Secret Service kept peace in the Galaxy efficiently—very efficiently. It was always there… before trouble started!
BEEP
By James Blish
I
Josef Faber lowered his newspaper slightly. Finding the girl on the park bench looking his way, he smiled the agonizingly embarrassed smile of the thoroughly married caught bird-watching, and ducked back into the paper again.
He was reasonably certain that he looked the part of a middle-aged, steadily employed, harmless citizen enjoying a Sunday break in the bookkeeping and family routines. He was also quite certain, despite his official instructions, that it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference if he didn’t. These boy-meets-girl assignments always came off. Jo had never tackled a single one that had required him.
As a matter of fact, the newspaper, which he was supposed to be using only as a blind, interested him a good deal more than his job did. He had only barely begun to suspect the obvious ten years ago when the Service had snapped him up; now, after a decade as an agent, he was still fascinated to see how smoothly the really important situations came off. The dangerous situations—not boy-meets-girl.
This affair of the Black Hose Nebula, for instance. Some days ago the papers and the commentators had begun to mention reports of disturbances in that area, and Jo’s practiced eye had picked up the mention. Something big was cooking.
Today it had boiled over—the Black Horse Nebula had suddenly spewed ships by the hundreds, a massed armada that must have taken more than a century of effort on the part of a whole star-cluster, a production drive conducted in the strictest and most fanatical kind of secrecy—
And, of course, the Service had been on the spot in plenty of time. With three times as many ships, disposed with mathematical precision so as to enfilade the entire armada the moment it broke from the nebula. The battle had been a massacre, the attack smashed before the average citizen could even begin to figure out what it had been aimed at—and good had triumphed over evil once more.
Of course.
Furtive scuffings on the gravel drew his attention briefly. He looked at his watch, which said 14:58:03. That was the time, according to his instructions, when boy had to meet girl.
He had been given the strictest kind of orders to let nothing interfere with this meeting—the orders always issued on boy-meets-girl assignments. But, as usual, he had nothing to do but observe. The meeting was coming off on the dot, without any prodding from Jo. They always did.
Of course.
With a sigh, he folded his newspaper, smiling again at the couple—yes, it was the right man, too—and moved away, as if reluctantly. He wondered what would happen were he to pull away the false mustache, pitch the newspaper on the grass, and bound away with a joyous whoop. He suspected that the course of history would not be deflected by even a second of arc, but he was not minded to try the experiment.
