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or I could have stood against."
Lucy had risen to her feet and now she came across the room, moving
quietly and slowly, as if she might be floating.
The Hazer spoke to her in the common tongue. "I am glad to meet you.
Very glad to meet you."
"She cannot speak," Ulysses said. "Nor hear. She has no communication."
"Compensation," said the Hazer.
"You think so?" asked Ulysses.
"I am sure of it."
He walked slowly forward and Lucy waited.
"It-she, the female form, you called it-she is not afraid."
Ulysses chuckled. "Not even of me," he said.
The Hazer reached out his hand to her and she stood quietly for a
moment, then one of her hands came up and took the Hazer's fingers, more
like tentacles than fingers, in its grasp.
It seemed to Enoch, for a moment, that the cloak of golden haze reached
out to wrap the Earth girl in its glow. Enoch blinked his eyes and the
illusion, if it had been illusion, was swept away, and it only was the Hazer
who had the golden cloak.
And how was it, Enoch wondered, that there was no fear in her, either
of Ulysses or the Hazer? Was it because, in truth, as he had said, she could
see beyond the outward guise, could somehow sense the basic humanity (God
help me, I cannot think, even now, except in human terms!) that was in these
creatures? And if that were true, was it because she herself was not
entirely human? A human, certainly, in form and origin, but not formed and
molded into the human culture-being perhaps, what a human would be if he
were not hemmed about so closely by the rules of behavior and outlook that
through the years had hardened into law to comprise a common human attitude.
Lucy dropped the Hazer's hand and went back to the sofa.
The Hazer said, "Enoch Wallace."
"Yes."
"She is of your race?"
"Yes, of course she is."
"She is most unlike you. Almost as if there were two races."
"There is not two races. There is only one."
"Are there many others like her?"
"I would not know," said Enoch.
"Coffee," said Ulysses to the Hazer. "Would you like some coffee?"
"Coffee?"
"A most delicious brew. Earth's one great accomplishment."
"I am not acquainted with it," said the Hazer. "I don't believe I
will."
He turned ponderously to Enoch.
"You know why I am here?" he asked.
"I believe so."
"It is a matter I regret," said the Hazer. "But I must ..."
"If you'd rather," Enoch said, "we can consider that the protest has
been made. I would so stipulate."
"Why not?" Ulysses said. "There is no need, it seems to me, to have the
three of us go through a somewhat painful scene."
The Hazer hesitated.
"If you feel you must," said Enoch.
"No," the Hazer said. "I am satisfied if an unspoken protest be
generously accepted."
"Accepted," Enoch said, "on just one condition. That I satisfy myself
that the charge is not unfounded. I must go out and see."
"You do not believe me?"
"It is not a matter of belief. It is something that can be checked. I
cannot accept either for myself or for my planet until I have done that
much."
"Enoch," Ulysses said, "the Vegan has been gracious. Not only now, but
before this happened. His race presses the charge most reluctantly. They
suffered much to protect the Earth and you."
"And the feeling is that I would be ungracious if I did not accept the
protest and the charge on the Vegan statement."
"I am sorry, Enoch," said Ulysses. "That is what I mean."
Enoch shook his head. "For years I've tried to understand and to
conform to the ethics and ideas of all the people who have come through this
station. I've pushed my own human instincts and training to one side. I've
tried to understand other viewpoints and to evaluate other ways of thinking,
many of which did violence to my own. I am glad of all of it, for it has
given me a chance to go beyond the narrowness of Earth. I think I gained
something from it all. But none of this touched Earth; only myself was
involved. This business touches Earth and I must approach it from an
Earthman's viewpoint. In this particular instance I am not simply the keeper
of a galactic station."
Neither of them said a word. Enoch stood waiting and still there was
nothing said.
Finally he turned and headed for the door.
"I'll be back," he told them.
He spoke the phrase and the door started to slide open.
"If you'll have me," said the, Hazer quietly, "I'd like to go with
you."
"Fine," said Enoch. "Come ahead."
It was dark outside and Enoch lit the lantern. The Hazer watched him
closely.
"Fossil fuel," Enoch told him. "It burns at the tip of a saturated
wick."
The Hazer said, in horror, "But surely you have better."
"Much better now," said Enoch. "I am just old-fashioned."
He led the way outside, the lantern throwing a small pool of light. The
Hazer followed.
"It is a wild planet," said the Hazer.
"Wild here. There are parts of it are tame."
"My own planet is controlled," the Hazer said. "Every foot of it is
planned."
"I know. I have talked to many Vegans. They described the planet to
me."
They headed for the barn.
"You want to go back?" asked Enoch.
"No," said the Hazer. "I find it exhilarating. Those are wild plants
over there?"
"We call them trees," said Enoch.
"The wind blows as it wishes?"
"That's right," said Enoch. "We do not know as yet how to control the
weather."
The spade stood just inside the barn door and Enoch picked it up. He
headed for the orchard.
"You know, of course," the Hazer said, "the body will be gone."
"I'm prepared to find it gone."
"Then why?" the Hazer asked.
"Because I must be sure. You can't understand that, can you?"
"You said back there in the station," the Hazer said, "that you tried
to understand the rest of us. Perhaps, for a change, at least one of us
should try understanding you."
Enoch led the way down the path through the orchard. They came to the
rude fence enclosing the burial plot. The sagging gate stood open. Enoch
went through it and the Hazer followed.
"This is where you buried him?"
"This is my family plot. My mother and father are here and I put him
with them."
He handed the lantern to the Vegan and, armed with the spade, walked up
to the grave. He thrust the spade into the ground.
"Would you hold the lantern a little closer, please?"
The Hazer moved up a step or two.
Enoch dropped to his knees and brushed away the leaves that had fallen
on the ground. Underneath them was the soft, fresh earth that had been newly
turned. There was a depression and a small hole at the bottom of the
depression. As he brushed at the earth, he could hear the clods of displaced
dirt falling through the hole and striking on something that was not the
soil.
The Hazer had moved the lantern again and he could not see. But he did
not need to see. He knew there was no use of digging; he knew what he would
find. He should have kept watch. He should not have put up the stone to
attract attention-but Galactic Central had said, "As if he were your own."
And that was the way he'd done it.
He straightened, but remained upon his knees, felt the damp of the
earth soaking through the fabric of his trousers.
"No one told me," said the Hazer, speaking softly.
"Told you what?"
"The memorial. And what is written on it. I was not aware that you knew
our language."
"I learned it long ago. There were scrolls I wished to read. I'm afraid
it's not too good."
"Two misspelled words," the Hazer told him, "and one little
awkwardness. But those are things which do not matter. What matters, and
matters very much, is that when you wrote, you thought as one of us."
Enoch rose and reached out for the lantern.
"Let's go back," he said sharply, almost impatiently. "I know now who
did this. I have to hunt him out."
The treetops far above moaned in the rising wind. Ahead, the great
clump of canoe birch showed whitely in the dim glow of the lantern's light.
The birch clump, Enoch knew, grew on the lip of a small cliff that dropped
twenty feet or more and here one turned to the right to get around it and
continue down the hillside.
Enoch turned slightly and glanced over his shoulder. Lucy was following
close behind. She smiled at him and made a gesture to say she was all right.
He made a motion to indicate that they must turn to the right, that she must
follow closely. Although, he told himself, it probably wasn't necessary; she
knew the hillside as well, perhaps even better, than he did himself.
He turned to the right and followed along the edge of the rocky cliff,
came to the break and clambered down to reach the slope below. Off to the
left he could hear the murmur of the swiftly running creek that tumbled down
the rocky ravine from the spring below the field.
The hillside plunged more steeply now and he led a way that angled
across the steepness.
Funny, he thought, that even in the darkness he could recognize certain
natural features-the crooked white oak that twisted itself, hanging at a
crazy angle above the slope of hill; the small grove of massive red oaks
that grew out of a dome of tumbled rock, so placed that no axman had even
tried to cut them down; the tiny swamp, filled with cattails, that fitted
itself snugly into a little terrace carved into the hillside.
Far below he caught the gleam of window light and angled down toward
it. He looked back over his shoulder and Lucy was following close behind.
They came to a rude fence of poles and crawled through it and now the
ground became more level.
Somewhere below a dog barked in the dark and another joined him. More
joined in and the pack came sweeping up the slope toward them. They arrived
in a rush of feet, veered around Enoch and the lantern to launch themselves
at Lucy-supenly transformed, at the sight of her, into a welcoming committee
rather than a company of guards. They reared upward, a tangled mass of dogs.
Her hands went out and patted at their heads. As if by signal, they went
rushing off in a happy frolic, circling to come back again.
A short distance beyond the pole fence was a vegetable garden and Enoch
led the way across, carefully following a path between the rows. Then they
were in the yard and the house stood before them, a tumble-down, sagging
structure, its outlines swallowed by the darkness, the kitchen windows
glowing with a soft, warm lamplight.
Enoch crossed the yard to the kitchen door and knocked. He heard feet
coming across the kitchen floor.
The door came open and Ma Fisher stood framed against the light, a
great, tall, bony woman clothed in something that was more sack than dress.
She stared at Enoch, half frightened, half belligerent. Then, back of
him, she saw the girl.
"Lucy!" she cried.
The girl came forward with a rush and her mother caught her in her
arms.
Enoch set his lantern on the ground, tucked the rifle underneath his
arm, and stepped across the threshold.
The family had been at supper, seated about a great round table set in
the center of the kitchen. An ornate oil lamp stood in the center of the
table. Hank had risen to his feet, but his three sons and the stranger still
were seated.
"So you brung her back," said Hank.
"I found her," Enoch said.
"We quit hunting for her just a while ago," Hank told him. "We was
going out again."
"You remember what you told me this afternoon?" asked Enoch.
"I told you a lot of things."
"You told me that I had the devil in me. Raise your hand against that
girl once more and I promise you I'll show you just how much devil there is
in me."
"You can't bluff me," Hank blustered.
But the man was frightened. It showed in the limpness of his face, the
tightness of his body.
"I mean it," Enoch said. "just try me out and see." The two men stood
for a moment, facing one another, then Hank sat down.
"Would you join us in some victuals?" he inquired.
Enoch shook his head.
He looked at the stranger. "Are you the ginseng man?" he asked.
The man noped. "That is what they call me."
"I want to talk with you. Outside."
Claude Lewis stood up.
"You don't have to go," said Hank. "He can't make you go. He can talk
to you right here."
"I don't mind," said Lewis. "In fact, I want to talk with him. You're
Enoch Wallace, aren't you?"
"That's who he is," said Hank. "Should of died of old age fifty years
ago. But look at him. He's got the devil in him. I tell you, him and the
devil has a deal."
"Hank," Lewis said, "shut up."
Lewis came around the table and went out the door. "Good night," Enoch
said to the rest of them. "Mr. Wallace," said Ma Fisher, "thanks for
bringing back my girl. Hank won't hit her again. I can promise you. I'll see
to that."
Enoch went outside and shut the door. He picked up the lantern. Lewis
was out in the yard. Enoch went to him.
"Let's walk off a ways," he said.
They stopped at the edge of the garden and turned to face one another.
"You been watching me," said Enoch.
Lewis noped.
"Official? Or just snooping?"
"Official, I'm afraid. My name is Claude Lewis. There is no reason I
shouldn't tell you-I'm C.I.A."
"I'm not a traitor or a spy," Enoch said.
"No one thinks you are. We're just watching you."
"You know about the cemetery?"
Lewis noped.
"You took something from a grave."
"Yes," said Lewis. "The one with the funny headstone."
"Where is it?"
"You mean the body. It's in Washington."
"You shouldn't have taken it," Enoch said, grimly. "You've caused a lot
of trouble. You have to get it back. As quickly as you can."
"It will take a little time," said Lewis. "They'll have to fly it out.
Twenty-four hours, maybe."
"That's the fastest you can make it?"
"I might do a little better."
"Do the very best you can. It's important that you get that body back."
"I will, Wallace. I didn't know ..."
"And, Lewis."
"Yes."
"Don't try to play it smart. Don't ap any frills. Just do what I tell
you. I'm trying to be reasonable because that's the only thing to be. But
you try one smart move ..."
He reached out a hand and grabbed Lewis's shirt front, twisting the
fabric tight.
"You understand me, Lewis?"
Lewis was unmoved. He did not try to pull away. "Yes," he said. "I
understand."
"What the hell ever made you do it?"
"I had a job."
"Yeah, a job. Watching me. Not robbing graves." He let loose of the
shirt.
"Tell me," said Lewis, "that thing in the grave. What was it?"
"That's none of your damn' business," Enoch told him, bitterly.
"Getting back that body is. You're sure that you can do it? Nothing standing
in your way?"
Lewis shook his head. "Nothing at all. I'll phone as soon as I can
reach a phone. I'll tell them that it's imperative."
"It's all of that," said Enoch. "Getting that body back is the most
important thing you've ever done. Don't forget that for a minute. It affects
everyone on Earth. You and me and everyone. And if you fail, you'll answer
to me for it."
"With that gun?"
"Maybe," Enoch said. "Don't fool around. Don't imagine that I'd
hesitate to kill you. In this situation, I'd kill anyone-anyone at all."
"Wallace, is there something you can tell me?"
"Not a thing," said Enoch. He picked up the lantern. "You're going
home?"
Enoch noped.
"You don't seem to mind us watching you."
"No," Enoch told him. "Not your watching. Just your interference. Bring
back that body and go on watching if you want to. But don't push me any.
Don't lean on me. Keep your hands off. Don't touch anything."
"But good God, man, there's something going on. You can tell me
something."
Enoch hesitated.
"Some idea," said Lewis, "of what this is all about. Not the details,
just ..."
"You bring the body back," Enoch told him, slowly, "and maybe we can
talk again."
"It will be back," said Lewis.
"If it's not," said Enoch, "you're as good as dead right now."
Turning, he went across the garden and started up the hill.
In the yard, Lewis stood for a long time, watching the lantern bobbing
out of sight.
Ulysses was alone in the station when Enoch returned. He had sent the
Tuban on his way and the Hazer back to Vega.
A fresh pot of coffee was brewing and Ulysses was sprawled out on the
sofa, doing nothing.
Enoch hung up the rifle and blew out the lantern. Taking off his
jacket, he threw it on the desk. He sat down in a chair across from the
sofa.
"The body will be back," he said, "by this time tomorrow."
"I sincerely hope," Ulysses said, "that it will do some good. But I'm
inclined to doubt it."
"Maybe," said Enoch bitterly, "I should not have bothered."
"It will show good faith," Ulysses said. "It might have some mitigating
effect in the final weighing."
"The Hazer could have told me," Enoch said, "where the body was. If he
knew it had been taken from the grave, then he must have known where it
could be found."
"I would suspect he did," Ulysses said, "but, you see, he couldn't tell
you. All that he could do was to make his protest. The rest was up to you.
He could not lay aside his dignity by suggesting what you should do about
it. For the record, he must remain the injured party."
"Sometimes," said Enoch, "this business is enough to drive one crazy.
Despite the briefings from Galactic Central, there are always some
surprises, always yawning traps for you to tumble into."
"There may come a day," Ulysses said, "when it won't be like that. I
can look ahead and see, in some thousands of years, the knitting of the
galaxy together into one great culture, one huge area of understanding. The
local and the racial variations still will exist, of course, and that is as
it should be, but overriding all of these will be a tolerance that will make
for what one might be tempted to call a brotherhood."
"You sound," said Enoch, "almost like a human. That is the sort of hope
that many of our thinkers have held out."
"Perhaps," Ulysses said. "You know that a lot of Earth seems to have
rubbed off on-me. You can't spend as long as I did on your planet without
picking up at least a bit of it. And by the way, you made a good impression
on the Vegan."
"I hadn't noticed it," Enoch told him. "He was kind and correct, of
course, but little more."
"That inscription on the gravestone. He was impressed by that."
"I didn't put it there to impress anyone. I wrote it out because it was
the way I felt. And because I like the Hazers. I was only trying to make it
right for them."
"If it were not for the pressure from the galactic factions," Ulysses
said, "I am convinced the Vegans would be willing to forget the incident and
that is a greater concession than you can realize. It may be that, even so,
they may line up with us when the showdown comes."
"You mean they might save the station?"
Ulysses shook his head. "I doubt anyone can do that. But it will be
easier for all of us at Galactic Central if they threw their weight with
us."
The coffeepot was making sounds and Enoch went to get it. Ulysses had
pushed some of the trinkets on the coffee table to one side to make room for
two coffee cups. Enoch filled them and set the pot upon the floor.
Ulysses picked up his cup, held it for a moment in his hands, then put
it back on the table top.
"We're in bad shape," he said. "Not like in the old days. It has
Galactic Central worried. All this squabbling and haggling among the races,
all the pushing and the shoving."
He looked at Enoch. "You thought it was all nice and cozy."
"No," said Enoch, "not that. I knew that there were conflicting
viewpoints and I knew there was some trouble. But I'm afraid I thought of it
as being on a fairly lofty plane-gentlemanly, you know, and good-mannered."
"That was the way it was at one time. There always have been differing
opinions, but they were based on principles and ethics, not on special
interests. You know about the spiritual force, of course-the universal
spiritual force."
Enoch noped. "I've read some of the literature. I don't quite
understand, but I'm willing to accept it. There is a way, I know, to get in
contact with the force."
"The Talisman," said Ulysses.
"That's it. The Talisman. A machine, of sorts."
"I suppose," Ulysses agreed, "you could call it that. Although the
word, 'machine' is a little awkward. More than mechanics went into the
making of it. There is just the one. Only one was ever made, by a mystic who
lived ten thousand of your years ago. I wish I could tell you what it is or
how it is constructed, but there is no one, I am afraid, who can tell you
that. There have been others who have attempted to duplicate the Talisman,
but no one has succeeded. The mystic who made it left no blueprints, no
plans, no specifications, not a single note. There is no one who knows
anything about it."
"There is no reason, I suppose," said Enoch, "that another should not
be made. No sacred taboos, I mean. To make another one would not be
sacrilegious."
"Not in the least," Ulysses told him. "In fact, we need another badly.
For now we have no Talisman. It has disappeared."
Enoch jerked upright in his chair.
"Disappeared?" he asked.
"Lost," said Ulysses. "Misplaced. Stolen. No one knows."
"But I hadn't ..."
Ulysses smiled bleakly. "You hadn't heard. I know. It is not something
that we talk about. We wouldn't dare. The people must not know. Not for a
while, at least."
"But how can you keep it from them?"
"Not too hard to do. You know how it worked, how the custodian took it
from planet to planet and great mass meetings were held, where the Talisman
was exhibited and contact made through it with the spiritual force. There
had never been a schedule of appearances; the custodian simply wandered. It
might be a hundred of your years or more between the visits of the custodian
to any particular planet. The people hold no expectations of a visit. They
simply know there'll be one, sometime; that some day the custodian will show
up with the Talisman."
"That way you can cover up for years."
"Yes," Ulysses said. "Without any trouble."
"The leaders know, of course. The administrative people."
Ulysses shook his head. "We have told very few. The few that we can
trust. Galactic Central knows, of course, but we're a close-mouthed lot."
"Then why ..."
"Why should I be telling you. I know; I shouldn't. I don't know why I
am. Yes, I guess I do. How does it feel, my friend, to sit as a
compassionate confessor?"
"You're worried," Enoch said. "I never thought I would see you
worried."
"It's a strange business," Ulysses said. "The Talisman has been missing
for several years or so. And no one knows about it-except Galactic Central
and the- what would you call it?-the hierarchy, I suppose, the organization
of mystics who takes care of the spiritual setup. And yet, even with no one
knowing, the galaxy is beginning to show wear. It's coming apart at the
seams. In time to come, it may fall apart. As if the Talisman represented a
force that all unknowingly held the races of the galaxy together, exerting
its influence even when it remained unseen."
"But even if it's lost, it's somewhere," Enoch pointed out. "It still
would be exerting its influence. It couldn't have been destroyed."
"You forget," Ulysses reminded him, "that without its proper custodian,
without its sensitive, it is inoperative. For it's not the machine itself
that does the trick. The machine merely acts as an intermediary between the
sensitive and the spiritual force. It is an extension of the sensitive. It
magnifies the capability of the sensitive and acts as a link of some sort.
It enables the sensitive to perform his function."
"You feel that the loss of the Talisman has something to do with the
situation here?"
"The Earth station. Well, not directly, but it is typical. What is
happening in regard to the station is symptomatic. It involves the sort of
petty quarreling and mean bickering that has broken out through many
sections of the galaxy. In the old days it would have been-what did you say,
gentlemanly and on a plane of principles and ethics."
They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the soft sound that the
wind made as it blew through the gable gingerbread.
"Don't worry about it," Ulysses said. "It is not your worry. I should
not have told you. It was indiscreet to do so."
"You mean I shouldn't pass it on. You can be sure I won't."
"I know you won't," Ulysses said. "I never thought you would."
"You really think relations in the galaxy are deteriorating?"
"Once," Ulysses said, "the races all were bound together. There were
differences, naturally, but these differences were bridged, sometimes rather
artificially and not too satisfactorily, but with both sides striving to
maintain the artificial bridging and generally succeeding. Because they
wanted to, you see. There was a common purpose, the forging of a great
cofraternity of all intelligences. We realized that among us, among all the
races, we had a staggering fund of knowledge and of techniques-that working
together, by putting together all this knowledge and capability, we could
arrive at something that would be far greater and more significant than any
race, alone, could hope of accomplishing. We had our troubles, certainly,
and as I have said, our differences, but we were progressing. We brushed the
small animosities and the petty differences underneath the rug and worked
only on the big ones. We felt that if we could get the big ones settled, the
small ones would become so small they would disappear. But it is becoming
different now. There is a tendency to pull the pettiness from underneath the
rug and blow it beyond its size, meanwhile letting the major and the
important issues fall away."
"It sounds like Earth," said Enoch.
"In many ways," Ulysses said. "In principle, although the circumstances
would diverge immensely."
"You've been reading the papers I have been saving for you?"
Ulysses noped. "It doesn't look too happy."
"It looks like war," said Enoch bluntly.
Ulysses stirred uneasily.
"You don't have wars," said Enoch.
"The galaxy, you mean. No, as we are set up now we don't have wars."
"Too civilized?"
"Stop being bitter," Ulysses told him. "There has been a time or two
when we came very close, but not in recent years. There are many races now
in the cofratemity that in their formative years had a history of war."
"There is hope for us, then. It's something you outgrow."
"In time, perhaps."
"But not a certainty?"
"No, I wouldn't say so."
"I've been working on a chart," said Enoch. "Based on the Mizar system
of statistics. The chart says there is going to be war."
"You don't need the chart," Ulysses said, "to tell you that."
"But there was something else. It was not just knowing if there'd be a
war. I had hoped that the chart might show how to keep the peace. There must
be a way. A formula, perhaps. If we could only think of it or know where to
look or whom to ask or ..."
"There is a way," Ulysses said, "to prevent a war."
"You mean you know ..."
"It's a drastic measure. It only can be used as a last resort."
"And we've not reached that last resort?"
"I think, perhaps, you have. The kind of war that Earth would fight
could spell an end to thousands of years of advancement, could wipe out all
the culture, everything but the feeble remnants of civilizations. It could,
just possibly, eliminate most of the life upon the planet."
"This method of yours-it has been used?"
"A few times."
"And worked?"
"Oh, certainly. We'd not even consider it if it didn't work."
"It could be used on Earth?"
"You could apply for its application."
"I?"
"As a representative of the Earth. You could appear before Galactic
Central and appeal for us to use it. As a member of your race, you could
give testimony and you would be given a hearing. If there seemed to be merit
in your plea, Central might name a group to investigate and then, upon the
report of its findings, a decision would be made."
"You said I. Could anyone on Earth?"
"Anyone who could gain a hearing. To gain a hearing, you must know
about Galactic Central and you're the only man of Earth who does. Besides,
you're a part of Galactic Central's staff. You have served as a keeper for a
long time. Your record has been good. We would listen to you."
"But one man alone! One man can't speak for an entire race."
"You're the only one of your race who is qualified."
"If I could consult some others of my race."
"You can't. And even if you could, who would believe you?"
"That's true," said Enoch.
Of course it was. To him there was no longer any strangeness in the
idea of a galactic cofraternity, of a transportation network that spread
among the stars-a sense of wonder at times, but the strangeness had largely
worn off. Although, he remembered, it had taken years. Years even with the
physical evidence there before his eyes, before he could bring himself to a
complete acceptance of it. But tell it to any other Earthman and it would
sound like madness.
"And this method?" he asked, almost afraid to ask it, braced to take
the shock of whatever it might be.
"Stupidity," Ulysses said.
Enoch gasped. "Stupidity? I don't understand. We are stupid enough, in
many ways, right now."
"You're thinking of intellectual stupidity and there is plenty of that,
not only on Earth, but throughout the galaxy. What I am talking about is a
mental incapacity. An inability to understand the science and the technique
that makes possible the kind of war that Earth would fight. An inability to
operate the machines that are necessary to fight that kind of war. Turning
the people back to a mental position where they would not be able to
comprehend the mechanical and technological and scientific advances they
have made. Those who know would forget. Those who didn't know could never
learn. Back to the simplicity of the wheel and lever. That would make your
kind of war impossible."
Enoch sat stiff and straight, unable to speak, gripped by an icy
terror, while a million disconnected thoughts went chasing one another in a
circle through his brain.
"I told you it was drastic," Ulysses said. "It has to be. War is
something that costs a lot to stop. The price is high."
"I couldn't!" Enoch said. "No one could."
"Perhaps you can't. But consider this: If there is a war..."
"I know. If there is a war, it could be worse. But it wouldn't stop
war. It's not the kind of thing I had in mind. People still could fight,
still could kill."
"With clubs," said Ulysses. "Maybe bows and arrows. Rifles, so long as
they still had rifles, and until they ran out of ammunition. Then they
wouldn't know how to make more powder or how to get the metal to make the
bullets or even how to make the bullets. There might be fighting, but
there'd be no holocaust. Cities would not be wiped out by nuclear warheads,
for no one could fire a rocket or arm the warhead-perhaps wouldn't even know
what a rocket or a warhead was. Communications as you know them would be
gone. All but the simplest transportation would be gone. War, except on a
limited local scale, would be impossible."
"It would be terrible," Enoch said.
"So is war," Ulysses said. "The choice is up to you."
"But how long?" asked Enoch. "How long would it last? We wouldn't have
to go back to stupidity forever?"
"Several generations," said Ulysses. "By that time the effect of-what
shall we call it? the treatment?-would gradually begin wearing off. The
people slowly would shake off their moronic state and begin their
intellectual climb again. They'd be given, in effect, a second chance."
"They could," said Enoch, "in a few generations after that arrive at
exactly the same situation that we have today."
"Possibly. I wouldn't expect it, though. Cultural development would be
most unlikely to be entirely parallel. There'd be a chance that you'd have a
better civilization and a more peaceful people."
"It's too much for one man ..."
"Something hopeful," Ulysses said, "that you might consider. The method
is offered only to those races which seem to us to be worth the saving."
"You have to give me time," said Enoch.
But he knew there was no time.
A man would have a job and supenly be unable to perform it. Nor could
the men around him carry on their jobs. For they would not have the
knowledge or the backgrounds to do the tasks that they had been doing. They
might try, of course-they might keep on trying for a time, but perhaps for
not too long. And because the jobs could not be done, the business or the
corporation or factory or whatever it might be, would cease its operation.
Although the going out of business would not be a formal nor a legal thing.
It would simply stop. And not entirely because the jobs could not be done,
because no one could muster the business sense to keep it operating, but
also because the transportation and communications which made the business
possible also would have stopped.
Locomotives could not be operated, nor could planes and ships, for
there would be no one who would remember how to operate them. There would be
men who at one time had possessed all the skills that had been necessary for
their operation, but now the skills would have disappeared. There might be
some who still would try, with tragic consequences. And there still might be
a few who could vaguely remember how to operate the car or truck or bus, for
they were simple things to run and it would be almost second nature for a
man to drive them. But once they had broken down, there would be no one with
the knowledge of mechanics to repair them and they'd not run again.
In the space of a few hours' time the human race would be stranded in a
world where distance once again had come to be a factor. The world would
grow the larger and the oceans would be barriers and a mile would be long
once more. And in a few days' time there would be a panic and a hupling and
a fleeing and a desperation in the face of a situation that no one could
comprehend.
How long, Enoch wondered, would it take a city to use the last of the
food stacked in its warehouses and then begin to starve? What would happen
when electricity stopped flowing through the wires? How long, under a
situation such as this, would a silly symbolic piece of paper or a minted
coin still retain its value?
Distribution would break down; commerce and industry would die;
government would become a shadow, with neither the means nor the
intelligence to keep it functioning; communications would cease; law and
order would disintegrate; the world would sink into a new barbaric framework
and would begin to slowly readjust. That readjustment would go on for years
and in the process of it there would be death and pestilence and untold
misery and despair. In time it would work out and the world would settle
down to its new way of life, but in the process of shaking down there'd be
many who would die and many others who would lose everything that had
spelled out life for them and the purpose of that life.
But would it, bad as it might be, be as bad as war?
Many would die of cold and hunger and disease (for medicine would go
the way of all the rest), but millions would not be annihilated in the fiery
breath of nuclear reaction. There would be no poison dust raining from the
skies and the waters still would be as pure and fresh as ever and the soil
remain as fertile. There still would be a chance, once the initial phases of
the change had passed, for the human race to go on living and rebuild
society.
If one were certain, Enoch told himself, that there would be a war,
that war was inescapable, then the choice might not be hard to make. But
there was always the possibility that the world could avoid war, that
somehow a frail, thin peace could be preserved, and in such a case the
desperate need of the galactic cure for war would be unnecessary. Before one
could decide, he told himself, one must be sure; and how could one be sure?
The chart lying in the desk drawer said there would be a war; many of the
diplomats and observers felt that the upcoming peace conference might serve
no other purpose than to trigger war. Yet there was no surety.
And even if there were, Enoch asked himself, how could one man-one man,
alone-take it upon himself to play the role of God for the entire race? By
what right did one man make a decision that affected all the rest, all the
billions of others? Could he, if he did, ever be able, in the years to come,
to justify his choice?
How could a man decide how bad war might be and, in comparison, how bad
stupidity? The answer seemed to be he couldn't. There was no way to measure
possible disaster in either circumstance.
After a time, perhaps, a choice either way could be rationalized. Given
time, a conviction might develop that would enable a man to arrive at some
sort of decision which, while it might not be entirely right, he
nevertheless could square with his conscience.
Enoch got to his feet and walked to the window. The sound of his
footsteps echoed hollowly in the station. He looked at his watch and it was
after midnight.
There were races in the galaxy, he thought, who could reach a quick and
right decision on almost any question, cutting straight across all the
tangled lines of thought, guided by rules of logic that were more specific
than anything the human race might have. That would be good, of course, in
the sense that it made decision possible, but in arriving at decision would
it not tend to minimize, perhaps ignore entirely, some of those very facets
of the situation that might mean more to the human race than the decision
would itself?
Enoch stood at the window and stared out across the moonlit fields that
ran down to the dark line of the woods. The clouds had blown away and the
night was peaceful. This particular spot, he thought, always would be
peaceful, for it was off the beaten track, distant from any possible target
in atomic war. Except for the remote possibility of some ancient and
non-recorded, long forgotten minor conflict in prehistoric days, no battle
ever had been fought here or ever would be fought. And yet it would not
escape the common fate of poisoned soil and water if the world should
supenly, in a fateful hour of fury, unleash the might of its awesome
weapons. Then the skies would be filled with atomic ash, which would come
sifting down, and it would make little difference where a man might be. Soon
or late, the war would come to him, if not in a flash of monstrous energy,
then in the snow of death falling from the skies.
He walked from the window to the desk and gathered up the newspapers
that had come in the morning mail and put them in a pile, noticing as he did
so that Ulysses had forgotten to take with him the stack of papers which had
been saved for him. Ulysses was upset, he told himself, or he'd not have
forgotten the papers. God save us both, he thought; for we have our
troubles.
It had been a busy day. He had done no more, he realized, than read two
or three of the stories in the Times, all touching on the calling of the
conference. The day had been too full, too full of direful things.
For a hundred years, he thought, things had gone all right. There had
been the good moments and the bad, but by and large his life had gone on
serenely and without alarming incident. Then today had dawned and all the
serene years had come tumbling down all about his ears.
There once had been a hope that Earth could be accepted as a member of
the galactic family, that he might serve as the emissary to gain that
recognition. But now that hope was shattered, not only by the fact that the
station might be closed, but that its very closing would be based upon the
barbarism of the human race. Earth was being used as a whipping boy, of
course, in galactic politics, but the brand, once placed, could not soon be
lifted. And in any event, even if it could be lifted, now the planet stood
revealed as one against which Galactic Central, in the hope of saving it,
might be willing to apply a drastic and degrading action.
There was something he could salvage out of all of it, he knew. He
could remain an Earthman and turn over to the people of the Earth the
information that he had gathered through the years and written down, in
meticulous detail, along with personal happenings and impressions and much
other trivia, in the long rows of record books which stood on the shelves
against the wall. That and the alien literature he had obtained and read and
hoarded. And the gadgets and the artifacts which came from other worlds.
From all of this the people of the Earth might gain something which could
help them along the road that eventually would take them to the stars and to
that further knowledge and that greater understanding which would be their
heritage-perhaps the heritage and right of all intelligence. But the wait
for that day would be long-longer now, because of what had happened on this
day, than it had ever been before. And the information that he held,
gathered painfully over the course of almost a century, was so inadequate
compared with that more complete knowledge which he could have gathered in
another century (or a thousand years) that it seemed a pitiful thing to
offer to his people.
If there could only be more time, he thought. But, of course, there
never was. There was not the time right now and there would never be. No
matter how many centuries he might be able to devote, there'd always be so
much more knowledge than he'd gathered at the moment that the little he had
gathered would always seem a pittance.
He sat down heavily in the chair before the desk and now, for the first
time, he wondered how he'd do it- how he could leave Galactic Central, how
he could trade the galaxy for a single planet, even if that planet still
remained his own.
He drove his haggard mind to find the answer and the mind could find no
answer.
One man alone, he thought.
One man alone could not stand against both Earth and galaxy.
The sun streaming through the window woke him and he stayed where he
was, not stirring for a moment, soaking in its warmth. There was a good,
hard, feeling to the sunlight, a reassuring touch, and for a moment he held
off the worry and the questioning. But he sensed its nearness and he closed
his eyes again. Perhaps if he could sleep some more it might go away and
lose itself somewhere and not be there when he awakened later.
But there was something wrong, something besides the worry and the
questioning.
His neck and shoulders ached and there was a strange stiffness in his
body and the pillow was too hard.
He opened his eyes again and pushed with his hands to sit erect and he
was not in bed. He was sitting in a chair and his head, instead of resting
on a pillow, had been laid upon the desk. He opened and shut his mouth to
taste it, and it tasted just as bad as he knew it would.
He got slowly to his feet, straightening and stretching, trying to work
out the kinks that had tied themselves into joints and muscles. As he stood
there, the worry and the trouble and the dreadful need of answers seeped
back into him, from wherever they'd been hiding. But he brushed them to one
side, not an entirely successful brush, but enough to make them retreat a
little and crouch there, waiting to close in again.
He went to the stove and looked for the coffeepot, then remembered that
last night he'd set it on the floor beside the coffee table. He went to get
it. The two cups still stood on the table, the dark brown dregs of coffee
covering the bottoms of them. And in the mass of gadgets that Ulysses had
pushed to one side to make room for the cups, the pyramid of spheres lay
tilted on its side, but it still was sparkling and glinting, each successive
Lucy had risen to her feet and now she came across the room, moving
quietly and slowly, as if she might be floating.
The Hazer spoke to her in the common tongue. "I am glad to meet you.
Very glad to meet you."
"She cannot speak," Ulysses said. "Nor hear. She has no communication."
"Compensation," said the Hazer.
"You think so?" asked Ulysses.
"I am sure of it."
He walked slowly forward and Lucy waited.
"It-she, the female form, you called it-she is not afraid."
Ulysses chuckled. "Not even of me," he said.
The Hazer reached out his hand to her and she stood quietly for a
moment, then one of her hands came up and took the Hazer's fingers, more
like tentacles than fingers, in its grasp.
It seemed to Enoch, for a moment, that the cloak of golden haze reached
out to wrap the Earth girl in its glow. Enoch blinked his eyes and the
illusion, if it had been illusion, was swept away, and it only was the Hazer
who had the golden cloak.
And how was it, Enoch wondered, that there was no fear in her, either
of Ulysses or the Hazer? Was it because, in truth, as he had said, she could
see beyond the outward guise, could somehow sense the basic humanity (God
help me, I cannot think, even now, except in human terms!) that was in these
creatures? And if that were true, was it because she herself was not
entirely human? A human, certainly, in form and origin, but not formed and
molded into the human culture-being perhaps, what a human would be if he
were not hemmed about so closely by the rules of behavior and outlook that
through the years had hardened into law to comprise a common human attitude.
Lucy dropped the Hazer's hand and went back to the sofa.
The Hazer said, "Enoch Wallace."
"Yes."
"She is of your race?"
"Yes, of course she is."
"She is most unlike you. Almost as if there were two races."
"There is not two races. There is only one."
"Are there many others like her?"
"I would not know," said Enoch.
"Coffee," said Ulysses to the Hazer. "Would you like some coffee?"
"Coffee?"
"A most delicious brew. Earth's one great accomplishment."
"I am not acquainted with it," said the Hazer. "I don't believe I
will."
He turned ponderously to Enoch.
"You know why I am here?" he asked.
"I believe so."
"It is a matter I regret," said the Hazer. "But I must ..."
"If you'd rather," Enoch said, "we can consider that the protest has
been made. I would so stipulate."
"Why not?" Ulysses said. "There is no need, it seems to me, to have the
three of us go through a somewhat painful scene."
The Hazer hesitated.
"If you feel you must," said Enoch.
"No," the Hazer said. "I am satisfied if an unspoken protest be
generously accepted."
"Accepted," Enoch said, "on just one condition. That I satisfy myself
that the charge is not unfounded. I must go out and see."
"You do not believe me?"
"It is not a matter of belief. It is something that can be checked. I
cannot accept either for myself or for my planet until I have done that
much."
"Enoch," Ulysses said, "the Vegan has been gracious. Not only now, but
before this happened. His race presses the charge most reluctantly. They
suffered much to protect the Earth and you."
"And the feeling is that I would be ungracious if I did not accept the
protest and the charge on the Vegan statement."
"I am sorry, Enoch," said Ulysses. "That is what I mean."
Enoch shook his head. "For years I've tried to understand and to
conform to the ethics and ideas of all the people who have come through this
station. I've pushed my own human instincts and training to one side. I've
tried to understand other viewpoints and to evaluate other ways of thinking,
many of which did violence to my own. I am glad of all of it, for it has
given me a chance to go beyond the narrowness of Earth. I think I gained
something from it all. But none of this touched Earth; only myself was
involved. This business touches Earth and I must approach it from an
Earthman's viewpoint. In this particular instance I am not simply the keeper
of a galactic station."
Neither of them said a word. Enoch stood waiting and still there was
nothing said.
Finally he turned and headed for the door.
"I'll be back," he told them.
He spoke the phrase and the door started to slide open.
"If you'll have me," said the, Hazer quietly, "I'd like to go with
you."
"Fine," said Enoch. "Come ahead."
It was dark outside and Enoch lit the lantern. The Hazer watched him
closely.
"Fossil fuel," Enoch told him. "It burns at the tip of a saturated
wick."
The Hazer said, in horror, "But surely you have better."
"Much better now," said Enoch. "I am just old-fashioned."
He led the way outside, the lantern throwing a small pool of light. The
Hazer followed.
"It is a wild planet," said the Hazer.
"Wild here. There are parts of it are tame."
"My own planet is controlled," the Hazer said. "Every foot of it is
planned."
"I know. I have talked to many Vegans. They described the planet to
me."
They headed for the barn.
"You want to go back?" asked Enoch.
"No," said the Hazer. "I find it exhilarating. Those are wild plants
over there?"
"We call them trees," said Enoch.
"The wind blows as it wishes?"
"That's right," said Enoch. "We do not know as yet how to control the
weather."
The spade stood just inside the barn door and Enoch picked it up. He
headed for the orchard.
"You know, of course," the Hazer said, "the body will be gone."
"I'm prepared to find it gone."
"Then why?" the Hazer asked.
"Because I must be sure. You can't understand that, can you?"
"You said back there in the station," the Hazer said, "that you tried
to understand the rest of us. Perhaps, for a change, at least one of us
should try understanding you."
Enoch led the way down the path through the orchard. They came to the
rude fence enclosing the burial plot. The sagging gate stood open. Enoch
went through it and the Hazer followed.
"This is where you buried him?"
"This is my family plot. My mother and father are here and I put him
with them."
He handed the lantern to the Vegan and, armed with the spade, walked up
to the grave. He thrust the spade into the ground.
"Would you hold the lantern a little closer, please?"
The Hazer moved up a step or two.
Enoch dropped to his knees and brushed away the leaves that had fallen
on the ground. Underneath them was the soft, fresh earth that had been newly
turned. There was a depression and a small hole at the bottom of the
depression. As he brushed at the earth, he could hear the clods of displaced
dirt falling through the hole and striking on something that was not the
soil.
The Hazer had moved the lantern again and he could not see. But he did
not need to see. He knew there was no use of digging; he knew what he would
find. He should have kept watch. He should not have put up the stone to
attract attention-but Galactic Central had said, "As if he were your own."
And that was the way he'd done it.
He straightened, but remained upon his knees, felt the damp of the
earth soaking through the fabric of his trousers.
"No one told me," said the Hazer, speaking softly.
"Told you what?"
"The memorial. And what is written on it. I was not aware that you knew
our language."
"I learned it long ago. There were scrolls I wished to read. I'm afraid
it's not too good."
"Two misspelled words," the Hazer told him, "and one little
awkwardness. But those are things which do not matter. What matters, and
matters very much, is that when you wrote, you thought as one of us."
Enoch rose and reached out for the lantern.
"Let's go back," he said sharply, almost impatiently. "I know now who
did this. I have to hunt him out."
The treetops far above moaned in the rising wind. Ahead, the great
clump of canoe birch showed whitely in the dim glow of the lantern's light.
The birch clump, Enoch knew, grew on the lip of a small cliff that dropped
twenty feet or more and here one turned to the right to get around it and
continue down the hillside.
Enoch turned slightly and glanced over his shoulder. Lucy was following
close behind. She smiled at him and made a gesture to say she was all right.
He made a motion to indicate that they must turn to the right, that she must
follow closely. Although, he told himself, it probably wasn't necessary; she
knew the hillside as well, perhaps even better, than he did himself.
He turned to the right and followed along the edge of the rocky cliff,
came to the break and clambered down to reach the slope below. Off to the
left he could hear the murmur of the swiftly running creek that tumbled down
the rocky ravine from the spring below the field.
The hillside plunged more steeply now and he led a way that angled
across the steepness.
Funny, he thought, that even in the darkness he could recognize certain
natural features-the crooked white oak that twisted itself, hanging at a
crazy angle above the slope of hill; the small grove of massive red oaks
that grew out of a dome of tumbled rock, so placed that no axman had even
tried to cut them down; the tiny swamp, filled with cattails, that fitted
itself snugly into a little terrace carved into the hillside.
Far below he caught the gleam of window light and angled down toward
it. He looked back over his shoulder and Lucy was following close behind.
They came to a rude fence of poles and crawled through it and now the
ground became more level.
Somewhere below a dog barked in the dark and another joined him. More
joined in and the pack came sweeping up the slope toward them. They arrived
in a rush of feet, veered around Enoch and the lantern to launch themselves
at Lucy-supenly transformed, at the sight of her, into a welcoming committee
rather than a company of guards. They reared upward, a tangled mass of dogs.
Her hands went out and patted at their heads. As if by signal, they went
rushing off in a happy frolic, circling to come back again.
A short distance beyond the pole fence was a vegetable garden and Enoch
led the way across, carefully following a path between the rows. Then they
were in the yard and the house stood before them, a tumble-down, sagging
structure, its outlines swallowed by the darkness, the kitchen windows
glowing with a soft, warm lamplight.
Enoch crossed the yard to the kitchen door and knocked. He heard feet
coming across the kitchen floor.
The door came open and Ma Fisher stood framed against the light, a
great, tall, bony woman clothed in something that was more sack than dress.
She stared at Enoch, half frightened, half belligerent. Then, back of
him, she saw the girl.
"Lucy!" she cried.
The girl came forward with a rush and her mother caught her in her
arms.
Enoch set his lantern on the ground, tucked the rifle underneath his
arm, and stepped across the threshold.
The family had been at supper, seated about a great round table set in
the center of the kitchen. An ornate oil lamp stood in the center of the
table. Hank had risen to his feet, but his three sons and the stranger still
were seated.
"So you brung her back," said Hank.
"I found her," Enoch said.
"We quit hunting for her just a while ago," Hank told him. "We was
going out again."
"You remember what you told me this afternoon?" asked Enoch.
"I told you a lot of things."
"You told me that I had the devil in me. Raise your hand against that
girl once more and I promise you I'll show you just how much devil there is
in me."
"You can't bluff me," Hank blustered.
But the man was frightened. It showed in the limpness of his face, the
tightness of his body.
"I mean it," Enoch said. "just try me out and see." The two men stood
for a moment, facing one another, then Hank sat down.
"Would you join us in some victuals?" he inquired.
Enoch shook his head.
He looked at the stranger. "Are you the ginseng man?" he asked.
The man noped. "That is what they call me."
"I want to talk with you. Outside."
Claude Lewis stood up.
"You don't have to go," said Hank. "He can't make you go. He can talk
to you right here."
"I don't mind," said Lewis. "In fact, I want to talk with him. You're
Enoch Wallace, aren't you?"
"That's who he is," said Hank. "Should of died of old age fifty years
ago. But look at him. He's got the devil in him. I tell you, him and the
devil has a deal."
"Hank," Lewis said, "shut up."
Lewis came around the table and went out the door. "Good night," Enoch
said to the rest of them. "Mr. Wallace," said Ma Fisher, "thanks for
bringing back my girl. Hank won't hit her again. I can promise you. I'll see
to that."
Enoch went outside and shut the door. He picked up the lantern. Lewis
was out in the yard. Enoch went to him.
"Let's walk off a ways," he said.
They stopped at the edge of the garden and turned to face one another.
"You been watching me," said Enoch.
Lewis noped.
"Official? Or just snooping?"
"Official, I'm afraid. My name is Claude Lewis. There is no reason I
shouldn't tell you-I'm C.I.A."
"I'm not a traitor or a spy," Enoch said.
"No one thinks you are. We're just watching you."
"You know about the cemetery?"
Lewis noped.
"You took something from a grave."
"Yes," said Lewis. "The one with the funny headstone."
"Where is it?"
"You mean the body. It's in Washington."
"You shouldn't have taken it," Enoch said, grimly. "You've caused a lot
of trouble. You have to get it back. As quickly as you can."
"It will take a little time," said Lewis. "They'll have to fly it out.
Twenty-four hours, maybe."
"That's the fastest you can make it?"
"I might do a little better."
"Do the very best you can. It's important that you get that body back."
"I will, Wallace. I didn't know ..."
"And, Lewis."
"Yes."
"Don't try to play it smart. Don't ap any frills. Just do what I tell
you. I'm trying to be reasonable because that's the only thing to be. But
you try one smart move ..."
He reached out a hand and grabbed Lewis's shirt front, twisting the
fabric tight.
"You understand me, Lewis?"
Lewis was unmoved. He did not try to pull away. "Yes," he said. "I
understand."
"What the hell ever made you do it?"
"I had a job."
"Yeah, a job. Watching me. Not robbing graves." He let loose of the
shirt.
"Tell me," said Lewis, "that thing in the grave. What was it?"
"That's none of your damn' business," Enoch told him, bitterly.
"Getting back that body is. You're sure that you can do it? Nothing standing
in your way?"
Lewis shook his head. "Nothing at all. I'll phone as soon as I can
reach a phone. I'll tell them that it's imperative."
"It's all of that," said Enoch. "Getting that body back is the most
important thing you've ever done. Don't forget that for a minute. It affects
everyone on Earth. You and me and everyone. And if you fail, you'll answer
to me for it."
"With that gun?"
"Maybe," Enoch said. "Don't fool around. Don't imagine that I'd
hesitate to kill you. In this situation, I'd kill anyone-anyone at all."
"Wallace, is there something you can tell me?"
"Not a thing," said Enoch. He picked up the lantern. "You're going
home?"
Enoch noped.
"You don't seem to mind us watching you."
"No," Enoch told him. "Not your watching. Just your interference. Bring
back that body and go on watching if you want to. But don't push me any.
Don't lean on me. Keep your hands off. Don't touch anything."
"But good God, man, there's something going on. You can tell me
something."
Enoch hesitated.
"Some idea," said Lewis, "of what this is all about. Not the details,
just ..."
"You bring the body back," Enoch told him, slowly, "and maybe we can
talk again."
"It will be back," said Lewis.
"If it's not," said Enoch, "you're as good as dead right now."
Turning, he went across the garden and started up the hill.
In the yard, Lewis stood for a long time, watching the lantern bobbing
out of sight.
Ulysses was alone in the station when Enoch returned. He had sent the
Tuban on his way and the Hazer back to Vega.
A fresh pot of coffee was brewing and Ulysses was sprawled out on the
sofa, doing nothing.
Enoch hung up the rifle and blew out the lantern. Taking off his
jacket, he threw it on the desk. He sat down in a chair across from the
sofa.
"The body will be back," he said, "by this time tomorrow."
"I sincerely hope," Ulysses said, "that it will do some good. But I'm
inclined to doubt it."
"Maybe," said Enoch bitterly, "I should not have bothered."
"It will show good faith," Ulysses said. "It might have some mitigating
effect in the final weighing."
"The Hazer could have told me," Enoch said, "where the body was. If he
knew it had been taken from the grave, then he must have known where it
could be found."
"I would suspect he did," Ulysses said, "but, you see, he couldn't tell
you. All that he could do was to make his protest. The rest was up to you.
He could not lay aside his dignity by suggesting what you should do about
it. For the record, he must remain the injured party."
"Sometimes," said Enoch, "this business is enough to drive one crazy.
Despite the briefings from Galactic Central, there are always some
surprises, always yawning traps for you to tumble into."
"There may come a day," Ulysses said, "when it won't be like that. I
can look ahead and see, in some thousands of years, the knitting of the
galaxy together into one great culture, one huge area of understanding. The
local and the racial variations still will exist, of course, and that is as
it should be, but overriding all of these will be a tolerance that will make
for what one might be tempted to call a brotherhood."
"You sound," said Enoch, "almost like a human. That is the sort of hope
that many of our thinkers have held out."
"Perhaps," Ulysses said. "You know that a lot of Earth seems to have
rubbed off on-me. You can't spend as long as I did on your planet without
picking up at least a bit of it. And by the way, you made a good impression
on the Vegan."
"I hadn't noticed it," Enoch told him. "He was kind and correct, of
course, but little more."
"That inscription on the gravestone. He was impressed by that."
"I didn't put it there to impress anyone. I wrote it out because it was
the way I felt. And because I like the Hazers. I was only trying to make it
right for them."
"If it were not for the pressure from the galactic factions," Ulysses
said, "I am convinced the Vegans would be willing to forget the incident and
that is a greater concession than you can realize. It may be that, even so,
they may line up with us when the showdown comes."
"You mean they might save the station?"
Ulysses shook his head. "I doubt anyone can do that. But it will be
easier for all of us at Galactic Central if they threw their weight with
us."
The coffeepot was making sounds and Enoch went to get it. Ulysses had
pushed some of the trinkets on the coffee table to one side to make room for
two coffee cups. Enoch filled them and set the pot upon the floor.
Ulysses picked up his cup, held it for a moment in his hands, then put
it back on the table top.
"We're in bad shape," he said. "Not like in the old days. It has
Galactic Central worried. All this squabbling and haggling among the races,
all the pushing and the shoving."
He looked at Enoch. "You thought it was all nice and cozy."
"No," said Enoch, "not that. I knew that there were conflicting
viewpoints and I knew there was some trouble. But I'm afraid I thought of it
as being on a fairly lofty plane-gentlemanly, you know, and good-mannered."
"That was the way it was at one time. There always have been differing
opinions, but they were based on principles and ethics, not on special
interests. You know about the spiritual force, of course-the universal
spiritual force."
Enoch noped. "I've read some of the literature. I don't quite
understand, but I'm willing to accept it. There is a way, I know, to get in
contact with the force."
"The Talisman," said Ulysses.
"That's it. The Talisman. A machine, of sorts."
"I suppose," Ulysses agreed, "you could call it that. Although the
word, 'machine' is a little awkward. More than mechanics went into the
making of it. There is just the one. Only one was ever made, by a mystic who
lived ten thousand of your years ago. I wish I could tell you what it is or
how it is constructed, but there is no one, I am afraid, who can tell you
that. There have been others who have attempted to duplicate the Talisman,
but no one has succeeded. The mystic who made it left no blueprints, no
plans, no specifications, not a single note. There is no one who knows
anything about it."
"There is no reason, I suppose," said Enoch, "that another should not
be made. No sacred taboos, I mean. To make another one would not be
sacrilegious."
"Not in the least," Ulysses told him. "In fact, we need another badly.
For now we have no Talisman. It has disappeared."
Enoch jerked upright in his chair.
"Disappeared?" he asked.
"Lost," said Ulysses. "Misplaced. Stolen. No one knows."
"But I hadn't ..."
Ulysses smiled bleakly. "You hadn't heard. I know. It is not something
that we talk about. We wouldn't dare. The people must not know. Not for a
while, at least."
"But how can you keep it from them?"
"Not too hard to do. You know how it worked, how the custodian took it
from planet to planet and great mass meetings were held, where the Talisman
was exhibited and contact made through it with the spiritual force. There
had never been a schedule of appearances; the custodian simply wandered. It
might be a hundred of your years or more between the visits of the custodian
to any particular planet. The people hold no expectations of a visit. They
simply know there'll be one, sometime; that some day the custodian will show
up with the Talisman."
"That way you can cover up for years."
"Yes," Ulysses said. "Without any trouble."
"The leaders know, of course. The administrative people."
Ulysses shook his head. "We have told very few. The few that we can
trust. Galactic Central knows, of course, but we're a close-mouthed lot."
"Then why ..."
"Why should I be telling you. I know; I shouldn't. I don't know why I
am. Yes, I guess I do. How does it feel, my friend, to sit as a
compassionate confessor?"
"You're worried," Enoch said. "I never thought I would see you
worried."
"It's a strange business," Ulysses said. "The Talisman has been missing
for several years or so. And no one knows about it-except Galactic Central
and the- what would you call it?-the hierarchy, I suppose, the organization
of mystics who takes care of the spiritual setup. And yet, even with no one
knowing, the galaxy is beginning to show wear. It's coming apart at the
seams. In time to come, it may fall apart. As if the Talisman represented a
force that all unknowingly held the races of the galaxy together, exerting
its influence even when it remained unseen."
"But even if it's lost, it's somewhere," Enoch pointed out. "It still
would be exerting its influence. It couldn't have been destroyed."
"You forget," Ulysses reminded him, "that without its proper custodian,
without its sensitive, it is inoperative. For it's not the machine itself
that does the trick. The machine merely acts as an intermediary between the
sensitive and the spiritual force. It is an extension of the sensitive. It
magnifies the capability of the sensitive and acts as a link of some sort.
It enables the sensitive to perform his function."
"You feel that the loss of the Talisman has something to do with the
situation here?"
"The Earth station. Well, not directly, but it is typical. What is
happening in regard to the station is symptomatic. It involves the sort of
petty quarreling and mean bickering that has broken out through many
sections of the galaxy. In the old days it would have been-what did you say,
gentlemanly and on a plane of principles and ethics."
They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the soft sound that the
wind made as it blew through the gable gingerbread.
"Don't worry about it," Ulysses said. "It is not your worry. I should
not have told you. It was indiscreet to do so."
"You mean I shouldn't pass it on. You can be sure I won't."
"I know you won't," Ulysses said. "I never thought you would."
"You really think relations in the galaxy are deteriorating?"
"Once," Ulysses said, "the races all were bound together. There were
differences, naturally, but these differences were bridged, sometimes rather
artificially and not too satisfactorily, but with both sides striving to
maintain the artificial bridging and generally succeeding. Because they
wanted to, you see. There was a common purpose, the forging of a great
cofraternity of all intelligences. We realized that among us, among all the
races, we had a staggering fund of knowledge and of techniques-that working
together, by putting together all this knowledge and capability, we could
arrive at something that would be far greater and more significant than any
race, alone, could hope of accomplishing. We had our troubles, certainly,
and as I have said, our differences, but we were progressing. We brushed the
small animosities and the petty differences underneath the rug and worked
only on the big ones. We felt that if we could get the big ones settled, the
small ones would become so small they would disappear. But it is becoming
different now. There is a tendency to pull the pettiness from underneath the
rug and blow it beyond its size, meanwhile letting the major and the
important issues fall away."
"It sounds like Earth," said Enoch.
"In many ways," Ulysses said. "In principle, although the circumstances
would diverge immensely."
"You've been reading the papers I have been saving for you?"
Ulysses noped. "It doesn't look too happy."
"It looks like war," said Enoch bluntly.
Ulysses stirred uneasily.
"You don't have wars," said Enoch.
"The galaxy, you mean. No, as we are set up now we don't have wars."
"Too civilized?"
"Stop being bitter," Ulysses told him. "There has been a time or two
when we came very close, but not in recent years. There are many races now
in the cofratemity that in their formative years had a history of war."
"There is hope for us, then. It's something you outgrow."
"In time, perhaps."
"But not a certainty?"
"No, I wouldn't say so."
"I've been working on a chart," said Enoch. "Based on the Mizar system
of statistics. The chart says there is going to be war."
"You don't need the chart," Ulysses said, "to tell you that."
"But there was something else. It was not just knowing if there'd be a
war. I had hoped that the chart might show how to keep the peace. There must
be a way. A formula, perhaps. If we could only think of it or know where to
look or whom to ask or ..."
"There is a way," Ulysses said, "to prevent a war."
"You mean you know ..."
"It's a drastic measure. It only can be used as a last resort."
"And we've not reached that last resort?"
"I think, perhaps, you have. The kind of war that Earth would fight
could spell an end to thousands of years of advancement, could wipe out all
the culture, everything but the feeble remnants of civilizations. It could,
just possibly, eliminate most of the life upon the planet."
"This method of yours-it has been used?"
"A few times."
"And worked?"
"Oh, certainly. We'd not even consider it if it didn't work."
"It could be used on Earth?"
"You could apply for its application."
"I?"
"As a representative of the Earth. You could appear before Galactic
Central and appeal for us to use it. As a member of your race, you could
give testimony and you would be given a hearing. If there seemed to be merit
in your plea, Central might name a group to investigate and then, upon the
report of its findings, a decision would be made."
"You said I. Could anyone on Earth?"
"Anyone who could gain a hearing. To gain a hearing, you must know
about Galactic Central and you're the only man of Earth who does. Besides,
you're a part of Galactic Central's staff. You have served as a keeper for a
long time. Your record has been good. We would listen to you."
"But one man alone! One man can't speak for an entire race."
"You're the only one of your race who is qualified."
"If I could consult some others of my race."
"You can't. And even if you could, who would believe you?"
"That's true," said Enoch.
Of course it was. To him there was no longer any strangeness in the
idea of a galactic cofraternity, of a transportation network that spread
among the stars-a sense of wonder at times, but the strangeness had largely
worn off. Although, he remembered, it had taken years. Years even with the
physical evidence there before his eyes, before he could bring himself to a
complete acceptance of it. But tell it to any other Earthman and it would
sound like madness.
"And this method?" he asked, almost afraid to ask it, braced to take
the shock of whatever it might be.
"Stupidity," Ulysses said.
Enoch gasped. "Stupidity? I don't understand. We are stupid enough, in
many ways, right now."
"You're thinking of intellectual stupidity and there is plenty of that,
not only on Earth, but throughout the galaxy. What I am talking about is a
mental incapacity. An inability to understand the science and the technique
that makes possible the kind of war that Earth would fight. An inability to
operate the machines that are necessary to fight that kind of war. Turning
the people back to a mental position where they would not be able to
comprehend the mechanical and technological and scientific advances they
have made. Those who know would forget. Those who didn't know could never
learn. Back to the simplicity of the wheel and lever. That would make your
kind of war impossible."
Enoch sat stiff and straight, unable to speak, gripped by an icy
terror, while a million disconnected thoughts went chasing one another in a
circle through his brain.
"I told you it was drastic," Ulysses said. "It has to be. War is
something that costs a lot to stop. The price is high."
"I couldn't!" Enoch said. "No one could."
"Perhaps you can't. But consider this: If there is a war..."
"I know. If there is a war, it could be worse. But it wouldn't stop
war. It's not the kind of thing I had in mind. People still could fight,
still could kill."
"With clubs," said Ulysses. "Maybe bows and arrows. Rifles, so long as
they still had rifles, and until they ran out of ammunition. Then they
wouldn't know how to make more powder or how to get the metal to make the
bullets or even how to make the bullets. There might be fighting, but
there'd be no holocaust. Cities would not be wiped out by nuclear warheads,
for no one could fire a rocket or arm the warhead-perhaps wouldn't even know
what a rocket or a warhead was. Communications as you know them would be
gone. All but the simplest transportation would be gone. War, except on a
limited local scale, would be impossible."
"It would be terrible," Enoch said.
"So is war," Ulysses said. "The choice is up to you."
"But how long?" asked Enoch. "How long would it last? We wouldn't have
to go back to stupidity forever?"
"Several generations," said Ulysses. "By that time the effect of-what
shall we call it? the treatment?-would gradually begin wearing off. The
people slowly would shake off their moronic state and begin their
intellectual climb again. They'd be given, in effect, a second chance."
"They could," said Enoch, "in a few generations after that arrive at
exactly the same situation that we have today."
"Possibly. I wouldn't expect it, though. Cultural development would be
most unlikely to be entirely parallel. There'd be a chance that you'd have a
better civilization and a more peaceful people."
"It's too much for one man ..."
"Something hopeful," Ulysses said, "that you might consider. The method
is offered only to those races which seem to us to be worth the saving."
"You have to give me time," said Enoch.
But he knew there was no time.
A man would have a job and supenly be unable to perform it. Nor could
the men around him carry on their jobs. For they would not have the
knowledge or the backgrounds to do the tasks that they had been doing. They
might try, of course-they might keep on trying for a time, but perhaps for
not too long. And because the jobs could not be done, the business or the
corporation or factory or whatever it might be, would cease its operation.
Although the going out of business would not be a formal nor a legal thing.
It would simply stop. And not entirely because the jobs could not be done,
because no one could muster the business sense to keep it operating, but
also because the transportation and communications which made the business
possible also would have stopped.
Locomotives could not be operated, nor could planes and ships, for
there would be no one who would remember how to operate them. There would be
men who at one time had possessed all the skills that had been necessary for
their operation, but now the skills would have disappeared. There might be
some who still would try, with tragic consequences. And there still might be
a few who could vaguely remember how to operate the car or truck or bus, for
they were simple things to run and it would be almost second nature for a
man to drive them. But once they had broken down, there would be no one with
the knowledge of mechanics to repair them and they'd not run again.
In the space of a few hours' time the human race would be stranded in a
world where distance once again had come to be a factor. The world would
grow the larger and the oceans would be barriers and a mile would be long
once more. And in a few days' time there would be a panic and a hupling and
a fleeing and a desperation in the face of a situation that no one could
comprehend.
How long, Enoch wondered, would it take a city to use the last of the
food stacked in its warehouses and then begin to starve? What would happen
when electricity stopped flowing through the wires? How long, under a
situation such as this, would a silly symbolic piece of paper or a minted
coin still retain its value?
Distribution would break down; commerce and industry would die;
government would become a shadow, with neither the means nor the
intelligence to keep it functioning; communications would cease; law and
order would disintegrate; the world would sink into a new barbaric framework
and would begin to slowly readjust. That readjustment would go on for years
and in the process of it there would be death and pestilence and untold
misery and despair. In time it would work out and the world would settle
down to its new way of life, but in the process of shaking down there'd be
many who would die and many others who would lose everything that had
spelled out life for them and the purpose of that life.
But would it, bad as it might be, be as bad as war?
Many would die of cold and hunger and disease (for medicine would go
the way of all the rest), but millions would not be annihilated in the fiery
breath of nuclear reaction. There would be no poison dust raining from the
skies and the waters still would be as pure and fresh as ever and the soil
remain as fertile. There still would be a chance, once the initial phases of
the change had passed, for the human race to go on living and rebuild
society.
If one were certain, Enoch told himself, that there would be a war,
that war was inescapable, then the choice might not be hard to make. But
there was always the possibility that the world could avoid war, that
somehow a frail, thin peace could be preserved, and in such a case the
desperate need of the galactic cure for war would be unnecessary. Before one
could decide, he told himself, one must be sure; and how could one be sure?
The chart lying in the desk drawer said there would be a war; many of the
diplomats and observers felt that the upcoming peace conference might serve
no other purpose than to trigger war. Yet there was no surety.
And even if there were, Enoch asked himself, how could one man-one man,
alone-take it upon himself to play the role of God for the entire race? By
what right did one man make a decision that affected all the rest, all the
billions of others? Could he, if he did, ever be able, in the years to come,
to justify his choice?
How could a man decide how bad war might be and, in comparison, how bad
stupidity? The answer seemed to be he couldn't. There was no way to measure
possible disaster in either circumstance.
After a time, perhaps, a choice either way could be rationalized. Given
time, a conviction might develop that would enable a man to arrive at some
sort of decision which, while it might not be entirely right, he
nevertheless could square with his conscience.
Enoch got to his feet and walked to the window. The sound of his
footsteps echoed hollowly in the station. He looked at his watch and it was
after midnight.
There were races in the galaxy, he thought, who could reach a quick and
right decision on almost any question, cutting straight across all the
tangled lines of thought, guided by rules of logic that were more specific
than anything the human race might have. That would be good, of course, in
the sense that it made decision possible, but in arriving at decision would
it not tend to minimize, perhaps ignore entirely, some of those very facets
of the situation that might mean more to the human race than the decision
would itself?
Enoch stood at the window and stared out across the moonlit fields that
ran down to the dark line of the woods. The clouds had blown away and the
night was peaceful. This particular spot, he thought, always would be
peaceful, for it was off the beaten track, distant from any possible target
in atomic war. Except for the remote possibility of some ancient and
non-recorded, long forgotten minor conflict in prehistoric days, no battle
ever had been fought here or ever would be fought. And yet it would not
escape the common fate of poisoned soil and water if the world should
supenly, in a fateful hour of fury, unleash the might of its awesome
weapons. Then the skies would be filled with atomic ash, which would come
sifting down, and it would make little difference where a man might be. Soon
or late, the war would come to him, if not in a flash of monstrous energy,
then in the snow of death falling from the skies.
He walked from the window to the desk and gathered up the newspapers
that had come in the morning mail and put them in a pile, noticing as he did
so that Ulysses had forgotten to take with him the stack of papers which had
been saved for him. Ulysses was upset, he told himself, or he'd not have
forgotten the papers. God save us both, he thought; for we have our
troubles.
It had been a busy day. He had done no more, he realized, than read two
or three of the stories in the Times, all touching on the calling of the
conference. The day had been too full, too full of direful things.
For a hundred years, he thought, things had gone all right. There had
been the good moments and the bad, but by and large his life had gone on
serenely and without alarming incident. Then today had dawned and all the
serene years had come tumbling down all about his ears.
There once had been a hope that Earth could be accepted as a member of
the galactic family, that he might serve as the emissary to gain that
recognition. But now that hope was shattered, not only by the fact that the
station might be closed, but that its very closing would be based upon the
barbarism of the human race. Earth was being used as a whipping boy, of
course, in galactic politics, but the brand, once placed, could not soon be
lifted. And in any event, even if it could be lifted, now the planet stood
revealed as one against which Galactic Central, in the hope of saving it,
might be willing to apply a drastic and degrading action.
There was something he could salvage out of all of it, he knew. He
could remain an Earthman and turn over to the people of the Earth the
information that he had gathered through the years and written down, in
meticulous detail, along with personal happenings and impressions and much
other trivia, in the long rows of record books which stood on the shelves
against the wall. That and the alien literature he had obtained and read and
hoarded. And the gadgets and the artifacts which came from other worlds.
From all of this the people of the Earth might gain something which could
help them along the road that eventually would take them to the stars and to
that further knowledge and that greater understanding which would be their
heritage-perhaps the heritage and right of all intelligence. But the wait
for that day would be long-longer now, because of what had happened on this
day, than it had ever been before. And the information that he held,
gathered painfully over the course of almost a century, was so inadequate
compared with that more complete knowledge which he could have gathered in
another century (or a thousand years) that it seemed a pitiful thing to
offer to his people.
If there could only be more time, he thought. But, of course, there
never was. There was not the time right now and there would never be. No
matter how many centuries he might be able to devote, there'd always be so
much more knowledge than he'd gathered at the moment that the little he had
gathered would always seem a pittance.
He sat down heavily in the chair before the desk and now, for the first
time, he wondered how he'd do it- how he could leave Galactic Central, how
he could trade the galaxy for a single planet, even if that planet still
remained his own.
He drove his haggard mind to find the answer and the mind could find no
answer.
One man alone, he thought.
One man alone could not stand against both Earth and galaxy.
The sun streaming through the window woke him and he stayed where he
was, not stirring for a moment, soaking in its warmth. There was a good,
hard, feeling to the sunlight, a reassuring touch, and for a moment he held
off the worry and the questioning. But he sensed its nearness and he closed
his eyes again. Perhaps if he could sleep some more it might go away and
lose itself somewhere and not be there when he awakened later.
But there was something wrong, something besides the worry and the
questioning.
His neck and shoulders ached and there was a strange stiffness in his
body and the pillow was too hard.
He opened his eyes again and pushed with his hands to sit erect and he
was not in bed. He was sitting in a chair and his head, instead of resting
on a pillow, had been laid upon the desk. He opened and shut his mouth to
taste it, and it tasted just as bad as he knew it would.
He got slowly to his feet, straightening and stretching, trying to work
out the kinks that had tied themselves into joints and muscles. As he stood
there, the worry and the trouble and the dreadful need of answers seeped
back into him, from wherever they'd been hiding. But he brushed them to one
side, not an entirely successful brush, but enough to make them retreat a
little and crouch there, waiting to close in again.
He went to the stove and looked for the coffeepot, then remembered that
last night he'd set it on the floor beside the coffee table. He went to get
it. The two cups still stood on the table, the dark brown dregs of coffee
covering the bottoms of them. And in the mass of gadgets that Ulysses had
pushed to one side to make room for the cups, the pyramid of spheres lay
tilted on its side, but it still was sparkling and glinting, each successive