The Edmond Hamilton Megapack: 16 Classic Science Fiction Tales (42 page)

“Consider the mob violence, the threats made against Federation officials, the refusal to accept peaceful authority! Consider that at this moment those kindly folk of Middletown are prepared for war, their trenches dug, their guns in place, ready to fire on the first Federation ship that lands!”

Lund’s voice dropped to a lower, tenser pitch.

“I warn you that these people are rotten with the plague of war. For centuries, we of the Federation struggled to find release from war, and we found it. The galaxy has been clean of that hideous disease. Now it has appeared again among us.

“And we—the upholders of Federation law—are wavering before a show of force!”

Kenniston was on his feet. Jon Arnol clung to him, holding him back. Varn Allan leaned over the table, telling him in a desperate undertone, “Don’t Kenniston! Keep your temper!”

The Spokesman asked of Lund, “What is your recommendation to the Board of Governors?”

Lund cried, “Show these people that they cannot flout peaceful authority with a threat of war! Remove them, as quickly as possible, to some isolated world on the frontiers of the galaxy—a world so remote that they cannot infect the main thought currents of the Federation with their brute psychology!”

Kenniston broke away from Arnol’s grasp. He strode up to Lund and took him by the front of his jacket and bent over him a face so white with anger that Lund quailed before it.

“Who are you,” snarled Kenniston, “to sit in judgment upon us?”

The words choked in his throat. He thrust Lund from him, flung him away so that he went sprawling to his knees, and turned to face the Governors.

“Yes, we fought our wars! We fought because we had to, so that thought and progress and freedom could live in our world. You owe us for that! You owe us for the men that died so that there could one day be a Federation of Stars. You owe us for atomic power, too. We may have misused it—but it’s the force that built your civilization, and we gave it to you!

“Think of those things, you men of the future! From Earth you came, and your whole civilization is rooted in our blood. You live in peace, because we died in war. Remember that, when you sit in judgment upon the past!”

He stood silent then, trembling, and Varn Allan came to bring him back to his chair.

Lund had got to his feet. He said, “I will let Kenniston’s own actions stand as my final argument.” He sat down. The Spokesman brought his gavel down. Kenniston was hardly aware of the taking of the vote. He wrestled with a dark turmoil of doubt and anger and fear, dreading to hear the words of judgment that he knew were coming. “It is the final decision of the Board of Governors that the population of Sol Three shall be evacuated in accordance with the official order already outstanding.

“No experiments with the Arnol process on a planetary scale can be considered safe at this time.

“It is the wish of the Governors that the people of Sol Three be peaceably assimilated into the Federation. It is hoped that their attitude in the future will be such as to make this possible. If it is not, then they must be shown the futility of armed resistance.

“The hearing is concluded.”

Kenniston realized that Arnol was telling him to get up. He rose and went out of the amphitheatre with the others. He heard Varn Allan’s voice speaking in bitter anger to Norden Lund.

Nothing was very clear to him after that until he was back in his own quarters and Gorr Holl was putting a glass in his hand. Magro and Lal’lor had waited there for the verdict. Varn Allan was still with him, and Arnol.

“I’m sorry, Kenniston,” said Varn, and he knew she meant it. He shook his head.

“It was my fault. If I hadn’t lost my temper…”

“Don’t blame yourself, Kenniston. Forgive me, but Lund had just enough truth on his side to carry the day. Why didn’t you or your people tell us that you had been engaged in war, back in your own time?”

He shook his head. “Because we weren’t in any war. Don’t you see, the bomb that hurled us out of our own time came in peacetime! Whatever followed we never knew about, because we weren’t there!”

She paced the room, frowning, and then said, “I’m going to try to get this evacuation order lengthened out as long as possible. It may soften the blow a little for your people. I used to have some influence with the Coordinators—Now I don’t know. Lund has undermined me pretty badly.”

It dawned on Kenniston then that this day had been a defeat for her, too, and an unjust one. He had been too wrapped up in his own despair to think about it.

It was his turn to say, “I’m sorry.”

She smiled a little and turned to go, pausing to lay her hand briefly on Kenniston’s shoulder. “Don’t take this too hard,” she said. “Nobody could have done a better job than you did.”

She went out. They looked at each other with faces sick, angry, sullen—the two men and the three humanoids.

“Well,” said Gorr Holl, “It was a damned good try. I vote we have a drink.”

Magro said, “It’ll be bitter news for our people, Gorr. They were beginning to hope.”

The Capellan rumbled, “I know that. Shut up.”

He took a glass to Jon Arnol, who was sitting staring at the wall. “Cheer up,” he said. “Your process is bound to win out some day.”

Arnol said, “Maybe. But that’s not doing your people any good—all the humanoid peoples who backed and financed my work and put their hopes in it. I’ve let you down.”

“The hell you have,” said Gorr.

Kenniston was thinking sickly of the people back there on Earth, waiting anxiously for his return. He was thinking of Carol, and he said slowly, “I can’t go back. I can’t face them, and tell them I’ve failed.”

“They’ll get over it,” said Gorr Holl, in a heavy attempt to be reassuring. “After all, going to a strange world isn’t half as much of a shock as being hurled forward in time. They stood that.”

“It happened before they knew it,” said Kenniston, “That makes a difference. And they were still in a place they knew. No. They won’t get used to it. They’ll fight it to the bitter end.”

He spread his hands in a gesture of futile anger. “That’s what I can’t make anybody, even you, understand! They belong on Earth. It’s like an extension of themselves. They will risk any danger, dare and threat, to hold onto it!”

His gaze fell then on Jon Arnol’s bitter face, abstracted and brooding on his own disappointment. Kenniston’s pulse gave a sudden leap.

He said softly, “Any danger, any threat… Yes, by heaven!” He was suddenly shaken by a terrible, desperate hope. He got up and went across the room to Jon Arnol.

“You said that you had a small starcruiser and technical crew of your own?” Kenniston said.

Arnol nodded. “Yes. Over at my workshop in the mountains.” He added bitterly, “I sent them word last night to get the cruiser ready to go to Earth. I was so sure that our chance had come.”

Kenniston asked him softly, “Tell me, Arnol. Do you really believe in your own process?”

Arnol got to his feet. His eyes were suddenly hot, and he looked as if he would hit the Earthman.

Kenniston demanded, “Do you believe in it enough, to defy an order of the Board?”

Arnol stiffened. After a moment he said, “Explain that, Kenniston.”

Kenniston explained. Fairly shaking with the intensity of his idea, he talked. And gradually Arnol’s eyes took on a febrile glitter.

He muttered. “It could be done quickly, there on Earth. The ancient heat shafts would eliminate the necessity of deep boring—”

But then he shook his head, in a kind of dread, “No! It would mean dismissal from the College of Scientists, exile for the rest of my life. I can’t do it, Kenniston.”

“You’ve worked and hoped for many years,” Kenniston reminded him cruelly. “Some day you’ll give up hoping, and your process will be forgotten and lost.”

He stood back. “I won’t say any more—except that here is your chance, if you wish to take it. Your chance to try your planet rejuvenation process, on Earth!”

He waited, then, silent. Gorr Holl and the others watched. The Capellan’s eyes were very bright.

Arnol put his head in his hands and groaned. “I can’t, I can’t! And yet—they’ll never grant permission, that I know. A whole life’s work wasted…”

Kenniston watched him suffer, caught between desire and fear. And at last Arnol struggled to a decision. He said, hesitantly, “We would have to leave it to your people to decide, Kenniston. They must agree to accept the risk.”

“I know them, and I know they’ll agree!” Kenniston exclaimed. “And if they do?”

Beads of sweat stood on Arnol’s forehead. “If they’re willing, I’ll do it,” he said huskily.

A great excitement coursed through Kenniston. One chance—one last chance, after all!

He looked at Gorr Holl and Magro and Lal’lor. He asked, “Are you with us in this?”

Gorr Holl uttered a great, booming laugh. “Are we with you?” He strode to Kenniston, and he said, “We humanoids have been fighting this battle for a long time. Do you think we’d drop out now?”

Magro’s cat eyes were glittering, but he merely nodded.

Jon Arnol said excitedly, “My flier is docked at South Port, near here. It won’t take long to get to my mountain workshop.”

Lal’lor began, “I, too—”

Gorr Holl told him, “You, grey one, shall stay here and cover for us. Tell anyone who asks that we have all gone out to show Kenniston the sights.”

The Miran sighed. “All right, Gorr. But—try to be careful. All of you.”

They left the apartment Half an hour later, their flier was splitting the night on the way to the other side of Vega Four.

Another night had come. Under the brilliant, unfamiliar stars, black mountain peaks looked broodingly at the scene of feverish activity on the little plateau.

Lights flared there, illumining the little group of long, low buildings, the supply yard with its crane, and the dim metal mass of a small starcruiser battered and tarnished by long use.

A wide hatch gaped in the side of the ship’s hull. And toward it Kenniston and his three companions were carefully rolling a massive, black ovoid thing that rested in a wheeled cradle.

“You needn’t worry—there’s no danger of detonating it, when it isn’t even electrofused,” Jon Arnol was saying reassuringly.

“Listen, if this energy bomb is able to change a whole plant, I’m treating it with respect!” rumbled Gorr Holl.

Kenniston felt the unreality of it. The whole scheme now seemed to him mad, harebrained. This big black mass his hand touched—how could it change the future of a world?

He tried to fight down these doubts. The scientists of this latter-day universe, masters of a knowledge far beyond his own, had affirmed the soundness of Arnold theory. That was what had nerved him to start this project, and he must cling to it. It was too late now for questions.

He was tired, dead tired. They had worked without respite all through the day, he and Gorr Holl and Magro, helping Arnol and his technical crew to load the masses of supplies and incomprehensible equipment necessary for the experiment.

The little starcruiser was Arnol’s workship. It had carried him on many research trips throughout the galaxy. And the eager young men of the crew who had worked and dreamed beside Arnol for so long had asked no questions. Whether or not they guessed what their mission was to be, Kenniston had no way of knowing.

The Chief pilot came up to Arnol as the four of them reached the hatchway with their cryptic burden.

“She’s all checked and ready for takeoff, whenever you are.”

Arnol nodded. The technical men were taking over the task of loading the energy bomb and making it fast in its shockproof well.

“As soon as they’re through,” said Arnol. He glanced at Kenniston and the others, with a weary, triumphant smile. “In about twenty minutes, we’ll be on our way.”

It was then that Kenniston saw the jet streams of a flier drawing a distant curve of flame across the sky, coming toward the plateau.

The others saw it, too. They waited, while the technical crew labored swiftly on, and Kenniston said, “It must be Lal’lor, with a message!”

“Yes,” said Arnol. “No one else could know we were here.”

Yet their uneasiness grew as they watched the flier sweep in to a landing. Kenniston thought desperately, “No one else could know! We wouldn’t have been followed!”

He found himself running with the others across the flat surface of the landing field.

He saw the figure that stepped out of the flier. It was not Lal’lor. It was a man he had never seen—a stocky man with clipped iron-grey hair and a look of authority on his square face.

Behind this stranger came Varn Allan, and with her, his face alight with triumph, was Norden Lund.

Kenniston stopped, his heart sinking in cold despair. The stocky newcomer stood, surveying with startled, unbelieving eyes, the bustle of activity around the cruiser.

“I wouldn’t have thought it possible!” he gasped. “Lund, you were right. They were going to do it without permission.”

Lund said happily, “Yes, sir. I suspected it That’s why I had them watched. You can see for yourself.” And to Kenniston and Arnol and the others he said, “Let me introduce you. This is Coordinator Mathis.”