The Chapter Ends
Page 3
hell-worlds--the first clumsysteps toward the stars. He could look it up in the archives of Corazuno,but he knew he never would. Too much else to do, too much to remember.Probably less than one percent of mankind's throngs even knew whereEarth was, today--though, for a while, it had been quite atourist-center. But that was perhaps thirty thousand years ago.
_Because this world, out of all the billions, has certain physicalcharacteristics_, he thought, _my race has made them into standards. Ourbasic units of length and time and acceleration, our comparisons bywhich we classify the swarming planets of the Galaxy, they all go backultimately to Earth. We bear that unspoken memorial to our birthplacewithin our whole civilization, and will bear it forever. But has shegiven us more than that? Are our own selves, bodies and minds anddreams, are they also the children of Earth?_
Now he was thinking like Kormt, stubborn old Kormt who clung with such ablind strength to this land simply because it was his. When youconsidered all the races of this wander-footed species--how many of themthere were, how many kinds of man between the stars! And yet they allwalked upright; they all had two eyes and a nose between and a mouthbelow; they were all cells of that great and ancient culture which hadbegun here, eons past, with the first hairy half-man who kindled a fireagainst night. If Earth had not had darkness and cold and prowlingbeasts, oxygen and cellulose and flint, that culture might never havegestated.
_I'm getting unlogical. Too tired, nerves worn too thin, psychosomaticcontrol slipping. Now Earth is becoming some obscure mother-symbol forme._
_Or has she always been one, for the whole race of us?_
A seagull cried harshly overhead and soared from view.
The sunset was smoldering away and dusk rose like fog out of the ground.Julith came running back to him, her face indistinct in the gloom. Shewas breathing hard, and he couldn't tell if the catch in her voice waslaughter or weeping.
"I'd better be getting home," she said.
3
They flew slowly back. The town was a yellow twinkle of lights, warmthgleaming from windows across many empty kilometers. Jorun set the girldown outside her home.
"Thank you, good sir," she said, curtseying. "Won't you come in todinner?"
"Well--"
The door opened, etching the girl black against the ruddiness inside.Jorun's luminous tunic made him like a torch in the dark. "Why, it's thestar-man," said a woman's voice.
"I took your daughter for a swim," he explained. "I hope you don'tmind."
"And if we did, what would it matter?" grumbled a bass tone. Jorunrecognized Kormt; the old man must have come as a guest from his farm onthe outskirts. "What could we do about it?"
"Now, Granther, that's no way to talk to the gentleman," said the woman."He's been very kind. Won't you come eat with us, good sir?"
Jorun refused twice, in case they were only being polite, then acceptedgladly enough. He was tired of cookery at the inn where he and Zarekboarded. "Thank you."
He entered, ducking under the low door. A single long, smoky-rafteredroom was kitchen, diningroom, and parlor; doors led off to the sleepingquarters. It was furnished with a clumsy elegance, skin rugs, oakwainscoting, carved pillars, glowing ornaments of hammered copper. Aradium clock, which must be incredibly old, stood on the stone mantel,above a snapping fire; a chemical-powered gun, obviously of localmanufacture, hung over it. Julith's parents, a plain, quiet peasantcouple, conducted him to the end of the wooden table, while half a dozenchildren watched him with large eyes. The younger children were the onlyTerrans who seemed to find this removal an adventure.
The meal was good and plentiful: meat, vegetables, bread, beer, milk,ice cream, coffee, all of it from the farms hereabouts. There wasn'tmuch trade between the few thousand communities of Earth; they werepractically self-sufficient. The company ate in silence, as was thecustom here. When they were finished, Jorun wanted to go, but it wouldhave been rude to leave immediately. He went over to a chair by thefireplace, across from the one in which Kormt sprawled.
The old man took out a big-bowled pipe and began stuffing it. Shadowswove across his seamed brown face, his eyes were a gleam out ofdarkness. "I'll go down to City Hall with you soon," he said; "I imaginethat's where the work is going on."
"Yes," said Jorun, "I can relieve Zarek at it. I'd appreciate it if youdid come, good sir. Your influence is very steadying on these people."
"It should be," said Kormt. "I've been their Speaker for almost ahundred years. And my father Gerlaug was before me, and his father Kormtwas before him." He took a brand from the fire and held it over hispipe, puffing hard, looking up at Jorun through tangled brows. "Who wasyour great-grandfather?"
"Why--I don't know. I imagine he's still alive somewhere, but--"
"I thought so. No marriage. No family. No home. No tradition." Kormtshook, his massive head, slowly, "I pity you Galactics!"
"Now please, good sir--" Damn it all, the old clodhopper could get asirritating as a faulty computer. "We have records that go back to beforeman left this planet. Records of everything. It is you who haveforgotten."
Kormt smiled and puffed blue clouds at him. "That's not what I meant."
"Do you mean you think it is good for men to live a life that isunchanging, that is just the same from century to century--no newdreams, no new triumphs, always the same grubbing rounds of days? Icannot agree."
* * * * *
Jorun's mind flickered over history, trying to evaluate the basicmotivations of his opponent. Partly cultural, partly biological, thatmust be it. Once Terra had been the center of the civilized universe.But the long migration starward, especially after the fall of the FirstEmpire, drained off the most venturesome elements of the population.That drain went on for thousands of years. Sol was backward, ruined andimpoverished by the remorseless price of empire, helpless before thestorms of barbarian conquest that swept back and forth between thestars. Even after peace was restored, there was nothing to hold a youngman or woman of vitality and imagination here--not when you could gotoward Galactic center and join the new civilization building out there.Space-traffic came ever less frequently to Sol; old machines rusted awayand were not replaced; best to get out while there was still time.
Eventually there was a fixed psychosomatic type, one which lived closeto the land, in primitive changeless communities and isolatedfarmsteads--a type content to gain its simple needs by the labor ofhand, horse, or an occasional battered engine. A culture grew up whichincreased that rigidity. So few had visited Earth in the last severalthousand years--perhaps one outsider a century, stopping briefly off onhis way to somewhere else--that there was no challenge or encouragementto alter. The Terrans didn't _want_ more people, more machines, moreanything; they wished only to remain as they were.
You couldn't call them stagnant. Their life was too healthy, theircivilization too rich in its own way--folk art, folk music, ceremony,religion, the intimacy of family life which the Galactics had lost--forthat term. But to one who flew between the streaming suns, it was asmall existence.
Kormt's voice broke in on his reverie. "Dreams, triumphs, work, deeds,love and life and finally death and the long sleep in the earth," hesaid. "Why should we want to change them? They never grow old; they arenew for each child that is born."
"Well," said Jorun, and stopped. You couldn't really answer that kind oflogic. It wasn't logic at all, but something deeper.
"Well," he started over, after a while, "as you know, this evacuationwas forced on us, too. We don't want to move you, but we must."
"Oh, yes," said Kormt. "You have been very nice about it. It would havebeen easier, in a way, if you'd come with fire and gun and chains forus, like the barbarians did long ago. We could have understood youbetter then."
"At best, it will be hard for your people," said Jorun. "It will be ashock, and they'll need leaders to guide them through it. You have aduty to help them out there, good sir."
"Maybe." Kormt blew a series of smoke rings at his youngest descendant,
three years old, who crowed with laughter and climbed up on his knee."But they'll manage."
"You can't seem to realize," said Jorun, "that you are the _last man onEarth_ who refuses to go. You will be _alone_. For the rest of yourlife! We couldn't come back for you later under any circumstances,because there'll be Hulduvian colonies between Sol and Sagittarius whichwe would disturb in passage. You'll be alone, I say!"
Kormt shrugged. "I'm too old to change my ways; there can't be manyyears left me, anyway. I can live well, just off the food-stores that'llbe left here." He ruffled the