The Collected Stories

by Earl

  Stuart’s anger dissolved. These at least were people he could reason with. And whose company he could enjoy.

  A rocket plane took them toward central Europe.

  Just before landing, they passed over the ruins of ancient Vinna. In the 30th century, records said, it had enjoyed another hey-day, as before 1914. For a while, it had been the cultural, scientific, and ruling center of a crawling empire. Then total eclipse, as the Second Dark Age fell. Now its once-mighty skyscrapers and magnificent architecture were like the bare bones of a desert skeleton. Here a leaning spire of rust-clothed but stubborn steel. There a heap of rotting marble. . . .

  “Vinna!” Lar Tane murmured reminiscently. Stuart could appreciate his nostalgia somewhat, from the times his father had sighed, haunted by the dead past.

  Some three miles beyond the ruins, on the banks of the Danube, existed now the “capital” of a Second Stone Age tribal-state—Vinna. A miserable village it was, like the many Stuart had toured.

  Or had been! Stuart saw it had a cleaned up aspect now. Bright red paint livened the usual dun huts.

  Lar Tane was watching him.

  “My idea,” he said. “Common red paint—from the iron-oxide of the ruins—but it touches things up nicely. Chief Hal Doth is pleased. He looks up to me, I think.”

  It was apparent when they landed. Chief Hal Doth almost fawned. He was proud of having been the one to resurrect this great “lord from the past.” And it set him apart from the other Triber chiefs to have him as a permanent guest. Stuart reflected vaguely that in a short month Lar Tane had already worked out a niche for himself, in a new and bewildering world. He was a hustler.

  THEY dined together and Lar Tane told of life in his century, in rich, colorful language. There was something magnetic, compelling, about Lar Tane. Or perhaps it was just his gifted tongue. It seemed almost like a spell, to Stuart.

  Later, Elda heightened the spell, by singing in a low, melodious voice. She accompanied herself on a three-stringed lyre of 50th century vintage. The effect was magical.

  “I walk in the towers;

  They call me the queen!

  But what says my heart?

  Of love does it keen!

  I rule all the regions,

  I bow down to none;

  Yet triumph is empty

  If love isn’t won.

  This crown and this sceptre,

  I wear them and sigh;

  My love I’ll find somewhere

  Before I must die!”

  Stuart went to a bed of dreams about the incredible world of a vanished past. And dreams of a strange girl who sang plaintively under a sad moon.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Diana Reborn

  IN the morning, more refreshed than he had been for weeks, Stuart accepted Elda’s invitation to the boar hunt. They rode on two powerful chargers, at the head of six Triber hunters.

  It was an enchanted day. Stuart’s eyes strayed often to the girl beside him, as they trotted along. Her brief costume of Nartican shorts and shirt of silk, which she had adopted, left her arms and legs bare. Across her shoulders were hung a bow and quiver of arrows. She held a flint-tipped spear with a practiced touch.

  Yesterday singing an ancient love-song, like any girl. Today bound on the hunt, like any man. Hers was a complex personality!

  “You miss the guns of your day?” Stuart queried.

  He had unlimbered his bow, tested its string, and now sent an arrow toward a lone tree they were passing by a good margin. The shaft missed, but clipped off bark. He was a little out of practice from his younger days.

  Elda shook the coppery flame of her head.

  “I despised guns. I always used spear and bow, in hunting.”

  Calmly she fitted an arrow to her bow, raised herself in the saddle, and let fly. The arrow spanged into the center of the tree trunk.

  “Good shot,” Stuart said, avoiding the mockery in her eyes.

  “I think you were about to tell me boar-hunting was dangerous,” she laughed.

  At the edge of a wild, somber woods they waited together while the six Tribers circled and rode in as beaters. They did not have long to wait. A wild boar nosed out of the woods, winded them, and scurried down the edge of the clearing. Their horses thundered after. The hunted animal scuttled back for the woods. Elda wheeled her horse quicker than Stuart, and was after it. She leaned over and plunged down her spear, before the trees became too thick.

  She missed. She retrieved the spear and came back.

  “My horse shied at the wrong time,” she panted, dismounting. “I’ll do better on foot.”

  “But that’s—” began Stuart.

  “Dangerous?” Elda laughed.

  Stuart dismounted, and stood beside her.

  “These devils aren’t tame,” he said tersely. “Keep near a tree.”

  If he thought she would, for safety’s sake, he was wrong. She was after the second boar that appeared, like the Diana of ancient Greek mythology. Stuart admired the lithe, easy grace of her flying limbs, then leaped after her. With a burst of speed he passed her and flung his spear first. It was a bad cast, nicking the boar’s shoulder.

  The animal turned on them with snarling grunts of rage. Tusks gleaming, it charged. Stuart knew the girl wouldn’t go for a tree. And neither would he. He whipped out an arrow and let fly. It stuck upright in the flank, without effect on the boar save to drive it utterly berserk. Stuart had no more time except to sidestep swiftly.

  The clumsy beast pounded on, straight for Elda!

  She stood with feet planted solidly, half crouched forward, spear back for a cast. Stuart watched paralyzed. If she cast and missed, she would have no time to sidestep the enraged animal.

  “Elda, run! You can’t—”

  Stuart thought of an arrow, but might hit her. There wasn’t a thing he could do except watch, his nape crawling.

  Elda’s arm came forward, with all the impetus of her shoulders. Straight and true the spear went, impaling the boar’s heart between its shoulders. It stumbled, staggered, and dropped three feet in front of the girl. She jerked the weapon out, calmly wiping its point on the grass.

  But excitement flashed from her green eyes, as Stuart ran up.

  “Your face says you expect me to faint,” she said mockingly. She drew herself up. “Disappointed? I’m not your Leela, you know.”

  Stuart said nothing. He said nothing all the way back to the village. He shut but the confusion in his mind firmly. Wasn’t there enough to think about, with his presidential campaign?

  HE told Lar Tane of that, as they dined of fresh boar meat that evening.

  “I’m beginning to wonder,” he concluded moodily, “if I’ll swing half of Europe.”

  “I think your method is wrong,” Lar Tane said bluntly. “It’s like coaxing children with a little candy. It should be done on a large scale, if at all. I mean a parade, for instance. A parade will sway the masses surprisingly.”

  Stuart frowned. A parade—echo from the 20th century and 30th! Hadn’t his father once denounced it as a showy, emotional method of intriguing the masses? The masses! That was another word with a bad flavor.

  “Lar Tane,” Stuart bristled, “the people are not to be tricked into it. They must understand and believe.”

  “If they can,” Tane said evenly. “You’re an idealist, like your father.”

  “My father was an idealist when he told Nartica their oligarchy must end. He convinced them!”

  “Smashing things is easy. Putting the pieces together again is the hard part.” Lar Tane arose. “You have four months, to put the pieces together—by your plan.”

  Stuart pondered that, as his plane took him to the southern states of Europe. Did Lar Tane have some other plan? A better one? Was it possible that Stirnye, whose name would ring down in history for rallying a world toward a new goal, did not know how to put the pieces together again? Was he jumbling, perhaps?

  Stuart cursed the sudden doubts in his mind. Confusion! I
t did not help to think of emerald-eyed Elda, and how she had mocked him. And made his blood boil. In rage, of course.

  Another month entered the maw of Time.

  Back in New York, Stirnye, Lord of Earth, began to count off the days and months. Three more months and the World-State would be born. The oppressive burden on his weary shoulders would lift. And the gods would stop mocking.

  STUART’S regular report came by code over the radio, from the Gibraltar station.

  “A bloc of states along the Mediterranean are assured. They’ve had trade with Nartica, and have a world outlook.

  But inland states, quite isolated, are suspicious. It’s ironic!

  “They can’t seem to grasp the fundamentals of democracy. They hint that tribal independence is most desired. They may riot, against the edicts of a World Congress. Or even secede! Only your name, when mentioned, commands respect. They remember vividly the threats you made—to gather an army and with mighty powers of the 20th century crush all opposition. I begin to wonder, father. What troubles will the World-State face, when it is formed, pledged to never use force?”

  Knight replied carefully.

  “As president, Stuart, you will be commander-in-chief of a world policing system. Riots must be put down firmly. Deep-seated tribal dissatisfactions must be taken before a Council of Tribal Adjustment. Once a precedent has been established, justly, they will see that force need never be used to settle things.”

  “Yes, but shouldn’t we organize the policing system now? On election day, the rioting may spread like a flame.”

  Knight pondered.

  “Yes, perhaps. I’ll have the Narticans ready. You continue as you have, Stuart.”

  Knight turned from the radio, and patted Leela’s hand, seeing the hurt she bravely tried to hide in her eyes. No word for her from Stuart.

  “His head is full of his mission,” Knight said. “He will come to you, free and eager, when it is done.”

  Leela searched his face.

  “You are worried about him yourself, Lord Stirnye!”

  “He is passing through a test of fire,” Knight said slowly. “But he will be stronger for it.”

  Test of fire!

  Knight might have gone to Europe himself, dropping his multitudinous executive duties, save that now was the time for Stuart to stand on his own feet. Now was the time for twenty-four years of invested fatherly training to prove its worth.

  Fatherly training? It was more than that. No conscientious king, or wise patriarch, had trained his son more thoroughly for a life of leadership. A training that straddled two ages, and took account of a lost civilization.

  Stuart must fight his own fight. Grimly, Knight stuck to that.

  STUART drummed north, leaving Gibraltar.

  He was somehow eager to visit Lar Tane and Elda, after another month. Passing over, he saw workmen busy in the ruins of old Vinna. Lar Tane’s handiwork, of course. Rescuing his home-city from utter oblivion. But Stuart was a little startled as he looked down on the square before Chief Hal Doth’s steepled house.

  The large square was filled with youths stripped to the waist. In orderly rows, hundreds of them, they were swinging their arms, lunging, twisting their bodies in callisthenics. The commands came from a short, sturdy man on the balcony—Lar Tane.

  But now the plane had been spied. The square cleared, yet the youths did not scatter as a crowd would have. In single file, with efficient discipline, they marched away.

  Stuart’s surprise was still on his face, when Lar Tane strode to meet him stepping from the plane.

  Tane smiled briefly.

  “I’ve been doing my part for the World-State. The youth are always the hope of any new order, nicht wahr? They are strong young men, the Tribers, but they need discipline. Organized, they can be useful. As, for instance, a policing system.”

  Stuart started.

  “Policing system! How did you—”

  “I thought of it from the first.” Lar Tane’s tone was caustic. “Without it, the World-State would fall apart the day it’s born. I have the interests of the World-State at heart, Stuart.”

  Stuart was faintly uneasy. Regimentation! The thought sprang into-his mind—another of his father’s warnings. Molding and shaping of youth groups for unscrupulous ends.

  “These youths—what do you tell them?”

  Tane motioned toward his plane, wheeling around for take-off.

  “Come along. I’m scheduled today to address the neighboring state, Bvera. I’ve been circulating from tribe to tribe hereabouts, speaking for the World-State.”

  The pilot of the plane startled Stuart. It was Elda. She sat coolly in the driver’s seat, copper-gold hair peeping from beneath a helmet. Each time he saw her Stuart was more amazed. She had a spirit of daring stronger than most men’s. Stuart hesitated. The great machine was not easy to handle.

  Lar Tane smiled, pushing him forward.

  “She has a steadier hand than most men. She has been practicing for a month.”

  Stuart’s trepidation vanished, as the plane lifted smoothly into the air. He could not do better himself.

  Her green eyes twinkled at his, as the plane settled to a steady pace.

  “Brave of you to take a chance!” Mockery in her voice then changed to exuberance. “I love flying. These Nartican ships are almost as good as those of our time.”

  THE flight was short, to the landing square of a nearby tribal-state. A crowd gathered around the landed plane, and milled below the chief’s balcony as they were led there. In a world without radio or printing-presses, oratory held first place. But the audience seemed hostile, on guard. The issue of the World-State had stirred fierce controversy everywhere, as Stuart knew too well.

  Lar Tane smiled, bowed slightly to the chief, and faced the audience. He spoke with the ease of one who had often addressed huge assemblages in his time, perhaps through a radio and television network reaching millions.

  “People of Earth! The World-State is the ideal form of government for humanity. I am from the past, from a dead civilization. My civilization earned oblivion because our people were divided. We must all work and sacrifice, and perish if need be, for the state. Nothing counts but the state!”

  His voice had risen to a vibrant crescendo. Head lifted, face almost imperious, he was an inspiring speaker. Stuart sensed the subtle magnetism that flowed from him, infusing the crowd. Here was a man who, in a vital position, could do much good—or much harm. Stuart banished the last thought as quickly as it formed.

  Lar Tane went on in the same vein. The World-State! A cause to fight for—die for! Stuart himself felt a wild enthusiasm that he’d never had before. And then suddenly—a wild horror. Fight for, die for! What did Lar Tane mean? What inflammatory principle lay like a crouched beast behind his eloquence?

  The last thought was like a lightning blast. Stuart knew that Elda’s eyes were on him, hawk-like. She touched her father’s arm. Lar Tane started, as if from a trance. In lower tones, he concluded:

  “Let us do everything possible toward our goal—the World Empire!”

  THE audience burst out in ringing cheers. Lar Tane stalked from the balcony to the plane. The square cleared, as he waved. When they were in the air, he spoke.

  “They’ve been won,” he said decisively. “Tomorrow I’ll go back and organize a youth group.”

  Stuart spoke tautly.

  “Your speech was strong, Lar Tane. You talked of fighting and dying for the World-State. There is to be no fighting or dying—”

  Lar Tane smiled patronizingly. “Mere words. You must stir the people, make their blood sing. What’s the harm of it?”

  “My father wouldn’t like it—” Stuart wished he hadn’t said it. Elda’s eyes gave a sidelong glint of mockery. He could almost hear her thoughts—“Your father says. Your father says!”

  Tane’s voice was mild.

  “How many tribal-states have you swung in the past month, Stuart?”

  “Five.” Five
out of twenty-five he had visited.

  “I’ve swung nine,” Lar Tane said casually. “Nine who swear by the World-State. A solid bloc in central Europe.”

  Stuart flushed angrily.

  “By what authority?” he snapped. “My father gave you no orders—”

  “Nine of them,” Tane repeated imperturbably. “For the World-State.”

  “But your methods—”

  “Ach! Results are what count, Can you deny that?”

  Suddenly anger and all dissolved, in Stuart. Yes, results counted.

  “Lar Tane,” he said eagerly, “between us we can swing Europe. You in the north, I in the south.” Strangely, Lar Tane hesitated.

  “We could. But for what kind of World-State? Your father’s kind?

  Its troubles would only begin, when it is formed. Riots, endless bickering, hamstrung progress. Is that the right way to put the pieces of civilization together?”

  Stuart went a little cold. What lurked in Lar Tane’s mind?

  “What do you mean?” he demanded.

  The man from the past eyed him narrowly, then shrugged.

  “Nothing—for the present.”

  CHAPTER IX

  Amazon

  THE plane was just landing, at Vinna, with a swoop under Elda’s hands that was sheer skill. She touched Stuart’s arm, as he was about to follow Lar Tane out of the cabin.

  “Do you want some real flying?” Challenge was in her green eyes.

  “Go with her,” urged Tane. “I’ll await you at dinner.”

  He was already striding away.

  For a fleeting moment, Stuart had a baffled feeling. A sensation of being a pawn, tossed between Lar Tane and his daughter. Then he laughed. Clear air and the heady heights of the sky would wipe his mind free of such fantastic thoughts.

  “Let’s go!” he said. “And make it good.”

  Elda did make it good. The plane taxied off with a roar. Stuart clung to his seat-arms as the floor pitched at a steep angle. She motioned for him to strap himself securely. Up and up the ship drilled at full rocket blast. At ten miles the stars came out in the thin air, defying the sun’s radiance.