“Your planet is in an interesting stage of development,” Agzaral said. “Trade will not be allowed until it is decided what—until the studies are completed.”
“What the hell do you want with me, then?” Rick demanded.
“I want nothing,” Agzaral said. “You are, for me, a great annoyance. Karreeel has an offer which I believe you should consider.”
“Shoot—uh, go ahead. What’s the offer?”
“My—colleagues—and I are merchants. More correct would be ‘merchant-adventurers,’ ” Karreeel said. When he spoke, he paused frequently, and Rick wondered if he had some kind of translating machine, so that he could think of what he wanted to say and get the English. There was no sign of wires or a hearing aid, but that wasn’t decisive.
“‘Merchant-adventurers,’” Rick repeated. He couldn’t help remembering that the Gentleman Adventurers of the Honourable East India Company had gone out and conquered India for England, and he wondered if the aliens had a similar fate in mind for Earth.
“Yes,” said Karreeel. “We now have a need for human soldiers. The price of mercenaries has become—excessively high. We gambled that we could find soldiers here and yet not violate—Inspector—Agzaral’s regulations. If you will agree, we will have succeeded.”
“If we agree,” Rick said.
Agzaral wagged his head in a manner that Rick thought strange; when he saw Rick’s reaction, he checked himself and nodded. “You are under no compulsion to accept,” he said. “When he has made his offer, I will tell you what alternatives are permitted for you.”
“There is a planet, far from here,” Karreeel said. “It has a primitive society, much more primitive than yours. The planet can support a highly valuable crop, one that cannot be grown easily anywhere else. We need assistance in getting those crops planted and harvested.”
Rick shook his head. This didn’t make sense. “Why don’t you grow your own?”
The alien made a gesture with his left hand, and both his facial slits flared wide. “Why should one of us be condemned to live on a primitive world?”
“But we’re not farmers—”
“We do not expect you to do any farming. There is a local population. Unfortunately, the planet is very primitive, in a state of—feudalism. Our need is not farmers, but soldiers to impose a government which will wish to plant our required crops, harvest them, and deliver the harvest to us.”
“And what makes you think we’ll be interested in living on a primitive world?” Rick demanded.
“Your reward should be obvious. You will rule as you will, without interference. You will have wealth and power, and you will have only to see that our crops are grown. We will supply you with luxuries and comforts in trade.”
“This sounds like a long-term project,” Rick said.
“Of course,” Karreeel said.
Before Agzaral spoke, Rick knew what he was going to say.
“The task will last your lifetime,” Agzaral said. “Captain Galloway, surely it must be obvious to you that you and your men will never return to Earth.”
4
“Just a damn minute!” Rick exploded. “You kidnap us, and then—”
“Rescued,” Agzaral said. “I asked you about it. I have taken the trouble to check the story. It is obvious to me that you would be dead if Karreeel had not taken you aboard his ship. Do you dispute that?”
Rick felt the anger drain out to be replaced by fear. “No. I can’t dispute that. But why can’t we go home?”
“Because you would be believed,” Agzaral said. “Too many witnesses. Karreeel planned on that, of course. By deliberately taking aboard such a large number, he made it certain that someone would take you seriously if you returned to Earth.”
“You mentioned alternatives,” Rick said.
Agzaral nodded. “You have few enough. None include going back to your own world. You would have to stay here, in that chamber where you are now, until transport could be arranged to another planet. Some of you could probably find positions as experimental subjects for the university. Others might—find different work. I do not know what would happen to the majority. The High Commission would have to decide. I would have to report that you have been offered employment and refused it. Humans unwilling to work do not always have a pleasant life on most of our worlds. And it may be several years before transport could be found—at least for all of you.”
“That’s not much choice at all.”
“Or you may commit suicide,” Agzaral said.
“That’s even less.” Rick touched the grenade through his pocket. It was a new variety; a small grenade not much larger than a golf ball, made mostly of plastic. It would explode into thousands of tiny fragments, surely enough to kill everyone in the room—including himself. It didn’t seem a very useful weapon at the moment. “May I smoke?” he asked.
“I would prefer that you do not,” Agzaral said.
“Okay. Look, how the hell do you expect thirty men to take over an entire planet?”
“Not an entire planet.” Karreeel’s tone didn’t change; it remained matter-of-fact, calm, unworried. “Most of”—he twittered something incomprehensible—“is of no interest or value. Only one region will be worth controlling. Surely your men with firearms and other military equipment will have no difficulty dominating primitives with lances, bows, and swords?”
That seemed possible. Rick didn’t care much for the idea. If the planet were that primitive in weapons, it would also be primitive in hygiene and medical science. Living there would not be much fun.
He wondered what it would be like to be on welfare in one of Agzaral’s cultures. It hadn’t sounded pleasant, but Agzaral was undoubtedly used to more luxuries than Rick was. But then there was that phrase “experimental subjects,” and that didn’t sound good at all.
There was another problem that would be even worse. “We’re all men,” Rick said. “And you’ll be sending us to another planet for the rest of our lives—”
“Ah,” Karreeel said. “I understand. Permit me to explain that there will be human females.”
“You’ve kidnapped women?” Rick demanded.
“No. Providing a sufficient number might be difficult without—violating—the regulations. The planet—let us call it Paradise. That is a good name for a planet. Paradise is inhabited by humans.”
“Bull puckey,” said Rick.
There was silence for a moment. Rick wondered if he had offended the alien.
“It is quite true,” Agzaral said. “There are humans in many parts of the galaxy.”
“How?” Rick demanded.
Agzaral smiled thinly. “Don’t your own scientists suggest that humans are not native to Earth?”
“I never heard of that theory being taken seriously. If people—humans—are spread all over the galaxy, how’d they get that way?”
“I doubt that you will ever find that out,” Agzaral said. His voice had become very serious, with no trace of warmth at all. Then he shrugged. “There are no English translations of galactic history, and I have no time to give you lessons. For the moment, believe it.”
Rick frowned. He wondered if it could be true. There were legends of early astronauts: Ezekiel and the wheel, cherubim, the biblical four-faced flying creatures; even the so-called evidence of commercial writers. Genesis could be interpreted as the transplantation of a very small number of people—the story said only two—onto a world where they hadn’t evolved.
It was beyond Rick. He had never been a brilliant student. One reason he had worked in ROTC classes was that he had thought he might need the army for a job. The only subject he had consistently done well in was military history, and that hadn’t promised a very good living.
Paradise. He smiled lopsidedly as he remembered a lump of uninhabitable ice had been named “Greenland” in the hopes of attracting suckers who might go there to settle. “Real people,” he said. “Homo sapiens.”
“How sapient is debatable. Not merel
y for those on Paradise, but everywhere,” Agzaral said. “But depend upon it; union with females there will be fertile.”
Something else nagged at Rick. “You’re a policeman,” he said. “I get the idea that you’re here to protect the people of Earth. All those regulations. Can’t kidnap people who aren’t going to die anyway. Yet you’re sending us off to conquer this primitive place you call Paradise. Why aren’t you concerned about the people there?”
Agzaral frowned. Rick wondered if he’d hit a sore spot. “Paradise—you may as well know the place’s real name,” Agzaral said. “In the dominant language it is called ‘Tran.’ Tran is not covered by the same regulations as Earth.” He stopped and pressed his lips grimly together. “Besides, you can’t do anything to the people there that they haven’t been doing to themselves. You may save them much misery.”
There was some mystery here, Rick thought. Agzaral’s expression did not match his words. But what? “If it’s that easy, why don’t you do it yourselves?”
“We can’t.” Agzaral pointed to Karreeel. “Discoverers, colonizers, and developers have their rights, too. But when you arrive on Tran with your weapons, you might recall that the people there are as human as you or I. Captain Galloway, you must make a decision.”
“How much time do I have?”
Agzaral looked to Karreeel.
“There is no vital hurry,” the alien said. “Shall we say twenty-four hours?”
* * *
Rick put the proposition to the troops. He wasn’t surprised when there was a long silence, then babble. He knew how they felt; he’d wanted to babble himself when he left the interview with Karreeel and Agzaral.
Then a loud voice cut through the chatter. “Another planet? That’s not possible.”
Private Larry Warner, called “Professor” by the other troops, had a voice that could be heard in the middle of a battle. He was a college graduate, and Rick had no idea why the man had volunteered for the army, still less why he had volunteered a second time for a CIA operation. He argued with everyone: officers, noncoms, anyone who would listen. Only threats of severe punishment could shut him up. For all that, he was an educated man, and Rick had found his knowledge valuable in the past.
“Faster-than-light travel is impossible,” Warner said. “We can’t get to another star system—and there sure aren’t any inhabited planets in the solar system. They must be lying to you.”
“It seems a pointless deception,” André Parsons said.
Sergeant Elliot had a simpler way. “Shut up, Warner.”
“Where did the aliens come from?” Jack Campbell shouted. “Not this solar system. You said so yourself, Professor.” Campbell was a college dropout who’d joined the army for lack of something better to do. He enjoyed teasing Warner. “Hey, I like it! Captain, I take it there’ll be some changes in our status. Most of us can hope for something more than twenty years in the army and retirement—”
Rick shrugged. “I hadn’t much thought about it, but I guess so. They talked like we could do pretty well what we wanted to.”
“I have always fancied myself as a king,” André Parsons said. “I see no reason why we cannot all become kings—or at least dukes and barons. Presuming we succeed, of course.”
“We have to get out of here,” someone shouted.
Babble broke out.
“Where to?”
“I’ve got a wife and two kids—I got to get back home!”
“Ten—hut!” Elliot’s command quieted them for a moment.
Before they could speak again, Rick said, “We aren’t going home. They made that clear, and I don’t see any way to get there. They can let the pressure out of here anytime they want to. Anybody know how to breathe vacuum?”
“So what do we do, Captain?” Campbell asked.
“Stick together. Do what they want,” Rick said. “Lieutenant Parsons is right. We can all get rich out of this. We can’t go home, but we can be rich. If we stick together.”
“Fight a whole planet?” Campbell asked.
“Not quite,” Rick said. “But we could. We have the edge in weapons and tactics. There’ll be a lot of people down there, though. A lot. If we don’t stay together—well, when does anyone sleep?”
“First we need a new contract,” Warner said. His voice had a smug quality that instantly irritated Rick. “A new contract. We can begin by electing a chairman—”
Sergeant Elliot looked as if he were having a stroke. “Elect! We got officers—”
“Who have no authority over us under the circumstances,” Warner said. “Their commissions are from the United States, and we don’t live there any longer. Why should we have to take orders from them?”
“Warner, one more goddamn word out of you and I’ll break your neck.” Elliot moved to stand near Private Warner.
“He has a point,” André Parsons said. “Those who volunteer to go are also volunteering to accept Captain Galloway and myself as leaders.” He turned to Rick and said, very formally, “Sir, I accept you as leader and captain of this expedition.” Then he saluted.
Parsons had turned away from the troops, so that only Rick could see his face. His eyes showed sly amusement, and as Rick returned the salute, Parsons gave an exaggerated wink.
* * *
Rick had told Parsons that the aliens—and the human “police,” who in some ways seemed as alien as the Shalnuksis—were probably listening to all their conversations; after that they were guarded, saying nothing they did not want their employers to hear. It made Rick lonelier than ever. He was losing Earth and everyone he knew, and he couldn’t talk about it without risk of being overheard.
And yet, he thought, it might be fun. As Parsons had said, everyone at one time or another dreams of getting a chance to become a knight or baron or duke. Even a king. That didn’t happen on Earth anymore, but it might happen to Rick Galloway on Paradise.
He had other fantasies. He knew enough of Earth’s history to know of the mistakes made in going from the Middle Ages to an industrial society. He had seen pictures of Bombay and Calcutta. Perhaps, he told himself, he could help this new world avoid some of the mistakes. For Karreeel and his merchant-adventurers, this was a routine operation to make some money—or whatever passed for money in their culture—but for Rick it was a chance at adventure.
It was also inevitable, and he was uncomfortably aware that many of the arguments he used with himself and the men were born of necessity. They had no other choices.
* * *
The first task was preparation. They would need supplies and equipment. Agzaral had told him that a reasonable amount of equipment could be obtained from Earth. He hadn’t said what would be reasonable.
Rick set the troops to making lists. Weapons, ammunition, special equipment, communications, survival gear, medical supplies, soap; luxuries and conveniences that couldn’t be manufactured on Tran even with all the help Rick and his people could supply. The lists became endless, and they began to cut them back.
They had very little information about Tran. Karreeel was certain there was no petroleum industry there, but neither knew nor cared whether there was petroleum at all: thus no internal-combustion gear. The other decision information was just as sketchy.
Rick asked the television set for an interview. Eventually Karreeel came on the screen.
“We need more data,” Rick said. “How big is this planet? How much water? Are there hurricanes? How can I prepare when I don’t know what to prepare for?”
“Your questions are reasonable. Unfortunately, we have not translated the data you require. That will be done later.”
“Can you get the equipment I’ve asked for?”
“Some. Most.”
“How?” Rick asked.
“It can be bought. Or stolen,” Karreeel said. “I have little time for you. You will later meet someone who does. Until then, please do not annoy me further.”
“Who is this—”
“A human. If you give m
e your list, I will see what can be obtained.”
The screen went blank. Rick and André looked at each other. “They must have agents on Earth,” Parsons said. “They spoke of purchases—”
“Yeah.” Rick thought about that for a moment, then laughed. “Aliens among us. Agents of the Galactic Confederacy move about studying us. We read about it for years, and it’s all true.”
André Parsons laughed also, but neither of them thought it was really very funny.
PART TWO
SHIP
1
Gwen Tremaine was in love. Given that she was twenty years old and not at all unattractive, this shouldn’t have been astonishing; but in point of fact she was more than astonished. She couldn’t really believe it.
She had resigned herself to a lonely life. Not lonely in the sense of having no friends, although she had few enough; but she was convinced that she would never be in love, and even doubted whether anyone else ever had been. She had strongly suspected that all the poetic passages, all the lyric descriptions of how one felt when one was in love, had been invented by poets and writers who felt there ought to be such feelings but who had never experienced them.
Physical attraction she understood. She’d had several affairs and enjoyed them all. But what she couldn’t seem to arouse, in herself or others, was whatever the poets felt when they spoke of love.
She had tried, and a few times she thought it was happening to her, but it never developed into anything more. The strong affection, the need for someone else’s company that she saw in the few girls she got along with, sometimes she felt stirrings of it, but it never lasted. Generally what few stirrings she did experience happened after physical encounters, and usually hadn’t lasted past the cold light of morning. For a while she had blamed her inability to fall in love on the men in her life, and indeed there was some justice in that. She’d been attracted to as thoroughgoing a collection of cynics, bounders, and just plain cads as it was possible for her to imagine. Even her friends said so. Not that it was so obvious when she met them. She didn’t seek out the most popular boy in her high-school class, or lust after the jocks who could and did have every girl in the school. She was more likely to date the quiet ones with glasses who read a lot. Some had never had a date before her. Yet they invariably left her for her friends as soon as she’d built up their confidence to a level where they dared ask someone else for a date.
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