Now Kandemir did spurt so close
(A bugle: the gods defied!)
They saw his guns and missiles
plain
Go raking for their side.
The exile captain smiled a smile
(New centuries scream in birth)
And woke the first of the
wizardries
Born from the death of Earth.
Then Space arose like a wind
blown wave
(The stars burn bitterly clear)
That thunders and smokes and
tosses ships
Helpless to sail or steer.
And the angry bees from the
nomad hive
(The stormwinds clamor their
grief)
Were whirled away past Brando-
bar
Like a gale-blown autumn leaf.
This was the first combat use of the space distorter. The artificial production of interference phenomena enabled the allied craft to create powerful repulsion fields about themselves, or change the curvature of the world lines of outside matter—two equivalent verbalizations of Goldspring’s famous fourth equation. In effect, the oncoming enemy missiles were suddenly pushed to an immense distance, as if equipped with faster-than-light engines of their own.
Tarkamat recoiled. That is, he allowed the two fleets to interpenetrate and pass each other. The allies decelerated and re-approached him. He acted similarly. For, in the hours that this required, his scientists had pondered what they observed. Already possessing some knowledge of the physical principles which underlay this new defense, they assured Tarkamat that it must obey the conservation-of-energy law. A ship’s power plant could accelerate a missile away, but not another ship of comparable size. Nor could electromagnetic phenomena by much affected by the new equipment.
Tarkamat accordingly decided to match velocities and slug it out at short range with his clumsy but immensely destructive blaster cannon. He would suffer heavy losses, but the greater numbers at his command made victory seem inevitable.
Tarkamat, Master of Kandemir,
(A bugle: the gods defied!)
Rallied his heart. “Close in with
them!
Smite them with fire!” he cried.
The nomad vessels hurtled near
(New centuries scream in birth)
And the second wizardry awoke,
Born from the death of Earth.
Then Force flew clear of its iron
sheath.
(The stars burn bitterly clear)
Remorseless lightnings cracked
and crashed
In the ships of Kandemir.
And some exploded like bursting
suns
(The storm winds clamor their
grief)
And some were broken in twain,
and some
Fled shrieking unbelief.
Over small distances, such allied vessels as there had been time to equip with it could use the awkward, still largely experimental, but altogether deadly space-interference fusion inductor. The principle here was the production of a non-space band so narrow that particles within the nucleus itself were brought into contiguity. Atoms with positive packing fractions were thus caused to explode. Only a very low proportion of any ship’s mass was disintegrated, but that usually served to destroy the vessel. More than half the Kandemirian fleet perished in a few nova-like minutes.
Tarkamat, unquestionably one of the greatest naval geniuses in galactic history, managed to withdraw the rest and reform beyond range of the allied weapon. He saw that—as yet—it was too restricted in distance to be effective against a fortified planet, and ordered a retreat to Mayast II.
Tarkamat, Master of Kandemir,
(A bugle: the gods defied!)
Told his folk, “We have lost
this day,
But the next we may abide.
“Hearten yourselves, good nomad
lords.
(New centuries scream in birth)
Retreat with me to our own
stronghold.
Show now what ye are worth!”
The third of those wizardries
awoke
(The stars bum bitterly clear)
Born from the death of Earth. It
spoke,
And the name of it was Fear.
For sudden as death by thunder
bolt,
(The storm winds clamor their
grief)
Ringing within the nomad ships
Came the voice of the exile chief.
Tarkamat, Master of Kandemir,
(New centuries scream in birth)
Heard with the least of his men
the words
Spoken from cindered Earth.
On the relatively coarse molecular level, the space-interference inductor was both reliable and long-range. Carl Donnan simply caused the enemy hulls to vibrate slightly, modulated this with his voice through a microphone, and filled each Kandemirian ship with his message.
“We have broken ye here by
Brandobar.
(The stars burn bitterly clear)
If ye will not yield, we shall
follow you
Even to Kandemir.
“But our wish is not for ashen
homes,
(The stormwinds clamor their
grief)
But to make you each freeman
once again
And not a nomad fief.
“If ye fight, we will hurl the sky
on your heads.
(A bugle: the gods defied!)
If ye yield, we will bring to your
homes and hearts
Freedom to be your bride.
“Have done, have done; make an
end of war
(New centuries sing in birth)
And an end of woe and of tyrant
rule—
In the name of living Earth!”
TARKAMAT reached a cosmic interference fringe and went into faster-than-light retreat. The allies, though now numerically superior, did not pursue. They doubted their ability to capture Mayast II. Instead, they proceeded against lesser Kandemirian outposts, taking these one by one without great difficulty. Mayast could thus be isolated and nullified.
The effect of Donnan’s words was considerable. Not only did this shockingly unexpected voice from nowhere strike at the cracked Kandemirian morale; it offered their vassals a way out. If these would help throw off the nomad yoke, they would not be taken over by the winning side, but given independence, even assistance.
There was no immediate overt response; but the opening wedge had been driven. Soon allied agents were being smuggled onto those planets, to disseminate propaganda and organize underground movements along lines familiar to Earth’s history.
Thus far the militechnic commentator. But the literary scholar sees more in the ballad. Superficially it appears to be a crude, spontaneous production. Close study reveals it is nothing of the sort. The simple fact that there had been no previous Uru poetry worth noticing would indicate as much. But the structure is also suggestive. The archaic imagery and exaggerated, often banal descriptions appeal, not to the sophisticated mind, but to emotions so primitive they are common to every spacefaring race. The song could be enjoyed by any rough-and-ready spacehand, human, Vorlakka, Monwaingi, Xoan, Yannth, or whatever—including members of any other civilization-cluster where Uru was known. And, while inter-cluster traffic was not large nor steady, it did take place. A few ships a year did venture that far.
Moreover, while the form of this ballad derives from ancient European models, it is far more intricate than the present English translation can suggest. The words and concepts are simple; the meter, rhyme, assonance, and alliteration are not. They are, indeed, a jigsaw puzzle, no part of which can be distorted without affecting the whole.
Thus the song would pass rapidly from mouth to mouth, and be very litt
le changed in the process. A spacehand who had never heard of Kandemir or Earth would still get their names correct when he sang what to him was just a lively drinking song. Only those precise vocables would sound right.
So, while the author is unknown, The Battle of Brandobar was obviously not composed by some folkish minstrel. It was commissioned, and the poet worked along lines carefully laid down for him.
This was, in fact, the Benjamin Franklin’s message to humans throughout the galaxy.
XIV
Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven.
—Bunyan
NO, Sigrid Holmen told herself.
Stop shivering, you fool. What is there to be afraid of?
Is it that . . . after five years . . . this is the first time I have been alone with a man? Oh, God, how cold those years were!
He wouldn’t do anything. Not him, with the weather-beaten face that crinkled when he smiled, and his hair just the least bit grizzled, and that funny slow voice. Or even if he did—
The thought of being grasped against a warm and muscular body made her heart miss a beat. They weren’t going to wait much longer, the crews of Europa and Franklin. The half religious reverence of the first few days was already waning, companionships had begun to take shape, marriages would not delay. To be sure, even after the casualties the Americans had suffered in the Kandemirian war, they outnumbered the women. The sex ratio would get still more lopsided if—no, when!—more ships came in from wherever they now were scattered. A girl could pick and choose.
Nevertheless, murmured Sigrid’s awareness, I had better choose mine before another sets her cap for him. And he wanted to see me today, all by myself . . .
The warmth faded in her. She couldn’t be mistaken about the way Carl Donnan’s eyes had followed each motion she made. But something else had been present as well, or why should his tone have gone so bleak? She had sat there in the ship with the ranking officers of both expeditions, exchanging data, and described how she boarded the Kandemirian missile, and seen his face turn stiff. Afterward he drew her aside; low-voiced, almost furtive, he asked her to visit him confidentially next day.
But why should I be afraid? she demanded of herself again, angrily. We are together, the two halves of the human race. We know now that man will live, there will be children and hearth-fires on another Earth—in the end, on a thousand or a million other Earths.
KANDEMIR is beaten. They have not yet admitted it, but their conquests have been stripped from them, their provinces are in revolt, they themselves requested the cease-fire which now prevails. Tarkamat spars at the conference table as bravely and skillfully as ever he did in battle, but the whole cluster knows his hope is forlorn. He will salvage what he can for his people, but Kandemir as an imperial power is finished.
Whereas we, the last few Homines Sapientes, sit in the councils of the victors.
Vorlak and Monwaing command ships by the thousands and troops by the millions, but they listen to Carl Donnan with deepest respect. Nor is his influence only moral. The newly freed planets, knowing that singly they can have little to say about galactic affairs, have been deftly guided into a coalition—loose indeed, but as close-knit as any such league can be among entire worlds. Collectively, they are already a great power, whose star is in the ascendant. And . . . their deliberative assembly is presided over by a human.
Why am I afraid?
She thrust the question away (but could not make herself unaware of dry mouth and fluttering pulse) as she guided her aircar onto the landing strip. Long, shingle-roofed log buildings formed a square nearby. Trees, their leaves restless in a strong wind, surrounded three sides. The fourth looked down the ridge where Donnan’s headquarters stood, across the greennesses of a valley, a river that gleamed like metal and the blue upward surge of hills on the other horizon. This was not Earth, this world called Varg, and the area Donnan occupied—like other sections lent the humans by grateful furry natives off whom the nomad overlordship had been lifted—the area was too small to make a home.
But until men agreed on what planet to colonize, Varg was near enough like Earth to ease an old pain. When Sigrid stepped out, the wind flung odors of springtime at her.
Donnan hurried from the portico. Sigrid started running to meet him, checked herself, and waited with head thrown back. He had remarked blonde hair was his favorite, and in this spilling sunlight—
He extended a hand, shyly. She caught it between her own, felt her cheeks turn hot but didn’t let go at once.
“Thanks for coming, Miss Holmen,” he mumbled.
“Vas nothing. A pleasure.” Since his French was even rustier than her English, they used the latter. Neither one considered a nonhuman language. She liked his drawl.
“I hope . . . the houses we turned over to you ladies . . . they’re comfortable?”
“Oh, ja, ja.” She laughed. “Every time ve see a man, he asks us the same.”
“Uh. . . no trouble? I mean, you know, some of the boys are kind of impetuous. They don’t mean any harm, but—”
“VE have impetuous vuns too.” They released each other. She turned in confusion from his gray gaze and looked across the valley. “How beautiful a view,” she said. “Reminds me about Dalarna, v’en I vas a girl. Do you live here?”
“I bunk here when I’m on Varg, if that’s what you mean, Miss Holmen. The other buildings are for my immediate staff and any visiting firemen. Yeah, the view is nice. But . . . uh . . . didn’t you like that planet—Zatlokopa, you call it?—the one you lived on, in the other cluster. Captain Poussin told me the climate there was fine.”
“Veil, I say nothing against it. But thank God, ve vere too busy to feel often how lonely it vas for us.”
“I, uh, I understand you were doing quite well.”
“Yes. Vuns ve had learned, v’at you say, the ropes, ve got rich fast. In a few more years, Terran Traders, Inc., would have been the greatest economic power in that galactic region. Ve could have sent a thousand ships out looking for other survivors.” She shrugged. “I am not bragging. Ve had advantages. Such as necessity.”
“Uh-huh. What a notion!” He shook his head admiringly. “We both had the same problem, how to contact other humans and warn them about the situation. Judas priest, though, how much more elegant your solution was!”
“But slow,” she said. “Ve vere not expecting to be able to do much about it for years. The day Yael Blum came back from Yotl’s Nest and told v’at she had heard, a song being sung by a spaceman from another cluster—and ve knew other humans vere alive and ve could safely return here to them—No, there can only be two such days in my lifetime.”
“What’s the other one?”
She didn’t look at him, but surprised herself by how quietly she said, “V’en my first-born is laid in my arms.”
For a while only the wind blew, loud in the trees. “Yeah,” Donnan said at last, indistinctly, “I told you I bunked here. But it’s not a home. Couldn’t be, before now.” As if trying to escape from too much revelation, she blurted, “Our problems are not ended. V’at vill the men do that don’t get . . . get married?”
“That’s been thought about,” he answered, unwilling. “We, uh, we should pass on as many chromosomes as possible. That is, uh, well, seems like—”
Her face burned and she held her eyes firmly on the blue hills. But she was able to say for him:
“Best that in this first generation, each voman have children by several different men?”
“Uh—”
“Ve discussed this too, Carl, v’ile the Europa vas bound here. Some among us, like . . . oh . . . my friend Alexandra, for vun . . . some are villing to live with any number of men. Polyandry, is that the vord? So that solves part of the problem. Others, like me—veil, ve shall do v’at seems our duty to the race, but ve only vant a single real husband. He . . . he vill have to understand more than husbands needed to understand on Earth.”
Donnan caught her arm.
The pressure became painful, but she wouldn’t have asked him to let go had it been worse.
Until, suddenly, he did. He almost flung her aside. She turned in astonishment and saw he had faced away. His head was hunched between his shoulders and his fists were knotted so the knuckles stood white.
“Carl,” she exclaimed. “Carl, min kare, v’at is wrong?”
“We’re assuming,” he said as if strangled, “that the human race ought to be continued.”
She stood mute. When he turned around again, his features were drawn into rigid lines and he regarded her as if she were an enemy. His tone stayed low, but shaken: “I asked you here for a talk . . . because of something you said yesterday. I see now I played a lousy trick on you. You better go back.”
She took a step from him. Courage came. She stiffened her spine. “The first thing you must come to understand, you men,” she said with a bite in it, “is that a voman is not a doll. Or a child. I can stand as much as you.”
He stared at his boots. “I suppose so,” he muttered. “Considering what you’ve already stood. But for three years, now, I’ve lived alone with something. Most times I could pretend it wasn’t there. But sometimes, lying awake at night. . . Why should I wish it onto anyone else?”
HER eyes overflowed. She went to him and put her arms about his neck and drew his head down on her shoulder. “Carl, you big brave clever fool, stop trying to carry the universe. I vant to help. That’s v’at I am for, you silly!”
After a while he released her and fumbled for his pipe. “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks more than I can tell.”
She attempted a smile. “Th-th-the best thanks you can give is to be honest vith me. I’m curious, you know.”
“Well—” He filled the pipe, ignited the tobacco surrogate and fumed forth clouds. Hands jammed in pockets, he started toward the house. “After all, the item you mentioned gave me hope my nightmare might in fact be wrong. Maybe you won’t end up sharing a burden with me. You might lift it off altogether.” He paused. “If not, we’ll decide between us what to do. Whether to tell the others, ever, or let the knowledge die with us.”
The Day After Doomsday Page 13
