The Early Asimov. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  Q. Are you ready to admit, then, Secretary Moreno, that at least part of the blame for this situation should rest with Earth itself? In other words, we come to my next question: Was it not a diplomatic blunder of the first magnitude for the government to issue its inflammatory note denouncing the intentions of the Outer Worlds before those intentions had been made clear at the Interplanetary Conference?

  A. I think those intentions were quite clear at the time.

  Q. I beg pardon, sir, but I was at the conference. At the time the note was issued, there was almost a stalemate among the Outer World delegates. Those of Rhea and Tethys strongly opposed economic action against Earth, and there was considerable chance that Aurora and its block might have been defeated. Earth’s note ended that possibility instantly.

  A. Well, what is your question, Mr. Keilin?

  Q. In view of my statements, do you or do you not think Earth’s note to have been a criminal error of diplomacy which can now be made up only by a policy of intelligent conciliation?

  A. You use strong language. However, I cannot answer the question directly, since I do not agree with your major premise. I cannot believe that the delegates of the Outer Worlds could behave in the manner you describe. In the first place, it is well known that the Outer Worlds are proud of their boast that the percentage of insanity, psychoses, and even relatively minor maladjustments of personality are almost at the vanishing point in their society. It is one of their strongest arguments against Earth, that we have more psychiatrists than plumbers and yet are more pinched for want of the former. The delegates to the conference represented the best of this so-stable society. And now you would have me believe that these demigods would, in a moment of pique, have reversed their opinions and instituted a major change in the economic policy of fifty worlds. I cannot believe them capable of such childish and perverse activity, and must therefore insist that any action they took was based not upon any note from Earth, but upon motivations that go deeper.

  Q. But I saw the effect upon them with my own eyes, sir. Remember, they were being scolded in what they considered to be insolent language from an inferior people. There can be no doubt, sir, that as a whole, the men of the Outer Worlds are a remarkably stable people, despite your sarcasm, but their attitude toward Earth represents a weak point in this stability.

  A. Are you asking me questions, or are you defending the racist views and policies of the Outer Worlds?

  Q. Well, accepting your viewpoint that Earth’s note did no harm, what good could it have done? Why should it have been sent?

  A. I think we were justified in presenting our side of the question before the bar of Galactic public opinion. I believe we have exhausted the subject. What is your next question, please? It is the last, isn’t it?

  Q. It is. It has recently been reported that the Terrestrian government will take stern measures against those dealing in smuggling operations. Is this consistent with the government’s view that lowered trade relations are detrimental to Earth’s welfare?

  A. Our primary concern is peace, and not our own immediate welfare. The Outer Worlds have adopted certain trade restrictions. We disapprove of them, and consider them a great injustice. Nevertheless, we shall adhere to them, so that no planet may say that we have given the slightest pretext for hostilities. For instance, I am privileged to announce here for the first time that in the past month, five ships, traveling under false Earth registry, were stopped while being engaged in the smuggling of Outer World materiel into Earth. Their goods were confiscated and their personnel imprisoned. This is an earnest of our good intentions.

  Q. Outer World ships?

  A. Yes. But traveling under false Earth registry, remember.

  Q. And the men imprisoned are citizens of the Outer Worlds? A. I believe so. However, they were breaking not only our laws, but those of the Outer Worlds as well, and therefore doubly forfeited their interplanetary rights. I think the interview had better close, now.

  Q. But this-

  It was at this point that the broadcast came to a sudden end. The conclusion of Keilin’s last sentence was never heard by anyone but Moreno. It ended like this:

  “-means war.”

  But Luiz Moreno was no longer on the air. So as he drew on his gloves, he smiled and, with infinite meaning, shrugged his shoulders in a little gesture of indifference.

  There were no witnesses to that shrug.

  The Gathering at Aurora was still in session. Franklin Maynard had dropped out for the moment in utter weariness. He faced his son, whom he now saw for the first time in naval uniform.

  “At least you’re sure of what will happen, aren’t you?”

  In the young man’s response, there was no weariness at all, no apprehension; nothing but utter satisfaction. “This is it, dad!”

  “Nothing bothers you, then? You don’t think we’ve been maneuvered into this.”

  “Who cares if we have? It’s Earth’s funeral.”

  Maynard shook his head: “But you realize that we’ve been put in the wrong. The Outer World citizens they hold are law-breakers. Earth is within its rights.”

  His son frowned: “I hope you’re not going to make statements like that to the Gathering, dad I don’t see that Earth is justified at all. All right, what if smuggling was going on? It was just because some Outer Worlders are willing to pay black market prices for Terrestrial food. If Earth had any sense, she could look the other way, and everyone would benefit. She makes enough noise about how she needs our trade, so why doesn’t she do something about it? Anyway, I don’t see that we ought to leave any good Aurorans or other Outer Worlders in the hands of those apemen. Since they won’t give them up, we’ll make them. Otherwise, none of us will be safe next time.”

  “I see that you’ve adopted the popular opinions, anyway.”

  “The opinions are my own. If they’re popular opinion also, it’s because they make sense. Earth wants a war. Well, they’ll get it.”

  “But why do they want a war, eh? Why do they force our hands? Our entire economic policy of the past months was only intended to force a change in their attitude without war.”

  He was talking to himself, but his son answered with the final argument: “I don’t care why they wanted war. They’ve got it now, and we’re going to smash them.”

  Maynard returned to the Gathering, but even as the drone of debate re-filled the room, he thought, with a twinge, that there would be no Terrestrian alfalfa that year. He regretted the milk. In fact, even the beef seemed, somehow, to be just a little less savory

  The vote came in the early hours of the morning. Aurora declared war. Most of the worlds of the Aurora bloc joined it by dawn.

  In the history books, the war was later known as the Three Weeks’ War. In the first week, Auroran forces occupied several of the trans-Plutonian asteroids, and at the beginning of the third week, the bulk of Earth’s home fleet was all but completely destroyed in a battle within the orbit of Saturn by an Aurora fleet not one-quarter its size, numerically.

  Declarations of war from the Outer Worlds yet neutral followed like the pop-pop of a string of firecrackers.

  On the twenty-first day of the war, lacking two hours, Earth surrendered.

  The negotiations of peace terms took place among the Outer Worlds. Earth’s activities were concerned with signing only. The conditions of peace were unusual, perhaps unique, and under the force of an unprecedented humiliation, all the hordes of Earth seemed suddenly struck with a silence that came from a shamed anger too strong for words.

  The terms mentioned were perhaps best commented upon by a voice on the Auroran video two days after they were made public. It can be quoted in part:

  “…There is nothing in or on Earth that we of the Outer Worlds can need or want. All that was ever worthwhile on Earth left it centuries ago in the persons of our ancestors.

  “They call us the children of Mother Earth, but that is not so, for we are the descendants of a Mother Earth that no longer exists,
a Mother that we brought with us. The Earth of today bears us at best a cousinly relation. No more.

  “Do we want their resources? Why, they have none for themselves. Can we use their industry or science? They are almost dead for lack of ours. Can we use their man power? Ten of them are not worth a single robot. Do we even want the dubious glory of ruling them? There is no such glory. As our helpless and incompetent inferiors, they would be only a drag upon us. They would divert from our own use food, labor, and administrative ability.

  “So they have nothing to give us but the space they occupy in our thought. They have nothing to free us from but themselves. They cannot benefit us in any way other than in their absence.

  “It is for that reason that the peace terms have been defined as they have been. We wish them no harm, so let them have their own solar system. Let them live there in peace. Let them mold their own destiny in their own way, and we will not disturb them there by even the least hint of our presence. But we in turn want peace. We in turn would guide our own future in our own way. So we do not want their presence. And with that end in view, an Outer World fleet will patrol the boundaries of their system, Outer World bases will be established on their outermost asteroids, so that we may make sure they do not intrude on our territory.

  “There will be no trade, no diplomatic relationships, no travel, no communications. They are fenced off, locked out, hermetically sealed away. Out here we have a new universe, a second creation of Man, a higher Man

  “They ask us: What will become of Earth? We answer: That is Earth’s problem. Population growth can be controlled. Resources can be efficiently exploited. Economic systems can be revised. We know, for we have done so. If they cannot, let them go the way of the dinosaur, and make room.

  “Let them make room, instead of forever demanding room!”

  And so an impenetrable curtain swung slowly shut about the Solar System. The stars in Earth’s sky became only stars again, as in the long-dead days before the first ship had penetrated the barrier of light’s speed.

  The government that had made war and peace resigned, but there was no one, really, to take their place. The legislature elected Luiz Moreno-ex-Ambassador to Aurora, ex-Secretary without Portfolio-as President pro tem, and the Earth as a whole was too numbed to agree or disagree. There was only a widespread relief that someone existed who would be willing to take the job of trying to guide the destinies of a world in prison.

  Very few realized how well-planned an ending this was, or with what calculation Moreno found himself in the president’s chair.

  Ernest Keilin said hopelessly from the video screen: “We are only ourselves now. For us, there is no universe and no past-only Earth, and the future.”

  That night he heard from Luiz Moreno once again, and before morning he left for the capital.

  Moreno’s presence seemed incongruent within the stiffly formal president’s mansion. He was suffering from a cold again, and snuffled when he talked.

  Keilin regarded him with a self-terrifying hostility; an almost singeing hatred in which he could feel his fingers begin to twitch in the first gestures of choking. Perhaps he shouldn’t have come-Well, what was the difference; the orders had been plain. If he had not come, he would have been brought.

  The new president looked at him sharply: “you have to alter your attitude toward me, Keilin. I know you regard me as one of the Gravediggers of Earth-isn’t that the phrase you used last night?-but you must listen to me quietly for a while. In your present state of suppressed rage, I doubt if you could hear me.”

  “I will hear whatever you have to say, Mr. President.”

  “Well-the external amenities, at least. That’s hopeful Or do you think a video-tracer is attached to the room?”

  Keilin merely lifted his eyebrows.

  Moreno said: “It isn’t. We are quite alone. We must be alone; otherwise, how could I tell you safely that it is being arranged for you to be elected president under a constitution now being devised? Eh, what’s the matter?”

  Then he grinned at the look of bloodless amazement in Keilin’s face. “Oh, you don’t believe it. Well, it’s past your stopping. And before an hour is up, you’ll understand.”

  “I’m to be president?” Keilin struggled with a strange, hoarse voice. Then, more firmly: “You are mad.”

  “No. Not I. Those out there, rather. Out there in the Outer Worlds.” There was a sudden vicious intensity in Moreno’s eyes, and face, and voice, so that you forgot he was a little monkey of a man with a perpetual cold. You didn’t notice the wrinkled, sloping forehead. You forgot the baldish head and ill-fitting clothes. There was only the bright and luminous look in his eyes, and the hard incision in his voice. That you noticed.

  Keilin reached blindly backward for a chair, as Moreno came closer and spoke with increasing intensity.

  “Yes,” said Moreno. “Those out among the Stars. The godlike ones. The stately supermen. The strong, handsome master-race. They are mad. But only we on Earth know it.

  “Come, you have heard of the Pacific Project. I know you have. You denounced it to Cellioni once, and called it a fake. But it isn’t a fake. And almost none of it is a secret. In fact, the only secret about it was that almost none of it was a secret.

  “You’re no fool, Keilin. You just never stopped to work it all out. And yet you were on the track. You had the feel of it. What was it you said that time you were interviewing me on the program? Some. thing about the attitude of the Outer Worldling toward the Earthman being the only flaw in the former’s stability. That was it, wasn’t it? Or something like that? Very well, then; good! You had the first third of the Pacific Project in your mind at the time, and it was no secret after all, was it?

  “Ask yourself, Keilin-what was the attitude of the typical Auroran to a typical Earthman? A feeling of superiority? That’s the first thought, I suppose. But, tell me, Keilin, if he really felt superior, really superior, would it be so necessary for him to call such continuous attention to it? What kind of superiority is it that must be continuously bolstered by the constant repetition of phrases such as ‘apemen,’ ‘submen,’ ‘half-animals of Earth,’ and so on? That is not the calm internal assurance of superiority. Do you waste epithets on earthworms? No, there is something else there.

  “Or let us approach it from another tack. Why do Outer World tourists stay in special hotels, travel in inclosed ground-cars, and have rigid, if unwritten, rules against social intermingling? Are they afraid of pollution? Strange, then, that they are not afraid to eat our food and drink our wine and smoke our tobacco.

  “You see, Keilin, there are no psychiatrists on the Outer Worlds. The supermen are, so they say, too well adjusted. But here on Earth, as the proverb goes, there are more psychiatrists than plumbers, and they get lots of practice. So it is we, and not they, who know the truth about this Outer World superiority-complex, who know it to be simply a wild reaction against an overwhelming feeling of guilt.

  “Don’t you think that can be so? You shake your head as though you disagree. You don’t see that a handful of men who clutch a Galaxy while billions starve for lack of room must feel a subconscious guilt, no matter what? And, since they won’t share the loot, don’t you see that the only way they can justify themselves is to try to convince themselves that Earthmen, after all, are inferior, that they do not deserve the Galaxy, that a new race of men have been created out there and that we here are only the diseased remnants of an old race that should die out like the dinosaur, through the working of inexorable natural laws?

  “Ah, if they could only convince themselves of that, they would no longer be guilty, but merely superior. Only, it doesn’t work; it never does. It requires constant bolstering; constant repetition, constant reinforcement. And still it doesn’t quite convince.

  “Best of all, if only they could pretend that Earth and its population do not exist at all. When you visit Earth, therefore, avoid Earthmen; or they might make you uncomfortable by not looking inferior enough.
Sometimes they might look miserable instead, and nothing more. Or worse still, they might even seem intelligent-as I did, for instance, on Aurora.

  “Occasionally, an Outer Worlder like Moreanu did crop up, and was able to recognize guilt for what it was without being afraid to say so out loud. He spoke of the duty the Outer Worlds owed Earth-and so he was dangerous to us. For if the others listened to him and had offered token assistance to Earth, their guilt might have been assuaged in their own minds; and that without any lasting help to Earth. So Moreanu was removed through our web-weaving, and the way left clear to those who were unbending, who refused to admit guilt, and whose reaction could therefore be predicted and manipulated.

  “Send them an arrogant note, for instance, and they automatically strike back with a useless embargo that merely gives us the ideal pretext for war. Then lose a war quickly, and you are sealed off by the annoyed supermen. No communication, no contact. You no longer exist to annoy them. Isn’t that simple? Didn’t it work out nicely?”

  Keilin finally found his voice, because Moreno gave him time by stopping. He said: “You mean that all this was planned? You did deliberately instigate the war for the purpose of sealing Earth off from the Galaxy? You sent out the men of the Home Fleet to sure death because you wanted defeat? Why, you’re a monster, a…a-”

  Moreno frowned: “Please relax. It was not as simple as you think, and I am not a monster. Do you think the war could simply be instigated? It had to be nurtured gently in just the right way and to just the right conclusion. If we had made the first move, if we had been the aggressor, if we had in any way put the fault on our side-why, they of the Outer Worlds would have occupied Earth and ground it under. They would no longer feel guilty, you see, if we committed a crime against them. Or, again, if we fought a protracted war, or one in which we inflicted damage, they could succeed in shifting the blame.