War and Peace

by Stanley Schmidt (ed)

  Unsteadily, Cruin got to his feet, teetered to and fro. “How many were killed?”

  “None. We fired over their heads. After that—it was too late.”

  “Over their heads?” Squaring his massive shoulders, Cruin felt a sharp pain in the middle of his back, ignored it. “What are guns for if not to kill?”

  “It isn’t easy,” said Jusik, with the faintest touch of defiance. “Not when they’re one’s own comrades.”

  “Do you agree?” The commander’s glare challenged the others.

  They nodded miserably, and Somir said: “There was little time, sir, and if one hesitates, as we did, it becomes—”

  “There are no excuses for anything. You had your orders; it was for you to obey them.” His hot gaze burned one, then the other. “You are incompetent for your rank. You are both demoted!” His jaw came forward, ugly, aggressive, as he roared: “Get out of my sight!”

  They mooched away. Savagely, he climbed the ladder, entered his ship, explored it from end to end. There was not a soul on board. His lips were tight as he reached the tail, found the cause of the earth-rocking detonations. The fuel tanks had been exploded, wrecking the engines and reducing the whole vessel to a useless mass of metal.

  Leaving, he inspected the rest of his fleet. Every ship was the same, empty and wrecked beyond possibility of repair. At least the mutineers had been thorough and logical in their sabotage. Until a report-vessel arrived, the home world of Huld had no means of knowing where the expedition had landed. Despite even a systematic and wide-scale search it might well be a thousand years before Huldians found this particular planet again. Effectively the rebels had marooned themselves for the rest of their natural lives and placed themselves beyond reach of Huldian retribution.

  Tasting to the full the bitterness of defeat, he squatted on the bottom rung of the twenty-second vessel’s ladder, surveyed the double star-formations that represented his ruined armada. Futilely, their guns pointed over surrounding terrain. Twelve of the scouts, he noted, had gone. The others had been rendered as useless as their parent vessels.

  Raising his gaze to the hill, he perceived silhouettes against the dawn where Jusik, Somir, and the others were walking over the crest, walking away from him, making for the farther valley he had viewed so often. Four children joined them at the top, romped beside them as they proceeded. Slowly the whole group sank from sight under the rising sun.

  Returning the flagship, Cruin packed a patrol sack with personal possessions, strapped it on his shoulders. Without a final glance at the remains of his once-mighty command he set forth away from the sun, in the direction opposite to that taken by the last of his men.

  His jack boots were dull, dirty. His orders of merit hung lopsidedly and had a gap where one had been tom off in the fracas. The bell was missing from his right boot; he endured the pad-ding, pad-ding of its fellow for twenty steps before he unscrewed it and slung it away.

  The sack on his back was heavy, but not so heavy as the immense burden upon his mind. Grimly, stubbornly he plodded on, away from the ships, far, far into the morning mists—facing the new world alone.

  Three and a half years had bitten deep into the ships of Huld. Still they lay in the valley, arranged with mathematical precision, noses in, tails out, as only authority could place them. But the rust had eaten a quarter of the way through the thickness of their tough shells, and their metal ladders were rotten and treacherous. The field mice and the voles had found refuge beneath them; the birds and spiders had sought sanctuary within them. A lush growth had sprung from encompassing ash, hiding the perimeter for all time.

  The man who came by them in the midaftemoon rested his pack and studied them silently, from a distance. He was big, burly, with a skin the color of old leather. His deep gray eyes were calm, thoughtful as they observed the thick ivy climbing over the flagship’s tail.

  Having looked at them for a musing half hour he hoisted his pack and went on, up the hill, over the crest and into the farther valley. Moving easily in his plain, loose-fitting clothes, his pace was deliberate, methodical.

  Presently he struck a road, followed it to a stone-built cottage in the garden of which a lithe, dark-haired woman was cutting flowers. Leaning on the gate, he spoke to her. His speech was fluent but strangely accented. His tones were gruff but pleasant. “Good afternoon.”

  She stood up, her arms full of gaudy blooms, looked at him with rich, black eyes. “Good afternoon.” Her full lips parted with pleasure. “Are you touring? Would you care to guest with us? I am sure that Jusik—my husband—would be delighted to have you. Our welcome room has not been occupied for—”

  “I am sorry,” he chipped in. “I am seeking the Merediths. Could you direct me?”

  “The next house up the lane.” Deftly, she caught a falling bloom, held it to her breast. “If their welcome room has a guest, please remember us.”

  “I will remember,” he promised. Eying her approvingly, his broad, muscular face lit up with a smile. “Thank you so much.”

  Shouldering his pack he marked on, conscious of her eyes following him. He reached the gate of the next place, a long, rambling, picturesque house fronted by a flowering garden. A boy was playing by the gate.

  Glancing up as the other stopped near him, the boy said: “Are you touring, sir?”

  “Sir?” echoed the man. “Sir?” His face quirked. “Yes, sonny, I am touring. I’m looking for the Merediths.”

  “Why, I’m Sam Meredith!” The boy’s face flushed with sudden excitement. “You wish to guest with us?”

  “If I may.”

  “Yow-ee!” He fled frantically along the garden path, shrieking at the top of his voice, “Mom, Pop, Marva, Sue—we’ve got a guest!”

  A tall, red-headed man came to the door, pipe in mouth. Coolly, calmly, he surveyed the visitor.

  After a little while, the man removed the pipe and said: “I’m Jake Meredith. Please come in.” Standing aside, he let the other enter, then called, “Mary, Mary, can you get a meal for a guest?”

  “Right away,” assured a cheerful voice from the back.

  “Come with me.” Meredith led the other to the veranda, found him an easy-chair. “Might as well rest while you’re waiting. Mary takes time. She isn’t satisfied until the legs of the table are near to collapse—and woe betide you if you leave anything.”

  “It is good of you.” Seating himself, the visitor drew a long breath, gazed over the pastoral scene before him.

  Taking another chair, Meredith applied a light to his pipe. “Have you seen the mail ship?”

  “Yes, it arrived early yesterday. I was lucky enough to view it as it passed overhead.”

  “You certainly were lucky considering that it comes only once in four years. I’ve seen it only twice, myself. It came right over this house. An imposing sight.”

  “Very!” endorsed the visitor, with unusual emphasis. “It looked to me about five miles long, a tremendous creation. Its mass must be many times greater than that of all those alien ships in the valley.”

  “Many times,” agreed Meredith.

  The other leaned forward, watching his host. “I often wonder whether those aliens attributed smallness of numbers to war or disease, not thinking of large-scale emigration, nor realizing what it means.”

  “I doubt whether they cared very much, seeing that they burned their boats and settled among us.” He pointed with the stem of his pipe. “One of them lives in that cottage down there. Jusik’s his name. Nice fellow. He married a local girl eventually. They are very happy.”

  “I’m sure they are.”

  They were quiet a long time, then Meredith spoke absently, as if thinking aloud. “They brought with them weapons of considerable might, not knowing that we have a weapon truly invincible.” Waving one hand, he indicated the world at large. “It took us thousands of years to learn about the sheer invincibility of an idea. That’s what we’ve got—a way of life, an idea. Nothing can blast that to shreds. Nothing can
defeat an idea—except a better one.” He put the pipe back in his mouth. “So far, we have failed to find a better one.

  “They came at the wrong time,” Meredith went on. “Ten thousand years too late.”

  He glanced sidewise at his listener. “Our history covers a long, long day. It was so lurid that it came out in a new edition every minute. But this one’s the late night final.”

  “You philosophize, eh?”

  Meredith smiled. “I often sit here to enjoy my silences. I sit here and think. Invariably I end up with the same conclusion.”

  “What may that be?”

  “That if I, personally, were in complete possession of all the visible stars and their multitude of planets I would still be subject to one fundamental limitation”—bending, he tapped his pipe on his heel—“in this respect—that no man can eat more than his belly can hold.” He stood up, tall, wide-chested. “Here comes my daughter, Marva. Would you like her to show you your room?”

  Standing inside the welcome room, the visitor surveyed it appreciatively. The comfortable bed, the bright furnishings.

  “Like it?” Marva asked.

  “Yes, indeed.” Facing her, his gray eyes examined her. She was tall, red-haired, green-eyed, and her figure was ripe with the beauty of young womanhood. Pulling slowly at his jaw muscles, he asked: “Do you think that I resemble Cruin?”

  “Cruin?” Her finely curved brows crinkled in puzzlement.

  “The commander of that alien expedition.”

  “Oh, him!” Her eyes laughed, and the dimples came into her cheeks. “How absurd! You don’t look the least bit like him. He was old and severe. You are young—and far more handsome.”

  “It is kind of you to say so,” he murmured. His hands moved aimlessly around in obvious embarrassment. He fidgeted a little under her frank, self-possessed gaze. Finally, he went to his pack, opened it. “It is conventional for the guest to bring his hosts a present.” A tinge of pride crept into his voice. “So I have brought one. I made it myself. It took me a long time to learn … a long time … with these clumsy hands. About three years.”

  Marva looked at it, raced through the doorway, leaned over the balustrade and called excitedly down the stairs. “Pop, Mom, our guest has a wonderful present for us. A clock. A clock with a little metal bird that calls the time.”

  Beneath her, feet bustled along the passage and Mary’s voice came up saying: “May I see it? Please let me see it.” Eagerly, she mounted the stairs.

  As he waited for them within the welcome room, his shoulders squared, body erect as if on parade, the clock whirred in Cruin’s hands and its little bird solemnly fluted twice.

  The hour of triumph.