“But it wasn’t! You really did plan to surrender the Confederation, so you did need an Ambassador.”
Lingo shook his head. “Don’t be juvenile!” he said sharply. “Do you really suppose the Confederation would’ve honored any surrender you made? Of course not, not in a million years! And do you think we would be so stupid as to think that you’d agree to a surrender in the first place? Jay, we needed you along to do exactly as you did.”
“What? You needed someone to try to kill you?”
“Precisely. It made the whole thing credible. We had to make sure that the Doogs really believed that we were throwing the Confederation to the wolves. And the only way to convince them of that, was to have you believe it too, and act accordingly. Let me congratulate you, Jay. You played the part of the betrayed Confederation Ambassador perfectly.”
“Believe me, Lingo,” Palmer snapped, “I wasn’t acting!”
“Of course you weren’t. That’s the whole point. You would never have been able to fool the Doogs if you were. You had to really believe that you were being betrayed.”
“But why?”
“To make the whole thing credible,” Lingo said patiently. “Your attack on me convinced the Kor that we really were ready to hand over the Human Confederation. And once he was convinced of that—or I should say, once the Council of Wisdom was convinced—the rest followed logically: Fortress Sol is no longer protecting the Confederation. Therefore Sol is using the Confederation to buy time. Therefore, Fortress Sol expects to have use for that time. Therefore the superweapons that I told them about may actually be in the process of being built. Therefore, it behooves the Duglaari Empire to take no chances, alter its plans and attack Sol now, rather than after the Confederation is destroyed.”
“You…. you mean the whole thing, the whole purpose of the mission, was to get the Duglaari Empire to attack Fortress Sol?”
“To be more precise,” Lingo said dryly, “our purpose was to get the Doogs to attack Fortress Sol in overwhelming force.”
It explained everything! Palmer was staggered. All the inconsistencies fell into place. The Solarians had told the General Staff one improbable story so that they could get a Confederal Ambassador. They needed an Ambassador so that they could convince the Kor of still another lie. The Kor and the Council of Wisdom had to believe that lie about superweapons so that they would immediately attack Fortress Sol!
It all added up, in logical sequence. But the sum total was madness!
“But why, Lingo, why?” he exclaimed. “What’ve you accomplished? Only the destruction of Fortress Sol!”
Lingo smiled slyly. “What’ve we accomplished? Only what no one has been able to do in three centuries! Think man, think! For three hundred years, the Duglaari have been fighting the War their way. They started out with an advantage in ships, and they’ve been very careful never to risk losing it. They’ve never risked more than three hundred ships in a single battle.”
“Of course not. Neither have we, for that matter. No single solar system is worth risking three hundred ships. It’s ships that count in a war like this.”
“Exactly, Jay, exactly. The Doogs have been having everything their way: this is a war of attrition, a war where relative numbers of ships is what counts, a war where they started out with a sizeable advantage. And so our completely logical friends have never risked endangering that advantage. It’s been their war, on their terms, all the way. Until now, that is!”
̴I still don’t understand. Having four thousand Duglaari ships attack Fortress Sol is somehow one for our side?”
“Come on, Jay, use your head!” Lingo said. “Never before have the Doogs risked a tenth of what they’re risking now. For the first time in the history of The War, we’ve forced them into fighting on our terms. It’s no longer a war of attrition, a war we had to lose. We’ve maneuvered them into staking the entire outcome of The War on one single battle! What would happen if that entire fleet of four thousand Doog warships attacking Sol were to be completely wiped out?”
“Why…why…the entire course of The War would be changed! It’d be turned around. We’d have the advantage in ships. It’d be our war!”
Suddenly, he realized the enormity of what had happened. The fate of the entire human race would depend on what happened when the huge Doog armada attacked Fortress Sol. If Sol were destroyed, the fight would go completely out of the Confederation, and the Duglaari would be left with only a simple mop-up operation. But if the Duglaari fleet were destroyed by the Solarian superweapons…superweapons? Superweapons? But…but….
“But the superweapons don’t exist!” he exclaimed. “It was all a lie! You said so yourself. There aren’t any superweapons. Why…why you said that four hundred Doog ships could easily defeat the forces of Sol!”
“So I did,” said Lingo. “And that was a pretty conservative figure.”
“But then all you’ve done is insure our defeat! The Doogs will annihilate Sol, and….”
“Ah,” said Lingo with an enigmatic smile that contained both a trace of triumph and one of…almost regret, “but there is one weapon you have overlooked. One weapon the Kor has not considered. One weapon that we’ve had all along.”
“All along? But what is it?”
Lingo turned, and stared off into the enigmatic maelstrom of Stasis-Space, through which the ship was hurtling at many times the objective speed of light towards its rendezvous with Armageddon. His face seemed to drain of all color, and when he spoke, the words were somehow leaden with bitterness.
“What else?” Lingo said, withdrawing into his own thoughts.
“What else but Fortress Sol?”
Chapter XI
MAX AND LINDA were fooling around listlessly with the telepathy table. Robin and Dirk were off together in the control room, withdrawing into each other, as they had been doing more and more of the time in the past week or sodrain
Fran Shannon was slumped in a chair, half-reading a book of poetry. Ortega diddled aimlessly about the bar.
The total effect was a combination of impatience and foreboding, like a man with a toothache waiting in a dentist’s office. The pattern of life in the Solarian Organic Group had changed, had adapted itself to the new moody feeling in the air.
It was hard for Palmer to put his finger on the individual differences—it was a total effect compounded out of dozens of subtle changes: the way Max and Linda spent more and more time staring silently at each other, communicating wordlessly and deeply in the intertwining of their minds; the way Robin and Lingo went off for longer and more frequent periods to be alone together; the way Fran Shannon was trying, largely unsuccessfully, to withdraw into the books; the way Ortega seemed overstuffed with directionless nervous energy.
And yet, the Solarians were still very much a Group. Somehow, their individual psychic needs had changed, and the patterns within the Group had altered themselves in response. The communal spirit was still there, but now it was closer akin to the togetherness of an old couple, sharing silences more than words.
To an outsider, the effect was somehow maddening, and Palmer felt his nerves drawing even tighter.
“Damn it, Raul,” he said, picking up a glass nervously from the bar and ringing it with his thumbnail, “what’s going on?”
“Huh?” muttered Ortega, withdrawing suddenly from some private reverie. “Oh, nothing much, Jay…just thinking.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Everyone’s so keyed up, so wrapped up in themselves.”
“You’re not exactly loose as a goose yourself, you know,” Ortega said.
“Well after all, the fate of the entire human race is going to be decided in a few weeks or so,” Palmer said. “It’s pretty hard to accept—the decisive battle. After you’ve been conditioned to believe that The War would last at least another century….”
“It still may,” said Ortega, pouring himself a small shot of whiskey. “In fact, it almost certainly will, no matter what happens. Even if
the Doogs lose four thousand ships, they’ll still have three thousand left, after all. The Duglaari Empire just won’t dry up and blow away. They’ll be in the same position the Confederation is in now—fighting a hopeless holding action in a war they can’t win, losing solar systems, one by one…. It’d probably go on for at least another century. The big difference would be that we’d be the ones assured of eventual victory.”
“And if the Doogs wipe out Sol,” Palmer said, “the Confederation won’t be any worse off, militarily speaking, than it is right now. The defeat’ll be purely psychological, and they’ll fightt on listlessly for a few more decades.”
“They?” said Ortega, arching his eyebrows. “They, not we?“
“Pour me one too, Raul,” Palmer said. “Yes, I said they. As for me, I don’t know who or what I am any more. I’ve spent too much time with your people. I know too much about the real nature of the Doogs and The War to feel like just another Confederal citizen.”
He sipped moodily at his drink. “Robin told me I’d changed, and when I took a good look at myself, I was really surprised. I hate to admit it, but there’s something…incomplete and naive about the Confederation. I can’t feel completely a part of it any more.”
“Pentagon City,” Ortega mumbled.
“What?”
“Pentagon City. It sums up what’s wrong with the whole Human Confederation. Doesn’t it remind you of someplace else, now?”
“Why…it does. It…it somehow reminds me of Duglaar! Of the Hall of Wisdom! In a less thorough way, it’s just as ugly, just as functional, and…”
“And just as much a dead end,” Ortega said. “Specialization, Jay, specialization. A law of evolution: the more specialized a species becomes, the closer it is to extinction. What happens when The War is over, assuming that the Doogs are wiped out? What then? Like a cheap imitation of the Duglaari Empire, the Human Confederation is specialized for war in every way: economically, scientifically, psychologically. Even religiously—the only ‘religion’ of the Confederation is the myth of Fortress Sol; strictly a warrior’s religion. The only thing holding the Confederation together is The War. There isn’t even a Confederal government as such, just the Combined Human Military Command. It can’t survive peace.”
Palmer drained his glass. “It’s true,” he said. “The future of the human race is Fortress Sol, if there is a future. I’ve been feeling it all along, but I’ve been afraid to admit it to myself. You people have something…. A new kind of humanity, based on what’s human about the human race. The Confederation is a dead end, a denial of what makes a man a man. I only wish….”
“You only wish what, Jay?”
Palmer sighed. A dam within him seemed to burst, and deep waters indeed flowed forth. “I only wish I could be a part of it, Raul. I know that you’ve tried to help me become a part of it, and now I can at least appreciate what you’ve tried to do. But it can’t work; I’m too much a part of the Confederation. I’ve got too many years of a different culture behind me. I can’t be a part of what you are….
“And yet, now that I’ve had a taste of something better, I can’t be a part of what the Confedration is either. I’m alone, Raul. I’m the most alone human being in the Galaxy. I know too much, and I know too little…. Hell, pour me another drink. A big one.”
Ortega filled Palmer’s glass up to the rim and then refilled his own.
“No, Jay,” he said, staring into the depths of his glass, “you’re wrong again. We’re not the future. We can’t be. There are only five billion of us, and two hundred billion people in the Confederation. We can only be a seed, a germ, the beginning of something. We must be absorbed into the totality of the human race, like any other favorable mutation. We’re not the human race of the future; we’re a new thing that must become part of the human race.”
He drained his glass and stared at Palmer. There was something in his eyes that seemed almost envy.
“You’re the future, Jay,” he said.
“Me? I’m not part of anything. I’m not a Solarian, and I’m no longer part of the Confederation either. I’m nowhere.”
“The future is always nowhere, Jay. It’s the creatures who are ousted from their familiar environments who have always been forced to evolve. And the future is always alone. The first fish to be flung up on the land and live long enough to breed was alone. The first monkey to come down from the trees was alone. The first men to colonize the stars were alone. There couldn’t be any change if there weren’t someone who couldn’t feel a part of everything else that already was.”
“That’s not a very comfortable view of the universe, Raul.”
“It’s not a very comfortable universe! It wasn’t designed by you or me or by the first Kor of the Duglaari, either. The universe couldn’t care less about your comfort, Jay. And if you’ll forgive me—and even if you won’t—neither do we.”
“What do you mean? How is it your fault?”
“You think it isn’t?” sighed Ortega. “Jay, when we decided to take along an Ambassador from the Confederation, we wanted more than just a dupe. Hell, as far as that goes, Kurowski would’ve played the part better than you. And don’t think we couldn’t have bulldozed Kurowski into coming along, if we had wanted to. But we didn’t want a Kurowski. Remember, way back when we first landed on Olympia III, how Max and Linda went through everyone’s minds? It wasn’t idle curiosity; they were looking for something. They were looking for you, in effect. They were looking for a potential that had been thwarted. They were looking for a man capable of meaningful change—and you must realize by now that that’s not so common in the Confederation. To be blunt, they were looking for the right guinea pig. You were an experiment, Jay. If it’s any consolation to you, we consider the experiment a success.”
Ortega’s words bit into Palmer like the cold of space itself. “What are you talking about?” he said sharply. But he knew, and he knew he knew.
Ortega nodded, as if in response to Palmer’s thoughts, rather than his words. He seemed unable to meet Palmer’s eyes.
“We had to know whether the humans of the Confederation were capable of change, capable of accepting that new thing which we had become as a part of the whole of mankind,” Ortega said slowly.
“If the human race were ever to become whole again, there would have to be men who could stand apart from both the Confederation and Sol, men who would be neither Solarians, nor trapped in the dead end that the Confederation had become. Men like you, Jay. A bridge between us and the rest of the human race. The Organic Group is the social unit of the future—but people who are too deeply a part of one can’t bring it to people who are not. And someone who is part of the Confederation cannot understand that the Confederation must change. Yes…that’s what you are Jay: a bridge. A bridge between the past and the future. Whether you’re happy about it or not, that’s what we made of you.”
“I suppose I should hate you,” Palmer said. “But I really can’t do that any more. I understand you too well. Fortress Sol itself is an experiment too, isn’t it? MacDay’s experiment. And if you ask me, MacDay was crueler to you than you’ve been to me. Because he didn’t even know what he was trying to achieve. He forced you to change, but he didn’t know to what. You were guinea pigs too, Raul.”
Ortega laughed. “I suppose so,” he said. “Maybe all human beings are guinea pigs, one way or another. If not ours, or MacDay’s, then evolution’s. Welcome to the club, fellow guinea pig!”
He held out his hand.
Palmer took it.
Ortega refilled the glasses. “Let’s drink to all guinea pigs,” he said, “past, present and future.”
“If there is a future,” Palmer said, draining his glass. He took the bottle and poured another round.
“One more toast,” he said, hoisting his glass. “To home, wherever that may be.”
Ortega slammed his glass down on the bar. A dark shadow crossed his face. “I don’t want to drink to that” he said coldly.
&
nbsp; “What’s the matter? You’re going home, aren’t you? Home to Sol, home to Earth. I wish….”
“Don’t wish!” Ortega snapped. “Don’t wish when you don’t know what you’re wishing for. I wish I weren’t going home. I wish I were going anywhere but Sol. Home…. You’re better off without a home, Jay. Home is only someplac you have to leave.”
“You mean the Duglaari fleet? But you’re the ones who made the Duglaari decide to attack Sol in the first place. Lingo said something about one real superweapon….”
Ortega snorted. “Yeah, the weapon…” he said bitterly. “Only there’s nothing super about it, Jay. You don’t get something for nothing. Every victory has a price, and the greater the victory, the bigger the price. And sometimes, you have to pay the price in advance, and hope that the goods are delivered.”
He finished his drink, and got out from behind the bar.
“All of a sudden, I don’t feel very sociable,” he said. “I think I’ll go check in the control room.”
And he left Palmer staring confusedly at the empty glasses.
There was something wrong, something strange beyond the usual strangeness of the Solarians, which Palmer had more or less gotten used to, going on.
Palmer was sure of it, as he made his way from his cabin to the common room. With every day, the ship was getting closer and closer to Sol. Yet, instead of the spirits of the Solarians becoming ever more buoyant as they approached their home sun, a strange ominous brooding had slowly but steadily come over them.
It showed in a hundred little things: the subdued and trivial talk at meals, the choice of music played on the hi-fi, the way they seemed to become upset at the most inexplicable times, the way Ortega had that time in the common room….
Whatever it was, it was something they could not, or would not share with him. It was a wall between them, and every attempt he had made to break through it had been met by a gentle rebuff.
For reasons of their own, the Solarians were keeping something else from him.
The Solarians Page 16
