Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  "Of your face. It looks suddenly like a nomad's face. You remind me of an old schnorrer who used to wander through our gardenboro every year to play his fiddle, and sing us songs, and steal our chickens."

  "I don't fiddle."

  "But your eyes are on the sky-fleet."

  Evon paused, hovering between irritation and desire to express. "It's strange," he murmured at last. "It's as if I know them--the star-birds, I mean. Last night, when I saw them first, it was like looking at something I expected to happen ... or ... or...."

  "Something familiar?"

  "Yes."

  "You think he has the genemnemon, Marrita?" she asked the blonde girl who sat on the cool rock by the spring.

  Marrita looked up from dabbling her toes in the icy trickle. "I don't believe in the genemnemon. My great grandfather was a thief."

  "How silly! What's that to do with it?"

  "He buried a fortune, they say. If there was a genemnemon, I'd remember where he buried it, wouldn't I?" She pouted, and went back to dabbling a club toe in the spring.

  Evon snorted irritably and arose to stretch. "We lie around here like sleepy pigs!" he grumbled. "Have the Pedaga nothing to do but wait on the Geoark to make up its mind?"

  "What do you think they'll do?"

  "The Geoark? Invite the strangers to land. What else could they do?"

  "Tell them to go away."

  "And suppose they chose not to go?"

  The girl looked bewildered. "I can't imagine anyone refusing the Geoark."

  "Maybe they've got their own Geoark. Why should they cooperate with ours?"

  "Two Geoarks? What a strange idea."

  "Is it strange that you and I should have two brains? Or were you aware that I have one too?"

  "Evon! What a strange idea."

  He seized her by the ankles and dragged her squealing to the spring, then set her down in the icy trickle. Marrita moved away, grumbling complaints, and Letha snatched up a switch and chased him around the glade, shrieking threats of mayhem, while Evon's laughter broke the gloomy air of the small gathering, and caused a few other Pedaga to wander into the clearing from the pathways.

  "I think we should prepare a petition for the Geoark," someone suggested.

  "About the sky-fleet? And who knows what to say?"

  "I'm afraid," said a girl. "Somehow I'm suddenly afraid of them."

  "Our brothers from the Exodus? But they're people--such as you and I."

  So went the voices. After an hour, a crier came running through the glade to read another message received from the sky-fleet.

  PROPAUTH EARTH FROM COMMSTRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACE, KLAEDEN COMM, PRESENTS GREETINGS!

  HAVING RECEIVED NO ANSWER TO OUR PREVIOUS COMMUNICATION, WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LAND AT ONCE. I AM IMPOSING AN INFORMATIONAL QUARANTINE TO AVOID RESTIMULATING POSSIBLE RECESSIVE KULTURVERLAENGERUNG, BUT SUGGEST YOU GUARD YOURSELVES. OUR CULTURES HAD A COMMON ORIGIN. WE COME IN ARMS, WITHOUT ENMITY.

  ERNSTLI BARON VEN KLAEDEN, COMMANDING STRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACESTRIKE COMMAND IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION

  This was even more mystifying than the previous one, even less meaningful in translation. One thing was clear, however: the fleet was going to land, without invitation.

  Embarrassed, the elders of the Geoark immediately called the tech clans. "Can you revive the devices that speak across space?" they asked.

  "They are revived," answered the tech clans.

  "Then let us speak to our brothers from space."

  And so it was that the people of the gardens of Earth sang out:

  BRETHREN TO BRETHREN, PRESENT LOVE LOVE LOVE.

  WE WELCOME YOU TO OUR GLADES AND TO OUR PLACES OF FEEDING AND OUR PLACES OF SLEEPING. WE WELCOME YOU TO THE BOSOM OF THE WORLD OF BEGINNING. AFTER TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS, EARTH HAS NOT FORGOTTEN. COME AMID REJOICING.

  THE ELDERS OF THE GEOARK

  "I'm afraid Earth will remember more than it wants to," growled Ernstli Baron ven Klaeden, as he issued the command to blast into an atmospheric-braking orbit.

  And there was thunder in a cloudless sky.

  "O your steed was auld and ye hae mair, Edward, Edward. O your steed was auld and ye hae mair, And some other dule ye dree, O." "O I hae kill'd my ain father dear, Mither, mither; O I hae kill'd my ain father dear, Alas and woe is me, O."

  --ANONYMOUS

  * * * * *

  In accordance with the rules of invasion strategy for semi-civilized planets, the fleet separated itself into three groups. The first group fell into atmospheric braking; the second group split apart and established an "orbital shell" of criscrossing orbits, timed and interlocking, at eight hundred miles, to guard the descent of the first wave of ships, while the third wave remained in battle formation at three thousand miles as a rear guard against possible space attack. When the first wave had finished braking, it fell into formation again and flew as aircraft in the high stratosphere, while the second wave braked itself, and the third wave dropped into the orbital shell.

  From the first wave, a single ship went down to land, and its telecameras broadcast a view of a forest garden, slightly charred for a hundred yards around the ship, with fires blazing along its edges.

  "No signs of the natives yet," came the report. "No signs of technology. No evidence of hostility."

  A second ship descended to land a mile from the first. Its telecamera caught a fleeting glimpse of a man waving from a hilltop, but nothing more.

  One at a time the ships came, with weapon locks open and bristling with steel snouts. The ships came down at one-mile intervals, the first wave forming a circle that enclosed an area of forty-six hundred square miles. The second wave came down to land in a central circle of fifteen miles diameter. The third wave remained in its orbital shell, where it would stand guard as long as the fleet was on the ground.

  In accordance with the rules of officer's conduct, Baron ven Klaeden, who had ordered the landing, was the first to expose himself to the enveloping conditions outside the flagship. He stood in an open lock, sniffing the autumn air of Earth in late afternoon. It was full of jet-fire smoke, and smelled of burning brush. The automatic extinguishers had quenched the flames, but the blackened trees and brush still roasted and sparked and leaked smoke across the land. Somewhere a bird was singing through the sunlit haze. Baron ven Klaeden recognized the sound as made by a living thing, and wondered if the recognition was born into his bones.

  Three hundred and fifty yards to the north, a wingship towered in the sun, its guns trained outward from the inner circle, and to the south, another wingship. The baron glanced down at the earth beneath the flagship. The jets had reduced to ashes something that might have been a low wooden structure. He shrugged, and glanced across the blackened area toward the orderly forest. Trees and shrubs, and a carpet of green turf below, broken here and there by rain-worn rocks and clusters of smaller fragile leafy stuff that might be food-plants. Vivid splashes of color blossomed in the shady forest, scarlets and blues and flashes of brilliant lemon that lived in profusion in the foliage of the shrubbery. Some of the trees were living masses of tiny flowers, and when the wind stirred them, petals showered to the ground in fragrant gusts. The wind changed, and the air that breathed about the commander's face was full of perfume.

  I feel nothing, he thought. Here is beauty and warmth, here is the home of Man, and almost an Eden, but I feel nothing. It is just another mote that circles a minor sun, and to me it is only an exploitable supply dump of Nature, a place to accomplish Procedure 76-A, "Refueling Method for Terrestroid Planets Without Facilities, Native Labor Exploitable."

  It was only a way-station on the long long road from Scorpius to Ursa, and it meant nothing, nothing at all. It had changed too much. Millenia ago, when the Star Exodus had burst forth to carry Man halfway across the galaxy, things had been different. A few colonies had kept accurate histories of Earth intact, and when the Transpace Empire had gathered itself into social integration, nearly five thousand years ago, the histo
ries had been made universally available. The baron had studied them, but from the viewpoint of the spacer, the history of Humanity had ceased in any way to be associated with Earth after the Star Exodus. Man was a space creature, a denizen of the interstellum--or had been, before the War of Secession--and when history moved into space, Earth was a half-remembered hamlet. Ven Klaeden had seen the Earth-vistas that the historians had reconstructed for the museums--vistas of roaring industrial cities, flaming battlegrounds, teeming harbors and spaceports. The cities were gone, and Earth had become a carefully tended Japanese garden.

  * * * * *

  As he stared around, he felt a lessening of the anxiety that had gnawed at him since the analyst Meikl had predicted dire consequences after the landing. The cultural blood of Man had diverged into two streams so vastly different that no intermingling seemed possible to him. It would be easy, he decided, to keep the informational quarantine. The order had already been issued. "All personnel are forbidden to attempt the learning of the current Earth-tongue, or to teach any Empire-culture language to the natives, or to attempt any written communication with them. Staff-officers may communicate only under the provisions of Memorandum J-43-C. The possession of any written or recorded material in the native tongue, and the giving of written material to the natives, shall be taken as violations of this order. No sign language or other form of symbolic communication shall be used. This order shall be in force until Semantics section constructs a visual code for limited purposes in dealing with the natives. Staff officers are hereby authorized to impose any penalty ranging to death upon offenders, and to try any such cases by summary courts martial. Junior officers authorized to summarily arrest offenders. Effective immediately. Ven Klaeden, Comm."

  It would keep any interchange to an absolute minimum, he thought. And Semantics had been ordered to attempt construction of a visual language in which only the most vital and simple things could be said. Meanwhile, the staff could attempt to utilize the ancient Anglo-Germanic tongue in which the messages had been exchanged.

  The baron had started to turn back into the lock when his eye caught a flash of motion near the edge of the forest. Reflexively, he whirled and crouched, gun flickering into his hand. His eyes probed the shrubs. Then he saw her, half hidden behind a tree trunk--a young girl, obviously frightened, yet curious to watch the ships. While he stared at her, she darted from one trunk to the next closer one. She was already approaching the edge of the blackened area. The baron shot a quick glance at the radiation indicators on the inner wall of the airlock. The instantaneous meter registered in the red. The induced radioactivity in the ground about the base of the ship's jets was still too high. The rate-of-decrease meter registered a decrement of point ten units per unit. That meant it wouldn't be safe for the crew to leave ship for twenty-three minutes, and that the girl had better stay back.

  "Keep clear!" he bellowed from the airlock, hoping to frighten her.

  She saw him for the first time, then. Instead of being frightened, she seemed suddenly relieved. She came out into the open and began walking toward the ship, wearing a smile and gazing up at the lock.

  "Go back, you little idiot!"

  Her answer was a brief sing-song chant and another smile. She kept coming--into the charred area.

  The gun exploded in his fist, and the bullet ricocheted from the ground near her feet. She stopped, startled, but not sensing hostility. The gun barked again. The bullet shattered a pebble, and it peppered her legs. She yelped and fled back into the green garden.

  He stood there staring after her for a moment, his face working slowly. She had been unable to understand his anger. She saw the ships, and was frightened but curious. She saw a human, and was reassured. Any human. But was what she saw really human any longer, the baron asked himself absently. He grunted scornfully, and went back through the lock.

  It was easier, even on the ground, to communicate with the elders of the Geoark by radio, since both parties had set up automatic translators to translate their own tongues into the old Anglo-German which was a mutually recorded dead language.

  "We have neutralized a circle of land of thirty-one mile radius," ven Klaeden reported to the elders. "If our selection of this region is unfortunate, we are open to discussion of alternatives. However, our measurements indicated that the resources of this area make it best for our purposes."

  "Your landing caused only minor damage, brethren," replied the gentle voice of the Geoark. "You are welcome to remain as you are."

  "Thank you. We consider the occupied area to be under our military jurisdiction, and subject to property seizures. It will be a restricted area, closed to civilian population."

  "But brethren, thousands of people live in the gardens you have surrounded!"

  "Evacuate them."

  "I don't understand."

  "Evacuate them. Make them get out."

  "My translator is working badly."

  The baron turned away from the mike for a moment and grunted to the colonel in command of ground operations. "Start clearing the occupied zone. Get the population out unless they'll work for us."

  "How much notice?"

  The baron paused briefly. "Fifty hours to pack up, plus one additional hour for each mile the fellow has to stump it to the outer radius."

  "My translator is working badly," the voice of the elder was parroting.

  "Look," the baron grunted at the mike. "All we want is to accomplish what we came here for, and then get out--as quickly as possible. We don't have much time to be polite. I invite the elders of the Geoark to confer in my flagship. We'll try to make everything clear to you. Is this agreed?"

  "My translator is working badly."

  "Aren't you getting anything?"

  A pause, then: "I understand that you wish us to come to the place where the sky-fleet rests."

  "Correct."

  "But what of the welcome we have made for our brethren in the feast-glades?"

  "I shall dispatch flyers to pick you up immediately. Unless you have aircraft of your own."

  "We have no machinery but the self-sustaining mechanisms in the Earth."

  "Any of your population understand the mechanisms?"

  "Certainly, brother."

  "Then bring technicians. They'll be best able to understand what we want, and maybe they can make it clear to you."

  "As you wish, brother."

  The baron terminated the contact and turned to his staff with a satisfied smile. "I think we shall have what we need and be gone quickly," he said.

  "The elder took it well. They must be afraid of us."

  "Respectful awe is more like it," the baron grunted.

  "I suggest the answer is in the word 'brethren,'" came a voice from the back of the room.

  "Meikl! What are you doing in here?" ven Klaeden barked irritably.

  "You called my department for a man. My department sent me. Shall I go back?"

  "It's up to you, Analyst. If you can keep your ideals corked and be useful."

  Meikl bowed stiffly. "Thank you, sir."

  "Having it in mind that our only objective is to go through the tooling-mining-fueling cycle with a minimum of trouble and time--have you got any suggestions?"

  "About how to deal with the natives?"

  "Certainly ... but with the accent on our problems."

  Meikl paused to snap the tip from an olophial and sniffed appreciatively at the mildly alkaloid vapor before replying. "From what we've gathered through limited observation, I think we'd better gather some more, and do our suggesting later."

  "That constitutes your entire opinion?"

  "Not quite. About the question of recessive kulturverlaengerung...."

  "Our problems, I said!" the commander snapped.

  "It's likely to be our problem, sir."

  "How?"

  "In Earth culture at the time of the Exodus, there were some patterns we'd regard as undesirable. We can't know whether we're still carrying the recessive patterns or not.
And we don't know whether the patterns are still dominant in the natives. Suppose we get restimulated."

  "What patterns do you mean?"

  "The Exodus was a mass-desertion, in one sense, Baron."

  A moment of hush in the room. "I see what you mean," the commander grunted. "But 'desertion' is a pattern of action, not a transmittable determinant."

  Meikl shook his head. "We don't know what is a transmittable determinant until after it's happened." He paused. "Suppose there's some very simple psychic mechanism behind the 'pioneer' impulse. We don't feel it, but our ancestors did, and we might have recessive traces of it in our kulturverlaengerung lines."

  A wingman coughed raucously. "To be blunt with you, Meikl ... I think this is a lot of nonsense. The whole concept is far-fetched."

  "What, the kult'laenger lines?"

  "Exactly." The wingsman snorted. "How could things like that get passed along from father to son. If you people'd stop the mystical gibberish, and deal in facts...."

  "Do you regard parent-child rapport as a fact?" Meikl turned to stare absently out a viewing port at the trees.

  "You mean the telepathic experiments with infants? I don't know much about it."

  "Seventy years ago. On Michsa Three. A hundred parents were given intensive lessons and intensive practice in playing a very difficult skill game ... before they became parents. They did nothing but play the game for three years. Then their babies were taken away from them at the age of one year. Brought up institutionally. There was a control group--another hundred whose parents never heard of the skill game."

  "Go on."

  "So, when the children were ten years old, they did learning-speed tests on all two hundred."

  "Learning the game, you mean?"

  "Right. The children whose parents had learned it came out way ahead. So far ahead that it was conclusive. Sometime during pregnancy and the first year, the kids had picked up a predisposition to learn the patterns of the game easily."

  "So?"

  "So--during infancy, a child is beginning to mirror the patterns of the parental mind--probably telepathically, or something related. He doesn't 'inherit it' in the genes, but there's an unconscious cultural mechanism of transmittal--and it's an analog of heredity. The kulturverlaengerung--and it can linger in a family line without becoming conscious for many generations."