Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by James H. Schmitz

  Their stories agreed on every significant point. Both Dr. Cay and Dr. Etland had stated openly that Dr. Etland was a Guardian of the Federation and that the designation of Tuvela applied to her. Such statements would not have convinced the Voice of Action, which had argued vehemently against the implications of the Tuvela Theory in the past, and particularly against the claim that Tuvelas appeared to have supernormal powers. However, the chain of events which began with the arrival of Dr. Etland in the area where they were holding Dr. Cay did convince them. There seemed to be nothing they could do to check her. She came and went as she chose, whether in the sea or in the dense floating forests, and was traceless as a ghost. Moreover, those who had the misfortune of encountering her did not report the fact. They simply disappeared. The list of the missing included an advanced Great Palach, renowned as a deadly fighter and the leader of the Voice of Action, and two battle-trained tarms, which are most efficiently destructive giant beasts. When a majority of the Everliving voted to parley with the Guardian, she came voluntarily into their forest stronghold, spoke to them and ordered them off the planet. The Voice of Action realized the nerve of their colleagues had broken and that the order would be obeyed. In frenzy and despair they struck out at the yielding majority and gained control of the invasion forces.

  But now the situation simply worsened. The Voice of Action had made its move under the assumption that the Guardian Etland, in her willingness to speak to the Everliving, had allowed herself to be trapped. At the time she was still in a guarded compartment of the stronghold, disarmed and in the company of Dr. Cay. Hut when a detachment was sent to execute her there, it was destroyed in a horribly vicious attack by native life forms which until then had appeared completely innocuous. Deadly fumes infested other sections of the fort; and there was so much confusion that considerable time elapsed before it was discovered that the Guardian had left the stronghold, evidently unharmed, and had taken Dr. Cay with her.

  Neither of the two was seen thereafter, but there were continuing manifestations of the Guardian’s presence in the area. The Great Palachs and Palachs of the Voice of Action, now in furious dispute among themselves as to what might be the best course to follow, retreated to the expedition’s command ship and to two other space vessels in the vicinity. The ships were stationed at depths below the surface of the sea which seemed to place them beyond the reach of the Guardian, but presently the command ship received a fragmentary report that she was attacking the two other vessels. This was followed by violent explosions in which the two ships evidently were destroyed.

  It was enough. The command ship broadcast an order to all divisions on Nandy-Cline to withdraw at once from the planet. As we know, this belated attempt to escape was not successful. The general human attack already had begun. The command ship apparently was annihilated in the planet’s atmosphere, and in a short time the entire expeditionary force was virtually wiped out.

  I must emphasize strongly the oppressively accumulating effect these events produced on the Parahuans during the relatively short period in which they occurred. As related by the survivors, there was a growing sense of shock and dismay, the conviction finally of having challenged something like an indestructible supernatural power. At the time they were questioned, the survivors still seemed more disturbed by this experience than by the practical fact of their own impending demise on orders of Porad Anz, of which they were aware. It is not only that at the end there were no Parahuan disbelievers in the Tuvela Theory on Nandy-Cline but that the Tuvelas seemed to have proved to be monstrously more dangerous even than had been assumed. The impression was strengthened by the fact that the Guardian Etland appeared to be a young female. The Parahuans are aware that in the human species, as in many others, it is the male who is by biological and psychic endowment, as well as by tradition, the fighter. What a fully mature male Tuvela might have done to them in the circumstances staggered their imagination. Evidently the Guardians had considered it unnecessary to employ one of their more formidable members to dispose of the invasion force—and evidently their judgment was sound.

  I must conclude that the account of the surviving Parahuan witnesses was objectively correct. What they reported did occur. The interpretation we should put on these events may be another matter. But the reports circulating in the Federation obviously were distorted in that the true cause of the Parahuan rout at Nandy-Cline—that is, the appearance and actions of Dr. Etland—was not made public. I offer no opinion on the possible reasons for the falsification.

  THE LORD ILDAAN: The Lord Toshin will comment.

  THE LORD TOSHIN: I agree with the Lord Mingolm’s conclusion. We can assume that the Parahuan survivors told the truth as they knew it. We must ask, then, why the Federation’s official version of the Parahuan defeat did not refer to the Tuvela Theory, why Dr. Etland’s name was barely mentioned, and why she is credited only with having warned of the enemy’s presence.

  The simplest explanation might seem to be that she is in fact, as she claimed and as Dr. Cay claimed, a Tuvela-Guardian. But that confronts us with the other question of why a Guardian should reveal her most secret identity and expose her group to the enemy. To that question there is no reasonable answer.

  Further, I see no room in the structure of the Federation’s Overgovernment for a class of hidden rulers. It is a multilayered complex in which the Federation Council, though popularly regarded as the central seat of authority, frequently appears to be acting more as moderator among numerous powerful departments. That all these organizations, led by very capable beings, should be the unwitting tools and pawns of Tuvela-Guardians may not be impossible but is highly questionable.

  Therefore, I say we should not accept the possibility that Dr. Etland is a Guardian as a satisfactory explanation. I ask the Lord Ildaan to poll the Committee.

  THE LORD ILDAAN: I poll the Committee and the Committee agrees. The Lord Toshin will resume comment.

  THE LORD TOSHIN: The second possible explanation is that Dr. Etland, while not a Guardian and not in the Parahuan sense a Tuvela, has paranormal abilities and employed them to terrorize the invasion force to the point of precipitate retreat. I refer to what is known as the Uld powers. To this, I can say only that there is nothing in her record or reputation to indicate she has such abilities. Beyond that, lacking sufficient information on the human use of Uld powers, I shall offer no opinion.

  THE LORD ILDAAN: The Lord Gulhad will comment.

  THE LORD GULHAD: At one time I made an extensive investigation of this subject in the Federation. My purpose was to test a theory that the emergence of a species from its native world into space and the consequent impact of a wide variety of physical and psychic pressures leads eventually to a pronounced upsurge in its use of Uld powers. The human species, of course, has been in space for a very short time in biological terms. Because of the recent acute disturbances in its political history, I was unable to obtain confirmation of the theory. The available records are not sufficiently reliable.

  However, I could establish that the humans of our day make use of Uld powers more extensively than most other intelligent species now known to us. Humans who do so are called psis. There is little popular interest in psis in the Federation and there is considerable misinformation concerning them’. It is possible that several branches of the Overgovernment are involved in psi activities, but I found no proof of it. It is also possible that the Federatios has advanced the nonbiological harnessing of Uld powers to an extent considerably beyond what is generally known, and is, therefore, relatively indifferent to its usually less exact control by living minds.

  The question is then whether Dr. Etland, either directly or with the aid of Uld devices, could have used Uld powers to produce the disconcerting manifestations reported to the Committee by the Lord Mingolm. Did she incite normally harmless lower life forms to attack the Parahuans? Did she make herself invisible and generally untraceable? Did she cause opponents to disappear, perhaps into the depths of the sea, into s
pace—even into dimensions present unknown to us? Did she madden the minds of the Voice of Action, forcing them into their disastrous revolt? Was the explosion of the two submerged ships which triggered the abrupt retreat brought on by a manipulation of Uld powers?

  All this is possible. We know or suspect that human psis and other users of Uld have produced phenomena which parallel those I listed.

  However, it is improbable. In part because there is no record that any one Uld user could employ the powers in so many dissimilar ways. Even if we assume that Dr. Cay was also an accomplished psi and that the two worked together, it remains improbable.

  It is further improbable because we cannot say that Dr. Etland could have achieved what she did only through the use of Uld power. Considered individually, each reported event might have had a normal cause. And since the deliberate control of Uld to a significant extent remains exceedingly rare also among humans, its use should not be assumed when other explanations are available.

  THE LORD ILDAAN: I poll the Committee and the Committee agrees. The Lord Toshin will comment.

  THE LORD TOSHIN: There remains, as the Lord Gulhad indicates, a third possibility. I find it perhaps more disquieting than the two we have considered. It is, of course, that Dr. Etland is precisely what she seems to be—an exceptionally capable human, but one with no abnormal qualities and no mysterious authority. Our investigation indicated that she is thoroughly familiar with the floating forests of her world and the life forms to be found there, is skilled with weapons and on a number of occasions has engaged successfully in combat with her kind. Dr. Cay was a Parahuan captive long enough to have gained detailed information on the Tuvela Theory. It is difficult to see how he could have transmitted this knowledge to Dr. Etland. But if we assume he found a way of doing it, it seems we should accept, as the most probable explanation of the events reported by the Parahuan survivors, that Dr. Etland used the information and her familiarity with the area and its tactical possibilities, along with physical competence and technological weapons, to demoralize and rout the enemy.

  Of course, we cannot prove this. And evidently that is precisely what the Federation’s Overgovernment intends, in seeing to it that no mention was made of Dr. Etland’s role or the Tuvela Theory in the accepted reports on the Parahuan invasion. Any investigators who were aware of the Parahuan version of the affair would know something was being concealed but could only speculate, and perhaps speculate uneasily, on what was concealed. For note that it is not of major significance which of the possibilities considered here contains the answer. To an enemy, the individual we know as Dr. Etland would be as deadly in one aspect as in another. We should regard the silence of the Federation’s authorities on the point as a warning directed to those who might base their actions on too definite a conclusion—such as the one made by Porad Anz. It implies that a hostile intruder cannot know in what shape disaster may confront him among humans, that if he comes he will face the unexpected—perhaps the uncalculable.

  My own training as a military weapons specialist leads me to certain conclusions which cannot be proven, but merit weighing in consideration.

  First, in the most general sense, a “weapon” is any system, device or entity which has military effect. In this general sense, Dr. Etland is a weapon—and a weapon which, alone, demonstrated greater military effect than the Parahuan Expeditionary Force.

  Her activities were characterized by great mobility and agility. She evidently used highly compact, portable weapons—in the more usual sense of technical devices. Repeatedly she made contact with fully armed and alerted Parahuan patrols, and without exception the patrols suddenly, silently vanished. Whatever personal weapons she employed—whether based on Uld forces or otherwise—must be recognized as representing an extremely high military technology. The psychological effect of those swift, silent vanishments was so great that it tends to distract our attention from the purely physical weapon technology implied.

  Finally, the equally sudden and silent vanishing of the gigantic tarm suggests strongly something far more deadly. Our present technology knows of no portable hand weapon which can be expected to allow a single individual to survive an encounter with a tarm; self-propelled heavy weapons would be required. However Dr. Etland destroyed two tarms with some very compact weapon—but more significant is the total vanishment of many tons of dead flesh. In neither instance were the Parahuans able to find any trace of the tarms, nor any area showing application of forces competent to destroy that sheer mass in the very limited time.

  We cannot establish whether Dr. Etland was or was not a “normal” human female—though if that is “normal,” the race is equipped with a very large number of exceedingly dangerous weapons. But we are forced to observe that she used some device so small as to be no impediment in her swift movements, yet so powerful as to completely dissipate a giant tarm.

  Such a weapon implies a level of weapon technology of a completely new order.

  It then becomes quite clear that the two Parahuan ships that “escaped” were, in fact, sent home to report. I wonder as to the effect of a ship-borne scale-up of that hand weapon.

  THE LORD MINGOLM; Still we must reach decisions as to action. We have established only that Dr. Etland was a dangerous individual. What information does the Parahuan mistake give us about the species?

  THE LORD TOSHIN: It confirms that the species is extremely variable. The Parahuan evaluation was based on the study of a few thousand individuals, plucked secretly from space over a long period of time and tested to destruction. No doubt Porad Anz learned a great deal about these humans in the process. Its mistake was to generalize from what it learned and to calculate from the generalizations. To say that the human is thus and so is almost to lie automatically. The species, its practices and philosophies remain unpredicatable. Individuals vary, and the species varies with circumstances. This instability seems a main source of its strength. We cannot judge it by what it is today or was yesterday. We do not know what it will be tomorrow. That is the cause of our concern.

  THE LORD ILDAAN: It is, indeed, the cause of our concern. And it seems from what has been said that the human Overgovernment must be considered now as a prime factor. The Lord Batras will comment.

  THE LORD BATRAS: The function of the Overgovernment is strategy. In part its strategies are directed at the universe beyond the Federation. But that is a small part.

  Regard the Federation as the object of an invader’s plans. It covers a vast area of space. Its inhabited worlds appear almost lost among the far greater number of worlds which support no human life. Below the central level, its political organization seems tenuous. Federation military power is great but thinly spread.

  The area of the Federation would thus appear open to limited conquests by a determined and well prepared foe. But we are aware that during many star periods every such attempted thrust has failed. We have seen more subtle plans to weaken and cripple the human civilization fail as completely, and we still do not know specifically why some of them failed. However, on the basis of what we have observed, we can say, in general, now that the Federation is a biological fortress armed by the nature of its species. The fortress may be easily penetrated. When this occurs, it turns into a complex of unpredictable but always deadly traps.

  This being true, we must ask why the Overgovernment persists in acting in a manner which appears almost designed to conceal the strength of the Federation’s position. We have seen that its policy is to treat hostile activities as being of no importance and that it provides its own people with no more information concerning them than it can avoid. We may assume it genuinely believes its present galactic neighbors do not constitute a serious military threat. However, the great restraint it shows in retaliating for planned attacks must have a further reason. In the latest instance, it has not even forced Porad Anz to disarm, as it easily could have done.

  I believe we have amassed sufficient information at last to explain the matter. The Overgovernment’s
main concern is with its own populations. What plans it has for the species we do not know. As yet, that defies analysis. But we know what plans it does not have for the species and the means it employs to keep it from turning into directions regarded as undesirable.

  Consider the creature again as the Lord Toshin described it. Individuals vary in attitude and behavior, but the creature as a class is eminently dangerous. It is, of course, inherently aggressive. Before the structure of the Federation was forged, humans fought one another for many star periods throughout that area with a sustained fury rarely observed in other species. Since that time they have remained technically at peace. But the aggressive potential remains. It expresses itself now in many ways within the confines of the human culture.

  I said that we know what the human Overgovernment does not want. It does not want its unstable, variable, dangerous species to develop a philosophy of space conquest from which it could gain nothing it does not already have, and through which it might return eventually to the periods of interhuman conflict which preceded the Federation. Possibly the Overgovemment is influenced by additional considerations in the matter. We do not know that. We do know that the human species is oriented at present to deal with other intelligent beings in a nonhostile manner. There are criminal exceptions to that rule—we and others have clashed with them. But those exceptions are regarded as criminals also by their kind.

  This general attitude could change if the present humans of the Federation gained the impression they were being seriously challenged by outside enemies. So far, they have been given no reason to believe it. The Parahuan invasion was a serious challenge only in the minds of Porad Anz. We anticipated its failure but believed we could gain information from it—as we have done.