“Cythara of Betelgeuse took a collection amongst the officers of his court to put a wreath in orbit about our sun after we were gone. I have been driven by laughter, by scorn.”
He sat for a little while, chin on his breast. “Help me to my house, Mankin. I am afraid I have not long to live.”
But it was Smit’s return which spread the blackness of gloom across the world. For Smit was neither starved nor weary. Hate stood like a black aura around him through which cracked the lightning of his voice. Feet planted wide apart, he stood in the spaceport. He met all who came to him with such a tirade concerning the ungratefulness of the children in space that the world was shocked into hopeless rage.
He had gone the length of space, stopping everywhere he deemed it expedient. Everywhere he went he had met violence and suspicion. He had crossed the trail of Greto several times. He spoke of the Greto Plan to stabilize the currency of all space, with Earth as the central banking house, and the brutality with which the scheme, quite feasible, had been everywhere rejected. He told how Greto had sought to borrow a sufficient amount to rehabilitate Earth, and the outrageous interest that had been promised and how the governments which Greto had approached had fought Smit with the plan on his arrival.
But this was not the seat of bitterness with Smit. He told them of space fleets equipped with weapons more deadly than those that Earth had ever known. One governor had given him a slingshot and had ordered him to fight a soldier equipped with a magnetic snare. And Smit had spent two weeks in a foul prison for driving in the governor’s teeth.
He had been refused food, fuel, water, and medical attention for his men. He had been scorned and spat upon and mobbed from Centauri to Unuk. He had been insulted, rejected, scorned and given messages of such insulting import for Earth that here, delivering them, he seemed about to burst apart with rage.
The story of his return journey was one of violence. He had brought back his men but in the progress of returning need of fuel had forced him to loot the government arsenal at Kalrak. He had left the city burning behind him. Smit preached war, he preached it to old men, to rusted and broken machines, to tumbled and moss-grown walls.
He had brought back his men but in the progress of returning need of fuel had forced him to loot the government arsenal at Kalrak. He had left the city burning behind him.
Mankin opened the government radio for him and for four days Smit vainly attempted to recruit technicians and scientists to reconstruct the weapons that would be necessary to fight. Immediately after a broadcast in which he had attempted to stir up interest in an ancient and long-unused idea of germ warfare, an old officer of the republic’s fleet barred his way as he attempted to leave the broadcasting building.
Smit, still affecting the dress he had worn on his return, filthy and ragged and seared as it might be, was offended at the clean, well-mended gray uniform.
“If you would help me, what are you doing here?” said Smit. “I have ordered all men to repair to the military arsenal if they wish to forward this campaign.”
The old officer smiled, undaunted by the blunt rage of Smit. “General,” he said, “I have no ideas and I doubt that you would listen to any from me, but I was at the arsenal this morning and I do not think that we could do anything without fuel, weapons or the materials with which to make them. But I do not come here to advise you to abandon your idea. It will fail of its own accord. I came to ask you news of Lars the Ranger. Certainly if you found Greto’s track, you must have news of Lars.”
Mankin and several others were coming up the steps and Smit grasped at them as an audience.
“Yes, I have news of Lars. He had been in three places before I had arrived; he had said nothing, he had done nothing.”
The old officer looked incredulous. “General, I am not of your branch of service and I would not argue with you, but I believe you play carelessly with the reputation of one who, if he commanded it could have audience wherever he went.”
Smit was stunned. “Yes, certainly, audiences he did have. But he was given nothing. This I know.”
Mankin was interested. “Did you learn nothing of him?” he asked Smit.
“All I know is that when I received audience after him I was heard coldly. My requests were refused, my demands were laughed at, and I was personally insulted. I know but little of this, but I can tell you this certainly, that you can expect nothing of Lars the Ranger.”
The old officer turned away and, as he went down the steps, was seen to be laughing to himself.
For more than two months the campaign of Smit’s raged feebly across the worn, arid surface of Earth. Where he had recruited, no army stood; where he had built, only junk could be seen. The waning efforts of technicians and bacteriologists finally stopped. Earth fell once more into an apathy, and at night men no longer looked hopefully at the stars.
In the first days of spring a mutter of reports came from the spaceport, and people wandered toward it in surprise to find a destroyer there, polished hull carefully repaired and a crew “at quarters” while the commander disembarked. An officer rushed from the crowd and grasped the hand of the voyager.
“Lars,” he cried. And at the shout, several men in the crowd ran across the field to form a group around the newcomer. But the greatest number turned away. Two expeditions had arrived and the dream was spent, the hope was gone.
“What news?” said the old officer. Lars shrugged tiredly, he had aged on his voyage. “Little enough, my friend. They are vastly busy with their own concerns out there, but here I have brought at least some packets of food.” And the quartermaster behind him signaled that the presents be brought down. When they were distributed, Lars walked toward the city.
Mankin heard of his arrival but did not go forth to meet him, for two disappointments were all that he could possibly bear. He had been sitting in the chill of the Council room when he received the tidings from his clerk. He just nodded hopelessly.
Lars entered the chamber and stood for a little while, feeling the coldness of it, looking at the withered Mankin in his chair. Lars came forward and put his helmet down upon the table.
Mankin spoke, “You have been gone for a long while, Lars.”
“What of Greto and Smit?”
“They have both returned. Greto, I am afraid, is dying. He is sick rather with insults than with disease. Smit for some time was a man deprived of reason and he wanders now about the countryside speaking to no one, eating only what is thrust into his hand. He is a beaten man, Lars. This expedition was ill-starred. It would have been better that we had died at least with our dignity rather than to beg for crusts and make fools laugh. As the iron has eaten our air, so has this expedition drained the last sparks of vitality from the two who went before you. It was ill-starred, Lars.”
Lars was about to speak, but Mankin again held up his hand.
“No, do not tell me. You have brought back your men, you have brought back your ship. Perhaps you have begged a little fuel, perhaps you have a little food. But you have nothing with which to save Earth. This I know.”
Lars shook his head slowly. “You are right, Mankin. I have brought nothing. I did not expect to receive anything, since I did not beg. I did not threaten. In some places I heard of Greto’s schemes. They hated him because they hated the financial control which Earth in her power exercised over the outer empires. In all the immensity of space there is not a man who would give a plugged mean coin to save a single child on Earth, if it meant the restoring of the financial tyranny which once we exercised.”
“I know this,” said Mankin sadly. “We hoped for too much.”
Lars again shook his head. “No, Mankin, we were greedy for too much. Perhaps I have failed, perhaps I have not failed. I do not know.”
“What did you tell them?” asked Mankin, not wanting hope to rise in his h
eart. “What did you tell them that you dare believe they might help us?”
“I did not tell them very much. And I thought first of how I might gain their goodwill. I found immediately that it could not be purchased or begged. I am afraid, Mankin, that I have amused myself at your expense.”
This shocked the ancient president. He leaped to his feet. “You had better explain that, Lars!”
“I dined with them,” said Lars. “I looked at their fleets, I admired their dancing girls, I saw their crops, and had the old battle places pointed out to me. And I told them stories. And this, reminding them, stimulated many tales. I asked for nothing, Mankin. I did not expect anything. I hope for nothing now. I am sorry that this is the report I must render.”
“You had better go,” said Mankin quietly.
For a month Lars, nearly ostracized, lived at the Navy yard in the improved destroyer, receiving old shipmates, giving presents from his frugal stock but going unaddressed in the streets. He heard nothing but condemnation for “the man who did not even try.”
And then, one morning the town was shaken by a terrible roar and with certainty that vengeance had been their return for the expedition, the populace tumbled from their beds to find six great gleaming spheres on the spaceport landing. They were larger than any other space vehicle these people on Earth had ever seen. From them came tumbling young men, well fed and laughing. Then they began to unload equipment.
No one dared to address the newcomers. With a hysterical certainty that they were about to be enslaved, the people of the capital, taking what little food they had, began to stream out of the far gate. A radio message from Asia was broadcast to the effect that fourteen huge vessels, unidentified, were landing troops. Greater Europa reported being besieged but said that no overt act had been made and all was being done to evacuate the population before bombardment.
Mankin received the reports in terror on his dais. He called together his cabinet. Noteworthily omitting Lars, he spent some fruitless six hours in feeble and frightened debate on measures of defense. No one came to him from the enemy forces and he felt, at last, that he must surrender before lives were lost.
When he and his staff went forward from the palace, they found that nineteen new vessels lay in the plain beyond the city. And that an encampment was being hastily constructed.
He was met by four boisterous young officers, each one from a different empire, all in working dress. The first of them, caught by the dignity of the cabinet and the president, and recognizing them as people of authority, quickly turned to his friends and sent one of them racing back toward a nearby sphere.
Mankin took a grip on his courage, he had never looked for the day when he would have to surrender Earth to an attacking force. But now that he saw that it could not be helped, he could only try to carry it forth with dignity.
He was somewhat amazed at the courteous mien of the young officers, who did not speak to him but respectfully waited for a sign from the large spaceship.
In a moment or two, hastily pulling on a uniform coat and adjusting his epaulettes, a large middle-aged man strode toward the group. He stopped at a distance of five paces from Mankin, identified the chest ribbon and the ancient robe of office and then spoke.
“You are President Mankin?” he said politely.
Mankin stiffened himself and answered. “Yes. Whom have I the pleasure of addressing?”
“I am General Collingsby,” he said. With a crisp military bow, he extended his hand. “It is an honor to meet you, sir,” said Collingsby, “I am sorry I occasioned you the difficulty of having to come to the port. I am ashamed at my own discourtesy in not having called on you immediately. However, command has its responsibilities and, as these are supply forces, there has been considerable trouble in establishing consignments and in distributing our various fleets over the surface of the earth.”
He coughed. “Excuse me, sir, but by Jupiter, your air is certainly thin here! My blood pressure must be up off the meter. But here, permit me to invite you into my cabin where it is more comfortable, and we can talk at leisure.”
Mankin straightened his shoulders. “Sir, I thank you for your courtesy. I can only say that I hope that you will observe the various usages of war and that you will treat your prisoners without inhumanity and that you will occasion as little suffering as possible.”
General Collingsby looked startled and then embarrassed. It was easily read upon his face that he had no clue to the meaning of Mankin’s statements.
“My dear sir,” he stammered, “I do not understand you. Has not my own governor, Voxperius, contacted you concerning our arrival?”
“General,” said Mankin, “the ionized beams of communication between Earth and her former colonies have been severed for more than seventy years. I am afraid we have not had sufficient power or even need to continue them in operation.”
Collingsby looked at his staff in round-eyed wonder and then at Mankin. He looked beyond the group before him and his face lighted. “Perhaps this gentleman can clarify matters.”
Mankin turned to see Lars the Ranger, with a small group of officers, approaching.
Collingsby eagerly grabbed Lars by the arm. “My dear fellow, would you please acquaint your president with the true complection of affairs. By Jupiter, I had not thought of it before but it certainly does look like an invasion. Oh, I am ashamed of this, Lars! I am ashamed of it! What a panic we must have caused. But I was certain that my government and the other governments had contacted Earth. Didn’t you know, Lars?”
Mankin was bewildered. For the first time he had a clear look at what was poured into the encampment. He saw huge machines being unloaded. He saw that they were already at work with some of them. Beams were playing across the plains and at each place one struck, puffs of smoke rose. Others were drilling into the earth and sending up high plumes of exhaust. Mankin suddenly realized that they must be reoxygenators replacing humus, injecting heat under the crust. A faintness came over him. He could not believe what he saw and he could not hope.
Lars turned to him. “I could not tell you, I could not promise you. But truly, I did nothing.”
Collingsby interrupted with a sharp, “No, he did nothing. He came and sang us old ballads and told us the hero tales of Earth; he reminded us of the heritage we had behind us; and of what we owed the mother planet. She was drained of her blood for our sakes. He made us see the quiet ocean and the green hills where our fathers lived. And then, having shrugged and said it was no more, he moved on.
“He went all through space and told his tales. In the empires everywhere school children formed subscriptions, governments formed expeditions, scientists worked, on what had to be done—but here, certainly, President Mankin, you can see how this would be. After all, Earth is the ‘Mother’ of all the stars. And somewhere in the heart of every man in the empires lurks a fondness for the birthplace of his race. For our histories are full of Earth and all our stories, all our great triumphs, contain the name of Earth. Should we then let her die?
“And so we have come here, these combined forces, to make the old land green again, to replace the oceans, to rebuild an atmosphere, to make the rivers run, to put fish in the streams, and game in the hills.
“We’ll make this place a shrine, complete and vital as once it was, where Inter-Empire councils may arbitrate the disputes of space. Here we can meet on the common ground of birth and, in the halo of her greatness, find the answers to our problems. For in the long run the problems and the answers change very little. All the fundamental questions have been asked and solved on Earth before; and they will be again.
“But come,” said Collingsby. “We have less than a week to repair all. It is,” he asked Lars, “just a week to July fourth, is it not? And that was the anniversary of the launching of the first expedition to Earth’s moon, wasn’t it?”
“But come into my ship where we can have some refreshments. There will be time enough to stand around in the sun when all these fields are green.”
They looked at Lars and he smiled at them. Mankin swallowed back a lump of emotion in his throat.
“Lars, why didn’t you tell me you had saved Earth with a song?”
Tough Old Man
CHAPTER ONE
Tractor Takeoff
THE young officer named George Moffat was inspired, natty and brilliant that day he stepped down from the tramp spacecan to the desolate plains of Ooglach. Fresh from the Training Center of the Frontier Patrol in Chicago, on Earth, newly commissioned a constable in the service, the universe was definitely the exclusive property of Mr. Moffat.
With the orders and admonitions of his senior captain—eighteen light-years away—George Moffat confronted the task with joy. Nothing could depress him—not even the shoddy log buildings which made up Meteorville, his home for the next two years—if he lasted.
But he’d last. Constable Moffat was as certain of that as he was of his own name. He’d last!
“This is a training assignment,” he had been told by the senior captain. “For the next two years you will work with Old Keno Martin, the senior constable in the service. When you’ve learned the hard way you can either replace him as the senior constable or have a good assignment of your own. It all depends on you.
“You’ll find Old Keno a pretty hard man to match. I’ve never met him myself. He came to us as an inheritance from Ooglach when we took it over—he’d been their peace officer for fifteen years and we sent him a commission sight unseen. He’s been a constable for twenty years and he’s pretty set in his ways, I guess.”
The Scifi & Fantasy Collection Page 67