by Set Wagner
“That’s just wishful thinking!” He waved his hands nervously. “Besides, neither Zung nor anyone working for him even supposes that the Yusians will start killing us. They want to destroy what’s human in us! To recycle our souls! And you—how come you haven’t grasped that so far!”
“I have grasped it,” I said slowly. “They haven’t, though, and therein lies the problem.”
Finally Reder regarded me more searchingly, but he quickly donned his next mask: that of complete cynicism.
“Just how did you reach this remarkable conclusion, Inspector Simon? Could you shed some light on that for me?”
“No. You just made it quite clear that any explanation would fall on deaf ears. Now I simply want you to remember a few facts and report them to your boss as soon as possible. I just hope he’ll be reasonable enough to understand what they mean.”
“Reasonable? How dare you talk about reason, you—”
“Shut up! Shut up and listen carefully! What we reasonably consider unconscionable assimilation is interpreted differently by the Yusians. So much so that they must suffer themselves in their attempts to achieve—”
“Hold it! Hold it right there! They suffer—in what sense?”
“In the literal sense. They have convinced themselves that only a convergence of human and Yusian minds and emotions will allow them to establish any real contact with us. That we’ll be able to understand each other only if we each sacrifice our selves to become—God knows what! Some hybrid of human and Yusian.”
Reder’s reaction surpassed my most pessimistic expectations: his uncontrollable laughter was more eloquent than anything he could have said in words.
“You seem to think,” I said as he calmed down, “that once the colonization is complete and you destroy their chronal centers on Earth, everything will be just fine. I suggest you try to see a little further and imagine what the full consequences of all this might be.”
“As far as those creatures are concerned, Simon, without their centers, Earth will be a long, long journey for them. They will need to overcome space, not just time. The planetary system of Eridan is their nearest access to Earth, and that system is about one hundred fifteen light-years away. Now you try to imagine how much we can gain in the long run. Almost two centuries!”
“And what about the colonists who will be trapped here?”
“Terminally ill patients, criminals, and mentally deranged. Let the creatures ‘converge’ with them!”
“But if something like that really happens, it will inevitably come back to haunt us in the future. Or don’t you care what happens to humanity after those two hundred years?”
“Whether I care or not is of no possible significance. After all, do you really think that your—rather dubious—facts offer us any new alternatives?”
“On the contrary. Our one chance lies in the hope of correcting the mistakes made.”
“The mistakes of the Yusians? You mean we should correct them?”
“Yes. All of us, although you deserve all the blame for these mistakes—you, Zung, and his cowardly clique. As soon as the Yusians arrived, you people created an atmosphere of servility and obedience around them. You showed them only our pitiable, vulnerable side.”
“Maybe you will show them the other side—our invincible, majestic one,” Reder said sarcastically.
“Exactly! Me and many others like me. We can show them that this time they are really playing with fire. And it can really recycle them. Just alone, even with their polyplanetary system, starships, and all their constructions, they can’t guarantee their spiritual superiority.”
“Not their spiritual superiority. But they are fully capable of obliterating us. Especially if we start trying to correct their ‘mistakes.’”
“Listen, Reder,” I said calmly, “looking at you, I think I could quite easily obliterate you with just these two fists of mine, but I’m not doing it. Instead, I’m trying to convince you, to make you see certain things. Why do you think I’m doing that?”
When I mentioned obliterating him, Reder instinctively reached for his flexor, but then he suddenly blushed deeply. Was he angry, insulted, and ashamed? I didn’t know, so I continued, “I see that you don’t understand a thing. The answer is very simple: if I remove you as an obstacle, I’m admitting my total intellectual impotence before you. I’ll be a coward in my own eyes. Besides that, as long as you’re around, I can always hope that, sooner or later, I’ll be able to reason even with you. Nobody, human or Yusian, is crazy enough to abandon such hopes, however small they may be!”
I climbed out of the jeep, briefly meeting Reder’s eyes as I left. I read the usual hatred for me there, but they also seemed to express some vague hesitation, maybe even a hint of sympathy. But I was wrong.
“Hey, Simon.” He grinned at me. “Don’t count too much on your message reaching Zung either.”
“Why not?”
“Because, since the day of the murders, Larsen himself has been the only one who is making ours requests to Earth, so there’s no way I could send Zung any information.”
Suddenly stepping on the gas pedal, Reder zoomed past me and disappeared among the cones.
Chapter 32
Larsen was sitting on the concrete stoop in front of one of the “temporary” buildings in his research field, staring into empty space. He didn’t budge when I sat down next to him.
“You know,” I began quietly, as if speaking to a sick person, “last night I visited the active Yusian base to meet an acquaintance of mine—maybe I could call him a friend.”
He slowly turned to me. “Again you present me with a fact I can do nothing about,” he said with surprising indifference, “but I don’t want to argue with you anymore.”
“But you have to listen to me.”
“If I have no other choice.”
“You don’t. Because you need to be made aware of many things—things you should have learned without my help.”
“Well, certainly there are things we both know about.”
“True,” I said bitterly, “but their meanings are elusive, though we do know that some of them were totally senseless.”
Larsen shivered slightly. “Senseless,” he repeated quietly. “Horribly senseless.”
We remained silent, each oppressed by a feeling of utter impotence in the face of unendurable, pointless loss. Finally I forced myself to continue.
“In this secret war we’ve been waging lately, Larsen, each of us is a loser. We are losing ourselves and gradually destroying others.”
“Sometimes not gradually at all.”
“That’s why we have to stop now! To end this pointless war between losers.”
“There are also winners,” he said gloomily. “There have been from the very beginning.”
“You’re wrong. The Yusians are losers too. But how were we supposed to know that? Right after they showed up on Earth, we chose Zung and others to be our representatives and decided we insured our right to sink into a cowardly isolationist policy. For example, you’ve been living on this planet for seven months now and haven’t once visited the Yusians. You came to Eyrena simply to discover the ‘secrets’ of their technology. You work day and night, putting all your energy into learning these mechanical details, but it never occurred to you that you should try to discover the ‘secrets’ of their psychology.”
“I think Odesta was trying to do just that,” Larsen responded with hostility, “and maybe she would have succeeded.”
“No. She let herself be a guinea pig for the Yusians, hoping to help them understand our psychology and thus feel merciful toward humankind. She was passive, humble to the point of humiliation because of what she considered superiority, and that was her unforgivable mistake. The Yusians need to see us as individuals, not—what they saw in Odesta Gomez.”
“Let’s not blame the dead, Simon. They can’t defend themselves.”
“At the moment I’m blaming you, not the dead,” I almost shouted. “Y
ou’re passive too and equally convinced in Yusian superiority. You feel overwhelmed because of the difference in our technological levels. But in fact, Larsen, the advantage here is ours rather than theirs.”
Puzzled, he raised his eyebrows. “And what exactly is our advantage? Compared to them, we might as well still be living in caves!”
“Yes, you could say that,” I said, ignoring his sarcasm. “We have many problems: ecological, energetic, demographic, and political—all kinds of problems that the Yusians solved for themselves long ago. Now we are their only problem. Establishing real contact with us became the only purpose of this civilization that has already achieved its other goals. This is why it’s far more important and crucial for them than it is for us, especially now that they’re beginning to feel a lack of the spiritual energy needed to carry it out. Their colossal technological development, Larsen, is the precise reason for their lack of spiritual energy.”
My last words obviously caught his attention.
“Because,” I continued, encouraged, “their notorious polyplanetary system has been functioning faultlessly for centuries—maybe even millenniums. It became extremely stable, thus conservative, so the Yusians were left with only the same routine decisions to make. Even their social life has become too stable and conservative.”
“Well, at least”—Larsen smiled wryly—“we can’t complain we have a stable social life. So that must be what you see as our big advantage.”
“You’re speaking ironically again, but it really is an advantage. Think about it: we are used to changes and adapt to them more easily. Also, making mistakes is not unusual for us, so it rarely upsets us greatly—as it would the Yusians. Most importantly, we can risk losing more painlessly than they can. The constant instability of life has taught us this. Our decisions and acts, Larsen, unlike the Yusians’, can be unexpected. unpredictable, and revolutionary in spirit. And the task we are facing now requires decisions like that!”
“Well…I…don’t think I understand you.”
“I’m saying we are wrong again to leave the initiative for real contact to the Yusians. We have to take the initiative, because we are far more capable of bringing it to a positive conclusion.”
“Capable? Nonsense! After ten years since their arrival, we’re still not ready even to adopt a consistent attitude toward them. Can you imagine what would happen if we really had to make such ‘revolutionary’ decisions? We would sink into misunderstandings and personal ambitions. Into endless conflicts among ourselves!”
“Unfortunately, that’s true. We’ve managed to turn even the meeting with another civilization into an arena for our own passions, and they are blinding us to the danger they are causing. But enough hiding behind this abstract ‘we,’ Larsen. Only two of us are here—you and I.”
“OK, then let’s be frank: What do you want from me?”
“To help me defeat the colonization plans,” I answered. “They will prevent us from ever moving in the right direction. The Yusians will try their inhuman experiments on the Eyrenean colonists, and we both know what that will come to. It will only increase the gap between our civilizations, because the Yusians will then deserve our distrust and hatred. The hostility between us will become eternal, not to mention the equally eternal burden of our own guilt for having exposed so many people to Yusian injustice with the extremely immoral excuse that they are defective and useless.”
“But we have to recover.” Larsen guiltily avoided looking at me. “After a period of thirty years—”
“No,” I interrupted him, “it’s not going to be just thirty years. There is a way to deny the Yusians access to Earth for about two centuries, and Zung plans to use it once the colonization is completed. And only the ‘defective’ people will be sent here—no leading scientists will be included to spy on the colony, because their work would have no meaning. Nor will yours.”
“OK, let’s suppose you’re telling me the truth. But two centuries! That’s very tempting.”
“On the contrary! All that time, until the Yusians actually return to Earth again, humankind will remember this as a giant deception and will be expecting the Yusian revenge, constantly living with that nightmare. Our progress will be directed solely at preparing for a future cosmic war. A very probable war, in fact, because then the Yusians will not be simply puzzled and incapable of understanding us, the way they are now.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?” Larsen asked.
“To inform your bosses about everything I told you. Tell them that you too are against the colonization. I’m sure you were sent to Eyrena in the first place to arrive at your own opinion of its value, so your word will carry a lot of weight. Since my opinion will influence IBI, Zung will be between a rock and a hard place.”
“I see! The old methods again.”
“But now they are aimed at a new perspective and result,” I specified.
“OK—say we succeed. Then what? Who will take charge of the impossible mission of explaining to the Yusians that we are canceling the agreement?”
“I will. Yes, I’ll try to prove to them that to cancel is in their own best interest.”
“You’ll try.” Larsen was staring at me tensely. “Even you say only that you will try. And if you fail?”
“We must take the risk. Only this way will we have a real chance to win. Accepting the colonization guarantees our loss one hundred percent.”
He abruptly stood up, but this move seemed to use up his entire impulse for determined action because, at the next moment, his face expressed overpowering pessimism. “No, Simon, it’s too late to change anything.”
“Why? If we send detailed reports, me to IBI, you to the center—”
“Let me remind you that we can only send noncoded reports from here. And then only to one person: Zung.”
“We still have another way: I’ll return to Earth and defend our position.”
“It’s impossible. On the day you left for Eyrena, Zung convinced the Yusians to agree not to take any passengers to Earth without his explicit approval. They officially informed me of this.”
Genetti! The thought pained me. He wanted to help me, but in reality. Genetti’s piece of foil had provided Zung with the information that Fowler and Stein had been IBI agents, so he must have realized, or at least supposed, why they have been killed. That’s why he had immediately requested that agreement.
“I see. Zung has turned this planet into a prison. But this time I’ll find a flaw! And our reports will reach their addressees.”
Larsen’s grimace told me I said more than I should have, but it was too late to fix that now.
“Aha!” he exclaimed, “you’re suggesting we ask for help—from your Yusian ‘friend’? Put ourselves in a position of being dependent on him?”
I felt extremely tired. “Dependent? How would we be dependent?”
“No! I’ll never put the fate of humankind in the ‘hands’ of some alien!” He was shaking with fury. “Ne-v-er, do you hear me?”
“You won’t be putting anybody’s fate—”
“You’re a traitor! And crazy as well! It’s not normal for a human to serve alien interests!”
I looked at him disdainfully. “I’m not serving anybody’s interests, Larsen. My master is common sense, and that requires me to fight against everything that undermines it—including the inexcusable failure to act of a nonentity posing as the base commander!”
He reached for his flexor, just as Reder had reached for his an hour earlier. And, just like Reder, he stopped himself.
“Go,” he whispered, maybe not to me but to whatever nightmare was haunting him. “I’m not going to…to…argue anymore. With anyone—ever!”
“You’d better start arguing with yourself, Commander,” I cautioned. “The time for weighing your options is over. I can’t wait very long for you to make up your mind.”
Chapter 33
In fact I couldn’t afford to wait at all. Still, when I sat down at my desk to pr
epare my report for Franklin, I already knew I wouldn’t take it to Chuks the next day. The decisive moment had passed, and now it was my turn to hesitate and doubt.
Who was Chuks in the end? Some nonhumanoid. I thought of how he and I rescued the strange Yusian from the biostation and how he showed me the miracles of the starship—to demonstrate supremacy or just to show hospitality? How he hurried me away from the Yusian base after explaining to me so many Yusian projects, probably at great risk.
Who was he? A thinking creature with hesitations and doubts, just like me? Who already has similar goals to mine, just because a few times he met me—some humanoid—and maybe understood me, at least a little? But what guarantees did I have that I was right? What else if not those few moments of almost friendly compassion, or did even that mutuality exist only in my imagination?
I finished planning my report, but those questions kept gnawing at my conscience, puzzling and unanswerable. I put my electronic notebook in the safe, intending to write the report the next morning. Then I took a quick shower, ate a few sandwiches, set the alarm to wake me before the rise of Ridon, and climbed into bed hoping to get some sleep until then.
As I was drifting off, I heard somebody enter my living room. I jumped out of bed and kicked open the door, holding my charged flexor with both hands.
Elia stared at me strangely through the ochre dusk. I hesitated before aiming the flexor at the floor but didn’t put it away. I no longer trusted anybody on this base, maybe nobody at all.
“Next time don’t forget to lock the door if you’re so—uneasy.” She approached me, tightly wrapped in a thick, checked blanket, and still shivering so hard that her teeth chattered. “I’m cold,” she complained, confused. “And put that flexor down. I’m not carrying mine.”
Noticing my hesitation, she opened the blanket with something like a smile on her parched lips. She was wearing only a long silk nightgown, which showed clearly that she wasn’t hiding any weapon. That confused me as well. I tossed the flexor on the desk, and it cracked loudly as it hit the wooden surface. Elia suddenly ran over to the door leading to the hall and locked it. Then she came back, still shivering.