by James Gunn
“An old trick,” Wu said, smiling. “Subtly done. But it won’t work.” His hand tightened on the gun.
Horn tensed himself. The flicker of movement came again. Red-gold. Wendre! What was she doing? She hated him. She had said so herself.
Wendre threw herself toward Wu’s back.
“No trick! No trick!” Lil screamed, glancing behind.
Wu twisted away instinctively. Horn threw himself to one side, his pistol jumping into his hand. For a moment he couldn’t shoot for fear that the bullet would pass through Wu into Wendre.
Wendre missed. She slipped past, and Horn’s response was instantaneous. He did not miss.
THE HISTORY
Giver of gifts.…
The galactic frontier: new worlds without end, virgin planets lying fertile for the human sperm, a million unspoiled continents rich with every treasure, black soil and mountain dawns and mysterious shores of a million seas. But the greatest gift was freedom.
With the coming of the Empire, the frontier became the marches.
The influence of great civilizations have always reached beyond their immediate borders. Around them, like armor, they created protective states which kept at bay the alien hordes. And when the civilizations began to decay, the marches turned their martial talents inward against their creators.
Eron created the Cluster by the challenge of its power and crushed it when it refused to be absorbed.
But Eron was rotten. The Empire could not last. Its response to challenge was not leadership but force.
Eron was a fossil. Its continued existence was a deadly threat to all humanity.…
21
CHALLENGE
Horn sat in the exotic luxury of the golden room and squirmed. Under him, the chair was too soft and slick; he sank down into it so far that it would take him minutes to get out. Around him, the colors were too indefinite; the pictures glowing in the wall were too meaningless. There was nothing to look at.
He had been waiting for half an hour and he wished he hadn’t come.
What did Wendre Kohlnar have to say to him that she had not said before?
Soaked, scrubbed, trimmed, shaved, Horn felt like a different person. He had stared into the mirror at a lean, dark-faced stranger. He hadn’t recognized the suggestion of understanding in the once-hard eyes, the lines of suffering and compassion around the once-immobile mouth. He had grown old and wise in the last few months.
He was glad that he had turned down the rich synsilks and furs. It was good to be back in the sober, durable, woven cords of the Cluster.
Horn shifted again. Whatever Wendre had to say, he wished she would come and say it. There had been seven days since he had seen her, seven days in which she could have summoned him and he would have come, seven days since the major fighting had ended. Now, long after he had stopped hoping, only hours before he was due at the ship that would take him back to the Cluster, she had asked him here to wait—and wait.
He remembered the last time he had seen her. He remembered how Wu had collapsed, tiredly, almost gratefully. He had cheated death for the last time.
Horn’s gun had followed the swooping, screaming thing called Lil. His finger had tightened on the trigger and relaxed. He couldn’t shoot her. What had she done except befriend a man? She hadn’t sought vengeance against the race that had exterminated her own. She had attached herself to one of them and served him, too well.…
And then it had been too late. Lil was gone.
“Why didn’t you shoot it?” Wendre asked. She had picked herself up from the floor.
“You heard?”
“Enough to know that she was dangerous. Why didn’t you shoot?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Think what she could do if we don’t find her!”
“How can we find her?” Horn asked helplessly. “She might be anything, anywhere. And if we found her, how could we hold her? I wonder if a bullet would have done any damage. I wonder, too, if the master switch—the one that would cut off the Tubes—is Lil’s life.”
“But it could be important. She might—”
“I wonder. Wu was the human. Without him, what could that alien thing do? The damage would be insignificant compared with the chance of destroying the Tubes. The damage Wu did was subtle and all-pervading; Lil doesn’t know enough about people for that.”
Horn knelt beside Wu’s body. A red stain spread darkly over the torn green shirt from the hole in the chest. The heartbeat was still; the breath was stopped. Wu was dead. There was something strangely pitiful about the limp body in the tattered clothes. It was so small and weak to have done so much, so finally dead after having evaded death so long.
It was irony that the man who had preached the social theory of history to him had been the greatest proof of the personal theory. Wu had been the somebody who pushed. He had stood outside the river and guided its course. He had guided Horn, too. He, more than Horn, had pulled the trigger that fired the bullet that killed Kohlnar. He had wielded the forces that shape empires and men’s destinies. But Horn had escaped and been himself a shaper; perhaps Wu’s death had been implicit in that moment.
Horn had been bred on individualism and independence; events had forced him to recognize the truths of interrelation and interdependence. He recognized now that there was no sharp division between them. They were not a dichotomy; they blended together inseparably. They could not be equated with good and bad abstractly. Circumstances dictated which one should predominate, which one should be stressed, which one should be desired.
Horn had looked up. Wendre had been standing beside him still. “Why did you save me?”
For a moment her eyes had flashed. “You saved me,” she said. “Now we are even.” And she walked away.
Horn had stared after her with eyes that burned, but he did not follow. He went to get Sair and found him gone. In the moment of victory he had slipped away. They searched for him; it was like locating one ant in a city-sized anthill. He returned, as he had gone, alone, unnoticed.
He had been sitting in a chapel, he said; he had been thinking. Although he was not a religious man, he had been forced to recognize occasionally a power greater than a man or the sum of men. It was incredible that a few men should have defeated the greatness of Eron. Surely they owed it to something or someone else, whatever it was called. A man can sometimes be stronger or wiser than he is; sometimes he can reach his dreams.
“But not too often,” Horn had said. “The fulfillment of dreams can become an obsession. A man may be tempted to play god, and there is only one end to that—tragedy for his creation, destruction for himself.”
He had taken Sair to see the body—and the body had been gone. “What did Duchane say about dead men walking?” Horn asked, incredulous.
“Duchane?”
Horn had rushed to the bars. The door swung open. “He’s gone, too! They were both dead. I’m sure of it.”
“Of course they were,” Sair said, chuckling. “The bodies have been collected; they’re probably burnt by now. It doesn’t matter. I’d have liked to have seen the man who built Eron and the Empire, but it is only a fancy. That era is ended, and he is ended with it. All men must die, even demigods. Death is Nature’s way of canceling her mistakes, of making room for the new and the different—”
The little noise the door made as it slid aside broke into Horn’s thoughts. He looked up. Wendre was standing in the room. He was surprised at her appearance. She was beautiful, true, and rest and care had made her young again. But he had expected, unconsciously, that she would wear something as lovely and revealing as the gown she had worn at the Dedication. Instead her suit was blue, tailored, and practical.
So much for vanity, Horn thought wryly as he struggled to his feet.
“Have you been waiting long?” Wendre asked.
“Long enough.”
She flushed. “You have a talent for saying the wrong thing.”
“Would you like me to lie and flatter?”
“Oh, be as blunt and tactless as you like. I could endure it if you would only say the right thing occasionally.”
“The right thing?” Horn repeated.
Wendre shook her head wearily. “You don’t understand women at all. I kept you waiting so long because I couldn’t decide whether to wear a beautiful gown or a sensible suit. Now I’m being frank.”
“And you’re wearing the suit,” Horn said gravely. “That should mean something, but I don’t understand women.”
Wendre sighed. “Yes. It means I’m being frank. Let me give you three examples of why you don’t understand women. First, you don’t ask the right questions. Second, you don’t say the right words. Third, you—”
“Wait a minute,” Horn interrupted. “What is the right question?”
Wendre took a deep breath. “You asked me: ‘Why did you save me?’ You should have said: ‘Why did you come back?’”
“Why did you?” Horn asked.
“The right question’s no good unless it’s at the right time.”
“Well, what are the right words?”
She hesitated and then said swiftly, “Words with ‘love’ among them. You said a lot of words, but that wasn’t one of them.”
“But I thought you knew,” Horn stammered. “I mean—I thought I—”
“A woman wants to hear it.”
“But you said you hated me,” Horn protested.
“I said I had to hate you. There’s a difference. And anyway, that’s the third thing. A woman doesn’t want to be taken at her word, not her first word anyway. Don’t you know that a woman wants to be talked into something?” She paused for breath.
“I love you, Wendre,” Horn said steadily. “Why did you come back?”
“I just told you,” Wendre said softly.
“You can forget that I killed your father?”
She winced. “No. And neither can you. But you’ve told me how it happened. I believe you and understand. We can live with it, I think. Nobody else knows and nobody else matters. It’s just us. You see, I happen to love you—”
Without quite knowing how it happened, Horn found her in his arms. After a moment, Horn lifted his head and asked, “Why me? Why a barbarian?”
Wendre shrugged. “Maybe a woman loves a man who makes her feel like a woman. You’re the only one who has ever done that.”
“You could leave all this,” Horn asked, “and go with me to the Cluster?”
“Yes,” she said. “You see—”
“You see, she has no choice,” someone said behind them.
Horn whirled around. It was Sair, white-haired but stout and hearty in cords like Horn’s. “What do you mean?”
“Wendre can’t stay here. I told her that several days ago. Rebellion often has its sentimental reaction. We can’t afford to let a tender remnant of the Empire remain behind as a nucleus for a new tyranny.”
Horn’s arms had dropped away from Wendre. He stepped back, looking between Sair and Wendre. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“Of course she wouldn’t. Not the woman she is now. But people change. The memories of an older Wendre might enhance the glories of empire and forget its deformities. Or, if she does not change, her children would be dangerous. No, she must go to the Cluster and marry a barbarian.”
“I see,” Horn said heavily.
“What do you see?” Wendre demanded.
“I see why you sent for me.”
“You don’t see anything,” Wendre said fiercely. “You think I only wanted you because I couldn’t stay here, because I didn’t want to go to the Cluster alone. You’re wrong. I only learned today that you were leaving. I hoped that you would come to me, that I wouldn’t have to go to you.”
She looked at him proudly, demanding belief. Horn waited.
She moistened her lips. “I was just about to tell you when Sair came in. That’s why I was wearing this suit; I was trying to be honest with you. Oh, I admit it makes a difference, my having to go to the Cluster. It adds need to my love, and it becomes a part of it. Here a woman doesn’t need the qualities in a man that she needs in a less civilized culture. In the Cluster, she needs strength and courage and skill in a man, for her children as well as herself. And her recognition of that is just as instinctive and valid as love—”
“You’d better believe her, boy,” Sair said softly. “You’ll never find another woman like her.”
“Oh, I believe her,” Horn said. “I was just wondering how I could live with a former Director of Eron.”
“Whatever a woman is,” Wendre said, “she’s that second and a woman first.”
After a few minutes, Sair coughed. “I only wish to remind you,” he said, as they drew apart, “that you have just two hours before the ship leaves for Quarnon Four.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” Wendre asked.
“Not now but shortly. I must wait for the interim governor of Eron.”
“Where is he coming from?” Horn asked.
“From the Cluster.”
“Are you sure you can trust him?”
“No,” Sair answered. “I’m not sure of anyone. But he has the proper background of democratic government; he was once chief executive of Merope Three. He is passionately attached to his home. He won’t be happy here.”
Wendre looked puzzled. “Is that good?”
“He can leave only when the Empire is prepared to govern itself. He will work hard for that day so that he can go home. He will die before then; this isn’t an overnight job. But he won’t know that. And there are other safeguards.”
“The Cult?” Horn said.
“For one. Through its part in the rebellion, it has won the popularity of a fighting religion. It must, necessarily, have much to say about future decisions. The Cult head will be an adviser to the governor. In addition, there are the troops and their commanders, the technicians, the laborers, and many other classes. All of them have different desires and different ideas about how to gain them. Multiply this by the number of worlds in the Empire and you have a conflict of interests which can never be reconciled.”
“But isn’t that inefficient?” Wendre asked.
“It is indeed. But inefficiency is one of the penalties of freedom. You can’t be efficient unless you can force people into channels and make them go where they don’t want to go. There was enough of that under the Empire. These are different times. Inefficiency and freedom are vital. The governor’s prime responsibility is to preserve Eron as the hub of an interstellar civilization. When power is diffuse, no one can gather enough to take over Eron and levy toll on the shipments passing through.”
“And no one can attack the Cluster,” Horn added.
“True,” Sair agreed, “although there is little chance of that in any case. As a unit, the Empire is finished, and nothing less than total power could make an impression on the resurgent Cluster. It lost its freedom once, lost it bitterly; it will never lose it again until it gives it up as something outworn and useless. No, Eron is unimportant; the future lies with the Cluster and the newer cultures that will rise beyond the Cluster. As a Tube center Eron must be preserved, at least until scientists, working from the clues Horn has gathered, can duplicate the Tube or find a substitute. But the Cluster will be the dominant human culture for many centuries to come.”
“You said that the Cluster would give up its freedom,” Horn said, his voice puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“The love of freedom dies as the memory of its alternative fades. Oh, it’s not a sudden thing. It takes generations, centuries. But gradually it slips away. And it’s more than that. There is a time for freedom, just as there is a time for empire. Only Eron, with its dynamic hunger for empire and its efficiency, could have unified human civilization and kept it united with the Tubes against the forces that sought to scatter it through the stars. Then, when its job is done, empire disappears, and it is freedom’s turn to revive the human spirit by the challenge of the infinite horizon. And then,
when men begin to grow too far apart, empire will return to unite them again.”
“That’s a cynical viewpoint,” Horn said slowly.
“I’m an old man. I can afford no longer the luxury of ideals. If I am to achieve results recognizable within my few remaining years, I must be practical. So I set up checks and balances on Eron, and I admit that it is faulty but necessary. I see that the freedom we have won is good, but I admit that it is impermanent and not always the best thing for humanity. I think I can even see a good aspect to your Mr. Wu; it is possible that he made a great contribution to the human race.”
“How?” Wendre asked quickly.
“Empire and freedom have seldom been exchanged so efficiently. Always before there have been interregnums of chaos. Sometimes they lasted for centuries. We enter this new period of expansion with the backbone of empire to give us strength, its communication facilities to give us the ability to react quickly. It may be because of him that this is so, and we may need both of these things badly before the job of freedom is done.”
“And what is that,” Horn asked, “aside from this business of reviving the human spirit?”
“Who knows?” Sair said. He shrugged. “There will be something that only freedom can do, that would have broken the Empire and with it the human race. I can think of any number of possible threats. The natural threats, in which the metal of a race is tempered or shattered: perhaps our part of the galaxy may sweep into an area of cosmic dust. The external competitions: we’ve never met a competitive alien race at our stage of technology; it’s time our luck ran out. The internal competitions: mutations.… I’ve been dreaming lately about the Silent Stars.”
“The Silent Stars?” Wendre repeated.
“Beyond the Cluster,” Horn explained. “Some of the worlds sent colonists out to them over one hundred years ago. They haven’t been heard from since; other ships have gone out to trade and haven’t come back. It isn’t exactly sinister yet; they might have had to go on farther than expected or been delayed in building their technology to a level capable of supporting space flight. But people have begun to speculate.”