The Old Man of the Stars

by John Burke

  Eve was growing up into a beautiful girl. She had inherited all her mother’s grace and strength of character. When Clifford had been alive, Matthew and Eve had spent a great deal of time together; but now Alida did all she could to keep them apart. She was not entirely successful. Eve had, as a little girl, conceived a deep affection for Matthew. He fascinated her and puzzled her.

  “Why don’t you grow older, like everybody else?” she once asked, putting her head on one side and studying him with her shrewd, observant eyes.

  At first she laughed at his explanation and did not believe it. At some time in her life she must have learned that it was true, but it did not seem to affect her attitude towards Matthew in any way. She was neither afraid nor resentful.

  However hard Alida might try to keep Matthew at a distance, the conditions in the ship made it impossible for her to live an entirely separate life with her daughter. Eve still smiled and talked to Matthew when they met. As she grew older, there was a deeper seriousness in her manner, but her affection did not seem to lessen.

  The ship was becoming crowded by now. A number of children had been born in the course of the years. If any of the planets they had visited had been at all suitable, Matthew would have fallen in with the original suggestion that those who wished to stay behind and not complete the full journey should do so. But there had been nothing but the hostility of creatures who attacked automatically when they saw an Earthman, or else the bitterness of unfertile, dark worlds on which people bred in Elysium could never hope to live.

  It was not until they were five years out from Earth that they discovered, on the last world they were to visit before they reached their destination, conditions like those of Elysium,

  Here was the same mellow climate. Sparkling seas washed the gentle coasts of rich, luxuriant land.

  “There must be a snag somewhere,” said Bellhouse, an hour after the landing. “Someone is waiting somewhere with a flame-gun. Or else the nights are freezing and the plant life is deadly poison.”

  But the nights were warm. The plants and herbs made a feast, after years of living on Dr. Richard’s shallow through sustaining cultures. Here was a replica of the comfortable world that they had left so far away in space and time. Here, at last, was comfort.

  A dangerous comfort, thought Matthew.

  Any enthusiasm the other members of the crew may once have possessed for the voyage to Earth had faded long ago. Only doggedness and the obvious futility of trying to go back had kept them pressing on through space. Now they had found a planet which offered them tranquillity and rest. Why should they face another five years of wretchedness in the throbbing prison of the ship merely in order to reach a destination about which they knew nothing certain?

  Matthew sensed this current of thought within a few days of landing. He was prepared to take the advantage of a month or two’s holiday here before attempting the last lap. But he was not prepared to stay here forever.

  Even Dr. Richard, who had been so reliable, was a member of the faction that wanted to stay. And that meant trouble. It was possible to leave half the members of the expedition behind if they wanted to settle here: the ship could still be handled by the remainder; but Dr. Richard, with his skill and the gift that was still known as ‘green fingers’, could not be spared.

  “Life here is fascinating,” said the biologist apologetic-ally. “There is so much here worth studying. It is a pity that we cannot stay. Living conditions are admirable.”

  “But it would be just as weak and unadventurous as staying on Elysium would have been,” said Matthew. “We’re so close to Earth. We can’t give up now. One more journey—another five years—and we’re there.”

  Dr. Richard pursed his lips. “Five years is not a great deal to you. To you it means little. But to some of us it means a great deal.”

  Matthew turned away. He saw that Alida was watching him, and for once her expression was not hostile. There seemed to be sympathy in it—pity, even. He was angry. He didn’t want anybody’s pity. He was immortal, and they well, look at them: their faces had aged, the young men were already well advanced into middle age, and some were prematurely old.

  And they were lazy and unimaginative. All they wanted to do was settle down and live a dull, unambitious existence here, until some space raiders came along as the last lot had done and wiped out all their possessions.

  He wondered if they had thought of that. Tackling Dr. Richard and a couple of the others about it, he said:

  “Would you be happy living here, expecting an attack at any time? You have seen the other planets we’ve visited, and what happened to them. Why should you suppose this one will escape a similar fate, as soon as the murderers, whoever they were, find out that there’s a colony here? And how do you know”—the thought struck him suddenly—“that there aren’t already other people on another part of this planet, lying in wait for you?”

  “We’d have seen them by now.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  The following day, spurred on by Matthew’s disturbing suggestions, they took the ship up and made a survey of the planet. There was no sign of human life. Animals scuttered in alarm beneath the great shadow of the ship, but none of them appeared to be of a high level of intelligence, and there was no indication of any civilised community anywhere on the face of this world.

  But three days later, in the mellow twilight that burnished the side of the spaceship to golden bronze, a man emerged from the woods and crossed the meadow in which the children were playing. He came with a hand oustretched in greeting. He was not one of the crew: he was a stranger.

  Inside the ship, Matthew and Bellhouse interrogated him.

  “How is it that we saw no sign of your colony when we flew over a few days ago?”

  The newcomer, who had given his name as Diemer, smiled sadly.

  “We have taken care to conceal ourselves whenever any unknown person or ship approaches. We have learned from experience.”

  “Experience?”

  “You must have come from strange places,” said Diemer curiously, “if you do not know what life has been like in the last twenty years or so.”

  “We have come from a long way away,” said Matthew, determined to be noncommittal for the time being.

  “It was plain that you were different from so many of our people. We watched your ship, and we came to study your encampment. And it was only when we saw that you were different, and sensed that you were not troublemakers, that I showed myself.”

  Matthew said: “What sort of trouble might we have been expected to make?”

  “Where there are Earthmen, unfortunately, there is nothing but strife and bloodshed throughout the universe.”

  “We have come a long way,” said Matthew again. “We’ve seen some terrible sights on our way. It’s time we had an explanation. What has been happening?”

  Diemer hesitated. He looked from one to the other as though weighing them up; then he reached a decision, and said: “I will tell you the whole story.”

  It was a story of steady conquest and exploitation. It was a story of greed and expansion—the old, vicious histories of national strife extended on to a cosmic scale.

  The small colonies that had been left behind by the ship on which Matthew had made his outward journey had been largely involved. Growing larger, they worked with the natives of the planets on which they had landed, and eventually sent a small ship back to Earth or got in touch with Earth and directed new trading and emigration ships to the planets. The Earthmen were the pioneers of interplanetary travel. Holding the mastery of space, they held the mastery of commerce and scientific development. They picked the brains of the different peoples with whom they came in contact, and pooled the interplanetary resources for their own benefit.

  Where the natives of different worlds objected to the domination of human beings, they were first coaxed and then, if necessary, threatened. There were massacres and outbreaks of cruelty. The wealth of the universe sent
Earthmen mad: they took part in a rush beside which all the gold rushes and diamond booms of their own world paled into insignificance. The wider the bounds of the starry empire, the more grasping men became.

  “There were liberal, humanitarian elements who disapproved,” said Diemer, “but they fought a losing battle. When there are unlimited supplies of riches, and a civilisation is on the upgrade, it is always the brutal side of man that shows itself.”

  There were many Earthmen who were so filled with disgust at the savagery of their own people that they fled from Earth. They sought out unfertile planets, or at any rate planets that would not be seized by the acquisitive spaceships of the Interplanetary Development Bureau.

  “The founders of our colony,” said Diemer, “were among those who got away—in secrecy, with difficulty, leaving most of their belongings and cutting themselves away from a corrupt society.”

  “I don’t know that I’d call this an unfertile planet,” smiled Matthew.

  “Not in the true sense of the word, perhaps. But to the Earthmen it wasn’t of much use. There is no mineral wealth. The planet was explored in the early days of exploration, but there was no material here for the manufacture of atom blasts or the space torsion drive. It wasn’t even positioned suitably for a supply station, or a jumping-off place for the patrol ships. It was just quiet, restful, and lonely. So they went on and left it. Their colonies were built up on more prosperous worlds.”

  But there was bound to be a day of reckoning. It took a long time for the downtrodden races of the universe to combine and muster the strength to oppose their conquerors. There were innumerable difficulties. The space patrols and all the power of Earth’s commercial empire was widespread, and individual revolts were bound to fail. To attempt concerted action under the noses of human rulers was difficult and dangerous. But at last the great rebellion took place.

  It was helped by a civil war that had broken out on Earth. The powers of the master planet fell out among themselves over the control of the universe, and in the course of their squabble had to recall many of their forces from the outposts of the universe. The races of the exploited planets seized their opportunity, combined, and overthrew the depleted armies and technical staffs that had been left to govern them.

  Once started, there was no stopping the outbreak. Earthmen were slaughtered wherever they could be found. Generations of fear and hatred piled up behind the rebels: they had known oppression too long for them to be merciful and level-headed. With their own ships and the fast-moving ships captured from their governors, they ranged through the universe, launching attack after attack.

  By the time the Earthmen had hastily settled their differences and turned to face the threat, it was too late. The fanatical desire to claim freedom from the yoke of the Earthmen drove the rebels on and on, killing and laying waste. They did not hesitate to destroy their own cities when it was necessary to do so.

  Great battles were fought out in space. Ships burned briefly, like the flickering of a candle flame against the brilliance of the stars. Planet after planet was ravaged. All the wealth and power of the universe was thrown away or destroyed in the furious conflict.

  “Here on Platonia,” said Diemer, “we hid ourselves. We had lived a simple life, free from hatred and greed, and we did not wish to be involved in the death throes of an evil system. Even now, when we believe that the war is ended and that few are left alive, we cannot take risks. If any of the rebels happen to visit this world and see us, they will kill us at once: Earthmen are killed at sight. And if Earthmen come, they are liable to kill us because we want no part of them, or to force us into the service of their shattered, defeated armies. Right and wrong have been submerged, forgotten. There has been nothing but killing. We consider it our duty to stay alive and build a small civilisation on finer foundations. I don’t know if we shall succeed.”

  There was a long silence when he had finished. Outside the ship, the voices of children called brightly across the meadow. The sky was clear. The tale of war and destruction seemed remote and unreal.

  At last Diemer spoke again. He said:

  “Now tell me where you have come from. If all that I have told you is news to you, you must have come a great distance, from some forgotten world.”

  Bellhouse nodded to Matthew, who in his turn told the story of his immortality and the centuries he had spent in the far reaches of the universe. Diemer’s eyes widened as he realised that this ship was the very one which had, in the distant past, left on various planets the people who eventually formed the nucleus of the Earth colonies.

  “And now,” he said, “what do you propose to do? You have spent a great time travelling. Where has it brought you?”

  Bellhouse got up and looked through the port at the ground below, as though it would provide a satisfactory answer.

  Matthew said slowly: “We still haven’t reached the end of the journey. What is there...?” The words stuck in his throat. He had difficulty in speaking. “What,” he asked at last, “is happening on Earth now? What shall we find when we get there?”

  Diemer shook his head. “I don’t know. We have had no message and no news from Earth for a long time. We know nothing of what has happened to it.”

  Now Matthew found himself facing the most strenuous opposition he had yet encountered. The voyagers, tired and middle-aged as most of them were, did not want to go any further. They had been told the story of the great war, and saw no reason for making the last jump to an Earth that might be completely ravaged. It could hold nothing that they wanted. Here on Platonia they could be content.

  “But we must know,” cried Matthew. “We must find out.”

  “What good will it do?” demanded Dr. Richard. “Life is too short. We might be killed as soon as we landed. There may be disease—death—great areas of radioactivity where battles have been fought. It would be reckless and without purpose to go on now.”

  There were murmurs of agreement. The rolling countryside of Platonia cast a spell on the travellers. They had had enough of the rigours of space.

  The small colony of people hidden beyond the woods made them welcome. The boys who had grown up into young men in the space ship looked eagerly at the girl of their own age, who flatteringly considered them as magnificent adventurers. And Matthew noticed that the young men here were fascinated by Eve.

  He stopped Alida one day and said to her: “Do you want your daughter to settle down here and marry one of those idle youngsters who has no imagination, no ambition and no knowledge of anything but his own little world?”

  “What else have you to offer her?” asked Alida coldly. “Have you anything better?”

  He could not answer.

  Already his companions were building small huts, roofed with the large trailing vines and timbers of the luxuriant woodland. Concealed as the homes of the colonists were concealed, they made a small, happy village in the shade of the great trees.

  “You may as well face it,” said Dr. Richard, rather shamefacedly. “The expedition is at an end.”

  But Matthew was not prepared to give up. He lashed them with his tongue. They stared at him sullenly. If only he would be quiet, they would be perfectly content. If only he were not here: that was the thought that ran through their minds, he knew.

  As a matter of principle he stayed on board ship instead of building himself a home outside. Quite apart from anything else, he distrusted them. There had been mutterings about wrecking the ship so that there should be no question of it carrying them any further. And the original colonists were not too pleased: they said that it was too noticeable and that it might draw the attention of any visitor to the planet.

  “If that’s how your people really feel,” said Matthew sharply to Diemer, “they’d better help me to persuade my lot to embark as soon as possible.”

  “We do not wish to interfere. We have tried to keep strife and dissension out of our society. Any decisions you make will have to be free decisions. We would like your shi
p out of the way; but we leave it to you to decide how that is to be done. You may go with it on your journey to Earth; or you may destroy it.”

  “Destroy it?”

  The threat was always there now. He was so close to home—to Earth—and yet there was every chance, that he might never reach it. There need only be a swift action on the part of his dissatisfied colleagues, and the ship would be crippled.

  One night he awoke in darkness, certain there had been some unusual sound in the resonant corridors and empty cabins. He lay absolutely still. It came again—a shuffling of feet and the faintest murmur of voices. He swung himself silently down from his bunk and crossed the room.

  Before he could reach the flame gun that lay beside his chair, the door was flung open. Three men came in quickly, snapping on the lights.

  Matthew tackled the first one without waiting to ask questions. But the other two fell on him and dragged him away, twisting his arms back and fastening them behind his back with a swift efficiency that showed they had planned every move of this attack.

  He was forced down into his chair. The tallest of the three—Matthew’s old opponent, who had once before revolted when they were out in space—reached for the flame gun and toyed with it menacingly. He said:

  “We’re going to put paid to the controls of this ship.”

  Matthew writhed forward. “You can’t do it. It—”

  He was pushed back.

  “Why can’t you see reason? We don’t want to make trouble, but you’re a menace. We’ve got to finish this ship off so that the idea of going on to Earth is scrapped once and for all. And if we have to finish you off as well, then that’ll be done.”

  Matthew saw that they meant it. They were pale, but quite decided. He said, not asking for pity but driving the point angrily home:

  “You know what this will mean? After coming all this distance—”

  “We know that it’s a disappointment for you, but there are others to consider. As long as you’re around and the ship intact, you’ll give none of us any peace. And what we want now is peace. We’ve had enough. We’ve come far enough with you.”