Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol XI

by Various

  "I doubt it. He ordered the missile first. He was trying to destroy you before you could destroy Outworld Enterprises.

  His motives were selfish as usual." Alexander looked at Kennon with a haggard eye. "I owe you an apology," he said. "I've considered you responsible for Douglas's death for ten years. I've searched for you on a hundred worlds. My agents in every branch office have had standing orders to report any unusual arrivals. I have hunted you personally. I wanted to break you -- I wanted to kill you."

  "I couldn't help the delay," Kennon said. "The ship was old."

  "I know. You've told me more than you think. I'm a telepath, you know."

  "I've never forgotten it," Kennon said. "That was one of the principal reasons I came here. I wanted to see how you'd react when you learned the whole truth."

  "And I suppose you gloat -- no -- you're not doing that. But you are right. I could have checked it further. But I didn't. Outworld Enterprises is far bigger than Flora -- and I was busy. Galactic trade is a snake-pit. And, after all, there was Douglas's death -- and the Family with their never-ending clamor for money and their threats when it didn't come promptly. I like being an entrepreneur, but until I made Outworld independent of Family control, I couldn't do anything except run the business to their wishes. Actually the island was only a small part of the corporation. I tried to run it as humanely as possible under the circumstances.'' He shuddered. "I don't think I was ever needlessly cruel."

  "No," Kennon said, "you were indifferent."

  "Which is just as bad," Alexander said.

  "Well -- what are you going to do about it?" Copper interjected. "You can beat yourself until you're blue, but that won't accomplish anything."

  "What are you going to do?" Alexander countered. "You have the upper hand."

  "Me?" Copper asked. "I have nothing. This is between you men." She lapsed into silence.

  Alexander turned back to Kennon. "You have undoubtedly made some arrangements. You wouldn't come here -- oh! I see. Congratulations. Handling the evidence that way was a wise course. You have my admiration. But then I should have known that I was not dealing with a fool." He smiled wryly. "Subconsciously I think I did know -- but----"

  "That's one consolation," Kennon grinned. "To be thought a rascal is bad enough, but to be considered a fool is intolerable."

  "But your decision not to use the evidence unless you were forced to -- that's poor business."

  "But good morals," Kennon said. "Neither the Brotherhood nor I could settle this affair. It is a matter only you can handle. There is no sense in killing Outworld or throwing Kardon into centuries of litigation. The Lani never were numerous enough to lay claim to an entire world. I'll admit the club is there, but I'll never use it unless it's necessary."

  "Why not? -- it's sound business practice."

  "I'm a professional -- not a businessman. And besides, I haven't the moral right to return evil for good. You have not been a bad boss."

  "Thanks," Alexander said glumly. "I've always considered myself civilized."

  "I wouldn't go so far as to say that," Kennon said. "Honorable, yes -- civilized, no. But none of us are really civilized."

  "So?"

  "We haven't changed much, despite our development. Perhaps we've varied a little physically -- and we've learned to use new tools, but our minds are still the minds of barbarians -- blood brothers against the enemy, and everything not of us is enemy. Savages -- hiding under a thin veneer of superficial culture. Savages with spaceships and the atom." Kennon looked down at Copper. Apparently her thoughts were miles away in an introspective world that was all her own. She had said her piece and having done that was content to let the two men develop it. Kennon looked at her with odd respect. Alexander eyed her with a mildly startled expression on his lean face. And both men smiled, but the smiles were not amused.

  "Judging from Copper," Alexander said, "I don't think we'll have to worry about how the Lani will turn out." He looked at Kennon with mild sympathy. "You are going to have quite a time with her," he said.

  "I suppose so. I'll probably never know whether I'm guided or whether I'm doing the guiding. I've changed a lot of my opinions about Copper since the day I met her."

  Copper looked up and smiled at them. It was an odd smile, hinting at secrets neither of them would ever know. Alexander chuckled. "It serves you right." He crossed his legs and looked up at Kennon standing before him. By some uncanny legerdemain he had gotten control of himself and the situation at the same time. Being telepathic was an unfair advantage, Kennon thought.

  "You were equally unfair with your accusation," Alexander said. "Sure -- humanity makes mistakes, and like this one they're sometimes brutal mistakes. But we are capable of atonement. Morally we have come a long way from the brutality of the Interregnum. I shouldn't have to use examples, but look at that" -- he waved at the view wall at the panorama of gleaming fairy towers and greenery that made Beta City one of the most beautiful in the Brotherhood. "Don't tell me that five thousand years of peace and development haven't produced civilization. That's a concrete example out there."

  "It isn't," Kennon said flatly. "Sure, it's pretty -- clean -- and beautifully designed for art and utility -- but it isn't civilization. You're confusing technology with culture. You look at this and say, 'What a great civilization man has built,' when you really mean, 'What a great technology mankind has developed.' There's all the difference in the world. Technology is of the mind and hands. Civilization is of the spirit -- and spiritually we are still in the Dark Ages.

  "We conquer, kill, loot, and enslave. We establish standards to keep humanity a closed corporation, a special club in which men can live but aliens can't. We've made the standards for admission so rigid that we even enslave our own kind and call them animals. That's not civilization -- that's savagery!

  "For nearly five hundred years your family has run a slave pen. Your fortune is based upon it. And you have perpetuated this traffic in flesh on the specious reasoning that a court judgment of half a millennium ago is as good today as when it was handed down. Never once did anyone have the moral courage to re-examine that old decision. Never once did any human question the rightness of that decision. None of us are immune. We all based our conduct upon an antiquated law and searched no further. Everyone was happy with the status quo -- or at least not so unhappy that they wanted to change it. Even I would have been content had it not been for Copper."

  "Yet I do not feel that it was bad that I hired you," Alexander said. "Even though you have shown me that I am a slaver, and made me see faults I never knew I had." His face was drawn -- harsh lines reached from nose to lips, from eyes to chin. Suddenly he looked old. "I can accept censure if censure is just. And this is just. No -- I'm not sorry I hired you even though the thought of what I have helped do to the Lani makes me sick to my stomach."

  "Well--" Kennon said. "What are you going to do about it?"

  "I don't know," Alexander said. "At the first smell of trouble, the Family will turn tail and run. You can break the company, and I won't stand in your way. It's only just. You're the one who's carrying the ball. Now run with it."

  "That damned blind spot," Kennon said. "You realize, of course, that you're not legally liable. It was a mistake. All you have to do is admit the error and start from there. Naturally -- no reasonable intelligence would expect that you change the older Lani. They're too old for either agerone or change. It would be both cruel and inhuman to turn them loose. It's with the youngsters that you can work -- those who are physically and physiologically young enough to derive benefit from agerone and education.

  "As I remember, you bought a planet called Phoebe. Now why don't you----"

  "Phase out! Of course! But that means that you can't press charges."

  "Why should I? I'm not one of these starry-eyed reformers who expect to change things overnight. It's the future of the Lani race that's important, And Brainard agrees with me. A phase-out is the proper solution. Change the education,
let males be born -- teach the young to think instead of to obey. Give them Phoebe for a home -- they never owned all of Kardon anyway. And within a century or two we will have a new group of the human race -- and then we can tell the Brotherhood."

  Kennon looked inquiringly at Copper. She smiled and nodded. "It would cause less trouble that way," she said. "It would be more sure -- and there are never too many old ones."

  Kennon shuddered, thinking of the euthanasia chambers on Otpen One. "There will be more from now on," he said.

  "Outworld can afford it. It'll bend us a little but we won't break -- and besides, the Lani will need our help for some time to come." Alexander looked at Kennon. "Can we make an agreement that all parties will respect?" he asked.

  "I think so -- providing there are no sleeper clauses in it," Kennon said.

  "There won't be," Alexander said.

  And there weren't.

  * * *

  It was a private ceremony. The Family, sulky and unwilling, faced with a choice of drastically reduced income or outright confiscation and preferring a portion of a loaf to none. Alexander -- grim but oddly peaceful of expression. Brainard -- pink-cheeked and emotionless. Kennon and Copper -- happily conscious that it was at last finished. It was an oddly assorted group of conspirators who planned to restore a segment of humanity to the human race.

  Kennon signed last, and as he did, Alexander looked at him with a sly grin distorting the smooth pallor of his face.

  "You forgot something," he said.

  "What?" Kennon said -- aware suddenly that something was wrong.

  "What do you plan to do, now that this is over?"

  "Join the Medical Center here and practice veterinary medicine."

  "You wouldn't care to work for me -- to help rebuild the wreckage you've helped create? I'll need a manager on Kardon to phase out the island while we phase in Phoebe."

  "No, thank you. I've had enough of that."

  "You just think you have," Alexander said gleefully. "That's what you have forgotten. You've gotten your agreement -- now you will satisfy me. As I see it you have breached your contract by leaving Flora without authorization."

  "That is right," Kennon said. A small lump of lead began to grow rapidly larger in his stomach. Brainard was grinning and Copper's eyes were shining. "You've been jobbed!" his mind told him. He sighed. He knew what was coming next.

  "The punitive clause for breach of contract," Alexander went on inexorably, "is very broad. Discretion is vested in the entrepreneur. I can obtain judgment against you in any court on any planet."

  "I know," Kennon said glumly.

  "But I am going to be civilized," Alexander said. "I am going to be merciful. I am going to extend your contract until phase-out has been completed. You are going to have control of the entire Kardon phase of the operation. It's poetic justice -- you made the mess -- now you can clean it up."

  "That's inhuman!"

  "Humanity has nothing to do with it. It's justice," Alexander said. He smiled at Copper's radiant face. The thought of going home was good to her. "Good luck on your new job, Dr. Kennon," he said. "And welcome to the brotherhood of the ulcer."

  * * *

  Contents

  MIZORA: A PROPHECY

  A Mss. Found Among The Private Papers Of The Princess Vera Zarovitch;

  Being a true and faithful account of her Journey to the Interior of the Earth, with a careful description of the Country and its Inhabitants, their Customs, Manners and Government.

  WRITTEN BY HERSELF

  By Mary E. Bradley

  PREFACE

  The narrative of Vera Zarovitch, published in the Cincinnati Commercial in 1880 and 1881, attracted a great deal of attention. It commanded a wide circle of readers, and there was much more said about it than is usual when works of fiction run through a newspaper in weekly installments. Quite a number of persons who are unaccustomed to bestowing consideration upon works of fiction spoke of it, and grew greatly interested in it.

  I received many messages about it, and letters of inquiry, and some ladies and gentlemen desired to know the particulars about the production of the story in book form; and were inquisitive about it and the author who kept herself in concealment so closely that even her husband did not know that she was the writer who was making this stir in our limited literary world.

  I was myself so much interested in it that it occurred to me to make the suggestion that the story ought to have an extensive sale in book form, and to write to a publisher; but the lady who wrote the work seemed herself a shade indifferent on the subject, and it passed out of my hands and out of my mind.

  It is safe to say that it made an impression that was remarkable, and with a larger audience I do not doubt that it would make its mark as an original production wrought out with thoughtful care and literary skill, and take high rank.

  Yours very truly,

  Murat Halstead.

  Nov. 14th, 1889.

  PART FIRST

  CHAPTER I.

  Having little knowledge of rhetorical art, and possessing but a limited imagination, it is only a strong sense of the duty I owe to Science and the progressive minds of the age, that induces me to come before the public in the character of an author. True, I have only a simple narration of facts to deal with, and am, therefore, not expected to present artistic effects, and poetical imagery, nor any of those flights of imagination that are the trial and test of genius.

  Yet my task is not a light one. I may fail to satisfy my own mind that the true merits of the wonderful and mysterious people I discovered, have been justly described. I may fail to interest the public; which is the one difficulty most likely to occur, and most to be regretted--not for my own sake, but theirs. It is so hard to get human nature out of the ruts it has moved in for ages. To tear away their present faith, is like undermining their existence. Yet others who come after me will be more aggressive than I. I have this consolation: whatever reception may be given my narrative by the public, I know that it has been written solely for its good. That wonderful civilization I met with in Mizora, I may not be able to more than faintly shadow forth here, yet from it, the present age may form some idea of that grand, that ideal life that is possible for our remote posterity. Again and again has religious enthusiasm pictured a life to be eliminated from the grossness and imperfections of our material existence. The Spirit--the Mind--that mental gift, by or through which we think, reason, and suffer, is by one tragic and awful struggle to free itself from temporal blemishes and difficulties, and become spiritual and perfect. Yet, who, sweeping the limitless fields of space with a telescope, glancing at myriads of worlds that a lifetime could not count, or gazing through a microscope at a tiny world in a drop of water, has dreamed that patient Science and practice could evolve for the living human race, the ideal life of exalted knowledge: the life that I found in Mizora; that Science had made real and practicable. The duty that I owe to truth compels me to acknowledge that I have not been solicited to write this narrative by my friends; nor has it been the pastime of my leisure hours; nor written to amuse an invalid; nor, in fact, for any of those reasons which have prompted so many men and women to write a book. It is, on the contrary, the result of hours of laborious work, undertaken for the sole purpose of benefiting Science and giving encouragement to those progressive minds who have already added their mite of knowledge to the coming future of the race. "We owe a duty to posterity," says Junius in his famous letter to the king. A declaration that ought to be a motto for every schoolroom, and graven above every legislative hall in the world. It should be taught to the child as soon as reason has begun to dawn, and be its guide until age has become its master.

  It is my desire not to make this story a personal matter; and for that unavoidable prominence which is given one's own identity in relating personal experiences, an indulgence is craved from whomsoever may peruse these pages.

  In order to explain how and why I came to venture upon a journey no other of my sex has eve
r attempted, I am compelled to make a slight mention of my family and nationality.

  I am a Russian: born to a family of nobility, wealth, and political power. Had the natural expectations for my birth and condition been fulfilled, I should have lived, loved, married and died a Russian aristocrat, and been unknown to the next generation--and this narrative would not have been written.

  There are some people who seem to have been born for the sole purpose of becoming the playthings of Fate--who are tossed from one condition of life to another without wish or will of their own. Of this class I am an illustration. Had I started out with a resolve to discover the North Pole, I should never have succeeded. But all my hopes, affections, thoughts, and desires were centered in another direction, hence--but my narrative will explain the rest.

  The tongue of woman has long been celebrated as an unruly member, and perhaps, in some of the domestic affairs of life, it has been unnecessarily active; yet no one who gives this narrative a perusal, can justly deny that it was the primal cause of the grandest discovery of the age.

  I was educated in Paris, where my vacations were frequently spent with an American family who resided there, and with whom my father had formed an intimate friendship. Their house, being in a fashionable quarter of the city and patriotically hospitable, was the frequent resort of many of their countrymen. I unconsciously acquired a knowledge and admiration for their form of government, and some revolutionary opinions in regard to my own.

  Had I been guided by policy, I should have kept the latter a secret, but on returning home, at the expiration of my school days, I imprudently gave expression to them in connection with some of the political movements of the Russian Government--and secured its suspicion at once, which, like the virus of some fatal disease, once in the system, would lose its vitality only with my destruction.

  While at school, I had become attached to a young and lovely Polish orphan, whose father had been killed at the battle of Grochow when she was an infant in her mother's arms. My love for my friend, and sympathy for her oppressed people, finally drew me into serious trouble and caused my exile from my native land.