by Brian Aldiss
‘Nothing so simple,’ Tebbutt said curtly.
Beyond the guard room was the administrative block, and then the usual clutter of offices and temporary quarters. Beyond them lay the dead flat plain, the flattest stretch of ground on Turek, fringed on its far side by mountains. On the plain stood two ships. One day, the plain would be a field where a hundred ships could comfortably land, a complete and mighty spaceport – if everything went according to plan. Earth’s plan.
Tebbutt hardly gave the ships a glance. He turned into his office and sat down at his desk. For three minutes he sat without moving, gazing in thought at his typewriter. Then he pulled the machine towards him and fed it a report form. As he did so, the phone rang.
‘Tebbutt, Intelligence,’ he said, flipping on.
The face of General Jackson’s secretary appeared in the tank. ‘Zac, will you get over to General Jackson right away? He has the Vice-president with him, and they want to talk to you.’
‘Okay.’
He forgot the report and rose at once. He had gone chilly with apprehension. Having a vague idea what was in store, he felt this was – he tried to keep the pretentious phrase from his mind, but kept crawling back again; as he read the situation, this was one of the turning points for the human race. As he went across to the door, he tried to figure out a way to put that notion over to the visiting Vice-president.
Vice-president Kingsley Durranty wore the only grey flannel suit within fifty light-years which was the distance back to Earth. He filled the suit well, a neat solidly-built man with black eyebrows and a mass of greying hair, a man without mannerisms who was making history by being the most high-ranking politician ever to set foot on another planet than Earth. He looked restful, but was merely watchful.
General Sidney Jackson was a different type entirely, a bulky man who could give Durranty ten years, shiny and knobbly of face, thin of hair and generous of gesture, as if he was always ready to burst into action rather than words.
He was telling Durranty about Tebbutt. ‘He’s a shrewd young man, a mite nervy, has done better than anyone towards getting some sort of rapport with the locals. Language difficulties, as you know, are immense, but Tebbutt’s evolved a sort of pidgin Turek he uses with them. I must warn you, though, that precisely because of that, he has a deal more sympathy with the Turekians than the other personnel, so he’ll be prejudiced.’
‘That’s to be expected, I guess.’
The general stuck out a hand, palm upwards. ‘Sympathy is always interpreted as weakness. I have a hunch Tebbutt’s sympathy has encouraged Badinki, this native leader who’s giving us the trouble.’
‘Yes. You’ve met Badinki?’
‘Who knows? All Turekians look alike to me.’
Shouts outside interrupted them. Jackson glanced out the window and then beckoned the Vice-president over. Like the men down in the yard, they stared skyward. Three dragons were flying over.
Their bodies were long and serpentine, covered with yellow scales, their wings were leathery, yellow striped with green, and had a wingspan of at least thirty feet. They moved through the sky in great jerks, as if their mighty wings were inexpertly used oars which hauled them through the air.
‘Local fauna,’ Jackson said. ‘Damned things are always flying over. The boys in the laser tower will get them.’
The dragons had swooped over the two grounded ships. Now they headed in the direction of the base buildings and the alien village, gaining height as they went. They were almost overhead when the laser gun scored a hit. One of the dragons faltered as its wing blackened, smoked, and burst into flame. It writhed in the sky like some great wounded serpent, losing altitude rapidly. Its two companions swooped about it and then flew away fast while they were still unscathed. Captain Zachary Tebbutt was admitted to the general’s office before the dying creature had hit the ground.
When Jackson had introduced Tebbutt to the Vice-president, he poured drinks all round and asked, ‘Is the suicide still planned for tomorrow?’
‘They are still going ahead with the preparations, building the pyre,’ Tebbutt said. ‘Badinki will burn himself at noon unless we guarantee to leave this plain.’
‘If they are inflexible, we are equally inflexible,’ Durranty said. ‘Captain Tebbutt, the General tells me you have some regard for these people, but we cannot afford to be sentimental, and the terrestrial attitude must be made quite clear to them. It is fortunate that I happen to be here while this trouble is brewing.’
‘It’s no coincidence, sir. Tomorrow’s immolation is arranged for your benefit.’
The Vice-president gave no indication he had heard the reply, nor did he stir. He said, ‘I will just run over the general situation as it presents itself to our government on Earth.
‘Manned interstellar travel is now eleven years old. In this period, we have investigated huge areas of space. The cost of this investigation has been – I use the term in all seriousness – astronomical. We have received almost nothing back in the way of direct return. The Soviet bloc is in roughly the same serious position; in view of the continuing Russian-Chinese struggle over Procyon V, we may be glad that they are slightly worse off than we are.
‘In the considerable area of space our ships and mariners have investigated, we have discovered seven habitable planets. Only seven in eleven years. Three of those seven can only be regarded as just marginally habitable. Up until a year ago, Turek – or Beta Hydri to give it its old name – was by far our best find. Now, as you know, the three New Planets have been discovered beyond Turek, each well suited to human life and none occupied by any dominant species, as far as the preliminary reports go.
‘This new discovery puts us ahead of the Soviets. It also makes Turek a very desirable stopover point. We must have this base here, and develop it to the limits of our ability. The rest of the planet the locals can keep.
‘Instead of being at the end of a neck of the woods, Turek is going to be right on the main highway to the stars. Things have been quiet here, but that has to change, and my mission is to make an official treaty with the Turekians.’
‘The cardards,’ Tebbutt said.
‘Eh?’
‘The locals call the planet Turek and themselves cardards, analogously with Earth and humans.’
‘You’ll excuse me if, like your general, I call them Turekians, analogously with Earth and Earthlings. 1 wish to make the treaty with the Turekian leader, Badinki, and I can’t do that if he burns himself, can I?’
Tebbutt said, ‘You will be unable to make any treaty with any of them, Mr Vice-president, until you comply with their simple request.’
General Jackson stood up and said, ‘Zac, we aren’t open to simple requests, and you know it. There’s too much involved. The United Free Nations can’t trade with these Stone Age scarecrows – this Badinki is so keen to set himself alight because they’ve just discovered fire these last few centuries. It’s a novelty! Don’t lose your sense of proportion!’
‘When we were putting up the defence perimeter two years ago, the word was that we were supposed to be protecting the cardards!’
‘We can’t protect them from setting fire to themselves,’ Durranty said, ‘and frankly we don’t much mind if one or two of them do just that. We can’t afford to mind.’
‘Okay. But there are people on Earth who are going to mind.’
‘I’m aware that owing to a journalistic scoop a year ago, the press got hold of Badinki’s name, and there has been some favourable publicity for him – but I came without journalists, Captain Tebbutt, and the public is not going to know if he dies.’
‘Censorship!’
‘It is merely that his death is unimportant.’ Without moving, Durranty sat and looked at the intelligence officer, no hostility or emotion of any kind on his face. Tebbutt stared back challengingly, and finally Durranty asked, ‘Why aren’t you with us, Captain? The issue’s simple enough. What’s on your mind? Are you trying to turn all this into some sort of ethic
al problem?’
‘I am simply afraid, sir.’
‘Then the Vice-president and I will be brave for you,’ General Jackson said. He laughed.
‘What’s this simple request you say the Turekians are making?’ Durranty asked Tebbutt.
Not liking to be ignored, the General answered sharply, ‘I informed you, sir, that the locals demanded that we leave this site and shift to a smaller and similar one on the other side of the planet. We can’t do it.’
‘I hope you told the Vice-president why the locals are asking – not demanding – that we leave here, and why they are offering us a similar site elsewhere.’ Tebbutt turned to Durranty. ‘All this plain is a holy place to them, sir – the holy spot of the planet. We destroyed a modest temple on our first landing. They are simply asking –’
‘Sure, we knocked down a god-damned stone cairn,’ Jackson said. ‘Who ever heard of a sacred plain? Hills, yes, or maybe a grove, but an eighty-mile square plain? We can’t mess around with all their nonsense, Tebbutt, and you know it!’
‘You must appreciate that there are political and economic factors which make it impossible to move the base, even if the situation were more urgent than this appears to be,’ Durranty said. ‘We just need them to sign the treaty so that we can get moving on the spaceport as fast as possible.’
Tebbutt said nothing. After a moment, Jackson started loudly to say something, but the Vice-president cut him off with a gesture.
‘Captain Tebbutt, I should like to go down and examine the body of the dragon which was shot down. Would you be good enough to accompany me?’
General Jackson followed them as far as the door; then he turned back into his room, heading toward the whisky bottle.
Durranty started talking before they were at ground level.
‘You may be quite an important figure in this matter, which we want to get through as expeditiously as possible. I’d like to hear what’s on your mind. Perhaps you will talk more freely without your superior officer present.’
‘What is on my mind is unimportant, sir. It’s the cardards who are important – and not only in their own right but because the way we treat them is going to be the signal for the way the human race treats any other alien races it may stumble across.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that? I’ve probably had a better chance to study the matter with detachment than you. I appreciate that we may start a global uprising of the locals, or Badinki may, but we must face the situation with courage.’
Tebbutt stopped still. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I think it would be better to face it with cowardice.’
The Vice-president stopped and contemplated him, concentrating more on his mouth than his eyes, as if wondering what it had said.
‘We need courage, Captain, or we may be swept off the planet. We can’t afford to climb down in this question of shifting base. We certainly can’t afford to show ourselves intimidated by Badinki’s threat to set himself alight. That would be cowardice.’
‘Evolution favours the coward.’
‘Are you afraid, Captain?’
‘Sir, I am afraid. Not so much for myself as for humanity in general. We’re going to spread out to the stars. It’s bad enough that we go as two partly warring camps, always shackled by this hostility to the Soviets. But let’s at least honour the things we are supposed to honour. Let’s not desecrate the cardards’ holy place for the sake of a few lousy million credits, which is all it would cost to shift the base round the planet, when interstellar affairs cost us a megacredit a minute. If Badinki dies a martyr’s death, let’s not hush it up and go on pretending we’re just dealing with a bunch of furry animals. Let’s get frightened about the situation we’ve created and do our best to set it right, rather than huff and puff and brazen it out and steamroller the opposition.’
‘That is a highly inaccurate summary of my position, young man.’
‘I didn’t mean it to be that, sir.’
At the double-edged remark, Durranty raised one eyebrow and permitted himself a momentary smile.
Round the dragon, a bunch of off-duty staff was gathered.
The beast looked pathetic in death, its unburnt wing broken under it as if it huddled for sleep on an old tarpaulin. Its tail ended in a pair of indeterminate spikes. Over its one great multi-faceted eye, a thick grey membrane had slid. A cook with a sharp knife was trying to hack its head off, laughing and calling to his mates as he did so.
‘Turekian livestock isn’t always as unlovely as this,’ Tebbutt said. ‘I could drive you into the village, sir, if you’d like, to see how the people live at first hand.’
‘I will drive through the village with an escort, thank you, when affairs have quieted down.’
‘Very well, sir. Then if you have no further use for me, I will leave you.’
‘You won’t!’ For the first time, Durranty spoke sharply. ‘You seem to pride yourself on speaking out, but I notice you’ve said nothing so far worth saying. I need exercise after the confinement of the ship – walk partway across the field with me and we will talk privately, and you can come to the point, if you have one.’
Tebbutt looked back. Two uniformed men of the Vice-president’s guard were standing at a safe distance. He guessed that Durranty was in constant radio contact with them, so that their every word was relayed and recorded. Since he was already in deep trouble, he fell in with the older man’s step without protest, and they started to walk away from the cluster of man-made buildings. Durranty’s neutral attitude gave him no comfort.
‘To begin with – what did you mean by saying evolution favours the coward?’ Durranty asked.
‘A good point to begin with, if I may say so, sir; since you must be better briefed on the situation here than I am, there’s no point in saying anything about the facts, merely in the policy to fit the facts. I think cowardice would be the soundest policy. We’d be wise to be alarmed.’
Seeing that the Vice-president was determined to say nothing, Tebbutt continued, ‘The state that continued longest in history was Byzantium – a thousand years, wasn’t it? Yet of all states, Byzantium’s geographical position was the one most impossible to defend. For most of the time they were surrounded by enemies, for much of the time they were almost incapable of defending themselves. They took the coward’s way out – they bought off their enemies, with land or flattering treaties or gold; they hesitated and intrigued and were generally craven – and flourished for ten centuries.
‘There was another state that proclaimed it was going to last as long – the Third Reich. Hitler knew no fear. He was too crazy for caution. He took on all comers. His so-called empire lasted just twelve years. Evolution favours the herbivores, the vegetarians, the placid dinosaurs who saw out millions of years.’
‘Since we are not dinosaurs, we can leave them out of the argument. History is made by the brave. It echoes with the names of Leonidas, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Nelson; whereas the cowards are dead and forgotten.’
‘Your choices are in the main extremely unfortunate, sir. Those men may have left their marks – scars, more likely – but they never made so big a mark as the shirker who invented the wheel because he couldn’t bear pushing the sled, or the weakling who was so useless in a bare-fist fight he had to develop the sword, or the squeamish idiot who roasted his joint over the camp fire because he couldn’t face the taste of raw
meat.’
‘You’re not making points in a college debate, Captain. Whether we are cowards or heroes, we have our duty to do, and there’s an end to it.’
‘Okay, sir, the brave go out and die like heroes. The cowards stay home and breed in their warm beds. If we keep at it long enough, thank heaven, all the combative streak may be bred out of the human race.’
‘You amuse me! Are you claiming bravery is anti-survival?’
‘It may be that way in future, sir, whatever it was in the past. Now may be the turning point. If we do our duty, as you call it, here on Turek, we’ll tramp
le down the rights of these people, and we don’t know what trend of events we set in motion by so doing. We aren’t nineteenth-century European imperialists in some backwater of Africa! We can’t afford to turn a whole planet against us.’
‘You exaggerate.’
‘On the contrary, I underestimate. We have been here only two years – twenty-three months, in fact, which is rather less by Earthtime, and tomorrow they are going to set up their first martyr against us. What are they going to be with other intelligent races he comes up against? You can set a pattern, sir, for good or ill! Let us be honourably defeated by Badiniki with his passive resistance. Let’s fear something, let’s do the cowardly thing, let’s clear off to the other side of the planet and leave them in peace with this plain and their poor little ruined cairn.’
Durranty stopped and said, ‘I think we have walked far enough. You are neurotic, Captain. I will speak to General Jackson about you and see that you are relieved of your duties. If the destiny of the Western World had been entrusted to men like you a century ago, the Western World would have crumbled in 1948–49, at the time of the Berlin air lift, the first act of defiance against Soviet aggression.’
‘You can’t dismiss my whole argument just by calling me neurotic.’
Now the Vice-president was signalling to the two uniformed men, who moved forward smartly. For a moment, Durranty and Tebbutt were alone, the alien village and its mountains before them now that they had turned round, the whole black mystery of the new planet behind them.
‘I dismiss your argument, such as it is, because it is easier to let Badiniki burn tomorrow than shift our base one yard. There is no difficulty in keeping news of his act from Earth – we are far more anxious about reactions among neutrals there than about anything the Turekians can do here.’
The guards came up. Durranty nodded to them. Before walking off between them, Durranty turned and nodded to Tebbutt, his manner as neutral as when they had met.
Tebbutt was left standing alone. For a moment he stood there, marched smartly toward the barrier, before anyone could block his pass.