‘The Zodiac people were in no danger of committing actual genocide, but they came perilously close to cultural genocide. New Rome sent representatives out, and so did New Alexandria. The quarrel lasted for years. I was sent out during its final stages, to make arrangements for the Anacaon project which has been going on at the colony near Corinth. There’s no point in going over all the details of the diplomatic war. You can imagine the difficulties. The children of the Zodiac were eventually persuaded that they had no choice. If they didn’t let the Anacaona alone, New Rome would move in troops. If Chao Phrya wasn’t to be run under the Law of New Rome by the Zodiac crew, then it would be run under the Law of New Rome by a military authority. There was no question of Let Well Alone. That principle only applies to alien worlds which don’t want to be colonised and human worlds where there are no other considerations to be taken into account but the eccentricities of the particular humans involved.
‘The crew had to capitulate. They agreed to handle their world our way, provided that we let them get on with it. If anything, the rediscovery reinforced their determination to remain isolated and free from interference.
‘The children of the Zodiac hate us. It will wear off in time. It is wearing off. But we—New Rome and New Alexandria particularly—came and trampled all over their sacred Promised Land and told them how they would have to run it if they didn’t want it taken away from them. All that hatred is going to work against us down there. The only thing which will work in our favour is the fact that the only thing the Zodiac people are afraid of is the possibility of our coming back to carry out our threats. They’ll have to cooperate with us, but we’ll have to threaten them in order to make them. They’ll be as difficult as they can contrive to be without actually getting us killed or refusing point-blank to help us in accordance with the law.
‘I don’t think they’ll let me land. They might not let more than one of us land in any case, in which case it will have to be you.’
He meant me.
‘Thanks a lot,’ I said.
‘Whatever you do,’ he said, ‘don’t let them think that the whole galaxy isn’t behind you. Don’t ever suggest for a moment that if they don’t do as we say they’ll get away with it. We have to make this look like a diplomatic incident of the highest order. The New Romans on planet will back us up. They know the score. But don’t give the Zodiac people an inch.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘I might have to go down there on my own. To a world where every man hates me. Great.’
It didn’t really worry me all that much. It looked like the sort of thing I could handle. I only get into difficulties when the situation demands that I be nice to people.
Charlot, on the other hand, was very worried. He was nursing a lot of bitterness about Chao Phrya. I could afford to be philosophical about the sad story he’d just told us. It’s a big galaxy. Things go wrong. People are always getting hurt. When cultures collide, someone always suffers. But there’s never any way back to square one. These things happen. Too bad.
Being philosophical and cynical about things doesn’t make them any better, though. Charlot couldn’t be cynical and philosophical, because he saw his purpose in life—the purpose of all human life—in making things better. He was unalterably committed to New Alexandria (just as the colonists were unalterably committed to their Promised Land), and he could never afford to shrug his shoulders. He had tremendous faith in New Alexandria as an instrument of his brand of good.
I don’t believe in any brand of good, and I have dire suspicions about New Alexandria, and even direr ones about New Rome. It’s not only generation ships which give rise to the Promised Land syndrome, and at least the children of the Zodiac would eventually be able to take a practical view of existence. I doubted that New Alexandria and New Rome would ever change. Sacred ideas are always more difficult to reify than sacred soil. I can’t help thinking that New Alexandria might be the biggest cultural genocide machine of all time. No matter how sincere its concern for the alien races of the galaxy, its philosophy is unavoidably anthropocentric. Its precepts are human and its methods are human. It’s some comment on the New Alexandrian Way that the much-vaunted synthesis of human and Khormon intellectual heritages resulted in a big step forward on human technology. No Khormon, so far as I knew, was flying a Hooded Swan. I didn’t want to argue any of this with Charlot. I think my way, for me. We could never even have compared ideas on a sensible basis. But I knew that if he sent me down alone to the surface of Chao Phrya, I wouldn’t be able to throw myself wholeheartedly into his mission. He knew it too. I just don’t believe in Homo galacticus, much less in Homo deus. That’s the way it is.
Meanwhile, back at the plot, Eve and I had both caught on to the dimensions of the problem by now. We could look forward to trouble just as much as Charlot.
‘What do they think of the colony, down there on Chao Phrya?’ I asked.
‘They hate the very idea,’ said Charlot.
‘So what reception are they likely to offer to the woman and the girl?’
‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘I think they’d prefer to forget that the colony existed. They won’t thank anyone for reminding them of it. They won’t give the White Fire permission to land. There’s no possibility of that.’
‘But that’s not what worries you?’ inserted Eve.
‘You think they’ll go down anyway,’ I amplified.
‘I hope not,’ he said.
‘But it makes for a diplomatic mess if they do,’ I said.
‘Obviously.’
But that wasn’t what he was worried about, and I knew it. His worries had been betrayed by his insistence that I not let the Zodiac mob suspect that the whole weight of New Roman Law might not stamp them flat if they told us to buzz off. What frightened Charlot was the possibility that New Rome might have far more interest in preserving peace than in solving Titus Charlot’s problems for him. He was afraid that the powers of New Rome might conveniently decide that the evidence of kidnap wasn’t sufficient. Diplomatic trouble didn’t bother him at all. But he thought that the ground might be cut right out from under his feet if we had to wait for a decision from New Rome and if the Zodiac people managed to put in a strong protest. I could see why he was willing to let me go down on my own, if there proved to be no other immediate alternative.
For once, he had more faith in me than in the Law of New Rome.
I was flattered. But not enthusiastic. Despite the fact that I had some slight personal involvement in the situation, I was happy to let things get along in their own sweet way.
The transfer at Chao Phrya, nineteen hours and no sleep later, was smooth and routine. Johnny’s handling of the engine was getting better all the time. He’d never faced real difficulty, of course, but I could tell that he had some kind of sensitivity. Not the flair of a Rothgar, by any means, but he was an engineer of sorts.
I went into a conventional orbit and began to hail the port. At first, there was no answer at all, but I kept beeping. Eventually, my signal was recognised and a decidedly hostile voice invited me to go ahead.
‘This is the Hooded Swan,’ I told him, and I reeled off our identification codes. I could imagine his hostility growing as he found that we were from New Alexandria. Assuming he could understand the codes, of course.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded bluntly, before I’d quite finished.
I completed the legal requirements, and then turned away from the console. ‘Captain,’ I called, in sweet and deadly tones, ‘I think you’d better take over.’
Eve moved to the duplicate communications panel in the rear of the control room. She didn’t even glance at me.
‘What do I tell him?’ she asked Charlot. At least, I thought, she didn’t just let him take over. It was her job, and she was doing it.
‘Tell him the truth,’ said Charlot. It seemed like an adventurous policy, but I knew that Charlot was talking about his brand of truth, which wasn’t quite the same as min
e.
‘The truth,’ I muttered, exhibiting my disgust.
‘Keep out of this,’ said Eve, with some asperity.
She identified herself formally to the man on the ground, and repeated her own codes.
‘What do you want?’ repeated the waspish voice from the speaker.
‘In a matter of hours,’ she said calmly, ‘the phaseshift yacht White Fire will arrive here. She is under charter to an Anacaon from the colony on New Alexandria. The woman is charged with the crime of kidnapping. Her victim is with her. We want to recover both of them. We ask permission to land, and to place the personnel on board the White Fire under arrest as soon as that ship lands.’
‘You aren’t a police boat.’
‘We have the power of arrest. We have the owner aboard, and he has the full authority of the government of New Alexandria.’
The man on the ground should have asked for full identification, but he didn’t. The mere mention of New Alexandria was enough to switch on his glands.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Maintain your orbit. I’ll refer your request to the proper authorities.’ I could almost feel the sneer in his voice.
He closed the circuit.
‘Nice man,’ I commented.
We waited. It was a long wait. Either the Zodiac people were holding a big debate or the little guy was having a lot of trouble finding his proper authorities. It was well over an hour later when our circuit beeped again. I let Eve answer it.
They didn’t waste time on any formalities.
‘Permission to land is refused,’ said a deep voice. It wasn’t the same man we’d spoken to before, unless he was trying to sound more important.
I could see Charlot’s teeth gritting.
‘Why?’ asked Eve.
‘We do not acknowledge any New Alexandrian authority,’ said the voice firmly, as if all argument would be useless.
‘Tell him the law insists we be recognised,’ said Charlot quietly.
‘The law...,’ began Eve, before the voice cut the circuit.
She began beeping him instantly.
He switched back on and said, ‘The law is a matter for the officers of the law. We will discuss the matter only with a duly constituted authority.’
‘We have such authority,’ said Eve coldly. ‘If you care to check the codes which we gave you, you will find that we are recognised by New Rome.’ She meant, of course, that Charlot was so important New Rome would back him to the hilt. The plain fact was that we weren’t cops, and they had every right to wait for the cops to arrive. Which would be a long time after the White Fire.
‘We should have brought Denton,’ I said.
‘It wouldn’t make any difference,’ said Charlot. ‘They’re just as obliged to accept the request from us as they are from anybody else. Tell them they’ll be accessories to the crime if they don’t comply with our request.’
Eve told them. They weren’t impressed.
‘The ship to which you refer,’ said the deep voice, ‘will be refused permission to land. You will both remain in orbit until an authority capable of dealing with the situation arrives.’
Charlot took the mike from Eve. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he said. ‘You can’t leave this problem up here in space. The White Fire won’t ask permission. We demand to be allowed to follow her down and effect an arrest.’
‘That is not legal,’ said the man on the ground.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Charlot’s fingernails digging into his palms.
‘Will you arrest the crew and passengers aboard the White Fire if that ship lands on Chao Phrya?’ asked Charlot, holding his temper in.
‘Depends where they land, doesn’t it?’ said the man with the deep voice, with insulting carelessness. ‘We don’t have anything capable of circumnavigating the planet in a matter of minutes. If he comes down a couple of thousand miles away, there’s nothing we can do about it, is there?’
‘We can!’ said Charlot.
‘You have no authority so to do,’ returned the man on the ground. ‘You must maintain orbit.’
And he switched off again.
This time, nobody bothered to try and recall him. We’d heard what he had to say. There was no point in arguing until we had something to argue about. We could reopen negotiations if and when we had a fait accompli to present them with. There was nothing we could do but wait for the White Fire and hope against hope that her captain wouldn’t be anticipating trouble and would go down to the port, or at least to where some member of the Zodiac police force could get to her.
I didn’t really feel lucky.
CHAPTER FIVE
About ten minutes before the White Fire was due to show, Eve told me to get back inside the hood and fuse my eyesight with the Swan’s perceptors so that I could report what happened. I obeyed without a word.
Nobody can see spaceships with the naked eye, except at point-blank range, but the Swan had much better eyes than the feeble ones we carry in our heads. She was so sensitive she could pick up a pea at ninety million miles (though the images she got from distant objects were necessarily a bit behind the times) and her computers could run a fast sort which could separate irrelevant lumps of rock from interesting items in a matter of microseconds. All the relevant information registered automatically with the organometallic synapses in the console, and were made available inside the hood at a direct sensory level. There’s no way to explain what things look like or feel like inside an ordinary ship’s hood, let alone the Hooded Swan’s. It’s an experience like no other. The outcome of the whole process was that I was able to ‘see’ the White Fire as soon as she passed the orbit of the fifth planet (Chao Phrya was the second) and I watched her come all the way in. She’d made transfer to zero-phase a long way out, and she was in no hurry.
I could see her, and she could see me. I think her captain must have guessed what ship we were.
She was dead on schedule, allowing a few minutes for the distant p-shift. It was no surprise—she’d come along pretty much the same groove we had and there was nothing in the way but hard vacuum.
‘She’s coming in right now,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to hail her or move the Swan into her way?’
‘Hail her,’ said Charlot.
I beamed a beep at her. ‘Do you want me to identify myself if and when she answers?’ I asked him.
‘Might as well,’ he said. ‘He’d be a fool if he didn’t know.’
When the beep elicited no immediate response I stepped up the power and gave it a full frequency register so that he couldn’t tune it out. I didn’t see any reason not to be rude.
He answered, and said, ‘Hello.’
‘This is the Hooded Swan...,’ I began.
‘Surprise, surprise,’ he said.
‘You’re under arrest,’ I said, cutting out the formalities, and trying to sound like Denton.
‘Don’t get in my way,’ he said. ‘You may be fast and slick, but you can’t stop me. Just don’t try.’
I put my hand over the mike.
‘More whiz-kids,’ I commented to Charlot, with a hint of bitterness. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘What did you expect?’ he replied. ‘It takes a real lunatic to accept a criminal run out of New Alexandria. He’s no real spaceman.’ I didn’t bother reacting to that, though I’d known a good many real spacemen in my time who’d have relished the thought of a bent run out of New Alexandria. While I couldn’t say that most of my best friends had been kidnappers, not a lot of them would have turned up their nose at big money.
‘What shall I do?’ I demanded to know.
‘Watch him,’ said Charlot.
‘You don’t want me to crowd him?’
‘No.’
I watched him. There wasn’t much to watch. I knew pretty much what was going to happen, and it happened.
‘He’s going in,’ I reported. ‘He hasn’t even paused to beep the ground.’
‘Where’s he going to land?’ asked Charlot. I co
uld feel the anger in his voice.
‘I can’t tell,’ I said. ‘He’s going the wrong way around. I’ll have to turn to watch him down. Otherwise the planet’ll be between us’
‘Well, turn, then,’ snapped Charlot.
I took the Swan out of orbit and followed the White Fire along her decaying trajectory.
‘Do you want me to land?’ I asked.
There was a pause. It was a difficult decision. He settled for the legal way.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Note her position. Then get back to the orbit. Then get me that fool on the ground.’
I complied.
Embarrassing minutes dragged by while I beeped the spaceport. I was afraid I’d have to pull the same trick that I’d pulled on the captain of the White Fire to force an acknowledgement out of them. But they knew what was happening as well as we did. They knew they had to reopen talks.
‘Come on,’ muttered Charlot—a most unusual gesture of impatience.
‘They’re probably still tracking the White Fire,’ I said. ‘It’ll take them longer to work out her position than it took us. They have inferior equipment.’
‘Even they can track a ship,’ snarled Charlot. ‘How far away from them is she?’
‘She’s a hell of a long way from the ground signal,’ I said. ‘Maybe sixteen hundred miles, in an area of uniform green that must be eight hundred miles across. Rain forest. Must be.’
Charlot was at my elbow by now, peering at the console. I couldn’t see him, because I had the hood on, but I knew he was there.
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