Despoilers of the Golden Empire
Page 6
The regular reader of Astounding may remember that I gave anotherexample of the technique of truthful misdirection in "The Best Policy,"(July, 1957). An Earthman, captured by aliens, finds himself in aposition in which he is unable to tell even the smallest lie. But bytelling the absolute truth, he convinces the aliens that _homo sapiens_is a race of super-duper supermen. He does it so well that the alienssurrender without attacking, even before the rest of humanity is awareof their existence.
The facts in "Despoilers of the Golden Empire" remain. They _are_ facts.Francisco Pizarro and his men--an army of less than twohundred--actually _did_ inflict appalling damage on the Inca armies,even if they were outnumbered ten to one, and with astonishingly fewlosses of their own. They did it with sheer guts, too; their equipmentwas not too greatly superior to that of the Peruvians, and by the timethey reached the Great Inca himself, none of the Peruvians believed thatthe invaders were demons or gods. But in the face of the Spaniards'determined onslaught, they were powerless.
The assassination scene at the end is almost an exact description ofwhat happened. It _did_ take a dozen men in full armor to kill thearmorless Pizarro, and even then it took trickery and treachery to doit.
Now, just to show how fair I was--to show how I scrupulously refrainedfrom lying--I will show what a sacrifice I made for the sake of truth.
If you'll recall, in the story, the dying Pizarro traces the Sign of theCross on the floor in his own blood, kisses it, and says "_Jesus!_"before he dies. This is in strict accord with every history on thesubject I could find.
But there is a legend to the effect that his last words were somewhatdifferent. I searched the New York Public Library for days trying tofind one single historian who would bear out the legend; I even went sofar as to get a librarian who could read Spanish and another whoseGerman is somewhat better than mine to translate articles in foreignhistorical journals for me. All in vain. But if I _could_ havesubstantiated the legend, the final scene would have read something likethis:
Clawing at his sword-torn throat, the fearless old soldier brought his hand away coated with the crimson of his own blood. Falling forward, he traced the Sign of the Cross on the stone floor in gleaming scarlet, kissed it, and then glared up at the men who surrounded him, his eyes hard with anger and hate.
"I'm going to Heaven," he said, his voice harsh and whispery. "And _you_, you _bastards_, can go to _Hell_!"
It would have made one hell of an ending--but it had to be sacrificed inthe interests of Truth.
So I rest my case.
I will even go further than that; I defy anyone to point out a singleout-and-out lie in the whole story. G'wan--I _dare_ ya!
(SECRET ASIDE TO THE READER; J. W. C., Jr., PLEASE DO _NOT_ READ!)
Ah, but wait! There _is_ a villain in the piece!
_I_ did not lie to you, no. But you were lied to, all the same.
By whom?
By none less than that conniving arch-fiend, John W. Campbell, Jr.,that's who!
Wasn't it he who bought the story?
And wasn't it he who, with malice aforethought, published it in apackage which was plainly labeled Science Fiction?
And, therefore, didn't you have every right to think it _was_ sciencefiction?
Sure you did!
I am guilty of nothing more than weakness; my poor, frail sense ofethics collapsed completely at the sight of the bribe he offered me tobecome a party to the dark conspiracy that sprang from the depths of hisown demoniac mind. Ah, well; none of us is perfect, I suppose.
DAVID GORDON.
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ March 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.