“That is well and good,” Ulysses said. “That is as it should be. You did very well. But the body’s gone.”
“Gone! It can’t be gone!” cried Enoch.
“It has been taken from the grave.”
“But you can’t know,” protested Enoch. “How could you know?”
“Not I. It’s the Vegans. The Vegans are the ones who know.”
“But they’re light-years distant …”
And then he was not too sure. For on that night the wise old one had died and he’d messaged Galactic Central, he had been told that the Vegans had known the moment he had died. And there had been no need for a death certificate, for they knew of what he died.
It seemed impossible, of course, but there were too many impossibilities in the galaxy which turned out, after all, to be entirely possible for a man to ever know when he stood on solid ground.
Was it possible, he wondered, that each Vegan had some sort of mental contact with every other Vegan? Or that some central census bureau (to give a human designation to something that was scarcely understandable) might have some sort of official linkage with every living Vegan, knowing where it was and how it was and what it might be doing?
Something of the sort, Enoch admitted, might indeed be possible. It was not beyond the astounding capabilities that one found on every hand throughout the galaxy. But to maintain a similar contact with the Vegan dead was something else again.
“The body’s gone,” Ulysses said. “I can tell you that and know it is the truth. You’re held accountable.”
“By the Vegans?”
“By the Vegans, yes. And the galaxy.”
“I did what I could,” said Enoch hotly. “I did what was required. I filled the letter of the Vegan law. I paid the dead my honor and the honor of my planet. It is not right that the responsibility should go on forever. Not that I can believe the body can be really gone. There is no one who would take it. No one who knew of it.”
“By human logic,” Ulysses told him, “you, of course, are right. But not by Vegan logic. And in this case Galactic Central would tend to support the Vegans.”
“The Vegans,” Enoch said testily, “happen to be friends of mine. I have never met a one of them that I didn’t like or couldn’t get along with. I can work it out with them.”
“If only the Vegans were concerned,” said Ulysses, “I am quite sure you could. I would have no worry. But the situation gets complicated as you go along. On the surface it seems a rather simple happening, but there are many factors. The Vegans, for example, have known for some time that the body had been taken and they were disturbed, of course. But out of certain considerations, they had kept their silence.”
“They needn’t have. They could have come to me. I don’t know what could have been done …”
“Silent not because of you. Because of something else.”
Ulysses finished off his coffee and poured himself another cup. He filled Enoch’s half-filled cup and set the pot aside.
Enoch waited.
“You may not have been aware of it,” said Ulysses, “but at the time this station was established, there was considerable opposition to it from a number of races in the galaxy. There were many reasons cited, as is the case in all such situations, but the underlying reason, when you get down to basics, rests squarely on the continual contest for racial or regional advantage. A situation akin, I would imagine, to the continual bickering and maneuvering which you find here upon the Earth to gain an economic advantage for one group or another, or one nation and another. In the galaxy, of course, the economic considerations only occasionally are the underlying factors. There are many other factors than the economic.”
Enoch nodded. “I had gained a hint of this. Nothing recently. But I hadn’t paid too much attention to it.”
“It’s largely a matter of direction,” Ulysses said. “When Galactic Central began its expansion into this spiral arm, it meant there was no time or effort available for expansions in other directions. There is one large group of races which has held a dream for many centuries of expanding into some of the nearby globular clusters. It does make a dim sort of sense, of course. With the techniques that we have, the longer jump across space to some of the closer clusters is entirely possible. Another thing—the clusters seem to be extraordinarily free of dust and gas, so that once we got there we could expand more rapidly throughout the cluster than we can in many parts of the galaxy. But at best, it’s a speculative business, for we don’t know what we’ll find there. After we’ve made all the effort and spent all the time we may find little or nothing, except possibly some more real estate. And we have plenty of that in the galaxy. But the clusters have a vast appeal for certain types of minds.”
Enoch nodded. “I can see that. It would be the first venturing out of the galaxy itself. It might be the first short step on the route that could lead us to other galaxies.”
Ulysses peered at him. “You, too,” he said. “I might have known.”
Enoch said smugly: “I am that type of mind.”
“Well, anyhow, there was this globular-cluster faction—I suppose you’d call it that—which contended bitterly when we began our move in this direction. You understand—certainly you do—that we’ve barely begun the expansion into this neighborhood. We have less than a dozen stations and we’ll need a hundred. It will take centuries before the network is complete.”
“So this faction is still contending,” Enoch said. “There still is time to stop this spiral-arm project.”
“That is right. And that’s what worries me. For the faction is set to use this incident of the missing body as an emotion-charged argument against the extension of this network. It is being joined by other groups that are concerned with certain special interests. And these special interest groups see a better chance of getting what they want if they can wreck this project.”
“Wreck it?”
“Yes, wreck it. They will start screaming, as soon as the body incident becomes open knowledge, that a planet so barbaric as the Earth is no fit location for a station. They will insist that this station be abandoned.”
“But they can’t do that!”
“They can,” Ulysses said. “They will say it is degrading and unsafe to maintain a station so barbaric that even graves are rifled, on a planet where the honored dead cannot rest in peace. It is the kind of highly emotional argument that will gain wide acceptance and support in some sections of the galaxy. The Vegans tried their best. They tried to hush it up, for the sake of the project. They have never done a thing like that before. They are a proud people and they feel a slight to honor—perhaps more deeply than many other races—and yet, for the greater good, they were willing to accept dishonor. And would have if they could have kept it quiet. But the story leaked out somehow—by good espionage, no doubt. And they cannot stand the loss of face in advertised dishonor. The Vegan who will be arriving here this evening is an official representative charged with delivering an official protest.”
“To me?”
“To you, and through you, to the Earth.”
“But the Earth is not concerned. The Earth doesn’t even know.”
“Of course it doesn’t. So far as Galactic Central is concerned, you are the Earth. You represent the Earth.”
Enoch shook his head. It was a crazy way of thinking. But, he told himself, he should not be surprised. It was the kind of thinking he should have expected. He was too hidebound, he thought, too narrow. He had been trained in the human way of thinking and, even after all these years, that way of thought persisted. Persisted to a point where any way of thought that conflicted with it must automatically seem wrong.
This talk of abandoning Earth station was wrong, too. It made no sort of sense. For abandoning of the station would not wreck the project. Although, more than likely, it would wreck whatever hope he’d held for the h
uman race.
“But even if you have to abandon Earth,” he said, “you could go out to Mars. You could build a station there. If it’s necessary to have a station in this solar system there are other planets.”
“You don’t understand,” Ulysses told him. “This station is just one point of attack. It is no more than a toehold, just a bare beginning. The aim is to wreck the project, to free the time and effort that is expended here for some other project. If they can force us to abandon one station, then we stand discredited. Then all our motives and our judgment come up for review.”
“But even if the project should be wrecked,” Enoch pointed out, “there is no surety that any group would gain. It would only throw the question of where the time and energy should be used into an open debate. You say that there are many special interest factions banding together to carry on the fight against us. Suppose that they do win. Then they must turn around and start fighting among themselves.”
“Of course that’s the case,” Ulysses admitted, “but then each of them has a chance to get what they want, or think they have a chance. The way it is they have no chance at all. Before any of them has a chance this project must go down the drain. There is one group on the far side of the galaxy that wants to move out into the thinly populated sections of one particular section of the rim. They still believe in an ancient legend which says that their race arose as the result of immigrants from another galaxy who landed on the rim and worked their way inward over many galactic years. They think that if they can get out to the rim they can turn that legend into history to their greater glory. Another group wants to go into a small spiral arm because of an obscure record that many eons ago their ancestors picked up some virtually undecipherable messages which they believed came from that direction. Through the years the story has grown, until today they are convinced a race of intellectual giants will be found in that spiral arm. And there is always the pressure, naturally, to probe deeper into the galactic core. You must realize that we have only started, that the galaxy still is largely unexplored, that the thousands of races who form Galactic Central still are pioneers. And as a result, Galactic Central is continually subjected to all sorts of pressures.”
“You sound,” said Enoch, “as if you have little hope of maintaining this station, here on Earth.”
“Almost no hope at all,” Ulysses told him. “But so far as you yourself are concerned, there will be an option. You can stay here and live out an ordinary life on Earth or you can be assigned to another station. Galactic Central hopes that you would elect to continue on with us.”
“That sounds pretty final.”
“I am afraid,” Ulysses said, “it is. I am sorry, Enoch, to be the bearer of bad news.”
Enoch sat numb and stricken. Bad news! It was worse than that. It was the end of everything.
He sensed the crashing down of not only his own personal world, but of all the hopes of Earth. With the station gone, Earth once more would be left in the backwaters of the galaxy, with no hope of help, no chance of recognition, no realization of what lay waiting in the galaxy. Standing alone and naked, the human race would go on in its same old path, fumbling its uncertain way toward a blind, mad future.
20
The hazer was elderly. The golden haze that enveloped him had lost the sparkle of its youthfulness. It was a mellow glow, deep and rich—not the blinding haze of a younger being. He carried himself with a solid dignity, and the flaring topknot that was neither hair nor feathers was white, a sort of saintly whiteness. His face was soft and tender, the softness and the tenderness which in a man might have been expressed in kindly wrinkles.
“I am sorry,” he told Enoch, “that our meeting must be such as this. Although, under any circumstances, I am glad to meet you. I have heard of you. It is not often that a being of an outside planet is the keeper of a station. Because of this, young being, I have been intrigued with you. I have wondered what sort of creature you might turn out to be.”
“You need have no apprehension of him,” Ulysses said, a little sharply. “I will vouch for him. We have been friends for years.”
“Yes, I forgot,” the Hazer said. “You are his discoverer.”
He peered around the room. “Another one,” he said. “I did not know there were two of them. I only knew of one.”
“It’s a friend of Enoch’s,” Ulysses said.
“There has been contact, then. Contact with the planet.”
“No, there has been no contact.”
“Perhaps an indiscretion.”
“Perhaps,” Ulysses said, “but under provocation that I doubt either you or I could have stood against.”
Lucy had risen to her feet and now she came across the room, moving quietly and slowly, as if she might be floating.
The Hazer spoke to her in the common tongue. “I am glad to meet you. Very glad to meet you.”
“She cannot speak,” Ulysses said. “Nor hear. She has no communication.”
“Compensation,” said the Hazer.
“You think so?” asked Ulysses.
“I am sure of it.”
He walked slowly forward and Lucy waited.
“It—she, the female form, you called it—she is not afraid.”
Ulysses chuckled. “Not even of me,” he said.
The Hazer reached out his hand to her and she stood quietly for a moment, then one of her hands came up and took the Hazer’s fingers, more like tentacles than fingers, in its grasp.
It seemed to Enoch, for a moment, that the cloak of golden haze reached out to wrap the Earth girl in its glow. Enoch blinked his eyes and the illusion, if it had been illusion, was swept away, and it only was the Hazer who had the golden cloak.
And how was it, Enoch wondered, that there was no fear in her, either of Ulysses or the Hazer? Was it because, in truth, as he had said, she could see beyond the outward guise, could somehow sense the basic humanity (God help me, I cannot think, even now, except in human terms!) that was in these creatures? And if that were true, was it because she herself was not entirely human? A human, certainly, in form and origin, but not formed and molded into the human culture—being perhaps, what a human would be if he were not hemmed about so closely by the rules of behavior and outlook that through the years had hardened into law to comprise a common human attitude.
Lucy dropped the Hazer’s hand and went back to the sofa.
The Hazer said, “Enoch Wallace.”
“Yes.”
“She is of your race?”
“Yes, of course she is.”
“She is most unlike you. Almost as if there were two races.”
“There is not two races. There is only one.”
“Are there many others like her?”
“I would not know,” said Enoch.
“Coffee,” said Ulysses to the Hazer. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Coffee?”
“A most delicious brew. Earth’s one great accomplishment.”
“I am not acquainted with it,” said the Hazer. “I don’t believe I will.”
He turned ponderously to Enoch.
“You know why I am here?” he asked.
“I believe so.”
“It is a matter I regret,” said the Hazer. “But I must …”
“If you’d rather,” Enoch said, “we can consider that the protest has been made. I would so stipulate.”
“Why not?” Ulysses said. “There is no need, it seems to me, to have the three of us go through a somewhat painful scene.”
The Hazer hesitated.
“If you feel you must,” said Enoch.
“No,” the Hazer said. “I am satisfied if an unspoken protest be generously accepted.”
“Accepted,” Enoch said, “on just one condition. That I satisfy myself that the charge is not unfounded. I must go out and see.”<
br />
“You do not believe me?”
“It is not a matter of belief. It is something that can be checked. I cannot accept either for myself or for my planet until I have done that much.”
“Enoch,” Ulysses said, “the Vegan has been gracious. Not only now, but before this happened. His race presses the charge most reluctantly. They suffered much to protect the Earth and you.”
“And the feeling is that I would be ungracious if I did not accept the protest and the charge on the Vegan statement.”
“I am sorry, Enoch,” said Ulysses. “That is what I mean.”
Enoch shook his head. “For years I’ve tried to understand and to conform to the ethics and ideas of all the people who have come through this station. I’ve pushed my own human instincts and training to one side. I’ve tried to understand other viewpoints and to evaluate other ways of thinking, many of which did violence to my own. I am glad of all of it, for it has given me a chance to go beyond the narrowness of Earth. I think I gained something from it all. But none of this touched Earth; only myself was involved. This business touches Earth and I must approach it from an Earthman’s viewpoint. In this particular instance I am not simply the keeper of a galactic station.”
Neither of them said a word. Enoch stood waiting and still there was nothing said.
Finally he turned and headed for the door.
“I’ll be back,” he told them.
He spoke the phrase and the door started to slide open.
“If you’ll have me,” said the Hazer quietly, “I’d like to go with you.”
“Fine,” said Enoch. “Come ahead.”
It was dark outside and Enoch lit the lantern. The Hazer watched him closely.
“Fossil fuel,” Enoch told him. “It burns at the tip of a saturated wick.”
The Hazer said, in horror, “But surely you have better.”
“Much better now,” said Enoch. “I am just old-fashioned.”
He led the way outside, the lantern throwing a small pool of light. The Hazer followed.
“It is a wild planet,” said the Hazer.
The Works of Clifford D. Simak Volume Two Page 68