General Max Shorter

by Kris Neville

Captain. Normally, Idon't talk about this sort of thing, but I thought you might like toknow."

  "Thank you, sir," Captain Arnold said uneasily, opening his surfacesuit.

  "Well, let's inspect the area, Captain."

  The inspection was perfunctory. As he always did, the general paused atthe pile monitor and watched, in the Dante screen, the virtuallyindescribable reactions being sustained far beneath the surface: moltenrock flowing and smoking. Orange, blue and white flames danced as thoughin agony in the great, expanding cavern, danced and merged and vanishedand reappeared in an ever-changing pattern.

  Back at the locks, the general bid Captain Arnold good-by and turned toleave. Then, as if an afterthought came forward, he turned back.

  "David, oh, David!"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Perhaps you remember a conversation we had a few weeks ago? I called onyou for some technical advice." He held his helmet in his hands.

  "When was that, sir?"

  "Oh, it was about the technical feasibility of reversing theair-changing equipment, I believe. As you know, I can't be up on all thetechnical, purely detailed procedure, for all phases of the operation.That's what we have experts for." The last statement was unusuallyjovial. "I believe you told me, David, that the process was too faralong at that time. Perhaps you remember?"

  "General Shorter, when was that?"

  "I thought you would remember, David. I'm sure it was you. Yes, I'malmost positive it was. But if you say.... Well, David, it wasn't quiteso much as exactly a statement like that. But that was the generalmeaning of it, you know, stripped of all the technical language. Youhave to take it in the over-all context. That was the meaning I got." Helaughed tactfully. "You're like lawyers, all you technicians. You answereverything yes and no at the same time. I hoped you'd remember theconversation. I got that idea from it." The general waited. "Well,David--don't look like that--it's not at all important. Just trying torefresh my own memory. It's not important, really.... Good night,David." He placed the helmet over his head.

  "Good night, General."

  Methodically the general completed his rounds. He laughed often andjoked with the men and seemed in exceptionally good spirits.

  Back in his own quarters, he brought out his diary. With a weary sigh,he sat down to it. He glanced at his timepiece. The day extendedbackward almost beyond memory but it was not yet late.

  After thumbing the diary listlessly for several minutes--pausing now andthen at a paragraph--he began to write. He put the events of the daydown precisely in their logical sequence.

  IV

  The Committee took over the dining area when the general left for histour of inspection. While the steward's department was preparing coffeefor the interviewees, now assembling in the corridor, the four membersof the Committee arranged themselves at the larger of the tables.Notepaper lay before them.

  Mr. Tucker lighted a cigar and fingered it. "A rather good meal," hesaid.

  The others nodded.

  "I may as well start off, while we're waiting," Mr. Wallace said. "I'llsummarize my somewhat contradictory observations.

  "Superficially, the cultural level of the natives appeared quiteprimitive. The absence of tools would normally be indicative. On theother hand, the city was carved from rock in a way so as to suggest avery sophisticated technology. And writing, while apparently notpracticed to any considerable extent, was known--or, if not writing aswe understand it, some advanced decorative technique. We've found twolines of it, at least.

  "Again superficially, the city would suggest a nomadic tradition, butfor its craftsmanship. It seems independent of any obvious supply offood and their equivalent of water, if any. Nor were any provisions inevidence for the disposal of waste products. Yet the city had theappearance of age and continual usage. If you notice, the floor of therecess was worn unevenly toward the center by what I should guess to bethe traffic of several centuries.

  "The thought naturally occurs that the aliens were the rather decadentrelics of a highly developed technological civilization existing on theplanet in the not too distant past. Yet Miracastle offers no evidencefor the existence of a prior technology--no ruins, no residualradioactivity from atomic operations. In short, the city has no apparentgenesis in the past.

  "The alternative arises: perhaps the natives were not natives at all,but immigrants or colonists like ourselves. Yet the age of the citycontradicts this.

  "Perhaps there is a simple explanation, although it does not occur tome. But I do have this feeling. The city was utilitarian. To me, itcalls to mind one of those exquisite etchings of Picasso. The severeeconomy of line suggests simplicity. Yet, on further inspection, you seethat each line contributes to a rather bewildering variety ofperspectives. I strongly suspect that the city and the people ofMiracastle will remain one of the great, unsolved mysteries of theuniverse."

  Mr. Wallace was finished with his remarks.

  Mr. Ryan nodded. "Perhaps I'm deficient in sensibilities, but I findthat the most ... agonizing ... thing of all is not ever to be able toknow what these people were like. It's almost as if some part of us hadbeen lopped off, isn't it? What did the people of Miracastle thinkabout? What was their philosophy of life? What was their socialorganization? What was their ultimate goals? When you realize how muchwe learned of ourselves from an examination of our own primitivecultures, the sense of loss really comes home. Think how much more wecould have learned of ourselves by acquiring the perspective of a trulyalien culture. It's almost as if we could really understand ourselves atlast if we could only understand a totally alien culture ..."

  "Well, that's gone," Mr. Tucker said. The words were brittle anddiscrete. They hung in memory and the listeners waited as though for anecho of something shouted into a canyon. The echo did not come.

  They were silent. Grief is the final knowledge of time. When one firstlearns that it can never be turned backward upon itself to permit thecorrection of past sins and the rightings of wrongs transfixed andforever unalterable. Grief is the frantic, futile beating of handsagainst a barrier without substance, both obscenely unreal and yet theonly reality. Grief is the knowledge that we cannot step backwardsbefore the death of loved ones and see those precious half-forgottendream faces once again. Grief is the knowledge that time is immutable.

  Outside the Richardson Dome, the wind was changing. It could now neithersupport the life that was nor the life that would be, and it howled inmelancholy and insensate anguish its loneliness and longing to theeternal and ever-changing pattern of the stars.

  * * * * *

  The Committee concluded their interviews with an old-line corporal. Hehad just short of thirty years service and had several times traveledthe two-way escalator of non-commissioned rank from master sergeant toprivate. He was perhaps typical of many of the older soldiers. His loveof the Corps was expressed by his loyalty to it; his hatred of the Corpswas expressed by his inability to abide by its regulations.

  "You knew Sergeant Schuster very well?" Mr. Tucker asked.

  "He was a new man," the corporal said. "He got on just before lift-off.A week, two weeks, something like that. I knew him, I guess. He was oneof them kind that was always thinking. And like you know, sir, thinkingain't too good for a soldier. I've known a lot of guys like that in mytime. You know what I mean? They're not cut out for the Corps."

  "He talked to you quite a bit?"

  The corporal turned to face Mr. Ryan. "He was always talking, sir. Hewas a regular nut. I thought for a while he was queer. He had all thosecrazy ideas."

  "Like what, Corporal?"

  "Oh, like--well, you know." The corporal hesitated and rummaged hismemory without conspicuous success. "Sunsets," he said ratheremphatically. "Talked about sunsets. Talked about just _anything_.Called me out back on Earth to look at a sunset once, I remember."

  "What did he think about killing the natives?" Mr. Wallace asked.

  The question alerted the mechanism which produced the almost-Pavlovianloyalt
y response.

  "We didn't kill no natives," the corporal said. "They just died when wechanged the air. Tough."

  He looked at Mr. Wallace and then into the silence around him.

  "Well ... well, let's see. I guess you'd say that sort of got to him. Imean, you know, he thought it was--" the voice became distant, as thoughdescribing a fantastic event which he could not relate to anything in arational environment--"he thought it was _his_ fault. You know how someof these guys are. I used to have a platoon once, you know. And theysay--" He twisted his mouth and changed his voice to a childish whine."What _for_?" The voice reverted to normal. "They don't ask for anyreason. They just