Quarantine: The Complete Stories, page 36
Waiting under the old stone dome of the little auditorium, these legally human beings had sorted themselves into three contending factions.
“Beasts of prey!” Newbolt gave the nearest group a snarl of contempt. “Rumors of the crisis have been spreading out through space for a century now. These wolves have come swarming in, howling for leave to loot the planet.” He chuckled. “The signal project serves them properly!”
Scarlet made no answer. Robed in his blue official light, he mounted to his bench and waited sternly for Newbolt to silence the chamber. His feral eyes narrow with his most judicial scowl, he studied the three hostile factions.
Newbolt was marching toward the neatly seated contingent from the quarantine station. Coral shimmered beside him, clad in golden dust and the cascade of psionic fire falling from her waist. Scarlet tightened his bony jaws, turning painfully away from her magnified allure.
The hermit, his detached head blind and cadaverous in its crystal cell, had wheeled himself to join the three lean young men in the plain space dress of the signal service. Scarlet frowned disapprovingly at their contented poverty, and looked for the beasts of prey.
The straggling group down at his left included the bearded artist and the spaceworn prospectors, among half a dozen others. They looked like feeble beasts. He saw no evidence of the wealth he wanted.
HUNCHED and ugly on the bench, he droned the official formula which invoked the olden justice of man. His voice was as ugly as his knobby angularity, slurred and harsh and high.
“A routine affair,” he rasped, and paused again to savor the pain of the beautiful men. “We’ll dispense with formality, to get at the facts. I’ll summarize the briefs. The natives of Sol III are reported near contact crisis. Social workers are waiting to usher them into civilization. Their qualifications for human status have been challenged, however, and the signal service has filed notice of intention to appropriate Sol for use as an intergalactic beacon.” Looking sourly for Coral, he found her now at the back of the room, glowing over a stooped little stranger. “A few individuals have seen fit to protest—”
“Certainly we protest!” She started toward the bench, towing the stranger. “Because Sol is not a barren star. Earth has three billion native inhabitants, whose human rights must be protected.”
“Human?” He let his voice grate unpleasantly. “I understand that all human beings on these threatened planets were ordered to assemble here. I don’t count three billion.”
“Of course they can’t obey psionic orders, because they don’t know psionics! But now I know they’re human.” She hauled the wispy stranger toward him. “This is Mark Whitherly, the anthropologist. He found on Mars—”
“Please, Miss Fell!” Newbolt intercepted her. “You’re here as a guest. You can’t interrupt the proceedings.”
“Never mind, Commander.” Scarlet smiled to welcome a possible bribe. “I won’t be bound by any red tape. I intend to explore every source of evidence.”
Newbolt muttered and sat down.
Scarlet waited, watching Coral and her discovery. The anthropologist, with his shuffling gait and his trembling hands and his dry yellow skin drawn tight over fine old bones, looked a good five hundred years overdue for euthanasia. The dull blue dust of his scholarly robe reflected nothing of Coral’s bright excitement.
“Listen, Wain!” she was bubbling. “Mark has found evidence—proof you can’t ignore! Now you will have to lift the quarantine at once. And you will disapprove the blinker project.”
“I’ll listen.” Scarlet frowned doubtfully. “To any actual evidence.”
“I DO have evidence.” The old scholar spoke slowly but clearly, in a child’s high voice. “Your Equity, I have been watching this planet at intervals for two thousand years. It is my great experiment.”
“What sort of experiment?”
“A study in cultural collision.” The dull dust brightened now with an eagerness that made the old man seem oddly boyish. “You hear a lot of theories about what happens when our galactic civilization impinges upon primitive societies. You hear that the primitives are usually benefited, and you hear that they are usually destroyed. I have been waiting for this crisis, preparing to settle that question scientifically. Now that the moment has come—”
“Has it come?”
“It has!” A single comic lock of yellow hair waved above old Whitherly’s bobbing head. “I have been watching the natives fumble closer to contact. They have observed our psionic monitors—which they call dirigible dishes. They have written books about us. Their rockets have reached this satellite. All they lack is your formal recognition of their human status.”
“Your Equity, I object!” The signal officer was alertly on his feet, tanned and handsome even though he wore no cosmetics, almost insolent. “I must inform you that our corps did not select suns at random for the intergalactic beacon. We traced the records of early migration, and chose a sector which was evidently bypassed. If Whitherly is a real authority, I challenge him to show you one shard of evidence that human colonists ever landed anywhere on Earth.”
Scarlet looked inquiringly at the worn old man.
“I can’t do that,” Whitherly said.
“Then how can you claim human status for these filthy anthropoids?” Smugly confident, the tall signalman turned to Scarlet. “Your Equity, since Whitherly admits that he has discovered no evidence of biological relationship, which is the first essential qualification for human status, I move that this inquiry be closed with a formal order approving our signal project.”
“Wain, wait!” Blue alarm shivered around Coral. “You haven’t heard about Mark’s great discovery.”
Scarlet looked impatiently back at the lean old man, noting sourly that he looked too poor to pay for the least satellite of these worlds he wished to save.
“Penwright jumped to a false conclusion.” Whitherly nodded feebly toward the signal officer. “I do have proof that the natives of Earth are our human kin. If no colonists ever landed here, that is simply because the movement was in the other direction.”
A PUZZLED hush whispered through the chamber.
“Listen, Wain!” Coral breathed.
“The first civilized observers here noted the odd fact that all life on Earth appears to have sprung from a single family tree,” Whitherly’s high voice resumed. “Now I know why. All my evidence supports the obvious explanation that this world is where human life evolved.”
Swaying unsteadily, he paused for breath.
“Tell them!” Flickering with a purple urgency, Coral caught his sticklike arm. “Tell them what you found on Mars.”
“In the last few centuries,” he labored slowly on, “I have extended my search to the desert planets. On Mars I found a buried human site, dating from more than twenty thousand years ago. My excavations reveal that primitive neutrionic flyers landed at the site. Some of them remained there, abandoned. But some of them went on, after they had been refitted to cross interstellar distances.”
The blue dust glowed around him.
“The first neutrionic ships!” he whispered thinly. “They had brought primitive men from Earth to Mars. They carried our ancestors out to claim the galaxy.” Unsteadily defiant, Whitherly blinked at Penwright. “You can’t be allowed to murder our mother world!”
“That is loaded language.” Penwright chuckled tolerantly.
“Y our Equity, I submit that every planet within two hundred light-years has been claimed as the original cradle of mankind. On none of them, unfortunately, has any reliable evidence survived. The wave of migration has left these Center worlds too far behind. The few that were ever civilized have been abandoned for twenty thousand years.”
“I know galactic history,” Scarlet reminded him frostily. “I am competent to rule upon the evidence.”
“You will act promptly?” Old Whitherly peered up anxiously. “You can see that my own time is running out. My younger associates scattered when they heard of the blinker project. If there is any long delay, my chance to observe the crisis will be lost.”
“Your own misfortunes are irrelevant.”
“But, Wain! Why wait?” Coral’s urgency washed her with rainbow opalescence. “Since the natives are our proven kinsmen, and since they are already landing their rockets on the moon, can’t you end the quarantine now?”
Sadly, Scarlet shook his head. Whitherly’s sociological research, like her own educational program and Penwright’s signal project, seemed inconsistent with bribery. Their noble claims might make a useful cover for him when he came to pronounce his decision,
but that would have to wait until he had found a purchaser for Earth.
“No.” He frowned severely at Coral. “Not yet.”
“Not for a thousand years, my dear.” Newbolt’s smile beamed through rosy sparks of virile confidence. “Never, in my own opinion. If the blinker project is not approved, we shall have long centuries here to while away—”
“Wrong, Newbolt!” That loud hail boomed from the back of the dome, and Scarlet swung to see a big stranger stalking in. “I’m just up from Earth, with news about the crisis.” He paused, staring boldly up at Scarlet. “Your Equity, I have come to inform you that the natives are about to make a contact that can’t be ignored. They’ll be here in exactly twenty hours!”
V
SCARLET stood smiling down at the stranger, captured by an unrepaired ugliness more violent than his own. Long-chinned and broken-nosed, the man was bald as a boulder, burned dark as weathered copper, splotched with livid scars where wounds must have been sewed up by savage surgeons. Sheer muscular bulk made him look grotesquely short. Almost nude, he required no psionic cosmetics to amplify his powerful animal vitality.
Beckoning Newbolt to the bench, Scarlet whispered, “Who is he?”
“Nobody with any right to waste our time.” The commander gave the stranger one contemptuous glance. “Another of these beasts of prey waiting for the quarantine to end—and alarmed now because the blinker project is about to vaporize the planet he came to devour.”
Scarlet nodded silently, fascinated by the barbaric blaze of priceless natural diamonds at the stranger’s dark throat and on his gigantic hands.
“An insterstellar pirate, who calls himself a trader.” Although the man was coming near, Newbolt refused to lower his scornful voice. “Dirk Flintledge. A loudmouthed nuisance, but I’ll soon dispose of him!”
“Wait! If he has news about the crisis—”
“He’s lying.” The commander glared at Flintledge, who had been intercepted by Coral Fell, her makeup all aglow with pink admiration. “My agents have infiltrated the native centers of space research. They report no new flight attempts since the loss of the rocket we salvaged.”
“But this man has been on Sol III?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Indignantly, he turned his back on Coral and the trader. “Though not through any fault of mine. He arrived here before I relieved Commander Rivers, and was permitted to begin an undercover commercial survey of the planet. A glaring indiscretion, I believe. I don’t trust such men to respect the Covenants.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“Wain, this is wonderful news!” Haloed with glowing elation, Coral led the trader toward the bench. “Dirk says there is a native rocket coming to this very spot!”
“Commander Newbolt questions that information.”
“His own information is incomplete.” Flintledge turned a hideous grin upon the startled commander. ‘This new rocket was built at a secret military installation which his quarantine agents had failed to penetrate. It was launched before I left the planet. It is already halfway to the moon. Its arrival will present you with a full-blown contact crisis.”
FLINTLEDGE licked his naked lips.
“You see, some of the savage tribes are fighting what they call a cool war, which is forcing the development of space weapons. Native spies have been feeding each faction disturbing reports about the progress of the others. One tribe was told that it was in danger from an enemy space base on the moon. This rocket is the reply to that report.” His grin grew frightening. “Unfortunately for Newbolt’s policies, their planned impact point coincides with the location of this station.”
“He’s lying!” Newbolt turned pale before his vicious ugliness. “He’s attempting to influence Your Equity.”
“Wait and see.” The scarred man remained as cheerfully monstrous as a black stone god rotting in some jungle temple. “But I must inform you that the savages have armed their space ship with what they classify as fifty-megaton fusion missiles.”
Newbolt’s bright attire flickered.
“A moment, Your Equity.” He bent over his wrist communicator. “Let me check my monitors.” Scarlet waited, watching the trader, weighing his wealth, until Newbolt spoke stiffly through a haze of angry blue. “Our monitors have detected an object moving out from Sol III. Its emanations indicate both nuclear devices and living bodies. Its trajectory will bring it toward this side of the satellite.”
“Toward contact!” Eager sparks swirled around Coral. ‘This is the crisis!”
“A false contact!” Newbolt glared at the trader. ‘These natives had failed to find their own way through the radiation zones. They must have received illicit information—including our own location here.” The blue dust glittered frostily. “Your Equity, I accuse Dirk Flintledge of a criminal violation of the Covenants.”
“Now, sir.” Flintledge remained undismayed. “Why should you suspect me?”
“Because you want to force a crisis,” Newbolt rapped. “Because you have been down on the planet, among the builders of this rocket. Because I have received reports of your illegal methods in previous collisions with the quarantine service.”
“Such circumstances are not proof—”
“I’ll find proof.” Newbolt blazed balefully. “Your Equity, I intend to convict and punish this criminal.”
“He hasn’t much time to assemble his evidence.” Flintledge smirked insolently at Scarlet. “The natives will be here in twenty hours, with missiles that he can’t ignore. If he decides to intercept them in space, that act itself will be contact.”
“I’ll rule on what is contact.” Scarlet tried to match the savage ugliness of Flintledge with the harshness of his own slurred and strident voice. “I’ll decide whether this man has violated the Covenants.”
“But, Your Equity—”
Stem on the bench, Scarlet silenced Newbolt. He sat scowling judicially, wondering how to negotiate with Flintledge without exciting dangerous suspicions. Tension was breathing under the dome. Glowing with a delicious violet alarm, Coral wanted to know how the station could be protected from the savage attack—unless he recognized the contact and lifted the quarantine.
ABRUPTLY he recessed the inquiry, announcing that he wanted time to consider his ruling on the incident. He ordered Newbolt to monitor the savage rocket, but not to interfere with its flight Ignoring the startled murmur in the chamber, he asked Newbolt about the trader’s background.
“He’s unconditioned.” Newbolt dropped his eyes from Scarlet’s own unconditioned ugliness, and hurried on. “Unconditioned and desperate. You see, he has made an unwise gamble on an early end of the quarantine. Now he is about to lose everything.”
Watching from their small cell of silence, Scarlet saw Coral talking to Whitherly, whose aged admiration seemed still warm enough to light her psionic lures. Flintledge and the signal officer were both waiting for her, as if her green-lipped smile mattered more than the intergalactic beacon, the lives of three billion persons or the fate of Earth.
“Is Flintledge wealthy?” Scarlet asked.
“I suppose he has been.” Newbolt shrugged disapprovingly. “Made a fortune cheating savages, I suppose, and lost most of it as they picked up enough psionics to match his tricks. When he learned that Sol III was getting ripe, he mortgaged his ship for the capital to pluck it. I learned that from the competent young man who has followed him from the Bank of Vega to collect the loan. The money is due in just ten years. He’d need that time to dig it out of the natives, even if you lifted the quarantine today. If you approve the blinker project, he’ll have no time to look for another plum. He’ll be erased.”
“I see.” Scarlet scowled to hide his elation. “Now please show me to my quarters.”
He stopped outside the barrier to ask Coral to join him for dinner. Responsive colors lit her psionic snares, but she already had a dinner date with Penwright. When he turned hopefully to look for Flintledge, the trader had already gone. Disappointed, he let Newbolt take him down to his quarters.
The bare little cell, two miles below the lock tower, was adequate enough. The service cherished a tradition of austere simplicity; he was used to nothing better. Yet the thought of lonely centuries here, waiting for this world to fumble its own way toward a real contact, was enough to make him shiver.
The signalmen were welcome to broil the planet—unless Flintledge would pay to save it.
Too cautious to make the first overture, Scarlet killed time with his bath and depilation. He deliberately spun a new official robe. Still waiting, he hesitated over his own meager stock of psionic scents and powders, and decided once more that he needed the more powerful lure of wealth.
Disappointed when Flintledge did not call, he went dully up to eat alone. Mark Whitherly waylaid him outside the dining lounge. While he ate, the shriveled little anthropologist tried to brief him on the native culture, and tried to find out how soon he meant to lift the quarantine.
