Ballroom of the Skies (22 page)

“Why?”

“What would the answer to that question be?”

He thought for a moment. “Would it be Watkins’ ultimate answer?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

“Running, as you have been. Maybe he is back by now. Running, not from the fear of death, but from the fear of never knowing.”

“Can you tell me the answer?”

She looked at him for a long time. “I have to know if you’re ready, Dake. I have to know if you can accept it. Take my hands.”

They turned, facing each other. Her lips moved quietly, “Screens down, Dake.”

He was utterly lost in her eyes. Gone. Taken into some warm place. Taken into secret depths of oneness, of togetherness, of warmth, that he had never imagined could exist. This was a closeness far beyond that which could ever be achieved by the body. This was a spiritual mating, a clinging and mingling of souls, a high, wild, hard emotional experience that was beyond space and time.…

Then he was aware that they were releasing each other, that they were separating slowly into separate entities.

“I’ve wanted that for so long,” she said gently. Her voice trembled. Her eyes were brimming. “I knew it would be … right.”

“Am … I ready?”

Her lips twisted. “Your ultimate answer will be anticlimax, Dake. Now.”

“I think I sense that. Maybe the obvious is always an anticlimax.”

She stood up lightly. “No, stay there. This is history, Dake. Human history. History of galactic man, and his adjustment to his environment, and his answer to decadence. There is more than a hundred thousand years of recorded history. Someday you will learn more of it. It is part of Stage Two training. The heart worlds grew and learned and warred on each other, and combined, and found peace, and added to themselves those other planets and star systems as they achieved cultural maturity. Each manlike cultural system made its own contributions to the whole. For the sake of simplicity, we shall call the entire unity Empire. Examine that word
manlike.
If I had a complete adjustment, I would not use that word. Physiological deviations are small throughout the galaxy. We are all men. You saw several varieties on Training T.”

“Acting a bit … servile.”

“Of course. One cultural group, part of the unity of Empire, is called the Senarian. It was that group which carried mathematical calculation to the inevitable pitch where it can make a sound prediction of the future. Perfection of extrapolation, the inevitable end result of all mathematical science. The parsing of time. Many thousand years ago the calculations of the Senarians were directed at a problem which was growing more serious. It had started in a very subtle way. It was noticed that, as new cultures were added to the unity of Empire, there followed a period when the top administrative jobs of Empire, the crucial decision-making positions, were all manned by citizens of the most recent culture to join Empire. After a few generations of the peace and sanity of membership in Empire, the descendants of the newest culture would lose their competitive drive, and no longer be of valid worth for leadership purposes. This was not a pressing problem so long as there were a sufficient number of barbaric cultures forging ahead toward Empire membership, as they would provide the future leadership, the future vitality which would avoid stagnation. But, the Senarians
asked their vast computers, what will happen when there is no longer such a supply?

“The answer was disheartening to Empire. Leadership cannot come from any environment where there is peace and plenty. Leadership can only be developed in an environment where there is conflict, savagery, violence, hate. Leadership is the answer to a competitive environment. Empire is not a competitive environment. Empire will eventually be without leadership. Progress will cease.

“The computers were asked a second-level question. What will be the result of the cessation of progress? The answer was destruction. Destruction by life forms of neighboring galaxies. Life forms so alien that there could be no communication. Only through progress could there be a continual increment of strength sufficient to keep the species alive.

“A third question was asked. What can be done? The answer took much longer. And the logic of it was inevitable. Keep one planet in a barbaric state. Keep it in continual conflict. Permit it no knowledge of the existence of Empire, and no knowledge of its function. Do not permit it to destroy itself. Deny it any more than token space travel. Keep it in insane and continual conflict and that planet will provide you with your leadership. Take those men and women who rise to the top of the boiling pot, and skim them off, and train them, and use them.”

He stared at her in the silence. “Then all this … all this that has tortured men for thousands of years … it is just a … trick? A breeding ground? A training ground?”

She looked at him proudly. “More than that, Dake. Much more than that. Earth is the heart of Empire. The ruler. The destiny of the galaxy. Men of Earth rule all the countless stars. They rule justly, firmly, ruthlessly. Under the leadership of Earth, Empire moves on up the infinite ladder of progress, up to a strength that will keep us free forever.”

“Why was Earth selected?”

“Because here man was stronger than elsewhere. His natural environment had been harsher, gravity stronger
than the norm, climate more extreme, nature more violent.”

“But I—–”

“No more, Dake. Not now. You have to think over what I’ve told you. You have to understand how you must transfer your loyalty from Earth man to Galactic man. But transfer it with an increment in pride in Earth, and in yourself. I will talk to you later, after you have had a chance to think it over.”

He walked alone, and did not know where he walked, or
how far. He stood on a hilltop and watched the sun slide red behind the far blue of the mountains. It made such a complete reversal of all his concepts, of all his adjustments to the political and emotional climate of his environment, that he felt as though someone had taken his brain between two hard hands, and twisted it like a sponge.

There was no segment of his beliefs that did not need reorganization, reevaluation.

Earth had a history. There were names in that history. Alexander, Hannibal, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini. And, he thought, Christ. And Buddha and Muhammad and Vishnu. Good and evil, fighting an endless battle, to a predestined draw. Keep the pot boiling. Keep the four horsemen riding across the ravaged lands. A million men broken and burned and dying for each one selected. Massive, callous, mathematical cruelty, for the sake of … the greatest good for the greatest number.

He sat on the hilltop rocks and watched the stars come out, watched the quick desert night fall like a curtain. Men of Earth, being led in a crazy dance of death, for the sake of the high, wide ballroom of the skies.

He heard Mary’s foot touch a loose stone. She came up behind him. He did not turn. He felt the soft warm pressure of her hand on his shoulder.

I know how difficult it is.

What is the final adjustment? What do I feel, afterward?

“Joy, Dake. Gladness. Pride. Humility. All the best attributes of the human spirit.”

“Will you answer questions? I’ve been thinking in circles again.”

“Of course.”

“Why did I have to be sent back here?”

“Assignment here is part of your training for your future responsibilities. Part of your training in logic, in analysis, in action, and in humility. When your work is valid, you will be credited for it. After you have acquired enough credits, you will be given Stage Two training and returned here. Later, perhaps, you will be accepted for Stage Three training. After three tours here you will be assigned to the post in Empire that you are best qualified for.”

“How long will I have to be here?”

“That depends on your progress. Twenty-five to thirty of their years.”

“Their years?”

“Earth years. Two and a half to three of ours, basing it on effect of time.”

“I want to gloat about that. And feel guilty. That’s a very precious gift.”

“But not mystic. Just one logical result of an advanced medical science. A continuation of the trend you’ve seen here on earth.”

“Another question. There are two groups, apparently, or more. In conflict with each other. I don’t see why that should be necessary, or even advisable.”

“Is any untrained man a fair match for you?”

“N-No, but …”

“Did any man ever play a great game of chess, alone?”

“No.”

“Conflict breeds ingenuity. Competition, also, gives a more random result, one that is less predictable, less likely to be detected by the ordinary thinking man as the result of extra-terrestrial interference. You get credit for accomplishment, and you pay, as Karen did, a penalty for failure. And always you must watch. You watch the top people in every possible line of endeavor. The most successful crooks, as Miguel Larner was. The best statesmen, the best politicians, the best artists, designers, salesmen, engineers. People at the top of every heap got there through
conflict, through a compensation for some type of psychic trauma. If the incomprehensible doesn’t drive them mad, they become our best recruits.”

“Why wasn’t Darwin Branson recruited? He was killed, wasn’t he?”

“He had an organic disorder that was too far advanced for treatment. It would have killed him within six months. Besides, it was only during the last three years of his life that he achieved more than a pedestrian impact on his environment. So he wasn’t noticed until too late.”

Dake absorbed that in silence. He stirred restlessly. She sat on the rocks beside him.

“There are so many loyalties to give up,” he said. “Loyalty to my country. That was pretty strong, you know. And now I can see that its weakness is due to what … we have done to it.”

“That word was good to hear. We. It’s an acceptance. Here is something you should consider. The number of recruits we obtain from any one country is in direct ratio to the extent of hardship that country is undergoing. During India’s years of poverty and exploitation and death we obtained many recruits there. During the fattest years of the United States it was difficult to find people sufficiently toughened, hardened. Sword steel is treated in flame. Civilizations rise and fall. Those on top are poor breeding grounds for leadership. See, you have to reverse all your concepts, Dake. Good becomes weakness. Evil becomes strength.”

“And isn’t it all a vast rationalization?”

“So is the life form itself. A rationalization of the means of survival.”

They walked back to the shack, walking in the starlight that silvered the sand underfoot. A coyote cried far away, cried of unmentionable woes and wrongs. He felt the girl shiver.

“We’ll start back in the morning,” he said quietly.

“In the morning, Dake.”

They stood for a time and watched the stars, near the dark hulk of the shack. He held her hand, felt her mind
touch gently at his. They stood again in the climactic oneness, and later he began to feel the first faint stirrings of dedication, the first wary Teachings toward a philosophy that would have to support him, amid cruelty, for long years of service to a barely comprehensible dream.

The cabdriver was sweaty, irritable, and talkative.

“Guess you folks have been out west. I can tell by that tan. You don’t get that kind of tan here in summer, or in Florida, or anywhere except out there. Jesus, it’s been a hot August here. Wet. I wish to hell I was back out where it’s dry heat.”

“It’s more comfortable,” Mary said.

“You bet your elbow it is, lady. This town goes nuts in the summer. All the rummies start sleeping in the parks. Bunch of pronies running around cutting up people. Another fleng joint war, with them throwing bombs in each other’s joints. Gawd, what a month. You hear the knock in this thing? I’m running it on kerosene, and damn poor kerosene at that.”

The driver cursed and swerved wildly to avoid a big Taj full of Pak-Indian tourists. “Think they own the damn world,” he said viciously. He shrugged, arguing with himself. “Maybe they do, come to think of it.”

“Have there been many tourists around this summer?” Dake asked.

“Too many, if you ask me. I don’t know why they come over here. I got a pal with connections. He’s all lined up to emigrate. Going to run a hack in Bombay, with a Sikh partner. He’s never had it so good. They got those quotas so tight, it’s almost impossible to get in over there.”

“You’d like to do the same thing?”

The man turned in the seat and gave him an angry glare. “Why the hell not? What is there here? Three days a week I get fuel. I get four deadheads for every tipper. I don’t even own this hack. Where’s the opportunities here?
I ask you that. When I was a kid it was different. My old man owned six cabs. He had it nice. All the gas he could use.” He stopped for a light and turned around and gave Dake a puzzled stare. “What happened to us? You ever try to figure that out? Where did it all go?”

“The war.”

“That’s what everybody says. I wonder. Seems like soon as we start to climb up there again, we get knocked down. Something always tripping us up. Somebody always tripping the whole world up.”

“And then picking it up again?” Mary asked, smiling.

“Lady, in this world, you pick yourself up.” He started up slowly, cursing the cars that passed him. “You know what I figure?”

“What?” Mary asked obediently.

“I figure we got to depend on those atom rocket boys. They’re working day and night, I understand. What we haven’t got is resources. Now you take Mars, or Venus. I bet those places are loaded with coal and oil and iron and copper and every damn thing we need. We just got to get there first and stake a claim. Then we’ll be okay.”

“And if we never get off the Earth?”

The driver’s shoulders slumped. He said, in a dejected voice, “You know, mister, I just don’t like to think about that. It means we’re stuck here. And things aren’t the way they used to be. My old man used to take me out to Yankee Stadium. Yell his fool self hoarse. Can I do that? Who wants to yell at a bunch of silly broads playing softball, I ask you? Those good old days, mister, they’re gone. Believe me. TV we had, and baseball, and all the gas you wanted. Every time I see those Indians around, I feel like maybe we’re one of those kind of tribes, with bones sticking through our nose, and big spears. We’re for kicks, mister.”