Dancers in the Afterglow (23 page)

Daniel shook his head. "No, I think you have it wrong. We are great
because
of our pain. Our newest, most radical developments occur as the result of things like wars. That's why we're holding our own now, and gaining on you. That's why we'll
win.
Every time you induce your social Utopia on a people they become machines, able to function, able to do their jobs, even happy, but
stagnant.
I'll bet you that no convert Machist has come up with a new invention, a new concept of any kind. Any advancement you achieve is an idea stolen from a race you conquer. And if you can't steal these ideas by continuing to conquer, then you'll stagnate to the core. We'll eat you alive."

Ponder stared at him in a mixture of pity and wonder. "But, what is the point of progress if the only way to sustain it is for the bulk of the people to be miserable?" he asked softly.

And there it was. The basic dichotomy that made the Machists alien to human culture.

For both, in their own way, were absolutely correct —and absolutely opposed.

"Maybe there isn't any point to existence," Daniel responded. "Maybe the religions are right. They provide the point. Maybe they're wrong. Maybe there is no point to any of this. But, we will never agree. The debate will go to the strongest, which, I believe, will be humanity in the end, and humanity for sure in a matter of hours or a day at most on Ondine." Ponder sighed. "Ondine. Ah, yes."

"Why did you do this to Ondine?" Daniel asked quietly.

"We're in stalemate," Ponder replied. "You know it, we know it. Thirteen years with no gains, nothing for us except a conviction in the rightness of our cause. To break it, without huge cost, we needed an example. A place that could be quickly converted to our way, then given back. A demonstration of our system, and a place for all the Combine to see just how morally and psychologically weak you are. A resort—so well known that our work here couldn't be ignored. The press will be with the first landing party. Word will get back even if they try and censor it. People will come, study our system and its results. Reaction can go one of two ways, either to our benefit. It will win converts, open up talks leading to a melding of races, or it will cause massive demoralization, encourage all who know the weaknesses and sickness inside your own souls and your societies to try and change it. Such social disruption will weaken the war effort, perhaps force an accommodation."

So that was it. Seven million dead, nine million changed into something alien. Merely a demonstration. A showpiece. A propaganda gimmick.

"Will you tell me," Daniel asked, "how you got three hundred fifty thousand symbs on this planet so fast?"

Ponder grinned. "Why, in the first few worlds we captured we learned Combine economics. Nine years ago we established a trading company using symbs disguised as humans. Since the symbs all replaced real people, nobody suspected. Slowly, we introduced some Machist products. One of the ironies is that virtually all of Ondine's publicity posters and promos were produced by us. With the profits we bought materials, made symbs. A number were brought to our Ondine offices in every one of our freighters. As for the last—well, it was Ondine's peak season. Our symbs simply walked into travel agencies in small groups all over the Combine and
bought tickets!"

Daniel shook his head disbelievingly. "They were here all the time—ahead of time. And converted into soldiers for the takeover."

Ponder nodded. "And half into Ponders when the camps were secured. We might say we're stretched thin, were even more so in the beginning. That was why we had to have the energy barriers at the start, and why it took some time to get around to all the camps with the teaching phase. The same symbs had to be reused."

"I think you've lost your investment," Daniel told him. "I think you'll find humanity will be collectively outraged at your callousness toward life and at your treatment of individual humans as objects."

Ponder looked surprised. "Why? It's only a matter of degree, you know. Most humans are callous about others unless unpleasantness directly touches them. We'll bet many people cheer when they read that two Combine ships were lost but three Machist ships were destroyed. And everyone—your government, businesses, and even most people, treat other people as objects. They Want people to listen to and minister to
their
problems, but few have time or inclination to consider the problems of the people they want to listen to them. As we say, a matter of degree only." He looked at Daniel coldly. "Would
you
be here, now, if it was some
other
man or woman we held?"

There was a flaw in his reasoning, someplace. He was sure of it. But, perhaps, he thought, the flaw is in man. It didn't matter. "All you say is irrelevant We'll soon be retaking Ondine," be told the Machist.

Ponder smiled. "No, and yes. You will retake the property, but
we
will retain the
people."

Daniel felt a sinking sensation again. "What do you mean by that?"

"Ondine has not been properly utilized," Ponder replied. "Now it will be. You must have noticed the physical changes in the people."

Daniel nodded, starting to see.

"You must have realized that such changes cannot come about in so short a time naturally. From the start we gave them a series of injections. Some, it's true, contained the disease-prevention agents, but they also contained something else, specially formulated for Ondine."

He reached in a desk drawer, took out a vial. "Your scientists will analyze this. You were fools to outlaw genetic research on humans. You have been expanding backward. You don't adapt the planet to the people, you adapt the people to the planet." Ponder replaced the vial, and smiled. "That's what
we
do," he said smugly.

"What does
it
do?" Daniel asked quietly, but nervously.

"It's a clever little agent," Ponder replied. "It goes round and round and gets into every cell in the body. The exercises help, of course, but basically it tells the genes to do different things, and it does it at a fast rate, much faster than normal. Some, like the inland colonists, are turning into redesigned humanity. You may have noticed how similar they looked. Within another year, they will be absolutely identical, as identical outside as they are inside. Strong—strong enough to be a match for your symbs. Tough—so tough broken bones will be scarce. All injuries will heal quickly. A good deal of autoregeneration is provided. Resistant to most known diseases. Able to digest almost
any
vegetable matter, which their redesigned mouths will handle well. And sexless. Each will bear one child, breeding true, and be able to nurse it. And age? They'll keep their bodies for an Ondinian century, then simply die and rapidly decompose. They'll be cold-blooded, too, so they will be able to tolerate any extremes of Ondinian temperature."

Daniel looked at him glumly. "You said the inland ones," he noted.

Ponder nodded enthusiastically. "Of course! Ondine is eighty-three percent ocean. The bulk of the population will, after a while, find itself impelled to the sea, a genetic migration. They will look like nothing remotely human, but they will have the same advantages as the land people."

"We can reverse the process," Daniel said stubbornly.

"We suppose you could," Ponder admitted. "After it's complete. Before then reversal would kill them. But you won't. By that time they will be so nonhuman the Combine won't want to invest the time and money. You see, humans reject alien species. You fear them, detest them. That's why this genetic experimentation was outlawed. The fear that they'd come up with something inhuman—which, in early experiments, we think they did. Your whole history is one of hatred of others who were different, even slightly so. Race, color, language, whatever. No, your leaders will fear these, and might even exterminate all of them, perhaps providing the ultimate proof that our way is the best way."

"I'll see that they're not," Daniel told him. "Now Where's the girl?"

Ponder sat up in his chair. "The girl again. Well, let's get to that as the last thing. Right now we have the girl and we have you—the real you—in our sights. You will choose your own fate, and by that, choose hers as well."

"What have you done with her?" Daniel demanded.

"Here are your choices. We have made them as simple for you as we can. You can join us. We will redesign your onboard sections to make you greater than you are now. And, we will assist you and the girl in Machist principles, achieving, eventually, a mind-meld that will permit the installation of you both in your vessel."

Daniel thought of the brainwashed group he'd encountered on the way to Lamarine. Even if the Machists could work the same transformation on Amara and himself, they wouldn't be the same people. They'd be alien, as alien as those people in the camps, alien in mind as he was in body.

"And if I refuse?" he replied calmly.

"Well, we shall destroy you, of course. And if that does not trouble you, you will abandon the girl in so doing to a much more horrible fate."

He had that sinking feeling again. "What have you done to her?"

"If she is to be mated to you in Machist union, she has no further need for her body," Ponder noted calmly. "What we did was surgically complete the trimming you so casually began. Additionally, we introduced an agent that is cousin to, but much simpler than, that in the vial we showed you. It's a simple mutative retardant. It will not harm her in any way, but she will never be able to regrow what has been lost. Regeneration will not take. She will remain the way she is now—and remarkably healthy, too, since that is a byproduct of the cellular agent—for the rest of her probably long life."

"You son of a bitch," Daniel said, all emotion drained from him. He knew now how they worked, how they won converts.
Every
human, even he, had a weakness. If death would not coerce you, they had other ways of forcing their decision on you. He would like to transmit this conversation and die. He could never have her, and he could not live without her. And yet, they'd stolen her future as surely as they had that of the other people on Ondine.

The Machists would have him—who they wanted, if only to see what the human techs had come up with that might be of use to them—and her, as one Machist true-believer unit. Or he would condemn her to a living hell.

No wonder the bastard had been so confident!

And yet, and yet, he thought grimly, even faced with such a choice as this we are not the masters of our own fate.

"It's too late, Machist," he told Ponder in a hollow
tone. "There is no longer a decision for me to make. Perhaps if this choice had been given me at the start, you would have won." He saw Ponder's grin fade, and it gave him some measure of satisfaction. "But I've done the job.
I've stalled you in conversation long enough.
If you'll look off
your
port bow, and stern, and just above a bit, you'll see the Combine heavy cruisers
Dagger, Messenger,
and
Sword,
who rushed here through the breach I already knew was there before I came here. I signaled that you were holding me disguised as an asteroid. I've been hoping to stall you long enough, and I did. Remember those ship names, Ponder? They were all heavily damaged, with many losses, in the battle in which you took Ondine. Their crews lost many friends in that. They're itching to shoot all hundred thousand of you back into your primal energy form. I couldn't join you if I wanted to, now—and I couldn't rescue the girl."

"No!"
Ponder screamed. He jumped to his feet, eyes blazing. "But you'll have suffered as the rest do not!" he threatened in maniacal triumph.

"Where's the girl. Ponder?" he asked again.

"In the lobby of the Alemartre Hotel," he snarled. "You'll enjoy our little display there. The other side of the propaganda message."

Daniel got up calmly, leaving the other standing there. He reached the door, then turned. "Who's the animal, now, Ponder?" he asked quietly. "Hatred? Triumph in revenge?" He sighed. "Good-bye, Ponder." He walked out the door.

Daniel walked down the corridor to the elevator, and as he did he witnessed the final act.

The great Machist asteroid opened fire. The three ships returned it almost instantly, pouring enormous chunks of raw energy into the mountainous mass.

A shot was directed in the direction of the golden egg, but he was ready for it, and back near
Messenger
too fast for them. They had bigger problems. Or, perhaps, he thought grimly, they were having their final revenge. They were condemning him to live.

The mass broke for freespace, but the relentless energy pouring into it was breaking it apart. It split, revealing a weird honeycomblike interior before breaking into fragments which quickly fell prey to Ondine's gravity.

Faster the Machists fell, and faster still. The Combine ships pursued as close as they dared to ensure the breakup of the larger chunks.

They were burning now, a great meteor shower spectacular to behold from space, but hidden from ground view by Ondine's ever-present cloud cover.

"They're withdrawing!" he heard someone from Command call. "Pulling back all along the line. We've done it!"

Someone on
Dagger
sighed on the tactical channel

"I guess that's it, then," he said.

And everyone on the ships involved cheered wildly and embraced, and cried with joy.