Galaxies Like Grains of Sand (13 page)

From this crisis was evolved the Self-perpetuating Galactic War which, besides being no war at all in the orthodox sense, created a revolution in human understanding. The gerontocracy which devised this sagacious formula for interstellar communitism finally acknowledged the competitive nature of man, for which any international or interstellar culture must make full allowance or perish. The unstable history of every planet revealed mankind rebelling against its destiny by striving to live in peace-geared communities which eventually lapsed into barbarous wars. Now this situation was reversed. By establishing a perpetually warring culture, man would have both the stability and the stimulation needful for him to produce the fruits of peace.

Such a war had to be severely conventionalized, its risks modified, its fatalities curtailed; its harshest penalties had to fall upon those most actively engaged, rather than those innocently involved. Above all, its methods had to be as socially valuable as was possible, and its end made unforeseeable and inaccessible.

The gerontocracy planned well. The mock war began.

By the time Ishrail was exiled on Earth, the war was as much a part of galactic life as was Galingua. It fitted like a light harness over everyman’s affairs, binding together the civilized universe as an ivy will cover a giant sequoia. And just as ivy will ruin the finest tree, so this humane and irresolvable war was destined eventually to pull down the most prodigious of all cultures.

As yet, however, in its thousandth millenary, only the war’s advantages were observable. True, trade and invention had reached a lull which the Galactics believed to be temporary; true, too, that art had become a series of formalities, that politics had dwindled to a hobby, that theologies were again replacing natural piety, that salvation seemed a more valuable goal than self-knowledge; but by the rules of the war, the federation still expanded, and adventure at least was not dead. Though the cities slept, there was always a new jungle to explore. Though the arteries hardened, new blood flowed in them.

For one of the most rewarding devices of the Self-perpetuating War was that system of exiling defeated warriors to which Ishrail fell victim. The exiles, stripped of all proof of their former way of life, were marooned on unfederated planets. There they had to battle with what the uninvestigated local life had to offer.

After a decade, however, inspectors were dispatched to see what had become of the exile. Often they found him dead; often they found him lord of a local tribe. If the former, nothing was lost except obsequies; if the latter, much might be gained, for the natives were being helped toward a point where they might be deemed fit to join the federation. When the inspectors, after the statutory decade, came to look for Ishrail, they found him still surviving; indeed, the natives had by now impelled him into a top income bracket.

Reports on the situation flashed back to Galactic HQ. Stipulations, specifications, recommendations circulated around the solemn tables of the Galactic Council. Motions were proposed, facts were tabulated, statistics were discussed, files were filed. The debate creaked to a conclusion. Ishrail was dead when Earth was voted into the Federation.

If it could be said that a stale air lay over the heart of government, few would have ventured to detect it elsewhere. For most people; as ever, the past was no more than a time in which their grandfathers lived, the future meant the next few decades. Hope manifested itself everywhere, like phosphorescence in a dark sea; and why not?

For it was — again, as ever — a time of miracles.

The ocean seemed to be breathing shallowly, like a child asleep, when the first lemmings reached it. In all the wide sea, no hint of menace existed. Yet the first lemmings paused daintily on the very verge of the water, peering out to sea and looking about as though in indecision. Unavoidably, the pressure of the marching column behind pushed them into the tiny wavelets. When their paws became wet, it was as if they resigned themselves to what was to come. Swimming strongly, the leaders of the column set off from the shore. All the other lemmings followed, only their heads showing above water. A human observer would have said they swam bravely; and unavoidably he would have asked himself: To what goal do the lemmings imagine they are heading? For what grand illusion are they prepared to throw away their lives?

All down the waterway, craft moved. Farro Westerby stood at the forward port of his aquataxi, staring ahead and ignoring the water traffic moving by him. His two fellow Isolationists stood slightly apart, not speaking. Farro’s eye was on the rising structure on the left bank ahead. When the aquataxi moored as near to this structure as possible, Farro stepped ashore; glancing back impatiently, he waited for one of his companions to pay the fare.

“Wonderful, isn’t it?” the taxi man said, nodding toward the strange building as he cast off. “I can’t ever see us putting up anything like it.”

“No,” Farro said flatly, walking away ahead of his friends.

They had disembarked in that sector of the capital called Horby Clive Island. Located in the government centre of New Union, most of it had been ceded to the Galactics a year earlier. In that brief time, using Earth labour for the rough work, they had transformed the place. Six of their large, irregular buildings were already completed. The seventh was now going up, creating a new wonder for the world.

“We will wait here for you, Farro,” one of the two men said, extending his hand formally. “Good fortune with the Galactic Minister. As the only Isolationist with an extensive knowledge of the Galactic tongue, Galingua, you represent, as you know, our best chance of putting our case for Earth’s remaining outside the Multiplanet Federation.”

As Farro thanked him and accepted the proffered hand, the other man, a stooping septuagenarian with a pale voice, gripped Farro’s arm.

“And the case is clear enough,” he said. “These aliens pretend they offer us federation out of altruism. Most people swallow that, because they believe Earth ingenuity must be a valuable asset anywhere in the galaxy. So it may be, but we Isolationists claim there must be some ulterior motive for a superior race’s wanting to welcome in a junior one as they appear to welcome us. If you can get a hint from this Minister Jandanagger as to what that motive is, you’ll have done more than well.”

“Thank you. I think I have the situation pretty clear,” Farro said sharply, regretting his tone of voice at once. But the other two were wise enough to make allowance for nervousness in time of stress. When he left them to make his way toward the Galactic buildings, their faces held only sincere smiles of farewell.

As Farro pushed through the crowds of sightseers who stood here all day watching the new building develop, he listened with interest and some contempt for their comments. Many of them were discussing the current announcement on federation.

“I think their sincerity is proved by the way they’ve let us join. It’s nothing but a friendly gesture.”

“It shows what respect they must have for Earth.”

“You can’t help seeing the future’s going to be wonderful, now that we can export goods all over the galaxy. I tell you, we’re in for a boom all around.”

“Which goes to prove that however advanced the race, they can’t do without the good old Earth know-how. Give the Galactics the credit for spotting that!”

The seventh building, around which so many idle spectators clustered, was nearing completion. It grew organically like some vast succulent plant, springing from a fiat metal matrix, thrusting along curved girders, encompassing them. Its colour was a natural russet, which seemed to take its tones from the sky overhead.

Grouped around the base of this extraordinary structure were distilleries, sprays, excavators and other machines, the function of which was unknown to Farro. They provided the raw material from which the building drew its bulk.

To one side of these seven well-designed eccentricities lay the spacefield. There, too, was another minor mystery. Earth governments had ceded — willingly when they sniffed the prizes to be won from federation — five such centres as that on Horby Clive Island in various parts of the globe. Each centre was being equipped as a spaceport and educational unit in which terrestrials would learn to understand the antiphonal complexities of Galingua and to behave as citizens of a well populated galaxy.

Even granting vast alien resources, it was a formidable project. According to estimates, at least eight thousand Galactics were working on Earth. Yet on the spacefield sat but one craft, an unlikely looking polyhedron with Arcturan symbols on its hull. The Galactics, in short, seemed to have remarkably few spaceships.

That was a point he would like to investigate, Farro thought, speculatively eying the inert beacons around the perimeter of the field.

He skirted them, avoiding the crowds as far as possible, and arrived at the entrance to one of the other six Galactic buildings, quite as eccentric in shape as its unfinished brother. As he walked in, an Earthman in dark-grey livery came deferentially forward.

“I have an appointment with Galactic Minister Jandanagger Laterobinson,” Farro announced, pronouncing the strange name awkwardly. “I am Farro Westerby, special deputy of the Isolationist League.”

As soon as he heard the phrase Isolationist League, the receptionist’s manner chilled. Setting his lips, he beckoned Farro over to a small side apartment, the doors of which closed as Farro entered. The apartment, the Galactic equivalent of an elevator, began to move through the building, travelling upward on what

Farro judged to be an elliptical path. It delivered him into Jandanagger Laterobinson’s room.

Standing up, the Galactic Minister greeted Farro with amiable reserve, giving the latter an opportunity to sum up his opponent. Laterobinson was unmistakably humanoid; he might, indeed, have passed for an Earthman, were it not for the strangeness of his eyes, set widely apart in his face and half hidden by the peculiar configuration of an epicanthic fold of skin. This minor variation of feature gave to Jandanagger what all his race seemed to possess: a watchful, tensely withdrawn air.

“You know the reason for my visit, Minister,” Farro said, when he had introduced himself. He spoke carefully in Galingua, the language he had spent so many months so painfully learning; initially, its wide variation in form from any terrestrial tongue had all but baffled him.

“Putting it briefly, you represent a body of people who fear contact with the other races in the Galaxy — unlike most of your fellows on Earth,” Jandanagger said easily. Expressed like that, the idea sounded absurd.

“I would rather claim to represent those who have thought more deeply about the present situation than perhaps their fellows have done.”

“Since your views are already known to me through the newly established Terrestrial-Galactic Council, I take it you wish us to discuss this matter personally?”

“That is so.”

Jandanagger returned to his chair, gesturing Farro into another.

“My role on Earth is simply to talk and to listen,” he said, not without irony. “So do please feel free to talk.”

“Minister, I represent five per cent of the people of Earth. If this sounds a small number, I would point out that that percentage contains some of the most eminent men in the world. Our position is relatively simple. You first visited Earth over a year ago, at the end of Ishrail’s decade of exile; after investigation, you decided we were sufficiently advanced to become probationary members of the Galactic Federation. As a result, certain advantages and disadvantages will naturally accrue; although both sides will reap advantages, we shall suffer all the disadvantages — and they may well prove fatal to us.”

Pausing, he scrutinized Jandanagger, but nothing was to be learned from the Minister’s continued look of friendly watchfulness. He continued speaking.

“Before I deal with these disadvantages, may I protest against what will seem to you perhaps a minor point. You have insisted, your charter insists, that this world shall be arbitrarily renamed; no longer shall it be known as Earth, but as Yinnisfar. Is there any defensible reason why this outlandish name should be adopted?”

The Minister smiled broadly and relaxed, as if the question had given him the key he needed to the man sitting opposite him. A bowl of New Union sweets lay on his desk; he pushed them across to Farro and, when the latter refused, took a sugary lump and bit it before replying.

“About three hundred planets calling themselves Earth are known to us,” he said. “Any new claimants to the title are automatically rechristened upon federation. From now on you are Yinnisfar. However, I think it would be more profitable if we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of federation, if that is what you wish to talk about.”

Farro sighed and resigned himself.

“Very well,” he said. “To begin with, the advantages to you. You will have here a convenient base, dock and administrative seat in a region of space you say you have yet to explore and develop. Also, it is possible that when arrangements are worked out between us, terrestrials may be engaged to help colonize the new worlds you expect to find in this region. We shall be a cheap manufacturing area for you. We shall produce such items as plastics, clothes, foodstuffs and simple tools which it will be easier for you to buy from us than transport from your distant home planets. Is this correct?”