in0 (12 page)

“I must tell you, Coordinator Halstrom, that I have my doubts. Sar-Say’s stories of the evil Broa
seem to me to be too reminiscent of a dark fairy tale. Each time he tells us of a Broan abuse of
power, I am put in mind of the Hansel and Gretel legend about what happens to naughty children
who wander into the dark forest against their parents’ wishes. Frankly, the galaxy he describes is
counterintuitive. Many of the scientists have asked what reason he would have to lie to us, as
though that were an argument. Perhaps Sar-Say is not the simple trader he claims to be. He could
just as easily be a smuggler, or some other sort of criminal. If that is the case, then he was in the
midst of being apprehended when his ship jumped into the New Eden system. He may be lying to
us in order to poison our minds against the lawful authorities in his region of space. What better
way to assure that we will not turn him over to those who would imprison him? I have expressed
this possibility in various scientific conferences, and I must report that the reaction has not been
favorable. Still, as a story it is much more palatable than his tale of a galaxy controlled by a race
of paranoid megalomaniacs.

“It would appear, Madame Coordinator, that you were very wise not to release this news of
Sar-Say’s capture to the media. They would have a field day with the lurid stories he has been
telling us. Perhaps the return expedition to New Eden will provide facts with which to refute his
story. As it stands now, we must keep the alien under absolute wraps if we are to avoid a
system-wide panic.”

(Signed)

Dieter Pavel

Coordinator’s Representative

#

Nadine Halstrom sighed as she finished reading Pavel’s report. It had been a week since the first reports of Sar-Say’s claims had been forwarded to her via secure communications link. She remembered the knot that had formed in her stomach, a knot that had yet to loosen. Was it possible that a single species could control a million inhabited star systems? If so, what chance did Earth and her six puny colonies have against such a race?

What if Dieter Pavel was right? What if Sar-Say was lying to them? He need not be an interstellar criminal to make up such a story. Maybe he was the Taff equivalent of the garrulous old man who makes up stories so people will notice him. On the other hand, if truly a trader, then he might be spinning his yarns in order to exploit humanity to his own benefit. If he frightened them enough, they would remain ignorant of the true situation in this great galactic empire, and would be correspondingly easier for him to cheat.

Then there were the more grandiose possibilities. What if Sar-Say had been deliberately planted on them? What better way for his masters to avoid human competition than to stage a fake space battle in order to plant an agent among them? Perhaps Sar-Say’s people were no stronger than Nadine Halstrom’s and that they hoped to keep human beings out of their space with stories of a gigantic, rapacious, and totally fictitious galactic empire.

Finally, there was the most horrifying possibility of all. What if Sar-Say was telling them the simple, unvarnished truth?

“Come now, Nadine,” she growled under her breath. “You are getting paranoid in your old age.” Of course, she reminded herself, in the universe Sar-Say had described, a little paranoia was not necessarily a bad thing.

The problem with Pavel’s hypothesis, her own maundering, and Sar-Say’s story was that there was nothing to prove or disprove any of them. Moreover, absent any method for telling the possibilities apart, she would have to assume that Sar-Say’s worst-case scenario was fact.

An easy principle to proclaim, she thought, but not one that was easy to put into practice. For example, if the galaxy was under whatever the Broa used for thumbs, what should she do about the Stellar Survey?

It had been the survey that had brought the Broa to humanity’s attention (and possibly vice versa).

Presumably, the more stars they explored, the higher the probability that they would tangle with the Broa again. Logically, then, the survey should be curtailed or ended completely. Yet, by another logic, the survey ought to be accelerated and the great starships sent farther into the void. For if human beings shared the galaxy with the Broa, there was always the risk that they would discover Earth, and having done so, destroy it. Under such a scenario, wouldn’t it be best to spread the human seed as far as possible as insurance against future catastrophe?

Then there was the problem of the public airwaves. For nearly two hundred years, Earth had been blasting ever-greater levels of electromagnetic energy skyward, forming a great bubble of radio noise that was even now expanding toward the Broan domain. Should they place restrictions on broadcasting, or was it already too late for such precautions? Perhaps some Broan listening post was even now picking up the theme song of
I Love Lucy
or one of the other legendary programs of the early age of broadcasting.

There were literally thousands of such questions for which she had no answer. Not for the first time, Nadine Halstrom wished that she had never decided to leave the comforting confines of the classroom.

She was put in mind of what the chief of the Lucayan Indians must have thought when he awoke one morning to find an Italian navigator and a crew of gold-hungry Spaniards on his beach. “Should I welcome these pale strangers with the giant ships, or should I kill them immediately?” he must have asked himself. History recorded that that nameless Indian chief had made the wrong choice that autumn morning in 1492. Would the same be said in future centuries of Nadine Halstrom, assuming, of course, that there was anyone alive to record it?

Frankly, she thought, the responsibility was far too heavy a burden to be placed on the shoulders of one overworked bureaucrat. Unfortunately, that thought did not help resolve her dilemma either.

#

“Something is wrong,” Mark Rykand said into his drink, a Manhattan, the olive of which was now making a wet puddle on the bar. He hated olives.

“Is Moira getting on your nerves again?” Gunter Perlman asked.

“Not Moira. This Vasloff character you put me onto.”

“Vasloff? What about him?”

“I made a donation to his organization, but he isn’t coming through with any information.”

“Doesn’t sound like him,” Gunter replied. “True, he’s an absolute nut when it comes to starships, but he is basically honest. If he told you he would find out something and has not, then maybe it isn’t to be found.”

“Don’t be a toady, Gunter. The man is holding out on me!”

His friend regarded him with careful eyes, gauging the degree of his intoxication. Finally, Perlman said,

“You know, he is not the only nut around here.”

“How do you mean that?”

“Just the way it sounds, pal. You have known about Jani’s death almost six weeks now. It is time for you to put away your little fantasy and get on with your life.”

“Screw you, Gunter!”

“Listen to yourself. The survey is against you, Vasloff is against you, and now I am against you. Frankly, Mark, paranoia ill becomes you. Hell, I heard how you bit Johnny Fargo’s head off the night before last because of some comment he made about your dead sister. Everyone has heard about it. If you don’t watch it, you are not going to have any friends left!”

Mark frowned and took another sip. Gunter was right. He had been ashamed of himself after he had yelled at Fargo. True, Johnny was a boring, self-important snob, but he meant well. He just happened to be the unlucky soul who had told Mark that time heals all wounds one time too often.

“Do you want to prove you are on my side?” Mark asked belligerently.

“Not if it means humoring this delusion you have developed.”

“I don’t want you to humor me. I want you to help.”

“How?”

“Let me use your yacht.”

“Sure, I’ll loan you
Gossamer Gnat
after I have sunk a quarter-million credits in her.”

“I don’t want you to loan her to me. I want you to take me somewhere.”

“Where?”

“PoleStar.”

“Why?”

“Because that is where
Magellan
is.”

“And I suppose they are going to allow us to light-surf right up to their midships airlock and let you out?”

“They might,” Mark agreed. “However, if they do, it means that you are right and I am imagining things.

Now, if I am right, they will warn us off and not let us near the ship.”

“So what good will it do you?”

“It will give me confirmation that they are hiding something. Don’t worry, I will not ask you to violate any restricted space, but if you can get me close enough, I will be able to get there on my own.”

“How?”

“Long range vacuum suit.”

“You’re drunk, Mark! Only a fool would try to navigate a suit across a hundred kilometers of empty space, and he would need to be a skilled fool to have any chance of making it.”

Mark shrugged. “If I get into trouble, I will switch on my emergency beacon and they will send the station taxi to pick me up. Either way, I’ll get where I want to go.”

“And I will end up in jail for violating restricted cubic.”

“No you won’t. You will keep well clear. You can claim that I am a stowaway, that you did not even know I was aboard.”

“Pretty difficult claim to make on a solar yacht, my friend.”

“Whether they believe you or not isn’t important. I will back up your story. That way they will only throw me in jail.”

“You are forgetting one thing. How are we going to get the
Gnat
into polar orbit?”

“Tug. I will pay the change-of-plane charges both ways.”

Perlman considered for a moment, and then shook his head. “I won’t do it. If you want to kill yourself, do it without my help.”

“Please, Gunter, I am begging you.”

There was a long pause while Perlman thought it over. Finally, he turned to Mark and said, “All right, I’ll do it. I was going to take the
Gnat
out and exercise her anyway. I still think it’s a damned foolhardy thing to try.”

“I have to try, Gunter. I hope you see that.”

“All I see is someone who has lost his family and seems determined to join them. Talk to Sam Wheeling about a vacuum suit. He knows about such things and will get you a good one. Do not scrimp on the price. You may be out there a long time before they can rescue you.”

#

Lisa Arden watched Sar-Say as he moved effortlessly in the microgravity of PoleStar and wondered how long it had been since his people had invented space travel. The pseudo-simian (as the scientists had taken to calling him) seemed too well adapted to microgravity for it to be an accident. She felt clumsy by comparison. Next to the Taff’s fluid movements, she seemed all elbows and knees.

“Wait up, Sar-Say! Nothing’s going to happen for at least fifteen minutes.”

The supple neck twisted to reveal two yellow eyes and comical ears pointed in her direction. “Hurry, Lisa. We don’ wish to be late.”

“
Don’t
, with a ‘t’ ending,” she corrected automatically. “It is one of those pesky contractions.”

The alien blinked, a sign that he was filing another fact away in his prodigious memory, and said, “We don’t wish to be late.”

“Better,” she replied approvingly as she finally caught up with him. Sar-Say’s speech was improving daily with practice. Just that morning, they had engaged in a conversation that would have been impossible only a week before. The subject of what name applied to the Broan Empire had arisen.

“The Broa do not rule empire. There is no single Broa in charge, no emperor.”

“Then what would you call it?”

“I do not know,” Sar-Say had replied seriously. “I have not yet learned a Standard word that fits.”

“What do you call it in your own language?”

The alien had uttered a long series of syllables that consisted mostly of sibilants.

“What does it mean?”

“It means ‘Civilization.’ It means that the Broa rule all.”

“The Broan Tyranny, perhaps?”

“No. The word is too negative.”

“You have described them as pretty negative people.”

“They are not malicious,” Sar-Say had replied seriously. “So long as things are done as they wish, they allow most to live with a minimum of ... of interference.”

“Big of them,” Lisa had said sarcastically. “What is the mechanism of their power over other species?

How do they maintain control?”

“They have no need to control the worlds directly. They control the stargates. The Broa are not a …

prolific … yes, a prolific people. They breed slowly. There are not enough of them to colonize every world in their … whatever you humans call it.”

“Then there are some worlds that are free of Broa?”

“Yes. Many worlds have only a few Broa on them, and others are visited infrequently by the masters.”

“These worlds are sovereign?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that they have control over their own affairs and answer to no one else for what they do.”

“No, the Broa are ... sovereign. Those who rule do so in the masters’ name.”

“The Broa are the kings?”

“No, that word too denotes a single individual who rules. The Broa practice rule by kinship, not kingship.”

Lisa had looked sharply at her star pupil. “Was that an attempt at humor, Sar-Say?”

“It was.”

“Not bad for a beginner. But you were saying--”

“A single clan or gathering will generally control a few stars, or even an entire sector. They are sovereign over all the worlds that are linked by the network of stargates they control. Generally, the clan lives on a single world and periodically visits their possessions. There are worlds that go without a visit from the masters for decades - so long as there is no trouble, of course. When there is trouble, then the Broan warships visit them quickly.”

“The Broan domain is organized around the stargates?”

“How could it be otherwise?”