Planet in Peril (22 page)

He said: I'm not sure.”

Humayun
said: “I’ve offered him the job of running the Telecom units, as we take them over. It’s still open.” Charles asked: “What about it, Hiram?”

Dinkuhl
appeared to rouse himself. “Very kind of everybody. I guess I'm not an organizer, though.” Charles said: “When we first met in this business—in Detroit—you said you had thought of trying to get KF transferred to
Siraq
. Well, here you are. Why not?”

“A misconception,”
Dinkuhl
said. “KF was a legacy from capitalism—
Siraq
was capitalist. I missed the nuances. KF stemmed from philanthropic capitalism, from capitalism in decay.
Siraq
is a different kind of capitalism. Military capitalism, maybe. Nearer to the roots, anyway. And the root of capitalism is giving people what they want—what they want, not what they ought to want They never wanted KF, except the cranks, and a sane and healthy society doesn't cater for the cranks.” Charles said: “Isn't there anything you want?”

“There is one thing—”

Humayun
looked at his finger-watch. “I thin
k...
now
!
”

They looked. From the camp the leather-jacketed swarm was rising, like locusts, into the sharp blue sky. At this moment, throughout the
Siraqi
territory, similar swarms were setting out. Like locusts they would fasten on the neighboring lands, stripping them of their nerves and moving relentlessly on. Locusts with intelligence, locusts with a purpose. The kaleidoscope of civilization was being shaken; one could only guess into what new pattern it might settle, or whether there would be a pattern.

"Mankind is on the move again," said Professor
Koupal
.

“They’ll get by,"
Dinkuhl
said. “Mankind is like Charlie; mankind is adaptable. You’ll be happy at
Bhaldun
, Charlie. A wife and a line of research—two lines of research. What more could you want? I
hope you’v
e glad I didn’t come in with you on the last break. There was no one I wanted to save from the H-bomb."

“You had thought of that? Why didn’t you, then? You wanted destruction."

The swarm had already become a cloud on the horizon, a fading cloud.
Dinkuhl
gestured toward it

“I prefer it spread well out.”

Humayun
said: “I interrupted you just now. You were going to say there was something you wanted. If we can provide it, it’s yours.”

Dinkuhl
nodded. “Very land of you. It isn’t much. I’d like the use of a camel.”

It was a part
of the country from which even the aggressive
Siraqi
agriculture had fallen back in dismay-rocky barren ground useless for everything except grazing sheep. He had passed several flocks, tended by young boys who would presumably grow into the leather jackets that awaited them, the sun-powered wings. But this section was deserted.
Dinkuhl
was alone, with the camel and his thoughts. He had grown used by now to the uneasy rocking motion of his passage, and to the camel’s grunts, the flapping pad of its feet and what he suspected was the creaking of its joints.

It was night. Stars, but no moon. The stars themselves were big and brilliant in a cloudless sky. Weather, he reflected, was still on the side of
Siraq
. He wondered where the locusts had reached by now—Cape Town, Gibraltar, London, Moscow, Delhi?

The comet looked very big, too, and almost overhead. Great for the
Cometeers
. He tried to rouse disgust, or even the more detached feeling of ironical contempt, but indifference possessed him and would not be set aside. Indifference was a good armor, but a poor companion. A close one, though, and a determined one.

Indifference had come with the death of hope, and hope had died with the news Charlie had brought him, in the little room at the Averroes Institute. He had not known it then, because he had not known that hope had been with him at all, but he had understood it later.

“Destroy
!
” his mind had said. “Destroy!” He had not heard its quieter whisper: “That good may come from the casting down of evil.”

And suddenly he had seen Destruction in the wings, ready to move on stage, and he saw it for what it was— an ordinary player, supplanting, but essentially no different from the other players. And hope had died, unrecognized.

The
Siraqis
, the
Managerialists
, the
Cometeers
. . . There was nothing to despair of losing, and so there could be nothing to hope for. Was there hope without despair? Hope for hope’s sake? His mind cried irrationally: “Stay with me! Stay with me, anyway!”

Hope came with innocence, and went with knowledge. And can a man unlearn what he has learned?

“Stay with me!” his mind cried again. “Let me be a child, but stay with me. I was willing to give up everything to despair, except my knowledge. Take that, too, if I can have hope.”

He rode his swaying camel under the frost-bright stars. Ahead he could see the lights of a village, a small village but lit as though for carnival. He could hear voices singing; it was puzzling, because the village was still too far away for the songs to be from there. The voices were nearer, and at last he saw the singers, coming toward him along the stony path. They were young lads, shepherds.

They were rejoicing, and he was happy in their happiness. He tried to catch the words of their song, but he had very little understanding of the dialect. As they came abreast of him, he called out to them:

“What is the name of this village?”

Several of them answered him, but he knew what name it would be before they said it. He pricked the camel with the goad, urging it to greater speed.

He said aloud, crying to the black sky, to the stars, to the plunging comet:

“I was ready to give up knowledge for hope. And now hope and knowledge are the same.”

From the rag-bag of memory he found words—words that it surprised him to remember.

“
Nunc
dimittis
...
”

London: 24 iv 54.