"That's right. No aliens. Thousands of new worlds, thousands upon
thousands of new species, but not one of them intelligent enough
to hold a candle to our earthside chimpanzee. But still they go on
outfitting each of the exploration vessels with psychologists, and
outfitting all of the psychologists for the double task of soothing the
crew's _psyches_ and making contact with mythical intelligent races
that so far we've only dreamed about." Broussard emptied his container
of beer and with a single vicious movement threw it as far away from
him as he could. "I must say, however, that of late they've been
spending more time training us to be mind doctors than to be official
greeters to unknown cultures."
Suddenly Broussard straightened up. "But why should you twit me about
deserting my work today. I saw you throw out the first baseball. How
come you didn't stay for the game? Surely that falls under the province
of a Captain's job."
Allen Hawkins smiled. "I learned long ago, Broussard, that there are
times when the presence of the Commanding Officer has an undesired
influence on the spirits of the crew. After all, as Captain of the
_Sunward_, I can't very well take part in the game itself. Who'd dare
to strike me out when I came to bat?" He stopped to think about that
for a moment. "Or, maybe I should have said, I don't _think_ anybody
would dare to strike me out."
"Ah, yes, the Father Figure," Broussard said laughing.
"That's right. So I can't play. Nor can I umpire, for half the fun of
baseball is arguing with the umpire and I couldn't allow any of that.
And if I just watched without playing the game itself, a lot of the
crew might think that I felt myself too high and mighty to take part in
their proletarian type of recreation. So I'm damned if I do and damned
if I don't. So what did I do...?"
"You left the field," Broussard answered, lighting up a cigarette after
offering the other man one.
"That's right, I left the baseball field and went walking."
"That's not quite what I meant when I said 'you left the field,'"
Broussard went on. "It's a psychological term, first used by Lewin many
centuries ago. Any time a man is in a conflict situation, faced with
two or more alternatives that he finds it difficult to choose among, he
may solve his problem by choosing none of them."
Hawkins stretched his legs out restfully on the grass in front of him.
As he thought about it, there had been few times in the past when he
had given the psychologist his head and let the man talk. Probably,
Hawkins thought to himself, Broussard spends most of his time listening
to the petty confessions of all of us and never gets the opportunity
to unload a bit himself. He caught himself wondering just who on Earth
confesses the Pope....
And so he uttered the magical words, "I don't think I quite
understand...."
Broussard scarcely needed the encouragement to continue. "Lewin
liked to think of psychological situations as approximating physical
situations. He spoke in terms of valences and attractions, of vectors
and forces operating through psychological distances. For example,
let's consider the case of a child put into a long hallway. At one end
of the hall is a large, fierce dog. At the other end is an ugly man
with a big switch. We tell the child that he has to go to one end of
the hall or the other. This becomes an 'avoidance-avoidance' situation
in the Lewinian terminology. Both the man with the switch and the
fierce dog carry negative valences--that means that the child actually
doesn't want to approach either of them--and the closer the child
comes to one of them, the more powerfully it repels him. Just as with
magnets--the closer you bring one negative charge to another negative
charge, the more powerful is the force of repulsion."
Captain Hawkins smiled. It wasn't going to be as bad as he had feared.
"What does all this have to do with baseball?"
"We'll get back to home plate in just a moment. But first, let's
continue with the child. We put him in the hallway, tell him to go to
one end or the other, and then we just sit back and watch. At first he
stands about as close to the center of the hall as he can, assuming
that the two negative valences are about of equal strength. He's
undecided--can't make up his mind which is worse, the man or the dog.
So we prompt him to action--shock him or tell him that he has to keep
moving. Then he begins to move back and forth, vacillating between the
two undesirable objects. So we apply more and more pressure to try
to force him to a decision. But the closer he moves to the dog, for
example, the more distasteful _it_ becomes, and the less dangerous does
the _man_ seem to be. So the child turns around and starts towards the
man. But here the situation is repeated. It's a beautiful example of a
conflict situation."
Giving vent to a well-disciplined snort, Captain Hawkins said, "And
eventually the child either gets well switched or badly bitten, eh?"
"No, that's where you're wrong. Eventually the child tries to escape
from the hallway altogether. Sometimes he'll try to climb the walls, or
break down a door, or anything like that which will release him from
what has become an impossible psychological environment."
"So," said Hawkins. "I think you left me stranded on first base."
Broussard laughed. "Pardon the sermon, Captain. What I was trying to
point out was that the baseball game represented just about the same
sort of thing to you as the hallway did to the child. Any time a human
being is faced with two impossible decisions like that, he usually
ends up by 'leaving the field' of conflict altogether. Nowadays we can
even predict the exact field forces necessary to bring on this type of
behavior."
"And what do you predict I'm going to do right now?" Hawkins asked with
a bit of a laugh in his voice.
"That's an easy one. I predict you're going to ask for another
beer--and that I'll give it to you. No conflict there." He opened a
container that chilled itself automatically as he handed it to his
superior officer.
Hawkins blew the foam from it and then took a long, satisfying swallow.
"There are times when I'm glad I'm just an uncomplicated space
officer," he said presently.
Broussard grinned. "Sorry if I seemed to be giving you a lecture,
Captain. I'm afraid you would have enjoyed a good, healthy discussion
of Freud much more. My own particular problem is that I'm much
more interested in thinking about the remote possibilities of
man's encountering new types of intelligences than I am in playing
father confessor to a bunch of space rats. Back on Earth the social
psychologists felt that Lewin's work offered a fruitful means of
analyzing the motivational components in any alien society we might
encounter. I guess my trotting out the vector charts was just a neat
example of wishful thinking."
Captain Allen Hawkins didn't bother to answer the remark for some time.
He was too busy watching something move slowly towards them across the
grassy plain. Finally he half-whispered to his companion, "Don't put
those charts away too soon, Broussard. You finally may have a chance to
use them."
* * * * *
Bells clanged loudly. Red and yellow lights flashed insistently in
front of the man, demanding his attention. The clattering noise of a
computer working at high speed added to the unholy din of the small
spaceship's control room.
Surveyor Lan Sur ran his deft fingers rapidly over the studs on the
control panel in front of him. He scarcely looked at the controls
as he manipulated them, concentrating instead on the screens before
him--screens which showed the attack patterns of the seven large
warships that surrounded him.
One of the attacking enemy ships loomed incredibly large directly ahead
of him. Lan Sur's fingers hesitated, and then, at precisely the proper
second, pressed the firing studs. The scout ship seemed to dance
lightly upward as it passed high above the larger, slower enemy craft.
Lan Sur whirled his ship around just in time to witness the total
disintegration of the enemy.
"One down," he thought, but took no particular pride in his
accomplishment. There were still six left.
The enemy regrouped, spreading out into a cone-like formation. He knew
the trick well, and aimed his ship to make its next pass high above
the open mouth of this formation. But the enemy opened up the top of
the cone as fast as Lan Sur tried to avoid it. He fired a warning
salvo and tucked his defensive screens in tight around him. But the
uppermost enemy ship incredibly picked up more speed, sliding off into
an extremely intricate maneuver. Lan Sur knew that if it could hold to
this path, it would pass several miles above him, neatly sandwiching
him between the enemy vessels below. He could have turned aside at
once, but that would have been an admission of possible defeat, and
he could never admit defeat. If he could beat the other ship to the
topping maneuver, he would destroy not only it, but the ships at the
small end of the cone as well when he came crashing down on them from
above. For just a moment he felt certain that he could succeed.
The scout ship vibrated tensely as it hurled itself forward. The red
lights on the control panel doubled in number, then tripled. The
computer roared instructions so rapidly that he could hardly keep up
with them. The warning bells went mad with ringing.
"I think I can make it," he told himself. But he refused to become
excited. He had come this close to victory before, and had still
failed. Now he saw he was gaining on the enemy ship, but it was a thin
margin of safety indeed. The computer screamed with danger signals as
the huge craft came closer and closer.
Lan Sur leaned forward slightly in his seat, a little strain showing
on his usually relaxed face. To his surprise, he found himself saying
aloud, "Yes, I think I can."
But he did not. Suddenly the enemy craft shot by above him and belched
forth a thick burst of light. The huge black warships immediately
beneath him echoed the call, catching his smaller, fleeter ship in a
double barrage.
And it was all over.
The red lights on the control panel blinked out quickly, one by one.
The warning bells ceased their claxons, the computer settled down to a
quiet hum. The screens went blank. A thin piece of tape spewed forth
from the computer. It read, "This scout ship utterly annihilated. End
of problem."
* * * * *
Lan Sur looked the tape over sourly. "Damn," he said, leaning back
in his seat. He tore the tape into little pieces and deposited them
angrily in the reclaim box. Reluctantly he pressed the "Analysis"
button on the computer. The machine would issue him a complete
dissection of the whole mock war game, pointing out with deadly
accuracy the mistakes he had made.
"Damn," he said again, thinking over the past battle. He got up from
the control panel and walked over to his relaxation chair. Sitting
down, he took a small bit of food from a container and began chewing on
it viciously.
It wasn't really so bad that he lost the engagement, he told himself.
The pre-battle odds were greatly against him. And as often as he had
tried it, he had never been able to take on seven enemy ships and still
survive. Sometimes it seemed an almost impossible task to him. However,
he had a deep desire to solve the problem, because the computer told
him it might be solvable if he took the proper course of action.
Evidently, it would take a lot more work, a great deal more study on
his part before he found the solution.
"But time is something I have plenty of," he said aloud, stretching out
comfortably in the chair. For several hours he puzzled over the thing,
taking time out to digest the taped analysis of his mistakes, and then
attacked the problem afresh. Eventually, out of sheer exhaustion, he
slipped off into a deep, restful sleep, quite confident that the next
time he tried the seven-ship problem, or at most the time following
that....
* * * * *
Lan Sur awoke to quietness. He stretched his lean, lithe legs, slowly,
returning to normal awareness as he did so. Once he was completely
awake, he sat down in front of the control panel again. A single amber
light beamed from the board. While he had been asleep, the scout
ship had come out of its C^{2} drive and had slowed to a stop. They
had reached their immediate destination, and since he was asleep, the
computer had simply turned on the protective screens around the ship
and had begun a survey of the sun system they had arrived at.
He pressed a button on the computer and then leaned back to digest the
information that the machine began feeding him at once. The sun was of
the A/34.79Lu type, just as had been forecast before his voyage. It had
three large inner planets and a tiny fourth much too far away from the
solar furnace and much too small to be of any practical value. Lan Sur
read the report carefully, noting with pleasure certain of the facts
presented him. He was in the midst of an interesting section concerning
the chemical composition of the atmosphere on the second of the planets
when a small bell on the computer rang and the machine became silent
for just a second or two, then began pouring out material at a furious
rate.
Lan Sur, who had been yards of tape behind in his reading, dropped
the atmosphere discussion and began to read the new information being
spewed forth. A frown crossed his face as he read the first few words,
"Alien contact established...." He hoped this new development would not
take him away from his games for too long a time.
The computer had detected the emanation of modulated energy waves
coming from the second planet. Immediately it had withdrawn its
wide-flung detector beams and had concentrated fully upon the source of
the waves. Lan Sur reset the computer so that only a very small part of
the huge machine would carry on the routine work of new investigation,
while the greater part would be put to work in an attempt to decode
what was obviously a language being broadcast in some obsolete manner.
He noted with pride that the aliens, whoever they might be, had not at
the moment reached the point of development where C^{2} communication
was available to them, but were still limited to the raw speed of
light for the transmission of messages, and hence, he felt sure, for
the transmission of space ships too. This meant, he knew, that he had
probably stumbled onto a race of beings still new to the reaches of
space who would be helpless in the face of even his own lightly armed
scout ship. However, according to patrol instructions, he activated
a switch that relayed all pertinent information by means of a sealed
C^{2} beam back to the nearest Dakn Patrol base, and put in a formal
call for the presence of Patrol battleships. One way or another, they
would be needed....
* * * * *
It took the computer less than a day and a half, as Lan Sur figured
time, to break the language of the aliens discovered on the second
planet. The Surveyor spent this time working feverishly on a new idea
he had for the solution of the seven-ship problem, and was quite
upset when the computer finished its problem of decoding the new
tongue before Lan Sur had worked out all the details of his latest
attack on the mock war games. Reluctantly he put himself into a light
trance, during which the machine taught him the new language. He did
not actually learn to think in the new tongue, for that would have
imposed limiting strictures on his mental processes. Rather, his mind
was turned into a kind of translating factory. He had the freedom to
think in the terms and in the concepts that he was accustomed to,
and his mind simply expressed these thoughts as best it could in
the newly-learned way of speaking. The computer had also arrived at
an incredibly clear knowledge of the socio-politico-psychological
structure of the new civilization, but aside from a brief glance at
some of the more intriguing points, Lan Sur ignored this information
and simply relayed it along to the Galactic base where social
scientists could pore over it in their own bemused leisure. For his
tasks Lan Sur hardly felt that he needed it.
Once Lan Sur had memorized the language, he put his scout ship under
a screen of complete invisibility and landed it some few miles away
from the space ship the aliens were using as their permanent base.
He let the computer drink up what additional information it required
to make sure both that the planetary conditions were suitable to his
own particular chemical make-up, and that the aliens were indeed
as impotent as his previous estimates had seemed to indicate. Once
the computer gave him its blessing, he walked out into the bright
planetary sunlight.
* * * * *
Psychologist J. L. Broussard sat up puzzled. "What do you mean, don't
put away my Lewinian vector charts too soon? I may have a chance to use
them on _whom_?"
Captain Allen Hawkins simply stared straight ahead of him, his lips
forming unanswerable questions. Broussard took his cue from the man's
head and stared too. And then he understood.
The alien, for from its dress alone it obviously _was_ an alien, was
still quite a distance away from them. It came walking towards them
with a kind of protective sparkle about it--and even from that distance
they could sense a feeling of power about the man.
"Man?" Broussard caught himself thinking. Yes, it did seem very much
like a man--not only like a human, but like a masculine human. But
immediately Broussard told himself that this might not be the case.
True, humanoid it was, but because it displayed a certain lack of the
more obvious female sexual characteristics it did not follow that it
was _male_. "Why, they could even have _ten_ different sexes for all we
know," Broussard thought to himself.
"I think it's coming towards _us_," Hawkins said quietly.
Broussard watched the alien move a few more yards and then agreed.
Hawkins activated a small radio that he carried in one of his shirt
pockets. "Hello, Communications," he spoke rapidly into the microphone.
"This is Hawkins. Put me through to the Bridge at once. And make sure
you record every word that I say."
The words "Aye, aye, Captain," were forthcoming immediately from the
tiny loudspeaker. The Captain rated a special communications channel
that was guarded by the radio shack at all times, and it came as no
surprise to Hawkins that the reply was prompt. He had expected it to be.
"Bridge here, go ahead."
"This is Captain Hawkins, Bridge. Who's the Duty Officer?" Hawkins knew
who the man was, but asked to give the man a chance to realize fully
that the Captain was aware with whom he was speaking.
"Lieutenant Medboe, Captain, ready for instructions."
Hawkins thought for just a moment and then answered. "Mr. Medboe, the
information that I am about to pass along to you is not to leave the
Bridge under any circumstances. As soon as I finish, you will contact
the radio shack and make certain that what I have said, if it has been
monitored, is not passed along from that particular point either. Do
you understand me."
Medboe's voice sounded a little puzzled, "Of course, Captain. Your
instructions will be followed to the letter."
"Now then," Hawkins continued. "You might as well know at once that I
think we've made contact with an alien race. I don't know what this
means to you personally, but to the human race it means a great deal
and we can under no circumstances risk the occurrence of any incident.
You will therefore send someone to find Commander Petri and inform him
that as Executive Officer, he will be in charge of the ship until I
return to it. And while you are doing that, you will summon all the
men to return to the ship at once. You may not give them the real
reason--tell them that there is a bad storm coming and that I have
ordered them all inside. It is imperative that none of them realizes
the true reason. Do you understand?"
Medboe's voice sounded almost hurt. "Aye, aye, Captain," he said.
"Good. Once everyone is back inside the ship, have Petri summon all
officers not on watch and all scientists to the large meeting hall.
They will be given a chance to observe and listen to the contact as it
is made. Which reminds me--have the communications department set up
a long range television camera on me at once, and pipe the image down
into the hall. You will have them record both sight and sound for later
use. You will also inform Petri that a state of emergency exists as of
this moment by my personal order, and that if necessary he is to blast
off from the planet without making any attempt either to protect or
rescue me. And once it has been established that we are in fact dealing
with an alien culture, Navy Headquarters must be informed immediately
via subspace radio." Hawkins wanted to make sure that in the event the
entire ship was captured, Earth would know that an alien contact had
been made and could take steps to protect itself. He only wished, now
that he thought of it, that he could have taken more adequate steps to
protect the men and the ship. But for the moment the _Sunward_ and her
crew would have to remain where they were and as they were. And if the
alien had not attacked them up to that point, perhaps no attack would
be made at all.
Hawkins wanted to tell Medboe a thousand other things--simple, obvious
things that surely both Medboe and Petri would be cognizant of. But, as
always, the man who had to delegate responsibility simply had to depend
on the perspicacity of the men to whom he gave the power.
"Any questions?" Hawkins asked after a brief pause.
"I don't believe so, Captain," Medboe answered. Hawkins could tell from
the sound of the man's voice that he had hundreds of things he would
have liked to ask, but none of them were of the type that he could have
expected his superior officer to answer.
"Good," Hawkins replied formally. "One more thing. You will under no
circumstances attempt to contact me on this radio set--there's no need
in letting the alien know any more about us or our abilities than we
absolutely have to."
"Right, Captain," came the obedient answer.
Hawkins turned the switch to the "Sustained Talk" position and informed
the Officer of the Deck of his actions. Then he turned to Broussard.
"Anything you have to add to all that?" he asked.
The psychologist indicated a negative by a shake of his head.
"Very well, Mr. Medboe. You may carry out your orders," Hawkins said
with a sigh. Then he turned to Broussard again. "Well, Louie. I guess
it's up to you from here on out. You're the alienist." And with that,
Hawkins reluctantly relinquished completely his normal command of the
situation.
* * * * *
During the time that Captain Hawkins had been giving his orders,
Broussard had been deep in thought, paying only scant attention to the
instructions that the other man had passed along. The psychologist's
mind had been racing over the possibilities of this first contact, and
more than once during the brief period of time, it had dwelt on his own
particular fears that he would not be up to the encounter.
"I think you had better give the radio to me," Broussard said. "I'll
probably be closer to the alien during the first stages of contact at
least, and certainly I should be doing most of the talking."
The statement made sense to Hawkins, and he passed the device over
without comment. Broussard tucked it away in one of his pockets.
"I don't think we should bother walking towards him," Broussard said a
moment later, answering an unspoken question. "He's obviously coming
toward us and it would seem better if we weren't too eager." Broussard
felt no need to describe the alien over the radio since by this time
the communications division back on board the _Sunward_ would have set
up their long range television cameras. Captain Hawkins shifted about
on his feet a bit like a boxer doing warm-up footwork prior to a battle.
"I wonder where he's put his space ship," Broussard said.
Hawkins looked puzzled. "How do you know he's got one?" he asked.
"Well, it's just a hunch. But unless I miss my guess, that shining air
the--the--" Broussard groped for the right noun, then fell back again
on a sheer perceptual analysis. "The shining air the _man_ coming
towards us has is a defensive screen of some sort. And we've certainly
found no evidence on Trellis of any civilization at all, much less one
so advanced that it could dream up gadgets like that. I figure he must
be from somewhere else. Maybe he's just a visitor here too, like us."
Hawkins inwardly admitted the logic of the reasoning.
As the alien came closer, they could both see why they had
instinctively felt from the first that it was of the male gender. The
creature's hair was cut a little longer than men wore theirs back on
Earth, but this was almost the only difference. The alien was a bit
taller than either of them, but not beyond the limits produceable by
the human race. His shoulders were the widest part of his body, and
formed the broad top of the inverted triangular shape that most human
men admired. His clothes were of some peculiar, clinging material, but
the bottom half of his body was fitted out in a close approximation of
Earthside trousers. The man was handsome even by their own standards of
masculine beauty.
"Well," said Hawkins. "This is it. Man is no longer 'alone.'"
Broussard realized suddenly that the other man was just as nervous as
he himself was. "No, man is no longer alone," Broussard replied. And
then he added, "But neither is _he_."
The alien was less than one hundred yards away when Broussard said
quietly, "I don't think we'd better talk any more. Let's just stand
here and wait for him to make the first move."
* * * * *
Lan Sur walked towards the two aliens at a comfortable rate of speed.
When he was still some distance off the computer back on his scout
ship informed him of the first of the messages going back and forth
from one of the men to the ship, and then of the gradual withdrawal of
the rest of the ship's crew to the sanctuary of the _Sunward_. It was
with no surprise at all that he listened to the computer, as it did a
remote physical and chemical analysis of the aliens. Eons ago the Dakn
people had come to the conclusion, first in theory and then in fact,
that intelligent life capable of reaching the stars had to fall within
the humanoid pattern. The aliens confronting him were well within the
theoretical tolerance limits on every count. But still it amused him to
see the slight obesity of one of the men and the thick body hair of
the other. These were two minor points of difference between the races.
At exactly the right psychological distance from the two aliens, Lan
Sur stopped. He was quite close enough to be heard and understood, but
not so close that his physical presence suggested too much of a threat.
He waited just long enough before speaking.
"It is customary in your culture to begin with introductions," he said
in a strong voice. "I am Lan Sur, possessed of the rank of Senior
Surveyor in the Galactic Patrol of the Dakn Empire. I welcome you
officially to the communion of the stars."
Lan Sur could almost feel the sinking sensation inside the larger of
the two aliens when he began to speak to them in their own tongue. It
amused him to think that these two had probably expected to begin by
drawing pictures in the dirt. Well, they would learn.
"You should know at once that the Dakn Empire comprises some 700
quadrillion people of the same general humanoid characteristics as
obtain in your race. We populate planets on some hundred thousand suns,
most of which lie much further toward the opposite end of the galaxy
than does the system in which we find ourselves at the moment. We have
explored great reaches of the universe, but this is the first time we
have penetrated as far into this particular district as this star you
call Clarion. That explains why our races have never before come into
contact."
The two aliens leaned forward a little on their feet, as caught up in
his words as children might be when told a new and fascinating story.
"The Dakn Empire is the only other political system that exists in
this entire galaxy, as far as we know." Lan Sur paused for a moment,
to let the significance of his words sink in. "There have been others,
of course, but they soon passed under our control. Just as your
civilization will now pass under our control."
He read the sudden, stark fear that appeared in their eyes correctly
without needing the affirming echo from the computer.
"The Dakn Empire has learned that whenever it discovers a new
civilization, it must absorb this new culture immediately. There is no
other choice. And your race must follow the pattern of the thousands we
have encountered in the past. There is no choice. As of this moment,
you and your people are, from our point of view, just as much a part
of our Empire as our own home planets. This does not appeal to you, I
know. But there is no other way."
The computer informed him that the _Sunward_ had brought all of its
gun turrets to bear on him, but Lan Sur ignored the fact as being
irrelevant.
He continued. "No, you do not have a choice about becoming a part of
our system. But you do have a choice about the method by which this
action will be taken." The involuntary sigh that one of the aliens
gave briefly amused him. The alien would find that the sigh of relief
was a short one. "The choice is this--either you will join with us
peacefully, in which case the whole period of transition will take less
than one of your years. Or...." He let the word dangle momentarily
before his booming voice continued. "Or, if you choose to oppose us,
the transition time will take even less than that. We will simply
destroy you and all of your worlds.
"You have no alternatives."
The alien's voice grew louder. "You will want to know what absorption
into our system will mean to you. By now you will surely have realized
how far superior we are to you in every way, and I include specifically
the factor of intelligence in this statement. My analysis of your
potential intellectual and rational powers shows me that you are not
capable of contesting on an equal basis with any of the other races
that comprise our Empire. You are the lowest of the low, and as such,
your race will be put into a slave category. We always have room for
more slaves."
The two aliens in front of him seemed in a state of shock. Lan Sur felt
he might as well finish the thing off and get it over with.
"If you choose to come with us peacefully, what will happen is this:
We will take over all of your worlds at once, evacuating your people
from them in less than a month. Your race will be spread out over our
Empire, sent to the places where they are needed the most.
"Of course you will not be allowed to retain either your own
personalities or your memories. As slaves you would scarcely need them.
So they will be stripped from you en route to your new homes, and
suitable new slave personalities will be implanted in your minds. You
find this thought distasteful I know, but it is the only logical action
we can take. You will be born again, so to speak, knowing our language,
feeling at home in our way of life and not retaining even a shred of
your old patterns of culture. This is the simplest, most efficient
way in which your race can become a part of our much larger scheme of
things.
"If you do _not_ choose to come peacefully ..." again Lan Sur stopped
for dramatic effect, "the warships I have already summoned, coming at
the square of the speed of light, will search out every planet, every
world in this whole sector, and will utterly annihilate every solar
system you have contaminated. We have, in the past, met obstinate races
who tried to resist our rule. The results were rather spectacular from
an astronomical point of view. Perhaps your scientists have wondered
what caused the nova of stars, or even the explosions of whole regions
of space. Now you have the answer. We would hate to destroy your race,
but if you resist us, we have no choice."
A strange, intense smile came over Lan Sur's face. "Our history relates
of one race that tried to avoid its destiny. These peoples scattered to
the four winds in millions of ships in their attempt to hide from us."
Fire lighted the alien's eyes. "It took more than a thousand of your
years to track them all down, and we covered more than half the galaxy
in doing so. It was a glorious thing. Now they are dead. All of them."
Slowly the smile died away. Lan Sur looked back at the two Earthlings
before him. "You will see the necessity for all of this when you have
exhausted your emotional reactions to this information and are capable
of thinking logically again. In the long run it matters little to any
of us which action we are forced to take. But because I realize that
a race as untutored as yours is, cannot be expected to control its
emotions in such a situation, I will not demand an immediate answer
from you. I will give you more than ample time in which to think the
problem through.
"You have exactly twenty-four hours in which to make up your minds."
* * * * *
In his younger days at the Academy, Captain Allen Hawkins had been
a boxer, and a good one. Most of his fights he had won easily and
decisively. The few that he lost had been close matches and split
decisions. Then had come the day when he had persuaded himself to
fight outside his own weight and experience classifications, and he
had matched himself against a classmate much larger than himself.
Hawkins still remembered that fight at times. After the first round he
had been completely dazed, scarcely conscious of his surroundings.
Again and again he found himself lying stretched out on the canvas and
had to force himself back to his feet to re-enter the fray. The fight
terminated rather suddenly in the third round when Hawkins went down to
the canvas for a full count.
All of this had happened years before, but the emotions that gripped
the man now, as he stood facing the incredible alien from the center
of the galaxy--these emotions reminded him of that fight. He felt now
as he had felt when he regained consciousness in the dressing room--a
little out of his senses, the wind still knocked out of him, and
emotionally completely stunned.
The fact that Lan Sur had spoken perfect English had been the first
blow. Every sentence that the alien had spoken was like a sharp jab, a
sudden punch to a vital area. As in his boxing days, after a few brief
moments of listening, Hawkins had stopped thinking with his brain--and
had begun thinking with his stomach. But he was completely open and
unguarded for the Sunday punch.
"You have exactly twenty-four hours in which to make up your minds."
* * * * *
The three men stood facing each other for at least a full minute, none
of them speaking. Broussard recovered his voice before Hawkins could
and said feebly, "You can't mean it."
Lan Sur's face gave no expression of emotion. "I realized that you
would be incapable of comprehending what I have said so soon after I
had said it. This is why I am giving you a length of time in which
to make your decision. But you might as well realize that this high
emotional index rating of your race is one of the main reasons you rate
so low. It is a trait that we will have to breed out of your race."
Hawkins came to life suddenly, reacting violently, his emotional
control shattered. He almost shouted at the alien, "If we're in such
bad shape, why can't you just go off and leave us alone? You've got
all the rest of the universe. Why can't you just leave us alone in our
little corner of it?"
"If you were not so emotionally aroused at the moment, you would
understand why we cannot 'leave you alone,' as you put it," the alien
told him calmly. "It is completely impossible for two differing
cultures to exist in this galaxy, as large as it is. Eventually the
two cultures would have to come into contact, and this would cause
friction. We do not care for friction, and we always seek to avoid it.
By forcing you to join us now--or by destroying you if you refuse--we
make absolutely sure that your race will never be the cause of any
friction to us in the future."
"Friction?" asked Broussard slowly.
"If we allowed you to go your own way, your population would expand
and you would be forced to take over more and more of this area of the
universe. We have our own plans for this part of the galaxy which do
not include fighting constant wars with you for the possession of each
new planetary system that one of us sees fit to colonize." The alien
spoke to them as he might have spoken to children.
Hawkins refused to abandon the train of thought. "But we could promise
to give up all our worlds except our own home planet. You could have
all the rest."
Lan Sur shook his head. "At the present moment, you will promise
anything to rid yourself of the painful necessity of making the
decision that I have demanded of you. You might even be quite willing
to live up to your promise of retiring to your home planet, never to
voyage forth again. But your children and their children would grow
discontent and restless. Eventually, either a hundred or a thousand or
a hundred thousand years from now, you would come forth to challenge
us again." Lan Sur's face grew a trifle grim. "And next time you would
be better equipped and stronger. You would be able to put up a better
fight than you can at the moment." Then he smiled. "Oh, of course, the
Dakn Empire would win eventually. We always do. But we would be back
at exactly the same point that we are at right now. We would be forced
to absorb you into our Empire, or to destroy you utterly. And, in the
meantime, we would, of necessity, be forced to keep a careful watch on
everything you did."
He shook his head. "No, you must realize that we cannot tolerate
anything but absolute surrender. You have my terms. You must make your
decision. There is nothing more to say."
Hawkins felt the numbing hand of deep fear within him. Like a losing
boxer, he fought for any advantage that he might be able to take. "But,
good Lord, man," he said quickly. "You don't understand the situation
at all. Twenty-four hours isn't nearly enough time to make a decision
that will affect our entire population. We can't even inform our home
base of what's going on in that length of time, much less get a message
_back_ from them. And this is the sort of thing that would have to be
submitted to our population as a whole, for them to decide. We're just
a very, very small part of our race. Why, we ... we don't have the
authority to make a decision that would affect the people back home.
You _must_ give us more time."
"Your complete lack of insight amazes me, even though I expected it,"
the alien said. "Surely you must understand that the more time I
give you, the more time you have to prepare your physical defenses.
I am just as aware as you are that, lacking the C^{2} communications
methods, it is impossible for you to contact your home planet in the
time that I have allowed you. But the war ships that I have already
summoned will be here shortly, and even before they arrive, there is
much that I must do to ready you and your people for the change if
you decide to come with us. If you do not decide to come with us,
then I must begin the search for your home planet, so that it may be
destroyed. In either event, the sooner your choice is made, the better
it is for me. Already I have allowed you more time than is actually
necessary for you to overcome your emotion and to think the problem
through logically."
"But I simply haven't got the _authority_ to make such a choice!"
Hawkins found himself shouting. "Can't you understand that?"
Lan Sur paused a moment to let the other man regain some of his
composure. Then he said simply but firmly, "I am in control here now.
I have the authority, and I delegate it to you. _You_ must decide for
everyone."
Broussard's reactions were perhaps a little less emotionally tinged
than might have been thought from his facial reactions. He had held
back what he felt to be a highly pertinent question until he felt that
the alien was preparing to conclude the interview. He asked it now.
"You seem to know a great many things about us, Lan Sur. And we seem to
know very little about you. In a sense, this is strong evidence of your
race's superiority. And yet you cannot really expect us to capitulate
our entire culture to yours without giving us very conclusive proof
that you are able to carry out your threats. After all, we are a large
ship full of fighting men, and you seem to be one man all by yourself.
What is to keep us from...." Deliberately the psychologist let the
question hang uncompleted.
Lan Sur smiled. "At least you respond in a semi-logical fashion. The
point is well taken, and if you had not brought it up now, I would
have had to do so myself at a later time. I am therefore prepared to
demonstrate to you the strength of our technology. You two will return
to your ship, and I will remain here. You will then, for the next two
hours, have the opportunity to attack me by any means you see fit. I
will simply defend myself, without endangering you or your ship in any
fashion. When you have discovered that even as undefended as I appear
to be at the moment, all of your weapons are powerless to harm me,
perhaps you will understand that I can carry out my threats if I so
choose to."
The alien gestured with his hand. "And now, you must return to your
ship. During the two hours at which I place myself at your mercy, you
may naturally maneuver your vessel as you desire. But at the end of the
two hours, you must have returned to your landing place here--or to
whatever other spot on this planet that I may choose to indicate to you
by radio. Any attempt on your part to escape either now, or during the
period following, or any attack you attempt on me except during these
first two hours, or any effort to summon additional help, will mean the
instant destruction of your ship--and of your race. I hope that you
will both understand what I have said and will believe that I have the
power to achieve my ends."