_Balance is a fundamental law of
order. How, then, can integrity
cancel such a principle even though
the future of Mankind demands it?_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"I don't like it at all," the tall thin man said. His name was Tharn,
and he was known throughout the sprawling colony for the high-strung
nervousness that was understandable enough in a youth of fifty, but
hardly normal for a man of his years. You had to be careful how you
talked to Tharn, even if you were Angelo, Dean of Masters, himself. "I
don't like it," Tharn reiterated, with another dramatic sweep of his
long bony arm, "one bit, Angelo. Look at them, circling up there."
The thin, lined face turned squarely to Angelo's own, and the large,
almost protruding black eyes snapped with all the vibrant fire of the
fine artistic mind that boiled constantly behind them.
Angelo turned his own eyes upward, momentarily following Tharn's
still-upthrust arm. Although he did not need to look again. It was
as the Second-Eldest of the colony said, of course. The slender,
stylus-shaped object that reflected the golden midday sunlight in
splintering shards against the almost cloudless cobalt of the sky still
circled.
It would land at the edge of the great colony. Angelo knew this, Tharn
knew it, the colony knew it.
Angelo turned his old eyes back upon Tharn, and the ghost of a smile
plucked at his white-bearded lips. Tharn colored, suddenly aware of the
incongruous picture he presented. Poised with all the drama of a Mark
Antony pleading to the populace to sorrow for a Caesar, while rather
mundanely bedecked in his paint-spattered working-smock! The high color
in his seamed face remained, but he pursued his point as though Angelo
had never smiled at all. "They won't be satisfied--"
Angelo got up from the canvas stool before his easel, and the motion
itself was enough to halt Tharn in mid-sentence. There was going to be
some sort of action, anyway.
"Now look," Angelo said slowly. His voice carried the measured
deliberation that its rich, deep timbre complemented so harmoniously.
"First of all, Tharn, if we begin showing signs of undue alarm, you
know what it will do to our younger men and women. They'll be upset for
weeks, and we'll have another one of those terrible Realist periods."
Angelo grimaced with his incredibly bushy eyebrows. "Besides that, if
you'd take a really careful look at that ship, you'd see in a moment
that it's certainly of a type none of us have ever seen. We certainly
cannot prevent its landing. We certainly do not have the means to
present a hostile front when it does. Therefore, we shall go to the
Dell and greet it. I would estimate--" Angelo turned his massive,
white head slowly for another glance above the low, alabaster walls of
the mosaic-tiled court-yard, "that they will effect a landing within
another ten minutes or so. If you'll send an apprentice to go fetch
Maler, the Philosopher, and Ghezi, the Semanticist, and--and I think
Ojar, the Orator, with word to meet us by the Lesser Amphitheater
there, we can be on our way directly. Oh--and Tharn--"
Tharn followed the First-Elder's glance to his paint-smeared smock,
colored once more, and immediately erupted into a volcano of action,
as though rounding up a young jack-a-napes apprentice and locating and
donning a suitable street toga were things that could be simultaneously
accomplished.
He exited, mumbling heatedly between cries of "Boy! _Boy!_" and Angelo
smiled again, and prepared his own person for the meeting. He mused
that Maler, the Philosopher, commented often in his evening wine that
to run was never to escape, only to change the pattern of pursuit,
and of course you couldn't argue much with Maler. Not and win,--but
then, nobody on Ste. Catherine very often argued to win. Where was the
pleasure in that?
* * * * *
There was a great, scorched spot in the soft greenness of the
gently-rolling earth, and it widened like an undammed, muddy pool as
the thundering, cylinder of steel lowered itself on a pillar of flame.
They kept a respectable distance; Angelo, Tharn, Maler, Ghezi, Ojar,
and the several hundred curious and apprehensive of the colony who had
followed. Angelo had decided the closest possible spot for waiting,
stopped there, and then made no move save to shield his eyes from the
terrible glare of the ship's landing-jets as it made its cautious
descent. As he had predicted, the chosen landing-spot was at the
extreme northern edge of the Dell, near the Lesser Amphitheater. And
they had all just arrived in time.
The ship settled; its thunder ceased.
Masters, Students, and apprentices alike unshielded their eyes, and
then all were turned in unbroken silence toward Angelo himself. He was
Dean. He could deal with this.
Angelo hesitated for perhaps a full minute. In that time he ordered
the scene in his mind; the ship from Space, thrust upward toward
the heavens like some weapon of challenge, surrounded by the gentle
undulations of the low Renoir range to the far west; the rugged,
ice-capped Alps of Cezanne to the south and further distant still; the
low, wind-tossed and wild Van Gogh Plain that stretched endlessly to
the east, and finally to the north, the fertile richness of the Valleys
of Rembrandt which reached as far as the eye could see.
All this, and the warmth of the clear atmosphere that embraced it all
was seen and felt in that minute--by Angelo, and by the rest, as he
intended they should. _This_, the minute seemed to say, _is yours. Do
not betray it._
And then he was walking with the dignified deliberation of his office
toward the ship, the pure white of his full toga billowing gently in
the soft breezes of the Dell.
There was a clanging sound. A round section of the ship, near the
wide fins of its stern, swung open; men came through it, started down
a series of metal rungs to the ground. As he walked, Angelo counted
them--one; two; three. Three men.
Three men from Earth, of course.
And he knew what they wanted.
They met halfway; three men from Earth in their blue-and-silver
uniforms, their heads close-shaven, their boots polished as though
fashioned of metal ... and Angelo, inches shorter than they, far
greater in girth than they, with his feet in hide sandals, and his long
white hair falling free to merge with the rolling folds of his single
garment.
The man in the middle of the uniformed trio spoke; the obvious leader.
"This is the--the Colony of Artists, Planet of Ste. Catherine?" The
heavy sound of his voice seemed to balk at the words ever so slightly.
"You are their leader?"
"I am Angelo, Dean of Masters here," Angelo replied. "I do not lead,
but guide, instead. I am at your service, gentlemen of Earth."
"You seem certain of where we are from."
"But of course--do I not immediately recognize and speak your tongue?"
"You would, of course," the leader said, and Angelo did not miss the
hint of grudging acknowledgement in his voice as he said it. In face
he was little different than the other two, although perhaps a year or
two older. But for all practical purposes they were the same--the high
foreheads, the too-closely-spaced blue eyes, the sharp, disciplined
features, the lack of any genuine character at all. They were as much
of the same bolt of cloth as the uniforms they wore.
"Of course," Angelo smiled. "Our memories here on Ste. Catherine are
fortunately long, and our libraries are well-filled--and well-used! And
of course we have been expecting you."
"_Expecting_ us?"
"Naturally," and again Angelo smiled. "It is a philosophical truth
after all--Man is a social creature by nature, and as such, must
continually seek the company of his own kind. And of course," and there
was the hint of a repressed glitter in the old man's eyes, "the people
of Earth have always known, and have--have never forgotten where we of
Ste. Catherine were to be found."
The leader reddened and seemed on the point of explosive speech, and
the muscles of his jaw hardened as he controlled his impulse. Angelo
waited.
"You are of course--correct," he said after a moment's pause. "And it
will perhaps be best for all that we understand each other clearly from
the beginning. We come to you in some embarrassment, we come to you
asking a favor." The last word the leader uttered with a distaste that
the best of his self-discipline could not control, and Angelo chuckled
inwardly. A favor, was it? Embarrassed, were they? He could quite
imagine!
"Perhaps," Angelo said, "it would be more comfortable to discuss your
mission in my studio. Will you gentlemen follow me, please?"
He turned and began walking back to where the others waited, and
the three men from Earth followed him. At first they balked for the
briefest moment, but they followed him.
* * * * *
The studio of Angelo, Dean of Masters, was open to the sky like his
court-yard, for this was the fair season on Ste. Catherine in this
latitude, and not yet time to draw the transparent tarpaulin skylight
across the tops of the studio walls. Angelo had seated himself near
the center of the superbly-muraled room, on one of the low, colorful
cushions so widely preferred in the colony to the more formal furniture
that was still to be found, to some extent, in the shops and homes of
the artisans. Artists in their own way, of course--and some practical
work had to be put up with to satisfy the more mundane requirements of
existence. As long as they took true pride in the beauty of their work,
the artisans would always be very welcome members of the colony--as
well, to be sure, as necessary.
And seated in a semi-circle behind Angelo were the other Elders,
and two or three advanced Students to cater to whatever needs might
arise during the conference. There would be no apprentices here!
Before Angelo, taking to their cushions rather awkwardly (his beard,
fortunately, was of sufficient luxuriance to cloak the tiny smile of
satisfaction at his lips!) were the three Earthmen; their leader, of
course, in the center and facing Angelo directly.
"We may begin at any time," Angelo said in his most courtly fashion.
Those behind him nodded--Tharn for once a little absently, because he
had become involved in a rather difficult line-sketch on the tablet
supplied him for note-taking. He didn't approve of these strangers, but
there were more important things than interstellar visitors, especially
since they were only Earthmen, and Angelo was insisting on taking full
charge. He, Tharn, was through arguing. Walking multiplication-tables!
Pah! Angelo could have them, then!
"It is possible you are not aware, here on Ste. Catherine," the leader
began with the slightest tinge of sarcasm, "that on Earth there is, at
present, a rather regrettable difference of thinking on policy."
"Another political slaughter, that is," Angelo countered not too
lightly for the obvious allusion to Ste. Catherine's complete lack of
any kind of electrical or electronic communications. "A major war, in
other words."
The leader flushed slightly. "Well, yes. As a matter of fact, it has
gotten somewhat out of control." His teeth were almost clenched as he
made the admission, and Angelo easily sensed the pain in the man at
having to make it to the Artists of Ste. Catherine, of all people in
the universe. "Out of control," the leader was continuing, "to the
point where, in fact, and according to the unimpeachable findings
of our actuarial computers, human life on Earth is threatened with
complete extinction." The leader hesitated, interpreted the looks in
the eyes of the men whom he faced, and found himself not quite able to
meet them with his own. But he continued; best to get it said once and
for all.
"We are now, of course, well aware that predictions which were once
thought the mere rantings of alarmists--religious and philosophical
cranks--were tragically accurate. Both sides are perfectly matched
from the technological aspect, of course. The so-called 'secrets' of
science cannot be kept 'secret' at all, at least not by men. They exist
everywhere in the universe, for any man to seek and to exploit as he
sees fit." He paused, at last found the temerity to meet the gazes of
the others.
"Go on," Angelo said.
"Both sides have come to absolute stalemate. But not, regrettably, the
kind of stalemate that means cessation of activity. In a conflict to
the death, stalemate simply means battle without victory; battle until
neither side has a living man left to fight.
"So, in short, we are desperate. There _must_ be a victor, or Earth is
lost entirely. One more mass strato-attack with L-bombs and.... Well,
at any rate--there must, as you can readily understand, be a victor,
and soon. Obviously, the Others must be defeated."
_Yes of course_, thought Maler, the Philosopher. _It is the_ Others,
_always, who must be defeated_....
"And so we have," the leader was saying, "come to you for help."
He stopped speaking then, for a moment, waiting for Angelo's
reply. Waiting simply for him to ask "what kind of help could we
Artists possibly give _you_...."--waiting for, and prepared to take
unflinchingly, the searing taunt that could not help but be in the
question ... "--you who can fly ships through Space, who have at your
computer-tips the hard-won miracles of science and engineering?" But
wordlessly, the leader waited.
And in the brief moment before he spoke, the history of it all flashed
through Angelo's mind; the history that began with the Revolt. Three
centuries ago, with the Ancestors of them all on Ste. Catherine. The
artists, the philosophers, the writers, the orators, the dramatists,
the poets--all of them, who had, when at last they could no longer
stomach their civilization's arrested adolescence and its refusal to
be weaned from its electronic and atomic toys, remembered the first
Fundamental Law of Order in art, and put it to devastating use. Unity.
In Unity, they rebelled.
They warned, first, in fairness. They took pains to point out
carefully that it is a healthy sign for the developing child to become
intrigued with movement, sound, and color--that it was normal for a
child to spend hours observing, examining, operating, even building a
new mechanical toy. But when his new books gathered dust and fell into
disuse--when he could quote all of Faraday and none of Swinburne--when
this happened, his development as a human being of full depth and
breadth was at an end.