"I'm afraid Earth will remember more than it wants to," growled Ernstli
Baron ven Klaeden, as he issued the command to blast into an
atmospheric-braking orbit.
And there was thunder in a cloudless sky.
"_O your steed was auld and ye hae mair,
Edward, Edward.
O your steed was auld and ye hae mair,
And some other dule ye dree, O."
"O I hae kill'd my ain father dear,
Mither, mither;
O I hae kill'd my ain father dear,
Alas and woe is me, O._"
--ANONYMOUS
* * * * *
In accordance with the rules of invasion strategy for semi-civilized
planets, the fleet separated itself into three groups. The first group
fell into atmospheric braking; the second group split apart and
established an "orbital shell" of criscrossing orbits, timed and
interlocking, at eight hundred miles, to guard the descent of the first
wave of ships, while the third wave remained in battle formation at
three thousand miles as a rear guard against possible space attack. When
the first wave had finished braking, it fell into formation again and
flew as aircraft in the high stratosphere, while the second wave braked
itself, and the third wave dropped into the orbital shell.
From the first wave, a single ship went down to land, and its
telecameras broadcast a view of a forest garden, slightly charred for a
hundred yards around the ship, with fires blazing along its edges.
"No signs of the natives yet," came the report. "No signs of technology.
No evidence of hostility."
A second ship descended to land a mile from the first. Its telecamera
caught a fleeting glimpse of a man waving from a hilltop, but nothing
more.
One at a time the ships came, with weapon locks open and bristling with
steel snouts. The ships came down at one-mile intervals, the first wave
forming a circle that enclosed an area of forty-six hundred square
miles. The second wave came down to land in a central circle of fifteen
miles diameter. The third wave remained in its orbital shell, where it
would stand guard as long as the fleet was on the ground.
In accordance with the rules of officer's conduct, Baron ven Klaeden,
who had ordered the landing, was the first to expose himself to the
enveloping conditions outside the flagship. He stood in an open lock,
sniffing the autumn air of Earth in late afternoon. It was full of
jet-fire smoke, and smelled of burning brush. The automatic
extinguishers had quenched the flames, but the blackened trees and brush
still roasted and sparked and leaked smoke across the land. Somewhere a
bird was singing through the sunlit haze. Baron ven Klaeden recognized
the sound as made by a living thing, and wondered if the recognition was
born into his bones.
Three hundred and fifty yards to the north, a wingship towered in the
sun, its guns trained outward from the inner circle, and to the south,
another wingship. The baron glanced down at the earth beneath the
flagship. The jets had reduced to ashes something that might have been a
low wooden structure. He shrugged, and glanced across the blackened area
toward the orderly forest. Trees and shrubs, and a carpet of green turf
below, broken here and there by rain-worn rocks and clusters of smaller
fragile leafy stuff that might be food-plants. Vivid splashes of color
blossomed in the shady forest, scarlets and blues and flashes of
brilliant lemon that lived in profusion in the foliage of the shrubbery.
Some of the trees were living masses of tiny flowers, and when the wind
stirred them, petals showered to the ground in fragrant gusts. The wind
changed, and the air that breathed about the commander's face was full
of perfume.
I feel nothing, he thought. Here is beauty and warmth, here is the home
of Man, and almost an Eden, but I feel nothing. It is just another mote
that circles a minor sun, and to me it is only an exploitable supply
dump of Nature, a place to accomplish Procedure 76-A, "Refueling Method
for Terrestroid Planets Without Facilities, Native Labor Exploitable."
It was only a way-station on the long long road from Scorpius to Ursa,
and it meant nothing, nothing at all. It had changed too much. Millenia
ago, when the Star Exodus had burst forth to carry Man halfway across
the galaxy, things had been different. A few colonies had kept accurate
histories of Earth intact, and when the Transpace Empire had gathered
itself into social integration, nearly five thousand years ago, the
histories had been made universally available. The baron had studied
them, but from the viewpoint of the spacer, the history of Humanity had
ceased in any way to be associated with Earth after the Star Exodus. Man
was a space creature, a denizen of the interstellum--or had been, before
the War of Secession--and when history moved into space, Earth was a
half-remembered hamlet. Ven Klaeden had seen the Earth-vistas that the
historians had reconstructed for the museums--vistas of roaring
industrial cities, flaming battlegrounds, teeming harbors and
spaceports. The cities were gone, and Earth had become a carefully
tended Japanese garden.
* * * * *
As he stared around, he felt a lessening of the anxiety that had gnawed
at him since the analyst Meikl had predicted dire consequences after the
landing. The cultural blood of Man had diverged into two streams so
vastly different that no intermingling seemed possible to him. It would
be easy, he decided, to keep the informational quarantine. The order had
already been issued. "All personnel are forbidden to attempt the
learning of the current Earth-tongue, or to teach any Empire-culture
language to the natives, or to attempt any written communication with
them. Staff-officers may communicate only under the provisions of
Memorandum J-43-C. The possession of any written or recorded material in
the native tongue, and the giving of written material to the natives,
shall be taken as violations of this order. No sign language or other
form of symbolic communication shall be used. This order shall be in
force until Semantics section constructs a visual code for limited
purposes in dealing with the natives. Staff officers are hereby
authorized to impose any penalty ranging to death upon offenders, and to
try any such cases by summary courts martial. Junior officers authorized
to summarily arrest offenders. Effective immediately. Ven Klaeden,
Comm."
It would keep any interchange to an absolute minimum, he thought. And
Semantics had been ordered to attempt construction of a visual language
in which only the most vital and simple things could be said. Meanwhile,
the staff could attempt to utilize the ancient Anglo-Germanic tongue in
which the messages had been exchanged.
The baron had started to turn back into the lock when his eye caught a
flash of motion near the edge of the forest. Reflexively, he whirled and
crouched, gun flickering into his hand. His eyes probed the shrubs. Then
he saw her, half hidden behind a tree trunk--a young girl, obviously
frightened, yet curious to watch the ships. While he stared at her, she
darted from one trunk to the next closer one. She was already
approaching the edge of the blackened area. The baron shot a quick
glance at the radiation indicators on the inner wall of the airlock. The
instantaneous meter registered in the red. The induced radioactivity in
the ground about the base of the ship's jets was still too high. The
rate-of-decrease meter registered a decrement of point ten units per
unit. That meant it wouldn't be safe for the crew to leave ship for
twenty-three minutes, and that the girl had better stay back.
"_Keep clear!_" he bellowed from the airlock, hoping to frighten her.
She saw him for the first time, then. Instead of being frightened, she
seemed suddenly relieved. She came out into the open and began walking
toward the ship, wearing a smile and gazing up at the lock.
"_Go back, you little idiot!_"
Her answer was a brief sing-song chant and another smile. She kept
coming--into the charred area.
The gun exploded in his fist, and the bullet ricocheted from the ground
near her feet. She stopped, startled, but not sensing hostility. The gun
barked again. The bullet shattered a pebble, and it peppered her legs.
She yelped and fled back into the green garden.
He stood there staring after her for a moment, his face working slowly.
She had been unable to understand his anger. She saw the ships, and was
frightened but curious. She saw a human, and was reassured. Any human.
But was what she saw really human any longer, the baron asked himself
absently. He grunted scornfully, and went back through the lock.
It was easier, even on the ground, to communicate with the elders of the
Geoark by radio, since both parties had set up automatic translators to
translate their own tongues into the old Anglo-German which was a
mutually recorded dead language.
"We have neutralized a circle of land of thirty-one mile radius," ven
Klaeden reported to the elders. "If our selection of this region is
unfortunate, we are open to discussion of alternatives. However, our
measurements indicated that the resources of this area make it best for
_our_ purposes."
"Your landing caused only minor damage, brethren," replied the gentle
voice of the Geoark. "You are welcome to remain as you are."
"Thank you. We consider the occupied area to be under our military
jurisdiction, and subject to property seizures. It will be a restricted
area, closed to civilian population."
"But brethren, thousands of people live in the gardens you have
surrounded!"
"Evacuate them."
"I don't understand."
"_Evacuate_ them. Make them get out."
"My translator is working badly."
The baron turned away from the mike for a moment and grunted to the
colonel in command of ground operations. "Start clearing the occupied
zone. Get the population out unless they'll work for us."
"How much notice?"
The baron paused briefly. "Fifty hours to pack up, plus one additional
hour for each mile the fellow has to stump it to the outer radius."
"My translator is working badly," the voice of the elder was parroting.
"Look," the baron grunted at the mike. "All we want is to accomplish
what we came here for, and then get out--as quickly as possible. We
don't have much time to be polite. I invite the elders of the Geoark to
confer in my flagship. We'll try to make everything clear to you. Is
this agreed?"
"My translator is working badly."
"Aren't you getting anything?"
A pause, then: "I understand that you wish us to come to the place where
the sky-fleet rests."
"Correct."
"But what of the welcome we have made for our brethren in the
feast-glades?"
"I shall dispatch flyers to pick you up immediately. Unless you have
aircraft of your own."
"We have no machinery but the self-sustaining mechanisms in the Earth."
"Any of your population understand the mechanisms?"
"Certainly, brother."
"Then bring technicians. They'll be best able to understand what we
want, and maybe they can make it clear to you."
"As you wish, brother."
The baron terminated the contact and turned to his staff with a
satisfied smile. "I think we shall have what we need and be gone
quickly," he said.
"The elder took it well. They must be afraid of us."
"Respectful awe is more like it," the baron grunted.
"I suggest the answer is in the word 'brethren,'" came a voice from the
back of the room.
"Meikl! What are you doing in here?" ven Klaeden barked irritably.
"You called my department for a man. My department sent me. Shall I go
back?"
"It's up to you, Analyst. If you can keep your ideals corked and be
useful."