"But why must you go back? Your world is powerful; your world is enormous
with cities and machines. But what does it hold for you as a man, Martin
Lord? Here we give you the dreams of your own soul, peace and beauty,
laughter and dignity."
"Surrender, Don!" Although he was vaguely aware of it, he had no time to
consider consciously the strangely sophisticated wording of her argument.
When she continued to talk in the same gentle voice, the temptation
caressed his mind like a narcotic; against his will, the tension began to
wash from his muscles. Driven by a kind of madness to escape the sound of
her voice, he pulled the trigger. The yellow wall exploded. Concussion
throbbed in his ears, deafening him--but he still heard her whisper in
the depths of his soul, like the music of a forest stream.
* * * * *
Then, at the end of the village street, he saw Don Howard coming out of
one of the houses with his hands held high.
"You win, Lord; leave them alone."
It was victory, but Lord felt no triumph--only a crushing bitterness. He
motioned Howard to take the path back to the ship. To Niaga he said,
"If your council of elders ever gets around to meeting, you might tell
them that, as far as I'm concerned, you've already signed the trade
treaty with me. We're leaving in the morning to register the franchise."
"You'd break your own law? You said the negotiations had to be--"
"Our men will come shortly to build the first trade city. I advise you not
to resist them; they'll be armed with guns more powerful than mine."
She reached for his hand, but Lord turned away from her quickly so that
she could not again open the raw wound of shame in his soul. He followed
Don Howard into the forest.
"You won't get away with it, Lord," Howard said grimly. "No trade agent
can impose a treaty--"
"Would a trusteeship be any better?"
"Lord, no!"
"There are only two alternatives, and a Hamilton Lord trade city is by
far the better."
"Yes--for Hamilton Lord."
"No, for these people. Don't forget, I'll be running Hamilton Lord.
The exclusive franchise will keep out the other traders, and I can see
to it that our trade city does no harm. We've a thousand planets in the
Federation; who's going to know if one of the cities doesn't really
function?"
"I get it. But why the hell did you have to bring me back?"
"To make a deal with--with your wife."
After a long pause, Don Howard said wearily, "If Hamilton Lord can
sacrifice the richest franchise in the galaxy, I suppose I can do my bit,
too."
At dawn the _Ceres_ departed. Lord drove his men to work throughout the
night stowing the prefabs and the trade goods aboard the ship. Just before
the power tubes stabbed the launching fire into the earth, a delegation of
villagers came into the clearing. Niaga led them and she spoke to Lord at
the foot of the landing ladder.
"We still want you to stay among us, Martin Lord; we have come again to
offer--"
"It is impossible!"
She put her arms around his neck and drew his lips against hers. The
temptation washed over his mind, shattering his resolution and warping
his reason. This was what he wanted: the golden dream of every man. But
for Lord only one idea held fast. Niaga's primitive, naive world had to be
preserved exactly as it was. If he gave in to the dream, he would destroy
it. Only in the central office of Hamilton Lord could he do anything to
save what he had found here. He wrenched himself free of her arms.
"It's no use, Niaga."
She knew that she had lost, and she moved away from him. One of the other
golden-skinned savages pushed a small, carved box into his hands.
"A parting gift," Niaga said. "Open it when you are aboard your ship,
Martin Lord."
Long after the _Ceres_ had blasted off, he sat alone in his cabin looking
at the box--small, delicately carved from a strange material, like a soft
plastic. It seemed somehow alive, throbbing with the memory of the dream
he had left behind.
With a sigh he opened the box. A billow of white dust came from it. The
box fell apart and the pieces, like disintegrating gelatine, began to melt
away. A printed card, made of the same unstable material, lay in Lord's
hand.
"You have three minutes, Martin Lord," he read. "The drug is painless, but
before it wipes memory from the minds of you and your crew, I want you to
understand why we felt it necessary to do this to you.
"When you first landed, we realized that you came from a relatively
immature culture because you made no response to our telepathy of welcome.
We did our best after that to simplify your adjustment to our way of life,
because we knew you would have to stay among us. Of course, we never really
learned your language; we simply gave you the illusion that we had. Nor
is there any such thing as a council of elders; we had to invent that to
satisfy you. We truly wanted you to stay among us. In time you could have
grown up enough--most of you--to live with us as equals. We knew it would
be disastrous for you to carry back to your world your idea of how we live.
We are the tomorrow of your people; you must grow up to us. There is no
other way to maturity. We could not, of course, keep you here against your
will. Nor could we let you go back, like a poison, into your world. We
could do nothing else but use this drug. The impact of civilization upon
a primitive people like yours...."
The words hazed and faded as the note disintegrated. Lord felt a moment of
desperate yearning, a terrible weight of grief. With an effort he pushed
himself from his chair and pulled open the door into the corridor. He had
to order the ship back while he could still remember; he had to find Niaga
and tell her ...
... tell her. Tell whom? Tell what? Lord stood in the corridor staring
blankly at the metal wall. He was just a little puzzled as to why he was
there, what he had meant to do. He saw Ann Howard coming toward him.
"Did you notice the lurch in the ship, Mr. Lord?" she asked.
"Yes, I suppose I did." Was that why he had left his cabin?
"I thought we were having trouble with the time-power calibration, but I
checked with Don and he says everything's all right." She glanced through
the open door of his cabin at the electronic pattern on the scanning
screen. "Well, we'll be home in another twenty hours, Mr. Lord. It's a pity
we didn't contact any new planets on this mission. It would have been a
good experience for you."
"Yes, I rather hoped so, too."
He went back to his desk. Strange, he couldn't remember what it was he had
wanted to do. He shrugged his shoulders and laughed a little to himself. It
definitely wouldn't do--not at all--for a Lord to have lapses of memory.