The Canopy Of Time Part 8

"The etiquette of this incredible galactic squabble, Ishrail claims, renders an admiral or similar large fry liable to exile for life if he is captured by the enemy. As we might expect in this case, the exiling itself is a com-plicated business, a mixture of leniency and harshness. The exile concerned-by which we mean Ishrail-has his name struck off the rolls of civilization and is left on a planet absolutely bare-headed and bare-backed. Before he is landed, he is taught by hypnotic means to be fluent in the language of the planet or country to which he is banished. Which neatly absolves Ishrail from the diffi-culty of having to pretend to speak a strange tongue."

"You make him sound such a liar!" Davi said bitterly.

"No," Shansfor contradicted. "That is a basic mis-conception. We are convinced he genuinely believes all he says. But remember-and this is another loop-hole for him-he cannot speak the Galactic tongue because that was erased when his enemies forced our language down his throat.

"d.a.m.ning though that is, it is the lesser half of the exile edict. It was stipulated, according to Ishrail, that exiles should only be landed on planets outside the galactic federation, planets too primitive to have developed more than the rudiments of what he calls 'mechanical' s.p.a.ce travel; there they have to survive among hostile natives as best they can. In other words, Bergharra and Earth are Ishrail's galactic idea of h.e.l.l."

"Just why do you find that so d.a.m.ning?" Davi asked.

"Why? Because it is all too plainly the fabrication of a guilty mind trying to punish itself by inflicting eternal suffering on itself. It is a punishment pattern we meet with here time after time."

Before Davi could recover himself sufficiently to answer that, Uatt got to his feet, smoothed an imaginary hair over his bald head and spoke.

"So there you have the Ishrail case, Dael," he said. "He is a sick creature, haunted by the spectre of perse-cution. I trust you appreciate, though I fear you don't, the great pains we have been to in this matter, and the neat way in which we have tied up all the loose ends."

"Plausible though Ishrail is," Shansfor said, also stand-ing and b.u.t.toning his cloth to conclude the meeting, "he is clearly revealed as hopelessly, even dangerously, un-balanced. Quite candidly, there's hardly a disorder in the book that isn't present in greater or lesser degree. And we've not unravelled them all yet. This sort of thing takes time and patience."

"Give the police a little longer to trace him," the Arch-Brother said with relish, "and we shall probably find he's a common murderer with amnesia actuated by guilt."

Oh, Ishrail! You a common murderer! The hostile natives have indeed got you in their beastly, filthy nets!

You should have come fifty million years ago-the Neanderthals would have shown more understanding, more mercy!

Davi screwed his eyes up and raised his fists slowly before his face. Blood swam and roared in his veins like a waterfall. For a moment, he thought of throwing himself at Inald Uatt. Then hopelessness dropped neatly over him. He lowered his hands.

"I must see Ishrail," he said dully.

"That will not be possible," Uatt said. "We have had to remove him to a quieter place; he threatened to get violent."

"Do you wonder?" Davi said. With stiff, formal fingers he b.u.t.toned his tunic.

The Arch-Brother and Shansfor remained side by side by the fire, waiting politely for him to leave. Davi stood defeated before them, the only man to believe in Ishrail, rocking unintelligently from one foot to another, his jaw slack. At last he sighed, turning to leave without a word of thanks. He caught sight of the tired b.u.t.tercup pinned to his chest; how it must have amused these people! Yet Davi felt obscurely that it was his slender link with sanity and the galaxy.

Suddenly he saw the planned cruelty of Ishrail's exile, the bitterness of being among a people without under-standing.

"I'm going to call the New Union newsjells to see if they will help me!" he said resolutely.

"An excellent idea! Emotionalism and sensationalism are just their meat," the Arch-Brother replied, but Davi had gone.

Finding his way blindly down a gang plank, he headed for the city. A cold wind met him, and he recalled that he had left his fur cloak somewhere in the s.h.i.+p. Now it was too late to return for it. Overhead, through thinning cloud, galactic stars shone with terrible urgency.

Ishrail was eventually found to be sane and his story to be true. So Earthmen entered the galaxy they would at last inherit. They found in operation that extraordinary social code called the Self-Perpetuating War, the stability and stimulation of which produced the fruits of peace. And one of the strangest fruits was a mighty para-language, Galingua.

Incentive.

The ocean seemed to be breathing shallowly, like a child asleep, when the first lemmings reached it. In all the wide sea, no hint of menace existed. Yet the first lemmings paused daintily on the very verge of the water, peering out to sea and looking about as though in indecision. Unavoidably, the pressure of the marching column behind pushed them into the tiny wavelets. When their paws became wet, it was as if they resigned themselves to what was to come. Swimming strongly, the leaders of the column set off from the sh.o.r.e. All the other lemmings followed, only their heads showing above water. A human observer would have said they swam bravely; and unavoidably he would have asked himself: to what goal did the lemmings imagine they were head-ing? For what grand illusion were they prepared to throw away their lives?

All down the waterway, craft moved. Farro Westerby stood at the forward port of his aquataxi, staring ahead and ignoring the water traffic moving by him. His two fellow Isolationists stood slightly apart, not speaking. Farro's eye was on the rising structure on the left bank ahead. When the aquataxi moored as near to this struc-ture as possible, Farro stepped ash.o.r.e; glancing back impatiently, he waited for one of his companions to pay the fare.

"Wonderful, isn't it?" the taxi man said, nodding to-wards the strange building as he cast off. "I can't ever see us putting up anything like it"

"No," Farro said flatly, walking away ahead of his friends, They had disembarked in that sector of the capital called Horby Clive Island. Located in the governmental centre of New Union, most of it had been ceded to the Galactics a year ago. In that brief time, using Earth labour for the rough work, they had transformed the place. Six of their large, irregular buildings were already completed. The seventh was now going up, creating a new wonder for the world, "We will wait here for you, Farro," one of the two men said, extending his hand formally. "Good fortune with the Galactic Minister, As the only Isolationist with an extensive knowledge of the Galactic tongue, Galingua, you represent, as you know, our best chance of putting our case for Earth's remaining outside the Multi-Planet Federation."

As Farro thanked him and accepted the proffered hand, the other man, a stooping septuagenarian with a pale voice, gripped Farro's arm.

"And the case is clear enough," he said. "These aliens pretend they offer us Federation out of altruism.

Most people swallow that, because they believe Earth ingenuity must be a valuable a.s.set anywhere in the galaxy. So it may be, but we Isolationists claim there must be some ulterior motive for a superior race's wanting to welcome in a junior one as they appear to welcome us. If you can get a hint from this Minister Jandanagger as to what that motive is, you'll have done more than well."

"Thank you; I think I have the situation pretty clear," Farro said sharply, regretting his tone of voice at once. But the other two were wise enough to make allowance for nervousness in times of stress. When he left them to make his way towards the Galactic buildings, their faces held only sincere smiles of farewell.

As Farro pushed through the crowds of sightseers who stood here all day watching the new building develop, he listened with interest and some contempt for their com-ments. Many of them were discussing the current announcement on Federation.

"I think their goodness of heart is proved by the way they've let us join. It's nothing but a friendly gesture."

"It shows what respect they must have for Earth."

"You can't help seeing the future's going to be won-derful, now we can export goods all over the galaxy. I tell you, we're in for a boom all round."

"Which goes to prove that however advanced the race, they can't do without the good old Earth know-how. Give the Galactics the credit for spotting that!"

The seventh building round which so many idle spec-tators cl.u.s.tered was nearing completion. It grew organically like some vast succulent plant, springing from a flat metal matrix, thrusting along curved girders, encompa.s.sing them. Its colour was a natural russet which seemed to take its tones from the sky overhead.

Grouped round the base of this extraordinary struc-ture were distilleries, sprays, excavators, and other machines, the function of which was unknown to Farro. They provided the raw material from which the building drew its bulk.

To one side of these seven well-designed eccentricities lay the s.p.a.ce field. There, too, was another minor mystery. Earth governments had ceded-willingly when they sniffed the prizes to be won from Federation!-five such centres as the Horby Clive centre in various parts of the globe. Each centre was being equipped as a s.p.a.ce port and education unit, in which terrestrials would learn to understand the antiphonal complexities of Galingua and to behave as citizens of a well-populated galaxy.

Even granting vast alien resources, it was a formid-able project. According to latest estimates, at least eight thousand Galactics were at present working on Earth. Yet on the s.p.a.ce field sat only one craft, an unlikely-looking polyhedron with Arcturan symbols on its hull.

The Galactics, in short, seemed to have remarkably few s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+ps.

That was a point he would Eke to investigate, Farro thought, speculatively eyeing the inert beacons round the perimeter of the field.

He skirted them, avoiding the crowds as far as pos-sible, and arrived at the entrance of one of the other six Galactic buildings, quite as eccentric in shape as its unfinished brother. As he walked in, an Earthman in a dark grey livery came deferentially forward.

"I have an appointment with Galactic Minister Jandanagger Laterobinson," Farro announced, p.r.o.nouncing the strange name awkwardly. "I am Farro Westerby, Special Deputy of the Isolationist League."

Directly he heard the phrase "Isolationist League", the receptionist's manner chilled. Setting his lips, he beck-oned Farro over to a small side apartment, the doors of which closed as Farro entered. The apartment, the Galactic equivalent of a lift, began to move through the building, travelling upwards on what Farro judged to be an elliptical path. It delivered him into Jandanagger Laterobinson's room.

Standing up, the Galactic Minister greeted Farro with amiable reserve, giving the latter an opportunity to sum up his opponent. Laterobinson was unmistakably humanoid; he might, indeed, have pa.s.sed for an Earth-man, were it not for the strangeness of his eyes, set widely apart in his face and half-hidden by the peculiar configuration of an epicanthic fold of skin. This minor variation of feature nevertheless gave to Jandanagger what all his race seemed to possess: a watchful, tensely withdrawn air.

"You know the reason for my visit, Minister," Farro said, when he had introduced himself. He spoke care-fully in Galingua, the language he had spent so many months so painfully learning; initially, its wide variation in form from any terrestrial tongue had all but baffled him.

"Putting it briefly, you represent a body of people who fear contact with the other races in the galaxy-unlike most of your fellows on Earth," Jandanagger said easily. Expressed like that, the idea sounded absurd.

"I would rather claim to represent a body of people who have thought more deeply about the present situa-tion than perhaps their fellows have done."

"Since your views are already known to me through the newly established Terrestrial-Galactic Council, I take it you wish us to discuss this matter personally?"

"That is so."

Jandanagger returned to his chair, gesturing Farro into another.

"My role on Earth is simply to talk and to listen," he said, not without irony. "So do please feel free to talk."

"Minister, I represent five per cent of the people of Earth. If this sounds a small number, I would point out that that percentage contains some of the most eminent men in the world. Our position is relatively simple. You first visited Earth over a year ago, at the end of Ishrail's decade of exile; after investigation, you decided we were sufficiently advanced to become probationary members of the Galactic Federation.

As a result, certain advant-ages and disadvantages will naturally accrue; although both sides will reap advantages, we shall suffer all the disadvantages-and they may well prove fatal to us."

Pausing, he scrutinized Jandanagger, but nothing was to be learnt from the Minister's continued look of friendly watchfulness. He continued speaking.

"Before I deal with these disadvantages, may I protest against what will seem to you perhaps a minor point. You have insisted, your charter insists, that this world shaft be arbitrarily renamed; no longer shall it be known as Earth, but as Yinnisfar. Is there any defensible reason why this outlandish name should be adopted?"

The Minister smiled broadly and relaxed, as if the question had given him the key he needed to the man sitting opposite him. A bowl of New Union sweets lay on his desk; he pushed them across to Farro and, when the latter refused, took a sugary lump and bit it before replying.

"About three hundred planets calling themselves Earth are known to us," he said. "Any new claimants to the t.i.tle are automatically rechristened. From now on you are Yinnisfar. I think it would be more profitable if we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of federation, if that is what you wish to talk about"

Farro sighed and resigned himself.

"Very well," he said.

"To begin with, the advantages to you. You will have here a convenient base, dock and administrative seat in a region of s.p.a.ce you say you have yet to explore and develop. Also, it is possible that when arrangements are worked out between us, terrestrials may be engaged to help colonize the new worlds you expect to find in this region. We shall be a cheap manufacturing area for you. We shall produce such items as plastics, clothes, food-stuffs, and simple tools which it will be easier for you to buy from us than transport from your distant home planets. Is this correct?"

"As you point out, Mr. Westerby, Earth occupies a key position in the Federation's present thousand-year plan for expansion. Although at present you can only regard yourselves as a frontier world, at the end of that period you may well be a key world. At the end of ten thousand years-well, your peoples are full of con-fidence; the omens are good."

"In short, there is promotion ahead if we behave our-selves?"

The acid note in Farro's voice merely brought a slight smile to Jandanagger's lips.

"One is not made head boy in one's first few days at school."

"Let me then enumerate the advantages, as opposed to the promises, which Earth will enjoy from entering your Federation. In the first place, we shall enjoy material benefits: new machines, new toys, new gadgets and some new techniques, like your vibro-molecular system of building-which produces, if I may say so, some excruciatingly ugly structures."

"One's tastes, Mr. Westerby, have to be trained to appreciate anything of aesthetic worth."

"Quite. Or to regard the hideous as normal. However, that brings us to the non-material a.s.sets inherent in belonging to your Federation. You plan to revolutionize our educational systems. From nursery school to univer-sity, you will inculcate mores, matters and methods foreign' to us; Earth will be invaded not by soldiers but by teachers-which is the surest way of gaining a bloodless victory."

The wide eyes regarded Farro calmly, but still as if from behind a barricade.

"How else are we to help you to become citizens of a complex civilization? For a start, it is essential your peoples learn Galingua, Education is a science and an art towards which you have not yet begun to formulate the rules. The whole question is enormously complicated, and quite beyond brief explanation-not that I could explain it, for I am not an educational specialist; those specialists will arrive here when my work is done, and the formal members.h.i.+p charters signed. But to take just one simple point. Your children first go to school at say, five years old. They go into a cla.s.s with other children and are separated from their homes; learning becomes at once an isolated part of life, something done in certain hours. And their first lesson is to obey the teacher. Thus, if their education is rated a success, it is because, to whatever extent, they have learnt obedience and for-feited independence of mind; and they are probably set at permanent odds with their home environment.

"Our methods differ radically. We allow no children to enter our schools before the age of ten-but by that time, thanks to certain instructive toys and devices they have been familiar with for years, they will come know-ing at least as much as your child of school-leaving age. And not only knowing. Behaving.

Feeling. Under-standing."

Farro was at a disadvantage.

"I feel like a heathen being told by a missionary that I should be wearing clothes."

The other man smiled, got up, and came over to him.

"Be consoled that that's a false a.n.a.logy," he said. "You are demanding the clothes. And when you wear them, you are certain to admire the cut."

All of which, Farro reflected, made the two of them no less heathen and missionary.

"Don't look so disconcerted, Mr. Westerby. You have a perfect right to be distressed at the thought of your planet being depersonalized. But that is something we would not dream of doing. Depersonalized, you are nothing to yourselves or us. We need worlds capable of making their best personal contribution.

If you would care to come with me, I should like to give you perhaps a better idea of how the civilized galaxy functions."

Farro rose to his feet. It consoled him that he was slightly taller than the Minister. Jandanagger stood courteously aside, ushered his guest through a door. As they walked down a silent corridor, Farro found his tongue again.

"I haven't fully explained why I think that Federa-tion would be such a bad thing for Earth. We are pro-gressing on our own. Eventually, we shall develop our own method of s.p.a.ce travel, and come to join you on a more equal footing."

"s.p.a.ce travel-travel between different star systems -is not just a matter of being able to build star s.h.i.+ps. Any post-nuclear culture can stumble on that trick. s.p.a.ce travel is a state of mind. The journey's always h.e.l.l, and you never find a planet, however lovely, that suits you as well as the one you were born on. You need an incentive."

"What sort of an incentive?"

"Have you any idea?"

"I take it you are not referring to interstellar trading or conquest?"

"Correct."

"I'm afraid I don't know what sort of an incentive you mean."

The Minister gave something like a chuckle and said, "I'll try and show you presently. You were going to tell me why federation would be a bad thing for Earth."

"No doubt it has been to your purpose to learn some-thing of our history. It is full of dark things. Blood; war; lost causes; forgotten hopes; ages in chaos and days when even desperation died. It is no history to be proud of. Though many men individually seek good, col-lectively they lose it as soon as it is found.

Yet we have one quality which always gives cause for hope that tomorrow may be better: initiative.

Initiative has never faded, even when we crawled from what seemed the last ditch.

"But if we know that there exists a collective culture of several thousand worlds which we can never hope to emulate, what is to prevent us sinking back into despair for ever?"

"An incentive, of course."

As he spoke, Jandanagger led the way into a small, boomerang-shaped room with wide windows. They sank on to a low couch, and at once the room moved. The dizzy view from the window s.h.i.+fted and rolled beneath them. The room was airborne, "This is our nearest equivalent to your trains. It runs on a nucleonically bounded track. We are only going as far as the next building; there is some equipment there I would like you to inspect."

No reply seemed to be required; Farro sat silent. He had known an electric moment of fear when the room first moved. In no more than ten seconds they swooped to the branch of another Galactic building, becoming part of it.

Once more leading the way, Jandanagger escorted him to a lift, which took them down into a bas.e.m.e.nt room. They had arrived. The equipment of which Jan-danagger had spoken was not particularly impressive to look at. Before a row of padded seats ran a counter, above which a line of respirator-like masks hung, with several cables trailing from them into the wall.