Poul Anderson - No Truce with Kings

The field guns bellowed together, not only howitzers but motorized 75s taken along from Alemany Gate’s emplacements. Shells went overhead with a locomotive sound. They burst on the walls above and the racket thundered back down the wind.

Mackenzie tensed himself for an Esper blast, but none came. Had they knocked out the final defensive post in their own first barrage? Smoke cleared from the heights and he saw that the colors which played in the tower were dead and that wounds gaped across loveliness, showing unbelievably thin framework. It was like seeing the bones of a woman murdered by his hand.

Quick, though! He issued a string of commands and led the horse and foot on. The battery stayed where it was, firing and firing with hysterical fury. The dry brown grass started to burn, as red-hot fragments scattered across the slope. Through mushroom bursts, Mackenzie saw the building crumble. Whole sheets of facing broke and fell to earth. The skeleton vibrated, took a direct hit and sang in metal agony, slumped and twisted apart.

What was that which stood within?

There were no separate rooms, no floors, nothing but girders, enigmatic machines, here and there a globe still aglow like a minor sun. The structure bad enclosed something nearly as tall as itself, a finned and shining column, almost like a rocket shell but impossibly huge and fair.

Their spaceship, Mackenzie thought in the clamor. Yes, of course, the ancients had begun making spaceships, and we always figured we would again someday. This, though ...

The archers lifted a tribal screech. The riflemen and cavalry took it up, crazy, jubilant, the howl of a beast of prey. By Satan, we’ve whipped the stars themselves! As they burst onto the hillcrest, the shelling stopped and their yells overrode the wind. Smoke was acrid as blood smell in their nostrils.

A few dead blue-robers could be seen in the debris. Some half-dozen survivors milled toward the ship. A bowman let fly. His arrow glanced off the landing gear but brought the Espers to a halt. Troopers poured over the shards to capture them.

Mackenzie reined in. Something that was not human lay crushed near a machine. Its blood was deep violet color. When the people have seen this, that’s the end of the Order . He felt no triumph. At St Helena he had come to appreciate how fundamentally good the believers were.

But this was no moment for regret, or for wondering how harsh the future would be with man taken entirely off the leash: The building on the other peak was still intact. He had to consolidate his position here, then help Phil if need be.

However, the minicom said, “Come on and join me, Jimbo. The fracas is over,” before he had completed his task. As he rode alone toward Speyer’s place, he saw a Pacific States flag flutter up the mast on that skyscraper’s top. Guards stood awed and nervous at the portal. Mackenzie dismounted and walked inside. The entry chamber was a soaring, shimmering fantasy of colors and arches, through which men moved troll-like. A corporal led him down a hall. Evidently this building bad been used for quarters offices, storage, and less understandable purposes ... There was a room whose door had been blown down with dynamite. The fluid abstract murals were stilled, scarred, and sooted. Four ragged troopers pointed guns at the two beings whom Speyer was questioning.

One slumped at something that might answer to a desk. The avian face was buried in seven-fingered hands and the rudimentary wing quivered with sobs. Are they able to cry, then? Mackenzie thought, astonished, and had a sudden wish to take the being in his arms and offer what comfort he was able.

The other one stood erect in a robe of woven metal. Great topaz eyes met Speyer’s from a seven-foot height, and the voice turned accented English into music.

“—a G-type star some fifty light-years hence. It is barely visible to the naked eye, though not in this hemisphere.”

The major’s fleshless, bristly countenance jutted forward as if to peck. “When do you expect reinforcements?”

“There will be no other ship for almost a century, and it will only bring personnel. We are isolated by space and time; few can come to work here, to seek to build a bridge of minds across that gulf—”

“Yeah,” Speyer nodded prosaically. “The light-speed limit. I thought so. If you’re telling the truth.”

The being shuddered. “Nothing is left for us but to speak truth, and pray that you will understand and help. Revenge, conquest, any form of mass violence is impossible when so much space and time lies between. Our labor has been done in the mind and heart. It is not too late, even now. The most crucial facts can still be kept hidden—oh, listen to me, for the sake of your unborn!”

Speyer nodded to Mackenzie. “Everything okay?” he said. “We got us a full bag here. About twenty left alive, this fellow the bossman. Seems like they’re the only ones on Earth.”

“We guessed there couldn’t be many,” the colonel said. His tone and his feelings were alike ashen. “When we talked it over, you and me, and tried to figure what our clues meant. They’d have to be few, or they’d’ve operated more openly.”

“Listen, listen,” the being pleaded. “We came in love. Our dream was to lead you—to make you lead yourselves-toward peace, fulfillment ... Oh, yes, we would also gain, gain yet another race with whom we could someday converse as brothers. But there are many races in the universe. It was chiefly for your own tortured sakes that we wished to guide your future.”

“That controlled history notion isn’t original with you,” Speyer grunted. “We’ve invented it for ourselves now and then on Earth. The last time it led to the Hellbombs. No, thanks!”

“But we know! The Great Science predicts with absolute certainty—”

“Predicted this?” Speyer waved a hand at the blackened room.

“There are fluctuations. We are too few to control so many savages in every detail. But do you not wish an end to war, to all your ancient sufferings? I offer you that for your help today.”

“You succeeded in starting a pretty nasty war yourselves,” Speyer said.

The being twisted its fingers together. “That was an error. The plan remains, the only way to lead your people toward peace. I, who have traveled between suns, will get down before your boots and beg you—”

“Stay put!” Speyer flung back. “If you’d come openly, like honest folk, you’d have found some to listen to you. Maybe enough, even. But no, your do-gooding had to be subtle and crafty. You knew what was right for us. We weren’t entitled to any say in the matter. God in heaven, I’ve never heard anything so arrogant!”

The being lifted its head. “Do you tell children the whole truth?”

“As much as they’re ready for.”

“Your child-culture is not ready to hear these truths.”

“Who qualified you to call us children—besides yourselves?”

“How do you know you are adult?”

“By trying adult jobs and finding out if I can handle them. Sure, we make some ghastly blunders, we humans. But they’re our own. And we learn from them. You’re the ones who won’t learn, you and that damned psychological science you were bragging about, that wants to fit every living mind into the one frame it can understand.

“You wanted to re-establish the centralized state, didn’t you? Did you ever stop to think that maybe feudalism is what suits man? Some one place to call our own, and belong to, and be part of; a community with traditions and honor; a chance for the individual to make decisions that count; a bulwark for liberty against the central overlords, who’ll always want more and more power; a thousand different ways to live. We’ve always built supercountries, here on Earth, and we’ve always knocked them apart again. I think maybe the whole idea is wrong. And maybe this time well try something better. Why not a world of little states, too well rooted to dissolve in a nation, too small to do much harm—slowly rising above petty jealousies and spite, but keeping their identities—a thousand separate approaches to our problem. Maybe then we can solve a few of them ... for ourselves!”