Gordon Dickson - The Human Edge

“Brother,” Chuck grunted, “the way it all worked out I didn’t have to ‘manage’ a thing. The ‘accident’ was more thorough than we’d planned, and I was pretty much without the assistance of our glorious technology myself. Each of them had problems I couldn’t have solved if I’d wanted to… but the other one could.”

“Well,” Roy nodded, “they are the natives, after all. We are the aliens. Just how alien, it was Chuck’s job to demonstrate.”

“You mean—” exploded Tommy, “that you threw away a half-million-dollar vehicle—that you made that crash-landing in the ocean—on purpose!”

“Off the record, Tommy,” said Chuck, holding up a reminding finger. “As for the pot, it’s on an undersea peak in forty fathoms. As soon as you can get us some more equipment it’ll be duck soup to salvage it.”

“Off the record be hanged!” roared Tommy. “Why, you might have killed them. You might have had one or the other species up in arms! You might—”

“We thought it was worth the risk,” said Chuck mildly. “After all, remember I was sticking my own neck into the same dangers.”

“You thought!” Tommy turned a seething glance on his nephew. He thrust himself out of his chair and stamped up and down the office in a visible effort to control his temper.

“Progress is not made by rules alone,” misquoted Chuck complacently, draining the last scotch out of his glass. “Come back and sit down, Tommy. It’s all over now.”

The older man came glowering back and wearily plumped in his chair.

“All right,” he said. “I said off the record, but I didn’t expect this. Do you two realize what it is you’ve just done? Risked the lives of two vital members of intelligent races necessary to our future! Violated every principle of ordinary diplomacy in a harebrained scheme that had nothing more than a wild notion to back it up! And to top it off, involved me—me, a Member of the Government! If this comes out nobody will ever believe I didn’t know about it!”

“All right, Tommy,” said Chuck. “We hear you. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

Earth District Member 439 Thomas L. Wagnall blew out a furious breath.

“Nothing!” he said, violently. “Nothing.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Chuck. “Pass the scotch.”

This may start out like a straightforward adventure yarn (though with a healthy dash of humor) about a reluctant hero who has to make a trek across a considerable expanse of a dangerous planet’s landscape against heavy odds… and it is all those things, but there’s a lot more going on. You’ll expect by now that the aliens had better watch their backs, but this time, that’s also good advice for some of the humans.

“You can’t do this!” The big young man was furious. His blunt, not-too-intelligent looking features were going lumpy with anger. “This is—” He pounded the desk he sat before with one huge fist, stuck for a moment as to just what it could be—“it’s illegal!”

“Quite legal. A Matter of Expediency, Mr. Yunce,” replied the Consul to Yara, cheerfully, waving a smoke tube negligently in his tapering fingers. The Consul’s name was Ivor Ben. He was half the size of Coley Yunce, one third the weight, twice the age, fifteen times the aristocrat—and very much in charge.

“You draft me all the way from Sol Four!” shouted Coley. “I’m a tool designer. You picked me off the available list yourself. You knew my qualifications. You aren’t supposed to draft a citizen anyway, except you can’t get what you want some other way.” His glare threatened to wilt the Consul’s boutonniere, but failed to disturb the Counsul. “Damn Government seat-warmers! Can’t hire like honest people! Send in for lists of the men you want, and pick out just your boy—never mind he’s got business on Arga IV ten weeks from now. And now, when I get here you tell me I’m not going to design tools.”

“That’s right,” said the Consul.

“You want me for some back-alley stuff! Well, I won’t do it!” roared Coley. “I’ll refuse. I’ll file a protest back at Sol—” He broke off suddenly, and stared at the Consul. “What makes you so sure I won’t?”

The Consul contemplated Coley’s thick shoulders, massive frame and a certain wildness about Coley’s blue eyes and unruly black hair, all with obvious satisfaction

“Certain reasons,” he said, easily. “For one, I understand you grew up in a rather tough neighborhood in old Venus City, back on Sol II.”

“So?” growled Coley.

“I believe there was something in your citizen’s file about knives—”

“Look here!” exploded Coley. “So I knew how to use a knife when I was a kid. I had to, to stay alive in the spaceport district. So I got into a little trouble with the law—”

“Now, now—” said the Consul, comfortably. “Now, now.”

“Using a man’s past to blackmail him into a job that’s none of his business. ‘ Would I please adjust to a change in plans, unavoidable but necessary —’ Well, I don’t please! I don’t please at all.”

“I’d recommend you do,” interrupted the Consul, allowing a little metal to creep into his voice. “You people who go shopping around on foreign worlds and getting rich at it have a bad tendency to take the protection of your Humanity for granted. Let me correct this tendency in you, even if several billion others continue to perpetuate the notion. The respect aliens have always given your life and possessions is not, though you may have thought so heretofore, something extended out of the kindness of their hearts. They keep their paws off people because they know we Humans never abandon one of our own. You’ve been living safe within that system all your life, Mr. Yunce. Now it’s time to do your part for someone else. Under my authority as Consul, I’m drafting you to aid me in—”

“What’s wrong with the star-marines?” roared Coley.

“The few star-marines I have attached to the Consulate are required here,” said the Consul.

“Then flash back to Sol for the X-4 Department. Those Government Troubleshooters—”

“The X-4 Department is a popular fiction,” said the Consul, coldly. “We draft people we need, we don’t keep a glamorous corps of secret operators. Now, no more complaints Mr. Yunce, or I’ll put you under arrest. It’s that, or take the job. Which?”

“All right,” growled Coley. “What’s the deal?”

“I wouldn’t use you if I didn’t have to,” said the Consul. “But there’s no one else. There’s a Human—one of our young lady tourists who’s run off from the compound and ended in a Yaran religious center a little over a hundred miles from here.’

“But if she’s run off… of her own free will—”

“Ah, but we don’t believe it was,” said the Consul. “We think the Yarans enticed or coerced her into going.” He paused. “Do you know anything about the Yarans?”

Coley shook his head.

“Every race we meet,” said the Consul, putting the tips of his fingers together, “has to be approached by Humanity in a different way. In the case of Yara, here we’ve got a highly humanoid race which has a highly unhuman philosophy. They think life’s a game.”

“Sounds like fun.” said Coley.

“Not the kind of a game you think,” said the Consul, undisturbed. “They mean Game with a capital G. Everything’s a Game to be played under certain rules. Even their relationship as a race to the human race is a Game to be played. A Game of Five, as life is a game of five parts—the parts being childhood, youth, young adulthood, middle age and old age. Right now, as they see it, their relations with Humanity are in the fourth part—Middle Age. In Childhood they tried passive indifference to our attempt to set up diplomatic relations. In Youth, they rioted against our attempt to set up a space terminal and human compound here. In Young Adulthood they attacked us with professional soldiery and made war against us. In each portion of the game, we won out. Now, in Middle Age, they are trying subtlety against us with this coercion of the girl. Only when we beat them at this and at the Old Age portion will they concede defeat and enter into friendly relations with us.”