Edmond Hamilton - City at World's End

“You can’t really blame them,” said Hubble. “We are like children, faced with the unknown, and since we can’t run and hide we have to fight. It’s just that they’re taking the wrong way.” He sighed. “You go out to the ship, Ken. Do what you can. I’m going back in and struggle with His Honor. If I’m patient enough—Oh, well, good luck.”

He went back inside, and Kenniston retraced his weary steps toward the portal.

The crowd had doubled since he had last seen it. It pushed and swirled around the portal, spreading out on both sides along the wall of the dome. Out on the plain the lights of two ships gleamed, and the people watched them, a low murmur running through them like the first mutter of wind before a storm. The company of Guardsmen in full kit had taken up their station in the portal, a barrier of olive-drab picked out with the dull gleam of gunbarrels.

Kenniston went up to them. He nodded to some of the men he knew and said, “I’m going out to the ships—important conference,” and started through the line. And they stopped him,

“Mayor’s orders,” the lieutenant said. “Nobody goes outside. Yeah, I know who you are, Mr. Kenniston! But I have my orders. Nobody goes outside.”

“Listen,” said Kenniston desperately, manufacturing a lie. “The Mayor sent me, I’m on his business.”

“Bring me a written order,” said the lieutenant, “and we’ll talk about it some more.”

The line of guns and stolid men remained unmoved. Kenniston considered trying to crash it, and gave that up at once. The lieutenant was watching him suspiciously, so suspiciously that an uncomfortable thought occurred to Kenniston. He spoke the language and he had worked closely with the star-folk, and the good people of Middletown might just possibly take him for a traitor or a spy…

“If the Mayor sent you,” the lieutenant said, “he’ll give you an order.”

Kenniston went away, back to the City Hall. And he spent the rest of the night cooling his heels with Hubble, outside the guarded door behind which the Mayor, the Council and the ranking officers of the National Guard were drawing up a plan of campaign.

Shortly after daybreak an orderly came in hastily, and was admitted to the guarded room. Immediately the Mayor, the Council, and the officers came out. Garris, haggard, heavy-eyed, but triumphant, caught sight of Kenniston and said, “Come along. We’ll need you to interpret.”

Feeling old and hopeless, Kenniston rose and joined the little procession. Falling in beside him, Hubble leaned over and murmured, “Talk fast, Ken. Your knowledge of the language is our one last ace in the hole.”

They reached the portal at almost the same time as the party from the starships. Varn Allan and Lund were the only ones in the group that Kenniston recognized. Of the others, one was a woman of mature years, and the remainder were men of varying ages. They stared, more in wonder than in apprehension, at the line of soldiers, Varn Allan frowned.

The Mayor marched up to her, as the line reformed to let him and his party through. A soiled, haggard little man, devoutly convinced of his own wisdom and secure in the knowledge that his people were with him, his courage screwed up to the last trembling notch, he faced the strangers from the stars and said to Kenniston, “Tell them this is our world, and we give the orders here. Tell them to get into their ships and go. Inform them that this is an ultimatum which we are prepared to enforce.”

The crowd behind him roared approval.

A faint uneasiness had appeared in the faces of the star-folk. That mob yell, the armed soldiers, and the attitude of the Mayor must have roused a doubt in them. And yet Varn Allan spoke quite calmly to Kenniston, hardly waiting for the Mayor to finish.

“Will you please have way made for us?” She indicated the newcomers who were with her. “These officials head a large staff of experts on mass migration. They will begin preliminary planning of the evacuation, and it is important that you cooperate…”

Kenniston interrupted her. “Listen,” he said, “you take your officials and get back to your ships.” The crowd was beginning to move forward a little, pressing up against the line of soldiers. Individual shouts came out of it, ugly, threatening counterpoint to the growling undertone. The Mayor shifted nervously from one foot to the other, “Did you tell her?” he demanded. “What’s she saying? Did you tell her?”

Kenniston cried out, “Go back to your ships, and quickly! Can’t you see that mob’s about to break loose?”

But still Varn Allan did not seem to understand. “There’s no room for further argument,” she said, as though her patience was at an end. “We are here on direct orders from the Board of Governors, and I must ask you to…”

Speaking very distinctly, Kenniston said, “I am trying to prevent violence. Go back to your ships now, and I’ll come out and talk to you later.”

She stared at him in utter astonishment. “Violence?” she said. And again, “Violence? Against officials of the Federation?”

It crossed his mind that that was something she had never seen nor heard of. In the momentary silence between them, the surge and rumble of the crowd grew louder, and abruptly, Norden Lund laughed.

“I told you that you were taking the wrong way to deal with savages,” he said. “We’d better go.”

“No!” Secure in her pride, in the authority vested in her by the Federation of Stars, in her proven ability as an administrator, Varn Allan was not going to run before the shouts of a mob. She turned on Kenniston, her voice perfectly steady and sharp as a steel knife.

“I don’t think you understand,” she said. “When an order is issued in the name of the Board of Governors, that order is obeyed. You will so inform your Mayor, and require him to disperse his people—and at once!”

Kenniston, clenched his fists and groaned. “For Christ’s sake…” he began, and then the Mayor, the overanxious, bellicose, and frightened Mayor, set the spark to the ready tinder.

“You tell ’em they’d better get out in a hurry!” he cried, loud enough to be heard clearly by the front ranks of the crowd. “Tell ’em to get out, or we’ll run ’em out!”

Run ’em out!” yelled a man, and another, and a hundred others. “Run ’em out!” The crowd roar rose to a howl. The press of men and women surged forward through the portal, and even if they had wanted to the soldiers could not have held them back.

Kenniston caught a kaleidoscopic glimpse of faces—the middle-aged woman official with her mouth open in a scream, the incredulous eyes of the men that did not credit what they saw, Varn Allan’s cheeks flaming a sudden angry red, Lund already backing away, a study in mingled fear and triumph.

Varn Allan said, “If you dare to touch Federation officials—”

“Get back to your ships!” yelled Kenniston. “Get back!” The first wave of the mob was upon them, all shouts and fists and trampling feet. They were howling for Varn Allan because she was the leader. Kenniston saw the danger. He grabbed her wrist and began to run toward the Thanis , hauling her along. The other officials, including Lund, had taken to their heels. It was amazing how they could run.

He dragged Varn Allan along, and for some seconds she did not resist.

He realized later that it must have been the first physical violence she had ever encountered, and that she was too astonished by it to think of resisting at first. Then, all at once, she cried out passionately, “Let me go!” and set her heels hard into the dust.

The crowd was boiling after them, and it was no time for niceties. Kenniston gave her wrist a jerk that snatched her off balance and began to run again, yanking her bodily along. And then, as the Thanis loomed fairly close ahead, he missed his footing in the loose sand and stumbled, and she wrenched herself free from him.