James White - Federation World

The reply did not appear for nearly three seconds, which was a very long time for such a high-level computer to consider its response.

WARNING REGULATIONS 1 AND 4 SPECIFICALLY FORBID THE INTRODUCTION OF ANY INTELLIGENT LIFE FORM OR FORMS INTO THE FEDERATION WORLD WHO HAVE NOT BEEN CLEARED BY THE INDUCTION CENTERS, AND WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO BEINGS CLASSIFIED AS UNDESIRABLE. ACTUAL OR ATTEMPTED CONTRAVENTION OF THESE REGULATIONS AND ALL ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES WILL BE REPORTED TO SUPERVISOR LEVEL FOR INVESTIGATION. EVALUATION, AND DECISION REGARDING DISCIPLINARY ACTION TOWARD THE BEING OR BEINGS RESPONSIBLE IN THIS INSTANCE THE REPORT WILL NOT BE TRANSMITTED UNLESS OR UNTIL THE INSTRUCTION TO CONTRAVENE THESE REGULATIONS IS CONFIRMED.

“A nice, considerate computer,” Beth said softly. “It’s offering to let us off the hook, giving us time for second thoughts. Maybe we should…” Martin shook his head.

“Your original instruction,” Beth said, in a human and very frightened voice, “is confirmed.”

REACTIVATING ALL UNITS. PLANETARY MAT-TRAN NETWORK OVERRIDE ON. INTERSTELLAR MATTRAN INTERFACING WITH INDUCTION CENTER TRANSMISSION ROOMS. AWAITING DESTINATION COORDINATES.

THE interstellar matter transmitters, which had remained dark and inactive while three generations of Keidi had grown to maturity on the planet below them, blazed suddenly with light. During the Exodus hundreds of them had encircled Keida like a dazzling string of jewels which shone so brightly that night had become a soft, gray twilight.

Now there were only the ten which had remained in orbit, to accommodate those Keidi who were expected to try for Federation citizenship from time to time. A combination of pride, independence, hostility, and, in recent years, the guards and labor camp of the First Father.had kept them inactive, but ten of them were more than enough to handle the transfer of the present Keidi population.

Martin said, “They’ll have to go to one of the areas allocated to warm-blooded oxygen breathers with similar gravity and atmosphere requirements, but with enough distance separating them to avoid premature contact with…”

“Do I understand you correctly?” the doctor broke in harshly. “Are you going to move my people from this, our home planet, to an alien and dangerous world? One that is already populated by strange, frightening, and perhaps hostile creatures whose effect on the Keidi is unknowable. And you would do this without asking their permission or giving prior warning? You are doing a great wrong, off-worlder.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Beth said tiredly. “But there is nothing to threaten you on the Federation World, unless it is some of your own people. And yes, that is what he intends unless you can make him change his mind.”

To Martin she went on pleadingly, “We are considering contravening Rule One, but we haven’t actually done anything yet. If we changed our minds even now, the supervisor might consider this a temporary aberration in a couple of otherwise responsible non-Citizens. It was bad enough letting the First blackmail you into keeping his organization intact, so that his particular form of poison could reinfect all of Keida. But now you’re going to infect the Federation World itself with that same poison. I can’t even imagine what they will do to us for that. Think, please. There must be another answer.”

“We both know that this is the only answer,” Martin said quietly. To the doctor he went on, “The Keidi will be told exactly why and where they are going and what to expect when they get there. We owe them that much, at least, for precipitating this disaster…” “But Regulation One…” Beth began. “I know, I know,” Martin said impatiently. “It states that no intelligent being who has not passed through an induction center and qualified as a Federation Citizen or non-Citizen in Federation service may be transferred to the Federation World, nor may he, she, or it be given information about the World. I think the last part was probably included so as not to make the Undesirables feel too bad about what they were missing, it being considered kinder not to tell the damned too much about heaven.”

Beth shook her head. “Couldn’t we move them temporarily to the north and south continents? It would be rough on them, especially on the very old and young, but only for the time necessary to explain the situation to the supervisor and get permission to…”

“If permission was not given,” Martin broke in, “and we, through a combination of moral cowardice and inaction, had to leave the Keidi here to degenerate physically and culturally on their contaminated planet, I don’t dunk we would feel very proud of ourselves.

“While I’m talking to the refugees, let them see what is happening to their planet right now,” he went on, “and be ready to project the Federation World visuals to all centers.”

“Except the First’s?” Beth asked.

“All centers,” Martin said. “I have a promise to keep.”

He talked slowly and simply and without making any attempt at verbal dramatics, letting the inputs from the visual sensors do that for him as he described the present plight and the probable fate of the Keidi people should they remain on their home world. While he spoke Beth projected the terrifying, three-dimensional pictures of the great chasms that were beginning to open up in their forests and fields, splitting or swallowing up or demolishing newly built shelters and the old, pre-Exodus buildings alike.

He spoke of the north and south continents which were free of earthquakes but, because Keida did not have the axial tilt which would have given seasonal changes, remained cold and virtually barren, requiring pre-Exodus levels of population and technology to make them habitable. This was the reason why the Keidi had gravitated to the now. doomed equatorial continent and the Estate of the First. He reminded them of the words of the First and the doctor when they had been describing the short- and long-term effects of radiation exposure. He told them that Keida was no longer a suitable home for its people, and that when they moved into the matter transmitter compartments they would be transferred to another world.

It was a world where the soil was fertile, the temperature and climate mild, and the territory available to them and their descendants unlimited. It was the world where the pre-Exodus Keidi who had qualified for citizenship and their descendants now lived and flourished. In centers all over Keida the interior lighting dimmed, and he showed it to them.

Beth said softly, “Just let the First try to take the credit for that!” The doctor made an untranslatable noise so high-pitched that it might have come from one of the First’s child trainees, and Martin had to stop talking for a moment because the sight, although familiar to him, was still enough to take his breath away.

In all the projection screens there blazed a picture of the countless suns which crowded the center of the galaxy, except, that was, for the one place in the middle of the picture where there hung a featureless, black diamond shape which absorbed the light all around it like a gigantic, three-dimensional shadow.

“This,” Martin said, “is the Federation World…”

He went on, trying to word the explanations of what the World was and how it was made, so that even the younger Keidi, untutored as they were in astronomy and astrophysics would understand.

As the view from interstellar space was replaced by sharply detailed pictures of the interior, Martin tried to describe its topography and environmental variations, its incredibly advanced technology, and, most importantly, its reason for being.

“… The primary purpose of the Federation is to seek out the intelligent races of the galaxy and bring them to this place of safety before they perish in some natural catastrophe or in some unnatural manner devised by themselves. In this world they will grow in knowledge and in numbers and, in the stillness of time, they will intermingle and share the fruits of their respective cultures. Ultimately they will be capable of achievements unimaginable to the most advanced minds among its present-day Citizens,