Энн Маккефри - The Ship Who Won

In his corner, Brannel was hanging on to every word. Keff realized that his three guests comprehended far more of the alien languages than he could. The two mages chimed in cheerfully when the Old Ones spoke, giving the meaning of gestures and words in the common Ozran tongue, which Keff knew now was nothing more than a dialect of Human Standard blended with the Old Ones' spoken language. Somewhat ruefully, he observed that, with Carialle's enhanced cognitive capacity, he, the xenolinguist, was the one who would retain the least of what was going by on the screen. Carialle signaled for Keff's attention when a handful of schematics flashed by.

«Your engineer identifies those microwave beams that have been puzzling me,» she said. 'They're the answerback to the command function from the items of power telling the Core of Ozran how much power to send. Each operates on a slightly different frequency, like personal communicators. The Core also feeds the devices themselves. Hmm, slight risk of radioactivity there.» One of Carialles auxiliary screens lit with an exploded view of one of the schematics. «But I haven't seen any signs of cancers. In spite of their faults, Ozrans are a healthy bunch, so it must be low enough to be harmless.»

Another compression of time. In the next series of videos, the humans had established homes for themselves and were producing offspring. Some, like the unknown narrator, had entered into apprenticeships to learn the means of using the power items from the Old Ones. The rest lived in underground homes on the plains.

«Hence the division of Ozrans into two peoples,» Keff said, nodding. «It's hard to believe this is the same planet.»

The video changed to views of burgeoning fields and broad, healthy croplands. Ozran soil evidently suited Terran-based plant life. The narrator aimed his recorder at adapted skips, full of grain and vegetables being hauled by domesticated six-packs. The next scene, which made the Ozrans gasp with pleasure, showed the humans and one or two Old Ones hurrying for shelter in a farm cavern as a cloudburst began. Heavy rain pelted down into the fields of young, green crops.

In the next scene, almost an inevitable image, one proud farmer was taped standing next to a prize gourd the size of a small pig. Other humans were congratulating him.

Keff glanced at the Ozrans. All three were spellbound by the images of lush farmland.

«These cannot be pictures of our world,» Plenna said, «but those are the Mountains of the South. I've known them since my childhood. I have never seen vegetables that big!»

«It is fiction,» Chaumel said, frowning. «Our farms could not possibly produce anything like that giant root.»

«They could once,» Carialle said, «a thousand years ago. Before you mages started messing up the system you inherited. Please observe.»

She showed the full analysis of the puff of air that had been trapped in the tape cassette. Keff read it and nodded. He understood where Carialle was headed.

«This shows that the atmosphere in the early days of human habitation of Ozran had many more nitrogen/oxygen/carbon chains and a far higher moisture content than the current atmosphere does.» Another image overlaid the first. «Here is what you're breathing now. You have an unnaturally high ozone level. It increases every time there is a massive call for power from the Core of Ozran. If you want more . . .»

In the middle of the cabin Carialle created a three-dimensional image of Ozran. «This is how your planet was seen from space by your ancestors.» The globe browned. Icecaps shrank slightly. The oceans nibbled away at coastline and swamped small islands. The continents appeared to shrink together slightly in pain. «This is how it looks now.»

Plenna hugged herself in concern as Ozran changed from a healthy green planet to its present state.

«And what for the future?» she asked, woebegone eyes on Carialle's image.

«All is not lost, Magess. Let me show you a few other planets in the Central Worlds cluster,» Carialle said, putting up the image of an ovoid, water-covered globe studded with small, atoll-shaped land masses. «Kojuni was in poor condition from industrial pollution. It took an effort, but its population reclaimed it.» The sky of Kojuni lightened from leaden gray to a clear, light silver. «Even planet Earth had to fight to survive.» A slightly flattened spheroid of blue, green, and violet spun among them. The green masses on the continents receded and expanded as Carialle compressed centuries into seconds. For additional examples, she showed several Class-M planets in good health, with normal weather patterns of wind, rain, and snow scattering across their faces. The three-dimensional maps faded, leaving the image of present-day Ozran spinning before them.

Chaumel cleared his throat.

«But what do you say is the solution?» he asked.

«You overlords have got to stop using the power,» Keff said. «It's as simple as that.»

«Give up power? Never!» Chaumel said, outraged, with the same expression he would have worn if Keff had told him to cut off his right leg. «It is the way we are.»

«Mage Keff.» Brannel, greatly daring, crept up beside them and spoke for the first time, addressing his remarks only to the brawn. «What you showed of the first New Ones and their land—that is what the workers of Klemay have been trying to do for as long as I have lived.» He looked at Plenna and Chaumel. «We know plants can grow bigger. Some years they do. Most die or stay small. But I know—»

«Quiet!» Chaumel roared, springing to his feet. Brannel was driven cowering into the corner. «Why are you letting a fur-face talk?» the silver mage demanded of Keff. «You can see by his face he knows nothing.»

«Now, look, Chaumel,» Keff said, aiming an admonitory finger at him, «Brannel is intelligent. Listen to him. He has something that no other farmer on your whole world does: a working memory—and that's your fault, you and your fellow overlords. You've mutated them, you've mutilated them, but they're still human. Don't you understand what you saw on the tape? Brannel knows when, and probably why your crops have failed, so let the man talk.»

Brannel was gratified that Mage Keff stuck up for him. So he gathered courage and tried, haltingly, in the face of Chaumel's disapproval, to describe the failed efforts of years. «We seek to feed the earth so it will burgeon like this—I know it could—but every time, the plants either die or the cold and dryness come back when the mages have battles. The farms could feed us so much better, if there was more water, if it was warmer. Of the crops"—he held up all eight of his digits—"this many do not survive.» He folded down five fingers.

«You're losing over sixty percent of your yield because you like to live high,» Keff said. «Your superfluous uses of power, to show off, to play, to kill, is irresponsible. You're killing your world. One day your farms won't be able to sustain themselves. People will die of starvation. No matter what you think of their mental capacity, you couldn't want that because then you'd have no food and no one to do the menial labor you require.»

Chaumel looked from Keff's grim face to the spinning globe of Ozran, and sat down heavily in the crash couch.

«We are doing that,» he said, raising his long hands in surrender. «Everything he says, he knows. But if I lay down my items of power to help, my surrender will not stop all the others, nor will appealing to wisdom. We mages distrust each other too much.»

«Then we need to negotiate a mass cease-fire,» Carialle said.

«Not without a ready alternative,» Chaumel returned promptly. «Our system is steeped in treachery and the counting of coup.»

«I found references to that, too,» Keff said, consulting a page of the first manual. «Somebody made a bad translation for your forefathers of instructions given to officers seeking promotion. It says 'consideration for continued higher promotion will be given to those individuals who complete the most successful projects in the most efficient manner.' It goes on to say that those projects should benefit the whole community, but I guess that part got lost over time. There's a similar clause in our ship's manual, just in updated language.»