Robert Silverberg - Collision Course

“I suppose you could call that a victory for us,” Stone said. “But that kind of reasoning can rationalize away anything.”

“And it’s assuming that the Norglans will abide by the dividing line,” Havig remarked.

“I think they will,” Bernard said. “It doesn’t seem to me that they have much of an alternative. They’ll have to stick to the agreement, whether they like it or not. These Rosgollans seem to have almost unlimited mental powers. They’ll probably be keeping an eye cocked at our galaxy, policing it and breaking up any trouble that might conceivably start over a boundary violation.”

“Policing our galaxy,” Stone said darkly. “That’s lovely, isn’t it? So we set out from Earth with a flourish of trumpets, as representatives of the universe’s dominant race, and we come back home policed into one little corner of our own galaxy. That isn’t going to be easy for the Archonate to swallow.”

“It won’t be easy for anyone to swallow,” Bernard said. “But the truth never is. And this is one bit of truth that’s bound to stick in any Earthman’s craw. The thing we’ve found out we didn’t know before is that we aren’t the universe’s dominant race; at least not yet, anyway. The Rosgollans and maybe some others out in the distant galaxies have an evolutionary start of perhaps five or six hundred thousand years on us. So we’ve been slapped back into our place—for a while. We were like a bunch of kids imagining that the universe was ours for grabs. Well, it isn’t, that’s all, and the Archonate and all the rest of the people of Earth will just have to get used to the idea.”

“Regardless, this is the greatest defeat Earth has suffered in her history,” Stone persisted.

“Defeat?” Bernard snorted. “Listen, Stone, do you call it a humiliating defeat if you slam your hand against a metal bulkhead and break your fingers? Sure, the bulkhead defeated your hand. It’ll do it every time. It’s in the fundamental nature of metal bulkheads to be stronger than bare fingers, and it’s ridiculous to moan about the philosophical aspects of the situation.”

“If I want to defeat a bulkhead, I don’t use my bare hands,” Stone replied. “I’d use a blowtorch. And I’d win ten times out of ten.”

“But we don’t have a blowtorch we can use on the Rosgollans,” Bernard said. “We just aren’t in their league. It’s in the nature of highly advanced races half a million years older than we are to be more powerful than we are. Why get upset about it?”

“Bernard is right,” Havig said in a quiet voice. “The great wheel of life keeps turning. Some day the Rosgollans will be gone from the universe, and we, in the twilight of our days, will watch other, younger, stronger races come brawling across the skies. And what will we do then? Just what the Rosgollans did to us: confine these races, for the sake of our own peace. But, perhaps, by then we will know Who has made us, and we will not act for our own sake.”

Sinking his head in his hands, Stone muttered, “What Bernard’s been saying all makes perfectly good sense on the abstract, intellectual level. I’m not trying to deny that. But come down to the realities of the situation. How do you go about telling a planet that thought it was the summit of creation that it’s very small potatoes indeed?”

“That’s going to be the Archonate’s problem, not ours,” Dominici said.

“What does it matter whose problem it is?” Stone demanded sharply. “This will set Earth in an uproar. It’s a planetary humiliation.”

“It’s a planetary eye-opening,” Bernard snapped. “It’ll destroy any lingering shred of complacency. For the first time we have some other races to measure ourselves against. We know that the Norglans are just about as good as we are, right now—and that the Rosgollans are a whole lot better. So we know we’ll have to progress, to keep abreast of the Norglans, to aim toward the level of the Rosgollans. And we’ll get there.”

Hernandez entered the cabin and stopped, looking about uncertainly at everyone.

“Am I interrupting something important?” he asked.

“What could be important now , anyway?” Stone asked in a dismal voice.

“We were just hashing over the implications of our new status,” Bernard explained. “Is there any sort of trouble up front, Hernandez?”

The crewman shook his head. “No, no trouble, Dr. Bernard. Commander Laurance sent me back to let you know that it seems the Rosgollans have returned us to the place where we got lost, and we’re about to convert into no-space and head for home.”

“But that can’t be,” Stone said.

Simultaneously Dominici gasped and said, “What? You mean we’re back in our own galaxy so fast? But…”

“That’s right,” Hernandez said quietly. “It’s only half an hour or so since we left Rosgolla, ship time. But we’ve come back.”

“Are you certain?” Bernard asked.

“The Commander’s positive.”

Hernandez turned and left. A tremor of cold awe shot through Bernard.

The ship, then, had crossed the galactic gulf in a mere matter of twenty or thirty minutes, thanks to the boost from the Rosgollans. It was a feat beyond the capacity of the human mind to grasp.

Beyond the capacity of the human mind. But, Bernard realized, it might have been the simplest thing in the world for a race as advanced as the Rosgollans. An after-dinner stunt, a casual flip of a craft across thousands of light-years— hardly worth mentioning.

He felt profoundly uneasy.

Yet, even so, there was comfort. The Rosgollans were half a million years ahead, evolutionally. And they could work miracles. But how many accomplishments of man would seem like miracles to the man of only a few hundred years earlier? Not to mention man of half a million years.

Where were we half a million years ago ? Bernard wondered. We were pounding our hairy chests, brachiating gaily through the trees, cooking our uncles for dinner, maybe even eating them raw if cooking hadn’t been invented yet .

And yet we came all the way from Pithecanthropus erectus to the transmat era in half a million years—picking up speed as we came. That’s a hell of a long journey in not really a hell of a long time. So who’s to say where we’ll be half a million years from now? Who can predict where we’ll be when we’re as old as the Rosgollans are now?

It was a warm, comforting kind of thought. For the first time since the long journey had begun, back in the hopeless wastes of Central Australia, Bernard felt a moment of certainty, of understanding man’s relation to the universe.

The new warmth flooded dizzyingly over him.

“Hey, Bernard. Bernard? Are you feeling all right?” Dominici asked.

“Uh—yes. Sure. Why do you ask?”

“You looked so queer all of a sudden. You got a kind of funny smile on your face for a second, a smile that I’ve never seen on you before.”

“I was—thinking about something,” he said quietly. “Some pieces fitted together. And I—well, I just felt good for a second. I still do.” He leaned forward. “Dom, tell me about the Norglans, biologically speaking. As much as you could figure out.”

Dominici frowned. “Well—for one thing, they’re obviously mammals.”

“Of course. How about their evolutionary decent?”

“They stem from some primate-like creature, I’m pretty certain. Of course, there are big differences, but that’s only to be expected across a gulf of twelve or fifteen thousand light-years. The eyes, the double elbow—these are things we don’t have. But other than that, at least on external evidence alone, I’d say they were pretty much like us.”