Пол Андерсон - Orbit 1

“My mate Bill Redfeather is an Amerind,” Kahn said. “Quite a few of his ancestors were friends to the white man. It didn’t help them in the long run. I am a Jew myself, if you know what that means. My people spent the better part of two thousand years being alien. We remember in our bones how that was. Finally some started a country of their own. The Arabs who were there objected, and lived out the rest of their lives in refugee camps. Ask Muthaswamy, my chief engineer, to explain the history of Moslem and Hindu in India. Ask his assistant Ngola to tell you what happened when Europe entered Africa. And, as far as that goes, what happened when Europe left again. You cannot intermingle two cultures. One of them will devour the other. And already, this minute, yours is the more powerful.”

They mumbled, down in the hall, and stared at him and did not understand. He sucked air into his lungs and tried anew:

“Yes, you don’t intend to harm the Mithrans. Thus far there has been little conflict. But when your numbers grow, when you begin to rape the land for all the resources this hungry civilization needs, when mutual exasperation escalates into battle — can you speak for your children? Your grandchildren? Their grandchildren, to the end of time? The people of Bach and Goethe brought forth Hitler. No, you don’t know what I am talking about, do you?

“Well, let us suppose that man on this planet reverses his entire previous record and gives the natives some fairly decent reservations and does not take them away again. Still, how much hope have they of becoming anything but miserable parasites? They cannot become one with you. The surviving Amerinds could be assimilated, but they were human. Mithrans are not. They do not and cannot think like humans. But don’t they have the right to live in their world as they wish, make their own works, hope their own hopes?

“You call this planet underpopulated. By your standards, that is correct. But not by the natives’. How many individuals per hectare do you expect an economy like theirs to support? Take away part of a continent, and you murder that many unborn sentient beings. But you won’t stop there. You will take the world, and so murder an entire way of existence. How do you know that way isn’t better than ours? Certainly you have no right to deny the universe the chance that it is better.”

They seethed and buzzed at his feet. Thrailkill advanced, fists clenched, and said flatly, “Have you so little pride in being a man?”

“On the contrary,” Kahn answered. “I have so much pride that I will not see my race guilty of the ultimate crime. We are not going to make anyone else pay for our mistakes. We are going home and see if we cannot amend them ourselves.”

“So you say!” spat Thrailkill.

O God of mercy, send my men. Kahn looked into the eyes of the one whose salt he had eaten, and knew they would watch him for what remained of his life. And behind would gleam the Bay of Desire, and the Princess’ peak holy against a smokeless heaven, and the Weather-womb waiting for ships to sail west. “You will be heroes on Earth,” he said. “And you will at least have memories. I-”

The communicator in his pocket buzzed Ready. He slapped it once: Go ahead.

Thunder crashed on the roof, shaking walls. A deep-toned whistle followed. Kahn sagged back against the lectern. That would be the warboat, with guns and nuclear bombs.

The door flew open. Redfeather entered, and a squad of armed men. The rest had surrounded the hall.

Kahn straightened. His voice was a stranger’s, lost in the yells and oaths: “You are still citizens of the Directorate. As master of an official ship, I have discretionary police authority. Will or no, you shall come back with me.”

He saw Leonie clutch her child to her. He ducked Thrailkill’s roundhouse swing and stumbled off the stage, along the aisle toward his men. Hands grabbed at him. Redfeather fired a warning burst, and thereafter he walked alone. He breathed hard, but kept his face motionless. It would not do for him to weep. Not yet.

“ALLISON RICE” is the collaborative pseudonym of Jane Rice and Ruth Allison, who report separately (via their agent):

Jane Rice: “Does he want magazines I’ve written for? Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, Charm, F&SF, Astounding are the only ones still alive and kicking. My only real claim to fame is my recipe for pickled shrimp and, although I dislike braggarts, I make a superb dry Martini.”

Ruth Allison: “Really have no time to write (I wish I could — write, not have the time). We have torn out the kitchen, completely. There is just a huge hole in the house, starting at the foundation and going all the way up through the attic. . said hole being full of rusty pipes, insulation and old plaster. It is a horrible mess. Am trying to cook on a lukewarm plate, fix the baby’s bottles, keep the boys out of the excavation, the flies out of the house, the water out of the registers… As you can see, am not in a very funny mood. Well, am in a damn funny mood, but I don’t feel too humorous.”

Men who read this story invariably laugh; women, however, especially those with small children, weep. One footnote: Mrs. Allison, who had four boys a year ago, now has five.

They are. I’ve seen one. He (it?) was standing in the washbasin in our bathroom, during an electrical storm, in the middle of the night. He was about a foot high in his bare feet and he had a whiskery face and he smiled at me. . slowly. I don’t care to dwell on it. They have more teeth than we do — or something, and this one was wearing a little pockety-looking garment somewhat on the order of a shoemaker’s apron. He must have been able to see in the dark because he was reading a threatening note I had written milord and scotch-taped firmly to the mirror.

In case you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, the answer is — No, I don’t. Nor am I subconsciously fulfilling a psychological need. I am the mother of four small boys and I need a loolie like milord needs a coat hanger caught in the lawnmower.

Anyhow, to the inevitable queries — Why are they called loolies? Where do they come from, et cetera? — I can only reply through a mouthful of clothespins, I haven’t time to bat this over the head with a rolled-up research paper. I guess they’re called loolies for the same reason that brownies are called brownies. It is their name. Maybe they come from the same place. Et cetera. Wherever that is. However and whereas a brownie is a good-natured goblin who performs helpful services at night (that’s what I need, begod, a reliable brownie, with an eyeshade and some counterfeiting equipment) a loolie will leave you lop-legged. And probably already he has. I’m not sure a loolie is a goblin either.

No matter. Think back. Do you own a listless, slump-shouldered voltage-starved appliance that brightens, clicks its dials, and does a sexy Flamenco the minute the repair truck turns into the driveway? Does your gravel sprout grass, your lawn nourish moles, and your iced tea get cloudy? Do your paper bags jump out of the cupboard at you when you’ve got your eggbeater full of runny so that you get splaat all over? Are your children behaving like subversives in the employ of a foreign power? Are your groceries being delivered with the cans on top of the grapes on top of the potato chips? Does someone whom you haven’t seen since your pink tulle and corsage days — such as an old Sigma Chi beau — drop in from Paris en route to the Orient when you’ve just returned from a catfish fry at Thick Lake and are going with your tongue hanging out looking like doodledy squat? Do drawers stick? Gutters runneth over? Sheets split down the middle? What always makes three too many of those floorboard screeks you hear in the dark? Where are your car keys? (Wanna bet?)