James White: The Escape Orbit

“What I mean is that they weren’t very gentle or thoughtful people,” Warren went on awkwardly, “but they had enthusiasm and they would never admit that anything was impossible. They still won’t and I still like them. What they tried to do … what we did do … was…”

“Glorious,” said Peters softly.

Warren looked quickly at the Fleet Commander, suspecting sarcasm, but he was mistaken. For several seconds he stared down at this helmet, unable to speak.

“What will you do now, sir?” said Hutton quietly.

Clearing his throat, Warren said, “Our interstellar culture, along with that of the Bugs, is in the process of falling apart. I have a large ship in reasonably good condition. I have upwards of one thousand men aboard who, both crew and assault commandos, are personally loyal to me, and I have an officer capable of advising me on the political aspects of any situation. It should be possible for us to cut ourselves a chunk of this disintegrating culture, hold it and impose on it some sort of order which would halt or possibly reverse the tendency to regress toward savagery which occurs with isolated colonies previously dependent on the mother world. That is what I will try to do. Meanwhile, you have a much harder job.”

“If you don’t believe that,” he went on grimly, “just think for a minute exactly what it is that you are.”

Warren stared hard into the faces before him, because the bloody, nightmarish pictures which were always on the fringe of his mental vision were trying to take form again in the air between them, and this was the only way he had of fighting it. He was telling them the reason why one hundred and forty-two assault men had died—the real reason, not just the one that the men themselves had thought they had.

He said, “You are a planet of scientifically trained, psychologically stable and highly intelligent human beings who have, so far as was possible, had all the unstable and unsane influences removed from among you. You are in a unique position, therefore, and I expect a lot from you and your descendants. Some of you may have thought that you were ducking your responsibilities by going Civilian, but this isn’t so. You have oblications immeasurably stronger and deeper than any simple oath of service—the responsibility of the civilized person toward the savage, of the haves for the have-nots.

“I cannot tell you in detail what you should do,” Warren continued. “My advice is that you remain underground, so far as technology is concerned, for another ten years so that you’ll be on the safe side if a Bug ship should turn up—but my guess is that if one doesn’t arrive within the next three years it won’t come at all. Meanwhile you will be keeping alive the science of an interstellar culture and seeing to it that the kids who are beginning to clutter up the place learn a lot more than woodcarving—a whole lot more! At the same time you will try to love and cherish and treat as your very own those Bug prisoners at the mountain. You will see to it that they are healthy and comfortable and as happy as possible so that they will not be averse to breeding in captivity like ourselves. You will then see to it that your own darling children get plenty of chances to see theirs—you could arrange it like a visit to the zoo, at first, but later you will teach them to respect these chlorine-breathers and to communicate with them. There will be difficulties, of course, but it isn’t entirely impossible for a youngster to make friends with his bogey-man. You have some very good psychologists here…”

The picture forming before him now was from a bright and, he hoped, not too distant future rather than from the immediate and bloody past. Firmly, he went on, “Eventually—in six or seven generations from now, perhaps—you will be ready to go out. All around you will be the fragments of two promising interstellar cultures which met before either was ready for a meeting. Your job will be to pick up the pieces, all of the pieces, and put them together again.

“With luck,” he added hopefully, “one of the biggest and most civilized pieces might have been mine…”

They were all staring at him, Fielding, Hutton, Hynds and the others, as if he were something new and frightening, something accepted as a known quantity which had turned suddenly and bitten them. Warren saw now that his confession of lying and treachery and wholesale double-dealing was of secondary importance, that he had given them something much more important to think about. The fact that they did consider it more important, and the expressions on their faces as they stared through him and into space and future time, told Warren what he wanted to know. The job would be done. He was content.

“Well,” he said finally, lifting his helmet and turning to go, “I guess that’s it, then…”

Kelso burst into the room a few seconds later, in a near panic because the Marshal had been gone longer than the stipulated hour and the Lieutenant had begun to think that harm had come to him at the hands of the Civilians. The Lieutenant was in time to see a sight so mind-staggering that he felt guilty of a most unmilitary gape. It was the sight of a roomful of Civilians standing rigidly at attention while the Fleet Commander, old man Peters himself, tore off a salute to the Marshal which was the tightest, smartest and plainly the most respectful salute that Kelso had ever seen.