XII
The end of a civilization is a tragic thing.
On the desert planet of Gorel-zed, the last world to survive the slownova of its sun, the Gizls, once the pests but now through brain surgerythe possessors in their hardy bodies of the accumulated knowledge of thefrail human beings, were preparing to flee. Their self-supporting shipswere ready, capable of crossing space to the ends of the universe.
But their universe was barren. No planet could receive them. All weredoomed as was theirs, Gorel-zed. They set out for a new galaxy, knowingthey would not reach it but that their descendants might. They becamenomads of space, self-sufficient.
For generations they wandered, their population diminishing. Theirscientist-philosophers evolved the theory that accounted for theirspaceborn ennui with life, their acceptance of their fate, theireventual doom. They had no roots, no place of their own. They had onlythe mechanistic world of their ships--which were vehicles, not a land.They must find a home of their own, or die.
Several times in their odyssey they had come to a planet which couldhave housed them. But each time an injunction which had been built intothem at the time of the brain surgery prevented them from staying. Thedoomed human beings on Gorel-zed had built into the very fiber of theGizls--who were, after all, only animals--the injunction that no humanbeing could be harmed for their comfort.
This meant that the world of Ladnora, whose gentle saffron inhabitantswere incapable of offering resistance, could not be conquered. TheLadnorans, in their generosity, had offered the refugees from Gorel-zeda hemisphere of their own. But the Gizls required a world of their own,not a half-world. They accepted a small continent only and made itspaceborne and took it with them.
The Crevisians were the next to be visited. They ruled a belt of fertileland around the equator of their world--the rest was icy waste. TheGizls took a slice of each polar region and, joining them, made themspaceborne.
In time they reached the system of Sol.
Mars attracted them first because of its sands. Mars was like Gorel-zedin many ways. But that very resemblance meant it was not for them. Marswas a dead world, as their own Gorel-zed had become.
But the next planet they came to was a green planet. The Gizls mooredthe acquisitions in the asteroid belt and visited Earth.
Here, at their planetfall, Australia, was the perfect land. Even itsinhabitants--the great kangaroos, the smaller wallabies--breathed Hometo the Gizls. But there were also the human beings who had made the landtheir own. And though memory of their origin had weakened in the Gizls,the injunction had not.
For a time they set up a kind of camp in the great central desert andwith delight found their legs again. Out of the cramped ships they came,to bound in freedom and fresh breathable air across the wasteland. Buthardy, naked, black human beings lived in the desert and they attackedthe Gizls with their primitive weapons. And when the Gizls fled, notwishing to harm them, they came to white men, who attacked them withexplosive weapons.
And so they took to their ships and were spaceborne again. But theattraction of Earth was strong and they sought another continent, calledNorth America.
And in the center of it they found a great race whose technology wasnearly as great as their own. These people had an intelligence and drivewhich rivaled that of their human antecedents, whose minds had beentransferred to the Gizl's hardy, cumbersome bodies.
* * * * *
Rezar paused. His intelligent eyes seemed misplaced in his heavy animalbody.
"What attracted you to Superior, of all places?" Alis asked.
Rezar seemed to smile. "Two things. Cavalier and bubble gum."
"What?" Alis said. "You're kidding!"
"No," Rezar said. "It's true. Bubble gum because after generations ofsubsistence on capsule food our teeth had weakened and loosened, andbubble gum strengthened them. Nourishment, no. Exercise, yes. AndCavalier Institute because here were men who spoke in terms whichparalleled the secret of our spacedrive."
Alis laughed. "This would make Father expire of joy," she said. "But nowyou know he's just a phony."
"Alas," Rezar said. "Yes, alas. But he was so close. Magnology.Cosmolineation. It's jargon merely, as we learned in time. Osbert Garetis mad. Harmless, but mad."
Don asked Rezar, "But if this built-in morality of yours is so strong,why didn't it prevent you from taking off with Superior?"
Rezar replied, "There are factions among us now. An evolution of a sort,I suppose. Nothing is static. One faction"--he tapped his chest--"iscompletely bound by the injunction. But in the other, self-preservationplaces a limit on the injunction."
The explanation seemed to be that the other faction, which grew instrength with every failure to find a world of their own, felt that on aplanet such as Earth, with a history of men warring against men,required the Gizls to be no more moral than the human inhabitantsthemselves.
"The Good Gizls versus the Bad Gizls?" Alis asked.
Rezar seemed to smile. The Bad Gizls, led by one called Kaliz, had gotthe upper hand for a time and elevated Superior, intending to join it tothe bits and pieces of other planets they had previously collected andstored in the asteroid belt. But Rezar's influence had persuaded themnot to head directly into space--at least not until they had solved theproblem of how to put Superior's inhabitants "ashore" first.
Don, unaccustomed to his new role of interplanetary arbitrator, saidtentatively:
"I can't authorize you to take Superior, even if you do put us allashore, but there must be a comparable piece of Earth we could let youhave."
"But Superior is not all," Rezar said. "To use one of your nauticalexpressions, Superior merely represents a shake-down cruise. Our abilityto detach such a populated center had shown the feasibility of raisingother typical communities--such as New York, Magnitogorsk andHeidelberg--each a different example of Earth culture."
Don heard a gasp from the Pentagon--or it might have come from the WhiteHouse.
"You mean you've burrowed under each one of those 'communities'?" Donasked.
Rezar shrugged. "Kaliz's faction," he said, as if to dissociate himselffrom the project of removing some of Earth's choicest property. "Theyaim at a history-museum of habitable worlds."
"Interplanetary souvenirs," Alis said. "With quick-frozen inhabitants?Don, what are you going to do?"
Don didn't even know what to say. His eyes met Hector's.
"Don't look at me," Hector said. "I definitely abdicate."
"Look," Don said to Rezar, "how far advanced are these plans? I mean, isthere a deadline for this mass levitation?"
"Twenty-four hours, your time," Rezar said.
"Can't you stop them? Aren't you the boss?"
The alien turned Don's question back on him. "Are _you_ the boss?"
Don had started to shake his head when Foghorn Frank's voice boomed out.
"Yes, by thunder, he _is_ the boss! Don, raise your right hand. I'mgoing to make you a brigadier general. No, blast it, a full general.Repeat after me...."
* * * * *
General Don Cort squared his shoulders. He was almost getting used tothese spot promotions.
"Now negotiate," Fogarty said. "You hear me, Mr. Gizl-Rezar? The UnitedStates of America stands behind General Cort." There was no audibleobjection from the White House. "Who stands behind you?"
"A democratic government," Rezar said. "Like yours."
"You represent them?" Fogarty asked.
"With my council, yes."
"Then we can make a deal. Talk to him, Don. I'll shut up now."
Don said to Rezar, "Was it your decision to burrow under New York andMagnitogorsk and Heidelberg?"
"I agreed to it, finally."
"But you agreed to it in the belief that the Earth-people were a warringpeople and that your old prohibitions did not apply. But we are not awarring people. Earth is at peace."
"Is it?" Rezar asked sadly. "Your plane warred on the submarine."
r />
"In self-defense," Don said. "Don't forget that we defended you, too.And we'd do it again--but not unless provoked."
Rezar looked thoughtful. He tapped his long fingernails on the table.Finally he said, "I believe you. But I must talk to my people first, asyou have talked to yours. Let us meet later"--he seemed to be making amental calculation--"in three hours. Where? Here?"
"How about Cavalier?" Alis suggested. "It would be the first importantthing that ever happened there."
* * * * *
For the first time since Superior took off, all of the town's elected orself-designated representatives met amicably. They gathered in thecommon room at Cavalier Institute as they waited for Rezar and hiscouncil to arrive for the talks which could decide, not only the fate ofSuperior, but of New York and two foreign cities as well.
Apparently the Pentagon expected Don to pretend he had authority tospeak for Russia and Germany as well as the United States. But could hespeak for the United States constitutionally? He was sure that BobbyThebold, comprising exactly one percent of that great deliberative body,the Senate, would let him know if he went too far, crisis or no crisis.
The Senator, reunited with Geneva Jervis, sat holding her hand on a sofain front of the fireplace in which logs blazed cheerfully. Theboldlooked untypically placid. Jen Jervis, completely sober and with herhair freshly reddened, had greeted Don with a cool nod.
Thebold had been chagrined at learning that Don Cort was not the yokelhe had taken him for. But he recovered quickly, saying that if there wasany one thing he had learned in his Senate career it was the art ofcompromise. He would go along with the duly authorized representative ofthe Pentagon, with which he had always had the most cordial ofrelations.
"Isn't that so, sweetest of all the pies?" he said to Jen Jervis.
Jen looked uncomfortable. "Please, Bobby," she said. "Not in public."The Senator squeezed her hand.
Professor Garet, whose wife and daughter were serving tea, stood with EdClark near the big bay window, through which they looked occasionally tosee if the Gizls were coming. Maynard Rubach sat in a leather armchairnext to Hector Civek, who had discarded his ermine and wore an old heavytweed suit. Doc Bendy sat off in a corner by himself. He was untypicallyquiet.
Don Cort, despite his four phantom stars, was telling himself he mustnot let these middle-aged men make him feel like a boy. Each of them hadhad a chance to do something positive and each had failed.
"Gentlemen," Don said, "my latest information from Washington confirmsthat the Gizls have actually tunneled under the cities they say theirmilitant faction wants to take up to the asteroid belt, just as they dugin under Superior before it took off. So they're not bluffing."
"How'd we find out about Magnitogorsk?" Ed Clark asked. "Iron curtaingetting rusty?"
Don told him that the Russians, impressed by the urgency of anunprecedented telephone call from the White House to the Kremlin, hadfinally admitted that their great industrial city was sitting on top ofa honeycomb. The telephone conversation had also touched delicately onthe subject of the submarine that had been sunk in mid-Atlantic, andthere had been tacit agreement that the sub commander had exceeded hisauthority in firing the missiles and that the sinking would not bereferred to again.
Maynard Rubach turned away from the window. "Here they come. Three ofthem. But they're not coming from the direction of the McFerson place."
"They could have come up from under the grandstand." Don said. "MissJervis and I found one of their tunnels there. Remember, Jen?"
Jen Jervis colored slightly and Don was sorry he'd brought it up. "Yes,"she said. "I fainted and Don--Mr. Cort--General Cort--helped me."
"I'm obliged to the general," Senator Thebold said.
Professor Garet went to the door. The three Gizls followed him into theroom. Everyone stood up formally. There was some embarrassed scurryingaround because no one had remembered that the Gizls required backlesschairs to accommodate their tails.
The Gizls, looking remarkably alike, sat close together. Don tentativelyaddressed the one in the middle.
"Gentlemen," he said, "first it is my privilege to award to you in thename of the President, the Medal of Merit in appreciation of your quickaction in saving uncounted lives during the submarine incident. Theactual medal will be presented to you when we re-establish physicalcontact with Earth."
Rezar, who, it turned out, was the one in the middle, accepted with agrave bow. "Our regret is that we were unable to prevent the loss ofmany valuable objects as well," he said.
"Mr. Rezar," Don said, "I haven't been trained in diplomacy so I'llspeak plainly. We don't intend to give up New York. Contrary to generalbelief, there are about eight million people who _do_ want to livethere. And I'm sure the inhabitants of Heidelberg and Magnitogorsk feelthe same way about their cities."
"Then you yield Superior," Rezar said.
"I didn't say that."
"Yield Superior and we will guarantee safe passage to Earth for all itsinhabitants. We only want its physical facilities."
"We'll yield the bubble gum factory to help your dental problem--forsuitable reparations," Don said.
"Payment will be made for anything we take. Give us Superior intact,including the factory and Cavalier Institute, and we will transport toany place you name an area of equal size from the planet Mars."
"Mars?" Don said. "That'd be a very valuable piece of real estate forthe researchers."
"Take it," Don heard Frank Fogarty say from the Pentagon.
Professor Garet spoke up. "If Cavalier goes, I go with it. I won't leaveit."
"And I won't leave you, Osbert," his wife said. "Will there be air upthere among the asteroids?"
"We are air-breathers like you," Rezar said. "When we have assembled ourplanet there will be plenty. You will be welcome, Professor and Mrs.Garet."
"Hector?" Don said. "You're still mayor of Cavalier. What do you think?"
"They can have it," Hector said. "I'll take a nice steady civil servicejob with the Federal Government, if you can arrange it."
"Hector," Ed Clark said, "I think that sums up why you've never been ahowling success in politics. You don't give a damn for the people. Allyou care about is yourself."
Hector shrugged. "You needn't be so holy-sounding, Eddie-boy," he said."Why isn't the _Sentry_ out this week? I'll tell you why. Because you'vebeen so busy filing to the Trimble-Grayson papers on Thebold's privateradio that you haven't had time for anything else. How much are theypaying you?"
Ed Clark, deflated, muttered, "News is news."
"Is that what you were doing in Senator Thebold's Gripe Room on themidway?" Don asked Clark. "Making this deal?"
"Now, General," Thebold said. "Would you deprive the people of theirright to know? Throughout my Senate career I have carried the torchagainst government censorship, which is the path to a totalitarianstate."
"I'm sure part of the deal was that Clark's copy didn't make youanything less than a hero," Don said.
"Don't be too righteous, young man," Thebold said. "'Lest ye bejudged,' as they say. Are you not at this moment bargaining away a pieceof a sovereign State of the sovereign United States? I don't happen torepresent Ohio, but if I did I would rise in the upper chamber to demandyour court-martial."
"At ease, Senator!" Don ordered. "You're not in the upper chamber now.You're on an artificial satellite which at any moment is apt to take offinto outer space."
Doc Bendy spoke for the first time: "Oops-a-daisy! You tell 'im,Donny-boy. Soo-perior--the town everybody looks up to."
Don frowned at him. Bendy had sunk deep into his chair in his corner. Heacknowledged Don's look with a broad smile that vanished in a hiccup.
"Y' don't have to say it, Donny. I been drinkin'. Ever since Superiorlooped the looperior and flung me feet over forehead into the bee-yond.Shatterin' experience to have nothin' but a kangaroo-hop between you andeternity. Yop, ol' Bendy's been on a bender ever since. But you carryon, boy. Y' doin
' a great job."
"Thanks," Don said in irony. "I guess that completes the roster of thosequalified to speak for Superior. Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. Rubach. Did you havesomething to say?"
But all the portly president of Cavalier had to say, though he said itat great length, was that if Cavalier were taken as part of a packagedeal, its trustees would have to receive adequate compensation.Professor Garet tugged at his sleeve and said, "Sit down, Maynard.They've already said they'll pay."
Fogarty's voice rumbled at Don: "Let's try to speed things up, General.Close the deal on Superior, at least, before the press get there."
"The press?"
"The rest of the papers couldn't let the Trimble-Grayson chain keeptheir exclusive. Clark's going to have lots of company soon. The boyshave hired a vertiplane. First one off the assembly line. You've seenit. Lands anywhere."
"Okay, I'll try to hurry it up." To the Gizls Don said, "All right. Youtake Superior, minus its people, and bring us a piece of Mars."
"Agreed," Rezar said. It was as easy as that. Nobody objected. Too manyof Superior's self-proclaimed saviors had been caught with their motivesshowing.
"You've got to give up New York, though," Don said. He felt as if hewere playing a game of interplanetary Monopoly. "Well give you a chunkof the great central desert instead, if Australia's willing. (Would thatcome under the South East Asia Treaty Organization, Mr. Secretary?)Complete with kangaroos and assorted wallabies, if you want them."
"Agreed," said Rezar.
Don sighed quietly to himself. It should be smooth sailing now that thehurdle of New York was past.
But Kaliz, the one Alis had called the Bad Gizl, shook his headviolently and spoke for the first time. "No," he said firmly. "We musthave New York. It is by far the greatest of our conquests and I will notyield it."
Rezar said sharply, "We have foresworn conquest."
"I am tired of your moralizing," Kaliz said. "We are dealing with beingswhose greatest respect is for power. If we temporize now we will losetheir respect. They will think our new world weak and itself open toconquest. We have the power--let us use it. I say take New York _and_its people and hold them hostage. The city is ready for lifting."
"No!" Don said. "You can't have New York."
Kaliz seemed to smile. "We already have it. It's merely a question oftransporting it." He put a long-fingered hand to his furry chest where,almost hidden in the blue-gray fur, was a flat perforated disk. He saidinto it, "Show them that New York is ours!"
"Wait!" Rezar said.
"Merely a demonstration," Kaliz told him, "for the moment at least."
Frank Fogarty's voice, alarmed, said urgently, "Tell him we believe him.New York's reporting an earthquake, or something very like it. For God'ssake tell him to put it back while we reorient our thinking."
Kaliz nodded in satisfaction. "The city is as it was. Our people underNew York raised it a mere fraction of an inch. It could as easily havebeen a mile. Do not underestimate our power."
Rezar was agitated. "We came in peace," he said to his fellow Gizl. "Letus not leave in war. There's power on both sides, capable of untolddestruction. Neither must use it. We are a democratic people. Let usvote. I say we must not take New York."
"And I say we must," Kaliz told him, "in self-interest."
They turned to the third of their people, who had been looking from oneto the other, his eyes reflecting indecision.
Kaliz barked at him: "Well, Ezial? Vote!"
Ezial said, "I abstain."
Deadlock.
Don was sweating. He looked at the others in the room. They were tensebut silent, apparently willing to leave it up to Don and his link withthe Defense Department.
Frank Fogarty's voice said:
"SAC has been airborne in total strength for half an hour, General. Itwas a purely precautionary alert at the time."
Don started to interrupt.
"I know they hear me," the Secretary of Defense said. "I intend thatthey should. We don't want to fight but we will if we must. Son ..." Therough voice faltered for a moment. "If necessary, we'll destroy Superiorto kill this alien and save New York. As a soldier, I hope youunderstand. It's the lives of three thousand people against the lives ofeight million."
Only Don and the Gizl had heard. Don looked across the room and intoAlis' eyes. She gave him a tentative smile, noting his grave expression.
"Yes, sir," Don said finally.
Rezar spoke. "This is folly." He touched the disk in the fur of his ownchest.
"No!" Kaliz cried.
"It is time," Rezar said. "We are beginning to fail in our mission." Hespoke reverently into the disk, "My lord, awake."
Kaliz said quickly, "Raise New York! Take it up!"
"They will not obey you now," Rezar said. "I have invoked the counsel ofthe Master."
* * * * *
The man was frail and incredibly old. He had sparse white hair and adeeply lined face, but his eyes were alert and wise. He wore acloak-like garment of soft, warm-looking material. His expression wasone of kindliness but strength.
The doorbell had rung and Mrs. Garet had answered it. The old man hadwalked slowly into the room, followed respectfully by two Gizls.
"My lord," said Rezar. He got to his feet and bowed, as did the otherGizls. "I had hoped to let you sleep until your new world had beenprepared for you. But the risk was great that, if I delayed, your worldwould never be. Forgive me."
"You did well," the old man said.
Don stood up too, feeling the sense of awe that this personage inspired."How do you do, sir," he said.
"How do you do, General Cort."
"You know my name?"
"I know many things. Too many for such a frail old body. But someone hadto preserve the heritage of our people, and I was chosen."
"Won't you sit down, sir?"
"I'll stand, thanks. I've rested long enough. Generations, as a matterof fact. Shall I answer some of your obvious questions? I'd better say afew things quickly, before Foghorn Frank hits the panic button."
Don smiled. "Can he hear you or shall I repeat everything?"
"Oh, he hears me. I've got gadgets galore, even though I'm betweenplanets at the moment. I must say it's a pleasure to be among peopleagain." He nodded pleasantly around the room.
Mrs. Garet smiled to him. "Would you like a cup of tea?"
"Later, perhaps, thank you. First I must assure you and everyone ofEarth that no one will be harmed by us and that we want nothing for ournew world that you are not willing to give."
"That's good to hear," Don said. "I gather you've been in some kind ofsuspended animation since you left your old world. So I wonder howyou're able to speak English."
"Everything was suspended but the subconscious. That kept perking along,absorbing everything the Gizls fed into it. And they've been absorbingyour culture for ten years, so I'm pretty fluent. And I certainly knowenough to apologize for all the inconvenience my associates have causedyou in their zeal to re-establish the human race of Gorel-zed. In thecase of Kaliz, of course, it was excessive zeal which will necessitatehis rehabilitation."
"Your pardon, Master," Kaliz said humbly.
"Granted. But you'll be rehabilitated anyway."
Don asked, "Did I understand you to say you plan to re-establish yourrace? Do you mean there are more of you, aside from thekangaroo-people?"
"Oh, yes. Young people. The youngest of all from Gorel-zed. They wereput to sleep like me, to be ready to carry on when their new world isbuilt. I won't wake them till then. I hope to live that much longer."
"I'm sure you will, sir."
"Kind of you. But let's get on with the horse trading. Of course wewon't take New York, or the two other cities." (There was a collectionof sighs of relief from Washington.) "But we would like some of youruninhabited jungle land--the lusher the better, to help us out in theoxygen department. We'd also like some of your air, if you can spareit. We've got a planet to supply now, not just sh
ips."
"How would you get air across space?" Don asked.
"At the moment," the Master said, "I'm afraid we're not prepared tobarter our scientific knowledge."
"I didn't mean to pry. It just didn't seem to be something you could do.Do you think we could spare some air, Mr. Secretary?"
"I'll have to ask the science boys about that one," Frank Fogarty said."Meanwhile it's okay with Australia on the desert. But your Gizl friendshave to agree to relocate the aborigines from that tract, and they musttake every last rabbit or it's no deal."
"Agreed," the Master said with a smile. "But please ask their stockmento hold their fire. My friends only _look_ like kangaroos."
* * * * *
As Don and the Master were making arrangements for Superior to touchdown so its people could be transferred to Earth, a blaze of lightstabbed down from the sky. Through the window they saw the vertiplanesettling slowly to the campus.
"It sure beats a blimp," Senator Thebold said in admiration.
Professor Garet got up to look. "It's the press," he said to his wife."You might as well invite them in. I hope we have enough tea."
The vertiplane's door opened and the first wave of reporters spilledout.