"Senator!"
It was one of the TV cameramen in the left rear of the room.
"Let"s stop insulting Mr. Custer and hear him out," the cameraman said.
"Get that man"s name," Tiborough told an aide. "If he. . . ."
"I"m an expert electronic technician, Senator," the man said. "You can"t threaten me now."
Custer smiled, turned to face Tiborough.
"The revolution begins," Custer said. He waved a hand as the Senator started to whirl away. "Sit down, Senator."
Wallace, watching the Senator obey, saw how the balance of control had changed in this room.
"Ideas are in the wind," Custer said. "There comes a time for a thing to develop, it comes into being. The
spinning jenny came into being because that was its time. It was based on countless ideas that had preceded it."
"And this is the age of the laser?" Tiborough asked.
"It was bound to come," Custer said. "But the number of people in the world who"re filled with hate and frustration and violence has been growing with terrible speed. You add to that the enormous danger that this might fall into the hands of just one group or nation or . . ." Custer shrugged. "This is too much power to be confined to one man or group with the hope they"ll administer wisely. I didn"t dare delay.
That"s why I spread this thing now and announced it as broadly as I could."
Tiborough leaned back in his chair, his hands in his lap. His face was pale and beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead.
"We won"t make it."
"I hope you"re wrong, Senator," Custer said. "But the only thing I know for sure is that we"d have had less chance of making it tomorrow than we have today."
AND THEN.
THERE WERE NONE.
Eric Frank Russell The Battleship was eight hundred feet in diameter and slightly more than one mile long. Ma.s.s like that takes up room and makes a dent. The one sprawled right across one field and halfway through the next. Its weight made a rut twenty feet deep which would be there for keeps.
On board were two thousand people divisible into three distinct types. The tall, lean, crinkly-eyed ones were the crew. The crop-haired, heavy-jowled ones were the troops. Finally, the expressionless, balding and myopic ones were the cargo of bureaucrats.
The first of these types viewed this world with the professional but aloof interest of people everlastingly giving a planet the swift once-over before chasing along to the next. The troops regarded it with a mixture of tough contempt and boredom. The bureaucrats peered at it with cold authority. Each according to his lights.
This lot were accustomed to new worlds, had dealt with them by the dozens and reduced the process to mere routine. The task before them would have been nothing more than repet.i.tion of well-used, smoothly operating technique but for one thing: the entire bunch were in a jam and did not know it.
Emergence from the ship was in strict order of precedence. First, the Imperial Amba.s.sador. Second, the battleship"s captain. Third the officer commanding the ground forces. Fourth, the senior civil servant. Then, of course, the next grade lower, in the same order: His Excellency"s private secretary, the ship"s second officer, the deputy commander of troops, the penultimate pen pusher.
Down another grade, then another, until there was left only His Excellency"s barber, boot wiper and valet, crew members with the lowly status of O.S.-Ordinary s.p.a.ceman-the military nonent.i.ties in the ranks, and a few temporary ink-pot fillers dreaming of the day when they would be made permanent and given a desk of their own. This last collection of unfortunates remained aboard to clean ship and refrain from smoking, by command.
Had this world been alien, hostile and well-armed, the order of exit would have been reversed, exemplifying the Biblical promise that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. But this planet, although officially new, unofficially was not new and certainly was not alien. In ledgers and dusty files some two hundred light-years away it was recorded as a cryptic number and cla.s.sified as a ripe plum long overdue for picking. There had been considerable delay in the harvesting due to a super-abundance of other still riper plums elsewhere.
According to the records, this planet was on the outermost fringe of a huge a.s.sortment of worlds which had been settled immediately following the Great Explosion. Every school child knew all about the Great Explosion, which was no more than the spectacular name given to the bursting outward of ma.s.ses of humanity when the Blieder drive superseded atomic-powered rockets and practically handed them the cosmos on a platter.
At that time, between three and five hundred years ago, every family, group, cult or clique that imagined it could do better some place else had taken to the star trails. The restless, the ambitious, the malcontents, the eccentrics, the antisocial, the fidgety and the just plain curious, away they had roared by the dozens, the hundreds, the thousands.
* * * Some two hundred thousand had come to this particular world, the last of them arriving three centuries back. As usual, ninety percent of the mainstream had consisted of friends, relatives or acquaintances of the first-corners, people persuaded to follow the bold example of Uncle Eddie or Good Old Joe.
If they had since doubled themselves six or seven times over, there now ought to be several millions of them. That they had increased far beyond their original strength had been evident during the approach, for while no great cities were visible there were many medium to smallish towns and a large number of villages.
His Excellency looked with approval at the turf under his feet, plucked a blade of it, grunting as he stooped. He was so constructed that this effort approximated to an athletic feat and gave him a crick in the belly.
"Earth-type gra.s.s. Notice that, captain? Is it just a coincidence, or did they bring seed with them?"
"Coincidence, probably," thought Captain Grayder. "I"ve come across four gra.s.sy worlds so far. No reason why there shouldn"t be others."
"No, I suppose not." His Excellency gazed into the distance, doing it with pride of ownership. "Looks
like there"s someone plowing over there. He"s using a little engine between a pair of fat wheels. They can"t be so backward. Hm-m-m!" He rubbed a couple of chins. "Bring him here. We"ll have a talk, find out where it"s best to get started."
"Very well." Captain Grayder turned to Colonel Shelton, boss of the troops. "His Excellency wishes to speak to that farmer." he pointed to the faraway figure.
"The farmer," said Shelton to Major Hame. "His Excellency wants him at once."
"Bring that farmer here," Hame ordered Lieutenant Deacon. "Quickly!"
"Go get that farmer," Deacon told Sergeant major Bidworthy. "And hurry-His Excellency is waiting!"
The sergeant major, a big, purple-faced man, sought around for a lesser rank, remembered that they were all cleaning ship and not smoking. He, it seemed, was elected.
Tramping across four fields and coming within hailing distance of his objective, he performed a precise
military halt and released a barracks-square bellow of, "Hi, you!" He waved urgently.
The farmer stopped, wiped his forehead, looked around. His manner suggested that the mountainous bulk of the battleship was a mirage such as are dime a dozen around these parts. Bidworthy waved again, making it an authoritative summons. The farmer calmly waved back, got on with his plowing.
Sergeant Major Bidworthy employed an expletive which-when its flames had died out-meant, "Dear me!" and marched fifty paces nearer. He could now see that the other was bushy-browed and leather- faced.
"Hi!"
Stopping the plow again, the farmer leaned on a shaft, picked his teeth.
Struck by the notion that perhaps during the last three centuries the old Earth-language had been
dropped in favor of some other lingo, Bidworthy asked, "Can you understand me?"
"Can any person understand another?" inquired the farmer, with clear diction. He turned to resume his
task.
Bidworthy was afflicted with a moment of confusion. Recovering, he informed hurriedly, "His Excellency, the Earth Amba.s.sador, wishes to speak with you at once."
"So?" The other eyed him speculatively. "How come that he is excellent?"
"He is a person of considerable importance," said Bidworthy, unable to decide whether the other was
being funny at his expense or alternatively was what is known as a character. A good many of these
isolated planet-scratchers liked to think of themselves as characters.
"Of considerable importance," echoed the farmer, narrowing his eyes at the horizon. He appeared to be trying to grasp an alien concept. After a while, he inquired, "What will happen to your home world when this person dies?"
"Nothing," Bidworthy admitted."It will roll on as usual?""Of course.""Then," declared the farmer, flatly, "he cannot be important." With that, his little engine went chuff-chuff and the wheels rolled forward and the plow plowed.
Digging his nails into the palms of his hands, Bidworthy spent half a minute gathering oxygen before he said, in hoa.r.s.e tones, "I cannot return without at least a message for His Excellency."
"Indeed?" The other was incredulous. "What is to stop you?" Then, noting the alarming increase in
Bidworthy"s color, he added with compa.s.sion, "Oh, well, you may tell him that I said"-he paused while
he thought it over-"G.o.d bless you and goodbye!"
Sergeant Major Bidworthy was a powerful man who weighed two-twenty pounds, had hopped around the cosmos for twenty years, and feared nothing. He had never been known to permit the shiver of one hair-but he was trembling all over by the time he got back to the ship.
His Excellency fastened a cold eye upon him and demanded, "Well?"
"He won"t come." Bidworthy"s veins stood out on his forehead. "And, sir, if only I could have him in my field company for a few months I"d straighten him up and teach him to move at the double."
"I don"t doubt that, Sergeant Major," soothed his Excellency. He continued in a whispered aside to Colonel Shelton. "He"s a good fellow but no diplomat. Too abrupt and harsh voiced. Better go yourself and fetch that farmer. We can"t sit here forever waiting to find out where to begin."
"Very well, your Excellency." Colonel Shelton trudged across the fields, caught up with the plow.
Smiling pleasantly, he said, "Good morning, my man!"
Stopping his plow, the farmer sighed as if it were another of those days one has sometimes. His eyes were dark-brown, almost black, as they looked at the other.