Stepsons of Terra

2.

Somewhat unwillingly, Ewing followed the burly Sirian through the thronged terminal toward a refreshment room at the far side of the arcade. As soon as they were seated at a gleaming translucent table, the Sirian stared levelly at Ewing and said, “First things come first. What’s your name?”

“Baird Ewing. You?”

“Rollun Firnik. What brings you to Earth, Ewing?” Firnik’s manner was offensively blunt. Ewing toyed with the golden-amber drink the Sirian had bought for him, sipped it idly, put it down. “I told you,” he said quietly. “I’m an ambassador from the government of Corwin to the government of Earth. It’s as simple as that.”

“Is it? When did you people last have any contact with the rest of the galaxy?”

“Five hundred years ago. But—”

“Five hundred years,” Firnik repeated speculatively. “And now you decide to reopen contact with Earth.” He squinted at Ewing, chin resting on balled fist. “Just like that. Poof! Enter one ambassador. It isn’t just out of sociability, is it, Ewing? What’s the reason behind your visit?”

“I’m not familiar with the latest news in this sector of the galaxy,” Ewing said. “Have you heard any mention of the Klodni?”

“Klodni?” the Sirian repeated. “No. The name doesn’t mean a thing to me. Should it?”

“News travels slowly through the galaxy,” Ewing said. “The Klodni are a humanoid race that evolved somewhere in the Andromeda star cluster. I’ve seen solidographs of them. They’re little greasy creatures, about five feet high, with a sort of ant-like civilization. A war-fleet of Klodni is on the move.”

Firnik rolled an eyebrow upward. He said nothing.

“A couple thousand Klodni ships entered our galaxy about four years ago. They landed on Barnholt—that’s a colony world about a hundred fifty light-years deeper in space than we are—and wiped the place clean. After about a year they picked up and moved on. They’ve been to four planets so far, and no one’s been able to stop them yet. They swarm over a planet and destroy everything they see, then go on to the next world.”

“What of it?”

“We’ve plotted their probable course. They’re going to attack Corwin in ten years or so, give or take one year either way. We know we can’t fight back, either. We just aren’t a militarized people. And we can’t militarize in less than ten years and hope to win.” Ewing paused, sipped at his drink. It was surprisingly mild, he thought.

He went on: “As soon as the nature of the Klodni menace became known, we radioed a message to Earth explaning the situation and asking for help. We got no answer, even figuring in the subetheric lag. We radioed again. Still no reply from Earth.”

“So you decided to send an ambassador,” Firnik said. “Figuring your messages must have gone astray, no doubt. You wanted to negotiate for help at first hand.”

“Yes.”

The Sirian chuckled. “You know something? It’s three hundred years since anybody on Earth last fired anything deadlier than a popgun. They’re total pacifists.”

“That can’t be true!”

Suddenly the sardonic amiability left Firnik. His voice was almost toneless as he said, “I’ll forgive you this time, because you’re a stranger and don’t know the customs. But the next time you call me a liar I’ll kill you.”

Ewing’s jaw stiffened. Barbarian, he thought. Out loud he said, “In other words, I’ve wasted my time by coming here, then?”

The Sirian shrugged unconcernedly. “Better fight your own battles. The Earthers can’t help you.”

“But they’re in danger too,” Ewing protested. “Do you think the Klodni are going to stop before they’ve reached Earth?”

“How long do you think it’ll take them to get as far as Earth?” Firnik asked.

“A century, at least.”

“A century. All right. They have to pass through Sirius IV on their way to Earth. We’ll take care of them when the time comes.”

And I came sixteen parsecs across the galaxy to ask for help, Ewing thought..

He stood up. “It’s been very interesting talking to you And thanks for the drink.”

“Good luck to you,” the Sirian said in parting. It was not meant in a spirit of cheer. It sounded openly derisive, Ewing thought.

He made his way through the crowded room to the long shining-walled corridor of the spaceport arcade. A ship was blasting off outside on the ferroconcrete apron; Ewing watched it a moment as it thundered out of sight. He realized that if any truth lay in the Sirian’s words, he might just as well return to Corwin now and report failure.

But it was hard to accept the concept of a decadent, spineless Earth. True, they had had no contact with the mother world for five centuries; but the legend still gleamed on Corwin and the other colony worlds of its immediate galactic area—the legend of the mother planet where human life first began, hundreds of centuries before.

He remembered the stories of the pioneers of space, the first bold venturers to the other planets, then the brave colonists who had extended Earth’s sway to half a thousand worlds. Through a natural process, contact with the homeland had withered in the span of years; there was little reason for self-sufficient worlds a sky apart to maintain anything as fantastically expensive as interstellar communication systems simply for reasons of sentiment. A colony world has economic problems as it is.

There had always been the legend of Earth, though, to guide the Corwinites. When trouble arose, Earth would be there to help.

Now there was trouble on the horizon. And Earth, Ewing thought? Can we count on her help?

He watched the throngs of bejeweled dandies glumly, and wondered.

He paused by a railing that looked out over the wide sweep of the spacefield. A plaque, copper-hued, proclaimed the fact that this particular section of the arcade had been erected A.D. 2716. Ewing, a newcomer in an ancient world, felt a tingle of awe. The building in which he stood had been constructed more than a century before the first ships from Earth blasted down on Corwin, which then had been only a nameless world on the star charts. And the men who had built this building, eleven hundred years ago, were as remote in space-time from the present-day Terrans as were the people of Corwin at this moment.

It was a bitter thought, that he had wasted his trip. There was his wife, and his son—for more than two years Laira would have no husband, Blade no father. And for what? All for a wasted trip to a planet whose glories lay far in its past?

Somewhere on Earth, he thought, there will be someone who can help. This planet produced us all. A shred of vitality must remain in it somewhere. I won’t leave without trying to find it.

Some painstaking questioning of one of the stationary robot guards finally got him the information he wanted: there was a place where incoming outworlders could register if they chose. He made provisions for the care and storage of his ship until his departure, and signed himself in at the Hall of Records as Baird Ewing, Ambassador from the Free World of Corwin. There was a hotel affiliated with the spaceport terminal; Ewing requested and was assigned a room in it. He signed a slip granting the robot spaceport attendants permission to enter his ship and transfer his personal belongings to his hotel room.

The room was attractive, if a little cramped. Ewing was accustomed to the spaciousness of his home on Corwin, a planet on which only eighteen million people lived in an area greater than the habitable landmass of Earth. He had helped to build the home himself, twelve years ago when he married Laira. It sprawled over nearly eleven acres of land. To be confined to a room only about fifteen feet on a side was a novel experience for him.

The lighting was subdued and indirect; he searched for the source unsuccessfully. His fingers probed the walls, but no electroluminescent panels were in evidence. The Earthers had evidently developed some new technique for diffused multisource fighting.

An outlet covered with a speaking grid served as his connection with the office downstairs. He switched the communicator panel on, after some inward deliberation. A robot voice said immediately, “How may we serve you, Mr. Ewing?”

“Is there such a thing as a library on the premises?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Would you have someone select a volume of Terran history covering the last thousand years, and have it sent up to me. Also any recent newspapers, magazines, or things like that.”

“Of course, sir.”

It seemed that hardly five minutes passed before the chime on his room door bleeped discreetly.

“Come in,” he said.

The door had been attuned to the sound of his voice; as he spoke, there was the whispering sound of relays closing, and the door whistled open. A robot stood just outside. His flat metal arms were stacked high with microreels.

“You ordered reading matter, sir.”

“Thanks. Would you leave them over there, near the viewer?”

When the robot had gone, he lifted the most massive reel from the stack and scanned its title. Earth and the Galaxy was the title. In smaller letters it said, A Study in Colonial Relationships.

Ewing nodded approvingly. This was the way to begin, he told himself: fill in the background before embarking on any specific course of action. The mocking Sirian had perhaps underestimated Earth’s strength deliberately, for obscure reasons of his own. He did not seem like a trustworthy sort.

He opened the reel and slid it into the viewer, twisting it until he heard the familiar click! The viewer was of the same model in use on Corwin, and he had no difficulties with it. He switched on the screen; the title page appeared, and a moment’s work with the focusing switches rendered the image brightly sharp.

Chapter One, he read. The earliest period of expansion.

The Age of Interstellar Colonization may rightly be said to have opened in the year 2560, when the development of the Haley Subwarp Drive made possible—

The door chimed again. Irritated, Ewing looked up from his book. He was not expecting visitors, nor had he asked the hotel service staff for anything.

“Who is it?”

“Mr. Ewing?” said a familiar voice. “Might I come in? I’d like to talk to you again. We met briefly at the terminal this afternoon.”

Ewing recognized the voice. It belonged to the earless Earther in turquoise robes who had been so little help to him earlier. What can he want with me? Ewing wondered.

“All right,” he said. “Come in.”

The door responded to the command. It slid back obediently. The slim Terrestrial smiled apologetically at Ewing, murmured a soft greeting, and entered.