Collected Short Fiction, page 120
“Yes, sir,” said the girl.
After she left, Onomodze, who had finally stopped laughing, said, “I don’t get it.”
“Simple. There’s only one way we can legally take over,” Carter said. “And that’s to have the Sslesor tell Earth that they’re leaving us in charge. And that’s exactly what they’re going to have done, once we get through doctoring the tapes.”
Onomodze grinned again. “I might have expected something like that. But what about the Velks?” he wanted to know.
“We’ll figure that out later. Right now, we don’t have enough data. We don’t know a thing about the Velks except their name, and you can bet your sweet life that the Sslesor won’t say anything about them that we can depend on. We probably won’t get anything out of them at all. But we must be in charge when they get here.”
The door slid open, and a small, elderly man with a fringe of gray hair around his balding head came in.
“Fless, I’ve got a job for you,” Carter said. “We’ve got some plain and fancy splicing to do, and we have to make it look as natural as possible. As soon as Cindy brings in the tapes, I’ll show you what we want. It’ll take a lot of hard work between now and then, but the future of mankind depends on its working.”
“I understand, sir,” Fless said blandly.
“Good.” Carter turned around to Onomodze. “Kelvin, you hop down to the Battery and take over there. Send General Preskit over to take full charge of the Brooklyn force. I want all five hundred men on Staten Island within ten minutes after the last Sslesor ship leaves.”
Onomodze stood up, white teeth flashing behind his grin. “All right, Joslyn. We’ll have fun. We can at least pretend we’re chasing them off the planet.”
Carter took no notice. “Get moving. I’ve got other things to do,” he said.
As Onomodze left, Carter’s secretary pushed a cart in through the door, bearing roll after roll of microtape. “Here’s the tapes you asked for, Mr. Carter.”
Carter surveyed the cart and nodded. “Good. Let’s get started, Fless. What we have to do is put together a speech.”
THE SPEECH went out over the airwaves just as the last Sslesor ship lifted toward the sky. It had taken careful cutting and judicious blending of hundreds of tapes, but the result was good.
As far as anyone who heard and believed it was concerned, Viceroy Johnson, leader of the retiring Sslesor, gave the whole government of Earth over to Joslyn Carter. And by the time the synthetic speech was over, the Marines had landed on Staten Island and were in command of the vast empty buildings that the retreating Sslesor had left behind.
Thus, on 4 July 3027, human beings were in control of Earth for the first time in nearly a thousand years.
“Now what?” Onomodze asked.
Joslyn Carter looked out the window at the darkening sky. “Now we’ve got to prove that human beings are capable of standing on their own two feet. I think they are. If our ancestors hadn’t bombed themselves almost out of existence a thousand years ago, I don’t think the Sslesor would have had a chance of taking over. But they came in at just the right time, and by the time we were on our feet again, nearly everyone had grown used to being ruled by them.”
“One thing I never did figure out,” Onomodze said. “Just why did they want control of Earth, anyway? They let us go on about our business, for the most part. They didn’t want to colonize, and they didn’t want to trade. They didn’t want slaves. What did they want?”
Carter shrugged. “If you’ll tell me how an alien mind works, I’ll answer your question. Until then, we’ll just have to let the question ride.”
He looked at his watch. “I want these buildings searched tonight—searched thoroughly. If the Sslesor left anything important behind, I want to see it. They couldn’t possibly have taken everything with them.”
Onomodze nodded. “Will do.”
Carter paced anxiously up and down. “Now, the Velks. We’ll have to concentrate on them. We don’t know what they’re like, except that they are harder to deal with than the Sslesor—since they beat the Sslesor—but you can bet your life that no new race is going to take over Earth if I can help it. Not now while we’ve got a moment of freedom.”
“Yes, I—” Onomodze was cut off by the frantic chiming of a communicator.
Carter switched on the screen, and General Chung’s face appeared. His leathery face looked flushed, and a grin was spread all across it.
“General Carter,” he said excitedly, “we got the Swiziss after all!”
“What?”
“Yes! Evidently the thing wasn’t in condition to take off, so the Sslesor just left it here. Maybe we can eventually figure out how their interstellar drive works, and—”
“Unlikely,” Carter said, frowning. “What does it look like inside?”
Chung lost his grin. “I’m afraid it looks pretty empty. There do seem to be some sort of engines inside, but there are whole sections missing, too. But I thought maybe—”
“I’m glad we got it, Chung,” Carter agreed. “But I don’t think the Sslesor would have left it behind if it were any good. And what’s more, I—” Suddenly, Chung’s image wavered and vanished. It was replaced by a wavering pattern of meaningless lights.
A voice came out of the speaker, a gentle, wet sort of voice.
“Your pardon, please. As this was the only channel available, we were forced to—ah—break in. This is Fulf Quish speaking for the Velkan government. We should like to have a word with the Earth government.”
Carter glanced at Onomodze quizzically, and said, “You are addressing Joslyn Carter, present head of the Terran Provisional Government.”
“Ah, so. We are happy to make contact. Our ship is at this moment orbiting above your atmosphere. We will land tomorrow morning if you would be so kind as to meet with our representatives.”
“Very well,” said Carter, trying to peer behind the shifting pattern of lights to see what the new aliens looked like.
He told them exactly how to spot Staten Island and where to land. There was a long pause, and then Fulf Quish’s voice came again.
“We have photographed the spot you describe. We will be there tomorrow. Goodbye.”
Carter stared at the blank screen for a moment. He felt a burst of irrational anger because Earth, and more specifically Joslyn Carter, should be subjected to non-human overlords from somewhere out in the galaxy; it seemed virtually a direct insult to him.
He looked at Onomodze, who was waiting patiently for some reaction from Carter. “That was short and to the point. We’ll have to be ready for them, Kelvin.”
“Why not simply set off the bomb as soon as they land?” Carter shook his head. “Strategically unsound. We have only one nuclear bomb; we don’t know how many more ships they may have out there. I don’t like the tone of that guy’s voice. He sounded too—”
“Polite?”
“Yes,” said Carter. “Something like that. I wonder what the Velks are going to be like.”
CHAPTER IV
3 July 3027
THEY WERE nothing like the Sslesor. The Velks were squat, four-legged, multi-tentacled beings with soft, mushy voices. They wore breathing masks which effectively concealed their faces from view.
One of the five who faced Joslyn Carter and his General Staff across the conference table waved a tentacle in the air and said:
“As I understand you, then, Earthman, your group represents the human race?”
Carter nodded.
Fulf Quish burbled something to his companions, who waved their tentacles frenziedly and burbled back. Then the Velk said, “You must pardon my poor control of your language. I am only a translator; the rest of our mission did not have the time to learn any of your native tongues.”
“You speak very well,” Carter said carefully.
“I presume you have questions to ask?” the Velk asked, in its wet-sounding voice.
“We do,” agreed Carter. “What sort of government do you intend to set up? I assume you will be using the buildings evacuated by the Sslesor, won’t you?”
Fulf Quish waved a tentacle in negation. “Oh, not at all. Not at all. I’m afraid you misunderstand us.”
“How so?”
“We do not come here for the purpose of governing at all.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite see your point,” said Carter.
The alien paused as if considering his next phrases very carefully. “I fear that, isolated as you are from the main stream of galactic culture, you don’t appreciate your position. The Sslesor held your planet for a thousand of your years because it was a strategic military base. That situation no longer prevails, since you are now well within the boundaries of the Velkan Commonwealth. In the settlement with the Sslesor, we acquired some two thousand additional planets, of which—excuse me—Earth is one of the least important strategically. I hope you’ll pardon me when I speak so bluntly?”
Carter nodded. He sat perfectly still, wondering what new surprise was going to descend on him.
“In addition,” went on the Velk, “we are a very democratic people. We believe in allowing each planet within the Commonwealth to have its own government. It is very difficult for us to exercise direct control over all our planets. Our outposts are too widely spread as it is. Therefore, we must reluctantly decline to place representatives on all of our possessions. We simply do not have enough men. You see our position?”
Carter folded his hands and tried not to look at the uniformed men around him. “And so?” he asked cautiously.
“And so,” continued the being, “we have not come here to govern, but merely to inform you that you are now wards of the Velkan Commonwealth, with the same privileges tendered to other members.” He paused. “We will be unable to keep a representative on your planet at present. It is possible—possible, mind you, not probable—that we will be able to spare someone to act as proconsul a little later. But that must wait. Ten year, no. Twenty, no. But we might be able to provide a representative for you in, perhaps, fifty years. Not before. Frankly, we cannot spare a single man now.”
“You’re simply going to leave us alone, is that it?” Carter asked, trying to keep the shock out of his voice.
“Exactly so,” said Fulf Quish. “We must leave for Quange—a planet in one of our other new systems—immediately, and so I must bid you farewell.”
Carter stared, amazed. He felt a sense of deep frustration at the way action was continually being snatched from his hands. First the Sslesor had obligingly pulled out an hour before Carter was to have blasted them; now the Velks refused to exercise their rights over Earth. The ends were satisfactory, but the means irked him.
“But who is to govern Earth?” Carter asked.
“That is for you to decide. This planet is now in the hands of its natives. From this moment on, my friend, the planet is yours—you Earthmen shall act as our custodians as of now. Govern yourselves well.”
The five Velks rose and left the building. Through the window, Carter watched them move back to the spaceship on their oddly-jointed legs, their tentacles waving gently.
Onomodze rubbed the tip of his nose with a long forefinger. “Well, may I be eternally cursed,” he said softly.
20 July 3027
PRESIDENT Joslyn Carter scribbled his signature on another paper and shoved it into the outgoing slot.
“I don’t get you,” said Onomodze.
“I said that we don’t seem to be getting anywhere, and we have to,” Carter said. “It’s unfortunate that you’re the only one around here I trust sufficient enough to talk to, because you don’t seem to understand what I tell you any more.”
“Hold it, Joslyn. I heard what you said. Now explain it in words of not more than three syllables so that a stupid blot like me can understand what goes on inside that great mind of yours.”
Carter tapped his finger on the desktop. “Listen: potentially, humanity is the most powerful and most vital of the three races that we know to exist in the galaxy.”
“How do you figure that?” Onomodze asked.
“The way they act!” Carter waved a hand in the general direction of the sky. “Kelvin, until this happened I didn’t realize how utterly insipid the Sslesor and the Velks are. We put up with the Sslesor so long that we got used to them; we never questioned their orders because they had tamed that out of us—almost. But the only reason they could take over Earth was because we were so weak a thousand years ago. A thousand years is a long time—plenty of time for the Sslesor to become a pushover for the Velks, or any other younger and stronger race.
“Then come our friends the Velks. Can you imagine the idiocy level required for them to leave any race so potentially dangerous as humanity alone and unwatched for another fifty years?
“The Sslesor kept the status quo just where they wanted it. They haven’t changed themselves in ten centuries that we know of—and probably a lot longer than that. That proves just one thing—they’re decadent. As for the Velks, they just don’t seem very bright. And, both sides are conducting an interstellar war as if it were a chess game.
“If we can get started again, we’ll have them both beaten in a thousand years—less than that, perhaps. We’ll eventually figure out the secret of the drive on that spaceship. There were plenty of clues scattered about. We just can’t recognize them yet, that’s all. When we do, we’ll be on a par with both of them, and I’m betting we get a long way ahead of them. But—”
“But right now, we can’t get anybody to move,” Onomodze finished for him.
Carter nodded. “I can’t get any cooperation from anyone! They all seem to want to go along their own way. We might just as well be dumping our executive orders into a wastebasket chute as releasing them. And since the United States Marine Corps is no longer a secret society, a lot of people aren’t interested in it any more. They don’t get any thrill out of it.”
Onomodze’s face was unusually grim. “It isn’t often I’ve heard you talk this way, Joslyn.”
“I know. But for the first time I’m starting to have a few worries. What the hell are we going to do?”
12 October 3027
THE regional governor of the British Isles announced that, since the United States Marine Corps had shown how well old-fashioned things work in government, he was restoring the monarchy, and had taken the title of King Pedro the First.
The news reached Staten Island late in the afternoon of 12 October, and was immediately forwarded to Major Hollister. Major Hollister took the report to Lieutenant General Onomodze, who waited nearly a day before he dared show it to Carter.
By that time Scotland had seceded from the new United Kingdom. The Duke of Ireland remained coldly aloof.
4 January 3028
“I have here,” said Onomodze, “a petition from the Pretender to the Governorship of Mexico City. He insists that the Earth Government restore him to his rightful position.”
Joslyn Carter grabbed the paper and tore it to shreds. “What did you say to him?” he demanded.
“I told him that if the two Lieutenant Governors could get together long enough to throw out the new Governor, we would send down troops, provided the troops would—”
“Stop grinning like a blithering jackass, Kelvin!” said Carter. “Don’t you realize that the whole Earth is falling to pieces in front of us? Politically, we’re about where Europe was in 900 A.D.”
“I can’t help it,” Onomodze said, still grinning. “It’s funny, even if it is tragic. No one will take orders from anyone else. ‘Who are you to tell me what to do? You’re just another Earthman.’ I’ve just about reached the point where I’m ready to toss in the towel myself. I think I’ll become an Emperor—that’s a nice title. The Emperor of South Staten Island. You can have the north half.”
“Aaaahh! Shut up!” snapped Carter.
7 March 3028
“It’s not that we’re not capable of governing them,” Carter said gloomily, as the Terran Provisional Government rolled into its eighth and probably final month. “We know how to do it. It’s that they are incapable of being governed by us.”
“We should have known it, Joslyn,” Onomodze said. “We should have called in all the Regional Governors and—”
“Don’t bother,” Carter said. “It’s too late to start telling me how it should have been done. Even if we’d done it that way, it wouldn’t have worked.”
He glanced up as Hollister entered the room. “What now?”
“We’ve lost Chicago,” Hollister said. “Our men just got chased out by Duke Richard.”
“Duke Richard,” Carter repeated, almost grinning a little despite himself. “Duke Richard of Chicago. I like that,” Carter said. “This whole blasted planet is splitting up into dukedoms and earldoms and squirearchies and everything else. And we’re no better; what we laughingly call the Provisional Government is nothing more than a noisier dukedom than the rest.”
Onomodze unrolled the map that lay on the desk. “Here,” he said. “Look at the checkerboard here.” He pointed to the dots of color spotting the map, each indicating a township or country where some tiny independent kingdom had been set up, in defiance of the Carter government. “As long as it’s all over, we can laugh about it,” Onomodze said.
“No!” roared Carter. “No. Don’t ever treat it as a joke. It’s a tragedy, Kelvin, even more tragic than the original conquest by the Sslesor. Because here we’re on our own again, and we’re flubbing it completely.”
“I’m sorry,” Onomodze said. “I didn’t mean to joke about it.”
Carter got up and walked to the window. “We didn’t go wrong anywhere,” he said. “We did everything the right way. When the Velks pulled out on us, we took over and announced that we were the new government of Earth. We had the administrative machinery all set up.”
“Right here,” said Hollister. He pointed to the bound copy of the constitution Carter had promulgated. “A government rules by consent of the governed. And we couldn’t get consent.”
