Collected Short Fiction, page 541
It was a being of small stature, perhaps four feet high, poised calmly in the air. Although it wore no clothing, it was impossible to consider it naked. A garment of light enfolded it, softly streaming light that blurred the figure beneath without actually concealing it. The creature radiated not only light but an impression of total serenity, complete confidence, utmost ability.
“What—the deuce—is it?” Stone asked.
“You must not be afraid,” said the visitation.
The words were not spoken aloud. They simply seemed to stream from the creature as clearly as its radiance.
Despite the quiet command, Bernard felt a sickly wave of terror sweep over him. His legs began to give way, and he sank down onto his bunk. He felt awe, reverence, and above all else a resonating chord of fear.
“You must not be afraid,” the creature repeated. For an instant the light it radiated grew more intense. Bernard felt the fear lifting from him.
“What—are you?” he asked thickly.
“I am of the Rosgollans. I am your guide until we land.”
It’s all hallucination, Bernard thought grimly. Even in the Greater Magellanic Cloud they don’t have beings who come drifting through the walls of a spaceship and who speak perfect Terran.
He struggled to his feet. “Dominici! Havig! Get off your knees! Can’t you see it isn’t real? We’re having an hallucination, all four of us!”
“Do you really believe that?” the Rosgollan asked gently. There was the hint of an amused laugh. “You pitiful little creatures, so arrogantly deciding what may and may not be called real!”
Peals of enormous silent laughter thundered through the cabin. “We were like you, once, Earthmen—hundreds of thousands of your years ago. Eager, questing, brawling, foolish, petty little beings. We survived that stage. Perhaps you shall, too.”
Stone said hesitantly, “How did you find us? Was it you that caused us to get lost?”
“No,” replied the Rosgollan. “We watched you from afar, but we had no desire for contact with you. Until the moment came when we learned a ship of yours approached our galaxy. We feared, at first, that you had come seeking us—but we saw at once you were lost. I was sent to guide you to safety.”
“Where—how—”
“Enough,” the Rosgollan said. “The answers will come later. I will return.”
The light winked out. The Rosgollan was gone.
The vision screen showed the yellow sun swelling to cover an entire quadrant of space.
In the cabin, four men stared at each other in confusion and dismay.
Bernard began to laugh. It was a dry, thin laugh that held little mirth; the others frowned at him.
“The joke?” Dominici said. “The joke’s on us. On all of us in this cabin, and on the Norglans, and on the Technarch. Remember what Skrinri and Vortakel told us?”
“Sure,” Stone said. “ ‘You may keep these worlds. All other worlds belong to Norgla.’ ”
“That’s right,” Bernard said. “In cosmic pride we came to the Norglans, offering to divide the universe equally with them. In even greater pride, they sent us packing. And who were we, anyway, to say, This universe is ours? Insects! Apes!”
“We are men,” Havig said stoutly.
Bernard turned on him. “Men,” he mocked. “You talk about knowing the ways of God, Havig. What do you know? You’re a worm in a puddle, and because you’re the lord and master of that puddle you think you own the cosmos!”
“Hold on a minute, Bernard,” Dominici protested. “Is it your turn to go nuts now? What are you trying to tell us, anyway?” In a quiet voice Bernard said, “I’m not really sure—yet. But I think we’re going to be put into our true slot in the order of things. We’re not lords of creation; we’re hardly even civilized, in the eyes of these people. Did you hear what the Rosgollan said? They were like us, a few hundred thousand years ago!”
“All right, so they’re greatly advanced—”
“Greatly?” Bernard shrugged. “The difference is inconceivable. It knocks some of the arrogance out of you, doesn’t it, to find out that you’re not really king of the heap?”
“Earth will be in for some surprises, if we ever get back,” Havig remarked.
“Surprises enough to upset the applecart with a crash,” Bernard said. “We had it too good too long. It was bad enough finding the Norglans cluttering up our nice universe—but now to run into these people—”
“And who knows what others there might be?” Stone said suddenly. “In Andromeda, in the other galaxies? Creatures far beyond even the Rosgollans—”
It was a numbing thought. Bernard looked away, feeling a kind of dizziness at the sudden revelation of the universe’s immensity.
They made their way fore. But there was no need to tell Laurance. The crewmen were sitting in their cramped cabin looking dazed and shaken.
“You saw it too?” Dominici asked.
“The Rosgollan?” Laurance said. “Yes. Yes, we saw it too.” His voice was utterly flat.
“We can’t let this crack us up!” Bernard said.
“Why not?” Laurance asked tonelessly. “It’s the end, isn’t it? The finish for all our big talk of galactic empires? Now we know just how insignificant we are. Just the mammals who happen to live on a certain little yellow sun in that little galaxy there on the screen.”
Bernard did not reply. He stared at the master screen in the control panel. A planet hung large in the visual focus. The XV-ft1 had drifted into an orbit round it, an ever-narrowing orbit.
“We’re landing,” Bernard said.
CHAPTER 13
THE scene that lay before the Earthmen, as they left the ship—which had floated down, feather-light, in defiance of all laws of inertia and mass—was one of pastoral serenity.
Gentle green hills rolled out to the horizon. Dotting the green here and there were the pastel tones of small houses that seemed to sprout as organically from the ground as the low, stubby trees. There was no sign of industry, none of transportation.
“Just like fairyland,” Dominici said softly.
“Or like Paradise,” murmured Havig.
Bernard said, “It’s the post-technological phase of civilization. Remember the withering-away of the state that the ancient Marxists were forever trumpeting about? Well, this is it, I’m sure.”
The nine of them stood together not far from the ship, waiting for a Rosgollan to put in an appearance. The air was sharp, with an alien tang to it, but it felt good to the lungs. A coolish breeze blew in from the hills.
Just when they were beginning to grow impatient, a Rosgollan appeared, winking into view out of nowhere between one instant and the next.
It was impossible to tell whether the Rosgollan was the same one that had come to them aboard the ship. This was about of a size with that other, but its features and body were partially concealed by the blur of light that attended these people wherever they went.
“We shall go to the others,” said the Rosgollan in its soft unspeaking voice.
The golden glow suddenly enswaddled them all; Bernard felt a moment of womblike warmth, and then the light dropped away, and the ship vanished.
They were inside one of the alien houses. The Rosgollan said, “Be comfortable. The interrogation is about to begin.”
“Interrogation?” Laurance asked. “What kind of interrogation?”
“You will come to no harm, Commander Laurance.”
Bernard tugged at Laurance’s arm. “Better just relax and take things as they come,” he whispered. “Arguing with these people won’t do a bit of good.”
The Earthmen made themselves comfortable. There was no furniture in the room, only soft red cushions, on which they sat.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, there were three more Rosgollans in the room. Looking from one to the next, Bernard could see no discernible difference; they were as identical as though all had been stamped from the same mold.
“The interrogation will now begin,” came the serene word from one (or was it all?) of them.
“Don’t answer a thing!” Laurance snapped suddenly. “We don’t want to give them any vital information. Remember, we’re prisoners here, no matter how well they happen to treat us!”
Despite Laurance’s outburst, the interrogation began. There was nothing Laurance could do to prevent it. Not a word was spoken, not even in their peculiar mental voice; but, beyond doubt, there was a flow of information.
The interrogation seemed to last only an instant, though Bernard was not sure: perhaps it took hours, but the hours were shrunken to a point in time. He could not tell. But he felt the outflow of information.
The four Rosgollans drew everything from him: his childhood, his disastrous first marriage, his academic career, his interests and crochets, his second marriage, his unlamented divorce. All this they took from him in an instant, examined, discarded as being personal and therefore of only incidental interest.
In the next layer they drew from him the summons from the Technarch, the journey to the Norglan colony, the unsatisfactory meeting with the Norglans, the bungled voyage home. They knew everything to date.
Then it was over. The tendril of thought the Rosgollans had inserted into the brains of the Earthmen snapped back. Bernard blinked, stunned a little by the snapping of the contact. He felt drained, hollow, exhausted. He felt as though his brain had been drawn forth, examined very carefully, and put back into place.
And the Rosgollans were laughing.
There was no sound in the room, and, as ever, the faces of the strange beings were veiled in impenetrable light. But the impression of laughter hung in the air. Bernard felt his face grow red, without quite knowing why he felt shame. There had been nothing in his mind of which he was ashamed. He had lived his life, sought the ends he thought desirable, cheated no man, wronged no one intentionally. But the Rosgollans were laughing.
Laughing at me, he wondered. Or at someone else here? Or at all of us, at all the human race?
The unheard laughter died away.
“You’re laughing at us!” Laurance cried belligerently. “Laughing, you damned superior beings!”
The alien reply was gentle. “Yes, we are amused. We ask your forgiveness, Earthmen, but we are amused!”
Bernard realized that these Rosgollans were not quite the noble and mature beings he had been regarding them as. They could laugh at the struggles of a younger race. It was a patronizing laugh.
“We will leave you alone a while,” the Rosgollans said. The light vanished.
“So that’s what it’s like to be interrogated,” Dominici said. “I could feel them prowling around in my head—and I couldn’t shut them out. Imagine it—fingers stroking your bare brain!” He shuddered at the memory.
“Why are they doing all this?” Hernandez demanded. “Why did they have to drag us down here and toy with us? What’s their purpose?”
“More important,” said Dominici. “How are we going to get out of here?”
“We aren’t,” said Bernard in a flat voice. “Not unless the Rosgollans decide to let us go.”
“You’re turning into a defeatist, Bernard,” Dominici said warningly.
“I’m just looking at things realistically. How are we going to escape? Where’s the ship? What did they do with it?”
“Why—uh—” Dominici paused. He walked to the door of the room. The door obediently drew back as he approached, and he stepped out, into the open. The others followed him out.
Green hills rolled to the horizon. Fleecy clouds broke the harsh metallic blueness of the sky.
There was no sign of the ship “We might be anywhere on this planet,” Bernard said “Five, ten, fifteen thousand miles from the ship. How are we going to get back? By transmat? Teleportation? On foot? Which direction do we go?”
“So we’re prisoners, then,” Dominici said bitterly.
“Even if we reached the ship,” said Havig, “they would only bring us back, the way they brought us here originally. We are at their mercy.”
Bernard kneeled in the meadow just outside the building. He snatched up a stalk of grass with a snapping motion of his hand. It was a painful business, this being gently wafted to Rosgolla. It struck at the center of a man’s soul to keep him in this sort of smiling bondage.
“Hey!” Dominici exclaimed “Food!”
Bernard turned. He caught a glimpse of a dying light, and, spread out on the grass in front of the house, he saw trays of food.
“We might as well dig in,” he said. “The worst it can do is kill us.”
He picked up a small golden cake and nibbled it experimentally. It literally melted in his mouth, flowing down his gullet like honey. He ate another, then turned his attention to blue gourd-like vegetables, to a crystal pitcher of clear yellow wine, to round translucent white fruits the size of cherries. It was all delicious, and it was impossible to suggest that such delicate foods might be poisonous to a Terran metabolism. He ate his fill.
The sun was dropping in the heavens now. Near the horizon a small moon could be seen, low in the late-afternoon sky, visible as a tiny flat pearl against the darkening blue. It was a scene of simple beauty, as the meal had been simple, as the few Rosgollan buildings he had seen were simple. That simplicity alone argued for the great antiquity of these people. They had gone past the cultural stage of finding virtue in size and complexity, into the serene mature era of clean lines and uncluttered horizons.
He could find pleasure in such a life, he who had enjoyed solitude and quiet, the peace of a fishing preserve on a young colony, the privacy of his own flat in London, the silence of his study-retreat in the Syrtis Major.
“What do they want with us?” Hernandez was asking.
“We amuse them,” Laurance said. “Maybe they’ll grow tired of us sooner or later, and let us go.”
“Let us go where?” Nakamura said quizzically. “We are more than one hundred thousand light-years from home. Or will the Rosgollans show us how to find our way back, when they let us go?”
“If they let us go,” Dominici corrected.
“They won’t keep us here long,” Bernard said, breaking his long silence.
“Oh? How do you know?”
“Because we don’t fit into the scheme of things here,” the sociologist replied. “We’re blotches on the landscape. The Rosgollans have their own tranquil lives to lead. Why should they install a bunch of barbarians on their quiet planet to stir things up? No, they’ll let us go when they’re through with us. They aren’t the zookeeper type.”
The night was falling rapidly now.
They went inside and some of the men settled themselves on the cushions as if settling down for the night. Bernard walked to the edge of the single room, leaned against the wall, and watched it turn transparent for three feet on either side of him to provide him with a window.
He peered outward, upward. The strange stars blazed down. He sought for Earth’s galaxy, but it did not seem to be visible from this part of the planet.
Feeling suddenly stifled by the magnitude of his distance from home, Bernard reeled away from the window and threw himself down on the nearest cushion. He jammed his eyes tightly together. His lips moved as if of their own accord.
He recovered his self-control after an instant and thought in quiet wonder, I prayed! By the Hammer, I actually prayed to go home!
The prayer had been like a release. The knot of tension that had been forming for hours within him let go its hold. He cradled his head on his folded arms, kicked off his shoes, and was asleep within seconds.
CHAPTER 14
MORNING came swiftly.
Bernard woke, feeling cramped and musty from having slept fully dressed, and rose to a sitting position. The others were strewn around the floor, still asleep, and the room was still dark.
Stepping through the obliging door, Bernard sucked in his breath sharply; the air was marvelously fresh, the distant hills looked new-minted in the transparent morning sky, a silvery sheen of dew glistened over the meadow. For an instant Bernard almost forgot where he was and how he had come to be here.
One by one the others came out, stretching their legs after the short night. Stone joined them first, then Nakamura with his cheery greeting, then Havig, nodding brusquely, and Laurance, lost in his own private bitterness. After him came Clive and Hernandez, with the taciturn Peterszoon strolling out last and glaring at the group as if each, personally, were responsible for his predicament.
“Any sign of breakfast?” Stone asked.
“Not yet,” answered Bernard. “Maybe they were waiting until we were all awake.”
“Look there!” Clive cried suddenly. “Look!”
Eight heads turned to look.
“No,” Bernard gasped. “It isn’t so. It’s a hoax—an illusion—”
For an instant, a nimbus of radiance had settled lightly to the meadow some fifty yards from the group of Earthmen. The light had glimmered briefly, then flickered out. And in the afterimage of the light, two burly figures could be seen—two massive dark-skinned figures, not precisely human, that staggered uncertainly over the grass, looking all about them in bewilderment and—perhaps—fear.
Skrinri and Vortakel. The kharvish. The haughty Norglan diplomats.
“We have brought you companions,” said a Rosgollan voice. “The negotiations may now proceed once more.”
The big Norglans looked drunk, or else just badly disorientated. But they recovered swiftly; and then all their recovery went to nought as they recoiled in astonishment upon catching sight of the Earthmen.
“Are they the same ones as—before?” Dominici asked.
“I’m sure of it. See, the bigger one is Skrinri, the one with the scar on his shoulder is Vortakel.”
The Norglans drew near. In a tone that was harsh, guttural, quite unlike his mellow boom of old, Skrinri said, “You—Earthmen? The same Earthmen?” Bernard answered, “Yes. We have met before with you. You are Skrinri—you, Vortakel.”
“Where are we?” Skrinri asked.
