“You could have out waited that. How many years, or millions of years, blew by while the Others were growing into the galaxy and we abiding blind on our single globe? Would a few more matter?”
“They will to the Emissary crew,” he grated. “You know that the mate, if he’s alive, is family to me. And another is a, a good friend of mine. Not to mention the rest. They have their rights too.”
“Aye. Yet against this you surely set the welfare of Lis and Barbara and Mike, to say naught of hundreds who get their livelihood from Chehalis.” Caitlin gripped his nearest hand. “Dan, dearest, something beyond is driving you. What might that be? Yes, many a time you’ve told me how marvelous it would be for humans to have the freedom of the stars, more than fire or writing or the end of disease. And have I differed with you? But why this terrible haste, at whatever cost? We’ll die, darling, old and wicked if I have my desire, before we’ve known all there is to know here on Demeter by herself.”
He knotted his fists while his mind groped for clarity. “Pegeen, on Earth I saw too much of what big, passionate convictions do to people, especially when governments have them. Then I started reading history, and found Side 24
Anderson, Poul – Avatar, The
what horrors they’ve brought in the past. That made me swear I’d stay objective.
If nothing else, I figured I could keep from orating at everybody in sight.
“Except. . . I guess when we get right down to bedrock, I can no more set my strongest beliefs on a shelf to wait for a convenient moment than anyone else can.”
Briefly, a part of him wondered if she noticed the mixed metaphor.
Probably. But she kissed him and requested, “Tell me them. How I wish you had earlier.”
He heard how strained his voice was but couldn’t amend that:
“This is what I’m afraid of. If the human race doesn’t take off soon for the stars, it dies.
“The Union is in bad trouble. I thought, when I quit the Peace Command as a young fellow, that we’d pretty well worked ourselves out of a job. Earth looked orderly and sane. Well, I was wrong. Too many two-legged animals are jammed onto the planet. More and more lunacies keep boiling up. Religions like Transdeism. Heresies like New Islam. Political faiths like Asianism. Nations where mobs, or cabinet ministers, scream for secession if they can’t get what they want when they want, no matter if it’s feasible. And the worst is, a lot of those grudges against the Union are legitimate. More and more, the world government is trying to run everything-everything-from the center. As if an Oceanian mariculturist, a Himalayan knight, a businessman in Nairobi, and a spaceman working out of an Iliadic base didn’t know best what their special problems are and what to do about them. Judas priest, are you aware that dead-serious talk is going on in the Council about resurrecting Keynesian fiscal policies?
“I suppose you’ve been spared the knowledge of what those were.
“The point is, whenever I visit Earth, I see it more sick. A lot of sociologists claim that the revelation about the Others, a completely superior race of beings, had considerable to do with bringing on the nuttiness that led to the Troubles. I dunno. Maybe. But if that’s correct, then the Covenant didn’t buy us anything except a breathing spell. We haven’t yet come to terms with the fact of the Others. We never will, either, unless we can get out there. No, I’m sure that the way things are going, Earth will explode pretty soon. The best result of that would be a kind of Caesar; and the Caesars weren’t really very durable. The worst that can happen- the worst doesn’t bear thinking about, Caitlin.
“And don’t suppose we can safely sit out the disaster here. My personal experience, these past several weeks, says different. Demeter may be two hundred and twenty light-years from Earth-the latest estimate I’ve seen from the astronomers-but that’s just a skip through the gate for a ship armed with fusion missiles.