know what we’ll find there. After we’ve made all the effort and spent all
the time we may find little or nothing, except possibly some more real
estate. And we have plenty of that in the galaxy. But the clusters have a
vast appeal for certain types of minds.”
Enoch noped. “I can see that. It would be the first venturing out of
the galaxy itself. It might be the first short step on the route that could
lead us to other galaxies.”
Ulysses peered at him. “You, too,” he said. “I might have known.”
Enoch said smugly: “I am that type of mind.”
“Well, anyhow, there was this globular-cluster faction-I suppose you’d
call it that-which contended bitterly when we began our move in this
direction. You understand-certainly you do-that we’ve barely begun the
expansion into this neighborhood. We have less than a dozen stations and
we’ll need a hundred. It will take centuries before the network is
complete.”
“So this faction is still contending,” Enoch said. “There still is time
to stop this spiral-arm project.”
“That is right. And that’s what worries me. For the faction is set to
use this incident of the missing body as an emotion-charged argument against
the extension of this network. It is being joined by other groups that are
concerned with certain special interests. And these special interest groups
see a better chance of getting what they want if they can wreck this
project.”
“Wreck it?”
“Yes, wreck it. They will start screaming, as soon as the body incident
becomes open knowledge, that a planet so barbaric as the Earth is no fit
location for a station. They will insist that this station be abandoned.”
“But they can’t do that!”
“They can,” Ulysses said. “They will say it is degrading and unsafe to
maintain a station so barbaric that even graves are rifled, on a planet
where the honored dead cannot rest in peace. It is the kind of highly
emotional argument that will gain wide acceptance and support in some
sections of the galaxy. The Vegans tried their best. They tried to hush it
up, for the sake of the project. They have never done a thing like that
before. They are a proud people and they feel a slight to honor-perhaps more
deeply than many other races- and yet, for the greater good, they were
willing to accept dishonor. And would have if they could have kept it quiet.
But the story leaked out somehow-by good espionage, no doubt. And they
cannot stand the loss of face in advertised dishonor. The Vegan who will be
arriving here this evening is an official representative charged with
delivering an official protest.”
“To me?”
“To you, and through you, to the Earth.”
“But the Earth is not concerned. The Earth doesn’t even know.”
“Of course it doesn’t. So far as Galactic Central is concerned, you are
the Earth. You represent the Earth.”
Enoch shook his head. It was a crazy way of thinking. But, he told
himself, he should not be surprised. It was the kind of thinking he should
have expected. He was too hidebound, he thought, too narrow. He had been
trained in the human way of thinking and, even after all these years, that
way of thought persisted. Persisted to a point where any way of thought that
conflicted with it must automatically seem wrong.
This talk of abandoning Earth station was wrong, too. It made no sort
of sense. For abandoning of the station would not wreck the project.
Although, more than likely, it would wreck whatever hope he’d held for the
human race.
“But even if you have to abandon Earth,” he said, “you could go out to
Mars. You could build a station there. If it’s necessary to have a station
in this solar system there are other planets.”
“You don’t understand,” Ulysses told him. “This station is just one
point of attack. It is no more than a toehold, just a bare beginning. The
aim is to wreck the project, to free the time and effort that is expended
here for some other project. If they can force us to abandon one station,
then we stand discredited. Then all our motives and our judgment come up for
review.”
“But even if the project should be wrecked,” Enoch pointed out, “there
is no surety that any group would gain. It would only throw the question of
where the time and energy should be used into an open debate. You say that
there are many special interest factions banding together to carry on the
fight against us. Suppose that they do win. Then they must turn around and
start fighting among themselves.”
“Of course that’s the case,” Ulysses admitted, “but then each of them
has a chance to get what they want, or think they have a chance. The way it
is they have no chance at all. Before any of them has a chance this project
must go down the drain. There is one group on the far side of the galaxy
that wants to move out into the thinly populated sections of one particular
section of the rim. They still believe in an ancient legend which says that
their race arose as the result of immigrants from another galaxy who landed
on the rim and worked their way inward over many galactic years. They think
that if they can get out to the rim they can turn that legend into history
to their greater glory. Another group wants to go into a small spiral arm
because of an obscure record that many eons ago their ancestors picked up
some virtually undecipherable messages which they believed came from that
direction. Through the years the story has grown, until today they are
convinced a race of intellectual giants will be found in that spiral arm.
And there is always the pressure, naturally, to probe deeper into the
galactic core. You must realize that we have only started, that the galaxy
still is largely unexplored, that the thousands of races who form Galactic
Central still are pioneers. And as a result, Galactic Central is continually
subjected to all sorts of pressures.”
“You sound,” said Enoch, “as if you have little hope of maintaining
this station, here on Earth.”
“Almost no hope at all,” Ulysses told him. “But so far as you yourself
are concerned, there will be an option. You can stay here and live out an
ordinary life on Earth or you can be assigned to another station. Galactic
Central hopes that you would elect to continue on with us.”
“That sounds pretty final.”
“I am afraid,” Ulysses said, “it is. I am sorry, Enoch, to be, the
bearer of bad news.”
Enoch sat numb and stricken. Bad news! It was worse than that. It was
the end of everything.
He sensed the crashing down of not only his own personal world, but of
all the hopes of Earth. With the station gone, Earth once more would be left
in the backwaters of the galaxy, with no hope of help, no chance of
recognition, no realization of what lay waiting in the galaxy. Standing
alone and naked, the human race would go on in its same old path, fumbling
its uncertain way toward a blind, mad future.
20
The Hazer was elderly. The golden haze that enveloped him had lost the
sparkle of its youthfulness. It was a mellow glow, deep and rich-not the
blinding haze of a younger being. He carried himself with a solid dignity,
and the flaring topknot that was neither hair nor feathers was white, a sort
of saintly whiteness. His face was soft and tender, the softness and the
tenderness which in a man might have been expressed in kindly wrinkles.
“I am sorry,” he told Enoch, “that our meeting must be such as this.
Although, under any circumstances, I am glad to meet you. I have heard of
you. It is not often that a being of an outside planet is the keeper of a
station. Because of this, young being, I have been intrigued with you. I
have wondered what sort of creature you might turn out to be.”
“You need have no apprehension of him,” Ulysses said, a little sharply.
“I will vouch for him. We have been friends for years.”
“Yes, I forgot,” the Hazer said. “You are his discoverer.”
He peered around the room. “Another one,” he said. “I did not know
there were two of them. I only knew of one.”
“It’s a friend of Enoch’s,” Ulysses said.
“There has been contact, then. Contact with the planet.”
“No, there has been no contact.”
“Perhaps an indiscretion.”
“Perhaps,” Ulysses said, “but under provocation that I doubt either you
or I could have stood against.”
Lucy had risen to her feet and now she came across the room, moving
quietly and slowly, as if she might be floating.
The Hazer spoke to her in the common tongue. “I am glad to meet you.