The Only Thing We Learn by C. M. Kornbluth

I then blew itself up, apparently with everything left in its powder magazine, taking the hospital ship with it. The sickened wing commander would never have recognized what he had seen as it was told in a later version, thus: “The crushing course they took And nobly knew Their death undaunted By heroic blast The hospital’s host They dragged to doom Hail! Men without mercy From the far frontier!” Lunar relay flickered out as overloaded fuses flashed into vapor. Arris distractedly paced back to the dark corner and sank into a chair. “I’m sorry,” said the voice of Glen next to him, sounding quite sincere. “No doubt it was quite a shock to you.” “Not to you?” asked Arris bitterly. “Not to me.” “Then how did they do it?” the wing commander asked the civilian in a low, desperate whisper. “They don’t even wear .45’s. Intelligence says their enlisted men have hit their officers and got away with it. They elect ship captains! Glen, what does it all mean?” “It means,” said the fat little man with a timbre of doom in his voice, “that they’ve returned. They always have. They always will. You see, commander, there is always somewhere a wealthy, powerful city, or nation, or world. In it are those whose blood is not right for a wealthy, powerful place. They must seek danger and overcome it. So they go out-on the marshes, in the desert, on the tundra, the planets, or the stars. Being strong, they grow stronger by fighting the tundra, the planets, or the stars. They-they change. They sing new songs. They know new heroes. And then, one day, they return to their old home. “They return to the wealthy, powerful city, or nation or world. They fight its guardians as they fought the tundra, the planets, or the stars-a way that strikes terror to the heart. Then they sack the city,

nation, or world and sing great, ringing sagas of their deeds. They always have. Doubtless they always will.”
“But what shall we do?”
“We shall cower, I suppose, beneath the bombs they drop on us, and we shall die, some bravely, some not, defending the palace within a very few hours. But you will have your revenge.”
“How?” asked the wing commander, with haunted eyes.
The fat little man giggled and whispered in the officer’s ear. Arris irritably shrugged it off as a bad joke. He didn’t believe it. As he died, drilled through the chest a few hours later by one of Algan’s gunfighters, he believed it even less.
The professor’s lecture was drawing to a close. There was time for only one more joke to send his students away happy. He was about to spring it when a messenger handed him two slips of paper. He raged inwardly at his ruined exit and poisonously read from them:
“I have been asked to make two announcements. One, a bulletin from General Sleg’s force. He reports that the so-called Outland Insurrection is being brought under control and that there is no cause for alarm. Two, the gentlemen who are members of the S.O.T.C. will please report to the armory at 1375 hours-whatever that may mean -for blaster inspection. The class is dismissed.”
Petulantly, he swept from the lectern and through the door.

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