The Ties That Bind Read online

reasons?--in terms of danger toourselves?"

  The analyst paused. "I can think of nothing worse that could happen tous," he said slowly, "than just being what we already are."

  He snapped his heels formally, bowed to the baron, and stalked out ofthe cabin.

  "I suggest," said a wingsman, "that we speak to Frewek about tighteningup the discipline in the Intelligence section. That man was in opencontempt, Baron."

  "But he was also probably right," sighed the graying officer andnobleman.

  "_Sir--!_"

  "Don't worry, Wingsman, there's nothing else to do. We'll have to land.Make preparations, both of you--and try to make contact with surface.I'll dictate the message."

  When the wingsmen left, it was settled. The baron arose with a sigh andwent to peer morosely at the view of Earth below. Very delicately, hewiped the tiny trace of blood from the glass. She was a beautiful world,this Earth. She had spawned them all, as Meikl said--but for this, thebaron could feel only bitterness toward her.

  But what of her inhabitants? I'm past feeling anything for them, hethought, past feeling for any of the life-scum that creeps across thesurface of a world, any world. We'll go down quickly, and take what weneed quickly, and leave quickly. We'll try not to infect them, butthey've already got it in them, the dormant disease, and any infectionwill be only a recurrence.

  Nevertheless, he summoned a priest to his quarters. And, before going tothe command deck, he bathed sacramentally as if in preparation forbattle.

  "_Your hawk's blude was never sae red, Edward, Edward; Your hawk's blude was never sae red, My dear son, I tell thee, O." "O I hae kill'd my red-roan steed, Mither, mither; O I hae kill'd my red roan steed, That erst was sae fair and free, O._"

  --ANONYMOUS

  False dawn was in the east when the slivers of light appeared once againout of the eclipse shadow to rake majestically across the heavens, andagain the children of Earth crowded in teeming numbers from the quietgardens to chatter their excitement at the wonder in the sky. But thistime, a message came. The men of the tech clans who tended the newlyactivated mechanisms heard it, and the mechanisms memorized it, andplayed it again and again for the people, while the linguists puzzledover the unidentified language used in the transmission.

  PROPAUTH EARTH FROM COMMSTRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACE, KLAEDEN COMM, PRESENTS GREETINGS!

  IF YOU HAVE RECORDS, OUR USE OF ANCIENT ANGLO-GERMANIC SHOULD MAKE OUR IDENTITY CLEAR. HAVE YOU FUELING FACILITIES FOR 720 SHIPS OF THOR-NINE CLASS? IF NOT, WE SHALL DEVELOP FACILITIES FROM LOCAL RESOURCES, WITH, WE TRUST, YOUR PEACEFUL COOPERATION. THIS CADRE NOT REIMMIGRATING, BUT EN ROUTE TO URSAN STARS. REQUEST LANDING SUGGESTIONS, IN VIEW OF OUR FUELING NEEDS.

  REQUEST INTELLIGENCE CONCERNING PRESENT LEVEL OF TERRESTRIAL CULTURE. OUR ORIBITAL OBSERVATIONS INDICATE A STATIC AGRARIAN-TECHNICAL COMPLEX, BUT DETAILS NOT AVAILABLE. WE COME IN ARMS, BUT WITHOUT ENMITY. PLEASE REPLY, IF POSSIBLE.

  ERNSTLI BARON VEN KLAEDEN, COMMANDING STRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACESTRIKE COMMAND, IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION

  * * * * *

  So it came, repeated continuously for an hour, followed by an hour ofsilence, and then by another hour of repetition. The linguists wereunable to discern meanings. Thousands of memorizers were consulted, butnone knew the words of the harsh voice from the ships. At last, thesages consulted the books and memnoscripts in the ancient vaults,pouring over tomes that had been buried for countless centuries. Afterhours of hurried study....

  "It is found, _it is found_, a tongue of the ancients!" a joyous cry inthe glades and the garden pathways.

  Happily, the sages recorded the linguistic structure of the forgottentongue on memnoscript, and gave it to a servo translator. Outmodedmechanisms were being brought out of wraps and prepared for use. Theservos supplied a translation of the message, and the sages studied it.

  "It is badly understood," was the curious mutter along the gardenpathways.

  "Many words have no words to match them, nor any thoughts that aresimilar," was the only explanation the sages could give.

  In translation the message seemed meaningless, or unfathomable. Only onething was clear. The sons of Man meant to descend again upon the worldof their ancestors. There was a restless unease in the gardens, andgroups of elders gathered in the conference glades to mutter and glanceat the sky. "Invite our brothers to land," was the impetuous cry of theyoung, but there were dissenters.

  In the Glade of Sopho, a few thoughtful clansmen of Pedaga had gatheredto muse and speak quietly among themselves, although it was notordinarily the business of tutors to consider problems that confrontedsociety as a whole, particularly problems arising outside societyitself. The Pedaga were teachers of the very young, and deliberatelykept themselves childlike in outlook in order to make fuller contactwith the children in their charge.

  "I think we should tell them to go away," said Letha, and looked aroundat the others for a response.

  She got nothing in reply but a flickering glance from Marrita, who satmorosely on a cool rock by the spring, her chin on her bare knees. Evongave her a brief polite smile, to acknowledge the sound of her voice,but he returned almost at once to absently tearing twigs and glancing upat the bits of sky that showed through the foliage of the overhangingtrees. Iak and Karrn were whispering together at the far end of theglade, and had not heard her.

  Letha shrugged and leaned back against the tree trunk again, sittingspraddle-legged this time in the hope of catching Evon's eye. She was agraceful girl, and while gracefulness is sometimes feline, Letha's wasmore nearly kittenish. She was full-bodied and soft, but well-shaped inspite of a trace of plumpness. Thick masses of black hair fell overbaby-skin shoulders in a pleasing contrast, and while her face was a bittoo round, it radiated a gentle, winning grin, and the sympathetic gazeof gray-blue eyes. Now she seemed ready to pout. Evon remainedself-absorbed.

  "I think we should tell them to go away," she repeated a little sharply."They'll all be big and swashbuckling and handsome, and the childrenwill become unmanageable as soon as they see them. All the little girlswill swoon, and all the little boys will want to go with them."

  Evon glanced at her briefly. "It's up to the elders of the Geoark," hemuttered without interest, and prepared to return to his ownmeditations.

  "And all the _big_ girls will run away with them," she purred with atight smile, and stretched a languorous leg out in front of her towaggle her foot.

  Evon shot her a quick glance, held it for a moment, then looked skywardagain. She pursed her lips in irritation and glared at him. Gradually,she forgave him. Evon was distraught. He _must_ be--because she hadn'tseen him sit still this long in years. He was _always_ doing something,or looking for something to do. It wasn't like Evon just to sit stilland think. He was a restless, outgoing fellow, nearly always reactingboisterously, or laughing his staccato laugh. Now he just sat there andlooked puzzledly in the direction of the sky-fleet. Looking puzzleddidn't fit his face, somehow. It was a bony brown face, slightly oily,with a long narrow jaw that jutted forward like a plowshare under anelastic smirk. It was a rubbery kind of a face, the kind that couldtwist into horrid masks for the amusement of the young. Now it justdrooped.

  She stirred restlessly, driven to seek sympathetic understanding.

  "You wonder what it's like, Evon?" she asked.

  He grunted at her quizzically and shook his head.

  "To be one of the children of the Exodus, I mean," she added.

  "_Me?_ What _are_ you thinking of, Letha?"

  "Of your face. It looks suddenly like a nomad's face. You remind me ofan old schnorrer who used to wander through our gardenboro every year toplay his fiddle, and sing us songs, and steal our chickens."

  "I don't fiddle."

  "But your eyes are on the sky-fleet."

  Evon paused, hovering between irritation and desire to express. "It'sstrange," he murmured at last. "It's as
if I know them--the star-birds,I mean. Last night, when I saw them first, it was like looking atsomething I expected to happen ... or ... or...."

  "Something familiar?"

  "Yes."

  "You think he has the genemnemon, Marrita?" she asked the blonde girlwho sat on the cool rock by the spring.

  Marrita looked up from dabbling her toes in the icy trickle. "I don'tbelieve in the genemnemon. My great grandfather was a thief."

  "How silly! What's that to do with it?"

  "He buried a fortune, they say. If there was a genemnemon, I'd rememberwhere he buried it, wouldn't I?" She pouted, and went back to dabbling aclub toe in the spring.

  Evon snorted irritably and arose to stretch. "We lie