Impact by Irving E. Cox (big screen ebook reader txt) š
- Author: Irving E. Cox
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IMPACT
By IRVING E. COX, Jr.
ILLUSTRATED by GRAYAM
They were languorous, anarchic, shameless
in their pleasures . . . were they lower
than man . . . or higher?
[Page 6]
Over the cabin āphone, Annās voice was crisp with anger. āMr. Lord, I must see you at once.ā
āOf course, Ann.ā Lord tried not to sound uncordial. It was all part of a trade agentās job, to listen to the recommendations and complaints of the teacher. But an interview with Ann Howard was always so arduous, so stiff with unrelieved righteousness. āI should be free untilāā
āCan you come down to the schoolroom, Mr. Lord?ā
āIf itās necessary. But I told you yesterday, thereās nothing we can do to make them take the lessons.ā
āI understand your point of view, Mr. Lord.ā Her words were barely civil, brittle shafts of ice. āHowever, this concerns Don; heās gone.ā
āGone? Where?ā
āJumped ship.ā
āAre you sure, Ann? How long ago?ā
āI rather imagined youād be interested,ā she answered with smug satisfaction. āNaturally youāll want to see his note. Iāll be waiting for you.ā
The āphone clicked decisively as she broke the connection. Impotent fury lashed Lordās mindāanger at Don Howard, because the engineer was one of his key men; and, childishly, anger at Donās sister because she was the one who had broken the news. If it had come from almost anyone else it would, somehow, have seemed less disastrous. Donās was the fourth desertion in less than a week, and the loss of trained personnel was becoming serious aboard the Ceres. But what did Ann Howard expect Lord to do about it? This was [Page 8] a trading ship; he had no military authority over his crew.
As Lord stood up, his desk chair collapsed with a quiet hiss against the cabin wall, and, on greased tubes, the desk dropped out of sight beneath the bunk bed, giving Lord the luxury of an uncluttered floor space eight feet square. He had the only private quarters on the shipāthe usual distinction reserved for a trade agent in command.
From a narrow wardrobe, curved to fit the projectile walls of the ship, Lord took a lightweight jacket, marked with the tooled shoulder insignia of command. He smiled a little as he put it on. He was Martin Lord, trade agent and heir to the fabulous industrial-trading empire of Hamilton Lord, Inc.; yet he was afraid to face Ann Howard without the visible trappings of authority.
He descended the spiral stairway to the midship airlock, a lead-walled chamber directly above the long power tubes of the Ceres. The lock door hung open, making an improvised landing porch fifty feet above the charred ground. Lord paused for a moment at the head of the runged landing ladder. Below him, in the clearing where the ship had come down, he saw the rows of plastic prefabs which his crew had thrown upālaboratories, sleeping quarters, a kitchen, and Ann Howardās schoolroom.
Beyond the clearing was the edge of the magnificent forest which covered so much of this planet. Far away, in the foothills of a distant mountain range, Lord saw the houses of a village, gleaming in the scarlet blaze of the setting sun. A world at peace, uncrowded, unscarred by the feverish excavation and building of man. A world at the zenith of its native culture, about to be jerked awake by the rude din of civilization. Lord felt a twinge of the same guilt that had tormented his mind since the Ceres had first landed, and with an effort he drove it from his mind.
He descended the ladder and crossed the clearing, still blackened from the landing blast; he pushed open the sliding door of the schoolroom. It was large and pleasantly yellow-walled, crowded with projectors, view-booths, stereo-miniatures, and picture booksāall the visual aids which Ann Howard would have used to teach the natives the cultural philosophy of the Galactic Federation. But the rows of seats were empty, and the gleaming machines still stood in their cases. For no one had come to Annās school, in spite of her extravagant offers of trade goods.
Ann sat waiting, ramrod straight, in front of a green-tinged projectoscope. She made no compromise with the heat, which had driven the men to strip to their fatigue shorts. Ann wore the full, formal uniform. A less strong-willed woman might have appeared wilted after a dayās work. Annās face was expressionless, a block of cold ivory. [Page 9] Only a faint mist of perspiration on her upper lip betrayed her acute discomfort.
āYou came promptly, Mr. Lord.ā There was a faint gleam of triumph in her eyes. āThat was good of you.ā
She unfolded her brotherās note and gave it to Lord. It was a clear, straight-forward statement of fact. Don Howard said he was deserting the mission, relinquishing his Federation citizenship. āIām staying on this world; these people have something priceless, Ann. All my life Iāve been looking for it, dreaming of it. You wouldnāt understand how I feel, but nothing elseānothing elseāmatters, Ann. Go home. Leave these people alone. Donāt try to make them over.ā
The last lines rang in sympathy with Lordās own feelings, and he knew that was absurd. Changes would have to be made when the trade city was built. That was Lordās business. Expansion and progress: the lifeblood of the Federation.
āWhat do you want me to do?ā he demanded.
āGo after Don and bring him back.ā
āAnd if he refusesāā
āI wonāt leave him here.ā
āI have no authority to force him against his will, Ann.ā
āIām sure you can get help from thisāā her lip curled āāthis native girl of yours. Whatās her name?ā
āNiaga.ā
āOh, yes; Niaga. Quaint, isnāt it?ā She smiled flatly.
He felt an almost irresistible urge to smash his fist into her jaw. Straight-laced, hopelessly blind to every standard but her ownāwhat right did Ann have to pass judgment on Niaga? It was a rhetorical question. Ann Howard represented the Federation no less than Lord did himself. By law, the teachers rode every trading ship; in the final analysis, their certification could make or break any new planetary franchise.
āNiaga has been very helpful, Ann; cooperative andāā
āOh, Iām sure she has, Mr. Lord.ā
āI could threaten to cut off Donās bonus pay, I suppose, but it wouldnāt do much good; money has no meaning to these people and, if Don intends to stay here, it wonāt mean much to him, either.ā
āHow you do it, Mr. Lord, is not my concern. But if Don doesnāt go home with usāā She favored him with another icy smile. āIām afraid Iāll have to make an adverse report when you apply for the franchise.ā
āYou canāt, Ann!ā Lord was more surprised than angry. āOnly in the case of a primitive and belligerent cultureāā
āIāve seen no evidence of technology here.ā She paused. āAnd not the slightest indication that these people have any conception of moral values.ā
āNot by our standards, no; but weāve never abandoned a planet for that reason alone.ā
[Page 10]
āI know what youāre thinking, Mr. Lord. Men like youāthe traders and the businessmen and the buildersāyouāve never understood a teacherās responsibility. You make the big noise in the Federation; but we hold it together for you. Iām not particularly disturbed by the superficials Iāve seen here. The indecent dress of these people, their indolent villages, their congenital irresponsibilityāall that disgusts me, but it has not affected my analysis. Thereās something else hereāsomething far more terrible and more dangerous for us. I canāt put it in words. Itās horrible and itās deadly; itās the reason why our men have deserted. Theyāve had attractive women on other worldsāin the trade cities, anything money could buyābut they never jumped ship before.ā
āA certain percentage always will, Ann.ā Lord hoped he sounded reassuring, but he felt anything but reassured himself. Not because of what she said. These naive, altogether delightful people were harmless. But could the charming simplicity of their lives survive the impact of civilization? It was this world that was in danger, not by any stretch of the imagination the Federation.
As the thought occurred to him, he shrank from it with a kind of inner terror. It was heresy. The Federation represented the closest approximation of perfection mortal man would ever know: a brotherhood of countless species, a union of a thousand planets, created by the ingenuity and the energy of man. The Pax Humana; how could it be a threat to any people anywhere?
āThat would be my recommendation.ā Suddenly Annās self-assurance collapsed. She reached for his hand; her fingers were cold and trembling. āBut, if you bring Don back, IāI wonāt report against a franchise.ā
āYouāre offering to make a deal? You know the penaltyāā
āCollusion between a trade agent and the teacher assigned to his shipāyes, I know the law, Mr. Lord.ā
āYouāre willing to violate it for Don? Why? Your brotherās a big boy now; heās old enough to look after himself.ā
Ann Howard turned away from him and her voice dropped to a whisper. āHe isnāt my brother, Mr. Lord. We had to sign on that way because your company prohibits a man and wife sailing in the same crew.ā
In that moment she stripped her soul bare to him. Poor, plain, conscientious Ann Howard! Fighting to hold her man; fighting the unknown odds of an alien world, the stealthy seduction of an amoral people. Lord understood Ann, then, for the first time; he saw the shadow of madness that crept across her mind; and he pitied her.
āIāll do what I can,ā he promised.
As he left the schoolroom she collapsed in a straight-backed chairāthin and unattractive, [Page 11] like Ann herselfāand her shoulders shook with silent, bitter grief.
Martin Lord took the familiar path to Niagaās village. The setting sun still spread its dying fire across the evening sky, but he walked slowly through the deep, quiet shadows of the forest. He came to the stream where he had met Niaga; he paused to dip his sweat-smeared face into the cool water cascading over a five foot fall.
A pleasant flood of memory crowded his mind. When he had first met Niaga, almost a week before, she had been lying on the sandy bank of the stream, idly plaiting a garland of red and blue flowers. Niaga! A copper-skinned goddess, stark naked and unashamed in the bright spot light of sun filtered through the trees. Languorous, laughing lips; long, black hair loosely caught in a net of filmy material that hung across her shoulder.
The feeling of guilt and shame had stabbed at Lordās mind. He had come, unasked, into an Eden. He didnāt belong here. His presence meant pillage, a rifling of a sacred dream. The landing had been a mistake.
Oddly enough, the Ceres had landed here entirely by chance, the result of a boyish fling at adventure.
Martin Lord was making a routine tour of representative trade cities before assuming his vice-presidency in the central office of Hamilton Lord, Inc. It had been a family custom for centuries, ever since the first domed ports had been built on Mars and Venus.
Lord was twenty-six and, like all the family, tall, slim, yellow-haired. As the Lords had for generations, Martin had attended the Chicago University of Commerce for four years, and the Princeton Graduate School in Interstellar Engineering four moreāessential preparations for the successful Federation trader. In Chicago Martin had absorbed the basic philosophy of the Federation: the union of planets and diverse peoples, created by trade, was an economy eternally prosperous and eternally growing, because the number of undiscovered and unexploited planets was infinite. The steady expansion of the trade cities kept demand always one jump ahead of supply; every merchant was assured that this yearās profits would always be larger than last. It was the financial millennium, from which depression and recession had been forever eliminated. At Princeton Lord had learned the practical physics necessary for building, servicing and piloting the standard interstellar merchant ships.
Martin Lordās tour of the trade cities completed his education. It was his first actual contact with reality. The economy of progress, which had seemed so clear-cut in the Chicago lecture halls, was translated into a brawling, vice-ridden, frontier city. In the older trade cities, the [Page 12] culture of man had come to dominate the occupied worlds. No trace of what alien peoples had been or had believed survived, except as museum oddities.
This, Lord admitted to himself, was conquest, by whatever innocuous name it passed. But was it for good or evil? In the first shock of reality, Martin Lord had doubted himself and the destiny of the Federation. But only for a moment. What he saw was goodāhe had been taught to believe thatābecause the Federation was perfection.
But the doubt, like a cancer, fed and grew in the darkness of Lordās soul.
On the home trip a mechanical defect of the calibration of the time-power carried the Ceres off its course, light years beyond the segment of the Galaxy occupied by the Federation.
āWeāve burned out a relay,ā Don Howard reported.
āHave we replacements?ā Lord asked.
āItās no problem to fix. But repairs would be easier if we could set the ship down somewhere.ā
Lord glanced at the unknown sun and three satellite planets
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