The Lani People by Jesse F. Bone (freenovel24 txt) 📗

he said. “I’ve considered you responsible for Douglas’s death for ten years. I’ve searched for you on a hundred worlds. My agents in every branch office have had standing orders to report any unusual arrivals. I have hunted you personally. I wanted to break you—I wanted to kill you.”

“I couldn’t help the delay,” Kennon said. “The ship was old.”

“I know. You’ve told me more than you think. I’m a telepath, you know.”

“I’ve never forgotten it,” Kennon said. “That was one of the principal reasons I came here. I wanted to see how you’d react when you learned the whole truth.”

“And I suppose you gloat—no—you’re not doing that. But you are right. I could have checked it further. But I didn’t. Outworld Enterprises is far bigger than Flora—and I was busy. Galactic trade is a snake-pit. And, after all, there was Douglas’s death—and the Family with their never-ending clamor for money and their threats when it didn’t come promptly. I like being an entrepreneur, but until I made Outworld independent of Family control, I couldn’t do anything except run the business to their wishes. Actually the island was only a small part of the corporation. I tried to run it as humanely as possible under the circumstances.” He shuddered. “I don’t think I was ever needlessly cruel.”

“No,” Kennon said, “you were indifferent.”

“Which is just as bad,” Alexander said.

“Well—what are you going to do about it?” Copper interjected. “You can beat yourself until you’re blue, but that won’t accomplish anything.”

“What are you going to do?” Alexander countered. “You have the upper hand.”

“Me?” Copper asked. “I have nothing. This is between you men.” She lapsed into silence.

Alexander turned back to Kennon. “You have undoubtedly made some arrangements. You wouldn’t come here—oh! I see. Congratulations. Handling the evidence that way was a wise course. You have my admiration. But then I should have known that I was not dealing with a fool.” He smiled wryly. “Subconsciously I think I did know—but—”

“That’s one consolation,” Kennon grinned. “To be thought a rascal is bad enough, but to be considered a fool is intolerable.”

“But your decision not to use the evidence unless you were forced to—that’s poor business.”

“But good morals,” Kennon said. “Neither the Brotherhood nor I could settle this affair. It is a matter only you can handle. There is no sense in killing Outworld or throwing Kardon into centuries of litigation. The Lani never were numerous enough to lay claim to an entire world. I’ll admit the club is there, but I’ll never use it unless it’s necessary.”

“Why not?—it’s sound business practice.”

“I’m a professional—not a businessman. And besides, I haven’t the moral right to return evil for good. You have not been a bad boss.”

“Thanks,” Alexander said glumly. “I’ve always considered myself civilized.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” Kennon said. “Honorable, yes—civilized, no. But none of us are really civilized.”

“So?”

“We haven’t changed much, despite our development. Perhaps we’ve varied a little physically—and we’ve learned to use new tools, but our minds are still the minds of barbarians—blood brothers against the enemy, and everything not of us is enemy. Savages—hiding under a thin veneer of superficial culture. Savages with spaceships and the atom.” Kennon looked down at Copper. Apparently her thoughts were miles away in an introspective world that was all her own. She had said her piece and having done that was content to let the two men develop it. Kennon looked at her with odd respect. Alexander eyed her with a mildly startled expression on his lean face. And both men smiled, but the smiles were not amused.

“Judging from Copper,” Alexander said, “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about how the Lani will turn out.” He looked at Kennon with mild sympathy. “You are going to have quite a time with her,” he said.

“I suppose so. I’ll probably never know whether I’m guided or whether I’m doing the guiding. I’ve changed a lot of my opinions about Copper since the day I met her.”

Copper looked up and smiled at them. It was an odd smile, hinting at secrets neither of them would ever know. Alexander chuckled. “It serves you right.” He crossed his legs and looked up at Kennon standing before him. By some uncanny legerdemain he had gotten control of himself and the situation at the same time. Being telepathic was an unfair advantage, Kennon thought.

“You were equally unfair with your accusation,” Alexander said. “Sure—humanity makes mistakes, and like this one they’re sometimes brutal mistakes. But we are capable of atonement. Morally we have come a long way from the brutality of the Interregnum. I shouldn’t have to use examples, but look at that”—he waved at the view wall at the panorama of gleaming fairy towers and greenery that made Beta City one of the most beautiful in the Brotherhood. “Don’t tell me that five thousand years of peace and development haven’t produced civilization. That’s a concrete example out there.”

“It isn’t,” Kennon said flatly. “Sure, it’s pretty—clean—and beautifully designed for art and utility—but it isn’t civilization. You’re confusing technology with culture. You look at this and say, ‘What a great civilization man has built,’ when you really mean, ‘What a great technology mankind has developed.’ There’s all the difference in the world. Technology is of the mind and hands. Civilization is of the spirit—and spiritually we are still in the Dark Ages.

“We conquer, kill, loot, and enslave. We establish standards to keep humanity a closed corporation, a special club in which men can live but aliens can’t. We’ve made the standards for admission so rigid that we even enslave our own kind and call them animals. That’s not civilization—that’s savagery!

“For nearly five hundred years your family has run a slave pen. Your fortune is based upon it. And you have perpetuated this traffic in flesh on the specious reasoning that a court judgment of half a millennium ago is as good today as when it was handed down. Never once did anyone have the moral courage to re-examine that old decision. Never once did any human question the rightness of that decision. None of us are immune. We all based our conduct upon an antiquated law and searched no further. Everyone was happy with the status quo—or at least not so unhappy that they wanted to change it. Even I would have been content had it not been for Copper.”

“Yet I do not feel that it was bad that I hired you,” Alexander said. “Even though you have shown me that I am a slaver, and made me see faults I never knew I had.” His face was drawn—harsh lines reached from nose to lips, from eyes to chin. Suddenly he looked old. “I can accept censure if censure is just. And this is just. No—I’m not sorry I hired you even though the thought of what I have helped do to the Lani makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Well—” Kennon said. “What are you going to do about it?”