City at World's End - Edmond Hamilton (best classic books to read .TXT) 📗
- Author: Edmond Hamilton
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Book online «City at World's End - Edmond Hamilton (best classic books to read .TXT) 📗». Author Edmond Hamilton
The sleeping city woke. The people poured out into the shining streets, and the sound of their voices rose and became one long shout of joy. Kenniston turned to Gorr Holl and Magro and the others. He wanted to say something, but he could not find any words. Finally he laughed, and they laughed with him, and they went out together into the streets.
Mayor Garris met them almost at once, having run all the way from City Hall. Hubble was with him, and most of the men from the old Lab, and a crowd of Middletowners. There was no making any sense out of anything that was said, but the people hoisted Gorr Holl and Magro and the crewmen to their shoulders and rode them in a triumphal procession around the plaza, and the shouts and cheers were deafening. More than water, more than heat, the people treasured this gift of light. And on that night they accepted the humanoids as brothers.
A little later, a breathless and jubilant group gathered in City Hall— Gorr Holl and Magro, Kenniston, Hubble, and the Mayor. Bertram Garris wrung the big Capellan’s mighty paw and beamed at Magro, trying to express his thanks for all that they and the others had done, and Gorr Holl listened, grinning.
“What’s he saying?” he asked Kenniston, who now occupied the position of interpreter.
Kenniston laughed. “He wants to know what he can do to show his appreciation— like giving you the city or his daughter in marriage, or a few pints of his blood. Seriously, Gorr, we are all mighty grateful. You people have made the city live again, and— well, is there anything we can do to show you we mean it?”
Gorr Holl considered. He looked at Magro, and Magro nodded solemnly. Gorr Holl said, “Well, being primitives— we could use a drink!”
Hubble, who had picked up a smattering of the language, began to laugh. Kenniston translated for the Mayor, who immediately proclaimed a medical emergency and hastened to produce bottles from the hoard. It was a cheerful celebration, and Kenniston found himself actively missing Bal and Ban and the grey Lal’lor, who had returned to the ship with part of the crew a day or so before.
An unhappy thought occurred to him, and he said, “I suppose you people will be going away pretty soon, now that the work’s done.”
Margo shrugged his supple shoulders. “That will depend on a number of things.” He glanced lazily at Gorr Holl.
Gorr Holl was a little drunk by now— not much, but loud and cheerful. The Mayor was feeling good too, and was affectionately patting the Capellan’s great furry shoulder.
“I want you to understand,” Garris was saying earnestly, “that I’m sorry about that stupid bull of mine when I first saw you. We’re all sorry, seeing how much you’ve done for us.”
“Listen, we haven’t done much,” said Gorr Holl, when Kenniston had translated. “But the lights and all will make you more comfortable here, while you’re waiting.”
Kenniston stared at him. “What do you mean— while we’re waiting?”
“Why, while you’re waiting to be evacuated, of course,” said Gorr.
There was a little silence. Kenniston felt a queer tension seize him, and he knew suddenly that this was something he’d been unconsciously expecting, something that he’d felt wasn’t quite right, all along.
He said carefully, “Gorr, we don’t understand this. What is this talk of evacuation?”
The big Capellan stared at him, with surprise in his large dark eyes and bearlike face. But, of a sudden, Kenniston felt that that surprise was completely assumed, that in this offhand, casual way Gorr Holl was springing something on them and watching for their reaction.
“Didn’t Piers tell you?” said Gorr Holl. “No, I suppose he’d have instructions not to. They’d figure you people were emotional primitives like Magro and me, and that the less time you have to think about it, the better.”
Kenniston said tightly again, “What do you mean by evacuation?”
The Capellan looked at him levelly now. “I simply mean that, by order of the Governors, all you people are to be evacuated from Earth to some other star-world.”
Three men of Earth stared at the big Capellan, and for a long, long moment no one spoke. Gorr Holl became absorbed in the glass he held between his hands. Magro watched them with his bright cat eyes. The beautiful streaming light poured over them, and the men were like three images of stone.
Bertram Garris found his tongue at last. But it was only to repeat Gorr Holl’s words, as Kenniston had translated them.
“Evacuation?” he said. And again,“Evacuation?”
“To the world of another star,” said Kenniston slowly. His mouth twitched, and he leaned close to Gorr Holl, and cried, “What do you think we’re made of?”
Gorr Holl looked around their faces, and then said ruefully, “I guess I’ve talked too much.” His ruefulness was no more convincing than his earlier surprise.
Mayor Garris had begun to tremble. A fury was building up in him, a genuine fury that had nothing to do with display. He glared at Magro and at Gorr Holl.
“They knew this all along, that woman and the others,” he said. “They came in here, pretending to be our friends, and all the time behind our backs…” He stopped. His wrath and fear were all but choking him, coming so swiftly after joy. His voice went up and octave. “You tell them, Kenniston, tell them from me— if they think we’re going to move clear off the Earth to some— some—” he stammered over the sheer impossibility of what he was saying, “— some damn fool place out in the sky— well, they’re crazy!”
Hubble said to Kenniston, “Ask him if this is a thing they do, these Governors? I mean, this moving of whole populations from one world to another?”
Gorr Holl nodded to that. “Oh, yes. Whenever life on some planet becomes economically unsound, or the margin of survival is too small, the Governors evacuate the people to a better world. There are lots of them, good warm fertile planets that are uninhabited or nearly so. They did it to some of my own people, moved them from Capella Five to Aldebaran.”
Kenniston cried out of his anger, “And people let that be done to them? They didn’t even resist it?”
Gorr Holl said, “People— human people, I mean— have got millions of years of civilization behind them. They’re used to peaceful government, used to obedience, and they’ve been moving from world to world ever since they left Earth ages ago, so that one planet doesn’t mean much more than another to them. But the primitive humanoid folk, lately civilized, like my own and Magro’s, aren’t so reasonable. There’s been a good bit of resentment among them about this evacuation business. In fact, they hate it— just as much as you do.”
“Here!” said Hubble sharply. “Where are you going?” He was talking to the Mayor, who was striding suddenly toward the door. He caught Garris by the coat and pulled him back. The Mayor struggled sullenly to free himself.
“I’m going to tell them,” he said, jerking his head toward the sounds of revelry that came from the crowd of Middletowners in the plaza. “Move off the Earth? They’ll have something to say about that!”
“What do you want to do?” snapped Hubble. “Start a riot? Don’t be a fool, that’s no way to handle this. No, it’s that ice-water blonde we’ve got to talk to, and that fellow Lund.” He shook Garris. “Stop it, I say! Going off half-cocked will only make it harder for everyone.”
Garris stopped struggling. He looked from Hubble to Kenniston and back again. “All right,” he said, “we’ll talk to them. But they’d better get it through their heads that they’re not dealing with any flock of tame sheep.” He stamped back into the room. “Ordering us off our own world..! Get those two freaks out of here, Kenniston. I was right the first time. They’re not to be trusted, they’re…”
“Oh, shut up,” said Kenniston impatiently. “Gorr and Margo don’t make the laws. They’re simply being decent enough to give us fair warning of something we wouldn’t have known about until it was too late.” He knew there was more in it than that, but he was too hurried and upset to search for deeper motives now. He turned to Gorr and the Spican.
“Listen,” he said. “You’ve seen how the Mayor reacted. Well, I can assure you that all our people will react just that way, only more so. Tell that to Varn Allan, and tell her that she’d better come here and talk about this evacuation before she gets in too deep. Tell her we don’t like having things done behind our backs. Tell her—” He caught himself, surprised by his own fury. “No, I guess you couldn’t tell her that,” he said, and Gorr Holl grinned.
“As one primitive to another, I get your meaning.”
“Well, all right. And Gorr— you and Magro and the others better stay out of the city. When this thing breaks, I wouldn’t guarantee anybody’s safety.”
“Oh,” said Gorr Holl, and grinned very widely so that even his grinders glistened, “we’ll be quite safe, confined to quarters in the ship. We, or rather I, have done an evil thing. We have spoken out of turn, and upset the Policy.”
The three of them, humanoids and human, looked at each other, and there was understanding between them. Kenniston put his hand on Gorr Holl’s furry shoulder, and gripped the iron muscles of it, and Magro said, “One more thing, Kenniston. If there’s trouble— and I seem to smell trouble very strongly in the air— watch out for Lund. Varn Allan may be much too sure of herself, but she’s honest. Lund— well, he wants Varn’s job, and he will cheerfully cut anyone’s throat to get it.”
“That is so,” said Gorr Holl. “Remember, Kenniston.”
“I’ll remember. And— thanks.”
They went away, to take the message of defiance to the ship. Kenniston watched them go, and the Mayor watched them, and they listened to the cheering that followed them all the way to the portal.
“I’m sorry I called them freaks,” the Mayor said suddenly. “By God, they’re more like us than the people in that ship!”
Hubble nodded. “Their culture level is closer to ours. They haven’t lost their old aboriginal roots. Our own people have gone too far beyond us. The whole pattern of their thinking is different. We— well, we’re strangers now, to our own kind.”
To Kenniston, the cheering and the happiness of the Middletowners out there was an ironically bitter thing, now. If they knew what was being planned for them…
He said to Hubble, nodding his head toward the Mayor, “Will you stick with him and keep him from telling everyone? He’ll listen to you more than to anyone.”
Hubble said, “I will. You get some sleep, Ken. You’ve been working a tough grind— and the Allan woman and Lund won’t likely come before morning.”
And Kenniston slept, but neither much nor well. In spite of his exhaustion, Gorr Holl’s words rang like passing bells in his mind all the rest of that night— evacuate, evacuate— to the world of another star. And he thought of all the people of Middletown who happily believed their troubles were over, and of Carol— particularly of Carol— and most of all he thought of Varn Allan, whom he had begun to hate. And he was afraid.
It did not take much imagination to divine what the Mayor’s narrowness had missed— a vast and powerful machinery of government directing this future universe, a machinery of which the big starship and its occupants were but a symbol. It did not
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