He sat on the hilltop rocks and watched the stars come out, watched the quick desert night fall like a curtain. Men of Earth, being led in a crazy dance of death, for the sake of the high, wide ballroom of the skies.
He heard Mary’s foot touch a loose stone. She came up behind him. He did not turn. He felt the soft warm pressure of her hand on his shoulder.
I know how difficult it is.
What is the final adjustment? What do I feel, afterward?
“Joy, Dake. Gladness. Pride. Humility. All the best attributes of the human spirit.”
“Will you answer questions? I’ve been thinking in circles again.”
“Of course.”
“Why did I have to be sent back here?”
“Assignment here is part of your training for your future responsibilities. Part of your training in logic, in analysis, in action, and in humility. When your work is valid, you will be credited for it. After you have acquired enough credits, you will be given Stage Two training and returned here. Later, perhaps, you will be accepted for Stage Three training. After three tours here you will be assigned to the post in Empire that you are best qualified for.”
“How long will I have to be here?”
“That depends on your progress. Twenty-five to thirty of their years.”
“Their years?”
“Earth years. Two and a half to three of ours, basing it on effect of time.”
“I want to gloat about that. And feel guilty. That’s a very precious gift.”
“But not mystic. Just one logical result of an advanced medical science. A continuation of the trend you’ve seen here on earth.”
“Another question. There are two groups, apparently, or more. In conflict with each other. I don’t see why that should be necessary, or even advisable.”
“Is any untrained man a fair match for you?”
“N-No, but...”
“Did any man ever play a great game of chess, alone?”
“No.”
“Conflict breeds ingenuity. Competition, also, gives a more random result, one that is less predictable, less likely to be detected by the ordinary thinking man as the result of extra-terrestrial interference. You get credit for accomplishment, and you pay, as Karen did, a penalty for failure. And always you must watch. You watch the top people in every possible line of endeavor. The most successful crooks, as Miguel Larner was. The best statesmen, the best politicians, the best artists, designers, salesmen, engineers. People at the top of every heap got there through conflict, through a compensation for some type of psychic trauma. If the incomprehensible doesn’t drive them mad, they become our best recruits.”
“Why wasn’t Darwin Branson recruited? He was killed, wasn’t he?”
“He had an organic disorder that was too far advanced for treatment. It would have killed him within six months. Besides, it was only during the last three years of his life that he achieved more than a pedestrian impact on his environment. So he wasn’t noticed until too late.”
Dake absorbed that in silence. He stirred restlessly. She sat on the rocks beside him.
“There are so many loyalties to give up,” he said. “Loyalty to my country. That was pretty strong, you know. And now I can see that its weakness is due to what... we have done to it.”
“That word was good to hear. We. It’s an acceptance. Here is something you should consider. The number of recruits we obtain from any one country is in direct ratio to the extent of hardship that country is undergoing. During India’s years of poverty and exploitation and death we obtained many recruits there. During the fattest years of the United States it was difficult to find people sufficiently toughened, hardened. Sword steel is treated in flame. Civilizations rise and fall. Those on top are poor breeding grounds for leadership. See, you have to reverse all your concepts, Dake. Good becomes weakness. Evil becomes strength.”
“And isn’t it all a vast rationalization?”
“So is the life form itself. A rationalization of the means of survival.”
They walked back to the shack, walking in the starlight that silvered the sand underfoot. A coyote cried far away, cried of unmentionable woes and wrongs. He felt the girl shiver.
“We’ll start back in the morning,” he said quietly.
“In the morning, Dake.”
They stood for a time and watched the stars, near the dark hulk of the shack. He held her hand, felt her mind touch gently at his. They stood again in the climactic oneness, and later he began to feel the first faint stirrings of dedication, the first wary Teachings toward a philosophy that would have to support him, amid cruelty, for long years of service to a barely comprehensible dream.
Seventeen
The cabdriver was sweaty, irritable, and talkative. “Guess you folks have been out west. I can tell by that tan. You don’t get that kind of tan here in summer, or in Florida, or anywhere except out there. Jesus, it’s been a hot August here. Wet. I wish to hell I was back out where it’s dry heat.”
“It’s more comfortable,” Mary said.
“You bet your elbow it is, lady. This town goes nuts in the summer. All the rummies start sleeping in the parks. Bunch of pronies running around cutting up people. Another fleng joint war, with them throwing bombs in each other’s joints. Gawd, what a month. You hear the knock in this thing? I’m running it on kerosene, and damn poor kerosene at that.”
The driver cursed and swerved wildly to avoid a big Taj full of Pak-Indian tourists. “Think they own the damn world,” he said viciously. He shrugged, arguing with himself. “Maybe they do, come to think of it.”
“Have there been many tourists around this summer?” Dake asked.
“Too many, if you ask me. I don’t know why they come over here. I got a pal with connections. He’s all lined up to emigrate. Going to run a hack in Bombay, with a Sikh partner. He’s never had it so good. They got those quotas so tight, it’s almost impossible to get in over there.”
“You’d like to do the same thing?”
The man turned in the seat and gave him an angry glare. “Why the hell not? What is there here? Three days a week I get fuel. I get four deadheads for every tipper. I don’t even own this hack. Where’s the opportunities here? I ask you that. When I was a kid it was different. My old man owned six cabs. He had it nice. All the gas he could use.” He stopped for a light and turned around and gave Dake a puzzled stare. “What happened to us? You ever try to figure that out? Where did it all go?”
“The war.”
“That’s what everybody says. I wonder. Seems like soon as we start to climb up there again, we get knocked down. Something always tripping us up. Somebody always tripping the whole world up.”
“And then picking it up again?” Mary asked, smiling.
“Lady, in this world, you pick yourself up.” He started up slowly, cursing the cars that passed him. “You know what I figure?”
“What?” Mary asked obediently.
“I figure we got to depend on those atom rocket boys. They’re working day and night, I understand. What we haven’t got is resources. Now you take Mars, or Venus. I bet those places are loaded with coal and oil and iron and copper and every damn thing we need. We just got to get there first and stake a claim. Then we’ll be okay.”
“And if we never get off the Earth?”
The driver’s shoulders slumped. He said, in a dejected voice, “You know, mister, I just don’t like to think about that. It means we’re stuck here. And things aren’t the way they used to be. My old man used to take me out to Yankee Stadium. Yell his fool self hoarse. Can I do that? Who wants to yell at a bunch of silly broads playing softball, I ask you? Those good old days, mister, they’re gone. Believe me. TV we had, and baseball, and all the gas you wanted. Every time I see those Indians around, I feel like maybe we’re one of those kind of tribes, with bones sticking through our nose, and big spears. We’re for kicks, mister.”