«Today,» he said slowly, «it is exactly fifty years since I came back from Sol.»
«Yes—?» Thordin was puzzled and vaguely uncomfortable. It wasn’t like the taciturn old fellow to rake up that forgotten score.
«You probably don’t remember,» said Skorrogan, «but if you want to vargan it from your subconscious, you’ll perceive that I said to them, then, that they could come back in fifty years and beg my pardon.»
«So now you want to vindicate yourself.» Thordin felt no surprise—it was typically Skontaran psychology—but he still wondered what there was to apologize for.
«I do. At that time I couldn’t explain. Nobody would have listened, and in any case I was not perfectly sure myself that I had done right.» Skorrogan smiled, and his thin hands set the controls. «Now I am. Time has justified me. And I will redeem what honor I lost then by showing you, today, that I didn’t really fail.
«Instead, I succeeded. You see, I alienated the Solarians on purpose.»
He pressed the main-drive stud, and the ship flashed through half a light-year of space. The great blue shield of Cundaloa rolled majestically before them, shining softly against a background of a million blazing stars.
Thordin sat quietly, letting the simple and tremendous statement filter through all the levels of his mind. His first emotional reaction was a vaguely surprised realization that, subconsciously, he had been expecting something like this. He hadn’t ever really believed, deep down inside himself, that Skorrogan could be an incompetent.
Instead—no, not a traitor. But—what, then? What had he meant? Had he been mad, all these years, or—
«You haven’t been to Cundaloa much since the war, have you?» asked Skorrogan.
«No—only three times, on hurried business. It’s a prosperous system. Solar help put them on their feet again.»
«Prosperous… yes, yes, they are.» For a moment a smile tugged at the corners of Skorrogan’s mouth, but it was a sad little smile, it was as if he were trying to cry but couldn’t quite manage it. «A bustling, successful little system, with all of three colonies among the stars.»
With a sudden angry gesture he slapped the short-range controls and the ship warped down to the surface. It landed in a corner of the great spaceport at Cundaloa City, and the robots about the cradle went to work, checking it in and throwing a protective forcedome about it.
«What—now?» whispered Thordin. He felt, suddenly, dimly afraid; he knew vaguely that he wouldn’t like what he was going to see.
«Just a little stroll through the capital,» said Skorrogan. «With perhaps a few side trips around the planet. I wanted us to come here unofficially, incognito, because that’s the only way we’ll ever see the real world, the day-to-day life of living beings which is so much more important and fundamental than any number of statistics and economic charts. I want to show you what I saved Skontar from.» He smiled again, wryly. «I gave my life for my planet, Thordin. Fifty years of it, anyway—fifty years of loneliness and disgrace.»
They emerged into the clamor of the great steel and concrete plain and crossed over the gates. There was a steady flow of beings in and out, a never-ending flux, the huge restless energy of Solarian civilization. A large proportion of the crowd was human, come to Avaiki on business or pleasure, and there were some representatives of other races. But the bulk of the throng was, naturally, native Cundaloans. Sometimes one had a little trouble telling them from the humans. After all, the two species looked much alike, and with the Cundaloans all wearing Solarian dress—
Thordin shook his head in some bewilderment at the roar of voices. «I can’t understand,» he shouted to Skorrogan. «I know Cundaloan, both Laui and Muara tongues, but—»
«Of course not,» answered Skorrogan. «Most of them here are speaking Solarian. The native languages are dying out fast.»
A plump Solarian in shrieking sports clothes was yelling at an impassive native storekeeper who stood outside his shop. «Hey, you boy, gimme him fella souvenir chop-chop—»
«Pidgin Solarian,» grimaced Skorrogan. «It’s on its way out, too, what with all young Cundaloans being taught the proper speech from the ground up. But tourists never learn.» He scowled, and for a moment his hand shifted to his blaster.
But no—times changed. You did not wipe out someone who simply happened to be personally objectionable, not even on Skontar. Not any more.
The tourist turned and bumped him. «Oh, so sorry,» he exclaimed, urbanely enough. «I should have looked where I was going.»
«Is no matter,» shrugged Skorrogan.
The Solarian dropped into a struggling and heavily accented High Naarhaym: «I really must apologize, though. May I buy you a drink?»
«No matter,» said Skorrogan, with a touch of grimness.
«What a Planet! Backward as… as Pluto! I’m going on to Skontar from here. I hope to get a business contract—you know how to do business, you Skontarans!»
Skorrogan snarled and swung away, fairly dragging Thordin with him. They had gone half a block down the motilator before the Valtam asked, «What happened to your manners? He was trying hard to be civil to us. Or do you just naturally hate humans?»
«I like most of them,» said Skorrogan. «But not their tourists. Praise the Fate, we don’t get many of that breed on Skontar. Their engineers and businessmen and students are all right. I’m glad that relations between Sol and Skang are close, so we can get many of that sort. But keep out the tourists!»
«Why?»
Skorrogan gestured violently at a flashing neon poster. «That’s why.»
He translated the Solarian:
SEE THE ANCIENT MAUIROA CEREMONIES!
COLORFUL! AUTHENTIC!
THE MAGIC OF OLD CUNDALOA!
AT THE TEMPLE OF THE HIGH ONE
ADMISSION REASONABLE
«The religion of Mauiroa meant something, once,» said Skorrogan quietly. «It was a noble creed, even if it did have certain unscientific elements. Those could have been changed— But it’s too late now. Most of the natives are either Neopantheists or unbelievers, and they perform the old ceremonies for money. For a show.»
He grimaced. «Cundaloa hasn’t lost all its picturesque old buildings and folkways and music and the rest of its culture. But it’s become conscious that they are picturesque, which is worse.»
«I don’t quite see what you’re so angry about,» said Thordin. «Times have changed. But they have on Skontar, too.»
«Not in this way. Look around you, man! You’ve never been in the Solar System, but you must have seen pictures from it. Surely you realize that this is a typical Solarian city—a little backward, maybe, but typical. You won’t find a city in the Avaikian System which isn’t essentially—human.
«You won’t find significant art, literature, music here any more—just cheap imitations of Solarian products, or else an archaistic clinging to outmoded native traditions, romantic counterfeiting of the past. You won’t find science that isn’t essentially Solarian, you won’t find machines basically different from Solarian, you’ll find fewer homes every year which can be told from human houses. The old society is dead; only a few fragments remain now. The familial bond, the very basis of native culture, is gone, and marriage relations are as casual as on Earth itself. The old feeling for the land is gone. There are hardly any tribal farms left; the young men are all coming to the cities to earn a million credits. They eat the products of Solarian-type food factories, and you can only get native cuisine in a few expensive restaurants.
«There are no more handmade pots, no more handwoven cloths. They wear what the factories put out. There are no more bards chanting the old lays and making new ones. They look at the telescreen now. There are no more philosophers of the Araclean or Vranamauian schools, there are just second-rate commentaries on Aristotle versus Korzybski or the Russell theory of knowledge—»