“Any privileged group will inevitably seek to put a brake on progress in order to retain its privileges, while the oppressed section of society is bound to fight all such attempts in order to stand up for its own rights. The greater the pressure exerted by the privileged few, the greater grew the resistance to it, the more bitter the struggle, the more cruelty there was in the world and the greater moral degradation among men. Now remember that besides the struggle between classes there was a struggle between the privileged and oppressed countries. Remember too that there was a struggle between the new, socialist world and the old, capitalist, and you will understand why there sprang up a war ideology, why it was believed that there would always be wars and that they would eventually be fought on a cosmic scale. I see in this the very quintessence of evil, a serpent that is bound to strike however it may be hidden because it cannot but strike. Remember the sinister reddish-yellow glow of the star we passed on our way…”
“The Heart of the Serpent!” cried Taina.
“Right. And in the writings of those who sought to defend the old society, proclaiming the inevitability of war and the eternal existence of capitalism, I also see the heart of a poisonous snake.”
“In other words, our fears too are atavistic survivals of an ancient time when that snake poisoned the lives of men, isn’t that so?” Kari said sadly. “And I am probably the most serpentine of all of us, since I have fears — doubts, if you wish.”
“Kari!” Taina cried.
“Our commander has told us about the deadly crises that engulfed civilizations,” Kari went on. “And we all know about lifeless planets which are dead today because their inhabitants were overtaken by atomic war before they had time to create a new society in conformity with the laws of science, to put an end to the lust for destruction — in a word, tear out the heart of the serpent! We also know that our own planet barely escaped a similar fate. Had not the first socialist state appeared in Russia and started a chain of epoch-making changes in the world, fascism would have taken the upper hand and plunged the world into nuclear wars. But supposing the people out there,” the young astronavigator pointed in the direction from which the strange ship was expected to appear, “supposing they have not yet passed that dangerous Rubicon in their history?”
“That is out of the question,” replied Moot Ang. “There may be a certain analogy between the development of the highest forms of life and the highest forms of society. Man could develop only in a comparatively stable and favourable environment. This does not, of course, mean that there were no changes. On the contrary, there were some rather radical ones — but only in relation to Man himself, not Nature as a whole. Global cataclysms would have made it impossible for the reasoning being to develop. The same applies to the highest form of society capable of conquering space, building space ships and penetrating deep into the Universe — all this can be achieved only after global stabilization of conditions of life for the whole of humanity, and, of course, when the disastrous wars accompanying capitalism have been done away with for good. That is why I am certain that the men of another world whom we are about to meet have passed the danger point. They too must have built a truly rational society.”
“It is my opinion that you will find what might be called a universal, elemental wisdom running through the histories of the civilizations found on the various planets,” Tey Eron said, his eyes alight with excitement. “Human beings cannot vanquish space before they have achieved a higher mode of life when there are no more wars and when each individual has a high sense of responsibility to all his fellow-men!”
“In other words — humanity has been able to harness the forces of Nature on a cosmic scale only after reaching the highest stage of the communist society — there could be no other way,” added Kari. “And the same applies to any other human race, if we mean by this the higher forms of organized, thinking life.”
“We and our ships are the hands mankind on Earth reaches out to the stars,” Moot Ang said, “and these hands are clean. But that cannot be true only of us! Soon we shall clasp other hands just as clean and strong as ours!”
The younger members of the crew cheered their commander in an outburst of feeling. But neither were the older members who had learned to control their emotions able to conceal their agitation as they gathered round Moot Ang.
Somewhere millions of kilometres away the ship from a planet of some distant star was headed toward the Earth ship whose crew was to be the first in the Earth-dwellers’ long history to contact another race of men from a different world. No wonder the astronauts were unable to suppress their feverish excitement. Any thought of rest was out of the question. But Moot Ang insisted, and having once again gone over his calculations as to when the two ships would meet, he told Svet Sim to issue tranquillizers to everyone.
“We must be in perfect form mentally and physically when we meet our cosmic brothers,” he said, brushing aside all protests. “We have an enormous job ahead of us: we must find a way of communicating with them so as to take over the knowledge they possess and give them ours.” Moot Ang’s face darkened. “Never before have I been so afraid of proving unequal to a task.” Anxiety lined the captain’s usually calm features and the knuckles of his clenched fists grew white.
Now, perhaps for the first time, the rest of the crew realized how great a responsibility the coming meeting imposed on each one of them. They took the pills Svet Sim gave them without a murmur, and withdrew to their cabins.
At first Moot Ang intended to remain on duty with Kari alone, but then he changed his mind and signed to Tey Eron to accompany them to the control room.
Moot Ang settled down in his seat. Only now did he realize how tired he was. He stretched out his legs and rested his head against the palms of his hands. Tey and Kari said nothing. They did not want to disturb the captain’s thoughts.
The ship was now travelling very slowly as far as cosmic speeds go — at what was called tangential velocity. This was the speed, 200,000 kilometres per hour, at which space ships usually entered the Roche’s limit of any heavenly body. The autopilots kept the ship strictly to the calculated course. It was time for the locator to pick up the other ship’s signals, but so far there was no sign of its approach. Tey Eron grew more and more nervous every moment.
Suddenly Moot Ang sat up and his lips parted in that whimsical smile of his which every member of the crew knew so well. “Come, distant friend, enter the cherished gate. .”he sang in a low voice. Tey frowned as he peered into the blackness of the forward screen. He felt the captain’s levity to be out of place under the circumstances.
But Kari joined in the chorus of the merry song with a sly glance at the sour face of the second-in-command.
“Try sweeping ahead with the locator ray, Kari — two points port and starboard and as much up and down,” Moot Ang broke off in the middle of the song.
Tey flushed slightly. He should have thought of that himself. Song or no song, the captain had his wits about him!
Two hours passed. Kari pictured the locator ray sweeping the vastness of space ahead in strokes hundreds of thousands of kilometres long. This was “flagging” on a scale undreamt of even in the most fantastic legends ever invented on Earth.
Tey Eron sat lost in thought — slow, lumbering thought completely drained of emotion. Ever since they had left Earth he had been unable to shake off a strange feeling of detachment. Primitive man must have had the same feeling, a sense of being bound down to nothing, free of all obligations, all concern for the future. Men caught in the midst of natural disasters, wars and social upheavals must have felt the same. For Tey too the past, everything he had left behind on Earth, was gone never to return; from the future he was separated by a gulf of hundreds of years beyond which everything was new and unknown. Hence the absence of personal plans, feelings and desires. All he had wanted was to carry back to Earth the new knowledge the expedition was to wrest from the Cosmos. This had been the meaning and purpose of his life. And now here was something beside which everything else dwindled into insignificance.