Stipock looked puzzled. "But, gentlemen, I changed my mind about the revolution. I'm no longer involved."
The Little Boys looked at each other, bewildered. Then they burst out laughing. "Changed his mind," they said as they took him to prison. "No longer involved!" It was hilarious.
As they laughed, Garol knew there was no hope for him. He'd be deported at the very least. Why hadn't he quit the conspiracy sooner? Why had he believed so long that it would do any good?
"Why, God, didn't you tell me sooner?" he asked ironically. But today he wasn't tired, so the only answer he got from God was a low chuckle in his mind. Garol didn't get the joke, but he laughed right along. Whatever the punch line was, when he finally understood it, he knew it would be good. No one could tell a joke like God.
THE STARS THAT BLINK
If the goodman of die house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
-- Matthew 24:43-44
The Governor owned a telescope, and knew how to use it. It was far from being the most powerful telescope in the colony, but the others were photographic, and the Governor's was the only scope on Answer that one could look through with the naked eye.
And he looked. Other men might relax with liquor and conversation, or in rough games, or with books, or with sex, but the Governor's diversion was looking at the stars.
Answer was only three hundred years old, as a human colony. But it was a good world, and already the original 334 inhabitants had grown to more than five million. Families averaged six children. There were no natural predators, and disease was rare and never killed. Here where somec never reached, of course, lives were still short-- few lived more than a hundred years. But the Governor, who was only forty, could still remember when there hadn't been a building over two stories tall in the world
Now he stood on the top of the government building, watching the sky. He lived, with his wife and the four children who remained at home, in a suite at the top of the building. It was luxurious by the standards of Answer-- a separate room for each of them, and the cooking and eating were not done in the same place. Luxury. Opulence. But not exorbitant-- dozens of rich families on Answer lived better than he.
Indeed, he was Governor not so much because he was the most outstanding man on Answer, but because he was willing to take the job. And he was willing to take it because it did not take all his day or all his mind. It left him hours and thoughts of peace, and paid him a good living, and gave him and his family respect, and besides, he was quite a good governor and he knew it. He was respected, and his judgments and decisions were honored and obeyed without trouble. They hadn't had to call a legislature since he had been elected.
After the day, however, of duty, he came up here.
"Why do you watch the stars so much?" one of his assistants had asked him one day.
"Because," he answered, "they never fall asleep when I talk to them."
But it was a good question, and he wondered at the answer.
He knew that around many of them (and he could name which ones, and point them out, and say how far away they were) orbited the planets of the Empire. Billions and billions of people-- it was difficult for him to comprehend. He knew that if he could count all the stars he could see through his telescope in one year, it would not equal the number of people in the Empire. And yet when he thought of people, he could only think of Answer, where whole continents were still uninhabited, where no city had more than thirty thousand people, where farms were still being carved in virgin land and mines were still discovering untouched metal. The Empire may be large and old, but here mankind was new, was small, was still humbled by the vastness of a planet, even though men had conquered the far greater distances between stars.
And as he watched the sky, the Governor imagined he could see the starships like threads spanning the reaches between suns. They made a web, and in it he was caught.
We dance on the web of starships, he said to himself (or to the stars), and think they make us free. But it's the absence of starships that frees us.
Once, once the ships liberated us, and we left overcrowded Earth to discover that far more beautiful and productive and homelike planets were available just for the taking. Odd, that Earthbred man should discover so many places that were more like Earth than Earth was. But had there ever been such grace as the mountains of Answer? The clear water that sang or shouted or roared its song through mountains and across plains and in shattering waves against the shore? Had there ever been stone like this? he thought, touching the rough, shining stones of the government building.
The starships brought us here, but now let the web be cut. Let us stand alone on our world, and find our own way around the sun, and if time should come when we want to go visiting, then let us rebuild the links. Until then, why can't the stars be mysterious, their movements miraculous, their light a gift of the gods? Why can't this telescope be a discoverer?
Those with somec lived long enough to see the stars move. Yet none of them, the Governor was sure, none of them ever looked. Someday soon a ship will come to Answer, he realized, will come with an inspection team from the department of colonization and- declare us ready to enter the Empire on equal status, and suddenly somec will come, and I will be put on a high level, and those just under me a lower level, and so on until the majority of the people get no somec at all. Then the governorship will not go to the only man willing and able-- it will go to the greediest and most ambitious, the ones who crave immortality of the easy kind and aren't willing to live forever by making an indelible mark in the hearts of men. The peace of Answer will be gone. Instead there will be jealousy and hatred.
But then, the Governor thought, then I will be able to see the stars move. I will be able to live for centuries and know that the constellations are not where they were, that this star and that one are drifting together.
And if I live long enough, shall I see the stars, one by one, flare up, dazzle for a moment in the sky, and blink out?
He watched the sky, and a light appeared. It moved perceptibly. It moved irregularly. It was a starship. It set up orbit around Answer.
The Governor went downstairs to the offices where the all-night skywatchers worked. They looked up at him as he came in. "Good you're awake, Sir. Starship. REnS-455-t, and they request permission to land a party to meet with you."
"Of course."
The crew of the starship did not look like an inspection team. They were worried, obviously, as they approached the Governor.
"Is something wrong?" the Governor asked.
"You're a colony, right?" the captain asked in return.
"Probably not, after the next inspection. I assume you're not inspectors?"
The captain shook his head. "We have a warship. Loaded with weapons. I warn you, there's still a crew up there, if something happens to us. We're prepared to blast this planet out of the sky."
The Governor's eyes widened in mock surprise. "And you're from the Empire, making threats to a loyal colony?"
The captain looked ashamed. "You wouldn't blame me, if you'd seen what we've seen."
"What have you seen?"
"Capitol," said the captain. "It's dead."
"Of what?"
"Terminal humanity, I suppose. It was a revolution. That bastard usurper, Abner Doon--"
"Usurper?"
"You've been away from the news for a long time. He began messing with somec. And the nonusers got angry and there was a revolution and they killed all the sleepers."
"All!"
"And they've been seizing starships wherever they landed, all over the Empire. The Rebels, too. Killing the crews and smashing the somec. It's mad. Do you realize what it's doing? There aren't any starships going, between planets anymore! And Capitol-- Capitol slit its own throat. The revolution started there, and now they have no food, and there are only a few survivors, and they can't last long. Cannibalism. The planet's dead. A place of savages trying to survive in metal."