A third time he smiled. Such naïveté!
For now the Lion home-planet was gone, leaving only the massed offensive arm to attack the Ram planet before its inhabitants could be reconstituted. Two could play at this game of treachery and system-jumping!
Oh, the fragments would be small, very small, when the first accredited empire came collecting!
Now it was time to make contact with Lion, on the way to larger things. In three hours the jumpspace mechanism would initiate its fourth and final cycle, with disastrous consequences for any unprepared troops in the vicinity. Those outside the field of compression would be smashed by the moon’s collapse and displacement; those still within it would be preserved — but not in animate state. Only the resilient gas-form could sustain that terrible implosion alive.
Schön paused before the chamber entrance. Exactly how grateful, he wondered, would the opposing monarch — the Pride of Lion — be for a complete undamaged military moon, together with a number of serviceable warships?
Not grateful enough, he decided. Lion would attempt to string him along as had Ram, exercising the eternal governmental prerogative of amorality and fallibility. Meanwhile the internecine struggle would continue, each home-world in orbit about its neighbor’s sun, its native life suffering from the unfamiliar radiation.
No, the real rewards for the entrepreneur would not occur until an empire made its move.
Perhaps such a move could be hastened by a little judicious manipulation…
Still smiling, Schön stepped into the chamber. “Alexander, where are you?” he murmured as the warner sounded.
“A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly upon the bosom of that harmony…” And Ivo was that flute, or of it, and the chambers he descended into were liquid. First he encountered the scorpion resting on the beach, not a horror, huge as it was, but rather with an aspect of creativity and fairness. Then he passed the crab, who watched patiently from under the surface, housed beneath a shell. At last he stopped at the tank wherein the fishes were swimming, like twin animate feet wading under the wave. Upon the one was written SYMPATHY, and upon the other HEART.
“From the warm concave of the fluted note Somewhat, half song, half odor, forth did float, As if a rose might somehow be a throat…” Ivo said to Pisces in the prescribed mode.
And the first fish replied: “Yea, Nature, singing sweet and lone Breathes through life’s strident polyphone…”
And the second fish continued: “Yea, all fair forms, and sounds and lights, And warmths, and mysteries, and mights, Of Nature’s utmost depths and heights…”
And the first: “So Nature calls through all her system wide, Give me thy love, O man, so long denied…”
And the second: “Trade! is thy heart all dead, all dead? And hast thou nothing but a head? I’m all for heart,” the flute-voice said.
And on the bottom of the tank was written in sand and shelclass="underline"
Physical contact between the stellar cultures of the galaxy in fact meant chaos. All species had needs and ambitions, and few were ethical in galactic sense when subject to meaningful temptation. Prejudices submerged during the long purely-intellectual contact reappeared now with renewed force. It developed that certain warm, liquid-blooded species had an inherent aversion to certain cold mucous-surfaced species, however equivalent their intellects, and many other combinations were similarly incompatible. Certain species turned pirate, preying on others and taking wealth, slaves and food without fair recompense; others inaugurated programs of colonization that led rapidly to friction. Not all encounters were violent; some were mutually beneficial. But the old, stable order had been completely overturned, and power shifted radically from the intellectual to the biological and physical. Highly civilized cultures were overrun and annihilated by barbarians.
A new order arose, dominated by the most ruthless and cunning species. Greed and distrust acted to split and weaken the empires of these new leaders, forcing further change and breakup, in an ever more dissolute spiral. In the course of half a million years, galactic civilization as an entity disappeared entirely, submerged in the tide of violence; no macroscopic broadcasting stations remained except the extragalactic Traveler. Isolated by their own released savagery, all species declined. It was the Siege of Darkness.
Approximately one million years after its inauguration the Traveler beam terminated. The siege was over — but the progress of galactic civilization had been set back immeasurably. As time passed, macroscopic stations began again to broadcast, and a new network was established — but the scars of the Siege were long in healing. Love, once denied, recovered slowly.
“You are better now,” the voice said hopefully.
Beatryx opened her eyes, that were still stinging from the salt, and squinted into the warm sunlight. She was wearing a black bathing suit somewhat more scant than seemed appropriate. “Oh, yes!” she agreed, a little dizzy from her recent immersion. It had seemed she was drowning…
The young man’s face seemed to shine. “Lida! Persis! Durwin! A paean, for she who was lost is healed!”
Three handsome young persons bounded across the sand. “Joy!” the leader cried, a muscular giant, sleek with the water dripping from his torso.
In moments they stood before her: two bronzed young men, two lovely girls, each radiating vitality. All had lustrous black hair and classically sculptured features.
The first man spoke again, more formally: “This is Persis, girl of peace.” The girl performed a motion suggestive of a curtsy, smiling. Her teeth were bright and even. “This is Lida, beloved of us all.” The second girl genuflected, smiling as politely as the first. “And my dear friend Durwin.” The second man raised his hand in a formal wave rather like a salute, hoisting an eyebrow merrily.
“And I,” the speaker said diffidently, “am Hume — lover of my home.” His smile was the most winning of all.
Beatryx tried to speak, but Hume squatted to touch her lips lightly with his slender finger. “Do not name yourself. Surely we know you already. Have you not brought joy to us?”
“She who brings joy!” Durwin exclaimed. “Her name would be—”
“Beatrice!” the two girls cried.
“No,” Hume said solemnly. “That would be common joy, and hers is uncommon.”
Durwin studied her. “You are right. Look at her hair! She is as a diamond amidst quartz. Yet joy must be her designation. Not Beatrice, nor Beatrix—”
“But Beatryx!” Hume finished.
“We shall call her Tryx,” the girl Persis said;
Beatryx listened to all of this with tolerance. “You knew my name already,” she said.
“We knew what it had to be,” Hume said, and offered no further explanation.
“Where is this?” She looked at the white sand and he strings of seaweed and the green-white surf.
“Where,” Hume inquired gently, “would you like it to be?”
“Why, I don’t really know. I suppose it doesn’t matter. It must be like Ivo’s dream, when he went to Tyre — only it seems so real!”
“Come,” Durwin said. “Evening is hard upon us, and the village is not in sight.”
“Yes,” Lida agreed. “We must show you to our companions.”
Then Beatryx was walking down the long beach, seeing the light of the setting sun refracted off the rolling water in splays of colored light. The men paced her on either side and the girls skipped next to them. Inland the palmlike vegetation rose, casting long and waving shadows in the distance. The air was warm and moist, rich with the briny odors of the sea. Underfoot — all feet were bare, including hers, she suddenly realized — the sand was hot but not uncomfortable, spiced with multihued pebbles and occasional conchlike shells. The word “murex” came to her, but she could not place either the source or the meaning; certainly she had never seen shells quite like these before.