“Uh-huh. I’ll get Wingate, my father-in-law, to co-opt one. He’s a shrewd old rascal with tentacles everywhere, and if you think you and I are staticked about Alerion, you should listen to him for a while.” Heim squinted at the model of Star Fox, shining across the room. “I don’t believe ordinary crewmen will be too hard to find. When the Navy appropriation was cut, three years ago, a good many fellows found themselves thumb-twiddling on planet duty and resigned in disgust. We can locate those who came to Earth. But we may have trouble about a captain and a chief engineer. People with such qualifications don’t drift free.”
“Captain? What do you mean, Gunnar? You’ll be captain.”
“No.” Heim’s head wove heavily back and forth. A good deal of his bounce left him. “I’m afraid not. I want to—God, how I want to!—but, well, I’ve got to be sensible. Spaceships aren’t cheap. Neither are supplies, and especially not weapons. My estimates tell me I’ll have to liquidate all my available assets and probably hock everything else, to get that warship. Without me to tend the store, under those conditions, Heimdal might well fail. Lord knows there are enough competitors who’ll do everything they can to make it fail. And Heimdal, well, that’s something Connie and I built—her father staked us, but she worked the office end herself while I bossed the shop, those first few tough years. Heimdal’s the only thing I’ve got to leave my daughter.”
“I see.” Vadász spoke with compassion. “Also, she has no mother. You should not risk she lose her father too.”
Heim nodded.
“You will forgive me, though, if I go?” Vadász said.
“Oh, ja, ja, Endre, I’d be a swine to hold you back. You’ll even have officer rank: chief steward, which means mainly that you oversee the cooking. And you’ll bring me back some songs, won’t you?”
Vadász could not speak. He looked at his friend, chained to possessions and power, and there ran through his head:
But the rhythm got into his blood, and he realized what Heim had done and what it meant, leaped to his feet, and capered around the study shouting his victorious music aloud till the walls echoed,
VI
From WORLDWEEK:
31 October
Gunnar Heim, principal of the American firm Heimdal Motors, has purchased the starship Pass of Balmaha from British Minerals, Ltd. The transaction astonished shipping circles by its speed. Heim made a cash offer that was too good to turn down, but insisted on immediate occupancy.
He has announced that he plans to send an expedition in search of new worlds to colonize. “We seem to have lost out in the Phoenix,” he told 3V interviewer John Phillips. “Frankly, I am shocked and disgusted that no action has been taken in response to Alerion’s attack on New Europe. But I can’t do much about it except try to find us some new place—which I hope we’ll have the nerve to defend.”
As large and powerful as a naval cruiser, Glasgow—built Pass of Balmaha was originally intended to prospect for ores. But no deposits were found sufficiently rich to pay the cost of interstellar shipment when the Solar System still has workable mines. The ship has therefore been in Earth orbit for the past four years. Sir Henry Sherwin, chairman of the board of British Minerals, told Phillips, “We’re overjoyed to get rid of that white elephant, but I must confess I feel a bit guilty about it.”
7 November
U.S. Senator Harold Twyman (Libn., Calif.), high-ranking member of the Federal pre-formal negotiations team conferring with the delegation from Alerion, issued a statement Thursday denying rumors of a planned sell-out of New Europe.
“Certainly we are already talking business with them,” he said. “And that, by the way, is a slow and difficult process. The Aleriona are alien to us, biologically and culturally. In the past we have had far too little contact with them, and far too much of what we did have was hostile. You don’t get understanding out of a battle. Some of the finest xenologists on Earth are working day and night, trying to acquire a knowledge in depth that we should have gotten three decades ago.
“But we do know that the Aleriona share some things with mankind. They too are rational beings. They too wish to live. Their ancient civilization, which achieved a million years of stability, can teach us a great deal. And no doubt we can teach them something. Neither can do this, however, until we break the vicious circle of distrust, competition, fight, and retaliation.
“That’s why the Deepspace Fleet has been ordered not to fire except in self-defense. That’s why we aren’t crowding the government of Alerion—if it is anything like what we understand by a government—to get out of the Auroran |System. That’s why we are taking our time with the honorable delegation: who, remember, came to us on Alerion’s own I initiative.
“Under the Constitution, only Parliament as a whole is empowered to negotiate with non-human states. Certainly the Executive Committee will observe this law. But you can’t expect a body as large, diverse, and busy as Parliament to do the spadework in a case so intricate. Its duly appointed representatives were given that duty. We hope in a few more weeks to have a complete draft treaty ready for submission. At that time we shall be prepared to meet every conceivable objection to it. Meanwhile, however, it would be too great a handicap for us to operate in a glare of publicity.
“But we do not, repeat not, plan to betray any vital interest of the human race. Negotiation is a mutual process. We shall have to give a little as well as take a little. The Aleriona realize this too, perhaps better than some members of our own young and arrogant species. I am confident that, in the last analysis, all men of good will are going to agree that we have opened a new and hopeful era of cosmic history. The people of New Europe have not died in vain.”
14 November
Retired Vice Admiral Piet van Rinnekom, 68, was set upon by about twenty men as he neared his house in Amsterdam on Monday evening, and badly beaten.
When the police arrived, the assailants fled shouting taunts of “Warmonger!”
They appeared to be of mixed nationality. Van Rinnekom has been an outspoken opponent of what he describes as “appeasement of Alerion,” and is the author of the so-called Manhood Petition, whose backers are trying to gather one billion signatures in favor of Earth using force, if necessary, to regain New Europe.
Most sociologists consider this sheer lunacy.
His condition is listed as serious.
At his Chicago office, Dr. Jonas Yore, founder and president of World Militants for Peace, issued the following statement: “Naturally this organization regrets the incident and hopes for Admiral van Rinnekom’s recovery. But let us be honest. He has only gotten a taste of the very violence he advocated. The issue before us is one of life and death. WMP stands for life. Unhappily, a great many uninformed people have let their emotions run away with them and are crying for blood with no thought of the consequences. WMP exists to fight this tendency, to fight for sanity, to give atavism its deathblow, by any means required. We make no threats. But let the militarists beware.”