"Decent of them." We "Star-born" had a somewhat patronizing attitude to the flatlanders of Earth-to all Sol Systemers in fact-but I had never heard them spoken of with such bitterness and anger before. "If they'd told us a couple of months ago it might have been useful."
"ARM has useful inventions suppressed long ago that they could tell us about. It's like the Roman emperors reputed last message to Britain as the legions withdrew to defend the Roman heartland: 'The cantons should take steps to defend themselves.' That means: 'Good-bye and good luck!' for those of you who aren't ancient historians."
"We're setting up distribution points to hand out strakkakers, jazzers, ratchet knives and anything else that can be used as a weapon. But the factories can't keep the supply up."
"We've said it again and again: tool up more factories."
"We're trying. There are still so many bottlenecks. All our professionals at this-police, security guards-are being used as instructors. Those that haven't run for the hills. Some have. As for our industrial effort in general-well, we haven't made this public, but more than nine-tenths of our efforts are going to the Meteor Guard forces."
"In what form?"
"I don't know. I don't need to know." Another new phrase. There were a lot of new phrases now. "But from what I gather… they are already in action. They have been for a while."
"So when can we field an 'army'?" Like "uniform," that was an ancient word that still sounded odd. "How good an army do you want? We've got armed people at the main landing field now. We're hoping to get cover for major government buildings, roads, bridges, factories, arms depots and so forth next, and then we think we can begin to start with a field force." The Argyl raised his haggard, sunken face. He had been Tommie-Herrenmann-handsome not long ago. "Meanwhile our General Staff are still trying to speed-read every book they can find that mentions a war. They've worked out why armies were traditionally divided into cavalry, infantry and artillery, and what skirmishers were. Quite a few things like that.
"We're also trying to move assets out of the city. We think that, and the spaceports in particular, will be their first objective."
"We should be getting machines away. We'll need machines to make weapons."
"Do you know how complex a modern factory is? It's not a matter of piling parts in the back of a carrier. And we can't spare any. We need weapons now."
"We've seen nothing more," said the abbot.
Things had changed in Munchen. The monastery had changed too. If it had looked a little like a fortress before, it looked more like one now. There were new bars on the main gate, and small gaps in the courtyard walls had been repaired with stone.
The lower parts of the windows had stones piled about them, too, and in the tower I could see watchers, presumably armed. Repair work was still going on, with human workers as well as machines. Another strange, archaic spectacle: It seemed indecent to watch humans at this type of labor. I knew the monks did a lot by hand, but these workers were new to me.
"Possible novices," said the abbot, when I remarked on this. "We've had a burst of applicants recently. We'll see how they like tending a concrete mix for a while."
"It looks very… quaint."
"Suddenly new machines aren't available. Anyway," he went on, "we've seen nothing more, either there"-he pointed to the slope of parkland and the swamp beyond-"or there."
He pointed to the sky. Another orange column was rising from the Munchen spaceport. Another ship lifting some cargo to the Serpent Swarmers or the Meteor Guard. I didn't know the details any longer. There were new faces on the Defense Council and I was being sidelined, though I was still being given statements to make for broadcasting. In any event, even for people at my level there had been a blackout of real news for more than a month.
And every night now there seemed to be unusual numbers of meteors, even by Wunderland standards, and other strange lights moving in the sky. No one was quite sure when this had started, but many had remarked upon it.
More importantly, while the Spaceport had never seemed busier, all passenger space traffic to Tiamat and the Serpent Swarm, and all other scientific and commercial flights, had stopped. That had caused a lot of anger, and possible reasons, all of them highly discreditable to one or all factions of the ruling powers, formed a staple of the new industry of streetcorner and public-square oratory. Security was getting tighter, and political disorders, I had heard, were getting worse. There were rumors of rioting.
"You know what we may be up against?" I asked him.
"I think so, Nils. We're not flatlanders."
"No, we're not flatlanders. We don't live on a tamed world and we're used to dealing with dangerous beasts. Our farmers still have guns. But if we're right, these dangerous beasts have gravity control and spaceships that make inertialess turns. They have beams and bomb-missiles. It's rather a different order of things."
"I know."
"Then why bother with this? Strengthening your walls won't hold them off. With the wrong wind, the radiation from one fusion point detonated over Munchen, not even aimed here, could obliterate you."
If they want to destroy this world, there's not a lot we can do about it. But why should they? And as for the walls, I might say that if they settle for something less than total destruction, we still have our fellow humans to worry about, as always."
"Yes," I said. "That's been brought home to me rather clearly lately."
"Paranoia is not only believing in nonexistent enemies. It's more commonly believing your enemies are more organized and efficient than they actually can be."
"At the moment, I'm wondering who our enemies actually are."
"And wondering what your place in it all is, I suspect."
"Yes. I was put on the Defense Committee when it was formed but I know no more about defense than any of the others."
"But probably no less than any of the others either."
"I don't know that van Roberts and von Diderachs see things quicker or slower than I do. What has a biologist got to do with defense, anyway? Oh, I might think of some weapons to use against an alien enemy-biological weapons, I mean, I've read a little about them lately, but I have precisely one hair to work on."
"I thought you were getting data from Earth."
I hadn't known he knew about that. But I realized he must have many sources of information. "It's stopped. Or at least, I've had nothing lately."
"Ours, too. Some time back."
So they weren't as determinedly medieval as they let on. That linked up with something else in my subconscious, but I could not pursue it at that moment. It filed itself away somewhere. He went on: "We're staying, of course. It's human to want to run, but it seems our vows must have meaning after all. When I've spoken of the people of Wunderland as our flock, you know I've meant it more than half in jest-an amusing archaism from the pastoral days when the Church had a more definite mission and when human beings could really be thought of in terms of sheep needing a shepherd. But it's a poor shepherd who deserts his flock and runs when the first real wolf appears."
"A wolf?"
"Know that I've also asked myself: 'What if it's more than a wolf? This might be a tiger.' It might also be a poor shepherd who commits suicide. If that's what staying means."
"And I remember a verse," I told him.
I was a shepherd to fools,
Causelessly bold or afraid.
They would not abide by my rules. Yet they escaped. For I stayed.
"Who said that?"
"An old poet called Kipling. It was meant as a war epitaph. It was in one of the old books I've been reading lately."
"I've not heard of him."
"ARM didn't like him. He'd just about disappeared from public libraries before the first slowboat lifted. But he was one of the craft, it seems. Our lodge has a small library of its own… Reading!… I feel useless. I make my contribution to the committee-try to say something, but when I do I feel it's a waste of time. Too many cooks spoiling the broth. There's nothing special I can contribute. If I were an engineer, I'd be far more use. Speed matters, and I might be able to enhance human reflexes with biological engineering, but the point is academic. To do anything meaningful in that direction would take years and resources I don't have."