I had thought that before. But the full implications of what she was saying took a moment to hit me. Then it was like a physical blow. “We've got to get you out!”
“That may not be so easy. Where am I going to go?”
“We've got to get you back to Earth.”
“How?”
There seemed no answer to that. I was beyond regretting that I had basically confirmed to her what the previous night's meeting had been about.
Chapter 5
That fatal drollery called a representative government
Despite the seriousness of what I had found, several days passed before I got a chance to see Grotius. I filed a report with the police but received a mere mechanical acknowledgment. Grotius, when I did see him at a meeting of the committee, was abstracted and uninterested. He looked weary and surprisingly aged. My report of evidence of multiple homicides produced little more than a shake of the head.
“I've no officers to spare now,” he said. “Most of them are busy trying to find out how to reinvent the wheel. Or they're at the spaceport, working on the meteor guardships.
“And I need them in the streets, as well as everywhere else. One thing we've learned already is that a bunch of fifty people can't keep a secret. There have been rumors in the streets for days. It'll be on the newscast in a few hours. We can't stop that… We could, actually, but it would do more harm than good. My cops are so busy that I'm expecting crime too. There are almost no police on patrol. We've got a few extra strakkakers in store and I'm issuing them. At least that will look threatening if there's an emergency.”
“How many strakkakers have we got?” That was Talbot.
“I don't know, exactly. We had the one batch made for police needs, plus replacements and spares.”
“When?”
“Years ago. The factory's closed down now.”
“Don't you think we should open it again? Fast!”
“What for?” A pause, then, “Oh, I see.”
“There are police message-lasers, too. We can dial them up to weapons.”
“Really?”
“Of course. It was always in the design.”
“Yes. I see.”
“I should clear it with the council.”
“Later.”
Grotius looked at him, then opened a hand-phone and began to speak fast. The Defense Committee had taken an executive action.
“I've been at the library all day,” said Talbot. “Reading every book on war I could find. There aren't many.”
“ARM went through our library before we left Earth. There are some records of old wars in a general way, even some copies of ancient visual films. There are a few books. But so little that is actually of practical use. They didn't want us building armies.”
“No.”
“I found one on a Japanese attack on some American sea-ships at Hawaii, Day of Infamy. The American ships had guns to defend themselves against flying engines, covered by awnings. An officer on one began untying the lines that held the awnings in place as the flying engines attacked. A cook ran up and cut them with a knife. We have to think differently.
“Grotius, we don't want one factory making strakkakers. We want every factory we can get on line. We want factories making factories making strakkakers. Now!”
“No! Strakkakers aren't the be-all and end-all. They are police weapons of last resort. We may want battlefield weapons, space weapons! Tie up too much of our industrial production in one thing and you lose in other ways.”
“What are battlefield weapons? How are they different from other weapons?”
“I don't know. But I gather they used to have them, on Earth. I've found references to something called a main battle tank.”
“We'd better ask the meteor people. They use big lasers, don't they? And bomb-missiles.”
“Are you seriously suggesting…”
“Yes. Of course I am! There are old launching lasers on Tiamat and down at Equatoria. They're got to be brought back on line.”
Other voices raised.
“Think of the cost! Runaway inflation! We've only got one economy to play with on this planet!”
“We don't want factories for strakkakers! We want factories for plutonium!”
“Whatever for? Plutonium's dangerous… Oh, I see.”
“It's already happening. The Meteor Guard…”
“Shut up, you fool!”
“What trained fighters have we got? Only a handful of cops. They should be training instructors to train recruits!”
“Don't you think they've got enough to do already?”
Grotius turned to me: “Did you overfly the whole swamp?”
“No. It's big.”
“We should overfly it. I said we haven't time to consider homicides, but there may have been other things, things left behind.”
“Aren't we jumping to conclusions?” van Roberts said. “This could be a completely purposeless panic that will do nothing but damage if we let it go on.”
“But the monks saw—”
“The monks could have been mistaken. Or worse. The monastery has always been friendly to the Families, hasn't it?”
“I suppose so. The Order got the land as a deed of gift from the original Freuchens, before they moved out to the Norlands.”
“And I imagine the old records will show that Families paid their passage here!”
“As a matter of fact, they don't.” I happened to know that, because while waiting I had combed the old passenger lists looking for people whose occupations or profiles suggested might have brought useful books or equipment that their descendants might still have. A couple of the Families had brought private chaplains, but there was no record of the monks aboard the original slowboats. He ignored my interruption.
“And they've survived on handouts from the Families since. All that's left of the Church has. It's been very handy for the Families. Keeping people docile by promising them a pie-in-the-sky Afterlife, and at the same time getting rid of landless younger sons by putting them into skirts.”
“That's propaganda, and utterly false! Anyway, there's plenty of land left!”
“Then why do you restrict the sale of it?”
“So there will be someone to work it. Do you want a planet all of landowners starving for lack of labor?”
“That argument might have made sense six hundred years ago. There are such things as machines now! I suppose you spend so little time on your own estates you neither know nor care whether they are worked by robots or peons. You keep the land of a nearly empty world locked up to preserve your own hegemony, and your own rents!”
“Then go to the High Limestone! Go and settle in the badlands! Some people do. Tougher, gutsier people than you, Teutie prole!”
I waited for Grotius to intervene. Then I saw he was asleep at the table. We'll have to bring back electro-current sleep, I thought. Natural sleep is a luxury we may not be able to afford soon. I was tired myself, I knew, and my thoughts were jumping about ineffectually.
“All right,” van Roberts was saying. “So you admit the monastery is in the pocket of the Families.”
“I admit some of the Families have been friends of the Church. That's hardly anything to be ashamed of.”
“And your monks will say anything they're told to, including corroborating your story of hostile aliens!”
“This is preposterous!” I intervened. “They are trusted friends of mine. I saw the tracks, I saw the destroyed shacks, and found human bones.”
“I assume you are telling the truth,” said van Roberts, “but what does it prove? People have lied before. The Families may have got rid of the marshmen one way or another. What evidence are bones of anything—bones you didn't even bring back with you for testing? Apart from more obvious possibilities, they could have come from a cemetery, or a medical school, or even a plastics factory. Didn't monasteries once keep what they called relics of saints?”