Untitled, p.1
Untitled, page 1
The Waiting Game
Astounding - January 1951
(1951)*
Randall Garrett
Illustrated by Orbam
On Earth, many life-forms have found different ways to accomplish a given end. In the Galaxy, intelligences may find differing—and not at all recognizable!—ways to win! Therein may lie Man's danger ...
-
"During the early years of its expansion, the Solar Federation discovered only two races of beings who had mastered the science of interstellar travel: the decadent remnants of the long-dead Grand Empire of Lilaar, and the savagely nonhuman race of the Thassela."
The Biology of Intelligent Races,
by Jasin Beone, YF 402.
-
Major Karl Gorman looked gloomily out of the main port of the forward observation deck at the pin-head disk of light far ahead. Sol, and bright blue Earth swinging round it, though the ship was as yet too far away for him to see the planet.
Would it, he wondered, be the same as the rest? The closer he had come to the Federation capitol, the worse it had become, until now, after Procyon, he was almost sick. He had thought of making the dog-leg jump to Sirius, but had decided against it. He might as well jump right into the, middle of the whole mess!
He turned away from the starry view before him and walked back toward the bar, feeling the eyes of the crowd on his uniform.
They weren't all looking at him, of course; a Spacefleet major wasn't that unusual. But a few of them had noticed the tiny silver spearhead on his shoulder, and knew it for what it was.
And men from the Federation Outposts were rare.
Gorman bought his drink and stared angrily at the hard, dark, blocky face that was reflected in the bar's shining surface. He'd been on the ship for more than three days, now, and this was the first time he had felt the necessity of leaving his cabin. He didn't feel like talking to anyone around him; they just weren't his kind of people.
A low, resonant voice next to him jarred his train of thought, and he turned his head with a jerk.
"Ah, home from the wars, major?" the tall, hairless, pleasantly smiling being beside him asked.
Gorman silenced his biting request to be left alone before it began; after all, there wasn't any reason not to be civil.
"No, my home is on Ferridel III. This is the first time I've ever been to Earth."
"Not surprising," commented the other. "There aren't very many outpost officers from Earth. After all, two years is a long time to spend just traveling."
Gorman finished his drink and ordered another. "It sure is."
"If I am not being too personal, major, may I ask why you are making the trip?"
Major Gorman looked up at the being's face. He knew what he was, of course; a Lilaarian. But this was the first time he had ever talked to one.
"Not at all. I suffer from a disease known as Utter Boredom. All my life, sir, I have been either fighting or getting ready to fight the Thassela. The war has been going on for more than two hundred years, and, as my home was right in the thick of it, I have been bred and trained in its atmosphere.
"Now, however, the war in my sector is nearly over; it has reduced itself to mopping-up operations on whatever of the Thassela are left. Therefore"—he paused to finish his second drink and order a third by a gesture to the steward—"I, a professional Thassela-killer, having no more Thassela to kill, have nothing to do but kill time."
"Please, major! This talk of ... ah ... such things distresses me," the pleasant bass voice admonished.
"Oh." Gorman looked at him. "I ... I'm sorry. I forgot." He remembered now what he had heard of the Lilaar. Their religion, or something, forbade talk of death.
"You see, your race is not too well represented in my part of the Federation, and it is only in the past few -months that I have seen any of your people. In fact, you are the first I have ever spoken to."
"Quite all right. The error was mine. Please go on."
-
"Oh, there's nothing much more.
I decided to come to Sol and Earth in search of high adventure—pretty girls to be rescued from evil, villains to ki ... er ... punish, and all that sort of thing."
"You sound bitter, major," the Lilaarian commented analytically.
"I am, sir, I am. What do I find? I find people tending flower gardens, listening to soft music and admiring fine objets d'art, that's what I find!"
"And you find this distasteful?" the other asked, somewhat surprised.
Hastily, Gorman covered his tracks. "Why ... no-o-o, it's just that it's not what I was looking for, you understand."
He had remembered another thing he had heard about the Lilaar —they were not in the least mechanically or scientifically minded. Instead, they were the masters of the very music and art which he had just been on the verge of denouncing. He decided to change the subject.
"By the way, my name is Gorman, Karl Gorman." He held out his hand, and tried not to show his surprise at the unusual touch of the six-digited hand with the double-opposed thumbs, one on either side.
"Sarth Gell. May I buy you another drink?"
Gorman accepted, then, waxing warm inside, asked a question.
"Sarth, do you mind if I ask you something? As I say, I have always been a fighting man; I never had much time for history. When did the Federation contact your race?"
Sarth Gell leaned back, smoothed a hand over his hairless skull and said:
"It was some three hundred years ago, in the Year of the Federation 313, to be exact, that one of the exploratory ships first contacted us."
Gorman nodded. "That region is almost straight out beyond Altair, isn't it?"
"Yes. About eleven hundred light-years."
"So?" Gorman raised an eyebrow. "You must be a long way from home, too."
"Oh, no," chuckled Gell. "Not at all. I was born and raised on Tridel of Sirius. I am no more of Lilaar than you are of Earth."
Gorman signaled, and the steward brought more drinks. The conversation went on.
-
The huge passenger vessel bored on through the emptiness. Or perhaps that isn't the right term. Around? Past? Between, maybe? However she did it, at top speed she could make nearly a thousand light-speeds, although she wasn't doing that now. Her engines cut down and down as she approached Earth, until, finally, at one light, there- was the familiar buzzy shiver as the- ship passed into a more normal existence, although the accelerator field didn't cut itself out until the velocity dropped far below even that relatively low figure.
When the field cut, Major Gorman didn't even feel it. He was boiled to the ears.
He woke up in the hotel near the spaceport feeling just as he should feel, and lifted his head from his pillow with the care usually observed in such cases.
That sweet liquor! he thought. I ought to have more sense than to drink stuff with so much junk in it! I wonder how many of the higher alcohols it's loaded with?
Edging himself off the bed, he reached into his uniform pocket and got the box of small blue capsules he carried for such emergencies, swallowed one and waited. When it had taken effect, he decided that all he'd need to feel perfect again was enough water to cancel the dehydration brought on by the liquor, and some breakfast, to take the dark-brown taste out of his mouth.
The breakfast helped, but by noon he felt ill again. Not from liquor, but from the same thing that had made him so sick all the way from Ferridel.
Oh, Earth was beautiful, all right. All green and parklike, with tall trees, pretty flowers, tinkling fountains, and fairy buildings. All very lovely. And dull as the very devil!
He prowled around the city all the rest of the day, and by nightfall, he was ready to call it quits..
He'd gone into three or four of the establishments that purported to be bars, and found that no one drank anything but the sweet and aromatic synthetics, all of which would have made his stomach uneasy. He'd tried to talk to two or three of the girls, but they didn't seem to want to talk about anything but the soft strains of some melody or other that whispered through the late afternoon air. If he'd known the phrase, he would have called them mid-Victorian, although they possessed none of the hypocrisy of that long-forgotten age, and absolutely none of its sense of humor.
It was, he decided, even worse than Procyon; at least he'd been able to buy some decent liquor there.
When he got back to his hotel, Sarth Gell was waiting for him.
"Good evening, Karl, I see you've been out. How do you like our lovely city?"
"Oh, fine, Sarth, just fine," lied Gorman. "Very nice. Of course, I'm used to the Outposts, but I think I'll get used to this pretty quick." But he knew better. He knew he couldn't spend thirty-six years of his life smashing the onslaught of the evilly monstrous Thassela and then settle down to music.
"I'm glad to hear that," Gell smiled. "I wanted to ask you to accompany me to the concert tonight. I have a special seat."
Oh, great, moaned Gorman inwardly, just great! I'm so happy I could simply die!
-
The concert hall was filled with people, all beautifully dressed to set off the softly shifting pastel colors of the walls and floor. There was no ceiling; just the sighing breeze pushing fluffy little clouds across the face of the planet's one white satellite.
He watched as the great curtains drifted silently away, disclosing the musicians. Each was seated before the multi-keyed control board at his own panel; one hundred of them poised motionless, waiting for their signal.
Then the control master came o
Gorman looked closer. Six fingers! He hadn't noticed it at this distance, but now he could see that every one of those musicians was a Lilaarian. He glanced sideways at Gell, but his companion was looking straight at the orchestra.
Somewhere, from deep within his brain, a soft murmuring note sounded. It became a chord. It grew louder, and he actually did not realize until it grew fairly loud that it had come, not from his own mind, but from the orchestra before him.
As the music grew louder and wove in and out of itself, it became definitely apparent that the people of Lilaar were really master musicians. The shifting colors of the walls swirled in time to the undulating harmony of the orchestra.
He listened, and, after a little while, the music faded as it had begun, in a single note, dying in his brain.
He waited for the second composition, and was disturbed by Sarth Gell's touch upon his arm. He turned and noticed that everyone else was quietly leaving. Startled, he glanced at his wrist watch. Three hours! And he hadn't even realized it!
The next day, he went to the Great Library and began a search through the history section. Nothing too new, he decided. Something written back in the late Four or early Five Hundreds, at least a century old.
He finally found what he was looking for, selected two chapters for the reader, and flipped the switch.
"As has been related in previous chapters," it began, "several nonhuman races of fair intelligence were discovered, but it was not until YF 313 that any race was found which had ever had interstellar travel.
"In that year, Expedition Ship 983, commanded by Colonel Rupert Forbes, discovered—"
-
The great ship hung high above the atmosphere of the planet, the engines quiescent. Colonel Forbes waited impatiently for the arrival of the scout ship. When it finally came, he ordered Lieutenant Parlan to report immediately, in person.
"I don't want anything formal, lieutenant," he said. "Just, tell me what you found."
"Well, sir, the planet is inhabited all right, and they're almost human." He handed a sheaf of photographs to the colonel and went on. "You can see for yourself. They live in huge cities that look as if at one time they'd been really something, but now they're falling to pieces; they look old, old as the mountains— weatherbeaten, if you know what I mean, sir.
"Anyway, these people just live in them, they don't build them. And they don't use any kind of power.
They light the buildings with lamps that burn some kind of oil, and they do their work by hand."
"I see," nodded Colonel Forbes, "backward and ignorant, eh?"
"Yes, sir, in a way. Though they must have had quite a civilization at one time, from the looks of things."
"I think I'll get Philology busy on the language right away, and—"
-
"A thorough study of the language took the better part of a year, and by that time, several other facts made themselves apparent. First, that the natives had no knowledge whatever of science; second—"
-
"A funny bunch of people, colonel," commented Lieutenant Parlan. "They believe that they are a part of what might be translated roughly as 'The Great Empire of Heaven.' Their word for themselves is 'Lilaar,' but that also means 'sky' or 'universe.' The birth rate is appallingly low; only one child per couple every fifteen or twenty years. I don't see how they kept themselves from extinction this long."
Colonel Forbes rubbed a thumb across his chin. "How do you think they'll react to Federation rule?"
"Duck soup. They have absolutely no weapons; they are strict vegetarians; they're the laziest and most sheeplike, peaceful people I ever saw."
"Very well, I'll send my report in."
The report went in by subspace radio, propagated at a velocity which, though finite, is so great that the means of measuring it is unknown—the distance required is too great.
-
Expedition Ship 968 shot off toward her next target, a sun some three point two light-years distant.
Colonel Forbes addressed his staff: "Gentlemen, we have been away from Earth for better than two years. This is the last stop on our cruise. From here we return home!" There were general smiles and pleased murmurings all around.
"We have done well," Forbes continued. "We have discovered twelve planets which humanity can colonize, and more than that, one planet inhabited by intelligent beings, a discovery which is extremely rare among ships of the Exploratory Forces.
"Lieutenant Parlan, our contact officer, is, at this moment, exploring the thirteenth and last planet. When he reports back—I expect him any minute—I hope we shall be able to report that we have discovered thirteen habitable worlds on our outward trip; more than any other ship has so far found. To that, we can add the discovery of an alien race on one of the few—"
"Two," came the voice of Lieutenant Parlan from the door.
"I beg your pardon?" blinked Forbes, startled at the interruption.
"I said two, sir. We have found two planets inhabited by nonhuman races—or rather race."
"Please be more explicit, lieutenant," the colonel said sharply.
"The planet below us, sir, is populated by the Lilaar!"
-
"All in all, the next seventy years of exploration in that region uncovered seventy-one planets of the Grand Empire of Lilaar, all of which—"
-
Gorman snapped it off. That was enough. It tallied. He set the other chapter he had selected, and started the reader again.
-
"Beginning in YF 380, several Expeditionary ships stopped sending in their reports abruptly, and were never heard of again. Because of the obvious dangers inherent in interstellar exploration, not too much significance was attached to these disappearances, although it was noticed that the incidents all took place in one section of the outermost fringes of the Federation. It was not until early in 384 that the truth became known.
"In that year, Expedition Ship 770 reported that it was being attacked by alien forces. They subsequently ceased to report.
"Federal Security forces immediately went into action. The Bio-mathematical Section had long warned of the probability of inimical alien life, and thus the Government was prepared. The cry of 'Remember the Seven Seven Oh!' became the battle cry of the Federation. The Interstellar Secrecy and Security Act went into effect and—"
-
Again Gorman cut the reader off. One more check and he would have what he wanted.
He and the librarian went through the Laws of the Federation for several minutes until he found the original draft of the Act.
It read: "For the security of the Solar Federation ... no person, corporation, planetary or system government ... shall build or construct ... any interstellar vessel, for any use whatsoever, except upon explicit contract with the Federal Government.
