Balance of Power. Brian Stableford
And that would be bad—or, to take the cynical view, it would appear to the UN to be bad. Because the whole point of sending colonies out from Earth was to get away from mistrust, hostility and conflict. There was a very considerable body of opinion on Earth which said that man had no right to pollute the galaxy until he had solved his problems on Earth. If we brought back evidence that the colonies were inescapably reproducing all those features which on Earth were considered evils, then a very large brick would be knocked out of the edifice of argument by which we might seek to resume the colony project.
I was already certain in my own mind that the ecological problems here could be solved. I was prepared to predict that another Daedalus in a hundred years’ time would find the colony a lot better off in terms of its technological development and its agricultural performance. I had felt guilty about leaving so much of the work to Conrad and Linda, but I wouldn’t have done so if I hadn’t been absolutely sure that there were no major difficulties.
But Nathan Parrick wasn’t in the least convinced that the social situation was—or could be made—satisfactory. Satisfactory, that is, to the UN.
“It’s important that this trip should succeed,” he had said, on the night before the New Hope set sail. “Important to the colony, but maybe even more important to us. It will allow us to show in our reports—and to argue when the time comes—that the colony is still capable of acting as a whole, that even in the face of adversity it is trying to widen its horizons. Crossing oceans in wooden ships is the kind of gesture that people appreciate—symbolic of triumph over circumstance. This trip has a heroic dimension that the government—and we—will be able to exploit. If it succeeds. The failure of the earlier trips will add extra mystique to its triumph.”
He always talked like that. The symptoms of a perverted sense of values. But I knew enough to realize that what he said was probably true enough, however perverted. To him, almost everything we encountered was advertising copy. Pro or anti. The voyage of the New Hope was not only no exception, it was an example par excellence. It was romantic, nostalgic, impressive.
“What would you like us to find at the other end?” I had asked, dryly.
“The aliens, of course,” he said. “A new continent is fair to middling. Echoes of Columbus...it has its mythical resonances. But the aliens add something else. They represent the face of the unknown. If anything can jerk this colony out of its introverted priorities it’s contact with aliens. There’s nothing else that will restore to them any real sense of collective identity or solidarity.”
“Perhaps you’d like me to arrange a war?” I asked. “An alien invasion of Lambda. There’s nothing like a common enemy to unite people, so the cliché says. A good war fires national enthusiasm like nothing else.”
“It’s a stupid cliché,” observed Nathan. “The so-called national spirit that emerges at the time of war is itself nothing more than a propaganda device. It isn’t real. It’s an illusion conjured up by the government in the hope of forcing national spirit upon the people. The last thing we need is war. War with the aliens is exactly what the let’s-not-export-our-sins-to-the-galaxy brigade need to sink the colony project forever. And at a more mundane level, if the aliens did invade Lambda—assuming, that is, that the aliens have any political entity capable of managing a war—they’d almost certainly conquer it with no trouble.”
“There is that,” I agreed, sarcastically.
“What we need,” said Nathan, “and what the colony needs, of course, is some kind of symbol of peaceful cooperation. Hands across the sea. A meeting of minds. That sort of thing.”
“You want me to bring back a peace treaty and make political speeches? Maybe a pipe of peace? Gifts of elephants and exotic silks?”
“If you could manage it,” he said, with equanimity, “yes.”
With such ideas in mind—even as kitschy metaphors—we had sailed with optimism in our hearts. That was the way the voyage had been set up—a gran geste, a publicity stunt.
Now, a couple of days from shore, I didn’t feel nearly so good. In fact, I didn’t feel good at all. Neither did Nathan. I reported in every morning by radio, and explained the situation. There was never much news beyond the fact that things were getting steadily and irrevocably worse. Nathan had run out of encouraging suggestions weeks before. If he’d been that way inclined he’d be praying for miracles by now.
I told him what we’d decided about cutting our trip short.
“It means no hands across the sea,” I told him. “No peace treaties. If we even see the aliens it’ll be a quick hello/goodbye.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Salvage what you can. Better a hint of success than a total failure. Come back with what you can, but at all costs come back.”
“They made a good story out of Mutiny on the Bounty,” I commented.
“Sure,” he said. “But Mutiny on the Santa Maria would be a pretty sick story compared with Columbus Discovers America. Be careful.”
“If only,” I said, as I signed off, “my being careful was all that was required.”
CHAPTER FIVE
There was a knock at the door, and it was unceremoniously yanked open. I was glad that it opened outwards—it could have done a lot of damage if it had been hurled into the cluttered space within.
The man who leaned through the doorway, reaching out a big, horny hand, was Ogburn.
“Binoc’lars,” he said, with his usual economy.
A funny rejoinder occurred to me, but I didn’t use it. I handed him the binoculars instead.
“Why?” I asked.
But he was already gone.
I jumped to the conclusion that we had sighted land, and followed him at a rapid pace. It seemed as if a great weight was about to be lifted from my mind. But when I got on deck, there was nothing in sight but the mottled green sea. Ogburn was balanced on the rail on the starboard side of the ship, with his elbow hooked into the rigging. He wasn’t even looking to the west, but to the north.
I shaded my eyes and squinted slightly, following the direction of his gaze. There was, in fact, something on the horizon.
An off-white triangle.
A sail.
Ogburn jumped down, and with an uncharacteristically graceful gesture, handed me the binoculars. I focused them quickly. I saw that the edges of the triangle were curved, and that the sail was vaguely reminiscent of that carried by an arab dhow. I couldn’t see the body of the craft beneath it. It was sailing away from us, disappearing beyond the horizon.
“Do we chase?” asked Ogburn.
I considered for a moment. While I was considering, Nieland joined us, having been alerted to the fact that something was up. I handed him the glasses and waited for him to react. It was really his decision.
“We must be near land,” he said, when he lowered the binoculars.
“We already know that,” I said.
“Keep heading west,” he said to Ogburn.
Ogburn looked dubious. He seemed to be about to make some perceptive comment, but then decided against it. It took a few more seconds for me to realize what was wrong.
Nieland realized too. “But they haven’t got sailing ships!” he complained. “Only canoes.”
So, at least, said the survey report.
“The survey team only surveyed Delta from the air,” I reminded him. “They didn’t make any contact with the natives. Everything they said about them was based on photographic evidence. And it was two hundred years ago. They could have missed the sailing ships. It’s even possible that the sail was invented some time during the last couple of centuries. Times change.”