Frank Quattrocchi

“ Craig said, matching the blunt tone.
The man rapped the table. "That's enough of your impertinence! You may very well have served the Intergalactic Service, but you are on Terra now. Terra, greatest, first of all civilized systems. Intergalactic may very well have to piddle with incompetent savages and wild colonists, but we of Terra assert our supremacy. Remember those words. You may not always find Terra so submissive to Intergalactic as Intergalactic would desire." ”

“ And yet the man could not be pinned down to any specific condition the spaceman would find intolerable.
Craig began to hate the delay that kept him from Terra. Through the ports of the headquarters base satellite, he scanned the constellations for the scores of worlds he had visited during his eleven years in space. They were incredibly varied, even those that supported life. He had weathered difficult landings on worlds with rip-tide gravities, had felt the pull of the incredible star-tides imparted by twin and even triple star systems. ”

“ You relentlessly seek and kill for commercial or political advantage. You live in mistrust and envy and threat. Yet, as earthlings, you have power. It is not great, but it contains a threat. We wish now to know the extent of that threat.
"Here is the test."
Suddenly an image resolved itself on the gleaming metal of the ship itself.
It was a blueprint.
A hundred cameras focused on it.
"Construct this. It is defective. Correct that which renders it not useful. We shall return in three days for your solution."
"Good God!" exclaimed Harrison. "It's a—sword!" ”

“ There was a distracted quality about him, Craig thought.
"You are the first man we have had from the Intergalactic Service," the personnel man said finally.
"That so?"
"Yes." He turned to face Craig briefly before continuing. "You must find it very strange here."
"Well, I've never seen a city so big."
"Yes, so big. And also...." He seemed to consider many words before completing the sentence. "And also different."
"I haven't been here very long," said Craig. "Matter of fact, I haven't been anywhere very long. This is my first real experience with life on a planet. As an adult, anyway." ”

“ Craig pointed out.
"One of the basic principles of Liberty is the inherent goodness of every man," Cocteau repeated. "We have never taken a life, even in self-defense. We shall never take one. Nor will it ever be necessary for a member of the Liberty party to hold public office, to own a weapon, to coerce a man in any physical way." ”

“ He humbled us, exalted the aliens—that is, he thought the alien was somehow a messenger from God to put us in our places."
"We were pretty humble ourselves, especially the last day," protested Mills.
"But humble about our technology," put in Harrison. "The aliens must be plenty far beyond us technologically. But how about their cultural superiority. Ask yourself how a culture that could produce the ship we've just seen could survive without—well destroying itself." ”

“ Ergo, the Liberty party. Mr. Craig, our world is ruled by a vast and horrible bureaucracy whose terrible weapon is conformity. You would find few laws even today written in books. Our assemblies pass few statutes. They determine dogma instead. They 'resolve' and 'move.' They fix a new 'position,' define a 'stand.' Our equivalent of judge and attorney is no student of law. He is a kind of moralist. He is sensitive to the 'trend' and appreciative of the 'proper.'
"Terra fits uncomfortably in the Intergalactic System. ”

“ I've seen plenty of that bureaucracy and there seems to be damned little freedom of action left on Terra. But how do I know you can do any better when you get in power?"
"Liberty will never be 'in power,' Mr. Craig," Cocteau said quietly. "Liberty will attempt to reach the minds of the people with our message of hope, of freedom in true democracy."
Another of the group joined Cocteau. "We are now hunted as criminals. We have only this small stronghold in the old city."
"We shall attempt only to gain entry to the minds of the people," said Cocteau. ”

“ We better. It's going to take a hell of a lot more than a silly ploughshare to convince those babies on that ship. But there's more to it than that. The ability of a culture finally to pound all of its swords—its intellectual ones as well as its steel ones—into ploughshares must be some kind of least common denominator for cultures that are headed for the stars. ”

“ Doggedness carried Craig onward long after awareness left him.
He became conscious suddenly, as though by an injection of stimulant. He found himself surrounded by a number of figures, including Cocteau and a white garbed man, evidently a doctor.
"You are quite safe now, Mr. Craig," said Cocteau warmly. "Welcome to the City of We."
"Where are we?"
"Deep in the old city, in a place where the radioactivity is negligible," the man answered as the doctor took his pulse. "This is Dr. Grant and these others are members of the Liberty party." ”

“ Scores of video teams focused equipment on the gleaming alien.
"The Races of Wan desire contact with you."
"In English yet!" amazed Mills.
"The basis of this contact together with its nature are dependent upon you!"
The voice had become ugly. There was nothing human about it save only the words, which were in flawless English.
"Your system has long been under surveillance by the Races of Wan. Your—progress has been noted."
There was almost a note of contempt, thought Harrison, in the last sentence.
"Your system is about to reach others. ”

“ What determines it is how completely you learn to free him.
"Conversely, the law provides that no control system, however devised, will succeed in bringing happiness and security to man to any greater extent than it permits the fullest expression of his nature.
"Man is inherently good. He will always choose a moral path when free to do so. He strives for justice and truth both as an individual and in mass.
"Mr. Craig, democracy is man's greatest a priori. ”

“ They developed force—plenty of it, enough force to kick that big ship through space at the speed of light plus. They must also have learned to control force, to live with it."
"Maybe you better stick to the sword business," said Mills.
"The sword is the crux of the matter. What did the alien say about the sword? 'It is defective.' It is defective, Bob. Not as an instrument of death. It will kill a man or injure him well enough.
"But a sword—or any other instrument of force for that matter—is a terribly ineffectual tool. ”

“ The old man looked up at Craig. "You don't know much about Terra, do you, son?"
"Not much."
"Yeah. Well, I hope you ain't disappointed."
"My father was born there, but I never saw it. Never hit the Solar System, matter of fact. Never saw much of anything close up. I stood it a long time, old man, this hitting atmospheres all over the Universe."
But the spaceman seemed to have lost interest. He was unpacking some personal belongings from a kit.
"What are you doing in Grav 1?" Craig asked. ”

“ The aliens return in an hour. As you very well know there is one action that remains for us. It is one we have held to this hour. It is one that has always been present and one that we have been constantly urged to use. ”

“ Craig would have risked much to identify the "they" Phil referred to, but he did not ask the question. As he watched the boy preparing the dimly lit room for the night, he felt sure Phil could be trusted. He was almost frighteningly mature for his age.
The room was well hidden, for the once great library lay in a powdered ruin about it on all sides but a part of one. Only by accident or knowledge would a stranger recognize it in what was literally a world of rubble. ”

“ Harrison. We worked a long time together. You...."
Harrison suddenly rose from the chair.
"This is our one chance of beating this thing, no matter how crazy it seems. Will you do the job?"
"You believe you got something, eh," the other said. "You think you have?"
"I have to have."
"Gentlemen," said the President of the Intersolar Council. "There is very little to say. There can be no denying the fact that we have exhausted our efforts at finding a satisfactory solution. ”

“ He nudged Craig wickedly. "You know what they're like?"
"Yeah," Craig said disgustedly. Traffic in the illicit mental-image tapes was known as far into space as lonely men had penetrated. Intergalactic considered them as great a menace to mental and moral stability as the hectopiates. Craig wearily got the man out of the room, took a PON pill, and eased himself into the bed.
It had been a weird day and he had not liked it. There was no telling how long it would take him to shake his—sea legs, the psychologist had called it. One thing was sure: Terra aggressively went after its strangers. ”

“ Rootless and footloose, a man in space can't help
but dream of coming home. But something nobody should
do is bet on the validity of a homesick dream!
Flight Officer Robert Craig surrendered the tube containing his service record tapes and stood waiting while the bored process clerk examined the seal.
"Your clearance," said the clerk.
Craig handed him a battered punch card and watched the man insert it in the reproducer. He felt anxiety as the much-handled card refused for a time to match the instrument's metal contact points. The line of men behind Craig fidgeted. ”

“ Craig evaded.
"It ain't none of my business what you done. Nobody around here is going to ask you any questions. Long as you got units, you get poly like the big shots that come over here all the way from Uptown."
"Yeah," said Craig. "Gimme what I get for ten units and let's beat it out of here."
"Myself, I never been Out. Not even Luna. Never wanted to. I stay here and have my little business—you can call it a business. You'll see, buddy, there are millions of guys like me. The controllers don't stop us. We're respectable. A damned sight more respectable than those...." ”

“ Craig said wearily. "I gave you my reasons for quitting space. We analyzed them. You agreed that you could not decide that for me and that my decision is logical. You tell me spacemen don't settle down on Terra. Yet you won't—or can't—tell me why. I've got a damned good job there—"
"You may find that 'damned good jobs' become boring."
"So I'll transfer. I don't know what you're trying to get at, Captain, but you're not talking me out of going back. If the service needs men so badly, let them get somebody else. ”

“ Man can democratically do the irrational and the insane. He can democratically limit and coerce the absolute highest nature of himself. Bad laws are forever passed to achieve good ends. But each new law produces new criminals while the cause of the new crime remains unsolved. ”