Tom Godwin

“ Why should there be life at all? Why not the suns and planets, created by chance, and devoid of life? And why even the suns and planets, the millions of galaxies racing outward across the illimitable expanse of space and time? Why the universe and why the life it contained? Why not just—nothing?
The barbarians had set out to find the answer within a hundred years after the building of their first interstellar ship. And Tharnar's interstellar ships had not been outside the system for fifty thousand years; no Tharnarian had been as far as Vendal for fifteen thousand years. ”

“ He sat for a little while before turning on the tape projector, recalling his conversation with her and a feeling growing within him that he was almost on the verge of discovering still another menace to Tharnar.
Virginia held her hands to her face to shade her eyes as she looked out the window. "What you can see of the city from here is all bright with lights," she said, "but there's no one on the streets. Only some robots. Everyone in the city must be in bed." ”

“ A race so young could not possess a civilized culture. The Terrans were—he searched for a suitable description—barbarians in spaceships. They lacked the refinement and wisdom of the Tharnarians; they were a dangerous and unpredictable race. It could be seen in their history; could be seen in the way the two Terrans had reacted to their capture.
He pressed one of the many buttons along the edge of his desk and a three-dimensional projection appeared; the scene that had taken place one hundred and eighty days before when the Terrans were brought to Tharnar. ”

“ See how slowly it moves; listen to how still it is for a city that contains almost a million people. Do you know what this day is for the City? It's one more act, to be added to all the thousands of acts in the past, in the City's rehearsal for extinction. ”

“ The robot laid the material Tal-Karanth had requested on his desk, the records and tapes from the Terran ship, and withdrew. Tal-Karanth sighed wearily as he inserted the first tape in the projector, wondering again why he felt the vague dissatisfaction and wondering why he hoped to find an answer among the material from the Terran ship. It would be an all night task—and he could hardly expect to find more than he already knew. Tharnar was not safe and secure from discovery by Terrans in the years to come and faith in the robot fleet had been an illusion. ”

“ She raised up a little as his image appeared before her and the robots stepped back.
"Yes, Father?" she asked.
She waited for him to speak, her wide gray eyes on his image and her jet-black curls framing her young and delicately beautiful face. For a moment she reminded him of someone; someone more mature and stronger—
With something of a shock he realized it was the Terran girl his daughter reminded him of; that the Terran girl seemed the more mature of the two although Thralna was twenty-eight and the Terran girl was twenty-one. ”

“ Our instruments showed us that the guard ship was robot-operated. They could discern nothing organic in the ship, nothing alive. The same instruments showed us that this planet, Vendal, possessed operating mines and factories and no organic life other than small animals. We knew that machines neither voluntarily build factories nor reproduce other machines, yet the mines and factories were operating. We thought it might be a world where the inhabitants had all died for some reason and the robots were still following the production orders given them when the race lived. ”

“ The other end of it was locked around Virginia's neck.
The cell door was opened and the guard leader commanded, "Step forward. The robots will guide you."
They stepped forward, the robots beside them, gripping their arms with steel fingers. The chain around their necks rattled from the movement of walking, linking them together like a pair of captive wild animals. Bob wondered if the chain had been solely as another precaution to prevent their escape or if it had been a deliberate act of contempt. The Tharnarians feared them and, because they feared them, they hated them. ”

“ The robots carried no blasters, nothing but three lengths of chain.
The Tharnarian leader outside the door rasped a command:
"You will both turn to face the window, with your hands behind you."
Bob did not obey at once, but appraised the situation. The robots were massive things—more than six hundred pounds in weight, their metal bodies invulnerable to any attack he could make with his bare hands. But there was one chance in ten thousand: if he could catch the first robot by surprise and send it toppling into the cell door, its weight might be enough to break the lock of the door. ”

“ And we on Tharnar spend our lives sipping sweet drinks as we discuss trifles and wait for the sun to shine warm enough for us to emerge from our air-conditioned houses."
"If you're right in thinking that Terrans won't come to plunder Tharnar and the City," Vor-Dergal said, "then it would be interesting to know what those two find when they reach the center of the galaxy. If they don't get killed long before they reach it."
"I think any hostile forms of life they encounter will find them hard to kill," Tal-Karanth said. ”

“ Instead, he said, "If the present trend continues, there will come a time when there will be more robots in the guard ships than there will be Tharnarians for them to guard. But is the other better, the destruction at the hands of the barbarians?"
"Destruction? It's within their power to destroy us, but why should they? It will be unpleasant for many Tharnarians to contemplate, but an unbiased study of the Terrans shows that they would not want the things we have on Tharnar and in the City; that they would not consider Tharnar and the City worth the trouble of conquest." ”

“ The other Terrans will learn of us now, and when they come...." He let the sentence trail off, unfinished.
"We have a great deal to gain by the coming of the Terrans," Tal-Karanth said, "and little to lose."
"Little to lose?" Vor-Dergal asked. "We have Tharnar and the City to lose; we have our lives and our civilization to lose."
"Yes, our civilization," Tal-Karanth said. "Our god that we worshipped—our civilization. ”

“ And our robot-operated fleet was on guard to prevent any other race from annoying us, from disturbing us in the wisdom and serenity of our way of life.
"Fifteen thousand years ago, the last of us on Vendal returned to the more ideal world of Tharnar. And there was plenty of room for them on Tharnar by then. The population had been decreasing for thousands of years—it's decreasing right now. Women don't want to have children anymore—it's an inconvenience for them. They want comfort; the full stomach, the soft couch, the attention of their robots. And men are the same. ”

“ Tal-Karanth stood by the open windows and watched the guards return the Terrans to their cell. Extra guards, both robot and Tharnarian, had been posted inside and outside the prison building for the night to prevent any possibility of an escape. Other robots stood guard around the Terran ship, although it was inconceivable that the Terrans could ever overpower the prison guards and reach their ship. ”

“ Two of the armed robots who had walked with the guards took up a position twenty feet in front of them, blasters in their metal hands. The robots who had chained them stepped to one side, away from the line of fire. The leader of the guards lifted his arm to look at his watch and said something to the robots. The robots lifted their blasters at the words and leveled them, one aimed at Virginia's heart and one at Bob's. ”