adults lounged in front of theirdwellings or enjoyed community singing and dancing to the pulsing rhythm oftheir music. The sound of gaiety suddenly died as Lord walked between therows of houses.
Strange, he thought; they seemed to guess what was in his mind. Niaga ranfrom the quiet crowd and took his hand.
"No, Martin Lord; you must not interfere!"
"Where's Howard?"
"He is a free man; he has a right to choose--"
"I'm going to take him back." He drew one of his guns. She looked at himsteadily, without fear, and she said,
"We made you welcome; we have given you our friendship, and now you--"
He pushed her aside brutally because her gentleness, her lack of anger,tightened the constriction of his own sense of guilt. Lord fired his weaponat the trunk of a tree. The wood flamed red for a moment and the sound ofthe explosion rocked the air, powdering the grass with black ash.
"This is the kind of power controlled by men," he said. His voice washarsh, shrill with shame and disgust for the role he had to play. "I shalluse this weapon to destroy your homes--each of them, one by one--unless yousurrender Don Howard to me."
As he turned the pistol slowly toward the closest yellow wall, Niagawhispered, "Violence is a violation of the law of humanity. We offered DonHoward sanctuary and peace--as we offer it to all of you. Stay with us,Martin Lord; make your home here."
He clenched his jaw. "I want Don and I want him now!"
"But why must you go back? Your world is powerful; your world is enormouswith cities and machines. But what does it hold for you as a man, MartinLord? Here we give you the dreams of your own soul, peace and beauty,laughter and dignity."
"Surrender, Don!" Although he was vaguely aware of it, he had no time toconsider consciously the strangely sophisticated wording of her argument.When she continued to talk in the same gentle voice, the temptationcaressed his mind like a narcotic; against his will, the tension began towash from his muscles. Driven by a kind of madness to escape the sound ofher voice, he pulled the trigger. The yellow wall exploded. Concussionthrobbed in his ears, deafening him--but he still heard her whisper inthe depths of his soul, like the music of a forest stream.
* * * * *
Then, at the end of the village street, he saw Don Howard coming out ofone of the houses with his hands held high.
"You win, Lord; leave them alone."
It was victory, but Lord felt no triumph--only a crushing bitterness. Hemotioned Howard to take the path back to the ship. To Niaga he said,
"If your council of elders ever gets around to meeting, you might tellthem that, as far as I'm concerned, you've already signed the tradetreaty with me. We're leaving in the morning to register the franchise."
"You'd break your own law? You said the negotiations had to be--"
"Our men will come shortly to build the first trade city. I advise you notto resist them; they'll be armed with guns more powerful than mine."
She reached for his hand, but Lord turned away from her quickly so thatshe could not again open the raw wound of shame in his soul. He followedDon Howard into the forest.
"You won't get away with it, Lord," Howard said grimly. "No trade agentcan impose a treaty--"
"Would a trusteeship be any better?"
"Lord, no!"
"There are only two alternatives, and a Hamilton Lord trade city is byfar the better."
"Yes--for Hamilton Lord."
"No, for these people. Don't forget, I'll be running Hamilton Lord.The exclusive franchise will keep out the other traders, and I can seeto it that our trade city does no harm. We've a thousand planets in theFederation; who's going to know if one of the cities doesn't reallyfunction?"
"I get it. But why the hell did you have to bring me back?"
"To make a deal with--with your wife."
After a long pause, Don Howard said wearily, "If Hamilton Lord cansacrifice the richest franchise in the galaxy, I suppose I can do my bit,too."
At dawn the _Ceres_ departed. Lord drove his men to work throughout thenight stowing the prefabs and the trade goods aboard the ship. Just beforethe power tubes stabbed the launching fire into the earth, a delegation ofvillagers came into the clearing. Niaga led them and she spoke to Lord atthe foot of the landing ladder.
"We still want you to stay among us, Martin Lord; we have come again tooffer--"
"It is impossible!"
She put her arms around his neck and drew his lips against hers. Thetemptation washed over his mind, shattering his resolution and warpinghis reason. This was what he wanted: the golden dream of every man. Butfor Lord only one idea held fast. Niaga's primitive, naive world had to bepreserved exactly as it was. If he gave in to the dream, he would destroyit. Only in the central office of Hamilton Lord could he do anything tosave what he had found here. He wrenched himself free of her arms.
"It's no use, Niaga."
She knew that she had lost, and she moved away from him. One of the othergolden-skinned savages pushed a small, carved box into his hands.
"A parting gift," Niaga said. "Open it when you are aboard your ship,Martin Lord."
Long after the _Ceres_ had blasted off, he sat alone in his cabin lookingat the box--small, delicately carved from a strange material, like a softplastic. It seemed somehow alive, throbbing with the memory of the dreamhe had left behind.
With a sigh he opened the box. A billow of white dust came from it. Thebox fell apart and the pieces, like disintegrating gelatine, began to meltaway. A printed card, made of the same unstable material, lay in Lord'shand.
"You have three minutes, Martin Lord," he read. "The drug is painless, butbefore it wipes memory from the minds of you and your crew, I want you tounderstand why we felt it necessary to do this to you.
"When you first landed, we realized that you came from a relativelyimmature culture because you made no response to our telepathy of welcome.We did our best after that to simplify your adjustment to our way of life,because we knew you would have to stay among us. Of course, we never reallylearned your language; we simply gave you the illusion that we had. Noris there any such thing as a council of elders; we had to invent that tosatisfy you. We truly wanted you to stay among us. In time you could havegrown up enough--most of you--to live with us as equals. We knew it wouldbe disastrous for you to carry back to your world your idea of how we live.We are the tomorrow of your people; you must grow up to us. There is noother way to maturity. We could not, of course, keep you here against yourwill. Nor could we let you go back, like a poison, into your world. Wecould do nothing else but use this drug. The impact of civilization upona primitive people like yours...."
The words hazed and faded as the note disintegrated. Lord felt a moment ofdesperate yearning, a terrible weight of grief. With an effort he pushedhimself from his chair and pulled open the door into the corridor. He hadto order the ship back while he could still remember; he had to find Niagaand tell her ...
... tell her. Tell whom? Tell what? Lord stood in the corridor staringblankly at the metal wall. He was just a little puzzled as to why he wasthere, what he had meant to do. He saw Ann Howard coming toward him.
"Did you notice the lurch in the ship, Mr. Lord?" she asked.
"Yes, I suppose I did." Was that why he had left his cabin?
"I thought we were having trouble with the time-power calibration, but Ichecked with Don and he says everything's all right." She glanced throughthe open door of his cabin at the electronic pattern on the scanningscreen. "Well, we'll be home in another twenty hours, Mr. Lord. It's a pitywe didn't contact any new planets on this mission. It would have been agood experience for you."
"Yes, I rather hoped so, too."
He went back to his desk. Strange, he couldn't remember what it was he hadwanted to do. He shrugged his shoulders and laughed a little to himself. Itdefinitely wouldn't do--not at all--for a Lord to have lapses of memory.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
This ete
xt was produced from Amazing Science Fiction Stories, January 1960.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright onthis publication was renewed.
The following corrections have been applied to the text:
Page 9: money has no meaning to these people and, if Don intends to stayhere, it won't mean much to him,{superfluous quotation mark removed}either."
Page 9: "I'm sure you can get help from this--" her{original had Her} lipcurled{original had a period here} "--this native girl of yours. What's hername?"
Page 13: Lord answered,{original omitted this comma} "We landed in orderto repair our ship, but I hope we can make a trade treaty with yourgovernment."
Page 16: