pogroms: organized, often officially encouraged massacres or persecutions of minority groups.
punk-water: the water that stands in rotten, decayed cavities of old trees. Called “spunk-water” by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn.
qui vive, on the: on the alert; vigilant.
right guy: good guy.
Rochambeau: statue of the American Revolutionary War hero, General Comte de Rochambeau, in Lafayette Park, Washington, DC. As a French aristocrat, Rochambeau equipped a ship at his own expense and joined the Americans’ fight for liberty and after the war he returned to France as a national hero. The statue was presented as a gift from France to the US in 1902 as a reaffirmation of Franco-American relations in the first years of the twentieth century.
rods: a portion of the undercarriage of a train, especially the coupler under a freight car.
scareheads: headlines in exceptionally large type.
set her cap for me: pursue someone romantically; to try to win the favor of a man with a view to marriage.
slouch hat: a wide-brimmed felt hat with a chinstrap.
snipes: cigarette butts.
Tommy gun: Thompson submachine gun; a light portable automatic machine gun.
took to his heels: ran away.
uppers, on my: on one’s uppers; poor; in reduced circumstances; first recorded in 1886, this term alludes to having worn out the soles of one’s shoes so badly that only the top portions remain.
Waldorf: The Waldorf=Astoria; a famous hotel in New York City known for its high standards and as a social center for the city.
whippersnapper: an impertinent young person, usually a young man, who lacks proper respect for the older generation; a youngster with an excess of both ambition and impertinence.
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ISBN 978-1-59212-633-0 ePub version
ISBN 978-1-59212-283-7 print version
ISBN 978-1-59212-252-3 audiobook version
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007927675
Contents
WHEN SHADOWS FALL
TOUGH OLD MAN
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
BATTLING BOLTO
GLOSSARY
When Shadows Fall
When Shadows Fall
AND then there came a day when Earth lay dying, for planets also die. About her crept a ghost of atmosphere, the body eaten full away by iron rust and belching smoke until the plains, stretching wide, were sickly red, and no green showed from range to range and pole to pole.
Red as Mars.
Dead, or nearly so, with the broken tumble of her cities peopled with the lizard and the wind. And the spaceports, which had given birth to the empires of space, were charred and indistinct upon the breast of Mother Earth.
So thought Lars the Ranger sitting in the window of the Greater Council Hall, so he saw from this eminence above the world and the red plains.
He too was getting old. Strong and young he had voyaged far on dangerous ways to bring the treasure back, but now he voyaged no more. Science had prolonged the beating of his heart a thousand years beyond his time, but now he was old and stiff and the Council chamber was cold.
The voices were thin behind him. They echoed oddly in this reverberant tomb. Seats were here for all the Council members of full six hundred systems. But the seats were empty now and their metal threw back the reedy whine of the clerks who called them all to order, reading names which had been gone these seven hundred years, all formal, all precise, and noting that they were not here.
Mankin, Grand President of the Confederated Systems, sat hunched and aged upon his dais, looking out upon his servants, listening to the threadbare rite.
“Capella!”
Silence.
“Rigel Centaurus!”
Silence.
“Deneb and Kizar and Betelgeuse!”
Silence.
And onward for six hundred names.
Silence.
For they were mighty there in the stars and Mother Earth was old. They were thriving across a mighty span of ten thousand light-years. And Mother Earth had no longer any fuel. They had taken the oil from her deepest springs and the coal from her lowest mines. They had breathed her air and forged her steel and taken their argosies away. And behind them they had scant memory.
Earth had no power of money now, no goods, no trades, no fleet. And the finest of her strong young men had gone this long, long while. The lame, the halt, these and the dimmest of sight had stayed. And now there was nothing.
“Markab!”
“Achernar!”
“Polaris!”
No one there. No one there. No one there. No one.
Lars the Ranger stood and stiffly shook out his cloak. He couched the ceremonial space helmet in his crookt arm and advanced formally to the dais. He bowed.
He might have reported there in the ritual that the fleets were ready and the armies strong, that as General of Space he could assure them all of the peace in space.
But he was suddenly conscious of who they were and how things stood and he said nothing.
There was Greto, once a wizard of skilled finance, sitting chin on breast in an advisor’s chair. There was Smit, the valiant warrior of five hundred years ago. There was Mankin, tiny in his robe, crushed down by years and grief.
About Lars swirled, for an instant, the laughing staff of centuries back—young men with the giddy wine of high risk in their hearts. About Lars thundered the governing mandates of Earth to Space, to System Empires everywhere.
And then he saw the four of them and the clerks, alone here on a world which was nearly dead.
He broke ritual softly.
“There are no fleets and the armies have melted away. There is no fuel to burn in the homes, much less in the cannon. There is no food, there are no guns. I can no longer consider myself or this Council master of space and all that it contains.”
They had all come there with a vague hope that it would break. And it had broken. And Greto came to his feet, his wasted body mighty and imposing still.
There was silence for a while and then Greto turned to the dais. “I can report the same. For fifteen long years I could have said nearly as much. But I admit this now. Earth is no more.”
Smit lumbered upright. He scowled and clenched a black fist as he looked at Lars. “We have our fleets and our guns. Who has been here these last decades to know that they are without fodder? Bah! This thing can be solved!”
Mankin hunched lower, opened a drawer and brought out a tablet which he took. As he set down his water glass, he belched politely and looked from one to the nex
t, bewildered, a little afraid. He had been able to handle many things in his day.
He fumbled with his reports and they were all the same. People were old and children were few. The food was gone and winter would be cold.
He cleared his throat. Hopefully he looked at Smit. “I was about to suggest that some measure be taken to remove the few thousands remaining here to some planet where food and fuel are not so dear. But I only hope that I can be advised—”
“You could remove nothing,” said Greto, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “You could take nothing away. For there’s not fuel to lift more than twenty ships from the surface of Earth. The cause may be lost, but I am not lost. Earth is no longer tenable as she is. I propose that, with credits long past due, I force the purchase of atmosphere manufacturing equipment and other needful things.”
“Credits!” said Smit. “What do I know of credits? If this thing is at last in the light and the need is desperate, I can give them the promise of guns in their guts. Need they know?”
Mankin looked from one to the other. He was heartened a little, for he had begun to see these fabulous men as little more than companions of his desultory chess games. But he did not heed them too much.
He turned to Lars.
“What says the General of Armies and Admiral of Fleets?”
Lars the Ranger laid his helmet on the clerk’s table. All semblance of formality fell from him as he took a pipe from his pocket, loaded it and lighted it with his finger ring. He looked from Mankin to Greto.
“My fleet,” he said, “has not fired a jet in so many years that I have quite forgotten how many emergency charges were left aboard. I do know that mechanics and even officers have long since used all reserve atomic fuel for the benefit of lighting plants in the cities and our few remaining factories. At the most, on all our five continents I seriously doubt whether or not we retain enough fuel for more than two or three hundred light-years. That is, of course, for one of our minor destroyers. Hardly enough for an extended cruise of space.
“At the old Navy yard at the Chicago spaceport I daresay there may be four destroyers in more or less workable condition. Certainly there are enough spare parts in the battleships to complete them and make them usable. In our service lists we have a handful of technicians who, though they may be old, still retain some of their touch.
“We could probably beg enough food in the way of voluntary contributions to provision the trip. Perhaps we are just dreaming. We may be at best only old men sitting in the sun and thinking thoughts much better carried out by young sinews. But I for one would like to try.
“Today I walked through the streets of this city and an illusion gripped me. Once more I was a young man returning from a colonization in the Capella system. The sidewalks were lined with people, the unbroken pavement glittered before me thick with roses. Young boys and girls darted in and out amongst the crowd adding their shrill cries. I knew how great, how strong, Earth was. And then, the illusion faded and the pavement was broken and the roses were thorny weeds, and an old woman whined for bread at the street corner. I saw but one child in half a hundred blocks of walking, and he was ill.
“An old man is old and has nothing but memory. It is youth which plans, endeavors and succeeds. Frankly, gentlemen, I have but little hope. But I cannot stay, while even a few years remain, and know that Mother Earth which I served for all my thousand years is dying here, forgotten and unmourned.”
He sat looking at them in a little while, puffing his pipe, swinging an ancient but well-polished boot, not seeing them but remembering.
Smit blustered to his feet. “We are speaking of dreams. I know very little of dreams but I demand to be told why our friend desires to beg for food? Are we still not the government? Must we dig in garbage cans to provision our government’s expeditions and crawl in dung heaps for a few crumbs of combustium? The first right of any government is to enforce its will upon the people.
“I highly approve of the expedition. I demand that I be allowed to take one section of it. And I desire, if this matter be agreed upon, that all necessary writs and manifestos be placed in my hands to create it a reality.”
Mankin looked nervous, took another tablet and washed it down. It had been three hundred years since an expedition of any major import had been planned in this chamber. All the major expeditions formed on Centauri now where food, fuel, and crews were plentiful. The bombastic tone of Smit had battered Mankin. He looked at Greto.
Greto was aware of the eyes upon him. He shifted his feet nervously. Hesitantly he said, “I approve of this expedition even though I have little hope of its success, for it will be very difficult to attend to the financing here. Our funds are in an impossible condition. Our currency is worthless. I take it that at least two units, perhaps four, will be sent. I myself would like the command of a unit. But how we are to finance the voyageurs is a problem I cannot readily solve. One Earth dollar can be valued no higher than one-thousandth of a cent on Capella. This means I must assemble millions.” He rubbed his thumb against his forefinger. “They like money out there in those systems.”
“Print it,” said Smit. “Who’ll know the difference? And if you are to command one of the units, then my advice is to print a lot of it.”
Mankin coughed, he looked at the three of them and knew that it was he who must make the decision. A small flame of hope was leaping up in him now. He thrilled to the thought that Earth might once more prosper and send forth and receive commerce and trade. The strangely renewed vitality in Smit’s voice gave him assurance.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “you give me courage. Unless one of you has some objection to offer, I hereby decree that, if possible, three units be dispatched singly on this mission. They will progress as far as possible through the empires of space and the outer worlds and will return with whatever succor or tidings each has been able to obtain. This mission would be worthwhile even if you return with no more than a few hundred pounds of Element One Hundred and Seventy-Six. There must be some way, gentlemen, there must be some way.”
Lars the Ranger stood up. “I shall order the preparation of three destroyer units and do what I can to provide them with fuel and food. If it is your will, I shall command one of them and place two at the disposition of Smit and Greto.”
He about-faced and approached the door, where he turned. “I can hardly believe, gentlemen, that we have at last decided upon a course of vigorous action. Who knows but what we shall succeed?” The door of the Grand Council Chamber shut behind him.
Rumors spread far and wide across the planet and hope attended by many doubts turned people’s eyes to the night skies where the stars blinked strong and young. A few broadcasting systems expended hoarded ergs of power to announce the departures of the expedition. Several old-time glass-paper editions of the newspapers in Greater Europa were given over exclusively to accounts of the various explorers. Smit was cited as the commander most likely to succeed, and his boasts at the spaceport before he took off were quoted as the purest truth.
A week after Smit’s departure much space and talk was devoted to the fabulous Greto whose reputation as a financier had been founded fifteen hundred years ago with the Capella exploitation. They neglected the fact that it had been his further speculations which had impoverished him. They placed their hopes in his ability to “flimflam the money moguls of the greater empires.”
When it came the time of Lars the Ranger to depart most of the news value of the expeditions was gone. Lars the Ranger had very little to say at the port. No one questioned the mechanics or remarked the fact that he had prudently taken weeks to groom his ship and to choose his crew. But old officers came and offered this one a map, that one a chart, and another a handful of bullets. And men who had ranged far and knew were on hand to bid him Godspeed and good luck amongst the spinning suns, the comets and dying stars. They toast
ed him in farewell and Lars the Ranger was gone.
Earth, only half remembering, waited and starved. Winter came. Frugal of their power, the expedition ships transmitted no messages. And Mankin, day after day moving thin-worn chessmen idly about on his board, bided his time.
The plains and mountains lay red, the thin air moaned bitterly cold about the towers of the government building. Sand drifted across the char-marks on the rocket field. Then spring came, and summer came, and were gone again, and another winter lay coldly dusty upon Earth’s breast.
And one bitter morning a battered and rusty Mercy, which had borne Greto, came to rest on the government field. The instant it was sighted each man thought of his rank and vied at the doors of the Council chambers to give welcome to Greto. But it was no smooth and wily treasurer who came up to the big black doors. Greto hobbled, tired and bent, his space clothing ragged and out of repair. He was worn by hunger and all the bitter hardship of space. He did not need to push through the crowd, his appearance alone was enough to compel it back.
The doors opened before him and he entered. Mankin was about to mount the dais in formality when he saw Greto.
He stopped. Tears of sympathy leaped into his eyes. He came forward, arms outstretched. “Oh, my friend, my old friend,” and he quickly seated him in a chair and brought him wine.
“Where are your officers and crew?” said Mankin. Greto did not need to answer. His eyes remained steadily on the floor. He turned over one hand and let it drop.
“From hunger when we had no food, and from sickness for which we had no medicine. I am ashamed, Mankin. I am ashamed to be here.”
Mankin sat on a small stool and folded his hands in his lap. “I am sure you did what you could, Greto. Nothing can tell you how sorry I am. Perhaps things do not go so well with them.”
Greto shook with sudden anger. He lifted his worn, starved face. His eyes glared up through the ceiling and at the unseen stars.
“Things go well enough up there. They are fat, they are wealthy.” He grasped Mankin’s hand. “They hate us. They hate us for the rules and mandates we put upon them. They hate us for the taxes that once we levied. They hate us for the wars we fought to stop. They hate us for the centuries we depreciated their currency to uphold the value of our own. Pluteron in the Alpha Draco Empire laughed at me when I came. He laughed with hysteria and was still laughing when I left. There was no mirth in that laughter. There was only satisfaction. They hate us, Mankin. We shall get nothing from them, nothing!