The Star Fox (7 page)

‘But we do not, repeat not, plan to betray any vital interest of the human race. Negotiation is a mutual process. We shall have to give a little as well as take a little. The Aleriona realize this too, perhaps better than some members of our own young and arrogant species. I am confident that, in the last analysis, all men of good will are going to agree that we have opened a new and hopeful era of cosmic history. The people of New Europe have not died in vain.’

14 November

Retired Vice Admiral Piet van Rinnekom, 68, was set upon by about twenty men as he neared his house in Amsterdam on Monday evening, and badly beaten. When the police arrived, the assailants fled shouting taunts of Warmonger!’ They appeared to be of mixed nationality. Van Rinnekom has been an outspoken opponent of what he describes as ‘appeasement of Alerion’, and is the author of the so-called Manhood Petition, whose backers are trying to gather one billion signatures in favor of Earth using force, if necessary, to regain New Europe. Most sociologists consider this sheer lunacy.

His condition is listed as serious.

At his Chicago office, Dr. Jonas Yore, founder and president of World Militants for Peace, issued the following statement: ‘Naturally this organization regrets the incident and hopes for Admiral van Rinnekom’s recovery. But let us be honest. He has only gotten a taste of the very violence he advocated. The issue before us is one of life and death. WMP stands for life. Unhappily, a great many uninformed people have let their emotions run away with them and are crying for blood with no thought of the consequences. WMP exists to fight this tendency, to fight for sanity, to give atavism its deathblow, by any means required. We make no threats. But let the militarists beware.’

21 November

Last Tuesday mankind throughout the Solar System watched an unprecedented event. Cynbe ru Taren, a member of the Aleriona delegation to Earth, appeared on an official 3V broadcast and answered questions put to him by Crown Prince Umberto of Italy, who represented the World Federation.

The questions were selected from an estimated forty million sent in by people around the globe, with Cynbe choosing
a dozen from the final list. As he remarked, with a grim humor he displayed throughout the interview, ‘Thirteen bears for you an unhappy freight. It numbered either that one who betrayed or that one who was slain.’

In general, he repeated statements already made about the New Europe tragedy. How did it happen? ‘Our ships were on maneuvers. Near Aurore did they pass, for Alerion recognizes no other claim of sovereignty in the Phoenix. Maychance the Terrestrial chief believed this was attack, for truth is we had many. When fired on, we made response, with more than he may have awaited. His remnants entered atmosphere for an outflank with radiation protection. That it might save itself, our closest detachment launched weapons of multiple mega-tonnage. Grief, the settled fringe of that continent they named Pays d’Espoir was lineally beneath. At orbital height the warheads kindled a firestorm. Terrible it ran, from end to end of that coast. When we could land, we found none alive, and but few in the southern region, where also a missile struck. Those we have hitherbrought, with our own mourning. Yet their Thirteenth-the-Betrayer was that captain who took them not into account when he plunged.’

Why does Alerion now keep possession? ‘Naught but woe came ever from this intermingling. Time and again have humans ordered us from planets we discovered thousands of years agone, whose peace is now broken with machines and alien feet. And truth, we have often felt need to forbid places, even force them evacuated of the first few men. Races that knew us long grow latterly hostile to us, unrestful by what men have told and sold them. Resources we need are taken away. From such has come tension, which unseldom bursts in battle. Long past is that hour we should have ended it.’

Why doesn’t Alerion let an inspection team from Earth visit New Europe? ‘As we understand the symbolism of your culture, this were an admission of weakness and wrongness. Too, we cannot hazard espionage, or yet a suicide mission with nuclear bombs ensmuggled. I say never your Parliament would such plot, but you have individuals who are otherwise, some in high command. Maychance later, when faith has been achieved…’

28 November

The Aleriona Craze, already well established in North
America, gained so much momentum from delegate Cynbe ru Taren’s recent 3V appearance that in the past week it has swept like a meteorite through the upper-class teen-agers of most countries. Quite a few in Welfare have caught the fever too. Now girls blessed with naturally blonde long hair flaunt it past their sisters waiting in line to buy wigs and metal mesh jerkins – like their brothers. No disciplinary measure by parents or teachers seems able to stop the kids warbling every word they utter. You need ear seals not to be assaulted by the minor-key caterwaulings of ‘Alerion, Alerion’ from radio, juke, and taper. The slithering Aleriona Ramble has driven even the Wiggle off the dance floors. On Friday the city of Los Angeles put an educational program on the big screen at La Brea Park, a rebroadcast of the historic interview; and police fought three hours to halt a riot by five thousand screaming high-schoolers.

In an effort to learn whether this is a mere fad or a somewhat hysterical expression of the world’s sincere desire for peace, our reporters talked with typical youngsters around the globe. Some quotes:

Lucy Thomas, 16, Minneapolis: ‘I’m just in hyperbolic orbit about him. I play the show back even when I’m asleep. Those eyes – they freeze you and melt you at the same time. Yee-ee!’

Pedro Fraga, 17, Buenos Aires: They can’t be male. I won’t believe they are.’

Machiko Ichikawa, 15, Tokyo: The Samurai would have understood them. So much beauty, so much valor.’

Simon Mbulu, 18, Nairobi: ‘Of course, they frighten me. But that is part of the wonder.’

In Paris, Georges de Roussy, 17, threatened surlily: ‘I don’t know what’s gotten into those young camels. But I’ll tell you this. Anybody
we
saw in that costume would get her wig cut off, and her own hair with it.’

No comment was available from the still hidden delegates.

5 December

Lisa Heim, 14, daughter of manufacturer and would-be exploration entrepreneur Gunnar Heim of San Francisco, disappeared Wednesday. Efforts to trace her have so far been unsuccessful, and police fear she may have been kidnapped. Her father has posted a reward of one million American dollars
for ‘anything-that helps get her back. I’ll go higher than this in ransom if I have to,’ he added.

U
THG-A
-K’
THAQ
twisted his face downward as far as he could, which wasn’t much, and pointed his four chemosensor tendrils directly at Heim. In this position the third eye on top of his head was visible to the man, aft of the blowhole. But it was the front eyes, on either side of those fleshy feelers, that swiveled their gray stare against him. A grunt emerged from the lipless gape of a mouth: ‘So war, you say. We ’rom Naqsa know lit-tle ow war.’

Heim stepped back, for to a human nose the creature’s breath stank of swamp. Even so, he must look upward; Uthga-K’thaq loomed eighteen centimeters over him. He wondered fleetingly if that was why there was so much prejudice against Naqsans.

The usual explanation was their over-all appearance. Uthga-K’thaq suggested a dolphin, of bilious green-spotted yellow, that had turned its tail into a pair of short fluke-footed legs. Lumps projecting under the blunt head acted as shoulders for arms that were incongruously anthropoid, if you overlooked their size and the swimming-membranes that ran from elbows to pelvis. Except for a purse hung from that narrowing in the body which indicated a sort of neck, he was naked, and grossly male. It wasn’t non-humanness as such that offended men, said the psychologists, rather those aspects which were parallel but different, like a dirty joke on
Homo sapiens
. Smell, slobbering, belching, the sexual pattern—

But mainly they’re also space travelers, prospectors, colonizers, freight carriers, merchants, who’ve given us stiff competition
, Heim thought cynically.

That had never bothered him. The Naqsans were shrewd but on the average more ethical than men. Nor did he mind their looks; indeed, they were handsome if you considered them functionally. And their private lives were their own business. The fact remained, though, most humans would resent even having a Naqsan in the same ship, let alone serving under him. And … Dave Penoyer would be a competent captain,
he had made lieutenant commander before he quit the Navy, but Heim wasn’t sure he could be firm enough if trouble of that nasty sort broke out.

He dismissed worry and said, ‘Right. This is actually a raiding cruise. Are you still interested?’

‘Yes. Hawe you worgotten that horriwle den you wound me in?’

Heim had not. Tracking rumors to their source, he had ended in a part of New York Welfare that appalled even him. A Naqsan stranded on Earth was virtually helpless. Uthg-a-K’thaq had shipped as technical adviser on a vessel from the planet that men called Caliban, whose most advanced tribe had decided to get into the space game. Entering the Solar System, the inexperienced skipper collided with an asteroid and totaled his craft. Survivors were brought to Earth by the Navy, and the Calibanites sent home; but there was no direct trade with Naqsa and, in view of the crisis in the Phoenix where his world also lay, no hurry to repatriate Uthg-a-K’thaq.
Damnation, instead of fooling with those Aleriona bastards, Parliament ought to he working out a distressed-spaceman covenant
.

Bluntly, Heim said, ‘We haven’t any way of testing your mind in depth as we can for our own sort. I’ve got to trust your promise to keep quiet. I suppose you know that if you pass this information on, you’ll probably get enough of a reward to buy a ride home.’

Uthg-a-K’thaq burbled in his blowhole. Heim wasn’t sure whether it represented laughter or indignation. ‘You hawe my word. Also, I am wothered awout Alerion. Good to strike at them. And,
suq
, will there not we loot to share?’

‘Okay. You’re hereby our chief engineer.’
Because the ship has got to leave soon, and you’re the only one I could get who knows how to repair a Mach Principle drive
. ‘Now about details—’

A maid’s voice said over the intercom, which was set for one-way only: ‘Mail, sir.’

Heim’s heart shuddered, as it daily did. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back. Make yourself comfortable.’

Uthg-a-K’thaq hissed something and settled his glabrous bulk on the study couch. Heim jogged out.

Vadász sat in the living room, bottle to hand. He hadn’t spoken much or sung a note in the past few days. The house
was grown tomb silent. At first many came; police, friends, Curt Wingate and Harold Twyman arrived at the same hour and clasped hands; of everyone Heim knew well only Jocelyn Lawrie had remained unheard from. That was all a blur in his memory; he had continued preparations for the ship because there was nothing else to do, and he scarcely noticed when the visits stopped. Drugs kept him going. This morning he had observed his own gauntness in an optex with faint surprise – and complete indifference.

‘Surely the same null,’ Vadász mumbled.

Heim snatched the stack of envelopes off the table. A flat package lay on the bottom. He ripped the plastic off. Lisa’s face looked forth.

His hands began to shake so badly that he had trouble punching the animator button. The lips that were Connie’s opened. ‘Daddy,’ said the small voice. ‘Endre. I’m okay. I mean, they haven’t hurt me. A woman stopped me when I was about to get on the elway home. She said her bra magnet had come loose and would I please help her fix it. I didn’t think anybody upper-class was dangerous. She was dressed nice and talked nice and had a car there and everything. We got in the car and blanked the bubble. Then she shot me with a stunner. I woke up here. I don’t know where it is, a suite of rooms, the windows are always blanked. Two women are staying with me. They aren’t mean, they just won’t let me go. They say it’s for peace. Please do what they want.’ Her flat speech indicated she was doped with antiphobic. But suddenly herself broke through. ‘I’m so lonesome!’ she cried, and the tears came.

The strip ended. After a long while Heim grew aware that Vadász was urging him to read a note that had also been in the package. He managed to focus on the typescript.

He had to read three or four times before it registered.

‘San Francisco meter,’ Vadász said. He crumpled the plastic and hurled it at the wall. ‘Not that that means anything.’

‘
Gud i himlen
.’ Heim stumbled to a lounger, fell down, and sat staring into the unspeakable. ‘Why don’t they go straight after me?’

They have done so,’ Vadász answered.

‘Personally!’

‘You would be a risky target for violence. A young and trusting girl is easier.’

Heim had a feeling that he was about to weep. But his eyes remained two coals in his skull. ‘What can we do?’ he whispered.