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36 - Nine Sci-fi Stories by Poul Anderson by Poul William Anderson · Nine Sci-fi Stories by Poul Anderson

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Speaker 1: Section thirty six of nine Syphi Stories by Paul Anderson.
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Speaker 1: This Sleebovox recording is in the public domain. Sir Gesso
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Speaker 1: of Lost Starships, Chapter two, again that thoughtful stare. She
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Speaker 1: saw a tall young man, badly disarrayed. Blood and dirt
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Speaker 1: streaking his long, thin, carved, curved nosed features, an old
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Speaker 1: scar jagging across his high, narrow forehead. The hair was yellow,
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Speaker 1: the eyes were blue. The whole look that of an
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Speaker 1: old and settled aristocracy. His bitter voice lashed at her.
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Speaker 1: We willed answer, well, because we were part of it.
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Speaker 1: We grow up with the planet, and we understirred our
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Speaker 1: folk and men were free under us. That's something which
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Speaker 1: no upstarched Sola Empire can have, not for centuries, not
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Speaker 1: ever to judge by the stock they use for nobility
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Speaker 1: when peasants commands spaceships. Her face grew a little pale,
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Speaker 1: but she smiled and replied evenly. I am the lady
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Speaker 1: Yansky of Torgandale on Valor, serious a four, and you
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Speaker 1: are now commoner. Please remember that, oh, the papers in
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Speaker 1: the Galaxy one change the fact that your grandfather was
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Speaker 1: a dirt farmer on Valor. He was an atom jack,
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Speaker 1: and I am proud of it. I suggest further that
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Speaker 1: an aristocrat who has nothing to trade on but his
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Speaker 1: pedigree is very ragged. Indeed, now enough of that, her
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Speaker 1: crisp tones snapped forth. You committed a serious offense, especially
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Speaker 1: since this is still occupied territory. If you wish to
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Speaker 1: co operate with me, I can arrange for a pardon
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Speaker 1: also for your brawling friends. If not, the whole bunch
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Speaker 1: of you can go to the mines. Donovan shook his head,
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Speaker 1: trying to clear it of alcohol and wariness and the
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Speaker 1: ringing left by the parabam go on. He said, a
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Speaker 1: little thickly. I'll listen anyway, what do you know of
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Speaker 1: the black nebula? She must have seen his muscles jerk
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Speaker 1: for an instant. He sat biting himself, grasping at rigidity
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Speaker 1: with all the strength that was in him, And the
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Speaker 1: memory was a blaze and a shout and a stab
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Speaker 1: of pure fear. I'll doom over Aldomer. The sudden thuding
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Speaker 1: of his heart was loud in his ears, and he
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Speaker 1: could feel the fine beads of sweat starting forth on
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Speaker 1: his skin. He made a wrenching effort and pulled his
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Speaker 1: mouth into a lopside. It grinned, but his voice wavered.
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Speaker 1: Which black nebula? There are a lot of them. Don't
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Speaker 1: try to bait me. Her eyes were narrowed on him,
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Speaker 1: and the fingers of one hand drummed the desk top.
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Speaker 1: You know, I mean thee black nebula. Nobody in this
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Speaker 1: galactic sector speaks of any other. Why well, Donovan lowered
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Speaker 1: his face to hide it till he could stiffen the mask,
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Speaker 1: rubbing his temples with manacled hands. It's just a nebula,
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Speaker 1: a roughly spher gold dust cloud, maybe a light year
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Speaker 1: in diameter, about ten parsecks from Mansar towards Sagittari, a
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Speaker 1: few colonized stars on its fringes, nothing inside it, as
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Speaker 1: far as anyone knows. It has a bad name for
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Speaker 1: some reason. The superstitious say it's hauted, and you hear
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Speaker 1: stories of ships disappearing, Well, it gets a pretty wide berth.
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Speaker 1: Not much out there anyway. His mind was racing. He
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Speaker 1: thought he could almost hear it click and whirr as
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Speaker 1: it spewed forth. Idea after idea, memory after memory, al
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Speaker 1: duma and the blackness in they who laughed. The nebula
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Speaker 1: is pure poison. Now the Empire is getting interested. By God,
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Speaker 1: it might poison them when he was it stopped there.
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Speaker 1: This time they might decide to go on, to come
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Speaker 1: out of the blackness. Yansky's voice seemed to come from
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Speaker 1: very far away. You knew more than that. Donovan intelligence
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Speaker 1: has been sifting ants records. You were the farthest ranging
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Speaker 1: space radar your planet had, and you had a base
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Speaker 1: some him with the very edge of the Nebula. Among
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Speaker 1: your reports there is an account of your men's unease,
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Speaker 1: of the discippearance of small ships which cock through the Nebula,
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Speaker 1: on their missions, of ghostly things seen aboard other vessels,
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Speaker 1: and men who went mad. Your last report on the
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Speaker 1: subject says that you investigated personally, that most of your
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Speaker 1: crew went more or less crazy while in the Nebula,
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Speaker 1: and that you barely got free. You recommend the abandonment
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Speaker 1: of time and the suspension of operations in that territory.
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Speaker 1: This was done the region being of no great strategic
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Speaker 1: importance anyway. Very well, the voice held a whipcrack and
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Speaker 1: a tone. What do you know about the black Nebula?
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Speaker 1: Donovan had fought his way back to impassivity. You have
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Speaker 1: about the whole story already, he said. There were all
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Speaker 1: sorts of illusions as we penetrated, whisperings and glimpses of
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Speaker 1: impossible thing and so on. It didn't affect me much,
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Speaker 1: but it drove many toward insanity, and some died. There
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Speaker 1: was also very real and unexplainable trouble engines, lights and
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Speaker 1: so on. My guess is that there's some sort of
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Speaker 1: radiation and a nebula which makes adams and electrons misbehave.
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Speaker 1: That'll affect the human nervous system too. Of course, if
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Speaker 1: you're thinking of entering it yourself, my only advice is
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Speaker 1: don't hum. She cupped her chin in one hand and
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Speaker 1: looked down with the pages. Thankly, we know very little
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Speaker 1: about this galactic sector. Very few Terrans were ever here
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Speaker 1: before the war, and previous intercourse on your part with
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Speaker 1: Soul was even slighter. However, intelligence has learned that the
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Speaker 1: natives of almost every inhabited planet from the fringes of
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Speaker 1: the Nebula worship it, or at least regard it as
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Speaker 1: the home of the gods. Well, it is a conspicuous
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Speaker 1: object in the skies, said Donovan. He added, truthfully enough,
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Speaker 1: I only know about him where the native religion in
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Speaker 1: the area of our base was a sort of devil
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Speaker 1: worship centered around the nebula. They made big sacrifices, food stuffs, furs, tools,
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Speaker 1: every conceivable item of use or luxury, which they claimed
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Speaker 1: the devil guards came and took some of the colonists.
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Speaker 1: Thought there was something behind the legends. But I have
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Speaker 1: my doubts, he shrugged. Will that do for the time
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Speaker 1: Beingansky smiled with a certain bleak humor. You can write
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Speaker 1: a detailed report later on, and I strongly advise you
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Speaker 1: not to mislead me, because you're going there with us.
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Speaker 1: Donovan accepted the news coldly, but he thought the knocking
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Speaker 1: of his heart must shake his whole body. His hands
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Speaker 1: felt chilly and wet. As you wish, though what I
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Speaker 1: can do. You've been there before and know what to expect. Furthermore,
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Speaker 1: you know the astrogation of that region. Our charts are
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Speaker 1: worse than sketchy, and even the Anson tables have too
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Speaker 1: many blank spots. Well, Donovan got the words out slowly.
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Speaker 1: If I don't have to enlist, I will not take
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Speaker 1: an oath to your emperor. You needn't. Your status will
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Speaker 1: be that of a civilian under imperial command, directly responsible
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Speaker 1: to me. You will have a cabin of your own,
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Speaker 1: but no compensation except the abandonment of criminal proceedings against you.
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Speaker 1: Yansky relaxed, and her voice grew gentler. However, if you
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Speaker 1: serve well, I'll see what I can do about pay.
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Speaker 1: I dare say, could you some extra money? Thank you?
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Speaker 1: Said Donovan formally. He entered the first phase of the
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Speaker 1: incoorate plan, which was taking cloudy shape in his hammering brain.
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Speaker 1: May have my personal slave with me. He's non human,
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Speaker 1: but he can eat tern food, Kyansky smiled. There was
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Speaker 1: a sudden warmth in that smile. It made a human
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Speaker 1: and beautiful as you wish. If he doesn't have fleas,
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Speaker 1: I'll write you an order for his imparcation. It hit
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Speaker 1: the sailing when she found what kind of passenger should
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Speaker 1: agree to? Thought Donovan. But by then it would be
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Speaker 1: too late, and with Watcher to help me, and the
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Speaker 1: ship blundering blind into the Nebula Well doomer of ol
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Speaker 1: Duma and coming back this time? Will you kiss me
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Speaker 1: or kill me? The Ganymede lifted Graves and put the
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Speaker 1: answer sun behind her. Much further behind was sul an
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Speaker 1: insignificant mote fifty light years away, lost in a thronging
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Speaker 1: glory of stars ahead lay said Tatari galactic center, and
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Speaker 1: the black Nebula space burned and blazed with a million
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Speaker 1: bitter bright suns, keen, cold, unwinking flame strewn across the
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Speaker 1: utter dark of space, flashing and flashing over the hollow
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Speaker 1: gulf of the leagues and the years. The milky Way
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Speaker 1: foamed in curdled silver around that enormous night, A shining
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Speaker 1: girdle jeweled with the constellations far and far away, wheeled
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Speaker 1: the mysterious green and blue white of the other galaxies.
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Speaker 1: Sparks are a guttering fire with a reeling immensity between.
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Speaker 1: Looking toward the boughs, one saw the great star clusters
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Speaker 1: of Sagittari, the thonging host of suns, burning and thundering
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Speaker 1: at the heart of the galaxy. And what have we done,
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Speaker 1: thought Basil Donovan. What is man and all his power achievements?
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Speaker 1: Our home stars? A dwarf from the lonely fringe of
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Speaker 1: the galaxy, out where the stars then away toward the
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Speaker 1: great emptiness. We've ranged maybe two hundred light years from
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Speaker 1: it in all directions, and its thirty thousands to the center.
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Speaker 1: Night and mystery and nameless immensities around us our day
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Speaker 1: of glory, the briefest flicker on the edge of nowhere,
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Speaker 1: then oblivion forever, And we won't be forgotten, because we'll
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Speaker 1: never have been noticed. The Black Nebula is only the
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Speaker 1: least and outermost of the great clouds, which thicken toward
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Speaker 1: the center and hide its ultimate heart from us. It
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Speaker 1: is nothing, even as we, and yet it holds a
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Speaker 1: power older than the human race, and a terror that
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Speaker 1: may whelm it. He felt again the old quailing funk.
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Speaker 1: Fear crawled along his spine, and will drained out of
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Speaker 1: his soul. He wanted to run, escape, huddle under the
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Speaker 1: sky of answer, to hide from the naked blaze of
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Speaker 1: the universe, live out his day, and forget that he
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Speaker 1: had seen the scornful face of God. But there was
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Speaker 1: no turning back, not now. The ship was already a
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Speaker 1: pacing light on her secondary drive, and he was half
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Speaker 1: a prisoner aboard. He squared his shoulders and walked away
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Speaker 1: from the viewplate, back toward his cabin. Watcher was sprawled
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Speaker 1: on the heap of blankets, covering the floor with his bulk.
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Speaker 1: He was turning the brightly colored pages of a child
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Speaker 1: picture book. Buss He asked, when we kim the impies?
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Speaker 1: Not yet, Watcher, maybe not at all. Donovan stepped over
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Speaker 1: the monster and lay down on his bunk, hands behind
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Speaker 1: his head. He could feel the thrum of the driving
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Speaker 1: engines quivering in the ship and his bones. The neighborler
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Speaker 1: may do that for us. You go back there, Watcher stirred, uneasily. Day, Boss,
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Speaker 1: he's tumba bead. Yes, so it is better we stay home.
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Speaker 1: Manner needs repair, peasants need our help. I need beer,
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Speaker 1: so do I. I'll see if we can't promote some
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Speaker 1: from the quartermaster. Oh, John can look after the estate
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Speaker 1: while we're away, and the peasants will just have to
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Speaker 1: look out for themselves. Maybe it's time they learned how
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Speaker 1: at a knock on the door, come in. Tetsuo Takahashi,
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Speaker 1: the ships exect, brought his small, sturdy form around Watcher
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Speaker 1: and sat down on the edge of the bunk. Your
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Speaker 1: slave is the old lady hobbing mad. He grinned. He'll
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Speaker 1: eat six times a man's rushm and drink it. Donovan
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Speaker 1: smiled back. He couldn't help liking the cocky little terran.
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Speaker 1: Then with a sudden renewed bitterness, and he's worth it.
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Speaker 1: Then I can be without him. He may not be
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Speaker 1: so terribly bright, but he's my only proof that loyalty
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Speaker 1: and decency and extinct. Takahashi gave him a puzzled look. Well,
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Speaker 1: you hate us so much, he asked, You came in
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Speaker 1: when you weren't asked. Answer was free, And now it's
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Speaker 1: just another province of your damned empire. Maybe so, but
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Speaker 1: you were a backwater, an underpopulated agricultural plant which nobody
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Speaker 1: had ever heard of, exposed to barbarian raids and perhaps
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Speaker 1: to non human conquest. You're safe now, and you're part
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Speaker 1: of a great social economic system which can do more
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Speaker 1: than all those scrubbing little kingdoms and republics that theoquacies
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Speaker 1: and god knows what else put together could ever dream of.
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Speaker 1: Who said we wanted to be safe, Our ancestors came
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Speaker 1: to answer to be free. We fought Shamu when the
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Speaker 1: Greenees wanted to take what was built, and then we
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Speaker 1: made friends with them. We had elbow room in a
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Speaker 1: way of life that was our own. Now you'll bring
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Speaker 1: in your surplus population to fill our green lands with
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Speaker 1: yelling cities and squalling people. He'll tear down the culture
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Speaker 1: we evolved so painfully and make us just another bunch
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Speaker 1: of cow towing imperial citizens. Frankly, Donovan, I don't think
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Speaker 1: it was much of a culture. It sat in its
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Speaker 1: comfortable rut and admired the achievements of its ancestors. What
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Speaker 1: did your precious families do but hunt and loaf and
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Speaker 1: throw big parties. Maybe they did fulfill the magisterial function,
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Speaker 1: So what any elected yacht could do the same in
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Speaker 1: that simple a society. Takahashi fixed his eyes and Donovan's.
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Speaker 1: But rights and wrongs aside. The empire had to annex answer,
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Speaker 1: and when you wouldn't come in peaceably, you had to
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Speaker 1: be dragged in. Yeah, a dumping ground for people who
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Speaker 1: were too stupid not to control their own breeding. Your
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Speaker 1: answer and peasants, my friend, how about twice the Terran
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Speaker 1: birth rate. It's merely that there were more Terrans to
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Speaker 1: start with, and Syrians and Centaurians than all the old
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Speaker 1: settled planets. No, it was more than that. It was
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Speaker 1: a question of military necessity. Ah sure, read your history
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Speaker 1: some time. When the Commonwealth broke up in civil wars
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Speaker 1: two hundred years ago. It was held between the stars.
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Speaker 1: Half savage peoples who never should have left their planets
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Speaker 1: had learned how to build spaceships were going out to
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Speaker 1: raid and conquer. A dozen would be overlords scotched whole
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Speaker 1: worlds with their battles. He can't have anarchy on an
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Speaker 1: interstellar scale. Too many people suffer. Oh, Manuel the First
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Speaker 1: had the guts to proclaim himself Emperor of Saul. No
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Speaker 1: pretty euphemisms for him. An empire was needed, and an
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Speaker 1: empire was what he built. He kicked the barbarians out
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Speaker 1: of the Solar system and went on to conquer their
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Speaker 1: home territories and civilize them. That meant yet to subjugate
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Speaker 1: stars closer to home to protect his lines of communication.
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Speaker 1: This led to further trouble elsewhere. Oh yes, a lot
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Speaker 1: of it was greed, but the planets which were conquered
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Speaker 1: for their wealth would have been sucked in any way
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Speaker 1: by sheer economics. The second, our Gold had carried on,
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Speaker 1: and now his son, Manual the Second, is finishing the job.
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Speaker 1: Very nearly attained what we must have, an empire large
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Speaker 1: enough to be socio economically self sufficient and defend itself
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Speaker 1: against all comers, of which there are many, without being
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Speaker 1: too large for control. You should visit the Inner Empire
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Speaker 1: some time, Donovan, and see how many social evils it's
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Speaker 1: been possible to wipe out because of security and central power.
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Speaker 1: But we need this sector to protect our sagittarian flank,
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Speaker 1: so we're taking it. Fifty years from now, you'll be
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Speaker 1: glad we did. Donovan looked sourly up at him. Why
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Speaker 1: are you feeding me that? He asked, I've heard it before.
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Speaker 1: We're going to survey a dangerous region, and you're our guide,
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Speaker 1: the captain, and I think there's more than a new
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Speaker 1: radiation in the Black Nebula. I'd like to think we
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Speaker 1: could trust you. Think so if you wish we could
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Speaker 1: use a hypnoprobe on you, you know, we'd squeeze your
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Speaker 1: skull dry of everything it contained, but would rather spare
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Speaker 1: you that in dignity. And you might need me when
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Speaker 1: you get there, and I'll still be only half conscious.
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Speaker 1: Quit playing the great out at Takahashi, the exec shook
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Speaker 1: his head. There's something wrong inside you, Donovan, He murmured.
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Speaker 1: You aren't a man who licked us at Luga Luga.
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Speaker 1: Donovan's eyes flashed, will you there sure destroy North Africa?
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Speaker 1: Just come back from the zaroom front cigarette. They felt
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Speaker 1: a yawning and passed a pleasant hour. Donovan could not
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Speaker 1: suppress a vague regret when Takahashi left. He ain't such
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Speaker 1: bad fellows, those impies. They were brave and honorable enemies,
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Speaker 1: and they've been lenient conquerors, as such things go. But
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Speaker 1: when we hit the black Nebula, he shuddered, Watcher, get
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Speaker 1: that whiskey out of my trunk. Can he get drunk again? Buss.
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Speaker 1: Thennarian's voice rumbled disappointment. I am, I'm going to try
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Speaker 1: to stay drunk the whole damn voyage. You just don't
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Speaker 1: know what we're heading for a Watcher stranger, go back, Spaceman,
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Speaker 1: go home, turn back adventure. It is death return Ooman
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Speaker 1: the darkness. Whispered voices ran down the length of the ship,
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Speaker 1: blending with the unending murmur of the drive, urging, commanding
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Speaker 1: whispering so low that it seemed to be within men's
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Speaker 1: skulls Basildonovan lay in darkness. His mouth tasted foul, and
16:17
Speaker 1: now was a throb in his temples, on a wretchedness
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Speaker 1: in his throat. He lay and listened to the voice
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Speaker 1: which had wakened him. Go home, wanderer, you will die.
16:28
Speaker 1: Her ship will plunge to the hollow dark till the
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Speaker 1: stars grow cold. Turn home, Uman, boss ahithen boss um skard.
16:39
Speaker 1: How long have we been under way? When did we leave?
16:41
Speaker 1: Answer a wikigo boss, Maybe more ye been drunk? Wake
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Speaker 1: up boschun on the light, a whispering in the dark
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Speaker 1: and un scared. We must be getting close. Return go home.
16:55
Speaker 1: Erst comes madness, and then comes death, and then comes
16:59
Speaker 1: the spinning outward forever, turn back, spaceman, bodyless whisper out
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Speaker 1: of the thick, thrumming duck, sourceless, all pervading sucerration, and
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Speaker 1: it mocked. There was a cruel, cynical scorn of the
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Speaker 1: outer vastness running up and down the laughing voice. It murmured,
17:19
Speaker 1: it jeered, It ran along nerves with the little icy feet,
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Speaker 1: and flowed through the brain. It called and gibed and hungered.
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Speaker 1: It warned them to go back, and it knew they wouldn't,
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Speaker 1: and railed its mockery at them. For it demon whisper
17:34
Speaker 1: there on the huge cold loneliness, sneering and grinning and
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Speaker 1: waiting Donovan sat up and groped for the light switch.
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Speaker 1: But close enough, he said, toneously. We're in the range now.
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Speaker 1: Footsteps racketed in the corridor outside, a sharp rap on
17:49
Speaker 1: his door. Come in, come in, and enjoy yourself. End
17:55
Speaker 1: of Section thirty six.