West Of The Sun Part 33

SALLY MARINO: I don't know....

STERN: The empire will break down sooner or later, of its own rigidity.

SLADE: But while we wait for that, the Federation has to be strong, in the military as well as other senses.

MUKERJI: If we do just wait for it.

STERN: Preventive war is an absurdity, Jimmy.

MUKERJI: Yes, but--

STERN: Gradualist methods. The Federation can afford to wait. The same gradualist methods that made the Union of Islam possible, so long ago.

PAUL: I don't think the leaders.h.i.+p of Turkey was gradualist exactly, Dr. Stem. It took thirty years after 1960, but considering the problem, that was great speed. Only a people with immense moral courage and good sense would have dared to undertake it at all. They weren't fanatics; they weren't ridden by the devil of one idea; they had to work with intelligent compromise, temperate adjustments, yielding here and sternness there and patience all the time--but once they took up the task they didn't rest or let go, and by 1990 there was a healthy union ready for full members.h.i.+p in the Federation.

SLADE: Yes, that was speed. I expect you've given your friends here a pretty good account of Earth history?

PAUL: We've tried. I don't know if we can allow ourselves more than a B-plus. The subject is too enormous, and all we had were imperfect memories. In the midst of our own work for Lucifer, which is--paramount.

WRIGHT: Not even books. Captain, when you showed us over the s.h.i.+p, it was very difficult for my fingers not to steal a lens and a pocketful of those microtexts....

SLADE: My dear friend! Why didn't you say so? All you want.

That's for your friends here, entirely. No need to take any of our library back to Earth if they can use it.

WRIGHT: I--excuse me--I don't know what to say.

SLADE: And by the way, Doctor, before I forget again to mention it: after you left--I think it was in 2060--they perfected a new drug which actually makes the accelerations quite bearable. I don't know too much about it. Muscular relaxation is a factor, and Nora can tell you more about it.

But I understand that even for persons past the--optimum age--

WRIGHT: A moment, please.... I cannot go back to Earth, Captain Slade. You mean it with the greatest kindness but it is impossible.

SLADE: Why, forgive me, I supposed--I took it for granted--

WRIGHT: My place is here. This is my work. These are my people.

TEJRON: I knew--I knew--

WRIGHT: What, my dear? I don't understand.

TEJRON: Oh, I should keep silent: this is for you to decide.

But you've said it. You won't leave us.

WRIGHT: No. No, I won't ever leave you. This is my home.

SLADE: But--

SPEARMAN: Can't argue with the pa.s.sion of an expatriate. The gra.s.s is always greener--

PAUL: It could be no other way, Captain, at least for Dr.

Wright and me, and I'm certain my wife will say the same when she comes back.

WRIGHT: In some ways, Captain, the distance between Earth and Lucifer is greater than the simple light years between our two stars.

SLADE: I'm--sorry. Wasn't expecting it, that's all. Let me get used to the idea a little.

SPEARMAN: You can consider me neutral, Captain Slade. I have no place on Lucifer. One more utopia. Idealism running contrary to obvious facts. It will break up--fine-spun intellectual quarrels--no central control.

PAUL: Until, sometime, a strong man takes over and makes an empire out of it...?

WRIGHT: Please--

SPEARMAN: No comment....

STERN: If I might differ with you, Mr. Spearman, it seems to me--after being shown over this lovely island--the domesticated cattle and those wonderful white beasts--the plantations and the houses--the perfect English and adult thinking of our new friends--above all, the school--it seems to me that Dr. Wright and his colleagues are realists of the first water. Of course I'm strongly prejudiced in their favor, because--well, during the twelve years of our journey I dreamed constantly of some such achievement as this myself. So it's like coming home. I'm a doctor, Mr.

Spearman; before I was chosen for the journey, I ran a clinic. As an intern, I had a lot of ambulance and emergency service at one of the big hospitals in Melbourne; I saw a superabundance of--let's call them obvious facts. Now I think the sunny quiet here, the good health and intelligence of the children, the gardens, the devotion of these people to each other and to their work, the searching thought they've given to their laws and their future--I fancy those are obvious facts too...?

WRIGHT: Man is neither good nor bad, but both. But he can swing the balance.

STERN: Too right. I think I understand you, Doctor--why you want to stay here. I think I understand it very well.

SLADE: I wouldn't urge you. It's only that I--took something else for granted. Foolishly. Let me be just a listener.

ELIS: And let me fill your cup. You're behind us, Captain.

MINIAAN: The big jug is empty. How'd'at happen?

MUSON: Portrait of a fat woman going away with another big jug.

PAUL: Bless you, lady.

MUSON: It was you that finished emptying it. I think.

NISANA: Couldn't have been me....

STERN: Are there any important physiological differences?

WRIGHT: Nothing of first importance. Minor differences in blood chemistry, shape of hands and feet. Our friends have the hind brain in the spinal column, which may be the reason for their better muscular co-ordination and--you know, Doctor, I have often wished that the human race of Earth, which we call Charin, had more room in its head for the expansion of the frontal lobes.

ELIS: I have a very high opinion of your frontal lobes, Christopher Wright. I have noticed that sometimes a large skull merely rattles.

STERN: Just the same the point is well taken.

PAUL: Might call it the miracle of the lobes and wishes.

PAKRIAA: Why don't you wait till Muson comes back...?

SALLY MARINO: Don't you--now, maybe this is a foolish question--don't you have to work awfully hard--I mean, with so few technical aids? The--oh, oil lamps, the necessarily primitive--of course, you've done miracles to have as much as you do have, starting from almost nothing. What I'm trying to say, doesn't mere survival take up so much time and effort that it--well, wears you down?